Tides of the Accord: Underwater Version of AEG Warlords of the Accordlands Campaign


Recruitment

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Fellow Pathfinders,

I have a fairly unusual idea for a complex, long term campaign I would like to DM, and for which I would like to 'sound' initial interest with a brief sketch before drawing up a more detailed precis of the campaign if there seems as though there are enough takers.

I'm a long time fan of the AEG Warlords of the Accordlands setting -- I'm interested in updating the Campaign Adventure Book for Pathfinder, but also moving the setting underwater with the rules in the Cerulean Seas line. This would involve both aquatic versions of some races, as well as some substitutions and additions. For instance, the Nothrog (the eugenically perfected pan-Goblinoid race of the Accordlands, if you're not familiar with the setting), would be aquatic Ogres and Ogre Magi, and also march with troops of Squawks (the warlike penguins from Cerulean Seas). Similarly, the Accordlands undead and element-worshiping Elves will be replaced by Ice Elves from Cerulean Seas. Finally, the Deverenian Empire would worship an enormous whirlpool instead of a storm, and have an order of anti paladins that each ride a dire dunkleosteus instead of a verdatha, and so forth.

I'm also interested in a rather heavy use of alternative rules and third party sources. Here are the major elements:

Both gestalt and mythic (1 mythic rank every two levels).
Automatic bonus progression.
Wounds and Vigor.
Armor as damage reduction.
Opposed combat rolls/defense rolls (3.5 DMG).
Unchained alternative action economy.
Feat every level from Monte Cook's Collected Books of Experimental Might.
Removing iterative attacks.
Use alternative versions of feats that scale -- either from Kirthfinder or Feats Reforged series.
Staggered advancement.
Words of Power magic system for at least some casters.
Dreamscarred psionics.
XP will be calculated by story arc instead of monster death. I will tell you when you advance based on where we are in the campaign, obviating any need to complete a specific number of encounters or necessarily kill everything.

I'm also very open to virtually any 3.5 material as long as you have access to and explain the material if I don't own it (though not material superseded in Pathfinder -- no Incarmum instead of Akashic Mysteries, for instance).

The aim of all this to make things a bit gonzo, but also highly swingy, sort of a Planetary Adventure vibe -- the in-universe explanation being that the death of the Dragon that created the world suffused everything with a touch of Its essence.

Min-maxing is not going to be a big issue because all the major campaign-long villains are essentially 20 lvs. + 10 mythic tiers and I have access to all the same optimization net guides as you do for their design :).

However, you need to have a strong character concept too; the first adventure occurs during a diplomatic convention of the major powers of the Accordlands, so a wide range of races are possible, though please don't make something that makes no sense for the setting because some racial trait works for a build you have in mind.

The campaign would consist of heavily converted/modified elements of the Campaign Book adventures and a fair amount of sandbox elements and side-trekking.


I'll put a tentative dot. I'm not familiar with warlords, but I'm willing to learn

Plus if you're allowing dream scarred press, there is that aberrant aegis archetype I always wanted to play.


Teiidae wrote:

I'll put a tentative dot. I'm not familiar with warlords, but I'm willing to learn

Plus if you're allowing dream scarred press, there is that aberrant aegis archetype I always wanted to play.

Cool! That archetype would actually fit into a very interesting part of the setting -- the Banshee Moon Bascaron that warps everything it alights upon with mutagenic properties. There are two cults in one part of the setting dedicated to its worship. We could develop a really interesting campaign role for such a character.

I'm going to be altering so much of the setting to submerge it that lore knowledge shouldn't be a big issue.

Thanks for your interest, and hopes that it attracts some more interest to this thread.


That's...asking players to learn a lot of new rules.


It's interesting, but I'm concerned with trying to use all those alternate rules in one game. For example, Armor as DR changed when you are underwater and there are limits on armor types. I can also see weird interactions between Armor as DR and Wounds/Vigor. For example, crits that hit vigor become much more likely to confirm.

