Sunday, June 4, 2017

SCRAP DOESN'T KNOW WHAT PIGS ARE

This is a response to this is a response to this is a response to this.

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.

NO I FUCKING DON'T

This is a response to this.

I'm going to imitate an imitation that started when I made an suggestion about writing the opposites of monster manual entries.

I'M GOING TO PROVE THAT I DON'T FUCK PIGS BY WRITING THE SAME THING AS SCRAP.  I'M GOING TO WRITE SUCH GOOD ENTRIES THAT SHE'LL HAVE TO RETRACT HER ASSERTION RE: THE ALLEGED PIGFUCKERY.

Yes, this is a joke post but many of these are def usable.

by Dave Simons
So here are some monsters and their opposites.

Aerial Servant
Floor Lord 

Like a genius loci, they are bound to one place.  They look like enormous angry faces coming out of the ground.  They can cast command at-will, dominate person 3/day.  They use their powers to convince people to jump into their mouths, so they can eat them.  Usually accompanied by 1d3 enslaved humanoids from the wandering monster table.  HD 10, but easy to kill because you can probably just pour boiling oil into its mouth.

Ankheg
Stompadon

Looks like an elephant, only much bigger.  It has elephant heads on all four sides.  It rules the Plains of Yabin with a single immutable law: everything must be flat.  If something is not flat, it will be chased down and stomped until it is flat.

Except for birds.  It's okay with birds.

HD 10  Def leather  Stomp 2d8 + trample
Move elephant  Int 6  Mor low

The Plains of Yabin are inhabited by clover farmers who have learned to lie very flat on the ground when the Stompadon might be looking in their direction.  Sometimes they attempt to build tunnels but they must be built very strong, because the Stompadon is always walking around and he has a very particular way of walking.

Giant Ant
Royal cannibals.

Already did this one.

Ape
Elves

Because apes are sort of like our hairy, brutish reflections and elves are sort of like our elegant, hairless reflections.

but

I can sort of see another angle, where apes are creepy because they're basically humans that look a little too bestial, but you could come at it from the other side and have animals that look a little too human.

So, there is a village called Husherman's Hill.  All of the animals that are born there are slightly too human.  The cats have hands, the cows have human mouths, and sometimes a dog will have a whole goddamn human face.

The animals run the town.  They are led by a old dog with a old man's face.  He is the most horrible bastard in the world.

When outsiders approach, the animals all try their best to be animals, and a few slave humans are brought out in order to shoo the foreigners away.  "You can spend the night in the inn, sure, but not any longer.  We're fearful you might bring the plague in."

Savvy players will realize that the town has been subtly modified for animal convenience.  An abundance of dog doors, cat scratches on all the baseboards, a dinner table in the barn instead of a feed trough, etc.

From Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
great movie but fuck that dog-man-thing
Axe Beak
Sword Tongue

These are like if birds had a sloth edition.  Slow, aboreal.  Hunts food with a sharp tongue that they shoot out like a harpoon.  Can pull a man into a tree in the blink of an eye.

Baboon
The opposite of a baboon is a baboon.  They're already this terrible mix of clever and bestial, social and violent.  They have both thumbs and fangs.  They kidnap wild dog puppies and raise them to be loyal hounds.  You can watch videos of them playing with their babies and you can watch videos of them eating baby gazelles alive (who scream a lot).  Baboons are fucked.

Note to self: replace wolves on an encounter table with baboons at least once.

Badger
Goodbelly

A goodbelly is a thing that looks like a happy, baby pig with long legs like a deer.  Put it on your wandering monster table.  When it is encountered, it will run away.  If you can catch it and eat it while it is still alive, it will cure light wounds and remove disease.

They're slick little fuckers, though.

Baluchitherium
Strabulo Swarm

A strabulo is a small, carnivorous shrew.  The best way to kill a pack of them is to lock them in a small room and wait for them to eat themselves to death.  This takes about an hour.

It is unknown how they survive in the wild with such crazy metabolisms.

Barracuda
Zark

A zark is a zombie shark.  They are used to stock dungeons because they can chase people down hallways, in a horrible, clumsy, gnashing manner.

Also good for when the party thinks they are safe as long as they don't go in the shark tank, but then the wizard gives the signal and they all come flopping out of the water like ghastly seals, chewing their own gums to shreds with eagerness.

They probably roar, too.

