DMnastics #48 - What's in the BOX!!!
Jan 21, 2016 19:07:25 GMT
DM Mitch, gmsamuel, and 1 more like this
Post by dm_mainprize on Jan 21, 2016 19:07:25 GMT
Hello All,
It has been quite some time since I have typed up a DMnastics challenge and high time I get back into the habit! Our last episode was a grand adventure into the wonderful mailbag of holding!! So I figured we could discuss and create ideas around mail, messages, and information exchange within our DnD worlds!! So complete one of the following!
1. Tell us how messages are sent and received in your own homebrew setting!
2. Create a new means or method of transmitting information like a Palantir or seeing stone!
3. Choose and image below and give us a plot hook based of the image, or tell us the name of the courier who he/she/it works for, or tell us what information or package the courier is carrying and where it it headed!
4. I am making an edit to add an additional option. Lets try and collaboratively create a message sending system for the world of Dayeimbe!!! Here are some things we would want to know.
4a. Name of service - Planeswalking Postal Service (PPS)
4b. Founder of service - Greenwood, he used the passages of travel for personal use, but had no additional intentions with it. This is all rumor and hearsay, but would make sense that only the great Greenwood would be powerful enough to create such passageways.
- ish (Not the founder, but one of many it seems that made the PPS possible)
Betak Nieminen was venturing through plane of stone. He had heard stories of the monsters in the realm, and had heard of how the beasts can just pass through solid stone and appear behind you without warning, but he was still unprepared for IT. IT was largest and more hideous that any sorry he had heard about this realm, and he ran. Running back towards the portal, he aimed his wooden staff behind him and launched fireball after fireball at IT. He had apparently hit the wall, as the rumbling from IT's tremendous steps increased, until Betak realized it was the entire tunnel that was shaking. The ceiling quickly began to collapse around him, trapping him. He twisted about in the small pocket he found himself in, aiming his wood staff behind him at the rocks between him and IT, waiting for IT's face to pass through the stone at him. He saw it's eye become partially corporeal in one gap of rock and prepared to blow IT and hisself up with one final fireball, when he noticed it's advance stopped. It was struggling to reach him, but couldn't. He realized that it was stopped, by his wooden staff pressed against the stone. - Athikin
4c. Method of sending message - The method by which you send messages is highly dependent on your place in the world.
Commoners rarely send messages, and when they do, they must spend an excessive amount of their savings on a courier of some kind. Otherwise, they have to take to the roads themselves.
Nobles, merchants, and other monied individuals also pay for couriers, either by training them themselves or contracting out to regional postal guilds. These couriers are typically runners, riders, or Thunderstrides (in order of least to most expensive). Thunderstrides are delivery legends known for reaching their destinations with inhuman alacrity. Their legs are inscribed with runes of haste, allowing them to travel at dangerous velocities. Most aspiring Thunderstrides require a few years to adjust to the changes in their reflexes before they stop inadvertently breaking their legs from sudden, unexpected momentum. Fully-trained Thunderstrides remind passersby of sudden squalls: wild blurs that kick up sand on the road, leaving booming echoes of thunder in their wakes. Unfortunately, Thunderstrides can only run for a decade or so before their legs wither. Most are subsequently honored by their employers for their sacrifice. Nobles reward former-Thunderstrides with small holdings and minor titles, while guilds give their once-runners incentives to stay and teach, including lodging, pay, and other assorted amenities.
Wizards (and the obscenely rich) send letters with constructs made specifically for the tasks. These often take the forms of small birds or other swift-flying creatures and are enchanted to move similarly (though more erringly) to their animal counterparts. The written message is then fed to the construct, which keeps it perfectly in its gullet, an extradimensional space much larger than the courier is on the outside (many artificers training to create bags of holding begin with these less challenging but equally useful transmutations). Upon arrival, the message is spat up or laid like an egg depending on the nature of the arcane envoy's form. These flourishes are often unnecessary but, either out of humor or habit, mages rarely omit them.
The Colleges of Wizardry also possess a few delivery implements that are reserved solely for themselves. While scrying and messenger spells are sufficient for most correspondences, parcels require more effort to transmit. As teleportation circles are obscenely expensive, most Wizarding academies rely on arcane-enhanced ballistic relays to send books and the like from school to school. Most witnesses unaware of the craft behind the relays perceive them to be large, rune-inscribed catapults placed beside massive, oppressively-still hoops. The packages are placed in the “catapult’s” delivery chamber and launched at incredible speeds toward a single specific target: a hoop at another College of Wizardry campus. The relay cannot miss, so its payload will inevitably enter a corresponding still-hoop at the target College. The hoops contain a localized zone of stopped time, which completely negates the package’s momentum and allows it to be retrieved safely (using anti-magic tongs). These allow considerable sharing between the schools, but the Colleges are loathe to disseminate the secrets of these devices, citing their potentially devastating uses for war.
