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Greetings one and all. My group is in the process of playing through my conversion of Carrion Crown into 2e and we are just beginning Wake of the Watcher (having started back in the playtest). The minor changes to Broken Moon to increase the amount of werewolf politics and diversity of alignment ranges among the packs seem to have been well received and over Christmas I was inspired to do a somewhat more significant overhaul of Wake. I am now fairly deep into this rewrite but I felt like sharing the changes I’ve made in case they catch anybody’s interest, and also perhaps to generate inspiration for one or two loose ends I haven’t found interesting answers for yet.
SUFFICE TO SAY THERE WILL BE MASSIVE UNMARKED SPOILERS FOR BOOK 4 IN THIS THREAD – TREAD LIGHTLY YE WARY
To start, I should share the goals/inspirations I had for going to all this trouble. In some ways this process probably started way back when I first read the phrase ‘Reverse Innsmouth’ in the Forward and, lacking context at that time, ended up with a vivid snapshot of what those words might mean. Fast forward to when I actually read through the adventure, I realized my first impression was wrong, but having just finished adding supplemental werewolf politics I was emboldened to make a few changes. My second primary goal in altering Wake was to remove as much of the unintentionally racist themes and undertones that rather inevitably carried over from the source material as I could.
Disclaimer: I am not at this time interested in a discussion about whether or not it’s “real” racism if the other party really is a subhuman fish monster, or whether the xenophobia is in some way vital to the feel of a cosmic horror story inspired by the works of Lovecraft. The bottom line is I love stories which subvert the fantasy assumptions of humans vs. monsters, and I am delighted by the imagined horror Lovecraft would have for my version of things. Anybody interested in debating these topics are cordially invited to start their own thread for the purpose—I might meet you there if I get the time.
Now, canny observers may realize that the Order as-written has only existed for the last 60 or so of the town’s 200-year history. On top of that, I wanted to give the town some relatively positive history with the Neighbours so as to indicate the possibility of a peaceful resolution between both populations, so in these interests I made a significant change to the nature of the Fostering Pact—the current system whereby a child is taken at birth was implemented with the rise of the Recondite Order to keep the fosterlings more complacent in their new home. Originally, the pact involved healthy young adults from Baytown accepting the honour of being tribute to go and live with the quasi-folkloric Neighbours and bring prosperity to the town.
Critical to this is a minor shift in the nature of the Neighbours. While it is not immediately apparent in this adventure, the ulat-kini or ‘skum’ are actually human descendants of alghollthu genetic tampering to create hardy slaves. While some ulat-kini still serve their ancient masters, many have escaped and live free, rejecting any god or master that seeks to control them. I took this as the baseline for the Neighbours and allowed for their growing reliance on the fostering pact in the past to shift their culture away from raiding to peaceful co-existence. While to this day they chafe under the rule of the cult of Dagon, they have no desire to lose the comforts of their arrangement, and see the fosterlings rather as their fellow prisoners.
This is the basic arrangement and I believe you can already see how most of this plays out, but if you’re interested in further details, I’ve split them up by category below.
200 years ago – Notorious smuggler and demon-worshipper Cassius Undiomede makes an arrangement with the tribe for safe passage. Eventually he is given a lordship and responsibilities. Despite being a ne’er-do-well and a cur to boot, he doesn’t want this gig to fall apart and blow his secret, so he arranges the original pact out of hasty self-preservation more than goodwill toward the townsfolk.
60-70 years ago – Brash and impetuous Manus Undiomede kills his father after seeing his sister go to the Neighbours, believing her sacrificed to Dagon. Pact collapses without the linchpin and the town festers while the Neighbours debate about whether to break the secrecy or return to the old ways.
50-60 years ago – A man named Voltiaro uncovers the secret on his own while exploring Undiomede House. Realizes the potential and uses his knowledge to become a prophet, declaring to the town to build a temple in honour of their founder and resume the old ways in order to appease the Neighbours. Thanks to his specialized knowledge he is soon rewarded with power, prestige, and wealth.
