I realy dig that your concept is a big bad wasp with some intelligence. I can already see some ways to build encounters around this creature so I hope that a future round will let you provide us a stat block. Good Luck in the next round, I think you'll be there!
Big bonus as I love insect monsters, but minuses for poor execution. Too many questions are raised about the (1)life-cycle, (2)motivation, (3)society, (4)ecology and (5) mechanics of the creature. Also, why bother mixing it with a dragonfly appearance at all? It really is simply a giant parasitoid wasp (which are totally cool critters!) but as much as I want to like this one I am kinda shying away from it.
anthrorob
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Name is cool, fluff is cool.
Ripping off Aliens to create a creature? Not cool.
been known to make alliances with humanoids devoted to vengeance, passion, or craftiness. Ardorwesps cannot speak, though they can communicate with each other, and usually understand one locally-spoken language.
This bugs me as well, you can't make an alliance with a humanoid if you can't speak, again to use the Alien analogy, it's a bug creature with wings and adamantine legs. how is it even remotely similiar to a humanoid? is it telepathic?
It really just entirely reminds me of the Dog Alien from Alien 4, only with wings. Sorry, cool concept, I'd have voted for if it didn't scream of the Alien movies.
Name is cool, fluff is cool.
Ripping off Aliens to create a creature? Not cool.
Are you familiar with parasitoids? The Alien life-cycle is heavily inspired by real-world biology. And considering that the ardorwesp are designed to be Calistrian wasp-monsters, and her faith already is tied to parasitoid wasps, I don't think Alien even crossed the designer's mind.
Ah grades are done, time to start reading the works of my top 32 colleges. I like the description, I have a good mental picture of what these things look like. The implanted pupa is particularly nasty. The bit about healing magic is particularly harsh, so check plus there. Overall I like it, and would consider using it in a game of my own. If you end up stating it I'd love to see the it.
Are you familiar with parasitoids? The Alien life-cycle is heavily inspired by real-world biology. And considering that the ardorwesp are designed to be Calistrian wasp-monsters, and her faith already is tied to parasitoid wasps, I don't think Alien even crossed the designer's mind.Name is cool, fluff is cool.
Ripping off Aliens to create a creature? Not cool.
Indeed. I mentioned parasitoid wasps earlier (see my post above). If anything, Aliens was ripping off mother nature!
Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8
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How did the author respond to the challenge? Seems well-organised. Not much dissembling of its Golarion connection.
How does it stack up
- as an opponent? Probably it would do best to attack and implant its eggs in a lone opponent. A group of them (if they attack in groups) could threaten an adventuring party.
- as something other than an opponent? Good detail of its habitat, favoured prey and possible relations with other creatures. It's a little vague how it forms such alliances, though it seems to apply something beyond simple pragmatism.
- in relation to other monsters? Relative to other insects, it positively quivers with magic - probably a smart choice to make it more distinctive.
- in relation to the author's item? There seems to be a religious theme carried through.
- in itself? I looked forward to seeing what was behind this name, which seemed very Vancian at first sight, though it's more straightforward than I expected. I get a definite impression of a highly magical nature.
Maybe I just had a mistaken impression earlier, but I'd look for a more subtle design to go forward.
Ardorwesp
cut for space
This is the twenty-sixth monster that I am looking at. I do not read the comments below the entry before posting my opinion. An apology if this is duplicative of someone else’s entry, in part or whole.
An insect – that incorporates adamantium. Hm. Alright, the writing is good to keep me looking a bit more. Though I think the “doesn’t speak but forms alliances” part could use a tiny bit more explanation. They burrow into trees or hillsides, sip exotic fantasy nectar (okay), and kill things to lay their eggs. Sounds wasplike. Okay.
Powers:
* fly with amazing speed and agility (bet it has Improved Initiative like almost everything in PRFPG)
*serrated legs hard enough to sunder steel armor (nice!)
* touch magically paralyzes (mm-kay, doesn’t seem so much out of context)
* implant a pupa (consistent with description)
*surgery causes the pupa to die, but it bursts into a swarm of wasps (Grudge Monster, Grudge Monster!)
Summary: Well, this comes across as a decent low-level critter. You give it one nice ability that is laced clearly into the description. It has a simple and relatively effective description and avoided picking random powers for it. I like your writing – it’s clean and easy. I’m not quite sure the creature singles itself out from the herd at the end of the day. I think it needs a defining moment, a raison d’etre, and yet it seems more a natural part of the fantasy ecology? I did find myself wanting to know more about the allegiances with humanoids “devoted to vengeance, passion or craftiness”.
"Ardorwesp" is a really great name. Unfortunately, nothing in the description or powers backs it up. There is no warmth, fervor or passion involved in these creatures. In fact, they are described as "violent and territorial," which are not traits one would normally associate with "ardor."
Further, they are either poorly explained or close to breaking the campaign neutral rule for this round. The name and the fact that they have "been known to make alliances with humanoids devoted to vengeance, passion, or craftiness" are two traits that are left completely unexplained, unless the reader knows that a Golarian-specific goddess both reflects those traits and favors giant wasps. Read without that knowledge, no reason is given why these creatures would ally with such people (especially if the wesps are violent and territorial) or why they would have "ardor" in their name.
