As the title says, I'm putting together a section of an adventure and the plot I've come up with requires a chunk of chaos to be present in the "normal" plane. I'm struggling to find much info on chaos, though the premise I'm working off of is that the grey ooze states it is made when stone is dissolved by chaos. I want to have the stone be kind of like a lump of uranium which is dissolving nearby stone into grey ooze. I know I have some degree of flexibility in my own storywriting but does it make sense with the lore that a stone could be "made of chaos"?
Have you seen the monolith in Agents of Shield? It could be modelled on that, something which, given the right circumstances, is no longer necessarily a solid, and could even potentially transport characters to another location/plane.
It's more of a plot device than anything else, and I'm considered keeping it away from the players to both prevent someone from stealing it and to avoid having to work out the complicated interactions it might have with everything else!
I can easily adapt it into a rock which is endlessly changing colour, shape and weight, which makes it sound much cooler!
The storyline is that the stone was found by a tribe of stone elementals, who are now turning to grey ooze, so they have gotten rid of the stone (to keep it away from players) but are still changing, so need the players help to reverse the effects. After checking and finding that grey ooze is not immune to petrification, I am having the players attempt to capture the breath of a Gorgon to bring back to the elemental tribe's witchdoctor to re-petrify the grey ooze into stone. So the exact nature of the chaos stone is largely descriptive, so I will have the stone described as endlessly changing. At some point in the future, I may have such a stone appear in the adventurers paths, to see if they remember the description!
A stone of Chaos immediately reminded me of a few things lore wise - Tharizdun and the Slaadin forgotten realms and The Colour Out of Spaceby HP Lovecraft. As a MacGuffin I think what you described works great. If you want to keep the Chaos flavor but want to lock it into the ooze theme you could say its an object cursed by Juiblex.
If you think its going to be more of a narrative item and not something usable by the players then I wouldn't worry about its effects or description changing slightly overtime, just use it however you need to use it.
You obviously have your reasons to keep it from the players, but it's worth mentioning that a "rock o' chaos" is a cool tool for a funny/random D&D session, and can give you and the party a small break from a plot-heavy RP streak if you need it.
You could make it trigger under certain conditions that the players can't discern or easily recreate, or make it appear to be misteriously inert after a one-time activation so they can't abuse the "random fun" button. There's tons of "random S*#! happens" roll tables out there if you want to make it easy on yourself when managing interactions with the stone, so a few minutes of prep work and a D20 will cover you. I think of it like wild magic, except you own the buttons for what/when/how stuff happens. You can also just make random stuff happen to them once a day while they're in possession of the stone, until they're no longer carrying it.
Not everything coming out of a chaos stone needs to be campaign changing:
They wake up in each other's bodies for a day, or hear each other's thoughts throughout the day.
The party can speak with plants and/or animals... and all of them seem to be very pissed at the party for some reason
A favorite of many: Magic is suppressed for some period of time, magic items stop working
They take a long rest and get the benefits of it, but wake up to find that only 7 minutes passed since they fell asleep
Everything they eat tastes of metal and gives them horrible indigestion... they roll CON saves throughout the day to avoid embarassment in public places
Every time a member of the group sneezes or coughs at the table, a harmless wild animal (e.g. pig, chicken, duck) appears in the room the party is currently in
Nobody in the party can speak/write anything in a language that an NPC can understand for a day
Nobody in the town they are in remembers who they are for a day
As the Specter of America's 16th president said, I wouldn't overthink it for a one-time lore item. Use it for what you need and move on... unless you plan to bring the crazy later!
As the title says, I'm putting together a section of an adventure and the plot I've come up with requires a chunk of chaos to be present in the "normal" plane. I'm struggling to find much info on chaos, though the premise I'm working off of is that the grey ooze states it is made when stone is dissolved by chaos. I want to have the stone be kind of like a lump of uranium which is dissolving nearby stone into grey ooze. I know I have some degree of flexibility in my own storywriting but does it make sense with the lore that a stone could be "made of chaos"?
Yes, you can have a stone made of chaos, here's how:
Repeat after me: "In my game world there is a stone made out of chaos."
it could just be a dense chunk of elemental chaos. From the DMG:
The Inner Planes surround and enfold the Material Plane and its echoes, providing the raw elemental substance from which all worlds were made. The four Elemental Planes — Air, Earth, Fire, and Water — form a ring around the Material Plane, suspended within a churning realm known as the Elemental Chaos. These planes are all connected, and the border regions between them are sometimes described as distinct planes in their own right.
Elemental Chaos
At the farthest extents of the Elemental Planes, the pure elements dissolve and bleed together into an unending tumult of clashing energies and colliding substance called the Elemental Chaos. Elementals can be found here as well, but they usually don’t stay long, preferring the comfort of their native planes. Reports indicate the existence of weird hybrid elementals native to the Elemental Chaos, but such creatures are seldom seen on other planes.
