Kitchen Sink Roleplaying

[NoDot]

In response to "But they MUST be shallow!", would Rogueport (PM:TTYD) be a counterexample?

[Username17]

In response to "But they MUST be shallow!", would Rogueport (PM:TTYD) be a counterexample?

I have never played a Paper Mario game, but looking through the wiki for that location: No.

-Username17

[NoDot]

Which wiki?

Mario Wiki: Rogueport
Also: Glitzville

As you haven't played TTYD, this LP segment traipses around both.

[Username17]

The first wiki is the one I was using. According to it, one of the main races in the city has as one of their primary racial traits the fact that they are carrying a spear. Seriously. Shallow does not begin to cover it.

Paper Mario's Rogueport would seem to be a classic illustration of the limits of a kitchen sink setting. No one knows how the bird men work, or how the guys with trees growing out of their head reproduce. It can only be interacted with in an extremely simple fashion, because there is no depth. To anything. And to a certain extent, that's OK. It's a computer game, so you can only do what the game tells you that you can do by having the programmers add the option, so it's not important whether you could "logically" do something else or even know what your character could"logically" do under any circumstances.

Gygax was sort of right when he said that players do not have the personal experience or perspective to play a Kuo-Toa. They can' tell you what Kuo-Toa food is like in Greyhawk because the books don't say. The only way you can answer those kinds of fundamental questions is to be granted author privileges - something that Gygax would never do. For Gygax's playstyle and world, things that weren't aggressively human-like really couldn't be given to the players. Much of the game was simply describing the physical actions of your character based on what your character could physically do based on them being a person. To discuss whether your character could reach behind the dresser and get the blue key, you needed to know how many elbows your character had - and that information simply did not exist in official format for Kuo-Toa. Thus, to answer that question, you'd have to empower the player with the ability to write in a number of elbows (and all other such things). And Gygax totally did not approve of giving authorial powers to the players. Meanwhile, Gygax saw no problem with Kuo-Toa in the DM's hands, because the DM did have authorial power over Kuo-Toa elbows.

-Username17

[Mask_De_H]

Frank: Realized that I was thinking in mechanical terms. As in for someone who wanted to play the other sinkers, they could just match up defining personality traits and run from there. Conceptually yeah, the big 13 are irreplacable and I didn't mean to imply that they weren't.

So Tanuki are sentient Nut Sack because they can take the guise of human but stay in Nut Sack most of the time, but the other henges stay in totally bangable humanoid form by default and only turn under certain circumstances and are thus beastmen? So Viral counts and Spiral!Boota doesn't count which makes sense.

[God_of_Awesome]

So what is the difference between a DM saying 'Oh, everything exists in my setting' to 'Well, just this very long list of things exists in my setting' to even 'Everything exists in this world but the immediate area you'll be interacting with just has all this'?

[CatharzGodfoot]

So Tanuki are sentient Nut Sack because they can take the guise of human but stay in Nut Sack most of the time, but the other henges stay in totally bangable humanoid form by default and only turn under certain circumstances and are thus beastmen? So Viral counts and Spiral!Boota doesn't count which makes sense.

First of all, Tanuki aren't sentient "nut sacks", although they might occasionally appear that way to a casual observer. They're raccoon dogs known for having magic "nut sacks":


Second, their 'real' forms are just that of a raccoon dog. While they can often take human form, it's no more iconic that teakettle form:


Anyway, I think they're directly in the same category as bear-men and monkey-men: mythological animals that are humanoid enough already to be considered a humanoid race in and RPG.

[Judging__Eagle]

I believe that the "red panda" Fiendish Brute cohort for one of my PCs, that hasn't been fully finalized, will be also be a Tea Kettle Tanuki.

How well do Tanuki relate to say... lighting?

I know that Japan has lots of mythology regarding storms, and such, but I'm not sure if there are any "lighting dogs" or such.

[Mask_De_H]

Catharz, I don't think we're disagreeing. I posited that since Tanuki are sentient beasts that take the guise of man, they should be counted with Kitsune and Nekomusume. Frank disagreed, saying that their normal form is that of a raccoon dog with a giant nutsack, and as such, fit under the same category as the Phoenix. Saying human form is just as special to them as Teakettle form is a point towards Frank's contention, and as such goes aganst both what I said two posts back and your own last paragraph.

