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So I have this image of a world where dragons are mostly gone, banished except for a few who managed to hide to remote places.
Then suddenly they appeared in the world again. The thing is that they are not there to conquer or take revenge for their banishment. They appeared in the world screaming in terror. They were running from something.
What were they running from?
A Rovagug like entity or some awakening lovecraftian-esque elder god? That seem overdone though.
Any thoughts oh Peoples of the Paizo.
The Nothingness...or 1st Ed dragon rules....or a plane of fashion designing beholder/mind flayer/cuthulu worshipers, that decided dragonskin is the new "in" material this century.
Honestly you can make it as nameless or mysterious as you like, prob better that way to make the player's imagination run wild...
Mysterious phenomenon which also seem highly lethal to dragons.
(Very cliche here...but..)Some darkness slowly crawling over the land, whatever it touches withers, while strange spine-chilling sounds can be heard from within. The occasional tentacle made of some unknown material grabbing and dragging in victims, only for the victims to come out later all twisted, set on conquest of land to be engulfed.
A demigod-like, CR 30+ being. Maybe with a hidden way to depower it to a mere CR 30.
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Dragon cannibals who gain the strength of the devoured.
Dragannibals!
A couple ideas:
-The Tarrasque (or a mythic version of the Tarrasque)
-A virus or some other disease. PC's could be sent on a quest for a possible cure, then sent to wherever the dragons came back from to see if it actually works!
An ancient horror from forgotten times is chasing down the dragons. It's not limiting its depradations to them, however, for it seeks out any creature that is immortal or extremely long-lived, seeking to kill them to extend its own life by drawing on their supernatural longevity. Fey, dragons, some aberrations...many creatures fear it. None will speak of it. All die to it.
The Horrors (earthdawn campaign setting).
What's notable is the terror aspect that you emphasise. What are dragons scared of? Surely not just death, it needs to be something more than that, and not a physical threat because while it can be scary, it's the unknown that's truly terrifying.Mrs. Cake
Mrs Cake?
DO. NOT. ASK.
Back on topic. I like PD's (quite possibly tongue in cheek) suggestion at the end of the post. Seen that done a couple of times in varying ways, and I really like it. Also makes me want to watch that recent time travel horror slasher movie again... can't remember the name, was a good laugh though.
It would take something Lovecraftian or something that involves wiping dragons from existence to make them run "screaming in terror."
But what if the dragons discovered an unstable portal to the Negative Energy Plane that's growing and will eventually engulf the entire planet, wiping out all life? Now all the dragons are desperately searching for ways to leave the planet. The evil dragons refuse to mention it so they can leave the inhabitants to their fate. The good dragons keep it discrete in fear they might cause a global panic.
Back-to-back nonstop compulsory Twilight film screenings? That's a terrifying thought.
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Lina Inverse.
I'm going to take a page from Skyrim and the Fairy Tail manga here.
The dragons are afraid of a being that gets more powerful by killing them and eating their souls. Every dragon it slays makes it more powerful and more monstrous. Recently a very large group of dragons tried to kill it and failed... all they succeeded in doing was making it more powerful. Now all they can do is run. The creature doesn't care about humans since it now sees them as just insects. Why should it care if a few insects get sqashed as it hunts its true prey?
Doooooot.
... but maybe, just maybe, it's "terror".
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Dragons would flee from the same thing any other sentient would and should:
Any party of level 12+ adventurers with casters in it.
Hahaha. This. "Oh No! Murderhobos at 6 o'clock! Flee!"
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Whatever you do, making it a dragon specific problem is probably your best bet. I like the "They get dumber" virus idea from up above, myself.
Anything else ("Big bad evil thing aaaah!") risks straining suspension of disbelief if it is ever defeated in the campaign considering, well, dragons are not exactly wimps. In fact, individually they're supposed to be a decent challenge for your average adventuring party at a given level, so having a bunch of Great Wyrms running from something your PCs beat is...odd.
But another good option is something like the things from Codex Alera, they multiply quickly and just overrun everything with far superior numbers. The dragons' superior might is meaningless...they just breed too damn quickly to wipe out now that they've built up numbers (in secret, likely).
