What are the towers

[Skrum]

For my upcoming adventure, the players will be helping some orcs. The orcs were displaced from their village by a Umbrella Corp-inspired Evil Lab that is experimenting on the local gnoll population.

My thought here is to have the players find three towers/antenna things that are doing something (giving off a signal to control the gnolls, maybe?), spread around the valley. Ideally, I want the destruction of these three things to lead to the main lab being thrown into chaos, thus opening it up to be invaded and ultimately destroyed.

But, the format we play in is going to make it difficult. I don't want all three to be destroyed in one session, but sessions don't run back to back. It could be in-game weeks before players come back to the valley, which leaves me in the predicament of They Would Just Be Rebuilt.

Any suggestions? I'm not wedded most of what I described; it's just the outline I've thought of so far. The idea though is that the players have several objectives to complete, at the end of which the main lab is exposed/destabilized.

[Pauly]

1) They are observation towers. Used primarily to keep the gnolls under supervision but provide warnings against intruders as well.

2) neck bomb network. If the gnolls move outside the triangle they have a neck bomb or magical equivalent give them an explosive haircut.

3) demon summoning (yawn).

4) protective fence. Keeps the gnolls out. The gnolls know what is happening to them and don’t like it, so they try to break umbrella corp’s control. Can be used as a variant of (2). Umbrella corp is using neck bombs to force the gnolls into compliance and go out raiding etc. and the towers are to protect them in their facility.

[Vahnavoi]

So how big are these towers, how far apart are they and how far the overall installation is from supply lines of the Evil Corps?

For example, if they are communications towers:

- destruction of one will prevent signals from that direction from reaching the other towers / main compound

- someone from he closest supply depot will have to travel to the tower to find out what's wrong and fix it if the local crew is indisposed

- fixing the damage doesn't have to be trivial. If distances are great and damage dealt is extensive, repairs might take weeks, months or even years.

- the main compound will have to deal with missed messages and alternative means of communication while a tower is down

Another classic example of towers of critical importance would be lighthouses. Even a temporary malfunction in a beacon light might cause a shipwreck, leading to loss of important cargo.

[Skrum]

Cool, these are good ideas.

I think I'm going to go in a slightly different direction though - I think I'll do one tower, and the point of the tower is controlling the gnolls. When the tower is destroyed, the gnolls will be freed from direct control, but since they've also been mutated and modified, they will still be hostile to any non-gnolls. So the valley will still be very dangerous, but Evil Corp won't be getting information from the gnolls.

So, this adventure will be destroying the tower.

Second adventure will be...something else lol. Maybe curing/neutralizing the gnolls so the valley is passable. I like this, because the players are supposed to be helping the orcs that used to live there.

Third adventure will be about exposing Evil Corp to incursion. The facility is going to be massive, so I think I'll have the players venture a short distance in, destroy something of importance, and that sets off a chain reaction that destabilizes the facility and causes its destruction.

The order of the second and third doesn't really matter, I'll let the players decide what order they want to do it in.

[Bohandas]

Perhaps they mark the endpoints of some magical glyph formed by the other architecture between them

[Jarawara]

Consider having more than one tower, each controlling the Gnolls within a range around the tower, protecting a facility there.

This allows the players to see the effect of destroying the towers. Down goes a tower, Gnolls go on rampage, destroying the facility. Motivation to destroy the remaining towers!

Of course, for storyline purposes, only the main facility is key, and it has enough defenses to keep the Gnolls out on it's own, allowing for a "destroy the last (or 'key') tower, then raid the facility to resolve the threat".

This also allows for a potential of a player alliance with the Gnolls to raid the main facility... but of course, the Gnolls are still a threat to the region, so maybe destroying the Gnolls first is the right thing to do. Player agency! Who do you perceive as the greater threat, the Umbrella corporation, or the Gnoll army they have assembled. Free the Gnolls, destroy the corporation, but then the Gnolls still remain? Destroy the Gnolls, but does the corporation go underground and return as a villain later in the campaign? Or go all in, and commit to a seek and destroy of everything all at once, possibly after playing them off against each other? Time for maximum effort!

