The horrors of constant True Seeing...

[Arravis]

(My players stay out )

One of my players has just picked up the continuous True Seeing ability from Vow of Poverty and my evil DM mind is at work...

I'd like to show that there is a price to pay for seeing "behind the curtain". And have all kinds of odd and bizzarre encounters happen or be seen.

Who knows how many outer planar creatures walk around us just in the ethereal or simply invisible. How many unknown horrors (or wonders) are right before the players eyes... but go unseen because no one could see them before. Anyway, I'd love to make a chart of these kinds of events/sights and I know you guy have plenty of devious and interesting ideas!

1) Unbeknownst to the citizens of the booming metropolis, residing in the ethereal, is a gargantuan horror/titan that looms broodingly over the city. Does the creature stand as a guardian or is it a nightmare of malevolance that awaits the means to enter our world.

 

[Voadam]

Encounter seed. There is a medusae in the city who gets by using a hat of disguise to appear human and not turn everyone to stone. Piercing the illusion means actually seeing her gaze and risking being turned to stone.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

With True Seeing the world is revealed to be a table, with enormous beings rolling multicolored polyhedral dice, and quoting Monty Python at each other... The Horror!

The Auld Grump

 

[Eccles]

Seeing what's going on in the Ethereal Plane might be a chuckle. Imps & pixies running around everywhere spying on people. Shapeshifters, ethereal demons looking in on you all the time...

The difficulty is that it's *True* seeing. Which reduces your options. Just having someone obscenely powerful and untouchable being other than he appears to be would be a start.

 

[Voadam]

Have ghosts who never materialize but are floating around the ethereal.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

By tradition, the Shadow War between two rival factions of ancient epic mages, most of whom were born before any of the modern countries were more than random tribes of barbarians huddling in caves, is not conducted in sight of an ignorant world that could be destroyed by the simplest of their epic spells. Of course, the tradition also says that anyone who gets involved in the conflict, including servants or henchmen, is fair game.

Mr. Vow of Poverty looks up and meets the gaze of someone ancient and amoral retreating from the battlefield across the Ethereal Plane. And he's in no mood to be told the player character isn't taking a side in the war, and doesn't even know there is such a war -- he's now on the battlefield once the epic mage recovers from his wounds.

 

[Kaji]

True Seeing is almost unheard of, so illusion magic is common for those "in the know". A surprising number of "people" turn out to be all sorts of other things. I like worlds where demons and devils are constantly looking for "ins" to your soul.

Along this same line, a local "villian" turns out to be some sort of celestial, and he's not amused at having his disguise pierced. He geas the character to keep him quiet, so not even his friends can know there's a solar/planetar/whatevertar running that seedy tavern on the docks.

Party is hired/convinced to take out that same seedy tavern by local interests, maybe even local interests possessed by demons, who are attempting to get a party of good characters to fight a celestial for their amusement. Maybe to win a bet...

 

[Bront]

You could have some fun with it too. Who knows how many "Unseen" people congregate around the brothel

 

[takyris]

The medusa is a nice touch, but the save DC is fairly low. I've always been fond of invisible HD-advanced basilisks to get the save DC up there.

If the True Seeing is the clerical version, that shows the target's alignment, I'd have random people start showing up as evil. Imagine if the weaponsmith they've been dealing with nicely for all their adventures radiates evil like a dark beacon, giving the character the willies every time the weaponsmith happily pays for their treasure and suggest that he's got some great ideas on what he'll do with the stuff.

Beyond that, yes to what other folks have been saying. Fiends walking the streets (and remember that if they're powerful enough, they can stun people who detect their aura), ethereal creatures prowling around with gaze attacks on people who can see them, and maybe oversized invisible prismatic spheres hovering in the air some fifty feet overhead. The player can't see inside them, but now he has to wonder what's being held in there... and why it's in the air over the city...

 

[Arravis]

Great ideas guys, I particularly like the brothel with all the invisible patrons waiting to come in, hehe.

Takyris, I think that in 3.5 they got rid of the additional powers of the clerical version of True Seeing. Personally, I liked it, but oh well...