Building a Better Foe

[Jengenritz]

To put it in one sentence, "We need a memorable villain." In my parlance, a BBG (Big Bad Guy) is a "foozil," so I'm calling him/her/it that.

What makes a villain memorable, then?

- Exposure. The party has to know they are up against this villain from the get-go. They have to know Foozil's name and something about it.
- Investment. The party has to have a reason to want to foil this villain other than, "Foozil is the bad guy." We need Foozil to mess with the party, possibly encounter them BEFORE the final encounter, then retreat...or maybe they actually kill/defeat Foozil, but it keeps coming back, tougher each time.
- Flair. The Foozil has to have an attitude and motivation. Should be distinctive.

In addition to these other concerns, we need Foozil to be:
- restricted to a single location, either trapped there, living there, exploring it, or something
- a dire challenge for 15th level heroes

Monsters we've used before:
dragon ghost, demon prince, lich drow, giant disembodied hands, cyclops

Monsters I like that we haven't used before as foozils:
rakshasa, fey, other giants, other undead (vampires, or the night-whatevers), plants, assorted abominations beyond space and time

Themes we've used before:
- kill the big evil (Crypt)
- save your world/town (Chronicle, Warbringer)
- investigate this mystery (Vault)
- explore that area (Palace)

[goodmangames]

Fey can be weird and hard for the players to "get" if you're not very careful about them.

Giants and undead can be interesting but, unless we make them special somehow, not necessarily worthy of the tournament.

A rakshasa could be very interesting. You could give hints as to its presence as the dungeon evolves -- Persian creatures or trappings that become more and more prevalent. Alternately, it could be the mastermind type, whose own minions may not know what kind of creature it is they serve.

We haven't done a "master of manipulation" module -- something with a foozil who's got his minions fooled, or even has good guys for minions who are somehow charmed. (Have we ever done an encounter where the characters have to defeat a level boss "enemy" with nonlethal damage because he's actually a charmed ally?) We could have something with a slightly Xcrawl feel to it, where the foozil manipulates things -- appears via visions or illusions (or something) and taunts the heroes, or offers them difficult choices...

[Blackdirge]

I'm all about the "assorted abomination beyond space and time."

I'd love to see a Lovecraftian DCC with slimy horrors and ancient and terrible magic driving PCs right off the deep end. =]

What about a Call of Cthulhu or Dagon set up? Basically, a small island rises from the bottom of the ocean, and the PCs are dispatched to explore it. On the island they find the crumbling ruin of an ancient temple, enter, and then madness, damnation, and horror ensue as they encounter the afore mentioned abominations from beyond space and time. =]

BD

[goodmangames]

I also like the idea of Cthulhu-style horror. It might be hard to score and adjudicate in a tournament setting. But if the "great tentacled bad guy" could be pulled off, it could be good.

[Jengenritz]

Wow, I just threw that idea out. Didn't expect anyone to like it.

OK, we're talking about iconic bad guys. Two things I've wanted to so is to have an actual module about Bogububilz and - more's our point - another module featuring part of Cadixtat.

I mentioned earlier that one way to make a bad guy memorable is to have him be recurring. We can do that with Cadixtat...he's the Severed (demi) God, and all his parts are animate. This is how we bring in both tentacle horror and body horror, because his parts are all wrong-like...the Hand from Palace, if you recall, was pretty darn gross.

Plus, using Cadixtat allows us to build on a "brand" that already exists, meaning we don't have to reinvent the wheel. We shouldn't play up the Law vs. Chaos routine...we did that with Palace...but we could write a pretty grisly tale about a cult gathering parts of the Severed God, and the abominations that abound in that setting.

I'm not really pushing this idea, just throwing it out there. If we don't use it for the tourney, I may just submit it as a stand-alone module.
If we're adamantly opposed to using Cadixtat, a next logical step would be to look at any Cthulhu-esque DCCs that are out there.
The only one that jumps to mind immediately is DCC #2: Lost Vault of Tsathzar Rho. Anyone think of any others?

[Jengenritz]

Our bad guy is effendi Yash'ar Aref, a mummy-scholar allied with Unspeakable Horrors.

One thing I'd like is have the party be forced to contend with Yash'ar from the get-go...they have to be exposed to him.

