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[Shei'ki\Agatha]

No such thing. The only thing that would scare somebody off is if all that detail needed to be absorbed before they could join. Then it'd be problematic - then there'd be issues with the amount of information available.

I've a question: Do you want there to be a lot of surface world monsters? It would make sense, considering the planet's history, that there is a large number of underground caves, subterrain and dark places of the world - and those stand a good freaking chance of being populated by monsters, inhuman and otherwise... but what about the surface? Life finds a way, after all, and there have been mages and stuff walking the planet for a long, long time...

How dangerous should I assume the surface world is?

[Icarius]

I have a suggestion.

Put Brandon and Jezeroe's profiles back up.

Anyway, from what little I've gleaned by skirting over the thread, this monster idea is a good one. Also, considering Noria was 1/3 my ideas, I believe I have some say in this matter.

The Meteor Fire forced Dragonians into an evolutionary leap forward, so I can only assume natural life did the same. Outside civilization, I would say surface life is moderately dangerous. Not quite "random-encounter" status, but a stone's throw away at least.

[Shei'ki\Agatha]

Thank you very, very much - exactly the help I needed.

I'll start with some fun critters- who doesn't like Nymphs! I've satisfied on a monster profile template that pleases me enough to be functional for now. If you can think of anything else I should add, I'll refine them on these samples as I go. Nymphs I like - these elemental peoples could well be played by a person, and there's a large variety of them ~<3 Good test subject


Nymphs - These are humanlike elemental spirits. In any world or dimension where there is magic, some kind or another of Nymph will appear. Nymphs are an almost exclusively female species - the males of the species, one for every major elemental plane (Earth, Fire, Water, Air, Light, and Dark), live actually upon those planes of existence, often mistaken for demons, other kinds of elementals, or the like.

Examples:

Name:Fire Nymph
Type: Fire Elemental
Alignment: Neutral
Native to: Anywhere there is a lot of fire, their own home dimension (the Plane of Fire)
Appearance: Fire nymphs are alien beings - it shows. They rarely have human forms per se, but vaugely humanoid shaped masses of swirling, furious fire with white-glowing eyes. They are wild creatures, savages with little intelligence or capacity to do anything but destroy. While they are not evil, they do enjoy what they do - burning things is just pleasurable to them.
Abilities:
-Control flames born of them that are smaller than they are
-Animate fire elementals in the shape of creatures from fires they light
-Grow stronger with fuel
-Grow in size with fuel
-Physically touch and manipulate objects, despite their appearance.
-Destroy. Alot. suddenly. And all over the place.
Summoner's notes: When a fire Nymph is summoned more than once, that fire nymph gains a spark of sentience and becomes a Flame Nymph, and gains a name which they can be summoned by again. The physical difference is immeasurable, but a flame nymph is intelligent and isn't obligated to destroy, even shows loyalty and emotion - things alien to fire nymphs. Want to get one's attention regardless, and fast? Burn something.
Contract: Fire nymphs can only be bound to a permenant contract after they have become flame nymphs, but doing so is a willing contract between the nymph and the summoner - like all, they cannot be forced or coerced into it.

======================

Name: Undine
Type: Water Elemental
Alignment: More good than not.
Native to: Oceans, Elemental Plane of Water.
Appearance: Undine are women whose bodies are crafted wholly of ice, water, and mist in every curve and detail, with motes of colored lights swimming about inside their translucent bodies. Often, these creatures are mistaken for angels for their otherworldly beauty. They range in color from blue to green to black, with no regard to their composition, and the colors of the motes reflect their feelings and thoughts - in ways mortals can't really follow.
Abilities:
-Speak to and command fish and other water-based elementals of all kinds
-Control seaboard weather
-Heal physiological damage
-Move very, very quickly through bodies of water
-Takes human form only rarely
-Can command and shape water to its will, affecting its state (and her own) as she sees fitting.
-Paralyze men with eye contact
Summoner's notes: Undine are independant and prefer to stay that way - they won't respond to the summons of many mages, though a sacrifice of fruit (which they love) and alcoholic beverages is more likely to sweeten the deal and entice one. It'd be funny if I were joking. Even the most powerful summoners cannot force the potent Undine to do their bidding. They must... ask nicely.
Contract: An undine only rarely accepts such an arrangement - and only if they find the terms more favorable than "Work for me or else". More often than not, the Undine has known the particular summoner for a long time and helped decide the terms of the contract beforehand. Such is their nature. Like all nymphs, it's a bad idea to try and force them into it. With undine, its a very, very bad idea (anyone who can make the water in your body spontaneously animate and tear its way out of you isn't someone you trifle with.)
=====================

