Zozma
2016-07-03, 12:01 PM
I'm running the module/mini-campaign Deep Carbon Observatory, which has themes of, among other things, forbidden knowledge and looking too far. At one point in the mega-dungeon the players can run across a library filled with ominously titled texts in an even more ominous format. They're mostly treated as flavor in the campaign, but I decided to make the library into a pseudo Deck of Many Things, with each book having the potential to permanently alter the reader in positive and negative ways. Each book is meant to have at least one positive effect and one negative effect, but the good aren't necessarily meant to outweigh the bad, or vice versa, and some effects may be entirely situational.
One of these "cards" that I've been having a hard time coming up with effects for is titled "The Futility of Any Possible Deed." I want it to turn the player into the ultimate nihilist, complete with in-game effects that reflect this. Ideally it won't cripple the player or make the game unenjoyable for them, so effects like "roll a saving throw to get out of bed each morning" are out. At the same time, I'm not particularly worried about balance; the library comes at the end of the campaign, and we don't plan on using the characters afterward.
Does anyone have any ideas? For possible reference here are some of the other books I've come up with that I'm feeling pretty comfortable with:
The text would make Nietzsche weep impotent tears. It is an unparalleled treatise on nihilism, complete with data, models, and arguments so watertight that it would make rebuttal fruitless--doubly so.
You feel ennui seeping into your bones and weighing you down as you read. You're sharper for the experience, more aware, but certainly no better off. Purpose is illusion, destiny a lie, and what drives you and everyone is the compulsion to distance oneself from the one truth of the universe: life is meaningless.
-Effect 1?
-Effect 2?
The Great Old Ones is a designation for a genus of entities that were born and evolved just beyond the reach of starlight. They were lured to the world like prey to an angler and observed, with their alien senses, the makings of life. Like all living creatures they were instilled with the instinctive compulsion to reproduce, but--owing to their individually unique physiologies--could not find compatible mates among their own kind. They took primitive men and women and birthed surrogates, abominations such as "mind flayers" and "beholders," before the jealous gods of man chased them--children and all--to the darkness below.
-Your mind has figuratively expanded, and is now capable of insights beyond what it was originally capable of. Unfortunately, your mind has also literally expanded; there is a plum-sized growth between your eyes shaped like a head of cauliflower. It distorts your vision and has obvious social consequences.
-Your Intelligence permanently increases by 2, your Charisma decreases by 2, and your Wisdom decreases by 1.
Time has a navigable, malleable structure, and you now understand it more than anyone living. Its intricacies are beyond crude manipulation--the book references machines you don't understand and spells long forgotten--but there are ways to "cheat," to introduce some slack in a taut cord. The process is indescribable, even though it has just been described to you; like flexing a muscle you don't have or picturing a color you've never seen. There is a price to pay, but such is always the case with higher knowledge.
-Once per long rest you may cast haste on yourself as a free action. The effect lasts two turns, after which you are affected by two turns of slow.
You see your allies with new perspective. They have a subtlety to them that you've never noticed before, a warped intelligence in their eyes. You see patterns that you once mistook for innocuous habits, patterns that belie their hidden intentions. They plot against you, and such is their gall that they do it right in front of you. But you see through them. You're prepared.
-You can never be surprised in combat, and you are immune to sneak attack and assassination damage.
-You cannot sleep in the company of your party--or anyone for that matter. You must put at least one locked or barred door between you and them or make some similarly drastic accommodation, or you simply won't be able to benefit from a long rest.
-You probably don't trust anything anyone says, anything they give you, or any spells they cast on you. In all likelihood you need to either kill or abandon your party members. Ultimately it's up to you to decide how you want to roleplay this turn of events, but at the core of your being is a fundamental and inescapable mistrust of every living, intelligent creature.
The presented information details varieties of subterranean insects and rodents with such excruciating nuance that it would bore the most dogmatic pedant. However, you are able to gleam a fascinating truth from the described survival tactic of one breed of moth: the relativity of space.
Time is relative, of course; anyone who has watched a pot boil knows this. This is a trait it shares with space, though most living things must unlearn this fact early on or risk becoming Lost. Adept magicians rely on magic to travel across warped space while the fey navigate the curves of the world by instinct, but all it takes is a different perspective to see the folds, to walk the horizon like a tightrope. Nothing can remain hidden for overly long to someone with this knowledge, but its possession comes at a cost. If stretched too far space may become permeable, and you will find yourself falling through the void left behind.
-Once per long rest you may choose to automatically succeed on a Perception or Investigation roll. You may do so after you already rolled. Further, you may spend your use of this ability to obtain the key to any conventional lock, regardless of whether or not one actually exists. This ability cannot detect invisible creatures or things otherwise shielded from scrying.
