JAMES HARMS NO READ!
Okay, with that out of the way: I run a PF game for a group of 11th level evil PCs. Last night, they stumbled onto a nest of neh-thalggu in a 200-foot deep hole beneath an arctic area of the world. I originally placed eight in the cavern, and they finished off three of them. The other five went invisible and scurried away into tunnels branching off from the main cavern. I ended the game with a cliffhanger: a sudden avalanche caused by the lightning bolts the neh-thalggu used on the PCs caused the cavern to partially collapse, sealing the PCs inside with the rest of the collective.
For the next session of play, I want to map out a tunnel system and play cat and mouse with the PCs and the brain collectors. I'm trying to imagine what a group of neh-thalggu would do to fortify their lair against possible intruders.
I had also considered the idea that each brain collector has a dominant brain that grants them a unique personality, and maybe even a unique spell list as a result (so far I've played them as preferring the brains of arcane spellcasters in order to bolster the power of their collective, which, rightly, has the party's sorcerer a bit nervous).
I'm about to start combing through Lords of Madness and some of my other monster books looking for other types of aberrations to place in the tunnels - ideally, creatures with which the neh-thalggu would be able to coexist and potentially even have a symbiotic connection.
I'd really like to hear thoughts from any of you on what creatures to introduce and/or how the brain collectors' lair could be structured with hazards and traps appropriate to creatures with such an alien mindset.
Well, this is just right off the top of my head, but if the Neh-Thalggu can access the memories of the brains it's taken and so can impersonate them perfectly, then it could possibly command whomever served the donor.
Imagine some crazy space cult that believed the Neh-Thalggu was the cults founder come back from the comet. The PC's would have to fight their way through a wave of fanatics to get to the creatures.
Alternately, you could have a innocent family that serves the Neh-Thalggu for the promise of returning their mother's (son's, uncle's, etc...) brain to her preserved body.
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I got a nice idea from Shilsen on enworld a while back. It was meant for a roper but fits here perfectly.
First: make them immune to electricity (maybe instead of poison if you feel generous)
Second, have there be lots of small tunnels everywhere.
Thirdly - have them share their lair with ohh.. 36 shocker lizards. Every 6 of which can combine to fire off a 12d8 lightning attack in a 40 ft diameter circle, every round! So you could have the PCs start fighting the brain-collectors and then, a round into the fight, be surprised as dozens of lizards rush out of little holes in the ground and start firing off lots of lightning blasts. Considering that 36 shockers can fire six 12d8 blasts in one round, you could actually drop a couple of PCs before they knew what was going on.
Yikes!
:-)
Many thanks for the suggestions. I like the cult idea, and may try to merge it with a suggestion another GM had made - introducing a race of subdwellers into the caverns, such as the morlocks. I'm thinking that perhaps the human cultists work to keep the monstrous morlocks in line - and maybe these cultists are vying for the ultimate "honor" from their masters: having their brains added to the collective.
I also LOVE the shocker lizard idea. I've deviated from the "book" version of the neh-thalggu in some slight ways to suit my own tastes, and adding lightning immunity may be the next step. I've already dropped their fly speed and simply given them the ability to move and climb at 40' per round - I think the idea of a flying cthulhu crab is a little dumb, frankly, and there's something inherently scarier about the prospect that one of these things could be lying in wait anywhere in the tunnels, just waiting for tasty brains to pass beneath them - plus, they can run faster than the PCs. So, with the flight ability taken away, I think granting lightning immunity keeps it balanced, and also lets me work the shocker lizard angle into play.
Their being flightless also better explains why, in my game, they've waited underground patiently, using their abilities to lure travelers into the caverns. Of course, they could still climb out and go hunting, I suppose, but it's not as easy when you're ground-bound - and there are plenty of other creatures in the arctic tundra that wouldn't hesitate to squish a neh-thalggu encroaching on their territory, including remorhaz, chaitrakhan packs, mountain trolls, linnorms, and warrior fey.
Another idea I had: One of the remaining neh-thalggu was badly injured by a player who made a called shot to its brain blisters. I'm thinking of making this particular neh-thalggu a temporary ally for the PCs - perhaps the brain damage allowed the engulfed mind of a powerful mage to dominate its new host body, and it can enlighten them on the creatures' weaknesses and even help them deceive the other brain collectors and set up an ambush. Of course, no match made in hell is meant to last for two long, and the rogue caster may well decide to attempt to re-implant his own brain into the body of a PC once the other neh-thalggu have been dealt with... >=]
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I love the Brain Collector...
Tharizdun is a Brain Collector in my own Version of Greyhawk. When he returns, he is intent on collecting the brains of all the 'gods'. Thyr - Rei - Dhuno is a very old warning that means the 'debt collector is comming to take posession of property'. Basically little old ladies in eastern European villages and ghettos would scream it as a warning to the rest of the residents...
