Villains of the Demon Lord

for Shadow of the Demon Lord ~Credits~

WRITING, Design, Development,
In these dark times, people of bad intent have more freedom and art development:
to indulge in their vices. It’s easy to overlook the occasional Robert J. Schwalb based on original
murder when riots threaten to topple the local government. concepts by Rob Manning
When a dozen corpses turn up every day, there is neither editing and Proofreading: Jay Spight
time nor resources to look into the matter, especially when Graphic Design: Kara Hamilton and Hal Mangold
constables find themselves busy protecting the people who
LAYOUT: kara hamilton
pay their salaries. Add to this the savage storms, earthquakes,
ILLUSTRATIONs: Cagdas Demiralpi
new and vicious plagues, orcs on the march to fight a war of
You Will Feel A Slight Pinch is ©2022 Schwalb Entertainment, LLC.
vengeance, the undead surging out of the Desolation, and the
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worst find they can get away with committing unspeakable Shadow of the Demon Lord, You Will Feel A Slight Pinch,
crimes without fear of retribution. So as the world groans in its Villains of the Demon Lord, Schwalb Entertainment,
and their associated logos are trademarks of
death throes, who will protect the innocent, the defenseless, Schwalb Entertainment, LLC
the weak against the depredations of the depraved?
You Will Feel a Slight Pinch introduces a new and sinister
villain to the world of Demon Lord, one who poses incredible
danger to the good people of Gateway and, perhaps, the lands
beyond: Doctor Touch. In this supplement, you’ll find details on PO Box #12548, Murfreesboro, TN 37129
the character’s history, how he fits into the setting, and a survey info@schwalbentertainment.com
of his ambitions, all to spark ideas for building adventures www.schwalbentertainment.com
centered on him. Doctor Touch can give life, but he’d rather take
it. No appointments necessary, the Doctor will see you now.

The Doctor
“Some say the pineal gland tethers the soul to the body. I have
sampled many such glands, prepared using all the best recipes
from The Modest Manual of Succulents, and I never once
detected a flavor that would lead me to believe that the organ has
such a function.”
—Doctor Touch
One might surmise goblins have little need for physicians;
they themselves are proof against all manner of plagues
and parasites. They run through sewage-stained tunnels
and boldly sift through the mess for rare treasure—a gem-
encrusted ring lost in a gutter, a necklace somehow freed
from the graceful neck it once embraced, a ripe corpse,
not yet three days old. For all their vaunted constitution,
goblins do, from time to time, find themselves in need of
someone who has at least paged through an anatomy book.
Who but a healer could set a broken limb, ease the sharp
pains in the abdomen after eating a sickly rat, or whip up
an unguent for the burns left by an unfortunate encounter
with a temperamental magic-user?
Understand, few people, outside the goblins, would ever
willingly treat goblins for their ailments and even goblins
know better than to meddle with another goblin’s delicious
suffering: the Goblin King gives and the Goblin King gives
some more. A few goblins, though, heard medicine’s siren
call and put aside some years toward exploring the healing
arts, if not to help, then to at least better understand what it
is they might eat.
Doctor Touch has the distinction of being one of the
best-known goblin physicians in all the lands of Rûl,
and the goblins of Gateway, and many others as well, are
positively besotted by this healer, enough to look away from
his strange excesses and bizarre, even by goblin standards,
habits. It is his habits, his penchant for monstrousness that
earn him a place among the villains at large in the lands of
the Empire and beyond.
Modest Beginnings
Touch’s interests in anatomy and making things suffer
took root when he was but a small, runty goblin youth in a
crowd of other small, runty goblins running the sewers of
Gateway and causing no shortage of trouble for the city’s
authorities. Being smaller than the rest, it fell to Touch to
crawl through the tightest sewer tunnels. And what he did
find that he couldn’t hide away in his mouth went to the
bullies who ran the crew. Unable to keep the treasures he
worked so hard to procure led him to find other ways to
keep himself entertained.
An untold number of small, furred, scaled, and squalling
things met protracted ends at his hands. Flayed and
opened, their unwilling sacrifices schooled him in anatomy
and awakened an interest in discovering the internal
mechanisms of other things. It should come to no surprise
that when he came of age, a few years later, he apprenticed
himself to a butcher famed for the low prices he charged
2
for the meats harvested from dubious provenances. Under
his tutelage, Touch learned all about pigs, cows, cats, dogs,
halflings, and other food animals.
It did not take long for Touch to decide he had reached
the limit of learning from beasts’ natural functions. To
understand truly the living body and all its frailties, he
turned his attention to exploring substances. Naturally, this
led to experimentation with various poisons, some made
from heavy metals, others from the juices of certain plants.
