Tauster's Tentacles

[tauster]

Feb 23, 2016 19:48:21 GMT curufin said:

Awesome work! That thing is HUGE! What kind of hit dice is it going to have?

I'm not sure yet. Great Mashaaf will be an avatar, or first servant, something similar to that, of Torog, The King That Crawls (see WotC's 4E Underdark book). Who in turn is something like a god. So this thing will be epic, and will come quite late in our underdark campaign.

The party is now around level 12 (we started in 2000 or 2001 at level 1, although for years now we manage to bring the groupg together only once or twice per year...) and should be at level 20 when it ends. They had battles with avatars (Baaghtru, Turaglas, Blipdoolpoolp) before, but always with heavy divine help. Cleric spells may suck in 2nd edition when compared to arcane wizardry, but when it comes to the really powerful enemies, it's the clerics the party turns to for bringing the heavy cavallery.

My plan is to bring it shortly before the party goes into the final battle against the city of the Aboleth. They will need all kinds of help: Camouflage (against an enemy that is mentally so far beyond them that they can't even begin to imagine what intel and defences they'll be running on against), physical and mental armour (against the most powerful psionic race in the whole game, plus hordes of enslaved servants) and some kind of superweapon that will blast the eldritch city to pieces.

I figure that they will have to kill, or at least hurt this Mashaaf ...thing enough so that it flees - or even better: It surrenders and gives them one of the abovementioned boons.

To be honest, I'm not sure I'll even stat this thing up beyond some absolute basics. Sometimes it is best to pretend checking off the HP and making saving throws, while all you do as DM is to do what's best for the drama of the encounter. Of course the players mustn't realize that...

[DnDPaladin]

it always pains me to see a fighter or barbarian gets sidetracked by wizards.
i think thats what i hated the most in 3E. even with their low life in previous editions. it was too hard to kill a wizard.
it was an eye opener during the last year of school when i got a bunch of power gamers making all wizards once... had to use turn/action based init just to make sure they wouldn't be that hard to kill. but they still were...

[sgtslag]

tauster , if you are playing 2nd Ed. AD&D rules, are your players familiar with the spell, Thought Capture?  [Thought Capture is from the Tome of Magic rulebook, in the Thought Sphere.] It is 1st level, I believe.  It allows the cleric to pull thoughts out of the thin air, literally.  My one cleric player has used this sooo many times, to gather intel which they should not have been able to get for some time much later in the game...  He even petitioned his deity (of thieves and politicians) to give him a higher level version [Improved Thought Capture, 3rd or 4th level] which would allow him to rifle through the thoughts floating in the air, as if they were files in a cabinet, so that he could see all of them at once, rather than pulling them one-at-a-time, with each casting of the 1st level version (the 1st level spell only pulls the strongest, in order, until all are pulled, or they quit casting the 1st level spell).

For me, the Cleric class is the best, in 2nd Ed. rules, but only if the DM creates Specialty Priests.  With Specialty Priests, the class is wide open:  Granted Powers can be quite varied, and powerful (Shape-Shifting is not limited to Druids alone; Turning Undead is not granted to each and every cleric in my world...  Granted Powers are based upon the deity's Sphere of Influence, as well as the mythology of the deities, and their version of Hell, and the Undead -- together, it all makes logical sense, making the mythology relevant within the game); only certain Spheres of Power [groups of spells] are available, so not every cleric has the same spells, let alone Granted Powers; armor and weapon types vary, depending on what your deity allows (warrior deities allow edged weapons, for example); and the list goes on...  That, for me, makes 2nd Ed. the Bomb.  YMMV.  Cheers!

[tauster]

@dndpaladin, our party has two fighters, two clerics (speciality priests of Shaundakul and Marthammor Duin each), two thieves and two mages (a transmuter and a 'white' (i.e. good) necromancer). Each has their role, and all players are quite happy with their characters. We had a problem of power imbalance at lower levels (say, level 1-6), when arcane spells were perceived having more 'oopmh!' than divine spells, and even then we knew that without clerical healing and our clerics' considerable fighting abilities, the party would have been TPK'ed on a regular basis. So at least in our gaming groupt, this whole class warfare thing is a non-issue.

sgtslag , regarding thought capture: Now that you mention it, I remember that spell. My players surely had read it once but I'm sure nobody realized how useful it might be. Although, with Aboleth being what they are, I am totally confident that they would have realized that kind of security gap millenia ago and found effective means to prevent exploitation. We're talking about the most powerful psionic race in the multiverse and beyond (they probably come from the Far Realms, which technically isn't part of the Great Wheel but I digress). A race that doesn't have a creation myth because they remember that event (genetic/racial memory rulez!).

