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The Anarresti
2010-05-23, 04:43 PM
I'm just vaguely considering making a setting where a coalition of three(more?) Formian colonies finds/establishes a permanent gate to the Prime Material plane and begins to invade. The setting would be several years into the invasion (~30) and some learned scholars suspect that the first new Queen pupae are beginning to hatch. The setting would have maybe more than one huge hive cities: each major city would be a spiral fifty miles in diameter, extending fifty miles underground (the limit of the Queen's telepathy). There would be more than one Queen. Some cities would have Queens of less Hit Die than others, each Queen owing alliegence to other Queens of higher hit die. All queens would be constant telepathic communication (Rary's telepathic bond, Queens are sorcerers of 17th level) but not be sharing hive minds. I plan to have quite a few cities with Large Queens, possibly overlapping in a giant urban sprawl, owing alliance to a few less Huge Queens, who all report back to a triumvirate of three epic Gargantuan Queens.
There would be areas that maybe were lost by the Formians, maybe areas where other extraplanar creatures snuck in through the Formian gates, and kind of an "Alien Invasion" feel, with a breakdown of old codes and hostilities. Humanoids would not feel the need to fight other humanoids with the Formians being a bigger threat.

Anyway, I have a few questions:
1) An "average" queen of 20HD casts as a sorcerer of 17th level. So, does this mean that a queen always casts as (HD-3) level sorcerer? So a HD 30 Queen would cast as a 27th level sorcerer? Or what?
2) Do you have any fluff ideas at all?
3) Any crunch ideas at all?
4) I'm trying to blurr the line between aberration and outsider here. There could be plenty of weird, alien things that snuck in with the Formians, or maybe are leftovers from some mad Myrmach experiment.
5) Any ideas for anything the Formians might conceivably use? Constructs, spells, pets, architecture? Don't feel bound in the slightest by RAW fluff.
6) I'm also trying to make miles and miles of very alien territory for PCs to crawl through, not necessarily Formian-based. So that's one of my goals.
7) The Formians have everything pretty much sealed up tight within a fifty mile radius of any Queen. But what/how will the Formians use for outside the Hive Mind range? Warriors communicate through the Hive Mind only, and most Formians can't function without the Hive Mind. But the Formians need to be able to secure areas outside of the Hive Cities, to trade between the Hives, to extract resources, etc. Any ideas on how the Formians could establish control outside of a Hive Mind? Any independent/semi-independent units?

DracoDei
2010-05-23, 06:54 PM
1.) I would keep the innate caster level static, regardless of extra HD, but allow them to take sorcerer levels.

7.) Their best option for trading with eachother might be Dominated slaves doing the actual travel in most cases.

Set
2010-05-23, 08:01 PM
Anyway, I have a few questions:
1) An "average" queen of 20HD casts as a sorcerer of 17th level. So, does this mean that a queen always casts as (HD-3) level sorcerer? So a HD 30 Queen would cast as a 27th level sorcerer? Or what?

I'd be tempted to mix them up. Perhaps one has sorcerer spellcasting, another has psion manifesting and a third has adept levels or cleric levels?


5) Any ideas for anything the Formians might conceivably use? Constructs, spells, pets, architecture? Don't feel bound in the slightest by RAW fluff.
6) I'm also trying to make miles and miles of very alien territory for PCs to crawl through, not necessarily Formian-based. So that's one of my goals.

Using inspiration from the Aliens movie, I'd want to have the formian architecture be hive-like, perhaps made of some organically deposited ceramic spewed forth by a builder cast that moves slug-like through the tunnels.

Following the 'ant' theme, it's possible that the Formians, like true ants, domesticate other species (like aphids), or have specialized castes that engage in farming and 'terraforming' to turn the surrounding terrain into highly efficient agricultural communities, shuttling food back and forth on specialized flat-backed beetles to the main formian 'cities.'

The workers in the fields would be similarly specialized, perhaps based on thri-kreen or xixchil, using their four glaive-like limbs to thresh grains or butcher livestock for foodstuffs. Unlike typical thri-kreen, etc. these workers would be Int 2 and trained 'animals,' domesticated to follow very specific orders and perform their assigned tasks.


