Good luck to my fellow competitors. Thank you to Paizo for hosting this contest which I yearly participate and lurk.
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I occasionally peak around here for ideas so I figure I would post my current setting/campaign site: http://valleyofbluesnails.blogspot.com/ Valley of Blue Snails is a Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting, using B/X rules. It is created for a cousin who will soon be in Iraq. We chose to do an online game to prevent boredom and as a escape from the realities of things sucking over in Iraq. Incidentally this opportunity seems a decent time as any to write some homebrew material and chronicle it for self indulgence. Mainly the blog will cover my notes in the creation process.
A Thousand Words Art from the days of yor can be seen painted upon the cave walls and ceilings where the earliest men once ventured. These paintings had been drawn with red and yellow ochre, hematite, manganese and charcoal - but the purpose of the cave paintings is not known, and may never be. Perhaps they were used as hunting magic, meant to increase the number of animals, or perhaps oracles of old would retreat into the darkness of the caves and paint their visions, drawing power out of the cave walls themselves. Regardless the ancient and primeval magic therein still hold power that can still be accidentally released to this day. A curious kobold or stray youth may wander into the caves and paint where the men of a bygone age once did. In doing so the sympathetic magic, still powerful, would be incanted and form a magic rendering of the creatures the ancient shamans once saw and recorded. These creatures share the properties of their once living counterpart together with paint and color, and powerful primeval magic. Thematic Link
Mosaic Muntjac : The ancient cave paintings depict herds of caribou, reindeer and muntjac roaming the wilderness plains. Should these cave paintings be offered additional pigments, the Mosaic Muntjac will be wrought into existence in the surrounding wilderness. The purpose of this magical beast is simple – food. The shaman of old drew such paintings in order to attract various herd animals to the area in order to hunt. The Mosaic Muntjac will appear as the shape of a small horned elk, with swirling bright colors of reds, black and yellows. The details and patterns on its surface slowly twist and blend, clearly at great contrast to the herds of wild animals that gravitate towards it. The Moscaic Muntjac will wander the plains and tend to its herd as any natural leader would. The magical nature attracts many herd animals who naturally seek it out. Should the Mosaic Muntjac be allowed to survive for a long period its herd can grow into the thousands. Spoiler:
Mosaic Muntjac CR 2 N Medium Magical Beast(Mosaic) Init +4; Senses Scent; Listen +4, Spot +4 Defense
Offense
Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft. Statistics
Fauna Attraction (ex) : The Mosaic Muntjac attracts other herd animals, in particular caribou, reindeer and elk. These herd animals follow the Mosaic Muntjac as if they would their natural leader. Left unchecked these herds can amass into the thousands. Woodland Stride (Ex) : The Mosaic Muntjac may move through any sort of undergrowth (such as natural thorns, briars, overgrown areas, and similar terrain) at her normal speed and without taking damage or suffering any other impairment. However, thorns, briars, and overgrown areas that have been magically manipulated to impede motion still affect her. Environment Woodlands
Mosaic Bearcat : The cave paintings depict a strange creature stalking the brushlands and taiga of long ago. The elusive creature is a sleek looking bear with a long prehensile tail. This is the Bearcat, a primeval stalker of man and beast. Should the painting of the Bearcat be offered additional pigments the Mosaic Bearcat will be wrought into being in the surrounding wilderness. The shaman of old summoned Bearcat to test the mightiest of warriors. Should one of these ancient warriors be able to best a Bearcat he would be assured glory to his name. The Mosaic Bearcat appears in the shape of a large wolverine with a bulky head and a long twisting tail. Swirling patterns of black, azure and red dance across its form as it stalks prey in the thick underbrush or high in the branches of thick trees. The Mosaic Bearcat will prey on all manner of animals and men when it feels the desire to feed. The Bearcat knows no fear of men and will calmly stalk into villages, even dwellings to seek prey when hungry. Spoiler:
Mosaic Bearcat CR 6 N Medium Magical Beast (Mosaic) Init +6; Senses Scent; Listen +16, Spot +16 Defense
Offense
Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Statistics
Rend (Ex) : If a Bearcat hits with both claw attacks, it latches onto the opponent’s body and rakes the flesh with its rear claws. This attack automatically deals an additional 2d10+6 points of damage. Woodland Stride (Ex) The Bearcat may move through any sort of undergrowth (such as natural thorns, briars, overgrown areas, and similar terrain) at her normal speed and without taking damage or suffering any other impairment. However, thorns, briars, and overgrown areas that have been magically manipulated to impede motion still affect her. Environment Woodlands
Mosaic Wurm : Drawn high in the cave ceilings, a beast with large wings mottled with greens, whites, charcoal, azures, and blood is majestically painted. Strange and forbidding, this painting is above reach too high to touch – as if in warning. The shaman of old only summoned the Mosaic Wurm if the old gods demanded penance for a great wrong. If the painting should be offered additional pigment, the Mosaic Wurm will be brought into being in the surrounding wilderness. It has but one purpose – punishment. It will lay waste to the petty cities and pitiful nations of men. The Mosaic Wurm appears as a large dragon with no front limbs and an overly large head and maw. It is a primal creature with a cascading sheen of white, black, blue, green and red - which cast down upon its form like an endless rain. The Mosaic Wurm is born to punish apostasy and treachery, but also anger and envy by means of great calamity. Normally the old gods dispel such a beast when it has performed its task, but they are long since dead, thus once called the Mosaic Wurm causes devastation with impunity. Spoiler:
Mosaic Wurm CR 16 N Huge Magical Beast (Mosaic) Init +6; Senses Scent; Listen +16, Spot +16 Defense
Defensive Abilities
Offense
Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft.
