Which monsters (or closely related groups of monsters) make the best campaign theme?

[Shemeska]

Fiends - I spent over two years in the campaign of my first storyhour focused largely on the Yugoloths, and damn was it fun. You've got so many types of possible motivations and such a spread of subtypes to work with. From a little wriggling larvae to the Oinoloth and beyond, so much potential it really just outstrips most other monster grouping in breadth and depth.

Next campaign and next storyhour I'm focusing on a combination of baatezu and psurlon/githyanki.

 

[lordcloaker]

Surprise them with orcs, goblins and hobgoblins with lots and lots of core classes!! Its alot of work for you to build them, but the face on the players when a invisible goblin appears and throws a Fireball and then the rogue takes an AoO from the combat reflexed hobgoblin or when the main big boss orc fighter has elusive target feat and the fighter hits the rogue flanking him!! Priceless - Priceless !! Make them fear every possible humanoid in the book.

 

[Bryon_Soulweaver]

Homebrew or normal D&D?


Normal D&D: Half-demons, evil dragons, and elves make the perfect villians (chaos all the way ).

Homebrew: About anything. A child with god-like intelligence is the best idea to date (think about a 7 year old boy that can talk with powerful wizards and strategists and outsmart them).

 

[WayneLigon]

The next big D&D campaign I do will focus on lizard-types of all stripes. A Great Wyrm dragon will be the centerpeice of a 'scaled cult'-type organization, where all lizardfolk, nagas, yuan-ti, lamia noble, etc - anything even part-lizard or -snake will owe fealty to it and be connected to it somehow. Kobolds will be it's eyes and ears, little skittering spies. Lizardfolk and their MM3 variants will be it's footsoldiers. They'll have variant forms, from frog-like swamp dwellers to crested, quasi-feathered plains dwellers. Some will have a kind of lycanthropy that lets them change into velociraptor-like hybrid forms. The yuan-ti will be specially-bred to infiltrate human society and corrupt it from within. The nagas are strange spirit/magic types who are enslaved. The list goes on.

 

[Gold Roger]

Just thought, of another, my favorite from the MM2, the Yakfolk. These have some rather unique abilities. With some flashing out, they should be terrible master-opponents.

 

[Kesh]

I have a soft spot for gnolls. The default gnoll is a good challenge for low-level parties. They easily take classes and most templates, so it's easy to build up central NPCs & groups. They're easily associated with fiends, the Far Realm, aberrations, undead and other beasties.

All they really need is some flavor besides "ambush fighting slavers." I've drawn heavily from hyena behavior, a few mythology ideas I've had and some historical cultures to create a gnoll society that has a reason for behaving the way it does. They're going to be the major humanoid threat for my homebrew, with strong ties to the supernatural threat.

 

[Tonguez]

The next big D&D campaign I do will focus on lizard-types of all stripes. A Great Wyrm dragon will be the centerpeice of a 'scaled cult'-type organization, where all lizardfolk, nagas, yuan-ti, lamia noble, etc - anything even part-lizard or -snake will owe fealty to it and be connected to it somehow. Kobolds will be it's eyes and ears, little skittering spies. Lizardfolk and their MM3 variants will be it's footsoldiers. They'll have variant forms, from frog-like swamp dwellers to crested, quasi-feathered plains dwellers. Some will have a kind of lycanthropy that lets them change into velociraptor-like hybrid forms. The yuan-ti will be specially-bred to infiltrate human society and corrupt it from within. The nagas are strange spirit/magic types who are enslaved. The list goes on.

Sounds like my 'Lamia Empire' campaign (another that never finished) the premise was that a million years ago the the Immortal Lamia (Noble) Queen had established a world spanning empire in which Lizard folk were foot soldiers, Dracotaurs her heavy cavalry, Dragons, Naga and other 'reptiles' were allies and they had enslaved the first mammalian humanoids. Then one day the Empire dissappeared leaving the Pyramids behind as the only sign they had existed.
In the campaign, signs of the lost empire had been revealed after an earthquake and then suddenly it seemed that Nakasha the Lamia Queen was back and her overseers had infiltrated the human nations (how long had they been there!!!)

 

[Queen_Dopplepopolis]

I also think that Lizardfolk and other things like that are underrated...

I love lizardfolk, kobolds, dragons, and any other sort of baddies. Snakey things also go well with the lizardfolk.

I like to link monsters by abilities... so - my game is psionics (but with a focus on bug-like mosters and baddies).

 

[spectre72]

Elves....

Yes you read that right, in my current campaign the Elves would be the equivelent of the Empire in Star Wars or Germany in WWII.

They are invading the human lands and will attempt to wipe the other races out.

The Campaign is steampunk with a technology level of flintlock muskets set side by side with magic.

Everyone in my game didn't believe the elves were really that bad until a confrontation with a group of Elven Muskateers (Sorcery and Steam by FFG) almost wiped them out.

Scott

 

[Templetroll]

In Birthright the goblins race included the goblins, hobgoblins and bugbears. That they had cities, conducted trade other than robbing caravans and signed treaties... even going so far as to let the ink dry before breaking it at least once a century!

I also started a campaign where the main foes were a hobgoblin tribe that were forced to foster a green dragon whelp/prince. it had the BBED off in the distance but always kept the danger of attracting her attention. The tribe were also trying to keep their own secret of worshipping that hobgoblin god instead of the goblin one, so there was imminent trouble from that also. Tossing the party, a psuedodragon ( my wife), a Outsider hyena (Digimon kinda creature my daughter wanted to play), NPC druid who was nervous around people and a NPC wizard they rescued from the hobgoblins in the first 15 minutes of the game. Unfortunately it didn't last, other things came up but I still have my maps and notes to go back to it.