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SilverClawShift
2007-12-14, 07:08 PM
My group is experiencing a temporary crisis. Our DM is going away on vacation for the holidays, and won't be back till mid January. This is a tragedy, as our DM is solid gold.
Like all good addicts, we're searching out alternate ways to get our fix. We can't wait a full month to play D&D again, that'd just turn ugly fast. Lacking a realistic solution (stowing away in our DMs bags came up. I wish I was joking) we've decided to settle on the substitute-teacher.

Problem is, I'm the sub. I'm the only one of our group who's had any experience DMing at all (it was only a few times back when all of us, our DM included, were new, but I'm still the only one), so I'm going to be the DM for the next 4 weeks or so.
I don't think I'll ever be able to compete with our real DM, but all hope isn't abandoned. One of the players (one of the better actors of our group in fact) is going to help me out by being my in-house NPC. Instead of playing a character, he's going to play ALL the OTHER characters, and battlefield duties will be divided up between us. We anticipate that to work well for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being two seperate minds controlling the monsters lending to more varied tactics when it comes to the fights themselves.
But still, the story and idea-forging is all on my head, and we start soon.
As I said, I can't compete with our main DM, but I DO want to give everyone at least a memorable experience. Something worth playing as more than a gap-filler.
To that end, I've decided on one primary objective for the festivities.

Wow them with Science.

In the classic mad-science sense of the term, that is.
Every pitch I throw at them is going to be a curveball, right out of the gate. We're going to open up in a small series of adjacent towns experiencing a myriad of small-town problems for adventurers. This is going to be a soft opening. The problems are going to be reasonable for low-level adventurers to overcome, and are going to lead back to a problem the Fey have with the towns themselves. The menu of adventuring will comprise of politicla and social concerns, fairies and pixies and such. There will be a unicorn at one point.
Then, when I've lulled them into thinking the next month is going to be a decidedly girly adventure?

Boom

Vampire Kobolds!

The rest of the adventure will be a fire-sale of insanity, Templates That Should Not Be Stacked(tm) on top of Monsters That Should Not Exist(tm). If they map the towns like they should, they'll realize the entire community is in the form of one giant arcane symbol. if they don't map the town, I'm going to have to make them climb the nearby mountain so they can look down and see the symbol firsthand.
The symbol will be on top of what they'll discover is called simply "The Maze". A labyrinth of sickening scale and depth leading down to a circular chamber, full of ancient arcane 'machinery' being tended to by a funky race of goblins (who are in a perpetual internal war with gremlins, which will be a home-brewed monster).
The chamber will be ringed with puzzle-doors, each one leading to a seperate demi-plane, each demi-plane hosting a unique threat to each other one, and consequently to the world at large.

Throughout the course of things, the chief goblin tending the machinery (named 'wratch' of course) will end up revealing that this is, quite literally, the "Blue Room" of the universe. The machinery and puzzles herein are designed singularily to sniff out and open portals to threats to the world (more specifically, to planar cohesion among the core grouping of planes that we consider the universe).

Essentially a great reason for me to smack the players with a series of otherwise unconnected monsters and horrors one after the other after the other until they're out of breath.

The gremlins are fey creatures, the fey are ticked at the goblins because their machinery, however seemingly important, functions by being an affront to nature itself.

Wratch is actually a low-level deity...

Because the machinery and puzzles have a secondary purpose, sealing a weak-spot between the natural world and the far realm.

Because the BiggestBaddestEvilestGuy is going to be a pseudonatural dragon thing. With tentacles.

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

************************************

That's a whole lot of talking to get to my point. I've got vampire kobolds, psuedonatural dragons leading a mish-mosh of templated mindflayers, goblins & gremlins, Undead Driders with a spider queen, and a heap of other 'shouldn't exist' type things.
The campaign's going to have a 1920's sci-fi feel to it, though placed firmly in fantasy. The glass-tube, electrical-arcs, potions of colored liquid kind of frankenstein science.

So the point of the thread is, I could use some ideas. We're going to have a good number of sessions, we're going to level up rapidly (video game style) and wind up going epic in the end. The more baddies, maddies, insanities and profanities I have lined up and statted away in my notes, the smoother this should go.
At the bare minmum, this isn't going to be a forgettable series of adventures.

So, if you, (and thank you for reading this far, by the way), have any ideas stored away in the dark corners of your minds? Things that would be better of not seeing the light of day? Things you haven't really paraded out because they're better off locked in a cellar with mithral chains on the door?

Well, in this thread? Post em if you got em :smallbiggrin:

And thank you :)

http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x284/SilverClawShift/forscience.jpg

Oeryn
2007-12-14, 07:17 PM
I don't have anything to add, because it's the end of a long day at the end of a long week, and my brain is fried. But I just wanted to say that sounds like a blast. Have fun with it!

Xefas
2007-12-14, 07:24 PM
How about Winged Insectile Trolls of Legend. Get the "Spell Turning" bit on the Monster of Legend template, so that damage spells just bounce off of it, meaning the PCs have to do their fire/acid damage via alchemical items or weapon enhancement.

Also they're giant regenerating bug creatures, which is kinda strange.

Templates from Savage Species and Monster Manual (III, I think).

SurlySeraph
2007-12-14, 07:29 PM
Homebrew up a bit of an alchemy system. I don't mean alchemy as in acid flasks and alchemist's fire; I mean alchemy as in "if your animal companion drinks this, it gets tentacles." Also include offensive chemicals, like paralytic agents, blindness-inducing spray, and Horror-From-Beyond-B-Gone Spray (tm). If there's anything ickier than a mass of tentacles trying to kill you, it's that mass of tentacles writhing and squealing in pain as the powder you threw on it shrivels it up.

Have various electrical weapons, magical and technological. Lightning guns, stun batons, and suchlike.

Think up a puzzle using giant magnets, where the party has to turn them the right way to open up a path where they won't get pulled up against the magnets by their gear and trapped. This would fit well as the containment system for one of the planes, incidentally.

