Very interesting story! Poor Baeric, your player must have been devastated. I must ask, did you drop hints about the false hydra's existence that the players missed or ignored?
Without noticing years ago i created the natural enemy of a false hydra. A homebrew bard college known as COLLEGE OF NEW ROADS. Which work as the living testament of as many stories and people they meet in their journeys, so nobody is forgotten no matter what. And one of the abilities literally says "Your Memories CANNOT be altered". So this bards might be the sworn enemies of every false hydra in existence cause they go against the ideals of their work.
Here's an interesting False Hydra idea: instead of erasing memories of the victim, it changes how people remember the victim's death. It can make people think the person died as recently as as the day before, or as far back as a couple decades. At the campaign start, ask all the players to include a detailed account of their character losing a loved one in their back stories. Bonus points if there is at least one revenge plot. Cue epic quest to hunt down target of said revenge quest. The 'killer' doesn't remember ever killing PC's loved one, party assumes it's typical "villain has killed so many people he/she can't keep track' trope, but actually the 'villain' never killed anyone and is completely innocent. Later, the players discover the presence of the false hydra in their home town and that the detailed descriptions of their loved ones' deaths were false memories created by the hydra's song. All of the loved ones were eaten by said hydra. Along the way, they befriend several NPCs in their hometown, and these all die in memorable ways as the story progresses, They are also victims of the False Hydra, the circumstances of their deaths also being false memories. Meanwhile more and more townsfolk are vanishing, but the townsfolk believe it is due to a plague, or maybe a serial killer. Other victims are believed to have died as many as thirty years ago. If the party brings up the lack of graves in the cemetery, they'll be told the victim died in such a way as there was no body to bury, or they were cremated, or buried at sea, etc.
This sounds like a heck of a game, but it'd need TONS of planning in advance. Sure, players can fill in a few of the blanks on their own, but egad so many variables....
Onestly, if you don't say that the campaign Is going to have central horror elements to the players and that they can't play morally right character, I will have to remind you that the player aren't just spectator to any cool idea you have in mind but people who want to have fun.
@@lori0747 I think for running things such as false hydra, the GM has to know the players, especially whether they would enjoy such game, without having to ask. Otherwise it's either ask and spoil the mystery or go for it and risk high chance of ruining the game for everyone but you. Even once you know, running a flase hydra is very much a tightrope.
For anyone who doesn't know what a false hydra is, it is a horrific monster. - All Things DnD Us, the audience: No, sh*t, Sherlock! This is D&D. Also the biggest understatement of 2021.
I'm doing a false hydra in Rime of the Frostmaiden now. Nothing more disheartening than hearing one of your players say "Oh, this is like a false hydra thing". (-.-) Next video: "How the Internet Ruined False Hydras"
Thats when you throw a screw in the whole thing and make it be two False Hydras, and one of them is making the other forget it so its: the party < false hydra < false hydra
When a Player says that, you (GM) retro-fit... It's LIKE a False Hydra thing, but NOT a False Hydra... Try two monsters working symbiotically... Maybe a Mind-flayer handles the memory business, and something else (flesh-eating) handles the murder and body disposal process... Let that Player take point, and keep up your own facade about "Nah, it's not what you think." OR even "Yeah, something like that... whatever..." Like any good GM would... This way, while the Party is hunting a hydra, it's something completely different, and until they get rid of the mind-flayer, the memory issues will keep on... You can even take license to create false memories (I think?) and all the other wonderful psionic effects a mind-flayer might be up to... AND don't sweat the rigidity of Canon about mind-flayers. There's no reason you can't re-invent them, so they can be "rogue" in your game... Maybe they're all parasitic, and only certain families or clans form a hive-mind phenomenon when there's enough of them to support it... Whatever you want to do... Just pointing out here... It's kind of standard fare that sooner or later a Player will either look up monsters on their own, or you'll have to handle a veteran Player who knows... OR even another GM will take up Player status with your group... Sometimes they just can't help themselves, and something gets said. You COULD get pissed and whine about "metagaming"... OR you can just re-skin a monster or two, nudge the stat's a bit, and leave them guessing. If you just "fix" the issue, it becomes a non-issue. ;o)
@@akiraamamiya8483 Yea especially if you left it's song as a Lingering effect aswell. like say if a person can't remember the victim or the false hydra itself but if the said person sees the false hydra or here's the it's song but didn't get eaten (or at least not yet anyways), the song itself would leave a haunting impression (its basically gets stuck in your head do It's familiarity), It's Like a song you heard before, but for the life of you; can't remember when, where or what you heard it from but you have heard it before (it'll get louder if you try too remember), and it also might not sit well with your stomach because of how earie and off putting it is.
My favorite joke of a campaign I made, was where a dwarven barbarian attempted to stealth past a singular guard. What had happened was the Dwarf rolled a 2 (3-1) on stealth, but the guard rolled a nat 1, so in reality the dwarf crouch walked really low, and the guard kept looking straight forward and never saw him.
@@theophrastusbombastus1359 He was singular as in he was the only guard there in the moment, essentially he was guarding a doorway. It was a fun campaign.
@@lumiknight7719 So he was a "single" guard then rather than a "singular" one. The only time singular has anything to do with number or amount is when discussing grammar and plurals (i.e the singular form of cats is cat) Otherwise the word you're looking for is "single" (or even "solitary" would be more applicable in your case). A single slice of pizza, a solitary Beholder eye gleaming in the dark, etc. But it seems the word "single" is being written out of the American dictionary, as its pretty much just "singular" used as a catch all term. Much like the word children is to kids. Ps. The actual meaning of "singular" is when something is remarkable or exceptional. Hence why I asked if there was anything unusual about the solitary guard.
False Hydra's are one of the most awesome monsters in a DM's arsenal but they are most effective when players know nothing about them, which is harder with how well known they are now.
Yeah. I agree. It's definitely going to have to be built around a very clean, unnoticeable transition into the 'false' timeline while keeping things as normal as possible with unconventional signs; I think the 'forgotten loved one/companion' bit has been used in every False Hydra story I've seen, so you'd have to break away from the really common signs.
I once ran a false hydra as per standard, though no player characters were lost. It certainly messed with players as expected, including a veteran who had years on me and was perturbed to have to reconcile with the mental and emotional dissonance of OOC and IC knowledge whenever I told him that he simply didn't recall another townsperson missing, including ones I'd had befriend them. They'd never seen the monster before and I'd just read about it in a blog for the first time a week prior. However, the most freaked out I've ever seen them was when I ran something akin to an inverse of the false hydra. The party of three was exploring the hidden lair of a long-dead ancient red dragon. The cursed loot on the dead bodies in spots, along with the hallways and doors that didn't lead back to the rooms you came from were frustrating enough. It was when the fourth party member chimed in to comment. They asked me who the hell this stranger was, and all failed the nasty-high DC for the illusion/enchantment/conjuration (creation) spell left by the great wyrm red dragon; I informed them that this female ninja had been with the party since the beginning, and even did a short Q&A out of character, and dialogues in character, to convince them that they remember her as a dear friend. Any feelings otherwise were likely the result of some amnesia spell affecting them and trying to split the party. This freaked people out. An hour later, a male ranger joined the party. I'd gotten the idea from an SCP I once read, but someone pointed out that it was also like that Rick and Morty episode with the parasites. They eventually overcame the challenges, but their reactions in and out of character were priceless.
