26 Paper Street


Round 4: Design a villain's lair

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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16, 2012 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka Epic Meepo

Vic Wertz wrote:
Thanks for all your comments, Chris!

Agreed. I've quite enjoyed hearing a cartographer's take on all of this. It's a perspective on RPG design to which I've had little prior exposure.

Besides, now I know who to blame the next time my game grinds to a halt as the GM attempts to recreate curvilinear walls on a square grid map. :)

Scarab Sages

Turin the Mad wrote:
Chris, your having stepped up and done this of your own accord is all kinds of awesome, deserving a thoroughly well-earned kudo! (At least from me :P)

I'll second that, making it official: Kudos to you, Chris.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16, 2012 Top 32 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Marathon Voter Season 7, Marathon Voter Season 8, Marathon Voter Season 9 aka Epic Meepo

Good work, Kevin. I think you've grown stronger in each round, and I think this lair is just fantastic. Would I use this lair at my own table? Yes. A module that featured this lair? Yes. And if I were looking to buy a random module, would I give special consideration to the ones written by Kevin Carter? If you can sustain this level of work, absolutely.

I like the Arm; it's one of those "I'd have never thought of that" things that I like to see in published adventures. I like how you held everything together with a strong, villain-appropriate theme. I like how all the pieces fit together; even the lair and the neighborhood it's in interact with one another in meaningful ways.

That being said, I do take issue with two things. Firstly, your map needs to provide an area of deeper water for the grafted aboleth to use as a hiding place. Three-foot deep water just isn't going to hide a Huge creature.

Second, I take issue with the Will save that characters have to make when they read about the Arm. Firstly, that type of fear save is a very genre-dependent thing. For some campaign styles, it just doesn't make sense for heroes to become shaken at the mere mention of extraplanar monstrosities. Unless the notes describing the Arm are intrinsically magical, they shouldn't produce a fear effect (except maybe as an optional rule).

And even if you're running a Ravenloft-style game there's a problem: you read that there's an enormous cancerous growth from another plane nearby and become shaken, then walk into the next room and actually see the enormous cancerous growth in the flesh, yet have no reaction? Or worse, you somehow enter through the room with the enormous cancerous growth, have no reaction, then read that the enormous cancerous growth you've already seen is extraplanar, and this somehow fills you with more dread than you are already experiencing?

It makes much more sense for the fear effect to be generated by the Arm itself, not the notes about the Arm. Maybe the notes are so insane that they risk causing Wisdom damage, but I just don't see them rendering you shaken.

But those issues can be overlooked. Even if they made it into a published version of this lair, the lair is good enough that I'd take one look at them, handwave a solution, and keep on playing without being the least bit disappointed. Well done.

Liberty's Edge

Vic Wertz wrote:
We totally should have thought of getting a professional cartographer on the guest judging panel round for this round, but... we didn't. Thanks for all your comments, Chris!

My pleasure! I'm always happy to share my opinion. :)

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 4 aka K. B. Carter

Wanted to say thanks again for all the great feedback. To address a few points that came up:

Evelyn and Bateman These names were a reference to Evelyn Williams and Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. In an early draft, the golems were named Hannibal and Bateman but there was something about a female flesh golem that had stopping power (I think it’s because a female flesh golem forces players to picture the monster in their minds, whereas a male flesh golem is just a flesh golem as seen in the MM). I smiled when I found out there’s a famous anesthesiologist named Evelyn Bateman… sort of adds a whole new layer to the golem names.

Paper Street When I first started imagining Bratch’s lair, I used the Paper Street Soap Company from the movie Fight Club as a conceptual springboard. There are a few rooms--such as the flooded basement and the stacks of books in the library--that are reminiscent from the movie. "Paper Street" was originally a placeholder name until I could think of something else, but then later I learned that Paper Street is an engineering term for a street that exists on maps but hasn’t been built in reality yet. As soon as I learned that, I decided to keep the name as it added an extra layer to the creepiness of the house as a whole.

Aboleth Hiding Under 3 Feet of Water Great point. This wouldn’t work. Should have made the water deeper.

Random Mistakes There were a couple of these, mostly spelling errors. At one point I even had Bateman casting spells (instead of Bracht). Due to my work schedule, I ended up writing most of Round 4 in the early hours before dawn, which is when my editing skills tend to be at their weakest. Thanks to all who helped sift out the typos.

The Arm Great idea making the Arm of a Onishamotan more of a villain in the lair. In the first draft, the arm was the main threat in the lair, but then it was toned down in the next pass, both to conserve word count but also to make Bracht the star of his own house. That said, I really like the idea of the arm triggering the “shaken” fear effect instead of the books. If I had time for a third draft, I’d add more creepy touches like this to the arm (such as a bunch of eyes embedded in its surface that silently watch the PCs every movement!)

