The Fleshforge Legacy (Community World Building Project)

[Admiral Squish]

The Rules: With the aid of the playground homebrew community, to create a world for the ground up. Everything from nations, cultures, and customs, to species and geography. Active discussion and debate of ideas is encouraged, practically required if this is to turn out well. I hold authority, but my decisions are not final until I specifically say so. I am not an evil overlord, my decisions may be questioned without getting you sent to the camps. The most important part, though, is to have fun and make something awesome, so go a little crazy. We don't mind. We're all mad here.
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The Concept: Long, long ago, there was a race of ultimately powerful creatures with incredibly powerful magic that came to the material plane. They saw potential in this place, and began to work. Their magic warped flesh, fused bones, and stretched skin. They used their magic to shape generations of man and beast to suit their desires, to fill their needs. The almost perfect systems they created still work to this day. But the creators are long gone. Or, perhaps, hiding.

Map:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v692/Mediv/Map1.jpg

Geography:
The main continent is vaguely oval-shaped, longer north-south. The eastern edge is slightly concave, but there's a wide spread of small to mid-sized islands, the largest about the size of texas, spreading off the coast. There are two mountain ranges, a curved one separating the north-most quarter or so from the remainder, and a stright one separating the southern quarter of the landmass and ringing around the edges. The portion walled off by mountains is elevated, with several-hundred-foot cliffs that plunge directly into the sea and continue straight down. The center of the continent is marked by the crop-ring, which is about 300 miles across from outer rim and extends inward a good fifty miles. The planet's equator runs straight across the southern, mountained-off quarter and some of the southernmost islands.

The landmass carries a variety of terrain. The Western side is heavily forested, running the gamut from an everglades-style swamp that butts against the south mountains. Heading north, it progresses through climates. A sort of mangrove forest at first, then it dries up and evolves into a full rainforest. As it goes north, the tropical trees become less so, shifting out for a more temperate jungle, which eventually fades into pine as they press into the north mountains. The northern mountains are cold and solid, stable behemoths capped in snow as they hold back a frozen tundra. Along the northmost coast, ice shelves expand some 50+ miles into the frozen sea. Rounding the northern corner and heading south once more, we begin with scrublands that fill out the foothills of the mountains. Then, down into rolling grasslands that grow from white-green in the north to rolling fields of green and eventually shifting to golden Savannah against the south mountains. the south mountains continue all along the cliff-lined shore, but they contain a black-sand desert within them. It's sands are igneous, powdered stone ejected from the mountains. The mountain's along the shore aren't really mountains in a proper sense, rather a ring of mostly-dormant volcanoes that periodically bathe the searing sands with clouds of burning ash. The further south you go, the higher the actual elevation is, as volcanic action has actually pushed the southernmost tip of the peninsula upward, creating the towering cliffs that the seas pound against constantly. In the very center of the continent, within the crop ring, the land is almost completely obscured by the remnants of shaper society, which grow larger and more complex as you approach the central capital.

Political Geography:
North: the north is a two-part nation. Most 'civilization' is in the mountains that surround the tundra, which have been so riddled by tunnels with millennia of mining that they are quite easily able to support a country's worth of people. The dwarves were the first workers created to mine these mineral-rich mountains, then the kobolds, and finally the warforged. The dwarves, with each successive takeover of their tasks, took on a more intellectual role as architects, crafters, and engineers. they remained in control of the mines as the kobolds dig them, and they manage the warforged working on the building projects. The shapers view the tundra itself as a sort of 'proving ground'. The harsh terrain has many needs, and they must creatively engineer solutions in their beasts, which makes creatures like the rhemoraz and the frost worm.

South: The mountains that separate them from the rest of the world make this remote location somewhat mysterious. The sun-baked black sands make the temperature soar to 200+ degrees, making most life impossible on the surface. The shapers of this nation moved underground, where the heat would not follow. They did, however, build some of their larger, more impressive fleshforges on the surface to avoid the collapsing and magma-flooding that could happen at any time in the tunnels. The tunnels became the home to bizzare creatures created by the eccentric, desert-dwelling shapers. Their main trade route, rather than face the volcanic mountains of the northern border, is south, through tunnels on the cliffs.

West: The west's lush forests are abundant with life. The shapers of the west view the art of shaping as an actual art. Elegant changes that subvert the creature's own tendancies and biology are the most appreciated. It is here that almost all non-grain vegetable matter is grown, tended by elves. Swarms of bats go throughout the undercanopy, feasting on insects that may harm the fruits, while gliding, insectivore squirrels patrol the trunks of them, rooting out termites and anything else that crawls. Dire bats and giant eagles are harnessed above the canopy to tow lifting kites that bear loads of fruit and nutritious leaves. Even Rocs are used at times to deliver massive loads to distant lands. Living plants saw their birth in these lands, and the swamps of the south edge were where trolls originated, before they were modified for mass production.

East: The east has one thing in abundance: Space. While the west believes that the true art of shaping is subtlety, the east has no such illusions. The shapers have a long-standing unspoken competition to create the largest and most impressive, original creatures. Here is where dinosaurs saw their birth, and their perfection in judatitan and battletitan. 'Everything is bigger in the east', after all. Dire beasts became horrid beasts beneath the hands of the shapers here, and giants were created with their megascale flesh-forges for orders in all nations.

Center: The center is without a doubt, the mecca of shapers. This nation held the greatest, most innovative minds all collaborating to create creatures that had NO precedents, crafted wholly from the minds of these geniuses. Abberations, dragons, the mass production trolls... The cshapers used a form of minor illithid as organic computers to design their creations. The elder brains began as nonentient, organic data storage, only growing a consciousness as the information stored passed a sort of 'critical mass'.

Sea: The islands of the far east are used more as staging areas and trading posts, the vast majority of this nation being submerged. Aquatic beings of all description saw their creations here. Visitors could don symbionts that served as living gills to view the sunken splendor, transported in the transparent pouches of whale-like creatures. Where the east is all about size, and the west is about subtlety, the Sea is about art. Majesty, beauty, and awe are their calling cards. Massive star-whales, inspired architecture, and the infinity of strange and beautiful corals and fish are their legacy.

[Admiral Squish]

Races:

Humans:
These were the basis, the template. They were easy to change, and their short lifespans and high birth rate allowed the master race to experiment with them the most. Humans were everywhere, but never were 'properly' specialized.

Elves:
Elves are tree-tenders. They maintain the tall trees and the gardens of their masters, including the mobile plants that they create. The elves were most plentiful in the western forests and swamps, though some oversaw the order in the crop rings.

Dwarves:
Dwarves are miners and builders, they made everything the master race couldn't grow. Eventually, they became more intellectual and disciplinarian as the warforged took over building and the kobolds became the miners. When the shapers left, they were architects and foremen, directing the kobolds and warforged that became their labor force.

Warforged:
The warforged were made from the ore the dwarven mines churned out, but proved themselves an extremely competent replacement for the stocky ones, able to work without breaks and even in the harshest of conditions. They soon became the main workforce of the entire continent, though the humans were still cheaper due to their prodigious reproduction rate.

Gnomes:
Gnomes were the fine detail the dwarves missed. They were fine crafters and fixits. They also revealed an unexpected competence in alchemy and one in medical and surgical tasks, which could prove valuable to those interested into extending the use of their meat-machines. Their ability to speak with animals often made them extremely useful in the crop rings and on most other meatmachine operations.

Halflings:
Halflings served a double function. They were merchants, first, traveling far and wide to sell the latest beasts and designs. In addition, they served as spies, though they were mostly neutral. Halflings were the only race that could have been considered 'independent' in the reign of the master race.

Orcs:
Orcs were the enforcers. They were proud to serve the master race directly, and swiftly reprimanded any man or beast that stepped out of line.

Lesser Illithid:
These intellectuals served in the central cities as organic computers. The elder brains were originally nonsentient, organic data storage, which developed intellect later.

Shapertouched:
The shapertouched were the most trusted by the shapers, given a merest fraction of their power and able to use their symbionts and grafts without struggle or strain. They were nearly hunted to extinction by the other races once the shapers left.

Raptorans:
Raptorans were the races of the crop-ring. They have, and continue to, serve the shapers by maintaining the crop rings. They gather the piles of grain and make sure nothing interferes with the function of the rings. They roost on the inner-most walls, and they gather the grain with the use of cargo-kites, soaring out each day to survey the land.

Changelings:
The changelings were the perfect guniea pigs. The shapers made them to practice their lifeshaping magic on living creatures. Why make humans or elves when a single creature could serve as any of them? The changelings could become any of them, mimicking them so perfectly that even magic would effect them as it would their mask. The escaped changelings became 'becomers', hiding among other humanoid slaves.

Shifters:
Shifters, originally, were a powerful race that could choose their trait each time they changed. The western nation used them as multi-tools to serve them. the elves were simply... forgotten. Unlike the dwarves and the warforged, the shifters took over the roles of the elves in all things, driving them from their honorable posts. The elves, deposed, realized they had been little more than tools to the shapers, tools to be discarded when the next came along. The shifters became targets, as well as the shaper installations. The elves did all they could to disrupt the west until the shapers left. Then the shifters began to realize that their bloodlines began to fray. The shifters grouped and their children became less and less able to access all the the traits.

[Admiral Squish]

(Reserved for Monsters, modified or original)

[Admiral Squish]

(Reserved for Base Classes/PRCs)

[Admiral Squish]

(Reserved for Current Society)

[Admiral Squish]

(Reserved for whatever the hell I feel like!)

[Volthawk]

Well, two things that I think will be needed are grafts and symbionts.

Also, for races, maybe you could have a modular one, where you choose several different features for whatever you need it for?

[Eldan]

Hmm. I'll see if I can still find my old file on Nethling symbionts and grafts from Etherworld... those should fit nicely.

[Eldan]

After thinking about this a little more, a few ideas I came up with:

Races: I would include several races which are shapeshifting in one way or the other. Eberron's Changelings and Shifters come to mind. Another idea going around in my head currently are Mistborn's Kandra (For those who don't know the books (spoilers, obviously) Kandra are a species lacking any bones (probably non-mindless ooze or aberration type), but able to devour another living creature and then use it's bones to form a body around it, taking it's shape. Similar to doppelgangers, but cooler.) and finally, an idea coming from the thread's title:

The Fleshforged. Obviously, the name is taken from the warforged, and they would be similar in concept, but not mechanical, but organic. The special thing here is that they can use grafts, similar to a warforged's ability to graft magical items to it's body: their special ability is to use the various flesh grafts and symbionts around in the different books (fiendish, aboleth, daelkyr). Instead of grafting them to their body permanently, they can attach and detach them as move actions. Not really strong, but I think a nice basis to work on.

And now I'll go in my "weird creatures" files and find more organs to craft on creatures.

[The Tygre]

Maybe the fleshforged are like Prometheans; they all have this life-long, spiritual quest to find humanity and a soul? The ones who get lost dive straight into the body-horror-monster category; human centipedes, leviathan giants, blobs of flesh, etc.

Obviously, the only vampires for this world are the Tzimisce. If you can't tell, I've kind of got a WoD them going through here.

[Ponderthought]

What i think this really needs is the possibility for player mutation. Having one's species warped seems like it would make ones genetics somewhat malleable. Seeing as i have a penchant for culture development (I like writing fluff) and religion I believe ill brainstorm some feats, religions and cultures up and return later.

[Owrtho]

but able to devour another living creature and then use it's bones to form a body around it, taking it's shape. Similar to doppelgangers, but cooler.

That sounds a lot more like a traditional ghoul than a doppelgänger.

Owrtho

[Ponderthought]

Races: I would include several races which are shapeshifting in one way or the other. Eberron's Changelings and Shifters come to mind. Another idea going around in my head currently are Mistborn's Kandra (For those who don't know the books (spoilers, obviously) Kandra are a species lacking any bones (probably non-mindless ooze or aberration type), but able to devour another living creature and then use it's bones to form a body around it, taking it's shape. Similar to doppelgangers, but cooler.) and finally, an idea coming from the thread's title

Well if we go the mistborn route we could always rip off the Koloss as well. Hordemonsters that continue growing as they age, but their skin dosent, causing them to look like several different creatures through their life cycle. Mistborn has the coolest creatures.

[Ponderthought]

A few thoughts occurred to me just now, on the place of aberrations in this world:

The Fleshforgers Tools of War: Aberrations are the custom crafted weapons the forgers created for use against some terrible enemy. they were hasily crafted, for soon after the forgers arrived, their ancient enemies pursued them to this new colony-world. The lack of care in their creation led to their instability and alien outlooks. They now terrorize the surface races from their subterranean lairs.

The Enemy Forces: Aberrations are the soldiers of a terrible enemy that assaulted the fleshforgers in the distant past. They were few in number but mighty and horrifying. The forges superior numbers eventually overwhelmed them, but the survivors of the alien forces now fester deep in the earth, nursing their resentment for the forgers and all their creations

Distant In Time: The aberrations are time travellers from the distant future, from a time in witch the offspring of the forgers have become so twisted and warped as to be barely recognizable. They hope to steal this world from their ancestors, as their own has become uninhabitable, even for their alien form of life.

Just some thoughts i had while looking through Lords of Madness for inspiration.

[DracoDei]

Well, here is what I have on tap (light on stats, but these things don't have a strong need for stats I don't think). The is copy-paste from the previous thread.

It sounds like something up my alley, and I would probably end up contributing to it (I like to avoid promising anything).

I would recommend making the trolls naturally shed their weapons etc like a cat's claw layers are shed, or giving them a modified pain response under certain circumstances. Agonized creatures means you have to pay for shackles and then oil the shackles regularly so the blood doesn't rust them... not efficient in the long run.

I have several things to offer, some of which I have been itching to post for months, if not years, but could never figure out the right way to say. I think I started to post them in a "Work in progress, ignore" type thread, but never was able to get further than that.

Existing work of mine that might (or might not) work out:
Wing Dragons: A general that does his own scouting? Their BW isn't very friendly to combined arms, but if you have the advantage in melee (especially having trained your soldiers in Blind-fighting) they can be good for countering massed ranged attacks, especially if they go for the "Fog Cloud" level of opacity, rather than "optic black".


Mepholk: Some fleshforger towards the end decided that humans were out of date, but since they were so numerous, he released a "patch" instead of a "delete and re-install" solution. If deities exist in this setting you can keep Allurehn and her curse just the same as always (although the Mepholk wouldn't be as picky about who they had children with in this case since their mortal masters wouldn't like that). If not, you can call it a bug that didn't get corrected before the fleshforger's left.



