And Now For Something Completely Different

[SilverClawShift]

My group is experiencing a temporary crisis. Our DM is going away on vacation for the holidays, and won't be back till mid January. This is a tragedy, as our DM is solid gold.
Like all good addicts, we're searching out alternate ways to get our fix. We can't wait a full month to play D&D again, that'd just turn ugly fast. Lacking a realistic solution (stowing away in our DMs bags came up. I wish I was joking) we've decided to settle on the substitute-teacher.

Problem is, I'm the sub. I'm the only one of our group who's had any experience DMing at all (it was only a few times back when all of us, our DM included, were new, but I'm still the only one), so I'm going to be the DM for the next 4 weeks or so.
I don't think I'll ever be able to compete with our real DM, but all hope isn't abandoned. One of the players (one of the better actors of our group in fact) is going to help me out by being my in-house NPC. Instead of playing a character, he's going to play ALL the OTHER characters, and battlefield duties will be divided up between us. We anticipate that to work well for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being two seperate minds controlling the monsters lending to more varied tactics when it comes to the fights themselves.
But still, the story and idea-forging is all on my head, and we start soon.
As I said, I can't compete with our main DM, but I DO want to give everyone at least a memorable experience. Something worth playing as more than a gap-filler.
To that end, I've decided on one primary objective for the festivities.

Wow them with Science.

In the classic mad-science sense of the term, that is.
Every pitch I throw at them is going to be a curveball, right out of the gate. We're going to open up in a small series of adjacent towns experiencing a myriad of small-town problems for adventurers. This is going to be a soft opening. The problems are going to be reasonable for low-level adventurers to overcome, and are going to lead back to a problem the Fey have with the towns themselves. The menu of adventuring will comprise of politicla and social concerns, fairies and pixies and such. There will be a unicorn at one point.
Then, when I've lulled them into thinking the next month is going to be a decidedly girly adventure?

Boom

Vampire Kobolds!

The rest of the adventure will be a fire-sale of insanity, Templates That Should Not Be Stacked(tm) on top of Monsters That Should Not Exist(tm). If they map the towns like they should, they'll realize the entire community is in the form of one giant arcane symbol. if they don't map the town, I'm going to have to make them climb the nearby mountain so they can look down and see the symbol firsthand.
The symbol will be on top of what they'll discover is called simply "The Maze". A labyrinth of sickening scale and depth leading down to a circular chamber, full of ancient arcane 'machinery' being tended to by a funky race of goblins (who are in a perpetual internal war with gremlins, which will be a home-brewed monster).
The chamber will be ringed with puzzle-doors, each one leading to a seperate demi-plane, each demi-plane hosting a unique threat to each other one, and consequently to the world at large.

Throughout the course of things, the chief goblin tending the machinery (named 'wratch' of course) will end up revealing that this is, quite literally, the "Blue Room" of the universe. The machinery and puzzles herein are designed singularily to sniff out and open portals to threats to the world (more specifically, to planar cohesion among the core grouping of planes that we consider the universe).

Essentially a great reason for me to smack the players with a series of otherwise unconnected monsters and horrors one after the other after the other until they're out of breath.

The gremlins are fey creatures, the fey are ticked at the goblins because their machinery, however seemingly important, functions by being an affront to nature itself.

Wratch is actually a low-level deity...

Because the machinery and puzzles have a secondary purpose, sealing a weak-spot between the natural world and the far realm.

Because the BiggestBaddestEvilestGuy is going to be a pseudonatural dragon thing. With tentacles.

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.

************************************

That's a whole lot of talking to get to my point. I've got vampire kobolds, psuedonatural dragons leading a mish-mosh of templated mindflayers, goblins & gremlins, Undead Driders with a spider queen, and a heap of other 'shouldn't exist' type things.
The campaign's going to have a 1920's sci-fi feel to it, though placed firmly in fantasy. The glass-tube, electrical-arcs, potions of colored liquid kind of frankenstein science.

So the point of the thread is, I could use some ideas. We're going to have a good number of sessions, we're going to level up rapidly (video game style) and wind up going epic in the end. The more baddies, maddies, insanities and profanities I have lined up and statted away in my notes, the smoother this should go.
At the bare minmum, this isn't going to be a forgettable series of adventures.

