Solid, IMHO. I suppose it could be considered YAMW.
I can think of lots of reasons why the sword was lost and not recovered. Maybe the King was murdered, and the assassin took the blade. Or there was a nasty forest fire and they were all wiped out. The party was poisoned. The party caught the pox.
Chimethers
The Chimethers are strange and brutal creatures. Their torso is that of a humanoid lion and they have a huge snake's tail instead of legs, they are about twenty-five feet head-to-tail. The Chimethers have retractable claws on their hands and venomous fangs, their scales are dark green and their fur is black and silky. They usually have green eyes, but there are some with orange ones.The Chimethers are very aggressive towards most other species, they only trade with a few selective others, namely any other race that is stronger than them. If they capture any enemies, which is seldom, then they kill them outright, for they are not wicked creatures and do not enjoy torture. Go to Comment
Darklings.
There are several different forms of darklings including:
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The Commoners.
The Commoners are the smallest of the darklings ,they have leathery wings and completely black skin with red eyes. They have claws on their hands and feet, they are humanoid in shape and stand five feet tall.
The commoners are the lowliest ones in darkling society doing the jobs like cadaver collector, and the person who mucks out the stables.
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The Townsfolk.
The townsfolk are the citizenry of the darkling towns they are the craftsmen, doing such jobs as carpentry and blacksmithing.
The townsfolk stand six feet tall, and are humanoid in shape, they have large leathery wings and claws on there hands and feet, they also have two inch long fangs. The skin of the townsfolk is midnight black, and have black eyes with red pupils.
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The Warriors
The warriors stand seven feet tall and have huge leathery wings (a wingspan of twenty feet), they have two-inch fangs and a three foot long horn in the middle of their foreheads. They are humanoid in shape and have ashy gray skin, they have completely black eyes that, if you stare at them too long, seem to have swirling white figures in them that are said to be the souls of those they kill.
The warriors enjoy the best that the darkling city can offer, the best wine, and the best food. Their armor is made from steel and diamond plates that the darklings find in the volcanoes located underneath one of their cities, they use longswords and large shields, resembling those the Roman heavy infantry used, both made out of a strange black steel.
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The Nobles
The nobles stand eight feet tall and, unlike the other darklings, have no wings, claws, fangs, or horns, the only thing that keeps them in power is handing out hefty sums of gold to the warriors to keep the peace as it were.
The king and queen are chosen from the nobles, usually from the richest family, they have complete control over everyone in the kingdom (courtesy of the warriors).
The nobles (and kings) have black skin and gray eyes. Go to Comment
The Dreln
The dreln are a race of humanoids that appear to be humans except for their pair of five-inch black horns growing from their foreheads, and the fact that they have half-inch spines on their backs. The dreln have a civilized society each city having a mayor to be in charge of everyone else and there is very little crime. Go to Comment
Vyrenthar
The vyrenthar are a species feared by all but the bravest and the most idiotic. They have the bodies of dragons save that on their arms they have but one claw and no fingers, also, on their tails they have barbs. The average vyrenthar stands about fifty feet tall. Their scales are midnight black, and the pupils of their eyes are blood red. Vyrenthar are solitary beasts coming together only once every year to mate, after that the male will leave and the female will take care the eggs. Highly intelligent, Vyrenthar are powerful foes embodying, sharp claws and huge teeth, also, their barbs contain a toxin to paralyze their prey. Go to Comment
Darkbears are huge beasts found only in the oldest and most arcane of forests. The adults stand about eleven feet high, with shaggy black fur, and completely black eyes. Darkbears travel in packs similar to wolves. The males of the pack go out to hunt at night while the females guard the young. During the day the whole pack, save for one or two lookouts, sleeps. Once every year, on one of the nights of a full moon, all of the packs congregate at a magnificent ceremony, wherein the oldest of the Darkbears morph into pure energy to feed their fellow beasts. Go to Comment
Some of the creatures on this scroll are a bit mundane to me personally but overall, I still think this a solid scroll and I esp. like the bit abt the Darkbears' yearly custom. Go to Comment
A huge improvement, Drackler! Now it makes a proper seed for a small race.
Their background is what it is... it seems hard to prevent those mad wizards from creating things that kill them. At least they turned out to be a relatively benign species. One thing I would consider doubtful is the relationship with werewolves. If there are any around, their differences should provoke something... one the one side, there can be a deep understanding between the two, making natural allies, should such a need arise. On the other hand, they could see werewolves as flawed and unstable creatures, jumping between two imperfect states. They also have the same diet. I would imagine a Wolfkin could recognize a werewolf even in human form. Go to Comment
Okay, even as a minor race, post goes, this one is lacking. So lets go through the points.
Spelling, Punction, Grammar, and Capitalization: PASS
The full description is short. It does not give you a real feel for the critters. Except maybe that they are rip offs from White Wolf's WWtA oh and they have black fur. do they have yellow eyes? are they pink? And do they have tails?
WOLVES DO NOT HAVE RETRACTABLE CLAWS. NOR DO ANY CANINE. This is one of the many points that seperates them from felines or other carnivores. Make them some other furry creature if you must have this feature.
They hunt in packs like wolves, and eat there meat raw. While they can live in any area, they prefer mountains, or forests.
Okay. This is not part of the physical description. It should be in another section. Packs of how many? Fine, they eat the meat raw. Why do they prefer mountains or forests (didn't need that middle comma).
Sometimes they are mistaken for werewolves, they are not, although they have many of the same traits.
