Random hooks thread

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The Lesser Evil
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Re: Random hooks thread

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Dark Angel wrote:
The Lesser Evil wrote:
Dark Angel wrote: I know that not every hook has to be derived form a specific source material, but Batman Returns' Penguin plot to avenge what happened to him against Gotham's elite?
No, except maybe indirectly in that they might have the same origin. I was actually drawing inspiration more from the Biblical 10th Plague of Egypt in Exodus.
I was going to say that too, but didn't want to come across as religiously insensitive during Passover by comparing it to one of the weaker Batman movies.
D'OH! It had completely slipped my mind that it was Passover. No wonder the Plagues were in my mind. Apologies to anybody on this board I have offended.
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Re: Random hooks thread

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The Game Master

I was just itting around watching old cartoons the other day when I came across this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZG3Fm5-sak

That Game Master might make for an interesting quasi-Darklord. Sort of a wandering Darklord absorbing people into his game until someone finally beats him and he has to go back to Start.
Do us a favor Luv, Stick yer 'ead in a bucket a kick it!

So, gentlemen, that's how it is. Until Grissome.... resurfaces, I'm the acting president, and I say starting with this... anniversary festival, we run this city into the ground! :D
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Re: Random hooks thread

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jamesfirecat wrote: IIIIIIIIII...may be able to illuminate that for you! What you're feeling is that this woman has—REACHED into your chest—PLUCKED out your heart, and—THROWN it to her HELLHOUNDS for a CHEW TOY!!! It's not the last time either, because that's what this woman is—SHE IS THE DEVIL! It's no use running away from her, because no matter how far you go—how many years you let pass—you will never be completely out of REACH of THOSE—BONY—FINGERS!!! So drink hearty, Franklin, and laugh! Because you have made a pact—WITH BEELZEBUB!!! AND HER NAME IS MELIAH!!!
Errr... ok... glad you liked it.

However, I'm not sure that's how I'd like to portray Meliah. She's a facilitator, not a manipulator. She doesn't make pacts or compacts with the customers, merely offers them what they desire most: escape into a warm, comforting place where they won't have to face their troubles.
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Re: Random hooks thread

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Zettaijin wrote:
Errr... ok... glad you liked it.

However, I'm not sure that's how I'd like to portray Meliah. She's a facilitator, not a manipulator. She doesn't make pacts or compacts with the customers, merely offers them what they desire most: escape into a warm, comforting place where they won't have to face their troubles.
Sorry I was making a fairly obscure joke.

Since I'm pretty sure you were referencing Cheers with your basic prompt (I got that right didn't I?), I dug up a rant that Frasier ends up giving after a seeing some actors preforming a play written by Diane Chambers which is clearly based on the bar in question except with Diane's character being portrayed as the best most wholesome person imaginable who can do no wrong.

Frasier eventually breaks into the rant above except ending with Mary-Anne (the character's name) rather than Meliah.


If you want to see go to 18:30 mark on this video.

http://www.mojvideo.com/video-frasier-s ... dde2a5b2e3



In short the above would probably how one of the corporeal ghosts starts feeling about the situation after a while weather or not it is accurate.
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Re: Random hooks thread

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Ooooooohhh, I see now.

I thought "Man, he really got into it... It's a good idea, but man..."

And yes, it was inspired by Cheers' famous tagline but that's about all I got from it. Although I guess one could turn Norm into a ghostly patron.
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Re: Random hooks thread

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Rats. No one was interested in my Game master idea. :(
Do us a favor Luv, Stick yer 'ead in a bucket a kick it!

So, gentlemen, that's how it is. Until Grissome.... resurfaces, I'm the acting president, and I say starting with this... anniversary festival, we run this city into the ground! :D
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Re: Random hooks thread

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Manofevil wrote:Rats. No one was interested in my Game master idea. :(
Well, it could work as a sort of darkly humorous campaign.
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Re: Random hooks thread

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Manofevil wrote:Rats. No one was interested in my Game master idea. :(
When I first read it i thought you were referring to the little dwarf Dungeon Master guy from the old D&D cartoon.

