Random DM nagging.

[Anastasia]

I'm fleshing out the Irrigo for the sake of background and the thought occurred to me that, as Tryll is intended to be from a previous age where things like aboleths were common and humanoids were not (as referenced in Lords of Madness), he's heinously old.

To be consistent here, that's likely from his Prime, not a universal thing. Primes vary and all that, and the various deities were around at the beginning or almost after that. I said this before during chargen and I'm repeating it for clarity. There's no great past where every Prime was dominated by vaguely Lovecraftian things and generally inhuman; Creation is a result of intelligent design. However, within that, each Prime can be unique and tailored. It's a reason why most outsiders are ultimately humanoid-ish in appearance and design, as are deities.

I'm planning on offsetting his character growth with the idea that a normal mortal experiences and interacts differently with reality in that they have a corporeal body, and thus more avenues for personal experiences and learnings. Having shed his mortal form rather early in his life, Tryll would have experienced a drastically reduced rate of personal growth as he was largely unable to physically interact with the world around him.

This is absolutely true and consistent with other things in the campaign. Generally, outsiders advance extremely slowly. PC and NPC outsiders and immortals advancing as fast as they do is highly atypical. Before your time, but this came up a bunch in B1 - Alicia and Seira's growth was atypical even for mortals, as was Latha and Antenora's advancement with them. It's generally unclear what provokes this sort of rapid growth and may well be variable, trying to force it fails.

In B3's case, observers are chalking it up to Medi and Medicant. It might even be true, though regardless of the reason, Aurora's on that fast track of growth.

Anyway, most outsiders and immortals have different mindsets when dealing with time and advancement. They just aren't mortal and tied to a finite lifespan. It's worth remembering that and mortals that race up to level 10 or 20 or whatever in a few years are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Basically, I'm asking you if you want to put a hard limit on character age. My original intention was to make Tryll at least an age old. Possibly more depending on how far you wanna go back. Calleigh is intended to have joined him 500-2000 years prior to current time.

He can be whatever age you like, so long as he isn't so ancient (as in billions of years at least, Creation's exact age isn't clear or commonly known) to remember the beginnings. It's completely up to you, the older he is, the slower he advanced and the longer nadirs of minimal growth he went through.

I've included a helpful chart on time.

100 years = 1 Century or 100 years
10 Centuries = 1 Millennium or 1,000 years
1000 Millennium = 1 Age or 1,000,000 years
10 Ages = 1 Epoch or 10,000,000 years
10 Epoch = 1 Era or 100,000,000 years
5 Era = 1 Eon or 500,000,000-1 Billion years

Years, centuries and millennium (though the native term is millenia, but it's the same 1,000 year period) are used. Anything beyond that may vary in meaning depending on the speaker. Many use terms like ages, epochs, eras or eons without having a precise amount of time in mind or a different time in mind than here. It's complicated that there's no established, interplanar dating system that's accepted. Mechanus tries but the general trend is to simply note time relevant to big planar events. Creation's old enough that only the most ancient and wise truly get into this level of timekeeping, due to sheer weight of time to deal with.

Unlike in our world where we can largely handwave the prehistoric eras due to nothing much going on beyond natural processes, Creation has active forces and sentient beings making history. Combine that with each plane having an agenda, their own desires and control over time (Baator has an entire bureau of devils who track history and events, including twisting them to the current line of propaganda, ala 1984, for example). Interestingly, not even the lawful planes entirely agree on matters of timekeeping, let alone the chaotic ones.

If Tryll wants to use that for his personal or racial timekeeping, that's perfectly okay. I'm not saying you can't, just explaining how this sort of thing works across Creation.

Do you mind if I post this in nagging? It's an interesting conversation.

[Yuthirin]

I'm fleshing out the Irrigo for the sake of background and the thought occurred to me that, as Tryll is intended to be from a previous age where things like aboleths were common and humanoids were not (as referenced in Lords of Madness), he's heinously old.

To be consistent here, that's likely from his Prime, not a universal thing. Primes vary and all that, and the various deities were around at the beginning or almost after that. I said this before during chargen and I'm repeating it for clarity. There's no great past where every Prime was dominated by vaguely Lovecraftian things and generally inhuman; Creation is a result of intelligent design. However, within that, each Prime can be unique and tailored. It's a reason why most outsiders are ultimately humanoid-ish in appearance and design, as are deities.

I had actually assumed that dieties took forms that their followers would generally be comfortable with, barring a few strange exceptions. Most humans would not be comfortable worshipping a gelatinous cube filled with horses or a giant slime or a book filled with faces or what have you.

