How to Handle a Magical Population Explosion?

[unseenmage]

I am in a pickle and I need your help Playground. A pickle 7 billion Constructs strong.

Game is 3.5 plus Conan d20, high power Faerun, 'gods and dragons are special and awesome' game. Game is pretty high politics too, play styles and skill levels are all over the map and multiple DMs is happening.
Pretty much anything third party goes except I am disallowed Gate, Wish, Genesis, and Miracle just because. And no Homebrew, though amped up Custom Magic Item Rules are allowed, with permission.

The Trouble

Recently, I caused a cheese laden series of events to transpire that netted my level 11 (15 now) Gestalt Artificer/Cleric/Techsmith almost seven billion Intelligent Constructs under his direct control. To my character they are people, not slaves. He is freeing all of them except for those he can command with Leadership over a period of a few weeks. Their attitude will remain at least Friendly, though it's Fanatic now.

The anticlimactic battle is over, the Faerunian NPC swooped in to save the game from me trivializing the party by trivializing them herself and all is well.
(No seriously, that the NPC did the deed herself made everything okay. No, I don't understand it, I'm just gonna roll with it. I did agree to play in someone else's 20+ yr old Faerun game after all.)

Except that now my Construct forces are occupying the uppermost layer of the Underdark beneath an entire country, and I'm not really sure how the numbers of dudes I'm wielding really compare to the usual population of said Upperdark, the country, or even a normal Faerunian city/army.

My original waste cleanup migration plan was to walk each and every one of them trough a repeating Incarnate Construct trap and set them free in their own built-overnight Dragonmech meets Tippyverse city. But a dream meeting with my character's god explained that that was a terrible idea because suddenly making that many worshipers (soulless Constructs apparently don't count) would bring the wrath of pantheons down upon my character, his new race's, and his god's, heads.

My current plan is to hold position until the whole lot of them can be transported to some wasteland or another and then have them build themselves a Dragonmech meets Tippyverse city for themselves from scratch.

But I really need some help comprehending how 7 billion Intelligent Constructs compares to a normal Faerunian city. A normal Army. A normal population of a wealthy or at least well to do nation? The normal monster population of a section of the Upperdark the size of Aglarond?

Please help me Playground. I humbly beseech you to grace me with your insights and queries.

[Phelix-Mu]

Granted Faerun is huge. Granted it's only one of several continents on the planet. Granted races like orcs, goblins, and kobolds all likely outbreed humans even at their irl peak reproduction rates.

All that said, I'd be flabbergasted if Faerun has more than a couple billion souls on it. In fact, I'm not sure that the whole of Aber-Toril has even a couple billion souls. Real world population densities are rarely mimicked in most of the faux medieval settings, and while there may be a few exceptions in FR, I think most of their cities probably top out at under a couple million. Moreover, vast expanses of land are extremely sparsely inhabited.

Though, once we chuck in the Underdark and the aquatic races (things that the real world lacks), we may be coming up on a couple billion. But, remember, a billion is a thousand million. That's a crazy large number of people by DMG standards.

You really have to talk to your DM, as it seems like this version of FR has diverged significantly from canon.

[Thrawn183]

A magical Anti-population Plague.

[unseenmage]

A magical Anti-population Plague.

I think my DM would love it if you could elaborate. Extensively. :smallsmile:

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Phelix-Mu
...while there may be a few exceptions in FR, I think most of their cities probably top out at under a couple million.

In the 3.0 FRCS, the largest city in Faerûn is Waterdeep, with 1.3 million. It's considered the largest city in the known world (not including Kara-Tur) and most others don't come close. Calimport is just under two hundred thousand, Athkatla is less than 120K, Neverwinter is barely twenty-three thousand.

As for the continent as a whole, the FRCS (p. 98) gives a population of 68 million, although it's not specified whether these are just "civilized" humanoids or if the total includes goblinoids, lizardfolk, and other "savage" races. The safe assumption is that the 68 million are humans and their allies, whose numbers are probably substantially greater owing to their agriculture and trade.

And as Phelix points out, the Underdark is a whole other world, although given the very limited resources--essentially a detritus-based ecosystem on a grand scale--it's unlikely to support anything close to the surface population.


Originally Posted by unseenmage
My current plan is to hold position until the whole lot of them can be transported to some wasteland or another....

Well, the desert of Anauroch might be a convenient place for a city, since it's virtually uninhabited. Seven billion constructs would occupy a tremendous amount of space, though, even if they did nothing but stand shoulder-to-shoulder all day.

[Gemini476]

Well, the desert of Anauroch might be a convenient place for a city, since it's virtually uninhabited. Seven billion constructs would occupy a tremendous amount of space, though, even if they did nothing but stand shoulder-to-shoulder all day.
You can fit the entire human population of Earth in a space the size of Rhode Island.

That's if you squeeze, though.

With each construct taking up a 5'x5' square? That's 2,25 m^2, so seven billion constructs brings that up to 15,75 billion m^2. Or 15750 km^2, to simplify it.

That's an area smaller than Swaziland. Or slightly bigger than half of Belgium, if that means anything to you.

That's if they're all standing in their own squares, though.

[Phelix-Mu]

Well, the desert of Anauroch might be a convenient place for a city, since it's virtually uninhabited.

Althought the phaerimm would then try to spring....


A magical Anti-population Plague.

:smallsmile::smallsmile:

Most of the Underdark that has substantial population, though, uses magic extensively to support itself. Drow cities typically have kobold/goblin slave holdings that outnumber actual drow almost 100-to-1, from what I recall. The Deep Imaskari have smuggled their entire, highly magical civilization down there, and only recently reemerged from their sealed world (though their numbers aren't very big either).

I'd imagine that Menzoberranzan probably has close to a million residents, due to it's burgeoning slave population (despite the rate at which they are constantly marching them off into comically unnecessary slaughter). But everything else is likely much smaller. The whole place probably doesn't meet 5 million or so, and much of that would only be marginally civilized, and potentially non-humanoid as well.

Anyway, I'd advise the possibility of Plane of Shadow relocation (at least I think that is part of the FR cosmology, honestly not sure). Constructs should be largely immune to much of the scary that goes on there, between illusion and fear immunity, and no fear from the predatory shadows. This, of course, depends on the nature of your constructs. Likely competition would be any dark creatures or gloamings, but they would likely prefer to have some decent and stable centers of civilization.

[(Un)Inspired]

Ok the first part of the plan is you need to be able to Iron Heart Surge. Get an item of IHS or retrain your feats until you've got it through martial study.

Ok, now that you can IHS use it to change your characters opinion manually to keeping these 7 billion constructs under your command. Now that your character is no longer suffering from the condition of "unwilling to use rad robot servants" you're ready for step three.

Step three look up old threads on nanobots. Basically you can have your 7 billion followers all use aid another actions on you to give you plus 14 billion on basically whatever you want.

Enjoy being the new King Faerun (I'm not sure what the over all head honcho of that setting should be called).

[Phelix-Mu]

Enjoy being the new King Faerun (I'm not sure what the over all head honcho of that setting should be called).

I believe the official title is known as the King of the Green Wood.:smallwink:

[MesiDoomstalker]

7 billion, non-sentient Constructs? And he doesn't want them to be slaves, and not allowed to give them all Sentience?

Well, if they are all concentrated in a small area, as others have pointed out, they span a small country just in their own personal volume. Moving that many bodies would take time. Lots of time, especially if they all must travel by foot through the caves of the Underdark to the surface. Depending on the number of entrances they can leave from, it could take years just to get them all out of the Underdark to begin with. And then the time it take to travel towards where you decide to take them.

