101 Strange Effects

[Asmor]

A long, long time ago (way before the crash, where all the thread subscriptions were lost ), I remember someone posting a thread about strange effects. In a nutshell, the person's players were on a ship that was going to be going through some weird area, and he/she wanted to come up with all kinds of different things to emphasize the weirdness of the situtation. Sadly, without a subscription to it and with my google-fu skills failing horribly, I can't post the link as inspiration. :/

Anyways, whether your players are too close to Limbo, the Nine Hells, the Far Realms, or you just wanna mess with their heads, lets come up with 101 strange effects!

1. One character notices his coin purse feels off. Upon examination, it is filled with scarab beetles, hissing and crawling. If anyone else inspects the purse, the scarabs disappear and all they see are coins.

2. One character realizes that his head is facing the wrong way and he's walking backwards. Anyone else observing him doesn't see anything amiss. A moment later, everything is normal.

3. One character feels something slimy and writhing inside his/her mouth. It is an (entirely oridnary) earthworm!

4. A recently-opened wound on a character begins to itch. When he goes to scratch it, he notices an odd lump. If he touches it, the lump moves as if burrowing around under the character's skin. A moment later it disappears beneath the surface. Noone else can see the lump.

5. One character has a sudden coughing fit, finally culminating in him/her vomiting up gallons and gallons of pure, crystal-clear water.

6. One character suddenly realizes that everyone else is a doppelganger. The notion passes after a moment.

7. Everyone realizes that two characters have switched places, without anyone (even the two characters) noticing. For example, the fighter is now at the back of the party and the wizard taking the lead.

8. A trap door opens under one character, sending him falling through inky blackness. The other characters just see that character lying prone on the floor, flailing and screaming. After a few seconds, the character realizes that he's not really falling.

 

[Engilbrand]

While I can't get the link right now, there's a thread on the Eberron boards at Wizards that's called something like "1001 Strange things in the Mournlands". It's full of this sort of stuff. It's been going for a couple of years now and has around 1200 things. It's everything from finding a tiny village that doesn't know anything about what's going on around them to the characters being vampires for a day. There's some crazy stuff out there. I'll find it later and link.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Some that I used with a creepy door

These are things that the players heard coming from a door.

- The chorus of a thousand angles singing of vile blasphemies and atrocities
- A demonic voice calling out for the name of the player listening to 'join us'
- A voice screaming in pain and calling for help, that the player recognizes as his own
- A child crying out, afraid and alone, for someone to please open that door

Its even more fun to tell each of the players at the table that they hear something different.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Warren Okuma]

When you use magic missile, it automatically hits the neck and only leaves two puncture wounds.
Fireball aftermath smells like Mesquite.
Your shield spell has rivet marks.
Your shield spell is rimmed with magical symbols.
You mage armor glows blue.

 

[Set]

Things that affect the natural world around the players are my favorite;

The characters are on a ship, or near a pond, or whatever, and in a reverse twist on the 'rain of frogs' notion, they see something colorful in the water. As they watch, the colored specks grow more distinct, and dead birds start surfacing, having floated up from the depths (particularly freaky if the 'depths' are those of a puddle or something, during a rainstorm). All are brightly colored tropical birds, not native to the area, and all are recently dead (and inedible, rotting away in moments into nothing more than a foul stench if damaged, nauseating anyone brave enough to try to eat one).

Water catches on fire. The fire is greenish, and doesn't seem to burn anything. It spreads and meanders, as if following some invisible 'oil spill' on the surface of the water, before fading away.

Time moves in fits and starts. Everything goes silent, and surrounding birds seem frozen on the tree branches, and raindrops hover in mid-air, and then suddenly the world seems to 'catch up' and everything moves at once at ten times speed, before returning to 'normal' speed.

A character attempts to draw her sword, and it isn't there. As she turns around to find it, she notices that it is in her shield-hand.