So, if you, (and thank you for reading this far, by the way), have any ideas stored away in the dark corners of your minds? Things that would be better of not seeing the light of day? Things you haven't really paraded out because they're better off locked in a cellar with mithral chains on the door?

Well, in this thread? Post em if you got em

And thank you :)

[Oeryn]

I don't have anything to add, because it's the end of a long day at the end of a long week, and my brain is fried. But I just wanted to say that sounds like a blast. Have fun with it!

[Xefas]

How about Winged Insectile Trolls of Legend. Get the "Spell Turning" bit on the Monster of Legend template, so that damage spells just bounce off of it, meaning the PCs have to do their fire/acid damage via alchemical items or weapon enhancement.

Also they're giant regenerating bug creatures, which is kinda strange.

Templates from Savage Species and Monster Manual (III, I think).

[SurlySeraph]

Homebrew up a bit of an alchemy system. I don't mean alchemy as in acid flasks and alchemist's fire; I mean alchemy as in "if your animal companion drinks this, it gets tentacles." Also include offensive chemicals, like paralytic agents, blindness-inducing spray, and Horror-From-Beyond-B-Gone Spray (tm). If there's anything ickier than a mass of tentacles trying to kill you, it's that mass of tentacles writhing and squealing in pain as the powder you threw on it shrivels it up.

Have various electrical weapons, magical and technological. Lightning guns, stun batons, and suchlike.

Think up a puzzle using giant magnets, where the party has to turn them the right way to open up a path where they won't get pulled up against the magnets by their gear and trapped. This would fit well as the containment system for one of the planes, incidentally.

Sounds like a pretty awesome idea. Luring them into a false sense of complacency FTW!

[SilverClawShift]

I don't have anything to add, because it's the end of a long day at the end of a long week, and my brain is fried. But I just wanted to say that sounds like a blast. Have fun with it!

We'll certainly try

How about Winged Insectile Trolls of Legend.

Perfect! Legendary Bug-Trolls with fly wings. I'll stick em with the undead driders and make an insectoid hive of DOOM be one of the demiplanes.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Hmmm...I think I have a couple of ideas squirreled away in the back of my brain that I can't use with my IRL group or on this forum. I'll see what I come up with. *salutes*

[SilverClawShift]

Homebrew up a bit of an alchemy system. I don't mean alchemy as in acid flasks and alchemist's fire; I mean alchemy as in "if your animal companion drinks this, it gets tentacles." Also include offensive chemicals, like paralytic agents, blindness-inducing spray, and Horror-From-Beyond-B-Gone Spray (tm).

That's just a good idea in general, not for this campaign

Have various electrical weapons, magical and technological. Lightning guns, stun batons, and suchlike.

"Bolts of Lightning" is one of our groups favorite ranged weapons. Usually at least one person in the group carrying a crossbow or hand crossbow after we find a few of those

Think up a puzzle using giant magnets,

*Snip*

This would fit well as the containment system for one of the planes, incidentally.

Good idea. And gives >ME< an idea. I can do something with constructs... maybe the opposite of inevitables. Chaoticables . Basically mechanical demons.

I'll see what I come up with.

Look forward to it

[Xefas]

Good idea. And gives >ME< an idea. I can do something with constructs... maybe the opposite of inevitables. Chaoticables . Basically mechanical demons.

Wouldn't the opposite of Inevitables be "Impossibles" or "Nevers" or "Not At All Likely to Happen -ians".

Also, I'm glad you like my idea

[Sanzh]

Perfect! Legendary Bug-Trolls with fly wings. I'll stick em with the undead driders and make an insectoid hive of DOOM be one of the demiplanes.

If you do that, be sure and have Half-Farspawn Ettercaps. No flight, but still. Combining tentacles and insects.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Have at least one mage with 10 levels in the Alienist PrC from Complete Arcane. With the Draconic Familiar feat from the Draconomicon. Have an order of Lawful Crazy monks whose temple was underground there first and the rest of the area sprung up around it, and they didn't even notice when it got taken over. The thousand and one rules of the temple are posted outside and include stuff like "no saying the letter 'V'", and if you break them, the monks attack. Attacking the monks isn't against the rules, but a lot of the time they attack the one member who broke the rules, grapple him, and take him away. Set it up so the PCs can't get through the temple without fighting the monks, and have the exit guarded by children who refuse to let the PCs pass without killing them.

