Cute and disgusting at the same time. I like it.
* d_d wonders what other bit of disgusting monster anatomy could have practical use...
Dossta, thanks for keeping up with this collection. Each item alone is a great sub, but taken together they are exceptional. I really like the concept and the execution.
This horn is formidable, and I particularly like the subtle twist that could easily be the downfall of the horn's wielder, as he erodes away the inhibitions of his own men, slowly ebbing their humanity away. So far, the darkest of the seven item. I like!
- Adelheim's Seven Favours
- King Mosanggar's favours/tokens/gifts
- Adelheim's Aegis (with the implication that all the items are only facets of the aegis)
- The Steward's Prizes
- The Seven Sentinels
- The Seven Keys to Adelheim
- Mosanggar's Seven Legacies
- The Princes' Birthright
- Mosanggar's Wards (as in, protective spells)
- Mosanggar's Binding
- The Prince's Circle
- The Princes' Chain (a chain is only strong as...)
- The Stars of Adelheim
- The Adelheimian Unity
- The Princes' Pledges
Nice to see one of the sinblades come up! I wonder how someone with an iron discipline would react with this blade. It seems that the wielder would always be walking the line between self-control and all-consuming rage.
I like that you've included a section on the relationship between blades, and look forward to seeing how the oother blades interact with one-another.
Go spacebats! I think I quite like the Cynopterid. I could see them being a galactic underclass, everywhere due to their natural abilities, but never on top of the foodchain, so to speak. I think I might enjoy a campaign where humanity is at the point of bootstraping to spacefaring and they meet the Cynopterids, opening a whole can of worms and moral dilemmas:
They're weaker than us and their colonies are biocompatible with earth life. Are we willing to exterminate the species that gave us spaceflight?
How do we interact with the rest of the galaxy? Will we be frowned upon because our space flight tech was scavenged? Do uplifted species have a bad rep in the galaxy, with an attached stigma?
What if the Cynopterids had to be our mentors in galactic diplomacy? How would we handle a species that has rights over us when we're technologically superior to them? Would we risk the wrath of galactic legal bodies by defying our mentor species?
Does a culture have responsabilities in case of accidental uplift (like Chirotar could be responsible for.)?
I'd probably drop the eldricht-ness, I've never been any good at putting those and sci-fi together.
Interesting character. I'd like to hear more about her species, and it has triggered an entire campaign idea. Cool!
I love the writeup. It's probably not very useable as-is in a game without more ties but I loved reading your sub, Scras.
Dragonlordmax: I don't know that I've ever seen a vampire that can fly
You ever saw one that didn't? You sure? How much did you have to drink? :-)
I really like this item. I've been reading your series of the seven artifacts and found it really enjoyable, but this one is my favorite so far.
It's probably not something that I'd actually give to PCs, but it's a brilliant item. I really like the imagery of the flame wreathed crown, and having the judgement be a willpower contest is a wonderful idea.
I can see an entire campaign built around these seven artifacts, with a failing kingdom, and a band of adventurer tasked with finding all seven tokens and match them to seven worthy descendants of the original seven kings to restore the kingdom to its former glory.
Looking forward to the other artifacts.
I would not like to be on the receiving end of those...
I could see them used by an antagonist, with the PCs having to choose an indirect manner of subduing the owner. Good item to make combat-heavy parties try different strategies when faced with the big bad.
In the interest of full disclosure, this took longer than 3 minutes to write. The complete ideas and backstory as well as most of the effect were thought up in less than 60 seconds though. It's Also my first post in over three years! Woot! Go me!
Well, it seems that those who cannot create are forced to re-create...
I just found the Anodyne sword while browsing the Citadel. I had completely forgotten about them. My subconscious, it seems, had not, even down to the snake motif. Or is it that perhaps the snake brings images of silent, painless death?
We'll never know...
Anodyne sword added as suggestion.
The original idea was to show how this was just some blade randomly lying on th ground, that the duke picked up, and enchanted through his actions, but the paragraph got cut, so to speak...
Funny, useable and well written. I like the anecdotes too, they bring each twist alive. Great stuff.
I really like the back story, the legend of the blades, however, I agree with Chaosmark, knowing more about the blades, their power, appearance and their temptations would be really interesting, and if the quality of the writeup on the blades is the same as the backstory, you'll be in HoH territory.
Consider approaching a Strolenite whose work you like and propose a collaboration, if you're drying up on ideas/motivation for the blades.
Great potential.
I actually like this hammer. It's a good, solid sub, but I would have liked to see more story hooks and background. Maybe a description of the current wielder.
I quite like the twist, the ability to break down social barriers would be surprisingly useful. I guess that because of its size, magic and the enhanced social abilities of the wielder, anyone who owns this would have a far ranging reputation.
I could definitely see the hammer's reputation, if not its actual power, being a great source of plot hooks and GM mischief.
3.0 base +0.5 for twist.
Dungeons (Any) (Puzzles)
I like it, and forganthus's suggestion with battle optimisation is a great idea. I've had to solve these kind of problems before, and analyse the outcomes. It's interesting to note that if you carry out this exercise with nations prior to the breakout of the second world war, the lowest conflict states are almost identical to the Axis/Allies split (except for one country, IIRC.) It turns out this a remarkably complex problem (Combinatorial Optimization) and is NP-complete. It's an excellent problem to push onto your gamers! As a general rule, NP-complete and NP-Hard problems make for quite good games. Have a read of Ralph Koster's GDC 2009 talk for more.
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