PDA

View Full Version : Elder evils, Aboleths and all that



Psiwave
2007-05-21, 10:36 AM
I have been spending the past few months helping a friend DM a heavily aboleth-oriented campaign. I live well over a hundered miles from the group itself and as such cannot be present at the table, but I do help in the planning stages.

Now this campaign has centered around an insane aboleth cult. (hey what's a game without insane cultists eh?) as the story progressed it became apparent that this cult was planning to summon the elder evils to the world in order that all this nasty new life could be eradicated and aboleths could once more rule.
Simple, everyday bad-guy stuff. however these PC's, (now approaching epic level) have come to the conclusion that it would be better to allow the entities in question to actually be summoned thereby allowing the PC's to vanquish them once and for all.
Two of the PC's could see the obvious flaw in this but their concerns were overrulled as 'short sighted and irrational'

So there we are. the PC's have decided to go ahead with the summoning themselves. (to be fair on the players dabbling in this sort of lore isn't supposed to be good for the old sanity muscles and the archivist that is pushing ahead with the plan has been verging on the chaotic-banana side of the alignment spectrum for a while).


Anyway, my not inconsiderable task is to stat out the elder evils. The DM has decided that since the players have been into this campaign for nearly nineteen levels they have earned the right to take it epic if thats what they want. Now reading from Lords of Madness it seems these guys are pretty nasty characters and it'll take some way into the epic before the party stands a hope in hell against them and I think this task is well beyond me.

Specifically I need to stat out these guys;

Piscaethces (the blood queen)
a god-like mummy aboleth (not the bandages type, the pinny and flowers kind)
loosely baised on Cthulu or Shub-Niggurath

Holashner (the hunger below)
tunnelling squidipede with explosive mucous
loosely baised on Shudde M'ell or Tsathoggua

Shothotugg (eater of worlds)
Mountain-sized doom snot.
Loosely baised on Azathoth

Bolothamogg (him who watches from beyond the stars)
Freaky space force.
Loosely baised on Yog-Sothoth

Apparently nothing in Lords of madness is OGL, so I don't know how much more info I can give. any help or comments would be much appreciated. I don't expect full stat blocks or anything! just ideas for funky abilites etc these guys might have, even target CRs wold help (thinking late twenties at the VERY least)

Khantalas
2007-05-21, 10:44 AM
I suppose you don't have the time to wait for this (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=products/dndacc/9780786947331), do you?

Psiwave
2007-05-21, 10:56 AM
hmm sadly no, and from the short description i'm not too sure it's got the right elder evils. Hovever, that book is going on my to-buy list. what with my job of 'nastyness generator' for the DM :smallcool:

Inyssius Tor
2007-05-21, 11:01 AM
Wait wait wait. Your PC are going to singlehandedly summon the Great Old Ones?!

They've got to die so horribly that everyone for two hundred miles and twenty years in any direction will be forced to make a DC 80 save vs. insanity! :smallbiggrin:

My suggestion? Give them a really, really painful way to flee to one of the most out-of-the-way Outer Planes. There, they can duke it out with hordes of pseudonatural archons while the Elder Gods restructure most of reality, off on the horizon.

(overdoing it a little? yeah, but... they're the Elder Gods, man! they just cry out for that sort of treatment)

Koji
2007-05-21, 11:17 AM
I would make these things way over what the party can handle, but give them some way to exploit a weakness or use some sort of anomaly to destroy these things.

I'd also make it so that these things permanently made the world a worse place just from the few seconds they were in it. Really drive home the "Bad idea" part of this bad idea.

EagleWiz
2007-05-21, 11:27 AM
Well a deity is about a CR 60-80. (Deitys and Demigods) Elder evils are even MORE powerfull so at least 90. No there is NO WAY that the players can kill the Elder Evils. You have read about them right? But at least the players will have the satisfaction of dying and having the world destroyed because of them.

magicwalker
2007-05-21, 11:34 AM
Well a deity is about a CR 60-80. (Deitys and Demigods) Elder evils are even MORE powerfull so at least 90. No there is NO WAY that the players can kill the Elder Evils. You have read about them right? But at least the players will have the satisfaction of dying and having the world destroyed because of them.

Can't make an omellete without cracking a few eggs.

Green Bean
2007-05-21, 11:43 AM
Well a deity is about a CR 60-80. (Deitys and Demigods) Elder evils are even MORE powerfull so at least 90. No there is NO WAY that the players can kill the Elder Evils. You have read about them right? But at least the players will have the satisfaction of dying and having the world destroyed because of them.

Unless you allow epic spellcasting. :smallbiggrin:

Inyssius Tor
2007-05-21, 11:53 AM
Hmmm... you could let them flee to, say, the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia, where the Big Seven archons (with Moradin and Heironeous) are about to head back the way your players came, hopefully to defeat the elder menace. They will fail horribly, of course. Then, you start in on your players with the aforementioned pseudonatural celestials... :smallbiggrin:

(By "pseudonatural", I don't mean the pansy pseudonaturals in Complete Arcane. I'm referring to these (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/pseudonaturalTroll.htm) pseudonaturals.)

Rob Knotts
2007-05-21, 12:08 PM
What do you get if you hit an immortal, reality-warping, madness-inducing elder god with a nuke? An immortal, reality-warping, madness-inducing elder god who's now also radioactive.*

Epic or not, summoning these things should be suicidal for the PCs, or at least nearly so. These sorts of entities are supposed to be so inconceivable that they become purely plot devices for the story - once they appear, the story's over. Statting them out is really futile, what you need to do is figure out a way for the PCs to defeat these things indirectly, something like destroying sources of power for each creatures: altars that can only be found by removing a mountain, filling a bottomless pit, finding and destroying remote, hidden temples or even cities.

As for confronting these things "face to face" once summoned, the mechanics are actually pretty simple. If the PCs are lucky they just die, or become incurably insane NPCs, or both, with no saving throws allowed. If they're not lucky the PCs go insane while dying a slow, horrible death or go insane from a permanent, vomitously-hideous transformation (with, of course, no possible saving throws). Even at Epic levels, choosing to summon these elder evils themselves is the height of arrogance and catastrophic stupidity and should be treat as such.

I'm serious here. These players are asking, begging to be shafted, don't disappoint them.

Elders evils are by definition beyond the abilty of any PC to deal with, thier only hope should be in realzing what an unforgivably stupid mistake they've made as soon as they've done it so that they can retreat fast enough to figure out how to drive the beastie back to wherever it came from.

*Old Cthulu joke.


My suggestion? Give them a really, really painful way to flee to one of the most out-of-the-way Outer Planes. There, they can duke it out with hordes of pseudonatural archons while the Elder Gods restructure most of reality, off on the horizon.Also a good suggestion. Having irretrievably doomed the mortal world, it would be a good time for the PCs to move on...

Illiterate Scribe
2007-05-21, 01:12 PM
The only way of defeating an Elder Evil is to summon something that's more old/more evil.

Ways of surviving the ministrations of elder evils

Pitch your battle in the Abyss maybe? It's the safest place for the rest of the universe to fight them in, partly because it's infinite, but mostly because it contains an infinite number of balors. Pit the giant tentacled monstrosities off against the flaming winged ones.

Sigil - the Lady of Pain just might be the only reasonable thing with more divine ranks than all that Lovecraftian stuff. Granted, she's stuck in the Cage, but unless that three-squirrels theory is true, FLAY!

The base of the Spire - Pow. They stopped bending their reality, and are now giant beached jelly-fish/squids.

Faerun - so many epic wizards, one of 'ems gotta have a plan.

Final piece of advice - after the PCs destroy the Elder Evils, confront them with either destroying themselves or slowly turning into their enemies, a la Lucius the Eternal.

Psiwave
2007-05-21, 01:43 PM
I suppose I'd have to agree with the concensus here. Maybe I should advise the DM to send them on a goose chase toward the far realm. a little prelude to the full fledged insanity they are hell bent on bringing about will probbly do them some good.

pseudonatural celestials mmmm...... good thinking that man :smallbiggrin:

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-05-21, 01:47 PM
Here's a pretty good statting of Piscaethces. A bit on the low side of power for an Elder Evil but it should do nicely as her projection in the physical world. Fighting her in the Far Realm should be considerably more difficult:

http://dicefreaks.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3492&highlight=piscaethces

Illiterate Scribe
2007-05-21, 02:01 PM
Powerful, but it's a sad indictment of the awesome power of wizards/archivists that I've already thought of, oh, 2-3 ways of destroying it. :smallfrown:

puppyavenger
2007-05-21, 02:10 PM
Well quite simply, they'll destroy the multiverse.


Realy, They are,
1. Opening a freestanding portal to the Far Realm, never a good idea:smallsmile:
2. Causing a major shift in planar balence. If they stay on the prime than that's fine, since there's infinite primes and all that. But IF ANY OF THEM USE PLANER MAJIC, then the taint of a being greater than gods taint's one of the absolutes. This will draw the attention of the greatest being's in it. I'm not talking about Ao, I'm talking about the lady, the ninefold dragon, masters or caretakers of reality.The battle will cause a massive increase in planar chaos, maby enough to ressurect or recreate the Archdukes of Chaos. Restarting the Great War. Since mecanus is currently in a state of disorder, which lessens their power and increases chaos'. They will probably lose, So By-By Multiverse.

Illiterate Scribe
2007-05-21, 02:29 PM
Woo! Planar destruction! The Doomguard in me says 'why not?'. What exactly would happen then, when the Far Planes evils begin sluggin' it out with the Lady and co?

