Snippets of Creativity

[braveheart]

throughout the world are planar focal points, each one is a place where another plane of existence intersects the physical world. because of the proximity to the other plane, the areas near the focal points frequently experience "planar leaks" where creatures fall into the physical world. However when a creature goes through a planar leak they instantaneously change dimensions, however they experience 10,000 years of consciousness, wherein they can think and are conscious of the entire time. this causes anything that would normally be intelligent to come out of the leak entirely insane.

Several millennia ago a group of wizards decided that it would be beneficial to be able to freely travel between planes, so at each focal point they created a planar gate that allows for free travel between the physical world and other planes, these also help to limit the frequency of planar leaks.

[DoomHat]

Rods of Wonder are meant to be used as magical batteries for large artifact machinery, such as an Apparatus of Kwalish.
Activating a RoW independent of being safely plugged into a device is foolishly dangerous, spraying out unfocused magical energy which will manifest in countless unknowable ways.

After a global cataclysm which set society and technology backward a couple centuries, the real purpose of the remaining RoWs was forgotten, rendering them little more then dangerously unpredictable novelties.

[Kislath]

Another planet orbits this sun at almost the same orbital distance, but at a different speed. Every so many years, ( several hundred, few thousand ) the two planets catch up to each other, causing a massive series of worldwide cataclysma for about a week. Floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, everything just goes nuts.
Then it's time to rebuild again.

[jqavins]

Another planet orbits this sun at almost the same orbital distance, but at a different speed. Every so many years, ( several hundred, few thousand ) the two planets catch up to each other, causing a massive series of worldwide cataclysma for about a week. Floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, everything just goes nuts.
Then it's time to rebuild again.

The two planets both have life. During the closest aproach some material is exchanged between them - life forms, artifacts, even a very few peole.

[Kislath]

Aboleths on this world like shallow water, and frequently come up on dry land and crawl around like huge snails.

[GorinichSerpant]

For this reason all clerics, even those sworn to benign deities, can't be resurrected. All clerics have sold their souls for power. When a cleric dies, payment is due, and their soul is consumed by their patron.

God's give their clerics more and bigger spells over time so as to encourage them to grow stronger. The stronger the Cleric, the better their soul's flavor and nutritional value.

If a Cleric violates the contract with their god (changing alignment or working against the deities interests) not only to they lose access to their spells, all the deities assets in the material world are directed toward killing them. Even if they loss access to their spells, without some kind of mystic intervention, they will still have to pay up when they die.

Only Evil Deities are honest with all this, mainly because they're not patient enough to "slow roast" their meals, preferring instead to offer a small handful of big miracles then cash in. So called Good Gods use deceptive language to entice people into the priesthood. Promising things like "Eternal Communion" or "Oneness" with their divine spirit (ethereal stomach) upon death.

The inside of a god's stomach is a surprisingly nice vacation spot, for like a month on the mortal plane that is.

[Oracle_of_Void]

Owlbears are the result of an experiment of an evil archmage. He wanted to conquer the world with an army of powerful monsters. He couldn't decide on what monster would be good enough to recruit/summon, so he decided to make his own. After several failed prototypes, he got very depressed and started drinking. Several drinks in, he had a "brilliant" idea: his monster needs to be strong like a bear but wise like an owl. So he took the thought literally and created several hundred of them in one drunken spree. In the morning, he woke up sober with an army of fairly useless owlbears. Too sick from his hangover to destroy his creations, he transported the owlbears to several forests, not caring whether they lived or not. While poor animals for war, they made great forest predators and are a staple in most forests to this day.

[Xuc Xac]

At first, there was only one type of Elf... Still proud and vain, the High Elves refuse relations with the other kinds of elves, seeing them as dangerous schemers (the Drow) and passive nature lovers (the Wood Elves).

Owlbears are the result of an experiment of an evil archmage.

Aren't these the standard explanations for these things?

[DoomHat]

All the demi-human and monstrous races are made up of mutated humans. Most can't breed on their own, and attack human settlements to expand their number.

Elves are all humans that have either achieved mastery of the arcane arts (high elves) or total communion with nature (wood elves).

If a human spends more then a decade underground, they begin to become Dwarfs.

Half Orcs are those who've escaped captivity from an orc horde before the transformation could completely break their minds.

All Goblins are highly mischievous and attack more subtly then a rampaging idiot horde, though this is not to say they aren't deranged. They also tend to disappear just before being struck by a killing blow. It's said that goblins are children who've been sold to an elf known as the Goblin King in exchange for wishes.

Spoiler: *cough*

Show

Mind Flayers are exactly the same as everywhere else.

