Setting up an Elder Evil event

[Silus]

Ok, for those that are in the Planebreak campaign, I'll kindly ask you to look elsewhere.

Backgroundy-stuff
Anywho, here's the thing. I'm a fairly new GM running a game for a group of players that, at least four of of the five, have double digit gaming experience on me. I've been trying to get essentially a "Wait what" response out of them. Ya know, surprise them. Put them on edge.

So here's the plan. I started setting up hints for a Cthulhu-type incursion onto the world ("The stars are almost right"). Now, as far as I am aware, the players all know their basic Cthulhu mythos. Stars are right, Cthulhu (or something similar) awakens chaos ensues.

I wanna use this knowledge against them. Drop not-so-subtle hints in a "I'm a new DM and I don't know how to be as subtle as I'd like" kind of way. Then start warping the signs. Make it start out as your usual run-of-the-mill Cthulhu incursion but start shifting things in an odder direction.

The direction I want to take it is instead of "The stars are almost right" in a "To wake Cthulhu" way, but rather in a "The stars will aid in her escape" way. In a nutshell, a goddess was exiled (For hating her sister for being so beloved) before the world was sealed off from the divine powers and the other planes. Her time "outside" has left her bitter and angry, ready to take on her sister who had turned, more or less, mortal. Essentially, we're looking at a more bitter, angry and powerful version of Nightmare Moon here.


The TL;DR bit
I'm looking for assistance with coming up with Elder Evil signs that hint at Cthulhu based shenanigans but seem "off", almost in a "Does this guy have his info right?" kinda way, but also fits seamlessly with a returning Nightmare Moon type Elder Evil (Corrupted, bitter exiled goddess of the night and stars). The objective is to use the veteran player's knowledge against them to throw them for an OOC loop (without lying) and surprise them while maintaining the facade of "I am trying really really hard to be subtle with the incoming Cthulhu monster".

Ideas thus far:

1. Meteor showers, possibly depositing nasty not-of-this-world horrors that ravage the countryside/cities.
2. Solar eclipse that lasts an unusually long time, possibly leaving some after-effect in the sky.
3. An increase in lycanthropy or activity regarding were creatures.
4. "Abductions" by "Star creatures".

[Dungeon_Master]

the signs of an elder evil are supposed to be obvious, it is nature's warning. heed nature or be destroyed. those signs are the only warning players should need. if you wish to be particularly nasty cut off divine access. cut off all planar travel to the astral, diminish magic by 1 category (all magic weapons lose one + If they are not at least +2 (actual plus) their powers are suppressed and it is merely a non magical item. once divine access is cut off, have your evil nasty intercept all arcane attempts to find out information, and simply Lie to your players. they don't often question spell results, and if they do give them the sense motive opposed by your deity's bluff score
increase activity of all incorporeal (ethereal) nastiness to be related to your evil-deity.

add more wights. maybe even an entire town of wights. read up on them.

make sure your deity respawns when killed by anymeans. make sure your deity has an avatar, and promptly causes 2 distractions or 3 If it has followers. 3 ritual locations of minions (none are wrong all will work, but all 3 would need to be stopped else elder evil comes in.
make sure your powerful ritual caster has delay spell, and uses it to prevent their own death, and/or delay death. sonorous hum + implosion is nice too (free maintain concentration)

[Silus]

the signs of an elder evil are supposed to be obvious, it is nature's warning. heed nature or be destroyed. those signs are the only warning players should need. if you wish to be particularly nasty cut off divine access. cut off all planar travel to the astral, diminish magic by 1 category (all magic weapons lose one + If they are not at least +2 (actual plus) their powers are suppressed and it is merely a non magical item. once divine access is cut off, have your evil nasty intercept all arcane attempts to find out information, and simply Lie to your players. they don't often question spell results, and if they do give them the sense motive opposed by your deity's bluff score
increase activity of all incorporeal (ethereal) nastiness to be related to your evil-deity.

add more wights. maybe even an entire town of wights. read up on them.

make sure your deity respawns when killed by anymeans. make sure your deity has an avatar, and promptly causes 2 distractions or 3 If it has followers. 3 ritual locations of minions (none are wrong all will work, but all 3 would need to be stopped else elder evil comes in.
make sure your powerful ritual caster has delay spell, and uses it to prevent their own death, and/or delay death. sonorous hum + implosion is nice too (free maintain concentration)

Well two minor problems:

1) There's an Undead Lord Cleric in the party, so adding Wights would only give him more minions to throw about (unless I tweaked them in such a way as to make them not undead).

2) By the time the BBEG makes her appearance, the world will have just gotten OUT of the whole "planar travel lock" thing.

The general idea is that while there'll be the whole Elder Evil sign/s, the BBEG isn't an Elder Evil itself. Just the first deity/deity-level-thing to return to the world in ~1000 years.

