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Sunday, June 4, 2017

SCRAP DOESN'T KNOW WHAT PIGS ARE

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Evidence 1: A Story That Is Probably True

Scrap Princess is visiting her friend's farm.

"This is a nice farm," Scrap says, taking a sip of her Red Lion through a straw.  "Your sheep are so robust."

"Yes," the friend says.  The friend is sitting in a plastic chair with a kiwi bird in her lap.  She is petting it, so she feels relaxed and not very talkative.

"Wait!" shouts Scrap, so shocked she nearly drops her meat pie.  "What are those people doing!?"  She points at two pigs who have trotted out behind the house and begun eating a kiwi fruit.

"The pigs?" the friend says, confused.  The kiwi bird flinches at the noise.

"Hey!" Scrap shouts at the pigs.  "You people can't just crawl naked onto someone else's farm and eat their kiwi fruits!"

"Scrap, those aren't people!  Those are pigs," her friend explains, but Scrap is not listening.  The friend looks down at her knuckles.  Why doesn't anyone ever listen to her?

The kiwi bird isn't listening either.  It's gone cross-eyed with concentration, focusing on the giant egg growing inside its belly.

an unknown species, according to Scrap
Evidence 2: More Opposite Monsters

Carrion Crawler
Baby Jumper

Looks like a long-legged infant, but is actually a type of hairless monkey.  Has a tail that shades towards blue at the tip.  If it touches you with its tail, you must save vs uncontrollable rage.  (You must attack something each turn 1d6 turns.)  They like to force groups to attack each other, then gang up on the last remaining survivor.

Hunt in family groups of 1d4+1.

Catoblepas
Golden Hind

Literally a small, beautiful deer made out of gold.  Everyone who sees it falls in love with it, and the people who send you to hunt it have never seen it, or else they wouldn't want you to kill such a beautiful, innocent thing.  When you kill it and bring its pelt to them, they will weep and pay you the gold they promised you, and then quietly loathe you for the rest of their lives.

The tricky thing about hunting it is that the whole forest will try to stop you.  Trees will drop branches.  Gnats will choke your eyes.  Sparrows will fly down the throats of your hunting dogs and choke them.

Centaur
Bully Horseman

Whenever you roll a random encounter in a labyrinth, roll a d6.  On a 1, the Bully Horseman shows up on the second round of combat, grabs a random PC, and attempts to run off with them atop his shoulders.  He'll bring them back after giving the a tour of some of the (potentially) hazardous rooms in the dungeon.  His voice is panting and apologetic.

He looks like a huge man with the head of a horse.  Corpulent inside his black toga.  Anyone who kills him becomes the next Bully Horseman.  Anyone who injures him feels their head becoming (temporarily) more horse-like.

Centipede
Giant Worm

Huge, herbivorous, harmless, gross.  Put it on your wandering monster table.  Watch what your players do when they encounter it.

Cerebral Parasite
Flesh Driver

This is a small worm-spirit that infects a body part.  Roll a d6: hand, foot, finger, mouth, bellybutton, genitals, eye.  That body part then grows to monstrous size, while the rest of the body shrinks to the size of an appendage.  (It can also grow tentacles if it needs more mobility.)

Basically, if it infects you hand, you turn into an appendix riding around on the back of a rampaging hand monster.  (Infectious fingernails, mouth in the center of the palm, etc.)

If you cut off the original body (which is usually dangling off the back like a keychain, still sentient and screaming), you kill the worm and everything returns to normal.  The severed body part is still severed, though.

Chimera
Elephant Men

These are six dudes.  They all suffer from skeletal deformities, but they wear elephant masks to hide the worst of it.

One dude is armed with two big ivory spears.  He is the leader of the group.  His name is Cornu.

Another dude is armed with two bladed fans.  He has the best hearing and he is the scout of the group.  He can run fast and jump high.

The third dude has a tower shield and an armored belly.  He's really good at protecting his brothers.

The fourth dude just carries around a big snake.  He is a stealthy contortionist and has a powerful sense of smell.

The fifth dude is armed with a log and big iron boots.  He's the brute, and is always kicking down doors and crushing skulls.

The sixth dude has a lasso.  Everyone forgets about him, and he is sad and resentful.  His brothers don't think they need him and always give him pointless tasks, such as "keep the flies off us".  He should have picked a better weapon.

Cockatrice
Gallomox

This is a snake with an extremely unsettling head (sort of like a chicken skull).  When it bites its own tail, it is capable of playing itself like a flute--it has holes on its back and it uses various yoga poses to cover them up.

