"Weird seeing a gelatinous cube just sitting there in a corner." "Yeah, well, it's not coming after us so it's no big deal." "What's with all the marbles on the floor?"
So they can replicate anything with a little bit of insight on how they work you could have a pretty valuable resource time to eradicate the nearest Cthulhu nest and take advantage of their Library
I recently picked up the Tomes of Beasts 1 & 2 and cannot stop flipping through them, devouring the art and lore and campaign ideas the creatures generate. The Creature Codex is also a rich mine of content. I really dig that they included a group of Fey lords to inspire you even more. The third Tome of Beasts is well underway over at Kickstarter, too. I can't wait! I'd be happy to see more explorations of Kobold Press content and how it is inspired or derived from the official content and lore.
I could see this thing as a an origin story for my next Great Old One PC. It disassembles you then reassembles you, and you are not quiet the same. Maybe there were bits of Mindflayer DNA that got put into you code. A sort of Star Trek origin if you will. Great Video AJ!
I’m genuinely a little surprised that people going back in time to prevent something from existing doesn’t happen more often in D&D. ..Then again, maybe it does occur semi-frequently, but we just don’t know of other examples due to them being far more successful in making it so that something never existed in the first place.
Indeed. Reality as we know it is only up-to-date as the arrival of the latest timetraveller. Also, there could be a whole category of creatures (like celestials or fiends) that only exist to 'fix' most of these chrono-shenanigans. Perhaps like the Inevitables? If they do it right, then there's no way to tell they did their job. The Illithid Wars of the far future were just far too messy to not leave bits and pieces scattered throughout all Time.
For time travel in DnD or RPGs in general, i'd handle it like this. If a player wants time travel, I'd simply ask them if they fully understand what they're asking for, of course they'd say yes, so I'd go ahead and give it to them knowing they have no idea what's about to happen. When they try to use it, depending how far back or ahead they go, I'd describe them arriving in space. I wouldn't say it's space, I'd just describe a black void, the freezing cold, the suffocation, and that if they don't try to return, they're going to die. So they return to when/where they were, ask me what happened, i don't explain, they probably get upset, but I'd leave it unexplained and a mystery, and tell them they need to research this and find out why it happened (and mention "I thought you said you understood what you were getting into!"). The take on time travel would be based on two things. Firstly, real science on spacetime and how real time travel would work if it could be done, and second is a Dragonlance novel from the War Of Souls trilogy. In War Of Souls, Palin gets the Device of Time Journeying from Tasslehoff and uses it to go back into the past to try and figure out why the world of Krynn became so messed up. When he reaches when the Chaos War should have ended and the Fifth Age began, there's nothing but darkness. He stops the device and is left floating in a freezing cold void, floating there with no gravity, unable to breathe. The device slips away from him and he almost dies. He grabs the device and returns to the present before dying, having suffered suffocation and covered in frost from the freezing the cold. He describes what happened as best as someone can do in a fantasy world where people have no understanding of deep space, and says that their world has no past, the past was lost, and they may have no future. It took me a while to figure out what the heck happened in this, but eventually I figured it out and it seemed like it should hae been a no brainer. Krynn was stolen away at the end of the Chaos War and taken to a different location in the universe/multiverse ('verse). Everything in the universe is in motion. The moon orbits the Earth, Earth orbits the sun, the sub orbits the galactic core, the galaxy moves through the universe, and we're actually always moving at "Relative to the local standard of rest, our Sun and the Earth are moving at about 43,000 miles per hour (70,000 km/hr)", but that number may be MUCH higher when taking the galaxy's speed into account. What this means is....if you time travel even just a second back or forward in time, you're changing time, but not space, and you're still in the same location, but the planet you were on has moved A LOT, and isn't there now. You're in space, freezing and suffocating. The planet and/or sun may still be close enough to see if you only went a few seconds/minutes in time, but that doesn't help you. Go back/forward enough you won't even see these, just the cold void of space. So if a player had time travel, sure, go ahead, use it, this is what happens. And as far as how to fix it, I wouldn't tell the players how and they'd have to figure out how to fix it on their own. Spelljammer would be different when using this in the Astral Sea though.
That Bearing Golem is giving me vibes of Glacius from the old Killer Instinct video game! I can see that golem "melting" down into a pool of bearings and slipping through the party's feet to emerge up in the middle of them all to unleash that devastating Scattershot explosion for maximum carnage! As for the Fabricator, could totally see some DnD mixes with Star Trek in the lore there by tossing in some Borg lore. Bring the stars down on your party!
Would you ever make a video about Changelings? I think they're very underated creatures both in folklore and Dnd. I think topics like what small Changeling communities would look like, their connection to the faewild as fae creatures, and the limits of their powers could be really interesting!
These things have some great potential! Imagine seeing some place that was once barren sandy wastelands suddenly being terraformed by a strange jelly cube's drones
I think this creature and its minions would be scary if it knew about electricity and with ball bearings magnets and wire could generate incredible amounts of electricity. An electrically charged ball bearing tornado might be fun. 🌪
Imagine going traveling in your spelljamming ship, and running into a massive moving station holding hundreds of these things! Then, hey, they're not so bad! You find out they're in the neighborhood willing to set up trade and the like. But, if your world has an illithid presence...well, the mindflayers decide to reclaim their 'property', and things get ugly.
Nice one. Very exotic and fascinating creature. I suspect they are either programmed for keeping their number constant or replicating need some rare component.
This is pretty cool. So much time is spent on the Mind Flayer's psionic powers that their technological progression is overlooked. The idea of a machine capable of fabricating just about any item (given it has the materials) is really evocative of the Illithid technological mastery. The bearing golem is sweet, I am very much reminded of the liquid metal Terminator from Terminator 2.
Hey AJ, it's nice to hear and see 3pp. You have done a lot of golems, was wondering have you done the junk golem? Pathfinder has one couldn't find any other reference to such a creature in D&D. Thanks AJ, you have a wonderful day!
