Topic: flavor text in LotFP: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing

James has written some great flavor text for fighters, the aerial servant spell, and the speak with dead spell (all quoted below for convenience). This is a wonderful idea, which I'd never even considered. If the three examples below are representative of the final product, then  LotFP: Weird Fantasy Role-Playing has the potential to be my favorite version of perennial D&D.

Well done, James!


Fighters

Man’s history is one of slaughter. Every new era is defined by the cruelty man inflicts upon man, or the victory fighting against it. To those in power, soldiers are but tools to shape the populace to their whims. The price that is paid to enact their desires is irrelevant to those giving the orders.

In battle, man maims man. Horribly wounded men scream for mercy as their life’s blood pours out from cruelly hacked wounds. Their cries are ignored and their lives extinguished by those too cruel or frightened to listen. Poets and politicians speak of the honor of battle for a just cause, but in battle there is no honor and there is no justice. There is just death from metal implements that crush, slash, and stab.

To be willing to slaughter at another’s command in the name of peace and nobility, to be hardened to the deaths of loved companions, to be immersed in this worthlessness of life, that is the life of a soldier.

Fighters are these soldiers that have seen the cruelty of battle, have committed atrocities that in any just universe will damn them to Hell, and have survived.


Aerial Servant

This spell summons an extra-dimensional force that manifests as an entity which appears as a grotesque reflection of the caster’s id. The caster then announces what he desires most in the world, and the creature will go forth and retrieve it. The object of desire may be a living thing.

The caster must make a saving throw versus magic (WIS modifiers apply). If successful, the entity will retrieve the announced desire. If the save is failed, the Referee must make a judgment call and decide what the caster really wants most, in general and not at the particular time of casting, and the creature will attempt to retrieve that instead.

The creature can fly and is invisible to all but the caster. Objects will be automatically seized unless defended by extraordinary means. Only a creature with a Strength of 18 can avoid being collected by the creature, and even then the chance is not likely to be greater than 50%. The entity can carry up to 500 pounds in weight. If combat occurs, the thing summoned by this spell has the following stats: HD 16, AC as plate, 1 attack for 4d4 damage, Move 240’, ML 7. If the servant creature is frustrated in its efforts to bring the desired object to the caster, it will become insane, returning and attacking him.


Speak with Dead

This spell rips the spirit of a corpse from the afterlife and returns it to its body. The habitation is imperfect, and as such the spirit is only able to move the body’s lips and tongue, and thus is able to answer questions.

The corpse’s knowledge is limited to what the person knew during life, including the languages it spoke (if any). Answers are often brief, cryptic, or repetitive.

People that were decent, honest, innocent, or at least devout in their religion (not all gods care about morality), they will be anxious to answer questions and remain on Earth for as long as possible. They have learned that the afterlife is nothing, simply a void with no effective consciousness and no sensation but for the numbing awareness of passing time. They know that being alive, even inside a rotting corpse for the briefest sliver of time that leaves them in agony as the decay of their physical form leaves every nerve transmitting unrelenting pain, is better than being dead.

Cads, scoundrels, and heretics, on the other hand, were pleasantly surprised to not find eternal torture waiting for them in death. Only the vicious and undeserving find this peace in death, and they will be furious about this peace being disturbed. This allows them a saving throw versus magic to resist answering questions.

The spell allows a base of three questions. If the death occurred more than a day ago, one less question. More than a year, one less question.

This spell does not affect a corpse that has been turned into an undead creature. The head of the person to be spoken with (or at least the mouth), even if it merely a skull, must be present and intact for the spell to work.

Last edited by Geoffrey (2010-03-16 19:39:55)