I specifically need some heroic tier stuff, because the plots of the Lords of Dust need to be introduced into the campaign early on.
Some other choices to consider:
-Beholder
-Vampire
-Something possessed by Quori, possibly a dragon.
-A daelkyr with an agenda
-Medusa
-Death Giant, could be interesting.
they were outsiders (or for 4E, immortals) in 3E, but now the night hag is a fey -- would it still be an appropriate LoD member?
Any Mind Flayers weren't Outsiders in 3E, but were in Eberron. Due to Eberron's backstory, types can be changed. Night Hags are messengers of the LoD, and some probably members of it (probably all hags). Really, anyone and thing can be, as the LoD are a cult basically.
Have you read Keith's Dragon article about the Lords of Dust?
No, I had stopped subscribing to Dragon at the time because I had grown increasingly disappointed with the content. After they pulled the DM's Toolbox section out of Dragon and put it in Dungeon -- a magazine I had never been interested in subscribing to b/c I write all of my own adventures -- I wasn't interested in paying for the magazine anymore.
Does Paizo sell pdfs of old print articles? That one sounds like it would be useful.
Grug the Just: In 3E, I was content to use almost entirely rakshasas as the membership of the LoD (though as I say I did spice in a couple of other outsiders). However, in 4E the rakshasas start in the paragon tier, and I need at least one LoD monster to serve as a heroic tier threat for my campaign. In the 3E version, I just used a rakshasa in this role; level 7 wasn't too high, but with the lowest-level rak in the MM at 13, I'm loath to put it in a position where it might get in combat with level 2 or 3 PCs.
Grug the Just: In 3E, I was content to use almost entirely rakshasas as the membership of the LoD (though as I say I did spice in a couple of other outsiders). However, in 4E the rakshasas start in the paragon tier, and I need at least one LoD monster to serve as a heroic tier threat for my campaign. In the 3E version, I just used a rakshasa in this role; level 7 wasn't too high, but with the lowest-level rak in the MM at 13, I'm loath to put it in a position where it might get in combat with level 2 or 3 PCs.
Ah, well there's your problem. Why would it? The LoD are an organization filled with immortals who have years to plan and the ability to change shape. Their in every government and anywhere else they want to be, and have hundreds of minions. In Eberron, the game is supposed to be more than "there's zombies, there's Rakshasas, there's evil! Let's kill them!" If you have a couple thousand minions working under you, and a being of god-like power backing you, why would you fight your own battles. The PCs shouldn't even learn the Rakshasa is pulling the string until later when they start to realize they've been tricked into thinking what the Rakshasa wants and doing what it wanted them for.
Ah, well there's your problem. Why would it? The LoD are an organization filled with immortals who have years to plan and the ability to change shape. Their in every government and anywhere else they want to be, and have hundreds of minions. In Eberron, the game is supposed to be more than "there's zombies, there's Rakshasas, there's evil! Let's kill them!" If you have a couple thousand minions working under you, and a being of god-like power backing you, why would you fight your own battles. The PCs shouldn't even learn the Rakshasa is pulling the string until later when they start to realize they've been tricked into thinking what the Rakshasa wants and doing what it wanted them for.
That's precisely the problem. The rakshasa can disguise itself; in the 3E version of the adventure it was disguised as a human cult leader. Details aside, there was an important reason why it needed to be present at the site of the adventure. Disguised as the creature would be, and players being blockheads, it's almost inevitable they would attack the creature at some point (regardless of whether the "script" for the adventure called for such a combat or not), and when they inevitably do, I don't want heroic PCs fighting a mid-paragon threat. I'm not concerned about the PCs killing off one of the story's villains early in the arc, and neither would the rakshasa be -- they are fairly indestructible in 3E and can reincarnate themselves in 4E -- but I am concerned about the possibility of a TPK.
In reference to the night hag, the same problem holds -- the 4E night hag is a mid-paragon threat, not an appropriate challenge in a heroic-tier adventure.
