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So working on an campaign for my home games and part 1 ends with the potential for them having the option of either fighting this horrible monster sealed beneath the town or sacrificing one of their friends in order to keep it at bay. Now I'm looking for something otherworldly and horrifying that will present a nasty challenge to them but I'm not really sure what to use. As it stands I'm thinking either some kind of outsider or aberration to play up the cthulhian horror or creature never meant for mortal eyes angle but beyond that I'm kind of at a loss. So anyone have any ideas?
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Well, it depends what theme you want to go with, and what level the characters are at, and what your players are like
Shoggoths are already in pathfinder and are definitely ia big challenge for characters.
You could use an otyghs stats for a tentacled monstrosity for lower level party....just change the description as desired.
Cthonians are another subterranian menace - you could use all sorts of differnt creatures stats for one of those depending on level of the pc.
I personally like "the worm that walks" as a concept : coming across a room full of wriggling worms (think raiders of the lost ark) that then merge together to form a humanoid shape...
Do a cthulu/ Beholder cross. Basically a big ball of tentacles with a bunch of eyes on stalks and weird powers.
fiendish half dragon(red) elder earth elemental graveknight, add in casting ability of an ancient red dragon. it could be a fiendish red dragon who sought immortality by infusing his soul into a statue of himself (though not by the traditional lich style) in order to escape his enemies (the forces of good and nature). It didn't work and they slew his new form and cast it into the depths below. Now he's back and looking for revenge against the world who stood against him.
What level is your party?
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What level is your party?
Crap I thought I had that up there. Their level will be like 1st-2nd depending on how much xp they collect so the CR ends up low. That being said there is a good chance they will have a few npc warriors, experts, or commoners with them that could help them out so it can be a bit higher.
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If you've access to the Crown of Fangs Adventure Path, there's the havero... I don't think it's been put in a Bestiary yet. Which is fine with me - I don't want my PC to meet one. Ever.
Impertinent tentacles! Of potentially infinite length! That can turn incorporeal to get at you!
Technically it's the Curse of the Crimson Throne AP, Crown of Fangs is just the last chapter... which is not the chapter the Havero's in. It's in A History of Ashes.
Or you can just get it off PFSRD. For a lower CR, just pit them against a few of its tentacles alone instead of the whole creature.
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So working on an campaign for my home games and part 1 ends with the potential for them having the option of either fighting this horrible monster sealed beneath the town or sacrificing one of their friends in order to keep it at bay. Now I'm looking for something otherworldly and horrifying that will present a nasty challenge to them but I'm not really sure what to use. As it stands I'm thinking either some kind of outsider or aberration to play up the cthulhian horror or creature never meant for mortal eyes angle but beyond that I'm kind of at a loss. So anyone have any ideas?
The Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen
aka Tyrannohamstersaurus Rexaka Wooly
Sentient leech swarm that can take a vaguely humanoid shape (like a Worm That Walks but not). It was once a priest of the old ones but is now something much worse... so I'm saying throw a re-flavored leech swarm without any real extra abilities.
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One possibility, though, stolen from Alfred Hitchcock, is not to show the Thing or have the adventure end with a battle with it: focus instead on the side-effects of it stirring (minor earthquakes, vile clouds or streams of fire rising from the depths, etc.) and focusing the mission on re-tightening its bonds or returning it to slumber, whether this means a mystic ritual or the town alchemist mixing up a huge batch of sleeping powder. There could still be a fight - I'd probably flavor it as creatures rising from the deeps to escape the Thing and fighting the PCs in their panic to get away. (The PCs can't just let 'em slip past either, unless they want these monsters roaming the surface.)
I like it.
Check out its "Unsettling Appearance (SU)" ability.
Give it vegepygmy minions; they are immune to its abilities.
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a child, sealed in a frost chamber, which is now cracked.
long ago, this child hosted a disease that was resistant to magical curing, infecting and almost decimating an entire civilization. the council of elders at the time, in the aftermath of the epidemic, couldn't bring it upon themselves to kill the child, and instead chose encasement and a commitment to study a way to kill the disease while sparing the child. subsequent wars finally abolished what was left of this civilization, and this chamber became a lost secret. until now...
The shattered corpse of Aroden, re-animated by the greatest of necromantic energies (Pharasma only got his soul) if you've set it in Golarion.
A formerly good outsider possessed by something from the Cthlhu mythos (an angel with tentacles forcing there way out if it's weeping, bleeding eye sockets constantly weeping as it tries to kill the party creeps me the hell out).
A little girl in a white dress (there is nothing creepier. Ever. My daughters are banned from white dresses).
Barney is owned by someone, and is their intellectual property. Please use legally and safely.
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Barney is owned by someone, and is their intellectual property. Please use legally and safely.
I used to have the Barney mod for Doom.
