Your party comes across pic related. Do they have the int to open it? Do they have the wis to refrain from opening it? Do they have the power to fight whatever comes after opening it?
What happens if My character attempts to "solve" the puzzle with a hammer?
>>44847079
> Direct portal to Adorjan
Well, even our twilight isn't insane enough to open it.
>>44847168
As a divine/demonic creation, it would not be harmed by a mere hammer
The current group would open it in a foolish attempt to sell the occupants cocaine, and cocaine accessories.
Even the most hardcore rogue would refrain from sticking his dick in it
>>44847299
Would he be smart enough to know though?
>>44847232
It's a very good hammer.
>>44847079
No murder hobo worth his/her/its salt would pass up THE MYSTERY BOX!
By the way, to those who have no idea what this is, it's the Lament Configuration from Hellraiser. It's a very kick-ass movie in my opinion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfE74l55WDI
>>44847079
Holy Sigmar - a loot die! We've already got two grims and three tomes, daddy's getting an orange tonight!
>>44847079
Intelligence? Yes.
Wisdom... No.
Power? We've got a testing grounds a few kilometers down in the middle of the Australian outback for all new acquisitions. The Teleporter is the one who perform the experiments, if shit goes south, he leaves for another country and they donate enough C4 to level a skyscraper. The surrounding area is warded so that sound doesn't travel outside.
We set that up after we found our last inter-dimensional portal device.
>>44847079
Werewolf A: It's a box.
Werewolf B: It smells of the wyrm.
Werewolf A: We should smash it.
Werewolf B: What if it's containing the wyrm?
Werewolf A: Then we should smash it more!
Werewolf B: OK.
Nuwisha: Look, it's an undead tyrannosaurus rex monstrosity attacking a cute fluffy bunny!
Werewolf A: What? We must have that bunny for our dinner!
Nuwisha: Better hide this box in the deep umbra again. I have to figure out how it keeps coming back...
>>44847079
Mage: I feel magic from it... Strong magic.
Cleric: [Detect Evil] OH SWEET MERCIFUL GODS NOOOO!
Fighter: So on a scale of one to ten...
Cleric: THIRTEEN.
Thief: Hey, what's this thing do-?
Mage: Don't even think about it. Where's the nearest volcano? Or something similarly destructive?
>>44847359
And then you roll a green because the dice hate you...
I guess he'll hold the box until it melts. Because he has several degrees of true faith.
Opening the box isn't hard at all. The puzzle isn't complicated. And I do not know if it is true but I remember some one saying that a comic explains that if you encounter the puzzle box you are basically doomed to open it. So if thats true then theres nothing you can do to resist opening it.
>>44847079
Funny thing about that.
There was a gate to a hellish plane that the party was supposed to prevent from being opened.
They failed.
The portal has been resealed, just not in the same way.Now it's in a person, a former party member.
>>44847513
I remember my first time rolling a green that went hilariously wrong, it was for handling a explosive device...it didnt end well for my undead slayer.
>>44847079
Decker: Hey look it's that box from Hellraiser
Street Sam: What?
Decker: You know that old movie with the demon guys and the dude with the needles in his face
Street Sam: you mean like that guy who works the faux-hot dog stand around the corner
Decker: yea... lets see how much we can sell it for, I think vintage movie props go for quite a bit of nuyen. I sure some aztechnology exec might want it for a paper weight, creepy bastards.
>>44847079
i purge everyone in the party who even thought about touching it much less opening it and then call the inquisition
>>44847203
Funnily enough, there was an official artifact kind of similar to the Lament Configuration. It was a puzzle box that could open to anywhere or anyone you were thinking of when you opened it. But the opening was 7" x 5", so not much could get through. If you opened it without trying to contact anything, it opened to Malfeas and required a code word to shut again.
>>44847079
>Do they have the power to fight whatever comes after opening it?
afaik, the cenobites are actually not that strong. I mean, one of the bad guys on HII (Dr Channard) was killed because he couldn't pull back his tentacles, and butterball in HI was killed/defeated when part of the ceiling felled over him. The strongest one would be Pinhead, but other than his chains and hooks, I don't remember him having any special ability or capability.
