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Loot: Magical Advice Canary
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The magical advice canary (MAC) is a canary that travels with the party
and offers advice by whispering in people's ears.  But really, it is a
literary device meant to speed up the plot when players `attack
gazebos`_.

.. _`attack gazebos`: http://www.netfunny.com/rhf/jokes/98/Jul/gazebo.html

For example, now the DM can say that the MAC whispers

    "Hey, let's go to the caves!"

rather than the DM directly saying:

    "Guys, there's nothing interesting in the town -- the adventure
    starts when you go to the caves!"

The MAC is really some kind of avatar of a helpful spirit.  The MAC is
magic in that:

*   It never needs to eat, but does enjoy treats.

*   It can talk.

*   It doesn't really fear its own death that much.  It fears pain and
    death in the same way you fear those things during a video game.


How the players find it
=======================

A few ideas:

*   The party does a good deed for an NPC, and the MAC was previously
    paired with the NPC.  While the NPC is thanking the party, The MAC
    flits around the NPC.

    The NPC explains what the MAC is and then tells the party that the
    MAC wants to go with them.  This makes the most sense if the MAC is
    going to be mostly helpful and not too mischievious or self-centered.

*   The MAC can be a prize in some carnival.  "Win an amazing

*   Maybe an old wizard tricks the party into feeding the MAC while it
    is in its cage.  And maybe once you feed it, it is hard to get rid
    of.  This makes more sense if the MAC is mischievious.

Is it omniscient?
=================

It won't answer stuff like "hey, does that treasure chest have a trap?".
Or maybe it will, but the answer will be something like: "Only one way
to find out!"

Again, the goal here is to give the DM an in-game means of driving the
plot and making the game more fun, not giving the players a way to skip
thinking things through.

Does it fear death and can you kill it?
=======================================

Maybe!

The MAC is here in the world to have a good time.  So if that means
messing with the party as they keep trying to kill it, then go with it.

It could be entertaining to watch players come up with elaborate ways to
destroy the MAC and still have it show up the next day.

Maybe damage done to the MAC actually ends up harming somebody else in
the party.  That could be a fun thing to find out in-game.

Don't like canaries?
====================

Maybe the avatar is a crow.  Or a snake.

Or a bitchy walrus that the party has to haul around in a cart.  And she
only talks when presented with a fish to eat.  And the fish is never
quite as good as this one fish that the walrus had a few centuries ago.

Or the avatar is a goldfish that lives in a goldfish bowl, and it talks
by making bubbles in special patterns.  So it comes with a book that
explains how to read the patterns.

Or it is a spider that that will spin a web with clues written in it.

Or it could be a donkey that taps out stuff with his hooves.

If the avatar isn't very portable, then it might not be so easy to use
it to hint that the party is wasting time.  But that could be fun for
other reasons.


Twists
======

Maybe the MAC has its own agenda beyond just being nice, for example:

*   The MAC loves the taste of some food (berries? nuts? rare seeds?)
    so much that it will divert the players to get it.

*   The MAC is one of many avatars, all playing a centuries-long game in
    our world, like any of:

    *   some elaborate scavenger hunt
    *   world domination
    *   weird breeding program
    *   most hilarious TPK

Related ideas
=============

After I wrote this up, I remembered Hen Wen the oracular pig in the
Prydain Chronicles.

And it has a lot in common with a magic eight ball too.

And then I thought about internet trolls and what they would do if they
could talk to people in a fantasy setting.  They would probably find it
hilarious to watch adventurers trust them and then be destroyed.


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