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View Full Version : Refluffing Binder to real world mythology



Heliomance
2010-09-27, 04:33 AM
I'm about to start running a campaign, and one of my players wants to play a Binder. Now, I have no problem with this inherently, but we're not playing in Greyhawk. We're playing in the real world, where all myths are true. How can the vestiges be refluffed to make this work? Some of them, there's no real problem - Amon and Eurynome being a couple - but others really don't fit. Ashererak is a big one here, but there are others - Chupoclops, Aym, and in fact most of them. I don't want to stop him playing a Binder, and I don't want to nerf him to the point of oblivion by simply banning most of the vestiges. How best to fix this?

Mystic Muse
2010-09-27, 04:36 AM
redo the vestiges as names from whatever myths you're using?

Heliomance
2010-09-27, 04:40 AM
Trouble with simply renaming is that there aren't beings with the abilities of a lot of the things. Andromalius is very setting specific. Chupoclops is just weird. Minotaurs and frost giants come from completely different mythologies, so Haagenti doesn't make sense.

Benly
2010-09-27, 04:42 AM
I'm about to start running a campaign, and one of my players wants to play a Binder. Now, I have no problem with this inherently, but we're not playing in Greyhawk. We're playing in the real world, where all myths are true. How can the vestiges be refluffed to make this work? Some of them, there's no real problem - Amon and Eurynome being a couple - but others really don't fit. Ashererak is a big one here, but there are others - Chupoclops, Aym, and in fact most of them. I don't want to stop him playing a Binder, and I don't want to nerf him to the point of oblivion by simply banning most of the vestiges. How best to fix this?

Aym and most of the others are actually already tweaked from existing real-world mythology, so it's actually not that hard. The majority of them, along with their seals, are from the 72 demons of The Lesser Key of Solomon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lesser_Key_of_Solomon). Note that WOTC used alternate versions of some of the names - Savnok is Sabnock in Wikipedia's listing, for example - and WOTC made up their own backstories for the designs and concepts, but pretty much all of the original Tome of Magic vestiges that aren't D&D injokes are from the Lesser Key. It should be pretty easy to go through the ones they didn't use and find good candidates to reflavor the mechanics from the WOTC-created vestiges.

Heliomance
2010-09-27, 04:55 AM
Heh, wonder how they missed more allegations of "D&D is satanic!" with that one.

Looking through the Wikipedia links, it seemeth me that while they've used a lot of the names, they bear little or no resemblance to the demons described in the Key. Ho hum.

Robert Blackletter
2010-09-27, 05:03 AM
Refluffed blinder?
Well with out knowing more about your world (for example are the gods etc still around? Do mundane know about that myths are real? etc) my first instinct is to have the binder as a worshipper of a trickster god, such as Anansi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anansi) or Coyote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_%28mythology%29). The character has found away of contacting the god/figure in some daily ritual. When summoned the two make a deal to lend the p.c some of his power, the price of which is influence of the vestigue it based from. Any special requirements are fluffed also as the price the god demanded for the power and the sign is the god joke on you. That just a quick idea hope it helps

Eldan
2010-09-27, 05:04 AM
They are remotely connected. The only one I really looked up was Leraje... while the demon was male, he was at least a green-clad archer who caused arrow wounds which don't heal.

AslanCross
2010-09-27, 05:05 AM
Buer is from real world mythology.
Chupoclops could portrayed as a different apocalypse monster: Apep, Vritra, Jormungandr or Ouroboros, or even Kali (the demon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_(Demon)), not the goddess (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali)) from Hindu mythology.
Eligor could be any of the many dragonslayers in myth, like Siegfried.
Geryon's from Greek mythology too, though he's a monster and not a devil.


Not really sure how others can be directly translated, but here are some other suggestions who are interesting and flavorful:
-Ravana (Hindu; demon lord slain by Rama)
-Zahhak (Persian; serpent king imprison by Feridoun)
-Typhon (Greek; largest monster in the mythos, trapped under a volcano)
-Nuada Airgetlam (Irish; one-armed king of the Tuatha de Danaan)
-Susanoo (Japanese; Brooding, wayward storm god, slayer of the eight-headed dragon Yamata-no-Orochi). IMO he fits well with Focalor.
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Benly
2010-09-27, 05:08 AM
Heh, wonder how they missed more allegations of "D&D is satanic!" with that one.

Looking through the Wikipedia links, it seemeth me that while they've used a lot of the names, they bear little or no resemblance to the demons described in the Key. Ho hum.

