Hey Everyone,
Congratulations on your submissions - they were all awesome. I'm looking forward to this a lot.
Before we start I'd like to sort out the exact dynamics of your coven - since you all know each other could you please introduce yourselves in this thread and we can discuss who started the coven, what roles you all play, who is 'big sister' etc etc.
I believe you are all True Neutral, which should help the coven dynamic. :)
We'll start the campaign proper sometime soon - it basically depends on how long we spend sorting out our dynamics.
Hi all
I'm Eliza - hunter/spiritualist and will finish up my alias Sunday morning!
Looking forward to spending time with my new sisters!
Woohoo! Thank you for the selection, GM. I'm very happy to have made it into this one.
In terms of coven role, Serena owes her happiness to the coven. She was brought by one of them literally off the streets, and given the first place where she didn't have to worry about abuse. She refrains from crime to feed herself, but balances out their gesture with constant acts of kindness. If one of them stops by a storefront to moan about not being able to afford a pretty dress, Serena will go out that night and steal it for her. If somebody complains about their last date, Serena will go and break that person's finger. If somebody had a dispute at work, Serena will go "fix" the ledger, make it look like production is way down, and get the manager in trouble.
She's never really had an honest job before, so before the group left Restov she had spent a long time trying to figure out how to get one.
She's also never lived in the wilderness before, and is a little bit nervous about trying to carve out a life for themselves out in the middle of nowhere. She is not the one that would have suggested going to the Stolen Lands.
She's not really sure what she wants to do with her own life, for herself. As far as she's concerned for the moment, the coven is her life, and she doesn't really have personal goals. Maybe that will change.
Mechanically, she's really reliant on flanking, so I'm pretty happy that we have two melee folks in the team. Serena will be making sneak-attack full-attacks or combat maneuvers (she can do any of them!) with Dirty Fighting as needed.
Kingdom-wise I expect to inhabit the Spymaster or Royal Enforcer position.
Hi everyone! Super excited to join, I will post more later tonight, looking forward to it.
Hey everybody, Olyenna reporting for duty! This is sure to be fun.
Hey, I'd like to add the Steel-Breaker archetype for the brawler if possible. Until level 5, the only thing this changes is Knowledge (engineering) as a class skill.
What's the status on the Tight Bonds trait? Who has it, who wants it?
I'll take it (and the corresponding Malignacy) if everyone else will.
So Olyenna is very protective of the people close to her, both because of the fact that her adoptive father instilled in her the idea that one of the best uses of strength was to protect the weak, (Even if you're doing it for gold, it's just what you do.) and because in some weird twist, the role most commonly filed by Annis Hags in a coven (enforcer) has been "corrupted" in her to Protector.
She has an innate drive to take care of the others in the coven, and her magic only amplifies this. From a protective standpoint she's the "big sister" in the manner of the older sibling on the playground that shows up to stomp anyone messing with the younger ones. She might be responsible for bringing them all together, though it doesn't mean she's the leader. I could definitely see her being the one to get Serena off the streets though.
She channels her darker impulses into as positive a means as she can, violence directed only at those deserving of it.
Most Likely role? dun dun dun...Warden (quelle surprise)
I'l definitely go for the tight bonds trait too - its super appropriate.
Thats 3/4 of us - Evelynda - Do you want to do it, as you'd have to change magical lineage or bred for war to be able to do it?
with permission from GM.
Your limbs are thin and frail, you take a -2 penalty to CMD against disarm, grapple and trip attempts.
Hey, I'd like to add the Steel-Breaker archetype for the brawler if possible. Until level 5, the only thing this changes is Knowledge (engineering) as a class skill.
Adding the archetype is fine. :)
Something I forgot to mention in the recruitment: we will use the Feat Tax Rules found at the link. If that effects you - have fun!
I've allowed Eliza and Olyenna to re-roll some pretty bad malignacy's so Evelynda and Serena if your's is going to compromise your character build you can have a reroll too. (I'm all in favour of Tight Bonds - but don't let that sway you.)
Coven: I'm assuming that two of you will have met by chance in Restov and 'founded' the coven, then added the third and probably finally taken Serena off the streets and added her too. (Serena being last because Covens traditionally have 3 spellcasters in them so her being the last one in makes most sense). Does that work for people or do you see it happening another way?
Other thing - who wants to take responsibility for why you all left? I'd like a clear reason so that I can inflict misery on you later with it for fluff reasons... *shifty*
Hey, I was wondering about those there feat tax rules :) I think that would be mightily helpful, because I can grab Deft and Powerful Maneuvers whenever I want :)
The rules also give me +2 to my CMB :)
Aaaand it gives me more access to ranged combat because I can grab Precise Shot whenever I like.
