TRPG General Chat

nitsua60

00:00

the bees can read?

un-bee-lievable =)

Skathix

I love the smoke mephit idea

Cool, I have an ark

nitsua60

Do they work well in the cold?

Or do they get sluggish?

Do crops start to fail when she's around, because she's altering bee-havior?

BESW

That might be a bit more logistic/moral complexity than a D&D game is interested in.

nitsua60

@BESW I guess I was thinking more in a slapstick sort of way--she has to stay outside the inn while everyone else eats, or leaves an unmistakable swath of failed crops as a trail (no wilderness Stealth for you!)

Skathix

lmao

Those are all great ideas, Especially if she loses the Bag of Beeholding

SevenSidedDie

00:06

They keep rebooting 80s cartoons just in time for my daughter to discover them. She just found the new Voltron series on Netflix.

doppelgreener

[ponders] A character who leaves a wake of wilted crops as they pass by might make for a compelling character in the right scenario.

Skathix

Well

It actually works really well in my favor

doppelgreener

Like a misunderstood (or very well understood) supernatural antagonist, or a protagonist part-time god who got a bit of a raw deal in some ways.

Skathix

I'm planning on the 3rd segment of this campaign being the aftermath of these characters

They all made evilish characters, or at the most characters who give 0 fucks

So if they end up being the 6 riders of the apocalypse, it just makes for such easy design

BESW

@SevenSidedDie I just put it on my list to watch earlier this week. (Although I'm of the right demographic for late 80s/early 90s cartoon nostalgia, I hardly watched any of them at the time, so I'm discovering them through the reboots too!)

nitsua60

00:10

@Skathix "give 0 hoots" would bee nicer

SevenSidedDie

@BESW I missed the Voltron cartoon (but not coveting the toys), so I have no idea what's happening on the screen. ^^

Skathix

My bad :)

doppelgreener

oh man are we doing bee substitution puns now

this is great :D

BESW

@doppelgreener Comb join us!

Skathix

Too many and we become a hive mind

nitsua60

00:12

@doppelgreener Wait... isn't it Thursday? Where's... waxy?

doppelgreener

@Skathix that would bee just super terrible

Skathix

Honey, don't worry about it. It's all too beeasy to get sucked in.

Thanks for all the help guys, I'm going to get back to work. See you around :)

BESW

ttfn

nitsua60

00:37

@Skathix I would say that an idea that has some substantial cost appeals to me for... some reason? Perhaps a one-level dip into Rogue to grab expertise in Animal Handling? Or grabbing Magic Initiate at L8 to pick up a some Druidic magic for your EK? (Poison Spray becomes a blast of stinging bees, you get Speak with Animals but re-skin it to speak with swarms, &c?)

Lymia Aluysia

00:49

What did I miss?

BESW

Bees!

Lymia Aluysia

I see.

Skathix

◆ Bag of Bee-Holding
Once per day say a specific code-phrase and send your trained bees after any enemies in a 10ft radius. They deal 4d4 damage and cause the enemies to be restrained for one turn, The enemies must save on a constitution saving throw of 13 or become poisoned for 1 hour.

Thoughts?

BESW

Is the ten-foot radius centered on the bag?

Skathix

Hmm, good question

BESW

00:56

Do the bees differentiate between enemies and allies?

Skathix

I had thought more She shouts and it's like a ranged weapon

nitsua60

@Skathix restrained or frightened?

Skathix

and I think initially no, but like evoc wizards the more DT she spends training them the better she gets at commands

I'd say restrained, do people run from bees? I'd think soldiers would just be swatting at them. What do you think?

doppelgreener

I would ask if I can toss the bag, but it's my precious bag of bee-holding. I don't want to lose it!

@Skathix I compel thee to later feature at least one bee-holder.

nitsua60

@Skathix I ran. (So far away.)

(wrong swarm)

Sebkha

01:06

Coincidentally, I'm also running a game where the players decided to theme everything around bees. Lead character is a dragonborn paladin the breathes bees: sfw.furaffinity.net/full/19334890

2

We also rebranded a potion of Haste as "The Mead for Speed".

nitsua60

@Sebkha I'm feelin' it.

Sebkha

It's 4th edition, so pixies are a PC race. Our ranger just swapped the usual butterfly-winged fairy styling out in favor of being bee-styled. Militant bee-pixie amazons totally work.

trogdor

@Sebkha certainly makes sense to me

BESW

@Sebkha [takes notes]

Shalvenay

01:35

@Sebkha bee-sprite I'd think?

