6/29/2011 11:15:06 PM
Greg Dent
Administrator
Posts: 195
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Derek Holland wrote:
Another idea for the chaos storms is tapping the power of the Forge through the canton lines. They could act as ley lines that have a tendancy to mutate spells (and spellcasters).
That works. Don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but these lines were originally supposed to coincide with invisible lines of the mystical net of energy that encloses the prison of the world. They are also the veins where goddust can occur in places.
--
President, Epidemic Books
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8/5/2011 3:48:41 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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A subset of the chaos storms are those that provide life or sapience. They either create elementals or provide a mass version of awaken. In either case the resulting creatures are intelligent, get the evolve feat for free and have a 50% discount on the xp costs for evolutions. This means there are a lot of intelligent rocks and trees out there that are using a form of Lamarkian evolution to improve themselves.
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9/7/2011 4:37:08 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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One thing I am waffling about adding to the Forge is the Warhammer 40K ork. For those who don't know, they are actually a rather complex (biologically) species of fungi. There are several stages to their lifecycle and it would be easy to give them some biotech weapons and armor. The problem is they are very difficult to permanently kill off (in the WH 40K universe, a planet is easier to burn than to invade if orks are there). A dead ork releases spores and as long as there is something for the fungus to grow on, orks can appear anywhere. On the Forge, I would think they would have permanet holdings on the islands of Wildwood and constantly invade the main land (in ork and spore forms).
They aren't zerg or clockwork horrors (who I think would consume the entire planet in a matter of months), but they aren't a push over like D&D orcs.
Thoughts?
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9/10/2011 5:28:14 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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There are some biological changes that look like evolutions but are not. Curses and other spell driven changes are the most common but there are a few based on biology. Xenografts and symbionts that merge with their hosts, causing phenotypic changes (as a result of plasticity or flexibility) are fairly common in Wildwood and can be seen all over the Forge. Unlike true evolutions, a xenograft change has no options and is driven by time rather than xp spent (so like an Ancient from Eclipse).
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9/12/2011 9:47:07 PM
Greg Dent
Administrator
Posts: 195
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Derek Holland wrote:
One thing I am waffling about adding to the Forge is the Warhammer 40K ork. Thoughts?
A good way to do this might be as a recent arrival (aka an invasive species). They will have a very limited area, but a great effect on the game and potential for future danger. If the PCs don't stamp them out immediately, they could start spreading.
--
President, Epidemic Books
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9/13/2011 6:41:11 AM
ShadowcatX
Posts: 53
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I think the orks would find more of a home in arena than in wildwood. 'Nids in wild wood though, that would be scary.
Still, I think you are by far discounting how powerful people on the forge can be. With 2 gods present on the forge, 2 beings who are arguably more than gods, and 5 other beings that can slaughter dozens, if not hundreds, a day, perish, and return the next day at full strength, a dragon that everything should fear, undead that are thousands, if not millions of years old, the forge is not an easy place to take over.
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9/15/2011 3:24:59 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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Not so much take over, but orks could slaughter enough seeds and bounders to make the Flock unhappy. Being fungi, they could make the vampires' lives esp difficult if all the prey is slain and replaced by orks.
And also note that orks can be effectively extinct and still come back. All they need is someone bring up hundreds of year old spores from the undercity of Penance and starting the cycle all over.
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9/15/2011 8:46:08 AM
ShadowcatX
Posts: 53
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I meant take over as a generic sense, more over run, than to take rulership. But yes, the orks could definitely slaughter enough seeds to **** off the flock.
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11/19/2011 7:05:22 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/334133/title/Earthly_riches_heaven_sent
Red moss and sparks were partially inspired by that article (see the critter thread) but it can be used for more.
Even though the rest of the universe's stars and planets were demolished after the bound god fell, that doesn't mean all their mass is gone. Asteroid impacts may be common from time to time as the gravity of the Forge and two suns draws the mass in.
And then there are the two suns themselves. I have life (spores, seeds and eggs) being ejected from Storm and non-living matter (minerals, metals and even hydrocarbons) being ejected from Crux. Stars are the furnaces that make heavy elements in our universe, why not use that in Oathbound? All kinds of weird matter can be mined from impact craters and used for magic and technology.
edited by Derek Holland on 12/9/2011
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11/20/2011 6:07:26 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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I mentioned Morningstar in the resources thread. It has, among other things, a well written section on how magic warps the land. These are called signatures because in that setting, creatures are the major drivers of their formation.
I was thinking of ways to incorporate signatures into OB and it hit me that megarunes (or glyphs or whatever) could be the answer. People who make them would be called reality engineers and the results can be quite impressive. Of course they could also be targets so trying to convert some land so that flying creatures and air elementals reign supreme might be hampered or stopped by landlubbers.
Some other engineers are those who create living structures (including mobile villages), art on a large scale (some that morphs with the viewers' or creator's emotions) and those that make magic collectors (must be a specific type and have a specific function, e.g. collecting air magic to make pleasant weather).
