What do you find in a city of aberrations?

[shilsen]

Dead adventurers

Are you talking about things that are already there? Or are soon to be ?

so much chattel...

well not now. but where there used to be. stockyards, slavepens, and such.
piles of bones where they died. starved themselves to death without their masters. or went crazy and drew graffiti on the walls.

Niiiiiiice.

I believe we've found a replacement for Kenji's dagger. Too good to wear the Hand of Glory around his delicate neck, is he? I'll show him... Oh God, one of Nadir's eyes... perfect.

Man, that's just brilliant!

Good stuff, BTW.

(I'll try to think up something later this afternoon. Perhaps an insect theme. If they can survive the A-bomb, then they can certainly survive some horror from beyond space bleeding into reality. Hmmmm, swarms of diminuitive creatures with some templates applied. Could be icky...)

From the "Creepy..." thread and others here, I've gathered that the two elements in a situation that players find most creepy are babies and insects. Even better are insects in babies.

 

[jaerdaph]

What about a public bath house, but instead of the usual hot water and steam that humanoids find soothing, what if there were more noxious and toxic liquids and substances, or oozes, slimes and other hazards?

 

[shilsen]

Thirty foot tall morbidly obese hobgoblins, so fat they can barely move. With regeneration.
(The aberrations use them for a food source: just chop off a bit and cook it. Or not, I suppose, depending on your tastes and biochemistry.)
Bonus points if the hobgoblins have retained some fragment of sanity and beg the adventurers to kill them.
Double bonus points if the hobgoblins have become masochists and ask the adventurers in for dinner.

Oh, that's perfect! I've had one of my players talking of getting a Ring of Regeneration at some point (which, at 90,000 gp, is way out of the PCs' league now) and had thought of having the PCs get one with a few drawbacks. I'd been thinking of having it on a hobgoblin that the aberrations were torturing and using as a template to try experiments on, with the Ring being used to keep it alive. But the idea of giant obese hobgoblins used as a food source is way better.

And I'd planned to have the creature be primarily insane but beg them to be killed. The masochism angle is way better.

Sightless bugbear used as mounts by tiny blue, who dominate them into submission and use them for extra muscle in combat.

A hive of psuedonatural insects with a group mind. Psychic, too. And look! it's recruiting new help! All it has to do is destroy your old minds...

A "bitepike"...a long chitinous shaft with a tiny creature mounted on the end. Whenever the tiny creature touches living flesh, it bites it and hangs on like a terrier.
Bonus points if it drains blood.
Double bonus points if it injects the targets blood into the wielder, healing him...whether he wants it to or not.

Flying aboleth. Aboleth are just freaky.

Wizened fetal blue with enormous, silently floating through the hallways, eyes closed listening to a telepathic beacon only they can hear. Real sounds make them open their eyes.
It's not good when their eyes open.

A psion uncarnate who escaped the aberrations only by reaching 10th level in his PRC. Maybe he's helpful, maybe he's sane...pick one. Only one.

*cackles with glee*

 

[Mallus]

Even better are insects in babies.

I'm positive "Bug-filled Fetus Hurler" is a PrC...

 

[demiurge1138]

so much chattel...

well not now. but where there used to be. stockyards, slavepens, and such.
piles of bones where they died. starved themselves to death without their masters. or went crazy and drew graffiti on the walls.

So much chattel... still walking around. Humanoid corpses animated by the rot reavers, hideous tumor-covered ape-things whose necrotic saliva saps the life of the living and animates the dead. Whenever they get hungry, the aberrations just go to the zombie pits, hack off a few limbs, and move on.

Emotion generators. Huge pulsing semi-organic gems mounted into ceilings. The illithids use them as a form of social entertainment - they project into the mind feelings like pride, satisfaction, and superiority. And then they can be turned into defensive points, triggering emotions like despair, hopelessness and uncontrollable rage in intruders.

As for treasure, I think the perfect example of the sort of thing you're looking for is the "magus fin" from the novel The Scar. It's a piece of organic tissue mounted in a statue, and a human "kisses" the statue, letting it bite his tongue, in order to gain its power - the ability to walk through walls, camouflage and a breath weapon of acid - for a short period of time. But the more it's used, the more it changes the user, warping their flesh and driving them insane (Dex and Wis damage, maybe? Pseudonatural template eventually).

Demiurge out.

 

[Mallus]

As for treasure, I think the perfect example of the sort of thing you're looking for is the "magus fin" from the novel The Scar

Speaking of The Scar, you don't remember the deal, or the name, of Uthor Doul's sword, do you? I seem to recall it had a power cord, and a really interesting way of functioning that seemed appropriate, in the way something you don't actually remember can seem appropriate in just about any context...

 

[demiurge1138]

Speaking of The Scar, you don't remember the deal, or the name, of Uthor Doul's sword, do you? I seem to recall it had a power cord, and a really interesting way of functioning that seemed appropriate, in the way something you don't actually remember can seem appropriate in just about any context...

Doul's sword was a Possible Sword. It could be used as normal, although its odd construction and ceramic nature made it a difficult (Exotic) weapon to learn. But it did have a cord, that was attached to a belt-worn probability generator. When activated (the thing has charges), it would strike with all possible outcomes of the swing - so someone would have to be well-trained in its use to not cut off his own head.

Modeling it in D&D terms, I'd say it'd act as if you'd rolled every number between 1 and 20, ignoring critical misses and critical hits. Or including those two if you felt like being mean. Obviously artifact level, but including a Possible Sword with one or two charges might be kind of cool. Or one with more charges, but with some sort of curse for being exposed to the energies of Xoriat's spawn for so long...

Demiurge out.

 

[Quartz]

And you definitely want eery musical piping. If they listen to it hard enough, they can make out words...

 

[Piratecat]

Imagine a building constructed solely of flies... hundreds of thousands of buzzing, swarming flies. They don't bite unless you try to walk through a wall, but they all stay in the places where walls and floors would be. They feed on the corpses of all the millions of flies that have already died, and live out their lives worshipping a fly-thing that lives in the tower's basement.

 

[Zog]

Will saves. Lots and lots of will saves. Just ask them for their bonus, and roll it secretly. Then smile. And listen, and spot.

And hand out notes. Small, brief notes. Things that they see, or hear or smell. Strange disturbing things - at least at first.

'That design on the wall is very wrong, it makes you feel wierd. Like something is crawling in your spine'

'The wall carvings have some meaning, or pattern, but you can't figure it out. Interesting. Okay, wierd, but interesting.'

'The strange carvings seem to grow out from this point here. What does it mean? You must know!'

And

'The music is vaguely discordiant. But kind of nice.'

"The peaceful music briefly gets louder, but is drowned up by a gurggling scream"

'THe relaxing music is definately coming from this direction. I wonder who is making it?'

'You wish your party members would be quieter, so you could hear the sweet music better'

'Ah, music, sweet music, it swells louder now, and sway and you can see the first hint of sweet colors'