False Hydra Shenanigans

My notes on scarring your players for life

1. The Set-up

I assume that you have already read the False Hydra blog post from Goblin Punch. If not
that would, of course, be step 0.
I prepared the following in advance of my False Hydra session after reading the blog post
for myself. All in all, make sure that your players care for at least a few different ultimately
disposable NPC’s:

• Since very early on the party had been traveling with a mysterious NPC called Jack
Flanagan (he is an apothecary from the free ‘The Ghost and the Pebbler’ adventure
from Goblin Stone available from the DMsGuild). Jack is traveling to Cobyr Square
because of a letter he received*. Jack was meant to die from the beginning. His
name worked really well for me as we have a player nicknamed Jackie at the table as
well. You might want to choose a different name that resembles someone at your
table. This works as an excellent excuse for when he’s dead and forgotten.
• From very early on I also asked my players to make a non-combatant character each
using RPGtinker.com. By the time we got around to the false Hydra storyline, they
had all but forgotten the characters they had created before. These characters are
used during the introduction and later to be (mostly) killed off by the DM.

*The following letter has been send to the character of Jack:

Hello Jack,

I hope you’ve been well.

Since you left Cobyr Square after HE your father’s death the place has not been the same.
I implore you to come and visit us once again. A IS bad case of insomnia has recently swept
the city and it has affected WATCHING me as well despite my best efforts. I have not yet
found a remedy for the ailment and I fear they it US may be a symptom for a larger
problem. We could use someone with your expertise.

God’s speed!

Your friend,

Tyrnan Altek
[Town healer of Cobyr Square]
 2. The Introduction
2.1 The Setting

At this point, the party was traveling from the village of Fallcrest in Nentir Vale to Drellin’s
Ferry in Elsir vale to start the Red Hand of Doom storyline. My False Hydra story takes place
in Cobyr Square, a port city along the way (Cobyr Square is a map from the Elven Tower, no.
164 btw.). In Cobyr Square there is an inn called ‘Valinor’s Inn’ next to the Tannery, this will
be our first décor using the character from RPGtinker.com.

The Inn is a simple square building with a square tab room and a few rooms for rent
upstairs. Many exotic animal heads are mounted on the walls of the inn, even a dragon
head is visible (a nature check of DC8 reveals it’s a fake cobbled together from other animal
parts). The heads are gifts from past travelers and local hunters to the inn and have been
stuffed by the tanner.
Provisions that have emptied at the counter are fetched from the provisions room in the
Tannery. The door to the tannery is kept locked and tightly closed in order to prevent any
bad smells from coming through.

2.2 The Characters

At the start of the special session I gave my players their characters sheets back of the
characters they made during the ‘set-up’. I included a little bit of backstory for each
character myself. The roles that we used were:
• The inn-maiden [Amira Dawnstar]: The inn-maiden of the tavern is very aware that
many people in the city haven’t been sleeping well lately. She is young and still very
beautiful but the left half of her face doesn’t seem to be able to smile.
• The inn-keeper [Brenda Valinor]: The inn-keeper is jealous of the beauty of the
current inn-maiden; she will constantly order her around to clean the tables or to
fetch new provisions. She has been feeling unwell for a few weeks now and her
husband does not seem to understand.
• The Artisan [Kurt Valinor]: The artisan is the husband of the inn-keeper and works as
a tanner in the building adjacent to the inn (this is also where all provisions are
stored). He has a secret relationship with the inn-maiden. If nobody plays the artisan
he starts dead and lies half eaten in provisions room in the tannery next to an odd-
shaped hole in the roof.
• The local farmer [Eched Ulefi]: The farmer has come to the city to sell some of his
goods or to buy some seeds and be on his way again. He has taken his loyal dog
with him for the trip. This is his first night here. (the dog has a high risk of being
eaten during this introduction. If you’re a playing online remove the dog from your
player's character sheet silently when the PC does something ‘stupid’, forgets he has
a dog or goes outside etc.).
• The town healer [Tyrnan Altek]: This citizen, in particular, hasn’t slept well the last few
days and comes to the inn to drink away his sorrow. He is stuck finding a cure for the
insomnia. He finds the out-of-town farmer to be particularly interesting for study.
Other people I included in the inn are:
• A few other patrons are drinking their hard earned money away. Five men (2 half-
orcs and 3 humans) in the corner are immediately recognizable as woodcutters from
the lumberyard.
• A tiny figure is sitting in the shade with his hood up. A Halfling rogue is passing
through town, he is part of the river rats from Fallcrest and barely older than 14. He
probably has a tragic backstory.
• An old man with a thick white neckbeard is sipping yet another ale slowly at the
counter. He has been here all day and is already incredibly drunk. He won’t react to
most commotion or questions unless he is roughly poked. He might mumble a tale
about ‘the olde day when he was a fisher and the river was full of golden fish’. An insight
check of DC16 might reveal he was actually a somewhat successful gold digger in the
past. He carries a very valuable golden pocket-watch (250 gp).

