The Boulderstone Mythos

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Permalink Reply by John Enfield on December 29, 2009 at 1:29am

Good idea Doug! I love playing Dwarves and have thought about playing a Gnome in D&D so this sounds good to me. Dwarves who think they are cursed Giants....funny! I'll work on a character and post it for the group's suggestions/criticism/dismissal etc. This should be fun!

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Permalink Reply by John Enfield on February 16, 2010 at 9:23am

I was talking to a friend of mine with whom I play D&D 3.5 campaigns occasionally about Clan Boulderstone. He thought it was a clever idea and liked the sound of it. He had a couple of questions for me about it that I was unable to answer.

First, is this curse by Hag Gnorla Giantbane one that is not vulnerable to magic user abilities like "disspell magic"? Is it something that only the Hag herself (or one of her kin) is capable of reversing? Are there certain items that must be combined or at least brought in proximity to each other to have an effect on the curse?

Second, assuming it is possible to reverse (permanently or temporarily) the curse via disspell magic or some other means, what effect would it have on a Boulderstone? Would that Boulderstone be affected, or would he and/or she remain the same but their offspring would grow up to be true Stone Giants? If the adult Boulderstone in question had the curse lifted from him, would he grow into a full size giant instantly, or gradually? My friend described some situations where it could be a real problem for a Boulderstone to suddenly find himself Giant sized. Those included: while he was crawling through a low-ceiling dungeon tunnel (he could get stuck fast); while he's wearing armor or some other garb that won't rip and break apart as he gets bigger (the effect, my friend suggests, could actually kill the growing creature); and once he's a huge giant, wouldn't his once properly proportioned weapons be way too small (his two handed sword in his gnome/dwarf size would be like a stick pin in the hands of a giant). Would the effect be permanent without any need for maintenance, or would the Boulderstone have to eat, drink or do something to keep Giant sized?

Lastly, is this mythos actually true (in the context of the games, of course), or is it possible that the Boulderstones could eventually find out that the whole thing was made up by a devious or ambitious Boulderstone who wanted to get his followers to attack the Hag and her kin? "Nothing cements a group together quite like the presence of a sworn enemy (real or imagined)", my friend says.

Like I said, both my friend and I really like the idea of the Boulderstones. He even agreed that it could be fun to let me or another person who sometimes plays in our campaign play as a Boulderstone. He's just one of those 'deep thinkers' who tends to want to take everything to its logical conclusion (which can be either a lot of fun or really annoying depending on the situation). Maybe these are questions that we'll discover over the course of playing Boulderstone characters in games over time, but if anyone has ideas of how they might be answered, I'd be interested in reading them.

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Permalink Reply by Doug Daulton on February 16, 2010 at 9:32am

John,

At this point, no one really knows the answers to these questions. Are the hag & the curse real? Not sure.

Doug

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