#setting idea

Unique setting ideas for stories:

An alleyway/behind a building with graffiti over all the walls or surrounding area

A hospital NICU unit without any newborns inside

The heart of an empty wasteland covered in snow up to the knees

A kindergarten classroom before the kids arrive

A glass-making workshop in the middle of the night

An abandoned millionaire's house now worn with age

One of those tiny islands in the middle of the ocean that you never hear about (ex: Huahine)

A very empty, private apartment complex with dull colors

The grocery store when less people are shopping

A crowded, misty train station with a lot of trains coming in-and-out

Alone outside at night in a quiet city with little people around

A factory where plastic items are produced with lots of employees running around

A pet store which specializes in exotic animals

A currently-empty art gallery that security are guarding for an unknown reason

"Beyond the ocean" is a world divided by water and resentment. There are two races living here: humans trapped in the fortress city after the Great Flood, and chimeras, an ancient people hidden in the depths.

Hidden beneath the water column are the chimera people, ancient creatures with blue blood and the gift of controlling the living energy of "Mo". They can breathe both in the deep and under the sun, and after death they crumble into glowing ashes, returning to the sea. Above the water, people are still hiding behind a giant wall, having survived the Great Flood and remembering only the legends about "sea demons".

✎ Are you familiar with this peculiar affliction? It is known as "Hanahaki Disease," formally designated as "Vomiting Center Perianth Disorder." Legend has it that those consumed by the anguish of unrequited love begin to expectorate flower petals.

​It starts as an inexplicable sensation rooted deep within the chest, burgeoning until it becomes unbearable, eventually forcing the sufferer to vomit. Amidst the emesis, blossoms appear—the specific flora varying from person to person. Furthermore, the ailment is reputedly transmissible to others who come into physical contact with the expelled flowers.​

The disease manifests in only a handful of documented cases every few years. It never reaches the scale of a full-blown epidemic; instead, localized clusters are identified for a brief period before the outbreak naturally dissipates, only for new cases to surface years later.​It is said that if the afflicted do not recover, they will eventually succumb to physical debilitation and perish.

Despite ongoing research, no definitive cure has been established, and scientists have yet to achieve a substantial medical breakthrough.

Therapeutic Interventions: Currently, there are only two known methods to halt the progression. The first is emotional reciprocity; if the patient's love is returned, the flora withers and disappears naturally. The second is surgical excision. While highly effective in saving the patient's life, the procedure results in the permanent loss of all romantic feelings and memories associated with the beloved—a phenomenon colloquially known as "The Heart’s Void."

Prognosis and Surgical Risks: If a surgical approach is taken, the patient may survive, but at a profound cost: they are rendered incapable of feeling love, and all memories of their affection are permanently erased. They continue their lives as mere shells—a state clinically referred to as "The Heart’s Void."​

Acute Escalation: The most catastrophic progression occurs when the object of the patient’s unrequited love unites with another. The moment the sufferer becomes aware of this union, the disease undergoes a violent metamorphosis. The flora, as if revealing its true, predatory nature, enters a phase of malignant growth. The rapidly expanding blossoms obstruct the airway and lacerate the pulmonary tissue, leading to immediate asphyxiation and systemic collapse.

​Clinical Summary: “In the presence of such biological paradox, we find that the human heart is not merely an organ of circulation, but a fertile soil for a beauty that consumes its host.”—Extract from the Journal of Anomalous Pathology ✐

hana is Flower(s), haki is Vomiting, throwing up.

The Sickness of Sprouting Flowers from Unrequited Love

Title: The New Bracelet

Artist: Henryk Siemiradzki

Year: 1883

Medium: oil on canvas

The tight math of Pf2e allows for encounters to be built swiftly and without worry, and the same goes for homebrew monster creation. One problem with the system, however, is the boss monster. Creatures with high level stats against a group of players can feel like a slog if the players are unable to reduce the creature's AC or saves enough for damage/cc to go through. It normally takes a lot of items and tactics for a normal group to take a creature down that's 4 levels higher than the party's level (or a +4 monster), and even creature's 3 levels higher (or +3) can still feel like a slog depending on their stat block. If you're designing a boss fight, consider this one trick I've learned over the past 2 years of GMing with the system:

Lie to your players.

For different systems this could mean a lot of things, DND 5e famously is known for its GMs secretly increasing the hp of a given monster behind the screens. But for Pf2e it's less a blatant lie and more of a performance. Rather than throwing a +4 or +5 monster, you could instead throw a +1 to +3 monster and accompany them with either other creatures or traps that you present to your players as that monsters abilities. Let's make an example.

Is your monster a fire breathing mutant bear that is killing other wildlife in the area?

(Art by Deftspex)

Easy. Let's make it an Elite Black Bear (making it L3), then add a Fire Mephit (L1) to the initiative, making the combat a Severe encounter for 4 level 1 players. What does this do, and how can we make this convey what we want?

Mechanically, the Black Bear acts as the base monster that the players can target and kill and the Fire Mephit acts on its own initiative, but what you do is tell your players that it's the bear doing what the Fire Mephit is doing. The bear is the one moving and its base health is the health your party is trying to take down to 0, but the "Fire Mephit" acts on its turn as if attached to the bear. It still takes damage if hit by an aoe, but must otherwise be specifically targeted by an attack rather than the Bear itself (you should give your players some sort of heads up or a description of something that can be targeted in order to remove the ability from initiative, like pointing out that breaking its jaws would remove them on a successful recall knowledge).

What this does is a multitude of things, your solo boss monster technically has more action economy without breaking the math, your players have more tactical choices to make between getting rid of the Bear's fire related abilities, and it should make your players shit their pants from seeing a fire breathing bear.