Lands of Mihrne: The Low Men

This is a more in depth bestiary and monster entries for Lands of Mirhne, expanding the previously discussed ideas and concepts into something more concrete for a game. While there is much overlap between all Old School-derived games, these are primarily for the upcoming Worlds Without Numbers and similar Sine Nomine games.

Low Men

Frazetta's cavemen.

Called many things such as 'Low Men', the 'Wild Folks' or sometimes 'The Others' these are as close as Mihrne as to orcs and goblins in the traditional sense. These are wild, near-human beings closer to the pulp depiction of cavemen as beastial creatures than any accurate anthropological representation of early humans. However, despite their reputation as monsters they are not particularly vile creatures on their own. It is those hunters encountered in civilized lands, vicious and hungry or even maddened which are dangerous, hinting at some creeping madness or sickness in the Low Men. Bands of Low Men encountered in caves or ruins frequently construct blasphemous idols of skin, bone and stone and madly dance around them or even sacrifice humans to them. For those few scholars in the know, this is not normal behavior and hint at something more sinister.

Most 'Low Men' posses a level of cunning one would expect of cavemen-like beings and their Morale are particularly low as they know when to retreat to fight another day. Mad Ones, however, are afflicted by a variety of possible sickness (some of it almost otherworldly) which drives them to a level of fury and fearlessness which is beyond anything resembling rational thought. While capable of sneaking up as any other of their kind, once battle start they start to shake, scream, foam at the mouth or start jerking around like puppets. They fight with a ferocity and vitality which is contradictory of their often sickly and degraded physical state.

• Low Men use the stats for Thug/Militia (1HD) for common Low Men and Barbarian (also 1 HD) for stronger and more experienced specimen. A particularly dangerous Chieftain can reach up to 3-4 HD in strength but such individuals are rare, with no more than one per tribe. All Low Men have a Skill of +2 when it come to Exert, Survival or similar skills. They tend to have low Morale and will easily flee.
• Mad Ones on the other hand are something quite different. They use stats for the weakest Anakim. Their bodies are ravaged by diseases and madness and yet they thrive, their madness driving them ever onward in a berserk rage or obsessive desire to kill. They often carry one or more disease or parasites and those who fight them or are around them for an extended period of time need to start making Saving Throws or become affected with diseases which ravage their mind.

The diseases and parasites which afflict the Mad Ones can be extremely dangerous, more so than any wound these mad warriors can inflict. These diseases and parasites usually drain the mental stats, inflicting severe delirium and ravage the body. Common symptoms include shaking, nose bleed, brain swelling and a burning fever. While it begin as a physiological problem soon enough these effects will go beyond mere sickness and Sanity will start to decline. It is unclear if this is an effect of the diseases or simply the ravages inflicted upon the mind causing the human mind to start to see things. Long term treatment is general enough to help alleviate the symptoms but an adventurer wounded away from civilization might be in trouble if the diseases progress too quickly. Should it take them, they become frothing berserkers filled with irrational mood swings at best. At worst, they become consumed by inexplicable mania and start to hear 'The Call'. Of what? Who knows? At that point their humanity is lost.

• Low Men encounters fill a role similar to orcs and goblins. However, if they are not scared and the player is willing to spend time to carefully interact with them (and maybe offer food and drinks), there is a 50% chance that the tribe is actually fairly peaceful (albeit fearful of outsiders) and could offer a guide in the wilderness and warn of possible dangers which exist in a region. Those which are innately hostile are feared even by other Low Men, who see them as 'tainted'.
• A rare and exotic replacement player character option is to play one of the Wild Tribes. These are relatives to the Men of Mirhne but they live the furthest away from major civilization centers and interact more with the Wild Folks, to the point some tribes have mated with each others. Short, somewhat lumpy-looking, these folks are short and stocking hunters who combine the strength of their more wild forebear with the full intellect of the Men of Mirhne. Should they be washed and clothed in common clothing they would simply appear as slightly uglier and stockier than average. This would be a Demi-Human Foci.
• Tainted/Evil Low Men are irredeemable, as they are either Low Men which worship antediluvian terrors hidden inside the earth or they descend from former Men of Mirhne who have 'devolved' due to some terrible curse or an eldritch corruption. There are Wild Tribes (people who bridge the gap between Low Folks and Men) but they are vile people, cultures of raiders and barbarians who practice terrible rites of flesh eating and the likes. These are very much 'Orcs' through and through or comparable to the Picts from Howard's writing.
• There are tribes of Low Men which worship the Sorcerers. They make ideal minion when broken through fear and there are tribes of Low Men living in isolated places who carve crude effigies to their Sorcerer-Gods, raid villages and more in the name of their fearsome 'god'. Some believe that some of the odd or foreign-looking people who visit Mirhne may actually be Low Men which have been bred into slave race. They have human intellect but the animalistic sense of fear and awe for their 'god', which they love and fear. Of course this could just be xenophobic thinking from the Men of Mirhne who look dimly on foreigners. We must remember that Mirhne is very closed place and most of its people are poorly educated compared to modern humans of Earth.