As far as against armies, you basically have the entire population of our modern day Earth as completely loyal and subservient army that is considerably tougher than the typical Humanoid. Even in Faerun, where Epic Characters abound, you can topple any force. You have enough bodies to force your way through anything.

My Suggestion? Offer to the people of Faerun the wonders of 'Upgrading (http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/gallery/s2_05-06gallery/hires/rise_of_the_cybermen.jpg)' themselves to a higher state of being. Delete any who deny you.

[unseenmage]

7 billion, non-sentient Constructs? And he doesn't want them to be slaves, and not allowed to give them all Sentience?

Well, if they are all concentrated in a small area, as others have pointed out, they span a small country just in their own personal volume. Moving that many bodies would take time. Lots of time, especially if they all must travel by foot through the caves of the Underdark to the surface. Depending on the number of entrances they can leave from, it could take years just to get them all out of the Underdark to begin with. And then the time it take to travel towards where you decide to take them.

As far as against armies, you basically have the entire population of our modern day Earth as completely loyal and subservient army that is considerably tougher than the typical Humanoid. Even in Faerun, where Epic Characters abound, you can topple any force. You have enough bodies to force your way through anything.

My Suggestion? Offer to the people of Faerun the wonders of 'Upgrading (http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/gallery/s2_05-06gallery/hires/rise_of_the_cybermen.jpg)' themselves to a higher state of being. Delete any who deny you.

They are in fact sentient. And 66,816,000,000 of them are technically Diminutive size. The rest fly. We've been describing them as a wave of Constructs flowing through the tunnels.

Gave them all (most of them qualify) the Jack of All Trades feat for mundane Crafting shenanigans. Now I'm wondering if that was too much cheese as well. :(

I didn't mean to powergame, the DM approved everything and he told me I would be up against an epic caster/manifester. I didn't expect to win so thoroughly.

Anticlimax was anticlimactic when the DM didn't grok caster contingency plans. And I'd even schooled him in them via making sure he knew about my own. :(

Ideas on how to retcon that my 400 Spellclock (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070312a) circles made fewer Constructs?

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Phelix-Mu
I'd imagine that Menzoberranzan probably has close to a million residents, due to it's burgeoning slave population....

According to the pesky FRCS (p. 212), Menzoberranzan has a grand total of 32,000 residents. "The city's population is one-third drow, the rest being humanoid slaves."

This is 3.0, however, so no telling if there have been changes since then.


Originally Posted by unseenmage
They are in fact sentient. And 66,816,000,000 of them are technically Diminutive size. The rest fly. We've been describing them as a wave of Constructs flowing through the tunnels.

Cool image. But tricky game issue.

When you say, "66,816,000,000," do you actually mean 6,816,000,000? Because if not, we're looking at seventy billion constructs rather than seven billion.

Either way, congratulations. The Underdark is now a Borg collective. Well done, that man.

[(Un)Inspired]

Either way, congratulations. The Underdark is now a Borg collective. Well done, that man.

Honestly, it's about time.

[OracleofWuffing]

My Faerun is extremely rusty, but a quick silly idea and some research.

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting says that the moon is about 20,000 miles away. That's about 106 million feet. Diminutive humanoids are at least 6 inches tall. You have enough dudes to make a ladder to the moon thirty-two times over and you would still have roughly a third of a ladder left.

[Captnq]

Seriously. That's kinda... excessive. 7 billion. About the population of earth. I dunno.

Find a demon. Get each and every one to sell their souls to the demon and give you 3 wishes each. Wish every wish gave +1 to Intelligence. Know EVERYTHING.

Scower the planet of all life and collect the parts? Build a giant organic-construct collective? Build a palace of flesh and stone?

Have each one pray to you declaring you a god. Eat Ao.

Invade Hell. Start taking it one plane at a time. Ride about on a cloud of constructs. Terriform the plane making it into a theme park.

Restart the Modron race in Mechanus. Have yourself become Mordon Prime.

[Phelix-Mu]

Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting says that the moon is about 20,000 miles away. That's about 106 million feet. Diminutive humanoids are at least 6 inches tall. You have enough dudes to make a ladder to the moon thirty-two times over and you would still have roughly a third of a ladder left.

Well there's an idea. Move to the moon. That would actually be pretty cool. Though I'm betting Selune or whomever might not be terribly pleased.

Alternatively, fly very high up in the air, get a ruling on orbital gravitational forces, and weld together enough sentient constructs to create a sentient satellite country. Part space station, part floating city, 100% total win.

[Jeff the Green]

You are so freaking lucky I'm not your DM. I'd have let you incarnate all of them and then turned the game into Malthus: The Starvation. :smallamused:

Anyway. What are their stats? What do they want? Are you/they willing to sacrifice some of them for a homeland? Sure, the Phaerimm might get ticked if you occupy Anauroch, but I'm pretty sure even they couldn't take on 7 billion robots.

[unseenmage]

When you say, "66,816,000,000," do you actually mean 6,816,000,000? Because if not, we're looking at seventy billion constructs rather than seven billion.

Either way, congratulations. The Underdark is now a Borg collective. Well done, that man.

Honestly? I'm not sure. We've been failing at the math a bit.

The Process
Buying a Magic Item takes one Gather Info check which takes 1d4+1 hrs. (MIC)

400 soldiers hired to buy one set of Spellclocks (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070312a) apiece from everywhere via Greater Teleport and Greater Plane Shift. The soldiers are also given access to Guidance of the Avatar and Transference to make sure the job can get done.

Awaken Sand (Sa) on Shapesand (Sa), Create Crawling Claw (MC:MoF), Minor Servitor (SS). With circles of Spellclocks True Creation-ing winged Obdurium (SBG) staues hit with Hardening, Augment Objects (SBG), Matter Manipulation, and that other hardness improving spell from Dragon. As well as Shrink Item.
(Awaken Sand and Create Crawling Claw make real un-Dispel-able constructs)

All of them with the War Spell (D309) spell template so 25/CL get made for every one that would have been made. The tricky bit is that Create Crawling Claw makes many creatures at once (True Creation again being used to make severed Effigy hands).

I have two ten-day months the first two days of which are assumed to be used up setting up the process. This leaves me with 58 twenty-four hour days of these Spellclocks going off every hour.

The original plan was to have each new creature repeat the process but after we realized just how big the numbers could be we restricted it to just the first iteration. If our calculations were correct the number with additional iterations is well and truly unreal.

[Phelix-Mu]

Wait. I thought awaken sand made an ooze. *checks book* I stand corrected.

Well, the only thing I would point out about the plan is that some people consider that the awaken line confers the equivalent of a soul on things that used to be objects, such as awakened trees (which are also statted as animated objects). They are now sentient creatures with free will, and as such are targets for soul-affecting things like resurrection and so forth. At least that's how I've always ruled.

But maybe I was wrong. I seem to recall the awaken line having fluff indicating that the creature is granted a soul, but specifically the sand is still a construct, and so might be considered without a soul.

Honestly, I'd go with the orbital space station. Or ask the DM about the availability of Spelljammer options (launch a flying vessel full of your constructs into space).

Smokey confinement nesting a la Emperor Tippy seems to indicate that you could, with enough resources, move the entire population through any numbers-restricted movement option by simply sealing the population inside a nested series of containers that are all smokey confinement'd. I think that's in Complete Mage. Would take some time, obviously, to set that up, but that opens up options to move pretty much anywhere via the normal set of magical transport options.

Another place to live might be the Great Glacier in the very far north. I think it's a pretty barren place, and I think the area of ice extends beyond it toward the pole of Aber-Toril.

[Captnq]

Oh, c'mon...

