Josh's "Green Porn" setting project

[JonSetanta]

There is.

[Username17]

My thought is that the tadpoles mostly don't survive to be miniature kuo-toa who could be steeped in Kuo Toa culture. So parents have no direct contact with their specific children or even any real idea of which children are "theirs". When Kuo Toa get legs and make their first tentative steps out of the water, they get taken in by whatever Kuo Toa happen to find them if they aren't eaten by displacer beasts first. Kuo Toa go do the mating thing every year and lay dozens of eggs, but very few actually make it to adulthood.

And when a Kuo Toa gets a child to raise, it's basically like having a monkey in the house. It has fully functional hands, can walk on its own, and has no morals or language skills. Every Kuo Toa was basically a wild animal that was caught and domesticated by random Kuo Toa that probably weren't related to them at all.

Really drive home the alienness of the the world view.

-Username17

[Josh_Kablack]

And when a Kuo Toa gets a child to raise, it's basically like having a monkey in the house. It has fully functional hands, can walk on its own, and has no morals or language skills. Every Kuo Toa was basically a wild animal that was caught and domesticated by random Kuo Toa that probably weren't related to them at all.

That sort of culture would likely mean that they would occasionally "adopt" orphaned young of other PC races and raise them as Kuo-Toa. Thereby allowing for variations on "Tarzan of the apes", "and Mowgli was raised by wolves (see also Romulus and Remus)". So I like it.

[Josh_Kablack]

First thoughts on remaining racial cultures:

Lizardfolk:
Okay, so both penguins and seahorses eat small fish and crustaceans and both practice a form of serial monogamy. That's easy enough to do for lizardfolk, they fish the shallows and rivers and they have a courtship ritual where the female makes sure the male is suitable to incubate eggs and the male makes sure the female is suitable to have produced a viable egg, then they share in child rearing and if it goes well they repeat next mating season, if it goes poorly, they split and try a younger mate next year. I'm going to assume that the energy costs are split 50/50 resulting in actually zero sexual dimorphism. Since we're talking Crocodillians, they have clocal vents instead of exterior genitalia, and since females swell with unfertilized eggs and males incubate fertilized eggs, either gender can appear "pregnant". So both genders are practically identical - and I'll project that into a culture that does not gender differentiate at all. Both sexes participate substantially in child rearing, both sexes are expected to form war parties, etc etc.
This needs a little bit of work to seem as alien as it really is for a group of 21st century American players., but I think I can do it with details like the lizardfolk language lacking any gendered pronouns.

Changelings:
Still not sure if these and their wacky snail-inspired love dart hermaphroditism are included. If so, they probably show up with the humans whom they have been hiding among for centuries, allowing me to make references to crazy European conspiracies and the inherent racism (homophobia? see Alan Turing's final days) of the pseudo-Victorian culture. In the game world, the inquisition and witch hunts were actually about finding shapeshifters hiding amongst the human settlements.
This treatment means that they don't fully trust the psudeo-Victorian society and are eager to make connections and alliances with the strange new races, while at the same time being able to explain the human culture to the native more honestly than the humans themselves will.

Yuan-Ti:
Males and females physically fuse for life. This means that either A> only the females are playable and they collect smaller male attachments throughout their life, or B>I need stats for males, for females and for combined. In either case, this sort of thing seems to only happen for creatures where encounters between conspecifics are rare - but doing that for a PC race leaves a huge problem for how a culture can arise, either that's out the window, or some serious "The great snake spirit speaks to each one from childhood" magic needs to happen here.

Lamia:
Straight up lion polygamy. A harem of likely-related females shares one male, dimorphism is pronounced with manes and roars, females within a harem go into heat at staggered periods throughout the year(and not merely during a mating season) The sex ratio is like 10:1, but that's probably due to males actually killing each other in adolescence. The females do most of the hunting and child rearing and lone males wander around trying to either found or take over an existing harem by killing the current Tom and all the current litters. That's brutally tooth and claw-y enough that these may just get to be a non-playable monster race.

