The Motorcyclops! Lone Biker of the Apocalypse
“That night, I had a dream. I drifted off thinking about happiness, birth and new life, But now I was haunted by a vision of... He was horrible. The lone biker of the apocalypse. A man with all the powers of Hell at his command. He could turn the day into night and lay to waste everything in his path.
He was especially hard on little things—the helpless and the gentle creatures. He left a scorched earth in his wake, befouling even the sweet desert breeze that whipped across his brow. I didn’t know where he came from or why. I didn’t know if he was dream or vision. But I feared that I myself had unleashed him.”
Art by Nate Treme, who is currently offering drawings for donations of $20 or more to CADA.
The motorcyclops is like a centaur, but with the head, arms, and torso of a cyclops and the body and wheels of a motorcycle. The motorcyclops came to me in neither dream nor nightmare. I thought of the portmanteau first, and the monster flowed from that. However, it isn’t enough to know simply what a monster looks like. What does it want? How does it get what it wants? Who broke its heart? You must dig deeper.
Because the motorcyclops is already a hybridized creation, I decided to take inspiration from two different sources. Well, somewhat different—they are both villains in Coen Brothers films. Leonard Smalls (played by Randall "Tex" Cobb) is the heavily-armored “lone biker of the apocalypse” from Raising Arizona. He is a cigar-chomping bounty hunter with grenades strapped to his chest and shotguns holstered on his back. He is a fairly one note villain. He has a tattoo which reads “Mamma didn’t love me.” Big Dan Teague (played by John Goodman) is a one-eyed con artist posing as a Bible salesman but is actually a klansman from O Brother Where Art Thou. Big Dan’s smooth-talking bluster didn’t immediately jibe with Leonard Small’s stoic psychopathy, but these types of contradictions can be fertile creative grounds. Big Dan is based on the cyclops, Polyphemus, but—unlike Polyphemus—Ulysses doesn’t pull one over on Big Dan. Big Dan eats Ulysses’ lunch at a picnic before walloping him upside the cranium with a tree branch. The two villains share a core of violence and hatred; they just differ on style.
If you meet the motorcyclops on the road, kill it before it kills you. The motorcyclops is clever. It approaches only the most bedraggled and desperate travelers, particularly those who appear lost. It feigns caution, meekness even, telling the travelers not to fear—the motorcyclops is a friend. It helps the travelers with whatever they need: food, fuel, directions. It ingratiates itself. If the travelers are devoted to a religion or ideology, the motorcyclops convinces them that it is a fellow traveler. In truth, the motorcyclops feeds the travelers false direction to lure them to its pack. Matrilineal packs of motorcyclopes dwell in the burnt-out truck stops dotting the highways. The motorcyclops enslave the unlucky travelers led to their isolated strongholds, eating any who refuse to submit. Some escape, but not for long. Motorcyclopes are quick, and their bounty hunters are ruthless. If you manage to escape, they will send a motorcyclops bounty hunter out after you. The motorcyclops will run you down to the end of the earth. Trust your eyes and not your ears when you meet the motorcyclops. It means you great harm.
Here are motorcyclops stats for Old-School Essentials (based on the Cyclops stats), but it shouldn’t be too hard rework these to your system of choice. I also include a Mien table, à la Troika, because those are so helpful for running monsters.
Motorcyclops
AC 5 [14], HD 13 (58hp), Att 2 x shotgun (2d8) or 1 x grenade (5d6), THAC0 10 [+9], MV 210’ (70’), SV D4 W5 P6 B5 S8 (13), ML 9, AL Lawful, XP 2,300, NA 1 (1d4), TT E + 5,000gp
Attack Penalty: -2 penalty on all hit rolls, due to limited depth perception
Grenade Throwing: up to 200’.
Trickery: Use disguise or trickery to gain the trust of victims.
Intolerant: Of other religious views and small, gentle creatures.
Mien
1. Gregarious
2. Boasting
3. Stalking
4. Hunting
5. Urbane
6. Impassioned
