Planar Adventures for Dummies

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

The diversity of slimes?

I have been playing Slime Rancher recently and it has been a huge blast of fun! It made me think a bit more on how slimes (aka blobs, jellies, oozes, puddings, sludge, etc) have been treated in fantasy gaming. Although they are a hallmark of the genre since its inception, they have received fairly little attention aside from obscure niche products. I wrote a post on blobs a while back, so consider this a second part.

What qualifies as a slime has rarely varied. I have seen some taxonomies list jellyfish, shoggoths, chaos beasts, etc as examples of slimes. The only thing they all have in common is a lack of an internal skeleton and a lack of specifically bilateral symmetry: jellyfish are radially symmetric, whereas shoggoths and chaos beasts lack any symmetry.

Although even that commonality vanishes when you include WarCraft's take on oozes. For some reason they have a tendency to incorporate the bones of prey into themselves to give the illusion of an internal skeleton and bilateral symmetry. They are described an having "elemental heritage" that was "corrupted by the powers of chaos," whatever that means in this context.

Where fantasy gaming has failed in my opinion is that slimes have generally been repetitive to the point of banality. Slime Rancher is like a breath of fresh air because it gives more creative designs and powers to its slimes. Rock slimes roll around in their spiky exteriors, quantum slimes teleport, dervish slimes generate tornadoes, etc. I wish slimes in fantasy gaming were that creative more often.

I forgot to mention it in my last post, but the Monster Encyclopaedia book by Mongoose Publishing included a "primordial ooze" monster. It had a trait similar to the chaos beast in that those struck by its attacks risked degenerating into pools of primordial ooze themselves. A second trait allowed it to sacrifice hit points to spawn an entirely different monster like a beast or a giant, a nod to the origin of its name.

Then we have the intelligent (and sometimes humanoid!) slimes. Jubilex, the lord of slimes and poison is the foremost example. More recently we have been introduced to humanoid-presenting slimes in anime, such as Jellax from Sailor Moon and Rimuru Tempest from That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.

Jellax was a simple amorphous slime monster that could reshape itself into various weapons. It apparently proved so popular that somebody wrote a fanfic where it tries to conquer Earth.
Rimuru was a human reincarnated as a slime with the ability to replicate the properties of substances he consumed, effectively making him a shapeshifter. Instead of going the evil overlord route, he decided to become a benevolent dictator over the monsters of the forest he lived in.
Jubilex (aka Juiblex, Ghaunadaur) is not a very detailed or important figure in fantasy gaming at large, tho I like to tweak him into the god (not simply a random demon lord) of slimes and poison elementals. (Yes, I treat poison as an element.) I even conflate him with Abhoth from the Cthulhu mythos.

I hope to explore more in the future. That's all for today!

Monday, February 3, 2020

Kishi, the two-faced incubus

In previous posts I discussed myths related to hyenas. Here is another post in that vein:

Fairy tales in cultures around the world share the motifs of the "murderous bridegroom" and "murderous stranger." In Angola, legend tells of a demon named kishi. The kishi pretends to be a handsome man, but conceals the face of a hyena on the back of his head (talk about two-faced!). He uses the human face to charm unsuspecting women, then the hyena face eats them. As with other tales in this vein, the moral of the story is for women to be wary of unfamiliar men.

In modern times, the kishi has appeared as the subject of novels like The Kishi: An Esowon Story. It has appeared as a monster in fantasy gaming, too. Hence this post.

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

What is an amohaji?

The amohaji is an obscure dragon that appears in Green Ronin’s Monsters of the Mind and Expeditious Retreat Press’ Malevolent and Benign.

MotM describes amohaji as small aquatic dragons, dwelling in sewers and catacombs. They have natural camouflage and a mischievous demeanor. Their powers include breathing fire, telepathic powers, charm and compulsion effects, (un)locking doors remotely, shapeshifting, and magic armor.

M&B describes amohaji as small cousins to cloud dragons, masters of illusion and mental manipulation, breathing steam and forgetfulness, and living in migrating cloud lairs. If you kill them, then you can dig a magic pearl out of their skull that lets you cast some of their magic for the next 24 hours until it dissipates.

The two couldn’t be more different. However, the backstory of MotM states the amohaji migrated to the underworld after humans hunted them down ages ago. Perhaps those presented in M&B represent the amohaji before they migrated and adapted to the underworld.

Monday, December 9, 2019

Different models for fantasy space travel

After some thought, I decided to put together some ideas for space fantasy campaigns. To that end, I would present several different models for space travel physics as distinct campaign setting cosmologies.

Aristotelia, the setting of celestial spheres

This setting is based on Blood & Treasure, Dark Dungeons, and Voidspanners.

In Aristotelia, the physics of space travel are very different from reality. The night sky is actually the surface of a massive "celestial sphere" that encompasses the solar system. Outside of the sphere is the "luminiferous aether" and access to other celestial spheres in the universe.

Celestial spheres are not all made the same, but may have different local physics. One sphere might be heliocentric while another is geocentric. One sphere might be filled with an airless "void" (astronauts carry their own air supply without needing suits), while another is full of a breathable "ether." One sphere might have its inner and outer planes as inner and outer planets inside the sphere, while another has its inner planes inside the sphere and its outer planes outside the sphere.

Propulsion systems include:

Sails of Skysailing are a magical effect that allow ships to fly through the air, void, and luminiferous aether. These are made from the silk of phase spiders and may be attached to conventional sailing ships.
Void engines are magical items that propel vessels through the void. These need to be activated by a power source, such as a wand, a wizard, or a sacrificial victim.
Ether sails are magical sails that ride the ether winds. These do not need a power source, but they are only effective in ether currents.
Tree ships are rare vessels created by elfin druids.

