Illithid in Ravenloft

[daffy72]

Jester beat me to the punch in responding.
I didn't remember that they could actually take off, but those were the sources i read deepshadow, as well as going by what JWM said on the boards last time we were talking about spelljammers...
cool factoid jester... the story can be EVEN MORE TRAGIC now.

After decades of repairing the ship out of the two wrecks and killing and stealing enough magical items to fuel the furnace (the helm on one was smashed, and the other is a gnomish welk which wasnt working when the ship was boarded) the pilot can finally get it off the ground, only to find out it keeps bringing him back to Darkon. The story can end with him screaming that it should work, that it needs to work... as he flies off to try again, only to fail.
Excellent.

Anyway... so I guess if borders are open they work for intercluster travel.
I would think flying N,E,W,S it would be subject to the same rules as any ship sailing on a river or sea no? crossing an open boarder it would get lost in the mists, arrive in the sky of another domain, go through time, etc. No>?
I would think only going UP would bring the spelljammer back to the domain. I'm glad this was brought up
A spelljammer in RL could bring all the hype with it that the hot air ballon did to our world at the time.

Seems like something that would be coveted by the 5 families of nova vassa... like a court inventor (stranded spelljammer)

Hazlan seems like it should have flying carpets going over their land
It also seems like a good domain to have a dark sinbad- or conan type adventure. Of course cheesy by todays effects standards.. those sinbad movies of the 60s were scary as #$%E#$ seeing them as a little kid.
I always saw the nova vassa plains cats like the sabertooth cat the witch frees from the ice in the cave.

So anyway... back to Bluetspur- for those wanting to run a story/ campaign there... this might be a good way to lead to it... way before hand find out how your players feel about spelljammers and lovecraft type stuff.. if they like that sort of thing an adventure involving finding a spelljammer could really surprise them... they take it to try and escape RL and find themselves in bluetspur...

i also like the tidbit about the god brain being able to contact any psyonics in Ravenloft, regardless of the domain they are in... thats a fun way to screw with a players head for YEARS before they ever go to that domain

Another nice way to introduce the domain might be the nightmare lands... players have increasingly bad dreams (actual attacks by the god brain)... maybe they have psyonic talent and dont know it... abuse the player... they don't get rest for a while.. then reward them with a spell-like psyonic ability... then if they use it .. the more they do the more talent they develop... dreams get worse... pull players into the nightmare lands.. and after an adventure there they escape only to find themselves in bluetspur.

Since its no longer part of the core you could also go this route:
characters that find the domain and return, or those that escape from there... start legends, myths and dogma of a hell.

The burning peaks cluster appeared around the same time bluetspur was ripped from the core (genologically speaking) That could have started the rumors...

I never met an Ape I didn't like

[Jester of the FoS]

And I apologize if anyone feels I've stomped all over their ideas or somesuch...I was under the impression that this thread was attempting to make illithid fit the setting better without contradicting previous sources. Obviously, if canon is being thrown out the window, then anything goes.

I think it's a bit of canon and abit not of canon. Throwing out whatever ideas people like or have had sucess with from the obviously canon-nut ones (mine) to the wild that require some changes (it's on the moon) to the bizarre that require a complete re-write (alternate dimension).

Alright, someone brought up the idea of Illithids elsewhere in the Core, ones that for one reason or another bailed from Bluetspur. Possibly they were selfish and hungry or possibly they are serving their God-grey-matter.
How would you have a solo flayer hunt or disguise itself?

[BlackBoxGamer]

I would set one up in Dementlieu... hidding in plain sight among the intellectuals who pish-posh the supernatural. I'm sure he could find some nice illusionist to mentally enthrall to cloak his image with one more pleasing to the human eye, and possibly set up a nice little group of jaded, intellectually liberated aristocrats (aka cultists) who would love to partake in his philosophical exercises in morality and ethics.

Just an idea.

