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Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

Night10194 posted:

Dragon artificially inflates the value of his stock buys so that he can ascend to be a Great Wyrm before the bubble bursts.

His stock crashes and he instantly turns to dust

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Kurieg
Jul 19, 2012

RIP Lutri: 5/19/20-4/2/20
:blizz::gamefreak:
He tries to become a Dragon Ascendant but encounters problems attempting to devour the physical stock exchange.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!
Y'all hear about the Theranos dragon? It could cast every divination spell at the same time until it vanished into the Negative Energy Plane.

kommy5
Dec 6, 2016
I totally want to run a game about dragons coming up with crazy schemes to artificially inflate the worth of their hoards. Dragons of the South Sea Company. Entire kingdoms would be ruined and plundered through stock manipulations and debt derivatives. And only brave adventurers putting together investigative committees could hope to stop them and would struggle mightily to slap the dragons on the wrist.

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



kommy5 posted:

I totally want to run a game about dragons coming up with crazy schemes to artificially inflate the worth of their hoards. Dragons of the South Sea Company. Entire kingdoms would be ruined and plundered through stock manipulations and debt derivatives. And only brave adventurers putting together investigative committees could hope to stop them and would struggle mightily to slap the dragons on the wrist.
No, no, this isn't WyrmCoin, this is dragonchain, the enchantment that underlies WyrmCoin.

Dallbun
Apr 21, 2010

(from the KODT strip in Dragon Magazine #248)

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.

Kurieg posted:

Now I'm envisioning a Dragon taking over a country and working his hardest to instill a sense of national pride and sense of self worth because his citizenry is his hoard.

This sounds right out of the playbook of a Steel Dragon. They tend to spend more time in human form than dragon form.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
So... Chancellor Otto Van Drakon?

Young Freud
Nov 26, 2006

kommy5 posted:

I totally want to run a game about dragons coming up with crazy schemes to artificially inflate the worth of their hoards. Dragons of the South Sea Company. Entire kingdoms would be ruined and plundered through stock manipulations and debt derivatives. And only brave adventurers putting together investigative committees could hope to stop them and would struggle mightily to slap the dragons on the wrist.

Has to feature Dragonron or the great red dragon Burning Madov.

Obligatum VII
May 5, 2014

Haunting you until no 8 arrives.

Kurieg posted:

Now I'm envisioning a Dragon taking over a country and working his hardest to instill a sense of national pride and sense of self worth because his citizenry is his hoard.

Going by the Draconomicon, this is actually legitimately a route that a lot of blue dragons take. The people working for them and the people they rule over are all part of their hoard. If you gently caress with them, you'll have a ripshit pissed dragon after you.

Ratoslov
Feb 15, 2012

Now prepare yourselves! You're the guests of honor at the Greatest Kung Fu Cannibal BBQ Ever!

Obligatum VII posted:

Going by the Draconomicon, this is actually legitimately a route that a lot of blue dragons take. The people working for them and the people they rule over are all part of their hoard. If you gently caress with them, you'll have a ripshit pissed dragon after you.

Too bad about the level mechanic making peasants totally unthreatening, or their loyalty working both ways could be cool. Sure he's an unspeakable murderbeast, but he's our unspeakable murderbeast.

By popular demand
Jul 17, 2007

IT *BZZT* WASP ME--
IT WASP ME ALL *BZZT* ALONG!


"The sign at the entrance to the village proclaim that traders are welcome and informs that the mound of charred skulls to the left all belonged to bandits, murderers and kidnappers."
"oh and there's also a drawing of a grinning dragon giving the thumbs up."

Selachian
Oct 9, 2012

Young Freud posted:

Has to feature Dragonron or the great red dragon Burning Madov.

Selling investments in Collateralized Dragon Obligations, of course.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!

Horrible Lurkbeast posted:

"The sign at the entrance to the village proclaim that traders are welcome and informs that the mound of charred skulls to the left all belonged to bandits, murderers and kidnappers."
"oh and there's also a drawing of a grinning dragon giving the thumbs up."

10/10 would make this my murderhobos murder home to raise murder children in.

Angrymog
Jan 30, 2012

Really Madcats

For some reason, Beavis and Friends haven't been put off towns with their last dip into the

Let's see how things go this time...

