1-on-1 Evil Campaign (Inactive)

Game Master The Indescribable

Hello! This is going to just be a fun little solo campaign I've been interested in. I would prefer no homebrew, but any and every paizo book is fine. I would be playing a LE level 13+ Wizard, the exact level depending on how you feel. I intend it to be a sort of 'Rise to Power' Evil Campaign, rather than 'destroy the Material Plane.' One cannot rule over cinders.

Anyway, when you post, please give me some info about yourself and ideas that you have for the setting, and in general. This is your opportunity to build a world and focus on one person, rather than building around a group of 6 or 7. I'd like some GMPC's, as wizards aren't the toughest among the adventurers. It doesn't have to be weekly, nor does it have to be session based. I'd prefer often but short sessions if we end up using them. Two times a week, but only a few hours long kinda stuff.

Play-by-Post'd also be fun, but it would be your game at that point. Anyway, I hope someone can get back to me. Thanks!

Interested. But first I need to know some about the character if you have any thoughts, a bit of background would help me build.

Kerai (Kehr-eye)was born into the middle-class, not necessarily meek, but he felt very little authority throughout his young life. When he was a child, he adored the stories of heroes fighting monsters, they had so much power that the could fight anything. It sometimes made him sad that he wasn't a hero like them.

He was not a loner, nor was he very popular among the children of his city. He simply worked his parent's shop, as his father was a weaponsmith. He did not go to school, but he read any books that he could find, and once he was old enough, spent many days reading in libraries. While his parents weren't exactly fond of their scrawny son pursuing knowledge (or downright appalled, depending on the setting), he worked at learning the magic that would give him a way out of the meager citizens that died like livestock in the tales of heroes.

Whether through years in dark libraries long forgotten, or through becoming a student in a mage college (Depending on the setting's take on magic), he never felt power like those who ruled the lands. The nobility had simply inherited their authority from their parents, they had never worked for anything. He believed in the concept of nobility and leadership, but he believed that those who could take it through force deserved it that much more.

Though he had been studying magic for many years, and even defeating creatures among (the guards, the mages, or an underground group of mages, depending on the setting), he hadn't made much progress towards reaching any sort of political position, nor had his powers fully developed. He studied endlessly, until in a twist of fate, he had found a dark, dusty book that detailed the arts of binding and commanding creatures from other planes of existence.

The book listed every creature, but not the information on them. He quickly learned everything he could about these creatures. Knowing these creatures in detail, he knew just how powerful such spells could be. The weakest of the creatures able to be bound is called a Lemure, and he knew he had to summon this first.

Away from the city, Kerai followed the instructions and began the ritual. In a cloud of brimstone dust and smoke, a horrifying creature appeared. Kerai stood, his heart in his boots, and slowly handed over what he hoped was a "remembrance of indulgences long lost," a warm plate of food.

The spiral began, and Kerai began to feel the authority radiating from him as he commanded beings from other worlds. While he was as nice as he could be, and only used the creatures for acts that they themselves would want, he did not treat others in this way, as they didn't have the ability to kill him anymore. In a rather large fight with his parents, Kerai stomped outside the city gates once again. He will never step foot back in that city, but his home would not be standing if he did.

(That's the quick version, but you can suggest changes to it if it doesn't fit. Thanks!)

Let me think. There's plenty there I can work with. You left the city, so some wilderness adventuring is probably in order. What kind of rise to power? Do you intend to solo, or gather a horde of followers. Perhaps an army of the undead, or summon creatures?

Becoming King, Overlord, or God. He doesn't actively study necromancy, but he may dabble in it, as he very, very rarely fights alone. He will eventually take the leadership feat once he gains a following, but for now, he is going to find a way, in another city, to gain political power. If this doesn't work, he may resort to... less ethical methods to obtain a foothold. He's human, but I'm sure other intelligent races inhabit the landscape too.

Alright, so you need to get to another city first, then build up a base of political power. How would you feel about starting at lower levels before leadership becomes available?

I've already built my character, and planar binding doesn't come around until mid-level. I'd much prefer to start at level 13 because wizards before then are very easy to kill when they're alone. Plus, most campaigns never reach high levels, so I'd like the opportunity to eventually reach it. This just makes it quicker and easier, but I wouldn't get the leadership feat for a while. Combat isn't actually unbearable, and I have a decent array of spells for out of combat as well. I can say that I'm older, maybe around 30, instead of the starting 15-ish, and that almost all of my time has been spent studying and learning spells and using them for experimentation and the occasional fight, rather than going out and making a name for myself, or fighting higher levels of creatures.

Hmm, well that blows my initial concept out of the water. I was gonna have you hired by a group of adventurers a level or two ahead of you where you wouldn't be a hindrance and yet have a chance to corrupt them if you so chose.

Yeah, he most likely wouldn't work with other adventurers that are more powerful than him. He isn't really the 'corrupting' kind of guy, either, and actually enjoys being liked. He'll just kill, bribe, torture, and do other undesirable things to get what he wants. I'm sorry about blowing your original concept away but I'm playing a low level wizard in two other games currently (I love wizards to death and, through lichdom, beyond) and would like to feel kinda decent as a character lol. I mainly just use a few spells and then just stand there, unable to do literally anything else. Like I said, many games never reach a point where spellcasters get the glory, so I wanted to start there and work my way up.

