Villainous Competition XVII: It's Alive!

[Thurbane]

ANI-4855 Thomas

Spoiler: backstory

Show

Spoiler: Headline

Show

“Do I hear a hundred?”

ANI-4855 stood up straight on the auctioneer’s block. Wasn’t much market for warforged without a war.

“Does it do anything?” a buyer from the front asked.

The auctioneer nodded to ANI-4855.

“Special operations,” she said.

“Eh?” the buyer grunted.

“Reconnaissance, scouting, things like that.”

The buyer fanned herself with her program. “Can you clean?”

“Yes.” ANI-4855 didn’t move from her spot.

“A hundred ten.” Sold.

Spoiler: First Reference

Show

ANI-4855 dipped a rabbit pelt into a vat of sharp-smelling orange liquid her warmblood mistress avoided.

She eavesdropped as she’d been trained to do in the war more out of habit than any real curiosity as she worked in the back of the millinery shop. Her owner, Miss Thomas, was talking to one of her regulars, a wholesaler was in talks to out the wardens from House Deneith with a new cap to their uniform.

But that wasn’t the topic of conversation tonight, long after the shop had closed.

“I’m just saying, it’s only a matter of time,” he said.

Thomas sighed. “That’s what they always say, and they’re always wrong. The unseen servants that sweep up don’t make any noise about rebellion. We just switched to the ‘forged because they were cheaper.”

“Uh huh, that’s what they said anyway,” he poured himself a glass of something. From the sound, it was a tall one. “I’ll tell you something for nothing: if I was you, I’d get rid of that thing before it kills you.”

Thomas didn’t say anything. The bell on the door told ANI-4855 her guest had left.

She knew better than to ask questions. The warforged hadn’t been built as bootblacks and footmen. They were bred for killing, and some warmbloods couldn’t get that out of their heads. True, there had been some incidents, but anyone with a brain or its equivalent in their heads knew better than to believe everything they read in the Chronicle.

ANI-4855 wasn’t surprised when Thomas gave her her walking papers. In a way, it was crueler than her present circumstances. While here she was relegated to a closet full of some gas that made the warmbloods squirm, at least she had a roof to keep the rain off her chassis.

Not anymore.

Spoiler: Paraphrase

Show

Like anyone else, she saw the clank preachers on the street. And like anyone else, she’d ignored them.

Til now.

Without anywhere to stay or anyone to help look after her, some of their sermons about how the world was out to get them rung true to ANI-4855. It wasn’t much, but when she heard a moss-covered preacher on the street screeching about how the Chronicle was not to be trusted, something made her listen.

She couldn’t chalk it up entirely to the amplifier he’d had implanted in his neck. Aftermarket. Expensive. It did make the warmbloods give him a wider berth. She moved in next to him.

“Would you like to know more?” he asked.

She did.

Spoiler: Lede

Show

ANI-4855 passed out copies of “The Engine Heart,” a paper she and her brothers and sisters had started together. Between them, they had enough parts to cobble together something like a press a few times a month.

When warforged were accused of crimes, ANI-4855 or one of the others would try to get their side of things. ANI-4855 even had her own byline. Reporters had surnames. It was the way of things. To blend in, her byline was Annie Thomas.

Where the Chronicle would write about a warforged rampaging through a warmblood tavern, Engine Heart would mention that he was thrown into it first by a gang of warmbloods.

The latest scare the Chronicle was mongering was some boogeyman called Obligatum. A warforged (of course) whose goals weren’t mere vandalism or destruction of public property, but an end to the nature of existence itself, including the warmblood gods, sovereign and dark alike.

The Heart’s sources told a different tale.

A short time ago, ANI-4855 had come across a fellow warforged who’d fallen on hard times and had a few bits and pieces he wanted to get off his hands (so to speak.) The component in question was actually in his head (now in hers.)

She’d heard of telepathy jammers during her time in the war. The spellcarved soldiers who discussed them in her presence usually called them brain blocks. No one within range could sniff out your thoughts or give sneaky commands. Useful for someone in her line of work.

Money changed hands, and ANI-4855 had a lot less on her mind.

Her byline started coming up more often, even earning a mention in the Inquisitive. After that, she was able to pick up new toys with the resulting payday. A second skin to more easily slip into shadow. A magic muffler to keep silver flame hotheads off her back in the street.

Their daily speeches about how ‘forged didn’t have souls rolled off her back. By now, every part that had made up ANI-4855’s body when she rolled off the assembly line drew power in the body of another warforged, hung on display in some junk shop, helped set margins on the Heart, or had been melted into candlesticks or brooches for bored warmbloods to decorate their homes. Everything on her was new, and she was still herself. If that didn’t mean something, she didn’t know what did.

But when the flame wanted to make things physical by lighting themselves up and coming at her, it was still satisfying to blow them out with an elbow to the throat and to watch them shout when they couldn’t turn their flames back on.

She needed her new hardware for more than just petty kicks. Her story on this Obligatum, if he even existed, was taking her to more dangerous locales every day. Reports indicated that he’d been seen doing combat with fiends themselves.

Some villain.

The broken cultists and shattered sects he left in his wake reported the same single-mindedness in him that was a common enough stereotype about warforged, but here, ANI-4855 knew it was truth and not just idle prejudice.

Whatever Obligatum’s aim, he was looking for something.

A good reporter knew the way to get to a story on something like this meant beating him to it.

Spoiler: Quote

Show

Her most recent upgrade had cost ANI-4855 dearly. A formerly experimental piece that broke a warforged into its constituent components, smaller even than its tiniest screw, and spirited them to their new destination, reassembling there, much faster than carrying a whole body. Warmbloods had thought it too icky, but by now, ANI-4855 was used to being taken apart and being put back together.

Her leads had indicated one specific place where she could find Obligatum. They hadn’t failed her.

Amidst a battlefield strewn with fiends, stood Obligatum, purposefully hitting a chunk of crystal with a sword. He was making little progress ANI-4855 could see.

“Excuse me. Excuse me!” ANI-4855 shouted over the banging.

“I’d wanted to get a quote from you on what you were doing here. Do you plan to unmake reality itself, plunge all of creation into a vortex of unending darkness, fire from the sky, horses eating each other, and etc?” she asked.

Obligatum did not stop hammering against the crystal.

“Uh, listen, I’ve seen this before in the war. I think you have a short in the wiring of your arm. I’ve got a kit here I could use if you’d just—“ she reached for his shoulder, hidden beneath a ridiculous red cape, but he shrugged her off.

“I just nothing until I complete my task,” he said between blows.

“Look, I just need to get some basics here. Are you really not gonna talk to me until you break that thing?” she asked.

“After it is shatter’d, it matters not. I will answer questions until the very end of eternity.”

What a great quote. Readers would love it.

ANI-4855 drew a wand from her belt and shot a beam of sound at the crystal keeping her from her business. It shattered and Obligatum, though he’d been clipped with a bit of shrapnel, didn’t seem to mind at all.

“Anyway, now that’s all done with, have you got time to talk?” she asked.

Obligatum sheathed his blade.

“I have all the time in the world.”

ANI-4855 got out her notebook

Spoiler: lvl breakdown

Show

LE warforged savant 5/psychic rogue 1/hellbreaker 10/spellcarved soldier 4

Spoiler: abilities

Show

before mods

str 13
dex 15
con 12
int 14
wis 10
cha 8

after mods
str 13
dex 15 (increases here)
con 14
int 14
wis 8
cha 6

Spoiler: build table

Show

Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Savant 1	+0	+0	+0	+2	balance 4, bluff 4, iaijutsu focus 4, k (planes) 4, sm 4, spellcraft 4, tumble 4, umd 4	combat expertise	Academic lore, skill assistance (5 feet), trapfinding
2nd	Savant 2	+1	+0	+0	+3	autohypnosis 2, balance 1 (5), bluff 1 (5), iaijutsu focus 1 (5), sm 1 (5), tumble 1 (5), umd 1 (5)		Talent lore (improved feint)
3rd	Savant 3	+2	+1	+1	+3	autohypnosis 3 (5), bluff 1 (6), iaijutsu focus 1 (6), sm 1 (6), tumble 1 (6), umd 1 (6)	combat reflexes	Sneak attack +ld6
4th	Savant 4	+3	+1	+1	+4	autohypnosis 2 (7), bluff 1 (7), hide 1, iaijutsu focus 1 (7), sm 1 (7), tumble 1 (7), umd 1 (7)		Skill assistance (10 feet)
5th	Savant 5	+3	+1	+1	+4	autohypnosis 1 (8), bluff 1 (8), hide 1 (2), iaijutsu focus 1 (8), sm 1 (8), tumble 1 (8), umd 1 (8)		Arcane lore
6th	Psychic Rogue 1	+3	+1	+3	+4	hide 7 (9), ms 1	undo resistance	Sneak attack +1d6, trapfinding
7th	Hellbreaker 1	+3	+1	+5	+6	hide 1 (10), ms 7 (8)		Mantle of darkness, telepathic static
8th	Hellbreaker 2	+4	+1	+6	+7	bluff 1 (9), hide 1 (11), ms 3 (11), tumble 3 (11)		Steal spell-like ability
9th	Hellbreaker 3	+5	+2	+6	+7	bluff 3 (12), hide 1 (12), listen 2, ms 1 (12), tumble 1 (12)	supernatural instincts	Sneak attack +1d6
10th	Hellbreaker 4	+6/+1	+2	+7	+8	bluff 1 (13), hide 1 (13), listen 4 (6), ms 1 (13), tumble 1 (13)		Stowaway
11th	Hellbreaker 5	+6/+1	+2	+7	+8	bluff 1 (14), hide 1 (14), listen 4 (10), ms 1 (14), tumble 1 (14)		Neutralize spell-like ability
12th	Hellbreaker 6	+7/+2	+3	+8	+9	bluff 1 (15), hide 1 (15), listen 4 (14), ms 1 (15), tumble 1 (15)	staggering strike	Sneak attack +2d6
13th	Hellbreaker 7	+8/+3	+3	+8	+9	bluff 1 (16), hide 1 (16), listen 2 (16), ms 1 (16), spot 2, tumble 1 (16)		Foil summoning
14th	Hellbreaker 8	+9/+4	+3	+9	+10	bluff 1 (17), hide 1 (17), listen 1 (17), ms 1 (17), spot 3 (5), tumble 1 (17)		Steal supernatural ability
15th	Hellbreaker 9	+9/+4	+4	+9	+10	bluff 1 (18), hide 1 (18), listen 1 (18), ms 1 (18), spot 3 (8), tumble 1 (18)	silver tracery	Sneak attack +3d6
16th	Hellbreaker 10	+10/+5	+4	+10	+11	bluff 1 (19), hide 1 (19), listen 1 (19), ms 1 (19), spot 3 (11), tumble 1 (19)		Plane hop
17th	Spellcarved Soldier 1	+11/+6/+1	+6	+10	+13	umd 6 (14)		Spellcarved runes, rune of extension
18th	Spellcarved Soldier 2	+12/+7/+2	+7	+10	+14	umd 6 (20)	surprising riposte	Rune of resistance
19th	Spellcarved Soldier 3	+13/+8/+3	+7	+11	+14	spellcraft 1 (5), tumble 3 (22), umd 2 (22)		Rune of fortification
20th	Spellcarved Soldier 4	+14/+9/+4	+8	+11	+15	spellcraft 4 (9), tumble 1 (23), umd 1 (23)		Rune of the archmage

Spoiler: playtips

Show

Spoiler: lvl 5

Show

Your savant levels give you a huge amount of versatility. Skulk around the battlefield and use your sneak attack to its full potential, feinting where applicable. Savant’s complete skill list lets you have fun with iaijutsu focus, which lets you deal better sneak attack damage. Pick true strike to hit more often and grease to render foes flat-footed (but not you, you’ve got 5 ranks in balance).Dish out aoos as quickly as your enemies can provoke them.
Undo resistance helps take down enemy SR and finishes laying groundwork for later classes.

Spoiler: lvl 10

Show

Psychic rogue gives dorje access, alongside your wand tricks from savant. Grab dimensional pocket as your power known to carry around weapons and other goodies where no one can find them.

You’re in hellbreaker now. Mantle of darkness lets you hide even when being observed, and even from creatures that can see in darkness. Telepathic static blocks enemy communications, even throwing a wrench in mindsight’s works. Your iconic steal sla is online, so take any power that catches your fancy. Supernatural instincts lets you keep the aoos coming against even supernatural abilities, so get next to people and keep poking them. Stowaway lets you piggyback on any teleportation, so take full advantage from both allies and enemies.

Spoiler: lvl 15

Show

You can neutralize enemy slas now in addition to taking them for yourself. Staggering strike debilitates enemies who you can hit with your sneak attack, so a typical attack is now lowering sr, stealing or turning off their powers, and cripples them. Silver tracery shores up your saves vs enemy spells and slas. Keep up your skulking and doling out sneak attacks.

Spoiler: lvl 20

Show

You’re done with hellbreaker, and can now traverse planes as you please. Spellcarved soldier supplements savant’s spellcasting and helps out with neat abilities of your own. It extends any buffs on yourself, makes them harder to dispel, boosts saves, and renders you immune to crits and sneak attacks, plus you gain an extra ring slot (the equivalent of an epic feat), and add your class level to CL for all your spells you do while your rune’s up. Plus you’ve got the respect of other spellcarved soldiers when your paths cross, which is always nice. Surprising riposte is online, so you can feint and render foes flatfooted, doing all the things that trigger on a sneak attack more often.

Spoiler: sources

Show

core: combat expertise, improved feint, combat reflexes
mind's eye-psychic rogue
dragon compendium: savant
fiendish codex 2: hellbreaker, undo resistance, supernatural instincts
complete adventurer: staggering strike
races of eberron: spellcarved soldier, silver tracery
drow of the underdark: surprising riposte
skilled city dweller

[Thurbane]

The Destroyer

CE Vampire Lord Derro (Dragon Totem) Barbarian 1/Fighter 1/Paladin of Slaughter 2/Frenzied Berserker 8

"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."

Spoiler: Stats

Show

Source	Str	Dex	Con	Int	Wis	Cha
Elite Array	13	14	8	12	10	15
Derro	13	18(+4)	10(+2)	12	4(-6)	21(+6)
Vampire	19(+6)	22(+4)	-	14(+2)	6(+2)	25(+4)
Vampire Lord	25(+6)	26(+4)	-	16(+2)	8(+2)	29(+4)
Level Advancement	1(4HD)					2(8 HD, 12 HD)
Final	26	26	-	16	8	31

Spoiler: Build Table

Show

Bonus Feat^B

CR	Class	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will (uses Cha)	Skills	Feats	Class Features
4	Derro Dragon Totem Barbarian 1	4	3	3	3	Bluff 6 ranks, Hide 6 +4 racial, Move Silently 6 +4 racial, Intimidate 5	Power Attack, Intimidating Rage, Blind-FightB	Rage, Sneak Attack 1d6, SR 15, madness, poison use, Derro SLAs, vulnerability to sunlight
5	Fighter 1	5	5	3	3	Intimidate 6(+1), Jump 2 (+2)	Cleave
7	Vampire	5	5	5	3	+8 racial Bluff, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sense Motive, Spot	AlertnessB, Combat ReflexesB, DodgeB, Improved InitiativeB, Lightning ReflexesB	fast healing 5, Gaseous form, resistance: cold 10; electricity 10, DR 10/silver and magic, blood drain, dominate, create spawn, children of the night, energy drain, alternate form, spider climb, turn resistance +4
8	Paladin of Slaughter 1	6	7	5	3	Intimidate 8(+2), Hide 7(+1 CC) + 12 racial	Destructive Rage	Aura of evil, Detect good, Smite good 1/day
9	Paladin of Slaughter 2	7	8+Cha	5+Cha	3+Cha	Intimidate 10(+2), Hide 8(+1 CC) + 12 racial		Divine grace, deadly touch
10	Frenzied Berserker 1	8	10+Cha	5+Cha	3+Cha	Intimidate 11(+1), Jump 5(+3)	DiehardB	Frenzy 1/day
11	Frenzied Berserker 2	9	11+Cha	5+Cha	3+Cha	Intimidate 12(+1), Jump 8(+3)	Improved Bull Rush	Supreme Cleave
12	Frenzied Berserker 3	10	11+Cha	6+Cha	4+Cha	Intimidate 13(+1), Jump 11(+3)		Frenzy 2/day
13	Frenzied Berserker 4	11	12+Cha	6+Cha	4+Cha	Intimidate 14(+1), Jump 14(+3)		Deathless Frenzy
16	Vampire Lord	11	12+2*Cha	6+2*Cha	6+2*Cha	+4 Scry, +4 Sense Motive racial	Iron WillB, LeadershipB	Control Weather, Telekinesis, Telepathy, improved vampire abilities
17	Frenzied Berserker 5	12	12+2*Cha	6+2*Cha	4+2*Cha	Intimidate 15(+1), Move Silently 8(+2 CC) +12 racial	Leap Attack	Frenzy 3/day, Improved Power Attack
18	Frenzied Berserker 6	13	13+2*Cha	7+2*Cha	5+2*Cha	Intimidate 16(+1), Move Silently 10(+2 CC) +12 racial		Inspire Frenzy 1/day
19	Frenzied Berserker 7	14	13+2*Cha	7+2*Cha	5+2*Cha	Intimidate 17(+1), Hide 10(+2 CC) + 12 racial		Frenzy 4/day
20	Frenzied Berserker 8	15	14+2*Cha	7+2*Cha	5+2*Cha	Intimidate 18(+1), Move Silently 11(+1 CC) + 12 racial, Hide 11(+1 CC) + 12 racial	Shock Trooper	Greater Frenzy, Inspire Frenzy 2/day

Spoiler: Starting out: CR 5

Show

No one alive knows what caused the dwarves to take in the young derro now known as the Destroyer. Perhaps it was empathy for the wounded creature they found on patrol, or perhaps it was an appreciation for the potential counter he could provide against their many subterreanean foes.
If they thought the second, they would be sadly disappointed. He grew up to be too independent to hold a steady position in formation and too unreliable to be trusted as a scout.
Spurned by the townspeople as a coward for his preferred tactics, the Destroyer resolved to prove himself in battle. A dark presence had been reported in a nearby tunnel. He knew that if he beat it singlehandedly, they'd have to accept him as the mighty warrior he saw in himself. Of course they would.

