Make Me An Evil God!

[Chronicled]

In the game I'm DMing IRL, the BBEG is the avatar of an evil god, and I need help coming up with creepy abilities for him/statting him out for a soon-to-be level 12 party.

The party consists of a Desert Wind focused swordsage, barbarian, beguiler, and paladin of freedom with half-orc sub. levels (and dire boar mount). The players don't have WBL but have plot/setting related stat boosts to make up for it. They're not veteran players, but can be extremely canny and have been walking over higher-than-CR encounters.

As for the god, he's going to have the personality of a sociopathic child who considers mortals to be his toys. He likes to break his toys, and doesn't like it when others try to stop him. His avatar climbed through a tear in the planes; luckily for the PCs, the plane they're on heavily supresses magic, even for gods.

I stumbled across this picture (http://www.fullmetal-alchemist.com/forums/uploads/1158111762/med_gallery_38835_13_82806.jpg), and am basing his appearance/some of his abilities off of it. Some of the things I plan for him to have include:

A form of Knockback. When he hits the PCs I want them to know it.
Able to create skeletons from living NPCs (rather like the last 3 panels here (http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/9)). The players are about to receive a divine blessing that will protect them from this.
Something nasty with his bite (not sure yet)
Swallow Whole, with nasty things happening to PCs inside him
Something based off the screaming remains of the souls inside him trying to get out. Possibly have one of the skulls on his side burst open whenever the PCs hit him.
Stuff suggested here


Now, what would you give this fellow in order to creep a party out? Any suggestions for crafting a memorable fight with a god's weakened avatar, that is potentially winnable for the party (although a TPK is acceptable)? I can give more info about the party or the god, but since this is a long post I'll wait to see what else people may want to know.

[Kol Korran]

he's going to have the personality of a sociopathic child who considers mortals to be his toys. He likes to break his toys, and doesn't like it when others try to stop him.

well, that gives some ideas, i don't know how to stat them, but you might just find a way. some of these are but fluff, and some might be made into game mechanics. though magic is usppresed, i hope supernatural powers aren't. lets see:

1) laughter: every time the god avatar does something succesfull (critical hit, swallows someone, push them back, downs a character and such) it laughs. the laughter sounds like echoes of a laughter of a huge child like being (i suggest you find some recording of kids on google, and activate this when ever this happens. i used this once. worked realy well). this can cause various effects (either choose one, or roll at random whenever this happens, similar to confusion or rod of wonder in that respect):

the targets become younger- this may affects their stats, as well as cause an experience or level loss (temporary or not). this is not a negative energy effect, but actually reversing their time, brigning them back to childhood (about 3-4 of these shuld mkae them children, reducing in size).
demoralizing effects: the character feels the avatar laughs at it's most vulnerable and hidden flaws and secrets. this shaken them to the core- it can cause negative modifiers to various battle mechanics, reduce their speed, make them have to rol la will save to actually go with their actions (doubting their motives and so on).
it's so funny! more toys!...: the laughter summons some of the tortured ghosts within to come and play. i suggest it would summon 1-4 shadow or ghosts variants (increased HD, or alternate qualitis to fit the theme) which are actually remains of formerly beaten foes and victims. these start to "play" (fight) with the characters. as this may happen everytime it laughs, there may be more and more "toys" as the fight goes on
sonic burst: simple, yet creepy if you describe it right- the laughter booms in a burst around the avatar, tearing flesh in a sickening display of giggly goodness...


2) "hey! you don't play nice! i'l lteach you how to play!": if one of the characters does heavy damage to the avatar, or upset it seriously in someother way (casts many protection spells and such) it uses this power- it makes the character a puppet on a string:
if the character fails a save, it is either dominated, or under the effect of "otto's irresistable dance" (change the behaviour to something more childlike). the character can try to resist and act on it's own volition, but every time it does it, and excruciating pain grips her (something on the lines of cause serious/critical wounds).

3) have it be child/ baby sized, just with an enourmeous strenght (and other stats) scores. it's image may flicker to reveal a more sinister nature, but not necesserily a less truer one. if it uses weapons (i have no idea what it might be... perhaps a toy sword, that it uses as a club, to massive effects?) have them do serious damage, as if they were large or huge.

