Eh?
I think it's one of those constructs in the Game of Life that reproduces forever.
It's called The German Sense of Humour. After all these centuries, we Europeans learned how to handle that - Americans might be new to this, so just laugh loudly and pretend it was funny ;-)
Yeah, of course you'll look silly laughing at something that wasn't supposed to be humour :P
It's Ant Country. It's an example of emergent behaviour, A system with simple rules that nevertheless is impossible to predict.
The rules: You have a field of squares that can be either white or black (In this case, I went for all white)
And then you put an ant onto the field, and ant that behaves in a predetermined manner:
1. Step forward
2a if you encounter a white square, turn it black and turn left
2b if you encounter a black square, turn it white and turn right
3 goto 1.
Very simple. You know exactly how the ant is going to behave every step of the way (it steps forward, flips the colour of the square it's on and turns left or right depending on what colour the square was).
But there's no way to predict what the field will look like after 100 steps or 1000 steps. None. You cannot look at the starting field and say "it will look like this or that in 3000 steps", you cannot have a computer do some smart calculations to get an idea. All the computer can do is quickly going through the steps.
In this case (initial state being an all-white field), The ant will muck about in a relatively small area (50x50) for about 10,000 steps and then starting to build these "rail-road tracks" you see going up and to the right. It will continue that pattern indefinitely.
Other initial states will result in other patterns.
Funny stuff, emergence. And this is a really easy ruleset. A showcase. It's associated with evolution and weather, among other things.
Anyway, it would be a funny Easter Egg to use a picture of Ant Country for some ant-based critter. Though, of course, you can argue whether this belongs in the order corner or into chaos.
Creative Director
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What about Inevitables and Axiomites ? Surely some LN paragon race is on the menu ?
Axiomites are like xills or mercanes. They're not really a category of planar creatures like demons or devils, but a single race.
Inevitables are going to be the official Pathfinder lawful neutral exemplar race.
Axiomites and inevitables (a half dozen or so of those) will be in the Bestiary 2.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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We will get to formians, but want a better understanding of the original source material from which they come (Ralph Milne Farley's RADIO MAN serials) before we chart out a formal path for them. They don't seem to have much of a point in the game, so we're hoping the original material gives us some ideas on how to make them cooler and more useful to GMs.
Aren't they ants? I am pretty sure that comes with an inherent societal construct..
Watch that old sci-fi classic movie about the giant ants- Them?(or some similiar title)It should be worth some good ideas.
Also, glad to hear about the inevitables.
I always liked them but was never really sure how to work them in. I like this train of thought, Eric.
What about the nightshades? I really only like the night walker.
Formians are more representatives of the insectile hive-mind then anything else. They were insect folk in AD&D, moved to outsider status in 3E. SUpposedly, they 'replace' the modrons as more hivemindish all-conquering lawful types...which makes no sense, how can you conquer a bunch of outsiders who endlessly respawn from their central pool? You're literally fighting infinity.
==Aelryinth
It's called The German Sense of Humour. After all these centuries, we Europeans learned how to handle that - Americans might be new to this, so just laugh loudly and pretend it was funny ;-)
I am German and I don't get it.
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What about Inevitables and Axiomites ? Surely some LN paragon race is on the menu ?Axiomites are like xills or mercanes. They're not really a category of planar creatures like demons or devils, but a single race.
Inevitables are going to be the official Pathfinder lawful neutral exemplar race.
Axiomites and inevitables (a half dozen or so of those) will be in the Bestiary 2.
Mercanes among them? :)
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Creative Director
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Mercanes among them? :)What about Inevitables and Axiomites ? Surely some LN paragon race is on the menu ?Axiomites are like xills or mercanes. They're not really a category of planar creatures like demons or devils, but a single race.
Inevitables are going to be the official Pathfinder lawful neutral exemplar race.
Axiomites and inevitables (a half dozen or so of those) will be in the Bestiary 2.
Mercanes are open content, thanks to the Epic Level SRD. So... maybe!
Was I the only one to see a coat of arms at the end of a fireplace poker?
What about Inevitables and Axiomites ? Surely some LN paragon race is on the menu ?Axiomites are like xills or mercanes. They're not really a category of planar creatures like demons or devils, but a single race.