Slaad: These guys get to look enough like Kuo-Toa to confuse the human newcomers, but they aren't aquatic. Instead they live in and around the Great Desert. They also don't herd and they don't exactly lek. Instead they form loose communities around the rite of hunting the giant migratory PLACEHOLDER during the rainy season. Each season, a pack of males will form and work together to bring down a PLACEHOLDER and drag it miles into the arid desert until they find a female and her burrow. The pack enlarges the burrow, all the members of the pack mate with the female, who then lays her fertilized eggs into the gargantuan carcass. The males conceal the entrance, and then the pack splits up. The female remains behind and guards the burrow until the larvae emerge - the mother then instructs the young ones in the ways of GIANT FROG.



Some of those seem to work, and some I'm not happy with...comments?

[Username17]

The Lizardfolk setup you have there seems great for Pratchett's Dwarf Courtship thing. Where the first part of courtship is very cautiously attempting to inquire whether the other person is a different sex from you.

-Username17

[angelfromanotherpin]

The Lizardfolk setup you have there seems great for Pratchett's Dwarf Courtship thing. Where the first part of courtship is very cautiously attempting to inquire whether the other person is a different sex from you.

-Username17

Hilarity.

[the_taken]

Some of those seem to work, and some I'm not happy with...comments?

Replace PLACEHOLDER with Tarrasque.

[Josh_Kablack]

With the current roughs, it's looking like I have a couple additional big distinctions to make for the humans:


1. They are the only race that is organized around the concept of anything as large as a Nation. The other races have families, prides, packs, clans, hives, tribes, villages and a few of them think loosely in terms of the entire race (drayads, kuo-toa), but the humans with their ambitions of expanding Empire are the only ones of think of nation-states and loyalty to a far distant King or Queen instead of loyalty to a nearby and approachable elder, pack leader, or chieftain.

2. They are the only race with significant metalworking technology. This would be a big deal with D&D's armor and weapon rules, but the native races are going to get forms of mineral magic and biomancy to compensate for otherwise being neolithic. While the humans have steel swords, the natives supplement their stone axes with dire mammoth tusk blades and fire diamond tipped spears and such.

[JonSetanta]

I like the Slaad take.

PLACEHOLDER should be any Large or bigger beast, such as dragons and giants.

[RadiantPhoenix]

The DMs guide has dragonhide for armor, and the draconomicon has a plethora of 'dragoncraft items', with their own special magical effects. These seem like they might be a good fit for the role of rare weapons to supplement stone-age armament, or at least a good start.

[Username17]

Africans did of course have iron and steel before the Europeans came. Shaka's Zulus did not wear much in the way of metal armor, but the Malians did (also, poisoned their weapons). Still, what you want in terms of armor is Chitin armor from the Arms and Equipment Guide. Because people killing Ankhegs to get heavy armor is awesome. And because Chitin Armor is pretty good.

3e Rhino Hide is pretty epic too. It got nerfed to shit in 3.5. But then of course, you're playing in 4e, where it doesn't fucking matter what anything is, because it all counts as Light Armor II or some shit regardless.

-Username17

[Josh_Kablack]

PLACEHOLDER should be any Large or bigger beast, such as dragons and giants.

My original thought was Purple Worm, but giant sandworms in the dessert are overplayed at this point. Plus the innuendo would get way too think with a gang of males presenting a giant purple worm to a waiting female.

Replace PLACEHOLDER with Tarrasque.

Tempting- but then Tarrasque has to be a non-unique beast, and probably less than CR 20. Still a colossal, ferocious land-turtle thing with a carapace that resists magic and occasional bursts of speed is probably a good prey animal here.

you're playing in 4e,

That's the easier option, but it's not certain yet. It's a question of if I whether I want to spend the time to add a bunch of houserules to the 3.x ruleset and then explain them to my players (at least one of whom is totally new to to the base 3.x ruleset ) or whether I can put up with the mechanical nusiances of 4e in exchange for less time writing and explaining rules in exchange for more time actually running a game.


