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Gorbash
2007-02-12, 06:59 AM
My tiefling is about to hit level 6 and meet all of the prerequisites for taking this feat, but I just can't come up with a good explanation, and I don't want just to say they apperead over the night... So how would you exactly describe the growth of wings on a character? Magically appeared? Went into a cocoon? Periodically grew over a few days/weeks? Though, I really wouldn't like to use that last one, you know how things tend to happen fast while you're adventuring :smalltongue:

Khantalas
2007-02-12, 07:08 AM
Make them come out slowly overnight. There was a very good visual explanation as to how, but I can't remember exactly what that was.

Fireball.Man.Guy.
2007-02-12, 07:17 AM
What book is this feat in? I might (probably) have it, but havn't seen it yet. I NEED THIS FEAT!!!

Khantalas
2007-02-12, 07:20 AM
It was in Races of Faerun last I checked. I might be wrong, though.

kamikasei
2007-02-12, 07:24 AM
My tiefling is about to hit level 6 and meet all of the prerequisites for taking this feat, but I just can't come up with a good explanation, and I don't want just to say they apperead over the night... So how would you exactly describe the growth of wings on a character? Magically appeared? Went into a cocoon? Periodically grew over a few days/weeks? Though, I really wouldn't like to use that last one, you know how things tend to happen fast while you're adventuring :smalltongue:

Going off of pure fluff and aesthetics, no mechanics involved, I would do this one of two ways.

One: you level up and take the feat. You start having odd flying dreams and the like. At some point in the middle of battle, or at some similar suitably dramatic moment, you unintentionally summon forth your wings and they dramatically unfurl seemingly out of nowhere. There's no anatomical justification for them; it's like they're very convincing illusions which can be touched and which have a real effect, but questions like 'how do they attach to the body' or 'aren't you going to have to walk around shirtless until you can get your armour modified' are handwaved away. This really only works if you want the wings to be capable of being manifested or not, without an effect on equipment. I don't know how consistent this is with the fluff, I just have a fondness for it based on how wings were handled in, mainly, the Lucifer comics. Being able to look like an ordinary dude and then suddenly - bam! wings! - would be fairly win.

Two: you level up and take the feat. Over a couple of days at least, strange stuff starts happening at your back: your skin starts to harden and crust, with a rash that develops as if it were mud drying out and cracking, around the area of your shoulder blades. There are odd motions of muscles under the skin. A bulge begins to develop. There's continual discomfort, a feeling of internal warmth and hard structures scraping against your insides, interspersed with stabbing pains. As with method one, the flying dreams, but this time with related dreams of hatching from a shell or cocoon or breaking out of a choking confinement. Either in the middle of the night or right after a strenuous battle (when you're drained and full of adrenaline) the pain intensifies tremendously and you curl into a ball / drop to your knees / fall to the floor. Over a few minutes of agony (maybe take some nonlethal or temporary CON damage) the skin on your back finally cracks and your new wings, pale and tiny and folded up on themselves, emerge covered in blood and clear, thin goo. Over the sound of your sobbing gulps for air over the next few minutes they slowly expand in the air and sun as blood and fluids pump into them, stretching the membranes tight. In a few minutes you have good-sized, darkening wings on your bleeding back. (You could let your clothes dramatically rip apart in the process, or if it was armour or a robe you wanted to keep, you could feel a manic compulsion to remove it after the dropping-to-your-knees but before the actual skin cracking.)

edit: I forgot to mention what I see as the advantage of the latter (beyond the pain and blood), which is that it lets the process be slow and drawn-out but with no visible or mechanical effects until the last minute, which can happen real quick-like. Hopefully that counteracts your concern about having them "periodically grow over a few days/weeks".

Gorbash
2007-02-12, 08:12 AM
I'll definetly go with the second one. That's truly poetic. Thanks a lot, Kamikasei!

AtomicKitKat
2007-02-12, 09:00 AM
For a slightly less disgusting route:

Your shoulder blades ache. You just feel a lot more tired when swinging your sword/axe/scythe(Ooh, Angel of Death)/whatever lately. Your armour starts to fit a little less well. You feel slight knobbly bumps when you lean back against things. The bumps get bigger, but at least now you can flex them to the side so you can lie on your back, although you still find it's easier sleeping sideways or face down now. After a few more days, you notice that they're starting to resemble plucked chicken wings. A little while longer, and they start sprouting feathers. Little downy ones at first, but eventually, the foot-long ones of a true Celestial.

Fiendish wings would work well with the bloody denouement though.

oriong
2007-02-12, 09:09 AM
I also don't see any reason why you can't go a more 'active' route: using some kind of ritual or invocation in order to 'evolve' the new wings. Perhaps your character has been using Demon Blood ointment on his back just for this purpose, or maybe eaten the wings of 1,000 bats. No reason that it has to be something that just 'happens' to you.

Ikkitosen
2007-02-12, 09:26 AM
I like the "emerge when you need them" aproach, kinda how mutants in X-men and such often use their powers for the first time when they're stressed/in danger/in need.

"The giant triumphantly throws you over the cliff. As you panic at the 500' drop your body seems to tear itself apart as huge bat wings sprout from beneath your shoulder blades. You swoop upwards and, much to the suprise of the giant, thrust your sword between his now-reachable eyes."

He he.

silvermesh
2007-02-12, 09:33 AM
Another one I like is hacking off somebody else's wings and sewing them on ;)

Beelzebub1111
2007-02-12, 09:43 AM
It never says the wings are material. Depending on your class, a set of ghostly black wings appear when you need them (though for the first couple times it's only when you are falling) They hover about an inch or two off your back when you fly.

Gorbash
2007-02-12, 10:29 AM
Well, I didn't want to use a ritual, although I considered that route, simply because my character isn't intrested in that stuff and doesn't have any knowledge about it (being a rogue/fighter/dread-commando-soon). He just has more fiendish blood than other tieflings. :) Or his ancestor was a more powerful devil than usual. I just can't wait to see how will other party members react (LG Dwarf Cleric/Fighter of Moradin, LG Paladin of Tyr, CN Cleric of Uthgart :D)