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I like the sentient leech swarm but it feels out of place for where they are. The town is in this kind of desert badlands kind of area like american west so leech swarms don't really seem to fit.
Is it thematically western, or is that just the environment?
Assuming low level, w/ support:
If it has a western vibe, you could make it a small/medium sized undead dragon (skeleton warrior or ju-ju zombie, so it has some intellect), give it a few levels of gunslinger and throw on some augmented autocannons on it's shoulders as it blasts the hell out of everything around it.
That is of course, if you are going with a western theme to match the terrain.
Otherwise if it's just plain old arid/desert, how about this - a creature that looks like a swarm/cloud or transparent nebulous mass (may or may not have humanoid features) which comes out of the pit - and doesn't seem to do anything at first, it just hovers there. Until it drains one of the NPCs of all their blood and body water as they die screaming. So now they have a weakened horror that will quickly grow out of bounds as it kills all living things by draining their life-blood. The party must push it back down into the pit or use the proper tools to stop it before it regains its strength and becomes unstoppable.
Fire or holy weapons hurt it and it can be hedged by protection from evil.
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Ohh cerebric fungus is pretty cool.
As for the use later that might happen. The way it's supposed to play out is that the PC's are trying to figure out this string of murders that is going on soon after a local festival as important town leaders begin to turn up dead. The locals want to blame the nomad tribes who've shown up for the murders, the nomads are innocent but don't think that they will be defended and are ready to fight their way out. Meanwhile the actual cult; a secret order to a god of desperate defense, are gathering up the people who's blood will keep the monster sealed beneath the town while laying clues that will implicate the nomads are the cause.
Thing is, by the time the players actually start figuring out what is going on they will know 2 things.
1.) that whatever is here is old, older then most of the town and is quite possibly more powerful then anything they can handle.
2.) If this last victim dies, it will keep the creature sealed for another 30-50 years.
Basically in the end the players are meant to question whether the cultists, who are all local townspeople whom they and the town have known forever, are really evil or just doing what's necessary to keep everyone from suffering a fate worse then death should it rise. Also I want to see them really sweat the decision over whether to let it rise and kill it or not.
Giant robot that can only say pre-recorded stock phrases in Engrish, like:
"GO AHEAD YEAH!"
"USA OK!" *thumb's up*
"TRY YOU BEST!"
And have it do a 10 round dance to summon it's Lightning Greatsword.
There is a CR 2 Kyton, HERE
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What exacltly is your CR target for the encounter? If you want to make it actually live up to "that big horror you may not be able to defeat angle", should the PCs choose to fight it, you'll want something like APL+4 or 5. I'd start from the CR number and work from there.
So: level 2 PCs, you said. But how many? And exactly what support will they have?
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Use a grick but add a level of intelligence to it, telepathy, an aura of sickening and then you can look at making it tough with templates to reach whatever CR you are looking for....you could also maybe give it a "wormspawn" ability where it can call regular gricks(or slightly beefy) in during a battle, maybe the King Grick has 4(or more) pustules that burst when he takes damage(or a certain amount of damage) and the grick flops out of there and immediately grow to normal size and attack the nearest foe of King Grick.
I like gricks because they are a good, low-level, DR using, strange creature.
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There is a CR 2 Kyton, HERE
LOL, that creature is Tiny! As in, yes - that's its size tiny. Kinda like the floating ball from Phantasm.
Doc, if I may - what you are going to need here is more flash and less bang.
Assuming your players are prepped, level 2 with a support team (some guards/experts) before the thing comes out, you should be looking at a CR 6 creature, maybe a 7 (that might be too much).
What you could do is modify the hell out of the damn thing so that it's
A) Unrecognizable from original source (if a modified creature)
B) Is more threatening looking than it actually is (due to your level limitations).
So some good tricks would be to find something at a low CR, make it a little bigger and then template it to make it weird.
So let’s say you were to use my semi-transparent floating bloodsucker monster from my last post you just use a heavily modified creature that fits CR. I'm using my beastie just as an example, it's sort of a stupid idea but I am just listing it for a frame of reference.
So floating bloodsucking ancient thingy –
So you can do this with any low CR creature, just make it bigger and more intimidating while keeping its CR in check (since you will start small).
Edit: Ninja'd by FH on concept
As to your story, I think if the players figure that this thing is unstoppable, they may end up sacrificing one of themselves to stop it. Not much of an adventure imo. I would make the cult a little smaller then you have in mind, since if it’s a large number of honorable citizens in towns it creates a bit of a law problem. Did what they do to save the world (from a CR 6 creature) count as a crime, does the party need to turn them in? If it's a cult dedicated to defense why wouldn’t they have one of their own people make the ultimate sacrifice to keep this creature at bay.
I like the idea of the hidden creature, but I think your sacrifice for the good could be a troublesome point when they may unnecessarily sacrifice one of themselves or when they have to arrest half the town for murder after its done. Complex in the least - but if you think your group likes moral challenges then run with it.
