D&D General Island of science experiments

[der_kluge]

In a campaign I'm working on, I've devised an island that requires a constant supply of slaves. These slaves are divided up into a variety of ways on the island, because there are several entities here which require them for experimentation, or other purposes. A small town exists to supply these entities with basic needs, and the "scientists" leave the local citizens alone, because they sort of rely on them in a perverted kind of way. The citizenry are sort of happy with this bizarre arrangement, since they know that they are at least safe from attack from... well, anything, really.

The main experiment I'm including here is a wizard with the "Apparatus" - a giant artifact which can transfer the intellect from one creature into another creature. So, he has mostly perfected this device up to this point, but it still exists, and is being tended to by some acolytes (Still fleshing that out)

Other ideas:
A mind flayer lives here, and feeds on slaves, and studies... I don't know, whatever. He's a mind flayer. He could be a poet laureate for all I care. He just needs brains to survive.
An alchemist is trying to perfect a potion to reverse stone to flesh. It works - some of the time. A medusa on the island helps create test subjects for him.
A vampire lives on the island. He requires fresh food.
A Talonite priest needs subjects to test vile poisons and diseases on. He tends to go through lots of subjects.
Maybe another wizard is working on building flesh golems, and needs... body parts.

I need some more ideas. Basically, the island should keep a party busy for quite some time, if they can manage to successfully deal with each horrible thing one at a time without arousing suspicion from the local populace.

 

[Tonguez]

A mad druid has been trying to combine beasts to make new beast, so far he has only been successful with his Owlbear, a platypus, and a few mongrelmen.

A cabal of rich merchants have teamed with a alchemist is to create the elixir of immortality - unfortunately the main ingredient is the spinal fluid of virgins.

and what if the vampire isnt a vampire - maybe he got a disease from the Talonite priest and now needs weekly full blood transfusions to survive.

 

[Bitbrain]

The island was once home to a demiplane-hopping civilization. One archmage is exploring the different planar gates and creating a map of the different pocket dimensions.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

This mind flayer is studying the inventiveness of the humanoid mind and many esoteric sciences. They are the one responsible for the weirdness of the island: When they find a slave with interesting ideas they imbed a compulsion to try them out and remove any moral compunctions, then give them some resources and set them off.

There are two other small communities on the island:
In one, the inhabitants change their currency from leaves, to seashells, to rocks with holes in, to elf eyeballs on a weekly basis. The walls shift and configure into different mazes through a mix of actual physical changes and illusions. Food is scarce, contains addictive drugs, and only provided through strange tasks and challenges that change daily.
- The village is run by a small cabal of mad social scientists.

In the other community, everyone seems to act normally - obsessively so. They address each other as "Fellow human" even when of a different race and spend their time intently doing caricatures of normal everyday tasks.
- This is actually an Intellect Devourer training camp. All the inhabitants are intellect devourers that have been instructed to remain strictly "in character" at all times. A new batch of slaves is introduced every so often to evaluate how good the intellect devourers are at pretending to be normal people, and a few of the slaves have actually managed to blend in and survive several cycles.

 

[aco175]

I find that it breaks verisimilitude if there are monsters working with the town unless there is a good story to go with it. Just saying that a mind flayer is working for the lord and gets brains in return is ok, but could be better. The evil vizier behind the lord has the mind flayer as a prisoner while he plots to take command of the kingdom is better. Throw in that the mind flayer is playing the vizier in another plot where he is taking control on his mind, using the machine that he helped design.

 

[Oofta]

The villain has really, really good reason for what they're doing.

It's horrible, but there is a disease/curse that must be stopped at any cost. If they don't stop it, the entire region is endangered. Unfortunately testing on human subjects is the only way to perfect the preventative measures, and they are getting close, they need just a few more subjects.

There's an all-powerful monster that demands being fed. Right now, it's half-comatose and they're being fed just enough to keep it from waking up. Feed it any less and it will get so hungry that it will wake up. If it does wake up, far more people will die.

The people being kidnapped really have been infected, and there is a high chance they will be incredibly dangerous if left to live. But there's always that chance that they might not be infected so kidnapping them and holding them in isolated quarantine is the only option.

