the Princess of Demons is hiring magickal fools

Not a Disney Princess

Tamarah Pandoramicum, the princess of demons, hears your pleading cries for aid mortal sorcerer.  Got a problem?  Bully? A boss who passed you over for promotion again? Errant church hunters who won’t let up?   Parents who just don’t understand?
TAMARAH WANTS TO HELP

The book of Scarlet Abomination - 60 pages of rainbows, unicorns, and body horror

Get it Here

Galaxy Black Update
Let me say right now that layout alone will prevent me from ever eve ever doing a book this big again; at the least I won’t try it solo.   That said I’ve done more layout in the last nine months than I have done ever in life prior so hey I think that burn is called experience gain.

Metaphysics and the Gear chapter are in editing.   I have some tweaks I want to make to the chargen chapter but it and Worlds are largely done;

We shall see.   Impatience is sucking at my kneecaps in terms of wanting to get this out into the world but the struggle continues.   It will be done when it’s done and not a moment before.

The FAQ is being assembled, slowly from a series of long discussions with Chris Dunlap, who is the source of probably 95% of the questions on the FAQ. (They are good questions too!)  plus those that have come up in playtesting and a few other places.   Once that monster is done I’ll be posting it. 

Random things of no particular order or substance

The first round of playtests for the Spice Pirates is done.  This is one of two funnels I’m developing for Galaxy Black.  A good time was had by all but even for one of my games it went off the rails.

Final outcome – the lone survivors absconded from the market in a stolen flyer and proceeded to do a home invasion on some noble’s estate some 400km to the south.  Breaking into the home of one of the Great Houses of the Empire is bad enough but to wander into the nursery wing of House Thet’chel is a peculiar form of suicide.

Anyway demons were invoked.  The survivors killed a vampire and a named NPC before fleeing to Las Vegas.   I guess I will be improv’ing some modern rules huh?

I haven’t started running RAID ON PLANETOID P-4710a, the other (longer) funnel (0-1 if it were released, but a big party helps) just yet but soon. I need to make some maps for that first.  

On trucking with demons (and beastfolken!)

My most sincere apologies! I slipped up – I forgot completely that beaastmen are not actually in the DCC RPG rulebook – they do however go all the way back to the beginning, Sail the Sunless Sea (check title)

Nonetheless I reference them many times in the book, statless, as I mistakenly thought they were in the core.  My bad and I should have checked.

In any case for those that need them here’s an appropriate stat block for beast folk, based off of (but not identical to) the classic Harley Stroh stats from Starless. (Wasn’t sure if I could reproduce them but also hey look I spun it.)

Bestialfolk (1-6) Init. +1; Atk spear +0 melee (1d6); AC 12; HD 1d8; hp 3 each; MV 30’; Act 1d20; SV Fort +1, Ref +1, Will -1; AL C.

For each Bestial encountered, roll 1d12 and 1d14 and combine the results to determine their appearance.

Beast folk are dim-witted, only marginally social creatures that are driven by a combination of instinct and both craven and darker urges that make it difficult for even the smartest of them to effectively reason.   They often appear to move as a pack or hive mob with no pretense of sentience.   Rare individuals may differ.

Tamarine breed beastfolken – roll 1d12 twice and combine the results

1.       Cow headed

2.      Scorpion tailed (attacks for 1d4)

3.      Horse hooved

4.      Covered in fine black and brown fur, some leathery webbing at the fingers and toes.

5.      Wasp head, mandible, antennae, compound eyes, buzzing from tiny vestigial wings. 

6.      Covered in fine Bee-like hairs, constantly covered in pollen

7.      Horse headed

8.     The digitigrade hind paws of a Wolf

9.      The horns of a Goat

10.   Serpent scaled

11.   large muscled body covered in short hair, and an additional head – that off a (1) dog (2) wolf (3) saber tooth (5) Lamprey (5) A feral, leonine head and mane (6) bee head

12.  A bejeweled dragonfly

1.       Doughy, leathern skin

2.      Shiny black-brown chitinous resin covering skin

3.      Mane of (1-3) horse (4-6) lion

4.      Thick leathery skin

5.      The blind eyes, large ears, and screech of a bat

6.      Six to eight eyes spread out across the face in two rows of three or triple rows of two.

7.      A thick luscious horse tail

8.     Horns of a goat, perpetually streaked with gore

9.      Oily black secretions constantly seep from enormous skin pores

10.   Thick bristly orange fur

11.    Wings and segments suggesting a bejeweled dragon-fly like body.  Wearing armor is impossible.

12.  Body is segmented into thorax and abdomen; wasp-like body with vestigial wings, goes about on all fours.

And now a question I'm surrprised I don 't get more often

Why would any civilized person ally with such a monstrous spirit as the red queen?