A potential double bill of events for the party to deal with; In a small village, our valiant band faces their (well, someone's) mortality in The Sight of Death!

When travelling through a small village, the party witness a shopkeeper being suddenly and brutally murdered by a dark-cloaked figure. The killer is apprehended in a cutscene (found hiding in stables a few hours later - why not steal a loving horse then?) and arrested. The town constable rounds up the party members as witnesses, but lets them know that the Justice, a Paladin, will be out of town for a couple of weeks, and as the murderer has now been identified as part of a rather cutthroat thieves guild, would the party mind going into protective custody?

Many problems here - stats are provided for the murdered, so theoretically the party could try and stop him before he cowers in the stables, but why doesn't he ride away? It's not as if being a horse thief is going to result in harsher punishment than being a murderer. No guidance for what the constable does if the party don't want to be stuck in a cellar for two weeks.

The time involved also derails whatever else you might have had going on. Pass as a random encounter, could be used as a springboard for a proper adventure if you have pre-exisiting NPCs or Organisations to plug in that the PCs might care about. Also, ditch the hiding in the cellar, or make that a trap for the characters.

100xp for I guess going along with the railroad.

Assuming that the PCs agree to go into the cellar, they find another witness already in residence - an old lady called Kalenya. Who won't shut up about how awful everything is, and how everyone is doomed. It won't take more than an hour or so of listening to her going on to make the characters Cry for Silence

After five nights of boring misery in their cellar, the thieves (including the accused) sneak in and try to murder the characters. The guards, the Constable, and his assisstant are quite dead. The Paladin may try to link the characters to the thieves (assuming the party are still there when he gets back) 100xp. The End. Pass because this really didn't deserve a second card, nevermind the first.

Somehow the party is still not sick of towns, and on their next attempt to visit civillisation have a run in with The Enforcers.

Six half-orcs block the party from entering the town, whilst the leader tells them that the place is under the protection of Black Karvin, and he breaks those that break his law. They then let the PCs in. Karvin's law amounts to 'What Karvin wants, Karvin gets'. The PCs are watched whilst they're in town, and the thugs will show them that they mean business if they step out of line. If the PCs deal with the thugs (either at the gate, or incidentally whilst in town), Karvin flees and the townspeople are grateful. If the PCs come back to town they'll discover that so has Karvin, with better thugs,

90 XP for dealing with the thugs. Keep as long as you didn't have other plans for that town. Lets say we don't and see how the PCs do.

The Enforcers posted:

They don't kick up a fuss at the gates and are allowed into the town, deciding that they're just going to spend the night and don't really care about some local crime lord. It's not long before the half-orcs realise that they forgot to get an 'entry fee' from our party, and that adventuring sorts are known to have a lot of money (forgetting how they tend to get that money). They leave the gate and tail the party, picking a suitably narrow street to ambush them in, three to the front, three to the back.

The party's spells have refreshed, and Moganna still has Armor up.

They aren't suprised, and reach for their weapons as the half-orcs surround them and give them the spiel about how they need to pay the visitor's tax in order to fully enjoy the town.

The PCs get initiative and attack just as the lead half-orc is finishing explaining the benefits (namely, not having your skull staved in) to the party.

Beavis swings and scores a crit, dealing 8 points and leaving the thug on 6; Bhed's blow lands too and deals a further 3 points.

There aren't really any plants in the area, so Janie steps forwards and swings with her scimitar, wounding a second thug for three points. (the road is too narrow for more than two people to attack a single target.) One of her dogs scores another crit, doing 11 damage total, and killing that half-orc. Her other two dogs attack the last of the unengaged half-orcs in front of the party, dealing 6 damage.

Quota starts casting Bless - it'll go off next round.

Moganna casts sleep on the three behind the group; one of them falls asleep. She then unleashes her dogs and sets them on the group. Dog 1 does 8, Dog 2 snaps at the air.

It's the now seriously pissed off half-orcs time to act. They're thieves, but they can't sneak attack having blown the element of suprise. They all miss, not even hitting Moganna. Beavis gets his second attack and kills one of them.

Thug #1 : Dead
Thug #2: Dead
Thug #3: 8
Thug #4: Sleeping
Thug #5: 6
Thug #6: 14

Next round the half-orcs are going to try and run if they survive.

Round 2

Quota's Bless spell goes off, and every friend now gets +1 to attack.

