What D20 systems, realms, planes, or country would make a paladin soil his armor?
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The Shadowlands is indeed pretty jacked up.
Bad places to wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and realize you're a paladin:
Greyhawk
1)Iuz
2)Pomarj
3)Erelhei Cinlu
4)I bet Scuttlecove isn't so nice
Forgotten Realms
1)Menzoberranzen
2)Thay
Ravenloft
Just about anywhere you wake up in Ravenloft is heinous.
Eberron
I think the hobgoblins have a kingdom somewhere. They don't cotton to paladins much....any Eberron guys, feel free to chime in. I think they got a dimension of madness too, like a paragraph or two's worth in the Eberron Campaign book, but I could be wrong.
The Far Realm
Not just bad for paladins, but for anyone or anything used to the laws of physics functioning properly. Anyone ending up there should just try to make a basket with their character sheet.
So what's worse Iuz or Ravensloft? This doesn't need be paladin specific just used that class example. Places were all players should stomp feet like five year olds going "No, No, No"
...the Shadowlands of Rokugan...
Totally 100% agree with that! My players weren't even paladins and they didn't want to be there.
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I guess Iuz.
In most places in Ravenloft there's at least the general trappings of civilization.
Iuz...you'd better keep your head down and make a beeline south, or whatever nearest border.
I think Shadowlands is about one of the most jacked up places, though. Find a gate as fast as you can. Get out of there. 'Taint a nice place to be.
Midnight D20 is nasty place. There are no paladins or good clerics for that matter. PC demi-human races are hunted down on site. Wizards are outlawed. Magic, literacy, travel, weapons are illegal. Orcs are EL 1 and carry a 1d12 sword. The zombies are intelligent as long as the eat living flesh. People will sell each other out for food. The evil clerics get a creature that sences magic and they are used to track people. Humans are subjugated. Very intense world.
What is the shadowlands?
So what's worse Iuz or Ravensloft? This doesn't need be paladin specific just used that class example. Places were all players should stomp feet like five year olds going "No, No, No"
Depends on your style of play (you just picked my two favourite campaign settings!)... Iuz is worse in terms of overt threats, hordes of orcs, some fiends, etc. It's all scary and brutal, but you kind of know what to expect in the lands of Iuz.
In Ravenloft, the problem is you don't know where the danger lies. The land is full of extreme evil, but most of it is concealed (i.e., you don't necessarily know who the enemies are). Ravenloft is intended for more subtle gaming -- suspense, mystery and intrigue. Hack and slash and pyrotechnics don't really work there. You won't find hordes of orcs in RL... as a matter of fact, you won't find any orcs at all. Fiends, undead, and lycanthropes in Ravenloft don't usually walk around in the open, or if they do, they usually won't be recognized for the monsters they are. That having been said, paladins are a shining beacon in RL... the moment one enters a domain, the Lord of that Domain is aware of his/her presence (the extreme good and holiness of a paladin is that strong a counterpoint to the evil that pervades RL). A paladin ends up being a magnet for evil... so that can be pretty nasty, especially when you're not sure who your foes are!
Bottom line: depends on your group's preferred style of gaming. If you want more head-on confrontations and high level or epic action, go with Iuz. If you prefer a more subtle game, go with RL (especially at low or mid-levels... the mood of RL tends to be wasted on high level parties).
What is the shadowlands?
*shivers* well, here we go. The Shadowlands of Rokugan come from a setting called The Legend of the Five Rings by AEG. Its a fantasy setting with heavy japanese influence in which the players generally play as some form of samurai.
Anyhow, to make a long story short, a group of devine status beings fell from heaven and formed the current society. Fu Leng, fell a little harder than everyone else however and when he landed fell deep into the earth forming a crater. When he emerged he had become corrupted and claimed the territory near where he fell as his own. This land eventually became as twisted and corrupted as he was and was called the shadowlands.