2.3 The Development

Give to players a few moments to find their footing in the inn. I gave my players just enough
time to develop their backstories a little bit and interact with each other and the
environment before moving on. This should be their introduction to the weirdness.
--> As they continue chit-chat or when the table falls silent a beggar burst into the door
looking shit-scared. It also looks like he has shit his pants (and he smells that way too). He is
breathing heavily and keeps the door closed shut behind his back while looking nervously at
windows. He is deaf and cannot hear the song of the false hydra. When asked about
anything the deaf man will ask for paper and write: HE IS WATCHING US!

Queue the end of the scene! The players should give you queer looks by now.

3. The Arrival:

This is the point in the story at which your regular party arrives in Cobyr Square. From the
DM’s point of view, the events from the ‘introduction’ happened a few days ago. Therefore,
some things have happened in the meantime as described below. My players were really
excited to interact with their ‘old’ characters (I allowed them to play both roles), as such you
maybe don’t want to kill everybody off during this small intermezzo.

• The farmer, for example, can be found at the market but lost his dog.
• Both the inn-keeper and the Tanner have been eaten by the Hydra. The inn-maiden
now owns the tavern and Tannery but can’t explain the name of the inn.
• The healer is completely gone quickly after arrival. The Healer has sent a message to
Jack but Jack cannot remember him.
 4. The Horror

From this point onwards my notes are much more freeform as I did not know what the
party would do or how they would react. I have grouped all notes by specific occurrences.
An idea that worked really well for me was to start with very softly playing some static noise
in the background. Every time that the party gets to another occurrence increase the
volume a little.

• Shops and homes stand empty. Passer-by’s will comment that this has always been
the case. However, evidence inside such structures will always easily reveal this to be
false. E.g. on the table is an half-finished meal no more than two weeks old and the
wardrobes are filled etc.

• The spot where the deaf beggar once sat is now long empty. His blanket and hat
with a few silver pieces lie dormant. The party might notice how some folk will briefly
stop at the site before walking on, confused only for a few seconds.

• A stay cat suddenly starts hissing. He looks straight at the party! Or not. Upon
further inspection (passive insight) he appears to be looking at something directly
behind the party. After only a second or so the cat suddenly bolts off in the opposite
direction of the party.

• Jack Flanagan gets eaten by day 2. Barnaby and his cart are still standing in the
middle of the road, however. When asked about anything related to the character I
said: ‘Wait, who’s Jack?’– I only know a Jackie ;). Hopefully your variant of ‘Who’s Jack’
will also become a running meme at your table.

• After some time the party notices that they suddenly got 50 gp, a potion of
invisibility, a potion of greater healing, and a potion of fire breath. They don’t know
where these items came from, only that they weren’t there before. (this is the reward
from Jack Flanagan to the party for escorting him to town).

• Other characters that the players have met or know about also start to disappear.
Nobody knows what is happening and the player’s characters cannot seem to
remember anything themselves. The players should start to catch on by now.

• The staple line that you as the DM can deliver at these moments, or after other sorts
of inconstancies: “Oh, but don’t you remember??” Then continue to make up shit on
the spot.

• Players hear a scream from around the corner! When they arrive at the scene they
just see a woman casually picking up some fallen apples from the ground and
continue on her way as if nothing has happened.