The physical descriptions are actually pretty much exact matches to the traditional depictions of the Goetic demons. The powers are also, for the most part, derived loosely from the gifts supposedly bestowed by these demons on their summoners. The backstory stuff was all made up by WOTC as the backstory for the demons of Solomon is the same as the backstory of every other demon in the Christian mythosphere: it was an angel that fell. This is mythologically consistent, but hard to fit into the D&D cosmology. If you're using real-world mythology, it works just fine. :)

What's notable about the Lesser Key of Solomon in this context is that it depicts demon summoning not as an inherently black art where the demon will inevitably set out to screw you over, but as something essentially neutral much like D&D portrays binding, on the grounds that Solomon bound them into service in the name of God. You'll lose some mediocrely-written backstory, but you retain the flavor of the binder, the abilities, and the crazy designs and personality tics.

Incidentally, anyone who's played a recent Castlevania or any Shin Megami Tensei/Persona game will recognize a lot of these guys. Because they're such bizarre and distinctive designs, borrowing them is very popular. :)

Eldan
2010-09-27, 05:20 AM
With some fitting and juggling, you could actually just make the Binder a goetic theurgist, i.e. White Mage. In the real world, it would fit nicely into medieval magical ideas (or Aleister Crowley, actually, if you want to go in that direction). Just get the list of goetic demons, and try to fit the D&D specific vestiges to unused goetic names. If their abilities diverge, claim it's a translation error in the original grimoire, or fautly research on part of the original author.
Problem solved!

Heliomance
2010-09-27, 06:58 AM
Refluffed blinder?
Well with out knowing more about your world (for example are the gods etc still around? Do mundane know about that myths are real? etc) my first instinct is to have the binder as a worshipper of a trickster god, such as Anansi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anansi) or Coyote (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_%28mythology%29). The character has found away of contacting the god/figure in some daily ritual. When summoned the two make a deal to lend the p.c some of his power, the price of which is influence of the vestigue it based from. Any special requirements are fluffed also as the price the god demanded for the power and the sign is the god joke on you. That just a quick idea hope it helps

That sounds quite good, actually.
As for my world, the gods are around, though on a different plane. Most people don't know that the myths are real; the party do for various reasons, or at least they know that there are supernatural things out there.

Benly
2010-09-27, 07:23 AM
...but vestiges are already mythological beings and binding is already grounded in real-world mysticism (goetic theurgy, as Eldan notes). They are nothing like anything Coyote or Anansi ever did in any mythology.

Eldan
2010-09-27, 07:26 AM
But if he wants to rewrite it like this, let him. Actually how about this:

The binder is a Shaman, and gets voluntarily possessed by various nature and animal spirits. Plenty of mythology should have that.

AtwasAwamps
2010-09-27, 09:27 AM
The binder is a Shaman, and gets voluntarily possessed by various nature and animal spirits. Plenty of mythology should have that.

...VOODOO! Seriously, that would be awesome fluff.

Kobold-Bard
2010-09-27, 11:10 AM
But if he wants to rewrite it like this, let him. Actually how about this:

The binder is a Shaman, and gets voluntarily possessed by various nature and animal spirits. Plenty of mythology should have that.

I tried to cone up with somehing new, but this was actually superior to anything I could think of (except maybe that the player is a cyborg and the vestiges are sentient programmes on cd's that he uploads for the day, but that isn't really what yore looking for).

Morph Bark
2010-09-27, 11:20 AM
...VOODOO! Seriously, that would be awesome fluff.

Strange how many different classes I have seen refluffed to function for a "voodoo" character. That just shows the flexibility of the system.

AtwasAwamps
2010-09-27, 11:48 AM
Strange how many different classes I have seen refluffed to function for a "voodoo" character. That just shows the flexibility of the system.

Indeed. I'd detail more how the Binder fits in (disturbingly well, really...I might just sit down and do the full refluff myself if I have time for kicks), but I feel I'd be crossing the real world religion lines at some point, so I'll stay away from it.

RE OP: I would just spend some time and look at myths and fairy tales. The Vestiges are all very simple legends that can be refluffed to fit another one quite simply. Andromalius, for example, can easily be refluffed as almost ANY roguish archetype with enough care and stretching. Chuboclops...heck, throw in the Cthulu mythos if its weird enough. Have fun with it, stretch canon on both sides for the heck of it. Vestiges aren't the actual being...they're like fragmented ideals/ideas of the creatures they represent.

Eldan
2010-09-27, 11:48 AM
Voodoo works. As does some other African mythology, the werewolf idea, some interpretations of witchcraft, and, I'd be willing to bet, a few dozen other shamanistic religions worldwide, on pretty much every continent.

Call Amon "Fox" or "Coyote", or "Raven" or "Spider", depending on the mythology. Same for Andromalius. They should all fit one animal or another, though you'd have to change their appearances. Perhaps they are just archetypes, and come in the form of whatever animal the binder envisions them to be.