🎨 Creative [All] Fantastic Elements 2- even more weirdness

[DMH]

Link to original thread: https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/all-fantastic-elements.691131/

Okay, like what the first thread became this thread is meant to be a place for everyone to post their weird ideas that could be handy for world building. There are no limitations, beyond the rules of the forum, in what can be posted. So I hope to see more ideas from you as well as providing a zillion more ideas for everyone's use.


Doppelgangers must first learn a racial language before it can take that form. For humans and other races that don't have a specific tongue you could go cultural or not allow them at all.

The dead flesh of every race burns a different color. Lop off a finger and toss it in a torch and see if the being is disguised, shapeshifted or a hidden hybrid. This may or may not reveal lycanthropy and similar curses. In other words a human werewolf's finger would burn a different color from an uncursed human and from a human werebear.

Some of the ancient hedge mazes found in the wilds are controlled by vegetable minotaurs. Fortunately for those who go exploring in the mazes, the minotaurs do not have an ability to animate other plants.

Orcs are a living curse and must live within 50 miles of a city of a civilized race. If that city is abandoned or destroyed, the orcs must then travel to another city and either merge with or attempt to displace or destroy the orcs living there.

Some fire using monsters create a unique form of glass from the bones they melt. Necromancers love this material as it allows easier enchantments for undead, such as giving them minor spells.

A bow that fires animated dead (skeletons and zombies) without harming them.

Microverses are useful in that they are both alternate realities and yet retain the planar traits of the larger world. That said there could be forms of technology and magic that only function in one or the other, the result of the Micro Gods' desires.

 

[epicfalcono]

In the forests of Duruth, the birds do not sing. The trees do, humming in the wind. Older trees occasionally manage to actually sing a song, and this can have magical effects - if it sings the song of the fey, a portal to the Feywild will open.

 

[Sanctaphrax]

I feel like I should congratulate you on the "complete" thread. Not sure if it really makes sense, since it's just an arbitrary line-break to make things easier on forum software, but...congratulations anyway.

Anyway, ideas:

Astrology works. Events, and temperaments, are strongly affected by the movements of the heavens. This leads to a peculiar sort of bigotry; people born under unfortunate stars are discriminated against, and people born under lucky ones are favoured. As a result, prophecies are rather self-fulfilling.

People don't age smoothly. It happens in jumps; each birthday your body gets a year older. Some circumstances can cause ageing to happen more often, or less often, and arranging such circumstances is a common preoccupation.

Certain thrones, titles, or jobs carry magical weight. Upon assuming them, you change. Often you grow stronger, or acquire magical abilities of some kind. Your personality is altered as well, sometimes strongly. There are some countries that have effectively been ruled by the same person for millennia because the crown is so much stronger than any of its wearers.

 

[DMH]

Thank you! It is fun to keep the mind going with all these bizarre ideas.


Limbo whales exhale clouds of chaos. Each whale has its own alignment (obviously Chaotic X) and the effects of its cloud are influenced by that.

Wild plots that have self assembling gardens, a side effect on an ancient divine decree. They have been around forever, as in long before intelligent life existed, and now act as homes for domestic fey that were driven out by superstitious people.

A giant tired of pests in his home has set out traps- barrel sized ceramic containers partially buried in the ground and filled with beer. Apparently he has killed several dwarves and gnomes this way.

A trio of machine daikaiju control an island and their presence allows the development of technology- mechanical, electronic and psionic. When one or more leave the island for whatever reason, their field of tech stops working until they return.

Massive airship temples bring the word to the masses. Consecrated ground is for graveyards, not places of worship.

 

[DMH]

The megapede is the adult form of the giant wasp. The insects merge into the massive critter, which then hides its eggs in its travels. Those hatch into normal giant wasps, there is no grub stage to this particular monster.

The best weapon against a vampire with a gaze attack is a medusa. Hide her nature and present her to the vampire and watch it turn to stone and the medusa not get charmed by a chunk of rock.

Some of the world's best food are location restricted. When they cross the barrier they become something else, some lesser edible.

In well populated kingdoms water elementals have taken up the art of trash golem construction by using all the junk found in rivers.

The radiation found in the underearth (that of Oerth) contains the growth of oozes. If the radiation were to be removed, the result would be a grey goo situation.

Magically advanced nations have bridges that are their own toll guardians. Being able to retract is a simple power, more likely they will have the capacity of a mid level spell caster.

Potions of Teleportation require a pinch of the target location to function.

A hag coven has become wealthy by hiding criminals in the form of trees. What they don't say is that the transformation is permanent after a year. At that point they are cut down and turned into clubs and shields for the coven's ogres. (This one came from the cubes as a most perfect roll. I didn't need to consider any angles or variants of the symbols.)

An imp with some bird allies is speeding soul collection by assisting the authorities in tracking down criminals. Soon those damned souls will be back in the form of shadow demons.

Music can be used to induce dragon blood to show a vision of one's home.

Many magical helms are invisible to their wearers, thus allowing full area vision.