Orcus killed all the modrons. I loved those quirky cubes and spheres. Go on. Go to mechanus and ask the inevitables to help. The rememaining modrons will surely help with the transformations.

[unseenmage]

Okay, I think I've hit on an idea that will knock my numbers down to a more managable amount without invalidating our last in-game session.

Either I undo the War Spell angle, maybe replacing it with Twin Repeat metamagic versions of the spells so as to still have 'too many constructs' without having 'TOO MANY CONSTRUCTS'.

- or -

I could have the Spellclocks only activate once per day. This is adjustible too by having the original 400 hirelings buy more than one set of Spellclocks too.



But I'm unsure which of these paths would result in the desired millions instead of multiple billions. As this is for a real actual game I would prefer to have the numbers to found a metropolis rather than have enough dudes to build a ladder to the moon y'know?

[Sith_Happens]

Build the metropolis itself out of the 6.99 billion you don't need.

[Darrin]

Send a letter to each major temple in Faerun:

"Due to a clerical error, I have created an army of 7 billion sentient constructs. They do not currently have a home. When they get one, they will likely build a temple in the center of it. Given the current population of Toril, an additional 7 billion worshippers will mean that the god that temple is dedicated to will "win" whatever games you play amongst yourselves. I need a home for my constructs. You need worshippers. Thus I have sent a copy of this proposal to all the major faiths of Faerun. You have one month to propose me a deal, and from those proposals I will select a 'winner' who best meets the needs of my constructs. Any action that threatens or harms me or the constructs forfeits your bid, not to mention will anger the 'winner'. I await your correspondence at your earliest convenience."

Grab a bag of popcorn, hilarities ensue.

[Dming For Noobs]

^This. This is awesome

"and that's the story of how all the churches ended up killing each other, thus ushering in the glorious construct revolution."
"I for one welcome our new robot overlords"

[ahenobarbi]

Have them worship Lady of Pain :smallamused:

[MonochromeTiger]

solve your magical population explosion with a magical population explosion...meaning the construct population explodes...from magic.

alternatively if you want to be morally correct explain the situation to the constructs, point out that should they take a specific faith it would likely start a gigantic world spanning war and while they would probably win due to sheer numbers it's still kind of a bad move. with luck they would then either avoid any possible confrontation, continue creating more of themselves in whatever robotic utopia they make until they have enough to crush the rest of the world and make the problem irrelevant, or take roles as a worldwide mediator that can stay impartial due to its overwhelming power and distance.

[Eaglejarl]

What is your character's alignment?

One of the above posters suggested this half-jokingly, but I would really do it: invade another plane.

If you are good, go march down through the Abyss, killing everything you see. It will literally make the multiverse a better place. Alternatively, if your DM rolls with a relatively Christian view, then the souls of dead people are trapped in the Hells being tortured. They weren't good people, true, but they were still people and they don't deserve an eternity of torment. March into hell, kill all the demons, and set up humane jails for the souls of the evil dead. (Do not cut off your hand, tape a chainsaw to it, and start talking about your boomstick.)

If you are evil, do the same thing but for the...oh hell, it's not called the Seven Heavens anymore is it? (He said, dating himself.) What's the new name? Elysium? Something like that. It would make the multiverse a more evil place.


Plus, it's one of the few ways that your DM could hope to find even moderately level-appropriate encounters for you now. Also, campaigns about leading invasions have lots of room for awesome.

[BWR]

Have them worship Lady of Pain :smallamused:

Need to get them to Sigil first. Somehow I think that portal will be closed pretty quickly. If he persists he might just find a portal opening up next time he goes to the toilet, and his body could very well be found flayed and spread across great parts of Sigil, a warning to all who try to annoy the LoP.

[123456789blaaa]

What is your character's alignment?

One of the above posters suggested this half-jokingly, but I would really do it: invade another plane.

If you are good, go march down through the Abyss, killing everything you see. It will literally make the multiverse a better place. Alternatively, if your DM rolls with a relatively Christian view, then the souls of dead people are trapped in the Hells being tortured. They weren't good people, true, but they were still people and they don't deserve an eternity of torment. March into hell, kill all the demons, and set up humane jails for the souls of the evil dead. (Do not cut off your hand, tape a chainsaw to it, and start talking about your boomstick.)

If you are evil, do the same thing but for the...oh hell, it's not called the Seven Heavens anymore is it? (He said, dating himself.) What's the new name? Elysium? Something like that. It would make the multiverse a more evil place.


Plus, it's one of the few ways that your DM could hope to find even moderately level-appropriate encounters for you now. Also, campaigns about leading invasions have lots of room for awesome.

Both the Abyss and Baator have NI populations of Fiends. You'd just be wasting the constructs.

[ahenobarbi]

Need to get them to Sigil first.

Why? Most dieties aren't o the same plane as their worshippers.

[Mithril Leaf]

What is your character's alignment?

One of the above posters suggested this half-jokingly, but I would really do it: invade another plane.

If you are good, go march down through the Abyss, killing everything you see. It will literally make the multiverse a better place. Alternatively, if your DM rolls with a relatively Christian view, then the souls of dead people are trapped in the Hells being tortured. They weren't good people, true, but they were still people and they don't deserve an eternity of torment. March into hell, kill all the demons, and set up humane jails for the souls of the evil dead. (Do not cut off your hand, tape a chainsaw to it, and start talking about your boomstick.)

If you are evil, do the same thing but for the...oh hell, it's not called the Seven Heavens anymore is it? (He said, dating himself.) What's the new name? Elysium? Something like that. It would make the multiverse a more evil place.


Plus, it's one of the few ways that your DM could hope to find even moderately level-appropriate encounters for you now. Also, campaigns about leading invasions have lots of room for awesome.

Alternatively, if you are evil, invade the 9 Hells anyway! You get a bunch of devil slaves that you can boss around and the good gods still look nicely on you.

[BWR]

Why? Most dieties aren't o the same plane as their worshippers.

Because the Lady doesn't bother with anything outside of Sigil. Either she won't or she can't, but no matter what she doesn't. She wo'nt do a thing to you if you worship her anywhere else, but it's a quick trip to the Mortuary or the Mazes if you do it in Sigil.

[ahenobarbi]

Because the Lady doesn't bother with anything outside of Sigil. Either she won't or she can't, but no matter what she doesn't. She wo'nt do a thing to you if you worship her anywhere else, but it's a quick trip to the Mortuary or the Mazes if you do it in Sigil.

But the point is to force her into beaing a god (IIRC having enough worshipers made you one in d&d) and so she will ban herself from Sigil. Fun times for all!

[Gemini476]

Honestly? I'm not sure. We've been failing at the math a bit.

The Process
Buying a Magic Item takes one Gather Info check which takes 1d4+1 hrs. (MIC)

400 soldiers hired to buy one set of Spellclocks (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cw/20070312a) apiece from everywhere via Greater Teleport and Greater Plane Shift. The soldiers are also given access to Guidance of the Avatar and Transference to make sure the job can get done.

Awaken Sand (Sa) on Shapesand (Sa), Create Crawling Claw (MC:MoF), Minor Servitor (SS). With circles of Spellclocks True Creation-ing winged Obdurium (SBG) staues hit with Hardening, Augment Objects (SBG), Matter Manipulation, and that other hardness improving spell from Dragon. As well as Shrink Item.
(Awaken Sand and Create Crawling Claw make real un-Dispel-able constructs)

All of them with the War Spell (D309) spell template so 25/CL get made for every one that would have been made. The tricky bit is that Create Crawling Claw makes many creatures at once (True Creation again being used to make severed Effigy hands).

I have two ten-day months the first two days of which are assumed to be used up setting up the process. This leaves me with 58 twenty-four hour days of these Spellclocks going off every hour.