Druids often carve simple messages in Druidic along their paths, trusting the earth to guide those who need to read the message to it in due time. When greater haste is required, letters or parcels are consigned to the earth with a simple incantation and small offering (usually blood, saliva, or urine to sustain nearby life). These contents are moved underground to the place where the recipients will discover them at the time the world deems appropriate. When word must travel with utmost haste, Druids rely on their familiarity with nature spirits to communicate. This method depends entirely on the spirits’ penchant for gossip. Sprites of pollen and featherdown are nigh universal, and they will never miss an opportunity to tattle on a Druid after one makes a remark that they “swear must not be repeated to any others of my order.” A bit of reverse-psychology and a few pithy statements are all that are required for Druids the world over to hear essential information.
Clerics' and Warlocks’ methods of communication are nearly as diverse as their gods and patrons. They are too innumerable and strange to be catalogued. - DMForeclosure
4d. Common problems with sending and recieving messages/packages - death! Using the different elemental planes all carry risk, but some tend to carry more than others. Possible ideas, jumping off a high cliff helps to enter the plane of air and travel farther, but much riskier. How does one even enter the plane of fire?
4e. Pricing models/Insurances against orcs/bandits/baddies.
4f. Most common race to take up a job as a courier or message transmitter - The deep gnomes have a propensity for this planeswalking... they enjoy experiencing this other world, and are inspired to develop new technologies to aid in the process. And, apparently, the portals to transfer to the stone plane are easier to establish and maintain on the edges of the underdark. - whipstache
4g. Logo of message service guild, company, network
4h. Anything I missed!!!
At the end we should have some fun and new ideas for how to deal with sending and receiving mail in DnD!!
1. Rodney was just a boy when the Great War started. He one of the "lucky" survivors, if luck can be used to describe his broken world. The humans of the time of the Great War worried of different things then Rodney did. Now the world is lost, struggling patches of humanity fight against famine, disease, mutations, beasts, Orcs, and insane Dragon kin. When the humans launched their new found weapons on the Orcs, their pinnacle of technology as they called it, turned the skies to fire, and blotted out the sun for many years. Rodney is what is know as a Conveyance. A Conveyance normally has a very short life span. They are the bravest few of this deadly world. They pass knowledge where there is no longer direct communication. They warn settlers of dangers, settlements of impending problems and attacks by Orcs or others beasts. A Conveyance lives a hard and fast life, always work alone, and often succumb to mutations due to their exposure to the radiations of the planet while they move between safe zones. They run many miles a day through extreme and hostile environments, where a once lush world has turned on its inhabitants, angered by it's scars perhaps.
They move quick, carry light and simple weapons like a revolver and sword. They often find unique and interesting things in their trips that earn them some extra coin. It also serves to enhance their situation when they stumble upon old armor, or anything they can piece together to enhance their gear, secure their journey, and defend their lives.
This image is a painting by a young artist in one of the settlements Rodney once visited often. He was a legend there, and this tribute is painted directly on the wall of the settlement so all know of Rodney. That he died so that others could live. Rodney died at the hands of one of the Dragon-kin. The Dragon-kin are the most feared in this dark new world. Their bodies are not harmed by the radiation permeating much of the wilds, but their brains are. "Legends live forever." Is scrawled next to the picture on settlement wall. - DM Kiado
2.
3. *Clank* *Clank* *Clank*
The stranger stands at the edge of the bridge, his handbag by his side. A sudden chill had come over the stranger, as if something or someone stood behind him. It was not uncommon for a messenger, such as Trivax, to be stalked by people. Both robbers and vagabonds would want his stack of letters and packages. However, this presence felt different.
Trivax spins around and draws his broad, two-handed sword pointing the tip at whoever was behind him. Before Trivax stood a cloaked figure who neither flinched, nor moved toward a weapon. The darkness beneath the cloak continues to stare at the messenger, without speaking, or acknowledging his presence. Trivax does not lower his weapon.
The cloaked figure lifted up his hand and spoke to Trivax in a sharp and raspy voice, "Messenger, You come from the Safehaven. I need you to deliver this letter to me when you arrive back there, it is a matter of... most importance".
