|
Hello everyone, new to these forums.
I am building a dungeon that revolves around the alienist class from 3.x. She is a wizard/alienist that uses the powers of the forgotten "gods" to create aberrations and monstrosities, because she's insane and thinks that she is finding a way to "cure" the world of its plain-ness.
It's been underground for an unknown number of years (thousands at least) in which the boss (the alienist) had had plenty of time to go completely insane. It's a 12th level dungeon. I have encounters with most everything that is crazy/chaos related in the Bestiary, but I am trying to come up with custom monsters that the alienist would have created in her "laboratory".
All ideas are welcome, as long as they are legal. My group is smart enough to call it out when a monster has an ability or such that clearly breaks the rules.
thanks in advance!
EDIT: She's been kept alive by one of these patrons for so long to fill some obscure purpose that only he understands. I'm leaving open the reason why for a plot hook for later, in case i want her to come back for revenge
There's no real need to create new monsters, just re-skin old ones in horrifying ways. A giant is a bunch of people who's limbs were broken and as they healed were origamied together into one "creature", just as an example.
One of the Alienists servants is a Summoner, who appears pregnant, but summons her eidolon by tearing open her womb and a fetus-looking thing (still attached by it's umbilical cord, which both use as a garrote) flies around biting people.
It's old, but Gates of Firestorm peak is exactly what you're looking for. Kepp the story, swap out the stat blocks or look for a conversion.
Giant mountain of madness with an alienist in the middle.
|
|
That's pretty much what I've been doing, except where I add fluff like the stitched giant, i give it a special attack based on that, and adjust the cr if needed. I love the eidolon fetus idea! I'll also definitely look into Gates of Firestorm Peak. The story probably won't work, since this is a small section of a much larger adventure, and already has a story to go along, but the ideas will probably be perfect.
|
|
The Skum is pretty much a creature ripped from the pages of The Shadow Over Innsmouth. So build a village of them into the dungeon. Have them worshiping a Gibbering Mouther with the Advanced and Giant Templates added to it. Or a Froghemoth.
Create a few Worm That Walks creatures. Don't just use the sample one, but make a few of them yourself at varying CRs using the template.
Each time the party tries to rest give them a 75% chance of being plagued by extreme nightmares so that they're fatigued. If they're not plagued by nightmares, their dreams are full of frantic, otherworldly music. Have them eventually meet a bard, old, disheveled, and clearly having not slept in quite a while, who warns them of the horrors that lurk in dreams and the night. He explains that should he stop playing when the terrors come, then they will devour us all. Have him beg for their protection for just a single night, so that he may get some sleep, and then throw a few Qlippoths at them in the night if they choose to help him. If they fail, or if they refuse to help, have them suffer nightmares with no chance of restful sleep. If they succeed, the chance of nightmares drops to 25%.(The Music of Erich Zann)
Lovecraftian doesn't just have to be grotesqueries and monstrous creatures. There's a lot of his stuff that simply works on the fear of the unknown. Anything so terrifying or otherworldy as to drive someone insane would work, it doesn't have to be just creatures.
I already have a lot of scenarios of fear and nightmares like you described. The encounters you came up with perfectly compliment the ones I have done up, I had a group of chokers living in the dungeon, some of which would help the party with the proper diplo checks, but I like the Skum idea, especially the Gibbering Mouther part.
The person who will give them the idea to explore the dungeon is a scholar who went insane from frantic dreams that he believed started to become real, and he now thinks he has to read the same book over and over or the "terrors" will devour him.
The bedroom of the alienist herself, where the final encounter takes place, is full of shadows, haunting music, and screams. Every other round, the shadows clear up and the floor, walls, and ceiling become flesh, with eyes scattered about, and cthulu-esque tentacles that will grapple the PC's and secrete a mucus that will act as the spell insanity mist, but only on the grappled PC.
Throw a lovable NPC in the group so that you can have boxed text murder him/her in an absolutely horrific fashion.
