Friendship is Dragons
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Page 508 - Faulty Rituals
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Wow, new page and nobody's here. Helloooo? It's so dark in here.
Was busy playing Fallout 3. XD
So made up holidays? Okay, there was "First Contact Day" in a space campaign I ran, which celebrated Earth's first contact with an alien race. And the nice thing was that it didn't end badly like Hollywood movies nor,ally depict. In fact, the worst part was a bit of an unintentional exchange of diseases, but that was managed well enough.
So... yeah, FCD was a holiday celebrated by acknowledging the inventions that came about thanks to the two alien species working together, like the Hyperdrive and Cold Fusion. Oh and taking your alien bud drinking. All the PCs liked that part, though I didn't remember it being in my notes...
So made up holidays? Okay, there was "First Contact Day" in a space campaign I ran, which celebrated Earth's first contact with an alien race. And the nice thing was that it didn't end badly like Hollywood movies nor,ally depict. In fact, the worst part was a bit of an unintentional exchange of diseases, but that was managed well enough.
So... yeah, FCD was a holiday celebrated by acknowledging the inventions that came about thanks to the two alien species working together, like the Hyperdrive and Cold Fusion. Oh and taking your alien bud drinking. All the PCs liked that part, though I didn't remember it being in my notes...
The metal blaster from the pitt and the stealth suit, manually aimed headshot will instagib anything, reavers and overlords included. Albino scorpions I snuck up with an axe and made thier legs explode.
I haven't played New Vegas yet, but I do love me some Stealth+Shotgun combo in the Capitol wasteland. One-shoting a high-level mirelurk without VATS is magic.
Thinking the modding community could perform miracles was kinda scary for a second.
Well, there was that music festival in which the bard almost got us all kiled by performing poorly in front of the king, and then going on and performing superbly in front of a neighbouring kingdom's queen.
Then there's the day of Full Blossoms, a sort of spring celebration, only more focused on celebrating the resurrection of a nature god. It's also tradition for the goddess of decay to try and kill said god (again) during that time, so the day of Full Blossoms usually ends up in epic battles for druids and cultists all over the world.
Then there's the day of Full Blossoms, a sort of spring celebration, only more focused on celebrating the resurrection of a nature god. It's also tradition for the goddess of decay to try and kill said god (again) during that time, so the day of Full Blossoms usually ends up in epic battles for druids and cultists all over the world.
Why doesn't anyone expect to find teddy bears in the woods any more? :(
Guerilla bears, man. They mess with your head.
That reminds me of a comment an NPC makes in the Critters book for Shadowrun 4e. They asked why can't any of these mutated animals become fluffier instead of monstrously evil. XD
There are big ritualized fights to determine which male has the right to first choice of the newly culturally adult females. The females have the right to refuse, but generally, they want to be with the strongest, so the females also fight to entice potential mates. It's all about who is the strongest and cleverest.
Wakes up early to post before that Raxon fellow. FAILS.
I too have a dragon holiday and might steal yours. Mine is basically the Olympics.he winners get to go hunt in one region compete, the winners get to go hunt a magic beast and feed it to a dragon. Most people only kinda sorta believe in the dragon since only the winners get to see the dragon, and she grants them a wish.
Originally it was a pact so she would defend them against the giants in the region but the giants got kinda exterminated and she liked the arrangement and so did the locals so now it's just a holiday.
I too have a dragon holiday and might steal yours. Mine is basically the Olympics.he winners get to go hunt in one region compete, the winners get to go hunt a magic beast and feed it to a dragon. Most people only kinda sorta believe in the dragon since only the winners get to see the dragon, and she grants them a wish.
Originally it was a pact so she would defend them against the giants in the region but the giants got kinda exterminated and she liked the arrangement and so did the locals so now it's just a holiday.
I made a whole society for them, with an actual, complex social structure and stuff. No reason, other than world building.
EDIT: It is sent. Important thing to note is that rank has little to do with social standing. The biggest and strongest have the highest social standing. Their rank is just their duties. Social standing determines who's in charge.
dolphin_scout[at]hotmail.co.uk.
If you'll be so kind and do the same for me?
If you'll be so kind and do the same for me?
I DMed a game once where a civil war had taken place over trivial matters (the players never bothered to find out why, they were simply hired blades, and could care less). It was getting pretty dark in the beginning of the game, because the amount of refugees that were coming in was simply too much for the camps and neutral third party kingdoms to handle.
Food was the number one concern obviously, but without any treaties or spare hunting grounds nearby, a lot of places went hungry... except where the players were currently stationed. They went ahead and made a pact with a group of elder dragons for food in exchange for a VERY handsome sum, which went down a lot when a few players meta-ed in a few modern day foods (which could be made during those times) such as sandwiches, cake, and what the dragons greatly loved to learn, bacon.
