For posting ideas and subtance on the variety of games I play and DM.
Part 2: The Allies!
Posted 7th October 2008 at 08:09 AM by Kamikaze Midget
One thing I noticed pretty quick was that I was going to need a way to do "helpful monsters." In my mind these are essential parts of random encounters, but there should be something out of these encounters. Thus, I've got a work-in-progress for developing a good Allied Monster system.
There's two basic ways an Allied Monster can help out. They can be simple NPC's with their own skills that PC's aren't as likely to have -- Sages with Knowledge, Crafters and Professionals. These NPC's can also know rituals that they can use on the party, or become patrons of the party, awarding treasure for performing quests for them.
The other way is by being a "treasure monster." They give the PC something with a GP value. Trainers can give you access to abilities (feats, powers, whatever) that are exclusive to that creature. Familiars are something like magic items with abilities and properties attached.
This stuff is still in a pretty sketchy phase, but I think I like the basic idea.
Baelnorn (Sage, Ritualist, Patron)
Medium Natural Animate (Undead)
The baelnorn are creatures amongst the so-called “deathless,” creatures who have undergone a transformation to undeath, but have retained their soul, their sanity, and their self-control. Specifically, baelnorns are considered a variant of the lich, a creature who has used arcane magic to stop the advance of death. However, the baelnorns are dedicated to a certain project or work. It is this goal that has gained their souls and that allows their bodies to function still. Once the work is complete, they will truly die, fading into nothingness rather than the afterlife that awaits most of us.
They reside in sealed and secret tombs, towers, and catacombs. They want to continue their work undisturbed and unmolested, and they normally work through agents in the world outside their homes, giving them magic items or performing other rituals for them in exchange for bringing some item of research value to them.
Most of the time, one doesn’t fight a baelnorn. Killing a baelnorn before its time involves destroying the work that it is doing – burning the books, decimating the hideaway, shattering the laboratory, and otherwise ruining all that it has accomplished. A baelnorn “destroyed” in this way often becomes a different type of undead, such as a wraith. As long as the work remains, the baelnorn’s body will replenish itself overnight, until the day when it finishes.
Sage: A baelnorn typically has a +20 in History and Arcana. They may have more detailed information related to their specific work.
Ritualist: 5 different Arcana rituals (typically Enchant Magic Item, Forbiddance, Leomund’s Secret Chest, Sending, and Shadow Walk).
Patron: Baelnorn tend to accumulate great wealth, and can bestow it on PC’s who are willing to undertake missions in the outside world, collecting resources and following up on leads for their research.
Quest Seed: In exploring some ancient ruins haunted by wraiths and other undead, the PC’s have inadvertently stumbled upon the lair of a baelnorn. The creature appears to be working alone, but some exploration or inquisition can reveal that they were really at the center of a great academic circle of eleven members who all sought to become deathless – and this baelnorn is the only one left of that original Circle of Eleven. Discovering the fates and the finished work of the rest of the eleven could take the PC’s far and wide in search of their notes and their leavings, though as the history of this Circle of Eleven unravels, it becomes likely that the only member left had actually murdered the other ten in order to be the one who truly finishes the work. The work’s ultimate purpose is a grand ritual that will give arcane power true ascendance in the world, rendering all other power sources completely void, and giving the reigns of empires and kingdoms to only those who study for power as the Circle had. Throughout these adventures, the PC’s are brought against many arcane-powered enemies who are seeking the knowledge of the Circle for themselves.
Wisdom Bird (Sage, Familiar)
Small Natural Beast
The so-called “wisdom bird” is an intelligent and long-lived breed of avian with a curious mind that seeks and divulges bits of knowledge to those that earn them. They are rather large, for birds, with heavy beaks, but they are not creatures that engage in much combat. Rather, they lair near special spots that their studies have determined are destined. They wait here for an event they have been expecting, in order to deliver a message from the ages, a piece of simple advice, or even to become the master of an apprentice. They may be natural creatures of the forest, but they enjoy learning from books and scrolls, and writing with their beaks and talons, surprisingly adeptly. A wisdom bird isn’t born with this knowledge, but acquires it quickly growing up with such talkative sages for parents.
