I have a monster idea of a gargantuan monstrosity who's helping party characters in a campaign that I'm writing. I'm not exactly certain what kind of monster she is but the monster's name is Joddenheimdell. She's currently having a facial deformity which is her jaw split in two that black ichor is coming out of it with blue lightning and the ichor has her surrounded for miles. She is Chaotic Neutral and was once revered as a queen centuries ago. She has telepathy in a 100-mile radius. She has a combination of all sights (true sight, blind sight, dark vision, tremor sense, Passive Perception 17), if that's possibly allowed. What improvements would you give to this creature? Anything would be appreciated.
I am thinking of the Garret PI series by Glenn Cook. The main character (Garret, a Private Detective) lives with a friendly monstrous, deformed, telepathic dead body whose soul has not quite left the dead body. When the creature is awake (often it is 'asleep'), he can bring suspects over to have their minds rifled for information or even dominated and forced to obey. Some kind of mind reading beyond the telepathy and or mind control (charm) is likely to be helpful.
Also, in general, if you have True Sight then blind sight and darkvision are not really helpful (unless they extend beyond the truesight range). Tremor sense is always useful.
I would consider giving this beast some kind of glaring weakness as well, such as low Damage or low speed. Or a couple of them with one being fake (i.e. it is actually very slow at 15 ft walk but it also pretends it can't hurt anyone, keeping a 'secret weapon' in reserve).
In that case, give her whatever sorts of powers the plot would demand. What you're describing sounds pretty cool and otherworldly. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by improvements. I suppose a motivation is always good: What does she want? Why does helping the party help her achieve that goal? If you've got that sorted, you're a long way to knowing the limits of her assistance. If the party isn't going to fight her, there's no real reason to stat her out, so I'd say don't. Keep your options open. And if they try to, maybe she just disappears in a puff of smoke, and they never see her again.
Do you mean her to be some sort of oracle the party consults on occasion? One thing I like to do with those, is to allow each person to ask (an oracle type) one question. Only one, ever. (And yes, "Can we only ask you one question?" counts as that person's question.) Then the party can either ask everything all at once, or save a question or two and journey back there if they really need an answer to something.
I'm still working on her as I'm worldbuilding for the campaign.
The campaign I'm writing with her in it, I've envisioned her to help the party on fighting against 3 powerful knights but she dreamscapes with the party throughout the campaign giving them warnings in the form of riddles.
For instance, in the beginning of chapter 1, she appears before one of the players:
The adventure begins at the Revenant’s Wake. You arrive there as everyone is a jovial time. You are greeted by the tavern’s owner, Rupert Wegener, a satyr. His bartender, Tishala Ibori who is a water genasi, takes your order as Rupert Wegener is explaining joyfully as to what a wonderful time you have shown up. The tavern has smells of food, ale, the incredible salty ocean air, and sandalwood.
As he continues to talk, you hear a strange, confidently soft voice in your mind, “Parasites seldom altogether abandon a monarch so long as the crown still glitters on his head.” Your surroundings start to twist and turn while a black shadow starts to surround you as the smells of the ocean air and sandalwood disappears and a repugnant smell replaces it.
A white face, with strange angular features, appears before you. The eyes and nose are of a snake; gaunt cheeks and exaggerated cheekbones; skin looking pale and waxy. You notice something strange about the jaw: its split in two with black ichor flowing as blue lightning bolts flicker. You see in the creature’s black and golden-brown eyes are a hint of quick thinking but dangerous intelligence.
You stutter, “Wh, who are you?”
“I am Jodenheimdell. But answer this riddle if you so desire. You will meet a man of old age take you to a grave where the dead rampage. There is a soul who seeks a life ceasefire. Give the soul what he seeks; it will improve party techniques.” The face disappears into the shadows as the shadows quickly dissipates. You wake up with jolt.
I am fully aware that this part is terrible at the moment. I'm not great at writing things out but this is just the first draft. I'm hoping that I'm able to flesh her out more as the campaign fleshes out the rest of world of Xacola.
She mainly speaks in riddles as that's what she learned from the first pilgrims who were moving into Xacola. She was there before they came in. And she was the one who was curious about them, so the pilgrims taught her their language with the use of riddles. She can speak Common, Dwarfish, Elfish, Gnomish, and Orcish
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I have a monster idea of a gargantuan monstrosity who's helping party characters in a campaign that I'm writing. I'm not exactly certain what kind of monster she is but the monster's name is Joddenheimdell. She's currently having a facial deformity which is her jaw split in two that black ichor is coming out of it with blue lightning and the ichor has her surrounded for miles. She is Chaotic Neutral and was once revered as a queen centuries ago. She has telepathy in a 100-mile radius. She has a combination of all sights (true sight, blind sight, dark vision, tremor sense, Passive Perception 17), if that's possibly allowed. What improvements would you give to this creature? Anything would be appreciated.
I am thinking of the Garret PI series by Glenn Cook. The main character (Garret, a Private Detective) lives with a friendly monstrous, deformed, telepathic dead body whose soul has not quite left the dead body. When the creature is awake (often it is 'asleep'), he can bring suspects over to have their minds rifled for information or even dominated and forced to obey. Some kind of mind reading beyond the telepathy and or mind control (charm) is likely to be helpful.
Also, in general, if you have True Sight then blind sight and darkvision are not really helpful (unless they extend beyond the truesight range). Tremor sense is always useful.
I would consider giving this beast some kind of glaring weakness as well, such as low Damage or low speed. Or a couple of them with one being fake (i.e. it is actually very slow at 15 ft walk but it also pretends it can't hurt anyone, keeping a 'secret weapon' in reserve).
Are they meant to fight it at some point, or will it remain an ally? I suppose players will be players and might attack her, but what are your plans?
She's going to be a neutral ally to the party.
In that case, give her whatever sorts of powers the plot would demand. What you're describing sounds pretty cool and otherworldly. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by improvements. I suppose a motivation is always good: What does she want? Why does helping the party help her achieve that goal? If you've got that sorted, you're a long way to knowing the limits of her assistance. If the party isn't going to fight her, there's no real reason to stat her out, so I'd say don't. Keep your options open. And if they try to, maybe she just disappears in a puff of smoke, and they never see her again.
Do you mean her to be some sort of oracle the party consults on occasion? One thing I like to do with those, is to allow each person to ask (an oracle type) one question. Only one, ever. (And yes, "Can we only ask you one question?" counts as that person's question.) Then the party can either ask everything all at once, or save a question or two and journey back there if they really need an answer to something.
I'm still working on her as I'm worldbuilding for the campaign.
The campaign I'm writing with her in it, I've envisioned her to help the party on fighting against 3 powerful knights but she dreamscapes with the party throughout the campaign giving them warnings in the form of riddles.
For instance, in the beginning of chapter 1, she appears before one of the players:
The adventure begins at the Revenant’s Wake. You arrive there as everyone is a jovial time. You are greeted by the tavern’s owner, Rupert Wegener, a satyr. His bartender, Tishala Ibori who is a water genasi, takes your order as Rupert Wegener is explaining joyfully as to what a wonderful time you have shown up. The tavern has smells of food, ale, the incredible salty ocean air, and sandalwood.
As he continues to talk, you hear a strange, confidently soft voice in your mind, “Parasites seldom altogether abandon a monarch so long as the crown still glitters on his head.” Your surroundings start to twist and turn while a black shadow starts to surround you as the smells of the ocean air and sandalwood disappears and a repugnant smell replaces it.
A white face, with strange angular features, appears before you. The eyes and nose are of a snake; gaunt cheeks and exaggerated cheekbones; skin looking pale and waxy. You notice something strange about the jaw: its split in two with black ichor flowing as blue lightning bolts flicker. You see in the creature’s black and golden-brown eyes are a hint of quick thinking but dangerous intelligence.
You stutter, “Wh, who are you?”
“I am Jodenheimdell. But answer this riddle if you so desire. You will meet a man of old age take you to a grave where the dead rampage. There is a soul who seeks a life ceasefire. Give the soul what he seeks; it will improve party techniques.” The face disappears into the shadows as the shadows quickly dissipates. You wake up with jolt.
I am fully aware that this part is terrible at the moment. I'm not great at writing things out but this is just the first draft. I'm hoping that I'm able to flesh her out more as the campaign fleshes out the rest of world of Xacola.
She mainly speaks in riddles as that's what she learned from the first pilgrims who were moving into Xacola. She was there before they came in. And she was the one who was curious about them, so the pilgrims taught her their language with the use of riddles. She can speak Common, Dwarfish, Elfish, Gnomish, and Orcish