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Fantasy NPC: Ties That Bind, The Marriage Officiant. A faery magistrate that is supposed to bless the royal marriages to be valid in this particular realm.
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Sometimes you just need an old time revival.
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Sometimes you just need an old time revival.
"Gimme That (Great) Old Time Religion"
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Sometimes you just need an old time revival."Gimme That (Great) Old Time Religion"
And I for one, welcome our new Great Old One overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a trusted forum personality I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground madness caves.
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So my regular group has been playing Deadlands Noir (w/Savage Worlds), set in 1930s New Orleans.
BACKGROUND: A couple sessions ago, they tracked a skinwalker to a warehouse, thinking they'd ambush him. It was a reverse ambush (he knew they were there because of a terrible tailing roll). However, they had built up this voodoo creature in their minds to be so powerful, they were surprised when they destroyed it in the first round. Their rejoicing turned to screaming and gunning the car (with one PC clinging to the running board yelling "GO GO GO") when a tonton macoute (a badass who makes the skinwalker look like fighting a newspaper boy) emerged from the warehouse.
THE STORY: Last session, they were talking to an old man in a nursing home. Turns out he'd been a monster hunter back in the day. Now that's all the published material gave me to work with, so I'm just improv-ing hard. He starts rambling about The Department (no idea what that is). The players get very interested in this... Department.
Then one of them mentions a tonton macoute.
ME (Improvising as OLD COOT): Huh? Pfft. You just need to go down to the lab and requisition the Lawnmower.
PLAYERS: *eyes lighting up; excited bouncing* The Lawnmower! We gotta find one of those!
CONFESSION: I have no f!#+ing idea what the Lawnmower is. However, now it is literally ALL my players want to find. Fortunately, they've got to deal with the current cluster that they're in first, so I have a couple weeks to figure it out.
*facepalm*
After all these years, you'd think I'd know better than to flippantly say something like "the lawnmower will take care of that horrifying voodoo blaspemy creature for you" and NOT expect it will become the players' entire purpose for existing...
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You COULD handwave it by saying Old Coot probably had dementia and was just rambling. Also, lawnmowers in those days were almost only completely hand-propelled with your kid as the motor. I can't get the image of some kid trying to earn enough money to order the cardboard submarine from a comic book defiantly standing before a hideous hoodoo monster, his white-knuckled fists gripping the handle of the mower preparing for the greatest lawn-scaping for all time to come.
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Also, a Google search for "ton ton macoute" turns up virtually nothing about the creature save for a couple of sentences describing it as a Haitian boogeyman also named "Uncle Gunnysack" or "Uncle Knapsack" who kidnaps and eats children. Damned near every entry was about the Haitian masked goons working for François Duvalier's secret police, a largely middle-class organization set up to control urban opposition in the late 1950s. Oh, and also a prog-rock band from 1971 with a pretty crappy album.
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You COULD handwave it by saying Old Coot probably had dementia and was just rambling. Also, lawnmowers in those days were almost only completely hand-propelled with your kid as the motor. I can't get the image of some kid trying to earn enough money to order the cardboard submarine from a comic book defiantly standing before a hideous hoodoo monster, his white-knuckled fists gripping the handle of the mower preparing for the greatest lawn-scaping for all time to come.
"Man, this better be worth that nickel from Old Lady Masterson..."
OMG!
That led me down a mental luge run to Encyclopedia Brown's New England cousin: Necronomicon Brown. Every case only costs a nickel, whether it's Bugs Meany smashing a few jack-o-lanterns or Cthulhu himself rising from R'yleh...
How is this not already a thing?
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Oh, and also a prog-rock band from 1971 with a pretty crappy album.
Don't scoff. A prog-rock band is a fearsome end boss. I mean, imagine the terror as the players enter an abandoned warehouse, only to confront an emaciated art student dressed as a six-foot tall daisy. He begins to yodel while his minions play tennis rackets and bicycle wheels strung with rubber bands. And then the light show...
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I roadied for them.
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I roadied for them.
*debeverages*
Well played, sir, well played!
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Oh, and also a prog-rock band from 1971 with a pretty crappy album.Don't scoff. A prog-rock band is a fearsome end boss. I mean, imagine the terror as the players enter an abandoned warehouse, only to confront an emaciated art student dressed as a six-foot tall daisy. He begins to yodel while his minions play tennis rackets and bicycle wheels strung with rubber bands. And then the light show...