*~*~*

I had a similar situation in my game once, long ago. I was running an adventure where there were 3 witches casting a spell, party had to dig deep into the ruins to find them and disrupt the spell and end the curse. The adventure works, but it didn't have a lot of battle to it, especially since the party was large, so I added a quickie to it. A tribe of Gnolls were seeking treasure and decided to dig through the old ruins. I figured a nice mass battle would be a good start to the game before the slower pace of hunt and poke and search began.

Players saw the Gnolls first, I figured this was their chance to perform an ambush and get the surprise... but then they surprised me by approaching them and offering an alliance. Combine forces and split the returns. And so a 90+ member party plowed through my carefully designed "quiet" adventure, mashing everything with sheer force of numbers.

One of the PC's made a long term alliance with the Gnolls, using the ruins as a new training facility, and to this day Nic and the Knights of Grey are still a highly revered (and highly paid!) mercenary force for hire in my campaign world.

[Skrum]

Consider having more than one tower, each controlling the Gnolls within a range around the tower, protecting a facility there.

This allows the players to see the effect of destroying the towers. Down goes a tower, Gnolls go on rampage, destroying the facility. Motivation to destroy the remaining towers!

Of course, for storyline purposes, only the main facility is key, and it has enough defenses to keep the Gnolls out on it's own, allowing for a "destroy the last (or 'key') tower, then raid the facility to resolve the threat".

This also allows for a potential of a player alliance with the Gnolls to raid the main facility... but of course, the Gnolls are still a threat to the region, so maybe destroying the Gnolls first is the right thing to do. Player agency! Who do you perceive as the greater threat, the Umbrella corporation, or the Gnoll army they have assembled. Free the Gnolls, destroy the corporation, but then the Gnolls still remain? Destroy the Gnolls, but does the corporation go underground and return as a villain later in the campaign? Or go all in, and commit to a seek and destroy of everything all at once, possibly after playing them off against each other? Time for maximum effort!

*~*~*

I had a similar situation in my game once, long ago. I was running an adventure where there were 3 witches casting a spell, party had to dig deep into the ruins to find them and disrupt the spell and end the curse. The adventure works, but it didn't have a lot of battle to it, especially since the party was large, so I added a quickie to it. A tribe of Gnolls were seeking treasure and decided to dig through the old ruins. I figured a nice mass battle would be a good start to the game before the slower pace of hunt and poke and search began.

Players saw the Gnolls first, I figured this was their chance to perform an ambush and get the surprise... but then they surprised me by approaching them and offering an alliance. Combine forces and split the returns. And so a 90+ member party plowed through my carefully designed "quiet" adventure, mashing everything with sheer force of numbers.

One of the PC's made a long term alliance with the Gnolls, using the ruins as a new training facility, and to this day Nic and the Knights of Grey are still a highly revered (and highly paid!) mercenary force for hire in my campaign world.

Oh this is great! This is basically what I wanted to do originally, but I couldn't find the explanation to make it work. But yeah, if the gnolls go rampaging, maybe the tower can't so easily be rebuilt. That works really well. The size of the valley is good for it too, I think; it's about 12 miles across. So if each tower covers ~4 mile radius, that checks out pretty well.

[Psyren]

The towers put out a docility / Calm Emotions type of signal. It's the only way Not-Umbrella can control their supermutant orcs and gnolls, and the signal is keyed to their collars.

Once destroyed, the towers no longer put out the signal and the creatures run rampant. The PCs arrive at a scene of unparalleled carnage.

[ArcanaGuy]

I really like Jarawara's suggestion.

On top of that, I'd recommend that the 'outer facilities' each have a key component in the defense of the main facility.

For instance, 5e terms - once you figure out the final facility's three 'Lair Actions' - each of the outer facilities which is destroyed will disable one of the lair actions.

System-independent terms...

Perhaps one of the outer facilities is a training facility for their security force. If you take it out, the main facility can't call reinforcements. If you don't, then the main facility *can* call reinforcements once the group is there. Additionally, since there's a long period of time between sessions, and rebuilding stuff takes a long time, that means the planned training schedule has been disrupted and main facility guards needed to be relocated to the rebuilding of the training facility - and if you killed the head of the training facility, then one named NPC which would have been a challenging fight is not at the main facility because he had to go pick up the training responsibilities.

Each satellite facility should have a different 'resource' for the main facility. And if destroyed or left alone, that makes things easier/harder on the group in some way when assaulting the main facility. I'd need to know what sort of experiments were being done to pull some other ideas for resources out of the air.

