Hideously Deformed's page

(the spelling alone musty have taken a week!)

Oh, the irony of the kettle and the pot...

The days are long past when I could/would plunk down $25+ dollars for a hardcopy of anything beyond a core rulebook (if that).

Amen to that, brah.

Especially from Mongoose, whose track record regarding editing and quality of content has always been....shaky.

-Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries

Ouch. :(

(Dumb question--how do I subscribe to this thread?)

I did a very similar concept for a game I ran. All the players chose classes as usual...but the twist was that the Thieves' Guild had "dirt" on each of them and the guild was blackmailing the players to work for them. Thus, any class (even paladin, theoretically) was beholden to the Thieves' Guild and HAD to do Guild assignments or risk their dirty secret being exposed!

I wrote several vague one-line dirty secrets and had each player draw one randomly. I asked them to, as best they could, incorporate the dirty secret into their 'character concept'.

Ah, I found them:

- You murdered someone and hid the body.

- You were a prostitute / gigolo in your younger years.

- You're part of a terrorist conspiracy against the local government.

- You have a child. (the child is / isn't aware of your existence--your choice)

- You're a pyromaniac.

- You are carrying on an illicit affair with a well-known (and very married) public figure.

- You were brainwashed into an illegal death cult that practices kidnapping and ritual sacrifice. (you're currently a low-ranking member)

- You framed another person for a crime. They're now serving a life sentence instead of you.

- Your recent ancestors were notorious necromancers whose (horrible and well-known) crimes have never gone unpunished. (you're living under a false identity currently)

- You've been blackmailing someone. Unfortunately, you're terrible at covering your tracks.

- You're an alcoholic (bordering on severe).

- You've stolen/embezzled from the wrong people and you've been found out.

- You're an illegitimate child. (you can choose which parent raised you)

I had each player draw random secrets (they were on strips of paper and I had them fanned out upside down, so nobody knew what they were going to get). I also allowed that, if there was something that just did NOT mesh with their character concept, they could re-draw a dirty secret. (i.e. a water mage having the pyromaniac secret)

As you can see, they're very generic, so as to fit them into an ongoing story easily. Players who enjoyed creating more back story could chose details themselves and flesh out their dirty secrets, while players who didn't care to create their own back story were left at MY mercy (or lack thereof) regarding details....and I promised to make them squirm if left up to me...

(There were more dirty secrets but some of the players kept their strips of paper. I made sure there was at least three secrets per player, and each secret was fairly unique and diverse from the other secrets, to help guarantee randomness.)

Oh! The best part of it all? I never TOLD them they were going to be working for the Guild during char-gen. I saved that twist until AFTER they chose, rolled and statted-out their PCs. :D

<reads ... and twitches knowing that the end of July is in T minus 6 days>

Feelin' your pain, man...feelin' your pain.

:: double-taps vein in arm ::

I'm jonesin' too.

I can't give you any playtest feedback, but I have read Psionics Unleashed and I'd say they did a great job.

Agreed--I haven't been able to playtest either, but reading the book is a pleasure. Well, well worth the cash.

Seriously--a crime. You was robbed.

I still vote you come to my city and GM a game for my tiny little group.

I'll pay you cash monies...

fat bank

Is that anything like a sperm or blood bank?

I think there should be a RPG SuperStar Editor contest, to find junior editor wanna-bes. Like me!

"Than Aivel and the other aboleth mages will cause the sea waters to rise and drown the surface world"

I also like this entry because of this ^.

So many times in the past it's the "blot out the sun from the sky" angle.

I like the cruel spin on the biblical story.

Well, it's not a villian, but Sam, I love your ideas and your writing and I want, no I NEED, to play an adventure written by you.

I'll put it this way--I wanted to vote for you. Really. Just wasn't really screaming "villain" to me, as much as I wanted it to be.

You might not write for Paizo, but you should be allowing the world to see your creative output.

And I agree that I'd love if you DM'ed for our little group. Your ideas are unique and edgy, which is refreshing in this 'generic' and cookiecutter business.

Cheers, and good luck, and I hope we see more of you down the road!!

Okay, since people are digging the manipulator angle, how does the form and function of this Villain make him a better mainpulator than any of the other entries?

