Mind Flayer Campaign Idea

[Dralnu]

I just finished reading Lords of Madness and mind flayers really stuck in my head as being awesome BBEGs. From what I understand, they're a race that has time-traveled to the distant past to escape their demise in the distant future. Their actual creation origin is unknown and occurs some time in the future, and their actual "reproduction" is unique in that their infant form is injected into a humanoid body and transformed into an mind flayer body.

So with this in mind, I have an idea for a campaign:
The mind flayers are actually responsible for ensuring their own creation by using the PCs as pawns to cause this event to occur. The party has either been duped by the mind flayers directly or by thralls/worshippers to carry this out. But the mind flayers aren't stopping there. They also want to genetically modify the species so that the superior alhoon birth rate is at 100% instead of 10%. Once they've realized that they're responsible for creating the race that will eventually enslave the entire universe and blot out the stars for eternal darkness, Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn, the PCs must stop the mind flayer's nefarious scheme of creating an unstoppable alhoon army. Failure to do so will result in the mind flayers conquering the universe much, much sooner than expected.

What do you guys think? Good plot or are there problems?

[SPoilaaja]

Sounds really interesting. I would play in it. Just make sure that your team has no illithid slayer in it :D (atleast in the start). Could destroy the plot.

[TroubleBrewing]

Sounds great. I'd keep the Illithids out of the picture until the eleventh hour, though. Nothing like knowing whats coming to spoil the suspense.

[ffone]

Neat idea. Although I personally would tone down the 'enemies will take over the entire universe soon' stakes b/c I personally find that less dramatic than something slightly more modest.

Maybe do something with with time travel, like a Book End (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BookEnds) Boss such as Final Fantasy 1's Garland.

- Near the beginning of the campaign, the enemies kill some mind flayer in an encounter, possibly the first one. They may not yet know the plot will involve more mind flayers. Maybe clues on his person are what set things in motion.

- Later they run into other mind flayers, discover the plot, etc. which involves a mind flayer trying to travel back in time to do Bad Stuff before it can be stopped.

- After they mop up everything else, PCs realize they failed to stop the mindflayer traveling back - but he's the one they killed in the very beginning. The traveler might've deliberately been trying to kill the Meddlesome Heroes in the past when they were lower level and not yet aware of the plot - and of course, his attempting that is precisely what put the heroes on the scent.

I suggest not letting the PCs ever see or meet the traveler "after" they kill him; otherwise they might actually prevent his time travel and create a time paradox!

[VarianArdell]

I like the idea, but I must ask a very serious question: do you watch Doctor Who at all?

[Hazzardevil]

I think that it would be a good idea to ban rangers fullstop really, that would give them an edge on mindflayers too.

Maybe the plot could be the half illithid template applied to all charecters. Then have them being controlled but the Charecters don't know that.

[Daftendirekt]

I think that it would be a good idea to ban rangers fullstop really, that would give them an edge on mindflayers too.

Maybe the plot could be the half illithid template applied to all charecters. Then have them being controlled but the Charecters don't know that.

Work Thoon Thralls (MMV112) in somehow? Normal-looking sleeper agents that turn into living time bombs when activated.

EDIT: Also, wouldn't banning rangers and Illithid Slayers kind of give it away? Even if somebody takes ranger, who says they'll take aberrations as their favored enemy, much less illithid in particular. Same with Illithid Slayer; it's not exactly an over-used PrC, so I don't think a PC will just happen to pick it.

[TroubleBrewing]

Last I checked, you don't actually have to specify Illithids (or any other Abberation, for that matter) when you select a favored enemy. I'm AFB right now, so I'm not 100% certain.

[Hazzardevil]

you only have to choose aberration, but stilla level 20 ranger has a +10 or 12 bonus against things from a favoured enemy. An Illithid slayer is immune to barin-eating as well.

Also has anyone noticed how on teh SRD they call the Illithid slayers just slayer? It's because of teh intellectual property thing which is why they don't have red wizard on there but still.

[Urpriest]

They also want to genetically modify the species so that the superior alhoon birth rate is at 100% instead of 10%.

They're born as liches? I think you mean Ulitharid, not Alhoon.

Other than that, sounds cool. Also, could people who might participate in Psionic Tippyverse this summer not read this next part please:

I had already planned this to be how my upcoming Psionic Tippyverse campaign works, generally speaking. Just so nobody accuses me of stealing your idea.

[Swooper]

I always interpreted the whole "mind flayers travel from the future to escape their doom" thing as a loop.

- Mind flayer empire on brink of destruction.
- Mind flayers go back in time, don't have an empire in the past.
- Start building up from the Underdark, gathering slaves, "breeding" (if you can call ceremorphosis breeding) and so on.
- Eventually, thousands (or millions?) of years later they have rebuilt their empire.
- The empire starts crumbling as the world nears destruction again
- Their only hope is to go back in time... again! And the cycle repeats itself.

There is no singular event which "started" the mind flayers. Their existance is a cycle that violates causality. The only way to break the cycle is to kill them all, but if this succeeds then there will never be an illithid empire in the future, so they never went back in time so you can't have spent all that time hunting them down... Paradox. That's the beauty of it. The inevitability. You can't kill them all because if you could, you already would have and they wouldn't be here. Fighting them is pointless, because they will win in the end. :smallamused: