The Fleshweaver & my PCs (ideas requested)

[blargney the second]

How long did he have them unconscious? Hours, days, weeks? Months, years - was he lying about the Alienist's time bomb?
-blarg

 

[Black_Swan]

None of them has left with their original body except for the warforged who was ignored. he has no flesh and is of no use to the elf.

They wake up 2 months later after the fleshweaver has had enough time to grow a replica of each of them in his laboratory. he then transplanted their brains from the original body into the new one.

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It's unfortunate that the new bodies won't last. He's been working on this problem for years now and doesn't quite understand what's going wrong. Perhaps it's the quality of the subjects he's been working on? Now that he has a chance to test it on some strong souls, he'll be able to see if his experiment works.

He has some high paying and vain investors who are very interested in an eternal life of beauty. Not that he needs the money but sometimes it's not what you know it's who you know that counts, and some of his experiments require a certain finesse that he himself cannot conjure.

Past experiments have had some peculiar results. After a month the bodies slowly begin to decay, and magical healing becomes less and less effective. Subjects begin to exhibit feelings of detachment. Staring at their own reflection for hours as if they were viewing some sort of alien visage. It's as if the soul begins to slowly detach from it's new shell, refusing to repair or upkeep the foreign body.

Past subjects have turned to cannibalism. Craving the flesh that falls from their own decaying bodies.

Hopefully things will work out this time. Humans can be so impatient...

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Basically..after a month or two of normal activity you can slowly turn them into intelligent ghouls..throw on the template or modify it for your needs. Their bodies are still intact at the flesh weavers laboratory. They are high level adventurers after all and he may need a bargaining piece if the experiment fails and they come after him.

The rest is up to you.

 

[shilsen]

Re Geas> I always forget...when do the penalties take affect? Are they immediately when they violate the terms or at the end of the day? If it is at the end of the day, then they could still attack and then leave.

You don't have the option to ignore the terms. The penalties are only if you are prevented from carrying them out.

re Simulacra> I like it. I'd prefer imperfect copies or improved copies. Maybe ones with the morality of their creator except loyal to him.

Oh, they'll definitely be improved

I think just leaving the players in a neutral spot with nothing around would be better than risking the confrontation with the fleshweaver.

Actually, and this makes him both creepier and more irritating, I'm planning on him being relatively friendly and talking to the PCs about how he's improved them and how good it'll be for them. Which it will. In a manner of speaking.

Have you looked at the various grafts from Magic of Eberron? I'd imagine that Mordain could have some fun with a few of them. Your players shouldn't be complaining if he's giving them magic items for free!

...or for more fun, some Daelkyr symbionts, although those are somewhat less permanent.

I'm avoiding the symbionts since the shifter already has a couple, but the grafts (flavorwise, not mechanically, mainly since I don't have Magic of Eberron) is what I'm leaning towards. As you say, it'll be magic items for free. With, of course, some minor weaknesses.

 

[blargney the second]

Here's an idea: he cloned them and kept the originals. The players are actually playing the clones but have no idea.

 

[hawkman]

If he has access to the ability, I think that removing a body part (could be as small as a finger or as large as an entire limb) and using lesser or greater restoration to disguise the removal of said part would be good. Perhaps he would then splice the body part with a troll in an attempt to create clones of the heroes that have regenerative abilities (Admittedly, they would also have a troll's weaknesses, but that can always be fixed in a later model, right?).

 

[shilsen]

purely on the experimental side of things...

Very nice! I don't want to go so far as to kill someone's character concept, but some of that is definitely doable, esp. in connection with the graft approach I'm leaning towards.

Is there something like a control bug (think Babylon 5) that can be placed inside them each to stop them returning to hassle him. In fact, get a wierd thing, geas them. Lie to them "One of these is inside each of you. If you approach within 10 feet of me, or dare to draw a blade, these will hurt you. Try it, now" so the geas or some other spell kicks in, queue stun. "Next time, it will be worse, now leave". He gets his own way, he out smarts them, they can actually resolve this block.

Mordain's been messing around with aberrations and the like for ages, so something like that would work well too.

Well, what did he want those samples for in the first place? Your group has a variety of interesting folks in it:

-A warforged is always going to be of interest to someone mucking about with natural life;
-A never-was-a-paladin with a connection to the Silver Flame, something that the elf may be interested in tapping into;
-A shifter whose mutable nature is emphasized by wildshape abilities -- the ability to change form is likely something that intrigues a fellow such as him;
-An alienist, with all the Xoriat-related goodness that entails.

Nevermind the other folks, whom I'm sure all had something they could contribute.

That's precisely the reason he had for asking (which he did, politely, before being refused) them for parts of themselves. He has a theory that the body parts of powerful humanoids retains some of their owners' qualities in them, and wanted to test it out with this bunch, who are exceptionally powerful by Eberron standards.

A Silver Flame Exorcist and an Alienist in the same party...must make for some good interparty discussion

You have NO idea!

 

[shilsen]

A good old fashioned brain swapping. That's the way to go!

Realistically, that's much too evil. Not that this has ever stopped you before, but still.