Because she legitimately will help you, and isn’t likely to screw you over unless you have first done so to her.  She has long offered her 'gifts' most readily to  those who place themselves in harm’s way – prostitutes and sex workers especially but also gladiators, professional fighters and those who do what they must to survive.   Sorcerers who seek the safety to a cushy court wizard position will find themselves increasinly challeneged by her patronage.  In rare instances, the Pandoramicum has been known to favor princes and princesses, and more commonly across the worlds down through the ages she is said to have watched over the smallest of children, most especialy the abandoned.....

In short, Tamarah is among the most "reasonable" of demons, but she remains a demon and a potent one. 
Play-wise, of course, Tamarah is there for those who seek to experience the patronage of a dicey untrustworthy cosmic power that equalmuch seeks to use them as they use it in the finest Moorcockian tradition.

Take the first sip here
Turn off your mind relax and float downstream. It is not dying, it is not dying. Lay down all thoughts surrender to the void - it is shining. It is shining. 

Teoc’fnenahl - A succubus and trader in fate

The demon before you has pale skin, chalk in colour but of much smoother, richer texture, such that it almost but not quite seethes with an inner glow of red.   Her eyes are swollen red orbs shot through with black and yellow veins, irises that are either snake or cat-like (depending on the angle) watch you with an immortal’s patience.  Her hair is that precise, freshly shed blood colour, spilling out behind her and around her shoulders like so much liquid silk.

Y-you can’t look at her mouth. Those lips.  Thinking stops immediately-

Fanged.  You remember that they are fanged and look away.  She chuckles, a throaty and knowing sound.

There is a table, covered in a light layer of what seems black felt, in a semicircle around her.   “Her” seems appropriate but you really don’t know.  The last one had skin of actual smoke and smoldering ash….which was unsettling.

She laughs again, challenging now, a deep rustling of ...curtains? Behind her.

They say her kind has wings.

There is a crack and she lays a spread from a deck of cards before you.   

Smiling

(INVITING - THOSE FANGS - perfect, warm, hopeless THOSE FANGS),

 Perfect lilac and pearl fingernails tracing the silver edges of the plaques, both offer and obscene caress.  

            “Cards?” musical. Lower Like the perfect card shark, with every passing deal or shuffle of the cards the deck itself changes shape and colour and detail.  

Any game of chance played with the aid of cards may be played here for any stakes that either will claim or have.   This does mean that the cards can be literally anything that Teoc wants them to be, up to and including any flavour of Tarot Deck or such things as Decks of Many Things etc. whether they can duplicate Amber trumps is up to the Judge)  

          “Door?” Just behind and to the right of her, sliding open like a hidden door panel in the air itself, is a rectangular doorway of irregular dimension and coruscating purple and red light.   “Where do you wish to be today?  Who do you want to be?”

She can open a door to theoretically anywhere in the multiverse; likely as that she is to attempt to trick the characters to walk through into a type of particular place - the inside of someone’s mind, into another’s body, etc etc.  (This is in fact her preferred means of disposing of irritating mortals;  some have found themselves drug addicts in 1970s new york, stone statues magically bound to watch sorcerer’s treasure rooms, or within some bard’s inner world, in addition to ‘merely’ sending people to their sun, or the 8th Hell, or the Lightless Flesh Realm of Infinite Crawling Life, or ancient Blackmoor, or wherever/whenever.).

        “RED?”  The moment any but the slightest interest is shown a decanter will appear, and she will pour the purest form of what seems to be pure liquid colour into the hexagonal but transparent glass.

          “What is it?”

          She proffers the glass to you. “It is RED.  Drink it, and feel the fire burn you.”

Other services she can offer

She is happy to inseminate one.  If for some reason there are difficulties in this arena, or one merely wishes to taste sex of the Pit, she will be happy to indulge you.  If two (or more*) people which to procreate despite biological or other differences she will be happy to “intercede as facilitator,” even providing or procuring additional ‘genetic material’ as needed.  

She will be equally happy to indulge any other such carnal acts and in any form desired.  She will know any particular tastes or desires of course, sometimes before the victim er possessor themself knows.   

