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[✓] [CA Race Lore] - Sprites


LaffenOutLoud
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I remember playing a blue sprite years ago, and I’d love to see them return here. You speak of “combat” quite a few times which I find... Very odd. With the lore as it is here, I can’t see even like 5 sprites ever taking on someone larger than a child.

 

The old lore had an ability for the sprite to produce some kind of aerosolised chemical, that would bring on sleepiness, or blind someone, or simply just be a thick fog or something. Perhaps the alchemical reagent  for each type of sprite could have a non-alchemical purpose as well? It would let Sprites use this ability in a MUCH wider context, as alchemy isn’t that widespread and they should be relevant to more than 0.5% of the playerbase. Could have each sprite produce in its pixie-dust a diluted, alchemically useless version of the reagent causing something like:

 

Could be:

Daytime – Good-vibes-dust

Twilight – Deep sleepiness

Night – Disorientation

 

Even without this, I’d love to play one again with what you’ve written, I’d just want to be more than a cow for alchemists :P

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Denied.

 

Increase font size.

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47 minutes ago, Stalistena said:

I remember playing a blue sprite years ago, and I’d love to see them return here. You speak of “combat” quite a few times which I find... Very odd. With the lore as it is here, I can’t see even like 5 sprites ever taking on someone larger than a child.

 

The old lore had an ability for the sprite to produce some kind of aerosolised chemical, that would bring on sleepiness, or blind someone, or simply just be a thick fog or something. Perhaps the alchemical reagent  for each type of sprite could have a non-alchemical purpose as well? It would let Sprites use this ability in a MUCH wider context, as alchemy isn’t that widespread and they should be relevant to more than 0.5% of the playerbase. Could have each sprite produce in its pixie-dust a diluted, alchemically useless version of the reagent causing something like:

 

Could be:

Daytime – Good-vibes-dust

Twilight – Deep sleepiness

Night – Disorientation

 

Even without this, I’d love to play one again with what you’ve written, I’d just want to be more than a cow for alchemists 😛


Thank you for this lovely constructive criticism!

- I spoke of combat because I have been repeatedly told from writing other pieces of lore, that I must clarify what abilities can be used in combat, and which may not. I didn’t mean to make sprites seem useless!

- Five sprites could take on someone. Sprites can fly in combat, and it’s also mentioned in the lore that they can form small weapons out of sharpened twigs and stuff- Although they are made out of plant and are less than a foot tall so yeah, I understand they are at an incredibly weak spot.

- To compensate for that, I added a toxin. I admit the toxins from the previous iterations of lore went over my mind as I wrote this. But to make sure this wouldn’t become an issue with power-gaming, it has a very simple effect that will make me scream if someone manages to power-game it. Sprites will be able to get away from combat easier, or make a few last stabs with their stakes. But keep in mind that I don’t want them to seem as powerful as a Descendant. 

- I’m sorry you feel like you’d be a cow for alchemists : (  The lore is written in a way so that alchemists can’t just repeatedly target and kill sprites for reagents. Any businessman or alchemist will need to seek out and successfully bargain with sprites to get the reagents. So I don’t really expect them to target sprites in the context of killing/using them.

Thank you for replying though! Definitely helped a lot with the missing piece of toxins. 

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Maybe increase the font size a tad? The current isn’t exactly easy upon the eyes.

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36 minutes ago, LaffenOutLoud said:

snip

Wait did you just add that or did I somehow miss that entire section on the first read? If so thats embarrassing.

 

But yeah, the toxin works pretty well I think! I remember in the original lore it defined what chemicals it actually was, like  it was a capsicum or cannabidiol or something like that. Could be good to add there.

 

I’m wondering too about what making deals with the Fae would look like in practice, but I guess thats really up to the creativity of the players.

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Not at all true to what sprites used to be.

 

But also better than what sprites were. I’m pleasantly surprised. Good **** 👍

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23 minutes ago, Stalistena said:

snip


Yes! I didn’t make a dedicated paragraph to it, but it’s under the Twilight variant, showing some things they may do to “prove” themselves. But I also omitted the old redline that stated that sprites can’t hold weapons, because I think it’s dumb. 

Also I’m glad you liked it!

As for in practice, it’s supposed to be Sprites telling people to do favours for them based on their redemption. So like, a Nightfall sprite may ask someone to get the sprite a poison or something, and in return give the reagent.

A dayward sprite may ask a person to break a trapped animal in a zoo out, bring it to the sprite, and then in return give the reagent. 

Hopefully people are creative and don’t just give out reagents willy nilly. I want the mysticalness of “bargaining with fairies” because it’s a cool aesthetic

17 minutes ago, BonesOfTheEarth said:

Not at all true to what sprites used to be.

 

But also better than what sprites were. I’m pleasantly surprised. Good **** 👍


This makes me so happy!

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I love it! Your race lore writing is so thought out and well written 😄 Big +1 

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This is great lore in my opinion! It’s an interesting creature, and not just like most depictions of sprites in popular media (see: Tinkerbell). Unless of course I’m mixing up the meanings of the word. Sprites, Faeries, Pixies, etc. Not sure what the actual difference is between them generally speaking. I like that they have interesting abilities and uses, have a built in escape mechanism (basically skin-farting teargas lmao), and most importantly they have a PURPOSE. The basic idea of the “Redemption” mentality they all have is a great basepoint to encourage development in roleplay! 

 

A few of things, though. 

