Its all fun and games until someone pisses off the pancakes (Help is needed!)

[Makkel]

Hello

I had this wierd idea after reading about Homunculus in a Monster Manual, and I wondered "Would it be possible to somehow -animate- food so it would attack those thrying to eat it"?

Thus, 2am last night i created an "Animated Pancakes" which is covered in Syrup. Said syrup is poisoning and causes the victim to be Sickened and Nauseated (according to Pathfinder RPG rulings) The pancake will, when completely eaten, regenerate in the victims stomach and try to eat the victim from the inside. A successful Fortitude save allows to target to throw of the animated pancakes.

Now, I was wondering if someone has done something similar?

Also, the idea was to make this flamboyant inn, in the middle of nowhere, and have my players wake up to a delicious looking brunch. Pancakes, bacon, egg and all of that. And while happily devouring said food, the chairs, tables, knifes, forks, even the damned teapot - along with most of the food, would begin attacking the players.
The idea is to make it seemingly impossible to escape from this house, where (literally) everything will try to kill them.

Anyone done something along those lines?

Also, does it seem too.... comedic? Of course it won't be the most serious thing in a campaign, but would it be impossible to make serious?

To see the picture that inspired me, google "Its all fun and games until someone pisses of the pancakes"
(i would post a link, but I haven't made enough posts to do so)

[Douche]

They have living suits or armor, floors, ceilings, stalactites, stalagmites, cloaks, comforters, hats/helmets. Not to mention treasure chests and whatever else a mimic might want to be.

I don't know if there's anything about animated food, but I'm sure there's at least one living pumpkin demon or something. If you want to stat an evil pancake, there's plenty of material to base it off.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

The weird ideas are usually the fun ones. Sounds like it would make a great session.

It's probably even better if there's some good reason why the pancakes and co are attacking them. Is someone trying to kill them? Who? Why? Are they merely being stalled by not being able to escape? Is it a fever dream induced by poison on the actual pancakes they had last night, one they can only escape by leaving the dream version of the inn or being woken up by someone else (if only half of them escape)?

[DigoDragon]

It's probably even better if there's some good reason why the pancakes and co are attacking them.

"Old food never dies. It just goes bad."


I've seen stats for a calzone golem, so animated food shouldn't be outside the realm of possibilities. I will say (from personal experience) that a GM should not expect such an encounter to be taken completely seriously. Even when its dangerous, my players tend to spin humor about being attacked by food.

[Feddlefew]

I don't see why a specialized necromancy spell couldn't animate, say, a chain of sausage links. Or a water weird incorporating liquid foods and drink into its mass to lure prey.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

I don't see why a specialized necromancy spell couldn't animate, say, a chain of sausage links.

I only zombified a single pig. It's not my fault you have it spread out on your table in like 50 separate pieces...

[Nobot]

It's fun! Depending on the delivery, it need not necessarily be too comical.

Also, stick-in-the-mud-wise: how's it work technically? The food gets chewed, then goes the whole digestive route (at least partially), right? I would imagine that if the pancakes were an enchanted object, the enchantment would be gone since the original object (the pancake) has been destroyed (chewed to bits and getting digested). So I don't think that's the way to go (can you even destroy an enchanted object by chewing it? Do you not need a +2 Molar of Mastication to chew a +1 Pancake?).

Or is it a spell? A spell that animates the remnants of food in the target's digestive tract? That could be an option, but then the person involved should, I feel, get a save to resist the effect (in addition to the save to throw up the food in consecutive rounds after the food's been animated).

Maybe alchemy's the way to go? I feel that that would make a bit more sense (insofar as this can make sense)

[goto124]

I imagine the pancakes would do their very best to avoid getting eaten, like any living creature.

So the challenge lies in trying to get it in your mouth and actually chew it up.

[BWR]

Dragon 282 has a number of food monsters like the Lurking Dorito. Gummi Bears, and Pepsoid.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Maybe alchemy's the way to go? I feel that that would make a bit more sense (insofar as this can make sense)

The philosophers stone does produce the water of life, so why not the elixer of undead or the syrup of animation?

[Makkel]

The weird ideas are usually the fun ones. Sounds like it would make a great session.