I'm now imagining some Mind Flayers set their fabricator to "spoons" before being very suddenly wiped out, and now there's just an ever increasing mass of spoons deep underground that is unknowingly threatening the kingdom above like some kind of spoon volcano.
that makes me remember of a similar monster in post-apocalyptic Gamma World setting (for Alternity game), which I forgot the name of. It is a large builder robot and in practice it does the same thing as a Fabricator. It is usually encountered building pointless roads or pipelines or other infrastructure for a civilization that collapsed decades ago. It's pretty powerful but also not aggressive. It's motivation for player interaction when its mindless construction is threatening a settlement or another point of interest.
I could see the fabricator pumping out different golems and constructs as it recycles different materials. It would be an interesting dungeon full of manufactured monsters. There would be piles of random objects all over the place. I thought the ball bearing golem was bad until you mentioned the caltrop golem. This would also pair well with the Clockwork Mender. A construct from 3.5 edition Monster Manual 4 page 30. They fly around repairing constructs that are damaged. This includes themselves. And the can swarm repair. It just makes for a fun concept.
Reminds me of the time my character fought and destroyed nearly 40 skeletons, thanks to the Orc Shaman/necromancer boosting and raising the damn things in his lair because we had to take him alive.... that, was a gnarly fight, the very definition of "running out of resources'.
I wonder if it's possible for a mortal humanoid from the prime to tame these things, and use them to start a manufacturing business? (without risking it creating a far-realm invation army behind their backs.)
@@HumbleMemeFarmer I seen players fail their dexterity reflex rolls and fall face first into 1d6dmg bear traps before. Lucky it wasn't a crit and they pass their Fort save DC:10+ dmg dealt, they only lost temporary constitution points instead of permanent Con or death in one hit kill. The player rolled with it and role played his PC with a phobia on related environmental locations, as a running party in house group joke. In another game, he role played his Fear of trap rooms to the point of a panic attack. The .. Troll .. stop at the door frame to the room cause the PC was more afraid of the room than the troll eating him. The rest of the players dripping in fear of the troll .. pretended .. the room had greater danger in it. So they out Bluff the troll and the PC with the phobia was in scream tears of multiple failed Will saves. The player running the troll was like WTF ?! making multiple Alertness checks of spot, listen, and hearing to figure out Why everyone was more afraid of the room instead of him. Then the party's ranger/druid set up a bear trap with cast Heat Metal to close on the troll's face in another room, follow up with Phantasmal Killer spell and Fear spell. Time for another N/PC " troll " to roll for traumatic trauma phobia.
AJ, it's a lot of work, but if you wanted to bolster your views, you could re remaster every single monster with bonus content :) Not that you need to, just saying, I would watch every single one and I'm sure most of your viewers would agree.
Looking forward to more Mind Flayer goodness! Any information I can glean to get this parasite out of my head before it devours my brain and takes over my mortal shell is welcome!
Since playing AD&D2ndE from 25 years ago, I just treated mind flayers as 13th-level wizards with Plane Shift spellcasting ability, instead of a 13d4 hd wizard, it becomes a 6d8 +1d6 monster. We also used the AD&D " Complete Psionic Handbook, " along with Players' Option: Skills & Powers psionic rules to create specialized mind flayers. As a F-ck you to the playing group I was with, I had my 9th-level wizard cast Dominate Person with Bestow Curse over a few games then Polymorph Other my PC into a mind flayer and ate the biggest jerk in the group. That PC retire out by turning into an Elder Brain. b.) Then WotC " Psionic handbook " came out, along with using the Sorcerer class to turn into a mind flayer due to .. " visions." c.) We also cross over WotC d20 system of D&D/Star Wars into a mix campaign of Force skills and d&D psionic/ arcane magic. Setting Gith, mind flayers against Darth Varder and storm troopers. It was a dark day for the empire if you were a storm trooper. d.) We also used the 3.5e Psionic handbook to clone 12 princess Leias with psionic wild talents, used the skill/power Psychic Surgery to give Leia extra 7 levels of Jedi consular1/force adept2 with psinoist2/psychic warrior2 with a +3 BAB. It was a train wreak. The four women running three Leia each had .. Way .. too much fun wreaking the mind flayer spelljammer. The follow up game, I never seen Vader fail so many saving throws. e.) Was running an AD&D game before WotC, and instead of N/PCing extra monsters to deal with I had two other guys who were playing MtG card game draw my index cards. Stander player drew the mind flayer and the other guy which DM pulled the low level orc ranger/rogue which keep a bag of vipers as pets and sold poisons. The DM like my orc n/pc so much he kept that character. And due to house vote, any time a DM needed to n/pc a mind flayer the other player was called in to do that job. f.) Went mind flayers come up, think organic bio-tech. Lab psionic grown clones and brains for food, and other beings are just lab experiments. Your PCs survive a mind flayer attack, they psychic wreak your PC's mental stats and take cloning samples and just toss them out like trash to live with the nightmares of the encounter. Very Lovecraft Call of Cthulhu ... Mental ward at best, .. crazy homeless guy at worst. " Those from beyond the Stars came, those beyond the Stars came ! Don't let them take my again ! They are coming ! They are coming for all of us ! They are coming from beyond the Stars to take me !" -- manic screams and crying.
Although I also think they would be able to self-replicate, I think that most who used them would program them to not do so to avoid grey-goo and related scenarios. Who's to say that would be permanent or incorruptible though? There could even be some sort of magical device implanted that controls and inhibits them, but could be removed or broken.
Since you were asking about non-WotC monsters to do lore on; one of my favorites and one of the best things Paizo has put out (in my opinion) is the Phistophilus Devil. It really fills a hole in the Devil’s dogma and I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
“Lore from 4th edition” Would the include requests for lore rated to the racial variant paragon paths? Not just the “you qualify for this paragon path because of your race” ones like Firstborn of Moradin, but the ones like the Hellfire Adept that any Tiefling specifically of an arcane powered class (wizard, sorcerer, bard, swordmage) qualified for.
