Despite the fact that tsochori can seize control of abolithes & mind flayers, I suspect that they pose that most credible threat to tschori. After all, they can disrupt the psychic connection between tschori & their living host bodies. Well, before they eat the hosts brain. And they can detect the aberrant thought patterns of a tschori.
Damn I love it when you do deep dives. AJ: "Get yourself a tasty beverage..." Me: *Pauses video, gets beverage, resumes play.* AJ: "It's time to get deeply nerdy." Me: *Nerd intensifies*
Nice! Tsochar are easily my favorite monster of all time in DnD - especially for making really unique characters. Played a 3.5 game as a fighter with a Tsochar riding along with, but everyone thought he was paladin since he was always going on about his "Lord of the Nine Truths" and would occasionally heal people using the Tsochar's spells . . . which was very convenient when he was left alone to take care of unconscious people or "interrogate" prisoners without killing them. Its honestly kind of funny what kinds of odd things people willfully overlook when you are helping them hunt down and defeat a Lich and his minions. I miss that GM :/ He was down for almost anything as long as you weren't actively trying to kill or control other players.
I incorporated these into my game a few years ago, a 5e Version of them. I adapted them to be the first thing the party fought. Through a cursed loom, weaving them into tapestries, they were brought into the world from the far realm. I have a lot of fun with them and their desire to seek out beings who can cast magic. In the world I've created Magic casting for the general population is illegal, so it's a very underground thing. I'm excited to see where it all goes. we've had to take a break, so I hope we can resume this. as a side note the images on the tapestries also acted as a bit of foreshadowing for the party as well. :)
Tsorchar behave like Flesh Elementals. In their smallest form, a Strand, they are mindless and reactionary, only doing what its instincts tell it to do, but by gathering with more of their own kind, they can become a greater being capable of "absorbing" the Flesh of other beings and incorporating it into their form, like how a Fire Elemental can consume other fire elements or just consume normal fire. Almost like Flesh is an Element in the Far Realm.
Literally writing a novel where a common phrase, ‘Gorn is old and full of visitors’, is usually used to explain away for the common person the upheavals and monsters that plague the mortal races. What they don’t know, usually, is that it really is meant as a warning-a meditation on the need to be constantly vigilant against those visitors that have every intention of staying, and making the mortals little more than memories with fleshy effigies. Love your inspirational ideas and source collation. It’s like a pick me up for a tired story teller!
I always thought that the flesh crafter(?) wizard from that same book was a particularly good class choice for these guys. Making crazy weird “vehicle” host, like living humanoid mad max vehicles.
I can just imagine some obscure janitor at an arcane society getting taken over as he's cleaning up the mess made by the conjuration specialists, and then the Tsochar gradually working their way up the hierarchy, taking over mages as they go... No matter how many mages they purge, new ones keep getting taken over. The best part is that the Tsochar aren't well-known like the other aberrations.
used a heavily modified mindfalyer for one of the nobles once. It started the fight by swinging across the attic rafters with its tentacles, dropped in front of the party, used a mind blast and swung back. Never seen a party "NOPE" out of a fight faster.
Oh wow, the thumbnail art is actually a card from the Gwent card game made by CDPR, the card is called parasite. Just got finished playing a game and did a double take when I saw the upload haha.
Gwent was good, the Witcher card game, but I stopped playing when MtG got a bit better, and also, card games on mobile phones are NOT good for productivity.
Just a thought, but given that you require a different plannar tuning fork for the plane shift spell to enter each crystal sphere are they in fact simply a layer of the prime material plane the same as the "outer" planes which have layers, which also require a different fork for each layer.
I'm currently using these buggers as working alongside the Koatri and Uvuudaum. Scary thing is in my setting they're all just extremely evolved, and devolved creatures living in an HR Geiger hellscape at the end of time. A race of wizards got super into time magic, and began creating pockets of accelerated time, and began mucking about with evolution. Now they're trapped at the edge of time, wanting to come back. They aren't aliens, outsiders, or even demons. Just humans that have gone eons and eons of forced evolution and now view baseline humans as just raw resources for their biomechanical technology. The mind flayers of the future became so scared of them they fled to the past.
You know what this reminds of? Thread and Threadfall from the Pern Novels. Imagine a campaign where the game world comes a little too close to a Tsochar world every century or so? *sings: I see a bad moon rising, I see trouble on the way...
"Grab yourself a tasty beverage, we're about to get deeply nerdy". Haha! I love it. And, you well know that I am always prepared with a tasty beverage and ready for all things nerdy. lol. Also... Aliens are creepy, and the Tsochar are no exception. Great video AJ!
"...the dull scavengers of the earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where the earth's pores should suffice, and things have learned to walk that ought to crawl."
I know you used a lot of horrific artwork in this, but can also see the Tsochari talking on "cute" guises to disarm opponents in order to get within striking distance. Imagine one in the guise of a little girl in a dark forest "Mithter, can you help me? PWEESE! My family caravan was attacked by highwaymen & I lost my parents. We were going to a my grandparent's place in the next town over." (Adventurer picks up "innocent child" which promptly dissolves into thousands of strands.)