Also, isn't the decline of Mechanus (and the Modrons) more than made up for by the Tulahadaran effort to spread the Formians, who are sorta 'Law-Incarnate Mk.2', throughout the planes?

goat
2007-05-21, 02:30 PM
Basically, don't let them.

Get their relevant dieties to give them a good slapping for even considering it. Throw high level Paladins from just about every Diety with any desire to keep the Material plane intact at them determined to not let them even try. If they start planning this, the ruler of wherever they plan to do it will probably instantly want them dead, their bodies burnt and the ashes scattered on the wind, and their souls transferred into little gems for safekeeping.

Basically, even THINKING about summoning elder gods should get them all slapped with an alignment of Chaotic Stupid.

Sutremaine
2007-05-21, 04:49 PM
No matter how heroic the fantasy, no matter how powerful the protagonists, hubris never goes unpunished. Let them summon the elder evils and die gibbering and howling, knowing that they are the ones to have damned the entire multiverse.

Psiwave
2007-05-21, 05:02 PM
Here's a pretty good statting of Piscaethces. A bit on the low side of power for an Elder Evil but it should do nicely as her projection in the physical world. Fighting her in the Far Realm should be considerably more difficult:

http://dicefreaks.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3492&highlight=piscaethces

muahaha! definately passing that on to the DM in question. whilst I agree with most of you that summoning the fundamental forces of otherworldy oblivion is a tad on the iffy side, I have already discussed this with the DM and he pointed out that
1) the campaign was otherwise about over anyway, he had no intention of recreating the world for another, so let it go out with a bang!

2) he thinks he can get a good long running campaign out of this, and it lets him try out just about everything in his ELH (something he's not really had the chance to use yet)

3) there will probably be some point when the PC's think OOoops! and want to undo what they have done (if it's not too late) It'll be an interesting psychological experiment to see at what point that happens.


It probably seems like these are a group of somewhat silly munchkins, but from what i've played with these guys they cirtainly don't seem to be, they have a lot of Call of Cthulu experience and I think they are quite good at playing characters that are a little tainted by the powers from beyond.

Yuki Akuma
2007-05-21, 05:26 PM
Just because the players want to do it doesn't mean they should be allowed to.

Opening a free-standing portal to the Far Realms and calling through several beings of Overdeity-esque power that cause people to go insane at the slightest glimpse of them is not something a player character is going to be able to put right. That's Armageddon-style bad.

EagleWiz
2007-05-21, 05:31 PM
As said before trying to summon Elder Evils is one or more of the above:

1. Evil
2. Aragant
3. Chaotic Stupid

Either way they bit off more then they could chew. Then again it would be cool to have a Elder Evils V.S. Everyone Else battle.

Yvian
2007-05-21, 06:03 PM
Here is a suggestion.

Don't let them summon an Elder Evil. Instead, let them summon [by mistake] an avatar or 2nd ranked lacky. Then mostly wipe them off the map by doing massive wis damage. After they have recoved, informed them that the real Elder Evil is not happy. That should take another good 10+ epic levels.

thehothead
2007-05-21, 06:24 PM
Let them go about the ENTIRE thing. However, make it so ONE seamigly itty-bitty detail was wrong, either because the text they used said that (uber hard to get thing) should be used, but (not as hard to get thing) would probably work to (and it didn't) or something else, and then make them accidentally do it wrong so that, though they do open a portal, it opens the wrong way, and THEY get sucked IN. That means no killing reality, though they still have a CHANCE (not much of one) at killing off those elder evils.

Machete
2007-05-21, 11:26 PM
Under the description for the Wish spell there is something about undoing a bad choice or rerolling a roll.

Guess who needs to keep casting Wish till they figure out how to unscrew up everything. Give them a plot device so they can all share the XP loss.

It'll be like level drain. WEEEE!

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-05-22, 02:32 AM
Hehehehehehe. A 20th level party defeating Piscaethces?


Existence Screams (Ex): The entrance of Piscaethces into either The Mortal Coil or the Realms Beyond is an event so horrific that it literally tears reality asunder. Existence screams in the presence of an Elder Evil. In Piscaethces’ case, her arrival upon any Mortal Coil is heralded by the warping of matter and flesh. Within the area first affected by Piscaethces’ arrival, all of the water within the area is transformed into a substance incapable of supporting normal life. All living creatures within the water must make a Fort save DC 59 or else die; those that survive or have been altered by Piscaethces’ Mutagenic power must make a second Fort save or else acquire both the Phrenic and Corrupted templates as the Mind of the Void incarnated in Piscaethces forces itself into its victims and warps their bodies into a form more befitting their new ruler. Attended sources of water also turn to slime as well, but individuals holding such sources can make a Will save DC 59 in order to avoid being affected. Beings that have been Mutated, spawned by Piscaethces, or have previously been altered by Piscaethces are immune to further alterations along these lines.

Just seeing her either slays or corrupts them. But wait, it gets better:


Mutagenic (Ex): Piscaethces’ fell touch cannot help but warp and disrupt the flesh of ‘her’ victims. Any being that is physically contacted by Piscaethces must make a Fort save DC 59 or else completely lose the ability to breathe air and are permanently condemned to breathe water for the rest of their existence or else begin drowning (see the rules on the Player’s Guide concerning this subject). Piscaethces’ Mutation is both permanent and heritable unless it is removed by a 31st level caster using wish followed by restoration.

So, one touch and they die. Even if they don't, you can't cast spells while drowning. If THAT isn't enough, we have this as well:


Unravel The Mortal Coil (Ex): Even beyond the fact that existence screams at Piscaethces’ very presence, it is extremely adept at disrupting the Mortal Coil, giving it the ability to unravel it within a radius of 2040 feet. Piscaethces’ unravelling takes the following forms:

Coagulation: Within the area affected by Piscaethces’ baleful influence, Piscaethces may choose one being each round within line of sight to render down to the original Flesh from which they came from her perspective. Piscaethces’ target must make a Fort save DC 59 each round for the next 7 rounds or else take 1d6 points of Con damage per round, with each round allowing a save. Should a creature be brought entirely to 0 hp then their form has been utterly destroyed by Piscaethces, turning them into a single Blood Ooze as described below. If they are larger than Medium, then they are instead transformed into 2 Blood Oozes for each size category greater than Medium. Only living non-outsiders may be affected by Coagulation.

Tolerates No Rivals: Piscaethces tolerates no rivals to her own bizarre power whenever she is present within the Mortal Coil, and her Mind is sufficiently powerful to cause a localized disruption of the rules under which magic functions outside of The Void. As a result, Piscaethces’ presence is inimical to magics and psionics that are not of Aboleth construction, causing them to be cast 14 levels lower on a failed Will save DC 59. This penalty applies to magical items as well, and any unattended magical item whose caster level would be brought to 0 will not function in her presence. This limitation may be bypassed upon a successful rank check against The Blood Queen.

So, the caster level of their spells/powers falls to 6. This means that spells/powers above 3rd level simply cease functioning. Go ahead. Kill her with fireballs. :smallbiggrin: Oh, and let's not forget:




Psionics (Sp): Piscaethces manifests as a 51st level Nomad. Saving throws against Piscaethces’ psionic powers are DC 27 + power level. The saving throw DC’s are Intelligence-based. Piscaethces knows 36 powers and possesses a reserve of 513 power points per day. Piscaethces may additionally manifest 7 epic powers/day with a maximal Psicraft DC of 116.

Psionic Powers Known: 1st level: call to mind, energy ray, precognition (offensive), prescience (offensive). 2nd level: biofeedback, concussion blast, ego whip, inflict pain. 3rd level: body adjustment, body purification, danger sense, psionic blast, time hop. 4th level: aura sight, mindwipe, psychic reformation, trace teleport. 5th level: baleful teleport, shatter mind blank, plane shift (psionic), psychic crush. 6th level: breath of the black dragon, fuse flesh, temporal acceleration. 7th level: energy conversion, energy wave, evade burst, mind blank (personal), moment of prescience (psionic). 8th level: bend reality, shadow body, time hop (mass). 9th level: assimilate, reality revision, timeless body, time regression. epic powers known: breach the void, chill of the void between, epic dispel psionics, liquefaction, nailed to the sky, peripety, Piscaethces’ emerald eye, safe time, spell worm (psionic), sphere of blood, time duplicate (psionic).

Spell-like Abilities (Sp): At will: avasculate, befoul, black tentacles, destruction, disintegrate, eyebite, expeditious retreat, greater dispel magic, hold monster, insanity, mind fog, phantasmal killer, poison, portal beacon, prying eyes, reality maelstrom, reciprocal gyre, teleport (greater), telekinesis, touch of idiocy, transmute rock to mud, wall of ooze. 6/day: blink (improved), charm monster (mass), false sending, reaving dispel, reverse gravity. 1/day: astral projection, despoil, mindrape, time stop. Piscaethces casts her spell-like abilities as a 75th level Sorcerer, and the saving throws against her spell-like abilities are DC 25 + spell level. The saving throw DC’s are Charisma-based.

So, in addition to a buzzillion "save or lose" effects, she casts as a 57th level nomad with Epic Spellcasting available. Plus, spell like abilities at caster level 75. MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA



But yes, Piscaethces is pretty weak for an Elder Evil-she would be on par with Cthulhu or perhaps just a bit higher.

Arbitrarity
2007-05-22, 07:20 AM
Psionics (Sp): Piscaethces manifests as a 51st level Nomad. Saving throws against Piscaethces’ psionic powers are DC 27 + power level. The saving throw DC’s are Intelligence-based. Piscaethces knows 36 powers and possesses a reserve of 513 power points per day. Piscaethces may additionally manifest 7 epic powers/day with a maximal Psicraft DC of 116.

