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[D&D 4E Recruiting] Taldor's Talisman of Terror
Alecthar
Alan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered User regular
Alan ShoreWe're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered User regular
Welcome, cowardly creatures of the night, to:
Taldor's Terrible Talisman of Terror
An adventure of high fantasy and low comedy
Background Info:
Map!
In case you were wondering, Taldor has certain alliterative naming conventions. He's been know to change the names of various objects rather than abandon his style.
Taldor's Terrible Talisman of Terror is an Comedic Evil adventure for 6 level 3 PCs. This will be a Play-by-Post game with sheets on Myth-Weavers and rolls on Invisible Castle. One post a day, OOC comments in spoilers, etc. You know the drill. Your (first time) DM will be me, Alecthar. Characters will be made with the standard 22 point buy system. PHB II and Dragon 373 backgrounds are both acceptable. Please, select only 1 character to submit. If there are few submissions, I may increase that number later, but for now just 1.
All character races will be allowed, excepting Deva and Warforged. However, your choice of race will be a part of my consideration, I have a preference for monster races for this adventure for obvious reasons. Tieflings, Humans and Drow will also have some preference attached to them as they are either races associated with evil, or a race who seems equally drawn to both good and evil. If you plan to use a "regular" race, don't worry, just give your character a strong backstory and you should be good (or evil, I suppose).
Characters will be judged based on the strength of their background story (humor factor is key here) as well as a certain amount of mechanical prowess. I want characters that can survive in the game if I make balancing mistakes, and I want players who demonstrate an aptitude for the comedic nature of this adventure.
Additionally, when writing your backstory, end it at least a year prior to the beginning of the adventure. It's my intent to provide the party's story for the time immediately before the adventure.
Currently, I plan to end character submissions on Friday, May 15 at Midnight, with selections made over that weekend.
Disclaimer: READ THIS!
Please let me know if there's anything unclear or missing in this recruitment post.
One Houserule: Bugbears don't get Large Weapons. Yeah, yeah, cry and whine about Rules as Written, I don't care. They aren't going to have them much longer anyway, and I don't want everyone trying to play a damn Bugbear Rogue/Ranger.
Player Made Monster Races!
A fun side effect of this adventure idea has been to encourage players to reflavor existing races for monster races. If you'd like to play a race that does not exist, pick a currently available race and reflavor the racial traits and powers to correspond to your new race. Please note which race your "new" race is based on. If there are any changes you think might be necessary, let me know either in this thread or by PM and I'll get back to you with a ruling on the change(s). When you make your race, it would be greatly appreciated if you would PM me a short description of the race, like GrimmyTOA's Sapient Gelatinous Cube, which appears below. This is for my reference and for the use of other players, and it's amusing to see the differing flavor interpretations of the racial traits.
Taldor's Terrible Talisman of Terror
An adventure of high fantasy and low comedy
Background Info:
Querath is a land of dragons and magic, princes and princesses, adventurers and fell beasts. For eons paragons of virtue and order have battled back the forces of darkness, stopping countless plots to dominate or destroy the plane of Querath. And frankly, the forces of darkness were getting pretty fucking tired of it.
Naturally, things got worse before they got better. Well, they just got worse, really. The forces of darkness weren't exactly clear how they did it, but adventurers seemed to be popping up all over the goddamn place, slaying kobolds and decapitating orcs as fast as the twisted Dark Wizards of the General Henchman Corporation could churn them out. Naturally those difficulties only strengthened the contingent of Dark Lords who believed that the henchmen of Eastern Querath were far superior to those of GHC, eating less and doing more, but that's a story for another time.
Let's get back to the now, and the return of the Archfiend Taldor. For years, Taldor had been claiming he was going to "come back and teach all those do-gooders a lesson," and damned if he didn't. Specifically, the lesson that if you go to the Nine Hells for 100 years, and then try to come back to Querath, you apparently arrive as some kind of grotesque shade of your former dark glory. Needless to say, adventurers far and wide were not impressed.
