{{I was reading kernac's 4e vore thread the other day, and something about it inspired me to go back and reread the entire Orev Valley thread from page 1.}}<br/>{{First of all, wow. We're awesome. :3}}<br/><br/>{{I also noticed something else, though, while looking at the thread with a fresh set of eyes. Something that I was largely blind to the first time around. And that is this: I've been approaching this whole vore campaign rather backwards! Some of you might immediately understand what I am getting at; for the rest, let me explain by way of a bit of history. (I apologize in advance for the wall of text. You can skip down to the * if you don't want to read it all)}}<br/><br/>{{This campaign was born a few years ago when Ignus started a thread titled "d20 Vore". I read it, and thought it was an awesomely kinky idea. My original desire was to be a player with my vulapine character. But as time passed and I sensed that a campaign probably wasn't going to get off the ground without me running it, I put that desire aside and dusted off my DM hat instead. And that's where things started to go awry.}}<br/>{{See, what I've realized about myself is that I have two passions: I'm a vorarephile, of course--but also a bilbliophile who loves rich drama and intricate settings. And when I designed Orev, I enlisted this latter passion to help flesh out the campaign world so that it wouldn't be an inanely simple "a bunch of characters team up to go fight monsters, gulp-gulp-gulp." I wanted there to be somewhat of a plot, something for the characters to care about. And, in that aim, I was successful.}}<br/>{{But, honestly--as I suspect you have all noticed but have been too polite to point out--I overdid it. X3 The bibliophile hijacked the vorarephile's campaign to suit his own interests. All I wanted was a bit of motivation for the PCs...but I ended up with a whole lot of blah-blah-blah-morality-blah-blah-politics. Interesting in its own right, perhaps, but having very little to do with vore.}}<br/>{{What ultimately happened is that the campaign ended up being<span style="font-style: italic">about</span>Orev and its woes, with vore as simply a gloss inserted into the margins. And this is totally backwards! The plot is supposed to be a<span style="font-style: italic">pretense</span>, an excuse to have one vorish scene after another, it should never overshadow them in importance. If the last 127 pages of the thread had instead just been about "a bunch of adventurers go fight monsters, gulp-gulp-gulp" with no backstory, it would have been inane--but it probably would have been a lot more perverted fun.}}<br/>{{X3 Alas, hindsight is always 20-20, as they say.}}<br/>{{So anyway, in light of this revelation, I'm a changed DM. I feel now the way I felt when I first read Ignus's thread: excited with potential. I toyed with the idea of starting a brand new campaign--for about three seconds. But I quickly realized that would be a mistake, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We've created a great thread, and there's nothing<span style="font-style: italic">wrong</span>with the setting. It's the tone and focus of the plot that needs to change.}}<br/><br/>{{So here's what's going to happen: I'm tying up the bibliophile and throwing him in a closet. The White Wyrm is still spreading his talons over the Orev Valley and still needs to be stopped, but from now on, my primary concern is light-hearted vore, and the storyline is just going to be a background to vorish shennanigans x9. Much like a sandbox video game, the emphasis will be on the action of the present moment with plot advancement just kind of 'happening' at certain checkpoints, if the players are interested in advancing it.}}<br/><br/>{{What does the above mean for you players? Well, if you have been unsure of what action your character "ought" to take, you can stop worrying about it. As Eidolon very insightfully noted some pages back, most r/l humans in 2008 have no idea how to properly execute a complex scheme like a coup detat--to be honest, I'm not even sure where I would start. If that's the kind of game you had wanted to play, you would have looked through the hundreds of PbP d20 campaigns out there on the net and found one with a bunch of fellow realism-obsessed geeks. But no, you came here, to this campaign on Eka's Portal because you wanted to be part of a dice-mediated multiplayer<span style="font-style: italic"><span style="text-decoration: underline">vore</span></span>RP with fellow perverts! x3}}<br/>{{So from now on, the plot is completely open-ended. How you achieve your goal is up to you--and, more critically, your goals are also up to you! If your character wants to do good, have them do good; if they want to aquire riches, or power, or whatever motivates them, just have them go looking and plot hooks will materialize. (this is what the Gather Information skill is for) Or, if you just want to chow down/knock heads, then just provoke people into combat. Simply have your character seek out adventure (like the adventurers that they are) and I assure you everything will somehow sort itself out in the end. I realize that this contradicts my earlier warning that PC survival will hinge on smart decisions--so sue me. x3 Consistency is overrated anyway. I'm so much more interested in nommage than I am in punishing players for making a "wrong" move.