I think a guy who comes to force you to play a board game would be a bit hard to work for me. Maybe if he offered some kind of temptation like a wish or something, but then imprisoned you if you lost. And of course, you could always risk yourself to save a friend or loved one who already lost. I think there was an episode of Supernatural that involved gambling or gaming of some type. I can't recall.
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Re: Random hooks thread

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The Lesser Evil wrote:
I think a guy who comes to force you to play a board game would be a bit hard to work for me. Maybe if he offered some kind of temptation like a wish or something, but then imprisoned you if you lost. And of course, you could always risk yourself to save a friend or loved one who already lost. I think there was an episode of Supernatural that involved gambling or gaming of some type. I can't recall.
I proposed a gambling den pocket domain of sorts before, one where the rules are always changing and turning.
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Re: Random hooks thread

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I found the reference, season 5, episode 7, "The curious case of Dean Winchester", a very long-lived witch has been playing poker for extra years of life. And a couple of the guys get in trouble gambling away years of their life and aging really rapidly. And then others have to gamble to get their years back.
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Re: Random hooks thread

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The Cults of Personality (Falkovnia, Pathfinder)

In Falkovnia, Vlad Drakov has achieved a level of personal and political power well above what should be natural for most humans. His bloodline is well woven into the fabric of Falkovnian society through his claim of the First Night. In addition, the number of fighters in the Falkovian military of superhuman skill (i.e. high level) is staggering. For some Falkovnians, the martial skill these living "demigods" hold is just as much a cause of awe as it is for fear.

The personal power imbued in the bloodlines of these champions and the mystique they have in the popular eye has become an anchor for supernatural power in their descendants. Over the last few years, there has been a rash of sorcerers (Destined, imperious, or martyred bloodlines) and oracles (ancestor, battle, or metal mysteries) coming to power within the underbelly of Falkovnia. Many have began to gather personal cults to fill the religious void within Falkovnian society. Most such cult leaders identify themselves with lofty parentage (though almost never in public) and weave cults of personality out of the Falkovnian state mythos.

The Ministry of the Arcane has mixed views about these cults. On the one hand, they represent a potentially subversive take on state authority. On the other hand, they could be useful tools for rooting out dissidents and other under-the-table operations. (The infiltrators from the Fraternity of Shadows doubly appreciate the potential with these cults and work to obscure their existences from those who would seek to undo them).

Rumor has it that a faction of rogue Falkovnian zealots are gathering these cults together to covertly serve the nation. These zealots are rogue by the fact they believe that magic (and magic users) have a place on the battlefield much greater than acknowledged by Drakov. They only need prove its value to him.

(Note that the class, bloodline, and mystery references are for PF.)
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Re: Random hooks thread

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The Tome of Ichor

Long forbidden by the moral authorities of the core's more advanced regions, the fabled Tome of Ichor has become the object of rumours and tales with few knowing of its true contents or much about its author - Thomas Arand - and his origins.

Copies have been exchanged through various means and it is said that the secretive cabal of monks known as the Order of the Quill have been secretly producing copies in their eternal quest to preserve any and all writings known to man. Such copies may fetch stunning prices within certain eclectic circles and from curious men of science.

Popular rumours among those who have never read the book describe it as a treatise on the dark arts or a tome on summoning otherworldly beasts. Others maintain that the tome is really a guide to the darker secrets of alchemy.

The truth is that the book is largely a tale of one man's discovery of a self proclaimed healer and mystic in the steaming jungles of Sri Raji and his short lived apprenticeship at his side. Through ingestion of various substances and a daily ritual of complex physical and mental exercises, the author begins to experience a connection with what he describes his "inner self and the fluidity of existence".

Things take a turn for the strange as the mentor appears to periodically "melt" for lack of a better words into a creature the author can barely describe. Every night the beast devours him and sends him into a prolonged period of feverish nightmares punctuated by his own metamorphosis.

