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The Dresden Files => DFRPG => Topic started by: bibliophile20 on March 22, 2011, 05:16:35 PM

Title: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: bibliophile20 on March 22, 2011, 05:16:35 PM
So, my campaign is beginning to wrap up (near the end of the school year and all that) and I'm going for the big finish.  And, this scenario that we're currently in, the PCs... failed to reacquire a tome of Outsider lore.  There are reasons for this failure, some even valid (like being framed for murder). :) 

Thus, I'd like to end the campaign with a bang (or possibly a cookout *points to icon*), and I'm looking for suggestions.  Right now, I have a AWOL book of Outsider lore in the hands of a Black Councilor (indeterminate shapeshifter, but definitely not a skinwalker), a failed assignment from Rashid to retrieve that tome, and an entire innocent american city. :D

So... should I raid the Call Of Cthulhu books for ideas and monster stats?  Or maybe the tome details how to summon He-Walks-Before, He-Who-Walks-To-The-Left, and He-Who-Walks-To-The-Right, as well as He-Who-Walks-Behind?  Or, or, or... 

Thoughts? Suggestions?  (Oh, and please no Law talk, either First or Seventh.  Having those discussions in this thread would be like the disclaimers on firearm boxes that state that these are lethal weapons.)
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: ways and means on March 22, 2011, 05:23:21 PM
Are you planning on killing off your whole party with this? Though I don't think you can go wrong with thousands of slathering abomantation and 'he who walks behind', 'he who waits' and 'he who feasts'.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: devonapple on March 22, 2011, 05:33:46 PM
Here are some potential directions:

Escalation: the big bad comes, and the players need to really pull a win out of their bag or ally themselves with someone powerful to pull it off. Taking debt from heavy supernatural hitters. Becoming NPCs if they opt to supercharge themselves.

Re-entrenchment: the opposition goes to ground with this resource and lays low for awhile, popping up later when your players can be more prepared. The "danger" is over for now, without having to escalate.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: Bruce Coulson on March 22, 2011, 05:39:34 PM
Okay, what was the ultimate goal of the villain?  Why was he after this Tome?

If it was just to summon a particular Outsider and re-shape reality, then yeah, I'd check out CoC adventures, especially several of the 'end of the world' type adventures and consequences for failure.

If the villain had some bizarre idea of using Outsider power for their own use, then a climatic battle as the villain loses control of what he's called up, and one last-ditch chance to save the world (or at least the city).
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: MijRai on March 22, 2011, 05:49:01 PM
I'd do a single Outsider, one who is really tough. Magic Immune, a pile of Supernaturals, etc. Make him freaking scary, add in mental stress attacks to him, and let him loose somewhere in the city for the players to find and try to stop. Add humans warped by the Outsider before the players got there, poor souls tainted and corrupted and driven insane. Go from there.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: DFJunkie on March 22, 2011, 06:19:23 PM
Personally I'd go whole hog.  If this is the last game in the campaign just have the Black Hat summon Great Cthulhu or one of the Great Old Ones, which starts tearing the city apart on both a physical and metaphysical level.  Then give the PCs an out: if they can recover the book and do whatever they can send the Outsider back where it belongs, otherwise the entire White Council will have to convene and maybe banish it before it tears our reality to shreds, but long after it's too late to save the city.

Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: devonapple on March 22, 2011, 06:20:08 PM
How do folks feel about the Venators nuking a city in such an event?
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: ways and means on March 22, 2011, 06:25:33 PM
If the Venators didn't do it the Government probably would an army of unstoppable abomanations is something you want to contain and destroy. Then again I thought the Venators enemies where from inside creation rather than outsiders. Then if anything would wake the elder gods an incursion which threatens reality itself probably would.  
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: Falar on March 22, 2011, 06:28:30 PM
Or you could go for a dual-threat that you won't reveal as such until later on down the road.

