A Mind Flayer, a Thri-Kreen and a Minotaur walk into a bar...

[BowStreetRunner]

No, this is not the intro to a joke. It is a hypothetical question on how to handle a party made up entirely of monster races.

We are all familiar with campaigns that begin with a party of humans, elves, dwarves and the like meeting in a tavern, or some similar scenario. But what would you as a DM do if you were running a game where every single PC chose to play a monster race. Keep in mind, in this game world these sort of monsters would normally be attacked on sight. With no 'normal' PCs along to try to calm the angry mobs or go into town while the scarier party members remain in camp, this sort of party would pose some unique challenges to the DM.

[Honest Tiefling]

1) Do these people want to be monsters, or to play as that race? If more the latter, why not introduce Thri-keen mercenaries or Minotaur pirates? I mean, sure, there's the principle that various shades of brown will join up with each other to beat up green, but what if the other races were so genocidal that opening trade with the bug people seem like a great idea? What if the Minotaur god proved himself to be so awesome that now even humans worship him? What if the other humanish races are all enslaved, so it's either work with the bug people or try to get rid of what enslaved the other races on your own? What if red is so much worse then green that everything not red wanted to join up to gang up on it?

2) Are there no Thri-Keen or Minotaur settlements? Why are these monstrous races bumming around Pinkyhairlessville? Shouldn't they have their own racial settlements? They could interact with those settlements instead. In fact, in this case, I'd ask the players why their monstrous bug man, cow-person and...Squid-thingy decided to come to the human settlements. Let them solve the problem for me, in that they have a motive and I'll just run with it.

3) Maybe humans/elves/dwarves are the bad guys. Humans have joined up with Team Elf, and use their magical superiority to oppress the orc primitive tribes who just want to be left alone after they have figured out this iron business. The gnomes have dabbled in something they really should un-dabble in.

[Teh_das]

Monster campaigns tend to be more "break in the door", as thats how monsters can be. They work well if you build a campaign to fit in there. Throw over a hamlet, get targetted by a group of adventurers, and go from there.

[OldTrees1]

Drizzt Do'Urden (a good Drow living on the surface) encountered this issue many times in R. A. Salvatore's novels.

His first solution was to help without being seen by those he saved. Unfortunately he was spotted once and framed shortly thereafter.

His second solution was to avoid civilization (found a tolerant Hermit during this period) and just be a peace. Not quite a good solution for PCs.

His third and final solution was to submit to unfair treatment in order to purchase the chance to prove the nature of his character. This was a very slow process. It started by a frontier city allowing him to live in the deadly wilderness nearby. This developed into him making some friends that welcomed him into their home outside the city. With time his good reputation spread so more and more intolerant societies would also give him a chance.

If I were to make intolerance an issue in a campaign, I would work on this third solution with the player(s).

[BilltheCynic]

What world are you playing in? If it's your own creation, you make the rules for how monsters are treated, or if they are even treated as 'monsters' at all. Who says your world needs to be dominated by elves, dwarves, and humans? Maybe in your world it's not uncommon to walk into a bar in a major city where the barkeep is a centaur, the bouncer is a gnoll, and the waitress is a medusa (and she does not like random patrons making lewd comments about her, being quick to challenge any who do to a staring contest). Maybe the city's mayor is a Mummy, its captain of the guard is an Illithid, and head of the trader's guild is a Kobold. Also, I would personally not do the "humans/elves/dwarves are the real monsters who are oppressing these poor innocent creatures who just want to be left alone" and blah blah blah give me a break. That just reinforces the idea that the monsters are fundamentally different that the 'standard' races and the two cannot peacefully coexist. Why not have a world where the standard races and the standard monsters interact normally? A world where your players are not freaks for being monster adventurers.

[Necroticplague]

Huh? I can get why Illithids might be a kill-on-sight (that whole 'eating-other-sapient's-brain' deal), but why thri-keen and minotaurs? They're both sapient humanoids capable of speech, no reason they can't get along with other races perfectly fine.

Just for my two cents: Mu. The question is wrong. It doesn't really make much sense to draw a hard line between 'normal' races and 'monster' races. Just because the Core races were there first doesn't mean they need to get preferential treatment in a setting.