It's essentially a new game. And one that will morph into other games as the characters level and the balance changes.


Philo Pharynx wrote:

It's interesting, but I'm concerned with trying to use all those alternate rules in one game. For example, Armor as DR changed when you are underwater and there are limits on armor types. I can also see weird interactions between Armor as DR and Wounds/Vigor. For example, crits that hit vigor become much more likely to confirm.

It's essentially a new game. And one that will morph into other games as the characters level and the balance changes.

I'm willing to negotiate on some of the rules modifications if there's sufficient interest in the campaign concept. The main thing I don't want to deal with from the Core chasis is the Christmas tree effect item distribution; this would be handled by automatic bonus progression (basically I don't want to have to worry about the headache of doling out specific items to scale the characters to their opponents at each level).

The idea behind Wounds/Vigor and Armor DR is it makes everything extremely swingy and even the most powerful character into glass cannons, which is part of the feel I was interested in; combats would be much deadlier and there would be reason to use non-combat skills and approaches, especially considering advancement won't be tied to opponent death. That's much lower down the totem poll of desired modifications though.

If there's interest in the campaign concept, let's negotiate on the rules concepts that would make everyone happy. Cheers!


Sebecloki wrote:
Philo Pharynx wrote:

It's interesting, but I'm concerned with trying to use all those alternate rules in one game. For example, Armor as DR changed when you are underwater and there are limits on armor types. I can also see weird interactions between Armor as DR and Wounds/Vigor. For example, crits that hit vigor become much more likely to confirm.

It's essentially a new game. And one that will morph into other games as the characters level and the balance changes.

I'm willing to negotiate on some of the rules modifications if there's sufficient interest in the campaign concept. The main thing I don't want to deal with from the Core chasis is the Christmas tree effect item distribution; this would be handled by automatic bonus progression (basically I don't want to have to worry about the headache of doling out specific items to scale the characters to their opponents at each level).

The idea behind Wounds/Vigor and Armor DR is it makes everything extremely swingy and even the most powerful character into glass cannons, which is part of the feel I was interested in; combats would be much deadlier and there would be reason to use non-combat skills and approaches, especially considering advancement won't be tied to opponent death. That's much lower down the totem poll of desired modifications though.

If there's interest in the campaign concept, let's negotiate on the rules concepts that would make everyone happy. Cheers!

And just to tease the first scenario a bit to suggest how cool I think the setting and scenario will be -- it takes place during a 5-party diplomatic council at Ghostlight Keep, a border stronghold built over the apparent ruins of a once terrestrial edifice, and which rests at the edge of an abyssal chasm that divides the Melting Isles, the ill-reputed archipelago that represents the southernmost extent of the Ice Elven dominions, from the allied realms of the Free Merfolk. Five tall coral towers surmount the substructure, each one housing a delegation from, respectively, the Devonorian Empire, the Ice Elves, the Free Merfolk Kingdoms, the Gorh'ton Legions, and the Mercenary armies. The slipstream beneath the keep, a sort of hyper-sonic underwater river, whisks envoys and visitors from distant territories to and fro.

However, it is rumored that the Ice Elves have concealed additional forces in the twisting cavern networks surrounding the keep, and the Gorh'ton mechanics likewise have sought to further safeguard their interests by means of an ancient Pre-Accord Avandeenean war machine which currently lurks in the deep darkness of the oceanic chasm upon whose edge the keep encroaches.

Tensions run high, with suspicion that several un-accounted parties have been espied in the shadows of the keep, and a Merfolk ambassador may have gone missing... many fear into the jaws of an Ice Elven war beast.


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I like that you are willing to talk about this. I may have gone a bit OCD, but here's my comments about my thoughts and preferences.

Warlords of the Accordlands :

I'm not familiar with this, but when I saw, "I'm going to be altering so much of the setting to submerge it that lore knowledge shouldn't be a big issue." I felt a lot better.