[Jay R]

If you want the towers not to be re-built from one session to the next, there are several options:

1. Destroying the towers has an immediate effect that rebuilding them can't undo (as Jarawara suggested). Perhaps each tower contains a captured demon that, once freed, will prevent a new tower from being built.
2. Building them requires a rare or expensive or hard-to-find component, like xps, 1,000 lbs of mithral, etc.
3. Building them requires more time than passes from session to session. Remember that the rebels destroyed the second death star before it was finished, two movies after they destroyed the first one.
4. Using the towers takes more time than passes from session to session. Each tower contains a group conducting a months-long ritual.

[MrStabby]

The towers provide air or otherwise hedge out a noxious atmosphere. A tower going down quickly renders the area inhospitible to life and rebuilding is then a logistical nightmare to get workers protected.

Towers will be rebuilt, just not in the timeframe of the gap between sessions.

Destruction of a tower will drive those in itse shelter to other towers or underground... some will make it, some will die.

If you destroy a tower, you need to have a plan to quickly get to safety afterwards.

Destroying he last tower will flood the main base with refugees and allow infiltration in the chaos.

[Clistenes]

Steal a page from Magi, Labyrinth of Magic: The towers amplify the powers of Arcane casters, allowing to Dominate all the non-humans within a radius of many miles, so they can be used as slave labor. Each tower is powered by a brainwashed, heavily indoctrinated, young, low level arcane caster who is strapped to the mechanism and used as just another piece until they burn out and die...

[gijoemike]

how about this.

The towers are planer shield generators that keep the demons out or prevent teleports of some sort. They are the one thing that allow this whole experiment to even take place.
Maybe the magic that is being used to control the gnolls is loosely derived from a demonic thrall technique. Must keep the demons out to steal their technique. Also this will explain why this only takes place in this one area.

Once the towers are offline other demons can be summoned or just wonder into into the main HQ because of the strong magical connection to the lower realms. Perhaps even Gnolls suddenly turn on their comrades as they are invading based on how long they were under the influence?

The workers in the HQ have to fight off the gnolls and PCs coming in the front down but are also trying to suppress the demon uprising from the lower levels. I am one of those players that like a late introduction of a 3rd party adversary, but I will acknowledge this can rub some players the wrong way.

[Jay R]

Each tower has a large gem that is being used as a focus for some sort of magical energy.

I promise you that the PCs will steal the gem.

[Shinizak]

The towers weren't made by this organization, they just had properties that made controlling the gnolls easier, this, they can't be rebuilt.

Their ACTUAL function is much more important, and serves as a lynch pin to a much larger aspect of the valley.

What is that function?
Maybe there's a naturally occurring bug population being kept in check via mind control waves from the towers, each tower makes the insects more and more destructive.

The towers are distant communication relays for a distant city. Destroying them sends a taskforce (that's unfriendly) to both the party and the gnoll masters.

The are inconsequential, but they ARE mind controlling the gnolls, who are difficult to mind control at the best of times. Without all three their actions slowly become more erratic, and the people controlling them can't spare enough manpower to put out the metaphorical (and literal) fires.

[CapnWildefyr]

This is probably too late, but the towers can each control something different. One manipulates fear, one manipulates perception, one manipulates rage or hunger or whatever. Also, this is magic. The rituals needed involve time and timing, and the effects have to be attuned to each other. If they lose fear it can take a while to substitute changed perceptions and anger for it, etc, so there can be an immediate impact. Then their control, once re-established, wouldnt be quite the same either.

[MrStabby]

This is probably too late, but the towers can each control something different. One manipulates fear, one manipulates perception, one manipulates rage or hunger or whatever. Also, this is magic. The rituals needed involve time and timing, and the effects have to be attuned to each other. If they lose fear it can take a while to substitute changed perceptions and anger for it, etc, so there can be an immediate impact. Then their control, once re-established, wouldnt be quite the same either.

Magic? When I read the OP I had assumed it was a Sci-fi setting.

[CapnWildefyr]

Magic? When I read the OP I had assumed it was a Sci-fi setting.

Sorry, habit. Whenever I see gnolls etc, my brain goes (add zombie voiceover) "D and D, D and D." Concept still could work regardless. More towers = more range, or more towers = more control coverage, or more towers = more different emotions/perceptions controlled (my concept).