Madness takes its toll

[Snowy]

Recently posted a thread asking for ideas in the general forum, for a wilderness elven savage campaign. I have more of an idea where I want to take the campaign now and am sorting out some protagoinists and concepts.

At the end of the last session the party found an item (crystal glowing, necromantic, evil, magical in a pond which is the water source for the forest they live in, they have a 4 day trek to get home and warn them through a forest of animals, fey and possibly a lizardmen swamp that may have been tainted already.

I want to stat out the poisoned water in a semi-rigorous way so I can apply its effects like a template to stuff for them to encounter.

Options, sickness too obvious bit boring,

Madness, was thinking of derro as one of the protagonists, their racial madness -6 wis +6 cha and immunity to madness type effects seems pretty cool any ideas how to apply it possibly gradual stages with stat changes on the way and megalomania building.

Undeadness - sicken die fall over stand up again. (possibly too similar to a LARP plotline half the group will have encountered.

Basically I want to homebrew up some stats for the disease/plague/effect for the item that made it (so I can write up its creator sometime) and possibly similar items or weapons to be used by others in their affliction of the forest.

please oh great minds of enworld, some corrupt and twisted ideas please!

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Take a page from Sean Reynolds and manipulate his Vampire template a bit..make the flavour fit your vision. You could even stretch things abit and apply this template to plant-life affected by the water. Essentially have a slowly spreading zone of animate death and diseased beings. You would have to come up with a counter to it, as Remove Curse might be to easy to get to. Perhaps a specially researched variant that the PC's need to gather the information for.

If you wish to avoid the LARP-like plotline, make sure to flavour the template more in a fiendish manner rather than describing it as undeath. The first 4 levels of template should be hard to discriminate except in mannerisms of the affected being.

Savage Progressions:
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030824a

Without more of what you want, its hard to offer suggestions.

BTW, I am responding as a twisted mind.. not a great mind!

 

[Snowy]

I was fishing in the broadest sense, I want to make the forest which has already been established as a dangerous place that they (the elves) are skilled at surviving in, into a place where everything is subtly against them and the everyday things they accept are not to be relied on.

I was looking for which would be more creepy madness, undead or abberations.

And how I should try and apply it - a progressive template as you describe looks like the perfect effect, stage 1,2,3 indistinguishable apart from strange mannerisms and creepiness 4,5,6 malformed shapes and twisted limbs, a hankering after human flesh or elven flesh possibly uncontrolled aggression. stages 7,8,9 proper undead/abberrations stage 10 cthulu.

Basically I wanted to be consistent and make my own life easier by having stats I can add to things to make them affected.

Any idea on items or loot the party could find, I'm thinking that a race that would poison a forest just because they love the madness/corruption and want to spread it would create sickening and warped magical items - I'm thinking of things like skin grafts that stick to you or squid that stick to your face and breathe for you underwater..

Just think of me as an idea leech sucking ideas out of enworld for my game as im not finished creating it and want it to be great.

 

[Snowy]

and thank you for replying

My posts at the minute aren't being very clear or concise - your patience to read it all and reply is appreciated!

 

[Raven Crowking]

If you have the BoVD, you can use the drug rules to simulate drinking the water....and then growing dependent upon it. A nasty zinger if ever there was one.

Undead, IMHO, have become too ho-hum in their general presentation. If you want creepy, then you need to give the PCs monsters that they cannot recognize. In other words, decide what the water does not only in the short term, but in 2, 10, 100 years. Make sure that, in the multi-year exposure scale, there are transmorphogenic effects that make identifying creatures difficult. Then apply your tainted water template to everything.

(Remember to give your elves an alternate water source, but don't have them be very willing to share it with the PCs!)

RC

 

[ceratitis]

in order to make the remove curse effect more difficult make the taint resistant to it. when they first cast it it may actually remove the curse however as soon as they drink water again they get hit. next time the spell only slows down the build up of effects and even that wears down eventually.
then come up with a list of boosters like special herbs or rituals that can augment the remove curse effect until it is boosted enough to actually work.
as for items, give items with cool benefits but.. with a down side that the elves wouldnt mind anyway one that causes drowsiness or ages, boosts the madness effect ect...
Z