Dragons would flee from the same thing any other sentient would and should:
Any party of level 12+ adventurers with casters in it.
Right, because the collective population of dragons (i.e. powerful casters in their own right, who are a great deal bigger and buffer than the average caster) would flee from a party of level 12 adventurers?
A unique breed of Intellect Devourers looking for Large reptilian hosts
or the Phyrnic Scourge if you have any of Dreamscar's psionic stuff.
something small and invasive that can burrow in and feed of the Dragon's strength
Adventurers. In particular the 9th level wizard who spilled his coffee and was having a particularly nasty morning.
The whole lovecrartian thing is pretty overdone, imo. Sometimes you need to back to the basics to really scare people. No magic, no supernatural, just that which hunts dragons and happens to one up them on the food chain. Collasal+ is optional if you really want to make it insane. The creature the size of a mountain range that is designed to eat and hunt dragons. Rips them from the sky, can smell them from miles away and track them, and hibernates and awakens with a great hunger. Bonus points if its so old and sleeps so long that its not known to a young race like man but older dragons are especially scared because that was the monster under its bed.
A Tarrasque with a taste for Dragon flesh.
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Some mysterious spell or effect that is reverting them to dump brutes, of animal intellect. Losing their wits slowly and becoming little more than animals.
And worse ... They DON'T KNOW WHY.
I agree with Rynjin - this idea makes sense. They could all be turning feral. It starts with effects similar to those of different spellblights. There could be stages:
Stage 1: Caster Blank, Lassitude
Stage 2: Confounded Casting, Eldritch Ague
Stage 3: Spell Sap, Vertigo
Stage 4: Nameless Dread, Negated
Stage 5: Disassociation, Phase Blight
However, what's happening is not a spell blight, nor is it any type of normal or magical disease that can be healed like usual. It is, instead, something deliberately caused by the place they were banished to. It was set by those who banished them to ensure that dragons would never again be a threat. In the last stage, the dragon slowly devolves mentally and physically. Inevitably it becomes feral.
There may be some way to stop it, or it could be cured up to a certain stage. However, I think once it reaches stage 5 you'd need Wish and/or Miracle to restore the dragon - if it can be done at all.
While I agree it might start as a dragon-only problem, there's no reason to think this couldn't spread out. The originators of it might have thought the banished dragons could never return and so didn't care about keeping it to just dragons. The return of the banished dragons signals the beginning of the end for the world if it can't be stopped. Naturally, it would spread more quickly to things like kobalds or with some dragon subtype, and from there to reptiles in general, but it could simply spread out from there.
As a note, it could lead to rather unscientific "devolution" - causing creatures to grow huge or gain something akin to the dire template.
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I was definitely thinking its not a dragon only problem. The dragons were the first to encounter it in their exile.
Going off the "Its the incarnation of fear" idea. Maybe find something that is conceptually terrifying, something specific, and personify it.
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"There's nothing to fear... but fear itself..."
For The NPC's eyes only...
We're going to make a three-fold creature.
First, take a Animate Dream (or the Advanced version, if you like, though I actually recommend the weaker version, except for the lower DC, because...)
Layer over shadow demon spell-likes (replacing the summon demon with a summon for one of our own creatures).
Layer over a shadow's create spawn ability (tied to the nightmare curse instead of strength drain). The distorted, hidden, and vanishing are good augments (maybe even the unhallow effect); kind of similar to the plague shadow, actually, but with a higher DC.
This... doesn't actually alter the CR.
For extra terror, change the 6d8 negative energy damage to 3d4 wisdom damage.
Oh, probably change one feat to ability focus and greater ability focus to get a +4 to that DC.
If they have an (incorporeal) magic tattoo that grants a constant mindblank (or something similar) and/or magic circle v. <all> should mean that they're basically unknowable enigmas that can't be controlled by other creatures.
Their relatively low CR makes them below the interest of legend lore, while their ability to constantly make spawn (and their higher intelligence) means that they're a tremendous threat to anything, if they're careful and stealthy (which they are).