}}<br/><br/>*{{So, in summary, the whole "the PCs are an elite band of heroes on an epic quest to prevent the Apocalypse" theme is no longer the focal point of this campaign. The new focal point is "wide maws and big bellies x3". The Party is just a bunch of adventurers who are sitting in an Inn in an unfamiliar place, doing what adventurers do (chatting, drinking, thinking about their next adventure). The Free Kingdom (Gyriax's domain, centered around Jejuna with Fort Armel as its southern-most border) is just a country that recently broke away from the Pact Nation over an ideological split. Because of the backgrounds and personalities of most of the PCs, I do expect that they will be furious at how the Free Kingdom has been behaving lately (blotting out the PN's sun, sacking towns, taking slaves, etc.) and will want to cause grief to those responsible. And those loyal to the Wyrm will, in turn, be suspicious of anyone who they suspect is loyal to the PN. But the point is, I as a DM will no longer focus on this tension.}}<br/><br/>{{Some things to keep in mind:}}<br/>{{Armel is a town where strong characters can basically do whatever they want as long as they have the muscle to back it up, and the PCs have quite a lot of muscle at this point. The threat of their being overwhelmed is actually quite low, even if they split up or act boldly. (but, of course, low risk is not 'no risk' >3) }}<br/>{{Most NPCs are also traveling adventurers, not loyal subject of Gyriax. Upon learning that the PCs are Pact-loyal, they will react with laughter and teasing, not hatred. (some, like Jess, will even react positively)}}<br/>{{There're a lot of sights to see (and adventures to be had/treasures to be claimed) in the Free Kingdom (I'm still working on the map), and the party could decide to travel north instead of sticking around and trying to reclaim Armel.}}<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>{{In other news, I've decided to add a new rule about nutrion (credit for this idea goes to kernac). Nutrions are now tied to the vital spark of a creature, rather than to the tissues of its body. This means that when something dies, it loses its nutrion unless it died from digestion. Eating corpses will still provide a pred with nourishment, but will no longer give any nutrion. There's very little in-game explanation for this, it's mostly an aesthetic decision on my part. I mean, really, look around at the vore media on the net. How many depictions of corpse-eating do you see? X3 Heck, even hard-vore fans usually expect the prey to be alive.}}<br/>{{Damaging attacks are still useful for preds. Remember that creatures with hp from -1 to -9 aren't dead, just incapacitated. I will allow preds to reduce the damage of attacks that would otherwise kill a target, to incapacitate them instead (setting them up for the vore-de-grace >3)}}<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>[Reminder: a Sense Motive check can be used to examine the three NPC girls. They<span style="font-style: italic">seem</span>friendly...]<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><span style="text-decoration: underline">&lt;&lt;stables, a minute ago&gt;&gt;</span><br/>Nocke hops off of Chrrou as the druid starts to shrink. For a brief moment, the two non-morphic forest critters stand eye to eye. Then, when Chrrou scampers over to Kahmori and the pair departs, Nocke is left alone with Heshaar.<br/>He hops towards his new guardian and trills a friendly greeting--and freezes, as his songbird instincts suddenly kick in and remind him that she is a<span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="font-style: italic">huge predator</span></span>who could snap him up in a single chomp and swallow him effortlessly.<span style="font-style: italic">But she is Chrrou's friend, and Chrrou is his friend. So she wouldn't do that, right? ...right?</span>He thinks so, but the treant find it terribly difficult to suppress this frantic prey instinct that is so new to his calm, vegetable mind.<br/><span style="font-style: italic">How much more alarming the world is from down here!</span>he thinks to himself.<br/>It doesn't help his composure when Heshaar, noticing the approaching avian, leans her snout closer to inspect him--bringing those fangs uncomfortably close and exhaling wafts of carnivore breath.<br/><span style="font-style: italic">eep...</span><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><span style="text-decoration: underline">&lt;&lt;inside the inn&gt;&gt;</span><br/>"Huh?" says Soma, looking curiously at the unfamiliar blonde girl who has offered to 'arrange' shelter. "What do you have in mind?"<br/>The purple-haired tiefling examines Mindy's physical features as well as her aura.