When someone plays D for the first time, they don't know what they don't know. This is a Really Good Thing.
Our friend Caty joined us for her maiden voyage into RPGs. She cast charm person on a goblin and bam! She had a very stupid henchman, but moderately useful because he could navigate through the other goblins. His name was Snotrocker. Sadly, he died (it was the best day of his life.) Caty's character kept his decrepit rusty short sword as a souvenir of the several Turns they spent as best friends.
Later, they fought a bugbear and his goblin minions. I do the pumpkin-headed long and stringy bugbears. I showed them this picture.
To their credit, they attempted parley, but they got a terrible reaction check. So it was a fight! And Caty's wizard threw the Sleep bomb. SHWAZOM! Dead!
So after they killed it, Caty says, "I'm going to take the seeds."
So after they killed it, Caty says, "I'm going to take the seeds."
"..."
"..."
"...what seeds?"
"From his head. I'm going to take the seeds from his pumpkin head and use them in my magic."
THIS IS AWESOME.
So I have decided they are Henchman Seeds.
Henchman Seeds:
Bugbear's heads are filled with seeds. They look like pinkish pumpkin seeds. If you take 2 Turns to vivisect it, you can grab out a few big handfuls of seeds weighing 1 lb.
If you plant these in your lab or a hothouse, 1d4 bugbear henchmen grow in 3 months.
Or you can sell them for 500 GP if there is another wizard or something that wants henchmen.
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I awarded the party 500 XP for the awesome idea. And forever after, wizards who are In The Know will hunt bugbears for their seeds, just as people hunt dragons and rocs for their eggs today.
Yes indeed that is awesome.
ReplyDeleteI have nothing more sensible to say.
Spontaneous awesome is the best kind of awesome. I'm so happy to have found a new player with such a great imagination.
DeleteWTF!? How awesome was that, a noob inspiring a awesome house-rule & maybe I need to swiped this. Thank you Scott for sharing this man. Totes awesome.
ReplyDeleteI have always seen bugbears in the same light as owlbears (literally a mix of a bug and a bear) but this is just so awe-inspiringly cool I may have to either abandon my version of bugbears or figure out a way to justify the existence of both...
ReplyDeleteI think the idea could be used for any number of normal-types, not just bugbears. Anything you would be comfortable seeing as a henchman. It just seems like something a wizard ought to be able to do.
DeleteIf I am understanding you correctly, and you accept the idea that various humanoids are twisted versions of demi-humans (as per Tolkien), then elves and dwarves also have seeds. Therefore, an origin for the existence of humanoids is that when a wizard tried to grow elves and dwarves from seeds they got all twisted and turned out to be humanoids instead...
DeleteThat's an interesting extrapolation. Not how I do it, but there's nothing wrong with it!
DeleteNo, the normal types propagate the same as Men. Elves are fey and don't have any natural morbidity (nor can they be returned from the dead); orcish is an affliction rather than a race; but otherwise they propagate normally.