These seem like an excellent creature to include as the "symbiotic entity" dark gift from van richten's. An ancient worm who uses a Spellcaster PC to gather arcane secrets. While providing certain boons.
Ohh man I'm glad you highlighted the art. The triumvirate of it, your script and those dulcet tones just worked today, bravo. Though I'm probably going to have nightmares for a week xD
As tsochari are inately telepathic you could easily incorporate an instantaneous long-distance communication method by having two individuals swap strands and thus establish emphatic links. Could be an interesting way to incorporate them into a largersocial system in which they are basically living telephones. Their scheming nature would benefit from that as well since they are privy to insane amounts of private information being communicated through them.
If I might make a suggestion. Sandy Petersen, the guy who created Call of Cthulhu, ported a huge number of antagonists from Lovecrafts works into 5e (and Pathfinder 2). He has a DM guide, Players handbook and at least 4 campaigns level 1 to 18ish. Very good stuff. Petersen if you don't know was a major player in producing video games like Doom and Quake. For setting the gothic horror type atmospheres. And then there is the new guy on the block. Grim Hollow players handbook is out. Because why fight insane cosmic aberrations when you can play one instead.
This stuff reminds me of a small block of text from the 3.5 Lords of Madness supplement. It was about weird twilight zone worlds called “other whens” which are like, hypothetical reflections of the real world that exist for a while, and then fade away. I was working on a story based on stargates as a worlds main way of exploring their crystal sphere. A few successful colonies are set up on other worlds, so the powers that be decide to make a third jump to a new world, further than ever. The players are the crew, and their job is to scout and establish a point for a permanent portal. They have a spell hammer like vessel that is launched through the gate and there is an item, a sort of core, that powers the new gate. Unbeknownst to the players, they are subverted to an other-when in the Far realm. Over the course of the game the world and very fabric of reality around them begins to get WEIRD. A fake world needs fake gods. One of these intelligences that I just call “Mother” for now has figured out that if she can escape the othe-when using the players gate technology, she can become real and avoid death with the dissolution of her orher-when. So the players have to contend with this malevolent intelligence and survive as reality falls apart around them. I think the goal would be to find their ship (which of course they lose at some point) and escape before “Mother” gets her claws on it, and unleashes weird abberant hell on the multiverse
It made my day to see that you did a video on these. Never have I terrified my players more than with these monsters. Definitely one of my favorite aberrations (as long as my players are comfortable with this level of horror). Great video.
Wish I knew the ideal breeding locations of a Tsochar so I can setup an alien easter egg in my next dungeon or abandoned solar ship. Bonus points for life cycle so I can put a clock on the players behind the scenes if they miss the den or hints or choice not to investigate about one appearing. I'm down to make my own but prefer an idea from existing text.
Well, since they have really strangely constructed flesh that is highly resilient to damage, they can effectively breed anywhere with a large prey population. So you could leave hints about how a normally rat infested sewer is strangely clear of the vermin, or a swamp that seems devoid of any small lizards or flitting fish. really though, the best place for them to breed is where it fits into their plan. So if there small town the local Tsochar have taken over and spread their cult, then there might be a hidden forest spring where the villagers bring butchered meats and fish caught in the nearby rive to be fed to the strands that live around/in the pond. So in that case the clue could be people taking food stuffs into the woods and coming back empty handed. Likewise, I get from the original description in the book that the process of them merging and specializing can take some time since normally they would scatter to hunt and grow before coming back together to fuse - so the emergence of a new full tsochar would depend entirely on the local food density - or just how much meat the corrupted cultists can bring the young . . . . which would massively accelerate their growth and consolidation since they can avoid scattering altogether - perhaps as short as a week or two to produce not just one but multiple tsochar from a single brood if they are really piling in the calories. Left alone in a swamp though, it might take a few months instead as local predators like hydras present a real threat to an immature tsochar which could lead to complete loss of strands or pre-sapient bundles.
I could see one Tsochar working with a group of adventurers to kill a rival and then backstab them after because the party have magic weapons that can harm a tsochar more effectively then what the tsochar can do on its own
Best way to do it is the method of taking the answers t9 their extreme. Such as if a cultists wants some of the deity to give it power have the deity empower it into an aberrant, powerful mutant that barely recognize what it once was.
How many worshippers would a given deity have if they gained a reputation for being unreliable? You can assume that unreliable gods will quickly (for a given perspective on time) lose their divinity
I think if I get around to updating my Setting this inspired me to use Tsochar for antogonists in a starfinder game. You guys are such a great community.