All Dragon's despise each other. There are no races or breeds of Dragon. There is only one Red Dragon, only one Black Dragon, same from Green, White, all the Metallic, and so on. The only thing they will ever agree on or collaborate toward is keeping the secrete of how a new dragon might be created. Kobolds are considerably more individually powerful then those in most other settings. It is known that people kept in captivity by a Dragon are often converted into Kobolds, but the specifics of the process are carefully guarded.

[jqavins]

Owlbears are the result of an experiment of an evil archmage...

[Isn't this] the standard explanations for these things?

An evil chmage,yes, but a drunk, depressed, evil archmage: that actually explains it much better.

[jqavins]

All the demi-human and monstrous races are made up of mutated humans.

OR...

Orcs, goblins, and ogres are all evolutionary cousins of Humans, less closely related than neanderthal, but closer than chimpanzees. Elves and dwarves are so-called "fey touched," decended from humans that were altered by contact with elemental or similar sorts of forces. Elves are touched by the element of magic, and dwarves by earth. (Don't tell a dwarf he's fey-touched; he is likely to take offense at the term.) The mer-folk are, obviously, fey touched by the element of water. Those fey touched by air and fire just came out as blondes and red-heads. (OK, not really.)

Vampirism, zombyism, lycanthropy, and rabies are all caused by different strains of the same virus genus. The early symproms of all of them are the same. The presence of any one of them triggers an immune response that locks out the others.

[braveheart]

the boneyards of Zelbinth are a series of villages settled exclusively by sentient skeletons, while the bones appear to be human and other demi human races people have speculated that perhaps this is actually a unique species because there is no record of a civilization having been there previously, and their numbers seem to be growing steadily.

[Laserlight]

Traditonal (pre-Tolkien) elves were often well pictured as elegant aristocrats, cruel or courteous at whim, with an uncanny ability to charm their victims, and unable to withstand holy things or bright daylight. This is because elves and vampires are the same.

[Oracle_of_Void]

How can there be strangely large tribes of lizardfolk and troglodytes in hard-to-live in swamps? Particularly clever/crafty chieftains have capture a small number of hydras to use as an eternal food source. The hydras are either bound by force or magic or have been trained to accept this treatment. Hydra reproduction is asexual, so the tribes are getting 1 or more hydras every couple decades. This large influx of food is supporting larger reptilian humanoid populations. Soon, the swamps will be too full to hold more. And they shall cast a jealous eye upon the land of mammals and know only hate....

[Yora]

Soul Stones: Soul stones are small stones or pieces of bone inscribed with markings that identify the clan of the owner and provide hints how his homeland could be found without using a written language. When people leave their ancestral home on a long journey, they recieve such a stone and get is blessed by their shaman, to become an anchor for their soul, should they die away from home. On the event of their death, their spirit will latch on to the soul stone and resist fading into oblivion. If the stone is taken from the corpse and returned to the shrine of his clan, whatever still remains of his power and courage rejoins the ancestral spirit to be the source of new souls of future generations.
Usually, the dead of a clan are burried or cremated near the ancestral shrine within a day or two after their death. If that is not possible, a soul stone can salvage at least some of the essence of the person before the soul fades away completely and becomes part of the spirit energy of some far away place. When traveling in groups, travelers will go to extremely lengths to recover the soul stones of their companions to return them to their homeland. If an entire group is killed, the markings on the stone provide clues how the home of those people can be found. Once one has reached the general area, locals are usually able to identify the symbols of specific clans and families. Anyone who returns soul stone to the ancestral shrine of the owners people get greatly rewarded, even if it takes years or decades for the stone to make it back. No matter how much faded the original soul has become during all that time, returning whatever trace is left of the persons spirit energy to the ancestral spirit is one of the most sacred laws of the people. In many cases, these soul stones are passed along by traders, who would be unable to tell where the stone was recovered or where it will eventually end up. Since there is usually a great reward for whoever returns the stone to the shrine, they tend to be traded, like gold rings or gemstones.

[jqavins]

Soul Stones: Soul stones are small stones or pieces...

I love this one. I'm seeing a clan member, dying alone and away from home, clutching the stone in his hand, and his best outlander friend vowing to take the stone home. Or a shamen using his as an anchor to help him return from particularly perilous astral travel. Or, an especially vile villian going out of his way to destroy the soul stones of his victims. There's a whole lot here in this little blessed rock.

