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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 4584772" data-attributes="member: 1210">Well, the reason Master Control had kidnapped Belmondo (twice!) was in order to use his creativity to generate new types. That also covered the 'advancement problem' for the horrors.Let me preface the following by stating that I haven't dug out my notes on this so some of the details might be misremembering some details; don't hold me to it! In Cydra, the clockwork horrors were created a looooooong time ago by an alliance of the Miloxi Empire- the ancient tabaxi empire that learned the secrets of radiocrystal- and Drow. (This was before the Alignment Wars that split Drow from the surface elves.) One of the Drow studied with the Miloxi on the Island of Clockwork, where the greatest artisans of the tabaxi had made the first proto-horrors. Together with them, this Drow became a great teacher and helped them perfect the (basic models of) clockwork horrors. (This Drow later became the lich E-Krektor, who our heroes slew thousands of years later.)Then things went terribly wrong; the Alignment Wars caused E-Krektor to build more and more dangerous types of clockwork horrors. It is at this time that Master Control detected the horrors and took control of them, leading directly to the great disaster that destroyed the Miloxi Empire in a matter of weeks. The continent was destroyed; the Alignment Wars were lost to the forces of Good; E-Krektor retreated in bitterness to the depths of the world, where he sought the path of lichdom; and the clockwork horrors began a long, slow period of buildup and production as Master Control plotted and planned. It has been established that Master Control launched a major invasion of the core campaign area at some point probably 5-10,000 years ago. This was beaten off by the heroes of that time, which led to the creation of the Orb of Green Fire (an artifact devoted to destroying the horrors).The second clockwork horror invasion happened 15-25 years ago in campaign time- I'm honestly not sure what the exact time frame was, as we've advanced time by a few years many times since then. The clockwork horrors began to attack Dorhaus, and the pcs at the time (Lester, Malford, Thimbleton, Hobbes, Stone, et. al.) fought back. It was during this time that Belmondo was captured and hooked up to an idea-sucking machine for the first time. The pcs rescued him, but this gave Master Control idea templates that it has used to spawn dozens of new varieties of horrors with. Eventually the pcs traveled a long way to the Miloxi Remains and the Isle of Horrors (formerly the Island of Clockwork) and made their way deep inside while Belmondo 'jacked in' and confronted Master Control on an informational plane, occupying it and stopping it from paying full attention to the rest of the conflict with the other pcs.Unfortunately, during this informational battle, Belmondo failed a saving throw that left an informational virus in him. That allowed Master Control to survive, dormant, for [real time] years, until somebody said a trigger word to Belmondo accidentally and activated it. (I believe this happens in one of the epic story hour threads, but it's subtle.... maybe in To War Against Felenga? It might even be earlier on...) Once left to his own devices, 'Belmondo' took off to reconnect to the horrors.Whew! There's some background for ya!As for new types of horrors, I have used, among other things:-A giant carrier horror that carried swarms of clockwork horrors, big enough that the pcs entered it and fought through the swarms of horrors within it (this was where Belmondo was the first time he was taken)-Flying horrors-Aquatic horrors-Horrors with tentacles for capturing people-Tiny (microscopic) horrors whose only purpose is to spy and send back reports-Swarms of gnat-sized horrors that discharge electric zaps-Omega Horrors- these guys are the high end of Master Control's epic horrors. This is often what was launching missiles and stuff at the pcs when they were under serious horror assault. CR was epic- maybe 27? I can't remember off hand.I'm sure that I'm missing a bunch, but hopefully this is a good start on horror background!</blockquote>

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