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fuzzywolf
2008-01-08, 09:45 PM
I'm running a new campaign based on a religious conflict between the Light of the Heavens (the mainstream religion) and the Light of the Earth, a newly awakened being that is starting to attract worshippers. The twist is that the Light of the Earth is made of . . .well, plutonium. When he finally awakens, he's going to start rampaging around, destroying those who don't follow him, blasting stuff with eye-beams and causing disease and mutation.

So help me think of powers and minions for this BBEG. Eye beams and mutation I've got, but what else? The players themselves are limited to the core rulebooks + UA, but I see no reason to limit my villains . . .

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-01-08, 09:50 PM
The ability to spontaneously annihilate all catgirls, everywhere, simply due to his existence? I would consider turning a few of his worshipers odd colors, or making them wildmages, just for the randomness aspect of radiation. An alternative would be alienists, a slight re-flavoring would make it fit.

Cakedeath
2008-01-08, 09:54 PM
If you have them (or are willing to buy them) D20 modern has some radiation material. Rules for radiation are in d20 apocalypse, and Unearthed Arcana has the "Radiation Toxyderm" a CR 20 giant made of animated radioactive waste with a breath weapon(!)

A red dragon, or re purposed gold could serve admirably in the mechanical department as well.

For a more npc, less monstrous variant, try using a warlock. Nauseous blast, combined with the area effect blast modifier, plus the poisonous cloud ability are all you need for a radioactive blaster.

I am planning a similar campaign, namely a post apocalyptic battle ala The Stand, with plenty of radioactive goblins and the like, so I've spent some time on the subject.

Hope this is helpful.

fuzzywolf
2008-01-08, 10:00 PM
Those are excellent ideas! His high minions could be cleric/alienists, but refluffed for mutants instead of psuedonatural creatures. I like that a lot.

Refluffed red dragons would be perfect, too.

Since the campaign has a slightly horror flavor to it, too, I'm thinking tumor zombies that have a chance of a tumor exploding in an acid splash when damaged with a melee weapon.

What's the absolute most frightening thing about radiation? To me, it's cancer~

And the BBEG is trying to invent/deploy an atomic bomb made of . . .himself.

mikeejimbo
2008-01-08, 10:23 PM
Cancer Mages!

Who are, incidentally, not mages at all!

What book is that in? BoVD?

Talic
2008-01-09, 03:22 AM
WARP TOUCH!!!!!!

Finally, a villain worthy of being a carrier of the disease.

Icewalker
2008-01-09, 03:43 AM
Cancer Mages!

Who are, incidentally, not mages at all!

What book is that in? BoVD?

And they aren't based around cancer! I hate that class :smallannoyed:
The name, at least, is quite off, being an all-around disease class...and you get a tumor buddy, (a tumor 'familiar' on you with it's own intellect and such which can make touch attacks. :smalleek: )

Yep, BoVD

malagigi
2008-01-09, 05:14 AM
This could be pretty cool, but I could never play in it; I'm working on a degree in Nuclear Engineering - Engineering Physics. I'd nitpick at every session, especially because of all the misconceptions surrounding health physics (the study of radiation's effect on biology). :smallwink:

A couple of things occur to me, which you may use or reject depending on how the 'natural physics' of your game works.
1. "Time, Distance, Shielding" are three ways to limit exposure to a source. Limit your time exposed to a source, stay away from a source, and but an effective shield between you and the source. If there are a lot of 'sources' walking around you need to deal with them at a distance. Your hack and slashers are in trouble in ~10 years (unless they get leukemia which shows up earlier). Walls of ice will probably be very valuable, as well as ranged attacks that don't kick a lot of ash into the air.

2. breathing or ingesting a beta or alpha emitter is going to be a lot worse than being exposed to an external gamma source. Betas and alphas are mostly innocuous externally, but cause all sorts of cell death when they're inside. A lot of gammas generally aren't great internally or externally, as they are very penetrating.

3. The infant mortality rate will be high. Sterility will be higher too.

4. Radiation simply isn't anything like shown in the movies (K19 The Widowmaker probably did the best job I can recall at the moment). You have to absorb a pretty strong dose to have a response, even to noticeably increase your statistical chances of getting cancer. The acute doses needed to induce vomiting, hair loss, hemorrhaging is absurdly high. We're talking go play in a reactor, or drop a critical mass absurd. Please don't go the route of "OK, you saw a radioactive zombie, now you have eyeball cancer." Radiation just doesn't work like that. There is strong evidence to suggest that low level acute doses of radiation actually lowers your risk of cancer. This isn't a up = down, black = white, everything you know is wrong sort of deal. This is careful, considered treatment of studies and documented cases of exposure to radiation. While the statistics are not strong enough to draw definite universal conclusions (there is a lot of variation in individual response to radiation, and the sample sizes aren't huge to begin with), the evidence strongly suggests low level acute radiation exposure stimulates your immune system reducing infection rates and lowers risk of cancer in a not insignificant portion of the population.

