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StealthyRobot
2015-10-29, 02:17 PM
I've been wondering lately: How does the tarrasque awaken? Obviously, this is completely up to the DM, but I wanted to know what ways you guys have awakened the big guy. Some artifact was found? He sensed the party reached level 20? Threw a rock at it?

Just looking for ideas, serious or creative.

Flickerdart
2015-10-29, 03:17 PM
Like most hibernation-type creatures, the Tarrasque might awaken for two reasons - either something disturbs its slumber, or it's seasonally appropriate/it ran out of food from last time. This also helps determine its motivations, since a hibernating animal seeks to get rid of the interruption as quickly as possible, and an animal just out of hibernation will seek to eat as much as possible to recoup lost body mass.

Broken Crown
2015-10-29, 04:09 PM
The Tarrasque awakens when:

- The stars are right.
- Dwarves delve too greedily and too deep.
- Wizards test nuclear weapons in the South Pacific.
- The local sports team is robbed of the championship by bad refereeing.
- Its alarm clock goes off. Finding the clock and hitting the "snooze" button can be an epic quest in its own right.

Other possibilities:

- As in the original legend, it doesn't awaken; it migrates to the local area from central Turkey.
- It doesn't actually sleep; it waits patiently for the day when the local wizards forget to prepare any Fly spells.

Anonymouswizard
2015-10-29, 04:26 PM
Well obviously it awakens when somebody casts the awaken spell on...

Oh, you didn't mean an awakened Tarrasque.

In reality, the only people who really care are Japan and that one village in France, but I think it happens when you drill for oil in it's lair.

Traab
2015-10-29, 04:57 PM
You should totally play the zerg campaign in starcraft 2. In it kerrigan has to awaken "The Ancient One" Basically, the biggest, baddest zerg that ever existed on this world. Its so big and bad it goes into torpor for long periods of time, waiting for other zerg to evolve far enough to be worth killing. She awakened it by feeding it biomass, lots of biomass. Its head being the only part of its body exposed. So that could be an interesting thing. Create a doomsday cult that wants to end the world by awakening the tarrasque, that has been hibernating quite peacefully for a long time now. It requires a jumpstart of specific items/flesh to devour to wake up.

Ralanr
2015-10-29, 07:05 PM
Dwarves mined too deep into the earth, prematurely awaking the beast. Or maybe a coven of elves wished to control the creature for some purpose but overestimated their ability.

Cause sometimes humans didn't cause the world ending monster to come out. Sometimes other races are at fault.

Traab
2015-10-29, 08:07 PM
Dwarves mined too deep into the earth, prematurely awaking the beast. Or maybe a coven of elves wished to control the creature for some purpose but overestimated their ability.

Cause sometimes humans didn't cause the world ending monster to come out. Sometimes other races are at fault.

Pfft, and the delved too deep isnt overdone? :smalltongue: Besides, unless the deep delving dwarves (say that 5 times fast) are also in the habit of digging their tunnels wide enough for a tarrasque to trundle through despite being a mere fraction of its size, I dont think that would be a huge problem. Eventually its going to hit a spot and be like, "Uhh, I need to be about 3-4 size modifiers smaller to get past here"

Ralanr
2015-10-29, 08:11 PM
Pfft, and the delved too deep isnt overdone? :smalltongue: Besides, unless the deep delving dwarves (say that 5 times fast) are also in the habit of digging their tunnels wide enough for a tarrasque to trundle through despite being a mere fraction of its size, I dont think that would be a huge problem. Eventually its going to hit a spot and be like, "Uhh, I need to be about 3-4 size modifiers smaller to get past here"

Eh, I'm not feeling particularly creative tonight. Maybe the dwarves worship it as some sort of ancient god? Dwarven cthulu cults!

