Echo Drinkers
Description: An echo drinker is an aberration, appearing as a long, disembodied animal’s tail. Echo drinkers feed off the energy of humanoid souls at the time of death, biting the body and drinking up a fraction of the soul—an echo—for sustenance. Hidden beneath its fur are a spongy, yet resilient skin, centipede like legs, and a head which appears like a woodland animal, typically a fox. Its eyes look like those of the last intelligent humanoid it drank from. Although feeding off souls, they are not malevolent, and do not seek to harm healthy humanoids, unless desperate. They reside wherever humanoids live and die. An audacious person may try to treat with an echo drinker for knowledge, drawn from the abundant information gained from drinking in echoes.
Powers and Abilities: As echo drinkers absorb more echoes, they gain more intelligence, allowing them to speak the languages of the souls of their victims. They can crawl and climb, but their movements are erratic, and hard to predict. Also able to move between the Material and Ethereal planes, echo drinkers usually wait on the Ethereal plane before striking out at a victim. Although not physically powerful, an echo drinker’s bite is still ferocious with two rows of teeth in its mouth. When it bites, it does damage to the physical being and drains a part of the victim’s soul, resulting in the loss of skill or ability. It utilizes innate magic to create illusions as well as the ability to perfectly mimic the voice of its victims to attack or misdirect adversaries. Older, stronger echo drinkers are known to create deadly illusions. Echo drinkers rarely attack healthy humanoids, and rarer still do some develop a hunger for souls, attacking healthy humanoids and savagely drinking their souls dry.
I don't get the visuals of this creature. It's basically a snake that looks like an animal's tail, except it has legs and an animal head hidden under the hair? But for the most part it's going to look like a disembodied animal's tail wiggling around?
It eats souls, but it's not malevolent... so who does it prey on with its soul-eating nasty-teeth bite? The weak and sickly?
Any attack that causes a "loss of skill or ability" puts up a red flag for me. Is it giving a penalty to a skill check? Disabling the use of a feat? Stealing a class ability? Any of those can have serious and confusing consequences for a character.
Sean hit on most of my concerns with this thing, so a big x2 on those.
This is also another monster that doesn't like to fight. I've never seen stats for manatees in any RPG. That's not because they don't have statistics, it's because they're too big to be familiars and too docile to be threats. And if it's not going to be a threat or have an obvious roleplaying role, then it probably doesn't have much of a place in an adventure, and thus isn't worth stating up. Any monster designer should always take this into account: make sure your monster is something that creates an interesting and exciting encounter for the PCs.
I don't think not being a vicious killer makes this or any monster fail, but when the reader isn't sure what to do with it, things get a little tricky.
Initial Impression: A tail that is a centipede with a fox head? That drinks essences? Huh? OK then, let's check it out...
Concept (name, overall design choices, design niche, playability/usability, challenge): C-
This thing is just weird. The description is weird. The powers are weird. And on top of that its poor design. I've said over and over that monsters are the conflict of fantasy roleplaying. Its not Superstar to design a monster that is "not malevolent" and "doesn't seek to harm humanoids." Seriously, why do I care then? Why does a DM ever put this monster in an adventure? I will admit, I like the ethereal plane thing. Creatures that whack you from the ethereal plane have a long tradition in D&D--except, of course, that those creatures actually want to attack you or suck your brain and don't just sit there like this thing.
Execution (quality of writing, hook, theme, organization, use of proper format, world neutral, quality of mandatory content—description, summary of powers): C-
Skill and ability loss? Yikes. Contradictory motivations in the final sentences of each of the two sections. Clearly needed an edit and rewrite. Powers seem strange and perhaps show some issues with rules design that were apparent in the wondrous item submitted by the author. Seems to be a continuing problem.
Tilt (did it grab me, do I want to use one in an adventure?): C-
Sorry, no.
Overall: C-
Strange powers, poor design choices, weird description, contraditory motivations all lead to a creature I don't want to use or even see statted out.