Sounds like a pretty awesome idea. Luring them into a false sense of complacency FTW!

SilverClawShift
2007-12-14, 07:30 PM
I don't have anything to add, because it's the end of a long day at the end of a long week, and my brain is fried. But I just wanted to say that sounds like a blast. Have fun with it!

We'll certainly try :smallbiggrin:


How about Winged Insectile Trolls of Legend.

Perfect! Legendary Bug-Trolls with fly wings. I'll stick em with the undead driders and make an insectoid hive of DOOM be one of the demiplanes.

Callos_DeTerran
2007-12-14, 07:35 PM
Hmmm...I think I have a couple of ideas squirreled away in the back of my brain that I can't use with my IRL group or on this forum. I'll see what I come up with. *salutes*

SilverClawShift
2007-12-14, 07:41 PM
Homebrew up a bit of an alchemy system. I don't mean alchemy as in acid flasks and alchemist's fire; I mean alchemy as in "if your animal companion drinks this, it gets tentacles." Also include offensive chemicals, like paralytic agents, blindness-inducing spray, and Horror-From-Beyond-B-Gone Spray (tm).

That's just a good idea in general, not for this campaign :smallbiggrin:


Have various electrical weapons, magical and technological. Lightning guns, stun batons, and suchlike.

"Bolts of Lightning" is one of our groups favorite ranged weapons. Usually at least one person in the group carrying a crossbow or hand crossbow after we find a few of those :smallamused:


Think up a puzzle using giant magnets,

*Snip*

This would fit well as the containment system for one of the planes, incidentally.

Good idea. And gives >ME< an idea. I can do something with constructs... maybe the opposite of inevitables. Chaoticables :smalltongue:. Basically mechanical demons.


I'll see what I come up with.

Look forward to it :smallsmile:

Xefas
2007-12-14, 07:48 PM
Good idea. And gives >ME< an idea. I can do something with constructs... maybe the opposite of inevitables. Chaoticables :smalltongue:. Basically mechanical demons.


Wouldn't the opposite of Inevitables be "Impossibles" or "Nevers" or "Not At All Likely to Happen -ians".

Also, I'm glad you like my idea :smallbiggrin:

Sanzh
2007-12-14, 07:52 PM
Perfect! Legendary Bug-Trolls with fly wings. I'll stick em with the undead driders and make an insectoid hive of DOOM be one of the demiplanes.
If you do that, be sure and have Half-Farspawn Ettercaps. No flight, but still. Combining tentacles and insects.

Sstoopidtallkid
2007-12-14, 08:33 PM
Have at least one mage with 10 levels in the Alienist PrC from Complete Arcane. With the Draconic Familiar feat from the Draconomicon. Have an order of Lawful Crazy monks whose temple was underground there first and the rest of the area sprung up around it, and they didn't even notice when it got taken over. The thousand and one rules of the temple are posted outside and include stuff like "no saying the letter 'V'", and if you break them, the monks attack. Attacking the monks isn't against the rules, but a lot of the time they attack the one member who broke the rules, grapple him, and take him away. Set it up so the PCs can't get through the temple without fighting the monks, and have the exit guarded by children who refuse to let the PCs pass without killing them.

mockingbyrd7
2007-12-14, 08:53 PM
Vampire kobolds? This is intriguing; how exactly does this work? :smallamused:

FlyMolo
2007-12-14, 09:09 PM
This is so cool. Well done substitute DM. Ideas:

Insect Golems. Golems...made of insects. Ditch the hardness and give a smidgen of extra AC if they're down to low health. (holes showing through and such) It could even be a template you can apply to golems. A flight speed would be fun too.

A room full of mirrors and a monster with a gaze attack.

Potion golems! For every three points of damage dealt, another potion breaks and a random magical effect is released. You'd have to write up a table, but it would be interesting. Greased squares on the floor in random places. The fighter leaps in and smashes the thing up, and get's bull's strength and Cat's grace for his troubles. If the golem is flat-footed, you get to pick what color you break. If you're a rogue and make a spellcraft check while making a sneak attack, you get to pick what potion you activate. This would be fun to play against, methinks. Loot? 10x potions, of course!

Wand of Acidic Seepage. It seep acid from its tip. if you forget to change the container, it'll dissolve it and your sleeping bag in the middle of the night. Almost more trouble than it's worth, until you run up against something that needs to be dissolved. You can flick it at something to deal 1 acid damage.

Wand of Hasidic Seepage: :smalltongue: Makes orthodox Jewish garb. Black top hats, etc.

Cthulhuoid Dr. Zoidberg template(unless it's been done): base critter gains bite attack with tentacles, can poison/stun/paralyze with them, gains improved grab(face tentacles), maybe some other stuff.

Callos_DeTerran
2007-12-14, 09:26 PM
Have a room full of brains floating in tubes of liquid. Throw in an actual Brain in a Jar creature every now and then. The catch?...Swarm shifting brains with their swarm form being a bunch of body parts. (Then prepare for you players to question how a brain turns into a swarm of body parts.)

Raroy
2007-12-14, 09:28 PM
I have said nothing.

Pronounceable
2007-12-14, 09:58 PM
There are some things that shouldn't see the light of the day. Vampires for one. You seem to have it down to pat.

And if you'd REALLY like to shock players stick to biology. Golems made of disturbing body parts or animated oozes of various bodily fluids will be shocking more than enough. Swarm of animated naughty bits FTW!

And now: A Disturbing Image
...Something drips on the PC's nose. He looks up and sees cracks appearing in the ceiling, showering the room with drops of some white liquid that is somehow familiar. With subtle dread, he realizes the white material is sticky, hot and... His thoughts are interrupted when the ceiling caves in and litres of white liquid pour down into the room, soaking him. When the stuff begins to move, crawling together to form a huge ooze, he realizes with horror that things have taken an extremely uglier turn...



If you'd like to go creepy, send children after them. Disfigured, warped, mutated and mutilated children pulling Tucker's Kobolds on the party with slingshots will break even the most stout of players. The key is tentacles. Everything gets worse with tentacles.