It knows different songs, and each has a slightly different effect.  Each effect is some variation of "blow something up".

I want to go on record and say that I find no part of this picture arousing.
Coatl
Slunk Bird

A quadrupedal bird with an enormous, axe-like beak.  It observes travelers from a distance and attacks those who don't commit any crimes.  Everyone knows this (and DMs should tell their players this when they first see the owl-like eyes watching them).

If you don't commit any crimes, it creeps closer.  When it reaches you, or when it is attacked, it will kill you with its magic powers (most involving crushing, imprisonment, and ice).

CrabCrayfishCrocodile
Boiler Boys

Soft-shelled arthropods that walk on two legs.  They're flesh colored and look like they have whiskers and goggles if you squint your eyes and huff a little glue.  They're about three feet tall.  They collect treasure and they never share it, so people like to kill them and take it.

They have only one attack, and that is the giant acid gland at the heart of each one.  When they wish to die, they contract the gland, which pumps acid through all of their rapidly-dissolving veins, and then jump at their enemy.  They land with a splash.

HD 1  AC leather  Acid Suicide 1d6 + 1d6 acid per round until washed off.

Demon
Friendly

They are like the angels who weren't quite structured enough to be angels.  These are the angels who never went to church, never learned to tell a sin apart from a good deed, and have little understanding of how the mortal world actually runs.  Famously, they can't tell pigs apart from people either, which is handy if you ever want to trick one.

They're not evil, they're just extremely confused about what good is, and they never listen to you.  You might be able to convince one of them otherwise with an especially dramatic display.

Demogorgon
Metagorn

Metagorn appears as a headless baboon accompanied by two snakes.  All three of them are Metagorn, and unless all three are killed simultaneously, Metagorn can swiftly recover.

Metagorn approaches people and urges them to make plans.  An unplanned life is not worth living!  You must tell Metagorn your plan, and then you must execute it.

The problem is that Metagorn requires a high level of detail (how many steps will you take to cross the room) and doesn't understand that you don't necessarily know whats in the next room.  If you deviate from your plan, Metagorn with make you conform to your plan, even if it means killing you and puppeting your corpse.

The smart thing to do is to make a plan with Metagorn to lock yourself in your current room and organize your packs until Metagorn gets bored.  Anything else is suicide.

If you follow through with your plan to Metagorn's satisfaction, you can suggest who Metagorn should help next.

Jubilex
Orthogon

Prefers to travel through objects.  When he does that, the object becomes clean and straight and perfect.  Like if you staring at a highway, and all of a sudden the highway got a little straighter, all the potholes filled in, the paint got fresh, and then a moment later it all went back to normal--that's Orthogon.

Manifests as an androgenous alabaster statue exactly 2m tall.  (This bothers him, because what's so perfect about humanoids?)  Hates inbetween states and gradients.  A person should be either healthy or dead, nothing in-between.  And so mostly healthy people are healed, while heavily injured people are killed and turned into beautiful corpses.

If Orthogon gets really pissed, he starts turning things into cubes composed of their base matter.  For example, a human would be turned into a cube of flesh, a cube of bone, and a cube of ice.  Which are then stacked.

Manes
Tayles

These look like armless, headless people.  Both genders, usually not naked.  They follow you around.  Whatever you do to other people, they try to do to you.  Intelligent but they have a hard time communicating.

Orcus
Anbless

She loves children.  She appears as a normal-sized woman wearing a 30' long dress.  She flies, of course, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense.

Anbless carries her children in the fabric of her dress.  They wander around in there like patches sewn onto the surface.  Think of her as a cat lady, except with children.

She kidnaps children and takes them away from abusive parents, which is all of them.  She tkeas them to her private heaven, called Kinderhalla, where they enjoy games and candy and playground for all eternity!

Except they do not enjoy timelessness, and so the children age into puberty.  Anbless kicks them out as soon as she catches them making out.  Repulsive little beasts.

Children who are kicked out usually die trying to find their way back to civilized lands.  Those that do are cursed to live a half-life.  Everything is cold and bitter and dreary compared to Kinderhalla, and they have no useful skills.

People who object to her methods are turned into children themselves.  If that is not possible, they are killed.

Succubus
Power Wife

Sort of like if Supergirl was violently committed to the idea of marrying you so could conceive a child of destiny.  You'll also be required to live with her and live a good, decent wholesome life in a good part of the world, next to a good school.  All of this precludes adventuring, of course.  You'll have to find a decent source of income, but the power wife will help.  She's kind, pleasant, and uncomfortably powerful.  She'll help you live a long, fulfilling live (without adventuring).  After you are dead and the child is grown, she'll move on to her next angelic assignment.

