Shadows!
(Copy and pasting from prior post).
A creature "made" of smoke that can assume the form of any humanoid and transform at will. A stalker/infiltration/scouting unit! Would ideally go fast, be disguised or hard to see, and non-solid in "smoke form" allowing it to easily traverse obstacles.
In other words, a creature that serves as a scout, hunter/stalker, and infiltration. It's natural form Is more or less a dense cloud of smoke that can pass through obstacles with ease that a human could not, like small gaps. It can transform into a humanoid form to imitate other humans and serve an infiltration rule.
Ideally it can speak like a human and have combat capabilities (likely via transformed claws and other similar weapons), be hard/impossible to harm while in smoke form, and be hard to spot in smoke form. But all this stuff is secondary priority compared to the main functions.
And if we don't do this now, we can always do it later.
EDIT: To clarify: Try making one or two of the above from cultists. Maybe with some thematic burning-until-they-turn-into-smoke thing (unless that's too similar to DH1)
Raise the cult organization to low so that Sacred Wordbearers are above ordinary cultists.
Unless anyone has any objections, this will happen.
Make those shadow/smoke creatures and have them scout the area.
Have the cult focus on upgrading our base of operations
You decide it best to focus the cultists efforts on expanding your labyrint, as that Fellshore may serve as a base of operations from which to spread your insidious influence. They dig twisting tunnels, perplexing passages, and confounding chambers beneath the earth, with hidden entrances throughout the village, allowing them to put on a crude semblance of normality whilst dark deeds take place beneath their feet. Some tunnels are dug too close to the lake, and flood, whilst others run up against impenetrable bedrock- impenetrable with their current tools, at least. Your altar is moved into a chamber in the center of the labyrinth, where the villagers sacrifice animals and praise your name- flattering, but hardly filling. What little power you receive from these actions you return to them as a reward, in the form of a diabolic ecstasy. Your altar becomes a den of debauchery as your cultists lose themselves to the dark pleasures, engaging in feasting, fighting, and fucking. You regard these activities with bemusement, eventually deciding
-This is as it should be. Your followers shall be rewarded for their worship, and thus fall deeper into darkness.
-You will tolerate this behaviour, though not encourage it.
-This is unbecoming of your dark name. Evil is not necessarily chaos; your worshippers must be disciplined and diligent at all times.
Whilst your followers are constructing the maze, you work on creating a new minion to serve as your eyes and ears in the world around you. You select two cultists, and have them tied to a stake in the village square and burnt alive. As their screams fill your ears, you pour increasing amounts of evil energy into the flames, until the smoke rising from the fire does not drift off, but moves with purpose, flowing
into the sacrifices. Soon the two villagers are entirely surrounded by thick clouds of black smoke, their screams muffled by the sound of coughing. Eventually the screams stop, and the flames die. The smoke, however, does not disperse, but remains glued to the now-dead villagers, their souls now trapped within, unable to ascend
(or descend, or move sideways). You apply the finishing touches, binding the souls and the smoke together forever, and making their minds absolutely loyal to your command.
You bid the smoke-creatures to stand before you, and the amorphous clouds drift down from the pyre, then reform themselves into crude facsimiles of their former appearances. Unfortunately from close up they are quite easy to distinguish from real humans, but perhaps wearing a cloak or from a distance they might fool someone? For now, you command them to travel out into the countryside and watch for travellers and report on the state of surrounding villages, which they do.
Their efforts soon pay off, as one of them returns after a few days with word that several people have been seen moving between the villages for some unknown purpose, and that one of them is headed this way. They will be here in a few hours- you should immediately prepare to
-Eat them. Who cares what they want?
-Break their minds and find out what they want by force.
-Disguise your takeover of the village as best you can, and have the villagers act totally normal.
-Leave the village. Your presence here must not be detected, lest all your efforts at subtlety go to waste.
-Do something else.
Required: Choice regarding cultists behaviour.
Action regarding the coming visitor.
Optional: Name the new smoke-spectre-things.
Note that these are fairly powerful creatures, having been made as close to the specifications given as possible. Unfortunately disguising smoke perfectly as a human would require either substantially more power- more than it would be worth, really- or giving the creatures an understanding of illusion magic, which requires having some followers or books that know illusion magic. (You are capable of disguising yourself, but don't really know how to teach mortals to do so... it's like teaching someone how to breathe, or digest food- it's just an instinctive/automatic thing, you know?)
Name: Nokluvgn
Age: 2.5 months (edited to 2.5, don't know why I said 2.75 before)
Physical might: 27 (-4: creating smoke-things)
Mental might: 21 (-8: creating smoke-things)
Followers:80 (78 villagers, 2 Wordbearers) (-2: sacrificed for smoke-thing creation)
Slaves: 1 - One mind-broken priest.
Servants: 3 - One brutewolf, two smoke-spectre-things.
Cults: The New Way: Low organization. 80 members in Fellshore (78 villagers, 2 Wordbearers)
Power level: 14
Of which: 8 spent digging a labyrinth beneath Fellshore, 1 spent worshipping you, 1 spent finding and sacrificing random animals.
Resources: 0
Fortresses: Fellshore: A small fishing village nestled between a small lake and a forest, now undermined with tunnels and chambers forming a twisted maze, lit with smoky torches, the shadows forming strange shapes in the corner of your eyes.
Small tunnel network: increases secrecy of local cult.
Small (hidden) altar: A suitable place to sacrifice to you and praise your dark name.