Hmm. I'll have to think about that one. There are worse penalties, but that more or less gives me -1 to all of my relevant skills for the first couple of levels while we can't afford new gear.
I am perfectly alright with being last in the coven, GM. That makes the most sense to me. I am also happy to take responsibility for us leaving. I feel like Serena is the one who is perhaps most explicitly willing to visit harm on others.
Yeah the Feat tax rules make Brawlers into rockstars!
How does it feel having a rockstar for a sister, eh, Olyenna?
Heh, like I'm fending off groupies all damn day ! lol
Keeping you out of trouble is gonna be quite the challenge.
I'll just give up Ordinary in favor of Tight Bonds. I really don't want to be the one person who ruins it and I really don't want any of those gross malignancies.
@ Olyenna - It's funny because Serena is just the least interesting, most plain member of the coven.
Hi everyone!
Evelynda is fiercely loyal to the coven, because they treat her the way she imagines family should be treated, and I imagine that she has gravitated to the leadership role because of her noble background.
It makes perfect sense to me that Evelynda and Olyenna met when Evelynda went looking for her true mother, and discovered an Annis hag. Perhaps Olyenna's mother is the same hag? That may have been the proto-coven until they met Eliza, or Eliza could have been involved from the beginning. I like that it was Olyenna's drive to invite Serena to join, and I don't think any of them would have objected.
For why we were driven out of Restov, I'm willing to shoulder that burden if no one else has strong feelings. Evelynda's sister the baroness exerted Surtova family influence to get their mother and the coven exiled, to try and force Evelynda to quit their association. Instead Evelynda abandoned her noble family and ran off with the coven to the Stolen Lands. It could be a combination of guilt, though-- if Serena's actions gave us a poor reputation in the river lands, that could have inspired the baroness to take action.
I'm willing to exchange Adopted and Bred for War to take Tight Bonds. Bred for War is really good for her mechanically, but to be honest it isn't that appropriate to her background, and Tight Bonds totally is.
The malignancy I rolled is pretty good, and I'm willing to stick with it. I love the feat tax rules but unfortunately they don't do much for this build, so I don't need to change anything. :)
There is now a link in my profile to the maps and various other useful things. Please respect the screens of GM privacy and only look at uncovered slides! :P
I think that Serena and Olyenna would be great friends. They seem to share a lot of interests and personality traits, which I think is great.
As for Evelynda, I think that Serena would probably be intimidated by her, but in the way that people are intimidated by the coolest person in their friend group. All of her interesting magical powers and the confidence borne of a true noble upbringing would probably fascinate Serena.
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Evelynda sees a lot of herself in Serena. I'm imagining that one of the reasons everyone was okay with Serena joining the established coven was that she seems like everyone's scrappy little sister. She's someone we all can sort of look after, even though she can look after herself just fine. :)
Just finished the crunch and need to write up the back story - posting as my phantom so they are "linked" to the game!
Hey everyone.
I've been re-reading the kingdom rules, just to remind myself and I wanted to put something to you. Seeing as you girls have started divvying out kingdom roles.
There are 11 roles, of which there are 10 which have vancancy penalties (i.e. you get penalised for not having someone in them). Do want you to A. fill four roles and recruit lots of NPC's (this is what the AP assumes), B. have me merge a number of the roles so you can fulfill all the roles between you or C. have me merge a few rolls, and also recruit a few NPC's? (I think I can get 11 down to about 8 or 9 reasonably, meaning there would be an even number of PC's and NPC's running the kingdom)
Any thoughts/preferences?
I think it depends on what you think of your ability to portray a wide variety of NPCs and NPC relationships. I think part of what makes this campaign so cool is that we're so reliant on NPCs, as the campaign's scale is larger than normal. However, it becomes just a numbers game unless we're choosing them for RP reasons.
I like the idea of consolidating the roles. It’s like gestalt roles! :D
Either way, I think we should have to invite a couple of NPCs into the fold of being close allies. Maybe we just each take 2 roles?
That’s fine with me. :)
I think that works. If you consolidate, and we incorporate a few NPC's we should be good
GM - even if we aren't going to start gameplay, do you think you could make a gameplay thread so that we can all invisi-dot and add this to our list of campaigns?
GM - even if we aren't going to start gameplay, do you think you could make a gameplay thread so that we can all invisi-dot and add this to our list of campaigns?
Opening post made for invisi-dotting. We should be able to start by the end of the week hopefully. :)
I agree with Serena - having a couple of rolls and then NPCs!
Looking forward to starting later this week.
FYI both I and Nikolaus do not post on Wednesdays 80% of the time. We're both teachers and go straight from school out and don't return home til 10pm or so.
What do we need to agree on in terms of coven background? A few things we have done together?