The party has spent considerable ressources on information about the aboleth, and got nothing apart from a handful of myths and legends. Most of which contain more truth than they think, but that's just because I wanted to hand out the information as a basis for their strategic planning without giving them a sense of security. In short: My players know that they can try all kinds of strategies, but they also know that their enemy is guaranteed to be one step ahead because they forsaw some puny mortal doing this kind of stuff even before this mortal's ancestors were even born. Their conclusion is to try to find something that not even the aboleth would be able to foresee, so they look not only to their respective gods but also, quite automatically, started to think on epic scales:
- Are there thought-shielding artifacts out there? Let's do some historic research! 
- Could we employ some legendary arcane weapon of mass destruction? Let's go treasure hunting below the Anauroch to find some giant Netherese bomb!

And this kind of desparation in the face of such an enemy will also make it easier for them to work together with races they have up to now attacked on sight: Derro, Illithid and other, even stranger abominations living in the underdark *cough* mother *cough*   ...in short: An over-powerful enemy is tricky to pull of, but if done right, can bring lots of fun into a campaign.

[deafnala]

That really is a SPECTACULAR Beasty. WONDERFUL WORK!
Dry brushing over a wash is my approach also. Applying highlight colors while the wash is still wet is my approach to blending.

[jennifer]

Wow! Gigantic!

And I thought my $12.50 HObby Lobby Dragon was big lol.

[tauster]

Thanks for the praise you two!

jennifer, I just wanted to reply tong-in-cheek that my Great Mashaaf is not only larger but also cheaper than your Dragon, but then I remembered that I paid 25€ to get me the tyranid claws.

I had looked for months to get tyranid bitz bargains but this stuff seems to be in high demand, at least in Germany. Totally justified if you ask me because tyranid bitz go a looong way when it comes to pimping scratch-built monsters.

But I don't regret shelling out that money. First, this monster is absolutely worth it and second, I still have quite a lot of cool bitz left over after I attached the claws. My main concern is that even with concentrating on this built (at the moment I resolved to use my complete crafting-time budget 100% for this project and forego everything else), I still don't make progress fast enough for my own taste. Building a house and starting a new job soon simply leaves not much free time...

[DnDPaladin]

Meph, thats because you have no druids in your group...
druids have it all... healing, offensive spells, defensive spells. but even better if they are wildshape archetypes... they have twice their usual life and they can self heal during wild shape. at level 20, they have infinite wild shape. so while they get hit dragons easily out of their forms. they still survive the attack and transform back into another shape, which effectively gains them back some life. and thats as a bonus action.

yeah druids are totally imbalanced in 5E.
totem barbarians are also brutal in tanking. thanks to their resistance to everything during rages.
wizards can use polymorph on others to heal them or protect them. because basically polymorph = same as wild shape.
cannot say the game is as unbalanced as 3e was but its definitely not perfect. all i was saying.

[Meph]

I'm currently stuck on my phone but I have no idea what you are talking about. Are you even replying in the right thread?

[tauster]

Flying discs are awesome elements in encounters. First, they open up the whole bag of worms a world of flying strategies for players and DMs alike. Second, they can malfunction at any time and thus can be taken whenever the DM wants for power imbalance or drama reasons. Third, they look endlessly cool.

Here's one from Kromlech that I really like.


Detail shot:


I can easily make the tentacles with my tentacle maker, and the disc itself shouldn't be a huge problem. I think I'll sculpt a thick-ish disc with clay, then use my rolling pin(s) to texture it, then make scratches from below. When it's dry, I should be able to break or cut it along thise scratches, then put it back together to get those splintered design.

