Rusty Shackleford's page

So, to preface:

I'm currently running a game that started out in Kaer Maga, but has since spread into a planet-hopping campaign. At the moment, I'm having a lot of fun ripping off John Carter on Akiton, as the players are following the advice of a cryptic soothsayer and a trio of caulborn, trying to figure out what to do with their McGuffin.

Anyhoo, they've been led to the partially-excavated site of a buried Dominion of the Black spacecraft. The diggers were already killed or turned into Bodaks when they arrived, and now they're about to 'port into the craft's interior. I have a week to make the creepiest, brain-ripp'nest, geigerest dungeon I can manage. It's gonna be more than a series of combat encounters; puzzles, environmental hazards, tragic prisoners that can't be saved, the works.

I just need to populate the damn thing.

A band of Mi-Go and their minions are already prowling around the place, led by "Mr. Grey," an Alchemist (vivisectionist).

I'm also considering using the occasional bodak as a sort of "trap" (open door, bodak on the other side, everyone saves vs gaze before you have time to close your eyes).

Final boss might be an advanced Heresy Ooze (from Inner Sea Bestiary).

I'm also going to use a Devourer or two, maybe hooked up to the ship's systems somehow.

So, I come to you guys looking for ideas: I need suggestions for monsters in particular, but also traps and non-combat encounters. I'm paging through every bestiary I can find looking for creepy creatures.

In case you haven't guessed, I'm stealing HEAVILY from Prometheus for this.

So, while recently dicking around a certain 40K-loving imageboard, someone reminded me that Ethergaunts exist. I'm doing a Distant Worlds campaign right now, and they'd be PERFECT bad guys for when things get seriously space-y; great concept for some sort of nefarious alien race. The etherealness also makes them interesting; space has an ethereal plane, too, so their ships are invisible/insubstantial most of the time; they pop out of nowhere, like Eldar.

Problem is, the Ethergaunt stats in the Fiend Folio are a bag of dicks. The CR 9 red ethergaunt only has 27 HP. They're so poorly-made, I don't know where to start converting them. I'd like to create a flexible statblock that I can apply various different classes to, and I'm really not sure how to balance/build monsters with automatic casting ability.

So far, I think I'll just replace their spell immunity with normal SR, and maybe give them some ability that applies their Int bonus to AC and/or saves. I also had a thought that the Reds actually cast spells as Maguses, and maybe making a new caste, the Blues, that have Alchemist abilities.

Perhaps build them so that there's only one stat block, but I suppose there should be separate stats for the Whites, Blacks, and Reds.

Any thoughts? I know that EVERYONE owns a physical copy of fiend folio, right? Wink Wink.

So, I found a bid old stack of Dragon mags in my attic, and I moved them to the bathroom for toilet reading.

Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this.

Anyways, I found some tiny article on arcane focus, which was pretty much just like Psionic focus. And it occurred to me that forcing someone to chill and gather themselves for a big casting is kind of a cool subsystem.

Sometimes it strikes me that casting is a little too...easy. Barring an attack roll, or a concentration check when you're being distracted, casting a spell is like firing a gun. I realize that this is sort of part of vancian casting; you load the powder and the shot at the beginning of the day, then fire your brain-gun later.

We've already got on-the-fly casting in the Words Of Power system, so wouldn't it be kind of cool to also have a few more dramatic casting mechanics?

I guess what kind of sparked this thought was a friend of mine talking about why he liked the magus, but not other casters. he likes to be a shit-kicker, and it's hard to be a physical badass as a full-caster.

And then I thought of the Dresden Files. And it got me thinking about more dynamic magic systems, that allow wizards to push themselves in extremis, for example. Like, being able to take hit point or mental damage to cast a spell even when you're out of slots/points, or to jack the caster level at the cost of taking Fatiuge/exhaustion/going unconscious. I'm just saying it would be kind of cool for casters to have obvious physical/mental effort go into their art.

Then again, you could say the same for combat classes. melee combat is freaking tiring; anyone who's played AmtGuard for a few minutes knows that firsthand. even for someone with physical conditioning who isn't a pasty nerd, pulling off extended fighting full of fancy moves would be hard. Special actions like Power Attack could have a cost associated with them, like a certain number of Fatiuge points, maybe based off your con score/mod (like, you have Stamina equal to your Con+class level). A lot like Ki points, really. Yeah, fighter Ki points, that you spend to pull of semi-tome-of-battle-esque special moves, which you get access to via feats (something more to do with fighter bonus feats). Like: Pay 1 stamina, get a free trip with your next attack.

