Challenging my high-lvl group (NPCs and monsters; my players shouldn't read this!)

[Knightfall]

Eversink Query!

I posted this over on the Defenders questions thread about a week ago but I'm not sure if you check that thread anymore.

P'Cat, I was wondering if I can get some demographic information about Eversink. I'm using the city on my world and would like to keep the same sort of feeling as you described it in your story hour.

I'm going through some of the PC1.rtf document to glean important information but hope you are willing to post some details about the city's background and history.

Basically, I'm looking for these things, as per the DMG.

Community Wealth and Population
Power Center(s)
Authorities
Key NPCs
Racial Demographics

Plus, I'm real interested in learning more about the power structure of the different Houses listed in PC1.rtf.

Of course, my Eversink will be different in many ways. It's going to be located on an open sea coast but does sit on islands and swampland on both sides of the river I've placed it at the end of.

Any help/infromation you're willing to share would be appreciated.

Cheers!

Robert B., aka Knightfall1972

 

[Graf]

Finally caught up.

Hey Piratecat, I have no idea how this could be handy, but you might come up with some idea to drive Agar totally out of his mind with this one:

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle....0CRBAEOCFEY?type=ourWorldNews&storyID=2267001

Once again proving that nothing is worse than stuff out there in real life (if you look hard enough)

An encounter with these on a plane that he he almost didn't from could explain Agar's 'bug issue'. (maybe he was saved by something with tentacles starting the love affair that continues to this day). Now I'm just rambling though.

Oh God. You're a genius. You just solved a major problem for me.

Yay!

I didn't think that you were a bad person until I saw this. Now I think you may be. What kind of problem is solved by thousands of paralytic flesh eating insects?

[Mechanics for this sort of thing are aways tricky for me. Instead of making PCs save lots of times I'd set a DC based on the amount of armor worn, with a save every round some unfortunate is inside the cloud.]

[edit = html]

 

[Spatzimaus]

What kind of problem is solved by thousands of paralytic flesh eating insects?

Obesity?

(More generally, what kind of problem ISN'T solved by thousands of paralytic flesh-eating insects?)

You know, the whole Akin's Throat thing was fun, and it got me thinking. The members of this board can come up with some pretty creative stuff when they really try. What'd be neat is to see an entire campaign setting constructed by the board members, as an alternative to the usual FR/Grayhawk variants. This campaign seems a perfect base for something like that; throw in a few dozen custom spells, and you could publish the whole thing up. Who here WOULDN'T want the Complete Guide to Spira?

 

[Piratecat]

There is an "EN World City" construction going on in the Plots & Places forum right now.

The next big task: what kind of cool stuff would you find in a kuo toa city? I want to culturally differentiate it from anywhere else they've been, and I'd really love ideas.

 

[Vargo]

There's always this song for inspiration: http://www.com-www.com/musiclyrics/addottakip-wetdream.html

 

[WizarDru]

How about making the city amphibious in some capacity, and take advantage of the Kuo-Toa's natural abilities (with no handicap-accessible routes)?

For example: place half the city above water, and the other half beneath, with the assumption that certain places require you to traverse the two, without any warning or consideration to convienence to non-water breathers. Have above ground components that require leaping, or stairs that are too high to be comfortable or even usable as stairs without significant jumping ability.


Other thoughts: use not just aquatic designs, but 'cave' aquatic designs and deep-deep-sea concepts. For example, perhaps lighting in the underwater portion of the city is provided by lights made from the lures of giant neon kingfishers, fashioned into hanging lights or streetlamps. Perhaps transportation is provided by giant blind hermit-crab 'buses', with oddly worked transport shells. Perhaps buildings are made of material that is translucent but hazy (like some of the creatures found in the darkest trenches of the oceans), and concepts of personal privacy are affected due to it..perhaps even are highly adapted life forms that have a symbiotic relationship with their kuo-toan occupants.

This is kinda fun.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Capellan, you talked me into it! Thurn it is, and I'll save some of those other names for later. I'm so lazy; all I did was take a gray render, boost it to 20 HD, slap a template on it and give it a new appearance. Voila! Instant bad guy.

And you know how long they took to kill the damn thing?

A round and a half.

What did you expect?

It is a 20 hitdice creature with only a +5 will save.

 

[Eridanis]

Kua-toa city: The first thing that springs to mind is to tweak the architecture to take advantage of neutral buoyancy. If the city is underground, have buildings be on the ceiling as well as the floor. Think of a house built in a conical shape, like a stalactite. Someone could swim into the front door, which would be at the point of the stalactite, and walk/swim up to the larger levels above it. If it is in the open ocean, have some form of magic cast to let the buildins levitate at a certain level above the seafloor, and its buildings.

Doors made of seaweed. Everything's kinda rounded, as if flowing water had eroded it over time. Think arcs instead of lines. That might have an efect on how their language sounds, too.

 

[Bronz Dragon]

FOOD!

Fish, fish, seaweed, fish, fish, fish, fish.

Fish fried in fish fat, something that looks like sushi until you realize that the 'rice' is actually maggots or some other pale fleshy creepy-crawly (tastes delicious, until you find out what it is..) octopus boiled in kelp broth, stingray shish-kebabs, baked anenome, discount sturgeon steaks(yum, bottomfeeders), fish liver oil, kelp wine, concentrated plankton stew, crabby (literally) shopkeeps, clams and other shellfish galore.

hrm.. that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Wizardru's ideas are awesome, I especially love the hermit crab bus. Architecture should have any even more organic feel to it than Akin's throat, IMHO. No sharp corners, except maybe the odd 'horn' or superhard stratta, which has resisted the centuries of erosion. Entrances ought to be oddly formed and of wildly varying sizes, and floors a bit uneven and possibly ridged in places. Is it on or near the surface/shore? if so, the tide could come in and out regularly, making some places that were only accessible by swimming before either easier or downright impossible to reach, depending on it's relation to the surface of the water. (Defenders swim to the mayor's office, just at the surface of the water, for a meeting and an hour later, they walk out to find a 10' drop to a shallow pool full of sharp coral.)

Natural defenses for this place might include a corral reef just inside the entranceway, as well as awakened deep sea predators, who have a non-aggression pact with the city. Dire morray eels on leashes police the lower underwater portions of the city, and flying fish courier messages from below to those living 'high on the dry side'. At night, 'torchmen' wander around and feed globes of glowing plankton hanging on the wall, which glow and swirl, making odd patterns on the walls. Schools of livestock fish are penned and herded in bubble cages, forcing them into compact formations at low tide, perfect for easy catching. Wizards could have fishy familiars that float in a little bubble of water at their shoulders(a lionfish would be really neat).

Hope that helps a bit

EDIT -- I didn't steal your ideas Eridanis! Damn this ESP!

 

[Painfully]

cultural differences? They wouldn't use money for one. They value individuals based on what they are capable of doing, so athletics or contests might be very important for those seeking to gain status and rank. That means their king might be the most athletic individual of their society.

PCs looking to interact might have to first gain some respect by winning a contest of some kind. Spell casters might be viewed as second-rate citizens despite their powers. It's big fish eats small fish, after all.

The ultimate punishment might be to become food for a large and powerful beast--preferably, something with lots of teeth. Or maybe food for a pack of jellyfish creatures. Nothing is worse than watching somebody not be able to defend himself, and get eaten alive--you can watch them as they slowly digest too, since the jellyfish are see-through.