By John Houlihan
Art by Paolo Puggioni
With the release of D-Day: The Darkest Day drawing ever closer to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the real-life Operation Overlord, this week we’re taking a look at some of the creatures, entities and monsters you’ll encounter in this combined guide and campaign book.
The main creature focus for D-Day: The Darkest Day is the array of strange living bio-weapons utilised by the Deep Ones. It’s something we’ve always wanted to explore since Jon Webb, Modiphius’ miniatures and modelling supremo, and I were booting around ideas for Deep One vehicles aeons ago and came up with the concept of the Crab Tank.
Well Jon, that glorious day has finally arrived. Now you have to just go and make the model for the mighty Acheron King Crab Tank!
The Darkest Day’s campaign is divided up into three main parts and the middle section Down with the Deep Ones is a four-mission narratively linked arc. Without wanting to give away too many spoilers, agents are caught up in a sinister plot to derail D-Day and they must face a number of challenges above the waves before journeying below them transforming into hybrids so that they can travel to the Deep One city of Tep-Ditha for its epic climax.
From a design perspective It was an intriguing challenge and presented the perfect opportunity to detail some of the creatures the Deep Ones use. Our guiding principle was that Cthulhu’s Children didn’t use much in the way of technology (which would rust and rot undersea anyway) so instead would harness magic and sorcery to make living weapons out of the unusual creatures which lurk unseen in the lower depths.
It was also a really interesting collaborative experience with Brad Bell, Bill Heron, Pat McNally and I booting concepts and thoughts back and forth, helping refine profiles and abilities and honing these creatures so that they would fit into the narrative. It’s one of the real benefits of working in a team rather than having each writer working away in their own particular silo and we had some great “Yeah, but what if…” moments many of which ended up in the final book.
That’s not to say the Deep Ones are the only creatures you’ll encounter in D-Day: The Darkest Day. Elsewhere, there are new creatures specific to each mission which include things like the ghostly Echoes of undead spirits, a slippery Gigantic Octopus, devious Mi-Go Operatives who have a rather unique method of traversal and also the fearsome Automated Nachtwölfe Stormtrooper Mk2.
All are there to provide an interesting and diverse set of challenges for agents but if I had to pick one favourite, it is undoubtedly the fearsome Deep One Leviathan you see pictured above. These mammoth undersea titans were originally first mentioned in the Gamemaster’s Guide, but it’s been a real pleasure to finally stat one up and bring it to life so that players and GMs can use it in their own campaigns.
We’ll leave you with a few excerpts below to whet your appetite for when D-Day: The Darkest Day launches on June 6th.
Don’t forget, you can have a first play of D-Day: The Darkest Day at our Fortress of Fear event, live at Fort Amherst on June 6th with all-star GMs Olivia Kennedy of 3 Black Halflings and Quintin Smith of Quinns Quest! Just click that Fortress of Fear link for details.
Acheron King Crab Tank
Deep Ones lack many of the technologies of the surface world, but through long aeons of modification, adaptation, biotechnology, genetics, and a fair amount of ritual magic, they have created bio-weapons of war capable of fighting the mightiest war machines of their foes. The Acheron King Crab tank looks like a heavily modified King Crab from the Arctic. It’s the size of a German Tiger Tank and hosts a blistering array of weapons across its massive spiky armoured body.
Leviathan
In the deepest parts of the ocean, close to the Earth’s mantle, dwell the Leviathans. Even Deep Ones and the other children of R’lyeh do not visit these depths lightly for this is the realm of these deep dwelling behemoths. These huge creatures rarely visit the surface, but when they do destruction follows in their wake. Very little is known of these massive beasts, but they are aggressively territorial and have an ancient predatory cunning. They are the original sea monsters of legend.
Only a handful of these beings are believed to exist in the pressured deeps of the Atlantic Massif and very little is known of them on the surface world. Even the Deep ones rarely venture into their territory, although some of the Deep One Elders have knowledge of how to summon leviathans and perhaps control them for a time. A mix of spider, crustacean and octopus, these creatures reach a height of 218 yards (200m). An armoured crab-like shell body rises on eight pincer-tipped chitin legs. The creature’s head is a seething mass of tentacles surrounded by ten eyes that glitter with a malevolent hunger. These destructive entities have laid waste to whole cities in their time, and may be Great Old Ones in their own right…
Gargantuan Octopus
These gigantic Octopodes were bred by the Deep Ones as living idols housed within sacred shrines. Fiercely territorial and aggressive, their brains are distributed throughout their bodies, making them incredibly resilient to anything short of total dismemberment.
If you want to know even more about D-Day: The Darkest Day, be sure to check out our previous blogs in the series which cover What is D-Day, Tools of the Trade and Vehicles and be sure to look out for a new blog next week!
The Darkest Day is available for pre-order now.
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