God help me, the backstory was rambaling and completely useless, but it was so werid that I enjoyed it and would fully expect this to be actual myth or folk tale. Why would somebody tell that story unless they believed it to be true? It is like a story that game to us through a long line of telling and retelling.
The thunderstones may not be an original idea, at least the backstory gave us something different.
The background still needs quite a bit of cleaning up and clarifying. As was pointed out earlier, thunderstones are common items in D&D.
Your description of what thunderstones do is uncomfortably close to the description given by the D&D player's handbook. I'd suggest you try to put some sort of a spin on them to make them different or fresh in some way.
Still feels like the story jumps around a whole lot. As for the Lis (which I'm still not sure is the wolf/fox creature you described), if you aren't going to describe it, it'd be best to put a link giving us the ability to read up on it. Feels very disjointed as I don't know what I should be expecting the lis to do.
I also wonder about playability. These thunderstones shatter eardrums and (in several cases in your description) outright kill those who use them. Unless used in a high magic campaign (with enough magic to repair such damage) this could be potentially lethal before the players even know what they're dealing with.
Mark
I intentionally left it, kind of vague for some flexibility for GMs if they want to use it, I realized I made it too flexible...
The animal was originally a wolf / coyote / fox so you were right on the dot there...
Trueno, was originally a ex - adventurer / bard, I saw that I forgot that crucial fact, but the stones he attempted to make were a fail anyways...
I personally love the idea of the small magical animals too, so much possibility...
The animal won't be described deeply here, it'll be made as a separate submission, I was going to do that with Trueno and the Hunter, who still has no name -_-, but I decided to keep them in this submission and make the animal separate.
Thank you for the comment
There is so much unrealized potential in this submission! The basic concept is solid, but the history is convoluted and requires some editing for clarity. This sentence, for example: "The animal died, along with Trueno, a hunter was watching the incident, not believing what he saw, he knew Trueno, but didn't care for morals." Too much happens here for it to be coherent -- it should probably be split into at least two sentences (one about Trueno and the animal, one to introduce the hunter). Before submitting, try reading your sub aloud and you will catch things like this.
A few things that didn't make sense:
There are some bright spots. Small, magical animals that terrorize a farm? I'd love to hear those described. Bet they have some really nifty sonic attacks if they were the original creators for thunderstones. The maniacally laughing animal is a good mental image -- I'm seeing a fox here, but I'm guessing you have something else in mind.
This sub has some real promise but desperately needs some more editing and fleshing out. Good job though; I can see that your subs are improving overall.
I thought I commented on this a while ago. This just seems like a cookie cutter trap door trap that was taken out of a DnD DM supplement manual. Not saying it isn't a decent trap but it just doesn't seem I don't know... right. It must be in its description or something. It seems more like a person talking to another about an idea nothing more.
Undetectable unless by foresight seems a bit much for it to be a mundane trap. Perhaps describe it in detail on how it is concealed in such a way that if it is detected the trap appears to fire from a different area putting ones back to the actual crossbow bolt in the process of trying to disarm it.
"Almost guaranteed to bring down the best adventurers" This rankles me a bit as if a single bolt or even two or three were to strike an adventurer and actually kill them with just a normal bolt. It either means the group is still low level which is understandable, or the GM is simply goofy. Give it a reason why its so deadly. Poison is so cliche'. Use an exploding bolt or a warded bolt that triggers a spell. Imagine the look on your fighter types face when he attempt to either take the bolt thinking it minor or stopping it with his shield when a large fireball is trigger when the bolt makes contact, or a mist of acid.
All ideas to try and make this a better sub. Not bashing it in anyway just trying to help you flesh it out more to make it 3/5 or higher worthy.
I just used exploding as an example of different. I see poison all the time in our sessions as its an ongoing joke that only one person can treat poison and they have a very pathetic skill to succeed.
Items (Other) (Magical)
Whoa. OK. I don't know where to begin with this one. The idea isn't bad. A rock that makes a thundering sound. It's been done by D&D, and I suspect that was your original inspiration for the Door Trap, but the origin in a creature's stomach is something totally new, it seems, and should be played up more.
Maybe there was some sort of reaction between man's magic and animal magic that caused a thunderous tumor to erupt from the fox-creatures innards. Could start a whole trend of different types of magic clashing for un-for-seen effects.
The writing is distracting and hard to follow with way too many commas. Commas can add a lot of artsy flair to writing, when used correctly. but you have just too many of them all over the place. Do what Dossta said with the reading aloud, a comma is a break or pause in the sentence, but after it should carry the same thought.. This needs to be condensed, rearranged, and re-punctuated.
I hope you can do it, because I like the idea and want to see it given a good write up.
Good luck!
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