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Author Topic: Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: COBRA!!!  (Read 825533 times)

delphonso

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8790 on: November 04, 2021, 06:10:15 pm »

13 years - boy he must have had quite some adventures if he remembers everything the party did as /his own character/ doing them.

Grim Portent

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8791 on: November 10, 2021, 08:49:30 pm »

So I've decided to post another meandering write up of an idea for that dark fantasy setting I posted some bits of a while back. My D&D group is likely going to be playing another game by the same GM, in the same setting as our last few games, so I won't be getting a chance to actually play with the setting properly for a while, so writing ideas down is all I've got for the time being.

Pre-face is that I don't much care for Mind Flayers, I find a lot of their fluff uninspired, them being essentially cthulhoid zombie vampires, as a result I spent a while thinking about what aspects I think are worth keeping for a re-imagining of them. It's honestly not a lot. In any case, for your perusal, I present;


The Alchemist Lords of Tarrik, and the Elixer of Life

Tarrik is something of a black sheep among the provinces of the Aurogentum empire, it's people pallid, docile and artless, the nobility corrupt and decadent even by the standards of the imperial gentry and the land polluted and poisoned by magical and industrial waste. Despite this the province is immensely wealthy and influential, powerful enough to defy the empire's state religion and openly engage in arts widely considered blasphemous and heretical without censure.

The source of this power and wealth is the alchemical and magical talents of the Alchemist Lords, the ruling elite of Tarrik. These scholar-kings have long delved into the forbidden arcane arts, striving for power, knowledge and immortality. Their experiments have resulted in potions, tinctures and balms that can heal grievous injuries, regrow body parts, extend human life, as well as darker products such as potions capable rendering humans complacent and biddable, weaponised toxins, pain enhancers and all manner of addictive substances. These flow forth into the empire in exchange for gold and favours, for all but the most pious nobles and priests are eager to buy the creations of the mad intellects of Tarrik, for who does not wish to forestall death, to regain the glories of youth, or mould the minds of others?

The greatest achievement of the lords of Tarrik is the Elixer of Life, a grandiose term for a costly and disfiguring transmutative potion they created several centuries ago. The elixer extends the human lifespan to several centuries, some of those who have taken it have lived to be over five hundred years old, rivaling the lifespan of even elves, as well as increasing the mental and mystical abilities of the imbiber. The elixer is not without it's downsides however, the subject mutates over several years, their skin becoming rubbery or scaled, and their mouth and sometimes entire head changing to more closely resemble the jaws of a lamprey, the beak of a squid or the entire head of an aquatic lifeform. The only commonality is that all possess a long, thin tongue, sharp like a razor and flexible like an eel, able to pierce through skin, flesh and bone. In addition the resulting horror becomes dependant on the consumption of brain matter, spinal tissue and cerebral fluid, failing to consume such substances on a regular basis causes the individual to starve as readily as any normal man would if denied food and drink.

It would be easy for the Alchemist Lords to devolve into cannibals, feeding on their citizens to prolong their own perverse existence, but such practices are considered gauche by the majority of Tarrik's nobility. Those who have drunk the elixer and remain in good standing instead choose to dine on the neural tissue of animals, expending vast quantities of money on importing animals from the far reaches of the empire and beyond to consume in extravagant orgies of consumption. A feast can see thousands of animals, songbirds, tropical beasts, noble stags, mighty bears, mice fed on grapes and honey, live fish brought from the ocean, all brought to the estates of the monstrous alchemists to be butchered or served alive, their spines torn out and sucked clean of nerve tissue, their brains plucked from their skulls and their cranial fluids served in opulent chalices. The flesh, skin and bones then rendered into alchemical reagents or donated as a miscellaneous slop to the normal men and women who of Tarrik.

Tarrik itself is rotting, the land poisoned by the waste products of the nobility's experiments, the industrial practices needed to keep them supplied with glassware and metal tools, and by the copious quantities of garbage resulting from their ruinous importation of animals. The streets of most towns and cities are thick with animal waste, churned by the passage of a near unending stream of wagons and hooves, bringing livestock and raw materials to Tarrik and shipping potions out. The rivers and lakes are thick with mats of algae, and shimmer with toxic runoff, the sky black with soot and alchemical fumes. Much of the local wildlife has been driven to near extinction over the past few centuries, hunted in droves to feed the appetities of the lords of the land.
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8792 on: November 10, 2021, 10:32:26 pm »

In other news, I just DMed my second session of SWRPG the other day! Everyone had a blast and I am feeling very confident about DMing now. Still learning a lot of the in and outs of SWRPG, but it's fun for sure.
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scriver

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8793 on: November 11, 2021, 11:24:18 am »

May the dice be with you!
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Iduno

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8794 on: November 23, 2021, 06:01:12 pm »

Looking for some advice/ideas.