Beavis almost but not quite kills the one left in front of them, Bhead turns to the back to try and defend Moganna, but misses. Janie swings and misses at Beavis's opponent; she sends her dogs to try and help Bhed. One of them bites down and deals a severe wound, whilst the other two set upon the sleeping half-orc and almost kill him. Moganna's dogs finish off their half-orc.

The two survivors flee, leaving their just waking up comrade behind. The dogs finish off the ex-sleeper before they can be pulled off him.

Party splits the XP and the town cheers and gives them free bed and board for the night once Karvin is seen fleeing in the night

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!


Starfinger Alien Archive Part 06: "Caypin biology is as fascinating as it is terrifying, as scholars from both universities and private industry have all so far failed to identify the mechanism by which its detachable appendages communicate with the main body. "


C may be for Cookie, but it stands also for:
  • Caypin
  • Contemplative
  • Crest-Eater
So let's get started on the dessert tray here.




Caypin (CR 6)

A reptilian wolfish predator with a face that is literally full of leeches. It's found in swamps across multiple planets as an invasive species (maybe from the Veskarium, or not), and has sometimes wiped out native fauna just out of sheer rapaciousness. Sometimes they can apparently sleep for years only to emerge conveniently when their spawn is triggered the PCs show up disturbed. The leeches can detach and communicate with their host through some kind of psychic link, and it can only see though the single eyeball each leech has. They might be symbotic creatures, or just one really weird creature, and others posit they might have some kind of quantum entanglement because I guess that's a sci-fi thing and makes perfect sense as a theory.

Anyway, they're large creatures that can swim and have a nasty bite, and can spawn two swarms of leeches that go around using its bite attacks on targets, but doing so both means it can only see what they see. However, even if it has no facetacles, it still has a bite attack despite being described as having no mouth on its own. Presumably it bites you by sheer power of designer oversight.

Okay, Starfinger, you've used up your quota of "creatures that split into smaller creatures / merge into bigger creatures" now. If you do it past this point, it's officially no longer a clever gimmick.



Contemplative (CR 2) and Contemplative Mentor (CR 18)

So, these are floating psychic brains with vestigal bodies attached from Akiton. They could have conquered it, but have decided to be peaceful ponderers instead because... they have. Some have used their brains to become businessfolk, however, and rule over sections of Akiton via the dollar instead of the laser. It's hinted they have some kind of subtle hivemind and are aloof and logical like some pointy-eared green-blooded folks you many know.

Their normal statblock lets them fly and do a pathetic "claw" attack, and they usually just rely on a laser pistol. They can read brains or do psychic attacks once a day. Additionally once per day, they can use Mysticism or Science skill check (whatever's appro to a creature type) on a saving throw or other skill check against a creature. However, they can't use two-handed weapons without penalties, and if they do they can't fly or use their powers, as they're basically just telekinetically hefting a battleaxe or whatever.

The "mentor" version has a "psychokinetic claw" and buffer pistol, and an array mentally-based spells too long to really detail, and also get some mindbreaker powers (as per the Mystic Connection). There's also a PC version you can play, who get high Int and low physical traits. They can fly, get blindsense and darkvision, the 1/day skill/save bonus, and the penalty on using two-handed items. PC Contemplatives lose out on the mental-themed spell-like abilities, however. They're probably more interesting as an NPC race than anything to fight, but it's hard to deny the appeal of playing a smug floating brain.




Crest-Eater (CR 4)

So-named for its love of eating kasatha "crests"... is that what they are? I just thought kasatha had really big skulls. Well, I guess they're crests now, despite never having being described that way before. Sure. Anyway, these things feed largely on bones. Not the most efficient diet given there's all that nutrient-rich blood and muscle right up front, but sure, they need bones. They're large predators with their own crests that apparently act as solar panels to provide additional sustenance, and can eat rocks for "lean times". These creatures seem to have a really eclectic diet. I mean, if you can eat rocks, why do you have to chase down animals? Wouldn't it be more efficient to...

:sigh:

Anyway, they have bonus limbs with claws and venom (the venom is to break down rocks, and also you). Apparently they form prides as well, and are sometimes accompanied by scavengers that follow along to pick clean anything they leave- okay, you just copied lions, sure, right down to the legend of "man-eating loners" that develop. Most of these life on Kasatha itself, but kasathans have brought them around to other worlds for highly spurious reasons (somehow using live ones as power supplies, guard beasts, or exotic pets). So when a crest-eater ate your baby, you know who to blame.

