The world is finally no longer ending today, but it’s still in grave danger. Day 23 brings us to another CJ Carella game, oddly enough: his 1995 Palladium RPG Nightbane. Originally titled Nightspawn but renamed after some legal pressure from, I swear I’m not making this up, Todd MacFarlane about the whole “Spawn” thing, this is essentially the Nightbreed RPG.

Still with me?

The premise is that evil Nightlords from the Nightlands that lie on the other side of the mirror are plotting to take over the world by replacing key humans with doppelgangers & deploying monsters as shock troops. They’ve already seized control of the US government in the wake of the panic caused by a mysterious global 24 hours of night – as in it was a starless night everywhere at once – & have turned the place into an overt police state. More overt. You get the picture.

Much as in Armageddon, the resistance is composed mostly of supernatural creatures. Here too there are a few wizards, vampires, & angels, but the vast majority of the freedom fighters are Nightbane: individuals who had thought since birth they were human, but ever since the Dark Day have discovered they can transform into bizarre, sometimes horrible creatures with a smorgasbord of weird powers. Which of the two forms, the mundane Facade or the monstrous Morphus, is the person’s true self? Even the Nightbane don’t know.

Chargen proceeds as in any other Palladium game. There are eight attributes, roll 3d6 for each, if you get a 16+ roll one more d6 & add it to the total. We’re doing this on hard mode, so there’s no drop lowest or arranging foolishness here.

IQ 7
Mental Endurance (ME) 6
Mental Affinity (MA) 12
Physical Strength (PS) 14
Physical Prowess (PP) 11
Physical Endurance (PE) 10
Physical Beauty (PB) 11
Speed (Spd) 19

Oof. Not dealing with a thinker here. Our hero isn’t just on the dim side, but crumbles quickly under emotional or intellectual strain. Strength is pretty good though, they’re not without charm, & that speed is on the high end of what’s possible for a human even before we detail our Morphus. Shaping up to be a bit of a Kronk.

Step two, determine hit points & Structural Damage Capacity (SDC). All the Palladium games I know of draw this distinction between surface blemishes & functional harm, not just for characters but for inanimate objects. Damage sustained is first applied against SDC, then to hit points once SDC are exhausted. When you’re out of SDC you’re covered with scratches, cuts, bruises, road rash, & so forth; when you’re out of hit points you’re dead. The Facade gets PE + 1d6 hit points, & 3d6 SDC.

HP 15, SDC 14

Yoi. Bit of a tomato can despite the strength is our hero. Well, this is hard mode after all. On we forge.

Step three, choose a Character Class. As with any other Palladium game there’s a bewildering selection of classes, which fall into different overarching groups. There’s your Occupational Character Classes (OCCs), which is the profession you practice. There’s your Racial Character Classes (RCCs), which is how the game deals with PCs who aren’t human. Finally there’s your Psychic Character Classes (PCCs), which deal with humans trained in magic or psionics.

The Nightbane are an RCC (which I guess puts them in the same company as B/X elves, dwarves & halflings). Flip to their section of the book & we find they all get some powers in common: changing from Facade to Morphus, dark vision, awareness of other Nightbane, immunity to mind control & forced transformation, & the ability to step through mirrors into the Nightlands.

Now things start to get complicated, because Facade & Morphus have their own set of stats. PCs aren’t just more like ordinary humans in their Facade, but they’re squishier. Right off the bat the Morphus gets +10 to PS, PE & Spd, & +6 to PP. The Facade’s SDC is automatically 30, so disregard what we just rolled (dammit Siembieda, you could have said that up front). The Morphus has considerably more hit points & SDC. The Morphus also has a Horror Factor of at least 6, which is the number a mere mortal has to roll over on d20 not to freak out at the sight of a Nightbane. There are a raft of other bonuses that would take too much explanation so we’ll just note them at the end. Once we’ve applied the changes, we end up with:

IQ: Facade 7 / Morphus 7
ME: F6 / M6
MA: F12 / M12
PS: F14 / M24
PP: F11 / M17
PE: F10 / M20
PB: F11 / M11
Spd: F19 / M29

HP: F15 / M48
SDC: F30 / M60

Next, pick skills from the lists that go with your RCC. There’s a list of class skills whose starting values get a bonus, & a list of class-related skills that may or may not get a bump. The PC gets all the class skills, can pick some of the related ones, then has a free choice of six more “secondary” skills they learned independently. There are a number of different packages a Nightbane character can choose, depending on whether or not they’re a part of one of the game’s factions. I decide to keep it simple (for the Palladium value of “simple”) & go with the basic package.

Here’s where it gets hairy. One of the unusual things about the Palladium system – which I had completely forgotten – is that a PC can take Physical group skills that enhance their physical stats. Now that our character’s skills are set, we have to go back & rejigger their Facade’s stats, which in turn change their Morphus’ stats, which changed all the derived values. I’m starting to get the itch to use an Excel spreadsheet at this point, but I knuckle down & resist.

Anyway, after some thought we end up with these skills:

Acrobatics
Botany 25
Chemistry 40
Computer Operation 50
Concealment 20
First Aid 45
Hand to Hand: Basic
Math (Basic) 55
Native Language / Literacy 70/50
Pilot (Auto) 60
Pilot (Truck) 40
Play Musical Instrument 50
Prowl 25
Radio: Basic 45
Running
Sing 35
Streetwise 20
Streetwise – Drugs 25
Weapon Proficiency: Automatic Pistol
Wrestling
Writing 25

See those skills without percentile scores there? Those are all skills that either change the Facade’s stats – which means changing the Morphus’ stats – or provide bonuses, but only to the Facade. The Morphus gets other bonuses depending on its form, & the players have to keep track of each separately.