The thing is this, Illithids (Mind Flayers) are the only beings that makes sense on. They have no real origin nor place in time because of the steps they took to preserve their race... and as core spawn... they are merely brain-eating beasts unless they infect (and alter) a host to be illithid to be brilliant beings with innate mental powers.
As if Ilithids needed anything else to make them creepier. Sentient matter resequencer/rapid prototypers. Great, anyone feel a compulsive need to kill every squid face with fire?
Awesome ideas from this one. Thank you. Also, during ad&d 2ed period, dragon magazine ran an article on a swamp based humanoid sort of a human with alligator or lizardman traits. I can't find the name, nor the issue in my stacks. Does this ring a bell for you, or could you point me in the right direction to find it?
I would love to see more about other alien technology in D&D specifically utility not weapons maybe some weapons but just don't talk about lasers so much I know about laser guns and how they work and everything around that I want something more out there something unique to the world of dungeons as well as dragons
You should really dive into the scp foundation lore. It's basically all stuff like this, expect it's all set within our world. Much of it is easily reskinable if you're a DM.
I really like this creature. On a different note, did you get a new microphone? It sounds like you have a very minor lisp in this video, and I’ve never noticed it before.
I could definitely envision a scenario in which a party of adventures discovers one of these long forgotten sites, and has to somehow convince the Fabricator that they do in fact belong their and that it should help them in some way; especially if there is a Psyonisist in the party. The constant risk of it seeing through the ploy would certainly add to the excitement of a session.
I had a game where the three great powers were aboleths, illithids, and Tharizdun who in this universe was an ancient human and former galactic senator tens of thousands of years ago who discovered godhood/ai singularity and disrupted the ancient spacelanes and portals that connected the vast humanish civilization. Each race was something that developed on different planets and the dragons were the first to be discovered and were brown on their homeworld but became the different colors and metals after birth in different extreme environments. It was a lot of fun. The wizard pc was the first wizard on the main planet in thousands of years who was an apprentice who slipped thru an ancient portal that periodically worked. After the rise of Tharizdun and his eventual madness and pursuit of power he opened up more and more worlds until envountering the aboleths and illithids who imprisoned him and then conquered humanity. Eventually they were overthrown with the collapse of portal functionality and spelljammimg helms inexplicably failing stranding each world mostly alone barring a handful of wise or unlicky travelers. It was sort of planescape meets spelljammer meets the old traveller rpg.
Hey AJ. In this video, you mention the Fabricator being related to the Mind Flayers, and the Bearing Golems being stored stored in and released by the Fabricators. I looked in the Tome of Beasts II book and didn't find mention of these. Can you tell me where to find that lore? Or is this your own fictional take on these monsters and how you fit them into your games or something? Even if its your own change to their lore, I like it, I just want to make sure (and stating as such in your videos about this stuff would make it less confusing).
Oh yes, I do mention in livestreams and such that I don't use the Midgard world setting the monsters were written for, so yes, all the lore in these 3rd party content books is going to get "the Treatment" from me and turned into more specific D&D Multiverse lore instead.
@@AJPickett Ok, cool. Can you tell me where to find this info? These livestreams, if they're recorded, a link or something? And if you've got a series of videos with "The Treatment" altering their lore, have you made a playlist collecting them all? Because I love it! Ok, so I'm assuming the take on the Mind Flayers being from the far future was your own idea? Because ever since I first watched that video, i couldn't stop thinking about it, and it gave m,e this idea for an epic campaign story from Level 1 to Level 20 or beyond where players would start not knowing any of this, be saved by an assassin at Level 1 by a Thoon Mind Flayer, not get any answers as to why, leave this unanswered until late in the campaign, then reveal that the Mind Flayer cycle had actually happened more than once, and the Mind Flayers were going to have the players assassinated early on so they wouldn't become a threat, because they were in the LAST cycle, and the Thoon Mind Flayer saved them because, Thoon being so unexplained and unknowable, was actually a force trying to break the cycle once and for all (but still suffering some form of madness, insanity, rage, etc, because of harm caused BY the cycles and how it affrcted the multiverse). That was probably too lengthy, but it's something I've been thinking about a while now since i saw your Mind Flayer video, more so with the new Spelljammer release, and.....if not interested, please disregard. If this interests you at all, please let me know, I'd love to share my thought with ya on it, i've had a lot of ideas on how epic and out there this could be, and would love to discuss it with someone. Beyond that....I'd also like to hear how you would use all of this in your own games/campaigns, or if you already have and how it went. Hell, if you already did, i'd love to see some videos where you tell the story of it like a lore video!
@@arthurdotson9579 No no, the lore from the D&D sourcebook monsters is legit, particularly the Mindflayer lore, that's Bruce Cordell for you, the real elder brain.
@@AJPickett Hey. Sorry if what I was asking/saying got confusing. Didn't mean for the talk to end. I was hoping for more info on, well, anything related to this stuff. Please let me try again (1) Mind Flayers. Their lore. The future stuff about their empire. Can you point me in the right direction as to where to find and read up on this? If it's in the illithiad, or if there's any other sources I need to get? (2) Your lore videos about this stuff. Can you tell me which videos to watch that link together for all of this Mind Flayer lore, both official and altered? Or if there is a playlist that already collects it all? I tried looking for one but didn't see one. (3) My ideas. Sorry that just got splatted out there like that. Your videos are inspirational in that regard. If you'd rather I don't mention my own ideas, I'll refrain from doing so from now on. But your stuff on this subject, it changes one's perspective on it all and is very inspirational, and inspired me to have this idea of a grand, epic campaign. Just haven't any "outlet" for those ideas. But, my apologies on that.
