I'm writing a story about this mist that rolls in at night and if you go into the mist the terrain there is different, always a pine forest and not the area that surrounds the town. What's happening here is the main enemy is using an artifact to cause some planar mumbo jumbo.
Plot point 2 is that those who go into the mist will be quickly attacked by undead or other gothic creatures. I want them to think that the mist is completely filled with monsters and give the town an Attack on Titan vibe for a session. Eventually they should notice they always see the same person in the treeline during battle and I'm hoping to steer them towards the idea that there aren't unlimited monsters, but that this one person senses life entering the mist and quickly finds and attacks them.
I can easily enough say the artifact does that too but the less I rely on that the stronger the story. So I was hoping to workshop some ideas about other ways she could accomplish this. My first thought was that there may be creatures with lifesense around who could quickly report to her? Maybe a spell of some kind? An existing item?
Any and all thoughts welcome.
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Sooo, Narnia then? :-D
Ravenloft.
As for the OP, she can do it however you'd like. She's an NPC so you can give her "Fogsense" that senses anything in her fog. She'd likely need something like that anyway to fight in the fog. And Ravenloft actually does have boss monsters like that, some who can unleash endless hordes so maybe look at that setting. (It had a wiki of sorts.)
If the situation's planar in origin, the fog-forest could be her demiplane so of course she knows what's happening there. She may have inherited it if making demiplanes is beyond her power level. That also could work to explain any minions that seem too powerful for her to have made.
Or maybe living creatures are like beacons in the fog, where she doesn't have to do much except point.
It'll be hard to convince the players the monsters are endless, partly because they never are, right? Maybe she does something before each wave that they can notice? Or maybe the PCs can see the fog rejuvenate fallen enemies, then they'll think "crap, these guys will be endless until we do something about the fog" which might lead (somehow) to her.
An actual wave of pseudo-endless monsters might take a LOT of monsters, which might be hard to balance as both a threat, yet not overwhelming in their numbers. Having the fog mask some makes it even harder to impart that information.
Yet, the fog can also work to mask the lack of them. So maybe instead of waves of monsters, there can be ever present sounds and smells. Triggering one battle draws many near, yet when that battle's finished there's still a lot of ambient "monster" noise informing the party that they've hardly made a dent w/ their "little" victory and they'd better not really stir up the pot or it'll get much worse.
That takes reading your players very well though, that is if they're even susceptible to such things.
This definitely sounds a lot like Ravenloft. You'd do well to read up on the Demiplane of Dread; you'll no doubt find much to be inspired by. Not just the RPG rulebooks, which are great, but the novels as well.
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I'm reminded of a Pathfinder Society scenario which had Lovecraftian monsters in fog. Below the Silver Tarn?
The monsters were individually significant, which the PCs learn early in an encounter w/ no reinforcements. Seeing many more "tough monsters" soon after was terrifying and NOT seeing, but hearing, the horde (due to fog) amplified the fear.
The trick was that most of the monsters were distracted so the PCs weren't expected to fight them (and would essentially auto-lose if they did). The creatures wanted an object (right?), so were busy tearing into a fortified tavern that held it (or at least held lots of juicy civilians).
I believe the monsters were also hindered by the fog, which PCs could use to their advantage if they didn't draw attention to themselves.
The monsters were more like a backdrop which created a fatal timer on various events, i.e. the tavern door bursting open. The PCs had to use trickery, distraction, and outright mobility to succeed, not brute force. They never vanquish the horde itself, rather the source of the horde.
Of course, for this to work the boss woman couldn't know of the PCs and command direct attacks. She could be off in her lair maybe focused on sensing her Macguffin (which the PCs may or may not need) or directing her troops in their search. Who knows if she'd notice losing "a few" minions.
"They're ignoring you," can sometimes be as terrifying as them attacking.
Oh, and the boss of the scenario was brutal. It was something to survive as you seal it away. Facing it directly was hardly an option though hypothetically possible.
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Horror Adventures from 1e had some things you might want to steal for this. The mechanics don't transfer cleanly but there are some good concepts to pilfer. Dread Lords have supernatural power over their personal domains of evil, including the ability to dominate monsters who sleep there, divinations to tell what goes on within, and the ability to manipulate the weather. They also might manipulate pockets of Animating Fog to mobilize zombie hoards. Taking some of the concepts from this, she could have messages of creatures in her domain sent via animal scouts and plants (down the grapevine pun?) and push clouds of animating fog towards them along with commanding a more limited supply of dominated monsters.
Dread Lords are perfect.
She's seeking an artifact to break her curse, uses the mist to go from rando party starting place that happens to have an old cursed item nearby, to Nidal, Geb, Ravenloft and other undead themed places. Her goals don't need to be 20-level spanning or anything I'm getting them used to long distance travel then plane hopping to a similar themed place and then eventually they'll start going all over the damn place in a laid back Sliders style monster of the week planar campaign.