@@AJPickett i have a game in the great dale. I put a Sarrukh temple a few miles underground. I wonder what would happen if you introduced one of these suckers to that black icor they and the yuan-ti use to transform creatures. Damn i just wrote the story for Prometheus. Lol but seriously. I wonder what type of monstrosity that would create. Possibly something reptilian? Something that takes a host? 😆
Im no pro at dnd. But Based on what you said. It seems like a willing humanoid host actually does have some bargaining chips to try and not be enslaved. You mentioned them being unable to regain spells by resting after eating the host brain. That in itself seems like a serious ace in the hole. Combined with how working together would seriously up their action economy. And couldnt you just feed it dead/captured enemies? Id love to see a parasyte: the maxim style teamup, either as an evil character, as a saving the world by any means neccessary kinda guy, or maybe as the one survivor who gained powers from the apocalyptic infection instead of losing to it.
So the Tsochar are basically the Las Plagas from mid numbered Resident Evil games? Makes me wonder what's the best monster if you want to go the RE7/8 route with mutating monsters.
I can see why you recommend these monsters to be the Gould of my Stargate campaign, this is exactly what I needed. The far realm shenanigans will be fun for my players.
Hmmm. I wonder what would happen if you cast True Polymorph on an infected individual, while targeting both creatures? Or even *unalived* both host and rider, then cast resurrection on both? 🤔😈
Imagine that this creatures threat gets so bad that a guild of high level Spellcasters gets invited to a meeting with an elder brain and some aboleths to talk about how to deal with it. That's the kind of nerdy shit I love for
I planned out a 5e campaign using the Tsochar as the main antagonists behind the Age of Worms Dungeon magazine campaign, replacing Kyuss. The PCs went another direction, but the threat is still out there…
Suppose if anyone wants more inspiration for this kind of creature look at some Stargate SG-1. Tsochar are basically a stronger Goa'uld but the way they incorporate religion, slavery and the way they behave around one another, definitely plenty of ideas
I'd like to find out more about some other games I played or tried to play as a kid. Has gamma world been incorporated into modern d and d ? Any idea what the game was that had beings that looked like jet black robotic Grel on the main book cover?
Listening to this whole thing, and getting to the point where "... the tsochar will abandon its host..." Isn't that kinda... fatal, considering how big these things can be, and what they'd have to do to actually remain inside the body's skin?
@@kereminde Oh yeah, without supernatural healing, the host is almost certainly going to die, because why would the Tsochar allow the former host to live after they are done with them? These things are infiltrators, so, catastrophic damage to the nervous system would be the least of a former host's worries.
@@AJPickett I can picture it right now. "Hey, wasn't this the dark mage we were chasing?" "Yeah." "But it's... like ripped apart, desiccated from exposure." "Uh huh." "What's going on here?" "Well, we could keep asking questions. Or... we burn everything and walk away."
Time for a "The Thing" campaign. After all it sounds like they can section off parts of the colony to spread out their control and just imagine smashing up a body these little things skitter off in different directions to replenish numbers and return with more reinforcements; granted mindless but strong, feral and hungry.
The talk of the ease of interstellar travel makes me wonder how many creatures with immunity to fire or poison could set up shop on seemingly inhospitable hellscapes like Venus. Also, would naturally psionic races like Elans or the Gith and psionically capable individuals in general pose a threat to an unwelcome passenger like this?
Wowwww I didn't know I needed this! I'm running a worm-themed cult ritual soon and if it doesn't get interrupted it will now summon a larva mage that may or may not try to implant a Tsochar, illithid worm, chaos phage, or just the idea that something foreign is crawling within them (gonna make them roll for it). Any other implantable worm ideas? XD
Defintely play up the sensation of feeling, eveb seeing, wormy shapes shifting and pulsing beneath the skin. Make no concession to the fact it's just in the character's mind. In fact, have them feel twitching motions inside their head. Slurpy sounds in their ears. The taste of moist soil and the sense of squelching soft forms while they eat. Dont have the have any real worms at that point, they will be trying to cut themselves open to rid themselves if the delusionl parasites. Bring on the madness!
Now these things inspire a lot more for my current Out of the Abyss campaign. Plus this explains the name of Thoon Hulk from the Neverwinter M.M.O. When I do bring these aberrations in, I will tell them you said "Hi," and link this to show what they faced.
While AJ covers this creature very well, I would still recommend Brian Lumley's _Necroscope_ series, to anyone who wanted more-detailed inspiration on how to implement such creatures, as the Tsochari are very similar in nature to a lifeform which features prominently throughout his books. After all, a 33 minute video can't be expected to accomplish what a long-running series of novels can. Doubtless too, Lumley's works were inspirational to the D&D authors who included these (and many more) creatures in their game.
One of the BBEGs I have in my campaign was inspired by this creature. Having taken over a changeling it is going to be a mind blowing reveal when they or if they find out.
So what about a less intelligent, more animalistic version of the Tsochar lorded over by a frequency created and controlled by an Elder God, used to create negative energy by way of a "zombie apocalypse" type invasion, where they reproduce and take over new hosts? Is there something better for that or is this a good use for them?
