So I'm running a Dark Souls Campaign and the players are getting to the point where shit gets real. I will make a pretty boss-heavy campaign, with a boss battle closing every session, and already got some planned. You guys got any ideas for cool boss appearance/gimmicks/backstories?
>I'm running a game
>Make my game for me
I don't begrudge it but I wish you had even a little bit of work to show.
>>47632924
Well since you are running it for a party if people you could build more bosses to have a gimmick around multiple people. Like a boss that possesses one member of the group at a time and causes infighting or something.
>>47632948
Well, I guess if I show some of the stuff I did until now it would help.
>Centaur Knight Volvonir. Fought in a giant viking-style wooden church, where it jumped between ceiling beams, mezzanines and pillars, trying to keep away from the PCs. Its main attack was to jump high into the air and try to crush a PC under its weight, or to jump behind the wooden benches and throw them at the PCs with kicks. Best way to kill it would be to quicky cut the pillars under it and make as much damage as they could before he could recover and jump away. Recovery required a sucessful roll, so it could take a couple turns.
>>47633162
sounds cool. what system are you using for this?
>>47633162
>That pic
Reminds me of this video.
https://youtu.be/N7yXUwq4bXk
>>47633162
>The Dullahan. That mask actually has three faces, like the Reflecting Knight of DS2. It can see in three directions at the same time, so even if the players manage to flank him he's still very capable of fighting them off. Upon receiving a "fatal" blow, the armor starts to bleed gallons of blood and the helmet falls to reveal three snake heads. If one of the heads is cut, two will take is place in a couple turns. The only way of actually killing him is breaking his chest armor and attacking the rotten heart within.
>>47633208
King Arthur Pendragon, 5th edition
>>47633260
>The Quadriga. (Using the DS2 Chariot as a placeholder image) A four-wheeled chariot, with a horse head sculpted in the front. The horse head has glowing eyes and smoke coming out of its nose. The chariot has a spinning platform mounted over it, and on the platform there are four full suits of armor, two holding lances and two holding heavy two-handed axes. The Chariot main mean of attacking is by ramming a PC with its deadly charge, that takes a full turn to prepare but hits HARD. Destroying a wheel immobilizes it, and one of the armors starts repairs while the others try to cover him. Repairs last for a couple turns. Destroying the four suits of armor kills the boss. Will be fought in a ruined city with lots of tight avenues.
>>47632924
Roaming/Darksage Demon
Yellow Smelter Demon
Bismuth Crystal Sage
If From can recycle bosses in the same game, you can recycle them and yell LORE until your players are happy wih them.
Giant, morbidly fat rolller who kills people by rolling over them.
>>47633571
Could actually work...?
A mason who was cursed by a river spirit after attempting to dam his river. The mason lived to see his buildings crumble upon his friends and family, as every structure he would try to build would crumble.
In the ruins of a castle he once built, his greatest creation, he is surrounded by the bodies of his lord and their dead companions, their bodies chalked with mortar and their bones broken by fallen bricks. He tried to give them graves, but the stones wouldn't even stand upright.
For the fight, the environment is the main feature, as columns and walls will collapse, either harming the players or creating an obstacle/hole in the floor. Play the Mason as a bruiser who'll try to force players against the crumbling structure, either bashing against the walls or trying to throw them into pits.
On one hand, the mason wishes for his curse to be over, and welcomes death. But, on the other hand, he fears his fate on the other side, as he was damned, and does not wish for the eternal torment. He's fighting for his own survival here.
>Mad Chimera Knight: Giant-sized armored knight with three heads: one regular, two on each shoulder - lion, goat and serpent. Each head has a gaseous breath attack - fear, silence/stop and poison. As it takes damage the knight's heads break, and when only one is left a massive beast of the matching type bursts out of the armor and rampages.
>Beast of the Blood: Monstrous werewolf-like feral creature, multiply-limbed, that replicates itself as an insubstantial duplicate in the spilled blood of an enemy whenever it wounds with an attack. The duplicates do full damage but break apart once hit by anything.
>Eyedrinker: Gigantic floating eye resides at the top of the high-arched building this boss is fought in. At the base are dozens of mutated humanoids with eyes growing all over their bodies. These enemies do only minor damage but their main purpose is to grapple the party. Each turn the central eye drains the sight of a party member, rendering them blind until it is damaged. It can attack with a highly damaging beam of light at any immobilized PC.
