That's pretty much the way they look in my mental image. They're the sort of thing that you're not sure if you want a bottle of holy water or a bottle of weed killer to deal with. Go to Comment
Yes - the fear of the undead tends to be blunted when you have roughly ten thousand zombie movies, at least as many vampire movies, and several thousand more depicting other kinds of unliving horrors, to say nothing of books, games, and so on. You might get edgy if they threaten your character's life, but they're not that terrifying because you've seen all their variations, and in most systems the players have their stats memorized.
This thing, you're not sure if you need a druid to command it or a priest to exorcise it, once you realize what it is that's springing out of the darkness, slicing things open, and then fading back amid the greenery as quickly as a hunting cat. Go to Comment
It's possible, but most of the time the Forsaken still don't recognize the gods even as they're 'fading' - the despair comes from a sudden realization that souls exist, and that they're trapped in their own corpse rather than slipping into oblivion like they expected.
On the other hand, one who realized that it was bound by divine will might well end up with an aura of furious anger, and I'd say it'd be a lot more dangerous than the despairing Forsaken - probably liable to attack priests and holy places on sight. Go to Comment
Yeah, I doubt the Forsaken are anything less than very rare, but I'd expect they'd happen occasionally; more malevolent churches, if they found one, might trap it and use it as a proof that one should bow to their will, for defiance of the divinity/divinities they worship leads to such fates. Go to Comment
I like that notion enough to update the second plot hook with it. Thank you for pointing out that it doesn't even have to involve the gods responsible for the curse in the first place, just mundane religious politics. A holy war! Go to Comment
Given that, protests of certain groups aside, there's no evidence of 'active gods' in our world - I think you're probably rather safe from becoming one of the Forsaken.
Me, I'm a Discordian. I'm half-agnostic, half-atheist, and forever harassed by wellsprings of chaos in my life. We've taken over Limbo, once the Catholic church dropped it, so you're welcome to drop by and stake a claim to a chunk of the infinite metaphysical real estate! Even atheism can use metaphysical real estate. Go to Comment
Why isn't everyone using it? Chiefly because whenever it chooses to bloom, the next several months involve anyone with a garden lacerating themselves trying to keep it out of the garden, regular appearances by all manner of orcs, and anyone foolish enough to burn the stalk being uselessly drugged-out for the next day or so, depending on how much smoke they've inhaled.
Each stand only blooms for a few weeks; during this time, the seeds get spread by the flies, but once the blooms dry, there aren't any seeds for them to spread, even though the flowers retain their smell for a while. Orcs tend to home in on the stands during blooming season as well, which cuts down on the amount of flowers left to bloom and produce seeds when the entire stand gets cut down for the tribe's use.
I did add a vulnerability to fire, and a 'oh please kill it before it dies naturally' aspect. Go to Comment
Adjusted it a bit; it'll repel infantry and most cavalry will have trouble convincing their animals to charge it, but a determined enough charge could get through, if they don't mind being lacerated.
I expect a fair number of cavalrymen to get bucked off into it, though. Go to Comment
Updated: This is intended as a quick-look reference guide to Kuramen's races, to be updated with links and possibly corrected information as the individual races are detailed. Go to Comment
A large part of the drive behind the races of Kuramen was wanting a differentiation from the majority of the standard tropes set up by Tolkein and D&D; orcs are grunting pig-faced fodder; goblins are mass-bred victims; halflings are cute; so on and so forth. Halflings are feral; orcs are spiritual; goblins are the result of impulsive dwarves. Elves aren't patient near-demigods, they're quite likely even more impulsive and quick to act than the goblins are.
Of course, these are the races of True Kuramen; the realm of Far Kuramen has yet to be unveiled... Go to Comment
There was a ball advertised as unbreakable; it was, for the critters it was meant to be given to (dogs, cats, etc), and then someone gave one to a lion. The ball shattered.
So something might be "unbreakable" to a hobbit, but not a human, or unbreakable to an ogre but not a giant.
I'd have to say I like the idea of the items 'going bad' like food, particularly since it brings to mind the Colonization game (where things like firearms, ore, and the like could spoil and go bad). Rust that you just can't get rid of, rapid increase of brittleness, and so on. Go to Comment
It isn't necessarily silly, though. If you have seen the strength of iron but do not have access to anything but soft materials, this seems logical enough - baking certain materials to harden them has been done for a long time. This just extends the notion out to include anything shoved in the oven.
The real question is if it just makes the material harder to sunder, or if it actually stiffens it as well; I could see warriors in grass armor that's been baked in the oven, if it stiffens it, turning aside blades that should have laid them open; over, if it doesn't stiffen it, a dancer-type having scarves that've been baked in the oven - loose and flowing, but gripped between two hands capable of blocking even the mightiest of blows without tearing. Go to Comment
Zer half-elf turned man-dryad druid. Woe to his foes, weal to his allies, and I fully expect that as his world diminishes before the advance of steel-bearing men, he'll gradually wind up becoming the Mad Druid, Soul of the Wood, and Terror of those who would even dream of logging the woods. Go to Comment
The ones who've lost their worshippers and become little more than voices blowing in the breeze? I suppose there's a resemblance, though the Whispers are a lot more horrific... Go to Comment
Lifeforms (Third Kingdom) (Forest/ Jungle)