. . . I don't appreciate this thumbnail, Professor Pickett 8:26 I don't know if you've ever read Berserk, but this looks like a monster that was in the mid chapters of the manga. R.I.P 12:54 Nope!
I know, I saw it reccomended on dozens of completely unrelated videos before I finally caved and checked it out. Glad I did, these things are super cool!
But what if you wanted to go to Mystara? Opening a portal or casting a Scying spell doesn't work and you can't get a God creature to send you there as they have no power to breach the great barrier. That leaves taking a trip through the plane of fire in order to find the stable open portal that leads to Mystara which beyond that leaves taking a space ship to go there
Or a mysterious stranger in a coat arrives in a blue box which is larger on the inside than the outside and you step back out of the box, on Mystara. Or you get a mysterious delivery, it is a simple door in a frame, you open the door to check the hinges, and suddenly you have an open portal to the world of Mystara, with an impatient immortal on the other side, tapping their foot, they usher you to step through "What took you so long!".
@@AJPickett as I stop to think about it that does make sense as the immortals themselves can open portals to there and the Archfae could also help you get there. Like if you ran into King Oberon on Faerun and mentioned wanting to go to the greatest market of magical items in hear shot of him He might just send you to Galantry
"You thought you were facing Mind Flayers..."
(Bursts out of D&D Zoidberg)
"NO ONE EXPECTS THE TSOCHARI INQUISITION!"
“You see the skull of a tarrasque” might be THE most ominous statement that can be made by a dm
Despite the fact that tsochori can seize control of abolithes & mind flayers, I suspect that they pose that most credible threat to tschori. After all, they can disrupt the psychic connection between tschori & their living host bodies. Well, before they eat the hosts brain. And they can detect the aberrant thought patterns of a tschori.
True!
Damn I love it when you do deep dives.
AJ: "Get yourself a tasty beverage..."
Me: *Pauses video, gets beverage, resumes play.*
AJ: "It's time to get deeply nerdy."
Me: *Nerd intensifies*
The nerd must flow.
Nice! Tsochar are easily my favorite monster of all time in DnD - especially for making really unique characters. Played a 3.5 game as a fighter with a Tsochar riding along with, but everyone thought he was paladin since he was always going on about his "Lord of the Nine Truths" and would occasionally heal people using the Tsochar's spells . . . which was very convenient when he was left alone to take care of unconscious people or "interrogate" prisoners without killing them. Its honestly kind of funny what kinds of odd things people willfully overlook when you are helping them hunt down and defeat a Lich and his minions. I miss that GM :/ He was down for almost anything as long as you weren't actively trying to kill or control other players.
I incorporated these into my game a few years ago, a 5e Version of them. I adapted them to be the first thing the party fought. Through a cursed loom, weaving them into tapestries, they were brought into the world from the far realm. I have a lot of fun with them and their desire to seek out beings who can cast magic. In the world I've created Magic casting for the general population is illegal, so it's a very underground thing. I'm excited to see where it all goes. we've had to take a break, so I hope we can resume this. as a side note the images on the tapestries also acted as a bit of foreshadowing for the party as well. :)
nice
Sounds fun. I hope you get back to that, too
This comment was enough to inspire some good ideas! Fits well with pulp setting
Tsorchar behave like Flesh Elementals. In their smallest form, a Strand, they are mindless and reactionary, only doing what its instincts tell it to do, but by gathering with more of their own kind, they can become a greater being capable of "absorbing" the Flesh of other beings and incorporating it into their form, like how a Fire Elemental can consume other fire elements or just consume normal fire.
Almost like Flesh is an Element in the Far Realm.
Indeed!
As that is a valid way of seeing how demons do things and demons are mostly hostile invader outsiders then I don't see why not.
Fireballs. Lots and lots of Fireballs.
Someone at Wizards of the Coast was a massive Lovecraft fan in the 3.5 days.
Literally writing a novel where a common phrase, ‘Gorn is old and full of visitors’, is usually used to explain away for the common person the upheavals and monsters that plague the mortal races. What they don’t know, usually, is that it really is meant as a warning-a meditation on the need to be constantly vigilant against those visitors that have every intention of staying, and making the mortals little more than memories with fleshy effigies. Love your inspirational ideas and source collation. It’s like a pick me up for a tired story teller!
I think my normal tactic of 'purge it with fire' most definitely is valid here!
Its the Goa'uld for 5E. Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the wat...WAIT it was never safe! You sneaky bastard.
Heh, safety is a relative term.
I always thought that the flesh crafter(?) wizard from that same book was a particularly good class choice for these guys. Making crazy weird “vehicle” host, like living humanoid mad max vehicles.
Yes. Very much yes.
I can just imagine some obscure janitor at an arcane society getting taken over as he's cleaning up the mess made by the conjuration specialists, and then the Tsochar gradually working their way up the hierarchy, taking over mages as they go... No matter how many mages they purge, new ones keep getting taken over. The best part is that the Tsochar aren't well-known like the other aberrations.