Another Disturbing Image A cute little 4 year old girl sporting barbed tentacles from her eyes charging with a cleaver can turn the tide of any battle. Especially if she's naked and clearly flayed from waist down.


And now for something that shouldn't exist: Throw these at them and they'll run away crying.
http://www.cfhf.net/lyrics/images/teletubbies.jpg

Xefas
2007-12-14, 10:03 PM
And now: A Disturbing Image
...Something drips on the PC's nose. He looks up and sees cracks appearing in the ceiling, showering the room with drops of some white liquid that is somehow familiar. With subtle dread, he realizes the white material is sticky, hot and... His thoughts are interrupted when the ceiling caves in and litres of white liquid pour down into the room, soaking him. When the stuff begins to move, crawling together to form a huge ooze, he realizes with horror that things have taken an extremely uglier turn...



Are you actually suggesting a Semen Golem?

Well, I suppose it'd be rather efficient of the lonely wizard who spends decades alone in his tower to not...waste, I guess would be the word. But...ugh.

Have to give it a special Grapple Hair special attack, obviously.

martyboy74
2007-12-14, 10:04 PM
Make a whole plane of invisibility. Everything and everyone on the plane gains the Invisible Stalker's Natural Invisibility ability, and anyone who casts See Invisibility/True Seeing/etc. is hit by (invisible) lightning.

tyckspoon
2007-12-14, 10:19 PM
And now: A Disturbing Image [spoiler]
(disgusting idea excised for sake of not repeating it too many times)


For a more whimsical take on the idea, you could go Ghostbusters and have the golem be made of molten marshmallow. The tar golem (I don't remember which book it's in, unfortunately) would be a good base for it. Seems like the kind of thing a Far Realms-maddened wizard might decide was a good idea.

Drider
2007-12-14, 10:27 PM
And now for something that shouldn't exist: Throw these at them and they'll run away crying.
http://www.cfhf.net/lyrics/images/teletubbies.jpg

OH GOD THEY'RE HORRIBLE!!!

CabbageTheif
2007-12-14, 10:35 PM
well, i have a few tricks up my sleeve that i am going to use agianst my party,, but i love the sound of this campaign. so, i have a few ideas for you; two monsters and a two-room size trap.

monster 1: i was suprised to find out that everything is scaryer when etheralized. so, find the stats for a long-neck dinosaur, make it the approporriate aquatic subtype,, and make it etheral. you have just made the Ghost of the Loch Ness Monster

monster 2: in my campaign, lolth has just defeated grruuumsh, she now has aboveground worshipers (orcs) and she is making her army stronger. why does this matter?
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20011118a
this link will bring you to the drider template. and lolth's orc priests have given the drider template to a tyranasaurus rex. heck,, if you want to use that story, go for it. just give credit to cabbagetheif,, if i ever write it i will use my sn as my pen name.

trap: one large room with pit traps all over the place. have large symbols where the pit traps are, so that the party figures out that part of the puzzle early. but overtop of the pittraps are immoveable rods, with invisibility cast on them. jump over the symbol, hit the rod, fall down into the pit trap. if they are smart, they figure it out, maybe even take a few unboveable rods for themselves.
room two, there are symbols, so the party thinks there are pit traps. they attempt to avoid these, thinking that it could be dangerous, but guess what? in the first five feet there are enpugh immoveable invisible rods that they all bump into one. not fall, ust walk into it; they are at waist height. if they are smart, they will use something to detect invisibility, but these are the only invisible things in the room. they decide that it is safe to cross, they might even figure out that there are no pit traps, but wait!! there are razorwires with contact poison webbed across the end of the room, and it takes a good spot to see those. very good. so good the casual observer wouldnt notice them, and if they cast invisibility on the room they would not have detected these mundane items. then they open the door to... a wall
the door at the end of this room is a fake door; one of the pit traps in the first room holds within it a tunnel that circumvents all of the traps and gets to the desired location

from one dm to another, knock em dead!

Cruxador
2007-12-14, 10:45 PM
@cnsvnc: your 4 year old would probably be more disturbing without the tentacles, actually. just make sure to give graphic details on the flayage, and the expression on her face. if you want to keep tentacles, have them spurt out with a light spatter of blood partway through. you don't need to stick to just eyes though, any and all orifices off and on over the course of the event can keep it interesting. Definitely start with no tentacles deployed and face (at least) intact. actually, this idea should be split. a little girl (or lots of small children) naked, and very thoroughly flayed. A different little girl who starts with completely unsullied skin, but is completely naked. lead the adventurers to believe she's a nymph, or something. Then tentacles erupt fron her eyes.Wow... that's pretty disturbing... I didn't know I had it in me... now I want some sort of horror campaign

Lemur
2007-12-14, 11:07 PM
Just stay away from the half-iron golem trolls.

A while back I had a funny idea about a high level psychometabolist(s?) who uses true metamorphosis to turn into a weapon. The trick here is to drop hints to the party about some super awesome magic weapon. Then, when they encounter Fighty NPC X wielding the psion-sword, and they see said sword flashing and making noises (the displays from manifesting powers) they'll think "omg awesome weapon" instead of "break the sword=break the caster". The sword then proceeds to buff/heal/blast/deliver scary psionic touch attacks that activate when the fighter hits with him (forced empathic transfer? assimilate?)/whatever else you can think of while Fighty does as fighty types do.

Even if they do figure it out, they'd still be trying to sunder a wielded item, with much more hitpoints than the standard weapon. The best part comes when they defeat the fighty guy and are about to claim their hard earned "reward" when the psion uses teleport to escape.

Pronounceable
2007-12-14, 11:17 PM
Have to give it a special Grapple Hair special attack, obviously.

This is the sort of attitude that derails an atmospheric game. Commendable.

Ganurath
2007-12-14, 11:17 PM
Joke: Make a Paragon Rat, but call it a rabbit just to make a Monty Python reference. False sense of security, and all that.