Then again, magical radiation can be anything you want it to be. Just watch out for those omega-rays that give mild mannered PC's superpowers. I keep asking my university's Health Physics department what exposure I need for telekinetic powers, and they keep not returning my calls.

Rigon
2008-01-09, 05:47 AM
You might as well check the munchkin books.
Especially the "Plutonium Dragon" in the munchkin monster manual.

Talic
2008-01-09, 06:25 AM
This could be pretty cool, but I could never play in it; I'm working on a degree in Nuclear Engineering - Engineering Physics. I'd nitpick at every session, especially because of all the misconceptions surrounding health physics (the study of radiation's effect on biology). :smallwink:

A couple of things occur to me, which you may use or reject depending on how the 'natural physics' of your game works.
1. "Time, Distance, Shielding" are three ways to limit exposure to a source. Limit your time exposed to a source, stay away from a source, and but an effective shield between you and the source. If there are a lot of 'sources' walking around you need to deal with them at a distance. Your hack and slashers are in trouble in ~10 years (unless they get leukemia which shows up earlier). Walls of ice will probably be very valuable, as well as ranged attacks that don't kick a lot of ash into the air.

2. breathing or ingesting a beta or alpha emitter is going to be a lot worse than being exposed to an external gamma source. Betas and alphas are mostly innocuous externally, but cause all sorts of cell death when they're inside. A lot of gammas generally aren't great internally or externally, as they are very penetrating.

3. The infant mortality rate will be high. Sterility will be higher too.

4. Radiation simply isn't anything like shown in the movies (K19 The Widowmaker probably did the best job I can recall at the moment). You have to absorb a pretty strong dose to have a response, even to noticeably increase your statistical chances of getting cancer. The acute doses needed to induce vomiting, hair loss, hemorrhaging is absurdly high. We're talking go play in a reactor, or drop a critical mass absurd. Please don't go the route of "OK, you saw a radioactive zombie, now you have eyeball cancer." Radiation just doesn't work like that. There is strong evidence to suggest that low level acute doses of radiation actually lowers your risk of cancer. This isn't a up = down, black = white, everything you know is wrong sort of deal. This is careful, considered treatment of studies and documented cases of exposure to radiation. While the statistics are not strong enough to draw definite universal conclusions (there is a lot of variation in individual response to radiation, and the sample sizes aren't huge to begin with), the evidence strongly suggests low level acute radiation exposure stimulates your immune system reducing infection rates and lowers risk of cancer in a not insignificant portion of the population.

Then again, magical radiation can be anything you want it to be. Just watch out for those omega-rays that give mild mannered PC's superpowers. I keep asking my university's Health Physics department what exposure I need for telekinetic powers, and they keep not returning my calls.

Tell me grasshoppa, what is the sound of one catgirl dying?

malagigi
2008-01-09, 06:31 AM
I wouldn't know, I can never seem to kill less than 10 or 12 at a go.

Illiterate Scribe
2008-01-09, 09:38 AM
Edge of Darkness* was quite realistic in its portayal of radiation poisoning; it's also a damn good series, which you should watch. Now.

Also, sickstone golems (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20021123a) have a radiation-y feel.



*(go retro TV!)

daggaz
2008-01-09, 10:07 AM
Make sure it has poison that does nasty CON damage, and give it some ability to poison the environment as well, so that anybody eating food grown there or drinking the water or simply inhaling dust will take a lesser con poison as well. This effect should last for at least ten years, and require a wish or miracle to remove.

Yeah, for really heavy doses (somebody actually trying to melee this thing for more than two rounds) you will probably want some devestating effects more in tune with classical heavy radiation poisoning. Nausea and general sickness the first day, worsening into hairloss and overwhelming weakness (secondary str damage?), and ending finally with massive hemmorhaging as body tissues begin to break down from the excessive ionization. It should be bad, this is a god after all, made of plutonium. (Uranium would be more realistic tho, its naturally occuring after all, plutonium is made in reactors--- a small nitpick tho)


Of course, if this thing is made of reasonably pure material, you will have two major problems.

1) It will be unbelievably massive. Seriously, it will sink into the very earth if it has any size to it, thank god for magic. Taking a punch from this thing should do INSANE bludeoning damage. Castle walls would be like paper mache.