Never has the term "e pluribus unum" been so terrifying.
The maddening eldritch arcane scientist is definitely terrific to think about
used a heavily modified mindfalyer for one of the nobles once. It started the fight by swinging across the attic rafters with its tentacles, dropped in front of the party, used a mind blast and swung back. Never seen a party "NOPE" out of a fight faster.
That thumbnail could have done with a pic of puppies or something and read...
"TSOCHAR (not pictured)"
Ugh, these are horrific and you did an amazing job translating how terrifying these are.
Thank you 🙂
Oh wow, the thumbnail art is actually a card from the Gwent card game made by CDPR, the card is called parasite. Just got finished playing a game and did a double take when I saw the upload haha.
Gwent was good, the Witcher card game, but I stopped playing when MtG got a bit better, and also, card games on mobile phones are NOT good for productivity.
Just a thought, but given that you require a different plannar tuning fork for the plane shift spell to enter each crystal sphere are they in fact simply a layer of the prime material plane the same as the "outer" planes which have layers, which also require a different fork for each layer.
Yes
Gave me a strong Parasyte: the Maxim vibe
I must begin making a campaign incorporating these beasties immediately even if it's only a one shot.
AJ: People ask me why I speak so fast
Me: listens at 2x
Like an arcane version of the Borg. Fascinating
I'm currently using these buggers as working alongside the Koatri and Uvuudaum. Scary thing is in my setting they're all just extremely evolved, and devolved creatures living in an HR Geiger hellscape at the end of time. A race of wizards got super into time magic, and began creating pockets of accelerated time, and began mucking about with evolution. Now they're trapped at the edge of time, wanting to come back. They aren't aliens, outsiders, or even demons. Just humans that have gone eons and eons of forced evolution and now view baseline humans as just raw resources for their biomechanical technology. The mind flayers of the future became so scared of them they fled to the past.
What was the videogame that came out recently which was like a minimally interactive H.R. Geiger art book?
@@RiotKurhein Darkseed
edit: wait, recently? not sure.
@@RiotKurhein Scorn
If the Tsochar weren't so dangerous and domineering they might make a good symbiote
There's an adventure in LoM that sees an evil cleric doing exactly that, it's pretty rad
You know what this reminds of? Thread and Threadfall from the Pern Novels. Imagine a campaign where the game world comes a little too close to a Tsochar world every century or so? *sings: I see a bad moon rising, I see trouble on the way...
Yes!
Thank you i had been trying to remember the name of the books.
That ending bit about you talking fast is funny, cause I listen to all your videos at 2x speed cause otherwise I'm lulled to sleep by your voice xD
"Grab yourself a tasty beverage, we're about to get deeply nerdy".
Haha! I love it. And, you well know that I am always prepared with a tasty beverage and ready for all things nerdy. lol.
Also... Aliens are creepy, and the Tsochar are no exception. Great video AJ!
I know an old lady who swallowed a spider, and it harvested all of the organs inside her... No wait, how does that song go?
"...the dull scavengers of the earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where the earth's pores should suffice, and things have learned to walk that ought to crawl."
So basically, Tsochar “strands” basically operate as a parasitic siphonophore?
I know you used a lot of horrific artwork in this, but can also see the Tsochari talking on "cute" guises to disarm opponents in order to get within striking distance. Imagine one in the guise of a little girl in a dark forest "Mithter, can you help me? PWEESE! My family caravan was attacked by highwaymen & I lost my parents. We were going to a my grandparent's place in the next town over." (Adventurer picks up "innocent child" which promptly dissolves into thousands of strands.)
Yes indeed!
"Slowly worm its way." Have you no shame!?
Sorry( *hangs head and muffles a giggle* )
These seem like an excellent creature to include as the "symbiotic entity" dark gift from van richten's. An ancient worm who uses a Spellcaster PC to gather arcane secrets. While providing certain boons.
Ohh man I'm glad you highlighted the art. The triumvirate of it, your script and those dulcet tones just worked today, bravo. Though I'm probably going to have nightmares for a week xD
I'm in love with this, planning a survival horror space game featuring these baddies
As tsochari are inately telepathic you could easily incorporate an instantaneous long-distance communication method by having two individuals swap strands and thus establish emphatic links. Could be an interesting way to incorporate them into a largersocial system in which they are basically living telephones. Their scheming nature would benefit from that as well since they are privy to insane amounts of private information being communicated through them.
excellent idea.
I would imagine they could become much like Bene Gesserit Reverend Mothers. Able to access millennia of memories, and read creatures like a book
Very inspiring, I think these will be entering my game very soon. Great video AJ!
If I might make a suggestion. Sandy Petersen, the guy who created Call of Cthulhu, ported a huge number of antagonists from Lovecrafts works into 5e (and Pathfinder 2). He has a DM guide, Players handbook and at least 4 campaigns level 1 to 18ish. Very good stuff.