• Only half of the lamps in town are lit. The other half is dark. On consequent nights all
lights are off and people question whose job it was to lit the lamps anyway.
• At one point one of the players stumbles over a neck of the False Hydra. The player
him/herself, however, doesn’t notice this, only the other characters do. He/she might
notice a bruise on his knee later without knowing where it came from.

• You feel your head throbbing. You suddenly got an enormous headache while you
are doing X. Every time a player creates a logical paradox (aka. meta-games hard) the
player could take some psychic damage. Alternatively, talk to your players and ask
them to play along.

• While they are having dinner they suddenly experience a profound silence, like when
some background noise has suddenly dropped dead. Everybody around you has
also stopped making noise at the same time. It takes roughly 12 seconds before
people start acting again as if nothing has happened. To increase the effect on the
players stop playing the static noise for a few seconds and then resume as the
commotion picks up on the streets again. From this point onwards they will probably
be aware of the static, you shouldn’t increase the noise levels too much from here
on out. The dissonance this created was beautiful to watch.

• The players suddenly find themselves in another street in the city with their weapons
drawn. Subtract some HP from all the players and reduce their spell slots, arrows,
and the likes down with 1d4. They cannot remember where they have been during
the past 2 hours. Also reduce the Hydra’s hit points with 55 hp or 10d10.

• When looking in the window of a store one player might notice a white face looking
at him from high above and behind a chimney. If the player turns around (and/or
back again) the head is gone.

• If one of the players thinks he/she is clever by writing stuff down in a notebook in the
game he/she then finds 5 (or less depending on the time it has taken the player to
be clever) more pages already filled in with notes:
Page one: Mostly gibberish. The following sentence is the only coherent message
that you can deceiver. “I never heard such a profound silence in my whole life.”
Page two: only the word WATCHING is written with large letters over and over. This
obfuscates the rest of the page.
Page three: A weirdly drawn oval shape is connected to two long parallel lines. Inside
the oval are a single curved line and two large black dots where you expect the eyes
to go (rough drawing of one hydra head).
Page four: Written increasingly smaller and at the bottom of the page: “Don’t forget
about the dog”
Page five: I have forgotten about the dog and this notebook altogether, that is
f*cking scary! Shit! What is happening? I should definitely start writing down more
notes.

• When using certain anti-magic spells or divination spells such as detect evil and
magic the effects of the mind song might be negated for the time being. With an
 perception check of DC14 the character might notice the signing. It is a weird chant
in Deep speech (or another rare language that one of your players happens to
know). If a character asks for the text give them the following description (text is in
Dutch, I tried to translate it but I could not get it to work otherwise):

----------------------------------------------------
Achter de sombere donkere wolkjes
Speelt het maantje kiekeboe
Zie, daar komt hij weer eens kijken
En het lacht jou vriendelijk toe
Kon het maantje jou grijpen heus
Dan trok hij jou even bij de neus
Aardig maantje, grappig maantje
Ik moet nu wezenlijk naar bed
Zeg, maak jij daar in je eentje
Nu nog maar een beetje pret
Kijk, daar ga ik kiekeboe
Nu doe jij eeuwig je oogjes toe
---------------------------------------------------

DM notes: From here on out you can play some creepy lullaby song in the
background as well! Any offbeat happy tune also works.

• When players are walking over the fields near the mayor’s house you can tell them:
“There is a strange pile of rubble in the middle of the field. It almost looks like
someone had tried to dig a hole to plant a new tree, and its placement is a bit
haphazard, but you don’t think anything of it.”

• Wake up with the words "IT'S WATCHING YOU RIGHT NOW" sloppily carved into one
of your player's chests. There is skin under the fingernails of his non-dominant hand,
which is still sticky with not-quite-dried blood.

• All dogs seem to have vanished from town. Cats are sometimes heard hissing from
around the corner and can be found hiding in the most unlikely of spots inside
abandoned houses and/or other shelters.

• As time goes on more and more people seems to be walking into invisible objects.
Everybody around them notices it however the person who just got knocked down is
always blissfully unaware.

• The players might encounter a house with a lot of mirror’s and painters supplies. All
mirrors but one have been smashed. A new and freshly painted portrait of a white
face adorns the wall of this home, it looks at you creepily. “Have you seen this face
before?”
 5. The End?