The characters in a (as yet hypothetical) campaign start out in a town cut off from the world, but the town is their home. To get the players used to the place the characters have spent their lives, I want some low-level sidequests for the townspeople. Aside from "kill a basement full of rats/spiders", what kinds of things might people want/need done by low-level characters?
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delphonso

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8795 on: November 23, 2021, 06:13:34 pm »

I'm fond of a family feud boiling over and needing de-escalation by some adventurers (or a love triangle where two people are fighting each other for the affections of a third) - great way to tie them to the place - let the players come up with past events and friendships with some of these characters.

scriver

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8796 on: November 23, 2021, 07:46:01 pm »

There's been [critter or monster] sightings lately and they need extra hands to help watch the [pastured animals] overnight for a night

I'm fond of a family feud boiling over and needing de-escalation by some adventurers (or a love triangle where two people are fighting each other for the affections of a third) - great way to tie them to the place - let the players come up with past events and friendships with some of these characters.

This is good stuff
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wierd

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8797 on: November 24, 2021, 12:21:16 pm »

Help goodie martin make some cookies for this years harvest festival.

Fetch water for the horses.

Find out why master thompson has not been attending mass.

Investigate the seedy rumors about a teenage couple

Seek the cleverwoman's advice about what Sonya Shlottermeyer should name her newborn.

Obtain a local herb for said cleverwoman, for old lady agatha's rhumetism.

Investigate why the well water has recently gone rancid.

Help the neighbors make clothes for their children before winter (to avoid being the focus of superstitious omen)

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NJW2000

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8798 on: November 24, 2021, 12:40:56 pm »

Find out who killed Laura Palmer.
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MrRoboto75

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8799 on: November 24, 2021, 12:49:48 pm »

Farmer brown's sheep have been going missing, he suspects the local goblins or whatever but doesn't have real proof.  If the party actually bothers to talk to the gobbos, they're actually innocent in the matter.  It's actually one of the townsfolk or neighbors.
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Kagus

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8800 on: November 24, 2021, 12:54:51 pm »

Three youths are hanging around outside the tavern. Enthralled by your status as adventurers, they implore you to leverage your adventuring savvy (and older age) in getting them some swords so that they too can begin their careers as mighty heroes! Also some beer while you're at it, as they're not allowed to buy that yet either. They've scraped together the funds for both.

This was a "quest" in Baldur's Gate 2 that had a few different mostly-irrelevant outcomes depending on what you chose to do. Obliging them on both counts resulted in running into them when you go to explore the local cave, where they're faced off against a lone gibberling but are too drunk to recognize what it is and promptly flee in intoxicated panic from the "dragon".

Iduno

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8801 on: November 24, 2021, 04:13:05 pm »

I'm fond of a family feud boiling over and needing de-escalation by some adventurers (or a love triangle where two people are fighting each other for the affections of a third) - great way to tie them to the place - let the players come up with past events and friendships with some of these characters.

Good stuff, and works just as well (better?) with a population cut off from everything.


Three youths are hanging around outside the tavern. Enthralled by your status as adventurers, they implore you to leverage your adventuring savvy (and older age) in getting them some swords so that they too can begin their careers as mighty heroes! Also some beer while you're at it, as they're not allowed to buy that yet either. They've scraped together the funds for both.

This was a "quest" in Baldur's Gate 2 that had a few different mostly-irrelevant outcomes depending on what you chose to do. Obliging them on both counts resulted in running into them when you go to explore the local cave, where they're faced off against a lone gibberling but are too drunk to recognize what it is and promptly flee in intoxicated panic from the "dragon".

I remembered that quest. Good times, and nobody died. Also, the annoying guy in each game that you were allowed to kill without a hit to alignment.
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scriver

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8802 on: November 24, 2021, 04:30:27 pm »

Noober didn't give you alignment points? I guess he was his times' variant of that Mass Effect journalist
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Kagus

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8803 on: November 24, 2021, 07:07:29 pm »

You did get something like 5,000xp if you weathered his barrage of inanity for a long enough though.

Frumple

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Re: Dungeons & Dragons / PNP games thread: The Barren Snowflake Wastes
« Reply #8804 on: November 24, 2021, 07:23:18 pm »

Why it's cut off from the world can be a good foundation to build off of. There's a pretty neat arc in a litrpg thing (Delve) I've read through a few times that has a town very literally cut off from the rest of the world due to an ancient defensive shield -- some of the sudden logistics issues they find themselves dealing with is not dying of thirst and not boiling alive due to all the trapped heat, on top of a number of other things.

Low level stuff in that sort of case would be hauling water barrels or lighting torches around defensible areas or somethin', dealing with smaller issues while bigger names deal with major ones. Work with simple, reasonable things abnormally capable youths(?) would be expected to be tasked with or find themselves taking up in an emergency.

You'd use that to sneak in bits of world building (monsters can spawn in darkness, there's ancient magical arrays, etc.) and dial in how much realism you care about caring about. The trauma and damage of being stuck like that for a while would be an excellent excuse to get your critters out of town afterwards, refugee escort an easy travel hook.

Substitute as necessary for whatever reason your starter town is cut off. There's lots of room to play with something like that.
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