Psionic Powers Known: 1st level: call to mind, energy ray, precognition (offensive), prescience (offensive). 2nd level: biofeedback, concussion blast, ego whip, inflict pain. 3rd level: body adjustment, body purification, danger sense, psionic blast, time hop. 4th level: aura sight, mindwipe, psychic reformation, trace teleport. 5th level: baleful teleport, shatter mind blank, plane shift (psionic), psychic crush. 6th level: breath of the black dragon, fuse flesh, temporal acceleration. 7th level: energy conversion, energy wave, evade burst, mind blank (personal), moment of prescience (psionic). 8th level: bend reality, shadow body, time hop (mass). 9th level: assimilate, reality revision, timeless body, time regression. epic powers known: breach the void, chill of the void between, epic dispel psionics, liquefaction, nailed to the sky, peripety, Piscaethces’ emerald eye, safe time, spell worm (psionic), sphere of blood, time duplicate (psionic).

Spell-like Abilities (Sp): At will: avasculate, befoul, black tentacles, destruction, disintegrate, eyebite, expeditious retreat, greater dispel magic, hold monster, insanity, mind fog, phantasmal killer, poison, portal beacon, prying eyes, reality maelstrom, reciprocal gyre, teleport (greater), telekinesis, touch of idiocy, transmute rock to mud, wall of ooze. 6/day: blink (improved), charm monster (mass), false sending, reaving dispel, reverse gravity. 1/day: astral projection, despoil, mindrape, time stop. Piscaethces casts her spell-like abilities as a 75th level Sorcerer, and the saving throws against her spell-like abilities are DC 25 + spell level. The saving throw DC’s are Charisma-based.


I see funny spells. They worry me.

Now, can your party make DC 59 will saves?

Hmmm... I bet an artificer I made could, if only through virtue of putting a lot of protections on himself, if he had prep time (proof against transmutation, soulfire, construct essence) if only by immunities. But then... 51'st level nomad manifesting? Augh!

goat
2007-05-22, 07:51 AM
You could just have them miss the elder gods by a bit, and accidently open a portal that lets thousands of uber-nasty abberations into the world.

Some of these could CLAIM to be elder gods, and try and set themselves up little empires of their own abberation types, while trying to wipe out everything else.

Your party could then travel around mulching abberations of various types, all of whom are far, FAR less powerful than the real elder gods until they realise what a bad idea it was. While most everyone else in the world is blaming them for releasing tentacled evils that keep eating their children.

SpiderBrigade
2007-05-22, 09:22 AM
I'm in agreement with several other posters who have said not to let them summon the real Elder Evils, but rather some form of avatar or minion...which is STILL more than enough to screw the world over, forever. That way, if the PCs get really lucky, or pull out some sort of trick you didn't plan on, they could possibly win...but they didn't actually rid the world of an Elder Evil.

Of course, I'm also of the opinion that statting out this kind of cosmic superbeing is just generally unneccesary. For instance it's a matter of principle that no one will ever stat up the Lady of Pain. I think in a Lovecraftian setting the real Elder Gods are at that level, at least.

If you do allow them to summon "the real thing," my prediction of the fight would be something like this.

The portal opens...there's something coming out. You get a vague impression of non-euclidean tentacles and some kind of slime. Oh, and you're all insane now. No save.

Round 1: If you weren't permanently insane, you'd notice that there seems to be much more creature inside the portal than the gargantuan form before you. And 1d4 of you die.

Round 2: The entity continues to pass through the gateway. 1d6 of you die.

Round 3: Will the writhing mass of alien geometry never end!? 1d8 of you die.

Continue as needed, with the slain rising as some form of aberration.

Of course, this is only the realistic scenario. Well, realistic for a world with Elder Gods. You know what I mean. As a DM you should think about the metagame a little bit: what are your players expecting? Do they really think they can handle the Elder Gods? In that case you should go with the "weaker minion or avatar" plan, and make it a tough fight. Make sure they KNOW it was a minion/avatar, and that they're really lucky it wasn't the real thing. If they think they have a chance of winning, killing them all with DM fiat or a ridiculously strong monster won't be fun for them.

On the other hand, it's possible the players know they are doomed, but their characters don't. In that case, you want the final battle to be as amusing as possible. You can allow the party to live/keep their sanity for as long as possible to give the full effect of the horror they've summoned a chance to sink in. Lots of "turning the living rock into maggots" kind of stuff, for flavor.

Toliudar
2007-05-22, 09:50 AM
Yes to all of the above. If you want a not-particularly-satisfying end to the campaign, the kind of (accurately encapsulated) combat that Spider Brigade has just given you might be sort of fun in a "we just pulled the plug on the universe" way.

The minion is an interesting way to go, with the very real possibility that the blessed dunderheads may not take the hint. In which case, you can go ahead and let them summon an actual Elder Evil. Which thanks them by making them playthings back in the far realms as it trashes the material plane.

Read Ellison's "I have no mouth and I must scream". Could be a good example of a final adventure for this group - figure out how to commit suicide when your existence is ongoing torture.

Valairn
2007-05-22, 10:08 AM
Its okay to let the PC's win.

Inyssius Tor
2007-05-22, 10:11 AM
Not against the Elder Things it's not.



E~ I AM NOT BEING ENTIRELY SERIOUS HERE

Draken
2007-05-22, 10:16 AM
I think you should use goat's idea, and on that line, the suggestion on "What to summon?" would be: Pseudonatural Aboleths, with class levels.

Your 19° level party won't stand a chance anyway.

And any priests/paladins/druids will loose their powers permanently. And I wouldn't allow then to change sides (go evil), except maybe the druid, become a Defiler.

SpiderBrigade
2007-05-22, 10:16 AM
Its okay to let the PC's win.Is it okay to let PCs win? Of course! The game won't be fun if you always make them fail. That's bad DMing.

On the other hand you should never assume that if the PCs want to do something, they should be able to do it. Otherwise there's no point in even playing the game! Just have the players write you a story of how awesome their characters are, with you supplying the sets and supporting cast. Could be fun, but it's not D&D.

For instance see the second-to-latest OOTS strip, The Longshot. (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0454.html) Sometimes the PCs have to fail. And fighting unholy unnatural abortions of nature from beyond space and time is something they're not supposed to be able to do.

Valairn
2007-05-22, 10:38 AM
Like I said before, it really is OKAY to let the PC's win. This is a fantasy world, with fantasy heroes, controlled by real people. Yes you can take multiple different routes to tell a story. But it still is perfectly okay to let the PC's win. So what if they destroy the overgod of the multiverse? It doesn't change anything, its just a story.

Its okay, they can win.

They can also lose. Saying that the overgods are immune to the whims of a story/DM is an interesting perspective to say the least.

Win or lose the elder god is still just a fantasy that can be constructed however you like. Its a matter of choice entirely.

Player hubris non-withstanding sometimes its fun to let them the players do something "impossible." I for one always side with the players on stupid heroics, of course they don't always win, sometimes they die horribly and the universe is destroyed, but sometimes they might just destroy the elder god and save the multiverse. It doesn't matter in the slightest because tommorow when I DM there is a new world to explore and dominate/save/whatever.

Tell your story, if you want the universe to implode, all the power to you. If you want your PCs to win against impossible odds DO IT. Its up to you.

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-05-22, 11:39 AM
Realistically speaking, the scenario of 20th level party versus CR 57 being is:
Round 1: you die
Round 2: you are raised again as disfigured atrocities mindlessly serving the Elder Evil.

Why? Because it is the same as a 6th level party summoning and fighting a Balor only just a bit worse because the Elder Evil can kill you in more interesting ways, raise you and kill you again.

Yes, some players doing the "impossible" might be fun but on how large a margin? A Balor is considered impossible for a 12th level party already. Even so, a 12th level party might win if they prepare everything to their advantage, are very very lucky and the Balor is not very smart. A 6th level party however still considers the Balor as an impossible challenge. Now though, no amount of luck or preparation can make the challenge from impossible into merely very hard.

Let's get back to our 20th level group. They are knowingly and willingly seeking out a straight fight with an Elder Evil. That is like a 6th level party knowingly and willingly pick a direct fight against a Balor. Should they win? I don't think so. Ditto for the 20th level group versus Elder Evil.



BTW, I am willing to run ANY 20th level group (no pun-puns or other infinity loops though) against Piscaethces. You can prepare anything you want with the resources at hand. You will still lose in 2 rounds.

Tallis
2007-05-22, 11:40 AM
The portal isn't big enough. The Elder evil can reach through, but not pass over. Unfortunately now they have a foothold in our reality and they have the power to make it grow given time. They will eventually make their way in and destroy reality as we know it.
I don't have Lords of Madness, which I'm sure has some great ideas for what kinds of powers they should have, but off the top of my head I'd say:
-Being in their presence causes wisdom drain.
-Reality warps arround them in horrific ways. Initially this spreads quickly out to a radius of a few miles, then slows down but never stops until the portal is closed. Growing like a cancer on the world.
-Living things in their presence warp into new pseudonatural forms (PCs included), with a touch they can control this change either damaging the victim or just reforming it to suit their needs.
-Mind control (always a good one)

That's it for now, but given time I'm sure I could come up with more.

This should allow for an initial encounter that proves the PCs are out of their league, but that they could potentially escape from. Afterwards they can give up on the goal of actually destroying the Elder Evils and concentrate on closing the portal and stopping the spread of the warp.
Of course it goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway), any divine class should lose their powers for being part of this plan. Even the evil gods don't want their world destroyed, and they certainly don't want beings more powerful than them to be summoned into the world.

