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I was coming up with character ideas for an upcoming campaign, and I kind of hit upon an interesting backstory, but it kind of makes some assumptions about elves in Golarion that I don't know if they are true or not. I know almost nothing about Kyonin and I was wondering if this backstory worked?
Character name: Karistol
Character concept: Rogue/Universalist wizard eventually into arcane trickster
1/2 elf.
Karistol was born to a human mother and didn't know his father for the first few years of his life. The result of a drunken engagement with a powerful Elven noble wizard, his mother eventually decided to travel to Kyonin and at least show the elf that he was a father when Karistol was 4.
Karistol's father, an Elf by the name of Laniss, was aghast at what had happened. Firmly believing elves to be superior to all races, he barely remembered the indiscretion, and was horrified that word might get out that he, a noble, had deigned to have a son with a non-noble, and a human as well!
He promptly used his magics to drive Karistol's mother insane, and had her arrested. However, paranoid as he was, he believed that spells could trace the boy back as his (and afraid of killing the boy because of spells like blood biography), Laniss took him in, basically forcing him to be a manservant, and threatening terrible, terrible vengeance on the young boy if he ever revealed the truth.
Laniss gave Karistol an education, of sorts, as he wanted the boy to read his mail to him and serve tea and so forth. When he was old enough, he cast a geas on the boy to force him to learn the basics of fighting, so that he could at least appear to be a bodyguard (and even dressed him up in ceremonial Kyonin armor!). Karistol, for his part, was terrified of his father, but was also fairly intelligent. He started working out how to bypass simple wards on his father's doors.
Constantly intrigued by magic, but always out of his grasp, Karistol turned to the arts of subtlety. As he became more and more skilled in the arts of stealth and avoiding his father, he began to escape. His father always found him through divinations and forced him back, often torturing the boy for escaping. Karistol was about to give up when he happened upon the luckiest break of his life.
One day, after returning from an Elven wedding with a friend, Karistol overheard that Lanis had a sample of Karistol's blood that he used as a scrying focus. Laniss admitted that he was actually terrible at scrying (divination opposed school) and that he was only able to find Karistol because he had a piece of him. Karistol realized what he had to do.
He stole his blood sample (Laniss had revealed where it was during his drunken tirade) as well as a backup spellbook that had been warded improperly and some spells, and took off into the night. He has been living off the land, stealing what he needs, and spending all his time not on the road or stealing studying the spellbook he stole, believing the only way to keep himself safe from his father is to learn magic himself.
Does this work?
The result of a drunken engagement with a powerful Elven noble wizard
You mean a one-night-stand sort of thing? That's not generally called an 'engagement'.
Yes, this can work certainly. The most common alignments of elves in Golarion is CG or CN, but elves can certainly be evil, cowardly, and cruel.
Incidentally, I would recommend against Universalist wizard. Loss of a spell slot per level isn't worth not having opposed schools. Transmuter (for ability buffs and lots of useful spells) or diviner (foresight) (for bonuses to initiative, always acting in a surprise round, and the ability to pre-roll attacks and such).
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The result of a drunken engagement with a powerful Elven noble wizardYou mean a one-night-stand sort of thing? That's not generally called an 'engagement'.
Yes, this can work certainly. The most common alignments of elves in Golarion is CG or CN, but elves can certainly be evil, cowardly, and cruel.
Incidentally, I would recommend against Universalist wizard. Loss of a spell slot per level isn't worth not having opposed schools. Transmuter (for ability buffs and lots of useful spells) or diviner (foresight) (for bonuses to initiative, always acting in a surprise round, and the ability to pre-roll attacks and such).
I guess I meant 'indiscretion' not 'engagement.' Wrote that up super quick right before class.
I'm taking the universalist wizard solely for 'hand of the apprentice' ability. Ranged sneak attack with a sword of subtlety (that I can just DECLARE I get to sneak attack with the arcane trickster ability?) Yeah, I'll take that.
Ranged sneak attack with a sword of subtlety is not worth losing a spell slot per level. At the level when you can get that sword, you're going to be using spells to sneak attack almost all the time anyway.