The original plan was to have each new creature repeat the process but after we realized just how big the numbers could be we restricted it to just the first iteration. If our calculations were correct the number with additional iterations is well and truly unreal.

Alright, I'm going to try to check your math.

War Awaken Sand will, presumably, Awaken 25/CL Huge animated objects worth of sand.
War Create Crawling Claw (a great spell to use with pixies and Rings of Regeneration, incidentally, if you want to miniaturize your Necroputer) will create 25/CL creatures, since that's the limit that the template sets. I needed to look up the issue in question.
War Minor Servitor creates 25/CL animated objects.

Those are the spells that actually make the creatures, with the others merely create the raw materials to be animated.

How many spellclocks do you have of each type? The article seems to indicate that spellclocks only have a single spell in them, so you'd need the following types:
War Awaken Sand
War Create Crawling
War Minor Servitor
War True Creation (Winged Obdurium statue)
War True Creation (Effigy hands)
War Hardening
War Augment Objects
War Matter Manipulation
War Shrink Item

That's nine different types needed.
I'll assume that you meant buying one spellclock with all those spells within it? Wow, your GM must be permissive. Not to mention that War True Creation is a ninth level spell.
...What's up with Spellclocks having a set cost, anyway?

But I digress. For each set of nine spellclocks, you get 75/CL constructs. If you leave it running once every hour, that's 1800/CL a day.

The lowest CL you can have, incidentally, is 17 for War True Creation. Unless you want extra topiary, I'll assume everything is CL 17.

So 30600 construct per day from each set of nine spellclocks. One third are Huge and made out of animated sand, one third consists of Small winged statues, and one third is made out of Diminutive hands.

You ran that for 58 days, so that one setup gave you 1,774,800 construct, 591,600 of each type.

If you only got 44 copies of that setup (396 spellclocks), you have 78,091,200 constructs. If you have 400 copies (3600 spellclocks?), that's 709,920,000 constructs.

So you only have 710 million constructs. I suspect that you may have assumed that War Crawling Claws would make 50/Cl, in which case you would get 33% more.


I suspect that as is, you have (using the assumption that "400 spellclocks" means 400 castings of each spell):
236,650,000 Huge dunes of animated Shapesand (created from a 15ft area of sand, whatever that means) (8HD)
236,650,000 Small flying Obdurium statues (1HD)
236,650,000 Crawling Claws (1HD)

The Crawling Claws are mindless, the statues are as intelligent as people (but have 1d3 Cha and Wis -), and the Awakened Sand has a Cha, Wis, and Int of 3d6.

The only ones that Incarnate Construct works on are the statues and (maaaybe) the sandmonsters. The Sandmonsters that are capable of Shaping themselves, that is, but even with Wis 18 they can only Shape a 7 1/2 ft cube of the stuff.
Not that they need Incarnate Construct, since they wouldn't gain anything from it.

As for the space they occupy... Well, to start with:
the Crawling Claws are about as alive as your average skeleton. They move and such, but you could stack 'em all at the bottom of the ocean and they wouldn't care (beyond taking damage if they're too deep.)

The Awakened Sand, if we have them disguised as sanddunes, could create a square desert that's 69 kilometers in either direction. I guess you could let them run free in whatever desert is available, otherwise, but they're as intelligent as your average peasant. You could let them sort it out by themselves, I guess, except there are more of them than there are in most countries.

The Statues would actually gain from becoming Incarnate Constructs, since becoming Humanoids with one Hit Dice would let them replace it with a class level. In future campaigns, there could very well be a Small LA - race with wings running around Faerun. They would also be the most common race, I think.
Until then, however, you really need to find somewhere for them to live.


Luckily, you're in the Underdark. The Underdark is pretty scary, but it's big enough that your army of constructs could eke out a space to live within it. They don't need to eat, breath, or sleep, and have a huge list of immunities. I'm not sure if it's the answer you're looking for, but what is your opposition in the Underdark? Drow, Illithids, Aboleths? Your army is mindless and the Drow wouldn't engage an army of 8HD Huge constructs that has 2/3 of the population of the US.

You just need to find something for them to do, for which I would suggest Crafting.

[BWR]

But the point is to force her into beaing a god (IIRC having enough worshipers made you one in d&d) and so she will ban herself from Sigil. Fun times for all!

Pretty sure it doesn't work like that.

[Gavinfoxx]

Look at this map:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/MarkusTay/Map%20Snippets/Abeir_Toril_Names.jpg

Now, the surface population of that planet is probably in the low millions. What you do is open a bunch of permanent teleportation circles to areas all over that planet and seed the entire surface with sentient constructs and become the dominant species on the planet.

[Gemini476]

Pretty sure it doesn't work like that.

It wouldn't.

It is a good way to get rid of the constructs, though.

[unseenmage]

Alright, I'm going to try to check your math.

War Awaken Sand will, presumably, Awaken 25/CL Huge animated objects worth of sand.
War Create Crawling Claw (a great spell to use with pixies and Rings of Regeneration, incidentally, if you want to miniaturize your Necroputer) will create 25/CL creatures, since that's the limit that the template sets. I needed to look up the issue in question.
War Minor Servitor creates 25/CL animated objects.

Those are the spells that actually make the creatures, with the others merely create the raw materials to be animated.

How many spellclocks do you have of each type? The article seems to indicate that spellclocks only have a single spell in them, so you'd need the following types:
War Awaken Sand
War Create Crawling
War Minor Servitor
War True Creation (Winged Obdurium statue)
War True Creation (Effigy hands)
War Hardening
War Augment Objects
War Matter Manipulation
War Shrink Item

That's nine different types needed.
I'll assume that you meant buying one spellclock with all those spells within it? Wow, your GM must be permissive. Not to mention that War True Creation is a ninth level spell.
...What's up with Spellclocks having a set cost, anyway?

But I digress. For each set of nine spellclocks, you get 75/CL constructs. If you leave it running once every hour, that's 1800/CL a day.

The lowest CL you can have, incidentally, is 17 for War True Creation. Unless you want extra topiary, I'll assume everything is CL 17.

So 30600 construct per day from each set of nine spellclocks. One third are Huge and made out of animated sand, one third consists of Small winged statues, and one third is made out of Diminutive hands.

You ran that for 58 days, so that one setup gave you 1,774,800 construct, 591,600 of each type.

If you only got 44 copies of that setup (396 spellclocks), you have 78,091,200 constructs. If you have 400 copies (3600 spellclocks?), that's 709,920,000 constructs.

So you only have 710 million constructs. I suspect that you may have assumed that War Crawling Claws would make 50/Cl, in which case you would get 33% more.


I suspect that as is, you have (using the assumption that "400 spellclocks" means 400 castings of each spell):
236,650,000 Huge dunes of animated Shapesand (created from a 15ft area of sand, whatever that means) (8HD)
236,650,000 Small flying Obdurium statues (1HD)
236,650,000 Crawling Claws (1HD)

The Crawling Claws are mindless, the statues are as intelligent as people (but have 1d3 Cha and Wis -), and the Awakened Sand has a Cha, Wis, and Int of 3d6.

The only ones that Incarnate Construct works on are the statues and (maaaybe) the sandmonsters. The Sandmonsters that are capable of Shaping themselves, that is, but even with Wis 18 they can only Shape a 7 1/2 ft cube of the stuff.
Not that they need Incarnate Construct, since they wouldn't gain anything from it.

As for the space they occupy... Well, to start with:
the Crawling Claws are about as alive as your average skeleton. They move and such, but you could stack 'em all at the bottom of the ocean and they wouldn't care (beyond taking damage if they're too deep.)

