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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3525334" data-attributes="member: 4937">Interesting.  Except I don't find it all that believable because among other things the Roper should surely realize that infernal offspring would be even worse of a risk than mating with one of its own.How about this...An abnormally virtuous Roper is living peaceably along side a Gnome community, raising a small knot of offspring.  A magical plague has recently just destroyed the source of its food supply - the magical stone consuming fungi native to it's caverns.  With the food supply destroyed  the Rothe herds have died or moved away.  As a result, both the Roper and the Gnomish community are starving.  The gnomish community has decided that they must try to find another food source, before the last of thier meagre livestock dies of hunger, and is preparing to leave for a distant cavern complex where more food can be found.  The roper however is too large and slow for such a journey, and will likely be left to die.  The roper is faced with several complex moral decisions.  He could probably steal some of the remaining livestock, but if he did so, then the gnomes might die of hunger at best and at worst might come to blows with him.  If he doesn't, the roper and its offspring will likely die of starvation.  As an alternative, the roper might send its younger more agile offspring out alone to fend for themselves, but without the parent ropers guidance the young ropers would likely revert to the unfeeling killers typical of thier race in a short time - in fact, mad with hunger, the young ropers are already showing signs of considering the gnomish friends plausible food.  And, if the roper must die, it must also choose first whether to slay its own offspring lest the sole legacy of the roper be future terror.  Into the midst of this situation arrives the PC's, which provide a temptation in thier own right.  The PC's learn of the roper's plight from the friendly gnomes.  The PC's need access to a cavern complex that can only be reached through the roper's lair, but the Roper will only grant access if the PC's can find some way to solve the Roper's mortal delimma.</blockquote>

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