Challenging my high-lvl group (NPCs and monsters; my players shouldn't read this!)

[Len]

So ask yourself: other than that blind elven sage (who is now dead of old age), who might know anything about pre-history?

How about a powerful diviner who can only divine the past, not the present or the future.

I'm no good at NPCs so you'll have to fill in the details yourself. I'm thinking about a powerful wizard who casts divination spells similar to scrying, discern location, etc. but which can only give information about things that no longer exist.

As a bonus, the diviner could tell the Defenders something about their own past that they didn't know. Maybe something about some loose end that the party never figured out. Like, "The last time the modrons marched early, everybody died!"

 

[jerichothebard]

In my campaign, the merchant patron of one of the characters has trade records going back to the founding of her House. It's been intimated that more information than just sales figures are in the journals; they were the personal journals of the leaders of one of the biggest Great Houses in the land... if anyone was in a position to know something, they were. Though they are kept very secret, as only the current leader has read them all. It is a duty of the new leader, on being tapped for ascension, to read them all, cover to cover. It takes a while.

That reminds me, I have to tell that to the player of that character, who has just been tapped as the backup in case the current situation isn't resolved with the survival of the current House leader...


jtb.

 

[MTR]

Without reading the previous posts....

Didn't you have an elemental prophet/seer? Can the party get back to her?

Perhaps there was a very knowledge sage who's dead. The party needs to track down the lost tomb of Anken-Ra and Resurrect him. After he gives them the info you still have him alive and kicking around the game world as a plot hook.

No doubt you have demons/devil lords/vampires and other assorted evil old guys who could know quite a lot. The party would need to get to them, start a peaceful conversation, no doubt jump through a few hoops - and still wouldn't be sure they could trust the info.

Take a page from the middle ages and have a hermit who sits on top of a tall pole. He's cranky and demands the party perform a variety of menial tasks. More comic relief than a challenge.

Monte Cook had a plane populated by intelligent dinosaurs. The PCs get the experience of being smaller and weaker than everybody else.

I never took the term "worm" to be biologically correct, but if it is perhaps the party needs to question a lowly earthworm.

And of course... the last of the Modrons knows all!

EDIT: What about consulting Nolin's shade? Much roleplaying opportunity.

 

[Lela]

Not to stereotype, or anything. But why do Liches all have to be male? Heck, after the recent shakeup, I'd expect becoming a Lich is a lot easier if you're female and attractive.

Does a Demilitch have a gender anymore?

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

NPC I-more aimed at interacting with the deity-worshipping folks of the DoD
My first thought would be an immortal, akin to Ioun-however, due to magic failing, they couldn't really have been mortal in the first place. I was thinking of an outsider who's spent a longgg time on Spira, perhaps a fallen angel if you want to make roleplaying interactions more interesting (Something once good but now neutral, opposed to a devils/demons, which the party may have already faced during Agar's wedding phase ). If you plan to go that route, might I suggest a figure with a personality akin to Dorian Gray (a handsome man turned immortal who has been corrupted from innocence into debauchery from the story The Picture of Dorian Gray, although he's also depicted in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen)? In DnD terms, he could be have class levels in the Sensate PrC in one of Dragon's Planescape features, which would make 'sense' (pardon moi for the horrible pun) as sensates value gleaning information of all types. As for the specific outsider used as a base, either a Fallen Trumpet Archon (being a former herald would relate even more to the knowledge/info. theme) or an Eladrin (perhaps more sense as a chaotic outsider). If this idea interests you, I'd be happy to stat something up.

NPC II-poor, poor Agar
Well, you're dealing with Worms right? Who would know better than a Vermin Lord, ala BoVD? Maybe with some levels in Cancer Mage, depending on how powerful he is. Maybe he's a former student or even colleague of Hagiok? That brings to mind, will/have the DoD spoke to Hagiok? Maybe Teliez has cured him of his insanity? Anyways, back to the Vermin Lord, perhaps throw on an undead template such as lich to give him more credibility. But above all, make sure he has tons of insects/vermin creeping around and about him (or through him if he's a lich). Maybe a Son of Kyuss cohort, if you feel particularly sadistic towards the poor alienist. Again, I'd be happy to stat this charming fellow up if the idea interests you.

Edit-On the more "goody two shoes" side, a Loremaster would be pretty standard. I'll try and come up with a neat twist on this though, and get back to you.

 

[arwink]

Borrow the notion of akashinc nodes from arcana evolved, using either an akashic master or a monk who has spent his life learning to collect ambient thoughts and memories from the air. He can dive into the collective cultural memory of all living life on the planet, searching for instances where the worms first game to light.

