Pages

Saturday, August 15, 2015

Geological Specimens from the Fantasy Underworld

Sunstone: sometimes crafted into orbs, bricks, or other objects, this stone gives off a radiance equivalent to surface sunlight in both luminosity and heat, ranging from a cold pale "winter sun" for a single stone, to dazzling hot "summer sun" for an entire cavern. Sunstone illumination can fully meet the light needs of green plant life.

Night Crystals:  these natural crystals absorb visible light and come in two varieties. Twilight crystals absorb some of the non-magical visible light in the surrounding area, cutting torch and lamp illumination diameters in half. Midnight crystals absorb all non-magical light in their vicinity, making mundane light sources useless.

Chameleon Veins: these naturally occurring swirling patterns of radiation emanate from the rock in underground environments. Their patterns resemble those normally seen by infravision, darkvision, etc. When chameleon veins are present, the patterns of creatures and objects blend in with the background rock so well that infravision, darkvision, etc. are rendered useless.

Silenite: sometimes crafted into brick walls and flagstone floors, this rock absorbs sound. The footfalls of creatures walking across a silenite floor, for example, cannot be heard, and a magic-user inside a silenite-crafted room cannot cast spells.

Amplicite: this stone magnifies sound many times over. The stealthiest footfall on an amplicite flagstone sounds like a mighty hammer blow ringing on an anvil.

6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is very cool.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am going to use some of this in an adventure in the Cave of the unknown. What would you use or call small flakes of a fools gold type substance that give off twinkling light? (In #27, the Hall of Gathering)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm glad you're going to use it! Regarding the gold flakes giving off a twinkling light, are you looking for some sort of suggestive name, something that evokes the substance itself? I'll have to think about that a bit.

      Delete
    2. You could just appropriate the term "glitterdust" from D&D 3.5; or you could model something new based on it. I'd probably use a first element like: tinsel-, glitter-, glimmer-, sparkle- and then add a second element like -dust, -bits, -drops, -motes, -flecks, or -flakes. So something like: "tinseldust" or "glimmerbits" etc.

      Delete