Serious: Apply Complete Arcane's version of the Pseudonatural Template to eith a Maralith or a Kyton. The sort of image those would have while pseudonatural... It's not much, but the flavor is delicious.

Hyozo
2007-12-14, 11:32 PM
A Roving Mauler is "that should not exist" incarnate even without templates, and any "Half-" template applied to it would be more disturbing than most pseudonatural creatures. However, the pact magic chapter got enough love from your group back in October, so you might want to avoid that one.

If you're going for mad science, BRC has a decent class (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=60952) that some of the more humanoid enemies could could take.

Xefas
2007-12-14, 11:35 PM
This is the sort of attitude that derails an atmospheric game. Commendable.

Thank you, sir :smallsmile:



Serious: Apply Complete Arcane's version of the Pseudonatural Template to eith a Maralith or a Kyton. The sort of image those would have while pseudonatural... It's not much, but the flavor is delicious.

Pseudonatural Kyton = Intestines with the stats of a Spiked Chain (http://www.headinjurytheater.com/jesus%20vamp%20intensine%20kung%20fu.jpg).

Fuzzy_Juan
2007-12-15, 12:23 AM
just to have fun with templates...a half dragon pseudonatural vampire cat. The cat is stuffed inside the sunproof-skin of a cat shaped doll and the pseudonatural cat serves as 'stuffing'....in the night, the cat drinks blood from the family and the child who owns it..just a little...

sure cat's can't be vampires...but that is half the fun...just a cute doll...wait there is something inside...it's just a cat...oh crap...

Wooter
2007-12-15, 12:57 AM
What you need is body parts attatched to one another and attacking the players. Like a crawling hand with a dagger attatched to the wrist stump.

See Bride of Reanimator for inspiration.

Mewtarthio
2007-12-15, 01:45 AM
Fun fact: The Half-Troll template can transform just about any living creature into a Giant. The end result is that, for a mere +2 CR, you've just made the Animal, Dragon, Fey, Magical Beast, Monstrous Humanoid, or Outsider of your choice a potential lycanthrope! This also works for any of the myriad other "Humanoid or Giant only" templates. (Fun side note: It's way too easy to legally turn the creature of your choice into one of the above types. Half-Dragon, Half-Fiend, Half-Fey, you name it!)

See also the entomanothrope (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20040621a)template. Because nothing says "What in the name of Pelor, Vecna, and Boccob is wrong with you?" than people who turn into weird insect hybrids. Or *shudder* crabs...

I've heard Cityscape has a "Mob" template. Does anyone here know if you can legally apply that to a Living Spell?

The Half-Fey template will look great for the "lulling you into a false sense of security" stage. It gives its victims butterfly wings. It can be applied to any living, corporeal creature as well. It'll look nice, happy, and saccharine to see butterly children and butterfly animals and whatnot, but when they start running into the butterfly gibbering mouthers and the butterfly illithids, they'll start to get a little worried.

PirateMonk
2007-12-15, 10:33 AM
Fun fact: The Half-Troll template can transform just about any living creature into a Giant. The end result is that, for a mere +2 CR, you've just made the Animal, Dragon, Fey, Magical Beast, Monstrous Humanoid, or Outsider of your choice a potential lycanthrope! This also works for any of the myriad other "Humanoid or Giant only" templates. (Fun side note: It's way too easy to legally turn the creature of your choice into one of the above types. Half-Dragon, Half-Fiend, Half-Fey, you name it!)

See also the entomanothrope (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20040621a)template. Because nothing says "What in the name of Pelor, Vecna, and Boccob is wrong with you?" than people who turn into weird insect hybrids. Or *shudder* crabs...

I've heard Cityscape has a "Mob" template. Does anyone here know if you can legally apply that to a Living Spell?

The Half-Fey template will look great for the "lulling you into a false sense of security" stage. It gives its victims butterfly wings. It can be applied to any living, corporeal creature as well. It'll look nice, happy, and saccharine to see butterly children and butterfly animals and whatnot, but when they start running into the butterfly gibbering mouthers and the butterfly illithids, they'll start to get a little worried.

...

Celestial Fiendish Half-fiend Half-celestial Half-Dragon Half-Fey Half-Troll Werescorpion Gibbering Mouther?

Wooter
2007-12-15, 12:05 PM
Ooh, how about organ swarms? Cast off chunks of dead creatures somehow reanimated. Human heads, Gnoll hands, Troll tongues, whatever. Just a mix of severed putrid organs that act like some sort of colony.

Xuincherguixe
2007-12-15, 12:55 PM
One great puzzle from the Call of Cthulhu computer game that might be useful here... (spoilered in the unlikely event anyone wants to play the game)

You bump into a bunch of jars full of organs connected to each other. They're still working, and it's fairly clear the person is still alive. In order to get through another door you need to take some green crystal at a control panel. But it's too hot to handle. There's a lever close by. Pressing it sends a surge, killing the thing in the jars. (You weren't informed it would kill the guy, or even that it was part of the puzzle. But pulling levers is often part of puzzles so it was kind of implied you were supposed to pull it) The crystal can now be removed.


Adjust that as you see fit.

Since things seem to be taking a lovecraftian twist already, perhaps various characters every so often might grow extra body parts. Nothing major or game affecting, but probably very unsettling if they look away for a moment and all the sudden they have another thumb. These extra parts might not be under the players control either. Or better yet, they are for awhile and then suddenly they rebel.

There should be puzzles that can only be solved without logic. You know how in video games you might encounter an enchanted forrest that you get through by going back from where you just came? No, that aint gonna cut it here. You get through the puzzle by using that kind of reasoning, and then doing the opposite thing (or if there is more than one direction, same thing, but the "opposite strategy" won't work, you need to go sideways).

Also, there might be a bunch of harmless animals that are all just lined up staring at the players. Other than that their might not be anything strange about them. If you do want to do strangeness, at first they apear normal, but as they start encountering stranger and stranger things, when they catch them at just the right angle they might look a little odd. Perhaps having an extra head or glowing eyes. When the really freaky stuff starts happening the critters are horrifying things with too many mouths screaming in some strange language which they shouldn't be able to understand but somehow do. And they are all chanting a demand for the players to kill themselves.

