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Leliel
2008-10-12, 06:06 PM
Well, I have on file the PDF of the 2nd Edition Nightmare Lands-a domain in Ravenloft-and I've become enthralled with the idea of the PCs entering the mind of a man and trying to expel an evil presence within it.

So, my idea is for an illithid to use his powers to enter into the dreams of an important oracle to find out information on a prophecy concerning his-the mind flayer's-master. Although the mental defences of the man are too powerful for the flayer to overcome, he finds a memory concerning the death of his daughter, which the flayer has decided to use as the chief component in a nightmare to wear down the oracles mind until he has a nervous breakdown, which will allow the illithid to read his mind like a book.

Naturally, by the time the PCs find out and arrive to help, the oracle's already slightly insane from guilt, and has been locked up in an insane asylum for his safety. However, the PCs find a copy of the talisman the flayer uses to enter dreams, and then they enter the bizarre mental world of the oracle, where they have to, not necessarily in order, make some sense of the rules of the dream, help the oracle overcome his issues, and kick the illithid's astral projection-pun intended-back into his own mind.

So, how would you forsee this working out?

Kol Korran
2008-10-13, 11:08 AM
always with the interesting ideas Leliel, eh? anyway, here are some ideas/ points i think might be usefull (i did something similar once, so i'll give examples from that experience):

1- the dream selves do not appear as the real world characters... each also portrays that character's inner issues and the main concepts and ideas importent to her- conciously or unconciously. for example- i had a halfling rogue/ barbarian in my party, who acted a lot like Belkar (sadistic, self centered and so on). his slef image was size large in the dream, with pointed teeth, and turned blood red when raged. i had a human duskblade who was very sociable but in fact very slef concious and worried at what others might think. his character appeared transperent, with the image of a child within...

i suggest this be half your work, and half the players (this will only work with roleplay dedicated ones though) this way you can portray their concious and unconcious mind.

2- belongings in the dream: when they arrive at the dream world they have nearly no belongings. they carrry only 1-3 (whatever you decides) representations of items that are meaningfull to them. these are their main items for the stay in dreamland, thier power items. these items do not work exactly like their real world counterparts, having some abilities tied to the way the character sees them. for example- the halfling barberian rogue i mentioned before loved his poisons, which he distilled and crafted very lovingly (and disturbingly i might add) so in dream land he had a Posion Vial, and each creature struck by the "poison" would roll a saving throw to see if it dies or not (as was the belief of the halfling). each creature that died also gave a short time moral bonus to the halfling. the duskblade kept it's sword which he belived was a part of him, almost another limb. i enabled him to attack with it as a move action, make it longer to reach 15 ft away, provide partial protection for him and so long. the paladin could porject a lance of force from his holy symbol, the dwarf fighter who kept his fahter's armor had protection, and could "summon" clan members (bring dream manifestations) to his aid.

i suggest you ask the players for their 1-3 main items that are importent to them, why, and their fantasies about what they could do with them. then create unique dream "power items". my players realy enjoyed that!

3- dream manipulation and influence: in dreams the physical stats don't matter, and the mental stats matter, but to a limited extent. i gave each character three new stats: dream stuff retention (i know- i suck at name things), dream stuff manipulation, and dream Persona: the first determines how much raw dream matter/energy thecharacter can retain for every leg of the journey (it gets renewd, i'll get to that). this determines how many times the character will be able to influence the dream world in ways that fit dreaming (every such attempt drains some energy)- flying, instantly at enemies, influencing places and so on...
the second stat- manipulation: is in a way how good the character is at what it does. any attempt to affect the dream world can be distorted into unexpected results (by the character's unconcious, by the oracle's beraggled mind, or the illithid even... you might make the manipulation attempt harder in the latter case) this works similerily to a skill check- every "change/feat/task" has a DC, and the character throws a dice to see if she succeeds (and to what extent- should be several results), fails with nothing happening, or fails with distortion.
the third stat- Persona, is sort of the Character's dream HP. but it has one more use- the character can expunge some Persona points to make realy meaningfull or flashy changes to the world (as the Retention and Manipulation enable) this however drains the Persona. "creating" new items, creating places, massively altering conditions and so on all fall under this category.

not sure all this was fully understood, ask me if you wish me to explain again.
intelligence affects how much retention (and thus how much dream energy) a person has, wisdom affects Manipulation, and charisma (self confidence, presence) affect Persona. however- i must stress that the effects mustn't be large, because it will disadvatage considerably non caster types (who don't usually invest heavily in these attributes). some influence is fine, just don't make it dominant.