Rob Knotts
2007-05-22, 11:53 AM
Player hubris non-withstanding sometimes its fun to let them the players do something "impossible." I for one always side with the players on stupid heroics, of course they don't always win, sometimes they die horribly and the universe is destroyed, but sometimes they might just destroy the elder god and save the multiverse. It doesn't matter in the slightest because tommorow when I DM there is a new world to explore and dominate/save/whatever.We aren't talking about stupid heroics here, were talking about disastrous arrogance. The PCs in question here aren't standing up to an unstoppable threat, they're inviting the threat to come to them! Summoning elder evils with the intention of fighting them directly is like causing the worst earthquake possible or making the sun go nova so that you can stop worrying about it happening and deal with it head-on. Maybe the heroes could win, but the world will be destroyed whether they win or not, preventing the fight from being in any way heroic.

If the heroes can fight the elder evils in person, prevent them from destroying the world, or even defeat them, then they aren't elder evils. Likewise, if these things the PCs are summoning really are elder evils, then PCs and thier whole world instantly lose the moment these things arrive. The whole idea of Lovecraftian elder evils (which are exactly what is intended when talking about higher powers revered by aboleths or mind flayers) is that these things are beyond mortal comprehension, beyond mortal interaction, and ultimately beyond the limits of reality. It doesn't matter if the PCs are level 1 or level 31, unless they also qualify as greater gods, knowingly summoning elder evils of thier own volition always is and always should be suicidal.

On a relatively minor note, participating in such a recklessly disastrous summoning, possiblly even just choosing to participate beforehand, would mean an instant shift from whatever thier alignment is to a Chaotic/non-Good alignment, which would probably cause a bit of a problem for Paladins or Clerics inolved, what with losing all thier powers and spells just as the beasties start to appear. No matter how powerful the character thinks he or she is, choosing to summon an elder evil regardless of the worldwide destruction its very arrival will cause, simply for the convenience of fighting it directly, would automatically brand the character as Chaotic and preclude him from any link to the powers of Good.

Dervag
2007-05-22, 11:57 AM
Can't make an omellete without cracking a few eggs.Except that in this case, the Great Old Ones will be eating the omelet. And you're the eggs.

Illiterate Scribe
2007-05-22, 12:34 PM
BTW, I am willing to run ANY 20th level group (no pun-puns or other infinity loops though) against Piscaethces. You can prepare anything you want with the resources at hand. You will still lose in 2 rounds.

I know this isn't what you asked for, but I'll run a single lvl 28 character against that. I've got inklings of a build, which does not involve

- chain gating titans
- solars
- infinite loops

Any interest?

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-05-22, 01:00 PM
Yes, go ahead. I'll make the challenge in the Epic Arena thread in the Out of Character forums just in case anyone else wants to enter.

EDIT: I'll just make a new thread for it-others might want to join.

Valairn
2007-05-22, 01:17 PM
I wasn't really attempting to imply a RAW approach to their success. To do so would be silly. It would be like this,

Rule 1: Elder Gods are better than everything

PC's : Um.... Hi we seek to destroy you...

Elder God invokes rule number 1, universe explodes.

RAW, the Elder Gods win, no contest, I wouldn't even debate that.

On the other hand. DM rules that the Elder God will lose. Who wins that fight? The DM, and the players respectively. Its a story. Tell the story you want, I'm simply saying that its the OP's story and he can do whatever he likes, regardless of how full of win an Elder God is.

TomTheRat
2007-05-22, 01:31 PM
Well, you guys are all approaching this from the "what would really happen here" and not so much from the "how do we make this wicked fun for the players".

I'd start by having paladins and clerics and other assorted religious folk do everything they can to stop the PCs. Then the druids would show up en masse, trying to stop the obviously psychotically evil PCs. Then maybe some divine inspired clue about what a horrible idea this is.

If ALL of these clues failed, the Piscodemon could get summoned at a weakened state, say, 25 Hit Dice, strong enough to repel but not necessarily kill the PCs. Then the demon runs off and begins eating cities to grow back up to his true level of power.

At this point deities show up and tell the PCs that they've let an evil into the multiverse, and that death will be the least of the consequences if they fail to repel it.

The PCs could make goody goody with the army of paladins and druids they just pissed off, or they could try and drag it back to the portal, or they could raise an army to deal with it. Maybe give them a clue to the location of some sort of artifact that can banish the Piscodemon. Basically all of the above scenarios would be a race against time: the demon is gaining a Hit Die per week and can get to be impossibly powerful.

At the end, you can have a showdown where all of the above try to defeat a 40 or 50 hit die version of the Piscodemon. Make it so one of the PCs has to permanently sacrifice his soul into the artifact to "seal" the demon away. Thats a pretty good punishment for the party being so idiotic as to believe any of this is a good idea. Plus, makes for a cool story. Epic even.

BardicDuelist
2007-05-22, 01:58 PM
Well, you guys are all approaching this from the "what would really happen here" and not so much from the "how do we make this wicked fun for the players".

I'd start by having paladins and clerics and other assorted religious folk do everything they can to stop the PCs. Then the druids would show up en masse, trying to stop the obviously psychotically evil PCs. Then maybe some divine inspired clue about what a horrible idea this is.

If ALL of these clues failed, the Piscodemon could get summoned at a weakened state, say, 25 Hit Dice, strong enough to repel but not necessarily kill the PCs. Then the demon runs off and begins eating cities to grow back up to his true level of power.

At this point deities show up and tell the PCs that they've let an evil into the multiverse, and that death will be the least of the consequences if they fail to repel it.

The PCs could make goody goody with the army of paladins and druids they just pissed off, or they could try and drag it back to the portal, or they could raise an army to deal with it. Maybe give them a clue to the location of some sort of artifact that can banish the Piscodemon. Basically all of the above scenarios would be a race against time: the demon is gaining a Hit Die per week and can get to be impossibly powerful.

At the end, you can have a showdown where all of the above try to defeat a 40 or 50 hit die version of the Piscodemon. Make it so one of the PCs has to permanently sacrifice his soul into the artifact to "seal" the demon away. Thats a pretty good punishment for the party being so idiotic as to believe any of this is a good idea. Plus, makes for a cool story. Epic even.

I completely agree with this. If you WANT them to fight the Elder Evil, this is the way to do it, because it will show them that their hubris has consequences, but won't be you telling them that their characters cannot do something, and won't be just a huge smack down.

That is, if your world does not have characters of Epic levels. If your world has many epic characters than this should not be done because it screws up the balance. With a world where the PCs are possibly the most powerful beings on this plane: go for it.

D&D RAW should be fit to the world you create.

But there should be massive consequences for their actions, and the odds should be against them. There should be a way to suceed, but it should be by not means easy, and should involve more sacrifice than anything other thing.

They should NOT be able to DESTROY the elder evil, but could possibly DEFEAT it.

EvilElitest
2007-05-22, 01:58 PM
Well a deity is about a CR 60-80. (Deitys and Demigods) Elder evils are even MORE powerfull so at least 90. No there is NO WAY that the players can kill the Elder Evils. You have read about them right? But at least the players will have the satisfaction of dying and having the world destroyed because of them.

are you sure the elder evils are more powerful than the gods, name aside?
from,
EE

Valairn
2007-05-22, 02:06 PM
They should NOT be able to DESTROY the elder evil, but could possibly DEFEAT it.


Why not? Why can't they "destroy" it?

I'm sensing a LARGE amount of fanboyism in this particular thread. There is no "you can't do this" rule in DnD. In fact there is the opposite. You can do anything you want to.

Please stop telling the creator of a story that he's not "allowed" to do something. Its a very very very silly pretense.

On note, no I'm not defending the PC's and saying they "should" win. I'm just saying that regardless of RAW, they can win and even destroy, if that's the story the OP wants to tell. Kill the PC's in horrible Elder EVIL goodness for all I care.

BardicDuelist
2007-05-22, 02:24 PM
I do not appreciate being called a "fanboy" and while I understand that all gaming groups are different, I was merely offering my opinion on how it should be handeled. I could not give advice on how to stat it, since I never play campaigns of even near that level.

If the OP has a problem with us saying that it should not be done, than he should say somthing. If he is considering our opinions, then you have no right to attack what we say. You have given your opinion several times, and I even think it was taken into consideration when some people tried to come up with what they felt was a reasonable way to have the players fight it without making it seem less of a threat.

The reason that they should not be able to destroy it is that it would promote hubris among the players further. This could make subsequent games more difficult or lead to players becoming very angry when their characters die against something which was obviously not impossible.

If the DM is Ok with this, or doesn't think that the players will become so, then yes.

I am for doing whatever you want in D&D, but I just felt that the campaign would be more meaningful and fun if the players had a greater challenge and it was not a simply the PCs want to do somehting, and so they can.

Mr Croup
2007-05-22, 02:25 PM
Why not? Why can't they "destroy" it?

I'm sensing a LARGE amount of fanboyism in this particular thread. There is no "you can't do this" rule in DnD. In fact there is the opposite. You can do anything you want to.

Please stop telling the creator of a story that he's not "allowed" to do something. Its a very very very silly pretense.

On note, no I'm not defending the PC's and saying they "should" win. I'm just saying that regardless of RAW, they can win and even destroy, if that's the story the OP wants to tell. Kill the PC's in horrible Elder EVIL goodness for all I care.