Anyway, they're tough predators with a bite that does a point of Constitution damage on a failed save, can track those it's bitten (by smelling the venom, apparently), and spit the venom for the same Constitution damage. They can also understand Kasathan language somehow. Finally, we get a listing of bone cestuses you can use that are made from these things, though some are just made from "state of the art resin" instead, which I guess goes some way to explaining why the weapons have zero relation to the creatures' CR, going from a level 2 weapon to a level 17 weapon.


Next: D stands for Brain Collector.

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 10:54 on Nov 15, 2017

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Guess those half-orcs were, in fact, threatening him.

Dallbun
Apr 21, 2010
Each forum thread has a 10% chance to contain

The Deck of Encounters Set One Part 28: The Deck of Fish, Gargoyles, and Ghosts

165: Feeding Frenzy

“The warm tropical waters of a jungle lake seems [sic] to invite the characters. There are no signs of danger, and the PCs go for a dip. As they swim, splash, and play, the water begins to boil around them and they feel the sharp stings of hundreds of vicious little teeth.” Piranhas.

I’m not sure which is worse - the DM declaring that the PCs take a swim and are attacked by piranhas, or the DM suggesting that the PCs go for a swim, emphasizing that the lake is inviting and has “no signs of danger,” and then having them be attacked by piranhas. Pass.


166: Shark Attack

“While on a fishing expedition in deep water…” Wait, hold it right there. Who has ever, ever had a game where their PCs went on a fishing expedition? Show of hands? That’s what I thought. (Okay, it happens regularly in a Mad Lands campaign, but this is AD&D, not GURPS.)

Anyway, sharks attack their boat, Jaws-style. They’ll even “chew through the hull to get at the characters”! And it reminds the DM that if PCs get too close to the water, “the sharks can heave themselves toward the PCs with astounding speed.” Yeesh!

Then it says the attack might draw the attention of a group of sahaugin (but not to do that unless you think the PCs can handle it). Honestly, this encounter makes a lot more sense if the sahaugin are controlling the sharks. I’d go with that if I was keeping the card. Which I’m not, since it’s just “animals attack (unnaturally) in a situation that will never come up”! Pass.


167: Look, It's Talking

The PCs are fishing in a stream when they pull up a fish that talks! All it says is “Hey! Put me down!” and “I’m gonna tell my master on you.” The voice is actually coming from a ring that the fish swallowed, which is enchanted with a permanent magic mouth. It has a command word engraved inside the ring that lets you change the, uh, recorded message. It’s a “small but potentially useful magic item.”

I’m fairly sure I used this card back in the day. I don’t recall the ring coming in handy, but it’s the kind of thing that sits at the bottom of someone’s character sheet until they’re brainstorming about how to pull off some harebrained scheme. That’s my favorite part of D&D, so keep.


168: Life Quest, Part 1 of 2

Most of this card is backstory. An evil wizard started crafting a guardian gargoyle, but it was only animate when the moon is half full or more (and only at night?), and also seemed distinctly good-aligned! Horrors! So he left it in some city. When it’s animate, it sees the PCs and asks for their help. It needs to be brushed by the freshly-plucked feather of a pegasus to be animate 24/7. Quest: accepted? Let’s see where they go with this in part 2.


169: Life Quest, Part 2 of 2

The card notes that the PCs will need to figure out how to travel with the gargoyle - they need to take it along because they need the pegasus feather fresh. Then the body of the adventure is hand-waved away - "the PCs will have to search out the reclusive pegasus," but "if they are having no luck, a friendly druid may appear and, hearing their quest, direct them to a pegasus's grove.” Then the pegasus will eventually decide to help if asked carefully by a good-aligned character.

The whole thing is a boring fetch-quest and has almost no conflict or interesting decision-making. If I, the DM, want to hurry things along and say, “yeah, yeah, you travel a bunch, you find the pegasus, whatever, let’s get to more fun stuff,” there’s a problem. Even the promise of having a gargoyle buddy, which is admittedly awesome, doesn’t quite save it. Pass.