Despite the above she does not offer actual time travel (at least not into the past, she can almost certainly send people into the / a future at will) as, while a demon, being a succubus she has sufficient sense of self to find the paradoxes thus unleashed personally threatening; consequently she will instead send characters into one of the infinite parallel worldlines most similar to the time and place in which the characters describe.  IF one does not exist she can probably create a (small) pocket dimension that resembles one, at least for a while (say … an adventure session).  

* Three parents via succubus? This practice is called "a Marriage in Hell”: and it is exactly what it says on the tin....despite expectations such a child will be fully mortal with perhaps an extra demon trait or so and a slight proclivity towards chaos and magic. I.e. most 0 level would-be wizard characters could qualify.

Teoc’fnenahl is merely one of the many members of Tamarah's court that you may meet in the Book of Scarlet Abomination (drive thru link) now available for the DCC rpg. 

The CHALICE GOAT HAS RISEN

Art, obviously by  zdzislaw beksinski and not me.  Duh. No I can't afford Bekinski, also he's dead. 

Who is the Red Queen?
She is the Liberator - a slave who freed herself in every conceivable way.  She will show you the way. Laugh. Be Free.
She is the avenger - the deliverer of our enemeis and the avenger of the marginalized
She is the Mother of Monsters.
You will become like her.
Have you heard the Good News about Tamarah?

Get it here

If you see the Chalice Goat, dare you drink from it’s cup?

Would you drink of fire?

The demonic psychedelia of the Book of Scarlet Abomination awaits you.

The Book of Scarlet Abominations is 60 pages of bright colours, revenge, and demonic enlightenment.  It should be available for download on Drive thru RPG by week's end.  I will make an announcement.  But it’s dropping this week!

A patron book for the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG the BoSA includes  the patron herself, Tamarah Pandoramicum, background, her invoke results, stuff to tweak her bonding rite, Tamarah specific spells, her plane(s), and the unique beings that attend her.

Her presentation here lines up dandily with her appearance in the 2017 Gongfarmer’s Almanac but you do not need that resource to use this book obviously.   I have tried to replicate as little information from her appearance (or rather her Realm's appearance) in that august tome.   

Regardless the GFA is an awesome resource and the price is right. 

Get it here https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/229278/2017-Gongfarmers-Almanac-consolidated-edition-Vols-18

Finally, don’t forget FREE RPG DAY is this weekend so get out there and support your local gaming infrastructure.  Find a store here https://www.freerpgday.com/stores.htm

A Fiend-ful of Updates

Wow a lot has changed since I last updated this space. For that I am very sorry.  A few tiny little updates for the nonce. 

Galaxy Black

Sub-ether Zero zero has reverted to its original title as while that's wonderful for a ‘zine it's a bit of a mouthful for a book.    Galaxy black is done save for editing and some ongoing layout revision.  (So the writing is done but it's not done by any means, to be clearer.)  A giant toolkit/weird horror space campaign setting for DCC. I may have to split it into smaller volumes simply for reasons practical - reliable feedback suggests I'm only 20,000 words shorter than the bloody corebook for the game!  

Am super proud of the work I've done here and cannot wait to get it into your hands but we are not quite there yet.  As the nine odd chapters each hit a state of done-ness though, I'm slowly rolling out previews, both on the Patreon (see below) and the odd other place....which realistically should include this place.  

Once it’s out the door, there may be support material appearing in ‘zine form under the Sub-ether name though. We’ll see.  I’d like to give the thing full support but we’ll have to see how it does first. Also I need to get editing and layout finished so let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Both are ongoing.

So, we've a Patreon

I really resisted this for a good long time and quite unnecessarily I think.   

Thank you so so very much from the very foundational molecules of my twisted, savage heart, to each of you who have contributed, signal boosted, and helped me get the word out!  I am pleased and overjoyed with the response ya’ll are giving me.

This is all very new so I do not yet have a regular update schedule going but as I figure out what I’m doing that will find its step. 

https://www.patreon.com/DreamingGynoid

Book of Scarlet Abomination 

That demon book I mostly wrote back in 2016 is moving toward its second round of approvals; the book is really pushing the boundaries of what I can get away with as is but demons should be demon-like dammit.  To be honest I never expected to get this far – it languished largely complete for a few years (Feb 2017 I think) simply because I felt it was largely unprintable.  

So its crunch time as far as that is concerned.  Am taking the vorpal editing tool to sharpen what’s there and ensure it’s the best thing I can possibly produce.  I think its current draft has as broad an appeal as a book of this kind will have, but it’s certainly not appropriate for all tables. Don’t worry I’ll make that super clear. 