And I was trying to make Nut Sack the new Giant Frog, since they're both strange and terrible to behold.

J_E, if I remember correctly, absolutely fuck-all.

[Kaelik]

FYI lighting and lightning are two different things.

[Username17]

Giants
A thing to note about Giants is that they often simply shrink from one generation to another. For some, this is simply a matter of the creatures growing throughout their lives like trees, a Cloud Gian'ts son will never reach his height as long as the father still lives. But for others, there is jut some raw power that isn't inherited genetically, at least, not always. The Rimtursar are frickin titanic, while their children the Nifel Giants are merely extremely large, and their children the Jotun are merely big.

• Troll Big of stature and disproportionately long of nose, trolls of today generally heal super fast because that's how they were written in Three Hearts and Three Lions. Germanic.
• Ogre Big and cruel and hungry, the Ogre is perhaps the classic giant that could plausibly fit into your house. French.
• Stone Giants Tremendous men with stonelike skin. Appear in legends all over the world. They have a penchant for stone throwing and catching in Dungeons & Dragons because they were written that way in Tolkien.
• Cloud Giants The huge men who hail from castles in the clouds. They appear in such German stories as The Valiant Tailor and Jack and the Beanstalk.
• Jotun More manageably sized giants that are descended from Nifel or Muspel giants. While still being resistant to cold or heat, they no longer are surrounded by radiation of that kind of temperature. Norse.
• Nifel Giants Blue skinned giants descended from the Rimtursar. They are accompanied by a fearful wind of deathly cold. Often try to steal summer so that the Rimtursar can come back. Norse.
• Rimtursar Ancient titans made out of Ice from the time before time. They spawned the Nifel Giants, and were banished from the world. Norse.
• Muspel Giants Muspel Giants are fire giants who are descended from Surtr. They have back skin and can bring forth flames on their bodies or their weapons. Roughly equivalent to Nifel Giants in strength. Norse.
• Anakim Large people descended from the Rephaim, but with more human features.
• Ettins Hideous Giants with two heads. The name is originally a corruption of “Jotun” into English, but the two heads thing is from C.S.Lewis.
• Rephaim 4 meter tall (and more) giants that speak in an insectile drone. They are consumate necromancers, and may of them are undead. Jewish.
• Emim Numerous and terrifying giants, descendants of the Rephaim. Jewish.
• Asura Huge, fanged giants from the time before time, usually with red or black skin. Hindu.
• Titans Enormous and sometimes monstrous giants from the time before time. Greek
• Dakini Large, red skinned women who fly and collect humanoid skulls. Buddhist.
• Fomori Hideously deformed giants. Celtic mythology.
• Gugs Shaggy giants with sideways mouths. From H.P.Lovecraft.
• Drekavac Gaunt giants that kill with a terrifying scream. Serbian mythology.
• Cyclops One eyed giants. Greek.
• Daityas Red and gold giants with strange magic powers. Hindu.
• Danavas Ocean dwelling, red skinned giants. Hindu.
• Centimani Tremendous giants with one hundred hands. Roman (see also: Ravana from Hinduism)
• Oni Big, horned, savage, gluttonous, and slothful ogres from Japanese mythology.
• Si-te-Cah Red haired, cannibalistic giants who use magic to control grass. Paiute mythology.
• Kapres Large shaggy ogres that can pass through wood like a human can pass through air. Philippine mythology.
• Jentilak Huge, hairy giants that throw stones and even themselves tremendous distances. They build castles out of stone because they can control where stones go. Basque.
• Dispodes Colossal people who are depressive libertines even by French standards.
• Fir Bolg Big red haired people. Celtic mythology.
• Dai Bakemono Big goblins. Like a giant that was a big Goblin instead of a big human. Japanese.
• Sasquatch Big furry humanoids that live in the woods. American Folklore.
• Yeti Big, white furred humanoids that live in the snowy mountains. Tibetan Folklore.

[A Man In Black]

[*]Ogre Big and cruel and hungry, the Ogre is perhaps the classic giant that could plausibly fit into your house. French.