Breath Weapon: Damage as current Hit Point total. Statistics
Environment Woodlands
DM Notes about Mosaic Creatures Mosaic creatures are wrought into being to perform a specific task; in the creatures listed above - to feed, to test and to punish. They think little beyond this singular objective and strive to uphold it purpose. If they can no longer completely their task they will dissipate. Otherwise they will continue their task in perpetuity. All Mosaic creatures wrought into being from the cave paintings share the following subtype. Mosaic Subtype The mosaic creatures cascade with color, magic and some of their living counterpart’s essence. As such they posses the following traits: * The distorted and shifting shape offers a +2 Natural bonus to Armor Class
DM Secrets Spoiler: If left unchecked the Mosaic Muntjac can attract a herd of thousands which can devastate the local ecology. Only slaying the Muntjac will disperse the herd. The Mosaic Bearcat will likely stalk men and beast until slain, often dragging its victims up trees to devour them at its leisure. The Bearcat can be particularly elusive since it sleeps for long periods of time, 1d10 days, before resuming hunting and it usually hunts at night. The Mosaic Wurm is overt in its task of punishment, burning villages to the ground where it can. It will continue until destroyed, attempting to raze a village, hamlet or city every 1d8 days.
Any of the Mosaic creatures can be countered if a clever party paints upon the cave walls a natural enemy of the creature they wish to defeat. For example, if a Mosaic Wurm is menacing the area the party may paint their own Mosaic Roc next to the beast to combat it. A Mosaic Roc will then be wrought into being to combat the Mosaic Wurm – although it may need assistance from the PCs to be victorious. This should not be immediately obvious, as locating the cave and the method of a Mosaic creature’s nature may be very difficult.
Killing time before round 3 entries are public: Villains Last Words Chart - 1d20 1 - Was that a healing potion I just drank?
Fleshstripping in Zopotishto “Mind-altering spores compel a fallen, Dwarven folk-hero to harvest flesh for his fungal gardens.” Spoiler:
GRIMSON VEGARD, FUNGAL GARDENER CR 5 [+5 barbarian 5]
Male Dwarf barbarian 5
DEFENSE AC 16, touch 10, flat-footed 16
OFFENSE Spd 30 ft. [20 ft. base speed, +10 ft. barbarian speed]
TACTICS Before Combat If Vegard is aware of on-coming opponents he will commands any undead and fungi nearby to assist him.
STATISTICS Str 18, Dex 14, Con 17, Int 13, Wis 12, Cha 2
SPECIAL ABILITIES Special Ability (Ex/Sp/Su) Darkvision (Ex) Out to 60 feet.
