Been running this AP as a 5e campaign. The first module, it was pretty easy to just "wing it". But Seven Days is a bit more complex. Has anyone done a 5e conversion of this?
The Five Man Band is a trope: a way to build a team (adventurers, superheroes, whatever) that pops up repeatedly, presumably because it's a good plot engine that produces interesting stories. If you haven't heard of it, probably the best description can be found right here, by Red over at Overly Sarcastic. While there are a lot of different versions -- this is an empirically observed thing, not a rule that someone has written down -- the classic Five Man Band goes something like this:
The Leader -- Self-explanatory, yes? May be the hero or protagonist, but not necessarily. Not the best fighter, or the strongest, but the one who makes high-level decisions and sets the direction for the team. Captain Kirk, Captain Mal, Cyclops in classic X-Men, Robin in the Teen Titans, Nate on Leverage, Roy in The Order of the Stick, Monkey D. Luffy.
The Lancer -- The Lancer is a foil to the Leader. He's a character who differs most from the other four, either in personality, in motivations, or in tactics. He's therefore most likely to be involved in conflicts with the others, or to provide implicit or explicit criticism. Wolverine, Belkar, Han Solo, Melinda May, Spock, Zuko in Season Three (after joining the Gaang). Battlestar Galactica had two Lancers: Starbuck (to Apollo) and Tigh (to Adama).
(Note that the same character can switch roles depending on context. So, Batman is a Leader to the Batman Family, while in the Justice League he's usually in more of a Lancer role. Captain Jack Harkness was something like a Lancer to the Ninth Doctor in Doctor Who, but was a Leader in Torchwood.)
The Heart -- The emotional center. Most likely to be female (though not always). Probably kindly and nurturing (though not always). Probably either the most wise / sensible, or a sweet innocent. Provides emotional support, pep talks, good advice, maybe healing. On Firefly, Kaylee and Shepherd Book neatly split the Heart role down the middle (one Wise, one Sweet and Innocent). The Invisible Woman, Katara, Durkon, Starfire in the Teen Titans, Groot.
The Big Guy -- The one who solves problems by strength or hitting things. Jayne, Cyborg, Colossus, Eliot on Leverage, The Thing. Usually male and usually literally big, but not always -- Toph in A:TLA was a Big Guy. Might be a gentle giant, but OTOH Mr. Hyde in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen also qualifies.
The Smart Guy -- The one who solves problems with brains. Might be a tech genius, mad scientist, psychic, robot, or wizard. Brainiac 5, Vaarsuvius, Donatello, Felicity Smoak, Hardison on Leverage, Mina Harker in LOEG. Reed Richards is a hybrid Smart Guy / Leader.
Okay, so: this sort of thing can lead to ENDLESS nerd conversations (isn't Spock more of a Smart Guy than a Lancer? What about the Avengers? You are WRONG about Firefly!) but (1) it's a very broad vague general empirical pattern, not an actual set of rules as such, and (2) that's not what I'm asking here.
What I'm asking here is... has anyone tried to use this to set up a campaign? Like, here on the forums, recruitment is either free-form (most common) or, if there's a structure, people may say "we need a melee tank and a specialized arcane caster". Has anyone tried a recruitment where you say "We need one each of the classic Five -- tell me if your proposed character is a Leader, Lancer, Heart or whatever, and briefly explain why"?
It might not work -- I can think of a couple of failure modes, easily enough -- but I'm just wondering whether anyone has tried it.
I mean... obviously they do, because people use Discord for frickin' everything. So I guess my question is more "How does that work, how /well/ does that work, and is this something worth trying?"
Note that I'm not talking about getting a group together at 7 PM every Sunday for online-but-live gaming. I'm talking about play-by-post, just like on these forums, except with Discord. Has anyone around here been doing that, and how has it worked out?
PF1 had _Into the Darklands_ (2008) and then _Darklands Revisited_ (2015). Has there been anything since then?
I see from this thread here that the OGL-ORC transition is going to result in a bunch of changes, since a lot of the Darklands stuff was OGL. That discussion was at Paizocon back in May of this year. So, there probably hasn't been time for any ORC stuff.
But is there any pre-ORC 2E Darklands stuff? Splatbooks, a module, PFS scenarios, anything?
So, Devargo. PCs go, make a check, pay a bribe. Maybe they play knivesies. Knivesies is mildly interesting, but I'd like to liven this up a bit.
My PCs are violent-ish, but also kinda good-aligned. So "please go and kill this person for me" doesn't really work. So... what's something that a group of low-level adventurers could do for the King of Spiders that he couldn't do for himself?
I have a couple of players who just don't like playing fragile low level characters. I think I can still make EoA work -- throw out a couple of early encounters, adjust others to be harder. The main concern here is Lamm and the fishery. Running through the creatures there, I see:
Bloo the dog -- two dogs, Bloo and Booger. Otherwise no change.
Yargin -- Yargin is a speed bump. Add another level of expert? If that.
Hookshanks the gnome -- He's a Rogue 2. Make him a Rogue 4, I guess? Or give him one level of illusionist, which he uses to terrorize the orphans.
Giggles the half-orc -- Ftr 2 becomes Ftr 4, easy enough.
Spiders -- Not sure what to do here. I could just use more / bigger spiders, but... eh, they'll encounter a bunch of spiders with the ettercap later. What sort of CR 3 creature might Lamm keep penned up in here?
Jigsaw shark -- just give it a couple more HD, no problem there
Alligator -- Advanced template
Lamm -- Lamm is tricky, but I think we can make him a straight Rogue 6. Keep the slowed movement, we don't want him getting away...
Like, say I wanted to set a campaign during the actual, historical Hundred Years War or the War of the Roses -- late medieval, 14th / 15th century type of thing.
Is there (1) a PF2 resource that could help (probably it would be 3PP), or (2) failing that, a PF1 / 5e / 3.x resource? I remember there was a 3e 3PP book called something like "A Realistic Medieval Campaign" back in the '00s, and I remember it being pretty solid, but... that was a while ago, and I don't even remember the name precisely.
Toying with the idea of running a settle the wild / build a kingdom game. Kingmaker is the obvious way to go here... except that freaking EVERYBODY knows Kingmaker now. It's been around forever, it's one of the two or three most popular APs and it has a popular video game. Even people who haven't played it know the plot and the Big Bad.
Okay then... what else is out there that might scratch this particular itch? In this case, the more obscure the better! (As long as it's at least okay-good.) 3PP, weird online stuff, something that was published in Dungeon magazine back in 1993... whatever.
Long-time player of 3.x, PF 1e, and D&D 5e. Now finally -- very late to the party! -- considering trying 2e.
So, the obvious question: as a long-time 1e player, what takes most getting used to in 2e? What are the unexpected changes -- good or bad -- and what should I be mindful of?
Okay, gameplay begins! It's downtime after the fiasco at the fuel depot. Where are you now, and what do you want to do?
Note that you CAN immediately start rolling -- say you want to Let Loose, or whatever. That's fine. Alternately you can say something like "I want to go talk to PC X (or NPC Y) about topic Z", and see if the narrative takes you somewhere. This part is rather freeform; don't overthink it; just tell us where you are and what you want to do.
Some worldbuilding thoughts. Note: these are preliminary, not final! If players say "no I really don't want it to be our future", then we can change that.
-- I'm thinking this will be ~300 years in our future, as opposed to the Galactica's vaguely "far far away" setting. There was Earth and a bunch of colony worlds. Now they're gone, subsumed by the Corax. -- This is a fairly large diversion from the BG original, so discussion is welcome.
-- There was war among the colony worlds, culminating in a big one that ended ~30 years ago. (That's why there are still warships.) The war ended with general peace, the creation of a Federation, and rapid economic expansion as interstellar trade exploded.
-- The Corax showed up about 15 years ago. At first they were spotted in the distance, observing. This was the first nonhuman intelligence humanity had met. Everyone got very excited! But they showed no interest in communicating... and then suddenly, they attacked with overwhelming force.
-- A Corax Basic looks like an armored gorilla with a mushroom for a head. The good news is they're slow, clumsy, and extremely nearsighted. (There are a bunch of tiny eyes around the rim of the mushroom, like on a scallop. They can't focus beyond a few meters.) The less good news is they're horrifically strong and very hard to kill. Also, they have incredibly acute senses of smell, vibration and hearing along with something like a shark's electrodetection sense, except they can also use it actively to manipulate electronics nearby. They seem to share a group intelligence. One Basic is kind of dumb and easily fooled, but a squad of them is as smart as humans -- and better coordinated and utterly fearless.
