Children of Carnage
Alignment: CE
Headquarters: Brimstone Haruspex
Leader: Aergoreth the Ascending
Structure: Religious cult
Scope: Regional
Resources: A broad network of fanatical devotees
Wherever there is war, wherever there is disaster, wherever there is ruin there are those who delight in the carnage. The zealots of the Children of Carnage are such people. Begun less than a decade ago, the cult is a very young organization but it is quickly gaining notoriety due to its brutality and depraved machinations.
Structure and Leadership
Aergoreth, a Chelish half-fiend, is both the leader of this dangerous cult and the object of its reverence. His terrifying charisma, overwhelming strength, and oracular acumen are all attested to by the willingness of the orcish oracles of Brimstone Haruspex to allow him to live and prophecy there. His otherworldly heritage and long exposure to the volcano’s fumes have granted him horrible visions believed to be messages from Rovagug himself. He is served by 13 lieutenants, called Dark Evangelists, who recruit new members throughout the Inner Sea region and deliver prophecies and assignments from their master to the faithful.
Goals
Members of the cult revel in wanton destruction, but simple devastation is not their ultimate aim. Their true aspirations are twofold. First, they seek to see their lord ascend to his rightful place among the gods, as the Herald of Rovagug. To this end, many are preparing themselves in the hope that they will be called to accompany him to the Test of the Starstone. Their second, and even more insidious, goal is to loose the Rough Beast from his prison. None seem to know how this will be accomplished, but all believe that a new cataclysm will rend open the Worldwound to allow his escape and that Aergoreth will be, or has been, shown how to bring this about.
Public Perception
Most people consider the Children of Carnage to be no more than murderers and deviants, people to be feared and avoided but no more dangerous as an organization than as individuals. As their influence spreads and their goals become more widely known, however, they are beginning to attract serious attention from organizations at odds with their ideology, especially the churches of Asmodeus and Sarenrae.
Welcome to RPG Superstar, Edward! The contest takes a new spin at this level and the competition against your fellow Top 32 applies a whole different kind of pressure. As judges we're here to comment on your work both in the hopes of guiding you in honing your game design skills and also to help the voting public assess how you measure up. To that end, I'm going to talk a little bit about what you did well and then I'll highlight where I think you still need to demonstrate growth. So, let's see what we've got...
First up, I can see you did a pretty good job absorbing as much information as you could from the Inner Sea World Guide about the orc oracles in the Hold of Belkzen at the Brimstone Haruspex. And, you've smartly woven your organization in such a way that you can build on that. I especially like how you reached for a divine connection with a fanatic cult devoted to Rovagug. That dovetails nicely with the savage orcs of Belkzen fairly well. I also like that you've got your organization's leader striving to become a Herald of Rovagug. That's a nice basis upon which to build his followers around.
However, as-written, I've got multiple worries about your submission. I think my largest concern is that you've got a heavy reliance on passive voice. That causes a lot of your description to fall flat. The language just isn't as evocative as it could be. You're basically doing too much telling rather than showing. And there's not a whole lot to get excited about here. Much of what you've written is actually fairly predictable. A follower of Rovagug seeks out a savage society at the site of a destructive volcano, attracts some savage orc followers, uses the fumes of the volcano to receive visions and prophecies that he hopes will enable him to free Rovagug, and ultimately wants to ascend into pseudo-divinity via the Starstone in the hopes of joining the source of his adoration. That's about what I'd expect a follower of Rovagug to pursue. So, I'm not really won over by it.
Many of the names feel less inspired, as well. I don't really imagine orcish lieutenants of a Chelish half-fiend devoted to the supreme god of destruction to call themselves Dark Evangelists. It feels like there ought to be a more primal name for them. In addition, reaching for the Starstone is kind of a safe choice. It seems like everyone wants to use that as the basis for motivating a villain. I understand why. I just think it's a poor choice to stand out in RPG Superstar. Personally, I would have prefered to see you define something new rather than just connecting the dots between so many things that already exist in Golarion. And, when you're freelancing for real, it's kind of imperative that you develop that well of creativity so you can help build something new in the campaign setting. Obviously, you don't want to break Golarion. And you don't want to mess with canon. But a Superstar should be looking for ways to work within all those spaces to build something new and inspiring. I'm just not getting that vibe from what you've given us here.
As a result, I DO NOT RECOMMEND this organization to advance you to the next round.
