Come on... reptoids. You can bring in a Lovecraftian connection: they're serving the unspeakable gods of the Dark Tapestry. You can use all that crazy tech stuff from Iron Gods. You can steal plots from old episodes of X-Files. And you can crank your players' paranoia up to 11, because *anyone might be a lizard person*.
And of course, the reptoid is a natural match for the Mesmerist class: +2 Cha, and they even have a racial ability that stacks with the Mesmerist's class ability. (A minor one, yes. But still.)
So, you have a city that's being taken over by the reptoids. There are only a few, but they've killed and replaced most of the town leaders: the Duke, the Mayor, even the head of the Thieves Guild. And their leader is a high level Mesmerist who can pretty much turn anyone's brain to mush. Lots of enchantments and illusions + people being replaced = the chance to just gaslight the hell out of your PCs.
What do they want? Well, season to taste, but I think they want to feed a bunch of people to some ancient artifact in order to open up a gate. A gate to nothing good. Tastes vary, but I don't see them as conquerors, myself. More like opportunistic scavengers: they invite the Great Old Ones in (or whatever), and then they loot the planet thoroughly during the ensuing chaos, and then they duck through a portal to the next hapless planet. Season to taste, YMMV.
What's the hook? Flumphs, of course. A flumph team shows up to warn the PCs about trouble ahead. In a pinch they can show up to offer help. Unfortunately, the kindly and lawful flumphs are always a step behind the manipulative and malevolent reptoids... so before the final confrontation with Team Lizard, I suspect the poor flumphs are going to end up tragically dead. But still: any campaign with flumphs is automatically better. So.
Thoughts?
Doug M.
