Character backgrounds


Rise of the Runelords

Silver Crusade

My group did a character creation session last night. Some of them did more of the "assigned reading" (AP players guides) in advance than others.

The one with the most detailed character and back story idea is doing an Order of the Lion cavalier, which means he has to be loyal to a specific ruler and their domain. He also took the Rich Parents and Merchant Family traits, to start with extra cash and get more money when selling stuff. I think he gets a greed sin point just for those trait choices. :p This also means he's supposed to be related to one of the Sandpoint founding families. The character is LN, worships Abadar, and he prefers the idea of his character growing up in Magnimar rather than Sandpoint.

I'm figuring the obvious choice is to have him be loyal to the Lord-Mayor of Magnimar, and see himself as a protector of Magnimar, along with the villages, towns, farmland, etc that are considered holdings of Magnimar, trying to spread civilization to the wilds in the area. That works for both the cavalier order and Abadar worship. The question is which Sandpoint family to put him in.

The others had less of an idea of what to do for their back stories, though recommending campaign traits from the AP players guide helped. The bard was easy - he's in town for the theater. A player with a ranger saw the monster hunter trait and decided he liked that idea, so his character heard rumors of the Sandpoint Devil and came to town to go hunting for it.

Any suggestions for why a chaotic good elven draconic sorceress who worships Calistria might be in Sandpoint for the Swallowtail Festival? I'm sure we can come up with something eventually, but I figured I'd ask for suggestions.

Grand Lodge

For the cavalier, I would do much of the same, but to add a twist, maybe you can have him a cousin of the Scarnettis. They are predominantly LN and are a founding family. They would easily have holdings in Magnimar. It gives him a little bit closer tie to Sandpoint, provided he likes his cousins! ;)

As for the Sorceress, remember that there is another sorceress in town that likely worships Calistria, perhaps they were taught by the same person, or know of each other from past pilgrimages?


I'd go Scarnetti as well.

The sorceress could just be on her way from home in the Mierani forest to somewhere else (eg visiting a relative in Magnimar or the Academae in Korvosa) but the ship stopped at Sandpoint because it was carrying a bunch of pilgrims for the festival.

Grand Lodge

Spoiler:
See Kay Tessarani at the Pixie's Kitten.

Silver Crusade

Thanks for the recommendations.

I'm re-reading the appendix on Sandpoint in the anniversary edition to get to know the town better. Isn't the Scarnetti family supposed to be slightly mafia-esque? With a more experienced group, I might go for something like that and play up the intrigue, but it's a new group, with some total newbies, and I don't know them that well.


Yes, the Scarnetti clan is very mafia-esque. One of the founding Scarnettis of Sandpoint tried slaughtering a bunch of Varnesians after all! So if you go with Scarnetti, he's the black (or white) sheep of the family. ;) (Amusingly enough, one of my PCs has the Merchant Family trait and is also related to the Scarnettis but hates their guts - he's a bastard child and the other Scarnettis are dismissive of him.)

I might suggest the Deverin family instead, however. The mayor is a Deverin and the family has a more noble bearing in many ways than the Scarnettis.

Grand Lodge

The Scarnetti are lumber barons, used to intimidation to get what they want, and whatnot. I think there would be great roleplaying opportunities for the character. Much more than the Deverin.

But I prefer colorful backgrounds... ;)

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

It depends on what story you want to tell. A Scarnetti PC would have pressures from the family to use their newfound hero status as a weapon to wrest control of the town away from the Deverins. A Valdemar hero would be asked to walk the line between aiding the Scarnetti and finding a way out from under their thumbs. A Deverin hero would find himself schemed against by the Scarnettis, and they get a front row seat to Mayor Kendra's lonely existence. The only one I'd probably nix is a Kaijutsu hero, for obvious reasons.

Silver Crusade

So the draconic sorceress has a back story idea having to do with trying to track down the dragon who tainted her bloodline. She left it kind of vague, as we haven't worked out details, so maybe it happened a couple of generations ago, and that dragon may be dead, but maybe she's trying to find out what happened to a family heirloom it took or something.

