Strolen's Citadel: Eris's Pool By ephemeralstability

Eris is a naiad, beautiful and graceful, flirting with butterflies and whimsically governing her sparkling waterfall pools. But when the characters encounter her, she is a starved, ill-looking creature, emaciated, jaundiced and warty. Why is this?

Not far away, a detachment of ogre-warriors have set up camp. This could be part of a larger plotline (maybe they’re planning to attack a nearby town, or steal some cattle), but whyever they’re there, they still need to wee. And where better than some nice clear pools?

Defiled with the urine of the ogres, Eris’s pools have sapped her strength and she has degenerated into an ugly and sickly being, needing help.

She begs the PCs for assistance. Even the most kind-hearted of PCs would ordinarily recoil from this foul-smelling thing, but the promises she makes of recompense for helping her are too good to go unnoticed. She is very vague, as she does not fully understand what is wrong with her pools.

I leave it to the imaginations of the PCs to find a solution to the problem.

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Comments ( 16 )
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Ria Hawk
2003-05-06 10:04 PM

1xp

I suppose any other type of pollution would have a similar effect. Maybe it's not a band of ogres. Maybe the local necromancer found the perfect location to dispose of the, erhm... leftovers of his experiments. Or something. Maybe different types of pollution cause the naiad to suffer in different ways. The aforementioned necromancer's pollution might make her resemble some hideous undead. Magical pollution would have who knows what effect. The mind boggles. And it's a neat way to work in some ecological messages into the game.

ephemeralstability
2003-05-07 06:15 AM

Well yes, maybe a local Duke held a party in the gardens of his high mountain palace and the barrels of sour wine were disposed of in the forest below and they've started to leak into the pools: result, one tipsy nai(hic)ad who shlurs her shpeech.

Agar
2003-05-07 04:04 PM

One of the ways raw sewage is processed is to simply areate it in running water. The waste seperates and what doesn't evaporate settles and decomposes. For the Ogres to pollute her pools so much would require LARGE amounts of ogres or a restriction of the water flow. If they've dammed up the streams feeding the water fall and reduced them to a trickle, then the waste wouldn't be areated enough to break down and would pollute the pools.

But the question then is: What have the Ogres engineered that makes them dam up streams?

CaptainPenguin
2003-05-07 04:19 PM

Ahah!
The plot progresses!
First, the PCs think that it's just the ogres pissing in the stream. But they learn from a local wizard that running water eliminates pollution. Then, they discover that the ogres have dammed up the stream, for some reason....

MoonHunter
2003-05-08 03:07 AM

0xp

The damm is a quite cunning application of strategy. The damm will create quite a flood once broken and the water diverted to their target. The taget could be a town or a keep. It could be the regular camping spot for the tax collector and his soldiers.

manfred
2003-05-09 05:26 AM

Or could it be the naiad, that should be harmed?

Maybe the ogres were hired, and later comes some 'hero', to chase them away? The naiad is happy and rewards the hero... would have to be a strange item, that must be given away freely, to work its powers.

Any real heroes are of course a nuisance to dispose of.

Note: the ogres hired may not even know they do something wrong. Not that they would be peaceful do-gooders,
they are just innocent, at least in this regard.

strom
2003-05-17 11:17 PM

perhaps the ogres are just guards of a greater evil that needs the power from the water also. As the naiad weakens from the lack of available power, the evil becomes able to siphon more.
The problems of urinating and deficating in the water will seem a plausable reason for the waning energy. The dam would be for the planned attack that will be initiated when the evil being is prepared.
Of course, the ogres may not even be associated with the evil energy. The evil could be something defeated, and long forgotten, that has finally coming back. So defeating the ogres might seem to end the problem, only to later have the naiad, in desperation, beg for their return.
Maybe the naiad reneged on it's first deal, and now it comes with gifts and promising more it they would only defeat that which consumes her life line.

gottgen
2004-01-22 03:14 AM

Just an ecological side-note...running water, in and of itself, isn't immune to this kind of pollution.

You get a big band of Ogres pissing several gallons and dropping a few pounds of solid waste in the same area of the stream every day, the water will be bad to drink eventually...at least for half a mile or so downstream. Throw in some rotten scraps of food and a corpse or two. Foul stream.

Adel
2004-04-08 09:40 AM

I gag..... Interesting plot line........ creative but I Gag!

Cheka Man
2004-09-24 10:21 AM

Very intresting. 5/5

Mourngrymn
2006-01-25 01:15 PM

This is a very interesting plotline that gets better as the submission progresses with everyone's help. I like.

Michael Jotne Slayer
2006-02-21 03:15 PM

The expanding comments show what a simple but solid idea can inspire, and i think that this is an example of the Citadel at it's best.

Chaosmark
2007-04-19 09:42 PM

Only voted

valadaar
2011-06-07 06:45 PM

I love how the comments have taken the basic idea and made it much more then it started. Kudos folks!

valadaar
2011-06-07 06:47 PM

I normally would not HOH a sub of this size, but I would like to point out the process that has taken place here. The HOH is for everyone involved really.

Strolen
2012-05-13 12:17 PM

That is a great discussion. Ok idea. I honestly never thought of using ogre urine as a plot point so extra for that alone! :)

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