[badgerman]

In my opinion it depends if you really want them to walk into a bar...
So there are two choices as far as I can tell.
First: You want to run the campaign in an environment which was created for the standard races. For me it was a pain in the ass I hated it. My players were always stressed about surviving in the hostile environment (besides some acted like totally douchebags :smallfurious:). Some players even tend to act rather psychopathic (crushing heads, sucking brains) than acting to keep the adventure alive.
Also I don't like it to simply switch the races and keep the setting which leads me to...

Second: Turn the setting inside out. Make the city the dungeon and the dungeon the city.
IMO for example humans are successful cause they have a certain way of live (taverns, cities, authorities). I avoid to replace one race with another like done in the first choice.
Each race has its own culture so I try to create places as an equivalent to a tavern for example.
Maybe minotaurs have something like an arena they meet to test their abilities and compete with each other. That could be what they do in their free-time.
Illithids could got to an "internet-cafe" but the "internet" are the minds of exotic slaves for example so they could travel to far places by entering these minds.
So use a dungeon, place racespecific elements in it maybe some routes to reach other dungeons. If the human, elfen, dwarven... settling is to big give it some secret entrance like sewers, tunnels beneath etc.

And voila there's an adventure (maybe sandbox) for monster chars.

[Zaydos]

Actually all three of these races have something in common. They all eat humans... well ok the illithid only eats their brains. Minotaurs are feared as man-eaters, thri-kreen see nothing wrong with killing and eating a human because they're hungry at the moment (though are less likely to eat you than halflings from the same setting as introduced them), and well illithids eat brains.

So while there's less reason to kill a minotaur on sight (usually CE instead of always LE) and even less to kill a thri-kreen (it's a tavern, there's food, and they're liable to respect your customs while in your settlement).

Remember the Krynnish minotaur where they worship the CE god of slaughter and murder and are just highly dangerous corsairs are actually a lighter and softer take on minotaurs, who are usually angrier and more dangerous ogres who eat you first and ask questions later.

The right questions though are:

What sort of world do you have?

What sort of campaign is this? Not monster, but... what are the character goals, the overarching plot, etc.

Why are they in a human town in the first place?

Is this a Good or Evil game?

Edit: And thanks to Badgerman I now want to run an Illithid campaign.

[Uncle Pine]

Wherein three monsters band together to seek the same glories and fortunes that have been bestowed upon the Human, Elven and Dwarven adventurers before them...
This (http://rustyandco.com/comic/level-1-title/) looks like an appropriate reading.

By the way, the Illithid Internet café is awesome.

[Urpriest]

Generally speaking, players choose backstories that work with the campaign premise. If the PCs are all playing monsters then clearly that's compatible with the campaign premise. (And as others have pointed out, it's compatible with loads of campaign premises).

[Red Fel]

And why can't it be a joke? Do illithids prefer brainier humor?


... I'll be over here...


Just for my two cents: Mu. The question is wrong. It doesn't really make much sense to draw a hard line between 'normal' races and 'monster' races. Just because the Core races were there first doesn't mean they need to get preferential treatment in a setting.

In my opinion it depends if you really want them to walk into a bar...
So there are two choices as far as I can tell.

These. The core assumptions about a campaign may change depending on who's involved. If everyone is playing a Fighter, Rogue, or Monk, it's kind of impossible for you to run a campaign that requires the party to protect their caster while he casts the spell that banishes the darkness beyond the portal. You know, because there's no caster. Similarly, if the party consists entirely of Rogues, that Undead campaign is going to be a lot more difficult than it would be if they were all Clerics. The campaign where you wage war against the Orcs becomes much more personal in an all-Elf party, and an all-Orc party would be dealing with a lot of bigotry wherever it went.

The campaign themes change, is the point.

Now, you can keep the campaign as it is. Have this unlikely trio of heroes (are they heroic?) traveling the surface world, helping people while fleeing bigotry. But it raises the question - why would they do that? Wouldn't they just stay in monstrous communities, where they can be awesome and accepted? Turn the dungeon into the city, and the city into the dungeon, as Badgerman suggested, and you're golden. Or you could stay with your original idea, and just inform the players that if they're caught in a surface settlement, they'll probably be executed.

And see how long your campaign lasts without access to stores and high-end supplies. Sure, you can raid villages, but you'll be lucky if they have +1 daggers.


The right questions though are:

What sort of world do you have?

What sort of campaign is this? Not monster, but... what are the character goals, the overarching plot, etc.

Why are they in a human town in the first place?

Is this a Good or Evil game?

