Oh, I'm well aware of that. Still it seems like there's an awful lot of work to do, just as far as the places now goo-covered go.
As such...
You never did describe this ocean of of glop. What color is it, what kind of consistency, etc.? I'm thinking it's a massive, temporarily comatose, beer ooze, but that might not work depending on what it looks like.
In any case, its effects can be reversed by the magical intervention of a Dome Brother, but this famous order lived in the Claw, making them a bit hard to find at the moment.
I'm thinking the Angry Ettin may have a rune of return on the rudder (today's message was brought to you by the letter R), so that upon his command the ship will come home.
A skilled magic user could possibly cancel the run but would need to be in front of it and would therefore have a hinderance to the attempt, failing that they could destroy the rudder but that gives them a whole new problem.
Just my tuppence worth.
January 8, 2011 at 2:32 AM
Anonymous said...
I vote for magically mutagenic ooze... just because that has interesting options for all of those people who were trapped under it and have since become aboleths or mind flayers or something.
For the Ghost ship: A Runic stone compass, in an heavy box, carefully attached to the boat. Something special, old, with no north and south, but inward, outward, cold, hot, souls, nightmares, dreams, border, etc.. Remember the Jack Sparrow compass, it answer what you need, not relly what you want. Could solution problems likes water supplies running low.
If the ship is a ghost one, some part of it may be or maybe not present all the time. It could be necessary to have with you something that have been scavenged from the old crew to be linked. The fun part is to make one player able to go everywhere, passing throught zones that doesnt exist anymore for others, opening ghost door that blocks the passage but could only be seen a night. Then let the others try to understand why he is different.
Now after this fun part that could have lighten the mood and make the player think that the ship is now their own, time make a substory for the journey. There is wood on a ship, and some good carpenters too. Characters have killed the crew again, the carpenters too. After a stormy night, and every body have heard the lightning strike. But nothing seems to have broken onboard. But weirds sounds of wood ripping on the next nights, and shadows seems to move. "There is something on board!!!!!!!". Choice, a carpenter ghost leaving cute wood doll to a player, in love or something like, or wood golem self sentient wanting to be the boat?
For the Goo: Dragon dream material, after all, Dragons are big dreamers. Does nothing particular except for people and magic. People could sink in Dragon dreams. Nothing happen for the first time, but afetr 2-3, Dragons curiosity could send him try to search for "these dream creature". Or a nice one is 1 character fall in it, 2 comes back. One has the anger, hot head components, one has the nice and calm one.
The radioactive goo is the primal constituent of an alien ecosystem, from a planet where no one has a respiratory or cardiopulmonary system. Instead, the goo absorbs light and nutrients and distributes it to the entities within. Familiar lifeforms within do not die; they exude their lungs into balloons through their mouths and their veins grow out of their skin into huge branches. The undergoo world resembles a great red forest, or with faster-growing and faster-mutating animals, a coral reef of flesh and bone.
@Zak S: Is it gray? Could be an extrusion from a Sci-Fi world destroyed by nano-tech fukkup where a long-dormant portal generator has came online for unknown reasons, and there ya go: the junk is now flooding into your Mega-Dungeon. Maybe somebody could bond with it and become a goo-bot, extra points if it's evolving toward sentience. Alternatively, said Sc-Fi world is alive and well: they're just pumping and dumping their molecularly altered garbage somewhere random, hoping the problem will go away/not caring.
-Chris Weller's very cool idea of an ettin was defeated (at least temporarily) by a "soft power" approach--the boys took him drinking (probability-warping luck on the charisma rolls) and then dosed him with some sort of forgetting potion the girls found in a dungeon. Since one of the heads is a very angry wizard, I will have to decide what the ettin will do once he wakes up.
-...Which is maybe not much for a while since the players stole his boat and are now sailing the plasmic sea. Must finish up and edit the trouble-at-sea table.
-Incidentally they seem to have chosen to sail rather than stay on the fortress and fight the ettin or go down into the dungeon attached to the fortress, or find the things that will stop the skeleton plague on account of sailing seems like fun. My players do not appear to choose what to do based on any consistent criteria. I'm ok with that. However, since they're ignoring the undead this does mean I need to decide what spooky skeleton-thing will happen next back in civilization.
-Ok, they're not entirely ignoring the undead. They defeated a ghost ship full of skeleton pirates--ably assisted by Miss Charlie, visiting from NYC on her first RPG go-round. Now that they've got the ship (and got it in better shape than the boat they were on) I have to figure out exactly what's on the ghost ship.
-Since there are (or were) a hell of a lot of inhabited areas between the Fortress of Crows and the Sea of Ignorance and Pain to which it is now joined by a viscid umbilicus, I have to invent post-goopocalyptic versions of various places on the map that the crew might manage to wavecrawl to over the course of the next session, as well as identify landmarks or other situations that would give them some non-arbitrary reasons to decide one course over another.
-It'd also probably be a good idea to nail down just what, mechanically, the goo is, since no-one's fallen in it yet so I haven't had to decide.
-It also would be fun if I could seed a few ideas that have to do with who the players' characters are around the map, since they're sailing far from home.