Someone opens up the vault that should not be opened or peaks inside the book which should not be named and have the air shimmer around the NPC, an unearthly wail escape his/her lips and its body get instantly ripped inside out...
... and there is nothing the party can do to stop it.
Lovecraftian Fiction isn't about a noble hero's quest to conquer evil, it is more the story of someone who stood as a mute witness to the unspeakable evil, unable to intervene, lucky to be alive, only they don't feel lucky, because when you stare into the abyss... the abyss stares back.
now, I don't suggest you make victory unattainable, just, if you are trying to create a lovecraftian vibe, there must be moments of horror that the group feels dirty and disheartened for having witnessed, and was powerless to prevent. Which is why I suggest a love-able but ultimately disposable NPC.
|
|
That is completely awesome. I can have that be the main NPC that gives them the quest! One of the PC's reads his book, to see if they can help figure out how to help him, he becomes his regular sane self for the first time in years, and then is ripped inside out. The party then inexplicably knows where the source of this "evil" lies.
I remember there being a Lovecraft story about rats in the walls... how to use something like that to freak out the party? INVISIBLE SWARMS. They can hear them, but never see them -- unless they throw flour or ink or powder on them and then HOLY CRAP!!! ...if you like, you could have the swarms for whole sessions chittering and getting progressively closer... every time the party tries to rest or rememorize spells they creep out and bite the party all over... they are always hiding in pipes, or the walls... they never... ever... let the party sleep. They might find traces of accounts of other victims in the area(s) they lurk... like a skeleton clumped in a corner with scratches in the wall saying in big letters "THEY WON'T EVER LET ME SLEEP" -- Eventually the party will run out of area effect attacks... and that's when they start getting REALLY AGGRESSIVE.
You can make things worse by it never being totally clear what exactly it is a swarm OF... meditate on an awful noise they make (that is when they are not completely silent) ... salt to taste.
Reskin a few hags - make a coven. There's your nightmares... And dreamworld dungoen (that illution spell they can cast)
Oozes, reskin them make them into dream versions of the players or their famile. That embrace them in a deadly hug. If damaged - more familie members appear - each looking older and older - until they appear like dried up mummies. Crumbling to dust when they die...
I ran a homebrew Call of Cthulhu adventure not too long ago, and came up with this Starspawn. If you think your alienist would have made something like this, feel free to use it. (The creature listed below the starspawn is another creature I used as a miniboss, summoned from the Necronomicon).
|
|
Thanks guys, I am having a lot of fun putting this thing together now. The mad bard its definitely going in, as well as the skum village and the invisible swarms. I have a lot reskinned oozes already. Im changing the quest giver to the mad bard, and his horrible unstoppable death will be fun to play/drag out.
Dot
I don't know if this would actually work, and it's only an option if your party makes a physical map as they go along.
Say the party enters a room, and you say, "It looks like a 20x20 room" then you slap down the 20x20 tile. However, on your map it's a 25x25 room; or you tell them it's a straight corridor, but on your map it curves to the right or left.
The trick is that unless they actually pace out, or otherwise measure everything, they won't notice anything wrong, play out any combats as if the room were actually 20x20 or a straight corridor. But in short order any maps the party tries to make (or follow) should be completely messed up.
This will require a lot more work on your part in keeping track of where the party actually is, but could help to drive home the lovecraftian nature of the dungeon.
Here's a few ideas.
Innsmouth look...
Character begins to appear to favor an strange fish-like heritage. +1 trait bonus to Swim Checks and Intimidate Checks, one of which becomes class skill.
Whispers in the darkness
Character hears voices that (hopefully) aren't there. +2 trait bonus on saves vs compulsion and mind-affecting spells
Plagued by nightmares
Character can no longer sleep without terrifying nightmares. Immune to sleep effects, character can replenish spells with no sleep no fatigue or exhaustion from lack of sleep, -2 on perception, concentration, and constitution checks.
