There are dozens of devils, demons, etc. to use as fodder for tieflings, and only a half-dozen or so angels, archons and azata. I'd want to see a few more good outsider options, to serve as fodder for that sort of article, before attempting to duplicate the tiefling article. Right now, it wouldn't be meaty enough, IMO.
Before merging with the Maharav, the Meraz goes east a bit, then turns north and meanders. About 10 miles before that bend in the river, but ~20-25 miles south, deeper in the desert, lies the city. It's definitely far enough from the river that the townspeople can't just run over with a bucket...
Current population is 5000 ish, which is supposedly down from it's regular numbers, as people have been fleeing the area as the farms fail.
Upon reading further, the entire mountain range is called the Zho Mountains, all the way up to the border with Taldor, not just the southern clump that has the name on it.
There is a river on the map that runs out of the Zho Mountains. Does anyone know the name of that river? I do not have access to the Qadira book or I would look it up myself.
It's called the Maharav River, and continues as the Maharav to the sea.
The river that joins with it from the east is called the Meraz.
The city nearby, Dimayen, uses irrigation canals from the river to support agriculture, but has recently developed a problem with that dependency, as they believe that an infestation of ankheg have destroyed their canals, causing their farms to fail.
Haunting is a major, major limitation, and anyone taking it needs to be sure they can handle nasty spirits with a nasty (and deadly) sense of humor.
I've gamed with GMs with such a sense of 'humor,' where getting a Wish from a ring, or even as a reward from your diety, was basically a death-sentence, since no matter *what* you Wished for, you were going to end up gruesomely dicked-over.
The other curses don't appear to attempt to maliciously screw the character, so I'd be leery of assigning a malevolent agenda to this one. I'd make it inconvenient, and occasionally puckish, but *especially* would avoid doing things that would get the entire party punished for hanging around with this guy (like perforating the queen's bottom).
If there's one thing I pretty soundly despise is character flaws that ruin the enjoyment of every other player at the table. That's just bad design, and makes the player who chose that flaw look like a world-class jerk for choosing a disadvantage or curse that regularly ruins his friends evening entertainment.
Fortunately, this one doesn't seem to be written that way. It seems to, like the other curses, affect the Oracle, and not go out of it's way to screw over any soft-hearted (or minded) saps who allowed this sad sack into their adventuring party, instead of sensibly dumping him down the first well the moment they discovered that he was a walking jinx who is always one DM whim away from ending the campaign with the entire party in jail or on the gallows. The Curse doesn't even sound particularly intelligent, let alone malicious, so it's unlikely that it would even know the difference between the queen's bottom and any other bottom, or that the pointy side of the dagger should go up.
Instead the Oracle might just discover that the gift he was supposed to give the queen appears to have vanished into his bags again, and be stuck stammering his apologies while he searches all over his person for the item, looking like a fool. After recovering his dignity and gifting the queen with the bauble she had lost as a girl, he would bow and attempt to back away, only to find that his bootlaces somehow got tied together, leading to a curter than expected dismissal for someone who just completed a quest for the royal family.
Maybe Haunted just isn't an appropriate curse, if some DMs are going to use it to have magic items leap into fiery chasms or flasks of alchemists fire leap out of one's backpack and set the inn on fire. It sounds like a recipe for Not-Fun.
This guy sounds like the *worst* munchkin EVER. Let him lag a few levels behind everyone else, playing a class that's strictly worse than a wizard, using the least effective arcane combat option (blasting spells, subject to saves, Evasion, Energy Resistance *and* SR, as well as other crap like immunities, Fire/Cold subtypes, globes of invulnerability, spell turning, counterspelling, ad nauseum) *and* having to make Arcane Spell Failure checks to avoid losing spells because of his armor.
And he'll just get himself frustrated again, when yet *another* of his brilliant uber-builds sucks in actual play, and ask to try again.
It might even be fun to work his rotating character-design workshop failures into the story, and describe his character as some sort of variation on Michael Moorcocks Eternal Champion, constantly changing and transforming into different people with different ability, but always occupying the same space. "Reality warps and bends, and now Bob is an armored drow sorcerer, who looks a little bit like Bob around the eyes, and is wearing the same sort of designs on his new armor and robes! Bob 4.0 appears with full knowledge and memory of what he was doing as Bob 3.0, the Monk/Paladin/Fighter, so we can skip getting him up to speed."
Indeed, for when he does (inevitably, it seems) get frustrated at the results of his (based on the examples upthread) spectacularly bad design decisions, print up some basic characters for him to be able to switch to mid-game, so that he doesn't take up valuable game time asking to make a new character. "Fine, play one of these pre-gens for the rest of the session, you can show me your new character before the next game."
Provide a couple of choices. Fun, effective builds with cool toys like the new Pathfinder Cleave and Vital Strike on a single-class Paladin or Barbarian using a Core race. Allow him to shine with those *basic* classes (maybe even do the DM's prerogative thing and throw some evil foes at the Paladin, for instance, so that he gets to wallow in the sticky-sweet goodness that is Pathfinder Smite Evil).
But number one priority, IMO? Concentrate on making the game fun for the players who *aren't* being dicks. You get to design the encounters, and, like most DMs, you probably try to put something for everyone into every session, so that everyone gets a moment to shine (even if, best laid plans and all that, sometimes those moments get missed, no matter how many anvils we drop). Just keep focussing on giving the other players fun moments, both before the game in setting up encounters to play to their strengths (and occasionally challenge their weaknesses), and during the game descriptively. While Armored Drow Sorcerer boy is trying, and failing, to cast Scorching Ray, describe the effects of the wizard's successful higher level spell dramatically, whether it's a Fireball exploding with a dull roar that sends bits of flaming bad-guy everywhere, or even something less visual (but much more effective) like a Slow spell causing the enemies to appear to be struggling through rippling currents in the air, even their voices distorted and far away sounding, as if they are moving through molasses to get to the party, while the party members move and dance through them as if they were fighting against training dummies.
Don't punish the bad player, throw him a bone if he actually succeeds in accomplishing something, but make sure to focus on the enjoyment of the non-problem players who *are* enjoying the game.
Short, short version?
Let the squeaky wheel squeak.
I'd rather have Paizo come up with new and original ideas instead of making a "Battlecrafted" race as a cheap hack of the Warforged.
And they already have at least two different types of mechanical metal men anyway, some in Numeria and some on one of the other planets (although it's possible these two examples are the same race, just separated by their loss of space travel). So, really, it's kinda inevitable that we'll eventually see something, just nothing like Warforged, because these are alien machine men from outer space!
The weirdest game I ever played used strict wealth by level. Didn't matter what you got as loot, take as much or as little as you want, when you level up, all your stuff vanishes and turns into the gold piece equivalent you should have for the new level.