(I'd think pixies and sprites come in both genders, no?)

Sebkha

That might be more apt in 5e, yes.

BESW

These terrifying caterpillars aren't limited to Australia.

doppelgreener

02:33

I will be always miffed at why people in countries with wolves and bears and other large carnivores are so terrified of Australian wildlife in particular

SevenSidedDie

@doppelgreener Bears you can generally see a good way off, and you can easily stay out of bear country. The terror of Australian wildlife is that it's often small, innoccuous-looking to a foreigner, potentially everywhere, and sometimes deadly. Australian wildlife has a reputation for being very “swingy” and ambushy. ;)

doppelgreener

@SevenSidedDie ahhhh

This explains a lot

SevenSidedDie

Also, bears and wolves are pretty much bears and wolves everywhere. The biological exceptionalism of Australia makes everything unfamiliar, while someone from Russia would probably expect Canadian wolves to hold no surprises. There's definitely some “unfamiliar” = “danger” in unexamined thoughts going on.

doppelgreener

@SevenSidedDie you know, having grown up around them I never considered them strange and unique. And then a foreigner finds out there's a small aquatic animal that looks like a duck and an otter (both harmless!) but has a poison barb in its legs.

SevenSidedDie

For a more local example, Canadians are generally terrified of the thought of scorpions and poisonous spiders and snakes, because we have none of the former and next to none of the latter two. Meanwhile, people live in US states like Arizona and somehow don't die every day! *wonderment*

doppelgreener

02:45

@SevenSidedDie you know, having grown up around them I never considered them strange and unique. And then a foreigner finds out there's a small aquatic animal that looks like a duck and an otter (both harmless!) but has a poison barb in its foot.

Just the one. In its rear left foot, nowhere else.

BESW

And, as I recall, only the males.

SevenSidedDie

@doppelgreener I thought I knew about their barbs, but just one on one specific leg? See, they can't be trusted! They defy expectations. ;)

Lymia Aluysia

See. I'm safe from bears because I don't go outside enough to run into such things.

Spiders, on the other hand...

:(

Shalvenay

I've never been bothered by spiders, myself.

BESW

I live on an island where no animal or plant on land is liable to kill you unless you go out of your way to give it the opportunity. The instant you hit water, all bets are off.

doppelgreener

02:49

Spiders I understand. USA spiders are terrifying. Australia has spiders that look just like them except bigger. I can understand this being scary. Except our spiders are far easier to deal with and less dangerous.

Shalvenay

@doppelgreener hahaha, less dangerous? xD

doppelgreener

@Shalvenay huntsmen look like brown recluses but are completely harmless to humans. Redbacks look like brown widows but you only get one at a time, they don't appear in swarms that make burning the house down seem worthwhile. Funnel-web spiders are dangerous but by their namesake, have a completely obvious web you just stay away from.

Shalvenay

@doppelgreener ah.

BESW

Our spiders range from "big and harmless" to "small and itchy." Our snakes are pathetic--they have to chew on you to get their venom in because they have no fangs, and the venom is only a problem for people who are allergic or infirm anyway. Make noise in the jungle and the wild boars will leave you alone.

@doppelgreener We have a week or two of swarming termites. You have swooping season.

Shalvenay

@BESW yeah -- we don't get it too bad where I live -- most of the spiders that show up are pretty chill, and we don't have poisonous snakes either, just constrictors. worst that shows up probably is the occasional stray mountain lion?

@BESW tasty tasty termites? xD

SevenSidedDie

02:54

Our spiders are nearly all harmless, so the worst part is getting them to stay still long enough to rescue them from terrified humans.

doppelgreener

@BESW fair cop

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie hahahahahahaha :D

BESW

@Shalvenay Not really part of the local cuisine.

Shalvenay

(oh, and don't forget geese and swans)

SevenSidedDie

@BESW We have swooping season too, but from crows rather than magpies. I've made a point of making friends with the neighbourhood crows.

Shalvenay

02:56

(because geese are bullies man)

SevenSidedDie

@Shalvenay Geese and swans are jerks.

BESW

Urgh, geese. [snip] geese.

Also ducks. Ducks can get [snipped] too.

Shalvenay

werewolves, weretigers, wereboars, wererats....weregeese?!