A more simplistic approach would be to have the cult be evil (yes, cliché) and they are committing murders to try to get this creature out to destroy the town, the elders and even the nomad tribes. Maybe they have a beef with both the nomads (who almost wiped out their cult millennia ago) and the town who build their home on what they consider sacred ground. The town could have arisen from the need to have a watch point at the seal, and after hundreds of years no one remembers the seal while a town has sprung up (maybe some detective work might reveal it).
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Couple of things I think I clarify since they seem to have been muddied in the opener.
The person to get sacrificed is going to be an NPC that the party close to not one of them in particular.
As for the cult, the reasons they don't just come out and tell people is most likely due to the worry of what will happen to them thanks to what they've been doing for decades now and the frame jobs they've pulled to continue it as well as what would happen to the people they actually care about should they not finish their task. Think of them as kind of like the cult in dunwich horror but trying to keep the creature at bay. Unfortunately they have also become corrupted by their mission, viewing much of mankind with this kind of contempt and as lesser beings who they'd sacrifice to keep the monster at bay. At this point they just feel it is easy to keep the townsfolk in the dark and blame the nomads whomever they decide to frame then just tell them and have them fuss over it. Even if they did tell them though, by the time all of them came to consensus on what to do the creature would be loose and they would still hang.
As for creatures I'm thinking a evangelist kyton especially considering it's gaze ability. The other one I'm thinking of maybe a weakened warped one or some kind of cthulhian entity.
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Primus (The One and the Prime) or all of the Modrons.
You should do some variation of the futakuchi-onna - maybe a giant woman imprisoned in the earth like the Balor.
It'd be interesting to play it up first with the woman. She's freed from the earth and has an educated conversation with the PCs, and they're confused as to why such a being would be jailed.
Then, her eyes would roll back and she would drop her head forward. They would hear her skull splitting open, the sound of blood drenched hair ripping, and see hot breath as it escaped the cranial fissure. Her hair would slowly come to life as thousands of excruciatingly sharp teeth are revealed past a long, red, maliciously unfurling tongue...
Extra points if you can get a voice synthesizer to flang your voice while the second mouth is talking :DD
It doesn't seem like such a low level party should encounter something that has been sealed beneath the earth because it was too difficult to defeat.
Anything that is a reasonable challenge for the party - even an Epic encounter (APL+3? or is it 4?) - will only result in a moderate threat that another group of adventurers should have been able to destroy.
The best you can do, I think, is to have them encounter some small number of a group that was sealed below, allowing for both a credible story (these things being sealed) and a reasonable encounter (something they can defeat).
So, how about a pack of Morlocks? Only a small fraction of a much larger group.
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It doesn't seem like such a low level party should encounter something that has been sealed beneath the earth because it was too difficult to defeat.
Anything that is a reasonable challenge for the party - even an Epic encounter (APL+3? or is it 4?) - will only result in a moderate threat that another group of adventurers should have been able to destroy.
Unless he's running a Points of Light type campaign vs. Adventureworld?
If the PCs are the best in the area, then it falls on them to take care of the problem - if you have the default high fantasy assumption of PF, with magic being super common and NPCs with class level running all over the place - I would agree with you. It sounds like the place is remote and desolate and a little short on heroes, but I could be wrong.
I suggest taking a very powerful monster then put a bunch of nerfing templates on it. Make it clear that it's weak after it long imprisonment. When the P.C.'s start to beat it have it run away. Make something with a lot of fast healing.
It doesn't seem like such a low level party should encounter something that has been sealed beneath the earth because it was too difficult to defeat.
Anything that is a reasonable challenge for the party - even an Epic encounter (APL+3? or is it 4?) - will only result in a moderate threat that another group of adventurers should have been able to destroy.
Unless he's running a Points of Light type campaign vs. Adventureworld?
If the PCs are the best in the area, then it falls on them to take care of the problem - if you have the default high fantasy assumption of PF, with magic being super common and NPCs with class level running all over the place - I would agree with you. It sounds like the place is remote and desolate and a little short on heroes, but I could be wrong.
Level 2 is so low, that the PCs are only a small margin above level 1 commoners. Unless you are like playing an E3 game, or something crazy like that, level 2 is nothing. Level 2 dies to a bear, let alone abominations sealed in the deep.
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Level 2 is so low, that the PCs are only a small margin above level 1 commoners. Unless you are like playing an E3 game, or something crazy like that, level 2 is nothing. Level 2 dies to a bear, let alone abominations sealed in the deep.It doesn't seem like such a low level party should encounter something that has been sealed beneath the earth because it was too difficult to defeat.
Anything that is a reasonable challenge for the party - even an Epic encounter (APL+3? or is it 4?) - will only result in a moderate threat that another group of adventurers should have been able to destroy.
