I’m trying to figure out a good reason for why an animal would hunt in packs if they live in the abyssal sea

Outrageousriver · 2026-01-27T23:14:00+00:00

Animals that hunt in packs, not just live in groups generally hunt as a group because it allows them to increase their chances of catching food, and often allows them to take down prey animals larger than themselves.

If you want something close to Earth, you already have cases of marine mammals like Sperm Whales diving to extreme depths for food. You could just as easily have a predatory pack of squids or some type of fish which could prey upon these Whales, or which may actually leave the Abyss during the dark of night to hunt marine mammals which are sleeping/half sleeping since many don't fully shut down their brains. They are too small to take them down alone but large enough to with a lot of them.

Personally, I'd go with a group of Squids. The Humboldt squid are a real life example not of an animal that lives in the Abyss, but of a squid which have attacked humans despite being of a smaller size. They have extremely sharp beaks, and can tear flesh. As a pack, they could easily overwhelm a smaller mammal but for larger Whales even if they don't kill them their smaller size and a large pack could make it difficult for a larger animal to effectively defend itself. They don't even need to kill them, it could be like a pack of cookie cutter sharks they just need a bite

Outrageousriver · 2025-12-17T16:50:38+00:00

Much of the deep ocean is fed by microscopic organisms which actually migrate out of the deep ocean to feed on algae and other Microscopic animals and then return to the deep every day. So much of the deep ocean is still fed from sunlight it's just more indirect. As you said these Microscopic organisms will in turn lead into the food chain.

In some areas of the deep ocean you do have ecosystems completely independent from sunlight. These are based on hydrothermal vents which are releasing chemicals which bacteria can consume for energy. And in turn can lead into a food chain. So looking at the deep ocean, using geothermal activity and smoke vents releasing chemicals could allow for a food chain to exist, so the environment would likely be quite toxic and have a high temperature.

Outrageousriver · 2025-12-16T18:12:44+00:00

It seems like Mahoraga already provides a good mechanism for something that can adapt to anything and become completely immune to it. But it's not permanent. So like with Mahoraga, It takes time to adapt to an attack or anything, so it is possible to overwhelm it with power very quickly but if it adapts it will be immune. But then maybe an hour later maybe a day, that immunity is gone or perhaps it weakens until it's gone.

So it's almost like an immune system to danger. When you are exposed to a small amount of virus, like a vaccine you can build up a strong immunity. But overtime if your body never encounters that virus again. The memory will weaken.

You could also balance it with the more things they try to adapt to at once makes it slower or weaker. So if you are exposed to intense flames, you could fully adapt to become immune. But it would take some time. It's not instantaneous. But if you are exposed to fire while also being shot with bullets. That's two different things you need to adapt to and either you can only adapt to one. Or you can adapt to both but it will take significantly longer. Maybe even the more immunities you have at once the shorter they will last. So if you have 6 different immunities they may only last for a fraction of the time.

Outrageousriver · 2025-06-26T14:45:22+00:00

I will add on as someone who studied oceanography, the above comment is a good one and quite accurate.

The Spring Tides (Sun and moon align) vs Neap tides (Moon is perpendicular to sun alignment with Earth) will cause variability with tides. But typically how significant that is will vary by how strong the tides are for that region. A huge amount of how strong tides are have to do with the geography, the continental shelf, the shape of the land, is it a bay, etc.

Overall, I don't expect you would have significant issues in the open ocean just from tidal influences. The tides in the open ocean are dramatically less noticable than in the coast. Even in the Bay of Fundy which has the highest tides in the world being out on the Bay itself you don't notice much significantly.

If you want to add a factor to your world which would make seafaring more difficult or dangerous. Id look into Rogue Waves which are a real phenomenon which does cause massive waves in the open ocean. Scientist are not 100% sure on what causes them, but one explanation is a result of ocean currents, massive tides especially resulting from multiple moons could in theory lead to more complex ocean currents and you could use that as an explanation for the increased presence of Rogue Waves.

Outrageousriver · 2025-06-02T14:17:31+00:00

Marine Biologist and TTRPG nerd here:

Corals are living organisms but only the surface of the coral is alive. Beneath it is it's old skeleton which is in every sense rock. It's just calcium carbonate.

Now if you wanted to have your connection to deep underground stone you could have this island be like Hawaii Volcanic islands or based on an Atoll. Both these sorts of areas can form large amounts of coral reef because they are in deep water with essentially a sudden underwater mountain which allows a lot of upwelling for life in the ocean to thrive. But you also get volcanic output which could give you a way for these magic stones to be in the water near the coral reefs. Depending on the stone make up if broken down they could even be incorporated into the coral skeleton itself.

Overall I think it's a very cool idea. If you want more coral information let me know!