Name: Iron Nymph
Type: Earth Elemental
Alignment: Neutral (depends, really, on what their body was forged to do, the person that made their body, and the nature of the person who wielded them. But not neccesarily.)
Native to: Powerful weapons, well-used metal tools, platemail, etc. Anything made of metal (not just iron, despite the name)
Appearance: Iron nymphs look how one should imagine: like woman crafted entirely of metal, and thats all there really is to it - hair, graceful curves, skin, etc, all made from the metal from which they were born (and in about the same condition, too. Nothing's grouchy like a rusty Iron nymph, let me tell you). They are soft-bodied and fair (generally speaking), despite the makeup of their metallic bodies.
Abilities:
-They can do whatever their original form can do in either form, and do it damn well. A sword becomes an instrument of destruction, a suit of armor a bastion of defense, a plowshare seemingly lucky - a field will survive better with her working at it.
-Accept Multiple Enchantments (They respond VERY well to magical enhancement, and can even accept more than one (and mix and match aforementioned enchantments freely to their taste)
-Bond to a beloved owner (An owner who cares for them and treats them well forms a special bond with the Nymph - They can tell how each other is feeling, where they are, if they're in danger or hurt etc)
-Animate objects of the same type as them to make them.
-Assume the form of a metallic woman that appears from the first time on as the ideal woman their master visualizes (and will appear as a woman even with a female wielder. Oddly enough, everyone has a vision of this.)
Summoner's Notes: Iron nymphs can be summoned by using an object like them as a focus - A sword nymph would be called using a sword as a component in the spell, an armor nymph from a suit of armor. Generally, Iron nymphs don't like being summoned, however, and will almost always demand to be polished and cleaned before and after use.
Contract: Iron Nymphs respond to contracts well, and require their summoner to have a weapon crafted of a quality equal to the quality of their original form (or their original form.) Generally speaking, an Iron Nymph will accept a contract ONLY from a summoner they've worked with before and has clasically treated them well. Like other nymphs, at no point can they be coerced - they are sentient people.

[[The child]]

I'm kinda thinking of being a test pilot for one. Is there one in particular you would prefer for me to be? Or just whenever I have a random idea?

[Icarius]

I love the idea of elemental nymphs. In fact, I had a character on another RPG that was the King of Elemental Sprites, so I know full-well the power having a Nymph to summon and fight for you.

One thing I'd like to add to these for summoning purposes would be how a contract is formed between Summoner and Creature.

[Shei'ki\Agatha]

Funny you should mention about the king - there is only one male of each elemental affinity (fire, ice, earth, air, life, dark, light), so there IS a king - seven of them, actually!

But on a side note, I can certainly expand upon the issue of the contract for summoning, that would definately help.

EDIT: I have modified the previous post with the Nymphs on it to include details about binding. Important to remember that these are people, nymphs, not spirits or something with specific binds. It varies from person to person.

[Ryan - Loki]

I'll have to read everything in a little more detail than I have (i'm at work, start of the day, so i've not really had the time right now) but what I would like to stress is that the purpose of the re-vamp was to make the site as original as possible - as Icarius will know. Though we can take ideas that originate from somewhere else (as most ideas do) I really want to give them all a spin that's COMPLETELY SoN.

