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Setting: The Planet Orcus, part two


GM’ing the Cacogen
All attributes, stats, and descriptors can be randomly determined. A given Cacogen may be physically invulnerable or delicate as steam, and these attributes are not necessarily fixed.

Communication should be a slow, tortuous affair. Cacogen have translators, and are smart and well informed about or Solar System and its inhabitants, but it is difficult to bridge such different minds.

Below are some tools for simulating an alien state of mind. Consult when considering both how the Cacogen receives a communication and how they respond. If needed, run their reply through Google translation a few times.

Random table of primary senses/mode of communication
1.     color
2.     light
3.     scent
4.     temperature
5.     high frequency sound (painful to anyone with better than normal Hear Noises)
6.     palpitation
7.     gesticulation
8.     equilibrium (their conversation requires a Fortitude save or fall over)
9.     magnetism
10. electrical impulses
11. absence of sound/light/scent
12. mathematics
13. pressure differentials
14. pain and pleasure
15. illusion projection
16. exchange of soul fragments
17. exchange and consumption of effluvium
18. time
19. reversed time (this Cacogen remembers the future, but is blind to the past)
20. reality (anything this Cacogen says becomes true)


Random table of primary motivations and blind-spots
1.     Acceptance
2.     Acquisition
3.     Aesthetics
4.     Compensation
5.     Consumption
6.     Curiosity
7.     Hierarchy
8.     Honor
9.     Ideals
10. Independence
11. Knowledge
12. Oblivion
13. Order
14. Perfection
15. Physical activity
16. Power
17. Reproduction
18. Society
19. Tranquility
20. Vengeance

Roll twice.

The first result is this entity’s primary motivation. It is such an ineradicable concern that the Cacogen cannot even question its primacy.

The second is a motivation that the Cacogen cannot comprehend at all. Any statement relating to this motivation will be ignored as meaningless babble.

Conversation Effects Table
If characters have a successful conversation with a Cacogen (defined by spending more than three rounds speaking with them without becoming violent or ill), they will be marked by an otherworldliness for the rest of your life.

For each successful conversation, they permanently lose one point of Charisma, and roll on the table below:
1.     Take half damage from back stabs, because your vital organs are no longer where one would expect them to be.
2.     You see things that aren’t there. Detect Invisible once per day.
3.     You have a new perspective on everything. +1 to Wisdom.
4.     +1 to AC when unarmored because you become slightly insubstantial when alarmed.
5.     Digestion changed. You eat unusual things (soap, strips of leather, small pebbles, candles), and cannot abide regular food. Immune to poisons.
6.     The patterns of this world are so much clearer to you, now. Read Languages at 80%.
7.     You are attuned to the energies of the world around you. Detect Magic once per day.
8.     Your voice does not entirely emanate from your body. Ventriloquism twice a day.
9.     Black Puddings love you. Treat all black puddings encountered as charmed.
10. You are dimensionally unmoored. Mirror Image once every other day.
11.  You hear things that haven’t been said. ESP once every other day.
12.  You feel disconnected from your body. +1 hp and +1 to resist pain effects.


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Comments

  1. DaveMarch 5, 2014 at 7:25 PM

    I absolutely LOVE this! If you don't mind, I'll probably use a modified version in my OD&D campaign world.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. PulpatoonerMarch 5, 2014 at 9:08 PM

      Please do! That's what the blog is for! And I'd love to hear how it goes.

      Delete

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