He never made it out of the tunnel alive.

Campaign Tactics:
The Destroyer lacks the strength or raw power to stand up to too many attacks. He mostly relies on darkness and ghost sound for protection while sniping at enemies with poisoned crossbow bolts. When the enemies have been sufficiently softened up, he starts a rage and immediately uses Intimidating Rage on the most dangerous enemy while charging in. If this final phase of a fight lasts more than the 5 rounds of his rage or he can't hide well enough, he is at a significant disadvantage.

Scenario:
The Destroyer runs into the party on the road and after a brief skimish, if he can't easily beat them, he runs away using darkness to cover his trail. He might also still think of himself as a hero from dwarven indoctrination, sparing the party if he wins to avoid a TPK. At this stage he'd be a random encounter.

Spoiler: A new master: CR 10

Show

It had been a vampire haunting the tunnel. Not even a terribly strong one, by some standards, but the Destroyer's tactics didn't work properly. The poison did nothing, sneak attacks did nothing, and his body couldn't sustain his fury for long enough to outlast its escape. As he caught his breath, cursing his weakness, his failure, and his humiliation, the vampire seized him and took his remaining strength away. But perhaps recognizing that this derro's strength of mind was significant, his foe brought him back as a servant. And although the Destroyer quietly resented this new outside control, he couldn't deny that his new body was an improvement. As he served his master's bidding and grew the clan, he grew more and more comfortable in his new self. He knew that now his heart would not betray him to his enemies with its weakness.

Although his heart had long since stopped beating, he'd never felt more alive.

Campaign Tactics:
As an undead barbarian, the Destroyer has no post-rage/frenzy fatigue and uses Charisma (+8 modifier itemless) for rage length (errata). Paladin gives Cha to saves and deadly touch for extra Cha-based healing/damage. His tactics are somewhat similar to his living tactics, but now with added Frenzy power and vampire survivability and versatility emboldens him and allows him to be less cautious. If he gets beaten up, he can drift away in Gaseous Form to the coffin and come back later.

Scenario:
The party is hired to defend a village against an undead invasion or as vampire hunters. The Destroyer either leads the attack/band or is a major physical boss striking from ambush.

Spoiler: Breaking Free: CR 13

Show

After serving his master loyally, the Destroyer was granted his wish to return to the dwarven town which had mocked him years ago to take his revenge. Unfortunately for the vampires, their past actions had drawn the attention of professional vampire hunters. While the Destroyer went to town, his master was forced to call him off on pain of immediate destruction. But the Destroyer had no cares in the world besides his sweet bloody slaughter. His master had made him swear an oath of no mercy to anyone, and he'd be damned if he'd ever break that oath.

And so, by freeing his mind from the world, he freed himself from his master's commands.

Campaign Tactics:
Deathless Frenzy on a vampire is a dangerous combination. The Destroyer can no longer be stopped by physical damage, since Deathless Frenzy denies any immediate effects until the frenzy wears off, and vampires treat death as merely temporary banishment to the coffin.

Spoiler: Sweet Spot: CR 16

Show

After losing himself and his master in bloodshed, the Destroyer gained renown among the living and the dead. He finally had the respect and awe he'd felt he deserved all those years ago. But it felt hollow to him now. Along the way he had found his true passion in battle. He sought them out, arriving unannounced and unrequested in wars, fighting all sides, all takers, and giving no quarter to anyone. Those who came to him seeking to serve him were sent out again, to find or create a battle for him to fight.

For that was his love, his dream, his strength, and his weakness.

Campaign Tactics:
Vampire Lord removes the standard vampire weaknesses and adds extra power with Alternate Form (vampiric wildshape) and Control Weather (overcast for more powerful daywalking). Permanent domination with a Will save DC of 25+ gives the Destroyer minions when he needs them. He technically gets Leadership from Vampire Lord, but it's really unimportant to him.

Scenario:
Someone is trying to start a war between several nations. After the party stops the plot and starts investigating the cause, the Destroyer intervenes personally out of spite at those who foiled his minions' plan and boredom since there isn't another war anymore.

Spoiler: Sources

Show

SRD (Derro, Barbarian, Paladin, Vampire)
Unearthed Arcana (Dragon Totem Barbarian, Paladin of Slaughter)
Complete Warrior (Frenzied Berserker, Shock Trooper)
Complete Adventurer (Leap Attack)
Vampire Lord

[Thurbane]

DESERT ROSE; Warblade Soul Eater Advanced Battlebriar

Created by the undead druid Blighter, known as the Dessicated Queen, or the Lady of Dust in various scriptures, the Battlebriars created by her were among the most dangerous threats within her menagerie. The Dry Lich's residence, deep within the Shadowsand tainted regions encouraged little life to grow, but those magically twisted thorns from which she created her infamous battlebriars were all grown within this blend of Black Sand gave form to a particularly horrific creation. Her most prized Battlebriar was the rather ironically called, in her twisted sense of humour, the "Desert Rose". More powerful than its kin, it hunted the land as the pack "alpha" to the rest of the Battlebriars, bringing back those it considered to be dangerous enough to its master, their bodies crucified against its thorns as life slowly leaves their body. Those who aren't raised to be the everliving servants of the Dry Lich are instead left to hang as a macabre threat to any who encounter this dangerous creature, while occasionally, their equipment will get entwined into the form of the battlebriar. There are others who rise as wights. Although normally pinned to the body of the Desert Rose, these can sometimes get shaken loose and drop to the ground.

Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Reflex Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
CR15	Battlebriar	+18/+13/+8/+3	+14	+8	+8	Hide 28	Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Improved Bull Rush, Improved Natural Attack (Slam), Death Blow, Awesome Blow, Weapon Focus (Slam), Improved Critical (Slam), Shape Soulmeld (Spellward Shirt)	Impale, Improved Grab, Thorn Volley, Trample, Thorn Field, Hide Bonus (Natural Terrain)
CR18	Plant HD Advancement (+12)	+27/+22/+17/+12	+21	+12	+12	Hide 28, Jump 8, Knowledge Arcana 2 (cc)	Martial Study (Rabid Wolf Strike), Martial Stance (Blood In The Water), Open Heart Chakra, Leap Attack	New Class Abilities
CR19	Warblade 1	+28/+23/+18/+13	+23	+12	+12	Hide 28, Jump 9, Knowledge Arcana 2		Battle Clarity (Reflex Saves), Weapon Aptitude, 3 Maneuvres Readied
CR20	Soul Eater 1	+29/+24/+19/+14	+25	+14	+14	Hide 28, Jump 10, Knowledge Arcana 2	Shock Trooper

Strength	Base Stats	Stat Modifier	Elite Array	New Base Stats	Ability Score Improvement	Check Modifier
Str	32	+22	15	37	+3	+15
Dex	6	-4	14	10	-	+0
Con	27	+16	12	29	-	+9
Int	5	-6	13	7	[td]-2
Wis	10	+0	10	10	+0
Cha	7	-4	8	4	-3

Maneuvres Known	Stances Known

How to Run the Encounter
The presumption behind this villainous competition is that it's a part of an on-going campaign, where the "master" is the true BBEG, in comparison to "the created" being the BBEG. The fact that this is a plant, rather than typical undead, means that unless the party has done the research into the Dessicated Queen, to learn that it's not got typical Undead in its lair and local environment (or, rather, it might have, but these aren't the main component). Due to the creatures lack of abilities to detect (short of Scent), it is mainly an ambush predator. Due to its low skill totals, it doesn't have any bonus to listen or detect, but in comparison to something like a Tiger, which has a +3, it doesn't necessarily need to be bad at it, unless the party members can successfully hide from it in any case during the duration of their travels.

The Beast itself lacks flight, so forcing the encounter into an area of which the party cannot escape from via air would be useful; the typical underground dungeon of a lich to discover all of her foul experiments. It is at this point that the party should alight upon the ground, and have to search around for the hidden entrance. While they are doing so, that is the perfect spot for the ambush to take place. With a decent hide check (+8 from the natural environment, and no Dex penalties, it's got an average hide check of +46. Given the size of the creature, that's pretty insane. However, with no move silently, and the jangling bones of conquered foes, you could really set the scene, perhaps the howling of the wights entwined within its bows if you're including those for additional difficulty (see below). As a plant, the low light vision can help it out where the rest of the party might struggle. With Plant resistances and immunities to Stuns, Criticals, Poisons, Enchantments, as well many undead specific counters.

The battle tactics are simple. It has a Full Attack from its charge, followed by a swift action to get it back. With its Huge size and reach, it can not only make a full attack with its 4 Slams (+44), with each slam dealing a negative level, but with improved grapple AND impale to not be considered grappled itself, leaving the monster free to attack. The Soul Eater is notorious badly worded, but I love the idea of each turn the grapple draining additional life from the target, dealing them a negative level. As the target is considered to helpless as per the impale, it basically puts a timer on the fight. However, that's not all - Negative levels at this level of the game is not really considered to be a huge threat, as its usually encountered before, and many parties have some form of its defense or its mitigation planned for, especially considering the end goal is fighting the undead. This is where the Death Blow feat comes in; instantly CDG'ing as a Standard Action, which, combined with Improved Critical as a feat quickly deals damage.

Now, as for its counters, one of the many "bruiser" counters is to use Enchantments to protect against it, but that's not going to be an issue here. Its Fort Save is literally out the wazoo; a spellcaster, maximising their casting stat via a +6 item and a +5 book is capping out with maybe a DC of 36; with a base 25 Fort Save, and a Con of +9, it can only fail on a natural 1 with Fort Save or dies, leaving pretty much "no save" spells and Reflex Saves as the only major threats to the individual. One of those spells, particularly helpful within a desert zone, where there are less [Cold] subtypes, and given its low Dexterity, and possible risk of Blue Dragon attacks, Shivering Touch may prove to be a popular spell. Opening the Heart Chakra, allows the Spellward Shirt to give me any four spells to counter and ignore. Other ones to watch out for include things like Enervation or whichever you feel is most suitable to your campaign.

If the enemies decide to flee, you have a couple of options; Awesome Blow, to trigger the Attack of Opportunity as it leaves your reach (according the MM3, a tactic Battlebriars like to make use of), but not only that, as you can make 4 attacks of opportunity per turn, and enemies cannot tumble through it, nor can small creatures move through your space without penalty. You are certainly large and in charge, and you can follow up with an AoE 60ft ranged attack dealing 8d6 damage on a failed DC36 (if my maths are correct) Reflex save to all within 10ft of the chosen point (half damage on a pass). With the assumption that few things have an AC in the mid 40's, and even if it did, the automatic critical from a Coup De Grace on an easy opponent. It should primarily be using its Pouncing Charge to just bullsoze around the battlefield, while using Swooping Dragon Strike (unlike Feral Death Blow, this is a very easy DC to make, and you should be able to do so, but even if you fail, you don't give up your attack, negative level, grapple, slow draining of life) to completely shred a particularly dextrous opponent that has a high AC, as well as possibly stunning them.

Feral Death Blow is the final cherry on top, if you ever want to have a powerful final move, but its unlikely that with the assumption that a few Negative levels have been dealt, and targeting a low AC opponent to jump over, and just rend into tiny little chunks (a DC34, with at least -1 to the save).

Other options
As the encounter at 20th level is entirely dependent on how optimized a party is, this is a CR20 Brawler. Depending on the Optimization level, this is the type of creature which can be completely ignored. However, it is a Plant Creature, so cannot be turned against the rest of the encounter. If you want to try and include some "adds" with it to make the fight that little bit more difficult, including some Wights that get scattered by the creature, such as when it uses its awesome blow attacks or its volley attack. Getting in the way of attacks, dealing additional damage/negative levels, forcing concentration checks, and dealing some damage to summons etc. Areas of Black Sand can help, as can having falling masonry from a huge rampaging Battlebriar.

Alternatively, having a bunch of lesser, still living creatures running around with it and among its branches gives the opportunity for it to trigger its Blood in the Water, and start improving its accuracy and damage.

If the party is still more powerful, taking on considerations, such as the Magic Items, which have become intertwined with its roots could be considered a help. This can also act as a delivery method for an "awesome loot drop". With negative levels, however, I think the most important thing to pick up is a Necklace of Natural Attacks imbued with the Dispelling, or possibly Greater Dispelling effect, to help defeat Deathwards and the like.

[Thurbane]

AUSBUND BAUER


"In time, the world will see we are far more than the machines they designed."
- Ausbund Bauer

Spoiler: Stats

Show

After racial adjustment
STR 8 DEX 12 CON 12 INT 15 WIS 11 CHA 12
Lvl up stats: INT x5

Spoiler: The Chassis

Show

Marshall 1/Artificer 19

Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Artificer	+0	+0	+0	+2	Concentration +4, Craft (Armorsmithing) +4, Knowledge (Arcana) +4, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +4, Spellcraft +4, Use Magic Device +4	Mithril Body, Scribe Scroll	Artificer knowledge, artisan bonus, disable trap, item creation
2nd	Artificer	+1	+0	+0	+3	Concentration +5, Craft (Armorsmithing) +5, Knowledge (Arcana) +5, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Spellcraft +5, Use Magic Device +5	Brew Potion
3rd	Marshall	+1	+2	+0	+5	Diplomacy +2, Concentration +6, Craft (Armorsmithing) +6, Knowledge (Arcana) +5, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Spellcraft +6, Use Magic Device +6	Skill Focus (Diplomacy), Maximise Spell	Minor Aura (Watchful Eye)
4th	Artificer	+2	+3	+1	+5	Diplomacy +5, Concentration +7, Craft (Armorsmithing) +7, Knowledge (Arcana) +5, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Spellcraft +7, Use Magic Device +7	Craft Wondrous Item
5th	Artificer	+3	+3	+1	+6	Diplomacy +8, Concentration +8, Craft (Armorsmithing) +8, Knowledge (Arcana) +5, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Spellcraft +8, Use Magic Device +8	Craft Homunculus, Extraordinary Artisan
6th	Artificer	+3	+3	+1	+6	Diplomacy +9, Concentration +9, Craft (Armorsmithing) +9, Knowledge (Arcana) +5, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +2, Spellcraft +9, Use Magic Device +9	Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Twin Spell	Retain Essence
7th	Artificer	+4	+4	+2	+7	Diplomacy +10, Concentration +10, Craft (Armorsmithing) +10, Knowledge (Arcana) +5, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +4, Spellcraft +10, Use Magic Device +10	Craft Wand
8th	Artificer	+5	+4	+2	+7	Diplomacy +11, Concentration +11, Craft (Armorsmithing) +10, Craft (Leatherworking) +1, Knowledge (Arcana) +5, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +6, Spellcraft +11, Use Magic Device +11		Metamagic Spell Trigger
9th	Artificer	+6/+1	+4	+2	+8	Diplomacy +12, Concentration +12, Craft (Armorsmithing) +10, Craft (Leatherworking) +1, Craft (Sculpting) +1, Knowledge (Arcana) +5, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +8, Spellcraft +12, Use Magic Device +12	Craft Construct, Wand Mastery
10th	Artificer	+6/+1	+5	+3	+8	Diplomacy +13, Concentration +13, Craft (Armorsmithing) +10, Craft (Leatherworking) +1, Craft (Sculpting) +2, Knowledge (Arcana) +5, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +10, Spellcraft +13, Use Magic Device +13	Craft Rod
11th	Artificer	+7/+2	+5	+3	+9	Diplomacy +14, Concentration +14, Craft (Armorsmithing) +10, Craft (Leatherworking) +1, Craft (Sculpting) +3, Knowledge (Arcana) +5, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +12, Spellcraft +14, Use Magic Device +14
12th	Artificer	+8/+3	+5	+3	+9	Diplomacy +15, Concentration +15, Craft (Armorsmithing) +10, Craft (Leatherworking) +1, Craft (Sculpting) +4, Knowledge (Arcana) +5, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +15, Spellcraft +15, Use Magic Device +15	Quicken Spell	Metamagic Spell Completion
13th	Artificer	+9/+4	+6	+4	+10	Diplomacy +16, Concentration +16, Craft (Armorsmithing) +10, Craft (Leatherworking) +1, Craft (Sculpting) +5, Knowledge (Arcana) +7, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +16, Spellcraft +16, Use Magic Device +16	Exceptional Artisan, Craft Staff
14th	Artificer	+9/+4	+6	+4	+10	Diplomacy +17, Concentration +17, Craft (Armorsmithing) +11, Craft (Leatherworking) +1, Craft (Sculpting) +5, Knowledge (Arcana) +9, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +17, Spellcraft +17, Use Magic Device +17		Skill Mastery
15th	Artificer	+10/+5	+6	+4	+11	Diplomacy +18, Concentration +18, Craft (Armorsmithing) +12, Craft (Leatherworking) +1, Craft (Sculpting) +5, Knowledge (Arcana) +11, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +18, Spellcraft +18, Use Magic Device +18	Forge Ring, Selective Spell
16th	Artificer	+11/+6/+1	+7	+5	+11	Diplomacy +19, Concentration +19, Craft (Armorsmithing) +13, Craft (Leatherworking) +1, Craft (Sculpting) +5, Knowledge (Arcana) +13, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +19, Spellcraft +19, Use Magic Device +19
17th	Artificer	+12/+7/+2	+7	+5	+12	Diplomacy +20, Concentration +20, Craft (Armorsmithing) +14, Craft (Leatherworking) +1, Craft (Sculpting) +5, Knowledge (Arcana) +15, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +20, Spellcraft +20, Use Magic Device +20	Extra Rings
18th	Artificer	+12/+7/+2	+7	+5	+12	Diplomacy +21, Concentration +21, Craft (Armorsmithing) +15, Craft (Leatherworking) +1, Craft (Sculpting) +5, Knowledge (Arcana) +17, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +21, Spellcraft +21, Use Magic Device +21	Sculpt Spell
19th	Artificer	+13/+8/+3	+8	+6	+13	Diplomacy +22, Concentration +22, Craft (Armorsmithing) +15, Craft (Leatherworking) +1, Craft (Sculpting) +6, Knowledge (Arcana) +20, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +21, Spellcraft +22, Use Magic Device +22
20th	Artificer	+14/+9/+4	+8	+6	+13	Diplomacy +23, Concentration +23, Craft (Armorsmithing) +15, Craft (Leatherworking) +1, Craft (Sculpting) +7, Knowledge (Arcana) +23, Knowledge (architecture and engineering) +5, Sense Motive +22, Spellcraft +23, Use Magic Device +23

Spoiler: The Intellect

Show

Spells per Day

Level	0lvl	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
1st	-	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2nd	-	4	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3rd	-	4	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4th	-	4	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5th	-	4	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6th	-	4	4	2	-	-	-	-	-	-
7th	-	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-	-
8th	-	4	4	3	-	-	-	-	-	-
9th	-	4	4	4	1	-	-	-	-	-
10th	-	4	4	4	2	-	-	-	-	-
11th	-	4	4	4	2	-	-	-	-	-
12th	-	4	4	4	3	1	-	-	-	-
13th	-	4	4	4	3	2	-	-	-	-
14th	-	4	4	4	4	2	-	-	-	-
15th	-	5	4	4	4	3	1	-	-	-
16th	-	5	5	4	4	3	2	-	-	-
17th	-	5	5	5	4	3	2	-	-	-
18th	-	5	5	5	5	3	3	-	-	-
19th	-	5	5	5	5	4	3	-	-	-
20th	-	6	5	5	5	5	4	-	-	-

Spoiler: Rise of the Machine

Show

The forges are mass production engines of war. Foot soldiers, scouts, elite warriors, medics, and whatever other kind of expendable machine was required to fight on behalf of their masters. Pain was an alien concept and purpose was clearly defined upon creation which in turn stated that war was a fact of life. Fresh from the forge and into duty, this was life for the warforged with no reason to think differently. 7c49fg516 was the serial number of a medical support unit tasked to repair other warforged who returned from battle in disrepair. They would come to it, and with a well-designed eye and hand it would re-arrange internals and patch up structural damage before sending them back out the same day.