Current Day – The Neighbours chafe under the new regime. Some seek alternative means to ensure their species’ survival without returning to raiding and attempt to contact the mysterious fertility goddess Shub-Niggurath. This goes poorly. Others attempt to gain leverage with the Order by acquiring the Face of Dagon. This doesn’t have time to go poorly. Mi-go arrive, everybody has a bad day. PCs arrive. Everything gets better/worse depending on their proclivities.
Rather, I decided to have the majority of townsfolk unfriendly and insular, accustomed to being judged for their reclusive religion, their peculiar customs, and their bizarre folk beliefs, and so prone not to discussing any of these things with nosy outsiders who have no respect for their way of life. Unlike in the adventure I decided that only a small fraction of the population are ‘true believers’, initiates into the cult who attend the secret mass at night where the secret shrine is worshipped at. The rest of the townsfolk are split among the majority otherwise very faithful Gozrans who attend the public mass and either don’t think much of the cult (after all, mystery religions historically having been relatively common) or keep to themselves, and the handful of townsfolk who are, “Not Very Religious”—almost a code among people who harbour private doubts about the cult’s practices but dare not voice them openly.
Of the named NPCs I made a few changes:
Horace Croon’s older sister left home when he was very young to be a tribute, promising that she would visit as soon as she could. Fate would have it she would be the last voluntary tribute before the end of the Undiomede line (or among the first fosterlings before the Recondite Order implemented their reform; timeline is a little hazy here). Croon would go on to harbour a secret hatred for the fostering pact and the Order, eventually discovering the secret for himself and working like mad to create a vessel to rescue her. He is not aware that the Neighbours are in fact relatively friendly. He otherwise behaves as-written
Laurel Sills is Not Very Religious after her baby brother was taken from her. Having at best a loose affiliation with the town’s traditions, she is the most openly friendly with PCs as they come into town, interested in swapping gossip and news about the outside world. If necessary, she advises PCs about the townsfolk’s taciturn nature.
Tam Breckege is a hybrid and reverse-fosterling. He has no memory of this and his mother was a true-believer lay cultist. He still wants to join the ranks of initiates but feels it is his duty to bear a second child before he does, except due to his hybrid nature he is borderline infertile and has only one child thus far. (The book doesn’t really make it explicit, but it is implied that a portion of the townsfolk are children of the Neighbours sent back to Illmarsh. This is my nod toward that, though I’m not sure if it will ever come up.)
Mayor Greedle is just… really genuine. I was charmed by his pleas for help and so I wanted him to honestly be concerned for the safety of the town rather than making a power-play. As-written he has no power in town, his own sheriff is loyal only to the cult of Dagon, and people are disappearing left and right while the Order does nothing.
The Order was founded by an ancestor of Albor Voltiaro’s and the temple has been passed down in the family. I would have had Albor himself be the founder of the temple 60 years ago except his relative youth makes that improbable, so instead an unnamed Voltiaro originally discovered the truth about the Undiomedes’ Dagon-worship and decided to use his knowledge to gain dominion over the sea under Dagon’s blessing. Albor is simply the current benefactor of the exploitative cycle and he plans to leave the temple in the hands of his eldest son Caleb. His younger son, Everard, I’ve made a hybrid fosterling he adopted for the sake of molding into a loyal pawn within the Neighbours. To work this, I’ve given Everard responsibility of the Tulby child, and the opportunity to reject his emotionally distant father if the PCs show him mercy.
The Order otherwise sees all profit from dealings with the Neighbours flow directly to them. The true believers enjoy a measure of wealth and prestige in the town and the Order is constantly on the lookout for other townsfolk who can be manipulated into worshipping Dagon, and for dissidents who threaten their rule.[/spoilers]
[spoilers=THE UNDIOMEDES] I pronounce it ‘un-die-oh-meed’, if you were curious. Cassius Undiomede I decided was already a devout worshipper of Dagon who saw his relationship with the ulat-kini of Avalon Bay as a sign of his god’s providence. More chaotic than evil (but still evil) his only interest lay in profits and luxury, so when Versex made him a lord he took it as a mixed blessing. Unwilling to be bested in the long con, his wits were stretched to their limit, balancing the new responsibility of brokering an arrangement between his new town and his old allies which would keep both happy without interrupting his profit flow or exposing his secrets.
