1. One of my New Years resolutions is to work on the ideas on my "short list" and hopefully bring them to some level of completion.
2. The first idea selected for working on (currently only known by its code number G-3g), involves two planets that recently fought a war. The "E's" are an advanced race of large "space mermaids" who are of the 13th level intellect average, and have a peaceful society. But when attacked by the "U's", a race of xenophobic space conquerers with a small space empire, the "E's" quickly developed military technology and forced the "U's" to sue for peace.
3. I just got my copy of the Pathfinder Bestiary 2. Looking through the pages, it looks like I can recast many of these monsters as aliens from other planets.
What I am looking for here are ideas for using Bestiary 2 creatures in space, and possibly how they might help define the plots of subplots of an adventure the PCs could get involved in.
My idea is that the PCs are members of a "Third Legion", an interstellar peace keeping force. I do NOT want to do something like the Star Trek VI movie ("Undiscovered Country"), but I am assuming at this point that the plot will involve someones who do not want the peace to be kept.
What's the tech level of this campaign setting? How advanced is human (or its equivalent) society? Are they traveling in alchemical contraptions, standard-electricity based spaceships, or some kind of living ship?
What's the tech level of this campaign setting? How advanced is human (or its equivalent) society? Are they traveling in alchemical contraptions, standard-electricity based spaceships, or some kind of living ship?
The tech level is high. My inspiration is Legion of Super-Heroes, but technology is so advanced that for anybody who wants "super powers", it is just a matter of buying the required enhancements and training to use them.
It is a science fantasy setting, where magic works, and there are wizards and dragons. However, spaceships run and fight on technology because magic does not scale up as well. Warp drive permits FTL travel, although travel across the galaxy is also speeded up by going through naturally occuring wormholes. Travel between galaxies is possible, but requires a lot more time and fuel because the wormholes do not go between galaxies.
Tech level is "advanced interstellar".
Akata are perfect, as is, for space/scifi adventures. Think of them like you would James Cameron's Alien and inspiration should take over.
Aeons (I prefer Æons) make for fun opponents in regard to scientific advancement; each one represents a balance and every tech advancement brings humanity that much closer to their attention. For example, an akhana æon might work against a terraforming project simply because it feels a nearby "Class M" planet has enough "life" for the immediate star system; anything more jeopordizes its sense of balance.
Mercanes would always need bodyguards; a nice way to provide framework for new adventures and introduce a patron/financial backer for the party.
Gremlins could easily become a pest within huge cruise spaceships and cargo carriers.
Scientists could discover a new species of invertebrates, but also stumble upon a Worm That Walks using said creepy crawlies as part of his/her "body".
An attic whisperer can easily be made of space cabin supplies and futuristic toys; an old ship might have a dormant one onboard.
I randomly selected a page and ended up with the Grig. I think a gal like that is a little hard to justify in a science fiction setting, but perhaps a human crash landed on the Grig planet and was fixed with alien parts.
The natural grigs don't have very human-like torsos and are about 40 cm tall, but the Grig NPC has a human-like female torso and is about 150 cm in height.
The Grig planet came under attack during the war, and thus they became allies of the "E's". They might want to liberate some of the planets that are part of the "U's" space empire.
If magic works why not treat Fey like Fey? In some cases you can strip the "nature" part out and leave the emotional component. In the case of the Grig it responds to pranks, roguish behavior, and general tomfoolery. A Grig could manifest in any environment were such things are prevalent or ongoing, such as command with a habit of hazing new staff. Allow spells like Entangle to function with wiring, cables, or netting. Once formed the Grig now become the perpetrator of all (and escalating) pranks.
There are many types of Fey that could provide good adventure points for characters. Take a asteroid mining station infested by a Redcap. The cruelty of the mine foreman, plus the visceral hatred and resentment of the works, created a Redcap which is now causing even more accidents and stalking/hunting the other inhabitants.
Gremlins are also a wonderful example of a fey that has translated well in our own history. How often are car problems blamed on the nefarious actions of a gremlin?
Are they called from another dimension? Created as the result of latent psychic/magical energy of the people in the situation? Who knows, they just come to be. This also gives you an excuse to have Fey show up wherever it is most inconvenient, as fey are want to do.
I like the idea of an asteroid mining station infested by a redcap. And I've been thinking that gremlins might be unwanted passengers.
As for the grig, I am thinking that perhaps their "pranks" are motivated by the fact that their planet was occupied by xenophobic conquerers, prompting them to start an insurgency to try to drive them out. They are still fey, but they are alien fey.
Thinking about this idea, I was thinking of having one of the events in the adventure be a bar fight. You know, somebody says something that somebody else doesn't like, and next thing you know chairs are flying and people are getting punched.
Aeons (I prefer Æons) make for fun opponents in regard to scientific advancement; each one represents a balance and every tech advancement brings humanity that much closer to their attention. For example, an akhana æon might work against a terraforming project simply because it feels a nearby "Class M" planet has enough "life" for the immediate star system; anything more jeopordizes its sense of balance.
I am working on the idea that the Aeons are currently testing a race based on the Cetecean Agathions, to determine if the latter shall be allowed to progress toward "Rank 5". I don't know if there is a way to get human PCs involved in this, since humans are hanging out at the bottom of "Rank 3".
