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As the title says. I recently got my hands on the PF technology guide and have been thoroughly amazed by how awesome it is. As a result, I have been crafting both a larger campaign setting that makes use of tech and magic, and have been wanting to put together some adventures involving said setting. The first "starter" adventure I have planned has the party being hired on by low-level city administrators to deal with a rogue, eco-terrorist-type druid who has hijacked the local Eko Reactor (Setting equivalent of a power-plant) and thus cut off all power to the town-sized administrative district they will start off in.(The actual setting is a world city alla corasaunt from star wars or Ravnica for you MTG fans, and thus the rough equivalent of a small town would be a small administrative district. The world is actually divided into several large individual cities with their own governments, each having many smaller administrative districts within.)
The Hijacked reactor in question will be almost completely overtaken by a Morkazuba plant(Type of nasty vine/creeping plant that feeds off Eko and grows unnaturally fast..utterly taking over areas where it's seeds are planted if there is enough eko to feed it. Morkazuba however, also provides a purifying effect in places where it grows, removing pollution from both the land and air around it.) and the rogue druid will be holed up in the vine-covered reactor along with a number of minions. The Morkazuba will also be starting to spread into the administrative district around the Reactor, putting some pressure on the PCs to get the job done/make the stakes seem higher. The City Officials, having dealt with Morkazuba plants and Eco-Terrorists on a regular basis(there is in fact, a larger eco-terrorist group to which this druid belongs, and they will be one of the main enemy factions the PCs will be forced to deal with in the larger adventure.) will already have a chemical pesticide-type weapon on hand which will be given to the party so they can kill the Morkazuba by using it on the plant's root system, which will be at the reactor's core and guarded by the Druid. The layout of this low-level dunegon, as well as the Druid boss, are all planned out. However, what I am looking for is suggestions for fitting low-level enemies to act as the druid's minions, preferably ones that are plant-based though I'll take suggestions for enemies of any type that fit with the "nature" theme of this dungeon.
The party will be level 1 when they start this dunegon, so please keep that in mind with your suggestions. Anyway, anybody have ideas for some good, fitting low-level monsters for a nature/plant-themed dungeon?
Skeletons/zombies in rosewood or leaf armor could be appropriately scary, as long as you don't let them take the armor afterwards. Sell it like the vines and stuff animating the corpses, that would be pretty creepy (pun totally intended)
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Ahhh. That works VERY well for what I had planned for this dungeon, TBH. Thanks for the suggestion. The Yellow Musk Creeper is pretty much PERFECT for the feel I had for this adventure/dungeon so I thank you. I also like just regular plant-animated skeletons and zombies, too. I'm thinking I may actually just rip off the Yellow Musk Creeper Zombies stat-wise for the other "undead" present and have them be "Morkazuba zombies/skeletons" which have been animated by smaller plants that have been incubating in the larger Morkazuba as seeds/spores and released into corpses by the Morkazuba, since I already have several traps planned that involve smaller plants that come from the Morkazuba. Having undead-making plants spawn from it would further up the threat level of "we need to kill this plant" as well, and makes the place overall more creepy. Of course, either way, an actual Yellow Musk Creeper WILL be showing up...because the thing is just so fitting.
Vegepygmies work well, and can take levels for tribal leaders.
Evil druids are tough. Cast entangle, and you're good to go.
You can also slap the young template on some of the usual plant monsters like assassin vines, treants, shambling mounds...
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Assassin Vine (Apply the young template bringing it down to CR 2) - works well as possibly a cross mutation created by the Druid and the effects of the power plant/radiation/energy. This can be used as the classic "plant with tentacles" sort of encounter.
Of course there's always the Vegepygmy - instead of using a bunch which would dilute and confuse the impact of the masses of undead you are planning on using as the main threat you could just have one.
Maybe as a lead henchmen with some class levels (Warrior or Fighter or even Rogue) who serves as the Druids henchman and co-conspirator.
If you are using Magic and Tech in fusion (ala Ravnica) you may also want to consider threats/hazards/aid or extra encounters from the actual facility. To draw something from the Gamma World pages - Constructs (aka Robots).
You may want to populate the overrun facility with some clockworks designed to work at the Eko Plant. They can be in various stages of functionality (the hostile plants have destroyed most of them) and serve different functions: maintenance, security/defense, repair, etc. These "robots" can try to aid the party as they forge through (rest points, healing or even help push through a hard area as a temp NPC muscle) or some could be rogue/deranged and attack the PCs (or anything alive) after the plant takeover.
If some are functional and holding their own areas vs. the onslaught, they would be happy to see "humanoids" and their small pockets of resistance and areas of control could provide the players with an "eye in the hurricane" so they can catch their breath. Even if its only a few rooms and a corridor.
Took too long and got double Ninja'd!
Have a look at the leshys.
Yellow Musk Creeper is pretty nasty for it's CR depending on dice rolls.
+1 on Yellow Musk Creeper and its Zombies!
I really like the jack o lantern from bestairy 4