Regardless, that's just my opinion. Some of the other judges may feel differently. And it's ultimately up to the voters to decide if they take inspiration from the Children of Carnage and your sunblossom. I wish you luck in the voting. And, regardless of how things pan out, I hope you're already proud to have climbed this far.
Edward, welcome to Round 2!
What you are getting from me in this critique: This round is all about conflict and story. I think the best organizations create interesting and compelling groups that will come into conflict with the PCs. My comments, and my recommendation, will focus on how well you do that. My comments will also focus on writing and use of your allotted content in achieving your goals. What you won't get from me: I don't have the total Golarion-fu that Neil and Sean do, so I will leave to them whether you got the nitty gritty details of some of the setting stuff to them (though apparently I did have enough Golarion-fu to know its Pharasmin not Pharasmian, you know who you are).
So here we go!
Initial Impression: A fiendish oracle that likes carnage. Not too original.
Concept (name, title, is it an organization?, overall design choices, is the organization and antagonist and does it create direct conflict for the PCs?, playability): C
I really felt this idea was not very original, with a few setting-specific things bolted on to a pretty generic concept. In the end, I don’t think you actually made an organization. I think you made a half-fiend NPC with some followers.
Execution (quality of writing, hook, theme, organization, use of proper format, quality of mandatory content, did you milk your idea for all it was worth? did you use your allotted space well?): C
Good use of the template, but the writing was stilted and flat in my view. This seems like more of a first draft. I know the time constraints on this round are tight, but there is a reason for that. Freelancers work under tight deadlines and, as Sean said, this is kind of like freelancer boot camp.
Tilt (did it grab me?, is it unique and cool?, do I like it?, flavor, are you showing Superstar mojo?): C
Didn’t grab me. I think your problem is that you never actually found core idea of an organization.
Overall: C
A submission that is more NPC than organization with flat writing.
Recommendation: I DO NOT recommend this organization submission for advancement.
Edward, please know I am not criticizing you at all, I am only judging this entry you have submitted. Though I have said I don’t recommend it, that doesn’t mean I think you are incapable of submitting a good organization. In fact, I am sure you are. It’s just that, for whatever reason, you didn’t with this.
If I thought that your sunblossom over-did it, I think this submission under-did it. Good luck this round and I hope for your sake that the other judges and the voters see it differently than I do!
This is certainly an antagonist group. I'm not sure it's an antagonist organization. It's a Rovagug cult that likes to break stuff and wants to free Rovagug... like pretty much all of his cults do.
This one happens to have a charismatic half-fiend as the boss, so there's a cult of personality thing going on. I'm not sure how much influence his lieutenants have on your run of the mill kook who wants to serve Rovagug--in other words, if they're the Children of Carnage, are they doing anything unusual for a Rovagug cult? If they're not, why are you writing about them? They don't have any insight about freeing Rovagug, no timeline for the leader going to the Starstone, and no clue how he'd pass the Test... so they just break stuff.
Also, I think choosing a half-fiend from Cheliax hurt you, as
Likewise, tying him in to the Starstone is an easy hook... that we've seen over and over again in previous RPG Superstar submissions. People love the Starstone and want to tell stories about it, but that means it becomes as overused as kryptonite in Superman stories (you'll notice that Paizo deliberately publishes very little about it).
I think these guys would be fine as a writeup of a particular cult cell as part of an adventure where they were the main focus or even the side villains--where the GM is given direct story-related information about how these guys are important to the plot. But as written, for R2, there's not enough here that makes them really stand out.
I do not recommend this to advance.
How do you delight in carnage? Something bad happens to a town and you do what? Show up and party? Run around telling everyone how awesome it all is? What's the life expectancy of someone exhibiting that behavior in a world where most folks go armed and many have supernatural powers as well?
These guys are bad just to be bad, is that it? Who wouldn't want the Rough Beast to come back to the world, I mean, it seems like a reasonable thing to desire (the fact that it would most likely lead to you personally suffering horrific and eternal torment aside) - especially when there's no actual plan of action and your leader is doped up on volcano fumes like a twisted parody of the ancient Greek oracles.
There must be thousands of petty NPCs with dreams of godhood. The Test of the Starstone probably shows up in the origin stories for all sorts of organizations. Which is why it is trite and over-used to put it into a SuperStar entry.
I do not recommend that you vote for this designer.