I'm trying to figure out how that would lead her to be in Sandpoint. Maybe she's just traveling a very long distance and happened to be passing through Sandpoint and decided to stick around an extra couple of days because she heard about the Swallowtail Festival. But then, if she's got her own personal quest, why would she stick around to play hero in Sandpoint for any length of time, even after the goblin attack?

Not having read very far into the AP yet, I'm not sure if there's anything even remotely dragon related in this one. I do want to read the whole anniversary edition before we get too far into it, but all I've read so far are the appendices on Sandpoint and Magnimar, and the first half of Burnt Offerings. I need some info on this right away, so we can figure out her back story before the first session on Monday.

I'm the GM for this group, so if anyone has any suggestions, don't worry about it being spoilers. But you may want to include spoiler tags, just for other people browsing the thread who might not want to know.


Well there's always Arkrhyst.

Spoiler:
He's a dragon that the party will encounter in the fifth chapter of the AP in Sins of the Savior. He's been around for several centuries but has disappeared for quite a while. Due to his protecting the entrance to the Runeforge...you can intermingle word of mouth about him throughout your game and tie him in as a villain more inline with some of the other mini-bosses.

Arkrhyst used to be known to the Shoanti and Sandpoint does have a fair amount of their population in and about the town. Rumors could bring the character there to gain more information from the Shoanti locals regarding Arkrhyst. Tie that in to maybe making the dragon a partial player in funding Nualia, the Skinsaw men etc with the occasional additional DM note amongst the various big bad treasures along the way that can eventually help lead the character to confronting Arkrhyst at the entrance to Runeforge and helping solidify that characters desire to end the rise of Karzoug. Just a thought anyway.

Grand Lodge

Actually, I would go endgame with

Spoiler:
Ghlorofax, blue dragon in Xin-Shalast.

I still think that the sorceress should be coming to visit the Pixie's Kitten and its Madame, Kaye Tesserani. Sorceresses and Calistria and all... :p

There is another dragon that is tied to Crying Leaf, but it is already dead... but that could have a tie-in with Shalelu and later, her step-father.

Silver Crusade

I think she was going with black dragon bloodline, for the acid, but I'll have to double check with her. Even if I am remembering correctly, she's still finalizing character details, so she may have changed her mind. Or I may be able to talk her into something different.

What color dragon is Arkrhyst?

Actually, I should have checked the players guides before anything else. The anniversary edition players guide talks about dragons in the Kodar Mountains and a green dragon in the elven Mierani Forest. Given that the draconic sorceress happens to be an elf, that seems like an obvious tie in if she would consider going green dragon bloodline, but I don't know how to relate that to the story of the AP.

Silver Crusade

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I feel dumb. I'm so used to Pathfinder Society, where you can't change details of the published adventures, that it only just occurred to me that I can just change the color of a dragon in the adventure to match the character's back story.

The exact dragon colors aren't essential to the story, are they? In many adventures, changing it to a black dragon should work just as well as any other color of evil dragon, unless there's an environmental reason why a particular type is best suited (red dragon in a fiery area, white dragon some place cold).

I'm thinking of suggesting to the player that her character picked up the draconic bloodline from magical damage that her mother sustained during a dragon attack while pregnant with her. Her motivation might be a combination of revenge for that attack, and to recover a family heirloom that was stolen by the dragon. I'm thinking I can check the dragon stats and find a piece of jewelry or something in its horde that could be her heirloom.


Well, there is one caveat to that. You may need to increase the strength of the dragon in question. For instance, an old adult White Dragon like Arkrhyst isn't as tough as an old adult Red Dragon.

Grand Lodge

I wouldn't change Arkhryst, just because of the terrain that you find her, but any of the others are not as tied to terrain...

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

What flavor of dragon is she tied to, Fromper?

Silver Crusade

I think she was going black dragon. I've asked on our group's discussion forum if she'd be willing to change that.

Silver Crusade

She'd be willing to change dragon colors, though she thinks fire is too common, so she wants to avoid red. So I could give her a back story based on one of the named dragons in this.