I'd intended Tryll's plane to have ended a long long time ago. Faded beyond any myth or legend, as the overwhelming majority of the population collectively ascended into Arborea. Queen Morwel (or whatever her prior incarnation was) would remember them, but mortals would be clueless. The race wasn't exactly prone to planar travel, so there likely wouldn't have been much recorded lore about them. Not because they couldn't, but because they weren't interested. Being house-sized squid monsters, they tended toward small and insular communities. While not xenophobic, they were self-aware enough that they weren't built for combat and tended to keep to themselves for this reason. There were outliers of course, but they tended to find ways to polymorph themselves into more able forms, defend themselves with psionics, or got themselves killed in short order. Also, not amphibious. This made interplanar travel an inconvenience at best.

I'm planning on offsetting his character growth with the idea that a normal mortal experiences and interacts differently with reality in that they have a corporeal body, and thus more avenues for personal experiences and learnings. Having shed his mortal form rather early in his life, Tryll would have experienced a drastically reduced rate of personal growth as he was largely unable to physically interact with the world around him.

This is absolutely true and consistent with other things in the campaign. Generally, outsiders advance extremely slowly. PC and NPC outsiders and immortals advancing as fast as they do is highly atypical. Before your time, but this came up a bunch in B1 - Alicia and Seira's growth was atypical even for mortals, as was Latha and Antenora's advancement with them. It's generally unclear what provokes this sort of rapid growth and may well be variable, trying to force it fails.

In B3's case, observers are chalking it up to Medi and Medicant. It might even be true, though regardless of the reason, Aurora's on that fast track of growth.

Anyway, most outsiders and immortals have different mindsets when dealing with time and advancement. They just aren't mortal and tied to a finite lifespan. It's worth remembering that and mortals that race up to level 10 or 20 or whatever in a few years are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Yeah, I'd assumed that his class and level growth would have occurred at a pace considered normal for the average researcher and artist: Very slowly. He's generally avoided combat up until the last few thousand years, and really only gotten heavily involved after pairing up with Calleigh. I'd figured that 70% or so of his growth has occurred in the last 3-4000 years. Even then, rather slowly.

Basically, I'm asking you if you want to put a hard limit on character age. My original intention was to make Tryll at least an age old. Possibly more depending on how far you wanna go back. Calleigh is intended to have joined him 500-2000 years prior to current time.

He can be whatever age you like, so long as he isn't so ancient (as in billions of years at least, Creation's exact age isn't clear or commonly known) to remember the beginnings. It's completely up to you, the older he is, the slower he advanced and the longer nadirs of minimal growth he went through.

Oh boy no.

I've included a helpful chart on time.

100 years = 1 Century or 100 years
10 Centuries = 1 Millennium or 1,000 years
1000 Millennium = 1 Age or 1,000,000 years
10 Ages = 1 Epoch or 10,000,000 years
10 Epoch = 1 Era or 100,000,000 years
5 Era = 1 Eon or 500,000,000-1 Billion years

Years, centuries and millennium (though the native term is millenia, but it's the same 1,000 year period) are used. Anything beyond that may vary in meaning depending on the speaker. Many use terms like ages, epochs, eras or eons without having a precise amount of time in mind or a different time in mind than here. It's complicated that there's no established, interplanar dating system that's accepted. Mechanus tries but the general trend is to simply note time relevant to big planar events. Creation's old enough that only the most ancient and wise truly get into this level of timekeeping, due to sheer weight of time to deal with.

Unlike in our world where we can largely handwave the prehistoric eras due to nothing much going on beyond natural processes, Creation has active forces and sentient beings making history. Combine that with each plane having an agenda, their own desires and control over time (Baator has an entire bureau of devils who track history and events, including twisting them to the current line of propaganda, ala 1984, for example). Interestingly, not even the lawful planes entirely agree on matters of timekeeping, let alone the chaotic ones.

If Tryll wants to use that for his personal or racial timekeeping, that's perfectly okay. I'm not saying you can't, just explaining how this sort of thing works across Creation.

Okay.

Do you mind if I post this in nagging? It's an interesting conversation.

You just want to show off how smart you sound.

[Anastasia]

I had actually assumed that deities took forms that their followers would generally be comfortable with, barring a few strange exceptions. Most humans would not be comfortable worshiping a gelatinous cube filled with horses or a giant slime or a book filled with faces or what have you.

You're looking at it the wrong way. Let me put it this way: Corellon Latherian has the title of Elf Father. That's not just a fancy title, he is the spiritual creator of the elven race and all of its variants. They were made in his image. That being said, deities tend to pick up worshipers beyond the creatures they created (if they did), and they do tailor avatars appropriately. It's certainly possible for a deity to take a strange and alien forms, but their true forms (as much as they have them) are usually humanoid-ish or massive entities of sheer power. The latter's very rarely seen, once in B1 and only somewhat indirectly.

