"I am the BORG" - the BORG Queen

[Gruftzwerg]

"I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many. I am the BORG."

Welcome to my newest TO build. The time has come to reveal the true origin of the BORG in 3.5! We'll dive into the deepest secrets of the BORG (in 3.5).

"Who was the first BORG?"
"How did they become BORG?"
"How powerful is the Collective?"
"How did they build their technology (Cyber-implants, Borg Cubes/Spheres/Pyramids)?"

Everything will be revealed. Prepare some popcorn and some drinks for the show:

Disclaimer: Not intended for play unless you wanna unleash the biggest plague of all time into the 3.5 multiverse. But maybe some other jerk DM already did this mistake for you. And now you (as DM) have to deal with the BORG Hi-Jacking your players' realm via their alien dimension traveling technology (or spells in 3.5). What a messy multiverse this is..^^

Background:
Once upon a time there was a Changeling girl by the name Danzek. She had the big dream to be connected to anyone (of importance). Or shall we better say that everyone shall be connected to her. To achieve her goal she changed her identity countless of times. One of her most powerful identities on her way to her goal was to resemble a Mulan human woman by the name "Mulan" (sorry, it's late and I'm out of gas to be creative atm...^^). End of backstory!


Stats:
STR: 10
DEX: 14
CON: 14
INT: 10
WIS: 14
CHA: 16 + 5 lvlUp + 5 Wish + 6 item = 32max

Alignment: Neutral-Evil
Religion: Lolth

Skills: Besides from Concentration there is nothing really of importance (except the min. requirements for the PRCs). Further, since each Hivemind also gives Skillpoints temporary, we can always quickly readjust when needed.

Warlock 2 / Cleric 3 / Eldritch Disciple 5 / Vermin Lord 10*
* =Vermin Lord is used to progress Warlock

lvl	Class	Feats	Class Features
1st	Warlock	Racial Emulation	Eldritch Blast 1d6 Summon Swarm
2nd	Warlock		Detect Magic Eldritch Spear
3rd	Cleric (of Lolth)	Verminfriend	Rebuke Undead Spider (Domain) Pride (Domain)
4th	Cleric
5th	Cleric
6th	Eldritch Disciple	Southern Magician	Rebuke Undead (progression) Eldritch Blast 2d6 Gift of the Divine Patron: (Corrupting Blast)
7th	Eldritch Disciple		Entropic Warding
8th	Eldritch Disciple		Eldritch Blast 3d6
9th	Eldritch Disciple	Divine Metamagic	Gift of the Divine Patron: (Fiendish Resistance) Spider Shape
10th	Eldritch Disciple		Eldritch Blast 4d6 Eldritch Spellweave
11th	Vermin Lord		Chitin +1 Vermin Servant 1 HD Crawling Eye
12th	Vermin Lord	Draconic Aura: Vigor	Blood Drain
13th	Vermin Lord		Spider Hand Eldritch Blast 5d6
14th	Vermin Lord		Chitin +2 Swarm Armor
15th	Vermin Lord	Obtain Familiar (---)	Wings of the Vermin Vermin Servant 4HD Disembodied Hand
16th	Vermin Lord		Spiderlegs
17th	Vermin Lord		Chitin +3 Spew Vermin Eldritch Blast 6d6 Noxious Blast
18th	Vermin Lord	Draconic Familiar (Blue Dragon Wyrmling)	Poison Pincer Claws (1d8 for medium size)
19th	Vermin Lord		Vermin Servant 16HD
20th	Vermin Lord		Chitin +4 Hivemind Devil's Whispers

Spoiler: LVL 1-5

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Early game combat will be dominated with Summon Swarm & Eldritch Spear. Note that the swarm invocation only has a standard action cost and thus can be recast each turn. This results in maximum control of their dmg since the dmg already occurs at the the end of the round where you cast/summon em (and you choose the squares where they spawn in/on). The Spear helps with long range combat and will be later abused for fluff as distruptors for the BORG. Entropic Shield is the base for the BORG shields.
Spider domain extends Rebuke Undead to Vermin, which we can abuse to increase our spider hivemind (more on that later). The Pride domain gives the BORG a free reroll when they roll a natural 1 on their initial save (can't be triggered by itself!).
We abuse Racial Emulation to pick up Verminfriend (requirement for to enter Vermin Lord later).

