[4th ed] Clockwork Horrors now DEMONS? And Neogi...

[I'm A Banana]

So, original story was that the Horrors were not necessarily created by anyone, but that they were discovered, somewhere out in the Astral Sea, and the creatures that discovered them were then nearly destroyed by them.

Those creatures, the Neogi, then became a refugee race, and took to trading as a way to keep themselves alive.

The elders of these creatures are remarkably powerful, but they are insane, and culturally disdained for being withered old husks. They are a breeding ground for the young, more than they are respected elders.

That sounds pretty cool.

New story is that those elders are generic "respected leaders" and that the Horrors have no deep mystery and, in fact, are a generic "demon-made bad thing"?

That sounds pretty lame.

But 4e does this a lot. Most we can do is call it out.

And I'm not sure the reproduction thing is SO bad, but post the ability, we'll see.

 

[JustKim]

Can you share the level and type of the various horrors? They have a presence in my Mystara game and I'm curious how much work I'll need to do to bring them to paragon or epic level.

 

[JoeGKushner]

The way 4e plays fast and loose with established D&D canon, often for no discernable reason, is IMO one of the greatest negative issues about 4e.

It's a yes/no thing for me.

If you've never played D&D before, what is canon? It's whatever 4e says it is.

If you have played it before, it can be bothersome at times.

 

[Barastrondo]

It's a yes/no thing for me.

If you've never played D&D before, what is canon? It's whatever 4e says it is.

If you have played it before, it can be bothersome at times.

Depends. I remember undergoing a similar shift when I started playing AD&D and being quite perturbed at the number of "canonical" changes made — blue and white dragons now evil, good/evil added as a separate alignment axis, scaly kobolds with horns... all things that weren't what my Basic Rulebook told me. I didn't start with the assumption that Advanced D&D was the D&D, just a D&D, so the parts where 4e decides to be a little less beholden to Advanced in particular don't strike me as jarring at all.

Clockwork horrors as demons sounds quite interesting to me, but I enjoy alchemy and Goetic references quite a bit, so throwing the Haagenti reference in there is admittedly aiming at a tender spot.

 

[Philosopher]

A tangent:

Haagenti, the demon lord of alchemy and artifice.

There's a demon lord of alchemy and artifice? I remember just before the release of 4e when WotC said they wanted to further distinguish between devils and demons, so they made the latter be all about destruction without much, if any, subtlety. Now they engage in crafts?

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

BrokeAndDrive
nah the neogi aren't "traders" like the Ferengi, no, the neogi are like "absolutists"
all they live for and believe in, is ownership: who has power over who. Who owns what.
And they are absolute evil sadistic b****** to boot. In Spelljammer, only the mind flayers openly trade with them. Neogi think nothing of stopping a slave passing by them, and eating them alive on the spot if they think they are worth more as food, than labour etc.
Ick! Make the Ferengi look like choirboys
Nothing at all friendly, nice or humorous about the neogi.

However, their heirarchy of ownership is interesting, as it's based on power, which I like and have for a long time run "power" in D&D as often being purely about will power and charisma, or skills and knowledge, rather than levels hit dice etc. This is especially so with neogi.

now while they believe they are superior to all (and the power/self assurance of the mind flayers kind of off puts them by patent denial of that), a neogi is nearly always a slave to other neogi
at birth they will be bought/traded to be owned
this is ok as neogi view all things as "Ownership".
this is where it gets complicated.

A slave can own slaves, you are either owner, or slave, there is nothing else (except unliving property and who owns that and slaves can have and own property).
A slaves property is THEIR'S you own the slave not his goods, but you can sell them AND their property (intact as one item) to someone else if you wish.
If the slave is too weak to defend his property if you intimdate him (not rob him or attack etc) into handing it over, well, tough, he has little power. Neogi always threaten and scheme and blackmail...
A neogi's wealth is considered to include all his slaves and what they own, so slaves owning things is good.
Usually he who owns the most, rules all. It has proved itself by power of ownership...and owning isn't necessarily by trade.

Raids, gambling, slave manufacturing (they don't usually care much for that as they are mobile raiders but it does occur), con game against other owners, blakcmail, knowledge others will give favours for etc.

Now a slave may also buy other neogi slaves....so a neogi can end up owning his owner, and thus be...a master! So can a Human, or such but that would be a dreadful insult and shame to be seen as so weak to be owned...but is legal.
lol
Ferengi Rules of Aquisition meets Darwinism, Drow and the Marquis De Sade!



JustKim
in Demonomicon they have just ONE type "Arachnid Clockwork Horror" small elemental animate (construct, demon)
a lvl 10 minion soldier, originally they had copper, iron, silver and adamantine varieties, iirc. I think the Dragon mag ecology of them also had gold or electrum ones, too?
hm why "arachnid clockwork horror", why the name change?



Ok their replicate ability

Triggered actions, at will
Trigger: a creature adjacent to the clockwork horror becomes bloodied
Effect (free action) the clockwork horror duplicates itself, and the duplicate appears in a square adjacent to the original
The new clockwork horror acts directly after the original arachnid horror's initiative count
it has the same defences and power as the original clockwork horror

the lore also says htey hate organic creatures and kill 'em on site

So, imagine a bunch of those, especially if you make non-minion ones, owie!!

 

[JustKim]

It sounds like clockwork horrors have been completely reinvented to retain their Von Neumann machine theme but lose the sci-fi element that made people not want to use them.

This is not for me personally, but in general it seems like a good thing.

 

[Klaus]

Okay, now that I read the duplicate ability, I can see the limitation:

- The triggering creature needs to be adjacent to the clockhorror, so in this case the best strategy is to get the party together. A four-person party has only 12 squares adjacent to them, which limits the number of duplicates generated, while a lone character can be surrounded by 8 clockhorrors. Of course, this leaves the party vulnerable to bursts and blasts.

 

[I'm A Banana]

It's a yes/no thing for me.

If you've never played D&D before, what is canon? It's whatever 4e says it is.

If you have played it before, it can be bothersome at times.

For me, it's more about "improvement."

Does making the horrors demon-engineered clockwork improve on their old story of being a mysterious destructive plague, responsible for the nomadism of an entire people?

On the face of it, not so much, no.

It's a crazily subjective call, though.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

There's a demon lord of alchemy and artifice? I remember just before the release of 4e when WotC said they wanted to further distinguish between devils and demons, so they made the latter be all about destruction without much, if any, subtlety. Now they engage in crafts?

Ehhh...probably took a self-paced weekend course at the Learning Annex...