But yes, Ankheg Chitin armor and Rhino Hide are exactly the sort of flavor I want.

[Josh_Kablack]

So the actual group preference is for some sort of 3.x game, with only one strong dissenter in the group.

And at least chargen has to be ready to go on Mon Dec 6th.

Looking over my own 3.j houserules, there are too many and they don't simplify things enough. So my thinking is run a partial-tome game. I'd pulling in many of the classes from the Tomes and go with the Race of Wars backgrounds, feats and armors (with rhino hide and ankheg chitin and such subbed in and some tagged as "steel" with others tagged as "grown" or other minimal distinction).

The game is probably limited 3rd to 10th level, with slower advancement - so PCs won't be expected to enter the wish economy, and I want more of an exploration and politcs feel than a demons, devils and zombies feel - so I can probably ignore Tome of Necro and Tome of Fiends

Crappy as it is, in the interest of time and compatibility I think I stick with the 3.x core skill system (but allow generous defaulting and define actual tactical uses for monster knowledges). Languages also stay largely core - in that we get racial languages (gnoll, goblin, etc), elemental/environmental languages (terran, ignan, aquan, auran, sylvan), a couple trade languages (common becomes Suntrade, undercommon becomes Moontrade) and a couple secret/code languages (druidic becomes something else -likely the alignment languages) while decipher script is needed to puzzle out pre-cataclysm hieroglyphs from the gith and others.

So my highest priority task is to get a player readable and mechanics-ready race list and pointers to the relevant tome classes, feats and equipment together.

So here's the list of races and some starting stat roughs

Humans: +2 to any stat of choice, +1 feat, +1 skill at max ranks. Automatically proficient with firearms.
Language: Human
Bonus Languages: Suntrade, Moontrade, Terran, Ignan, Aquan, Auran, Sylvan

Bugbears: +2 Str, +2 Con, Natural Armor (mor maybe DR 2/-), either Large or Medium but get to wield weapons and have melee reach as if they were large size. Darkvision 30' Immune to fear effects.
Language: Goblin, Suntrade.
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Gnoll, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Moontrade.

Changelings: blahblahblah Alter Self to any humanoid form at will
Language: Human, Suntrade, Moontrade
Bonus Language Any (even secret languages)

Dryads: +2 Wis +2 Cha, get +2 to sense motive and knowledge: nature checks and get an Ancestral Memory ability that works something like Bardic Knowledge.
Language: Dryad, Kobold
Bonus Languages: Suntrade, Moontrade, Dryad, Gnoll, Goblin, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad

Gnolls: +2 Str +2 Dex. +2 to Intimidate and Survival Checks, only need one successful save to fight off the effects of Posion and Disease and get to take a standard action below while at or below 0 HP.
Language: Gnoll, Lamia
Bonus Languages: Suntrade, Dryad, Goblin, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Human

Goblins: +2 Dex, +2 Wis. Get to be small. get a +2 racial bonus to Move Silently, Listen and Spot, get darkvision 60", get SOMETHING ELSE
Language: Goblin, Suntrade.
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Gnoll, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Moontrade

Hobgoblins: +2 Dex +2 Con, +4 move silently, darkvision 60", get SOMETHING ELSE
Language: Goblin, Suntrade.
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Gnoll, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Yuan-Ti, Moontrade

Kobolds: +2 Dex +2 Int, scent, burrow 10' round, small size, +2 to Search, +2 to Disable Device
Languages: Kobold, Dryad
Bonus Languages: Gnoll, Goblin, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Yuan-Ti, Moontrade

Kuo-Toa +2 Con, +2 Cha Aquatic, Swim speed, Whenever a Kuo-Toa deals electric damage from any source (spell, item, weapon, or ability) they deal an additional amount of electric damage equal to their character level magic, +2 to knowledge:nature and handle animal,
Language: Kuo-Toa, Gnoll
Bonus Languages: Dryad,Goblin, Kobold, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Yuan-Ti, Suntrade, Aquan, Human

Lamia: +2 Str, +2 Cha, low-light vision, get a sprint ability to move at a greatly increased speed for a number of rounds equal to their Con score, +2 Climb +2 Jump +2 Swim +2 Gather Info
Language: Lamia, Suntrade
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Gnoll, Goblin, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Yuan-Ti, Moontrade.

