Shock Troops of the Egg: The Qullan

[Havard]

My good friend Dave Keyser posted this little tidbit on the Mystara Mailinglist back in 2001:

I just got Living Greyhawk Journal #4, and was pleasantly surprised to see the
first new Blackmoor material published by WOTC/TSR since 1987.

A little background for those who don't know, Blackmoor is Dave Arneson's
campaign which is still going on from what I hear. Gary Gygax dropped
Blackmoor into his own Greyhawk campaign, but other than a few paragraphs
and a location on the map, which gets repeated everytime a Greyhawk glossography
or gazeteer gets published, the Blackmoor in Greyhawk has never been
developed. This is probably due to the various legal issues that Arneson and
Gygax were involved in.

Blackmoor is its own campaign setting, but was linked to Mystara by the DA
modules back in the 1980's. The Mystara Blackmoor and Greyhawk Blackmoor
are virtually identical, but the DA modules added a lot more detail.

As far as I know, nothing has been done with the Blackmoor in Greyhawk until
now. Issue LGJ #4 provides a monster manual entry for the Qullan, which are
barbaric and mad (in)humanoid shock troops used by the Egg of Coot. They
are 8+ feet tall, wear animal skins or nothing at all, and cover their bodies with
tatoos, warpoint and ritual scarring. They revere the Egg of Coot as a god,
although they also worship evil deities and demons. They are hostile to all
intelligent creatures except themselves. They hunt for their food.

They prefer their specially sharpened longswords, but occasionally will use
short bows. The sword is usually recovered from an enemy in battle.

They radiate a confusion aura within 5 feet of themselves, but their weakness
is that any magical attempt to control them(where they fail the saving throw)
will instantly kill them. So something like charm monster could wipe out a lot
of them.

When the Egg of Coot needs to use them, he has his army herd the Qullan onto
the battle front, and lets them charge the enemy first. Any Qullan surviving
the battle are killed. Any Qullan who attempts to kill the Egg dies instantly
as if charmed.

The RPGA Living Greyhawk campaign has divided up most of the Greyhawk
campaign setting into regions. Each region is assigned to a part of the US or
somewhere overseas. They currently do not use Blackmoor as a region, and
this entry is mainly concerned with the author of the entry using the Qullan
elsewhere in Greyhawk.

Also, I don't know if it has been mentioned yet, but WOTC is publishing
Keep on the Borderlands as a novel in November/December. It is under
the Greyhawk collection, but we will have to see if they put in Mystara
references. The story is based around the actual keep, but it is not clear
if it will use the setting from B2 or the "Return to" set years later.

Dave Keyser

In a similar discussion over at wizards.com Erik Mona posted the following:

From the Living Greyhawk Journal, issue 4: "Qullans are seemingly insane humanoids adorned with tattoos, warpaint, and ritual scarring. They wield longswords sharpened to an incredible edge.
"Never wearing armor and either travelling naked or clad in animal skins, qullans are primitive beings that glorify destruction and chaos. Eight or more feet tall, they ritually scar themselves and adorn their battle scars with tattoos and warpaint. Filled with hate for other intelligent creatures, qullans never cooperate with other creatures and attack beings of all alignments. Despite their limited skills in metalworking, they have an innate talent for sharpening swords until they strike more accurately than any masterwork blade."

They're Large humanoids with 2d8+4 HD. They have a confusion aura (Su) equal to a confusion spell in a 5 ft. radius. Other qullans are immune to this effect. They also provide anyone attempting to mentally control them with a nasty shock of mental feedback, and have a secret method of sharpening weapons, giving them a +3 bonus to attack (with a 20% cumulative chance of ruining the weapon with each hit made).

Source: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/ ... ;qullan34;

Have the Qullans been detailed in later material? Sounds like something I would like to steal for my campaign :twisted:

-Havard

[aldarron]

I love the idea of shock troops of the egg. I pictured kinda techno clockwork Borg like kinda things. The description of the Qullan sounds a lot less promising though and reminded me an awful lot of these guys:

[DungeonDevil]

Nifty!
I don't know how extra-sharp swords give a bonus 'to hit'. :? A bonus to damage is more logical.
The 'confusion aura' reminded me a lot of the description of Marfeldt the Barbarian
("the numbness of mind that seems to afflict those who converse with the Barbarian", FFC, p. 15). That coupled with the reference to revulsion (ibid.) must be akin to the Qullans' aura.
That Achilles' Heel is mighty odd. Kind of a 'glass jaw' type of thing!

[ripvanwormer]

Qullans are from the 1st edition Fiend Folio. Aside from their original White Dwarf appearance, they pretty much only appeared there and in LGJ #4.

[Rafael]

Welcome, Rip!

Nice to have you with us over here, finally!

[Rafael]

I have overthought the idea. I would like to have them look like this:

[aldarron]

That's the first picture of Santa Clause in armor I've ever seen! :twisted:

[DungeonDevil]

@rip: Thanks! Serves me right for not being as familiar with the FF as I am the other AD&D books. :oops:

[Havard]

Origins for this race within the Mystara continuity are discussed here.

-Havard

[Havard]

At the end of the Brute Man Wars, those savages who had been corrupted by Chaos were destroyed. Or so it was thought. Some remained hidden in caves, praying for the day when the Cthonian Overlords would once again return. These men became known as the Qullan. In recent decades many of these have been drawn to the Realm of the Egg where their abilities have been boosted through the infusion of Infernal Blood into their veins.


-Havard