>Wooden Stag Knight: Normal, lance-carrying humanoid fought in a ruined area overgrown with trees. At the start of the fight a huge wooden stag golem growns itself out of the nearest tree and the knight mounts it. As well as charging at the PCs, the knight can control the roots and branches in the arena and use them to attack or tie up the PCs. The stag and knight can move inside any tree and emerge from any other tree. The knight leaves his lance in the PCs when he damages them, and it begins to grow outwards into a new tree - consuming them - unless severed. He generates a new lance from the nearest tree as he rides past.
>Maneater Hag: Ogre-like witch with a long necklace of skulls that she uses to bash at the PCs. She likes to get in close with her bone-crushing teeth. Each turn she can crush one of the skulls she carries between her teeth and summon up a ghostly shade of the warrior it once was to serve her.
>>47633571
Fat Naked Rolling Guy was the true final boss of Bloodborne.
>>47633571
>>47634039
Which enemy is that? I can't tell from the motion blur and weird angle.
>>47633424
Champion Gilbrecht (seen here before losing his arm). One of the PCs humiliated this guy during a gladiator fight, cutting off his right arm, crushing his throat and calling him a fraud and an inferior being (PC is kind of an edgelord) then leaving him to die without finishing him off. He survived and now he's back, and PISSED. His fighting carrer ruined, he became and explorer of the ruins.
He's a master of the spear with tons of experience killing man and beast, and now got his hands on some ancient weapons. Basically a very very overpowered human that will fight a lot like Ornstein, but human-sized and more agile.
The kind of thing I like to throw on my edgelord players to show them that their actions have consequences in-game.
>>47634079
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CzD2foCZ-I
Fat Naked Rolling Guy. He shows up in Depth 4 chalices and below. Kos help you if he shows up during a defiled chalice, especially when you got no room to maneuver.
A bear lion beast thing that has two sides to it. The left part of its body is clean and groomed with white and golden fur while the right is ragged and bloody with black and red fur.
The beast fights by purposefully exposing its right side and only attacking with its right claw. It takes significantly reduced damage on its right and has powerful counter attacks. The left side casts magic that keeps the players zoned away from it. It's very fast and if anyone attempts to get to its left side it runs away or does some flailing moves.
It's weakness if obviously its left side but once it takes a sufficient amount of damage the left side turns black and red like the right side and it goes into a last ditch frenzy until killed.
It's name is Perfection and it's backstory is that it was once a sacred beast that represented beauty and roamed the lands until it was attacked. In the attack it was hit by a curse on its right side that disfigured it and drove it mad with an endless rage.
>>47634141
>Depth 4 chalices and below
That explains it, the Chalice Dungeons never really got my attention since they didn't have story advancement and weren't much good for soul farming.
Pthumerian Ancestor or whatever he's called is a cunt, too.
You could take pretty much any Castlevania boss for this actually.
>>47633935
>>47634000
>>47634160
Pretty great. Fits very well in the lore I'm making, since the players are in a kingdom cast down by the Lords after the murder of a god. So, curses everywhere.
>>47634085
maybe this time he has a weapon where his arm was
>>47634085
>Got his hands on
I get it.
>>47633278
Some Arthur-themed ones, then:
>Undying King: fight takes place across a frozen lake. The enemy is an armored undead warrior in a tarnished crown with a sword right through his chest. He bludgeons the PCs with superhuman strength, and tries to grapple them and impale them on the sword sticking through him. During the women's hands form from the ice below and grab at the PCs limbs.
>Penitent Son: a young half-armored knight with ghostly pale skin carries a massive cross on his back. On it is nailed the corpse of an older warrior who strangely resembles him. The knight tries to bludgeon the PCs, knocking them across the battlefield with his huge weapon. He is constantly crying, and his tears heal his own wounds.
>Fairy Feller: a green-armored knight with a belt of thorns that runs inside and through his flesh. He carries a blood-slicked sword and the severed head of a beautiful one. The fight takes place in a forest or city with many tall structures casting shadows: this knight hits normal damage in the shadows, but vastly increased damage in the sunlight. In the first stage he fights with his sword and the severed head, which he can hold up to emit a stunning screech. In the second stage he rips out his own thorny intestines and uses them to flay the party.
