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

[Kaodi]

Opponents

Are there any kinds of villains, mooks, you need or could use statted up at this point in the game, or somewhere in the near future, PirateCat? Magical items, locations, etc, etc, etc, or just keep the ideas rolling?

 

[Seule]

Well gosh, apparently I spoke truer than I knew. Ioun is... brilliant. I do wonder how long he can keep it up.

I would think that Ioun would be working to decentralize the empire, so people don't have to rely on him as much. Recruiting the Defenders to be his troubleshooters would be perfect, as everyone will look at them, and assume he's more powerful (as will they). He meanwhile, can be "doing something else vitally important that takes all his magical energy".
That gives him an excuse as to why he's not dealing with threats to the empire personally, he's got people for that.

--Seule

 

[Spatzimaus]

He meanwhile, can be "doing something else vitally important that takes all his magical energy".

Oh yeah, the classic "I'm protecting you from forces you couldn't even comprehend!" line. Good stuff, although I'd say that he should be REALLY careful pretending to be the all-powerful Wizard until after he hits at least level 17 (Wish). Until then, someone might ask him to cast one of his 9th-level spells, and if he's not able...

The beauty of the decentralization idea is, everyone who knew Ioun has probably already accepted that Annel is his voice in day-to-day operations. Sure, Ioun was the public face of the empire, but nothing would actually get done without her input. The only thing she lacked was official rank for dealing with the nobility of other kingdoms; sure, when they'd come to see Ioun, she'd deal with them as his assistant, but the other way around doesn't really work.

So if Ioun were to declare Annel to be "Prime Minister" of something closer to a confederation, everyone would just ASSUME that he's still going to be controlling from the throne, and that the rank is simply for diplomatic expediency. Everyone would negotiate with her, with the understanding that she'd take any treaties to him for final approval. In fact, she really IS going to be running the place, while he's almost a figurehead. It's hiding the truth in plain sight; there's no actual lie involved, everyone just sees the situation and interprets it through what they know of the facts.
(Okay, a near-Epic caster with all that equipment isn't actually a "figurehead", but you get the point. He'd be more like her mystical advisor.)

 

[Piratecat]

Right. You guys are getting at what I'm trying for. With Annel set up as prime minister, the empire should be in pretty good hands. Until all the clouds fall, at least. . .

Wait, did I say that? I'm getting months ahead of myself. No blabbing to the players, and forget I even mentioned it.

One thing for you today: a request for personalities/stats/history.

I'm probably going to require the group to talk to important and/or knowledgeable people all over the world who know anything about the worms. These people don't have to be combat-powerful per se, but they may be eccentric, dangerous politically, or have other complications attached to them. They also may be non-human. So ask yourself: other than that blind elven sage (who is now dead of old age), who might know anything about pre-history? What they know doesn't necessarily have to be correct, and they can be from almost any culture (I'll require trips to different continents.) Don't stat them up unless you're so inclined, but interesting thumbnail sketches of possible NPCs would be great! Extra goodness if they come with plot hooks.

 

[Piratecat]

One more thing: Cruciel's revised stats. I've changed her class to be a Champion, from Monte Cook's Arcana Evolved. That's a great book, and I'm yoinking all kinds of good ideas from it. This class reflects my view of Cruciel much better than her old devoted defender class did, although it'll still have a few more edits before it's final.

The file is certified virus-free.

I welcome comments and kibitzing.

 

[Orichalcum]

Idea for NPC...

So, the idea that comes to my mind is of a palentologist of some sort - or rather a wormologist, specializing in looking at rock strata that indicate the former passage and presence of the Worms. He probably has totally crazy theories about what his discoveries represent, and is a little on the head-in-the-rock-pit side of things.

This may not be usable, but I throw it out there.

Also, the things that survive longest from oral traditions/prehistory are ritual chants, ranging from magic spells to children's games. The idea of some seemingly harmless version of "Here we go round the Mulberry Bush" is very appealing.

Pop goes the Elder!

 

[Seule]

Well, the ones who are likely to have collected the most info are likely the ones who have been around the longest. Demiliches spring to mind, and as a bonus are a) epic (from the ELH, anyway) and b) likely to be uncooperative. I'd stat one up, but it's too much work. I envision a sage who became a lich because there just wasn't time to learn everything that she wanted to know, and just kept studying everything (including the Worms) until she fell apart. Now, being mostly immobile, she wants nothing more than information about whatever her obsession is, which could range from the grand (world-ending events) to the small (clothing fashions across the world). I'd play her as a doddering old librarian type, except she's nothing more than a skull and a few bones, and she wields godlike power. Heck, make her still concerned with how her appearance is. "I know I can't do lipstick any more, but does this headband minimize my cheekbones? I really hope so."
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.