Can switch genders as needed, depending on the type of conception required.

Type I Demon: Vrock
Type I Friendly: Corpok

A pile of bird bones arranged into symbolic structures.  Hovers through the air with the sound of many flapping wings.  All creatures within 50' gain flight.

If three of them sing in unison for 3 rounds, all things nearby are flung skyward.

Believe that the earth is corrupt (since demons live under it) and the sky is heavenly (since angels live there).  They think everyone should just live in the sky.

Type II Demon: Hezrou
Type II Friendly: Crysanth

Cultivators of extensive flower labyrinths, sometimes planted atop clouds.  Flower people, with blossom heads and long, sensitive tongues.  The touch of their tongue confers temporary telepathy, which is how they communicate.

They believe that flowers are good, butterflies are tolerable, and beetles are evil.  There is no room for anything else in their cosmology, and so nearly everything else must be destroyed and somehow used to plant more flowers.  They fight with extremely painful swords (if one brings you below 10 HP, you must save vs unconsciousness) and illusions.

You can escape their predations only if you can impersonate a flower.  This means a pleasant smell and a lovely flower, at a minimum.

Is that such a bad world to want?  An empty planet covered by beautiful, peaceful flowers?

Type III Demon: Glabrezu
Type III Friendly: Mantlebru

A small, dapper man who always seems to be emerging from a hole on a flat surface.  His hats change when you aren't looking.

He will clean you up and give you fashionable clothes.  You must wear the clothes.  If you get them dirty he will kill you.  He will tell you all of these things in a polite, direct manner.  He fights by screaming until things blister, pop, and melt.

Don't go into his hole.  It's a peristaltic velvet tunnel that will crush your bones like a fistful of straw.

Type IV Demon: Nalfeshnee
Type IV Friendly: Tinglethree

Looks like a winged pig (a type of animal that I find sexually unattractive) that cannot fly.

He is the friendly most concerned with keeping you humble.  He has been watching you and has become concerned that you are winning too often, and it is making you proud.  You should lose the next 1d6 fights.  Yes, I think that would be best for all of us if you did that.

Can cast the dreaded mass reduce person and permanent reduce person.

Type V Demon: Marilith
Type V Friendly: Paxora

These are one-armed warrior women whose ankles end with flaming shoes.  They can fly and they are magnificent dancers.

They firmly believe in utter pacifism.  No one must fight.  They will escort you out of the dungeon peacefully.  Then they will help you break your weapons on a rock.  Then they will use their magic to clear some land so you can be peaceful farmers for the rest of your natural lives.

They believe in these values so much that they will kill to uphold them.  (It's okay to kill for peace because once you've killed everyone who isn't peaceful, there will only be peace forever and that is worth it.)

Type VI Demon: Balor
Type VI Friendly: Kylor

They appear like extremely tall women.  But not grossly elongated, merely long and graceful.  They make you feel like this is the way the human body plan should be, and you are just stumpy imitations.  They have the heads of deer.

They have concluded that you are part of the Problem and must be destroyed.  The only way to convince them otherwise is to convince them that your identity is no longer the same.  Only by changing your character as much as possible will you pacify them.  (If you pacify them, you can suggest who else is part of the Problem.)

Like a belt of gender reversal and a helm of opposite alignment would be a good start.  Better to give yourself a new name and speak in a different accent.

They fight by opening portals between their antlers and summoning things and people that you have already fought in the past.  They also fight with a hammer that shatters armor and enchantments on a hit.

Yeenoghu (Demon Lord of Gnolls)
Yarrock (Friendly Lord of Dogs)

Announces your doom in retribution for all the war dogs that you've allowed to die.  Kills you by flooding the dungeon with dogs.  Add 2d6 war dogs to every room in the dungeon.

Appears as an enormous man with the head of a mastiff.  Served by obedient berserkers, naked except for their spiked collars.

Not only are these not my preferred species, but they appear to be underage as well.

6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  3. I go out of town for the weekend and this happens, and now I've got ideas. Many ideas.

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  4. The first part is completely unrealistic. Scrap would never complain about people running about naked on all fours, breaking into peoples land or eating their fruits raw from the tree.

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  5. Pretty sure the Mantlebru is just Hannibal Lecter with a portable hole LOL

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