I don't think it's an element of "fanboyism." In my mind at least, going up against the Elder Evils, as they are described in canon, is a scenario that can't be won. Does the DM have to stick to this notion? Of course not, but the DM doesn't have to stick to anything part of the rules if that is their choice, and if that is the type of game their group plays. But by saying, "sure, you guys can wipe out the Elder Evils," then they are stripping away a sense of balance, and invalidating the levels of awesome terror that these entities are meant to inspire. By their very nature, the Elder Evils are intended to be incomprehensible, and beyond the notion of death or destruction. Can the DM decide to ignore this? Sure, but at that point they aren't really using the Elder Evils more than as a name for whatever sort of creature they decide to create.

In the end, my take on the situation would be to second the idea of having the group pursued and attacked by followers of any number of churches and orders that seek to stop them from performing the summoning. Perhaps they can be dissuaded from their plan when they are informed that bringing an Elder Evil into the world would be BAD, in every imaginable way. Let them know that these beings are beyond the abilities of even the gods to destroy, and it is only through the acts of the divine and heroes of past ages that they have been stopped from entering the world.

Perhaps the PC's are stopped to late, while they haven't completed the summoning, through their preparations to perform the ritual they have opened a way for lesser entities from the Far Realms, tainting normal creatures and people, and even letting an avatar, or herald of the Elder Evils through. Now they must fight through this so that they can attempt to undo what they have foolishly done, sealing the rift, and making the world safe again, at least until the stars are once more right, and another group of foolish individuals or evil cultists repeats their actions.



I am for doing whatever you want in D&D, but I just felt that the campaign would be more meaningful and fun if the players had a greater challenge and it was not a simply the PCs want to do somehting, and so they can.

I think this really touches on my feelings about it. If no task is impossible, then where is the fun? Without a challenge, there isn't a point. At that point it stops being a game of DnD, and instead becomes free form, interactive storytelling. This isn't a bad thing, if that's what the group wants, but it isn't "DnD." At that point, why are people rolling dice? Why are there stats? Again, there's nothing wrong with this type of roleplaying, but it is fundamentally different from DnD.

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-05-22, 02:42 PM
Nothing is impossible in DnD, correct. A DM can say whatever story he/she wants to say. The problem here-what people call hybris-is that the players themselves are specifically seeking a challenge way out of their league. To use a more obvious example, let's return to the 6th level party that wants to go up against a Balor and kill it. The analogy is much the same. It is not that the DM can't have the 6th level PCs kill the Balor. The problem is that there is no point in doing it. If the DM sets up the story so the PCs win, then it is the DM that killed the Balor, not the 6th level PCs-which have no buisness going up against Balors in their level. It is like that:

PC: I want to commit suicide so I cut my neck open.
DM: OK, you make a saving throw vs coup de grace (fakes roll) oh, look at that: natural 20! So, not only you survive the suicide but you also get XP for surviving it.

It is not that the above example can't be made to happen in a game. It is that there is no point whatsoever in doing it.

my_evil_twin
2007-05-22, 03:13 PM
There's a middleground between handing the PCs their insane victory and punishing their character sheets with scissors. Might be more fun, too.

You said the PCs have been dabbling in mind-blowing lore. The players probably expect some disastrous consequences, but don't retire the campaign just yet.

Say the summoning works, but not immediately. What, did you think something as big as the Elder Evils could fit through a door all at once? Maybe it takes Piscaethces a whole year to wriggle through the portal they open. In the meantime, you can roll up a "Tentacle of Piscaethces" or something that clearly represents only a fraction of the Evil's true power. Make it just powerful enough to impress upon the PCs how wrong they were. Give them just enough time to escape.

All isn't lost, although maybe the Prime Material is. Maybe the gods can still push Piscaethces back the way it came if they cooperate (guess who gets to go to the outer planes and tell them what just happened). Maybe they can enact a planar quarantine, sealing off every portal that leads off Piscaethces' new plane. The possible cut-loss solutions are endless.

Just let the players play. They made their mistake, now give them a chance to live with the consequences.

lord_khaine
2007-05-22, 03:31 PM
you could intruduce another good party of allmost same lv, that also have been working overtime to prevent the cultists from summoning the elder evil, hopefully they will be able to talk the pc's into abandoning their foolish quest, or at least die disrupting the summoning, so that as so many other suggestet, its only a lesser evil entity that comes though.

anyway, this really sounds interesting, keep us updatet on how it turns out.

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-05-22, 03:35 PM
Well, here's the thread. Whoever wants to try his/her luck, they can. It is possible to win, just very, very unlikely:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=45032

Guy
2007-05-22, 04:43 PM
Here we go, combining everyone's ideas and some of my own:
Have the PCs go through with plans to summon it, and have druids/paladins etc outraged about it.
However, make it look like the PCs are in the right and that they have found the best way to make the world safe, even though they're slipping to Evil.
Problems with the portal, that is cast in secret, cause someone else to come through, a minion of the Elder Evils - an extremely mutated creature who was the last person to ever try to summon them. Or, rather, the only one who "survived".
You could have an angle about how his existance is constant torture and that he knows nothing but suffering, etc, as he tries to hold the portal and warp reality. This would continue to spread, which alerts the Druids and Paladins.
PCs realize their mistake, make nice with the forces of Good and try to push back an army of the Void.
The Gods begin to intervene, granting the PCs a chance for atonement: an artifact that will stop the portal (which is about to pull a real Elder Evil through) at the cost of one/a few PC's souls.
One epic battle later, the portal is closed, evil is repelled, the PCs are neither revered nor loathed, only neutral.
But they defeated an Elder Evil. Sort of.

Yvian
2007-05-22, 05:39 PM
Its okay to let the PC's win.

No, it is not o.k. to let the players win. After all, D&D is not about winning or losing, it is about playing the game.

With that in mind, I have very fond memories of my 6,000 level wizard who stomped gods for fun. Being 10 years of age, this was fun, but now I see the errors of my way.

Killing an avatar, IMHO, is at least a DC30. That means a TPK at that level. And even if one were to nerf an Elder Evil down to a DC20 - what does that mean? If a party of 20th level characters can take on a god that means there is no place to go. End of game - and thus the game is lost.

SilverClawShift
2007-05-22, 06:16 PM
Why not? Why can't they "destroy" it?

I'm sensing a LARGE amount of fanboyism in this particular thread.

It's not so much fanboyism as it is hivemindism.

In D&D, and RPGs in a larrger sense (and in action, adventure, sci-fi,... hell, in storytelling in GENERAL) the idea of a ragtag group who are playing off each others strengths, or a noble hero of destiny defeating a powerful foe far beyond what they should be able to reasonably defeat is a given. We love the imagery created when a farmboy from a desert planet blows up a moon sized planet destroyer with a single fantastic shot. We love the idea that the invicible warrior is destroyed by the young out of his league thief who snuck in and found the one weapon that could defeat him. And D&D players especially love the idea that a group of 3+ misfits who teamed up to fight together become an unstoppable force of virtue (plus looting).

Asmodeus is a great example of this mentality. He's the grand high poo-bah evil baddie bad bad. He's smooth confident pure unbeatable evil given a face and a big freakin stick. He's an unstoppable killing machine who you won't even come face to face with because his machinations will have set everything against you from day one and you'll be dead before you even get a chance to see him rolling his eyes at you.
And he's stated out and ready for combat. Why? Because you WON'T beat asmodeus.

So when you DO figure out a way to slaughter him at the last second while you all have 1 hitpoint left, and you go up and cut the jewels out of his gear and maybe rough up the corpse for good measure, victory is all the sweeter.
"We can't wi- WHOO WE KILLED HIM"

But here's where the 'exception' comes in. Lovecraft, the elder things from beyond the stars, the nightmarish forces that don't really completely exist in any way we can understand because heck they're just not of this reality. Lovecrafts mythos, Cthulhu & pals... they were adopted by nerds everywhere as the unbeatable force to end unbeatable forces. They're the touchstone of unstoppable evil that you can't even start to plan against, because they simply aren't functioning on a level that we can even comprehend. They aren't evil the way a demon is. They aren't evil the way an evil GOD is (who exists entirely to be evil). They're evil because they're so unspeakably alien that we can't even come up with another word to describe them with.

But it's not about them. The reason everyone adopts the mentality of "you can't fight the elder evils" is because of some beautiful hivemind. It's the one thing EVERYONE is supposed to agree on by default.

Start a thread that says "Can I kill Gruumsh?" and you'll see a debate spring up. Some people will say "of course not", and others will say "If you want, go for it!".

But everyone, all of geekdom, the collective mind found in every roll of the dice and every card game collection and every comic book and board game and video game.... it's read "Call Of Cthulhu" and agreed, from coast to coast and continent to continent, that you cannot win.

It's the opposite of that holy ray of light guiding you home. It's the force that's been declared the end.

It's the Omega.

"Cthulhu appears. 1d4 PCs die every round. No save."


**********

Dramatics aside, anyone can do whatever they want in their own game. This isn't about THAT. The DM is the law, and the group is setting the tone of what they want, sure.

It's not a debate about what you can't say when you sit down with your friends, it's about the Lovecraft Mythos being a... constant. A comforting assurance that In The End, None Of It Mattered.

There's no light without darkness, and geekdom adopted the elder evils as the utter black that cannot be peirced, above mephistopheles, above asmodeus, above the evilest god you can name on the evilest day in their evilest outfit operating an evil machine.

THAT'S why people are saying "heh, No."

Dervag
2007-05-22, 06:27 PM
Why not? Why can't they "destroy" it?

