Picture by Gwendolaine and taken from www.deviantART.com
By Kiel Howell
Welcome and hello! My name is Kiel
Howell, and I'm honored to be writing for you as part of this wonderful blog,
The Flying Pincushion, that Frank and J-Man have put together. Let me talk just
a bit about myself then we can move on to the good stuff.
I've been gaming in various forms
my entire life, playing card games, board games, TTRPGs, MUDs, MMORPGs, and
good old fashioned single player games. I'm an avid reader, science-fiction and
fantasy mostly, as well as consumer of movie media. I entered Paizo’s RPG
Superstar for the first time in 2012 with an item I loved at the time, but
ultimately proved boring. Ever since, though, I've been actively writing items,
archetypes, and stories during any moment I can spare.
I also got jackwagoned out of a PS4 preorder because of poor service from an unmentionable game store, but that's worthy of its own post.
So Pairing it Down! What is it?!
Very simply, I'm aiming to go
through my process (important point which I'll get to later) of taking a theme
and picking an idea out of the multitude of possibilities. Followed closely of
course by bringing that idea into fruition by statting up the beasty,
constructing the item, or whatever the case may be.
This week's theme: The Princess
Bride, one of the constants in my ever-revolving Top 5 favorite movies. Which,
by the way, if you haven't checked out;
"http://flyingpincushion.blogspot.com/2013/11/mishelved-princess-bride.html">Frank's
Mishelved
"http://flyingpincushion.blogspot.com/2013/11/jeff-crunch-magic-swords-and-chocolate.html">Jeff's
Magic Swords and Chocolate
"http://flyingpincushion.blogspot.com/2013/11/mythic-monster-monday-rats-of-unusual.html">
the ROUS by Andrew, then do yourself a favor and read those now. I'll
wait.
So what piece of The Princess Bride am I going to do? Let's
kidnap that princess together.
Wait! Here is that important point
I mentioned earlier. The process for coming up with a viable idea and writing
it is going to be different for everyone. I won't pretend that how it works for
me will work for anyone else. All I can do is hope that this series helps
others to come up with their own process.
What are the most memorable
moments of that movie? Personally, I would start with the scene at the end of
the Fire Swamp where Westley and Buttercup are so happy to have made it out
alive. The joy of discovering her poor farm boy is alive, and he's now rescued
her from quicksand and an ROUS. Fire has been no hindrance to their love. Then
Count Tyrone Rugen and Prince Humperdinck (and several nameless soldiers) are
there waiting for them.
There are many, many other scenes
in the movie that are great, the series of hero's tests; strength, training,
and intelligence. The "You can die too for all I care" hill scene or the
final confrontation between a bed-ridden Westley and Prince Humperdinck, the
list goes on. And don't forget Miracle
Max and his not-a-witch of a wife!
How do I choose? I put myself in
the story. I think of how the story affected me as I watched it through various
ages. If I were writing this post a few years ago, then I probably would have
chosen the Fezzik in a Holocaust Cloak scene. Don't try to capture a feeling
from a time when you were a different person. Your passion now will result in a
better item/archetype/monster/etc. at this moment. The captured after the Fire
Swamps scene gives me goose bumps now. Perhaps it's because I'm a father of a 5
year old and am about to get married after being divorced a few years ago, but
the love lost just after hope is rekindled gets me.
Ok, I've got a scene. What's in the
scene to choose from? This particular one has a LOT. There's the aforementioned
moment of lost love to use as inspiration for a story. There's the fact that
there are these men (one of which is planning to marry and kill the love of the
protagonist's life) waiting for the two in ambush. That's a pretty good
encounter practically written for you! I like to look for something that's not
so obvious though. Something where I can give a nod to the source by using, one
that those "in the know" will get, yet avoids a “ripped off” feel.
Fine then, who's the most interesting
character at that moment? Arguably, it is the six-fingered Count. We've heard
about him from another character's (Inigo) back story, we've seen his character
brilliantly portrayed by Christopher Guest, and he's the most mysterious at
that moment. Westley has been revealed already. Buttercup's been old news for
20 minutes. Prince Humperdinck's also been featured enough by this point. Count
Tyrone it is.
Here is where I will go to the
obvious...his six fingers on his right hand. Now what may be the not-so-obvious
thing I can focus on is his glove.
I'll take an assumption that he's not actually six fingered. His glove adds the
six fingers to his normal hand, which could also explain why he NEVER takes the
glove off in the movie.