A bit of follow up:
The shocker lizard idea worked like a charm. Dropped seven of 'em in a roughly 25' x 35' pool with an advanced neh thalggu smack in the middle. The melee hitters waded right in and got hit for about 80 electricity damage in a single round between the shocker lizards and the neh thalggu's own lightning bolt. I also dropped the ninja to -6 when another blast hit him toward the end of the combat. A few people started suspecting that the brain collector wasn't the source of the electricity and tried to spot stuff in the water, but until someone got a nat 20, no one rolled high enough on their Perception checks to beat the lizards' stealth roll of 33. =]
I put in a token team of eight cultists from the GMG, plus a cult leader from the same source, and had them lurking in one area. When they became aware of the PCs, they started channeling energy like crazy - the sorcerer was leading the advance and took 50 negative energy damage from their first volley. Of course, he dropped all but the cult leader in a single round with a well-placed cloudkill. For extra measure, I decided that the cult worshipped a number of monstrous beings, and placed a room feature in their den called the Ivory Pool (in actuality a white pudding - I used the same stats as a black pudding but changed the color to fit the arctic theme of the campaign so far). Of course, they launched a frontal assault against the pudding and the cultist - at which point another neh thalggu blocked the exit to the cult's chamber, sandwiching them between two pretty tough monsters.
(Incidentally, the cult encounter spawned a lot of good jokes. I had the cult leader spew off all sorts of nonsense about "the mothership" and "soon we will be exalted by the masters" during his I'm-A-Big-Badass speech. My players taunted him mercilessly with jests about Kool-Aid and the Manson family. When the antipaladin finally killed the cult leader, he said derisively, "Guess you won't be needing those new Nikes after all, huh, moron?")
I also decided that there was a population of morlocks living in the caves, and mocked up a swarm stat block representing about 300 of them in a colossal-sized (5x5) square. We had a nice little "Fellowship of the Rings" moment when the party decided to seal off a cavern with symbols of sleep and camp out - only to find that the morlocks could simply scale past their symbols using the rocky walls and ceilings of the cave! They drove back the swarm temporarily, but I plan to use it again next time we play.
Oh, and I planted a neh thalggu with a dominant human mind as detailed in my last post. His name is Cedric, but they insist on calling him Bob. He's their ally for the time being - but if the sorcerer gets weak enough, I think the rogue brain collector is going to try to implant his own brain into the mage's body. =]
Sounds like fun, glad it worked out for you and your group.
I ran a Neh-Thaggu the other night and it smacked around my 8th level PCs pretty good. I came up with a spur of the moment series of encounters that had a Ghostbuster style dimension open up in the city and these buggers along with some Xills were running around town. The Neh-Thaggu was harvesting brains from hapless townsfolk while the Xills were laying eggs in the bodies. They were lead by an androgynous abberant sorceror with two Hound of Tindalos on a giant black ziggurat. Probably not all ecologically correct, but all the monsters had that weird, alien vibe to them and were something my players hadn't faced before so they had a lot of fun.
The Nehs are cool.
I came up with a spur of the moment series of encounters that had a Ghostbuster style dimension open up in the city and these buggers along with some Xills were running around town. The Neh-Thaggu was harvesting brains from hapless townsfolk while the Xills were laying eggs in the bodies. They were lead by an androgynous abberant sorceror with two Hound of Tindalos on a giant black ziggurat. Probably not all ecologically correct, but all the monsters had that weird, alien vibe to them and were something my players hadn't faced before so they had a lot of fun.
The Nehs are cool.
Haha! Nice homage, sir - I was just thinking the other day that the hounds of Tindalos would be great for an obvious nod to the Gozer dogs one of these days. (And having faced them in Call of Cthulhu, I have a grudging respect for the fiendish li'l pups.)
Haha! Nice homage, sir - I was just thinking the other day that the hounds of Tindalos would be great for an obvious nod to the Gozer dogs one of these days. (And having faced them in Call of Cthulhu, I have a grudging respect for the fiendish li'l pups.)I came up with a spur of the moment series of encounters that had a Ghostbuster style dimension open up in the city and these buggers along with some Xills were running around town. The Neh-Thaggu was harvesting brains from hapless townsfolk while the Xills were laying eggs in the bodies. They were lead by an androgynous abberant sorceror with two Hound of Tindalos on a giant black ziggurat. Probably not all ecologically correct, but all the monsters had that weird, alien vibe to them and were something my players hadn't faced before so they had a lot of fun.
The Nehs are cool.
The PCs thought they could just fly up the ziggurat but the Hounds can use airwalk and their Ripping Gaze attack is just mean.
Just looked them up in my CoC 3e book. Nowhere as tough or cool as the Pathfinder version.
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The shocker lizard idea worked like a charm. Dropped seven of 'em in a roughly 25' x 35' pool with an advanced neh thalggu smack in the middle. The melee hitters waded right in and got hit for about 80 electricity damage in a single round between the shocker lizards and the neh thalggu's own lightning bolt. I also dropped the ninja to -6 when another blast hit him toward the end of the combat. A few people started suspecting that the brain collector wasn't the source of the electricity and tried to spot stuff in the water, but until someone got a nat 20, no one rolled high enough on their Perception checks to beat the lizards' stealth roll of 33. =]
LOL! Sounds like a great night! Those litle guys sure do pack a punch!
I love the way you set it up, sounds like a fun campaign :-)