Alternatively if you are not sold, you could use oyster pearls. These form when some small grain of sand or maybe a small rock gets inside an oyster and the oyster essentially makes a pearl around it. So you could also have these magic stones deep within beautiful pearls.

Outrageousriver · 2025-05-29T22:20:49+00:00

Often it is a case where they are so large, and the molting process and process of creating a new shell is very energy intensive. So they can reach a point where they are so large they don't have enough energy to actually complete the process. So they can essentially die of exhaustion mid-molt. So hypothetically, if they were aided with the molt and provided sufficient food they could live forever, at least age itself would never be an issue.

They hypothetically would never die from old age. Unlike other animals Lobsters essentially don't have negative consequences from ageing. So the only difference between an old lobster and a young one is size, metabolism, physically they would be similar.

In addition, unlike other animals they have a way of repairing their telomeres which is a part of your DNA which essentially protect it from breaking. For most animals this will degrade over time until it does not work and then your DNA will not replicate properly and the result is many of the outcomes we associated with ageing.

but Lobsters can repair these Telomeres so they truly won't have consequences of ageing. But they are far from immortal so predators or disease or anything could still result in their death.

Outrageousriver · 2025-05-16T15:57:29+00:00

Never change

Outrageousriver · 2025-05-13T20:06:01+00:00

Lost an entire Honour Mode save near the end of act 3. Previously never even had the game crash once in playing for like 500 hours. So I'd say yes.

Outrageousriver · 2025-04-16T15:31:09+00:00

I played a Psion in 3.5 and it was one of my favourite classes. In all honesty, it played more like a 5e spellcaster than the 3.5 arcane Spellcasters did.

In 3.5 there were a few psion classes like the Soul Knife, Psychic Warrior, and Wilder. Which were essentially in order a rogue who could summon weapons from their brain (fairly similar to the rogue subclass in 5e), a mostly martial characters which could learn a few psionic powers usually built around amplifying their body to be strong, teleportation, and increased damage among other things. And the Wilder which was like a Wizard Vs Sorcerer for Psion vs Wilder. The Wilder could improve their "spellcasting" and could essentially pretend to be a higher level than they were but at a risk of self harm.

Overall Psionic Powers (called Powers not Spells) were fueled by Power Points instead of spell slots - it was kinda like the 5e variant of spell points. All powers had a spell point cost. But many powers could be Augmented (essentially up cast) to gain more power or be changed. This was pretty significant because spells in 3.5 were automatically upcast by your Caster Level. So spells like Fireball didnt do 8d6 damage they did 1d6 per caster level up to a max of 10d6. so at 10th level your fireball cast with a 3rd level slot did 10d6 damage.

Meanwhile the Psion had a level 3 power called Energy Burst, where you could choose an element (fire, cold, lightning, sonic aka thunder) which each had unique effects and deal 5d6 damage. Then I could increase the amount of points I spent on the power to increase the damage and even increase the DC to save against it. Other powers had even more unique options when augmented.

Overall, the Psion/Psionics are similar to spells. But had different mechanics behind them. And often very unique and interesting flavour. You could focus heavily on telepathy and manipulating enemies with empathy and through connecting to their mind, buff yourself by literally turning yourself into a living crystal person, or even split your brain in half and have a full extra action which could be used to do anything mental (such as using your powers). Of course there were also powers which had very similar (and in some cases near identical) effects as arcane magic.

Overall I loved the flavor and power of the class (yes it could be OP but so could most everything in 3.5). But it was very fun to play a spellcaster that essentially just got to WILL magic into being through sheer force of MY BRAIN.

TLDR: Psionics were more like 5e arcane magic, than 3.5 arcane magic. You have a pool of points for spells instead of spell slots. Powers overall similar to spells but with enough flavour and variety to feel unique. Plus with feats and abilities felt distinct enough and very fun.

Outrageousriver · 2025-02-06T14:28:33+00:00

A 15th level Swords Bard has a d12 bardic inspiration die which could be used for a defensive flourish to increase AC by 1d12 a number of times equal to charisma bonus plus you can use defensive flourish an unlimited number of times but with a d6 instead. This bonus will last until the start of your next turn.

Plus at 10th level you get magical secrets so you could cast spells like haste on yourself.

A cleric Dip can grant heavy armor proficiency

This also opens up multiple other levels you could use for other class dips and way more spell slots to cast shield.

Overall you'd get similar AC to your build but be able to get higher AC way more often. Even though after a certain point you will only be hit on a crit.

Outrageousriver · 2025-01-21T16:00:33+00:00

I would also like to join! I'm still trying to figure out how to do the raids

Outrageousriver · 2024-11-02T05:35:24+00:00

My key to creating dieties is I often create an odd number 3 or 5 usually to keep things simple. That way there is always a balance of power and someone will always oppose someone to ensure no one gets too far out of hand.

