[Eberron] Alien Invasion

[Jürgen Hubert]

For aesthetic reasons, I prefer a magitech invasion. The nations of Khorvaire are so proud of their magical innovations that it is high time to show them that there are some beings out there who are far more capable in this vein than they are.

Still, biological invasions are neat in their own way. Though the Tyranid invasions are probably too familiar to many gamers and thus mesh poorly with a fantasy world. They are also a bit too much focused on combat thanks to their wargame roots - and biological invasions often have far scarier aspects than just the huge monsters that can eat you.

Personally, I recommend using the model of the War Against The Cthorr series of novels. First, the world is hit by a strange meteor shower. Then virulent plagues appear that wipe out 90% of humanity (this can probably be reduced or done away with entirely for Eberron - the population density is low enough as it is).

Then, in remote wilderness regions, strange plant growths appear. Weird insects (with unusual numbers of legs) and other small life forms also show up, which are a lot more aggressive than the local animals and plants, and they rapidly begin to supplant them. At first, only some remote tribes, druids, and some enthusiastic naturalists from certain universities pay attention. The rest of the world shrugs it off. Strange animals and plants? The world is full of strange animals and plants! Better to worry about those of them that can eat you...

This turns out to be a colossal mistake. After the new species have had some time to spread, they form vitual biological factories at certain locations - large plant masses that are able to produce entirely new and larger species. Once these new creatures have appeared, they move away from the factories and are able to live and reproduce on their own. And some of them get larger... and larger... and larger until they are a definite threat to humans.

But by the time the authorities realie this, huge landscapes have already been covered by these growths. Entire native species have been wiped out. Only the druids know precisely what has been lost, and they have been at the forefront of fighting this invasion - but they are not enough. Fertile fields are choked by alien kudzu, causing food shortages. Areas close to the infestation suffer frequent attacks from small alien creatures. Simply burning the affected areas has little effect - while the alien growths might be gone for a while, their seeds and roots are still around and soon they will cover the region again.

The situation grows more desperate with every passing months. Even the seas now have huge patches of alien weeds. It becomes obvious that something radical needs to be done soon, but what? How can you fight an enemy with no clear organization or structure, who has no "big boss" you can defeat?


If you can get it, I strongly recommend GURPS War Against The Cthorr[/QUOTE], which has all this written up in RPG format and does a good job on showing just how scary such an invasion can be...

 

[Daijin]

I like it!

 

[MarkB]

One possibility might be to start the campaign with "Phase 0" - reconaissance missions from the Neogi, in an "X-COM: UFO Defense" style (I've had an idea for an "X-COM in Eberron" campaign on the back-burner for some time). Once the PCs start learning to detect the Neogi incursions and inflict significant damage, the Neogi move into Phase 1, the full-scale invasion - but in the meantime, the PCs have gathered just enough vital intelligence to earn them a place at the forefront of counter-invasion plans.

I like the idea of the life-draining technique as the base for their weapons technology. One idea might be for their initial reconaissance force to have abducted some elemental-binding specialists, either from Zilargo or Xen'drik, and once they learn these techniques they combine them with their own life-drain tech to make their war machines. By regularly feeding bound elementals with drained life force, they can keep them more docile, and thus can bind stronger and more unpredictable elementals, and use them in more versatile fashion than anyone on Khorvaire has done.

Imagine a bound-omnimental war machine - a crystalline saucer, striding across the land on legs of stone. Then, on command, it can rise into the air on a tornado, or slip seamlessly into water, or lash out with gouts of flame - or anything else that any individual elemental could normally do.

Maybe their more advanced weapons could combine this concept with the Neogi tendency to slavery - weapons and vehicles that use not bound elementals, but bound living beings, their life force infused directly into shards. So for instance, a slave-bound suit of armour carrying a bound manticore spirit could manifest a tail to deliver spike attacks, and its gauntlets would manifest manticore claws, giving the wearer the manticore's strength and natural claw attacks. Or a slave-bound club containing essence of hill giant will take on the form of a hill giant's fist when swung, striking as a slam attack with the hill giant's strength modifier.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

One possibility might be to start the campaign with "Phase 0" - reconaissance missions from the Neogi, in an "X-COM: UFO Defense" style (I've had an idea for an "X-COM in Eberron" campaign on the back-burner for some time). Once the PCs start learning to detect the Neogi incursions and inflict significant damage, the Neogi move into Phase 1, the full-scale invasion - but in the meantime, the PCs have gathered just enough vital intelligence to earn them a place at the forefront of counter-invasion plans.