170: Deadly Greed

A greedy, cowardly merchant was killed at this abandoned crossroads years ago, and his ghost haunts it, demanding treasure when people pass. The PCs will see it in its piles of gold, moving its hands through them like an ethereal, hand-bathing Scrooge McDuck. It’ll flee if it thinks it might be destroyed, leaving its treasure behind.

“Due to the extreme amount of potential treasure in this encounter, the DM is encouraged to take some of it from the PCs; a good way might be a curse laid on the gold from its simple proximity to the ghost all these years.” Look, is there a curse on the treasure or not, card? What does this curse do? And how much treasure is there in the first place? It’s completely unspecified.

I like the potential for the greedy ghost to flee and return later with some kind of underhanded ghost money-making scheme, but everything about the treasure in this encounter is awkward. Jury?

Dallbun fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Nov 15, 2017

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
The gargoyle plot seems like it might be interesting with some tweaking. Mainly making the gargoyle into Batman. Or Gargoyles. Have the pegasus be the mount of a wicked criminal terrorising the city.

Bieeanshee
Aug 21, 2000

Not keen on keening.


Grimey Drawer
The ghost is actually a phantom, or something else that doesn't decades worth of aging damage at a glance, and most of his treasure is copper because he isn't going to be waylaying gold-laden caravans in the middle of nowhere.

That doesn't stop him from being a grifter with a long unlife's worth of get-rich-and-die-trying schemes, who needs living people for the dying part, or keep him from carrying a grudge against the murderhobos who turned him and walked off with the actually valuable bits of his hoard.

Ghost Leviathan
Mar 2, 2017

Exploration is ill-advised.
The gargoyle's origin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZqeR8EVFKY

megane
Jun 20, 2008



Fail Early Fail Often Ghost is cool; "he's got a ton of treasure, so, uh, I guess just make up some way to screw the PCs out of it later" is not.

wdarkk
Oct 26, 2007

Friends: Protected
World: Saved
Crablettes: Eaten
I feel like it'd be way easier to bring the pegasus to the gargoyle, since they can fly and all.

Angrymog
Jan 30, 2012

Really Madcats

wdarkk posted:

I feel like it'd be way easier to bring the pegasus to the gargoyle, since they can fly and all.

I was thinking that too.

marshmallow creep
Dec 10, 2008

I've been sitting here for 5 mins trying to think of a joke to make but I just realised the animators of Mass Effect already did it for me

Tie the pegasus into the wizard sub plot that seemed to be immediately dropped: The wizard captured the pegasus to use its feathers to finish animating the gargoyle before it realized the gargoyle was good-aligned and abandoned it. It still has the pegasus (anticipating making another gargoyle, this one proper naughty) and the gargoyle wants to free it more than he wants its feather (because he's good aligned, you see). The heroes are encouraged to join the gargoyle on a rescue mission to an evil wizard lair. Then you can have a gargoyle mirror match while the heroes fight the wizard and/or the other minions.

marshmallow creep fucked around with this message at 19:35 on Nov 15, 2017

Comrade Gorbash
Jul 12, 2011

My paper soldiers form a wall, five paces thick and twice as tall.

Dallbun posted:

170: Deadly Greed

A greedy, cowardly merchant was killed at this abandoned crossroads years ago, and his ghost haunts it, demanding treasure when people pass. The PCs will see it in its piles of gold, moving its hands through them like an ethereal, hand-bathing Scrooge McDuck. It’ll flee if it thinks it might be destroyed, leaving its treasure behind.

“Due to the extreme amount of potential treasure in this encounter, the DM is encouraged to take some of it from the PCs; a good way might be a curse laid on the gold from its simple proximity to the ghost all these years.” Look, is there a curse on the treasure or not, card? What does this curse do? And how much treasure is there in the first place? It’s completely unspecified.

I like the potential for the greedy ghost to flee and return later with some kind of underhanded ghost money-making scheme, but everything about the treasure in this encounter is awkward. Jury?
I say just ignore the hand-wringing about the treasure. It usually takes a lot of money to be a problem in a D&D type game, and you can get a nice big pile well short of that, especially if you switch it to being mostly silver. Here's what around 100,000 coins looks like for comparison. It'd be a good way to reward a party that's been fighting enemies that don't normally have treasure.

