Illusions

[Malrex]

I feel like a grouch....lol...
Grutzi's symbols were cool, but for me...again...it's jarring? Maybe not the right word. I get distracted with it at first. I have to remember what the symbols mean. Once you understand the symbols, however, I think its genius.

I think the way I would use it....and I blame Evard's Small Tentacle since he pushed me to learn how to do it....is I would put the symbols on the map, that you hyperlink and click on to take you to exactly what's there. So instead of a cheat sheet for monsters, you have a cheat sheet for things on the map. That takes away a bunch of writing off the map that I find distracting, and yet gives you a hint that there is a smell or lighting or whatever there, that you can quickly click on and figure it out. Granted..this only works for PDF's and not hard copies (which I prefer when playing).

And, was going to say, I really like your maps Squeen!

 

[squeen]

Let me futz with it a bit and see if I can come up with a few simple icons that covey the message, without visually overloading the written text.

Thank you for the compliment on the maps! They are a joy to create. I feel like a beautiful map can often take the place of an illustration in terms of visually grounding a scene AND breaking up the wall-of-text. (Tables do that too.)

EDIT: I will experiment with "icons on the map" too.

EDIT the EDIT: Here's something I have decided definately to do more of --- just label the darn map with the names of the rooms/major features! For Pete's sake, if they are unobtrusive, Why the Heck Not? You can still key-number them too. Why the reluctance? City maps, doubly-so!

EDIT the EDIT, EDIT: Also, I will reiterate my personal design rant. MAPS MUST GO FIRST. Let me see the darn thing before you start droning on about it in the key. I don't care if you want to put it in the back as a convience too --- but it is unforgivable if you launch into the text without having shown me a picture first. UNFORGIVABLE!

 

[squeen]

First hand-sketch of the Aether Islands of the Phase Minotaur --- with the portals lined up with to the Material Plane maze-mirrors.



While drawing I hit upon the idea that the perpetually raging Aetherstorm ablates the Islands on the windward side, but the Islands are also "growing" on their leeward side.

I need a good name for the weird flying creatures that occasional get their necks broken when the Ethereal Wind smashes them into an Island. "Ethereal Vultures" sounds too common-place. I'd also like to add some sort of "Aether Ghoul" predator in addition to the Trent Foster's Mirror Fiends that can step through the portals.

Also need a name for the stunted and twisted trees that grow on the islands and occasional blossoms with tiny translucent flowers and hard, rindy, black fruit with exotic properties.

Hey @Malrex, ask yourself..."Where does that bridge lead to?"

 

[squeen]

After some "clean up" in GIMP

 

[Beoric]

EDIT the EDIT: Here's something I have decided definately to do more of --- just label the darn map with the names of the rooms/major features! For Pete's sake, if they are unobtrusive, Why the Heck Not? You can still key-number them too. Why the reluctance? City maps, doubly-so!

If you are going to get all fancy you could also make a transparency with the DM information. Then if you are running it on a VTT you could drop the entire transparency onto the DM layer.

Also, how about "Aetherwing Carrion-Eaters", or "Carrion Aetherwings"?

 

[squeen]

Carrion Aetherwings --- I like that!

 

[squeen]

If you are going to get all fancy you could also make a transparency with the DM information. Then if you are running it on a VTT you could drop the entire transparency onto the DM layer.

I have not run a VTT (not against it, just not equipped for it) -- but that is an excellent idea. In print...obviously just leave them off the Player's Map.

With regards to the AEther Islands --- I am also thinking that there are a great multitude of these little growing/ablating rock clumps in this corner of the Ethereal Plane, and that wandering monsters and other travelers are essential "hopping" from small Islet to Islet. Some are on ships that navigate the unidirectional AEther wind, and others just glide/leap across the voids. It makes for a bit of a "High Seas" adventure setting in the Ethereal Plane --- a location I honestly had no idea before how to handle before I hit on the notion of "Islands in a Storm".

For me, the constant storm with a relentless pummeling wind (1-hp/turn if exposed) smashing down on bleak chucks of pewter-grey rocks floating in a vast outer-void---punctuated by occasional electrical discharges that can electrify the ground and zap your brains does just enough to make it "feel" like an alien environment to me and not "just another dungeon". I sincerely hope my players think so to.

I found this nice little list of Ethereal monsters here. (Told you I steal from everywhere).

In addition to the AEtherwings, Phase Spiders, Cerebral Parasites, and Ethereal Ghuls, I kind like this one (Ethereal Maurader) for it's weird exo-biololgy look. (Although I wouldn't have given it eyes...and maybe tentacle-toes instead of claws.)

