Carcosa: Character Backgrounds Chart

artist unknown??

An Into the Odd-style backgrounds chart for Carcosa characters. Reference your starting HP (x-axis) and highest ability score (y-axis) to find your background. Or, choose your background first, thus setting your starting HP and putting a cap on your ability scores.

Note that these numbers are based on the assumption of 3 stats, as in ItO or Maze Rats. If you are using 6 stats, then the table will be weighted more heavily toward the lower half.

Ability score vs hit points	1	2-3	4-5	6
3-10	Moon Witch chakram spell lotus powder	Masked Assassin mask knife blowgun Akashic power	Mutant bone club cloak mutation	Alien Android wooden club inhuman strength secret identity
11	Tribal Shaman fetish staff flash powder spell	Dinosaur Tamer whip dinosaur musk loyal gallimimus (3hp, 1d6dmg)	Ruin Raider Iron axe Rope weird tech	Medieval Adventurer Longsword scale mail (1 armour) 10' pole
12	Outcast Esper knife lantern psionic power	Sorceror's Apprentice ceremonial knife hooded robe spell	Desert Nomad spear filtration mask compass that points to Lake Hali	Wasteland Hunter flint spear bow and arrows
13	19th Century Occultist derringer psionic power pocketwatch	Alchemist iron ladle bad lungs smoke bomb	Fish-Human Hybrid bone trident net amphibious	Amnesiac spear torch mysterious jale stone
14	Delta Green Operative 9mm pistol dossier on a random elder god	Fungus Farmer Hoe oil lamp hallucinogenic mushroom	Carcosa City Dweller black iron sword yellow sign madness	Cave Dweller stone club ADV in darkness DISADV in sunlight
15	Deposed Chieftain scimitar orichalcum necklace 1d6 loyal flunkies (2hp)	Cultist flail blasphemous idol heterodox beliefs (DISADV on reactions from other cultists)	Alien Test Subject ray gun (1d6 charges) vivisection scars madness	Slave wooden staff chain hunted by master
16-18	Lotus Eater silver needle jale lotus powder addiction to jale lotus powder	Scavenger knife rope missing limb	Escaped Sacrifice Iridium sickle noxious herbs flesh is desirable to eldritch horrors	Cannibal club garotte reviled by all

Ichneumen

Vespiform demons who cloak themselves in human shape. Cultured, perverse and deeply cruel. Masters of deception who manipulate minds with delicate pheromones.

In its natural form, the ichneumon has a humanoid body and a wasp's head. Few will ever see this form, which is constantly cloaked in illusion. This is not a magical glamour nor a distortion of light. It is caused by a pheromone that operates beyond the perceptual level; no matter what you really see, the pheromone says human and your mind fills in the gaps.

The ichneumen have other scents as well. They know far more about human neurochemistry than humans know themselves. They can drive a mind into abject rage or wrap it in a blanket of pure maternal love. They use these powers to enthrall victims, scapegoat enemies, or escape when cornered.

Being parasites they have no world-sense of their own, and so take on human culture with affected irony. They like to think of humans as cattle, but at the same time they are perversely obsessed with us. Their lairs are shrines to obscure human traditions, decadent art, dead religions.

They breed by laying eggs in the human psyche. The larval stage of the ichneumon is a notional being waiting to grow into physical form. It begins as a tiny sting on the back of your neck. The next day you won't even remember it. Then, growing over weeks and months, you have intrusive thoughts about wasps. You cannot stop picturing them - it is both pleasant and painful. Slowly the thoughts spread to every part of your brain - memories, self-image, visual processing. At last you die from an encephalic fever that ends with the wasp-child bursting from your forehead. It eats your corpse and wears your identity.

How can the ichneumen be detected, let alone stopped? Their worst foe is simply a human with a defective sense of smell. Such people are unaffected by the ichneumon's pheromones and sees them as they truly are. Ichneumen go to great lengths to eliminate such people from the population.