Bearing Golems appears rogue can i pick pocket it. DM (LOL) sure Rogue: I pickpocket it's leg, roll 19 DM ( god damn it) OK It fall to piece and Rogue I put it in my bag of holding DM : OK ( be cool) The golem is now one size smaller ( and at that monument they knew the screwed up )
Funny, so here is a one shot sci-fi horror adventure, .. a.) Large Bearing Golem turns into around two dozen size Tiny/ or diminutive golems. And swam a single PC. " then blow up." b.) Large Bearing Golems throws at a given PC a diminutive size golem which climbs the PC back up to the neck then goes off like a fragmentation grenade. Make Reflex save to avoid losing your head, follow with Fort save DC:10+ damage dealt to not to bleed out. Still knock unconscious. c.) Best given the players multiple PCs to run with my estimate kill off rate. d.) Old house rule from 25 years ago playing AD&D2ndE and moved into 3rdE, if mind flayers tentacles can dissolve a skull within melee combat on a failed saving throw, base on the given DM they are a quick PC killing monster despite PC's Hp total. So why can't a mind flayer grapple a weapon arm and dissolve the limb right off the PC. So sorry but leather armor offers no protection. Then up the .. body horror .. where the mind flayer replaces the PC's missing limb with some form of alien life form. Had a few players making multiple Will saves to mental argue with an eye, arm, leg, along with some type of growth implanted on their backs or chest. Each had a special attack ability. At first a curse then a special melee power bonus. Not many players can deal with DM modifying their PC with body horror and fail saves losing control ending up being an N/PC cannon fodder monster for the other players to take out. But, .. make the saves and the Player PC turns to the rest of the group and says, " It isn't so bad, you will .. enjoy .. the Power the upgrades provides, .. join us. " In a creepy corrupt voice. Another time, the player roll really high, like Star Wars 3rdE bonus Force dice of multiple 2d6s to 4d6s, or/ along with natural 20's. Player, " Alright ! F-cking awesome, lets go for beer and sack a few pirates !" Mind flayers just look at each other and sigh, then roll their eyes when the other players jump for bio armor with psionic wild talent upgrades. Mind flayers, " If we can not control them as thralls, might as well direct their environment damage to locations that benefit us."
@@AJPickett if you do consider content from such sources, are there any requirements that would make you consider covering the monster? Or any that would make a particular source off limits?
@@AJPickett Didn't mean it in negative way. I just draw a lot of inspiration from them and really enjoy them. The way you narrate them and the different voices is just phenomenal.
@@AJPickett I liked the art! D&D art can be pretty surreal looking, and until reading this comment thread it hadn't clicked that this was AI generated in the first place. Thumbs up from me to keep using this kind of thing!
@Eric Connor Is this a play on words? If so, it just dawned on me, and thats actually pretty damn funny. If it wasn't then my bad, seeing things, where there are none.
"Weird seeing a gelatinous cube just sitting there in a corner." "Yeah, well, it's not coming after us so it's no big deal." "What's with all the marbles on the floor?"
*DM leans forward in their seat, slowly and deliberately picking up some dice* "Hey what's your passive perception score again?"
@@AJPickett proceeded by the player asking "Why?"
@@AJPickett "21"
Definitely reminded me of Gelatinous Cube with Clay Golum (healed by acid) inside.
Hmmm! Pet Cube and marbles on the floor. I know, it must be an Orphanage!
So they can replicate anything with a little bit of insight on how they work you could have a pretty valuable resource time to eradicate the nearest Cthulhu nest and take advantage of their Library
Always a pleasure seeing the mighty gluestick uploads
I recently picked up the Tomes of Beasts 1 & 2 and cannot stop flipping through them, devouring the art and lore and campaign ideas the creatures generate.
The Creature Codex is also a rich mine of content. I really dig that they included a group of Fey lords to inspire you even more.
The third Tome of Beasts is well underway over at Kickstarter, too. I can't wait!
I'd be happy to see more explorations of Kobold Press content and how it is inspired or derived from the official content and lore.
Yessssssssss! Definitely like the idea of doing some third party lore. Tome of Beasts is amazing!
I love these ideas!
I found the fabricator fascinating!, Thank you for making a video about it AJ!
I could see this thing as a an origin story for my next Great Old One PC. It disassembles you then reassembles you, and you are not quiet the same. Maybe there were bits of Mindflayer DNA that got put into you code. A sort of Star Trek origin if you will. Great Video AJ!
SCP 914
Hope to see you do more from that book.
I’m genuinely a little surprised that people going back in time to prevent something from existing doesn’t happen more often in D&D.
..Then again, maybe it does occur semi-frequently, but we just don’t know of other examples due to them being far more successful in making it so that something never existed in the first place.
Indeed. Reality as we know it is only up-to-date as the arrival of the latest timetraveller. Also, there could be a whole category of creatures (like celestials or fiends) that only exist to 'fix' most of these chrono-shenanigans. Perhaps like the Inevitables? If they do it right, then there's no way to tell they did their job. The Illithid Wars of the far future were just far too messy to not leave bits and pieces scattered throughout all Time.
@@malykoth Hey! HEY! That's an Inevitable idea! An Inevitable purpose built to correct chronal anomalies!
For time travel in DnD or RPGs in general, i'd handle it like this. If a player wants time travel, I'd simply ask them if they fully understand what they're asking for, of course they'd say yes, so I'd go ahead and give it to them knowing they have no idea what's about to happen. When they try to use it, depending how far back or ahead they go, I'd describe them arriving in space. I wouldn't say it's space, I'd just describe a black void, the freezing cold, the suffocation, and that if they don't try to return, they're going to die. So they return to when/where they were, ask me what happened, i don't explain, they probably get upset, but I'd leave it unexplained and a mystery, and tell them they need to research this and find out why it happened (and mention "I thought you said you understood what you were getting into!").
The take on time travel would be based on two things. Firstly, real science on spacetime and how real time travel would work if it could be done, and second is a Dragonlance novel from the War Of Souls trilogy. In War Of Souls, Palin gets the Device of Time Journeying from Tasslehoff and uses it to go back into the past to try and figure out why the world of Krynn became so messed up. When he reaches when the Chaos War should have ended and the Fifth Age began, there's nothing but darkness. He stops the device and is left floating in a freezing cold void, floating there with no gravity, unable to breathe. The device slips away from him and he almost dies. He grabs the device and returns to the present before dying, having suffered suffocation and covered in frost from the freezing the cold. He describes what happened as best as someone can do in a fantasy world where people have no understanding of deep space, and says that their world has no past, the past was lost, and they may have no future.