UserClone
2007-12-15, 01:07 PM
Are you actually suggesting a Semen Golem?

Well, I suppose it'd be rather efficient of the lonely wizard who spends decades alone in his tower to not...waste, I guess would be the word. But...ugh.

Have to give it a special Grapple Hair special attack, obviously.

Ok, you just made me choke with laughter. Sigged.

Superglucose
2007-12-15, 03:19 PM
*snip* Set it up so the PCs can't get through the temple without fighting the monks,
Nah, cause that's railroading. It should be possible to not have to fight any monks, but very, very difficult. A Bard in the party, for instance, should have a chance of convincing the monks that the rule wasn't actually broken, and therefore everything's ok.



and have the exit guarded by children who refuse to let the PCs pass without killing them.
And if there's a Paladin in the party, you just said "Dm: force your paladin to fall. It'll be good fun!" Anyways we're talking children here, it should be possible for a party of adventurers averaging 12-15 strength to move 80 lb children out of the way. And that's assuming the kids are pretty fat.

And as for things that can or can't be lycanthropic, DM houserule it in. That's even scarier, because experienced players WILL see a cat and go "Oh, it's just a cat, because they can't be vampires."

Now here's my idea: Weredragon. WTF?! I'm sure a lot of people are thinking, but think of it this way: during a full moon someone takes a dramatic transformation into a zombie black dragon.

Inyssius Tor
2007-12-15, 03:52 PM
Now here's my idea: Weredragon. WTF?! I'm sure a lot of people are thinking, but think of it this way: during a full moon someone takes a dramatic transformation into a zombie black dragon.

Now that is just awesome. I'm thinking Pirates of the Caribbean-style transformation, but with a nice big side of massive half-dragon monster.

This whole idea doesn't seem like it would fit so well with gory horrifying stuff. Other than that--I am so totally going to steal this. Keep this thread going, people! Only three more days until I get my books back, and can contribute myself!

Wooter
2007-12-15, 04:31 PM
Another idea.

There are partial sentient creatures in jars full of amber colored liquid. Elves or something. They all appear to be the same elf, cloned or something. The problem is, most of the clones are incomplete, mutilated, rotting, or mutated. They all appear dead except for one who looks completely normal.

Unfortunately, he appears quite mad. He his thrashing around, bubbles streaming up from his nose. He is staring at the party with fire in his eyes, casting gazes of pure hatred. He starts punching the side of the jar, his knuckles bleeding. (by this point you party should be staring at him with their weapons drawn)

He keeps punching, forming a crack in the glass that gets bigger with every punch. Suddenly he goes limp, dead.

A second passes. The perfect clone remains floating in his cracked jar, completely dead. Then, without warning, there are crashes all around. The rejected clones have all broken free of their jars and shamble towards the players.

goken04
2007-12-15, 05:07 PM
Another idea.

There are partial sentient creatures in jars full of amber colored liquid. Elves or something. They all appear to be the same elf, cloned or something. The problem is, most of the clones are incomplete, mutilated, rotting, or mutated. They all appear dead except for one who looks completely normal.

Unfortunately, he appears quite mad. He his thrashing around, bubbles streaming up from his nose. He is staring at the party with fire in his eyes, casting gazes of pure hatred. He starts punching the side of the jar, his knuckles bleeding. (by this point you party should be staring at him with their weapons drawn)

He keeps punching, forming a crack in the glass that gets bigger with every punch. Suddenly he goes limp, dead.

A second passes. The perfect clone remains floating in his cracked jar, completely dead. Then, without warning, there are crashes all around. The rejected clones have all broken free of their jars and shamble towards the players.

I'm pretty much terrified right now.

goken04
2007-12-15, 05:11 PM
Another idea.

There are partial sentient creatures in jars full of amber colored liquid. Elves or something. They all appear to be the same elf, cloned or something. The problem is, most of the clones are incomplete, mutilated, rotting, or mutated. They all appear dead except for one who looks completely normal.

Unfortunately, he appears quite mad. He his thrashing around, bubbles streaming up from his nose. He is staring at the party with fire in his eyes, casting gazes of pure hatred. He starts punching the side of the jar, his knuckles bleeding. (by this point you party should be staring at him with their weapons drawn)

He keeps punching, forming a crack in the glass that gets bigger with every punch. Suddenly he goes limp, dead.

A second passes. The perfect clone remains floating in his cracked jar, completely dead. Then, without warning, there are crashes all around. The rejected clones have all broken free of their jars and shamble towards the players.

I'm pretty much terrified right now.

Yami
2007-12-15, 05:13 PM
Okay, it sounds like you need to have a good game of 'Chaos Beast Tag.'

Rules of the game;
The players need to have met a chaos beast before, preferably close enough to a town to get a restoration, but far enough away to need to sprint for it. Teaches 'em to come prepared and helps outline the rules of the game.

The game must be played in a populated town.

The referee shall be some mad wizard/alienist.

The teams shall be, one group assorted adventurers facing off against a chaos beast, or more, should the CR rating require it. If there are multiples, I'd suggest having them flee in opposite direction, to enhance the frantic feel of the game.

Game starts while PC's are shopping, resting in town, etc... Allow them to witness the first round of the game.

The object of course, is to win by eliminating the Chaos Beast(s). Chaos Beast team wins if it converts the town.

The important part of the game is that the chaos beast team rarely actually engages the PC's in combat, but instead chases down the citizens, bursting into houses and corrupting the residents before fleeing out a window and into the nearby shop. Trust me, it’s a blast for all parties.

goken04
2007-12-15, 05:20 PM
Another idea.

There are partial sentient creatures in jars full of amber colored liquid. Elves or something. They all appear to be the same elf, cloned or something. The problem is, most of the clones are incomplete, mutilated, rotting, or mutated. They all appear dead except for one who looks completely normal.

