My next campaign is set in a giant island chain where there are many, many strange people and societies.
I'm collecting up a list of unusual and interesting people - any race is possible, and I'm looking for peculiar folk of any stripe. They don't need to be challenges, but that's possible. There's everything from a giant, crazily cosmopolitan city to primitive tribes, and even underwater societies.
I'm looking for any characters the party might want to interact with, from an awakened dog expert that knows the city streets like the back of his paw to a religious leader who just happens to be an ocean giant who draws crowds of tourists to his sermons. (both already exist)
What ideas do you have? Convoluted is fine!
There's some characters referenced here and here and here that I remember contributing to which may be of use, and I'm sure there have been many more.
A Monastery of outsiders, having an angel, a devil, and a demon in joint meditation, that sort of thing.
The awakened dog could have a human (who's Int has been reduced to 2) as a pet. (Not necessarily Mr. Peabody and Sherman, though...)
A city that is amongst giant stalactites on the roof of a massive cavern, populated by flying denizens (with walkways for non-flying visitors). Just don't look down....
An underground seaside resort town, vacation spot for Underdark folks (and underworld operatives, too) . . . watch your coin-purse and your back...
A shrunken city, nestled in the roots of a mighty oak. If you approach too closely to the entrance, you get shrunken down to fit the city.
An ordinary village, with nothing weird or unusual going on, and somehow never has had anything weird or unusual going on. That stuff is all for OTHER places.
Travelling Merchants that are giant, intelligent hermit crabs that keep their wares inside their shells.
Surfer girl Druids
Awaked Blue Ring Octopus Assassins: maybe not even Awakened; Octopi are very smart!
Dolphin Sorcerers
Cool. Some interesting ideas, here!
I remember playing in a game where there was a little mountain country (picture Tibet) in an out of the way area, (very hard to get to) where it was common practice to Animate Dead on your ancestors.
A party of adventurers, on arriving in a village there found a Zombie chasing some children in a fenced in yard. And did what adventurers do, only to be arrested for chopping up "Great Aunt Magrat". They had to pay to have her put back together and then pay damages for the trauma caused to the children who had been playing Zombie Tag with her.
Real culture shock. Different cultures, different customs.
avr wrote: There's some characters referenced here and here and here that I remember contributing to which may be of use, and I'm sure there have been many more. here is another link for ideas for you, this one talking about WHY a Fantasy world would have graveyards...
Any giant island chain in a fantasy setting should have several exotic peoples who would be considered freaks of nature, if not outright monsters, anywhere else. The Greeks and Romans were especially keen on populating the unknown parts of the world with all kinds of bizarre "human" tribes. Some of the weirder examples include Blemmyes (headless, with faces in their chests), Panotii (who use their gigantic ears to cover their bodies, and possibly fly), and Sciapods (one-legged hoppers; the basis for Narnia's Dufflepuds).
Lawful good creatures of a race described as chaotic evil. Expect surprise from your players when they try to negociate peace in broken Common. The reverse is true (CE creatures thought to be good), although the players' reaction will be more "betrayed".
Strange creature: the top of a mountain that is disturbly resembling a sleeping humanoid - it is an earth elemental who only wakes when someone worthy asks a question. Then it goes back to sleep. Or attack if the question is meaningless.
Strange location: the inside of a mountain has been excavated almost completely, leaving just the outside. Inside, gravity is relative to the center of the vacated space, pushing outwards (and the center is a lighthouse-like permanent daylight effect). A whole city grows on the inside of the spherical space, filled with a breathable atmosphere with a higher-than-normal percentage of helium (leading to high-pitched voices for everyone). Greedy enterprises push for more digging for gold (or what passes for gold for them, can be lead for all I know). Since there is no way to know which direction you are actually digging, expect to find people (and trash) being literally thrown outside of the mountain, the normal gravity taking hold of them afterwards and guiding them to their death. As you approach the mountain, you find scores of corpses. All of them very small (the race doesn't grow over baby size). There might be more such cities deeper underground, some even in contact with lava... or inside.
Strange being: a Mayonaise Elemental, created by a mad mage wanting mayonaise but too lazy to make it or procure it. He made a bread elemental, too, but this one crumbled to dust, leaving only the other to patrol the now-empty halls of their deceased creator. And there is mayonaise litteraly everywhere, when you enter. Rumor has it that that particular mage had a twin brother equally lazy and similarly partial to ketchup and sausage, but his house is surrounded by the police because they thought there was blood everywhere, and "pieces of corpse" (which is what they wrote in the report, not wanting to dick with their female superiors about triggering words). In fact, the whole family has a theme running: the parents had an Emmental Elemental guarding the kitchen... until the local rules-policecreatures found it too cheesy and grated it to death.
I'd better leave now, before I commit to more food poisoning.
Cool. Any more?
I'm mostly looking for the quirky individuals...I can get a lot from all this, though. I love stuff like semi-redeemed demons. :)
An Ettin that was once a married couple.
A wizened old wizard in the body of a toddler.
A kid in the body of a massive, grizzled barbarian.
A race of beings that swap bodies with each other like it's nothing.
A person that can swap out body parts like a Mr. PotatoHead.
An intelligent/awakened Roc that thinks it is a sparrow (or the other way around)
KahnyaGnorc wrote: An Ettin that was once a married couple.