>Knight of Purity: this huge, old knight emerges to fight from the corpse of a strange creature that appears made up of the parts of many different creatures. Blood seeps from the crotch of his armor. This fight takes place in a courtyard, and on the walls above there are dozens of young maidens who begin screaming as the fight starts. This knight is an expert but conventional fighter - during the fight, the young women will throw themselves to their deaths at the PCs from the walls above.
>>47634622
Godammit. My initial idea was to go for a more Roman theme, and have a king cursed to become a werewolf along with his nobles becoming beasts and commoners becoming rats and prey. But Undying King and Knight of Purity are just too awesome to pass. I'll have to adjust the lore...
>>47634857
There's no reason you can't have a whole bunch of Camelots existing at different points of time if you're going for a true Souls theme. You can even tie them into the changes in literary tradition: so you have your Roman-inspired beast kingdom, a more witchy Celtic thing, then the corrupted virtues of the French rewriting.
Do your PCs get opportunity for gaining sick loot from their defeated foes, aka Boss Weapons?does Best Bird-Girl sell them?
>>47634622
>>47634000
Now this is pickle pee,
this is pump-a-rum!
>The Unfleshed: The fight takes place in a murky swamp where the water is bloody. The Unfleshed is a skeleton with two pairs of arms two regular in front with two larger clawed ones on the back, wielding two swords he slashes at the npcs with either it's back arms or it's swords. In his skeletal state he doesn't do much damage and is slow, but makes up for it with being extremely strong. As the fight progresses it grows more and more flesh back until it appears to be made of muscle,tendons and sinew (think Birkin's third form in RE2) in this form he is stronger and faster, but takes more damage.
>>47635127
Every fallen boss gives loot. I don't have the patience to put a consistent crafting system in the game, so they drop flat-out weapons and armor sets. Every player gets some item, according to how far he survived into the fight and his contribution.
Basic itens are actually sold by totally not! Vizzini from Princess Bride.For weapons and magical stuff, I was thinking more of a Best FireGrill scheme
>>47634433
I was thinking more like "hey look, he's so pissed he learned to use a spear with only one arm!" or giving him super-powered prosthetics so he can punch the PCs across the room in a flurry of electricity.
Shame and hatred be upon the kingdom of ---------, for his king betrays both man and god. After the cowardly murder of Flame God Flann, burned in the Eternal Engine to power the magical experiences of his king, the Lords descended upon --------- and smote it; King, knight and commoner, turned to beast, vermin or worse. May nothing grow and nothing shine on the accursed land, whose name we shall not speak.
>Emissary of Sin: Personal assistant to Velka, godess of sin, The Emissary of Sin wanders the dark halls of the once proud Palace. The punitive silence of its king and nobility must be upheld. To break it is to break the word of the Godess, and to break the word of the Godess requires punishment.
Basically, this guy has a random chance of appearing after every fight in a certain area. At first he looks like a very well trained but normal explorer in a Plague Doctor outfit. But the more Sin the party has accrued, the stronger he is. If he ever receive a "killing blow", he will open his coat to reveal four giant crow wings, four crow claws and four giant crow skulls. His fighting style changes to flying out of the reach of the party, dropping deadly fumes and Curses, then quickly closing in with his claws.
>>47632924
A gate, manned by archers shooting through murder holes, with large-sized metal golems carved and posing as plate-armored knights on recessed pedestals on both sides of the doors.
Since this is souls inspired are you going to do a similar death system? I've been curious myself to see how checkpoints would work in tabletop. On one hand it would allow you as the GM to put your players up against tougher odds without having to worry about permanent character deaths but on the other hand I don't think making your players go through the same stuff twice would be a good idea. You'd have to come up with a better punishment for death that's more fitting to tabletop.
>The Fissure King
>"It is truly said that there is no king without a kingdom, and there is no kingdom without a king."
>"Perhaps this saying was never truer than with Old King ----, under whose reign the kingdom grew into the greatness it once held. As he aged and as his foes' arrows found their marks, his failings were mirrored across the land. As he grew weaker and sicker, so too did his subjects. He abdicated his throne and shut himself off, deep down in the dungeons below the keep, hoping that relinquishing his crown would relinquish his curse."