Very much this. You need to decide which has to bend more, the PCs or the campaign world. If the players are allowed to play monstrous PCs, you need to have a world that tolerates them, at least in some places. If the world can't be designed in that way - which is your prerogative as DM - you really shouldn't be letting them play creatures that pretty much can't go anywhere.

[atemu1234]

Humans meet in a bar, becoming adventurers and adventuring together?

Monsters meet in a monster-bar, becoming monster-adventurers and monster-adventuring together.

The only difference is the menu and the clientele.

[BowStreetRunner]

Allow me to clarify a couple of points.

First, this is not a monster campaign. It was designed as a normal campaign and the option was left open for players to run exceptional characters from monster races (like Drizzt Do'Urden), not anticipating that all of the PCs would take that option. The DM has already put a lot of work into the campaign and does not want to have to start over from scratch.

The monster races all have their own civilizations and the PCs are playing outcasts from those civilizations. They are all willing to be friendly with the humanoid races, but are not going to be welcomed most places they will need to go.

So the issue is how to bring the party together (the usual tavern scene may not work too well) and manage their interactions with the 'good' races (I am generally not fond of DMPCs but some sort of friendly NPC as a go-between may be necessary).

Also, keep in mind that the specific races are not relevant. This is hypothetical at present. I am looking at whether to DM a game using an old campaign and knowing there is a good chance that all the players will want to play monster races. I don't have time to create a new campaign, so it is about whether a minimal-effort solution can allow the existing game to work without forcing players into roles they may not want to play. Obviously, if one or more of the players decides to play a 'standard' race, that would make the entire issue moot.

[Urpriest]

Allow me to clarify a couple of points.

First, this is not a monster campaign. It was designed as a normal campaign and the option was left open for players to run exceptional characters from monster races (like Drizzt Do'Urden), not anticipating that all of the PCs would take that option. The DM has already put a lot of work into the campaign and does not want to have to start over from scratch.

The monster races all have their own civilizations and the PCs are playing outcasts from those civilizations. They are all willing to be friendly with the humanoid races, but are not going to be welcomed most places they will need to go.

So the issue is how to bring the party together (the usual tavern scene may not work too well) and manage their interactions with the 'good' races (I am generally not fond of DMPCs but some sort of friendly NPC as a go-between may be necessary).

Also, keep in mind that the specific races are not relevant. This is hypothetical at present. I am looking at whether to DM a game using an old campaign and knowing there is a good chance that all the players will want to play monster races. I don't have time to create a new campaign, so it is about whether a minimal-effort solution can allow the existing game to work without forcing players into roles they may not want to play. Obviously, if one or more of the players decides to play a 'standard' race, that would make the entire issue moot.

Hmm.

Ok, I'm going to assume that the setting is really really anti-monster. Like, it's Ravenloft or something, because in most settings it's pretty tough to make a party that will be universally rejected.

I think in general if people are playing loners rejected from their evil civilizations, then part of that is figuring out a way to marginally fit in. Luckily, there are plenty of stories about this sort of thing, so it's not hard to do. The characters need to show their value with their deeds, because at first their words won't be listened to. Think about any superhero story when the protagonist stops their first crime, and nobody knows whether they're a hero or a villain. It's that moment: saving someone in need, when nobody cares about who you are, only what you can do.

In terms of bringing the party together, this usually manifests with one member of the party being targeted by racist/speciesist/ignorant townsfolk, only for the others to step in and intimidate them away, possibly with a speech on tolerance thrown in for good measure. You can even have it happen in a tavern, if the adventure really has to start in a tavern.

[Necroticplague]

Well, if part of the point is that all of them are going to be persecuted, starting them all off in jail on similar trumped-up charges might be a decent starting point. They could end up all freed together by lack of actual evidence, and here whatever plot hook was gonna take place in the bar from another released prisoner.

As for other's interactions, just leave them like nervous people: highly cautious, but yielding. After all, if you think there's a chance that thing might eat you if you piss it off, you would do well to spend as little time around it as possible, while also trying to not actively piss it off (thus making you the target).

[Tvtyrant]

"There are some hushed whispers as you enter the bar, and a patron slips out the back. Pretty soon a recruiter for a nearby mercenary band saunters in, her Ogre tusks finely polished and his commissars jacket brushed and stain free. She walks up to you and offers you a job guarding a convoy through the nearby swamp. The Lizardfolk that live there don't like the local humans, and guards of a different stripe would draw less attention. If you take up with the Orange Band you will get a chit saying so, and since the king owes them a number of favors you will be well received in the various lands of the kingdom."