I don't suppose you have it saved anywhere? There are some fantastic concepts in the SCP directory but with pushing 6000 entries it would be virtually impossible to find it manually.
@@rodtheworm Sorry, I don't... All I recall was it was something like 5 of the foundation operatives exploring a cave, and there was a transcript labeling their callsigns and conversation. The reader would become pretty confused when a sixth labeled voice makes a comment... I scrolled back, read that their were in fact only five people... then read on to find them freaking out and wondering why there were six of them. The trick to what you're doing if you play this out, just like the false hydra, is in the reveal. Let the players slowly realize it's not a mistake; someone is missing, or someone is there who shouldn't be.
for me it's between vampire stories and dragon stories vampire stories because I love vampires the dark atmosphere, dragon stories because I love the variety of personalities and things they can do and stories that have been told with them
Find a high enough level cleric, and pay a king's ransom to have her resurrected. It's not like her soul was unmade. True, FINDING cleric that powerful and the material components unto themselves would be a big quest... but that's the point.
@@Sovann_the_Mightyi know i’m 2 years late, but to answer your question, if said cleric is able to cast true resurrection, then no they don’t need a body since the spell only needs the caster to know the name of the victim
I had a string of thoughts. 1. False Hydra's are like something from Doctor Who. That show knows how to invoke true terror and sorrow. 2. Taking monsters from Doctor Who and putting them in D&D would be horrifying and incredible. Some people would just walk away from the table once they realised what they were facing. "NOPE. Nope nope nope." 3. The only thing worse than taking monsters from Doctor Who and putting them in D&D would be putting the False Hydra in Doctor Who and making The Doctor realise he had led companions to a "safe and fun place" with a False Hydra and then forgotten them when they were eaten multiple times. Possibly a lot of times. More times than the number of companions he can remember having, based on some evidence left behind in a place he likes to stay the night. 4. Even worse? It learned he was a good source of food so never ate him on purpose, same as with many other regular visitors. They're always so excited to share this wonderful place with someone else "for the first time".
Despite the kid-friendly veneer, Doctor Who really is horror. Often brilliantly done horror. The False Hydra does very much give me a Doctor Who vibe, and I've been tempted to come up with a Weeping Angels-type scenario as well. Your ideas in 3 and 4 are terribly evil and I love them.
Hey, I remember this one! My friend was in that party... Don't remember the DM's name. Ironic. Great to see this story get the love and respect it deserves
I'm a new DM who is planning a False Hydra in my homebrew campaign. I'm planning on keeping a handwritten journal of all my Party's adventures that I'll write from the perspective of a Cleric who worships the Goddess of Memory. When my Party arrives at the town with the FH, I'll have them find this journal in their room, and it'll have inside jokes and entries from their entire time together in it. This journal will have all of this person's thoughts and hopes and dreams, their relationships with the other members of the Party, and no one will remember her at all. I'm hoping this will have a great impact on them.
While it's a nice story thing, please don't. False hydras are just too easy to abuse, and unless you make sure your party has what they need to kill it they'll just get wiped. It has no save rolls for its effect, either in song form or bite form. And the thing is, false hydras are only a big threat if you CAN'T counter the effect. Once you can counter it easily, it's just an oversized gibbering mouther with reach on its bite attacks. It's pathetic when it doesn't have that overpowered gimmick.
@@caiusdrakegaming8087 I feel like that's the point with False Hydra's. They aren't necessarily tough to kill, but roleplay-wise they add strong horror and thriller elements. They are more about the mystery than the battle.
@@zachp1262 Might be the point of them, but that point doesn't fit the style of D&D all that well. If you introduce a monster, your players WILL try to fight it. Having a monster who's selling point is for horror/thriller, but lacks entirely in the combat department to back up the reason for it to be horrifying/terrifying, just makes for a weak monster that is more than likely to upset your players. Besides that, the false hydra's so well known by this point that the second you bring that journal out I'm willing to bet one of your players will be able to guess what they're up against. All that horror and thriller elements? Useless if the party knows what to expect. That's another reason why I said to not do it. It's gotten so popular you run the risk of your players knowing what they're up against, and if a false hydra is part of the setting then you can't even call metagaming on them. If it's part of the setting, ie part of the world at large, then there'll be reports of the species itself. It has such a specific MO that it's impossible to mistake it for any other monster, even those that also have mental/psychic abilities. On paper, a false hydra works for like an MMO or something. But in a TTRPG like D&D, it just doesn't work anywhere near as well. Your better off giving the memory effect to a mindflayer or something else, use the fact false hydras are so well known as a misdirection.
These False Hydra stories are always so amazing to listen to. After hearing these, I always end up wanting to try adventure with one to see what kind of thing the DM can do to mess with our heads with it
What a beautiful, tragic, creepy story! I love the false hydra. I used it in a campaign of mine a few years ago to great effect! I love hearing other stories about it. It is one of my favorite creatures in D&D!
If memory serves (no pun intended) the worst thing about a false hydra is that it can just spawn from nowhere. All it takes is a little negativity here, some unchecked grudge there, perhaps an unintentionally severe angry outburst. Maybe there's a massive false hydra living under the earth. All those natural disasters, just it rearing multiple heads at once. Civil unrest causing deaths, just a feeding frenzy. Makes you think...
I rejigged the False Hydra as the method by which Intellect Devourers reproduce. The party had accidentally opened up a passage to the Underdark and let some through before they realized what they'd done and closed it up again... This was a consequence.
man this makes me want to roleplay a character with dementia, its a quite interesting way to rp, i think i should have a good grasp on it cuz i have experienced first hand what memory loss does.
This story hit too close. Time is a false hydra when you lose a family member suddenly and violently. I find myself misremembering things about him, or not remembering some pretty significant moments. I wonder what was going on in the head of the monster's creator.
Bruh I'm only part through a false hydra campaign and already made a player cry with a hand written notebook from her little sister eaten by the hydra on hand made paper and written by my niece to look you. Its all about how much she loves her big sister, the leonine bounty hunter, and how she's so happy to turn 14 and be able to join her sister on hunts and help using her cleric healing abilities because she knows how's careless her big sis is in fights and geta hurt lolololol
@@byronsmothers8064 the stat blocks i've seen for it don't include it but the concept for it also gave it a domination song when fully matured (and doesn't say it can't use the blind song anymore just that it doesn't feel the need to hide anymore) fighting an enemy with tactical range unlimited aoe dominations that can also prevent you from locking onto it in a pinch sounds painful if you fail to take it out before it grows that much.
Honestly just thought of the false hydra's abilities is making me really uncomfortable...just to think I could forget about my gf and just find traces of her being in my life with no recollection of her actually being there is really fucking scary...so fucking glad that thing isn't real
@@patrickstump4681 only ppl who hear it's song are affected so you would notice if for example an internet friend would suddenly go missing and noone in their neighborhood/city would remember them...in a modern world scenario it would stick out like a sore thumb...
