So You Slept with a Succubus... (+ rules for cambions)

One for the Sex Bandwagon. 

Sex with a succubus is much like sex with anyone, which is to say it's absolutely horrifying. 

The first time a Lawful character sleeps with a succubus, they lose one point of Wisdom as the very foundation of their moral core has been fractured. Chaotic characters gain one point of Wisdom, as their glimpse at the furthest reaches of sensation exposes them to forbidden insights. Neutral characters develop a distinctive paraphelia and get a wild story to tell at the bar.  

When sleeping with a succubus, role under Charisma with a d20 for the fate of your soul. 

On a success, you wake the next morning crushed by a whole-body hangover. Your memory of the night before is tattered like the remnants of the dream; all you can surface are wild, unfocused impressions of ecstasy and terror. You get no benefit from the night's rest. 

On a failure, the consequences are as above plus roll 1d8: 

1. The demon possesses your genitalia. It becomes big and grotesque, and can be used as a weapon in a pinch dealing 1d4 damage. The demon-haunted organ will attempt to control you as a sentient sword (Will 18+1d6) to corrupt men and women of the cloth. It can be exorcised by setting yourself on fire and jumping into a freezing lake in the dead of winter, whereupon a cleric must perform the rites of Dispel Evil. 

2. In the throes of infernal passion, you agree to a dark pact. You can't gain experience until you lead nine pure-hearted virgins down a path of depravity.

3. You're obsessed. Every night you wish for her, and every night she's there. You'd give anything to her, your wealth, your loyalty, but all she wants is you, she says, and so you give yourself to her. A little bit at first, but more and more each night, because the thought of being without her is too much to bare. Lose 1 point of Constitution every day. Your friends will notice your hollow eyes and sunken cheeks. If they care enough, they'll lock you in a room each night and keep you under watch until morning, and you will hate them for it. Only once you've gone a week without the succubus do you realize you must move on, but you can't be rid of her completely until you take a vow of celibacy before a theytriarch. And better swear off drinking too, for good measure.

4. You babble like a baby and spill your heart. She knows you more intimately than anyone else ever can—a moment of eye contact is all she needs to see into your mind. She will visit you again and again in various guises over the following years, waiting for you to become a big powerful hero, even intervening where necessary to help you on your way. And she will know where the bodies are buried, what treasures you own and what wonders you seek, everything that shouldn't be shared; and she will gladly share her knowledge to anyone who hates you enough to pay her price. 

5–8. With your essence she gestates a cambion—a half-human fiend who walks the earth free from the oblique constraints of demonhood. In nine months it will be born, and in nine days it have aged into a perfect copy of you, indistinguishable save for a subtle demoniac cast that falls over its face in partial light or under extreme emotion. It can access all of your memories, which it does frequently and with a sense of mordant fascination. It will kill you in the night to take your place. Details below.

CAMBIONS

Typically when a cambion kills its progenitor it proceeds to wreak havoc on the lives of their friends and acquaintances. However, cambions are capricious beings and subject to the power of friendship and/or the promise of adventure. As such, when your PC gets killed and the cambion takes its place, continue playing your character as before with the following changes: 

• Your alignment is Chaotic if not already
• You have Infravision up to 240'
• You are vulnerable to holy water and effects that target enchanted creatures
• Your body ceases to age
• You are unable to benefit from Lawful cleric magic or church services, but 
• You heal the maximum possible amount when resting and get +2 to saves vs. poison, disease, and magic. 
• All future levels require an additional 25% experience to reach

Additionally, you begin with a cambion power (rolled below). You gain a new power every 10d10 years or when you devour the essence of a cambion with more powers than you. You can use your powers a number of times per day equal to your level. Naturally, as you grow in power other cambions seek to slay and consume you. 

Beyond 9th level, or after you attain nine cambion powers, your demonic nature takes over and you become a NPC under the GM's control.  