No, I had stopped subscribing to Dragon at the time because I had grown increasingly disappointed with the content. After they pulled the DM's Toolbox section out of Dragon and put it in Dungeon -- a magazine I had never been interested in subscribing to b/c I write all of my own adventures -- I wasn't interested in paying for the magazine anymore.
Does Paizo sell pdfs of old print articles? That one sounds like it would be useful.
http://paizo.com/dragon/products/downloads/v5748btpy7ufi
Unfortunately, Paizo stopped producing PDFs of the last 14 issues of Dragon, claiming that their license didn't allow them to produce them as PDFs. Paizo didn't seem interested in pursuing it, and I've tried to get WotC to chime in on this topic without any luck.
http://uploadingit.com/browse/Montonius/177073
That's precisely the problem. The rakshasa can disguise itself; in the 3E version of the adventure it was disguised as a human cult leader. Details aside, there was an important reason why it needed to be present at the site of the adventure. Disguised as the creature would be, and players being blockheads, it's almost inevitable they would attack the creature at some point (regardless of whether the "script" for the adventure called for such a combat or not), and when they inevitably do, I don't want heroic PCs fighting a mid-paragon threat. I'm not concerned about the PCs killing off one of the story's villains early in the arc, and neither would the rakshasa be -- they are fairly indestructible in 3E and can reincarnate themselves in 4E -- but I am concerned about the possibility of a TPK.
In reference to the night hag, the same problem holds -- the 4E night hag is a mid-paragon threat, not an appropriate challenge in a heroic-tier adventure.
In our campaign we met rakshasa twice ... on third level and on 15th level ... in both situations we fought them but we didn't know their true identity ... because of disguise and human shape. But in both situations rakshasas left (even on that 15th level we almost kill him in the first round) because of conspiracy ... they were more interested in perserving their hidden identity than in killing us.
So you can have a rakshasa encounter on heroic level, but it doesn't have to lead into destruction of villian or TPK ... death on one side is just an option not the rule
This is a fairly trivial example, but the key is that a rakshasa could easily choose defeat over revealing its true nature (and remember, the rakshasa of Eberron are immortal, so under the right circumstances even death is an acceptable loss)... and that a apparent defeat may all be part of the plans.
Beyond that, while the members of the Council of Ashtakala are primarily powerful fiends (including devils and demons, though rakshasa make up the majority), any creature could be a PAWN of the Lords of Dust - and at lower levels, HUMANS are especially good for this role. The LoD have tens of thousands of mortal pawns, some of whom serve them willingly and some of who just don't know what they're doing. Like the Dreaming Dark, the LoD are a group where your first encounters could easily be with the outer ring groups who have no obvious connection to the true villain. For an example of this, look to my Dreaming Dark novels. After only reading the first one, you might say "But where was the Dreaming Dark?" This becomes clear in the rest of the series - but the point is that in the initial challenge, their presence is NOT obvious to their enemies. The LoD are definitely cut from the same cloth.
The Lords of Dust have lived since the dawn of time, they've had a lot of time to study how mortals act and react, and they see the world in terms of centuries. They have hundreds of schemes going at any one time, they do not expect them all to work, so they have contingencies. They never put all their eggs in one basket. This isn't to say that they can't be beaten... nor that they'd kill groups of adventures who mess with their plans off the bat.
Think of it this way. A Lord of Dust is a grand master of chess. He has an entire auditorium of games going on, all at once, against hundreds of opponents. If he loses one, no big deal. If the opponent refuses to play, no big deal, if the opponent flips over the table and scatters the board and the pieces... no big deal. The Lord of Dust still has other games.
Still if someone beats him repeatedly, then he'll focus his attention on that game, be more careful in his moves... he might still lose, this would probably be met with amusement by the immortal to begin with, to face someone with skill is so rare...
Soon enough the Lord of Dust will be focusing most of his attention to that one game, might start to get frustrated, let his other games start to slip...
