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I am working on a project and would like to use the awakened apes of Usaro in the Mwangi.
Question 1: Are they like the Derhii flying apes in the module Crucible of Chaos or are they something else?
Question 1: If they are something else what stats should I look at to use?
Question 3: Has anyone done anything in this area already and have some information they'd like to share?
Question 4: And I was wondering if Paizo is going to coming out with something on the topic soon?
Thanks,
Zoo
In Mists of Mwangi (the Pathfinder Society scenario Nick Logue wrote) there is a little bit of background stuff, but no awakened apes.
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Completely non-canonical speculation;
The Golarion Campaign Setting mentions a Demon Lord named Angazhan, whose 'areas of concern' are apes and jungles. IMO, this demon lord is the Golarion equivalent of Demogorgon, a patron of savagery.
A thousand years ago, or more, perhaps some Mwangwi civilization took upon itself to awaken some local apes to serve as brute labor, and do the menial work that was required to maintain an increasingly decadent society such as theirs, and, with nods to both Congo (the novel, not the movie) and Planet of the Apes in full play, the awakened apes began to chafe at being lackies to their human masters. An angry voice spoke to them in their dreams, the voice of the being that would later be known as the Demon Lord Angazhan. Incited to riot by bloody dreams of a world where the strong, smart apes were the rulers, and the dissipated and degenerate humans who'd 'awakened' them were the slaves, the apes of Mwangwi embraced this new dark faith, and made their dreams a bloody reality, overthrowing and enslaving their former masters.
From a throne of human skulls, the awakened half-fiend dire ape ruler of this crumbling vine-choked city is advised by a squabbling 'court' of fiend-blooded sorcerers (often with fiendishly clever monkey familiars), conniving adepts, evil druids and a few actual Clerics of Angazhan, all awakened apes (and, occasionally, dire apes or half-fiendish apes and dire apes). Being brutish and savage by nature and faith, no matter their advanced intellect, the apes must raid surrounding human nations for new slaves, as they burn through their own stock at a terrible rate, through overwork, neglect, savage displays of temper and, of course, the excessive consumption of sweet, sweet man-flesh.
And that's what the 'Gorilla City' of the Mwangwi Expanse looks like, in *my* mind, at least. All the horrors and decadence of the worst excesses of the late Aztec empire, with a Planet of the Apes twist.
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Thank you all for your help! If you come up with other ideas please drop in here again. I am trying to develop the area a little for after the PC's finish up the River Into Darkness module. I want to take them further into the jungle and eventually over to the city of Kilbe if they survive that long that is, lol.......
Thanks again,
Zoo
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More random thoughts that have come to me;
A gift from Angazhan to his ‘children,’ the awakened apes of the Mwangi ruins.
Tainted Awakening
Transmutation
Level: Adept 3, Clr 3, Drd 3, Sor/Wiz 3
Components: V, S, M/DF, XP
Casting Time: 24 hours
Range: Touch
Target: Animal or tree touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
This spell functions as Awaken, but with the following changes;
The spell can only be cast by a member of the same or a related species as the target of the spell. An Awakened Ape could therefore use Tainted Awakening on another Ape, a Dire Ape, a Baboon, Monkey or similar simian animal.
The spell requires the sacrifice of a normally sentient being (not one of a normally non-sentient species that has benefited from Awaken, for instance). The Children of Angazhan have a superstitious belief that the type of sentient passes on some traits to the awakened creature, and usually use humans exclusively for this, as they believe that awakening one of their own with a halfling would produce a ‘weak’ child, etc. They will stoop to using a captured elf or dwarf without much grumbling, but never, ever use a gnome, due to an unfortunate incident where the awakened ape turned out to be chaotic, whimsical and so terribly malevolent that (purportedly) no members of her community survived her strange and terrible 'games.' (How this tale would have spread if this were true is one of those subtleties lost on the ape-folk…) The Children of Angazhan had a superstitious reaction to living gnomes, and may attack to destroy them on sight, or flee in quivering dread, depending on the circumstances and the individual (none would flee in the view of others, but a lone awakened ape, even a dire one, might drop what he's doing and beat a hasty retreat if faced with a pair of gnomes in the jungle!).
The Awakened animal is not in any way inclined to be friendly or well-disposed to the caster, and indeed is imbued with a fiend-tainted cunning that turns it’s alignment to Evil.