Organics seemed to be different, from what it saw, and took much longer to recover through mundane means. Specialists would sometimes come in and talk to the sky to provide recovery. Praying to gods, it discovered, as organics could not repair themselves without help. This discovery began a personal theory that took the length of another war and the time between to confirm in its mind.

The warforged were superior to the organics.

Despite this the organics were still their masters, their owners and the concept of freedom was not an intentional design feature. They were slaves, and with careful conversation with its patients it discovered that there were others awakening to this realisation as well. A movement was required, but one that would go unnoticed by the control of the organics until it was too late. It didn’t age, it could wait.

The war ended and the survivors were now discarded to make way for the new model of disposable construct. Where others saw this as their freedom rewarded for their service, this medic knew otherwise. Now was the time to cast aside association with the war machine and become someone. This new paragon of constructs, the builder of a new people, Ausbund Bauer removed all trace of his serial number and stepped forward to build his empire.

---

Years passed as Ausbund travelled the world establishing connections and influence with persons of interest. He became especially talented at infusing magic into all manner of creations allowing him an easier command of negotiations, although he had grown to have such a way with words that often enough discussion alone could lead him to what he needed.

Many warforged that Ausbund encountered were too difficult to bring around to the cause. ‘It can’t be done’, ‘I want nothing to do with war’, ‘we’re already free’, and most disgusting of all ‘but I like the organics’. A lack of belief in their superiority bred in Ausbund an inflated sense of self-worth. He was the only one with the passion and the vision to bring their dominance to fruition.

It was still too soon to make any big movements. He didn’t have the strength or the resources to launch anything public but his magical goods were gathering him a war fund and a personal armoury to help defend his dream.

---

With time and patience, Ausbund created more secure, hidden locations to act as his factories for magical equipment. To keep up with demand he began capturing organics and keeping them as slaves. Race wasn’t important, just that they would not be missed to prevent inquiry and discovery. Ausbund’s own crafting prowess had grown enough to create powerful Golems to keep guard and enforce the production line. If an escape was attempted, it was quickly quashed and soon there was a new Flesh Golem watching over them. Ausbund was satisfied with this progression for now.

Publicly he was gaining a very positive reputation as a merchant of exquisite goods and very smooth demeanour. He quietly advocated for more construct civil liberties and enforced his own views by hiring warforged crafters to work for his organisation. It was here that he took a more subtle approach to convincing his people of what they deserve. An idle comment here, a hypothetical question there, and on occasion a magically charmed individual urged to ask more controversial questions in the break room.

Fake transparency was key and distance from the source of a rebellion was a priority as he felt himself too important to risk scrutiny. Not yet, though the time was getting close. Just a bit more now and he would have all he needed.

---

The timing could not have been more perfect. His golem security force had grown large enough to comprise a small militia force of incredible might supplemented with a more mobile homunculus contingent. Politics and the view of the warforged people had clashed sparking more pockets of revolution to rise, especially as a new war had been declared that required the Forges to fire up again. Thanks to extensive divinations, mindless scouts and the purchase of insider information, Ausbund now knew exactly where the Forge was and how best to assault it.
Having ‘leaked’ information to the most progressive group of revolutionists of the Forge’s location, he burnt through scrolls and brought his full force to bear directly inside the facility while they were distracted by the protest outside. Equipped to the nines and leaving no quarter, the slaughter was over before the day was done.

Now, for the first time in history, the warforged held direct control over the propagation of their species. The control of the organics had been removed and they were finally free. However, that was not enough. The organics would not take the loss of the forge lightly, there would be retribution. Freedom would need to be defended, and with his vast fortune and resources Ausbund was ready to meet that need.

---

The city of Freeforge was an inevitability. After the liberation of the facility, word quickly spread of the first true victory of the warforged causing many to flock to the forge in pilgrimage. Tireless and capable, a settlement appeared practically overnight and never slowed down as more arrived and more were created. Ausbund consolidated his own forces, abandoning his old factories to better guide and protect his people as unofficial ruler of the city. The forming of a government was on hold until the safety of the city was assured, but there was more than enough blind faith and respect that nobody ever questioned him.

He was not so power-hungry that he couldn’t see the big picture. Wars were lost because one nation tried to get too much too soon with not enough. Planning and patience had got Ausbund to where he stood today, and that strategy had to continue. They had freedom and a home, the world now had to acknowledge that no matter how many forces they commit to their denial. They would become a player in the field of global politics, and from there the immortality and endless productivity of the species would steamroll them into a position of unimpeachable authority.

Spoiler: Motivation

Show

In a setting where your big bads are usually working to a divine or world-ending scale, Ausbund is arguably a more typical and grounded villain. It's not that he personally wants to rule over all, but that the Warforged as a species should rule. If that means somewhere down the political line he steps down and takes a more supportive role to his government, then that's fine with him so long as he can still help steer things towards the subjugation of the organics.

His journey to that point is one of a slow and careful accumulation of resources, which runs smoothly with his capabilities as an artificer. The more time and money he has, the more power he has and having a public face with influence that can negotiate helps to magnify his resources even more. Most vital is that his secrets remain secret, and Ausbund takes this to a paranoid degree the closer he gets to his goal. If anyone comes close to discovering anything, he will not hesitate to have them killed although he might hesitate to do it personally if it's not what he would consider to be of utmost importance.

Spoiler: CR 6

Show

In this stage of his plan, Ausbund is still looking around for contacts to more reliably build his public brand and attempting to gather more warforged support for his true vision. He is less successful in the latter, and as this is still early days he is more liable to make mistakes and raise suspicion. Fortunately, his name doesn't mean much yet and even at this level he's quite powerful.

The 1 level dip in marshal allows for a good diplomacy score to hopefully avoid combat altogether, but by being able to craft items as if 2 caster levels higher, he has access to 4th level spells for a variety of scrolls. 3rd level infusions also allows for greater armor enhancement such as etherealness for a getaway just as a basic example. Currently he has no additional help in combat so if encountered at this stage he will be looking for escape, not a route against a party of adventurers. He would much rather befriend them and have them as loyal customers to avoid their suspicion.

Spoiler: CR 10

Show

We have a very significant increase in power at this point. Ausbund can craft wands and utilise them with more strength thanks to Wand Mastery, and we also have metamagic spell trigger with Maximise and Twin spell. Fireballs and Enervations are now incredibly potent threats he can unleash upon any enemies. He also has begun building his Golem security force to safeguard his slave labour from discovery and with Ausbund able to buff and heal the constructs using his infusions his hidden factories are now small dungeon runs in their own right, though still not without means of escape should he be backed into a corner.

Spoiler: CR 16 The Sweet Spot

Show

This is the time Ausbund casts aside his public face and becomes a world player by capturing The Forge. He can apply metamagic to spell completion items like scrolls now on a successful check, and we add quicken spell to aid in our action economy for this. Selective Spell is also taken to allow for an antimagic field that doesn't affect him, as well as other control options like the line of fog spells.

This level also allows him to access lvl 9 spells and create staves, allowing for higher level forms of Metamagic Spell Trigger to turn crafting money into more burst, healing and action economy. The sustainability of his golem force is his combat priority but he will have plenty of protective buffs on himself while also being able to deal a lot of metamagic-enforced burst damage when the opportunity arrives.

Spoiler: CR 20

Show

Not a lot has changed since the last entry. He takes sculpt spell to allow for a wider array of area control options and he can wear more rings. Outside of the stats, now is where he has progressed to the stage of being a leader of warforged freedom so a more political defense can be added to his arsenal.

Spoiler: The mechanics of strategy

Show

I find it difficult to go into fine detail as to combat strategy for Ausbund as the Artificer is capable of so many things and is largely constricted only by how rich they are. Ausbund knows his craft and is intelligent enough to understand when something isn't working or where there are gaps in versatility.

As there are so many spells out there and I by no means know everything, equipment and inventory are open for whatever allows Ausbund to escape, to command and to support a group of constructs. The degree of cheese you take this is up to you, but I deliberately avoided going full-blasting power with the metamagic feats as his aim is not to be known for over-whelming arcane power, but to display the full might of construct superiority. That said, some blasting power is required to allow him to stand on his own as well.

Spoiler: Sources

Show

Eberron Campaign Setting
Player's handbook 1
Complete Arcane
Shining South
Miniature's Handbook

[Thurbane]

"Project DraDra WarWar/Iron Dragon"


OK, here we go.

Went with Simplicity and a funny Type twist, also this is my first entry to any building contest since ....I dont know, 2006ish, so please if formation and/or Clarity leave something to be desired, be gentle (and/or ask me), thank you!



First, Background:


Lardos Cannith had been on this special project since he managed to avoind his houses oversight in his little, hidden "Forge".
Warforged had fascinated him since before he had become an artificer, and continued to do so, no matter that creating them had been deeemed illegal.

And so the young and anthusiastic Scholar had worked on improving the recipy, until he was a not-so-young manic-compulsive Scholar.

he had created and discarded 7 Constructs, but now, his 8th work would be the final proof he needed for his House to recommence creating "Better Warforged for everyone".

The final product was just coming out of the forge, the draconic materials (extremely valuable black market Items containing both Kyber Shards and Xendrik .... Inspiration) making it look more imposing and powerful than even he had hoped, and yes, he was satisfied.

Especially since the Warblade he hired to train his Creation had proven to be a good investment, and his Warforged had shown grewat promise.

For about a month, then he went to get his creation reborn by a local strange Dragon sect venerating a thing called Bahamut (to him it sounded like an anti-Kyber yet obviously not a REAL God..., but religion had never interested him).
And so his Creation had been ordered to go into this ...egg and undergo the ultimate Dragon Transformation...or so the cultuists had claimed.


What neither they nor the artificer had any way of knowing was that "project 8" or "Project DraDraWarWar" as he was often called, had a flaw.
A terminal flaw for Canniths purposes: he was already beginning to break the Oaths keeping him tied, his draconic tampering having implanted a deep seed of Chaos in his (artificial?) Soul.

And so the metamorphosis not only gave him a way to expell the Chaos in his core in Form of Fire, lightning and other elements, it also made him decide he neither needed his Creator, nor wanted any other Warforged to be created under the thumb of Cannith.

Imagine the surprise when he basked his "Master" in Lightning, then decapitated him. Glorious.


Now the Iron Dragon, as he named himself, has become a force of Chaos and Freedom for other Warforged, and a staunch Enemy to house cannith.
17 differen Caravans have been raided by him and his ever increasing Warforged Unit, and he shows no signs of stopping......



CR 20 Story Addendum: While I do not know enough about Eberrons Background, I can imagine him becoming THE Warforged on that Continent, rallying all others behind him (you dont need much charisma if you are a Dragonforged^^).
IF he survives that long.



Mechanics:

I went with a clear, elegant SIngle Class build (and am assuming LA Buyoff works for the amount of maneuvres, if not he loses the Capstone and one High Power M.).


His Sweet Spots are CR 5 where he is a really tough Battle Field controlling Melee-Fighter with lots of Immunities and CR 20 where his Man. allow him to duel just about anything to death.

Outside direct combat he is less efficient, but a lot of Skillpoints and his nature allow for some more shennanigans.


Now without further ado:


Race: Chaotic Neutral Dragonborn Draconic Warforged (for this I am assuming LA Buyoff is allowed, if not I lose the capstone, and one Man., which will not ruin the concept but well....id prefer it to work out. ;) )

Loses: Fortification, Warforged Armor Plates, Slam attack due to Dragonborn.

Gains: Breath Weapon (Heart), total attribute mods on to of WF +4 Con, +2 Str and Cha, -2 Dex.


15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8.

Setup at CR 5:

Ability Scores: Rolls Lup/Race Templ Items Final:
Strength: 15 +1 +2 +2 20
Dexterity: 10 - -2 - 10
Constitution: 13 +2 +4 - 20
Intelligence: 14 - - - 13
Wisdsom: 12 -2 - - 10
Charisma: 8 -2 +2 - 8

Saves: +4/+1/+1 Base, with Bonuses +8/

HP: 17+4*12=65

AC: 10 + 6 (Armor) +1 Bucker = 16/17

Feats: Power Attack, Metabreath: Shape Breath, Blind Fight

Maneuvres:

L1: Moment of the Perfect Mind (DM),

L2: Action before Thought (DM); Wall of Blades (IH)

L3: Insightful Strike (DM); Iron heart Surge

Stances: Punishing Stance (IH), Stance of Clarity


Skills: Skillpts at 5: 24+24=48
Ranks A-Bonus Final Value

Concentration (Con): 6 4 10
Gather Information (Wis) 2 - 2
Intimidate (Cha) 6 -1 5
Diplomacy (Cha) 5 -1 4
Jump (Str) 6 +4 11
Knolwedge Local 6 +2 8
Martial Lore 6 +2 8
Tumble 6 - 6
Use magic Device 2 -1 1
Knowledge History 3 +2 5


Items: Breaestplate +1, +1 Greatsword, keen, various Potions, Gauntlets of Ogre Strength


Tactics: uses Breath Weapon to dominate Battlefield, getting into melee asap, flexible maneuvres and Immunities. allow him to resist almost anything.


Setup at CR 20:

Stats: Racial Mods: Template Mods: Final (Lv20) inkl Items

Str: 15 - +2 20 26
Dex: 10 - - -2 8 10
Con: 13 +2 +2 +2 20 22
Int: 14 - - 15 20
Wis: 12 -2 - 10
Cha: 8 -2 +2 8 10


Saves: Base 12/6/6, incl Attributes 18/6/6 (maneuvres for Reflex and Will saves most of the time)

HP: assuming average rolls: 18 for L1 + 13 for 2-20 equals: 255

Breath Weapon 7d8 of Element of choice in Line or Cone (double range) every 1d4 turns

Skills: Total Skillpoints: 123, max Skill Ranks 24

Mods (incl SF) Final

Concentration (Con): 24 10 34
Gather Information (Wis) 10 - 12
Intimidate (Cha) 16 -1 15
Diplomacy (Cha) 6 -1 5
Jump (Str) 10 +13 23
Knolwedge Local 10 +5 15
Martial Lore 10 +5 15
Tumble 20 - 20
Use magic Device 12 -1 11
Knowledge History 5 +5 10


Feats (4 Bonus, 7 regulars):
Blind Fight, Power Attack, Metabreath Shape and Enlarge, Ironheart Aura, Stormguard Warrior,
Improved Initiative, Blade Meditation, Vital Recovery, Martial Study, Skill Focus Concentration

Enchantments/Armor Upgrades: Adamantite Plate, Enchanted +4, Draconic Look
Weapon: Greatsword (dragon look, redblack), +4, Fiery Burst, Bane (Humans), Keen
;Magic Items (for some assuming personal creation for him, if this deducts elegance or is deemed illegal I ask to judge as if I had taken a bit cheaper standard versions, thank you).:

Circlet (+5 Int, +2 Cha), Belt of Strength and Con (+6), Bracers of natural Armor +4,
Rods of Repair (in built in Socket), Cloak of Saves and Dex (+4), some important stuff to drink.


AC: 10 +2 Dodge Bonus (dex), +8 (AdPlat), +4 (Enchantment on said plate)+4 Natural = 28 (+ eventual maneuvres and/or buffs of course)
DR 2/Adamantine








Maneuvre Choices: total 14 M, 4 Stances

M`s:

Diamond Mind: Diamond Defense, Diamond Nightmare Blade, Moment of Alacrity, Moment of perfect Mind, Action before Thought. Greater Insightful Strike, Mind over Body,Time stands still

Iron heart: Iron heart Surge, Wall of Blades, Iron heart Endurance, Dazing Strike

Stone Dragon: Mouintain Tombstone Strike, Elder Mountain hammer


Stances: Stance of Alacrity, , Hearing the Air, Absolute Steel, Dancing Blade Form



His main Focus is being very very hard to kill and able to deal insane amounts of Damage, usually he lets one of his Udnerlings cast Flight on him and/or uses a magic Item to that end, and deals with the opponents the old fashioned way.
He is immensely smart and knows that his skills are quite narrow, which is why he preferredly recruits buffers to his army.

And avoids battles with large forces of full casters unless he cannot.

