I want an invading army from beyond this dimension. Tell me about it.

[sukael]

At first there are stories of horrible murders and tortures perpetrated by sleepwalkers. Then, in coastal towns, ships start getting destroyed - sunk by sudden hull fractures, or scuttled after every crew member is killed. Finally, stories start coming back to civilization of men with dead looks and rotting limbs traveling further inland, killing anyone or anything they come across.

The invaders are from the ocean depths, and though their minds are ancient and powerful, their goals and desires are as foreign to man as anything can be. In sleep, the elder minds warp the thoughts of dreamers; in the shallows, their tormented, twisted servants destroy ships and alter weather patterns; on land, drowned corpses infected with parasites and ancient memories murder and march.

Sample creatures to use:

• Aboleths and mind flayers - servants of the elder minds. In some cases these come from the depths; in other cases they are humanoids (or other creatures), living or dead, twisted into their current form. (Use the psionic versions.)
• Ghouls, skeletons, and zombies - surface dead suffused with symbiotic and parasitic creatures that return to them a semblance of dead. (Change these to the Aberration type, give them psionic powers as wanted - there are templates that can do this kind of thing for you fairly easily. This way, too, you can have plenty of "undead" without denying the party rogue sneak attacks.)
• Living spells (mind-affecting spells, necromancies) - thoughts given form and shape and sent to the world above. Use these on telepathic or psychometabolist psionic powers for extra weirdness.

 

[Dioltach]

If the invaders are really from a different dimension, chances are that their interaction with our world is limited. How about some being that is, for all intents and purposes, only a sound? Yet it can be a pleasant sound, a soothing sound, an exciting sound, or a deadly sound ...

 

[Angel Tarragon]

If the invaders are really from a different dimension, chances are that their interaction with our world is limited. How about some being that is, for all intents and purposes, only a sound? Yet it can be a pleasant sound, a soothing sound, an exciting sound, or a deadly sound ...

What, they couldn't come from an alternate prime material plane?

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

Githyanki play the Red Dragon card, Zerth make an alliance with some slumbering titans beneath the planet's moon... it could be freaking wild. Wow, now I want to play it.

Slumbering titans benearth the planet's moon? Yoink.

As far as the thread goes, there is of course the traditional invading armies of demons or devils - starting with small groups of dretches or similar and working up to larger and more powerful outsiders. Gives the players a good chance to go hunting for materials to build bane weaponry.

I love the idea of the army using dopplegangers as scouts and infiltrators, too. And the dopplegangers can be used by virtually any army - in fact I may yoink this idea, too.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

off the top of my head
titians ...with armys of giants ..useing unknown powers of old
or
cant get more d&d then orc.. lots of orc by the hundreds of thousands, orgnized and trained u know bascily scro
i do like the hive ideal clockwork horrors are also old favs

 

[DMH]

Somehow, ethergaunts (from Fiend Folio) really seem to fit the title of the thread: they are humanoid aberrations with great skills at wizardry and technology that come to the world (actually, return) from the ethereal plane, to eradicate all life.
However, they aren't "classic monsters" at all, and even the lowest of ethergaunts is a very powerful mage, so they won't make a "typical" army either.

I would use them as the leaders and maug as the base soldiers. Oozes that can not affect the maug are used as weapons of mass destruction. Or, use chaos beasts, in place of the oozes, that also affect plant life and get a Mist like senario.

Or use some of the dragonspawn from the MMIV and have a draconic invasion. There are plenty of planar dragons to be found that could lead it.

An invasion of diseases. Those who die are turned into monster X.

Orks from WH 40K are fungi. Read more of their uses here: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=261472

 

[Cage-Rattler]

I second the "Neogi" suggestion offered earlier; just 'cause they're mega-cool bad guys and mega-underused. In fact, my personal recommendation would be to use critters that your players are unfamiliar with, to enhance that "alien dimension" aspect. (It's once thing if the characters have no idea what a particular monster is; it's another when the player is totally out of the loop, as well.)

My vote: Psurlons -- those evilly imperialistic psionic worm-headed thingies!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

1) In my last campaign, I used (essentially) Anthropomorphic Animals (all Big Cats) as a race of interdimensional raiders from an alternate PMP.

Like Larry Niven's Kzinti, they ascended to mastery of their home dimension after learning to control technology from a civilization that predated them and annihilated themselves.

What Made Them Fun: Big, intelligent predators- the campaign started off with a group of them capturing the party and releasing them on a tropical island. For a training hunt. The seriousness of the situation was punctuated by the pre-release luau featuring roast cabin boys.

2) In my current campaign W.I.P., I'm using a group of Awakened trees as a significant political force. Depending upon the species of tree, you can have all kinds of fun- especially if they've got some unusual features, like Aspen (See post #41 in http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=102706&page=2&pp=30). Besides Aspen, trees feature thorns, toxins and even hallucinogenic compounds.

In that campaign, the Trees are benevolent. However, there are many stories that detail what would happen if the plants got ticked off- the original Thing, Swamp Thing, Man-Thing, Dr. Who (Seeds of Doom), Creepshow, Day of the Triffids, and many others.

What Makes Them Fun: Plants are tough and resilient, like undead that most can't turn. Unlike most invaders, all they'd have to do to establish a beachead is leave some seedlings behind. Sure, the party battled off the initial invading force at the interdimensional breach, but what about 50 years later when wind and waved tossed seeds have sprouted a whole new force of attackers without the obvious beacon of a rent in the fabric of the PMP? "When burnham wood comes to dunsinane," indeed.

NOTE: If you like the idea of trees, but don't want the hassles, go with Myconids. All the fun, and if the game doesn't consider fungi plants (I don't have my books handy), then even a cleric can't turn them. And spores are even tougher than seeds to get rid of....

3) In my current campaign W.I.P., I'm also using a sentient race of arthropods. I started off with Thri-Kreen, and made 2 species: one increased in size and became aquatic, the other dropped a size and became flyers...and more has changed since then.

What Makes Them Fun: Arthropods have more varieties & surprises than just about any other life form on Earth- beyond their physical features, most species have chemical aids like poisons, acids, glues/webs, repellents and even thermal agents. Some parasitic species can even alter the behavior of their hosts (much like was seen in Star Trek Next Gen).

4) Aberrations or Far-Realm critters of any kind. I'm designing a Mutants & Masterminds War of the Worlds campaign, and I'm trying to decide which would be better- Aboleths or Beholders. Both work.

My current campaign W.I.P also features Illithids as seen in Lords of Madness as the ultimate villains. In order to facilitate their ascencion to power, Mind-Flayers from the future crash asteroids into the planet, destroying most of surface civilization. Due to a navigational error, they also crash their ship, leaving only an insane, amnesiac Elder Brain and a few damaged Mind-Flayers to continue the mission.

 

[C.W.Richeson]

I just want to say that this has been an extremely productive thread and I have dozens of great ideas to sort through - thanks!

It's picking that's hard

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Nazis. Nazis make gaming fun. Hitler's fascination with the occult leads the Third Reich to technology that breaches the barrier between worlds and he seeks all the magic items he can lay hands on.