Some details. This party is in a campaign setting where magitech has caused living standards to shoot up, more people live in urban areas than rural areas, and things in general look pretty modern. The nation we are currently in is a fantasy analog of New England in both geographic area, culture, and demographics (except the Native American population is larger thanks to divine magic having been able to combat disease). The PCs are members of a government organization tasked with hunting down dangerous monsters and spellcasters who abuse their powers. I have five fifth level PCs.
Now, I could use some help putting together a combat heavy adventure. First, here are the resources I have that could be useful for this particular task:
3.5 Monster Manual
3.5 Draconimicon
3.5 Legends and Lairs Necromantic Lore
3.5 Seafarer's Handbook
3.5 Seas of Blood
3.5 Aerial Adventure Guide
3.5 Libris Mortis
3.5 Green Ronin Advanced Bestiary
3.5 Gem Dragons PDF download
Pathfinder Bestiary
Pathfinder Bestiary 2
Pathfinder Bestiary 3
Pathfinder Psionics Unleashed
Pathfinder Mythic Menagerie Engines of Destruction
Pathfinder Mythic Menagerie Howl at the Moon
Pathfinder Mythic Menagerie The Kingdom of Graves
I want something creepy and that seems like it would fit in New England. I'd love to whip out Psionics Unleashed or some undead/organic golems/alchemical or medical horrors in particular, but I'm not dead set on it. I am not opposed to doing a bit of work, such as applying templates (I love you, Pathfinder simple templates and Green Ronin Advanced Bestiary, saviors of customization loving GMs).
First off, does anyone have any ideas for a plotline? As in, what monsters are causing what problems, and why? Second, how many combat encounters should this adventure have? Third, what monsters should I use?
Just a note: If you get a chance to get Iron Kingdoms Monsternomicon Revised and/or Monsternomicon II grab it and don't let it go! It contains a lot of alchemical/undeads/mechanical-but-easily-convertible-to-magitech monstrosities. Also, each monster has expanded in-world description with ideas for plots.
IK is way too pricey.
$35-45 at Amazon :(
Drivethrough PDF is for $23 now. Still quite much.
However, if you see one on sale, consider it.
Also, I didn't noticed before that Wes was amongst the authors of Monsternomicon 2.
A French mage-engineer arrives at the settlement for a new life. He wishes to peacefully continue his work, which was taxed too high in France. The adventure starts out with the scientist sending off the PCs to look for rare minerals for him to do his work. Within this time, the scientist should establish a good relationship with the party, making him a loved NPC.
Within a few months, the scientist completes his work. a helpful medium humanoid construct with artificial brain functions that rival those of studied humans. This includes intelligence, emotion, drive, and the ability to learn. But the most amazing feature of this construct is the ability to self-reproduce by the knowledge of its own schematics, and the understanding of how to improve and upgrade.
One night, after the robot has multiplied itself a few times, an explosion in the lab occurs. The scientist is dying and the robots have escaped. The scientist tells the PCs how the robots became mad.
The PCs follow the tracks of the robots and realize they have never stopped multiplying. A party turns into an organization, which turns into an army. When they meet up with the constructs, the PCs realize that the mechanized army has just sealed deals with devils to help them in their conquest.
I haven't gotten farther than that, but basically it's a string of failures that leads to a robot empire. Story's a bit rusty (badum tsssss) but you get the idea.
Hmm, well, this might be a little bit different from where you're going with, but when I think of New England and steampunk, I tend to think of the Victorian age, with all of its social repression and associated neurosis. The sciences of the mind like psychology psychiatry were in their infancies (with Freud beginning a lot of his psychoanalytic stuff in Europe at about this time) so you had quite a few weird quasi-scientific beliefs going on during the 19th century. Add to this, occultism became a popular fad in upper class circles. And in the US outlandish, sensational yellow journalism was becoming the rule of the day at rival publishing companies tried to outdo each other. So to me a sort of fantastic take on the Victorian age would be to play up the secret decadence behind closed doors, the shadowy impulses of the id and neurotic fears beneath the Victorian veneer of civilization.
