Void Gate efficiency

[Endoperez]

I think Luck (the scale) affects it.

[Taqwus]

One could have a map with a province that had:

- Strange House in the Mist (is this the other Void Summon site?)
- The Forgotten City (IIRC, this is the enter-for-treasure site)
- Vale of Infinite Horror (unrest, horror marking...)

[HoneyBadger]

I'm thinking maybe 3 void-gates or 2 and a Strange House in the Mist (if it works) "crash-sites" guarded by indep nations of illithids (this is early game, so they're the only ones) led by a Void Lord or three. The void-gates would be matched with Vale just to make them extra-dangerous. If it works, I'd pair the House with a site that produced insanity, and guard it with a nation of independent voidspawn formless and Late Era Atlantians led by a Dagor (Dagoth, Dagwood, whatever the name of the Atlantian giant fish-frog pretender is). Then there would be maybe two other sites that would produce star-spawn, "landing-sites" also heavily guarded, this time by illithids, troll slaves, and heavy-duty voidspawn led by rogue Aboleth Mind Lords and the void shroom pretender. I'd also put a handful of other sites which would look more or less identical to the set-ups I mentioned, just so you'd never be positive you'd located a component. In all cases, they'd be either A: an island surrounded by water, B: a lake surrounded by land, or C: land surrounded by mountains (of madness?), just to keep holding such a position a little more precarious.

Ofcourse you wouldn't have to, but you could seek out such sites, and-at great risk and trouble-set up a functional void-gate, which may or may not be a good idea

[HoneyBadger]

I could also see the Forgotten City being guarded by tough voidspawn and other creepy-crawlies. If I put it in the game, it would definitely be in the far, far south.

Since this thread is very Lovecraft-centric, I thought I'd mention that I'm thinking of doing a write-up proposing a nation of Elder Things (ala Lovecraft: At The Mountains of Madness) for Early Era, in which case, their starting site would have Forgotten City and Shuggoth Breeding Vats. I'm not sure about the details for them yet, except that they would be very good blood-mages, specifically at cross-breeding.

A late-era race I'd also like to put in the game would be the Great Race of Yith. It would consist of extra-terrestrial spirits that would inhabit the bodies of beetles, and use their considerable astral magic to summon beings from out of the depths of past and future time, such as: The Great Headed, a wrinkled brown ogre with an enormous head and a whole lot of eyes, has all except head slot, good at combat and patrolling and his gaze causes confusion. Summoned from the distant past. Star Lotus, an extra-terrestrial, immobile carnivorous plant that comes from an extremely hot world. Attacks with tentacles and is surrounded by fire. The Lotus Master-human astral and fire mage who's able to transform into a somewhat tougher version of the Star Lotus. Deep Plastid: An extremely tough, immobile (move 2/0) extra-terrestrial amoeba summoned from the far future interior of a rogue planet (a planet that was slingshotted out of it's orbit and now floats in deep space). It is immune to fire, cold, heat, lightning, poison, it regenerates, has 1 pseudopoid attack per round, very strong, decent damage, soso att, and relatively low MR (like 5). Blind. Good for soaking up lots and lots of damage and defending the Yithian's Library Citadels. Yithian Construct: sacred undead version of original Yithian form, summoned ofcourse from the distant past. 3 astral, 2 death, 1 nature, 100% chance to have +1 in any of these, 25% chance to have +1 in any of the elementals, 25% chance to have +1 in any magic path except for blood, 10% chance to have +1 in any magic path except for blood. Immobile, undead, 5 hp, 20MR (intentionally extremely high, with bless allowing up to 24) 5att, 0 def, 5 prot, 0 enc/fat, susceptible to fire (100%), only 50% resistant to poison, despite being undead, 100% darkvision. Research ability is +2, high leadership, 1 misc slot, high level conjuration, expensive to summon, only sacred national except for insectoid philosopher priests (see below). Buyable units would consist of swarms of carnivorous beetles, the same beetles only now undead and life-draining, 4 armed leaders you can buy, giant acidfire-breathing warbeetles, ala Starship Troopers, winged stinkbombers, and a race of insectoid philosophers who serve the Yithians as mages and priests.