Cerulean Seas and general third party stuff. :

Is there a wiki for this? If not, it might be best to post some of the most basic stuff so people don't feel obligated to buy the books.

Both gestalt and mythic :

I love both gestalt and mythic. In most games I'd feel a little weird about going up automaticaly in mythic tiers, but since leveling in this game is based on story, that already accounted for.

sidebar: Game feel:

What do you want your game to feel like? Sometimes the best way is to think of a movie that has the same feel that you want. I ask this because some of the choices seem to contradict each other, in my mind. For example, gestalt and mythic are more of a superhero feeling to me. It's larger than life and four color. Wounds and vigor is very gritty and dark. It's a different type of gameplay.

Likewise, you say that this will begin with diplomacy, but how do you see it progressing? I remember one campaign that I thought would be a social game and we ended up doing dungeoncrawling I wasn't prepared for. Do you have an idea of what sort of mix there is?

Automatic bonus progression. :

I definitely understand how this helps as a GM, and a s a player I like the fact that we aren't dependent on MagicMart for our base character stuff. The one qualm I have is how it deals with oddball characters or people that would have not chosen some of the basic categories in order to go for something exotic. But that's minor and I can live with that.

Sidebar: Background skills:

You didn't mention this, and I hope it was an oversight. I love background skills. I like the fact that you don't need to choose between picking stuff that's flavorful and picking something essential to survival. I do see that bards can be an issue, but I don't think it's that big an issue in a gestalt/mythic game.

Wounds and Vigor. :

This is a rule I really don't like. The problem is that if my character can die because of a bad roll or two, then I don't want to spend a lot of time working on them. I don't mind a game with some lethality, but I want a character death to mean something more. I want to get engaged in the story.

This also leads to a lot of moral issues because there's a lot more unconscious foes and we have to decide if we kill them, let them go, or drag them around. If you are keeping alignment, it can seriously limit the behavior of some types of people.

Armor as damage reduction. :

I like the idea behind this, but the execution is really wonky. The fact that it makes you defenseless against big creatures really concerns me. Especially when these creatures have huge natural armor bonuses that become huge DR.

At low levels, this says that any idea of playing any melee character beyond a power attacking two-handed big damage dealer is nearly pointless. Even at higher levels, it's best to focus on big numbers.

At high level, we bounce between two types of foes. Things that have huge DR that we penetrate and so they have the defense of tissue paper. Or creatures with huge DR that we can't penetrate that are tough as hell to deal with.

Opposed combat rolls/defense rolls (3.5 DMG). :

Opposed rolls are bad for play by post. If you let the players roll then it drastically slows down game play. This will kill a game quicker than anything.

If the GM rolls, then it doesn't give you the main benefit of player engagement. The odds remain about the same, but it feels more swingy. I think it will to roll an awesome attack roll and have it stopped by an awesome defense roll. That will sting more than rolling a mediocre attack roll and it getting through because of a low defense roll.

Unchained alternative action economy. :

This has advantages and disadavantges. For me, it's pretty much a wash. It will probably involve judgement calls on weird things.

Feat every level from Monte Cook's Collected Books of Experimental Might. :

Is this a feat every level or is it a feat from BOEM every level? I like the first. It really helps with gestalt characters. The second has issues if there's no wiki.

Removing iterative attacks. :

I don't have a problem with this. When used with Armor as DR, I can see it makeing lots of hits. With opposed defense rolls, it will start out normal, but when people get lots of attacks it can be a good attack roll or a low defense roll triggering it. I'm not sure how it would interact with unchained actions.

Use alternative versions of feats that scale -- either from Kirthfinder or Feats Reforged series. :

If we also get a feat per level then that lets people do lots of feat chains. I personally prefer the World is Square system for removing feat taxes, but a lot of that is because it's in HeroLab.

Staggered advancement. :

I don't feel strongly about this. But with dramatic advancement, are there going to be that many story milestones in your game?

