Memory
So here’s the thing you have to know about Thought Gorgers. Unlike the other guys’ legally-distinct brain-eating monstrosities, Handbook-World’s cognitovores have only three tentacles around their lamprey-like mouths, not the expected four. Also, they don’t eat your literal-physical-actual brain. They eat your memories. And as shitty as they sounds, they give you an RP opportunity in return.
There are certain monsters that are pitch-perfect for this kind of thing. Any caster that does you the favor of throwing phantasmal killer at you is part of the club. There you get to describe your dude’s innermost fear to the table. So are the leucrotta, who I always play as vaguely psychic. The know what is most likely to tempt you, and their luring voices change to match. Wicked fae tempting you from the past, ghosts tempting you to your grave, and force ghosts tempting you to Dagobah all share this premise. They allow you to share your character’s internal monologue with the table.
Being a theater kid, I love this kind of stuff. You get to improvise a bit of backstory, coming up with childhood traumas and first loves and the discovery of your magical powers. These are things that ought to come up between characters as they sit around the tavern table. But because the adventure tends to happen out in the world rather than set beside a cozy inn hearth, it’s nice to have the prompt. Gods know I like putting critters like this in my games.
So for similar reasons, why don’t we try a bit of a writing exercise for today’s discussion? You current player character has just run afoul of some thought Gorgers. Imagine that your GM has just told you, “Describe three important life events for me. They begin to fade and to lose their luster. You can still remember them, but they lose all savor and passion. It is as if they happened to somebody else. And you can feel an important part of yourself fading along with them.” What events do you describe? Share with the class, and maybe we’ll all become better roleplayers together!
Torplarian: The first moment I heard the bagpipes. I was still all emotion and instinctive reaction back then (before he went from a 5 int to a 18, yay magic!) and it called to my soul.
Ea: I remember the screams and the damp, musty smell of the escape tunnel under the keep. You want memories, then take the ones of the night my parents were murdered by my uncle and I ran to save my brother and myself.
Svarrdra: I remember meeting the wandering priest with my father in the throne room when I was twelve. He was no different than the hundreds we had met before, but something about him called to me. He stayed with us for a fortnight and during that time I received my calling as a paladin. Those memories will always be golden for me.
This exercise hits home with me. I’m going to be 67 in a few days. Not only are my memories fading, the ability to retrieve them is getting worse. And so many of the people who were touchstones of my life are dying off. Musicians, authors, actors, family, all leaving holes in my heart. Age is so much more of a monster than anyone ever came up with for a game.
Improvise a bit of backstory ? Maybe, but then, childhood traumas tend to be the first thing I write about any of my characters, so there isn’t much improvisation… Although the thoughts gorgers remain a great opportunity to share such backstory (which usually remains mostly secret from other players).
I also remember a similar thing as disappearing memories happening to my gunslinger, though not related to forgetting, but rather to alignment. Having her alignment magically changed from Good to Neutral, and before we could find a chance to reverse that, she was forced to face her beliefs. She suddenly felt indifferent to seeing a paladin getting killed in front of her, and was left wondering why exactly she had cared so much about risking her life to save innocents.
And just like losing memories, that brings great opportunities to simply shift your character. Cut away one thing, usually a single event or an easily described trait, and rebuild your character’s focus around everything else in their story – maybe vengeance against one killer is no longer as important as the system who let such killers exist, or you have lost the reason to distrust the magical people who were genuinely trying to help you.
However, I think we should remember that such things need to be optional and reversable. After all, not every player would be happy with some of their backstory being eaten away, and would see that as punishment rather than an opportunity – those players should, for most games, be allowed to “recover”.
For a samurai campaign, I helped the players create bespoke PCs as clan champions of lesser families (all starting at level 3). To explain what they’ve been doing for the past three levels, I encouraged them to think about their own backstory, but I also included three accomplishments, like “Retrieved the hachimaki of the four spirits for the Kunara Shrine.” I have absolutely no clue what any of that means, in a larger sense. I just created some madlibs-style sentences from names/places/things. It’s up to the players to imagine what the mission was about, what they faced, and how it went down.