Inevitables are going to be the official Pathfinder lawful neutral exemplar race.
Axiomites and inevitables (a half dozen or so of those) will be in the Bestiary 2.
But but but
Modrons D:
I know they probably aren't OGL but
But
Modrons D:
Mercanes are open content, thanks to the Epic Level SRD. So... maybe!
<lifts eyebrow>
That's the second time in two weeks I started getting nostalgic flashbacks of Clarshh's Sepulchre. The Arcane (as they were called back then) were the first monster I ever converted from 2E to 3.0 - the first of MANY.
I never realized that it was open content. Clearly, it is - I just did a simple Google search on "Mercane" and the first 3 results were 3.5 stats for them.
I don't even know what a Mercane is or it's just not ringing a bell.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Arcane first appeared in the Spelljammer setting. I know nothing about Spelljammer, but one of the greatest things about the last incarnation of AD&D 2nd Edition (version 2.5?) was that its monster manual tried to be as complete as possible, covering monsters from many sources, and so included the Arcane.
But what first grabbed my attention about the Arcane was the adventure "Clarshh's Sepulchre" in Dungeon magazine #53. It was immediately obvious that an Arcane character would be useful to allow the party to trade their magic items for other magic items the party actually wanted, but the adventure somehow conveyed a certain mystique about Sereen, the Arcane character. (Although it might just have been the picture that made me think so. It WAS the best Arcane picture I've seen.)
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>:( @#$%ing formians.Formians were the villains of the first 3rd edition game I ever DMed. For every gamer there is a different idea of the monsters that define the game.
Oh no, it's not that formians are bad. It's just that they are a valuable scapegoat in the absence of knowing exactly who decided modrons were too "goofy" for 3.x.
Even having a modron party member in a critically acclaimed cRPG that was still on the shelves at the time couldn't get them into 3.x, apparently. :(
Random picture of what could be a Formian queen.
Apparently they make good eating.
There was a web enhancement for the 3.whichever Manual of the Planes with Modrons as the subject. Pity they never did any more about them. I liked them too.
Sure there were modrons in 3.X. Or in 3.0, at any rate. You could get them for free at WotC's website right here.
I think what people are trying to say here is that they were gone with 3.5.
Would that make you sleep more easily at night?
EDIT: D'oh! Ninja'd by 16 seconds!
And by the way, I never really grokked what Modrons were supposed to be. They whirr and click. Does that mean that if you cut one open, you'd find running gearworks inside instead of guts?
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I don't even know what a Mercane is or it's just not ringing a bell.Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Arcane first appeared in the Spelljammer setting. I know nothing about Spelljammer, but one of the greatest things about the last incarnation of AD&D 2nd Edition (version 2.5?) was that its monster manual tried to be as complete as possible, covering monsters from many sources, and so included the Arcane.
But what first grabbed my attention about the Arcane was the adventure "Clarshh's Sepulchre" in Dungeon magazine #53. It was immediately obvious that an Arcane character would be useful to allow the party to trade their magic items for other magic items the party actually wanted, but the adventure somehow conveyed a certain mystique about Sereen, the Arcane character. (Although it might just have been the picture that made me think so. It WAS the best Arcane picture I've seen.)
They were but wotc hated spell jammer and planescape for that matter though they used a planescape mod as the final 2ed adv and the universal rulses change reason for the 3.0 conversion booo. I miss both and wish pazio could get rights for them I miss the Spelljammer and Sigil
+1 for Sigil. The Faction Wars ruined Planescape.
Random picture of what could be a Formian queen.
Aren't those like the things in that TERRIBLE Dan Brown novel...uh...Deception Point? Basically giant sea lice.
Hmmm, so what should I replace that one card with in the Harrow Deck of Many things?
So how many inevitables does Paizo have on contract to keep the freelancers in hand.
Hmmm, so what should I replace that one card with in the Harrow Deck of Many things?
It's a regular ant queen. Ants are quite borgy already.
To both Paul Ryan and Aaron Bitman... thanks for the link!
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If anything made me love formian's, its Neversfall. That novel singularly confused and amazed me at what a pure Lawful Neutral entity really was.