Lizardfolk: +2 Con, +2 Wis, Aquatic, Swim speed. +2 to balance and tumble, automatically proficient with the net and Bola. Tail provides a +4 bonus to trip or resist a trip attempt
Language: Lizardfolk
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Gnoll, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Yuan-Ti, Suntrade, Aquan.

Pixies +2 Dex, +2 Cha size Tiny. Get to fly at twice their land speed for a limited number of rounds that increases with level. Get to detect magic, daze and lullaby as at-will SLAs. get a poison sting of some sort.
Language: Pixie, Suntrade
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Gnoll, Goblin, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad, Auran, Moontrade

Slaad: +2 Con +2 Int. +2 to any single knowledge of choice. May cast Resist Elements on themselves as a 1/day SLA Slippery: Sladd may make a check to escape a grapple as an swift action
Language: Slaad
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Goblin, Gnoll, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Yuan-Ti, Suntrade

Yuan-Ti (male) (female) (combined) er um STUFFGOESHERE
Language: Yuan-Ti, ___Trade
Bonus Languages: Dryad, Gnoll, Goblin, Kobold, Kuo-Toa, Lamia, Lizardfolk, Pixie, Slaad

[Josh_Kablack]

On a different subject, I want to think about resources and fantastic materials:

Non-fictional resources which are sometimes going to be big deals are: Salt, Iron Ore, Timber, Gum Arabic, Marula Fruit and Ivory. Seasonally and locationally Fresh Water and Snow are also huge.

Fictional resources which are just slight twists on real-world substances are Dryad dung/honeydew, Ankheg Chitin, Dragonhide, Sea Cat oil, and Tarrasque Carapace.

Then I'm gonna pull some crazy crap offa the wikipedia fictional elements page and twist a few of them:

Arenak: Epoxy-like substance that when catalyzed by salt hardens greatly. Used by some races to form armors.

Balthazate: White or clear crystals found in underground mines and caverns. Become unstable when exposed to light and heat and can explode violently

Blurite: A rare lightweight bluish-tinged stone mostly used for decoration as it is soft enough to be easily carved. Of particular import recently as it is easily confused with Claudia.

Claudia/Cavorite: This stone emits a faint blue glow and is found naturally in solid form (Claudia). It can be polished to increase the brightness of the glow and is used in native jewelry and decoration. However, when heated into liquid form (Cavorite) it generates an anti-gravity field which the humans use to levitate their airships.

Durallium: A strange metal alloy found only in the ruins of the Lost Ones. It is resistant to most magics.

Illudium: A phosphorescent moss. Used to make smokeless torches. Also ground to powder and used by charlatans to make Bluerite chips glow as if they were Claudia

Philotes: These obsidian-like crystal is used as a form of long distance communication. If a single sheet is broken, each chip from that sheet will still resonate whenever any of the other chips is struck, allowing for a sort of telegraph to be set up among the bearers of the chips. This effect lasts for roughly one moon after the initial sheet is broken.

[Orca]

Depending on the availability of healing casters, natural cures (herbs, various animal products, whatever - take a look at a copy of RoleMaster if you need inspiration) might be important trade goods.

Trading wool made England rich for a long time. The Silk Road was a big deal once too.

[JonSetanta]

Pixies are a step above the rest...

[Josh_Kablack]

Depending on the availability of healing casters, natural cures (herbs, various animal products, whatever - take a look at a copy of RoleMaster if you need inspiration) might be important trade goods.