The Sinister is a rod that transforms humans into vegetable doppelgangers, shapeshifters that can mimic humans and plants. (Came from a dream, I have no idea why it would be called that.)

Water can only exist above a certain altitude. Only aberrations and elementals can live lower for extended amounts of time.

 

[DMH]

Invisibility to Animals is used only while hunting or among unknown animals as druids can walk among those creatures they know and not spook them.

When an underwater portal to the plane of Water is used, a multicolored wave passes through the entire body of water. Water elementals can not be subtle about their visits.

AD&D magic resistance doesn't have to be a blanket that applies to all spell schools. This works better for settings with elemental based magic, such as Al Qadim.

There is a race that has corpses that react poorly to animation. Using them to create undead is a bad idea as the resulting mutant things (which are still undead) can not be controlled by any mortal.

Electrical spells are unreliable and may turn into lightning monsters (spell level = hit dice or challenge rating).

The plants of one plane have spirits but only become undead if they die on another plane.

A common lycanthrope trigger is when their children are in danger. Mama bear becomes so much more terrifying if she is a bear wereice drake.

Tiny predatory fey fabricate big cats (flesh and blood or living constructs, you pick) that hunt for them. There is always enough scraps to go around considering how messy the felines are with their feeding habits.

 

[DMH]

Gold turns into silver if starved of sunlight and silver turns to gold if exposed to sunlight. The latter takes 24 hours straight so it is quite rare. Dragons have innate magic that mimics sunlight, thus increasing the value of their hoards.

Nonmagical items that sit within a dragon's hoard become magical after five centuries. This may or may not apply to coins and gems. Though gem dragons could very well be a source of ioun stones.

Wizards always have a room in their towers set aside for summoning. They become tainted and corrupted by the "visitors", resulting in weird things happening. I like the idea of one with its dimensions all askew and when the party tries to leave, they discover that escape is much like the typical chessboard trap.

Some monsters have mirrored skin that contains other creatures within the reflection. The monsters can free these other beings as needed but keeping an ethereal tether on them so they can't simply flee.

Owlbears usually have mutations and weakness as a result of poor synthesis. Few are working on the problem, including an owlbear wizard that is hunting for specific traits to improve itself and its offspring.

Planets in Spelljammer are usually made of one or more of the Greek Elements. Okay, but what other elements could there be to make worlds from? Something beyond Void, Wood, and Metal.

 

[Sanctaphrax]

Planets in Spelljammer are usually made of one or more of the Greek Elements. Okay, but what other elements could there be to make worlds from? Something beyond Void, Wood, and Metal.

City - when people began to build, the new environments they created wrote themselves into the fabric of What Is. Accordingly, planets of buildings began to form alongside planets of the original elements.

Machine - similarly, there are whole worlds of purposeless clockwork and naturally-occurring circuitry.

Flesh - flesh planets are alive, but not necessarily single organisms. Many of them consist of countless beings clustered together.

Dream - the solid part of a dream planet is generally just a ball. The interesting stuff is all phantasmal.

Death - some worlds die. Others are born dead.

Light - tied to traditional images of holiness and divinity. Has no moral bearing, though.

Darkness - similarly, not evil. But definitely spooky.

Rubber - Earth is defined by solidity, water by liquidity. A solid object that changes its shape easily does not fit into either, and accordingly must be considered its own element.

 

[DMH]

One of the few ideas I had for that question was Dream, but it wasn't solid. 'Jammers could pass right through them so the idea is a sort of trap (ships can't renew their air nor collect food and water) but also a possible hook (oracle visions, character dreams or communications from distant illusionists). Very cool ideas all in all. Thank you.


Lumuria is a new continent that no one want to visit for it is made up of billions or trillions of lemures, evil souls from many worlds.

I recently finally bought The Book of Imaginary Beings and one of the few that EGG didn't life that I wish he had is the celestial stag. It is a spirit that lives in mines and begs miners for help reaching the surface. Miners usually treat them as monsters and wall them away (I am guessing they are the Chinese version of kobolds) for if they do reach the surface and are touched by sunlight, the stags become pools of pollution. I like that and I like the idea of derro having the same sunlight vulnerability. They could become a black version of slime, pollution elementals or an ooze, though I think of oozes as anything but pollution (they are part of the clean up crew after all).

Lycanthrope gladiators are popular for their fights against each other and supernatural critters. The downside is their triggers are usually at night so visibility in the ring may be less than acceptable to most crowds.

Ethereal earth elephants are living 10 ton blocks of stone. They are bone eating predators that appear just above their targets and squish. Unlike flesh elephants, these can take the tumble with ease (1/2 falling damage).

A porch that escapes becomes a wild gazebo.

 

[epicfalcono]

These gazebos eat paladins, but only if the paladins attack them first. Otherwise, they have a diet of fallen trees.

The celestial stag becoming pollution is pretty interesting...it is not normally associated with the more heavenly side of things. Maybe they were corrupted by the derro or the drow as weapons. Other possible animals which could use are owls. These corrupted celestial owls turn into swarms of loathsome insects when the sun strikes them.

What are some other possible corrupted celestials?