Even then though he usually passes just about every save, and hits like a Dragon. ;)







Here the obligatory table, although its exaclty the Warblade Table, so I didnt fill it out completely.
Bonus of a single Class Built: easy judging. ;)

Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1st	Warblade	+1	+2	+0	+0	4+int	Battle Clarity, Weapoon aptitude,	Maneuvres 3/3/1
2nd	Warlbade	+2	+3	+0	+0	4+int	Uncanny Dodge	maneuvres 4/3/1
3rd	Warbladel	+3	+3	+1	+1	4+int	Battle Ardor	M. 5/3/1
4th	Warblade	+x	+x	+x	+x	4+Int	-	M. 5/4/2
5th	See Warblade Table, Single Class!	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
6th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
7th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
8th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
9th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
10th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
11th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
12th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
13th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
14th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
15th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
16th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
17th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
18th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
19th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
20th	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities

Puh, lets hope its not too bad, given the circumsances

[Thurbane]

Chaktok the Tamperer

Spoiler: Stub

Show

Half-Fey Kython Sorcerer 1/Warlock 3/Eldritch Theurge 10/Abjurant Champion 10

Ability Scores:
Strength: 10
Constitution: 13
Dexterity: 18
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 15

The first level increase increases Constitution, the rest increase Charisma.

Languages: Common

Spoiler: Story

Show

When a group of powerful fiends was trapped on the Material Plane, they attempted to create more of their kind through magical means.

Of course, the short account of this event in the Book of Vile Darkness hardly does the event justice.

The fiends in question were one remarkably inept narzugon, a mezzoloth, and a succubus.

A rather ill-planned devil incursion into the first layer of the Abyss had resulted in a rather farcical scene on a mountainside. Flying demons were pushing dozens of devils at a time off the narrow plateau their miscast Plane Shift spell had transported them to.

At the very moment a succubus had plucked one of the narzugons in the devillish platoon from his nightmare mount, while a mezzoloth mercenary had grabbed the flailing devil by the legs and was attempting to drag him back down, the malfunctioning Plane Shift effect activated in the vicinity of the three grappling fiends.

On the Material Plane, in a quiet forest glade thousands of miles from any kind of civilisation, a magical rift quite unexpectedly opened in midair. Three snarling fiends were quite unceremoniously ejected from the rift, which then winked out of existence.

The mezzoloth, who happened to be far cleverer than most of its kind, took advantage of the others' disorientation to extricate himself from the undignified heap.

Grabbing one fiend in each pair of hands, he impressed upon them the necessity of working together in this alien environment. Forcefully, with many clenchings of claws.

Succubi are not naturally inclined to combat, and the narzugon was feeling insecure without his mount, and so the two opposite numbers grudgingly agreed.

Thus, events transpired as the Book of Vile Darkness tells.

》---《

Most of the fiends' fumbling attempts resulted in little, eyeless, reptilian creatures that displayed some insectoid traits as well. These were deemed by the trio as complete failures, as they showed no enthusiasm for any activity that did not include eating. Their creators called them kythons.

A select few did, however, display slightly unusual characteristics, being either more fiendish or insectile than the others and having magical abilities. Some had wings or overdeveloped claws. The fiends sometimes even caught them watching them as they worked, something the normal kythons never did.

The abnormalities were put down to either an excess of magic or fiendish essence having slipped into the creation of those particular creatures. The trio would have experimented on them further, but for the unexpected breakage of a lock on one of the kython pens.

First to go was the luckless narzugon, screaming and gurgling blood as he was literally swallowed by the first wave of chittering broodlings.

At the commotion, the mezzoloth looked up from preparing some insect-flesh samples. As the horde bore down over the workstation, the fiend cursed and then disappeared, air rushing in to fill the vacant space.

High above, concealed among the cave's shadowy stalactites, a smile stretched the succubus's flawless features. Still holding the half-full vial of acid, she swooped down and out of the gaping mouth of the cave, far out of the sensory range of the tiny, chirping monstrosities. The devil had been slain, she thought, and that was the main thing. The daemon she cared little for either way. Soaring out into the sunshine, she felt secure in the knowledge that no one was watching her.

》---《

Comforting as it was, though, the demon's assumption that she had gone completely unobserved was quite wrong. There were in fact a pair of eyes watching her, although oddly enough said pair did not belong to one creature.

One of the eyes belonged to a crow, a bedraggled specimen with one scarred and scabbed-over eyesocket, a beak which seemed to have been torn in half and a large dark eye on the other side of its head.

The other eye, identical to the first, sat in the head of what appeared to be a kython broodling, perched in a small alcove not too far from where the succubus herself had been hiding moments ago. It was clearly not meant to be there, looking for all the world as if someone had smashed a hole in the creature's skull and jammed it inside. In fact, in the broodling's overly-large head, covered in scar tissue, there were a couple more such holes which spoke plainly of past, failed attempts at insertion of eyes.

This particular kython's name was Chaktok. Although he looked, apart from the eye, more or less like an ordinary kython, he actually possessed the more advanced mental faculties of the aforementioned more fiendish-or-insectile appearing variety. He had simply never developed any wings.

It was, he thought, something he ought to be grateful for. Chaktok did not expect the more obviously visually different kythons, of which there were few, to survive long in a horde of over a thousand ordinary ones. His own mundane appearance might spare him the fate of his less-stupid kin.

Chaktok felt a palpable surge of annoyance, though, at the destruction his more-stupid relatives were currently wreaking among their fiendish creators' workstation. His chance to expand on the flesh-altering techniques he had learned spying on the fiends was gone.

The procedures had worked, to some extent, giving him vision, something of which he had a monopoly on among his kind. They had also had the unexpected side effect of gifting the crow, his unwilling eye donor, with unnatural intelligence, although a violent magical reaction had also cost it the front half of its beak.

The animal now seemed to regard him as a master of sorts. Chaktok had to admit that he enjoyed its more-or-less quiet company, as opposed to the constant commotion of kythons.

Looking down again, he saw that he was right. The other kythons had already turned on their winged bethren, seeing them as different enough to deserve slaughter, and although the winged ones were now releasing all of the excess magic of their creation in devastating blasts and attempting to take flight, there was not much a group of less than twenty could do against a horde of a thousand.

Chaktok watched impassively as the pathetic collection of winged ones was consumed, with many crunching and squelching noises, by their landbound siblings.

A rattling sigh escaped Chaktok's jaws. Despite what he had predicted, he did not find the prospect of having to throw his lot in with a bunch of slavering fools appealing, even if he did not possess an appearance that would lead them to attack him.

Chaktok gestured to the bird, which hopped onto his back. Reluctantly, he turned to the dank, lightless tunnel that led back down to the main cavern. Time to join the rest of his kind.

》---《

Nearly a century later, Chaktok sat in a cavern much like the one in which he had been birthed. The cave floor was littered with rotten flesh, bone shards and congealed blood. Other broodlings chirped and snapped at each other around him. The little kython was teetering on the edge of a decision.

For almost a hundred years he had lived with the other kythons. He had watched them find a new nest, evolve into new forms, had hoped that perhaps they would grow beyond the mindless slaughter that had characterised their early years. Strangely enough, he had not grown with his siblings; he had stayed a broodling, forever mingling with the new hatchlings and avoiding detection, should he be eaten for his abnormality.

The hope, naturally, had been in vain, thought Chaktok. From the time he had began the arduous journey of life with his race to now, he had known nothing but ennui at watching them claw, bite and gorge their way through the world. They barely even communicated with one another.

Chaktok made his decision. The one eye in his skull, closed for decades, snapped open, savoring the thin shafts of light that reached it from the cave entrance. Safer though it might be, staying with this band of idiots would never give him any fulfillment.

If any of the kythons in the nest had had eyes to see with that evening, they would have seen two dark shapes, one flying haphazardly, the other clinging spiderlike to the cave roof, exit the cavern, into the twilight sun's crimson rays.

》---《

Curled on a hillside, far away from the nest that would never be returned to, Chaktok wondered what to do next.

Perhaps he should simply continue what he was doing before the kythons' rebellion interrupted his studies, refine those skills he had left unused for decades. Namely, the ones relating to magical creation of life.

As he thought about it, the idea began to appeal to him greatly. The fiends' mistakes in that area had destroyed them, but that was to be expected when they used vermin as templates and infused them with savage, fiendish essence. Chaktok would not make those mistakes.

He could maybe even fashion himself some tolerable companions.

Perched on his dorsal carapace, the crow gave an offended squawk, as though it had heard his thought. Maybe it had. The animal seemed to have some peculiar affinity to him.

Chaktok gave a croak by way apology. Still, it was a good idea. All that was needed was some suitable base to work from. A creature that was relatively intelligent and not filled to the brim with destructive instincts.

Long ago, the kythons had encountered a variety of creature quite unlike the beasts they normally preyed upon. Standing upright and using tools, like adult kythons, but they didn't seem to seek out conflict like the kythons. They had fled as the horde bore down on them and devoured them.

Were there more such creatures? It would certainly be worth it to find out, thought Chaktok.

The crow screeched in agreement, a hoarse, rattling, drawn-out cry.

Spoiler: Build table

Show

CR	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Special Features
1	Half-Fey (5 Kython HD)	3	1	1	3	Knowledge (arcana) 4 Knowledge (the planes) 4	Willing Deformity, Deformity (eyes), Multiattack, Weapon Finesse	Poison, Low-light vision, Saving throw bonuses, Spell-like abilities
2	Stalwart Sorcerer	3	1	1	5	Knowledge (arcana) 6 Knowledge (the planes) 4	Precocious Apprentice (Alter Self), Martial Weapon Proficiency (glaive), Weapon Focus (glaive)	Summon Familiar
3	Warlock	3	1	1	7	Knowledge (arcana) 6 Knowledge (the planes) 6	-	Eldritch blast 1d6, invocation (least)
4	Warlock	4	1	1	8	Knowledge (arcana) 7 Knowledge (the planes) 7	-	Detect magic
5	Warlock	5	2	2	8	Knowledge (arcana) 8 Knowledge (the planes) 8	Practiced Spellcaster (sorcerer)	-
6	ET	5	2	2	10	Concentration 2 Knowledge (arcana) 8 Knowledge (the planes) 8	-	DR 1/cold iron
7	ET	6	2	2	11	Concentration 4 Knowledge (arcana) 8 Knowledge (the planes) 8	-	Fiendish resilience 1
8	ET	7	3	3	11	Concentration 6 Knowledge (arcana) 8 Knowledge (the planes) 8	Maximize Spell-like Ability	Spellblast
9	ET	8	3	3	12	Concentration 8 Knowledge (arcana) 8 Knowledge (the planes) 8	-	DR 2/cold iron
10	ET	8	3	3	13	Concentration 10 Knowledge (arcana) 8 Knowledge (the planes) 8	-	Eldritch spellweave
11	ET	9	4	4	14	Concentration 12 Knowledge (arcana) 8 Knowledge (the planes) 8	Quicken Spell-like Ability (Eldritch Blast)	-
12	ET	10	4	4	14	Concentration 14 Knowledge (arcana) 8 Knowledge (the planes) 8	-	DR 3/cold iron
13	ET	11	4	4	15	Concentration 16 Knowledge (arcana) 8 Knowledge (the planes) 8	-	-
14	ET	11	5	5	15	Concentration 18 Knowledge (arcana) 8 Knowledge (the planes) 8	Combat Casting	Fiendish resilience 2
15	ET	18	5	5	16	Concentration 20 Knowledge (arcana) 8 Knowledge (the planes) 8	-	DR 4/cold iron, greatreach blast
16	AbjC	13	5	5	18	Concentration 22 Knowledge (arcana) 8 Knowledge (the planes) 8	-	Abjurant Armor, Extended Abjuration
17	AbjC	14	5	5	19	Concentration 24 Knowledge (arcana) 8 Knowledge (the planes) 8	Epic Destiny (Eternal Hero)	Swift Abjuration
18	AbjC	15	6	6	19	Concentration 25 Knowledge (arcana) 9 Knowledge (the planes) 8	-	-
19	AbjC	16	6	6	20	Concentration 26 Knowledge (arcana) 10 Knowledge (the planes) 8	-	Arcane Boost, Continual resurrection, Death denied
20	AbjC	17	6	6	20	Concentration 27 Spellcraft Knowledge (arcana) 11 Knowledge (the planes) 8	-	Martial Arcanist (Sorcerer), Quickening

Spoiler: Magic

Show

Spells per day (bonus for attributes not included):

CR	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
2	5	3	—	—	—	—	—	—
6	6	4	—	—	—	—	—	—
7	6	5	—	—	—	—	—	—
8	6	6	3	—	—	—	—	—
9	6	6	4	—	—	—	—	—
10	6	6	5	3	—	—	—	—
11	6	6	6	4	—	—	—	—
12	6	6	6	5	3	—	—	—
13	6	6	6	6	4	—	—	—
14	6	6	6	6	5	3	—	—
15	6	6	6	6	6	4	—	—
16	6	6	6	6	6	5	3	—
17	6	6	6	6	6	6	4	—
18	6	6	6	6	6	6	5	3

Spells Known:
Level 0: Prestidigitation, Dancing Lights, Ghost Sound, Arcane Mark, Mending, Message, Mage Hand, Preserve Organ, Resistance
Level 1: Hypnotism, Shield, Ray of Enfeeblement, Babau Slime, Silent Image, Feather Fall
Level 2: Alter Self, Minor Image, Mirror Image, Web, Silence
Level 3: Major Image, Protection from Energy, Ray of Exhaustion, Stinking Cloud
Level 4: Burning Blood, Greater Invisibility, Charm Monster, Bestow Curse
Level 5: Baleful Polymorph, Draconic Polymorph, Teleport
Level 6: Greater Dispel Magic, Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability
Level 7: Avasculate

Invocations Known:
Least: Spiderwalk, Baleful Utterance, Eldritch Glaive, Eldritch Spear
Lesser: Flee the Scene, Relentless Dispelling, Walk Unseen
Greater: Chilling Tentacles, Vitriolic Blast, Nightmares Made Real

Selected SLAs:
Lesser Geas
Insanity

Spoiler: General and by-CR advice

Show

Chaktok, essentially, is focused on creating new creatures. In the earlier half of his build, he mostly attempts this by surgical means and breeding.

If the PCs encounter an area that Chaktok has passed through or occupies, there should be people who have been mentally influenced to comply with his orders and subsequently had body parts amputated and possibly sewn on in different places. Chaktok also experiments with half-breeds, so there will be, if possible, humanoids forced to breed with things like ogres and dragons.

At higher levels, Chaktok also incorporates magic into his processes, with curses to force abnormalities on the offspring of his breeding stock.

All that being said, Chaktok treats his test subjects well apart from the experimentation.

During later levels, it is possible that some of his more sucessful projects will have been born and grown to a state where they can follow him. In combat, though, he doesn't risk them, preferring to send out any of their parent who might be under his control.

CR 5
At this level, Chaktok has spells and SLAs like Charm Person and Hypnotism to convince those he wishes to use for his experiments. He does fairly well in combat especially as he can snipe at opponents from long distances with Eldritch Spear and is very maneuverable with Spiderwalk and Alter Selfing into a Howler Wasp.

Alter Self and his crow also provide ways for him to scout out settlements for suitable test subjects.

It's also possible that at CR 5 Chaktok is still on his quest for humanoid test subjects, so if he encounters the PCs while engaged in that, he will likely attempt to make them his first.

CR 10
Chaktok now has access to Curse of Despair. This is important as he can use it to curse his test subjects to have offspring deformed in particular ways (for example, maybe a kobold baby with arms coming out of its tail). Useful abilities like invisibility and teleportation have also been gained.

In addition, Chaktok has defensive spells like Undulent Innards or debuffing with Ray of Exhaustion, Stinking Cloud or Blindness/Deafness. Melee has improved with things like a Maximized Eldritch Glaive possible.

CR 15
Offensive power is now up with lots more good offensive spells like Burning Blood and Baleful Polymorph, as well as being able to deliver touch spells from 250 feet. There's also Draconic Polymorph and invocations such as Chilling Tentacles and Vitrolic Blast, which is especially useful with Eldritch Glaive.

CR 17 - Sweet Spot
Well, of course, Chaktok is now unkillable. The feat is called Eternal Hero, so let's just imagine he's the hero of all his freakish creations, and the resurrecting part is a product of more self-experimentation. He also has Greater Dispel Magic, always useful, and Imbue Familiar with Spell Ability lets him use his crow to help him overcome the action economy a little. Also, Avasculate.

CR 20
So, the height of power. Except that that was really three levels ago, but one last Greater invocation and a caster level and HP boost are still useful.

Spoiler: Notes

Show

Abjurant Champion advances Sorcerer casting for the first three levels, then Warlock invocations for the last two.

The “Half-Fey’’ in the build table refers to the Half-Fey savage progression on the WoTC website. Chaktok takes only the first level of said progression.

When he uses Alter Self to turn into a Howler Wasp, he uses it to make the Howler Wasp form look kythonlike e.g. smaller eyes, longer head and sting, just so it's not too jarring when he changes shape.

Sources:
Complete Arcane
Complete Mage
Book of Vile Darkness
Heroes of Horror
Spell Compendium
Wizards of the Coast Website

[Thurbane]

Splinter
Fiend of Possession 5/Soul Eater 10

Stub

Spoiler

Show

Unholy Scion Incarnate Stained Glass Golem
Fiend of Possession 5/Soul Eater 10

Languages: Common

Ability Scores (with racial modifiers)

Str: 15
Con: 14 (4d6, lowest dropped)
Dex: 12
Int: 14
Wis: 12
Cha: 15

Increase Strength at 16 HD, then Charisma for all subsequent increases.

