alsih2o said:
dire voles...gotta be dire voles
I'll see what I can do. Some kind of burrowing would be cool, but they do have lots of derro slaves for tunneling.
Kilmore said:
Well, the first thing that comes to mind is the cause of the terror/pleasure thing that has got all the other folks hooked.
Though I didn't make it super clear the forest they're in is basically filled with lots of really bad stuff. Normal ol' folks avoid it like the plague. So I was kind of strapped for a source of slaves at all. Cursed dwarves was basically what I came up with.
The slaves are probably going to be derro. The PCs have already found their abandonded village (though they don't know what happened to the dwarves) and the terrible things they did in the name of the worship of dark things.
Net-net there won't be a lot of sympathy on the part of the party.
To answer your specific question directly:
Their masters (a rat race called the Slitherin) have the fear hande because of a powerful evil creature which bears a grudge against them. She (the powerful evil) thinks that the dwarves are all dead, but if she finds out that some are still alive. For them this things is basically like the bogeyman.
The dwarves did lots of terrible things to people including their own. One of them, a young girl touched by powerful magic, escaped several hundred years ago and turned to the worship of Mormo (not too important, she's a proto-being similar to a god but she teaches secrets instead of granting spells). In other words she was turned into a hag, something more than dwarf. She still remembers her old people and craves vengance but thinks they're all dead. If she found out they were still alive she'd visit the torment done to her a hundred times over.
So that's the fear. (they're also afraid of the witches but that's a more rational type of thing).
The pleasure comes from several sources: the savants of the derro as well as other gifted specimins, enjoy the attentions of their mistresses, who are hedonistic shapechangers. Their Slitherin masters have also addicted them to several varieties of hallucigenic herbs, which are constantly being burned in large urns around the caev complex giving off addicitive vapors. The vapors permiate the warrens their masters dwell in as well as the deeper tunnels most of the derro live in. Not getting access to these vapors causes painful withdrawl lasting days or weaks.
The vapors produce a mild hallucinaginc rush, maybe with some minor bonuses or penalties and are somewhat pleasureable though the slaves have long since forgotten what life was like without them.
[The vapors only affect the derro this severly. Both the half-breed children of the savants and their masters and the other members of the warren can leave more-or-less without significant effects.]
With their high SR and saves vs will stuff magic is an erratic tool to try to control them.
Wicht said:
At the end of a dead end (complete with big signs that read "Absolutely do not go down this corridor" and "There is no treasure down this corridor") is a room which has about a foot of liquid on the floor (flammeable oil). Hidden under the oil is a glyph of warding that will explode in flames as soon as someone enters the room. The ceiling of the room is loose dirt (several thousand tons of dirt) that will collapse as soon as the oil explodes.
This is pretty evil. I like it. They wouldn't put signs there though....
Dragongirl said:
An iron golem tunnel cleaner. Moves down the tunnels, the front of which is full of rotating blades and scrapers and leaves no room to get around it.
Hmmm. I think that you're on to something with having someone or something dedicated to cleaning up. This is definitely a neat image but its a bit high tech. Gelatinous cubes aren't much of a good idea either. hmmm
)
