Need help with a villian race.

[neonagash]

Basically I'm looking for an enemy race, ideally an evil but neutral could work too, that would be an interesting and believable enemy for an empire of mindflayers. I havent decided on a system yet, but if they critter idea is right i have no problem altering them as necessary to fit into any particular rules set.

General tech level is like early final fantasy games, aka steampunk/magi tech common but relatively low powered.

I'm early in the planning process here so any thoughts or suggestions at all really are appreciated.

Background.

New campaign
Stargate style. Basically the starting world of the PC's is a long lost colony from an old, now splintered and decaying mind flayer empire. The world was used as a slave trading hub and bio development lab and fell in a slave revolt long ago. Which is why its got the traditional diversity of a D&D world.

Basically the PC's start as low level hirelings of a large expedition led by a semi famous explorer to study an ancient temple in a newly discovered ruined city. In the course of this they discover and re-activate the gate discovering the vast lattice of connected worlds.

Not the most creative thing i know, but I think its a good basis for all sorts of adventures and I plan to have a lot of conflict on both sides of the gate locations to keep things fresh.

[Ninja_Prawn]

So you want an evil race to oppose mind flayers? I assume you've already discounted their traditional foes (aboleths, beholders, drow, duergar)? A rogue faction of mind flayers opposed to the main group might be interesting, but it's probably not what you want.

And you've got a slightly more advanced world, with airships and magitech. Well that's good, because it leaves an opening. As I see it, mind flayers are quite old-fashioned and conservative, in the sense that they believe you should get by in life on your personal psionic might and if you can't look after yourself, you don't deserve to live.

Therefore, I can see them at odds with an evil race that adapts to change and uses technological innovations to make up for their lack of innate powers. The mind flayers would see them as weak and unworthy, while this new race might enjoy hunting mind flayers in a sort of 'most dangerous game' scenario. Also they may have stolen slaves from the mind flayers in order to convert them into magical cyborg killing machines. Or something.

For some reason, this is all saying 'evil gnomes' to me. Maybe a city of svirfneblin has been corrupted by a demon...?

[neonagash]

So you want an evil race to oppose mind flayers? I assume you've already discounted their traditional foes (aboleths, beholders, drow, duergar)? A rogue faction of mind flayers opposed to the main group might be interesting, but it's probably not what you want.

And you've got a slightly more advanced world, with airships and magitech. Well that's good, because it leaves an opening. As I see it, mind flayers are quite old-fashioned and conservative, in the sense that they believe you should get by in life on your personal psionic might and if you can't look after yourself, you don't deserve to live.

Therefore, I can see them at odds with an evil race that adapts to change and uses technological innovations to make up for their lack of innate powers. The mind flayers would see them as weak and unworthy, while this new race might enjoy hunting mind flayers in a sort of 'most dangerous game' scenario. Also they may have stolen slaves from the mind flayers in order to convert them into magical cyborg killing machines. Or something.

For some reason, this is all saying 'evil gnomes' to me. Maybe a city of svirfneblin has been corrupted by a demon...?

Yeah i discarded traditional enemies. A lot of them seem either too limited in enviroment or too personally powerful, and i just never liked drow much.

But evil gnomes? I can see that. Sort of an evil tinker gnome, maybe a bit of the evil dwarves from warhammer flavor. That will be a good twist.

[Bulhakov]

I can see these guys as agents of a multi-world evil empire :)

[Regitnui]

Here's an idea; the gnomes aren't evil, but paranoid, secretive and utterly convinced that nobody but them can fight the Illithidian Empire. Therefore LN or even LG. They just don't see how the PCs could help in any way whatsoever.

[neonagash]

Hmm. LN huh? I can see that. Probably view humans (who are a minor race galactically) as backwards bumpkins who should stay home at let the elder races handle things.

[Kol Korran]

Ideas:
1. Weren't the Gith (Githzerai and the other kind, forgot it's name) The longest natural enemies of the Illithids? I know very little about them, but it might be worth doing a search.

2. A different approach: Fighting Mind flayers means fighting powerful psions. So what ever race fought them, might have taken measures, some extreme measures to fight them.