"Things That Happened Last Session & What They Imply I Should Figure Out Before Next Session"
16 Comments -
So basically you need to redo your goopolitical matrix?
January 7, 2011 at 11:54 PM
Huh. Had I know this was a new ocean I wouldn't have made islands. Guess they were on a lake, and the defenses mentioned protected them.
Do you need help with any of these things, or is this simply campaign updates?
January 8, 2011 at 12:17 AM
@C'nor
The bureau does function in your absence, 007.
Though I'm never one to turn down a good idea if you've got one.
January 8, 2011 at 1:15 AM
Goo often seems unusually sentient in d&d...
And it is always impressive on how fresh and exciting your setting can be. I wish mine could be weirder.
January 8, 2011 at 1:38 AM
Oh, I'm well aware of that. Still it seems like there's an awful lot of work to do, just as far as the places now goo-covered go.
As such...
You never did describe this ocean of of glop. What color is it, what kind of consistency, etc.? I'm thinking it's a massive, temporarily comatose, beer ooze, but that might not work depending on what it looks like.
In any case, its effects can be reversed by the magical intervention of a Dome Brother, but this famous order lived in the Claw, making them a bit hard to find at the moment.
January 8, 2011 at 1:49 AM
And the link for a beer ooze:
http://dungeonsndigressions.blogspot.com/2010/12/rusty-battleaxes-beer-ooze.html
January 8, 2011 at 1:53 AM
I'm thinking the Angry Ettin may have a rune of return on the rudder (today's message was brought to you by the letter R), so that upon his command the ship will come home.
A skilled magic user could possibly cancel the run but would need to be in front of it and would therefore have a hinderance to the attempt, failing that they could destroy the rudder but that gives them a whole new problem.
Just my tuppence worth.
January 8, 2011 at 2:32 AM
I vote for magically mutagenic ooze... just because that has interesting options for all of those people who were trapped under it and have since become aboleths or mind flayers or something.
January 8, 2011 at 5:39 AM
The ooze is actually the mother of all gelatinous cubes. It will rise from the ocean and wobble over the land, consuming all...
January 8, 2011 at 5:44 AM
Hi, a few ideas.
For the Ghost ship:
A Runic stone compass, in an heavy box, carefully attached to the boat. Something special, old, with no north and south, but inward, outward, cold, hot, souls, nightmares, dreams, border, etc.. Remember the Jack Sparrow compass, it answer what you need, not relly what you want. Could solution problems likes water supplies running low.
If the ship is a ghost one, some part of it may be or maybe not present all the time. It could be necessary to have with you something that have been scavenged from the old crew to be linked.
The fun part is to make one player able to go everywhere, passing throught zones that doesnt exist anymore for others, opening ghost door that blocks the passage but could only be seen a night. Then let the others try to understand why he is different.
Now after this fun part that could have lighten the mood and make the player think that the ship is now their own, time make a substory for the journey. There is wood on a ship, and some good carpenters too. Characters have killed the crew again, the carpenters too. After a stormy night, and every body have heard the lightning strike. But nothing seems to have broken onboard. But weirds sounds of wood ripping on the next nights, and shadows seems to move. "There is something on board!!!!!!!". Choice, a carpenter ghost leaving cute wood doll to a player, in love or something like, or wood golem self sentient wanting to be the boat?
January 8, 2011 at 6:05 AM
For the Goo:
Dragon dream material, after all, Dragons are big dreamers. Does nothing particular except for people and magic. People could sink in Dragon dreams. Nothing happen for the first time, but afetr 2-3, Dragons curiosity could send him try to search for "these dream creature".
Or a nice one is 1 character fall in it, 2 comes back. One has the anger, hot head components, one has the nice and calm one.
January 8, 2011 at 6:22 AM
I think "the land is now covered with an immense coat of goo" should be an insert option on the potions miscibility table.
January 8, 2011 at 8:18 AM
For some reason it reminds me of the "Ocean of Bubbly Goo" from the old Mercer Mayer children stories...
Of course, in that case, the ocean was sucked up by an enormous Typhoonigator... possible solution?
January 8, 2011 at 10:25 AM
The radioactive goo is the primal constituent of an alien ecosystem, from a planet where no one has a respiratory or cardiopulmonary system. Instead, the goo absorbs light and nutrients and distributes it to the entities within. Familiar lifeforms within do not die; they exude their lungs into balloons through their mouths and their veins grow out of their skin into huge branches. The undergoo world resembles a great red forest, or with faster-growing and faster-mutating animals, a coral reef of flesh and bone.
January 9, 2011 at 12:51 AM
@huth
beautiful
January 9, 2011 at 1:05 AM
@Zak S:
Is it gray? Could be an extrusion from a Sci-Fi world destroyed by nano-tech fukkup where a long-dormant portal generator has came online for unknown reasons, and there ya go: the junk is now flooding into your Mega-Dungeon. Maybe somebody could bond with it and become a goo-bot, extra points if it's evolving toward sentience. Alternatively, said Sc-Fi world is alive and well: they're just pumping and dumping their molecularly altered garbage somewhere random, hoping the problem will go away/not caring.
Love this!
January 9, 2011 at 8:25 AM