wolfen fenrison
Explorer
This takes a train of thought spawned after reading http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ebee/20050704a and pg.27-28 of Lords of Madness, so it works like this; the article says the elder evils and the rajahs are the same, and LoM says that if you have Call of Cthulhu d20 the elder evils should just aboleth names for the great old ones, thus with ECS, LoM, and CoC the rajahs/evils/old ones are one and the same.
Personally I love this idea, it makes the world that much more darker and more interesting, the silver flame contains a bound Great Old One (wich is why it has divine power, I'd like it's Hastur that is the whispering flame),
the outer gods dwell in xoriat,
rhashaak is guarding the sleeping form of Yig who's vile dreams have corrupted the dragons body and soul,
swarms of byakhee roam the astral plane,
deep ones make better servitors for aboleths than skums do,
elder things sacrificed most of their number along with the couatls to bind the great old ones,
fire vampires and their fell master Cthugha rule the plane fernia with a (firey) iron fist,
formless spawn guard the most important temples of the dragon below,
hunting horrors were dragons experimented on by the daelkyr,
nightgaunts and Nodens hunts the quori in Dal Quor,
Yuan-ti would be more suitible as children of Yig than serpent people (the Yuan-ti athema just screams lovecraftian),
Shoggoths should be from xoriat,
and how cool would it be to find a cult of the dragon below made up of tcho-tcho cannibals,
Picture a horde of githyanki astride byakhee laying waste to a groupe of illithids led by a ulitharid chosen of hastur
Anyway looking at unearthed arcanna and the ECS I have a few ideas on making a blend of lovecraft and erberron. The skill Knowledge (Forbidden lore) (UA pg.198) should be allowed and be applied to outsiders with the native subtype, oozes, aberrations, great old ones, outer gods, and lore pertaining to kyber and the cult of the dragon below. To off set the damage done by gaining ranks in this skill you should allow a synergy bonus for five ranks in that knowledge skill you would get a +2 bonus to spellcraft/psicraft, use magic/psionic device, knowledge (arcanna/psionics). I know this may sound extreme but look at it this to get this massive bonus you become that much more susceptible to insanity.
If sanity rules are allowed, but with a major change, every one has sanity resistance equal to wisdom modifier (a negative mod don't count), anyone with PC or PrC levels adds his character level to his sanity resistance, this makes sure no goes nuts seeing a goblin or a kobold. Also i recommend using the sanity loss chart from UA for monsters (except the great old ones and the outer gods, keep the san losses from CoC for them, the idea that are far more horrific than anything else is just too appropriate) and magic rather than CoC (oh and for magic use moderate sanity loss for arcane magic and psionics, low sanity loss for divine magic and include the additional san loss for certain types/schools of spells, any PC magic user/manifester worth her salt should have enough of a WIS mod to not eve notice, but make for great insane cultists).
cults of the dragon below should be led by an aberration, outsider, or a low to mid level cultist with the chosen of hastur or cult sorcerer template applied (or both for something nasty), any monsters from CoC that have psychic feats replace them with psi-like abilities using similar powers form the XPH (I may type up a conversion anyway). The table on sanity affecting magic is really good for integrating the sanity rules seamlessly into the core rules. Also allow action points to modify sanity checks (roll the action point die/dice and multiply the result by 10 and add that to the d% roll) and knowledge (forbidden lore) checks.
Heavy incorporation of lords of madness, call of cthulhu, unearth arcanna (pg.194-210), book of vile darkness, libris mortis, expanded psionics handbook get the feel of horror and action. BoVD, LoM, LM, CoC, are good for making those cultists the sickest most disturbed tentacle loving freaks on this or any world
Even without sanity rules or other lovecraftian rule variants, the creatures can be made to fit seamlessly into erberron without much work (I've given examples in the first post), to me the biggest draw of using the great old ones as versions of the rajahs/elder evils is that in sheer power and cunning they out all of the other BBEGs of the setting, they are the progenitors of the lords of dust, they are the divine power behind the cults of the dragon below. Even though BBEGs like the lord of blades, the blood of vol, even the dreaming dark are more personal foes, sure the are a potentially global threat too many foes of equal or better power stand in thier way. While the Old Ones are the first great evils of this world and thier power is great that the most the power champions of good could hope for was to bind them for eternity, well how the coualts and dragons define eternity is a blink of the eye for them, all they wait for is the stars to come right, for the magic that binds them to weaken and fail and for those who know how to recharge the barriers to be lost to antiquity. They have the patience and the immortality to wait and watch the world and whisper in the darkness till thier time to rule this world comes again. I know one other concern is that by stating the rajahs out you make them susceptible to death from the players, unless you run an epic level campaign this should be impossible, but a confrontation with the great old ones at that level should define what epic adventures ought to be.
