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View Full Version : On-going Villainy etc. (Armidale group stay out)



Serpentine
2008-03-16, 06:54 AM
You heard me Armidale group, get.

Anyway, the party I'm DMing recently destroyed (or helped destroy) a yuan-ti cell that had taken over a temple (and its associated city) of Quetzalcoatl. This was only one cell of what I've been thinking would be a pretty massive organisation, and they're gonna be pissed. However, I am neither a genius, nor evil, nor the least bit good at long-term planning. Anyone have any ideas for how the rest of the yuan-ti might plague the party in the future?

A second question, I like the cotoblepas, and would like to use it, but the death-gaze thing it has worries me. I don't like save-or-dies anyway, and especially not in this world where death is a big deal and it's relatively difficult to bring anyone back - they had to go invade a demon-infested ex-good temple to get the reagents for the druid to reincarnate my knight, and even then she nearly came back as a troglodyte. I found the traditional - i.e. real-world mythology - catoblepas, and it says "its gaze could kill", so it obviously should keep some similar ability. I was thinking that, instead of "real" death, it could have a sort of Snow White effect - that is, all the appearance and practical effect of death, but not so final. I was thinking that perhaps it could be cured by time (hours at least, probably more like days), remove curse or similar, and/or some specific event or item - a herb, or the creature's death, or rainwater, or a kiss, or something like that. Would something like those work, should it effect the CR, and does anyone have any other thoughts?

Finally, this one I'm just looking for thoughts or comments or potential problems or whatever, my party recently encounted some fireant swarms (I used Plague Ants from the Fiend Folio but took away the disease and gave them 1d6 acid damage). I saw a movie years and years ago about swarming ants going on a rampage through jungle and devouring anyone who got in their way, and largely based this encounter on it. I'm thinking of expanding this into a full-blown adventure later - lots and lots of these ants apparently targeting specific communities in some vicious plot. Urm... yeah, just wondering whether anyone has any thoughts on mechanics or whatever. Part of that movie involved them getting across a moat by making sort of boats out of leaves. Would that be possible, do you think? Alternatively, I could make that something to do with whatever's controlling them. Anyone have any ideas for what could be doing that?


Annnnnd that'll do for now. Thanks.

SoD
2008-03-16, 07:04 AM
Looking at the first bit, with the yuan-ti...one possibility might be to have a few of them show up here and there, not too many, maximum of one per session (that's one encounter, not one yuan-ti), eventually the players should (hopefully) start to wonder why they're being followed by yuan-ti. Maybe, if there's an inn they frequent, have the barman say that there were some yuan-ti asking for them, but didn't know their names, just the description. Have the yuan-ti attacks get a little stronger every time, until the players start looking into reasons.

How's that sound?

Oh, and on the fire ants, if instead they were army ants, then I'd be scared. From memory, fire ants swarm anything that gets too close, but army ants are nomads, and eat everything in their path. Villages evacuate when army ants came a-calling.

Serpentine
2008-03-16, 07:19 AM
I think army ants are the ones I was thinking of. I'll have to keep that in mind.
Your suggestion for the yuan-ti is a good start. They'll probably mostly be in disguise, but on this continent it wouldn't be that remarkable to see some halfbloods or even the odd abomination wandering around...

Tsotha-lanti
2008-03-16, 08:45 AM
Replace the catoplebas' gaze's death effect with a gaze-range inflict X wounds effect (as appropriate to your characters' level). 1d8+5 damage can indeed kill (and will kill most common people).

And yes, you are thinking of army ants (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_ants).

Kol Korran
2008-03-16, 12:03 PM
ok, some ideas:

