Hi all! In my campaign, I want to somehow integrate a tribe similar to the Mantis Village from Hollow Knight. For those unaware, the Mantis Village is a village of honorable warriors who, upon seeing you, bow to you and then immediately fight you. Once you defeat the Mantis Lords, though, anytime you pass inhabitants of the village they bow to you and do not fight you unless you engage them first. I want to incorporate a similar tribe into my campaign, but because short periods of in-game combat can take so long in real life I can't really think of how to incorporate this without it taking up way too much time.
One thought that I've had so far would be to have these fights take the form of opposed ability checks instead of full-on battles, but I think boiling down the encounters that much would take away from the experience. Any ideas?
Maybe orcs. If, in your world, orcs are not inherently evil, you can make a combat-strength-respecting orc village which basically mirrors the mantises from hollow knight.
As far as encounters go, make a sort of isolated version of combat when it comes to the leaders of the tribe, like the druids of the village heed the commands of the leaders and all cast mold earth at the same time, making an arena which the the party fights the leaders in isolated combat. This way, you don't really have to make a new version of combat.
I really like the idea of having druids that cast mold earth to ensure the fairness/isolation of battles!
Orcs are savages in my world so having them fight honorably like this wouldn't fit. Taking the orc's tribal structure and some less savage deviations of orcish values as a starting point for homebrew monsters definitely seems like a starting point that fits what I'm going for though.
I haven't poayed Hollow Knight so I am not sure how close this is to what you want, but does it have to be a tribe? Maybe the Master of a nearby monastery/martial arts school/knight order is dying and in order to determine a succesor the students wander around challenging people to prove their strength. Those who lose are out of the running and once few remain they do a tournament, one that your pc could get involved with if they beat many of them. Or it could be the something that school always does.
If you want more classes than just monks and a more comedic feel, you could make them fans of a play or book series that became famous and in which the characters do that. That can lead to silly things like the lead actor hiring your players as bodyguards because his fans are dellusiunal or quests to help do the play in their current town (getting props, permission to perform, saving or replacing an actor).
Alternatively, you could go full ham and make them recruiters for your campaign's version of the Mortal Kombat tournament. They wouldn't outright tell you that of course but give a silly excuse like it being a government initiative to test the strength of adventurers due to many conmen taking dangerous jobs and running with the money or because with the roads so dangerous any who can't defend themselves are legally required to travel by caravan and if you beat that judge they know you can defend yourself and let you be.
If it has to be a tribe though, some kind of werebeast or animal people that has a whole dominance play going.
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Hi all! In my campaign, I want to somehow integrate a tribe similar to the Mantis Village from Hollow Knight. For those unaware, the Mantis Village is a village of honorable warriors who, upon seeing you, bow to you and then immediately fight you. Once you defeat the Mantis Lords, though, anytime you pass inhabitants of the village they bow to you and do not fight you unless you engage them first. I want to incorporate a similar tribe into my campaign, but because short periods of in-game combat can take so long in real life I can't really think of how to incorporate this without it taking up way too much time.
One thought that I've had so far would be to have these fights take the form of opposed ability checks instead of full-on battles, but I think boiling down the encounters that much would take away from the experience. Any ideas?
Maybe orcs. If, in your world, orcs are not inherently evil, you can make a combat-strength-respecting orc village which basically mirrors the mantises from hollow knight.
As far as encounters go, make a sort of isolated version of combat when it comes to the leaders of the tribe, like the druids of the village heed the commands of the leaders and all cast mold earth at the same time, making an arena which the the party fights the leaders in isolated combat. This way, you don't really have to make a new version of combat.
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I really like the idea of having druids that cast mold earth to ensure the fairness/isolation of battles!
Orcs are savages in my world so having them fight honorably like this wouldn't fit. Taking the orc's tribal structure and some less savage deviations of orcish values as a starting point for homebrew monsters definitely seems like a starting point that fits what I'm going for though.
Thanks for the suggestions!
I haven't poayed Hollow Knight so I am not sure how close this is to what you want, but does it have to be a tribe? Maybe the Master of a nearby monastery/martial arts school/knight order is dying and in order to determine a succesor the students wander around challenging people to prove their strength. Those who lose are out of the running and once few remain they do a tournament, one that your pc could get involved with if they beat many of them. Or it could be the something that school always does.
If you want more classes than just monks and a more comedic feel, you could make them fans of a play or book series that became famous and in which the characters do that. That can lead to silly things like the lead actor hiring your players as bodyguards because his fans are dellusiunal or quests to help do the play in their current town (getting props, permission to perform, saving or replacing an actor).
Alternatively, you could go full ham and make them recruiters for your campaign's version of the Mortal Kombat tournament. They wouldn't outright tell you that of course but give a silly excuse like it being a government initiative to test the strength of adventurers due to many conmen taking dangerous jobs and running with the money or because with the roads so dangerous any who can't defend themselves are legally required to travel by caravan and if you beat that judge they know you can defend yourself and let you be.
If it has to be a tribe though, some kind of werebeast or animal people that has a whole dominance play going.