Buy it back, better, if you want, or replace it entirely, the DM didn't care, as long as it came from the PHB or DMG, or was personally approved by him.
On the one hand, you never lost money selling off old gear for new gear.
On the other hand, you never got to keep anything you'd found that was 'too good' for you to afford after leveling up.
Freakish. It was like the most suspension-of-disbelief breaking thing ever, but also kinda fun, in a beer-and-pretzels 'oh, what the hell, it's just a game' sense.
But this doesn't make sense at all. Let's say I'm a Lawful Neutral cleric of Abadar. How is it that worshipping Ironi as well is an abomination, but becoming a Druid is not?
It's even whackier when dealing with gods who are strongly allied, like Aroden/Iomedae/Arazni (granted, two of them are dead now...), whereas you can be a Druid / Cleric of Urgathoa, for all anyone cares.
There's even specific mention of Druids who revere Gorum, and wear metal armor in their animal forms, which is like multiple levels of sacrilege! "Why yes, I'm a nature-priest with a vow to never wear metal armor, and I worship a giant unnatural walking suit of metal armor that hates and destroys anything it touches. Why, do you think that's odd?"
[Off topic]To be honest, I think realisticly, Sorcerers should be Wis, too, especially with what you just said, because there is nothing Charsmatic about how a Sorcerer uses/advances their power.[end off topic]
As long as Charisma was being repositioned as 'force of personality,' I sometimes wonder if Will saves should have been moved over to Charisma, and Wisdom left as primarily geared around perception and insight. Sorcerers would have become the 'king of the will save,' with a strong Will save and Charisma as their primary stat, but I think that would have fit their arrogant, self-assertive description, turning sheer domineering will into arcane power.
A moot point at this late, late date, but a decade or so ago, it might have made sense, in the rollout of 3.0.
Or maybe have it be as a result of some sort of random roll whenever there's a "stressful situation" as opposed to merely "combat."
That makes sense. A failed social roll (intimidate attempt on the character), a social snub, the sight of a race-hated foe (more relevant to races that have hated foes, like gnomes and dwarves), exposure to fear effects, etc. could all trigger an attack. An NPC Oracle might even freak out on a failed attempt to modify their reaction by Diplomacy, shrieking 'deceiver!' and clawing at the unsuccessful sycophant!
For a critter-phobia, perhaps you could even pick a race / type from the Ranger's Favored Enemy list, and every time you encounter those beasts, you have to make a Will save or be panicked. If you make the save, you get the Ranger's Favored Enemy bonuses as if you were a Ranger.
A fun variation could be an Oracle who considers themselves to have been judged by the gods and cursed with their oracular status. As a Curse effect, they are fearful of religious icons and temples, dreading holy ground (Will save to enter ground they recognize as consecrated or desecrated, or an obvious shrine or temple, even one that is in ruins, treat as shaken the entire time even if they make the save and enter such a place, can also be repelled by a forcefully presented holy symbol, etc.). On the other hand, they have built up a 'tolerance' to divine magic, feeling that they must constanty fight against the divine judgement upon them, and gain bonuses to saving throws vs. divine magic (and, at the highest level, perhaps even Spell Resistance vs. divine spells only).
Curses specific to the type of Foci/Mystery chosen could be neat as well. An Oracle of Earth might be bidden to always travel barefoot, and, like Antaeus, suffer penalties when separated from contact with the earth. A stone floor is acceptable, a wooden floor less so, and travelling by ship should be one of those 'someone go drug B.A.s milk, so we can get his unconscious butt on the plane' situations. On the other hand, through his bare feet, the Oracle of Earth with this curse might be aware of nearby individuals also walking on the earth, having short range tremorsense.
An Oracle of Water might require regular immersion in water, or suffer penalties when not within a certain range of the sea (or at least on a river or lake!), or something, but get bonuses to swimming, holding breath underwater, etc.
An Oracle of Flame, on the other hand, might begin taking damage if ever fully submerged in water, and find excessive contact with water unpleasant, but have a limited water walking ability, as his feet sear the surface of the water and he walks on a carpet of steam.
Kirk did write those TekWar books, which got turned into a halfway decent Action Pack TV series with the actor from B.J. and the Bear! (The human, not the chimp.)
In fact, the coolness of the series prompted me to pick up a couple of the books, which were... not great. He's no triple threat, that's for sure.
The material the stats are pulled from are pretty easy to deduce. The fun part is assigning a whole new monster to roughly the same abilities.
Very true. Two of them were obvious to me at a glance, because of their special abilities, but the monkey was a stumper until I noticed its number of attacks. I probably was slowed down by my grognard-ness, as I don't immediately think of beasties introduced later the way I do classic beasties from the 1st edition Monster Manual.
Some John-types get over this relatively quickly, and have their minds and horizons expanded. Others have it as a recurring hang-up for years.
Everyone has comfort zones. I think it's incumbent upon anyone with a sense of empathy to *not* go out of their way to make other people uncomfortable. (With the key part of that sentence being 'go out of their way.' If some schmuck has a problem with you because, completely out of his sight, you live a lifestyle that he finds icky, he's the big squeamish sissy who needs to grow a pair, and you're blameless and pure.)
If Joe Schmoe labels a gay acquaintance as 'like a straight guy who likes dudes,' that's not any sort of revelation about the acquaintance, that's a revelation about Joe's utter lack of interest in thinking deeply on the subject. Yay for Joe. Perhaps he's got stuff more relevant to his life to think deeply upon. Perhaps he's an innocent bystander in this conflict. Perhaps browbeating him into thinking deeply on this matter will only reveal that he's just plain not a deep thinker, and now he's really annoyed at the person who wasn't satisfied with him just accepting them without some profound revelatory experience.
Descriptors often have a way of revealing more about the describer than the described, in my experience.
I'd allow a cleric to worship two like minded gods, but I wouldn't allow a multiclassed cleric/cleric, you'd just be cleric with 1 domain from each diety.
Makes sense. There was a third-party product I don't recall the name of that had pantheist priests limited to one Domain from their pantheon of dieties, but able to choose on a daily basis to focus their prayers towards a different diety, essentially changing their one Domain on a daily basis when they prepared spells.
Gods & Magic p 47 suggests that worshippers of the Dwarven gods do something similar, which would allow a dwarven cleric of Torag, Abadar, Irori, Angradd, Bolka, Dranngvit, Droskar, Folgrit, Grundinnar, Kols, Magrim or Trudd to access any of a plethora of Domains, but only one at a time. (artifice, charm, community, darkness, earth, evil, fire, good, healing, knowledge, law, protection, repose, rune, nobility, strength, travel, trickery or war)
Similarly, G&M p 48 mentions pantheist elven Clerics, able to pick two domains from Calistria, Desna, Nethys, Findeladlara, Ketephys or Yuelral's domains. (air, animal, artifice, chaos, charm, community, creation, destruction, good, knowledge, liberation, luck, magic, plant, protection, rune, travel, trickery or weather)
The previews showed a flash of red lightning, so I suspect that Ando could be appearing next episode.