[Honest Tiefling]

What better way to unify players other then pure, unadulterated, seething, hatred? Maybe some sort of monster hunter who is a part of an extreme sect of a church with some concerns centering around it. However, people love him, he gets rid of the bugmen, the squidfaces and the cowpeople trying to eat them! Huzzah!

Now, the players don't encounter them at first. They meet an apprentice who they might confuse for the real deal. But the hunter doesn't take this well, and swears to hunt them down and make them pay for what they did to the squire.

[Uncle Pine]

Are you familiar with Skyrim? Do you remember the opening scene with the cart and the execution? The one in which you find yourself forced to cooperate with a bunch of strangers because a 15 ft. whatever accidentally saved your life but is now destroying the village? That could work.

[Zakerst]

One fun way to unite them is have them all meet up a village as its being attacked and have them come to the rescue, unlikely saviors and all that not to mention it proves the value of their deeds to each other and the local populous.

[VoxRationis]

I feel like there's a big difference between the first one of these three and the other two.

Thri-Kreen and minotaurs both often prey upon people, but they are not required to; they could easily learn to behave themselves either via genuine altruism or simple practicality. The illithid as written is wired and plumbed to eat the brains of sentient beings, an aspect of its biology which inherently brings it into conflict with those sentient beings, no matter how nice it may be between mealtimes (unless, of course, it's a culture with a very harsh criminal justice system or the illithid sets itself up as some sort of object of worship and its meals are considered sacrifices). It's frankly the same problem vampires are often written to have, but even worse, since at least a vampire can take some but not all of a person's blood and they'll be just fine in a few days.

[Darth Ultron]

So the issue is how to bring the party together (the usual tavern scene may not work too well) and manage their interactions with the 'good' races (I am generally not fond of DMPCs but some sort of friendly NPC as a go-between may be necessary).

1)They can still meet at a tavern. Just not your standard one. For example there could be a ''monster tavern''. Or there could be a nice evil tavern that will serve anyone(so no Dumb Norm attacking the monsters). Even better some good celestial might have a ''neutral ground spot to promote peace and love and friendship"'.

2)Why must the other races be ''good''? You can make the other races ''evil'' and just run the game. After all evil is both very smart and very accepting. A town of evil dwarves could care less if some monsters walked in. They would not go crazy and attack them, would be happy to trade with them and would treat them ''ok''(As opposed to the insane good dwarves that would grab the torches and pitchforks and attack!).

3)Even if you must have ''good'' races, is there some reason they must be ''racist and bigoted good with crazy violent tempers?" Why not have them be the ''unicorn rare'' type good of ''we accept all''? How about the type of good that would say ''them races are not monsters, we are all alike on the inside...turn on your heart light''.

4)How about do a monster world. Ok, so role play 101 says ''Humans and the other human like copy races must be good and rule the whole world and monsters that are evil just have a couple holes full of mud underground''. Ok, but why? Why not have the ''monsters'' everywhere? So no ''boring copies of 1000 AD Earth'' as it's all monsters. You can still have all the ''normal stuff'', just a bit different (The Horn Head Tavern is a great minotaur bar full of song(''how do you mink a cow?'') and drink(alcoholic milk) and there bar fights are legendary.)

5)You might want to go the hidden route. Give each player a way to hide.....maybe just Alter Self at will into a single ''good race''. There are tons and tons and tons of recent examples of monsters living as normal people....Being Human, the other Being Human, Grimm, Charmed, True Blood, The Vampire Diaries..... The idea of ''A ghost, a werewolf and a vampire live together as normal people '' is not a joke or a reason to sharpen your pitchfork anymore.....

[atemu1234]

Ooh! I know! A Mind Flayer is taking his apprentice and two slaves with him into a village. The villagers are attacked by [insert bad guy here]. The master dies, the apprentice frees the slaves and they agree to work together to defeat [that bad guy I mentioned earlier]. Bonus points for Elder Evils being involved, somehow.

[MesiDoomstalker]

Gain the favor of the King/Regent/Lawman/What-have-you. A bit of respect and some scibbling on paper goes a long way into forcing people not to attack you on principle. And those who say "Bollocks yer papers!" you can defend yourself and get of (relatively) scot-free! Retool the introductory quest for the party to accidentally and independently stumble upon and succeed, gaining the local Man In Charge's favor. Then they stick together out of mutual survival/ camaraderie.

