I've knotted together a scenario, where I would like a bit of help unraveling.
TL;DR backstory of one of my players is that he was orphaned/abandoned as an infant and now he's looking for his parents (or mother actually, since the party killed his father... or the undead form of his father). Aaaaanyway... Recently, this character got possessed by my homebrew monster who took him to Shadowfell, where he eventually killed the monster. In order to return to the Material Plane, he had to solve a puzzle and in order to solve the puzzle he had to pay a price... a memory. The memory the player chose was that when he was a kid he went to the market with his mother and he wanted some new clothes, which his mother didn't get him (he's also quite a fashion "guru", always crafting clothes for himself). This lead into the situation that the prize to leave Shadowfell was the memories of his mother. He remembers him being at the market with someone, but he has no idea with whom and so on. This slightly contradicts his original backstory of being abandoned as a baby.
They'll soon have an opportunity to meet with a devil, who will very kindly offer to return this character's memories to him. Only for the devil to also realize that it's not the first time the character's mind has been tampered with. A devil won't admit they can't do something, so I need to plan out his roleplay accordingly.
Because of the mismatch between the original backstory and the memory the player chose, I decided that he does indeed remember something of his childhood, but they are affected by some other magic. I don't want to use another Shadowfell creature nor another devil. I thought the mother went to a hag to remove her sense of remorse, so that she can leave the baby and advance her own career. At the same time the hag altered the character's mind, so that he would simply forget to think about his parents. In place, the hag would place alternative memories into his mind to fill out gaps.
Now my question is this: which creatures have this sort of memory alteration magic available for them already? Which type of creature would most likely agree into something like this? Even if it is a ready monster, I will probably homebrew it slightly to fit into the story. I'm preferably looking something like a CR 5-12 monster, so that I don't have to homebrew too heavily. Any suggestions?
Roomba Knight, Architect of the Cataclysm, Foxy Lunar Archpriest. Dubbed The Fluffy Bowman by Golden. He/Him
Theatre Kid, Ravenclaw, bookworm, DM, Lego fanatic, flautist, mythology nerd, pedantic about spelling. I also love foxes, cats, otters, and red pandas!
I love K-pop Demon Hunters and Korean Mythology. If you want to ask me about something, send me a PM!
An Amnizu is "just another devil", which could work. Initially I wanted to avoid using another devil to involve different types of creatures. I got the idea for the hag from VLDL D&D campaign, but there wasn't really a good hag base with the right CR range.
A Mind Flayer could work thematically, but another campaign where I'm the player as is one of my players (my brother) has a big theme around Mind Flayers + they're a major thing in Baldur's Gate 3 (which again is a game me and my brother are actively playing). I don't necessarily want to use them for this side adventure as the campaign doesn't have otherwise anything to do with them.
I know nothing of Aboleths or Oblexes, but just with a quick glance at their stat block I can't see a reason why either of them would do agree to do this. I think the major question is why would a creature agree to do it. The mother wants to not feel regret of what she's about to do, so she's looking for _a creature_ to do it for her. Outside a devil and hag, I can't really think of creatures that would agree to do something like this. And who would also "be available", meaning that the creature is not only encountered in another plane of existence or in a vastly different habitat on the Material Plane than she already is (which is between Sword Coast and Anauroch).
Why not just homebrew someone? Messing with memories and taking kids from their families is classic fey move. Could easily be some kind of archfey. Best thing is archfey can be super-fickle and flighty if you want them to be. Its motivation doesn’t have to be beyond, it found the idea amusing at that moment. It might not even remember having done it, as it was such a trivial thing at the time.
Any psychic creature would be a good option- a gem dragon might work. They're not usually evil, but they're also not necessarily nice. An Adult Crystal Dragon is CR 12.
An NPC spellcaster could potentially do this as well.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
5e stat blocks are mostly about combat capabilities so they often don't mention weird things. A hydroloth is another thing that messes with memories (though mostly just stealing them). However, anything with the modify memory spell can do this (possibly requiring a higher level spell slot), which gives you a pretty broad range of creatures that could do something of the sort.
