[3.5] Help me design a philosophically complex Big Bad

[OttoVonBigby]

(BTW, hello, first-time poster, long-time lurker.)

At the end of the week our 3.5 campaign's plot is going to start coming together after several somewhat scattered adventures. The PCs are looking for a relative who looks to have joined a cult. The cult followed its leader (we will call him The Prophet, and of course he isn't the Big Bad) out of town sometime before the PCs came investigating. This stuff all happened last session.

What I'm doing now is figuring out what this cult's deal is. I figure The Prophet has been hearing voices from The Shadowdude (provisional name for the true Big Bad), who has told him to gather this flock. I need the Shadowdude to be about CR 7 - 9 and I want him to be unnerving--scary, but more in a creepy way than an Orcus way.

What I've got so far is this. The cult believes that nothing is real except for a great undifferentiated mass called (provisionally) Existence, and that all the things we think about when we think about reality--forms, personalities, gods--are false. There is no death, nor birth, only the shifting of waves of Existence into form. The cultists follow the Prophet in an effort to return to Purity and Wholeness, meaning to surrender form and identity into Existence. Heady stuff, obviously.

Now, my concept for the Shadowdude is that he feeds on life and light--because he was corrupted by Darkness (one of the original basic attributes of my setting's multiverse), though he also truly believes the stuff in the previous paragraph, and is so caught up in his half-mad/half-profound ruminations that he doesn't realize he's a corrupted shadow-creature. He dwells on (but isn't necessarily native to) the Plane of Shadow, which is where the Prophet is eventually gonna lead his followers--to be consumed, of course, but the Shadowdude sees this consumption more as a spiritual embrace, a release from the prison of form, a way for his faithful to experience more than just typical-religious-person fellowship, but true oneness...FOREVER.

What I need is creature type, special abilities, the whole workup of enemy stats for this Shadowdude. In keeping with the "dissolution of form" motif, it seems like some kind of intelligent ooze might be just the thing-- but I don't know whether that is buildable within the RAW or not. Perhaps just the shadow creature template from Lords of Madness is sufficiently "indistinct" for the theme. The Ghost template could work here too, could it not?...especially if I want him to be a recurring villain, which is something I've never pulled off in D&D.

I think it might be neat if he turned out to be not so much evil as CN, but given everything above, I understand if he kind of has to be evil.

All templates (inherited or acquired) and all official 3.5 or even 3.0 books are allowable.

[Eiko]

Living spell could be an option, it takes one or more spells and turns them into an ooze that applies such spells on their slam attacks. Good way to make an intelligent ooze.

Suitable spells could be located :smallsmile:

[Rubik]

Ghost would definitely be good for a recurring villain, assuming you don't want a higher-level caster or manifester pulling off Clone/Magic Jar/Astral Projection/Astral Seed shenanigans.

What about a ghost psion (www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/psion.htm)/thrallherd (www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/thrallherd.htm)? Get your thrall on, and start with the ghostly possession. Go shaper and use astral constructs, but flavor them as shadow constructs.

Find a nice base race that is appropriately creepy, such as a gnome. Gnomes are creepy.

[Gnome Alone]

Y'know, I actually think The Shadowdude is a pretty good* name for this "Big Bad," which is funny considering I have no problem with that but I can't STAND the phrase "Big Bad" or "BBEG"... It wouldn't be that bad, indeed it's kind of clever phrasing, if it hadn't almost completely supplanted the term "villain." No offense intended, OP, and hope I don't derail yer thread. I wish I had something more insightful to contribute; it sounds like a really fun concept.

Find a nice base race that is appropriately creepy, such as a gnome. Gnomes are creepy.
NUH-UH!! :smallcool: ...:smallsigh:

*"good" as in "hilarious," not good as in "you should actually use it."

[Feralventas]

Living spell could be an option, it takes one or more spells and turns them into an ooze that applies such spells on their slam attacks. Good way to make an intelligent ooze.

Suitable spells could be located :smallsmile:



Intelligent living spell made of combination of illusion spells (all of which are on the BBEG's spell list). The BBEG does NOT KNOW that they are a living ooze. Pick out spells and allies that allow the BBEG to act indirectly and fight the PCs at a distance. However, the campaign is not questing on a way to confront the BBEG, but rather in discovering his nature; if he ever realizes that he is an illusion, he will dispel himself and the campaign is the quest to find the evidence and display it in such a way as to be irrefutable. .

Shadowcaster would work, but it's a lot weaker than the standard sorcerer.

[Gwendol]

Shadow adept perhaps?