As written, it was only a matter of time before the dysfunctional family line came to an end. I’ve kind of phoned-in the exact reason why Manus killed his father. I kind of like the idea that he was as much affronted by the idea of their noble line mixing with the inferior Neighbours as much as out of spite for his sister being given over. One very minor thing I changed, I decided not to run with the villainous disabled person stereotype for largely personal reasons and removed reference to the wheelchair.
Reworking the Neighbours to be sympathetic victims in the AP is no small task given as-written they are in some way responsible for almost every ill that befalls the town, but the main adjustment here is having their actions be motivated by their desire to be free from the Recondite Order while still having a way to continue their species without resorting back to coastal raiding. To this end a faction of Neighbours turned their attention to records of ancient druids worshipping a fertility goddess in the stone circle at Undiomede House, their goal being to see if they cannot earn the blessing of Shub-Niggurath and gain the ability to procreate on their own. At the same time another faction was contacted by some human death cultists (not knowing or not caring about their true nature) to find a submerged artifact in exchange for an idol that might give them leverage against Father Voltiaro.
As-written this goes poorly and things turn into kind of a mess. Other changes made here include adding an elderly human woman, Rebekah Croon, to the imprisoned ulat-kini (having refused to be moved to the safety of the tunnels under Undiomede) and leaving a few fosterlings alive under Undiomede, still being preyed upon by the Colour. Their role is primarily to show that the men and women fostered to the Neighbours are indeed treated fairly, and in fact Iq’lothattua, once a fearsome, ancient warrior of his people, is now an intensely dedicated guardian protecting all fosterlings sent down to them, considered a father figure by most.
The biggest problem I have remaining is the angle where, as-written the anti-mi-go faction of the Neighbours use the moits to protect themselves against the mi-go’s non-specific mental control abilities and then later introduce the moits to the human population. It would be possible to have the ulat-kini discover the moits only to have the mi-go take interest and cause the remaining destruction but I haven’t found an approach that feels especially satisfying yet.
Now of course if you’ve made it this far, you no doubt have noticed a number of my tweaks and changes have left relatively minor plot holes. Feel free to drop suggestions if you have ideas, my group has only just made it to the Lonely Quay so far. If you have other questions or comments I’ll try to respond to them when I can.
This absolutely rules. Thank you SO much, I'm just starting WotW and this has come just in time to solve a lot of my issues with the discomfort here.
Thanks a ton!
I'm glad my work has been of some use! Do let me know how it goes for your group, and if you come up with any other modifications you found fitting or enjoyable for your game.
Also, if you have a moment or 30, I invite you to take a gander at Overly Sarcastic Productions' summary of a collection of H.P. Lovecraft's tales, Innsmouth and Colour included. Red has a delightfully witty take on some of the less savoury elements of the source material which I have attempted to address here, and the visual take of the mother afflicted by the Colour is going to strongly influence my descriptions of the surviving fosterlings, in particular the colour-blighted woman.
Halloween Special: H.P. Lovecraft
Cheers!
I applaude your intent. I'll try to give you a few suggestions.
First and foremost, I think you should ask yourself:
1) how many Skum there are there? Dozens or hundreds?
2) how many of them are descended from humans of Illmarsh, and how many of them are actually thousand of years old. Is there something that keeps their number low, or do they kill each other sometimes due to infighting and violence?
3) How much recently humanborn skums are aware of their past? Do we have a situation in which "old uncles" came from the lake once a month to speak with the sons of their nephews, or those two worlds are divided?
Now, if you want to have the skum with a more sympathetic role, i would suggest to define them not through exposition, but through opposition. You cannot have them just be down there, trapped and with the color draining them.
