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Saventh-Yhi has two puppet masters: Yog'oltha and M'deggog. Surely they know about each other, right?
Yog'oltha has several minions, as first encountered: four gibbering mouthers guarding it, and Ugimmo who's doing some exploring for it. Due to the lack of a shared language between Yog'oltha and Ugimmo, this is perhaps not the best explorer Yog'oltha has dominated, but it's easy to send out more. (As written, however, Ugimmo isn't even dominated any more but is following his last-received commands of his own free will.)
M'deggog has more minions: Ivo Haigan, the Kaava bush-devil, a charau-ka, a boggard, a roper, and a derhii.
Both of them are primarily after more information. Yog'oltha wants to know as much as possible about how the people here reacted to Earthfall, and M'deggog just wants to experiment on its mind control process until it perfects it.
I figure we as GMs have two goals:
1. Make the two puppet masters sufficiently distinct that it doesn't seem like we're just using the same monster twice.
2. Give sufficient foreshadowing of M'deggog (who is, after all, the boss monster of Saventh-Yhi).
My intention with regards to keeping them distinct is to always roleplay their goals, not their combat stats. I'm hoping that this is enough, but I would love to hear what people have done with them.
Players don't even have hints of either of these monsters for quite a while, unless they decide to go to the island in the middle of the city early on. I gave them incentive to do this, and next session my PCs will be encountering Ugimmo. Since the lack of a common language means that Yog'oltha can only give Ugimmo the most basic instructions, my guess is that it turned him loose with a command such as "Learn" or "Explore". With the domination having already expired, the PCs don't even get Sense Motive checks to learn about it. If they stop and talk to him (which seems possible--as far as I can tell he starts out feeling indifferent toward the PCs) they he could tell them about the Green God and the "voice of the swamp". Not much of a clue there. The only other way to find out about Yog'oltha without adding a dominated character is to stumble on the gibbering Mouthers at the other end of the city.
M'deggog is even more obscure, at least at first. As far as I can tell, there is no way to get even the slightest whisper about the intellect devourer until Event Two of chapter four. At the very least, I figure I can have the Children of the Spear and the Tribe of the Green God aware that one of their own went missing, and maybe even have witnesses to those two walking off into the city.
Having two puppet masters in one place seems like it should just be really cool, and I'd love advice on how to make this particularly memorable for my players.
I've added some slimed charau-ka to Yog'oltha's collection. One has spied the party at the water's edge and continue to be on the lookout for them. Sooner rather than later, the party will notice that they are being spied on by a collection of organs in humanoid form.
I hadn't thought about M'deggog at all but I agree with your statetment about the need for foreshadowing.
Here's how I'm leaning right now.
I think that even though the Maka-Yika have only just arrived in Saventh-Yhi (possibly even after the PCs arrived), M'deggog has been there a long time.
Yog'oltha's goal and M'deggog's goal don't contradict each other at all. They're both after knowledge and neither has any external reason to sabotage the other. What if they're rivals, though? They foil each other's schemes because they've been doing it for a long time. They keep trying to get at the other, but would be furious if someone else took down their rival before they did. (My wife compared this to the Doctor and the Master.)
Given that M'deggog's expulsion from Ilmurea has absolutely nothing to do with the plot, I'd rather have it happen at a different time rather than be sheer coincidence that his crisis happened at the same time as everything else was going on in the city. This means he had other minions/experimental subjects before the Maka-Yika, and they're gone. I think they're victims of Yog'oltha.
Having a rivalry also means that the minions of one puppet master are aware of minions of the other puppet master. They could have rings of detect magic and scan everyone new they meet, checking for the presence of the rival.
I think this could give me the opportunity to say what's going on without it seeming like I'm just telling the same story twice.
Any thoughts?
The rivals idea sounds good to me. It could be as simple as a battle of ego's. Perhaps one stole a minion from the other?
Having one of Yog'oltha's minions become friendly with the party and ask questions about empty headed creatures and where they have been encountered would be useful foreshadowing. Perhaps Yog'oltha has instructed his minions to present him as some type of benevolent voice of the jungle?
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I like the idea of a ring of detect magic to detect them. My players are not quite in Saventh-Yi yet, but here is something I might do. Back in book two there is this spirit journey thing with the mwangi guide. I have been playing that up for a long time on the Shiv itself and the players then only realised they were the animals when they had a spirit journey.
Now that spirit journey quest thing seemed a bit out of place, because the rest of the campaign hardly deals with it. But these two 'puppet masters' could definately make contact or at least give off some dreams/visions/etc. My players have a Oracle so that is easy to me. :)
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Or maybe the two of them duel periodically in the dream plane. And the only way for the PCs to truly defeat them is on the dream plane... where they can only go in their animal spirit forms.
Man, I wish I'd thought of that earlier! My group already got Yog but I'm totally using that for M'deg. He'll disappear at the end of the fight and Nkechi will comment that creatures "powerful of the mind" can walk the dream planes as well (or something like that). Then he'll do another ritual to send them after him for a final showdown.
Thanks for the great brainstorm guys! :) I loved the animal spirit part of the AP but really felt it was under used as well.
The spirit journey fell flat with my players, and they all declined the tattoos when they were offered. It sounds like a cool idea, but not for my group.
On the other hand, I'm definitely taking Geo Fix's suggestion that one stole a minion! I think it would have to be M'deggog stealing a minion from Yog'oltha. Maybe the minion's brain even remained dominated after getting stuffed in a jar, so Yog'oltha was able to regain control the next time M'deggog stopped concentrating on said minion. This could explain how Yog'oltha killed M'deggog's last batch of minions and why it became necessary to "recruit" the Maka-Yika.
I agree with Jenner. Great brainstorm!
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While I am not in Saventh-Yi yet, I am definately nabbing some of these ideas. :) They are quickly approaching, few more sessions I think.
I really like the idea of duelling on the dream plane. I do remember that the snake they fought in the dream plane in Racing to Ruin was supposedly Yarzoth from Smuggler's Shiv, even if she already died. Someone like Yog might still have a bit of his spirit around in the dream plane.
It's a shame your spirit journey fell flat tbug, but maybe you can twist the concept a little and still use elements of it. They don't have to enter as spirit animals, they might find a way there or are locked there for a little. Consider it a change of scenery in which the puppet masters control the surroundings. Might be nice after a lot of ruined city.
My players broke the spirit journey - killing the serpent in one swing and they glossed over the tattoos. However, they've been having prophetic dreams at least once a week that they think might be after-effects of Nkechi's hallucinogen. (I think it is more likely the result of meddling by the gods who don't want to see a resurrected Ydersius, but I'm leaving it open for later adjustment).
This has let me introduce some pretty blatant foreshadowing and also let me introduce the paranoia mechanic ("the dream has shaken your faith in the party - today you are paranoid" etc.). I usually have each dream have a role-playing effect ("you are more likely to charge forward today, and trust your first instinct") and a game mechanic effect (paranoia, or +2 initiative against snakes, etc.).