New stuff (here is where I have a lot of ideas stored up) :
Massage Squirrels: Based on flying squirrel stock, these creatures have a highly modified biochemistry that allows them to sport lead-laced bones. They are virtually unable to survive in the wild. Normally very lethargic, the only time they show "squirrelly energy" is when they are on a warm horizontal surface of at least 3 feet by 1 foot. In such cases they scamper around on top of said object, dragging their patagium(sp?) and tail heavily until very tired (by which time they will have gradually slowed down noticably), at which point they curl up on top of the object and go to sleep. Literally used by the fleshforgers to give themselves relaxing massages. Shared with the slaves because once they existed, there wasn't any reason not to spread them around?


Ioun Rodents: They don't provide any magical benefits to their wearer, but walking around with 3 mice and a rat orbiting your head is a fashion craze that comes and goes, never completely dying out. Can't fly when not placed into orbit. Very vocal about when they are hungry, thirsty, or need to eliminate. Sleep, on the other hand, they will gladly do in mid-air, regardless of noise levels or temperature.


Parasitic pets: (the best detail, and creates a very interesting dicohtomy of the Alien and the Familiar when one considers what such a creature says about the fleshforger's. "They like pets!"..."Some of the pets are squicky!".)
Pre-spell information: The males of these species are useful only as normal pets and as breeders. The females are the valiable ones. Species include mice, gerbils, hamsters, ferrets, guinea pigs, sugar-gliders, rats, and (for size large and larger hosts only) weasels. Some dragons are rumored to wear dire-weasels.

Spell Transformation: The females are sensitive to a specially designed spell which induces a false pregnancy, then a X days to Y weeks later (need to look up rodent and ferret gestation times, then divide by 4 or something) the resulting placental material is transmuted by the second stage of the spell (which is probably around 2nd or 3rd level for a single pet), effectively spaying the pet. The results of this transmutation are tendrils on the belly that are strongly linked into the pet's nervous and circulatory systems. If a tiny amount of metal is included as a material component in the transformative spell, that metal is transmuted into the tips of the tendrils, this allows the parasitic pet to bypass metal-based damage reduction. I think that for especially hard-bodied creatures (such as dragons) the inclusion of adamintine as necessary would make sense.

Attachment: If pressed against a living creature the tendrils will burrow in, connecting to the capillaries and sensory nerves in the area. The capillary connections handle hydration, nutrition, respiration, and waste removal for the pet just as if the pet were in its mother's womb. The neurological connections mean that any sensation (heat, cold, pressure, pain, etc) felt by the parasite's skin is mapped onto the patch of skin that the tendrils penetrate. This prevents accidental injury to the pet. The host has the "Share Spells" ability with the parasite(s) just as a sorcerer or wizard has with their familiar, except that this also applies to any spell cast on either of them by a third party (always the host's choice, never the parasite's) Any affection shown by the master/host (the same thing as far as the parasitic pet is concerned) is reciprocated in a fluffy of squirming (remember the chest is free to move, just not the belly), licking and happy vocalizations (which may be rather faint due to the disused state of the lungs). An attached parasitic pet is fearless, since they can't run away or fight very well anyway and the design is based on the assumption that the master/host will protect them. A parasitic pet can be induced to eat with treats, but has no appetite really, and most hosts prefer to avoid being excreted on, and thus do not feed them. Note that Heal, Remove Curse, Remove Disease, etc can NOT be used to remove a parasitic pet except in cases where a host has enough that it actually has a mechanical effect on their constitution.

Removal: A level 0 spell (on any spell list that includes either arcane transmutation spells, or curative spells... 1st level for spell lists without a 0th level) is known to remove a LIVING pet touched. If the pet has been attached for an extended period of time (which is often the case) the pet begins to suffocate (as if drowning), and if it is not attached to a new host quickly (as determined by the usual fortitude saves) it will die. A parasitic pet dying of old age also detaches (this is a precaution to avoid gangrene of the tendril-penetrated site). In the case of the violent death of a parasitic pet, Heal checks to remove the tendrils are indicated, and even then a Remove Disease is generally a wise precaution.



Temporary Pets: The "Temporary Tattoo" version of Parasitic pets, these creatures merely secrete a sticky substance from their hairless bellies, allowing them to be placed on, or peeled off. They give the same warning vocalizations about their needs as Ioun Pets, and, if in familiar surroundings will even use their limbs to peel themselves off if the matter becomes serious enough.


Note: Should most or all of these come in unusual colors, or are fur-dyes sufficient for those purposes?


EDIT: Added in Ioun Rodents, temporary pets, and kept working on the parasitic pets. I THINK the parasitic pets are done now.

[Eldan]

I've had a few ideas while taking the train home today (one hour of doing nothing since I forgot my books at home). I've been typing this for over an hour now, so apologies when someone else had the same or a contradicting idea first.
So let me share some:

The Progenitors: In the Dawn of time (or more recent, see current time ideas) a race of almost godlike beings came upon the material world and it's fledgling races. They shaped and reshaped them, each according to their own ideas.
For a long time, they did so in peace, and they did many strange and wondrous things to the material creatures, but eventually, war broke out between them, for their philosophies were very different. They fell on each other with their flesh-forged armies. Many of them were defeated quickly, but in the end, five remained:
(Here I have to admit that I'm horrible with names, so I'm using Placeholders)
Progenitor Law: The progenitor of lawful races believed in strength through unity, and therefore, his creatures were specialized to a degree that, in the end, none of them could survive without the other. He created hive minds, and insectile creatures. Among them were the Formians, symbionts and grafts and many of the fast-breeding horde-creatures he used as cannonfodder.
Progenitor Chaos: The progenitor of chaotic races preached adaptability, believing that no single form of creature could wholly encompass all that was necessary to survive on a battlefield. From his fleshforges came the lycanthropes, the doppelgangers and other shapeshifters.
Progenitor Evil: The progenitor of evil races bred his creatures for strength, creating orcs and giants, believing that the strongest soldiers was the best soldier.
Progenitor Neutral: The neutral progenitor believed in the power of the mind, creating creatures adapt at rational and quick thinking, and eventually discovering psychic powers.
Progenitor good: I must admit, here I'm stumped.

Fleshforges: one of the strongest tools of the progenitors, and one most fought over, where the fleshforges. These were gigantic creatures, hundreds of feet in diameter. Inside their membranous, liquid-filled bodies, these living factories not only changed one creature into another, but also created new creatures from whole cloth when fed enough organic materials. Many of these fleshy creatures became so large, they could no longer suspend themselves and had to be kept under water, or in other environments supporting their enormous bulk.

Neth, the Living Plane (I love Neth, and I use it in pretty much all campaign settings in some way):
When the Progenitors went away, they took their factories, the Fleshforges, with them, hidden or dead, no one knows. All but one: Neth, a creation of Neutral, is the only Fleshforge that was made truly sapient by it's intelligence-focused creator. It was the largest of all Fleshforges, so huge that an entirely new demiplane was made for it, on the ethereal. In a way, Neth is the demiplane, and the demiplane is Neth.
These days, Neth is no longer active as a factory, instead only sending out small creatures, the Nethlings, instead of the battle titans it built in earlier ages. They scout the planes, bringing back information to still Neth's endless inbuilt hunger for Knowledge.
Neth can be useful, however, to those who can satiate it's hunger: in exchange for rare knowledge in a form it can understand, it can lend it's services. Neth can only truly comprehend knowledge presented in biological form. It appreciates the brains of the greatest sages and artists, or the bodies of rare and exotic creatures, if they are well preserved. It will, rarely, be content with knowledge read to it from books, but that is just as likely to anger it.
In exchange, Neth can perform a variety of services: it can dissolve bodies, or rebuild them in a new fashion, adding muscles and body parts, curing diseases or recreating crippled body parts. It can also synthesize body parts of rare creatures, a service appreciated by mages looking for extremely rare spell components.
Few, however, know Neth, for it leads a secretive life on the ethereal, and if a visitor is too knowledgeable and special, it might devour him for his mind.

Edit: comments on the above:

Re: Parasitic pets
Why mammals only? People always focus on mammals so much. I mean, I might be one of the few people who thinks bees are cute (at least outside my research group), but I keep thinking that parasitic creatures, like tapeworms, would be much easier to graft to a living host.
And to extend on this: why not make, say, bat grafts for sonar-vision? You could graft a pet-shark to your arm for a bite attack! Get some magically- enhanced chameleon-skin to fuse with your back, and never again pay for a tattoo you don't want anymore a week later!

[Ponderthought]

Here a I present the mutation feats I alluded too earlier. Most are modified from other sources, some are my own.

Mutant [Mutation]
The legacy of the Fleshforger's has altered your body.

Prerequisite: Humanoid.
Benefit: You gain a physical feature that grants you a racial
bonus on one type of check; once you select the check to which
this bonus applies (as well as the corresponding feature) you
cannot change it later. The bonus must be chosen from the
following list:

Mutation Feature Benefit
Bulging eyes +3 bonus on Search checks
Flexible limbs +2 bonus on Grapple checks
Segmented eyes +2 bonus on Spot checks
Slimy skin +4 bonus on Escape Artist checks
Sticky fingers +3 bonus on Climb checks
Tail +4 bonus on Balance checks
Webbed hands +4 bonus on Swim checks

Special: You can select this feat more than once. Each time
you select this feat, choose a different mutant feature and gain
the bonus associated with it.

Thick Hide [Mutation]
Your skin is thicker, scalier, or furrier than normal.
Prerequisite: Mutant
Benefi t: Your natural armor bonus to AC improves
by 1 for every two mutation feats you possess.

DURABLE FORM [Mutation]
Your mutable form has become toughened.
Prerequisite: Mutant
Benefi t: You gain 2 hit points for each Mutation feat you
have.

INHUMAN REACH [Mutation]
Your arms elongate, allowing you to touch the floor with your
hands. In addition, you can bend them in strange and unnatural
ways. The arms may vary in appearance, perhaps seeming
scaly and snakelike, or slimy like tentacles; conversely, they
may resemble normal but longer arms with a second elbow
joint. Unless you wear a large cloak to conceal these deformities,
you are disturbing to behold.
Prerequisite: Mutant
Benefit: You gain an additional 5 feet of reach. For most
Small and Medium creatures, this benefit increases natural
reach to 10 feet. If you already have a reach of more than 5
feet for some reason, this feat extends your reach by another 5
feet. As described on page 112 of the Player’s Handbook, a reach
weapon doubles your normal reach; for example, if you have
this feat and you wield a longspear, you can attack targets 15
or 20 feet away. Your elongated arms also grant you a +2 bonus
on Climb checks.
Special: Due to the disfigured nature of your new limbs,
you take a –1 penalty on all melee attack rolls.

INHUMAN VISION [Mutation]
You possess the inhuman eyes of some strange creature. They
might look segmented or larger or without pupils. You might
even have eyestalks.
Prerequisite: Mutant
Benefit: You gain a racial bonus on Spot checks equal to the
number of aberrant feats you possess.
The range of your darkvision improves by 5 feet for every
Mutation feat that you possess.
If you do not already have darkvision, you gain darkvision
out to 5 feet for each mutation feat you possess

SCAVENGING GULLET [Mutation]
The mutation of your digestive system has gifted you with
the ability to gain nourishment from things that others would
never consider as food.
Prerequisite: Mutant
Benefi t: You gain nourishment from eating any organic
material, despite its freshness or source.
You gain a +4 racial bonus on Fortitude saves to resist the
effect of ingested poisons, as well as on Fortitude saves to
resist diseases caused by ingested substances (such as spoiled
food).

Patagia [Mutation]
The abnormality of your mutated body has become more pronounced.
You grow thin membranes of skin between your arms and legs, allowing you to glide.
Prerequisites: Mutant, one other Mutation feat.
Benefit: You gain a fly speed (with average maneuverability)
equal to one-half your base land speed (round down to the
nearest 5-foot increment).
Special: You can only glide from a higher surface to a lower one with this feat. For every 15 feet you fly with this feat, you descend 5 feet. You cannot ascend except in the presence of an updraft.

Waterborn [Mutation]
The abnormality of your mutated body has become more pronounced.
You have developed webbed fingers and toes, and gills.
Prerequisites: Mutant, one other Mutation feat.
Benefit: You gain a Swim speed equal to your land speed.
This also grants you a +8 racial bonus on Swim checks, the
ability to take 10 on any Swim check, and the ability to use
the run action while swimming.
You can breathe air and water
with equal ease

Razormaw [Mutation]
Your teeth have grown sharp and jagged, allowing you a bite attack
Prerequisite: Mutation
Benefit: You gain a natural bite attack that deals 1d4+ your strength modifier.
In addition, you gain a +1 bonus on intimidate checks.

Sensitive Tongue [Mutation]
Your tongue is rough and odd to behold, but oddly sensitive to your environment.
Prerequisite: Mutant, one other Mutation feat.
Benefit: You gain the ability to sense your surroundings by taste, much like a serpent can. You gain blindsense out to 15 feet.

[Volthawk]

Here a I present the mutation feats I alluded too earlier. Most are modified from other sources, some are my own.

Mutant [Mutation]
The legacy of the Fleshforger's has altered your body.

Prerequisite: Humanoid.
Benefit: You gain a physical feature that grants you a racial
bonus on one type of check; once you select the check to which
this bonus applies (as well as the corresponding feature) you
cannot change it later. The bonus must be chosen from the
following list:

Mutation Feature Benefit
Bulging eyes +2 bonus on Spot checks
Flexible limbs +2 bonus on Grapple checks
Segmented eyes +3 bonus on Search checks
Slimy skin +4 bonus on Escape Artist checks
Sticky fingers +3 bonus on Climb checks
Tail +4 bonus on Balance checks
Webbed hands +4 bonus on Swim checks

Special: You can select this feat more than once. Each time
you select this feat, choose a different aberrant feature and gain
the bonus associated with it.

Thick Hide [Mutation]
Your skin is thicker, scalier, or furrier than normal.
Prerequisite: Mutant
Benefi t: Your natural armor bonus to AC improves
by 1 for every two mutation feats you possess.

DURABLE FORM [Mutation]
Your mutable form has become toughened.
Prerequisite: Mutant
Benefi t: You gain 2 hit points for each Mutation feat you
have.

INHUMAN REACH [Mutation]
Your arms elongate, allowing you to touch the floor with your
hands. In addition, you can bend them in strange and unnatural
ways. The arms may vary in appearance, perhaps seeming
scaly and snakelike, or slimy like tentacles; conversely, they
may resemble normal but longer arms with a second elbow
joint. Unless you wear a large cloak to conceal these deformities,
you are disturbing to behold.
Prerequisite: Mutant
Benefi t: You gain an additional 5 feet of reach. For most
Small and Medium creatures, this benefi t increases natural
reach to 10 feet. If you already have a reach of more than 5
feet for some reason, this feat extends your reach by another 5
feet. As described on page 112 of the Player’s Handbook, a reach
weapon doubles your normal reach; for example, if you have
this feat and you wield a longspear, you can attack targets 15
or 20 feet away. Your elongated arms also grant you a +2 bonus
on Climb checks.
Special: Due to the disfigured nature of your new limbs,
you take a –1 penalty on all melee attack rolls.