It's more that the other entries are so underwhelming that this, despite being a wee tad pedestrian, sticks out as being a "clear" villain.

If I were to use this villain in my campaign my players would probably fall over laughing, just because of the name. No matter how good the rest of the entry is.

Here's a crazy idea.

I mean, this is really wackko, but try it on for size:

You're the DM.

RENAME the characters for your game.

Yes, yes, I know....that's a revolutionary idea.

But you really can do that, you know.

I disliked the elemental quiver immensely. I saw nothing original in it.

I couldn't stand the names and clumsy writing in The Prison Colony of Saran Wrap.
Now Voeren van Premie is excellent. A real villain. Visually distinctive. Tragically deluded. Alien but easy to overlook.
Easily my favourite of this round.
Nothing could surprise me more.

Agreed. The writing was still exceptionally weak, but as far as concepts? Home run.

Onayuka, the All-Seeing Eye. A credible, smart and perfectly implemented mastermind. Beautifully written and crisply formatted with a flash of colour.

Again, 110% with you on that one.

Abzirael Ul Shadai The Cackling Whirling. A bombastic and forceful image that beams competence and craftsmanship in all directions. I admit that his style is really growing on me.

I respectfully disagree, but I think I'll let the voting show who my personal choice was in place of this.

My last vote goes to the thouroughly badass fourarmed Asmodean sahuagin expansionist, Seskadrin, Satrap Of The Ahestian Sea. Such nice work, and beautifully foreshadowed in Eluraelon itself.

Again, we are of a like mind, and for similar reasons.

Instead, I have to decide which irrelevant factor will influence my voting - do I vote based solely on how much I liked previous entries, or do I let my love for weird villains determine my voting.

Think of this--the winner will be writing generic role playing material. You're basically helping choose who will be writing stuff that YOU may be reading somewhere down the line, whether it be monster, setting, villain, country or what have you.

In that instance, I'd take a more "global" view and urge you to look at past entries. Did the entrant have consistantly good ideas with evidence of strong writing skills, creativity, etc.? Or did they show consistant improvement, if they started a little weak?

If you base your decision purely on "wahoo" gonzo-ness, you may enjoy their specific villain entry but hate their other entries.

That's how I approached my decisions.

I too cannot find many true villains among the submission for this round. So far, my list of votes includes Onuyaka and Voeren van Primie. Unfortunately, thats two short than necessary...

I agree 100% with your comment. I eked out 2 other choices based on the strengths of the submitters' previous entries, but it felt like there were slim pickings for villains. LOTS of monsters, though...

There's a TON of conflict running through my mind regarding this entry.

I need to preface this by saying I'm a huge Call of Cthulhu fan, and still own my copy of the AD&D boxed set Night Below (which features aboleths as the boss villains). Your entry presses my buttons, to be sure! Having said that...

Blame it on ADD or inability to catch subtleties, but I barely got through the first several sentences of your entry. I stopped reading after a few lines. The initial text just didn't GRAB me the way some of the other entries did. It was...bland (I was going to say dry, but it oozes with mucuous-like slime). :-) As Erik says, you buried the lead a bit too much. I lost my interest in reading the entry the first time through.

I actually had to read Wolf, Clark and Erik's posts to understand the depth and nuance of the rat-bastardliness that was being presented here...again, mainly because I didn't even bother finishing to read your entire entry.

Once I re-read the entry....YEAH, baby! I wasn't bowled over by the use of an elan, but I'm not afraid of adding some psionics to my game.

Civilization 4 (the best PC game EVAR!!!11one!eleventy-eleven11!!) has a "mod" called Fall from Heaven. There is a religion (read: "cult") in that mod called the Octopus Overlords. Your entry immediately reminded me of that group.

Also, any villain that has expandability and reusability is a terrific addition to a DM's arsenal. Cults fit that bill to a T.

Lastly, Goodman Games published two resources that offer a half-aboleth template: The Adventure Begins and Blackdirge’s Dungeon Denizens. They call it an abollar. I realize that, within the constraints of this competition, you may not be able to use that template but it seemed such a PERFECT fit with your entry I thought I'd bring it up in case anyone wanted to pursue that idea.