Traab
2015-10-29, 09:40 PM
You could also borrow a bit from Final Fantasy 7. Say the Tarrasque is basically a weapon formed from the planet itself meant to be a scourge to any threat to its existence. There are all sorts of random threats in a D&D universe that could theoretically trigger the release of a tarrasque to destroy it. Hell, you could even fiddle with the creatures design and abilities to make specific tarrasques designed to counter differing threats.

sktarq
2015-10-29, 09:49 PM
You guys do know that the Tarrasque could probably just dig its way out.

As for waking up why does it need a reason? I always figured that concepts of fate, powers beyond the ken of mortals, dark prophecies etc was what the Tarrasque was in the game for. As for "waking" him/it basically any who would mess with the above.

snacksmoto
2015-10-29, 09:57 PM
I've been wondering lately: How does the tarrasque awaken? Obviously, this is completely up to the DM, but I wanted to know what ways you guys have awakened the big guy. Some artifact was found? He sensed the party reached level 20? Threw a rock at it?

Just looking for ideas, serious or creative.

Direct force during the active phase of the Tarrasque has proven to only send it into hibernation to recover.

A group of sages and diviners are attempting a long-term plan to kill the Tarrasque via constant disruption of its hibernation phase. They have found its den and are sending a constant stream of man and beast so that it cannot hibernate in hopes that it will be weaker and more vulnerable to actual death in following active periods. They plan to continue tracking the Tarrasque quickly and disrupting it over several restorative hibernation cycles unless it proves to be an ineffectual strategy to weaken the monster.

Draconium
2015-10-29, 10:02 PM
You know, I've never been in a campaign as a player or DM where the Tarrasque was woken up by anything other than the PCs messing around and waking it up. Usually on purpose. Dang PCs... :smalltongue:

Traab
2015-10-29, 10:35 PM
In ancient times, the Tarrasque roamed the world, obliterating towns and cities and killing everything in its path. Noone could kill it, noone could trap it, no one could even slow it down. Then the high priests of the local pantheon got together and cast a group Miracle which overcame the monsters spell resistances enough to turn it to stone at the cost of their lives. The monster was thought to be stopped forever. Its been hundreds of years, history has turned into legend, legend has turned into myth, and all but fragments of the past have been lost. Monster Mound has been the local landmark, a most interesting formation of rock and earth, but lately odd groaning and cracking sounds have been heard in the vicinity. Noone is quite sure what it means, the local seers have started waking up screaming, unable to speak as they are driven insane. A band of adventurers and investigators is being searched for to try and find out what is going on.

HolyCouncilMagi
2015-10-30, 12:34 AM
Pfft, and the delved too deep isnt overdone? :smalltongue: Besides, unless the deep delving dwarves (say that 5 times fast) are also in the habit of digging their tunnels wide enough for a tarrasque to trundle through despite being a mere fraction of its size, I dont think that would be a huge problem. Eventually its going to hit a spot and be like, "Uhh, I need to be about 3-4 size modifiers smaller to get past here"
The last ones thought that the earth was its prison too. Such a silly notion. The Tarrasque cannot be trapped. It cannot be contained indefinitely. It sleeps, and gives us a chance to breathe and recover, but on its terms. You think a narrow corridor will stop the Tarrasque? The Tarrasque has swallowed cities in a single parting of its acidic maw. A mile of stone above the Tarrasque merely serves as an appetizer as it rises to begin its feast.

I pray for the poor souls who have awakened it before it was ready throughout the eons. "Just cast Silence and slit its throat!" "Just cut off its toenail and make Simulacra!" "Eh, it can't fly anyway so it's no threat!" All these and more I've heard from aspiring heroes, and every time I've laughed only to gaze sadly later on the dust in the air that could've been their corpses if the Tarrasque fathomed the concept of self-restraint.

What woke up the Tarrasque? Many things have woken up the Tarrasque. Greedy miners digging too deep? Sure. Death cults calling out to the Tarrasque when the stars and ley lines aligned perfectly with a great ritual sacrificing thousands? Indeed. The completion of its hibernation? Once or twice, I'm sure. But perhaps we could wrap it up more succinctly.

