Phooka

Phooka, which occupy the role in my Faeridor campaign that is normally filled by orcs, are creatures from Celtic mythology able to assume a variety of beast-like forms.  I strongly suspect that the Trollocs of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time saga were inspired by Phooka.  When designing my campaign setting I wanted a scary-looking cannon-fodder monster similar to orcs but more consonant with a Celtic mythology themed setting.

While according to myth, the phooka can shape change into a variety of forms, the goat-headed phooka shown above, illustrated by Alan Lee, captured my imagination and thus became the intransigent form for all the phooka in my campaign.

Phooka is the Welsh name for the creature, but is known as Puca in Old English and is synonymous with the mischievous trickster, Puck, from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

In Faeridor the bestial, carnivorous Phooka, who have inspired the legends of satyrs on Earth, serve the Unseelie Court and run with the Wild Hunt; they haunt dark forests and wild, long-forgotten places of the world  In ages past, the Fomori king, Balor, who is often depicted as a bestial, goat-headed giant (not dissimilar to Orcus), employed Phooka as his servants, but their true allegiance is to their unholy mother-goddess, Shub-Niggurath, Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young.

Shane Mangus's brilliant one-page adventure, Raid on Black Goat Wood, which won the 'best Cthulhu' entry in the 2010 One Page Dungeon Contest dovetails perfectly into my campaign setting.  The adventure pits characters against a cavern filled with 'Dark Satyrs' and features a birthing cave occupied by an aspect of Shub-Niggurath that is spawning the foul beasts.  Now, I'm not shy about ripping off great ideas from where ever I can find them, but I seldom use premade adventures as anything but inspiration.  Raid on Black Goat Wood, however, is so perfectly customized to my campaign I couldn't have written a more perfectly suited adventure myself - it's as if Shane insinuated his grasping tendrils into my cranium and sucked out my brain.  The 'Dark Satyrs' are a perfect fit for the Phooka, right down to their worship of Shub-Niggurath.

I've used Phooka in my games for years now, but have had a problem finding just the right miniatures to represent them.  I've usually ended up using Gnoll and werewolf miniatures to represent my 'beastmen' but I've never found any that reflect what I want the Phooka to look like.  Until recently.  A few months back, Games Workshop released a new line of Beastmen miniatures that look almost exactly the way I envisioned the Phooka:

I had originally thought to paint them with a grey flesh tone to match the Alan Lee illustration that first attracted me to the Phooka, but I went with warmer earth tones for the flesh.  I may  yet buy another box of these and give them the grey skin tone to represent a different breed.

PHOOKA
No. Encountered: 10-100
Armour Class: 15 (5)
Move: 40 ft. (150 ft.)
Hit Dice: 2
Attacks: Bite 1d6 and Gore 1d4 or by weapon
Special: Low Light Vision
Saves: (P)
Intelligence: Low-average
Alignment: Chaotic (evil)
Treasure Type: 1