Laserlight
2016-05-20, 11:45 PM
A character has gotten infected by a tadpole stage Great Old One, and I'm wondering what effect to inflict -- without making it likely to lead to a TPK.
The party is Level 8 and these are all new characters--this was part of their first session, in fact--so I don't want to be too harsh just yet.
"Don't look in the holes where the stars are missing! Horrible things live outside the world, and they can crawl in through the holes!" Given that the creature who gave that warning was walking up the sky, carrying a handful of stars, and hammering stars into place to fill the holes, you'd think the PCs would have listened to him.
Of course, they're PCs. I'm lucky they didn't all look.
Of the two who did look, one is a warlock. I told him "This is where you make your Pact, right here. You'll have some awful discoveries, and it might cost you your soul, but you can control this. Sort of. At least for now."
The other, though, is a rapier-wielding bravo (refluffed monk), with no background or preparation to deal with Eldritch Horrors from Beyond the Sky. Oops.
And they're about to fight one of the Lords of Night, except this Lord is a corpse, animated and ridden by a somewhat more advanced stage Great Old One. But there's no particular reason that her GOO has to be allied with the one riding the dead god.
Possible consequences that occurred to me:
Insanity, minor: "You keep hearing the night insects whispering to you. You can almost make out words."
Insanity, major: Paranoia or something similar. "All the others are hostile to you. The paladin especially--you don't know what's wrong with him, but he's clearly possessed by some hostile Power. The others don't seem to have realized that. Don't trust any of them."
Mind control: "No, this turn you don't attack the dead god, you attack the paladin."
Cosmetic, minor. "You have tattoos on your tongue--they don't make any recognizable figures, they're spikey, twisted designs that feel blasphemous"
Cosmetic, major. "You have grey-purple shelf fungus growing from your right cheekbone down to your hip. And you have a cluster of three-inch-long segmented tentacles, five of them, growing out of your left temple. They keep writhing and getting tangled in your hair."
Effects: replace her Ki attacks with Necro / Psychic attacks. "Flurry of blows, you say? It's actually a burst of black energy which seems to suck the spirit from your foe."
Effects: cook up an Uncontrolled Aberrant Magic table, like a sorcerer's Wild Magic. Random effects, random targets.
Anything else? The creepier the better.
The party is Level 8 and these are all new characters--this was part of their first session, in fact--so I don't want to be too harsh just yet.
"Don't look in the holes where the stars are missing! Horrible things live outside the world, and they can crawl in through the holes!" Given that the creature who gave that warning was walking up the sky, carrying a handful of stars, and hammering stars into place to fill the holes, you'd think the PCs would have listened to him.
Of course, they're PCs. I'm lucky they didn't all look.
Of the two who did look, one is a warlock. I told him "This is where you make your Pact, right here. You'll have some awful discoveries, and it might cost you your soul, but you can control this. Sort of. At least for now."
The other, though, is a rapier-wielding bravo (refluffed monk), with no background or preparation to deal with Eldritch Horrors from Beyond the Sky. Oops.
And they're about to fight one of the Lords of Night, except this Lord is a corpse, animated and ridden by a somewhat more advanced stage Great Old One. But there's no particular reason that her GOO has to be allied with the one riding the dead god.
Possible consequences that occurred to me:
Insanity, minor: "You keep hearing the night insects whispering to you. You can almost make out words."
Insanity, major: Paranoia or something similar. "All the others are hostile to you. The paladin especially--you don't know what's wrong with him, but he's clearly possessed by some hostile Power. The others don't seem to have realized that. Don't trust any of them."
Mind control: "No, this turn you don't attack the dead god, you attack the paladin."
Cosmetic, minor. "You have tattoos on your tongue--they don't make any recognizable figures, they're spikey, twisted designs that feel blasphemous"
Cosmetic, major. "You have grey-purple shelf fungus growing from your right cheekbone down to your hip. And you have a cluster of three-inch-long segmented tentacles, five of them, growing out of your left temple. They keep writhing and getting tangled in your hair."
Effects: replace her Ki attacks with Necro / Psychic attacks. "Flurry of blows, you say? It's actually a burst of black energy which seems to suck the spirit from your foe."
Effects: cook up an Uncontrolled Aberrant Magic table, like a sorcerer's Wild Magic. Random effects, random targets.
Anything else? The creepier the better.