Enough back story, the end result is a blighted land that NOBODY wants to enter. Just BEING there is enough to contract shadowland taint, a nasty supernatural conditon that corrupts you physically, mentally and spiritually before it finaly kills you and raises you as an undead creature bound to Fu Leng. Oh, not to mention it's pretty much impossible to cure once you've got it. And if that wasn't bad enough, anything you bring in is likely to become corrupted as well. Your food for instance will become poisonous if you don't magically protect it. Just about every form of plant life is deadly in some regard and the land is treacherous and dangerous to cross, ranging from putrecent dissease ridden bogs to perilous cliffs. Almost forgot, if you survive all the environmental dangers you have to deal with the oni (demon like creatures under the control of Fu Leng). Most oni can take an experienced samurai and tear him limb from limb, and the powerful ones are forces unto themselves.
Well, thats the shadowlands in a nut shell, needless to say, not even a nice place to visit.
Very nicely summed up indeed Sel Carim. You even beat me to the punch =)
Rokugan is my groups absolute favorite setting...and some of our most memorable victories (and defeats) have been on the other side of the Great Wall in the Shadowlands!!
It gets the vote of this 20 year D&D (in all its incarnations and most published campaigns) player and Dm's vote as the Nastiest place to adventure.
Here's how I described the Shadowlands to my players when they went there:
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A twisted mockery of the landscape surrounds you. Dark, greenish-gray clouds blot out the sun, turning it a sickly yellow. The land itself seems to be diseased and is covered in a thick, oily mist that clings to your skin, almost caressing you. As you walk across the blighted land, the earth beneath your boots crunches and weeps a blackened fluid whose scent assaults your senses, leaving a foul taste in your nose and on your tongue.
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Yeah, I'm big into descriptions, especially when characters arrive at a new or unfamiliar place. I think it was due to the effort I put into the description of the Shadowlands that they learned to fear it. The characters are still dealing with the repurcussions of that series of adventurers. The druid had been unable to access his druidic abilities while the Shadowlands (*mwah-hah-hah-evil-DM-laugh*), the sorcerer was power-drunk off of the side effects of the Shadowlands (automatic Empower Spell applied to arcane spells, PLUS a Taint check >:D *mwah-hah-hah*) and the rogue was too noble for his own good (ripe for the pickin's).
Definitely one of my favorite places - after surviving the Shadowlands, they laugh at demons and devils. Why? In the words of one of the characters, "When you are in a place where the very land seeks to corrupt and drive out any semblance of goodness from your mind, body and soul, where your very actions can spell your unredeemable end, facing a demon is like having a day off."
I have to agree, the Shadowlands are Awful. More than just being tough to kill, the denizens of the Shadowlands are just horrible to even think about. The writers went the extra mile to do them justice. I’ll mention just a few things to add to the excellent descriptions already given. First the land itself shifts, so that locations move within the Shadowlands. Obviously, no reliable maps are to be had since they tend to go out of date very quickly. The upshot of this is that when you lose sight of the Wall (the huge stone embattlement built by the Crab clan to keep the Shadowlands in the Shadowlands) you have no guarantee that you will ever find your way out. This just gives me the willies. Even if you don’t succumb to the taint, get eaten by and oni, or run afoul of the flora, home may not be in the direction you thought it was. Also, involvement with the Shadowlands has social ramifications. The rest of Rokugan tries to pretend the Shadowlands don’t exist. Defending against it is the Crab’s problem and that’s just fine with everyone else. Also, since oni have no honor, you gain no honor from defeating one. The only ones who will acknowledge your accomplishments are the Crab. Worse than this, many people will shun you when they learn that you have spent time in the Shadowlands or on the Wall for fear of contracting taint from you (not an entirely unreasonable fear).