BBG

[William Blackmoor]

Jup, Dementlieu is definitly the place. Nice big brains everywhere
My Mindflayer used a fake beard to conceal the tentacles, a huge cloak and some psionic power to mask himself. But you would be amazed how long just the fake beard can foul some players

[daffy72]

YES!
i love it!

just like 'They Live'

First players take out an insane magic user/tinker character. He's completely paranoid, convinced there is an 'invasion' going on. Monsters are everywhere, etc.
Players stop him. Kill him after being hired by the city, capture him and he's sent to an asylum, etc.
Little do they know that little cashe of babules they took from this guy's workshop were crafted with true seeing on them. (other then that, no other magic, but they are good quality and in Dementlieu its just like Rome. Its not what you're actually like, its how the city perceives you.

So there is your party of players walking down the street one evening in Dementlieu. And here comes a noble with his entourage of fops.

But what THEY see is an Illithid surrounded by Drow... all in finery!
(Insert tallest building in Dementlieu here) on top is a huge illithid device putting out the illusion...

Next day players walk into a Bank of the Black Monks office to get their money for the job they did but start blasting certain customers with smoke power weapons. To the outside observer there is no pattern. They let one woman live, but kill another. Taking out noble or commoner.

However the masterminds know the pattern and are now after the players

Run! Brainsuckers everywhere! They're here!
<If players go to find the 'nut' from the first part of the adventure, the orderlies 'found that he hung himself in the cell'>

They are after 'the Brain' and he's afraid. Very Afraid.
lol

[ScS of the Fraternity]

Bank of the Black Monks

So the Bank of the Black Monks, eh? Isn't that branch run by the Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells?

[daffy72]

seriously though....

there is canon references that support some Illithid in other parts of the core... there were the tunnels that run into Kartakass, so some could have been there when Bluetspur was wretched from the core...

Imagine that... players free a small hamlet from the Illithid that have been kidnapping and snacking on the villagers.

So players go to the town hall 'barn' for their reward...
'You're sure the monsters are gone?'
'I am! For here are the fiends heads!' <holds up something that looks like an octopus>
<Party follows suit, all holding up similar heads>
Towns folk gasps. 'Free. Were finally free!' <Mothers hug their children. Men clap themselves on the back.>
'So <clears throat> about our reward?'
'Ah yes. We did promise that didn't we?'
Everyone starts turning into a wolfware...



There was also at least one Illithid living in Darkon who was an accountant. If i remember correctly wasnt he a Kargat member that fell out of favor with Azalin?

You could also have an Illithid living in the slums of one of the larger darkonian cities and maybe people just think he's a caliban/ mongrel man/ broken one (take your pick) Because of its size and different atanomy maybe it walks with a hunch and a burlap sack over its head (a la the elephant man)

There could be a couple employeed at the black hole prison in Karg. Maybe allowed to eat those that don't need to be held anymore (since they never let anyone out)

Illithid get the brains the vamps get the blood.
They could be hinding out at an insane asylum
One could be the new assassint to dr. Mordenheim

I still like the idea of a warped war of the worlds...
now that i know that spelljammers can at least fly in ravenloft that could make for a nice victorian space horror story...
from out of the mists come Illithids in viking-like raids from the sky.

It would be a lot of fun to help a settlement fend them off with canon. You could make it like a midevial x-files.
Bizzare experiments, maybe implanting a new kind of tadpole that can survive outside the pool. so what they have done is capture some commoners, and like alien or night of the creeps soon they will hatch...

That could work in kartakass.. cut off from bluetspur the Illithid have turned their intelligence to arcane biology to create a different kind of Illithid... and they have just implanted the first of a new generation. If they hatch they will go out into the world, maybe infest the water like a microbe. Prehaps now instead of needing to be with the god brain to gain intelligence, they have all the knowledge of their parent up to the point of conception. Something weird. They are cut off from the multiverse.. we are allowed to bring them down any avenue of development we want. We can easily fit it in with canon too.. who is to say they haven't been working on this process all along, since the god brain found he was trapped in his domain? Maybe this new breed are puppets the god brain can control? So in essence he can travel throughout the demi plane without all his god like powers? Limited to those of a regular Illithid. In this way players could deal with the god brain but at more survivable odds.

Anyway.. there are a bunch of new ideas. Hope they are helpful to someone.