Words of Power magic system for at least some casters. :

I was about to say I love Spheres of Power, but then I realized that this is that other system. I don't know enough about it to make a judgement. What do you mean when you say "some casters"? Is it mandatory for anybody?

Will you allow Spheres of Power?

Dreamscarred psionics. :

I love psionics. One issue is how things like soulknife interact with ABP, but these are little issues.

XP will be calculated by story arc :

This is awesome. I use it myself and it works really well in PBP.

Min-maxing :

"Min-maxing is not going to be a big issue because all the major campaign-long villains are essentially 20 lvs. + 10 mythic tiers and I have access to all the same optimization net guides as you do for their design :). "

Well, depending on the alternate rules you use, the guides may not be very useful. :)

Other questions:
Is this starting at 1st level?
Are templates and "monsters" allowed?
How are you doing stats and hit points?


Good questions Philo.

Of the alternative rules and systems. I'm currently in a mythic gestalt game with ABP. So no complaint to use those that goes just as well with DSP, they do good work.

I just want to know if we do use Unchained alternative action economy, how will that be changed with Mythic points to get extra actions?

Also, how many people are you looking for?


This looks challenging, but fun if we can hammer out some rules that mean I won't insta-die.

I love the idea of making negotiation a serious option rather than just fighting it out... just wondering if there is a way to do that without making it so easy to die. And a thing that I see a lot is the DM asking the party to take diplomacy seriously, but the NPCs don't have to, which makes negotiation all one-sided. ... I mean, of course there are going to be cases like that, but the game feels sloggy if the players always feel like they are at a disadvantage and should be scared. ... I think that this is one of the reasons for alignment. If you, for instance, required a good alignment for the game, then whether to negotiate or kill is a lot bigger decision than just murderhoboing everything. :)

... Or at least, it *should* be. :)

Anyway, I am babbling. And I have never actually DMed for anyone except my nephews, so I'm sure the input from others will be more valuable. I am interested in trying out the game if you decide to run it though.

Just out of curiosity, will there be any of the story on land, requiring amphibian capabilities, or pure underwater?


Thanks for all the great feedback. I'm going to try to do a 'round up' to address the major issues in a few posts. Please feel free to raise pressing issues again if something remains a major concern.

My sense is the DR Armor, Wounds/Vigor, and opposed rolls are the major issues in terms of potential character fragility, so let's exclude those for this campaign.

I am interested in the alternative AE from UC because it allows large monsters to make better use of their best attacks against a group -- a dire whale/T-rex/dragon etc. can use their major bite attacks 3 times instead of once a round if I'm interpreting this correctly. There is a useful cheat sheet and some working out of the kinks on the forums we can use.

Yes to background skills, I just hadn't thought of it. I just don't want to do anything with skills that makes it impossible to use the Psiconic skills in Ultimate Psionics.

Yes to Spheres of Power if you'll be in charge of the rules for your character. I mean Words of Power for certain casters because the system doesn't extend to all the magic classes I might want to use for NPCs, I don't feel strongly about it.

Feat every level to avoid feat taxes for gestalt -- I may have phrased that poorly but it's an optional rule from Monte Cook's book that I want to use, and that's what I meant: feat every level instead of every other. I'm open to eliminating the alternative forms of feats that scale with level if everyone thinks that's not going to be an issue.

Start at 1st. Mythic doesn't begin until 2nd. 35 point buy or 5d6 drop the two lowest.

Templates and monster classes/races/levels yes if it makes sense. Like I'm not sure how aerial would work in a water world, but mostly yes.

The feel is high powered/fantastical but very grim. The world is definitely past it's best years, and the ruins of previous, better times litter the landscape. Moreover, failure will set up the Accordlands for some very rough times ahead.

