Sunday 25 June 2017

Shunned

You generally don't want to tick off a god. And of all the gods, Lolth the Demon Queen of Spiders, goddess of the drow, is most obvious when displaying her displeasure. Any drow who fail to live up to the harsh standards of their cruel society are at the very real risk of being transformed into spidery monstrosities.

The form of the Shunned is reserved exclusively for female drow. They are transformed into bulging malformed heads covered in twitching, spider-filled tumours, scuttling on insectile legs. The Shunned are forced to disgorge swarms of spiders as the population builds up inside their throats. All creatures cursed by Lolth are pathetic, but the Shunned endure the most mental suffering.

Despite their new form, madness and subsequent exile from drow population centres, the Shunned continue to crave the forgiveness of their goddess. The lair of a Shunned is generally located as close to their former homes as possible, and is decorated with pieces of discarded furniture and clothing as they try to hold on to a semblance of their lost lives.

This is totally not the head monster from The Thing you guys. This one spits spiders. Totally different, yo.

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Sunday 18 June 2017

Azer

It's unclear whether the dwarves of the Material Plane and azers of the Elemental Plane of Fire are related. Both have a similar physical appearance and mode of thinking; both are short and stocky, bearded, diligent, regimented and master craftsmen. Was there a common ancestor? A dwarf that wandered into the fiery dimension, or an azer that cooled off here? Did the same gods create both? Or is it just happenstance?

The azers are one of the most prominent races on the Plane of Fire, a distinction they share with efreet and salamanders. However, of these three races, the azer are the weakest and their lives are a constant struggle to avoid becoming slaves to the efreet.

The concept of Elemental Planes is always a little bit difficult to wrap my head around. Like, shouldn't the Elemental Plane of Fire be exclusively fire? Should the Water one be just Water, Earth solid Earth? Isn't magma just liquid earth? Isn't smoke and ash hot air and dirt flecks? These dimensions always have a sky and ground and so on.

It's overthinking it, I know. It's magic and fantasy and stop dragging in real world logic into this, everybody knows Fire, Earth, Air and Water aren't real scientific elements anyway jeez. I guess these planes are just supposed to be most the -iness of the element than the element in its purest form. A mirror to our world, only the mirror's set on fire. Maybe there's a core of pure flames, but the rest of it's more of a Plane of Fieriness, fiery landscape, fiery creatures, fiery personalities, what Fire represents rather than just was Fire is.

Welp, worked that out for myself while writing. Good talk, guys, the next round of molten sulfur is on me.

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