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<blockquote data-quote="Nifft" data-source="post: 653130" data-attributes="member: 6562"><p><strong>Exposition</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Smoke Filled room</em></p><p><em>Mercy Killing</em></p><p><em>Iron Bands of Billaro</em></p><p><em>Xill</em></p><p><em>Challenging riddle</em></p><p><em>Bright Llama</em></p><p></p><p>The first thing I did was to look up Xill. Lawful Evil Outsider simply screamed "SLAVER" to my inner ear. Then I looked at Smoke-Filled Room. This suggested two things: one, an illicit behind-the-scenes deal; two, creatures of elemental Fire. So I combined the two ideas into a contract between the Xill and the Efreet. To make the deal more viable, I gave the chief Xill the half-elemental (fire) template -- but didn't mention how exactly he got that template. The team-up of XIll and Efreet is powerful -- Efreet provide magic, Xill provide muscle. A very deadly combo.</p><p></p><p>Now I turned to the Bright Llama. For some reason, I pictured a wandering do-gooder -- but the thing was still very silly.</p><p></p><p>Next, I turned to the Iron Bands and the Mercy Killing. Since the Xill entry contained an item of alien horror -- the egg implantation -- the idea of confinement and Mercy Killing came together naturally. So, someone was going to end up in the Iron Bands with a Xill egg in him, begging for death.</p><p></p><p>Since the Efreet were the only other characters in the drama, they were the natural choice for victimhood. The idea of an efreeti implanted with a Xill egg got me thinking about the FireXill and how he got that template -- perhaps his egg was implanted in an efreeti!</p><p></p><p>There was the basic plot. Now I needed to throw in a Riddle and make the Llama less useless. So, a mystery was in order -- have the Xill grab not just some expendable efreeti, but the son of the Prince. A note in the SRD gave me inspiration: <em>Some djinn (1% of the total population) are "noble" and can grant three wishes to any being (nongenies only).</em> I decided to extend this rule to efreet.</p><p></p><p>The mechanic of "grants wishes (nongenies only)" is interesting, since it involves a power exchange and either great trust or coersion. The PCs aren't nearly powerful enough to coerce a Noble Efreeti, so it's got to be a trust thing.</p><p></p><p>Now for the riddle -- I have a bit of an advantage, since I used to write quite a bit of poetry. I wanted the riddle to be one of a <em>very</em> small number of clues, since the party has access to divination magic and two months to solve this case. Of course, the clues could prove to be too obscure, so I made the llama bright enough to help the party along -- should they stumble, he'll be there to nudge them back on track.</p><p></p><p>That's about it, except for deciding that the Prince would be more or less generous based on whether the party saves his son or not.</p><p></p><p> -- Nifft</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Nifft, post: 653130, member: 6562"] [b]Exposition[/b] [i]Smoke Filled room Mercy Killing Iron Bands of Billaro Xill Challenging riddle Bright Llama[/i] The first thing I did was to look up Xill. Lawful Evil Outsider simply screamed "SLAVER" to my inner ear. Then I looked at Smoke-Filled Room. This suggested two things: one, an illicit behind-the-scenes deal; two, creatures of elemental Fire. So I combined the two ideas into a contract between the Xill and the Efreet. To make the deal more viable, I gave the chief Xill the half-elemental (fire) template -- but didn't mention how exactly he got that template. The team-up of XIll and Efreet is powerful -- Efreet provide magic, Xill provide muscle. A very deadly combo. Now I turned to the Bright Llama. For some reason, I pictured a wandering do-gooder -- but the thing was still very silly. Next, I turned to the Iron Bands and the Mercy Killing. Since the Xill entry contained an item of alien horror -- the egg implantation -- the idea of confinement and Mercy Killing came together naturally. So, someone was going to end up in the Iron Bands with a Xill egg in him, begging for death. Since the Efreet were the only other characters in the drama, they were the natural choice for victimhood. The idea of an efreeti implanted with a Xill egg got me thinking about the FireXill and how he got that template -- perhaps his egg was implanted in an efreeti! There was the basic plot. Now I needed to throw in a Riddle and make the Llama less useless. So, a mystery was in order -- have the Xill grab not just some expendable efreeti, but the son of the Prince. A note in the SRD gave me inspiration: [i]Some djinn (1% of the total population) are "noble" and can grant three wishes to any being (nongenies only).[/i] I decided to extend this rule to efreet. The mechanic of "grants wishes (nongenies only)" is interesting, since it involves a power exchange and either great trust or coersion. The PCs aren't nearly powerful enough to coerce a Noble Efreeti, so it's got to be a trust thing. Now for the riddle -- I have a bit of an advantage, since I used to write quite a bit of poetry. I wanted the riddle to be one of a [i]very[/i] small number of clues, since the party has access to divination magic and two months to solve this case. Of course, the clues could prove to be too obscure, so I made the llama bright enough to help the party along -- should they stumble, he'll be there to nudge them back on track. That's about it, except for deciding that the Prince would be more or less generous based on whether the party saves his son or not. -- Nifft [/QUOTE]
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