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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Graf" data-source="post: 4203545" data-attributes="member: 3087">So here are where things stand now.I decided this was too good an idea to languish.[sblock=Rats in the walls]I've been playing around with the idea that the person-who-created/sort-of-controls the town has powerful transmutation abilities. The idea that there were rich nobles in town that it bought off with promises appeals to me. So in addition to having a deal with the good nobles who ruled the land there was also a "side-deal" with the powerful and greedy merchants.The town needed a more zones and a "rich people's neighborhood" had been brought up by someone casually (they called it Nobelm I think). Having the mansion and it's abandoned areas as a possible mini-dungeon within the town appealed to me.And transformed rats are relatively "unweird". Which is good because I tend toward weird, or if you want to be generous <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Weird" target="_blank">"new weird"</a> and the game is supposed to be at least somewhat normal.I also had been wanted a sort of "critter" encounter in the ghost town and big rats works for that. (I'd been thinking shadow rats originally, but in retrospect that's probably not necessary and it doesn't work well with Inyssius' dead gleaner and the Shadowfell.)So the person-who-created/sort-of-controls the town cut a deal with some of the rich merchants to support him, in exchange for "freedom from the ravages of time", "a position in the new order suitable to individuals of their stature" and "bountiful and supportive progeny who would never betray them" and then transformed them into rats.Big rats. So the original signers are ageless oversized rats, their barely sentient but loyal progeny are numerous. They live around and possibly under the town, but they can't get into it (the same effect that keeps the townspeople inside keeps them out).They see the town as a sort of eden that they've been denied.Their not so bright progeny will probably initially encounter the PCs and fight, after that they'll sue for peace and ask the PCs to intervene on their behalf. Meanwhile the person-who-created/sort-of-controls the town will hold them up as an example of the sorts of problems that would befall the town if the magics surrounding it were undone.Handled properly they could become a sort of defense force for the town.[/sblock][sblock=Updates to the castle]Not much really. One of the original players who'd seemed interested and was originally supposed to be decended from the royal family has stopped posting. (Perils of PbP) so I'm planning on backgrounding it.It is possible that the player characters could go here, guided by one of their cousins, who is a sort of oracle of the gods (but silenced, I'm still working on why).If so they could be somewhat troubled by ghosts, but with her guiding them, possibly with a candle she's lit that gives off some strange radiance, they can go to the chapel of the castle and see the dead family. Maybe the person-who-controls-the-town will come out and meet them then. Give an overview of the deal (i.e. the town is protected, but the price is the magical effect that dulls the minds of the towns inhabitants).[/sblock][sblock=Updates to the ghost town]Between the rats above and Inyssius' gleaner who opened a gate to the Shadowfell I think this zone is done.The strange lights at night come from the gate, the familiar, a massive hound partially empowered by demonic energy, guards it. They are in turn bound in that tight area by a circle of iron placed there by the rats.I'm thinking to just go all out and make the hound a hellhound type, when it sees the PCs it'll charge and breath fire, only to have the fire "hit" the circle of iron (really the air above it) and be blocked.Since the person who controls the town also uses shadowmagic a lot it's convenient for them to have a partially open gateway (especially one that doesn't have their fingerprints on it, so someone scrying for them or their magic won't be able to zero in on the town).It offers a lot of opportunities for later... do the PCs explore the shadowfell? What if something slips past the hound? Can the PCs befriend the hound and get access to the books and drawings that it's (effectively) guarding)?I'm planning on having the person who controls the town summon shadow creatures to do their bidding periodically, so if the PCs decide to fight them then closing the portal would be an option.[/sblock][sblock=What I'm thinking about the bridge]After I posted my original post I realized I'd been ignoring the spirit of the original idea, which had been player submitted. They'd wanted that forest to lead to some sort mystical realm I punted. I didn't want a mystical world sitting on the border of the town. I didn't want shadowy humanoids either really. Instead I tried to loop back, creating a ghost character that would connect to the castle. That player quickly lost interest (though they've pulled out of other online games as well so it's hard to say whether this was related or not).So that's a moral I suppose, if you say "player guided" and someone wants to put a magical plane filled with magical cloaked fairy people on the border of the town it'd be best to work it in.I'm not really sure how I'd do that if the player came back though. I'd considered having them be approached