INHUMAN VISION [Mutation]
You possess the inhuman eyes of some strange creature. They
might look segmented or larger or without pupils. You might
even have eyestalks.
Prerequisite: Mutant
Benefit: You gain a racial bonus on Spot checks equal to the
number of aberrant feats you possess.
The range of your darkvision improves by 5 feet for every
Mutation feat that you possess.
If you do not already have darkvision, you gain darkvision
out to 5 feet for each aberrant feat you possess

SCAVENGING GULLET [Mutation]
The mutation of your digestive system has gifted you with
the ability to gain nourishment from things that others would
never consider as food.
Prerequisite: Mutant
Benefi t: You gain nourishment from eating any organic
material, despite its freshness or source.
You gain a +4 racial bonus on Fortitude saves to resist the
effect of ingested poisons, as well as on Fortitude saves to
resist diseases caused by ingested substances (such as spoiled
food).

Patagia [Mutation]
The abnormality of your mutated body has become more pronounced.
You grow thin membranes of skin between your arms and legs, allowing you to glide.
Prerequisites: Mutant, one other Mutation feat.
Benefit: You gain a fly speed (with average maneuverability)
equal to one-half your base land speed (round down to the
nearest 5-foot increment).
Special: You can only glide from a higher surface to a lower one with this feat. For every 15 feet you fly with this feat, you decend 5 feet. You cannot acend except in the presence of an updraft.

Waterborn [Mutation]
The abnormality of your mutated body has become more pronounced.
You have developed webbed fingers and toes, and gills.
Prerequisites: Mutant, one other Mutation feat.
Benefi t: You gain a Swim speed equal to your land speed.
This also grants you a +8 racial bonus on Swim checks, the
ability to take 10 on any Swim check, and the ability to use
the run action while swimming.
You can breathe air and water
with equal ease

Razormaw [Mutation]
Your teeth have grown sharp and jagged, allowing you a bite attack
Prerequisite: Mutation
Benefit: You gain a natural bite attack that deals 1d4+ your strength modifier.
In addition, you gain a +1 bonus on intimidate checks.

Sensitive Tongue [Mutation]
Your tounge is rough and odd to behold, but oddly sensitive to your enviroment.
Prerequisite: Mutant, one other Mutation feat.
Benefit: You gain the ability to sense your surroundings by taste, much like a serpent can. You gain blindsense out to thirty feet.

Of course! Stuff like Aberrant feats!

Some more here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=155474)

[Ponderthought]

indeed, most are modified from the feats in lords of madness. Im working on more original ones, but I figured id put those up to see if everyone agreed it was a productive area of work.

[DracoDei]

Progenitor good: I must admit, here I'm stumped.
Let me take a crack at it... (off of the top of my head pretty much, strays onto the subject of dragons)
Progenitor Good was the only one who identified on a personal level with his subjects. He focused his species-creation efforts on the slower, but safer, method of modifying embryonic creatures rather than fully formed creatures. In the case of intelligent creatures he would only work with couples who gave their informed consent to the specific project they would be involved in. Even the most mis-shapen of his learning experiences were given his care, even if they were never intended to be more than brute beasts in the first place. In fact, he spear-headed the creation of the dragons, simply because his methods were the only ones capable of making so great a leap beyond the capabilities of other creatures. These creatures were only in their more primitive stages (an initial generation of proto-dragons only 1 in 20 of which had survived long enough to reach breeding age) when the war broke out, and thus it was that Neutral, Law, and Chaos all helped at various stages of the project as alliances were formed and broken between The Five. Evil made an especial point of devoting a large portion of his resources towards the theft of tissue samples, wyrmlings, and the modification there-of.
One of Progenator Good's last experiments was to take the adaptability of the draconic form that allowed the existence of the widely varied half-dragons and isolate it. His one foray into applying this knowledge was the Mepholk.

Edit: comments on the above:

Re: Parasitic pets
Why mammals only?
Because only placental mammals have placentas. A placenta is required for the specific technique I described. Other, competing, techniques might exist, but for this technique, only a placental mammal is worth the trouble of modifying.

People always focus on mammals so much. I mean, I might be one of the few people who thinks bees are cute (at least outside my research group),
This has nothing to do with my reasoning.

but I keep thinking that parasitic creatures, like tapeworms, would be much easier to graft to a living host.
Pre-existing parasites aren't cute and hybridizing them with cute animals would, I would argue, be more difficult from the species-making POV than what I described.


And to extend on this: why not make, say, bat grafts for sonar-vision? You could graft a pet-shark to your arm for a bite attack! Get some magically- enhanced chameleon-skin to fuse with your back, and never again pay for a tattoo you don't want anymore a week later!
That would be more like the traditional symbiotes, and while such things are probably good things to write up, they are a separate area of endeavor from what I was presenting.




Ponderthought: I might reverse the effects of Bulging and Segmented eyes, but I am really not sure.

Also, unless it already exists, you might want one for Scent.

Despite the lack of a bonus to Spot, I think that Sensitive tongue makes the darkvision granting feat basically pointless... I would knock the tongue down to 5 feet.

[Ponderthought]

Ponderthought: I might reverse the effects of Bulging and Segmented eyes, but I am really not sure.

Also, unless it already exists, you might want one for Scent.

Despite the lack of a bonus to Spot, I think that Sensitive tongue makes the other blind-sight granting feat basically pointless... maybe make the first one grant scaling dark-vision instead, and the tongue a flat 5 foot blindsight?

That sounds right actually. ill switch them.

Theres already a Scent feat, I suppose it could easily be considered a a Mutation feat.

Also, what other blind sight feat? I only count one, unless ive finally gone completely senile.

[Eldan]

...Pre-existing parasites aren't cute...

I disagree. But to each their own, and that's not the subject here.

Anyway, I'll work on a few more grafts, then. I would also include cosmetic grafts, like:

Photophores: Called "phot" in the youth slang of [large city that seems to show up in every setting], Photophores are small bulbs full of light-emitting bacteria which are implanted under the skin. While not bright enough to provide any amount of useful light for reading or navigating in the dark, they are seen as very fashionable and are available in a variety of colours. Those rich enough to afford them (or willing to visit back-alley grafters) often implant whirls and stripes in contrasting colours under their skin.

Crest: Similar to photophores, a variety of colourful and weirdly shaped crests and ridges have taken over the position of hats or diadems in the fashion of some of the more enhancement-happy societies.


As for blindsense: what about sensory hairs, like on insects? They could also provide tremorsense.

[DracoDei]

Also, what other blind sight feat? I only count one, unless ive finally gone completely senile.

Nah, I got blindsight and darkvision temporarily mixed up... see my edits into my longer post above (since I also collapsed my double-post into it).


Anyway, I'll work on a few more grafts, then. I would also include cosmetic grafts, like:

Photophores: Called "phot" in the youth slang of [large city that seems to show up in every setting], Photophores are small bulbs full of light-emitting bacteria which are implanted under the skin. While not bright enough to provide any amount of useful light for reading or navigating in the dark, they are seen as very fashionable and are available in a variety of colours. Those rich enough to afford them (or willing to visit back-alley grafters) often implant whirls and stripes in contrasting colours under their skin.

Crest: Similar to photophores, a variety of colourful and weirdly shaped crests and ridges have taken over the position of hats or diadems in the fashion of some of the more enhancement-happy societies.
Those look fine, and if I am glad I seem to have inspired you.

Note for later:
Of course, sooner or later we are going to need prices for this stuff... if the parasitic pets end up being too cheap to justify the spell-casting, we can always say that each casting transforms a number of pets equal to the caster level. Then again, we can always hand-wave it, since D&D already makes economists cry.

[Ponderthought]

Nah, I got blindsight and darkvision temporarily mixed up... see my edits into my longer post above (since I also collapsed my double-post into it).

aha, I see. I will consider modifications to those two, but i was also thinking of building some short feat trees for improving each in various ways, like giving the eye one tre bonuses to spot invisible foes and the tongue tree abilities to detect poisoned food or drink, or something similar. It would help differentiate the two and give both meaning.

i ill probably cut down the blindsense abit anyway though.

Edit: The mutation feats gave me an idea for a prestige class,Something based around seizing control of ones own form, but ive never really created one. Any idea?

[Owrtho]

Progenitor good might have made more utilitarian races that were skilled in rendering aid to others. These races would be the craftsmen, the healers, etc. that could do things that would be of benefit to others.

If you notice the traits the other progenitors perused didn't do this. In a hive, everyone works for the good of the hive, and not the good of its members (and while some things may be able to help others, they would only be used for the hive). Shapeshifters are able to benefit, hide, and protect themselves with their powers, but they don't extend to others (not that they couldn't be used to aid others but they don't directly do so). Evil made beings that were strong on their own and thus had little need to make things or help others. Neutral perused rationality and reasoning, which while able to give advice, do little for the more immediate material needs. It also requires action on the part of those receiving the advice to actually make use of it.

Craftsmen and healers would be able to give their work to those that need it and directly aid them through their work. Also, I'd suggest changing it from evil and good to selfish and selfless. The ideas of what they did would work just as well, but wouldn't make the strong solitary races automatically seem like they need to be evil due to their maker, and the craftsmen good due to theirs.


Also, I'd suggest looking at the ozodrin class in my sig for an in progress class that may fit due to its variable nature.

Owrtho

[DracoDei]

So Good made the unicorns and maybe the Martyr Flitters (see my Full List)? I could see that.

[Admiral Squish]

Hey! Sorry I abandoned this with so little this morning. I did a lot of awesome stuff while I was off at class, brainstorming.

Firstly, however, some of the stuff from the old thread that may or may not have been read:

Agriculture:
The basic form of agriculture is a genetically enhanced form of rice that grows massive quantities of edible food. They grow from large, tangled nodes of roots, specially made to taste bitter (You'll see why), and they can continue to regrow almost indefinitely. The paddies are arranged in concentric loops hundreds of miles across that are staggered so one field will ripen within days of the previous one.

The system requires five animals.
Scytheboars (think Razor Boar, but slightly less crazy, and predatory)
Paddy Eels (Basically eels, but they nest in the root-tangles of the rice and have a lemming-like instinct described below)
Plowtusk (It looks vaguely like an elephant, but with an elongated lower jaw with a pair of flat tusks on the tip and a second set that goes down and curls forward like a hook, coming off the upper jaw)
Seedbeard (Sorta like an anteater/sloth thing. Very shaggy fur.)
Cropguard Lizards (Basically, mini-iguana that live in the rice fields and jump from stalk to stalk)

The process begins with the scytheboar. These boars come to a paddy and rampage through it, their tusks swinging back and forth, cleaving stalks. Their rampage stirs the paddy eels into a terror-fueled rush that culminates with them leaping, lemming-esque, on the paddy's banks to die out of water. The scytheboar eat the dead eels and continue back and forth through the paddy to scare up more of their meal, leaving the fallen stalks laying about. The eels have already laid their eggs by the time they scytheboar comes around, so the next generation remains assured. those that escape the scytheboar die soon afterward, of age, and rot to nourish the soil. Once a scytheboar is finished, he sleeps off the meal, periodically mating with the scytheboars of the other nearby rings. and proceeds to the next paddy. Once the scytheboar is finished, along comes the plowtusk. The plowtusk eats plants, tubers and roots specifically, that may grow in the paddies, but the rice's bitter roots make them unappetizing. The process of plowing it's lower jaw through the muck on the bottom is made difficult by the stalks laying around. So, the plowtusk's instincts tell it to first scoop up the stalks and deposit them onto the banks of the paddies. Then it gets one with it's meal, stirring up the soil for the next year's crop and weeding the field. Then the seedbeard follows the plowtusk, once the root-bundles have put up flowers. The seedbeard eats the eggs of the paddy eel, but it's appetite is low enough that only a fraction of the eggs are consumed. While feeding, It's shaggy body drags through the flowers and carries pollen from one to another, influencing the next year's seeds. Thereafter, the flower falls away and the true stalk arises. The Cropguard Lizards then move in. They eat insects and birds, anything that would feed off the crops, and live leaping from one to another for most of the year, gliding from one paddy to the next every few days. Their instinct prompts them to move along rather than fight when a new group of cropguard lizards moves into their paddy, causing a chain reaction. Every time a scytheboar gets a paddy, the lizards move on, and then the ones in that paddy move on, and so on and so forth.

A perfect cycle. All the intelligent creatures have to do is gather the piles of grain on the shores of the paddies.

Warfare:
Giant vermin, dire animals, and dinosaurs are all bred for battle. Where tanks and helicopters on a modern battlefield would be, there are dire bats or t-rexes in the fleshforged battlefield.
Dinosaurs are basically top-of-the-line models. Sturdier, with greater destructive capacity, they were designed from the ground up as opposed to dire beasts, which used the naturally-occurring animals and made them bigger and stronger. Battletitan and Judatitan (New idea, don't start looking for it, it's not there) dinosaurs are the greatest of them all, secrets of their creation as well-guarded as the creation of the stealth bomber.
Giant vermin are about a step below the dinosaurs in newness. While still working on the basis of a natural creature, the scaling problems were immense, but well worth it for the finished product. Some modified versions were made, including scorpion-based catapults and exploding giant bees, but they never saw widespread use.
Horrid and dire animals are the easiest to mass-produce, and so, make up the bulk of the forces.
These creatures are all directed by the 'common races' as riders, of course. It's infinitely simpler to simply give them riding instincts than to instill true intellect, and the common races can hardly rebel in the presence of the generals.
The generals of these amalgamated riding forces were the dragons. Strong, intelligent, resilient, mobile, and able to deliver concentrated blasts of devastation wherever it was needed most, these massive war-machines stuck terror into enemy forces. Each nation came up with their own versions, with their own themes on the dragon, but most remained true to the original design.

Common Races:
There are tasks for unskilled labor that simply cannot be simplified into animal minds without training. For these, the common races were created.
Humans: These were the basis, the template. They were easy to change, and their short lifespans and high birth rate allowed the master race to experiment with them the most. Humans were everywhere, but never were 'properly' specialized.
Elves: Elves are tree-tenders. They maintain the tall trees and the gardens of their masters, including the mobile plants that they create. The elves were most plentiful in the western forests and swamps, though some oversaw the order in the crop rings.
Dwarves: Dwarves are miners and builders, they made everything the master race couldn't grow. Eventually they were replaced in all but their mining efforts by the warforged. They were mostly in the northern mountains and tundra, more widespread when they were still used for building.
Warforged: The warforged were made from the ore the dwarven mines churned out, but proved themselves an extremely competent replacement for the stocky ones, able to work without breaks and even in the harshest of conditions. They edged out dwarves almost completely, and the humans were the competition. Warforged couldn't birth more, though, so their price tag was a tad steep for many.
Gnomes: Gnomes were the fine detail the dwarves missed. They were fine crafters and fixits. They also revealed an unexpected competence in alchemy and one in medical and surgical tasks, which could prove valuable to those interested into extending the use of their meat-machines. Their ability to speak with animals often made them extremely useful in the crop rings and on most other meatmachine operations.
Halflings: Halflings served a double function. They were merchants, first, traveling far and wide to sell the latest beasts and designs. In addition, they served as spies, though they were mostly neutral. Halflings were the only race that could have been considered 'independent' in the reign of the master race.
Orcs: Orcs were the enforcers. They were proud to serve the master race directly, and swiftly reprimanded any man or beast that stepped out of line.
Minor Illithid (Also a new idea): These thinkers served in the central cities as thinking computers. The elder brains were originally nonsentient, organic data storage, which developed intellect later.


