The Monsters of Science

[evangaline]

Greetings Fellow Playgrounders,

I am intending to have the party investigate the old lab of an crazed mage. There are going to be a couple of acid traps. An setup for gaining infinite ambrosia with the Wracking pain to pleasure to ambrosia and some monsters. Now I'd usually do this by myself, but for some reason I am drawing a blank tonight. Because of this I would like to kindly request some assistance from you.

I thought about using massive amounts of larval flayers, but fighting 12 or more enemies does not seem particulary interesting.

For information that might be relevant:
The lab is based on reasearching humans, and has a few live specimen available.
The party level is 7, with four party members. There is a barbarian, a spellthief, a fighter and a ranger.
I'd say undead and dragons are not quite suited for the setting, so those are off the table.
All other monsters including magical beasts are fair game though.
The party is rather low op.

[Pilo]

You can use half-golem, they are created by grafting a golem part on a living human, to cure them, of course, but they can go mad quite fast.

A group of animated objects can replace the classic undead monsters.

[nedz]

I'd suggest an Aboleth in the basement, also interested in studying humans, but it might be a bit much for this party.

So you'd have to underplay him. Maybe he was a friend/co-worker of the mad scientist ? Maybe the mad scientist actually worked for him, would explain the madness ?

[Telonius]

What sort of horror are you going for - typical scare, or more like "things that should not be?" I get the plan is for ambrosia, but why is the mad scientist interested in humans? If he's looking for something hardier, I'd think that Dwarves or Gnomes would be better. Anyway, is he trying to make a breeding program, or degrade the humans, or figure out how to make an artificial life? You might use different creatures, depending on which.

Anthropomorphic animals (from Savage Species, I believe) sound like they might fit. So could some fluff-altered Sharakim or Mongrelfolk (Races of Destiny), for "experiments" gone either right or wrong, depending on how crazy he is. A Flesh Golem would probably be a given (they are CR 7).