It took me a while to figure out what the heck happened in this, but eventually I figured it out and it seemed like it should hae been a no brainer. Krynn was stolen away at the end of the Chaos War and taken to a different location in the universe/multiverse ('verse).
Everything in the universe is in motion. The moon orbits the Earth, Earth orbits the sun, the sub orbits the galactic core, the galaxy moves through the universe, and we're actually always moving at "Relative to the local standard of rest, our Sun and the Earth are moving at about 43,000 miles per hour (70,000 km/hr)", but that number may be MUCH higher when taking the galaxy's speed into account.
What this means is....if you time travel even just a second back or forward in time, you're changing time, but not space, and you're still in the same location, but the planet you were on has moved A LOT, and isn't there now. You're in space, freezing and suffocating. The planet and/or sun may still be close enough to see if you only went a few seconds/minutes in time, but that doesn't help you. Go back/forward enough you won't even see these, just the cold void of space.
So if a player had time travel, sure, go ahead, use it, this is what happens. And as far as how to fix it, I wouldn't tell the players how and they'd have to figure out how to fix it on their own. Spelljammer would be different when using this in the Astral Sea though.
That Bearing Golem is giving me vibes of Glacius from the old Killer Instinct video game! I can see that golem "melting" down into a pool of bearings and slipping through the party's feet to emerge up in the middle of them all to unleash that devastating Scattershot explosion for maximum carnage!
As for the Fabricator, could totally see some DnD mixes with Star Trek in the lore there by tossing in some Borg lore. Bring the stars down on your party!
Would you ever make a video about Changelings? I think they're very underated creatures both in folklore and Dnd. I think topics like what small Changeling communities would look like, their connection to the faewild as fae creatures, and the limits of their powers could be really interesting!
Whitewolf/World of Darkness (WoD) : D10 RPG system " Changeling the Lost,"
which is about twenty years old now.
Fun read.
These things have some great potential! Imagine seeing some place that was once barren sandy wastelands suddenly being terraformed by a strange jelly cube's drones
Love your videos brother. I usually put your Monster Strategies and Ecologies playlist on shuffle and fall asleep to all the amazing D&D lore.
So basically a living 3D Printer?
I think this creature and its minions would be scary if it knew about electricity and with ball bearings magnets and wire could generate incredible amounts of electricity.
An electrically charged ball bearing tornado might be fun. 🌪
Pretty sure your voice just blew my phone speaker lol
You are the best, keep it up goat man
Imagine going traveling in your spelljamming ship, and running into a massive moving station holding hundreds of these things! Then, hey, they're not so bad! You find out they're in the neighborhood willing to set up trade and the like. But, if your world has an illithid presence...well, the mindflayers decide to reclaim their 'property', and things get ugly.
Nice one. Very exotic and fascinating creature. I suspect they are either programmed for keeping their number constant or replicating need some rare component.
A stick of glue with a bit of bite! Delicious as always.
This is pretty cool. So much time is spent on the Mind Flayer's psionic powers that their technological progression is overlooked. The idea of a machine capable of fabricating just about any item (given it has the materials) is really evocative of the Illithid technological mastery. The bearing golem is sweet, I am very much reminded of the liquid metal Terminator from Terminator 2.
Love the kobold press stuff hope we keep getting videos on their content
Hey AJ, it's nice to hear and see 3pp. You have done a lot of golems, was wondering have you done the junk golem? Pathfinder has one couldn't find any other reference to such a creature in D&D.
Thanks AJ, you have a wonderful day!
I'm now imagining some Mind Flayers set their fabricator to "spoons" before being very suddenly wiped out, and now there's just an ever increasing mass of spoons deep underground that is unknowingly threatening the kingdom above like some kind of spoon volcano.
Instead of the Paperclip Maximizer it's... Spoonageddon.
that makes me remember of a similar monster in post-apocalyptic Gamma World setting (for Alternity game), which I forgot the name of.
It is a large builder robot and in practice it does the same thing as a Fabricator. It is usually encountered building pointless roads or pipelines or other infrastructure for a civilization that collapsed decades ago.
It's pretty powerful but also not aggressive. It's motivation for player interaction when its mindless construction is threatening a settlement or another point of interest.
Depending on how small the bearings are, bearing golems could definitely have properties not dissimilar to a T-1000. That's a concerning prospect.
They could definitely pull that fluid turn around in place trick.
Excellent vid AJ perfect end to a long day at work
This is great stuff! Thanks AJ!
I could see the fabricator pumping out different golems and constructs as it recycles different materials.
It would be an interesting dungeon full of manufactured monsters. There would be piles of random objects all over the place.
I thought the ball bearing golem was bad until you mentioned the caltrop golem.
This would also pair well with the Clockwork Mender. A construct from 3.5 edition Monster Manual 4 page 30. They fly around repairing constructs that are damaged. This includes themselves. And the can swarm repair. It just makes for a fun concept.
Reminds me of the time my character fought and destroyed nearly 40 skeletons, thanks to the Orc Shaman/necromancer boosting and raising the damn things in his lair because we had to take him alive.... that, was a gnarly fight, the very definition of "running out of resources'.
Yay! You're talking about fabricators again! Can I pet the fabricators?
May I pet your emotional support ooze? Yes, you may.
Your hand is now so comforted, it will never feel discomfort ever again.
It would be cool if you collaborated with Esper the Bard and did a creature from his book!
I wonder if it's possible for a mortal humanoid from the prime to tame these things, and use them to start a manufacturing business? (without risking it creating a far-realm invation army behind their backs.)
Fabricators really remind me of paperclip maximizers.
Paperclips Paperclips Paperclips Paperclips Paperclips Paperclips...