Lynx Winters
May 1, 2003

Borderlawns: The Treehouse of Pandora

Kurieg posted:

Now I'm envisioning a Dragon taking over a country and working his hardest to instill a sense of national pride and sense of self worth because his citizenry is his hoard.

That's Shadowrun.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!
That's Napoleon Bonaparte.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Halloween Jack posted:

That's Napoleon Bonaparte.

If the dragon's also massively racist I guess.
Who doesn't love saying "I am the revolution" while reinstating slavery in the colonies and banning black veterans from Paris?
gently caress Napoleon.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003
I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!
From 2060 to 2069, only the ghost of the old Matrix circulated--from Dodger, the decker in Power Gloves, who disguised himself as old Laverty, down to the shadowrunner who hides his trivial and repulsive features behind the iron death mask of Hatchetman.

Mr.Misfit
Jan 10, 2013

The time for
SkellyBones
has come!

Joe Slowboat posted:

If the dragon's also massively racist I guess.
Who doesn't love saying "I am the revolution" while reinstating slavery in the colonies and banning black veterans from Paris?
gently caress Napoleon.

With his actions came the violent introduction of civil rights and liberties, collected and unified measurements, the final death knell of the decrepit holy roman empire and the kickstart to what is known as most of modern europe. So most would say that was an actual "net good" he did. Oh, and he also robbed egypt to create egyptology, if I remember correctly. Well, for science, you know. On the other hand, his actions and ideals created the autocratic successor states that lead the world into WWI and WWII...sooooo....

Nessus
Dec 22, 2003

After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!



Mr.Misfit posted:

With his actions came the violent introduction of civil rights and liberties, collected and unified measurements, the final death knell of the decrepit holy roman empire and the kickstart to what is known as most of modern europe. So most would say that was an actual "net good" he did. Oh, and he also robbed egypt to create egyptology, if I remember correctly. Well, for science, you know. On the other hand, his actions and ideals created the autocratic successor states that lead the world into WWI and WWII...sooooo....
This is kind of like my counterfactual of "if World War One had never happened, perhaps the world would be better?" It is impossible to say, although the details would be different in any case. I think you can take a general "big wars that kill a bunch of people have to meet a certain burden of benefit to be anything other than "bad"" stance, though. Generally speaking, mass death is bad.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!


Starfinger Alien Archive Part 07: "Mostly organic beings, deh-nolos secrete a metallic discharge that shimmers with disturbing beauty in natural sunlight."




Deh-Nolo (CR 14)

Remember the Dominion of the Black, the spoopy organic-tech eeevil faction from the core rules? Well, apparently amongst their number they have neh-thalggus, old D&D monsters that steal brains to improve their spellcasting power. They also have yah-thelgaads in their faction, monsters that steal brains to improve their spellcasting power. Deh-nolos, on the other hand, steal brains to improve their knowledge.... and their spellcasting power. But do they really have anything in common?

In any case, they're the main mad scientists of organic tech in the faction, having developed the "shipminds" that apparently run Dominion ships, and they often collect brains from different species to try and unravel their technology. They can also squirt "metallic" goo that can be used to make crystals they use to make machine components, and other races have tried to use these components but they're eeevil and have unpredictable eeevil effects. Also they're wizards and psychics and apparently the sight of them floating around is enough is super-spoopy, dudes, it could drive you mad. Like.

In any case, they're 20' tall aberrations that can psychically fly, have a deeply poisonous bite that does Constitution damage, and can shoot their sweat-crystals coated in poison (or use a spell-slot to have them do extra elemental damage). They have a variety of tech spells and condition-inflicting spells. Their key ability is to steal brains and speak languages they leave from them (and they have penalties if they have less than four brains). They also can spray their poison all over anybody that hits them with a melee attack, take that, fighters!... er, I mean soldiers. Well, you're probably using lasers anyway.




Devil, Endbringer (CR 19)

Aka dhalochars, these are made strictly for devilish conquering. They're often just launched at worlds where they crash down and dramatically rise out of the debris and smoke no doubt with a DUN DUN DUN sort of music playing as they stand up to 90' feet in height. They also have a cavity which might hold devils to conquer except there's no statblocks for them so make yourself your own devils! Or they might have a portal straight to hell inside their innards, which can release devils, so... make yourself your own devils! They're close cousins to "levalochs" and apparently often transport them, but we don't have rules for those either. I guess those are a type of devil I could look up, but I've already looked up yah-thelgaads and that wasn't a great use of my time given they were exactly what I presumed they were. Also they're transformers that can turn into tier 14 spaceships. That's kind of neat. Give me more rules for transformers, Starfinger. Playable transformers.