Have a city-crushing horror summoned that your party will (hopefully) just barely defeat, but have that as smokescreen for your bad guys TRUE motivation. And have that motivation be something like the monster from Harry Connolly's Child of Fire.
(click to show/hide)

So, there you'd have a dual-threat with levels of import. First, the city-crushing horror which gives you a suitable finale vibe and the bad guy being Smarter Than That and using said finale as a set-up for bigger and worser things, for an added heaping of This Is What Happens When You Don't Do What Rashid Says.

Also: My brief summary of Child of Fire does it no justice. Read the book. It's awesome. Best stuff I've read this year.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: DFJunkie on March 22, 2011, 07:01:45 PM
If you do decide to go full-blown city-crushing Old One don't reveal it to your players all in one go. 

If I ever do something like that the first sign that there's something wrong will be the unnaturally thick mist that rolls in, blotting out the sun at the same time that the communications infrastructure becomes completely unreliable due to all the magic and reality warping going on.

After that up the "reality isn't right any more" ante with the occasional failure of Euclidean geometry.  Maybe someone falls sideways and cracks themselves against a wall, or that right angle is no longer 90 degrees.

By the time a beloved but no longer useful NPC is suddenly dragged away by a tentacle thicker than a minivan the mood should be well and truly set.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: knnn on March 22, 2011, 08:21:40 PM
I'm pretty sure that Outsiders can only be summoned by mortal magic, so even though a supernatural being has the tome, the PCs might still have a chance.

How about something like this:
- The summoning requires that the summoner sacrifice his/her soul in the process.

This means that the summoner cannot be the shapeshifter (it doesn't have a soul), and even worse, the poor sod he need to get to do the ritual must be powerful enough to pull it off while clueless enough to actually do the ritual.

Thus, your shapeshifter's plan is to somehow trick one of your wizard PCs to do the ritual.  One way to do this is to make it look like the ritual itself is a key component of something even bigger, and get the PCs to try the ritual first in order to cut him off (think Harry and the Erlking)

Then you get the satisfaction of seeing one (or more) of the PCs sacrificing his soul to stop "ultimate evil" from happening, only to realize that they are the ones who ultimately destroyed all of humanity.

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: DFJunkie on March 23, 2011, 02:51:18 AM
Personally I wouldn't end a campaign on a note like that, with one of the PCs making the ultimate sacrifice for nothing, though if that's the kind of thing other groups prefer by all means, have at it.  That's more of a second-act ending.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: stabbald on March 23, 2011, 09:52:36 AM
One-Who-Twirls-His-Moustache-While-Tying-Damsels-To-Railroad-Tracks.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: ryanshowseason2 on March 23, 2011, 03:45:54 PM
Theres always Zalgo - He who waits behind the walls.

His abilities consist of being able to sprout tentacles from anything resembling a wall. Attack the entire city at once.

In my games I went with a more conceptual chaos kinda thing though when the doors to the outside broke. Heres a dramatic re telling.

"The doors bulge, chains burst and the locks fill with light and rattle against the door. It looks and sounds like a dozen battering rams are striking the door from the other side. As the final chains and locks melt and burst away a flash of light blinds everyone and then the room goes silent... The room is dim and the noise of the massive doors creaking open can be heard. They slowly open to reveal... nothing. A mundane janitor's closet is behind them."

The party later finds out that billions of pure mortals have contracted outsider sponsored magic. Simple disputes soon turn into eldritch battles involving innocents around them. Two siblings fighting level an apartment complex, a 2nd grader turns his classmates and teachers into mutant abominations at a whim. A schizo hobo looks at people screams and they explode.

Self destruction kinda theme through outsiders.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: Tedronai on March 23, 2011, 08:51:23 PM
Quote from: knnn on March 22, 2011, 08:21:40 PM
I'm pretty sure that Outsiders can only be summoned by mortal magic, so even though a supernatural being has the tome, the PCs might still have a chance.

How about something like this:
- The summoning requires that the summoner sacrifice his/her soul in the process.

This means that the summoner cannot be the shapeshifter (it doesn't have a soul), and even worse, the poor sod he need to get to do the ritual must be powerful enough to pull it off while clueless enough to actually do the ritual.