Mammals are just as susceptible to the ichneumen's powers as humans, but other orders of life see through their guise and abhor them. Birds, insects and reptiles will flee or sometimes attack the ichneumon. Demon hunters often carry small snakes in jars for this purpose.

Carcosa: Mutant Dinosaurs

Simon Dominic

Dinosaur species:
1. Tyrannosaurus rex (vicious, solitary, territorial, fearless)
2. Brontosaurus (huge, herbivorous, unconcerned)
3. Ankylosaurus (herbivorous, territorial, armour plated, attacks with club tail)
4. Velociraptor (pack hunter, vicious, cold intelligence)
5. Triceratops (herbivorous, protects nest, fearsome charge)
6. Pterodactyl (flying, predatory)
7. Pachycephalosaurus (herbivorous, aggressive, territorial, headbutt attack)
8. Compsognathus (dog-sized, predatory, pack hunter, fast, relentless)

Skin:
1. Rainbow scales
2. Neon green
3. Purple
4. Jet black, glossy
5. Blue and red feathers
6. Cancerous bone growths
7. Eyes all over
8. Transparent skin revealing organs
9. Jale and ulfire scales
10. Phosphorescent

Mutation:
1. Symbiotic fungus grows between scales (when hit, releases toxic spore cloud)
2. Telepathic and highly intelligent
3. Extra head grafted on by Space Aliens
4. Flesh constantly regenerating, unless exposed to fire
5. Glowing stone in forehead can fold space, allowing short-range teleportation
6. Floats using inflatable helium sacs
7. Very long body, eight pairs of legs
8. Can be controlled via cockpit implanted in top of skull
9. Radioactive breath
10. Can transform into ooze at will
11. Hypnotic pattern on skin
12. Urine transforms other creatures into dinosaurs

Rampage

Jaime Jones

Carcosa: Hijacking Space Alien Spaceships

X-Com

When you are stranded on the savage planet Carcosa and you fight some Space Aliens and steal their spaceship, what can you do with it?

NORMAL OPERATION

There are four stations inside the spaceship, each of which requires one character to operate.
Navigation: Control the ship's flight. Make a test to take off, land safely, or perform evasive maneuvers.
Laser Cannon: Fire the laser cannon for d20 damage. Make a test each time you fire.
Tractor Beam: suck up anything smaller than a T-rex and trap it in the cargo bay. Make a test for each object you want to suck up.
Mutagenic Bombs: Drop bombs that cause random mutations (the Space Aliens just use these to entertain themselves). Make a test to hit a specific target.

You can operate each station manually, or you can plug in your mind using the psionic helms provided (some minor cranial penetration may be involved).

If operating manually, 'make a test' means roll under DEX to succeed. If operating psionically, you always succeed at tests, but take 1d6 WIL damage each time you do so.

Expedition to the Barrier Peaks

WARPING

For travel between star systems you must engage the WARP DRIVE. Using the WARP DRIVE is complex and prone to failure. If using it with plenty of time, roll 4d6, or if using it in a hurry roll 4d4. You can gain additional dice by getting more information about the WARP DRIVE, for example by interrogating Space Aliens.

Each die that shows 1-3 is a failure, 4+ is a success. For each failure, choose one:
- Other Space Aliens become aware of your hijacking and come to punish you
- The spaceship is damaged and can't warp again until it's repaired
- You don't get to choose your destination, it is rolled randomly
- You left the window open! Everyone loses 1d6 WIL permanently as they witness the indescribable horrors of warp space

Possible destinations (you can scan these before warping to get a name and a vague picture of what it looks like)

1. Betelgeuse IV (apparently the homeworld of the Space Aliens)
2. Mars (a red desert world inhabited by green four-armed humanoids)
3. Shaggai (a world of pyramids inhabited by loathsome insects)
4. Earth (a world of dead cyclopean cities)
5. Celephais (a golden city in another dimension)
6. Ghroth (living planet with a giant red eye)
7. Greyhawk (a verdant green world dotted with large stone structures)
8. Cykranosh (world of mercury lakes and crystalline forests)

Prometheus

Junji Ito but recoloured by someone else maybe??