7) The Formians have everything pretty much sealed up tight within a fifty mile radius of any Queen. But what/how will the Formians use for outside the Hive Mind range? Warriors communicate through the Hive Mind only, and most Formians can't function without the Hive Mind. But the Formians need to be able to secure areas outside of the Hive Cities, to trade between the Hives, to extract resources, etc. Any ideas on how the Formians could establish control outside of a Hive Mind? Any independent/semi-independent units?

Some sort of organic towers could be created to function as boosters, like cell towers, each having within it some sort of sessile mindless 'sub-queen' that exists merely to amplify and extend the range of the queens hive mind.

Someone attempting to deal with the expansion of the Formians, if they manage to figure out what the towers are for, could attempt to destroy them to shut down the expanded hive mind and throw their expanded empire into disarray.

WeLoveFireballs
2010-05-23, 09:17 PM
I'd recommend a design kinda like the Red Hand of Doom with a few skirmishes, one Big Freaking Awesome battle and then invasion of the hives.

MythMage
2010-05-23, 09:50 PM
There's a big question here of what style of game you want to run in this situation. Is it a freedom fighter, small rag-tag group against a monolithic foe sort of things? Is it a grand war scenario for heroes to fight in and perhaps rise to lead great armies? Is it a dangerous but semi-stable status quo which allows for intrigue and dialogue as well as combat?

Considering the nature of the formians as spirits of law, I would recommend looking at how to make heroic chaos work on the side of the PCs. You could add complexity to the conflict, if that would appeal to you/your players, by allowing heroes to uncover some way for mortal law and logic to understand the formians and reason with them. Perhaps the formians think they're doing these mixed-up mortals a favor by conquering them and can be convinced to leave with some epic diplomacy, skirmishing, and/or shows of force. Perhaps the formians have labyrinthine internal codes of conduct or alien laws which the mortals can twist to their advantage if they're smart enough.

lightningcat
2010-05-23, 11:11 PM
Following the 'ant' theme, it's possible that the Formians, like true ants, domesticate other species (like aphids), or have specialized castes that engage in farming and 'terraforming' to turn the surrounding terrain into highly efficient agricultural communities, shuttling food back and forth on specialized flat-backed beetles to the main formian 'cities.'

The workers in the fields would be similarly specialized, perhaps based on thri-kreen or xixchil, using their four glaive-like limbs to thresh grains or butcher livestock for foodstuffs. Unlike typical thri-kreen, etc. these workers would be Int 2 and trained 'animals,' domesticated to follow very specific orders and perform their assigned tasks.

Some sort of organic towers could be created to function as boosters, like cell towers, each having within it some sort of sessile mindless 'sub-queen' that exists merely to amplify and extend the range of the queens hive mind.

Someone attempting to deal with the expansion of the Formians, if they manage to figure out what the towers are for, could attempt to destroy them to shut down the expanded hive mind and throw their expanded empire into disarray.

All these ideas kinda remind me of the zerg from Starcraft.

If you do run off a similar concept, then you might have a few "hero" formians that can operate outside the hivemind, that do the nessicary work outside. They set up the new bases, find sites for the booster towers, and do similar missions. These would work well as recurring villians.

Fable Wright
2010-05-23, 11:26 PM
For the hivemind, I say that the formian mages developed a magic item that can be carried by slaves that creates a temporary hivemind wherever it goes. I'd also be interested in playing this type of game, if you put it in the recruitment section.

EDIT: posted it in ongoing games section. If you're angry/want to DM, then PM me.

radmelon
2010-05-24, 12:48 AM
7) The Formians have everything pretty much sealed up tight within a fifty mile radius of any Queen. But what/how will the Formians use for outside the Hive Mind range? Warriors communicate through the Hive Mind only, and most Formians can't function without the Hive Mind. But the Formians need to be able to secure areas outside of the Hive Cities, to trade between the Hives, to extract resources, etc. Any ideas on how the Formians could establish control outside of a Hive Mind? Any independent/semi-independent units?
Simple. Spawn more overlords! :smallbiggrin: