Z is for Zorch

Zorch is one of the stranger NPCs in my current D&D 5th-edition campaign.

He began as a wand... 

Ash stepped out in front of the gates, presenting an easy ground-level target to the attacking force. At this enticement, the angered kobolds did launch a ground assault, untethering the giant boars from the wagons and driving the creatures charging towards the draw-bridge. Ash unleashed a lightning bolt of his own using a wand, severely injuring the ten huge beasts...

A truly beloved wand... 

The negotiations, if they could be called that, continued for a minute or two, until Ash noticed a bugbear creeping up the passage behind himself and the others. Two quick blasts of lightning from Ash’s wand ended both the conversation and the would-be bugbear ambusher.

That was used constantly...

They were ambushed by another bugbear while they sat in the main hall pondering over the magical rings, and another when they exited into the right-most side passage. Both were dispatched quickly through the liberal application of lightning bolts.

. . . 

As the kobolds stood deaf, dazed, and blind from the sudden detonation of a lightning bolt an otherwise pitch-dark, enclosed space (something the party had gotten used to by this point), the party rushed past them into the next corridor...

And I do mean, Constantly...

Ash once again did not hesitate to unleash a lightning bolt, which bounced wildly around the small room, searing filth and worm-beast alike, while somehow not touching the party.

. . . 

Ash was frozen from the waist down, barely able to breathe, and could feel the hypothermia setting in as the spider thing closed in, drawing a blade for the kill. With frost-bitten fingers, Ash weakly raised the point of his wand and, through chattering teeth said what he thought would be his last words…“Lightningbolt!”

-- The Third Party: Session 10

The elven wizard Ash used his wand of lightning again, and again, and again. He blew through all of its charges. Recharged it. Used them all again. Recharged. Used them all again. 

Then...it broke...and out came...

ZORCH!

Zorch started his life as a Lightning Mephit, but soon found himself bound and trapped into a wand. When he was finally freed by the elven wizard Ash, he was VERY greatful. Following the wizard around as a familiar ever since.

Lightning mephits instantly regenerate all damage on contact with an electrical source, such as another mephit’s lightning bolt. This reinforces the mephit’s natural desire to congregate with others of its kind. A force of mephits that can recharge one another is unstoppable by anything short of a glass of water.

By virtue of his electrified nature and ability to regenerate, Zorch has served the party as a PMD. He is always the first to fly into any situation, counting on Ash's lightning bolt spells to restore him no matter how troublesome the traps or ambushes he triggers (short of a glass of water).

As soon as the brilliantly glowing mephit stuck its head aboveground, a squadron of gnolls who had been searching the ruins charged the hole Ash had opened, with nine of the creatures baring down on them, and one breaking off and running the other way (whether for reinforcements or because gnolls are notoriously unreliable is hard to say). Ash threw off the lid and dropped down the shaft. The party arrayed themselves in the many side-passages and waited.

. . . 

Mel dropped down the narrow shaft behind the mephit, finding nothing but a trace of ash smeared on the damp, bare-earthen walls of the tunnel. A discharge from her ring of shocking grasp was sufficient to revive the creature, however. As the light brightened from the reconstituting lightning mephit, Mel noticed a grim, gray, silent humanoid figure standing immediately behind where the mephit was manifesting.

Over time, Ash began sacrificing a portion of his experience to level up the Mephit, eventually allowing it to gain levels as...A BARD!

Zorch unleashed a string of vicious mockery at the blonde woman, but the magic contained in his words were similarly negated. There was a flash from the crowns and Kevorkian, Zorch, and Dame full felt the weight of Zorch's belittling statements, feeling suddenly very weak.

With her sisters still standing around looking very confused, the blonde woman then retaliated for the outrage, releasing a flare of brilliant white light. Everyone was scorched, Zorch so much that he discorporated again...

The immortal and instantly-regenerable nature of Zorch is such that he has come back even from being devoured entirely by various soul-sucking devices and monstrosities.

Of course the sarcophagus was not empty and the occupant, the petrified remains of a squat, wide man in ornate, petrified, leather armor and a large warmask. Ash sent Zorch to grab the thing, only to have Zorch sucked--soul, body, and all--into the thing's maw.

. . .

Ash sent Zorch to examine the stone urn on its pedestal, only to have the mephit sucked bodily into the thing when he touched it. Grimnir stepped up and cast identify on the urn, learning that it was a device that consumed souls to fuel a kind of perpetual prison for purpose of preserving the soul of whoever was last interred within the vessel, keeping the soul within the earthly realms and delaying their journey to whatever heavenly or infernal enternity awaits them. 

The Urn, it turned out, was almost Zorch's true undoing, especially when it was almost destroyed.