I may have to adapt something like it for S&W --- it's gonna need some sort of membrane bladder/wing for gliding! Ethereal Ooze is another good name/idea too, but I think their implementation is a bit unimaginative.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention. Had to get ready to last night's game ready quickly and all this popped into my head as I was scrambling.

 

[squeen]

For general Game Design Theory, I also feel that for these exotic locales, the notion of Game Balance goes out the window. If you are willing (stupid enough) to brave these very extreme environments (e.g. outer-planes, deep underground submerged tunnels, faerie pocket-dimensions, etc.) then it's OK for the DM to rachet up both the Risk and the Reward. Magic items and treasure can be greater because it is so inaccessible---it hasn't been picked over countless times. Likewise, the creatures that inhabit in these places are crazy-toxic because it's so harsh. Everything you touch (or touches you) is poison. Only the strongest survive. Etc.

 

[squeen]

Maybe gravity is only 1/6 normal too in the AEther --- like Walking on the Moon. ..or less drastically, 38% like Mars.

I'm also thinking that the "AEther" (i.e. Ethereal Plane "space") is a light-gray and casts weak ambient light on everything.

----

Dang! A lot of thought going into "What happens if my players step through a mirror?"

Picking at the Quantum Ogre debate a bit. I will key this the Aether Islands and dream up the environs --- BUT, if my players choose to ignore them, by never chasing down the Phase Minotaur into his Lair/Prison...it will (probably) never get used.

The twisted thing is (to me) that's not sad --- it's cool. I loved being a player in a world with unplumbed depths. It was awesome.

 

[Beoric]

Reading through some of the analysis at Greyhawk Grognard I have formed the impression that in Gygax' game players often went back to dungeons when they were higher level to try to figure out what they had missed. If there was a way of encouraging that sort of thing it would help with the whole "I made it and dammit they are going to play it" thing.

 

[squeen]

The Earth Temple that I'm trying to pull together for Footprints publications with Malrex's help was like that in my home campaign. The players revisited it several years later at a much higher level and both finished some un-finished business AND went places I never dreamed they'd penetrate.

I put a really powerful staff down there (underwater)...thinking "they'd never"...BUT THEY DID!

It was very rewarding. Wonderful when you learn much later that players were paying attention (though they never showed it!). That is partially the motivation for "Easter Egg" levels like this. Their presences encourages players to explore. They are fun to make too, precisely because they are so different.

 

[Malrex]

Cool stuff Squeen! good map work!

 

[squeen]

WHAT IF!

...you accidentally try to return to the Prime Material plane through the "wrong" side of the mirror your came through...

...and it sends you somewhere else!?

Maybe the reverse of your world? The old Star Trek Good is Evil world? Something stranger? Deeper into the Ethereal Plane? The Mirror World of the Fiends? What fun! (A Twisted Land in which 5e rules apply?)

 

[DangerousPuhson]

The old Star Trek Good is Evil world?

As long as everyone has a mustache they can twirl.

 

[squeen]

@DangerousPuhson! Hey Ho! I thought you were boycotting this thread. Welcome aboard.

 

[squeen]

Sonofagun! --- that spot near G on the map, it was just going to be a small shrine...but I'm thinking now it's a man-hole down to a vault!

I mean if you wanted a really, really secret place to stash something, would you trust a single entity to guard it? Wouldn't you have some sort of back-up plan, especially with how deadly the Ethereal Plane can be? A contingency in just in case a Black Ship of Moon Beasts showed up and whacked your Minotaur?

(To my great surprise) THIS CRAZY PLACE HAS A SECOND LEVEL!

 

[Two orcs]

My players recently braved the (unknown to them) Cave of Illusions. It is home to the Illuminated Scroll of Illusion which creates all sorts of deceptions in the huge cave as part of its compulosory magic but also as a means of protection. Many creatures in the cave do not really exist but merely attack as a way to scare off intruders. The webs of a giant spider appear as silken drapes flowing in non-existent wind. Dazzling treasure temp you into steep pits (a previous expedition caused one death from this) and illusory walls appear behind adventurers to trap and frustrate them.

The epicenter is a multilayered trick: A chamber with a magic pit trap and a fake wall. The fake wall hides a tunnel leading to The Illuminated Scroll of Illusion, containing a handful of illusion spells. A small treasure at the epicenter of such trickery! Behind another fake wall rests the thicker Dictionary of Deception, holding more spells. My players were "lucky" and Detected Magic and easily found the dictionary, and didn't even touch the scroll assuming it to be a trap. They mused that it might be a double bluff though. It's really a triple bluff!