Don't close to short range with them, don't fight them at night, and never ever engage them in hand to hand combat -- see below.
-- The mushroom-head gained them the nickname "shrooms" but it turns out that, at a cellular level, they actually are kind of fungus-y. Instead of blobby lumps like animal cells, or little blocks like plant cells, their default cell type is an elongated fiber or network. (For biologists: they are syncytial, generate hyphae, and have something like a Spitzenkorper.) Also they produce spores. At close range a Basic can puff out spores that have a variety of unpleasant effects. At very close range, if a Corax grabs you, it can produce hyphae that penetrate your skin and permeate your body. That's game over. Don't let them get that close.
This is the recruitment thread for Last Fleet, a PbtA game inspired by the Battlestar Galactica TV series. It's not the official BG TTRPG -- that came out way back in 2007, using the old Cortex system. Last Fleet is more recent (2020) and uses a version of the Powered By the Apocalypse (PbtA) system. If you haven't played PbtA, it's mechanically pretty simple -- everything is 2d6 plus or minus a simple modifier.
So if you might be interested, here's what you need.
1) Get a copy of the game. It's normally $20, but it's on sale at The Bundle of Holding right now, for just $9.95 (and you get another game too).
2) Make up a character and post it here. Character creation is REALLY simple. You choose a playbook (there are 12), you pick a Role Move (there are 6), you pick which of your stats are weak and strong (you have 5 stats, one is +1, one is -1, the other three are 0), and you pick two other Moves (found in your playbook, these are basically special abilities that you have).
So, a basic character description might go "Starbuck, an Aries (that's her playbook) Pilot (that's her Role Move) with +1 Raw, -1 Smooth, and with Maverick and Shotgun Diplomacy" (her strong and weak stats and her 2 other Moves.) And that's it -- that's the complete mechanical description. "Aquarius Investigator, +1 Sharp -1 Warm, Pointed Questions & On Trial". Boom, done.
3) Answer at least two of the Relationship Questions at the end of your playbook. These are questions that tend to flesh out your PC and develop relationships.
If you like you can add a few lines of backstory, background, or clarification. But that's optional. (This is definitely a game where a lot of backstory can get filled in later.) I will say, you may want to think a bit about your character concept, because that's what will drive a lot of the drama. Hotshot pilot who has trouble making human connections? Useless failson who hopes to find redemption in the face of apocalypse? Brilliant scientist who secretly hungers for power? Investigator who struggles with addiction and despair? You decide.
Okay then, three other points wrt gameplay.
First, this is a mechanically simple game that is all about choices, drama, and narrative. So be ready to write, to tell a story, and to sink your teeth into some juicy drama.
Second, the setting assumes that >99% of the human race has already been exterminated by hostile aliens, and you're among the desperate survivors who are fleeing the genocide while the aliens pursue. So it may go to some dark-ish places. It's not a horror game as such, but cosmic horror, body horror, and themes of despair, suffering and loss are definitely on the table. If you're not okay with those sorts of things in a game, this might not be your jam.
And third, I'm shooting for a fast-moving, everybody-posts-at-least-once-per-day game. That's up front so we all know it going in! You can miss the occasional day, but if you're going to miss more than a couple, please let us know.
This is a Powered by the Apocalypse game that's basically Battlestar Galactica with the serial numbers filed off. (There was a BG TTRPG, back in 2007; Margaret Weis Productions did it, and it used the Cortex system. OOP for years. This is completely different, and much more recent.)
The alien C/y/l/o/n Corax have exterminated >99% of the human race. You're part of a ragtag fleet of refugees, trying to survive and find a safe haven as the Corax try to hunt you down and finish the job. Oh, and the Corax can clone humans, making duplicates so perfect they don't know they aren't real... until they do.
It's rules-light (well, it's PbtA) and narrative-heavy, with a focus on drama. If you haven't played PbtA, it's a mechanically /very/ simple system that can be learned in minutes. Also, this particular game can go pretty dark, obviously.
It's on sale at Humble Bundle right now, which is what triggered this. Would anyone be interested?
I've been on and off this forum since 2012 or so, and it feels like there's less traffic now than a few years back. Still plenty of activity; just, less than there was a few years back.
This is just an impression, but... does anyone else see it too? (And is anyone tracking or keeping statistics that could confirm or refute it?)
Why I ask: I like PBP, but if you try to run most modules on PBP, you get six people who've read and/or played the module already. That's not a game-stopper, but it makes me sigh a little. I'd like to run something that nobody knows anything about. So I'm looking for:
-- a module or scenario. Not an AP! This should be something a competent group could get through in no more than 3 sessions.
-- can be PF1, PF2, 3.x, or 5e.
-- ideally, should still be available to buy somewhere, at least as a pdf.
And that's it. Basically, I'm just looking for that cool fun interesting adventure that *you* know about, but that somehow the rest of the world either missed or has already forgotten. What've you got?
Kessler knows many things. Most of them, he is not supposed to know.
First and foremost, he knows that the Americans are lying about Rosa. She isn't "lost". They know exactly where she is. The Americans are not as efficient as Germans -- ha ha, no -- but they have a basic competence. She was registered with the JDC, the Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. She will have passed through Ellis Island and the American immigration system. She's in the paperwork; she's in the system. They know where she is.
Kessler is all right with this... for now. The Americans are probably watching her. They're intercepting his letters. They're feeding her little bits of information, and they're doing the same to him -- "stringing him along," as they say. Irritating; but it means they have every motivation to keep her safe. And that is the most important thing: that Rosa is safe.
Kessler has run the odds. (Kessler is always running the odds. He must make a conscious effort of will in order to /not/ perform these calculations.) There is about a 2% chance that Rosa is dead -- an accident, illness, her ship sunk by a storm or a careless U-Boat. The life of a refugee is perilous. Similarly, there is about a 2% chance that she has suffered trauma, mental or physical, such that she is not the Rosa he knew. And -- perhaps most painfully -- there is about a 5% chance that she is alive and well, but loves another.
But that leaves a 91% chance that Rosa is waiting for him. Kessler can live with those odds... for now.
Private Kessler lies in the shade of a palm grove, and thinks about all the things he isn't supposed to know.
Godlike is a superhero RPG from the early 2000s, where you play a Talent who has been drafted to fight in the Second World War. It's currently on sale at the Humble Bundle -- you can pick it up for $15, along with various other stuff.
Why it might be interesting: well, it's a superhero RPG set in World War Two. So, if this is the sort of thing you like, this may well be the sort of thing you like. A bit of additional info: the superpowers range from low to medium power level -- think Captain America, not Superman -- and stuff like invulnerability and healing factors are not usually in play. So, most PCs are somewhat fragile. If a sniper shoots you in the head, you die.
A potential drawback: it's an older game that uses the One Roll System (ORS), which works off a dice pool of d10s. The ORS was a perfectly good system, but it never really caught on, and it's not around much any more. It's not complicated or hard to pick up, but it would involve learning a new system.
On the positive side, ORS might adapt to forum play pretty well. Also, because it's WWII, it's something where we could play a short scenario ("blow up this bridge") to see how people like it.
If you want to know more about the system, there's a Quick Start version free on DriveThruRPG, along with some sample scenarios.
Character concept: a gnome who's a drug addict, exploring the extremes of sensation and reality. Probably NE alignment, though CE is on the table too.
It's a gestalt, so I'm toying with the idea of alchemist / wizard (illusion specialist) who's a devotee of Mahathallah, the LE Night Queen of mortality and illusions. Unfortunately I've never done a gestalt before, so I have no idea whether that works. I'm not a minimaxer, so I'm okay with suboptimal, but I would want the character to be competitive with the other gestalts in the party.
So: assuming I want to keep the wizard side of the gestalt fixed, what of the alchemist side? Can it be made to work? Obviously I'm intrigued by the drugs/poison aspect. Is there an alchemist type that synergizes well with an illusionist wizard and/or is thematically a good match here? Or is this combination so weak I should try something else entirely?