A short story out of the Crab clan book comes to mind (the AEG version). Goes something like this: A samurai from another clan is sent to the Wall for a bit of penal duty (NEVER tick off your lord). In the middle of the night he hears a man screaming at the top of his lungs outside. He slips on his armor, grabs his Katana and runs toward the noise. By the time he gets there, the screaming samurai is a pile of gibs and the oni that apparently did it is being engaged by several Crab clan members. After the oni is dead, he flippantly remarks that the man must have been a great coward to scream like that before dying. The commander matter-of-factely states “No, his orders were that if he saw an oni he was to engage it as best he could and scream until he was no longer able so that his fellow Crab could get their armor and weapons ready. He saved many lives tonight.” Hmmmm, grim.
Just to add a location that hasn’t been mentioned, the Blight and Blasted lands from the Wheel of Time setting are nasty in their own right. Particularly the locations where the myrdrall blades are forged. Each one must be tempered in the body of a living (well...before the process anyways) human to be completed. One more reason not to be captured in the Borderlands. The setting is worth checking out if you are looking for something different. As a bonus the core book is very nicely done (especially the art). Even so, I agree with Ragnarok Raider and must vote for the Shadowlands as the worst place to be a PC. *shudders convulsively*
In my world; the Old Ones like Cuthulu are pushing there way back into the world and the pc's are leading the charge to stop them. Where the Old Ones have worshipers and sacrifice the area is extremely twisted so much so that Devil and Demon princes who wish to keep the status quo and not submit to the Old Ones have sent emmissaries to the party many times to ensure they dont fail. That said of course, the mage in my group was once seen hugging a great tentacle trying to soak up all the magical knowledge and power he could, ah, yes he got power; and a lot of corruption thanks to the stuff in the back of Liber Mortis. The LE half orc/shade assassin/cleric who currently is sharing his body in a mutual admiration soceity with a Banshee and has a history of decadence, smut, drug trade, slavery, murder, and more saved the Chaotic Good mage by sneaking/slithering through the goo and slime and avoiding all the stuff he could till he pulled the then mage possessed by a champion of cuthulu from the slithering tentacle said to the mage, and I quote; " man, that was just wrong!" The player just about pee'd his own pants when I described the area to him and what he encountered and went through and the whole alienness of what the world had to look forward to if they fail. IMHO, no one and no place can be worse that what the Old Ones pervert.
FFG's Midnight campaign setting may also be worth a look... in that campaign, evil has conquered the world, and the PCs are left to ally with hidden pockets of resistance fighters to wage a war against the Shadow and its minions. I've never played it, but it sounds cool... I really enjoy campaigns where evil has the edge, and there's a sense of desperation!
There's a place in Dark Sun that gives me the whillies. Can't remember the name off the top of my head right now, but the upshot is that only "perfect" people can enter it. There is a magical feild in the are that causes anyone who does not meet its exacting requirements to deform into a one of the creatures that lives there. If I remember correctly, even being wounded is enough to fall short of the spells requirements.
Ravenloft has always given me chills as well. The reason is the permenance of being there. It's a one way ticket to Ravenloft and once you are there there is NO WAY OUT! That, in my mind, is the most terrifying part of the setting.
Ok, know that we have a pretty good list of places not to go on summer vacation, how about something new. Maybe we can start working on a list of modules that have all of these places and send it to Dungeon for the AP4 and Name it "Just hand in your character sheet now".
Yeah, you could start with Dark Sun, move to Ravenloft, escape into the Shadowlands, get trapped in the Plane of Shadows for a while . . .
Heck, you could frame it like Dante's Inferno with the PCs getting a tour of all of the bad places your DM can send you if you trangress against them . . .
There's a place in Dark Sun that gives me the whillies. Can't remember the name off the top of my head right now, but the upshot is that only "perfect" people can enter it. There is a magical feild in the are that causes anyone who does not meet its exacting requirements to deform into a one of the creatures that lives there. If I remember correctly, even being wounded is enough to fall short of the spells requirements.
It's called the Pristine Tower, and yeah anyone injured in its radius mutates into a horrible mutated thing. Though it was created by a real nazi, I don't think the tower cares about the perfection of those around it--just if you've been injured, and then it works its will upon your flesh. Heh.
