The Badgerbrough Inquisitive, issue 4:44

 

(Older issues here.)

Sunday silly idea: using Telephone Pictionary Game as spell research

Have you played Telephone Pictionary Game? I can't remember if I've had, but the gist of it is basically:

1. Write a secret message/sentence on a piece of a paper
2. Pass it to someone else
3. They now have to draw it
4. When they're done, they pass it to the next person, who interprets the picture into words
5. Repeat 2

(The original game makes you construct small booklets and what not, but you get the idea.)

What if you used this idea for spell research?

Let's say your average player Börje Bajskorv wants to research a new spell for his character. He writes down the complete spell description - intent, usage, whatever, even a preferred spell name - on a piece of paper, and passes it on to another player/DM.

They now have to illustrate it on another (blank) piece of paper. When they're done, they pass the illustration on to another player, who interprets the picture into words.

The new spell interpretation is then passed on to yet another player (or DM), and so on, until it finally lands in the hands of the original spell researcher as a written interpretation - and that is the final spell.

You could probably make it so that spell level is dependent on how many times the spell needs to be passed along (e.g. alternating between being drawn/interpreted).

This is a completely untested idea, so I assume it works flawlessly!

The Yearly Fend Off

At the end of each year, it is believed that the stars above comes exactly one step closer to our planet, bringing end and destruction to it all - if the prophecy speaks truth.

"Therefore," the wise men and women says, "it is of utmost importance that we direct all force to the dark skies at the same time, to push back and fend off the evil, when the new year comes into being!"

So, at the final night of the year, entire towns gather out on the fields, bringing their magic and devices of flight and destruction, for the yearly fend off.

And at the same time, as if synchronized by an time-knowing hand, the sky lights up in the rainbow's colours.

Scholars of magic lets off their entire arsenal of ranged magic into the sky; missiles and spheres, burning or not, everything that can travel on their own.

Bowmen aim into the darkness above, and let off arrow after arrow; some alit, some just sharp.

And some, who knows neither magic nor archery, picks up the stones at their feet or the dagger at their side, and bring all their being into one great toss.

Eventually, two things happens.

First, the stars - or rather, the terrible otherworldly beings that will bring end and destruction to all - are pushed back one step, since the prophecy is actually true.

Then, when every single arrow, dagger and stone has returned from its highest point, turned around and eliminated a combat worthy citizen, when all magic-users have depleted their arsenal, and when the last summoned beast has returned to its plane of existence - it's then the invading forces of the next-door king who doesn't believe in the prophecy comes and takes over.

The Ogre Slayer

 

Anagramming Monster Manual - Part B

A bob no 

A hairdo mimic.

 

Bad erg

A desert mimic that smokes and calls you names.

 

A rebuilt hi chum

A friendly golem made from scrap metal, gas powered.

A radar cub

A puppy that can detect blink dogs. GOOD BOY!

I ask libs

A curious monster that attacks with words and questions, mostly found around old tomes and books.

Bare

A shaved Ursidae.

Rave be

A nocturnal, energetic monster with a fluorescent tongue.

Let bee

A stirge you just have to put behind you.

Elder hob

Shaped like a three-sided wooden box, it sneaks up to houses at night and knocks off a brick or two, and runs off with them.

Pub dick gland

Found in taverns, it... Moving on.

Gild knob

A door handle mimic that gentle covers the inside of your hand with gold leaf. These people are highly sought after.

A bro

Either you love this monster, or you hate it. In any case, you most definitely know it.

Near limbo

These thin spectres, bent over in impossible ways, will try to take hold on you and drag you through the ground, to the antechamber of the infinite waiting halls.

I be worn

A clothing mimic, impossible to get rid of because of its cut, that manages to both hurt and look dashing!

Of a flub

A wizard made it, unknowingly.

Be a grub

Iron rations mimic.

Butt eel

Moving on.

B LUL

Teenage monster, texting her bestie life advice about whatevs K THX BAI.

Stuff I've written on this blog that I had forgotten I had written but still like (VOLUME 2)

(VOLUME 1 here!)

More stuff I've written but forgotten about. Do you have a blog? When was the last time you went back to your first posts? I bet some are really bad, but I also bet some are very good!

I don't know if these are really bad or really good - but I like them. And I had forgotten all about them.

• Instead of hit points: a glass egg - If you travel too far from the phylactery, your body starts to decay, accelerating the further you travel from it. But you won't die, as long as the egg is whole. [...] This is also how undead are made; regular people that travel too far from their glass egg [...] Remove enough flesh and soon you'll have yourself a zombie.
  
  
• The Silent City - The Silent City is named so because it is illegal to speak. [...] The Grand Ocularium serves as what other cities would call a library, only here the books are replaced by several silent tellers; sages who can recite information using Silent Language.
  
  
• Anagramming Players Handbook (all parts) - CATHODIC GOO. You support or are drawn to solutions/people that are really crappy but make things flow somehow. (from PART 4: ALIGNMENT)
   
• A bunch of random, unrelated things - The antibard is a person who destroys music through aerial sorcery. He or she hates all things rhythmical, sung, or hummed. And dancing. Especially dancing.
  
  
• Using the CSS basic box model for RPG stuff - I'm starting to get a feel for this NPC, thank you very much Mozilla Developer Network.

 

 

Swedish fika at the shores of your enemies

Gem Island