I was mainly keeping the stone back from the party as I am currently a little iffy on what "chaos" really is and what it can do, but thanks to your replies I've got a much better idea of it!
I will certainly be making a random table for the effects of the chaos stone on the local area. Love the idea of it being linked to if players cough or sneeze! I may also add in an easy combat which might occur (a very cheap goblin assassin, for example) to leap out and attack a character if the player is looking at their phone instead of paying attention...
So, random thoughts for chaos effects on long rests:
Random, local teleportation - waking up at the top of a tree, or in someone's house nearby.
Terrain changing - They might wake up from a long rest to find their camp is on a solid island in the middle of a bog, or find that trees have grown around them which sprout pebbles instead of fruit
I'm looking forward to coming up with some ideas for this :)
I'm now considering a means by which to give the players some expectations for this, but it's going to need a lot of potential results!
I want to have the appearance of the stone to reflect its effect. There won't be anything intuitive about it, but it will be consistent - if the stone is blue and lumpy, it will do the same thing as last time it was blue and lumpy. So I want to have a table to roll on which links the appearance to its effects. Thus the party could make notes and learn of the the stone's effects. I'd also like to have 2 or 3 columns on the table, so that each appearance has 2 or 3 different effects, thus making it seem like it's not linked, but tenacious players stand a chance of learning the results.
Coins clumping together into humanoid shapes. Maybe if they are carrying around 1,000+ coins then it creates a coin golem (1 hp per 20 coins)?
chaos stone aside, that'd be fun to encounter...copper coin golems fairly easy to defeat...gold coin golems pretty hard. once defeated, they just fall into a pile of coins. insta-loot, assuming you have pockets big enough to carry them out.
Absolutely love the idea of a coin golem! I'm now putting together the stats for it, which will depend entirely on the quantity of coins present! I don't expect the metal itself will affect its stats, being hit by a pile of copper coins or a pile of gold ones won't make much difference!
Absolutely love the idea of a coin golem! I'm now putting together the stats for it, which will depend entirely on the quantity of coins present! I don't expect the metal itself will affect its stats, being hit by a pile of copper coins or a pile of gold ones won't make much difference!
I have to say I'm having immense fun in working out the mechanics for this coin golem. I love that it's gone from being an inconvenience in picking up treasure whilst adventuring to what could conceivably be the central hub of a major plotline. I'll update here once I'm done fleshing it out!
Yeah, why not? It’s a verbal medium. Just say stone of chaos and let your players imagine it however they want. Or come up with a description if you want. Like it’s shape, size, and color patterns seem to change depending on the angle you view it.
As the title says, I'm putting together a section of an adventure and the plot I've come up with requires a chunk of chaos to be present in the "normal" plane. I'm struggling to find much info on chaos, though the premise I'm working off of is that the grey ooze states it is made when stone is dissolved by chaos. I want to have the stone be kind of like a lump of uranium which is dissolving nearby stone into grey ooze. I know I have some degree of flexibility in my own storywriting but does it make sense with the lore that a stone could be "made of chaos"?
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Have you seen the monolith in Agents of Shield? It could be modelled on that, something which, given the right circumstances, is no longer necessarily a solid, and could even potentially transport characters to another location/plane.
It's more of a plot device than anything else, and I'm considered keeping it away from the players to both prevent someone from stealing it and to avoid having to work out the complicated interactions it might have with everything else!
I can easily adapt it into a rock which is endlessly changing colour, shape and weight, which makes it sound much cooler!
The storyline is that the stone was found by a tribe of stone elementals, who are now turning to grey ooze, so they have gotten rid of the stone (to keep it away from players) but are still changing, so need the players help to reverse the effects. After checking and finding that grey ooze is not immune to petrification, I am having the players attempt to capture the breath of a Gorgon to bring back to the elemental tribe's witchdoctor to re-petrify the grey ooze into stone. So the exact nature of the chaos stone is largely descriptive, so I will have the stone described as endlessly changing. At some point in the future, I may have such a stone appear in the adventurers paths, to see if they remember the description!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
A stone of Chaos immediately reminded me of a few things lore wise - Tharizdun and the Slaad in forgotten realms and The Colour Out of Space by HP Lovecraft. As a MacGuffin I think what you described works great. If you want to keep the Chaos flavor but want to lock it into the ooze theme you could say its an object cursed by Juiblex.
If you think its going to be more of a narrative item and not something usable by the players then I wouldn't worry about its effects or description changing slightly overtime, just use it however you need to use it.
You obviously have your reasons to keep it from the players, but it's worth mentioning that a "rock o' chaos" is a cool tool for a funny/random D&D session, and can give you and the party a small break from a plot-heavy RP streak if you need it.