But she really likes the idea of some sort of breeding with a dragon having happened at some point, so I'm trying to work out a story based on that. Maybe one of them used magic to appear as an elf, seduce the sorcerer's grandmother, and then took off after one night, taking a family heirloom with him.

Any thoughts?


I'd say the White is the best option, but the Blue that's in Xin-Shalast (not the one in the final encounter but the one in the city itself) is another good option.

Grand Lodge

I would not say Whites as they are notorious for a lack of cunning. To me, it would likely be a Green, Red (already nixed by the player), or Blue. If I am remembering correctly, Greens are the most devious and favor illusions the most, but that may just be a hold-over from Dragonlance... ;)


Just because most Whites are not known for cunning does not mean all are. This dragon in particular has a history behind it and may very well be sneakier than expected.

Grand Lodge

Perhaps, but also think about the terrain that he would be infiltrating... you also have to have reasoning behind the infiltration. If this sorceress is from one of the snowcaster elves up North, then it makes sense. If she is from the Meirani forest, it makes less sense. I'm just saying that Whites tend to be more ferocious than cunning... but if the player has a specific energy type in mind you can always work around it.

I do not feel that Arkhryst would be an appropriate choice, but that is my opinion. I would prefer Ghlorofax, simply because it would be more of an endgame resolution.

Silver Crusade

So I looked up Ghlorofaex in the adventure.

He's a very old blue dragon, which puts him at 601-800 years old. Given elven lifespans, he could easily have met the sorceress's grandmother 700 years ago, when he was a young adult.

Very greedy, like most evil dragons. Has a horde with a couple of unique jewelry pieces that could be my sorceress's family heirloom. I really like the irony of picking one of the cheapest pieces in his collection and making it her heirloom, like the silver bracelet worth 25 gp or something. I might go with the jade comb worth 300 gp instead, just because it sounds more distinctive.

The trick is fitting him into her back story. If he just attacked her family at some point, and magical scarring caused the taint in her bloodline, then it's easy. But like I said, the player prefers an interbreeding angle. I just have to figure out why a blue dragon with this kind of personality would do such a thing.

Or perhaps the interbreeding took place with a good dragon, which was then killed by Ghlorofaex. Hmm... copper dragon and black dragon are both the same bloodline powers, so it's mechanically the same. It would match her PC's alignment (CG), and have a natural environment of hills, which could place it at the edge of the mountains in Varisia, perhaps near the Meilani Forest. I can work with this - I think this will work.

Grand Lodge

Nice... Way to brainstorm, Fromper! I like the copper angle, it adds a twist! The trick is to make her believe that it was an evil dragon, intent on tearing her family apart, then the grand reveal when she meets Ghlorofaex and sees her family heirloom! Maybe he detects the scent of an old enemy... or her bloodline reacts to his presence... you have some time to work on it, but this sounds very interesting! Good job! ^_^

Silver Crusade

I wasn't thinking of hiding from her that her grandfather (or maybe great grandfather) was a copper dragon. I was actually thinking the good dragon and the elf could have been married, and had a loving, stable relationship, for 100+ years before his death. I just have to work out the details.

The big question is how much to tell her about her grandfather's death. She'd probably know he was killed by another dragon, but how much detail should I give her. Should she know it was a blue dragon that killed him? Should I give her Ghlorofaex's name? And if she doesn't know it's him, then how do I handle the big reveal when they meet?

It depends on the exact story of the grandfather's death, more than anything. If Ghlorofaex attacked at the elven/dragon family's home, then witnesses might have seen it and passed on the story. If he just left home one day, and got in a fight that killed him while he was away, then nobody will know the details other than Ghlorofaex.

I think I'm leaning towards an attack at their home, with a hidden witness (the parent of my player's sorceress?) seeing the whole thing. Hmm... maybe Ghlorofaex has a distinguishing mark that makes him stand out from other blue dragons (ie the one armed man, the 6 fingered man, etc), so the sorceress will know him when she sees him, even without knowing his name.

