An ambitious explanation of an amphibious people. The otherwise noted problems aside, any sub that makes such an attempt to outline the unique characteristics of a race in such detail is worthy of a thumbs up in my mind. Go to Comment
Bwah hah hah. When I first read the title, I didn't think you could pull off 30 interesting fountains of youth. When I saw the silly tag, I still doubted. You managed to pull off both interesting and silly. I'm thoroughly impressed, sir. Go to Comment
Well, someone does have to deal with the oozes of life. Who better than a spoon-wielding gnome? Like Mike and Moon, it doesn't strike me as a spectacular submission, but Wazakashi does serve his purpose enough, and that certainly counts for something. Go to Comment
A rather gruesome ship. I imagine this being cast in small seas that are often fought in - the Bosporus or the like - and the spell dragging up dead of ancient wars from the sea bed.
My one quibble is with the timing of the ship's formation. I get an almost comical image when I picture hundreds of corpses scrambling together for, say, a Spanish galleon in about a minute. Maybe a time table based on ship size would be more accurate? But that's mostly system-side stuff, so I forgive it. Go to Comment
I think this is one of the best assassin subs I've ever read. Instead of your generic silent killer with no heart, you've got a generally likable fellow who'll help you out, when he's not busy killing folk. The idea of a magic-user assassin is nice too. Very well done! Go to Comment
Very good, Moonlake. I like the detail you've put into the discovery of the fabric. The Kogish trees are fascinating in themselves as well. I don't see any logical flaws. Go to Comment
Neat! Does one have to know the nature of the bag to activate the damnation feature? What if one just mistook it for a bag of holding, shoved something in there, and then opened it up to find the contents have vanished into Gehenna? Could make for a fun recovery mission. Go to Comment
A simple idea, beautifully executed. It's like a nasty holodeck program for the ancients. Aside from a dungeon trap, this would be fun for the party to play a trick on competing treasure hunters or enemies. A skilled artist might draw the whole party on the slate and distract opponents - imagine their surprise if the *real* party shows up behind them! Well done again, Slart.
Four-and-a-half blades; some nice background history would make it a five for me, though I suppose the lack of history makes it more suitable for drag-and-drop dungeoneering. Go to Comment
Points well taken, Drack. I find it interesting, having grown up playing video games and only since midway through high school was even remotely interested in classic pen & paper games, that I rather try to cast video game characters in a pen & paper light. For example, when I first played Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, before I even got through character creation I had written up a back story for my character. I chose skills and completed actions, not on what the metagaming strategic outcome would be on stats, but on what I thought the character would "do". This certainly isn't always the case (See the Diablo series), but it's how I normally tend to approach things.
Perhaps this is more of a reverse engineering way to do things: bring the creative sensibilities of classic RPGs into the video games of today. Not working in the industry, we have limited influence, of course. I remember back when we had a Commodore 64, RPG video games would come with cloth maps, artifacts, even dice. That was probably more due to technological limitations than creative effort, but the influence of pen & paper craft was still strong. In today's games that claim pen & paper roots (Neverwinter Nights of KotOR, for example, both drawing from d20 systems), the emphasis seems to be on increasing stats or directing your character toward two or three set results in a "stimulus-response" fashion. It's an improvement over hack-n-slash games like Diablo that, while sometimes having excellent and engaging stories, had little interaction in the storytelling. I hope that as technology improves, so will our interaction with games. Perhaps some time in the future, there won't be a distinction between video games & tabletop RPGs, and technological tools will break the chains that tie them to rote playthrough to be freed into the creativity and imagination of classic RPGs.
Bravo, sir! The ol' "Meats of Unsavory Sources" isn't a new plot, but you've breathed a wonderful life into it. A classic plot where the tale is truly in the telling, and you've told it well. Among other fine touches, the orcish naming ceremony was what did me in. Five blades for you, and a hearty welcome to the Citadel. Go to Comment
An extremely handy guide to have for any village one comes across. You've gotten the details just right: specific enough to give them personality, but vague enough to drop them into any game. Good show, Cheka. Go to Comment
Ha! I love it. Zythumancy turns any wizard into a potential barkeep, or vice versa. Although maybe not a primary skill for most, having a few zythumancy skills would be handy for any magic user worth her salt.
If I wanted anything more from the post, it would be a little more background. Are there zythumancer guilds? Any famous zythumancers besides Oleander? Does zythumancy differ from culture to culture? These are really just bonus details, because the post itself stands very well on its own. Well done. Go to Comment
Lifeforms (Constructed) (Any)
An interesting usage of necromancy, though I suppose effective. Almost like gunpowder age biological warfare. Go to Comment