Hmmm... A special department of the King's Lanterns investigating cattle mutilations in Northern Breland? Could be fun, though role-playing the chaos of the initial phase of the invasion would be more powerful when the aliens are completely unexpected.

On the other hand, there is a vast body of UFO lore that begs to be plundered for this. Alien visitations, cults worshipping these aliens, secret government agencies covering it up or even making deals with the aliens in exhange for powerful magic artifacts (which turn out to have some major flaws - especially once the neogi actually invade), strange alien-human hybrids...

Oh, and of course the neogi must reproduce by injecting their eggs into a living host, from which the baby neogi burst forth once they have matured...

(Incidentally, which 3.X book has the stats for the neogi again?)

I like the idea of the life-draining technique as the base for their weapons technology. One idea might be for their initial reconaissance force to have abducted some elemental-binding specialists, either from Zilargo or Xen'drik, and once they learn these techniques they combine them with their own life-drain tech to make their war machines. By regularly feeding bound elementals with drained life force, they can keep them more docile, and thus can bind stronger and more unpredictable elementals, and use them in more versatile fashion than anyone on Khorvaire has done.

A better idea: Elements of the Trust make deals with the neogi and exchange some of their magical expertise...

 

[Staffan]

(Incidentally, which 3.X book has the stats for the neogi again?)

Lords of Madness.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Lords of Madness.

I could have sworn I had seen them somewhere else...

 

[D'karr]

I could have sworn I had seen them somewhere else...

Monster Manual II has the following:
Neogi
Neogi, Adult
Neogi, Great Old Master
Neogi, Spawn

 

[drothgery]

Not to shoot down anyone's game ideas, but...

The thing is, various groups on Eberron have had either tens of millenia (the dragons), millenia (the Gatekeepers) or centuries (the Church of the Silver Flame) of experience in keeping strange dark forces from the beyond from taking over the world. And they're good at it (no one's succeeded yet).

 

[Andor]

Perhaps. But perhaps not...

If orbital mechanics work similar to our own world, then the dragonshards would travel very, very fast - in other words, if you don't match speed precisely with them, any impact with only one of them will significantly damage or even destroy your vessel. Read up on the Kessler Syndrome - it is quite likely that the situation around Eberron is as bad as that.

Perhaps the neogi don't have an orbital presence after all. Their big motherships were temporarily protected by spells while they passed through the Ring of Syberis, but staying there for longer durations is impossible...

OTOH if orbital mechanics work the same as in our world it's pretty difficult to be in the same orbit as something and not match it's speed and direction. And besides, this is DnD, slap a wall of Force around your ship if you're worried about meteors.

If you want an alternative to arachnids for ship inspiration, turn to the sea. Perhaps the ship resemble giant floating Nautiluses (the cephalopod, not the sub) drifting slowly over the landscape with tentacles hanging down. Black and covered with irregular growth if you want icky, or you could go the other way, make them beautiful. Giant pale iridscent shells, their smooth whorls glistening in the sun like giant soap bubbles float serenely over the land as their soft pastel tentacle reach down to snach babies from thier mothers arms and taste them with their suckers....

 

[D.Shaffer]

...Considering the artificer angle, have you thought about giving the Neogi the Clockwork Horrors from MM2/Spelljammer? They'd make great ground troops for them.

Pods, resembling giant egg sacks, fall from the sky and land in the middle of a Village. They pulse and glow, and then hundreds of the little buggers erupt from it and lay waste to the area for their Neogi masters. Give them paralytic poison for the dart launchers, and they can capture as many slaves as you could ever want.

They then start construction of facilities, laying waste to the countryside and converting it for use for their Neogi masters, constructing defensive warmachines and raid for dragonshards to use as storage crystals for the life energy they drain from the slaves. They also start selecting choice slaves to convert into Umber Hulks (They have to come from somewhere) as brute labor and shock troops.