Arand eventually leaves the mentor yet feels a need to pursue the process on his own through more personal experimentation.

He describes various concoctions and variants on the exercises proscribed by the guru in various levels of details along with what he deems a growing connection with the primordial substance of life which he then goes to name "ichor".

By the end of the tome, the author claims to have gained insight into some invisible superior life form's mind through the ichor and that he himself now has the ability to be one with the ethereal realms.

The author disappeared, leaving the unfinished manuscript in the hands of a friend as he embarked on one last journey to find the life form within the ethereal beyond the mists.

Since then, a few have tried with no success to replicate his strange experiments and some have even tried to find the mystical man of Sri Raji or perhaps some successor (the author hints that the mystic had some followers with whom he had no actual contact mainly due to language barriers).

The author still lives, in a way, having long since been devoured by a peculiar gibbering mouther created by the mystic of Sri Raji. The man had planted the "larva" of the creature in his would-be disciple and through the rituals it would leave to feed on its host and anyone it could find but returned to the sanctity of the host soon after.

Eventually the creature grew strong enough to devour its host completely but also absorbed much of his mind in the process. It is of course mad as was the author by that time.

It now lives within the mists feeding on those who read the tome and seek to replicate the experiments. Only the mystic knows how to bring the pitiful creature's mad existence to an end permanently but he isn't talking.
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Re: Random hooks thread

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The Godflesh Golem (Har'Akir/the Amber Wastes)

Taking the belief that gold is the flesh of the gods a little bit too literally, an obsessed Akiri man has set about to create a new god in his forsaken land. He has began fashioning together a dread golem made of gold. How will the local clergy view this blasphemy? Will Ankhtepot or some of his servants awaken to destroy this newly emergent threat?
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Re: Random hooks thread

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The Lesser Evil wrote:The Godflesh Golem (Har'Akir/the Amber Wastes)

Taking the belief that gold is the flesh of the gods a little bit too literally, an obsessed Akiri man has set about to create a new god in his forsaken land. He has began fashioning together a dread golem made of gold. How will the local clergy view this blasphemy? Will Ankhtepot or some of his servants awaken to destroy this newly emergent threat?
Reminds me of the comic Supergod to an extent, where various nations develop their own supergod to use as a weapon.

Could be cool if the DPs actually grant the golem some measure of ego as it truly begins to believe itself to be the true ruler of men. His nature could make him a threat to a mummy like Ankhtepot especially if the DP deem it appropriate to grant the creature some immunity to magic.
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Re: Random hooks thread

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Zettaijin wrote:
The Lesser Evil wrote:The Godflesh Golem (Har'Akir/the Amber Wastes)

Taking the belief that gold is the flesh of the gods a little bit too literally, an obsessed Akiri man has set about to create a new god in his forsaken land. He has began fashioning together a dread golem made of gold. How will the local clergy view this blasphemy? Will Ankhtepot or some of his servants awaken to destroy this newly emergent threat?
Reminds me of the comic Supergod to an extent, where various nations develop their own supergod to use as a weapon.

Could be cool if the DPs actually grant the golem some measure of ego as it truly begins to believe itself to be the true ruler of men. His nature could make him a threat to a mummy like Ankhtepot especially if the DP deem it appropriate to grant the creature some immunity to magic.
Yeah, I imagine that given the dark nature of the maturation process of most Dread Golems, it will develop the viewpoint that mortal beings of flesh and blood will be beneath it. Ankhetpot and his Children would be the exception though, and the first few confrontations would throw the gold golem for a loop. On the other hand, a nigh immunity to magic (which would more likely than not occur given the nature of the Created) and massive physical strength could also challenge some of Ankhtepot's children. Just as a quirk, one might throw in some light/sun -related powers to throw-off the undead and make the people really start to think the golem might be a god.

Of course, the creator would most likely claim himself High Priest of any cult and well, you know how well relations between golem and creator tend to develop after a while.
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