So things that you know as 'rules' on things that are from other formats (rules surrounding monsters for example) are completely subject to change. This is a different world, with different rules; not always, but a lot of the time. You know what I mean?

I believe that the more original something is, the more interesting people generally find it; thats sort of the motto Secrets of Noria was founded on, for me. So everyone, please keep that in mind with your ideas.

No idea is a bad idea, and everything can be improved upon.

[Shei'ki\Agatha]

I'm willing to work with you on anything I make. Good thing, though, that I pretty much pulled this out of my ear (the nymph bit). Sure, Nymphs are in other rpgs, oh well, but the way I'm using them as general elemental spirits (rather than just water ones) is my own idea :3

Aside that, I's be workin' on more critters - alien, otherwise and quite unique - what I'm doing is considering the world's past, geography, the magic in the world and technology, and running with it to create original creatures, mostly, with teh guideline of how relatively dangerous I've been told it is.

Just don't you go pulling the carpet out from under my feet. If I could talk to you, it'd be a LOT easier to do this.

[Shei'ki\Agatha]

So then, is the system sound? I mean for the profiles of the monsters n'such. Anything you can think of?

[Icarius]

It looks good to me. Let's also try and make creatures that are strictly beasties and cannot be coerced or bound to a summoner.

[Ryan - Loki]

Yeah, like Mike said

Just to inform you, as this will also be going in the next site update anyway, I've named Icarius as a 'Noria Moderator'. What this means is that as he was one of the original 3 who helped create Noria (and as such, is responsable for at least 1/3 of the base ideas) he shall be taking a lead role on the actual planet development.

That doesn't mean others can't work on it too, in fact the more people who contribute the better! Instead all it means is that he will be making a lot of the final decisions as to whats added to the world, and how it's developed - but even he has to run stuff by us admins, if it's something MAJORLY big.

So yeah Vaya, it's not just me you want to talk to about all of this

[Aion]

Oct 18, 2009 1:09:43 GMT Ryan - Loki said:

Just to inform you, as this will also be going in the next site update anyway, I've named Icarius as a 'Noria Moderator'. What this means is that as he was one of the original 3 who helped create Noria (and as such, is responsable for at least 1/3 of the base ideas) he shall be taking a lead role on the actual planet development.

Does this mean I have to rewrite everything? Or can he see what I posted in the admin area? I'm kind of dreading doing it all over again, to be honest XD.

By the way, Vaya. Loving the whole monster thing. Good idea.

[Shei'ki\Agatha]

World moderator, huh? Got it. I guess that makes him my unofficial boss, huh? ! Good to know my place in the world, actually, its a weight off my shoulders.

Ok, I'm thinking for something to be able to be summoned properly and safely, and bound into a summoner's service, the creature must not be batshit insane. No horrible cthulu-monsters from the space between dimensions, no wild magic avatars of the seventh celestial circle, no zombies. Thats right kids, no zombies. I'm thinking a majority of the undead is out of the question - they're too dangerous. Powerful demons are likewise: While you could, they would SO exploit the hell out of you, or just deny you outright, I'm thinking (though a lesser demon would likely be fine).

That kind of shit?

[Icarius]

We'll talk about this. Have your people call my people.

[Shei'ki\Agatha]

Behold! I introduce three new creature types - the freaky snikling, the Blimper plant, and the Broadhorn cow!

Sniklings (Chimera) - Alien creatures that live in the deep places of the world, with serpentine body about eight feet in length, black as night, covered in thick, hard chitin. Their head consists of a human jaw and tongue, no eyes, with a multitude of spindly, many-jointed legs in a 'mane' of sorts, each tipped with a pincer. Seers, those born with eyes, are pale and white as snow, with soft bodies compared to the hard, chitinous bodies of their bretheren. These White sniklings are singular - while the black ones are hive-oriented, unable to refer to themselves alone.
Despite their horrific appearance, they are sentient beings. VERY sentient. They are creative - to a defining trait as defining as... eating. Which they also like. They're not evil, they don't care much either way. They were created by a mage in ancient times, and practice a form of alchemy.