Coincidentally, Andre the Giant was also French.

[Username17]

My research is by no means complete. For example:

• The Tuskarr of World of Warcraft are clearly public domain as a concept, because the Aleut have Walrus men, and they are basically the same as "The Walrus" in Alice Through the Looking Glass. But I have no idea what name Walrus People have in mythology because I do not speak Aleut.
• Storm Giants from D&D abound in pre-Gygaxian literature. Typhon, from Greek Mythology is a Storm Giant, but again I have no idea what the people as a whole were called.
• My knowledge of African folklore is abominably sketchy. And I do not know what the tool-using Gorilla men are called.

My thought is merely how to go about filling every page in a Monster Manual and PHB with public domain material.

[Username17]

The Things From Beyond

The Kitchen Sink isn't content to have a world that is filled up with more things than you could ever meet in your entire adventuring career. It has many worlds that are each filled with more stuff than you could ever imagine. Still, these can be useful, because having things be from outside the world proper can be a great explanation for why and how they are destabilizing the world now, and weren't doing that five minutes ago before the current adventure began. A monster can be in imminent danger of saving or destroying the world, and still not get questions about why it wasn't doing that last week if it is from sufficiently far away.

• Outsiders
• Succubus Demons that become sexy ladies or men (sometimes called “Incubi”). Originally Latin.
• Niutou These are the Ox Head Demons that guard the underworld. They are physically similar to Minotaurs or Yak Folk, but they are full of fire that is plainly visible through their mouths and nostrils. Chinese folklore.
• Mamien These are the Horse Faced Demons that guard the underworld. They look kind of like Chess Knights. Chinese folklore.
• Sandhyabalas Fanged creatures made of darkness and moonbeams. Hindu mythology.
• Asrapas Red skinned warrior maidens who drink blood and fly. Hindu Mythology.
• Valkyries Nordic warrior maidens who drink blood and fly.
• Behemoth The word simply means “stupidly huge animal” and therefore references elephants. It has been taken by the French to be a gigantic humanoid, and elephant headed demon. Appears in Dungeons & Dragons as a “Maelephant.”
• Imps Tiny, man-shaped things with stubby wings.
• Seraph A whirling maelstrom full of eyes held aloft by seven wings.
• Cherubim A tremendous lion with the wings of an eagle and extra heads sticking out of its shoulders. It has a bull head to the left and a man's head to the right.
• Yithian A conical creature with four grasping tentacles from the apex. Two tentacles end in manipulators, and the other two end in sense organs. They see backwards and forwards in time, and are from Mythos materials.
• Shoggoth Amorphous beings from beyond, they can take specific forms, nut only hold them temporarily.
• Byakhee Skeletal flying creatures that travel between the worlds on astral threads.
• Bai Gu Jing A white bone demon from Chinese mythology. Appears as a “Bone Fiend” in Dominions and an “Osyluth” in Dungeons & Dragons.
• Ifrit Beings made of smokeless fire from Islamic lore. Spelled “Efreet” in Dungeons & Dragons.
• Djinn Magical humanoids who have great sorcerous powers. Also spelled “Jinn,” “Genie,” and “Jani.” It's important to remember that in the original source material, granting a “wish” was just them doing something on your behalf, with their vast (but presumably finite) sorcerous power.
• Marid A special kind of Ifrit or Djinn from Islamic lore that is associated with th water.
• Hali From Slavic lore (singular “Hala”). It is a female stormcloud filled with dozens of crow wings that can take the form of a serpent or a woman and destroys crops with storms and has a hugely gluttonous appetite.
• Drudes Giant bumblebees that can assume human form to seduce people or get close enough to them to kick the crap out of them, as explained by Spanish theologians.
• Didko A humanoid swine with ram's horns that breathes fire and has iron scales. Ukrainian mythology.
• Devas Blue skinned humanoids of awesome power with or without extra limbs or wings. From Hindu scripture (as good guys) and Zoroastrian scripture (as villains). Appear in Dungeons & Dragons as Planetars.
• Tuchulcha Estruscan demon with a beak and a whole lot of snakes coming out every which way. Something similar appears in many modern Japanese works.
• Erinyes Winged lady warriors who fly around avenging stuff and drinking blood. Greek.
• Gogs & Magogs Giant devil-looking dudes who control fire. Appear in the Heroes of Might and Magic games as human size, and are much larger in their depictions in Dungeons & Dragons under the names Cornugon and Pit Fiend. Jewish.
• Morrigan Giant crows with cow horns that are attracted to and cause wars. Celtic.
• Fachen Half human, super strong, and able to control chains, the Fachen has a glare that drives men insane and can even scare them to death. Appears in Dungeons & Dragons as a “Kyton.”
• Varcolac Demonic wolves that hatch from eggs that they lay in human babies and fight to destroy the sun. Romanian.
• Pretas Hungry ghostly things that are wracked by an insatiable thirst and attack things almost without control. Hindu.
• Grigori Huge, strangely colored people with goat parts and wings. Jewish.
• Palakashas Tiger headed Rakshasa demons. Hindu.
• Lamasthus Lion bodied tauric women who can spit snakes. Mesopotamian.
• Tzitzimitls Skeletal ladies who rattle as they fly around and shoot star lasers at things. Aztec.
• Ozelotl Giant jaguars with huge bat wings. Aztec.
• Cabrakan Humanoid Alligators with wings with bright plumage. They burrow extremely fast and are incredibly strong. Mayan.
• Camazotz Also called the “Death Bat” or “Sudden Bloodletter.” Zapotec.
• Rahovart A black stone that can trigger earthquakes or take over peoples' bodies through soul transference. French.
• Psoglav Lumbering humanoids with dog heads and only one eye. Bosnian.
• Shezmu Lion with a Falcon head and wings that can drain blood out of people and make fruit into wine. Egyptian.
• Toyol A floating creature that appears as a collection of thumbs and toes. Steals stuff, and is very playful. Indonesian.