<span style="font-style: italic">...an aristocrat? No...</span>She searches through her memory and remembers previously seeing the same blue-cloaked girl in the company of another band of travelers.<span style="font-style: italic">Where are those others now, I wonder? Abandoned her? Alone with just a staff and bow to defend herself...no wonder she is looking for allies.</span><br/><br/>Yuki warms to Mindy's offer. "Assured privacy...and this would not cost us anything? Sounds perfect."<br/><br/>"Nuu!" says Jess with drooped ears. She has latched onto the idea of the luxurious suite, and does not take dissapointment well.<br/>But before she can whine any further, she is suddenly distracted by a new development: an adorable little rodent has just scampered onto the table.<br/>The huskygal's face brightens with glee. Her drink-dampened brain doesn't register the druid's words, or put two and two together to figure out that this as the same shape-shifting mousefolk from minutes before. She only sees what her predator instinct sees: hors'douve >:9.<br/>*'HOMP*<br/>[Jess bite touch: 1d20(12)+13 -4(drunk)=21; hit]<br/>Though a little wobbly from intoxication, her strike is still lightning-fast.<br/>[Jess (using Greater Chomp) ingest: 1d20(14)+18=32; Chrrou ingested unless he resists DC 32] (this interrupts Chrrou's departure from the table, and possibly Geno's if the dragonfolk is paying attention)<br/><br/>Chrrou has only a heartbeat to react before his view of the main hall is completely eclipsed by the tongue and pallate that drop to either side of him. The cage of teeth snaps shut below and around him, sealing him in drool-soaked darkness with only the tip of his tail remaining outside her lips. The huskygal, with a look of pure elation on her tipsy face, leans back and swishes her prey to extract its flavor. Chrrou is thrown around by the girl's dexterous tongue--an experience that would perhaps be enjoyable were it not for the nose-wilting reek of alcohol the perilous proximity to the dark pit of her throat.<br/><br/>"Uh, darling o_o;..." says Soma with a tinge of embarassment. "I think thats...uh...what's-his-name. The quiet one. He's not food."<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><span style="text-decoration: underline">&lt;&lt;Meanwhile, at the adjacent longtable&gt;&gt;</span><br/>The griffonfolk reaches down, grasps his prey by the chain and reels her in. Then, fumbling with a tiny key in his talons, he unlocks her iron collar.<br/><br/>Feeling the pressure ease around her neck, the small girl surges away from him and tries to escape. She makes it one and a half steps before she is halted by the griffon slamming his clawed foot down on her fluffy tail.<br/>"Ah-ah-ah. No you don't." he admonishes.<br/><br/>The trembling youth didn't think she would not make it very far; even if had she gave her captor the slip, one of those lynxfolk would have certainly pounced her. But with a lifespan measuring in seconds...she had nothing to lose by trying.<br/><br/>The griffonfolk reels his prize in again, this time by the tail, and roughly grabs her by the neck. His hooked beak, well adapted for taking prey whole, opens wide and looms before her. She presses her eyes shut, unable to watch as she is stuffed in--<br/><br/>--just then, a dirty old fox shows up and aburptly starts talking. The griffonfolk pulls the girl's head from his mouth, leaving a smudge of spittle on her face.<br/>[griffonfolk spot: 1d20(7)+8 +4(racial) -2 (drunk) = 17; DC = 32 ; fail to recognize the hated kitsune]<br/>"Who'n the hell're you?" grunts the pred, displeased to be interrupted in his feeding.<br/>"You want my food?" he barks, tilting his head haughtily. "She's mine. Why should I give her to you? Go beg for handouts somewhere else, old man, before I decide I want fox for dessert."<br/><br/>"Yeah, go catch your own." says the plastered gnoll seated to the griffon's side.<br/>"Hahaha, look'it'em!" says another. "He's, haha like, 100. He can't catch nothing hahaha!"<br/><br/>"He's got money..." points out one of the breastplated lynx in a cool, sober voice. The feline gestures with a claw to the bulging coin bag displayed prominently at the fox's hip.<br/><br/>"Is that gold?" asks the griffon.<br/>[assuming Kahmori lies and shows the top of the bag; using his bluff check rolled earlier]<br/>[griffonfolk Sense Motive: 1d20(6)+3 -2(drunk) = 7; fail]<br/>He notes the size of the bag, and the wheels turn in his head. He could trade a scrawny rodent now...and with that kind of cash, buy something much more savory later.<br/>"Gimme that. All of it." he holds out one talon to accept the bag and pushes the girl over with the other (still holding her neck firmly). "For her."<br/><br/>The trembling youth looks to the hunched fox and shudders; this dirty old coot has the voice and wandering eyes of a pervert. Instead of just a one-way trip down a pred's gullet, now she could be in for a revolting rendezvous--followed by a one-way trip. And this pred has teeth...<span style="font-style: italic">ugh...</span>