In any case, they have ridiculous numbers, DR/good and magic, immunity to fire and poison, resistance to acid and cold, spell resistance, flight (yeah, like they need it), a rare multiattack like you usually don't see with Starfinger (2 slams, 4 legs), hellfire from its eyes, 1/day plane shift, and teleport whenever. It's special ability is either is cargo hold or a portal to hell. It also has the same immunities a construct does. Lastly, it can turn into a spaceship with a graser (a gamma-ray laser) and a plasma cannon, and is treated as if it had almost a full crew (minus the captain). It also has a special attack where it can fly it, turn into its demon form, and crash into poo poo for massive damage.

Kinda neat but stuff like the teleport and portal to hell means its heavily dependent on a GM not to just say "And then it just barfs up a demonic army and you lose, campaign over." I mean, yes, the GM can just adjudicate that properly, but it helps to have some guidelines. Also, CR 19 creatures may as well not exist, given that few games will have characters leveled up enough to have direct confrontations with them.




Draelik (CR 2)

Cone-headed mean-looking asparagus aliens, these are from the Shadari Confederacy. For those that may have forgotten, that's a criminal haven overseen by sinister cult to entropy (aka Ataxxea), of which mose draeliks are members (hence the tattoo of the eye on the head). They don't go around fostering entropy, but at least apparently believe in not preventing it. Apparently they find the Cult of the Devourer religiously offensive because the Cult just doesn't have enough patience, and thusly are just big babies. However, even those that don't worship Ataxxea are sinister jerks, and apparently stand-up Dudley Do-Rights are an extreme rarity amongst their race. Pretty dull bad guys other than their rather lazy approach to entropic worship. "The end'll happen, man, you don't gotta rush nothin'."

You can play them as a PC race - they get darkvision, can cast fatigue or ghost sound at will, or wisp ally 1/day (it's a distracting light), a substantial bonus on Stealth checks in bad light, and a dime bonus against necromancy effects. They also have magical shadowstaves (in a level 2 or level 8 variety) that can do any normal melee weapon damage of your choice (bludgeoning / slashing / piercing) or shoot bolts of cold. The full-fledged version can also create spaces of darkness. The monster stat writeup is pretty much just a low-level humanoid with a lesser shadowstaff with some minor Solarian abilities of the dark graviton variety. Once again, pretty forgettable guys who are vaguely evil and sneaky, the kind of racial description that's just full of unnuance.




Dragon (CR 11)

We get a "young adult blue dragon" as a full writeup and then grafts to make dragons of the other colors using the monster creation rules. The writeup comes with shoulder-mounted rifle for the turns it can't use the breath weapon. Its spells have been converted to Starfinger, and that's that. You seen dragons before, now you've seen them again. Now gitouttahere!




Dragonkin (CR 9)

Dragonborn by any other name... well, they're basically large humanoid dragons that live on Triaxus. They are often allied with humanoids against the evil dragons of the Drakelands, particularly in the Skyfire Legion (which gets mentioned often enough I can't imagine it isn't some author's favorite thingy). The apparently can bond with a humanoid to be awesome battlebros or sometimes awesome battlefuckers. Some apparently have had their ability to fly atrophy by spending too much time on spaceships and space stations. Otherwise, they're generically stoic and gun-go. There's a throwaway reference that some vesk believe that ancient scriptures indicate that dragonkin are reincarnated vesk, which is an interesting cultural footnote for a usually uninteresting race.

They have special glaives, use rifles, and can breathe fire. They can also spend RP to regain HP, and get the special ability to bond with a humanoid for life. This bond gives them telepathy with their partner and the ability to share the higher of the two partners' initiative checks. There's a PC version of these, and they get large size, high strength, a breath weapon, draconic immunities, darkvision, flight (limited until 5th level), and that partner bond ability. They also get a list of weapons called "dragonglaives" that are electrified halberds. Kind of like the vesk but more interesting because A) they have an actual war as a plot hook and B) they're dragons. And they're even native to the Pact Worlds system! Alas.




