07 October 2023

d8 natures of this quasi-godlike entity (RPG Blog Carnival)

Answering the RPG Blog Carnival prompt on Horrors, Gods, and Monsters, oh my! from The Other Side...

Expanding a little on the theme of petty gods, god animals, ancient dragons and demigods that occupy the fuzzy boundary above 'mere mortals' but not quite gods yet. We have a continuum that for humans looks something like 'commoner - adventurer - hero - demigod - deity' but if we consider that this exists for everyone else too, things get interesting.

For the carnival we have d8 prompts for the nature of the quasi-godlike entity you have just run into.
1. Great beasts, loci of the animists
2. Dragons and their cults
3. Petty Gods
4. Great works - of nations, clans, guilds, wizards
5. The devolved remnants of once greater beings
6. Horrors are just other peoples gods
7. Monsters are the people you cannot negotiate with
8. Horrors are the things that fall out when you wear through reality

1. Great beasts, loci of the animists

This is one of the ur-beasts, the primal animals. Sometimes hold-overs from a mythic time, surviving over long aeons in the wildnerness, sometimes newly manifested as the mightiest of their kind, very rarely induced or created then gone wild. Destined to become animal lords on the Beastlands with their passing, greatly respected by fey and celestial, coveted and hunted by fiends they are a rare concentration of pure animal being.

Animists or any followers of nature deities will hold these entities in great esteem, seeing them as divine manifestations or messengers of greater powers. The great beast may or may not be concerned with things beyond the nature of the animal it is, some are intelligent others are simply powerful. My yardstick for this is the Emperor Tortoise of Trilemma Adventures "His Eternal Progress". They can also be terrain, see The God Beast's pelt dungeon from d8 Moving Dungeons.

In proximity to the great beast rolls tied to constitution and wisdom for senses and fortitude get a bonus, those tied to intelligence and wisdom for concentration, recollection and deduction are at a disadvantage.

2. Dragons and their cults

Like the god animals but more so - dragons are visibly mighty, they conquer, they squabble, they pursue their passions and schemes, they suffer no rivals. All these aspects are as the gods except dragons are so mighty they do not even require worshippers. This in turn makes them frequent object of veneration and unfortunately you have run into some of these.

For entities that typically grant very little to those that worship them, dragons have a tight hold over their cultists. Though they are often structure around worship and prayers there is no divine transfer of power. One tendency among cultists is unshakeable faith because their god is so tangible - Dragon Cult Barbarians from Goblin Punch is the yardstick.

Another tendency is that the cultists try harder because it can never be proved that they have won their dragons favour beyond the brief fleeting instant in the presence of the dragon themselves. Everything is an omen making the cultists deeply unpredictable as they attempt to best serve their inscrutable lord.

The entity you face is fanatic in its devotion to the dragon, their mind hardened by exposure to dragon-fear. Effects that target morale or the mind are likely to fail.

3. Petty Gods

Where dragons are very obvious, petty gods are subtle. Especially in a land filled with abandoned efforts to turn animals to elves. All the usual petty gods are present plus the minor godlings of the animal-folk and other stranger gods of the animal-folk lineages that never stabilised, the ones lost in the reign of the Predator Queens, and the ones left behind by the older races that once dwelled here. For examples see d14 small gods of the animal-lings.

Roll a random trait on an NPC generator of your choice; actions that align to that have a bonus in proximity to the petty god.

4. Great works - of nations, clans, guilds, wizards

This thing you have run into is the fruit of some groups toil, a constructed thing with so much power invested in it that it is a functionally god-like entity. Example are the construct of the dwarven great brass jormungandr and the room swarm of some mad wizard from d8 Moving Dungeons. Similarly it is said the aboleths of the deeps willed into existence servitors to venture ashore and claim resources they could not reach. Their purposes complete, their tools roam free.

Even some great works that were never intended to raise things to near-godhood can be subverted or twisted. The elves effectively conducted a mass uplift program that gave us all of our animalfolk but we see the shadow of careless elven shaping of creatures in d8 reasons to fear the legacy of the predator queens.

Face with such an obvious display of the prowess of mortals, all wisdom related rolls get a bonus in proximity to the great work.

5. The devolved remnants of once greater beings

It is known that over time the lines of immortal gods suffer the long slow degradation down through their ever smaller and shorter lived descendants - as the titans to the giants. This thing is one such - it resembles a thing you know but it is the spawn of a primal animal of descendant of a greater entity and still has some of the powers of its heritage. Some of these are at peace with their trajectory away from god-hood, seeing it as a burden to lay down and often helpful with what powers they retain. Others bitterly resent their descent and will strive to prove their remaining might by dominating those unfortunate enough to cross their path.

Which ever variety you have, these are almost certainly entities known from legend in this world, if not them directly than their mightier sires. Resisting anything that effects your morale or mental fortitude is more difficult around them

6. Horrors are just other peoples gods

Horrors are just quasi-godlike entities that are difficult for you and people like you to relate to. They are up to things, others are perfectly capable of interacting with them fruitfully, but you and your kind are chaff to them. Pawns at best, cobwebs to be swept aside otherwise. It is known there were visitors - from the elemental planes, from other worlds - who brought servants and left them behind when they departed.

Some of these are minor godlings of peoples long gone - of colours perceptible with eyes that no longer exist, of the sound of great swarms of proto-insects clambering over one another, of the creatures that remain only imprinted in chalk - these all remain, lingering in the wilderness or in places where the depths are disturbed. It is known the mountains once walked and they carved the world and left all the ecosystems behind in their trail. Their dreams coalesce and walk the earth.

Choose a mutation table of your choice and roll on that; this manifests after an hour in proximity to the entity, or at the start of the second round of combat.

7. Monsters are the people you cannot negotiate with

The continuum extends down - in A Beastman Came Upon A Beast we have our d8 superstitions around who can be eaten - in a world of animalfolk the memory of the Predator Queens and being hunted is still scorched deep into the oral traditions and twitchiness of the folk of the realm. One of the most unfortunate persistent legacies of the Predator Queens was the school of cannibalistic power-gathering, a variant of soul-devouring that functioned even for the dim souls of animals. It is said that the eldest, most cunning of the predator queens are still out there, abiding and bloated with power from the victims they devour.

Anyone downed during the encounter finds themselves closer to death - -5 hp, start with an immediate failed death save, or equivalent to shorten the window to tend to a downed player.

8. Horrors are the things that fall out when you wear through reality

This thing is just the vessel for a break in reality. It appears to you as a minor god but is in fact a meat-chariot containing a rupture in reality. It is known that long before the elves, long before the dwarves, before the Titans themselves were beginning to walk the earth, the insect folk wove reality as we currently recognise it. They a have been gone so long none know why they made the world the way it is and why there seem to be paths to other places woven into the walls. Nothing good is ever known to have come from beyond the walls of reality, noone knows why the insects did not seal up these gaps when they knew how.

This thing is one such - frequently an insect shape, as it appears that extruding into our world forces them into the form of those that built the frame around the world.

Everything is more dangerous around them - the lowest damage dice rolled of any set thrown near them is instead set to the maximum value.

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