Very nice. There are many bug posts here that I'm not sure how I would bring into my adventure. The introduction of these creatures should be simple and amusing. It also brings a touch of reality to the game when players realize that dragons have mundane problems like tapeworms and that the large beasts can serve as an entire ecosystem to these fiends. Go to Comment
I would recommend making the barb very hard to remove, but perhaps the posion not immediate. That way the animal would run away from the tree before dying. I say this because you don't want to have baby oak trees growing in the shade of older ones. Also, I think a predatory plant would want to spread sprasely, otherwise the outer ones would kill animals and the inner ones in a dense grove would not get fed. But that's only a minor detail. Go to Comment
I like the idea, but it would have been even better with more details. From silly things like how does it multiply (not by animal pollination I am sure! unless you have electric anti-rash bunnies or something) to things like how does it generate shocks? Go to Comment
I'm not sure about all of the science, but it's an original idea. We've all heard about how body covering is used by animals to control heat intake/release (polar bears, etc.), but this takes that concept a big step further! Go to Comment
I like the idea, but it'd be great to see more detail. Is the madness random, because of disruption of normal biology, or is it because of the slug (maybe the slug really likes cheese, so the host becomes cheese-crazy or every fifth word he says becomes "cheese"). I know intelligence and motivation is a lot to ask of a parasite, but it seems pretty powerful. What does the slug get? Does it eat brains or muscle? Would it ever jump to a new (better?) host? What does the slug gain by hurting its host?
This thought amuses me: in total darkness, light a match near a lux mite lantern (LML)and blow it out. The LMs will begin to glow (magnifying the light). They will stop glowing when the light from the extinguished match stops hitting them, but then will start glowing again the instant they get hit by the light emitted from neighboring lux mites hits them (because light is fast but not instant). This means, once a lux mite lantern is turned on, it will never go out, because travel time is so short the "flickering" will be much quicker than lightbulbs at 60 hertz, but because it is not instant, even just two of them would keep going forever.
If you don't like the science babble above, I suppose you could just line a mine shaft with these lanterns... As long as one sees sunlight (or moon/starlight) it relays it to the next, which relays light to the next... you don't even need mirrors, just put bugs at corners and you can bend light. Go to Comment
I like the idea of memory being lost when the glob is hurt or splits. I still think they'd take over the world (no matter how stupid something is, if it grows/multiplies and is nearly immortal it should prevail... look at humans! and we're not even that tough! and we reproduce slow!)
It seems like a lot of these bizarre lifeforms I have read are what I would consider "low". (slugs, blobs, bacteria) It makes sense in that we're thinking of "weird" things and those are "weird" animals. But it would be cool to see some more larger weird animals. (This is not specifically aimed at this post :-) Go to Comment
I met a gnome once who had run into this creature. He said it could split into many smaller hair beasts to confuse the party. And as its strength was sapped with magic and fire, it would even "waste" an attack pulling out the party members' hair and adding to itself, to heal or grow stronger. The poor gnome was clearly upset by his experience, so I meant not to make him relive it too long. But curiousity overcame me and I wondered how they fought it off. The gnome smiled and pulled a handful of candles out of his bag. He told me he always carried them with him, in case it returned. The only reason he was still alive was that the beast was terrified of wax. Go to Comment
I'm willing to play fast and loose with science, especially in a fantasy world (but i much prefer "magic" to bad science in general). But I wonder about the ecology/culture/motivations of these creatures. Just because the players don't know doesn't mean that you can't tell us. Go to Comment
My comments mirror AG's. This is a pretty difficult puzzle in some ways, not difficult to figure out if you know magnetics, but very difficult if you don't. More of a knowledge quiz than many puzzles. Go to Comment
I don't know how to consider/vote pieces that are taken from other places on the internet. It is in some ways a service to consolidate them, but at the same time, it's easy enough to use google to find them. It's not something I think I will do, but I don't have any problem with it.
Puzzles can be fun, although, as you admit they sometimes "don't belong" in a game. Also, if you give players a puzzle do the ones with low intelligence scores have to not figure it out, or maybe you handicap them some way - there is a disconnect between player and character I think.
I do like putting puzzles into adventures, however. MH's comment actually makes me think, you could try doing an adventure where for some reason the players ar esor of put in a gameshow. For example, a rich guy hires them to recover something goblins stole from him, and points them to the goblin cave. Only in reality, the goblin cave is like a premade gameshow set, where rich and bored wizards send "adventurers" for their amusement. I've actually played in an adventure like this, and my paladin was rip-roaring mad when he found out what happened. Go to Comment
If they are semi-intelligent why do they tolerate being fought for amusement, why not try to escape? Are they fed well and pampered? Considering their hatred of being de-horned, I imagine they would not like to be kept as arena animals. The post confuses me because some things make the animal seem very aggresive ("brutal" and description of hooves as very sharp makes it sound aggressive to me) but the description seems mild. It doesn't all add up to me, but maybe I'm just reading it wrong. Go to Comment