...but that will have to wait until Great Mashaaf /Torog's avatar (haven't decided on a name so far) is truly finished. *sigh*

[tauster]

When the floor tiler filled the gaps between the tiles with acrylic, he threw the scraps in a water bucket to prevent it from smelling.




Water makes the acrylic mass cure, so after a few days the bucket held lots and lots of oddly shaped pieces. I'm sure that I am his first customer not throwing that stuff in the garbage... but it just looks too cool:




Absolutely wonderful for oozes (grey ooze, anyone?), underdark growths or weirdly organic terrain!

I wonder how this stuff will hold color. It is elastic like soft rubber, so colors that harden like acrylic will probably flake off. Any ideas?

[tauster]

Mar 3, 2016 7:18:16 GMT tauster said:

Flying discs are awesome elements in encounters. First, they open up the whole bag of worms a world of flying strategies for players and DMs alike. Second, they can malfunction at any time and thus can be taken whenever the DM wants for power imbalance or drama reasons. Third, they look endlessly cool.

[snipped out the pics - see posting above]

I can easily make the tentacles with my tentacle maker, and the disc itself shouldn't be a huge problem. I think I'll sculpt a thick-ish disc with clay, then use my rolling pin(s) to texture it, then make scratches from below. When it's dry, I should be able to break or cut it along thise scratches, then put it back together to get those splintered design.

...but that will have to wait until Great Mashaaf /Torog's avatar (haven't decided on a name so far) is truly finished. *sigh*

I talked myself into ignoring my resolve... After all this doesn't take much time - I could do it while waiting for the coffee machine to make me a cup. I couldn't use that time for Great Mashaaf anyways...

I textured a thick clay disc with the rolling pin on both sides and the rim:




Then scored the underside to help me break the disc into pieces along those lines (and then glue it back together)




...and went wild with the leftover clay. I rolled it out very thin so I can break off pieces and use them as base or terrain tile decoration.




You just have to love those rolls. Awesome design and super-fast!

[skunkape]

The symbols that the rolling pin make look really great!

[tauster]

I broke the disc along the scored lines and layed it out as had planned,...



...then filled the gaps with fresh clay. I know from experience that it doesn't bond with hotglue or PVA, so I figured that clay itself would be the best 'glue'. Unfortunately this didn't work. At all.

First, it didn't stick very well to the already dried pieces. Maybe I should have made the fresh clay a bit more moist, who knows... Also, this sort of clay breaks very easily when dry. Hmph...

I ended up with having to find the individual pieces on the floor because I dropped the whole thing. *sigh* I was lucky to have made the pic you see above just ten minutes before so I could piece it together relatively(...) quick.

I then used a smaller cardstock disc and glued it with PVA on the bottom side.




I put something heavy on top and turned the whole thing around after another 10 min, then wiped the PVA away that had drooped on what will later be the upper side.




I then turned the disc around, applied some more glue and put it under a lamp to have it dry faster.




Lesson learned: Use Mulliput next time, it bonds better with PVA glue and is much more stable.

[DnDPaladin]

sorry meph, i meant to answer to tauster, not you.

[tauster]

It occurred to me overnight that I should glue on some metal on the bottom of the disc and make modular tentacles using neodmys on the magnet piece. Advantages:

1) better storability
Storing something with tentacles is always tricky as they might break, or takes away mcuh more space than the object itself because you must wrap it in something soft. If I can take it apart, I only have to wrap the tentacle part and safe space.

2) tentacle section can be used separately
Those tentacles can be used as spellmarkers or as parts for monsters that can be removed. The disc can be used as scatter terrain, representing inscribed wall or floor section that was broken. Spontaneous idea: Use the disc as unmoving scatter terrain, then have an enemy 'summon' or activate it. Add the tentacles and a fly stand, put the enemy miniature on and enjoy your player's faces!

3) Swappability (is that a word?)
I can make different tentacle versions and swap them out as needed. Since this thing looks like it was assembled by some mad arcano-scientist from scavenged parts of dwarven technology, appendages made of old pipes (drinking straws,PVC insulation of electrical wires, etc) might look good.

[jennifer]

WOw very nice tauster!   Love that rolling pin, where di dyou get it.

