Vertaxian Robots

---

Vertaxian Robot
ARMOR CLASS	3 [16]
HIT DICE	6
TOTAL HIT BONUS	+4
ATTACKS	Pincers 1d4 each*
SAVING THROW	16
SPECIAL	Neutrinium Alloy Body, Scanners, Self-Repair
Movement	12 (Negrav floater)
HDE/XP	5/240

* Vertaxian Robots can attack three targets (-3 to hit each attack), or two targets (-2 to hit for each attack), or one target with all six pincers (-1 to hit for each attack).

Vertaxian Robots are a remnant of the ancient Vertaxian civilization that died out millennia ago in a conflict with an obscure Star Empire that has been meticulously stricken from all inscriptions or databases, and an alien menace known only as "The Annihilators." These ancient machine relics tend to be found only amidst ruins and dead worlds that were once occupied by their fore-bears where they tend to Great Machines or maintain the atmosphere factories and other mechanisms that sustain exotic alien biomes that have long since run amok.

These robots were never intended to be front-line combat models and so only engage in melee combat under duress. They know hundreds of dead alien languages and some suspect that their crystal-cores might actually preserve the disembodied minds of their progenitors, but this has yet to be verified.

Some individual Vertaxian Robots have shown signs of renewed interest in affairs beyond their age-old ruins. Perhaps they will prove to be benevolent...

---

Malignant Polar Entity

[Photo currently unavailable]

Is it invisible?
We don't know.

Can it pass through walls?
We cannot say for certain.

Can it fly or leap over obstacles like a Spring-Heeler?
Possibly, but no one really is sure.

Does it have great, nasty teeth? Perhaps.
We do know it has incredibly sharp talons.

Is it fur-bearing or some sort of reptile or vegetable-thing?
This remains a mystery.

Is it intelligent, or is it an unusually clever animal?
That remains to be determined.

Does it have any weakness?
It has been reported on multiple occasions that the beast was driven off by fire.

Why would anyone risk life and limb to hunt this beast down?
There are several competing rewards or bounties on the beast, depending on whether it is recovered alive, dead, wholly intact or in part, as well as simply acquiring definitive evidence of the thing's nature. Bring us this monster, in whatever form or condition and there is a rich pay-day awaiting.

Excerpt from A Very Special Third Anniversary of the Third Expedition Edition

of The Whisperer

---

Malignant Polar Entity 
(Currently Unidentified Antarctic Horror)
No. Enc.: 1
Alignment: Neutral (suspected, but so-far unverified)
Movement: 120' (40')
Armor Class: 5 (as Chain Mail)
Hit Dice: 6
Attacks: 1
Damage: 3d4 (Talons)
Save: F4
Morale: 9 (Decreases by 1 for every 6 points of fire damage taken)

Special: Immune to Charm, Hold, Sleep.
               All creatures within a 20' radius that are susceptible to Cold damage receive 1d4 damage per round.
               On any natural to hit roll of 20 the beast inflicts an additional 2d8 Cold damage.

Boreal Sea Bears, Gray Masses, Giant Albino Penguins, White Beasts and fossilized Polypous-things were not the only specimens brought back from a series of modestly-staffed, poorly equipped and questionably successful South Polar Expeditions launched by the Academy prior to the War. The first expedition claimed to have discovered a bizarre variety of aquatic crinoid and another more vegetative creature still frozen in a block of ice, both of which were apparently lost at sea when their airship was heavily damaged in a freak storm. The second expedition brought back a number of photos, ectographs, rubbings, sketches and maps from a so-far unnamed set of sub-polar ruins deep within an area of heavy volcanism from which they barely escaped when their airship caught on fire. Of the third expedition we know very little other than that they did indeed successfully return only to have their airship destroyed during a bombing attack during the War. Their records and manifest were lost, but it is almost certain that they are responsible for having brought a number of exotic specimens that were then let loose in the turmoil and chaos following the attack. Since then pretty much everyone blames the third expedition for unleashing the White Beasts and hordes of penguins and other such nuisances upon the city.

But out of all the nasty beasts and dangerous creatures removed from the Antarctic regions and dropped willy-nilly into the middle of Wermspittle the worst of the lot has to be the shambling horror that freezes its victims to death even at the height of Summer. At this time there are no pictures of this creature. It was never properly named. The members of the third expedition were all murdered or lost to Black Smoke attacks before any sort of formal report could be made. So a nameless, unseen, horror from the South Polar regions has taken up residence somewhere within Wermspittle and so far no one has managed to capture it, let alone document it...

The one good thing that has been noted about this creature so far is that it appears to go dormant over the Winter, confining its most brutal attacks to a couple of weeks around the Summer Solstice, a fact that has emboldened numerous cranks, con-artists, charlatans and astrologers to speculate wildly about the occult nature of the beast. Theories abound, facts are few; there's quite a lot of fame, perhaps even a good reward for anyone who can manage to discover more actual details about this beast...let alone capture it, or kill it.

---

Source of Inspiration: "A malignant entity, or cosmic spirit from the southern pole, which pursues a party of explorers and kills them one by one, leaving on each, even in countries of the tropical or temperate zones (where it has followed them), the marks of frost-bite."
The Thing from the Antarctic, an unfinished synopsis/fragment by Clark Ashton Smith which can be found at the Eldritch Dark website.