 

First; in the section regarding their defense mechanism of a toxin cloud it says “When they are under attack”, but “attack” is never defined clearly. This can open stuff up to abuse, or misinterpretation. Obviously, anybody would be able to point and call BS on a Sprite doing something like releasing the toxin for a reaaaallly stretched reason. That said, it doesn’t look like it’s a 100% unconscious action that just happens automatically since it’s specifically stated that one emote must be made for exertion of some kind. So what attack means needs to be clarified. Is this an at will sort of thing that doesn’t actually require them to be in a hostile situation? Or is it something fueled by whatever their equivalent to adrenaline is where they could quite possibly perform this act in a heated argument, but not in a situation where they are completely unprovoked? And – as a big fan and long time user of Illusion Magics – what about illusion? Some could try and argue that any illusion cast on someone is an “attack” on their mind, even if it’s relatively benign. Solving the illusion bit would be easy if it were a matter of making it only useable when they have a proper fight or flight response (pun intended). Then you just need some way of avoiding people trying to stretch the limits of this. “Oh my character has anxiety so you doing this thing that no one else really cares about usually means they go pomf and skin-fart!”. 

 

Another thing that should be clarified is whether or not this can be used proactively. For example; say the Sprite’s friend is in a fight, or notice a mage is acting on their friend in some way, or about to cast a spell at someone, or is casting or whatever, but the Sprite themselves is not currently in harms way, being attacked, etc. Can they then essentially do a fly by and expel the toxin to help their friend or disrupt the evil mage’s attempts at whatever they’re doing? Or is it something that requires that they are already threatened in some more direct way? 

 

Second; in the example given about what a day sprite would do as far as mischief is concerned it raises the question...what are the upper most physical capabilities for the average sprite for the purposes of doing Sprite stuff. Pranks, ******* with people, etc. Can a Sprite muster the strength to open the latch for the door of an animal pen to let out the animals? Can they even open a normal sized door on their own by any means? This should be clarified. 

 

Thirdly; Personally I’m completely in favor of a Sprite (and other similar creatures) being able to fly more or less indefinitely in most situations. They’ve evolved to do so, and are made out of stuff that would more or less support the ability for extended casual flight. Especially if their wings are such a massive, critical weak spot for them. Speaking in the context of IRL Evolution; body parts that are in vulnerable places, or considered weak spots, generally take 2 paths for the most part. They either get weeded out via natural selection since having it there is far more of a detriment than it is a benefit, or they would remain because it creatures a significant benefit which outweighs the detriments. 

So, I think with these wings they should either NOT be a massive weak point that significant damage to them can literally kill the Sprite outright, or they should be far more useful than you’ve made them here. Some ideal solutions...

 

  1.  Use in combat can be restricted in duration due to fight or flight (pun intended)/adrenaline and what not, however the reason is because they offer a significantly increased speed and agility for that shorter duration. Either for fleeing a fight, and just ******* booking it the heck outta there like a bat out of hell Sprite out of the Faewilde, or for being incredibly agile and slippery via dodging the ever loving shite out of just about anything that comes their way. Give them a simple system. In combat a sprite has 8 “points” for significant usage of their wings. A point is used in any single emote that would be beyond “casual” flying. Such as dodging swings from weapons, or other similarly jerky movements. That would use 1 point. Flying as hard as they can away would also use 1 point per emote. Caveat is here: Dodging something bigger like a net thrown at them (which would be the obvious choice when trying to subdue a Sprite), or other “area of effect” sort of attacks would require 2 points instead of 1. I think that’d be neat. 
  2.  Casual purpose, non-combat flight should either be totally unrestricted as far as duration is concerned, or the emote limit – if any – should only require very short, and fleeting rest periods, much like real insects seem to do. Not sure if a fly NEEDS to buzz around and then land for a second before buzzing around again due to fatigue, or if it’s simply just a thing they like to do. But Sprites could operate on a similar idea. Flying in a completely inconsequential situation for more than 8 emotes (which is basically nothing) and then being required to wait an elven hour (which is like 3 days in game) before being able to squeeze in another handful of emotes that could be anywhere from 30 seconds to a few minutes depending on the pace of roleplay is absurd. The wings have all of this blood flow and are a massive weakness/target for what amounts to being able to move and keep up with your average human for a couple of minutes tops. This means that they’ve somehow survived as a species when all it would take to kill them is for someone to sneak up or trick an unsuspecting Sprite just enough so that they could just rip their wings off. 

This section tl;dr: Only combat should have restricted emote numbers for flight, however they should gain certain advantages and potentially balance that on a sort of point system. Non-combat situations should have no emote limit, or if they need to have the emote limit, they rest period shouldn’t be so massive as 3 in RP days (1 elven hour), and should amount to something like fleeting, short rests. Those short rests could probably be only a single emote, maybe two. There’s little reason for anything more than that, or even having an emote limit at all for casual flight. 

 

Anyway, other than that the lore looks awesome and even in its current form would be fun to have on the server. It really depends on what the ST things about that. 

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Having just gone into a discord and inquired about the status of Sprites, I have a huge interest in contributing to the restored community this lore creates! Time to make a little village of mushroom houses and tree stumps and cause some much-needed sprite michief!  🥰

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On 5/15/2020 at 10:56 PM, Demotheus said:

~snip~

i love it when people give such thought-out criticism. i’ve edited some of the points to include your feedback, i don’t know why i didn’t think of some of those points

- made it so sprites can fly with no limits (besides how high they can fly, and the mechanic restrictions) except in combat situations. 

- defined combat situations as a conflict RP scenario where a party calls CRP/PVP. 

- defined that a sprite willingly produces the toxin, which can only be used during CRP.

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On 5/17/2020 at 9:03 AM, MunaZaldrizoti said:

Having just gone into a discord and inquired about the status of Sprites, I have a huge interest in contributing to the restored community this lore creates! Time to make a little village of mushroom houses and tree stumps and cause some much-needed sprite michief!  🥰

@MunaZaldrizoti take me with u pls I want.. I want to do this so bad..

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