Looking for an evil deity for an evil character to worship. ("Deity" here includes archdevils, demon princes, velstrac demagogues, or whatever.) The character is a gestalt gish who is pursuing perfection in both combat and spellcasting, so the entity in question could be focused on combat, on spells, or on just the idea of perfection. So, for instance, Kalkyton the velstrac is all about improvement through Frankensteinian fleshcrafting; thematically, a bit of a stretch, but could work.
Bonus points if it's one of the ones with good Obediences and Benefits, though that's not strictly necessary.
Looking for an evil deity for an evil character to worship. ("Deity" here includes archdevils, demon princes, velstrac demagogues, or whatever.) The character is a gestalt gish who is pursuing perfection in both combat and spellcasting, so the entity in question could be focused on combat, on spells, or on just the idea of perfection. So, for instance, Kalkyton the velstrac is all about improvement through Frankensteinian fleshcrafting; thematically, a bit of a stretch, but could work.
Bonus points if it's one of the ones with good Obediences and Benefits, though that's not strictly necessary.
You've been framed! Caught for crimes that — for once — you have not committed. They’ve sent you all to the nastiest prison in the system: Isotropa Max Secure. But you're no ordinary prisoners. You've forged an alliance, and you have a plan...
Scum and Villainy is the science fiction adventure member of the Forged in the Dark family of games. If you've played Blades in the Dark, the system is almost identical; the few differences nudge it away from the grimdark steampunk grit of BitD and towards a looser, cinematic, more swashbuckling play style. Like BitD, Scum and Villainy encourages roleplaying: you're not required to RP, but it can bring you both mechanical advantages and XP.
So, this is an interest check! Knowledge of the system is not required, but you'd have to be willing to to learn it (obviously) and also to commit to posting regularly and committing for at least the first episode (probably 4-6 weeks in RT). If that sounds potentially interesting to you, chime in!
The title says it all. The Skeletons is a small game from Bully Pulpit, the folks who brought us Fiasco. It's diceless, or nearly so. (Sometimes there's the option of choosing from a table, or rolling on it.) There's almost no mechanics.
Here's the Intro:
Years fly by like dead leaves. Everything is darkness. Everything is silence. You stand vigilant before the sarcophagus without thought or breath -- such is your compulsion. You do not remember your name and still you watch. The flesh has fallen off your bones and still you watch.
And then one day there is light and motion and you weigh your bearded axe and raise your shield, lusting for the fray, eager to measure your skill against these tomb-robbing children so full of blood. You’ll never be alive again, but in this moment-in the chaos between violation and destruction-you truly live, and you remember what you once were, and you taste the sun.
* * *
So you're a skeleton guarding a tomb. The idea is to discover / tell the backstory of you and the other skeletons. However, you only get moments of consciousness from time to time when the tomb is disturbed or threatened -- so, you have to try to build the story bit by bit.
Additional wrinkle: this is basically a one-shot. You put the story together (or not), and then... it ends. Either the tomb is destroyed, or it's lost forever and eternal night falls. So, in RW terms, this is something we'd probably play through in a few weeks.
I'm honestly not sure if this is even a good medium for this sort of game, but it seems like it would be fun to try. Is there interest?
With the crafting of Black Shot, the undead armies had been at a standstill in the Western Kingdoms — too well entrenched to attack directly, and held at bay by smaller but better-equipped forces. That changed at the Battle of Ettenmark Fields.
Now, the Legion has been shattered and the Cinder King’s troops march east, bolstered with heretofore unseen horrors to fight humanity. You and your squad must secure a retreat for your comrades. To make it worse, Shreya has gone off on her own mission and left you to make do without her...
Welcome aboard! So, some decisions to make right at the start. First one is: which Chosen, and which Broken? (For details on Chosen and Broken, check out Chapter 4, pages 157 et seq.) I'm inclined to start with Shreya as your Chosen ally, and Render and Blighter as your two Broken pursuers. But if there's a strong opinion otherwise, I'm open to it.
Second question is: which special ability? Each Chosen gets one; Shreya's are listed on page 166. Book of Hours is probably the most popular, because it makes all the specialists more powerful. Two more dots is very attractive! However, there's a lot to be said for Asrika's Blessing (corruption is definitely a thing in this game), Anointed (trading short-term benefit for your Chosen gaining powers faster), and War-Saint (specialists can gain xp through training).
Third question is: which Favor? Each Chosen gets one (unless you choose Anointed); Shreya can pick Holy, Mystic, or Mercy.
Let's discuss, and then we'll move on to setup and chargen.
It's the grimdark military survival horror campaign, inspired by (among other things) Glen Cook's Black Company books. You play a group of elite mercenaries trying to survive after the battle against the Dark Lord has gone catastrophically wrong. It uses the Blades in the Dark system. If you don't know what that is, it's a narrative-intensive system that uses dice pools -- somewhat like PbTA or Alien: TRPG. I think it could run very well as a PBP campaign.
What am I looking for?
-- Must either already be familiar with BitD / BoB, or be willing to read the BoB rulebook and become familiar with it. (NOTE: the BOB rulebook is fairly massive.) I have a basic familiarity but am not fluent, so I'd like most of the players to know the system.
-- Strongly preferred that you own an honestly acquired copy of the rules, whether physical or pdf. (Note that you can pick it up as part of a Bag of Holding Bundle right now and for the next week or so -- $25 gets you five complete RPGs, three of them very good IMO, plus a bunch of accessories.)
-- If you're not familiar with it, be aware that BitD / BOB is very different from PF / D&D. Just to mention one difference: there's no character monogamy, i.e. you would be playing several different PCs.
-- This is an RPG that has a heavy resource management / bookkeeping aspect. In between missions, you play the Quartermaster, Commander, and Marshall, determining things like how the Legion is going to find food, allocating horses, finding recruits to replace casualties, and the like. This would be super tedious for some players, super interesting for others. Just, FYI.
-- I'm looking for fast posting and strong commitment. I'll commit to posting every day; I'd be looking for the same from the players.
So, trial balloon here. Would anyone be interested? If yes, then:
1) Have you played BitD or any similar games, like PbtA? If not, are you a quick study?
2) Do you have a copy? If not, are you willing to blow $20-$25 to pick one up? (Obviously I can't enforce this; I just think creators should be paid. If you're living on a tight budget, okay -- PM me.)
No commitment at this time; this is an interest check. Some notes on setting and tone follow.
The grimdark military survival horror campaign -- inspired by Glen Cook's Black Company -- that uses the Blades in the Dark system. How many people might be interested? Parameters:
-- Must either already be familiar with BitD / BoB, or be willing to read the BoB rulebook and become familiar with it. (NOTE: the BOB rulebook is fairly massive.) I have a basic familiarity but am not fluent, so I'll want players who know their stuff.
-- Strongly preferred that you own an honestly acquired copy of the rules, whether physical or pdf. (Note that you can pick it up as part of a Humble Bundle right now and for the next week or so.)
-- If you're not familiar with it, be aware that BitD is very different from PF / D&D, and BoB pushes that difference even further. Just to mention one difference: there's no character monogamy, i.e. you would be playing several different PCs.
-- This is an RPG that has a heavy resource management / bookkeeping aspect. In between missions, you play the Quartermaster, Commander, and Marshall, determining things like how the Legion is going to find food, allocating horses, finding recruits to replace casualties, and the like.
So, trial balloon here. Would anyone be interested?
What it says. I threw a big local festival into my campaign. It was intended as wallpaper, but when I mentioned it had a costumed carnival on the final day, the players all got excited -- everyone made up a costume, everyone is attending. So, I'm looking for a resource that can give me events, plot hooks, what have you.
Not looking for monster attacks -- more NPC interactions and RP opportunities. So, can be level- and system-neutral.