An 'indeterminate shapeshifter' can quite easily be a mortal.  Think Billy and the Alphas on the small scale, Listens-to-Wind (who went toe-to-toe with Shagnasty) at the top end, and potentially focused practitioners anywhere in between.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: Belial666 on March 24, 2011, 09:56:10 AM
I wonder if nuclear weapons would even annoy an Old One. The more powerful Outsiders tend to have physical immunity bypassed only by faith powers and special abjurations (banishments and wardings). If Nicodemus can survive a nuke then some Outer God certainly could.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: Tedronai on March 24, 2011, 10:50:18 AM
I'm a firm believer that even a near-direct hit from a nuclear blast wouldn't stoop so low as to deal physical stress.
So I ask you: What happens when a plot-device power faces off against a plot-device power? 
(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: stabbald on March 24, 2011, 10:54:38 AM
Quote from: Tedronai on March 24, 2011, 10:50:18 AM
I'm a firm believer that even a near-direct hit from a nuclear blast wouldn't stoop so low as to deal physical stress.
So I ask you: What happens when a plot-device power faces off against a plot-device power? 
(click to show/hide)

Not all plot devices are equal.

White God versus Erlking? That fight would be over so fast that no one would even notice that it had begun.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: Belial666 on March 24, 2011, 03:33:12 PM
Do note that Nicodemus' writeup specifically mentions nukes - and that power coming from a 2000-year-old artifact, not an Outer God older than the world.


Also note that beings with Archangel or Faerie Mother levels of power can be a lot more destructive than a nuke. The energy released by the average hurricane in ten seconds about equals a one-megaton nuke. Consider now that the Mothers are an order of magnitude stronger than Mab and that Mab can do a lot more than an average hurricane.

Similarly, the eruption of the Krakatoa was four times as powerful as the greatest nuclear weapon ever detonated. And a high-council wizard did it.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: ryanshowseason2 on March 24, 2011, 04:04:32 PM
Quote from: Belial666 on March 24, 2011, 03:33:12 PM


Similarly, the eruption of the Krakatoa was four times as powerful as the greatest nuclear weapon ever detonated. And a high-council wizard did it.

Quote from: Belial666 on March 24, 2011, 03:33:12 PM
And a high-council wizard did it.


Quote from: Belial666 on March 24, 2011, 03:33:12 PM
a wizard did it.

teehee
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: Becq on March 25, 2011, 10:15:11 PM
It might be worth considering the concentration and placement of destructive capabilities.  A hurricane, for example, represents a massive release of energy ... but one spread out over many thousands of square miles.  An exploding volcano is well-focused, but how often is there a primed volcano ready to be uncorked by a modest ritual just where you need it?  (In this case, under the outsider monstrosity?)  Note, by the way, that the volcanic explosion wasn't "created" by the wizard, he simply triggered (very efficiently, by the way) an explosion that nature was already well on the path toward making.

On the other hand, a nuclear submarine with, say, two dozen Tridents carrying 14 half-MT warheads (about 160MT or so) can release a total destructive force that rivals Krakatoa, divided into 336 convenient parcels that can each release in an instant the power of a hurricane, but radiating out from a single point rather than dispersed over tens of thousands of square miles.  And those 336 points can be placed anywhere, with an accuracy of about a football field.

All of that, released by a mere mundane human.

A mere human.

