Care to help make a Gothic Asia netbook?

[elliott20]

Huo Hu Captivity Gourd
A hollow gourd, perhaps of Allium scorodoprasum derivative, with the characteristic figure-eight cross section. The gourd can be activated as a standard action (needs to be uncorked), and a ranged touch attack made. On a successful hit against a size M or smaller target, the target must make a Will save (DC 15). If it fails, it is immediately shrunk 4 size categories and absorbed into the gourd. The user has a round to stopper the gourd. The gourd only holds one occupant at a time, and the occupant cannot leave until the stopper is removed by the individual who trapped him.
There is enough air in the gourd to typically allow a captive to breathe for a day. Unscrupulous users may trap a captive and then leave them to suffocate. Once released, the captive is disoriented and staggered for a full round.

Alternatively, the gourd can be smashed, which releases any captive. This is usually the only recourse if the original trapper refuses to release the captive.

In the legend of the monkey king, he stabbed a hole in the gourd with his weapon and flew out this way. I suggest that you allow some kind of mechanic that allows them to do that. like, doing 50 points of damage to the gourd will make a hole big enough for the character to escape and return to his normal size.

[HuManBing]

In the legend of the monkey king, he stabbed a hole in the gourd with his weapon and flew out this way. I suggest that you allow some kind of mechanic that allows them to do that. like, doing 50 points of damage to the gourd will make a hole big enough for the character to escape and return to his normal size.

They'd have to do 50 hp of damage in their reduced size category, though, which would be very difficult. (Given that a Fine creature generally doesn't do any damage at all unless through poison or other such methods.) Sun Wukong had the benefits of the Golden Cudgel as well as superhuman strength to aid him. Most captives wouldn't, though.

On a related note I wonder how much damage a bacterium (size category several below "fine") would do?

[Gemathustra]

As a gardener, and a grower of bottle gourd, Lagenaria siceraria, I must inform you that Allium scorodoprasum is the Sand Leek, and has never, ever been used by Chinese spiritualists to capture things. Leeks and squash are on two ends of the Flowering Plant family tree that are farther apart from each other than Nechuvar Springs is from Harmonia.

Plus, depending on the circumstances, some sorcerers and magicians would use capture gourds made out of jade or bronze to imprison very powerful beings, such as demons, malicious fey, or especially antagonistic spirit-creatures. In some cases, especially when dealing with evil spirits or outsiders, the size of the victim doesn't matter if it fails its save.

In the legend of the monkey king, he stabbed a hole in the gourd with his weapon and flew out this way. I suggest that you allow some kind of mechanic that allows them to do that. like, doing 50 points of damage to the gourd will make a hole big enough for the character to escape and return to his normal size.

They'd have to do 50 hp of damage in their reduced size category, though, which would be very difficult. (Given that a Fine creature generally doesn't do any damage at all unless through poison or other such methods.) Sun Wukong had the benefits of the Golden Cudgel as well as superhuman strength to aid him. Most captives wouldn't, though.

On a related note I wonder how much damage a bacterium (size category several below "fine") would do?

Plus, Wukong often had divine permission to inflict such devastating damage.

As for how much a bacterium would do, it would depend on what type, as different species and different strains secrete different products (acids or poisons, or alcohol), and whether or not there was enough moisture for it to be active in the first place.

[elliott20]

hmm... strange, it appears my account got deleted right after a day of posting.

did I managed to get myself banned that quickly?

[Gemathustra]

hmm... strange, it appears my account got deleted right after a day of posting.

did I managed to get myself banned that quickly?

It's either a glitch in the system, Druscilla was inserting her paper dolls into the disc drive again, or the staff were really really mad about the Sand Leek/Bottle Gourd mix up.