>>44849247
The cenobites can't be killed outside of Hell, I don't think. They also don't really notice pain/dismemberment (not sure if they can be hurt at all by most means), can make a bunch more, and can get reinforcements. I don't know how physically strong they are, but probably not THAT far above human. Also depends if you're going by the movies or comics, and which movies. If you can get ahold of the box again and not die/get worn down for long enough to close it, then you're fine.
They'd do what >>44847168 suggested, and after realizing its unbreakable they'd sell it to the court mage.
>>44847079
DM: [Paladin]. you feel sicker than when you got near that door. Or Malfeshnikor.
Paladin: (Starts out muttering, ends up screaming) "No. No. NO. NO!"
Ranger: "Wus wrong witchu dis time, Jefe? Ees Juss a box, mang."
DM: Anon, do you reach for the box?
Ranger: Well, OoC, fuck you. IC, I guess I would.
Paladin: "Do not touch that fucking box!" If he touches it, I'm hitting him with my mace.
DM: Anon, do you still try to touch it?
Ranger: Mmmaybe not with my hands... Ten foot pole?
DM: ummm... Sure, go for it.
Ranger: I poke it with the pole.
DM: Anon, High or low?
Ranger: Uhhhh high.
DM rolls behind screen: So as you tap it with the pole, you hear a click, and it starts rearranging itself.
Ranger: "Que en el infierno?!"
Paladin: "WHAT THE FUCK DID I SAY ABOUT NOT TOUCHING IT?!"
DM: Anon, your passive perception is 15, yes?
Ranger: Y-yeah.
DM: Congrats, you hear screaming coming from around you. It's getting louder.
Ranger: "Ey, Jefe. You hear that screamin'?"
Paladin: Jesus H Christ. Smiting that box.
DM: You smite it, box is undamaged.
Ranger and Paladin: Well fuck.
>>44847079
>maybe
>no
>yes.
Is attracting the attention of the Cenobytes an instant "you're fucked" or you can actually fight against them?
>>44851279
>Your party comes across pic related.
Inquisitor> "Don't touch. That's not what we're looking for."
and he leads us deeper into his library.
Heretical artifact, throw it into the fire.
>>44851279
There is a story about a group of damned who escaped hell and used their own bodies to battle creatures which cenobites send against them. No normal matter could harm them, but bodies of the damned could. For instance, they used a bone from leg as a short spear and bones from fingers as bullets.
Ultimately they all failed 'cause they were stupid and were dragged to hell once again.
>>44847168
>>44847320
>doesn't know Hellraiser puzzle-box helps you open it
>int is irrelevant
>they are summoned by desire, not hands
>>44854863
>that one movie where the autistic girl opens it
>they completely ignore her, and the portals to the labyrinth just stay open
>>44854872
>It is Desire that drives us.
Best antagonists.
I'm not sure if the Cenobites are that strong outside of their universe. A level 20 wizard in D & D is akin to a demigod, right? If humans with no special powers can defeat Cenobites, chances are a D & D party could probably pull it off.
That is if cenobites can actually be harmed/killed outside of their own dimension.
it's better than sex
>can defeat Cenobites
Are they ever really defeated? Delayed, sure. Bargained with, definitely.
The closest we ever come to seeing a Cenobite defeated is that Future Hellraiser where the descendant of the Toy Maker tries to capture Pinhead in a box made of satellites and light, but we don't actually know what the outcome of that endeavor was.
>>44856234
Lemmy beat em at poker.
>>44847079
Cleric Casts Miracle
Wizard Casts Wish
Psion Uses Reality Revision
Bard Seduces
>>44849582
>>44849247
in the expanded universe for the first two movies (the EU ignores the shitty 3rd and forward)
they are essentially celestial beings, with the High Priest of Leviathan being basically immortal and Godly powerful.
however, they are a very lawful sort of evil/neutral so they can't do just anything they want.
>>44856159
they cannot, only the power of Leviathan can undo them, which is their own power source.
Leviathan is basically a more sophisticated and less evil Salanesh.
>>44859037
also, if Salanesh was somehow Lawful instead.
>>44856100
they are never the antagonists of the first 2 movies and comics.
which is their more canon incarnations.
>looks like a treasure
>is it trapped? is it cursed? yes - leave it, no - take it
>try to sell it on bazaar and get money
>buy slaves
My party is extremely straightforward, but it's not a time to punish them yet.
