Chopper Island was a trigger left unused as a curiosity for players and GMs, so you can do what you want of it and it won't mess the adventure, rest assured.
Precisely I did just that on my late sessions, except I connected it with chapter 5 with just a dash of express-expanded dungeon (thanks to Donjon's instant dungeon generator).
It all started with Hemlock being jailed for brutally murdering Chopper's mom, and he was caught in-fraganti. After talking to Helmock, our cleric heroine finds out that he went to seek the missing Brodent Quint, whom no one has seen for days since he went to poke around the Old Light. The last thing the sheriff remembers is walking to Chopper Isle.
...Where he got possessed by Chopper's Ghost, when he finally got back to his senses, he had a bloody knife in his hands, a corpse at his feet, and guards pointing pikes at him. Also, while this happened, Chopper (invisibly) switched bodies to one of the guards, whom he'd use later to create a hostage situation while he was talking with the cleric. Good old Jarvis used his hostage to lure Hemlock again to Chopper Isle, where the ghost plans to exact his final revenge.
The latter parts got a bit messy as silly me forgot about Pazuzu's existance completely and went for something else entirely involving a Vrock, also our heroic cleric wasn't able to figure out what issues still fetter Chopper, so the ghost will still be around to haunt some more. All in all it was a good time or so I hope.
1. By joining their tentacles together with a fashionable brooch and pinning the rest to their bodies in tasteful designs, a hollowed-out Flumph makes for a most stylish handbag worthy of the best fashion designer.
Remember 2E, where both PCs and monsters gained only 1 or 2 HP per hit die after lvl 10? Anyone would feel like braving such an end game like that?
On the bad side, we'd all have less HP, yes, but on the good side, monsters would no longer have the absurd amounts of HP that make weapon damage obsolete, even the Evocation School would make sense once more.
By the way, snacks? Remember snacks? Theys are still getting away.
I accept both your apology and your invitation to share your snack... there's something about shiny, naive clerics of Iomedae that make them so delectably fun to tease. Just don't shatter her sanity, she wouldn't be as fun then. Would she have any brothers or family in the clergy by chance?
Littlest Elder God wrote:
Hows about 'Busy Little Bee' has a better ring to it than 'Busy Little Wasp'?
Stick to 'little wasp' if you want to play it safe.
Wasps have to seek their victims. They have no lure of hoarded sweetness and their song is harsh. And they maim spiders to lay their eggs inside it; fun but not all that lusty.
A wasp may have a tiny waist but then so does an ant and so does a skeleton. The bee is more attractive. Much more.
*is petting her giant wasp of a herald, the Menotherian doesn't look pleased at all* ...and some wasps have two stingers and will also lay their eggs inside anything fleshy enough to feed their larvae. By the way, you're not helping your situation.
I bicker enough with Urgathoa over the necrophiles and passional cannibals as to have yet another god stepping on my portfolio's shoes, and Urgathoa just ate the last lawyer Abadar left as mediator so I'll get to the point: Dagon, stay away from the lust domain or I'll give every single orc in Belkzen the hots for you!
The rest can continue, keep making me proud sweeties.
GM: The mass of vegetative matter rises up before you, its branches flailing like the tentacles of a squid being sucked into a whirlpool, its gaping maw revealing nasty, throny teeth. Roll for initiative!
Player: Hey guys—that's a tendriculos. It regenerates, but if we use bludgeoning weapons and acid, we'll be fine. Don't waste your mind-influencing spells—they won't work. And don't bother trying to flank it—it's immune to crits.
I can hear your collective sighs. Of course, you could combat this with a collection of monster books that takes up two bookshelves, or you could nerf the Knowledge skills to make sure the PCs can't know everything your players do.
...or you could actually grow a spine as DM! Yes! With our new line of DM self-help books, you too can develop what it takes to make clear statements like:
1) And how the hell does your character know what a Tendriculous is??
2) Do you have the required Knowledge: Religion ranks to know a lich' weakpoint is his phyllactery?
...and our writers' favorite
3) Metagamers will get no XP for the rest of the adventure, the DM has spoken.
Yes! You too can grow a pair, order your copy today!
</PARODY>
**************************************
Parodies apart... I love the idea of guidelines for creating my own monsters, I'd buy the book, but the advertisement can't be more SAD, as if characters developing expertise was actually a bad thing.
Sure, every table has a player that will try to metagame his way beyond what his character knows (ie his personal experience and/or knowledge skills), but if the DM can't stop metagaming in his table himself, then his problem is not players knowing, it's spinelessness.
--------------------
Defense
-------------------- AC 15, touch 13, flat-footed 12 (+2 Leather Armor, +3 Dex)
HP 16
Fort +2, Ref +3, Will +4
--------------------
Offense
-------------------- Speed 30 ft.