I feel personally attacked.
Also, I am only 5' 8"
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A typical 1970s prog band usually consisted of three people:
1. The vocalist who also played a double-necked guitar which was a regular six string electric on the bottom half and an eight string bass on the top half while simultaneously playing synthesizers with his feet.
2. A keyboardist literally imprisoned inside banks upon banks of keyboards and often packed in the crates to move to the next show by careless roadies.
3. A drummer whose kit had its own ZIP code.
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Oh, and also a prog-rock band from 1971 with a pretty crappy album.Don't scoff. A prog-rock band is a fearsome end boss. I mean, imagine the terror as the players enter an abandoned warehouse, only to confront an emaciated art student dressed as a six-foot tall daisy. He begins to yodel while his minions play tennis rackets and bicycle wheels strung with rubber bands. And then the light show...I feel personally attacked.
Also, I am only 5' 8"
I would never personally attack someone who gets visits from a “sword man”. All I have is an ice cream man. Sure, he’s got a jaunty tune and winning smile and children love him, but that just makes him the bard of the self defense world.
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*rips shirt off, waves it overhead yelling WOOOO!*
I would never personally attack someone who gets visits from a “sword man”. All I have is an ice cream man. Sure, he’s got a jaunty tune and winning smile and children love him, but that just makes him the bard of the self defense world.Oh, and also a prog-rock band from 1971 with a pretty crappy album.Don't scoff. A prog-rock band is a fearsome end boss. I mean, imagine the terror as the players enter an abandoned warehouse, only to confront an emaciated art student dressed as a six-foot tall daisy. He begins to yodel while his minions play tennis rackets and bicycle wheels strung with rubber bands. And then the light show...I feel personally attacked.
Also, I am only 5' 8"
While the Deadly Ice Cream is a fearsome weapon in the right hands, it tends to lose its effectiveness in even slightly warm weather, whereas if your sword is melting, everybody probably has bigger problems to deal with.
Speaking of combo guitars, (6 and 12-string, bass and 12-string, etc.), they are mainly for showing-off purposes. I remember a C&W guitarist (Merle Travis?) having one with a mandolin AND a 6-string electric AND a 12-string on one body, not to mention the man from Cheap Trick and his Hamer with five necks, or something...
This feels like it has potential for a comedy sketch. The combos get increasingly ridiculous...
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Yeah, Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick had an arsenal of novelty guitars that he played on stage. I remember the five necked one. Cheap Trick's original bassist Tom Peterson had the first twelve string bass ever made. When he ordered it from the company that made it they told him the tension on the neck would be so great that would snap. To prove them wrong he took the ten-string they had already made for him, laid it across two chairs, and did 20 pull-ups with it to prove them wrong. They made the twelve-string.
John Paul Jones had a triple-necked acoustic that was a gift from the guitar company which Jimmy Page allegedly got angry about because he was Zeppelin's guitarist, not John. John, according to the story, calmly began numbering every instrument he could play that Page couldn't, who got so mad he stormed out of the studio while Jones was still counting...lol
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Yeah, Rick Nielsen from Cheap Trick had an arsenal of novelty guitars that he played on stage. I remember the five necked one. Cheap Trick's original bassist Tom Peterson had the first twelve string bass ever made. When he ordered it from the company that made it they told him the tension on the neck would be so great that would snap. To prove them wrong he took the ten-string they had already made for him, laid it across two chairs, and did 20 pull-ups with it to prove them wrong. They made the twelve-string.
John Paul Jones had a triple-necked acoustic that was a gift from the guitar company which Jimmy Page allegedly got angry about because he was Zeppelin's guitarist, not John. John, according to the story, calmly began numbering every instrument he could play that Page couldn't, who got so mad he stormed out of the studio while Jones was still counting...lol
I love JPJ's solo albums.
I love JPJ's solo albums.
I have to admit I'm not really familiar with much of his solo work at all. I should probably fix that.
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I would never personally attack someone who gets visits from a “sword man”. All I have is an ice cream man. Sure, he’s got a jaunty tune and winning smile and children love him, but that just makes him the bard of the self defense world.While the Deadly Ice Cream is a fearsome weapon in the right hands, it tends to lose its effectiveness in even slightly warm weather, whereas if your sword is melting, everybody probably has bigger problems to deal with.
Should brain freeze be a cantrip or 1st-level spell?