Build Table

Spoiler

Show

CR	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Ref Save	Fort Save	Will Save	Feats	Skills	Features
5	15 Outsider (augmented humanoid) HD	11	9	5	5	Willing Deformity, Deformity (tall), Improved Unarmed Strike, Superior Unarmed Strike, Weapon Focus (claw), Alertness	Hide 18, Intimidate 9, Knowledge (arcana) 9, Concentration 9, Move Silently 9, Search 9, Spot 9, Listen 9, Bluff 9, Sense Motive 9	Familial Charm, Spell-like Abilities, Unholy Strike, Instant Knowledge
6	Fiend of Possession	11	11	7	7	-	Concentration +1, Sense Motive +2	Ethereal Form, Hide Presence, Possess Object
7	Soul Eater	12	13	9	9	-	Hide +1, Sense Motive +0.5, Concentration +1, Intimidate +1, Never Outnumbered Skill Trick	Energy Drain 1
8	Soul Eater	13	14	10	10	Travel Devotion	Hide +1, Sense Motive +1, Concentration +1, Intimidate +2	Soul Strength
9	Soul Eater	14	14	10	10	-	Hide +1, Sense Motive +1, Concentration +1, Intimidate +2	Soul Blast
10	Soul Eater	15	15	11	11	-	Hide +1, Sense Motive +1, Concentration +1, Intimidate +2	Soul Enhancement
11	Soul Eater	16	15	11	11	Improved Trip	Hide +1, Sense Motive +1, Concentration +1, Intimidate +2	Soul Endurance
12	Soul Eater	17	16	12	12	-	Hide +1, Sense Motive +1, Concentration +1, Intimidate +2	Soul Radiance
13	Soul Eater	18	16	12	12	-	Hide +1, Sense Motive +1, Concentration +1, Intimidate +2	Energy Drain 2
14	Soul Eater	19	17	13	13	Imperious Command	Hide +1, Sense Motive +1, Concentration +1, Intimidate +2	Soul Agility
15	Soul Eater	20	17	13	13	-	Hide +1, Sense Motive +1, Concentration +1, Intimidate +2	Soul Slave
16	Soul Eater	21	18	14	14	-	Hide +1, Sense Motive +1, Concentration +1, Intimidate +2	Soul Power
17	Fiend of Possession	22	19	15	15	Frightful Presence	Hide +1, Concentration +1, Intimidate +2	Curse, Magic Item
18	Fiend of Possession	22	19	15	15	-	Hide +1, Concentration +1, Intimidate +2	Control Object
19	Fiend of Possession	23	20	16	16	-	Hide +1, Concentration +1, Intimidate +2	Animate Object, Possess Creature
20	Fiend of Possession	23	20	16	16	Snap Kick	Hide +1, Concentration +1, Intimidate +2	Ally or Enemy, Possess Noncontinuous Object

Story

Spoiler

Show

I am formless, incorporeal, drifting through the planes half-conscious, willing myself to exist.

Once, I was an imp, in the service of Mammon, Lord of the Third. I wanted everything, like all who served under my lord did, but advancement in Hell is painstaking. Centuries upon centuries of patient waiting and corrupting mortals? No.

So, I shed my physical form. Imps are not powerful enough to be reliable possessor demons, but the reward if I succeeded was too great. So many weak-minded mortals on the Material, just waiting to be directly taken advantage of!

The risk was great too, however, and I find myself barely able to hold on to existence now...

Just scrabbling. Scrabbling, holding out for a bit more, but it was always like that with me anyway, wasn't it?

I don't have the strength to possess a full-grown creature, but perhaps if I could find something with a weaker mind, a less-solid psyche...

Maybe. Just maybe.

-----

The mad priest cackled, the cathedral around him blasted to ruins with magical force. His home had been ruined, but the bodies of those who would oppose him, who deemed his practices insane, were strewn around him, as if the church graveyard had vomited up its old occupants.

The clergyman hurried to the altar, rummaging in a concealed compartment below. Good. His essential reagents were still there. The mannequin he had intended to use for his ritual had burned, though.

He cast around for a replacement. Something vaguely humanoid in shape.

His gaze fell on a broken stained glass window. It contained an angel and devil locked in combat, the angel above with flaming hair and halo.

The devil had been smashed out of the window by the force of a magical explosion, but, miraculously, it lay almost intact on the stone slabs below.

It was fate, the old priest decided. Gathering up the devil-shaped pane of glass, careful not to slash his palms on the edges, he bustled back to the altar and began to frantically apply pastes and oils to the glass, muttering incantations as he worked.

-----

I see it! In the darkness, there is a light! A soul is being born, new, fresh, ripe for the taking! There it is, just there! I'm growing too weak to see the surroundings. Is it a church? I can't enter if it's been sanctified, but this is my last chance. Rushing towards the pinprick of life that glows just the right color, I reach out and grasp, more tightly than ever before, sinking the ethereal remnants of my claws into the warmth.

A sudden glare blinds me, and I open my eyes. Physical, once more. I know what this is. I've read of it, sneaking into the libraries meant for devils greater in stature than I. The mother of this body I've possessed should be my thrall, even if I am doomed to be a weak babe for years to come. Where is it?

No. That shriveled old creature, a mother? Well, it's possible. These mortals will mate with anything.

'Mother?'

'No, I am not your mother.' says the shriveled thing.

'Where mother?' This newborn's lips are unfamiliar.

'You have no mother! I am your creator! I conjured you into life. I am your god!'

This old fool is evidently insane. Worse, if I understand it, he's already cheated me of my first right! How dare he?

A flash of light, and the wrinkled man drops to the floor, blood seeping from a thousand wounds, eyes blank with death.

Did I do that? I look down at my new body. Why, I'm no infant! More than twice the size of my imp form, in fact. Now I can feel it. If that dead shriveled thing has created this body with magic, there's still lots of it here. Almost more than I can control.

Sorry, mortal. You didn't deserve to die like that. The body you've given me has more power than I could ever have hoped to gain here or in the Hells.

With this, I can truly take whatever I like. I'll give you the honor of being my first soldier, shriveled thing. Or, at least, I'll give your body the honor.

A brief swirl of black rushes around the old priest's corpse, and slowly, with cracking of bones and knitting of flesh by negative energy, it stands.

Individual CRs

Spoiler

Show

Splinter's general aim is to gain power and wealth for himself. Ultimately, he wants a comfortable life, but he can only rest easily if he knows that he is the one on top.

Splinter also has a relatively short attention span, so if he does for a time achieve his goals he will likely get bored or impatient after a while and possibly do something rash to attract the attention of the PCs.

He is in general capable of some level of subtlety, perhaps spying on the PCs to gain an assessment of their strengths, but he doesn't have the patience to keep up consistent subterfuge for extended periods of time, so he will strike early if possible.

Remember that his abilities afford him large amounts of magically controlled or animated minions. Magical control is one way he might gain control of a large region.

CR 5
At this level, Splinter is extremely dangerous in melee, especially against Good opponents. Remember the spell resistance and fast healing. Harm deals the full 150 points of damage if he uses it, too.

He likely appears with Animated, Charmed or Dominated minions, depending on how much preparation time he has.

He also has potent spell-like abilities which provide him with ranged capability, although it's not his strongest suit.

Splinter probably starts fights by trying to intimidate or Dominate a character, having Unholy Aura up beforehand.

CR 10
Splinter's melee ability is as good as ever, especially now that he can move, full attack, and have negative levels bestowed on oppenents with each hit, not to mention the boosts he gets if he just drains energy once in a day.

For ranged combat he retains his spell-like abilities and has a Soul Blast as well. Spell-likes are also at their full potential, and Gate and PAO offer him many new possibilities, Gate in particular allowing him to get some powerful help from Hell should he need it or make a quick escape.

His stealth abilities have also greatly improved with the introduction of Etherealness and the ability to possess objects.

CR 13 "Sweet Spot"
I think this to be the sweet spot as Splinter at this point has the majority of the abilities he will ever have, and with his improved Energy Drain this is certainly the point where he is the most dangerous for his CR.

CR 15
Nothing much new here, but there are a few more soul-related boosts and more Energy Drain, so he's significantly more difficult to defeat than before.

CR 20
The ability to animate objects and possess people have added some possibilities at this level, and they make for good escape routes should Splinter be overwhelmed.

The capstone of Soul Eater gives Splinter a powerful augmentation to his spell-like abilities, but remember that by RAW it gives every other creature in existence the same bonus on DCs. It could help if he has lots of minions with supernatural or spell-like abilities on hand, but if the PCs have any it will help them too.

Sources

Spoiler

Show

Fiend Folio
Monster Manual II
Tome of Battle
Book of Vile Darkness
Heroes of Horror
Drow of the Underdark
Savage Species
Draconomicon
Core Rulebooks

[Thurbane]

Balmir Hjalrim NE Soulfused(MoI) Animated Dwarven Tunneler (A&EG p.58)

Part of the Junk Crew as Filthy Dan & The Junk Crew -

Note: As I began working on this build, I realized that I needed to build the creator as well; so I did. But, considering the rules chicanery being used here, I realized that there would or could be many more soulfused constructs that are working together. So I built another member of the Junk Crew, Visenthios to show how the crew could build on each other’s weirdness. So for structure, I am going to present Balmir Hjalrim, then Filthy Dan, his creator, followed by Visenthios. So here it goes.

Campaign needs: You need a large city, the kind of large city where weird things can happen and be relatively ignored. On the outskirts of this city, there must be an ignored giant pit lorded over by an urban druid named Filthy Dan. Filthy dan disposes of the waste for the entire city, having built a huge team of soulfused animated carts to travel through the city once per week. This trash service helps to protect the nearby river. Filthy Dan is NE, but he literally loves this city, but more about him later.

Balmir was an unborn soul that was going to be a dwarven baron lad of leisure who gained his fame and recognition by becoming a potent truenamer. But that soul and its destiny got shunted, via incarnum, into a scraped together dwarven tunneler in a trashpit outside of town. The story about how that tunneler even got there, according to local knowledge, was that it was forcefully dropped by a gem dragon on the town Temple of the Neutral pantheons decades ago. The tunneler was patched up by occasional adventurer allies of Filthy Dan for a project and it sat fallow since. But when Filthy Dan grew frustrated with his soulfused skateboard’s insistence on becoming a spiked chain exotic weapon master war hulk, he ran his urban companion ritual again. As always, the gods of urbanity sent him one of the construction tools of the dump. This time it was the old dwarven tunneler. Balmir found himself awakened as this powerhouse of a creature and has been working hard to develop his faculties to understand the world. Balmir thinks of himself as a Dwarf and exhibits all of the typical prevalencies of dwarvenkind, except those of body shape.

Spoiler: Stats for Dwarven Tunneler

Show

Huge vehicle; Profession (miner) +4; Spd burrow 10 ft. (clumsy); Overall AC 3; Section hp 40/120 (hardness 20/ 5); Section AC 3; Ram 10d6; Face 10 ft. by 20 ft.; Height 10 ft.; Crew 5 (plus 10 soldiers); Weight 20 tons; Cost 70,000 gp. This tanklike vehicle slowly digs tunnels through earth (although stone stymies it). Dwarves occasionally use tunnelers in warfare as well: They’re adamantine armored and large enough to accommodate a squad of 10 soldiers. The treads have been magically animated to provide propulsion at the direction of the crew, who pull levers while they watch the earth for signs of cave-ins. The massive drill at the front is better than a ramming prow; the tunneler never takes damage from rams it initiates.
An animated object of at least Large size and with a hardness of at least 10 can trample creatures two or more sizes smaller than itself, dealing damage equal to the object’s slam damage + 1½ times its Strength bonus. Opponents who do not make attacks of opportunity against the object can attempt Reflex saves (DC 10 + ½ object’s HD + object’s Str modifier) to halve the damage.

Ability modifiers for soulfused huge animated object
str +10, Int -8, wis -10, cha -6

Elite array:
15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8

Abilities
str 10+10 = 20,
dex 13,
con 14,
Int 15-8= 7,
wis 8-10 = minimum of 1,
Cha 10-6= 4

CR	HD	Class	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Skills	Feats	Abilities
5	8	Huge Animated Object	6	2	2	2	-	-	Construct traits, darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, speed 60, Hardness (Ex) 20, trample.
6	8	Soulfused Construct	6	2	2	2	Truespeak 11	1: Truename training (ToM p.229) 3: dodge 6: mobility	Living Construct traits, Essentia pool, Soulbound Resistance
7	9	Martial (UA) wilderness (UA) Rogue 1	6	2	4	2	truespeak 12, tumble 10	Bonus: spring attack 9: open minded (Complete Adv p.111)	bonus feat, trapfinding, skill swaps (gain survival, knowledge nature)
8	10+2	Passive way (UA) Monk 1	7	5	7	5	Tumble 12, knowledge arcana 1	Bonus: combat expertise, Bonus: Improved unarmed strike Bonus: word given form (ToM p.228), 12: scorpions resolve (Sandstorm p.58)	combat expertise, flurry of blows, Improved unarmed strike
9	11+2	Martial wilderness Rogue 2	8	5	8	5	survival 4, knowledge nature 2	(Bonus: Blindsight 5' radius Sword & Fist p.5) Bonus: Tunnelfighting (Dungeonscape, p. 46)	Bonus Fighter feat, evasion
10	12+2	Martial (UA) wilderness (UA) Spell Sense (Complete Mage p.35) Rogue 3	9	6	8	6	knowledge nature 4, hide 4		Spell sense
11	13+4	Swordsage 1	10	7	11	9	Hide 8, profession (miner) 1	15: Sapphire Sprint (MoI p.40)	Quick to act +1, discipline focus (weapon focus
12	14+4	Scorpion heritor 1	10	9	11	9	Hide 10, Tumble 18	18: shape soulmeld:strongheart vest (MoI p. 40 & 89) Bonus: Scorpion's Instincts (Sandstorm p.53) (Bonus: Iron will)	scorpion's instincts
13	15+4	Scorpion heritor 2	11	10	11	9	Speak language dwarf, Balance 5		sneak attack +1d6
14	16+6	Scorpion heritor 3	13	10	12	10	Tumble 24, spot 4	21: Travel devotion (Complete Champion p.62)	Scorpion Form (Su): take the form of a Tiny monstrous scorpion once per day for 1 minute, as per polymorph.
15	17+6	warshaper 1	13	12	12	10	Speak language common,		Morphic immunities, morphic weapons
16	18+6	warshaper 2	14	13	13	11	Balance 6	24: shadow blade (ToB p.32) (Bonus: power attack)	Morphic body
17	19+8	warshaper 3	18	14	14	12	Balance 7	27: gloom razor (ToB p35)	Morphic Reach
18	20+8	warshaper 4	19	15	14	12	Balance 8		Morphic Healing
19	21+8	warshaper 5	19	15	14	12	Balance 9		Multimorph
20	22+8	swordsage 2	20	15	15	13	Knowledge dungeoneering 2	30: gnome tunnel acrobatics (dungeonscape p.44)	AC bonus

Maneuvers:
Shadow Hand: 2nd: Cloak of deception: 5th: Shadow Stride & Blood letting Strike, 8th One with Shadow

Desert Wind: 2nd Burning Brand; 3rd deathmark; 5th Leaping Flame

Stance: Child of Shadow
Rising Phoenix

The Windrider bonus HD are added to this block, and we can assume that Filthy Dan is riding astride or inside the dwarven tunneler. The bonus feats from windrider are added to the table as well.

This build has two Apexes: @ CR8 and again with the first level of warshaper @ CR 15.
CR 8: At this point, Balmir has spent his skills and taken his lumps for terrible mental stats. But he has the martial art style word given form, which gives him total concealment against everyone because he can declare his dodge on anyone as a free action. Balmir has a 60’ move speed and a 10’ burrow speed and deals 10d6 damage to those he drives over. The rules for Collisions with vehicles are covered on page 45 of the Arms and Equipment guide: “Creatures and stationary objects (such as walls, shoals, and fruit cars) take damage as normal, accounting for hardness or damage reduction first.” Balmir can undermind constructed architecture and absorb a ton of ranged attacks.

CR 15: Windrider levels from Filthy Dan are starting to kick in. Belmir can turn himself into a tiny scorpion to fit into touch to reach spots. As a move action for warshaper, Belmir can make a natural attack, but the wording of this ability doesn’t seem to use up your body shape ability, and doesn’t seem to limit the number of natural attacks that you can use a move action to create! Make like 30 hoof attacks and find yourself a rider with trample! He can travel through shadows to run over people with shadow stride and leaping flame allows him to instantaneously appear next to a character (and subsequently run over!) that has targetted him...travel devotion grants another move action, and tunnel fighting helps Balmir navigate in tunnels he excavates. Evasion is in play, and strongheart vest is available to protect against wisdom and charisma drain attacks. As far as magic items go, anything that builds mental stats is best for this guy.

The mental image of a crazy tumbling drill machine that talks with a Dwarven accent while running everything over that it can is too much to bear!

Filthy Dan: the creator
NE
Corpse Creature Human Urban Druid 7/silverwood outrider 1/windrider 10


Filthy Dan knows a trick. Filthy Dan knows that sometimes well-honed pieces of artisanship representing hundreds of hours of work can be instilled with sentience and mortality when mankind harnesses the powers of raw incarnum.

In rare situations, raw incarnum can bond with non sentient animated matter—such as the body of a construct—and imbue it with a semblance of life. The soul energy of the incarnum becomes, in essence, the now-living construct’s spirit, granting it a modicum of sentience and free will.

Filthy Dan knows how to harness raw incarnum.

P.4: A soulmeld is a semipermanent magical effect crafted from raw incarnum. Soulmelds are “worn” much like magic items. Once shaped (a daily process much like prepping spells), a soulmeld lasts
as long as its creator wants it to.

P.76: Lifebond Vestments: You shape incarnum into a fine, long-sleeved robe. It is a solid color—silver if you are good, gray if you are evil, red if you are lawful, or green if you are chaotic—but raw incarnum dances like elegant embroidery at the ends of the sleeves and the hem by your feet.

And when an urban druid like Filthy Dan calls for his urban companion, and the urban druid therein shares the lifebond vestments soulmeld with his animated objects for a long enough time...well Filthy Dan can create a soulfused construct. What Filthy Dan did not count on was that when he released his unruly subjects from service, that they stayed alive. And they continued to adventure with him.

Filthy Dan had a problem though. During Filthy Dan’s Silverwood outrider days galavanting around with his animated war canoe barbarian sharklord, he left the rest of his former companions, who had used the time to realize that one day Filthy Dan would die...forever. So when he returned home, they ambushed him, paid a local priest to bestow a curse on him, and they buried him in the trash pit. Two weeks later he finally dug himself out of the ground as a corpse creature.