Interesting tidbit: If you somehow distilled a deity into its truest form and viewed it, you'd see a mass of spiritual energy countless magnitudes of order stronger and bigger than a normal soul.

I'd intended Tryll's plane to have ended a long long time ago. Faded beyond any myth or legend, as the overwhelming majority of the population collectively ascended into Arborea.

Makes sense. Those things happens, Primes eventually die.

Queen Morwel (or whatever her prior incarnation was) would remember them, but mortals would be clueless.

Queen Morwel's never had a prior incarnation, only the time before she became Queen of Arborea. Her dream and its ability to provide infinite variety makes her sufficient, freeing her from any need to reincarnate through the Womb of Arborea. She is eternal and everlasting, beyond that of even lesser outsiders. She'll never merge with Arborea because in a strong sense, she is Arborea. She found something superior to even that, the sort of perfect self sufficiency chaotic good strives to, taken to the highest level possible. She does have the alternate form of Titania, though that's a whole other thing with the fey talked about more in her flavor block.

Other deities would probably remember or at least know of them, a deity has a perfect memory and the ability to sort through and retain infinite amounts of information. Not really relevant, but worth mentioning.

The race wasn't exactly prone to planar travel, so there likely wouldn't have been much recorded lore about them. Not because they couldn't, but because they weren't interested.

Not a bad policy. It just came up in another thread how mortals aren't really meant to explore the planes. It's a contrast to how powerful outsiders and the Prime don't mix. Of course, Creation is what it is and magic lets them do it anyway.

Being house-sized squid monsters, they tended toward small and insular communities. While not xenophobic, they were self-aware enough that they weren't built for combat and tended to keep to themselves for this reason. There were outliers of course, but they tended to find ways to polymorph themselves into more able forms, defend themselves with psionics, or got themselves killed in short order. Also, not amphibious. This made interplanar travel an inconvenience at best

Makes sense.

Yeah, I'd assumed that his class and level growth would have occurred at a pace considered normal for the average researcher and artist: Very slowly. He's generally avoided combat up until the last few thousand years, and really only gotten heavily involved after pairing up with Calleigh. I'd figured that 70% or so of his growth has occurred in the last 3-4000 years. Even then, rather slowly.

That's fine and makes sense.

Oh boy no.

Cool.

You just want to show off how smart you sound.

Nah, it's easier to have it here so I can just link to it if these questions come up again, rather than digging it up from IRC logs or my PM box. Also it helps information control, if everyone reads this, then I assume they'll at least have some idea of it in their heads.

[Nephrite]

If you were to spitball it, what level would a Bard spell be that would be a swift action to combine Inspire Courage, Greatness and Heroism into one casting? I would imagine it would still follow the rules limitations on the targets for Greatness and Heroism.

For reference, without Words of Creation or what have you, assuming a 20th level bard:

+4 morale weapon / damage to all in range
+2 1d10 HP, +2 competence attack, +1 competence to fort for 4
+4 morale AC and Saving throws to 2


Now, realistically, if Moore is casting this, then it looks more like

+14 morale weapon / damage to all in range
+8d10 temp hp, +8 Attack rolls, +4 fort for 5
+12 morale bonus to saves and +12 dodge to AC - 18d4 for 3

This does come at a cost of 33d4 Nonlethal damage if he were to go that route.

Quoted by request.

[Yuthirin]

Can't figure out how to approach the tortles yet. Didn't give it much thought before claiming it. Releasing claim. Anyone else who wants to pick it up, go for it.

[Anastasia]

Okay, that's fine. Remove it from your todo list. Post in your thread what your next todo is then.

[Anastasia]

<DarthSquiddius> So Iddy and I were talking tonight and we realized that the Faerie Dragon in the Draconomicon doesn't have an advancement table like other dragons, but the Advancement entry on their stat block clearly states they grow in size. Oversight? I'm willing to help correct it.

Going to answer this here, since I fell asleep before this last night and don't want to forget about it.

Anyway, Faerie Dragons don't have an advancement table because they aren't true dragons, insofar in the sense that they don't get stronger as they get older and have distinct age categories. There's a sidebar that mentions it on page 4 of the Draconomicon. As such, you'd be a lesser dragon. Which, name aside, simply means you aren't tied into how dragons advance.

I don't see it as terribly important, since you have gestalt to provide a bunch of your powers and spellcasting.

[Anastasia]

If you were to spitball it, what level would a Bard spell be that would be a swift action to combine Inspire Courage, Greatness and Heroism into one casting? I would imagine it would still follow the rules limitations on the targets for Greatness and Heroism.