You could have them "attack" the city of Illmarsh before them are forced to repair inside the tunnels under udiomede house. This could happen during the first night of the pc staying in town. This is not an attack against the inhabitants, however, but it becomes something similar due to what happens.
Here's my proposal: when the cleric skum of shub niggurath calls the Mi-gos, we got a skims between the skum guided by the old warrior that escape from the tunnels and those who stay, which are quickly lobotomized. Your "nice" skums quickly divide to seek help around, from the other, possibly smaller, skulls settlements around the place. While this happens, the iper-intelligent Mi-go quickly develop a strategy to make a counter attack, and also to spread around the gifts of shub niggurath. To do so, a group of them immediately reach Illmarsh, identify a few key figures, and quickly assassinate them, by then taking their places, either by themselves - in the book of lovecraft, sometimes mi-go can literally wear people's bodies - or using "friendly intellect devourers-like beings" that follows them.
I would suggest to have taken: the mayor, one of the lesser priest of the order and possibly another npc. So. When the Skum come, at night, to illmarsh to inform the Voltairo's and get help, the Mi-go spy inside the temple asks fast, and those skum are either attacked by other enemies and forces to retreat, or enough destruction is caused to force their escape.
So the mystery becomes "Why the neighbours, that are usually friendly, have just attacked the church of Gozreh?". Then you have the Voltairo's, who are not completely aware of the situation, believe that Dagon is enraged, and ready to offer another sacrifice/exchange to actually understand what's going on and why they are enraged, while the "rage" of dagon its just a trick planned by the Mi-go. Always the Mi-go then may try to have the pcs directed towards the Voltairo's, to kill them or at least expose the church of dagon, so that the demon's influence gets weaker and they can do more damage in the city. While the pc's kill the voltairo's ad udiomede house, they start spreading the slugs and kidnapping more people. This could become clear if the pc realize, through magic or observation, that one of those npcs is actually a dress from a fungi of yuggoth.
Hmm... you open with some interesting questions which I don't have entirely nailed-down answers for.
1) The town of Illmarsh has a population of 556 (531 human, 25 other). I imagine there are fewer Neighbours than there are Illmarshers but probably more than a couple dozen. There's no strong reason it couldn't be another way by the GM's preference, that's just how I picture it, with other additional caverns not explored by the party accounting for the portion of the population not put 'on-screen'.
2) I didn't bring it up in the rewrite since it's pretty inconsequential but I have been somewhat waffling on the question of whether or not the neighbours are truly immortal or simply live a few hundred years. In my mind, Iq'lothatuaa is something of a relic; he may be the oldest living ulat-kini or at least one of only a handful ancients (and the only one that has a direct role in the story). Their number I think is kept low partly by abysmal birthrates (I hinted above, but I picture that even with a human partner, ulat-kini are only barely fertile). That, combined with typical infant mortality, and the dangers of Encarthan, have kept their numbers from increasing significantly without needing to add infighting (or at least any more than you see in a typical settlement). More recently, the moit plague has ripped through their community, leaving their numbers further suppressed.
3) Strictly speaking all ulat-kini are humanborn, not counting the 10,000-year-old alghollthu original slaves, but speaking of the recently born (could go back as far as Undiomede's smuggling days, but more appropriate to talk about post-Baytown era), they do live in the same tunnels their ancestors lived in since before humans settled Ustalav. I feel like they are generally aware of the 'old days' before the pact thanks to their records and living memory, but also that their ancient history is not commonly known except by their leadership. As for any 'old uncles', I don't picture any such thing, as this group living in Avalon Bay are said to be the only known settlement of ulat-kini in the area of Lake Encarthan, but there's no reason not to add in an unknown tribe if one is interested in adding further material.
My interest was to understand if, in your rewrite, there can be/has ben a ulat-kini human interaction outside the yoke put on the two populations by Udiomede and, later, the Voltairo. I would like to understand how many, in Illmarsh, are aware of what the neighbors are, and if neighbors care for illmarsh or not.