[Koumei]

What kind of giant would The Wild Things be?

Also, there is one other Outsider I can name from public domain: the Ophanim, which appeared as wheels of fire. Closest match seen in any modern source that I can think of is the first form of Armissael (the worm Angel) in Evangelion.

[Prak]

I'd say the Wild Things are Ogres with a slightly more sympathetic paint job. Really they're manifestations of a depressed, self centered child's over active imagination. So, yeah, they're ogres, but because they're the product of a child's mind, they're not too horrific.

[CatharzGodfoot]

[*] The Tuskarr of World of Warcraft are clearly public domain as a concept, because the Aleut have Walrus men, and they are basically the same as "The Walrus" in Alice Through the Looking Glass. But I have no idea what name Walrus People have in mythology because I do not speak Aleut.

As I said earlier, in D&D they're called "thanoi".

[God_of_Awesome]

Let's be vagualy racist and call them the Aleut.

[Lokathor]

My thought is merely how to go about filling every page in a Monster Manual and PHB with public domain material.

Would this include public domain rules text? That's a project I can get behind, if Tome style stuff were integrated right into the rules and the full text was public domain and all, then that'd be really awesome.

[A Man In Black]

As I said earlier, in D&D they're called "thanoi".

Specifically, in Dragonlance they're called thanoi.

[Username17]

The creatures in Where the Wild Things Are are probably Oni.

The Thanoi are just as owned by Dragonlance as he Tuskarr are by Warcraft. But Walrus People per se are open source. Just don't have a name for them.

Would this include public domain rules text? That's a project I can get behind, if Tome style stuff were integrated right into the rules and the full text was public domain and all, then that'd be really awesome.

That would be the idea, yeah.

-Username17

[CatharzGodfoot]

I see. I'm guessing that the mythological walri were just called "walruses" or "walrus people".

...in Aleut, amak or amaghak; in Inuit, aivik

I do think that both "amak" and "amaghak" have a nice ring.

[Mask_De_H]

So to fill space for the MM, we could slot in basic monster templates for each overgroup, then slot in subclasses/power sets for variance. That'd be cool.

May I use this for the 5th Edition project?

[Username17]

So to fill space for the MM, we could slot in basic monster templates for each overgroup, then slot in subclasses/power sets for variance. That'd be cool.

May I use this for the 5th Edition project?

Follow your bliss.