There is also no reason given for why they favor magical beasts as prey. It seems to be in there to create a reason for conflict with the PCs, by way of their familiars. I like that kind of conflict, but I would have liked a reason for it. For example, if only the bodies of magical beasts (and maybe magic users) allowed pupa to be viable.
I like the idea of a smaller, smarter and tougher version of giant wasps, but without an explanation of what they want or why they are called what they are, they don't really get me excited the way other monster submissions have.
Good writing here, even if it didn't communicate the information I wanted to see. I'm also a fan of your wondrous item (and the words "scapular" and "ardor"). Good luck this round!
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka JoelF847
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I'm not getting this monster too much. At first, when it was just an adamantine laced wasp, it was pretty interesting, but then more and more got added and it started feeling like a hodge-podge. The paralyzing at first seemed to fit, until I saw it was with all attacks, claws and bite (I thought this thing was a wasp/dragonfly thing, what happened to a sting attack), and why is the paralysis magical instead of a poison which would fit the insect/wasp theme?
What really put this over the top was the random seeming cure transforms the pupa into a wasp swarm and the out of place Calistra references - why does a magic bug care about humanoids "devoted to vengeance, passion, or craftiness" unless it's specifically a Calistra creature? And since it's explicitly NOT a Calistra creature due to the R2 rules, then this doesn't make sense out of context.
Does it grab me visually: Big dragonfly-hornet. Not really grabbing me here. However the flecks of metal glinting in the sunlight as one of these comes swooping in? I like that.
Would I use it in game: Deals with intelligent creatures. Not really sure how they communicate, but I believe I could work with that. The healing creating a swarm thing is where my big reservations come in.
Would my players enjoy an encounter with it: Depends on the encounter. If a couple of the PCs were infected with eggs and the cleric dropped a channel energy burst on them, now they’re dealing with a couple of swarms of wasps. This would frustrate my players much more than it would excite them.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32
aka flash_cxxi
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I like the name. Somehow Ardorwasp doesn't grab me as much, so kudos on that.
I wan't a big fan of the writing style, but I'm no Shakespeare, so that's no biggie.
For obvious reasons I like the Calistria vibe.
I superficially like this monster but there are some worries about it's abilities that are an underlying issue for me.
It's in my Keep pile for the moment though.
Good Luck! :)
Congratulations to you and more most magnificent bug!
Alexander:
First of all, congratulations on making it to the Top 16. I thought I would wait until after the voting for Round Two ended before offering any commentary or advice. And I'm going to come at it a little differently than everyone else, in that I'm not going to focus primarily on your design this round. Rather, I'm going to have a go at examining your entire portfolio to this point to sort of assess what you've done well, where you could shore up a few things in your overall design and writing, and then give you some more pointed advice on stuff you could showcase in future rounds to maybe improve your chances of going all the way to the end. So, with that in mind, here goes:
In my earlier comments on your scapular of true devotion, I wasn't that enamored with the name. It's a real world device, of course...just nothing that screamed inspiration or mojo at the time. With your Ardorwesp, I'd like to commend you, as I think it was a really great (and appropriate) name-choice for your monster design. It fit perfectly with the theme you were shooting for...it conjured up some great imagery just by saying it aloud...and I think you improved in that regard.
Also, I touched briefly on your mechanical execution for the scapular of true devotion...and, though your item was 100% locked down in terms of game mechanics, I thought you showed real innovation in trying for something that would exercise the cleric's channeling power. In that respect, I can also sense some really good innovation on your monster design for the Ardorwesp, too. Though you were prohibited from referencing Calistria, the association was there for me...and it worked really well. In addition, I liked the aspect of sending ardorwesp's after arcane familiars. I would have liked to see you tighten that up a bit, though, with an examination of how the ardorwesp's could "sense" that type of arcane connection between a master and his familiar...and then maybe home in on that and make it a more distinctive aspect of the ardorwesp...possibly even giving them arcane sight or something that allows them to sense something "different" about familiars so they could target them. In addition, I liked the innovation of giving an ardorwesp a bit of adamantine for its mandibles and legs to make it more dangerous to armor wearing opponents...and so they can penetrate DR. I also thought the egg-laying, pupa-hatching element invoked a useful trope from horror movies...something your reader could readily identify with and imagine. That's a good thing to look for in your designs, not necessarily as a rehashing of something...but rather a reimagining of it to enhance, rather than detract from your overall design concepts. So, good job on that.
Looking forward at the rest of the competition, I have to admit that I like the mojo and design-fu you've been bringing. Your writing isn't the most evocative so far. But your innovation, creativity, and ideas are very good. If I have any advice for you, it would be that so far I haven't seen you take a really big swing for the fences with anything that's really awe-inspiring. I think you could benefit from a homerun execution on one of your future assignments. The stat-block round here in Round Three might not be the best to demonstrate that. But, if you can showcase a complete mastery of the rules on how you put together a stat-block while also recasting the descriptive text to really inspire your reader so the monster resonates with them, I think you could pull it off and really go far in the contest. So look for an opportunity to really WOW everyone.
Best of luck,
--Neil
Congratulations! Though you did not get my final vote, this was a strong entry and a strong candidate for me.
Visual: 10 Charisma
Creativity: 15 Intelligence
Would I use it: 15 Dex
Overall: 15 Strength
Your design is intelligent and this is definately a playable critter. I found the visuals a little lower, but I can still picture it. Good luck!