Spoiler: LVL 6-10

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Eldritch Disciple helps with the preparation to enter Vermin Lord.
Southern Magician is in preparation for using Divine Metamagic on originally arcane spells (for the hivemind Sorcerer spells).
Spider Shape is a nice ranged defensive option due to the web ability (against melee type) and can be combined with summon swarm once the enemies are webbed. We will also abuse it for our main combo (Assimilation: see below).

Spoiler: LVL 11-19

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Finally we can enter our desired prc of choice: "Vermin Lord" (via the temporary emulation to be a drow). We start to grow the BORG typical Chitin armor and some other gadgets that fit the theme to some degree.

Crawling Eye, Disembodied Hand and Spider Form look like mediocre choices as invocation, but you couldn't have been fooled more by the warlock guides out there. The key to abuse here is the "Symbiotic"-template from Savage Species. The Eye and the Hand only have some base stats altered (HP, AC, movement..) but have "otherwise identical stats"! Thus they count as diminutive humanoid and can be used as "guest" for the Symbiotic Template. This is the base for the "Assimilation" ability of the BORG. Danzek can gain control of creatures willing to form a symbiotic bound with her. Since the "host" creature now gains all of Danzek's abilities, it can now also use this combo on other creatures. Now reread the quote of the BORG Queen at the top:

"I am the beginning, the end, the one who is many."

Danzel is the first link in this combo and also becomes the last link in the combo (readjusting the symbiotic chain might be needed from time to time). To achieve this, we need to change the BORG's type (now Aberration) to a legal one. For this, we use Spider Shape after (!) using Crawling Eye/Disembodied Hand. As spider the eye/hand now counts as vermin which is a legal type for the Symbiotic template again.
This way (by ending the chain with Danzek), all creatures share their abilities with each other and the mind of Danzek is sole in control. The 1st stage of the Collective is established!

"WE ARE BORG !"

Vermin Lord also provides us with 3 Vermin Servants with up to 1HD, 4HD and 16HD. We will include em into our Collective to cross-share all abilities:
1HD: Monstrous Spider, small: 1HD; poison and web ability; DC = 10 + 1/2 HD + CON (+4 specific for the web ability)
4HD: Monstrous Crab, medium: 3HD; Improved Grab (for claw attack) & Constrict: 2 x (claw + strength) damage (the other BORG abuse the Pincer Claws for this).
16HD: Bonespear: 15HD; Attach, Drag, Horns, Poison, Fast Healing 5, Immobile Stance

With Obtain Familiar and Draconic Familiar we summon a Blue Dragon Wyrmling. Sadly, the dragon & magical beast types are excluded from the Symbiotic template. We need to delay the assimilation to lvl 20.

Spoiler: LVL 20

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With the access to Devil's Whispers & the Hivemind ability the build is now complete. Or shall I say that the real mess is about to start?

Devil's Whispers is Suggestion at will. And if the target fails his save, he believes it was his own idea. This will make him "free willing" to become a symbiont host. Due to being able to spam Suggestion at will, anyone will sooner or later fail his save.

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE !

All BORG have 3 options to create a swarm for the Hivemind ability (requires animals or vermin).
a) Use the Vermin the BORG has accumulated via Rebuke Vermin (Spider Domain ability).
b) Use other BORG in Spider Shape to form the Hivemind.
c) Use the swarms from other BORG, who use their Summon Swarm invocation (concentration), to summon and keep the swarms alive.

As you can see, with these options at hand, we can easily create insane big swarms, each providing epic Sorcerer casting and a bunch of extra skill points and feats. With this, we can now break the entire game/multiverse. We can craft almost anything we want and cast as much as we want (There is no limit to how many times you can rebuild a swarm per day. Thus rinse and repeat if you run out of spellslots.).