Mechanically, this fight starts off as a fairly standard "big knight guy" boss battle against a decrepit king in tattered robes, maybe shitty rusty ancient armour. However, as damage is inflicted on him, the environment topples and changes, becoming more hazardous and perilous. And perhaps killing him will cause the room to collapse entirely. Killing him should feel like a landmark event, like killing Rom, and bring about a major environmental change to the overall game world.
>The Council of Wolves
>"As men become beasts, so too do beasts become men."
>"It is said by the folk of ---- that there is a church in the forest and it is to be avoided. The hooded priests there walk on two feet, but the long snouts that poke out are not of men."
This boss fight is more of a mob fight than your typical "one monster" fight; the Council are bipedal wolves wearing monks clothes with human level intelligence. Some can cast miracles, which might include summoning feral wolves from the surrounding forest. As the fight goes on, the surviving wolves lose the dregs of their assumed humanity - the ones wielding weapons drop them and start using claws, the ones that cast miracles stop and bulk up to become melee fighters.
>>47636678
I don't make them go through the same exact stuff. The only thing I repeat to the letter is the bosses, since memorizing their attacks patterns is so important. That's why I'm putting more attention on my bosses - because they MUST be fun, varied and have nice flavor. No one wants to try killing Generic Lich nº 557325 twice, especially when the last three bosses were already Generic Lich.
As for normal enemies, I don't repeat them. Usually I just keep a table of "enemies of this area" and choose from there, but they, and where exactly they appear, change each time. That, and plenty of bonfires. I make a point of placing one before every single boss and in every treasure room, so they don't need to make the dungeon crawl again. And one when they're halfway there as well.
It's more like... bonfire - random encounter - random encounter - bonfire than bonfire - hollow - giant rat - bonfire.
It has worked well so far, seeing as everyone in the group seems pretty eager to keep pushing on.
>>47636678
>>47636949
Also, I keep the game very open for exploration, like the originals. In Dark Souls you go after the enemies, not the opposite. So if you're feeling frustrated after failing an area many times, you can simply give up and go around it. There's never an encounter the players can't just back away and try another way (if they're fast enough to escape, of course)
>>47636901
More awesome stuff. I actually already had thought something very similar to the Council of Wolves as a sign of the weakening of the natural order brought by the Age of Dark.
>Marina the Waylaid
>"The great explorer herself, lost to the abyss."
>It is said that there was no realm of this world that Marina the Explorer had not traipsed, no forgotten corner uncovered. Such was her curiosity that nothing could appease her wanderlust, not even love.
The fight is in some location (ruins, chasm, whatever) enveloped by the abyss and near total darkness. The players upon entering can see Marina wandering about in the distance by the glow of her lantern. Once the area is entered though, the players have a grace period before creatures of the abyss "notice" them and start to slowly close in on all sides. If they try to use a light source, the process is increased dramatically and they are quickly overwhelmed. Thus, they will first have to navigate the dark, perilous area in a quick but safe manner (it's not a straight path to Marina so if they're not careful they can run into a dead end or straight off a ledge to their deaths) and quickly killing the few abyss creatures they might alert on the way. The idea is not to linger and reach her as quick as possible through the dark, dangerous labyrinth. Upon getting close they will see her completely surrounded by a horde of abyss creatures, unable to approach too close because of her lantern, but also preventing the players from approaching since the horde is between them. They'll have to get her attention by either making noise (different from the creatures) or walking directly in her line of sight, causing her to cast the light of her lantern at them. This will cause the horde of abyss creatures to notice and go after them instead, giving them the chance to approach and get within Marina's area of light if they can first avoid the horde of creatures. Once inside the area of light they can properly fight her, though obviously straying too far from her will mean leaving the area of light and getting killed by the abyss horde outside.
Cont.
>>47637822
For the actual fight, she starts by hanging the lantern from her belt and alternates between a special cranked repeating crossbow and lots of special items (firebombs, throwing knives, etc), and after a certain point like half-health she switches to the lantern itself which works in being able to cast pyromancies and also has a short range normal attack and long range special attack. Also more of a meta tactic, but she may occasionally seal the lantern to cast everything back into darkness, and taking the chance to put some distance away before opening it again to relight the area. As well, while lit she may use the area to her advantage, like quickly running away along a path, jumping across a ravine, or climbing a ladder/falling down to a lower ledge, all with the purpose to have you get caught by the abyss creatures if you can't keep up with her and fall out of the light.