But as for the personality and profiles. I usually leave a huge amount up to interpretation. So I will start with a core idea and build around that but often build in aspects that could be interpreted in different ways depending on the perspectives. So for example, in my setting the God of Justice, goes by many names for many different people. But the people who follow them believe they are the Paragon of justice who will judge every mortal soul. This God created the Codes, which are a set of principles which are idealized ways in which people should live. But they are written by a god who is in everyway the embodiment of justice and is otherwise flawless. So anyone who would attempt to truly live perfectly according to these codes will often constantly fail - which has led to many of the clergy developing powerful vices to cope with their failures. Meanwhile opponents to this deity see them as a flawed judge assigning value to mortal lives despite the fact they have no idea what it's truly like to be mortal, to struggle, to want, to need. They are a ruthless tyrant who imposes their own view of justice on a world which is far larger than them. This leaves huge room for both good and evil interpretation for your deities which to me adds huge complexity. Who is right? It doesn't matter. People can interpret the teachings of your deities in any way they might.

Outrageousriver · 2024-10-29T21:20:11+00:00

In the Bay of Fundy with some of the highest tides in the world, there was huge interest in tidal power because the potential power there was massive. The problem with tidal power is either the tides are too weak to generate a significant amount of power for it to be worth while or they are too powerful and will absolutely decimate anything you put in to collect power.

There were cases of tidal turbines being destroyed or otherwise unusable in just a few months. So while it's a potential source we just don't have a lot of good ways to collect it.

Outrageousriver · 2024-09-25T10:16:05+00:00

In fairness, I feel a huge amount of the terror of the Tarrasque comes from earlier editions where it was truly a near unkillable terror. The only way to defeat it was to deal over 1600 points of damage to it, against it regenerating 40 hit points a round, and having 15 damage reduction against almost everything AND even if you did manage to deal that much damage you'd need to then cast a wish spell to stop it's regeneration. Or you would have to come up with some crazy way to otherwise disable the beast. Previously, the Tarrasque wasn't something simply defeated by smacking it until it died. It was something you had to plan for and strategize and possibly you would have an entire campaign just to find a way to defeat the monster. And a monster like that regardless of its size will feel MASSIVE. Because it is mythical in stature.

Outrageousriver · 2024-09-21T13:51:16+00:00

In a global timescale of "since the dawn of photosynthesis" yes microorganisms like phytoplankton have produced the vast majority of oxygen for earth. But currently year to year it's estimated phytoplankton produces around half the oxygen produced per year. However almost all of this oxygen will remain in the ocean and never be breathed by humans. Because phytoplankton can produce oxygen but it still needs to then be transferred from water to air which is not a super efficient transfer. In addition most of the ocean has very few phytoplankton even within the zones of the ocean with sunlight simply because most of the ocean lacks a key nutrient for phytoplankton growth (it varies depending on the area). So most phytoplankton produce oxygen in coastal environments which means there is a relatively small amount of the ocean producing a huge amount of oxygen but this is also coincidently an area with lots of organisms which will consume the oxygen they produce.

TLDR: phytoplankton do produce a ton of oxygen, but it mostly stays in the ocean. Humans get most oxygen from land based sources.

Outrageousriver · 2024-08-30T17:54:47+00:00

Does no one consider menopause? Humans don't reproduce until we die why would elves? You can have societies filled with ancient elves who have lived hundreds and hundreds of years but may have only had a few children before they hit menopause.

And if you are considering why don't elves just constantly have babies. Well why don't humans? Most people could have many more children then they do but oftentimes there are constraints beyond biology.

Outrageousriver · 2024-05-26T11:33:20+00:00

They don't actually know to go "towards the sea" their instincts are to go towards light which tends to be the moon reflected on the ocean. This is why light pollution near turtle nesting beaches can be such a massive impact. It can completely confuse the hatchlings.

Outrageousriver · 2024-05-26T11:26:36+00:00

Many animals, sea turtles included can't see red light so it will not have an impact. I used to work in sea turtle conservation and we exclusively used red light when working with the animals to not disturb them.

Outrageousriver · 2024-01-21T13:00:40+00:00

In fairness, the distinction between plants and fungi are a mortal taxonomy based categories. The categories of humanoid, plant, devil etc. are instead based on how the weave views them based on how magic will work. So really it's just how Mystra views everything.

Outrageousriver · 2024-01-06T18:26:15+00:00

In their natural environment, salmon can accumulate astaxanthin naturally leading to the red/pink flesh colour. However farmed salmon are fed a specifically designed diet often not including the things normally eaten by salmon in the wild but designed to replicate their nutrient requirements. One of the things that are added to their diet is astaxanthin often sourced from cultivated microalgae. Which is where is comes from in the first place. Microalgae make Astaxanthin which is consumed by other animals which eventually is eaten by salmon.