Name: Snikling
Type: Mageborn
Alignment: Neutral
Native to: Anywhere where there is a lot of caverns, underground areas, and bedrock they can burrow into to make their cave systems.
Appearance: Black Sniklings have the lower face of a human bound to a long, serpentine black body with tough, chitinous armor. From where their face joins their body are countless black, chitinous limbs tipped with small, gripping pincers, inside of which are spinnerettes.
Abilities:
-Tremorsense (They can feel anything moving around them by the vibrations they make, and pick out fine details, not only from the ground around them, but from the air as it moves.
-Heatsense (They smell heat, thus have the equivalent of infrared vision.)
-Adept Craftsman (They can craft almost any fabric or leather item with great skill using their silk - rope, nets, clothing, anything, and quickly with their multitude of 'hands' that can do it.)
-Metabolize (They can eat just about anything.)
-Crush (they can use their serpentine body to crush foes)
-Poisonous Bite (Their bite can cause shakes and fever, appetite loss, and weakness for days after an encounter)
-Hermaphroditic reproduction (There is no male or female in this species. All are both and neither.)
Summoner's Notes: While it can be done, Sniklings DO NOT respond well to summons, and go shortly insane after being separated from the rest of their hive.

Name:Snikling Seer
Type: Mageborn
Alignment: Neutral
Native to: Snikling colonies
Appearance: Snikling seers are snow white, soft-bodied and have a full human face shrouded in a mane of many-jointed humanlike arms, their soft, serpentine bodies growing long and slender. They are the faces of the Sniklings in dealing with other species, and have beautiful, femenine faces and actual hair, often white like their bodies.
Abilities:
-Tremorsense (They can feel anything moving around them by the vibrations they make, and pick out fine details, not only from the ground around them, but from the air as it moves.
-Heatsense (They smell heat, thus have the equivalent of infrared vision.)
-Master Craftsman (They can craft almost any fabric, leather, or stonework item with great skill using their hands and the silk - rope, nets, clothing, or stonework statues, anything, and quickly with their multitude of hands that can do it. Seers are truly adept at this, and can make things many times faster than a normal snikling.)
-Metabolize (They can eat just about anything.)
-Speak Language (Seers can speak and understand any language, bar none. If it is able to be understood, they can speak and understand it as long as somebody else nearby can.)
-Crush (they can use their serpentine body to crush foes)
-Poisonous Bite (Their bite can cause shakes and fever, appetite loss, and weakness for days after an encounter)
-Hermaphroditic reproduction (There is no male or female in this species. All are both and neither.)
-Second Sight (All snikling seers are named this for a reason: Their eyes see like human eyes do, but also into the realm of clairvoyance, each manifesting this gift in different intensities and styles. A common form of this is that they can see a couple seconds into the future, thus seem to know what is going to happen to them before it actually does.)
-Alchemy (All Seers are considered at least apprentice alchemists.)
Summoner's Notes: While it can be done, Sniklings DO NOT respond well to summons, and go shortly insane after being separated from the rest of their hive.

Blimpers (mutant plant) - A yellowish-stalked, flowered plant that flies like a hot air baloon or blimp, suspended by pods of the hydrogen they filter from the air and use in their life cycle instead of photosynthesis. These plats were born in response to the Meteorfall, and live mostly in hot, tropic areas, always floating northward from Runedare and jungles toward the northern continent. By the time they get there, these things are huge - and generate enough heat to sustain themselves.
These airborn plants only land to gather nutrients (soil) and water (but only when they're young - after a certain point, when they've stop bearing fruit, they go to cloudlines. When they reach the arctic, and they've grown to that titanic size, they settle down again, held down by cold air, and harden, generating heat in a small area. These "Oasis" plants die at this point, and the heat of the corpses lasts for a couple weeks, reproducing up until the day the snow inevitably overcomes their corpse or their blimpettes rupture and explode.
These plants, on a majority, prefer oceans - easy access to water for young plants. Some, however, get trapped in the way to the arctic, and get stuck dependant on a lake. These "Bombers" bear fruit in the warm climate and low altitude and drop them on the ground below - and these fruit are famous for how explosive they are, like the rest of the plant.