Sometimes Hiro surprises me by taking an effective action (burying Adam whatshisname under concrete? Nice.). Other times, such as the *hugely* telegraphed betrayal by Samuel here, he bugs me.
"Just kidding. I'm not giving Charlie back." (poof) "Welcome to North Pole, bad butterfly man. No dirt for miles. Your powers no good here. After you freeze to death, I come back to before you die to ask again. Bye!" (poof)
Says the guy with the name of an animal headed Egyptian deity with the picture of yet another animal headed Egyptian deity.
So the Egyptian gods were descended from rakshasha?
The God-Kings were said to walk among men and rule as pharoahs, perhaps they *were* Rakshasa, living the good life, as animal-headed 'gods?' Lesser ranked Rakshasa, living in the courts of their faux-divine brethren, would be required to keep a human form and use their magic as 'priests,' so as not to 'confuse' the lesser races as to the nature of their animal-headed dieties (or threaten the primacy of the highest-rank Rakshasa, who sits the throne of God-King).
But lest this get into full flamewar, let's get back to the meat of the arguments, shall we?
Let's. I still disagree, but I'm not sorry about it.
Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:
This amount of predictability means that people will know that combat has begun because the Oracle is having another fit if it happens every time. And what happens with Oracles who don't see much combat?
Tying a mechanic to combat and only to combat is a mistake.
A valid point, I was using the Tongues Curse, which is also combat-specific, as a jumping off point for that one.
Any suggestions for other ways to have madness afflict the character, without tying it into combat-specific effects, like Tongues?
Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:
I agree, most things should be visionary in nature, though the manner in which the Oracle accepts, rejects or interprets this "gift" should be up to the player. Having one Oracle blissed out with ecstatic visions is fine so long as you can have another pissed off about the gods sending them omens and portents at the most inconvenient time.
Think of the scene in Angel where Cordelia gets her first mind-searing vision from The Powers That Be: She gets them in the middle of a commercial audition while she's trying to act and cheerily sell laundry soap or something.
Yup, which is why I went on to describe versions that were less fun than listening to the music of the Celestial Spheres 24/7 on KRZY radio-in-your-skull. Might feel like a gift, might feel like a curse. I described examples of both, so I definitely agree with what you are saying here.
Bonus points for using Cordelia as an example. :)
Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:
But again, it should depend on the character. Some people might like hearing from dead people, either because they're macabre and gothy, or because the dead people they run into are generally nicer and more sympathetic than the living ones they know.
Doesn't matter if they like or dislike hearing the voices. The game mechanic is that they can't hear, which I've 'fluffed' to be because of otherworldly voices. As I mentioned in the description, the Oracle might even regard the voices as protecting her from worldly concerns, keeping her attention focused on more spiritual matters.
It's just fluff for the Deafness curse. The Oracle could love it or hate it or consider it part of the price of doing business with The Other Side.
Hope everyone feels better! Sorry to hear that the fall flu season has gotten to ya.
My entire household came down with the flu a few weeks ago. Coughing in my face, rasping, spraying, wheezing. Somehow, I managed to not get sick (knock on imitation wood).
I must have had this particular bug already or something (last time I had swine flu was like 10 years ago, and it paralyzed one of my vocal chords. I was voiceless for about eight months. Much fun was had at my expense, while I was unable to retort with anything other than a whisper!).
The animal-headed humanoids would have more permanent abilities, but lack some ease of interaction with regular humanoid folk due to their weird appearance.
I'm not a huge fan of animal-people in general (the game has enough lizard, snake, frog and fish people, it seems!), but an animal-headed humanoid race that is descended from *Rakshasa,* and can be born with any sort of animal head, but all have the same basic racial characteristics, would be kinda neat. A pair of brothers might have a tiger head and a boar head, while their sister has the head of an eagle, and they are all have the same racial qualities, with only cosmetic differences.
Dragonbait wrote:
So I have to sit through some annoying new race before I can see the Chutzpah ability score added to the game?
Chutzpah doesn't fit on a 3-18 scale. It's binary. You've got it, or you don't. :)
Stat-block 2; the Fer-ala, or 'Praying Panther.'
A rustling in the forest canopy, accompanied by a sound like hatchets striking wood is your first warning of danger, as a hissing creature made of equal parts tiger, praying mantis and terror leaps down upon you.
Spoiler:
From the deep jungles to the south, the Fer-Ala or ‘cat-shadow,’ in the local tongue, is the freakish hybrid of some unknown breed of great cat and a praying mantis of monstrous size. Its body is the size of a tiger, with exaggerated shoulders and powerful forelimbs, but a smaller pair or rear legs, similar to the build of a hyena. Its fur is either solid black, or dark grey with stripes or spots of black. Any similarity to a great cat ends at its shoulders, where an enormous set of praying mantis forelimbs extend, functioning as a third pair of legs when the creature is moving along the ground, or scaling a tree, and slashing madly at targets to tear and rend, when the beast is moving in for the kill. Because of this feature, visitors to the region sometimes call the beast the ‘Praying Panther,’ instead of using its local name.
Where the scything mantis limbs attach to the body of the beast, great chitinous plates, usually pale brown or dark green in color, armor the back of the creature, and extend all the way to the pate of its skull. Unlike a traditional great cat, the fer-ala also has cleft feet, giving it unusual gripping power as one toe has a pair of claws and another thicker but shorter toe has three claws. Perhaps as a result of this unusual foot structure, the fer-ala is a far more adept climber than most great cats, and, by using it’s mantid limbs to push against the ground, can easily match the ground speed of a tiger or lion, despite its ungainly build. Due to the armored chitin adorning its back, and its short hind legs, the fer-ala cannot bring its hind legs to bear meaningfully against a target it has bitten, clawed or stuck with its mantid forelimbs, although it can certainly inflict enough harm with those natural weapons that the beast does not appear to suffer from this restriction.
The face of the fer-ala resembles that of a great cat, save for the armored forehead, and a small pair of mandibles that extend from the side of its mouth when it opens, but are otherwise concealed. These mandibles appear to be too small to do more than help keep food in the beast’s mouth, and twitch madly as it tears and swallows at a meal. Regardless of coloration, its eyes are always solid black, with no visible pupil or iris. In the dark, sometimes those glistening black eyes will reflect the light of a campfire or torch, throwing back a golden, green or reddish hue, but the eyes themselves appear to be devoid of color. Unlike many great cats, the fer-ala typically produces only a loud hissing noise, instead of a growl or roar, but it can also emit a bone-chilling scream that sounds more like a human than a predatory beast. It rarely does so when hunting or fighting, only screaming as part of a threat display, preferring to fight in eerie silence.