I want the overall feel to be something like Baldur's Gate 2 -- there is an overarching conspiracy that will move along regardless of your actions, but there's also a lot of space for the party to determine their own path and develop their own strategy -- I'd like there to be a lot of espionage, wilderness and ruins investigations, and social interaction. The fun part of this should be a lot of the wacky and creepy locales, exploring them, and taking full advantage of the role playing opportunities afforded, and the ability to do some personalized world building with your character's background and activities. Also potentially things like building a guildhall, recruiting hirelings, etc. I don't want to railroad, but let you choose what you want to explore.

For instance, you might follow up on a lead to rescue a captive from the Rimeward Isle, the most dreaded locale in the Melted Isles of the Ice Elves. Depending on how successful you are, you may end up with new enemies from among the guardians of its slave compounds who may hire assassins to track you down, leaving you fleeing into other regions, or you might incite a slave revolt that draws the notice of other powers who are interested in coordinating an invasion to push the Ice Elves back north. That scenario would develop and at some point the background conspiracy would intervene with their plans again when I feel like it's a decent opening in the developing story arc.

The above water areas are barbarian/lost world like zones which you may have an opportunity to visit, either with some kind of encounter suit, or a magical device that transposes you into suitable forms for a few sessions.

I'm looking I guess for 4-8 PCs. I'm open to people playing more than one character if interested and may operate a DM NPC-PC that travels with you if no one objects.

I'm really interested in RPing and exploration/world building, and players that would take advantage of the archetypes and other customization options.

There are some good reviews that summarize the options in Cerulean Seas, and I will post the links at the end of this message sometime later this evening, and I think it would be legal to cut and paste in a PM the couple of rules paragraphs to the relevant parties, so I hope that won't be an issue.

Thanks again for all the interest, I think this could be a lot of fun if we can come up with rules guidelines we're all happy with -- I certainly have a lot of great ideas for adventure locales and scenarios. If there's still some enthusiasm, I can start writing up a setting overview in another thread so those interested can begin imagining characters.


Yeah, I'd make a character for this. This sounds too good to pass up.


Great! If you're still interested in the aberrant character, my suggestion is that they be an incognito secret operative of the Yscarite cult of the Banshee Moon, which are one of the two groups of shifters, one evil, and one good, that worship the Gibbous Orb. They congregate at the bottom of a chasm in the Shattered Sea, a vast waste to the East of the regions I have been describing thus far, in the ancient city of Mourn. Here, at the very bottom of a pit deeper than the Marianas trench, the hunting grounds of a school of abyssal Megaladons, as well as a rift to one of the cursed demi planes known as the Wasted Worlds -- this one a Kaiju factory ala Pacific Rim that occasionally spews monstrosities into the deeps!

The links for everyone else to the Cerulean Seas races and classes are:

http://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/fossilized-rappy/cerulean- seas
http://paizo.com/products/btpy9auo?Cerulean-Seas-Campaign-Setting-Celadon-S hores


OSund like we got most of this worked out.

Sebecloki wrote:
I am interested in the alternative AE from UC because it allows large monsters to make better use of their best attacks against a group -- a dire whale/T-rex/dragon etc. can use their major bite attacks 3 times instead of once a round if I'm interpreting this correctly. There is a useful cheat sheet and some working out of the kinks on the forums we can use.

Alternative AE allows a monster to use all natural attacks like normal as a 3 round complex action or they can use their primary attack three times at normal, -5 and -10. It essentially gives everybody iterative attacks, so it doesn't make sense to use it with removing iterative attacks.

Now the hard part - figuring out what mix to play.


Fair points -- my vision was that getting the major Bite, even with the penalties is better for a lot of creatures with a major attack and two piddly ones like claws. Otherwise you only get to bite once a round.

We could try it and see how it goes. I have an in-universe explanation if we want to change rules somehow midstream.

And yes, tell me ideas, I'm going to start writing up some basic campaign info on the Campaign Info page, but a lot of this is just improvisation based on the primary outline of the published setting, so you can all have an important formative role if you want to work something in.


Holy s@%@ 35 point buy. I know I will be playing playing an Aberrant Aegis mixed with Alchemist.

