[3.5] Need a monster suggestion

[Pleh]

Planning a quest for my group next session and I'm fighting writer's block.

Heroes are moral neutral mercenaries (trending CG) at 10th level in a custom Frostfell setup (feels a lot like Skyrim).

They're in the southern province of Ravenwood near the border with the Gnome Gypsy Dunes picking up small local contracts on their way heading eastward towards the coast.

The Sidequest in question was described as a standard missing child scenario. I want to add a couple mystery elements so they have the opportunity to do sone light investigative work and tracking in remote wilderness.

All I've got so far is the idea to pull a Hansel & Gretel arc, but the quest further east on the coast involves hunting a hag in the swamp, so I'm avoiding the Hansel/Gretel Hag solution. My next thought is the Ogre Mage luring kids away to chew on their bones, but I've already used ogres lead by an ogre mage not too long ago. I just want to diversify the cast of monsters before coming back to them.

I thought about Will O Wisps to bring a "Pixar's Brave" element mixed with a "LotR Dead Marshes" vibe (don't follow the lights), but I feel like I'm not sure exactly how much more complex that idea can really go. Seems pretty open shut case, so I just feel like there's 3.5 monsters I'm overlooking here that would fit the bill here.

Any ideas?

[DrMotives]

MM2 has the greenvise, a CR 10 venus flytrap that evil will o' whisps or other naughty fey might have led a lost child to. Kind of like Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors, only with an INT of 3 instead being a plotting, musical mastermind.

[Falontani]

Raggamoffyn page 174 of monster manual 2.
A cold subtype fiend of possession liking for a friend. (Fiend folio)
A slaymate that has kidnapped themself a friend. (Libris mortis)
Apply the lost template to a child (I'd also apply the young template) (magic of incarnum, the young template is from pathfinder)
A mad wizard/artificer using the kid for experiments.
A hungry illithid.
The kid could have developed (read been taken over by) psionic powers
Lycanthrope
Vampire

[Pleh]

Raggamoffyn page 174 of monster manual 2.
A cold subtype fiend of possession liking for a friend. (Fiend folio)
A slaymate that has kidnapped themself a friend. (Libris mortis)
Apply the lost template to a child (I'd also apply the young template) (magic of incarnum, the young template is from pathfinder)
A mad wizard/artificer using the kid for experiments.
A hungry illithid.
The kid could have developed (read been taken over by) psionic powers
Lycanthrope
Vampire

I'm seeing some pieces come together. I'm getting some inspiration from Five Nights and Freddy's now. Mad Wizard "Purple Guy" has been dabbling in Necromancy (but isn't very good at it) and uncovered lost knowledge about Slaymates greatly enhancing a necromancer's spells.

He tries kidnapping small children to create his Slaymate, only to have to flee to another province when his efforts failed to create anything more than zombies. In Ravenwood, he happened to kidnap a child already a victim of neglectful parenting, enabling his magic to successfully transform the child to a Slaymate. He still failed, however, to create a Pairbond with the Slaymate, which was still traumatized by his abuses and bit him. Having only a portion of the knowledge of Slaymates, the Necromancer did not realize the Pale Wasting until he was too weak to fight it. He could not ask anyone for help, as he was branded among the worst of criminals and he eventually Wasted away.

The Slaymate, no longer the child it once was, but possessing bleary memories of its former life, wandered approximately back home, where the Slaymate's former sibling took notice and tried to help, only to be lead into the wilderness and become lost.

Of course, one plot hole I'm looking at there is why one sibling would be so unloved as to qualify to become a Slaymate, while the other so valued that bounties for their rescue could be posted in the Province's primary city several miles away. Clearly a case of favoritism among children, perhaps due to some birth defect (or even gender) one child was seen as lacking the potential to become a successful provider for the family?

The Greenvise would make an excellent "side boss" where they stumble across a dangerous creature in the pursuit of the missing child. The Slaymate itself isn't much of a combat threat to a party of level 10s.

The Raggamofyn itself, in connection to a missing child scenario, would also make a great FNAF call back.

[Segev]

A Slaymate is created by the neglect or betrayal of a guardian (of the parental or parental-substitute sort, not of the bodyguard sort, typically speaking) leading to the death of the child. Given that the posted reward is sufficient to entice adventurers without relying on do-gooder drive, the family involved is probably wealthy. Perhaps wealthy enough to have a nanny for each child.

The slaymate was unfortunate enough to have a greedy and wicked woman as his nanny, and the necromancer paid her handsomely to lead her charge into his clutches. As far as the mystery goes, she disappeared along with the child, and nobody's sure what happened. Rumors suggest bandits, kidnappers, that she went crazy and stole the child as her own and vanished to a far-off land...