Should brain freeze be a cantrip or 1st-level spell?
That's a tough call. I'd be tempted to say 1st level because the pain can be so intense and it certainly lasts longer than a round. And if you somehow manage to freeze the esophagus further down it can make you feel like you're having a heart attack or your spine is fighting its way to freedom.
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Using the Dungeon Crawl Classics mechanic where you make a spell roll (it might not be called exactly that) every time you cast and add your modifiers, and the higher the result, the more severe the effects, makes sense in this instance.
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Should brain freeze be a cantrip or 1st-level spell?
A winter witch hex.
You create a frosty, delicious treat. Your target must succeed at a Will save or be affected as if by beguiling gift and consume the item as rapidly as possible. Upon consuming the treat, they must succeed at a Fortitude save or be nauseated for 1d4 minutes as splitting pain wracks their skull. Success reduces this effect to sickened. If you succeed at a DC 12 Perform (jaunty tune) check in the round prior to using this hex, the victim takes -2 to their saving throws.
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Absolutely perfect, Q.
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It's part of my upcoming module Realm of the Dairy Queen...
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*nasal de-beveraging*
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Regardless of whether you do it as a spell or hex, it absolutely has to have the [evil, pain] descriptors on it.
Regardless of whether you do it as a spell or hex, it absolutely has to have the [evil, pain] descriptors on it.
Absolutely!
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And [lactose]. Just in case.
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Hey!
No intolerance on these boards.
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Fantasy NPC: The Guardian Of Royal Crypts. A dragon that hoards dead royalty.
Fantasy NPC: The Guardian Of Royal Crypts. A dragon that hoards dead royalty.
My players aren't high enough in level to use this right away, but I have added it to my folder of gaming related pages for future use.
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They don't have to fight him. They might need to convince him to allow them to speak with dead with a recently deceased prince or something... Or get hired to discover who is kidnapping his kobolds. Or just meet him while searching for a vanished princess that was last seen delivering him his seasonal meal and a supplementary herd of sheep.
They don't have to fight him. They might need to convince him to allow them to speak with dead with a recently deceased prince or something... Or get hired to discover who is kidnapping his kobolds. Or just meet him while searching for a vanished princess that was last seen delivering him his seasonal meal and a supplementary herd of sheep.
Oh yeah. There are a lot of different angles for adventures with him.
Checking in on you folks. How is everyone doing?
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*yawn*
Sleepy, like usual.
I have had a tricky couple of days at work, but now I'm alright. I got home, did some baston y daga practice while listening to Spirit, had stir-fry for tea, then finished off writing a song. How are you, Cal?
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Wow, I hadn't thought of Spirit in years. Now I gotta go listen to some.
Have you heard the cover by Hollywood Vampires (Alice Cooper, Johnny Depp, Joe Perry, and a host of others). They also do a cover of Bowie's "Heroes" that just knocks me out.
"I Got a Line on You" - Hollywood Vampires
I'm doing ok. Over a two day period this week I got 36 hours of sleep, which is about how much I got in total the previous two weeks. And now the insomnia cycle is reset and it gets to start again! Wheee! Also gradually putting together my Halloween game for the 23rd. It's actually the end of an adventure that was supposed to be a one shot but things just kept keeping it from being that...lol. So I decided to just beef up the ending and let the players deal with THAT.
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Spirit are the tops. You can get the first five albums in a box for a comparatively small amount of cash (around £12 in our stupid currency), and they're all good, though I like the first one the best (a bit jazzier).
Spirit are the tops. You can get the first five albums in a box for a comparatively small amount of cash (around £12 in our stupid currency), and they're all good, though I like the first one the best (a bit jazzier).
No kidding? Hmm...*edits Christmas wish list*
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Fantasy NPC: Biru Hakka, A Practical Archaeologist. An tomb robber archaeologist who died while stealing from a tomb exploring a tomb, but she got better.
"PracticalArchaeologist". I love that!
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Oh, that is good.
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Fantasy Monster: Wight-Jester. A troublesome lesser wight to be found in barrows of the mighty.
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Fantasy Monster: Wight-Jester. A troublesome lesser wight to be found in barrows of the mighty.
In a long ago 2e campaign my friend Jeff played a Jester. He played him like a complete but happy idiot with no social boundaries or respect for "his betters". We were consistently in hysterics at his antics. It would serve him right to have his character come back as this.
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