The icing is that this is established by a simple, ordinary bogeyman. No frills, low-CR (again, not legend-lore worthy), excessively cruel. Spent his wealth on crafting these creatures to spread fear through the world. Maybe working with a perma-bound efreeti or something (as, since the boogeyman isn't a genie, he can get wishes from the efreeti... and if the efreeti is made too terrified and/or has too low a wisdom/charisma (say, through curses or drains) to reject him... plus maybe extensive diplomacy on the boogeyman's part to turn him friendly (if terrified) anyway... could up the DC for the save by a lot (+5 to the relevant score, and maybe a +5 inherent to the DC of the ability as well...)
The plot: have all the dragons afraid of the one boogeyman. That's it. Because that's all he really wants, in the end: creatures to be afraid of him.
... and whether or not you use that, I think *I* will at some point.
Anyway, hope that helps!
Oh, I have one more thing to add, but I'm out of time for now. I'll mention it in a bit...
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"There's nothing to fear... but fear itself..."
For The NPC's eyes only...
** spoiler omitted **...
That's certainly interesting. I must say.
Dragon Alzheimer's . . . That IS something hey would be terrified of, and for good reason.Some mysterious spell or effect that is reverting them to dump brutes, of animal intellect. Losing their wits slowly and becoming little more than animals.
And worse ... They DON'T KNOW WHY.
type: disease; Fort DC 25; onset: 2000 years; frequency: 1/year; effect: 1 Int, Wis, and Cha drain. This ability drain cannot be removed by any effect short of a wish or miracle; cure: none. this disease requires a carefully worded wish or miracle to remove.
They're gonna be failing that save on average once every 20 years, a slow decent into mindlessness.
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And by "One more thing", I mean, "At least an hour's worth of writing." :D
That's certainly interesting. I must say.
Interesting in a cool way (whether or not you ever end up using it is irrelevant), or interesting in a, "Arg, why do I talk to this guy?!" sort of way? :D
Also, to add to it...
You may wish to shake things up by adding different templates. This can actually greatly enhance or alter the nature of what is being faced, and thus give it a greater air of mystery, or even make it more like what you envision it being.
Animate Dreams potential templates
1) Young template rebuild rules.
Apply to taste (up to a maximum of three times - or four if you apply the advance template -, leaving them with a Constitution of 3 (and 18 hp [90 hp -2/HD*number of templates applied => 12HD*2 hp/HD*3templates = -24hp*3 = -72; advanced+4th application washes out]), a Dexterity of 30 (+10 modifier; Dex of 38 or +14, if advanced), diminutive (or fine, if advanced)... about the right size to turn them into a swarm, actually... which means that the threat doesn't really grow, directly, until they've destroyed a large number of dragons, enough to create another swarm. This both decreases their over-all threat, and increases their direct threat to dragons (who often have spells, but not things that deal well with incorporeal swarms... with a reach of 10 ft. ...)
Anyway, this allows you to lower the CR (by up to 3) while upping their touch attack, reflex saves (making it a more difficult swarm to deal with), attack, AC, and stealth, and lowering their hit points.
Remember, as noted in the template description, this template can be applied simply to make these can just be smaller variants of the monster - they don't actually have to be "immature" Animate Dreams, unless you want them to be.
2) Drunk template.
This allows you to lower their CR, and gives them an exploitable weakness. Quite possibly, it's due to all the terror that they're literally consuming to excess - kind of like having too much boozahol, it's so much that it's interfering with their capacity to function properly, but they don't care because, you know, delicious (and addictive). Quite possibly, it's due to the sheer amount of magic they're hopped up on. I highly recommend this one, whatever you do, to lower their CR by that much... while still making them just as dangerous, if not moreso, to the dragons.
In any event, you may wish to apply addiction penalties to them as well, akin to (if you'll pardon the pun) dreamtime tea.
3) Dream Creature template.
This will up their CR significantly - you'd have to drop them heavily. Their waking dream and pierce the veil (and WIS/CHA) would be the only real mechanical benefits they'd get out of it (the other abilities just aren't useful to them), though their dream travel ability could let them scout out the dragons first, undetected, for extra creepy uncertainty.
Their sleep vulnerability means that they're actually within the range of being affected by deep slumber (normally their 12 HD would be too high to be affected), giving a surprising vulnerability.