Trading wool made England rich for a long time. The Silk Road was a big deal once too.

I've actually run Rolemaster with two of the members of this group playing before.

And I totally need a variety of animal hides, furs, scales, silk, etc all twigged to fantastic animals as well as actual monsters.

Pixies are a step above the rest...

They still may flip to being Neogi. If they stay pixies, the flight may end up being fatiguing or something to limit it. And I'm strongly leaning towards either reducing size mods or allowing a bunch of feats and abilities that allow characters to ignore them, so the micro-sniper won't dominate.

[Josh_Kablack]

Next, let's think classes

Current Available Class List:
Swording and Shooting Fools: Barbarian (tome), Knight(tome), Ranger (core), Samurai (tome),
Sneaking: Assassin (tome), Jester (tome), Rogue (core), Thief Acrobat (tome)
Spelling: Fire Mage (forum) renamed Green Mage (forum) Sandmage (forum),Snowscaper (forum), Warmage (forum)
Duct-Taping: Spirit Shaman (forum) White Mage (forum)
WTF: Totemist (forum) Witch (forum)

that's 16 all together and at least 2 for each of the usual bases, so that'll cover everything - in fact I may want to edit a few out.

Older thoughts and links hidden

Core:Rogue is in,
BBN and Monk are replaced by tome variants
Bard and Fighter are out for suckage
Cleric is out, for theological baggage and heavy armor. Instead healing classes are the Spirit Shaman and the
White Mage
Paladin is out for theological baggage and heavy armor, replacements are the Races of War Knight and Samurai.
Core wizard and sorcerer are out for being too generalist. Instead I'll go with the Warmage, The Fire Mage, and maybe the Snowscaper or any other narrower-than-wizard, but flavorful arcane blaster type that anyone wants to link me to. If Kou-Toa get a bonus to lighting magic, they gotta be able to get lighting magic.

Druid and Ranger give me pause though. They are both very setting appropriate, but I am concerned that Druids are at the top of the power curve and all look alike. Conversely I am concerned that rangers will not be competitive with the Tome classes included.

Sharpshooter is interesting as a partial ranger replacement, especially with firearms in the game - but probably doesn't cover the hunter/tracker nature warrior side enough by itself.

And I suppose that the Totemist and The Witch could fill parts of the Druid Niche


Dungeonomicon Assassin, Monk, and Thief Acrobat are fine. Jester largely works too, but I have flavor concerns

Races of WarThe Barbarian is in. Fighter is out due to complexity concerns. Knight and Samurai are in, with mild flavor concerns.

[Username17]

If Kou-Toa get a bonus to lighting magic, they gotta be able to get lighting magic.

A solid complaint. You could try The Puppeteer or the Green Mage if you were so inclined.

Or you know, we could just write some specific ones for whatever element wheel your setting wants to use.

-Username17

[Josh_Kablack]

Or I could rewrite that incomplete alpha race draft to give the kuo-toa a different bonus - but they are historically associated with lightning in D&D.

Or you know, we could just write some specific ones for whatever element wheel your setting wants to use.
-Username17

Due to time and compatibility, I think I'm stuck with the fire/cold/lightning/acid/sonic/dozenotherhiddentypes (positive, negative, light, force, alignments, poison, divine power, etc) that 3.x uses

But I would be very pleased if someone would tweak the Fire Mage / Snowscaper /Green Mage into Storm and Sand variants. The Storm variant should get lightning for the Koa-Tou and should be tuned for synergy in coastal areas and during seasonal monsoons and the Sand variant should be awesome for the desert.
I might just find the time for that someone to be me.

[TarkisFlux]

You mean like Kaelik's Storm Lord?

[Josh_Kablack]

Thanks, but the amount of Nerf Bat I would have to bring to that Storm Lord is such that it would be easier to write my own version.

Edit: The Green Mage, Spirit Shaman, Warmage and Totemist all get some electric/lightning attacks. So with those all in I'm just going to let Kuo-Toa add their character level to any electric damage they deal from any source - whether spell, ability or weapon - and that'll steer them heavily towards using shock weapons.