Measures such as making most of their population (Or at least army) into undead, or living constructs, shielded from the psionics. Basically, they were so desperate as to make themselves into unnatural forms just to fight the Illithids. Might even not be a single race, but an organization/ belief/ faction/ and such, pulling people of many races.

The illithids still have plenty of slaves to fight them, and the process of turning may be hard to perform, or they my be too few to over come the illithids, but they may be a serious threat.

Of course, in desperation, and wishing to replenish their numbers, or build a stronger army, they might use such processes on other races, willing or not. "The end justify the means"/ t all costs, sort of strategy. (Nitche's quote comes to mind, could work under such a scenario)

[PersonMan]

Would also make them unreliable help at best and as good as an enemy at worst.

"You need protection from the illithid attacks? Why would we waste resources on that? We have a defensive position eleven miles away, no need for us to reposition."

"I see your troops have arrived to help in the attack. Go around and hit their flank, alone - sending any of our forces with yours would just result in us taking heavy losses when your troops inevitably break..."

[BWR]

Githyanki (evil) and githzerai (LN) are the traditional enemies of the illithids. Originally human, psionically altered to a near-human race, overthrew the ancient illithid empire then immediately splintered into two groups who hate each other but hate illithids more. The 'yanki are xenophobic, militaristic and highly structured and evil. They should be easy to adjust to a more high-tech setting.

Old, decaying worlds with gith subraces already exist - read the "Dawn of the Overmind" and the world of Penumbra, which bears heavy resemblance to an illithidfied Ringworld with some Barsoom flavoring.

[neonagash]

Ideas:
1. Weren't the Gith (Githzerai and the other kind, forgot it's name) The longest natural enemies of the Illithids? I know very little about them, but it might be worth doing a search.

2. A different approach: Fighting Mind flayers means fighting powerful psions. So what ever race fought them, might have taken measures, some extreme measures to fight them.

Measures such as making most of their population (Or at least army) into undead, or living constructs, shielded from the psionics. Basically, they were so desperate as to make themselves into unnatural forms just to fight the Illithids. Might even not be a single race, but an organization/ belief/ faction/ and such, pulling people of many races.

The illithids still have plenty of slaves to fight them, and the process of turning may be hard to perform, or they my be too few to over come the illithids, but they may be a serious threat.

Of course, in desperation, and wishing to replenish their numbers, or build a stronger army, they might use such processes on other races, willing or not. "The end justify the means"/ t all costs, sort of strategy. (Nitche's quote comes to mind, could work under such a scenario)

Ha I can see it. Tinker gnomes go all resident evil as a strategy. Which of course leads to a few worlds where it got out of control and turned the whole place into a zombie death world.

[neonagash]

Githyanki (evil) and githzerai (LN) are the traditional enemies of the illithids. Originally human, psionically altered to a near-human race, overthrew the ancient illithid empire then immediately splintered into two groups who hate each other but hate illithids more. The 'yanki are xenophobic, militaristic and highly structured and evil. They should be easy to adjust to a more high-tech setting.

Old, decaying worlds with gith subraces already exist - read the "Dawn of the Overmind" and the world of Penumbra, which bears heavy resemblance to an illithidfied Ringworld with some Barsoom flavoring.

Interesting idea. I was going to make the illithids genetic engineers anyway to up the creep factor.

I like the gith more almost as castoffs though. For some reason they were flawed so when they rebelled it may have been a huge thing to them but the illithids called it good riddance. Or maybe left them to rule old colonies that were considered no use anymore as a way to dispose of them peacefully.

I need to come up with a few flaws though that would cause the flayers to discard them.

[Regitnui]

I need to come up with a few flaws though that would cause the flayers to discard them.

A predilection for necromancy or spontaneously raising after death into lich-like beings.

An immunity to mind control (leads more into the "you govern this backwards corner" scenario)

Insufficient initiative for slaves, too little neural matter for ceremorphosis.

[Takewo]

Ideas:
1. Weren't the Gith (Githzerai and the other kind, forgot it's name) The longest natural enemies of the Illithids? I know very little about them, but it might be worth doing a search.

2. A different approach: Fighting Mind flayers means fighting powerful psions. So what ever race fought them, might have taken measures, some extreme measures to fight them.

