Breathing New Life Into Old Monsters

[Dilvish the Deliverer]

Well, if the players are anything live mine, they would now down the slaves on the way to the big bass. For the greater good of course. Bloody murder hobos.

[TGP]

Well, if the players are anything live mine, they would now down the slaves on the way to the big bass. For the greater good of course. Bloody murder hobos.

 

Pass out more Wands of Paralysis and Kitten Summoning?

 

Instead of Wands of Striking or Monster Summoning...

 

@OneBoot (or anyone.. ? ...idk) what if someday, some party discovered a:

 

Wand of Montrous Kitten Summoning

[dsmiles]

 Bloody murder hobos.

Did you expect otherwise?

 

It's why I do away with alignment and use a more subjective morality instead. Is what your character doing actually right and good? Should you really be killing those goblin noncombatants?

[Chaoswolf]

 

Well, if the players are anything live mine, they would now down the slaves on the way to the big bass. For the greater good of course. Bloody murder hobos.

 

Pass out more Wands of Paralysis and Kitten Summoning?

 

Instead of Wands of Striking or Monster Summoning...

 

@OneBoot (or anyone.. ? ...idk) what if someday, some party discovered a:

 

Wand of Montrous Kitten Summoning

 

Dire tigers.

[joshuaslater]

Any character of mine would be more liable to join the pleasure cult.

[PingosHusband]

Well, if the players are anything live mine, they would now down the slaves on the way to the big bass. For the greater good of course. Bloody murder hobos.

 

Part of the fun aspect of this kind of change is that the servants of the Illithids aren't mindless drones, but a fanatical, intelligent cult of servants eager to defend their source of pleasure.  Thus mind flayer cities would have vast support structures and thriving economies as the people seek to outdo each other in order to get more tentacle.

 

My players don't tend to be murder hoboes (we've been playing together for about 30 years and our munchkin phase was a long time ago), so I have the luxury of putting in more complex nuanced elements in the game.  I have found that making the adventures require care and intelligence to complete successfully (as well as making them open ended as to what the players can do) can wean most players away from murder hobodom.

[Dilvish the Deliverer]

oh, my players are capable of it, but after nearly two decades of only playing one to two days a year, nuanced, thought provoking games have pretty much become extinct.

 

It tends to become a race to see if we can finish the adventure in the one or two days allotted.

[joshuaslater]

PingosHusband I want to thank you for such a cool post. I've been contemplating the idea off and on all day, and I've decided to shamelessly steal this when next I run a campaign.

[Pingo]

I like the idea that the Gith are immune by way of being dour, the Githyanki by grouchiness and the Githzerai by asceticism.

[canuckotter]

Alternatively: The gith were their slaves for generations, and the mind flayers weren't planning ahead and kept eating their most devoted followers before they had kids. The end result was that only the folks who weren't affected by the tentacles reproduced... Unintentional selective breeding at its finest!  

[kitchen_wolf]

I'm not sure that "Scheming Addicts" = "Willing Servants".  Seems it wouldn't take too long for someone to lock one of the the tentacled perverts in the cellar sans teeth (so that it could only eat pureed brains provided by the captors) and any other inconvenient body parts (partial lobotomy?).  Some call humans the Killing Ape.  All apes kill - humans are the only primates that enslave.

Wand of Kitten Summoning.   Use at your own risk.

[TGP]

Some call humans the Killing Ape. All apes kill - humans are the only primates that enslave.

Or, is it that humans are the only primates that will sometimes accept slavery to avoid being killed?

 

Wand of Kitten Summoning.

A cat that once employed my Dad as a servitor used to jump on the kitchen counter, utter the verbal components of the Summon Human spell, so that my Dad would wield that very Wand of Tin Opening.

 

Then the cat would lick all the tasty juice, leave the pile of cat food for laters, and dismiss his servitor.

 

Don't worry, those kittens will soon get the hang of it.

[Cranky Dog]

Love the idea! But that idea that needs expanding.

 

For example, what happens to the 'freed' slaves once the meddling heroes come in and wipe out the illithids? Any withdrawal symptoms? Will the lower castes rise up against the formerly addicted overseers that took all the credit for themselves? The society is productive, will it fall into despair? Will the ex-slaves rise up against the meddling heroes? Will everyone try to find another source of 'pleasure' (alcoholism, alchemical drug addictions)?

 

I'm already conceiving the idea that the slaves that were 'tentacle-touched' the most often, would slowly morph into Gith-like creatures (minus the psionic powers).

[kitchen_wolf]

TGP - we don't only enslave other humans.  Gorillas don't yoke oxen and hit them with a whip to get them to plow, or put a ring around a cormorant's neck so that it can't swallow the fish it catches and has to find someone with a knife and take the share they give it.  Enslavement isn't really about the threat of death, it's about power balance. Making others *believe* in your place at the top of the hierarchy.  If you convinced the populace that the Mind Flayers are angels and the tentacle touch was Holy Rapture, anyone planning calamari rings is in very deep kimchi indeed.  There are a lot of historical and contemporary cults that use pharmacologically altered states to their advantage, notably the Assassins.

 

 

Kittens are born knowing all about enslaving apes, hairless or otherwise:

[TheAuldGrump]

I'm not sure that "Scheming Addicts" = "Willing Servants".  Seems it wouldn't take too long for someone to lock one of the the tentacled perverts in the cellar sans teeth (so that it could only eat pureed brains provided by the captors) and any other inconvenient body parts (partial lobotomy?).  Some call humans the Killing Ape.  All apes kill - humans are the only primates that enslave.

Wand of Kitten Summoning.   Use at your own risk.

When I was a very Young Grump, C. 1969 or so, we had a cat that would push down on the electric can opener, and watch the other two cats come running....

 

The Auld Grump