That last is closest to true, as the money she was paid is enough to set herself up in another city where she is unknown as a moderately wealthy or at least comfortably middle-class woman. Maybe to found a business she thinks is more profitable than child-minding.

There was a reward for the location of the now-slaymate, as well. The reward has trebled now that both children are missing. Not because the second child was more beloved, but because the parents have gotten even more frantic. Maybe they still have a babe-in-arms who the slaymate didn't come for because the slaymate is calling her brother to come join her and play like they used to, and playing with the baby isn't one of the memories to which she's desperately clinging.

The brother's nanny is guilt-ridden because she doesn't know how he disappeared. But unless the family has driven her off for her failure of duty, she's sharing their grief and is as desperate as they to get him back. Since there's now two of the kids missing, she has shifted from thinking ill of the sister's nanny (whom she rightfully thought was a sneak and bad apple, but couldn't convince anybody about) to believing whatever befell her charge got both the other nanny AND the girl-child. And having thought ill of the dead makes her feel even more guilty. As well as survivor guilt for not having been "gotten" along with her own charge.


For something particularly heart-wrenching, they might find the sister - the slaymate - looking lost and scared. Her brother's gotten sick, possibly from exposure, or from starvation or thirst, or an animal attack. She wouldn't bite him, so it's not Pale Wasting. But if the party hurries, they can find him. If they can follow up by getting him medical treatment - possibly a fetch quest included to get the ingredients for the medicine, or just the medicine itself from a distant/dangerous locale - he'll live...but be forever tainted by necromancy. And he absolutely doesn't want his sister killed! Not after he found her again! He'll fight like, well, a big brother, to defend her if she's attacked.

This gives him the Tomb-Tainted Soul feat and makes him on the path to being a Dread Necromancer if he survives. ;)

[Falontani]

For something particularly heart-wrenching, they might find the sister - the slaymate - looking lost and scared. Her brother's gotten sick, possibly from exposure, or from starvation or thirst, or an animal attack. She wouldn't bite him, so it's not Pale Wasting. But if the party hurries, they can find him. If they can follow up by getting him medical treatment - possibly a fetch quest included to get the ingredients for the medicine, or just the medicine itself from a distant/dangerous locale - he'll live...but be forever tainted by necromancy. And he absolutely doesn't want his sister killed! Not after he found her again! He'll fight like, well, a big brother, to defend her if she's attacked.

This gives him the Tomb-Tainted Soul feat and makes him on the path to being a Dread Necromancer if he survives. ;)

Wereanimal bite, perhaps they can't recognize it as the beginning stages of lycanthropy, and he's on his way to becoming a lycanthrope dread necromancer

[Pleh]

The Nanny is likely also a relative, like an Aunt or Cousin, partially motivated in her part of the kidnapping by some repressed jealousy of her family who has more money and more success at love and childbearing, while she seems doomed to live alone in service to the more blessed side of the family. Nanny is all she'll ever be.

It isn't hard for the Necromancer to play on these emotions to fool her into taking the child into a remote area, where he doesn't even need to pay her anymore when he can attack her with a posse of zombies and get the child from her without having to pay a cent.

With the body consumed by zombie hunger, there is no trace as to where the Nanny and/or child went besides a trail that seems to end with spots of blood scattered around everywhere. Both are presumed killed by large local predators (the party has already had to fight off a local Razorboar attack on a road a few miles from here), hence why the first child did not have a bounty posted for their safe return. There was substantial reason to believe they were already dead (which, in a way, they were). Not that there wasn't ANY more searching for the nanny or child, but that there wasn't anything more to go on.

Naturally, the other child, seeing what looks like the pale figure of their lost sibling wandering back home under the light of the moon, rushes out to meet them, only to find themselves chasing the Slaymate deeper and deeper into Ravenwood forest.

From there, I only have to fill the gap about what happens to the children past this point and figure out what trail of clues will lead the party to the Necromancer's lair so they can piece all this stuff together.

[Segev]

I think it's important that the nanny be seen by the soon-to-be slaymate to be betraying her, though. So maybe pay her and have the nanny hand over the child, THEN have the zombies attack. The betrayal is the key ritual component to the Slaymate's creation, after all.

As for what's been going on, either they're both lost kids in the woods (with the brother possibly having realized something's wrong with his sister, but still being more worried for than afraid of her), or the girl leads him back to the necromancer's lair.

Either way, the Slaymate's trail back to town where she met up with her brother would provide something the party could backtrack to the necromancer's lair. For two more clues, there's the zombie tracks rather than beast tracks at the site of the nanny's murder, and any trail from the necromancer's lair to there... and maybe the Nanny's body can be discovered with appropriate searching and she had a note detailing a time and place. Probably nothing more incriminating than that, but...it's a start.

