We are not alone.

[Mr.Sandman]

Greetings again Playground! I am beginning a new game, with the main antagonists being the Xill. The group will start at lv 1, and will most likely meet their first actual Xill at around lv 4. The group will be composed of a Wu Jen Dwarf, A half Nycter/ half Dwarf Barbarian, a Kobold Beguiler, a Goliath class unknown, and a Human Druid (with epic levels in powergamer). My query is for lv 10, so a ways away, but I should decide early which path to choose. At lv 10 the party will either:

A: Find out that the Xill are working with the Ethergaunts to take over the material plane.

B: Find out that the Xill have been searching for components to repair their crashed starship.

See, I just ordered the Dragonstar core book off of amazon, and since the beginning of planning have seen the Xill as very alien. My question is how would you, as players, feel if the GM pulled option B on you, and expanded the world to beyond the stars rather suddenly? My players are big fans of Sci Fi as well as fantasy, so there is no problem there. How could i foreshadow the expanded scope of the world before it happens, especially in a game that, because of the preferred races, will occur mostly underground? Is Dragonstar compatible enough with 3.5 to pull this off rather seamlessly?

[Nettlekid]

I don't know Dragonstar, so I'm afraid I can't offer advice on that front, but from the sound of it the plot sounds pretty cool. I think option B is by far the cooler one, because it makes the Xill not necessarily malicious, unless they intend to return to invade or something. I like the idea of maybe throwing in red herrings to make the party think the Xill are from the Ethereal Plane, and then suddenly take it out into space and have the party realize "Oh, this is a whole lot bigger than we thought." Perhaps throw in little clues, like alien technology scattered around underground. In fact, because you're underground, you might use races like Aboleths and Mind Flayers, as those "Way too strong for the PCs but for some reason not killing them immediately"-type NPCs, who either offer insight as to the use of the alien tech or drop hints about a great beyond, since both of those races are described as being quite alien anyway. Maybe you could look into using Chaositech (3rd party book) as the alien tech, since it's quite weird and different from existing material.

What you're going to have to watch out for is people blowing the surprise early, with spells like Divination/Legend Lore/Contact Other Plane, or once the whole "from beyond the stars" thing is revealed, from removing all suspense by just Teleporting anywhere they want to go. Find some way to make those not-an-issue, without annoying the people who want to use them.

[Seharvepernfan]

Never heard of dragonstar, but I would never have a problem with other planets existing in any D&D universe, as a player. I think it's neat.

[Ravens_cry]

Never heard of dragonstar, but I would never have a problem with other planets existing in any D&D universe, as a player. I think it's neat.
Indeed. In the Pathfinder default setting, there is a whole solar system of planets with all sorts of critters.

[TuggyNE]

What you're going to have to watch out for is people blowing the surprise early, with spells like Divination/Legend Lore/Contact Other Plane, or once the whole "from beyond the stars" thing is revealed, from removing all suspense by just Teleporting anywhere they want to go. Find some way to make those not-an-issue, without annoying the people who want to use them.

Spelljammer solved this by using crystal spheres, which block travel through the astral plane (and I think may interfere with divinations?). It also made intersystem travel on the titular spelljammers sufficiently dangerous to be interesting.

[Mr.Sandman]

It eases my nerves a little that I am not the only one who thinks this is a cool idea. That said, what kind of things might our ethereal antagonists be searching for? Though I do not yet have the sourcebook, I have a few things in mind I hope can change in the system. The Xill Empire use the Ethereal plane as the medium for their warp drive technology, creating a bubble of Force around them like Star Trek's warp bubble. One thing they could be searching for is Gorgons. In the Manual of the Planes their blood can be used to make objects ethereal solids, so maybe their starship hulls are made of their metal hides, with their heart in their somewhere. Force effects effect the ethereal, so maybe they are looking for rubies, (forcecage uses ruby dust) or other precious gems (like the powdered gem from wall of force). Does anybody have any ideas as to other things they could be searching for?

[Nettlekid]

It eases my nerves a little that I am not the only one who thinks this is a cool idea. That said, what kind of things might our ethereal antagonists be searching for? Though I do not yet have the sourcebook, I have a few things in mind I hope can change in the system. The Xill Empire use the Ethereal plane as the medium for their warp drive technology, creating a bubble of Force around them like Star Trek's warp bubble. One thing they could be searching for is Gorgons. In the Manual of the Planes their blood can be used to make objects ethereal solids, so maybe their starship hulls are made of their metal hides, with their heart in their somewhere. Force effects effect the ethereal, so maybe they are looking for rubies, (forcecage uses ruby dust) or other precious gems (like the powdered gem from wall of force). Does anybody have any ideas as to other things they could be searching for?