It is in this dark day for darkness that we find our unkempt band of pathetic henchmen, languishing in the depths of a rather minor dungeon, assisting a similarly unimportant Dark bureaucrat with an even more insignificant demon summoning ritual...
Naturally, things got worse before they got better. Well, they just got worse, really. The forces of darkness weren't exactly clear how they did it, but adventurers seemed to be popping up all over the goddamn place, slaying kobolds and decapitating orcs as fast as the twisted Dark Wizards of the General Henchman Corporation could churn them out. Naturally those difficulties only strengthened the contingent of Dark Lords who believed that the henchmen of Eastern Querath were far superior to those of GHC, eating less and doing more, but that's a story for another time.
Let's get back to the now, and the return of the Archfiend Taldor. For years, Taldor had been claiming he was going to "come back and teach all those do-gooders a lesson," and damned if he didn't. Specifically, the lesson that if you go to the Nine Hells for 100 years, and then try to come back to Querath, you apparently arrive as some kind of grotesque shade of your former dark glory. Needless to say, adventurers far and wide were not impressed.
It is in this dark day for darkness that we find our unkempt band of pathetic henchmen, languishing in the depths of a rather minor dungeon, assisting a similarly unimportant Dark bureaucrat with an even more insignificant demon summoning ritual...
Map!
In case you were wondering, Taldor has certain alliterative naming conventions. He's been know to change the names of various objects rather than abandon his style.
Taldor's Terrible Talisman of Terror is an Comedic Evil adventure for 6 level 3 PCs. This will be a Play-by-Post game with sheets on Myth-Weavers and rolls on Invisible Castle. One post a day, OOC comments in spoilers, etc. You know the drill. Your (first time) DM will be me, Alecthar. Characters will be made with the standard 22 point buy system. PHB II and Dragon 373 backgrounds are both acceptable. Please, select only 1 character to submit. If there are few submissions, I may increase that number later, but for now just 1.
- Hybrid/Dual Classing is not permitted.
- Starting equipment is 1 level 4 item, 1 level 3 item, and 1 level 2 item, and a level 2 item's value in gold.
- Arcane Power is fine, I don't have the book, but I'm an Insider subscriber, the Compendium should suffice for now.
All character races will be allowed, excepting Deva and Warforged. However, your choice of race will be a part of my consideration, I have a preference for monster races for this adventure for obvious reasons. Tieflings, Humans and Drow will also have some preference attached to them as they are either races associated with evil, or a race who seems equally drawn to both good and evil. If you plan to use a "regular" race, don't worry, just give your character a strong backstory and you should be good (or evil, I suppose).
Characters will be judged based on the strength of their background story (humor factor is key here) as well as a certain amount of mechanical prowess. I want characters that can survive in the game if I make balancing mistakes, and I want players who demonstrate an aptitude for the comedic nature of this adventure.
Additionally, when writing your backstory, end it at least a year prior to the beginning of the adventure. It's my intent to provide the party's story for the time immediately before the adventure.
Currently, I plan to end character submissions on Friday, May 15 at Midnight, with selections made over that weekend.
Disclaimer: READ THIS!
This is not the Evil adventure for you to get your rocks off brutally murdering children, or exorcising personal demons through mutilating the corpses of your slain enemies. This is a comedy, a satire of certain fantasy tropes, not "hay guys, I can kill random people cuz I'm evil!" Because I'm a first time DM you should probably expect for the mechanics of the adventure to be slightly weak at times. I intend for the narrative to compensate for those weaknesses, by being a source of great amusement and enjoyment for players in the game, and anyone reading along. With that in mind, I'm looking for players with characters and backgrounds that take a lighthearted look at the "henchman condition," so to speak. Do I intend for you to be able to kill, maim, and torture? Yes, but don't think Saw, think about the torture scene in Princess Bride, or other stuff like that.