I have to contemplate whether this is vote-worthy or not. Not going to be an easy task, as I had to rely on someone else's posts just to "get it".

It's also kinda sad that this looks good because nearly all of the other entries just don't have villains in them. I wonder if I'm impressed by this entry because I'm so underwhelmed by the other entries...? Your item and country didn't do a lot for me--are we seeing you improve, or is this a fluke?

I'm having a difficult time commiting to a vote for this...there is another entry that I'm eyeballing....

Meantime, please accept my praise in the form of me 100% *yoink*-ing this idea for my own use.

Good luck!

The intro text grabbed me by the collar, shook me around and threw me to the ground...in a good way. Immediately I wanted to know more about this Namor-on-steroids brute. That is saying a LOT, as many of your competitors' entries were very very VERY "meh" in regards to captivating me right out of the gate.

As I read futher, I continued to enjoy the villain as you exposed more of his story and abilities.

I'm strongly considering voting for you. In the mean time, I'd like to flatter you by mentioning that I'm gonna *yoink* the snot outta this NPC for my own use.

Good luck!

I love the Spy Master / political spider-sitting-in-a-web-of-deceits-and-lies concept, which drew me to this character.

I, personally, really like spies and "information-gathering secret societies" in my games, so this entry appealed to me strongly right from the get-go.

Is it an out-of-the-park home run in regards to originality? Meh. That's it's downfall--it's not "edgy". It's solid but somewhat conservative.

Onuyaka is also really skating on the fine line between villain and NPC.

I'm on the fence about this one currently, but please accept my compliments in the form of *yoink*-ing the hell outta this NPC.

Good luck!

I'm generally not fond of fey, but the writing was exceptionally clear and engaging for Kotalya from from the start, and she has a cool/unusual twist.

The post directly above ^ (as well as several others) points out some of the clunky spots, but I got the general idea. Amping up her expansionistic intentions will be easy...by adding a few lines of text (which several people have suggested).

Pronouncing her name isn't an exercise in oral gymnastics, while still retaining a fantasy spin. Players and DMs alike will appreciate that.

I immediately saw the potential of this villain. (Sadly, I can't say that was true with a large majority of these entries.)

While I'm currently undecided on whether to vote for your entry, I wish to offer a compliment: I full intend to *yoink* this idea for my own use.

Good luck!

Loved--LOVED--the Stained Peaks.

While this villain may not be an earth-shattering home run, it's just so solid, well-written and fits with the existing setting I consider it a shoe-in. You get my vote.

You need to be designing role playing games, even if it's not with Paizo, and I will be *yoink*-ing all of the creations you've submitted. Please take that in the complimentery vein in which I intended it. (Vein...see how I did that?)

At very least, please come to my town and DM our games each week. Please?!? I'll pay you....

This really skirts the edges of "gimmick".

Me, personally? I love the idea. My first read-through of the entry immediately struck me as fresh, original, and captivating.

If I were a player and a DM threw this villain at me, I'd 1) call him or her a rat bastard--which is a compliment! and 2) want to hunt this vile cesspool of depravity down and slay it (him?).

I can see a less...liberal? open-minded?...bunch crying foul and accusing the entry of being a gimmick and/or over(t)ly political.

This is a tough one, so I'll stew on it a bit more before I commit to a vote.

Even if I don't vote for this, I'm absolutely going to *yoink* the idea, which should be seen as a compliment.

I really liked this one. Sadly, not enough to propel me to give it the vote, but I really liked it.

As many, many posters have observed, she'd make a terrific bump in the road. In fact, I'd think she'd be a good hench-medusa for some of the other, more subtle rat-bastardly villains in this contest.

While my vote isn't there, I'm absolutely going to *yoink* the idea, which I hope you'll take as flattery.

Firkdingblast, I spent half an hour writing up my response, and the post failed. &*%$#

I see this in many, many posts on these boards, and there is a simple and useful solution to the problem:

Please, please, please--if someone is going to write a long entry, why not type it in Notepad or Word first, then copy/paste the contents into the messageboard post?

This serves several purposes, the primary that you'll have a second copy if the messageboard fails to capture your content--you'll never lose the first (Word or Notepad) copy.

A strong secondary benefit is that you can edit to your heart's content (Word has spellchecking, among other things) before you commit to posting the final copy.

