In need of an elder race (master)

[Hand of Evil]

Starting to work on a new world and find myself in need of an elder race that once had the power to enslave the other races. They will fill a campaign plot as the major evil, they try to bring back their glory days.

Mindflayers are my first choice but not really happy with that. Any ideas, thoughts?

Thanks

 

[DaveStebbins]

IMC I had four original intelligent races. I used
mind flayers, snake men (close to yuan ti), elves
and dragons. In ancient times the first two races
enslaved the latter two races (a secret shame the
elves and dragons do not speak of to this day).

The mind flayers and snake men grew in power,
had rival empires spanning the globe and were in
a continual state of war with each other. They
eventually mastered the "shaping" magics and
began creating many of the other races and
monsters which exist. As the levels of their power
and conflict elevated, both races became decadent.
The snake men cursed the mind flayers so that they
could no longer abide the sun and, in retaliation,
the snake men were cursed to become cold-blooded,
dependant upon the sun for the energy to live at all.
After these blows, both races eventually vanished
(almost) completely.

Today, they are only legends, tall tales. Explorers
occasionally find rare and deadly ruins and
exchange legends about remnants of these ancient
civilizations existing under the ground and in the
deepest jungles, plotting returns to glory.

There's more, but this is the basic pre-history of
the campaign I'm creating. Feel free to borrow.

-Dave
"Be who you are and say what you feel 'cause people
who mind don't matter and people who matter don't
mind." --Theodor Suess Geisel (1904-1991), writer

[edited a mistake - never find these errors on the first
check - only after posting -DRS]

 

[Gez]

Beholders, illithids, yuan-ti, ethergaunt... These are some examples. Of course, dragons are always nice too.

But a cool twist would be to have that elder, enslaving race not be something weird with powers over other's willpower (are there enough alliteration there ?). Orcs. Primal, ruthless bullies. Once they were powerful. Once they ruled the world. But they were overconfident in their strength. As time passed, things changed. Slaves eventually became smarter than their masters. They learned to make more efficient material. They develop elaborate combat techniques. All in secret (like the capoeira was disguised as a dance to avoid being recognized as combat training and banned). Insurrections started. Soon, they were successful, and blossomed into a full-fledged revolt.

Now the orcs, bitter and having been forced to a life of wandering and pillage since they've been ousted of their land and always relied on servants for getting food, have fallen deeply. They hate the civilized races all the more. They'll subjugate their former slaves once again, or eradicate them as a punishment.

 

[Grishnak]

How about some good old fashioned undead?? They can leave for ever and could be thrown in as main enemies either for high level characters to fight or for the group to be on a quest when a party of higher level npc's come in the nick of time to save the pc's leaving the pc's level enemies to fight and a nice little scare for the pc's if the good npc's start dropping.

 

[Argent Silvermage]

How about dinosaurs.

What if the dinos had a sentient off shoot that could control their larger cousins. you could use the stats for a lizardman to represent the "dino race". They have been living for centuries in a protected environment untill some beings from the underdark find a way into their world and they suddenly realise that they have been living in a "holo-world" for centuries and want the beings who kept them captive destroyed.

It would allow you to create some wonderful new items that would have the players puzzled for hours and an entire new language based on scent that even the best rogue would need help with (except maybe a Gnome.)
Just think about the PCs faces when they showup riding Triceratops! Laugh out loud fun.

 

[Derulbaskul]

How about using the malafides from Mindscapes? The stats are also freely available from Monte Cook's website.

Alternatively, for something different, how about fey?

Cheers
D

 

[Hand of Evil]

How about dinosaurs.

What if the dinos had a sentient off shoot that could control their larger cousins. you could use the stats for a lizardman to represent the "dino race". They have been living for centuries in a protected environment untill some beings from the underdark find a way into their world and they suddenly realise that they have been living in a "holo-world" for centuries and want the beings who kept them captive destroyed.

It would allow you to create some wonderful new items that would have the players puzzled for hours and an entire new language based on scent that even the best rogue would need help with (except maybe a Gnome.)
Just think about the PCs faces when they showup riding Triceratops! Laugh out loud fun.

Been thinking about this but have done it in my Plateau world, which was based on the Land of the Lost

 

[Argent Silvermage]

Been thinking about this but have done it in my Plateau world, which was based on the Land of the Lost

Great minds thing alike.

I'll have a new idea later today.

 

[Castlin]

But a cool twist would be to have that elder, enslaving race not be something weird with powers over other's willpower (are there enough alliteration there ?). Orcs

In our campaign, all the goblinoids and the orcs were once one powerful race. For various reasons, they became divided and weakened. Not many of them know this, but those that do are very dangerous in their efforts to recover their glory.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Think I am going to to with an avian race, strong in magic, mosty devices. It will be a raptor race, that sees the other races as a food source, which caused the building of underground complexes.