A wizened old wizard in the body of a toddler.
A kid in the body of a massive, grizzled barbarian.
A race of beings that swap bodies with each other like it's nothing.
A person that can swap out body parts like a Mr. PotatoHead.
An intelligent/awakened Roc that thinks it is a sparrow (or the other way around)
LOL! That's Corben's Den! ;)
Well, I just built a character I feel like fits pretty well in the theme.
He's a (human) hero, well past his prime. At 95, he's long since retired, and he farms. He's a legend, actually, but he lives where nobody knows. To his neighbors, he's simply a (stunningly) vigorous old farmer with some crazy skill with plants.
In a world where very few NPCs get into the teen levels (the toughest known man in the world is a Ftr16 - but pretty special), he's 15th level.
He slew a grootslang, as his last known public act - some say he died. There is a memorial to him, made of its tusks. His associates disappeared, too. His cleric friend, a bit younger and merely 13th level, lives very nearby, and the female halfling rogue nobody remembers stops in quite often to reminisce, drink, and play cards with them.
They lost a friend that day. The wizard was always frail, and the beast bit him in half. The cleric nearly died, too, and they were unable to recover the wizard's body.
There's a sadness to the old hero's last tale, but he's not dead yet.
An archipelago where arboreal octopi are a thing and they are personable enough to be "tamed" and sailors and other types have taken to keeping them as pets.
Some of them even pick up strange vices, such as one ship-captain's companion that loves novelty bubble pipes.
Location: A forested land inhabited by fey (Sprites/Brownies/etc) .
Local “War Leader/Chief”: a former human fighter/general of significant level (say 12th) whose body washed up on the island (or fell from the sky/from a flying carpet/Sky ship/teleport accident/something) and the local Druid (unicorn?) Reincarnated him. And he came back as a Pixie. Or Atomie. Or something equally small. And hates the fact that his current “Greatsword” is 6 inches long... And he has a squeaky voice. And can’t hold his beer...
He is always trying to organize the locals into some form of militia/army/military force, and while they “play along” for a little while, they tend to be distracted by ... “Ball!” and chase off into the brush after anything, forgetting whatever it is he was want them to do.
When the PCs arrive, “the General” might think they are advance scouts of an invasion, or he may just draft them into his fighting forces...
Bonus points if the PCs know there actually is a threat headed to the island,,, and the fey need to organize a defense.
nosig wrote: Location: A forested land inhabited by fey (Sprites/Brownies/etc) .
Local “War Leader/Chief”: a former human fighter/general of significant level (say 12th) whose body washed up on the island (or fell from the sky/from a flying carpet/Sky ship/teleport accident/something) and the local Druid (unicorn?) Reincarnated him. And he came back as a Pixie. Or Atomie. Or something equally small. And hates the fact that his current “Greatsword” is 6 inches long... And he has a squeaky voice. And can’t hold his beer...
He is always trying to organize the locals into some form of militia/army/military force, and while they “play along” for a little while, they tend to be distracted by ... “Ball!” and chase off into the brush after anything, forgetting whatever it is he was want them to do.
When the PCs arrive, “the General” might think they are advance scouts of an invasion, or he may just draft them into his fighting forces...
Bonus points if the PCs know there actually is a threat headed to the island,,, and the fey need to organize a defense.
There are some great suggestions in this thread, so far, but let me tell you, these last couple have been outstanding...and when I got to yours, I HAD to laugh out loud! That's great! It also fits better than you could ever imagine, as there are actually floating islands hidden in the clouds. He'll be the one telling the party, if they ever meet him.
Oh, and arboreal octopi. Crazy. I love it.
Edmond Maroe the 3rd. Alchemist 19th level.
His great grandfather bought an island and started doing experiments to raise up animals, to prove some point. He ended up doing a land office business selling cat girls, minions, fierce soldiers, ect. The island is full of awakened creatures including owlbears and raptors. The ones his family kept practice perfect manners and celebrate tea time. Edmond shows the effects of a panther bloodline, having retractable claws and short fur.
Now a days he places his creations in jobs. This is the result of several revolutions.
EldonGuyre wrote: I'm mostly looking for the quirky individuals... "Featherhead" is a vanara summoner and crafter who lives a few hours' hike outside the local vanara village because he's not quite right in the head, and some of his experiments are dangerous. He's actually a reincarnated tengu, and wears a feathered headdress that he enchanted himself in order to hold on to part of his old identity. His eidolon resembles a small phoenix.
I created this NPC for a prolonged island-based adventure, because the PCs wouldn't have access to item crafting for a long time otherwise, and he was fun to play. They never did go back to commission anything from him, they just gathered some information from him and moved on. So they never got to see his newest invention: a barrel of monkeys (basically a one-use Mad Monkeys spell effect, though I didn't know about the spell's existence at that point, only the swarm itself).
The same adventure also featured an evil cult composed of girallons and mobat-riding kech, who would normally be at war with each other except for the dominance of Kadriku, a high girallon cleric. This priestess served a fiendish ape god, and was possessed by a baregara. (I adapted the demon-possessed template from Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary.) The boss fight in the apes' caves was the most fun--and most dangerous--part of that whole island adventure: the PCs had one very tough fight (vs. Kadriku) followed immediately by another tough fight (when the baregara left its dead host).
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