Slave Queen of the Ruined City -- now is that catchy or what?

[barsoomcore]

Okay, so my players are headed for an encounter with the "Slave Queen of the Ruined City" (doesn't that title just REEK of adventure?).

My problem is that I'm not 100% on either the Slave Queen or her Ruined City. So any ENWorlders with big brains, offer some suggestions!

The basic idea is that the Slave Queen is actually a ghost who possesses her subjects whenever and however the mood takes her. Which makes life in the Ruined City a little bizarre at times.

My big question is -- given a thousand years of this, what sort of society emerges? How do people deal with the occasional and sudden possession of their loved ones by their Queen? How do you know if someone's been possessed? How would the Queen be able to prove it's her?

Thoughts?

And hey, there's that whole Ruined City deal. What's up with that?

Come on, folks, don't let me down! Barsoom needs you!

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

What exactly is the score in barsoom, at the moment?

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

I don't have any ideas for your society yet, but WOW that is an amazing kick-butt name for an adventure!

 

[Savage Wombat]

I always preferred "Temple of the Weasel God" and it's sequel, "Slave Pits of the Weasel God".

This is because any phrase with the word "Weasel" in it is automatically funny.

/dave barry

 

[Mathew_Freeman]

I would suggest something reasonably subtle for the Mark of the Queen. Something that only someone in the city would spot. Here's a couple of ideas:

When the Queen possesses someone they:
Gain a gold earing in one ear (looks real to everything bar true sight)
Get an affinity for a certain style of speech
Take to wearing a sword on their left hip (make it a distinctive sword)
Always go barefoot, but never injure their feet

The people of the City would of course all recognise this sign immediately, and so would know who she is at any moment. Anyone found impersonating her would suffer harsh consequences. If you make it so that her distinctive thing is a signature of one of the adventurers as well, I believe you might be earning an RBDM point right there...

 

[drnuncheon]

Dang, I thought this was about the newest GOR book.

Anyway, you have some decisions to make. Here's a few that I came up with:

Is it considered to be a 'good thing' to be possessed by the Slave Queen?
How does she treat the people she possesses?
What happens to them afterward?

Perhaps those she possesses are killed after she leaves them because nobody else is permitted to use a vessel that the Queen has used. It could be a great honor to be chosen by the Queen, though, and mean that your surviving family will be richly rewarded.

Why is she called the Slave Queen? Is it because she enslaves others or is there another reason?
Why is she a ghost?

Perhaps she used to be the queen of the city before it was conquered, and she was enslaved by the conquerer. When she refused to submit, she was put to death - but such was her love for her city and her hatred of the conquerers that she rose as a ghost and used her supernatural abilities to slay them and drive them out. (Maybe she wasn't the queen at all until this happened!)

Are you sure the slave queen is the ghost? Maybe the Ruined City is a cursed city of ghosts, held in manifested, semi-living form (perhaps even able to eat, drink, breathe, reproduce!) - but the only way they can have this 'life' is to have a living monarch. In this case, the queen really is a slave, sort of. She is their queen in everything...but she can never leave. (Maybe they're going to need a new queen soon when the party stops by.) If she goes, all the citizens turn back into ghosts and the buildings are seen for the crumbled shells that they really are.

Hope some of those help!

J

 

[MarauderX]

I see the ruined city as a place that has been devoid of trade for as long as can be remembered, and all who venture there tell of nightmarish dreams and savage attacks by undead that surround the city - those who visit may enter easily enough, but cannot escape except through a torrent of rotting limbs.

Because of the this the city has dwindled in size to about 1/4 the normal population, and has been in disrepair for as long as the Slave Queen has been in power. Food is rather scarce, but people get by on eating any living thing they can find - birds have become a main staple and some have trained sparrow hawks to retrieve critters (say...weasels?) for them.

Little do the people know, but it is actually the Slave Queen who repels the undead surrounding the city, and all of the undead are terribly afraid of her.

Is that going in the right direction?

 

[barsoomcore]

This is GREAT stuff! You guys rock.

The score: 3-2 for the home team.

The party have spent the entire third season trapped in a nightmare world known to its inhabitants as Kiriku. It has been slowly revealed that Kiriku was created out of the chaos of the Dream Worlds by the insane goddess Ky'in as a last-ditch effort to rid Barsoom of the dreaded Keyad'ar, the reptilian lords of the ancient world.

Things have gone rather downhill since then. Kiriku is sort of like Alice in Wonderland if Lewis Carroll had spent time hanging out with Gustav Dore and the members of Skinny Puppy, doing heroin and taking lots of really bad acid. The party is trying to find a way back to Barsoom -- but the only method they've found so far will release the imprisoned Keyad'ar, as well. Which would be bad for Barsoom since Ky'in the Insane Goddess is no longer around to put them back.

...unless that's her coming back to life in the frozen wastes of the North, devouring hundreds of thousands of enthralled souls as she does...

Anyway, in an environment like this, the Slave Queen can be pretty much anything, anyone and anyhow.

 

[infax]

As I see it the Slave Queen is really a slave and really the queen, but not a ghost at all.

The ruined city was taken over by invaders from another plane or another continent, using teleportat magic. They conquered the city and enslaved the people, holding their immortal Queen captive. Her body is held in an extremely resistant prison (Imprisonment?)in some well defended fortress within the city, but she is able to project her soul and possess any of her former subjects. Doing this she has formed a resistance that tries to conquer back the city. The resistance was defeated more than once and all members executed, but the Slave Queen is able to possess a new subject and start anew.

To be possessed by the queen would grant much honor but most people don't remember what happened during possession and the Queen only uses subjects for short periods for spying. Her long possessed subject usually die when her resistance is crushed. She can't usually be recognized unless she chose to use any of her very impressive (albeit diminished by the use of a proxy) powers.

The city is in ruins since it was conquered.

 

[barsoomcore]

That's money, baby!

As we like to say.

Okay, I'm definitely going with the whole "the city was conquered and she was imprisoned and now possesses people in order to wreak havoc" angle. I also like the "city surrounded by undead" angle -- the Slave Queen has created ulgurstastas (mean undead giant caterpillars from Fiend Folio) that beset the city and its current (living) rulers. And I also really like the "the city's inhabitants are actually dead and without their Queen imprisoned they'll fade away into nothing" angle -- which makes three angles. I think instead of the city's inhabitants, it's the current rulers who need to keep her alive (but imprisoned) in order to lengthen their own lives. They cut a deal with a powerful spirit known as...

Okay, never mind.

Great stuff. Thanks folks! More ideas super welcome!

Oh, the Ruined City is on the shore of a vast river that cuts its slow way through a miasmic jungle of death. That might have been obvious from the title, but I thought I'd be clear.