"Falling into" the pit trap (really turning invisible and in a trance state) deposits you in an illusory river in which all manner of stranger challenges follow, telling illusory ogres from "real", illusory fire from real etc. this place is all illusory with two different levels of "realness". Being "killed" knocks you out for hours (possibly leading to your abandonment by your friends) and seeing through the trance state simply makes you reappear by the pit trap. To find the deepest treasure you have to thread the needle between hard and soft illusions to arrive at a model of the universe, travel to Mercury flying the disc of the Moon and find the Codex of Confusion - the actual source of all this, a mighty tome of nearly infinite depth holding formula for all known illusory spells - up to and including the mighty ritual spell Illusion of Milk & Honey, which the Shaman Queen Himiko used to pacify her subjects for decades before finally succumbing to the illusion herself (she's now trapped in her tomb (really her palace that her enemies raised a mound over) with her undead + illusory courtiers, still thinking she's the undisputed ruler of a mighty kingdom - woe to he that enters her court and breaks the illusion)!

 

[squeen]

The epicenter is a multilayered trick: A chamber with a magic pit trap and a fake wall. The fake wall hides a tunnel leading to The Illuminated Scroll of Illusion, containing a handful of illusion spells. A small treasure at the epicenter of such trickery! Behind another fake wall rests the thicker Dictionary of Deception, holding more spells. My players were "lucky" and Detected Magic and easily found the dictionary, and didn't even touch the scroll assuming it to be a trap. They mused that it might be a double bluff though. It's really a triple bluff!

....<snip>...

To find the deepest treasure you have to thread the needle between hard and soft illusions to arrive at a model of the universe, travel to Mercury flying the disc of the Moon and find the Codex of Confusion - the actual source of all this, a mighty tome of nearly infinite depth holding formula for all known illusory spells - up to and including the mighty ritual spell Illusion of Milk & Honey, which the Shaman Queen Himiko used to pacify her subjects for decades before finally succumbing to the illusion herself (she's now trapped in her tomb (really her palace that her enemies raised a mound over) with her undead + illusory courtiers, still thinking she's the undisputed ruler of a mighty kingdom - woe to he that enters her court and breaks the illusion)!

YES! THIS! This sounds so perfect --- this is the game I loved to play in and the kind of game I aspire to DM. Orcs Twos, for someone with such a bland-sounding moniker, you have a gift for the fantastic. (Great names too! They stir the imagination.)

All those lovely LAYERS of design! A thinker's puzzle! A mystery to solve! Down, down, down the rabbit hole you go...

Bravo!

(...and no where any mention of any asinine skill-checks! WTF is a "DC" anyway? --- who coined that buzz-kill of a term? You might as well have just shot poor 'ol D&D dead --- right between the eyes --- the day you came up with that mechanistic, soulless descriptor.)

 

[Beoric]

WTF is a "DC" anyway? --- who coined that buzz-kill of a term? You might as well have just shot poor 'ol D&D dead --- right between the eyes --- the day you came up with that mechanistic, soulless descriptor.)

It was coined by someone who understood elegance of design, but not of language. Gygax was arguably the opposite.

1e also has DC's, actually. Hundreds of them. Some use low-roll targets, some use high-roll targets, and they use all kinds of different dice. But the edition would not function without them.

EDIT: Incidentally, 1e also has ability checks and skill checks. Examples include: open door rolls, bend bars/lift gates rolls, surprise rolls, initiative rolls, chance to know a spell, spell failure checks, all thief functions, system shock, resurrection survival, reaction checks, loyalty checks, morale checks, checking for secret doors, all of the demihuman "detect" abilities, "to hit" rolls, saving throws, assassination rolls, ranger tracking, bard charm and legend lore checks, and quite a few of the level or ability dependent random elements contained in spells. Every one of these has a DC.

 

[squeen]

@Beoric : no doubt, 1e has all that you say --- there were 2 things I was snarking at

1. Two Orcs intricate scenario seems the antithesis of mechanical design (more power to him!)
2. "Difficulty Check/Class" is one of the crassest terms imaginable. Sucks all the air out of the imaginary room. YUCK!

With regards to 1e and all the player abilities/skills --- in retrospective it is obvious that was indeed the slippery slope D&D slide down. Perhaps the mistake was putting any of the mechanics of high strength/intelligence/class/etc. in the PLAYERS Handbook. In an alternate universe, the DM quietly navigates all that and leaves the players ignorant of the meta-game distractions so they can better resist obsessing on their skill-mechanics, suspend disbelief, and just play the game.