It's Alive!!!

[AspectOfNihil]

I have been asked to stat out a villain, of any sort, for a friend of mine to build a campaign around. He's a fantastic writer, but not particularly good at op-fu, and his villains tend to go down too easy. He wants to give his players a nasty little surprise with this one. And so do I :smallamused:

I've had the idea of a frankenstein-type Dr Jekyl/Mr Hyde affair. One of the personalities is a NG Cleric noble of decent power but mild ability, the other is an insane evil wizard, who uses their position to acquire strange creatures.

Which they then kill, cut up, and create entire new species from the rubble.

This means that on the one side (Called Jekyl from here-on-in) could be trying to help the PC's find the source of the murders turning up corpses mutilated in strange ways, while the other (Hyde), functioning while Jekyl is asleep, is causing them. This gives them reason to have a lair populated by strange, unique, dangerous creatures, and them to have a fair whack of power themself.

The only problem is:

I don't know how to do it.

Any help would be appreciated, and the classes/social positions aren't set in stone, as the campaign will be built around him/her.

(Sorry about the title, couldn't resist.)

[Urpriest]

Fleshwarper is a fun PrC for this sort of thing. It's in Lords of Madness. Note that it's rather hard to get into normally, but if you allow some things to slip over between personalities (making it gestaltish, for example) you could have the necessary Heal ranks for the Graft Flesh feat from your Jekyll Cleric levels while still keeping full caster level on the Hyde side.

[Flickerdart]

Chameleon seems like an obvious choice, since he could switch between "Cleric" (Divine + Martial) to "Wizard" (Arcane + something) quickly. However, it is not possible to have two partitioned minds that sleep independently of one another; otherwise, no spellcaster would ever have to sleep ever again.

[AspectOfNihil]

I'm thinking less as a single partioned mind and more a malevolent entity, maybe an incorporeal undead, that is bound to the base personality.

This would allow the leaking of knowledge between two sides (as as far as I am aware, people with DID are completely unable to remember anything that happens when the other personality is in dominance), and would mean that as the entity is the one engaging its 'gray matter' the end effect would be similar to sleep-walking.

I like the idea of memory bleed. It would allow for some interesting development. The noble sees some runes in a language he's never read before on a church... and can understand them perfectly, he sees a street magician performing, and though he has never read an arcane tome in his life, he can recognise the components of the silent image spell. Then more sinister memories bleed, he remembers murder, torture, reshaping the flesh of creatures writhing in pain, but worst of all, he remembers enjoying it, it drives him insane, and slowly, the two personalities start to merge, he lives as if in a dream, never sure when he is in control or the other, until the two entities become one, a single being of vast intellect sunken in the depths of insanity.

Yeah, I'm using that :smallbiggrin:

A sort of gestalt type config would be quite useful really, maybe with each side getting half the ranks of the skills invested in the other side?

[Flickerdart]

Ah, making two characters? Then take a look at the Fiend of Possession (or even a humble Ghost).

[CTrees]

A permanent Magic Jar could actually work. The cleric is the host body, and willingly fails the save versus possession for the wizard personality to take over. When the personalities should switch back, the wizard simply moves back to the jar. The gem could be in a piece of jewelry, or even implanted within the cleric's body.

[AspectOfNihil]

Fiend of Possession eh?

The more I read of it the more I like it.

And it gives a bit of continuity to the story. Killing the noble only grants a temporary reprieve from the murders, they start again, a few weeks later, and the PCs are called in once more to help with the investigation. Perhaps the fiend was sent to experiment to create a new breed of war beast, perhaps he was sent to sow chaos and discord in preparation for a coming fiendish army. There's a lot of options there, and it means killing the vessel won't do anything, so they have to find a way to kill something they can neither see, detect, or interact with.

As far as monster presitge classes go, that is one nasty sunna beach.

Magic Jar could work too, have the noble actually in on it and being used by the head of a cult to research without risk in order to create the perfect vessel for their 'god'.

Hell, could probably even merge the two, have them trying to create a vessel for the Fiend of Possession. It would give a good reason to have scaling bosses as well, first the cleric, then the cultist, then the fiend, then the army.

Yeah, let's go with that.

1st step: Low-level cleric with a few levels in noble, being used as a vessel for a remote cult, creating strange creatures and testing them on the unwitting populace in order to find one powerful enough to serve as the carrier of the fiend.

2nd step: The actual Cultist. Possibly/probably Wizard/Fleshwarper. Heading a cult dedicated to the Fiend of Possession, surrounded by his most successful creations, sent to him as candidates by the cleric (explaining both the disparity in power of the creations between the two places and their presence with the wizard), hidden in some remote fortress, perhaps mentioned in notes at the Cleric Noble's house.

3rd step: The Fiend. Having found and ideal vessel, it is now a Harbinger of Destruction, combining the sharp intellect and supernatural abilities of the outsider with the sheer brute force of its host.

So far sounds good, cheers for the advice everyone. Any more suggestions on how to make it more believable or fun to play?

[Urpriest]

If you're going to use the Fleshwarper as a separate character, you need to find a way to get Heal as a class skill on a Wizard so they can get 10 ranks in time to get Graft Flesh and enter the PrC. Various options include Blood Magus, a dip in Cleric, the Glimmerskin Halfling race, and the Aerenal Focus feat from Eberron.

[AspectOfNihil]

Could probably get away with a 2-3 level Blood Magus dip, dumping a fair bit into Heal to get Fleshwarper by 8th.

Plus the cool factor of watching a caster bleeding himself dry to reach new heights of power. That's dedication for ya.

Anybody have any ideas on how to create the actual monsters themselves? I can't decide between going with completely custom monsters or templated standard.

Perhaps I could use something along the lines of a necrosis carnex as a guide, maybe even something a bit more flesh-golemesque.

Which begs the question, construct, undead, or magical beast?

[Flickerdart]

When in doubt, always roll on a chart. These are experiments after all.

[Urpriest]

Since you've got a fleshwarper, why not take more normal monsters and give them grafts? You can put in a lot of weird abilities and bodyparts with those. Illithid Grafts and Aboleth Grafts can both get pretty fun on minion-types.

[AspectOfNihil]

I like the chart idea, would keep everything interesting from fight to fight, and they wouldn't know what to expect from room to room.

Yeah, true, could probably do both, put Graft as a chance on the chart instead of an arm. Help make something already disturbing take on a whole new level of morbidity.

They're not going to know what hit them :smallamused:

Thanks everybody for all your help, I should be able to take things from here.

Cleric 3/Noble 4 = First Boss

Wizard 5/Blood Magus 2/Fleswarper 5 = Second Boss

Fiend of Possession 10 = Last Boss (Yeah, he's gonna be nasty)