So I want to have my players (eventually) meet an oracle creature that knows all things dark and vile. While I'm tempted to use the lamia oracle-things from the last section of Rise of the Runelords (I'm sorry, I can't remember the name or the title), I kind of want to use an elemental weird (a la Monster Manual 2).
The notion is that the PCs need to fill in the gaps of the ultimate villain's nefarious plan to figure out a way to stop it. Because the plan is so nebulous and only involves one person (the villain himself), I figure it would be much easier from a writing standpoint to just have a quasi-omniscient being tell them exactly what it is he is planning.
I want a monster with class, but also with power. It will inhabit a massive temple built over a seeping wound in the earth known as the Earthscar.
My original plan was to hijack the Weird from the MM2 and make it into an evil subtype monster, give it an energy drain, debilitating aura, unhallow aura, and negative energy pool. Still, if anyone has a good idea I'd like to hear it.
I want a monster with class, but also with power. It will inhabit a massive temple built over a seeping wound in the earth known as the Earthscar.
A Naga or evil-converted Couatl would work well for this, IMO. Your idea of Elemental Weird is also nice :)
what sort of CR is aceptable? i may have 2 possibilities in my homebrew file.
Do you have Tome of Magic? They have a diviner/Psion/cerebrancer that is nice a creepy. She's an insane, horribly corpulant woman with several pet centipedes crawling all over her.
I re-worked it so she was a derro broodmother (yeah, I didn't know they existed either), made her rolls of fat look oddly like a brain, dropped the psionics (I don't do psionics), and upped her size to Large. She stays in a tub of water like that fat vamp on Buffy. To protect her from ranged touch attacks, I made it so the centipedes crawling all over her can dart in front of the ray, taking one for the team.
EDIT:
Sphinxes work too. I also like the naga idea, especially if you're going for a corrupted pythoness-type.
Sphinxes, nagas, your elemental weirds, night hags all come to mind. A dragon could be fun and different too. Or an undead monster like a lich. The troll idea was neat. Maybe there's a fey that will work....
Sphinxes, nagas, your elemental weirds, night hags all come to mind. A dragon could be fun and different too. Or an undead monster like a lich. The troll idea was neat. Maybe there's a fey that will work....
Yeah Naga works really well mayber a half-fiendish or half dragon dark naga. Or a ghost dark naga if the villain is suposed to be able to come and go as he please but doesnt need to be a dirict combat threat.
I know this might be rather off, but what about a construct? I can imagine the massive temple you mention being completely deserted, as if the original owners had long ago departed to who knows where. However, they left behind this repository of knowledge -an oracle construct- that still continues to perform its duties, inspecting the skies for signs, checking the winds for hidden messages, et cetera.
It could be a huge greek-like statue (imagine the statue of Zeus, but able to communicate), a mechanical apparatus (like an orrery), or even part of the temple itself.