rubicon209's page

This is my favorite entry so far, Bravo! :-)

What really grabs me is that I feel that Arthelia is a true Villain! How can people NOT see as Villainous with a capital 'V', someone trying to actually crush the dreams of the young, and laying low legends-to-be!? You grinches astound me!! >:-D

This villain makes great sense as a recurring foil. I can easily envision early interactions with the PCs starting out as character assassinations in public, and culminating in direct, hand to hand conflict.
This entry in particular lends itself well for easily increasing the verisimilitude of the game world. I can imagine the PCs hearing occasional word of various NPCs being discredited, or even mysteriously disappearing. Not until later would it be revealed as being inter-connected with malice aforethought, as opposed to random happenstance.

I think this villain really works well for its level and CR, as it is poised, in my opinion, at the right place and _time_ for someone to take notice of PCs starting to truly make their mark on the game world in a highly visible way.

I'd much prefer an author that brings the meat and the sweets to the table, rather than an overdose of one or the other. This is a balanced entry, that to me, did a great job of capturing the stated goals for this round -- this is a great bad guy, AND a great villain.

Please keep up the good work, and I hope enough people vote for you to continue on, I know I will. :-)

Farrell

Eating the dead you convince to commit suicide in a horrific way, cool.

Suicide bombings, uncool.
Uncool, mostly because it seems anachronistic, and likely political.

That said, I think you could have had me had you delved deeper into the Faith of the ghoul. I see you picked out two domains (luck and trickery), but chose to avoid assigning a deity, or more to the point, any reason to bring in motivation based on ethos or faith.

Had the Ghoul been written up with a background pointing to a desire to cause strife, fear, chaos, panic, etc, _then_ there would be more of a motivation for this cat to convince people to blow themselves up into steamy chunks, other than "hopelessness and fear taste GOOD!"

I really like the cover of being a religious figure, it's a shame that wasn't explored more to give a, in my opinion, stronger long-term goal or motivation.
If he seeks to eat people after they kill themselves in some act of futility or revenge, why limit his prey to those who are trying to kill themselves in a crowd? Why not incite jilted lovers, or those who have despaired of some lost goal?

I feel like this concept has a lot going for it, particularly if it were expanded, and dropped the focus on suicide bombings.

Farrell

PS - BIG PROPS to you for not cranking out something cliche' like a vampire! :-)
(and apologies in advance if it turns out another contestant has featured a vampire for their entry!) ;^)

Hmmm...

I really find myself wanting to like this entry. I am compelled and impressed by the use of a non-standard type of villain (this is the second entry I've read, and I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that the majority of contestants are going to give us non-standard).

However, I felt like I desperately needed a tall glass of milk after having read this entry. It was too sugary, much too sweet for me. I felt like I was deluged with a lot of candy (and yes, it was GOOD candy), but candy nonetheless. I feel like I was being wowed by prose and sheer, MANIC, grab-you-by-the-body-part I AM FLIPPING CREATIVE here, but... but, I feel let down. For me, it's not all about the pure-insane, manic (yes, repeating this term, as I feel there is a lot of pure mania here, which is good and bad) creation -- I need some meat and detail as well.

I would have been 100% sold had there been more information given regarding how to use this creation.
As it stands, I feel like a naturally-gifted painter cranked out a powerful piece in an instant, and left it to me, the not-so-gifted viewer, to figure out which side is up, let alone how to make sense of it.
I, personally, can craft a few ways to make use of this creation, but, I would have felt a lot better had there been some guidance, as I suspect whatever use I put the Cackling One (Whirling? Whirlwind? Not sure) to, it won't be anywhere NEAR as clever as what its creator came up with, which will be a dis-service to my players. And that, that is why I NEED authors to throw me a bone here; to give me a hint at to what plots and schemes they can lend their villain to, when they create them. I'm sure there were some cool plot ideas when they created this Beast -- now give them to us!! >:-)
Specifically, I didn't find the implied plot hooks anywhere near strong enough, and it's a letdown.
For me, the job wasn't finished.

Farrell

Like others, no doubt, I was happily surprised when I saw my assumptions were turned on their head. I too initially thought, *yawn*, another Dread Pirate Roberts -- then BAM, turns out it's the mount that's the villain. Very cool! :-D

However, the cool factor went way down for me after that. When glancing through the stat block, and noticing the Blasphemy special ability, I quickly scanned back to the top of the block, looking for hit dice; after all, it would be kinda nasty to have something with too many hit dice pop its Blasphemy and nuke an entire adventuring party. What? Where are the hit dice (and hit points)!? I did manage to find them, eventually, much lower and out-of-place in the giant-sized, some might pun nightmarishly-long stat block entry. :-p
The merits of the concept obviously count, but skill at assembling a stat-block are also part of the contest this round, and what makes a RPG superstar.

I like the entry on the strength of using an unexpected opponent, but the entry itself doesn't tell me how to use this critter as a villain, as opposed to just something to fight straight up. I just didn't find the proffered plot hooks meaty enough -- it seemed to me that they would fit in much better for a throw-away encounter, where not a lot of detail or attention has to be paid to fleshing out the background of the antagonist, _as it relates to the campaign_. I didn't see anything to give me any tips or hints on how to use the Nightmare as an ongoing villain for PCs to struggle against.

I also feel a Ring of the Chameleon won't do near enough to help the Nightmare keep its cover. How could anyone _not_ pick up on the fact that something is up with "da horse", when it spews cones of ash, has flaming hooves, a mummified hand on its neck [yes, I get it that's how it can use a magic ring], and magic spell effects blasting around (with no apparent casters among the cavalrymen), etc? Had the entry stated that the Nightmare suppresses certain of its powers to remain hidden, I would have been fine with that.

I think the author/creator could have addressed these issues, and it's a shame they weren't; I'm not saying it would be an easy task, especially in the parameters of the contest, but that _is_ the point of the contest, right, to show one's stuff? :-)

Farrell

[EDIT -- fixed a grammatical error in my post :-)]