This morning I'm sitting here trying to write a parental advisory that doesn't make me sound like Kevin Siembeda.   Witness me. 

G+ is gone

Moment of respectful silence.

The best of the social media offerings is gone, and with it the best gaming community (okay communities there were several here) that I have ever been part of has scattered to the proverbial four winds   Long live G+  I am hoping that Blogspot does not shut down, though part of why posting here stopped was precisely for that reason. I backed this place up over at both Medium (which was not a good fit though I still post there from time to time, mostly not on topic) and Word Press (which....decided it didn't want me for some reason so screw them).  For the nonce this remains our home but should Blogspot go away steps will be taken.  

In the meantime I need to dust this place off and spruce it up a little.  (And hey, with g+ gone none of ya'll will get a constant stream of irrelevancies every time I make one little change.../looking on the bright side.)

One of the 9 green Hell-orbs of wandering.

The precise origin of the Eyes is not known.  What is generally accepted or at least widely believed, is the apocryphal story of the trimming of the Eye Tree

A Demon Trims the Tree

In this tale, it is said a demon (most accounts agree it was Tamarah the Conquerer), having overcome many challenges came, weary, to a great cold waste under a dying sun.  In this frozen wasteland of death’s quiet, she found but a single living organism; an immense tree, more of an immense ribbed stalk actually, of exceptionally pink and alien hue, pulsing with subdued life.   Hanging, limply, from the immense stalk, were a multitude of dull blue sacs, each also of immense, though irregular size.   The shape themselves suggested tears, and it was this more than anything else that is said to have drawn the nascent demon lord’s attention.

Growing to appropriately macroscopic size (for even then she was filled with power, in those days fresh from her early wars with many rivals for her future queendom) Tamarah caressed each rotting orb gently as if to listen inside for a noise or movement.  

What she found instead was this - out of 112 of these sacs, she dallied to open 39 of them.  Of those, thirty contained …. Dross.  Cancer and worse.  Rot, in it’s most malignant and fell form.  

But nothing she had not already purged and so was not afraid.

The other 9 however still bore some trace of exotic and sequestered life; they were, though not of regular size but each otherwise identical, immense alien … eyes.   Milky yellow whites with double irises, suggesting the shape of an hourglass and a knife, overlaid, and glowing from within with some lost green hell energy.

So delighted was she in finding them, that she ….charmed the strange, taffy textured lifeform.   IN doing so she learned of it’s immense age, and it’s distinct and affected...unconcern for the affairs of souled beings or those who would use them as toys and pets.   Primordial in it’s age, itself a lost spoor of some older, more exotic thing, lost when it’s world was consumed in the death of sunlight, as is the way of the Most Ancient Worlds. .  

And having done so, continued to wander along on her way, carving her scarlet path.  She was given care over five of them, and she absconded with the other four.   There were nearly five score of those pods remaining, unopened.  She did not see the care, for she knew in knowing this creature that it would not demean itself to communicate with her in this, or indeed any other manner, ever again.   

And it was as she set about walking her road of vendetta murder and hell glory, she fed these..eyes..precious nectars, and the souls of the innocent, and especially of the sanguine sacrament of her scarlet activities.

And they grew.

Regardless of the literal truth of the above, nine of these throbbing green hell orbs now wander the many hidden pathways of the omniverse, seeing in all spectra, across all planes and dimensional barriers, seeking only the novel, the secret, and the powerful.   Forever curious and wandering, never blinking.

And always feeding back to their mistress.  Who or whatever that being may actually be.

While legend easily traces it’s origin point to a member of a now extinct species of cerebral-coral it is unknown at what point the mother organism was visited by Hell. Perhaps it is likely some arrangement was made to ensure it’s survival in the cold vacuum of space before rooting on whatever world in which the future Red Queen of Doom found it.

The Eyes’ mother “tree” was the Buddling of the Once Dread but Lost Kreb-Coral,  last of a now extinct species of cerebral coral once known to grow in large tree-like formations in the low gravity environment of Khorlath Queltyrflax, moon of Ribbosil IX, before that world’s atomization by supernova some 45,000 years ago.

Presumably hell assisted in transplanting the mother buddling to the world on which Tamarah found it, prior to (once again) turning Hell’s tools to her benefit.