My current PC is a Githyanki, so all they’d get from D’raak j’taar is pure rage in their direction.
“Goblin porn”
Are the Goblins D&D mustard-yellow, or that fugly green everyone defaults to due to accepting Warcraft’s cultural dominance?
This challenge is interesting cause of the unique circumstances of my (idea for a) character; A changeling warlock.
So there’s the situation of a fey asking for your name, with the character thinking an introduction but the fey taking it literally. So my character, when they made the pact with the fey, made the same mistake and lost all sense of identity. They’re ability to transform into others stems from the patron giving them names to “wear”, but it’s not the same as a true memory.
So, I’d describe the gëdachtnis esser’s experiencing nothing. No taste, no texture, nor either moisture or dryness for their tongtacles to feel anything, and any sensation of fullness achieved is of one were sucking in a breath and filling their lungs. It is as if licking an empty glass bowl with food pictured on it. What experiences the changeling has gone through with their companions feels as if they are observations written down on a page, a recounting of what one has merely heard.
That is what like for our warlock… until a certain bit of character development happens.
Tricky, because Kabalin Tunaan is so driven by the events and traumas of their past; I can’t lose any of the truly important ones without fundamentally changing the character. So it becomes a balancing act of ‘important enough to be meaningful’ with ‘not so important that they can’t be sacrificed’.
“His fighting style was like nothing I’d ever seen. Every stagger, every stumble, every ‘drunken’ swing, an act to disguise his skill and intent. I spared him, patched up his wounds. Even though he’d attacked me, he’d paid his tribute after all, in the best way possible: something fascinating for me to think about and learn from.”
“She made me bury the corpses. So strange. I don’t think she even particularly cares about propriety, but her first order to me was to bury the corpses of everyone I’d slain upon that mountain; decades of bandits and caravan guards, heroes and villains, demon hunters and fools. Why?”
“I’ve always loved music, to sing and dance to. But I didn’t realize at first that my transformation had magnified that love into an obsession, a compulsion. I followed their party for days, just out of sight in the trees, not eating, only drinking during his breaks. Just letting his sweet voice and fierce drums wash over me.”
In order:
A reminder that Kabalin is neither good nor a being of complete evil, capable of alternately tyranny and mercy (also a hint that their fighting style is not nearly so unrefined as they’d like everyone to believe).
Clues about Kabalin’s mysterious master, whom they are forbidden to speak of.
A view of both Kabalin’s softer side and their alien nature.
Although, thinking about it, there should be at least one moment of real emotional weight. Like I said, tricky, because Kabalin’s arc is supposed to be about recognizing and overcoming their traumas, but I think I’ve got one that can be sacrificed to the Thought Gorgers.
“The warlord’s envoy entered for a private meeting with my father. His master was a Pale King, and a power even by the standards of those devils, and I feared I knew why he was here. Every few years, he would go to a neighboring Datu, and offer them a deal: ‘Give me your daughter’s hand in marriage, and there will be peace between us’. And then a few weeks, a few months, once even a full year later, the princess would quietly disappear… but the peace would remain. Of my sisters, I wasn’t the prettiest, nor the smartest, nor the most musical, nor even the strongest. Just the silliest, most prone to impropriety and accidental disobedience.
“My father walked out through the door, and announced that a celebration was in order. His youngest daughter was going to be married. I wept. It had taken him less than thirty minutes to decide that I was a sacrifice he was willing to make.”
Of the three other memories, the first is the one I’d probably cut for this one. Kabalin having fought and been inspired by a foreign martial artist is a cool detail that’s not likely to come up otherwise… but there’s a reason for that. It’s irrelevant both mechanically and narratively.
Just realized we hadn’t seen Fighter for a hot minute.
For my main current character the three are:
The Blood Hunter strikes down the Zombies at the last moment, her blade glowing a brilliant gold, reminiscent of the sun.