Cambion Powers (1d20)

1. Stinking cloud. Your natural odor smells like brimstone and sex.
2. Charm person. Your touch is intoxicating.
3. Levitate. You are uncannily light. 
4. Invisibility. You are easily overlooked.
5. Cause disease. Animals fawn over you in a way that makes people uneasy. 
6. Curse. People who first meet you are treated to brief, horrifying intrusive thoughts. 
7. Alter appearance. You can make your reflection move independent of you. 
8. Suggestion. Your singing voice is entrancing. 
9. Cause fear. You have too many teeth. Your smile is deeply unsettling. 
10. Phantasmal force. Your shadow projects in the wrong direction. 
11. Speak with dead. You whisper blasphemies in your sleep.
12. Burning hands. Fire leaps and dances at your command. 
13. ESP. You can easily tell how gullible someone is. 
14. Ignore damage rolls of 1-3 unless from a magic or silver weapon. Blood bursts from you like a geyser when you are made to bleed. 
15. Summon and command a swarm of flies, crows, or rats for up to 10 minutes. Pests and vermin become common where you stay. 
16. Appear to be two places at once for a moment (effectively teleporting 30' to a place you can see). You have a long, sinuous tail. 
17. You can look into the Weird to detect magic and invisible creatures. Your eyes never look in the same direction. 
18. Your breath causes things to rot, rust, or otherwise degrade. Your tongue is dark and round like a fattened leech. 
19. You have two random mutations. Your blood is black.
20. Misfortune follows you. Friends and foes get -1 to saving throws.  

The Inverted Palace

This is what I sent my players as a little backstory for the big dungeon at the center of our campaign:

The Inverted Palace 

On clear days, at dawn or dusk, you can see it on the northern horizon. A wondrous palace—or, rather, an apparition of a palace. It disappears during the day and night, but journey into the dark forests beyond Linrik and you will find it again—no longer moored to the ground, but hanging upturned in the sky. Look up, and through the tree branches a host of majestic spires bears down on you from above. But this, too, is an apparition. It is only seen by those close to where the real palace once stood. 

For these apparitions are of the Palace Eternal, the seat of power for the lost Zenon empire and home to Anaktos the Stargiver, her final ruler. Zenon was the greatest of human civilizations. Its domain so vast it was said to have reached the stars. The sorcerers of Zenon, among whom Anaktos was the greatest, glimpsed the true mosaic of magic and established many of the spells practiced by today's lesser magicians. 

One lifetime was not enough for so great an authority as Anaktos. He became an undying lich to upheld his cruel and uncompromising reign for an aeon. But over the slow centuries he grew dissatisfied with earthly limitations and sought, as many foolish and powerful men do, ascension to godhood. A ritual was devised; it's culmination the sacrifice of every mortal within his empire. Five hieroknights, on whose brows each burned a star, learned of Anaktos's scheme and turned their swords upon their master. With five sacred blades they divided his soul into five equal parts, each borne in a piece of his body: hand, eye, heart, brain, and rib bone. The emperor's remains were banished along with his palace into the depths of the earth. The Palace Eternal became the accursed Palace Inverted, imprisoning Anaktos forevermore. 

 

All that remains above ground is a gate of white marble hidden among the trees. Beyond lies a courtyard of an antique style, columns enrobed in delicate moss. At its center an elegant staircase twists into the beckoning darkness below.

Some legends of the Inverted Palace: 

1. The Static Tower holds every failed experiment too dangerous or dear to Anaktos to dispose of. Some have broken free and now roam the halls of the palace. Bereft of  purpose, they create their own.
2. The palace keeps a record of every dream had within its walls. The archive spiders store them in waxy pearls that dangle from their webs. Anaktos’s dreams are locked away behind a door hidden within the Weird.
3. All semblances of Anaktos have been destroyed. The statues beheaded, the murals defaced, the mosaics plucked of their tiles. Every coin of the Zenon empire has a wide gouge on the obverse side where once glowered a noble profile. No record of the Eternal Emperor's face remains. 
4. Orcs, gnolls, and other half-men are drawn to the palace, yet those who enter may never leave. They hear the thrumming heart of Anaktos wherever they go.  
5. The palace guardians have pledged themselves to eternal duty. They're interred in heavy death-mask helmets that fit over the head and shoulders, denying them the peace of true death. 
6. A secret gallery has six gates: one may only be passed by the dreaming, one by the mad, one by the lost, one by the unseen, one by those geased to do so, and one only by the dead. 
7. The two-headed dragon emblem of Zenon represents life and death, heavens and earth, energy and mass—all of which Anaktos sought to master. The emperor courted both Law and Chaos, though refused to show fealty to either. Their influence was still new to this world at the assumption of his lichdom. Neither power intervened to prevent in his demise. 
8. The armory holds the Sword of Immanence, a weapon which strikes at the fundamental concept of its target. It may be wielded against anything from gods and monsters to metaphysics, ideas, and phenomena. Its use is an affront to reality.
9. The palace garden spreads like a mold, subsuming territory far beyond its original limits. It must be appeased by the palace inhabitants else it will devour them all. 
10. Food, corpses, young love—nothing spoils in the kitchen.