You could make it trigger under certain conditions that the players can't discern or easily recreate, or make it appear to be misteriously inert after a one-time activation so they can't abuse the "random fun" button. There's tons of "random S*#! happens" roll tables out there if you want to make it easy on yourself when managing interactions with the stone, so a few minutes of prep work and a D20 will cover you. I think of it like wild magic, except you own the buttons for what/when/how stuff happens. You can also just make random stuff happen to them once a day while they're in possession of the stone, until they're no longer carrying it.
Not everything coming out of a chaos stone needs to be campaign changing:
As the Specter of America's 16th president said, I wouldn't overthink it for a one-time lore item. Use it for what you need and move on... unless you plan to bring the crazy later!
Yes, you can have a stone made of chaos, here's how:
Repeat after me: "In my game world there is a stone made out of chaos."
Done!
Keith Richards?
it could just be a dense chunk of elemental chaos. From the DMG:
The Inner Planes surround and enfold the Material Plane and its echoes, providing the raw elemental substance from which all worlds were made. The four Elemental Planes — Air, Earth, Fire, and Water — form a ring around the Material Plane, suspended within a churning realm known as the Elemental Chaos. These planes are all connected, and the border regions between them are sometimes described as distinct planes in their own right.
Elemental Chaos
At the farthest extents of the Elemental Planes, the pure elements dissolve and bleed together into an unending tumult of clashing energies and colliding substance called the Elemental Chaos. Elementals can be found here as well, but they usually don’t stay long, preferring the comfort of their native planes. Reports indicate the existence of weird hybrid elementals native to the Elemental Chaos, but such creatures are seldom seen on other planes.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
Awesome, thank you all for your replies!
I was mainly keeping the stone back from the party as I am currently a little iffy on what "chaos" really is and what it can do, but thanks to your replies I've got a much better idea of it!
I will certainly be making a random table for the effects of the chaos stone on the local area. Love the idea of it being linked to if players cough or sneeze! I may also add in an easy combat which might occur (a very cheap goblin assassin, for example) to leap out and attack a character if the player is looking at their phone instead of paying attention...
So, random thoughts for chaos effects on long rests:
Random, local teleportation - waking up at the top of a tree, or in someone's house nearby.
Terrain changing - They might wake up from a long rest to find their camp is on a solid island in the middle of a bog, or find that trees have grown around them which sprout pebbles instead of fruit
I'm looking forward to coming up with some ideas for this :)
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
I'm now considering a means by which to give the players some expectations for this, but it's going to need a lot of potential results!
I want to have the appearance of the stone to reflect its effect. There won't be anything intuitive about it, but it will be consistent - if the stone is blue and lumpy, it will do the same thing as last time it was blue and lumpy. So I want to have a table to roll on which links the appearance to its effects. Thus the party could make notes and learn of the the stone's effects. I'd also like to have 2 or 3 columns on the table, so that each appearance has 2 or 3 different effects, thus making it seem like it's not linked, but tenacious players stand a chance of learning the results.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Perhaps take some inspiration from the wild magic surge column? There is also a great homebrew list of 10,000 wild magic surges.
When players get creative.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
For 1, maybe 1d4 oozes? I don't think most people sleep with their armor on...
For 19, is it permanent or a temporary 12+ hour bag of holding?
Perhaps the treasure in 14 moves at 5ft per round? How about coins group together to make it easier for the players?
For 4, how nearby? What if there aren't trees or boulders? Could it be on top of say... a cabinet?
I love 12.
When players get creative.
Coins clumping together into humanoid shapes. Maybe if they are carrying around 1,000+ coins then it creates a coin golem (1 hp per 20 coins)?
chaos stone aside, that'd be fun to encounter...copper coin golems fairly easy to defeat...gold coin golems pretty hard. once defeated, they just fall into a pile of coins. insta-loot, assuming you have pockets big enough to carry them out.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
Absolutely love the idea of a coin golem! I'm now putting together the stats for it, which will depend entirely on the quantity of coins present! I don't expect the metal itself will affect its stats, being hit by a pile of copper coins or a pile of gold ones won't make much difference!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Gold is softer than copper, so less damage? ;-)
I found a "treasure golem" https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Treasure_Golem_(5e_Creature)
Hoard Blast looks fun - it explodes, lots of shrapnel, then reforms on its next turn.
It just needs an ability saying that the "Heat Metal" spell actually fuses the coins together, making it much tougher!
I have to say I'm having immense fun in working out the mechanics for this coin golem. I love that it's gone from being an inconvenience in picking up treasure whilst adventuring to what could conceivably be the central hub of a major plotline. I'll update here once I'm done fleshing it out!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Yeah, why not? It’s a verbal medium. Just say stone of chaos and let your players imagine it however they want. Or come up with a description if you want. Like it’s shape, size, and color patterns seem to change depending on the angle you view it.
This is great! 9 is hilarious. Could I use a tweaked version of this in my homebrew world? Thanks!
My Homebrew Thread(Link)