I think some sort of fey creature is probably the most likely to be able to have the ability to remove memories and be willing to use that service. The mother came to, say, a Bheur Hag with Modify Memory that they can cast once per day, an easy Homebrew that doesn't really effect its CR of 7, and begged for the memories to be removed. The hag agreed, on some condition, like it gets additional memories or whatever you think this hag might want. The hag keeps the memories in her hut, and will bargain them away to the players at some other cost.
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He doesn't have much besides the skin on his bones. Me: I'll take the skin on his bones, then.
"You see a gigantic, monstrous praying mantis burst from out of the ground. It sprays a stream of acid from it's mouth at one soldier, dissolving him instantly, then it turns and chomps another soldier in half with it's- "
That's what I planned to do, but before I jumped into that I wanted to know what could be the best base creature, so that I wouldn't have to do everything from scratch. And if there's already a monster that fit perfectly, it would save a lot of unnecessary work. I'm not sure if my original message was clear enough.
Any psychic creature would be a good option- a gem dragon might work. They're not usually evil, but they're also not necessarily nice. An Adult Crystal Dragon is CR 12.
A gem dragon would be perfect! The campaign (Tyranny of Dragons) is very dragon heavy and I already introduced a Moonstone Dragon, who wants the party to prevent a corrupting evil spreading from the Shadowfell (which is relevant for the backstory of one character).
I think some sort of fey creature is probably the most likely to be able to have the ability to remove memories and be willing to use that service. The mother came to, say, a Bheur Hag with Modify Memory that they can cast once per day, an easy Homebrew that doesn't really effect its CR of 7, and begged for the memories to be removed. The hag agreed, on some condition, like it gets additional memories or whatever you think this hag might want. The hag keeps the memories in her hut, and will bargain them away to the players at some other cost.
I also considered a Bheur Hag for a moment, but discarded it for the sake of the habitat. But now that I come back to it and my own previous messages it doesn't really matter. I can simply homebrew it a bit to fit the scene. Stupid me :D
Thanks for the all the suggestions so far! From these, I think I'll go with either some gem dragon or a Bheur Hag. Even though I had originally thought of a hag, I really do like the gem dragon approach.
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I've knotted together a scenario, where I would like a bit of help unraveling.
TL;DR backstory of one of my players is that he was orphaned/abandoned as an infant and now he's looking for his parents (or mother actually, since the party killed his father... or the undead form of his father). Aaaaanyway... Recently, this character got possessed by my homebrew monster who took him to Shadowfell, where he eventually killed the monster. In order to return to the Material Plane, he had to solve a puzzle and in order to solve the puzzle he had to pay a price... a memory. The memory the player chose was that when he was a kid he went to the market with his mother and he wanted some new clothes, which his mother didn't get him (he's also quite a fashion "guru", always crafting clothes for himself). This lead into the situation that the prize to leave Shadowfell was the memories of his mother. He remembers him being at the market with someone, but he has no idea with whom and so on. This slightly contradicts his original backstory of being abandoned as a baby.
They'll soon have an opportunity to meet with a devil, who will very kindly offer to return this character's memories to him. Only for the devil to also realize that it's not the first time the character's mind has been tampered with. A devil won't admit they can't do something, so I need to plan out his roleplay accordingly.
Because of the mismatch between the original backstory and the memory the player chose, I decided that he does indeed remember something of his childhood, but they are affected by some other magic. I don't want to use another Shadowfell creature nor another devil. I thought the mother went to a hag to remove her sense of remorse, so that she can leave the baby and advance her own career. At the same time the hag altered the character's mind, so that he would simply forget to think about his parents. In place, the hag would place alternative memories into his mind to fill out gaps.
Now my question is this: which creatures have this sort of memory alteration magic available for them already? Which type of creature would most likely agree into something like this? Even if it is a ready monster, I will probably homebrew it slightly to fit into the story. I'm preferably looking something like a CR 5-12 monster, so that I don't have to homebrew too heavily. Any suggestions?
Not sure could make it a feat or spell.
Made this for you Memory alteration
Thanks, but that's not really what I asked.