Basilisk
Galateas

A galatea is a race of beautiful stone women.  It turns out that if you carve some stone to look sufficiently sexy, it will come to life.  Galateas are sexy living stone statues that really good at carving more of themselves.

Often hired to build beautiful structures, their immortality often leaves them as gloomy keepers of abandoned places, knowing all of the dungeon's layout but only caring for its statues.

BeaverBearBeetle
TreeMouseButterfly

Or as the elves call it, the Nirfling.  They're born from mice that eat discarded cocoons. Smaller than your thumb, they don't fly as much as they tumble their way through the air with their bushy whiskers.

Valued by elves for their ability to find candy and sweet breads, and their assistance in creating the same.

Valued by dungeoneers for their ability to pick locks.  However, after picking each lock, a Nirfling will crawl inside the lock and take a nap for 1 hour (part of their territorial habits).  It can be lured out early only with the offering of a fresh-baked cookie.

Beholder
Terophidian

Ha.  Already did this one, too.

Black Pudding
White Ceremites

A class of small ceramic golems.  They appear to be made out of soft white clay, but they harden upon death.  The resultant ceramic is about as hard as adamantine for a round, as hard as steel for a day, and then normal fired clay afterwards.

They can shatter their own heads at will in order to kill themselves into more useful shapes.  With enough of them, you can build pretty much anything.

A popular command: begin strangling someone and then self-destruct.

Another: grab your opponent's sword and belt and then self-destruct.

Blink Dog
Stare Cat

These are predatory cats.  When they hold your gaze, you are unable to let it go.  (Gaze attack: if you look at them while they are looking at you, you are unable to look away or willingly interpose an object for as long as the stare cat looks at you.)  They use this ability to give their fellow cats the ability to ambush you from behind (+1d6 damage).

They're about the size of a bobcat.  Stats as wolves, otherwise.

Boar
Excitemen

The Excitemen are are victims of a contagious excitement.  It is dangerous to be around them for too long, but you may be able to turn their considerable attention to something advantageous.

Despite their great excitement, the excitemen are not particular effective.

When killed they collapse into a rainbow-colored goo that lights up in the presence of sound, the color corresponding to the tone.

Brain Mole
Gun Worm

Originally bred by elves to be fired from their revolvers.  It's a 3' long worm, slightly spiraled.  It flies about 200' per round, and prefers to make fly-by attacks (bore-through attacks) each round.  It flies through walls and floors and flesh without slowing, leaving only holes to mark its passage.  In regular dungeon combat, it is so swift that it can only be hit with readied actions.

Brownies
Yeah, tickle boys for sure.

Buffalo
Chicken

Bugbear
Stronglings

A race of fey about the size of a child.  Obsessed with building and measuring their strength (which is easily estimated by the length of their beard).  Construct crude weightlifting gyms out in the forests, usually as simple as a row of stones of increasing weight, with a clear area around them.

In combat, they favor tactics that allow them to use their brute strength to their advantage: sudden, muscular assaults.

They are fond of forcing a surrender by putting their foes into submission holds, usually with their legs locked around the necks of their opponents.  (Then they can ride them around on their errands.)  If you have a strongling riding you, be aware that they can pop your head off with one squeeze of their monstrous calves.


From 2nd Ed Monster Manual.  By DiTerlizzi?
Bulette
Seawolf

The opposite of a landshark is a seawolf.  Unfortunately.

or

Angelbird
When it smells blood, it flies over and tries to rescue the injured combatant who is the most innocent-looking.  It abducts them back to its nest and will keep them there for days, nursing them and keeping them safe from all threats (especially their dirty, blood covered companions who keep wanting to bring them into murder caves).

Despite its appearance, it is actually Fairy/Dragon type.

by DenaJawawr

BullCamel

Cow Egg

Occasionally, a cow will lay an egg.  We do not judge the cow harshly for this, for the resultant eggs are very valuable.

If kept warm and intact, the egg will whisper secrets into the ears of anyone who sleeps next to it.  (Get visions of likely future events with 75% accuracy.)

If broken, a random creature within 100' must save or die.

No one is quite sure how to get them to hatch.

Thursday, June 1, 2017

The Ranger and the Wandering Monster

I was sitting in a Burger King parking lot today and thinking about game design.  I have some thoughts.

1. My players don’t care much about encumbrance.  Being encumbered doesn’t seem to have many effects on the game.  They usually escape fights by locking doors, rather than outrunning their foe They don’t fall into bodies of water very often.  Those are things where encumbrance comes into play.