Bottom line: We're playing this all for laughs, folks, so come prepared to work with that.
Bottom line: We're playing this all for laughs, folks, so come prepared to work with that.
Please let me know if there's anything unclear or missing in this recruitment post.
One Houserule: Bugbears don't get Large Weapons. Yeah, yeah, cry and whine about Rules as Written, I don't care. They aren't going to have them much longer anyway, and I don't want everyone trying to play a damn Bugbear Rogue/Ranger.
Player Made Monster Races!
A fun side effect of this adventure idea has been to encourage players to reflavor existing races for monster races. If you'd like to play a race that does not exist, pick a currently available race and reflavor the racial traits and powers to correspond to your new race. Please note which race your "new" race is based on. If there are any changes you think might be necessary, let me know either in this thread or by PM and I'll get back to you with a ruling on the change(s). When you make your race, it would be greatly appreciated if you would PM me a short description of the race, like GrimmyTOA's Sapient Gelatinous Cube, which appears below. This is for my reference and for the use of other players, and it's amusing to see the differing flavor interpretations of the racial traits.
GrimmyTOA's fantastic Sapient Cube! (Goliath)
Sapient Gelatinous Cube
Sapient Gelatinous cubes are unlikely seeming adventurers. They have no brains, no desire for fame or power, and no use for magical trinkets. Their only natural impulse seems to be the urge to feed. They are, however, curious creatures, and are constantly adopting new tactics and abilities for use in battle. Cubes have an intricate social hierarchy and will approach other, more highly ranked Cubes (referred to as Big-Cubes, a term most closely analogous to parents) in order to improve their abilities. The Little-Cube will literally be allowed to digest a fraction of the Big-Cube's jelly, and will learn new talents, abilities, and attacks by osmosis.
Gelatinous Cubes are highly corrosive in nature, and many of their attacks will either weaken the defenses of their victims or even begin the process of eventual digestion. A rapid metabolism allows a Cube to gain nutritive benefit from a victim while still in the process of killing it. Unlike their unintelligent cousins, the Common Gelatinous Cubes, Sapient Cubes are capable of projecting pseudopods of various types, which they use in combat and to manipulate their environment. Sapient Cubes tend to charge their enemies much more aggressively than Common Cubes -- many an adventurer, expecting a relatively passive enemy, has learned too late the distinction between the species.
Sapient Gelatinous Cubes are intelligent, to a degree, and are capable of vibrating their flanks rapidly enough to create intelligible speech. They still tend towards simplistic world-views (Cubes and Foods) and elemental behaviour, but are capable of forming complete thoughts and relatively strong bonds of loyalty.
Racial Traits:
Strong, Tough: Gelatinous Cubes are extraordinarily strong and resilient to injury. They receive +2 to their Strength and +2 to their Constitution scores.
Gelatinous Indifference: The distributed nervous system of the Gelatinous Cube provides a cushioning effect against effects that target the brain or mind. A Gelatinous Cube receives a +1 bonus to its Will Defense. (Goliath Mountain's Tenacity)
Pretty Agile, for a Cube of Caustic Jelly: Gelatinous Cubes can be frighteningly (and sometimes fatally) agile. Their malleable form, sticky exterior membranes, and near-infinite supply of extensible pseudopods allows them to perform incredible leaps and bounds with relative ease. A Gelatinous Cube may roll twice when making an Athletics Check, and use either result. (Goliath Powerful Athlete)
Gelatinous Resilience: Gelatinous Cubes are capable of absorbing blows that would cripple humans by distributing the shock across and through their cytoplasm. Once per Encounter as a Minor Action, a Cube may activate Gelatinous Resilience. It will receive Resist 5/All damage until the start of its next turn. This bonus is increased to Resist 10/All at 11th level and Resist 15/All at 21st level. (Goliath Stone's Endurance)
GrimmyTOA's Gelatinous Cube character sheet
Mike Danger's mind-warping Ilithid! (Eladrin)
Sapient Gelatinous cubes are unlikely seeming adventurers. They have no brains, no desire for fame or power, and no use for magical trinkets. Their only natural impulse seems to be the urge to feed. They are, however, curious creatures, and are constantly adopting new tactics and abilities for use in battle. Cubes have an intricate social hierarchy and will approach other, more highly ranked Cubes (referred to as Big-Cubes, a term most closely analogous to parents) in order to improve their abilities. The Little-Cube will literally be allowed to digest a fraction of the Big-Cube's jelly, and will learn new talents, abilities, and attacks by osmosis.
