The Leakings of Ahul Puh
The Leakings of Ahul Puh is a manifestation of a plague-entity that has reached out through a human corpse in order to spread decay in the world. It craves nothing more than to pull the living to it and dissolve them slowly in its core, rendering reality down to the nothingness it should be, one person at a time. As with other articles, this piece will focus on where the Leakings currently stand in Pendant World, where they came from, and how best you might use them on the table.
The Present
The Leakings are an odd beast. They are a demonic entity, complete with special manifestation rules, Jigoku no Jinmenken. Slow Dissolution is indeed a melee move (and a strong one at that), but its primary use is to attack models that the Leakings have already been pulled in using Hunger, their 10" (!) ranged attack that pulls the target right into base-contact. With these two abilities, this model becomes a sort of spider pulling enemies into its web - and anchoring them there while it feasts.
but focus on ranged attacks rather than on tearing their opponents up in melee like the
Though the Leakings are Achingly Slow (-2" to movement is a harsh penalty!), they have a few unconventional ways to get around. Slide Towards allows them to warp to a contracted model within 10", and the invest Slide Into grants them Low Priority if they happen to jump to a friendly insidious model. Combine this with Hiding Within, and the Leakings have a way to move quickly around the board while not creating witnesses - until they choose to strike out with Hunger.
Being a demon, they also have a special manifestation rule - the Abyssal Manifestation. Rather than deploying their slow-moving host body on the table, they can appear whenever a contracted model is destroyed. If you're creative, you can have the Leakings pop out in all kinds of interesting ways: being instantly ready to pull enemy models away from objectives, deploying already in range of a Slide Towards / Hiding Within combo, or even just placing them further up the table than they'd be able to move with their lumbering 4" of movement.
The Leakings are also on the tough side, with a mammoth Flesh of 8 and a defence reaction that actually reduces the attacker's modifiers if they are immobilized (perhaps due to Slow Dissolution?) or contracted. The actual defence roll is an average 7, but between their high TN, incredible amount of damage absorption, and Writhing Pain's special penalty, they are much beefier than they might first appear.
The Past
Unlike a great many models in Pendant World, the Leakings have no real past cognate. Instead, they were born when one of my playtesters expressed an interest in the Latin "theme" Ravenous Beyond was developing with Andres Salinas and the Devotee of Tezcatlipoca / High Priest of Hun Came. I felt that I should include a demon from that area of the world, and dipped into the cthonic lore of the Maya people. Ahul Puh was a passing reference I found to an entity in Xibalba, the terrible Mayan underworld, and a bit of investigation (and, I admit, abstraction) helped me place it as a sort of plague-bringing entity. What better archetype to represent one of the beings from beyond space and time, hungering for the annihilation of all?
It didn't take much after that to figure out that I wanted the manifestation of this plague-entity to be something that was leaking, seeping, oozing into the world through a human host - and so, the first form of the Leakings of Ahul Puh was born.
Leader Kit
The Leakings of Ahul Puh is a relatively self-sufficient demon, so there is not a lot of leader kit (yet) that really benefits it. Andres Salinas may be interested in giving it Supplies, and The Koken might do the same on top of providing it with Prior Directions to make the Hunger / Slow Dissolution combo easier to pull off. Dr. Paul Abberline's Breaker of Sight could be useful, but between the Leaking's manifestation rules and Slide Into / Hiding Within, you can probably find more useful carriers of that particular kit.
Dr. Abberline is probably the best leader to take the Leakings with (at least for now) because of his synergy with demonic models, but that has more to do with his Implement of Binding (to move the Leakings around), Undertow (to spread contracted status), and ability to spread Rupture (to slow its enemies down) than any of his kit.
Conclusion
The Leakings of Ahul Puh were an interesting creature to design, especially after I knew that I wanted a demon that would specialize in ranged attacks. It couldn't be the conventional "glass cannon" sort of model, because demonic entities are supposed to be tough as hell (pardon the pun) to deal with. Instead, it became a durable monster that pulls its enemies to it, rooting them in place while it dissolves them into fleshy slag. As I've mentioned before, true demons in Pendant World are incomprehensible entities from beyond space and time, so Ahul Puh had to manifest in the world through some token of decay - and what better way to do that than through a corpse dead of disease?