Trivax did not reply first and kept his sword at the cloacked figure's throat. The figure slowly reaches into the folds of his cloak and begins to draw something out. Trivax moves his blade closer. The being sighs and flicks his wrist, sending Trivax's sword sailing over the bridge. The messenger stumbles backwards, both alarmed and surprised.
"I could send yourself over the edge of that bridge, however, I hope I don't have to do that, now take my letter and deliver it to Safehaven". Says the cloaked being pulling out a thick envelope from the folds of his robe and hands it to Trivax, the messenger takes it cautiously.
"And who do you want me to deliver this to?" Asks Trivax placing the letter tentatively in his pack.
The cloaked figure turns and slowly walks from Trivax only saying, "you will see when you get there".
Trivax continues to look back, over his shoulder, at the figure. A couple times, Trivax sees a second figure dressed completely in white. A child. The child slowly nods to the strange cloaked figure and the strange feeling leaves Trivax and he continues on his way...
... ... ... a week later, Safehaven was left burning like the depths of hell. - Almarianknight
4.
5.
6. For the Sixth Image I've combined my miniature portal idea with the image and dm_mainprize's question for frohtastic of what happens if the tubes get clogged with a small rodent. The government that uses this miniature portal network is very oppressive, and censors communication through the network. Given the size of the nation, the near instantaneous communication the central government has gives it a great advantage over the far flung rebels scattered across the cities.
Sigfrid Jøgensen had in important message for the rebels in Trollhätten. The clearance codes they acquired have changed, and the attack within the hour will fail unless he gets them the updated information. He wild shaped into a weasel and broke into the Capital communication hub. He makes his way across the stacks of canisters, the updated Glyph in a canister on his back, towards the portal room. The portal to Trollhätten will open in 3 minutes, but the connection will only last about 30 seconds, and most of that time it will be full of canisters getting rammed through. He will only have a windows of seconds after the canisters pass through before the portal closes, risking severing his body in half. The portal opens, and the long line of cylindrical canisters is starting to get rammed through, it's now or never. He scurries out towards the portal. - Athikin
7. Denqorcath the beholder was enlisted into the PPS to go where others could not. Most people around the office just call him Denny to save time. He has been working for the PPS for many years now, and mainly travels in the Underdark to deliver messages or packages whenever requests come in. He only asks for having a room fully equipped to use his powers, so that he doesn't feel too compelled to use them other places. He is also sought out to help others train, and be more prepared in case they come across a not-so-friendly beholder in their travels. - Joatmoniac
Good Luck and Have Fun!!!
It has been quite some time since I have typed up a DMnastics challenge and high time I get back into the habit! Our last episode was a grand adventure into the wonderful mailbag of holding!! So I figured we could discuss and create ideas around mail, messages, and information exchange within our DnD worlds!! So complete one of the following!
1. Tell us how messages are sent and received in your own homebrew setting!
2. Create a new means or method of transmitting information like a Palantir or seeing stone!
3. Choose and image below and give us a plot hook based of the image, or tell us the name of the courier who he/she/it works for, or tell us what information or package the courier is carrying and where it it headed!
4. I am making an edit to add an additional option. Lets try and collaboratively create a message sending system for the world of Dayeimbe!!! Here are some things we would want to know.
4a. Name of service - Planeswalking Postal Service (PPS)
4b. Founder of service - Greenwood, he used the passages of travel for personal use, but had no additional intentions with it. This is all rumor and hearsay, but would make sense that only the great Greenwood would be powerful enough to create such passageways.
- ish (Not the founder, but one of many it seems that made the PPS possible)
Betak Nieminen was venturing through plane of stone. He had heard stories of the monsters in the realm, and had heard of how the beasts can just pass through solid stone and appear behind you without warning, but he was still unprepared for IT. IT was largest and more hideous that any sorry he had heard about this realm, and he ran. Running back towards the portal, he aimed his wooden staff behind him and launched fireball after fireball at IT. He had apparently hit the wall, as the rumbling from IT's tremendous steps increased, until Betak realized it was the entire tunnel that was shaking. The ceiling quickly began to collapse around him, trapping him. He twisted about in the small pocket he found himself in, aiming his wood staff behind him at the rocks between him and IT, waiting for IT's face to pass through the stone at him. He saw it's eye become partially corporeal in one gap of rock and prepared to blow IT and hisself up with one final fireball, when he noticed it's advance stopped. It was struggling to reach him, but couldn't. He realized that it was stopped, by his wooden staff pressed against the stone. - Athikin
4c. Method of sending message - The method by which you send messages is highly dependent on your place in the world.
Commoners rarely send messages, and when they do, they must spend an excessive amount of their savings on a courier of some kind. Otherwise, they have to take to the roads themselves.
