Tuesday, September 2, 2025

Dollguard (Arise Ye Wretched)

In elder days, two great empires vied for command of the realm of dreams - mighty Old Sybilline and High Isshin-Daga. That they were separated by the entire bulk of the Interdark, on opposite sides of the world-plane, was of no consequence. 

The peoples of these proud civilizations dreamed of worthy opponents, of one another, and met in commerce, diplomacy, and battle upon the immortal coil of sleep. Children were sired, crops exchanged, philosophy and poetry recited to rapt foreign audiences. One of the greatest marks of this collaboration, of peace and respect between equals, was the establishing of the Dollguard under the Catalyd Dynasty. 

This elite force of prætorians was composed of esteemed and trustworthy Isshin-Dagan warriors given military doll-bodies by the Sybils and tasked with protecting the life of the Sybilline Emperor. Their foreign nature proofed them against involvement in internecine politics (or so it was believed), and their sexless forms made them ideal guardians for the Emperor's harems and seraglios (or so it was believed).

It hardly needs to be mentioned that this all came to ruin with the advent of the Dreaming War, which shattered the dreamscape with terrible oneiric weaponry and caused a panhexagonal crisis of Meaning, along with the twilight of the oracles. This, incidentally, is why dreams don't really make sense anymore—dreams used to be a fairly straightforward affair with clear-cut interpretation before the War fucked everything up. 

For the Dollguards, the War was an unmitigated disaster, dividing their loyalties between their homeland and their adopted liege. Those who survived the brutal campaign of internal purges and assassinations found themselves trapped in their false bodies and driven irrevocably mad by the cataclysmic conclusion of the conflict. 

A few still wander to this day...  

Dollguard

Source: this is just Sasori from Naruto...

HD: 8
AC: 14 (Lacquered paper)
Hit: Three attacks at +9 each
Damage: 1d10 (Glaive) or 1d6 (Chakram, Thrown), usually poisoned (1d4 STR, DEX, or CON damage)
Movement: Uncannily graceful, with a strange tinge of mania, sped-up
Intelligence/Mien: Skillful, graceful, poetic, ancient, utterly insane. Mute, but can speak all sign languages fluently.
Special: Can Parry and Guard like a Sword-Shepherd. Roll 1d4 one to three times for special traits. Duplicate rolls result in extra charges.
  1. Flamethrower - Sprays a 10m cone of jellied napthta, dealing 1d10 damage on a failed Save plus 1d6 damage each subsequent round until extinguished. 3 Charges.
  2. Shoulder Hwacha - A pepperbox rack of envenomed needles propelled by rocket microcharges. Fires once, peppering a 5m radius with hundreds of projectiles and hitting each target with 1d6-3d6 needles, depending on size. Each needle does 1 damage, and deals 1 damage to STR, DEX, or CON.
  3. Wired Reflexes - Limb rigged up with internal runesteel wires, allowing extension and retraction - fire as a grapple, or swing as a flail to slice for 2d4 damage. 
  4. Gas Canister - Launch up to 20m in any direction, hitting at +4 and dealing an extra die of damage on a charging attack. 2 Charges.

Their fire-retardant lacquer coating makes them fireproof (or at least, no more flammable than normal), but their paper body takes maximum damage from heat and flame if the protective layer is peeled or scraped off (this usually happens at half HP or less).

Fatal Woman

The most élite Dollguard are the Fatal Women, who were rumored to be not humans but Valkyries, enfleshed in filigreed mannequin frames. 

Source: Come on. You know who this is.

HD: 12
AC: 18 (Frozen mercury panoply)
Hit: Three attacks at +12 each
Damage: 2d6 (Atgeirr) or 1d8 (Tachi) or 1d4x1d4 (Machine Pistol)
Movement: Zoomer shooter protagonist.
Intelligence/Mien: Rip and tear, until it is done. Can somehow speak, despite lacking any vocal apparatus.
Special: Can Parry and Guard like a Sword-Shepherd, as well as Cleave. Spurning the poisons and trickery of the regular Dollguard, she instead weaves the fates of all violent men with her clacking, elegant fingers—she can roll 1d20 three times prior to rolling initiative, and can swap the results of any roll (even damage rolls) that occurs during the battle with one of those stored numbers. The number that would've been rolled had she not intervened is stored in her 'pool' in the place of the one she used.


 

 

 


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Dollguard (Arise Ye Wretched)

In elder days, two great empires vied for command of the realm of dreams - mighty Old Sybilline and High Isshin-Daga . That they were separa...