@@errorcringyname4044 wouldn't that just cause you to not know about the one in your own city? As far as I know false hydras aren't hive mind like creatures
Dude congratulations on getting hired to do that autoflex commercial. I was watching video and then the ad came on, and then I realized you did the voice over. Glad you're diversifying your voice in other places.
I think this is the 4th false hydra story I've heard and they're all very similar. Has anyone done a slow-burn false hydra story set in a major city that dropped clues in over many different sessions while the players chased down other arcs?
I know this is VERY late and I haven't done this... YET. I plan on starting a campaign where PCs start off working for an adventurers guild, fulfilling quests and unlocking "urgents" Ala Monster Hunter after certain thresholds(levels probably?). As they play there will be little things I drop here and there as the false hydra is growing behind the scenes in their hometown. This is all conceptual right now, I only started thinking of it a few hours ago. I'm also a very new DM so it'll take awhile lol
Not multiple sessions, but my DM had our party of 3 went on a break as a one shot. We started off on a carriage, looking forward to the downtime and food in the port town we were about to visit. We were greeted by heavy mist but the light of civilization eased us. We paid a kid to draw our party during dinner only to discover an unknown lady on our picture. Literally got sidetracked thinking she was the culprit as the kid, our innkeeper's wife, the priest, the librarian disappeared . We thought there were multiple entities causing them, it didn't help when the town had a siren legend. Found out the mist wasn't magical, the local spirits wasn't giving anything too. Finally found it after barricading ourselves all night to protect the mayor, thinking he might be erased next. We went back to our in too discover the owner getting dragged by the abomination. It wasn't a Revenant, a Siren or a memory altering caster, but a False Hydra eaten half of the town. After all of breaking and entering, we were pissed to discover the lair was under our inn the whole time. Had to set myself on fire along with it to take it down, barely survived thanks to my party. It was slain, but it didn't feel like a victory. We spent the whole night chasing other monsters that are not even there, leaving the people we know to die. The party didn't even know if they'd continue their adventure after that.
If I were the Ranger, my new goal in life would be to find someone capable of casting either Wish or True Resurrection to get Kipo back. Would make an epic quest.
Looking with dirty glasses: The False Hydra with a DM who's willing to commit Looking after cleaning glasses: Socially and morally acceptable gaslighting But in all seriousness, I've heard plenty of False Hydra stories with a lost and forgotten party member, but this is the first one I've seen that really made it hurt.
I once gave one of my players a Twin Brother, his signature White Arrows, a mystery for Moths safed them in many encounters until they found his bag and his quiver in the Tavern in the Town where they encountered the False Hydra.
They even tried to pick them up at some point and I told them to not writen them white Arrows down in their Inventorys, because they would have surely given them Back to their beloved charismatic Travel Companion.
I just started a campaign featuring a false hydra. Hope they dont know about it... One if not THE coolest ideas for a monsters ever! Definitely worth running!
This is why Warforged Juggernauts are the superior race and class. False Hydras can't screw with something that is completely immune to mind altering effects, skills, or spells. And they certainly can't snack on a construct, and won't be doing much damage against something that's also immune to everything that'd utterly cripple anything organic, as well as being immune to the extra damage from crit attacks, as well as any kind of ability and level damage and drain lol.
I have an idea for a false hydra encounter. Have a note in a bar from the tender that describes that he is frozen, because he can't see the thing eating everyone one by one in the bar, but he can, and it just won't let him realize it.
Reminds me of the White Whale in RE. Zero. Its eats people and those who were taken are not just forgotten about but the whale's powers even erase any trace of them too.
The crushing part is....Once the song ends, the memories should return....Beadric should have been given back the memories of Kipo. IDK if that’s better or worse but....
I just ran a FH for my party and they were completely confused right up until they were basically standing in its lair staring right at it and using "dispel magic" (I let it slide because the way they got the information about the hydra didn't really allow for them to know about the sound properties)
D&D character time This takes place in the Warhammer fantasy game if I can learn the system. This is the tale of Metallugix ScreamFang. The skaven was wide eyed and shocked at this stone that had fallen from the clouds. It had a metallic gleam and looked like a clawed gauntlet, with a color of... Pink? As he approached, the gauntlets doors suddenly threw itself down like a drawbridge, and out came a monster like the gauntlet, with the mark of the prince of pleasure. He was wounded badly, his arm melted and shedding. The skaven would always be looking out for themselves, but the rat was different today. He wanted to bring good relations to the other chaos warriors, so he treated the pink thing to the best of his abilities. The warrior, calling himself ‘Maximillion, Noise Marine of the Emperor’s Children’ was thankful and confused on why a creature of another chaos god would help him. As such, he gave the skaven an axe, with six strings attached to the weapon. It was called a guitar, and the warrior taught the skaven how to play it, before leaving into the abyss he entered through. Later, he returned back to his nest, where the other skaven slaves were. The grey seer had come back to steal the meager things the slaves stole, and he eyed the axe the skaven had. As the grey deer tried to snatch the valuable commodity from the skaven, he plucked one of the strings, bringing a shriek of metal from the axe. The grey seer, terrified, cried “What was that Noise-Shiek?!?” The skaven looked at him and simply said “It was METAL”.
Stories like this make me want to use a false hydra, but I'm constantly worried that the reaction to something like this would be...negative amongst my party. Oh well. It will likely remain merely an idle daydream.
It probably would be negative, as the only way to effectively use a false hydra requires you to fuck with your players. Basically, you got to gaslight them for it to have any level of impact and you got to make sure NONE of your players have any idea what a false hydra is so it remains a surprise. Even then though, probably still going to be negative because not many people like being lead on like that.
So I'm running a homebrew 5e campaign set in the Fate Grand Order universe. In one of the future settings in the campaign, i plan on having the Party encounter a False Hydra and i can not wait! Seriously, i love screwing with my players and this will be fun and funnier then hell
An interesting question I have, if you were cursed into a new form by someone that was a significant part of your life (desire for revenge, important in your childhood, etc,) and that person was suddenly eaten by a false hydra, how would that affect you memory, would you suddenly think you were never cursed, feel resentment at nothing... memory manipulation can be really weird
the target is forced to rationalize or ignore things that would cause them to realize at a limited degree of separation. in theory since i used to be this and became that would be unrelated to the hydra save that a victim was involved they would still remember being changed but the details of what did it would change. if it done using a magic item suddenly they might remember messing with the item themselves and can't believe they were such a fool. did the killed person cast a spell on the target, a mysterious individual cursed them before taking off, to bad they didn't get a good look at them or they inexplicably start blaming another spell caster they DO remember after all WHO ELSE could it have been.