Yuan- Ti: well, now that the Yuan-ti know someone was powerful lenough to destroy one of their cells, they should try and extract revenge, but in patience (the serpent stays hidden till the time is right, no?). my suggestion is to make the Yuan-ti's sudden focused interest on the party gradual. and remember- if the Yuan-Ti's influence is that big, then they can use other agents (merceneries and such):
- first, reconissance: some pure blood/s hire several merceneries, to ambush the party (they shouldn't be any real threat). the Yuan Ti watches from a distance (the defeated merceneries could utter some last words such as "hey! we weren't paid enough for this!"). some time later, another ambush/es, a bit more challanging, perhaps with various "aid" from the pure blood/s (potions, information about the group tactics/ weaknesses, and such). the idea is that the Yuan-Ti learn about the party, with minimal exposure to them (the ideal is that the party understands someone is out to get them, but they can't figure out who it is.. rely more on "real deception" than magical ones, which are more easely thwarted).
- second, more extreme methods, harrasing: the Yuan Ti should realise the party is too difficult to fight directly, in the middle of civilization. therefore, they might employ stranger tactics- attacking them in greater strength while on a quest away from civilized lands, poisoning their meals/ potions, attacking people close to them, their cohorts, their followers, inciting people against them, framing them for a crime, luring them to some "simple" adventure, whcih turns out to be far more difficult than they expected, and so on. the "culprit" behind these attmptes should be more obvious, and the party should have some seriosu clues as to the Yuan-ti's envolvement, but no real idea as to how to end this. with enough clues/ divination and such the answer should become more clear.
- third, final confronatation: this could be either to bring down the entire organization, or just a major temple, after which the Yuan-Ti decide to lay low, so as not to be utterly destroyed.

Catoblepas:
you can have it's gaze grant negetive levels, or perhaps a constitution loss (with or without a possibility it would become permanent). you can add nauseated or weakened status to either effect.
alternetavly, you can alter the gaze effect, to make it gradual (i think there was an article about altering a medusa gase on WoTC site): the character suffers some serious affect the first time she meets it's gaze as of the above), a more serious one when she meets the second (you should describe it as "a near brush with death" or something of that sort), and the third stare does kill the character. most characters will be intimidated by it, but they will also fight with eyes closed once they been "hit" twice.

ants:
what you described reminds me more of termites, but there are ants of that sort as well... anyway, most land based communal insects cross bodies of water either cy clatching to some big branch and such, or by building a bridge, out of their fellow ants (quite an amazing feat. it holds well for a time).
as to the plot or what not: you could have some villai nusing the massive swarms. he plans some magical items/ artifacts (i'l lcall these focuses from now on)in the communities he wishes to destroy (i have no idea why he'll want to destory them. your world). these draw the swarms from their places, or even from some other plane. they are driven mad by the focuses, attacking all in their way till they reach it, and then decimate every other living thing in some radius. after that, they might become docile, and disperse (or return to their home plane).
you could have several interesting ecnounters: the party trying to help defend a place, when the swarms keep on coming, and coming, and coming... until they realise this is out of control, and try to escape (not yet knowing of the focuses). on another settlement they try to evacuate the population, but some wizard/ head of temple/ nobleman won't leave no matter what. the party needs to either force him/her out, persuade him/her, or try to defend him/her. when a fellow diviner learns some clues, the party makes their way to him. their opponent however, learns of this as well and have one of the focuses planted on the divier's home, and some monsters/ merceneries to stop others coming to his/her rescue. once the characters learn of the focuses, they might try to find it, in the place they think is going to be hit next. however ,the focuses are always disguised as simple objects, protected from simple divination spells. they all have but one similar feature (a moon symbol for example). the party hurries to the next destination, only to find out there is a festival in town, which makes their life difficult (the moon festival)... these are but a few simple ideas.
mechanics? the swarm mechanics i guess. if you use swarms from other planes, then give them some strange qualities or attacks. (slightly higher intelligence, enabling a swarm to speak in a multitudious voice, energy resistence, ability to hover sloghtly over the land, crossing rivers and such, perhaps a slight telekenisis? ability to create more from fallen bodies- on regular swarm out of a medium sized body? (suddenly the players would REALY be interested in saving their fellow commoners) or from metal- one medium sized armor creats half a swarm? (not a rust monster, but similar threat) the more swarms there are in a certain radius, the smarter they might become, even "joining" some bodies in order to use tools and such, they might also get the ability to use simple spells (similar to cranium rats). regeneration? the swarms keeps adding more and more of it's kind (this could replace the "forming more swarms out of bodies/ metal" angle)

hope this helps. if you have a more concret idea, and like us to suggest ideas, please do.

SyrkthTheGreedy
2008-03-16, 01:13 PM
In regards to Yuan-ti, I like Kol Korran's idea of harrassment. Mercenaries are good, though a cabal of theives would be appropriate too. Also, I like the idea of poisonings, though a good yet obvious twist would be a venomous serpent or other such creature in the PC's bed, ambushing them in a favorite inn etc etc.
Or, the massive organization could just shrug its shoulders and move on. Or it could set up another cell in the city, this one with better resources and a watch order on the PCs.

