Just read over the “Concept Elemental” monster and had an idea for a magic item. Thought I’d take a crack at it and see what everyone thinks:
Mind Seed: There are places far stranger and far more removed from our realm than the astral plane. Infinitesimal realities born and destroyed in the faint thoughts and vague emotions of all sentient life. Mental energy crashing violently in locations unknowable, giving rise to life unobservable. Only recently have scholars begun to categorize the beings formed within these ephemeral micro-verses. Creatures known as ‘Concept Elementals.’
The brilliant point of light which now hovers gently in your palm is the unborn progeny of such a creature. Pure embryonic concept. Crush it between your fingers to infect those around you with an idea of your choosing. All it will cost is the life of a single un-had thought.
When you destroy the mind seed and make a single sentence statement roll + CHA *on 10+ sentient creatures within the immediate area will accept the statement as a truth, and will act on it to the best of their ability. *on 7-9 those affected by the mind seed immediately recognize that their will is not their own and may trace the alien thought to you. * On a miss, you’ve lost control of the nascent concept, and your statement mutates uncontrollably before infecting those around you like a virus.
This idea is awesome. One thing though; the 7-9 result doesn’t seem like a success to me, making it’s use an incredible gamble. I don’t exactly know how to fix it, but if the 7-9 roll worked as the 10+ result with a twist, then it would sit better with me.
Awesome idea though 🙂
Maybe:
On 7-9 the idea takes hold but it’s unclear and can and often is interpreted differently by the affected people
Perhaps I should clarify before I take a crack at rewriting 7-9 (although I like Martin Nerurkar’s suggestion).
I fully intended to have the idea take hold and be acted upon by anyone affected on a 7-9, but have them understand that their actions resulted from an alien thought. If this was unclear, I should rewrite the sentence to indicate it. Which I thought offered a decent complication – the user gets what they wanted at the cost of people knowing they have been manipulated and possibly realizing it was the player who did so.
If that WAS clear then I’ll have to rethink the downside of the 7-9 success.
I still think that it is a really tough downside though, but maybe that is just me?
Maybe a 7 to 9 result could be a “choose two.” Choices might be something like the following: “They immediately act on the thought,” “They act on the thought to their full ability,” and “They don’t realize the thought is not their own.” This would give the player a choice to make on what the biggest downside is for the situation.
Moral of the story: Choices are good. In this case, I’d prefer the player to choose the bad on this one, rather than the good, but sound off if that’s crazy talk. How about:
*on a 7-9, your thought is unstable in some way; make an unfortunate choice:
– Your thought was weak. The statement affects fewer people than you hoped.
– Your thought is unsubtle. Those affected by the statement know that their mind has been affected (and can express that), but must still act according to it.
– ??? [i’m obsessed with having three choices every time I write something, even though its probably totally unnecessary]
I think having it be one unfortunate choice works. Having one or two more options is definitely something to look into, but, ultimately, it might work better to have just the two (and the “thought was weak” may stand in just fine for a variety of ways for the targets to be less effective in executing the concept).
Fair point Christopher Smith Adair. I’ll leave it at two. And ultimately, you’re probably right that the two choices can cover enough ground in the fiction.
Thanks one and all – suggestions and thoughts are still welcome if anyone thinks this needs further refining. I suppose I’ll throw this at Chris Sakkas and Grim Portents for the future?
You thought was unclear. Affected targets have a wide latitude in interpreting the thought to suit their own instincts and agendas.
That’ll feed my need for three very nicely, Martin Nerurkar. I should have considered that immediately after the first time you suggested it as the 7-9 result. Thanks!
I’m not quite sure if I’ll add that to the effects of Mind Seed, but I may (read: will) wholesale steal it for something in the future, if that’s cool.
Yeah, feel free to ^^