God dammit Siembieda.

It’ll take too long to explain, so let me sum up. Applying the myriad changes to the Facade & recalculating every damn thing for the Morphus, we end up with these stats:

IQ: Facade 7 / Morphus 7
ME: F6 / M6
MA: F12 / M12
PS: F17 / M27
PP: F12 / M18
PE: F12 / M22
PB: F11 / M11
Spd: F31 / M41

HP: F15 / M48
SDC: F50 / M100

The PC also gets Facade PE + (3d6x10) + 20 = 102 Potential Psychic Energy points (PPE), that power psycho-magical-supernatural abilities.

You think we’re done at this point? Think again. Now there’s a whole series of random tables that determine what weird transformation the PC goes through when shifting from Facade to Morphus. Are you a lycanthrope? A xenomorph from Alien? A plastic & leather Cenobite? A walking corpse? Could be any, several, or all of these things at once, depending on the dice.

Beginning with a roll on the Nightbane Characteristics Table, we get 30: Inhuman But Beautiful. Or I guess square-jawed handsome in our Kronk’s case. Roll on the Unearthly Beauty Table (naturally) & the Nightbane Characteristics Table. Unearthly Beauty comes up 35: Elfin. Grow d6 inches taller, +7PB (!), Horror remains at 6. Our PC is so good looking in his Morphus that he’s literally stunning. The Nightbane Characteristics table comes up 28: Biomechanical. Roll on what else, the Biomechanical Table. This comes up 26: Metal Teeth & Talons. When Kronkolas smiles he reveals a mouthful of gleaming stainless steel fangs, & his already hamhock size hands are now equipped with razor sharp claws. Bonus to hand to hand damage, gain a bite that does as much damage as being shot with a 9mm, Horror increases by 2. (The idea of a trained wrestler suplexing you & then gnawing on you with metal fangs should be enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies, honestly.)

On top of what they get as a result of their Morphus’ form, the Nightbane each get one Talent to start with. Fueled by burning PPE points, these are handy tricks like commanding animals, turning into electricity & zapping from place to place along the power lines (or Internet fiber – turns out you really would download a Nightbane), or looking into a mirror & seeing what’s in the Nightlands on the other side. What catches my eye for this character is Shadow Slide: the PC shimmers like a heat mirage on a hot highway & becomes two-dimensional, able to slip under closed doors, along walls & across the ceiling. I love the idea of this massive slab of beef sliding into a room like the receipt for a hotel room, then reconstituting on the other side.

Step four would be to spend your 3d6x100 dollars on gear, but this has already taken long enough. Step five is to choose an alignment. The back story that emerges from this dude’s stats & skills is one of a young jock, maybe a late high schooler or community college student, who’s struggling between the easy money to be made as muscle for a small time meth dealer & his dream of becoming a rock star. Or maybe an Olympic champion wrestler. He hasn’t made up his mind yet. Maybe both. So let’s call him Unprincipled, the alignment of the ne’er do well who nevertheless feels compelled to help those in need. (Even though he’s kicking himself the whole time.)

Little does he dream who’s in need, or what he’ll become to help them.

Name: Seth Demidowicz
Alignment: Unprincipled
Horror: 8
SDC/Hit Points: Facade 15/50, Morphus 48/100
Level: 1

IQ: F7 / M7 – Skill bonus 0%
ME: F6 / M6 – Save vs psychic attack/insanity +0
MA: F12 / M12 – Trust/Intimidate 0%
PS: F17 / M27 – Damage bonus F+2 / M+12
PP: F12 / M18 – Parry/Dodge/Strike bonus F+0 / M+2
PE: F12 / M22 – Save vs coma/death F+0 / M+14%; Save vs poison/magic F+0 / M+2
PB: F11 / M18 – Charm/Impress F – / M40%
Spd: F31 / M41
PPE: 102

Skills:
Acrobatics
Botany 25
Chemistry 40
Computer Operation 50
Concealment 20
First Aid 45
Hand to Hand: Basic
Math (Basic) 55
Native Language / Literacy 70/50
Pilot (Auto) 60
Pilot (Truck) 40
Play Musical Instrument 50
Prowl 25
Radio: Basic 45
Running
Sing 35
Streetwise 20
Streetwise – Drugs 25
Weapon Proficiency: Automatic Pistol
Wrestling
Writing 25

Nightbane Abilities:
change to Morphus, supernatural senses, regenerate 10 SDC/HP per melee round, mirror walk, immune to mind control & transformation, Shadow Slide

Hand to Hand (Facade)
Type: Basic
Number of Attacks: 2
Damage: +2
Strike +0, Parry + 0, Dodge + 0, Roll +5
Punch 1d4, Kick 1d8, Jump Kick 1d6, Flip n/a, Crush/Squeeze 1d4

Hand to Hand (Morphus)
Type: Martial Arts
Number of Attacks: 3
Damage: +12
Strike +2, Parry + 2, Dodge + 5, Roll +8
Punch 1d4 + 1d6, Kick 1d8, Jump Kick 1d6, Flip n/a, Crush/Squeeze 1d4, Bite 3d6