Need escaped monster from Wizard Academy

[Gnaritas]

For my upcoming campaign i am looking for a monster that escaped from a Wizard Academy. The Academy is in a large city, and what i would like is if the party happens to visit the city before going straight to the adacemy they might have already gotten hints what is happening.

What i have now is a Frost Worm. Parts of the city (just a street) has become quite cold (because the Worm is underneath), water on the street has frozen, kids are iceskating. Maybe people got stunned by his sound-attack.
But i was wondering if someone can come up with a better idea.

Also, since i am on the subject of the Wizard Academy, what else can i do with it? It's a sandbox-campaign and i want to give the party lots of quests/leads so they can choose what to follow. They might not even visit the city at all, however unlikely, it's one of the 100 villages/cities in the box.
What i have now:
- The escaped monster part above.
- A spellcaster within the party can try to become a teacher for a few days as a favor
- A student is missing, what happened? (haven't got a plan for this yet)
- I want some kind of portal there to go to a different place (also haven't worked this out yet, why aren't the wizards going in themselves? did the first group die?) Or maybe the party is asked to escort a group of investigators (wizards) to investigate a weird phenomenom, which turns out to be the portal in the end.

[Quertus]

How would a frost Wyrm avoid Divinations? Because it sounds to me like something Wizards wouldn't just shrug at its escape and let wander.

2e had the Broken Ones, humanoids stitched together from animal parts (or something). They could regenerate, occasionally had other special abilities, and could make an interesting service caste.

IIRC, even earlier editions had beings maybe called Notions. IIRC, they were flying strings of emotions. Perhaps have a festival, where Notions of Happiness are released into the crowd, where children are holding Gas Spores on strings, and adults are attended by their Broken One manservants.

[Trandir]

Make a something half-golem preerrata. Those things burn with hatred for the fleshlings and are immune to magic.

[Asmotherion]

Eventhough just about anything is legit to pop out of a Wizard academy here are a few suggestions:

-Something that can be identified with Arcana (and thus used as study material for this). A Dragon or Magical Beast could have been captured to study or a Construct somehow gaining sentience.

-A failed Planar Binding resulting in some Evil Outsider escaping; He's already possesing the original caster (investigation is needed to find out).

-A Necromancer recently died and his creations that were under his control are now loose in the city (even better with haunting shift). Btw the Necromancer didn't actually die (not literally at least) but turned himself into a Lich and is orchistrating the chaos in the city to gain more minions.

[Calthropstu]

Dragons are always fun.
But I think something intelligent and feral, something that will threaten a mid lvl mage in close quarters, should be it.

A bebilith would be a good choice.
A worm that walks from pf would be a nice litte creep factor.
An undead with intelligence would work.
A slaad (or protean in pf) would be interesting.
An intelligent construct seeking freedom would be a nice moral quandry.

[False God]

One of the failed students, turned into an experiment by his compatriots. Intelligent enough to avoid detection, magical enough to be dangerous beyond "rampaging monster", enough focused anger to be a threat to not just others, but the wizard school.

Perhaps this missing student was sent through a portal which lead to the far realms or something that warped his body and mind and ya know, made him more powerful and dangerous.

The spellcaster in the party who can "become a teacher" is able to get inside knowledge to find out the wizards are hiding some dark secrets.

If the "frosty effects" you describe aren't set in stone, some effects from a creature afflicted by the far realm might be: localized madness(aggressive animals first, then people), random reality anomalies (gravity/time not working properly), strange mutations in plants>animals>people (in that order), and of course, drawing the attention of other far-realm creatures.

[Asmotherion]

Dragons are always fun.
But I think something intelligent and feral, something that will threaten a mid lvl mage in close quarters, should be it.

A bebilith would be a good choice.
A worm that walks from pf would be a nice litte creep factor.
An undead with intelligence would work.
A slaad (or protean in pf) would be interesting.
An intelligent construct seeking freedom would be a nice moral quandry.