If you wish to humanize the ulat-kini, i believe you should allow your players to discover there are/can ben some connection outside the pact between the two communities, or at least a vague understanding that the ulat-kini are friendly to the city of illmarsh, and that a few of them share blood with the illmarshians.
Oh yes! You have reminded me of a few details I neglected from the original post! However, to begin with direct answers to questions you raised:
Before Undiomede there was no town on this section of the coast. The Avalon tribes sometimes interacted with other settlements along the coast primarily by raiding as is normal, however I have since noticed that apparently it is also regarded normal in Golarion lore for ulat-kini to trade with coastal settlements, so I believe some amount of both happened in the hundreds/thousands of years before the founding of Baytown/Illmarsh. On the other hand, I have established that, before the Recondite Order, the nature of the fostering pact was considerably more voluntary and mutually beneficial, until the Order mandated the fostering of children and took the profits for themselves.
I do not believe most of Illmarsh know explicitly what the neighbours are, but going by the AP as-written at least a few people are peripherally aware but avoid voicing out loud, since the Order seems to deal with people talking about 'fish marriages' too often. Additionally they have a hint in the Chapel of the Neighbours, though I feel like the townsfolk believe the depiction in the chapel to be symbolic of the Neighbour's role in their lives rather than literal. I think the many townsfolk either know there is no actual other village 'Down Bay' or at least don't know anyone who's ever been there and simply have never examined the implications because 'everybody knows about the Neighbours'. I feel like general belief is the the Neighbours are possibly some manner of benevolent quasi-spirits or an otherwise isolated tribe of humanoids with a unique connection to the spirits.
The Neighbours for their part have benefited from the original arrangement, giving them a source of friendly contact with the surface world and allowing them to cut back on potentially dangerous raids over the first 130 years of the Undiomedes when the tributes who came to them were raised in the outside world and were able to share their culture. Whether this transition was smooth initially is a matter of history. More significant in recent memory is the loss of the pact following the end of the Undiomedes. During the interim I believe the Neighbours debated among themselves what to do. Because Undiomede (and later his descendants) mandated a system of such secrecy about the true nature of the Neighbours, once their linchpin family were removed, contact broke off between the two settlements entirely.
I believe during this time the Neighbours debated what to do about the situation. Some suggested they return to the ways of old (raiding and trading up and down the coast) but by this point many had become accustomed to the arrangement (and to the handful of humans living among them), so alternatively some advocated breaking the vow of secrecy and going to the new leaders of the town to establish open communications. However, at this time there were outsiders coming into the town appointed by Versex while the town rapidly dwindled in fortunes, so the faction who wanted to bide their time won out until the original Voltiaro arrived on the scene to establish the Recondite Order and renew the fostering pact under new rules.
Either way, I have planned for a couple ways the players can learn about the possibly peaceful conclusion. Knowing my players (and the Sarenite paladin among my party) I don't believe this will be exceptionally difficult, since they immediately befriended 3/5 werewolf tribes and tried to befriend the vilkacis, but other GMs may want to take their group into account.
First, I have the young Everard Voltiaro (holding the Tulby child, swapped for Gerick dead on the roof) as a hybrid. He is unaware precisely what he is, but low-key suspects his father of using him as a tool to control the Neighbours better and despises him, and meanwhile caught unable to fight back without endangering the child, is positioned such that the PCs could enter a brief parlay with him. If Albor is slain he renounces Dagon and his family. He constantly scratches at his arms as his scales have started growing in, and given later revelations the party may learn what he is. He can tell the party how to use the gate but has been kept in the dark a little about the fine details of the Neighbours other than that he came from them. There is also a hybrid in town (Tam Breckage), also unaware of his nature, but he is less likely to be relevant.