Petersen if you don't know was a major player in producing video games like Doom and Quake. For setting the gothic horror type atmospheres.
And then there is the new guy on the block. Grim Hollow players handbook is out. Because why fight insane cosmic aberrations when you can play one instead.
This stuff reminds me of a small block of text from the 3.5 Lords of Madness supplement.
It was about weird twilight zone worlds called “other whens” which are like, hypothetical reflections of the real world that exist for a while, and then fade away.
I was working on a story based on stargates as a worlds main way of exploring their crystal sphere. A few successful colonies are set up on other worlds, so the powers that be decide to make a third jump to a new world, further than ever.
The players are the crew, and their job is to scout and establish a point for a permanent portal. They have a spell hammer like vessel that is launched through the gate and there is an item, a sort of core, that powers the new gate.
Unbeknownst to the players, they are subverted to an other-when in the Far realm. Over the course of the game the world and very fabric of reality around them begins to get WEIRD.
A fake world needs fake gods. One of these intelligences that I just call “Mother” for now has figured out that if she can escape the othe-when using the players gate technology, she can become real and avoid death with the dissolution of her orher-when.
So the players have to contend with this malevolent intelligence and survive as reality falls apart around them. I think the goal would be to find their ship (which of course they lose at some point) and escape before “Mother” gets her claws on it, and unleashes weird abberant hell on the multiverse
Id say play one. Where other aberrations can reveal you for what you are. Turns a game all eldritch.
It made my day to see that you did a video on these. Never have I terrified my players more than with these monsters. Definitely one of my favorite aberrations (as long as my players are comfortable with this level of horror). Great video.
Wish I knew the ideal breeding locations of a Tsochar so I can setup an alien easter egg in my next dungeon or abandoned solar ship. Bonus points for life cycle so I can put a clock on the players behind the scenes if they miss the den or hints or choice not to investigate about one appearing. I'm down to make my own but prefer an idea from existing text.
Well, since they have really strangely constructed flesh that is highly resilient to damage, they can effectively breed anywhere with a large prey population. So you could leave hints about how a normally rat infested sewer is strangely clear of the vermin, or a swamp that seems devoid of any small lizards or flitting fish. really though, the best place for them to breed is where it fits into their plan. So if there small town the local Tsochar have taken over and spread their cult, then there might be a hidden forest spring where the villagers bring butchered meats and fish caught in the nearby rive to be fed to the strands that live around/in the pond. So in that case the clue could be people taking food stuffs into the woods and coming back empty handed.
Likewise, I get from the original description in the book that the process of them merging and specializing can take some time since normally they would scatter to hunt and grow before coming back together to fuse - so the emergence of a new full tsochar would depend entirely on the local food density - or just how much meat the corrupted cultists can bring the young . . . . which would massively accelerate their growth and consolidation since they can avoid scattering altogether - perhaps as short as a week or two to produce not just one but multiple tsochar from a single brood if they are really piling in the calories. Left alone in a swamp though, it might take a few months instead as local predators like hydras present a real threat to an immature tsochar which could lead to complete loss of strands or pre-sapient bundles.
That thumbnail makes me supremely uncomfortable in ways I never thought possible.
I could see one Tsochar working with a group of adventurers to kill a rival and then backstab them after because the party have magic weapons that can harm a tsochar more effectively then what the tsochar can do on its own
This needs a movie.
How reliable are the "deities" from the far realm, in terms of answering prayers to their worshippers?
Oh quite
@@AJPickett Do you have a playlist of these far realm deities?
Best way to do it is the method of taking the answers t9 their extreme. Such as if a cultists wants some of the deity to give it power have the deity empower it into an aberrant, powerful mutant that barely recognize what it once was.
@@alexbreeze4978 And for extra horror have the cultist still have a fragment of its mind so it can know what kind of monster it got turned into
How many worshippers would a given deity have if they gained a reputation for being unreliable? You can assume that unreliable gods will quickly (for a given perspective on time) lose their divinity
For space travel more closely resembling real life, you could make a larger crystal sphere, that contains entire galaxys, and travel within that.
This gave me body snatcher and goa'uld ( Stargate ) flashbacks. A good antagonist for cosmic horror.
... I'm getting my necklace of fireballs.
Zuggtmoy is turning into a major problem in my campaign. I will absolutely turn this into a fungal monster!
You should share the story so far, probably to MrRipper
I found this video so interesting! Thanks again AJ!
As I suffer in my hospital bed with covid. This is a pleasant distraction
Get well soon.
Oof, get better. Sorry you got it so bad
I been where you are. Hold on, do what the doc tells you, and be nice to the nurses. It ain't fun, but it gets over.
Stay strong brother.
I think if I get around to updating my Setting this inspired me to use Tsochar for antogonists in a starfinder game. You guys are such a great community.
I like how you got links in description very smart
That's... that's a lot. I'm gonna have to rewatch this after a few more cups of coffee
I really REALLY like the Lords of Maddness book! Keep it up with the amazing Abberration content!