Fabricator spelljammer
Rusty nail golem that is the same as caltrops but can disease your players upon hitting.
easy there, Satan
That's some darkest dungeon shit there.
@@HumbleMemeFarmer I seen players fail their dexterity reflex rolls and fall face first into 1d6dmg bear traps before.
Lucky it wasn't a crit and they pass their Fort save DC:10+ dmg dealt, they only lost temporary constitution points instead of permanent Con or death in one hit kill.
The player rolled with it and role played his PC with a phobia on related environmental locations, as a running party in house group joke.
In another game, he role played his Fear of trap rooms to the point of a panic attack. The .. Troll .. stop at the door frame to the room cause the PC was more afraid of the room than the troll eating him. The rest of the players dripping in fear of the troll .. pretended .. the room had greater danger in it. So they out Bluff the troll and the PC with the phobia was in scream tears of multiple failed Will saves.
The player running the troll was like WTF ?! making multiple Alertness checks of spot, listen, and hearing to figure out Why everyone was more afraid of the room instead of him. Then the party's ranger/druid set up a bear trap with cast Heat Metal to close on the troll's face in another room, follow up with Phantasmal Killer spell and Fear spell. Time for another N/PC " troll " to roll for traumatic trauma phobia.
Bless the Mighty GlueStick
Those are really good mad-scientist type of monsters. Would totes put them in a zern lair. :D
AJ, it's a lot of work, but if you wanted to bolster your views, you could re remaster every single monster with bonus content :) Not that you need to, just saying, I would watch every single one and I'm sure most of your viewers would agree.
Honestly, I keep meaning to get around to it... I have a list and everything.
Thanks AJ!
As always you post superb videos! Love the escape from the mundane👌
Imagine the power you’d have if you could assume control of it…
Looking forward to more Mind Flayer goodness! Any information I can glean to get this parasite out of my head before it devours my brain and takes over my mortal shell is welcome!
Since playing AD&D2ndE from 25 years ago, I just treated mind flayers as 13th-level wizards with Plane Shift spellcasting ability, instead of a 13d4 hd wizard, it becomes a 6d8 +1d6 monster. We also used the AD&D " Complete Psionic Handbook, " along with Players' Option: Skills & Powers psionic rules to create specialized mind flayers.
As a F-ck you to the playing group I was with, I had my 9th-level wizard cast Dominate Person with Bestow Curse over a few games then Polymorph Other my PC into a mind flayer and ate the biggest jerk in the group. That PC retire out by turning into an Elder Brain.
b.) Then WotC " Psionic handbook " came out, along with using the Sorcerer class to turn into a mind flayer due to .. " visions."
c.) We also cross over WotC d20 system of D&D/Star Wars into a mix campaign of Force skills and d&D psionic/ arcane magic. Setting Gith, mind flayers against Darth Varder and storm troopers. It was a dark day for the empire if you were a storm trooper.
d.) We also used the 3.5e Psionic handbook to clone 12 princess Leias with psionic wild talents, used the skill/power Psychic Surgery to give Leia extra 7 levels of Jedi consular1/force adept2 with psinoist2/psychic warrior2 with a +3 BAB.
It was a train wreak.
The four women running three Leia each had .. Way .. too much fun wreaking the mind flayer spelljammer.
The follow up game, I never seen Vader fail so many saving throws.
e.) Was running an AD&D game before WotC, and instead of N/PCing extra monsters to deal with I had two other guys who were playing MtG card game draw my index cards. Stander player drew the mind flayer and the other guy which DM pulled the low level orc ranger/rogue which keep a bag of vipers as pets and sold poisons. The DM like my orc n/pc so much he kept that character. And due to house vote, any time a DM needed to n/pc a mind flayer the other player was called in to do that job.
f.) Went mind flayers come up, think organic bio-tech.
Lab psionic grown clones and brains for food, and other beings are just lab experiments.
Your PCs survive a mind flayer attack, they psychic wreak your PC's mental stats and take cloning samples and just toss them out like trash to live with the nightmares of the encounter. Very Lovecraft Call of Cthulhu ...
Mental ward at best, ..
crazy homeless guy at worst.
" Those from beyond the Stars came, those beyond the Stars came ! Don't let them take my again ! They are coming ! They are coming for all of us ! They are coming from beyond the Stars to take me !" -- manic screams and crying.
Thought the thumb nail said fabri-gator... which is now going in my game lol.
I love this thing! I will definitely use it!
I would love to see these guys go against some mund flaters
thank you
Not sure how much information is available, but I would love to see something on Kythons.
Excellence!
Awesome!
Although I also think they would be able to self-replicate, I think that most who used them would program them to not do so to avoid grey-goo and related scenarios.
Who's to say that would be permanent or incorruptible though? There could even be some sort of magical device implanted that controls and inhibits them, but could be removed or broken.
Love the video please keep making videos on mine flares personally best creatures in the D&D Multiverse
biological technology is my bread and butter! Thanks a lot AJ!
Since you were asking about non-WotC monsters to do lore on; one of my favorites and one of the best things Paizo has put out (in my opinion) is the Phistophilus Devil. It really fills a hole in the Devil’s dogma and I would love to hear your thoughts on it.
good video AJ
Love it
Mind blowing!
You honor me sir
“Lore from 4th edition”
Would the include requests for lore rated to the racial variant paragon paths? Not just the “you qualify for this paragon path because of your race” ones like Firstborn of Moradin, but the ones like the Hellfire Adept that any Tiefling specifically of an arcane powered class (wizard, sorcerer, bard, swordmage) qualified for.
But is that lore or just game mechanics? You want the in-world reasons for character class restrictions?
@@AJPickett more of the in world reason for why race+class combinations created whole new abilities that others couldn’t get in 4e.
Mind flayer race/culture = {tenet + predestination}*every franchise reboot...