Second, while Iq'lothatuaa may attack the PCs on sight, overzealous to protect his charges from all outsiders, his mind locks up for the first moment, and one of his surviving charges beckons them to another chamber. If they follow, the blank in the brood guardian's memory causes him to forget the PCs were ever there. The fosterlings he protects in this chamber are semi-imprisoned thanks to the aura of lassitude (he also suffers from the aura, but that's secondary to his blanking episodes). I feel like most of them have already died, while a few others can do nothing but stare into space. Only occasionally do any of the survivors become lucid enough to hold a conversation or take initiative to do something, even if they remain unwilling to leave. I imagine the humans in this chamber are primarily the children and non-combatants, who can explain that 'Iqqy' is like a father figure to many of them who only wants to protect them. If the PCs slay the Colour, it frees the fosterlings and brood guardian from their afflictions (though it'll be a while before any of them recover fully), and they can fill the PCs in on some of what goes on below, though their information is limited by being sent up the coast far from the main settlement for their protection.
Finally, while I haven't started preparing the Tern Rocks Tunnels so I haven't staged all the set pieces yet, I'm imagining that Rebekah Croon has chosen to remain with those imprisoned by the mi-go there rather than leave to be with the 'safe' crew in the Undiomede tunnels because she's, "A tough old broad who won't hide when her family needs her.", low-key imagining she is wife to somebody important in the settlement, possibly a/the chief who is similarly dispossessed by other powers within his settlement. I expect some heartwarming amusement if/when she finally re-unites with her younger brother and sets him straight regarding his fears of what had happened to her below the waves.
These things adding up, the PCs have at their disposal the option to re-establish a new fostering pact similar to what the Undiomedes had, with willing tributes and better documentation in case it gets interrupted again; act as ambassadors for the two peoples coming together openly; or simply ignoring or killing anything that appears to stand in their way as written (not an option I consider likely, but one I'm prepared for if they choose).
(There additionally will be more ways to learn of what happened from the brain jars, namely talking to the former Dagon high-priest upset about the faction that rocked the boat and tried to contact Shubby, who personally knows more about the arrangement for the Face of Dagon)
Thank you. Giving the brain jars personality is a key thing to do to me.
Those are people, too.
Also, i believe there is the city mayor's brain in one of those, by the book.
Yet, that person can be met in the surface.
Have you thought of an explanation?
Since Mi-Go don't seem to have a clear way of transportation outside the complex, i would suggest to give them such way, like some kind of "phase door" tech, so you can have them easily arrive in the surface, and also allow your pcs to leave the caverns without swimming out.
I believe, originally, there should be a tunnel that connected the Ulat-kini settlement with the caves under udiomede house, but it was "blocked" by the Mi-go. Maybe you can have this tunnel be "re-openable", or give the Mi-go some kind of dimension door tech to explain how they were able to take people from the surface.
Since, i believe, you have to be alive to have your brain harvested, I'm assuming they didn't use their slaves cause any living person would have drown in taken down by the waters. I also don't kind mi-go could have enough preparation to give their specimens ways (anti pressure items, breath water instruments, ecc ...) to survive such travel.
As written, the mi-go snatch Greedle and bring him to their lab during the Undiomede tunnels... though I'm actually not entirely sure why they do that.
Sibelius: I love the idea of having some of the ulat-kini trying to defend the fosterlings from poor Iq'lothatuaa. I keep forgetting him, so it's good to have a decent reason to have some of them parlay with the PCs.
How should I justify most of the remaining hostile encounters in those tunnels, do you think?
You are indeed right, the brains in jars do deserve to be played as individuals with their own personalities. Out of pure conservation of detail I may only fully develop personalities for those which have plot-important roles (namely Greedle and the ex-high priest) but also I feel it would be useful to have one or two additional personalities to draw on should the PCs inquire (by comparison I only have 4 individual townsfolk mapped out with pre-planned personalities for non-plot critical NPCs).
(Incidentally, Grankless is right, I believe, it has been my understanding that Greedle is intended to be captured overnight while the PCs visit Undiomede House and in particular the tunnels beneath. I'm not terribly certain their motivation, but probably the same rather vague motivation the mi-go have had for capturing the remaining missing townsfolk, i.e. their vaguely outlined scientific curiosity and interest in studying and experimenting on the townsfolk and Neighbours.)