I'd love to read some more about your character's background, Eliza! It would be nice to establish some interactions between us before we proceed into the Stolen Lands.
You've got both an animal companion and a phantom, that's so cool! I'm looking forward to hearing the story there.
I agree wholeheartedly - I think we should establish what kinds of relationships we already have, how and why the coven was formed and decide for sure who it was that got us kicked out of Restov.
Agreed. The more we know about each of our backgrounds, the easier it'll be for us to spin a joint backstory up to our starting point.
I have a mostly formed one - just need to finish writing it! I should get time to do that after work tomorrow and will post a mini summary too!
Do you guys think that we've done any sort of... adventuring together?
In my mind, we probably have not. In my mind, we all live together, probably in a shared townhouse. We go about our individual lives and support each other emotionally and sometimes assist each other with stuff.
Whose idea was it to go to the Stolen Lands instead of some other urban area?
I presume we are a fairly new group, still getting to know each other's idiosyncrasies and therefore we haven't adventured yet.
Let's make a background of how we combined into our group here. I'm flexible,so if anyone has any fantastic ideas then say below!
FYI: Below is my phantom's background followed by my character's background (which relies on the phantom)
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Zenobia lived a normal life until she was eighteen. Growing up in the woods in Southern Restov with her father she hunted, trapped and grew up healthy, happy and thoroughly bored. Her father was a kindly man, but his horizons were limited by the boundaries of his forest. Zenobia on the other hand had always felt a call in her blood, a wild sensation inside her which drew her further and further from home for longer and longer periods of time. Her father was always remarkably calm about these excursions, simply commenting ”You’re so like your mother.” Zenobia had always found that strange. She’d never met her mother, and all her father would tell her were stories of a beautiful woman who came out of the forest singing beautiful songs. Once, when he was deep in the home-made elderberry wine, her father had mourned the time he spent with her mother. ”The best winter of my life, and then you came – my little summer flower, with red and blue eyes. Just like hers! Then she left…” At this point he broke down in tears and Zenobia never found out any more of the story.
One night, deep in winter, Zenobia went further from the cabin than she ever had before. All night she wandered, lead around and around in circles by the maddening call in her head until in the morning she found herself outside her own home. Creeping in quietly she found her father holding a beautiful woman in his arms, with grey-blue hair the colour of a winter sky. Zenobia fled the awkwardness she knew would ensue and didn’t return until the middle of the afternoon. When she returned her father was alone and happier than she had ever seen him.
Early in autumn the following year both Zenobia and her father were woken by the squalling of an infant. Outside on the porch they found a baby – a little girl with one eye the blue of the sky, and the other the vivid red of winter sunsets, just like Zenobia. Clutched in her tiny fist was a small totem, made of hair and tree bark. As her father swept the baby inside Zenobia stayed out in the cold, clutching the totem the child had dropped and trying desperately to cover her ears at the pounding, insistent call inside her head. Come to me! Come to me! Unable to resist Zenobia left her father, and her new sister behind and marched into the woods – going further and deeper than she ever had before, until her feet bled across the autumn leaves and the few rodents she was able to catch were devoured raw in her craving for hot, thick blood.
Finally – after a walk which could not have truly been within the forests of her home – she found her mother. The woman with grey-blue hair was waiting for her, sitting beneath a great willow tree under the light of the waning moon. All night long the women talked, and Zenobia learned the truth about her mother, her sister and her own, inevitable fate.
As the moon died, the hag – which Zenobia at last knew her mother to be – gave her daughter the choice. To come with her and embrace her heritage as she ought, or to watch as her father and baby sister died the most painful deaths the hag could devise. Zenobia, defiant to the last, spat in her mother’s face and swore that she would never allow her mother to hurt her family. Leaping on her mother with her dagger she drove the blade her father made for her into her mother’s eye – the red eye that showed their kinship. Even as she did so, her mother drove her claws into Zenobia’s heart and her spirit fled.
Hovering over her baby sister Zenobia watched as her father laughed at the chubby fists reaching for his fingers. She’d watched, as her mother returned and laid spells over her father – wiping her from his memory and compelling him to guard, and guide her sister, as he had once done for her. This time, Zenobia vowed to herself, it will be different. I will not let my sister die!
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Eliza was never lonely – even living twenty miles from the nearest town. It was a good thing too, when she went to town with her father, on his infrequent trips to sell pelts and buy supplies few of the other children would play with her. She was ‘the wood’s child’, the ‘strange one’ and on the rare occasion when a child would ignore their peers and parents long enough to strike up a conversation would usually edge away again once they saw her mismatched eyes, or when she mentioned her sister “who is dead now”.