The pain of the Ritual, but also the joy of success. She was one of them now, and she would ensure that none would suffer as she nearly had.
The hood of the Necromancer is knocked back by a near missed strike, the face revealed that of her best friend, trusted more than anyone.
I have a feeling if they fed on my Hobo/Sage/Cultist of the Elder-Outer Beings most vivid memories they’d like it… So it starts with him connecting his mind to The Gate and The Key, The Center and The Outside, The Beginning and The End, YOG-SOTHOTH, holder of all knowledge that is, shall be, and has never been.
That spicy of a memory might put a real curl in their tendrils (and as I don’t see any suckers, those are tendrils). Blunting the sharp edges of that memory might just bring some stability into the hobo’s personality.
…so, I have a warlock character whose primary schtick is that they have an “office employee” relationship with their patron. So, Jake, but not from State Farm, but from the Celestial Realm
So I’m imagining the memories they’d lose are nasty ones about their employer and that one time they tried to strike back and unionize.
Which may or may not result in them losing their patronage as they attempt to fight back AGAIN.
For my current character, who’s an Undine Arrowsong Minstrel in a pirate game, wrapped like a mummy in bandages due to a backstory related case of horrific full body burns. The three memories they lose would be that of the event that left them burn-scarres and bandaged, of the pirate story that enticed him to engage in piracy on the first place, and of a recently deceased PC who everyone agreed would have been a fine captain if they didn’t meet an early end to a nasty devilfish encounter.
So, if the Thought Gorgers/Gobblers eat up any of the advice Fighter got from the Handbook of Heroes, does that mean we’ll get repeat strips?
So being a forever DM I don´t really have a current player character, but this reminded me of something the rpg Red Rook Revolt does.
All players write down a positive memory they share with the other player characters, and NPCs. IIRC the norm is 5 or so memories in all, each connected to a different character, each with a description of their relationship.
So Ivan might have a memory that goes “I won a shooting competition against Sasha, by a single point”, and his relationship with her is listed as “Friendly Rival”.
While Sasha might have the memory “I lost a shooting competition to Ivan, because I got distracted by his smile” and her relationship with him is listed as “Secret Crush”.
A big part of the game is using demonic powers to balance the field against the giant empire the characters are revolting against. Every time you do this, however, you risk it corrupting you. Which often takes the shape of it corrupting your memory. It doesn´t change your memory to be of something else, it just changes the tone of it.
So Ivans memory of Sasha might change from being a friendly competition in good fun, to seeing Sasha look at him with jealousy over his victory.
And Sashas memory might change to make Ivans smile be one of joy and fondness into being a mocking smirk at his imminent victory.
I just thought it was an interesting mechanic, and I have considered borrowing it for some of my other games.
Bellona the Greatsword Magus:
– Watching the knights of the Order of the Red Falcon parade in full armor when she was six, convincing her that she didn’t just want to be raised by them, but to become one. Now it feels like she is watching herself watch them, and she sees the silly idealism of that little girl thinking pretend-war looks like the real thing.
– Receiving her first personal sword (her own property) from the Order as a teenager, signifying her step from lowly assistant to a true knight-in-training. She still has that blade, with its custom hilt, somewhere in the bag of holding. Why does she bother? She has a superior adamantine one now. She hasn’t used that old one in over a year.
– Battling ghouls at a farmstead alongside her then-new party. Her adventures before then had been minor or failures (particularly her capture by goblin raiders on the road), but that moment was when everything clicked for her, and she first truly felt the tempo of battle, neither wizard nor fighter but a superior synthesis of both. Yet, all of those party members have moved on now to other tasks – do they even remember her? Surely they don’t remember this moment – only she was so self-centered as to pay it heed.
(That last one is from an actual campaign, not backstory, but it was a long time ago and also fits the prompt.)
Therefore, if the Thought Gorgers/Gobblers consume any of the guidance that Fighter obtained from the Handbook of Heroes, does it indicate that we will be getting the same strip more than once?
Infinitely recursive webcomic? I am insanely tired just contemplating that concept.