For reference, without Words of Creation or what have you, assuming a 20th level bard:

+4 morale weapon / damage to all in range
+2 1d10 HP, +2 competence attack, +1 competence to fort for 4
+4 morale AC and Saving throws to 2


Now, realistically, if Moore is casting this, then it looks more like

+14 morale weapon / damage to all in range
+8d10 temp hp, +8 Attack rolls, +4 fort for 5
+12 morale bonus to saves and +12 dodge to AC - 18d4 for 3

This does come at a cost of 33d4 Nonlethal damage if he were to go that route.

Quoted by request.

No idea offhand since I've been playing with it and it's powerful as hell. My official answer is that I'll get back to you on it.

[Yuthirin]

Faerie Dragons aren't true dragons.

You're gonna make Surraruthurururu cry.

[Anastasia]

Faerie Dragons aren't true dragons.

You're gonna make Surraruthurururu cry.

They're still dragons, just not true dragons in the D&D definition. It sounds much harsher than it is.

[Iron Dragoon]

Faerie Dragons aren't true dragons.

You're gonna make Surraruthurururu cry.

They're still dragons, just not true dragons in the D&D definition. It sounds much harsher than it is.

You had the chance to let Surru be a true dragon and didn't take it. What happens now is entirely your fault.

Quest: Become a Force Dragon - Started.

To be done after becoming a Celestial/Half-Celestial.

[Anastasia]

I now live in a world of unrelenting terror.

[Nephrite]

If you were to spitball it, what level would a Bard spell be that would be a swift action to combine Inspire Courage, Greatness and Heroism into one casting? I would imagine it would still follow the rules limitations on the targets for Greatness and Heroism.

For reference, without Words of Creation or what have you, assuming a 20th level bard:

+4 morale weapon / damage to all in range
+2 1d10 HP, +2 competence attack, +1 competence to fort for 4
+4 morale AC and Saving throws to 2


Now, realistically, if Moore is casting this, then it looks more like

+14 morale weapon / damage to all in range
+8d10 temp hp, +8 Attack rolls, +4 fort for 5
+12 morale bonus to saves and +12 dodge to AC - 18d4 for 3

This does come at a cost of 33d4 Nonlethal damage if he were to go that route.

Quoted by request.

No idea offhand since I've been playing with it and it's powerful as hell. My official answer is that I'll get back to you on it.

I would also be fine with a version that was a standard action. You're still effectively gaining an action with it that way, so it's fine.

[Anastasia]

A new spell is posted in the spell collection. It's a sanctified 10 spell, so that may be useful. It may not look like much at first glance, but it's duration is one round/level. Which means it's not just a single blast but capable of dealing damage each round.

[Anastasia]

Divine rules are up. A few notes here since I want to keep that clean.

- With any ruleset that's meant to be encapsulate beings such as divinities, it must be understood that the rules can't be absolute. Exceptions are going to happen and 'plot power' is a consideration as well. There's no effort to categorize every trick a deity can pull out. These rules are a mechanical baseline to handle that side of it, not absolute guidelines that cover everything. When there's a degree of vagueness or openness in the rules, it's usually intentional.

- Likewise, these are just the mechanical rules. Most flavor issues aren't touched on here, such as how the Three Incarnations may choose to rule and manage deities.

- That last bit in divine realms about deities being able to manipulate the plane their divine realm in is rather vague, isn't it? This is because it's not really a function of the rules but of planar politics, and the politics of planar lords vs deities. Generally speaking, while similar planar lords and deities do generally cooperate (as much or as little as their alignments and outlooks allow), this is not absolute. As planar lords see to alignment issues and the Outer Planes, they have more control over the planes outside of a divine realm than the deities. Usually both sides have an agreement where planar lords and deities grant each other control in each other's planes and divine realms. However, this isn't absolute and isn't always extended.

It's worth noting that deities, regardless of alignment, are likely to support a deity who suffers push back from a planar lord on this. For example, once Graz'zt tried to cut Umberlee off from influencing the Abyss outside of Fury's Heart as the result of a tiff between the two. Graz'zt soon received several diplomats from across the planes, each bearing a message from various deities that he reconsider his current course of action. Diplomats came from unexpected deities such as Bane, Tempus, Tyr, Chauntea and Helm. Graz'zt relented, knowing it was a battle he couldn't win. The politics between planar lords and deities are low key and rarely visible, but they do exist.

- These don't cover any possible changes or adjustments for B1r. Those will be added as variants in a later post. This is mostly to keep the baseline rules streamlined. Likewise, there's going to be an add on that discusses prayer and how deities manage it.