I'm trying to figure out how best to challenge your character until the next city, so I was looking at that as a starting point, as to gaining power and influence, I'd considered giving you the chance to take over a local magic academy, a perfect place to begin recruiting.

I dunno, perhaps working for the city? I would actually prefer my followers be non-spellcasters. I want to become the king in a way that keeps friends, like hiring people to kill the king and his heirs once I have gotten to a position where I might be considered. This is, of course, unless I am kicked out or not chosen. At that point I may find more violent methods. Possible story arcs are having some BBEG take over the city, or have a betrayal, or something that I can't stop by myself that would require planning and summoned slaves.

You don't have to recruit there. It's still a good place to begin gaining influence.

Hmm. Give me your spell list. Perhaps it will hold some clues on how to challenge your character.

Sent you them in a PM.

He has good ranged damage and summons, but if you can manage to get up to his face he really can't do much. However, he has high saves, so the best thing to pit him against is like a monk or rogue, with the ability to get up close and kill him quickly without the use of spells. Ranged attacks work too, but he has the shield+mage armor combo, and his dex is boosted to 20, so his AC is pretty big. That being said, magical rays and such could hurt him, but if he is truly outmatched, he would likely teleport to safety. He's really careful and paranoid too, so once he finds a base of operations, there will be so many traps and symbols that it is physically impossible to defeat him when he is inside.

Hmm. Yeah but I'm not trying to kill you. So an initial attack with a Monk or rogue or such is rather foolish. sigh. Maybe put you on the back of a caravan returning home. Give it a some hurdles to cross to get home thus allowing you to be helpful and begin making friends.

I can send you the whole .pdf character sheet if you'd like, and you could give me some example situations and I could explain how I could or could not deal with them. I don't want to make this hard for ya, I just want both of us to have fun. I've DM'd a lot of 3.5 and some Pathfinder, so I know that although the story develops around the characters, it is very hard to try to work around a full team with very few weaknesses without railroading or having a TPK. I figure with one character, there are weaknesses that can come around that my character will need to work around, and you can have more of a plan, as there won't be tons of subplots involving romances and missions from all 6 or 7 PCs.

Nah, it's just this beginning that's going to be hard to nail down. I have a rough idea of what to do once in the city and most of that will be reacting to what YOU want to do. I'm very reactive.

Love that in GMs, took me a while to figure out how to be reactive. Anyway, my character isn't very team-oriented, focusing on damage, summoning, and debuffing. In fact, he has very few, if any buffing spells that he doesn't always use on himself. I dunno if that helps, but that's one of my character's big weaknesses. However, not being team oriented means he'll just kill someone who is dominated if they pose a threat. So maybe a creature with large spell resist or just plain resistances, where I'm actually not super useful, and the people I'm with would need buffs that I can't give.

Heh, you want bad reaction, First session I think I ever did a superhero adventure about big foot being a monster, he turned out to be innocent in a circumstantial muck up fell off a cliff the hero's could easily have helped him off of except I said no cause I was married to the storyline I'd written. The bad part comes that he survived the fall anyways.

Yeah, I went through a stage of being way, way, way too accepting though. It wasn't even a story anymore, we had a vampire that just hid in a cave and the rest of the party that had just started a war between elves and humans. It sound cool, but then you realize that the story can't go anywhere at this point. I dunno, you just gotta find the right balance. But anyway, would you like to play on roll20, have it be PbP, or have it on Skype(No voice chat, I much prefer text.)? If it is sessions, how often would you be able to GM them?

I'd prefer PBP. I 've discovered an intense dislike of GMing on roll20 and don't want to give up my skype name.

I like PbP as well. Why don't you like Roll20? Too much work, too clunky? I haven't GM'd on there in a while, but it was okay when I did. Would you like me to set up the PbP campaign thingy now and you can just start posting when you're ready?

Yeah go ahead.

Set it up, just post in the gameplay thread to dot it

Btw, I switched out Mage Mansion for Simulacrum. Turns out you can't really store items in the mansion like I thought you could

Btw, I switched out Mage Mansion for Simulacrum. Turns out you can't really store items in the mansion like I thought you could

Welcome to my lament about the old instant fortress. I've always wanted to have one designed as a portable rogue training facility.

When would you be ready to start?

Still thinking things through, But I'm thinking we can start the roleplaying in a day or two.

Alrighty. I have live bookmarks set up, so whenever you're ready just post away. You can put some ideas in discussion if you would like to ask me some things

Does clockwork exist? I may have a simulacrum servant and clockwork soldiers make great ones.

Yes, yes to clockwork. A million times yes. Yeah I'm a huge steampunk fanatic, so go for it, but that does give me some ideas for things I actually need to write down.

I love clockwork too. Had a whole 3.5 campaign that was sort of like kingmaker, but with clockwork machines. One of my favorite campaigns, running around with a personal squad of clockwork bodyguards. Anyway, this one is just a simulacrum for the moment, but I may invest in some clockwork guards down the road. They can't betray you, and they want no payment. Glad they're allowed :)

I also suggest you look up the rules for custom constructs, they'd be great for your stronghold, I was designing a clockwork book cover for spellbooks, it had a key slot to open it which also wound it, and it had one function, when it was alone, unfold a pair of legs, and deliver the book to it's maker.

Do you know if there's a way for me to give you the GM thing for this thread?

Pretty sure we just have to message them.

A bit late to the show but this sounds somewhat interesting. Are you hosting on here or on a different site as I'm curious how far of a line would be crossed in the evil campaign.