Shadow Walkers

The once great Land of Helvakia is overrun with the black plague, a disease that wracks the mind and soul with visions from the outer planes, a world filled with nothing but horror and dread. After days of painful visions the soul of one so cursed as to come into contact with the illness is but a shell of their former self, their eyes sunken in and their hair turned to gray, their mind not more than a slave to the Black Lord himself. The technical term for this is Schwarzelamentia but in a muffled tone, you can hear the common people refer to it as “The Blackness”. Initially the signs are simply a shaking of the hands and sleeplessness, but the full effects aren’t seen for about a week, and within a fortnight their soul is in the hands of the Black Lord.

The Blackness doesn’t just affect people, but twists the land itself, into a form of gruesome carnage, known as the Blasted Lands. Heaths and groves once filled with life twist into morbid forms, the branches almost reaching out to strangle one unlucky enough to be travelling through them. The weather becomes foul the closer one gets to these tainted lands, and what would normally be a clear trail straight ahead seems to morph before the eyes, be it a physical transformation or simply a trick of black magic, one often finds oneself lost within the Blasted Lands, travelling in circles and yet convinced hope is beyond the next ridge. The lucky simply die of exhaustion, but those unlucky enough to garner the Black Lord.
The common people fear this dark plague more then they fear the Black lord himself, and those who venture outside of the civilized lands are looked upon in the best light as suspicious, and in the worst as carriers of the Blackness, or even traitors to the Black Lord. Yet at the same time they come to rely on these very people, for the Blackness cannot truly destroy light, just cause it to recede into hiding. As such, within the deepest reaches of the Blasted Lands exists large gems, made of pure light, called the Great Gems. These gems protect the surrounding area from the Blackness, and are used to protect the few major human settlements remaining. Only those brave, or foolhardy, enough to venture past the borders of civilization and into the Blasted Lands can find these all too vital gems, and are known as Shadow Walkers.

On the edges of the Blasted Lands lie small Shards of Light, although nowhere near as powerful as the great gems that lie in the nether reaches of the Blasted Lands, these small shards provide a limited amount of protection to the wearer, which is the secret to the Shadow Walkers success in navigating the Blasted Lands, as each one of these shards is innately drawn to one of the Great Gems. Shadow Walkers are often viewed with hatred, as they each eventually gain small deformities from their time spent in the Blasted Lands. Commonly they manifest as severe insomnia, or paranoia, but those Shadow Walkers that have ventured in and out of the Blasted Lands for years often begin to develop more severe symptoms, such as disfiguring features on the body, or an almost dead look to them. Those oldest Shadow Walkers, that have survived for decades worth of journeys, say they can even hear the voice of the Black Lord calling to them during all hours, always beckoning for them to become one with the Blackness.

Hi Kadski,

Welcome to the Forge!

It sounds like you have a solid setting idea in mind and you're using D20.  Is there anything you'd like help in designing or thinking about?

There's a couple of interesting areas to navigate, design-wise, in the idea you've outlined. 

For example, do you see the whole quest of acquiring the shards to be like classic D&D 3.X where players will go through a number of encounters?  Or is it like a map where they have to explore and find them?  Would the encounters be random, planned, and could players, through smart play, avoid all encounters altogether?  Lots of possibilities there.

For deformities that Shadow walkers get, are these random?  Are they cosmetic, or do they hav emechanical effects?  Are they all bad, or a mixed bag ("Hey, this extra arm is handy for wielding 3 weapons at once...").  What determines WHEN a PC gets a new deformity - is it "in game time" ("You've been in the waste for 2 weeks, time for a new deformity!"), # of missions/quests, what level the character has reached, or something else?  Is there a point at which the deformities lead to finally losing the character as a viable adventurer ("and now you're a monster, both inside and out...")

You may want to check out Legend of the 5 Rings, if you haven't already, as it's big-bad-evil-god is Fu Leng, who fell from heaven and the pit from where he landed created "The Shadowlands" which has similar effects- warping people, inside & out, creating monsters, etc. etc.  It tracks people by "Taint", which produces more deformities and insanity until one is finally fully entralled to the evil god.  The protection is pieces of jade.