[Tvtyrant]

My thought on how you could run it.

Signs:

Least: The stars begin to shine during the day time. Creatures with sunlight penalties are no longer affected by them.
Lesser: The Sun becomes dimmer, and meteor showers begin falling at random. There is a 1% chance per day increasing to 100% over 100 days that you will be caught in a meteor shows, which does 1d4 damage a turn for 10 turns (at the 100 day mark it becomes continuous over the entire planet.)
Moderate: The sun is almost gone, and all light spells across the world snuff out and cease to work (including daylight etc.) Falling meteors coagulate into lesser star beasts (CR 1 but there are now billions of them.)
Greater: The sun is gone completely, and the damage from the meteors increases to 2d6 a round. The lesser star beasts congregate into Star Beasts at a slow but steady rate. Sleeping is now becoming difficult due to the constant interruptions by hailing star dust and endless hordes of monsters.
Final: Massive meteors crash occasionally onto the planet, doing 60d6 at the impact point and lessening at increments of 100 ft. by 10d6 (last 10d6 over 10 miles.) The meteor centers are massive Greater Star Beasts, which should be at least 2 levels over CR appropriate. These impacts are also visible on the moon, turning the surface into a molten hellscape. Finally the moon cracks, revealing a black inky membrane from which the goddess escapes to the planet.


The secret to preventing the godocolypse would be destroying a series of rune covered pillars, which are attracting the star-rain. Destroying them all in time prevents the extinction event of the massive final meteors, but still releases the goddess (as the stars were aiming to destroy the pillars to begin with.)

[Silus]

My thought on how you could run it.

Signs:

Least: The stars begin to shine during the day time. Creatures with sunlight penalties are no longer affected by them.
Lesser: The Sun becomes dimmer, and meteor showers begin falling at random. There is a 1% chance per day increasing to 100% over 100 days that you will be caught in a meteor shows, which does 1d4 damage a turn for 10 turns (at the 100 day mark it becomes continuous over the entire planet.)
Moderate: The sun is almost gone, and all light spells across the world snuff out and cease to work (including daylight etc.) Falling meteors coagulate into lesser star beasts (CR 1 but there are now billions of them.)
Greater: The sun is gone completely, and the damage from the meteors increases to 2d6 a round. The lesser star beasts congregate into Star Beasts at a slow but steady rate. Sleeping is now becoming difficult due to the constant interruptions by hailing star dust and endless hordes of monsters.
Final: Massive meteors crash occasionally onto the planet, doing 60d6 at the impact point and lessening at increments of 100 ft. by 10d6 (last 10d6 over 10 miles.) The meteor centers are massive Greater Star Beasts, which should be at least 2 levels over CR appropriate. These impacts are also visible on the moon, turning the surface into a molten hellscape. Finally the moon cracks, revealing a black inky membrane from which the goddess escapes to the planet.


The secret to preventing the godocolypse would be destroying a series of rune covered pillars, which are attracting the star-rain. Destroying them all in time prevents the extinction event of the massive final meteors, but still releases the goddess (as the stars were aiming to destroy the pillars to begin with.)

Any suggestions on a stand in for Star Beast stats? Part of me is thinkin', if I wanted to get fancy, elementals blended with oozes with the Outsider affiliation, cold immunity and a see-in-all-darkness thing.

[Tvtyrant]

Any suggestions on a stand in for Star Beast stats? Part of me is thinkin', if I wanted to get fancy, elementals blended with oozes with the Outsider affiliation, cold immunity and a see-in-all-darkness thing.

You could go for the truly horrid way. They could have Blindsense+ Perpetual cloud of Darkness, which cannot be removed due to the lack of light spells. Then you could make them Earth Elementals, with the big ones being Elemental Monoliths advanced up to colossal and all of them have immunity to fall damage and an impossible jump score. They can throw themselves at the enemy and land on them for tremendous damage!

The best route to accomplishing the elementals with oozes and outsider would be the Gelatinous template applied to an elemental who is then given the Far-Spawn or psudeonatural templates and Shadow or Dark Creature template. Mindless tentacled freaks with permanent displacement and can fly, set things on fire, burrow etc.

[Silus]

You could go for the truly horrid way. They could have Blindsense+ Perpetual cloud of Darkness, which cannot be removed due to the lack of light spells. Then you could make them Earth Elementals, with the big ones being Elemental Monoliths advanced up to colossal and all of them have immunity to fall damage and an impossible jump score. They can throw themselves at the enemy and land on them for tremendous damage!

The best route to accomplishing the elementals with oozes and outsider would be the Gelatinous template applied to an elemental who is then given the Far-Spawn or psudeonatural templates and Shadow or Dark Creature template. Mindless tentacled freaks with permanent displacement and can fly, set things on fire, burrow etc.