Grand Lodge

That'll work. You can make it as convoluted or as straightforward as you'd like... I just like adding a twist, a little What the Frack kind of moment... ;)

Silver Crusade

So we talked about it in last night's session, and she liked the copper dragon idea. I told her that her grandfather was a copper dragon, who had been married to her elven grandmother for over 100 years before a blue dragon came and killed them both. Her mother saw the whole thing from where she was hiding, and saw that the copper had wounded the blue dragon badly, cutting off two fingers (toes?) from his front left claw. Also, a jade comb that had been an elven family heirloom caught the blue's eye as he left, so he took it from the body of the elven grandmother. So when they eventually meet Ghlorofaex, I'll embellish his look a little to say he's missing two fingers on one of his claws, and she'll know this is the dragon she's searching for revenge against.

The bigger issue is that the player who wasn't there for our character building session last week has a very specific backstory idea in mind that he really wants to go with, so now I need to come up with a way to accommodate that. He's basing it on a character from a series of novels, and trying really hard to make every single detail from the novel fit perfectly. His novel character came from a family of wandering performers. Apparently, the family was researching some sort of ancient evil to do a performance about it, and they were killed for knowing too much, with his character being the only survivor. He was a child at the time, and came home just in time to see the bad guys leaving and get a hint of what had killed his family.

I told him his character didn't see the killers when he got home to find his family dead, but he found the 7 point sihedron star symbol. I haven't read far enough to know exactly how I'll tie in his family's murder 5 years ago. I know there's something about the skinsaw men using that symbol and killing people, but I haven't read enough to know the details yet, or know if they were active 5 years ago. I figured the timing of his story with the character's family murdered 5-7 years before he became a real adventurer at 15 would fit with the activation of the runewells and awakening of Karzoug, so I'd just find a way to make it work once I've read more and know all the details of the campaign's story.

The bigger problem is that after spending half the session finalizing characters last night, we started playing, and the group's having a hard time focusing. They had no interest whatsoever in the Swallowtail Festival, or RPing any of the games, other than the cavalier wanting to test his strength when I mentioned a weight lifting contest. Some of them at least played along with the environment - the cavalier made a point of introducing himself to the sheriff and offering his services if any trouble came up, and the oracle with an interest in religion introduced himself to Father Zantus. I think the cavalier's heading for a pride sin point, while the ranger and sorceress who decided to sleep in and skip the opening of the festival already earned a sloth point each.

But the new guy who'd never done a table top RPG before was just being silly, in ways that led me to use my "You can do that, BUT..." GM voice. He wanted his ranger to shoot at the butterflies with flaming arrows when they were released, and had to be talked down. I'll see how next session goes - I'm hoping once he gets into some combat in the game, he'll calm down during non-combat play. I may have to have a talk with him about RPing, and about how his character is supposed to be a resident of a game world and should be trying to fit in a little with society, and not just a video game toon who goes around shooting everything. I'm afraid he'll use his character's "I love nature and hate human society" back story that I helped him come up with as an excuse to be disruptively anti-social (half-elf ranger with humans as a favored enemy, due to bullying as a kid growing up in a human city).

The other problem was the bard with the back story from a novel trying too hard to force his PC's story to be the main storyline, instead of going with the flow. His character came to Sandpoint to study The Old Light and learn about ancient Thassilon from the local historian, and he didn't care if the rest of the town was busy with a festival that day. He met Brodert Quint and got annoyed that the old man wouldn't drop everything to show him his research. Not that Quint is shy about talking about this stuff, but he invited the bard to come by his house tomorrow to see the research, and enjoy the festival for now. I actually had to use the line "These ruins have been there for thousands of years. They're not going anywhere."

Unfortunately, we started late enough and spent half the session on character building, along with some silliness once we really started playing, so we didn't even get as far as the goblin attacks. I'm hoping once we get into the action, they'll settle down and play along with the story a little more.


Those novels being The Name of the Wind and A Wise Man's Fear, I suppose. Good books.

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