1) Iron Half-Golem template
The first thing to craft is this tempalte. The test-subject will willingly fail the save to become a construct. The mind of the host is irrelevant due to the Symbiotic template. The guest ("eye" or "hand") is still linked to Danzek and thus unaffected. It (the template) suppresses any kind of mental changes that are targeted at the "host" creature. The guest has become the template and can't be targeted. You would need to target Danzek herself, but since she has a backup-link herself (the end link of the templates), she is in an infinite loop where she constantly regains control over the BROG and herself.
Now since we cleared that pile of rule crap, we can now talk about the nice boost this template gives. A big boost to STR, DR and a bunch of Immunities, most notable the "Immunity to Magic" (except electricity dmg). We will get rid of the electricity weakness left via assimilating our Blue Dragon Wyrmling (see below).

2) Assimilate Anything
With Hivemind we can easily cast a (Epic Heightened?) Polymorph Any Object to temporary change any targets type to a fitting one for the symbiotic template.

a) Blue Dragon Wyrmling
This is mainly for the immunity to electricity dmg. If the dmg is nullified the Iron Golem's weakness to it becomes irrelevant. If we don't take dmg, we don't get slowed either.

b) Colossal Animated Object aka BORG Cube / Sphere / Pyramid
Get a few of these (permanent) for your BORG armada to invade the multiverse. They will share their "20 Hardness" to the collective. Use Wish/Epic Teleport spells via Hivemind to emulate the "Warp-Drive".
The Phaser-Cannons are those BORG with a high DEX (25) who will pick Distant Shot as Epic feat (requires: Far Shot (PH) , Point Blank Shot (PH) , Spot 20 ranks, DEX 25) and invest the extra skill points into Spot. Now they can shoot at anything within sight without any penalties. Use Eldritch Blast or some epic ray spells for fun. Epic lvl metamagic helps to boost your spells until they feel like Plasma-Torpedo.
Once they are assimilated, they become a good source/spot to form a Hivemind. All creatures inside it can be added to the Hivemind, forming a very very big swarm. All BORG can still freely move inside the ship without breaking the swarm formation.
A "Tractor-Beam" can be emulated via Telekinesis + Reserve of Strength (using the interpretation that fully uncaps a spell's caster level cap) from a big Hivemind inside the Cube/Sphere/Pyramid.

c) Assimilate anything else left of interest
Any interesting species deserves a place in the BORG collective. Don't be to picky and pick anything useful that you come across.

3) Give your BORG any graft you want
With Racial Emulation and the bonus feats from Hivemind we can (re-)pick Graft Flesh for any race we want and give the BROG all kinds of grafts. Not all BORG look the same. There are some minor differences in the grafts they have. But almost all have one of the eye grafts available.

4) Craft anything else you need.
Be it Spelltraps with Teleport to emulate "beaming", Animated Objects for automatic doors or whatsoever crosses your mind.

LA-Information:
The Symbiotic template (+1) can be easily buyed off. If that option is not available, you can simply detach the template when you would normally level-up. Thus, the +1LA only counts for the encounter XP calculation and not for the XP needed for leveling up.
Even if not needed, the Queen will give herself a full Iron Golem Body (except the head) for completing the fluff. Once the Queen has reached lvl 20, there is no real reason to level up anymore.

Crating XP:
The BORG make experiments with those unworthy to assimilate, to get at least some value out of em. With Knwoledge Religion and sacrificing creatures for Dark Craft XP, the BORG have an infinite supply for crafting. Note that we abuse the bonus skill points provided by the hive for Knowledge Religion and thus all nearby BORG can "Aid Another" (stacking untyped +2 bonus) to raise the XP gained per sacrifice. This makes each sacrifice very efficient.

END

Our BORG Queen is now complete. Her BORG are nearly invincible (Immunity to Magic/Electricity, 20 Hardness, DR, Fast Healing 5, ...) and ready to invade the entire 3.5 multiverse to assimilate more species and add em to their own. All (important) abilities will be added sooner or later.

"You will be assimilated !"
"RESISTANCE IS FUTILE !"

I hope you all enjoyed our beautiful BORG Queen and leave some comments. I would love to hear your opinions and get some feedback on this. If any questions should remain, just ask and I'll try to explain it further. Thx for your patience, time and your interest for this build ;)

[icefractal]

Interesting idea! So if I'm understanding this correctly, the assimilation process is something like:

A splits off HandA
HandA attaches to B, forming AB
AB splits off HandAB, after changing to Vermin
HandAB attaches to C, forming ABC
...