So my character JUST got killed by the Hydra! My party and I went to this mysterious village that is in the middle of the desert and as we were there, we found mysterious wounds and damages done around us. Our group panicked due to not being able to see what is hunting us and we tried to escape. The Hydra wanted us so badly that it chased us while we rode off on top of our carpet, one of our players has a higher flying speed of 60 (120 if dashing) and we decided to ride him. My character was concerned that the party won't be able to make it out on time to escape the hydra so he (I) decided to serve as a distraction and see if I can solo it (I was a sorcerer so meta magic could've helped me which almost did I was 10 points away from winning). The group survived, my character didn't and they forgot all about me.
The only time I've had to deal with a False Hydra, the DM went about it all wrong. He threw the entire point of the False Hydra out the window and used it as a catalyst for his own homebrewed madness table. And proceeded to fuck my character over in the process. (She was a succubus-type assassin who would seduce her targets before murdering them, and the DM made it so she could never be more than five feet from the party's tank without having a panic attack. So basically "Fuck everything your character was designed to do, you can no longer leave the party.")
A false hydra encounter would never work with my party , and to be honest we probably wouldn't know unless the dm told us so This is for 5 reasons 1. Our party consisted of 3 chaotic neutral characters, 1 lawful evil , 1 lawful good ,1 neutral evil, 1 chaotic good 2 lawful neutral and 1 supposedly true neutral(this all come into #4l 2. Our party had 2 ways of choosing between two or more actions/events , either we divided the party on where they want to go, or we voted ,mostly voting (this come into play during #4) 3.the majority of our characters good damage outputs and can be tanks as well 4. Our party causes devastation in its wake, (ie :what is supposed to happen = we escort the civilians to safety and help out the knights of the kingdom , what we do= we end up killing 75% of the civilians and 2 out of the three knights) this is due to the majority of the players lacking morality or being outvoted , typically a 9/1 ,8/2 or 7/3 vote , with the majority voting to cause chaos , but there were the few time where the vote was 1/9 where one player wants to intentionally cause chaos and the party tries to stop them , this was the more common outcome at the beginning 5. The dm was blind to my character : what I mean was that 1. My character was the most dangerous and bloodthirsty , I was also lawful evil , I justified my alignment in my class : a war cleric, and I constantly used the excuse of "War for the War god" to get away with murder (dm allowed it),2. I was gifted a glitchy evil crossbow which had infinite ammunition (dm forgot to give me crossbow bolts , and realized far too late to undo this), had a capability to do 2d6 and 1d4 if the d20 was over 15 , this was due to the fact that if it is over 15 the bolt gets an explosive charge and I cam roll for affect 1d20 ( 10 and up were usually good enough not to cause severe damage to friendlies) now I'm a half orc which also gave me 2 attacks per turn so I typically shot the crossbow 2 times in quick succession which typically was 2 artillery shells ,now remember that I'm a war cleric ? I had healing capabilities that basically broke the game for the dm and saved the party ,I had spare the dead which (due to a dm lacking foresight) allowed me to revive teammates just by touching them , and prayer of healing which allowed me to heal the ENTIRE PARTY to FULL health instantly, twice per session (dm lacking foresight) So basically we would probably kill a false hydra directly or kill it in our wake
Not crazy about FH, they are either completely broken or very inconsistent with their memory loss powers. If it's intelligent enough to pick and choose what memories to wipe, why not just wipe everything? Make your victims unable to flee or fight back. Being able to mess with someone's mind to the point they are unable to remember there being a monster right in front of them is pretty broken.
Hey, this is my post/story. Feel free to ask any questions under this comment.
Very interesting story! Poor Baeric, your player must have been devastated. I must ask, did you drop hints about the false hydra's existence that the players missed or ignored?
Have you given anyone else a false hydra
How long before this session did you start dropping hints about a false hydra?
@@DogKacique There are hints all throughout the video version but who knows?
Did kippo ever exist in-game as a pc/NPC or was it something you added?
False Hydras: A litmus test for how good your DM is at screwing with you.
What's a litmus test?
@@IamaPERSON YOU DONT REMEMEBER
@@grimprime0158 there never was a litmus test.
A monster built all around gaslighting.
Without noticing years ago i created the natural enemy of a false hydra. A homebrew bard college known as COLLEGE OF NEW ROADS. Which work as the living testament of as many stories and people they meet in their journeys, so nobody is forgotten no matter what. And one of the abilities literally says "Your Memories CANNOT be altered". So this bards might be the sworn enemies of every false hydra in existence cause they go against the ideals of their work.
Care to share for other parties and players?
^ what he said
@@Eshiay Ialready answered that to chesskitten as well, sorry the delay both of you.
@@dm-entores3119 Idk if this is just youtube but you have no other replies listed. Is there a link?
@@Eshiay i believe its youtube cause i answered cheskitten with a link and it didnt show up later
>When talking about False Hydras
"I fear no
Tarrasque or
Mind flayer. But that... *THING* ... It scares me..."
one shudders to imagine what lies beyond that song. what realities of chronic and sustained cruelty...
I LOVE the false hydra stories! It's SO interesting and honestly, I think a false hydra is much scarier than a terrasque. Man, I wanna play D&D.
I just don't have a table or a dm toplay
@@dhark0n332 Me either, nor the time 😫
@@Stephanie568 heh two unlucky ones.
@@dhark0n332 Three! right here with you guys.
I'm dying to DM a false hydra encounter, honestly
Here's an interesting False Hydra idea: instead of erasing memories of the victim, it changes how people remember the victim's death. It can make people think the person died as recently as as the day before, or as far back as a couple decades. At the campaign start, ask all the players to include a detailed account of their character losing a loved one in their back stories. Bonus points if there is at least one revenge plot. Cue epic quest to hunt down target of said revenge quest. The 'killer' doesn't remember ever killing PC's loved one, party assumes it's typical "villain has killed so many people he/she can't keep track' trope, but actually the 'villain' never killed anyone and is completely innocent. Later, the players discover the presence of the false hydra in their home town and that the detailed descriptions of their loved ones' deaths were false memories created by the hydra's song. All of the loved ones were eaten by said hydra.
Along the way, they befriend several NPCs in their hometown, and these all die in memorable ways as the story progresses, They are also victims of the False Hydra, the circumstances of their deaths also being false memories. Meanwhile more and more townsfolk are vanishing, but the townsfolk believe it is due to a plague, or maybe a serial killer. Other victims are believed to have died as many as thirty years ago. If the party brings up the lack of graves in the cemetery, they'll be told the victim died in such a way as there was no body to bury, or they were cremated, or buried at sea, etc.
Brilliant!
This sounds like a heck of a game, but it'd need TONS of planning in advance. Sure, players can fill in a few of the blanks on their own, but egad so many variables....
You need to run a campaign
Onestly, if you don't say that the campaign Is going to have central horror elements to the players and that they can't play morally right character, I will have to remind you that the player aren't just spectator to any cool idea you have in mind but people who want to have fun.
@@lori0747 I think for running things such as false hydra, the GM has to know the players, especially whether they would enjoy such game, without having to ask. Otherwise it's either ask and spoil the mystery or go for it and risk high chance of ruining the game for everyone but you. Even once you know, running a flase hydra is very much a tightrope.
For anyone who doesn't know what a false hydra is, it is a horrific monster. - All Things DnD
Us, the audience: No, sh*t, Sherlock! This is D&D. Also the biggest understatement of 2021.
