Silly Superstition
Back before I got into gaming, I had The Lord of the Rings to fulfill my weekly recommended serving of geekery. I bring it up because, every time I’d watch The Two Towers, I’d find myself sitting there like, “Why the crap would you piss off the ents?” I mean, if you’re Saruman and you’re dealing with a bunch of nature-loving arboreal behemoths, why wouldn’t you take some preventative measures before you started torching their forest? I always figured that, if I were Isengard’s resident white wizard, I’d drop by Fangorn to borrow a cup of acorns or whatever and go all Voice of Saruman on the disagreeable topiary. Ent problem solved. Probably I’d just send ’em off in search of the Entwives and be done with it. It was only later in life that I learned plant creatures are immune to mind-affecting effects. Clearly Saruman has a higher Knolwedge (nature) than I do.
Anywho, one of the things I love about complicated fantasy games is the sheer breadth of setting information. You can never be sure that you’re dealing with fact or fiction. Meet a dirt farming peasant who tells you that there’s a horrible dragon in the hills and you might be in for a grapple-lizard surprise. Rumors of a strange aquatic monster capsizing ships? It could be damn near any thing. This sort of unreliable info can be frustrating for setting savants, but for my money I love that element of the eternal unknown. The rumor table might spit out useful information, false leads, or half-truths in any given session. That sort of thing keeps my adventurer senses tingling. More importantly, it keeps me invested, and that’s what you want out of your players.
Question of the day then. Have you ever come across some dubious piece of setting information that turned out to be unexpectedly true? What was it? Let’s hear it in the comments!
ADD SOME NSFW TO YOUR FANTASY! If you’ve ever been curious about that Handbook of Erotic Fantasy banner down at the bottom of the page, then you should check out the “Quest Giver” reward level over on The Handbook of Heroes Patreon. Twice a month you’ll get to see what the Handbook cast get up to when the lights go out. Adults only, 18+ years of age, etc. etc.
Ooooooooooooooooh. It looks like Fighter is in for beating! But it’s nice to see Druid again. Knowing Druid and her Friends,… well as what kind of creature is Fighter reincarnating this time?
To the Question you asked. It was Giant Dwarfs. Yes you heard right Large sized Dwarfs. We mistook them for Giants, until my and were about to Fight them until my Fighter realized, that there Armour was Dwarven Made. (Courtsey of the Craft Armour skill.) Luckly for us they turned out to be allies, in Fighting the real Giants.
Well I rolled on this custom reincarnate table…
http://luduscarcerum.blogspot.com/2011/06/custom-reincarnate-tables-2-all-of-them.html?m=1
…He got “huge air elemental.” Always knew Fighter was a big windbag.
In one Mutants and Masterminds campaign, the party is a bunch of chaotic good-ish space pirates exploring the stars for fun and profit. In one session the party got a contract to deal with a warship run by xenophobic space koalas*. In the process of disabling the warship thry made their way to the engine room and found several aliens enslaved by the space koalas. They promptly killed the slavers, freed the aliens, and invited them to their crew. One of the aliens then started going on about how they were saved just as the prophecy had said, and began worshiping the pirate captain PC. The other aliens treated him like he’s crazy, and so far the PCs have too. In future games though, the worshipping alien is going to start a cult dedicated to the captain and start exhibiting clerical powers. I’m thinking that rather than the PC being a deity, there is a god of chaos watching over him for kicks and that will develop further, but it will be really interesting to see how they take that.
*Fortunately, none of them have read Schlock Mercenaries. Good DMs are inspired, great DMs steal.
Nice. Fingers crossed that the PC in question starts to think he’s actually a god. That’s potential comedy gold right there.
IIRC the explanation with Sarumon is that he had overextended his forces while invading Rohan and so most of the forces that would normally be garrisoned to defend Isengard from meddling do-gooders were elsewhere at the time of the attack