I think that the precision and concentration of such an attack bears consideration.  But would that kind of power be enough to waste an Old One?  Even if all 336 warheads could be simultaneously detonated on its head?  I have no idea.  Both the Old One and the nuclear sub are plot devices, and what happens when they meet depends more on the needs of the story being created than anything else.  Perhaps a large enough nuke might destroy the Old One's protoplasmic form, sending its (mythically ticked off!) essence reeling back into the far reaches of the Nevernever.  Or, on the other hand ... well, ever seen The Fifth Element?
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: Tedronai on March 25, 2011, 10:39:34 PM
Quote from: Becq on March 25, 2011, 10:15:11 PM
I think that the precision and concentration of such an attack bears consideration.  But would that kind of power be enough to waste an Old One?  Even if all 336 warheads could be simultaneously detonated on its head?  I have no idea.  Both the Old One and the nuclear sub are plot devices, and what happens when they meet depends more on the needs of the story being created than anything else.  Perhaps a large enough nuke might destroy the Old One's protoplasmic form, sending its (mythically ticked off!) essence reeling back into the far reaches of the Nevernever.  Or, on the other hand ... well, ever seen The Fifth Element?

And thus, as I said, plot wins.  No rolls, no numbers.  Just plot.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: Becq on March 25, 2011, 10:46:16 PM
As to the original story question, perhaps something along these lines:

* The warlock manages to summon the Old One, who in turn opens portals that begin vomiting smaller monstrosities.
* The police are helpless and are all but wiped out.
* The military is called in.  Tanks seems to be capably of damaging the smaller stuff, but with hideous and unsustainable losses.
* The government, flailing for a solution, authorizes a nuclear strike.  Just before the missile hits, a dome of roiling energy several miles across materializes.  Everything outside of the dome is flattened by the nuke, but when the dust clears there is a perfectly circular section of the city completely intact.
* The players, at a loss as to how to stop the madness, are somehow able to learn that the summoning ritual involved tying together the essences of the Old One and the warlock (possibly as a bid by the warlock to control the Old One).  This is the weakness they need.  
* The players fight their way through the lesser outsiders, create a diversion to seperate the Old One from the warlock, then attack and manage to destroy the Warlock in an epic battle.
* The Old One makes an appearance a moment too late ... but to all appearances is unaffected by the warlock's death.  (It has been significantly weakened, it's grip on existence in the real world is slipping, however.)
* By this time, a second (massive) nuclear strike is en route.  The players are still no match for the creature, but manage to distract it just enough that the nuclear strike gets through.  Thanks to the players' actions, the beast's body is vaporized, it's essence banished back to it's home plane.

The players have been destroyed, but their sacrifice has saved the world (well, except for the city).  The End.

Or is it?  Perhaps a few of the lesser outsiders managed to escape the blast, either by getting far enough away, or by burrowing.  Perhaps this will plant the seeds for the next campaign...
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: devonapple on March 25, 2011, 10:49:58 PM
My original (and unspoken, my apologies for the confusion) thought about nukes was whether or not groups like the Venators would risk deploying them to avoid such Outsider intrusions.

For instance, say they Know someone is summoning something. They Know roughly where it will be, but the heroes can't, won't, or simply fail to get in there to stop it. Is nuking the area something they would keep on the table as an option? Is it something they would always have as a standard backup plan?
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: Tedronai on March 25, 2011, 11:14:51 PM
I'm pretty sure only villains ever have nukes as a 'standard backup plan'.  An option that's technically on the table, but no one in their right mind would touch with an 11' pole except in anything but the most extreme of circumstances and after all lesser options have either been expended or rendered unacceptable/ineffectual?  Sure.  'Standard backup plan'?  Not in the least.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: Belial666 on March 25, 2011, 11:28:50 PM
You aren't summoning an Outsider without a major-ass ritual. Casting a 1000-shift spell requires several hours and the closer you come to completion you are shining in the eyes of any supernatural creature that is not magic-blind. People like the Venators might not have a backup plan but they are certainly going to come up with something fast when warding spells all over the world start screaming as you are casting.



As for magic to nukes comparison, a nuclear submarine needs a few hundred workers to work daily for two years to build. Cowl nearly finished his darkhallow with a week's preparation and a spell that killed an entire race of supernatural creatures everywhere in the world took about a year.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: Becq on March 25, 2011, 11:32:37 PM
I think that any group that (a) had a serious concern about Outsiders entering our world and (b) had access to nuclear weapons would probably keep their options very open regarding the use of (b) in the event of (a).  Unless, of course, they had an alternate plan that they felt had a reasonable chance of success with less collateral damage, in which case the nuclear option might get pushed back a few steps on the checklist.

Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: devonapple on March 25, 2011, 11:37:30 PM
Quote from: Becq on March 25, 2011, 11:32:37 PM
I think that any group that (a) had a serious concern about Outsiders entering our world and (b) had access to nuclear weapons would probably keep their options very open regarding the use of (b) in the event of (a).  Unless, of course, they had an alternate plan that they felt had a reasonable chance of success with less collateral damage, in which case the nuclear option might get pushed back a few steps on the checklist.

Well, yes, but my question is: would they have secured it ahead of time? Would there be a sub waiting offshore, with coordinates locked in? Especially the Venators, who *could* enlist the help of a Blackstaff character, but owing to the delicate nature of the Oblivion war, are not likely to actually do so, preferring to avoid Wizards altogether?

That's one of the issues with involving the Venators: they have to be paranoid, they can't let the White Council (or anyone) know what they are up to - they are essentially alone even among those who would be their staunchest allies, and they are willing to kill to prevent one speck of knowledge of the Outside Ones from returning.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: zenten on March 27, 2011, 06:08:15 PM
Remember there are precision high yield far ranged explosives that could take out a summoning ritual and aren't nukes.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: bibliophile20 on March 28, 2011, 03:11:28 AM
Next thought: Does anyone think that there might be an analogue to Delta Green in the Dresdenverse?
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: sandchigger on March 28, 2011, 02:57:45 PM
I think that were there such an analogue then someone (Ivy, Kincaid, Luccio... someone) would have mentioned them at some point. At least they'd have been given an off-hand reference in a book like Changes.

(click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: devonapple on March 28, 2011, 05:15:22 PM
I consider
(click to show/hide)
to be the closest analogue of Delta Green in the DresdenVerse.

That said, I fear that there isn't an especially appropriate niche for a global, militant supernatural response team because the DresdenVerse (despite mankind's general ignorance of the supernatural) is filled with many more supernatural-savvy mortals (or near-mortals) than in the Cthulhu Mythos.

Delta Green has always felt to me like it was meant to give players a chance to participate in a monster hunt in the otherwise gothic, cosmic and unfightable horror of Call of Cthulhu (which ordinarily focuses more on investigation and the subsequent insanity of finding out Things Which Man Was Not Meant To Know, rather than blowing it away and nipping to the pub for a shot afterwards). Which isn't a bad thing.

But I feel that the Dresden Files RPG already allows for the freedom to blend investigation and monster hunting, so the add-on of a Delta Green-type organization isn't particularly necessary, and would probably be somewhat counter to the whole "mortal authorities shouldn't ever find out, Or Else" stricture inherent in the setting.
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: knnn on March 28, 2011, 05:42:06 PM
Quote from: Becq on March 25, 2011, 11:32:37 PM
I think that any group that (a) had a serious concern about Outsiders entering our world and (b) had access to nuclear weapons would probably keep their options very open regarding the use of (b) in the event of (a).  Unless, of course, they had an alternate plan that they felt had a reasonable chance of success with less collateral damage, in which case the nuclear option might get pushed back a few steps on the checklist.

Eb takes credit for Tunguska and Krakatoa.  The fact that he was willing to go all kablooee might mean that the alternative was far worse...
Title: Re: Fishing for ideas: Outsiders in a Submerged-level game [No Law Talk, Please]
Post by: bibliophile20 on March 31, 2011, 02:09:38 PM
So, I have idea on how to do this:
the shapeshifter, while the resident wizard is occupied and getting himself deeper into trouble, performs a summoning ritual before leaving with the book.  They summon a sarcophagus--precious metals, gems, signs of warding, etc and so forth--and leave it buried in a place where it'll be found soon.  Say, in a housing development, where a basement is due to be dug.  Giant archeological find, etc and so forth... and whatever is in that case is enthralling the mortals around it.  If they manage to get it open... well, nice knowing ya.