How do you handle Gospog?

[Stewart Werley]

I remember years ago thinking of them as zombies for the most part, but as I'm spinning up a new campaign I want them to have a little more bite to them. I remember punching up stormtroopers when running SWd6 to make them more than just throw aways but was wondering how others deal with gospog?

How do you describe their look? Are they intelligent? What level of complexity can they understand when it comes to interaction skills? Bluffs? Taking Orders? Giving orders???? Weapon usage?

Also, if you are treating them like zombies in any fashion, are they slow (Night of the Living Dead) zombies, or fast (28 Days) zombies?

[Kansas Jim]

First planting gospogs are pretty much zombies, though they are cognizant enough to follow orders and use weapons (that's their entire purpose after all, to serve as expendable troops for the High Lords). Since they have human average to slightly better than average physical attributes, they'd be more comparable to the 'fast' variety of zombies.

One thing I did with first plantings was play up their physical nature, a gross mixture of dead flesh and bone with plant material. They smelled awful and up close were quite disturbing to look at (except for Nippon of course, since their gospogs are entirely encased in a suit of power armor).

Once you get above the first plantings, gospogs start showing some actual intelligence and behave more like living animals or creatures than zombies. Depending on the realm, some are capable of speech and possibly capable of passing themselves off as 'normal' creatures/beings (in particular I'm thinking of the Cyberpapacy's witch gospogs).

[copeab]

First planting gospog might be better viewed as orcs than as zombies, since their attributes are around human (but not PC) norm.

[johntfs]

The gospog are one of the reasons that Orrorsh as it was in the original edition is essential unable to be defeated. From the second planting on up, every Orrorshan gospog has a True Death. Assuming a field goes to full production, that's 1111 gospog of various powers.

Also, assuming you apply even the generous 90% good, 10% evil mix to the souls in Orrorsh, Indonesia has a population of something like 700 million people. Which means that there's a good 7 million souls suitable for monsters. It's a war of attrition that Storm Knights can never win - at least not by attacking like Storm Knights.

There is a way to defeat Orrorsh, though, and that's by disrupting the ecology of Fear. You'd need access to large amounts of weapons of mass destruction, though, because you'd need them to kill almost every living person in Orrorsh. If no one's alive, no one can feel fear.

So, you'd need "Storm Knights" with the Create Talisman or Create Hardpoint powers to use them on nuclear and biological WMDs before they were launched to destroy Orrorsh's population.

[zack zenobi]

I never thought about that b4. It really seems like Gospog should not have TD's when you mention that.

Has anyone else ever addressed this imbalence?

[Kansas Jim]

I never thought about that b4. It really seems like Gospog should not have TD's when you mention that.

Has anyone else ever addressed this imbalence?
I can see the fifth plantings being treated as horrors since they're the culmination of a field's output, I can envision Gaunty or one of his lieutenants pulling a spirit from a waiting village for each fifth planting because they're going to be special. But yeah, for the comparatively speaking mass-produced second and third plantings it seems a bit ridiculous to make them horrors. The fourth plantings, I dunno, I could go either way with their status.

[GreenDragon]

The 3rd planting in the novels was able to go toe-to-toe with an ex-High Lord. I'd say just omit the TD from 1st Plantings - the most numerous. After all, G1s in other realities don't get all the cool powers their higher Gen siblings do. I seem to recall a specific example of G1s from one other reality being specifically noted as not getting a particular ability that was either present in the other four or was common to the World Laws of the reality. (But that could just me and my faulty memory.)

[johntfs]

I can see the fifth plantings being treated as horrors since they're the culmination of a field's output, I can envision Gaunty or one of his lieutenants pulling a spirit from a waiting village for each fifth planting because they're going to be special. But yeah, for the comparatively speaking mass-produced second and third plantings it seems a bit ridiculous to make them horrors. The fourth plantings, I dunno, I could go either way with their status.

I'd be okay with Fourth and Fifth plantings being full Horrors with True Deaths, that's 11 per full field cycle per field, which is at least somewhat manageable. I'd be inclined to treat the Second, and especially Third plantings as "Demi-Horrors." In the case of the Third Plantings, they'd have Shape Change, Resistance to Normal Weapons and Vulnerable to Silver, but they wouldn't have an actual True Death. So, if you kill a gospog weretiger with a Godlight laser instead of a silver sword, it'd still be permanently dead.


The 3rd planting in the novels was able to go toe-to-toe with an ex-High Lord. I'd say just omit the TD from 1st Plantings - the most numerous. After all, G1s in other realities don't get all the cool powers their higher Gen siblings do. I seem to recall a specific example of G1s from one other reality being specifically noted as not getting a particular ability that was either present in the other four or was common to the World Laws of the reality. (But that could just me and my faulty memory.)

The First Plantings don't have a True Death, Nippon's armor alteration aside, First Plantings are identical for all High Lords. From the Second Planting on, the Gospog are individualized to each Cosm.