Resulting in a creature with all the abilities of every creature involved. And then you run through the whole cycle a second time, resulting in every member of the collective having the abilities of all other members, except they all have their own physical scores and the mental scores of A (the Queen, presumably)? How are you applying the Symbiotic template at each step? Wishes?

However, I'm not convinced that having the same mental scores translates to being the same mind, much less being a hive-mind. Am I missing a step here?

[Gruftzwerg]

Interesting idea! So if I'm understanding this correctly, the assimilation process is something like:

A splits off HandA
HandA attaches to B, forming AB
AB splits off HandAB, after changing to Vermin
HandAB attaches to C, forming ABC

Resulting in a creature with all the abilities of every creature involved.
...

correct so far.

And then you run through the whole cycle a second time, resulting in every member of the collective having the abilities of all other members, except they all have their own physical scores and the mental scores of A (the Queen, presumably)?

The last BORG gives the Queen a hand or an eye, completing the (infinite) circle.
This is due to the specific nature of this combo.
Normally, the "guest" becomes the template and thus stops to gaining XP. As template no changes can occur (unless it temporary detaches). But with abusing the Crawling Eye & Disembodied Hand invocations as guest, the main body of the guest remains. Thus resulting in possible changes of the stats the eye/hand has. As soon as the Queen get the (temporary) "final link", all BORG (including newly assimilated BORG in the future) get the abilities of this formed circle.
Now every BORG of that "circle" still has either an eye or hand invocation unused. It's for the purpose to assimilate more/new BORG to the "collective".
That's what I meant with that "readjusting the circle" would be needed from time to time, to implement all new abilities into a new "circle" for the now grown "collective". (I hope this mess is somewhat comprehensible..)

edit: try to see each newly reformed "circle" as an Ability Update (from the new assimilated BORG) for the entire collective.

How are you applying the Symbiotic template at each step? Wishes?

It's an act of will as far as it is described in the SS book. The two need to feel a very deep bound. Devil's Whispers is Suggestion at will, and implies the impression that it was the targets own idea if he/she fails the save. Thus after enough Suggestions, the target should sooner or later wants to join the symbiosis too.

However, I'm not convinced that having the same mental scores translates to being the same mind, much less being a hive-mind. Am I missing a step here?

I hope so, or I don't get where you are aiming at?^^
Let me try to blindly answer it:
Vermin Lord 10 gives the Hivemind ability. The ability lets you create a Hivemind as per the rules in BoVD p34. And those rules give the swarm the "hive-mind" you are looking for I guess.
If that is not the answer you are looking for, asking again pls^^

[icefractal]

Ah, hive-mind was a poor choice of words since you have literally that also. I meant this:

This way (by ending the chain with Danzek), all creatures share their abilities with each other and the mind of Danzek is sole in control. The 1st stage of the Collective is established!

What gives this sole control?

[Gruftzwerg]

Ah, hive-mind was a poor choice of words since you have literally that also. I meant this:
What gives this sole control?

Because the template says that the "guest" provides the mental stats and thus imho the mind. The guest is thus by default the one in control. It is always Danzek's mind/stats that carriesover to each new "host".
Unless you wanna argue that the Eye/Hand invocation provide the eye/hand with a "free will independent of the user" (Danzek in our chase). If that is the chase, I would request a rule quote that would reflect this assumption, cause imho this is definitively not the chase.

Let me try to extrapolate this on a fictional brain-transplantation. If a crazy doc would manage to link my brain (mental stats) to your body (physical stats), guess who is in control of your body? I guess that would be me (my brain).
Now imagine I could sacrifice a tiny non-life-threatening part of my body instead of my brain to provide those mental stats and you have this combo here.

edit: funny trivia
I wanted to mention that the build idea started formerly as craftlock (which got ditched in favor of Vermin Lord) to adapt Timmy, Chosmo and Wanda (and the entire fairy population) from the kid TV show The Fairly Oddparants. But the 3.5 RAW god where not amused by this blaspheme idea and lead me on this path of destruction and despair. So I ended up with the BORG Queen instead. Just wanted to share this otherwise useless information ^^

[icefractal]

Because the template says that the "guest" provides the mental stats and thus imho the mind.

Maybe? The host provides the skill ranks, and they both provide feats, so it seems more like a mixture of their minds than just the guest.