Great Green EYE OF Wandering : Init +7; Atk +11 Hell Beams (9d12, 5100’); AC 30; HD 9d12+3; hp 93; MV 150’; Act 1d30; SP Lots; SV Fort +7, Ref +3, Will +7; AL Neutral.

Unblinking Hell Eyes - sees in all spectra of light and energy; with perfect clarity and precision.  Sees into the aetherial and all of the sub-ether dimensions; can (and does) peer into hyperspace and the local superspace medium.  Can see across dimensional and planar barriers.  Probably watching you like ceiling cat.

Hell Beams - if sufficiently aroused to such irritation as to do violence upon one interfering in its purposes, the eyes can unleash an infernally charged mithrylorganic pumped laser  +11 to hit inflicting 9d12 light/heat damage and creating microjets of supercharged plasma on contact with air creating a dangerous burst bubble of 40” which inflicts 6d8 (Star) damage on ...everything.   IT is noteworthy that the Eyes themselves do not take damage from this.

Nosy and Desperately sEeking Interesting - The Eyes are drawn to things that have not been seen before and their memory is the memory of a dead race, millions of years old at ti’s demise. They are, by nature, drawn to multiversal intersections of novelty and complexity (most often occurring in primary material universes in the present age).

This often brings them into conflict with the sentinels of the Clockwork Hell, however many centuries ago, Cognition changed the order to Watch, Follow, Observe, before the standard Obey All Protocols that the sentinels are punched with on departing the Outer Gearsprings.

Buddling of the Dread Lost Kreb-Coral Stalk the creature at heart is, much like it’s parent colony, made of tightly packed, super interactive memory cells.   Even though it is constantly bleeding the excess back to its Mistress, the Eye at any given time knows...tremendous things.   Not that it is talking.  Functionally this gives it a +4 init. (simply because it can anticipate so much) and the ability to absorb spell energy 1/day (up to 5 levels worth) if the caster fails to overcome a Will save. DC 30 (the spell will likely still take effect but the Eye will ‘memorize’ it, frozen in a single moment of time.  It may repeat that spell, precisely as rolled, a second time without fail, though not at the original caster.

LotFP

Great Green EYE OF Wandering  Armour 32  Move 150’, 14 HD 93 hp, many abilities, Morale 12

Unblinking Hell Eyes - sees in all spectra of light and energy; with perfect clarity and precision.  Sees into the aetherial and all of the sub-ether dimensions; can (and does) peer into hyperspace and the local superspace medium.  Can see across dimensional and planar barriers.  Probably watching you like ceiling cat.

Hell Beams - if sufficiently aroused to such irritation as to do violence upon one interfering in its purposes, the eyes can unleash an infernally charged mithrylorganic pumped laser  +11 to hit inflicting 9d12 light/heat damage and creating microjets of supercharged plasma on contact with air creating a dangerous burst bubble of 40” which inflicts 6d8 (Star) damage on ...everything.   IT is noteworthy that the Eyes themselves do not take damage from this.

Nosy and Desperately sEeking Interesting - The Eyes are drawn to things that have not been seen before and their memory is the memory of a dead race, millions of years old at ti’s demise. They are, by nature, drawn to multiversal intersections of novelty and complexity (most often occurring in primary material universes in the present age).

This often brings them into conflict with the sentinels of the Clockwork Hell, however many centuries ago, Cognition changed the order to Watch, Follow, Observe, before the standard Obey All Protocols that the sentinels are punched with on departing the Outer Gearsprings.

Buddling of the Dread Lost Kreb-Coral Stalk the creature at heart is, much like it’s parent colony, made of tightly packed, super interactive memory cells.   Even though it is constantly bleeding the excess back to its Mistress, the Eye at any given time knows...tremendous things.   Not that it is talking.  Functionally this gives it a +4 init. (simply because it can anticipate so much) and the ability to absorb spell energy 1/day (up to 10 levels worth) if the caster fails to overcome a saving throw v. Magic the spell will likely still take effect but the Eye will ‘memorize’ it, frozen in a single moment of time.  It may repeat that spell, precisely as rolled, a second time without fail, though not at the original caster.

“This article is reproduced in Apocrypha Obscura – Transmissions from the Dreaming Gynoid, available  (drive thru link)  

  and (itch.io link) 

Vlitherax (Type I demon)

Vlitherax (Type I demon)

Alien avian

The (type I) vulture demon primarily is known as the errand creature for its betters, sent forth to cross material and planar boundaries to snatch desired life forms, and sometimes summoned up as particularly vile mounts by abyssal inclined witches and wizards. .