And, you've led me to an answer for one of the Great Questions: if souls reincarnate, where do new ones come from as population increases? Well, souls don't reincarnate intact, but rather return to a pool of spirit energy. Babies are born with a seed from the pool, and their spirit energy grows with them during their lives according to their deeds and accomplishments. When a person dies and his/her soul returns to the pool, there is more than the seed he/she started with, so there is enough for more seeds. The greater a clan's deeds, the stronger its spirit energy pool, which means that babies can receive stronger seeds and thus a better chance of acheiving great deeds of their own. Shamens of a clan with excess soul energy can channel it to power epic magics. A clan that falls into decadence or weakness weakens its pool, and the clan declines generation by generation. This is largely why soul stones are so important, and their return so richly rewarded.

[Yora]

My take on souls is that they are nothing but natural life energy found everywhere, but bound in a specific living body. When the body is dead, it just melts away, and when new children are born, they just soak up some energy from the environment.
Even if it's just superstition or personal attachment, most cultures prefer to "recycle" the life energy of their dead ancestors. The mind ends in death, but power might be retained. If the dead are put to rest in the center of the village, their power can be kept in the clan, and shamans perform rites and blessing to help new children get as much of the lingering power as possible. It also helps a lot to get rid of specters and wraiths. If you can lure them to their ancestral shrine, that usually takes care of them.
The culture for which I developed the idea had lots of migration in the recent centuries, so they have a tradition of keeping relics of their greatest leaders and heroes, which also serve as anchors for the power of the ancestors. If the clan moves, the relics can be packed up and the essence of the ancestors move with them. Of course, this means when a relic gets stolen, it's absolutely huge business! It's not quite stealing the dead, but stealing some of the power of the clan. This gives me an idea for some crazy warlord witch, who wears necklaces from fallen enemies soul stones so her children will become spiritual super-warriors. Of course, that also means she is probably one of the most vile and blasphemous person who ever lived to her enemies.

The local, non-migrating elves put a greater focus on becoming part of the land. For them it's very important to get the body back home and bury it in the ground.

[braveheart]

there are 6 infinite dragons in the world, and each one having a head larger than a house, and the rest of it's body still proportionate. each infinite dragon rules over a different aspect of the world, Fire, water, air, earth, life, and death. Each one once warred unceasingly with it's opposite, however in time they separated and became content with their realms, except for the infinite dragon of fire, whom the infinite dragon's of both earth and water worked together to imprison inside a mountain on an island, all of the infinite dragons agree that it is beast for the world if the infinite dragon of fire remains imprisoned, and they have kept their focus on him for the last several millennia not bothering with the trivialities of their descendants, much less the humanoids that have proliferated across the world.

[Yora]

There is a cave where some demonic being with necromantic powers makes its lair. Tunnels tend to go in all directions and there are many pits in the ground that are filled with corpses almost up to the floor around them. Nobody knows how deep these puts are and noody has ever really felt like digging all the corpses up to see how far down it goes. Given the length of some of the other tunnels in the cave system, they could potentially be very long.

[CMDonovann]

A demon virus that can infect basically anything living and make it evil. Know what that means? Crazy, chaotic evil squirrels. Evil dandelions. Satanic kittens. Go wild, y'all.

[Yora]

Pigeons from Hell

[jqavins]

Pigeons from Hell

Pidgeons are from Hell.








(No, not really. But someone had to say it.)

[Balyano]

Pidgeons are from Hell.








(No, not really. But someone had to say it.)

Pigeon: A lesser fiend from the lower planes sent to the mortal realm to spread misfortune. Unlike other fiends pigeons do not negotiate for souls, grant favors, or devour innocents. No, their methods are more insidious. Pigeons possess a natural radar that detects extremes of joy and depression. Upon detecting an overly happy, sad, or angry person the pigeon takes flight to ruin their day. High above their intended target the pigeon takes aim, and with a mighty squeeze, unleashes havoc. With a few drops of evil to a persons hair, clothing, food, or eye the pigeon removes the joy from a happy person, brings the angry to rage, and reinforces to the depressed that the world really does hate them. Thus by removing joy and encouraging rage and sorrow the nefarious pigeon helps drive people down the path of darkness.

[Inevitability]

Nah, pidgeons seem more like CE to me.

[Balyano]

All the demi-human and monstrous races are made up of mutated humans. Most can't breed on their own, and attack human settlements to expand their number.

Elves are all humans that have either achieved mastery of the arcane arts (high elves) or total communion with nature (wood elves).

If a human spends more then a decade underground, they begin to become Dwarfs.

What of a world where it's the opposite.
Human is a catch all term for various mutated demi-humans.
The supposed human diversity is because the different kinds of humans are variously mutant-elves, deformed-dwarves, malnourished-orcs, ect.