No one was more surprised than he to learn that some of
his creations proved useful as remedies—he managed to
cure the famous “Lady of Rot” of an unfortunate case of
syphilis that had already claimed her nose and had left the
palms of her hands scabrous and weeping, and whipped
up a concoction that put an end to the Blue Piss Blight of
Lower Quarter. From these successes, people referred to the
weird goblin as doctor and flocked to his doors to cure any
and every malady. No one brushed the crotch mites out of
one’s pubic mound with a steadier hand. His foul-tasting
pink slime could settle the angriest stomach. He became
famous in Gateway and even the elite members of society
would darken his door when faced with an embarrassing
complaint or two.
A Secret Life
Doctor Touch’s success as a physician and healer keeps
him in funds and his side business of selling poisons
to Gateway’s criminals elevates him from comfortable
to downright rich, but he has never wanted money and
certainly not fame. He craves knowledge, to understand
why the living live and discover the limits of a living body
before death enfolds it in its cold, cold embrace. His
patients and clients cannot themselves feed his mind, so he
advances his understanding by other means.
Few people spend time in the Valence Holt Cemetery;
it offers cold comfort for those seeking to make peace
with lost loved ones. The graveyard might be the oldest,
but it has become one of the most neglected, ever since
bodies started going missing a few years back. Authorities
blamed the disappearances on degenerate thieves or a
would-be necromancer and cautioned against interring
any more dead there. Instead of high society cadavers, the
graveyard became the final resting place of those paupers
and indigents who reached the end of their days in the city.
It’s cheaper to dispose of them here and the diggers don’t
bother going more than a couple feet into the dirt.
Such a place is ideal for Touch. He maintains a network
of tunnels and chambers under the graveyard to keep
himself supplied with corpses for his experimentations.
When he exhausts a body, he merely has to dig upward and
let fall a new carcass into his hands.
What does Doctor Touch do with these bodies? A better
question might be what does he not do with them? Touch
violates the dead in every conceivable way. He takes them
apart. He reassembles them. He boils and burns them.
He “knows” them and melts their faces with acid in the
rare cases when he feels shame from his tenderness. More
than anything, he learns from them and has managed
 to revive a few using nothing more than chemicals and
judicious shocks of electricity. Yes, they show themselves
poor conversationalists, being more or less brain dead,
but he believes he is close to triumphing over death in a
purely scientific matter, with none of the foolishness or
requirements for using magic.
Unassuming Evil
Touch has come far from the sewers running below the city
streets and he presents himself as a respectable member
of Gateway society. His goblin ancestry merely accentuates
his standing, as counting him as a friend and confidante
has become something of a fad among the city’s upper
crust. Access to such people has led to the filling of Touch’s
wardrobe with much finery, and he’s gained a taste for the
finer things as a result. He is never seen without a smart
vest, breeches, fanciful hat, and pomander to keep at bay
the city’s less delicate odors.
Beneath all the satin and silk, though, stands a goblin
of 3-1/2 feet tall, with thin arms and legs, each ending
in weirdly long digits. He has dull orange skin, pinched
features, and a long, pointed nose, the top of which being
lightly furred with curly black hairs. He has bushy hair
growing in a ring around the shiny crown that hasn’t known
hair since he nearly lost the top of his head to a falling grate
long ago in his youth.
His evil acts blackened his essence and left lasting
marks upon his person, marks he does his best to keep
concealed lest someone suspect him of wickedness. Of
late, he has taken to wearing long-sleeved shirts regardless
of the season to cover the dewclaws that grow from his
wrists and ankles.
Barbers of Saint Holt
The Doctor pays the Barbers of Saint Holt good silver to
pilfer bodies from other boneyards around the city. These
grave robbers have earned an unsavory reputation that goes
past the usual crimes of theft and murder and extends into
the grim trades of kidnapping, torture, and terrorism. It
was nothing for the Barbers to take up with the malicious
goblin, as his requests were quite pedestrian compared to
the acts they normally committed.
Thull Dham leads the gang and, while he rarely gets
his hands dirty, he always knows where his people are and
what they’re up to in “his” city. Thull Dham appreciates
the riches flowing into his pockets, but he owes Touch
no loyalty. If given a better offer, he’ll betray him without
hesitation.
The gang leader has seen the backside of his forties and
feels the weight of his accumulated years in his back and
knees. He’s human, with pale skin bearing the permanent
stains of his trade on his hands and fingers. Under a thin
tangle of gray hair, he has a wide, pink face that has never
been troubled by a razor as he can’t grow any facial hair at
all. He has names of women tattooed on his forearms; he
makes it a point to remember his victims.