Regarding the ease with which the mi-go come and go to the surface, I think it would be safe to assume the aliens have some manner of technology that allows them relatively easy transport, as they would have needed some way to establish the dome in the first place (though I suppose the simplest explanation is that the mi-go do not need to breathe and can survive the vacuum of space). I'll grant I don't know what methods they used to bring back prisoners safely for their surgeries, but given the clerical magic and technology at their disposal I imagine they have access to at least one spell or device which can place a target in a stasis long enough to survive a trip to the depths.
It is worth noting that there is an underwater tunnel which is not blocked but which runs under the docks of Illmarsh all the way to Undiomede House. I've personally been imagining that Undiomede tunnels actually connected to the river that runs passed the town, and this tunnel connected to Tern Rocks but these details are worth noting.
Meanwhile @Grankless: In my version Iq'lothatuaa would never attack the fosterlings under his care, and indeed the one coherent thought in his mind while the Colour's influence weighs upon him is to protect them against all outsiders. That said, your version also sounds like an interesting way to play off that encounter! Admittedly I forgot there were other ulat-kini in the cave with him, so indeed your way actually makes more sense in some ways, and would still fit into the rest of the narrative.
As for the remaining encounters in those tunnels, I'm sure fighting the Colour needs no explanation, leaving only the Fetid Spore Mound in the trash heap. For me, I'm running a 2e conversion so whatever I do I will probably have to design a monster for the tunnels, so I may end up changing the spore mound to something else, however as-written I believe the spore mound only attacks if you come within a certain range, allowing the surviving fosterling(s) to avoid provoking it but leaving it a viable encounter for PCs to clean out.
Considering my party is likely to finish the church, go right to the House, and probably investigate the tunnels... And the ulat-kini, by default, can't hit anyone but the wizard... avoiding the combat altogether will probably work well.
(I'm going to reskin sahuagin for the mi-go tunnel combatants.)
I'm tempted to put an intellect devourer in in place of the spore mound and have it stalk the party up to the Colour, maybe jump them during it if not have it just leave and report to the mi-go. Hell, a Devourer could explain some of the stolen bodies better than the book itself does...
If you feel very evil, you could switch the spore mound with a Yangethe. They seems very close to the mi-go, and also with shub-niggurath
Just finished Book 4 tonight! So what have I left out of my earlier posts?
I suppose first thing to mention is that even as-written the AP seems to make no mention of what the fallout of excommunicating the entire church from their lives and how the sheriff might react. My party left for Undiomede House immediately, so I had the townsfolk discover the bodies (the party did make a token effort to hide them but also it was a bloodbath in the bethel and also they first encountered the moits while exploring the rooms) and low-key freak out. When the party arrived back in town the next day (spending the night in the tunnels arm-wrestling with Iqqy) the fisherfolk of the town had actually not left early in the morning as per usual but were all gathered at the wharves making sacrifices to the Watcher in the Bay.
Their one friend in town, Laurel Sills, tells them that after they left town yesterday, the bodies of the cultists, the shrine of Dagon, and the bodies of a bunch of missing people were discovered and the sheriff, the vizier, and the mayor had gone missing suddenly and the bay was filled with horrible mats of seaweed which could not be sailed through. Reacting to this, the townsfolk were making sacrifices to the Watcher (following Jasper Stane the boatmaker's example from the previous day) to placate it and send it away, and also pleading to Gozreh for forgiveness. She advises the party to stay out of sight and they do, visiting old Croon.
Meanwhile the details of who actually set the moits on the town never exactly came up. It was one point I was struggling to find an interesting answer for, but in the end the mi-go taking them from the ulat-kini who found them and using them in an experiment sufficed. Additionally, at the time of my first posts, I hadn't realized that there were a full set of conjuring circles atop the widow's walk of Undiomede House. I don't particularly thing they needed extra explanation but for clarity in my version they were created by the faction of ulat-kini who were trying to make contact with the ancient fertility goddess Shub-Niggurath to bless them.