They simply believe they have a really good reason. It's a celestial who is trying to save as many people as they can before something bad happens. They have been magically duped to believe that they are doing a good thing, sending people on to your world's version of heaven before their souls are destroyed. Perhaps they believe the people they sacrifice have been infected and they only have so much time to save them.

Hmm ... some of these are giving me ideas.

 

[monsmord]

I'd be down for an intelligent carnivorous plant, especially if it's a scientist.

I expect there's a limited supply of bodies. At least, I hope so! That means competition or an "understanding" between the researchers. None of them can claim exclusivity of the village help without provoking the wrath of the others. So maybe there's "corporate espionage" or "poaching" of bodies between the researchers. This might allow the party to play some off against the others, adding some intrigue and non-combat skill sets to the mix. It also means the party might have to face whatever agents the researchers are sending against one another, which could be unique monsters but could also be lower-level humanoid minions or capable hired help.

Maybe there's a certain chain of needs. Say, researcher A is working on poisons, B is working on building the "perfect warrior," C is combining bodies, D is the "vampire" who needs blood, E is doing the mind swap, F is doing planar work, G is working on total magic nullification, etc. While they all rely on the village for "fresh meat," they also realize that some of their subjects can be used for more than one set of research. So what happens when one subject is used for more than one research project? Do you wind up with a planewalking mongrel super-warrior immune to poisons and magic and regenerating off blood and inhabited by the mind of a [insert the name one of your campaign villains here]? Boss fight!

 

[GMMichael]

The citizenry are sort of happy with this bizarre arrangement, since they know that they are at least safe from attack from... well, anything, really. . .

The main experiment I'm including here is a wizard with the "Apparatus" - a giant artifact which can transfer the intellect from one creature into another creature. So, he has mostly perfected this device up to this point, but it still exists, and is being tended to by some acolytes (Still fleshing that out) . . .

I need some more ideas. Basically, the island should keep a party busy for quite some time, if they can manage to successfully deal with each horrible thing one at a time without arousing suspicion from the local populace.

The locals are a superstitious bunch. They believe in a unique god that takes a horrible toll whenever their ecosystem is upset or when they try to leave the island. So they don't complain about anything that doesn't rouse that god.

Those god myths come from the fact that the island is a terrasque, earth elemental, or some sort of living curse.

 

[der_kluge]

sniff I love you guys. This is great stuff. Like, I would have never imagined a town full of intellect devourers. Jesus Christ!
@Cap'n Kobold I like your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

The crux of the campaign is that a goblin alchemist (wizard, though I'll probably stat it as an alchemist once Tasha's is released) intends to use the Apparatus to transfer his intellect into that of a Tarrasque that he's located. Actually, it makes more sense that some Malar priests located it, trying to find the "worthiest" adversary. He's mostly doing this because he has a Napoleon complex. But I love the idea of a mind flayer basically convincing him of the idea to pursue his lofty goals. Perhaps the mind flayer did that decades ago, but it sort of set a precedence for the island itself. So now, every villain who needs an evil lair basically sets up shop here and as long as they work within the rules of the island, they are free to experiment with impunity.

Or, a bunch of them could be dopplegangers. Or both. There's room enough for multiple villages. And enough crazy weirdness that a group of PCs could more or less move around without arousing too much suspicion.

But my god, the optics of an intellect devourer addressing another as "fellow human" - that's too good!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I find that it breaks verisimilitude if there are monsters working with the town unless there is a good story to go with it. Just saying that a mind flayer is working for the lord and gets brains in return is ok, but could be better. The evil vizier behind the lord has the mind flayer as a prisoner while he plots to take command of the kingdom is better. Throw in that the mind flayer is playing the vizier in another plot where he is taking control on his mind, using the machine that he helped design.

Howzabout this: the townies are actually Damned souls given corporeal form, “purchased” or leased from an infernal lord to be the “company town” for the island. It gets paid in the souls of the victims of the experiments.

They don‘t give a damn ahem about what else goes on on the island because- for them- living on the island is a vacation- a better fate than they imagined possible.