4) alter the playgorund: every few rounds, the avater can concentrate (or gggile excitedly while clapping, or whatever), and the entire place changes. some ideas for the new "landscape":

some sort of a campaign-fitting boardgame, with toy soldiers/ monsters/ heroes. these act as animated objects. if you wish, you may impose certain rules of movement here (snakes and ladders types), but it's not necessery...
the big sand box: the place turns into a huge sandbox. movment is hampered in it and there might be heat effects (similar to a desert)
the mud puddle: similar to the above, only as a swampy kind of locations. in both of these the avatar may use sand and mudballs as thrown weapons (these should cause far greater damage than they're suppsed to, infused by it's powers).
the room with knives and blood: a workshop sort of place, perhaps of a toy maker. only the tools are all horrific and grissly, and the toys are bodies of those who were slain by the avatar. the avatar seems all to comfortable here, chattering about the new toys it will soon make. there should be all kind of classic spring knives, and swinging blades here, but also the undead oddly stiched up remains of other "toys" (make zombies from different parts. if the party ever lost an NPC to this monster, it should be here, it's parts in various zombies)
childhood places of the PCs: if the palyers provided you wiht enough background, you can create some sort of a room/place that resembles the PC when it were a child. there should also be a copy of the PC there... if anything harms the child (Area spells) the PC is also hurt... the avatar might even grab the child and start torturing it/ swallogin it/ using it as a shield, until the landscape changes again, all the while inflicting tremendeous pain on the character.


hope these helped, and gave a few ideas, Kol

[Chronicled]

hope these helped, and gave a few ideas, Kol

Brilliant! This are exactly the sort of ideas that I'm looking for! :smallsmile:

When I said that magic is suppressed, I mean that all sorts of magical/supernatural effects tend to be weakened. The players each have a magical item that was more or less an artifact before it was brought to the plane. Similarly, a god's powers will still be usable, just less overpoweringly so.

I really, really like your 4th main idea. I hadn't thought about that sort of thing, but that opens up the door for all sorts of possibilities. Changing the battlefield would definitely keep the fight dynamic and interesting--and creepy. You gave a lot of great ideas, and this list is going to be used for sure.

I don't like the 2nd main idea terribly much, because taking away a PC's actions will probably lead to them getting bored. I may use it on the beguiler if his spells start getting annoying.

I considered your 3rd main idea, and may use it at some point in the fight. He may end up as a shapeshifter of sorts.

Your 1st main idea is also full of things I'm going to use. Summoning more enemies for the PCs to fight is helpful in any BBEG fight, and the idea of making them younger is very clever.

You've given me a lot of useful material. Thanks a lot!

[MorkaisChosen]

Play-acting. He does a mocking impression of one of the PCs and BANG! Turns into them, but still sounding inherently childlike.

Make him mobile- kids never stay still.

Hide-and-seek with a twist- when it's his turn to hide, there're traps; if the PCs are hiding, when he finds them he'll do something unspeakable...

[Kol Korran]

glad it helped! i personally loved the "hide and seek" idea of Morakis Chosen, it can work well with some of the altered playgorunds. hey, you can even make a special sadistic and twisted game for every alteration...

a clarification on the second power: the idea is not to take full ocntrol over the players, but present them with a difficult choice- if they act on their own will, they suffer, if they wish noit to suffer, they are controlled/ compelled. maybe it affects just a move action of their turn? or a standard? (a second save can decide which). the thing is to challange th very basic things the players rely on in tactical situations.

but yeah, it is a a bit nasty, and i can see how a player can feel cheated and get frustrated. oh well, an idea though

good luck with it, and please tell us how it went!

[Chronicled]

I also like the hide-and-seek idea.

Challenging the players tactically I like. The board game sounds like it would work well here; each player ending up as a chess piece, for instance (boy would the swordsage love that).

I'm writing up a campaign diary, and I'll link to it here once it's mostly done.

[Pronounceable]

That picture isn't showing, so I dunno what it looks like.

*Tag!: Give him a nasty ability that does horrible things to someone each round. PCs can pass the effect to each other or some goon with a touch attack. It wears off after a few rounds.

*That laughter above: Make it a chorus of kids laughing with tints of distortion. Remember the weird two second laughter that plays in the good ol' Diablo's dungeons.

*Goons: Make the goons look like small kids. Maybe with some modifications: flayed heads, extra limbs, screaming and on fire, grinning and cutting their own faces, rotten looking, etc...

*Playground: Those changing locations, fill them with children. They're playing ball or tag or something and oblivious to the fight. They die with a single hit. When that happens, other kids kick the body away and resume playing. They never show any sign of percieving the fight.

*Freaking out: Depending on players, you can make those changing places filled with other stuff. Perhaps a crowd of kids lynching a puppy or another kid. Or some horrible tentacle monster doing unspeakable things to kids. Or rows upon rows of small coffins full of screaming babies. Maybe lots of pregnant women getting torn apart by babies aliening them from inside. But be careful to not overdo it.

[MorkaisChosen]

Definitely go with the games idea.