[BowStreetRunner]

Well, if part of the point is that all of them are going to be persecuted, starting them all off in jail...
This gave me a good idea - something along the lines of the plot of the Dirty Dozen and similar movies. In this case, all of the monster characters are prisoners for one reason or another but someone powerful gives them a chance to prove themselves working against the realm's enemies.


...guards of a different stripe would draw less attention...
Another very useful plot point, as the 'heroes' may be sent on missions where their race is actually an asset instead of a liability.


...forced to cooperate with a bunch of strangers because a 15 ft. whatever...is now destroying the village?

...unlikely saviors and all...proves the value of their deeds to each other and the local populous.
This would be a decent follow-up to the first mission in another land, giving them a way to build their reputation as heroes.


...Give each player a way to hide.....maybe just Alter Self...
I think this is certainly an option to make available to the players. However the presence of such abilities necessitates the presence of countermeasures from time to time as well.

Some nice suggestions here. I'm now starting to think along the lines of a medieval version of Marvel's Secret Warriors or some such thing. This sort of plan allows me to leave the majority of the pre-written elements of the campaign untouched and all I need to do is write up the new elements in parallel to what I had before.

Thanks everyone for the great ideas.

[Hawkstar]

One thing that I keep in mind, that I think is important - The clothes make the man.

I'm not sure how to make Illlithids work, given the whole "Need to Eat Brains to survive", but the rest? Well, they may get odd looks, but if they're properly, civilly dressed and made-up, it becomes clear that they've bought into the dominant culture and live by its rules and expectations.

A minotaur that's naked or wearing ill-cured furs and a nasty-looking battleaxe is a monster. A minotaur smartly dressed in a clean kilt, well-fitted breastplate, and carrying a well-maintained sword and bagpipes is a person.

Not sure if Thri-kreen have any social stigma, actually, aside from their unusual appearance.

[Zaydos]

Illithids can survive off of non-sapient brains, and the brains of the recently dead. They just don't like to.

They've also been known to breed mold that suffices, but it becomes sapient in large enough quantities.

[Jack_Simth]

No, this is not the intro to a joke. Why not?

... squish Clang Clang! But the Dreugar ducked.

[Marlowe]

I once did a campaign set in a stereotypical "wretched hive" Humanoid city, with a corrupt, scheming gangster aristocracy and insanely dangerous slum neighbourhoods.

It was located next to a mountain containing a vast dungeon complex containing many groups of "monster" races, with a corrupt, scheming gangster aristocracy and insanely dangerous slum neighbourhoods.

Groups of Humanoid adventurers would wander into the mountains to raid and adventure, and "monster" parties would go into the city to do the same. Occasionally giving each other a polite nod as they passed in the corridors or streets.

On one occasion, a Drow Schoolma'am turned up with twelve little Drow in two straight lines to watch the PCs beat up a Drider. For educational purposes.

The Humanoid and "Monster" ruling classes would have little get-togethers every so often to negotiate territory, lines in the sand, grudges and compensation, and who's going to be making faux-assassination attempts on who this week.

Then I made it too complicated. :smallredface:

[Urpriest]

One thing that I keep in mind, that I think is important - The clothes make the man.

I'm not sure how to make Illlithids work, given the whole "Need to Eat Brains to survive", but the rest? Well, they may get odd looks, but if they're properly, civilly dressed and made-up, it becomes clear that they've bought into the dominant culture and live by its rules and expectations.

A minotaur that's naked or wearing ill-cured furs and a nasty-looking battleaxe is a monster. A minotaur smartly dressed in a clean kilt, well-fitted breastplate, and carrying a well-maintained sword and bagpipes is a person.

Not sure if Thri-kreen have any social stigma, actually, aside from their unusual appearance.

Anyone with bagpipes is not to be trusted.

As for Thri-kreen, they're viewed as fairly dangerous in Dark Sun, but they also exist in Forgotten Realms, and I suspect there's less stigma towards them there.

[daremetoidareyo]

You have 3 outcast races that you need to meet in a bar to complete an already designed campaign arc?

I would begin by making a mercenary order led by a whatever named Blake, who is hellbent on becoming the #1 mercenary fighting force in the land. You got a territorial squabble and want a bit of extra cunning manpower, send a passenger pigeon to blake's blood lions. Blake has aspirations to one day rule the continent, he even has a quaint prophecy foretelling that he will "amass power" from his village shaman. Blake has contacts, and demi-human go betweens. What he doesn't have is real fighters worth a damn. He currently employs some brigands, a couple half orcs, and a few remaining intelligent goblins leftover from the last batch that tried to take over the outfit. He would jump at the chance to super charge his force with a minotaur, a thrikreen and an illithid.