2.) If it has that kind of mass and purity, it would go critical and vaporize a significant proportion of your campaign setting. Thank god for magic, eh?

EDIT: If you want a good description of fatal radiation poisoning, you might want to read the account of the Los Alamos accident, during the construction of the first bomb. Some scientists (Richard Feynman among them) had two halves of a Uranium sphere, and they were edging them closer to eachother very slowly, measuring the neutron output in a process called "Tickling the dragon's tail." At some point, a scientist named Lois Slotin accidentally bumped the table and the one half of the sphere fell down onto the other one. The poor guy immediately knocked both halves off onto the floor and away from eachother, but it was too late. Feynman drew some X's on the floor where everybody had been standing, did some calculations based on the distances and the reaction time, and from that point on, Slotin was as good as walking dead. He died nine days later from his dose, and the rest of them lived their lives in fear of cancer.

fuzzywolf
2008-01-09, 08:32 PM
Thanks for the fabulous pointers, guys. Sickstone golems are definitely in, those are awesome. And I'll be cannibalizing from the d20 modern books, too.

Malagiggi: Your advice is very on point. I will be taking it to heart. Your third point is particularly salient. The setting has a slightly LotR feel to it, in that all the blood of men and elves is said to be running thin, and that the races are shadows of what they once were. To a civilization ALREADY in decline, sterility and infant mortality are pretty horrifying. Much more frightening than cancer.

daggaz: Your advice on mass is very to the point as well. Instead of having the god himself made of uranium, I switched to him having a phylactery made of uranium. Still awesome? It would make a hell of a bomb, too, which makes a pretty good evil plan for a chaotic neutral god.

Can I get a little critique for my BBEG?

Therryl, the Light of the Earth
Size/Type: Medium Outsider/Construct
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Hit Dice: 48d10 + 336 (576hp)
Initiative: +12 (+4 Dexterity +8 Superior Initiative)
Speed: 60ft land 80ft fly (perfect)
Armor Class: 44 (+4 dex +12 natural +6 deflection + 12 wisdom bonus)
Base Attack/Grapple: +24/+36
Full Attack: 6 Unarmed Strike (+40/+40/+40/+36/+31/+26) 2d10 + 24 damage 19-20/x2, eye beams +30 ranged touch
Space/Reach: 5ft/5ft
Feats: Weapon Focus (unarmed strike), improved critical (unarmed strike), weapon specialization (unarmed strike), Greater Weapon Focus (unarmed strike), Epic Weapon Focus (Unarmed Strike), Epic Weapon Specialization (Unarmed Strike) Weapon Focus (Ray), Greater Weapon Focus (Ray), Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, Superior Initiative
Special Attacks: Spells, Word of Power
Special Qualities: DR 15/+8 or lead, SR 38, Fast Healing 20, 75% immunity to fire, Aura of Corruption, Heart of Light
Abilities: Str 34 Dex 18 Con 24 Int 22 Wis 34 Cha 28

Spells: Therryl casts spells as a 16th level sorcerer. He favors spells from the illusion and enchantment schools, but prefers not to spend long periods of time each day in preperation. He can grant cleric spells of up to 7th level to his worshippers.

Eye Beams: As a free action once per round, Therryl make cause bolts of energy to fly from his eyes and strike his enemies. This attack is a ranged touch attack at +30 and inflicts 10d6 fire damage and 5d6 holy damage. In addition, targets must make a DC 27 fortitude save or suffer 1d6 points of strength and constitution damage. This DC is charisma based.

Word of Power: As a free action once per round, Therryl may utter a word of power which has one of several effects. All DCs are charisma based. All words are sonic effects but are not language dependant.

Word of stunning: Targets within 20ft must make a DC 26 Will Save or stunned and vomiting for a round.

Word of insanity: Therryl whispers this word to a single target within 5ft. Target must make a DC 27 Will Save or be rendered permanently insane.

Word of poisoning: All creatures within 20ft must make a DC 27 Fortitude Save or be stricken with luminous poison. Initial Damage of 1d6 constitution, secondary damage of 1d4 intelligence, wisdom and charisma which must be checked against every round until healed magically.

Word of Corruption: Therryl whispers this word to a single target within 5ft. Target must make a DC 27 fortitude save or be stricken with luminous rot. (Daily damage of 1d4 to intelligence, wisdom and charisma as the victim goes slowly insane and their outer features melt away. Victim will become a tumor zombie when one of those 3 stats reaches 0)

Word of Winter: Therryl breathes out this word, and a cone of cold spreads from his mouth, as per the spell. 10d6 cold damage, 5d6 holy damage, reflex DC 25 for half.