3
THULL DHAM DIFFICULTY 10
Size 1 human
Perception 13 (+3)
Defense 13 (brigandine); Health 28; Insanity 5; Corruption 6
Strength 12 (+2), Agility 9 (–1), Intellect 13 (+3), Will 11 (+1)
Speed 10
Cruel Killer Thull Dham makes attack rolls against
frightened targets with 1 boon.
ATTACK OPTIONS
Dagger (melee) +2 with 1 boon (1d3 plus 2d6)
20+ The target becomes impaired for 1 minute and, while
impaired in this way, the target grants 1 boon on attack
rolls made against it.
Pistol (medium range) –1 with 1 boon (4d6)
SPECIAL ACTIONS
Dire Threat As a minor activity, Dham makes a threat
against one creature that can hear him and is within short
range of him. If Dham then attacks the target and gets
a success on the attack roll, the attack deals maximum
damage and the target becomes frightened. A target
frightened in this way can make a Will challenge roll at
the end of each of its turns and removes the affliction on
a success.
Hunting the Doctor
Gateway’s people have no idea what Doctor Touch does
when not seeing patients, but the effects of his work have
begun to show throughout the city, signs that might be
strong enough to have the player characters cross paths
with him.
Missing Bodies
Gateway sees the comings and goings of untold numbers of
people all the time. Often, newcomers lack the funds, skills,
or merit to earn a living and thus end up begging on the
streets, where no one besides other beggars notices when
someone vanishes. When Touch needs a living subject,
he can do worse than sending his lackeys to snatch one of
these wretches; he’s confident that the authorities will do
nothing. After all, he’s doing the city a service by clearing
away the indigents.
His reliance on the lowest class to keep him supplied in
living subjects could land Touch in trouble, especially after
his minions grab the wrong man—a man of some means
and standing in the community but beset by madness that
sometimes causes him to forget his name and go wandering
in the city. After he disappears, his sister becomes worried
and offers a considerable reward for information about him
and three times as much for his safe return.
Poisoner’s Trade
A rash of poisoned nobles throws the city into chaos.
Suddenly, the members of the elite who have so far escaped
feeling their throats swell shut, or blood and liquefied
organs spraying from their orifices, have chosen now to
check in on ailing relations in distant lands, to take in a
bit of fresh country air, or go on that retreat they had been
planning for years. The city reels as its moneyed class flees
for safer lands and the leaders pressure the constable to
track down the poisoners and bring them to justice. Despite
the additional funds and governmental support, the
 investigators find every lead taking them to dead ends, and
still the numbers of the dead mount. It becomes clear that if
the killer or killers are to be found, the city needs help.
Naturally, Touch is to blame for the poisonings. After
being a mascot for the rich and powerful, he’s decided to
settle the scores with all the people who slighted, insulted,
or mocked him. Using parts harvested from corpses, he’s
created servants to infiltrate the targets’ homes, toxify their
wine, and then dissolve.
The city would show its considerable gratitude to
anyone who could put a stop to these murders and bring
the culprit to justice.
Runaway Hogs
The Doctor keeps five hogs (medium animals) in a
pen near his laboratory and uses them to rid himself
of evidence of his crimes, and of those who might have
discovered said evidence. Unfortunately for the pigs, Touch
has no consistent feeding schedule and sometimes the hogs
go hungry. And if the hogs get hungry enough, well, they’ll
break free and start eating what they can catch—urchins,
little old ladies, and other typical victims.
Since Gateway doesn’t have a large hog population—
local ordinance disallows them in city bounds as the city
has trouble enough with filth—the sudden appearance
of violent, half-starved, wildly aggressive swine is no little
cause for concern. The player characters might, as a result,
find themselves hunting down the pigs, and then tracking
them to their point of origin, which delivers them into the
clutches of none other than Doctor Touch himself.
Dreadful Escalation
Relishing the chance to work on living prey, Doctor Touch
emerges under the cover of night, haunting the alleyways
near the cemetery. From the shadows, he brings down
patients with poisoned darts loosed from blowgun and then
brings them into his lair via a wheeled cart. Once inside
the chambers, he ties his subjects down and dissects them,
after the drug has worn off; he loves the screams. Once he
tried to actually kill someone with a thousand cuts, but
could only manage a mere 788 before Father Death put an
end to the suffering.
While Doctor Touch might have great fun with one
of the player characters, such treatment as only he can
provide would be wasted on a protagonist. Instead,
select someone loved by one or more player characters
and have this person disappear under suspicious
circumstances. Then, Doctor Touch might cross paths
with the player characters and discover their connection.
As an experiment, he might mail them bits and pieces of
their missing friend—a nipple first, a bit of tongue next, a
collection of toes each dressed with a ribbon.
4
Facing
the Doctor
The group might confront the Doctor anywhere in Gateway
or beyond, but the final encounter should take place in the
half-dozen reeking, macabre chambers under the cemetery.