Finally the last area that needed addressing from my last post were the Tern Rocks tunnels. Because of the way the party developed a rapport with Iq'lothatuaa in the Undiomede tunnels (after very nearly ignoring pleas from a fosterling woman not to hurt him and to go the other way, taking an axe to the chest), I had him show up just as the guards outside the tunnels (not mind-controlled or brainwashed, simply following orders) caught up with them and explain (using simple sign language) that the party were far too dangerous to fight and that they might very well take care of the mi-go threat so stay out of their way.
Foremost change to the tunnels themselves was taking the ulat-kini in the Chambers of the Fosterlings making them non-hostile (not the least of which reason being they couldn't have posed a threat to the party) and changing the art to something more pastoral and wholesome for the benefit of their human citizens. Aside from that I gave each chamber a mix of lobotomized and non-lobotomized ulat-kini and a few human fosterlings who chose to remain behind, including Rebecca Croon. Rebecca and the ulat-kini chief explain that the bug-like monsters invaded suddenly and crushed their resistance, but aside from their horrifying experiments mostly ignored anybody who didn't try to fight back, so they'd been huddled in these tunnels mostly forgotten. They told the party of the sycophantic Zhabh-boath and offered them a safe place to hide and patch their wounds.
Aside from having the mayor adapt almost comically well to no longer needing to wheeze for each lungful of air, I didn't need to change much about the brain archive. Greedle announced with regret that 'I don't know how to tell you this, but... they got me' and explained what little he remembered of being captured and disembodied. After a moment of conversation he recalled some mention of a ritual or some kind to summon a goddess. He was hazy on the details but it lit a fire that carried the party toward the conclusion.
To my delight my party immediately began exploring options to furbish each of the brain jars with full-body prostheses in the form of custom-made golems. Finally I had Rebecca present the problem the ulat-kini now faced with their ties to the town and had her ready to nudge them toward bringing her to the surface to hash it out with the townsfolk (who, following the tremendous psychic pulse from Shub-Niggurath's departure, were gathered at the tavern in an impromptu meeting). First they met Horace and set him straight about why Rebecca never returned, then they arrived carrying the brain of Mayor Greedle. The mayor gave a rousing off-the-cuff speech about the hardiness and strength of spirit of the people of Illmarsh and told them of his amazing adventure to meet the Neighbours, explaining what he had learned of their companions and the way the cult of Dagon had exploited both peoples.
(They also arrived carrying the brain of a young girl who announced to anyone who listened that she was going to become a Dalek and shoot fire from her hands until her mother came for her. As the party doesn't presently have high-enough level magic to restore the townsfolk to their bodies and not enough time to commission constructs, they left the brain jars in the care of their families because f+&@ the notion that disability makes you less of a person.)
Also as an aside, here is the modifications I made to Cassius Undiomede's Journal found below Undiomede House:
“I know what I must do. The Neighbours need tribute, but Baytown cannot learn the secret to my success, so I will cover both bases at once. The townsfolk already believe the neighbours to be local spirits—I will tell them that the Neighbours need tributes for marriage. As long as the tributes are willing and nobody disappears, nobody has to ask any questions. The Neighbours for their part will ensure the fishing boats always come back full and keep themselves hidden from the surface. It’s the perfect scheme—why did I not become a lord sooner?”
Oh! Post-Post Script--a minor plot hole came up in my game where it was pointed out that technically the ulat-kini should be able to breed their fosterlings together to meet their needs on their own. At the time I forgot the answer I had planned for this but a few bullets to summarize:
- At current there are maybe two dozen humans who survived, a) the mi-go invasion, b) the moit plague, and then c) the colour out of space. This a healthy breeding population does not make.
- The Recondite Order did not permit the ulat-kini to keep the handful of human births they had (especially since there were a few townsfolk with hybrid blood on the surface for the terrestrial part of their lives)
- The ulat-kini no more care for making the fosterlings into breeding slaves than a human would their own children. While raiding may have worked for their society in the past, they raise these fosterlings as a part of their own society.