[mistshadow2k4]

I agree that lengthening casting times is a good idea -- especially if we establish some of the common ritual practices that go along with spellcasting. D&D tends to replace ritualism with a lot of mystic word mumbling and gesticulating, whereas actual rituals tend to be simpler and longer. But if we do this how do we do balance this out for the characters and their players? That's cutting down their power a bit and we need to make it up to them somehow. Better hit dice? Improved base attack?

After we decide that we can come up with some Asia-specific spells.

[HuManBing]

Gemathustra and the Gourd situation

Dang it, I knew I shouldn't have picked a fight with somebody who had Skill Focus (horticulture) and the Persuasive feat!

About balancing the slow-casting magic users:

One idea that sort of got investigated in the 2nd edition was to give all Chinese or Japanese or Asian (what have you) characters the "martial arts unarmed combat" table instead of the "punching and wrestling" unarmed combat table to use. This assumes that in Asia, martial arts-inspired exercises would be common.

Something like that could be done for an arcane spellcasting class. In fact, you could probably get away with doing that for cleric and arcane, if you agree that both should have longer-casting, ritualized magic. We'd have to work out how to tie that in with monk classes, though, because you could multiclass and then that would become tricky. (Perhaps the unarmed attack bonuses and damage dice simply stack?)

I didn't like how the cleric and mage in the Western style campaigns have so few skill points. That could be remedied for Eastern style campaigns to give them more of an edge as multi-talented characters, to counterbalance a slow-casting campaign.

It's possible that an Asianloft setting, clerics and wizards would have greater abilities to lay potent curses, similar to the Ravenloft Vistani.

Most would probably take a level or two in psionicist, to keep a handful of immediate-use powers available.

And now, here's the very tongue-in-cheek profile for the mystical Shi Tie Shou, the "Iron Eating Beast" of the Bamboo Forests:

a.k.a. Shuangqi Xiong (Two-spirited bear), Daxiongmao (Large bearcat), Mengshi shou (Beast of Prey)
Considerable controversy surrounds this beast. Scholars and academicians around the Hua empire have tried to categorize it, and have filed it under a leopard, a bear, a cat, a dog, and even a raccoon. The various names through the ages reflect this. The animal is most often found in bamboo forests and has a fearsome reputation for ferocity. The herdsmen of the Darta highlands have their own (non-Hua) word for the creature: panda, which means "heel-handed", referring perhaps to the creature's six-fingered hand. The other Hua academicians laugh at that name and say it will never catch on, except perhaps with foolish foreigners who don't know any better.

Practitioners of the Shuangqi Jiao philosophy revere this creature, as it resembles their own yin-yang symbol when it's curled up asleep (or sometimes when just sulking).

It is uncertain whether this creature is unique or whether there are more of them. It has only been documented on a few occasions.

Possible powers: Adept at climbing and swimming. Can sunder with its bite attack, which is exceptionally strong. Alignment of true neutral or chaotic neutral suggested.

Attitude depends on time of day. During daytime, it is suffused with positive energy and becomes very active, leaping gallantly from tree to tree in its neverending search for hapless prey to rend and otherwise terrorize (or so the legends say). Locals tell of the beast dropping down onto its enemies and crushing them with its attacks.

During the daytime, its attacks deal more damage and it fights ferociously, using what appears to be a form of martial arts (or at least human monks have devised a style after this creature's example). One legend tells of a devastating quasi-magical attack that drags its foes into an alternate plane briefly before dealing massive damage (see below).

However, its positive planar energy also allows it to heal living creatures if it sees the need to do so. The use of this power usually means the creature has to lean in and nuzzle the target, which then feels healed and reinvigorated. The creature has been seen nuzzling near-dead forest creatures, giving them the strength they need to rise up and scurry away.

During this stage, it is said that wherever its six-fingered paws touch, flowers and forest greens will shoot up briefly, and then when it moves on, they wither and die.

At night, when the sky is dark, the creature is a malevolent carrier of negative planar energy. It acquires darkvision and is said to be able to shadowwalk, although this remains unconfirmed. It loses the ability to climb trees because it would wither them - everything it touches gains negative energy levels. In this incarnation, it is able to walk on the surface of water, and it can even become ethereal and blink from place to place.