Big caveat: this is the alignment of the characters *as depicted in the series*. It's entirely possible that Carole Baskin is really a good and upright person who's just trying to save some cats, and that the documentary did a hatchet job on her! It's possible that Joe is a basically decent guy who had a couple of bad mistakes of judgment! The events depicted are generally true, but the characters in the documentary are at least half fictionalized. So, this is about those characters, not the actual people. Okay? So:
Carole Baskin -- Lawful Evil
-- organized, ruthless, efficient
-- at top of a color-coded hierarchy
-- exploited servants are loyal because they share her ideology
-- if a murderer, then planned it well enough to get away with it
-- in the face of great provocation, shows impressive self-control
-- nevertheless, provocation will result in vindictive pursuit of enemy until enemy is destroyed
-- uses legal system to get rich
-- uses legal system to destroy enemies
Doc Antle -- Neutral Evil
-- smooth, snaky, sensual
-- wears black
-- makes entrances riding on a monster
-- exploited servants are loyal because of mind control
-- smirks a lot
-- soul patch
-- shrugs and sits out the whole LE vs. CE conflict
-- carefully avoids interaction with legal system
Joe Exotic
-- flamboyant, loud, erratic
-- extreme outfits and hair
-- blows stuff up
-- screams a lot
-- stuff tends to catch fire when he's around
-- exploited servants are loyal because of his personal charisma
-- no idea when to stop
-- zero self-control
-- is ultimately destroyed by legal system
All of them are high Cha builds who put max ranks into Handle Animal. But Joe dumped Wis hard to get that extra point of Cha, and that's ultimately what brings him down.
As we all know, H.P. Lovecraft invented the Worm That Walks.
Quote:
"Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For it is of old rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth's pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl."
Mm, good stuff. But it's been done many times now. What else did Lovecraft like? Ah yes: cats.
Quote:
It is said that in Ulthar, which lies beyond the river Skai, no man may kill a cat; and this I can verily believe as I gaze upon him who sitteth purring before the fire. For the cat is cryptic, and close to strange things which men cannot see.
Can we combine these two ideas?
Sure we can.
* * * * *
There's a city where nobody will kill a cat. It goes further: nobody in this city will harm a cat, or even bother or annoy a cat. People will walk around a sleeping cat rather than disturb it. People will tell you that it's because cats are good luck. This is a lie. It's because harming, annoying or bothering cats is a very very bad idea.
That's because of Crato Felv.
Sometimes you get people who just really love cats. Your classic Crazy Cat Person, yes? Stereotypically a woman, but men can go that way too. And sometimes you get people who are really powerful sorcerors. Sorcery is pretty random! So, logically, once in a great while you'll get someone who is both. Like Crato Felv.
Here's an open question: did Felv intend for what happened to happen? Or did he just die suddenly, old and alone, only to have his dozens of cats do... well, do what cats do naturally when presented with a sudden windfall of fresh meat. It doesn't really matter whether it was intended or not, because the result was the same. A "normal" Worm That Walks is a swarm intelligence inhabiting tens of thousands of worms or insects. Crato Felv is a swarm intelligence inhabiting several dozen cats.
-- Alignment is not necessarily evil. Felv is CN. He's cranky and obsessive and all gods help you if he decides you're a threat to his cats, or any cats. But not /evil/. Really, he's beyond your notions of morality. He understands that only one thing really matters: cats.
-- DR is 5/-, not 15/-.
-- New creature type is Animal, not Vermin.
-- Not immune to sleep effects. (Come on, he's made of cats.)
-- When Felv uses the Discorporate ability, he doesn't turn into a swarm. Instead he breaks up into 10d6 cats, who scatter in all directions. In terms of physical stats, hp, move and AC these are ordinary cats. Felv himself no longer has a fixed location. He can see and hear through every one of these cats and can control them as part of himself, and -- oh dear -- he can cast through all of them. The Felv-cats cannot speak but they do have the Natural Spell feat. Having multiple bodies doesn't allow Felv to cast multiple times per round, but he can cast from any of his cat bodies wherever they may be.
The only silver lining here is that in this form, Felv's intelligence grows dim and animalistic: he's Int 6 until he pulls himself together again. Oh, and he can speak freely with cats and with creatures that are essentially feline.
-- The only ways to permanently kill Felv are (1) reduce him to negative HP while he's in solid form, or (2) kill every single one of his swarm-cats. Good luck with that.
-- CR +3 instead of +2.
Feline Intervention:
Felv spends most of his time discorporated, living as a sentient swarm of feral cats scattered across the city. If the PCs encounter a random cat, there's a 5% chance it's one of him. Remember that Felv can speak with all cats, so he'll soon become aware of any interaction the PCs have with a cat, or any notable or unusual behavior they might undertake otherwise.
He pulls himself together into his sort-of human form only for special occasions. He's much more intelligent then, and he can talk. But he's also more vulnerable and he knows it. Also, he likes being a cloud of cats. So you'd better have a good reason for calling him together.
An audience with Felv is, frankly, messed up. He's a vaguely humanoid pile of cats. It's hard to get a pile of cats to stand up straight (although he can manage it if he has to), so most of the time he'll be stretched out on a couch or something. He'll gesture languidly with a hand whose writhing fingers are furry tails. He'll frown at you with a face that's made of a dozen whiskery little faces His eyebrows and mouth are cat limbs. His voice is an absolutely indescribable mash of growls, purrs, and hisses. He smells like, well, like a big pile of cats.
He's not very patient and his attention span isn't great. Talk fast.
Cat House:
Felv's former residence is a run-down townhouse in a formerly pleasant neighborhood now gone considerably downhill. The PCs may hear about the old "wizard" who loves cats so much -- a decent Gather Information check will do this. (Note that people aren't sure if Felv is dead or not. He hasn't been seen in person in a while, but he was always misanthropic and solitary.) And once they arrive at his place, it'll be clear that something's up: it looks abandoned, and there are cats *everywhere*.
It's pretty easy to break in. It really stinks of cat inside. There's a half-hearted trap or two. There are a couple of minor magic items. And there's Felv's skeleton, in the shreds of his robes, picked very clean by the sharp teeth of hundreds of hungry cats. (Clever PCs may think that the skeleton will serve as Felv's phylactery or something, or can be used against him somehow. Nope. Messing with his skeleton will only annoy him. And it won't even annoy him that much, because it doesn't directly involve, you know, cats.)
The one thing you get from the townhouse: it attracts Felv's attention and causes him to coalesce into humanoid form. If his skeleton has been left undisturbed, his cats will wrap themselves around it, but that's not strictly necessary -- it's just force of habit.
This is the PCs' one guaranteed chance for an interview. Start at Unfriendly, give +2 to a druid, +2 to a caster with a feline familiar. Then give anywhere from -4 to insta-kill if the PCs have annoyed, mistreated, or (shudder) killed a cat. Then just remember that Felv is a cranky misanthropic obsessive who is capital-D Difficult, and who really only cares about one thing. Good luck!
What if... Cats are our friends?:
Maybe the PCs ace the interview! That's fine. Felv doesn't have to be an antagonist. He makes a useful friend and a fantastic ally. You want to know what the evil queen is really up to, or who's blackmailing the Mayor? Felv is a disembodied intelligence who can bounce around dozens of stealthy little bodies. He can discover pretty much anything worth knowing.
The big problem here is getting Felv to help. He starts out as neutral towards PCs /at best/. More likely he's Unfriendly: why are you bothering him? When he was human he was a cranky, solitary obsessive. Now that he's... whatever he is... he's five times worse. Is the evil queen spreading plague through the city? Do people writhe under the unjust tyranny of the Chelaxian occupation? Felv deeply, profoundly, does not care. He only has interest about these things insofar as they affect cats.
Play Felv as just plain difficult. Getting his attention (without pissing him off) is difficult. An audience with him is difficult. Getting him to help? This should not be impossible, but it should be a nontrivial challenge. He'll want something like "ten tons of fresh fish, to be dumped in 100 lots of 200 lbs. each at the following locations around the city". Bonus points if the city is located in a desert. Will fulfilling his demands be embarrassing or expensive? That gets a writhing furry shrug.
That said, if you can get him on side, he's pretty powerful! So he should only be helpful for a single task or a fixed period. And then the next time, he'll want something else: the fish were great, but now he wants ten thousand small, wingless birds. Or fifty cat-grooming stations set up around the city, each with two designated combers, plus ten roving veterinarians on call. Or passage of a law banishing all dogs above 5 pounds weight.
There is one shortcut to getting Felv's help: once the PCs are aware of his existence, clever players may try to kneecap their enemies by having them harm or attack cats. If you can get the evil queen's Gray Maidens to kill a cat or two, suddenly their lives will become much more difficult. This won't make Felv friendly to the PCs, but it does add an interesting wrinkle. Getting a rival adventuring party to kick a cat? If your PCs can pull it off, let them take the win.