Well some people probably "forgot"
Pun intended
@@sparky-xz1nb I see what you did there!
I rate monsters by how they taste. Sadly most of them not so good. So far the easiest good tasting ones to find are giant arthropods.
@@rachdarastrix5251 how does that work
@@rachdarastrix5251so what does The.... The..... The thingy with the..... Taste like... I can't remember Ill ask later if it comes to mind.
I'm doing a false hydra in Rime of the Frostmaiden now. Nothing more disheartening than hearing one of your players say "Oh, this is like a false hydra thing". (-.-) Next video: "How the Internet Ruined False Hydras"
That player is gonna die now, isn't he?
@@theknave1915 No, too many witnesses and I clearly would be the number one suspect.
WAIT! Do you mean kill the player's character? No. I don't DM like that =)
Thats when you throw a screw in the whole thing and make it be two False Hydras, and one of them is making the other forget it so its: the party < false hydra < false hydra
When a Player says that, you (GM) retro-fit... It's LIKE a False Hydra thing, but NOT a False Hydra...
Try two monsters working symbiotically... Maybe a Mind-flayer handles the memory business, and something else (flesh-eating) handles the murder and body disposal process...
Let that Player take point, and keep up your own facade about "Nah, it's not what you think." OR even "Yeah, something like that... whatever..." Like any good GM would... This way, while the Party is hunting a hydra, it's something completely different, and until they get rid of the mind-flayer, the memory issues will keep on... You can even take license to create false memories (I think?) and all the other wonderful psionic effects a mind-flayer might be up to...
AND don't sweat the rigidity of Canon about mind-flayers. There's no reason you can't re-invent them, so they can be "rogue" in your game... Maybe they're all parasitic, and only certain families or clans form a hive-mind phenomenon when there's enough of them to support it... Whatever you want to do...
Just pointing out here... It's kind of standard fare that sooner or later a Player will either look up monsters on their own, or you'll have to handle a veteran Player who knows... OR even another GM will take up Player status with your group... Sometimes they just can't help themselves, and something gets said. You COULD get pissed and whine about "metagaming"... OR you can just re-skin a monster or two, nudge the stat's a bit, and leave them guessing. If you just "fix" the issue, it becomes a non-issue. ;o)
False Hydra must be one of the most interesting things in D&D. Absolutely amazing video as always.
And also one of the scariest...
@@akiraamamiya8483
Yea especially if you left it's song as a
Lingering effect aswell. like say if a person can't remember the victim or the false hydra itself but if the said person sees the false hydra or here's the it's song but didn't get eaten (or at least not yet anyways), the song itself would leave a haunting impression (its basically gets stuck in your head do It's familiarity), It's Like a song you heard before, but for the life of you; can't remember when, where or what you heard it from but you have heard it before (it'll get louder if you try too remember), and it also might not sit well with your stomach because of how earie and off putting it is.
Isn’t it homebrew?
@@LocalMaple I believe you are correct, however it was created through D&d Roleplay
I love the false hydra. I hope to play against one in an adventure one day
My favorite joke of a campaign I made, was where a dwarven barbarian attempted to stealth past a singular guard. What had happened was the Dwarf rolled a 2 (3-1) on stealth, but the guard rolled a nat 1, so in reality the dwarf crouch walked really low, and the guard kept looking straight forward and never saw him.
This is a similar phenomenon to anything crawling on the ceiling basically being invisible because nobody bothers to look up
Ahhahahahah both of these are amazing
What was so singular about the guard? Was he dressed different?
@@theophrastusbombastus1359 He was singular as in he was the only guard there in the moment, essentially he was guarding a doorway. It was a fun campaign.
@@lumiknight7719 So he was a "single" guard then rather than a "singular" one.
The only time singular has anything to do with number or amount is when discussing grammar and plurals (i.e the singular form of cats is cat)
Otherwise the word you're looking for is "single" (or even "solitary" would be more applicable in your case). A single slice of pizza, a solitary Beholder eye gleaming in the dark, etc.
But it seems the word "single" is being written out of the American dictionary, as its pretty much just "singular" used as a catch all term.
Much like the word children is to kids.
Ps. The actual meaning of "singular" is when something is remarkable or exceptional. Hence why I asked if there was anything unusual about the solitary guard.
False Hydra's are one of the most awesome monsters in a DM's arsenal but they are most effective when players know nothing about them, which is harder with how well known they are now.
Yeah. I agree. It's definitely going to have to be built around a very clean, unnoticeable transition into the 'false' timeline while keeping things as normal as possible with unconventional signs; I think the 'forgotten loved one/companion' bit has been used in every False Hydra story I've seen, so you'd have to break away from the really common signs.
I once ran a false hydra as per standard, though no player characters were lost. It certainly messed with players as expected, including a veteran who had years on me and was perturbed to have to reconcile with the mental and emotional dissonance of OOC and IC knowledge whenever I told him that he simply didn't recall another townsperson missing, including ones I'd had befriend them. They'd never seen the monster before and I'd just read about it in a blog for the first time a week prior. However, the most freaked out I've ever seen them was when I ran something akin to an inverse of the false hydra. The party of three was exploring the hidden lair of a long-dead ancient red dragon. The cursed loot on the dead bodies in spots, along with the hallways and doors that didn't lead back to the rooms you came from were frustrating enough. It was when the fourth party member chimed in to comment. They asked me who the hell this stranger was, and all failed the nasty-high DC for the illusion/enchantment/conjuration (creation) spell left by the great wyrm red dragon; I informed them that this female ninja had been with the party since the beginning, and even did a short Q&A out of character, and dialogues in character, to convince them that they remember her as a dear friend. Any feelings otherwise were likely the result of some amnesia spell affecting them and trying to split the party. This freaked people out. An hour later, a male ranger joined the party. I'd gotten the idea from an SCP I once read, but someone pointed out that it was also like that Rick and Morty episode with the parasites. They eventually overcame the challenges, but their reactions in and out of character were priceless.
I love this - if I ever get to running that game I started pre pandemic I might adapt this somehow.
I don't suppose you have it saved anywhere? There are some fantastic concepts in the SCP directory but with pushing 6000 entries it would be virtually impossible to find it manually.
@@rodtheworm Sorry, I don't... All I recall was it was something like 5 of the foundation operatives exploring a cave, and there was a transcript labeling their callsigns and conversation. The reader would become pretty confused when a sixth labeled voice makes a comment... I scrolled back, read that their were in fact only five people... then read on to find them freaking out and wondering why there were six of them. The trick to what you're doing if you play this out, just like the false hydra, is in the reveal. Let the players slowly realize it's not a mistake; someone is missing, or someone is there who shouldn't be.
Apparently no PC was lost here either, the DM made her up wholesale just to sell it harder.
False Hydra stories are my favorite! What kind of stories do you guys like the most?
I personally love narrating necromancer stories, love the dark setting. False hydra stories are definitely up there too.
I love false hydras so much! I wish there were more stories about them.
Incest and murderhobo threesomes.