Fer-ala appear to mate much like tigers, but the female then retreats high into the forest canopy, taking advantage of their powerful climbing ability, and there gives birth to a single egg, which is pale green and sticky to the touch. The female quickly covers that egg with leaves, forest litter and small branches, to camouflage it from sight. In the week before laying her egg, the female hunts extra prey, leaving bodies secured in the tree she has chosen, and spends most of her time in that tree, defending the ripening catch from opportunistic scavengers (the bolder or more foolish of which get added to her ‘larder’). She spends the next week within sight of her egg, feeding only on the meat she has stored (and any scavengers that grew too bold, or careless), until the egg hatches. The young fer-ala is able to eat meat within hours of emerging from the egg, and clings to the top of the tree, often retreating to within the ‘nest’ made from the remains of its egg for safety, while its mother brings it fresh kills for the first two weeks of its life. At this point, its mother stops bringing food to it, forcing it to descend from the safety of its nest and join her on hunts, where the female allows her cub the first taste of any kill, only eating what remains when its hunger is sated. This stage only lasts two months, after which the female stops allowing her offspring to feed from her kills, and hunger drives the young creature to begin making its own kills, at which point its mother abandons it.
On the fringes of the forest, fer-ala are solitary and territorial creatures, engaging in complex dances meant to intimidate each other upon encountering another of their kind, circling warily and hissing, stabbing their mantid limbs into the ground and tearing up the earth in displays of strength, only rarely coming to actual blows. Deeper within the forest, in places the natives call haunted or cursed, ancient ruins crumble amid the foliage, and fer-ala travel in packs, with strict, and apparently, instinctual, hierarchies in place. These packs of five to eight fer-ala are called ‘missions’ or ‘congregations’ by the same explorers who first referred to them as praying panthers, and have many white-furred or light-furred members among them as well. More strikingly, their chitinous mantid limbs and backplates are brightly colored, always in multiple tones, with crimson and dull gold being one combination, and dark blue and bright green being another common sight. Rumors of other color combinations remain unconfirmed, but it has been noted that the gold-and-crimson fer-ala are always the dominant members of a pack, with the others, regardless of gender, following that creature’s lead. The beasts patrol the ruins within the jungle, almost as if guarding them, and the natives claim that the dull-colored solitary beasts but serve as scouts and a form of ‘border watch’ for their more colorful kin, with the territorial display-dances being a means of communicating information, and not merely some threat-display.
Naturally, such superstitions are dismissed by scholarly researchers, and it is accepted that, regardless of their coloration or organizational types, praying panthers are no smarter than lions and could not possibly have any sort of agenda, or means of understanding, let alone communicating, such advanced concepts.
Stat block 1; the Stenskarr
An enormous worm, bristling with a thousand tiny twitching metallic spines that glow white-hot, launches forward in a burst of steam from the glacial wall before you, scissoring open its many gleaming scythe-bladed mandibles and lunges towards you.
Spoiler:
Burning and tearing its way through the mountains of the frozen north, in search of both organic matter to fuel its unnatural metabolism and iron ore to strengthen its metallic hide, the stenskarr or ‘tunneler,’ is feared by all who share its domain. Named Stenskarr (stone-scarrers) by the dwarves and men of the north, for the gouges they leave behind in stone from their passage, the creatures grow to around eight yards in length and weigh over four tons when mature. The thick black rubbery hide of the stenskarr is protected from harm by eight spiralling rows of whip-thin metallic spines all along its length that push the massive worm-like creature through the tunnels it creates as it twists like a corkscrew to bore through ice, permafrost and even stone, and also serve to conduct the intense heat the creature radiates when threatened.
Always hungry, the stenskarr can sense the vibrations of nearby prey, and bursts from the ice or earth to devour any organic prey, using its flesh as fuel and any metallic objects carried to replenish the constant wear on its metallic spines and mandibles. The beast has eight scythe-like mandibles as hard as steel surrounding its gaping maw, each merging with the rows of metal spines that spiral down its twisting body.
The creatures hunger for both metal and flesh consumes its waking moments, and in some rare cases, the beast cannot discern between the two needs, gorging itself on a rich vein of metal, while it’s body is ravaged by pangs of hunger, due to lack of living nutrients. It continues tearing away at the vein of metal, excreting excess ore as refined metal, effectively smelted by its furnace-like inner metabolism, only to grow weaker and weaker, feverish from hunger and ever less likely to recognize its dilemma. Dwarven explorers sometimes stumble upon such creatures, and regard them as a blessing from their gods, as the beasts have transformed a troublesome vein of raw ore into piles of smelted metal, just lying in the middle of a tunnel, waiting to be carried away. Those who grow too greedy will find the beast at the end of its tunnel, and become the living sustenance it needs to regain its strength, however, although there are reports that some dwarven mining concerns have managed to domesticate a stenskarr found in this predicament.
It should be noted that while stenskarr can burrow through stone, they do so at a much reduced pace, taking a hour or more to tear through the a distance that would take them mere seconds in ice.
To sate their hunger for flesh, deep in the arctic reaches, large game such as polar bears or caribou are choice prey, but every stenskarr dreams of finding an untouched field of ancient frozen bodies, buried deep within the ice, remnants of an unknown age, and all fodder for their hunger. Again, their gluttonous nature can prove to be their undoing, as a stenskarr that finds such a treasure trove may consume vast quantities of frozen flesh, only to grow so lacking in replacement metals to find itself unable to burrow forward, its spines and mandibles grown soft and weak, trapping it in this distant ice-field to starve, surrounded by meat that it can no longer reach.
Stenskarr reproduce asexually, and are not known to engage in any sort of mating or courtship behavior, gathering only infrequently to communicate with each other through rumbling calls and a strange clattering the create by clashing their spines. As a stenskarr grows, a bulbous growth forms at the end of their tail, and with sufficient feeding, detaches into another smaller stenskarr, which then promptly goes in another direction, apparently repulsed by the scent of its ‘parent.’ For their part, the mature stenskarr seems to be eager to be rid of this growth, regarding it as an inconvenience and occasionally attempting to scrape it off.
While surface dwellers tend to dismiss stenskarr as mindless menaces, the creatures possess a dim intellect of sorts, and believe themselves to have gained power from feasting on the flesh of a deific entity of flame buried beneath the frozen wastes or to have feasted upon the buried magical artifacts of a long-forgotten civilization. The two theories are in conflict, and stenskarr of one philosophy are violently opposed to the other, with the ‘Eaters of Fire’ faction being more common in a particular region, where they believe the body of the fallen, and the birthplace of their species, originated, while the second faction, the ‘New Sons,’ is more likely to explore, seeking new arcane items to devour, as they believe that they will grow ever more powerful and be granted new awareness and insights in the consumption of items of arcane magic (and arcane practitioners). While most of the older Eaters of Fire faction are content to remain in their ancestral territories, believing that leaving that region would drain them of their might and connection to the divine, some younger members, perhaps influenced by the beliefs of the other faction, believe that they must devour more divine essence to grow even more powerful, and are likely to target divine casters for consumption, if they can readily identify them. As a result, depending on the faction encountered, a stenskarr may break off combat to attempt to devour an arcane caster or divine caster in preference over any other individual present, although, in absence of that distinction, they are most likely to try to swallow targets with large concentrations of metal on their person (such as heavily armored individuals).