Melee
- Sickle +1 [Slashing] 1d6, x2
- Dagger +1 [Piercing or Slashing] 1d4, 19-20/x2
- Bite +1 [Piercing] 1d4, x2
- Melee Touch Attack +1
Ranged
- Dagger +4 [Piercing] 1d4, 19-20/x2
- Ranged Touch Attack +4
--------------------
Statistics
-------------------- Str 10, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 17
Base Atk +1; CMB +1; CMD 15(+3 Dex, +1 trait)
Favorite Class Bonus +1 skill point
Feats
- Realistic Likeness (can mimic individuals, +10 to disguise to do that)
- Magical Tail (1x, 1/day disguise self)
Traits
- Nature's Mimic (+1 to Kn. Nature and Geography, Kn. Nature as class skill)
- Friends in Every Town (+1 to Diplomacy, Kn. Local as class skill)
- Noble Born(Orlovsky)(+1 to CMD and Stealth)
Racial Traits
- Agile (+2 to Acrobatics)
- Change Shape(Su) (switches between kitsune and human form, +10 to Disguise to appear human)
- Natural Weapons (in kitsune form, bite, 1d4)
- Duplicitous(+2 to Bluff and Disguise)
- Low-Light Vision
Skill Points 7/level
Skills(ranks)
- Acrobatics +5 (0 ranks, +3 Dex, +2 racial)
- Bluff +10 (2 ranks, +3 Cha, +2 racial, +3 class)
- Diplomacy +9 (2 ranks, +3 Cha, +1 trait, +3 class) [+1 against non-hostile characters]
- Disguise +9 (1 ranks, +3 Cha, +2 racial, +3 class) [+12 to look human in human form, +10 to look like an individual]
- Linguistics +3 (1 rank, +2 Int)
- Knowledge(local) +8 (2 ranks, +2 Int, +3 class, +1 trait)
- Knowledge(nature) +8 (2 ranks, +2 Int, +3 class, +1 trait)
- Sleight of Hand +7 (1 rank, +3 Dex, +3 class)
- Spellcraft +7 (2 ranks, +2 Int, +3 class)
- Stealth +9 (2 ranks, +3 Dex, +3 class, +1 trait)
1 available Languages Common, Sylvan, Elven, Celestial, Draconic
Magic Items --
ScrollsComprehend Languages Mundane Items
- Oracle's Kit (backpack, bedroll, belt pouch, candles (10), flint and steel, iron pot, mess kit, rope, soap, torches (5), trail rations (5 days), waterskin)
- Pickpocket's Outfit (+2 to hide items), Sickle, Leather Armor, 2 Daggers, Spring-loaded Wrist Sheath (loaded with dagger), lute
- Stag amulet(Happs), amber amulet (Father Christmas)
Encumbrance 44/33-66-100 lbs. (medium load), 19 (light load) without backpack
Moneyshared --------------------
Class features
-------------------- Oracle's Curse Wrecking Mysticism (+50% duration of poison, sickened and nauseated, can take Magical Tail instead of mystery spell)
Mystery Intrigue
Revelations Natural Divination (1/day can divine to get +Cha on a save, +10 on a skill check or +4 to initiative)
Oracle Spells Known
- Level 0
-- Light
-- Create Water
-- Detect Magic
-- Read Magic
- Level 1
-- Command
-- Cure Light Wounds
-- Embrace Destiny Spells per Day (0/1) infinite/5
Spell DC 13+level
--------------------
Backstory:
Despite their penchant for trickery, the fox folk society is tightly focused on tradition, ancestral wisdom and respect for nature. Any kitsune that found themselves blessed with oracolar powers would feel honored. Any kitsune who had a mystical and deep connection with nature would swell with pride. Any kitsune who was chosen by spirits as their guide and medium would be grateful and overjoyed.
Mamise Iwani is not any kitsune.
As a child, Mamise was as playful and free as anyone can be, living in a small village called Tanalta, deep in the Gronzi Forest, listening to folk tales from barges over the East Sellen River, playing with her friends, and generally frolicking freely.
Then, on the twelfth day after her twelfth birthday, her world shifted. She was wandering the woods with friends, looking for fey, when a wave of nausea washed over her. She doubled over on the grass of a clearing, retching violently as she felt a vibrant energy taking possession of her body. Her senses felt sharper, her tail resonated with dormant magic, and suddenly she felt all the nature around her, plants, animals and creatures coalescing together in a single, painfully clear figure, glowing with life. As her friends were trying to help her, she felt the apparition blessing and cursing her, and convulsed while wild magic surged in her heart.
During the following days her family and her village explained to her that she had been chosen as an oracle, a receptacle for mystical power and magic beyond comprehension. She was thrilled at first, exploring her newfound powers with glee and curiosity, although she felt herself much more prone to disease and nausea than before. Soon, though, the taste of her new abilities turned bitter in her mouth as she felt her freedom stripped away. Having become a rare and precious gift for the village, she was watched over constantly, forbidden from wandering alone, coddled and protected as a helpless baby. To add insult to the injury, she was forced to spend her days with the village elders, hearing them babble about things she did not care about like trade goods and duties organization.
