I'm currently trying to write an adventure to play in Pathfinder for some friends of mine, that should last ~25 hours. This isn't a hardcap and we'll have the time to play.
It's the frist time I'm writing a Pathfinder adventure scenario. In fact, it's the first time I'm writing a medfan adventure at all, so I'm not very familiar with this kind of world.
My plot is rather classical. The mayor of a small town is calling the PCs, who're already fairly renowned in the region, to help him solve a case of townfolks disappearing without traces.
Eventually, PCs would find that it's the mayor rapturing those people, and that's where I need help. I want him to be of a extraordinary type of creature that infiltrate humanoid society, eventually earning their love and trust, and turning them into cattle to feed, satisfy their needs for another's suffuring, or any other evil intent.
The obvious choice would be, I believe, a vampire, but I think it's a bit too obvious and I want to surprise my players.
I also know that it doesn't have to be any kind of extraordinary creature, in fact if I was writing this just for me it would be an ordinary human, but I know my players would be pleased if it's some kind of creature.
It would also help that he's forced by his nature to lay clues for PCs, e.g if it's a vampire, PCs may note that he's avoiding daylight and garlic.
What is the level of PCs we are talking about?
You can make the mayor to be some fey, or be under fey influence. The fey may do some good things for the town, like ensuring better harvest or give some other blessing, but at the same time it regularly kidnaps people as 'fair payment'.
Another option is a devil that disguises as a human. He runs the town efficiently, with some sinsiter plot in mind, and ruthlessly eliminates everyone who gets too close to discovering the truth.
Well. There are quite a few monsters you could use as a basis for this.
Since you want to avoid vampires, there are quite a few other undead you could use. A Lich would be a good high level villain. Turning villagers into lesser undead, or constructs to feed his experiments.
Lamia, Rakshasha, Hags and Succubus would also make for a good hidden threat. Only Rakshasha have a particular weakness, but all of them could be secretly opposed to any temple in town operating and leave some clues to their nature if the recently tragically abandoned temple is investigated.
If you want a more human threat, there are many, many evil gods in Pathfinder that would have worshipers who would love to take over a town and slowly consume it to feed their evil rituals. The mayor could be a powerful cleric leading a secret cult.
Lamashtu is the most heavily overused of these. There is a certain appeal to a demon-queen that has followers that want to impregnate everything with monsters. A cult that has recently moved into a nearby farm and started capturing travelers and isolated families to convert them into worshipers/breeding stock could make for an intense villain.
An Urgathoa cult lead by the mayor could capture lone wanderers to be served in their ritual feasts. Some of the members of the cult could be ghouls or other humanoids that enjoy feasting on humanoid flesh. A coven of Hags would be very natural allies.
If you have a leather fettish, a Zon-Kuthon cult could operate locally. Grieving widows that zealously take out their suffering and loss on complete strangers who are slowly tortured to near-death before being healed to repeat the cycle. Of course Kytons would be involved.
Here are a few suggestions, just off the top (I'm going for plants!):
Bodythief (CR 14) -- The mayor in this case would be a Pod-Spawned Creature that is feeding townspeople to its host plant. A good setup would be to make the mayor's spouse a botanist or an explorer since the plant is smart enough to use manipulation to get more victims and because it adds an extra layer of clues that the players can learn to solve the mystery. Townsfolk can suddenly stop disappearing if you want to throw a red herring by the Bodythief creating Pod-spawns to replace its meals (but remember that duplicates must be created within 24 hours).
Monsters: Pod-spawned townspeople, Bodythief plant
Yellow Musk Creeper (CR 2) -- Similar to the Bodythief above, but a lot more limited. Here, the Mayor would have to be the botanist/explorer who discovered the plant, but he would be an unhinged normal person who decided to feed it. Since the plant is non-intelligent (and its spawns are zombies), the mayor is the true villain. Consider an alchemical spray that allows the mayor to control the zombies.
Monsters: Yellow Musk Creeper Plant, Yellow Musk Zombies, Mayor (Alchemist or maybe evil Druid)
Mi-go (CR 6) -- The mayor is a cultist of Dark Forces and willingly welcomes and serves visitors from beyond the stars. The Mi-go scouts hope to use the mayor's fervor to gain some detailed understanding of the populace. He delivers townspeople for the Mi-go's experiments in a misguided attempt to gain favor with whatever Outer Being he worships.
Monsters: Mi-go, modified townspeople (consider the mutant template)
If you want to go for that timeless, sort of Arthurian-Tolkienian feel, my vote would be for some sort of faerie.
I rarely use the bestiary any more. It's a great place to go for ideas, but after a while it just gets in the way.
You could make the resolution of this story incredibly complex; do the townsfolk even want to stop him? Sure, he takes a few kids Beyond The Fields We Know, but the harvest has never been better, and everyone else has been so happy and healthy...
Maybe his true form is a rat king (references to the Pied Piper). Maybe he's a big squirming mass of vermin in a skin suit. He's got an enchanted flute, a magic key, and...something else. Three items is traditional, after all.
Thank you very much for your help, it gives ideas and hype me !
What's the level of PCs at the beginning of the play ?
Since they already have a bit of reputation, enough for someone in the region calling them for help, it means they've already lived some adventure so I have them starting at 3rd level.
It'll start as a classic case solving, so it'll be a lot of talking and looking for clues and minor combat. I expect them to be 5 - 6 when they really start to understand what it's all about, and level 7 - 9 when they'll finaly uncover the vilain, and maybe fight him.
What kind of character is my vilain ?
The vilain of this story is the kind of charismatic sociopath who'll ask the PCs help only to measure to them, in a Moriarty way, and hopefully that'll eventually backfire. Therefore, he may have minions manipulated to appear as the vilain, but he can't be the servant of a cult or an other entity.