So, all questgiving is then second hand through Blake's network in cities. Interspersed between adventure arcs, you can have blake take up paramilitary mission adventures, putting the PCs in charge as captains of small forces that need to take out targets. [i.e. break supply lines, raid heavily guarded storehouses, rustle all 30 griffins from the opposing kings livery] That way, the PCs are accepted into a believable small community while still be able to use some of the merchant mechanics in the books.

[Flickerdart]

When you think about it, a human city is a lot like a dungeon. :smallamused:

[Hawkstar]

As for Thri-kreen, they're viewed as fairly dangerous in Dark Sun.
So are halflings, dwarves, humans, elves, orcs, etc...
Anything that isn't viewed as "Fairly Dangerous" in Dark Sun is viewed as "extinct and forgotten"
When you think about it, a human city is a lot like a dungeon. :smallamused:

But more densely populated, and more people object when you go for 100% clearance.

[HurinTheCursed]

Remember the Krynnish minotaur where they worship the CE god of slaughter and murder and are just highly dangerous corsairs are actually a lighter and softer take on minotaurs, who are usually angrier and more dangerous ogres who eat you first and ask questions later.
Drizzt Do'Urden is a good drow. Krynn also had Kaz, a minotaur hero worshipping the deity of strength and courage, a discriminated faction of these believers stills remains. But Krynn minotaurs are medium sized humanoids rather than your usual monster.

My good group contains a good minotaur and a neutral half ogre, we once had a good chromatic dragonspawn with us, his alignment has long been a question in our group. Obviously at first they were at best frown upon, some reactions being unfriendly from the beginning with huge penalties when these characters deal with "usual good races".
Then we became reknown as heroes and things became easier. My minotaur still eats some fresh bodies from time to time, espicially the heart of a valorous opponent, to give him respect and honour his deity. He makes his best to look fearsome (intimidation, red dragonhead helm, trophies, blood coloured armour) because he enjoys feeling fearful respect even if he's no fool regarding law and order. He plans to defy the ruler of the minotaur empire and ban slavery in the empire since it caused a lot of pain to the minotaur race.

For your group, that would be easier with a humanoid party face (a sorcerer with alter self ?) but if they accumulate deeds, even humanoids communities should tolerate them. If they act as criminals, they won't fare better than your typical humanoid gang in such communities.

[Zaydos]

Drizzt Do'Urden is a good drow. Krynn also had Kaz, a minotaur hero worshipping the deity of strength and courage, a discriminated faction of these believers stills remains. But Krynn minotaurs are medium sized humanoids rather than your usual monster

Oh yes, I do love Kaz, I just felt that the people asking "why would people freak" might have needed the reminder that, like Drizzt, Kaz was an exception not the norm for his race, and that Dragonlance Minotaurs were far from the norm for minotaurs.

Of course if I'm considering minotaurs as something I'm going to present to my players I'm going with DL ones because... The Legend of Huma and Kaz.

[Dexam]

Many years ago, I played in a game pretty much like this. The DM pretty much said "play whatever race you want; weird is fine". The PC's were members of a mercenary guild who's reputation relied on them being weird and unusual - pretty much a "fight fire with fire monsters with monsters" deal.

Strangely enough, the second character I created for the campaign (after the first got killed, it was a rather lethal campaign) was in fact an Illithid. It was great fun; I basically played the character as if it were a behind-the-scenes puppet-master, and that every decision the other characters and NPC's made was because my Illithid made it that way through mind-control (even thought that wasn't actually the case). When we out in public places my character was usually heavily disguised, unless we needed to impress terrify prospective clients; and a couple of times I had to Charm some random NPCs into not revealing my secret. I often had friendly debates with the Troll party member about whether or not their brain would regenerate if I ate it - we were playing Savage Species leveled monsters so we weren't full-powered, and sadly the troll only had Fast Healing, not full Regeneration, so I didn't get a chance to test the theory. In case you're wondering, the tastiest in-game meal was an Ogre Magi. :smallbiggrin:

[HurinTheCursed]

Sounds like the campaign was designed to give the group just enough place to breeze. From your description, it must have been a blast !