Since you're going for kinda a psionics feel, a plot featuring creatures of the repressed mind (such as the phthisic from psionics unleashed or the animate dreams from the PB II) might be fun. You could do a full on delve into a Jungian type collective unconscious, for example, by visiting the plane of dreams. Perhaps there is a secret war going on in the souls and dreams of humanity. The strict social structures of the Victorian era clashing with mankind's raw impules is becoming a psychic boiling pot of sorts, and sometimes the psychic residue simmers over into the material world (like the phthisic arising from a highly stressed and neurotic mind).
Other monsters highlighting the "beast within" might include lycanthropes or wendigo. The alchemist who dabbles in forbidden experiments to free himself of taint or the pious man who believes himself without sin may transform into this in a Jekyll and Hyde fashion.
If you need a group of monsters behind the rash of spontaneous dream/id manifestations, perhaps a good candidate might be the phrenic scourge (from psionics unleashed). They could, in a convoluted fashion, be encouraging the paranoid social anxieties in order to work away the psyche of man. As humanity winds itself apart with increasingly bizarre and destructive social codes, there is a hidden backlash in society that nobody wants to talk about. People hide dark thoughts and conduct strange and immoral ceremonies in the privacy of their own homes. Pride is spoken in public about as the chief sin, but socially there is a potential of hypocrisy as the mantle of civilization is used to elevate modern society above its more primitive equivalents and justify. Social anxieties at profound social changes are masked behind a smug sense of cultural superiority. The phrenic scourges feed off these dark thoughts. As these dark thoughts become excessive, they drive men towards madness and hedonism, which in turns breaks down the walls of the collective unconscious and the world of dreams, letting more of their twisted kind come through the barrier.
I think I got it. Hardline religious cult angry over the 160 years of decline that the Church of Jessabra has seen. The unfaithful must be punished. How should they be punished? Let the dead rise.
And so people in the rural communities near the Big Spooky Forest where the cultists are start dissapearing (cultists need more bodies to make undead)...
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Some details. This party is in a campaign setting where magitech has caused living standards to shoot up, more people live in urban areas than rural areas, and things in general look pretty modern. The nation we are currently in is a fantasy analog of New England in both geographic area, culture, and demographics (except the Native American population is larger thanks to divine magic having been able to combat disease). The PCs are members of a government organization tasked with hunting down dangerous monsters and spellcasters who abuse their powers. I have five fifth level PCs.
Now, I could use some help putting together a combat heavy adventure. First, here are the resources I have that could be useful for this particular task:
3.5 Monster Manual
3.5 Draconimicon
3.5 Legends and Lairs Necromantic Lore
3.5 Seafarer's Handbook
3.5 Seas of Blood
3.5 Aerial Adventure Guide
3.5 Libris Mortis
3.5 Green Ronin Advanced Bestiary
3.5 Gem Dragons PDF download
Pathfinder Bestiary
Pathfinder Bestiary 2
Pathfinder Bestiary 3
Pathfinder Psionics Unleashed
Pathfinder Mythic Menagerie Engines of Destruction
Pathfinder Mythic Menagerie Howl at the Moon
Pathfinder Mythic Menagerie The Kingdom of GravesI want something creepy and that seems like it would fit in New England. I'd love to whip out Psionics Unleashed or some undead/organic golems/alchemical or medical horrors in particular, but I'm not dead set on it. I am not opposed to doing a bit of work, such as applying templates (I love you, Pathfinder simple templates and Green Ronin Advanced Bestiary, saviors of customization loving GMs).
First off, does anyone have any ideas for a plotline? As in, what monsters are causing what problems, and why? Second, how many combat encounters should this adventure have? Third, what monsters should I use?
Analog... of modern day New England?
I think I got it. Hardline religious cult angry over the 160 years of decline that the Church of Jessabra has seen. The unfaithful must be punished. How should they be punished? Let the dead rise.
And so people in the rural communities near the Big Spooky Forest where the cultists are start dissapearing (cultists need more bodies to make undead)...
Ahaha. Steampunk Zombie Apocalypse!