4) Missing template. Permanently invisible, displaced even when you can see them, evasion (which, when combined with their naturally strong reflex boosted by the young template, makes the swarm even less vulnerable to normal anti-swarm techniques), and an extra bonus on their stealth, just for kicks and giggles. This should only be applied if you used the drunk and the young template three times, though, as the power increase is significant.
5) Nightmare Creature template. They are already living nightmares given form... why not just make them more of a living nightmares given form? This is a phenomenal way (especially if they or the Boogeyman, are nightmare lords) to gain power over dragons, and have them seem to spontaneously go insane and kill other dragons.
6) Poisonous creature template. Note that this is based on CON, so it doesn't work well with repeated applications of the young template, but the idea that an incorporeal (invisible) creature could also poison you just by being near enough... Of course an incorporeal creature's kind of normally against the rules, as it's supposed to be corporeal, but, you know, you're looking for a threat, so... you could think of it as, say, radiation, or something... which might make an interesting way to detect and track it, now that I'm thinking of it. No dragons I know of have immunity to poison or poison resistance, so that could be one way of allowing it to be located, despite it's great stealth.
7) Unhallowed template (note it doesn't have to be applied to an undead creature) just for the extra evil.
8) Not a template, per se, but you may, as an interesting twist, give them vulnerability to positive energy as an undead as well, or even the shadow demon's daylight powerlessness trait. This works just fine in their battles against dragons... who usually live in caves and have no method of channeling positive energy (or casting cure or inflict spells) anyway... It's important to note, however, that they shouldn't actually become demons which would grant them extra immunities, telepathy, summon demons, and the like, which you don't need or want, as well as making them more vulnerable to conjuration and binding effects), nor do you want them to become actual undead (as the penalty to CON ceases to affect them from the simple template... unless that's what you want, in which case go nuts, but you will seriously throw the CR system far more out of whack than it already is with this).
The boogeyman
1) Dream Eater template. This is probably not applied to the little animate dream spirits, but may apply to the boogeyman himself. It does mean his CR is high enough to respond to legend lore, though a sequester or mind blank effect would be able to handle this for the most part (the irony: everyone else is terrified, and so he has really good dreams, while sequestered...).
2) Debased Fey template. I don't know, it just seems thematically appropriate. The same caveats apply about the boogeyman's power, though.
3) Haunted One template. Perhaps the ultimate architect isn't a boogeyman at all... or rather it's the dead spirit of a boogeyman unable to reincarnate because he's been severed from the First World, and so has now possessed a host to work forth his terrible schemes...
4-9) You could also apply the dream, missing, poisonous, nightmare creature (see below), young, or drunk templates to him. Of those, I'd suggest the drunk template for the same reason it applies to the Animate Dreams... there's so much phenomenal fear, that he's kind of drunk off of it all (and addicted).
The missing and nightmare lord templates would make an especially potent (and thematically apt) combination for a boogeyman, and be extremely potent, even if they partially overlap with his normal abilities (invisibility, nightmare/day, that sort of thing), allowing him to automatically succeed at his frightful presence check (intimidate modifier of +28 v. DC 15) while invisible to terrify the living snot out of a nearby dragon that couldn't perceive him (invisible plus base +35 to stealth, plus displacement, plus +HD (+17) to stealth -> +35+20+17 = +72 to stealth... or +52 and displacement, if they can see invisibility.)
One especially fascinating variant is to first note that, while outsiders don't sleep, they are vulnerable to sleep. Thus, if the dream-template Animate Dreams were put to sleep via repeated deeper slumber by the efreeti, and the nightmare lord boogeyman utilized its night terrors and dream slave abilities on them, you've got a solid in-game reason why it would have absolute control over these creatures (and since they have absolute control over their spawn).
10) Alternatively, perhaps it simply as the leadership, or utilized some method of gaining access to limitless gate effects, which it used to good effect to summon the animate dreams and/or...
The efreeti
1) Broken Soul template. Lawful evil? Tortured and needing it? Probably worships Zon-Kuthon.
2) Hungry template, as an alternate take on the efreet's torturous situation.