The only thing more terrible than the creatures themselves, is the thought that either of these origin stories could have any truth to them, although scholars who have successfully communicated with a stenskarr, through the use of magic, either charitably describe them as ‘possessed of an alien intelligence,’ or, less charitably, as ‘unbelievably obtuse, like arguing mathematics with a troll.’
A third and lesser known group of stenskarr exists deep within the earth, never coming near the arctic surface, or their more widely-known kin, and have discovered an entirely new source of sustenance, which they greedily keep secret from those above. While the stenskarr dwelling nearer to the surface have glistening silvery mandibles and spines, and dull black hide, those who dwell only in the depths of the earth have metallic greenish (or violet) mandibles that contrast brightly against hides of a glossy midnight blue, and glow even brighter with emerald (or amethyst) fire when the beast is enraged. There are rumors, never confirmed, that the dwellers below grow even larger, have advanced intellects, and may possess divine or arcane spellcasting abilities, either as Sorcerers or Adepts. Such beasts, the rumors say, function as holy emissaries, leading sects of twisted humanoids in service to unknowable entities in strange ruined civilizations deep within the earth’s crust. In such tales, this faction is referred to as ‘Those Below,’ suggesting that if they are of advanced intellect, it is only in comparison to their arctic kin.
Stat block 3; the Hurulu
This hulking humanoid looks like a deformed ape, and its misshapen flesh is studded with lumps of metal that appear to have been branded and burned into the tissue, like some sort of horrible armor. It rattles a six foot javelin of glistening steel at you, before hurling its weapon and charging with a howl.
Spoiler:
Hurulu are bulky humanoids with an ape-like build, having long powerful arms, broad shoulders and bandy legs. Their most distinctive feature is the metal burned into the growths on their skin in rare cases forming crude glyphs, but more often merely lumps and plates of metal, serving as body decoration and a barbaric, but quite effective, form of armor.
Their natures are not much more advanced than those of apes, and are far less wholesome. The hurulu are visibly degenerate in appearance, with twitching behaviors, uncontrollable tempers and indiscriminate appetites all pointing to their decay not merely being of the body, but also to have touched their minds. Their pale grey-white flesh is usually riddled with tumors and growths, which sometimes grow necrotic and teem with maggots or blossom with fungal growths. Being disposed to eat anything they can fit within their mouths, the ‘deep apes,’ are prone to pick at these growths and devour them directly from their own bodies (or those of others), vermin, fungus, and all.
Dwelling in ancient forgotten kingdoms found deep underground, the hurulu consider themselves the descendents of the builders of these ruined alien cities, and regard the swirling script and glyphs on the stones of these ruins as their own written language. Their own translations of the glyphs have little or no bearing on their true meaning, but do indeed represent a language all their own, cobbled together from the script left behind by an even more ancient race.
The source of the hurulu’s degenerate condition is unclear, but may have something to do with a foul reeking oily liquid always found near the ruins they inhabit, often concentrated in pools that they dig up from the ground. The oil has an overwhelmingly foul odor of decay, which the creatures seem to mind not at all, and the hurulu slather it onto their hides, as it seems to numb whatever discomfort their ravaged flesh experiences. As an added ‘bonus’ to these unfussy eaters, the rotting flesh scent of the oil also attracts vermin, which they eagerly snatch from the air (or their flesh) and devour. When spread upon the skin, the oil tends to soak in fairly quickly, and soothe the inflammation and redness that often surrounds the hurulu’s implanted metal ‘armor.’ While the liquid, concentrated in pools, has a slight aura of necromantic magic, it loses its potency within moments of application, and a hurulu does not radiate any particular aura of magic.
While the bulk of their nutrition comes from bats, enormous cave vermin and their favored food, blind cave eels, supplemented by fungus when meat supplies are low, the only meat that they will not hungrily devour is that of each other. This particular taboo does not appear to involve any sort of respect for the dead, as their questionable diets render them very prone to dying from a form of parasitic infestation that literally starves the creature, as the weight of parasites squirming in its gut requires more sustenance than it can provide, and the worms devour too much of its blood for it to remain alive. The hurulu have learned to recognize the signs of this infection in each other, and eagerly await the death of the infested individual, gathering around and raising a great commotion of hooting and stamping their feet when their tribesman finally falls still. As the body cools, worms begin squirming out from the mouth, attempting to escape the corpse, and the hurulu snatch them up greedily and sear them on hot stones, before devouring them as a delicacy. Once the first worm has appeared in the corpse’s mouth, that is the signal that the soul has left the body, and the body is torn open to reveal the many other writhing worms, which are similarly plucked forth and prepared for the feast. Inevitably, one or more hurulu grow careless in their excitement, or fail to cook their meal long enough, and end up with a new infestation, which soon enough will provide another feast for their more-fortunate kin. Generally, hurulu do not bother to prepare or cook food in this manner, reserving the touch of flame (which they regard as sacred and purifying in nature) for food that has proven dangerous if not cooked, such as gut-worms or green slime (which is heavily salted *and* burned to a blackened crisp, before eating as a crunchy treat).
Once a body has provided a feast of worms, it is generally then disposed of by throwing it into the water supply that provides the creatures with eels and similar prey, or dismembered and scatted into nearby fungus patches, where hurulu wait to see what sort of vermin are attracted to this ‘bait.’
The hurulu have existed in this desperate manner for centuries, at least, if not millennia, but in recent generations have found a higher purpose, as servants to creatures they regard as gods from above. These ‘gods’ are great worm-like creatures, who lack the primitive intellect of the hurulu, but retain enough simple cunning to opportunistically accept the worship of these degenerates, and provide warmth and protection against larger predators of the endless dark, as well as providing cast off spines of steel which the hurulu use as javelins, in return for sacrifices of flesh and metal. In tribes that benefit from such a patron, the bodies of their dead are instead given over to the stenskarr to devour, and the hurulu believe that the deceased has become one with the god, and now lives on within its magnificent body.
The hurulu favored with such a patron shower it with gifts of food (both flesh and metal), and massage its hide with the same foul-smelling oil that they use to produce their own defensive stench. While, in theory, this would provide a stenskarr with the benefits of the hurulu aura of stench, the body of a stenskarr grows to such an intense heat when it is angered or excited that the oil burns off in a single instant, often with a faint display of blue, green or violet flames.