What if Yash'ar can transfer his will from his mummified body to various receptacle effigies throughout the dungeon?
With this, the party fights him by proxy several times before they fight him for real.

[goodmangames]

What if Yash'ar can transfer his will from his mummified body to various receptacle effigies throughout the dungeon? With this, the party fights him by proxy several times before they fight him for real.

Love it! And, since he's a mummy living off borrowed life energy... what if his burning life force is so powerful that his receptacle-body rapidly decomposes once he occupies it? So when the party faces him, he literally crumbles to dust before their eyes, so there are only 3-4 rounds of combat before his body collapses. So in the early rounds they can face his true power, but in short durations -- just enough to get them scared about what they'll face in round 3...

[Jengenritz]

Love that!

Hmm...what if the receptacles were mummies, and Yash'ar Aref was a Thing From Beyond?

Yeah...here's the deal:

Yash'ar Aref Effendi was this scholar of the stars in ancient Abylos. He founded the Daharna Parnat monastery school and, toward the end of his life, drated plans for a great tower, the "Bridge to the Heavens."

Yash'ar was convinced that there was wisdom in the stars, and was determined to learn it. His sought knowledge for the enlightenment of all mankind, but what he found corrupted him.
The effendi made contact with an entity he called "Aubaridan Ahktar," or Devouring Star (kinda what that means in Farsi). He received "emissaries" (our Hollow Ones) from Aubaridan Ahktar, and they poisoned his mind. Yash'ar began to covet knowledge rather than share it; his monks changed their training from being scholars to warriors.

Ultimately, though, Yash'ar was just a man, chained to a mortal's years. His end forthcoming, he looked with envy on the generations to come after him, and resolved that their time would never come. He penned the Scroll of Ihbat, or the Scroll of Ruin ("ihbat" means "to mar, the void, to frustrate"), which unlocks a ritual that summons Aubaridan Ahktar to destroy the world. In the course of casting the ritual, however, some of his students revolted, disrupting the energies and slaying Yash'ar.

The rebels were in turn slain by the loyal followers. The effendi's body was exposed to the elements (per tradition) and then buried among the bones of the enlightened beneath the Daharna Parnat. He was followed in death by his most faithful, who took the extraordinary step to become mummified, swearing to guard the effendi's soul in the afterlife.

After the effendi's death, the Emissaries refused to speak to any other students. Leaderless, the school was abandoned and forgotten, eventually swallowed by the sands. The fate of the Scroll of Ihbat was lost to time.

Yash'ar Aref, however, never quite died. When his rebellious students disrupted the ritual, he absorbed some energy from Aubaridan Ahktar. After his bones and dessicated flesh were buried, they changed into a form more pleasing to his patron. Although still buried, the effendi is not helpless. He can project his will into the mummified remains of his most faithful followers. Using them in this way eventually immolates the remains, so he tends to do it sparingly.

He has waited all these years for a way out of his tomb. The mummies of his followers wear ornate necklaces, and if one were to be placed over a living being, he could possess them without burning them up, and then begin the search for the Scroll of Ihbat so he may finish the ritual.

As fate would have it, the Scroll is being delivered to him. The heroes have come to destroy it before it can be used; it can only be destroyed in the casting chamber by chanting its words in reverse.

This is also the only way to actually kill Yash'ar, as it would undo what gave him his twisted existence.

Essentially, we have a skill challenge in the middle of combat as our final scenario...one hero reads the scroll while the rest fight Yash'ar.

[Jengenritz]

So what I'm doing here is setting up Aubaridan Ahktar as a Cthulic (is that a word?) "master aberration."
I imagine in other cultures he can have other names. Aubaridan Ahktar actually means something like "Devouring Star," so that should be the theme...

To express Aubaridan Ahktar in Lovecraftian (and Derlethian) terms...
He is Azatoth in terms of power and remoteness (meaning he doesn't affect the world directly), but not mindless. Instead, he's got Nyarlahotep's intellect and motivation.

Alternately, if Harley (who is the gatekeeper of Aereth) prefers, he's just another mask of Zuhn. I like the idea of a recurring cosmic horror Cthulhu-figure in Aereth, even if it's just a persistent mask of Zuhn.