I like the ones where the players surprise the DM with funny creative plays
for me it's between vampire stories and dragon stories vampire stories because I love vampires the dark atmosphere, dragon stories because I love the variety of personalities and things they can do and stories that have been told with them
Find a high enough level cleric, and pay a king's ransom to have her resurrected. It's not like her soul was unmade. True, FINDING cleric that powerful and the material components unto themselves would be a big quest... but that's the point.
Don't you need a body for that?
@@Sovann_the_Mightyi know i’m 2 years late, but to answer your question, if said cleric is able to cast true resurrection, then no they don’t need a body since the spell only needs the caster to know the name of the victim
@@creeperboy2567 thanks for the answer anyways!
@@Sovann_the_Mighty you’re welcome 😁
I had a string of thoughts.
1. False Hydra's are like something from Doctor Who. That show knows how to invoke true terror and sorrow.
2. Taking monsters from Doctor Who and putting them in D&D would be horrifying and incredible. Some people would just walk away from the table once they realised what they were facing. "NOPE. Nope nope nope."
3. The only thing worse than taking monsters from Doctor Who and putting them in D&D would be putting the False Hydra in Doctor Who and making The Doctor realise he had led companions to a "safe and fun place" with a False Hydra and then forgotten them when they were eaten multiple times. Possibly a lot of times. More times than the number of companions he can remember having, based on some evidence left behind in a place he likes to stay the night.
4. Even worse? It learned he was a good source of food so never ate him on purpose, same as with many other regular visitors. They're always so excited to share this wonderful place with someone else "for the first time".
Despite the kid-friendly veneer, Doctor Who really is horror. Often brilliantly done horror. The False Hydra does very much give me a Doctor Who vibe, and I've been tempted to come up with a Weeping Angels-type scenario as well.
Your ideas in 3 and 4 are terribly evil and I love them.
Hey, I remember this one! My friend was in that party... Don't remember the DM's name. Ironic. Great to see this story get the love and respect it deserves
But, there was a dm, right?
Well, they're the pinned comment
You probably had a similar encounter, but I don't think you were one of my players. :)
@@JeromeSkavenSlayer no. There was no dm. What are you talking about?
If you ever run a false hydra, will you try doing something like this?
I doubt I’d hate my players enough to do that!
I’m playing in a campaign with one now😅
I as a PC want to incorporate a False Hydra into my backstory!
I would write it here, but I already made a separate comment.
I'm thinking about running one in my next campaign
If i find people agreeing to play a Lovecraftian game i think i would run one
I hope my dm never finds this. I was almost ugly crying for poor kipo.
I'm a new DM who is planning a False Hydra in my homebrew campaign.
I'm planning on keeping a handwritten journal of all my Party's adventures that I'll write from the perspective of a Cleric who worships the Goddess of Memory. When my Party arrives at the town with the FH, I'll have them find this journal in their room, and it'll have inside jokes and entries from their entire time together in it. This journal will have all of this person's thoughts and hopes and dreams, their relationships with the other members of the Party, and no one will remember her at all. I'm hoping this will have a great impact on them.
While it's a nice story thing, please don't. False hydras are just too easy to abuse, and unless you make sure your party has what they need to kill it they'll just get wiped. It has no save rolls for its effect, either in song form or bite form. And the thing is, false hydras are only a big threat if you CAN'T counter the effect. Once you can counter it easily, it's just an oversized gibbering mouther with reach on its bite attacks. It's pathetic when it doesn't have that overpowered gimmick.
@@caiusdrakegaming8087 I feel like that's the point with False Hydra's. They aren't necessarily tough to kill, but roleplay-wise they add strong horror and thriller elements. They are more about the mystery than the battle.
@@zachp1262 Might be the point of them, but that point doesn't fit the style of D&D all that well. If you introduce a monster, your players WILL try to fight it. Having a monster who's selling point is for horror/thriller, but lacks entirely in the combat department to back up the reason for it to be horrifying/terrifying, just makes for a weak monster that is more than likely to upset your players. Besides that, the false hydra's so well known by this point that the second you bring that journal out I'm willing to bet one of your players will be able to guess what they're up against. All that horror and thriller elements? Useless if the party knows what to expect. That's another reason why I said to not do it. It's gotten so popular you run the risk of your players knowing what they're up against, and if a false hydra is part of the setting then you can't even call metagaming on them. If it's part of the setting, ie part of the world at large, then there'll be reports of the species itself. It has such a specific MO that it's impossible to mistake it for any other monster, even those that also have mental/psychic abilities. On paper, a false hydra works for like an MMO or something. But in a TTRPG like D&D, it just doesn't work anywhere near as well. Your better off giving the memory effect to a mindflayer or something else, use the fact false hydras are so well known as a misdirection.
These False Hydra stories are always so amazing to listen to. After hearing these, I always end up wanting to try adventure with one to see what kind of thing the DM can do to mess with our heads with it
Well, hope this lives up to the other FH stories.
Let me know if it was as good, I know the bar set by previous false hydra stories is really high
@@allthingsdnd it was good! Sadly, it didn’t have the same air as the other ones though, but still good
@@allthingsdnd Good, but way to short to leave an impact.
What a beautiful, tragic, creepy story! I love the false hydra. I used it in a campaign of mine a few years ago to great effect! I love hearing other stories about it. It is one of my favorite creatures in D&D!
If memory serves (no pun intended) the worst thing about a false hydra is that it can just spawn from nowhere. All it takes is a little negativity here, some unchecked grudge there, perhaps an unintentionally severe angry outburst. Maybe there's a massive false hydra living under the earth. All those natural disasters, just it rearing multiple heads at once. Civil unrest causing deaths, just a feeding frenzy. Makes you think...
It wwould be terrifying if it was real and actually made you remember their deaths in different ways
I rejigged the False Hydra as the method by which Intellect Devourers reproduce. The party had accidentally opened up a passage to the Underdark and let some through before they realized what they'd done and closed it up again... This was a consequence.
I hope everyone is having a good day
You too WaffleTarts
man this makes me want to roleplay a character with dementia, its a quite interesting way to rp, i think i should have a good grasp on it cuz i have experienced first hand what memory loss does.
This story hit too close. Time is a false hydra when you lose a family member suddenly and violently. I find myself misremembering things about him, or not remembering some pretty significant moments. I wonder what was going on in the head of the monster's creator.
Lmao False Hydra is just “Gaslighting” the monster
False Hydras are my favorite monster concept in dnd, and I really hope to do one justice one day as a dm.
So basically, there could for all I know be a lovely lady out there who has been wondering where I ran off to for 500 years. How comforting.
Ah, finally, another False Hydra story.
Bruh I'm only part through a false hydra campaign and already made a player cry with a hand written notebook from her little sister eaten by the hydra on hand made paper and written by my niece to look you. Its all about how much she loves her big sister, the leonine bounty hunter, and how she's so happy to turn 14 and be able to join her sister on hunts and help using her cleric healing abilities because she knows how's careless her big sis is in fights and geta hurt lolololol
Never heard of a False Hydra before but damn if it doesn't sound like a difficult foe to beat.
