Post/Author/DateTime	Post
EvilVegan 08-05-07, 11:56 AM	Greetings all! Just wanted some advice for fleshing out some themes. I'm running a pop-culture homage campaign, where I combine thinly veiled or outright stolen plots/features of popular movies, books, and games. I'm a bit wordy. The story so far: The princess had been kidnapped, the party finally "rescued her" from her kidnapper, an ancient immortal being of enormous power wielding the magic system of both the Sartan and Patryn (Death Gate cycle). This gentleman is trying to destroy all sentient life because he firmly believes that power is dissolved by sentient population, so the less people the are the more powerful he'll become (and technically he's correct within my cosmology, similar to the action move "The One"). To this end he summoned a nearly unstoppable force of evil from the deep regions, a biological weapon capable of adapting to any situation by absorbing the creatures it encounters into its greater collective consciousness, the Zerg (Starcraft). He plans on absorbing the collective, effectively becoming a planetary entity after combining his magical prowess with the collective. He'll resemble Unicron (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicron) or Ego (Marvel comics) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_the_Living_Planet) at that point, should he succeed. After revealing his "unstoppable" plans of world destruction the party threw him off of an air skiff (basically a magically supported floating balcony) which they were unable to control effectively before being swallowed by an enormous storm. . . Tomorrow night they will be waking up on a mysterious jungle island (even though they were near the arctic circle when they got swallowed in the storm). Days are slightly longer here and after a week or so they may notice that the sun doesn't always rise in a logical spot (3-8 degrees difference between days). It is inhabitted by numerous extinct species of flora and fauna (dinosaurs and other stranger magical beasts); two groups of tribal/feral creatures, one group of kobolds and one group of banders (sentient ferrets with the same stats as halflings); and a few remnants of "The Ancients" including a defense system (the umbral shard), several maintenance automata (golems), and a sentient care/upkeep entity that exists across the island. This island is thematically an homage to the "Lost" island, but the entire ecosystem rests on the top of an city-sized air-ship designed by the Ancients, an homage to Tales of Legendia's 'Legacy' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Legendia). This airship orbits the planet and from below and the sides it appears as a massive storm front. It travels the globe in a generally westward course with minor adjustments. It typically stays above "ley-lines" of the planet and passes over magical monoliths that keep it overcharged. It disperses this extra charge in the arctic circle to maintain the magical containment field that surrounds the hibernating Zerg Hive. It also passes over the ocean, pulling up water to maintain the ecosystem, which occasionally pulls in a random boat (leading to occasional groups of castaways). The island itself is abstractly sentient (as mentioned above) and has positively charged properties. Natural healing rates are doubled, certain diseases are cured, etc. The umbral shard is a corrupted feature of the system and is negatively charged. So what do I need help with you may ask? Well, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, but I'm also not that great at designing dungeons. I know I need at least 3 levels of the ship (cave-system, maintenance tunnels, and Ancient sleep chambers) and I know basic scenes I want to include. The religious rituals of the bander and kobolds unintentionally serve to maintain the island's course and settings. They do this by crudely mimicking Ancient magical runes through dance, song, and fire in "holy sites". They do these rituals at least weekly, and interrupting them can cause tremendous calamity to the ecosystem. This is both an homage to the Button/Hatch in Lost and the 'Kicksey-Winsey' in the Death Gate Cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_Gate_Cycle). The umbral shard is a direct rip-off of the black mist creature in Lost. I'm torn between making it a modified umbral fihyr or a living wierd spell. Either one fits thematically. Its composed of the fears and regrets of the sleeping ancients in the belly of the ship. The Ancient sleeping chamber contains 100 "crystal coffins", 2 of the coffins are empty and the rest of the coffins contain perfectly preserved ancients who are seemingly dead. 1 of the empty coffins was the resting place of the BBEG they met earlier, the other is a possible plot hook to be developed later (basically a BGGG). The theme of balance is key, the umbral shard is the negative balance of the island sentience, the 2 empty coffins are the two remaining living ancients who are opposites of each other, the kobolds are the balance to the bander (kobolds perform Patryn-like tattoo-ritual magic, banders perform Sartan-like musical/dancing magic). The party represents the entropy that occurs in life and will eventually unbalance the system enough to bring down the whole ship, though not intentionally. Also, the BBEG intentionally sent them to this location with the express purpose of causing its crash. The bander in the party will be seen as a messiah figure for the feral banders. They have a legend of an ancestor bander named "Snatch" that left the island to visit the world outside, taking with him a small colony. These bander were the ancestors of the modern, non-feral bander that were able escape from the island during a planetary cataclysm when the split worlds briefly reunited almost 10,000 years ago. Snatch is deified by modern bander as a great explorerer searching for the lost home of the bander. Side note, I had this Snatch religion designed before I had the idea to have a flying ship with an island on it. It worked out nicely. So anything that would strengthen the mystery or fill the time would be useful. If you can think of good pop-culture fantasy/sci-fi references that fit the theme that'd be nice too.
GoriceXII 08-05-07, 08:17 PM	A few ideas: 1. The stormfront should appear just as that--they might think they are in a limited plane such as "Silent Hill". Don't make it seem as though there are windows or as though they are on something that's moving. 2. Describe the devices and such the kobols and bander have to maintain as altars or idols. They might very well look like them--think more in terms of say the 1920s' vision of the future than our own. 3. Weather. Apparently biosphere projects actually produce weather due to the size of the buildings and the moisture inside. So there would be light rains and suchlike, breezes and so on. 4. The kobols and bander might say have lairs that are 'dungeons' with slick smooth stone. It might be plastic for all the pcs know, unless they're geologists or chemical engineers or something. Are you already up and ready to go with adventure ideas for this place?