Word of Concussion: Therryl breathes out this word at a single target within 80 ft, and a blast of concussive air races toward his victim. If Therryl succeeds at a ranged touch attack +30, target takes 10d6 damage and must make a DC 26 reflex save or be knocked prone.

Aura of Corruption: Creatures with prolonged exposure to Therryl become sick from his very presence. Any creature that has spent 5 rounds within 150ft of Therryl must make a DC 30 fortitude save or take 1d6 temporary strength and 1d6 temporary constitution damage. This damage fades if the creature spends a full day further away from Therryl than 1 mile. Plants will not grow within a mile of Therryl, sources of water within a mile of him are impure; this radius grows the longer he remains in one location. Therryl has some conscious control over this ability. With time, he can mutate psuedonatural creatures from natural ones.

Fast Healing: Therryl experiences fast healing whenever he is in the presence of a chip of the heart of light the size of a fingernail or larger.

Heart of Light: The source of Therryl’s power, the heart of light is a dense mass of glowing rock that accumulates beneath the earth. If Therryl is ever slain, then in 1d4 days, he manifests a new body at the site of the Heart of Light. Pieces of the Heart may be broken off and carried by Therryl or his followers as a source of power. Any priest of Therryl with a piece of the Heart on his person adds 4 to his effective caster level. The Heart has hardness 40 and 100 hit points and is immune to all magical effects. Merely being exposed to the Heart is enough for living creatures to immediately become sick and and, over a period of days, to mutate into pseudonatural creatures. The Heart is approximately 4 feet in diameter and weighs 1200 lbs. If it is ever destroyed, it explodes in a cataclysmic fireball, dealing 500d6 fire damage and 500d6 holy damage in a 5 mile radius. After exploding in this fashion, the pieces of the Heart of Light will trickle slowly back into the earth and reassemble themselves into a whole stone. The Heart of Light will be complete enough for Therryl to manifest after 1000d6 years.

Talic
2008-01-10, 12:55 AM
It's missing the ability to inflict Warp Touch upon poor fools.

DementedFellow
2008-01-12, 12:19 PM
This could be pretty cool, but I could never play in it; I'm working on a degree in Nuclear Engineering - Engineering Physics. I'd nitpick at every session, especially because of all the misconceptions surrounding health physics (the study of radiation's effect on biology). :smallwink:

A couple of things occur to me, which you may use or reject depending on how the 'natural physics' of your game works.
1. "Time, Distance, Shielding" are three ways to limit exposure to a source. Limit your time exposed to a source, stay away from a source, and but an effective shield between you and the source. If there are a lot of 'sources' walking around you need to deal with them at a distance. Your hack and slashers are in trouble in ~10 years (unless they get leukemia which shows up earlier). Walls of ice will probably be very valuable, as well as ranged attacks that don't kick a lot of ash into the air.

2. breathing or ingesting a beta or alpha emitter is going to be a lot worse than being exposed to an external gamma source. Betas and alphas are mostly innocuous externally, but cause all sorts of cell death when they're inside. A lot of gammas generally aren't great internally or externally, as they are very penetrating.

3. The infant mortality rate will be high. Sterility will be higher too.

4. Radiation simply isn't anything like shown in the movies (K19 The Widowmaker probably did the best job I can recall at the moment). You have to absorb a pretty strong dose to have a response, even to noticeably increase your statistical chances of getting cancer. The acute doses needed to induce vomiting, hair loss, hemorrhaging is absurdly high. We're talking go play in a reactor, or drop a critical mass absurd. Please don't go the route of "OK, you saw a radioactive zombie, now you have eyeball cancer." Radiation just doesn't work like that. There is strong evidence to suggest that low level acute doses of radiation actually lowers your risk of cancer. This isn't a up = down, black = white, everything you know is wrong sort of deal. This is careful, considered treatment of studies and documented cases of exposure to radiation. While the statistics are not strong enough to draw definite universal conclusions (there is a lot of variation in individual response to radiation, and the sample sizes aren't huge to begin with), the evidence strongly suggests low level acute radiation exposure stimulates your immune system reducing infection rates and lowers risk of cancer in a not insignificant portion of the population.

Then again, magical radiation can be anything you want it to be. Just watch out for those omega-rays that give mild mannered PC's superpowers. I keep asking my university's Health Physics department what exposure I need for telekinetic powers, and they keep not returning my calls.

Thank you for actually having a clue about radiation. I work as a nuclear medicine technologist and it bothers me when people are like, "Radiation! ZOMG! PWNED!"