Gelatinous Cubes are highly corrosive in nature, and many of their attacks will either weaken the defenses of their victims or even begin the process of eventual digestion. A rapid metabolism allows a Cube to gain nutritive benefit from a victim while still in the process of killing it. Unlike their unintelligent cousins, the Common Gelatinous Cubes, Sapient Cubes are capable of projecting pseudopods of various types, which they use in combat and to manipulate their environment. Sapient Cubes tend to charge their enemies much more aggressively than Common Cubes -- many an adventurer, expecting a relatively passive enemy, has learned too late the distinction between the species.
Sapient Gelatinous Cubes are intelligent, to a degree, and are capable of vibrating their flanks rapidly enough to create intelligible speech. They still tend towards simplistic world-views (Cubes and Foods) and elemental behaviour, but are capable of forming complete thoughts and relatively strong bonds of loyalty.
Racial Traits:
Strong, Tough: Gelatinous Cubes are extraordinarily strong and resilient to injury. They receive +2 to their Strength and +2 to their Constitution scores.
Gelatinous Indifference: The distributed nervous system of the Gelatinous Cube provides a cushioning effect against effects that target the brain or mind. A Gelatinous Cube receives a +1 bonus to its Will Defense. (Goliath Mountain's Tenacity)
Pretty Agile, for a Cube of Caustic Jelly: Gelatinous Cubes can be frighteningly (and sometimes fatally) agile. Their malleable form, sticky exterior membranes, and near-infinite supply of extensible pseudopods allows them to perform incredible leaps and bounds with relative ease. A Gelatinous Cube may roll twice when making an Athletics Check, and use either result. (Goliath Powerful Athlete)
Gelatinous Resilience: Gelatinous Cubes are capable of absorbing blows that would cripple humans by distributing the shock across and through their cytoplasm. Once per Encounter as a Minor Action, a Cube may activate Gelatinous Resilience. It will receive Resist 5/All damage until the start of its next turn. This bonus is increased to Resist 10/All at 11th level and Resist 15/All at 21st level. (Goliath Stone's Endurance)
GrimmyTOA's Gelatinous Cube character sheet
Ability Scores: +2 DEX/+2 INT
Mind flayers have a lifetime of knowledge accumulated from devouring brains, and many are deft and nimble from years of practicing grabbing and pulling with their powerful tentacles.
Size: Medium
Speed: 6 squares
Vision: Low-light
Mind flayers have a frame similar to that of the average humanoid, and have developed an ability to see fairly well in the dark.
Languages: Common, Deep Speech
Mind flayers speak both the "vile tongue", but prefer the Deep Speech they created so many years ago.
Skill Bonuses: +2 Arcana, +2 History
All young mind flayers clean their rooms using the powers of the arcane, and are familiar with such events as the First Flaying and the Great Brain Hunt.
Brain Drain (Eladrin Education): You have absorbed enough brains of a particular type to have gained an extra trained skill of your choice.
Absorbed Proficiency (Eladrin Weapon Profciency): Most adventurers favor the longsword. Most adventurers in the mind flayer lands end up consumed. Ergo, many mind flayers are familiar with the use of the longsword. You are considered proficient with the longsword.