What if... Cats are NOT our friends?:
It's not hard to get Felv mad at you. Just annoy, harm, or (shudder) kill a cat. Did I mention that there are cats everywhere in this town? Because there are. Lots of them. -- To keep this fair-ish, make sure the PCs are aware of the city's odd tradition of exaggerated deference towards cats. Then have cats be everywhere, and be kind of obnoxious. (I like cats perfectly well myself, but it's not hard to make them obnoxious.)
If the PCs don't bite, that's fine. Keep Felv in your back pocket. Later you can have the PCs see someone kick a cat, and then die screaming an hour later. (Probably a Phantasmal Killer, but season to taste.)
If the PCs do cross him... Felv should be an elusive and terrifying antagonist. Spell-casting cats, for goodness' sake. And did I mention this city is full of cats? Any of which could suddenly launch an attack with spells of up to 6th level, or higher if you're really feeling vicious. Is that cat watching you? Wait, there's another one over there! Lashing out randomly is not going to accomplish much, and will definitely not improve the PCs standing in the city. (Really, once people realize that "the cats are angry", the PCs will become complete pariahs -- people refusing to do business, crossing the street to avoid them, you name it.)
Felv's low Int means that he can't easily switch up tactics in mid-combat. However, between fights he's perfectly capable of assembling himself in some quiet sewer somewhere to think things over in his human-ish form (which is Int 12 or so). So, he is absolutely capable of ambushes, planting evidence to frame the PCs, and other sorts of strategic surprise.
Oh, and he'll start off wanting to play with them and torment them rather than kill them outright. Because, you know.
Killing Felv is hard. If he's reduced to 3/4 hp while in humanoid form, or if he just feels threatened, he immediately discorporates. This can be stopped with a Forcecage, circular Wall of Fire, or similar effect, but otherwise you're now dealing with several dozen cats that are fleeing in all directions at top speed. In theory you could track them down and kill them one by one -- scrying could help, or a high level ranger. Clever players may think of other options.
Felv does have a weak spot, and that's spells that target Will. If you hit one Felv-cat with a Will spell, you hit the whole organism -- and Felv's Will save, while decent, is not amazing. (This also applies to a bard's song, a mesmerist's stare, and the like.) So he can be fascinated, slept, charmed, dominated, you name it. That said, note that Felv's type is now Animal. So Charm Person and other spells that affect humanoids will do nothing -- you need spells that will affect creatures of the Animal type.
Phew. -- Oh yes: this is inspired by an idea from Arnold, of the Goblin Punch blog. Everyone should go read Goblin Punch, it's amazing.
Gwidog-Sha! is a sorceror. He was born plain old Gwidog, and then after he developed sorcerous powers he added the -Sha! It doesn't actually mean anything. He just thinks it sounds cool.
Gwidog's father is very minor nobility. He's worried about his son. The boy has been acting strange, and now he's run off! He asks the PCs to help. This works best for if the PCs are midlevel, say levels 5-8.
The trip to find Gwidog turns into the hook for a *completely different adventure*. Like, in order to find Gwidog they have to travel through a village, and the village turns out to be run by demon cultists, or is paying tribute to a dragon. Or they go through a forest, and they're attacked by an owlbear that's been enraged by a poison wound, because poachers. Or they walk into the middle of a war between loggers and treants. You get the idea. There should be roughly a module's worth of stuff between them and Gwidog.
But! From time to time, someone will /mention/ Gwidog-Sha! And, oh yeah, he can throw fire. And he can turn people into his followers. Have ordinary people, peasants and such, seem vaguely impressed and fearful of him. This works best if the adventure is taking place in a backwards region where folks are not very sophisticated. Anyway: having battled their way through two or three sessions of craziness, and possibly having leveled up, the PCs finally will encounter Gwidog-Sha! He is a sorceror and he's used his powers to take over a village...
...and he's CR-3. Like, if the PCs are 6th level, he's 4rd level. Gwidog-Sha! is a weedy young man with a scraggly beard. He wears garish robes of pink and orange (he designed them himself and they clash rather horribly). He can indeed throw fire -- Burning Hands -- and can dominate minds -- Charm Person. He yells a lot about how it's his natural right to dominate lesser minds and bring a new order to the world, where the innately superior (like himself) are seen as the natural rulers they are. Well, he yells a lot about everything. When he gets really excited his voice cracks and he sprays a bit of spittle.
Gwidog-Sha! isn't evil -- he's CN -- but he's arrogant, thin-skinned, and stupid. He has low Int, extremely low Wis, and a crippling case of Dunning-Kruger Syndrome. He truly believes that he's one of the greatest sorcerors of the age. Obvious rejoinders will bounce off his near-invincible self-assurance. Sure, he doesn't throw more than a few spells right now, but that's just because he's /perfecting/ them. With just a bit of study and practice, soon he'll be summoning demons and blasting giants with fireballs. He just hasn't gotten around to it yet, is all. No, you're confused.
Dealing with Gwidog-Sha! is left as an exercise in roleplaying. Arguing with him is almost impossible. On the plus side, manipulating him, especially through flattery, is absolutely an option -- he literally has a negative Sense Motive modifier. Or the PCs can just knock him out, tie him up, and drag him home. Cruel DMs may have him squirm loose from his bonds at an interesting moment -- say, when the PCs are in a delicate negotiation with a powerful monster for passage through its territory. "Why are you bargaining with this brute? Behold, I shall burn it to ash!"
Obviously this is the sort of thing that will work better with some groups than others; season to taste.
This is a plot seed for low to midlevel PCs. It is unashamedly stolen from The Librarians, because it's a cool idea. Hat tip to John Rogers.
* * * * *
The PCs are travelling through a forest or similar wilderness area. It's raining. Suddenly they hear the sound of distant shouts or screams! Investigating, they quickly encounter a young woman staggering through the underbrush. She is disheveled, covered in blood, and almost incoherent with terror.
"That... that thing! It has my friends! Oh, gods, they're still in there!" [breaks down sobbing]
Upon examination: she is well but not expensively dressed, and shows signs of elven blood. (She is, in fact, a half-elf.) Although her clothes have been slashed by what look like claws, her injuries are minor -- there's a lot of blood, but most of it is not hers. A simple Diplomacy check will calm her down enough to get her story.
She and her friends were a group of young people who dreamed of becoming bold adventurers. One day, they encountered an empty house in the woods and decided to explore it. Adventurers in training, right? And this seemed harmless enough... Alas, they had hardly entered the house when horrible, terrifying things began to happen. They tried to leave, but doors locked, windows suddenly looked out on vast terrifying otherplanar landscapes... and then the Bad Man came. One by one, they were taken. Except for the Last Girl: she remembered that she carried a magical scroll, a spell that opened doors. She's had just a little magical training (she wants to go to the Academae someday), so never dared try it before, but... it worked! She escaped!
But her friends are still in there.
(Additional wrinkle: she may mention in passing that they're from [city] in [country]. However, the PCs are traveling through [other country], and [city] is hundreds of miles away from here! If this is pointed out, the Last Girl will become a bit hysterical for a while. "We -- we can't be in Varisia! That's a /foreign country/!")
Okay, so the PCs investigate the house. Right off, this place looks creepy as hell; it's an ancient house, with a design from a couple of centuries ago, but the walls are cracked and stained, the yard is choked with weeds, strange fungi grow out of the woodwork, and so forth. Possibly some oversized moths are flapping slowly around... season to taste. Rain (you remember it was raining?) streams off the roof as thunder rumbles ominously overhead.
Above the door are wooden letters spelling out the words "R E F U G E". Give the PCs a moderately difficult Knowledge (history or local) check. If someone succeeds, they get
Quote:
The Legend of the House of Refuge
Centuries ago, a kindly wizard built a house to be a refuge for those in need. The poor, the hungry, the desperate, those fleeing from war or persecution... they would find the house magically appearing across their path. Once they stepped inside, all their needs would be attended to; it was warm and safe and food, drink and clothing would magically appear. The House of Refuge could move somehow from place to place, arriving wherever it was needed.
But then one day, the House went bad. Nobody knows why, but it changed. Now it wanders the world, luring victims inside, and then slowly and horribly killing them.
So now what? Well, greed and curiosity should nudge the PCs inside. If not, Last Girl will begin weeping: "My friends are still in there! Oh, can't you please help them? You're adventurers... isn't that what you do?" If the PCs still hesitate, she'll rummage through her pack and pull out a scroll -- "This is all I have. Take it! Just, please, help them!" The scroll should be a random first or second level spell. The goal here is not so much to bribe the PCs as to emphasize Last Girl's pathetic desperation.