[Hawk7915]

cnsvnc's stuff is so horrifying that I felt scared just reading it :smalleek: . Great stuff.

I'm new at this, but here's my suggestions:

Biggest Kid Around: Well, the idea of having the avatar be kid-size is awesome...but makes it hard to have it use swallow whole. So how about he fires off Alter Size spells to shrink the PC's down to bug-size...and then does exactly what a sadistic kid would do with bugs (squash them, eat them, peel off their limbs and watch them squirm). To give the players a sporting chance and represent the weakened magic of the campaign, maybe he has to hit them with two shrink spells: the first one makes them halfling-sized, the second one makes them tiny. Or the players could get a bonus to their saves, to represent the unreliability of magic.

To take the "Chess" Idea one step further: At the start of the fight, each PC chooses a role that gives them 2-3 actions, and that's all they can do for the rest of the fight. These can be class abilities or even non-class abilities, and you can invent the roles yourself (Bishop can cast Cure Serious Wounds and Hold Person, moves diagonally, and has weak attacks) or make them choose their favorite actions and not use any others. I dunno, something to think about.

Hope that helps!

[Chronicled]

That picture isn't showing, so I dunno what it looks like.
This link might work. (http://i30.piczo.com/view/1/9/t/t/a/8/e/b/c/5/f/d/img/i150773239_10404_3.jpg)


*Playground: Those changing locations, fill them with children. They're playing ball or tag or something and oblivious to the fight. They die with a single hit. When that happens, other kids kick the body away and resume playing. They never show any sign of percieving the fight.


Oh how I love this.


To take the "Chess" Idea one step further: At the start of the fight, each PC chooses a role that gives them 2-3 actions, and that's all they can do for the rest of the fight. These can be class abilities or even non-class abilities, and you can invent the roles yourself (Bishop can cast Cure Serious Wounds and Hold Person, moves diagonally, and has weak attacks) or make them choose their favorite actions and not use any others. I dunno, something to think about.

Interesting. This has a lot of potential.

[Doomsy]

Ever play Jericho? A plane comprised of dozens of pieces of others he's stolen and warped because he has no really original ideas - merely aping the actions of other gods. Cruel mockeries of 'good' creatures or servants of gods that have offended him - not even funny ones, just pure idiot malevolence. A kind of low-grade meanness combined with no real sense of humor, taste, or style. A world run by the kind of kid who pulls the wings off flies just to watch them stumble and thinks it's clever.

Kids are nasty little bastards, when you get down to it. But they're not very sophisticated. Make it crude, sick, and obscene. Go for crippling skills or abilities - not deadly so much as incapacitating and irritating. Things that make the PCs feel helpless and toyed with more than outright murderous stuff. Things that he thinks are funny. Sick parodies of themselves used for grotesque spell/ability variations, etc.

There is a special kind of horror at being screwed with by something dumber than you, that has more pure power. I'd also recommend some kind of tantrums when things DON'T work out for it - childish freakouts of the entire scenery for surviving encounters or traps it thought was 'clever', etc.

Oh. Yeah! The blood portal ability from that one PrC might actually be a neat feature for an avatar of a god like that - just have a lot of blood/tissue around for it to be used from.

[Chronicled]

Good stuff

Good point about kids and simplicity (well, good points all of them, but this especially). There's definitely going to be a few things the PCs can do that set him into a tantrum--surviving traps (as you mentioned), possibly using his name wrong, not laughing when he thinks they should, etc.

Crippling... interesting. I know having a leg broken (say, reducing movement to 5') would get the barbarian pretty freaked out.

[The_Werebear]

A petty cruelty can show how childlike and immature they are. If someone in the party slights or wounds it especially greviously (or annoyingly) it starts to pick on it, not going for damage, but for humiliation. It might separate that character a distance away from the others, distract the main group with minions, and then go over to personally deal with that character using tactics that aren't immediately lethal. For example, it might throw them around in the air for a bit like a cat playing with its prey before spiking them angrily. Or it might hold their head under sand or water for several rounds, enough to bring that person close to drowning, and then bring them up, allowing them a gasp of air before putting them back under. It might strip them of items (what angers people more than having their stuff taken). No matter what else it does in this situation though, it has to be continually taunting that person through teeth clenched with rage.

A compliment to this might be to have the villain ignore actual wounds in favor of those who are bothering him the most. Someone who taunts and insults the creature can drive it into an unthinking frenzy of hate.

[MorkaisChosen]

Watch Blue Remembered HiJump up and down on squirrels- PCs, I mean.