She endured twenty months. Twenty months of unanswered pleas to her family, twenty months of reclusion in her own home village, until she could not stand it anymore. She sneaked away from her village in the dead of night, heading northwards, as far as possible from home. For two days she wandered, thinking only of putting as much road as possible between Tanalta and herself, but, while descending a steep hill, she had a violent attack of nausea, and in a retch she slipped and hit her head against a root, losing consciousness. She awoke late at night, seeing small motes of lights gathering around her.
Mamose thought they were fey, but inside her she knew that these were spirits, the same spirits that had bestowed upon her the powers and the curse. Fascinated by the strange creatures, she spent two nights and a day communing with them. At the second dawn she watched the flight of birds to find augury, and the divination told her the road to keep. In her heart was a newfound respect for her powers, and she finally started viewing her being tied to the spirit world as much a blessing as a curse.
Roaming north, putting as much road as she could between the Gronzi Forest and herself, she arrived to a town in the lands ruled by House Orlovsky, alone but free. All the time she spent there she spent disguised as a human, so as to avoid attracting attention. When her money had run out, she used her guile and tricks to have herself accepted as a maid in the house of the local squire, Stavros Vorvani, head of a minor branch of the Orlovsky family. Her beautiful appearance, grace and charm had her hired, and in a few years she had risen to the high position of lady's maid for Erinda, Stavros' wife. The work was tiring, but not hard, she was trusted and respected by her adoptive family and she had some free time for herself to enjoy life, either in the village or with her fellow servants.
Things changed when Karlos, Stavros' only son and heir, returned home from his martial education. A tall and strapping young man, he immediately caught Mamise's eye just as she caught his. A random meeting turned into a flirt, a flirt turned into her free evening spent in Karlos' bedroom, one evening turned to many. The kitsune, though a consummate liar, fell for his honeyed words, promising to wed her, raise her status, lead her to a life of luxury, and, smitten, she believed him. Until the day when he was betrothed to the daughter of another local heir, leaving Mamise without giving her so much as an excuse or an explanation. Struck by rage but conscious that she had no chance for vengeance, she resigned from her job, took her savings and left town, not before having spread a few spicy and salacious rumors about all of the Vorvani family. A proclaim announced that adventurers were seeked to settle new, far lands. A perfect opportunity for her to run again.
--------------------
Appearance:
Reference
In both her forms, Mamise is lean and thin, her figure slender and youthful. In her natural form, she has auburn fur that turns to candid on her chin and chest, bright amber eyes and a continuous smirk on her face.
When in human form, her eyes keep the color, her skin is lightly bronzed by the sun and her shoulder-length hair are the same shade of auburn as her fur. Her body is skinny, hardly curvaceous, but graceful and attractive, and she usually covers it with revealing, light and eye-catching outfits, when she is not wearing armor (which she does not, unless she feels she has a reason to). She usually wears a light amount of makeup, and a hint of perfume.
--------------------
Personality:
Superficially, Mamise is egoistic. She likes to live a pleasant life, she is a glutton and a drinker and she seems no shame in this. She is not above tricking people to get an edge, deceiving without a second thought, bluffing her way through life. She has, however, a big, soft heart, and would have problems gaining an advantage from someone's downfall (unless, of course, she felt like such downfall was deserved). She would never swindle the poor, abuse the downtrodden or exploit the helpless, and she would die before depriving an innocent of his freedom.
She is bright and cheery, sometimes forcedly so, trying to enjoy everything that the world has to offer, delighting in revelry and company, although being forced to leave home not once but twice made her slightly reluctant to forge stable bonds. She knows a large amount of songs, from melancholic ballads to bawdy tavern songs, and will gladly sing at any time and place. Mamise enjoys flirts, but has no desire for a relationship, not after the scandalous end of her story with Karlos.
Her love for trickery knows almost no bounds. She might make terrible puns at inappropriate times or play practical jokes and she has a special love for disguising shenanigans. Luckily, she is also capable of laughing at herself should she ever be the butt of the joke.
She is no longer shy and afraid to show her magic, but right now she has little love for it, remembering how she was cast from her village. She stays most of the time in human form, reverting back when she is alone, but she is trying to stop this habit, after the bad experience with the Vorvani family.
She is terribly afraid of growing old, not being any longer able to enjoy life to the fullest and possibly turning into an oppressive, stubborn, obstreperous geezer like her village elders. Her bright attitude is, somehow, her way of avoiding regrets and being sure that she will be able, one day, to say "I have lived a fulfilled and joyful life".
-----
Promemoria:
A dip in Swashbuckler (Flying Blade, Veiled Blade) could be fun
"Fishing a knife from the folds of her frock, the foxfolk flings it at the furthermost foe."