Into the House:
Once the PCs go inside, stuff starts to happen. Things fly through the air and just miss them. Doors open or close when they're not looking. There are horrible disturbing visions. Words like GET OUT and DEATH appear in blood on the walls. Animated objects attack them, then fall to the ground. And they can hear something moving around upstairs...
Last Girl clearly does not want to go back in the house, but she doesn't want to be alone either. So she'll go in with PCs. At some point a muffled shriek will be heard from another room; Last Girl will yell, "That's my friend! John, are you all right?" and will run through a door. If the PCs follow, there will of course be something dangerous and horrible on the other side. In fact, Last Girl will show a positive talent for wandering off stupidly by herself. If not followed, she'll disappear, leaving only a pool of blood and a torn item of clothing.
Efforts to escape the house will be fruitless; opening the door reveals a formless grey void, or worse. In fact the House is its own demiplane, and can move from place to place or world to world. And it doesn't want the PCs to leave...
What's actually going on here:
The House of Refuge never changed; it's still a good place. Unfortunately, it's been taken over by a very bad person. Some years back, a very wicked young woman made a pact with the Abyss. She gained the services of a powerful demon... but in return, she had to murder an innocent at least once per month. This worked great for a while, but finally justice caught up with her. She fled, with the forces of good right behind her... and encountered the House of Refuge.
The poor House foolishly let her in, and since then everything has gone to Hell. The House is something like a construct; it's programmed to respond to need. And she *needs* to kill people -- if she doesn't, she dies and the demon takes her soul to the Abyss. That's a very powerful need! So the hapless House, thanks to a glitch in its programming, has been turned into a mobile base of operations for a Chaotic Evil serial killer and her demonic sidekick. The panicked, hapless Last Girl is, in fact, the BBEG.
Last Girl:
I see Last Girl as a sorceress with a level of rogue, but season to taste -- if you think something else will work better, go for it. I'd put her three levels ahead of the APL, plus the rogue level. So if you have a party of 3rd level PCs, she's a Rog 1 / Sor 6. If your party is bigger than the standard four, or the players are very experienced, add another level of sorceror or two levels of rogue. Her Bluff should be sky-high -- rakshasa bloodline is good here -- and she should have lots of illusion and misdirection spells, along with something to conceal her alignment. She'll probably have Still Spell and Silent Spell too. She's cocky and overconfident -- this is all a fun game for her. But part of the game is to stay concealed until the last possible moment, so she will make every effort to do that. If she fails a Bluff check, or the PCs become suspicious otherwise, her first trick will be to burst into hysterical tears and then faint.
As for the demon companion, at APL 1 or 2 it's a quasit. At higher levels it can be a babau, a shadow demon (recommended!) or a vrock. Add PC levels and/or templates to adjust, but you want a CR that's APL +3 or so. The demon is the sub-boss; the PCs should not confront the demon and the Last Girl at the same time.
Inside the House:
The PCs should be encouraged to think "haunted house, inhabited by a monster / magical serial killer". In fact there are three things going on here. First, the House of Refuge is trying to warn the PCs. Unfortunately it's not designed for talking, so it's limited to cryptic messages in blood and the like. It locks the PCs in and plane-shifts because it senses that they are powerful adventurers, and is hoping they will prove Last Girl's undoing. It will try to warn them if it can, but its programming won't allow it to attack Last Girl directly.
Second, there are restless spirits of Last Girl's previous victims. These can be anything from minor haunts up to seriously dangerous undead. The House reluctantly protects Last Girl from them, but they can be very threatening to the PCs.
Third, of course, there's Last Girl and her demon pal. Last Girl will try to lure or maneuver PCs into danger, softening them up; the demon will strike from the shadows and then retreat, using hit and run tactics. The demon's nature should not be immediately obvious; it should wear a dark hooded robe, cloak itself in shadow, make use of illusions, or otherwise take care to disguise what it really is.
For most of the session, Last Girl and the demon will be toying with the PCs. Only once the demon is revealed and defeated will Last Girl realize that there's a serious problem here, pull the gloves off and start striking to kill.
Environmental issues:
All light in the house is reduced a step -- normal darkness acts like no-darkvision magical darkness, low light requires darkvision to see, and so forth.
Oddly, the House does not radiate evil. (Clue!) Attempts to smash walls or doors will work, but the House will "heal" the damage within a minute as soon as the PCs backs are turned.
And, a big one: healing spells don't work here. (It's a side effect of the House's extraplanar nature.) At your discretion, a paladin's Lay on Hands and healing potions might still function -- but normal healing, nope, you got nothin'. If these seems too much, you could allow healing to be impeded instead -- but keep in mind that this is an excellent way to crank up the tension. PCs suddenly get a *lot* more cautious when they can't just be healed...
Wrapping it up:
If the PCs manage to kill Last Girl, they win! A search will now reveal a cupboard full of treasure, taken from Last Girl's previous victims. The House quickly recovers, becoming a normal looking small house surrounded by a lovely garden. It rewards the PCs with hot baths and a Hero's Feast and then drops them off wherever is most convenient for them. The House is now an ally of the PCs, and may show up again some day when they are in particularly desperate need.
If you really want to get wacky, you can basically turn the PC party into Doctor Who: the House lets them stay as long as they like, and it can take them anywhere in the multiverse! However, it does have a strong attraction to places where people are in danger, in trouble, or in need...
Troubleshooting:
PCs can be super paranoid. They may quite reasonably be suspicious of Last Girl! And there's tremendous variation among parties. Some will charge right in, others will *never* go in there. Some will throw the Girl in a sack -- hell, some will torture and kill her -- but others will close ranks to protect her. It really depends.
You need to know what button to push to get them to enter the house. Saving innocent people? Getting treasure? Fighting something new? Maybe have the Girl announce, with trembling lip, that if they won't go in... *she* will save her friends. She saw someone cast the Protecting from Evil spell, once, so she's pretty sure she can do it.
And of course, consider hinting at treasure. Don't be obvious about it! Hint. Like, "It was a mess inside, and smelled bad, but there didn't seem to be anything dangerous... until we got to the room with the books. I told Bob, I told him not to touch anything, but..." Nothing gets PCs interested like creepy powerful magic books.
Some specific potential problems:
-- "The PCs aggressively interrogate the Girl!" -- she breaks down crying. (Remember, her Bluff should be high high high.) If they see through her Bluff, or attack her, she flees. Consider having her pre-buff a bit -- Expeditious Retreat is good -- if you think your PCs might go this route.
-- "The PCs attack the Girl!" -- if your PCs are murderhobos, maybe don't even bother with this scenario. It works best with good-aligned characters, obviously, though neutral characters may also be vulnerable to sympathy or greed.
-- "The PCs set fire to the House!" -- guys it's raining really hard. But if they're determined to damage the House from the outside, then the Girl darts inside and the House just teleports away: skip to "They Won't Bite", below.
-- "The PCs throw the Girl in a sack!" -- if your PCs are really that level of crazy paranoid, then skip this scenario entirely. You might, however, consider a scenario where they encounter a hysterical injured girl who actually is running from a monster... and who is also the child of a powerful, influential and extremely thin-skinned local nobleman. "You threw my daughter in a *what*?" Season to taste.
Nope, they just won't bite:
If the PCs ABSOLUTELY refuse to take the bait... then, okay, they don't. Any paladin in the party should be very ashamed, but a party of standard PC murderhobos can probably shrug and move on.
Don't punish them for this! In fact, quite the opposite. A few sessions later, the PCs encounter an adventurer who tells a horrible story: he's the last survivor of a party who met a desperate young woman in the woods. The rest of them followed her inside the house, but he stayed outside to keep watch. He heard them screaming... and then he heard the Girl's voice. Laughing. Laughing.
And then a few sessions after *that*, have the PCs travelling along, when suddenly Last Girl runs out into the path in front of them, screaming, "Help! My friends!" And then she looks at the PCs, says, "Oh, crap." And turns around and runs back to the House and in the door.
You won't have the advantage of surprise with that one, but you can still have a rousing adventure through the House, culminating in a fun boss fight with the Girl and her demon pal. Never waste a hook, amirite?
