I second, that this is a strange sub. It feels incomplete. You've given us an explanation that the PCs would get after several encounters with the giants and the worms, but not much more. Here are a few questions I would love to hear your take on. 1) How big are the giants? 2) You've described them as dimensional wanderers; how do they get from one world to another? I take it they can't leave for one reason or another. 3) Are the mangle worms from the same home dimension as the giants? 4) How do the giants move underground? (do they burrow, only use previously dug passages, have selective intangibility, other magic, how?) 5) The giants sound ridiculously slow and noisy, how can they be successful hunters? and if they are successful what keeps their hunting/foraging activities from bringing down the wrath of locals and/or nocturnal races (considering they've been doing this ages now and their feeding requirements are huge)?

I think it's quite a good idea. Just needs further fleshing out. Go to Comment

A very decent followup to Scrasamax's work. I'm kindof stuck in the detail of it all. I'm sure I'll be reading both submission several times before using them. The flavor is just so unique. Go to Comment

Sounds like a faerie trick to me. But obviously the door is wide open. Go to Comment

Fantastic idea. I hope we make it to thirty. Go to Comment

13) Scut Farkus
“Scut Farkus! What a rotten name! There he stood, between us and the alley. Scut Farkus staring out at us with his yellow eyes. He had yellow eyes! SO HELP ME GOD, YELLOW EYES!!” – A Christmas Story

Like many devils Scut has many names and many faces. He usually appears as the same gender and is close in age to the victim/potential client. His defining characteristics are usually red hair and yellow eyes.

Scut is not summoned but roams the world targeting intimidated loners who are already enduring severe mockery, bullying, humiliations, embarrassments, and so forth. While the setting is often a public school, other locations are also possible.

When Scut finds a target he starts by identifying that person’s happy place. Often using existing bullies as pawns, he tactfully breaches the last remaining sanctuary for the target, pushing them to greater levels of desperation. He sabotages any potential for success of the individual and cuts off any retreat or respite this person has. He turns the few allies the victim has against him. He joins others in laughing at the target’s misfortunes. While Scut does not reveal his full involvement in the new torture, the victim definitely views Scut as a new source of affliction. After this treatment has gone on for a few days or even a week, the potential client is close to breaking down completely.

At this point, Scut seeks a private confrontation with his now suicidal target. He pushes his target until they lose their cool and attack him. Scut will not fight back, much, and once he loses the fight he will say something like, “I knew you had it in you.” Scut will then befriend his victim, after acknowledging that he deserved getting beaten up, he will counsel them to stand up for themselves. Scut will then make his proposal, offering the person help to ‘reclaim’ their life and their dignity. His victims rarely decline.

The Offer: 13 hours of personal power combined with near unlimited resources. (You are filled with confidence. You have no fear. You will win any fights you get in (yep, you can dodge bullets). You will be able to verbally put anyone in their place in seconds. You will attract people you like and respect. You see things very clearly and you will not fail in plans to get revenge.)

The Price: you gotta make `em pay for what they did to you.

The deal is sealed on a handshake. Scut leaves his victim with whatever they want. Examples include a suitcase full of cash, guns, explosives, plans & supplies to humiliate or eliminate a key bully, a hacker’s powerful laptop, and always information (could be perfect blackmail or help the victim recruit help).

When Scut leaves, his target will never see him again.

Usually, the result is out right power abuse. People get killed. Collateral damage is high. Justice is not satisfied and the revenge is too grotesque for most deal makers. In the end suicide is the only answer.

On rare occasion, the victim manages to hold back. The victim is able to use the 13 hours to assert themselves, get just enough revenge to get liberated, and actually claim their lives with no regrets. Scut’s gifts tend to disappear after a while and somewhere, Scut is cursing. Go to Comment

12) Wylowex the Resurrector

Wylowex is the one you summon if you are desperate to bring someone back from the dead. Her usual summoner is:
• 89% - a lonely male obsessed with a younger woman. Often stalking the woman is reason she is dead.
• 5% - obsessed parents with a strange background who lost a child (sounds like Pet Semetary, I know)
• 4% - a religious/political fanatic wanting to bring back a dead leader
• 2% - woman obsessed with a man who died young

To summon Wylowex, one must exhume the grave, of corpse to be brought back, in the darkest night under a new moon. No light may touch the grave except for open flame. The summoner must have three personal possessions of the corpse. After sacrificing a pregnant female mammal Wylowex with wander onto the scene.

Wylowex appears as the corpse of a seven foot tall pregnant woman. With her belly protruding and uncovered, one can see faces and hands pushing out against the flesh, as though they would like to escape. Her body is appears to be afflicted with severe frostbite in her extremities. The ring and middle finger on each hand are abnormally long, with abnormally long claws on each of these fingers. Her left eye burns with a cold blue flame, but her right is dark and unmoving. When she speaks, live maggots fall from her mouth.

She has a motherly way about her. Often soothing the summoner and consoling him for his loss one minute and then scolding demanding he act like a man the next minute. This series of personality changes slows as negotiations finalize. If the summoner will sign, she will be more ‘loving’… if he decides against, she will become utterly disgusted and will say things like, ‘your brother would have signed by now. Are you determined to always live in his shadow?’ or ‘I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that you weren’t a man. Why would you bring me here for this? Your mother must have hated you from the moment you were born.’ 

The price of this boon is that whatever ‘sins’ or ‘crimes’ the person brought back commits are on the head of the signer.

If the deal is signed, she will take the corpse and swallow it whole, her face stretching and growing to accept the size of the ‘meal’. The faces previously visible in her stomach vanish and one new face appears. Using her claws, Wylowex tears open her own belly and the person to be resurrected tumbles out of her belly. The person is very much alive, unconscious, and buck naked. Wylowex then takes the three personal possessions and puts them in her open belly. She reminds the summoner of the price and then wanders away much in the same way she arrived.

The person resurrected will have no remembrance of their death or Wylowex. Although they act a bit awkward they behave much like their old selves only they will are much more positive towards the summoner. If the summoner desired a ‘romantic’ relationship they will get it. If the summoner was facing a murder charge, baffled the police will drop the case, and possibly question the coroner’s sanity. The person resurrected will begin a secret crime spree in the next few months consisting of murdering clergy, theft of religious artifacts, burning down churches, charities, homeless shelters, and leaving the most disturbing graffiti near the crime scene. Any witnesses will see the summoner, not the person who was brought back. This crime spree will eventually result in the summoners arrest unless they become really crafty and as devious as humanly possible. Go to Comment

Pretty darn good. I sense a little of Loki in his earlier days in many of these "mysteries". It could also be a faerie of some kind as well. However, since you can take these many different ways... they are totally useful. Nicely done. Go to Comment

First and foremost, thanks for the feedback both of you. You've both given me something to consider in the development of this idea. Second, I would appreciate taking just a moment to explain my thoughts which apparently didn't make it into the submission. I chose a crossbow over bow because to me it is more civilized or advanced than a bow. Rocks, spears, and perhaps the blowgun are the only missile weapons to be more primitive than the bow. It's totally a flavor thing... if you can imagine a crossbow built to look avian, I think it could fit nicely. Also I wanted the power to be in the launcher not in the missiles. Magic arrows always seem to have issues in my campaigns... less useful than a potion or a scroll or on par at best. One of my big concerns though would be mini quests over finding a certain bird for it's feathers... Time wasting and adding little value to the story line but does add limitations to the ability. Anyway, thanks again... more thoughts good or bad would be appreciated. Go to Comment

Update: Feather titles bolded as requested. Go to Comment

Thanks for your feedback, caesar193. As for your first comment about the reading, I was going to clean it up at finishing, but seeing as it may yet be awhile, I'll bold up each feather title. As to your second comment, I'm not sure how to reply except to say that I've never heard of a bird that needs a string to fly. As to your third comment, I like it and I'd like to hear more. My concern with this concept is that at first glance, it appears to make the crossbow less versatile. I'll think on it. Thanks yet again for your comments, I appreciate it. Go to Comment

Interesting sword with a neat mechanic. I think as an NPC cursed item, it would work really good as is. If I were to give it to the PCs, I'd want to slow that intelligence gain. It's still cursed and dangerous, but giving the PCs a bit more time for the curse to 'build up', would make for better role playing. Out of curiosity, who's soul does it suck? Under normal circumstances I'd say it's the guy who gets hit with the business end of the sword and not the user. Go to Comment

8. Area defensive magic is cheaper, more common, and/or more powerful than siege magic

This is the simple idea that the glyphs, wards, runes, area enchantments, magical emblems, circles of protection, and so forth are just more effective than the opposing counterpart. Every fortresses with any longevity is sure to be loaded with such permanent magical 'armor'. As a Siege or a Battle mage, are you entirely comfortable loosing your 'wall crushing' spell on an unknown fortress wall when the spell might be blocked, changed, and spit back at you magnified ten fold? This of course means that to properly engage in a magical siege one needs to send in spy/magical types in to try figure out how the defences work and then a way needs to be created to 'hack' those defences. I wager this is not an easy task, and therefore possibly a great quest for PCs.