You could also type a huge entry, but just before you press "Submit Post" copy the contents of the post (highlight the material you typed, press CTRL + C). If the post fails, CTRL-V will paste everything you copied back into a blank entry.

Only the Top 32 were "officially" posted, but many people posted their entries themselves in the Losing Items thread.

Ah. I figured as much.

Thanks anyway.

...I can only see the winning 32.

Can we view the rest, or have they been folded under a cloak of secrecy and stored in the same warehouse as Indy's Ark of the Covenant?

:)

Linkie me, please, if possible!

The Migrus and I will pass on the red marker treatment.

That, sir, is genuinely a shame.

I'd love to see the results of your twisted piece of work after JJ got his hands all over it.

Lilith wrote:

Release a "RPG Superstar Contest 2007" PDF with shiny art and clear layout for $5 when it's all said n' done. Please? And stuff? :P

We have a winner. I'll buy that for a dollar. Plus four more.

Plus... allow the writers to work with the editor's to punch their stuff up a bit and give it some art.

Agreed--with editing, I'd gladly--gladly--fork over cash for some of these entries.

The word you were looking for in your review was "chord"...something strikes a chord in you.

What? Just sayin'.

Corey Young wrote:

Therabyd, a replacement is on its way! The time for US subscribers to request a replacement has come. As for the subscribers in Europe, hang in there!

Thanks much.

Therabyd

I also didn't receive my copy. Email me at wraith [underscore] form [at] msn [dot] com with questions, or just reply to this. Thank you!

Thread Necromancy to the rescue!

I ran the adventure as-is (3.0 stats) but with 3.5 adventurers. There were 4 players: 2nd level barbarian, 2nd level dragon shaman, 2nd level rogue and 1st level bard/beguiler multi.

Each player was given a choice of either a magic weapon or magic armor, and (wisely, I thought) everyone took a magic weapon except the bard/beguiler.

I ran Seth with the stats as they were in the mag, and although I got a few good hits on them they lived quite easily. The battle was hairy for many rounds, with decent die rolls on both sides of the DM's screen.

Eventually, though, Seth's die ran cold and I started sucking eggs. With Seth's DR, the wounds inflicted by the group were minimal, but they "nickle-and-dimed" him down round after round, whereas when my dice ran poor he missed them repeatedly. The barbarian raged when her hit points got too low for comfort, and she easily dispatched Seth to his final rest.

They found Irewyn, brought her back to town disguised as a male elf (long story) and requested that Father Denethan accompany them back to their inn, where they revealed that Irewyn was still alive. We needed to wrap up, so no cool cliffhanger ending, but next week they intend to have a "town meeting" where the traitors will be exposed.

Good times, fun adventure, and not too hard but not too easy, either. Thanks for writing and publishing Bogged Down!

And again, the Hiding/Unnaming of Sasserine is a minor element that doesn't impact the Savage Tide arc, so nothing done with this will impact the campaign's plot in any way.

Hunh. It's almost like you're saying that the hiding of Sassarine is a MINOR ELEMENT (hint hint) that does NOT IMPACT (wink wink) the Savage Tide arc. Oh well, I guess we can't drop the issue, and *must* beat this dead horse to a pulp (nudge nudge).

I was thinking, maybe a bag of marbles on the deck of the ship, followed by some molotov cocktails.

That certainly added some excitement when I tried that at work a month ago.

On a related topic, if anyone knows of employers looking for a hard worker with singed eyebrows, please let me know.

Hideously Deformed wrote:

Actually, all pretty common knowledge to X-Philes. Sorry.

Actually, since you yourself say that it's common knowledge to X-philes there is no contradiction with Lilith saying that it was total geek trivia.

Wow, that was kinda cool. You not only contradicted me, you also attempted to subtly insult me (by calling me a geek) in one fell stroke. Touché! :)

But you'd probably want to ditch Carl's totally awesome $2 hat.

Arrgh, have you seen his SNEAKERS?!?

{/threadjack...no, really, this time}

Total geek trivia: Chris Carter, creator of the X-Files show, was a HUGE Nightstalker fan. Darren McGavin had a cameo in the series as the guy that started the X-Files in the show.

