Tonight my group is going to try and break someone out of a max security inter-planar Prison (Dark Heart of the Dreamer).
I need some ideas on what the Prison Guards might be like. What might these most bad-ass guards be like?
Tonight my group is going to try and break someone out of a max security inter-planar Prison (Dark Heart of the…
Tonight my group is going to try and break someone out of a max security inter-planar Prison (Dark Heart of the…
Intangible wraiths that sap their victim’s vital essence? Steel golems? Fire giants? Giant molten steel golems that sap strength?
Creatures of pure intellect that trap intruders in prisons of their own minds?
Chain golems with shackles for hands.
Or shackles with GOLEMS for hands 😀
Modrons?
The most bad-ass ones mind control the worst prisoners into being guards themsleves.
Chris Mitchell Illithids would make good prison guards. Aren’t Githzerai/githyanki also powerful psions?
Demons and devils are the classic bad-ass prison guards. I’ve always loved the monsters that were crazy constructs created by demons, out of insect chitin and humanoid bones. They’re brutal.
Would the freedom-loving CN githzerai believe in prisons? (Sorry, this is coming from a Planescape perspective.)
Nobody ever wants to leave Elysium
What’s the purpose of the prison? What philosophy leads them to imprison these criminals rather than just executing or banishing them? Rehabilitation? Segregation & warehousing? Punishment & retribution? Slave labor & exploitation? Deterrence of the public?
Some combination thereof? Do the powers that be publicly claim one purpose but actually pursue another (or multiple others)? Is it different from prisoner to prisoner?
The answers will dictate how they store the prisoners, and what manner of security and guards there will be.
The prison guards in Dante’s Hell are also torturers, sadists, possibly former prisoners themselves. The guards in a prison run by Modrons would be hyper-vigilant sentinels standing watch over stasis-chambers. Those in a corrupt system that claims to be all about rehabilitation and deterrence but that is in fact about punishment and exploitation… go watch Hudsucker Proxy and turn Captain Clancy Brown into an ogre.
What if Valhalla was a prison and the Einherjar are a Janissary-style army kept there? The PC’s are recruits. Maybe they could get out by pledging to return in death after accruing more glory?
Love all the suggestions here.
I think I’m finding the most inspiration with with a place run by Illithid like creatures. Masters of psychological and physical imprisonment. Think Arkham Asylum, if Scarecrow was the warden.
An Elder Brain could run the whole thing.
The worst criminals are kept in a prison of their minds. Maybe the PCs have to travel inside their mind-prison to free them? Because, you know, they have to break out one of the worst offenders :). Think something like the movie The Cell.
Golems / Constructs will get worked into. Foot soldiers that can’t be tempted or paid off.
Horrific. Trippy. Should fit right in with Dark Heart / City of Dis.