Basically, I’m still looking for a way to make encumbrance interesting.  (I mean, it's easy to make encumbrance important.  But interesting is another thing altogether.)

2. I want exploration to be the main focus of the GLOG.  And while “more rules about X” doesn’t always mean “more gameplay about X”, it’s worth putting some more thought into it.

Basically, I want to make dungeon crawling feel as interesting as combat.

3. Rangers are a tricky thing, conceptually.  There’s the survival expert thing, the animal companion thing, the nature magic thing, the archery + dual-wielding thing.  They’re all over the place.

Basically, I’m still trying to nail down the ranger-concept, and look for unique ways that they can contribute to the party.  I want each class to feel very unique.

by Cosimo Galluzzi
Noise and Perception

First, let’s redo the wandering monster roll.

Old Wandering Monster Check:
  • Roll a d6 every 30 minutes.
  • 1-2 = random encounter with monster or NPC.
  • 3-4 = clues to what’s on the wandering monster table.
  • 5-6 = nothing special.

New Wandering Monster Check:
  • Roll a d20 every 10 minutes.  (Basically every room.)
  • 1-2 = random encounter with a monster or NPC.
  • 3-4 = clues to what’s on the wandering monster table.
  • 5+ = nothing special.

This is fine, but it doesn’t do much.  It’s a little more chaotic (since you can now get two encounters immediately after one another) but the odds are basically the same.  Perhaps it’s easier to remember (since you’re rolling every room, instead of every 3 rooms) but it’s also more dice to roll.

So let’s get weird.

When you are dungeon crawling, your party has stats the same way that your characters have stats.

Two of the stats that your party has are called Noise and Perception.  The default party has Noise 2 and Perception 2.
  • Noise corresponds to how noticeable your party is being as they walk through the dungeon.  It correlates with rolling a 1-2 on the wandering monster check.  I.e. “You are noticed."
  • Perception corresponds to how well your party does at noticing the other folks who are walking through the dungeon.  It correlates with rolling a 3-4 on the wandering monster check.  I.e. “You notice other people.”

The following things modify your party stats.
  • Each encumbered character.  +1 Noise.
  • Each large animal traveling with the party.  +1 Noise.
  • Each ranger in the party.  +1 Perception

If a party has a donkey, an encumbered rogue, and a ranger, the party has Noise 4 and Perception 3.  The ranges of the two results on the wandering monster check should change to reflect that.  Ergo:
  • 1-4 = random encounter
  • 5-7 = notice other people
  • 8+ = nothing special.
by Cosimo Galluzzi
Ranger Abilities

Rangers can also track down the people that they notice.  If they want to find them, it takes 1d4(exploding) exploration turns, with each turn requiring you to move in a random direction to follow the trail.  If you find them, you have a 50% chance of surprising them.  If they have a lair here, there is a 50% chance you will find the lair instead of them.  If you find the lair, there is a 50% chance it will be empty.

So that’s an interesting niche, I think.  The ability to manipulate the wandering monster table is a powerful one (although not as exciting as a wizard’s fireball).  Probably more useful than a + to hit, though.

I’m also thinking about other ways rangers can manipulate random encounters.  Possible ideas:
  • Increased chance of terrain advantages.
  • Ability to avoid certain entries on the wandering monster table.  “I want to avoid whatever is leaving all these acid-smooth gouges in the stone.”
  • Ability to seek out certain entries on the wandering monster table.

A lot of almost-TPKs in my games have come from wandering monsters showing up when the party is severely weakened.  Depending on how far I turn the dial, I can imagine a ranger being more helpful for a party’s survival than a cleric.

I like the sound of that.  

by Cosimo Galluzzi

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

The Seven Souls of Shadoom

Shadoom was the ur-Sorcerer, the greatest villain that the world has ever faced.

His schemes were limitless, and his inventions beyond categorization.  His traps and manipulations were so subtly woven that we are only now figuring out their depth, 700 years later.

He was the first to capture the spell that went on to become Power Word: Kill.  He built the first wizard tower (intending to eventually ride it to space).  He invented the cackling monologue.

And then he was hunted down (many, many times) and killed.

Ever since the Yellowcoat incident, the Church has been aware that occasionally the dead and the damned do not stay in hell, but instead return to the living world at the head of an ungodly host of demons.  And so it was decided that Shadoom would not be allowed to descend to hell, although he deserved many infinities of suffering, but would instead be kept here, where the fragments of his soul could be contained and monitored.