I'm sensing a LARGE amount of fanboyism in this particular thread. There is no "you can't do this" rule in DnD. In fact there is the opposite. You can do anything you want to.

Please stop telling the creator of a story that he's not "allowed" to do something. Its a very very very silly pretense.

On note, no I'm not defending the PC's and saying they "should" win. I'm just saying that regardless of RAW, they can win and even destroy, if that's the story the OP wants to tell. Kill the PC's in horrible Elder EVIL goodness for all I care.The problem is that the conventional understanding of what the elder evils are is one that is incompatible with any strategy that involves a mortal fighting them, let alone winning. The idea simply doesn't make sense. It's as if the PCs proposed to engage a supernova in single combat or something like that.

To permit the PCs to engage a supernova in single combat would require a gross distortion of the definition of 'supernova', beyond all semblance of recognition. I don't recommend it, and I don't recommend letting the PCs defeat an Elder Evil in single combat.

The fact that the characters propose to do this indicates that they, as characters, are either completely insane (under the delusion that they possess power greater than that of the gods), or that they have no idea how powerful those monstrosities really are in the Rules As Written.

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-05-22, 06:32 PM
Elder Evils are not omnipotent though. They merely appear omnipotent compared to the humans in the Lovecraft universe. It is a matter of perspective. The humans there have no (or very little) access to spells or really powerful weapons. For them, a single DnD spectre could destroy their entire world-and the spectre is a quite low CR being.

The Outer Gods (except for Azathoth) still have finite physical forms and, even though they are not limited by dimensions as mortals are, they are still limited by time (else they wouldn't need to wait to rise again) and space (else they'd exist everywhere at once and not have finite physical forms). They are certainly not omnipotent and they are certainly still parts of a single Universe.

SilverClawShift
2007-05-22, 07:26 PM
Elder Evils are not omnipotent though.

It's not so much about omnipotence as it is not playing by the rules. Being partially third/fourth dimensional (occupying space in a set time frame) doesn't mean they're understandable within the rules of those dimensions. If you exist in a two dimensional concept as a three dimensional being, you might take up part of a two dimensional world... but that's not "All of you" sitting there, it's part of you. It's a flattened representation of you that was patched together by that universe to give its inhabitants some way to observe you.

Cthulhu 'exists' the same way a squid does. But that's not all he is, and everything else he is cannot be comprehended by anything that functions on the laws in this universe.

He's outside our laws. It's not about being a god, isn't about being something alien to even the deities.

If you've got the planar handbook, read the section on the Far Realm for starts.

Pronounceable
2007-05-22, 07:35 PM
You know, if I was a DnD god; and I received a prayer from a cleric of mine about summoning and fighting Elder Evils, I'd immediately send an omen telling him why this is a bad idea. I'd then tell him that he should also persuade his friends to give up. If they don't listen to reason, I'd not only remove the all of cleric's power, but also send other clerics (and celestials if necessary) to stop them. I'd even send my own divine avatar to if they were too powerful.


That aside, there must be limits to what PCs can accomplish. And what sort of things DM allows to players to do is subtly important. If you let your PCs break into houses, take whatever they like and slaughter any innocent citizen trying to stop them without any feasible cost to them, then this will nurture the chaotic stupid in them. And they'll try that sort of **** again and again. Then it becomes a habit, and a potential good gamer turns into a chaotic stupid lamer...

If they can get away with summoning and defeating an Elder Evil in this campaign, they'll think they can do better next campaign. And gods help a DM with such players...

Besides, consider a man who secretly creates tension between nations just to miraculously solve all problems at the last moment and averting the war to be hailed as a hero. What this group of PCs is doing is not any different. There's nothing heroic or good in it.

SilverClawShift
2007-05-22, 08:13 PM
Being partially third/fourth dimensional (occupying space in a set time frame) doesn't mean they're understandable within the rules of those dimensions. If you exist in a two dimensional concept as a three *SNIP* ect, ect, ect

I just meant to clarify something here but I got kinda distracted before I got to it. The whole "You go insane from observing" them thing isn't meant as fluffy story text, it's meant as a fundamental reality of dealing with these creatures. Your mind, which functions entirely in this world, with laws built entirely in this universe, CANNOT HANDLE trying to sum up or understand the being it's looking at.
It's not ugly, or glaring, and it's not the fact that it's covered in tentacles, it's that it literally exists in dimensions and patterns that your mind is unable to wrap itself around. Trying to look at one of these things snaps your brain for reasons you can't even fully fathom.

Presumably, a god would be better at handling the whole brain snapping insanity, but that's no guarantee. Deities in D&D, as indescribably powerful and beyond the realm of mortals by leaps and bounds as they are, still have personalities and sentience. They can be described, even if the description includes "Blinded for looking at them", they can still actually be explained.

The elder evils aren't in that category.

To quote that movie that you all know and everyone quotes, "ain't in the same *&@^# ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same @#*( sport. "

Bagera
2007-05-23, 12:09 AM
This seems like something that will change the world, so have it be the Ragnorak, have the players be leading the vanguard of Pelor and Morradin against the hoards of evil, and have them fight mighty battles not against the elder gods but their powerful underlings, and then have the world end and everyone drinking in Valhalla, or crushed beneath the feet or tentacles of the elder gods.

Arturo
2007-05-23, 12:54 AM
An interesting way could be to defeat an elder evil like in the Eternal Darkness game for Gamecube.

Rob Knotts
2007-05-23, 01:07 AM
An interesting way could be to defeat an elder evil like in the Eternal Darkness game for Gamecube.Can you elaborate on that? I've heard great things about the game, but I'm certain I'm not alone in never having played it.

puppyavenger
2007-05-23, 06:30 AM
The Outer Gods (except for Azathoth) still have finite physical forms and, even though they are not limited by dimensions as mortals are, they are still limited by time (else they wouldn't need to wait to rise again) and space (else they'd exist everywhere at once and not have finite physical forms). They are certainly not omnipotent and they are certainly still parts of a single Universe.

coughyogsnothcough

Dervag
2007-05-23, 08:25 AM
Can you elaborate on that? I've heard great things about the game, but I'm certain I'm not alone in never having played it.In essence, the game universe contains four Ancients which might be classified as 'Elder Evils'. Three of them have designs hostile to the continued existence and freedom of humanity; the fourth does not, and is in fact hostile ot the other three.

Whenever you play the game, you choose one of the three malevolent Ancients as the alignment of 'the bad guys'. At the climax of the game, the BBEG summons his Ancient. You summon an Ancient capable of defeating his Ancient (the three Ancients stand in a rock-paper-scissors relationship). The two Ancients fight in outer space and 'yours' wins.

Your summoning is powered by the magical equivalent of a Very Large Array*, which has at its core three powerful artifacts of the Ancients. You use this same array to bind the Ancient you just summoned, preventing it from carrying out its designs.

Once you have played the game three times, with the 'bad guys' having each of the three alignments, it is revealed that all three games were in fact occuring simultaneously in parallel universes. Therefore, all three ancients were simultaneously bound and destroyed (by killing each other off) in different parallel universes, with the net effect that all three are defeated due to the machinations of the fourth Ancient, which was effectively using Our Heroes as pawns in these three parallel universes.

Other people should feel free to comment and criticize on my summary; I did my best.


*A kind of radio telescope built of many smaller telescopes.

Dervag
2007-05-23, 08:39 AM
It's not so much about omnipotence as it is not playing by the rules. Being partially third/fourth dimensional (occupying space in a set time frame) doesn't mean they're understandable within the rules of those dimensions. If you exist in a two dimensional concept as a three dimensional being, you might take up part of a two dimensional world... but that's not "All of you" sitting there, it's part of you. It's a flattened representation of you that was patched together by that universe to give its inhabitants some way to observe you.

Cthulhu 'exists' the same way a squid does. But that's not all he is, and everything else he is cannot be comprehended by anything that functions on the laws in this universe.

He's outside our laws. It's not about being a god, isn't about being something alien to even the deities.

If you've got the planar handbook, read the section on the Far Realm for starts.Right. The danger of these entities is not that they are omnipotent (as in 'having the ability to do absolutely everything'). The danger is that they are way more potent than any three-dimensional being can hope to be.

The entire operating premise of Lovecraftian horror, the thing that makes it so horrifying, goes like this:

"Everything you know, everything you can imagine, everything that is even consistent with the principles you know and can imagine, is only a tiny tiny sliver of what's really out there. The universe as you know, with all its complexity and strangeness, is simply a little circle of firelight. It is surrounded by things more complex and more strange than what you know. You don't have enough dimensions to visualize those things. You don't even have notation in which to describe their capabilities.

"Their minds do not work in any sense you can understand; they transcend your intelligence as you transcend the intelligence of a pocket calculator. Their objectives and desires are things you will never comprehend, any more than a pocket calculator can comprehend Shakespeare. And because they are transcendently more intelligent and powerful than you are, if your path or the path of your entire planet crosses them, it will lose. It will have no more say in its fate than a pocket calculator has in a global thermonuclear war.

"They are not necessarily omnipotent, but they are omnipotent as far as you are concerned. Whatever their limits are, those limits exist in a context that you cannot imagine. So the only thing you can do about them is try very, very hard not to be noticed by them. Make sure that your fellow beings do not summon them into the world. If possible, suppress all knowledge that might lead to them being summoned or alerted to your world. Because if they notice you, you are screwed, much as a pocket calculator is screwed when a nuclear missile starts heading its way."