3) Skeletal Champion or Juju Zombie templates, if you want an alternate take on how the boogeyman controls the efreeti.
4) Ghost template might make a great way to have the genie naturally leave the game. If it's controlled (by, say, a combination of command undead/control undead), it may still be willing to help the PCs (granting wishes, or whatever) that find it, and it's "resolution quest" (the thing that lets it pass on) could well be to destroy the boogeyman.
Change it Up
The Animate Dreams, Boogeyman, and Efreeti (and suggested templates) are just one method of causing this situation to come about in-game. While I'm using these in-game characters to describe how a manifestation of fear itself might look.
An alternate idea is to look at the living spell template, perhaps made from the fear spell; for extra "terror", you might add phantasmal killer, bane, hydrophobia, black mark (or the mythic version) - either of the last two could be a really confusing clue -, haunting mists, greater invisibility (in this case, on the self; possibly replaced by the missing template), mindblank* and/or nondetection (personal-only? or does it apply to those it hits as well, making it hard to determine what's happening to them?), bestow curse, energy drain (invisible energy drain - how terrifying!), instant enemy (targeted to dragons... which is why it's after them first), and/or nightmare as well. The fact that it's not sentient could be a very powerful deterrent in figuring out it's motives or what, exactly, it is. It could even be a diseased, living spell. Or have the poisonous creature template. Or the nightmare creature template. Or any of the above things. You could grant it sentience by giving it the fiendish () fiendish template template (as WotC did itself, once).
It could be some result of the black blood of Orv burbling up into and through the manawastes, literally becoming a random conglomeration of magical spells. Perhaps due to the mana wells there (and the instant enemy effect could be due to the undead blue dragon, what's-her-face, that lives in that one... I don't recall right now; sorry! :/), or maybe it's the result of a primal magic event affecting a rod of wonder during a mana well surge during a planar breach of the maelstrom and slamming into a kekatar's shape reality... or something equally unlikely. I don't know!
Heck, speaking of, make any of 'em mythic to be different, if you so choose (perhaps with the mythic spells, if it's a living spell, or one of the mythic simple templates). Maybe treat them to that one mythic ability that helps avoid detection (I... don't recall which it is, right now).
* If so, how does it respond to the shatter mindblank power, presuming you've got psionics in your setting?
Anyway, point is, these are just a few ideas. There are several that you could use as you like and how to make it happen is, of course, up to you.
So, yeah, take what you like, dump what you don't and regardless, I hope a few of these ideas help. Peace! :D
EDIT: Numbering numbers with numbers, as well as adding two more ideas to the pile and a quote for clarity.
Also, it should be clear, the reason it's The NPC's eyes only, is that I don't know if he's going to run anything you others might play in. If that's really unlikely ever to happen (or something I run)... then feel free to go nuts! Comment, share, like, reject, etc! :D
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At Tactics: Interesting in a good way :)
At Lazar: I hadn't heard of this setting but I will keep it in mind. Thanks.
Furries.
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Um titans with an irrational hatred of them perhaps?
I also like the disease angle. Combine it with the fear personification maybe? Further Hmms...
Disease could be fun, especially if it specifically hits dragons harder by age category. You could go a step further from the "beast brain" disease and say it starts to strip away their innate magical abilities until they are nothing more than beast-like flying lizards of enormous size with ravenous appetites. Maybe some dragons are naturally immune and, at least the metallic dragons, might seek out to kill any dragon that shows signs or symptoms of the disease (not only because they are very dangerous to other creatures but because it will help slow/stop the spread of disease).
Source of the disease could be magical (or anti-magical) in its own right. It could be a blight concocted by a powerful arcanist to use against dragons that is immune to magical healing (thus only rare natural immunity can save a select few... until it mutates!). Alternatively, it could have been developed by a powerful dragon to use against a longtime rival only to get out of control (colossal claws and diminutive vials do not make for successful science).
Finally, the disease could have an even more drastic and horrific affect than just turning dragons into ravenous beasts... it could be slowly turning them into humans. Stupid, weak, non-magical humans with the full knowledge of their once great power, now and forever severed from it.