Actually, all pretty common knowledge to X-Philes. Sorry.

But Frank Spotnitz, former X-Filer, did Night Stalker last year, a short-lived recreation of the Kolchak myth. It's also out on DVD....erm, all 9 (well, 10 if you count a 2-parter) episodes. And my GOD did it have Gabrielle Union. Very very lovely.

{/threadjack} Now, back to LOST conversations please..!

Got mine.

It's good to be
Great Green God

Me too, and it's great to be hideously deformed. Or maybe it's just hideous.

Anyway, I was really REALLY kinda looking for info about the shadow pearls, because (quite co-incidentally) I introduced an "ebon sphere" into my first, 1st level adventure a few weeks ago and haven't really known what to do with it. (McGuffins are fun, but sometimes taxing on the GM's brain...)

So I'm very happy to have the mag, but kinda deflated because I see no shadow pearl info.

I'm just dying to know if it was ever approved, and if we've read this adventure in one of the recent issues...?

So, wow, I want an Age of Worms HC.

Me too. And again, a boxed set would be even more preferred. And this from a Dungeon subscriber who has every issue of the AoW AP.

Mr. Jacobs, my $200 is yours (as well as my alimony papers). Surely WotC must see how many of us are willing to shell over the cash for this thing...?

Watch out for that symbol of persuasion embedded in the HTML!

(fails Will save)

"Can't... resist... advertising. Must... buy!"

Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

;)

Sorry all, but I choose "Viking" in the pirate vs. ninja wars.

Can I have a gladi--err, sorry.

CAN I HAVE A GLADIATOR INSTEAD?!?

(better? I understand someone has hearing loss.)

One more head! One more Red Nail for the wall!

That was actually a pillar.

...Is that Heidi Klum? -drool-

Any I missed?

I'm sure the Lost Island of Castanamir (C3) and the Ghost Tower of inverness (C2) can be found crammed in there, maybe swept under some carpets...

:-)

Professor wrote:

Will the sister magazine Dragon be publishing complimentary articles for the campaign as it did with the AoW campaign?

Yup; they'll be called "Savage Tidings" and they start in issue #348.

Crud. I'll have to subscribe, then. Thanks for killing the bank account....sigh. ....LOL!

he got the idea for the flashback stories that tie everyone together from "The Watchmen" comic.

Watchmen?

-heavy breathing-

I think I just climaxed a little in my draws.

If there is a guy named Walt, I am quitting the game forever.

Being a froth-mouthed, ravenous shameless LOST fanboy, I OTOH will subscribe for life.

should not affect (effect? I can never keep those straight)

Cripes, my heart is practically racing and I'm wiping drool off myself in anticipation of this mag. I *need* to know what the shadow pearls do..!!!

Regarding affect / effect, the way I remember it is "cause and effect"...affect is "to have an influence on" (i.e. a "cause") and effect is, quite literally, "the result". In this case, I believe you're looking for effect, as the change of address should not result in a change of delivery time.

But what the h3ll do I know--?!? ;)

Setup so that anyone can contibute and add whatever info they want.

I tried and was told I couldn't do so.

I was trying to add "Cry Wolf" (level 2 adventure) from Dungeon #102.

waaaah! /cry

I like David Jenks's. Makes me want to try the D&D miniature game all the more!

*gasp*

Miniature? That's ME! Hmmph.

(I was going by my actual name until I saw that I could edit it. Now I'm going by my nickname.)

On the shabby scale, that's pretty shab-lite. Might even say it's shabby-riffic.

I also had a question about this adventure, and (as the previous poster) it might be chalked up to my inexperience with Eberron--but I suspect there's something more missing.

"Nef'Haz is a Darguun mercenary hired to prevent Aerdane's ship from reaching it's destination." It never says who hired the mercenary or why the ship was supposed to be prevented from reaching said destination.

Am I missing something? Did I not read a section of the adventure that explains who and why Nef'haz was hired?

Please help--thank you !

Edit, later:
Ah, I see...the text that was cut for space actually has options for an explaination.

Not to be critical of an excellent adventure and magazine, but it seems this excised text should have been left in somehow, as it's raised more questions by being left out. At least a paragraph giving us a little something to work with; I mean, we're not ALL Monte Cooks. ;)