Narmoth
2007-05-23, 10:04 AM
I would let the summoners screw up the summoning, letting some lesser power, not a god or avatar, just some strong demons come through, giving the group the "bad idea" warning. If they then proceed, smash them hard

Valairn
2007-05-23, 12:00 PM
So if there are elder "evils" are the elder "goods" hehe? Cause that might be a solution to the PC's problems.

Gwenfloor
2007-05-23, 12:29 PM
As said before trying to summon Elder Evils is one or more of the above:

1. Evil
2. Aragant
3. Chaotic Stupid

Either way they bit off more then they could chew. Then again it would be cool to have a Elder Evils V.S. Everyone Else battle.

Don't forget hopelessly insane!

Emperor Tippy
2007-05-23, 12:46 PM
So, who feels sad that I figured out how to solo an Elder evil at level 22?

I have only have a .25% chance of failing to kill it before it can act.

And this is with straight wizard 22.

Narmoth
2007-05-23, 12:46 PM
So if there are elder "evils" are the elder "goods" hehe? Cause that might be a solution to the PC's problems.

Divine Granny to the rescue!

Valairn
2007-05-23, 01:09 PM
How about a being so good, so utterly oppossed to evil, but yet so alien and above our reality, that the evils that exist in our reality destroy themselves in its presence. Even to the point of where the very fabric of our grey universe begins to unravel and people just die because of how unerringly good and pure this creature is that the very presence of something that could even be evil is destroyed. Interestingly enough it has the same effect as an elder "evil" and you would never be able to tell the difference. In fact you could even argue that these elder "goods" go out of their way to wipe their name from existence so as not to destroy or harm creatures unintentionally by their presence..... Knowing that lesser parts of the multiverse cannot exist in their presence.

Green Bean
2007-05-23, 01:12 PM
So, who feels sad that I figured out how to solo an Elder evil at level 22?

I have only have a .25% chance of failing to kill it before it can act.

And this is with straight wizard 22.

Well, I couldn't believe it until I read your last sentence. :smallamused:

Emperor Tippy
2007-05-23, 01:18 PM
I was looking at a way to summon the entire Parthenon of gods to come take care of it for me. But the Epic Spell DC got to high.

So I came up with another way.

Dervag
2007-05-23, 01:28 PM
How about a being so good, so utterly oppossed to evil, but yet so alien and above our reality, that the evils that exist in our reality destroy themselves in its presence. Even to the point of where the very fabric of our grey universe begins to unravel and people just die because of how unerringly good and pure this creature is that the very presence of something that could even be evil is destroyed. Interestingly enough it has the same effect as an elder "evil" and you would never be able to tell the difference. In fact you could even argue that these elder "goods" go out of their way to wipe their name from existence so as not to destroy or harm creatures unintentionally by their presence..... Knowing that lesser parts of the multiverse cannot exist in their presence.You know, that's actually a pretty good one.

And as you say, at some point Elder Goods and Elder Evils will become effectively impossible to tell apart...

Remember, the Elder Evils aren't necessarily evil in the sense that we understand evil. The problem is that the morality of their actions is not comprehensible on our level. They do things we would consider evil and that are assuredly evil by the standards of human moral codes, but they're doing them for reasons we are literally unable to evaluate.

By analogy, imagine that pocket calculators are intelligent and that they construct moral rules based on the universe they know. All they understand is arithmetic, so their morality centers on arithmetic ("Thou Shalt Not Divide By Zero!").

Now, would those pocket calculators be able to evaluate whether human actions were right or wrong? We operate on many levels that the pocket calculator literally cannot imagine. For instance, we can assume that pocket calculators don't feel pain because they aren't built for it. If so, they will not be able to understand the concept and will not be able to evaluate the actions human beings take to avoid pain. For instance, most humans would have no qualms about writing a mathematically false statement such as 2+2=5 to avoid pain. To a civilization of pocket calculators, this might be a horribly evil act with no comprehensible purpose behind it. But the reason they would think so is because their context is narrower than our own.

The same principle applies between us and the Elder Evils. We can't tell whether they're being good or evil, because their actions are motivated by purposes we cannot understand.

Valairn
2007-05-23, 01:42 PM
Its things like this that make me love Epic Level Games. Even if they are broken at times.

ChocolateChtulu
2007-05-23, 02:05 PM
I am a long time lurker, first time poster.
Hello all!

In my opinion, this could lead to a memorable campaign.
The party *will* die at the end - frankly, we are speaking of entities which could make the Snarl look like a pansy, and I do not see any other possible outcome.
Your mileage may vary, of course :-)

However, this is not to say that the characters cannot achieve some minor victory through their sacrifice.

Here is what I would suggest:

The players cast the summoning, and a rift in reality opens for a single instant before closing again.
Apparently, nothing happened, and since the summoning required the destruction some magical thingie they cannot repeat it right now (this will be important at the very end).
Priests and paladins receive the message: "You receive a powerful wave of emotions from your deity. At first you think it is displeasure, but then you realize - it is terror. Your god is scared as he has never been before".
Arcane magic users, maybe, could perceive that the "flavour" of the magic seems "off".
The players, can explore and attempt whatever they want, but as soon as they meet other people (e.g., when they return to the nearest city) they notice that everyone looks somehow warped.
For the moment, it is nothing really big: someone's fingers bend in a really strange way, someone else's nose looks a lot like a tentacle under a certain angle... However, it seems that no one -except the party- notices these anomalies: if they inquire, they will discover that, in reality, people do notice the mutations of everyone - except those of themselves and their close friends.
However, everyone is trying not to draw attention to other people's anomalies: from their point of view, almost everyone else is becoming a monster, and there is no telling how they would react if someone pointed this out.
Of course, the players will also realize that (DUN DUN DUN!) they are mutating too.
From this moment on, the world will progressively become more and more corrupted - cue random creepy things, while people try hard not to notice them.
The corruption also influences magic: spells with visual effects should be slowly replaced with equivalent -but far more disturbing- ones (see Spiked Tentacles, and the like).
Soon, the party is approached from a high-level character -I would suggest an ur-priest, for flavor- who berates and mocks them for their "deed", and then opens a portal for the party, saying someone of importance wants to discuss with them.
The players then arrive at a council of the gods - where they learn that the deities themselves are being corrupted by the elder evils!
It seems that their summon actually worked - the elder evils entered the world, and then they immediately closed the portal and left before the could even notice them.
Right now, they are slowly corrupting the world; it is not clear why they are doing this, since they could easily rip it to pieces, but the deities' guess is that they are "cooking" it, preparing it so that it will have a better taste when they will devour it.
The reason why they closed the portal? They did it for keeping the other far realm beings out of the world - the elder evils want to eat this yummy world, and they are not sharing.
Also, the elder evils also do not want people to notice the corruption of the universe until the last moment - they attempted to do so, but their unfamiliarity with mortal minds made it so that people do not notice the corruptions only of themselves and their friends.
There is NO hope for the world: simply put, no being in it is even close to the power of the elder evils, and directly attacking them would be utterly pointless.
However, there is another hope: there are <insert number here> mortals who, somehow, have not being tainted by the elders evils yet.
The party is to find them and bring them to the gods, who will infuse them with their power so that they may create another universe - one that the elder being would have not conquered yet.
Of course, the gods themselves are tainted, and by giving their powers to the mortals some of the corruption will pass through, but hopefully this will not be enough for the elder evils to get a hold of them.
For this purpose, the party will be given access to the deities's armories - they can have a number of extremely powerful artifacts. However, everything is being corrupted, so they should not be surprised if Heironeus's sword starts acting like an aboleth's touch!
Cue a number of quests where the party tries to gather up these mortals - some will come willingly, some will require a bit of diplomacy, and some will just have to be brought by force.
One of them could, in my opinion, be an aboleth who is actually *happy* that the elder evils have come, and who is wondering why they have not given him their "blessings" yet.
During these quests, the party will also learn the location where the elder evils currently reside, and that they are willing to give the party a prize for having summoned them - in their gratitude, they will turn them in full-fledged Far Realm entities and allow them to partake in the devouring of the multiverse should the party come to them!
After the players have found all the untainted mortals, the gods give them most of their powers and they start creating a new universe.
By now, some deities (both Good and Evil ones) have actually become insane, and will try to escape in the new world-in-making.
They must not be allowed to do that, otherwise the corruption will spread to the new world!
Cue war between gods: since all of them have been greatly weakened by the corruption and by the passage of the powers to the mortals, the party can actually contribute - for example, they could battle a crazed, tentacled Pelor who oozes sunlight, or something like that.
After the war is dealt with, the party learns its last task: to personally destroy the world -if this is not done, the elder evils will eventually be able to reach the new world and devour it too.
There is only one way of doing it: they must return to the place of their first summoning and cast the same summon again, creating an even greater rift in the fabric of reality.
Hopefully other, less sophisticated entities will come out of it, and will destroy everything before the elder beings get a chance to figure out how to reach the new world.
The players have two choices: either destroy the world and die horribly with almost everyone else, but knowing that some world will survive, or accept the elder evils' offer, become far realm entities and happily slaughter both worlds.

SilverClawShift
2007-05-23, 02:11 PM
So if there are elder "evils" are the elder "goods" hehe?

Not really, but not for a reason you'd likely guess.

The problem is, the elder 'evils' aren't evil or good in any way we understand. That's the problem to begin with. They're utterly alien to any classifcation we can apply to them.

We CALL them evil, because to us, that's the only word we can use for beings utterly indifferent to our entire universe.

When you get up, and go into the bathroom, and spray clorox disinfectants on your shower floor, you are utterly wiping out the world as it is known from the perspective of bacteria. You're not committing an evil act, you're just cleaning your shower floor. But from the bacteria standpoint, you are evil destruction given physical form, come to end their universe with a sigh cause your floor is starting to get all grungy.