Background: In years past, the celebrated, dwarven folk-hero, Grimson Vegard, struggled valiantly to keep the mountain passes around Zopotishto cleared. He was given the honorary title of Midwinter King for three straight years, so renowned his valor and mirth. Vegard adventured extensively into the lightless depths of the earth, seeking its wonders. During his travels, he came across the chittering, black-scaled kobolds, who cultivate toadstools in the remote reaches underground. The kobolds’ toadstools released powerful spores that intoxicated Vegard, and he bartered for their hallucinatory mushrooms. In a short time, Vegard became unstable and addicted to the spores’ hallucinogenic and euphoric effects. As Vegard’s insatiable yearning grew stronger, he frequented the kobolds and brought them untainted fertilizer in trade–he even haggled away his traveling companions on one occasion. Eventually, Vergard’s hunger for the spores grew excruciating, and he slaughtered the bothersome kobolds to claim their spore gardens as his own. Now, Grimson Vegard is more plant than man with fungal growths fused to his flesh. He appears as a gaunt figure with a grossly matted beard and hair. His skin is slick with mold, and various toadstools and polypores sprout from his body. He moves in a hazy mist of spores and with an oddly spongy gait. Lightless Garden: Vegard dwells deep beneath the city of the Zopotishto in the Stained Peaks. The lightless, fungal gardens he inhabits are ripe with all manner of toadstools, puffballs, tubers, polypores, and other sorts of bulbous, fibrous, or flat patches of fungi. Any corpses not used as fertilizer are buried in the spore-saturated soil and return as undead under the command of Vegard. Dogs, cats, large rodents, humanoids, and occasionally more exotic creatures from the deep all become servants. These creatures are treated as zombies. The fungi-covered corpses remain animated for 1d4+1 weeks before rotting away. Vegard’s gardens are beginning to fail due to the lack of fresh fertilizer. He is compelled to keep the mushrooms reproducing to feed his spore addiction; thus, he has become more aggressive in his methods of collecting fresh corpses. Fleshstripping in Zopotishto: Vegard and his animated minions have been harvesting their "untainted" fertilizer from the population of Zopotishto in a string of bizarre slayings. They emerge from the sewers into dwellings and alleyways to harvest the choice bits of flesh and gather any suitable compost. They mindlessly hack apart anyone in their wake and stuff the nutrients into the sewers to bring back to the fungal gardens. Eerie scenes of blood-soaked bones and grizzly bits of mangled tissue are the only evidence of their crimes. Occasionally, Vegard and his animated minions retrieve live victims for the gardens. These unfortunate souls are subdued with soporific lichen and fungal growths. Vegard experiments on them by growing new types of fungus on their nutrient-rich bodies, including adolescent shriekers and violet fungus. Unfortunately, the victims are alive during this lengthy and excruciating process.
Forgive my ignorance, I have a couple questions for round 3. 1) Anyone know if Myconids are public domain? These guys have been around for 20 years, I was surprised they were not in the SRD. Not even Vegepygmys, sheesh. 2) One of the lines in the stat block is as follows:
3) There is a rule that states:
I planned on tacking on some abilities for my villain. Lets say something as follows
Nothing really new per say, just a different delivery rather than spell casting. This legit? Or better yet can I be more liberal in my descriptions and add in some descriptive text in the Special Abilities area?
Yithnai "The Black Ziggurats of Yithnai stand as the ill-told seat of the Sundered Prince, Consort-on-Earth of the Black Twin, the Dead Goddess Yith." Alignment:NE/CE Capital: Yithnai (pop. 43,600) Notable Settlements: Akkaid (pop. 7,500), Achaemein (pop. 4,300) Ruler: Seleucid the Sundered Prince, Consort-on-Earth of the Black Twin, the Dead Goddess Yith. Government: Kleptocracy, whereby citizens exchange labor, personal rights, wealth, and darker tributes for status and protection. The Sundered Prince presides as the divine fountainhead of power within Yithnai. Resources: Iron, salt, peat. Religions: Many factions of Yithite clergy. Description: Yithnai is an oppressive realm named after the mad goddess Yith, the Dark Side of the Moon, who eternally struggles with her twin, Zyga of the Silver Moon. Yithnai is geographically centered on a great caldera lake, and the surrounding region is rife with badlands and heated bogs. The wilds of Yithnai are rocky and scarred with red and orange canyons, and dense patches of flabby, alkaline vegetation adorn the canyon floors and high plateaus. The badlands occasionally give way to steaming peat bogs and cracked salt flats. Yithnai is landlocked bordered to the south by her ever-sworn foes in Thaen, masses of feral barbarians to her east, and to the west the goblin realm of Thrallut with its barren slagheaps. Yithnai is perpetually embroiled in border skirmishes with Thaen, whose feudal lords honor the Church of Zyga. The border region between the two realms is called “The Arsalude”, a bitterly contested series of valleys between the mountain ranges of Trefol and Vologe. Both Yithnai and Thaen claim these lands, but in truth, only the goblins of Thrallut have settled here in recent times. The land’s bloodiest and most vicious wars were fought in The