“I seen it... But I don’t
know what I seen. It was a burning beast and it brought hell upon us. My
chickens is dead and my field is taaaaaaaaaantacles!”
Some sicko on google plus asked me to expand my ideas on
level limits, elves and the chaos alignment language to account for nilbogs. It
is entirely possible that he was joking.Nilbogs are kind of a joke. I have
never liked nilbogs. First of all the Nilbog doesn’t even get a picture in the
Fiend Folio. That is maybe the worst part of the Nilbog. The second worst part
of the entry is the last paragraph:
For obvious reasons, encounters with these strange
creatures are dreaded and, as a result normal goblins tend to be treated with
extreme caution lest they turn ot(sic)
to be nilbogs. There appear to be no way of distinguishing between the two
apart from the use of such spells as commune or by trial and error. Fiend
Folio, editor Turnbull, Don, p. 68 (TSR Hobbies, Inc. 1981).
The book pretty explicitly
tells you that nilbogs exist just to mess with players. Nilbogs are a trap that
is very “gamey.” They look completely ordinary but have special mechanics
(weapons heal, healing spells hurt, you do the opposite of what you want to do
(no save)). They do not feel like pulpy. They are a product of dungeons and
dragons fucking itself.
They could be pulpy and
evocative if they did not behave or look like regular goblins. Here is one of
the best parts of the nilbog entry:
Nilbogism (the name given to this strange disorder)
appears to occur when overly heavy use of magic strains the fabric of the
space-time continuum and lead to some very strange events. Ibid.
It’s
not even that great; but, it does try to place nilbogs somewhere into the
world’s logic. If we take my idea that goblins are elves that grew too powerful
and were seduced and debased by chaos, then we can say that nilbogism is caused
by chaos breaking down the spells that resided in the elf when he succumbed to
chaos. It looks something like this:
Nilbog
No. Appearing 1
% In lair 0
Treasure: none
Alignment: chaos
All other stats: the same/ whatever you want
Any nilbog
would love to die but cannot figure out how. If a nilbog could speak
intelligibly it would ask you to kill it. Nilbogs scream. You can hear them for
miles. They wander on tirelessly but exhausted until they finally dissipate
into a pile of entropy.
Nilbogs are
the final form for all goblins that formed from an elf that had spells memorized.
Eventually the chaos that forms and poisons them will begin to work on those
memorized spells, releasing the spell energy in a chaotic but predictable way.
The energy completely overwhelms what faculties the goblin had left and pours
out into his surroundings, damaging causality and warping physical laws. You
know, typical nilbog effects (the range of these effects vary from nilbog to
nilbog).
Nilbogs are
surrounded by fluctuations in reality that create dramatic visual effects,
warping, flames, and distortion. In the center is what appears at times to be a
normal goblin and at times more demonic and at other times more elfin.
Nilbogs can be
encountered anywhere and are easy to track. They leave a trail of blighted and
deformed land. Stone is warped or changed into other substances, plants are
killed or mutated, animals are born deformed and dead.
Most spells
heal the nilbog, giving more fuel for the chaos to burn. Cleric spells may work;
healing is thought to damage the nilbog.
As the 'sicko' who suggested that nilbogism might fit into your game theory about elves becoming goblins if they trespass against the level limit, I'd say that we are very much alike, and I really like what you've done with the place. ;)
ReplyDeleteWarped stone and transformed landscapes as evidence that a nilbog is nearby... I envision s scene out of Mystery Men when Cassenova Frankenstein activates his machine, but against a Moebius drawn landscape and characters. ;)
I am glad you liked it.
DeleteI think a nilbog should be a monster that is an entire adventure not a monster that is a trap.