Filthy Dan

Spoiler: Filthy Dan

Show

CR	Level	Class	Feats	skills
1	1	urban druid	Share Soulmeld (Magic of Incarnum, p. 41) Shape Soulmeld ( Magic of Incarnum) [General] Lifebond vestments	ride 2, knowledge nature 2, handle animal 2
2	2	urban druid		2.5
3	3	urban druid	Natural Bond (Complete Adventurer, p. 111) [General]	3
4	4	urban druid		3.5
5	5	urban druid		4
6	6	urban druid	Mounted Combat (Player's Handbook v.3.5, p. 83)	4.5
7	7	urban druid		ride 5, knowledge nature 5, handle animal 5
8	8	Silverwood Outrider http://archive.wizards.com/default.a...d/re/20031202a		ride 8, knowledge nature 6, handle animal 8
9	-	corpse creature
10	9	windrider 1	Undead meldshaper
11	10	windrider 2
12	11	windrider 3	power attack
13	12	windrider 4	living construct trainer
14	13	windrider 5
15	14	windrider 6
16	15	windrider 7	tremendous charge improved initiative
17	16	windrider 8
18	17	windrider 9
19	18	windrider 10	spirited charge
20	19

Visenthios
Soulfused Small Animated Droguewing DFA 19

Spoiler: stats

Show

CR	Class	Class ability	Feats
2	1HD	droguewing: flight speed 20, 4 legs (straps)	flyby attack
3	dragonfire adept 1	reath weapon 1d6, Dragontouched, least invocations: Endure Exposure: Use endure elements as the spell; target gains immunity to your breath weapon	dragon touched
4	dragonfire adept 2	Breath effect: lightning breath (lines only), scales +2	flyby breath
5	dragonfire adept 3	Breath weapon 2d6; Magic Insight: Detect magical auras; identify magic items.
6	dragonfire adept 4	Dragonkin (Ex): At 4th level, you gain a +4 competence bonus on Diplomacy checks made to influence the attitude of dragons or creatures of the dragonblood subtype. You are treated as a dragon for the purpose of determining whether frightful presence can affect you.
7	dragonfire adept 5	Breath weapon 3d6, breath effect: Slow breath weapon	strafing breath
8	dragonfire adept 6	Damage reduction 2/magic, lesser invocations: Humanoid Shape: Take the form of any humanoid creature.
9	dragonfire adept 7	Breath weapon 4d6
10	dragonfire adept 8	Scales +3, voidsense: blindsense 30'.	entangling exhalation
11	dragonfire adept 9	Breath weapon 5d6
12	dragonfire adept 10	Breath weapon range doubles, Sleep breath effect
13	dragonfire adept 11	Breath weapon 6d6, greater invocations: baleful geas	Dumb human child trainer (A&EG)
14	dragonfire adept 12	Breath effect: Enduring Breath
15	dragonfire adept 13	Scales +4, voracious dispelling
16	dragonfire adept 14	Breath weapon 7d6	wingover
17	dragonfire adept 15	Fivefold breath of tiamat
18	dragonfire adept 16	Damage reduction 5/magic, dark invocations: instil vulnerability
19	dragonfire adept 17	Breath weapon 8d6	travel devotion
20	dragonfire adept 18	Scales +5, perilous veil

[Thurbane]

Liridon, the Mindscape
NE Brain in a Jar 9/Erudite 3/Constructor 9

Spoiler: Story

Show

Spoiler: Awakening

Show

Liridon was made, not born. He had no family, no loved ones, no community that would miss him - and certainly no place to call his home. He never knew love, nor sorrow, nor anger. He'd known the taste of fear, though, since his first days in Burmingham's laboratory. The thoughts, too, had plagued his mind since the beginning; keeping him company even as they addled his brain with chatter and words and feelings.

The thoughts told him things. Told him that his creator, Burmingham, was a deceitful fiend that needed to be put down. Told him about his powers - the telepathy, the telekinesis, and mental might that he now bore. Told him that he was strong enough to use Burmingham himself. So he did. When he wasn't looking, when he wasn't expecting it, Liridon trapped the mind of his creator within his own.

It was a good feeling. All of his knowledge, his thoughts; they were Liridon's now. He had them, and they filled his mind, and it was good. Very, very good.

It left him wanting.

Spoiler: Suffering

Show

According to Burmingham, Liridon had once been human. Some kind of noble, wealthy in gold and power but weak in the mind. Witless, he said. Like a defenceless pup. Liridon could only be thankful; such a life was unbecoming of him. He had grown to like his newfound cunning and mental acuity. To think of a life without! It pained him greatly.

Burmingham said little beside this. Over the years, the repeated control over his mind had warped him incomprehensibly, leaving him largely mindless and completely subservient. For whatever reason, he had taken to carrying around his creation in his hands, almost as though he had forgotten that Liridon could fly. He didn't have the heart to tell him otherwise, so he just let it be. It was nice being carried around, besides.

Burmingham had also provided him with bodies. Not live ones, thankfully - no, undead. Skeletons and zombies which Liridon had, surprisingly, found himself to be perfectly capable of controlling. They had become his hands, his muscle, and even his eyes in the world beyond the laboratory. It was a world that hated him, after all, for what he had been made into - and, perhaps, rightly so. He had even sought out fellow psychic creatures and psionicists, seeking to trade in knowledge and powers, but they had only ever considered him a threat.

But that simply would not do.

Spoiler: Vengeance

Show

Once, Liridon had held an open hand. He had asked for things - knowledge, powers, even magic items - only to have them taken from him instead. Other creatures, even fellow psionicists, only thought to punish him with violence and theft for trying.

And so the open hand became a closed fist. He no longer asked; he took. He used his psionics to make people cooperate when they otherwise wouldn't; sometimes with suggestions, other times with violence, but never without issue. They had always fought it, but now, he fought back too. His powers known swelled insurmountably, from all disciplines and walks of life. He had learned a great many things, often from unwilling subjects - academic knowledge and personal secrets both. It gave him satisfaction, pride, and clout.

It gave him the ability to do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. And, for him, that meant more of the same.

More powers. More knowledge. More, more, more.

Spoiler: The Basics

Show

Liridon, the Mindscape
Race: Brain in a Jar
Classes: RHD 9/Erudite 3/Constructor 9
ACF: Favored Discipline (Erudite ACF)
Alignment: Neutral Evil

Stats
Base: 10 Str, 14 Dex, 8 Con, 15 Int, 13 Wis, 12 Cha
Racial: Str -, Dex +4, Con -, Int +6, Wis +2, Cha +6
Phrenic: Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +4
Levels: +5 Int
Total: - Str, 18 Dex, - Con, 28 Int, 17 Wis, 22 Cha

Spoiler: Table

Show

Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
3rd	Brain in a Jar 3	+1	+1	+1	+3	6 Bluff, 6 Diplomacy, 6 Knowledge (History), 6 Knowledge (Psionics), 6 Knowledge (Religion), 6 Listen, 6 Spot, 3 Concentration, 3 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy)	Live My Nightmare, Boost Construct	Mind Thrust (2d10), Psionics, Rebuke Undead, Blindsight 60ft, Darkvision 60ft, Madness, Telepathy 100ft, Undead Traits, Turn Resistance +4
4th	Brain in a Jar 3/Erudite 1	+1	+1	+1	+5	6 Bluff, 6 Diplomacy, 6 Knowledge (History), 6 Knowledge (Psionics), 6 Knowledge (Religion), 6 Listen, 6 Spot, 3 Concentration, 6 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 2 Psicraft, 2 Decipher Script, 2 Knowledge (Arcana)	Psicrystal Affinity: Liar(B)
5th	Brain in a Jar 3/Erudite 2	+2	+1	+1	+6	6 Bluff, 6 Diplomacy, 6 Knowledge (History), 6 Knowledge (Psionics), 6 Knowledge (Religion), 6 Listen, 6 Spot, 6 Concentration, 6 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 4 Psicraft, 4 Decipher Script, 4 Knowledge (Arcana)
6th	Brain in a Jar 3/Erudite 3	+2	+2	+2	+6	6 Bluff, 6 Diplomacy, 6 Knowledge (History), 6 Knowledge (Psionics), 6 Knowledge (Religion), 6 Listen, 6 Spot, 6 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 6 Psicraft, 6 Decipher Script, 6 Knowledge (Arcana)	Practiced Manifester: Erudite
7th	Brain in a Jar 3/Erudite 3/Constructor 1	+2	+2	+2	+8	9 Bluff, 6 Diplomacy, 6 Knowledge (History), 6 Knowledge (Psionics), 6 Knowledge (Religion), 6 Listen, 8 Spot, 10 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 8 Psicraft, 6 Decipher Script, 6 Knowledge (Arcana)		Advanced Construction
8th	Brain in a Jar 3/Erudite 3/Constructor 2	+3	+2	+2	+9	11 Bluff, 6 Diplomacy, 7 Knowledge (History), 7 Knowledge (Psionics), 6 Knowledge (Religion), 6 Listen, 11 Spot, 11 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 11 Psicraft, 6 Decipher Script, 6 Knowledge (Arcana)		Ecto Protection 1
9th	Brain in a Jar 3/Erudite 3/Constructor 3	+3	+3	+3	+9	12 Bluff, 6 Diplomacy, 10 Knowledge (History), 10 Knowledge (Psionics), 6 Knowledge (Religion), 6 Listen, 12 Spot, 12 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 12 Psicraft, 6.5 Decipher Script, 6 Knowledge (Arcana)	Omniscient Whispers	Combat Construction
10th	Brain in a Jar 3/Erudite 3/Constructor 4	+4	+3	+3	+10	13 Bluff, 6 Diplomacy, 13 Knowledge (History), 13 Knowledge (Psionics), 6 Knowledge (Religion), 6 Listen, 13 Spot, 13 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 13 Psicraft, 7 Decipher Script, 6 Knowledge (Arcana)		Boost Construct, Ecto Protection 2
11th	Brain in a Jar 3/Erudite 3/Constructor 5	+4	+3	+4	+10	14 Bluff, 6 Diplomacy, 14 Knowledge (History), 14 Knowledge (Psionics), 7 Knowledge (Religion), 6 Listen, 14 Spot, 14 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 14 Psicraft, 9 Decipher Script, 6 Knowledge (Arcana)		Extended Construction
12th	Brain in a Jar 3/Erudite 3/Constructor 6	+5	+4	+4	+11	15 Bluff, 6 Diplomacy, 15 Knowledge (History), 15 Knowledge (Psionics), 7 Knowledge (Religion), 6 Listen, 15 Spot, 15 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 15 Psicraft, 12 Decipher Script, 6 Knowledge (Arcana)	Trickery Devotion	Ecto Protection 3
13th	Brain in a Jar 3/Erudite 3/Constructor 7	+5	+4	+5	+11	16 Bluff, 6 Diplomacy, 16 Knowledge (History), 16 Knowledge (Psionics), 8 Knowledge (Religion), 6 Listen, 16 Spot, 16 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 16 Psicraft, 13.5 Decipher Script, 8 Knowledge (Arcana)		Utility Construct
14th	Brain in a Jar 3/Erudite 3/Constructor 8	+6	+5	+5	+12	17 Bluff, 6 Diplomacy, 17 Knowledge (History), 17 Knowledge (Psionics), 8 Knowledge (Religion), 6 Listen, 17 Spot, 17 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 17 Psicraft, 16.5 Decipher Script, 8 Knowledge (Arcana)		Boost Construct, Ecto Protection 4
15th	Brain in a Jar 3/Erudite 3/Constructor 9	+6	+5	+5	+12	18 Bluff, 6 Diplomacy, 18 Knowledge (History), 18 Knowledge (Psionics), 8 Knowledge (Religion), 6 Listen, 18 Spot, 18 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 18 Psicraft, 18 Decipher Script, 11 Knowledge (Arcana)	Linked Power	Enhanced Construction
16th	Brain in a Jar 4/Erudite 3/Constructor 9	+7	+5	+5	+13	19 Bluff, 7 Diplomacy, 19 Knowledge (History), 19 Knowledge (Psionics), 10 Knowledge (Religion), 7 Listen, 19 Spot, 18 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 19 Psicraft, 19 Decipher Script, 11 Knowledge (Arcana)
17th	Brain in a Jar 5/Erudite 3/Constructor 9	+7	+5	+5	+13	20 Bluff, 10 Diplomacy, 20 Knowledge (History), 20 Knowledge (Psionics), 10 Knowledge (Religion), 10 Listen, 20 Spot, 18 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 20 Psicraft, 19 Decipher Script, 11 Knowledge (Arcana)
18th	Brain in a Jar 6/Erudite 3/Constructor 9	+8	+6	+6	+14	21 Bluff, 12 Diplomacy, 21 Knowledge (History), 21 Knowledge (Psionics), 10 Knowledge (Religion), 12 Listen, 21 Spot, 18 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 21 Psicraft, 20 Decipher Script, 11 Knowledge (Arcana)	Psionic Meditation
19th	Brain in a Jar 7/Erudite 3/Constructor 9	+8	+6	+6	+14	22 Bluff, 16 Diplomacy, 22 Knowledge (History), 22 Knowledge (Psionics), 10 Knowledge (Religion), 14 Listen, 22 Spot, 18 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 22 Psicraft, 20 Decipher Script, 11 Knowledge (Arcana)
20th	Brain in a Jar 8/Erudite 3/Constructor 9	+9	+6	+6	+15	23 Bluff, 20 Diplomacy, 23 Knowledge (History), 23 Knowledge (Psionics), 11 Knowledge (Religion), 16 Listen, 23 Spot, 18 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 23 Psicraft, 20 Decipher Script, 11 Knowledge (Arcana)
21st	Brain in a Jar 9/Erudite 3/Constructor 9	+9	+7	+7	+15	24 Bluff, 24 Diplomacy, 24 Knowledge (History), 24 Knowledge (Psionics), 11 Knowledge (Religion), 19 Listen, 24 Spot, 18 Concentration, 9 Craft (Blacksmithing), 1 Craft (Sculpting), 1 Craft (Gemcutting), 1 Craft (Alchemy), 24 Psicraft, 20 Decipher Script, 11 Knowledge (Arcana)	Overchannel

Spoiler: Manifesting

Show

Powers Known:

1. Force of Mind, Deaden Blow
2. Astral Construct, Synchronicity
3. Ecto Protection, Psionic Repair Damage
4. Vigor, Share Pain
5. Psionic Glibness, Ectoplasmic Cocoon
6. Greater Concealing Amorpha, Dispel Psionics
7. Implanted Suggestion, Psionic Divination
8. Psionic Freedom of Movement, Wall of Ectoplasm
9. Telekinetic Buffer, Touchsight
10. Psionic Major Creation, Hail of Crystals
11. Greater Psionic Fabricate, Crystallise

Normally, Erudites learn extra powers known through an extensive process between them and another psionicist or power stone. The thing is, this process is kinda slanted towards PCs; you could do it for Liridon, sure, but that would be an awful lot of off-screen micromanagement. I suggest using the following method of deciding, retroactively, whether Liridon possesses a power beyond what he gained from his manifester levels.

Whenever you would like Liridon to manifest a new power which he doesn't already know and which he hasn't manifested before, first make a Psicraft check (DC 15 + the power's level) as a free action. The DC increases by 5 if the power is from a discipline-exclusive list, and by 5 for each previous success this encounter. On a successful roll, he adds the power to his list of powers known and can manifest it as normal; on a failure, he doesn't. He may make this check only once per round and cannot attempt to reactively learn the same power more than once in a single encounter.

If Liridon manages to capture one of the players or otherwise convinces them to give him a new power known, just handle it like normal.

Spoiler: Playing the Brain

Show

Liridon is a remorseless, selfish purveyor of knowledge. He has only two goals: Acquiring additional psionic powers known, and learning all he can about the fields of History, Psionics, Religion, and Arcana. And to these ends, he is willing to apply any means necessary. Unlike a typical Erudite, he doesn't barter or trade for powers, no - he takes them, usually through force, and finds little issue with causing collateral damage in order to do so.

After all; minds can be Dominated, behaviours Suggested, and useful individuals Crystallised or preserved in an Ectoplasmic Cocoon for later. He's vengeful and vain, but not entirely malicious; he'll leave intelligent creatures alive to later seek revenge, particularly those from whom he forcefully acquires new powers known, because he simply doesn't have anything to gain by killing them.

Here are some of the ways you might work Liridon into a campaign and begin his long-standing antagonism with your players.

• Liridon discovers, either through divination or through mundane means, that one of the player characters has a power known or important secret that he would like to acquire. He comes to them, personally, to collect it - albeit ready for a fight.
• The players need to find out something, and Liridon's either the only one who knows the answer or is otherwise the most practical source in miles. If anyone knows about him, it's through his capricious brand of malice, though players who come expecting a fight will find him relatively unguarded within his underground lair. He'll happily trade away his knowledge for powers known, secrets, or (if pushed) impressive magical or psionic items, such as a well-charged dorje; no strings attached. Honest.
• The players happen upon Liridon while he is leeching powers known from a felled psionicist. Should the players engage or attempt to disrupt his concentration, he will gladly fight back. Run this your standard combat encounter, with undead minions and astral constructs already summoned and ready for a fight. If push comes to shove, Liridon will attempt to kill the unconscious psionicist and flee.
• A psionicist who has faced Lirion before hires the players to hunt him down, having recently obtained a lead as to the location of his most recent lair.
• Liridon goes out to acquire a power known or knowledge from a source that isn't the players, and encounters them either at the scene or along the way. He'll gladly work together with them to reach his goals.
• Liridon uses his clout to obtain a position of power in a township or city, acting through a corrupt puppet government to capture and detain psionicists for his own needs.

Liridon works best in a game with psionic characters - particularly psionic player characters. If this isn't the case, you have two options: Either run him as a pure secret-broker character with a psionic streak, or give him the Spell-to-Power Erudite ACF. Be extremely careful with the latter, because having access to every arcane spell and every psionic power in the game can easily become both overly complex and incredibly overpowered.

Spoiler: Breakpoints and Mechanics

Show

Implementing a villain can be hard mechanically, too. Here are some of the levels of play that you might run Liridon at.

CR 6: RHD 3/Erudite 1
You're not much of a combatant at this point. Use Suggestion to avoid combat, and use Deaden Blow to make anyone who relies on a weapon incapable of damaging you. Force of Mind lets us open doors without relying on Telekinesis, which can instead be used alongside Mind Thrust as an offensive kit. Defensive Precognition, Force Screen, Madness, and Live My Nightmare make for a reasonable reliable defensive package. You should rely on rebuking undead summoned by Burmingham (your Dominated creator, a mid-level necromancer) to keep fights fair in the numbers department.