That said, you still do get a collective, since by the end every member has a mixture of everyone's mind. You just need to make sure the people you're assimilating are all on the same page - Programmed Amnesia / Mindrape would do it, but prior to that selective recruiting and/or mundane brainwashing is an option.

[Gruftzwerg]

Maybe? The host provides the skill ranks, and they both provide feats, so it seems more like a mixture of their minds than just the guest.

That said, you still do get a collective, since by the end every member has a mixture of everyone's mind. You just need to make sure the people you're assimilating are all on the same page - Programmed Amnesia / Mindrape would do it, but prior to that selective recruiting and/or mundane brainwashing is an option.

While I see you point, i would argue that if both would be in control, the final creature should have the better one of the either the host's or the guest's mental stats. Just think about "Magic Jar" or "(True) Mind Switch" (psi). The mental stats carry the personality in 3.5 (imho). i haven't seen anything that would indicate otherwise.

Imho we have a strong indicator here that sole the guest's mind is in control.
The guest has access to the mental and physical (= muscle memory) memories, which are reflected by the rule that handle the skill points, feats and special abilities of the symbiotic creature.

[loky1109]

The mental stats carry the personality in 3.5 (imho). i haven't seen anything that would indicate otherwise.

You always have your mental stats, but not all who have your mind stats are you.

[liquidformat]

Maybe? The host provides the skill ranks, and they both provide feats, so it seems more like a mixture of their minds than just the guest.

That said, you still do get a collective, since by the end every member has a mixture of everyone's mind. You just need to make sure the people you're assimilating are all on the same page - Programmed Amnesia / Mindrape would do it, but prior to that selective recruiting and/or mundane brainwashing is an option.

I think the combination of gaining Danzek's mental stats, Danzek having hivemind and Devil's Whispers is what makes everything work for Danzek being in control...

[Gruftzwerg]

You always have your mental stats, but not all who have your mind stats are you.

Can you provide any rule to support this argument?

If not, I have provided 2 examples where the mental stats are tied to the mind transferred (Magic Jar & Mind Switch).

Another indicator would be the alignment line of the Symbiotic template:

Alignment: Any, often that of the guest

If we question why it is "often that (alignment) of the guest" and not equally divided, something in between or the other way (host more often), there is imho only a single possibility for this. The guest can either be nice (good or neutral) and make a compromise with the will (alignment) of the host, or he can just suppress the host's will (evil) once he is in control.

[loky1109]

Can you provide any rule to support this argument?

I can create two different characters with same stats.

UPD: Is Ice Assassin valid example for you?

[liquidformat]

I can create two different characters with same stats.

UPD: Is Ice Assassin valid example for you?

I don't think Ice Assassin is a valid example no. You are creating a duplicate of someone made out of another substance entirely at most using some base DNA of yours from hair or nails or such to help make the duplicate. Whereas Symbiotic template is taking part of you that you have active control over to combine with another creature. Between the new creature has your mental stats and you have hivemind and no where in Symbiotic template does it say you loose control of the guest it seems to me that you are still in control.

Either way there isn't an explicit RAW answer either way but I think RAI would lean towards Gruftzwerg's interpretation.

[Gruftzwerg]

I can create two different characters with same stats.

There is no rule connection between the two characters why they have same stats other than "coincidence" (unless we talk about the specific chase of Dvati, but that is not our discussions aim I guess). The Symbiotic template draws a rule connection between the two creatures and says who provides the metal stats (and thus is in control imho).

UPD: Is Ice Assassin valid example for you?

Ice Assassin copies the stats of the target and creates a specific exception where it tells you how its mind behaves (kill intend towards the original and the caster has full control while in the effect range of the IA). It makes clear that the copy doesn't share the mind with the original.
Whereas the Symbiotic template doesn't copy stats. It gives you the information which creature provides which scores for the symbiosis. The host provides the physical stats (like a "hosts" from Magic Jar & Mind Switch) while the guest provides the mental stats. The stats are imho mechanically carried over/transferred (like with MJ & MS) and not copied (as with IA).

____

While I agree with Liquidformat that RAW doesn't explicitly spell this out, imho all evidence so far is in favor of the guest having the choice to be in control or not (see the alignment argument above).