I will say that it's been a long time since I've read the novels, but I wouldn't count the creature that fought Kurst as a simple Third Planting Gospog. That sucker was probably a "name level" Lieutenant of the Guant Man, perhaps even the created he modeled the Third Planting after.

[Stormchild]

This thing was a Third planting Gospog, a Were-Tiger. The true death is very simple and probably would not even be recognized by Storm Knights: being killed while in animal form. I don't think this is a good use of True Death. Why have a Horror with True Death when it is the way you would probably kill it? The second planting is not much better: the Caretakers with the True Death being killed with their own blunderbuss. It is less likely to happen than with the third planting but as these gospog are rather generic, the player's would not even recognize if a Caretaker came back. They are goons, why not treat them as those.
The fourth planting are much better though. They look like demons and are killed with a complicated ritual (tied up with silver thread and buried for 24 hours). This is much more like a normal Horror. So I second omitting the True Death for first, second and third generations.

[GreenDragon]

Remember all the Horrors in the Orrorsh Realm Book have "Suggested True Deaths." That is, this is what the author(s) thought would be the most iconic, or ironic, or poetic choices. They are entirely malleable. For example, Mantooth only requires Decapitation (I'd be surprised at a campaign where he was killed in Forever City and not TDed), and Sabathine requires an Ice stake through the heart (with her coven only being dispatchable if she dies) - but the generic Vampyre requires a wooden stake through the heart and decapitation. But if the GM (that's Gamemaster or Gaunt Man as you prefer ;) ) wanted one that was killed with a silver bullet through the eye - because he was once a lawman who wore a silver badge - then that would be his True Death.
This of course makes matters even worse regarding Gospog. While G1s have no listed Fear Rating, Perserverence DN (which since a single G1 will be unlikely to be the main Horror of an adventure makes sense), or other unique Orrorsh abilities, all other plantings do. So once you kill one Were-tiger in animal form and don't ever see that particular soul return, you may believe that is the way to kill all Were-tigers. Only to face one that is only vulnerable to decapitation with a pair of hedge clippers.
Of course the next question is: just how many corrupt souls has the GM gained in the last 5000 years (Earth time), and of those how many haven't 'worn out' from too many reincarnations? Does he have so many, that are suitable for Gospog, that he can populate as many fields as he deems necessary? Both on Gaea and in Indonesia and New Orleans?
I'd almost be inclined to say that Orrorshan Gospog are a special situation. That is, just as specific Nightmares have specific minions (Skutharka's techno-horrors or Dr. Sconce's Flesh Golems), Gospog are used primarily - and almost exclusively by Gaunty himself. Other Nightmares making use of Zombies, Skeletons, or similar lesser undead, etc. instead. Thus making them not as common as in other Realms - and for them to be present in a specific situation means:
a) The GM himself has a concern in what goes on here, or
b) The Horror the Knights face has favor with him.
Making the Gospog terrifying, not in and of themselves, but because of what they represent.

[Apieros]

This thing was a Third planting Gospog, a Were-Tiger. If you're referring to Scythak, he was a were-tiger, but wasn't a gospog. He was a were from Kantovia, Kurst's original cosm.

[Stormchild]

OK it is a long time since I read the novels but he fits the discription of the gospog exactly.

[Kansas Jim]

OK it is a long time since I read the novels but he fits the discription of the gospog exactly.

I suspect that the third plantings were modeled on Scythak, quite possible that someone at WEG remembered the character but not that he was originally from Kantovia. It could also be a retcon, there's a lot about Orrorsh in the first novels that doesn't match up with what they later did in the sourcebook.

[GreenDragon]

Sabathine the Vampyre hottie being split into granny Sabathina and Basjas comes to mind as a noteable retcon.

I'd buy the Scythak as model, but didn't John Terra have the Gaunt Man gain one of each planting of 'Gosgog' before he met Heketon and killed half of Geos?

[Kansas Jim]

I'd buy the Scythak as model, but didn't John Terra have the Gaunt Man gain one of each planting of 'Gosgog' before he met Heketon and killed half of Geos?
Yes, but in Interview With Evil the third, fourth and fifth plantings start out as black humanoid forms awaiting a final shape, it wasn't until he was on Kantovia and saw the impressive corpse of a were-tiger that Gaunty had the third plantings take on that form.

But that does not match up with what the Orrorsh sourcebook says! It says that the were-tiger form was chosen for the Earth invasion, third plantings did not look like that before. (What they looked like before isn't mentioned.)

[GreenDragon]

Thanks for that. Been a while since I re-read Interview and the Horrors chapter of the Orrorsh SB.
Interesting to learn that Gospog can be remodeled.

[Kansas Jim]

Thanks for that. Been a while since I re-read Interview and the Horrors chapter of the Orrorsh SB.
Interesting to learn that Gospog can be remodeled.
I have a vague recollection of it being mentioned somewhere other than the Orrorsh book, a statement that gospogs can be customized for each invasion. Interview does contradict that, Heketon explicitly says that once the 3rd-5th plantings have a shape chosen for them that's how they'll always be.