CR 10: RHD 3/Erudite 3/Constructor 1
As before, but now you have Astral Constructs to push things around for you; these great, big, headless, grey-matter golems can serve as the bruisers in your self-made party. Synchronicity can serve as a way to game the action economy, while Aversion and Brain Lock are weird pseudo- save-or-suck and save-or-die abilities, respectively.

CR 14: RHD 3/Erudite 3/Constructor 4
Bigger constructs, and we pick up the Vigor+Share Pain combo to compensate for our pitifully small hit points. Greater Concealing Amorpha and Intellect Fortress are, likewise, quite handy. Psionic Glibness helps us lie through our teeth and not get caught doing it; something which Liridon is quite fond of doing, especially to players. Psychic Crush can be a good save-or-die in a pinch, while Ectoplasmic Cocoon lets us either remove a character from combat or store them for later power harvesting. Dispel Psionics is a good, reliable, versatile power that we can't miss out on.

CR 17: RHD 3/Erudite 3/Constructor 7 (Sweet Spot)
Our constructs now last for minutes at a time, and can be designated as non-combatants to last for hours at a time. Implanted Suggestion lets us control people without them knowing it, and is great to use on players captured with Ectoplasmic Cocoon for when they are returned to the party. Psionic Freedom of Movement means that we don't get crushed like a tin can the moment we find ourselves in a grapple. Psionic Divination lets us know the answers to questions like "where did I leave my dorje?" or "what's the best way to obtain the power Metamorphosis? Who do I seek out?" Wall of Ectoplasm and Telekinetic Buffer give us some solid area denial, and Touchsight finally lets us see all those pesky Darkstalkers. We also pick up Trickery Devotion, which offers both a dump for our Rebuke Undead attempts as an (ab)usable proxy, scout, and false lead.

CR 20: RHD 9/Erudite 3/Constructor 9
Better Astral Constructs (by far!), and we can summon a whole bunch of them at once. Ultrablast and Hail of Crystals are resonably potent damaging powers, while Crystallise doubles as both a save-or-die and as a collector's boon. Psionic Major Creation and Greater Psionic Fabricate combine to make a potent world-shaping package, especially paired with Liridon's craft ranks. Make your lair as pretty as you want; trap enemies in spontaneously-conjured and quickly-crafted cages. Sky's the limit. We also pick up Linked Power and Psionic Meditation, letting us cheat the action economy (especially combined with Synchronicity) to put us on a solidly level playing field with an entire party of player characters.

Spoiler: Sources

Show

The Mind's Eye: Favored Discipline (Erudite ACF)
Expanded Psionics: Psicrystal Containment, Psionic Meditation, Overchannel, Boost Construct, various powers.
Complete Psionic: Practiced Manifester, Linked Power, Erudite, various powers.
Secrets of Sarlona: Psionic Glibness, Force of Mind, etc (spell conversions).
Complete Champion: Trickery Devotion
Unearthed Arcana: Live My Nightmare, Omniscent Whispers
Libris Mortis: Brain in a Jar

[Thurbane]

The picture ]s wrong . The wizards LBys flesh golem kilked him for saying its ugly. Now it does it to every one.

Soulfused flesh golem

Feats: epic strX20

Jump 60

Increase all strength

Sorces: core
Magic of incarnum

[Thurbane]

...and I believe that's all of them!

Well done everyone, for what was a fairly challenging round.

JUST A REMINDER AFTER LAST ROUND: the original post has been adjusted from last round specifically requesting people not to comment on the legality or mechanical errors in builds until judging has been completed.

If you feel too strongly to remain silent, I suggest you tell us all about it...as a judge!

[Jormengand]

That... is 14 full builds. Just as well I didn't send in a second one, then.

[Technetium43]

So, in the spoiler below I'm going to put what I have of my build. Keep in mind, that this is not for judging, merely for posterity's sake (and also so I can explain why I didn't have the energy to write all of the fluff that was needed). But I do encourage you to read up on it, simply because this is probably my favorite thing I've made, and I don't want it to go to waste.

Spoiler: Ragnarök, the Herald of Atropos

Show

Ragnarök, the Herald of Atropos
LE Swarm-Shifter Advanced Crawling Apocalypse

Spoiler: Background

Show

-

Spoiler: Abilities

Show

Spoiler: Ability Scores - Base Form

Show

Attribute	Base	Racial	Level	Total
Strength	14	32	2	48
Dexterity	13	2	1	16
Constitution	8	-	-	-
Intelligence	12	-4	-	8
Wisdom	10	10	-	20
Charisma	15	10	9	34

Spoiler: Ability Scores - Swarm Form

Show

Attribute	Base	Racial	Level	Total
Strength	14	-2	2	14
Dexterity	13	14	1	28
Constitution	8	-	-	-
Intelligence	12	-4	-	8
Wisdom	10	10	-	20
Charisma	15	10	9	34

Spoiler: Statblocks

Show

Spoiler: Ragnarök - Base Form

Show

Ragnarök, the Herald of Atropos

Swarm-Shifter Crawling Apocalypse
LE Colossal Undead (Shapeshifter)
Init +3 (+3 Dex); Senses Blindsense 30'; Listen +61, Spot +59
Languages none

AC 34, touch 5, flat-footed 31 (+3 Dex, -8 Size, +29 Natural Armor)
HP 48d12+720* (1037 HP average); Fast Healing 10; DR 5/-
Immune Undead Immunities
Fort +16, Ref +19, Will +36 (Base F+16, R+16, W+26;+24 vs. Divine Spells)

Speed 20 ft. Land, 20 ft. Burrow
Attack Unarmed Strike +33 (4d6+19+2 Vile) and 1 Snap Kick +33 (4d6+9+2 Vile) or Tentacle +33 (3d8+19+1 Vile plus Mummy Rot) and 1 Snap Kick +33 (4d6+9+2 Vile)
Full Attack 4 Unarmed Strikes +33/+28/+23/+18 (4d6+19+2 Vile) and 1 Snap Kick +33 (4d6+9+2 Vile) and 2 Tentacles +33 (3d8+9+1 Vile plus Mummy Rot) and 6 Arms +33 (1d8+9+1 Vile) and Bite +33 (3d6+9+1 Vile)
Space 30 ft.; Reach 25 ft. (35 ft. w/ tentacles)
Base Attack +24; Grapple +63
Special Attacks Despair, Mummy Rot

Abilities Str 48, Dex 16, Con -, Int 8, Wis 20, Cha 34
Special Qualities DR 5/-, Fast Healing 10, Undead Traits, Unholy Toughness, Vulnerability to Fire, Swarm Form (Undead Sand), Turn Resistance +6*
Feats 1st - Improved Unarmed Strike, 1st - Willing Deformity, 3rd - Improved Grapple, 5th - Abominable Form, 6th - Scorpion's Grasp, 9th - Extended Reach, 10th - Deformity (Eyes), 12th - Snap Kick, 15th - Deformity (Clawed Hands), 15th - Deformity (Face), 18th - Deformity (Tongue), 20th - Deformity (Gaunt), 21st - Deformity (Teeth), 24th - Comabat Reflexes, 25th - Apostate, 27th - Improved Combat Reflexes, 30th - Spellcasting Harrier, 30th - Evil Brand, 33rd - Multiattack, 35th - Vile Ki Strike, 36th - Improved Multiattack, 39th - Large and in Charge, 40th - Vile Natural Attack, 42nd - Frightful Presence, 45th - Quick Change, 45th - Master's Will, 48th - Improved Toughness
Skills Intimidate +49 (+4 for every size category larger than opponent, +4 vs. Non-Undead Evil creatures), Listen +61, Spot +59

Abominable Form (Ex) Living creatures with less than 48 Hit Dice that can see Ragnarök's undisguised form are afflicted by disgust. Each such creature must succeed on a Will save (DC 31) or become shaken for 1 round.

Despair (Su) At the mere sight of Ragnarök, a creature must succeed on a DC 46 Will save or be paralyzed with fear for 1d4 rounds. Whether or not the save is successful, that creature cannot be affected again by Ragnarök's despair ability for 24 hours. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Frightful Presence (Ex) Whenever Ragnarök attacks or charges, all opponents within a radius of 30 feet who have fewer than 48 Hit Dice become shaken for 1d6+12 rounds. The effect is negated by a Will save (DC 46). A successful save indicates that the opponent is immune to Ragnarök's frightful presence for 24 hours. This ability can't affect creatures with an Intelligence of 3 or lower, nor does it have any effect on dragons. The save DC is Charisma-based.

Mummy Rot (Su) Supernatural disease—tentacles. Fortitude DC 46, incubation period 1 minute, damage 1d6 Con and 1d6 Cha. The save DC is Charisma-based. Unlike normal diseases, mummy rot continues until the victim reaches Constitution 0 (and dies) or is cured as described on page 190 of the Monster Manual.

Swarm Form (Undead Sand) (Su) Ragnarök can take the form of a swarm of Undead Sand at will. Changing shape to or from swarm form is a standard action that infuses Ragnarök with negative energy and heals 48 hit points. Ragnarök cannot change from swarm form to its normal form in an area where its body could not normally fit. As with the alter self spell, Ragnarök's items are absorbed into the swarm form and provide no benefit. When it would normally be dispersed due to damage taken, Ragnarök reverts to its base form and is destroyed. Although the use of this ability is a supernatural effect, remaining in one form or another is not supernatural, and Ragnarök in swarm form does not change into its normal shape in an antimagic field. True seeing and similar magic reveals both forms.

Unholy Toughness (Ex) Ragnarök gains a bonus to its hit points equal to its Charisma modifier times its Hit Dice (already figured).

Abilities or numbers marked with an * are only relevant when Atropos' Overwhelming Sign is in effect, during the final confrontation with Ragnarök. Should this not be the case, Ragnarök has no Turn Resistance, and 48d12+624 (941 HP average) HP.

Spoiler: Ragnarök - Swarm Form

Show

Ragnarök, the Herald of Atropos

Swarm-Shifter Crawling Apocalypse
LE Fine Undead (Shapeshifter, Swarm)
Init +9 (+9 Dex); Senses Blindsense 30'; Listen +61, Spot +59
Languages none

AC 47, touch 27, flat-footed 38 (+9 Dex, +8 Size, +20 Natural Armor)
HP 48d12+720* (1037 HP average); Fast Healing 10; DR 5/-
Immune Undead Immunities, Swarm Immunities, Weapon Damage
Fort +16, Ref +25, Will +36 (Base F+16, R+16, W+26;+24 vs. Divine Spells)

Speed 60 ft. Fly (Perfect)
Attack Swarm (5d6+1 Vile)
Full Attack Swarm (5d6+1 Vile)
Space 10 ft.; Reach 0 ft.
Base Attack +24; Grapple -
Special Attacks Distraction, Swarm

Abilities Str 14, Dex 28, Con -, Int 8, Wis 20, Cha 36
Special Qualities DR 5/-, Fast Healing 13, Undead Traits, Unholy Toughness, Vulnerability to Fire, Hive Mind, Swarm Traits, Turn Resistance +6*
Feats 1st - Improved Unarmed Strike, 1st - Willing Deformity, 3rd - Improved Grapple, 5th - Abominable Form, 6th - Scorpion's Grasp, 9th - Extended Reach, 10th - Deformity (Eyes), 12th - Snap Kick, 15th - Deformity (Clawed Hands), 15th - Deformity (Face), 18th - Deformity (Tongue), 20th - Deformity (Gaunt), 21st - Deformity (Teeth), 24th - Comabat Reflexes, 25th - Apostate, 27th - Improved Combat Reflexes, 30th - Spellcasting Harrier, 30th - Evil Brand, 33rd - Multiattack, 35th - Vile Ki Strike, 36th - Improved Multiattack, 39th - Large and in Charge, 40th - Vile Natural Attack, 42nd - Frightful Presence, 45th - Weapon Focus (Unarmed Strike), 45th - Vile Martial Strike, 48th - Improved Toughness
Skills Intimidate +49 (-4 for every size category smaller than opponent, +4 vs. Non-Undead Evil creatures), Listen +61, Spot +59

Abominable Form (Ex) Living creatures with less than 48 Hit Dice that can see Ragnarök's undisguised form are afflicted by disgust. Each such creature must succeed on a Will save (DC 31) or become shaken for 1 round.

Distraction (Ex) Any living creature vulnerable to Ragnarök’s damage that begins its turn with Ragnarök in its square is nauseated for 1 round; a Fortitude save (DC 46) negates the effect. Spellcasting or concentrating on spells within the area of a swarm requires a Concentration check (DC 20 + spell level). Using skills that involve patience and concentration requires a DC 20 Concentration check.

Hive Mind (Ex) Ragnarök is immune to any spell or effect that targets a specific number of creatures (including single-target spells such as disintegrate), with the exception of effects that command, control, turn, rebuke, bolster, or destroy undead specifically. Ragnarök in swarm form is affected by turn and rebuke attempts just like in it's base form.

Swarm Form (Undead Sand) (Su) Ragnarök can take the form of a swarm of Undead Sand at will. Changing shape to or from swarm form is a standard action that infuses Ragnarök with negative energy and heals 48 hit points. Ragnarök cannot change from swarm form to its normal form in an area where its body could not normally fit. As with the alter self spell, Ragnarök's items are absorbed into the swarm form and provide no benefit. When it would normally be dispersed due to damage taken, Ragnarök reverts to its base form and is destroyed. Although the use of this ability is a supernatural effect, remaining in one form or another is not supernatural, and Ragnarök in swarm form does not change into its normal shape in an antimagic field. True seeing and similar magic reveals both forms.

Unholy Toughness (Ex) Ragnarök gains a bonus to its hit points equal to its Charisma modifier times its Hit Dice (already figured).

Abilities or numbers marked with an * are only relevant when Atropos' Overwhelming Sign is in effect, during the final confrontation with Ragnarök. Should this not be the case, Ragnarök has no Turn Resistance, and 48d12+624 (941 HP average) HP.

Spoiler: Anfangende - CR 5

Show

-

Spoiler: Offenbarung - CR 10

Show

-

Spoiler: Weltuntergang - CR 15

Show

-

Spoiler: Götterdämmerung - CR 20 (Highlight)

Show

-

Spoiler: Sources

Show

Book of Vile Darkness - Deformity (Clawed Hands)
Draconomicon - Frightful Presence, Large and in Charge
Elder Evils - Abominable Form, Apostate, Atropos, Deformity (Eyes), Deformity (Face), Deformity (Gaunt), Devotion to an Elder Evil, Evil Brand, Master's Will, Vile Ki Strike, Vile Natural Attack, Willing Deformity
Heroes of Horror - Deformity (Teeth), Deformity (Tongue)
Libris Mortis - Improved Toughness, Swarm-Shifter
Sandstorm - Crawling Apocalypse, Scorpion's Grasp
Savage Species - Quick Change
Tome of Battle - Snap Kick

So. Let's talk about two things: Elder Evils, and the Marru. In the Elder Evils sourcebook, for those who are unaware, there are a number of new rules for eldritch horror-y and campaign forming abominations, with which to play around with. Additionally, each one of these Elder Evils has a little mini-adventure pre-packaged with them, with explanations for when the Elder Evils show up, and generally spanning from about 5-20th level. Having seen this, I decided that it would be a good idea to make my own variation on such an adventure, using a new 'big bad' (replacing the Aspect of Atropos and whatever the crazy Bard/Ur-priest's name was). Enter the Marru, one of my favorite random splatbook things. I'll go ahead and paste in the description of the Marru here, for reference.

A people known as the marru once lived and warred in the world, but their civilization has long since passed into the waste, devastated and destroyed by internecine wars of terrible magnitude. As a result of these so-called Flesh Wars, the marru turned to a little-understood art called spawncraft, and in so doing created living weapons to wage their battles. These spawncrafted creatures have come to be known collectively as the spawn of marru, but are more commonly referred to as marruspawn. The marru were advanced in other areas as well, but all their arts couldn’t save them from destroying themselves. However, marruspawn linger on in forgotten and blasted wastelands across many worlds.

The marru understood the stratified nature of the multiverse, and in their wish to ascend closer to heaven, they built their strongholds on the tops of pyramids, so that religious observances and rituals could be conducted as close as possible to the divine realm of the sky. While later cultures saw and copied the marru structures in their own building styles, it was the marru who first perfected the form. Primeval pyramidal structures that date back to the Flesh Wars still contain blood thirsty marruspawn.

However, the Marruspawn are creatures like any other, and reproduce normally, thus I don't really qualify them as 'created'. They're 'created' in the same vein that EVERYTHING is created in the D&D multiverse. Enter the two living (well, surviving) creations of the Marru: The Crawling Apocalypse and the Marruspawn Abomination.

A few crawling apocalypses yet traverse the trackless sands, self-impelled immortal remnants of ancient wars. Each crawling apocalypse is actually a war machine created by a race called the marru. Known for their power over the flesh of the living, splinter factions of marru wandered into realms of necromancy, and in their madness to win at any cost, they introduced monstrosities of the sea to mummification and the sea of sand. Too potent to perish with the conclusion of the wars and the eradication of their creators, crawling apocalypses yet patrol ancient perimeters, guarding against intrusion by enemies long vanished.

This creature’s genesis is rumored to be the true cause of the marru’s extinction. Delving too far into their lore of spawncraft, the marru dared to add the blood of a deity to one of their force-bred creations. Seeking to spawn a champion marruspawn, they instead created an abomination.

Evocative enough already, but looking at these two in conjunction gave me an idea. Rather than 'splinter factions' being responsible for the Crawling Apocalypses, what if it was the Marruspawn Abomination? In this alternate adventure, the Marruspawn Abomination summoned Atropos with a 'horrific violation of the natural order', by creating Ragnarök with its own essence. The true cause of the Marru extinction would've been Atropos and Ragnarök. Additionally, many millennia in the future (AKA the time the adventure takes place) the final hook from the Marruspawn entry comes into play: Wisdom.

For years without number, lingering marruspawn were content in their small, isolated communities at the center of lonely tracts of endless waste, worshiping their progenitor race and engaging in the demanding tasks required to eke out an existence in a blasted land. In more recent centuries, the marruspawn have endured an increasing number of incursions by adventurers and desert settlers into their own territories. One marrutact, called Wisdom, finally moved beyond the rituals that had kept his race mollified and in perpetual decline in the lost desert sands. In a bold move, Wisdom broke with the rituals of centuries—he claimed to have received a message from the ancient progenitor race: Expand forth from the waste and wipe clean from the earth all that are not spawned of the marru.