As the game went on, the players noticed (sort of) a number of people who were eating those foods from time to time (the dragons got a lot of money for their knowledge of the food, time after time again). By the end of the war, those foods became so popular, that legend says the food (from origins unknown) was the only reason the war stopped.
So three holidays were made: Holiday of Bacon; day of the Dragons. Holiday of Cake; day of truth and peace. and Holiday of Sandwich; day of Hero's and Adventure.
Little to be said, the "production" of those foods (bacon in particular) was in very high demand.
Unless they're polymorphing beforehand, I'm not sure how much benefit adult dragons would get out of bacon. A typical bacon strip would be like an alfalfa shoot to a dragon, particularly since they don't really have the tooth structure to chew like we do, and I don't think you'd be able to get slices big enough for a dragon to really notice to crisp up. Could be used as a kind of seasoning, I guess - we sprinkle salt and pepper on our food, they sprinkle bacon...
Pigs to world population was 55:1.
Hee hee, I like the relationship of the two sides for each holiday. :3 Nice word play.
I gotta admit, I really like Pinkie Pie showing off her people prowess. She really is more than just a silly goofy bard, in and out of character, and it's good to see that. I wouldn't be surprised if she's one of those rare psyche/socio majors that actually changes the goddamn world. While playing a pink pony.
Agreed. Pinkie Pies with hidden depths are always fun ones. And it's always nice a player can sympathize with the DM.
One of my DM's loved to do "sneaky not-so-good-guys" campaigns. So for one of our sessions he had a holiday called Purloinapalooza, which had grown up around a competition for thieves around the world to gather and show off their skills. Everything was thief-themed: cakes shaped like padlocks, games where kids tried to pick a pocket stitched with bells without setting them off, they even had chopsticks shaped like lockpicks for the occasion.
But of course the main event was the tournament. It took place at a coliseum roughly as large as the Roman, with several structures in the middle that looked like houses or small castles. Each one was laden with locks, traps, and goodies, and whoever could infiltrate the most buildings and come out with the most loot won. But anyone who triggered a trap was marked in ways that couldn't be removed without the tournament host's aid, so the tally of failures stayed with them for the whole contest. The winner got a huge diamond enchanted with daily invisibility/silence uses to enhance their already-impressive skills.
Our party's thief won the contest that game, and the celebration afterward left everyone but the sorcerer passed out from drinking too much. We woke up in the morning to discover the diamond had been stolen from him, and the next five sessions were dedicated to finding the thief and getting payback.
But of course the main event was the tournament. It took place at a coliseum roughly as large as the Roman, with several structures in the middle that looked like houses or small castles. Each one was laden with locks, traps, and goodies, and whoever could infiltrate the most buildings and come out with the most loot won. But anyone who triggered a trap was marked in ways that couldn't be removed without the tournament host's aid, so the tally of failures stayed with them for the whole contest. The winner got a huge diamond enchanted with daily invisibility/silence uses to enhance their already-impressive skills.
Our party's thief won the contest that game, and the celebration afterward left everyone but the sorcerer passed out from drinking too much. We woke up in the morning to discover the diamond had been stolen from him, and the next five sessions were dedicated to finding the thief and getting payback.
Actually, it was the guy who got third place. He slit the second place guy's throat for sabotaging him, then stole the diamond from our thief because he believed he would have won otherwise.
In the circus homebrew I recently finished, the whole campaign was about the party trying to arrive at a nation's capital city in time for the king's 100th birthday. The circus was called "Baffle's Splendiferous Circus, Centennial Edition" despite the fact that no one knew how old Baffle was or how long the circus had been in business.
They had to enter a competition to perform in front of the king, except the king was a little bonkers. His idea of a preliminary was pitting several circuses against each other on a death race of an obstacle course, complete with pits, flamethrowers, spike traps, and a prismatic wall. Only the PC's even made it through the race alive; all the other teams either died on the course or were killed by the players.
They had to enter a competition to perform in front of the king, except the king was a little bonkers. His idea of a preliminary was pitting several circuses against each other on a death race of an obstacle course, complete with pits, flamethrowers, spike traps, and a prismatic wall. Only the PC's even made it through the race alive; all the other teams either died on the course or were killed by the players.
Alt-script time!
DM: Silhouetted in the moonlight, you see a chariot drawn by two pegasi in dark armor and bat wings. The chariot sets down on the ground, and the hooded figure reveals herself to be...Princess Luna!