Well, off the top of my head, something that I know lies on the Ethereal Plane is the corpse of Chupoclops, an enormous spider monster which was said to be the harbinger of the end of existence. Mortals and ghosts alike banded together and slayed it on the Ethereal Plane, where it is said its body still lies. The vestige Chupoclops is in Tome of Magic. Perhaps the Xill seek its body for some great power that remains inside it, either the essence of hope which Chupoclops devoured, or maybe they seek to clone it from its cells and use it as a superweapon.

Although, I've probably misunderstood, because if they're from the Ethereal then you mean that they want something on the Material, right? Well, since the Ethereal Plane is where Ghosts live, maybe they believe themselves to be dead and seek their own corpses on the Material Plane, which they want to bring back to life. Or maybe they seek to kill powerful creatures of the Material Plane to enslave their ghosts. Although honestly, I quite like your Gorgon Blood idea. That works pretty well.

EDIT: Oh, or maybe they want the secret of making Riverine, from Stormwrack. Walls of Force sandwiching supercompressed water, in the form of shields and armor. More importantly, mobile Walls of Force, which can be shaped. If they could learn the secret and make their ships and weaponry out of Riverine, they would have a material that functions on both planes, and could use ships on the Material Plane to storm their enemies on the Ethereal.

[Randomguy]

Interstellar/interplanetary travel should be fine. 3.5 even has a race of abberrations that travel planets as traders/slavers: The Neogi, from Lords of Madness.

[Mr.Sandman]

Riverine sounds really cool, but is probably more of something I would have the Empire itself be after, not a swarm ship shot down over an unadvanced planet. They would be more likely to 'breed' to replenish their numbers than take slaves, though maybe they use the ghosts for energy sources?

[Nettlekid]

Riverine sounds really cool, but is probably more of something I would have the Empire itself be after, not a swarm ship shot down over an unadvanced planet. They would be more likely to 'breed' to replenish their numbers than take slaves, though maybe they use the ghosts for energy sources?

Oh I see, this ship is just a few stragglers, not like an advance invasion party.

Well then...I see that Xill have an egg implant (I almost said eggplant) ability. So yeah, infestations of larval Xill among the crash site seems as good an adventure draw as any. You could even make it like those fungal spores (in real life) which are inhaled by an ant, eat the ant's inner tissue, take over its brain, and make it climb to the top of a tree where the spore shoots out and breeds. In this case, the Xill eggs could control vermin and low Int monsters, having them infiltrate towns in order to collect supplies and building materials, and lure more developed creatures as slaves/workers.

Or, as a twist, maybe have them be taken captive by other races like Aboleths or most likely, the aforementioned Neogi, who see them as interesting exotic specimens and wonder at their peculiar technology, which they can probably sell for a high price. Have your PCs be requested to rescue humanoid captives from the Neogi slavers, and encounter the Xill there. When they free the slaves, the Xill might then follow the humanoids back to town and take over, or stay and use the Neogi stronghold to fortify themselves, and then the PCs are requested to find out what's going on in this Neo-Neogi base, and are greatly surprised to see it's not Neogi at all.

[Darth Stabber]

+1 for spelljammer. Give them a ship with a lifehelm (sucks the life force out of an unfortunate victim to power the ship), and they need to repair and gather "fuel" to leave.

www.spelljammer.org has plenty of info (as horribly organized as it is) to run it in 3.5.

If you really want to drive you players to evil, make the ship ready to go other than "fuel". The temptation of interstellar travel, :smallbiggrin:

[Mr.Sandman]

I will definitely give the Neogi look, are they in one of the MM's? They sound familiar. I am thinking of staying away from spelljammer to go with the more full sci fi feel of dragonstar, but will check it out to see if I can use anything from there.

[Darth Stabber]

I will definitely give the Neogi look, are they in one of the MM's? They sound familiar. I am thinking of staying away from spelljammer to go with the more full sci fi feel of dragonstar, but will check it out to see if I can use anything from there.

Neogi are in Lords of Madness. They may have been printed elsewhere, but as far as I remember that is the only 3.X printing they have received. And spelljammer is REALLY close to sci-fi.

[Randomguy]

I will definitely give the Neogi look, are they in one of the MM's? They sound familiar. I am thinking of staying away from spelljammer to go with the more full sci fi feel of dragonstar, but will check it out to see if I can use anything from there.

I'm pretty sure they're also in MM2.

[Darth Stabber]

I'm pretty sure they're also in MM2.

As per wikipedia you are right, though I don't have MM2 handy.