So we have our gatehouse on the causeway with its undead guards. We have marshes patrolled by roving undead but where do all these undead come from?
I want a necromancer, but not just any necromancer.
Some where in this city there is going to be access to an underground lake and lurking in the depths of that lake is our Necromancer!
The bottom of a pool is not the usual place to find necromancers, well not BEFORE the party meet them anyway.
I rather like the way that RMU applies Archetypes to any creature to create a unique build. I want to do something similar to that here but using RM2/RMC stats.
You will also remember from the first post in this group that I want to make all of this scale-able to a wide range of character levels.
So our scary monster is going to be an off the shelf creature and then tweaked to make a suitable Super Creep.
I want to start with an Octopus(!). I then want to apply one or possibly two changes to it. The first of which is to give it a profession.
A professional octopus?
Just because Octopi don’t wear tee-shirts and buy coffee at Starbucks does not mean they are not intelligent. They are just differently intelligent. So this Octopus is a cleric and an evil cleric to boot!
A large octopus/squid has 30′ tentacles, is 6th level and has an +80OB which is a fair challenge for a low level party. If we give it the Necromancy (Base) and Calm Spirits (Closed Channeling) lists you have an interesting villain. A 6th level evil cleric given enough time a bit of overcasting or ritual can create type I and II undead and control them. So the villain at the heart of the city can create the undead that protects the city. It has had plenty of time to build its minions so that is all consistent.
So lets scale up our Super Creep.
Using the RAW for GIGANTISM (C&T pages 139 for the RMC version of the book) one increase in size for our octopus takes it from 6th level to 14th level. It also takes its #hits from 70 to 160. As an 14th level Evil Cleric we are now able to create (at a push) Type IV undead. Type IV include Ghosts and Spectres that are up to about 10th level monsters. The Octopus itself now had an OB of 100 and is doing Huge Grapple attacks.
Want something tougher?
Lets scale him up once more!
So with two levels of size increase we have an Octopus that is 16th level, 180#hits and OB of 120. Its criticals are reduced by 2 levels so ignores A&B crits.
I think this kind of end of level boss makes a wonderful Cthulhuesque mastermind. You can be pretty sure that he party will never have met one before and to be honest I doubt if anyone would be expecting the giant octopus to be a spell caster! That should make the players have to reevaluate their tactics at some point if nothing else.
So what comes next?
I would like to introduce two things, first, something that the party need to bring back from the city, their primary quest. I like the idea of this being so big it needs a cart. I am thinking of some kind of throne that just happens to be sunk at the bottom of the pool.
I also want some interesting suggestions for some ‘set play’ encounters. Something challenging for the players to showcase the city of undead.
Any suggestions?