#elemental temple

[ttrpgtreacle]

The final puzzle of Skies of Walltestia. This plaque went along side a room with 8 (visible) columns. A number of the columns had wall effects that were modified. e.g. Light could pass through some, audio could pass through some, one was invisible, one had no collision. The puzzle was to ferret out these features and then punch the corresponding pillar buttons on the plaque in the order indicated by the symbols up top.

[ttrpgtreacle]

This Strange Shell was stolen by the Clean Knives and stored in one of their safehouses in the Shattered Archipelago. The players came across the shell when they raided the safe house and pocketed it. It contains half of Aramomni. The iris colors light up for every time a shrine to the elements is visited and honored. Once at 3 lit irises or more, Aramomni has the ability to reach the faithful through their dreams.

The temple mutes the shell's communications, because they weren't fans of Aramomni over there.

...Also, why isn't this properly scaled? Why does it have a white background? Forget the gulf between artist and audience, sometimes the gulf between artist and self is plenty confounding enough.

[ttrpgtreacle]

Why would the elemental temple warrant its own tileset? Well, mostly... it doesn't. But I wanted to emphasize the color theming of the temple, and it felt right to start from basics for the finale of the campaign.

I was decently surprised that my code required almost no intervention to work with a new tileset. In order to ensure everything was in order, I made a testmap - a testmap never before seen by eyes other than mine.

[ttrpgtreacle]

Rainbow Happy Trails Protects the Innocent was the docent for the path of the warrior in the elemental temple; his job was to explain the rules of the trial and to retrieve anyone who fell into the river of acid.

Curiously, players were really receptive to Rainbow Happy Trails as an individual, which I think is really fascinating because as a character, Rainbow Happy Trails was designed to be the opposite of a main character: not self-possessed, or particularly motivated, or friendly. I think it had something to do with the fact that the players only had Cashy to interact with for the past few days and meeting someone who can put a regular sentence together was probably a lifesaver.

You may notice a linguistic through-line from Midnight Marvels and Rainbow Happy Trails. Indeed, they were made by similar methods, but while the Midnight Marvel line was designed for combat, the Rainbow Happy Trails line was designed as cheap, general purpose agents. The fashion magazine he's holding is his one personal item for the past 1000 years, and changes magically over time to keep the catalog fresh.

It was never explained in-game, but Rainbow Happy Trails Protects the Innocent is on the cosmic version of desk duty, because he did the cosmic equivalent of shooting a kid.

[ttrpgtreacle]

The four elements, represented as sigils. These colored sigils in particular were used as stand-ins for elemental towers during the Cuecueyo/Cuecuetlatza boss fight.

I'm really quite happy with how they turned out! I like the vibe that each shading technique adds. It's nice to post them here, because on a map these details don't really turn out.

[ttrpgtreacle]

A teaset used by Cuecueyo and Cuecuetlatza. Every century, they get to spend one day with each other, during a 'changing of the guard' ceremony. This tea set was originally made by Cuecueyo's father, and they've kept together suspiciously well over the years. Typhon grants strange gifts.

[ttrpgtreacle]

It's elemental temple week!

The elemental temple was regulated by Little Operators, lilac robots powered by elemental cores. Each Little Operator is designed to be able to form into a sphere (with the exception of the little piledriver) so they can be shot through the tube system of the elemental temple.

The units are as follows:

The little shielder: a defensive unit. Decent hp and high AC, but most notably it can deflect any ranged attack that targets a little operator within 5 ft of the little shielder.

The little burner: an artillery unit that uses fire themed spells.

The little laser: an artillery/puzzle unit, sets up laser tripwires. When someone walks into the laser, they automatically take damage and roll a CON save to determine the application of a speed reducing effect. When the laser is hit, it is turned off; additionally, the robot automatically turns the laser off when it is moved or made prone. When deployed in the context of a moving swan boat, this static laser has a surprising amount of play flexibility. I really enjoyed these and think I should've used them even more.

The little maker: the baseline unit of the little operators, it has a basic shove and little operators have advantage on any attacks against a target within 5 ft of a little maker. Additionally, the little maker can produce a fast hardening solvent.

The little piledriver: a striker whose basic attack is a 10ft long AoE line and can dash through a movement in a straight line, causing DEX saves. It's quite the bruiser, and it definitely became a priority target for the players.

The little player: a support unit that doesn't have any attacks but uses bardic inspiration and the ability to give an immediate action to another little operator within line of sight.

[ttrpgtreacle]

It's elemental temple week!

When the party encountered Cashy, a tarp was put on top of him as if he's an unruly bird that the rest of the temple wanted to shut up.

That characterization of Cashy blue may have been more correct than not, as Cashy is definitely a lot. Needy, explosively energetic, and chaotic. Cashy has a wide inventory of items to buy, as well as allowing party members to sell off parts of themselves.

Cashy shop:

can create any mundane item at 200% markup. deck return pack charges: 10 gp (+5 gp) egg of misty step: 60 gp (+30 gp) health potion (2d4+2): 25 gp (+10 gp) buy a (party) long rest! 250 gp (+100 gp) (best to only use in safe room) buy a (party) short rest! 100 gp (+50 gp) (can probably get away with doing this not in a safe room) Key of Envy 1000 gp (???)

Sell an elemental core: 50 gp Sell a spell slot usage to me!: 100 gp (25 gp per additional level) Sell a spell slot to me forever!: 300 gp (+200 per additional level) Sell a cantrip to me!: 150 gp Sell a language to me!: 15 gp Sell 5 ft of movement to me!: 75 gp Sell a hit die to me!: 15 gp (-5 gp, LR)

Cashy is the scion of the Shadow Irrepressible