Unless he's running a Points of Light type campaign vs. Adventureworld?
If the PCs are the best in the area, then it falls on them to take care of the problem - if you have the default high fantasy assumption of PF, with magic being super common and NPCs with class level running all over the place - I would agree with you. It sounds like the place is remote and desolate and a little short on heroes, but I could be wrong.
Fictionfan has it right to a degree.
Part of it is downgrading the creature, but like I said up thread - part of it is making it big, which does not necessarily make it much more powerful. If they some support staff and fodder to take the early hits, a CR 6 creature could easily do the trick. It's all about perception. If the PCs think its some Ancient Horror based off of superficial features and the fact that it tears through a bunch of NPCs, then it will in fact play as an Ancient Horror.|
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If the creature itself remains underground, and only sends up tentacles to attack (grabbing NPCs in town and yanking them down below the earth to devour if not hacked off within a couple or three rounds), it can appear to be unbeatable, while the PCs don't ever encounter more than appendages of the main creature (which you can stat as you wish).
Giving it a type or subtype can tweak it, such as making it a plant creature, and it's 'tentacles' actually be thorny vines, or making it an aberration and it's tentacles have mouths and eyes of their own (like otyugh tentacles), or something more insectoid, with spear-tipped spider-like legs that skewer or hook people's flesh and pull them down below the ground, could mix things up from the standard 'tentacle' theme.
Each individual tentacle could have stats similar to a fiendish template constrictor snake or something, and constrict people into unconsciousness before pulling them down into the earth (buying time for heroic PCs to fight them off). As long as the creature isn't fed, it continues to come up from the well in the center of town or whatever and attempt to find 'food' to drag down to it's hungry belly. Allowing one or more NPCs to get dragged down sates it's immediate hunger, for now, but also guarantees that it will come back for more in following days... If denied food for X number of days (say, three?), it grows increasingly desperate (and weak) and a last ditch attempt at securing food is followed by it sinking back into another 100 years of torpor, if denied once again.
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How about a Caller in Darkness from Psionics Unleashed?
The townsfolk tortured and killed a nomad accused of a minor crime who then became a caller in darkness. Now, they appease it to save the majority of the populace. They keep it secret out of shame, for the act itself and the thing they created. It is incorporeal and has subtle, yet horrific, attacks so you could do the Hitchcock thing (which is a great idea). It has vulnerability to sunlight so there could be a cinematic sunrise respite followed by a day dreading sunset.
For a Lovecraft twist, they don't have the power to kill it, but could neutralize it temporarily. Or they bring the torturers to justice and appease it.
If you feel like expanding that low level adventure into something more, a place you can look is the TPK Games Infamous Adversaries: Raxath'Viz, the Creeping Rot. I own this, have read it several times and it's basically your plot idea in a module that involves a higher level threat. It also gives possible plots for encounters at lower levels that lead up to the high level threat.
There is also some really good mutated Otyughs in the module too. You could use one of these as a predecessor for the 'ancient monster hidden below' only for it to be a vanguard of the larger threat at the end.
I highly recommend looking into the module.
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If the creature itself remains underground, and only sends up tentacles to attack (grabbing NPCs in town and yanking them down below the earth to devour if not hacked off within a couple or three rounds), it can appear to be unbeatable, while the PCs don't ever encounter more than appendages of the main creature (which you can stat as you wish).
Giving it a type or subtype can tweak it, such as making it a plant creature, and it's 'tentacles' actually be thorny vines, or making it an aberration and it's tentacles have mouths and eyes of their own (like otyugh tentacles), or something more insectoid, with spear-tipped spider-like legs that skewer or hook people's flesh and pull them down below the ground, could mix things up from the standard 'tentacle' theme.
Each individual tentacle could have stats similar to a fiendish template constrictor snake or something, and constrict people into unconsciousness before pulling them down into the earth (buying time for heroic PCs to fight them off). As long as the creature isn't fed, it continues to come up from the well in the center of town or whatever and attempt to find 'food' to drag down to it's hungry belly. Allowing one or more NPCs to get dragged down sates it's immediate hunger, for now, but also guarantees that it will come back for more in following days... If denied food for X number of days (say, three?), it grows increasingly desperate (and weak) and a last ditch attempt at securing food is followed by it sinking back into another 100 years of torpor, if denied once again.
Wow, that's really cool. Damn that makes for a hard choice. My big worry though is that this first mission is built to sort of help give them some connective tissue to the town and establish them as heroes in the village. After this though the game will quickly take to the road and the people in the town will come with them (they will be caravaning) but the town won't which makes me worry about what the hell I'm going to do with that monster.
Hmmmm...
but on the other hand that idea is so f~~!ing cool...
Damn...
And I can put in more non-combat ways to defeat it...
Damn
Set you are killing me.