EvilVegan 08-06-07, 10:23 AM	A few ideas: 1. The stormfront should appear just as that--they might think they are in a limited plane such as "Silent Hill". Don't make it seem as though there are windows or as though they are on something that's moving. 2. Describe the devices and such the kobols and bander have to maintain as altars or idols. They might very well look like them--think more in terms of say the 1920s' vision of the future than our own. 3. Weather. Apparently biosphere projects actually produce weather due to the size of the buildings and the moisture inside. So there would be light rains and suchlike, breezes and so on. 4. The kobols and bander might say have lairs that are 'dungeons' with slick smooth stone. It might be plastic for all the pcs know, unless they're geologists or chemical engineers or something. Are you already up and ready to go with adventure ideas for this place? 1) I wasn't necessarily wanting to think they weren't in a demi-plane :D, but I don't want them to automatically assume it either. I really want an "aha!" moment, and it might be fun if they have 2 aha, one when they "figure out" they're in a demi plane, the other when they figure out they're just on a ship. 2) Yea I was thinking of rune-covered pillars/monoliths like a stonehenge with really distorted idols of the ancients. The ancients are humanoid (a graceful blend of orc/elf), but its been thousands of years so the idols they carve would be more and more distorted and would probably start incorporating kobold/bander traits. 3) I was going to have at least 2 of the combats take place during the torrential downfall that islands often have. 4) Thats almost exactly what I had in mind. They ancients made everything with magic, but the properties of their materials vary from light plastic that we know to a crystal-clear substance harder than adamantine to a material that is made completely of runic structure. The sub-levels will vary in texture going from artificially disguised subterrain to blatantly advanced. The Ancients were the magical equivalent of a Progress level 8 society, they had global terraforming abilities and almost complete control over life (they made the bander and they taught the dragons how to make kobolds). Tonight is the first night we're playing on the island. My encounter list for the session is going to be: Time passes: The party is going to spend about 3 days recovering from their ordeal, using this time to adjust to life on the island. One of the players is coming into the game for the first time, so I conveniently set him up as a castaway who's been there for 2 months, so they'll already have a very crude base of operations. Everyone that was a castaway with him has died or disappeared into the jungle and 4 of them were killed by the umbral shard the first week. My encounters for tonight (I'm working them out as I post) Hunting a dire boar CR 4 dire boar. . . ECL 8 Dire shebear (Advanced (16 hit die) dire bear) CR 8 Usually N Large animal Init +1; Senses Listen +11, Spot +11; low-light vision Languages none ________________________________________ AC 17, touch 10, flat-footed 16; (-1 size, + 1 Dex, +7 natural) hp 208(16 HD); DR none Immune none Resist none; SR none Fort +13, Ref +11, Will +11 Weakness none ________________________________________ Speed 40 ft. (8 squares) Melee Claw +22 melee (2d6+11) or 2 Claws +22 melee (2d6+11) and bite +20 melee (2d8+5) Space 10 ft. x 10 ft.; Reach 5 ft. Base Atk +13; Grp +27 Atk Options Improved grab RAAA! Special Actions none ________________________________________ Abilities Str 32, Dex 13, Con 20, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 10 SQ Low-light vision, scent Feats Alertness, Endurance, Run, Multiattack, Weapon Focus (claw), Improved Natural Attack (Claw) Skills Jump +12, Listen +9, Spot +9 Possessions none ________________________________________ CR 3 kobold trap Camouflaged Pit Trap CR 3; mechanical; location trigger; manual reset; DC 20 Reflex save avoids; 30 ft. deep (3d6, fall); multiple targets (first target in each of two adjacent squares); Search DC 24; Disable Device DC 18. Market Price: 4,800 gp. ________________________________________ ECL 4 Bander hunting party 4 feral bander (14 hp AC 18 (+6 nat, +1 size, +1 dex), bite +1 melee (d4 +1) and 2 claws +3 melee (d6+2), fast healing 1, scent, darkvision) CR2 ________________________________________ ECL 14 (capture scenario) Bander raiding party- 1 feral bander shaman (6th level priest, CR 6) 2 feral bander warlords (level 5 warblades, 1 white raven/iron heart, 1 tiger claw/stone dragon, CR 6s) 4 feral bander rogues (level 2 rogues cr3s) ________________________________________ These encounters may or may not all happen during the same day, but most of my party is 3 ToB characters, a rogue, and a modified druid, so they've got endurance.
GoriceXII 08-06-07, 11:08 AM	That also sounds like they are going to be fairly into the setting and may not even notice the strangeness of it until they have time to. I think that the weather idea is very good. BTW, I had a thought: what you might want to do is have the players potentially caught up in a local conflict of some kind. They might have to pick a side, might just want to get the hell out of the way (knowing pcs they might not though) and along with this imply the importance of survival. They'll need food and fresh water. They'll need to find out where the hell they are and how to get back to where they come from. I think though if they realize they won't get through the area without fighting they will stop to plan, try to figure out how local resources can help out. Make it very clear that there are dangerous territorial animals as per your encounters, and territorial savage tribes. Of course they won't realize that it is like this is an island (well it is) and that control of resources would be VERY important in order to survive.