During the night, the creature gains the "Raging Bearcat" special attack, which is an unusual ranged grapple. The creature must be able to see an enemy and spend some time observing its ethereal shadow. Then it simultaneously blinks towards the enemy and shifts into ethereal, grabbing the enemy's ethereal shadow and dragging it into and out of the ethereal plane quickly. This spiritual disruption is intensely damaging to the target, and coupled with the creature's level-draining ability, more often than not kills a target outright.

In the one supposed eyewitness reporting of this event, the creature appeared to stand upright for a split second, while ethereal motes collected in its eyes, and then appeared to "slide" rapidly towards its opponent (leaving realtime shadows behind it) and grab it. The pair "strobe-flickered" in and out of visibility, with the creature rending and tearing, and ending with the final blink into existence, where the target lay crumpled on the floor and the creature stood above it with arms raised to the sky. This eyewitness even saw the word "Tian" (Hua Zhengti for "heaven") scrawled on the beast's back.

The Nürfan sharpshooter gunman and martial artist, Beiying, once tried to kill this creature, in a complicated plot that involved a monk serving the Emperor, a minor tribal prince, and sentient oversized forest animals that had adopted a female human child. At the end of a morally ambiguous adventure that questioned the moral justifications for ethically aberrant behavior, Beiying found and shot the creature. The first shot went through the creature's braincase, causing it to start sinking into the water that it was walking on. The second shot hit the creature's neck. Undeterred, the creature recollected itself and continued walking across the water and reached the other shore, where it drained the life from a giant wolf and boar to replenish itself and turned towards Beiying.

Beiying decided at that point to make himself scarce.

Another eyewitness report states that If the creature should ever come into contact with hot water, it will be unwillingly transformed into a grumpy middle-aged male human being. This has not been verified, but if true it's easy to imagine that the creature does not enjoy this and will do everything in its power to change back, which requires cold water.

The creature also carries around a smaller, reddish creature on its back which also resembles a cross between a bear and a raccoon. This creature appears to be able to speak in broken human tongues, and the pair of them have occasionally appeared along mountain passes to shake down travellers for gifts of fruit and other foods.

(Apologies are necessary for the satirical references to, amongst other things, Ranma 1/2, Street Fighter, and Princess Mononoke. I figure if the Japanese are going to sneak over to China and steal their kanji one by one over the course of centuries of coastal raiding, then the theft of a few Japanese cultural icons for a Chinese animal should be mere equilibrium )

[mistshadow2k4]

Good idea about the martiala rts. Even just the basics martial arts plus better skill points would make up for slow casting times; other special abilities could be made available, but not automatic bonuses. Not bad. As to the monk, I think they would be best replaced with the psychic martial artist in Skills & Feats Martial Arts. The latter was basically a monk refitted with Hood's Skills & Feats martial arts and psionics systems anyhow, but had a more authentic feel.

[Gemathustra]

Alchemical Essay concerning Lingzhi and Artist's Conch

Many organisms in nature, both beast and plant, draw out out positive or negative energy, sometimes both, in peculiar ways for their own personal survival. It is possible for intelligent creatures to take advantage of these peculiar habits, also.

Case in point is the eternally esteemed mushroom, the lingzhi, known to Core herbalists and botanists as Ganoderma lucidum. Because they are so infused with yang, or positive energy, these clam-sized mushrooms are often used for all manner of curative tinctures and healing medicines, both magical and mundane. The Lingzhi is a parasite, and obtains its abundant positive energy by leaching it out of the tissue of its host tree via its hyphae, often a maple tree, and concentrating the stolen energy within its fruiting body (the mushroom itself). Some unscrupulous alchemists and necromancers who understand the lingzhi's life cycle are able to utilize it for their own selfish purposes. By grafting a live lingzhi onto an uninfected tree, and enchanting the graft with spells such as vampiric touch, bestow curse, or contagin, the magician can induce the lingzhi to draw out all of the host's vitality, concentrating it into a small, potent, and easily consumed form. Needless to say, this is a dangerous task, not only because of the inherent dangers of using such horrid spells, but, of the often unpredictable way a living body responds to such an unnaturally concentrated form of positive energy.