- Lamias were my other option, but we played Rise of the Runelords first chapters not so long ago so I want to avoid them.
- I didn't know about Rakshasha but I think they'd really fit the role. I'm going to get some more info about them.
- A lich would be a bit too epic for what I want to do.
- Among faeries there are many, many things and I don't know much of them, which kind fo faeries could be this kind of villain ? From what I saw a particularly clever bogeyman could be a good vilain, slowly plunging the town and the PCs into fear and madness to feed himself.
- These plants are really neat, esp. the bodythief, and they'll fit in an other plot for sure.
applecat144 wrote: 3rd level. For a 3rd level challenge, the BBEG could just be a Doppleganger.
applecat144 wrote: The vilain of this story is the kind of charismatic sociopath Maybe a member of an organized crime ring with a hungry Otyugh for disposing of evidence.
Maybe he is a lycanthrope, part of an infestation of wererats.
applecat144 wrote: A lich would be a bit too epic for what I want to do. Maybe the mayor is a simulacrum of the real mayor held prisoner by the Lich, and finding and destroying the Lich could be further chapters.
Why not just make something unique for the adventure?
With the fae, you don't even really need to give them a cohesive motive. They might be stealing people away to sell at a faerie market to "pay off old debts", or buring them in the ground to grow strange dream-baring fruit because of some old prophecy.
I never tell my players everything, so even in their triumph, they still get this sense that the world around them is vast, wild and strange. They have conquered this one threat and answered some mysteries, but there will always be more of both.
The reason why I don't make up a monster just for this adventure, nor something that go for more chapters, is because I don't feel comfortable enough with Pathfinder's universe yet. I want to start with something along the line to get the hang of it, before going for something more personal.
Fair enough. I personally know nothing about any of the Pathfinder setting(s?) and admittedly very little about any of the D&D ones.
Working within an established setting and figuring out the tone, though...that's stuff a lot of people never seem to think about. Good on you. And thank you for showing me that there are still some gamers who want to create something. All I ever hear about are these premade modules and paths and builds and archetypes and alternate traits, and it just gets me down.
My suggestion would be to create 2 or 3 minor villains that are working against the main villain. While the main villain could take care of them himself, or send his main force against the 'pests' it might reveal his true strength, which is inappropriate for his position. So he calls upon adventurers to take care of the small threats. He is grooming the 'heroes' so that he can either make them his own loyal servants, or have some of his more powerful servants take their place and reputation after closely observing them. Getting rid of the little nuisances is just a side benefit.
But the minor villains have clues among their treasures that if put together should alert the party that their employer is not what he appears to be. The final minor villain might even have a collection of blessed bolts and light crossbows, with a plan to infiltrate a party the BBG is going to throw in 3 months so that he can have 6 specially trained minions shoot the BBG to death...which is totally out of character for the minor villain. The plans need to stress that the crossbow bolts must be blessed or the plan will fail.
What about a medusa for the bbeg. It can cover more or less everything you want and dependent on classes/levels can fill it all.
The prd entry for reference.
EtG
Why is the mayor calling in the PCs to investigate himself? Even if he's been pressurised into it by the townsfolk, I'd have thought he'd want to get rid of them.
I thought about it a bit and I think it'll definitly be a Rakshasa, it seems like the vicious and power-craving creature that I'm looking for.
There's only one thing I don't really understand about them. They have a very strong cast system and it says their goal is to climb the hierarchy, however they put importance in knowing their place.
How are they supposed to climb the hierarchy if they don't overcome or betray their masters at some point ? Or is it only when they reincarnate that they become a superior being, if they were successful enough in their previous incranation ?
For now I'll stick to one vilain and his minions, I'd like to have it written soon enough and don't want to overcomplicate things, I'll go on more intricate things in other adventures.
Mudfoot wrote: Why is the mayor calling in the PCs to investigate himself? Even if he's been pressurised into it by the townsfolk, I'd have thought he'd want to get rid of them. Because he'll want to toy with them, he's in need for some challenge and amusement so he'll call them to see them fail and maybe eventually consume them or something like that. Hopefully his arrogance will backfire and precipitate his fate.
applecat144 wrote: I thought about it a bit and I think it'll definitly be a Rakshasa, it seems like the vicious and power-craving creature that I'm looking for.
There's only one thing I don't really understand about them. They have a very strong cast system and it says their goal is to climb the hierarchy, however they put importance in knowing their place.
Moreover, Rakshasa are all shapechangers! What does it mean to be stuck in your caste when you can change your shape to be in any other caste you want? Or is it a case of it not mattering how many people you fool, you still know who you are, and you think there is always someone who can smell the dirt on you.
So you are asking a good question, but it falls on you, the Dungeon Master to answer it. When you have reconciled for yourself how this evil outsider makes sense out of this nonsensical paradox, you will be bringing one awesome villain to your players!
applecat144 wrote: only when they reincarnate that they become a superior being, if they were successful enough in their previous incranation ? And since these are Evil Outsiders, they actually HAVE died and reincarnated! What is their goal: to amend their ways and reincarnate as people again, or to embrace their evil ways and become even more powerful, evil Rakshasa?
applecat144 wrote:
How are they supposed to climb the hierarchy if they don't overcome or betray their masters at some point ? Or is it only when they reincarnate that they become a superior being, if they were successful enough in their previous incranation ?
To understand a Rakshasa you have to understand where the monster came from. Rakshasa are from Indian myths. So they undergo reincarnation, exist within a caste system, and accumulate karma. By living as exemplars of their caste they can hope to reincarnate as a more powerful Rakshasa of a higher caste. And poor performance can see them reincarnate as a lower ranked Rakshasa, or even worse cease being a Rakshasa and be reincarnated as some sort of mortal.
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