What Template to Use?

[Lvl 12 Procrastinator]

Ok, I've got a unicorn that has twisted into a feral, bipedal abomination due to a magical disease, and he keeps a leather-masked (no eye holes) medusa on a chain link leash. She's living the Stockholm Syndrome dream.

What template(s) should I use for their offspring?

[Dragonborn3]

Half-Fiend and Young Templates on a Centaur should do it. Maybe give it a paralysis gaze attack, since it's mom is a medusa...

Very creey concept by the way. Some sort of horror game?

[Lvl 12 Procrastinator]

Dragonborn3 wrote:

Very creey concept by the way. Some sort of horror game?

Underground panopticon prison developed by a tyrannical elf regime in centuries past to keep unusual prisoners for study and hide artifacts too dangerous to set loose in the world. Since then the prison has been sealed from the outside, the disease has run amok on the inside (unicorn was patient zero), and the abominable, sadistic survivors are divided into factions that war over precious resources (they eat vermin and the occasional lost morlock who stumbles in through a narrow fissure).

My world has no drow as a race. This is my take on them. The warden is effectively a drider, but other combinations are possible.

The whole thing started as a side adventure to help the characters level up for the big show (the lost elven city), but the prison has taken on a life of its own.

[Dragonborn3]

Yep, underground prison ripe with mutated prisoners sounds like the making of a horror game.

Now just imagine what would happen if the prisoners broke out..

Any plans to make this a play-by-post?

[Phneri]

Oh murderous unicorns...reminds me of my Earthdawn characters...*sniff*

Anyway, depending on the 3.x splatbooks you have floating around there are a number of abberrant templates you can throw onto critters to make them scary and something the party hasn't seen at all. Complete arcane had a tentacle monster thing template that was pretty good, and vile darkness had a tainted template that was absolutely brutal (natural weapons up a size category and fast healing).

I'd look at the statblock for your parents and flip through abberrations until I found something fun, then use that power as a baseline.

Centaur works, or maybe some adaption of yuan-ti that has more horsey bits and/or a horn.

[Lvl 12 Procrastinator]

Dragonborn3 wrote:

Now just imagine what would happen if the prisoners broke out..

That's bound to happen. Sadly, though, it's not too much safer on the outside, and in a way, the elf city is worse. It's just awfully concentrated and desperate inside the prison.

Dragonborn3 wrote:

Any plans to make this a play-by-post?

I hadn't thought of that. I suppose I could do that, but haven't I already given some of it away? With my group, a big part of the magic is that they haven't the slightest clue what they're in for. The best part is that the forest they're in has been eating them alive, so they're feeling relieved to be finding some cover. That relief will die quickly. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire.

What I was actually thinking of doing was writing it up as a pure flavor module, keeping it game independent, and sharing it that way. Crunch and RAW is not really my strength, and I can name half a dozen regular forum posters off the top of my head who would flay me alive if they saw my numbers. Better to let people who are good at that sort of thing fill in the blanks. This way it would also be useful to OSR types.

I'll have to give play-by-post some thought. How much of a time commitment does that tend to be?

[Dragonborn3]

Well, amount of time can be difficult to determine.

I ran one that lasted for nearly a year, but it died. My fault, I think. :(

It depends on when everyone can post, really. If everyone can post at about the same time, the game can be moderately fast. You might not get as much done as an actual sitting-at-a-table session, but you'll still get some things done.