Any attempt to corner him sees him make use of a ring he
purchased for a small fortune from a wizard he cured of
an embarrassing skin disease a few years back. The ring
whisks him to a mystic circle inscribed in the floor of his
office and there he packs up his supplies and vanishes from
Gateway a few hours later.
The Doctor’s
Chambers
If the group can catch him in his lair, they’re in for a
delightful time.
Hidden Entrance
Doctor Touch normally comes and goes from his lair by a
wooden door set in the side of a hill about sixty feet away.
Bushes and vines make the door hard to spot.
Beyond it is a vault turned pigsty. Liquefied shit, dirt,
bones, clothing scraps, metal buttons and the like cover
the floor. The hogs, if they haven’t yet escaped, are here.
They fear their master but are aggressive to anyone else,
attacking right away.
Across the pigsty stands another wooden door that has
“Keep Out” written in a dozen languages on its surface.
Main Entrance
A tomb at about the center of the graveyard grants access to
the central chamber below. The tomb is a square building
built from gray stone blocks with a slanting roof edged with
skulls. A bronze barred gate stands closed in the front with a
heavy padlock and chain securing it. Through the gate, one
can see a dais on which rests and rectangular sarcophagus.
Removing the sarcophagus lid reveals the remains of
an old coffin and hole dug down into the earth. The hole
winds downward for about 12 feet and ends at the office.
Office
Lanterns burning fragrant oil light the office. A writing desk
stands at the center of the room (how Touch got it down
here is anyone’s guess) buried under papers, ink pots, quills,
and bones. The papers hold accounts of his experiments.
One document goes on at great length tracking the survival
rate of mice surgically embedded in the de-acidified
stomach of a local man, while another details the mental
effects of a child forced to eat her father alive. Other, worse
studies can be discovered deeper in the pile.
Against the walls are several shelves loaded with books
on medicine, anatomy, herbalism, and the like. A circle of
runes has been drawn on the floor off to side.
 A door behind the desk opens to the cells. The door has
a trap. Anyone using the handle on the right to open the
door causes a plate to swing open from above that releases
a tomb scarab swarm to do what it does best—eat. A
hidden handle on the left actually causes the door to open
to the laboratory.
The Laboratory
From either the office or the pigsty, one can enter a 40-foot
diameter operating theater, a circular chamber with tiers
crowded with seats that descend to an open area at the
bottom. The top has two dozen cages of various sizes that
might have any number of living and dead victims inside
them. Coffin shaped holes pock the ceiling and a few intact
coffins can be seen amidst them as well.
Blood, shit, piss, semen, chemicals, and any number
of other liquids and solids cover everything in this untidy
place. It’s here that Doctor Touch’s lair consists of six
chambers arranged in a grid, two across and three deep.
Each chamber is about 30 feet wide and across.
Touch keeps a couple of broken henchmen here (as
3 medium monsters). One wears a wooden bucket on
his head and through the two eyes one can make out the
burning eyes of a fanatic. A second has the rotting corpse
of a dead infant stitched to its naked breast, while the body
of the third appears to be a scar map showing the way to
nightmare.
In addition to the henchmen/helpers, Doctor Touch
makes his stand here.
DOCTOR TOUCH DIFFICULTY 100
Size 1/2 faerie
Perception 16 (+6); shadowsight
Defense 15; Health 40; Insanity 8; Corruption 9
Strength 10 (+0), Agility 15 (+5), Intellect 14 (+4), Will 11 (+1)
Speed 10
Immune damage from disease; charmed, diseased
Iron Vulnerability Touch is impaired while he is in contact
with iron.
ATTACK OPTIONS
Scalpel (melee) +5 with 2 boons (3d6 and Pain and
Open Wide)
Pain Touch coats all of his tools with special toxins that
cause incredible pain. Any creature that takes damage
from his scalpel attack must succeed on a Will challenge
roll with 1 bane or become stunned until the end of its
next turn and then impaired for 1 minute thereafter.
Open Wide When Doctor Touch rolls a 17 or higher on
the die for an attack using his scalpel, he slices open his
victim to reveal something interesting hidden under the
flesh. The target takes an extra 3d6 damage and grants
1 boon on rolls to attack it until it heals 10 damage or
more. Furthermore, each creature other than the doctor
or his allies that sees this injury must succeed on a Will
challenge roll with 1 bane or gain 1 Insanity, while the
target gains 1d3 Insanity.
SPECIAL ATTACKS
Double Attack Touch makes two scalpel attacks.
SPECIAL ACTIONS
Poison Spray When Touch takes damage, use a triggered
action to spray poison at one creature within short range.
The target must make an Agility challenge roll, taking 3d6
damage and becoming poisoned for 1 minute on a failure,
or just taking half the damage on a success.