Alhazenia, the setting of outer space

This setting is based on all those settings in which astronomy and outer space operates as it does in real life.

In Alhazenia, star systems and outer space functions as it does in reality. This makes it easy for a player familiar with modern astronomy to enter the setting. There are multiple competing methods for space travel, not one universal method used across the universe. These include fantasy magic, science fiction technology, and more based on a variety of different power sources.

Power sources harnessed for applications as propulsion systems include:

Magic. Wizards can cast spells or create magic items that allow space travel.
FTL drive. Seen in Dragonstar, Starfinder, and many other settings. These are taken straight out of scifi, so read scifi for details. I dislike this approach as I find it lazy and bland.
Flux culler. Seen in Aether & Flux: Sailing the Traverse. These non-magical devices generate the electrical force known as "flux," which provides propulsion by interacting repulsively with the "aether" suffusing the universe.
Aetherdrive. Seen in Aethera Campaign Setting. These are "magic-technology hybrids" powered by "highly toxic crystals" with "naturally telekinetic properties."

Fitting the planes of existence into Alhazenia requires more work. I should save that for a future post.

Monsters that mimic objects and terrain

D&D has so many monsters whose shtick can be summarized as a simple formula:

Pick a taxonomic category like gastropod, cephalopod, manta ray, slime mold, etc.
Pick a piece of terrain, architecture, clothing, furniture, surface, etc
Create a monster out of category #1 that pretends to be object of category #2.
Voila!

This formula is so silly and overused that there have been numerous articles over the years mocking it. Such monsters are often called "obnoxious" or "stupid."

While some writers like to invent new ecologies for these trick monsters, I personally found it easier to treat them all as variations on the mimic. Eventually I might decide to explore ecologies for mimic snails, mimic squids, mimic rays, etc. But it seems a bit silly, no?

Saturday, November 23, 2019

Dragon spiders and spider dragons?

A concept I found while googling are the dragon spiders aka spider dragons. Dragons with arachnid (or other arthropod) traits, arachnids with draconic traits, or some horrible hybrid of the two? Who knows! They’re just plain creepy and I like it that way.

Some examples of spider dragons include:

The arachnidrake from Book of Drakes. It is a winged dragon with arachnid features, and has a swarm of spiders living on its skin.
The draconid from Tome of Horrors. It is a giant arachnid with two dragon heads on serpentine necks. No relation to the similar looking slassans below, but you could always posit a connection.
The slassan from Arcana Evolved. It is a giant arachnid with a dragon head on a serpentine neck; it is an intelligent creature with mystical abilities. In The Diamond Throne campaign setting, the slassan and mojh were hybrid descendants of the dramojh (fiendish dragons).

Reprinted as aqrabuamelu in Monsters of Porphyra 2. "Aqrabuamelu" is another name for the scorpion-men spawned by Tiamat in Mesopotamian myth. In addition to OGL constraints, the new name was presumably used because girtablilu was already taken by Pathfinder Bestiary.

I haven't really worked out any kind of background or theology for it, but I wanted to indulge in some brief world building ideas. I'm thinking that Tiamat, the primordial dragon of chaos and salt water, spawned a number of aberrant dragons. When they entered the mortal world, they appeared in the forms of spiders (a la Ungoliant) but their dragon nature showed through their new forms. And that's where the spider dragons come from.

I had ideas for other connections too. I was thinking of substituting Arcana Evolved's dramojh, slassan, and mojh with the manalishi from OSRIC, aqrabuamelu from MoP, and dragonborn from SRD 5. No firm idea of their relationship yet, maybe in later posts after I defined what the heck a dragon even is supposed to be.

The vouivre, a weird wyvern/woman thing

The vouivre is a she-dragon from French folklore. The name derives from the Latin for "viper," and refers to the wyvern of heraldry or a mythical dragon inhabiting Lorraine, Jura, and other regions of France. In English, I suppose the idiomatic translation would be viperess or wyverness.

The following two pages from the comic book Vouivre: Thunder of Fury helpfully summarize the tales of this particular dragon:

The dragon is described as fond of bathing in her private cave and capable of assuming human form. This invites comparison to another French dragon, Melusine. Melusine became a dragon once a week and at this time bathed alone in her private quarters. A Book of Creatures calls the vouivres her spiritual descendants stripped of human form, with later accounts conflating the two to give the vouivre her womanly qualities where originally she lacked such attributes entirely.

Various regions of France and neighboring countries put their own spins on the myth. Traits include appearing as animals or balls of fire, greedily guarding treasure, dependence on magic gems (compare draconite from other folklore), and so forth. Your typical weird folklore stuff.

Modern sources put further spins on the monster:

When she was imported to the video game Megami Tensei, the vouivre appeared as a demon with features of both woman and dragon. Indeed, the left half of her body appears human but the right half appears monstrous!
When she was imported to the tabletop game Pathfinder, perhaps influenced by Megami Tensei, the vouivre became a bizarre creature resembling an amphisbaena with one end of the body appearing as a lovely woman. One wonders what was going through the writer's head, but I find it delightfully weird!

I like all these ideas so much. If I wanted to have the monster appear in all these forms, then I would use a simple explanation: the viperess' is a shape changer. Her power is flawed, however, and always reveals some obvious hint of her true nature. For example, the right or lower half of her body still appearing as a dragon, or she is followed by an entourage of vipers, or even that she sheds her dragon skin to bathe and is at the mercy of whoever steals it (echoing tales of the mermaid wife).