Well considering Dragons are Sorcerers of a CL determined by their age category (and have access to the entire Cleric List and some Domains as well being a bonus) and more intelligent/wise/charismatic than the average humanoid caster they certainly quallyfy as a threat to wizards and society at large. Red dragon necromancer bent on revenge to his captors is a scary idea indeed.

Just sayin...

[Vaern]

In the Discworld series it's often mentioned that large concentrations of magic warp the fabric of reality and stretch it thin to the point that "Things" can slip through from the other side, or in some cases someone might be in danger of slipping through to their side and end up stuck in the Dungeon Dimensions.
The descriptions of the Things of the Dungeon Dimensions sounds much like aberrations of the Far Realm. If you apply this same kind of flavor to your university, it may be possible to tie all of your plot hooks to a single event.
One of the teachers has been practicing some particularly powerful magic. Maybe he was toying around with Secret Chest, trying to create a more advanced version that doesn't come with a built-in risk of losing its inventory over time. His repeated breaching of planar boundaries in his lab resulted in a soft spot between worlds, allowing a beholder to slip through and pulling him to the other side in its place... leaving his spellbook behind, open to a page containing the spell he was attempting to modify on one of the tables.
Now your situation is as follows: A beholder is loose in the city. The wizards are afraid to confront it due to the antimagic effect of its main eye. The teacher is missing and not only needs rescuing, but also had a class that needs a substitute teacher for a while. The other teachers have set up a device in the most teachers lab to open up a planar portal, attuning it to the planar soft spot and opening the doorway to the Far Realm.
According to Discworld lore, the Things of the Dungeon Dimensions are attracted to and feed on magical energy. Wizards are absolutely terrified of them. This may not be the case in your world, but the wizards may come to believe something similar - day magic doesn't affect the denizens of the Car Realm - due to their previous encounter with the beholder and its antimagic. They need someone to go through and bring back the lost wizard, if he's even still alive, but they are all afraid to go themselves.

[DrMotives]

The Discworld Dungeon Dimensions are much like the space between dimensions in the Dark Tower series. In DT, there are "thinnies", or a weather-like effect when barriers between planes becomes thin. They tend to have strange winds, strange gravity, and can let in creatures from between dimensions, who are very far-realm like. One in example was somewhat like a gigantic centipede, but with a definite far-realms aberration feel to it.

[Gnaritas]

Sorry for the late response, thanks for all the replies, they help a lot.



If you apply this same kind of flavor to your university, it may be possible to tie all of your plot hooks to a single event.


I like this idea, i might not use a beholder (i already have one in a different location in this world), but this single event leading to several plot hooks is ideal. Thanks!

I am thinking a Rakshasa might work. They have a very high SR making it a hard opponent for wizards, and it might be able to get around the city easier with Change Shape and a high Bluff and Disguise.

[Bronk]

How about more than one monster? Say they had a whole menagerie of random monsters of all different CRs, some or all of which have been experimented on. Believing their wards or whatever to be safe and foolproof, the mages assign their apprentices to take care of things in there, and somehow they bungled it (which would be how even the weaker monsters escaped). Now there are all sorts of things hiding out, some better at hiding than others, and the various experiments performed on the monsters have made them hard to detect magically and a bit unique.

[Calthropstu]

How about more than one monster? Say they had a whole menagerie of random monsters of all different CRs, some or all of which have been experimented on. Believing their wards or whatever to be safe and foolproof, the mages assign their apprentices to take care of things in there, and somehow they bungled it (which would be how even the weaker monsters escaped). Now there are all sorts of things hiding out, some better at hiding than others, and the various experiments performed on the monsters have made them hard to detect magically and a bit unique.

Ooh ooh and they could have been using the creatures as an experiment to try and cure some deadly disease...

wait a secomd....

[zlefin]

other sandboxy options:
Finding miscellaneous difficult ingredients.
being test/practice subjects.
escaped small stealthy monsters (easy to beat, hard to find)