Follow the dwarf! So simple. Dwarves, like halflings, are strangers in the lands of Men. So if the dwarf got a good reception, then the Men would be friendly. It made sense. When the dwarf plunged into the forest... well, obviously he must know where he was going. So, keep following him, more closely now.
Confidence turned to unease on the first night. The forest was unnerving by day, but by night it was terrifying. And unease became real fear on the the second day, when you realized the dwarf was going in circles.
Let's talk a moment about Radagast. The Brown Wizard is the most famous inhabitant of the Woodmen's realm. And he'll surely show up at some point. When he does, what should you expect?
1) Let's get one thing out of the way: he's not the ditzy Sylvester McCoy character from the Hobbit movies. Radagast is a Wizard, and that's serious business. Saruman held him in contempt and called him a fool, but by that point Saruman held *everyone* in contempt. And Radagast was deceived by Saruman, but so was everyone else -- including Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel.
Wizards are serious business. They're Maiar, for starters. But even putting that aside, they're hugely powerful. Saruman is an almost irresistible enchanter who creates a new and improved species of orc and ends up becoming Sauron Lite. Gandalf goes toe-to-toe with a Balrog. Even if Radagast is much weaker than either of them -- and there's no text evidence for that -- he should still be a formidable Power in his own right.
2) Tolkien's characterization of Radagast is sketchy. That should leave a DM lots of room for interpretation -- but also, Tolkien went back and forth on whether Radagast had failed in his mission as a wizard, and if so, just how. Also, some of Tolkien's statements don't seem consistent with the facts that we're given. For instance, he suggests at one point that Radagast had little to do with Men -- but Rhosgobel is clearly in or near the land of the Woodmen. At another point he suggests that Radagast was either too kind, or too absorbed in Middle-Earth, its plants and its beasts. But this doesn't seem consistent with a Wizard living almost in the shadow of Dol Guldur. Radagast was practically nose-to-nose with Sauron for centuries. Much is made of Galadriel's struggle with the Shadow in Mirkwood... but Radagast was even closer! A dotty, distracted herbalist isn't likely to have lasted very long against the Necromancer.
So, here are a couple of things to know about (my vision of) Radagast.
First, Radagast is based at Rhosgobel, but he moves around a lot. In this sense, he's intermediate between Saruman (based in Orthanc) and Gandalf (no fixed abode, wanders). The Brown Wizard disappears for anything from a day or two to several years. Sometimes he lets the neighbors know when he'll be back. More often, he doesn't. (There's actually a tiny bit of textevd for this: in _Fellowship_, while they're resting at Rivendell, Elrond sends out scouts. One group of scouts visits Rhosgobel and finds Radagast gone.) He's in Rhosgobel more often than not, but he can pop up anywhere in Wilderland.
Second, Radagast is the most reluctant of the Wizards to offer advice or direction. In this case, I see a continuum from Saruman (always lordly and quick to direct others) through Gandalf (a wise advisor and counselor, quick to point out folly, but lets others make their choices) to Radagast (may be helpful, but reluctant even to give advice.)
All this won't be relevant for a while, but may be useful if you're thinking about backstory. Also, when the campaign begins, Radagast is Not At Home.
This is a fast, open recruitment for a 5e Middle-Earth campaign based on Cubicle 7's 5e Middle-Earth books. You need a copy of the Cubicle 7 5e Middle-Earth Player's Guide to apply.
"Fast" means it'll all be over in a very few days. I already have 3 players, so I'm only looking for 1-2 more.
If you’re applying to this game, please post the following information into this thread using the spoilered format below. Please also look at the information in the spoilers before proceeding further!
CHARACTER NAME
Outline of Mechanics / Character choices:
Please list the following:
What Culture your character is from (if you want to play a Culture not in the player’s guide, please point me to which sourcebook it’s in and be aware that the answer might be ‘no’).
What Class you intend to play.
If you already know which Specialty/Path/Archetype you want to take (e.g. Agent/Burglar for the Treasure Hunter class), please list that as well.
If you know what Virtue you intend to start with (if applicable), please list that as well.
The Background you have selected. (Note that you DON’T need to write the background – although see the Description spoiler below – you just need to let me know which one you’re picking); plus the Distinctive Quality, Specialty, Hope and Despair that you are going for. You can either roll dice for these or choose them, I don’t mind.
Description:
This is where you sell me on your character. I don’t need much more than a couple of paragraphs, but you should at least weave together the background, distinctive quality, hope and despair in some coherent fashion.
Tell me why your hero has found themselves at or near Rhosgobel, in the southwest of Mirkwood, in the year 2946 of the Third Age. Tell me who they are, beyond their bare statistics: their quirks, habits, appearance, mannerisms; bring them to life.
We're going to be WRITING for each other's entertainment. So show me what you've got!
Tolkien level:
You do NOT have to be a Tolkien fan to apply. However, I'll be curious to know how much familiarity you have, whether it's "I heard there were movies...?" or "Let me tell you about the two missing Wizards."
Comments / Questions:
This is where you post anything you want me to know about you the player, or any questions you have for me.
And then...
FYI stuff!:
I have the following comments, so please read them carefully to avoid any unfortunate misunderstandings later down the line.
* Unfamiliarity breeds error. I have not used the 5e game system nearly as much as the PF1/3.5 game systems. Please be kind to me if/when I make any mistakes with the rules.
* This game won’t play itself. From what I have read it looks like – more than most PbP games – this game requires significant input from the player characters in order to keep going. The Fellowship phase is almost entirely player-driven, and the last thing I as DM want to be doing is chasing you to ask “what now? What now?” What really warms my heart is when I log in from my previous posting and see that the PCs have not been idle in my absence. Conversely, logging in to see that there are no new posts feels like the entire weight of the game is on me to move it forward. The more work you put in to create and play an interesting character, the more opportunity you have for interaction with the other characters. Which makes me happier and more excited about posting. Which creates more opportunities for you to post. It’s a virtuous cycle.
* Middle-Earth needs heroes. I enjoy fantasy noir, greyscale morality plays and antiheroes as much as the next person. But Tolkien’s work is based on moral absolutes and the struggle against the Shadow and I intend to be faithful to that spirit. To that end, I want characters with a nobility of purpose - yes, even (or perhaps especially?) those with the Reluctant Adventurer background. Committing misdeeds will bring you Shadow Points. Antiheroes, brigands, murderhobos and ne’er-do-wells: leave now and never come back.
* You cannot do this alone. Imagine if Beorn had turned the dwarves away and refused to help them. Or if Lórien had closed its borders to the Fellowship. Or if Merry and Pippin had alienated Treebeard, rather than befriending him. An investment in social skills (Tradition, Insight, Persuasion etc.) will reap dividends.
* Against the Shadow, there is no ultimate victory. Those who will accomplish the destruction of Sauron have – in most cases – not yet been born by the time our adventure starts. Your accomplishments will be minor by comparison, but you may yet change lives on an individual scale and bring a measure of peace for a brief time. Or not. The Enemy you face is dangerous indeed and your character may fail, and perish; and you need to be OK with that. I’m not one of those DMs who takes personal glee in killing off PCs – but I have limited scope to “fix” an unfortunately-timed critical or an unwise decision. In order to sweeten this slightly bitter pill, if your character dies and you’re a good sport about it and write them an end worthy of song, I’ll let your next character start with Inspiration.
* It's a writing game. Not gonna lie: spelling, grammar and presentation all matter. We may be locked in a small virtual room with each other for months. If you write that goblins killed your character's parents by "burning they're house down", well, I just know that over time that sort of thing is going to drive me slowly nuts. Sorry. (N.B., if you're not a native English speaker, say so -- that's different.)
Where / when in Middle-Earth are we?:
Among the Woodmen, who live along the southeastern edge of Mirkwood. To the east is the deepness of Mirkwood, full of mystery and danger. To the west are rolling plains that slope gently down to the Anduin. North and west are the lands of the Beornings.
Rhosgobel, home of Radagast the Grey, lies at the southern edge of the Woodmen's domain. South of Rhosgobel the wood quickly becomes very dangerous indeed. Just two days south is the accursed fortress of Dol Guldur, former home of the Necromancer. That horrible entity was driven out just a few years ago, and Dol Guldur now lies empty... or so they say.