Spells become Living Spells, in appearance only. The wizards fireball appears as a squatting aberrant form of living flame that sprouts up from the ground like a giant thoqqua with a squid for a head, lashing all within the area of effect with tentacles of fire for a moment, and then withdrawing. The clerics cure spell appears as tiny motes of light that fly around the wounded area and then seem to dart *into* the wound. The healed subject feels them moving around inside of him, pulling together damaged tissue and stitching it into place with tiny cold-needle-like sensations. The warlocks eldritch blast appears as a tentacle of blackish green, dripping seawater, resembling a displacer-beast tentacle more than that of any natural beast, lashing out from his forearm (seemingly entirely replacing his hand during it's appearance) to strike at it's target.

Magical items, perhaps some, perhaps all, become semi-sentient and capable of speech, or at least empathic communication. A characters pair of Ioun Stones become tiny winged monodrone Modrons, buzzing and clicking in barely audible conversation as they flutter on tiny wings around his head. The decorative lion's head on the pommel of one's sword roars when it hits. The rogue's rope of climbing slithers up out of his backpack and, snake-like, coils around his upper body and suspiciously 'watches' the surrounding party members, coiling and swaying as he walks.

The surrounding cavern walls slowly grow humid and warm, and seem to have a coating of moss, feeling soft to the touch. After a time, strange pulsing structures can be seen, running like veins through the walls, and it becomes apparent that the characters are inside some monstrous worm! They can't cut free (although it bleeds and thrashes about if damaged, knocking them prone), and the 'water' in the center of the corridor is mildly corrosive, forcing them to walk on the edges of the walls, to stay out of the 'stream' of digestive fluid in the center of the corridor. A warm nasty-smelling breeze begins to wash over the characters, and they feel like they are walking into a light wind by the end of it, with a constant moaning sound accompanying it. Then they come to a door. Opening it, the corridor is completely normal cold stone from that point on. If they close the door and open it again, the corridor is stone on both sides. If they leave the area and return, it also becomes stone on both sides.

A dozen 'mind flayers' charge out of the darkness and attack, rubbery face-tentacles flailing around the characters faces and heads. After a panicked melee, the 2 HD humanoids die readily. Instead of actual illithids, they are pale scrawny subterranean Orcs who have been parasitized by a variant of Darkmantle that landed on their heads and uses them as mobile hosts to get around. They are weakly telepathic as well, but their psionic attacks are limited to Daze attacks and a Charm Person that only affects their 'host.' If a 'Mind Flayer' takes 8 hit points of damage, the Orc host falls over dead, and the Darkmantle rises up via magical / psionic levitation and attacks normally. It is unable to use it's Daze attack without a host, and has to grapple a humanoid over the face to attempt to Charm Person.

A swarm of insects can be seen moving in strange regular formations across the ground. Peering closely, the insects are like no earthly insect, with brightly colored and oddly spiked carapaces, but also wearing armor and clothing, and bearing strange weapons! Attempts to communicate with them are futile, and they seem dedicated to practicing some sort of troop formation drills and weapon practice. If threatened, disturbed or attacked, they are treated as a locust swarm.

The forest around the party has grown dank and cold. The trees have no leaves, but move threateningly, with a creepy whispering menace as they thrash about and attempt to strike at the party members. They are not only dead, but undead, and each tree, is a Treant with the Skeleton template (but lacking a movement score, and with double the usual Natural Armor bonus). As long as the party sticks to the center of the path, the trees can't *quite* reach them, although they lean close and just barely manage to brush the tips of their branches against the party in mindless attempts to seize them and drag them into the life-hating woods...

 

[Asmor]

I really, really like the one about the birds surfacing in the water. That rocks!

 

[Warren Okuma]

While I can't get the link right now, there's a thread on the Eberron boards at Wizards that's called something like "1001 Strange things in the Mournlands". It's full of this sort of stuff. It's been going for a couple of years now and has around 1200 things. It's everything from finding a tiny village that doesn't know anything about what's going on around them to the characters being vampires for a day. There's some crazy stuff out there. I'll find it later and link.

And here it is...

http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=407341