[Kol Korran]

I'd suggest going the a shadowcaster, but i'd use this fix to make it more playable, more potent. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=l7ijes283tqa3617t6s5iau127&topic=11610.msg397441#msg397441)

You can make him a ghost, or perhaps even a shadow itself? A homebrew template, or just something once, unique. Only his touch doesn't cause strength damage, but rather some other effects, depending how deadly you want to make it:
- strength permanent drain
- perhaps damage or drain to 3-6 of the ability scores? (slowly making the characters to "nothing")
- level drain? one that is hard to resist?

[Telonius]

A Phasm might do it. Telepathic, definitely amorphous, alternate form at will as a standard action. You could advance him however you like.

How he doesn't realize he's a Phasm...? I believe there exists (though I can't find it at the moment) a monster that affects a person as though it were a permanent Insanity spell if they're ever mentally contacted.

The "Depravity" system from Heroes of Horror has a "Delusional" mental characteristic (moderate), where you're convinced the world is an illusion.

For the Prophet ... it might be interesting to have a Slyth character (Underdark p.17-18) as his "Prophet."

[ceduct]

death knight has some neat synergy with the ghost template

say after a battle one follower flees but pc's spot him entering a shrine
short description of a candle lit room with a visual focus (altar/artwork depicting the heady stuff)

follower sobs a master forgive me, making the ghost manifest behind te pc's
telekineticly slamming the door closed initiates a surprise round for a frightfull moan (cowering) for some uninterupted fluff on how true oneness is achieved, while pc's take dmg

i'd be scared =)

[Andorax]

Shadow (template) Chain Devil?

[OttoVonBigby]

According to MM3, Living Spells can't have an Int score. Though I suppose I could conjure a reason to break that rule...

A Phasm might do it. Telepathic, definitely amorphous, alternate form at will as a standard action. You could advance him however you like.
Indeed-- and as aberrations, they can be ghosts too. But the more I think about it, the less sense the Ghost template makes for a villain who doesn't (possibly can't) leave the Plane of Shadow. Likewise, the shadow template gives plane shift, which I'm not certain I want him to have.

So suppose he was a Dark Phasm, using the Dark Creature template from ToM. Shadowiness, check; formlessness, check. The only thing he's missing, then, is some way to "feed upon light and life"--is there a feat, or spell, or class feature or something that functions kind of like the ghost's Draining Touch?

slamming the door closed initiates a surprise round for a frightfull moan (cowering) for some uninterupted fluff on how true oneness is achieved, while pc's take dmg

i'd be scared =)
Nice. Threat of annihilation AND compulsory fluff. What more could a DM ask for? :smallcool:

[ceduct]

What more could a DM ask for?

high cha to improve save dc

[eggs]

Even without handwaving, Spell Sovereigns (awesome PrC from Dragon 357) can create and Awaken living spells. It works pretty much identically to Awaken.

[Waker]

A little bit of template stacking can up the intelligence of a Living Spell Ooze. For example, Sentry Ooze from Dungeonscape for example makes an ooze no longer mindless and grants it an intelligence score.

[Roguenewb]

Chaos Beast. End of Story. CR 7, hits things and turns them into soft spoongy masses. They have all 6 stats at 10 or better, and they have SR and critical immunity.

Now, if your players are a little more optimization minded, and you wanna make this thing scarier, mix up it's feats, and give it levels of druid. Particularly interesting is Aberrant Blood and the Feat that gives tentacl-y reach, and Ability Focus (Corporeal Instability). For levels, give it 4 levels of beguiller (unassosicated class so it boosts total CR to 9), and give it versatile spellcaster. Now it can fool players and cultists, approach to touching range and turn your players into go. Who doesn't love goo. You have to give it point buy stats because as listed it's stats are based on 6 tens.

I think Chaos Beast/Beguiller 4 is perfect for you. Enjoy.

[OttoVonBigby]

Chaos beast may indeed be perfect. I had been inclined to have him "feed" off people--something to drain (or damage or whatever) their attributes while giving him temporary HP. But perhaps it's even creepier if all he wants to do is turn people into goo/other chaos beasts.

My players are almost the exact opposite of optimization-minded; I'd prefer to keep the CR at 7 or 8-- 9 might be pushing it. I guess I could gift him with high Int and Cha and skip Beguiler (which is actually kind of classa non grata in my setting). Now that I look more closely at the Shadow template, plane shift isn't required, it's just an option--but since chaos beasts lack the skill at Tactical Retreats To Fight Another Day that phasms or ghosts have, I probably would actually want Shadowdude to have plane shift if he's a shadow chaos beast.

