If you're in my game, scram. Spoilers ahead.
Okay.
So, I'm thinking of sending my PC's in an Eberron game I'm running to Xen'Drik in the middling future. The reason they'll be going is an attempt to retrieve some texts on giantish construct creation from a ruined city--the Emerald Claw has another copy of those texts, and the PC's need their own to predict their next move.
The idea is that the city they end up at was abandoned during the giants following the catastropic quori invasion and subsequent war with the the dragons. An indeterminate period of time later, it was colonised by yuan-ti. The city was heavily automated, doing things such as growing food, purifying water and other such mundane tasks. Possibly, the yuan-ti that came here were a group of scientists among their kind, seeing the city as a good place to study uninterrupted.
However, a quori slain by the giants in the ancient invasion, returned as an undead creature (a Caller in Darkness) and lurks in the bowels of the city. When the yuan-ti first came here, it was inactive, content to haunt the undercity. At first, they used it as a way to execute criminals and malcontents, sometimes sending slaves down there and mindlinking to them to vicariously experience the intense emotions of being hunted.
However, in time, the city sank into decadence and sloth. The drugs produced by the plants in the city gardens were so intoxicating that many yuan-ti would take them to the exclusion of all else, leaving the mundane tasks to either the wonderful automated city or the kobolds that worshipped them as gods. Now almost all of them who have not already left spend most of their time drugged and walking in a fantasy world, barely able to remember to feed themselves. Having become stronger with the souls it has eaten and having been given a taste for the minds of sentient beings, the quori / Caller is rising from below of it's own accord during the hours of darkness, to grab a victim, consume it and return below.
So, that's the setup. When the PC's come to this city, the place has a strange, hallucinogenic quality. Illusions give the place the appearance of a wondrous (though inactive) metropolis. However, most of it is false, as the city has started to rot and decay over the centuries--anyone who actively interacts with the illusion (tasting luscious food that is in fact long since spoiled, sleeping in a luxurious bed that is in fact a stone bench, stepping on a solid step that crumbled away long ago).
The native yuan-ti can be found from place to place, in a drugged stupor. They are dreamy and uncommunicative, possibly percieving the characters as elements of an hallucination, or just ignoring them. Mind reading will reveal their point of view--an ecstatic utopia here they walk through a city of wonders and indulge various excesses in a decadent and disturbing way.
A family of hill giants sometimes wander into the city to steal some stuff, and a tribe of feral kobolds that regard the yuan-ti as divine avatars keep watch for intruders, but none of them ever go into the city after dark, because that's when the Caller emerges, usually to kill someone in an inventive, sadistic way, absorb their essence, and then go back below to the underlevels (where the machinery that powers the city is located). Since it's depredations started, most of the yuan-ti have been too addled to notice the disappearances, despite the fact that it will probably have wiped them out in a couple of months.
I'm thinking of having some areas be heavy with the drugs the yuan-ti use, which produce subtle hallucinations in some nonreptilian races. I'd also like to hint at the depravaties that went on before they descended into their apathetic state, and have the depredations of the Caller revealed gradually.
Any hints for specific things to make the whole experience in the city as memorable and creepy as possible would be very much appreciated. Thanks.
Okay.
So, I'm thinking of sending my PC's in an Eberron game I'm running to Xen'Drik in the middling future. The reason they'll be going is an attempt to retrieve some texts on giantish construct creation from a ruined city--the Emerald Claw has another copy of those texts, and the PC's need their own to predict their next move.
The idea is that the city they end up at was abandoned during the giants following the catastropic quori invasion and subsequent war with the the dragons. An indeterminate period of time later, it was colonised by yuan-ti. The city was heavily automated, doing things such as growing food, purifying water and other such mundane tasks. Possibly, the yuan-ti that came here were a group of scientists among their kind, seeing the city as a good place to study uninterrupted.
However, a quori slain by the giants in the ancient invasion, returned as an undead creature (a Caller in Darkness) and lurks in the bowels of the city. When the yuan-ti first came here, it was inactive, content to haunt the undercity. At first, they used it as a way to execute criminals and malcontents, sometimes sending slaves down there and mindlinking to them to vicariously experience the intense emotions of being hunted.
However, in time, the city sank into decadence and sloth. The drugs produced by the plants in the city gardens were so intoxicating that many yuan-ti would take them to the exclusion of all else, leaving the mundane tasks to either the wonderful automated city or the kobolds that worshipped them as gods. Now almost all of them who have not already left spend most of their time drugged and walking in a fantasy world, barely able to remember to feed themselves. Having become stronger with the souls it has eaten and having been given a taste for the minds of sentient beings, the quori / Caller is rising from below of it's own accord during the hours of darkness, to grab a victim, consume it and return below.
So, that's the setup. When the PC's come to this city, the place has a strange, hallucinogenic quality. Illusions give the place the appearance of a wondrous (though inactive) metropolis. However, most of it is false, as the city has started to rot and decay over the centuries--anyone who actively interacts with the illusion (tasting luscious food that is in fact long since spoiled, sleeping in a luxurious bed that is in fact a stone bench, stepping on a solid step that crumbled away long ago).
The native yuan-ti can be found from place to place, in a drugged stupor. They are dreamy and uncommunicative, possibly percieving the characters as elements of an hallucination, or just ignoring them. Mind reading will reveal their point of view--an ecstatic utopia here they walk through a city of wonders and indulge various excesses in a decadent and disturbing way.
A family of hill giants sometimes wander into the city to steal some stuff, and a tribe of feral kobolds that regard the yuan-ti as divine avatars keep watch for intruders, but none of them ever go into the city after dark, because that's when the Caller emerges, usually to kill someone in an inventive, sadistic way, absorb their essence, and then go back below to the underlevels (where the machinery that powers the city is located). Since it's depredations started, most of the yuan-ti have been too addled to notice the disappearances, despite the fact that it will probably have wiped them out in a couple of months.
I'm thinking of having some areas be heavy with the drugs the yuan-ti use, which produce subtle hallucinations in some nonreptilian races. I'd also like to hint at the depravaties that went on before they descended into their apathetic state, and have the depredations of the Caller revealed gradually.
Any hints for specific things to make the whole experience in the city as memorable and creepy as possible would be very much appreciated. Thanks.
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