Sycarion Diversions

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Tag: paper pills (Page 6 of 7)

Links I Want to Save

January 17, 2012 /

Unfortunately, I have no way to have a conversation on Twitter. I miss doing that a lot. I can, though feedly.com, share links to Twitter. This makes my twitter account a long list of links with little to actually say.

At some point soon, I'm going to start doing a round-up of all the links I send to Twitter.After all, since I've become a curator of sorts, I can at least summarize.

For now, though, I've been keeping the following links up because I don't want to lose them.

A Word List of Shapes

Over at the phontistery, you can find all kinds of wonderful word lists. This list of shape words is my favorite. Many of the names just ooze Old School Odd.

Open Game Content from Mutants & Masterminds

The D20 Hero SRD has the goal of providing all the OGC from the third edition of M&M. Of interest to me is the Measurements Table. I keep thinking I can use it in Andras somehow...

Secret Maps of the 1930s

I found the link from another blog, but I've had a heck of a time finding out who pointed me here. My apologies. Anyway, this link features a tale of a man that claims to have mapped a secret underground world. Map is included in the article. Woot!

Irregular Magazine

Who knew? Not me, that's for sure. What a great magazine - and it is free!

Project Gutenburg Is Great

Noisms publishes a list of great source material for gaming from Project Gutenburg. I have greatly enjoyed reading the books by Baron Dunsany.

Speaking of great source material, I have begun reading Almuric. The English Major in me reels at the thought. It's like mental bubblegum. The twelve year old in me, though, just relishes the story. For the record, this is a poignard.

Rethinking the Core Races

Sword and Board provides a 5e take on core races. Very cool. Speaking of cool core races, here is the reskinned Halfling as rat-people. Very, very cool.

The Fantasy Trip Resources and Clones

This kind of speaks for itself.

I have been feeling awful for quite a while. I'm hoping to be back to writing soon. I have revised The Needle post so many times, I fear I won't just push the Publish button and move on.

 

Vikayra – The Transformative Art

January 9, 2012 /

This is post 250, a Paper Pill about a psionic ability.

One of the things that can be tricky with psionics is the dreaded table in the 1e PHB that determined one-off psionic talents. I keep thinking that there should be one-off talents available that are not listed as powers for a psion. I also think that there should be a similar table for the freak ability to be able to cast a cantrip or 1st level spell (not Magic Missile).

One of the psionic abilities included in the one-off talent table is Vikayra. Vikayra represents the ability to morph one object into another. The rules governing this ability are pretty straight-forward:

  • The target cannot have flesh.
  • The target object cannot be worn by a living or undead creature.
  • This ability cannot be used to create something that the wielder has never seen.
  • This ability cannot be used to create a construct (though it can be used to destroy one)
  • This ability cannot be used to create a living thing, except for non-magical plants.
  • This ability cannot be used to create complex objects like armor, weapons or machinery.

Basically, the wielder could use this power to turn lead into gold, a sword into bread or an unworn set of armor into a small stand of trees.

What prevents the wielder from becoming their own private factory or personal mint is that the transformation requires some value to be lost. When using Vikayra, the resulting object is always of less value than the original object.

In game terms this means that an object worth 100gp can be transformed into another object with a value of less than 100gp. At the first level of ability, the new object would be 5gp value max. At higher levels, the value climbs to a peak of about 95 gp.

Another limiting factor of Vikayra is the range of effect. When the power first manifests, the wielder can only affect an object that he or she can touch. As the wielder grows in their ability, he or she can affect objects at some distance away. To affect object at a distance, though, the wielder must be looking at the object he or she is attempting to transform.

Lastly, while practitioners of the transformative art grow in their craft, they can train to reduce the amount of value lost *or* train to affect objects at a distance.

Any other ideas are totally welcome. I'm hoping to hammer this out into something more detailed and useful.

Paper Pill – Astral and Pranic Travel

December 29, 2011 /

Traditionally, D&D mentions the silver cord in regards to Astral travel. The cord allows the traveler to find his/her body again. If the cord is severed, the traveler will never find the host body again.

Although the notion of a silver cord has many sources, one notable source, especially for the Western world, comes from Ecclesiastes 12:6. In this verse, the author also mentions a golden bowl. This sparked an idea that generated this post.

In the modern world, the term Astral travel is used to describe travel to other dimensions as well as out-of-body experiences. Just for the sake of argument, let's give separate names to each distinct experience. Some call out-of-body experiences etheric travel or etheric projection. Since the cosmology of my game has no ethereal plane, I'll choose something different. (I couldn't find the adjective form of prana, so I coined the word pranic.) So we have astral travel to describe travel to other planes of existence and pranic travel for out-of-body-but-still-on-Earth travel.

Where does this fit with Eccl 12:6? The silver cord is a description of Astral travel. How would a golden bowl fit with Pranic travel?

I've read a lot of Bible commentators mention that the Golden bowl speaks about the head as the container of the mind. Other philosophies, based on my incomplete research, seem to bear this out. Now I don't want to call this a golden helmet. After all, there is only one Golden Helmet. Still, the idea appeals on several levels.

I like the idea of traveling in the Prime Material Plane, but leaving the body behind. Sure, there are some dangers in doing this, but it is faster and relatively more safe to travel this way. Although mages would undoubtedly use this method of travel or reconnaissance from time to time, this feels more appropriate for a psionic character.

Maybe the pranic traveler sees the bowl resting in the hands of the body. Maybe the traveler can always see the golden bowl, regardless of distance from the body. In this case, the bowl would also show the direction of the body.

Another idea would be that the traveler see's the body's skull as shining in golden light. This ties into ideas of the golden bowl being the vessel for the mind. I also like the idea of seeing a golden skull.

Although it doesn't feel as creative, there could also be a golden cord that attaches to the back of the head, instead of a silver cord that attaches to the middle of the back. Thinking of it in terms of two cords makes me think of this as an insurance policy for the astral traveler - if one is cut, the other will still lead back to the body.

How would you visualize the golden bowl?

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