Mass Production
Simple Explanation: Trolls.
More complex explanation: Seeking a easy way to arm their forces for battle,the master race made the trolls. May varieties with different purposes arose, but three were the most present and most widely-used.
Shellskin: These bone-plated trolls were covered in a layer of thick bony armor, which they could shed like an insect, leaving it mostly intact. Normally, these shells become brittle and useless quickly without the troll's natural oils moistening it, but if treated quickly with a special oil, it would seal perfectly and become a sturdy suit of bone fullplate.
Boneforge: These trolls bore a pair of bone-spurred 'wings' that could be torn off and treated to become lances. On one arm, the fingers formed into swords, while the other forearm was grotesquely elongated with a snakelike flexibility, able to be removed to form a deadly trollclaw whip. Finally, between their 'wings' they grew bony plate that could be removed and formed into a heavy shield.
Flesh-harvest: These bloated trolls were used to harvest meat, able to regrow it nearly instantly as long as they were fed. They could also be used to harvest trollskin leather which could be made into either clothing or armor.


Second, some other, new ideas that occurred to me, mostly focusing on geography and the associated features.

Geography:

The main continent is vaguely oval-shaped, longer north-south. The eastern edge is slightly concave, but there's a wide spread of small to mid-sized islands, the largest about the size of texas, spreading off the coast. There are two mountain ranges, a curved one separating the north-most quarter or so from the remainder, and a stright one separating the southern quarter of the landmass and ringing around the edges. The portion walled off by mountains is elevated, with several-hundred-foot cliffs that plunge directly into the sea and continue straight down. The center of the continent is marked by the crop-ring, which is about 300 miles across from outer rim and extends inward a good fifty miles. The planet's equator runs straight across the southern, mountained-off quarter and some of the southernmost islands.

The landmass carries a variety of terrain. The Western side is heavily forested, running the gamut from an everglades-style swamp that butts against the south mountains. Heading north, it progresses through climates. A sort of mangrove forest at first, then it dries up and evolves into a full rainforest. As it goes north, the tropical trees become less so, shifting out for a more temperate jungle, which eventually fades into pine as they press into the north mountains. The northern mountains are cold and solid, stable behemoths capped in snow as they hold back a frozen tundra. Along the northmost coast, ice shelves expand some 50+ miles into the frozen sea. Rounding the northern corner and heading south once more, we begin with scrublands that fill out the foothills of the mountains. Then, down into rolling grasslands that grow from white-green in the north to rolling fields of green and eventually shifting to golden Savannah against the south mountains. the south mountains continue all along the cliff-lined shore, but they contain a black-sand desert within them. It's sands are igneous, powdered stone ejected from the mountains. The mountain's along the shore aren't really mountains in a proper sense, rather a ring of mostly-dormant volcanoes that periodically bathe the searing sands with clouds of burning ash. The further south you go, the higher the actual elevation is, as volcanic action has actually pushed the southernmost tip of the peninsula upward, creating the towering cliffs that the seas pound against constantly. In the very center of the continent, within the crop ring, the land is almost completely obscured by the remnants of shaper society, which grow larger and more complex as you approach the central capital.


Political Effects:
The continent had six 'nations' when the shapers lived. North, south, east, west, center, and sea.
North: the north is a two-part nation. Most 'civilization' is in the mountains that surround the tundra, which have been so riddled by tunnels with milennia of mining that they are quite easily able to support a country's worth of people. The dwarves were the first workers created to mine these mineral-rich mountains, then the kobolds, and finally the warforged. The dwarves, with each successive takeover of their tasks, took on a more intellectual role as architects, crafters, and engineers. they remained in control of the mines as the kobolds dig them, and they manage the warforged working on the building projects. The shapers view the tundra itself as a sort of 'proving ground'. The harsh terrain has many needs, and they must creatively engineer solutions in their beasts, which makes creatures like the rhemoraz and the frost worm.
South: The mountains that separate them from the rest of the world make this remote location somewhat mysterious. The sun-baked black sands make the temperature soar to 200+ degrees, making most life impossible on the surface. The shapers of this nation moved underground, where the heat would not follow. They did, however, build some of their larger, more impressive fleshforges on the surface to avoid the collapsing and magma-flooding that could happen at any time in the tunnels. The tunnels became the home to bizzare creatures created by the eccentric, desert-dwelling shapers. Their main trade route, rather than face the volcanic mountains of the northern border, is south, through tunnels on the cliffs.
West: The west's lush forests are abundant with life. The shapers of the west view the art of shaping as an actual art. Elegant changes that subvert the creature's own tendancies and biology are the most appreciated. It is here that almost all non-grain vegetable matter is grown, tended by elves. Swarms of bats go throughout the undercanopy, feasting on insects that may harm the fruits, while gliding, insectivore squirrels patrol the trunks of them, rooting out termites and anything else that crawls. Dire bats and giant eagles are harnessed above the canopy to tow lifting kites that bear loads of fruit and nutritious leaves. Even Rocs are used at times to deliver massive loads to distant lands. Living plants saw their birth in these lands, and the swamps of the south edge were where trolls originated, before they were modified for mass production.
East: The east has one thing in abundance: Space. While the west believes that the true art of shaping is subtlety, the east has no such illusions. The shapers have a long-standing unspoken competition to create the largest and most impressive, original creatures. Here is where dinosaurs saw their birth, and their perfection in judatitan and battletitan. 'Everything is bigger in the east', after all. Dire beasts became horrid beasts beneath the hands of the shapers here, and giants were created with their megascale flesh-forges for orders in all nations.
Center: The center is without a doubt, the mecca of shapers. This nation held the greatest, most innovative minds all collaborating to create creatures that had NO precedents, crafted wholly from the minds of these geniuses. Abberations, dragons, the mass production trolls... The cshapers used a form of minor illithid as organic computers to design their creations. The elder brains began as nonentient, organic data storage, only growing a consciousness as the information stored passed a sort of 'critical mass'.
Sea: The islands of the far east are used more as staging areas and trading posts, the vast majority of this nation being submerged. Aquatic beings of all description saw their creations here. Visitors could don symbionts that served as living gills to view the sunken splendor, transported in the transparent pouches of whale-like creatures.


Also: Shapers were originally going to be based out of Daelkyr, but less insane. Perhaps lawful creatures that emerged from a plane of chaos?

As for the rest of your awesome replies, I'll attempt to respond to each in turn.

Volthawk: Yes, symbionts and grafts will have a HUGE part in this.

As for races, I could make a modular race, but I think the current races, with a little modification, would serve quite well.

Eldan: Shifting races=YES. Did NOT think of that. I do like the bonetheifs, though. Sounds awesome.

As for fleshforged, I could see them, but the world I'd imagined had proper warforged already. Perhaps turn the half-daelkyr into a pregenitor-touched race that allows for the free attaching/detaching of symbionts.

Tygre: I've only read a few pages out of promethian while I was browsing in a game store, but sounds fun.

No idea what the vamp-things are.

Ponderthought: Player mutation sounds like a very solid possibility. I'll have to come up with some kind of system.

Not sure what this mist-thingie is you;re discussing is, but I'll wiki it when I get a chance.

Also interesting ideas. I thought abberations would be more a 'creativity ideal'. Created for no purpose but to show they COULD be created. In the downfall of the shapers, they escape and begin multiplication. You do the math.

Draco: Interesting ideas.

Wing dragon: Might be awesome.

Mepholk: Not sure what those are, and I don't have time at the moment to go look. Brief rundown?

Massage squirrels: Awesome, that sounds pretty fun. Not sure if it'd actually happen, but...

Parasitic pets: I'll get back to these, a little rushed.

Eldan again: Progenitors are more 'ultrapowerful, amoral mages' than godlike beings. Admittably, godlike, but not 'divine' as your idea sounds.

Neth could be fun. I'll need to look it over later...

Ponder again: Looks awesome! Basically abberation blood + a few extras? Also, how about just scent instead of blindsight/sense?

Volt again: Also need to be examined!

Eldand once more: Photophores and crests sound awesome.

[DracoDei]

Draco: Interesting ideas.


Wing dragon: Might be awesome.
Yeah, I was mostly just going to giving you perfunctory permission to use them, but then I realized that there were some things about them that would seem to make them not very good as a commander of a large battle.



Mepholk: Not sure what those are, and I don't have time at the moment to go look. Brief rundown?
Skunk people... Ok, I can hear you yawning from here. That isn't the point (although I really fleshed them out). The point is that the child of a Mepholk and a human is ALWAYS a Mepholk. Also, their cultural ideals manage to combine Neutral Good with eugenics in what I felt was a believable way. Seemed like the sort of thing that would fit this world.

Massage squirrels: Awesome, that sounds pretty fun. Not sure if it'd actually happen, but...
Ok, why not?

Parasitic pets: I'll get back to these, a little rushed.
Ok, but unless you call them prototypes for something actually USEFUL, rather than just decorative, I think that if you leave out the massage squirrels you will probably leave out these for the same reason(s), whatever those might be.


Don't forget about the Temporary Pets and the Ioun Pets when you get some time.


Eldan again: Progenitors are more 'ultrapowerful, amoral mages' than godlike beings. Admittably, godlike, but not 'divine' as your idea sounds.

Ok, but the attitudes and accomplishments could be the same, you are just replacing an individual with a group (probably intermingled with the other groups) and removing the Divine Rank/dropping the CRs (if those ever matter). Point is, that work may not go to waste.

[Admiral Squish]

Wing dragons: Still haven't looked too close at then, but I assure there will be lookings soon.

Mepholk: So, skunk people are a patch for humans? Why skunk? What quality does humanity lack that making them skunky would fix?

Massage squirrels: Well, they could work. I could see the shapers making them. But they also don't seem like the sort to treat slave races any better than, well, slaves. And since, by your own admission, the squirrels are unsurvivable in the wild, I believe that in the repetitive conquerings of the capital they would either be exterminated or been driven into the crop rings where either they'd drown, the scytheboars would get them, or the lizards would.

Ioun pets: Maybe. I could see like, little Ioun cages that you could put tiny animals in and maybe gain familiar benefits. Or maybe eyes! Get two, and you have all-around vision, but have to make a save or be nauseated for one minute and sickened for 24 hours or until they're removed,due to the spinnin'!

Parasitic pet: I think it could be cool, but I'd make a specific race of shoulder-dwelling things. Ones that give you something in return, too. Like decorative/semi-useless symbionts. Same applies to temporary pets.

As for divinity/non divinity, did you read my take on it? I think mine's more realistic in dealing with preferences and creativity. Sure, there'd be wars, but they wouldn't be clashes of good and evil, they'd be clashes of evil on evil using thousands of creatures bred specifically to live and die by their whims.

[Ponderthought]

As for divinity/non divinity, did you read my take on it? I think mine's more realistic in dealing with preferences and creativity. Sure, there'd be wars, but they wouldn't be clashes of good and evil, they'd be clashes of evil on evil using thousands of creatures bred specifically to live and die by their whims.

ithilid armies on the march. God i love lovecraft. A though occurs to me about aberrations, in addition to the ones i posted above. What if they were the mistakes?

Oh and more mutation feats to come, soon as i can focus. Ive a damnable headache.

Edit: Also, I think maybe legendary forgers along the lines of the earlier statement could be cool, but with less focus on alignment and more on the medium they preferred. Say for instance there was a forger who favored creating sea creatures, who was at odd with the forger favored of plants, and so on.

[Admiral Squish]

Who puts illithid on the front lines? :smallconfused:

No, the warriors would be mostly humans. Humans on monsters, but humans. Oooh! Maybe! Idea! A pair symbiont that like, allows one creature to mentally dominate the body of the creature it's attached to!

[DracoDei]

Massage squirrel: Who was conquering the capital? Because from where I am standing, that would mostly mean they would get spread around a lot as loot. Why wouldn't they be taken from the capital? I must really be missing something. The other option is that they are part of a first try at replicating the vanished technologies (or that remaining fleshforge was used to make them, if we keep that concept).


Ioun Pets: I think having it as a supernatural ability of the animal itself is cooler than having a cage.


Parasitic pets: "something in return" -> same reasons anyone keeps a pet, except this one is much easier to take care of, and more high-class (due to the much higher price-tag). Also, the need for a spell would make it seem to me that these would be MORE prone to becoming "lost technology" than the massage squirrels which you might just have to know to give a lead-block in their cage for them to nibble on. Also, those could be the initial experiments, with more utilitarian stuff having come along later.


Mepholk: Level adjustment (Ok, so LA +0.5 -> 1 RHD that never goes away) -> better than human. Nobody has ever disagreed with the fact that they are good enough to need an LA of some sort. They get all the human advantages basically, plus +2 CHA, +2 to balance, a bonus against snake venom, and the spray. Note that to me LA means that you were born cool enough that it takes a bigger challenge to make you learn something in rising above it. I think that In-Game no clear-thinking member of an LA +1 race should ever wish they had been born a member of an LA +0 race except for social reasons or some area that is important to them where their race has a small drawback (or not-so-small, as in the case of a shorter life-span). As for "Why skunk?": "Because I already made it, so why not?"... or did you mean an In-Game reason? Basically, if you dropped the skunk part (including the associated species-specific crunch) and added something else in in its place, you would have a lot of work ahead of you to equal what I have put into it, but the remainder would be a very interesting society, ESPECIALLY in this setting. Make sure to pay attention to Allurehn, her teachings are key to this.


divinity/non divinity: Ok, whatever, I think either way could actually work.
EDIT: No, actually it couldn't, unless we can come with a VERY good reason why Evil vs Evil warfare where the leaders don't care about the foot-soldiers would be aided by adding CHAOTIC GOOD generals to the mix, or we drop those particular dragons from the mix (or drop "color coded for you convenience").

EDIT: Temporary Pets are literally stick-ons... they have no interface to command them beyond the verbal, so... I guess they could be the equivalent of a gasmask, pair of NVGs, or SCUBA set up... but their utility, even with wholly alien forms would be pretty narrow.

[Owrtho]

On the progenitors, I again voice my suggestion that the good/evil groups (based on what they made) be renamed as the selfless/selfish groups to avoid forcing them to follow a particular alignment.