[Josh_Kablack]

Now to see if this is workable, some potential adventure hooks, tied to the various races:

Human:
* A skyship with a full cargo of cavorite crashed. Recover the cargo before brigands do and try discover what caused the crash
* Some Kuo-Toa have dammed up the Softsnail River, but Lord Allen needs to get his timber loads out to sea before the dry season. Negotiate a settlement, break the blockage, or find an alternate route.

Goblins
* The rainy season is almost upon us, so it's time for the annual frost wyrm culling. The goblins will pay a generous bounty for each wyrm skull you can bring to the base of the mountain at the next new moon.
* There are those who say it is too warm for the goblins to whelp as the frost witch Yuki is holding back the snow this year. Find her and end her meddling so that we will have snow before whelping season.

Changelings
* Do not repeat this too loudly, but there are those who say Lady Allen is herself is a changeling. Find a way to prove the truth of this and I will pay you handsomely. If she is I will be able to blackmail the Lord and if she is not, she will owe me for defending her honor.
* Rumour is there are Changelings are now hiding amongst the Gnoll tribes. But are they hiding from themselves from the gnolls or from the humans?

Dryads:
* Something beneath the ground has slain the kobolds in our hive. Clear the tunnels and find us a kobold colony expedition
* The human Allen has razed the groves of our sisters. There are not enough trees left to support our daughters. Steal one of his skyships to find us new groves on the Isles

Gnolls
* The Moonspot clan was tricked into inducting a human using disguise magic as one of their own. This human stole away with their Matriarch's Durallium spear. Unless the spear can be returned and the trickster properly exiled from the clan, the Moonspots will have to go to war.
* The only way for Lopear to win acceptance into new clan is to bring back the flames of a fire wyrm. she's looking for companions to help her track one down.

Kobolds:
* A family of woodwyrms is eating the southern fork hive's dryads faster than we can breed them.
* I hear that a hive of kobolds far to the West has unearthed a great cache of Durallium blades in a grave of the ancients. They might be willing to trade them

Kuo-Toa
* We will pay you to guard our village during the month of pilgrimage. These infidels do not respect the customs, show them no quarter. But maintain our traditions of hospitality to anyone else.

Lamia
* A pride of Lamia and a pack of Gnolls are in dispute over a water hole and which kills are due to each species. Drive one of them off or help them reach a compromise.
* When the rains do not fall and the herds do not roam, beware that Lamia may hunt you.

Lizardfolk
* The Lizardfolk have been buying more nets than usual. I heard a few murmur about riversnakes as long as their village.

Pixies
* There's an epidemic spreading through the herds of the pixies. They will pay greatly for curing magic.
* In the high jungle, there are savage pixies, who never learnt to herd Kalulu, instead they prey on any warm-blood larger than themselves

Slaad:
* There are whispers that a great sandmage has turned from hunting Tarrasque to hunting skyships

[Orca]

And I totally need a variety of animal hides, furs, scales, silk, etc all twigged to fantastic animals as well as actual monsters.

OK, Eberron had a few odd fabrics. Also, their 'extra material components' might be more useful if they were more reliable.

Spidersilk has to exist as a fabric if you're getting into fantasy trade goods. Phase spider silk might be completely transparent, to lend a new twist on the Emperor's New Clothes.

Roc feathers would be huge, so people could probably find a use for their shed feathers; airship propellor blades? Spear shafts? Choose any fire-dwelling creature you like the sound of for fire-resistant hide. Nothing says badass like wearing dragonscale.

[Josh_Kablack]

I like Roc-feather spears and I really idea of Phase Spider silk. I think it shoud "phase" in and out, so that it's the wearer's choice whether it's transparent (or outright ethereal?) or not.

The next favor I need to ask is for some to hunt up the various scattered list of additional tome feats and armours around this forum and provide some links.