Another Creature Catalog query for Dragon? (Pt 2)

[Shade]

Nightfall, Knightfall. Tomato, Ktomato. Uma, Oprah.

I really like the ideas in Knightfall's last post.

 

[Aspect of BOZ]

recapping for the new page (for those, like me, who have these settings):

well, again, thanks for the vote of confidence.

with the weekend over and no other responses, i'm calling the redone Stwinger ready to go.

that leaves us with one more, and probably the biggest challenge of all - the tirapheg!

the tirapheg may not have as big a fanclub as the flumph, but apparently there are at least a few supporters, most of whom i assume are tongue-in-cheek like myself.

beisde the tirapheg being a simply out-and-out weird creature, the biggest complaint (and fairly so) that i've seen regarding them is that they have no real purpose to exist. we know nothing about them other than the fact that they are solitary, like to eat decayed flesh, have external body parts (three tentacles) with unknown functions, and will normally shy away from other creatures but are quite unpredictable and will sometimes attack a party of adventureres for no apparent reason. they don't have a mouth on their heads and seem unlikely to be able to speak (but can they understand?) and they wear no clothing. i know that, from the encounter tables in the back of the MM2, they can be encountered in dungeons, swamps, and mountains.

so what's the deal with them? they are a complete mystery. i wouldn't want to completely remove that mystique from them, but i would like to at least give them something resembling a purpose. why do they exist, then? what do they do, besides behave unpredictably? they have average Intelligence, so they're not stupid. what interactions, if any, do they have with their own kind? they seem like loners, so probably very little, and even less with creatures of other types. we can look to other similarly odd creatures for ideas on what they might be all about (Lords of Madness might be an excellent source).

i suggested earlier that i had an idea for them. how about if they were originally from the Far Realm, or perhaps created by entities from the Far Realm. it seems plausible at least, doesn't it? if not that, then what others ideas do people have?

I'm all for making them from the Far Realm.

I think this is their biggest hook: "like to eat decayed flesh"

Undead hunters? Foes of necromancers?

not only do they *like* to eat decayed flesh, it's their favorite food.

I was thinking that maybe these creatures could be associated with the Barrier Peaks.

A few more thoughts on the tirapheg:

Obviously, we should play up the alien nature of these beings. We know they usually keep to themselves. I see them as kin to the "visitors". What if these guys are responsible for crop circles and cattle mutilations? We also know that they are capable of creating sophisticated illusions? Is it magic, or some form of advanced science? What other abilities or devices could these creatures have? (Did they ever describe the aliens who crashed near the Barrier Peaks? What if it was the tiraphegs?)

i think the Barrier Peaks option is nice. we could keep both that option and the Far Realms idea available - rather than state explicitly where the tirapheg is from and what it does, i'd rather drop a million clues, like "no one knows exactly what a tirapheg does with its time, but it has been seen around the Barrier Peaks, animals often wind up dead where they go, and rotten corpses of all sorts are left in their wake", or something more well-written than that.

While I like this option, not every campaign has an event similar to that presented in the Barrier Peaks adventure.

I read the description and had the idea that tiraphegs were creatures of chaos (before I looked at its alignment), but the Far Realms work too. They would communicate through telepathy, IMO, but would rarely do so. They could be the result of a permanent portal betweeen Limbo and the Plane of Shadow, giving rise to their strange form and shadow-like illusion ability. The shadowy illusions could also be a side-effect of their diet, eating the rotting flesh of dead and undead creatures. The light burst could be a form of protection against undead, or an attack to hopefully immobilize their prey.

They would attack living creatures that carry shadow-based or necromatic magic, as they are drawn to these magical effects. Necromancers should beware the tiraphegs, as the aberrations are strongly drawn to such characters and their possessions. Perhaps tiraphegs could gain a temporary hit dice/hit point boost anytime they eat anything saturated with necromantic energy. Also, very rarely a tirapheg consumes too much of this energy and become an extraplanar undead creature that "feeds" off both the living and the undead.

 

[demiurge1138]

I don't know if I like the tiraphegs preying on undead. The undead don't really seem to rot all that quickly, and we already have both the rot reaver and the sussurus from the MMIII to fill the "preys on undead" niche. I prefer the idea that tiraphegs kill prey and then leave it... sitting around for a while. Caves in the mountains full of slowly rotting bodies. Does a tirapheg need food, or does it just like the texture of soupy rotten flesh? And how does it eat it, anyway? I'm guessing that may be a function for those three tentacles.

I'm all for tiraphegs being associated with chaos or the Far Realm. I don't think I want them to be actively malicious, more curious about those weird creatures with only one torso. If that curiousity involves finding out how they taste... well, it couldn't be expected to know that people are intelligent! They only have one head!

Demiurge out.

 

[Knightfall]

BTW, does anyone have the original art for this creature? That might help us get a visual idea of what it "really" is.

 

[Aspect of BOZ]

you mean this good ol' boy?

 

[Shade]

What a handsome devil.

 

[Aspect of BOZ]

he's neither handsome nor a devil. what think ye of demiurge's estimation?

 

[Shade]

I like it.

 

[Knightfall]

you mean this good ol' boy?

Okay, that's definitely odd. There is definitely a sense of the tirapheg being "alien" in design. There is symmetry in the creature's form, so saying it comes from the Far Realms seems unlikely. Chaos, maybe, but chaos with a symmetrical form, nonetheless. It's odd behavior can be attributed to being "touched by chaos" but not actually being chaotic.

Plus, as an aside, perhaps we should reference the special ability of the Ettin for this creature's combat section. Here's my idea based on the Ettin's Superior Two-Weapon Fighting ability.

Superior Multiattack (Ex): Because each of its three heads controls an appendage, the tirapheg does not take any penalties on natural attacks or damage rolls.

Perhaps we should ask one of the many artists in the Art Forum to create a reimagining of the tirapheg. Simply give them a good description and link them to the image. Someone like DMAC or ml3.

I think a "visual" interpretation from someone else's viewpoint could be beneficial.

Opinions?

KF72

 

[Knightfall]

Originally Posted by Aspect of BOZ
I suggested earlier that I had an idea for them. How about if they were originally from the Far Realm, or perhaps created by entities from the Far Realm. It seems plausible at least, doesn't it? if not that, then what others ideas do people have?

Okay, now if we do include the Far Realm in their history, how about the idea of them being "created by entities from the Far Realm" as BOZ suggests, but that the tiraphegs were discarded by the entities because they were too symmetrical?