At this point in the story, your players should have been able to slowly piece together all the
different clues. If not, try to lay it on extra thick with the last few occurrences. The lullaby did
the trick at my table.

Some ways to possibly beat the False Hydra:

• The players could plug their ears.
• The players could use powerful magics to negate the mindsong.
• The players could try to lure the False Hydra in and attack it while it is eating.
• The players could use mirrors to find the location of the False Hydra.
• The Players could use cats as a detection system.
• The Players could simply leave the town.
• The Players could try to somehow set-up a town evacuation.
• The players could use a sling to try to hit and locate the necks.
• Etc.

A small skirmish will probably ensue, I used the following modified stat block in my game.
My players were around 5-6th level. Remember to subtract some 55 hitpoints or 10d10 if
your players already fought the hydra in a particular occurrence. In my game we actually
skipped the real battle as the session had already taken over 5 hours, without any breaks.
Anyhow, the discovery of the False Hydra will probably be the most important bit. The fight
is just to give the story closure in my opinion. On the other hand you could also trick the
players into thinking that defeating only one head was enough to free everyone..

Thank you for reading this far and good luck running your own False Hydra adventure!

Young False Hydra

Huge aberration, chaotic evil

Armour Class body: 6

Armour Class head: 12
Hit Points: 110 (20d10)
Speed: 5 ft. (25 ft. for each head)

STR DEX body DEX head CON INT WIS CHA

11 (+0) 3 (-4) 14 (+2) 15 (+2) 18 (+4) 12 (+1) 20 (+5)

Saving Throws: INT +7, WIS +4, CHA +8

Skills: Arcana +7, Deception +8, Insight +4, Intimidation +8, Persuasion +8
Condition Immunities: Charmed
Senses: Blindsight 120 ft., Passive Perception 14
Languages: Common, Deep Speech
Challenge rating: ??
Mindsong. The false hydra sings a harrowing melody which is heard by anyone within 5
miles of the head that sings. Only one head needs to sing and having additional heads join
the song provides no benefits. Creatures hearing the song gain gaps in their memory that
they have no recollection of. If a person enters a room with a false hydra, the song may
cause the person to forget the hydra was there. This is commonly used to cause people
who are close to victims of the hydra to forget that person existed.
This song does not alter reality, only perception. A woman who lost her husband may find it
confusing to find men's clothes in her house as she recalls no husband. This effect does not
work on people who are deaf or are focused on the item the gap is intended to replace. For
example, the women above may witness the hydra eating a man, and recall all of it during
the event, but forget the second she looks away.
If the false hydra dies, the effect of mindsong immediately ends. The lost memory is not
restored.

Extended Neck. The false hydra's heads have a sickeningly long neck. Each head can extend
several hundred feet from its body depending on the age of the false hydra.
Young (1-2 Heads): 120 ft. range

Innate Spellcasting. The false hydra's innate spellcasting ability is Intelligence (spell save DC
16). It can innately cast detect thoughts at will, requiring no components.

Sonic Pulse. (recharge 5-6). The false hydra targets a creature within range of one of its
heads and blasts it with a cone of noise. Creatures within a 10 feet cone take 12 (4d6) sonic
damage. The target is then stunned for 1 round.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +2 to hit, one target. Hit: 12 (2d8 + 2) piercing damage. The
attack has advantage is the target is under influence of its mindsong. If the target is a Large
or smaller creature, it is grappled (escape DC 10) and takes 9 (1d8 + 5) constrict damage at
the start of each of its turns until the grapple ends. The false hydra can grapple one
creature per head at a time.

Engulf. The false hydra engulfs a medium or smaller creature grappled by it. The engulfed
target is blinded, restrained, and unable to breathe, and it must succeed on a DC 20
Constitution saving throw at the start of each of the false hydra's turns or take 10 (1d8 + 5)
acid damage. If the false hydra's head moves or it's body moves, the engulfed target moves
with it. The false hydra can have only one creature engulfed at a time. If the target's HP
drops to 0 while engulfed, or dies, it is immediately consumed.