Upsetting the perception of hurulu as being nearly mindless degenerates, every community of the creatures has at least one skilled in the druidic arts, who trains others in the knack of beast-training, with a form of albino cave lizard, often growing to the size of crocodiles, as their preferred hunting beast. Even rarer, some communities have clerical leaders, who interact most closely with a stenskarr, and, it can only be assumed, are quite aware that the stenskarr are not gods of any sort, perhaps regarding them as ‘holy beasts’ or emissaries from some greater power they serve. Whatever dark patron answers the hooting pleas of the hurulu remains unnamed, for now, but its clerics have access to the Domains of Chaos, Evil, Knowledge and Magic, an unlikely seeming combination for creatures so far fallen from the graces of civilization.
EDIT: Also destrachans and yrthaks. Ooooo look we have a sonic energy type now, we need sonic monsters. Just cause it's there doesn't mean you should use it.
So many fine sound-related creatures that already existed anyway, like sirens and banshees, that they didn't bother using, to instead come up with those freaks.
For that matter, since they were already changing Green Dragons poison breath to an energy type attack for 3.X, why not make it sonic, and have the Green Dragons 'breath' a thunderous stroke of sound that shatters trees and leaves their prey stunned and bleeding from the ears? That's what I did, for the fun of it. Green Dragons use Bardic progression instead of Sorcerer progression, but can also use bardic performance (through oratory, usually, but sometimes also song, luring men into the woods, where they sing such deadly songs to them that they fall to the forest floor, organs ruptured and bone shattered within their bruised bodies). Their ravenous wyrmlings leap from treetop to treetop, sending down thunderous cracks of sound like falling trees to cripple deer, boar, wolves and similar prey animals, that they then fall upon and devour.
Almost every campaign setting has a god(dess) of love and beauty, but they get stuck with the Charm domain, which is kinda/sorta relevant, but not a perfect fit. Plenty of fate and destiny and judgement gods, but Knowledge and Luck and Law aren't perfect fits for them either. Nature gods get saddled with some combination of Animal, Plant and / or Weather (and sometimes other elements, or Travel), but there is no one 'nature' Domain. A Nature Mystery/Foci, on the other hand, seems eminently do-able, not specifically plant, nor animal, nor weather.
Golarion is filled with appropriate Mystery/Foci fodder. Abadar is god of cities, wealth, merchants and law, with means, of all the core Domains, Law is the only one that's actually *specific* to his areas of concern. An Urban Mystery/Foci could go nicely here, and be relevant to various other dieties of civilization. Similarly, a Mystery/Foci dealing with Trade/Wealth/Greed/Merchants could be relevant to Abadar (Golarion), Waukeen (the Realms), Mouqual (Greyhawk), etc.
Mysteries/Foci could end up filling in the many holes left behind where Domains get shoved in willy-nilly that have little or nothing to do with the diety in question. (Such as, what does Urgathoa, goddess of disease, gluttony and undeath have to do with Strength or War? A Mystery or Foci of Contagion, which could also be combined with Poisons and / or Curses, would make sense, and be useful for a Realms Oracle of Myrkul or Talona, or a Greyhawk Oracle of Incabulos or Pyremius, or even, with the Curse aspect included, Beshaba or Ralishaz.)
However, Corellon's consort (wife) is Sehanine Moonbow, she and Corellon are the creators of the elves.
Retcons make me sad. "Oh hi, remember when Correlon was sole creator of the elven race, and kind of androgynous, being both father and mother of the elven peoples? <Demon lord pretending to be an elf goddess waves her hand.> Now you don't. Remember later how he married an elf-goddess named Araushalnee, and she betrayed him and became Lolth? No, I'm retconning that retcon, too. We only need one imposter goddess leading the elven race astray, after all. I'm changing the elven creation story, too. He just bled all over the place, it was me that gave souls to the shed blood and made it into elves, so calling him 'elven creator' is kind of like saying that sheep make sweaters, when all they do is mindlessly shed wool like mindless wool-shedding tools, which someone vastly smarter and more important than sheep comes along and makes into a sweater."
Now I'm picturing a Diabolist Cleric who serves the Lords of the Nine. At 1st level he takes Cleric of Asmodeus. At 2nd level, Cleric of Baalzebul. At 3rd level, Cleric of Barbatos. Then Belial. Then Dispater. Then Geryon. Then Mammom. Then Mephistopheles. Then Moloch. By 9th level, he's a Cleric 1 / Cleric 1 / Cleric 1 / Cleric 1 / Cleric 1 / Cleric 1 / Cleric 1 / Cleric 1 / Cleric 1, and can Channel 1d6 negative energy bursts about 36 times a day and cast about 18 1st level spells a day (+9 domain spells from his 18 Domains), and has a BAB of +0 (unless he gets to use Fractional BAB, which he really hopes he can use, and will gladly accept Fractional Saves as well to tone down that +18 Fort / Will save!).
Other Clerics of his level are casting Raise Dead, he's like, 'I still have eleven Cure Light Wounds left, anyone need topping off?' While the Cleric next to him is brushing up on how to become CoDzilla, he's more like CoDzuki, bumbling around, unable to breathe fire.
I'm sorry, "Divine Madness" and "Touched by the Gods" as euphemism for madness are such solid old tropes that this is a huge glaring hole in the class.
Never start a sentence with an apology. Either you mean it, and it's a sign of weakness and starts you off on the wrong foot, or you don't, and it's tacky. :)
Anywho, IMO, any madness effect should be a simple mechanical effect, like suffering a round of confusion at the beginning of any combat, but thereafter gaining some insight bonus for the rest of the fight (perhaps the effects of a guidance spell on oneself only, usable once per round? A floating +1, as the visions guide you, after an initial round of 'info-dump' as the visions cause you to behave unpredictably in that first round).
I kind of auto-translated the blindness and deafness Curses as being madness / vision-based anyway. In the one case, the gods have 'blessed' the character with sight beyond sight, which, unfortunately, blinds him to matters beyond his immediate surroundings, and in the latter case, she hears the overwhelmingly beautiful music of the celestial spheres, the very song of creation itself, drowning out the mundane and earthly drivel of worldy beings. Is it an inconvenience to never hear what is occuring in this world? Perhaps, but she gets to revel in the glorious inspiring music of creation itself, thrumming through her bones, permeating her being, giving her the tiniest taste of what it will be like to leave this world behind and enter the realms of the gods in the afterlife. Sometimes, she dances, trying to capture in unworthy and graceless moves the feelings that the song inspires within her. Of course, no one else can hear it, and she can see them jabbering away like monkeys, calling *her* the one who is mad. Poor jealous fools.