Unfortunately, he appears quite mad. He his thrashing around, bubbles streaming up from his nose. He is staring at the party with fire in his eyes, casting gazes of pure hatred. He starts punching the side of the jar, his knuckles bleeding. (by this point you party should be staring at him with their weapons drawn)

He keeps punching, forming a crack in the glass that gets bigger with every punch. Suddenly he goes limp, dead.

A second passes. The perfect clone remains floating in his cracked jar, completely dead. Then, without warning, there are crashes all around. The rejected clones have all broken free of their jars and shamble towards the players.

I'm pretty much terrified right now.

SmileyX
2007-12-15, 07:39 PM
Ooooh.... sounds like fun, i have a few ideas, ranging in power and complexity, most ignore the rules as most other see them lol.

#1 one of my favorites, at some points introduce a multi-headed beholder or hive mother or something, for lots of creepiness make these heads share the same space, and kinda swivle through each other. Each head should add all th eye rays and the anti-magic cone for fun, depending on the desired CR, you may want to advance its HD and Size, or add templates.

#2 take any kind of troll, mix with the black puddings split ability, any one with regeneration is best, theres a good chance it may be to difficult though lol, make it so the trolls have ripped limbs off of other trolls to add creepiness, and natural attacks.

#3 Half Dragon trees, some awakened and moving, others not, flying, fire breathing trees are scary.... also ignore the once per day thing on the Half-Dragons breath weapon, and maybe scale it up a bit, and that would be fun.

#4 maybe to go with the before said children, or something else, but a small albino child, whos a unholy scion/half vampire, sorceror or dread necromancer, make them specialize in necromancy regardless, and have it have lots of undead minions, its parents etc, and have dominated other children around it or some such, add taint elementals and other things from heroes of hooro and the libris mortis, and a weird trip into its mind which could be a sub dimension by itself where they need to expierence all of the traumatic things that have happened to them, maybe fighting an 'aspect' of the child each time, than finally kill the sobbing inner child that is its core to defeat the Unholy Scion part of it, they emerge to find the child huddled up, dead, with various messages written on the walls in blood, like 'Mommy save me', 'WHHHYY!!', etc. Make it invincible before hand so they need to do the weird drug trip mind thing.

#5 a good set of creatures would be sorta half abberation half construct things, give DR, magic resistance at the least, and grab a variety of abilities from other creatures to complete them, the 'boss' of them could be a collossal giant, that consumes all magic used around it, and has a set of spell weaver arms in its chest, add lots of tentacles or customize however you want for a really daunting opponent.

#6 something good for theres actions to create, release, or just to find somewhere would be an undead creature born from the corpse of an abandoned child, who now stalks the night slaying other children/creatures, than ripping there bones from the corpses and making a horrific armor type thing, add in that its constantly sobbing/screaming as an ability, the ability
to go incorporeal, and to sense life in a wide area, and its a fun abomination, maybe add in a weakness to mothers protecting there children or something.

#7 necrotic cyst is always fun, maybe in conjunction with #4 with just a bit of rules ignoring and have alot of people be under control, make them kill people being forced to attack them, etc.

#8 swarm shifting undead are fun, but of course swarm shifting pseudonatural
evolved undead creatures are even more fun, have the swarm form be a mass of tentacles.....

if i come up with more ill post later, or update this.

Moff Chumley
2007-12-15, 08:23 PM
In the last session, have all of the PCs go onto some gemi plane in which litterally nothing obeys the laws of physics. For instance, anything the PCs encounter changes shape every few rounds. PCs take and heal damage completely at random. Odd things fall out of the sky. Bassically, make everything up as you go along. Should be great fun. Of course, make sure to be very conservative with this. I'm not sure how much your players will appreciate it... :smalleek:

PirateMonk
2007-12-15, 09:39 PM
...

Celestial Fiendish Half-fiend Half-celestial Half-Dragon Half-Fey Half-Troll Werescorpion Gibbering Mouther?

And make that a ghost, too.

FlyMolo
2007-12-15, 09:47 PM
@Moff: You could call it the Rule Zero plane.

Lots of these are scary. Especially the whole/rotting clones in a room thingie. Whoo spooky.

I figure, there's been a couple homebrewed planes out there. A trip to the plane of flesh would be scary. (It's a giant organism. You're in it. Think fighting diseases.)

A tribal warrior guy were-something who spreads lycanthropy through darts. Could be fun to inherit more than one 'thropy. Make the triggers different.
" At the waxing gibbous moon, I turn into a rabid budgie, but at the full moon, I turn into a wolf/raven hybrid. At the new moon, I turn into a ... what was it?...fire elemental, and there's something about the waning crescent moon, now let me find my notes..."

That could be fun. Sell anti-thropy cures at a store in the next universe over. Hey idea! Giant store. sells everything. Zombies of previous customers shamble the halls of Extraplanar-mart. You can buy magic items, souls, food, bodies, preserved henchmen, DIY lich-making kits, armour, tamed elementals, portals to other planes, anything.

Nerd-o-rama
2007-12-15, 09:55 PM
Without getting too silly, any Mad Science game needs Jagermonsters.

Statwise, they're "orcs vit funny akshents und a hat." Personalitywise, they're the best Evil Minions ever.

Wooter
2007-12-15, 10:06 PM
One foot tall viruses. Seriously, big ass bacteriophages that attack people.

Actually, that's stupid. Maybe sentient cancer?

Xefas
2007-12-15, 10:21 PM
Giant store. sells everything. Zombies of previous customers shamble the halls of Extraplanar-mart. You can buy magic items, souls, food, bodies, preserved henchmen, DIY lich-making kits, armour, tamed elementals, portals to other planes, anything.

In a 2nd edition campaign I ran, I casually mentioned partway through the game that there was a similar store run by Githyanki on the moon.

The players promptly abandoned the plot in favor of finding ways to get to the moon so they could shop there.