--Seule

 

[Vargo]

The Mind Flayers - especially a certain converted Elder Brain may come in handy, assuming it has survived since the DoD returned to the surface world. Also, creatures of a pseudonatural bent, being disconncted from the timestream, may be currently living both in our current time and in the time of the worms - they may be an excellent, if very hard to understand, source of information.

I'm referring, of course, to epic pseudonatural beings, not the wussy pseudos in Complete Arcane/Tome and Blood. Hmm, a pseudonatural mind flayer, perhaps? Double your tentacles, double your fun...

 

[Spatzimaus]

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

The classic answers:
1> GODS. I mean really, if Calphas, Galanna, and Aeos can't fill you in on the missing information, why would you expect some old Elf to do it? Now, if you're going to say that the current gods don't know anything about what happened before they arrived, then the real question is, what WAS there before them? Primal forces, Chaos? Are there any people who pray to that? It'd be sort of funny if the solution to this was to track down a "cult" that worships those sorts of abstract concepts and ask them to "commune" with their gods. I'm sure you could find some, especially on the outer planes.

2> DRAGONS, but they seem to be few and far between in your campaign. Anything that lives for more than a millenium is bound to know this sort of thing, even if they weren't personally involved in it. On the bright side, though, you don't have to make this into an instant information source for the players, simply through personality. In my campaign, I had an old silver dragon with Druid levels who lived in a remote jungle (where he watched over a tribe of semi-feral Wild Elves). The players tried to go to him for information, but were basically stymied by the fact that he just didn't care. He took that whole "true neutral" thing to the extreme; he had decided to protect "nature", they and their gods weren't part of nature, and that was the end of it.

3> THE DEAD. Hagiok would probably be a great source of information; being an immortal academic does that for you. Soder probably works, too. The point isn't necessarily whether they know the information themselves, it's whether they can put the players in contact with an older undead who does. For instance, ask yourself: the Worms turned the existing "people" into undead, right? So, when the worms were trapped and Aeos was born, were ALL of the undead destroyed? Maybe a few survived underground, although they're probably insane/senile/etc. by now. The players would have no clue how to find them... but Soder would probably know.

(Combine #2 and #3: an undead silver dragon who's become a Druid and hasn't ever been evil! Malachite would have a fit.)

4> POWERFUL ARCANE MAGES. Ioun, that is. He lived 4000 years ago, and clearly was a pretty smart guy back then. From the sound of it, no one else really fits into this category. You can't really include powerful priests or druids, since they'd only have learned this information through their gods in the first place.

But there are other options. In certain points in history, Monks preserved knowledge. That's been overdone, although it still works.

In one campaign I was in, there was a wide-ranging merchant guild that was, officially at least, a subsidiary of the Church of Moradin. Besides being a front for guilds of Psions and Sorcerers in areas where they were persecuted, this guild also collected information. They'd accumulate TONS of information, cross-reference it, and file it away in extradimensional spaces (and a few demi-planes), just on the off-chance it'd come in handy at some point. Not to sell, or blackmail people with, but just because it was almost always in your best interest to know things.

On one hand, this gives you a way out of a logical problem. If you were to add an NPC that had firsthand knowledge of the worms, you'd have to accept that EVERYTHING that NPC knew could theoretically be up for grabs. But in an archive like this, you can be more incomplete. For instance, what if what was stored was a fragmented millenia-old account of a conversation with a half-insane wraith who had, several millenia before, encountered one of the final undead created by the original Worms, just before it voluntarily destroyed itself? You can then limit the exact amount of information as much as you want, just like in a prophecy, since the players can't go back to the original information source for more.
On the other hand, it's pretty contrived, and even if you can limit what information is available on THIS topic, it opens the door for research into too many OTHER topics. Libraries tend to do that.

Oh, and as to Cruciel's character sheet: With how the story hour is going, I think that "no ceiling may collapse within 100' of you" ability is going to be coming in handy soon...

 

[Zaruthustran]

I think a Galeb Durh would be a pretty fun source of info. I suppose he'd be kind of Treebeard-ish, but you could find ways to make him a unique "really old creature of nature". Like, maybe he's the size of a mountain--he *is* a mountain--but thinks and speaks so slowly (as in 1 year to say "hello") that the players will have to come up with a clever way to communicate with him.

I also like an undead unicorn. But instead of undead, more along the lines of undying (in the Eberron sense). Or maybe it's continually reborn like Budha.

Lastly, how about an ancient elemental? Like the First Wind, which still blows around way, way, way up in the stratosphere? Or is trapped in/fled to Pandemonium?

-z