The Awakened Sand, if we have them disguised as sanddunes, could create a square desert that's 69 kilometers in either direction. I guess you could let them run free in whatever desert is available, otherwise, but they're as intelligent as your average peasant. You could let them sort it out by themselves, I guess, except there are more of them than there are in most countries.

The Statues would actually gain from becoming Incarnate Constructs, since becoming Humanoids with one Hit Dice would let them replace it with a class level. In future campaigns, there could very well be a Small LA - race with wings running around Faerun. They would also be the most common race, I think.
Until then, however, you really need to find somewhere for them to live.


Luckily, you're in the Underdark. The Underdark is pretty scary, but it's big enough that your army of constructs could eke out a space to live within it. They don't need to eat, breath, or sleep, and have a huge list of immunities. I'm not sure if it's the answer you're looking for, but what is your opposition in the Underdark? Drow, Illithids, Aboleths? Your army is mindless and the Drow wouldn't engage an army of 8HD Huge constructs that has 2/3 of the population of the US.

You just need to find something for them to do, for which I would suggest Crafting.

Well thanks for the math check. I truly appreciate it.

The Crawling Claws and Permanent Animated Objects are all run through resetting traps of Awaken Construct. It's possible that the hands take a while after the two month deadline to finish Awakening them all but that's okay. As many as possible in all cases were also Maximize metamagiced for maximum mental stats.

All of them that qualify have the Jack of All Trades feat (specifically for Crafting) and the Mindsight (sorry meant the feat that lets you see life forces and requires that you not have a Con score) feat.

The Minor Servitors and Animated Objects are Medium size. The Awakened Sands were 'winged Aboleth shaped' for the battle but are converting themselves to winged humanoid giants now.

It's already been decided that they are repairing and constructing walls, fortifications, and shipyards wherever possible. They're running out of raw materials.
They are also building airlock style gates in the Upperdark beneath the country at every point of entry they find. (This includes a multitude of holes I dug from a Middledark chasm up under an Upperdark lake that I drained as part of my battle plan.)

My character is a TN gestalt Artificer/Cleric of Gond+Techsmith of Gond.
The Constructs all follow Gond as best they can, my guy is a Cleric after all.
It has been ruled that even sentient Constructs are soulless and my god explained to me in a vision that my OP ideas were not of his inspiration as my character thought, though he likes what I'm doing. He explained that the whole pantheon is pissed at me and that I should refrain from doing more 'cool stuff' without consulting him first.

The politics are that this is all happening in the country of Aglarond. I've only cleared the Upperdark as that's where Thayans and Drow were conspiring with an outcast Aboleth and where a Shadow Dragon was manipulating me from.

I was "hired" on threat of death by the Shadow Dragon to remove the Aboleth from the lake. He expected me to die being a distraction, instead I won hands down.
The Dragon fell for a Energy Transformation Field+Smoky Confinement trap I set for the Aboleth when he arrived with his very younger cousins to kill me. He failed a Spellcraft check to know what I'd done and tried to shadow-ability away . He made his save against the first two ETFields but the third one got him. (He was a very big dragon, he occupied several fields at once and they all tried to Smoky Confinement him when he attempted to shift away.)
The Aboleth was supposed to be an epic manifester/caster but without his lake and the army he'd apparently hidden in the lake and with the dragons crashing through the ceiling he bailed and allowed himself to be Smoky Confinement-ed so as to hide in the millions of flasks I'd scattered across the field of battle in advance.

There was supposed to be an army of Drow+ Thay wizards there too but they never showed.
All and all an underwhelming showdown.

At the end of the night a very ancient Kraken bashed his way through the wall of my upperdark cavern where I was housing my army making process and using as my command center and tried to take on almost the entire 7 billion at once (at the tme we were only calling it several billion as the math hadn't been bothered with after it was realized that I was making billions.)

Before I could make my army go all army-ant on it though the Simbul rushed in and transformed into a Dragon and whooped the Kraken's ass while the party and I fought the Kraken's ground troops in the tunnels beyond my cave.

[Gemini476]

Well thanks for the math check. I truly appreciate it.

The Crawling Claws and Permanent Animated Objects are all run through resetting traps of Awaken Construct. It's possible that the hands take a while after the two month deadline to finish Awakening them all but that's okay. As many as possible in all cases were also Maximize metamagiced for maximum mental stats.

All of them that qualify have the Jack of All Trades feat (specifically for Crafting) and the Mindsight feat.
Oh, alright. If you're using War Awaken Construct and have it run immediately after creating the constructs (not unlike using Create Crawling Claws after True Creation), it would not take much more time.

Do note that Awaken construct only works on humanoid-shaped constructs, so your creepy crawly claws are out of luck-

Actually, scratch that. Awaken Construct is a ninth level spell and cannot be made into a War spell, so you need to cast it 425 times for every casting of Minor Servitor. So once every turn, pretty much.
It also cannot be made Maximized due to that, although Minor Servitor could. Although the Int from Minor Servitor is overridden by Awaken, so that's not very useful. (It only gives them Wis 3d6 and Cha 3d6, basically.) I'm not entirely sure if it is worth it, but if you manage to get your GM to allow a spellclock running every turn then hey sure man, go for it.
It also gives the construct free will, but that's a separate issue that's shared with Awaken Sand.

Awaken Sand could be maximized, on the other hand, so the stars of the show are the 8HD Sand constructs. (Str 24, Dex 6, Con -, Int 18, Wis 18, Cha 18)

So all the sand-beasts have Jack of All Trades, and 26% (61,360,752) of the statues have Jack of All Trades. None of your Constructs qualify for Mindsight, since they do not have the Telepathy special quality.
The standard way for Wizards to grab the Telepathy SQ is Mindbender, in case you wonder.

By the way, all Constructs with an Int score have 2+Int skill points per level, *4 at first level. So your Maximized Sand Dunes have six skills maxed out, which I'd suggest be various Craft() skills. That's rank 11, by the way.
Your Servitors, on the other hand, have an average of two skills maxed at rank 5, but minimum one.
The hands are useless.

The Minor Servitors and Animated Objects are Medium size. The Awakened Sands were 'winged Aboleth shaped' for the battle but are converting themselves to winged humanoid giants now.
...If those Minor Servitors are Medium Size, they were four size categories larger before Shrink Item. That's Colossal+.
Why bother with Shrink item to begin with? Just make human-sized gargoyles.

The Crawling Claws are also Diminutive, as per their statblock. The Spell Awaken Sand also explicitly makes them Huge.

The Awakened Sands? Alright. Going by RAW, they technically could probably not have done that. But whatever.
18 Wis is only enough to control 7.5 cubic feet of Shapesand - that's roughly Medium-sized, maybe Large, but those constructs are Huge.

When a poster expressed their surprise that they were Constructs rather than Oozes, that's because the spell describes them in a rather Ooze-like fashion. What with the engulfing, immunities, and amorphous nature.


It's already been decided that they are repairing and constructing walls, fortifications, and shipyards wherever possible. They're running out of raw materials.
You are in the Underdark. You have 298,000,752 workers with the ability to use Jack of All Trades to use Proffession(Miner) untrained. Assuming that none of them use Aid Another, you'll have mined out... A lot. 45% of the Awakened Sands don't make any progress, 25% mine out one 5' cube, 20% mine out two, and 5% mine out four.
The same goes for the smarter Servitors.
So that's 0,85 5' cubes on average for each Sand and 0,425 for each Servitor.
That's 26,078,319.6*125 cubic feet from the Servitors, and 201,144,000*125 for the Sand.
That's 28,402,789,950 cubic feet.
To put in a reference, that's a cube 915 meters on every side. If you made it into a pile the height of the Empire State Building, you get two square kilometers of rubble.
You are not going to run out of materials.