Drow Enforcer (CR 1) and Drow Noble Arms Dealer (CR 11)

Have you heard that drow are evil matriarchal elves- oh, you've heard that? How about that they're ruthles- oh, yeah, you already knew that, I bet. Oh, slaves are new- no, that isn't new? Um. What do I say about drow? Well, apparently some have magical superpowers now due to genetic selection technology? That's kinda new. Wait, no, I think it was from earlier D&D stuff? Well, whatever.

You get a generic CR 1 statblock with a "taclash", laser rifle, shock grenades, and armor. There's also the CR 11 version that gets much higher numbers, longsword, sonic pistol, and a few extra dinky spell-like abilities including a "limning light" ability that allows them to cause a burst where the targets are lit even through a darkness spell. As PCs, they have darkvision, the elven immunities, the ability to cast dancing lights or detect magic, elven senses, and are blinded and penalized by light as per usual. Those who take the Psychic Power feat can gain the that limning light ability and consider themselves to be the special snowflake genetically enhanced drow nobles... well, okay, that's only implied. Anyway, drow! They're in here.

Next: E is for Mynocks.

Alien Rope Burn fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Nov 16, 2017

Simian_Prime
Nov 6, 2011

When they passed out body parts in the comics today, I got Cathy's nose and Dick Tracy's private parts.
So are 99% of the Alien Archive entries just “a D&D monster, but with a laser gun”?

wiegieman
Apr 22, 2010

Royalty is a continuous cutting motion


Simian_Prime posted:

So are 99% of the Alien Archive entries just “a D&D monster, but with a laser gun”?

Well you see instead of a longbow that does 1d8+3 damage they have a laser rifle that does 2d4+4 damage and it's totally different.

unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

Joe Slowboat posted:

If the dragon's also massively racist I guess.
Who doesn't love saying "I am the revolution" while reinstating slavery in the colonies and banning black veterans from Paris?
gently caress Napoleon.

There's an argument to be made that Napoleon didn't do this out of racism, but out of a personal grudge because Alexandre Dumas' father showed him up in Egypt because everyone there was like "Oh, wow, so tall, so powerful, so manly, he must be Napoleon!" and then the real thing showed up and was amazingly underwhelming, and also held petty-rear end grudges.

It's why Dumas repeatedly dunked on him in fiction.

Alien Rope Burn
Dec 5, 2004

I wanna be a saikyo HERO!

Simian_Prime posted:

So are 99% of the Alien Archive entries just “a D&D monster, but with a laser gun”?

Nah.

Not that originality helps it escape the pull of the Bland Hole that is Starfinger.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



Napoleon being a monster for petty reasons rather than power consolidation is still monstrous, for the record.

That being said, I imagine you've read The Black Count? I cannot recommend that account of the elder Dumas enough.

Also civil rights were introduced by the Revolutionary govt; Napoleon just kept some of them around. He also reintroduced looting to large-scale warfare and abandoned most of his army in Egypt after his campaign there, he is given far more credit than he deserves.

Joe Slowboat fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Nov 16, 2017

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

The fact so many people don't realize Alexander Dumas is black is a crying shame.

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unseenlibrarian
Jun 4, 2012

There's only one thing in the mountains that leaves a track like this. The creature of legend that roams the Timberline. My people named him Sasquatch. You call him... Bigfoot.

Joe Slowboat posted:

Napoleon being a monster for petty reasons rather than power consolidation is still monstrous, for the record.

That being said, I imagine you've read The Black Count? I cannot recommend that account of the elder Dumas enough.

Also civil rights were introduced by the Revolutionary govt; Napoleon just kept some of them around. He also reintroduced looting to large-scale warfare and abandoned most of his army in Egypt after his campaign there, he is given far more credit than he deserves.

Oh, no argument. The petty-rear end grudge interpretation makes him come off even worse, to my mind.

The Black Count is on my non-fiction TBR pile which grows continually. I was just really into Dumas in college.


Robindaybird posted:

The fact so many people don't realize Alexander Dumas is black is a crying shame.

To bring it back around to tabletop game discussion, there are people who don't realize Mike Pondsmith is black. (Which is probably not helped by white dudes trying to cadge free con invitations by pretending to be him.)

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