or challenged by fairies who'd been blocked from the plane by the events a hundred years ago as some sort of emessery but I don't really see the fairies playing fair. Of course, tricking a PC is pretty easy when they don't know anything.Again, since I haven't explained explicitly that there aren't supposed to be a lot of humanoids it wasn't a bad choice by the player. But if a new player posted the same thing tomorrow i'm still not sure where I could take it. [/sblock]No updates on either of these. I like them, as the world gets "more full" they fall back a bit in importance.Some additional stuff[sblock=My very first idea for the world]Was the idea that of a group of pcs fighting/sneaking their way through an abandoned gigantic gothic city to a "map room" that contained a magical map; they would be hounded by demonic creatures and get to the room only to discover that the magical map was missing, but they had normal maps about that they could use to explore this world.I extrapolated that I wanted the world to have been dominated by fiends for a period of time but not for that long (so they'd left behind creatures touched by fiendish power but no actual fiends themselves) and that the acquisition of "lost knowledge" would be extremely important.[sblock=The current stab at backstory is an attempt to fill this in]The world had been temporarily overrun by demons, chunks of it may still be missing either in the hells or other planes near the abyss). The previous empire was extremely corrupt and the ruling class were demonoogists of various stripes. A deal was struck by the lords an ladies where, basically the "past" was traded for the "future" the demons would get the "past" lock-stock-and-barrel and a glorious new future of immortality power and influence would be gained by the rulers of the land (and select families, hangers on, etc).The humans, being decadent, and some combination of competitive, greedy, shortsighted and some combination of drunk/high/etc. cut the deal without really realizing what was going on (and or closing their eyes to the truth, some thought they'd become demon lords, or that there was a loophole of one sort or another, etc)And then were somewhat surprised to find out that they were supposed to enact a ritual that would wipe the minds of the entire population of the past. They balked (or their wizards did) and hell came to the planet. Portals opened, fiends bubbled forth, and eventually they realized they had to go through with it.The ritual (which I am so so tempted to call the Ritual of Babble) sundered their languages fulfilling the pledge and driving the devils off the plane.  The plane stabilized, the fiends were basically gone.The only people who remain and remember things are those who have manged to use magic to distance themselves so completely from humanity that they weren't effected by the Babble effect.[/sblock][sblock=the failure of the heroic souls]I flip flop a lot on heroic souls. Not strange really since the whole meta-concept is that they're a plot enabling device.The core idea, as mentioned above, is that their a bunch of souls that keep reincarnating to fight the good fight. During the corrupt period of the empire most were either corrupted, neutralized or tricked.A lot of the powerful movers and shakers in the world figured out enough about the heroic souls that they were able to bind their power either in the years before the empire decayed, or during the ensuing confusion.Most of the big movers and shakers, powerful wizards casting the rituals, people negotiating with the demons, etc. were  were heroic souls. And a bunch of evil heroic souls managed to killl and trap heroic souls (preventing them from reappearing to stop the coming tragedy.I'm thinking that the PCs are much weaker than heroic souls traditionally have been. To the point that they won't really attract the attention of these evil souls (they are weak and weird phenomena, the evil souls who are smart enough to become aware of them aren't inclined to slay them outright for fear that they may trigger some sort of unpleasant reaction, and also they offer potential as servants.)Fundimentally most of the evil heroic souls tell of themselves as having been "in desperate no-win situation where I had to do what I had to do" or else "I made a mistake, but I never meant for things to happen the way that they did". [/sblock]So I originally had this group[sblock=The Demonic City]Ruled by a bunch of demonologists who managed to graft enough demonic parts into their bodies that they aren't technically human anymore. This is where the map room is. I was thinking of a ruling council of wizards with demonic bodyparts who have a very laze faire attitute with regard to the city's affairs. They each have a small coterie of close advisors/lovers/children (all either orgiinally non-human or warped enough to be immune to the babble effect).They inforce order over their cities through a corps of fiendish orcs. Their only law, which they enforce using magic, is that no more than 10 humans may gather in one place at one time (to prevent humans from becoming civilized enough to start resisting the babble effect).The city itself is administered by teiflings, warped humans who are loathed and feared by the masses they oversee. The tieflings are affected by the babble and agressively protect their position by claiming any sort of writing/ore they can get their hands on and turning it over to their masters.Their cities have bizarre new religious orders, large groups of non-humanoids who hate humans (demonic invasions are nobody's idea of a good time).Originally they were a power unto themselves dominating the region. As I've played around with adding  additional power groups to the setting they, bulwarked by their fiendish orcs become an important power. Each of the demonic wizards has epic level ritual magic and is a high paragon-teir solo creature. Their servants are low paragon tier. They send out trading caravans and solo teiflings (really spies) to the surrounding areas.