Posting things that interest me since 2011 - art tutorials, pieces of inspiration, creative displays, and various fandom things, many of which I cannot list because it would take all day.
Ilithids (these octopus faced monstrosities known for having psychic powers and snacking on brains)
have a an interesting life cycle. Baby ilithids are parasitic. They are put into the skull of some humanoid creature which they then consume the brain and take over the body of, transforming it into that which you see above.
One thing that can happen, though, is that the process, for some reason, does not work. The ilithid consumes the brain and takes over the body and the internal organs are changed, but the exterior appearance is not, so it’s basically a ilithid with a humanoid exterior. They still need to munch brains and have psychic abilities, but are more or less humanoid(which makes the brain munching more difficult).
As ilithids are pretty big on like “genetic purity” and all that, an incomplete ilithid would be totally unwelcome in ilithid society, and more likely to be killed by fellow ilithids to protect the gene pool than anything.
I think it would be RAD to play as one of these. There’s a lot of ways you could do it. Either just what would appear to be a human trying to keep their brain eating secret from the rest of the party and more or less live as a human, an ilithid desperate to find a way to complete their transformation properly and join ilithid society, or (if we’re stretching the lore a bit), a ilithid whose human personality didn’t die in the transformation trying to teach their weird brain-eating head-mate they’ve become a sort of reluctant friend or even parental figure to why killing people is wrong.
How would they deal with the brain eating? Are they a barbarian with enough strength to crush a skull? Are they a sorcerer that can polymorph themselves temporarily to have the proper mouth for brain extraction? Or do they frequent the dark channels of the black market, looking for others to do their dirty work in procuring their fix?
I love the idea and I deeply wish I was still able to play dnd to explore it.
It’s really easy to make a dnd character with a funny personality. maybe give them a few quirks, or play up their failure to do anything related to their dump stats for a laugh, but what about going further? Making a character whose stats, alignment, or class actively contradict their aspirations?
A monk who’s got a chaotic alignment, who chose that path in a deliberate attempt to calm their raging emotions?
A wizard with a dangerously low int stat, but who saw a travelling magician as a child and aren’t going to let something like them being an idiot stop them. Sure, it could be played up for laughs (ie. little witch academia) but what about playing it straight? they struggle with even the simplest spell, but by god they aren’t going to give up on their dreams!
A fighter who wishes they were a bard. Who puts ranks into perform and knowledge skills knowing that it’s not what they need, that their only hope for living another day is their skill with the blade, but carries on in the hope that one day they’ll earn enough money from mercenary work to put down their sword and pick up a lute. maybe they can’t sing for shit, maybe they can and everyone who knows them regrets that the world was so unfair and cruel as to put someone with that kind of talent in a place where they could never use it.
The idea of a character who’s laughably bad at their chosen career is one that would easily fall into slapstick comedy, but what kind of potential is there for a tragedy, for a character who knows that what they seek is out of their reach for whatever reason, be it destiny or circumstance or whatever, but who tries anyway.
I dunno, the thought just popped into my head and I couldn’t get it out. Put the combat into hard mode for the sake of role playing or something.
It’s really easy to make a dnd character with a funny personality. maybe give them a few quirks, or play up their failure to do anything related to their dump stats for a laugh, but what about going further? Making a character whose stats, alignment, or class actively contradict their aspirations?
A monk who’s got a chaotic alignment, who chose that path in a deliberate attempt to calm their raging emotions?
A wizard with a dangerously low int stat, but who saw a travelling magician as a child and aren’t going to let something like them being an idiot stop them. Sure, it could be played up for laughs (ie. little witch academia) but what about playing it straight? they struggle with even the simplest spell, but by god they aren’t going to give up on their dreams!
A fighter who wishes they were a bard. Who puts ranks into perform and knowledge skills knowing that it’s not what they need, that their only hope for living another day is their skill with the blade, but carries on in the hope that one day they’ll earn enough money from mercenary work to put down their sword and pick up a lute. maybe they can’t sing for shit, maybe they can and everyone who knows them regrets that the world was so unfair and cruel as to put someone with that kind of talent in a place where they could never use it.
The idea of a character who’s laughably bad at their chosen career is one that would easily fall into slapstick comedy, but what kind of potential is there for a tragedy, for a character who knows that what they seek is out of their reach for whatever reason, be it destiny or circumstance or whatever, but who tries anyway.
I dunno, the thought just popped into my head and I couldn’t get it out. Put the combat into hard mode for the sake of role playing or something.
I hate that so many places will automatically convert :P into
like what is that. That’s not what I wanted to convey at all.
:P means
.
LG is the only company that gets it at all
Thank you for your service, LG. You alone understand. My apologies to anyone using your service who tries to sent this to anyone using any of the other services.
