The Cryptography Deamon

Hello there my Lovelies,

Apologies for my recent absence. I found myself recently married to the most beautiful woman and thus I was somewhat indisposed.

Today I bring to you a rather horrible creature that I have inflicted upon one of my adventuring groups. To my joy, they found this creature genuinely terrifying, not only because it affected how the party members were able to function, but also because it affected the world around them. Before we get stuck into it I will freely admit this creature is the unholy union of various inspirations. Namely the Crypto Spider from Fire On The Velvet Horizon, The Slake Moth from Perdido Street Station, and the Xenomorph from Alien.

The Cryptography Demon

The Cryptography Demon is a being of obsession, curiosity, and greed. It can only be summoned via a ritual to discover a secret; if all goes well, it will slip into the minds of those slumbering in the region and steal the knowledge it seeks. It would disappear again without a trace. However, if it is frustrated in its aims, the local population will be placed in dreadful jeopardy.

Summoning

To complete the ritual, the summoner will need to make sure the following steps are completed:

• Ritual Circle: This must be an unbroken ritual circle that is enchanted with demonic runes. A well-trained magic user can carefully erase runes thus making the circle safe to cross. Crossing the circle without doing so will almost certainly be fatal.
• Location: The summoning should take place near a large population, and near those whom the summoner believes have the knowledge that the demon will seek.
• The Sacrifice: The demon can only be maintained by a dreaming mind. The sacrifice should be placed within the ritual circle; they will fall into an unwaking dream-filled sleep when the ritual has been completed. The sacrifice cannot be woken unless the demon is slain, or until it has completed its task. Killing the sacrifice will send the demon back to its realm, the task incomplete.
• A Written Question: Next to the sleeping sacrifice should be a piece of paper, quill, and ink. On this paper, a question that the summoner seeks the answer to will be written. Once summoned, the demon will seek the answer to this question.

Description

The demon takes the form of a giant spider with unnaturally long legs. Instead of arachnid compound eyes, it has oversized human-like eyes of mismatched color. Along its abdomen and thorax are humanoid arms with articulate hands.

In combat, the demon will do the following:

• It wields multiple weapons in its arms.
• Fire webs to slow and entangle foes.
• Grasp victims in its hands and inject them with its venom.

The venom of the demon is not a true venom but rather a magical algorithm that encrypts the victim’s mind. This causes the victim to become incapacitated immediately. Recovery time from this venom can vary; some may recover in minutes, others days, and a rare few never recover, remaining in a vegetative state until their body dies.

Habitat and Behavior

The demon will attempt to find the answer to the question that it has been tasked with by weaving webs. These webs catch the dreaming thoughts of the population around it. Sooner or later the secret it seeks will be caught in the web, appearing as woven words.

The demon will weave these webs in the hidden places of the world around it. Cryptography demon webs have been found in many places including:

• Abandoned buildings
• Cellars and Attics
• Tunnels
• Mineshafts

It can travel around the region by ripping open a portal into a pocket dimension, that resembles a greyscale version of the world around it.

When it has found the answer to the question, it will return to the ritual circle and weave the answer into it. Once complete, it will be dismissed back to its plane.

Complications

Sleep Deprivation: The intrusion of the Cryptography Demon’s magics into dreams will begin to disturb the population. They will in time begin to suffer from insomnia as their sleep is affected. This can lead to prolonged sleep deprivation in the general populace. This often leads to large-scale psychosis and civil unrest.

Nesting Cascade: If the answer to the sought-after question is not found promptly, sleep deprivation in the general populace will frustrate the demon’s endeavors. In desperation, the demon will capture people and inject them with its venom to incapacitate them and then inject them with its young. These young will search the mind of the victim as they develop, bursting out of the victim after 24 hours. If they have gained the answer from their gestation period, they will report it to the parent. If not, they will set out into the world to incapacitate more victims and bring them back to the main nest. The young resemble a smaller version of the demon and maintain its potent venom. Beware; up to 3 young per victim can be birthed. This can easily destroy entire cities' worth of populations if not stopped quickly.

Cryptography Demon Venom

Once injected with the venom, the victim should make the appropriate saving throw. Please note that venom is a magical ability, not a poison!

If the victim fails the saving throw, their mind is put into an encrypted coma.

The mechanic for this will have your players stressed and scrambling to fix it fast:

• Continue the game as usual.
• The player under the effect of the venom is given a sudoku puzzle or a word search.
• They cannot rejoin the game until they complete the task given to them. This represents their mind decrypting itself.
• They will hate you for it, and you will love it.

Much Love,
The Civil Tea-Set