[daffy72]

Bank of the Black Monks

So the Bank of the Black Monks, eh? Isn't that branch run by the Baby-Eating Bishop of Bath and Wells?

My DM created them in our campaign. Those and the String Merchants were the only two organizations in our home brew campaign... now being converted to 'Involution'
In our story there was always one of the Black Monks showing up in odd places and we never knew what he was talking about, although you could tell HE knew what he was talking about... that bastard Fetch.

A d20 write up of the secret society will be released eventually. After the mythos is revealed in the video game. Early on we might release a version of 'what the world knows'

[The_God_Brain]

How would you have a solo flayer hunt or disguise itself?

Pretty much the same way any monster would: they would hide. Still, an illithid with character leves in psion or sorcerer could easily cast illusions or polymorphs on itself to blend in with the population. Or, the Illithid could make a thrall out of a powerful human and hide in his or her castle or mansion.

[William Blackmoor]

Prehaps now instead of needing to be with the god brain to gain intelligence, they have all the knowledge of their parent up to the point of conception.

And they don't even look like illithids anymore, because the new tadpole can't complete the transformation. The human host doesn't change much but their eyes glow when angered. Their mind blast is channeld through psionic gems and the brain-feeding can now be done by there sole tongue-tentacle and their hands.
Azalin recognized the threat and with the help of an ancient mistgate, his agents travel the Core (and islands) to explore it's secrets and fight the illithids.
(Play's Stargate theme as Player's enter the mistgate for the first time.)

[daffy72]

i know you were half kidding Blackmoor.. but that could actually be VERY creepy.. a weird half developed illithid/ human hybred.

If anyone has ever seen how the parasite is passed in David Cronenberg's 1975 movie 'Shivers' you know exactly what i mean.
Or if we pull from another Cronenberg movie the remake of the Fly... maybe they are psudo-innocent like Brendel ... slowly being taken over by the need to feed and changing slowly on the molecular level... I think if a player tried to push off someone trying to open mouth kiss them... and their jaw came off in their hand and there were mini tenticles starting to form, that might be call for a minor horror check

makes me shiver just thinking about it... what to roll for first? the fear of the molestation? The horror of the jaw now in your hand? Or the madness check for the parasites the thing is now vomiting up, squirming around and floping towards you?
ugh

[The Lesser Evil]

I always thought one of the things of Lovecraftian horror that might work best was not the monsters themselves, but all of the cults that worshipped them. If a person gave up his identity and empathy and turned his back on humanity when witnessing an alien horror and decides to even start up a cult to worship them out of his free will, that act would probably be evil. Blasphemous cults of human(oid)s worshipping mind flayers (or similar beings) might make for just as interesting villains as the mind flayers themselves. IIRC, a Dragon printed a while ago had monster cultist PRC, including one for illithid worshippers. Each of these monster cultists gradualliy became more and more like their emulated species. Perhaps this could me made into one of those tracks of terror for failed dark powers checks.

[William Blackmoor]

but that could actually be VERY creepy.. a weird half developed illithid/ human hybred.

Then take a look at Marcu Vasilis from "The Forgotten Children" Netbook.
although he's unique, he might be the source of the new tadpole breed.

[daffy72]

Then take a look at Marcu Vasilis from "The Forgotten Children" Netbook. although he's unique, he might be the source of the new tadpole breed.

Link? there is none in the netbook section.

[daffy72]

that might work best was not the monsters themselves, but all of the cults that worshipped them.

Too true!
Bodies showing up with brains removed... obviously evil is afoot!.
If players are outlanders they might well assume this is the work of Illithids and must be stopped.

Woe be to the party when they find its a strange cult that worships a broken and battered Illithid.
'They pray to the Damn thing! Like it's a god!'
And the one player with psyonics who receives the message in his head...
...pain... Nothing but pain. *SCREEACH* For pity's sake. Kill me.

Or for non psyonics prehaps describe an empathic explanation something similar read in the creatures sad pleading eyes.
If done right you might have a party going out to slaughter the villagers for the tortures they delivered upon the poor Illithid!
After all an Illithid is only doing what it was made to do.
Heh

Kill the women and children!
Save the... Illithid???
Wait. That can't be right.