Recommendation: I DO NOT recommend this creature advance
This struck me as a very anime type monster which doesn't really play all that well in RPG's. In trying to create an exotic visual you described it right out of my imagination leaving me, and I suspect the judges with a WTF feeling.
Vaguely reminiscent of a century worm from MMII. This seems like a great creature for a plot element, or just something funky yet non-combative to plunk into your world to prove that there can be weird creatures in the ecology who aren't out to eat the party.
I think you've got a cool concept here, Echo Drinkers certainly have a cool, unique set of powers. To make it more applicable to D&D adventure-usage, I think you'd want to focus on the ones with the "hunger for souls, attacking healthy humanoids and savagely drinking their souls dry." Now *that* sounds like a scary monster.
You have a fantastic critter if you just re-flavor it a bit, soul-powered, life-draining, crafty, illusion creating critters sound just nasty. They look to have all the capacity to become hated adversaries to PC's everywhere...hey, I might just have to keep them in my D&D folder for future games =)
Good luck!
If I were to only read the Abilities section, there's a very good chance I would like this monster. It's got the energy draining bite, the ability to go ethereal, the erratic movements are kind of cool and open up some ideas (evasion? uncanny dodge?) and the illusions could all make a pretty nifty critter.
Except that it's a disembodied animal tail. That's actually a centipede with a fox head and with shark jaws. That avoids confrontation and just wants to live in the woods. Whose souls, exactly, does it feed on, echoes or no?
Mechanically it might be interesting, but it's severely undercut by a goofy physical description and a lack of reason for using it.
This struck me as a very anime type monster which doesn't really play all that well in RPG's. In trying to create an exotic visual you described it right out of my imagination leaving me, and I suspect the judges with a WTF feeling.
Yeah, that. I can't even try to picture this besides the obvious 'hey, it's a furry.' This is one of the cases where the creature's physical appearance is so completely out of tune with its abilities that the whole doesn't feel like a package, but rather a mish-mash of abilities. I can't really see a campaign use for it, either.
Echo Drinkers
cut for space
This is the first monster that I am looking at. I do not read the comments below the entry before posting my opinion. Apologies if this is duplicative of someone else’s entry, in part or whole.
Alright, let’s see. You have a lot of neat concepts here. A creature that drinks part of the soul. (Due to the changed rules, we don’t get to see the mechanical execution, which in a way I would really like to see. Ah well.) Its eyes change to resemble the victim. That’s neat. It gains knowledge from the echos. Hm. Okay.
Now the second paragraph talks about some proposed abilities. Let’s see:
*gains languages (flavorful, but not useful if the party just tries to kill this threatening sounding critter)
*can do physical damage with its bite and cause a loss of skills and abilities (now that’s interesting and might make a party feel threatened) by damaging the “soul”.
*it can move between planes, and it has erratic movement
*it’s an illusory master to mimic victims (why? What does it like to do with this ability?)
*older ones can create deadly illusions (also interesting, yet now we’re having to adjudicate issues with illusions, which brings up that debate unless you solve it with a very slick and easy mechanical ability change)
*they rarely attack healthy humanoids (converse, they prey on the weak – okay, they could be a good plot point)
It sounds like a very grand concept based around certain plot elements. It wrestles with the undefined condition known as a soul in D&D. What I don’t get a good sense of is why the PCs would want to talk to such a critter? The adventure normally takes care of that. The monster has some promise. I’d ultimately like to see it refined a bit more and focused down on being a monster. There are ideas here that would really shine if it had a tighter approach.
Praise:
Points for originality here. The "echo" concept seems almost like a new mechanic in and of itself, and there's some potential there. The idea that this is not just a random encounter, but something potentially ancient and powerful is a neat idea.