: Competitors, remember this item from the Round 2 FAQ, which reminds competitors about the rule against commenting about their own submissions. We're pasting this reminder into the last judge comment for every organization just to make sure all competitors see it and remember.
thank you all for this and future feedback and advice. i'll be grateful for any votes and i look forward to explaining design decisions and answering questions after voting has closed.
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You're the second person to make me think on both sides of the screen..
GM side: Religious cults are a little tricky to deal with. And if you don't know your Pathfinder History, you end up doing something that every other religious group would try and do already. That being said, it wouldn't be a terrible general premise to start a campaign with, but I would end up editing the cult's belief system and tone down their destructiveness until they get what they wanted. So it's not anything new or original about this cult that makes me excited to run them as is.
But..
PC Side: As a cleric of Sarenrae, I will bring all those who destroy the innocent down. *pulls out flaming scimitar* Children of Carnage, Challenge Accepted.
Status: You're going on my reserves list. It's something I would love to take on as a player, but as a GM, it's not new to me so I can't give you my vote outright.
I'm surprised no one else commented on to the, 'rend open the Worldwound to allow his escape' bit as I thought that was a pretty big error in writing up a cult that serves Rovagug. It might be just a confusion of places as Rovagug is generally accepted to be held in the Pit of Gormuz; if this, then this is forgiveable as a write up, but not as a superstar.
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I'm surprised no one else commented on to the, 'rend open the Worldwound to allow his escape' bit as I thought that was a pretty big error in writing up a cult that serves Rovagug. It might be just a confusion of places as Rovagug is generally accepted to be held in the Pit of Gormuz; if this, then this is forgiveable as a write up, but not as a superstar.
Good catch! I should have caught that due to the Ninshabur tie-in. Again, I think it may be due to Mr. Lange not being very familiar with the setting. A very minor slip and not worth much note in my opinion.
I'm just not feeling it here. It hits all the right spos for me but they just don't hit hard enough and in some of the weirder ways. It's like drinking your favorite alcoholic beverage only to find that its not getting you drunk. It's only half as fun as you want it to be.
The writer does appear to have tried to get the organization into golarion but it feels shoe horned in like he's trying to name drop as much as possible.
rather than working it's like dumping nails adn screws on a completed bike hoping to turn it into a motorcycle. When really he was better off jsut repainting the bike.
I think if we sat down adn removed all but the rovagug references, and gaave it it's own unique spins it would have performed much better.
What is the leader non fiend half is sort of an unaswered question I wanted to know. As soon as I saw brimstone
haruspex I got excited.
There's some good ideas in there but I'm not sure the organization is very interesting. I'm more interested in this Aergoreth then in his lackeys.
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When I read the name I thought that the organization was made up of war orphans all grown up, who decided to kill anyone who'd make other children orphans. So, for me at least, the name is a bit disapointing.
Good luck with voting :).
Not real children? Would have been creepy!
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Kudos on actually making an antagonistic organization (with NO ambivalence about these being someone any rational person would associate themselves with). Not every submission this round was able to do that.
I like the headquarters, and I like the idea of the leader of a CE organization "doped up on volcano fumes like a twisted parody of the ancient Greek oracles" (to quote Mr. Dancey).
That being said, I'm not a fan of the name in the context of the rest of the organization write-up, and I don't think that this guy would get very far toward his goals (although since he could be completely nuts and just really charismatic he's dragged a bunch of other volcano junkies along with him for the ride). I think he'd be waylaid by a mini-crusade on his way to take the test of the Starstone if he set foot out of Brimstone Haruspex.
These are only my opinions; I am no expert, but I hope my feedback helps in any way.
Good luck, Mr. Lange.
So, Rovagug has his own bacchanale under the mentoring of Charles Manson to bring on Helter Skelter? Unleash the Leviathan!
Don't get me wrong; I enjoy apocalyptic cults. Elder Evils was one of my favorite 3.5e D&D books. But I have to be honest that there's nothing new here that I can't already source out of that book. :(
The oracular gimmick is a good one. You could have expanded it to give some much-needed character to the Children of Carnage. As it stands, the organization just feels like a standard evil cult.
I suggest that in the future, you emphasize the most original aspects of your ideas. You could have painted the CoC as an evil cult in just a few words and spent the rest of your word count on what makes them exciting and original... that shift in emphasis alone could have turned this same basic idea into a winner, given some compelling and well-developed material about the volcanic vapors or whatever.