Alien Mind (Eladrin Will): You get a +1 racial bonus to your Will defense, and a +5 racial bonus to saving throws against charm effects. What do mind flayers want? No one has quite figured this one out, although some mages have pointed to similarities between the flayers and certain exotic beasts of the Eastern lands. They are difficult to overwhelm mentally, and especially difficult to warm up to.
Bizarre Origin (Fey Origin): Where the flayers came from, none know. What is known is that they are totally unlike most creatures of this world. You are considered an aberrant creature for effects that relate to creature origins.
Still the Voices (Trance): Rather than sleep, mind flayers are constantly switching their multilobed brains in between absorbed personalities and memories. You need to spend 4 hours in this state balancing yourself to gain the same benefits other races get from a 6 hour extended rest. While balancing, you are fully aware of your surroundings and notice approaching enemies and other events as normal.
Illithid Walk (Fey Step): You can use illithid walk as an encounter power.
ILLITHID WALK - Mind Flayer Racial Power
With a word, you draw on the strange geometry of the Far Realm to rearrange your position in relation to your surroundings to send you somewhere else.
Encounter ~ Teleportation
Move Action : Personal
Effect: Teleport up to 5 squares
Mind flayers have a lifetime of knowledge accumulated from devouring brains, and many are deft and nimble from years of practicing grabbing and pulling with their powerful tentacles.
Size: Medium
Speed: 6 squares
Vision: Low-light
Mind flayers have a frame similar to that of the average humanoid, and have developed an ability to see fairly well in the dark.
Languages: Common, Deep Speech
Mind flayers speak both the "vile tongue", but prefer the Deep Speech they created so many years ago.
Skill Bonuses: +2 Arcana, +2 History
All young mind flayers clean their rooms using the powers of the arcane, and are familiar with such events as the First Flaying and the Great Brain Hunt.
Brain Drain (Eladrin Education): You have absorbed enough brains of a particular type to have gained an extra trained skill of your choice.
Absorbed Proficiency (Eladrin Weapon Profciency): Most adventurers favor the longsword. Most adventurers in the mind flayer lands end up consumed. Ergo, many mind flayers are familiar with the use of the longsword. You are considered proficient with the longsword.
Alien Mind (Eladrin Will): You get a +1 racial bonus to your Will defense, and a +5 racial bonus to saving throws against charm effects. What do mind flayers want? No one has quite figured this one out, although some mages have pointed to similarities between the flayers and certain exotic beasts of the Eastern lands. They are difficult to overwhelm mentally, and especially difficult to warm up to.
Bizarre Origin (Fey Origin): Where the flayers came from, none know. What is known is that they are totally unlike most creatures of this world. You are considered an aberrant creature for effects that relate to creature origins.
Still the Voices (Trance): Rather than sleep, mind flayers are constantly switching their multilobed brains in between absorbed personalities and memories. You need to spend 4 hours in this state balancing yourself to gain the same benefits other races get from a 6 hour extended rest. While balancing, you are fully aware of your surroundings and notice approaching enemies and other events as normal.
Illithid Walk (Fey Step): You can use illithid walk as an encounter power.
ILLITHID WALK - Mind Flayer Racial Power
With a word, you draw on the strange geometry of the Far Realm to rearrange your position in relation to your surroundings to send you somewhere else.
Encounter ~ Teleportation
Move Action : Personal
Effect: Teleport up to 5 squares
Alecthar on
0
Posts
Heh heh.
MWAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHA
*twirls moustache with both hands*
Oh goddesses.
What have I done?
Battle.net
How do you feel about a Gelatinous Cube with nothing to lose? Assuming that I can make it work as a character (probably by just making it a barbarian and changing the names and descriptions of all of the powers).
I'll consider it, I suppose.
Battle.net
I do love an evil character!
Is this maptools or PbP?
Edit: I am dumb, and cannot read.
I was trying to be cagey, because I don't know the Gelatinous Cube racial traits.