Killing it isn't inherently difficult, but finding it & concentrating on the fight is the challenge
@@byronsmothers8064 the stat blocks i've seen for it don't include it but the concept for it also gave it a domination song when fully matured (and doesn't say it can't use the blind song anymore just that it doesn't feel the need to hide anymore) fighting an enemy with tactical range unlimited aoe dominations that can also prevent you from locking onto it in a pinch sounds painful if you fail to take it out before it grows that much.
imagine u just get deleted from reality, no one remembers you not even your relatives or friends and ur history and everything is just gone
Honestly just thought of the false hydra's abilities is making me really uncomfortable...just to think I could forget about my gf and just find traces of her being in my life with no recollection of her actually being there is really fucking scary...so fucking glad that thing isn't real
I mean.....if it was....how would you know?
@@patrickstump4681 only ppl who hear it's song are affected so you would notice if for example an internet friend would suddenly go missing and noone in their neighborhood/city would remember them...in a modern world scenario it would stick out like a sore thumb...
@@akiraamamiya8483 but what if every city had one?
@@errorcringyname4044 wouldn't that just cause you to not know about the one in your own city? As far as I know false hydras aren't hive mind like creatures
@@akiraamamiya8483 I guess it would depend if they have the same song, or its all just one false hydra stemming from the center of the earth
Dude congratulations on getting hired to do that autoflex commercial. I was watching video and then the ad came on, and then I realized you did the voice over. Glad you're diversifying your voice in other places.
It's the second one, especially if your character had faught a false hydra and lost your love to it.
I think this is the 4th false hydra story I've heard and they're all very similar. Has anyone done a slow-burn false hydra story set in a major city that dropped clues in over many different sessions while the players chased down other arcs?
I know this is VERY late and I haven't done this... YET.
I plan on starting a campaign where PCs start off working for an adventurers guild, fulfilling quests and unlocking "urgents" Ala Monster Hunter after certain thresholds(levels probably?). As they play there will be little things I drop here and there as the false hydra is growing behind the scenes in their hometown.
This is all conceptual right now, I only started thinking of it a few hours ago. I'm also a very new DM so it'll take awhile lol
@@BamBam0141 If you ever do it, please share how it went.
@@BewareTheCarpenter Will do!
Not multiple sessions, but my DM had our party of 3 went on a break as a one shot.
We started off on a carriage, looking forward to the downtime and food in the port town we were about to visit. We were greeted by heavy mist but the light of civilization eased us. We paid a kid to draw our party during dinner only to discover an unknown lady on our picture. Literally got sidetracked thinking she was the culprit as the kid, our innkeeper's wife, the priest, the librarian disappeared . We thought there were multiple entities causing them, it didn't help when the town had a siren legend. Found out the mist wasn't magical, the local spirits wasn't giving anything too. Finally found it after barricading ourselves all night to protect the mayor, thinking he might be erased next. We went back to our in too discover the owner getting dragged by the abomination. It wasn't a Revenant, a Siren or a memory altering caster, but a False Hydra eaten half of the town. After all of breaking and entering, we were pissed to discover the lair was under our inn the whole time. Had to set myself on fire along with it to take it down, barely survived thanks to my party. It was slain, but it didn't feel like a victory. We spent the whole night chasing other monsters that are not even there, leaving the people we know to die. The party didn't even know if they'd continue their adventure after that.
If I were the Ranger, my new goal in life would be to find someone capable of casting either Wish or True Resurrection to get Kipo back. Would make an epic quest.
Ah yes a false hydra, this is the monster that introduced me to the All Things DnD channel.
Looking with dirty glasses: The False Hydra with a DM who's willing to commit
Looking after cleaning glasses: Socially and morally acceptable gaslighting
But in all seriousness, I've heard plenty of False Hydra stories with a lost and forgotten party member, but this is the first one I've seen that really made it hurt.
Don't Blink!
Wait, wrong monster.
man, imagine my surprise when i saw "IT'S KILLING US" scrawled on the table upside down
I once gave one of my players a Twin Brother, his signature White Arrows, a mystery for Moths safed them in many encounters until they found his bag and his quiver in the Tavern in the Town where they encountered the False Hydra.
They even tried to pick them up at some point and I told them to not writen them white Arrows down in their Inventorys, because they would have surely given them Back to their beloved charismatic Travel Companion.
That's a heartbreaking ending..
False Hydra - done right, like this, is a sign of a good and sadistic DM. Feel sorry for that ranger that is truly a horrific curse to be hit with.
That's a hell of a story, I loved it. (Never heard of a false hydra before though).
I just started a campaign featuring a false hydra. Hope they dont know about it... One if not THE coolest ideas for a monsters ever! Definitely worth running!
False hydra stories are always the best. I plan on using one in my campaign of completely new players.
This is why Warforged Juggernauts are the superior race and class. False Hydras can't screw with something that is completely immune to mind altering effects, skills, or spells. And they certainly can't snack on a construct, and won't be doing much damage against something that's also immune to everything that'd utterly cripple anything organic, as well as being immune to the extra damage from crit attacks, as well as any kind of ability and level damage and drain lol.
The only thing more impactful than a finished story is broken one
I have an idea for a false hydra encounter. Have a note in a bar from the tender that describes that he is frozen, because he can't see the thing eating everyone one by one in the bar, but he can, and it just won't let him realize it.
I feel like a monster expert would always keep earplugs in case of False Hydras.
These are my favorite stories. My dream is to one day DM a false hydra story.
false hydra: D&D's best SCP
Reminds me of the White Whale in RE. Zero. Its eats people and those who were taken are not just forgotten about but the whale's powers even erase any trace of them too.
The crushing part is....Once the song ends, the memories should return....Beadric should have been given back the memories of Kipo. IDK if that’s better or worse but....
"To love and to win is the best thing. To love and to lose, the next best." -William Thackeray
This one was fuckin heartbreaking....my lord.
I will never remember my first false hydra...
"'(...)Back soon' with a red lip imprint on it."
I see what the DM did there.
boy do i love myself....
a good false hydra story!!!!! :)
I just ran a FH for my party and they were completely confused right up until they were basically standing in its lair staring right at it and using "dispel magic" (I let it slide because the way they got the information about the hydra didn't really allow for them to know about the sound properties)
What a dark story. So interesting, the false hydra.
That CC desync in the opening ad. Jesus.
I am half tempted to post the time I dealt with a false hydra.
This is a scary way to run FH. I love it
I feel like I've heard all this before.
YES! I always love a good False Hydra stpry
This was a really cool story! I feel bad for that poor...
Wait. What was this video about?
Ahhhh, my favourite monster in d&d that my players have yet to meet
I'm so glad I was in a false hydra mission before I knew what it was. Would have ruined the whole investigation.
The story should be called "what they imp did and the group disappeared"
It's terrible to have loved and lost and the other person can't remember who you are.
Aaaaand now I’m heartbroken 💔
I would really like to see a illusion wizard or something of the like in this
D&D character time
This takes place in the Warhammer fantasy game if I can learn the system.
This is the tale of Metallugix ScreamFang.