A way to make the fight easier and also result in a later benefit, is encountering an NPC guy with a baby looking for her as well but waiting in the safety of the hub area. If talked to, he gives you some of the baby's swaddling or like a pendant belonging to Marina, which when in the abyss safely illuminates a very small area around the players. Furthermore as she nears death, if the player has the special item they can choose not to kill her and present the item by which the fight will peaceably conclude and she'll light the way out before returning to the hub area to be with the guy and their baby, together acting as vendors.
One way or the other, upon winning the fight, the players get her lantern which along with the attacks it was capable of in the fight, also safely and greatly lights the abyss.
>>47637822
>>47637924
Cool. Loved the "Environment is your enemy" feel. Great chance to get the players surrounded in something like this.
The NPCs can give one of those trademark Souls Feels moments too. I should think more about what happens before and after the bosses, maybe put more NPCs that known them or fought them before. Killing the Bed of Chaos was that much more dramatic after the dialogues with Quelana...
>>47638419
Thanks. I started out writing it as just a simple idea but it got fun expanding on it. I'd thought to expand on her as an NPC but figured as the DM you'd be better suited for it.
>>47638478
Actually I'll definitely pick her up as an NPC. The events of my setting start years after the events of the secret ending of Dark Souls 3, whenthere's a new age of fire kept alight by the very souls of mankind, since the the Ashen One broke the cycle with the use of humanities and the last embers of the First Flame, so mankind is expanding and exploring the old world. She's perfect for the setting.
>>47638669
That's a pretty cool premise, I'd like to see updates if you run the game, how the players fare.
As for an NPC, I'd figured the players might learn of her through markings left behind in the world at certain parts, and conversations with other NPCs or the usual item details. Like maybe early on if they care to shell out the souls or get lucky to find it, they can get a book which explains her marking system and makes the markings helpful. Like pointing out illusory walls or traps, stuff like that.
And then later on either directly from her as a vendor or from her partner if she's dead, they could get a map she made or item or something that allows them to navigate a route leading to a late game or secret area. Like without the map or item, the route is unable to be normally traversed, like an endless foggy mist or ever-shifting plant growth or something. Or even more simply, just instructions on how to find or reach said area, that the players may have overlooked the first time going through. I figured these were more interesting than her just giving you a key she found.
Bumping the thread before I go to sleep. I probably have enough bosses but I'm having fun here.
>The ideas that would become the unholy experiments of King ---------------- came to him after the tragic fall of the Kingdom of Drangleic, and the rumors that its king managed to create life using Giant souls. If the souls of giants could create life, then what could the souls of gods do? But to house the soul of a god, a strong enough vessel had to be built. Had he known that you can't kill a god of fire by throwing him into flames...
The Screaming Forge is a huge system of pulleys, cauldrons and coal beds, eternally burning, animated by what is left of Flame God Flann. Usually the system is "sleeping", burning just enough to show embers. But once the players aggro it, the fans will start to blow and metal will begin melting as the whole scenario lights up around them. Everywhere, they can hear the anguished screams of the bound god.
The boss design is based on medieval paintings of the devil. The Forge is actually a huge sculpture carved into the wall, dominating a room designed to experiment and produce divine weapons. It has four main mobile parts: It's "face", many feet above, two huge but clumsy iron arms that animate from holes in the walls and are kept moving my a huge system of chains and pulleys, and a "womb" at ground level that spawns demonic automata every couple turns.
>>47639678
The fight is basically a Shadow of Colossus upwards crawl through the system of cauldrons, beams and chains, trying to reach the "Face". inside of it, in a place of enormous heat, the chained god is eternally chewed by an infernal machine. His soul must be put out of its misery.
Since this would be one of the final bosses, I would maybe require an item just to stand the heat inside the mouth. Maybe Gwynnevere's Own Veil.
>Veil given to Gwynnevere by her husband Flann on the night of their marriage, so she could touch his flames without being burned.
So the player wearing the veil would have to be protected during the whole fight, since only him/her can deliver an actual finishing blow.
>>47639706
This part seems flimsy. How would you have them defeat Flann if, through bad rolls or bad planning, they miss acquiring the Veil?