Tell me, what are you envisioning for alignments? Do you want us to be good, evil, non-evil?


You can be good or evil, many of the major playable factions are Lawful Evil. The Devonorians are Tolkein's Numenorians as catfish-like Mermen. They have follow a rigid monotheistic religion that worships a soul devouring Maelstron. This religion has an order of Anti-Paladins that ride on monstrous sea creatures. The Gorh'Tons are similar to Klingons -- they are aquatic Goblinoids that exist in a number of tribes that worship different totems. Both are present at the convention which begins the first adventure, and could be easily drawn into the unfolding drama.


Welp This is sounding pretty crazy but im down to try. Might as well roll some stats and see what comes up.

5d6 ⇒ (2, 6, 2, 2, 6) = 18 14
5d6 ⇒ (6, 3, 3, 1, 6) = 19 14
5d6 ⇒ (3, 3, 6, 6, 6) = 24 18
5d6 ⇒ (1, 6, 5, 5, 4) = 21 16
5d6 ⇒ (6, 5, 6, 1, 2) = 20 17
5d6 ⇒ (2, 1, 6, 6, 6) = 21 18

Badass. will start reading and absorbing all of these alternate rules and looking into the campaign setting.

If its too early to be rolling stats let me know and ill just disregard these/let a small piece of my soul die.


Campaign Info updated, please take a look and see what you think/ask questions etc.


Gramork wrote:

Welp This is sounding pretty crazy but im down to try. Might as well roll some stats and see what comes up.

[dice=]5d6 14
[dice=]5d6 14
[dice=]5d6 18
[dice=]5d6 16
[dice=]5d6 17
[dice=]5d6 18

Badass. will start reading and absorbing all of these alternate rules and looking into the campaign setting.

If its too early to be rolling stats let me know and ill just disregard these/let a small piece of my soul die.

You can keep these stats! Glad for your interest.


Wow nice rolls.


Just wanted to know if you'd okay this race?
deep-one-hybrid


Teiidae wrote:

Just wanted to know if you'd okay this race?

deep-one-hybrid

Looks good.


Rolling to see what I get compared to 35 point buy.

Stats: 5d6 ⇒ (5, 4, 2, 2, 4) = 17 = 13
Stats: 5d6 ⇒ (3, 3, 3, 2, 6) = 17 = 12
Stats: 5d6 ⇒ (6, 5, 2, 1, 4) = 18 = 15
Stats: 5d6 ⇒ (2, 4, 5, 6, 1) = 18 = 15
Stats: 5d6 ⇒ (4, 2, 4, 3, 1) = 14 = 11
Stats: 5d6 ⇒ (6, 1, 3, 6, 4) = 20 = 16

That isn't as good as 35 point buy, so not using it.

Will see what I can come up with after I read the background material.


5d6 ⇒ (4, 6, 5, 5, 1) = 21=16
5d6 ⇒ (2, 5, 5, 6, 3) = 21=16
5d6 ⇒ (5, 5, 4, 3, 5) = 22=15
5d6 ⇒ (3, 5, 6, 3, 5) = 22=16
5d6 ⇒ (2, 1, 6, 1, 1) = 11=9
5d6 ⇒ (5, 5, 4, 2, 5) = 21=15

Not bad, save for that 9. This I can easily work with.
Thanks for the race approval.


not locking it in or anything but is the Mighty Godling alright?


Gramork wrote:
not locking it in or anything but is the Mighty Godling alright?

As long as there is some in universe explanation for the build. My only concern is characters that are solely sets of bonuses instead of a narrative concept.


There will be once ive read up on the Gods of this setting. Im playing around with the idea of an aquatic monster of some sort who believes or possibly is the son/daughter of a Sea God. They'd worship their parent in an attempt to reach them and get some boon or love (depending on alignment) from them.

Essentially what Im going for is a Mighty Godling/Warpriest(or other religious class) with daddy issues.

More to come as it comes to me.


What gods are we using?