The skaven was wide eyed and shocked at this stone that had fallen from the clouds. It had a metallic gleam and looked like a clawed gauntlet, with a color of... Pink? As he approached, the gauntlets doors suddenly threw itself down like a drawbridge, and out came a monster like the gauntlet, with the mark of the prince of pleasure. He was wounded badly, his arm melted and shedding. The skaven would always be looking out for themselves, but the rat was different today. He wanted to bring good relations to the other chaos warriors, so he treated the pink thing to the best of his abilities. The warrior, calling himself ‘Maximillion, Noise Marine of the Emperor’s Children’ was thankful and confused on why a creature of another chaos god would help him. As such, he gave the skaven an axe, with six strings attached to the weapon. It was called a guitar, and the warrior taught the skaven how to play it, before leaving into the abyss he entered through. Later, he returned back to his nest, where the other skaven slaves were. The grey seer had come back to steal the meager things the slaves stole, and he eyed the axe the skaven had. As the grey deer tried to snatch the valuable commodity from the skaven, he plucked one of the strings, bringing a shriek of metal from the axe. The grey seer, terrified, cried “What was that Noise-Shiek?!?” The skaven looked at him and simply said “It was METAL”.
The False Hydra is a very interesting concept, but it's for a very specific type of story.
Stories like this make me want to use a false hydra, but I'm constantly worried that the reaction to something like this would be...negative amongst my party.
Oh well. It will likely remain merely an idle daydream.
It probably would be negative, as the only way to effectively use a false hydra requires you to fuck with your players. Basically, you got to gaslight them for it to have any level of impact and you got to make sure NONE of your players have any idea what a false hydra is so it remains a surprise. Even then though, probably still going to be negative because not many people like being lead on like that.
Ah M8, I came here for epic stories, not the feels (not necessarily bad).
Always interesting stories here.
I love how the imp a devil from another plane could hear the hydra them being immune to it is a idea I live
So I'm running a homebrew 5e campaign set in the Fate Grand Order universe. In one of the future settings in the campaign, i plan on having the Party encounter a False Hydra and i can not wait! Seriously, i love screwing with my players and this will be fun and funnier then hell
This is very sad. I feel like this is a good reason to make my characters deaf.
HYDRA STORIES! YES!
I need to do a story involving a false hydra
Oh god go to a temple!!! Get some greater healing ;-; memories lost are heartbreaking. so much more than any actual closure
1:19 yeah if I could remember
yep.... yhat wuld broke me too ....
My 2 year set up for the my false hydra is coming 2 weeks from now. Soon, soon
The False Hydra's mo is gaslighting.
How have I never heard of that *thing* they call a False Hydra before?
Yeesh, that's the most depressing False Hydra tale I got to hear.
An interesting question I have, if you were cursed into a new form by someone that was a significant part of your life (desire for revenge, important in your childhood, etc,) and that person was suddenly eaten by a false hydra, how would that affect you memory, would you suddenly think you were never cursed, feel resentment at nothing... memory manipulation can be really weird
the target is forced to rationalize or ignore things that would cause them to realize at a limited degree of separation. in theory since i used to be this and became that would be unrelated to the hydra save that a victim was involved they would still remember being changed but the details of what did it would change. if it done using a magic item suddenly they might remember messing with the item themselves and can't believe they were such a fool. did the killed person cast a spell on the target, a mysterious individual cursed them before taking off, to bad they didn't get a good look at them or they inexplicably start blaming another spell caster they DO remember after all WHO ELSE could it have been.
So my character JUST got killed by the Hydra!
My party and I went to this mysterious village that is in the middle of the desert and as we were there, we found mysterious wounds and damages done around us. Our group panicked due to not being able to see what is hunting us and we tried to escape. The Hydra wanted us so badly that it chased us while we rode off on top of our carpet, one of our players has a higher flying speed of 60 (120 if dashing) and we decided to ride him. My character was concerned that the party won't be able to make it out on time to escape the hydra so he (I) decided to serve as a distraction and see if I can solo it (I was a sorcerer so meta magic could've helped me which almost did I was 10 points away from winning). The group survived, my character didn't and they forgot all about me.
#9 Hells Yeah!!
The only time I've had to deal with a False Hydra, the DM went about it all wrong. He threw the entire point of the False Hydra out the window and used it as a catalyst for his own homebrewed madness table. And proceeded to fuck my character over in the process. (She was a succubus-type assassin who would seduce her targets before murdering them, and the DM made it so she could never be more than five feet from the party's tank without having a panic attack. So basically "Fuck everything your character was designed to do, you can no longer leave the party.")
this was a creature in Doctor Who, too. XD
A false hydra encounter would never work with my party , and to be honest we probably wouldn't know unless the dm told us so
This is for 5 reasons
1. Our party consisted of 3 chaotic neutral characters, 1 lawful evil , 1 lawful good ,1 neutral evil, 1 chaotic good 2 lawful neutral and 1 supposedly true neutral(this all come into #4l
2. Our party had 2 ways of choosing between two or more actions/events , either we divided the party on where they want to go, or we voted ,mostly voting (this come into play during #4)
3.the majority of our characters good damage outputs and can be tanks as well
4. Our party causes devastation in its wake, (ie :what is supposed to happen = we escort the civilians to safety and help out the knights of the kingdom , what we do= we end up killing 75% of the civilians and 2 out of the three knights) this is due to the majority of the players lacking morality or being outvoted , typically a 9/1 ,8/2 or 7/3 vote , with the majority voting to cause chaos , but there were the few time where the vote was 1/9 where one player wants to intentionally cause chaos and the party tries to stop them , this was the more common outcome at the beginning
5. The dm was blind to my character : what I mean was that 1. My character was the most dangerous and bloodthirsty , I was also lawful evil , I justified my alignment in my class : a war cleric, and I constantly used the excuse of "War for the War god" to get away with murder (dm allowed it),2. I was gifted a glitchy evil crossbow which had infinite ammunition (dm forgot to give me crossbow bolts , and realized far too late to undo this), had a capability to do 2d6 and 1d4 if the d20 was over 15 , this was due to the fact that if it is over 15 the bolt gets an explosive charge and I cam roll for affect 1d20 ( 10 and up were usually good enough not to cause severe damage to friendlies) now I'm a half orc which also gave me 2 attacks per turn so I typically shot the crossbow 2 times in quick succession which typically was 2 artillery shells ,now remember that I'm a war cleric ? I had healing capabilities that basically broke the game for the dm and saved the party ,I had spare the dead which (due to a dm lacking foresight) allowed me to revive teammates just by touching them , and prayer of healing which allowed me to heal the ENTIRE PARTY to FULL health instantly, twice per session (dm lacking foresight)
So basically we would probably kill a false hydra directly or kill it in our wake
Not crazy about FH, they are either completely broken or very inconsistent with their memory loss powers. If it's intelligent enough to pick and choose what memories to wipe, why not just wipe everything? Make your victims unable to flee or fight back. Being able to mess with someone's mind to the point they are unable to remember there being a monster right in front of them is pretty broken.
Kipo and the False Hydra