I: The Mineral Soul

First there is the matter of the mineral soul, what you might think of as chemistry.  This soul stays with the body after death, maintaining the concept form and ensuring adequate nutrition for decomposition.  They are quiet and hardworking engines of natural laws.  It is the ghost-in-the-corpse.

Shadoom's physical soul is not like it's kin in other rotting bodies.  It seems to have a fierce desire for continuation, although very little means to achieve it.  Attempts to communicate with it are met with blasphemy and gibbering.

The corpse is growing.  Although Shadoom was much less than 6' in life, his corpse is now more than 8' tall.  Most of the growth has occurred in the rib cage.

The only type of growth that the mineral soul permits is a fungal.  His skin is buttery with yeast, and what remains of the head is almost entirely obscured by polypores.

It's not a body anymore.  It's a lair for the mineral soul.

There are many who believe that it is not a mineral soul at all.  They claim that it is something much stranger, something invited into the body at the behest of Shadoom (or perhaps inserted as a punishment or means of control).  While attempts to study it have stalled, many are hesitant to burn it,

studies have stalled as the spirit has frustrated their attempts at investigation.  Still, Lady Stravia is hesitant to have the body destroyed, since that may release whatever is holding it together.

II: The Vegetable Soul

Think of the second soul as "the laws of biology" and you won't be far off.

Shadoom's vegetable soul exists in the body of a young man named Tappernick, who is an exact physical clone of Shadoom.

He is the assitant gardener at the Minthic Priory is Kaskala.  He is short and swarthy and tanned from the sun.  His hands are rough with callouses.

He is unaware of his heritage.  All he knows is that the paladins always seem to enjoy dining with him when they pass through.  He doesn't know why, since he doesn't consider himself to be very interesting.  Nor does he understand why the paladins are sometimes tense in his presence, or else amused.  He's just a gardener.

He always tries to send the paladins off with a magnolia blossum.  Sometimes they accept.

The whole thing was Lady Stravia's idea, of course.

III: The Animal Soul

The third soul can be thought of as the instinctual soul.

Shadoom's animal soul is possessed by a incredibly unhappy young girl by the name of Ursiline.  After her second attempt to drown herself, she was entered into the convent of St. Rashene on her 17th birthday.

It is unclear how the girl found out that she possessed one seventh of Shadoom's soul, but she now dwells on it constantly.  She has written letters to Shadoom blaming him for her unhappiness.  She has written letters to Lady Stravia assigning blame for her "imprisonment".

Lady Stravia, for her part, has expressed regret about how the whole thing was handled.  She may end up removing Ursiline from the convent entirely.

Those are the first three souls.  For most people, they are reincarnated.  They are the earthly souls.

The remaining four souls are the heavenly souls.

IV: The Purple Soul Which is Memory

The fourth soul, the purple soul, is composed of memories.

Shadoom's memories were reborn into the child of a farmer.  The boy's name was Roflund, and he was fully aware of his past life since three months before his birth.

Roflund was born on a hot summer night in the second basement of the Lustrine Cathedral in Coramont.  Lady Stravia herself helped deliver the baby.  Her hands touched him before his mother's hands.

Also in attendance were 40 paladins and a priest-wizard.  Such caution ended up being unecessary, but there were many who were convinced that the fetus would be able to work some deviltry in the womb, and were therefore prepared for *anything* to come through that dilated cervix.

The newborn was also panicking.  Nothing in Shadoom's memories had prepared him for the nightmare of being born, that offensive tumult of noise and cold and fluid-filled lungs.

The attending paladins were not put at ease by the newborn's reassurances.  A wizard's vocubulary sounds bizarre enough coming from a wizard.  It sounds even stranger coming from a newborn at his mother's breast.

Roflund spent the first six months of his life being extensively interviewed by the Church.  (Claims of torture are unsubstantiated.)  Roflund proved to be much more helpful during interrogation than his soul's predecessor.  It was through Roflund that we learned of such things as the resurrection engine and the four-chambered mountain.

Unfortunately, Shadoom anticipated his capture and removed many of his memories in the days prior, entrusting them to certain lieutenants.  Some information, such as the location of the third apocalypse maggot or the fate of the princess of air, is still lost to us.

Roflund is now a paladin of the second rank in the service of the Lustrine Bishop.

V: The White Soul Which is Morality

The fifth soul is the white soul.  It embodies goals, values, ambition, and morality.