One of the links he gave (HERE) has a list of Gods several posts down. Copying here:

Gods of the Cerulean Seas:

Keilona: Keilona, the Lawful Good goddess of holy war, sharks, and community cohesion, is depicted as being a gigantic mermaid with a pet Megalodon in tow and has blood red and white as her holy colors. If you couldn't already guess from that first sentence, "Lawful Good" in the case of Keilona's worshipers means "crusading Paladins". They are beloved in cities in spite of this– sure, they’re intolerant zealots who will bring down vigilante justice on “lawless” communities and refuse to stand for any satire or dissent against their religion, but hey, they’ll give you free housing and healing if you are of the same faith! Isn't that just peachy of them? Both of the official cults of Keilona are Lawful Neutral, with the sharkfolk worshiping the Megaladon Jadeel as the truest aspect of Keilona and the nommo feeling they are the only ones who are correct about Keilona's true nature which just so happens to be just as anal and archaic as they are.

Poseidon: The Neutral Good and well-bearded god of nature, storms, nobles, and horses, Poseidon in the Cerulean Seas setting is painted more benevolently than one would usually see for a Greek god. His priests revere the hippocampus, shelter orphans, and replace stagnant water with running water because the former is seen as an abomination unto their god. The official cults of Poseidon are the Neutral Good cult of Mahilon, who worship the ancient kai-lio deity Mahilon (who was syncreticized as an aspect of Poseidon) and express nomadic freedom as another key tenet of their faith, and the Lawful Good cult of Neptune who focus on the social well-being aspect of Poseidon over the nature aspect.

Mariblee: Mariblee is the Chaotic Good goddess of feykith and magic. Her priests are proponents of magic for the sake of magic and extoll the virtues of being humble but ambitious in learning its secrets. This priesthood also has a vast network of storehouses for magical knowledge from the various races kept safely tucked away just in case of the event of apocalypse or genocide. The Chaotic Good cult of Aear Emerwen is basically the same as the normal priesthood of Mariblee but with a heavy dose of elven nationalism, while the Chaotic Neutral cult of Sedna holds onto the selkie belief in a gluttonous trickster goddess in the only form they could after being forced to convert to the worship of Mariblee.

Sebek: Lawful Neutral and well-known as the god whose patrons hold the greatest sway in the Council of Nine, Sebek is seen as an adherent of loyalty and perseverance. Both of its cults are barely autonomous due to the fact that the sebek-ka won't tolerate that s$~@ and that the religions in question were particularly hard to subjugate in the first place. The Lawful Neutral cult of Halbok was more or less fantasy-Islam before the drylanders and genies that worshiped it were either killed in the Great Flood or accepted the offer of very limited but nonetheless existing influence within the Sebek religion, while the ancient True Neutral dragon god Scalis was absorbed into Sebekism under the ultimatum of "you should join us, it would be a shame if we let all these dragon-slayers run wild instead, wouldn't it?".

Undine: The True Neutral goddess of the ocean, Undine, is worshiped in a manner that can basically be summed up as Taoism but with a hard-on for whales and dolphins as the most enlightened beings. The Neutral Good cult of Hefring is a bit more optimistic and tends to be proactive with helping sailors and fishermen, while the cult of Ondine felt that o was a better letter than u and living out in the wilderness as sea-hippies was the best way to practice their religion.

Clagguth: The Chaotic Neutral octopus god Clagguth sounds like a fun guy, given that his tenets are freedom, following your heart, and trolling the priests of other religions whenever possible. His two cults also happen to be the most widely different from each other. The Chaotic Good cult of Guthlak focuses less on disruptive fun and more on good old-fashioned hedonism, while the Chaotic Evil cult of Thulu (Cthulhu is in regular Pathfinder, you know, no need to do the name thing there) is all about torture and vivisection and terrorism and cannibalism and all that jazz.