[Chronicled]

A petty cruelty can show how childlike and immature they are. If someone in the party slights or wounds it especially greviously (or annoyingly) it starts to pick on it, not going for damage, but for humiliation. It might separate that character a distance away from the others, distract the main group with minions, and then go over to personally deal with that character using tactics that aren't immediately lethal. For example, it might throw them around in the air for a bit like a cat playing with its prey before spiking them angrily. Or it might hold their head under sand or water for several rounds, enough to bring that person close to drowning, and then bring them up, allowing them a gasp of air before putting them back under. It might strip them of items (what angers people more than having their stuff taken). No matter what else it does in this situation though, it has to be continually taunting that person through teeth clenched with rage.

A compliment to this might be to have the villain ignore actual wounds in favor of those who are bothering him the most. Someone who taunts and insults the creature can drive it into an unthinking frenzy of hate.

This also sounds like stuff I can use. Nonlethal toying with the players should get them worried, with a few Death Knights demanding the attention of the other players.


Watch Blue Remembered HiJump up and down on squirrels- PCs, I mean.
:smallconfused: I'm not quite sure what you mean by this.

[mikeejimbo]

You are now an Evil God.

Sorry, sorry, someone had to.

[Chronicled]

You are now an Evil God.

Sorry, sorry, someone had to.

As a recently made evil god, I'm proud to announce that I'll be offering better perks to followers than Solo is. :smalltongue:

[MorkaisChosen]

Sorry, I fail at typing.

Watch Blue Remembered Hills, a play about these seven-year-old kinds. They jump up and down on squirrels. Do the same to PCs.

[Chronicled]

Sorry, I fail at typing.

Watch Blue Remembered Hills, a play about these seven-year-old kinds. They jump up and down on squirrels. Do the same to PCs.

Ah, I see. That reminds me of the scene where Peter has tortured and killed squirrels in Ender's Game. I'll look into it, thanks!

[Prometheus]

A lot of people suggested that the Evil God mess around with the PCs, torturing them more than fighting them. This can only occur if the BBEG is, or thinks he is well more powerful than them. Therefore, I suggest you make him way more powerful, and the only way for the PCs to truly defeat him is to use this confidence against him.
Maybe they play defensive while they set things in motion for a sudden powerful attack (such as activating objects on the map, powering up an artifact without getting hit, or casting buff magic) or maybe they know he has a weakness (a vulnerable spot to hit, can be killed by a poison the PCs have if they can get him to ingest it, is on the edge of a cliff with a fall that would kill him etc), but have to get to it by being either strong enough or nonthreatening enough. Even if the PCs don't figure it out immediately, the Evil God will play with them long enough to give them time. If they do figure it out immediately, the Evil God will immediately prevent it, and they have to play the game in order to win the necessary advantage.

[Maerok]

I've got something I've been planning to use in a monster.

The creature can release pieces of its flesh as worm-like creatures that act as scouts and have the ability to crawl into victims. My original concept was a shadow-based possessor that can infect you with parts of its own shadow.

(Let's call it the Dark One, for now.)

Seeds of <Evil God Here> (Su): As a full-round action, the Dark One may take three damage (reducing its maximum hitpoints as such) to transform a piece of its flesh into a worm-like creature. The appendage acts independently of the Dark One, but the Dark One may see through the creature's "eyes" (darkvision out to 30 feet). This mindless creature has 1 HD, 3 hitpoints, AC 20, +8 on its saves, and is Tiny. It has a climb speed of 30 feet and a Hide and Move Silently modifiers of +15.
When the worm comes across a helpless or sleeping living creature, the victim must make a DC 16 Fortitude save or the creature infiltrates the victim's body. A DC 25 Spot check will detect the entry point, which heals over nearly perfectly (typically on the back, the neck, or on a limb). The creature lies dormant but provides the benefits of scrying for the Dark One on the victim. Once per hour, the Dark One may use suggestion on the victim (DC is Charisma-based).
As a free action, the Dark One may activate the worm which causes one of two effects: the victim must make a DC 18 Fortitude save or be slain from internal trauma, or the victim must make a DC 18 Will save to avoid falling under the Dark One's control. If the victim succeeds, the worm is destroyed and the victim vomits out the remains (the Dark One regains its lost hitpoints either way).
If the victim falls under the Dark One's control, they are commanded as by the dominate monster spell until the Dark One is slain or the worm is removed (DC is Charisma-based, but is raised by +4). The Dark One can actively command the victim through a form of telepathy. Removing the worm requires a DC 25 Heal check or it begins to destroy the victim from the inside (DC 18 Fortitude save to avoid death).
Once removed, if hallow or consecrate are cast on the worm, the Dark One takes 1d8 divine damage per spell level. The extracted worm disintegrates into nothingness after one round. The Dark One regains the three hitpoints spent to make the worm.