-Whenever you roll a natural 1 on a Stealth check--regardless of whether or not you have advantage or luck--you become Lost and must navigate your way back to the world of Euclidian space. You are essentially under the effect of the Maze spell, and may begin rolling Intelligence checks to escape at the DM's discretion. Expect to escape only after your absence becomes detrimental to the party.
One of these "cards" that I've been having a hard time coming up with effects for is titled "The Futility of Any Possible Deed." I want it to turn the player into the ultimate nihilist, complete with in-game effects that reflect this. Ideally it won't cripple the player or make the game unenjoyable for them, so effects like "roll a saving throw to get out of bed each morning" are out. At the same time, I'm not particularly worried about balance; the library comes at the end of the campaign, and we don't plan on using the characters afterward.
Does anyone have any ideas? For possible reference here are some of the other books I've come up with that I'm feeling pretty comfortable with:
The text would make Nietzsche weep impotent tears. It is an unparalleled treatise on nihilism, complete with data, models, and arguments so watertight that it would make rebuttal fruitless--doubly so.
You feel ennui seeping into your bones and weighing you down as you read. You're sharper for the experience, more aware, but certainly no better off. Purpose is illusion, destiny a lie, and what drives you and everyone is the compulsion to distance oneself from the one truth of the universe: life is meaningless.
-Effect 1?
-Effect 2?
The Great Old Ones is a designation for a genus of entities that were born and evolved just beyond the reach of starlight. They were lured to the world like prey to an angler and observed, with their alien senses, the makings of life. Like all living creatures they were instilled with the instinctive compulsion to reproduce, but--owing to their individually unique physiologies--could not find compatible mates among their own kind. They took primitive men and women and birthed surrogates, abominations such as "mind flayers" and "beholders," before the jealous gods of man chased them--children and all--to the darkness below.
-Your mind has figuratively expanded, and is now capable of insights beyond what it was originally capable of. Unfortunately, your mind has also literally expanded; there is a plum-sized growth between your eyes shaped like a head of cauliflower. It distorts your vision and has obvious social consequences.
-Your Intelligence permanently increases by 2, your Charisma decreases by 2, and your Wisdom decreases by 1.
Time has a navigable, malleable structure, and you now understand it more than anyone living. Its intricacies are beyond crude manipulation--the book references machines you don't understand and spells long forgotten--but there are ways to "cheat," to introduce some slack in a taut cord. The process is indescribable, even though it has just been described to you; like flexing a muscle you don't have or picturing a color you've never seen. There is a price to pay, but such is always the case with higher knowledge.
-Once per long rest you may cast haste on yourself as a free action. The effect lasts two turns, after which you are affected by two turns of slow.
You see your allies with new perspective. They have a subtlety to them that you've never noticed before, a warped intelligence in their eyes. You see patterns that you once mistook for innocuous habits, patterns that belie their hidden intentions. They plot against you, and such is their gall that they do it right in front of you. But you see through them. You're prepared.
-You can never be surprised in combat, and you are immune to sneak attack and assassination damage.
-You cannot sleep in the company of your party--or anyone for that matter. You must put at least one locked or barred door between you and them or make some similarly drastic accommodation, or you simply won't be able to benefit from a long rest.
-You probably don't trust anything anyone says, anything they give you, or any spells they cast on you. In all likelihood you need to either kill or abandon your party members. Ultimately it's up to you to decide how you want to roleplay this turn of events, but at the core of your being is a fundamental and inescapable mistrust of every living, intelligent creature.
The presented information details varieties of subterranean insects and rodents with such excruciating nuance that it would bore the most dogmatic pedant. However, you are able to gleam a fascinating truth from the described survival tactic of one breed of moth: the relativity of space.
Time is relative, of course; anyone who has watched a pot boil knows this. This is a trait it shares with space, though most living things must unlearn this fact early on or risk becoming Lost. Adept magicians rely on magic to travel across warped space while the fey navigate the curves of the world by instinct, but all it takes is a different perspective to see the folds, to walk the horizon like a tightrope. Nothing can remain hidden for overly long to someone with this knowledge, but its possession comes at a cost. If stretched too far space may become permeable, and you will find yourself falling through the void left behind.
-Once per long rest you may choose to automatically succeed on a Perception or Investigation roll. You may do so after you already rolled. Further, you may spend your use of this ability to obtain the key to any conventional lock, regardless of whether or not one actually exists. This ability cannot detect invisible creatures or things otherwise shielded from scrying.
-Whenever you roll a natural 1 on a Stealth check--regardless of whether or not you have advantage or luck--you become Lost and must navigate your way back to the world of Euclidian space. You are essentially under the effect of the Maze spell, and may begin rolling Intelligence checks to escape at the DM's discretion. Expect to escape only after your absence becomes detrimental to the party.