Name: Blimper Young
Type: Mutant plant
Alignment: mindless neutral
Native to: Warm climates, around other, larger Blimpers
Appearance: Young blimpers are tiny, their gold roots still appearant. These plants pulsate softly, the red bulbs still a faint pinkish white color, unable to keep them aloft for long periods of time - they hover vaugely at eye-level, around the size of a softball.
Abilities:
-Pop! (When one of the bulbs is violently disturbed or ruptured, the tiny plants explode with sudden violence)
Summoner's Notes: These plants are extremely easy to summon but can be dangerous if handled improperly, or very dangerous if handled properly. They cannot be bound to a contract (they don't have a mind, damnit, its just a bloody plant). Any boob with potential could possibly summon one of these.

Name: Blimper Adolescent
Type: Mutant Plant
Alignment: Mindless Neutral
Native to: Warm climates, around larger Blimpers, following rivers and hanging around lakes.
Appearance: Adolescent blimpers look much like their younger cousins, only the stalks and body of the plant become more appearant with size, the bulbs taking on their full, deep red color and holding them more reliably aloft, though still pretty close to the ground. Adolescent blimpers are just starting to bear fruit - little white berries, the precursor to young blimpers.
Abilities:
-BOOM! (These blimpers pop like a couple sticks of dynamite or a grenade. With gusto, but only when pierced by a sword, arrow, or the like.)
-Crackerfruit (these little berries can be picked and thrown, and have effects a bit like firecrackers when they hit a surface.)
Summoner's Notes: Like their younger variants, Adolescent blimpers are easy things to summon, for they are simple creatures fairly large in number. Handling is roughly the same as younger ones - avoid shaking and piercing their flesh in any way. These are a bit harder to summon though, and require a summoner of Apprentice level.

Name: Bomber
Type: Mutant Plant
Alignment: Mindless Neutral
Native to: inland bodies of water in temparate climates, around an oasis, and where they aught not to be.
Appearance: Bombers are Blimpers that reached adulthood and never made it out to sea. They're in full bloom and bearing fruit - lots of fruit. The climate, which should be cooler to promote healthy Blimper plants to come into being is still warm, and they're mutated. Rather than fly, the young have too much mass and drop like rocks. Or more accurately, like bombs. With too much hydrogen and too much mass, these are deadly. Bombers fly at about a hundred feet, and touch down on bodies of water now and again.
Abilities:
-BADABOOM (When these go, THEY REALLY GO. These have a blast something like a couple pounds of dynamite)
-Bombs away! (These plants bear fruit - explosive fruit. They germinate fast and when they reach about the size of baseballs (basketballs for the older bombers), they drop from the rest of the plant and explode in contact with whatever happens to be beneath them. For a lake, it's annoying at most. Over a town, its like a flying siege engine as they float innocently overhead.
Summoner's Notes: Would you really want to?