Concerns:
The idea that they are intelligent but neutral but will kill but aren't malevolent AND eat souls is hard to swallow. I would just go evil with them, instead of trying to straddle that line awkwardly. I don't really get the description. A tail with centipede legs and a fox's head? Kind of Mayazaki territory. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but a creature that is difficult to visualize is a nuisance for DMs. The name does not grab me in any way. I am not a fan of skill or ability loss, as the potential to utterly break a character and remove them from a fight or encounter is not something I look to do as a DM. Charm and domination give the afflicted character a chance to roleplay and fight against their friends. That's fun. Sleep and similar disabling spells are a part of the game, and have their place. Taking away my monk's ki strike or my barbarian's rage is just asinine and frustrating to a player.
Overall:
I can see this as something from a world that died with it's old gods, before the rise of Golarion and the Azlanti. Strange and alien, it has survived on it's intelligence and intense magic. It does, however, suffer from identity crisis. Perhaps it's meant to, but it seems like a very deliberate, ancient creature, that would have no issue killing a human for it's own gain. Now there is a whole debate on whether feeding is evil, but the alignment system and indeed morality itself is based off a human-centric ideal. These creatures would likely be considered "evil" by most humanoids, yet you paint it as a neutral creature that happens to like souls, and can only eat humanoid souls.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4, Legendary Games
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With "echo" in the name I wondered if there'd be something sonic about it, but "echo" as a fragment of the soul works fine too.
The idea of this thing being a soul vampire is nice enough, with the ethereal angle for spice, but the visual seems bizarre to the point of incomprehensibility - if it looks like a disembodied animal's tail, where does the head with two rows of teeth go? It has legs but also fur... is it a furry centipede or snake? Hey, monsters can be weird looking, but this seems like a random collection of descriptors.
The abilities could be interesting or could be a game-mechanical headache, but the same is true of any energy drainer or stat drainer. Using illusions to disguise its gonzo appearance makes sense, but then the mature versions have killer illusions, which seem to go against the "it doesn't seek to cause death" psychology of the creature.
Overall: Some nice bits, but nothing ultimately compelling enough to outweigh the patchwork feel of the creature design.
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Description: An echo drinker is an aberration, appearing as a long, disembodied animal’s tail.
This is where you lost me. There's no illustration of this monster that could possibly avoid looking ridiculous. If you advance to the next round, do remember that the players of this game visualize the entire world in their imaginations. The look of something matters. I don't care what its back story or powers are when the creature looks like this one must.
I hope it works out for you.
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I really grooved on the name, but the description was not what I was expecting. Additionally (and as mentioned elsewhere), the description is rather confusing, which made for a hard disconnect from the name. Which is where you lost me.
Sal's Master Key worked for me, but seemed to have a similar focus issue. If you make next round, work on that focus. If you don't, work on that focus for next year. You have good ideas, but they need some more focus to become really clear.
Dedicated Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Dedicated Voter Season 8
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How did the author respond to the challenge? The first sentence isn't encouraging with an odd mix following of visual ideas and rules fragments.
How does it stack up
- as an opponent? Ethereal lurking, gnawing on abilities and lethal illusions each might pose some problems to a party. I wonder at what CR it would appear.
- as something other than an opponent? It has some points of interest in possible trading for information and the development of occasional man-eating individuals. These give it a diversity that I like as a widespread kind of monster.
- in relation to other monsters? It could be an interesting, quirky addition as a magical beast. I appreciate that it's not some ravenously evil hater of all life.
- in relation to the author's item? What can I say, I was very dubious about this item.
- in itself? A number of good ideas, but really too incoherent to take seriously as a finished entry.
It doesn't gel as a sensible creation, I'd have to say, despite points of charm.
I've never seen stats for manatees in any RPG. That's not because they don't have statistics, it's because they're too big to be familiars and too docile to be threats. And if it's not going to be a threat or have an obvious roleplaying role, then it probably doesn't have much of a place in an adventure, and thus isn't worth stating up.