The thing is this, Illithids (Mind Flayers) are the only beings that makes sense on. They have no real origin nor place in time because of the steps they took to preserve their race... and as core spawn... they are merely brain-eating beasts unless they infect (and alter) a host to be illithid to be brilliant beings with innate mental powers.
I can see a fabricator being a merchant NPC somewhere
Excellent, that gives me so many ideas.
Thank you. I had that ideal about as soon as I heard they can have a mind of their own sometimes.
And please don't take this the wrong way but I'm glad I inspired you you inspire me a good bit too when it comes to d&d
Are going to talk about Acheron The floating cubes in space?
More about demons & devils in the blood war?
Kind think the party will just use this monster to jam farm animals into it producing leather goods wool and meat products for quick profits!🙄😂
I need to drop these guys into a Star Wars game.
They are almost as fun as .. ship wood peckers.
Hey I realized you did videos on all the Devils except Erinyes…any plans to go back and do them?
As if Ilithids needed anything else to make them creepier. Sentient matter resequencer/rapid prototypers. Great, anyone feel a compulsive need to kill every squid face with fire?
Awesome ideas from this one. Thank you. Also, during ad&d 2ed period, dragon magazine ran an article on a swamp based humanoid sort of a human with alligator or lizardman traits. I can't find the name, nor the issue in my stacks. Does this ring a bell for you, or could you point me in the right direction to find it?
www.aeolia.net/dragondex/
@@AJPickett thank you!!
Bearing vs iron golems
(Bearing) but only if there's a fabricator to support it and they back up
I would love to see more about other alien technology in D&D specifically utility not weapons maybe some weapons but just don't talk about lasers so much I know about laser guns and how they work and everything around that I want something more out there something unique to the world of dungeons as well as dragons
You should really dive into the scp foundation lore. It's basically all stuff like this, expect it's all set within our world. Much of it is easily reskinable if you're a DM.
Yay!
Hey. Tanks for your good work. Cant find any vid on the Fieyr.
Fey'ri? The gold elf/demon crossbreeds?
@@AJPickett yes.
@@AJPickett And the dream eaters.
@@danielrockstrom707 I think I have a video on the dream eaters, but yes, Fey'ri, can do.
@@AJPickett Thanks for your good work and committed dnd Cover. :)
I really like this creature.
On a different note, did you get a new microphone? It sounds like you have a very minor lisp in this video, and I’ve never noticed it before.
I got a new audio filter tool and as per usual, I am learning how to not use it.
I know a Warforged Artificer named Rig who probably doesn't need to find out about this
Didnt Dark elfs do Flesh Grafting Or something like that? have you done a vid on those experiments?
Not yet, I might get around to it :)
I could definitely envision a scenario in which a party of adventures discovers one of these long forgotten sites, and has to somehow convince the Fabricator that they do in fact belong their and that it should help them in some way; especially if there is a Psyonisist in the party. The constant risk of it seeing through the ploy would certainly add to the excitement of a session.
Nice.
mind flyers = SG1 Goa'uld. if you start with this understanding and evolve/adapt it slightly, you are off to a good start.
I had a game where the three great powers were aboleths, illithids, and Tharizdun who in this universe was an ancient human and former galactic senator tens of thousands of years ago who discovered godhood/ai singularity and disrupted the ancient spacelanes and portals that connected the vast humanish civilization. Each race was something that developed on different planets and the dragons were the first to be discovered and were brown on their homeworld but became the different colors and metals after birth in different extreme environments. It was a lot of fun. The wizard pc was the first wizard on the main planet in thousands of years who was an apprentice who slipped thru an ancient portal that periodically worked. After the rise of Tharizdun and his eventual madness and pursuit of power he opened up more and more worlds until envountering the aboleths and illithids who imprisoned him and then conquered humanity. Eventually they were overthrown with the collapse of portal functionality and spelljammimg helms inexplicably failing stranding each world mostly alone barring a handful of wise or unlicky travelers. It was sort of planescape meets spelljammer meets the old traveller rpg.
did you not already do this with your Halloween custom monster?
Aj Can you elaborate. I thought you said kaorti made them in Yau'Quib video.
Things from the Far Realms may experience a different reality.... results may vary.
@@AJPickett ok no connection then
@@wexozin yep
Also, how do the bearing golems enhance the fabricators?
They move around like a shape shifting endoskeleton, they also allow micro fabrication using the tiny ball bearings.
@@AJPickett micro fabrication? Excuse me, i'm a dumbass hehe
@@AJPickett and can fabricators make creatures? Maybe only constructs?
@@lordk.gaimiz6881 i would assume they would be able to create constructs. Especially bearing golems
@@lordk.gaimiz6881 Anything a lower level artificer could do, basically.
I want to steal one of these... And it's control artifact.
woohoo!
Hey AJ. In this video, you mention the Fabricator being related to the Mind Flayers, and the Bearing Golems being stored stored in and released by the Fabricators. I looked in the Tome of Beasts II book and didn't find mention of these. Can you tell me where to find that lore? Or is this your own fictional take on these monsters and how you fit them into your games or something? Even if its your own change to their lore, I like it, I just want to make sure (and stating as such in your videos about this stuff would make it less confusing).
Oh yes, I do mention in livestreams and such that I don't use the Midgard world setting the monsters were written for, so yes, all the lore in these 3rd party content books is going to get "the Treatment" from me and turned into more specific D&D Multiverse lore instead.
@@AJPickett Ok, cool. Can you tell me where to find this info? These livestreams, if they're recorded, a link or something? And if you've got a series of videos with "The Treatment" altering their lore, have you made a playlist collecting them all? Because I love it! Ok, so I'm assuming the take on the Mind Flayers being from the far future was your own idea? Because ever since I first watched that video, i couldn't stop thinking about it, and it gave m,e this idea for an epic campaign story from Level 1 to Level 20 or beyond where players would start not knowing any of this, be saved by an assassin at Level 1 by a Thoon Mind Flayer, not get any answers as to why, leave this unanswered until late in the campaign, then reveal that the Mind Flayer cycle had actually happened more than once, and the Mind Flayers were going to have the players assassinated early on so they wouldn't become a threat, because they were in the LAST cycle, and the Thoon Mind Flayer saved them because, Thoon being so unexplained and unknowable, was actually a force trying to break the cycle once and for all (but still suffering some form of madness, insanity, rage, etc, because of harm caused BY the cycles and how it affrcted the multiverse). That was probably too lengthy, but it's something I've been thinking about a while now since i saw your Mind Flayer video, more so with the new Spelljammer release, and.....if not interested, please disregard. If this interests you at all, please let me know, I'd love to share my thought with ya on it, i've had a lot of ideas on how epic and out there this could be, and would love to discuss it with someone.