[/sblock]I was also considering almost from the begining including [sblock=The gnomish mistake]This is the idea that probably maps the most closely to Inyssius' gleaner.When the demons came a bunch of very smart gnomes, who lived in a mountain range to the east decided they needed to call up something that evened the score. They opened up the gate to the worst place that they could; but only for a second as a sort of bluff. They figured they could get the devils to back down.The gnomes were very cunning, but they had not realized that horrors that were never meant to be lived in places where time runs sideways and backwards. There spell was only supposed to last for a moment, and yet, a hundred years from now that moment still hasn't come.The gnomes are quite dead, but the Kaotri have risen in their place.I agree with the consensus that the Kaotri are a cool monster but I've re-imagined them where their primary shitick is "time control". ground zero of the gate to the far realm is a point of null time, a 100 years have passed, but no time has passed there, or all time has, it's impossible to say.Further out time flows very slowly. For the initial Kaotri community only a few years have passed, which is really good because if they'd had a 100 years they'd probably have sucked the entire plane into the far realm.I like the idea of the Kaotri as a sort of infection that the material plane picked up when it was sick and is still struggling to get rid of.Originally I had them "lose" on the plane, but now I'm considering having them "ringed" by the  elvin empire and the demonic city.[/sblock]I also recently started thinking about:[sblock=The Vampire Kingdoms]I don't really know why I've decided that there need to be vampire kingdoms floating around. It's probably having played too much soul reaver. It does offer a few advantages.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Vampires make good villains; since they're immortal it's easy to imagine that some of them predate the ritual of babble and aren't affected (i.e. they're inhuman enough to not to fall under it, while appearing human enough to be good to rp with)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Drinking the heartsblood of a heroic soul with the right ritual would allow someone to trap heroic souls in an interesting and useful way (beside putting them in a crystal) -- you can say that the heroic soul, split out over hundreds of vampires allows them access to minor magical items</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">If the PCs are going to lead the rebirth of human society then there need to be humans around. Right now most everyone doesn't really like humans. Vampires are a natural group who would want to keep humans around</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Blood cults are a great new religion. It's like the blood of vol (from eberron) on steroids.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Vampire kingdoms from rifts and Dry Fall/brucolac from the Scar "proved" to me that vampire dominated societies have legs</li> </ul>So the vampire emperor has actually drained about 12 heroic souls (i'm thinking that he's basically just the dude from Ravenloft), he's parceled out 5 or so to liutenants who rule the other kingdoms (they were probably all heroic souls themselves) and is using the other 6 or so to empower his vampiric lieutenants (so they can get use magic items, do the equivalent of gain levels, etc).I'm thinking that they're currently in a sort of semi-cold war with the demonic city, working on containing the Kaorti and maybe secretly treating with the elvin kingdom.Maybe six vampire kingdoms (one main one and five regions)? The gore tax is collected in red urns by priests. Vampires only gain in power when they kill mortals, since most just drink the blood (and indirectly at that) they're fairly weak. Vampires who want to gain power and get the right to drink sentients they have to engage in battle.I'm thinking that the most militant of the vampire kingdoms is the one engaging in war with the demonic city. They recently launched a major strike that got bogged down when too many of their forces stopped to feed.A pack of rogue vampires (what's left of a squad) slipped down past the city looking for "greener pastures" and show up near the PCs where they find forest animals drained of blood. Defeating the vampires will give them access to their journals, revealing the existence of the kingdoms.[/sblock][sblock=Elvin Empire]There is also an decadent elvin city state that is far away. They have some sort of portal magic and "ate" an elvin god. So the nobles are all holding a little divine spark inside.Have more but that's the gist. They exile their least favored cousins to man some border posts around the Kaotri.[/sblock][/sblock]</blockquote>

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