Personally I love this idea, it makes the world that much more darker and more interesting, the silver flame contains a bound Great Old One (wich is why it has divine power, I'd like it's Hastur that is the whispering flame),
the outer gods dwell in xoriat,
rhashaak is guarding the sleeping form of Yig who's vile dreams have corrupted the dragons body and soul,
swarms of byakhee roam the astral plane,
deep ones make better servitors for aboleths than skums do,
elder things sacrificed most of their number along with the couatls to bind the great old ones,
fire vampires and their fell master Cthugha rule the plane fernia with a (firey) iron fist,
formless spawn guard the most important temples of the dragon below,
hunting horrors were dragons experimented on by the daelkyr,
nightgaunts and Nodens hunts the quori in Dal Quor,
Yuan-ti would be more suitible as children of Yig than serpent people (the Yuan-ti athema just screams lovecraftian),
Shoggoths should be from xoriat,
and how cool would it be to find a cult of the dragon below made up of tcho-tcho cannibals,
Picture a horde of githyanki astride byakhee laying waste to a groupe of illithids led by a ulitharid chosen of hastur
Anyway looking at unearthed arcanna and the ECS I have a few ideas on making a blend of lovecraft and erberron. The skill Knowledge (Forbidden lore) (UA pg.198) should be allowed and be applied to outsiders with the native subtype, oozes, aberrations, great old ones, outer gods, and lore pertaining to kyber and the cult of the dragon below. To off set the damage done by gaining ranks in this skill you should allow a synergy bonus for five ranks in that knowledge skill you would get a +2 bonus to spellcraft/psicraft, use magic/psionic device, knowledge (arcanna/psionics). I know this may sound extreme but look at it this to get this massive bonus you become that much more susceptible to insanity.
If sanity rules are allowed, but with a major change, every one has sanity resistance equal to wisdom modifier (a negative mod don't count), anyone with PC or PrC levels adds his character level to his sanity resistance, this makes sure no goes nuts seeing a goblin or a kobold. Also i recommend using the sanity loss chart from UA for monsters (except the great old ones and the outer gods, keep the san losses from CoC for them, the idea that are far more horrific than anything else is just too appropriate) and magic rather than CoC (oh and for magic use moderate sanity loss for arcane magic and psionics, low sanity loss for divine magic and include the additional san loss for certain types/schools of spells, any PC magic user/manifester worth her salt should have enough of a WIS mod to not eve notice, but make for great insane cultists).
cults of the dragon below should be led by an aberration, outsider, or a low to mid level cultist with the chosen of hastur or cult sorcerer template applied (or both for something nasty), any monsters from CoC that have psychic feats replace them with psi-like abilities using similar powers form the XPH (I may type up a conversion anyway). The table on sanity affecting magic is really good for integrating the sanity rules seamlessly into the core rules. Also allow action points to modify sanity checks (roll the action point die/dice and multiply the result by 10 and add that to the d% roll) and knowledge (forbidden lore) checks.
Heavy incorporation of lords of madness, call of cthulhu, unearth arcanna (pg.194-210), book of vile darkness, libris mortis, expanded psionics handbook get the feel of horror and action. BoVD, LoM, LM, CoC, are good for making those cultists the sickest most disturbed tentacle loving freaks on this or any world
Even without sanity rules or other lovecraftian rule variants, the creatures can be made to fit seamlessly into erberron without much work (I've given examples in the first post), to me the biggest draw of using the great old ones as versions of the rajahs/elder evils is that in sheer power and cunning they out all of the other BBEGs of the setting, they are the progenitors of the lords of dust, they are the divine power behind the cults of the dragon below. Even though BBEGs like the lord of blades, the blood of vol, even the dreaming dark are more personal foes, sure the are a potentially global threat too many foes of equal or better power stand in thier way. While the Old Ones are the first great evils of this world and thier power is great that the most the power champions of good could hope for was to bind them for eternity, well how the coualts and dragons define eternity is a blink of the eye for them, all they wait for is the stars to come right, for the magic that binds them to weaken and fail and for those who know how to recharge the barriers to be lost to antiquity. They have the patience and the immortality to wait and watch the world and whisper in the darkness till thier time to rule this world comes again. I know one other concern is that by stating the rajahs out you make them susceptible to death from the players, unless you run an epic level campaign this should be impossible, but a confrontation with the great old ones at that level should define what epic adventures ought to be.