Also, Why would it only be evil ones having wars? War isn't an evil only act, and often wars are started due to the belief that it is the good thing to do (be it to stop that 'evil' group or to help your own troubled/slighted people.).

As for why evil leaders would have chaotic good generals and the like? Quite simple. They don't care what alignment their underlings are so long as they perform. And as the leaders, that made them, it would be simple to convince good beings to follow them despite being evil. After all, such terms are highly subjective to the individual.
Also when it comes down to it, it might make sense from more tactical standpoints. Even if you don't care about the footsoldiers, doesn't mean you'll just waste them without need. Each one that dies is one you need to replace. Having general that see to it they don't die needlessly would give the evil leader time to focus on more important issues. It also would make sense from the tactical standpoint of being able to equip troops and heal them. Sure you might not care about their life per say, but you'd care that they are effective, and a human with a sword does a better job at fighting than one with a stick. And while you may not care about the light of the 30 guys you sent to scout out the enemy army, you would care about the information the only survivor brought back that he is currently too wounded to tell and wont ever be able to without medical aid.

Owrtho

[Admiral Squish]

I'm still saying that the very act of twisting the bodies of subjects against their will specifically so that they can serve your will more efficiently is a pretty evil act, no matter what the reasoning behind it. There can't BE a good fleshwarper, not in this sense. A biomage COULD be good, but he'd have to either only warp himself or only warp willing subjects or those he knows to be evil. Making a creature into your servant with biomagic? Turning a normally docile beast into a murderous war machine? Clearly evil acts. As this is a society of immortal, incredibly powerful beings that not only do this regularly, but don't even show remorse, I would say these beings are clearly lawful evil. Perhaps a few were good. But once they started viewing sentient creatures as nothing more than more flesh to warp and tease and shape in new ways, they landed squarely in evil territorial in my book.

I'm not saying only evil ones would wage war, but then, I kinda am, because I'm saying that only the evil ones would exist. As for why a evil overlord would have a chaotic good general? Easy. We're removing 'color coded for your convenience', first off, but that doesn't answer the question alone. But a good dragon would serve an evil overlord because he can literally be unmade by aforementioned evil overlord, should said evil overlord decide it to be worth it. Besides, if the overlord, both father, mother, creator, and god, tells you the other guys need to die, then who's to say they're not evil to the dragon? After all, the creator told him, and he's going to believe some schmuck human over his god?

I've yet to hear anyone actually comment on the stuff in my spoiler-post.

Draco:
Massage Squirrels: Well, you know, trying to destroy the evil overlord's corrupt ways? But then, whose to say the shapers even need massages in the first place? They are alien in biology, after all.

Ioun Pets: Yeah, but with a cage you could swap the critter out. However, while I think that it's an interesting flavor thing, I really don't think we should be spending so much time arguing about head-orbiting rats when we still have to figure out the big stuff.

Parasitic Pets: I'm still not sure why use a spell at all. Why not just have breeds of hamsters or similarly cute, fluffy things that can just grow the tentacles.

As for the rest of it... I'm too tired. I gotta get up for class tomorrow, so I'll reply the rest in the morning.

[DracoDei]

None of which require goodness, only pragmatism (IE a high Wis score). Also, unless you are saying we should drop alignments all-together for this setting, I think that alignment in D&D has to be, by RAW, a clear-cut thing.

[Admiral Squish]

But it IS clear cut. Their actions say that they're evil. Not much gray area there. If you;re referring to the dragons, they don't know the enemy forces are good or neutral. They have no way of knowing they're not bloodthirsty savages. I'm still not seeing gray area here. A paladin isn't immune to bluff checks...

[DracoDei]

Admiral Squish: My comment was directed to Owrtho. You sword-saged me.

*Goes off to read Admiral Squish's comments.*

Ok, didn't know we were removing "color coded for your convenience" (Not my preferred style, but not really a problem either). Other than that, it pretty much makes sense (the isolated incidents of Detect Evil actually getting used on a fleshforger by a subordinate are easy enough to imagine the results of).


Parasitic Pets: I'm still not sure why use a spell at all. Why not just have breeds of hamsters or similarly cute, fluffy things that can just grow the tentacles.

Reread it when you are more awake, then ask me again if you still don't see and agree with the point. It basically comes down to doing the minimum with fleshwarping and using the magic to take the final step. I could be off actually... I will have to think about it.

[Owrtho]

First, actions don't determine alignment, intent does. If I was certain an orphanage for innocent children was actually an evil occult killers taking the guise of children (and was wrong) and decided to stop their wickedness by slaughtering them all, that would be an evil act, but it wouldn't make me evil. I'd thought that I was doing good, even though it turned out otherwise. Same way that if the villain tricks the hero into helping them, the hero isn't evil, just mislead.

Also, who said anything about all of the changes being to make killing machines?
If you warp a normally docile creature to make it heal whatever it touches? clearly evil. Alter a creature so its kind are skilled craftsmen? clearly evil. Modify a race so that it can survive in a world now dominated by the killing machines of one's brethren? also clearly evil. (note, the evil part was sarcastic on all of those).

Warping a creatures nature against it's will isn't always evil. If you find someone dying on the road, and can change their form and thus save them, does doing so against their will make it evil? If they hate the changes you made? Or if they thank you for acting when they were unable to give consent?
If something helps you, and you in return change it to make it have a better life without asking, is that evil? Sure you didn't ask, but from your perspective it might be like someone getting pissed that you tried to give them a vast sum of money as thanks.
What if there is a race that will be wiped out if you don't alter them. Perhaps their home is about to be overrun in one of the wars going on, and you could alter them to live in the nearby lake where they'll be safe. They may not want you to do it, but is it more evil to leave them to die, or to change them against their will and save them?

There are many grey areas in this.

Also, you say once they started changing sentient creatures with impunity they would no longer be good. The question is, how would they know that's the case?
If you found a tub of play doh and started playing with it, making what you wanted, does that make you evil? What if after playing with it a few days, you found out the play doh actually was alive and had thoughts and a will? You've already changed it, and its gotten used to its new forms so you can't just change it back. But do you leave it as is, or try to fix things so it can survive in the forms that you've given it?
As you mentioned these are a race of immortal, incredibly powerful beings. Perhaps it simple never occurred to them that these things they found and changed were sentient creatures with wills of their own. Perhaps that is part of why they have disappeared. After having played with them for so long, the finally realized that the thing they'd seen as no more than toys were in fact their own beings with lives, hopes, etc. of their own. At that point they had the choice to continue as they had, or to try and fix the world so it could continue without them and depart (they likely wouldn't have bothered with things like balanced ecosystems while they were there as they could just alter things whenever a problem arose). Some might have chosen to continue, but most chose the second option (or to just leave it as is), and they ended up making the others stop and left the world.
Hence the worlds current state and why they are gone despite being seemingly all powerful beings (at least to the inhabitants).

Owrtho

[Ponderthought]

In regards to all the alignment of the forgers hub-ub, im gonna have to go with the honored admiral: lawful evil as a baseline. But an extremely faint version of it. They actually remind me of how Lovecraft described the Old Ones: completely amoral. They believe themselves above any morality of the lesser race, and may not even consider them sentient.

[Eldan]

Okay...

I don't see it. Why do the progenitors/fleshforgers/warpers, whatever we call them, have to be evil? I know a few dozen geneticists, and they aren't evil. I've known people who graft computer chips to rat brains. Are they evil? I wouldn't think so. Is a doctor evil when he does a heart transplant? Skin grafts? Face transplantation? Cybernetic limbs (and yes, we have those)?

In short, for me there's no reason why the progenitors can't span the entire spectrum of alignments, and restricting them to one, or even a subsegment of them, needlessly restricts the fluff and crunch we can come up with for this setting.

[Admiral Squish]

First, actions don't determine alignment, intent does. If I was certain an orphanage for innocent children was actually an evil occult killers taking the guise of children (and was wrong) and decided to stop their wickedness by slaughtering them all, that would be an evil act, but it wouldn't make me evil. I'd thought that I was doing good, even though it turned out otherwise. Same way that if the villain tricks the hero into helping them, the hero isn't evil, just mislead.

True, but again, if the intent is to enslave and dominate, then it's a moot point. The act is evil... and the intent is evil.


Also, who said anything about all of the changes being to make killing machines?
If you warp a normally docile creature to make it heal whatever it touches? clearly evil. Alter a creature so its kind are skilled craftsmen? clearly evil. Modify a race so that it can survive in a world now dominated by the killing machines of one's brethren? also clearly evil. (note, the evil part was sarcastic on all of those).
Let's see... If the intent of making a healing beast is to heal sldiers so they can continue fighting for your will? Probably neutral act. Making them skilled craftsmen? Who's to say they WANT to be craftsmen? What if the stock for dwarves, had they not been modified, would have been a clan of, say, painters. Or wizards. Is not denying them that choice, without their consent, an act of evil? As for modifying a race? Oh yeah, that happens, but the INTENT of the change is more 'keep up with the joneses' viewing those races under your control as mere objects.


Warping a creatures nature against it's will isn't always evil. If you find someone dying on the road, and can change their form and thus save them, does doing so against their will make it evil? If they hate the changes you made? Or if they thank you for acting when they were unable to give consent?
You're grasping at straws. In this exact situation it's not evil, but we're looking at people who are more likely struggling and screaming as opposed to to unconscious on the roadside.


If something helps you, and you in return change it to make it have a better life without asking, is that evil? Sure you didn't ask, but from your perspective it might be like someone getting pissed that you tried to give them a vast sum of money as thanks.

Again, not a situation we have to deal with, because these changes aren't 'thank you presents' they're just changes. Because the original could have been more efficient than it was, or because they need a specific sort of creature. If a doctor knocked you out and when you woke up he'd given you those prothetic legs with the spring-feet that let you run way fast, would you thank him? Would you compare the experience to getting a large sum of money? No. You'd be horrified and pissed.


What if there is a race that will be wiped out if you don't alter them. Perhaps their home is about to be overrun in one of the wars going on, and you could alter them to live in the nearby lake where they'll be safe. They may not want you to do it, but is it more evil to leave them to die, or to change them against their will and save them?

I think the only way for it to be moral to change a creature's body, it's future generations, is with their consent. Choice is the final decider. Going up to the example of the doctor. Would that be a good act? You can run faster now! Isn't that awesome? No. A man came along, without your consent, changed your body to fill a nitche. What if, pre-surgery, you were a dancer?


There are many grey areas in this.

As I've enumerated above, not really.


Also, you say once they started changing sentient creatures with impunity they would no longer be good. The question is, how would they know that's the case?
If you found a tub of play doh and started playing with it, making what you wanted, does that make you evil? What if after playing with it a few days, you found out the play doh actually was alive and had thoughts and a will? You've already changed it, and its gotten used to its new forms so you can't just change it back. But do you leave it as is, or try to fix things so it can survive in the forms that you've given it?

But again, we're not talking magic play-doh, we're talking taking a bunch of stone-axe wielders that you suddenly decide would do a really good job of guarding your trees. They might be amoral in an elder gods sense, but then, that's how almost all slave-masters throughout history viewed their minions.


As you mentioned these are a race of immortal, incredibly powerful beings. Perhaps it simple never occurred to them that these things they found and changed were sentient creatures with wills of their own. Perhaps that is part of why they have disappeared. After having played with them for so long, the finally realized that the thing they'd seen as no more than toys were in fact their own beings with lives, hopes, etc. of their own. At that point they had the choice to continue as they had, or to try and fix the world so it could continue without them and depart (they likely wouldn't have bothered with things like balanced ecosystems while they were there as they could just alter things whenever a problem arose). Some might have chosen to continue, but most chose the second option (or to just leave it as is), and they ended up making the others stop and left the world.
Hence the worlds current state and why they are gone despite being seemingly all powerful beings (at least to the inhabitants).

Perhaps it never did. But that doesn't mean they weren't evil. Going to your own playdoh example, Does unrecognition of it's sentience render it any less intelligent? Is the playdoh any less changed? Does it have the choices it had before once again? No. Removing the ability to choose for a sentient being is an evil act, no matter how you slice it.


Okay...

I don't see it. Why do the progenitors/fleshforgers/warpers, whatever we call them, have to be evil? I know a few dozen geneticists, and they aren't evil. I've known people who graft computer chips to rat brains. Are they evil? I wouldn't think so. Is a doctor evil when he does a heart transplant? Skin grafts? Face transplantation? Cybernetic limbs (and yes, we have those)?

In short, for me there's no reason why the progenitors can't span the entire spectrum of alignments, and restricting them to one, or even a subsegment of them, needlessly restricts the fluff and crunch we can come up with for this setting.

No, a doctor is not evil, unless he starts performing these surgeries without informed consent and a definite need. That would be evil, wouldn't it? That's why we have all those laws. Look at my above example.

While there's no reason they can't span the spectrum, I think the evil ones would be the ones that really leave their lingering mark on the world, because a lack of morals really helps when it comes down to things like this. It makes it much easier to select subjects and you can proceed much less carefully.

[Owrtho]

True, but again, if the intent is to enslave and dominate, then it's a moot point. The act is evil... and the intent is evil.

First, that isn't always true (I'm not going to get into that now though). That aside, no reason that would be their intent. I could easily see many of them just wanting to have a good time. They're powerful immortal beings, they need something to do to fight boredom. Why not make their own world and play with it with each other.


Let's see... If the intent of making a healing beast is to heal sldiers so they can continue fighting for your will? Probably neutral act. Making them skilled craftsmen? Who's to say they WANT to be craftsmen? What if the stock for dwarves, had they not been modified, would have been a clan of, say, painters. Or wizards. Is not denying them that choice, without their consent, an act of evil? As for modifying a race? Oh yeah, that happens, but the INTENT of the change is more 'keep up with the joneses' viewing those races under your control as mere objects.

And if you make a healing beast just because you want to and don't much care what happens with it after? So what if they don't want to be craftsmen. They don't have to make use of their talent. No reason they can't squander it and do something else. There isn't a way in which it denies them a choice just to change them aside from possibly changing them against their will. I'm not sure what that last sentence means.


You're grasping at straws. In this exact situation it's not evil, but we're looking at people who are more likely struggling and screaming as opposed to to unconscious on the roadside.

I'm not grasping at straws. I'm stating simple points. Also, why would they be struggling and screaming? After all, you just got selected for immediate improvement.


Again, not a situation we have to deal with, because these changes aren't 'thank you presents' they're just changes. Because the original could have been more efficient than it was, or because they need a specific sort of creature. If a doctor knocked you out and when you woke up he'd given you those prothetic legs with the spring-feet that let you run way fast, would you thank him? Would you compare the experience to getting a large sum of money? No. You'd be horrified and pissed.

It could easily be presents, just like it could be the other two. And there is nothing wrong with being more efficient. It tends to make work easier.
If I woke up able to run faster and jump higher and wasn't in pain from the operation I may well thank him. I likely wouldn't compare it to a large sum of money because it would be better, and something a large sum of money can't just buy you. No I wouldn't be.