It belongs to a woman named Jetta of Harwater.  She is awaiting trial and execution after murdering her debtholder.  It is possible that this is not her first murder, but there is scant evidence.

Her trial has been delayed indefinitely, after Lady Stravia suggested it to the magistrate.

VII: The Red Soul Which is Personality

This is the personality of a person.  It contains their mannerisms and their perspective.  It controls (and is controlled by) their moods.  It is their emotions and their intellect.

The red soul is contained in Lady Stravia, the bishopess of the East Temple of the Shackled Flame, one part of the Church in charge of ensuring that old troubles do not rise again.  They have more historians in their ranks than paladins.

The discovery of the identity of Lady Stravia's red soul occurred when she touched Roflund during his birth.  As soon as it occurred, she was imprisoned and interviewed extensively.  She was released nine months later, at the command of the Eastern Pope.

She has since been reassigned to minister the penitent's commune in Guilder.  It is said that their farms have never been so productive.

VII: The Blue Soul Which is Divine

Of Shadoom's blue soul, little is known.  The blue soul is the seat of the spirit, the divine conduit, and the magical tongue by which the mind speaks.

In theory, this is the most perilous of Shadoom's souls, since it contains all of his arcane puissance.  And yet, no recent sign of it has emerged.

It is possible that it has eluded capture by avoiding reincarnation.  If so, it has managed to trickle down the the anonymous chaos of the hells.

Or it is possible that it dwells in a simpleton, who has neither the intellect to comprehend the power the possess, nor the will to wield it.

And it is even possible that Shadoom's blue soul eventually outgrew Shadoom himself.  A man cannot dominate the world with so much power without being dominated by it in turn.  If this is the case, then Shadoom's blue soul lives on without him.  It will be mindless only until it certain arcane furcations occur (and they must occur, or else it will be eaten by the creatures of the upper air) until it becomes its own creature, seven-souled and independent.

And if that is the case, the six new souls will themselves be cast-offs, the flotsam of identity, survivors of some other personal extinction.

Nothing is destroyed, nor anything created, except by the Hand of the Authority.

Monday, May 8, 2017

Beyonders (+ Some Astral Sailing Stuff)


Space, as you think of it, is composed of two main parts.

There is the Astral Sea, in which all of the planets and solar systems are embedded.  (Light from the Astral "water" doesn't penetrate the ozone layer, but as soon as you leave the planet, you'll see it shining in all its glory, like an ocean of thin, pearlescent mucus.)  Picture a universe filled with thick spiderwebs, and then sailing across the surface of those spiderwebs as if you were a very tiny ship.

<digression>It's not hard for mid-level characters to sail into space.  Here are some possibilities:

  • Equip your ship with both a stormsail mage (collect and shape enough rain as it's falling and you can sail into the sky) and the proper astral sails and you're set.
  • Go to Ba Dwai La, where you can walk to the moon.  Buy a ship and launch yourself off the Last Waterfall, into the Astral Sea.
  • Climb the Cat's Tail to the moon, when it passes overhead.  Buy a ship and launch yourself off the Last Waterfall, into the Astral Sea.
  • Sail to one of the poles, and sail up the chalaza--the twisted string of an ocean that connects the planet to the Astral Sea and the solar system.
Hell, you could do any one of those things before level 3.</digression>

Then there is the Beyond.  It is everything else.

In practice, this means the parts of space that are very far away from the surface of the Astral Sea.  Away from the egg stars and the light-hives.  Nowhere near the mirrored pillars of creation.  Away from the beaconed sea-highway that leads to the Seat of the Authority himself.

There are dead planets.  Cold places where no light has ever shined.

There are the tessuract-ships of liches, who have finally found the peace and quite they could never get on Centerra itself.  Tomb-cities buried deep beneath the crust.

There are elf-seeds.  Impenetrable spheres of runed adamantine, carrying the belongings of some elf lord forward a billion years into his kingdom at the end of time.  They will survive the heat death of the universe, when the elves will return to claim them.  Time machines traveling one hour per hour.  Just fancy luggage, really.

And then there are the creatures that were born out here.  These are the beyonders.

There are many kinds of beyonders, of course.  These are just the ones that are encountered most often in dungeons.

The Beyonders

It is rumored that they are related to the organic satellite-people that orbit Centerra (although the planet is more accurately called Phosma) but this is probably untrue.

Out in the beyond, they look like large hula hoops of flesh and organs.  They're about 60' in diameter.