As someone with parasitophobia, this thumbnail makes me want to cut out my own eyes
Billions of bacteria and fungi are already living inside you. Most people are also hosts to various kinds of tiny arachnids, crustaceans, and worms.
@@HenriFaust man why would you tell him that
@@geist5998 because, reality is the only place to live.
This is some Poetry right here - marvelously done
Im really surprised wotc didn't use these creatures for Rime of the Frost Maiden given how much they referenced John Carpenter'sThe Thing
I know right!?
@@AJPickett i have a game in the great dale. I put a Sarrukh temple a few miles underground. I wonder what would happen if you introduced one of these suckers to that black icor they and the yuan-ti use to transform creatures. Damn i just wrote the story for Prometheus. Lol but seriously. I wonder what type of monstrosity that would create. Possibly something reptilian? Something that takes a host? 😆
Damn. Now i really am going to have to come up with a mix of the thing with a xenomorph.
Easily one of my favorite creatures of all time and a big player in my groups long term setting.
Thank you for hitting these nasties!!
Man, I think these are my new favorite aberrations! What terrifically terrifying lovecraftian horrors
Im no pro at dnd. But Based on what you said. It seems like a willing humanoid host actually does have some bargaining chips to try and not be enslaved.
You mentioned them being unable to regain spells by resting after eating the host brain. That in itself seems like a serious ace in the hole. Combined with how working together would seriously up their action economy. And couldnt you just feed it dead/captured enemies?
Id love to see a parasyte: the maxim style teamup, either as an evil character, as a saving the world by any means neccessary kinda guy, or maybe as the one survivor who gained powers from the apocalyptic infection instead of losing to it.
So legit like the anime.
The 3.0 Fiend Folio detailed several symbiotic creatures that act as living equipment, but also have their own mental scores and egos
They remind me of the TV show the Strain. A different twist on the vampires with the infection was wormlike creature.
So the Tsochar are basically the Las Plagas from mid numbered Resident Evil games? Makes me wonder what's the best monster if you want to go the RE7/8 route with mutating monsters.
Yellow Musk Zombies are a good analog for this kind of thing too
Sounds like the Tsochar are kinda like the Goa'uld from Stargate
Yeah, very much so.
Lords of Madness was one of the best sourcebooks ever. On par with AD&D Unearthed Arcana and the Manual of the Planes
Wonderful visuals, great tone, relaxing video on possibly my favorite subject matter. 👍🏻
I can see why you recommend these monsters to be the Gould of my Stargate campaign, this is exactly what I needed. The far realm shenanigans will be fun for my players.
Woooaaahhh I love these. I am adding them to my campaign world fs.
Mayhaps as a portal the party can accidentally open. Hmmmm
Hmmm. I wonder what would happen if you cast True Polymorph on an infected individual, while targeting both creatures?
Or even *unalived* both host and rider, then cast resurrection on both? 🤔😈
These creatures biology, remind me of both the Lekgolo hunters, and the flood from Halo.
Imagine that this creatures threat gets so bad that a guild of high level Spellcasters gets invited to a meeting with an elder brain and some aboleths to talk about how to deal with it.
That's the kind of nerdy shit I love for
I planned out a 5e campaign using the Tsochar as the main antagonists behind the Age of Worms Dungeon magazine campaign, replacing Kyuss. The PCs went another direction, but the threat is still out there…
I want to believe. :)
Tsochari are a truly terrifying beings. I used them many years ago and my players hated them with passion.
Suppose if anyone wants more inspiration for this kind of creature look at some Stargate SG-1. Tsochar are basically a stronger Goa'uld but the way they incorporate religion, slavery and the way they behave around one another, definitely plenty of ideas
I'd like to find out more about some other games I played or tried to play as a kid. Has gamma world been incorporated into modern d and d ?
Any idea what the game was that had beings that looked like jet black robotic Grel on the main book cover?
Gamma world has a reboot version box set, it's quirky. I am not sure the book cover you are describing sorry.
@@AJPickettright on. Yeah it was pretty esoteric on top of very old and my description is lacking .
I actually found 3rd edition Gamma World from a third party on Amazon. Pretty cool version, a little clunky mechanics-wise but great fun
@@jima6545 that's cool ,yeah the system needs work ( so I liked using gurps die system instead )
@@coreymerrill3257 outside of the mechanics, which are kind of cool, the rest of the product is pure gold
Listening to this whole thing, and getting to the point where "... the tsochar will abandon its host..."
Isn't that kinda... fatal, considering how big these things can be, and what they'd have to do to actually remain inside the body's skin?
They are very resilient.
@@AJPickett I more meant "for the host" :) As in:
If a tsochar abandons the host, it's leaving behind a corpse/husk.
@@kereminde Oh yeah, without supernatural healing, the host is almost certainly going to die, because why would the Tsochar allow the former host to live after they are done with them? These things are infiltrators, so, catastrophic damage to the nervous system would be the least of a former host's worries.