A pointless waste of letters. Why are they mistaken for werewolves? Is it just because they look like them? (can not tell this exactly the description) Do they transform? What traits do they have that are the same (besides a vaguely lupine appearance)?
These creatures are the bizarre creation of the mad wizard Tetrek. He created them by genetically fusing a wolf with a human, and injecting the product with the blood of a demon. Okay, odd but okay.
After they were created, the Wolfkin killed their master as is their nature, for they were still half-wolves, not to mention the fact that they have demon blood in them. Awkward sentence. Wolves don't kill their masters. Demons do. Are these things really that violent? Do they kill each other? Nothing you said before this make it seem that they are anything more than a predator.
However, they have since learned to master their instincts.
How and why? Found good monks? Found religion. Just woke up one day and said... I am sentient... I should not be Evil?
The Wolkin society consist of one ruler, probably the largest or strongest So they don't know? How is the ruler choosen: Choosen by trial by combat, personal according, a fashion show?
, from three to ten nobles, and anywhere from thirty to three hundred workers or commoners.
So there are only 350 of them? Why do they need nobles? Really why? And do these predators Farm? Do they Herd? Do they use items, because nothing said before even implied that they were anything other than slightly smart, humanoid animals. So do they have tents, they don't cook, do they use knives? Is there one tribe? Many Tribes? Those are pretty darn huge tribes?
Okay. Scrap this and start over. Take a look at the good examples of species descriptions... including the minor races in the minor race thread. The only ones that got away with such a short listing are the ones that were basically twists/ new interpretations on known races. Go to Comment
To Nobody: No problem.. I am perfectly okay with reading of the riot act. Did you not catch my first post? His grace period has ended, it is now sink or swim. Checka just was edging towards the personal, which is a line we should not approach let alone cross.
As to the point at hand, we could drop most of his posts into the ideas area, as that is where they are best found and fit in terms of size.
Drackler: I need you to read some posts in the Lifeforms section. You are just not meeting the minimum standards for details or ideas that we have on the site. Minor races thread might give you the minimum example of what you should have for a race 1150.
You truly need to meet the Gold Standard If your post could not be part of a published fantasy novel, it needs work. That is what you should aim for.
If your item/ npc/ plot/ setting is not as well described and developed as something you would find in a published fantasy novel (excluding most DnD licensed novels), then it is not equal to the gold standard and needs work.
This standard is really not that hard to meet. New members often meet it on their first or second try. You do not need to be a professional writer, you just need to put a little effort into doing it right.
You need to work on the level of completeness for your posts. Your posts needs to tell us nearly everything about the subject. You should strive for items that are generic, rather than dependent on a specific setting or campaign. While being vague can help make the item more "generic", you need to "imply" the answers. (For example: while my game might not have Rykor the BloodSlayer, I can figure out an approximate match "The most dreaded demon riding Dark Knight in history.") Implied answers act as guidelines for the GM/ Player adapting the post.
To be complete, your post needs to answer; "Who is involved?", "What is happening (and where and when)?" and "How and why things occur?". If it is an item or setting then include: What is the item/place? and What can it do?
Details are not as important as completeness. Read your post. Is there anything that someone (who doesn't know your campaign and the backstory) might have a question about? If you find such a question, edit the write up and include the answer to that question. Keep reading your post until you have answered every question (including ones that seem really stupid... there are a lot of really stupid people out there).
The best way to meet these goals: Effort! Put some thought into your post. Take your time putting the post into print. Taking time to do a post right shows you care not only about your audience and yourself, but you care about the thing you are posting about. If you aren't spending a minimum of 15 to 30 minutes on the post, it will probably be abused and low rated. Most of us spend 45 to 60 minutes on a post. Remember, you will spend more time actually thinking about your post before you put it up, if you want to do it right.
Remember that you can edit your post, so if you find something wrong, go back and fix it. Go to Comment
I caught the edit. It is a vast improvement over the original submission. Is it worthy of a better score? Only nominally. At least the write up is not obviously a failure like the last.
PLEASE READ MY POST ABOVE. Go ahead. I will wait.
Okay?
This write up is a foot note. There is not enough information here to really use them for anything more than 4 hit dice critter made to be maimed by PCs. This is the write up of a monster fodder.
It is a minor race write up where you have not linked it to that codex. If they are more than just walking thaco and hitpoints, they need a little history and some depth.
So are they a step above animals? Use tools? Make them or steal them? Make housing or did dens? What are their groupings like? Animals packs, tribes, anarchy?They killed their creator, what have they been doing since? Are they monster roaming the countryside? Do they avoid civilization? Would you find them living about a city as a mercenary company?
In short, one and a half points above the last version, simply because that version was a 0. Since the minimum vote is one, you have only gained .5. Go to Comment
Drackler, this is an espescially poor post. You'r posts are normally: short, undetailed, incomplete, but still, at heart, good ideas.
This post isn't even a good Idea.
Basically, all you have done is re-created wolf-men and given them some demon blood. I am unimpressed. You have not added anything that makes these Wolfkin unique or worth mentioning. I mean, Honestly, what is the point.
There are so many ways that you could have set these creatures apart from everything else in Fantasy, but you have not.
I have to date, given only two submissions the low score of 1.0.
Items (Melee Weapons) (Magical)
Solid, IMHO. I suppose it could be considered YAMW.
I can think of lots of reasons why the sword was lost and not recovered. Maybe the King was murdered, and the assassin took the blade. Or there was a nasty forest fire and they were all wiped out. The party was poisoned. The party caught the pox.
So all in all, pretty solid. Thanks
Go to Comment