[mockingbyrd7]

Vampire kobolds? This is intriguing; how exactly does this work?

[FlyMolo]

This is so cool. Well done substitute DM. Ideas:

Insect Golems. Golems...made of insects. Ditch the hardness and give a smidgen of extra AC if they're down to low health. (holes showing through and such) It could even be a template you can apply to golems. A flight speed would be fun too.

A room full of mirrors and a monster with a gaze attack.

Potion golems! For every three points of damage dealt, another potion breaks and a random magical effect is released. You'd have to write up a table, but it would be interesting. Greased squares on the floor in random places. The fighter leaps in and smashes the thing up, and get's bull's strength and Cat's grace for his troubles. If the golem is flat-footed, you get to pick what color you break. If you're a rogue and make a spellcraft check while making a sneak attack, you get to pick what potion you activate. This would be fun to play against, methinks. Loot? 10x potions, of course!

Wand of Acidic Seepage. It seep acid from its tip. if you forget to change the container, it'll dissolve it and your sleeping bag in the middle of the night. Almost more trouble than it's worth, until you run up against something that needs to be dissolved. You can flick it at something to deal 1 acid damage.

Wand of Hasidic Seepage: Makes orthodox Jewish garb. Black top hats, etc.

Cthulhuoid Dr. Zoidberg template(unless it's been done): base critter gains bite attack with tentacles, can poison/stun/paralyze with them, gains improved grab(face tentacles), maybe some other stuff.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Have a room full of brains floating in tubes of liquid. Throw in an actual Brain in a Jar creature every now and then. The catch?...Swarm shifting brains with their swarm form being a bunch of body parts. (Then prepare for you players to question how a brain turns into a swarm of body parts.)

[Raroy]

I have said nothing.

[Pronounceable]

There are some things that shouldn't see the light of the day. Vampires for one. You seem to have it down to pat.

And if you'd REALLY like to shock players stick to biology. Golems made of disturbing body parts or animated oozes of various bodily fluids will be shocking more than enough. Swarm of animated naughty bits FTW!

And now: A Disturbing Image

Spoiler

Show

...Something drips on the PC's nose. He looks up and sees cracks appearing in the ceiling, showering the room with drops of some white liquid that is somehow familiar. With subtle dread, he realizes the white material is sticky, hot and... His thoughts are interrupted when the ceiling caves in and litres of white liquid pour down into the room, soaking him. When the stuff begins to move, crawling together to form a huge ooze, he realizes with horror that things have taken an extremely uglier turn...

If you'd like to go creepy, send children after them. Disfigured, warped, mutated and mutilated children pulling Tucker's Kobolds on the party with slingshots will break even the most stout of players. The key is tentacles. Everything gets worse with tentacles.

Another Disturbing Image

Spoiler

Show

A cute little 4 year old girl sporting barbed tentacles from her eyes charging with a cleaver can turn the tide of any battle. Especially if she's naked and clearly flayed from waist down.

And now for something that shouldn't exist: Throw these at them and they'll run away crying.

Spoiler

Show

[Xefas]

And now: A Disturbing Image

Spoiler

Show

...Something drips on the PC's nose. He looks up and sees cracks appearing in the ceiling, showering the room with drops of some white liquid that is somehow familiar. With subtle dread, he realizes the white material is sticky, hot and... His thoughts are interrupted when the ceiling caves in and litres of white liquid pour down into the room, soaking him. When the stuff begins to move, crawling together to form a huge ooze, he realizes with horror that things have taken an extremely uglier turn...

Are you actually suggesting a Semen Golem?

Well, I suppose it'd be rather efficient of the lonely wizard who spends decades alone in his tower to not...waste, I guess would be the word. But...ugh.

Have to give it a special Grapple Hair special attack, obviously.

[martyboy74]

Make a whole plane of invisibility. Everything and everyone on the plane gains the Invisible Stalker's Natural Invisibility ability, and anyone who casts See Invisibility/True Seeing/etc. is hit by (invisible) lightning.