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12/14/2011 5:52:15 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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Derek Holland wrote:
A subset of the chaos storms are those that provide life or sapience. They either create elementals or provide a mass version of awaken. In either case the resulting creatures are intelligent, get the evolve feat for free and have a 50% discount on the xp costs for evolutions. This means there are a lot of intelligent rocks and trees out there that are using a form of Lamarkian evolution to improve themselves.
I have been thinking about this idea for a while and I wonder what creature type an intelligent rock would be. Elemental doesn't feel right, so that leaves aberration. And, like awaken, this effect (the intelligence) is not heritable, at least until one of them discovers a new evolution that allows them to reproduce and have intelligent offspring.
And the whole idea can make for a variant of spirits of the land, one where the creatures are much more interactive with the characters.
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12/18/2011 5:48:10 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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An idea to expand lunars and similar shapeshifters. They can advance via monstrous humanoid levels and each level gained provides a new alternate form. In the case of lunars, dolphins and eagles are common choices but any Small or Medium animal is fair game.
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1/1/2012 4:45:41 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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There are no black birds found on the Forge except those who are avatars of the flock. Those birds that were black are now some other color. Shapeshifters and spellcasters who try to break this rule fail (and possibly become a strangely colored bird until someone else changes them back).
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1/2/2012 6:37:53 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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Feyrs (or fihyrs in 3e) are closed content but the idea of living emotions, much more than just fear, could make life on the Forge much more interesting. Joys appear during celebrations. Melancholy appear after lost battles or disasters. And so on. Living emotions, powered by the magical field of the Forge, could be a creature like the astral construct, something built with menus. Why menus- mixed emotions.
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1/9/2012 4:35:26 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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Going back to intelligent rocks and other awakened objects- sapient buildings (and ships, bridges, etc.) . They are not animated objects, at least not initially. They would have to earn xp by using their brains and eventually taking evolutions that allow them motion internal and external. Advanced Bestiary has the transforming construct template, something that might be very handy for these beings.
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1/18/2012 4:17:37 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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I was thinking of how technologically advanced societies might incorporate magic into their technology and was listing a bunch of engineering ideas (materials, armor, cybernetics, sensors, etc.) and suddenly I realised that the most important thing they would bring isn't engineering, but rather theoretical science.
A culture with advanced biotechnology could study genetics on the Forge and develop new evolutions. Evolutions that could be used long after they go extinct.
A culture with a stong emphasis on archeology could study the past of the Forge and find all kinds of hidden treasures, both loot and knowledge.
A space faring culture could find out if there is anything beyond the system of the Forge. It isn't so much searching with ships as knowing the tricks to finding mass without seeing it. They may even find a way to use the Forge as a waystation via the star gates.
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2/5/2012 5:18:41 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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In Spells and Magic (the Bastion supplement), there is a section on how some dragons use their hoards to supplement their power. The basis of this is the idea that desire for an object gives them a little spark of energy. The more valuable an object is to more people, the more power it contains.
It makes me wonder if there is a place for Wilson (from Cast Away) and similar object familairs. Things that are not valuable to anyone but the owner. They would not be sources of power like dragon hoards, but they could be a personal relic, one that can only be used by the creator and, possibly, his or her family. This makes family heirlooms that much more useful in game play and mcguffins for the PCs to hunt down.
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2/6/2012 4:12:22 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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The laws of physics in the Forge's universe are different from those of Earth. This might allow a skill or set of skills, fantasy physics, that characters could use to create oddities such as technomagic, advanced alchemy, impossible architecture and influential artwork (sculptures that affect the mind and such).
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2/7/2012 5:48:34 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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Limitations for magic items (e.g. potions being limited to 3rd level or less) doesn't exist on the Forge. All the magic emerging from the prison allows people to break many, if not all, the rules.
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2/23/2012 4:21:42 AM
Derek Holland
Posts: 366
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One way to show how strange the Forge can be is domestication. Almost all creatures can be found as both master and livestock/pet. Some examples:
There are dwarves who are breeding gricks in Eclipse, turning one species into three breeds (land, underground and sea). And in undercity of Penance there are sapient gricks* that domesticated dwarves, producing five breeds (adapted to the various hazards, having +6 bonuses to the saves against them).
In the wilds of Penance (the plains around the city), there are sapient elephants that have domesticated kobolds, using them as tiny hands as well as a source of easy magic. In the jungles of Arena there are kobolds that have Medium sized elephants as livestock- small enough to allow underground.
In the undercity there are jaggons** that are breeding green dragons, making them much smaller as well as removing their wings. In Wildwood there is a green dragon that lives near a ruin and has started to domesticate the jaggon population there.
Orts*** are very common in the undercity and some have taken to breeding human wereflies. The insectoids are useful in finding food and danger. In another part of the city, the reverse is going on.
To get really weird, I was thinking also of water elementals/giant squid, vrocks/cranium rats and illithids/intellect devourers (it almost PB&J for the last one).
* The civilized template from Rite's Book of Monster Templates.
** Lovecraftian monsters that are a mouth and tentacles.
*** Walking trash piles
**** The monstrous lycanthrope template from Advanced Bestiary
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