The guard did finally react when Ash tried to scoop up some of the water of the Pool using his soul-sucking urn. As soon as the urn crossed the line of the guards, a sword came up, impossibly fast, shattering the urn. Ash scooped the pieces, weeping for the possible loss of Zorch. Ash, not wanting to take any more chances with the receptacle that held Zorch's soul/body/form/whatever, considered blasting the Urn with lightning to see if he could resurrect Zorch again.

Not even the soul-trapping urn could really stop this physical embodiment of lightning.

Ash, meanwhile, sensing the tremendous power possessed by the Pool of Radiance, took his urn with him and dove in. There was a flash of light the blinded everyone as energy surged into Ash as the soul-devouring power of the urn mingled with the absolute law of the Pool. With supreme focus of will, Ash harnessed and shaped the inflow of power before it could destroy him.

The urn began to disintegrate. Ash cried out, focusing the last of the dissipating energies back into the urn and unleashing a bolt of lightning. Then the urn was gone. A moment later, as Ash climbed out of the Pool, he felt a jolt and a tap on the shoulder. He turned to find Zorch floating there.

Ash and Zorch had their tearful reunion...

Of course, not even Zorch could survive contact with the Pool of Radiance unscathed... This final resurrection brought Zorch back as a Radiance Mephit.

WITH PALADIN LEVELS!

Zorch: Radiance Mephit, Bard 5th / Paladin 5th

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Special thanks to +Paul King for taking this crazy character (and magic item) and running with them.

Y is for SPOON!

Yarash's Spoon

The handle of this old metal spoon has been worn to a sharpened point by being used to attempt to dig out of the granite walls of the maze beneath Sorcerer's Island. The spoon belonged to the magician, Yarash, once a powerful sorcerer himself, now driven mad, presumably by the isolation of the magical island. The spoon bears a strong aura of Transmutation magic, either deliberately related to Yarash's experiments in transforming lizardfolk into sludge-breathing monstrosities, or perhaps as an indirect by-product of those processes.

Yarash's Spoon functions as a wand. When pointed at a target, it can be commanded by simple act of will (requiring a DC 12 Intelligence check) to polymorph the victim. The target is allowed a Constitution save (DC 17) to avoid the effect. A target that fails its save is wracked by excruciating pain, losing its action for 1 round as its body writhes and reshapes itself. At the end of the target's next turn, it will have been completely transformed into it's new body. The change is permanent, unless removed by a dispel magic (requiring a DC 17 check) or similar effect. The reverse transformation is even more painful than the initial change, taking a full minute, during which the target can take no actions other than writhing on the ground and screaming. Each use of the spoon in this way consumes a single charge.

The wielder of the spoon has no control over the form taken by the target. Each time a creature is polymorphed in this way roll 1d100 and consult the table below to determine the new form assumed.

d100 roll	New form
1 – 4	Bugbear
5 – 8	Dwarf
9 – 12	Elf
13 – 16	Firbolg
17 – 20	Gnoll
21 – 24	Gnome
25 – 28	Goblin
29 – 32	Half-Elf
33 – 36	Halfling
37 – 40	Half-Ogre
41 – 44	Half-Orc
45 – 48	Hobgoblin
49 – 60	Human
61 – 64	Kobold
65 – 68	Lizard Man
69 – 72	Minotaur
73 – 76	Mongrelman
77 – 80	Ogre
81 – 84	Ogre Mage
85 – 88	Orc
89 – 92	Satyr
93 – 96	Tiefling
97 – 100	Troll

In addition, by stabbing the spoon into the heart of a recently deceased target (may have been dead no more than 24 hours). The spoon can simultaneously transform the body and restore it to life. This functions as a reincarnation spell, save that it reanimates and reorders the cells of the existing body, rather than creating a new one. The transformation takes 10 minutes, after which the character is restored to life, retaining all of its previous memories, background, and class levels. The race of the new body should be determined by rolling 1d100 on the table above and ability scores should be rerolled for the new body (using whatever means the DM and player agree upon). Using the spoon in this way consumes 3 charges.

When found, Yarash's Spoon has 9 charges. Whether or not it can be recharged is up to DM discretion (of course). 

Yarash's Bracers of the Deep Gods

These bracers, about a hand wide and made of clear glass, appear to be filled with the same black sludge which pollutes the Stojanow River. They were found on the body of the old, crazed wizard Yarash, in the maze beneath Sorcerer's Island. Anyone wearing the bracers find themselves able to communicate, both through quiet whispered speech and/or telepathy, with an unseen being. This being never reveals itself, or even that it is independent from the wearer's consciousness, but it seems to possess incredible insight and lore. 

Anyone wearing the bracers must make a Wisdom save (DC 12) any time they attempt to take a long or short rest, if they fail, they find themselves locked in conversation (apparently with themselves to any outside observer) for the duration of the rest--gaining no benefit from resting.

The wearer of the bracers is completely immune to all negative effects of contact or immersion with the black liquid corrupting the Stojanow River, and may breathe freely if submersed in the liquid, as if it were air. In addition, the voice whispers secrets to the wearer, allowing him to apply double his proficiency bonus on all History and Arcana skill checks, and checks made using Alchemical tools (even if he was not previously proficient).