Piercing the veil
Re-occuring hallucinations make the character struggle to keep a grasp on reality. -4 on saves to disbelieve illusions. Casts illusion spells at +1 Caster level and gains a +1 Trait bonus to save DC.
I always thought Eldrich Heritage: Aquatic gives a very Deep One transphormation.
But I feel like a proper Lovecraft dungeon could benefit from some classic Conan. Howard was a contemporary of Lovecraft, so they influenced each other. Try reading "The Scarlet Citadel" for a very Lovecraftian fantasy dungeon.
Furthermore: Demon summoning is a decent basis for any freaky cult. And you KNOW you want a freaky cult to populate your world. The Book of the Damned Vol 2 is a good resource for some twisted stuff. Try snagging some rituals or the Demon Body Part items.
Lastly, the Abbomination, Fungal Creatue and Beast of Chaos templates could help you make Monster quota.
|
|
Here's a few ideas.
Innsmouth look...
Character begins to appear to favor an strange fish-like heritage. +1 trait bonus to Swim Checks and Intimidate Checks, one of which becomes class skill.Whispers in the darkness
Character hears voices that (hopefully) aren't there. +2 trait bonus on saves vs compulsion and mind-affecting spellsPlagued by nightmares
Character can no longer sleep without terrifying nightmares. Immune to sleep effects, character can replenish spells with no sleep no fatigue or exhaustion from lack of sleep, -2 on perception, concentration, and constitution checks.Piercing the veil
Re-occuring hallucinations make the character struggle to keep a grasp on reality. -4 on saves to disbelieve illusions. Casts illusion spells at +1 Caster level and gains a +1 Trait bonus to save DC.
That's exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for. I reskinned some other traits too, to make the fluff more creepy, but keeping the mechanics the same and i think with a handful more I should be able to offer the PCs a decent amount of options to choose from. Though I must say, this is becoming less a "small part of a bigger adventure" to a full fledged "roll new characters and get ready for a brand new campaign " kind of deal.
And I have no problem with that. This is beginning to get awesome. Mostly because it's different from anything else I have ever run.
If you like the idea, try to make "traps" that tax the PCs, for example, a door that opens when the blood of the innocent/guilty is used to fill some small vial, taxing the PC in 1d4 CON damage.
I made a story about a severed head that, when immersed in blood, could awake and grant information. However, filling the plate with blood would cost 1dX in CON dmg.
Another idea is a crystal key that is inside a glass container. When someone tries to take it, he takes DEX dmg as the liquid reveals to be acid (possibly incapacitating the hand for somatic components).
There are nasty things you can do, outside combat, to gradually consume the party's very body!
|
|
I did the blood thing a very long time ago in a demonic dungeon. It was a statue holding a bowl that had blood crusted around the edges. In order to open a magically sealed door, they had to fill the bowl. It hit them for 1d6 con damage if they used their own blood, but they could have used a dead enemy or any other kind of blood. In their haste, they used the wizard, who lost 6 points of CON.
dot...
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The 'dungeon' itself should be suitably alien.
Perhaps it was tunneled out of the rock by a purple worm, long ago, who used it as a lair. Lots of winding tunnels that meander around with no sense of rhyme or reason (just where the worm thought the rock was 'tastier').
Many chambers may have been hollowed out tend to be spherical, not because the worm made them that way, but because the alienist prefers to round them off to keep Hounds of Tindalos out. Some are partially filled with water, which the alienist might cross using their own partially Deep One-like physiology, or by crossing a strange ooze-like filmy membrane that is commanded to stretch across the water and allow them to 'walk on water,' but otherwise functions as a water-borne ooze and attacks outsiders it doesn't recognize.
One section could be an abandoned dwarven outpost, currently infested with deformed derro (the warped degenerate remains of the original inhabitants, who, among other grotesqueries, raid the tombs of their ancestors for ancient dead to gnaw upon), who worship a glowing radioactive rock that is the source of their deformities (and the rare useful mutation, like choker-like arms and legs that grant a climb speed and improved grapple / grab or a head that splits open into a giant starfish shaped mouth that functions as a bite attack with the weasel's attach property and blood drain). The rock itself isn't the source of the mutations, it's the alien light trapped within the crystal. If it's broken, the derro flip out and start attacking everyone in a berserk rage, including each other, and the alien light is released as a Colour Out of Space type beastie.
