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Message: <blockquote data-quote="GreatLemur" data-source="post: 3384190" data-attributes="member: 28553">Yeah, that totally works.I've had similar thoughts, thinking of the reclaimed / "dark zone" flora as being like huge fungal growths and even coral colonies.  Algae and moss-like stuff work, too.  I figure most of this stuff was probably killed off or pushed into total dormancy when the human indaders transformed the environment, but now that the terraforming artifacts are being shut down, surfaces which seemed like solid rock are turning soft and slimy, and blooming into loathesome life.  Fungus-like growths which were stunted by the clear, terrestrial atmosphere are now swelling all over the landscape, larger and more numerous than ever before.  And spores of things--both plant and animal--which the world hasn't seen for millenia are coming out of the chuul gateways to take root in familiar soil.There are a lot of different possibilities for humans and other terrestrial creatures to be transformed by the new environment.  As mentioned before, some substances might have drug-like effects on people, addicting them and destroying their reason--and their resistance to mental domination--even as they boost their strength and dull their sense of pain.  Alien viruses or polyp-like colony organisms could infest humans and animals, changing them in subtle or drastic ways, and driving them to transmit the infection to others.  (Anybody ever see the movie <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matango" target="_blank">Matango</a>?)  The very atmosphere itself might slowly wear away at the human psyche, driving men gradually mad if they stay deep in the reclaimed zones for too long.  And, of course, there all the things the invaders themselves can do.I've been taking another look at <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/aboleth.htm" target="_blank">the aboleth's stats</a>, and it's obvious they could make extremely great primary antagonists.  Their psionic abilities are as brutal as those of the illithids, including a psychic domination power that could make slaves out of quite a lot of people . . . and that's before you even take into account their ability to convert humans into <a href="http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/skum.htm" target="_blank">skum</a>.  Thing is, though, while they're amphibious, they definitely prefer the water, so I figure one of the main changes to the dark zone environment will be a hell of a lot of rain...The chuul, meanwhile, are making more and more sense as the advance guards of such an invasion.  They're completely immune to poison--making it reasonable that they can endure the world's terraformed atmosphere without real trouble--and they're amphibious like the aboleths, but much better on land than they are.Man, I really need to take a look at The Lords of Madness.</blockquote>

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