In the end, they'd used so much of their money getting spells cast and buying magic items to help them get up there, that by the time they actually got to the store on the moon they couldn't afford anything.

I think I gave them complimentary "Smokey the Werebear Druid" buttons that made them mildly resistant to fire just for the effort.

MeklorIlavator
2007-12-15, 10:46 PM
Without getting too silly, any Mad Science game needs Jagermonsters.

Statwise, they're "orcs vit funny akshents und a hat." Personalitywise, they're the best evil Minions ever.

Fixed that for you. Not all of them are truely evil. More like amoral(Neutral maybe?). Of course, the more destructive most likely are.

Falconer
2007-12-15, 11:03 PM
#4 maybe to go with the before said children, or something else, but a small albino child, whos a unholy scion/half vampire, sorceror or dread necromancer, make them specialize in necromancy regardless, and have it have lots of undead minions, its parents etc, and have dominated other children around it or some such, add taint elementals and other things from heroes of hooro and the libris mortis, and a weird trip into its mind which could be a sub dimension by itself where they need to expierence all of the traumatic things that have happened to them, maybe fighting an 'aspect' of the child each time, than finally kill the sobbing inner child that is its core to defeat the Unholy Scion part of it, they emerge to find the child huddled up, dead, with various messages written on the walls in blood, like 'Mommy save me', 'WHHHYY!!', etc. Make it invincible before hand so they need to do the weird drug trip mind thing.



This is almost....traumatizing to read...:smalleek:

I honestly think I won't be able to sleep tonight. Really. I find it that creepy.

The Glyphstone
2007-12-15, 11:08 PM
Ooh, I just had an awesome idea.

You should have a mad wizard doing research into vestiges and trying to find a way to harness their powers with science - the result is weird vestige-controlled intelligent zombies and angry kythons running amok...

It's completely original, right? :smallcool: :smallwink:

SilverClawShift
2007-12-15, 11:45 PM
This threatens to be a very large post...


Have an order of Lawful Crazy monks

YEAH. WHOO. Definately being listed as an option at the bare minimum.


Vampire kobolds? This is intriguing; how exactly does this work? :smallamused:

However I want it to (I've gone mad with power, apparently) :smallbiggrin:

Really though, they're going to be scaled down versions of vampires. Of course they'll still be all sharp and pale and creepy. They'll still be preternaturally stronger, and still drink blood... And they'll still have spider-climbing at will :smallamused:
Also, at least one of the kobold vampires will be powerful enough to turn into an alternate form... a swarm specifically. I've always liked the image of vampires turning into bat swarms instead of just one dire bat or something. But since these are KOBOLDS... Well, he'll turn into a swarm of tiny flying lizards (homebrew, calling them drakelings for lack of a better name). Basically a kobold sized swarm of micro-dragons.

The custom-vampire template I'll be using will be toned down enough that I'll feel okay hitting the players with waves and waves of vampire kobolds. They won't deal negative levels, they'll just be vampires who are also kobolds. And there will be a crapload of them. In fact, there's going to be so many of them that the kobolds coming in as gaseous forms at dusk is going to be mistaken for a fog rolling in. But with low Damage Reduction and 1 hit die, they'll still get killed like crazy, especially once the players break out the silversheen and alchemists fire and such.
Problem is, vampires you kill drift back to their coffins. They'll come back the next night. And kobolds hide their rickety coffins very very thoroughly.

And they trap them to the nine hells :smallamused:


Potion golems! For every three points of damage dealt, another potion breaks and a random magical effect is released.

That's a really interesting idea. An alchemists rainbow of possible effects coming out of a glass golem...

Worth strongly considering no doubt.


Swarm shifting brains with their swarm form being a bunch of body parts.

I think that would work best with eyeballs. Brains and eyes are allready closely connected, and brains in jars that could partially turn into swarms of crawling eyes? That might be good.


no no no no no no no no no no

NO semen golems. Ug. No sane DM would be so sadistic. Plus it's just icky.


For a more whimsical take on the idea, you could go Ghostbusters and have the golem be made of molten marshmallow.

Actually, making one of the planes be absolutely filled with things that were unbeleivably edible might be a good idea. EEEEEVERYTHING there is food.

And there's a witch looking to fatten people up for the kill :smallamused:

A plane hoppers take on hansel and gretel.


http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20011118a
this link will bring you to the drider template.

Dr4ider template will come in darned handy when dridering things up for the drider/bug hive demiplane. Driders for the win :smallsmile:


Apply Complete Arcane's version of the Pseudonatural Template to eith a Maralith or a Kyton.

The psuedonatural template is going to see some heavy use in certain sections. Not everywhere, but where there's mad science and portals to the far realm, there's psuedo-natural creatures.


However, the pact magic chapter got enough love from your group back in October, so you might want to avoid that one.

One of the players actually wants to be a binder this game, so I'm tempted to leave the pact magic monsters alone just to avoid overdoing the pact magicery. I won't be able to come up with something heavy enough, so it's probably better to just avoid it all together.

Now truenaming, that might snag some love somehow.


And as for things that can or can't be lycanthropic, DM houserule it in.

Our groups stated philosophy is (and has been from the beginning) that Story & Style trumps any rule you can name. If I want were-eagel ducks, dagnabbit, I'm putting in were-eagle ducks :smallconfused:


There are partial sentient creatures in jars full of amber colored liquid.

*snip*

Then, without warning, there are crashes all around. The rejected clones have all broken free of their jars and shamble towards the players.

Wow. That might be too good not to use. Maybe in conjunction with the brains in a jar idea. We'll see how that goes. :smallsmile:


multi-headed beholder*snip* spell weaver arms

That reminds me of a character I always wanted to use, but never had any good reason to mention to anyone. I wanted a medusa/beholder monster... picture a cyclops woman with eyestalks for hair.

That in mind, i hadn't even thought of the spellweavers! Those guys are too good to pass up for something like this.

So now we have a six armed sorceress with one eye and eyestalks for hair leading spell weavers.