Arsalude, and it is said that the Sundered Prince seeks not to truly defeat Thaen, but to simply maintain the constant bloodshed. The eternal feuding influences many aspects of both realms. Whereas Thaen employs a regimented feudal caste system to consolidate power, Yithnai turns increasingly toward forgotten and taboo magic. The many sects of dread Yithite clergy hold transitory power within Yithnai in an ever-shifting balance, and the priests regard most of the populace as a resource to be exploited and then discarded when it is of no further use. The Sundered Prince acts as a fulcrum for the Yithite power base, directing its might with his melancholy gaze. Most citizens of Yithnai are justifiably paranoid, fearfully religious, and shockingly poor. Most citizens give up six years of freedom to earn enfranchisement, during which time they become indentured labor or serve in the military. Some are outright sacrificed at the Black Ziggurats if the stars are so aligned. Citizens can relinquish name, family, honor, skilled labor, blood, or body parts for higher status. In practice, most citizens accept a life of simple squalor, shoveling peat from the heated bogs, sacking salt, or delving deep ore mines. Only the truly ambitious or pious seek to elevate their status, and the frightful price they pay accords them respect and reverence. Nomads also dwell in Yithnai; hard-bitten folk, they honor Yith and are left unmolested. Outsiders in Yithnai are treated with a heavy dose of suspicion and distaste. To the average Yithite, outsiders are impious aberrations. Merchants are necessarily tolerated, but most other visitors to Yithnai have their stays cut short, either fleeing for safety or risk having their hearts ripped out like turgid fruit by the blood-priests of the Black Ziggurats. Yithnai is a major producer of salt, scarce outside its borders. Many realms which refuse to trade openly with Yithnai use Thrallut as a medium to acquire the much-needed mineral. Most households in Yithnai use peat for heating and even for food in desperate times. Yithnai uses an isolated tongue, but many of its educated people can speak Common as well as various magical and forbidden languages. The written script uses short graphemes, and the Yithnai libraries of clay tablets are renowned for esoteric lore. DM Secrets: Medicine in Yithnai is surprisingly effective, albeit bloody, using holistic techniques, divine rituals, and blood magic. Many wealthy and powerful individuals risk the trek into Yithnai for medical treatment. These same wealthy and powerful individuals often seek brave and expendable bodyguards for the forbidding journey. Seleucid the Sundered Prince was once a mortal wizard-prince. In his effort to bring harmony between the goddesses Yith and Zyga, he was impaled upon the black iron staves of the storm giant, Enki. Dark Yith decreed that he should die, while bright Zyga decreed that he should live a modest and honorable life. The result of the equal yet opposite divine powers pulled apart Seleucid’s soul and he was left to languish upon the black staves for centuries. For unknown reasons Yith freed and named him her consort. Seleucid is no longer a man—nor a god, lich, or other power. He remains in a transitory state of being that is both his reward and punishment from the twin goddesses. Sages speculate that the black iron staves of Enki may hold some transitory power, although what this power may be and where the staves are located is a mystery. The small city of Akkaid lies near the large bubbling mud lake of Nanshub. Periodically the giant loggerheads from the depths head to the beach on moonless nights to lay their massive eggs. The loggerhead hatchlings, each larger than a man, seek warm prey to feast upon, and the city of Akkaid is built quite close to the shore. Achaemein is a trading village near the Thrallut border, built on the ruins of a bygone age. In the center of the town is a large glacial stone with an epic tale engraved in a forgotten language. Should the script be translated and read in its entirety (60 hours at least) it will wake and return to flesh all of the fossilized primeval creatures for miles.
Quick rules question for any of the judges. Can I have a person other than myself edit the Round two contest entry? A community member offered to give my round 2 upcoming submission a edit run, but wanted to make sure it is kosher with the rules. Thanks
Migrus Locker This small locker is carved from fossilized wood and it is usually found chained, sealed and dumped in a long forgotten location. When the locker is unsealed and opened a desiccated hairless cat with a humanoid face lay within, the Migrus. After a few moments the Migrus animates and begins to preen itself clean and creature’s face begins to take the appearance of who opened the Migrus Locker. The Migrus moves in a strange jerky motion and it will obey simple commands that its master dictates. The Migrus takes a very literal and brutal approach to problem solving and is fond of taking trophies. If the Migrus is slain it decays messily overnight in a glistening slick of putrid fluid. When the dawn comes the Migrus will rise again from the filth, eat the scraps of rancid flesh, and return to its previous duties. The Migrus has attributes of a Cat with the construct type. The Migrus will always do its best to return to its owner and can not be permanently destroyed by normal means. Moderate transmutation; CL 15th; Craft Wondrous Item, flesh to stone; Price 38,000 gp; Weight 8 lb. |