Spiral Staircase Skips the Group Floor True, this is kind of weird. The early version of the lair had a rubble-choked staircase to the basement via the ground floor that the players could see but couldn’t access. And the passage with the spiral staircase was originally a dumbwaiter. It was changed to its current state to save on word count (and to allow Evelyn access to the basement). I’m still not entirely sold on this direction myself, but in the end the decision was made by the deadline.

Ring of Regeneration 90K gold: Yikes! True, that’s a bit overpriced considering what it does (think how many healing potions you can buy with 90k gold), but you can’t trust all DMs running the module to instinctively know this is too much gold for a 7th level party. The Ring of Regen is something I would rework if I had another round of revisions (maybe an IV drip of healing potions… I don’t know).

Black Pudding If your players are the kind of PCs who have a good sense of when it's okay to run from an encounter, feel free to replace the Black Pudding with an Elder Black Pudding. Sheer DM delight will ensue :)

HP Lovecraft I take it as a huge compliment that is considered reminiscent of the works of the Cthulhu Mythos. There was about a year of my life where that genre was all I would read. By the way, the short story Notebook Found in a Abandoned House by Robert Bloch inspired one of my early D&D campaigns back in the day. The campaign began with the PCs finding a slightly modified version of the Notebook (I only removed references to tractors and automobiles, otherwise left the story as is). One word on what came next: aboleths!

Swarm of Organs Oh man, wish I knew about this monster when I was writing! Would have been perfect.

Anyway, thanks to all for all the great feedback. And again, special thanks to Trevor Gulliver for providing the lair's star: Bracht Darkhouse.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8 aka Tarren Dei

[nitpick]Now that the voting is closed, I have a nitpick to contribute. The feat I gave Bracht allowed him to graft organs onto living creatures. Golems are not living.[/nitpick]

Nitpick over. Thanks for making a lair for Bracht that really rocked. If the exit polls are right, I'm not going on to the next round, but at least I get to go out as the guy whose villain was given the most earth-shatteringly cool lair!


Swarm of organs?! WHAT?!

From time to time I feel a little guilty that my hobbies include forcing imaginary people to interact with things like this for my amusement.

Liberty's Edge

Tarren Dei wrote:

[nitpick]Now that the voting is closed, I have a nitpick to contribute. The feat I gave Bracht allowed him to graft organs onto living creatures. Golems are not living.[/nitpick]

Nitpick over. Thanks for making a lair for Bracht that really rocked. If the exit polls are right, I'm not going on to the next round, but at least I get to go out as the guy whose villain was given the most earth-shatteringly cool lair!

a nice thing too :D

Bracht got a really deserving lair :)

good luck for you both while we wait to see the voting.


Earthgrummash wrote:

Swarm of organs?! WHAT?!

From time to time I feel a little guilty that my hobbies include forcing imaginary people to interact with things like this for my amusement.

I think they're in Paizo's 'Pharaoh' module in the 'J' line.


Kevin:
Congratulations on making it through to the final round of the contest.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 16 , Marathon Voter Season 6, Dedicated Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8 aka Ezekiel Shanoax, the Stormchild

Congratulations - I found this to be a truly excellent entry.


Congrats on your success!

  • The Gibbering Mouther in an icebox. Very cool trap! The great thing is, to the villain it's more likely a pet or means to make more pets, not a trap at all. It gives me immediate flashes of "Texas Chainsaw" and what good-aligned party looking for a kidnap victim isn't going to open a box that sounds like it has someone locked inside?! Reminds me of 'Mimic' monster goodness. :)

  • Evelyn, the female flesh golem in the bedroom. Not only is it just sick-puppy twisted, but she's a flesh golem with a sleep attack! Nothing like seeing that, falling asleep and being awakened to it on top of you beating you to death... no not in a good way!

  • The Ring of Regeneration - Organ Harvesting; while not my favorite part, definitely wicked.

    Great villainous stuff! Excellent protrait of horror!


  • Hi
    I just wanted to say that I really thought this submission was very well done. Especially these parts:

    "2C. Laboratory
    A partially-dissected ogre lies in a fleshy heap across a large table. The shelves lining the surrounding walls are cluttered with jars of pickled eyeballs, preserved animals and strange bits of organic matter.

    The ogre is long dead. If anyone investigates the jars on the shelves, a live lamprey specimen suddenly lashes out, causing its jar to fall and shatter across the floor. The lamprey dies on impact, but the DM should have the PCs roll for initiative anyway (to potentially trick them into wasting precious spells and abilities).

    2D. Pantry (CR 5)
    The shelves of this pantry have been stocked with organs, bones and cured skins. A large metal icebox rests against the northern wall.

    Several of the organs have gentle repose cast upon them and therefore radiate magic. The icebox is latched shut with an iron bolt and anyone approaching it hears muffled voices from within.

    Creatures: The icebox contains a captured Gibbering Mouther.
    Gibbering Mouther CR 5
    hp 42 (MM 126)"

    I didn't vote for it because I didn't particularly like the concept of a serial-killer victim and I figured you'd be able to advance on your other substantial support; but still, this submission had lots of nice little twists and opportunities for fun play.

    Good work Kevin!

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