>>44859167
So if a rather lackadaisical ranger accidentally opened it, but had no real desires, and instead offered Pinhead a smoke or a J, would he take it, or would he kill the ranger?
>>44861852
kill? they never kill you, anon.
>>44861852
so long as the ranger had no hidden carnal/painful desires.
one must be fairly clean/pure, not chaste or anything, but still, you get the gist.
but GENERALLY speaking, no one FINDS the box, they desire it and it is given to them.
as the man says in all the movies "its your's, it was always yours"
>>44861998
Right, forgot. So would said ranger - whose baseline reaction to being threatened with stabbing, encountering the worldly embodiment of one of Lamashtu's demon generals, and a frail-but-stupidly powerful sorceress trying to end his life because he and the paladin offed her husbando is "Kinda maybe bothered." - be on Pinhead's shitlist for accidentally opening the box?
>>44847079
My current party would drop a nuke on it if it would open
>>44862057
No, no real desires. I mean, a demigod who served the Raven Queen offered to grant him any wish(which could've included killing the General of Lamashtu mentioned here >>44862100), and he asked her if - maybe if it ain't too much trouble - if she knew where a druid of Obad-Hai could be found, because he found this amulet of Lamashtu that had Shield of Faith on it, and there were no followers of Obad-Hai around to reconsecrate it. Ya know, as long as it wasn't too much trouble for her. The DEMIGOD.
>>44862168
no one finds the box that doesn't have some hidden desires.
even Kristie Cotton, the MC of the first two movies is heavily hinted to have serious repressed perverted desires.
>>44862409
Then it's probably the paladin that has desires. There is that rumor about him and his horse.
He claims the store owner's daughter started it after he wouldn't sleep with her.
And, he IS a dragonborn. Dragons sleep with everything, don't they? So what's to say Dragonborns don't?
The street Sammy starts punching the raven shaman until he promises to stop being dumb after the adept who asensed the box started screaming while the technomancer posted pics of it on the matrix trying to find out what it is and how much they can sell it for.
Yes, this has happened to us.
>>44859167
They weren't the primary antagonists, but they were definitely antagonists Anon.
Kristie is definitely opposed against them.
>>44862409
If you go by the comics as canon, she definitely does.Ends up as Pinhead for a while.
>>44847079
One of our party members would willingly try to open it, knowing what was in there, thinking that he'd be able to join them, become one of them, and one day rule them.
But he's too stupid to actually figure the thing out. Even if the thing WANTED him to.
>>44851279
You're fucked unless
1) you have the const. to withstand the chains and hooks that immediately pop out of the ether and
2) you have a high level banish spell at your disposal
If you lack either you're in for an eternity of pain
The book hellraiser is based on (The Hellbound Heart, Clive Barker, incidentally) Seemed to imply they were more forces of.. Well, not nature I guess, but forces of existence. You couldn't really fight them, and you likely wouldn't want to, pushed to a sensory excess that burned away your brain meats until you expired in one way or another. I always felt it wasn't the Cenobites you were fighting, it was yourself and they were just the referee until you lost and they carted you away, with a slight side of pushing you under a bus to move things along a little bit...
>>44866904
They certainly weren't originally intended to be demons from hell or any of the shit it ended up becoming.
>>44866904
This.
Pyramid Head is a good comparison to the Cenobites. They fill essentially the same role.
>>44859037
Then the players just have to kill Leviathan, right?
>>44867903
it would be akin to killing the lady of pain, so only cosmic level character need apply
>>44859037
Leviathan as a lawful version of Slaanesh is pretty much spot on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2qT7GylRxw
There are more kinds of boxes then just the lament configuration(op's pic) they are collectivly known as Lemarchand's boxes.
As for the lament configuration it's tied specifically to pinhead, who [spoilers]has his chaotic side rebel from Leviathan and starts his own thing in the third movie,[/spoilers] but the book, movie and comic cannons dont mix well so a cenabites powers and whats in even a particular Lemarchand's box can very wildly.
>>44871940
In the books its implyed that the boxes can go to very diffrent places, possibly even heaven, but with how dark the world is I like to think that heaven would basicly be original christian level Apocrypha terrifying, what with millitant orders of monsturus angels like the flaming wheels or seraph so alien that if your soul wasent 100% pure when you looked at them your soul implodes.