So much for the weremanatee I was going to pitch. *crumples paper*
Kevin:
For my part, I'm ok with this looking like an animal tail. There are plenty of animals in nature that try to look like something else. However, I wouldn't have had their heads vary appearance (not all of them look like foxes, people). If this creature sucks a piece of the soul from a victim, take a cue from real world parasitic animals. Give this a leach's mouth or a mosquito's proboscis. That would make this monster's appearance more believable. Also, I probably would have gotten rid of the centipede legs. Snakes get around just fine, so this animal doesn't need them. If this animal is supposed to look like an animal tail, make it actually look like one.
Also, I don't know if you were going with a new mechanic when you said it caused the loss of skills or abilities, or if you were alluding to the loss of a level. If you meant the former, you are taking a big gamble that this contest will allow a new rule if this gets statted. Currently, I'm not aware that there is a skill or ability loss rule. If you meant the latter, just come right out and say that this attack gives you a negative level.
Also, the very word "ability" is a little vague. Does ability mean "Oh man, I just lost my 3rd level spells!", or does it mean "Oh man, I just lost 2 points of strength!". Or possibly even, "Oh man, I just lost my Mounted Combat feat!" You should have been more clear. There is currently a rule for ability score damage, but the mention of loss of skill makes me think that ability scores are not what you meant.
Finally, the soul isn't a defined substance in the game. What creatures have them? Humans only? All creatures? What about animals? Monsters with no Intelligence, like black pudding? Fey creatures? Abberations? magical beasts? Intelligent Constructs? Everyone except the undead, or do intelligent undead have them as well? There are too many questions about this issue.
Therefore, you are essentially proposing two new rules, possibly three. 1) a definition of a soul, 2) skill loss, and 3) (possibly) the loss of class abilities and/or feats.
You really should have just said level drain.
I don't think your description of the appearance was the echo drinkers' downfall, although certainly several people didn't like it. I think it was the rules elements themselves that got you. Anyway, that's my 2 coppers, and I hope it helps with any future design.
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I am a huge fan of the idea introduced back in 1st edition that Speak With Dead didn't actually communicate with a dead person's soul, but with some 'echo' left behind. There's even a class out there in 3rd party land called the Gleaner, that seeks out bones and taps into these 'echoes' for power.
The ability to retain some fragmentary information makes for a great plot engine, as the party needs information lost with the death of an ally or NPC, and must hunt down the Echo Drinker (perhaps by 'baiting it' via dropping animals or people to negative hit points, in the hopes it is attracted to the presence of 'dying' creatures and can be bargained with or trapped somehow) to gain that information.
It could even be worked into a campaign-specific way of getting around Ressurection losses, with the returned-from-the-dead having to hunt down whatever Echo Drinker supped at his dying self to regain lost memories or experiences.
Neat-oh.
"An echo drinker ... appearing as a ... disembodied animal’s tail."
"Echo drinkers feed off the energy of humanoid souls at the time of death, biting the body and drinking up a fraction of the soul—an echo—for sustenance."
"Hidden .. are a spongy, yet resilient skin,"
"centipede like legs"
"a head which appears like a woodland animal, typically a fox"
"Its eyes look like those of the last intelligent humanoid it drank from."
"Although feeding off souls, they are not malevolent, and do not seek to harm healthy humanoids, unless desperate."
"They reside wherever humanoids live and die."
"An audacious person may try to treat with an echo drinker for knowledge, drawn from the abundant information gained from drinking in echoes."
"As echo drinkers absorb more echoes, they gain more intelligence, allowing them to speak the languages of the souls of their victims."
"They can crawl and climb, but their movements are erratic, and hard to predict. Also able to move between the Material and Ethereal planes, echo drinkers usually wait on the Ethereal plane before striking out at a victim."
"When it bites ... (it) drains a part of the victim’s soul"
"It utilizes innate magic..."
"Older, stronger echo drinkers are known to create deadly illusions."