4- how things actually work: encounters still occur in dream land, only these are scenes from the combined imaginations and minds of the oracle and the mindflayer (and the longer the characters stay, the greater the chances their own minds will start to "make an appearance" as well!) i suggest the characters follow some sort of plot line- scenes from the oracle's life to begin with, starting from the safest places and slowly (or rapidly) venturing into more disturbed places. the oracle him/her self tries to prevent intrusion to his/her shame and pain, and so the dreams themsleves may turn on the characters. in eahc scene the chatracters may find more clues as to the diseased mind they are facing. each clue enables them to "travel" to another scene by force of will. as they deepen their investigations, the oracle's defenses becoem mroe desperate, but perhaps also more feeeble. his defenses however are replaced by manifestations of nightmare and taunting set their by the mind flayer, becoming stronger the more they penetrate the mind. the environments too become more nightmarish, more haunting, more alien...

how do battle encounters go? well, the battle goes as usuall, but anything "unoridnary" (this means spells, powers, acrobatic feats and so on) the character tries to do, takes "Dream energy" and requires a dream manipulation check. (unless the character "wounds" its own Persona to accomplish something grand). i can't give you a list, as this is the realm of imagination, let things realy go wild! high jumps, creating crevices to swallow their enemies, growing huge, and so on. this time everyone are clerics and wizards by force of imagination!
this is a unique environment, let it have it's unique rules.
don't forget about distortions- if something doesn't succeeds it may go horribly wrong. if so, make it based either on the characters (from their subconcious) or from the mind flayer (if they are deep enough) or from the oracle (if they need more clues as to where to go to next)

some nots here:
- every once in a while there should be a place of resting and refreshing (repleneshing dream energy and persona). these should come after major echievments, and could be parts of the oracle's mind that weren't destroyed yet, or even manifestations of ideas of the party's mind (the cleric/ paladin/ druid could subconciously create a safehaven to protect their "flock"). make each place unique.
- the players mind should also come into play (id suggest to start from middle investigation) they meet "Creatures" they fought before, old acquiantances, visti places they visited and more. part of this is just because they are dreaming as well. part of this however is because the Illithid tries to investigate the intrusion. run these encounters from the freidnly, to the bizzare, to the heart wrenching and more. these are great opportunities for roleplays and for the characters to realy get to know each other.
-the mind's flayer presence is nearly everywhere- he can use dream energy and persona as well. at some battles let it's presence be known by the strange effects the characters face. he may also try to interfere with the characters attempts (making the dream manipulation DCs harder) but i have no mechnic for that.

5- bring it to a close: the closing i suggest should involve two accomplishments: the first will be to relieve the oracle's pain and shame and whatever s/he is going through. this could be in the midst of battle against his/her final ""guardians" (various images of himslef suffering, their power is his maddness), and the second feat is to go into the mindlfayer's brain itself, and shake it's world, enliven it's nightmares, it's secrets (the oracle may supply this knowledge perhaps, having been plagued by the villain for so long). this last part could be realy bizzare- the mind of an Illithid! i'd suggest to have "nightmares" locked in various parts of it's brain. the Illithid can subdue each of them on their own. the party however splits and tries to free them all together, then flee back to their own dreams as the mindflayer's worst fears wash over it.

that's all i got. i hope it helped. please let me know if you liked something. and also report to us how the advneture went... i'm curious.
Kol.

hamishspence
2008-10-13, 11:23 AM
Or, Heroes of Horror has details for dream/nightmare adventures.

Kol Korran
2008-10-13, 12:09 PM
oh, nearly forgot- Eberron's Quori are excellent nightmare creature (if you're playing 3E. shouldn't be hard to convert them to 4E). i used a degraded Dream Master (Magic of Eberron i think) for the final encounter... he was my adventure's equivalent of your Illithid.

Kaiyanwang
2008-10-13, 12:11 PM
I think Kol Korran sai almost anything could be suggested about... Mine is only a suggestion for the campaign later, after the adventure.

You could decide that the entering in the dream broke some barrier for the PCs, so there will be further circumstances in wich the PCs will not discern dream from reality. This could rise their sense of doubt.. and fear.

Further you could use them as plot hooks, plot fixes, and hooks for monster linked to dreams like night hags or refluffed quori, maybe.

Just my 2c..

Prometheus
2008-10-13, 08:28 PM
Wow, good premise and good answer. Leliel idea threads are always interesting.

I had a dreamlike world in one of my own campaigns and I gave them access to a new skill (I called it Lucid Dreaming but this bares the same name as a similar skill that isn't used the same). So the PCs could practice (either using the talismen or their own dreams) beforehand and raise this skill. This skill is precisely what Kol Korran described, the ability to do fantastic things in dreams (or remove fantastic thing in dreams).

I have a couple of Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution should have less bearing in this world. Either replace them or average them with Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma respectively (it's in that order because Charisma has a precedent for being a replacement for Constitution (Undead rules) and Wisdom seems to make more sense as Dexterity).

You might want to give some different rules for beings that have entered dreams (the PCs, the Ilithid) and beings from the dreams (let's call them figments). While figments can be very powerful, they are more likely to be able to influence the world around them (via the relevant skill and power reserve) and be influenced by other minds (by the same means). You'd expect them to be more keyed to the environment. For some light humor in the midst of this chaotic dream world and emotional drudging, have some figment the PCs are fighting disappear when they are distracted by something else and momentarily forget about the figment.

The guide to the planes (forget the exact name of it) has a plane in it called Dreamworld (Dreamland) which has a Lucid Dreaming skill and rules for navigating the world. Now this world is actually not very well described and seems to be a lot more boring than what is described here, but it might be worth looking at. Navigating the mind, especially seems to be a use of the Lucid Dreaming skill.

Kizor
2008-10-13, 08:44 PM
You have to have one character appear as a member of the opposite sex, haven't you?

Pie Guy
2008-10-13, 09:48 PM
Am I the only one thinking psyconauts right now?