In one or more areas, time and space themselves could be distorted, and creatures who have grown accustomed to these areas can take advantage of these fluctuations. For instance, in one area, all distance is distorted, so that, for the party, all ranges are doubled. They have to use twice as much movement to cross each space, and their ranged weapons and spells only travel half as far, or effect half as large an area, as normal. The beasties that lurk here have grown accustomed to this property (but cannot survive long in 'real space,' as their bodies begin to shudder and finally explode in a shower of gore), and do not suffer any such penalties, seeming, to the party, to move in fits and spurts of unnatural speed, and to lash out with limbs that stretch to affect those who seem 'out of their melee range.' Note that, because of this property, a creature that is 5 ft. away from a PC will be able to attack it as if 5 ft. away, while the PC will have to use a reach weapon, since, unless they actually enter the creatures Space, it's always 'just out of reach!' The PCs won't perceive space as stretched, normally, although a visible ripple in the air will mark the warped areas (which might be useful if they need to retreat out of distorted space, or manage to push a creature out of the area and cause it to become sickened and start taking damage), but will only see the effects by their interactions with objects (which always seem further away than they looked, at first) and creatures attacking them (which seem to cross distances with unnatural speed, attack with Reach out of proportion to their visible size, prove frustrating to attack with non-Reach, non-Ranged weapons, and are able to AoO ranged attackers who *thought* they were 5 ft. out of Reach).
An area of distorted space might have a property that utterly hides entrances 5 ft. across or less, allowing for some creatures to spring out of 'invisible' cracks in the walls that can only by found and entered by feeling them out (and risking having one's hands bitten by the creatures that live in them, or, in the case of a small or medium humanoids, perhaps even being grabbed and dragged into one, seeming to non-adapted viewers to have been pulled right into the rock!).
Distortions in time could be as simply as haste and slow effects, randomly applied, perhaps even applied evenly in a perverse manner (if one person is hasted, another must be slowed, as one is 'stealing time' from another, or if a person is hasted, they must be slowed the next round, as they've 'stolen time' from themselves! and borrowed an 'advance' on next rounds actions!). Again, a creature adapted to this location might be able to make these properties work to its advantage, picking a single target each round as a free action to target with a slow effect, and if it succeeds, getting haste for that round, as it uses the 'time' stolen from the target to hasten itself. A creature might be able to 'time teleport' into the future, allowing itself to simply disappear from existence for a few rounds, or even a few minutes, in the hopes that its attackers are gone when it reappears (or to set up an ambush by just jumping away when the party arrives, and reappearing a minute later when they are searching the 'empty' room), or stop time for itself, so that it becomes paralyzed *and invulnerable* for a number of rounds, becoming like a white featureless statue of itself, and perhaps being mistaken for a statue, until it re-synchs with time and begins moving again, unaware of what occured while it was frozen in time.
Some sections of the dungeon could be all Giger-esque and organic, as if the party is traveling through the inside of a beyond-colossal organism (perhaps the still-alive, but mostly sessile and inert body of the purple worm that originally made these tunnels?). Or, instead of one large organism, the walls could just be coated with flesh, with structural supports of bone, and strange veins pulsing alien fluids hither and yon, while tiny fernlike fleshy appendages on the walls wave and flutter, capturing tiny insects (or larger creatures, like bats) to devour, struggling against the flesh of the wall while the feathery tendrils dissolve them with acid and consume them. (When not eating, the feathery structures move air around with their fluttering.)