As to the Catoblepas, it's pretty good as is, so long as the group has a niggling idea of what its effects are, then they can be prepared. Recently our group came up against a medusa and a bunch of grimlocks, us sitting around fifth level with six in the party. She only managed to take out 2 of our party (paladin on a natural one and an animal companion) and was taken down by our mage who closed his eyes, fumbled up infront of her and burned her down (being buffed with mage armour and protection from arrows).
The point being that a party can take out any save or die monster, so long as they have a plan and a willingness to follow (paladin charge was not part of the plan).

The ants you're thinking of are army ants (or legionary ants). The film you were thinking of is The Naked Jungle (woo Charlton Heston!). The short story it was based on was Leiningen Versus the Ants (very good, read it when I was younger).

Adding acid to them is a great idea to make them a more effective weapon, though keep in mind the swarm type immunities and bonuses (immune to weapon damage if Fine or Diminutive, automatically inflicting damage and distraction for those in the same square). I hope the PCs are up to burning them out with alchemists fire or fireball or something since front line fighters are up the creek in regards to swarms.

Speaking of creeks, wide, fast flowing water usually stymys the advance of army ants. Though if overhanging trees and branches can reach over the water, the ants can usually get over that way and that's if army ants are wild (i.e. not controlled). With guidance and acid damage, they could build bridges by felling trees, go around fiery barriers and a host of other things.

Serpentine
2008-03-16, 08:04 PM
Whee, thanks guys. Kol, this is why I put this up here: other people are much better at complicated thinking than I am. Your idea with the ants is much more complicated than I have, and I don't think I'll use it all, but there's some good ideas I'll keep in mind. What I've got at the moment is that something is using the swarms to pick off settlements one at a time, heading ultimately for the city. Vermin lord will probably be the best option, if it's not too hard (or if I can think of a way to give the party some sort of advantage or goal other than "kill it" - the party consists of 2 level 12 and 3 level 11, and I believe the vermin lord is something like CR14-16), and fits especially well as the city is the "City of Bugs", controlled by Abeil.
As for the ants themselves, as I said I've made them plague ants sans disease with acid damage. I think a lot of ants use acid, though I should really have checked beforehand whether soldier ants do. Oh well. Another thing I was thinking about with the ants comes from a documentary I saw - to get across a body of water, they'd all bundle up into a ball and float across. Damn scary. I guess it'd work just as well, though.Also, The Naked Jungle eh? It had a boat with a skeleton in it floating down the river? Awesome. I'll have to look for it again. The party has already come across a couple of swarms - the knight ended up splashing oil about the place and telling the witch to set it on fire. Hopefully the party will think to get more splash-type weapons while we're in the city. Speaking of which, anyone have any thoughts on what a city built and largely run by bee-people would look like, and what sort of encounters there could be there? It's mostly bee-people, and most of the people who aren't Abeil have exoskeletons, but there are some other folk wandering around.
Regarding the yuan-ti: Goff has a bounty hunter he didn't use in the adventure he ran a little while ago. I think he could certainly come in handy (now with more guns!). I like those suggestions for progression of the encounters. I think it would be easier to have just, say, a high-ranked general pursuing the party than the whole organisation, as we're heading out of the jungle now, and thus away from the yuan-ti centre.
For the catoblepas, I like both the Inflict Wounds and graduation idea. What about something like, say, Inflict Wounds on the first gaze, Constitution damage the second, and death or Constitution drain the third? I was intending to just have them come across it in a swamp somewhere, so preparation is unlikely.
Thanks again all.

Kol Korran
2008-03-16, 09:26 PM
first of all, glad some of the suggestions helped. getting the feedback is what makes writing these post worthwhile. anyway, lets see what we can do to help you further along:

1) Catoblapes: i personally like to link all my encounters with the plot/ subplot somehow, even if they are unexpected, but that is up to you. as to the effect- i suggest to stick with one sort of gradual effect, so it will make sense, and not confuse the players. (inflict wounds, followed by a negative level might make them feel they are facing a monster with random/ shifting powers, such as a beholder, and distract them from the real danger and intent of the gaze). you could make the scond gaze more serious (more level loss, or more damage, or con loss. i do suggest some secondery affect, such as fatigue) if youwant to hav the players realy freak out, without killing them- have the gaze drain XP (permenantly or not). but that might be mean...
as to making sure they won't croak- when they are hit by the first, then the second gaze, DESCRIBE a growing sensation of getting close to death. also, leav some clues when they are getting close to it- ded bodies, with no wounds, but a horrifed stare (knowledge check anyone?)

