De-Beholdering the Beholder ™ for Inclusion in Vanilla ToME

[rexorcorum]

Excellent exchange here, thanks, parcel and doctornull .

Going the bureaucratic-amnesiac way for comic effects and OP limitation starts to sound quite alluring.

(More comments later today). By all means, keep the hilarious (and well versed) ideas flowing .

[Massimiliano Marangio]

Now they shall come to be known as B'Arkians.

You mean, they sent the farportal sanitizers and the tentacle cleaners together on that ship? Well, now we know why the Sher'tul disappeared.

[parcel]

I wouldn't make it over-ridiculous, but I kind of like the idea of there being many different castes of Watcher beside the combat-oriented types. Maybe it's most accurate to say that the warrior castes are a relatively new phenomenon for a race whose ancestors were middling administrative types. Maybe what's special about Watchers is that their mature form (and the characteristics of their dominant eye) depend on the sort of role that they are prepared for as young imagi. Perhaps that special central eye only sprouts after a final, relatively intensive moult into the adult form. Zany, of course, but this allows you to retcon all the humanoid meta-classes that you want based on the disciplines the Watchers have acquired by Watching Maj'Eyal and the disciplines that they've made up themselves: Watcher 'warriors' in Watcher dialect might be more literally translated as "those in charge of whacking the device to see if it will work again or at least stop scorching the larva"

The idea that the biology of Watchers is special enough to give a special ability based on any kind of early upbringing is a display of ridiculous power by the ancient Sher'tul, but in an odd way, it fits pretty well within the narrow focus of getting 'custom' clerks for any new department that the Sher'tul government might imagine. That it has perks for combat training in more rugged times is just a nice side effect

[darkgod]

Ideas are good, I'm watching !

[parcel]

One thought about lore currently, going along the lines that Watchers:

a) Have been Watching hewmann cultures and have learned a bit from them
b) Are bureaucratic and mildly bumbling.
c) Are meant to be a somewhat comical addition to the game.
d) Possess some sort of cloaking technology...

...damn, what if escorts were Watchers in disguise, trying to study hewmann combat behavior?

[rexorcorum]

...damn, what if escorts were Watchers in disguise, trying to study hewmann combat behavior?

Ahahaha, that would certainly explain their odd behaviour .

[Nori]

...damn, what if escorts were Watchers in disguise, trying to study hewmann combat behavior?

Heh, I really like this idea... Would explain so much...

[Nagyhal]

Just casting an eye over this thread to say I'm more enthusiastic about this idea than ever, and I've been watching a lot of pistol shrimp videos indeed of late:3.

I actually wanted to scour these pages for inspiration in creating talents for the new psionic class.

what i can say... poor mirinda
she is supposed to fall in love with every adventurer

Poor Melinda indeed.

Maybe they could be sacrificing an attractive Watcher instead of a female human, if you're playing one of the classes for this addon?

Outworlders / Aberrations

I was actually thinking of dividing the race into two metaclasses, Outworlders and Aberrations. Cosmologically speaking, they would essentially have two distinct origins despite hailing from the same progenitor race. Aberrations would include the Eye Tyrant (vim + chronomancy) and the Death Tyrant (undead) while Outworlders would be the Mage Eyes, Gauth (what do we call them now?), Unseers and the armoured Wrecking Eyes.

[Doctornull]

I was actually thinking of dividing the race into two metaclasses, Outworlders and Aberrations. Cosmologically speaking, they would essentially have two distinct origins despite hailing from the same progenitor race. Aberrations would include the Eye Tyrant (vim + chronomancy) and the Death Tyrant (undead) while Outworlders would be the Mage Eyes, Gauth (what do we call them now?), Unseers and the armoured Wrecking Eyes.

Ugh.

If Shalore and Thalore are grouped together, in spite of being enemies who are basically nothing alike (including a whole mortal / immortal split), then these funny looking flumph wanna-bes can sit in the same metaclass and they can like it.

[edge2054]

I like the idea of Watchers as Sher'tul secretaries or whatever. It actually ties in neatly with existing lore and the pictures kinda remind me of Sher'tul. I can explain in more depth if you catch me on IRC Nagyhal and rex. I don't want to go into detail here because of heavy spoilers.

I also would avoid the term Aberration. Fewer red flags for Hasbros copyright watch dogs to go after.

[Nagyhal]

Doctornull, Watchers are a race-class package, though. There'll be no separation at the racial level - these would be class headers!

They'll comprise a single race with around 6 dedicated classes. There is however a flavour of different phenotypes existing for each of the classes, or an inherent biological difference. I thought this might be a fun way to divide the 6 different classes into a couple of distinct headers, particularly to highlight the extent of their differences and reassure the player that the majority of Watcher characters do not in any way approach a D&D Beholder level of inherent evil (but, well... some do.)

Anyway, valued feedback as ever! Tell me if you still think it's so awful ;3

btw. Great to rekindle the discussion. Edge, see you on IRC!

[Doctornull]

They'll comprise a single race with around 6 dedicated classes. There is however a flavour of different phenotypes existing for each of the classes, or an inherent biological difference. I thought this might be a fun way to divide the 6 different classes into a couple of distinct headers, particularly to highlight the extent of their differences and reassure the player that the majority of Watcher characters do not in any way approach a D&D Beholder level of inherent evil (but, well... some do.)

Ah, I see!

Well, if you're replacing all classes, then I'd suggest splitting groups when the single group won't all fit on the screen at once. That's why the core game classes are in groups. It's a UI convenience, not an Aristotelian org chart.

[rexorcorum]

... Ominous silhouette ...

[0player]

Ideas are good, I'm watching !

Just casting an eye over this thread to say I'm more enthusiastic about this idea than ever, and I've been watching a lot of pistol shrimp videos indeed of late:3.

I actually wanted to scour these pages for inspiration in creating talents for the new psionic class.

I see what you did there.

[pizdabol]

Is this still happening? Postponed, scraped?