[tauster]

Mar 7, 2016 0:52:51 GMT jennifer said:

WOw very nice tauster!   Love that rolling pin, where di dyou get it.

ebay. see here for details. For once I'm lucky because the seller is in Spain, so shipping to Germany is cheaper than it would be from the US.

[tauster]

...woah, almost a year without a tentacle contribution!
That tentacle-draught needs to end, so let it rain tent...errr, well. Let's just do some stuff.

Inspiration for that monster comes from adamsouza 's Flail snail thread. Just in case that isn't obvious.



I had a giant brain hotglue-cast lying around for months (made from brain ice cube molds which are a great ressource for making monsters and all kinds of icky terrain).




I used about 2 ft of aluminum foil to make the snail's body, then carefully glued the hotglue brain on. Carefully, because the cast is a very thin layer of hotglue and I didn't want to hurt it.

 

Then I cast the head.




I couldn't find the mold for my horned troll head, but the ogre head mold was at hand. That's a bit of a bummer because I really wanted to make another monster with the same head so I could use them in a series of Torog-encounters where the players fight all kinds of (very!) minor avatars of The King that Crawls. ...well, I can always do some more giant slugs when I find the mold.

The old instant bones project monster was what I call 'two stage monster'^*, so when I cast another head, the principle idea was already in the back of my mind, but with any hard and fast idea how to do it this time.

* The idea is to make two different versions of the same monster. The basic version is the one the party discovers first, fights against and wins. After the creature is slaughtered, they encounter it again, this time grossly changed. It could be an undead version, or it might have partly regenerated back. You probably shouldn't use this trick too often, and when do do it regularly you should at laest have a story-related reason at hand. The good old zombie apocalypse works but is a bit beaten to death. For my game the reason is that Torog's children are, like Torog itself, bound to the underdark and can't excape it even through death. At least not without some repeated help of a third party.



I couldn't immediately find an angle that I liked to glue the head on the body without cutting the hotglue 'shoulders' of the head away or without modifying the snail's neck (both of which I totally could have done), and came up with the idea of linking body and head with tentacles. Hey, I got a brain, a snail and an ugly head - adding tentacles was only logical, right?

...so I broke out my favourite little box and let fly with tentacles.



In the end I had a lovely tentacled head...which didn't fit onto the neck at all.
...which was great because now I finally had the perfect excuse to make this another two-staged monster!


So I cast another head,




...trimmed it to the right angle,




...and glued it on. I added a magnet to the flying version so I can use my neodym fly stands.




 


That's where the critter stands (slithers?) right now. I probably make some scatter terrain pieces with snail eggs, and I'm toying with adding some rocks, tiny crystals or skulls onto the body. Maybe all three...?

[edit]
I block-painted everything, then will do some washings. I didn't like how the 'skin' tones of the Torog-minis came out so I'm trying something new...

[tauster]

After the priming colors were all dried, I washed the snail with a dark brown wash. And didn't like the result. At. All. Yellow primer and dark brown wash just don't look snail-ish, at least not the way I did it. There's probably a way this can look cool, but I didn't really feel like exploring that avenue any further.

So I repainted the body with what I can do best, and what, after all, is the only color scheme that really makes sense when I want to make another Torog-themed monstrocity. Good old bloody flesh!

I still have to add some glossy varnish and the tentacles aren't done, but it already looks like something I can't wait to throw at my players incorporate into my campaign's story arc.





And I finally realized that the missing head mold was a blessing. Sure I could have justified that all of Torog's 'children' (i.e. monsters infected with his essence/magic/residue) have the same head because they bear Torog's resemblance, but it would quickly become boring. Now each one will look different in the face but they still have that bloody flesh ...aesthetic (can you even use that word in that context?), and some of them are hard to kill of, i.e. come back as a different version of themselves after being beaten. Giving them all the same face wouldn't really add any more value.

Another afterthought: I just realized that after my players will have encountered the second monster that comes back after death in another form, every flesh-themed monster they kill will fill them with doubts. Did we really kill it...? I can already see them going to extreme lengths to make sure they wont have to fight them again. *evil DM snigger*

What I can't imagine is what they're going to think of after they kill Great Mashaaf!


(shot from another angle)

The complete WIP series, for those interested in crafting monsters that really fill the table:
Mashaaf, The Great Old One: The bigger Version
Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.