2) bee city: i never used the Abeil, and have a very low recollection of them, so this might work or not... here are some ideas:
- how about just a huge, multi layered hive? it can either be on the ground, hang in the air, or hand from some major plane feature (we are talking about outer planes, right?): a huge tree, a broken mountain, over a bottomless chasm...
- each "layer" is ruled by a queen, and her brood. (some broods may have better qualities, stats and such). though each brood is fiercly loyal to it's queen, the queen themselves can be highly manipulative against each other.
- the place is amazingly hard to navigate for outiders: first- you need flight to go between layers. (the party may be given minor items that work in the city only to fly, or they can be flown by an Abeil escort) second- every "house/street/dwelling" looks exactly the same! (hive cells). very high "gather info/ survival/ similar skills" here. the bee people find their way by (undetectable by PCs) pheromones. third- there re strict rules who can go where and so on (i'll get to this soon). each visitor is "tagged" by a special pheromone that enables the guards to know where he can go. going without a tag, or forging one, may result in... "unpleasent results".
- Order, order, order! this is a highly structured and hierarchial society! (if the abeil are true to "bee people" concept. i don't know. the bees follow the rules in a tightly strict, almost robotic manner. they would gladly sacrifice themselves for the brood, and so on. trying to reason with some of them would be terribly hard (high diplomacy/ intimidate modifers), negotiating a better price near impossibleand so on. also- whe nsomething bad happens in the city, an entire brood (or city) might react (in contrast with a brawl or fight in humanoids cities, where the populace usually just wait for the watch/ guard to handle it). over reaction (in human perspective) should be common..
- encounters: helping one queen to plot against the other? (or having to side between two/ more queens), an outsider who might need some delicate work done, and doesn't wish to draw attention to him/her self? the Abeil might keep animals/ beasts/ creatures/ slaves. some of these might ask the characters for help, some might escape.
- one last idea that might go with the ants hordes idea (though at a different angle): what about Formians? perhaps your BBEG (whether a vermin lord or another) got hold of their a Formian queen of a realy massive formian nest, and is now using its control to drive the formian swarm/s to due it's bidding?

an idea that sprang from it- what, if instead of saving the Abeil city, the charactrs fail, and run away. now the BBEG control both an infintery/tunneling swarm, and buzzing flying swarms, eh? (you could even make a dramatic entrance of the BBEG as the city is taken surveying his new conquest...

ok, didn't mean to derail your idea. it just seemed to fit- The Vermin lord (or whatever) gathering an army to conquer.... more.

kirbsys
2008-03-16, 09:43 PM
For the army ants, whoever is controlling them could have a magical item similar to the rat controlling pipes in the DMG (I don't have it nearby or else I'd get a specific name for you). I like the idea of them crossing rivers with leaves, however unless you decide to have an intelligent force controlling them it seems to be a bit too smart for ants (I could be wrong however, I'm not an expert and animals are capable of amazing things).

Serpentine
2008-03-17, 09:25 PM
Kol: Fair point on the catoblepas. My party has been having quite a bit of trouble with Con damage lately (one centaur character got taken out by a bunch of posies with it, and the rogue nearly succumbed to snakebites), so I'll probably go with something else, Inflict Wounds perhaps. Noone likes my idea of deathlike paralysis?
Sorry, I should've mentioned, this is just on the Material Plane, but it's on a whole new continent that has rather a greater variety of intelligent inhabitants than the usual one. I'm not sure about the layered hive, but I'm thinking of having two or more separate ones that have just grown so large that they've joined together, or possibly one very large one that's sort of absorbed all the others around it (a la London and surroundings). Multiple queens, and probably competing at least to some extent... The main really hivey bit will be the "palace/s" of the queen/s. The rest will be more like a normal city, navigable on foot, but I'll look at the Abeil again to see if it'd be reasonable for flight to be the main means of movement around the palace. I do like the idea of it mostly looking all the same. I'm thinking of having most of the buildings made out of something that feels like exceptionally strong waxed paper. I also like the idea of use of pheremones... They have a hive mind, as well, so your idea of having everyone quick to react to things works as well. Thanks for your help!
Kirbsys, I was thinking of doing something like that. It would also give the party a goal other than "kill the bastard" - "break/steal the item", instead. As for crossing the river with leaves, I know they did it in that movie, but I don't know how or where they got that footage or whether that's normal behaviour. Anyway, a big squirming ball of ant is at least as scary.