I think the only way for it to be moral to change a creature's body, it's future generations, is with their consent. Choice is the final decider. Going up to the example of the doctor. Would that be a good act? You can run faster now! Isn't that awesome? No. A man came along, without your consent, changed your body to fill a nitche. What if, pre-surgery, you were a dancer?

That seems to be your narrow opinion, and I strongly disagree with it. On your above example, would it be good? Depends on why he did it. If it was random generosity, yes. If he was forced to to save people, yes. If he just felt like it, likely neutral. If it was to make me miserable, likely evil. It doesn't matter if it was a niche, I'm now better at something than I was at little to no effort on my part. That's a win in my book. So what if I was a dancer? I still can dance. My legs are just able to run and jump better now. The jumping may actually help my dancing.


As I've enumerated above, not really.

I disagree with most of what you said above, so not really.


But again, we're not talking magic play-doh, we're talking taking a bunch of stone-axe wielders that you suddenly decide would do a really good job of guarding your trees. They might be amoral in an elder gods sense, but then, that's how almost all slave-masters throughout history viewed their minions.

Doesn't make them evil. It isn't as if they thought 'Lets force this thinking race against their will to do this job.' It was likely more like 'Lets use this convenient nearby supplies to perform this job.' The former may be evil, the latter likely isn't.


Perhaps it never did. But that doesn't mean they weren't evil. Going to your own playdoh example, Does unrecognition of it's sentience render it any less intelligent? Is the playdoh any less changed? Does it have the choices it had before once again? No. Removing the ability to choose for a sentient being is an evil act, no matter how you slice it.

Your right, it doesn't mean they weren't, but it also doesn't mean they were. It means there is not actual affect on their morality. No it doesn't make it any less intelligent, but it make a large difference in how you treat it and what morals go along with it. No the play doh is no less changed. I may or may not. However, it also would more than likely have new choices it didn't have before. Changing a creatures body and abilities doesn't remove the choice to choose, it changes the choices it has. Removing the choice to choose isn't evil. Almost anything you do removes choices for someone else. You get a job, now someone else can't choose to get that job. You eat a doughnut, now someone else can't. You make someone fall in love with you and marry them, now they aren't available for someone else. All of these though are done knowing those affected are sentient. If you have no idea something is, why is it evil to take away the choices you didn't know it had to begin with? The question is really what you do if you ever find out that it was sentient. That is where there is an affect on morality, not all the time before you knew.


No, a doctor is not evil, unless he starts performing these surgeries without informed consent and a definite need. That would be evil, wouldn't it? That's why we have all those laws. Look at my above example.

I'd say that depends wholly on the doctor. He could be good or evil based on his intent and other actions. He may also be crazy, in which case it isn't so much a matter of good or evil. As such I can't agree that would have to be evil. There are laws, and they might be getting broken, but that isn't too important aside from what affect it has on why the doctor made the choices he did. I have looked at it.


While there's no reason they can't span the spectrum, I think the evil ones would be the ones that really leave their lingering mark on the world, because a lack of morals really helps when it comes down to things like this. It makes it much easier to select subjects and you can proceed much less carefully.

The way I see it, good could leave just as much of a mark. They could be trying to stop the evil ones, or correct things. They may unwittingly be taking part in the same things the evil ones are. Also evil often isn't a lack of morals, but moral that vary from the one defining them as evil. In the case of these beings, they may not have the same moral scale and as such not view any of their actions as evil. In their mind they aren't evil, and other members wouldn't judge them as such. They may even judge the morals of humans as evil.
You also overlook that sometimes good just needs to get things done. There could frequently be times when an 'ends justify the means' type mentality is taken and things are done to others that they don't want. All for the greater good.

Owrtho

[Ponderthought]

I think we may be getting abit bogged down with the forgers morality, perhaps we should shelve the question until other things are complete?

Like, for instance, what kind of cultures would arise from engineered species once the engineers were gone?

I think I might have a few ideas:
Dwarves: The dwarves never harbored as much resentment against their masters as the other races. Aside from the occasional request for a new type of item, and the agents sent to pick up their products, the dwarves were mostly left alone. When the forgers disappeared, there was momentary confusion, but soon the most respected dwarven foremen ensured life would go on, business as normal. The dwarves keep to themselves, isolated in their factory-keeps, expanding downward instead of outward. Status in dwarven society is derived via accomplishment; the greatest craftsmen in any field has the undying respect of his peers. Engineers and architects build fantastic buildings and machines,and smiths spend decades forging the perfect blade. All of this occurs in isolation, as the dwarves feel very little connection with other races, and are actually quite shy.

Elves: Elven society still harbors a seething resentment of their former masters. They dwell still in the forests they were assigned to tend, but where manicured gardens once stood, now thick tangles of impenetrable woods serve to conceal the few elven communities. Status in elven society is derived from two sources; Age, and the hunting of the forgers favored creations. They hate anything that reminds them of their servitude, and will follow rumors of a living forger to the ends of the earth. At home, the elven elders seek to establish new traditions and culture for their people, so that one day they might forget their servitude, and emerge as a proud people of their own.

Humans: For a while, human society as anarchic. Without their masters, any semblance of order fell apart. They split into different factions and tribes, based on witch forger they had served before they vanished. They often carried on their masters vendettas, warring against each other for decades without real reason. But humanity has a shorter racial memory than the longer lived races, and most have forgotten exactly who it was they served to begin with. Their society has settled down over the last few centuries, though the tribes and factions persist, often simply because humans are social animals and crave what is familiar. Status in human society is mostly based on wealth, but differs from faction to faction. Currently, humanity is a race without direction, with some wandering aimlessly, some carving out nations of their own, and some degenerating into primitive tribes.

[Owrtho]

Well, I was actually under the impression that the fleshforgers made the dwarves and elves (or at least made them what they were). I think the idea was that all the races except maybe humans were created by them.

Still, that doesn't mean that your ideas wouldn't work. Just would need some tweaking.

Also, how long ago did the forger's leave? Millennia? Centuries? Decades? Years? Months? Weeks? Days? Hours? Minutes? Seconds?
Depending on the answer the current state of things could be quite different (well, less for the last few, but that isn't the point). If it was Millennia ago, then most likely the fleshforgers are regarded as something akin to myths. Sure they had a big impact, and might not be well liked, but they would probably be seen as either uninvolved gods, or some kind of ancient beings of power.
Centuries would mean some might still remember them, and their acts would be rather more fresh. Races would have much stronger opinions, etc.
Going down to decades or more recent would likely result in an increase in how people felt, then something of a more docile servitude type opinion. After all, these were lords and rulers that had controlled the world for who knows how long. Even if the people didn't quite agree with them, they likely saw them as somewhat godlike beings to be respected and/or feared, and obeyed. It would most likely take a bit of time to get used to the idea that they're gone, and then the fact that you can decide you disagree with what they did and hate them without the risk of a response.

Owrtho

[Ponderthought]

Oh, I still mean that the dwarves and elves were created by them, but probably served them for centuries, so they probably had time to develop some resentment.

I dunno, I figured that they probably disappeared a few centuries ago. Old enough that most humans have forgotten their specifics, but fresh enough for the elves to remember and hate them, and the dwarves to remember their names (I imagine dwarves are quite concerned with history)

[Admiral Squish]

I think centuries is a good time frame. Time enough for systems maintained by the fleshwarpers to start breaking down as people move on and people neglect the duties that kept them running.

But yes, the fleshforgers made the dwarves, and the elves, and everything not-human in fact.

On that note, I'd like to ask if I can get approval/denouncement of the spoilered post yet. I don't want to move it in if nobody likes it, and I think it's the most comprehensive setup. Even leaves room for 'offshoot' shapers on other contients, or even societies the shapers didn't interfere with on remote islands or something.

[Owrtho]

If you mean post 27, I'd assumed that was a given. Otherwise you'll need to be more specific.

Also, I mentioned it before, but it may have been overlooked. It seems the ozodrin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153536) class I'm making would fit this setting well. Mind it's not yet complete and on hold for the week while I finish summer classes.

Also, how prevalent is magic in the setting aside from the shapers?

Owrtho

[Admiral Squish]

Yes, post 27 was the post in question. I'm continuing to ask because nobody's actually said anything directly related to the information involved I posted, instead responding to responses I made in that same post.

Ozodrin looks awesome. I need to look more deeply at at once it's finished.

As for magic, I'd say magic is no more or less prevalent than other worlds. However, the proper study of magic by the races beyond the directs servants of the shapers is still relatively new. There have always been sorcerers and wizards were not uncommon working with the shapers, but the creation of colleges and schools were simply dismissed, since the shapers had all the magic they felt they needed and were a tad wary of magic's powerful world-shaping potential. Giving a chimpanzee a proverbial gun is never a good idea, for anyone involved.

[Arathnos]

I might be alone here, but I believe this (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=261519) is sort of prefect for this setting. Granted, some tweaking is necessary, but the concept just screams to be used here.

[DracoDei]

I made a comment on the mass-production part at one point (rewired pain reflexes or natural shedding being more pragmatic). The Warfare part was ok and the Agriculture part was really well done. Everything else? Really isn't the sort of thing I ever care about in a setting.

[Arathnos]

I understand, what I was kind of envisioning was something along these lines:

The Progenitors combined their incredible crafts on one final project. Through their incredible work, they managed to create the embodiment of nature's wrath, a creature so powerful it could conquer the world by itself if left unchecked. The mighty Tarrasque. It had raw strength, ferocity, an adamant will, miraculous healing capabilities, and an unstoppable hunger. It was the manifestation of all the Progenitors' favored traits compressed into a single physical form.

The Progenitors all agreed to work their twisted magics to create the Tarrasque in order to regularly 'cleanse' the world. It was also held as a scorched earth reserve, the ultimate act of desperation should anything ever go wrong. In order to keep their creation in check, prevent it from devouring everything they had worked so hard to create, the Progenitors forced the monster to hibernate for extended periods of time.

Sometime after the disappearance of the Progenitors, a group of mages and scholars alike approached a wealthy nation with an idea. If the nation could finance an expedition and outfit warriors, the mages believed they could imprison the great Tarrasque. After considerable deliberation, the leader of the nation agreed, risking nearly all of his kingdom's wealth on the venture. After a long period of research and preparation, the expedition lured the Tarrasque to the nation. An incredible struggle took place as the group clashed with the great devourer. Eventually, they imprisoned the Tarrasque, but everything had not gone exactly to plan. Much of the countryside was destroyed as the rampaging beast drew closer and closer to the heart of the kingdom, and in the final conflict, the capital city was razed. Still, the expedition had succeeded, the Tarrasque had been imprisoned alive. The city was rebuilt upon the ashes of the old, and soon, the magical influence of the Tarrasque was spread top to the surrounding countryside and used to invigorate it.

Now, the Tarrasque is butchered constantly, a source of meat and magic for the nation that controls it. Its blood contains incredible magical properties and has applications in nearly endless crafting and alchemical ventures. The meat and blood provide the food and goods for a thriving economy based upon the torture and exploitation of the Progenitors' greatest creation.

However, the meat of the Tarrasque contains a dark secret. Those who feast on the creature's flesh become infected with the Taint. Those infected slowly mutate, warping into twisted abominations, horrid mockeries of the creature they imprisoned. When a creature becomes consumed by the Taint, they cease to exist as their former selves, and begin the final metamorphosis into Trolls.

The leaders of the nation strive to ensure that this secret never gets out, so that their thriving economy isn't jeopardized by the hideous revelation.

[So, similar to the original, but with toned down power and adapted fluff. I think it was ridiculous in the original thread how everyone decided that the Tarrasque could provide 50,000 GP worth of diamonds every 1-6 minutes. That involves extracting the creatures entire carapace in a very lengthy alchemical process, a task that would prove impossible if one was trying to keep the creature alive. Next, many of the figures on the amount of meat harvested were under the assumption that one could remove all four, or even a single limb, at any given time. It is ridiculous, and would simply make it that much more dangerous to imprison the Tarrasque. Again, DracoDei has already expressed disinterest, but I think that with tweaking, much more so than this if necessary, this concept fits perfectly in the setting. Even if it is only in a form vaguely reminiscent of the city built around the Tarrasque. So, any one else have any feedback?]

[Eldan]

It's a pretty good idea, yes.


In further news:
Today's body part of the day is: The Tail!

Reptilian Tail
This strong, well-muscled tail has two uses: it grants a +2 racial bonus to balance and swim checks, and can be used as a secondary natural weapon, dealing 1d6 damage (for a medium creature), plus one and a half times the creature's strength bonus.

Prehensile Tail
This thin, very flexible tail can hold a single item the creature could normally hold in one hand. It does not allow using the item, or wielding it as a weapon. However, as a free action, the creature can transfer the item to one of it's hands, instead of the lengthier process of drawing it.

Scorpion Tail
This arthropod-tail ends in a vicious looking stinger, connected via a duct to a poison pouch. While no venom glands are integrated in it by default, a character with a Scorpion tail can insert up to five doses of poison into the venom pouch to later deliver them with a sting, one at the time. The sting deals 1d4 damage, plus one-half the character's strength bonus and can be used as a secondary weapon.

[Admiral Squish]

Well, the thing is, why use the tarrasque for meat when it would be infinitely easier to just use flesh-harvest trolls, instead? They basically serve the same function, although the blood is not as useful. They're way easier to keep, though. So, overall, I like the trrasque's explanation for existance, but I think keeping it would be needlessly impractical.

It would still be valuable, though. I could see tarrasque carapace armor and weapons being EXTREMELY expensive and high quality. Tarrasque-shell Tower shield? Yes, please!

Tails be awesomes. Not sure where to put them, though...

[Eldan]

Well, either as grafts or as mutations, probably. Or both.

[EdroGrimshell]

Well, either as grafts or as mutations, probably. Or both.

Dreamscarred press has fleshcrafts (http://dreamscarredpress.com/dragonfly/Store/product/pid=52.html) (psionic grafts) that are more balanced for their price than others.

[Arathnos]

Point taken. So the base concept remains, but the details need to change. Maybe the Taint contracted from eating the Tarrasque meat is almost always fatal. Every so often, one who is subjected to the Taint has a minuscule chance of becoming a Troll, but all others die. As such, the beast's meat is a rare delicacy similar to pufferfish in reality. Decadent nobles enjoy the thrill of sampling the finest cuts, but they eat these tiny portions and do so sparingly. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the poor scrounge for anything they can to survive, and when desperation strikes, some will turn to the Tarrasque. These impoverished souls eat the tough scraps cut from the Tarrasque's limbs as the butcher's extract blood.

The rest of the city turns to the gruesome outfits known as bloodfarms [couldn't think of a suitably horrifying name] for their sustenance. The bloodfarms consist of vast warehouses lined with Trolls in iron pens. Each day they are led forth at 'harvest time' and forced to endure excruciating agony as their flesh is cut from them again and again.