X is Hijacked Reproduction?

Different people have different things that set them off. The same is true of gamers. If your desire is to disturb, frighten, or weird out your players you need to have a broad arsenal at your fingertips. Common things that can set players on edge include (but are certainly not limited to) scenes or implications of: torture, cannibalism, graphic violence, mutation or body dysmorphia, various forms of aberrant sexual behavior (incest, bestiality, necrophilia), or even just particularly creepy monsters (giant insects, things with tentacles). Some players though, are completely immune to all such attempts--maybe their culture does not have sexual hangups, maybe they think humans are just meat, or maybe they are inured to violence from playing D&D for years. In these cases you need something different...

My players largely fall into the later category. They are unflappable in the face of typical Raggian horror. All of our games feature normalized images of cannibalism and all manner of sexual interactions, my players embrace random mutation, I allow horrible tentacle-monsters as PCs, and violence and torture are standard practices for all murder-hobos. So what is a DM who wants to weird-out his players to do?

Well, all the other things aside, it turns out there is one trigger still left to my jaded, 30-something, male players: the biological imperative.

The what, you say?

The Biological Imperative, the need to survive and reproduce. Reproduction is often overlooked in high-fantasy adventure games, but, eventually, even your murder-hobo wizard is going to want to settle down and pass on his genes. If your players are all in the middle-aged, settling down and having babies phase, then this is something they (consciously or not) are pretty much always thinking about. So, if we run a game where characters can, and do, reproduce (even if it is only an implied thing and not something that actually happens to the PCs), how can we abuse that to make our weird-fantasy game weirder?

Xenogenesis. 

Xenogeneis is the process by which the offspring produced by a coupling are completely unlike either parent.

Similar to the implied terror of non-mutant parents in the X-men series, a world where xenogenesis can happen means that people may have children that are completely unlike them, and, therefore, completely unpredictable and perhaps even dangerous. Aside from the fear of what the children might be capable of (and the added troubles of the PCs perhaps having to do violence against children) you have the added level of knowing that your genes have not been passed on...your line has ended...you have no posterity.

My treatment of Halflings and Gnomes touch on this idea slightly. 

The former are children frozen in time, immortal and unable to age to maturity. Not only does this mean the end of a genetic line (no grandchildren for the halfling's parents), but it also means that you have hundred-year-old toddlers running around who have drastically outlived their parents and may be subject to all manner of social maladjustment that might be associated with immortality (watching you parents die without ever reaching the mental maturity to really process it). Ala Lord of the Flies, the PCs end up having to contend with violent tribes of children (likely young, adorable children).

The latter, Gnomes, freak everyone out because they hijack the reproduction of other creatures. Gnomes are more a disease than a race, unable to reproduce on their own, they infect others with their children. With just a glance, they can curse a woman of any race to only bear gnome offspring, without any sexual contact. Just the thought of this kind of violation can get under the skin of PCs...even if they never get around to reproducing, knowing that that gnome they ran into 5 levels ago has hijacked their future reproductive capability can get under their skin.

There has been at least one report of a human woman having a human, a gnome, and a halfling as children.
The free Lamentation of the Flame Princess adventure The Doom Cave of the Crystal Headed Children touches on this idea. It features cloned, hive-minded, mutant children that indirectly borrow genetic material from every woman in a town, and then alter the minds of those women to think of the children as their own. On its own this makes for an interesting gimmick for a one-shot adventure, but if you make sure to have a female PC be affected by it...then things get all kinds of interesting.

But of course you are asking, how can my PC do this to someone else (without being a gnome that is)?
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Yarash's Curse of Xenogensis I

(Alteration, Enchantment)
Level: 3rd
Range: 10 yds
Components: V, S
Duration: permanent
Casting Time: 1
Area of Effect: 1 creature
Saving Throw: Negates.

This spell permanently and erratically alters a victim's genetic material. Any time the victim sires or gives birth to a child, the offspring will be a new creature, completely unlike the parent. When the child is born, roll for a random creature using the table for the Monster Summoning I spell (found in the Appendixes of the Monstrous Manual).

The victim is allowed a save vs. spells to negate the effect. If the save fails, the curse is permanent until removed by a remove curse or wish spell cast by a caster of higher level the the wizard who cursed the victim.

This spell has no immediately visible or noticeable effects (though a proper villain should taunt the victim about the end of his line and so forth). Because of the nature of this curse, it may take years or even decades to manifest, if at all, but the victim will feel an immediate sense of impending dread any time they engage in procreative activities.  

Higher level version of this spell exist, causing more and more gruesome offspring. Curse of Xenogensis II-VII are identical to the spell above, but cause any offspring to become creatures from the corresponding monster summoning table.

So yeah, after years of trying, your PC and their mate have just given birth to a purple worm...roll initiative.