I'm gonna start working on this. Thanks for all the great feedback-- keep those weird ideas comin' if you still have more :smallbiggrin:

[Suddo]

Intelligent living spell made of combination of illusion spells (all of which are on the BBEG's spell list). The BBEG does NOT KNOW that they are a living ooze. Pick out spells and allies that allow the BBEG to act indirectly and fight the PCs at a distance. However, the campaign is not questing on a way to confront the BBEG, but rather in discovering his nature; if he ever realizes that he is an illusion, he will dispel himself and the campaign is the quest to find the evidence and display it in such a way as to be irrefutable. .

Shadowcaster would work, but it's a lot weaker than the standard sorcerer.

Coolest villain ever. Though you may want to find something to make him immune to diplomacy/social skill shenanigans to make him just dissipate.

[falloutimperial]

In terms of names there are always a few standbys.

I'm a fan of the anagram-as-name, because it always sounds scary or at least foreign to existence.

There's also the foreign language trick, where you translate a word such as "shadow" into a language your players won't recognize. (Drohung in German, vari is Estonian.)

Of course, you could always leave his name ambiguous and see what your players start to call him, or use a generic title. (e.g. The Mastermind, The One, etc.)

[Feralventas]

Coolest villain ever. Though you may want to find something to make him immune to diplomacy/social skill shenanigans to make him just dissipate.

I usually house-rule that all social skills have an opposed roll, so a Knowledge check to learn about someone has a penalty equal to their bluff-roll (no spell-casting bonuses unless they're permanent) and Diplomacy can be opposed by Sense Motive or Diplomacy. This means the chart still applies, but you need to Really juice it in order to deal with the penalties of the other person Knowing why you're being so polite.

Besides, the players are going to essentially defeat him with a speech anyway, so it'd be a lot like shouting a logical fallacy at a computer-based foe to make it BSOD on itself. If the party figures out enough about him to do this, he's already lost; the challenge is in maintaining his delusions of his own existence.

Alternatively, you could give him about 9 lives (one for each spell-level involved in his construction) so that each time he is confronted with the truth, he must make a save against his own spell DC or else be reduced to the next lowest spell. Each failed save brings down the spell-level that his ability scores are based on and the spell that they stack with, so at the end he'd be nothing but Light and Ghost sound before inevitably dispersing.

[Novawurmson]

I think the Quori from Eberron are absolutely perfect for this.

They're creatures from a realm of darkness, dreams and/or nightmares that are dedicated to uniting all sentient life in one dream. The dreams of mortals alter their home plane, occasionally completely destroying and reforming it, so they're aggressively trying to stabilize the mental fluctuations and dreams of all life.

Even if you don't want to take the fluff completely, the basic idea of (violently) uniting all people under one (self-serving, all-consuming) dream is perfect.

Check out p. 148 of Races of Eberron. The Quori Nightmare prestige class - you can enter at level 5, can take all 5 levels and still be a CR 9 creature. It gets fear and shadow/dreamlike class features.

[OttoVonBigby]

I think the Quori from Eberron are absolutely perfect for this.
Yeah, they would, if I hadn't already used them for a different campaign and a different realm of my cosmology :smallsmile:

And now that I look closely at chaos beast-- it says they don't speak, despite an Int of 10. :smallfrown: He's GOT to speak. Also...the chaos aspect I could do without, in spite of this particular monster's convenient formlessness qualities.

Maybe a Shadow Awakened Living Spell is the best way to go here after all. If I make the spell in question be something like Vampiric Touch, I should be able to A: hit about the CR I want, and B: keep the energy-draining quality I was considering. More spell browsing is in order, though, since I can combine two spells, which would probably help with the flavor and the WTFedness.

[Doktor Per]

Hook the Shadow Beast up with some telepathy, dog. He don't speak out the mouth, he speak out the heart.

[daemonaetea]

Maybe a Shadow Awakened Living Spell is the best way to go here after all. If I make the spell in question be something like Vampiric Touch, I should be able to A: hit about the CR I want, and B: keep the energy-draining quality I was considering. More spell browsing is in order, though, since I can combine two spells, which would probably help with the flavor and the WTFedness.

Just as a thought, how about these as the three spells that created him? Vampiric Touch, Awaken, and Shadow Walk. I'm not sure if Awaken and Shadow Walk would do what you want RAW wise, but the fluff sounds about right. And since anything he hits can be Awakened it definitely would cause a certain amount of trippiness to develop in any mind. Just imagine if everything you touched started talking to you...