Just how dangerous is the Mournland? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Just how dangerous is the Mournland? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
nevcoup
09-14-04, 02:22 AM Aside from the living spells and physical harshness, how dangerous is the Mournland?

There is no reason to believe that creatures heal any more than PC's (i.e., not at all!), and the few natural inhabitants "scrap out a life" in the Mournland.

Why wouldn't any creature that was encounteder by the PC's be likely to run? Shouldn't they be low on HP's too? I reread the ECS sections and couldn't find any word that monsters heal any better than PC's.

What kind of strange mutations happen to monsters in the Mourland? Ideas?

Do the same mutations happen to PC's who linger?

Don't get me wrong...the Mournland is likely on a par with the "desert of desolation" in terms of nastiness.

I just wonder how a place where creatures do not heal is ALL DANGEROUS to PC's.
stone_dog
09-14-04, 02:57 AM Okay, sure. Critters can't heal any better than PCs can, but they are critters. They get driven insane with pain and hunger (those that can't find corpses to eat) and as such lash out at anything they percieve as a threat. Also there are so shortage of undead things floating about (stacks of ghosts I imagine) that make life many flavors of awefull. And there are Things at work in the Mournlands. New creatures might crawl from the glowing chasm or draw life from its strange energies.

More in a bit...
stone_dog
09-14-04, 03:22 AM That didn't take long...

Okay, the rules of the Mournlands are not as yet laid down, so anything we say about them is just about speculation. Commence speculating.

1) "Surviving in the Mournlands isn't an easy task; the few plants and animals that can be found are tainted and mutated in vile ways."
There are two things to worry about right there. The words tainted and vile. I'm not going to talk about the BoVD because the virtues of bringing it into a game are... debatable. However, you get the idea. Very Bad Things. Then you have Taint. Taint as shown in Unearthed Arcana is just begging to be dropped into the Mournlands. Probably mostly around the area of the Glowing Chasm and less around the Glass Plateau, but still. It seeps into your body, twisting it and never... ever going away.

B) "Time and nature seem to operate in strange ways within the Mournland and magic isn't guaranteed to function in expected ways within this mist shrouded land."
Well it just keeps getting better and better. Time doesn't seem to work right? Or nature? I wonder if anybody has ever walked in there with a full bag of supplies and starved to death because something happened to strip the nutrition out of the food. Maybe this is the only place in the world to use your FR Wild Magic rules, just give them a bit of a darker twist here and there.

Third, if the rumors of the Lord of Blades hating all humanoid life are true then there may certainly be a few murder teams wandering about out there. there are about 980 warforged out there and every last one of them is a combatant. And they may not heal, but they repair just fine.

If you need anything else, I would heavily look into anything on the Rokugani Shadowlands from L5R.

Dangerous? Oh yes.
ChronosCrow
09-14-04, 08:49 AM The answer to all of your questions lay with the DM of the game. Mournlands is an open ended section of the setting. It is whatever the DM wants it to be. You could go ultra logical like you say, or the DM might find it's own resoning towards how monsters get healed. Like previously stated by Hellcow, if the DM wants maybe sections of the Mournlands heal differently and then maybe other sections don't heal at all. As far as mutations go I definetly don't know if the PC's can be effected by it for prolonged exposure, I'm guessing the warforged dont' due to Lord of the Blades setting up there story-wise.

Spoiler]

[Spoiler about Shadows of the Last War]--> When the PC's fight the carcass crab out in the plains of the Mournland it is actually damaged already. It's just in the carcass crab's nature to lash out in hatred at anything it sees or percieves. Maybe the Mournlands act like the plague in 28 Days in regards to emotion. Maybe anything that is exposed so long becomes violent and hates anything it comes across. The wolves are fine in the workshop so it doesn't penetrate underground I'm guessing. And who knows how long that battle the carcass crab is at lasted and how 'fresh' it was.

[Spoiler over]

At first I was really really upset with all of the open ended things with how the book was done, but in the end now I feel differently. I've tailored made a few of the open ended things and I enjoy that. There have also been a number of conspircies finished up by the people on the board and I enjoy that stuff too. Kicking around all of those theories is fun and inventive. Don't get upset with the open ended stuff, revel in it.
ENHenry
09-14-04, 12:41 PM I myself came up with a few house ruled ideas for making the Mournland scary in game terms.

(HOUSE RULES AHEAD! ALERT! WARNING! A-OOGA! A-OOOGA!)

--Healing is not totally nil. Instead, All magical healing refuses to function - only natural healing works on living things. Undead can be restored with inflict spells.

--Any spell cast or used from a magic item has a flat 1% chance to spontaneously become a living spell.

--Anything killed in the Mournlands has a 1% chance to raise up as an undead creature. (For ease of use, I just give them similar physcial stats, and give them half their full living hit points.)

--All dead things spontaneously regenerate, back to their state they enetered when freshly dead.

If you want to make it even nastier, just raise the chances to 10%.
stone_dog
09-18-04, 02:51 PM Just an added touch from the Cow Himself...

(my view is that the creatures native to the Mournland do heal normally there -- it is outsiders who cannot heal in its unnatural environs).
Saurenda
09-18-04, 05:16 PM Which nearly proves my theory of Cyre developing the hinderance of healing spells to keep outsiders from grabbing a foothold in thier country.

My player came up with this idea.

Leomund Tiny Hut, Rope tricks, and other extradimensional spells make space in the mournlands that isn't part of the mourlands. One could just heal in these normally. MMM(Mordenkaniens magnificent mansion)

Kodos to Tevildo for this!