If you're looking for an unconventional ranged threat that can destabilize an enemy's line and put their objective-holding in jeopardy, then the Leakings of Ahul Puh might be exactly what you're looking for.
And just as a reminder, I'm leaving the link to the Pendant World playtest documents here. All feedback is welcome!
The Present
The Leakings are an odd beast. They are a demonic entity, complete with special manifestation rules, Jigoku no Jinmenken. Slow Dissolution is indeed a melee move (and a strong one at that), but its primary use is to attack models that the Leakings have already been pulled in using Hunger, their 10" (!) ranged attack that pulls the target right into base-contact. With these two abilities, this model becomes a sort of spider pulling enemies into its web - and anchoring them there while it feasts.but focus on ranged attacks rather than on tearing their opponents up in melee like the
Though the Leakings are Achingly Slow (-2" to movement is a harsh penalty!), they have a few unconventional ways to get around. Slide Towards allows them to warp to a contracted model within 10", and the invest Slide Into grants them Low Priority if they happen to jump to a friendly insidious model. Combine this with Hiding Within, and the Leakings have a way to move quickly around the board while not creating witnesses - until they choose to strike out with Hunger.
Being a demon, they also have a special manifestation rule - the Abyssal Manifestation. Rather than deploying their slow-moving host body on the table, they can appear whenever a contracted model is destroyed. If you're creative, you can have the Leakings pop out in all kinds of interesting ways: being instantly ready to pull enemy models away from objectives, deploying already in range of a Slide Towards / Hiding Within combo, or even just placing them further up the table than they'd be able to move with their lumbering 4" of movement.
The Leakings are also on the tough side, with a mammoth Flesh of 8 and a defence reaction that actually reduces the attacker's modifiers if they are immobilized (perhaps due to Slow Dissolution?) or contracted. The actual defence roll is an average 7, but between their high TN, incredible amount of damage absorption, and Writhing Pain's special penalty, they are much beefier than they might first appear.
The Past
Unlike a great many models in Pendant World, the Leakings have no real past cognate. Instead, they were born when one of my playtesters expressed an interest in the Latin "theme" Ravenous Beyond was developing with Andres Salinas and the Devotee of Tezcatlipoca / High Priest of Hun Came. I felt that I should include a demon from that area of the world, and dipped into the cthonic lore of the Maya people. Ahul Puh was a passing reference I found to an entity in Xibalba, the terrible Mayan underworld, and a bit of investigation (and, I admit, abstraction) helped me place it as a sort of plague-bringing entity. What better archetype to represent one of the beings from beyond space and time, hungering for the annihilation of all?
It didn't take much after that to figure out that I wanted the manifestation of this plague-entity to be something that was leaking, seeping, oozing into the world through a human host - and so, the first form of the Leakings of Ahul Puh was born.
Leader Kit
The Leakings of Ahul Puh is a relatively self-sufficient demon, so there is not a lot of leader kit (yet) that really benefits it. Andres Salinas may be interested in giving it Supplies, and The Koken might do the same on top of providing it with Prior Directions to make the Hunger / Slow Dissolution combo easier to pull off. Dr. Paul Abberline's Breaker of Sight could be useful, but between the Leaking's manifestation rules and Slide Into / Hiding Within, you can probably find more useful carriers of that particular kit.
Dr. Abberline is probably the best leader to take the Leakings with (at least for now) because of his synergy with demonic models, but that has more to do with his Implement of Binding (to move the Leakings around), Undertow (to spread contracted status), and ability to spread Rupture (to slow its enemies down) than any of his kit.
Conclusion
The Leakings of Ahul Puh were an interesting creature to design, especially after I knew that I wanted a demon that would specialize in ranged attacks. It couldn't be the conventional "glass cannon" sort of model, because demonic entities are supposed to be tough as hell (pardon the pun) to deal with. Instead, it became a durable monster that pulls its enemies to it, rooting them in place while it dissolves them into fleshy slag. As I've mentioned before, true demons in Pendant World are incomprehensible entities from beyond space and time, so Ahul Puh had to manifest in the world through some token of decay - and what better way to do that than through a corpse dead of disease?
If you're looking for an unconventional ranged threat that can destabilize an enemy's line and put their objective-holding in jeopardy, then the Leakings of Ahul Puh might be exactly what you're looking for.
And just as a reminder, I'm leaving the link to the Pendant World playtest documents here. All feedback is welcome!
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