For my own planning, I developed a system of ranking aliens by intellectual advancement: Rank 0 - Bugs; Rank 1 - Animals; Rank 2 - Sentient; Rank 3 - Scientific; Rank 4 - Transcendental; Rank 5 - Lesser Masters of the Galaxy; Rank 6 - Greater Masters of the Galaxy. The higher ranks like 7 and 8 would imply aliens like Galactus or Q.
I also worked on the idea of Grigs being a race from a planet that had fought the space empire, but later were recruited as allies of the empire for their engineering and tactical skills.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"
What humans perceive as 'arcane magic' might simply be god-like technological gifts manifested by nanites in the blood of the spellcasters. Similar to the way access to "The Force" comes from having midichlorians in the blood.
The races and peoples who can do arcane magic may not be aware of these nanites in their blood, or even if they do, may not know the first thing of how they function, only that they are responsible for everything that a wizard or sorcerer can do.
Divine magic functions similarly--there may be nanites in the blood of clerics and paladins, but their power lies in their ability to connect with hyperdimensional beings of unlimited power (e.g. The Q, Vorlons, Time Lords), who for whatever reason do not mind intervening in mortal affairs. The mortals worship these beings as deities, whether or not these higher forms of life like to be worshiped or merely tolerate it.
In a sci-fi D&D campaign I ran once, every celestial, devil, and demon sub-race was its own species. Every species could breed true (which includes the assumption that Succubi and Erinyes both had male counterparts to mate with even if the Monster Manuals did not have stats for them) and there was not "promotion" from one species to the next highest in importance.
The Baatezu collective were unified under an interstellar government characterized by a social caste structure--Pit Fiends on top, lemures on bottom, naturally.
The Tanar'ri were an alliance of long-ago rebels against the Baatezu. While the Balors were still "first among equals" they were not as strictly caste-based as the Baatezu were, and they were not as well-organized as a civilization, but could maintain military parity with the Baatezu and Celestials by sheer numbers alone.
The Celestials were pretty much what we would expect them to be, egalitarian and humanitarian like the Federation. In this campaign the Celestial government included elves, dwarves, and the rest of the non-human PC races. (The campaign itself was all about first official contact between humans and the Celestials, and all PCs were restricted to human only. Earth only had 21st-century technology to start with, so we had a lot of fun blowing away iconic D&D monsters with M-16s and grenade launchers.)
Anyway, the "outsiders" in this campaign were not "outsiders" in the strictest sense of originating from another plane of existence, but retained all their usual "outsider" attributes, being millions of years more advanced, evolutionarily and technologically speaking, than any humanoid race.
For my own planning, I developed a system of ranking aliens by intellectual advancement: Rank 0 - Bugs; Rank 1 - Animals; Rank 2 - Sentient; Rank 3 - Scientific; Rank 4 - Transcendental; Rank 5 - Lesser Masters of the Galaxy; Rank 6 - Greater Masters of the Galaxy. The higher ranks like 7 and 8 would imply aliens like Galactus or Q.
For additional inspiration you might also want to look at D20 Future's progress level system.
http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/MSRD:Progress_Levels
However, I would tweak this scale somewhat at the low end, and expand it to twelve levels to make it reach as far as possible to what might be considered a "godlike" level of development.
PL 0: Beast Age (no tool use whatsoever)
PL 1: Tool Age (encompasses Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages; default for 'primitive' fantasy)
PL 2: Medieval Age (default for 'modern' fantasy)
PL 3: Age of Reason (default for steampunk fantasy)
PL 4: Industrial Age (capable of mechanized warfare)
PL 5: Information Age (able to build global internets)
PL 6: Fusion Age (practical colonization of home star system)
PL 7: Gravity Age (practical colonization of other star systems)
PL 8: Energy Age (Kardashev's Type I Civilization)
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale
PL 9: Star Age (Type II Civilization)
PL 10: Galaxy Age (Type III Civilization)
PL 11: Cosmic Age (Type IV Civilization: expansion is great enough to push back the boundaries of the observable universe)
PL 12: God Age (Type V Civilization: able to escape dead universes and instigate 'Big Bangs' to spawn new ones)
Akata are perfect, as is, for space/scifi adventures. Think of them like you would James Cameron's Alien and inspiration should take over.
Aeons (I prefer Æons) make for fun opponents in regard to scientific advancement; each one represents a balance and every tech advancement brings humanity that much closer to their attention. For example, an akhana æon might work against a terraforming project simply because it feels a nearby "Class M" planet has enough "life" for the immediate star system; anything more jeopordizes its sense of balance.
Mercanes would always need bodyguards; a nice way to provide framework for new adventures and introduce a patron/financial backer for the party.
Gremlins could easily become a pest within huge cruise spaceships and cargo carriers.
Scientists could discover a new species of invertebrates, but also stumble upon a Worm That Walks using said creepy crawlies as part of his/her "body".
An attic whisperer can easily be made of space cabin supplies and futuristic toys; an old ship might have a dormant one onboard.
I'm making a plea for Orcs. They are so like Klingons. They could have jacked the first spaceships that landed. They enslaved and interbred with the pilots, and now have a militaristic space empire.
I'm making a plea for Orcs. They are so like Klingons. They could have jacked the first spaceships that landed. They enslaved and interbred with the pilots, and now have a militaristic space empire.
I'd say Hobgoblins would make better "classical" Klingons than Orcs would. They are smarter, more dextrous, and tougher than orcs, and they engage in warmongering and the slave trade.