Nobles, merchants, and other monied individuals also pay for couriers, either by training them themselves or contracting out to regional postal guilds. These couriers are typically runners, riders, or Thunderstrides (in order of least to most expensive). Thunderstrides are delivery legends known for reaching their destinations with inhuman alacrity. Their legs are inscribed with runes of haste, allowing them to travel at dangerous velocities. Most aspiring Thunderstrides require a few years to adjust to the changes in their reflexes before they stop inadvertently breaking their legs from sudden, unexpected momentum. Fully-trained Thunderstrides remind passersby of sudden squalls: wild blurs that kick up sand on the road, leaving booming echoes of thunder in their wakes. Unfortunately, Thunderstrides can only run for a decade or so before their legs wither. Most are subsequently honored by their employers for their sacrifice. Nobles reward former-Thunderstrides with small holdings and minor titles, while guilds give their once-runners incentives to stay and teach, including lodging, pay, and other assorted amenities.
Wizards (and the obscenely rich) send letters with constructs made specifically for the tasks. These often take the forms of small birds or other swift-flying creatures and are enchanted to move similarly (though more erringly) to their animal counterparts. The written message is then fed to the construct, which keeps it perfectly in its gullet, an extradimensional space much larger than the courier is on the outside (many artificers training to create bags of holding begin with these less challenging but equally useful transmutations). Upon arrival, the message is spat up or laid like an egg depending on the nature of the arcane envoy's form. These flourishes are often unnecessary but, either out of humor or habit, mages rarely omit them.
The Colleges of Wizardry also possess a few delivery implements that are reserved solely for themselves. While scrying and messenger spells are sufficient for most correspondences, parcels require more effort to transmit. As teleportation circles are obscenely expensive, most Wizarding academies rely on arcane-enhanced ballistic relays to send books and the like from school to school. Most witnesses unaware of the craft behind the relays perceive them to be large, rune-inscribed catapults placed beside massive, oppressively-still hoops. The packages are placed in the “catapult’s” delivery chamber and launched at incredible speeds toward a single specific target: a hoop at another College of Wizardry campus. The relay cannot miss, so its payload will inevitably enter a corresponding still-hoop at the target College. The hoops contain a localized zone of stopped time, which completely negates the package’s momentum and allows it to be retrieved safely (using anti-magic tongs). These allow considerable sharing between the schools, but the Colleges are loathe to disseminate the secrets of these devices, citing their potentially devastating uses for war.
Druids often carve simple messages in Druidic along their paths, trusting the earth to guide those who need to read the message to it in due time. When greater haste is required, letters or parcels are consigned to the earth with a simple incantation and small offering (usually blood, saliva, or urine to sustain nearby life). These contents are moved underground to the place where the recipients will discover them at the time the world deems appropriate. When word must travel with utmost haste, Druids rely on their familiarity with nature spirits to communicate. This method depends entirely on the spirits’ penchant for gossip. Sprites of pollen and featherdown are nigh universal, and they will never miss an opportunity to tattle on a Druid after one makes a remark that they “swear must not be repeated to any others of my order.” A bit of reverse-psychology and a few pithy statements are all that are required for Druids the world over to hear essential information.
Clerics' and Warlocks’ methods of communication are nearly as diverse as their gods and patrons. They are too innumerable and strange to be catalogued. - DMForeclosure
4d. Common problems with sending and recieving messages/packages - death! Using the different elemental planes all carry risk, but some tend to carry more than others. Possible ideas, jumping off a high cliff helps to enter the plane of air and travel farther, but much riskier. How does one even enter the plane of fire?
4e. Pricing models/Insurances against orcs/bandits/baddies.
4f. Most common race to take up a job as a courier or message transmitter - The deep gnomes have a propensity for this planeswalking... they enjoy experiencing this other world, and are inspired to develop new technologies to aid in the process. And, apparently, the portals to transfer to the stone plane are easier to establish and maintain on the edges of the underdark. - whipstache
4g. Logo of message service guild, company, network
4h. Anything I missed!!!
At the end we should have some fun and new ideas for how to deal with sending and receiving mail in DnD!!
