What's up with Jellyfish from Oathbound?

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

This is a tangent from the sick of elves thread, but people keep talking about those jellyfish from oathbound and they seem pretty excited.

So I just wanted to know more about them and how people are playing them or any other really alien race.

Me I'm fascinated by the idea of radial symetry, telekinetics, and floating.

I mean what does a caress mean when you don't have to touch anything?

And someone else mentioned the fact that the major differences in child rearing would really change the way you related to people.

Why do your alien pcs want to interact with humans? And how do they feel about them?

Do they think they're tasty?

Discuss...

 

[Teneb]

You're speaking of the ceptu. I don't have anyone playing a ceptu in my Oathbound campaign, but I can tell you a little about them.

They basically have a superiority complex and feel it is their duty to assist the "lesser" races. Most races don't paricularly appreciate this attitude. The arts are very important to the ceptu, as is history. They believe that if people know their history, they'll realize they're better off under ceptu domination.

Racial traits:
+2 Int, +2 Wis, -2 Str
ECL +1
360 degree vision (cool!)
can't wear armor, robes, etc BUT they can use 2 sets if bracers, 4 rings, and 3 necklaces
Their telekinesis which you allude to can affect something that doesn't exceed their wisdom score in weight.

Over all, a pretty cool race to play

 

[Ashy]

Overall, I love playing races that have an alien view of the "standard" races, and bringing that view out during roleplay. It always throws the other players off a bit (and makes them examine their own role-playing as well) when the new thri-kreen PC asks them why they waste their time killing and burning perfectly good live food!

The ceptu are very cool, one of my more favorite Oathbound races. I have a special fondness for their city in the Wellspring in Penance, Nydaria, which I created...

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

City?

Cool, how did you design the city?

I went to pick up a copy of Oathbound but my local hobby store is closed down.

The history focus could also be a result of a less familial syle of child rearing. Sort of a manifestation of a more racial idea of survival and competition.

Can they actually pick manipulate or pick things up with their tentacles?

Do they float or crawl? If float, what's their vertical?

 

[Ashy]

Re: City?

Cool, how did you design the city?

I went to pick up a copy of Oathbound but my local hobby store is closed down.

The history focus could also be a result of a less familial syle of child rearing. Sort of a manifestation of a more racial idea of survival and competition.

Can they actually pick manipulate or pick things up with their tentacles?

Do they float or crawl? If float, what's their vertical?

Nydaria, the ceptu city I created, was originally to appear in Dark Welcomes , the adventure that I co-wrote for the book. However, the chapter that contained it was cut due to conserve space, as we were originally WAAAY over the page limit for the adventure (there is just SOOO much cool stuff to write about in Forge!). Anyway, I sent the city to Greg Dent and he really liked it and added it into the book proper. The city is very cool, but it is considered (by ceptu standards) to be only a "small city". I don't want to give too much away, as ya need to go buy the book, but I will tell you that the city is sentient... Very cool stuff, I guarantee.

The ceptu cannot pick things up, but possess powerful telekentic abilities, which they use to wield weapons and the like... Also, they float, or rather, levitate... If you want to know more about them, I suggest picking up the book - Bastion ships for free worldwide, so there's no excuse not to order now!

Also, you might want to check out the spell Touch of the Ceptu, which I also penned...

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Since we have an author or two here, I'd love to pick your brain a bit...

...The arts are very important to the ceptu, as is history...

What do they consider art forms? What kind of social structure did you give them?

I'm really curious to see how you've handled such a non-anthropomorphic race psychologically.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I would see them as *very* concerned with symmetry and geometry.

Spheres, cubes, pyramids, variations on shapes and styles, with art that is precieved by the all-around vision of the creatures, perhaps with tactile senses that work on the mind instead of on the flesh...you touch it, you can feel what a dirty thought is like.

To them, something beautiful would be a great work of architecture that could stand the test of time and had special significance in shape and artwork. Eight-sided castles hover in the tides as spiralling pillars intersect it.

They hover only a few feet off the ground -- mechanically, the biggest difference between them and other (mor humanoid) races is that they have a bizarre body shape. Flavor-wise, they're quite awesome.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Art for the Round

Rest assured I will pick up the book as soon as my local gamestore completes my order.

I'm a bit of a luddite about ordering things off line. It's not the technology, it's an inherent distrust of using my own credit and a desire to support the local game stores.

Despite their charging $.80 per die. grumble grumble grumble

Anyways, I was thinking that a round species would be really concerned with perspective as well as geometry.

I mean many of the conventions of our art are dictated by the effect of turning our view and then not seeing things. Thus we have frames, our narratives move from side to side, and when people move to one side of a stage we think of them as 'gone.' All of that from only seeing forward.

A species that could see all around would probably only encounter a similar effect from something moving away from them toward a horizon. The back of the stage would be the 'away' area, and public space architecture would concentrate on the effects of moving through perspectives.

Something like the square of St. Peter's Basillica in Rome where the viewing points for the columns are marked out on the floor only much more sophisticated since it would have deeper meaning for them.

I also think their depictive arts would work in a much more around manner.

Stories would be carved on columns in which each side would be a different scene, since you could only achieve differentiation by hiding something on the other side of a thing.

Also, art on walls would depict an entire scene on both walls.
So that moving through a hallway with three sections on both walls, the first section would depict scene 1 of a story with people on the right wall perform an action with regard to the people on the opposite wall. You might see them shooting arrows at each other which would be depicted on the cieling or reaching to give each other gifts. Then as you moved down the hallway into section two you would see another scene.

I can't think of a hallway I've been in that had a similar arrangement. We are constantly in the middle of things in life, but we do not trust ourselves to read a story in that fashion.

An enclosed room would depict one scene, I've only seen that in Roman decorative murals.

Would they use windows or would they find balconies the only way to get a true view?

I'd bet gardening and landscaping would be a super high art for them.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Those are great images, Dr. Strangemonkey, but I just can't wrap my head around the idea that they would have 2-D art. That type of boundary would probably be foreign to their perspective. Sculpture I can see. And immersive things like landscaping and architecture. I can't see them having standard writing methods either. That would be WAY too cumbersome for tentacles and telekinetics. But then, what would they use? Certainly not stonework (carven runes and such). I'm assuming they started off as aquatic creatures, right?

I think I'm taking too biological a perspective here, but I can't wrap my head around the concept of jellyfish developing communication to the point where they would have any hope of developing a society. There just aren't any evolutionary reasons for it, even in a fantasy setting. It breaks verisimilitude too much for me.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

2D Art and Communication

I think they would have to develop 2D art if they were to develop walls, I would presume that a species that sees in all directions would have to use such decoration to combat their high level of latent Agoraphobia.

I would love to know what the authors thought about the issue of why they would socialize. But failing that...

I think a social strategy for their species would develop out of whatever phenomena forced them out of the water and onto dry land. The float and catch strategy doesn't seem to work as well out of the water, and not being individually very strong or large I think they would shift to pack hunting naturally.

I mean one could 'maybe' catch a rabbit but ten telekineting creatures could probably ambush and kill larger prey very effectively.

I don't know how they communicate in the game, but once you have a reason for the socializing the commuincation methods are pretty easy to bang down.

Of course there's always the alternate evolution. Some wizard or gawd is always making stuff like them.

And for writing, again I'm wishing I had the book, I would give them knotted cord technology. Like the Incas.