Radio Inspiration: The Giant Walks

I don't plan to make it a daily habit to translate whatever old-time radio show I heard in the car into a gaming-related post, but the commute does generate 'thinking time'.

Today's selection, The Giant Walks, was a short sci-fi deal, fairly predictable but with a minor twist.  The basic setup had an unscrupulous scientist who was doing experiments to create growth (it involved electrical noises, "100 cc" of formula in a hypo, and the word 'pituitary' name-dropped); he experiments on rats, and then on one of his poor hapless assistants.  The human subject grows to thirty feet and endures more tests before rebelling (predictable of course) after finding out the scientist plans to create an army of giants to rule the world.  The interesting bit is that instead of the giant being killed at the end, he actually regresses to normal size (actually sloughing off the flesh, eww) once he's no longer getting his injections.

So, just like last time, we're pulling two game-related ideas out of this puppy:

1)  A potion or magical procedure that transforms a human into a giant - painfully, slowly over days - and then after some time, wears off quickly and with drastic effects, leaving a dazed, naked human amidst a mountain of semi-liquid flesh and quickly-melting bones.

2) Why are D&D giants always old?  It's the mythic thing, I get it.  But why not have the giants be new?  Experiments during the last war or something; human mercenaries (or slaves or conscripts) torturously transformed into (let's say hill) giants, used as living weapons.  And when the war is over?  You have all the same problems you normally have with unemployed soldiers - brigandry and the like.  You could even do the whole "I couldn't adapt to normal society again after what I'd seen" thing, except this time it's ridiculously literal.  So perhaps you have handfuls of surviving giants out in the wilderness because they're attacked on sight now in civilization.  Perhaps a few smart ones have found a clever way of making a good living for themselves on the borderlands (this syncs with some Paul Bunyan ideas I had which I should post about).  Plus, what if there are barely any females, or none at all?  That'd certainly shape their behavior.  Imagine a group of giants, with piles of gold from raiding, hiring PCs to recover the 'lost' giantmaking formula so they can make themselves some wives and save their species.

Radio Inspiration: The Voice of Death

On the commute to work this morning, I took advantage of my brand-new cheapass mp3 player (first I've owned), which I had loaded up with 'old-time radio' programs.  This morning's gem was an ep of The Shadow entitled 'The Voice of Death'.  The plot involved a crazy doctor who used forbidden surgical methods to swap vocal chords (and thus voices) between people - a method he discovered while trying to cure his own weird voice.  Okay, so the science is whack, but the episode gave me two game-thoughts:

1) The villain who switches voices with someone else, or steals/bottles their voice, has some serious potential as a mastermind bad-guy.  And it could work for fantasy, pulp, sci-fi, supers, whatever.

2) One of the threats in the episode were some savage dogs who had been given the voices of kittens.  They hid out in the underbrush in the forest at night, just mewling away.  As someone leaned down or reached into the brush to 'rescue' the poor kittens (I think it was raining as well), out come the eat-your-face dogs.  It was like an audio version of the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing (remember the bunny on the stump?) or something similar.  Kitten-voiced dogs as a variant monster?  Well, maybe too specific, unless they're a clue to what the voice-thief villain is up to (as with this episode of good ol' Lamont Cranston).

But it did get me thinking about the leucrotta - that badger-goat thing that could imitate humans and lure them to their doom.  I don't think I've ever used a leucrotta, probably because it's a freaking badger-goat.  Although now that I'm older the trickster/mimic angle intrigues me, back in the day I had zero interest in a laughing badger-goat; the monster was crippled by its illustration.

Give me a tiger that cries "help me help me" with a toddler's voice.  Now that's a monster.  D&D has plenty of monsters that look like other things - mimics, piercers, cloakers.  Why not do some audio-mimics with bite?  Come to think of it...  the displacer beast (or tendril tiger, or lion-shoulder-octopus, or whatever the crap we're calling it now) is a little odd in that it only hides visually.  Could it not, perhaps, displace its voice as well?  Give the displacer beast the leucrotta's ability to mimic human speech - and to throw it fifteen feet away via magical ventriloquism.  That 'ventrilocat' is going to eat the hell out of some adventurers.   And it's almost as fun as that old article that suggested blink dogs' dung teleports a random distance away to foil pursuers (including inside nearby homes).  I can't believe I remember that.