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Chaosvii7
2014-09-29, 09:03 PM
Long story short: The party I'm DMing has just taken down a small cult that formed in a small town. One of the characters is a thief who had a criminal contact from her thieves' guild in the city - he gave her character an objective, to capture one of the other PCs and bring him back. Her character was intent upon it until just the other night when we ran, and she heard that the city guard was looking for the very thieves' guild contact that backed her. She kind of abandoned the idea of turning in the other PC for a reward and is instead considering narcing on the criminals for a reward.

What the party doesn't know is that the person who gave her that job is not only a Mind Flayer, but he's also working on their side for the most part. He infiltrated the thieves' guild, then gave her that job not only to keep the PC safe, but also because he needed a distraction. He gave the cultists the tip about their base of operations(a set of catacombs that were full of magic from their construction) with the intent to storm in and do all the work that the party ended up doing.

I'm planning to have this mind flayer skip town and leave some monsters in his place to throw the group off of his trail. The only problem is that I don't really know what I ought to throw at the group. So I thought I'd ask for suggestions!

Obviously it's for D&D; The Edition is irrelevant, and so is the actual level of the monster. I'm willing to scale down or re-skin an enemy, and I'll convert it into the edition I'm actually using(5e if you'd like to know), but I felt this topic was general enough to start a discussion on the matter so I'd leave it in a space where everybody can contribute fairly with different monsters(perhaps even ones from non-d20 games?)

As far as resource allocation goes, he's got a cache of connections from his former life in the Underdark, but he's not necessarily able to just pull any old minion out of a hole in the ground and leave them in a storeroom while he packs up his Snake Oil wagon and ditches town. So he can probably get a hold of baby creatures and simple monsters or monstrous humanoids. Putting actual humanoids in his place doesn't really seem like it'd be the right thing to do, unless it was like Blue Goblins or something. But I'm willing to hear any suggestions you have.

tl;dr, good guy NPC needs to cover his tracks so the party doesn't find out, and needs to leave a bunch of minions in his former lair to hold them off. Anything alien, abberation, monstrous, or underdark-y will do.

Thank you in advance!

TeChameleon
2014-09-29, 11:42 PM
For whatever reason, the first thing to come to mind for me is a displacer beast or two. If the Mind-Flayer was feeling especially sneaky and/or more -ish than good, s/he'd anonymously tip off a pack of blink dogs that the PCs were going to stumble over a displacer beast. The ensuing chaos would likely cover his tracks very thoroughly.

Ettina
2014-09-30, 07:08 AM
Baby Umberhulks (http://www.umberhulk.com/umberhulk-third-edition.html).

Or maybe a weak Voidmind (http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/voidmind.shtml). If he's really turned good, the voidmind could date from before he decided to be good, and he could think he was doing the poor thing a favour by leaving it to die.

(Question: How would a good-aligned mind flayer eat? They need to extract the brains of sentient creatures to survive.)

Mastikator
2014-09-30, 08:42 AM
Baby Umberhulks (http://www.umberhulk.com/umberhulk-third-edition.html).

Or maybe a weak Voidmind (http://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/templates/voidmind.shtml). If he's really turned good, the voidmind could date from before he decided to be good, and he could think he was doing the poor thing a favour by leaving it to die.

(Question: How would a good-aligned mind flayer eat? They need to extract the brains of sentient creatures to survive.)

Animal brains?
People who die of natural causes maybe.

Angelmaker
2014-09-30, 09:02 AM
(Question: How would a good-aligned mind flayer eat? They need to extract the brains of sentient creatures to survive.)

How do murderhobos stay good aligned? Killing evil creatures is a good act in d&d morality.

hamishspence
2014-09-30, 09:51 AM
How do murderhobos stay good aligned? Killing evil creatures is a good act in d&d morality.

To quote BOVD, of murderhobo-style killing monsters just for their treasure:

"It's not an evil act (though it's not a good act) because it still prevents the creature preying on others. Such a justification, however, works only for creatures of consummate, irredeemable evil (such as chromatic dragons)."

Haldir
2014-10-02, 06:14 PM
Anything alien, abberation, monstrous, or underdark-y will do.


This is the last thing he should do if he doesn't want them knowing that something Underdark-y is involved. Hiring a team of assassin's using a secret alias is better than bringing in a weird monster.

He wants them to take down the Thieves Guild right? So he should send some members of the Thieves Guild in. A few low level Rogues with alchemical weapons and the element of surprise should give the party a decent encounter, cover the Illithid's tracks, and keep the party working against the bad guys.

Make sure to give the thieves masks or something, and orders to kill themselves before being captured.

(I am assuming the Illithid has no problem mind-raping the Thieves.)

Metahuman1
2014-10-06, 10:08 AM
A nice Golem Perhaps? Something of the stone or metallic flavoring that is easy to scale to level and has no soul or mind so there for breaking it is in no way evil or bad and neither is leaving it to die/be broken?

Or perhaps an elemental that will simply have it's soul pop back to it's native plane of existence and thus not actually die, merely have a temp body destroyed? Which also makes it not a major moral issue for either the party of the Mind Flayer?

daremetoidareyo
2014-10-07, 12:49 AM
It sounds like you want to give a clue about the identity of the mindflayer, hence the underdarky creature placement. Why not use the hired help suggestion, but have him forget to take his mood stone. Lords of madness talks about illithid mood control devices that flood a room with psychic emotional content. For slaves, its docility, for themselves it's a weird mix of emotions. This way the mindflayer isn't tipping his hand, and you get sneak attacking tanglefoot bag throwing baddies that are a knowledge check away from association with the guild as extra muscle. If you don't use psionics, the moodstone can be a faint magic item that they can feel their way to: charisma based search roll/ detect magic.

Zrak
2014-10-07, 02:49 AM
I don't really have any good ideas that haven't already been mentioned, but I'm inexplicably stunned that "umberhulk.com" exists and is actually a website just about umber hulks. The internet is like the night sky only its constellations actually look like the things of which they are ostensibly pictures.

Chaosvii7
2014-10-07, 04:50 AM
Thought you all deserved an update on the subject: I decided to make the gang encounter a Grimlock who's a manhunting beastmaster. You know, like Kraven the Hunter, except dim-witted and blind. He has two displacer beast cubs(who are currently in stealth so the party cannot see them) and has in his cage, a starved young Umber Hulk(who may be able to be coerced into turning on his master if he's set free).

I loved all of your ideas so much I decided to scale them down to something level-appropriate and make it into one big, neat package; A villain for the PCs as well as an assortment of minions. The Cubs have about one attack's worth of health and have a significantly weaker pounce, but otherwise they have the stats of panthers with great stealth rolls and resistance to ranged weapon damage. The Umber Hulk has 1/2 as much health, all of his attacks are a damage die weaker, and his stats suffered greatly from being underdeveloped and abused by the Grimlock.

The party rogue recognizes the room as that of the one she went to when she first met this NPC, and I'm probably going to give them breadcrumbs about the actual BBEG of the campaign. So I've gotten everything I wanted with the help of you, my fellow Giants. Thanks for all your suggestions!