'None of this is real...' (Reverse False Hydra) | Animated D&D Campaign Story: The Island

In this episode of The Island, our party faces off against The Thought Contagion, a creature that's basically a reverse False Hydra!

This is the next episode of a D&D campaign series that I'm (sort of) animated in 8 bit pixel art! On the far reaches of the world of Arkayes, there's a mysterious location known only as "The Island". Whenever anyone is convicted of a crime, instead of taking their usual punishment they can instead opt to be sent to The Island instead. Nobody knows exactly what's there, and nobody has ever returned.

The party has been on The Island of Venzor for a few months now, and they've made enemies of almost every single faction on the continent, and their enemies are closing in on them from every side. In the most recent session, the entire party had died except for one person, who was now fleeing into the dark woods, towards a creature that was my attempt at one-upping the false hydra that I'd thrown against the party last campaign. If you don't know, the False Hydra's gimmick is that it deletes memories from everyone within it's range, making you forget everyone it killed and letting it hide itself from your vision. However for this creature, I decided to make a Reverse False Hydra, where it creates fake memories in people's heads to lure them to it's city where it's waiting, eager to kill.

If you're new to the channel, I'm the person who keeps trying to animate their D&D campaigns with 8 bit pixel art, and so now is the best time to join because this D&D campaign story is approaching the grand finale!

Timestamps:
0:00 - Before the City
2:10 - The False Party
3:28 - The Nightmare Begins
7:07 - Jay's Plan
9:35 - The Aftermath

Music Credits:

"8-Bit Fantasy & Adventure Music" by Marllon Silva (xDerviruchi)

8bit Syndrome by z3r0 is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license

#dndStory
#TheToastThief
#FalseHydra

[fridaynightpizza]

being the sole survivor of a near tpk and getting rewarded by becoming the protagonist of a survival horror game is kind of amazing

[tigerlover]

The real horror of this was that we never knew if the town bowling team was cheating or not.

[MrBlbll]

...and remember: there is no antimemetics division

[deadlineuniverse]

…you know what is concerning.


Where the hell did the tower get the statues……are those the previous victims?

Is the Tower some kind of sick perversion of the Dungeon master, playing make believe adventures with its victims until it can devour their weakened soul and collect their body as jaunts another piece for the next game?

[TheMightyBattleSquid]

I actually used a reverse false hydra as a player. I played with a dm who loved homebrew and at one point I encountered a spirit that could become a "mirrored" version of whatever it fought. It decided to tag along with my character due to their earlier actions in that area. Later, we encountered a false hydra so I beseeched the spirit to turn into a reverse false hydra to counteract the song!

[harryguidotti]

So then, what do we call this reverse False Hydra? The Liar's Tower?

[disnagburnazog]

Ceaseless Watcher, turn your gaze upon this wretched creature!

[declanmadden]

Honestly I think the party being down to one person perfectly worked out here, and made it much eerier than it would have been with more

[evilmurlock]

This gives me chills. Very deep chills. Nicely done. And incredibely well built up

[draconic]

Kinda only hit me towards the end, this is in PF2e and not D&D, yeah? The fortatude save tipped me off that it wasn't 5e, and the tengu thing should've been a neon sign all things considered, but my brain kept auto-correcting it to Kenku, since the video is titled with D&D, and I forgot that Tengu look like birds when undisguised.
Didn't realize tieflings could go invisible though, I'll have to have a look at that. I haven’t really played any of the varient heritages!

[TheRoyaoticDM]

Okay but I need to run something like this. This is terrifying.

[dominicpierotti]

with these spooks and your impeccable art stye you hit right into memories of staying up way to late playing games like don't escape and the last door. thank you

[americanbagel]

This is great! I love the pixel art; they give the video a unique feel :)

This reminds me of an adventure I ran. It's like a mix between a so-called reverse False Hydra adventure and Against The Cult of the Reptile God. To try to summarize, players arrive at a village, but I'm very vague about their history of the party or any worldbuilding details, saying "You're sure you've gone on many adventures before, but you can't quite remember them." They were tired and slightly beat up after a long journey they can't remember details about. My party laughed it off, thinking it was a typical DM excuse for laziness and lack of creativity. They get wrapped up in a typical village quest with a bad evil guy and friendly, welcoming villagers. One of the important NPCs in the village can't remember much of their past, being very vague about it. Any attempts to leave the village are met by what seem like DM excuses to lock them in a not-so-open world -- a big monster attacks and chases them back to the village, a storm comes and chases them back to the village, they get lost and wind up back in the village! Their hopes rise and fall several times during the quest, eventually defeating the bad evil guy. Every time their hopes are crushed, they are asked to mysteriously roll a Wisdom saving throw. They all succeeded each time.

When they finally defeated BEG, BEG asks "Are you real?" and, finally, gave them each magical tokens, which BEG said would help them "remember." They returned back to the village, finding themselves entering from the same road they entered the village from at the start. Except one of the party members -- one who didn't hold one of the tokens -- did not remember ever visiting this village. They didn't remember their quest to defeat BEG. They barely remembered anything, in fact, besides that they were an adventurer. Their memories were being erased, the tokens protecting them. They entered the village, and the entire village was just as it was when they first arrived. The same adventure played out -- zombies attacking the village, etc. etc. They were in a loop, their memories were being tampered with, and any attempt to escape led to them returning to the village.

Some of the NPCs seemed a bit *too* eager to dissuade the party of their suspicions. Except one of the villagers -- one of the three who died in the previous loop -- was missing. It was as if the one villager never existed, yet two villagers who died before *were* there. Through their investigations -- and through detect thoughts -- they learned some of the NPCs in the village are *actors*, trying to keep up the facade. The other half, though, were innocent. After finding and torturing some of these actors for information, they learn that the village is an illusion, that demons took over the world years ago and now trap their human livestock in illusions to feed off of an eternal cycle of hope and despair. They learn that the macguffin of the irrelevant village quest, a tiara, is the source of the illusion, and, if broken, will destroy it. They roll a mysterious Wisdom saving throw, all but one succeeding. I sent the one player who failed a document in private which explains that they lost their soul and are now an actor, whose goal is to deceive the party and trap them in this cycle of hope and despair.

They destroyed the tiara, the illusion crumbled, and they find a portal in the village well. They jumped in, finding themselves in a temple full of demons, a revolving cube in the center of the room in which the illusion was placed. They slaughtered the demons, discovering some more lore about the demon-infested world, and then find an exit to the surface. Ahead is a road. They can't remember much of their previous adventure. All they know is that they're beat up and tired... and there's a village ahead, something vaguely familiar about it.

[zacharykoplin]

This incidentally gave me an idea for a campaign. Groundhog Day. Every time your party takes a long rest, hopefully in a specific Inn. They’d have to figure out what’s happening on that day and stop a device or cult from restarting the day or something like that.

[drtoonie]

This is the first time a D&D recap has given me actual chills.

[sianth]

Just started binging all of your videos and actually caught up on the island playlist a few days ago! Happy to see it continuing!

[KonRoge]

“Hurry home, babe; new Beholderkin just dropped”

[ApostleO]

"Thought Contagion" is a great Muse song. It inspired me to make a 9th level spell (in D&D 5e) of the same name.

[ThylineTheGay]

1:05 not beating the "very dangerous" allegations

[MaverickofThePeople]

At least the False Hydra kind of looks like a Hydra but this is a tower with an eyeball on it. Just give it a different name like a False Witness.