By that time the players are of the level to handle their focused attention.
There was a metaphor Kieth used (I think it was Kieth all the Gen Con seminars are starting to blur together memory wise) to describe how the Lords of Dust see the world (also the Dreaming Dark, or any nigh immortal foe).
It was in fact the Dreaming Dark that I was specifically refering to, though you're correct that the metaphor works fine for the LoD as well. However, given the LoD's interest in the Prophecy, I'm personally much more likely to have them plan for defeat - or even to help the PCs on occasion (and when a Lord of Dust HELPS you, you have to worry...). Both groups have many schemes afoot - but because of their interest in the Prophecy, the LoD are much more likely to say "According to the Prophecy, when Hero Bob slays Rhashaak with the Blade of Dol Azur, that will begin the time of chaos among the Cold Sun tribes, and that will form the first crack in the prison of the Frozen Heart." They have the personal power to kill Rhashaak themselves, but that's not the point; the point is that it's the PC doing it with a specific weapon that's critical, because that locks in a particular path of the Prophecy. So they may allow the PC to defeat the LoD-backed Mockery cult that has the Blade of Dol Azur... heck, more than that, they may provide the PCs with the clues they need to hear about the cult (so the rakshasa may play the role both of cult leader AND the frightened innkeeper who begs the heroes to help) - because what he actually wants is for the PCs to defeat the cult and for Hero Bob to say "Cool sword!" Then they just need to work on engineering the meeting between Bob and Rhashaak... and suddenly there's a lizardfolk civil war to deal with, terror across Q'barra, and one step closer to the release of an Overlord!
Essentially, the LoD are more on the noir side of the spectrum than the pulp side. Their goals are generally more subtle and long term, and victory and defeat aren't always as clear cut as they seem.
Interestingly, the nebulous nature of the prophecy kind of makes writing a campaign arc more challenging -- my mindset is more geared toward logical progressions than toward reverse-engineered riddles, and the other side of the campaign, which deals with the Order of the Emerald Claw, is proving significantly easier to plot. The bright side of that, though, is that the LoD plots should pretty much blindside the players.
18DELTA
-Who or what would be Eberron's version of the "Mord-Sith"? :D
18DELTA
I haven't read the The Sword of Truth (just googled Mord'Sith) - those Mord'Sith go into some...extreme
three stage training program.If you want some help in fantasy literature on how to interpret the Prophecy and just what it can mean I do recommend reading any of the novels by Terry Goodkind (Sword of Truth series). It deals with prophecy, winding arcs of possibility and people manipulating the present to achieve a desired outcome. It certainly gave me a better idea on how Prophecy can be both agency, affordance and an ubiquitous unseen force.
Goodkind is a hack. I've read some of his books; his writing style is insufferably pedantic and often in poor taste. My approach to prophecy tends to owe more to Frank Herbert (Dune) and occasionally David Eddings (The Belgariad, etc.).
However, I run Conspiracies using the ideas from GURPS: Illuminati. The Lords of Dust does bizzare, random things (so do the Dreaming Dark, the Aurum, and other Illuminated groups). Like arrest you when you pull the tag off of your pillow. Change your perfectly fine pencils without you looking. wierdos wearing tin foil hats named Mr. Beamish. And lightning rail coaches with '666' painted on them.
http://paizo.com/dragon/products/downloads/v5748btpy7ufi
Unfortunately, Paizo stopped producing PDFs of the last 14 issues of Dragon, claiming that their license didn't allow them to produce them as PDFs. Paizo didn't seem interested in pursuing it, and I've tried to get WotC to chime in on this topic without any luck.
A little off topic, but have you gotten any response on the matter?
A little off topic, but have you gotten any response on the matter?
None, beyond "Thanks, I'll forward the request."
None, beyond "Thanks, I'll forward the request."
Ugh. Yeah, I've gotten the same re: releasing the old 3.5 RPGA adventure pdfs as free downloads.