I am writing up a villain who is a spiritualist, but my idea is that the spiritualist is really a pawn of his phantom, who is the one pulling the strings. The phantom is the spirit of a powerful villain (currently named Osragul) who had, in the backstory of this setting, held the region in a grip of terror. He was defeated and killed many years ago, but is returning as a phantom to corrupt a new generation and continue his evil schemes.
Think Voldemort on the back of Quirrell's head.
Since Osragul is returning as a phantom - rather than a lich or something - I think it makes sense that he was of some occult class in life, probably a psychic or maybe a mesmerist.
So basically my question is: what's a good way that a very powerful occult character and his cult of followers could have held an entire region in a reign of terror? Is there a specific monster that he might summon a horde of? I like the idea that maybe he tried to psychically dominate a monster that was a bit too powerful for him and maybe that's what killed him in the first place.
It doesn't need to be super-detailed as to how he did it because it's all in the backstory.
Well if he was a particularly expansive cult leader he might have had Vile Leadership. Perhaps he was getting too ambitious and tried to bind an Elder Deep One and ended up getting enslaved instead until he died. A horde of the Spawn of Yog-Sothoth would be cool too.
Well if he was a particularly expansive cult leader he might have had Vile Leadership. Perhaps he was getting too ambitious and tried to bind an Elder Deep One and ended up getting enslaved instead until he died. A horde of the Spawn of Yog-Sothoth would be cool too.
An Elder Deep One might be kinda cool. I've got a bit of Deep One presence in this setting already so that could tie in.
There's no specific type of critter that's ready-built to be a servant of powerful psychics, though, is there? The way wizards have elementals and evil clerics have undead?
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There's no specific type of critter that's ready-built to be a servant of powerful psychics, though, is there? The way wizards have elementals and evil clerics have undead?
You could make up one, like 'incarnates,' which are elemental/undead like creatures created by an evil mesmerist by forcing someone to experience overwhelming emotions of a particular sort, and then ripping out the emotional energy to separate it from the messy person-soul-thing generating it. This one's particular forte was distilling the essence of fear, by terrorizing people to just before the state of catatonia (wouldn't do to let the fear END, after all!), and then pulling the fear out of them and incarnating it into a psychic servant, leaving the victims more or less will-less automatons, lacking all emotional affect (perhaps to be used as slave labor, or just allowed to wander off and die, or killing them outright, depending on the exact level of evil we're talking about).
It's a funky variation on the 'tulpa' concept, but instead of generating a psychic entity from one's own psyche, the evil occultist is creating them from other people, at the expense of their own sanity / will.
Aberrations seem to lean into this 'occult-y' niche, as well, on the other hand, and a psychic who has some sort of creepy connection to chokers, for instance, or naga, or will-o-wisps, could be fun.