1. Rodney was just a boy when the Great War started. He one of the "lucky" survivors, if luck can be used to describe his broken world. The humans of the time of the Great War worried of different things then Rodney did. Now the world is lost, struggling patches of humanity fight against famine, disease, mutations, beasts, Orcs, and insane Dragon kin. When the humans launched their new found weapons on the Orcs, their pinnacle of technology as they called it, turned the skies to fire, and blotted out the sun for many years. Rodney is what is know as a Conveyance. A Conveyance normally has a very short life span. They are the bravest few of this deadly world. They pass knowledge where there is no longer direct communication. They warn settlers of dangers, settlements of impending problems and attacks by Orcs or others beasts. A Conveyance lives a hard and fast life, always work alone, and often succumb to mutations due to their exposure to the radiations of the planet while they move between safe zones. They run many miles a day through extreme and hostile environments, where a once lush world has turned on its inhabitants, angered by it's scars perhaps.
They move quick, carry light and simple weapons like a revolver and sword. They often find unique and interesting things in their trips that earn them some extra coin. It also serves to enhance their situation when they stumble upon old armor, or anything they can piece together to enhance their gear, secure their journey, and defend their lives.
This image is a painting by a young artist in one of the settlements Rodney once visited often. He was a legend there, and this tribute is painted directly on the wall of the settlement so all know of Rodney. That he died so that others could live. Rodney died at the hands of one of the Dragon-kin. The Dragon-kin are the most feared in this dark new world. Their bodies are not harmed by the radiation permeating much of the wilds, but their brains are. "Legends live forever." Is scrawled next to the picture on settlement wall. - DM Kiado
2.
3. *Clank* *Clank* *Clank*
The stranger stands at the edge of the bridge, his handbag by his side. A sudden chill had come over the stranger, as if something or someone stood behind him. It was not uncommon for a messenger, such as Trivax, to be stalked by people. Both robbers and vagabonds would want his stack of letters and packages. However, this presence felt different.
Trivax spins around and draws his broad, two-handed sword pointing the tip at whoever was behind him. Before Trivax stood a cloaked figure who neither flinched, nor moved toward a weapon. The darkness beneath the cloak continues to stare at the messenger, without speaking, or acknowledging his presence. Trivax does not lower his weapon.
The cloaked figure lifted up his hand and spoke to Trivax in a sharp and raspy voice, "Messenger, You come from the Safehaven. I need you to deliver this letter to me when you arrive back there, it is a matter of... most importance".
Trivax did not reply first and kept his sword at the cloacked figure's throat. The figure slowly reaches into the folds of his cloak and begins to draw something out. Trivax moves his blade closer. The being sighs and flicks his wrist, sending Trivax's sword sailing over the bridge. The messenger stumbles backwards, both alarmed and surprised.
"I could send yourself over the edge of that bridge, however, I hope I don't have to do that, now take my letter and deliver it to Safehaven". Says the cloaked being pulling out a thick envelope from the folds of his robe and hands it to Trivax, the messenger takes it cautiously.
"And who do you want me to deliver this to?" Asks Trivax placing the letter tentatively in his pack.
The cloaked figure turns and slowly walks from Trivax only saying, "you will see when you get there".
Trivax continues to look back, over his shoulder, at the figure. A couple times, Trivax sees a second figure dressed completely in white. A child. The child slowly nods to the strange cloaked figure and the strange feeling leaves Trivax and he continues on his way...
... ... ... a week later, Safehaven was left burning like the depths of hell. - Almarianknight
4.
5.
6. For the Sixth Image I've combined my miniature portal idea with the image and dm_mainprize's question for frohtastic of what happens if the tubes get clogged with a small rodent. The government that uses this miniature portal network is very oppressive, and censors communication through the network. Given the size of the nation, the near instantaneous communication the central government has gives it a great advantage over the far flung rebels scattered across the cities.
Sigfrid Jøgensen had in important message for the rebels in Trollhätten. The clearance codes they acquired have changed, and the attack within the hour will fail unless he gets them the updated information. He wild shaped into a weasel and broke into the Capital communication hub. He makes his way across the stacks of canisters, the updated Glyph in a canister on his back, towards the portal room. The portal to Trollhätten will open in 3 minutes, but the connection will only last about 30 seconds, and most of that time it will be full of canisters getting rammed through. He will only have a windows of seconds after the canisters pass through before the portal closes, risking severing his body in half. The portal opens, and the long line of cylindrical canisters is starting to get rammed through, it's now or never. He scurries out towards the portal. - Athikin
7. Denqorcath the beholder was enlisted into the PPS to go where others could not. Most people around the office just call him Denny to save time. He has been working for the PPS for many years now, and mainly travels in the Underdark to deliver messages or packages whenever requests come in. He only asks for having a room fully equipped to use his powers, so that he doesn't feel too compelled to use them other places. He is also sought out to help others train, and be more prepared in case they come across a not-so-friendly beholder in their travels. - Joatmoniac
Good Luck and Have Fun!!!
*steals*