YAY


In a 2nd edition campaign I ran, I casually mentioned partway through the game that there was a similar store run by Githyanki on the moon.

ANNNNNND while it has no real bearing on the topic at hand, I have to point out this specifically. This? This is freaking awesome. FREAKING AWESOME.

Githyanki moon store of wonders. Awesome. No real place in this campaign, but awesome nonetheless.


Ooh, I just had an awesome idea.

You should have a mad wizard doing research into vestiges and trying to find a way to harness their powers with science - the result is weird vestige-controlled intelligent zombies and angry kythons running amok...

It's completely original, right? :smallcool: :smallwink:

FOR SCIENCE!

But no, I pretty much can't do ANYTHING with vestiges that won't come across as a pale imitation. But the fact that one of our players is likely going to be a binder will at least mean our custom vestiges will see some play :smallsmile:

***********************************

Getting ready, hopefully this will work. Gaming starts this week, and ideas are getting prepped.

To anyone I didn't reply to, thank you for your effort in replying to the thread, I just can't realistically reply to every idea, I didn't expect so many so fast. Thank you all though :)

dyslexicfaser
2007-12-16, 12:04 AM
EDIT: My bad, Girl Genius was already covered. That's what I get for not actually reading any posts but the OP's.

Other than that, somewhere on these boards lurks the bloodstained Hug Golem. It is a nightmare crafted of pillows and steel, and it haunts the dreams of men.

Nerd-o-rama
2007-12-16, 12:08 AM
Fixed that for you. Not all of them are truely evil. More like amoral(Neutral maybe?). Of course, the more destructive most likely are.
Well, prior to Bill, Barry, and Klaus, they primarily worked for Evil Overlords, and were created by one. Evil Minions are not necessarily evil, but work for Evil Overlords. At least by my definition.

Pronounceable
2007-12-16, 01:46 AM
Originally Posted by cnsvnc
no no no no no no no no no no

I'm very amused by this quoting of myself.

You also wouldn't be interested in a peculiarly shaped flesh golem, I imagine. A pity.


And now I'll offer much tamer ideas:

Voltron. Have a pack of construct lions attack. When one gets close to destruction, have them merge together into a giant golem.

You ever seen an anime called Space Adventure Cobra? There was a guy with a laser rifle for an arm. He had a fake, removable human arm covering it. He could direct the beam with his thoughts. It was a nice anime.
Imagine: A lone man facing the adventurers. He suddenly rips off his forearm, and there's some sort of weird metal tubey thing fused to his elbow. Before they gather their wits, he starts blasting them with scorching rays.
Make an artifact that a PC can cut off his arm to wield. Instead of a fake arm, this artifact might actually require user to rip off his arm before shooting for additional creepiness. Arm regenerates when not shooting.

Pacman. Yes, the PACMAN. A huge, yellow globe with a mouth (beholder minus eyestalks, that swallows whole) chasing adventurers through a maze. How embarrasing would it be for a player, being consumed by Pacman?

Or perhaps tetris? Gigantic blocks of stone slowly descending, filling a huge square arena. PCs desperately trying to climb perfectly smooth rock surfaces as fast as possible to avoid being crushed. An unlucky PC might be trapped in a hole, fated to starve/suffocate beneath thousands of tonnes of impenetrable rock. A memorable session in all respects.

rickvoid
2007-12-16, 09:51 AM
We fully expect a plot synopsis of this campaign when you're done, Silver. Your last one was such an awesome story I had to save it to my comp. :smallbiggrin:

From your orginal post, I gathered that you have a device that is sending them to the other planes, correct? They don't actually choose which plane they want to go to from a list, right? They just get sent to one "at random"?

If so, then don't have them just appear in the plane, have some fun with it. Have them bounce around several other planes first, ones that you aren't actually using in the campaign, just for a few seconds so you can read a brief description, like the store somebody above mentioned. In fact, one that immediately came to mind for me was this giant warehouse full of nothing save quarterstaves. Stack after never ending stack of quarterstaves, dissapearing as adventurers from around the multiverse summon them from out of thin air. :smallbiggrin:

Anyway, when they do finally get to their destination plane, half (or more) of them appear upside-down, stuck in floors, in another partymembers clothing, without clothing (which, after a few moments of panicked attempts to cover themselves, appears within reach), etc. Just have fun with them.

BTW, the little story above, with the clone that serves to distract the party from the real threat; totally creepy. But not half a creepy as the flayed little girl. That's just downright wrong. :smalleek:

Bellmaethorion
2007-12-16, 03:22 PM
I have just... 6 words for you.

Evan's spiked tentacles of forced intrusion.

Magnor Criol
2007-12-17, 12:02 AM
Unless I've missed something, "Celestial" and "Half-Celestial" can both be applied to the same creature, providing you apply Celestial first. Howzabout a Celestial Half-Celestial Halfling? Fun to say, if nothing else.

(I realize PirateMonk suggested something like this a little earlier, but their long list of templates have alignment restrictions and thus can't truly be combined, unless you use DM fiat to overrule.)

Also: This sounds like it will be an excellent game. If your normal DM is better than you are, and you've thought things out this much and are able to come up with that amount of good, creative material, your regular DM must be exceptional.

Also Also: Half-Fey Demilich. I'm not familiar with Half-Fey so I don't know if that's allowed, but if it is, a floating skull with butterfly wings and oodles of malicious intent is at once a frightening and amusing mental image.

SilverClawShift
2007-12-19, 12:18 AM
We fully expect a plot synopsis of this campaign when you're done, Silver. Your last one was such an awesome story I had to save it to my comp. :smallbiggrin:

I'm very flattered :smallsmile:

But I don't know if I'll have time to keep up with the campaigns AND write down what happened previously. Maybe after christmas hecticness ends.

And the planes are determined randomly, in a way, but then they're firmly established. The group will be able to tell what they're getting into by the nature of the puzzledoor they have to open, and the hallways behind them.
They'll be able to back out and pick something else.


a floating skull with butterfly wings

I like it.

A lot.