Awakened animals replace their racial Intelligence score of 2 with a -2 racial adjustment, so that the average animal will end up with an 8 or 9 intelligence, if using the standard ‘all 10’s and 11’s’ system of attribute distribution. Exceptional specimens may use the Standard Array, Elite Array or some other point-distribution system. Physical attributes and hit dice remain unchanged, but the former animals wisdom decreases by 2, and it’s charisma increases by 2. A creature affected by Tainted Awakening becomes a Magical Beast, and its derivative attributes (HD, BAB, vision, etc.) are adjusted appropriately.
Example: An Ape has racial ability modifiers of +10 Str, +4 Dex, +4 Con, +2 Wis and -4 Cha, as well as an automatic and unadjustable Intelligence score of 2. After Tainted Awakening, the physical attributes remain unchanged (+10 Str, +4 Dex, +4 Con), but the Ape now has a -2 Int, +/- 0 Wis and -2 Cha, as well as a Neutral Evil alignment score.
An animal affected by this spell instinctively resists, and is allowed a Will save to not become tainted by this fiendish intellect. The caster still must also make a Will save, as per the standard Awaken spell to channel the magic. Typically, the Children of Angazhan devour any of their own infant kind who resist this spell, considering it an ill omen to refuse the ‘blessing’ of their savage god (and not bothering to differentiate between a failed spell because the infant ape made it's saving throw, or the spellcaster failed his own, as the spellcaster would never admit to personal failure in any event, blaming it on some defect or impurity or 'weakness' in the infant, proclaiming it unworthy of Angazhan's gift).
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Most Dire Apes (which breed slower than the predominant standard apes) are Rangers and Barbarians (the Rangers tend to be slavers and raiders, and assemble work-teams of both humans and ‘lesser’ simians, such as Baboons, to use as slaves. They do not repeat their creators mistake, and the Baboons are never awakened…)
Most traditional ‘priests’ of Angazhan are Adepts (with monkey familiars), although Druids and extremely rare Clerics are also known to exist. Angazhan is said to only favor one true Cleric at a time in a particular region, but the fairly open secret is that Clerics ruthlessly butcher any other Ape showing signs of Clerical advancement.
Other elite members of this decadent society are Sorcerers, almost always fiend-blooded, and usually Apes, with the rare Dire Ape showing talent (but often being multi-classed, with levels of Ranger or Barbarian). Dire Apes almost never seem to be favored with divine spellcasting ability (above that of the Ranger), and when they are, they tend to be the ruler of the area.
The city-state of their creators was literally hacked from the jungle, and swamps were drained and channeled into enormous paddies for rice, while great stone buildings stood proud along vast paved ways. Now, the jungle has taken it’s toll, as the apes do not work to maintain their former masters demesne, allowing vines to crawl over everything, and only keeping the brackish paddies functioning to feed their population of human and baboon slaves (who are the ones working those ‘fields’ as well, under the supervision of ruthless and short-tempered ape overseers). The apes themselves prefer the taste of meat, and aren’t picky about where it comes from, although they are by situation forced to eat fruits, vegetables and breads produced by their slaves, as hunting inevitably grows less and less successful near their cities, leading them to begin devouring their slaves, and soon collapsing into rot and ruin, as they war on their own neighbors for fresh slaves, leading to cycles of decline and savagery, that always seem to end with a much smaller population of awakened apes, eager to rebuild their ‘glorious empire’ all over again, and generally unwilling to admit their own inability to sustain themselves for more than a few generations.
Generally, a community of these foul creatures includes less than a couple dozen awakened apes, ruled by whatever spellcaster is able to maintain their awakened status (at least 5th level in Cleric or Druid, 6th level Sorcerer, or 8th or 9th level Adept. Another dozen or so human slaves and / or trained baboon ‘slaves’ round out the population, with the slaves working night and day to sate the food demands of the rapacious apes. They inhabit a ruined area sometimes the equivalent to only a single large building, often some sort of steppe pyramid. Only the largest central community of their former masters fallen empire has a population of over a hundred apes, and a dozen or more awakened dire apes.
In Goodman's 4e line, Blackdirge's Dungeon Denizens, there is listed "Zain-Kin", intellegent apemen with a decidedly unmerciful bent.
Now you may be wondering why I mentioned something from a 4e product- bear with me- it's because the Dungeon Denizen book was either all newly created monster material or updates from the 3.0/3.5 DCC module lines. While I'm not sure which previous Goodman's DCC module the Zain-Kin were featured in, if any (the book doesn't list any source materials that the monsters were taken from), it may be worth looking into.