The Artist's Conch, Ganoderma applanatum, is the lingzhi's close relative, and is often mistaken for gargantuan, foot-wide lingzhi. However, where the lingzhi attacks live trees, drawing out their yang, the artist's conch attacks dead trees, leaching out the yin, or negative energy found in rotting wood. Amateur alchemists looking for convient sources of yin energy often heap scorn upon the artist's conch, as its own yin energies are contaminated by the inherent positive yang energies that are present even in rotting wood. Despite its apparent uselessness in alchemy, it is considered to be extremely valuable, as artists prize them as unique drawing surfaces. By carefully bruising the lower surface of the mushroom with a stylus, an artist can draw beautiful and permanent pictures without ink, hence its name.
A very few adept magicians are also capable of utilizing the artist's conch, despite its presumed alchemical uselessness. Through secret arcane rituals, it is possible to transform a fragment of a dream, or a thought, into a picture, and transcribe it onto the surface of the mushroom for all time. Many times, the dream or thought has been stolen from some hapless person through arcane force.
...

So, whatcha think?

[catlord]

There was one Japanese spirit that I found on Wikipedia while doing research for a... book, I guess, of female spirits. It was the kuchisake-onna. it's really sort of freaky. Being new here, (and having a lack of skill with making monsters, and a lack of actual Ravenloft game books), would there be a domain where that could fit in?

[mistshadow2k4]

So, whatcha think?

Truly awesome! I wish we had an applause emoticon. I'm sorry I didn't reply sooner; I was reading the stuff on Asian magic and pretty much skipped the rest for a while. I've been terribly busy lately too, but life will slow down as the weather cools.

I'm afraid my original plans for a Halloween release were a bit too optimistic. I had no idea summer was going to be like this. I've read up on stuff but haven't managed to get hardly any actual work done. So I don't know when I'll be finished with magic, let alone get to do some research on other Asian cultures to model domains on.

There was one Japanese spirit that I found on Wikipedia while doing research for a... book, I guess, of female spirits. It was the kuchisake-onna. it's really sort of freaky. Being new here, (and having a lack of skill with making monsters, and a lack of actual Ravenloft game books), would there be a domain where that could fit in?

Link? We have a Japanese-style domain inthis thread (not counting Rokushima Taiyoo) so I'm sure she would fit right in; kind of a necessity, in fact, since we want authentic folkloric critters in our Asialoft.

[HuManBing]

Actually, it's a good thing that we're not aiming for a Halloween release. I have realized that a lot of my stuff written beforehand needs plenty more work before I'm happy with it (mostly contextualizing, so the players can get a real feel for a believable and quasi-historical China setting). Now that Elliott20 is on the board, we should have a good source of fairly accurate Chinese knowledge to refer to

Maybe we could try for a Spring Festival release early 2007? (Also known as "Chinese New Year" by everybody except the Chinese.)

[catlord]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuchisake-onna

Here you go.

[mistshadow2k4]

Actually, it's a good thing that we're not aiming for a Halloween release. I have realized that a lot of my stuff written beforehand needs plenty more work before I'm happy with it (mostly contextualizing, so the players can get a real feel for a believable and quasi-historical China setting). Now that Elliott20 is on the board, we should have a good source of fairly accurate Chinese knowledge to refer to

Maybe we could try for a Spring Festival release early 2007? (Also known as "Chinese New Year" by everybody except the Chinese.)

Glad to know it's not just me. A spring release sounds great!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuchisake-onna

Here you go.

Thank you!

[catlord]

You're welcome.