Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Sexier Spell Lists

Nothing "R" rated (not that there's anything wrong with that), but I'm going through my Chanbara spell list and thinking it's rather bland. Most of the spells have boring names (taken from D&D). A lot of them have game mechanical effects (make you better at X, heal X hit points, gain bonuses to X for Y rounds, etc.), but nothing of a visual aid as to what it might be doing.

So since I'm adding in some new spells anyway, I might as well try and "clean up the neighborhood" with some different names but keep the spell, or just some all new spells altogether.

For an example of making a spell "sexier" (as in: cool, rad, awesome, etc.). I thought of this years ago and am finally getting to use it. You all know the spell Evard's Black Tentacles." It summons cthulhu-ish tentacles to wrap everyone up except the caster. For Chanbara, that same spell will be list as Sumobeya. Instead of otherworldly black tentacles, in my game it summons a stable of sumo wrestlers who can then beat up, grapple with, and hold anyone who gets too close. The mechanics remain the same, the fluff is changed to meet the scenarios.

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