AJ: Ooh, ooh, this is it! A 20th level Alicorn sorceress, wishing to reconnect with her subjects...or will she turn back to her evil ways? Heh, that would be a laugh.
Rarity: ...
AJ: W-why are you smiling? WHY ARE YOU SMILING!?
Don't know how much it counts, but my Pony Tales campaign is set in an alternate Equestria (which is also the setting of a series of fanfics I write) where, before Luna had a chance to become Nightmare Moon, she was temporarily possessed by a body-snatching entity, and the attempt to drive it out of her body ended up leaving her in a thousand-year coma instead.
As a result, instead of Nightmare Night, Equestria has "Waking Night". It still follows many of the same conventions, but instead of being based around ponies' fear of Nightmare Moon, they dress up as things out of dreams and nightmares and hold a night-long festival in the hopes that their revelry will catch Luna's attention in the realm of dreams and guide her back to the waking world.
As a result, instead of Nightmare Night, Equestria has "Waking Night". It still follows many of the same conventions, but instead of being based around ponies' fear of Nightmare Moon, they dress up as things out of dreams and nightmares and hold a night-long festival in the hopes that their revelry will catch Luna's attention in the realm of dreams and guide her back to the waking world.
The community of Gold's Field never really followed the traditions and holidays of the world it was a part of. Why should it? It was out of the way and pretty much ignored by the world save for the trading that ensured it's survival. Yet there is one event that made them stand out and was uniquely their own: The founding of Gold's Field.
The tale was short and odd, much like it's founder. A group of explorers wandered into the area that became the future town's square and their leader, a dwarf who was horribly drunk from the drinking the night before, immediately plunged his shovel into the ground and declared "There be gold here! Dig it up!" His followers, being equally drunk, immediately followed and soon the plains were covered in holes. While there was no gold to be had, the ground was good and the farming community was created, it's name as much a tribute to it's founder as it was to the fields of wheat they grow.
Thus, the festival reflects it's bizarre creation: Villagers gather around to share drinks and laugh away the seriousness and hardships of life while children are given shovels to go out and find the poorly hidden "gold" (cleverly represented as yellow stones) around town. The best of beer was judged, young men and women attempt to woo each other while intoxicated, and storytellers attempted to one up each other as they tried to make up the most outlandish gold finding tales while making it as believable as they could. On the eve of the event, a lucky gold coin was buried in the middle of town in hopes that it's luck would bless the land and bring forth a bountiful harvest in the following year. Preferably better luck than their poor founder and his attempt to mine gold in the middle of a field. No stranger was ever turned away and all in their charge was expected to take part regardless of how they felt about it. It wasn't wholly unique and was rather silly but it was theirs and everyone religiously celebrated it. It was their way of shouting to the world "We are still here! And we do matter!"
And it was heard. During the eve of the festival, as all the villagers gather around to bury the coin, a dragon's roar was heard and its flame promptly consumes all. Be it building, field, animal, man, woman, or child, nothing was spared and everything was reduced to ash. Everything...except one soul.
So sits alone the sole inheritor of it's legacy: A half elven cleric of Helm, his life spared from the aftermath of the massacre by the followers of his god. A grievous wound over the heart, something that should of killed him that day, now serves as a reminder of when a day of merriment and laughter turned into a nightmare, of the kindness of strangers, and of a simple vow made that day. Not of vengeance, for it is cold and refuses to restore that which was lost. Not of hatred, for it blinds and consumes the soul. But one that he reaffirmed with a stout dwarven ale and an attempt to lift the spirits of those around him with outlandish tales of a drunken dwarf's quest for gold: That no stranger be turned away from his aid and that all in his charge would be uplifted in their darkest times and their lives protected from the fate that befell his childhood home. And so the last villager of Gold's Field, celebrating both the day of it's creation as well as it's destruction year after year, continued to shout to the world in his own way: "I am still here. And they still matter."
That's... probably the most touching RP story I've ever heard. Maybe I'm just sleep-drunk, but... wow.
...
Now what am I going to do with this thing?
...And who are you calling a ******* anyway? It's perfectly normal for a gentleman to over-react to something like this! Hmph!
Kriss, you can go back to your chanting, I just got reintroduced to what insanity actually is. If anyone needs me, I'm going back to my Tardis-like closet and prepare for the inevitable.
One of the less friendly kingdoms in campaign I run has the Festival of Light. It's a day where families and friends gather together in homage to the sun deity they worship and to celebrate the year where they forcibly purged every non-human race from the kingdom. They make nice, big fires and burn effigies of elves on top of them in thanks for their purified homeland. The player didn't really explore the festival much; he was here to rescue an actual elf that had literally fallen into the kingdom and was now going to be taking the place of one of those effigies.