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
nevcoup 09-14-04, 02:22 AM	Aside from the living spells and physical harshness, how dangerous is the Mournland? There is no reason to believe that creatures heal any more than PC's (i.e., not at all!), and the few natural inhabitants "scrap out a life" in the Mournland. Why wouldn't any creature that was encounteder by the PC's be likely to run? Shouldn't they be low on HP's too? I reread the ECS sections and couldn't find any word that monsters heal any better than PC's. What kind of strange mutations happen to monsters in the Mourland? Ideas? Do the same mutations happen to PC's who linger? Don't get me wrong...the Mournland is likely on a par with the "desert of desolation" in terms of nastiness. I just wonder how a place where creatures do not heal is ALL DANGEROUS to PC's.
stone_dog 09-14-04, 02:57 AM	Okay, sure. Critters can't heal any better than PCs can, but they are critters. They get driven insane with pain and hunger (those that can't find corpses to eat) and as such lash out at anything they percieve as a threat. Also there are so shortage of undead things floating about (stacks of ghosts I imagine) that make life many flavors of awefull. And there are Things at work in the Mournlands. New creatures might crawl from the glowing chasm or draw life from its strange energies. More in a bit...
stone_dog 09-14-04, 03:22 AM	That didn't take long... Okay, the rules of the Mournlands are not as yet laid down, so anything we say about them is just about speculation. Commence speculating. 1) "Surviving in the Mournlands isn't an easy task; the few plants and animals that can be found are tainted and mutated in vile ways." There are two things to worry about right there. The words tainted and vile. I'm not going to talk about the BoVD because the virtues of bringing it into a game are... debatable. However, you get the idea. Very Bad Things. Then you have Taint. Taint as shown in Unearthed Arcana is just begging to be dropped into the Mournlands. Probably mostly around the area of the Glowing Chasm and less around the Glass Plateau, but still. It seeps into your body, twisting it and never... ever going away. B) "Time and nature seem to operate in strange ways within the Mournland and magic isn't guaranteed to function in expected ways within this mist shrouded land." Well it just keeps getting better and better. Time doesn't seem to work right? Or nature? I wonder if anybody has ever walked in there with a full bag of supplies and starved to death because something happened to strip the nutrition out of the food. Maybe this is the only place in the world to use your FR Wild Magic rules, just give them a bit of a darker twist here and there. Third, if the rumors of the Lord of Blades hating all humanoid life are true then there may certainly be a few murder teams wandering about out there. there are about 980 warforged out there and every last one of them is a combatant. And they may not heal, but they repair just fine. If you need anything else, I would heavily look into anything on the Rokugani Shadowlands from L5R. Dangerous? Oh yes.
ChronosCrow 09-14-04, 08:49 AM	The answer to all of your questions lay with the DM of the game. Mournlands is an open ended section of the setting. It is whatever the DM wants it to be. You could go ultra logical like you say, or the DM might find it's own resoning towards how monsters get healed. Like previously stated by Hellcow, if the DM wants maybe sections of the Mournlands heal differently and then maybe other sections don't heal at all. As far as mutations go I definetly don't know if the PC's can be effected by it for prolonged exposure, I'm guessing the warforged dont' due to Lord of the Blades setting up there story-wise. Spoiler] [Spoiler about Shadows of the Last War]--> When the PC's fight the carcass crab out in the plains of the Mournland it is actually damaged already. It's just in the carcass crab's nature to lash out in hatred at anything it sees or percieves. Maybe the Mournlands act like the plague in 28 Days in regards to emotion. Maybe anything that is exposed so long becomes violent and hates anything it comes across. The wolves are fine in the workshop so it doesn't penetrate underground I'm guessing. And who knows how long that battle the carcass crab is at lasted and how 'fresh' it was. [Spoiler over] At first I was really really upset with all of the open ended things with how the book was done, but in the end now I feel differently. I've tailored made a few of the open ended things and I enjoy that. There have also been a number of conspircies finished up by the people on the board and I enjoy that stuff too. Kicking around all of those theories is fun and inventive. Don't get upset with the open ended stuff, revel in it.
ENHenry 09-14-04, 12:41 PM	I myself came up with a few house ruled ideas for making the Mournland scary in game terms. (HOUSE RULES AHEAD! ALERT! WARNING! A-OOGA! A-OOOGA!) --Healing is not totally nil. Instead, All magical healing refuses to function - only natural healing works on living things. Undead can be restored with inflict spells. --Any spell cast or used from a magic item has a flat 1% chance to spontaneously become a living spell. --Anything killed in the Mournlands has a 1% chance to raise up as an undead creature. (For ease of use, I just give them similar physcial stats, and give them half their full living hit points.) --All dead things spontaneously regenerate, back to their state they enetered when freshly dead. If you want to make it even nastier, just raise the chances to 10%.
stone_dog 09-18-04, 02:51 PM	Just an added touch from the Cow Himself... (my view is that the creatures native to the Mournland do heal normally there -- it is outsiders who cannot heal in its unnatural environs).
Saurenda 09-18-04, 05:16 PM	Which nearly proves my theory of Cyre developing the hinderance of healing spells to keep outsiders from grabbing a foothold in thier country. My player came up with this idea. Leomund Tiny Hut, Rope tricks, and other extradimensional spells make space in the mournlands that isn't part of the mourlands. One could just heal in these normally. MMM(Mordenkaniens magnificent mansion) Kodos to Tevildo for this!