Need evil race, weak against arcane magic

[Sir Whiskers]

Now I can take PirateCat's idea (-4 to saves vs. arcane) and tack that onto anything, to ensure I get the effect I want. The essence is, the BBEGs are vulnerable to magic, to promote the idea of why they've been wiping out mages, and/or redirecting them. I don't want them to melt at the slightest touch of a Mage, but I do want having a Mage in your party more effective than not having a Mage in your party. The question is, what race should I use?

Not sure this fits your "arcane-vulnerable" theme, but rakshasas are outstanding, powerful villains. Just change their SR so that it doesn't work vs. arcane magic.

For something a bit weaker, consider ogre-mages.

I second the suggestion for slaadi.

Spirit naga.

Efreeti.

Driders.

Keep in mind that you can beef up the weaker races with extra levels, so if you used ogre-mages, you might have the default creature be an ogre mage with 6 fighter levels (or whatever).

 

[Janx]

The Sheens were cool. Oddly enough, several of the players think I'm running a StarTrek Enterprise-like game, so the Sheens=borg would be funny....

These are all good ideas. I'll need to pull out the books and check out the monster suggestions. I was looking for something non-humanoid for the shadows. I think I was to use mind-flayers for the Drakh.

Now transforming mages into dragons (representing Shadow Vessels) could be interesting (gives the big Combat Machine effect). As does infecting them with Sheen tech for some sort of control thing (useful for Season4's telepath control implants). As an emulation, I don't have to match everything exactly. The framework is what we're after, as it has all the elements to a good story (heck, I can't ensure my party will actually get to Babylon5's equivalent).

My initial idea was Gold Dragons as Vorlons (they've got that polymorph thing going on) as Red Dragons as Shadows. It's pretty obvious they hate each other. Both sides are likely to not go directly at it, when they can use others. I was a bit concerned that that might be too obvious, or that I couldn't get the mage vs. shadow thing working right.

So the ideas I've found here give me some more to work with and check out.

Thanks,
Janx