The creatures in one area might rest in fleshy pods that look somewhat like giant venus flytraps, where they rest in a goopy solution that heals them at an accelerated rate, at the cost of making them hive-minded slaves to the vast unmoving fleshy creature itself, who uses them as mobile scouts and servants. They drag new humanoids into these pods, where their brains are infected with spores that place them into the hive-mind, and they become a living 'yellow musk zombie' sort of creature, perhaps even retaining some class abilities (and, obviously, still visibly being the 'people' they once were, perhaps even being able to pass semi-convincingly as the people they once were, for a short time, to people who didn't know them well...).
Entering the pod chamber, the PCs might see a half-dozen pods burst open, disgorging fluid-dripping people who have gone missing in the area, of whom they knew previously, at least one of which may already have been a thrall of the slime-hive-plant-thing when they met him!
.
'Dot' means "I might read and reply to this later, but right now I'm posting to this thread so that a 'dot' appears next to it and I can find it easier later."
What does dot mean? That's the second time I've seen it posted on this thread...
It means putting a reply in so it is easy to track the progression of a thread... when you come back the thread shows up with a dot if something you've replied to has more replies.
Since at this point several of us have mentioned quite an array of Lovecraft's work and how it could be adapted, it would be a shame if The Colour From Out Of Space didn't get a mention. I've always loved the flavor of sickly luminescent plants that bend and twist towards PC's as if they were the sun (or in this case, food). Heck, they could be your primary source of illumination in this dungeon and there's something especially creepy about the natural light source wanting to eat you.
That's a good idea, and it doesn't even have to be because they want to eat you.
For example, there are these things called Camel Spiders that live in deserts and are especially common in the Middle East. They're really creepy looking and they follow you around! You'll be walking along, look behind you, and there one will be. Walk a bit more, turn around, and it's still there. Move towards it and it scurries away maintaining the same distance.
Really creepy.
Of course what's actually happening it that they prefer to hang out in the shade are trying to stay within your shadow, but it's still kind of unnerving the first few times it happens to you.
So populating the dungeon with harmless, but atmospheric, creatures like this could help set the mood. Flowers that open towards and follow body heat as in the example above, harmless flying spider-looking plant things surrounding the party that are just soaking up exhaled carbon dioxide, long tongues from small holes in the wall that flicker out after the PC's have exerted themselves, aiming to lick up some salty sweat from their faces....
|
|
The plant idea its awesome. I will definitely be using that. I think instead of them trying to eat the pcs, I'll make it so they they exude a lesser form of the insanity mist spell on contact, so there would be a very small chance that while just walking along, a PC might accidentally touch one and briefly go insane
Magic items that activate based on cultish methods. Some magic items activate when a word in Aklo is spoken; others, 'Praise Yog-Sothoth'; one, when a Standard action is used to touch it to blood (dealing 1 point of damage to yourself, if necessary).
Start out really small and step it up in increments, and even your Good characters might take some time before they start objecting to things they'd otherwise have said 'no way' to on the spot. Especially if it seems like these items were worn and used by previous good(?) investigators who died fighting the madness.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Magic items that activate based on cultish methods. Some magic items activate when a word in Aklo is spoken; others, 'Praise Yog-Sothoth'; one, when a Standard action is used to touch it to blood (dealing 1 point of damage to yourself, if necessary).
The item itself could be odd or horrible.
The potions grow as blood-colored fruit on a noisome wall-clinging vine that entangles several skeletons. Alternately, at the bottom of a brackish pool, a deep one 'alchemist' is cultivating a small bed of oyster like creatures that when cracked open in the hand and devoured in a single bite, function as a healing potion, giving up their tiny lives to heal the consumer. These alternate 'potions' would detect as magical, and have the same action cost to use (and be dormant or hibernating, able to exist for years without sustenance or special efforts to care for them), but just 'look different.'
The wand is a skeletal forearm with wrist/hand/fingerbones attached by silken threads in place of sinew, and when activated, it moves as if casting the spell it contains.