-snip DMPC interfering-
Well, you actually only have seven hundred million constructs. That's an order of magnitude lower than a billion.
However, most of them are of limited usefulness (1HD constructs). They can hit if they gang up on people (and they can, with eight Servitors around a Medium enemy and seven of them using Aid Another to give the last +7 to hit), but they'll also die like flies. Also, +9 to hit isn't all that impressive past a certain point.
At least their Hardness helps them avoid getting killed.

The Crawling Claws win by ganging up, by the way. You can have twenty-five of them attacking a medium opponent at once, but they need to enter their square to do so and will eat an AoO. AC 15 and 5hp do not make for survivability, and +4 to hit to get 1 damage? You're looking at 25 damage/round at most, maybe 50/round if you manage to get 'em prone.
The average is probably lower.

The Maximized Awakened Sands are your shining glory. They have three feats, one of which being Jack of All Trades. They also have a marvelous engulfing ability, and if they use it they can literally just sweep over the opposition. You have a literal desert, here.
They're a CR 59 encounter, by the way. That's the same as a Great Wyrm Force Dragon, which incidentally could murder them be staying aloft and breathing 60d12 damage.
Or it could just land and let them hopelessly wail at it, since the Sand can only engulf Large or smaller creatures and has +9 to hit.

You have a huge, terrifying army, but it's not quite as terrifying as it could be. Mostly because more HD is better, and yours mostly just come in 1 or 8.
And against high-level spellcasters such as the ones that exist in Faerun - not to mention the ones that have War Spells, since a 100ft War Fireball cast at CL 10 will instantly kill 3140 Crawling Claws, assuming you put them in the most packed-in swarm possible (and let's face it, that's the only way to do it with those.)
An Widened one will kill 70,700 Claws with each casting!

Your Servitors are better, off, since they can fly, have 30 Hardness, and are Constructs. Their Flight is 20ft(clumsy), however, and they really need some kind of ranged weaponry if they want to be able to gang up on foes from a safe distance. Some safe, spread out, blot-out-the-sun, distance.


If you want to leave the Underdark, I'd suggest an exodus to foreign lands. Found your own country somewhere out in the wilderness, like the enless ice to the north or the Wastes to the east of Faerun. That is, the parts that are away from oasises and therefore uninhabitable by lesser, water-needing races. Don't mess with the Mongol Hordes, you're close enough to being smote by direct divine interference as it is.

Speaking of being smote, you should be very happy that you decided not to make a Von Neumann Machine. Very, very happy.

If you do decide to emigrate, I want you to imagine how it looks: the ground is covered by flowing sand, one kilometer wide and five thousand long. Atop the sand rides the black dots of animated hands, and above it the skies are equally blotted out by thousands upon thousands of flying humanoids. They move tirelessly, day and night, until they reach their Promised Land.

I also suggest that once they reach that Promised Land, you put their mining and architectural skills to work on building a proper-sized city for them all to live in.
And then, of course, they all craft. They won't be able to craft any magical things without getting a feat and Caster Levels, but you could supply the entire continent with non-alchemical mundane goods. They wouldn't be masterfully crafted, and any DC over 24-ish wouldn't be reachable, but through mining you have a ridiculous amount of raw materials.

Since the gods seem to have a bone to pick with you, I'd suggest not using Incarnate Construct. Here's what it'd get you, beyond having everyone gang up on Gond:
The Servitors become 2d8 Humanoids rather than 2d10 Constructs. (If they were Small, they'd be getting class levels due to how the rules work. Since they aren't they're stuck within the RHD.)
-20ft move speed on land, Flight 20ft(Clumsy) is unchanged
-1 NAC
Loses all natural attacks - goes from 1d6+1 Slam to 1d3+1 Unarmed Strike
Loses Darkvision
If not previously Awakened, Wis becomes 3, Cha becomes 3
Con becomes 4d6-drop-lowest
Loses all feats

...That's pretty horrible, actually! You also lose Construct immunities, and only really gain a Con score and the ability to be resurrected.
You also gain the ability of reaching an afterlife, be it good or bad or the Wall, rather than just the oblivion that awaits a destroyed non-living Construct.
It isn't worth it, in other words.

It's especially not worth it for the sand dunes, since they lose everything that makes them good and get very little in exchange. Not to mention that they don't have the body parts necessary for being turned into one, but still.

Sorry for rambling, I seem to have a tendency to do so.

[unseenmage]

Big snip

Hey, no worries on the rambling. My post was way less focused than yours was. (my morning got a bit hectic and I had to type the post in four separate bouts. :smallmad:)

The Shrink Item was only included if it was useful, which as you've pointed out it is not. It didn't come up during play either so there's no problem making that go away.

Mindsight was a mistake on my part, I meant the other supercool extrasensory feat, Lifesense (LM). My bad.

Very cool imagery on the migration, I like it.

I'd overlooked the humanoid shape requirement for Awaken Construct. Could the Crawling Claws be polymorphed or shapechanged via resetting trap to qualify? Would the Awaken-ing stick when the changed back? Greater Humanoid Essence shenanigans are allowed.

I think the Hardness on the statues is higher, but only if the Hardness increasers are applied in the correct order.

The Shapesand nature of the Awaken Sands allows them to become humanoid, and that's all that's required for the Incarnate Construct spell to work. It's my understanding that the magic fills in the rest of the blanks.

The Minor Servitors are definitely not being hit with Awaken Construct, like the Awakened Sands they are already intelligent and free-willed when they're made. When they're made the only tether their creator has to command them is their Friendly disposition and the fact that he can Dispel them. But they have to be in range and the creator not incapacitate for the Dispel-ing to be possible.

I went ahead and made all four kinds of Constructs just because. Made things slightly more flavorful. Especially when I realized that a) Obdurium is apparently violet or purple colored, and b) Incarnate Constructs retain their color/texture when they're made. It amused me.

Sanctum Spell Awaken Construct was considered to allow for the War Spell Awaken. But if that doesn't work that's fine too. The Claws are still good for their combined brute strength and some of the nanobot shenanigans.
I've been told they're quite strong for such small creatures.

A question, would using Greater Humanoid Essence allow one to apply a Permanency-ed Telepathic Bond to the Constructs? Or would the affects of the Telepathic Bond cease right after the Greater Humanoid Essence stopped affecting the Constructs?

I've also been toying with the idea of setting up some Spell Clocks on a very very long delay (years maybe even) and letting those Constructs who want to become real people. But I'm stymied by having no clue how fast or slow the population growth for an Incarnate Construct race should be to a) mimic a normal humanoid/giant population or b) not cheese off the gods.

Ultimately I want to make whatever city the Constructs occupy via the rules for City Mechs in the Dragonmech book. From my initial read through I already have three of the four obstacles resolved.
I have enough laborers with the Constructs themselves, I have enough money as gp in this campaign thanks to cheesey wealth shenanigans, you pointed out that I have more than enough raw materials.
All they'd need is time. I think that time might be able to be shortened via incorporation of the Stronghold Builder's Guide rules but am not sure. Havn't looked into it just yet.

[Sith_Happens]

Due to a clerical error, I have created an army of 7 billion sentient constructs.

This is probably one of the best lines anyone could ever hope to get to say in a campaign.


But the point is to force her into beaing a god (IIRC having enough worshipers made you one in d&d) and so she will ban herself from Sigil. Fun times for all!


Pretty sure it doesn't work like that.

Pretty sure in Planescape it does work like that.