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Ranged sneak attack with a sword of subtlety is not worth losing a spell slot per level. At the level when you can get that sword, you're going to be using spells to sneak attack almost all the time anyway.
Listen, I just wanted to know if elves in Golarian had nobles and peasants, if my back-story made sense, Thank you for telling me it works. I thank you for the advice, but I rather like the idea of an unrestrained spell list and the ability to have fun with throwing my sword. It may not be optimized, but it sounds like fun to me.
Fair enough, that did go afield from your question.
Yes, the elves have a fairly straightforward faux-medieval society with a queen, nobility, royal guards, and peasants; from what I can tell they're more fluid than, say, a strict hierarchy like Cheliax, but the queen is still in charge, even if she is fairly liberal.
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Fair enough, that did go afield from your question.
Yes, the elves have a fairly straightforward faux-medieval society with a queen, nobility, royal guards, and peasants; from what I can tell they're more fluid than, say, a strict hierarchy like Cheliax, but the queen is still in charge, even if she is fairly liberal.
Huh, reading up on what I can from the wiki, I see that there is a group of elves called the winter council, who are super conservative and hate the liberal queen, and they enjoy a high status in Elven Society, basically forcing themselves to be her advisors.
I think Laniss could be a member of that organization (if they haven't all been spelled out) or some sort of sycophant that is trying to weasel his way into their organization.
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I had another question:
I came up with an idea that my mother was made insane by the Laniss and was committed, is there actually a way to do this? I mean, is there a spell that messes you up permanently? Like I know feeblemind makes you dumb and generally unable to interact with the world until you get a heal spell (as in the spell, HEAL.) The Insanity spell simply makes the target confused (permanently) which means they'd kill themselves in about 3 minutes at most, seeing that every round there is a 25% chance you will deal yourself 1d8+str mod damage . . .(and she was a 1st level commoner.)
Is there something that basically lowers your wisdom to 3 so that you can't tell reality from fantasy? Anyone know of a spell that does something like this? I mean, I tried looking up all the spells I know . . . but there are a LOT of them out there.
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The Winter Council have not been spelled out yet, I think there may be some listed but they're in an AP (my group has yet to run it, so I won't say the name as to avoid spoilerage).
As for Insanity, I believe major curse (maybe bestow curse) can be used to bestow insanity as well, but it is a variant rule and your GM would have to okay that particular variant. I THINK the spell Insanity may also be able to do that under the variant rules but it's been a while since my group has toyed with that.
As far as telling reality from fantasy yeah, there is an insanity to do that; schizophrenia.
Type insanity; Save Will DC 16
Onset 1d6 days
Effect –4 penalty on all Wisdom and Charisma-based skill checks; cannot take 10 or take 20; chance of becoming confused (see below)
Description A schizophrenic character has lost his grip on reality, and can no longer tell the difference between what is real and what is not. These constant hallucinations cause the schizophrenic to appear erratic, chaotic, and unpredictable to others. Each time a schizophrenic character finds himself in a stressful situation (such as combat) he must make a Will save against his insanity's DC. Failure indicates that the character becomes confused for 1d6 rounds.
You may just want to check out the Insanity section of the PRD. http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/mastery/sanityAndMadness.html
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The Winter Council have not been spelled out yet, I think there may be some listed but they're in an AP (my group has yet to run it, so I won't say the name as to avoid spoilerage).
As for Insanity, I believe major curse (maybe bestow curse) can be used to bestow insanity as well, but it is a variant rule and your GM would have to okay that particular variant. I THINK the spell Insanity may also be able to do that under the variant rules but it's been a while since my group has toyed with that.
As far as telling reality from fantasy yeah, there is an insanity to do that; schizophrenia.
** spoiler omitted **You may just want to check out the Insanity section of the PRD. http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/mastery/sanityAndMadness.html
Actually, looking at bestow curse, he could just cast that to reduce her wis or Chr to 2 (assuming she started with an 8). A Chr of 2 would basically be severe autism (a horrible ailment where people are trapped inside their own head, having trouble affecting the outside world). A Wis of 2 would be probably just as bad, with her unable to set priorities, often unable to hear things, or have plans of her own.