Battle.net
Oh. I'd probably just make it like unto a Goliath, stat-wise, but every power and all the descriptions would be goo-based. It would 'talk' by either slapping a pseudopod into someone's head and using them as a vocal puppet or just vibrating to create sound waves. Can real gelatinous cubes do that? Who knows! Mine's special.
Just reflavor the Goliath entirely. Stone's Endurance becomes "Gelatinous Resilience." The +1 to Will bonus could be reflavored to a bonus to Will defense because as a Gelatinous cube your mind is diffused and is thus a hardier target. No additional languages, I'm thinking, but otherwise the same race, essentially.
Racial feats, though...we'd have to work on that.
Battle.net
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I'll just avoid racial feats a penalty for being difficult. Although 'markings of the victor' could easily become 'overwhelming cubosity' or something similar.
Woah, if Grimmy's Gelatinous Cube means everyone's gonna want to play a race of their own devising, I think we might just stick to not fiddling with things. Doesn't anyone like Bugbears anymore?
Battle.net
I'll roll up an "official" monster PC later.
I'm going to have to think on this.
Bring me your tired, your sick, your brain damaged Gnoll Demon worshipping Avengers.
Battle.net
I like the little guys. Devising up a Goblin idear right now.
Battle.net
Infernal and Vestige Warlocks are Con-based. Star Warlocks can also be Con-based as long as you're willing to use some Infernal Powers for padding.
Edit: Dragon & Cosmic Sorcerers are STR based as well, I believe.
PSN: SAW776
I'd argue that a Cha focused caster, like a Sorcerer, would operate more on emotion and feeling than thought. You could make an idiot Sorc work, with the PC wielding power largely because his/her feelings of rage/irritation/some other emotion a less than bright person might feel when confronted with an issue, would give them power.
Battle.net
When I first proposed the idea of a teenage Tarrasque, you weren't all that receptive. I can understand that. For one, the Tarraque is an ancient invention of the primordials, designed to destroy the gods themselves. Is there more than one of them? Who knows! Can they make a baby? I don't know, can they?
This is what I am hoping to find out.
Ladies and gentlemen, here is a mock-up picture of what I hope will be our finest party member. I present to you... Terry the Teenage Tarrasque!
Thinking about a bugbear, minotaur or orc as either a battlerager fighter or a barbarian.
PSN: SAW776
For some reason he reminds me of Elton John.
Sometimes, after he writes in his diary about how he is the loneliest person in the world, he curls up in his pit and cries, his sobs muffling his whispers of, "Hold me closer, tiny dancer..."
PSN: SAW776
PSN: SAW776
I've always wanted to play a mindflayer ranger with a magical octopus sidekick. He'd throw away the evil ways of his kind and walk the surface helping people despite them hating him.
Still have a +4/5 Cha mod as a sorceror. Wizard is smart, warlock is a maybe. I need to look up their powers when I get home.
PSN: SAW776
I built him using a Goliath Barbarian as the template.
Background:
A few hundred foods ago, Gub ate a four-legged-opaque and was not hungry for a bit. Just then, a two-legged-opaque show up and tell Gub "You, Cube! If you come to work for me as a bodyguard and trash disposal, you'll never be hungry again!" Gub think hard -- so hard Gub almost congealed. Eventually Gub say Yes and follow two-legged-opaque to lair. Gub learn fun things there, like "He's not food!" and "Stop eating my shoes!" Gub usually still hungry, but not always, so is good.
Gub likes its home now. Is cozy and cube-shaped, and with much moisture for Gub. Also, many two-legged-opaques come to feed themselves to Gub. Gub does not know why, but Gub appreciates the gesture. Wishes two-legged-opaques would scream and run around less, though.
Personality & Whatnot:
Appearance:
Paladin of Tiamat. Acts like he's the ultimate representation of her draconic power upon the world.
I'ma call mine Bug Momma. Set all you kids straight with a good whoopin'.