It takes years to manifest a mutation. Especially in grown adults. And unless you're genetically predisposed to growing an arm tentacle, don't expect to when you are exposed to a radiation source. Those that are exposed to large amounts of radiation are bothered by lymphoma first and foremost.

Here's how radiation works y'all. More often than not, the gamma rays pass through you harmlessly. However, when they hit something in a cell like a nucleus. You could have some deflection of the energy ray and when the cell tries to divide next time, it will simply die. But sometimes the cell won't die. In the case that the energy interference in the DNA is not directly going to mess up mitosis, then there is another healthy chance that it is in the "junk" DNA that we all have.

If you have a lot of followers coming behind the Light of the Earth, then chances are they will be fat. Because the thyroid is an organ that is very susceptible to radiation and constant exposure to harmful radiation could lead to hypothyroidism.

I personally believe this is the dumbest idea. "Hey there is an all-powerful uber-being that exposure to can give me all sorts of terrible diseases which will cause me to die a slow and painful death. I must worship it." But it's fantasy, and I know that will be the go-to answer. Still, you'd think someone would wise up. "Hey man, the last three high priests have died with horrible tumors. I'm starting to see a trend."

Here's another interesting fact. The stopping radiation is what causes cell interference. Know what a good, common source of stopping radiation is? X-rays. Enjoy that thought when you go to your next CT scan. lol.

Sstoopidtallkid
2008-01-12, 01:02 PM
I personally believe this is the dumbest idea. "Hey there is an all-powerful uber-being that exposure to can give me all sorts of terrible diseases which will cause me to die a slow and painful death. I must worship it." But it's fantasy, and I know that will be the go-to answer. Still, you'd think someone would wise up. "Hey man, the last three high priests have died with horrible tumors. I'm starting to see a trend."http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m126/stoopidtallkid/RPG%20motivational/cultists.jpg

fuzzywolf
2008-01-12, 01:49 PM
If you have a lot of followers coming behind the Light of the Earth, then chances are they will be fat. Because the thyroid is an organ that is very susceptible to radiation and constant exposure to harmful radiation could lead to hypothyroidism.



That is a great idea! I personally like the idea of an evil minion who has to use windwalk just to get around because his withered legs can't support his massively obese body. His head rolls around on his neck fat as he turns to look at the heroes . . . could be awesome.

Also, that cultists picture is awesome.

Radiation per se isn't really that horrifying a power unless we're talking about nuclear bomb concentrations, but in a system of sympathetic magic (what we have in D&D), magic drawn from radiation and radioactive materials could be pretty horrifying, no?

DementedFellow
2008-01-12, 01:54 PM
One problem with that picture is the general malaise and lethargy that comes with hypothyroidism. Those would be some undermotivated cultists.

Fax Celestis
2008-01-12, 01:57 PM
That is a great idea! I personally like the idea of an evil minion who has to use windwalk just to get around because his withered legs can't support his massively obese body. His head rolls around on his neck fat as he turns to look at the heroes . . . could be awesome.

Duke Harkonnen...?

fuzzywolf
2008-01-12, 03:07 PM
Duke Harkonnen...?

Exactly. Good ole tumor face

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:McMillan_as_Harkonnen.jpg

Zenos
2008-01-12, 03:11 PM
One problem with that picture is the general malaise and lethargy that comes with hypothyroidism. Those would be some undermotivated cultists.

Hey, in the WH40K setting people worship the god Tzeench, who isn't realy interested in them and is probably going to get them killed to further some of his schemes, and he does those schemes for fun...

And let's not forget Nurgle cultists...

daggaz
2008-01-12, 03:15 PM
Radiation per se isn't really that horrifying a power unless we're talking about nuclear bomb concentrations, but in a system of sympathetic magic (what we have in D&D), magic drawn from radiation and radioactive materials could be pretty horrifying, no?

Welcome to the Goiânia incident... this horrible mess was caused by a tiny lump of CesiumChloride salt in a lead container only about two inches across.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident

fuzzywolf
2008-01-12, 03:18 PM
Welcome to the Goiânia incident... this horrible mess was caused by a tiny lump of CesiumChloride salt in a lead container only about two inches across.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident

"When ingested, radioactive cesium replaces calcium in the bones."

Alright, that is going to give me nightmares. Also . . .glowing radioactive skeletal undead?

Illiterate Scribe
2008-01-12, 06:54 PM
You could also have fun with the 'walking ghost' period - people who've suffered acute radiation poisoning go through an intermediate period of quasi-normality before keeling over.