@BESW ducks can get turned into bacon man

BESW

All of Guam's nastiest land creatures were brought by outsiders.

SevenSidedDie

@BESW Our ducks are pretty chill. Still jerks, but they seem to be just on the wrong side of the jerk/size curve to bother people.

BESW

02:58

Giant African Land Snails, cane toads, wild pigs, [snipping] geese.

My mother remembers when buildings would be covered with snail slime and roads would be squishy with dead toads.

Sebkha

(Meanwhile, somewhere a bunch of animals are complaining about all the humans cluttering up the place.)

3

SevenSidedDie

@BESW Cane toads were a terrible idea. Who decided those should be a thing.

@Sebkha “Lemme tell you, humans! Total jerks. And aggressive! And some of them are poisonous! And a filthy bite.”

BESW

@SevenSidedDie We've now got a couple of kinds of frogs that are so loud (and have so few predators here) that they're violating noise pollution limits.

trogdor

@Sebkha to be fair, it is also humans fault those invasive species live here now XD

Sebkha

Humans spread cats, it's true. ;)

BESW

03:04

Cats are a bigger problem than snakes here now.

trogdor

yeah, cats are starting to be a freaking huge problem

doppelgreener

@BESW In case it's relevant: there's a group of people in North Queensland who have started to hunt toads, freeze them, then dispose of them once frozen (so as to be humane in their perspective). They say it's pretty effective and ongoing efforts marked a major decline in cane toad population in their area. They also said everyone told them it couldn't be done, but they couldn't find evidence of anyone having actually tried it before.

BESW

Both were introduced (Guam had no snakes prior to the 20th century), and the snakes wiped out most of our local birds.

SevenSidedDie

@BESW Cats are a problem in most of North America too, but it's not a widely-accepted fact.

BESW

Now the snakes are getting under control, but attempts to re-introduce captive-bred birds are being foiled by the cats.

Shalvenay

03:08

@SevenSidedDie yeah -- I'm not sure what native North American small felids are extant these days...

apparently -- the answer is the bobcat and the Canadian lynx, and that's it....

SevenSidedDie

@Shalvenay It's unspayed domestic cats and feral domestic cats that are the problem. They're bird-killing machines. Lynx and bobcats have bigger prey, and much less population.

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie yeah -- F. catus' ancestry is all Old World

(F. silvestris if you're wondering, btw)

SevenSidedDie

@Shalvenay So odd to see a face that feels domestic on a wild animal.

Shalvenay

@SevenSidedDie yeah -- F. catus is still very close genetically to F.silvestris -- (in fact, wild and feral cats in Europe interbreed routinely)

trogdor

03:57

I have always proposed that cats are the demon spawn of hell that just also happen to be cute animals

and somehow the universe does not implode despite this glaring contradiction

Adeptus

@doppelgreener Anecdotal evidence from my ex-Qld'er wife says that cane toads' biggest natural enemy is children.

They've been killing them in cruel & inventive ways for decades. (Probably since they were introduced)

Sebkha

Cars must've run a close second, though.

Adeptus

Yes, apparently it's not uncommon for cars to swerve onto the wrong side of the road just to run over cane toads

doppelgreener

05:20

@Adeptus This is slightly horrifying for me. But I'd estimate mainly cars.

@trogdor Well if they are the demon spawn of hell, taking on the guise of a cute animal would just be naturally devious, wouldn't it?

trogdor

indeed

to be fair, I have met the occasional cat that was actually nice to me

like one of the ones at the house I was pet sitting at earlier in the month

one of the others was insane, and the third one was antisocial

then there are the ones that stalk you in your own house and give you the creepy impression they are just biding their time till they decide to murder you

Lymia Aluysia

05:54

meow

trogdor

AUAAGHGH

XD

Lymia Aluysia

I promise I'm not biding my time to murder anybody!

Asteria

06:15

@LymiaAluysia a death i'm happy to have

trogdor

06:38

nopenopenopenopenope

@LymiaAluysia also, I was not talking about you, I meant my tuxedo cat who can't leave me alone for any length of time

Fibericon

08:08

Well, turns out Fate is ridiculous and awesome.

4

BESW

Details!

What surprised you about the system?

trogdor

it would be nice to get a fresh perspective of it

BESW

AFK taking my dad to the sunset, but I hope to read about it when I get back!

trogdor

I hope it goes well

Fibericon