[3.x d20] Gods blood

[Limper]

Lets say you had a font of divine blood/essesnce in an upcoming adventure and you wanted a decent but not overly powerful lasting effect if one drank from the font.

What would you have it be? I'm just looking for some options beyond +1 to random attribute and augery 1/day... which are on my current postit of ideas.

[Bregh]

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[Limper]

From which [kind of] god does the essence come? Knowing the portfolio or nature of the deity may help with selecting the kinds of abilities Its blood grants.

It was an ancient god of a long dead lizard race when a more dynamic and interesting race (human) showed up and paid it homage it ignored its original people... who rose up and killed it.

I hadn't really worried about what its portfolios were since its dead... I'll backward engineer what it was in charge of based on what interesting stuff we can come up with.

[Name Lips]

You could draw up one of those 1d10 Gygaxian tables.
1 - gain poisonous bite attack
2 - lose a level
3 - gain a level
4 - gain Divine Rank 0
5 - die instantly and permenantly. Anyone who attempts to resurrect you also dies.
6 - nothing happens
7 - turn into a Yuan-Ti
8 - Acts as a Heal spell
9 - Acts as a Harm spell
10 - roll twice, take both effects

[Xavier Lang]

Lasting Youth - you stop aging and are at your current age until killed.
If raised, resurrected, etc... you start aging again as normal.

Bonus to CHR - divine beings, in a general sense, are usually powerful personalities.

Free Leadership feat - The Divine spark they contain within attracts worshipers whether they want them or not.

The idea of a small tribe of lizardmen following them and trying to pray to the PCs amuses me, but you'd have to have a group of players that wouldn't just slaughter them before finding out what the heck they were doing.

Divine familiar - everyone attracts a member of the god's favorite race as a steed, pet, etc... A group of PCs mounted on Giant, Long extinct, Riding Lizards could lead to some interesting moments getting into cities, or could just be a pain in the butt.

Personalize it - Pick something different from the suggestions in this thread and what you can come up with for each character. Mount for one, leadership feat for another, divinely blessed familiar for another, etc...

[Xavier Lang]

If you wanted it to be more of a bad thing. Have it make them "perfect" specimens of the god's race. Cosmetic change only, but a pain in the butt to "cure". A group of PCs that look like a long dead race could lead to pain the ass land, or interesting adventures, depends on the group.

[Limper]

Now we are on to something!

[Limper]

Alright this works pretty well.

I'll have minor abilities like origninally mentioned for takiong one dose of godsblood and the more potent versions Xav has mentioned if you take a double dose.

This means the group can each have a minor ablity of half the party can have a major... creates tension in the group.:D

[Radu]

Some ideas:


Hallucinations. Gods have a lot of knowledge and prescience, give some to the PC's.
Alignment shift 1 step towards the dead god's.
Wild empathy with reptilian subtype creatures.
PC's become cold-blooded.
PC's can hold their breath like a lizardfolk.
PC's gain a smite attack based on the god's old enemies.
God's blood is highly poisonous, but if they survive the PC's gain +2 in every attribute.
It's not god's blood at all, it's a powerful necromantic brew that snuffs out life and instantly reanimates you as a vampire.
Make a list of spell-like abilities the PC's can gain as they level. Suggestions: Augury, Water Breathing, Barkskin (re-flavor as scales), Contagion (poison only), Summon Monster (reptiles only)
PC's now have the Scent special quality, but their tongues are now forked like a snake's.
The PC's gain the hypnosis ability as a bard=their level (or level +4 if they are already a bard)
loot some Yuan-Ti monster writeups for more abilities to steal.
Forgotten Realms Serpent Kingdoms may also have some ideas for you
Finally, look up Requiem for a God by Malhavoc Press. It's all about the death of a god in a campaign.

[Limper]

Requiem... I straight up forgot about that one, sad cause I own it.

[FeatsofClay]

And a hideous, ever bleedig wound of the type made the God's chosen weapon.

Nice abilities, and a bleeding trident wound. :)

[obryn]

As a CoC fanatic, I am in favor of various insanities.

Maybe a hunger for rats and other small rodents? :) Obsession with snakes? Strange visions at night?

Alternately, you could always make them were-serpents of some kind.

-O

[Limper]

The Hidden History of Inys Gloi

Inys Gloi was the creator of the Realm now known as the Golden Dominion, an elder godling who made entities in his own image and ruled his realm with an iron talon.

In time other creatures came to his realm and were subjugated to his will these creatures came in many forms and he actively allowed more into his world and made them a land on which he could watch them, he was fascinated.

These newlings were more robust and malleable than those Inys had originally made to be his servitors so in time he forgot about his original creations and spent his time dealing with his new minions.

His original creations felt scorned and struck down their creator destroying him.

The Brotherhood of war are of the root stock of the Golden Dominion and have been fighting of thousands of years for one of their number to rise above the rest and take the mantle of their fallen god.

The other sentient beings of the world turned to new gods of their own making, demons or what not to fill the void left in their lives by the passing of their deity.

There is my backstory for the realm the group is currently in.

The divine aspect is secondary to the divine essence itself.

[Dacke]

I'm thinking it might be more interesting if the blood has a shorter-term direct effect, which would make it a resource you want to control. There was a similar thing in an adventure for a Swedish RPG, which was mostly used by the BBEG to maintain a bunch of clones, control an army of undead, and start the process of bringing a badass demon to the world. I don't remember if drinking it would have any direct effect on the PCs, but I'd imagine it could do things like healing them, give short-term (but potent) buffs, and maybe some things that wouldn't be applicable to them, such as awaken-like effects.

[Singularity]

I'm thinking it might be more interesting if the blood has a shorter-term direct effect, which would make it a resource you want to control. There was a similar thing in an adventure for a Swedish RPG, which was mostly used by the BBEG to maintain a bunch of clones, control an army of undead, and start the process of bringing a badass demon to the world. I don't remember if drinking it would have any direct effect on the PCs, but I'd imagine it could do things like healing them, give short-term (but potent) buffs, and maybe some things that wouldn't be applicable to them, such as awaken-like effects.


That's the direction I was thinking. If the god's blood isn't necessarily a bad thing, consider +6 to the ability of the player's choice for a limited period of time. If you want it to be not so beneficial, give the same result, but add the effects of confusion to mix things up a bit.

[FeatsofClay]

Go Indiana Jones on them. Lots of cups, one pool to draw from. Grab a good cup, get what the god wanted with that cup. Draw dummy you get something between sweaty boot rash and death.

[Sojourner Judas]

I seem to recall either Dead Gods itself, or a Dragon supplemental article about the graveyard of the gods in the Astral had several properties of gods' blood listed that could prove quite useful to you.

[Sojourner Judas]

Oh, and for 3.x, there's always the example of what happened to the Hag Countess, from the rather excellent Nine Hells book that was published in recent years.

[Janos]

Monster Manual 5 had a Godsblood template that was 1 level, gave a couple of weak minor abilities, and could be used to gain DR 10/- up to a certain amount of damage and burn out the template.

They had versions for Vecna, Kord, and a few other gods. Kord's gave a bonus to opposed checks, and was usually rewarded to those who won his annual olympics games.

[Limper]

Monster Manual 5 had a Godsblood template that was 1 level, gave a couple of weak minor abilities, and could be used to gain DR 10/- up to a certain amount of damage and burn out the template.

They had versions for Vecna, Kord, and a few other gods. Kord's gave a bonus to opposed checks, and was usually rewarded to those who won his annual olympics games.

Cool, I'll check that out.