[Ponderthought]

It's a pretty good idea, yes.


In further news:
Today's body part of the day is: The Tail!

Reptilian Tail
This strong, well-muscled tail has two uses: it grants a +2 racial bonus to balance and swim checks, and can be used as a secondary natural weapon, dealing 1d6 damage (for a medium creature), plus one and a half times the creature's strength bonus.

Prehensile Tail
This thin, very flexible tail can hold a single item the creature could normally hold in one hand. It does not allow using the item, or wielding it as a weapon. However, as a free action, the creature can transfer the item to one of it's hands, instead of the lengthier process of drawing it.

Scorpion Tail
This arthropod-tail ends in a vicious looking stinger, connected via a duct to a poison pouch. While no venom glands are integrated in it by default, a character with a Scorpion tail can insert up to five doses of poison into the venom pouch to later deliver them with a sting, one at the time. The sting deals 1d4 damage, plus one-half the character's strength bonus and can be used as a secondary weapon.

Now I have to make tail combat maneuver feats. This should be, interesting

[Eldan]

Oh good. I'll either do skins or hands tomorrow.

[Ponderthought]

Here, Uncle Ponder made you some tail maneuver feats while pondering what to do with more mutations.

Disclaimer: Might not be great. Im kind of tired today.

Spinning Tail
Description: You are skilled at sweeping an enemies feet out from under him with your tail.
Prerequisite: Reptilian Tail
Benefit: While you possess this feat, you can trade your tail attack for a trip attempt.You gain a +2 bonus on this attempt. If the attempt fails, you cannot be tripped in return.

Piercing tail
Prerequisite: Scorpion Tail
Description: The singer at the end of your tail is extremely sharp, and shaped more like a spearhead than a stinger.
Benefit: Your tail is considered to have a +1 bonus for the purposes of bypassing damage reduction. You also gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls for any sunder attempts targeting armor or shields.

Distracting Tail
Description: Your tail is quite long and dexterous, and sometimes seems to have a mind of its own.
Prerequisite: Prehensile Tail.
Benefit; You may use your tail to feint in combat as a free action. You gain a +2 bonus to your bluff checks for feinting.

[Admiral Squish]

Perhaps a scaling sort of template as you gain more and more of the Big T taint? Could be fun. If you eat tiny portions specially prepared, though, do you avoid the taint all together, or just progress very, very slowly?

Fleshfarm/bloodfarm sounds good to me. Or perhaps there's a slang term for troll meat, like 'Green' or something, that could be mixed into the term for the farms.
SOYLENT GREEN IS TROLLS! SOYLENT GREEN IS TROLLLLLLS!

[Arathnos]

I guess that is something to decide. I am more inclined to say that the specially prepared meats, which must be from the finest cuts, advances the Taint, but my such a minuscule amount that unless it is eaten everyday, or very nearly every day, it is insignificant. One who eats it once or twice a week might have a subtle, but detectable, change in their appearance. One who eats every other day may, in addition to slight physical mutation, begin to demonstrate a change in personality, making them more aggressive and hot-tempered.

I like the idea of a scaling template. I think there could also be the possibility for a prestige class bent on mastering the Taint. Similar to the Heir of Siberys class from Eberron, maybe their is a Tainted Master, or Tainted disciple, something along those lines. Entry requirements would include a certain level of Taint and would be only for those truly embracing the corruption within themselves. It could also be adding too much though. Maybe just the template is best?

Idea! In Star Wars d20, dark side corruption is compared to wisdom, maybe we can do something similar?

[Ponderthought]

I guess that is something to decide. I am more inclined to say that the specially prepared meats, which must be from the finest cuts, advances the Taint, but my such a minuscule amount that unless it is eaten everyday, or very nearly every day, it is insignificant. One who eats it once or twice a week might have a subtle, but detectable, change in their appearance. One who eats every other day may, in addition to slight physical mutation, begin to demonstrate a change in personality, making them more aggressive and hot-tempered.

I like the idea of a scaling template. I think there could also be the possibility for a prestige class bent on mastering the Taint. Similar to the Heir of Siberys class from Eberron, maybe their is a Tainted Master, or Tainted disciple, something along those lines. Entry requirements would include a certain level of Taint and would be only for those truly embracing the corruption within themselves. It could also be adding too much though. Maybe just the template is best?

Idea! In Star Wars d20, dark side corruption is compared to wisdom, maybe we can do something similar?

hey I have some of those in my big book of horrible things to do to pcs (Heroes of Horror)

[DracoDei]

Again, DracoDei has already expressed disinterest, but I think that with tweaking, much more so than this if necessary, this concept fits perfectly in the setting. Even if it is only in a form vaguely reminiscent of the city built around the Tarrasque. So, any one else have any feedback?]
Actually I meant that the bit about using troll for manufacturing was quite good. Just anything other than the THREE areas I mentioned was boring to me personally (but other people must like it, since I have never yet seen a campaign-book without a fairly in-depth timeline).

[Ponderthought]

Had some ideas for new monsters. Im not really good at balancing monster stats, so its just fluff.

Star Whale: Rare works of living art, Star Whales are massive creatures that swim the endless depths of the sea. They have many long pseudopods extending from their jaws and the front halves of their body. Their pseudopods and their fins are edged with naturally occurring bioluminescence, and their calls are hauntingly beautiful. Star Whales live for centuries, and the oldest may reach a millennium of existence. They rarely communicate with those outside their species, but have been known to occasionally rescue shipwrecked sailors. To see a star whale surface is a rare and wondrous occasion, and considered a sign of good fortune.

Living Fortress: This ancient fortress appears to be a rather normal building, until it rises on giant crablike legs and walks to where it is needed. The fortress above is actually carved from a massive creatures carapace, allowing fortifications to simply be moved to where they are needed. The creature itself subsists on plant matter, but do to its size, must remain dormant most of the time to conserve its energy.

[Admiral Squish]

I like star whale. Actually, that really helps me settle on the flavor for the Sea. The East is all about bigger and badder. The west focuses on the artful subtle tweaking. The Sea will simply be artful. Beauty and awe are their goals, and star whales shall be among their crowning achievements.

Ancient fortress: Could totally see that. Sorta like a seige crab, but on steroids. But should it be arthropod-based? Perhaps it should be a living plant? Or just a massive beetle that simply has a cavernous castle interior. Is the castle like a growth on it's back, or carved OUT of the shell?

[Ponderthought]

I actually imagined the fortress on its back was carved out of an enormous knob of carapace and bone that the creatures grow naturally. And I just based it on arthropods cause I think crabs are neat, but the role could be filled by any number of huge creatures.

Oddly enough both ideas came to me while watching an episode of doctor who.

[Admiral Squish]

That sounds like it could be pretty awesome to describe. A massive fortress of seamless ivory with gossamer windows green as emeralds.

That does replace my idea for the brickbone beetles. These beings are normally grown to harvest this bony, ivory-like substance for building blocks. Only the richest of the shapers have versions large enough to actually cave a castle out of.

Also, I was thinking about the fleshforges. Instead of bloated flesh-sacks, I was thinking more like large or huge-sized beetles, with abdomens that act as artificial wombs for the creations. They can be 'programmed' easily to create offspring of a general sort. The shapers use their magic while the creature develops to make the most stable changes. These bugs live within massive facilities, sometimes with a hundred or more. The east are the only ones who really perfected creating gargantuan or colossal, even colossal+ versions of the bugs for their megascale fleshforges.

[Admiral Squish]

Alright! I did some editing in the first posts, including a map I drew myself in paint. (REALLY hoping somebody can draw a better one, fast, to spare me the embarrassment of my 10-minute creation becoming the official map.) I also included the latest ideas about the races/nations, and most of the information from post #27.

[Eldan]

Well, my idea for the fleshforges came half from common descriptions of Neth and half from practical considerations: if these huge things were mobile and able to defend themselves, they would be the most powerful weapons around, instead of a factory that would have to be defended.

[Ponderthought]

Ill give it a look and see if I can draw you up a map if youd like.

[Admiral Squish]

Well, they ARE factories though. Your description didn't make me think 'weapon', either, though. Perhaps the factory-swarm is it's own weapon, with guard-bugs and things. Hell, perhaps formian queens were originally the fleshforges.

And yes, I would definitely like a map.

[Eldan]

So, lesser Illithids: how strong should they be?

Suggestions:

LA +0:
+2 Int, -2 Str, +2 bonus to all grapple checks (face tentacles), Mind Thrust 1/day as a psi-like ability

LA +1:
+2 Int, +2 Cha, -2 Str, Mind Thrust 1/day, +2 to grapple checks, 2 face tentacle (1d4 damage), darkvision, minor boni.

LA +2:
+4 Int, +2 Cha, Mind Thrust 1/day, 4 face tentacles, improved grab, darkvision, minor boni

[Ponderthought]

One map, coming up. Im only doing geographical features though..im pretty bad at little tiny trees.

[Admiral Squish]

Hmm... How about LA +0, but instead fo the grapple bonus and the mind thrust, we go with a sorta extract-lite? Like, if the opponent is helpless (or pinned, so you can still grapple them into it) you can deal 1d4 int damage to the target as a standard action, and you gain some fraction of their memories. The target reaches 0, they automatically die, and you gain full access to their brain's knowledge. Would probably have been designed as a way to rapidly educate fledgling illithids. Just feed them the brains of the old slaves and they get all the experience they need.

[Ponderthought]

Behold!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v692/Mediv/Map1.jpg
Theres a quick and dirty version for you. Maybe I can put some more polish on it later.

[Admiral Squish]

Oooh, nice! I would like to see the crop ring on it, though. And if not lots of tiny trees, some sort of forest-resembling texture could be done?

[Ponderthought]

I was thinking of trying that, and maybe adding some sand dunes in the desert. Perhaps Ill even add some basic color.

Question: Is it crop rings or crop ring? Because looking at the scale, a single giant ring might be interrupted by various topographic features, while several smaller (yet still huge) rings might be more plausible.

[Admiral Squish]

It's several thousand smaller, concentric rings, each about 40-50 feet across. Low walls (5-8 ft. high) separate one from another, and the outer and innermost walls are much higher and thicker. The shapers took great care ensuring the crop rings would be free of outside influences and reduced the variables as much as possible. The eastern and western poles of the ring have half-mile wide empty spaces that allow the scytheboars to mate until the season begins again. The lizards and plowtusks similarly use this space, though the lizards use it about three months previous, and the plowtusks share it with the boars.

[EdroGrimshell]

Off topic from what's being discussed but still relavent to the project, what are you going to do for base classes? 11 standard plus those from other sourcebooks? Homebrew? d20 Modern style?

If you need something for a class that follows the path of the shapers I've been working on a class called the geneforger, although it's not done just yet.

[Admiral Squish]

A geneforger would be an awesome addition. As for what other classes, I wasn't intending to limit the classes available for the setting. Was thinking we'd probably have a few homebrew classes in here.

[EdroGrimshell]

A geneforger would be an awesome addition. As for what other classes, I wasn't intending to limit the classes available for the setting. Was thinking we'd probably have a few homebrew classes in here.

I'll try to finish it ASAP, may take a while.

[Admiral Squish]

Alright, looking forward to it.

SO! I was thinking that perhaps the racial stats for the base races would be modded a little. Like, elves with climb speeds, dwarves with +int...

And then there are the monsters to design!

[Ponderthought]

Indeed there are Admiral!

In fact I had several ideas at the bar the other night. Seeing as my last set involved relatively benign creatures, i figured we needed a few that would haunt our nightmares.

Deathshaped: No one knows what form this creature originally inhabited, but its a moot point. This creature has been shaped, tweaked and modified so many times its very flesh has been imbued with magical residue, causing it to rise as a dreaded Deathshaped after it expired. The Deathshaped are horrors to behold, rotting masses of muscle, bone and skin in a configuration that could never even approach anything natural.
Mechanical Notes: Im thinking this would perhaps be a template, possibly with a constant fear effect due to the unrelenting horror of its appearance.


(Dammit all, this is gonna need a name change, somebodies already used Tall Man as a name)
Tall Man: Tall Men have appeared quite recently, within the last few decades or so. They generally take the form of very tall, thin humans, hence the name. Divination magic, however, has uncovered their minds arent even remotely similar, and are in fact, more alien than many diviners can bear or even make sense of. What makes the Tall Men dangerous is their voracious appetites for despair. Typically, a Tall Man enters a human settlement as a traveler, its magical abilities ensuring that it stays firmly unnoticed. Most villagers cannot remember the that the Tall Man even exists, let alone what it looks like.. Then the creature slowly begins abducting the young of the village, spiriting them away in the night to some desolate, forgotten place and imprisoning them there. Typically the creatures take care to keep the children fed and healthy, but miserable. Then it feeds on the despair of both the grieving parents and the imprisoned children. When it is satiated, the creature abandons the children to die of exposure or starvation. Very rarely, it takes a child with it to transform, through some unknown and horrible process, into a new Tall Man.
Mechanical Notes: Thinking the Tall Men will be poor melee combatants, but have powerful spell-like (or psionic) abilities focusing on controlling and misdirecting its foes.

Body stealer: This creature generally appears as a relatively innocuous animal, like a housecat or a small bird, with one slightly humanoid addition to its body, such as a pair of human hands on a dog. Their origins are a mystery, but their goals become clear through study: A body stealer collects parts from humanoids,as if It wants to be one. Bod Stealers have been encountered throughout all stages of their transformation, from simple animals with human mouths or hands, to creatures who have almost completed the shift to humanoid, with only a few pieces missing, such as a dwarf with dog ears, or a human with a snake tongue. What makes the creatures disturbing is the idea that after theyve collected all the pieces they need, they may be completely indistinguishable from regular humanoids.
Mechanical notes: I have no idea how this would work, but it creeps me right the hell out.

Ah, I had more, but Im suddenly drawing a blank.

Have we considered the place of undead in this setting?

[Admiral Squish]

I was thinking undead proper, zombies, skeletons, and the like, were viewed as sort of 'second hand'. Like used cars, but worse. They were cheap to maintain, but they couldn't act independently, they decayed quickly, and, worst of all, couldn't reproduce.

As for 'natural' undead, in a world where the entire ecosystem is controlled, would probably be regarded the same way we regard uncontrolled elements, such as wolves or jackals.

[Ponderthought]

In that case, im thinking vampires would make a great sort of villainous faction, disturbing the natural order of things, With vampire lords experimenting with infecting different creatures and gangs of lesser bloodsuckers roaming the more desolate areas like wolf packs, descending on settlements and robbing the inhabitants of everything, including their lives. Taken to it's logical extreme, they could be a real problem in the far northern territories, where they days are short and the nights long and bloody.