I actually have an Amalgam template used for combining creatures, so I figured I'd just use that =P

I may use the Far-Spawn template thing for the Greater Star Beasts, but as I know what the Far Spawn template is capable of, I confess, I'm hesitant.

[The Fury]

Well two minor problems:

1) There's an Undead Lord Cleric in the party, so adding Wights would only give him more minions to throw about (unless I tweaked them in such a way as to make them not undead).


Maybe if they worked more like the Fell from Midnight? Where they're not really corpses animated with negative energy like typical D&D undead, but people trapped in rotting bodies being driven insane.

[Fyermind]

There is a template in Unapproachable East called Thomil that basically lets earth elementals act like oozes. It stands to reason that since they can pass through earth easily they could negate some falling damage and take the rest as nonlethal. They will fall crashing into the earth making craters that look more like a splash than anything else, and then some time after they fall, they will wake up, and start attacking.

[Silus]

Maybe if they worked more like the Fell from Midnight? Where they're not really corpses animated with negative energy like typical D&D undead, but people trapped in rotting bodies being driven insane.

So just switch up the type from Undead to Humanoid?

Sounds simple enough :smallbiggrin:


There is a template in Unapproachable East called Thomil that basically lets earth elementals act like oozes. It stands to reason that since they can pass through earth easily they could negate some falling damage and take the rest as nonlethal. They will fall crashing into the earth making craters that look more like a splash than anything else, and then some time after they fall, they will wake up, and start attacking.

I don't think I have that book :smalleek:

I think I'm just gonna hand-make the monsters >.> See if I can't find a CR 1 ooze in Pathfinder books.

[Fyermind]

Make in monstrous humanoid I think, maybe using Ghasts or Ghouls as the base creature instead of Wights, the energy drain doesn't fit without the ties to the negative energy plane.

Edit for spelling

[Silus]

Make in monstrous humanoid I think, maybe using Ghasts or Ghouls as the base creature instead of Whites, the energy drain doesn't fit without the ties to the negative energy plane.

Would tie into the whole Cthulhu facade that I'd be trying to keep up. :smallbiggrin:

[The Fury]

So just switch up the type from Undead to Humanoid?

Sounds simple enough :smallbiggrin:

I'm not certain that the Fell work that way, but there's no reason you can't do it like that! All I know from playing, but never running Midnight is that necromancers deal with the Fell as little as possible-- either they're very difficult or impossible to control.

A bit of a digression for those that don't know about the Fell or Midnight which I'll go ahead an spoiler tag. In Midnight there is no longer any afterlife, so when people die their corpses rise as Fell after a while. After they've been turned to Fell they're basically the same person, but they need to eat living flesh to keep themselves from rotting and going crazy.

[Silus]

I'm not certain that the Fell work that way, but there's no reason you can't do it like that! All I know from playing, but never running Midnight is that necromancers deal with the Fell as little as possible-- either they're very difficult or impossible to control.

A bit of a digression for those that don't know about the Fell or Midnight which I'll go ahead an spoiler tag. In Midnight there is no longer any afterlife, so when people die their corpses rise as Fell after a while. After they've been turned to Fell they're basically the same person, but they need to eat living flesh to keep themselves from rotting and going crazy.

Suppose I'll just use'em as generic madmen strengthened by their slipping sanity.

Ok, so since the world has been under a sort of Seal of Binding (cutting it off from the planes and gods) that also cut it off from the rest of the universe (save the moon and sun), would it be too much, do you think, to have some sort of ship crash land on the now-there planet?

[Mnemnosyne]

Sure, if your crystal sphere was sealed off and recently opened, then a vessel might enter and come seeking trading opportunities (or other, more nefarious purposes, perhaps; a neogi vessel, for instance, might be seeking slaves) and then it was damaged by the meteor showers and crash-landed. Make sure to account for travel time from the edge of the sphere to the planet, though.

On the topic of the meteor showers, I think having constant planet-wide damage is too much. I don't think any of the other Elder Evil signs cause that much unavoidable damage, from offhand memory. Not to mention if you're doing it realistically, they're dealing damage to structures, plants, all animal, etc. One day of that would kill all animals in the world, demolish all buildings to rubble, turn the entire surface into a pitted, pockmarked hellscape, and leave the only surviving life those who were able to take shelter deep underground, and I guess creatures with enough damage reduction or regeneration that the meteor showers can't actually hurt them. A flat percent chance per day that each area gets hit seems like the best way to handle it, with perhaps one increase to a higher percent chance when the sign gets worse. That makes it seriously dangerous without making it impossible for any life to survive on the surface.

[Stoic]

Here is a thread on which monsters to use to give your campaign a Lovecraftian feel.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=269154

[Silus]

Here is a thread on which monsters to use to give your campaign a Lovecraftian feel.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=269154

Thank you, but I'm just trying to get the signs of the approaching evil to have a Lovecraftian feel to throw off the players.