It's probably even better if there's some good reason why the pancakes and co are attacking them. Is someone trying to kill them? Who? Why? Are they merely being stalled by not being able to escape? Is it a fever dream induced by poison on the actual pancakes they had last night, one they can only escape by leaving the dream version of the inn or being woken up by someone else (if only half of them escape)?

The idea is that the party is traveling along a road, and when in what appears to be the middle of nowhere (with no landsmarks either) this, large flamboyant victorian-age style inn with 3 floors and I don't know- appears. A small crew of beautiful young women white shirts and aprons ask them, to the point of begging, the party to stay. The place will be cheaper than the ordinary inn, with a banquet costing the same as a one-person meal (or whatever fits). Then, when eating breakest, or again whatever fits, the women disappear "we'll leave you alone to eat" and then basically everything tries to eat the party
The backstory could be many things. A cult needing corpses to summon a demon. They maids are something along the lines of corpse eating Sirens that can't eat what they them-self kills.
And that Dream Idea you mentioned seems really cool too, I'm afraid I might use it, if not here then at some other point ;)

I don't see why a specialized necromancy spell couldn't animate, say, a chain of sausage links. Or a water weird incorporating liquid foods and drink into its mass to lure prey.

I was thinking something along the lines of a Beer or Wine Elemental

I imagine the pancakes would do their very best to avoid getting eaten, like any living creature.

So the challenge lies in trying to get it in your mouth and actually chew it up.

The Idea is that the pancakes are eaten, then they regenerate in your stomach and beings to eat you from the inside → out

[Joe the Rat]

I've seen a candy cane golem before...

The Idea is that the pancakes are eaten, then they regenerate in your stomach and beings to eat you from the inside → out

Standard regeneration works from the largest piece, so if you only eat half the pancake, you're fine. And gives the party an infinite food supply.

Each piece grows into a full pancake. In addition to the chest-bursting goodness, you have the beginnings of a Flapjackapocalypse. You should define what does stop them from regenerating, or run with explosively breeding deathcakes as a plot point.

I will say that creating a food item that reconstitutes or otherwise (re)grows after ingestion is a rather insidious means of murder. Sounds like a deranged (or silly) wizard wants the party dead.

[Takewo]

It is the most amazing idea I've read in months. I'd forgo the nice ladies, though. I think the idea of a beautiful house out of nowhere stuffed with food and other objects and no one to give a story or explain what's going on creates a much better atmosphere.

And I wouldn't worry about how the pancake thing works, honestly. They get eaten, they get together in the stomach. Sounds good enough to me. It's not much different from what they did in Terminator. If you really need a scientific explanation, say that it's sort of the same as a starfish, that even if broken it starts regenerating.

[Makkel]

Standard regeneration works from the largest piece, so if you only eat half the pancake, you're fine. And gives the party an infinite food supply.

In the monster chart i wrote "Fast Healing 1: Triggers only after the pancake has been eaten, then it gathers and grows its pieces as necesarry until at full health (5) it then begins to use bite on the unknowing victim, dealing 1d3 damage per round."

Also I doubt (/rule) that the pancake holds any nutrients. Assuming you created it using Resurrection on an molded pancake or something. I don't even know anymore

[Lord Torath]

In the monster chart i wrote "Fast Healing 1: Triggers only after the pancake has been eaten, then it gathers and grows its pieces as necesarry until at full health (5) it then begins to use bite on the unknowing victim, dealing 1d3 damage per round."

Also I doubt (/rule) that the pancake holds any nutrients. Assuming you created it using Resurrection on an molded pancake or something. I don't even know anymore

So what happens if you split your meal with your Significant Other? Is The Power of Sharing^TM the secret of the pancake's ultimate destruction?

[Rainbownaga]

The thing I worry about is how this would play out. Do martials have anything they can actually do against being eaten alive from the inside?

They can't even fight the pancakes that they manage to remove (by vomiting or eviscerating themselves) because anything that can handle being cut up and mulched into a pulp will immune to swords and morning stars.

[Makkel]

So what happens if you split your meal with your Significant Other? Is The Power of Sharing^TM the secret of the pancake's ultimate destruction?

Well... Honestly i have no idea. Could be a fun meme to make though....

