Mistah J said:
Yoink!
That is awesome. Would you be so kind as to enlighten me on how you pulled this off? My players are about to enter a Cerebrotic Marrow (Dragon #330) and will be meeting a "guide" of sorts. I would love to do what you did to help give the proper feel of the place.
This is going to be sort of long, because I'd like to explain some of the background that led to the setup the way it happened in my game. Your own assumptions and decisions for yours may be diffierent from mine, so the same setup may not work as well (or at all) for you. Hopefully your eyes don't get tired reading it, but as Minister Varano says in Episode 6, Season 4 of
Babylon 5, "The details are everything." I follow that maxim in most facets of my life, game setups included. Apologies in advance if all this extra detail makes the post too long.
To begin with, I actually had the character/NPC planned for months prior to the first encounter, as a result of my decision for how to fit Uvuudaums into my campaign- IMC they sort of represent "Archetypes" from which beings within conventional reality are "derived" in some inexplicable manner. Thus, an Uvuudaum is actually the ultimate, absolute and perfect representation of whatever it is, and other beings are merely facets of it (or reflections of its force off the form of another, in the case of multiclass characters).
This is a hard concept to wrap your brain around, but I got it after reading HPL's
Through the Gates of the Silver Key which actually contains something very valuable for gamers interested in a Far Realm-type place: a
description of the protagonist's trip beyond conventional reality. That one passage of that story has influenced years of my gaming, even though the concepts introduced in it are highly abstract and difficult or impossible to picture in a meaningful way. If you are in a position to read a copy of that story, I highly recommend doing so.
Back to the Uvuudaums, when I decided that they represent Archetypes in our reality, things began to fall into place. Notably, their
Confusion Aura results from their being because their minds contain thoughts from every single derivative in existence- that is, the Uvuudaum Paladin contains within itself the thoughts of every single Paladin who ever has existed, exists now, or ever will or could exist, and it thinks them all simultaneously. That has to be hard for any normal creature to grasp- hence, the insanity effect whenever such a creature gets too close to the Source. It also gave me a mechanism for naming the creatures and coming up with character concepts- their names are fairly mundane by normal standards, and not what one would expect. The Uvuudaum Paladin's actual
name is, in fact, "Paladin." That's all it really can be named, because it actually, physically embodies the concept and role of a Paladin in this scheme.
Now to the setup. This whole character came about because the party was being set up to take on the Uvuudaum named Sorcerer's Apprentice, which had stolen its master Sorcerer's staff (or Staff
) and gotten trapped in our reality during its attempts to escape and hide. The staff is a Major Artifact made in and belonging to the Far Realm, so I didn't want it hanging around in the game after being found by the PCs- so I needed something to come and take it away. Simultaneously, I wanted to impress upon the players the idea that if the Far Realm contains all possibilities, even unimaginable ones, then it must contain good ones as well as evil ones. The ideal solution was to bring in something of unassailable character- and the concept of Paladin was born. Since I half-expected my PCs to immediately attack it when it showed up to take the staff away, just based on it being an Uvuudaum, I needed to make stats for it as well as those for Sorcerer's Apprentice, and so I did. I made only two changes to its racial abilities: its DR changed from 10/Epic and Good to 10/Epic and Evil, and its Regeneration can be overcome by Evil/Unholy weapons instead of Good/Holy ones.
Later on in the campaign though, before the PCs actually reached the big fight with Sorcerer's Apprentice, they encountered a basic Uvuudaum straight out of the SRD/ELH for other reasons I won't go into. I decided that this basic being, with no class levels, must represent the lowest of the low to the Uvuudaums- its name, in other words, was Commoner. And Commoner was already imprisoned in a cell with several extremely powerful magical effects to keep it there when the PCs found it; it was able to talk to (and whine at) them but little else. I was half-anticipating that the PCs might make a deal with it for its freedom, since they were facing some extremely tough opposition at the time, but they surprised me- they made a deal with several Winterwights that happened to be in the area instead and got them to help. They left Commoner imprisoned.
Well, just for kicks, I decided that I'd tease them with Paladin before the battle with Sorcerer's Apprentice. So I had Commoner escape inexplicably- while, in fact, the PCs were watching a device that was monitoring the prison's effects and trying to repair it so as to make sure that the Uvuudaum could never get out.
They used
Discern Location to figure out where Commoner went, then spent a few rounds buffing and preparing and then followed it. When they arrived, they saw not what they had expected to see but instead a "shape of Horror like that of the prisoner, but fantastically muscular for its weird form and obviously healthy beyond compare" decked out in full plate armor and carrying a massive sword. Paladin was also described as being golden-skinned and emitting an aura of white-gold light in addition to the aura of weird, unearthly green that I have most Far Realm denizens emit IMC.
Paladin didn't introduce itself at that first encounter, but since the PCs didn't attack it right away as they might have (they wisely held back, since Paladin was then a
lot more powerful than any of them and probably could have crushed the party in a fight), I decided to play with their heads some more. Since the Far Realm is outside time, I reasoned, why not do something involving a time-loop? Assume that because the PCs didn't attack Paladin here, that they wouldn't do it when they encountered it after taking down Sorcerer's Apprentice (if they managed that feat, of course). Logically, they'd refer back to this earlier encounter with Paladin at that time if conversation took place- and such conversation might lead to giving Paladin clues as to where and when Commoner was being held. Thus, the PCs in this hypothetical future gave Paladin the information it needed to find and rescue Commoner.
Therefore, Paladin said exactly one thing to them before it turned around and floated through the open Far Realm portal behind it: "It is good to see you again. Thank you for the information. The rescue is accomplished."
They puzzled over what that meant for weeks, and I laughed inside every time they mentioned it. But when the days finally came to battle Sorcerer's Apprentice and its minions (the actual battle took around 3 minutes of game time and 2 1/2 sessions to play out- but
wow what a memorable fight!), the PCs used an artifact they'd acquired off of the Apprentice to open a Far Realm portal, intending to shove the Staff through it and rid the cosmos of its presence. The Staff had taken over the mind of the party Sorceress as soon as she picked it up, you see, and thus the players decided it was bad news (though the player of the Sorceress was slightly upset that they managed to beat her down and take the Staff away- his comment was "I could've been a really cool pseudonatural Blighter."). On the other side of said portal was Paladin, and it came through the open portal and took the Staff from them (they handed it over willingly when they saw the golden Uvuudaum, having decided before this that maybe that creature was benign). Conversation with Paladin during this encounter proved to the players that as far as Paladin was concerned, it was meeting them for the first time, so they roleplayed and completed the circle willingly by telling it exactly where and when to go to pick up Commoner.
Disruptive players who get a kick from deliberately spoiling DM plots no matter how cool the setup probably wouldn't have completed the circle willingly, but my players are good that way. They were happy to have the story complete the way it did, and thus did what they needed to do to make the earlier encounter make sense.
We've actually had several cool plots arise as cooperative efforts that way, in my game.