Fate. Not the Tarrasque's fate, mind, for the Tarrasque is less an object to fate and more an instrument of it. It is the fate of this world to end, to be withered down and devoured slowly but unerringly.

The Tarrasque has existed since long before us and is greater than anything we will accomplish, by its own design. For that, I believe, is why it exists. To provide us a check against growing too great, and to serve as an example of what the result is when that threshold is breached...

DoomHat
2015-10-30, 01:38 AM
One of my favorite Tarrasque stories was from this forum years ago.

A city-state, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, had captured and indefinably contained the Tarrasque in their undercity. They began exploiting its hyper regenerative aspect to harvest it as a infinite fount of resources. Peeling away plates of its hide for armor and building materials, and pulling it's teeth for ivory. Eventually, they started cutting out steaks from its flesh, cooking them, and selling them cheap.

Besides the inevitable mass death by hubris when it eventually escapes, the population of the city had began gradually turning into trolls from eating the unnatural, magically regenerative, Tarrasque meat.

Ralanr
2015-10-30, 09:19 AM
One of my favorite Tarrasque stories was from this forum years ago.

A city-state, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, had captured and indefinably contained the Tarrasque in their undercity. They began exploiting its hyper regenerative aspect to harvest it as a infinite fount of resources. Peeling away plates of its hide for armor and building materials, and pulling it's teeth for ivory. Eventually, they started cutting out steaks from its flesh, cooking them, and selling them cheap.

Besides the inevitable mass death by hubris when it eventually escapes, the population of the city had began gradually turning into trolls from eating the unnatural, magically regenerative, Tarrasque meat.

Well that's one way to solve world hunger.

Fragenstein
2015-10-30, 09:26 AM
In 1972 an unstoppable monster was sent to prison by a military court for a crime it didn't commit. This creature promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, it slumbers. If you have a death wish, if no one else can kill you, and if you can find it, maybe you can awaken the Tarrasque.

Red Fel
2015-10-30, 09:29 AM
Obviously, it's not that the Tarrasque awakens, but that it arrives.

From deep beneath the Pacific Ocean. A fissure between two tectonic plates. A portal between dimensions. The Breach.

I was fifteen when the first Tarrasque made land in Waterdeep.

StealthyRobot
2015-10-30, 10:04 AM
Thought of some of my own. Either a mountain will be dropped on its head, or some demi god will try to use it as a mount.

In either case, the tarrasque will most likely be pissed.

tomandtish
2015-10-30, 10:15 AM
In 1972 an unstoppable monster was sent to prison by a military court for a crime it didn't commit. This creature promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, it slumbers. If you have a death wish, if no one else can kill you, and if you can find it, maybe you can awaken the Tarrasque.

I've been looking for a good quote. May I use this?

Callos_DeTerran
2015-10-31, 02:08 PM
The Ecology of the Tarrasque gave an idea of how Paizo/Wizards figured that it worked. The tarrasque has its cycle which everyone knows about but what no one considered was how....the tarrasque just managed to disappear when its 'awake' time was up. The article said that the tarrasque had the ability to simply...melt through the stone until it reached a proper depth to be completely covered up in stone and just...began to hibernate. No tunneling, no excavating, it just disappeared into the earth and if something somehow managed to disturb its hibernation, its only reaction was to sink deeper into the earth until it was no longer bothered.

Funnily enough, it uses this same process to get back to its feeding grounds aka 'the world'.

LordKarnox
2018-10-02, 11:06 AM
The Tarrasque is a hibernating creature. It wakes up to: A. Eat B. Some dumbass woke it up

Mr Beer
2018-10-02, 07:02 PM
When does the Tarrasque awaken? Three words:

When. It. Hungers.

Newtonsolo313
2018-10-03, 06:25 AM
it needs to get to work in an hour

edit: wait this is some strong ass necromancy

martixy
2018-10-05, 05:18 AM
Yep. Also explains the random StarCraft 2 reference - back then Legacy of the Void had just come out.