The thing I worry about is how this would play out. Do martials have anything they can actually do against being eaten alive from the inside?

They can't even fight the pancakes that they manage to remove (by vomiting or eviscerating themselves) because anything that can handle being cut up and mulched into a pulp will immune to swords and morning stars.

Vomit the thing up and it can't harm you. Tiny creatures like that literally deals 1d2-5 damage, throw it out the window (or too the window, as said before. EVERYTHING will try to it you)


It's kinda like Hansel and Gretel, except there is no witch, and the candy eats YOU... :3

[Quertus]

1d2-5=1, btw. So the pancakes can harm you. Go D&D math.

[Makkel]

1d2-5=1, btw. So the pancakes can harm you. Go D&D math.

Yes, but that 1 damage is non-lethal

[Feddlefew]

Question: Does anyone know how intact a dead body needs to be animated by necromancy spells? I'm pretty certain that there's one in D&D 3.5 which curses an area so that corpses rise as an appropriate type of undead, and there's a flying, empty skin zombie....

[TeChameleon]

There's also animated, independent undead hands, too.

I suspect that anything with enough joints to move on its own in some fashion could be animated with the appropriate spell.

Y'know, there's another way to do the regenerating pancakes (I think?)- they're polymorphed trolls, which might also explain their distinct unhappiness with life in general.

And this doesn't need to be goofy at all- with the right descriptors, the Monster House (if you haven't seen that movie... don't >.O) could be creepy as all hell. If your party is as paranoid as an adventuring party typically is, you could have them clawing screaming up the drapes every time a shadow flickers in the torchlight long before any of the shadows (or any of the many, many other things) try to eat them.

The house stands alone on the far edge of the clearing. The clearing was clearly a well-kept garden until recently (successful check reveals... eh... somewhere around a few weeks), and even now a few examples of useful herbs and rare flowers are still blooming stubbornly amidst the weeds (if they search the grounds carefully, they'll find a neatly-arranged pattern of charred, almost glassed, circles, with no apparent source and no traps in them). The house itself is of an unfamiliar, but clearly sturdy style, as there aren't any visible signs of wear- even the roof slates are all solidly in place. (successful check reveals that there are traces of minor magic detectable- totally innocuous, though- things to keep the paint from bleaching, keep vermin out, that kind of thing).

As you approach, the door swings smoothly open on noiseless hinges, although there is no-one visible in the entrance (successful check reveals there to be an Unseen Servant- or whatever the Pathfinder equivalent is- moving away from the door, and a few others moving around performing routine tasks. It should be a spell that the players know to be completely harmless). The interior of the house is decorated richly, but tastefully, and with an eye toward comfort. It is immaculately clean- even the carpets appear to have been combed so that their fibres lie in a uniform direction (an extremely difficult and/or thorough check might turn up a blood spatter or two in places where anything large enough to leave a blood spatter would be physically incapable of fitting, and the spatter pattern would be wrong for it to have come from outside that tiny space.). As evening draws near, the candles light on their own, although their light seems subtly wrong (successful check reveals that they're not melting, slightly more difficult check reveals the flame to be a simple enchantment that creates a sourceless, heatless flame just above the wick, giving off a steadier light than would be normal for a candle), and delicious smells begin pouring out of the abruptly-magically-sealed kitchen (if it was investigated beforehand, it appeared to be a perfectly normal, if rather well-stocked, kitchen, albeit with the same traces of minor magic on it as almost everything else in the house. If the players positively insist on seeing what's going on in there, and find some way to bypass the barrier or drill through the wall or something, they'll catch a brief glimpse of food and utensils flying around and cooking before everything clatters to the ground- apparently the cooking spell is prone to disruption, which is why the kitchen seals. However they get to look at the kitchen will heal itself after a short while, and the cooking will resume). The meal is magnificently presented, with gleaming trays of precious metals soaring out of the kitchen to arrange themselves on the table, with each PC merely having to gesture at a dish to have a portion served onto their plate (even the entire party gesturing at the same dish won't bother the spell any, and each serving will leave its platter precisely three-quarters of a second after the gesture was made. If the food is examined for magic, it will prove to have a minor, but desireable, buff enchantment built into it- perhaps +1 Fort for 24 hours? ).