Also, is there an endgame possibility?  That is, if players get enough shards together, could they fix the world/defeat the evil god/cure people?

Chris

Hey thanks for the reply,

Well this is designed to be worked in a a D&D Campaign Setting hopefully, so most of the "core rules" are already mapped out. The exploring is a bit abstracted, as the shards they carry help navigate them towards the area where these large gems exist, so the gems would be kinda like the treasure at the end of the massive dungeon crawl, like finding the little shards is something at the end of almost all the dungeons, but you need to gather many to make the full trek to one of the great dungeons, so that might be an "every 5 levels" type of adventure, to get one of the great gems. Deformities manifest in a variety of ways, the first being more or less just minor mental things, such as insomnia or paranoia, maybe being short-tempered. As time goes on and after what we could assume would be equivalent to about a level, a player rolls for a deformity, and level 1-10 are low level, 11-20 medium, and 21-30 high. Effects do not stack by the way, as in you can't get insomnia twice, instead you are required to roll on the next highest table, or if no higher table is available, you roll again on the same one but add 10% to your roll.

Low Level (1-10)
1-65% = No deformity
66-74% = Irritable (-1 on Persuasion checks, +1 on intimidate checks)
76-85 = Insomnia (-1 on listen/spot checks, +1 on resistant to sleep spells)
86-95 = Paranoia (-1 on Persuasion/Barter checks, +1 to listen/spot checks)
96-100% = Phobia (-1 on all rolls in the presence of their phobia, examples include deep water, heights, etc.)

Medium Level (11-20)
1-70% = No deformity
71-80% = Claws - Your nails grow to a slightly creepy length, but nothing that looks horrid, can preform (Nails - 1d4dmg +1 ATK per open hand, -1 Charisma if fail DC15 to hide)
81-90% = Canines - Your teeth grow to slightly longer lengths, and are rather creepy (Teeth - 1d6dmg +1ATK, -2 Charisma if fail DC20 to hide)
91-99% = Bloodshot - Your eyes are constantly bloodshot, but you can see better (Low-Light Vision, Cannot hide unless eyes are covered, but that negates vision benefit)
100% = Scales - Your skin hardens and looks quite dead, but you can shrug off some pain (+1 AC, -2 Charisma if fail DC20 to hide)

High Level (21-30)
1-60 = No deformity
61-75% = "Dead-Man's Heart" - Your blood congeals into a slime like substance (+2d6HP, 25% chance of failure for any healing done to you)
76-85% = "The Whispers" - You can hear the voice of the Black Lord almost constantly, you are driven to near madness, but also are always vigilant (+4 Reflex Defense, -4 Will Defense)
86-95% = "Demon's Vessel" - You begin to take on a gruesome shape, you're eyes are sunken in, your body twists into odd demonic shapes, and you radiate the smell of decaying flesh (+5 on intimidate checks, -10 on persuasion checks)
96-99% = "Draconic" - You begin to grow demonic wings, although they remain out of your way most of the time, you can call upon them to help you fly short distances, but they are impossible to hide (Flight at base land speed x2 for 5 rounds, -10 on persuasion checks)
100% = "Carrier" You carry the Black Plague with you, but are  not affected by it any more, all of your deformities go away, and you can no longer get any more, instead if you do not spend at least half of your week in the Blasted Lands you feel wracked with pain, taking a -10 on all checks, and your'e presence can cause other people to begin quickly develop signs on the Plague, you are a walking vessel for it's destructive power, yet at the same time are the most effective Shadow-Walker, and an absolute outcast among humans.

Also there is no real "endgame", that's for the DM to decide.

Hi Kadski,

One thing you'll want to take advantage of, here at the Forge, is that the different subforums are pretty specific about what they're about - each one has a sticky at the top that explains what it's for.

In this case, First Thoughts is for game design.  If you're not planning on doing much design/game hacking of D20, maybe you can tell us about how your game ran/is running in Actual Play when you get a chance.

Chris

Hi Kadski,

Does it have a method by which bad guys or monsters or whatever are introduced? Or does it go by the old GM decides method? It's just, if I'm reading you right, this is kinda focused on the dungeon crawl model, but mechanically doesn't have any features over just regular D&D?