[MonochromeTiger]

Pretty sure in Planescape it does work like that.

planescape: where an unexplained creature known only by a nickname given to them by townspeople is about 50 times more powerful than every deity in the setting within their territory...and the most you get on the matter is "use the lack of explanation to show your players how mysterious the setting is".

[Jack_Simth]

You're not allowed to Incarnate them all? OK. That's fine. Send them to the moon. Teleportation Circle + Permanency. They don't care about the lack of air or water, lots of raw materials to mine up to make whatever they want, and they're out of your hair (except for the ones you keep around via Leadership, of course). Maybe ask them to set up a monument in your honour. It'd be interesting to have your face carved into the moon in such a way that it's plainly visible.

[Sith_Happens]

planescape: where an unexplained creature known only by a nickname given to them by townspeople is about 50 times more powerful than every deity in the setting within their territory...and the most you get on the matter is "use the lack of explanation to show your players how mysterious the setting is".

My personal theory/headcanon is that the Lady of Pain is the personification of the center of the planes. It's easy to be the most powerful thing in the multiverse when the multiverse literally revolves around you.

[Phelix-Mu]

I think, based on the level of DM scrambling after the showdown fizzled, that you should decentralize your power-base.

1.) Consider the space thing (or at least a very high-altitude city thing). The flying constructs and the shapeable sand things can launch themselves into orbit or maybe create floating platforms made of their bodies welded together. Spellclocks of reverse gravity. Hmm. I think that might even work.

2.) Underwater. Depending on DM ruling, a sea with a max depth of a few miles presents a massive amount of space to hide stuff. As constructs are likely immune to pressure damage (though it might slow their movement), you could even forge some of them (particularly the sand creatures) into submersible spaces. Permanent invisibility, and now the sand-constructs form a clear underwater sphere. Insert city. This involves some ad-hoc math, but with so many sand things, you could really make quite a large underwater space (using the sand things as the surface area of a sphere...calculate as per space of a huge creature, which the amorphous sand could definitely fill entirely). Fill with trees or permanent planar bubble to the Elemental Plane of Air.

3.) Sentient worldships. This is a variation of something I was working on in an epic level campaign, but give it a thought. Use the obdurium constructs and use some method to change their form (pretty sure it can be done...make them stone, then stoneshape them, or some such, combine with humanoid essence as necessary). Anyway, weld them into the hull of a massive ship. There are calculators online for various shapes in terms of surface area by radius. I went with ellipsoid. Star Destroyer would also be classic.

Anyway, once you have linked their communication (maybe via ETF or spellclock message instead of telepathic bond), you come up with a propulsion system. A combination of reverse gravity and telekinesis could work, or maybe some form of flight. Build in some redundancy.

Send the ships off to some plane or another. Numerous planes are coterminous, and so one can travel between them simply by traveling for long enough. I'm not familiar with Faerun cosmology, but the elemental planes are all infinite, and air and water are pretty easy to navigate. Include rods of security on each ship for guests (or spellclocked MM mansions, or TARDISes). You may need some source of renewable magic, but between spellclocks, self-resetting magic traps, and ETFs, there is little you can't cheese out.

Anyway, my main idea is don't have them all in the same place. Thus, when Mystra blinks and all constructs on the plane you are on die, not all your efforts turn to dust. The DM is probably giving you enough time/rope to hang yourself; don't make it easy on the DM.:smallwink:

[Gavinfoxx]

Have you read this?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aG4P3dU6WP3pq8mW9l1qztFeNfqQHyI22oJe09i8KWw/edit?pli=1

And the thing it links to? I'm sure you've got MOST of the stuff... but there might be something you missed?

[unseenmage]

Have you read this?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aG4P3dU6WP3pq8mW9l1qztFeNfqQHyI22oJe09i8KWw/edit?pli=1

And the thing it links to? I'm sure you've got MOST of the stuff... but there might be something you missed?

Have read them. All three. very cool stuff. Just not the sort of stuff my DM wants his campaign world to become sadly.

[Phelix-Mu]

Spreading out the population and allowing some of them to become npcs would also allow the DM to mitigate world-impact without retconning or otherwise DM's alter reality the situation into a palatable form.

Maybe you incarnate 0.1% of your population. Of those, give them a few options of where to settle. In your stronghold (under your command), or in settlements in space/undersea/Anauroch/other plane/*insert arbitrarily remote/obscure locale*. Those that opt to travel and settle elsewhere are granted control of a number of their fellow constructs and allowed to become npcs. This would require the consent of the DM not to use arbitrary justification for your millions of constructs to come back and kill you, but it doesn't sound like the DM is one to resort to such measures anyway.

[Jack_Simth]

Spreading out the population and allowing some of them to become npcs would also allow the DM to mitigate world-impact without retconning or otherwise DM's alter reality the situation into a palatable form.

Maybe you incarnate 0.1% of your population. Of those, give them a few options of where to settle. In your stronghold (under your command), or in settlements in space/undersea/Anauroch/other plane/*insert arbitrarily remote/obscure locale*. Those that opt to travel and settle elsewhere are granted control of a number of their fellow constructs and allowed to become npcs. This would require the consent of the DM not to use arbitrary justification for your millions of constructs to come back and kill you, but it doesn't sound like the DM is one to resort to such measures anyway.Well, per the OP, they're already intelligent, so Incarnating them is not, strictly speaking, necessary. Really, all he needs is transportation somewhere out of the way of the campaign for them. A basic command of "Obey your own instructions" sets them free to do whatever they want with their own lives. Of course, giving that instruction to nearly SEVEN BILLION BEINGS is going to be rather... time consuming, even in batches of, say, 100,000. Mind you, if they're not given any specific instructions, they might as well be free (in that they'll do what they choose, not having any orders to the contrary), so all the OP really has to do to set them free is not do anything. But for campaign balance reasons, he does need to get rid of them in a fully benign manner. A couple of Permanent Teleportation Circles to the moon, or a couple of Portals to suitable spasely-inhabited planes, and you're done. Constructs really don't have many needs, so places that would be rather lethal for most are just fine for them. Like, say, the Moon, a huge desert, the depths of the ocean, the Plane of Shadow, the Positive Energy Plane, or the Negative Energy Plane.

[Phelix-Mu]

I guess I was mainly thinking to use the incarnated ones as leaders and passing control of the other, non-free-willed constructs to the incarnate ones. This has the advantage of not setting up some kind of immortal kingdom of powerful stuff. If and when the incarnate ones die, they have to pass on control to another. A primogeniture-ish system might even crop up, with power being broken up into smaller and smaller units over time. Half of this is pretty much down to what the DM wants, as after people are set free, the ball is in the DM's court.

On a personal note, I'd be in favor of all of them doing whatever they wanted, but I think that might be a few too many individuals to add to the world balance (especially as they will be so slow to leave the world, being ageless). There was an expression of wanting to minimize the rock-the-boat factor for the DM's setting, and many, many millions doing whatever they please is likely just going to destabilize things.

Also, I think we settled with a more accurate figure of some 700 millions. At least I think.

[unseenmage]

Decentralizing my powerbase is definitely a good idea. Making the Constructs into NPCs was always the plan, but with Incarnate-ing.
The wrench in the plan was that my God doesn't want me to make so many worshippers at once. One can only assume he doesn't want to be insta-deicide-ed by the other Pantheon(s) for my insolence. That or he's trying to keep my creations from being deity powered genocide-ed upon.

I've been wondering what would happen to the numbers if the Spellclocks only went off once a day instead of once an hour. Might give me several city's worth of minions instead of several world's worth.

[Coidzor]

My current plan is to hold position until the whole lot of them can be transported to some wasteland or another and then have them build themselves a Dragonmech meets Tippyverse city for themselves from scratch.