As the final course appears from the kitchen, the lights dim slightly and music, apparently from nowhere, starts up. At the same time, the weather outside takes a dramatic turn for the worse, with torrential rainfall, shrieking wind, and roars of thunder loud enough to shake the entire house... in perfect time with the music. The weather is simply another instrument in the symphony; apparently whatever magician lived here fancied themselves something of a composer, because the music isn't half-bad, if a bit over-dramatic. Unfortunately, it means that travelling tonight would be borderline suicidal- lightning is slamming into the ground within metres of the house, providing those inside with a stunning light display to accompany the music, but providing anyone outside the house with enough electricity to turn them into a greasy smear (the obvious source of the charring they might have found in the garden, and, unfortunately, as wet as it is outside, stepping out into the grounds would be akin to dancing with tasers strapped to your feet prongs-first even if you stayed as far as possible from the charred spots).

If the players go upstairs, they'll find a succession of comfortable bedrooms, already prepared for them. If they get into the beds, the beds themselves will attempt to cast a Sleep spell on them (even if this is detected, and they make their save against it, nothing happens all night, aside from the wild weather that started before they even came upstairs). Those that didn't detect/resist it get some kind of well-rested bonus (to fort again if you want to make them even more paranoid ) when they wake up.

The smells of an incredibly delicious breakfast wafts upstairs; when they go down, the table is once again set for them, and the food starts floating out of the kitchen once more. Once the table is heaped with amazing-looking breakfast things, a single knife flcikers out of the kitchen at high speed and embeds itself in the wall after just barely nicking one character's ear. Once the players have started to react, everything in the room gets a surprise round

If you want a reason for all that, perhaps "OMGWTF!!!"-flavoured brains are a delicacy for the discerning Illithid.

[Arkhios]

I've seen stats for a calzone golem

Just dropping by at the sight of a hilarious topic, and seeing this one had me get an instant flashback of hilarious session gone so terribly awry! :D

Some 10 years ago, me, a friend, and our DM, thought it could be fun to try D&D 3.0 alternative Gestalt characters (the thing where you'd add two classes' features at a single level at once, taking the better feature from each at each given levels).

I'm not 100% sure, but I think my character was a dwarf paladin/fighter or a fighter/cleric, and my friend might've had some sort of caster/rogue (I've totally forgotten the details). However, when we entered the basement of said quickie scenario for 4 level two characters (Something's Cooking, by Andy Collins). We had some serious problems with the calzone golem, my dwarf, with his highly unlikely failure against a poison save vomiting through all 5 or 6 rounds the combat lasted (the end of it is bit of a blur, not sure if we survived it or not), unable to do anything but! The whole scenario is just hilarious, definitely recommendable to everyone! I ran it a few years ago for a couple of friends using pathfinder, and they survived a lot better (dammit!), but fun was had.

I'd suggest you to take a look at it, if you haven't already!

[Makkel]

There's also animated, independent undead hands, too.

I suspect that anything with enough joints to move on its own in some fashion could be animated with the appropriate spell.

Y'know, there's another way to do the regenerating pancakes (I think?)- they're polymorphed trolls, which might also explain their distinct unhappiness with life in general.

And this doesn't need to be goofy at all- with the right descriptors, the Monster House (if you haven't seen that movie... don't >.O) could be creepy as all hell

I could eat that post for breakfest (pun intended). I did some reaserch on the polymorph spell and yes, you can turn ex. a Troll into a pancake and then have said troll/pancake eat whoever tries to eat it. The duration, however, would only last an hour. But with a calzone golem, it would last a week. (Pathfinder core rulebook, page 324 - spell "Polymorph Any Object").

Also, I was thinking of making the mansion work as a form of a permanent "Mage's Magnificent Mansion". and then an illusion spell to make it appear as an actual house, perhaps "Illusary Wall" or "Mirage Arcana".

One last thing: the movie -Monster House-, I think it could be awesome inspiration (based on just watching the trailer)

[TeChameleon]

One last thing: the movie -Monster House-, I think it could be awesome inspiration (based on just watching the trailer)

... that's an hour and a half of your life you'll never get back if you do watch it. I don't even remember it being amusingly bad, just... bad.