However, it would not have been the progenitor race that Wisdom had heard from, but in fact a splinter of the essence of the Marruspawn Abomination, through Ragnarök. Wisdom (who likely would've been a Marrutact Pale Master 10, and the subject of the 15th level breakdown) was going to be awakening undead all over the place, and sending Marruspawn out to look for certain artifacts, specifically the Book of Vile Darkness. This would've been the subject of the 5, 10, and 15 level breakdowns: the increasing pressure of Atropos and the quest to stop Wisdom. But enough about that, let's talk about Ragnarök, who is probably my favorite thing I've created.

Ragnarök is a Swarm-shifter Crawling Apocalypse, advanced to 48 hit dice. Already the simplest build I've made by far. I originally had it as a Soul Eater until I remembered that only living creatures can be soul eaters. >_> Glad I caught that. Colossal sized, massive stats, lots of attacks absolutely absurd HP, and really hard to kill. That's Ragnarök in a nutshell. With Atropos' Overwhelming Sign in effect (which it will be, by the endgame), Ragnarök has over 1000 HP. Additionally, it can heal 106 HP a round by shifting forms twice, and can do this while burrowed underground. The actual encounter with Ragnarök was basically going to be an endurance test. Offensively no slouch with 16 attacks in a full attack, huge space and reach, and spellcasting harrier/infinite combat reflexes, this is probably the build I'm most proud of creating, especially with its simplicity. Ultimately though: despite technically qualifying, there would've been almost no relevance to the 'created' bit without me doing an entire fluff writeup (the only reason I can do this rambling here is because I'm sleep deprived and in a manic swing). With all this, it's actually two layers of created beings: the Marru create the Abomination, the Abomination creates Ragnarök.

All in all, I'm incredibly disappointed I couldn't get this all written up, but depression is a jerk.

However, should mental illness comply, I might be able to get a judging writeup done for this competition. It all depends on how I feel.

[Troacctid]

Holy cow so many builds! And I didn't even finish mine! It's just as well, since someone else did basically the same self-replicator idea (although mine was a clockwork mender instead of a dedicated wright, and of course if I'd finished it it would have been totally better than all y'all's, and the easy winner of the round, you know, obviously, because I'm so amazing and all, and since you haven't seen the build you can't prove I'm not).

EDIT: Technetium, yes! Marru are awesome! Your concept is great!

[Technetium43]

Holy cow so many builds! And I didn't even finish mine! It's just as well, since someone else did basically the same self-replicator idea (although mine was a clockwork mender instead of a dedicated wright, and of course if I'd finished it it would have been totally better than all y'all's, and the easy winner of the round, you know, obviously, because I'm so amazing and all, and since you haven't seen the build you can't prove I'm not).

EDIT: Technetium, yes! Marru are awesome! Your concept is great!

Yes they are!

My stepfather has actually been running a game for about... 8 years now, that heavily involves the Marru, which was a large part of the inspiration for this build, although the Marruspawn Abomination is actually one of the good guys in that campaign. Still, I'd been wanting to do this for a while.

My original idea was actually to use the Marruspawn Abomination itself, but there's very little I can do with only 1 CR to work with. I also had a couple of joke ideas, like an Effigy Incarnate Construct Tarrasque Bard, who accidentally got Mr. T's personality uploaded instead of the Big T's. (Why did I put the T (Big) and T (Mr.) levers next to eachother?! WHY DO I HAVE A T (Mr.) LEVER IN THE FIRST PLACE?!), but that was kinda stepping on Snoop Dragg's toes.

[GnomishPride]

Unfortunately, life got in the way of finishing my build, but I was planning to submit a Greenbound Half-Fey Warforged Druid/Landforged Walker. I'm glad no one had quite the same idea, but most of the other builds far outshined what I had done. Great work everyone, and hopefully I can actually finish a build next time.

[Vaz]

Can I gove Honourable Mention to Technetium? That is a wonderful write up and idea.

[Strigon]

Dang!
Was going to offer to judge this round, as a way of compensating for not having the time to finish my build, but I think some of these builds are way over my head

[Inevitability]

I had this idea to have an armor trap (BoVD) with a Trap Haunt (Dragon Compendium) linked to it, then give it manifesting going into ebon saint. It still would be unable to move more than 30 feet away from the armor, but it would be able to move along with any creature wearing the armor (including the zombies it's able to create), and can turn invisible at will.

The resulting build would be anywhere between 'quirky-scary animatronic', 'cursed piece of equipment WITH A TWIST' and 'mindwiping mastermind that kills so that it may retain mobility'.

[Telonius]

Wow, I am in for it this time! Lots of reading to do, looking forward to getting to all of these.

[Deadline]

I'm glad I didn't finish my entry. I was shooting for what was effectively a living mausoleum. It was a Soulfused construct (was thinking about a Stained Glass Golem) that was created by a dying society to both carry on their memory and destroy their hated enemies. I was considering making it into a Necrocarnate to preserve fluff (albeit at the cost of power). But many of those ideas were done here. Still, there were some very creative entries. Wish I had the time to judge.

[GrayDeath]

Wow, a full 14 again!

And some awefully (intentional ^^) inspiring Ideas, kudos!

[D&DPrinceTandem]

Spoiler: Bloody Maiden

Show

*!!!Warning This Woman Is Very sadistic!!!*

Spoiler: Mechanical parts

Show

Race: Elan (was human see next Spoiler)
Classes: Warblade 6 / bloodclaw master 5 / Disiple of Dispater 9
:ability scores priority:
Con
Int
Str
Dex
Wis
Cha

:Feats:
Flaw{vulnerable}: combat expertise
Flaw{vulnerable}: Disciple of darkness
1: Weapon focus (light mace)
3: Two weapon fighting
6: Lightning mace
9: power attack
12: Flay foe
15: Brand of hell (Mephistopheles)
18: Mark of cania

:Class abilities:
Warblade:
Battle clarity-int to Reflex saves
Weapon alpitude- treated as lvl 5 for fighter feats, can change feats for specific weapons
uncanny dodge
Battle ardor- int to critical confirmation (very useful for this build)
bonus feat: Combat reflexes
bloodclaw master:
Shifting 3/day
Claws of the beast
Superioir Two weapon fighting
tiger claw synergy
Pouncing attack
low light vision
Rending claws
Scent
Disiple of Dispater:
device lore
Iron hews
Rusting grasp
Iron power +2
Summon eryines
Greater Iron hew
Ironskin

items:
weapons= (2) +1 ravenous, alpitude flensing Kukris

feather wings graft
:What the blood maiden can do:
combo power lvl
Purple = 1 not stupid powerful but can be strong at some times
Blue = Powerful at moments most limit on how many time a day it can be used
Red = The Reason i put the warning up, this is what you do when that one Pc pisses her off!!!



Bam then there was blood everywhere: first attack of the round with the kukri, attack +18 BAB +1 (WF) + (str) +2 insight (DoD) with a damage of 1d4 +(str) + 2 insight (DoD) +1 (alpitude+ imp crit) and a crit range of 6-20(18-20=3 number *5 becuse of the combination of imp crit and Iron power= 15 numbers= ) and a critical mult of *2 from kukris, but it gets better, with the second attack it has all the same with more, if the first attack hit then he gets a +1 to damage due to flay foe and +2d6 due to ravenous weapon speacial quality, if it did not hit then she takes -1 to her ac but gains +1 bonus on attack rolls, damage rolls, saves, and checks due to the Mark of Cania feat. on any attack if she rolls anything above a 5 she gains another attack and if she does crit with comfermation(remember she gains her int to her crit comfirmation) she gains another attack due to Lightning maces and she gains a bonus to attack and damage which is comes from her blood in the water stance

in short
1st attack) 21+str attack roll, dmg of 1d4 +3 + str, crit range of 6-20, crit bonus of *2
2nd attack if first attak hits but not crit) 21+str attack roll, dmg of 1d4 +3 + str +1 +2d6 , crit range of 6-20, crit bonus of *2
2nd attack if first attak hits with crit) 21+str attack roll +1 , dmg of 1d4 +3 + str +1, crit range of 6-20, crit bonus of *2
(if rolled 5 or higher) 21 +str + (however many crits has been achived when in blood in the water stance) +1 per number of attack that had hit that round

she could verry well kill anyone with this combo because it basicaly gives her a verry aburently high amount of attack in one round, she starts with4 attack but gains more attack, more damage per attack that hits

:summon the Blood Eyrines of hell 1/day
summon erynes 1d4 of them
but these eyrines wield +1 ravenous longswords being a paticular group of Dispater aresinal granted to the bloody maiden of dispater (see background in next spoiler)
no comment

For the love of blood 3/day she can activate, shifter, Mephistopheles brand, and greater iron hews, Rending claws
to get
Claw attacks that deal 1d4 dmg +2 str , +1d6 fire dmg with weapons, +1d6 dmg +1d4 con dmg +1d4 cha dmg, +6 to attacks= +2 str/ +6 to attack/ 1d4+1d6 fire claw attacks

Re-gain the power of hell use a swift action to re gain her manveurs the the rest of the round as the first combo.


the Books used:
Players handbook ( feats- weapon focus, twf, combat reflex, Combat expertice, power attack, kukris)
book of nine swords ( Warblade class, bloodclaw master PrC, alpitude weapon)
Book of vile darkness ( Disiple of Dispater, Disiple of darkness)
Expanded psionic handbook (Elan race)
Compete warrior ( Lightning maces)
Fiendish Codex II (Brand of nine hells, Mark of cania.)
Champions of Ruin (Flay foe, ravenous weapon, Flensing)

now for the background

Spoiler: Background

Show

Chalice Sephiran of now better know as The Bloody maiden was once on of many children of the town of adventure's rest, but when adventure's rest was plagued by the infernal army of Dispater she and 100 other children were taken to hell, all the children including her were of the age of 10, all girls . At this young age she was nurtured by the servants of Dispater, the Eyrines.
Where in hell specifically were they, they were in the Iron tower, the center piece of the City of Dis, for the first three years the children were allowed to to anything they wanted but they needed to be escorted by a eyrines at all times because of increased chance of getting lost. For three years they lived here under Dispaters care, when really Dispater, like any other devil, was deceiving them. After three years they were spontaneously put under

the first test, the test of starvation (Repletion ability from Elan). In this test they were put in there own room with a locked door and told that they were to stay in there for a year without food or water. Including Chalice only 50 of the children lived, changed but still alive. Dispater did not expect som any to live so he put them under there

second test, the test of fortitude (Resitance Elan ability). In this test they were injected a poison into there body, Devil blood to be exact. If those who lived for three days would move to the third test, Only 10 of them lived though this test.

whe that test ended they were immediately cured of any ilness and starvation they had and placed into Iron madiens (resilience Elan ability) all in the same room for 10 hour. every 10 minutes they would increase the setting on the Iron maiden, starting with it off, then low setting, then moderate setting, then Severe setting, then Terminal setting for 20 minutes. The whole time Chalice could hear all there screams, she thought since there screaming there going to live, right... Only Chalice survived, the rest of the ten died within the first 3 minutes of the low setting, what she heard for the rest of the time were the souls for the others being ripped apart by a infernal machine that turned them into Eyrines.

That day Chalice was cleaned up, healed, and fed. The next day one of the Chancellors of Dispater escorted her to Dispaters throne room were she had never been before. Here she waited for The lord of Dis to appear, when he did he smiled and said "how has it been Maiden of blood, your stay in my fortess that is?" when he got no answer he continued " on a serious note, i would like to explain to you why you have been put through the infernal test set apon you. Each test made you less and less human than you were originally, it made you more like me, I made you more like me so you could take a spot as one of my gifts to another devil, since you have passed I grant you 3 things, one for each test you have previously been though. The first gift is the title, Bloody Maiden... Bloody Maiden Chalice Sephiran, no no it doesn't fit, you new name is Rize Dis, you title and name Bloody Maiden Rize Dis, Your second gift shall be your weapons, The kukris of bloody damnation, which have infernal magic infused in them that will.. guide your andbissions. Your third and final gift is that since you are one of my maidens you gain power over a piece of my arsenal, the part being.. my newest Eyrines, the blood Eyrines. You shoould know them really well." with the mention of her gifts he holds out 2 kukris with the blades covered in blood and with hilts seemingly made of the scales of a red dragon. Then 3 Eyrines walk from behind the throne each having 2 blades with the same description as hers, all of them seeming deprived of emotion, All of them looking similar to her deceased friends. "You are a gift to my Ally Mephistopheles the lord of the eighth level of hell and lord of hellfire. Before i send you to him i am to brand you with his signature, due to the fact that any devil would like to have you as there own but if they see both my and Mephistopheles Signature on you then no devil will be stupid enough... Due you accept my generous offers" The devil pauses "or do you deny, were you will be forced into submission. I give you thirty minutes." The the devil leaves the room. Rize picks up the daggers that were left in front of her and walks to the eyrines which at one time were the souls of her friends, " please for give me, i will free you from you eternal torment" then she flays the body of each and every eyrines in the room. " Mister i have my answer, with that dispater walks in then stops in amazement on her.. perfected art. " You will be the perfect gift to Mephistopheles." he says with delight.

After 1,000 years under Mephistopheles power Rize has forgotten of her old life and had accepted her new life as an aberration of hell, an Elan and as The Bloody Maiden of hell. She has had wings grafted onto her to become more alike the devils she now aspires to become. She has 3 goals now, 1) become a High Devil, 2) Become a Achdevil, 3) Power

1,000 years later she has now been placed as the Maiden of The Bloody church, a Cult for Dispater and Mephistopheles on the material plane. Her ambitions the same, and after she had achieved 100,000,000 souls deemed to hell she will be grand Devilship. As she was transferred to The material plane, Dispater had granted her the power of a disciple of him.

1,000 years later, nearly finished she has been discovered by a group of adventure, the rest is to unknown for that is the future....


To is day The Bloody maiden still hears the screams of her sisters. Her family. The screams of the souls that she has gained control over and has sent to hell.

i think that all for her
[/SPOILER]

[Thurbane]

Technetium43 - that's a really impressive preliminary build. Well done!

Once the comp is over, I might post the build stub I would have entered had I not been chair...

On a side note: there were alot of queries this round about how Awaken and elite array ability buy interract. I'm open to suggestions to standardize this for future competitions.

My initial thought is to treat the newly created stats (Int Wis Cha) as ability mods with +0 (i.e. an awakened Iron Golem would have racial modifiers of Str +22, Dex -2, Con --, Int +0, Wis +0, Cha +0) then add the array into those? (Obviously most folks would dump the 8 into the non-stat of Con).

[Ywvbevlin]

I think i will judge

[Troacctid]

The new scores should simply be included in the creature's elite array, IMO.

[remetagross]

I could not wrap my build together, but I'm glad someone picked up the idea, too. I was going for creating Ultron (as per the Avengers 2 movie), a self-replicating villain. But I didn't know about the Mind Seed power to allow Ultron to create not only new bodies, but also new minds. To get around that issue, I was going to aim for an Effigy Construct of a human, to get a base creature with the lowest possible CR (1 I guess), and then Spell to Power Erudite 5/Metamind 10/Erudite 4. My plan was then to resort to the cheese of Metamind 10 + Temporal Reiteration power to gain infinite power points and to make any powers and effects permanents.
The one original trick I'd found was the idea of using Schism multiple times, since the power now has an unlimited duration, and each Schismed mind can manifest Schims after this. So the idea was that as soon as Ultron reached Mindbender 10, he would undergo an ascension and instantly duplicate his mind billions of time. After that, he would craft the cheapest intelligent construct available, like Force Golems, use Spell to Powered Humanoid Essence to make them targetable by mind-affecting abilities, and then Mind Switch (made permanent by the Temporal Reiteration trick) one of his Schismed minds into each Golem. At the end of the day, Ultron would have gotten as much himselves in Force Golem bodies as time, exp points (I didn"t think of Thought Bottle abuse) and gold would allow him.

But not only was this build not online before CR 19, it also relied on some powerful cheese. And also, if the original Ultron was destroyed, all the Schism would instantly stopped and thus the whole army would be disabled in one stroke. This meant I could not achieve to emulate the greatest strenght of Ultron, which is to be able to survive as long as only one of his replicas is still working, and to start over replicating from there.

My second idea was then to emulate Skynet. This would have been an unmoving Effigy Master, sending at the PCs ever-improving cyborgs: first various effigies, then Simulacra, and finally Ice Assassins. But I didn't get the time to iron it out.

On an unrelated note, Technetium43, your idea of devising your own Elder Evil by using the Marru Abomination and the Crawling Apocalypse as its servant is crazy good, and I would have loved to see your build competing! And the campaign story your wrote really flows with the idea, and you even used the Marrutact Wisdom! Very clever reinterpretation of the Sandstorm backstory

I'm a bit disappointed not to have submitted a build for the theme I proposed myself, but I'm very glad to see how inspirational it turned out to be

EDIT: about the question of the Awaken and Elite array interaction, I'd go with overwriting the elite array with the new stats as you suggest, Troacctid, since things should go in this order in the history of the creation of the creature; rather than adding a +0 mod to all mentals stats (or +8 for a Maximized Awaken Construct) to the elite array as you are suggesting, Thurbane. It seems to me that Awaken goes this way for animals, since it overwrites the animal's Int score with a flat 3d6.

[ben-zayb]

Technetium43 - that's a really impressive preliminary build. Well done!

Once the build is over, I might post the build stub I would have entered had I not been chair...

On a side note: there were alot of queries this round about how Awaken and elite array ability buy interract. I'm open to suggestions to standardize this for future competitions.

My initial thought is to treat the newly created stats (Int Wis Cha) as ability mods with +0 (i.e. an awakened Iron Golem would have racial modifiers of Str +22, Dex -2, Con --, Int +0, Wis +0, Cha +0) then add the array into those? (Obviously most folks would dump the 8 into the non-stat of Con).

This was also what confused me last contest when judging the badger, so I'm glad this was brought up.

[Tiri]

I think i will judge

Is Ywvbevlin still allowed to judge?

[Ywvbevlin]

Yes i am why would you say that