While the 4e player roles are really dreadful and bad for creativity and bad for the game, and don't make any sense, aren't balanced, and aren't even fully conceptualized even now, I think the 4e idea of monster roles really had potential. The DM basically has only a couple of minutes to work out tactics for a monster. So telling the DM "This monster is an Artillery Monster, it stands back avoiding melee and delivers punishing ranged attacks." is fine. More than fine, that's really helpful.

But yeah, I figure that it needs some template applications that are easier to do and more transformative. If you face a Grigori that s a death knight, it should really wade in and beat on things. If it has a dark witch template instead, it should hang back and cast. But a big part of that is jst making sure that attack numbers scale properly. In 4e you can't really scale or modify a monster very well because the 3rd level monster has an attack that does 2d6+3, and a 12th level monster has 2 attacks that do 2d8+5 and have a Daze rider, and a level 14 monster has an attack that does 2d6+7. There's no rhyme or reason to it. If the attacks and riders scale logically, then you can have your Red Dragon be an Oracle and have its fire breath still matter now that it is higher level.

The 4e Monster Manual could have been something if they made things more interesting and let it scale a bit. As is, it has 176 monsters and was a huge and deliberate space waster. It very easily could have had a presentation that showed more monsters and let each monster do more duty in the same or less page space. But still, I think that 200 monsters in the Monster Manual is a pretty good target.

-Username17

[Username17]

Anyway, there are a lot of public domain fairies.

• Fey
• Huldra A seductive forest spirit from Norway
• Naiad Female personifications of bodies of water.
• Nakki A deadly water dwelling lady from Finnish folklore that fears light.
• Nixie A water sprite.
• Nymph A spirit lady from a body of water.
• Oread The personification of a mountain or stone.
• Pixie A tiny flying humanoid fairy. Exemplified by Tinkerbell from Peter Pan. Not very similar to the comparatively huge Pixies in Dungeons & Dragons.
• Sprite Small flying fairies that can turn invisible. Roughly equivalent to the Dungeons & Dragons Pixie.
• Myconid Trippy walking mushroom people, originally from Dungeons & Dragons, but liberally stolen all over the place, appearing in Final Fantasy and Castlevania games under that name.
• Dryad Elf women who are spiritually connected to a tree.
• Treant Sapient, walking trees. Basically the same as Tolkien's “Ents” but called Treants to avoid legal problems.
• Sirins Women whose song lures people, often to their deaths. May transform into or have traits of an animal, generally a fish, a song bird, or an owl depending upon whether you're dealing with a Mediterranean or Russian version.
• Yakshas Glorious to behold, and physically large humanoids who have power over earth, water, and wood. Formiddabe warriors. Hindu.
• Apsaras Beautiful dancing people made out of cloud-stuff. Hindu.
• Gandharvas Handsome musician nature spirits. Also formidable warriors. Hindu.
• Yuki Ona Pretty women made out of snow. Japanese
• Tuatha Basically like an Elf, but more badass in exchange for fearing iron. Celtic.
• Brownie Tiny, largely helpful people. Like Gnomes, but way smaller.
• Lutin Smallish, winged people. French.
• Leprechauns Warwick Davis. Irish.
• Tylwyth Teg By all appearances, golden children who shed light. Very trickstery, and shockingly stealthy for something that is practically on fire. Welsh.
• Inari Androgynous fairy folk who talk to animals and make rice grow. Japanese.
• Korrigans Goblins who can transform themselves while the sun is not shining. British.
• Ga-Gorib Contemptuous ogre people who can telekinetically control stones, even in mid flight. Khoikhoi.
• Hunesai Fairy people who protect streams and plant life. Kind of like Loraxes. Witoto.
• Huntin Tree Spirits. Xhosa.
• Inkosazana Female fairies that make corn grow. Zulu.
• Katavi Malevolent water spirits with a frightening appearance. Tanzanian.
• Medr Androgynous Ethiopian Earth spirits.
• Ombwiri Like Hobs, but with bone-white skin. Can turn invisible. Adopt villages and protect them. Central Africa.
• Anansi Trickster spider people who can pass for Drow. Yoruba.
• Kodama Tree Spirits that sound like deathwatch beetles and look like little clay statues. Japanese.