Wisdom birds are very intelligent and usually know at least a half-dozen different languages. They aren’t avid spellcasters, however, and so they don’t learn many rituals. They seem to have an innate sense of destiny like a homing pigeon has an innate sense of direction, and they find themselves drawn to places where great events or great heroes will someday (or have already) meet them.
Combat with a wisdom bird is a rare thing, because the creature usually just flees. It may avidly attack those who are subverting destiny, though in that case it uses the statistics of a level 1 minion with a fly speed of 12. It is not the most effective combatant, and would normally rather get others to fight for it.
Sage A wisdom bird has a general Intelligence skill bonus of +15, but gains a +20 bonus for History and for things like legends.
Familiar (level 1 item) Once the ritual bonding the two is complete, you gain training in one Intelligence-based skill of your choice and can use the following power:
Advised Strike Wisdom Bird Familiar Power 1
A little voice lets you know where to hit
Encounter Familiar
Minor Action Personal
Effect: Choose one target. Until the end of this turn, you gain a +3 bonus to hit this target, and you deal +3 damage on a critical hit.
Using Wisdom Birds: Wisdom birds can function something like the “Voice of the DM” when needed. Because they appear at destined times and places, they have a reason to be wherever the PC’s are whenever the party might need a bit of advice or guidance. They also make great mouthpieces for some of the legends and myths of the world, telling the party about them as the party reaches the point that they become important. They can nudge the party back onto a useful path if they are lost, or they can establish puzzles and tricks if need be.
Quest Seed: In a dungeon, the PC’s find an odd piece of treasure that seems to have no immediate use. As the PC’s leave, on their way back to their home base, a wisdom bird descends in front of them and tells them a story about that odd piece of treasure, about how it is merely a fragment of a larger piece, and that it is said that the other piece is held by a royal family in a land just beyond some natural obstacle (such as the sea or a mountain range). The wisdom bird mentions that it is destiny that the royal family and the family of the person holding the item become one. The PCs themselves can then go explore this option, traveling across the boundary to find the royal family (who may be in ruin or forgotten with time), or a member of the royal family can find the PC’s where they are adventuring, having been visited by the same bird.
Campestri (Friendly, Familiar)
Tiny Fey Magical Beast
Campestri are small, happy-go-lucky mushroom creatures with a fondness for song and dance. For those with the patience and insight to deal with the creatures’ annoying habit of singing off-key wherever they go and dancing in a little circle, they can be quite useful.
Campestri dwell mostly in saltwater marshes, feeding off of the copious amounts of salt in the soil there. They are considered a local delicacy by many humanoids in the area, and their rarity is largely due to this, and to their utter lack of self-preservation instinct. They have no demonstrable combat abilities (functioning like level 1 minions if they must be anything), and they have a habit of singing in high-pitched nasal whines whenever a creature that they feel may be amusing walks by. They assume most creatures are amusing, being none too clever, and being very easily amused.
Friendly (50 GP) Campestri like to be played with and sung to. In order to appease them, a character must spend at least 5 minutes singing and dancing with them. At the end of that time, the character can make a DC 14 Charisma check. If they pass, the campestri bestow on them Campestri Spores. These are a consumable magic item, and if you eat them while taking an extended rest, when the rest is over, you have 1d8 temporary hit points that last until you take another rest (either short or extended).
Familiar (level 1 item) Any character with a Charisma of 15 or higher can recruit a campestri colony as a familiar. Once the ritual bonding the master and familiar is complete, you training in Nature and can use the following power:
Sluggish Spores Campestri Familiar Power 1
Enemies near you are a little slow to react
Encounter Familiar
Minor Action Personal
Effect: One adjacent target cannot make the next opportunity attack it would otherwise be granted.
Quest Seed: A plague of campestri has broken out over a town in a very strange way – the creatures are raining down from the sky, the survivors singing a strange sing-song version of an old eladrin dirge. Most people are confused and annoyed by the creatures (and later rather delighted that they are tasty), but a particular scholar of the feywild is concerned about the Castle in the Clouds that is said to appear one every 30 or so years in the sky above the town – and how it is overdue by a decade for the last appearance. The PC’s must find a way into the sky, guided by the unreliable campestri, to find a rift into the feywild, and discover what has happened to the Castle.