On the whole Dark Sun is just not the place to be a paladin--not so much because of active horror, but because it is so harshly uncaring. One who's primary drive is to help the helpless and to be philanthropic with those in need will find themselves a dessicated husk in the sand, not because of a monster or an evil god, but because when the storm began they had given all their supplies to a settlement of people half dead from thirst and then became lost in a neverending expanse of yellow-gray grit and eventually succumbed as does everything in Athas sooner or later.
I also think Acheron's a good choice, just eternal grinding meaningless rage and war. No justice to be found, no innocents to protect, no good to uphold, just the unending gnashing of iron on iron and an eternal twilight of foul armies marching. Likewise the Far Realm would be awful for a paladin, just because it is so alien as to strip the moral high ground from a person and break their mind--a tough thing for a person who's solid enough in his ethos to gain godly power from it.
Here's how I described the Shadowlands to my players when they went there:
--
A twisted mockery of the landscape surrounds you. Dark, greenish-gray clouds blot out the sun, turning it a sickly yellow. The land itself seems to be diseased and is covered in a thick, oily mist that clings to your skin, almost caressing you. As you walk across the blighted land, the earth beneath your boots crunches and weeps a blackened fluid whose scent assaults your senses, leaving a foul taste in your nose and on your tongue.
--
Yeah, I'm big into descriptions, especially when characters arrive at a new or unfamiliar place. I think it was due to the effort I put into the description of the Shadowlands that they learned to fear it. The characters are still dealing with the repurcussions of that series of adventurers. The druid had been unable to access his druidic abilities while the Shadowlands (*mwah-hah-hah-evil-DM-laugh*), the sorcerer was power-drunk off of the side effects of the Shadowlands (automatic Empower Spell applied to arcane spells, PLUS a Taint check >:D *mwah-hah-hah*) and the rogue was too noble for his own good (ripe for the pickin's).Definitely one of my favorite places - after surviving the Shadowlands, they laugh at demons and devils. Why? In the words of one of the characters, "When you are in a place where the very land seeks to corrupt and drive out any semblance of goodness from your mind, body and soul, where your very actions can spell your unredeemable end, facing a demon is like having a day off."
NICE..makes me want to buy the core book of the Legend of the 5 rings(is that it?). But what I didn't like about the book was the new races. One race is basically a monkey...how funny/stupid is that?...
The Far Realms are NASTY, what with the complete and utter madness inherrant in the place.
Limbo is also a bad place to be if your DM portrays it a certain way. Particulary when it's an unexpected trip (whenever my PC's encounter someone who seems remotely like an Anarchic Initiate they either run or end it in the first round).
Mind you, the two are pretty similar 'cept the Far Realms are worse. Much worse.
The Plane of Fire and the Negative Energy Plane are also bad places to be when unprepared. Virtually any plane that is innately harmful to PCs is a bad place to be without some form of protection.
Well, it's a little old school...but, the 'railroaded' beginning of A4 in the Slavers Series definitely makes the PCs not so cocky.
NICE..makes me want to buy the core book of the Legend of the 5 rings(is that it?). But what I didn't like about the book was the new races. One race is basically a monkey...how funny/stupid is that?...
Just a caveat - the Oriental Adventures book is distinctly different than the Legend of the Five Rings: Rokugan setting. OA uses a lot of stuff from the Lo5R setting, I tend to think of it as Rokugan Lite. If you want to run a Rokugan campaign specifically, get the Lo5R book. If you want to run an Oriental-themed adventure without all the back story of Rokugan (and there's a metric buttload of it), get OA.
As far as the monkey-boys (vanara) - don't use 'em if you don't like 'em. They're optional, after all. If you were running an Indian-themed campaign, or wanted to recreate the "Journey to the West" story, they'd be useful, along with naga and rakshasas. The nezumi are the bomb anyway - lovable little scavenging rat-folk! The hengeyokai are interesting as well, though the korobokuru didn't do it for me, either.