The only problem is that this would be per/day, when it really makes more sense to be per/encounter (up to a point). Maybe between combat, you can regain one or two stamina, but you can still be completely exhausted at the end of the day. It would be cool to have Fatigue come up a little more often, as a penalty for exerting yourself.

Of course, most combats don't go longer than a minute, ususally much less.

I mean, say what you will about 4E, but giving melee dudes lots of cool combat powers that let them shove people or lower their defenses or whatever was a pretty cool idea.

Just random thoughts.

There's a monster that always stuck in my head: the Shinning Child of Thassilon, from RotRL #5. Their utter, horrifying OTHERNESS was far more compelling than slime and tentacles. I was glad to see it again in Bestiary 2.

Their various origin stories were creepy as hell, especially the insane reflections of a dying star and the celestials of the far future one. It's like they're Angels of some alien cosmos. Kind of gives me a slight Evangelion vibe, too.

Thing is, I saw the same background for something else...the Caulborn in City of Strangers, the hive-minded thought eaters that live under Kaer Maga. Since both creatures have ties to thassilon...

Does paizo have some sort of big idea behind these things? Will we see any more monsters in a similar vein?

So, Pitax's whole shtick is that Irrovetti has horrible taste, and most of the "artists" there are talentless hacks, over-running a small free-spirited city of criminals lying low. But, the problem is, what's the best way to present this to the PCs?

Problem is, how should a GM make this clear to the players? Sure, we could just use a "take my word for it, it sucks" attitude, but wouldnt it be nice to find a few really crappy songs, paintings, sculpture, maybe a bad old movie or play to put on in the background? I've always firmly supported the "show, dont tell" method of storytelling.

Does anyone have any ideas for this sequence?

Some time ago, I had an odd thought. I was looking through the old Libris Mortis book, and noticed the undead grafts. It led me down this train of thought:

In 3rd edtion D&D & Pathfinder, what does Necromancy get used for?

It's used to make minions, either mass-produced hordes of mindless skeletons, or one-off super-killy-monsters.

Some people completely forsake Mortality in favor of lichdom, becoming immortal and gaining nifty powers.

Other people can be brought back, different than they were before. Faster. Stronger. Deader.

People who lost limbs (or just want to be more killy) can graft on zombie and skeleton bits to their bodies.

Necromancy actually bears some superficial resemblance to robotics in Cyberpunk settings, obviously lends itself to dystopian elements, and allows similar plots and motifs in a fantasy setting. For example, you can make a mech-suit with a troll skeleton. Just put have a guy crawl inside the ribcage, add some armor plating, and strap a ballista to one arm.

We've all seen Necrocracies in other settings. High Cromlek in Bas Lag, Geb in Golarion, but this one goes the whole hog towards dystopian Necropunk:

A circle of powerful necromancers start selling their servies to a courrupt government that essentially becomes a merchant's guild that runs the city.
A sudden glut of cheap labor leaves an impoverished underclass that's forced to sell their own corpses to the zombie-crafters, people who are worth more dead than alive. horse-farms where the only point is to let them grow to full size before killing them and re-animating them as a Skeleton that doesnt need rest or feeding. A subculture of stupid teenage vampires who took the short route to undeath and wind up working for a criminal syndicate to feed their addiction and serve the one who turned them. those who dont fall into line wind up as beggars and junkies begging for passerby to give them a quick liter. Ghouls occupying the same status as androids; used as disposable servants, with a couple underground rogue ghouls plotting their revenge against the living. Hardbitten long-coat-wearing bounty hunters with crossbows and dead eyes that let them see life essence through walls. skinny Necromancer hackers who disrupt and mess with undead, yoink them away from their masters and launder them for sale on the black market. The area around the city is devoid of life, strip mined for black onyx, while distant expeditions bring back huge exotic beasts for conversion into the State's War Machines and secret projects. They've already wiped out the indigenous troll population to make bonesuits for the militia. Ghosts are everywhere, often taking the stand at their murderer's trial or executing their own will.

These are just random ideas

I was browsing through the Great Beyond a few days ago, and something caught my eye;p a demiplane that serves as a link between all druid stone circles on many worlds, populated by "rescued" creatures that are extinct on their home world.

I find this very, very awesome. It's like a cross between The Wood Between the Worlds, Xen, and the Fortress of Solitude, and I love the veiled Stonehenge reference.

So, based on this, and Paizo's love of bringing back the original flavor of various concepts, are there any plans to do an Adventure Path article on Golarion's Druids, the Green Faith, or similar subjects anytime soon? What's the darker side of the druidic faith, what is their contact with other worlds, the First World, fey, and so on? The fluff alludes to some creepy stuff, like the Darkmoon Vale serial killer druids, and old-school wicker-men.