There's two basic ways an Allied Monster can help out. They can be simple NPC's with their own skills that PC's aren't as likely to have -- Sages with Knowledge, Crafters and Professionals. These NPC's can also know rituals that they can use on the party, or become patrons of the party, awarding treasure for performing quests for them.
The other way is by being a "treasure monster." They give the PC something with a GP value. Trainers can give you access to abilities (feats, powers, whatever) that are exclusive to that creature. Familiars are something like magic items with abilities and properties attached.
This stuff is still in a pretty sketchy phase, but I think I like the basic idea.
Baelnorn (Sage, Ritualist, Patron)
Medium Natural Animate (Undead)
The baelnorn are creatures amongst the so-called “deathless,” creatures who have undergone a transformation to undeath, but have retained their soul, their sanity, and their self-control. Specifically, baelnorns are considered a variant of the lich, a creature who has used arcane magic to stop the advance of death. However, the baelnorns are dedicated to a certain project or work. It is this goal that has gained their souls and that allows their bodies to function still. Once the work is complete, they will truly die, fading into nothingness rather than the afterlife that awaits most of us.
They reside in sealed and secret tombs, towers, and catacombs. They want to continue their work undisturbed and unmolested, and they normally work through agents in the world outside their homes, giving them magic items or performing other rituals for them in exchange for bringing some item of research value to them.
Most of the time, one doesn’t fight a baelnorn. Killing a baelnorn before its time involves destroying the work that it is doing – burning the books, decimating the hideaway, shattering the laboratory, and otherwise ruining all that it has accomplished. A baelnorn “destroyed” in this way often becomes a different type of undead, such as a wraith. As long as the work remains, the baelnorn’s body will replenish itself overnight, until the day when it finishes.
Sage: A baelnorn typically has a +20 in History and Arcana. They may have more detailed information related to their specific work.
Ritualist: 5 different Arcana rituals (typically Enchant Magic Item, Forbiddance, Leomund’s Secret Chest, Sending, and Shadow Walk).
Patron: Baelnorn tend to accumulate great wealth, and can bestow it on PC’s who are willing to undertake missions in the outside world, collecting resources and following up on leads for their research.
Quest Seed: In exploring some ancient ruins haunted by wraiths and other undead, the PC’s have inadvertently stumbled upon the lair of a baelnorn. The creature appears to be working alone, but some exploration or inquisition can reveal that they were really at the center of a great academic circle of eleven members who all sought to become deathless – and this baelnorn is the only one left of that original Circle of Eleven. Discovering the fates and the finished work of the rest of the eleven could take the PC’s far and wide in search of their notes and their leavings, though as the history of this Circle of Eleven unravels, it becomes likely that the only member left had actually murdered the other ten in order to be the one who truly finishes the work. The work’s ultimate purpose is a grand ritual that will give arcane power true ascendance in the world, rendering all other power sources completely void, and giving the reigns of empires and kingdoms to only those who study for power as the Circle had. Throughout these adventures, the PC’s are brought against many arcane-powered enemies who are seeking the knowledge of the Circle for themselves.
Wisdom Bird (Sage, Familiar)
Small Natural Beast
The so-called “wisdom bird” is an intelligent and long-lived breed of avian with a curious mind that seeks and divulges bits of knowledge to those that earn them. They are rather large, for birds, with heavy beaks, but they are not creatures that engage in much combat. Rather, they lair near special spots that their studies have determined are destined. They wait here for an event they have been expecting, in order to deliver a message from the ages, a piece of simple advice, or even to become the master of an apprentice. They may be natural creatures of the forest, but they enjoy learning from books and scrolls, and writing with their beaks and talons, surprisingly adeptly. A wisdom bird isn’t born with this knowledge, but acquires it quickly growing up with such talkative sages for parents.
