Limited-Resource Campaign Design

[phindar]

For me, Grimlocks have always sort of stood in for Morlocks, but I'll admit that I'm most familiar with The Time Machine from the 60's movie. I caught it in a block with The Mysterious Island and Jack the Giant Killer. TNT used to show movies like these on MonsterVision nights. Good times.

To that end, Morlocks reminded me as much of the guy's ancestors in Rats in the Walls (since we're talking Lovecraft) as the monsters of Pickman's model. Perhaps during the bad times some of the humans retreated deep underground, became even more inbred, degenerate, and cannabilistic, and all thats left are these bat-blind neanderthals.

The Yuan-ti connection reminds me a little of Conan. But if you take low fantasy with Lovecraft influences for secret cults and include some evil snakemen, that's prime Savage Sword of Conan right there. Good times there too.

I do like the Anything-Goes nature of D&D for some games, but I think the limited resource approach has some real merit. I think it adds more consistency to the game worlds, and it has the benefit of making the weird things seem weirder. While I agree that in D&D we are limited only by our imaginations (and that this is more of a limitation on some days than others), when you restrict yourself to a limited amount of material, you end up forcing yourself to be even more creative.

 

[Kaodi]

What if you took an alternate tack, and instead of being the descendants of celestials and fiends mixed with humans, aasimar and tieflings were the pure-blooded descendants or celestials and fiends made mortal by displeased deities during the great war between the two factions?

 

[Doghead Thirteen]

I like this. So the abduction of children would be motivated by what the yuan-ti are doing to the grimlocks, but not at their behest . . . nice.

My joke wasn't intended as a criticism; I tend to make light of things I like.

The way this is shaping up is starting to remind me of the most successful campaign I ever ran - layers within layer, each level of bad guy manipulating the next, until it all leads back to one power-behind-the-throne. The idea of the grimlocks desperately trying to revitalise their genetics is great - it'll give the players a shock to the moral circuits when they find the 'napped kids (some now adult) are treated like a vital member of the family... could lead to some gut-wrenching scenes for the players, especially if the human society regards the grimlocks as the bogeyman... god, I love this kinda stuff!

Just make sure the guy at the top of the pyramid is a suitably nasty piece of work. In the campaign I mentioned before, the whole chain led to a guy who regarded these self-aware androids the players were desperately trying to protect as an easy source of machine parts. The bad guy in question was utterly evil, but believably so; he was a sociopath, so he didn't really regard anyone else as anything but tools, threats or annoyances. Even now, five years later, some of my players get angry at the mere mention of that bad guy's *name*.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

So, what are the Y-T trying to do? perfect soldiers, contagion, infection with Y-T blood? Messing with because they can?

My gut feeling is that the yuan-ti are trying to bolster the grimlocks as a credible threat to the human settlements in the region, simplifying their ultimate goal of bringing them all under the yuan-ti's control.

More than just pushing them into confrontation and whipping them into a frenzy, the yuan-ti might be magically altering the grimlocks to make them more dangerous - but, since they know what was done to them and how, their human pawns will have access to the right strategies to neutralise the threat and justify their rise to power.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Along with the grimlocks, you could throw in some mongrelmen. I've liked those guys ever since the AD&D days. I think they are in the FF or MM2, now.

If the roster weren't fixed, I could see that, for sure. As it is, it seems like the grimlock is being thrust into the mongrelman's "creature of mad wizardry" role anyway.

For the shadows, there are a couple of templates that might be useful. In Manual of the Planes (3.0) there's an umbral (?) template -- name may not be exact -- and in Planar Handbook there's another, similar template that is 3.5-i-fied.

I think those templates are for creatures of the Plane of Shadow, unfortunately, but they might work! I could always massage them into an undead form.

Also, if you're familiar with Sagiro's or spyscribe's story hours, there are the null shadows. Nasty blokes, those. (I can dig up the link if you want.)

I'm not familiar with those story hours - it would be interesting to see them. Thanks!

 

[mhacdebhandia]

To that end, Morlocks reminded me as much of the guy's ancestors in Rats in the Walls (since we're talking Lovecraft) as the monsters of Pickman's model. Perhaps during the bad times some of the humans retreated deep underground, became even more inbred, degenerate, and cannabilistic, and all thats left are these bat-blind neanderthals.

That works very well as the genesis of the grimlock race, yeah. I kind of like the way the war between the fiends and celestials is shaping up to be the One Big Moment that decides everything . . . except the ankhegs and formians, of course.

The Yuan-ti connection reminds me a little of Conan. But if you take low fantasy with Lovecraft influences for secret cults and include some evil snakemen, that's prime Savage Sword of Conan right there. Good times there too.

That's why I love them.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

What if you took an alternate tack, and instead of being the descendants of celestials and fiends mixed with humans, aasimar and tieflings were the pure-blooded descendants or celestials and fiends made mortal by displeased deities during the great war between the two factions?

I honestly don't know what role deities would play in this setting, if any. It's so focused on the fiends and celestials that I'm inclined to keep it that way.

That being said, it's an intriguing idea. The catastrophe at the end of the war could just have easily rendered the fiends and celestials mortal as it could have effected my original idea: destroying them and spreading their essence far and wide so that tieflings and aasimar were spontaneously born from human parents.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

The idea of the grimlocks desperately trying to revitalise their genetics is great - it'll give the players a shock to the moral circuits when they find the 'napped kids (some now adult) are treated like a vital member of the family... could lead to some gut-wrenching scenes for the players, especially if the human society regards the grimlocks as the bogeyman... god, I love this kinda stuff!

Oh, definitely. I like the idea of confronting the PCs with the fact that the grimlocks are going to have to find some way out of their degenerate predicament . . . but can they do it without kidnapped human breeding stock? Do you let a manipulated, mutated race die just because you can't deal with the implications of their best chance for survival?

Just make sure the guy at the top of the pyramid is a suitably nasty piece of work. In the campaign I mentioned before, the whole chain led to a guy who regarded these self-aware androids the players were desperately trying to protect as an easy source of machine parts. The bad guy in question was utterly evil, but believably so; he was a sociopath, so he didn't really regard anyone else as anything but tools, threats or annoyances. Even now, five years later, some of my players get angry at the mere mention of that bad guy's *name*.

Well, at the top of the yuan-ti's chain of command would definitely be either Dispater or Glasya. Easy to hate an archdevil, I feel!

 

[phindar]

That works very well as the genesis of the grimlock race, yeah. I kind of like the way the war between the fiends and celestials is shaping up to be the One Big Moment that decides everything . . . except the ankhegs and formians, of course.

As for the ankhegs and the formians... have a look at the Quotes Page for The Hellstrom Chronicle. There's also Alien and Aliens. Those were always my goto inspirations for Shadowrun's Insect Spirits.

 

[Firedancer]

The idea of the grimlocks desperately trying to revitalise their genetics is great - it'll give the players a shock to the moral circuits when they find the 'napped kids (some now adult) are treated like a vital member of the family... could lead to some gut-wrenching scenes for the players, especially if the human society regards the grimlocks as the bogeyman... god, I love this kinda stuff!

Wow, I really hadn't thought through to the conclusion of that idea. That is a gem.
<looks to his own forming campaign world for a way to fit this in>