If the brother's ill state has him curled up in the necromancer's lair, where his sister was trying to take care of him, she could actually lead a party that promises to help him get better to him, too.

[Calthropstu]

Rather than go the "normal" route, I would do something completely unexpected.

They find snake-like tracks along the way looking like it is upright. At first the party should come to the conclusion that it is yuan-ti or lamias. The culprit is actually a chaotic good outsider who saw the lost child crying and decided to make him happy.

The child was lost and unable to tell her where he was supposed to go, so she took him to her place and figured the parents would come looking for him.
She was going to wait one more day before flying around looking for villiages in the area, but since the pc's are already there...

On the way back, they're attacked by bears. Because murder hobos.

[Goaty14]

They find snake-like tracks along the way looking like it is upright. At first the party should come to the conclusion that it is yuan-ti or lamias. The culprit is actually a chaotic good outsider who saw the lost child crying and decided to make him happy.

You mean a lilend?

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

A Spirit Naga out of the core Monster Manual has used its Charming Gaze to befriend children and convince them to run away and live with it. Those children lure other children into the wilderness, who are also charmed by the naga. It occasionally eats one of the children where the others won't see, and tells the rest that a grown-up found them and took them away to force them to do chores.

The children will try to run away from any adults, including the PCs, and will try to hide as they flee to not lure them back to its lair. Eventually the PCs will track them down to a ruined tower, where the children try to get between the party and the naga and hinder them from defeating it, as they believe it's their friend and protector.

I'd increase the Naga to CR 12 with Sorcerer 10 casting, probably by adding Mindbender 1 and then Thaumaturgist 2. A Spirit Naga can learn Cleric spells as Sorcerer spells, so it can have Lesser Planar Ally for some backup. The PCs may encounter a Greater Barghest as they try to track down the disappeared children, it wasn't greater when she summoned it but it ate too many children and the naga sent it away. There may be a Succubus masquerading as a mother looking for her lost child, who will ask to travel with the party in their search and turn on them once they engage its master.

The Spirit Naga should keep Ability Focus: Charming Gaze, and it has Eschew Materials as a bonus feat. I'd give it Improved Initiative, Spell Focus: Conjuration, Cloudy Conjuration, and Mindsight. It automatically gets the elite array for having class levels, dump Wis and Str, and put the highest stats in Cha and Dex, it also gets a +1 for its 12th HD. Be sure to give it the skill prerequisites for Mindbender.

Its spells need to include Charm Person (1st) and Lesser Planar Ally (4th). As a Sorcerer 10 it gets 9/4/4/3/1/1 more spells known, I'd also give it Greater Invisibility (4th), Darkness (2nd), Wings of Cover (2nd), and Silence (2nd). It can cast Silence and Darkness on several stones and have some of the children carrying them, once the fight begins the children can use those to disrupt the attackers. Arc of Lightning is probably the best 5th level choice for dealing damage, give it Slow, Stinking Cloud, Summon Undead III, Levitate, Web, Power Word: Pain, Benign Transposition (it can swap places with a child), Mage Armor, and Shield. Maybe swap Cloudy Conjuration for Storm Bolt or another reserve feat.

It may need some magic items, I'd probably include things the PCs can use. A Circlet of Rapid Casting is extremely useful, a lesser metamagic rod (Extend for Power Word: Pain) can really help, a Third Eye: Clarity can save it from being a short fight.

Tactics: It will have plenty of children watching out for it and distracting any intruders, so it will know several rounds before the PCs arrive. It will put Silence on a stone and Darkness on another stone and give them to separate children and have them hide flanking the entrance, the stones can be covered to block their effects temporarily. It will buff itself with Shield, Mage Armor, and Greater Invisibility. There will be a few children told to climb up to some perches so it can use Benign Transposition to position itself there when needed. The Naga will always use telepathy to communicate with the children.

The party will find the children huddled near one side of the room as they approach down a hallway, if the Succubus is with them she'll be hanging back a bit. The Naga will start by using Arc of Lightning while they're all lined up, and then Stinking Cloud or Web. When they try to move in the children with the Silence and Darkness rocks will come out and try to disrupt them, and the other children will move forward to try to block them from approaching, telling them to go away and don't hurt her. The Succubus will wait a round or two doing nothing but staying close, then grab the person furthest back and try to make out with them. If the Naga manages to trap most of them she'll summon an ogre zombie or troll skeleton to further block them from approaching, then continue damaging anyone that comes into view. Her goal isn't necessarily to kill them, but to drive them away and discourage them from returning.