Well, it's a little old school...but, the 'railroaded' beginning of A4 in the Slavers Series definitely makes the PCs not so cocky.
Is that where you start in the clutches of the slave lords striped of all gear? I think that is how i remember it. That I played in eigth grade over twenty years ago. Damn that is old school.
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Well, it's a little old school...but, the 'railroaded' beginning of A4 in the Slavers Series definitely makes the PCs not so cocky.Is that where you start in the clutches of the slave lords striped of all gear? I think that is how i remember it. That I played in eigth grade over twenty years ago. Damn that is old school.
That's it. Fightin' kobolds wit' a thigh bone wearin' loin cloths.
As far as the monkey-boys (vanara) - don't use 'em if you don't like 'em. They're optional, after all.
Always liked the vanara. i use them in my homebrew campaign as a long lost race of legend, starting to appear again in these time of whoah. They remind me of Rafiki from The lion king.
That's it. Fightin' kobolds wit' a thigh bone wearin' loin cloths.Well, it's a little old school...but, the 'railroaded' beginning of A4 in the Slavers Series definitely makes the PCs not so cocky.Is that where you start in the clutches of the slave lords striped of all gear? I think that is how i remember it. That I played in eigth grade over twenty years ago. Damn that is old school.
Argh, argh, crushin' kobold skulls wit' a thigh bone 'n me loin cloth. Thats D&D.
Argh, argh, crushin' kobold skulls wit' a thigh bone 'n me loin cloth. Thats D&D.
At least you got that much. There weren't enough loin cloths to go around ;(
While not exact, I surprised no one has mentioned the Abyss yet. Realistically any of the outplanes between Hades and Limbo should be very unfriendly to paladins.
On that planar note, the negative energy plane would be a VERY nasty place to wake up in the morning, for all the characters, but paladins in particular.
That's it. Fightin' kobolds wit' a thigh bone wearin' loin cloths.
There's a module like that that me and my girlfriend at the time played at a convention. You start off stripped and imprisoned, and your mages and clerics have expended all their powers trying to escape and it's too unpleasant apparently to pray to get spells back. You're dropped into a pit as a sacrifice to the Great Earth Dragon. There's two passageways, one with a light glowing in it and the other completely black. We ended up killing a giant crayfish and tearing it apart with our bare hands for makeshift armor and weapons. I think I had part of the tailsection lashed over my chest and the lower part of one of the claws as a sap. I eventually got killed by a piercer that dropped from the cieling and impaled me.
Among the settings I've played, Ravenloft would be where I'd least likely take Paladin levels. Domain Lords are excessive.
But, from the descriptions, this Shadowlands thing sound like a trump to Ravenloft. But, with Ravenloft's "One-Way Ticket" aspect it could still top out.
I'd be willing to put Dark Sun in third. It would indeed be overwhelming to be a Paladin there. I don't recall exactly how they work, but would a Paladin be Defiler-bait?
The plane of dust must suck. Especially for paladins with alergies
But, from the descriptions, this Shadowlands thing sound like a trump to Ravenloft. But, with Ravenloft's "One-Way Ticket" aspect it could still top out.
I dunno - I've been cruel in both the Ravenloft and Rokugan campaign and dangled hope like a carrot on a stick in front of the players...then crushed their feeble hopes of escaping Ravenloft or freeing themselves of the Shadowlands Taint.
Oh - I don't know if it was mentioned, but the Shadowlands Taint is permanent. There are ways of reducing your Taint score down to 1, but it's always there, lurking in the recesses of your mind, taunting you, tempting you...;)
I'd be willing to put Dark Sun in third. It would indeed be overwhelming to be a Paladin there. I don't recall exactly how they work, but would a Paladin be Defiler-bait?
They would be if I was playing/running a Defiler...Tasty little holy things! You will fuel my spells for a while! Mwah-hah-hah!
Okay, I thought taints were 100% reversible. So, would a taint remove paladinhood? If so, that would definitely trump Ravenloft. In Ravenloft, you'd be a strong character with bonuses to defeat those out to kill you. In the Shadowlands, you'd be a fighter-without-bonus-feats surrounded by onis.
