4. Yes, but only tangentially. Legacy of Fire's bad ending has... something related.
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Gods of the inner sea has a herald tarrasque which im told is significantly more threatening.
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In my first pathfinder campaign, I dropped hints about the ultimate weapon being kept somewhere. When the players encountered severe setbacks, they decided to search for this ultimate weapon. What they eventually found the storage facility for the Tarrasque. It was literally the ultimate weapon, as the ancient civilization that had originally inhabited the world had devised it as a "reset" button, to be used if the world every got out of hand. The players had a brief discussion, deciding to try the portal nearby to look for where the ancient ones went, and see if they could offer any assistance, but as they prepared to leave, one rather impulsive player activated the release mechanism.
I had made a few changes to the beast as well, doubled the HP, and gave it a planet wide panic aura (DC 60). Also, it was storing the spirits of every creature it consumed, basically acting as a life essence battery from which the world could be refilled.
After journeying through a couple of parallel worlds, the party eventually met with the surviving ancient beings, and came back to face the ultimate weapon, which by that point had killed all but maybe two dozen creatures in the entire world.
So, I would agree that it can work well as a plot point. :)
but as they prepared to leave, one rather impulsive player activated the release mechanism.
And the Shiny Red Button/Lever rule holds true.
The Tarrasque going on a rampage should be the least of your worries, because if he's woken up, then daddy's coming home soon.
There's a suggestion or two in Mythic Adventures about this.
but as they prepared to leave, one rather impulsive player activated the release mechanism.And the Shiny Red Button/Lever rule holds true.
This was the second such player that I've had with that particular trait.
They can be helpful, because you can always count on them to jumpstart plot.
Gods of the inner sea has a herald tarrasque which im told is significantly more threatening.
As I recall, it's significantly less threatening with its changed alignment. Paladins and any group capable of fighting evil or chaos, which is a good chunk of them, can take it down much more easily.
I used the tarrasque as the focus of a prophecy.
In essence (and ages past), a particular nation of my campaign world was ravaged by it, until a champion came along and sent it back into "slumber" with a stroke of his mighty sword. He became monarch and the sword became the symbol of the monarchy. The sword was passed down to each successor and the beast remained in slumber.
Fast forward a few hundred years and the sword has been stolen in the middle of a dispute over succession after the death of the most recent king. Earthquakes are occuring, strange weather, and the mountain dwelling (re: inactive volcano) of the beast has suddenly become active again.
Recovery of the sword and placing a successor on the throne were the focus of the adventure.
If successful, the beast never need wake (ideal), but if they fail to recover the sword and so on, it's time to either find a new place of residence or toe to toe.
Was a fun campaign.
I heard about a DM who used his real cat as the Tarrasque's miniature.
I cannot confirm the veracity of that story.
We used a rather large Anguirus toy.
The monster is not hard to defeat(not necessarily kill) if you know it is coming. Putting the players on a short timer to deal with it is more effective because while it is not as stupid as a golem, it is not much better. I would probably just remake it so that it is sentient and loves to destroy everything. It does not need genius level intelligence. Average intelligence should be good enough.
I've done a variant on the Tarrasque City, and it's been working out well so far. Players only have hints so far though.
Evil priest of Rovagug -> wants to revive tarresque.
Tons of evil cults with clues as to the actual location of this priest's ritual.
Dungeon crawl ensues, penultimate boss fight with evil cleric.
Turns out, death of cleric was the final trigger awakening the tarresque, engage final boss fight.
If living greyhawk had not self destructed, I was going to write an adventure path where ex keolanders awakened the Tarrasque and fed all the giants to it. In other words, the PCs are all Tarrasque cultists.
What angles are you playing? Is the blood magic causing ripples in the fabric of magic? Is the Tarrasque's absence causing some natural imbalance? Or is it just a gold mine and economic powerhouse which has a lot of hubris/rebellion business?
The Tarralaquans have found that good meat is only produced after the Tarrasque has been fed recently. As a result they raid areas around them to get sacrifices. Unfortunately the Tarrasque is the favorite creation of the Gods of Life and as such cannot die. However his "not dying" means that the Tarrasque cannot lose life force of any kind, including that of the creatures it eats. As a result its mass feeding is putting a stopper in the cycle of life.
This has caused a growing radius of wasteland around the Tarrasque, driving the raiding parties further and further is search of sacrifices. They only reach the PCs nation after decades of Tarrasque feeding and as a result all the soldier are rapidly regenerating reptilian pseudo godzillas. They use the stats of 3.5 war trolls in fullplate (tarrasque carapace statwise is mithril). Players have heard myths of "demonic invaders" that triggered various mass migrations in the past.