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Instant Antagonists: The Creepy Cottontail
by Monica Valentinelli

The “Instant Antagonist” line is a series of works designed to be used with any role-playing system. As a game-master do you need a nasty crawly thing to harass your party of wayward adventurers? Then this is an excellent source of material to torture them with. Each book offers a short description of history, appearance, manners, and possible origins of a single creature. Not every creature is pure evil, some might simply be around for the impish delight of the game-master.

Monica’s installment, “The Creepy Cottontail” is based around Nyarlathotep, a servant to the Elder Gods and their Messenger. He is a being of great and terrible might, his words laying waste to civilization after civilization and brings nothing but doom to those that hear them. He is cruel and merciless, a bane of any that cross his path or upset him. Nyarlathotep is terrible to behold, but he also needs followers and in recent years they have become few. He twists the dreams of his followers so they are constantly tormented, and he feeds off of their misery. Lately, their offerings are few and meager this has raised the ire of Nyarlathotep and now he has sought out his lackey’s for punishment. A body was to be waiting for him, a vessel to contain his immense power. The Messenger of the Elder Gods arrived on the Earthly plane prepared to destroy, warp, and madden.

Nyarlathotep arrived and is now a rather cute, and rather fuzzy, bunny with long floppy ears. Trapped, abandoned by his followers, and denied the bulk of his magical essence he seeks freedom from his cuddly prison and from the warm embraces of Bridgette, the sweet little girl that picked him out at the pet store before Nyarlathotep’s followers could rescue him. He looks at the next seven or eight years with dread, his Words that cause doom come out as nothing but cute little squeaks. His dread gaze is nothing but a twitch of the nose and wiggling of the whiskers.

It takes great skill as a writer to actually build up enough empathy towards a creature whose power is drawn from the utter torment of others, but Monica accomplished this goal. It is true that the freedom of Nyarlathotep would mean that thousands of others would suffer, but the misery that Nyarlathotep finds himself in is palpable. It is amusing and funny, but one still feels twinges of pity. I look forward to a game where I let the sweet, loving, and kind-hearted player scoop up a poor, abused bunny rabbit. I also look forward to the weeks and months afterward where Nyarlathotep looses what havoc he can.

Review by Sean “Nix” McConkey

Tags | Cthulhu Mythos