Broadhorn (Animal) - These are a large, adapted version of what cows turned into to survive the meteor rain. They have stout, heavy bodies that are more remeniscient of a lizard in how their legs are arranged - splaying outward. These creaures are furless, with mottled grey skin that is thick, and leathery in texture, like a rhino. From their neck, back, and tail grows bristly, shaggy hair in great abundance, covering their meaty forms well. As is their namesake, all Broadhorn cows have big, broad, sturdy horns that sweep forward in and splay outward - like a bull's horns, except... well, broad in shape, and flat rather than round as they grow from their head.
Broadhorn milk is lesser in quantity, but greater in nutrition value than other breeds of cow, and made inside their bodies rather than outside. Males, naturally, don't make milk and have much larger horns than females and much more aggressive, while females are actually sturdier than males, calm, and cool as cucumbers, make milk, and are very much like other female cows.
Broadhorns live just about anywhere theres a lot of grass rather comfortably, but are different enough from other breeds of cow that they do not breed well with them anymore. They don't have hooves, but rather, they have lizardlike claws, capable of grasping and carrying them up difficult terrain. They're strange, but easily domesticated.

Name: Broadhorn Bull
Type: Mutant Animal
Alignment: Neutral (aggro)
Native to: Anywhere there's grass.
Appearance: A broadhorn bull is a massive creature with a stocky body about five feet high at the shoulder, lizardlike legs that splay from their body and support them, rather than mammalian, downward-pointing legs. They are covered in dark, bristly hair that shags about to protect them from the elements, and under that, they have rhino-like leathery flesh.
Their horns, for what they are named, are massive, broad things that grow in a pattern normal to other bulls, but in that strange, flat shape, tapering off to a sharp point at the end. They are herbivores.
Abilities:
-Diehard (Broadhorn bulls are hard to kill or sedate, and when aroused fight viciously until either they drop dead or pass out standing.)
-Aggro (they will attack just about anything. Including other Bulls. The only way to keep this from happening is put out their eyes and blind them (when they can't see, they're as gentle as lambs. Lambs with the hearing of a hawk and a tendancy to run into walls and hump things...)
-Hellsense (Broadhorns remember even today the horror of that apocalypse, like many animals of the new world. Hellsense is a surefire way to tell when something bad is coming, because the animal will go in the opposite direction or the direction of shelter, whichever is better for them. Its important to not that where a Broadhorn is not is where it is most dangerous.)
Summoner's Notes: Broadhorn bulls are aggressive, powerful symbols of virility that do not dissapoint the Apprentice summoner with their aggressiveness and sheer, diehard brutal power. The drawback is that these things are aggro, and attack everything BUT the summoner (which they mostly ignore). Binding one into a contract is possible if the Bull can be made to accept the summoner as their master and still be able to see them.

Name: Broadhorn Cow
Type: Animal
Alignment: Neutral (Gentle)
Native to: Anywhere there's grass!
Appearance: Broadhorn Cows are very, very similar to a Bull in appearance, but their horns are noticably smaller, they have smallish teats on their undercairrage, and are a bit broader in shape while being a little shorter. These gentle girls are huge, calm, even-tempered things that respond very, very well to domestication. They LOVE to climb stuff, unlike males (who can be a little shy about it) to get to that hard-to-reach patch of grass.
Abilities:
Climbing - (Broadhorn cows are adept climbers, and can scurry their way up seemingly impossible hills and cliffs with great agility and reasonable speed.)
-Hellsense (Broadhorns remember even today the horror of that apocalypse, like many animals of the new world. Hellsense is a surefire way to tell when something bad is coming, because the animal will go in the opposite direction or the direction of shelter, whichever is better for them. Its important to not that where a Broadhorn is not is where it is most dangerous.)
-Nurturing Milk (A broadhorn's milk actually has healing properties. A glassful of it, while strong and chalky/sweetish-tasting, can ease fatigue, boost the body's immune system, and seriously aid the repair of bone and muscle.) Some people swear by Broadhorn milk's flavor and prefer it to any other kind of milk.
Summoner's Notes: Though harmless, a Broadhorn Cow's utility as a summon should not be overlooked for the apprentice summoner. If enticed, they can be used as capable mounts to climb over the most difficult of terrains quickly and easily, and their milk has healing properties that should not be overlooked. Contracting with a Broadhorn Cow is easy - they're amicable creatures and the binding requires easy to come by ingredients (Which vary from ritual to ritual.)