"Echo drinkers rarely attack healthy humanoids, and rarer still do some develop a hunger for souls, attacking healthy humanoids and savagely drinking their souls dry."
Echo Drinkers
This is fairly creative and evocative, but I run into several problems with the echo drinkers. First off I don't like the weird visuals too much. I don't outright dislike them like many others seem to do, but they are not giving me good expectations for this creature either.
Second i don't like that it drains "Skills or Abilities" i really hope you meant "it bestows negative levels" but wanted to avoid rules terms, because even if I like to mess with my players, saying: " it bites you and eats one rank of your diplomacy skill" will get me killed, not the echo drinker.Then your entry semms a bit shizophrenic. They are not malevolent, yet require killing intelligent creatures for sustenance and ambushes them.
They feed on souls, yet rarely develop a hunger for them.
I'm not considering this for a vote.
Thank You and Salutations from Wisconsin!
*shakes hands, kisses baby*
I decided to wait until the weekend before saying thank you to the Judges, the former competitors, my fellow competitors (that's you Andrew Sun), and the many of you who took the time to leave me feedback. It has been much appreciated so far. I do look forward to being able to speak my mind on my creation, but until then I will thank you to kindly leave feedback and if you're inclined to, whether I have your vote or not.
With 51 hours to go by my watch, I'm anxious to see how this round plays out. Have a great weekend to anyone who reads this!
*shakes babies, kisses hand*
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Star Voter Season 6, Star Voter Season 7, Star Voter Season 8, Star Voter Season 9
aka JoelF847
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I read the entry 3 times, to try to wrap my head around it, and overall, I failed. There's too much in here that's vague and potentially contradictory for me to like. I'm still confused about what it looks like. Is it an animate tail, or does it have fox head and centipede legs? If it only attacks to eat the soul echo of a creature as it's dying, does it just sit in the ethereal waiting for a creature to hit negative hit point, and then jump out and finish them off? If so, that seems really harsh to a PC who presumably just got trashed by a serious threat.
Cleric player: "don't worry, I'll run over and heal you as soon as it's my turn"
Echo Eater: *pop* "slurp"
Cleric player: "guess you'll need to roll up a new character"
The one part I don't have a problem with was that it's bite "result... in the loss of skill or ability". That just sounds like a no rules description of negative levels. The question then is, if it doesn't attach the healthy, when does this come up even?
It's also not clear when it actually uses its illusions to misdirect or attack, since it doesn't attack the healthy.
Director of Brand Strategy
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Your description here is so confusing that I found it really difficult to get through the whole piece. If I were less confounded by trying to picture this thing in my head as I read about its abilities and ecology, I would probably have more to say on it, but as it is, I couldn't really absorb any of that because I still can't visually the beast itself. I think a few more editing passes to smooth out internal inconsistencies and contradictions could really have helped you, here. I get the sense there's a great creature concept, but it's hidden under some first-draft writing that doesn't jive with my idea of a Superstar. Best of luck in this and future rounds.
Does it grab me visually: No. I’m having trouble seeing this one. It’s a tail with a head and centipede legs. It seems way too strange for me.
Would I use it in game: No. The visual image and the skill sucking power turn me off from this one. And I don’t really know where to put it into the game if it isn’t malevolent and seeking out the healthy and strong (the PCs).
Would my players enjoy an encounter with it: No. Suck away a players hard earned skills and abilities and they get very mad. Can they get those sills and abilities back?
An interesting idea that, if worked over a few times, could develop into a cool ethereal monster. I think it comes off more as a rough draft. There seem to be some holes in the abilities and description that needed patching.
Ken
Hey Kevin, everyone has given good advice so I won't repeat that. I'll just say that if you can generate ideas that feel 'weird' and 'unusual' to seasoned gamers, then you have a extremely creative streak. Keep on writing your ideas and focusing and developing them. Give the RPG Superstar a go next year, everyone loves gaming concepts that they wouldn't have thought of themselves.