[tyckspoon]

And now: A Disturbing Image [spoiler]
(disgusting idea excised for sake of not repeating it too many times)

For a more whimsical take on the idea, you could go Ghostbusters and have the golem be made of molten marshmallow. The tar golem (I don't remember which book it's in, unfortunately) would be a good base for it. Seems like the kind of thing a Far Realms-maddened wizard might decide was a good idea.

[Drider]

And now for something that shouldn't exist: Throw these at them and they'll run away crying.

Spoiler

Show

OH GOD THEY'RE HORRIBLE!!!

[CabbageTheif]

well, i have a few tricks up my sleeve that i am going to use agianst my party,, but i love the sound of this campaign. so, i have a few ideas for you; two monsters and a two-room size trap.

monster 1: i was suprised to find out that everything is scaryer when etheralized. so, find the stats for a long-neck dinosaur, make it the approporriate aquatic subtype,, and make it etheral. you have just made the Ghost of the Loch Ness Monster

monster 2: in my campaign, lolth has just defeated grruuumsh, she now has aboveground worshipers (orcs) and she is making her army stronger. why does this matter?
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20011118a
this link will bring you to the drider template. and lolth's orc priests have given the drider template to a tyranasaurus rex. heck,, if you want to use that story, go for it. just give credit to cabbagetheif,, if i ever write it i will use my sn as my pen name.

trap: one large room with pit traps all over the place. have large symbols where the pit traps are, so that the party figures out that part of the puzzle early. but overtop of the pittraps are immoveable rods, with invisibility cast on them. jump over the symbol, hit the rod, fall down into the pit trap. if they are smart, they figure it out, maybe even take a few unboveable rods for themselves.
room two, there are symbols, so the party thinks there are pit traps. they attempt to avoid these, thinking that it could be dangerous, but guess what? in the first five feet there are enpugh immoveable invisible rods that they all bump into one. not fall, ust walk into it; they are at waist height. if they are smart, they will use something to detect invisibility, but these are the only invisible things in the room. they decide that it is safe to cross, they might even figure out that there are no pit traps, but wait!! there are razorwires with contact poison webbed across the end of the room, and it takes a good spot to see those. very good. so good the casual observer wouldnt notice them, and if they cast invisibility on the room they would not have detected these mundane items. then they open the door to... a wall
the door at the end of this room is a fake door; one of the pit traps in the first room holds within it a tunnel that circumvents all of the traps and gets to the desired location

from one dm to another, knock em dead!

[Cruxador]

@cnsvnc:

Spoiler

Show

your 4 year old would probably be more disturbing without the tentacles, actually. just make sure to give graphic details on the flayage, and the expression on her face. if you want to keep tentacles, have them spurt out with a light spatter of blood partway through. you don't need to stick to just eyes though, any and all orifices off and on over the course of the event can keep it interesting. Definitely start with no tentacles deployed and face (at least) intact. actually, this idea should be split. a little girl (or lots of small children) naked, and very thoroughly flayed. A different little girl who starts with completely unsullied skin, but is completely naked. lead the adventurers to believe she's a nymph, or something. Then tentacles erupt fron her eyes.

Wow... that's pretty disturbing... I didn't know I had it in me... now I want some sort of horror campaign

[Lemur]

Just stay away from the half-iron golem trolls.

A while back I had a funny idea about a high level psychometabolist(s?) who uses true metamorphosis to turn into a weapon. The trick here is to drop hints to the party about some super awesome magic weapon. Then, when they encounter Fighty NPC X wielding the psion-sword, and they see said sword flashing and making noises (the displays from manifesting powers) they'll think "omg awesome weapon" instead of "break the sword=break the caster". The sword then proceeds to buff/heal/blast/deliver scary psionic touch attacks that activate when the fighter hits with him (forced empathic transfer? assimilate?)/whatever else you can think of while Fighty does as fighty types do.

Even if they do figure it out, they'd still be trying to sunder a wielded item, with much more hitpoints than the standard weapon. The best part comes when they defeat the fighty guy and are about to claim their hard earned "reward" when the psion uses teleport to escape.