Dwarves that stay on the surface too long will hit a growth spurt and turn into humans.
Elven children that become orphaned and live too long outside the forest or are kidnapped by humans become more humans.
Orcs exposed to the evils of hygiene and book-learning loose their muscles and become humans.
Half-Orcs dropped out before getting their diploma, but can complete the transformation by getting their GED.
Halflngs with pituitary problems become humans.
Gnomes with no sense of humor become humans.
ect. sure it's not like real life, but who cares.

[Inevitability]

Glomvol, the Bitter Countess, is worshipped as the goddess of life by many, despite her being a death goddess. Why?

The answer is simple. Every time someone dies, she feels the pain that person felt when dying. Because of this, the Bitter Countess tries to have as many people die peaceful deaths as possible, and to avoid anyone dying a violent or painful death.

Glomvol's clerics heal the weak, remove suffering, and aid the hungry and thirsty. Because of this, they have become one of the most valued organizations in the world.

The Bitter Countess is highly opposed to adventurers, however, and her church seeks to stop them from endangering themselves. After all, adventurers are notorious for finding strange and exciting ways to die, and often are brought back from the death which means that they will once die again.

It is said Glomvol bestowed the secrets of the Painless Death spell upon her first clerics, who then passed it on to their apprentices.

[DoomHat]

What of a world where it's the opposite.
Human is a catch all term for various mutated demi-humans.
The supposed human diversity is because the different kinds of humans are variously mutant-elves, deformed-dwarves, malnourished-orcs, ect.

Dwarves that stay on the surface too long will hit a growth spurt and turn into humans.
Elven children that become orphaned and live too long outside the forest or are kidnapped by humans become more humans.
Orcs exposed to the evils of hygiene and book-learning loose their muscles and become humans.
Half-Orcs dropped out before getting their diploma, but can complete the transformation by getting their GED.
Halflngs with pituitary problems become humans.
Gnomes with no sense of humor become humans.
ect. sure it's not like real life, but who cares.

Humanity would quickly become regarded as a terrifying degenerative disease spreading around the world. Would the afflicted be corralled into ghettos? How many nations would found projects aimed at curing the condition of 'humanity'?

Would this imply the last days of magic? The world's wonders are fading and disappearing, and people of all races and creeds are increasingly in danger of turning into one of these bland, feeble, same-faced things. In such case, it might be illegal in most places for human's to breed, for fear that the presence of humans drains magic out of a region.

Would various races take on the practice of doubling down on their own cultural stereotypes to avoid "being bleached" into a shadow of themselves? To become another one of those vile 'human' things.

[GorinichSerpant]

Pigeon: A lesser fiend from the lower planes sent to the mortal realm to spread misfortune. Unlike other fiends pigeons do not negotiate for souls, grant favors, or devour innocents. No, their methods are more insidious. Pigeons possess a natural radar that detects extremes of joy and depression. Upon detecting an overly happy, sad, or angry person the pigeon takes flight to ruin their day. High above their intended target the pigeon takes aim, and with a mighty squeeze, unleashes havoc. With a few drops of evil to a persons hair, clothing, food, or eye the pigeon removes the joy from a happy person, brings the angry to rage, and reinforces to the depressed that the world really does hate them. Thus by removing joy and encouraging rage and sorrow the nefarious pigeon helps drive people down the path of darkness.

Remember how the Joker in the Dark Knight movie said that the world was"One bad day" away from him? Well I think that pigeons must have been created by a demon who thought under that kind of logic.

Several bloody revolts might have been averted if it weren't for a well placed dropping on a government official during tense situation.

[Oracle_of_Void]

In a world, there are no sea serpents. Instead of dragons becoming fish, a fish took their place. Gigantic, bestial sharks have become dragon-like lords of the ocean. These Shark-lords are similar to true dragons, they are proud, vain, gluttonous and scheming. The Shark-lords possess magical powers and spellcasting on-par with the dragons on land. In fact, true dragons and shark-lords have a fierce hatred of each other. They see each other as competitors to their goals. Both want to be the undisputed ruler of a realm, free to indulge in hoarding (dragons) and gluttony (sharks). A common arguing point between them is which race came first. Sharks say that a rejected fish crawled onto land and became a dirty lizard. Dragons say that a greedy salamander flopped into the ocean to become a smelly fish.

Like how some dragons rule their own kingdoms with commoners and subjects, so too the Shark-lords rule over communities of mer-people and other aquatic life. Also like dragons, Shark-lords grow as they age, and their level of power can be estimated by their physical size. The battles, and sometimes wars, fought between rival dragons and shark-lords have devastated whole nations and peoples before, the terrible beasts and their proxy armies waging horrible bloodshed because of a selfish cause.

[Xuc Xac]

Why do the shark Lords and the dragons see each other as competitors when they aren't competing over anything? They operate in non-overlapping environments.