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Ninjaxenomorph
2013-10-07, 09:31 PM
For the campaign I am planning, one of the arcs I have in place is inspired by Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness. The PCs are hired as guards/extra members of a research expedition to a polar region. However, unlike the city of the Elder Things, this city is not entirely empty. It was known as Gaoler's Spire, a prison for longer-lived entities.

Of course, there are Lovecraftian things, for example my way of gently pushing them in a way I want them to go later on is to have a Shoggoth chase them. Yetis are a predator on the surface, along with the occasional ice monster (dragon, Rhemoraz, etc.) In the dark of the city, I get to have a lot more fun, with Morlocks and other subterrainean horrors. However, after watching a review of a comic book sequel to The Thing, I had another idea for an escaped creature.

As the PCs are exploring the city with the expedition and camped out with the group, the watch is startled by a fleshy, half-frozen blob dropping from the ceiling. The blob does not react to being attacked, and I would have it not do anything hostile, it simply moves near a heat source to thaw. It stays behind when the expedition moves on in the morning, though it follows the PCs. There is a struggle with morlocks, and the blob finds one of the bodies, and eats it. The creature at this point, before their eyes, morphs into some sort of humanoid-looking thing. It becomes hostile, and attacks, but flees.
There is an encounter with yetis (probably, or something big, humanoid looking, and gribbly), and the creature is found trying to escape through a locked door. At this point I make it fairly obvious its no smarter than an animal. It eventually gets at one of the yeti corpses, somehow.

The expedition goes on, some plot happens, hopefully the players push the morphing creature from their minds. One night, a yeti-sized creature attacks, and carries off one of the servants. Later, they find evidence that it has grown smarter, and is figuring out some of the mechanisms of the ancient city. They meet some (somewhat) friendly prisoners of the Spire, for the first time, and they are told that there are spellcasting creatures down below.

What happens after that is entirely up to the PCs, as it should be. Now, statting out this creature's forms. For the first form, no stats are needed, besides some DR, Regeneration, and SR. Definitely an Aberration, even when it looks like an ooze at the beginning. Second form has a climb speed and a decent land speed. 3rd form is when I start statting the thing out. I was thinking about using a modified Gug's stats to start out with, just taking away the extra two attacks, and shifting the ability scores. The party would be around level 7 at this point. After it devours the human, I would increase it's Int to around 12, and let it go from there.

Depending on what I have it eat, I could pick and choose abilities and SLAs as I choose, as long as it makes sense. Also, I could have it gain power by giving it evolutions, to make things simpler for the base form. Eventually it would be able to change forms, but that is just theory. How should I go about with the different creature stats?