[”We are normal.” Unlike the yak folk, @canwefixitnoitsfucked actually did get to play a keeper at one point. They were also a running presence in both my senior year high school game and the Planescape game I ran as a college undergrad. Part of what made them so intimidating was that the players never actually fought any of them. This was good, because the 3.0 Fiend Folio version was greatly over CRed for its power level. @thecreaturechronicle did a version more in tune with its 3e CR, whereas my version is aiming more at the power level of the 2e Planescape version.
Also, the reference to Kazik is in honor of Alfred K. Bender, the creator of the Men in Black, of which the keepers are a definite homage to.]
Keeper This gray-skinned creature looks almost human, but is
slightly off, as if it were an incomplete sculpture. They wear dark goggles and
a leather coat, and bear a grim expression.
The keepers are a
mysterious race of vaguely humanoid creatures obsessed with information and
secrets, and willing to kill or die to protect them. If asked of their origins,
they say only that they are from “Kazik”, but whether Kazik is a city, another
plane, another planet or all of these is unknown—even divination spells do not
reveal this information. Although keepers are superficially humanoid, they lack
many of the details of humanoid bodies—they are hairless (although some wear
wigs) and have no nails or claws, and they have a single block in their mouth
with lines to give the appearance of separated teeth. They have no eyes, but
typically wear goggles or dark glasses to obscure this fact.
Keepers are information
brokers who desire to suppress dangerous or sensitive information, particularly
that relating to new technologies or magical breakthroughs. They typically do
this through intimidation, threats or even outright murder. They have no regard
for good or evil, and find the behavior of most other creatures to be chaotic
and unpredictable. In conversation, keepers are often unthinkingly rude or
offputtingly polite, and their lack of understanding social norms often walks a
fine line between comical and unnerving. They can be enticed to reveal less
important secrets through barter or bribery, and what information a keeper
considers “unimportant” may still be fantastically valuable in the right hands.
In combat, a
keeper reshapes its body to form weapons from its hands, moving into flanking
position or striking from ambush to take advantage of its sneak attack. They
rarely fight alone, and may leave some of their numbers in reserve to attack in
waves. Keepers can switch positions with each other through teleportation,
swapping fresh forces in as the old wave is exhausted. A keeper would rather
die than be forced to reveal its secrets, and they can will their bodies to
collapse into a pile of quickly evaporating toxic sludge.
A keeper stands
as tall as a human being, but their strange composition makes them one and a
half times heavier than a human of their height and build.
Love it! I don’t know how many people remember this old meme, but they are reminiscent of the Pusher/Shover Robot from The Terrible Secret of Space.
I actually had a chance to play a Keeper (but not a set of three like I did for you!) in another short-lived game. The best bit I got to pull off is aggressively greeting strangers by holding out my hands and saying “I HAVE NO WEAPON”, and by session three or four when we had our first combat and my arms turned into swords my recently-made adventuring partners felt, somehow, betrayed.
In particular I like the way you’ve fixed the arm blade ability. In the original version they could take the form of any one-handed manufactured melee weapon, which let open a flood gate of bizarre rules interactions.
The question I always had was you would think that for beings dedicated to learning and keeping secrets they would have some way to read. IIRC their blindsight was explained as being auditory. One time I included them I suggested that their extra-sensitive fingers can read conventional text as someone would read braile. Other times I gave them an at-will cantrip from 3.5 that allowed you to immediately memorize a bunch of pages of text by touching it.
One issue I see is that, because they are quasi-living space robots they defy D&D or Pathfinder creature types and can be difficult to stat. I think thematically aberration (with extraplanar and construct traits) is a good fit, however it does mean they still need to eat, sleep, and breathe, all of which seem out of place for a Keeper.
To access Pinna Park in Super Mario Sunshine, Mario enters a cannon, which then shoots Mario to a different island in a cutscene. However, by rendering the scene as a wireframe, we can see that whatever is shot out of the cannon is not Mario, as he remains inside the cannon after it is fired.
Suppermariobroth I just want to say your expertise at subtley phrasing basic video game construction factoids as if something sinister is going on every time is acknowledged and appreciated
throwback to that time in my existentialism class where the professor asked ‘who thinks hell is other people’ and half the class slowly and meekly put their hand up
then the prof was like ‘…i mean who originally said it’
The related issue that has been bugging me lately is that the second crime could have easily been deemed “violent” and therefore more severe than the first case which is somehow not an instance of violence.
Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethew today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam. And wove, twue wove, wiww fowwow you fowevah and evah.
Story Time! So at a friend’s wedding the officiator couldn’t make it at the last minute, so a fannish friend of the groom volunteered but was left with the question of what to say. After thinking a bit he was able to start: “Marriage. Marriage is what brings us together today…” and since only a couple people in the audience recognized it, they kept their chuckling to a minimum, and he got all sorts of compliments after the service in how he was able to come up with something so touching a beautiful on the spot.