Beyond that....I'd also like to hear how you would use all of this in your own games/campaigns, or if you already have and how it went. Hell, if you already did, i'd love to see some videos where you tell the story of it like a lore video!
@@arthurdotson9579 No no, the lore from the D&D sourcebook monsters is legit, particularly the Mindflayer lore, that's Bruce Cordell for you, the real elder brain.
@@AJPickett So....they ARE from the far future!?!?!? Where is that stated? illithiad??? Oh shoot, my campaign/story idea might fit.....
@@AJPickett Hey. Sorry if what I was asking/saying got confusing. Didn't mean for the talk to end. I was hoping for more info on, well, anything related to this stuff. Please let me try again
(1) Mind Flayers. Their lore. The future stuff about their empire. Can you point me in the right direction as to where to find and read up on this? If it's in the illithiad, or if there's any other sources I need to get?
(2) Your lore videos about this stuff. Can you tell me which videos to watch that link together for all of this Mind Flayer lore, both official and altered? Or if there is a playlist that already collects it all? I tried looking for one but didn't see one.
(3) My ideas. Sorry that just got splatted out there like that. Your videos are inspirational in that regard. If you'd rather I don't mention my own ideas, I'll refrain from doing so from now on. But your stuff on this subject, it changes one's perspective on it all and is very inspirational, and inspired me to have this idea of a grand, epic campaign. Just haven't any "outlet" for those ideas. But, my apologies on that.
The fabricators sound suspiciously like replicators from SG1
Clockwork horrors.
Bearing Golems appears
rogue can i pick pocket it.
DM (LOL) sure
Rogue: I pickpocket it's leg, roll 19
DM ( god damn it) OK It fall to piece and
Rogue I put it in my bag of holding
DM : OK ( be cool) The golem is now one size smaller ( and at that monument they knew the screwed up )
Funny, so here is a one shot sci-fi horror adventure, ..
a.) Large Bearing Golem turns into around two dozen size Tiny/ or diminutive golems. And swam a single PC. " then blow up."
b.) Large Bearing Golems throws at a given PC a diminutive size golem which climbs the PC back up to the neck then goes off like a fragmentation grenade. Make Reflex save to avoid losing your head, follow with Fort save DC:10+ damage dealt to not to bleed out. Still knock unconscious.
c.) Best given the players multiple PCs to run with my estimate kill off rate.
d.) Old house rule from 25 years ago playing AD&D2ndE and moved into 3rdE, if mind flayers tentacles can dissolve a skull within melee combat on a failed saving throw, base on the given DM they are a quick PC killing monster despite PC's Hp total. So why can't a mind flayer grapple a weapon arm and dissolve the limb right off the PC. So sorry but leather armor offers no protection. Then up the .. body horror .. where the mind flayer replaces the PC's missing limb with some form of alien life form.
Had a few players making multiple Will saves to mental argue with an eye, arm, leg, along with some type of growth implanted on their backs or chest. Each had a special attack ability. At first a curse then a special melee power bonus. Not many players can deal with DM modifying their PC with body horror and fail saves losing control ending up being an N/PC cannon fodder monster for the other players to take out.
But, .. make the saves and the Player PC turns to the rest of the group and says, " It isn't so bad, you will .. enjoy .. the Power the upgrades provides, .. join us. "
In a creepy corrupt voice.
Another time, the player roll really high, like Star Wars 3rdE bonus Force dice of multiple 2d6s to 4d6s, or/ along with natural 20's.
Player, " Alright ! F-cking awesome, lets go for beer and sack a few pirates !"
Mind flayers just look at each other and sigh, then roll their eyes when the other players jump for bio armor with psionic wild talent upgrades.
Mind flayers, " If we can not control them as thralls, might as well direct their environment damage to locations that benefit us."
It occurs to me that covering lore and the capabilities does ensure an unending supply of material if you cover professional 3rd party content
*nods* yes, yes it does.
@@AJPickett if you do consider content from such sources, are there any requirements that would make you consider covering the monster? Or any that would make a particular source off limits?
@@NoNamesLeft0102 its more like shades of gray, some things are very legit, some are iffy at best, some homebrew hosted on the DnDWiki? Nope.
@AJ Pickett Dragon Tales ❤️ ?
Yep, I am aware
@@AJPickett Didn't mean it in negative way. I just draw a lot of inspiration from them and really enjoy them. The way you narrate them and the different voices is just phenomenal.
The applications are so limitless. I wonder if you charm them or brain wash them in some way?
Good luck with that!
Were any images you used AI generated?
Yes, most of them are. I'm going to be paying folks on my discord server for requested art I include, which I think.. may be a world first?
Weird AI generated art
hmm, I thought I did a pretty good job making those from scratch... oh welll.
I read this as "Weird Al", not "Weird AI"
"...First in my class here at M.I.T.
Got skills, I'm a champion at DND..."
@@AJPickett I liked the art! D&D art can be pretty surreal looking, and until reading this comment thread it hadn't clicked that this was AI generated in the first place. Thumbs up from me to keep using this kind of thing!
@@Essex121514 I love Weird Al Yancovich!
@Eric Connor Is this a play on words? If so, it just dawned on me, and thats actually pretty damn funny.
If it wasn't then my bad, seeing things, where there are none.
So a fabricator are essentially a fantasy 3D printer? A sentient 3D printer.