THAT'S what the elder evils are, multiplied by a hundered. It's not that they're 'vicious' or 'cunning' or 'ruthless' or any other evil word you wanna slap on your villain to explain them.

It's that they are completely and utterly not of this world, our existance isn't something they even really notice in any meaningful way. They aren't gods of war, or deities of suffering, or demons who torture for fun. They aren't 'evil' the way a devil is.

They are just something that is so NOT what WE are, there's no other word we can even think to describe them with. Their arrival tears our world apart just by them showing up. Not the physical world of soil and water, the WORLD world, the universe with the laws that everything we know functions by. If they have concepts classified as good or evil (by their own standards of course), it doesn't impact us, and isn't even something we could try to understand, because what they are BREAKS what we are just by showing up.

Valairn
2007-05-23, 02:16 PM
I already addressed this myself Silver. Just a few posts up.

But yes you are absolutely correct.

Oh and Chocolate, that is a most excellent idea.

shadowmage
2007-05-23, 02:16 PM
ChocolateChtulu That is the best suggestion I have seen so far. That is a really cool idea.

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-05-23, 02:28 PM
For a normal human of our world, understanding death-a *simple* by DnD standards concept is impossible. Understanding immortal beings and spirits is well beyond our capabilities.

For the 20th level cleric in Forgotten Realms, understanding death is easy. Just Plane Shift to your deity's home plane. You can see what happens after death there. Understanding your deity is similarly easy-after all you communicate with it with every spell you cast. You can even plane shift to his own domain and speak to him face to face (thuogh he might be angry).

THAT is a huge difference of both perspective and power. The same difference between a calculator and a human mind. A 40th level PC has the strength and capabilities of an entire nation of nonmagical lvl 1 people-perhaps more.

Therefore, the nonmagical, low-level humans in Lovecraftian settings are utterly unable to comprehend the Elder Evils. The 40th level PCs that can survive if they are hit by a nuclear missile and have been traveling in other realities have a good chance to understand them though. Note, however, that even a runt of an Elder Evil like Piscaethces is (or should be) on par with PCs near to 60th level.




BTW, those that want to see an Elder Evil fighting through time and space will not be disappointed. Piscaethces does have some limited capabilities in the matter despite her being quite weak.

Emperor Tippy
2007-05-23, 02:35 PM
Go check the battle thread. I just won Mr. DM. Incidentally that also proves the brokenness of epic fairly handedly.

bosssmiley
2007-05-23, 02:53 PM
So if there are elder "evils" are the elder "goods" hehe? Cause that might be a solution to the PC's problems.

Legends of Avadnu preview (http://www.icirclegames.com/productpreviews.html) - the Lumina. Elder Goods who have eliminated all evil and impurity from their universe, and have now moved onto ours. :smallwink:

Oh, and as for Elder Evils (other than the LoM or CoCd20 ones). How about Upper_Krust's 3rd Ed. take on the matter-hating, pantheon-eating Draeden? A creature so utterly beefcake that its' discarded tentacles mutate into extraplanar creatures that are a cross between anglerfish and epic Astral Dreadnoughts: the CR101 World Flayer (available in original sorcerous or great-tasting psionic).

That little smudge to the left of the picture? Your epic character, to scale

http://www.immortalshandbook.com/Assets/images/Cogent1.JPG

Grey Paladin
2007-05-23, 02:59 PM
I recall running a one-shot at which's end the PCs fought a one dimensional elder evil :smallbiggrin:

Belial_the_Leveler
2007-05-23, 03:11 PM
Kills in theory are all good. In reality, most attempts would not work at all. Even the banishment attempt. THAT is why I insist you actually try any attempts out. You only have your view of events-Piscaethces can plan as well you know.

Emperor Tippy
2007-05-23, 03:12 PM
Gee, what stops banishment?

Nothing that I see the EE possessing. In fact it lists a weakness to Banishment.

FirstAdam
2007-05-23, 03:19 PM
When I hear "Ancient Elder Evil", I think it might be fun to find some fun Base creature (either abberation, or outsider. OR you could use the Abomination section from the Epic Book) and tack on the Epic book version of the Pseudonatural template and the Paragon Template. And since they ARE the monstrosities that they are, please selectively ignore the part where they say "If the base creature has <whatever quality> use the higher version" and just have them stack.

And to quote from the Oots Death knight, LET THE REAPING BEGIN!

Rob Knotts
2007-05-23, 08:10 PM
Gee, what stops banishment?Erasing the caster or magic item from existence as soon as they get close enough to deliver the banishment:smallbiggrin:

Emperor Tippy
2007-05-23, 08:11 PM
That's what the third of a mile range is for.

ThorFluff
2007-05-23, 09:43 PM
How about seeing everyone from Asmodeus and Orcus to Nerull, Kord and Thor and frikking EVERYONE team up to gangbang the ancient evil once its been summoned. Thereafter everyone goes after the stupid Stupid STUPID PCs that summoned it! now that would be an army worth fleeing!
Otherwise the more permanent solution would be to use an epiclvl Planeshifter to lock up the baddie in a Demi-Plane and then having the plane colaps into itself, ofcourse sacrafising the Planeshifter and the demiplane with it. A suitable sacrifise is it not?

Ofcourse as for being heroic, how heroic is it really to summon the big baddies instead of trying to beat them at thier own turf, hopefully destroying the entire Far Realm, ridding the multiverse of its evil influnce forever.
Ofcourse that would be the final battle of any campaign EVER:P

EvilElitest
2007-05-23, 09:54 PM
Just because the players want to do it doesn't mean they should be allowed to.

Opening a free-standing portal to the Far Realms and calling through several beings of Overdeity-esque power that cause people to go insane at the slightest glimpse of them is not something a player character is going to be able to put right. That's Armageddon-style bad.

Oh the other hand, why not? It might work in their world
I mean, we hear all this stuff about the far realm but we never see it at all
from,
EE

Psiwave
2007-05-24, 08:47 AM
This is why I love this board.

I've forwarded the link to the thread to the DM and we've had a chat about it and we have formed the basis for a fun epic campaign (the players unaminously voted to severely limit epic spellcrafting which should make it easier)
The plan is that as they continue with their inadvisable plot they will have to deal with many of their former allies and friends opposing them, and also many of the artifacts and minor rituals they have to deal with will start to have lasting negative effects on the world. As they see the world they once fought for start to twist and dissolve into unreality they will probably start to rethink their strategy and try and undo the damage.
If not they can try and go through with it, but the actual process of summoning will probably bring them to the brink of destruction anyway either way we've got another years worth of gaming material laid out to explore.

Again, Thanks, you guys rock.

Yuki Akuma
2007-05-24, 09:09 AM
Oh the other hand, why not? It might work in their world
I mean, we hear all this stuff about the far realm but we never see it at all
from,
EE

I was under the impression that we were talking about the Elder Evils. If they can be defeated by a mere 20th level mortal, they are not the Elder Evils.

If they can be defeated by a group of four 60th level mortals they're having a serious off day.

Runolfr
2007-05-24, 09:18 AM
Anyway, my not inconsiderable task is to stat out the elder evils. The DM has decided that since the players have been into this campaign for nearly nineteen levels they have earned the right to take it epic if thats what they want. Now reading from Lords of Madness it seems these guys are pretty nasty characters and it'll take some way into the epic before the party stands a hope in hell against them and I think this task is well beyond me.

Well, for starters, I'm assuming you want them to have a Divine Rank of at least 1 (with all the special abilities that go along with it -- I'd personally figure them for Divine Rank 21+ things, though). If I recall my Deities & Demigods correctly (since I don't own it), pretty much every deity has 20 levels of Outsider. Since these are Elder Horrors, I'd be inclined to throw several levels of Aberration in there, too, then stack on some class levels. Encountering just one of these things should make the party wet their pants, even if they can defeat it.

Since they're aboleths, they should all have special mucous effects. I suppose they should have levels of Psion, too, but I've never played with psionics, so that's someone else's territory.


Specifically I need to stat out these guys;

Piscaethces (the blood queen)
a god-like mummy aboleth (not the bandages type, the pinny and flowers kind) loosely baised on Cthulu or Shub-Niggurath

Cleric levels heavy on the Water and Death domains, I would think. Her Aboleth mucous should have Mummy Rot like effects on anyone exposed to it.


Holashner (the hunger below)
tunnelling squidipede with explosive mucous
loosely baised on Shudde M'ell or Tsathoggua

Sounds like you've already chosen some kind of burning slime for this one. It should be physically very powerful, so some Barbarian levels may be in order.


Shothotugg (eater of worlds)
Mountain-sized doom snot.
Loosely baised on Azathoth

I think you're into paralyzing/dissolving slime a la Gelatinous Cubes with this one. I'm not sure what classes to throw in here, as the inspiration, Azathoth, is essentially mindless. Maybe lots of Aberration levels, or just Fighter/Barbarian levels with lots of grappling ability (grab things and real them in to be consumed).


Bolothamogg (him who watches from beyond the stars)
Freaky space force.
Loosely baised on Yog-Sothoth

Wizard levels, I would think, for this one. It sounds very intelligent in an insane and incomprehensible sort of way. Energy draining slime is probably its schtick.

I should probably note that while you could make it feasible for the PCs to defeat one of these elder horrors, actually destroying one should be out of the question. Merely "unsummoning" the thing should be an epic feat in itself, and we assume that they've only gained a tiny fraction of the true horror's attention, anyway.