Good luck!
Thank you (again) for your support and please vote for my item! If you have questions, I'll be happy to answer them once voting for this round is closed.
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Children of Carnage...
I think of devestation, dead bodies lying about, and chaos. I think of a group trying figuring out how best to sate their lust for death, perhaps targeting the most lawful of civilizations so their acts of violence are even more appaling and magnified.
I do not think about a religeous cult trying to figure out how to release Rovagug.
How does this insideous 2nd part of their goal threaten the PC's?
Now if this group was stationed in Cheliax and was grand enough in scale to appose the church of Asmodeus, then perhaps I, as a PC, might be scared of them. Their first goal should be to devestate the church of Asmodeous, for as we all know, it is only through him that the key to Rovagug's prison can be gained.
These guys could not even begin to challenge the Church of Asmodeous, (In my opinion) and at best, Sarenrae might keep an eye on them.
With these things dominating my thoughts, I am having a major problem considering them a real threat to anyone, much less an organization of substance.
You do bring about a very chaotic mess of an organization in your writing, so your alignment fits how lost they seem in direction. That, in and of itself, can give the PC's fits.
When I read the name I thought that the organization was made up of war orphans all grown up, who decided to kill anyone who'd make other children orphans.That would be really cool!
It would, now just to use it sometime :).
hey everyone- thanks.
now that voting is over i'll explain a little about my design decisions and try to answer some of the questions.
what i was trying to accomplish- my goal was to make an organization that was thoroughly antagonistic, easy to insert into any golarion campaign, simple to adapt to other settings, and with plenty of ways that any GM could use them in their game.
where (i think) i went wrong- only having 400 words to work with, i decided to keep it simple. my item from round 1 (rightly) got a lot of criticism for having too much going on, and that further pushed me toward simplicity. i overreacted to that criticism and my concerns about the wordcount and ended up making something so simple and safe that it wasn't exciting or innovative.
Worldwound vs. Pit of Gormuz:
that was a mistake on my part... i remembered from the Rovagug entry in the ISWG that his followers thought earthfall awoke him, and i believe the worldwound opened at earthfall, so i think in my mind i confused the two locations. that said, it is a fringe cult led by an oracle under the constant influence of trance inducing volcanic fumes- its not a real big stretch to think they may believe that the new pit that ripped open at the same time Rovagug awoke might hold the key to freeing him.
The Pit vs Worldwound mistake was a big no-no in my book. The reason being that it's relatively common knowledge about the location of the Pit and that Rovagug is said to be down there. Common enough that followers of the Rough Beast journey to the Pit and offer Rovagug sacrifices in hopes of his blessing. It's one of those things that can be easily found out in just about every article about Rovagug. It was an unforgivable mistake in my opinion and what ultimately lost my vote.
tels,
thanks for your honest feedback. i've never played or run anything set in Golarion; i bought the pdf of ISWG after entering RPGSS last month, but clearly my inexperience with the setting hurt me.
Children of Carnage
Alignment: CE
Headquarters: Brimstone Haruspex
Leader: Aergoreth the Ascending
Structure: Religious cult
Scope: Regional
You should know the drill by now, but in case you missed it the first time round, Ask A RPGSupersuccubus is posting from the point of view of a CE aligned succubus:
Important Note:
First impressions always being important, do members of this organization wear nifty robes or uniforms when out on formal business?
No mention is made of uniforms or any other method of shared group identity dress.
Does membership of this organisation seem likely to involve regular tea or dinner parties or other appropriate social occasions?
Orcs do not do dinner parties well. Or afternoon tea. Or any other social occasions for that matter, which don't involve large quantities of blood, big fires, and happen to be dreadfully crude.
Is the cost of being a member of this organisation likely to be acceptable to a succubus?
Urgh no. They're not just working for a deity, they're working for Rovagug.
Other comments?
Rovagug already has a herald. It's called The Tarrasque. Surely deposing that ought to be on the 'to do' list for any self-respecting (if that's not a contradiction in terms) maniac who worships a deity of destruction?
Edit:
Ah, I see the Worldwound/Pit of Gormuz confusion has since been addressed, although in a manner intended to add to the confusion. Earthfall occured approximately ten millenia ago, Golarion time. The Worldwound popped open about a century ago...
Rating: