I really like the ideas behind what you are describing here. Though the description lacks a personal touch, more like a description of a description. But this is great platform for new ideas and different directions. Full disclosure, i have not read the user submitted ideas. But I think this is sweet idea, smoothly realized. Go to Comment

They can eat, but can they drink. Might you find these tortured souls hanging out alongside distilleries or vineyards?

Also what of their written works, wouldn't their stories be full of secretes of the realm. Or could they keep up a correspondence with memebers of the living world. Could one these thing live a life entirely through written messages; letter, journals, graffiti etc? Go to Comment

Very nice creation myth, and it sets up a nice epic conflict. I would like to hear the history from the prospective of the demons and false prophets. Go to Comment

Sometimes you just need a really big crossbow or ax or sword. It is beautifully simple and well described. Go to Comment

Hmmmm

 

Go to Comment

I love this one, it has a very classic DnD/Mythos feel to it, I can't point to what I loved about it, but I now I loved it one.

 

One thing: this sentence is wrong, it has the feel of something that has been edited some many times that important words and phrases have been lost.

  What only a handful of learned scholars is that in combination, these items were created as a whole for the purpose of pandemonium.What only a handful of learned scholars is that in combination, these items were created as a whole for the purpose of pandemonium.

Go to Comment

I think this is solid, it contains at least two ways this could be a jumping off point to a subplot or an adventure

-it is the side arm of an officer...is the officer the bandit, did the bandit steal it from the officer,

-it has devotion of the god on the side

-it could also be a combination of these two facts that lead to something of interest.

I have said this before, but I think post of items and such for gaming suggest more than they say. I think this does that. Go to Comment

I really like most of your stuff Scrasamax, particularly your high tech post/sci-fi posts.  But this article is a little much, I was hoping it would be a flippant and amusing piece. But it is instead another argument for talking oneself and by extension gaming too seriously.  Maybe I missed the tone, but how can you write a article like this with out a sense of irony or absurdity? 

Go to Comment

I do think it is polite to comment on all the subs you can. People post things here in part because they want comments. But people also post things to give a wider audience to their work. Role-playing can be a media, like theater, comic books or any other type of narrative art. Yet in role-playing we often have a very small audience. This site gives us a chance to share our work with others who have similar interests, and sharing our work is one of the reasons we have this hobby. So think AG is right, it is important to be an audience on this site as well as an author, because a reciprocal relationship where everyone is an author or performer and an audience member is what makes role-playing games more than just games.

I do think voting serves a purpose. It allows the readers to feel more of an interaction and involvement with the posts. The voting is also a type currency which people can barter around and it creates a loose hierarchy. So in essence you have a game, these currency and hierarchy relationships are also the chief mechanic of most facebook “games”.


That is why I think we should view the game part of this site as absurd or superfluous. When you start to think that the your average post rank or experience reflects you talent or ability then I say you are ascribing to much value to the votes. A ascribing to much value to the game part of this interaction demeans the other more important interaction. I think Scras’s post, which asserts that his ranking are based on years of experience with literature and gaming, places too much meaning on the voting mechanics.

But just in case I am wrong, here is some exp.
Go to Comment

so at the time your wrote this voting was a problem? Was it hurting the function of the site? Go to Comment

It is ashame the punkcasher had to leave. he had a real touch for cultivating a vibrant and lively picture of the undead. Go to Comment

There was item very similar to this is the campaign I played in when I was 13. You don't know a ginger headed gaming enthusiast with 11 kids and the initials B.H. do you? Solid idea


But what do we learn about dwarves here. Nothing, the dwarves in this story are archetypal dwarves and the details just hammer that point in.

They have gold and silver mines. No explanation necessary, dwarves have mines.

They lived in a great walled city...got it. Dwarves tend to be more urban than humans.

They use warhammers.




Go to Comment

this is one way to present a list:  you don't really love the table of contents till you have used a bad one, thank you sire Go to Comment

I enjoyed that idea. How much of their self (memories and such) do imagine is left in the burn/urn beast. Go to Comment

I could see these as end game weapons.

A warrior or better yet a wizard quests to find these so he can free his love/king/mind and once he has them he is ready for the final battle. The only akward thing is he discovers the blades are two Harold and Loyd style smartasses. It would add a nice bit of levity to a final conflict. Go to Comment

I too have always loved material components and I have always toyed with the idea of making a true meta-chemistry for them. For example Amber would present with electrical aspect, sand=temporal, blood=pain, and so on. Perhaps these materials would not be necessary for the casting of the spell, but would be necessary for the learning of the spell or the prep of the spell (depending on how magic works). This is a really great start, and hope somebody develops this more in the future. Go to Comment

A nice well thought out idea that I personally liked. (written in GM voice with little narrative style) Go to Comment

This is a nice set up, a solid idea written up very concisely.

It would suck if you drank a family member (plot hook for revenge quest).

However perhaps you could turn this around, and drinking the famiy member say a year after his or her death could be a funeral right? Go to Comment

This is great, wonderful description, and excellent base for so many interpretations. Perhaps the Gods were offended by the human sacrifice and cursed the lands. Perhaps the souls of the dead that were never properly buried roam the island. These angry souls may be looking for the descendants of the priests and leaders in order exact revenge. I like the idea of the PCs being descended from the lost nations and linked by destiny to the island is some fashion.

So many possibilities....
Perhaps there a is ghost ship trapped in a frozen firth, the tormented souls wait for release both physical and spiritual or maybe there are still men on the island. Living as nomads, eating seals, whales, growing sparse crops around thermal spring and hunting the fantasy snow beasts. This lost nation still remembers Redwald and waits for his heir.

All this said your ending leaves me flat. This is a matter of personal preference I realize. But if the PCs get the disease, they either get better or they don't, there is not an intellectual process to it. If the plot goes as you say with them being blamed for the disease, it is fine plot but it doesn't not depend on the Ice tower island, and thus the ice tower become nothing but window dressing.

If the PCs have to solve the mystery of the disease then you might have something. They may not be able to isolate the pathogen from the victims, but will have to determine where the natural reservoir of the pathogen resides, then travel to it, isolate the pathogenic agent and design a treatment protocol (which in fantasy setting could include sacrifice and ritual). The PCs might be better served by all this backstory if they play the detectives. It might be more interesting if the PCs are the agents of the mob, government or the underworld and they have to find where the disease came from. Thus they will have to learn the story Redwald and the Isle of Ice.

Overall great location....and I voted on it as a location. Go to Comment

Only voted Go to Comment