Even a mundane item, such as does of alchemical antitoxin, could be slimy starfish shaped leeches that, when applied to a person, attach and provide the alchemical bonus vs. poison normally. At the end of the duration, they shrivel up and drop off. Similarly, 'alchemical acid' might be fat swollen spider-like bugs, bloated like ticks and too big to move under their own power, that, when throw, explode and shower the acidic fluids in their abdomen over their target. (Like cane toads, it's a 'defense mechanism' that does the individual creature no good, but affects / harms / kills anything biting them and thereby fatally discourages predators from preying on the rest of their species.)
A 'bracer' or 'necklace' might be a creature that latches on and exists symbiotically (no game effect, other than strange cravings for whatever it wants, nutrition-wise, such as extra salt, or an aversion to alcohol, or raw meat...), perhaps looking like a eel that wraps around the arm or neck multiple times and sinks it's remora-like sucker-fangs into the wrist or the back of the neck. A necklace of adaptation of this sort seems particularly thematic. Other creature items could include an ioun stone that appears as a tiny alien insect that flutters around the wearers head. It might even be a cute little alien critter, like some sort of dimly glowing space butterfly...
The PCs would first become aware of these things when the creatures in the dungeon use them against them, so they would have a reason to know that the strange fruit are potions and the fat greenish-yellow bugs are 'acid' and the fat reddish-orange bugs are 'alchemical fire.'
Ironically I'm finding I can steal and re-skin much of the weird environmental stuff for a fey campaign I'm running. The plants can be an alomost direct translation; in Set's last post, the items he's talking about: instead of creepy, remora-like eels, instead you have a 2-headed snake or perhaps some wide-eyed vine creature. And where you've got the environment tasting their sweat, what if you've got the environment savoring their emotions - if they slip into stealth the plants drink in their trepidation; singing blooms on the wall invite the party to hum along to soak in the PC's joy; skull-toads who use Scare and then hit you with their tongues to taste your fear.
All good stuff...
|
|
Ooh, just remembered one of my favorite flavor bits from the Scarred Lands. There was a demigoddess of shadows and rogues, who, if you made a ridiculously awesome Hide/Stealth check to hide in the shadows, you might catch a glimpse of her, even *deeper* in the shadows. Pressed up against a wall, you might feel her *behind you*, whispering in your ear and playing with your hair, where there should only be cold stone and darkness...
That sort of theme could work well in either a fey or Mythos style adventure, creatures or events that only occur in the presence or absence of something. A creature that is super-vulnerable to sound, for instance, might only manifest in an area of magical silence, and breaking / dispelling that silence is the key to defeating it (since it's incorporeal or just plain tough).
Like the Hounds of Tindalos, only able to move through angles, a Mythos critter might be two-dimensional and only able to move across solid surfaces, like a man's shadow, unable to touch a flying foe, but with two-dimensional 'claws' sharper than razors (keen, bypassing DR like adamantine, or even vorpal).
Strange mathematical rules might govern a creatures behavior, so that it can never attack the same creature two rounds in a row, or it does increased damage if it continues to attack the same target round after round, as it's blows 'echo' one upon the other, building up in intensity (and encouraging whoever it's hitting to go total defense or otherwise avoid getting hit by its increasingly brutal blows, or someone else to Antagonize it or something, so that it has to 'start all over' and loses this buildup reverberation effect).
Like the Native American 'hide-behind,' a Mythos beastie (or fey beastie) might feed off of apprension or fear about it's abilities, and, so long as it remains out of sight, such as in the darkness, or striking from concealment or cover, it has awesome stats, but, when exposed and clearly lit, it's a tiny thing, 'all hat and no cat,' and is much less damaging and much easier to kill. (Use shadow monster stats? Full effect when attacking with concealment, 20% strength when 'exposed' and revealed to be a pathetic creature, drawing it's power from uncertainty and fear.) With the Mythos-y feel of movies like The Mist, perhaps it generates it's own obscuring mist effect, which it can see through perfectly, and from which it attacks with great abandon, but when the mist is blown away by gust of wind or something, it's all weak and vulnerable.
Basically, situational 'puzzle monsters,' that encourage a bit of outside the box thinking to work around.