59 entries so far, from 20 people. Interesting responses: some serious, some wacky, some as big as your 'ead, some fabulous one-liners.
This group has 493 members though, so we have a while to go. I will post the competition every so often so people so it doesn't get buried under other posts.
What it's all about
Here's the challenge and the list of entries, as it stands (ordered to obfuscate authors' names):
Chaos Feature Competition.
When enough people have entered the contest, there will be an anonymous vote and the Top 10 Chaos Features of All Time, as voted by members of this list, will be posted. [I have constructed a private web page to accept votes; I will open it for a limited time to accept people's votes].
Don't worry if you don't want to post your entries to the list - send them to me off-list and we will enter them for you. Nobody's name will be next to their creations unless they want it to be. The Top 10 will not have names in it.
We're not looking for masterpieces or the ultimate in coolness or necessarily 'something better than the RQ lists'; we're just after things you like/have used/think is entertaining/could create story in people's games etc
THE ENTRIES SO FAR
20 people have already sent in entries. Here they are, for your edification:
. Weaken separation to Otherworlds. Encounters with the creature
tend to move in and out of Otherworlds, for which this creature suffers no
Otherworld penalties. Struggles that move into, and then back out of, the
Spirit Plane can also shift the combatants across long distances. Those that
flee the fight might find themselves in some alien Hell. Hopefully heroes
can hold out until they intersect with the Hero Plane (and, ideally, a
heroquest that they know).
. Vomits live gorp (duplicate)
. Two random body parts are made of gorp. If abdomen or chest, can
excrete or vomit micro gorp. If limbs can elongate, attach, whip, throw
micro gorp etc (depending on gorp type). If head, becomes 'Brain of Gorp'.
. Turns To Jelly At Slightest Provocation. Subject turns to a
basically indestructible chaos ooze when prompted by *something*.
. Tap Sanity
. Sticky skin. Anything that hits the skin of the creature adheres
(with some high strength needed to tear object away - and if it's your flesh
that's stuck, then you're going to leave some behind!)
. Sprout New Dialect every minute. Highly contagious at
hearing.
. Sneezes balls of explosive snot.
. Smokey skin. This creature has skin that is like dark smoke. It
drifts sluggishly and you're not sure what it is but you *don't* want to
touch it. It's greatest use is sneaking into steads - it doesn't reflect or
gleam, it blends into shadows and it disguises movement. Its feel causes
dread.
. Slick, entangling hair covering body. Weapons might slide off or
get entangled.
. Skill Swap. Randomly determine 1d8 skills and swap them.
. Self Cannibalism.
. Rubber Soul. Other spirits that engage you or are engaged by you
in spirit combat simply bounce off. ie, you're immune to spirits.
. Rubber away soul Touch feature
. Reversed digestive tract.
. Rebellious Limbs. Subject's limbs are somewhat self-aware -
and self-interested! In extreme cases they may actually hold a plebiscite
and depart the body en masse. In lesser cases mistreated members of the limb
classes may attempt to secede alone - typically while the subject is
sleeping.
. Radiate Acceptance.
. Plague of Altering Size Breath. Plague of Altering Size Breath
. Part physical, part spirit/soul/essence Only part of the beneficiary
is corporeal. The other part is purely insubstantial.
. Magic Birthmark Companion.
. Look like you. Anyone that sees/touches/interacts with the creature
senses the creature as a duplicate of themselves. Multiple targets would
see/hear/sense completely different things, but that's the way with chaos,
isn't it? This is not an illusion of any sort. It's more like simultaneous
physical mimicry that breaks all the rules.
. Living Fax Machine. Skin is constantly being 'tattooed' with
information from books and scrolls (possibly those being consumed by
Atyari). Skin sloughs of in lumps every so often in paper-like sheets.
. Limbs Detachable. May be traded with others like you.
. It is your child. Everyone else who can see it knows exactly
what it is but to you it is your child. You carry it with you, suckle it
(regardless of whether or not your female) you love it and care for it and
can bear to see no harm come to it. When you finally die, worn out and
shrivelled, it will be someone else's child.
. Invisible tentacle. Think about it, don't YOU want one now?
. Inconceivable. People cannot accurately describe the creature to
others.
. Imitation. Takes on the looks of someone else in the battle,
may be friend or foe
. Hollow shell of skin. Interior filled with hundreds of crawling
poisonous vermin that fly or scuttle out when skin is ruptured, while
spiders try to sew it back together again from inside
. Half-a-creature. Only 1/2 of the creature is present in the
physical world (the other is...somewhere else). For Example, if it's a broo,
then you have the right side of the broo, and a view of his insides at the
"split".
. Eyes shifted into spirit/gods/essence plane. Disturbing hollows
in sockets
. Everything you touch turns invisible. Clothes, weapons, armour etc
. Emotional Vision. Subject suffers from a kind of aphasia,
combined with the ability to perceive visually the emotional makeup of
others.
. Emotion Vacuum. Sucks the emotions from a person. Games like
heroQuest or Pendragon would work best mechanically, as they quantify
emotions. Tyhe effect is like an aura - come within X yards/meters of the
creature, and it automatically "feeds" on your emotions. It's a always-on,
area effect Tap [Any Emotion].
. Emits clouds of powerful hallucinogenic gas. To which it is not
immune
. Elastic tendons. Most obviously allows jumping like a
grasshopper. But also consider the application to thrown weapons and
escapology (not sure why anyone would tie up a Broo but if they do...).
. Edible Excretions. +10 Camping for your companions.
. Disassociated Limbs. and organs are only loosely connected and may
swarm apart.
. Dickhead. Genitalia replaces head on the end of its neck,
while its head shouts obscenities from between its legs.
. Devour Words. Or Reverse Meanings of Words in a Radius, if you
prefer.
. Conduct to the Ultimate. Will make illuminated and occluded
characters face a major crisis, and might illuminate others.
. Completely hollow. Handy for storage.
. Changing visage. Creature's facial features constantly
undergo a slow morph. Time to completely change features could be minutes
. Changing features. A less extreme version of Changing Visage.
. Changes colour. Another less extreme version of Changing Visage.
. Cause stammering.
. Can't move when anyone is looking at it. However it can't be
physically or magically harmed while anyone is looking at it. Add it to
lightening fast speed for extra plagiaristic goodness :)
. Cannot walk forwards.
. Bowels of Chaos. The Void exists where your bowels are.
. Born after death. In infant form back at the nearest chaos pit
but remembers how it died. It has to grow up again and suddenly, a few years
on in the campaign, IT RETURNS! "I know you. We killed you!"a swordsman's skill at their ability, only lasts while person is in their presence.
. Appears closer to you than it actually is. Whenever you try to
touch it you realise that it's too far away. If you turn around and it's behind you then *IT IS OMG BASICALLY BREATHING IN YOUR EAR*. Possibly the most dangerous missile weapon user in the world...
. Any Chaos Feature You Haven't Thought Of. Thanks Grant
Morrison.
. Accompanied by theme music. Either appropriate or inappropriate
to the action.
. Able to absorb the skill of anyone in their presence. E.g. can use
Powered by hypermail