But your players will probably never encounter them in their native state.  They'll probably encounter them because they rolled a random encounter on dungeon level 6.

So how does a fleshy hoop explore a dungeon?

They do so by creating a portal.

The portal is shaped like a human.  A round, innocuous bubble-shaped human.

They can seal the skin of this portal with something akin to glass.  Which is good, because otherwise they'd just be human-sized holes in space, sucking in crap from all over the dungeon and blasting it into empty space, where some of it would presumably collide with the Beyonder.

When they are walking around a dungeon, they look like a man inside a bubble-suit.  Opaque and dully reflective.

like this, except less shit
At will, they can open up part of their body as a portal and suck stuff in.

They can open up their hand to suck in a coin, and close it smoothly behind it.

If they open up their chest, they can suck in things as large as a human.

They have to be careful with this tactic, though, because anything that gets sucked through is also being shot at their own body, which is a fleshy hula hoop encircling this portal.

They have some telekinesis.  They use this to catch stuff (coins, weapons) and pass them back outside the portal to their bubble-body as they are needed.

Beyonder Bubble Skin
HD 4  AC plate  Space Mace 1d6+1d6 cold
Move as human  Int 10  Mor 4

Immune to non-magical slashing and piercing.

Summon Skin -- Create or remove the glass-like bubble skin that covers the body-shaped portal.  Usually only has a certain patch open at any given time.  Free action.

Portal -- Unless there is bubble skin covering the portal-body beneath, the Beyonder sucks stuff in like a tornado.  5' away = Str check with a -4 penalty.  25' away = Str check.  No effect beyond 30'.  Once you get sucked up, you get a second chance to catch yourself if there is something between you and the Beyonder that you could potentially grab onto.  And yes, if you get sucked through the portal, you can remain conscious for one round while you stab the Beyonder's flesh-body in its stupid flesh-face.

At-will spells:

  • telekinesis
  • teleport up to 10', disappears on one turn, reappears on the next turn. (this is just the Beyonder closing the portal, and reopening it nearby.)

If the bubble skin is broken (or if the Beyonder turns it off), the Beyonder isn't defeated, but it is probably getting smacked in the face by all the stuff that's being sucked through.  Getting bathed in cold air is extremely unpleasant, and most Beyonders won't endure it for more than a couple of turns at a time.

If the bubble skin is broken they can regrow a new one tomorrow.

Beyonder Corpus (the hoop of flesh in space)
HD 2  AC plate  Attacks none
Move *  Int 10  Mor 4

Even if the bubble skin is broken, it isn't immediately obvious that there is a ring of flesh 30' into the portal.  The easiest way to discover this is probably to throw a torch through.

Beyonders aren't stupid, and as soon as they realize their foe has figured out how to damage them, they'll withdraw (which is as simple as closing the portal).  They'll probably come back later.

By the way, they can't teleport their bubble-skin body all over the planet. Whenever they re-open their personal portal, they can only re-open it in the same location where they closed it last time (or at least, within 10' of that point).  This means you can imprison one, as long as the walls are at least 10' thick.

Each Beyonder also keeps 1d3-1 things on hand that they can throw back out their bodies in case things get desperate.

Holdout Weapons [d6]
1. Just a big brick of chlorine.  Quickly evaporates into a gas upon hitting our atmosphere.  As acid cloud.
2. 2d6 legless ghouls.  (Space is full of ancient, insane ghouls.  They're about as common as hailstorms.  Most cut off the unnecessary bits and throw them in order to gain some momentum in space.)
3. Captured light from a dead star.  3d6 necrotic damage, 100000000' cone, save for half.
4. A jet of dust going 400 miles per hour.  Functions as a 30' line of piercing damage that does 3d6 piercing damage each round for up to 3 rounds (as long as the Beyonder concentrates).  Half damage if you succeed on an Armor save.  (Roll your AC like a save.)
5. A lump of lead the size of a VW bug.  Treat this as a melee attack roll (it can't throw the lump very far) with a -4 penalty (it's not very accurate) that does 3d6 damage and pins its target.  The lump is so cold that it sucks the heat out of the room, dealing 1 cold damage on each each subsequent turn for an hour.  Ice will form after 1 minute.
6. A domesticated florgurg.  Just tentacles and teeth.  Sings like a whale being sucked down a garbage disposal.  HD 3  AC leather  Grab/Grab/Bite 1d12.