So what could a glove that adds a
finger to a humanoid's hand do? Why would it be created? The simple route would
be a glove that gives a bonus to holding onto whatever is in that hand when
something attempts to steal from or disarm that hand. That's a good, solid
idea. But I want to dig a little deeper into the character for inspiration.
It's hinted at in the movie, but Count Tyrone is responsible for developing the
machine that sucks Westley's life out of him (another great scene and a great
idea for a trap). He's interested in "scientifically" studying pain.
So what if the six fingered glove enhanced the wearer's ability to create
traps? I like that idea.
Now, I'll write this as a wondrous
item for the Pathfinder system, which means that a glove can't give a simple
Intelligence stat bonus. That's job is generally delegated to the headband
slot. The first thing I like to do is come up with a good fluff sentence to use
as the introduction to the item.
"These black,
leather gloves are soft and easy to flex. The gloves are plain except for a
sixth finger on the right hand. No matter how many fingers the wearer possesses
on the right hand, the six fingered glove magically flexes and grips the empty
fingers to the wearer's mental commands."
Alright, I've got a first sentence
that describes what I am envisioning. A name is the next thing I tend to work
on. The name is nearly all-important to me. It helps me come up with the powers
and mechanical aspects of the thing I'm writing. Six-fingered Glove. Trapper's
Glove (don't like it because it loses the references to the Princess Bride).
The Count's Glove (this has promise, but it could be easily confused with The
Count from Sesame Street or Count Dracula). The Count's Machine Gloves (Oooo, I
think I'll go with this. It keeps the reference and has potential plot hooks to
a count where a party could find it).
Now I have a name, The Count's
Machine Gloves, and an introduction sentence. Now it's time to come up with the
real meaty mechanical paragraph. I want to give a bonus to trap making, but not
just a straight mechanical bonus. I also want it to be flavorful. Probably a
generic "trap making" bonus would not be viewed as flavorful. That
means I'll want to narrow down my focus to traps that require someone to
operate it. I like that.
"Wearing these gloves allows any humanoid to create and
place a trap much more safely. The
count's machine gloves cuts the DC to craft a trap, those that require
someone to operate them, in half. This applies to mechanical and magical
traps."
Now, this feels like it has enough
of a reference to The Princess Bride that some people would make the
connection. It is still far enough away that it's not a blatant rip off. All
that is left now is to come up with the standard wondrous item things like
aura, price, and construction requirements.
To get an aura, we need a spell! Crafter's fortune seems like a good fit.
It's a 1st level Sorcerer/Wizard transmutation spell that gives a +5 to the
next Craft check. That puts it at a faint transmutation aura. The spell also
gives us the caster level, in this case 1st.
I use the spell level as a baseline
for pricing items. A 1st level wizard spell item is usually available
relatively early in a character's adventuring life. Coupled with the flavor I
want to give it (a Count's glove) this could easily be a pretty cheap pair of
gloves. Looking at the wondrous item gloves in Ultimate Equipment from Paizo in the range of CL 1st gloves is
between 1,000 and 3,000 gp. I'll split the difference and price it at 2,000 gp.
That feels right, makes it cheap
enough to be disposable at later levels, but expensive enough to be decent find
at low levels.
Now I just put it all together! The
weight is kind of arbitrary (I'll put these at 1 lb.) just as long as you don't
make it obviously wrong. Gloves like these shouldn't weigh 30 lbs. and a
wondrous 20ft. high stone shouldn't weigh 1 lb. (unless of course its wondrous
ability was to be weightless).
The Count's Machine
Gloves
Aura faint transmutation; CL 1st
Slot hands; Price 2,000 gp; Weight 1 lb.
Description
These black, leather gloves are soft and easy to flex. The gloves are plain except for a sixth finger on the right hand. No matter how many fingers the wearer possesses on the right hand, the six fingered glove magically flexes and grips the empty fingers to the wearer's mental commands.
These black, leather gloves are soft and easy to flex. The gloves are plain except for a sixth finger on the right hand. No matter how many fingers the wearer possesses on the right hand, the six fingered glove magically flexes and grips the empty fingers to the wearer's mental commands.
Wearing these gloves allows any humanoid to create and place a trap much more safely. The count's machine gloves cuts the DC to craft a trap, those that require someone to operate them, in half. This applies to mechanical and magical traps."
Construction
Requirements Craft Wondrous
Item, crafter's fortune; Cost 1,000 gp
And there we have it, from a
broad theme, to an idea, and finally ending at a completed wondrous item. Thanks
for sticking with me, and I hope this served to help create or refine your own
process for designing and writing.