@@AJPickett I can picture it right now. "Hey, wasn't this the dark mage we were chasing?"
"Yeah."
"But it's... like ripped apart, desiccated from exposure."
"Uh huh."
"What's going on here?"
"Well, we could keep asking questions. Or... we burn everything and walk away."
@@kereminde I would say yes. A huge parasite suddenly bursts out of the body in a bid to save itself. I believe the trauma alone could kill.
Time for a "The Thing" campaign. After all it sounds like they can section off parts of the colony to spread out their control and just imagine smashing up a body these little things skitter off in different directions to replenish numbers and return with more reinforcements; granted mindless but strong, feral and hungry.
Been a favorite monster of mine for years
The talk of the ease of interstellar travel makes me wonder how many creatures with immunity to fire or poison could set up shop on seemingly inhospitable hellscapes like Venus.
Also, would naturally psionic races like Elans or the Gith and psionically capable individuals in general pose a threat to an unwelcome passenger like this?
Wowwww I didn't know I needed this! I'm running a worm-themed cult ritual soon and if it doesn't get interrupted it will now summon a larva mage that may or may not try to implant a Tsochar, illithid worm, chaos phage, or just the idea that something foreign is crawling within them (gonna make them roll for it). Any other implantable worm ideas? XD
Defintely play up the sensation of feeling, eveb seeing, wormy shapes shifting and pulsing beneath the skin. Make no concession to the fact it's just in the character's mind. In fact, have them feel twitching motions inside their head. Slurpy sounds in their ears. The taste of moist soil and the sense of squelching soft forms while they eat. Dont have the have any real worms at that point, they will be trying to cut themselves open to rid themselves if the delusionl parasites. Bring on the madness!
Me: let's just watch one more lore video before bed
*sees thumbnail
You can definitely see how the lekigolo from Halo pull some inspiration from these guys
Now these things inspire a lot more for my current Out of the Abyss campaign. Plus this explains the name of Thoon Hulk from the Neverwinter M.M.O.
When I do bring these aberrations in, I will tell them you said "Hi," and link this to show what they faced.
While AJ covers this creature very well, I would still recommend Brian Lumley's _Necroscope_ series, to anyone who wanted more-detailed inspiration on how to implement such creatures, as the Tsochari are very similar in nature to a lifeform which features prominently throughout his books. After all, a 33 minute video can't be expected to accomplish what a long-running series of novels can. Doubtless too, Lumley's works were inspirational to the D&D authors who included these (and many more) creatures in their game.
It's like Strigoy from Strain. Very cool and very scary
Frightfully Inspiring, I have to find a way to incorporate these into Avernus I'm running soon
Did this make anyone else want gummy worms?
I've really got a hankering for some gummy worms right now.
I've been tracking my mats and I think they'll be arriving in a day or two. I'm very excited
One of the BBEGs I have in my campaign was inspired by this creature. Having taken over a changeling it is going to be a mind blowing reveal when they or if they find out.
So what about a less intelligent, more animalistic version of the Tsochar lorded over by a frequency created and controlled by an Elder God, used to create negative energy by way of a "zombie apocalypse" type invasion, where they reproduce and take over new hosts? Is there something better for that or is this a good use for them?
Never disappoints 👌
I definitely know what I'm going to use in my Pathfinder campaign now.
These were absolute monsters in 3.5.
Lovecraft would love these things.
This reminded me of John Carpenter's The Thing! So cool!
. . . I don't appreciate this thumbnail, Professor Pickett
8:26 I don't know if you've ever read Berserk, but this looks like a monster that was in the mid chapters of the manga. R.I.P
12:54 Nope!
Sounds like eldritch nerve cells
Oh btw AJ the silver d6 with rubies didn't work out I couldn't get the rubies set good enough to roll correctly and gave up after I lost 3
Jesus RUclips REALLY REALLY wanted me to watch this fucking video.
I know, I saw it reccomended on dozens of completely unrelated videos before I finally caved and checked it out. Glad I did, these things are super cool!
But what if you wanted to go to Mystara? Opening a portal or casting a Scying spell doesn't work and you can't get a God creature to send you there as they have no power to breach the great barrier.
That leaves taking a trip through the plane of fire in order to find the stable open portal that leads to Mystara which beyond that leaves taking a space ship to go there
Or a mysterious stranger in a coat arrives in a blue box which is larger on the inside than the outside and you step back out of the box, on Mystara. Or you get a mysterious delivery, it is a simple door in a frame, you open the door to check the hinges, and suddenly you have an open portal to the world of Mystara, with an impatient immortal on the other side, tapping their foot, they usher you to step through "What took you so long!".
@@AJPickett as I stop to think about it that does make sense as the immortals themselves can open portals to there and the Archfae could also help you get there.
Like if you ran into King Oberon on Faerun and mentioned wanting to go to the greatest market of magical items in hear shot of him
He might just send you to Galantry