This immense creature has two broad wings of partially feathered, semi-reptilian appearance, the craned neck and head of a vulture, two powerful hind legs that dangle behind in flight like a bee, each ending in sharp triple toed talons   The spotty and blotchy texture of the mottled skin-scale=feathers combination, as well as it’s irregularities of shape and colour often lead to this creature being mistaken for undead at even medium distances.

Vlitherax Init +2 ; Atk Beak +3 melee (2d6+2 and DC 12 Fort save v disease) and/ claw +1 melee (1d6+2 ea);

AC 14; HD 5d8 hp 32 or MV 10’ or 60’; Act 1d20; SP Demonic traits, Stinger, cross planar boundaries and Seek Target (See below)x; SV Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +1; AL Chaotic.

Special Attacks

Stinger +5 attack (DC23 Fort save or be immediately paralyzed; death via heart & respiratory failure on fumble)

 Special Abilities

Demonic Traits (infravision, darkness, crit range 20; half damage from non-magical weapons and fire)

Cross planar boundaries  (cannot do so on it’s own without being given instruction from higher power), then limited to immediate point of transit and back.  

Seek Target - fundamental to its planar crossing ‘ability’ is the ability bred into the creatures to imprint on a desired being in order to be able to seek it out.   It’s not as effective as it sounds as they are not that smart but it works enough that the shotgun approach works in most cases.

Secret Stinger's physiognomy

Deeply hidden within the thickest of it’s feathers, just inside the leg of it’s left leg is a  small semi retractable stinger, containing an extraordinarily potent paralytic that it uses to subdue its prey for capture and return flight. The stinger, which relaxes, strikes, and is immediately withdrawn is hard to see; those few who have reported a four or so foot tongue-like tendril with a blistery bone hook at the end.   THe poison is not actually poison but toxic spores which regularly build up on the stinger=tendril and clump on the bone hook itself

History -

Believed originally not to have been demonic at all but a surviving scavenger species from the Galaxy of Black Stars, brought to the abyssal realms and cultivated over successive generations.  Their former capacity to roam the interstellar void by traveling in vast flocks through hyperspace has been perverted to allow them in small numbers to be sent to the material planes and otherwise on missions of acquisition and capture.

Possessed of only a rough intelligence and a somewhat blunted cunning, they are nonetheless of doggest persistence when their prey is involved.  

Why is the Vlitherax here?

A patron demon lord or other power has dispatched the thing to fetch forth a nearby mortal of unusual power or purity - perhaps one destined to become a paladin or great holy figure?  Or one with a great potential for celestial magicks?  Can it be stopped and if not, do they try to follow?

2. This is a craftier sort - it seems as above but in fact this is a dodge on behalf of some fell power to fetch forth heroes from the mortal plane for some dark reason of it’s own.   Either they will be attacked directly or they will be in for a surprise thinking they are rescuing some princess, for example.   Where do the fell birds try to take them?     (Stuck for ideas 1 the Crimson Hell 2 Dante’s inferno 3. Land of Hades 4. The infinite pit of the abyss  5. A random hex in pandemonium 6. The courts of chaos 7.  The Eternal Wicked City  8.  The blasted wastelands of cancer  9.   The Screaming Kingdom of 7000 Skins Being Stretched At Once  10. Ultor-Fehl, the Final Shadow of Total Despair)

3. The creature is one of several bound by task or spell to a great evil sorcerer of a far away land, they have been sent east (or south or whatever) to gather the particular spell components (read: sacrifices) needed for a Ritual of Power.  Favored local npcs, pets, horses, or the like can be targets.  Or, of course, one or more characters themselves.

4.  There is a flash and the clash of arms and then a fiery column rains down from the sky a mile distant.   Investigation sees the charred semi intact corpse of the  Vlitherax , its hind claws still clutching a cast iron cage in a death grip, though the door is open, and tracks ….. Go that way.  Who or what managed to escape?  Will you go after them?

5.   The creature is one of a small flight of them (roll a d20) - a demon lord or such has determined that an ancient weapon of great power lay somewhere in the area - they are tasked with covering a search area of (5d00) miles, so they will not be grouped as such.  But this will be noticed. What are they seeking?

6.   An extraordinarily rare occurrence - one of the greater demons has tasked a named servitor demon of their court to take this being and hide a powerful item of good - a relic, the remains of a saint, or some advanced scientific knowledge, hopefully somewhere far and somewhere obscure.  Enter the PCs