Measures such as making most of their population (Or at least army) into undead, or living constructs, shielded from the psionics. Basically, they were so desperate as to make themselves into unnatural forms just to fight the Illithids. Might even not be a single race, but an organization/ belief/ faction/ and such, pulling people of many races.

The illithids still have plenty of slaves to fight them, and the process of turning may be hard to perform, or they my be too few to over come the illithids, but they may be a serious threat.

Of course, in desperation, and wishing to replenish their numbers, or build a stronger army, they might use such processes on other races, willing or not. "The end justify the means"/ t all costs, sort of strategy. (Nitche's quote comes to mind, could work under such a scenario)

A sort of undead borg?

[Bohandas]

Obryiths or Ethergaunts. Also undead, especially spawn-forming undead, mummies, and nightshades.

[Regitnui]

A sort of undead borg?

Mechagnomes!

The gith could have been an attempt to breed humans to be more nutritious (by mind flayer standards) that instead ended up with a creature whose neural tissue was distributed throughout the body instead of concentrated in the cranium. This made them both inedible, poor ceremorphosis candidates, and remarkably likely to rise into undeath due to uneven 'brain' death. Needless to say, the illithid empire swiftly tried to forget about such a mistake.

[Beleriphon]

I can see these guys as agents of a multi-world evil empire :)

Commandgnomes?

[neonagash]

Hmn ok so gith are inedible and lazy and gnomes have James bond (new bond)meets mission impossible commando teams, and zombie hordes.

This should keep the players wondering what to expect next. Awesome.

[Regitnui]

Hmn ok so gith are inedible and lazy and gnomes have James bond (new bond)meets mission impossible commando teams, and zombie hordes.

This should keep the players wondering what to expect next. Awesome.

Summarized, this sounds an awful lot like 2e Spelljammer...

[neonagash]

Never actually played spelljammer. Back in those days it was mainly forgotten realms and Ravenloft as settings

[The Glyphstone]

My first thought was duregar. Also evil, underground-dwelling, slave-keeping creatures, but since dwarves (and gnomes) tend to get pigeonholed as the 'techy' races in these settings, they'd make a good thematic foil to both the good dwarves who live aboveground/closer to the surface, and the evil luddite Mind Flayers.

Svirfneblin work in that role too though.

[Gastronomie]

The Duergar were enslaved by them eons ago, so they have a grudge against the Flayers.

I doubt Mind Flayers can eat the brainnsssssss of zombies, as well, meaning that if you made up an original race which had necromantic powers, they could be a threat for the Flayers. So would be Constructs and Plants, and Oozes.

[Bohandas]

Obryith demons are also immune to mind-influencing effects, and they're chaotic evil while the 'flayers are lawful evil so you could get a blood-war-in-miniature thing going on

[Inevitability]

Flumphs. Mutated flumphs, who have grown to be even freakier than before, yet still possess the kindheartedness of a flumph.

[neonagash]

Flumphs. Mutated flumphs, who have grown to be even freakier than before, yet still possess the kindheartedness of a flumph.

Ha. I see that as a friendly but helpless race, almost comic relief. Just need to make sure I introduce them by having someone fall on one.

Side note I always liked the idea of keeping a campaign journal but typing during the game distracts me so I was considering setting up a camera to record sessions instead. Anyone ever try this?

[The Glyphstone]

If you're going to record a session, I'd suggest just using a voice recorder instead. Keep the microphone centered and it'll pick up everything more or less equally - and with audio-only, you can edit it to trim out the random table chatter and off-topic nonsense that every group ends up prone to without causing nearly as much of a jarring effect as editing video in the same way would.

Personally, my campaign logs always relied primarily on short-term memory, I never took notes during the session itself.

[Bohandas]

I've had good luck in the past with Olympus brand WS-series mp3 voice recorders. Though I use them for recording personal notes (like the way the FBI agent from Twin Peaks used his tape recorder); I have no idea whether they'd work equally well recording crowds.

[neonagash]

Hmm. I hadn't thought about audio only. I was kinda thinking it would be funny to watch the random wackiness later. I do have some audio gear from my ex's ghost hunting hobby though. I could set that up and see how it comes out.