For a darker interpretation, the Oracle of Bones who is deaf hears instead the whispers of the dead, muttering things, never terribly useful or relevant, but distracting. The voices of the living sound far away, such that she can never tell if she is actually hearing them, or simply imagining sound as she sees their fleshy lips flap mutely. Sometimes the wailing grows louder, as if many voices are crying out at once, and she knows from the way her companions are reacting that they too are hearing things, other things, worldly things, that the voices seem to be trying to drown out, as the things of the fleshly world are not hers to hear, lest they distract her from higher, spiritual concerns.
The most 'classical' curse would the curse of Cassandra. You gain great skill at divinations, and add one divination spell to each level of your Spells Known as bonus spells (use predetermined spells, Augury, Speak with Dead, Divination, Commune, etc.), but you can *never* communicate the information you learn. Attempting to transmit the information in any way will fail, and 'hints' will tend to be maliciously misinterpreted, as events sometimes conspire to change your clues to appear to mean the opposite of your desired message.
A curse of fear could make the Oracle immune to fear, completely, except for one thing, which leaves them automatically panicked. I'm not sure about that one, because it's very 'all or nothing' and is either irrelevant (in an adventure where the feared item / creature / situation never appears) or incredibly frustrating (in an adventure where you end up facing nothing *but* your feared object).
A Wrathful curse could give the Oracle Rage benefits, but no ability to control that rage, having to make a check every round of combat (or when otherwise strongly affected emotionally, such as by an Intimidate check made against her to demoralize her) or flip out and Rage for a single round (or until she makes her Will save to snap out of it).
Other sin or passion based Curses could also be options, although a Curse of Lust sounds like it could be a bit NC-17.
If new races appear, I would expect to see them in Arcadia or Tien or Vudra or farther into Kel or deep in the Lands Below or hidden away in the Mwangi Expanse or capering amongst the mysterious ruined cities of the Crown of the World.
Keep them, for the most part, out of the way of the central map of Golarion that we've seen to date, and they might be more palatable.
There are also, right there on the map, some tucked away places where an entire civilization could be hidden, such as in the nameless valley, surrounded on all sides by mountains, in the southwestern corner of Osirion, north of the ruins of Kho.
The map that we've seen is hardly the end of the story, and even on the map, there are dozens of possibilities for very limited numbers of unusual peoples to thrive, with Hermea, Geb, Nex and Numeria being prime launching grounds for small local numbers of dragon-touched people, or necropolitans, or spell-warped men, or mechanical people.
While I've never gamed in a home game with someone who was acknowledged as gay, I'm sure there have been some. At conventions I've played with openly gay men (M&M demo games with the creator tend to attract a higher than normal percentage, in my experience, which is probably to be expected) and I suspect that some of the other straight people at the table had no clue since nobody was 'over the top' like Nathan Lane in Birdcage.
Given that the entire point of role-playing games is to be someone that you aren't for a little while, and 'play dress up,' it seems like this hobby, where a six foot tall 250 lb. man can spend six hours pretending to be a lithe elven rogue or a halfling sorceress, should be a little more tolerant of the whole gender-role-subversion thing.
I slip into another skin on Saturday night over pizza and Mt. Dew. For others, that's their entire life, trying to find the skin that fits. The dice roll the same either way.
If there were rules for it, there would have been monsters that took advantages of it. Something based off of throat leeches, ear seekers or some form of ooze or slime, probably.
And Wizards ALWAYS have staves! Use something else! I actually don't have any suggestions for this one.
I would love to see some meaningful Feat or Class Options or PrCs that make a wizard and his staff something other than a stereotype. An order of Wizards or Sorcerers who train to be effective staff-fighters would be neat, having some sort of natural spell storing feature allowing them to imbue touch spells into their staves as a move action in the same round as they make a staff attack or something.
Having a melee-mage PrC that didn't focus on using non-Wizard weapons, such as staves or paired daggers could be very cool.
And yeah, less swords, more maces and spears! (Axes and hammers tend to get overused as well, particularly for dwarves, who never seem to have anything else.)
As written, the Lustspawn doesn't seem 'evil' enough. She feeds off of people, preferably deviants, but the feeding doesn't necessarily kill anyone, just leave them drained, and the damage would recover within a week or so. It's not spectacularly *nice,* by any means, but she isn't really 'bringing evil into the world' or acting malicious in any way, just doing what she must do to feed.
To be appropriately evil, IMO, these various dreamspawn should not just feed off of a single target, but feed off of the actions they are inspiring in others. A wrathspawn wouldn't just feed because someone is angry, but would be fed by provoking someone into wrathful anger that spills the blood of others. A lustspawn wouldn't feed by bumping uglies with their victim, but by manifesting near a lustful person and tempting them into greater and greater acts of excess, leading to person who is normally just lusty becoming something worse, a predator and a 'user' who, at best, ends up leaving a trail of broken hearts (or wrecked homes, or betrayed lovers) behind them. The spawn ends up feeding off of the lustful, wrathful, fearful, etc., but also in such a way as to leave behind shattered and broken lives.
1) Necromancers that aren't evil
2) misunderstood monsters/witches/mystical punk rockers/whathaveyou that aren't really evil after all, just misunderstood.
3) Pagans who eviscerate the evil Christians.
Wow, I don't think I've *ever* seen 1 or 3 in any show, novel or movie, ever. 2 seems pretty common, these days, 'though.
The forbiddance on multiclassing as a Cleric/Cleric or Illusionist/Transmuter or whatever made sense back in 1st and 2nd edition, when experience worked much, much differently (and your 7th/7th Illusionist Transmuter would be grouping with an 8th level party), but these days, it's just a bad idea.
I covet your ability to confidently assign CRs and XP values. My own critter designs suffer from my lack of confidence with those mechanics.
I like the Weren's quadripedal movement ability. I was thinking of adding that to a small race, so that they only had 20 ft. movement normally, but 30 ft. movement if they used their oversized arms to dash ahead. (In the Scarred Lands, Weren is just a type of smarter than average large wolf that lives near Hollowfaust!)
Can the Thunderbird use it's lightning bolt at will, or X times per day, or once / d4 rounds or whatever?
The Sal'awa, to me, feels very much like an oversized Hyena, and the stats are close enough to the 'dire' hyena or hyaenadon, that I'd be tempted to make them the same creature (or at least just use the same Sal'awa to describe the 'dire hyena', as that name isn't terribly inspiring).
I've never seen Destination Truth, but I'd be interested in seeing what sort of lore they'd dig up on the Mngwa or Unktehi, my two favorite cryptids/mythical beasties.
For the Mngwa, a tiger sized gray cat with extreme climbing and nearly (if not actually) supernatural stealth abilities would be about right, while the Unktehi is a poisonous giant water serpent with mystical abilities and deer-like antlers, which could probably be represented by some sort of water naga / sphinx mash-up.