[Admiral Squish]

VAMPIRE NINJA DEATH SQUIRRELS!
I had player who told me a story about a vampire who was draining small woodland critters to make a strike force of tiny, climbing vampires. the barbarian shouted the above comment when he was pounced upon by aforementioned woodland creatures.

But yeah, packs of predatory vampire spawn and vampires proper would be epic. Undead don't need to worry about cold, either. Maybe a portion of the northern mountains has fallen under the control of these vampires already, and their influence is spreading through the sunless caverns. The dwarves have come up with ways to repel them, including shielded daylight lamps and simply sealing off the tunnels, but they're spreading faster than the dwarves appreciate.

[Ponderthought]

Oh, and any comment about the monsters i suggested? I dont want to seem like an attention whore, but feedback would be good for refining them into interesting creatures.

[Admiral Squish]

Sorry, I been a tad distracted.

Deathshaped:
Perhaps something based off peudonatural? Perhaps not even a proper 'undead', so much as a sort of relentless magical force that keeps this thing, which, by all rights, should be dead, alive. Like a parasite of living energy that refuses to let the flesh die.

Tall Man:Reminds of the slender man, somewhat. Very creepy. Is this undead? Is it like, a psionic parasite that simply feeds on despair? Perhaps it feeds on sorrow, but not in the usual 'be around sorrow' way, but a more... visceral way. It makes people as miserable as possible then eats them, consuming their sorrow with their flesh.

Body stealer: Well, a lot of the 'creepy as hell' factor here will depend on DMs. I'm thinking a base creature, then we include a number of things about what changes when they acquire specific parts. I'm not usre how to fluff it, though...

[Ponderthought]

The idea the Deathshaped arent truly undead jives pretty well with the concept. Perhaps the magical saturation from repeated shapings has achieved a limited form of sentience, and controls the creatures movements like a hand in a puppet, leading to strange, jerking movements that make it difficult to predict. Ill reade up on creating templates and see if i can come back with something more concrete for this.

And yes, the Tall Men (thin men, tower men, there's alot of naming potential here). I hadnt heard of the slender man until a few hours ago, but the feel of it brought back alot of different ideas and concepts i had from when i first started writing. They also got a good deal of the weird silent creatures from that one episode of Buffy. They feel like malicious fey or some sort of horribly alien psionic creature. Perhaps both, as Ive never heard of psionic fey, and it sounds cool. Undead dosent really seem to fit them though. As for their feeding habits, their open to any interpretation, I simply chose their modus operandi to make them slightly more horrifying.

Body Stealers come directly from this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFvfFiQ2fjQ

Ive been itching to make a variation for a long time. I think the fluff could involve a shaper experiment gone horribly horribly wrong. I have no idea how the stating would go..perhaps scaling in power as they attained body parts? or perhaps gaining the abilities inherent in the part, like the cadaver golem from heroes of horror.

[Admiral Squish]

I'm not talking intelligence, I'm just talking the most BASIC of functions. It's not some thinking creature, I think the fact that this body simply refuses to die long after the creature's flesh should have given up should be plenty terrifying. No sentience, no thought or planning, it just lives, and it will do ANYTHING to keep it that way. The word FEED comes up in my mind over and over, but I'm not sure how to put it into a sentence to deliver the creepiness I'm getting.

Tall men, thin men, whatever, frikken' CREEPY. Some sort of malevolent, psionic fey. Perhaps it's modus operandi goes a step further, keeping them healthy and fed, but keeping them from getting exercise so they're very... tender.

Video creeped me the frak out.

I'll have to check out the cadaver golem, but I was thinking it would just start replacing it's inhuman features with human ones, and that it's stats would modify accordingly.

[Admiral Squish]

Oh, and, what did you think of the idea to modify the base races?

[Ponderthought]

Yes I think this setting might require some creative modification of base races..what could we do with them... Perhaps we should detail their current culture abit more, it might give us some idea as to what needs to be changed.

Dwarf Racial bonuses against goblinoids should probably be changed to something more appropriate to their new role.. but I have no idea what. The bonus against giants might still be appropriate.

Elven weapon proficiencies could use a looking over. Considering their role as tenders of trees, I think perhaps longsword and rapier could be replaced with scimitar and kukri.

Gnomes for some reason scream "banker, accountant, number cruncher" at me so maybe different skill bonuses would be in order, perhaps profession skill like scribe or cartographer/surveyor (Sounds cool to me, weird little gnome explorers with all manner of strange tools for determining elevation and distance and such) or other skills like appraise.

Halflings as merchant makes me think they should be given bonuses to social skills, like bluff or diplomacy.

Other than that, i think more cultural information is need to determine what else we should do to them.

[Eldan]

Elves could even be changed to axe and kukri.

Honestly, given that they are forest-dwellers, half their weapons never made much sense. I'd suggest giving dwarves hammer and picks instead of axes a swell.

[Admiral Squish]

I really don't like all those racal +s and -s against specific races or specific effects. Just seemed SO random and so hard to keep track of. But I think that elves should have some kind of bonus against the shaper's or the shaper's creations.

Elven proficiencies are DEFINITELY getting changed. But I was talking more severe. Think 'climb speed'.

I was thinking gnomes would be more mechanics. Veterinary, human, or mechanical, they're all machines that can be fixed in a society like this. Bonus to heal checks, broaden the speak with burrowing mammals into a complete speak with animals, and give a skill bonus to heal checks. The speak with animals gives him a sorta Dr. Doolittle effect.

The number crunching was the illithid's job. I'm still not sure how I';m gonna do the lesser brainmunching, exactly.

Dwarves, I was thinking probably an int bonus, bonus to know (architecture/engineering), and possibly craft.

Halflings, I think, would be getting +cha, and perhaps some of the mentioned skill bonuses. maybe a -wis or -con to compensate.

Other things to adress:

Goliaths? Eastern creation? Prototype giants?
Changelings? I could see changelings with racial emulation being used as guinea pigs. Plus a way to break transmutation effects, maybe? Maybe a feat that lets them get a new save against any transmutation effect on them buy using their shapechange?
Shifters? A potential replacement for elves? Maybe an explantation why they hate the shapers. They were kicked out of their jobs in favor of the shifters. The elves were abandoned and started doing geurilla tactics on shifter settlements and the shaper installments in revenge.
Whisper gnomes? Maybe instead of gnomes, they're like, a shift from halflings? Like, one in four halflings has whisper blood, and they become the elite assassins and theives.
Raptorans? Not sure what they would be for, exactly.
Illumians? Also unsure.

[Ponderthought]

We dont actually have to assume every race is actually the shapers doing. Some of the races, like illuminans could have simply split of from their parent race in recent times, shifters couldve come into existence when colonies of mutants with similar mutations found they could pass it on to their offspring, creating a new true breeding race. Goliaths could have arisen from mixings of giant blood with other humanoids, and raptorans couldve been an unfinished project that escaped when the shapers disappeared. Alot of things can develope in a system, once the administrators are gone.

[Admiral Squish]

Well, not EVERYTHING, but the title is 'the fleshforge legacy' after all. I'd say they should be having their fingers in most stuff.

Illumians could certainly have emerged recently, that would certainly work. Fluff wouldn't change much, probably the descendants of the record-scribes.

On shifters, I was thinking about them. At first, I was thinking it was gonna be like 'precision tools'. One shifter gets a shifter trait and is them further specialized into a specific need. Then I realized that this could be made more awesome. They could be multi-tools with the right magic. Perhaps the shaper's abilities can change their shifter trait? Perhaps the original shifters could change their trait at will, a trait that has been diluted out of the bloodline in the centuries hence the shaper's leaving.

As for goliaths as half-giants, wouldn't half-giants be the half-giants? I like my idea of goliaths as the first up-scaling experiments on a human base.

As for raptorans, I was thinking about them too. Raptorans would make ideal wardens for the crop-rings. They roost on the inner walls of the crop ring, and glide out. They use those lift-kites to bring in the harvested and collected grain, and they also make sure nothing major interferes with the crop ring's operation. Good eyesight and the areal view makes them perfect for this. PLUs, you don't have to follow the individual rings if you can just lift UP. They would be zealous guardians of order, who revere the shapers as gods.

[EdroGrimshell]

Have you seen the zern from MM4?

[Admiral Squish]

Now I have. They look like they fit pretty deliciously, but I was looking for something more near-epic. I could probably work off them, though. Merge a couple Daelkyr traits into them.

[Ponderthought]

Indeed they do. Id keep their base appearance intact if your adding stuff though, their wonderfully unique.

[Admiral Squish]

Oh, I fully intend to. They're perfect, all but that CR 6 part...

[Ponderthought]

Seems like they ought to have epic class levels.

[kopout]

I was thinking about the lesser Illithids, elder brains and regular Illithids. I was thinking that the EB's made the Illithids and that the Illithids had a psychic connection to the EB that made them. They would have a hivemind a bit like computers and the internet. Each Illithid is an individual but they can "post" any knowledge to the "brain net" for their siblings to share. Near death individuals can even upload their entire mind to become one with the elder brain. I was also thinking that elder brains have no means of reproducing. Why would they when if one broke down you could just make the fleshforge spit out a fresh one when the old one broke down. You'd have to scrap them after a few decades anyway or risk critical mass of knowledge. this means that the only new elder brains are those produced by Neth. Illithids have a vested intreset in recreating at least some of the shaper technology in order to brake this monopoly.

[Sydonai]

Now I have. They look like they fit pretty deliciously, but I was looking for something more near-epic. I could probably work off them, though. Merge a couple Daelkyr traits into them.

Try Uvuudaum.

[Admiral Squish]

What book?

[EdroGrimshell]

What book?

Epic level handbook IIRC

[Admiral Squish]

Found 'em. Rather underwhelmed, to be honest...

[DracoDei]

If the Tall Men/Slender Men have been done before (and I remember some such creature from one of VT's contests), you might just want to PM the writer and ask if you can incorporate them, perhaps with modifications... no sense in recreating the wheel...

Also, for "lesser brain munching" I have a very simple concept that might or might not be worth anything... just a single line of fluff: "They find the brains of animals with intelligence of at least 1 to be just as tasty and sustaining as that of fully sapient creatures."

Which brings me to another point I might as well mention... I always found it nonsensical that many Magical Beasts where intelligence 6 or so, rather than Int 2. It makes sense in some cases, but making everything that happens to be able turn invisible, or even just being something that isn't part of real-world biology... as such, I am wondering if this is something that should be avoided (where appropriate) in this setting.

[Admiral Squish]

Ahh, but if the wheel does not fit, it must be recreated, or at the least, resized. I'd rather have a car with matched wheels than one with those of different sizes.

Just say non-mindless, that works too.

But yeah, there will be some remodding of int on some critters, I guarantee. I was actually considering some kind of mind-control symbiont. The closest comparison I can think of is the link-thing from Avatar (movie).

[Sydonai]

Try Axiomatic Puppeteers.

(There was an issue of Dragon magazine that had about eight Ilithid symbionts, including exo-skeletons, a four-extra-tentacles symbiont, and an spell-bank symbiont. I can't remember the number though.)

[Ponderthought]

It seems like the shapers should have a powerful, extradimensional enemy, a race that could drive them from their home plane to the current campaign world.. I propose the Ethergaunts as a valid candidate. Their personalities (or lack there of) goals and modus operandi all would make and excellent foil for the shapers.

Edit: This just comes from my personal opinion of the shapers, who strike me as very passionate about things in their own twisted way. I imagine they would be very arrogant in a sort of "how dare you" way, and I imagine they are very focused on their own personal goals and desires, causing me to label them as running abit hot, while the ethergaunts, with their focus on rigid, analytical logic strike me as rather cold.

[Sydonai]

Kaortis are humans exposed to SOMETHING in the Far-realm, and they screw around with "shaping" all the time. Maybe the Shapers are what the Kaorti got exposed to.
(It could still be Etherguants, just change "Far-realm" to "Ethereal".)

[Admiral Squish]

Ethergaunts are definitely epic. And I mostly agree with the asessment of the shapers. For a super-powerful master race, they have a very human quality to them, a rather 'hot-blooded' point of view, especially considering the 'evil overlord' issue.

Where's Axiomic Puppeteer? Also, I'm not a fan of Kaorti, really. Possibly just cheese-trauma from the kaorti resin material.

[Sydonai]

Ethergaunts are definitely epic. And I mostly agree with the asessment of the shapers. For a super-powerful master race, they have a very human quality to them, a rather 'hot-blooded' point of view, especially considering the 'evil overlord' issue.

Where's Axiomic Puppeteer? Also, I'm not a fan of Kaorti, really. Possibly just cheese-trauma from the kaorti resin material.

Axiomatic is a template from Fiend Folio, it gives a Hivemind with other Axiomatic creatures. The Puppeteer is from the EPH, basically a psionic worm that curles around someone neck and uses dominate, they have larger cousins called "Fleshrippers" that they use as guards.

[Admiral Squish]

Ahhhh, I know puppeteers. Ityhought it was a completely new monster.

No, I didn't want a hive mind, I was looking for more of a direct control thing. Something LIKE a pupeteer, but the puppeteer is sorta the middleman. HE takes the mental orders of the rider, then forwards the commands to the mount, with no interpetation or slanting. BAsically, allows a humanoid rider to take over the body of his war-mount. Though, puppeteers, properly bred, could serve quite well as the 'riders' themselves.

[Sydonai]

Have the Puppeteers be larval Formians controlled by the Queen. After all the Hivemind is almost exactly what the Formians have.

[Admiral Squish]

Problem with that is formian queens are big, slow targets, and the general-dragons need to communicate their orders. How about this: The puppeteers are their own thing. Give them a hivemind ability among their own kind. Then, dragons get a symbiont that allows them to access the hivemind.

[Admiral Squish]

Okay, did a little updating on the first posts, even included the better map. By the way, any progress on the version with texture/crop ring?

[kopout]

Not to be pushy or any thing but what do you think of my idea?

[Admiral Squish]

Sorry, I been a little busy with class. Fortunately, class is over, and I'm BACK!

Didn't mean to ignore you Kopout, let's see...

I like your idea of the mechanics of the Illithid network. So, each elder brain is it's own proverbial 'server'? I would think the critical mass thing would be something unexpected. The elder brains getting scrapped would be considered bad since that's basically wiping the last several hundred years of research. Like slapping your computer with a magnet once a month. Makes no sense. Maybe upgrading, though, to more and more efficient elder brains. Perhaps the originals were simple masses of data-storage flesh. But they eventually grew intelligence as the designs were refined, basically as a sort of 'user interface'.

I still need a workable mechanic for gaining the knowledge of a consumed brain.

[Sydonai]

The Ilithids and Aboleths already have the "Savant" prestige classes(SS and LoM respectively). They deal with consuming memories and genetic memory respectively, that might work.

[Admiral Squish]

You need to start mentioning sources in your original posts. I have too many books to go sifting though them all.

[Admiral Squish]

Oho, it was hiding in there.

I could use that lore ability...