I'd have done it (and have before, just not in this campaign, if it was a temporary thing (like a magical curse), but with Mordain's approach it would be fairly permanent. But it's tempting!

For his own use, a Chimerical clone. Take the most interesting bits from each of the PCs, and integrate them into a single clone. One that can change its face to look like any of the original "donors". The capabilities of this monstrosity are best left to the DM's twisted imagination, but it's not too difficult to guess that it would *hate* its "parents" beyond the bounds of reason. Having this...thing stalking them, killing off people close to them and casting suspicion on *them*? Evil indeed.

With some effort, he could now engineer an artificial life form with the ability to gain and discard attributes as needed, with a connection to both a strong source of mystical power (the Silver Flame) and a plane that operates on entirely different rules from our own (Xoriat.) This could be a great achievement in and of itself... but it could be an even greater receptacle for his own spirit, as even elves can die of old age eventually.

Some combination of the above is definitely a possibility. Something with a combination of the powers of the alienist and the paladin, able to wildshape/shift partly, somewhat mechanical like the warforged - now that would be an interesting creature. Especially if Mordain takes time to create the perfect version, sending one or more of the earlier and flawed ones out to test them, versions that would coincidentally gravitate towards its 'parents,' as Rolzup put it.

And ironically, I've just finished teaching "Frankenstein" to my students, so I have more than a few ideas to that end.

For self-protection, Geasing them to never bother him again seems best. Simple, effective.

That would last only 18 days, since it's open-ended and can't be completed, but that's long enough for the short term.

How long did he have them unconscious? Hours, days, weeks? Months, years - was he lying about the Alienist's time bomb?

I'm shooting for two weeks. And no, he wasn't lying.

 

[shilsen]

None of them has left with their original body except for the warforged who was ignored. he has no flesh and is of no use to the elf.

...

The rest is up to you.

Now that's just evil

I'm loath to go that far, since it would mean a very fixed direction for the campaign to go for months of in-game time, and one of my significant aims for the campaign (both in general and the specific short term situation in it) is to have it be very open-ended, with the PCs having the option to go in any and every direction. So while I want there to be options for many decisions (with both advantages and disadvantages to each choice), I don't want to end up in a position where the PCs can take only one. But the idea of their new modifications having a certain shelf-life and degrading slowly is definitely a doable one.

Here's an idea: he cloned them and kept the originals. The players are actually playing the clones but have no idea.

I can't really do that because of the situation with the alienist, but having Mordain create clones of them which are functional without the original dying, as a kind of blending of the Clone and Simulacrum spells, combined with the following...

If he has access to the ability, I think that removing a body part (could be as small as a finger or as large as an entire limb) and using lesser or greater restoration to disguise the removal of said part would be good. Perhaps he would then splice the body part with a troll in an attempt to create clones of the heroes that have regenerative abilities (Admittedly, they would also have a troll's weaknesses, but that can always be fixed in a later model, right?).

...is definitely doable.

 

[Mallus]

1) Use mind-reading spells on the party, to determine if they pose a threat and if they have the potential to become unwitting tools.

2) Clone all of them. While some kind of nightmare-chimera made from all of them has a certain special charm, it isn't a particularly efficient use of rat-bastardry. Given your groups level and transportation capabilities, multiple potential opponents would be preferable. Especially if they look exactly like the PC's and happen to be causing trouble in widely-separated parts of world.

Besides, you could always have the clones join together a la Power Rangers for a climactic, albeit goofy, battle.

3) Experiment on the PC's. I don't have a specific suggestions, except...

4) .... you could have their duplicates becoming more like the originals over time, while the originals become decidedly less so, in an appropriately disgusting, though mechanically beneficial manner.

5) Of course, the solution to this problem wouldn't be to kill their dopplegangers. That would be too easy. They'd need to capture them and integrate them back into their bodies. Which would probably have some unpleasant side-effects.

6) I'm picturing Mordain exploiting the party's reputation via the duplicates, using it to facilitate their committing of any number of crimes, against any number of people, in any number of places (worlds?), so that the PC's will have to overcome various former allies and innocents in the process of collecting the clones.

 

[jefgorbach]

Considering he is a transmuting alienist who desires the party to remain alive to protect the Nameless, whose death could/will destroy a large chunk of the camaign....

Geas each with the task to guard Nameless (granted it only lasts two weeks, but THEY dont realize that)

Imbue each with:
- troll blood for regenative powers
- increased natural armor and DR #/-
- boost each class's prime BASE stat for a power-boost to assist with their task
- natural weapons: claws to prevent them from ever being disarmed; perhaps magical ?
- replacement eyes/ears to provide the corresponding racial bonuses
- fighters have magnetic palms preventing them from being disarmed in combat
- alient symbiants/parasites providing hidden abilities at a small cost; says +str,dex but need to eat twice as much or suffer -hp daily to feed it.

depending on many/major visible changes you want to make:
- extra eyes, say a pair in the back of the head to prevent sneak attacks
- extra eye(s) above their normal pair, having a gaze attack (medusa, beholder, etc)
- bonus pair of arms to increase number of attacks
- wings?
- unqiue were-forms, useable at will over time