I pretty much made it a nastier version of Bonfire Night, I suppose.
I pretty much made it a nastier version of Bonfire Night, I suppose.
Which I suppose means it doesn't qualify but fuck the police! Posted it anyway!
party stopped at a small town during travel, and by sheer luck, they were having a festival of sorts.
It would seem that in the 'old days' the town used to have a vermin problem.. until someone found a ... interesting solution. Giant mallets.
it was like Whacking Day mixed with Weasel Stomping Day But with rats and mallets. and more squishy them smacky.
I'd never seen the druid puke so much.
It would seem that in the 'old days' the town used to have a vermin problem.. until someone found a ... interesting solution. Giant mallets.
it was like Whacking Day mixed with Weasel Stomping Day But with rats and mallets. and more squishy them smacky.
I'd never seen the druid puke so much.
Lack of something I don't know does that. Enjoy.
Especially with a holiday like this. People won't realize until it's way too late that all those dismembered limbs and blood splats decorating the forest weren't fake. Completely reasonable.
...Yea, Twilight, you better start running now before things get worse.
I haven't seen those papers since I wrote & filed them in highschool, and I've changed my filing system 3 times since then.
I actually thought this was entirely reasonable, but a downright clever idea on Celestia's part, since I'm sure she would have played a part in encouraging how this holiday developed. Just look at today's society now; Vampires and zombies and the like are getting remade into movies where they are adored and merely "misunderstood" (and sparkle!)
Effectively, Celestia would be encouraging the same thing. Instead of Nightmare Moon being a literal walking apocalypse of darkness, she just wants to gobble up candy. Instead of ponies heralding her as the signal of endtimes and shunning her, they'll see throwing candy at her as the solution.
Running in fear from me? That's disheartening. Running in fear AND throwing candy at me? Disheartening maybe, but definitely worth sticking around to see what's going on.
Effectively, Celestia would be encouraging the same thing. Instead of Nightmare Moon being a literal walking apocalypse of darkness, she just wants to gobble up candy. Instead of ponies heralding her as the signal of endtimes and shunning her, they'll see throwing candy at her as the solution.
Running in fear from me? That's disheartening. Running in fear AND throwing candy at me? Disheartening maybe, but definitely worth sticking around to see what's going on.
I do have a few holidays I'm working on for Tales of Equestria.
One is the Traveler's Holiday of The Naming, celebrating Luna's gifting of the name Travelers upon them. It's a Traveler Only Holiday filled with Storytelling to the young and much drinking and merrymaking in general.
Another is for the Garden of Shadows, Luna's city in the Black Stone Mountains. Well, there are two. One if Founding Day, the day Luna discovered the ancient city and brought the first orphans to live with her there. The other is The Returning, Celebrating Luna's return to the city. Both are large festivals that Luna attends.
One is the Traveler's Holiday of The Naming, celebrating Luna's gifting of the name Travelers upon them. It's a Traveler Only Holiday filled with Storytelling to the young and much drinking and merrymaking in general.
Another is for the Garden of Shadows, Luna's city in the Black Stone Mountains. Well, there are two. One if Founding Day, the day Luna discovered the ancient city and brought the first orphans to live with her there. The other is The Returning, Celebrating Luna's return to the city. Both are large festivals that Luna attends.
Once upon a time I found out about a real-world Sumerian goddess of beer named Ninkasi (look her up) and so in the next game I got my GM to allow my character to play a mostly self-styled Dwarven Brewer/priest of Ninkasi.
It was fun, he wound up monstrously strong (in-game we said he got that way hefting beer kegs around) and all in all was a decent guy. One stipulation was presented by the G.M. and that was most religious concepts I came up with had to be cleared by him before put into the game.
And so came many little celebratory holidays and festivals such as the Hour of Happiness, the Celebration of the Two-Four and the Feast of Maximum Occupancy.
Had lots of fun with him, especially with his favorite defensive spell... Smite with hangover.
It was fun, he wound up monstrously strong (in-game we said he got that way hefting beer kegs around) and all in all was a decent guy. One stipulation was presented by the G.M. and that was most religious concepts I came up with had to be cleared by him before put into the game.
And so came many little celebratory holidays and festivals such as the Hour of Happiness, the Celebration of the Two-Four and the Feast of Maximum Occupancy.
Had lots of fun with him, especially with his favorite defensive spell... Smite with hangover.
We've also got Fallout is Dragons, and it's a doozy. Reportedly one of the most fun sessions we've had in a while, but I'll let you be the judge.
Session 27: Libsyn YouTube