Being Defiler-bait would suck, but that still doesn't trump being Strahd/Soth/et al-bait.
Specific to Ravenloft, Bluetspur. It's ravaged by storms, a desolate wasteland, and has a huge colony of mind flayers (some insane vampires with INTs of 1) as the (almost) only inhabitants. While you're there, a constant hum in your mind from the illithid god-brain keeps you from being able to sleep.
It's the worst place ever.
There is PrCl from Heroes of Horror, that would make a paladin, or any other divine spellcaster completely immune to taint. The Shadowlands would therefor not bother him in the least. But the horror and fear rules from Ravenloft, there is no escaping those.
There's a place in Dark Sun that gives me the whillies. Can't remember the name off the top of my head right now, but the upshot is that only "perfect" people can enter it. There is a magical feild in the are that causes anyone who does not meet its exacting requirements to deform into a one of the creatures that lives there. If I remember correctly, even being wounded is enough to fall short of the spells requirements.It's called the Pristine Tower, and yeah anyone injured in its radius mutates into a horrible mutated thing. Though it was created by a real nazi, I don't think the tower cares about the perfection of those around it--just if you've been injured, and then it works its will upon your flesh. Heh.
Good memory, the Pristine Tower does have a "radiation" that horrible mutates any flesh the moment it is damaged, but the Tower was built by the ancient Halfling Lifeshapers (Biomancers) to harness the energy of their blue sun to destroy a brown algae plague that was poisoning their (then) ocean world. Using the tower turned the sun from blue to yellow.
Later on the "nazi" Raajet used the tower to make his Champions (epic warriors/wizards [defilers]) to lead his genocidal Cleansing Wars, turning the sun from yellow to red
Ravenloft gets my vote for worse place...the Demi-Plane itself was sentient, the purest evil and waited for your slightest slip to corrupt you, even the lower planes are only "naturally evil" not "actively" evil (though the natives there make up for it)
Kalin
What D20 systems, realms, planes, or country would make a paladin soil his armor?
Oh. What about in a cramped room filled with hasted dire, feral, invisible rustmonsters of legend? Put all of his nice shiny metal in jeopardy....
Or a situation that could drive him over the brink...what if he had to face down animated corpses of his loved ones?
Bwah-ha-ha-HA!
I think an entire adventure set inside of a dormant Tarrasque would be pretty good. Maybe not tremendously frightening, but it could be full of suspense; treading carefully would be advisable and one would have to keep a constant eye on the "walls" to make sure that mile long esophagus doesn't start constricting, pummelling all inside into a gooey digestive acid drenched paste. The dive through the stomach into the small intestine can also be really harrowing, especially when they see the undigestable remains of those that didn't make it. Getting out the "back door" has got to be the most HORRIFYING OF ALL.
I think an entire adventure set inside of a dormant Tarrasque would be pretty good. Maybe not tremendously frightening, but it could be full of suspense; treading carefully would be advisable and one would have to keep a constant eye on the "walls" to make sure that mile long esophagus doesn't start constricting, pummelling all inside into a gooey digestive acid drenched paste. The dive through the stomach into the small intestine can also be really harrowing, especially when they see the undigestable remains of those that didn't make it. Getting out the "back door" has got to be the most HORRIFYING OF ALL.
That is both repulsive and giggly at the same time . . .
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I think an entire adventure set inside of a dormant Tarrasque would be pretty good. Maybe not tremendously frightening, but it could be full of suspense; treading carefully would be advisable and one would have to keep a constant eye on the "walls" to make sure that mile long esophagus doesn't start constricting, pummelling all inside into a gooey digestive acid drenched paste. The dive through the stomach into the small intestine can also be really harrowing, especially when they see the undigestable remains of those that didn't make it. Getting out the "back door" has got to be the most HORRIFYING OF ALL.
Talk about feeling like crap....