A party of Lv 1 characters:
Vampire Rogue (eventually multi-classed as a druid)
Werewolf Barbarian
Doppelganger Sorcerer, aberrant bloodline
My group has a bad case of character envy, so getting them as "balanced" as possible will save me from endless whining.
Vampires, using the core rules, are pretty much unplayable. They can't go out during the day, they can't cross running water, they can't enter homes uninvited, they are repelled by crosses, mirrors, garlic and whatever, they can't leave a day's journey of their grave, etc.
Werewolves also use wonky mechanics (Sean Reynolds site, IIRC, has a much more playable werewolf kicking around in it), either having no powers at all in their human form (what's the point?) or being a dog with damage resistance (whoopity craptity doo).
If my players wanted to try that sort of game (and we have played plenty of monster games, although not those particular races), we'd sit down and hash out what sort of vampire powers the vampire player wanted, etc. My preference for that sort of thing would be to start everyone out at the same basic power level, and come up with an LA+2 ish starter vampire, starter werewolf and starter doppleganger. As they increase in levels, they can spend feats to awaken more of their racial abilities (so the vampire will start out being more of a Buffy vampire, with no animal control, charm gaze, shapeshifting or gaseous form, but have the option of developing those abilities at his or her discretion, while the Doppleganger starts out as an amped up Changeling, and can choose to develop abilities like at will detect thoughts as they grow, if they want).
The vampire, based on the raft of abilities they can get in the lore, would end up with more of these feats and options, but the more of them the character takes, the less feats are available to develop their class related abilities, making them a better vampire, but not necessarily the best rogue/druid/whatever they can be. Because it's a custom build, the vampire doesn't *have* to be unable to go out during the day (but might take damage from direct sunlight, forcing the character to bundle up, and might have lowered stats during the day, losing racial bonuses to Strength, etc.), doesn't have to return to their gravesite every day or be permanantly destroyed, etc. Indeed, it's probably for the best if the PC vampire isn't an undead creature at all, but more of a dampyr type being or a member of an infection-based (or curse-based) vampiric breed that still breathes and bleeds and needs to feed, not only avoiding problems with the 0 Con thing, but also *better fitting the lore* than having the vampire be an actual undead, by having the 'vampire' be stake-able, starvable, need to feed, vulnerable to poisons in the blood, etc. like many vampires of lore. Even the most majestic vampires of legend, such as Dracula, tend to be 'behind the times' and seem to have difficulty adjusting or adapting (and some are downright feral) compared to their contemporaries, so it wouldn't be at all out of line to have the afflicted 'vampire' take a hit to Intelligence to balance out bonuses to other attributes. Even with a penalty at the start, as bestial hungers hijack higher reasoning, a vampire willing to spend a few points to make up this loss can be fairly suave or erudite.
So I was thinking of a race that is known for its seers and divination that is blind but can see through the use of magic.
What would this race's society be like?
For example how would their language, written and or oral develop?
What about cultural appearance?
What are your thoughts?
Some sort of braille written language makes sense, although, instead of raised dots, I'm partial to the language having started as carvings in clay tablets, and being full of curvy lines that sweep along a surface, with bars and dots along side the line, denoting different 'letters' or 'words.'
'Illuminated manuscripts' would be made of paper or whatever, and the script would be a single long line of some other material (such as ink, or, in the case of stone carvings, metal sunk into carved grooves) and the non-surface material being lit up by continual flame, making it visible to the race through their ability to see magic. For this reason, the casting of spells to light up text, their manuscripts would generally have a single line of ink, like modern cursive script, but connecting even different words and sentences and paragraphs, and crossing over the edge of a page to continue on the other side, so that it all counts as one 'object' for the purpose of casting a spell (like continual flame) upon.
Other manuscripts might not have the ink run along the edges of the pages, but instead have tiny holes in the pages at the top and bottom, that allows the ink to remain connected to the ink on the other side. A permanant version of Nystul's Magic Aura would exist, to allow them to create 'invisible ink' that glows to their sight, but doesn't appear to be visibly on fire to members of sighted races.
As much as possible, certain items of great significance would have spells placed upon them to make them glow to their eyes. These items might be lucky totems that they've seen in visions or associate with past successes or beloved individuals, but they would all have some sort of continual magical effect on them. Mundane items would, on the contrary, almost never be illuminated in this way, as it would be seen as insulting to place this sort of importance on a mere tool or commonplace thing. If something glows, it should have some mystical significance, even if that significance is entirely personal (a locket that represents a last remembrance of a parent or lover, a document that signifies that one has attended a prestigious academy or mentored under a legendary craftsman, etc.). A certain level of frivolity may exist, and be regarded differently. A young seer might claim that the eagle-token around his neck came to him in a dream and he considers it his person totem, guiding him to some destiny that he has not yet seen, while his elders might frown at that, as the eagle hasn't *yet* been proven to have any significance, and, in their eyes, is not yet worthy of being treated so exceptionally, perhaps just being a dream-image of no prophetic or oracular importance. His of-age peers might just think 'it's cool' that he's had a dream-visitation so early and have an unknown destiny awaiting him.
Due to their complete lack of concern over matters of color (as the only 'colors' they see are abjuration, conjuration, divination, etc.), their towns and crafted items might appear as a bewildering hodge-podge of clashing colors. No effort at all would be spend making a suit of leather armor present a homogenous appearance, and blotchy irregular patches would be off-putting to sighted folk. Their items, on the other hand, would be flawlessly smooth to the touch, and while clashing coats of paint on a wall might be jarring to the sight, the two coats would be seamlessly to the touch, and often have unusual distinctions, such as an eastern or western facing wall being darker or lighter in color than the rest of the building, as the residents wouldn't be able to *see* the difference, but they would certainly feel a temperature difference in the morning or evening. (In warmer climes, lighter walls, to reflect heat, would be prefered, in colder regions, the opposite.) But, since they have no concern for 'matching the colors,' the north and south walls might be plain brown, while the east and south walls are dazzling white.
On the other hand, their extreme sensitivity to magical auras would give them the equivalent of three rounds worth of study *at a glance,* using their innate detect magic, and they would gain even more detailed information if they study an item for a second round (subschool, calling, compulsion, sonic, etc.) or third round (spell level and approximate caster level).
It might be interesting to look at the alchemical associations of various metals when designing new dragons. I have no idea if there is a Lead Dragon, for instance, but making it intensely antimagical (not 'really high SR,' more like a golem, immune to the vast majority of spells) and have some sort of dispelling breath that strips away magic, and also causes damage to targets based on their magical natures (like a reaving dispel sort of thing, that does more damage to targets with more magic going on) could be neat.
A Mercury Dragon could be a natural shapeshifter, even more so than the Golds and Silvers.
On the other hand, the Gold, Silver, etc. dragons don't really have any connection to alchemical properties of gold, silver, etc. so that probably wouldn't really fit into a standard D&D style. Meh. Back to the drawing board...
Set,