Sorry
Mind flayers, Aboleths, and Oblexes could all work. Or Amnizus, but they have a higher CR than what you said.
Hiya! You can call me Link. Here’s a bit about me:
Roomba Knight, Architect of the Cataclysm, Foxy Lunar Archpriest. Dubbed The Fluffy Bowman by Golden. He/Him
Theatre Kid, Ravenclaw, bookworm, DM, Lego fanatic, flautist, mythology nerd, pedantic about spelling. I also love foxes, cats, otters, and red pandas!
I love K-pop Demon Hunters and Korean Mythology. If you want to ask me about something, send me a PM!
Èist ri cuairtean na grèine!An Amnizu is "just another devil", which could work. Initially I wanted to avoid using another devil to involve different types of creatures. I got the idea for the hag from VLDL D&D campaign, but there wasn't really a good hag base with the right CR range.
A Mind Flayer could work thematically, but another campaign where I'm the player as is one of my players (my brother) has a big theme around Mind Flayers + they're a major thing in Baldur's Gate 3 (which again is a game me and my brother are actively playing). I don't necessarily want to use them for this side adventure as the campaign doesn't have otherwise anything to do with them.
I know nothing of Aboleths or Oblexes, but just with a quick glance at their stat block I can't see a reason why either of them would do agree to do this. I think the major question is why would a creature agree to do it. The mother wants to not feel regret of what she's about to do, so she's looking for _a creature_ to do it for her. Outside a devil and hag, I can't really think of creatures that would agree to do something like this. And who would also "be available", meaning that the creature is not only encountered in another plane of existence or in a vastly different habitat on the Material Plane than she already is (which is between Sword Coast and Anauroch).
Why not just homebrew someone? Messing with memories and taking kids from their families is classic fey move. Could easily be some kind of archfey.
Best thing is archfey can be super-fickle and flighty if you want them to be. Its motivation doesn’t have to be beyond, it found the idea amusing at that moment. It might not even remember having done it, as it was such a trivial thing at the time.
Any psychic creature would be a good option- a gem dragon might work. They're not usually evil, but they're also not necessarily nice. An Adult Crystal Dragon is CR 12.
An NPC spellcaster could potentially do this as well.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
5e stat blocks are mostly about combat capabilities so they often don't mention weird things. A hydroloth is another thing that messes with memories (though mostly just stealing them). However, anything with the modify memory spell can do this (possibly requiring a higher level spell slot), which gives you a pretty broad range of creatures that could do something of the sort.
I think some sort of fey creature is probably the most likely to be able to have the ability to remove memories and be willing to use that service. The mother came to, say, a Bheur Hag with Modify Memory that they can cast once per day, an easy Homebrew that doesn't really effect its CR of 7, and begged for the memories to be removed. The hag agreed, on some condition, like it gets additional memories or whatever you think this hag might want. The hag keeps the memories in her hut, and will bargain them away to the players at some other cost.
He doesn't have much besides the skin on his bones. Me: I'll take the skin on his bones, then.
"You see a gigantic, monstrous praying mantis burst from out of the ground. It sprays a stream of acid from it's mouth at one soldier, dissolving him instantly, then it turns and chomps another soldier in half with it's- "
"When are we gonna take a snack break?"
That's what I planned to do, but before I jumped into that I wanted to know what could be the best base creature, so that I wouldn't have to do everything from scratch. And if there's already a monster that fit perfectly, it would save a lot of unnecessary work. I'm not sure if my original message was clear enough.
A gem dragon would be perfect! The campaign (Tyranny of Dragons) is very dragon heavy and I already introduced a Moonstone Dragon, who wants the party to prevent a corrupting evil spreading from the Shadowfell (which is relevant for the backstory of one character).
I also considered a Bheur Hag for a moment, but discarded it for the sake of the habitat. But now that I come back to it and my own previous messages it doesn't really matter. I can simply homebrew it a bit to fit the scene. Stupid me :D
Thanks for the all the suggestions so far! From these, I think I'll go with either some gem dragon or a Bheur Hag. Even though I had originally thought of a hag, I really do like the gem dragon approach.