If the fey are immortal in your world, then maybe a twisted mutant of a fey creature that served as the worms envoi to the fey court. A slimey, mangled satyr covered in ooze, crazed after millenia without contact with his masters and universally reviled by all other races. He's still hunted by several powerful fey creatures (Lehsay from the epic handbook) for some of his deeds in the past, so the challenge is in finding him and then keeping him alive while you unravel his mad ramblings.

Even alien cratures such as the brain collectors fear something, and one of the greatest fears the neh-thalggu have is the comic of the worms. For centuries they have been compiling worm-lore, feeding one of their number the brains of sages and scholars (including, possibly, the elderly elf that originally warned the party) they kidnapped from the prime plane. Keeping said brain collector alive while absorbing so much knowledge is difficult, so it has been mutated to become an amorphous mass served by dozens of smaller lackys. It has several centuries of brilliant minds at its disposal, but the neh-thalggu may not wish to share their information.

The aranea (arcane spider-folk from the MM) have had their own method of preserving the knowledge of their wisest - they spun a giant web that sustains the consciousness after death. If you picture the average breeding room from an alien's room, replace the hardened mucous with webs, and have the skulls of a hundred aranea visible, you have the visual I'm working with. Then just have the PC's interact with a hundred whispering voices as a council of ancient aranea debate whether or not to help them (this comes from an upcoming CGW project).

The tomb of frozen dreams, from the Book of Eldritch Might III, could potentially have several peices of information.

If the worms are more powerful than the gods, then the possibility exists that some of the dead gods may still know of them. Dealing with the demi-urge of a deity that stood against the worms when they first moved against the world could be fruitful, especially if it's imcomplete memory can only be restored by gathering the together its scattered divine energy from the far corners of the world. A variety of divinely infused creatures or magic items merged with goddessence would need to be defeated and destroyed. If you're not done twisting the knife, you could even make it an evil god whose actions in opposing the worms were remarkably similar to Imbrandila's - did she know something that the other gods didn't? Where the actions that led to her death motivated by something far more noble (or self-preserving) than anyone suspected?

 

[Spatzimaus]

I was thinking of an outsider who's spent a longgg time on Spira, perhaps a fallen angel if you want to make roleplaying interactions more interesting

Fallen Angels, redeemed Fiends... it's all been done. Now, rotate 90 degrees... A chaotic Modron? A lawful Slaad? Those can be a LOT more fun.

You could combine some of these together... make Kermit, the ghost of a neutral Slaad Psychic Warrior who was trapped while shifted to the prime during the mage wars, thousands of years ago. After dying, he met many of the powerful undead of the day, and used his autohypnosis skill to remember all sorts of random things.

(It's not easy, being Green...)

 

[justa goblin]

idea for npc

Let's call them the Brotherhood of the Eternal Soul or some such. A group of good monks on the eternal path to perfection, blah, blah, blah. The have a method of passing on their souls to younger members when they die allowing them to walk the path eternally. Well their high great leader recently passed his soul, unfoirtunately his passing coincided with Imbridalara's death. The ritual used to pass on the soul left this young child completely defenceless against tidal wave of souls escaping Imbraladara's prison.

Now you have a young child (10 ish) inhabited by who knows what. Put the big high leader in their with all of his memories but there could also be a being from before time with his memories and all kinds of assorted odds and ends. For the kicker throw in some big baddie that managed to dominate all of the other souls that is using the Brotherhood for some nefarious plot. However he has access to the Leader monk's memories so he can pass all of the tests posed by the Brotherhood. If you are feeling particularly nasty have the new god of the undead searching for this being to bring it back. Of course bringing it back destroys the other souls in the body and the information along with it.

So we have a brotherhood of good monks doing the work of an young child possesd by an evil overlord along with the souls of thousands of trapped beings, including something that knows about the worms, on the run from a god. As a plus if Eve tries to poke around in his head he has a built in defense of huge resevoir of minds to give her. She could wander around for years and never find anything.

 

[Lela]

Eve could very well be able to use the memory crystals (aka Akashic Nodes). Of course, she wouldn't know if the person who recorded it was telling the truth.

 

[Zaruthustran]

How about some good old time travel?

You could have the PCs go back themselves, or project their consciousness back in time (Quantum Leap style) and inhabit the bodies of native creatures. That'd be a change of pace, and give the players a low-level break.

Or if magic works like electromagnetic radiation, you could have the players travel to a far-off world and then use Divination magic--the results would be from X number of years ago with X being how many magicyears they are from the world. This may be too sciencey/spelljammery, though.

-z