But I really need some help comprehending how 7 billion Intelligent Constructs compares to a normal Faerunian city. A normal Army. A normal population of a wealthy or at least well to do nation? The normal monster population of a section of the Upperdark the size of Aglarond?

Why not just set up shop in the Underdark? You have the numbers to clear large sections of it out, and certainly enough to set up a huge hive city, considering the ability to just shape a city of tunnels.

While bigger than Earth, IIRC, and with more habitable zones due to extremophiles, the Underdark, and races like the Sahuagin, you've still increased the worldwide population noticeably if you turn them all into living, breathing, eating, ****ing humanoids. Possibly you've doubled the worldwide population or increased it by a monstrous magnitude.

IIRC, Metropolii/Metropolises are 25K+ individuals and are not especially common, though there are a fair number in Faerun and Waterdeep is supposed to be very populous. 7 billion humanoids would dwarf the population of the continent alone, let alone just the civilized races or a major city like Waterdeep or any armies that could be brought to bear.

Alternatively, find other material plane worlds/crystal spheres in need of colonization by your deity's worshipers and introduce colonies that will give your deity a foothold on those worlds. I suppose Incarnate Constructs have human offspring, anyway.


The wrench in the plan was that my God doesn't want me to make so many worshippers at once. One can only assume he doesn't want to be insta-deicide-ed by the other Pantheon(s) for my insolence. That or he's trying to keep my creations from being deity powered genocide-ed upon.

That doesn't make any sense. Power is based on number of worshipers or it isn't and so the number of worshipers is immaterial. If he gets enough power that he's literally bigger than every other god combined, then all he has to worry about is Ao, not a coalition of other gods, aside from maybe them trying to recreate the Tharizdun scenario except it's far more likely that the gods would be fractured rather than unified since the deity would still have the same concerns, just a lot more power to defend itself and aid its allies.


Pretty sure in Planescape it does work like that.

I believe the idea that making her into a deity would result in banning herself from the city as well as trying to hamfist it like that was was being referenced. :smallconfused:


Gave them all (most of them qualify) the Jack of All Trades feat for mundane Crafting shenanigans. Now I'm wondering if that was too much cheese as well. :(

Profession: Miner ? You've got time for them to make their own warren of tunnels even deeper than the Underdark where few other creatures could even survive. They also have the numbers for just... trampling things in their way incidentally like the Modron March.


Both the Abyss and Baator have NI populations of Fiends. You'd just be wasting the constructs.

The Eladrin might appreciate the sentiment if you're able to kill the Demon Lord that has their cojones in a vice though(maybe?), and 7 billion constructs mucking about the place is probably going to at least provide a distraction.


Have them worship Lady of Pain :smallamused:

Getting them all mazed might possibly have interest for those studying the size of the Deep Ethereal? :smallconfused:

[Invader]

Start your occupation of hell. With that many constructs you should be able to take over the first few levels at least.

[Phelix-Mu]

I'd avoid taking over any divinely morphic plane without having a way to kick out the resident deities. If you clear out the baatezu from Avernus, there is little keeping Tiamat, Kurtulmak, and deities from the deeper layers from just morphing the first layer of Hell into a solid sea of magma. At least, I think that is probably in the realm of their abilities.

Traveling around or roaming the planes is probably just fine, but caution should be taken to avoid cramping the style of any easily-offended deities.

Plus, is Hell a place in FR-verse? I know some of the planes work differently, and there didn't seem to be as many as the core cosmology, but maybe my reference point is a couple editions old at this point.

[OracleofWuffing]

Also, I think we settled with a more accurate figure of some 700 millions. At least I think.
Still leaves us enough dudes to measure in moon-ladders, just saying. :smalltongue:

But, um, if the holdup is that too many believers will upset the pantheon-balance, what about distributing constructs to every belief involved? I mean, if everybody gets the same thing, nobody's special, right? And you have multiple pantheons saying they don't want them all to go to one deity, and usually it's hard enough to get a single pantheon alone to agree on one thing, right? Sure, it means some of them may need to be evil and you might end up fighting them as BBEG Mooks down the line, but fighting your own "children" sounds like a good character development hook and it sounds like every deity involved would agree it is a better idea than your previous one.

[Gemini476]

If your DM is keen to sticking to RAW (and, to be fair, he doesn't sound much like it), going underwater or to the moon could be dangerous. Underwater you save or take 1d6/100ft pressure damage (every ten minutes?), while in space you take 2d6 fire+2d6 cold+1d4 vacuum damage every round (as per Nailed To The Sky, the epic spell that's save-or-orbit).
Neither of which Constructs are immune to, IIRC, which may be dumb or may not. Deep sea pressure is nothing to kid about, although the space damage is just dumb.

I don't think it's likely that your DM is going to be aware of that, however. He may use it to screw you over, though, since it sounds like he clearly hadn't Tippy-proofed his setting against what high-level casters can do.


Oh yeah, have a little visualization (http://i.imgur.com/XeD8Idp.png) of how big your group of 237 thousand huge sand dunes is. (I'm still not convinced that 7,5 cubic feet of Shapesand makes a Huge creature, though.)

And, just for the fun of it, have an LA - (sadly) write-up of an Incarnated Construct Minor Servitor. I did it for Small ones, since Medium and higher are objectively worse due to RHD and how it interacts with swapping your RHD with class levels (it doesn't). But whatever.

Incarnated Construct Animated Object
Small Humanoid
Speed: 20 land, 30 flight (clumsy)
Racial Traits:

+2 Dex, 18 Int, 3 Cha
+2 NA
An ICAO gains no skill points or feats at level one, but acquires them normally if it gains levels.

That's going with the RAW that you lose feats and don't regain them, by the way, which sucks.

The (Ex) Flight is nice, but that's pretty much the only draw. Well, that and Int 18. You did Maximize Minor Servitor, right?
But the loss of a feat is devastating.

[unseenmage]

If your DM is keen to sticking to RAW (and, to be fair, he doesn't sound much like it), going underwater or to the moon could be dangerous. Underwater you save or take 1d6/100ft pressure damage (every ten minutes?), while in space you take 2d6 fire+2d6 cold+1d4 vacuum damage every round (as per Nailed To The Sky, the epic spell that's save-or-orbit).
Neither of which Constructs are immune to, IIRC, which may be dumb or may not. Deep sea pressure is nothing to kid about, although the space damage is just dumb.

I don't think it's likely that your DM is going to be aware of that, however. He may use it to screw you over, though, since it sounds like he clearly hadn't Tippy-proofed his setting against what high-level casters can do.


Oh yeah, have a little visualization (http://i.imgur.com/XeD8Idp.png) of how big your group of 237 thousand huge sand dunes is. (I'm still not convinced that 7,5 cubic feet of Shapesand makes a Huge creature, though.)

And, just for the fun of it, have an LA - (sadly) write-up of an Incarnated Construct Minor Servitor. I did it for Small ones, since Medium and higher are objectively worse due to RHD and how it interacts with swapping your RHD with class levels (it doesn't). But whatever.

Incarnated Construct Animated Object
Small Humanoid
Speed: 20 land, 30 flight (clumsy)
Racial Traits:

+2 Dex, 18 Int, 3 Cha
+2 NA
An ICAO gains no skill points or feats at level one, but acquires them normally if it gains levels.

That's going with the RAW that you lose feats and don't regain them, by the way, which sucks.

The (Ex) Flight is nice, but that's pretty much the only draw. Well, that and Int 18. You did Maximize Minor Servitor, right?
But the loss of a feat is devastating.

Very cool stuff here. And thank you for the specifics, they definitely help conceptualize the mess I've made.

And thank you everyone for all the help/advice as well folks. It's truly appreciated.