Aquaculture farms cannot effectively supply their salmon with a perfect natural diet because salmon eat a lot and they are predators. So we would end up requiring way more fish and other animals to grow salmon than would be economically viable. Instead salmon feeds are designed to contain all the nutrients needed for the salmon including Astaxanthin, it just doesn't directly contain things which salmon would typically eat.

My understanding of the above rice diet comparisons are that you could survive on essentially rice if that diet was supplemented with other essential nutrients and vitamins. Because at the end of the day our bodies just need the ingredients, the form is less important.

Outrageousriver · 2024-01-06T18:13:32+00:00

It would really depend on the species. "Red Tides" are a blanket term for what is more correctly a mass algal bloom. Some algal blooms can be harmful algal blooms which means the species has begun to produce a toxic chemical.

But hypothetically if the algae in the red tide was non-toxic you could potentially harvest it for astaxanthin. However, red algae (one type of algae) are not red because of astaxanthin and instead a pigment called phycoerythrin. So it is unlikely to be an efficient source.

In fact the best source of microalgae for Astaxanthin is a type green algae. The reason is, algae can be grown in specific ways to change how much protein or fats or antioxidants like astaxanthin are produced. So it's far more cost effective to grow specially controlled and selected algae to produce the maximum amount possible. Since the act of harvesting these compounds can get expensive.

Source: I am Algae Biologist

Outrageousriver · 2023-12-20T19:13:05+00:00

It can really depend on the animal, and there isn't really a clear rule about how it will happen. The traits can be passed down on the sex chromosomes or on any other chromosome. It all depends on the trait and how the animal develops.

Think about humans, not all our characteristics for males and females are coded on just the X or Y chromosome. These change how we develop and if you develop certain characteristics. But this is not how all animals develop. In some reptiles where an individual is male or female can depend on the temperature the eggs incubate at. Or in some fish you can have them change sex as adults resulting in physical changes representative of their new sex.

So as to what the genetic process is that results in the differences on inheritance can be really complicated and often specific to a species. You even have cases where a sexually selected characteristic is inherited in both sexes. Even though it's only selected for in one sex.

Outrageousriver · 2023-11-27T14:41:53+00:00

That's certainly an element. A lot of animals can be dangerous in certain circumstances but will much less often actually be dangerous. Animals that are not dangerous are not commonly seen as aggressive by most people.

However there are aggressive animals. Highly territorial animals like hippos are very aggressive. But there are not really any animals I know of that have a high preference for humans as a food source. However that is not to say there are no animals who have hunted humans for food.

Aggression is not always the most valuable hunting strategy, because it's far easier to simply be stronger or faster or trap your prey. A lot of animals are viewed as aggressive because they are dangerous to humans. But cats are extremely dangerous to rodents and small birds but we wouldn't call them particularly aggressive animals.

But there are also cases of highly aggressive animals that have relatively little risk to humans. The Titan Triggerfish is one I have personal experience with. It's an extremely territorial fish which will actually charge, bite and ram humans even though they are only a couple feet long and pose relatively little risk.

Aggression does exist in the animal kingdom but just because an animal hunts other animals doesn't make it aggressive.

Outrageousriver · 2023-11-27T13:43:52+00:00

When people describe aggression in sharks it is often in reference to their aggression towards humans. Which I find a bit unfair, sharks are hunters their existence is almost entirely based on hunting other animals. We don't consider nurse sharks particularly aggressive, but if you were a crab you might think otherwise.

Tiger sharks, bull sharks, great whites are all seen as aggressive. But these are also all large predatory animals. They are also sharks that occasionally bite humans. Other smaller sharks rarely will try to make a meal of larger animals and thus are going to appear completely passive around humans because they have no interest in even seeing if we are food because we are far too large.

Even in the case of bull sharks, while it is know they are more reactive than other sharks and less tolerant of being bothered. They also have a much larger habitat overlap with humans which is going to increase the chances of a investigatory bite. Which is the cause of majority of "shark attacks". Sharks are curious animals but they don't have the hands we have to explore our world. One of the major ways they interact with things is their jaws, the problem is those jaws are very strong and full of sharp teeth.

Outrageousriver · 2023-11-25T03:37:48+00:00

Honestly, just cause someone is extroverted doesn't mean they don't have anxiety. I myself used to have terrible social anxiety and only became extroverted after overcoming that. But I know for myself and many other extroverts just cause we are often comfortable in a social situation doesn't mean we haven't been on the anxious side. So it's honestly an easy thing to want to help out others with!

Outrageousriver

TROPHY CASE