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Any D&D/D20

Shadowrun

World of Darkness

Palladium

Other (feel free to post about it)

[delphonso]

I've had good success with Fantasy Flight Star Wars and Genesys. It's pretty light on rules and doesn't have much for modifiers. Crunchy games suffer when not being in person anf Roll20 only helps so much.

[Grim Portent]

So I'll be running a 5e game set primarily in an orcish realm sometime in the near future and I was wanting to brainstorm ideas.

Basic premise is that orcs who were cast out of society for being physically weak, cowardly or treacherous have been forming their own society in the Underdark and conspiring against the surface dwelling orcs as part of a plan to have Shargaas, the orc god of darkness, undead and generally being a murderous thieving asshole usurp Gruumsh as the patron god of orcs.

BBEG is an orcish vampire who's been slowly uniting the outcasts and plotting to bring about an event I'm referring to as the 'Breath of Shargass,' a quasi-mystical volcanic eruption that will spew enough ash into the sky to cause a prolonged period of darkness that gradually spreads across the realm and allow the living and undead forces of the outcasts to take over the surface orc society and perform ritual desecration of Gruumsh's places of worship.

Where I'm getting stuck is for ideas on the steps that need to be taken to trigger the eruption. I want to have the outcasts attack a few settlements in nighttime raids, but I also want those raids to be important to their goals rather than just supply raids or vengeful attacks.

[scriver]

These settlements keep in their temples everburning braziers as a symbol of [whatever god's] power. These actually contain a piece of the heart of an undying fire spirit/elemental lord/titan (ie a mythical personalisation of the volcano) who was incapacitated in a forgotten time long ago. Returning them to the titans body will cause it to awaken again (ie returning them to the volcano will cause it to become active again) or perhaps uniting all the pieces of the heart will grant you control over the titan.

[delphonso]

A bit more Orkish option might be taking people as cattle for a blood sacrifice which can (somehow) cause a volcano to erupt. More difficult to interrupt, but less interesting than sciver's recommendation.

[scriver]

Combine them! The heart needs blood to pump.

[Grim Portent]

I might be able to do something with those ideas.

I could add a volcano as being a place where Gruumsh fought and killed/imprisoned something powerful, like another god or a fiend of some kind Typhon style, then have a few holy trinkets scattered about in the hands of chieftains and priests that can be used to unleash it. Have the clergy of Shargaas sacrifice captured clerics of the other orc gods to corrupt the artefacts and reconsecrate them to Shargaas and then awaken the volcano with them.

EDIT: Had some rambling thoughts I wanted to write down.

What if in ages long past Gruumsh smote Shargaas when he was a more normal orc god and buried him deep underground (not literally mind you) where he rose again as a god of darkness. His blood taints the Underdark, infusing things that live there with a shred of his malevolent intent. Bats swarm like piranhas, shadows dance in the recesses of caves, ghouls feast on the bodies of those who fall into the depths, foul things crawl from fetid subterranean rivers to prey upon the unwary on dark nights and the oldest of trees in the land above have roots that drink the tainted waters of the deep, turning them into foul and cruel things.

[IcyTea31]

My Pathfinder character died for the third time. We've been using Reincarnate (with an extended d% list) for rezzing, and I keep getting smaller: I started as human, then elf, then dwarf, and now ratfolk. The next incarnation will probably be a kobold, but then the list doesn't have anything smaller, so I don't know what will happen then. Further list extension into Tiny creatures? Are there even any Tiny humanoids?

Also, I started as male, but all three of the reincarnations have been physically female. As if species dysphoria wasn't hard enough to roleplay...

[Mephisto]

Further list extension into Tiny creatures? Are there even any Tiny humanoids?

Purple Duck has your back assuming 3rd party is okay.

[Kagus]

Ahh, that just reminded me of the Goblin race splatbook for Shadow of the Demon Lord... Where, given a couple (un?)lucky rolls, you would end up with a character whose height was measured in negative inches.

[Iduno]

Ahh, that just reminded me of the Goblin race splatbook for Shadow of the Demon Lord... Where, given a couple (un?)lucky rolls, you would end up with a character whose height was measured in negative inches.

That sounds close to the chargen system from FATAL. That's not a compliment, if that needs to be explained.

[Kagus]

SotDL also has a fascination with poop and lore that renders some of its player races entirely too neurotic/paranoid/racist to function.

But beyond that, it's entirely too functional to be FATAL.

[Sirus]

I thought goblins were one of the default races. How did they get a splatbook?

[Kagus]

All the races have expansions that provide additional lore, background, and character generation options.

For goblins, it includes new subraces of goblins, including ones that are smaller/larger than the normal, generic goblin size. This allows for an age/subrace/random height adjustment combination that results in sub-zero values, for shits and giggles.

The one for dwarves provides lore that further drives them into a pigeonhole of complete xenophobia and misanthropy, to the point where you basically need to just ignore it if you want a dwarf adventurer to function in any capacity at all beyond "Screw you guys, I'm going home".

[wierd]

Well, maybe not;

Could just as well be "Hurry up and get eaten by monsters, so I can take your stuff, THEN go home."

That would still satisfy the xenophobia and misanthropy (Does not trust the other party members, and would rather they be dead soon. Like, real soon.) while allowing them to go on the quest (By going on the quest with these sacks of skin, I will be there when they die, so I can take their stuff from them.)

[Kagus]

Sure, but that would kind of involve never sticking your neck out for them either, like getting into any fight they encounter (they might use your distraction as an opportunity to stab you in the back!), and if you ever learn to trust them beyond that level then you get to upgrade to trying to sell them some prime swamplands down in Florida.

"The angry Nigerian prince stalking our party" sounds fun, but having to RP that can be really irritating.


Also their stuff isn't dwarven, and as we all know; if it ain't dwarven, it's crrrap.