From birth Eliza had always known her sister, the comforting, rose coloured presence who hovered over her crib while she slept and played with her in the woods. She’d tried to ask her father about Zenobia but he just looked confused and told her he couldn’t see her imaginary friend. But one night after she had, in her youthful innocence, tried very hard to make him understand she heard him weeping quietly at the rough-hewn table that stood in the centre of their cabin. Zenobia had explained after that, ”Our mother is a wicked witch and she put a spell on our father so that he would forget me. It’s better if you stop asking him about me – it just makes him sad.”
Eliza knew Zenobia was very wise so she did as her sister suggested and never mentioned Zenobia to her father again, but her other companion she owed almost entirely to her father.
Eliza’s father was a hunter, a born woodsman who knew his forest better than anyone else. He often set snares in the wood and from birth almost Eliza had helped him to gut and dress animal carcasses as he instructed her in the ways of nature. ”All things die Eliza.” He told her in his deep voice. ”And when they die they help other things to live. The trees die and drop their leaves, the insect eat the leaves and are eaten by the birds, the birds are eaten by the foxes and we in turn kill the foxes so that we can eat. Now city dwellers,” the disgust was plain in his tone ”will say that nature is cruel – but they don’t understand. They only see the surface of things and don’t understand. They’d leave ragwort to grow because it looks pretty – they don’t know any better.” But despite this matter-of-fact attitude to life and death, he was not a cruel man and one day he brought Eliza a gift.
Called outside, Eliza emerged to find a deer-like creature, standing on three legs and nuzzling at her inquisitively. ”It’s a moose calf.” Her father told her. ”I found it caught in a bad snare. Probably won’t survive the winter but if you feed it and look after it, then it might have a chance. But he’s your responsibility if you take this on. I’m not going to help you.” Never afraid of a challenge Eliza accepted and, with Zenobia’s help, kept the moose calf alive right through the long, cold winter – naming him Jarrah as she did so.
So... how did Eliza come to leave her father, come to the city, and join our coven then?
Cool background, by the way! I liked reading it quite a bit.
So... how did Eliza come to leave her father, come to the city, and join our coven then?
Cool background, by the way! I liked reading it quite a bit.
Just what I was going to ask about!
There is not much way for her to have chosen to live in the city yet, and she would have needed a reason to. She clearly is not the biggest fan of heavily populated areas. I'm thinking she would have met one of you all first and had her impetus to follow her "sister" to the city.
Just what I was going to ask about!
There is not much way for her to have chosen to live in the city yet, and she would have needed a reason to. She clearly is not the biggest fan of heavily populated areas. I'm thinking she would have met one of you all first and had her impetus to follow her "sister" to the city.
Father becomes ill which forces her to go to the city in search of medicines? Maybe meets another changeling there and eventually (perhaps if father dies) becomes too lonely out in the woods and so comes back looking for the people like her? Just a thought!
As to who wanted to go to the Stolen Lands - as I see it, Eliza would enjoy it and Evelynda probably had just enough sway with the Surtova name to get you a charter before her sister managed to get you all shut down - besides, it offers a chance for wealth and adventure rather than 'more of the same' in another city.
Glad to see we seem to be on the final stages - I'll get the first gameplay post up today and you can iron out the detail ooc at the same time. :)
I liked it a lot too. That does make sense that she'd most likely leave out of loyalty or a bond forged with the others.
I think Olyenna is driven to not only protect those she feels need and deserve it, but to form a circle wherever she goes.
Posting in a couple of hours
Where are y'all?
Actually constructing my post right now.
Paging Eliza....
She's having a terrible time at work right now - I'm going to move it on with her in the background today and hopefully the weekend will help!
Okay, hope things ease up a bit.
I'm really sorry everyone - I've been grading papers like no-bodies business for the end of the year and caught a cold just to make things even better! I'll do this justice tomorrow - sorry again!
Please tell Eliza that I hope whatever it is, that she experiences a full recovery soon.
Sympathy from me, too! December colds suck.
So I have an interesting question.
At 1st level, the circle warden emits a 20-foot aura of abjuration. Once per round whenever an ally attuned to the circle warden’s fellowship is standing within the wreath of community’s area, he may create a shield other effect in relation to any other attuned ally within the wreath of community's area as a free action spell-like ability. The spell’s caster level is equal to your witch class level (though the person activating the ability is consider the caster for all other purposes). At 3rd level and every 2 levels thereafter, the radius of the aura increases by 5 feet, to a maximum of 70 feet at 20th level.
So what happens if everyone's within 20ft of me and we all do it at the same time focused on the same person. Does the damage dealt to them get divided by 4 since one person would have 3 separate shield other effects on them?
If so, between that and toughness, I can take "Tanking" to epic levels.