Caterpillars's page

Caterpillars wrote:

Quote:

Or you know magic.

Futzing around with psuedoscientific justification for mythology is rarely interesting, unless you're going to go all the way and structure the whole setting that way. Even then it's often pretty awkward.

I like to think of pseudoscientific justification as a way to hang the world together. Internal consistency helps to hold together the imaginary reality we create at the table, so why not consider how these creatures/creations are made and reproduce?

Considering the way they're made and reproduce can be cool - see the examples Fuzzy-Wuzzy gave. Or hags - we've long known how hags reproduce and it's got plenty of story potential, but focusing on the genetics of why they only have female children doesn't add anything.

Nor does making dryads, who started mythologically as tree spirits, into fungi.

We are, in the end, sitting about and playing make-believe on a grand scale. Does it really matter if one uses myths or real phenomena as the basis of the make-believe? Reality is full of extraordinarily odd too-strange-for-fiction stuff.

Or you know magic.

I like to think of pseudoscientific justification as a way to hang the world together. Internal consistency helps to hold together the imaginary reality we create at the table, so why not consider how these creatures/creations are made and reproduce?

Male dryads are just plain weird. As that implies the trees they are an expression of also have gender.

(Arguably, dryads should probably be closer to hermaphrodites, like the vast majority of trees.)

Plus... if dryads reproduce by sexual reproduction, how so they couple? They're bound to stationary trees. There's seldom two dryads that close.

Perhaps they are actually fungi, which have biological gender defined by "is this fungal spore genetically different from my fungal spore?" leading to each individual fungus is its own "gender" (gender for lack of better term, when we are way past a binary and into 1000s+ of options).

Or msybe dryads, like many grain crops, are wind pollinated.

except that's exactly the case here, paladins as is are just stick in the mud goodie two shoes, which is bad as there is no variety.

I'm sure you've read it, but just in case not, are you familiar with the webcomic Order of the Stick? Because the paladins in it aren't one dimensional, nor are they the only LG characters.

Go for - bonus points for incorporating a miniature giant space hamster.

Next time I have to roll a replacement character past level 6, I think I'm gonna roll up an Oozemorph 6/Brawler 1/Barbarian X if there's room for a martial. Six levels allows you to be bipedal and work doorknobs for 18 hours/day, so all you have to do is sleep in a bucket, and you get pretty much everything fun the class gets.

How tightly do doors seal? Flowing under or through a keyhole would be fun.

There's plenty of room for fun things here - did no one besides me not think "sweet, I can be Odo! Or a T 1000"?

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

It is kinda funny that the Ooozemorph actually specializes in turning into humanoids and not... oozes.

I like that gimmick I just think it could of been implemented better.

Perhaps the original concept was that you're a person who gets progressively better at being oozy (like any of your stretchy superheroes, say) and someone had the idea "but what if it's the other way around" and honestly that is pretty interesting. It's not precisely what I would have wanted, but it is conceptually interesting.

I don't know of any other archetype that weakens you greatly as soon as you take it, so that much is novel at least.

Real caterpillars turn into ooze when they are undergoing their final metamorphosis in their crysalis. Perhaps oozemorphs could be considered similarly?