Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Majick 11-07-06, 08:21 AM	I have been toying with an idea just receantly: Making a monster so freaking huge that the adventure takes place INSIDE the creature itself, but i need ideas on what they would fight within the bowls of this truly epic titan's belly... Any ideas?
Sorcen_Anenooata 11-07-06, 09:34 AM	It'd be interesting to have a whole civilization in there. They'd probably have acid resistance and thick skin. I'll think more on it and see if I can think of anything else.
Insanity 11-07-06, 09:50 AM	Perhaps inside a space leviathan, a huge creature thats wanders the universe with an entire held in its belly. Think Discworld, but inside the turtle instead.
Majick 11-07-06, 10:13 AM	I was thinking something along the lines of a MASSIVE underwater creature, worshiped by some underwater race, perhaps elves, perhaps those fish people (forget the name) maybe a huge whale (ala pinnochio) or like you said, a huge serpent, but i need to know What would be an enemy to face within such a beast?
obrysii 11-07-06, 10:22 AM	I created such a monster once. It was originally posted on this message board, but I can no longer find it (probably got deleted due to it's age and inactivity). I can repost it if you'd like.
Cthulhu3125 11-07-06, 12:48 PM	If you know a few principles of cell biology, I always thought an interesting adventure could take place inside a giant, living cell (perhaps Neth). PCs getting assaulted by clouds of lysosomes, or protein golems emerging from a huge, mechanical golgi apparatus. The PCs could fight an immense creature's immune system, maybe... anyone want to stat out a swarm of gigantic phagocytes?
Orchomenos 11-07-06, 01:11 PM	I've read in some Planar book something about a living plane. Perhaps the Manual of the Planes itself?
Critical_Failure 11-07-06, 01:13 PM	I have been toying with an idea just receantly: Making a monster so freaking huge that the adventure takes place INSIDE the creature itself, but i need ideas on what they would fight within the bowls of this truly epic titan's belly... Any ideas? LORD JABU-JABU'S BELLY
The Vorpal Tribble 11-07-06, 01:45 PM	I've read in some Planar book something about a living plane. Perhaps the Manual of the Planes itself? Neth, the Plane That Lives, p. 154 of the Manual of the Planes. Sounds like a good idea. In fact... this has intrigued me into making a colossal creature that is an extension of it. Sort of like a brian golem is to the Elder Brain, send it on ahead and get things seen and learned but retain a psychic connection. Btw, there is also a creature called a Meld in Hyperconscious (an adventure/add-on to the Expanded Psionics Handbook) by Bruce R. Cordell that is from a world or plane thats nothing but a glob of living slime (sounds alot like Neth and may be) that incorporates creatures and memories into itself and can then release them as perfect clones down to their mental faculities, but reprogrammed by the Meld. Might also want to check out a book called 'Major Operation' I believe it was called, by James White. Its in a series of sci-fi books about a medical space-station whoes claim to fame is that no disease, no alien is too strange for them to treat. In one instance they find a planet with a number of near continent-sized creatures (can't move of course), that is an entire ecosystem unto itself, with creatures doing the macro-sized equivalent of white blood cells and the like. Entire rivers were its circulatory system, etc. Fun book, especially when they found out the oldest of the bunch (which had attained sentience) had the equivalent of cancer and to cure it they had to drop radiation bombs on it and wipe out dozens of miles of diseased flesh.
Orchomenos 11-07-06, 02:13 PM	Here's another idea: the epic monster Genius Loci (http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/35/sovelior_sage/epicNonAbominations.html#genius-loci). It's a Colossal Ooze who disguises as part of the landscape. It can enslave other creatures, and then it emulates that creature's intelligence...
Return of the Flumph 11-07-06, 02:52 PM	Maybe they would fight an infection of giant parasites to cure the massive creature. Dire tapeworms, anyone?
Sildatorak 11-07-06, 03:23 PM	Dire tapeworms, anyone? I had an adventure that took place inside collosal beasts on the Abyss where they were being mined for meat. Most of the enemies were involved with the mining operation, but there was one fiendish dire tapeworm. Actually it was more like a fiendish dire pinworm, but the idea is the same. Mechanically it was just a fiendish dire weasel. It worked out just fine.
Raptorial 11-07-06, 04:24 PM	Yes, inside most beasts you'll find parasites. These always make good encounters.
TheCrawlingSpleen 11-07-06, 05:03 PM	I have been toying with an idea just receantly: Making a monster so freaking huge that the adventure takes place INSIDE the creature itself, but i need ideas on what they would fight within the bowls of this truly epic titan's belly... Any ideas? Well, giant leeches and leech swarms (Stormwrack) as well as wystes (Monster Manual II) could serve as intestinal parasites. On the other hand, many creatures in the real world have little helpers that live on or in them. Real world examples could be anything from a remora on a shark to the bacteria living inside of your digestive tract. Monstrous crabs (Stormwrack again) might live inside parts of the big creature, clearing out parasites, and brine swimmers (Sandstorm) and blood-bloaters (Fiend Folio) might swim through the digestive tract, breaking up extremely large bits of food for their host. The PCs could fight an immense creature's immune system, maybe... anyone want to stat out a swarm of gigantic phagocytes? Phagocytes (and their jumbo-sized counterparts, macrophages) are basically amoebas as far as their shape and physical abilities, so gray oozes could serve as phagocytes, and an ochre jelly would work perfectly well for a macrophage. Both of these come from the Monster manual. Hope that helps! :)
TheCrawlingSpleen 11-09-06, 10:43 PM	Starting to worry I might have killed this thread :( :bump:
Return of the Flumph 11-09-06, 11:36 PM	Starting to worry I might have killed this thread :( :bump: Don't worry, you didn't. I'm taking a fairly high-level course in parasitology right now, so I think I can be a bit of help in statting up giant parasites. The bodies of large animals are often complete ecosystems. A gigantic monster could have worms the size of great white sharks living in its blood vessels. And don't get me started on the intestinal amoebas...
Insane Pixie 11-09-06, 11:52 PM	Sounds like the Pinnochio level from Kingdom Hearts, where the entire level is played from inside Monstro. That might be a good base, if anything.
KingGolem 11-10-06, 03:15 AM	Ooh, maybe you could do something like in the book Fantastic Voyage, by Isaac Asimov, I think. Basically in the story, some scientists shrink themselves and a submarine down to the size of a bacteria and go through another scientists body to destroy a terminal blood clot in his brain that they can't get to from the outside. You could do something like that, where the PCs are commisioned by some race of fish men to go inside the body of their giant fish god/king (like Jabu-Jabu, in one of those "The Legend of Zelda" games) to save him from some parasites that are killing him. As for enemies, I think you should adapt an advanced purple worm for the BBEG. Monsters they fight along the way could include the BBEG's spawn, of course, and that showdown with a mindless phagocyte, thus adapting those afforementioned gray oozes with an ability to shoot antibodies at invaders. As for the antibodies, I'd think they would give the giant phagocytes and macrophages cumulative bonuses on attack rolls. I'd be wary to put sentient beings inside of the god/king fish. It would be a bit disturbing to find that "one mans god is another mans shelter". But despite all the coolness, don't forget to consider the two most obvious facts of travelling inside of another creature: its full of fluids, and its dark in there.
Morotis 11-10-06, 10:58 PM	Sin from Final Fantasy X anyone? You fight some things outside (on the back of) the giant monster in order to enter through one of the monsters orafices. Once inside, theirs an Island floating on a sea of acid in its stoumach. The island would of course be some lengendary island that(in myth) was said to be swallowed by the sea a thousand years ago. Inhabiting the island are some monster, all of them probably need at least a little acid resistance. Possibly even a race of intelligent creatures that built thier society upon this island and know not of the outside world, (Like the people of Krikket from HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy series). The island was the monsters last meal and it has been digesting it at the bottom of the ocean or perhaps in a feild (and then dirt and grass and trees and such grew over it until it became a giant forest) for a century. That sounds pretty epic to me.
CryoSilver 11-11-06, 03:59 PM	I think you could represent giant tapeworms as monstrous centipedes sans poison. This idea intrigues me. Now, if you want this to take place inside a creature, my first question is: Is this creature mostly liquid, like humans? The extension: do the PCs need Water Breathing to survive?
TheCrawlingSpleen 11-15-06, 09:58 PM	Another thing is that the inside of a very large creature is probably going to be rather dark, although there might be some bioluminescent monsters lurking within. Anyway, I wanted to second my earlier, hesitant vote for the Wyste. I had originally suggested it because it has a sucker-mouth and a worm-like body, but when I read through the description, I realized that it's even better adapted to live in something's stomach, since it has blindsight, a Swim speed and immunity to acid. I was also thinking of an older video game (The Ocean Hunter or something to that effect) wherein you got inside a monster such as you describe. Swimming about in its massive stomach were various arthropods of prehistoric nature. I already mentioned the brineswimmer, but I'll also suggest Vorpal Tribble's Monstrous Trilobites.