[Pronounceable]

Have to give it a special Grapple Hair special attack, obviously.

This is the sort of attitude that derails an atmospheric game. Commendable.

[Ganurath]

Joke: Make a Paragon Rat, but call it a rabbit just to make a Monty Python reference. False sense of security, and all that.

Serious: Apply Complete Arcane's version of the Pseudonatural Template to eith a Maralith or a Kyton. The sort of image those would have while pseudonatural... It's not much, but the flavor is delicious.

[Hyozo]

A Roving Mauler is "that should not exist" incarnate even without templates, and any "Half-" template applied to it would be more disturbing than most pseudonatural creatures. However, the pact magic chapter got enough love from your group back in October, so you might want to avoid that one.

If you're going for mad science, BRC has a decent class that some of the more humanoid enemies could could take.

[Xefas]

This is the sort of attitude that derails an atmospheric game. Commendable.

Thank you, sir

Serious: Apply Complete Arcane's version of the Pseudonatural Template to eith a Maralith or a Kyton. The sort of image those would have while pseudonatural... It's not much, but the flavor is delicious.

Pseudonatural Kyton = Intestines with the stats of a Spiked Chain.

[Fuzzy_Juan]

just to have fun with templates...a half dragon pseudonatural vampire cat. The cat is stuffed inside the sunproof-skin of a cat shaped doll and the pseudonatural cat serves as 'stuffing'....in the night, the cat drinks blood from the family and the child who owns it..just a little...

sure cat's can't be vampires...but that is half the fun...just a cute doll...wait there is something inside...it's just a cat...oh crap...

[Wooter]

What you need is body parts attatched to one another and attacking the players. Like a crawling hand with a dagger attatched to the wrist stump.

See Bride of Reanimator for inspiration.

[Mewtarthio]

Fun fact: The Half-Troll template can transform just about any living creature into a Giant. The end result is that, for a mere +2 CR, you've just made the Animal, Dragon, Fey, Magical Beast, Monstrous Humanoid, or Outsider of your choice a potential lycanthrope! This also works for any of the myriad other "Humanoid or Giant only" templates. (Fun side note: It's way too easy to legally turn the creature of your choice into one of the above types. Half-Dragon, Half-Fiend, Half-Fey, you name it!)

See also the entomanothrope template. Because nothing says "What in the name of Pelor, Vecna, and Boccob is wrong with you?" than people who turn into weird insect hybrids. Or *shudder* crabs...

I've heard Cityscape has a "Mob" template. Does anyone here know if you can legally apply that to a Living Spell?

The Half-Fey template will look great for the "lulling you into a false sense of security" stage. It gives its victims butterfly wings. It can be applied to any living, corporeal creature as well. It'll look nice, happy, and saccharine to see butterly children and butterfly animals and whatnot, but when they start running into the butterfly gibbering mouthers and the butterfly illithids, they'll start to get a little worried.

[PirateMonk]

Fun fact: The Half-Troll template can transform just about any living creature into a Giant. The end result is that, for a mere +2 CR, you've just made the Animal, Dragon, Fey, Magical Beast, Monstrous Humanoid, or Outsider of your choice a potential lycanthrope! This also works for any of the myriad other "Humanoid or Giant only" templates. (Fun side note: It's way too easy to legally turn the creature of your choice into one of the above types. Half-Dragon, Half-Fiend, Half-Fey, you name it!)

See also the entomanothrope template. Because nothing says "What in the name of Pelor, Vecna, and Boccob is wrong with you?" than people who turn into weird insect hybrids. Or *shudder* crabs...

I've heard Cityscape has a "Mob" template. Does anyone here know if you can legally apply that to a Living Spell?

The Half-Fey template will look great for the "lulling you into a false sense of security" stage. It gives its victims butterfly wings. It can be applied to any living, corporeal creature as well. It'll look nice, happy, and saccharine to see butterly children and butterfly animals and whatnot, but when they start running into the butterfly gibbering mouthers and the butterfly illithids, they'll start to get a little worried.

...

Celestial Fiendish Half-fiend Half-celestial Half-Dragon Half-Fey Half-Troll Werescorpion Gibbering Mouther?