The hedge wizard lived in a little cottage beyond the outskirts of town and far off the beaten path. It was the kind of place one visited resolutely, reluctantly, and under strength of numbers if possible.
Thorny brambles guarded the approaches. A canopy of twisted branches, blackened and bare, stood off the sky. The air stagnant and still. Surrounded by such hostility, the plain cottage possessed an ominous air it otherwise would not.
All of this was intentional. Purposeful. Likewise the cauldron the wizard left bubbling in the hearth, billowing unpleasant odors from chimney and underneath door. His own garb, mottled and stiff from old sweat and dirt, stained and torn and threadbare. And his manner, too — brusque and suspicious and above all unhinged. Yes, especially that.
It was all a costume. A performance to ensure no visitor lingered longer than necessary. He was terrified that his secret might get out. Better if they didn’t come at all, but their gold was useful, and sometimes they brought him chickens or fresh eggs or milk.
Caqihr the hedge wizard was by nature a studiously neat man. Well-mannered and given to laughing at his own mistakes. He enjoyed a cup of tea and a good book beside the fire. Tending the little garden out back. Sitting beside the stream and dangling his toes in the water. It was not in his nature to be cruel.
Well. It hadn’t been. Before.
The tail mostly left him to his own devices at first. When no one was around, it snaked out of his stinking layers and watched over his shoulder as he feverishly tried to undo the curse. Sometimes it lashed out, whip quick, and made a mess of something: a bucket of water, stacked dishes, piled kindling. It was unnerving, having something so bizarrely alien forever lurking at his back.
In time he stopped noticing it. Stopped hating it. Though it still unnerved him sometimes. Like when it placed a vial of fairyroot in his hands before he quite realized he needed it. Which lead him to wonder if the tail had read his mind or was somehow exerting its will upon his own.
Such thoughts are far from his mind now.
See him as sits by the fire, the bloated appendage curled in his lap like an enormous pet. Absently stroking it, the tail writhing in pleasure. The tattered remnants of his robes like folds of loose flesh.
There is a knock at the door. Tentative, faint. He doesn’t even hear it, doesn’t look up until the tail rouses him. He looks blankly as the door lurches from another thump, this time louder. Something sparks in the black depths of his sunken eyes.
He knows what he must do. It commands him, and he willingly serves. The tail requires sustenance. His meager form will no longer suffice.
Gnarled hands grasp the armrests, trying to pull himself up, but the flesh is too wasted. The tail coils around a sconce and gently helps him to his feet. It solidifies into something like a cane. And then, together, they go to greet their visitor.
Uropygium in Play
The Uropygium, more commonly known as the Devil’s Tail, is a parasitic creature that slowly bleeds its host to death. It attacks while a creature is sleeping or otherwise incapacitated (often by its previous host), latching onto the creature’s tailbone with hundreds of teeth. This binding is more uncomfortable than painful, as the uropygium continually secretes numbing fluids onto the incisions; many creatures sleep through the ordeal. Within a day, the host feels no physical discomfort at all.
Once attached, any attempts to harm the Uropygium likewise damages the host. It can only be safely removed as noted on the table below. A removed uropygium will immediately seek a new host, and will happily settle for pets or wildlife in such a scenario. It dies in 1d4+1 days without a host.
Uropygiums inflict Constitution damage on the host. Once per week, the host must make a DC15 CON save. Failure permanently reduces their Constitution score by 1. The host dies when its Constitution drops to zero.
Once the host has its Constitution halved, the Uropygium begins exerting its will directly. Each day, the host must make a DC12 Wisdom save or be dominated for the rest of the day. In this case, they are puppeted by the Uropygium and made to serve it. After, the host recalls only fragments of what occurred.
The party will most likely encounter an Uropygium when it is already attached to a host, and therefore will probably be ignorant of its presence. Depending on its motives (see the What it Wants table below), it may remain out of sight or use the chance meeting as an opportunity to swap hosts.
Dealing with an Uropygium can be an adventure in itself, or a slow burn subplot, as the party must go to great lengths to dispose of the creature.
- HD: 6d8
- AC: 14
- STR 12 DEX 15 CON 14 INT 8 WIS 12 CHA 12
- 1000 XP
Introducing an Uropygium:
- The PCs require the services of Caqihr the hedge wizard. In this instance, the Uropygium conspires a way to isolate one of the party members and swap bodies.
- A merchant/mayor/innkeep has been acting strangely and the party is hired to get to the bottom of it.
- The PCs pass through a somber village where several times a year, a villager slowly wastes away and begins acting erratically.
- A procession of knights escorts a beautiful princess shackled hand and foot to a wagon. The princess pleads for help and promises a great reward.
- The king/queen/baron has been kidnapped from their fortress and has disappeared. In truth, they are under the influence of an Uropygium.
- While the party is bedding down in a forest, an Uropygium creeps into the bedroll of a sleeping character.
Appearance:
- A slimy appendage of mottled green and brown
- A bloated length covered in warts and festering boils
- Rope-like in girth and solidity, covered with patches of greasy black hair
- An enormous armored worm
- A purple cephalopod limb, covered in white suckers and hooked on the end
- A twisted, flaccid length of broken skin that weeps blood from dozens of open mouths
What it is:
- The delegate of an otherworldly other
- A wizard’s experiment gone awry
- The unearthed remnant of a great old one
- The precursor of a demonic invasion
- An ancient king, cursed with an undying hunger
- A pet separated from its master
What it wants:
- To collect the proper nutrients and birth more tails
- To find the rest of its body parts
- To find its way home
- To corrupt the pure of heart
- To indiscriminately feed
- To transcend this form and its parasitic needs
How to remove it:
- A virgin’s kiss applied to the uropygium; the virgin immediately ages 3d10+10 years
- Rubbing it with an ointment made from tiger poppies and the blubber of a horned whale
- Tickling it with the feather of a hippogriff
- It loosens its grip at elevations greater than 10,000 feet and can be safely pried loose
- Burning a rare ivory oak and fanning the Tail with the smoke
- Wrapping it snuggly in a blanket stuffed with the feathers of 100 roosters
How to destroy it:
- Drowning it in divinely blessed waters
- Completely submerging it in acid
- Hacking it into 3 pieces, separating each by at least a league, and burning the pieces
- Stringing it over a fire for 7 days
- Consuming the entirety of it in less than an hour
- Wrapping it in black iron chains and burying it at least 10 feet underground in a flowering meadow