Wisdom birds are very intelligent and usually know at least a half-dozen different languages. They aren’t avid spellcasters, however, and so they don’t learn many rituals. They seem to have an innate sense of destiny like a homing pigeon has an innate sense of direction, and they find themselves drawn to places where great events or great heroes will someday (or have already) meet them.
Combat with a wisdom bird is a rare thing, because the creature usually just flees. It may avidly attack those who are subverting destiny, though in that case it uses the statistics of a level 1 minion with a fly speed of 12. It is not the most effective combatant, and would normally rather get others to fight for it.
Sage A wisdom bird has a general Intelligence skill bonus of +15, but gains a +20 bonus for History and for things like legends.
Familiar (level 1 item) Once the ritual bonding the two is complete, you gain training in one Intelligence-based skill of your choice and can use the following power:
Advised Strike Wisdom Bird Familiar Power 1
A little voice lets you know where to hit
Encounter Familiar
Minor Action Personal
Effect: Choose one target. Until the end of this turn, you gain a +3 bonus to hit this target, and you deal +3 damage on a critical hit.
Using Wisdom Birds: Wisdom birds can function something like the “Voice of the DM” when needed. Because they appear at destined times and places, they have a reason to be wherever the PC’s are whenever the party might need a bit of advice or guidance. They also make great mouthpieces for some of the legends and myths of the world, telling the party about them as the party reaches the point that they become important. They can nudge the party back onto a useful path if they are lost, or they can establish puzzles and tricks if need be.
Quest Seed: In a dungeon, the PC’s find an odd piece of treasure that seems to have no immediate use. As the PC’s leave, on their way back to their home base, a wisdom bird descends in front of them and tells them a story about that odd piece of treasure, about how it is merely a fragment of a larger piece, and that it is said that the other piece is held by a royal family in a land just beyond some natural obstacle (such as the sea or a mountain range). The wisdom bird mentions that it is destiny that the royal family and the family of the person holding the item become one. The PCs themselves can then go explore this option, traveling across the boundary to find the royal family (who may be in ruin or forgotten with time), or a member of the royal family can find the PC’s where they are adventuring, having been visited by the same bird.
Campestri (Friendly, Familiar)
Tiny Fey Magical Beast
Campestri are small, happy-go-lucky mushroom creatures with a fondness for song and dance. For those with the patience and insight to deal with the creatures’ annoying habit of singing off-key wherever they go and dancing in a little circle, they can be quite useful.
Campestri dwell mostly in saltwater marshes, feeding off of the copious amounts of salt in the soil there. They are considered a local delicacy by many humanoids in the area, and their rarity is largely due to this, and to their utter lack of self-preservation instinct. They have no demonstrable combat abilities (functioning like level 1 minions if they must be anything), and they have a habit of singing in high-pitched nasal whines whenever a creature that they feel may be amusing walks by. They assume most creatures are amusing, being none too clever, and being very easily amused.
Friendly (50 GP) Campestri like to be played with and sung to. In order to appease them, a character must spend at least 5 minutes singing and dancing with them. At the end of that time, the character can make a DC 14 Charisma check. If they pass, the campestri bestow on them Campestri Spores. These are a consumable magic item, and if you eat them while taking an extended rest, when the rest is over, you have 1d8 temporary hit points that last until you take another rest (either short or extended).
Familiar (level 1 item) Any character with a Charisma of 15 or higher can recruit a campestri colony as a familiar. Once the ritual bonding the master and familiar is complete, you training in Nature and can use the following power:
Sluggish Spores Campestri Familiar Power 1
Enemies near you are a little slow to react
Encounter Familiar
Minor Action Personal
Effect: One adjacent target cannot make the next opportunity attack it would otherwise be granted.
Quest Seed: A plague of campestri has broken out over a town in a very strange way – the creatures are raining down from the sky, the survivors singing a strange sing-song version of an old eladrin dirge. Most people are confused and annoyed by the creatures (and later rather delighted that they are tasty), but a particular scholar of the feywild is concerned about the Castle in the Clouds that is said to appear one every 30 or so years in the sky above the town – and how it is overdue by a decade for the last appearance. The PC’s must find a way into the sky, guided by the unreliable campestri, to find a rift into the feywild, and discover what has happened to the Castle.
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