The year is 2946: five years after the events of The Hobbit, when the dragon Smaug was killed and the Necromancer was driven out of Dol Guldur. Trade is picking up, people are traveling around. The Shadow seems to have withdrawn.
It's a hopeful time!
In game terms, any type of character could work, but Woodmen, Wood Elves, and Beornings are obvious (and strong) character options.
Let's talk commitment:
I'm looking for a fast-paced game with forward momentum. So, I'm after at least one post per day, on average. If you don't think you can make that commitment, don't apply.
I'll commit to keeping this going for at least 60 days or the first two encounter sets, whichever comes first. When we reach that waypoint, we can pause and decide whether we want to continue.
So there's a Humble Bundle right now with Cubicle 7's 5e Middle-Earth books.
This is actually a pretty incredible Bundle. You can get the Players Guide plus a bunch of other stuff for just $1. Cubicle 7 did an *amazing* job of adapting the 5e engine to role-playing in Middle-Earth. The quality is consistently very high. This may be the best Middle-Earth RPG anyone has ever done, and the best that anyone will do for many years to come. Rumor has it that Cubicle 7 is losing the license. IDK if that's true, but it would explain why they're selling hundreds of dollars worth of stuff for $15 or less.
Anyway! This is making me wonder if there's interest in a 5eME campaign. There's one running on this forum right now. It's a high quality campaign that's been going for a couple of years -- but it's the only one. If we wanted to start another one, there'd be some prerequisites:
1) You'd have to pick up the Players Guide. Right now you can do that for just $1. (Honestly, that whole bundle is a steal.)
2) You'd have to be willing to commit to a fast-paced campaign. I'd be looking for a 90 day commitment, and then we'll see whether we want to continue.
3) It would be a role-playing intensive campaign. Knowledge of Tolkien is not required, but you'd have to be willing to lean into the Middle-Earth aspect -- playing heroes, not murder-hoboes, and like that.
1) Okay, this is actually a pretty incredible Bundle. You can get the Players Guide plus a bunch of stuff for $1. Raise it to $8 and they throw in the Loremaster's Guide (DM Guide) and a bunch MORE stuff -- including the excellent Mirkwood campaign. And for just $15 you get pretty much everything Cubicle 7 has ever published.
2) Cubicle 7 did an *amazing* job of adapting the 5e engine to role-playing in Middle-Earth. This may be the best Middle-Earth RPG anyone has ever done, and the best that anyone will do for many years to come.
3) Rumor has it that they're losing the license. IDK if that's true, but it would explain why they're selling hundreds of dollars worth of stuff for $15 or less.
4) Honestly, this is just great stuff. It's provoked an emotion I rarely feel: pleasure and admiration just from reading an RPG splatbook or scenario. The whole thing is an obvious labor of love. The quality is consistently high. Many of the scenarios could be adapted to other systems with just a bit of tweaking.
This may be the single most amazing TTRPG Humble Bundle I've seen (although the PFRPG "buy all the 1e campaign books", which is running right now is a close second). Strongly, strongly recommended.
It looks like a bunch of campaigns started when this first came out (autumn 2017), but they all seem to have fizzled out pretty quickly.
The Levee is a really interesting AP. I'm honestly not sure how good / playable it is *as an AP* -- with all respect to Mr. Pett, it reads more like a super sandboxy collection of high concepts than an AP as such. If I ever ran it, I suspect I'd have to modify the hell out of it to make it coherent and playable. But it's very interesting -- there are a lot of cool ideas and no shortage of well developed NPCs and weird, intriguing situations. So I'm mildly surprised to see that no group ever stuck with it.
Is this just the usual "every time a new AP comes out, a bunch of new PBP campaigns begin and within 90 days six out of seven have fizzled"? Or is it that non-Paizo APs generate less interest and have less staying power? Or something else?
Not that there's anything wrong with the SDS! I always thought it was a clever idea to hardwire them into Golarion with the Runelords and all. But they're not the only game in town.
Moral philosopher Jonathan Haidt has six "moral values", each of which has an opposite. If you google Haidt you'll find a lot more detail, but here's the short version: the more or less "positive" moral values are
Care
Fairness
Loyalty
Authority
Sanctity
Liberty
A couple of details: People sometimes balk at "authority" as a positive moral value, but the idea there is that almost everyone recognizes that there are some sorts of legitimate authority that should, under normal circumstances, be respected and/or obeyed. Also, "sanctity" includes a lot of religious values but goes further -- it includes things that we consider precious or important. If you're unhappy at the idea of chopping down a grove of redwoods, that's probably coming under "sanctity".
Okay so: each of these has an opposite.
Care --> Harm
Fairness --> Cheating
Loyalty --> Betrayal
Authority --> Subversion
Sanctity --> Degradation
Liberty --> Oppression
Most of us view the second column as negative moral values -- we don't want them to be directed at us, and we usually don't want to think that we're engaging in them, and if we do engage in them we usually try to lie to ourselves about them. 'Authority / Subversion' may seem odd here, but remember that Haidt is talking about morally legitimate authority; if you acknowledge the government as a legitimate authority, then you probably pay your taxes and resent people who don't.
Anyway: it seems like this could be an interesting / fun framework to build into a game. Actually, I half wonder if anyone out there has tried already...
I ask because I just noticed there are still a few copies of Zogonia on sale in the store.
It's not that Zogonia disappeared after a single collection... that's not too unusual. (See. e.g., Downer and about half a dozen others.) But the author / artist, Tony Moreland? He seems to have disappeared without a trace; I can't find any sign of him online. That's... less usual.
PC is a 5th level wizard starting a Lovecraft / Mythos scenario. It's been established he has a Mythos-related backstory, but no details have yet been filled in -- at the moment, it's a "Noodle Incident" type of thing. I have some ideas, but I'd be interested to hear what the group mind comes up. Here's what I've got so far:
-- incident was Mythos-related
-- incident was horrific
-- one or more innocents were killed. The wizard PC did not *directly* cause the death of the innocents, but he absolutely feels complicit and guilty.
-- the wizard PC used to be your classic arrogant jerk wizard who is all about the pursuit of KNOWLEDGE
-- I think the wizard PC had one or more bosses or patrons (who were probably a lot more evil, and who may or may not have survived).
And at the end of the day the wizard PC staggers away, sanity barely intact, plagued by terrible guilt, recurring flashbacks, and the Spooked drawback. Which, as everyone who has ever played Call of Cthulhu knows, is about the best possible outcome for surviving a Mythos incident...
Holomog hasn't had a lot of attention. So far there's only been a single six-page article in Distant Shores, written by Crystal Frazier back in 2015 or so. But it's different and interesting and I really hope Paizo returns there.
1) Holomog is the mirror image of Nidal -- it's a human land that survived Earthfall by making a deal with the good-aligned Empyreal Lords. So Holomog is a capital-G Good-aligned land, but (as far as we can tell) not in a stupid way. And it's ancient -- like Nidal, it should have lore and records going back thousands of years.
2) Holomog is a matriarchal society with a very different social structure from anything else on Golarion. At the top, it's run by the omwa -- a handful of people with near-godlike powers who rule (as far as we can tell) wisely and well. (Those people are all women, mind... apparently there was one male who reached that level, and all we're told is that it didn't work out well.)
3) Holomog is plugged into the Geb-Nex rivalry; they border Geb and have warred with it (unsuccessfully), while Nex is as friendly as an evil undead kingdom can possibly be.
4) Holomog has an unusual ethnic mix (a society of humans but with significant minorities of aasimars, catfolk, grippli, and ganzi) on top of an unusual religious mix (almost everyone worships an Empyreal Lord, except for some Green Faithers). Oh, and there are some people who worship Asmodeus as a Lawful Neutral female deity... and some of them can be LG and still be clerics of Asmodeus... and somehow that seems to work. I suspect that last bit may get retconned out, because 2E seems to be more rigid about that sort of thing. But it's the sort of cool weird detail that is sprinkled across the whole writeup.
5) Finally, Crystal wrote a bunch of interesting mysteries into the setting. What caused the Paroxysys, the mysterious detonation that destroyed Old Anuli? Who was the one man who passed the Crucible, and why didn't it work out well? Why does a neutral good-aligned land produce so many ganzi? What's going on at the bottom of Crater Lake? These were well done, and left at least this reader eager to know more.
Did anyone else find this stuff interesting? Are there other Holomog fans out there?