9. Anti-Magic Stone

Athough possibly uncommon today, at one point loads and loads of anti-magic stone was found and used to create a large number of strongholds. Simply put, a magical siege simply doesn't work on any major location. As an added twist, wizards are useless when touching said structures or even when passing by.

10. Divine Protection

In the tradition of Greek mythology, each city or major location has a patron deity. Provided that the patron deity is properly appeased, major magical assaults will fail. Here's a few examples of how a magical siege would be thwarted:

A Luck God's City – All magic seems to miss or deal minimum damage.
A Death God's City – Offensive mages tend to have fear issues which most of the time trips up their spells and on occassion they drop dead for no reason whatsoever
A War God's City – Strangely arrows and other missiles fired from the city walls tend to kill the siege mages very quickly. The offence’s defences are somehow nullified.
A Love Goddess's City – the siege mage has a change of heart and abandons the siege. Reasons possibly include, a new love interest or a rekindled romance. Alternatively, the mage just wakes up and finds himself a total pacifist and unwilling to let the spells go no matter how angry the generals get.
A Nature Goddess's City – this one has many possibilities. A few examples include plain anti-magic, the walls that rebuild themselves, a perpetual storm outside the city walls that keeps line of sight to a minimum and spoils magical ingredients.
A Sun God's City – most offensive magi suffer from sun stroke to the point where even a night assault is unlikely. If a mage has the constitution and the stubbornness, at the moment a spell is to be loosed the caster becomes blinded by a bright light.
Mathom's City – Are you kidding? Just walk away, if you can. (I threw this one in just for fun) Go to Comment

Just had to throw in a few of my own. Good sub. Go to Comment

A decent trap room. The backstory is interesting but seems to add little to it's purpose today and any possible future for the room, unless someone wants to summon another demon. If I were to use this room it would be the final treasure room of main baddies. I would probably replace the zombies with something ethereal, as to me that matches the flavor of the room better. Go to Comment

I'm a little confused about the 'magical energies' comment about coloring the stones. Most magic only happens in instants... So it sounds more like a permanent enchantment (like another magic item) or like a ley line or something does the coloring. Interesting idea. I would still see a value in it, even after it's discovered, as it behaves kindof like a mood ring. Go to Comment

I enjoyed this one. I'd like to see more added. Go to Comment

Wow. Impressive. I agree with the comments above but will also echo in person: More would be nice. Go to Comment

Very nice.  I do like wish granting creatures, especially when they behave differently than one would expect.  I think this entry could have been better if some of the genies (hostile genies and the genies that will only offer one item, for example) were grouped together as one of the thirty.  There are definitely more interesting genie types that could be added to this entry.  I'll add a few under ideas.  Good stuff, Cheka.

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31. 
    

    
    Horror Genie – This prisoner genie lives in a torture chamber (it's lamp). As it is tortured, it's wish granting power in increased. When the PCs rub the lamp, there's enough 'juice' for one limited wish. The genie will argue with the PCs and try to get them to postpone using their wish so he can enjoy a break from the lamp. If the PCs push for an early use, the genie, might crock them (See #30). Good PCs will not want to use the wish when they realize the consequences for the genie.

    
    


32. 
    

    
    Karmic Genie – This three wish genie is similar to #7 in that his wishes have a price and similar to #30 as the price would be considered a drawback. The genie won't tell the PCs about the price but will say things like 'Everything has consequences'. Whatever the PCs wish for has an immediate balancing effect. For example, a fighter who wishes for improved strength will get it at the price of endurance or agility. A wish for a loved one to be resurrected costs the life of a different loved one or alternatively many friends. A wish for an arch rival to be killed will cause another rival to receive a powerful boon or a previously slain enemy will be revived.

    
    

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Only voted Go to Comment