Pluvak: Pluvak's the Lawful Evil god of tyranny. He likes slavery and people sell their soul to him in spite of the fact that they end up getting the raw end of the deal because he's the f~!&ing god of tyranny it's right in his name you fools. The Lawful Neutral cult of Dijo is adhered to by selkies and conducts a yearly sacrifice of one of their own members to ensure that the unmelting ever-ice doesn't suddenly fail and cause their iceberg city to melt in the tropical waters, while the Neutral Evil cult of Vanak is made up of undead obsessed with making more undead instead of the whole "deal with the devil" thing.

Dagon: This giant sahuagin is the Neutral Evil master of cold, calculating malice. He's still pretty pissed about the whole sahuagin losing the Blood War and being massacred thing, but is willing to play the long game as his priests infiltrate the civilizations of Good and Neutrality. The Neutral Evil cult of Leviathan focuses on destruction and the dark side of war, while the Chaotic Evil cult of Typhon is more or less just regular Dagon worship but with more tentacles due to a love of body modification because chaos.

Saloth: Last, and definitely actually the least, the Chaotic Evil deep drow goddess Saloth is literally a non-product identity version of Lolth. Instead of a spider body, she has a spider crab body, because ocean setting! Get it? The Chaotic Evil cult of Morganae that is the same off-brand Lolth worship but with nucalavee instead of drow and the Neutral Evil cult of Sarla is implicitly stated to be a dumbed-down version of Saloth worship for the boggers because they are big dumby dumb-heads who were too dumb to engage in regular Saloth worship but wanted to anyway due to the fact that the Council of Nine wiped out all of their original religious leaders.


There are additional gods for the polar supplement.

You can use anything from cerulean seas or appropriate earth gods. There are also aquatic versions of some Accordlands deities

Devonorians have a monotheistic religion devoted to a soul devouring maelstrom.

Ice Elves worship the great Tunbaaq. It is a polar bear demon.

Gorh'Tons worship different tribal totems like a pack of killer whales.

Free Kingdoms have lots of gods.

We can find a space for any appropriate god or you can make something up.


Do you still have room for this? I am not at all familiar with either of the settings, but I can make a pretty good agnostic character if I need to. I assume that everything is going to be below the water and not just ships sailing it?

I'll take the 35 point build, and can have a character up shortly. I think I'm going to go with a charisma based character of some kind.


Vrog Skyreaver wrote:

Do you still have room for this? I am not at all familiar with either of the settings, but I can make a pretty good agnostic character if I need to. I assume that everything is going to be below the water and not just ships sailing it?

I'll take the 35 point build, and can have a character up shortly. I think I'm going to go with a charisma based character of some kind.

Thanks for your interest. We can certainly fit someone else in!

However, I want to clarify the note about an "agnostic character" -- I'm interested in having players that will do a lot of role playing and get involved with some personal world building like fleshing out their tribe or family story. I will be helping everyone develop some juicy fluff once I get a sense of the basic class/race combos everyone is planning. There's going to be a lot of world building, sand-boxing, and character interaction, so you need to be interested in exploring the fluff aspect.

It's going to be mostly underwater -- these are aquatic races; the first scenario is in a coral castle miles below the surface. There will likely be some island adventures with accommodations for the underwater races -- like one of the Ice Elf isles has a supernatural haze of heavy droplets that allow aquatic entities to function normally.


Also, no hurry everyone -- we can take a few weeks to make cool characters and get everyone up to speed on setting fluff and establishing interesting story hooks for the group.

I'm thinking about adding an NPC/PC of ambiguous loyalties into the mix -- an envoy from the Thanor Empire of the far north, a race of walrus-men who are the sworn enemies of the Ice Elves (think the Scarrans vs. the Sabatients in Farscape if you're a fan of the series). He'll be a Stalker(Dreamscarred)/Slayer killbot. He certainly has some ideas of things you can do if you're willing to interact with him... but of course it's obvious he has his own agenda and might be willing to sell you out under certain circumstances... so....


When I say setting agnostic, what I mean is that you can take a mercenary fighter and drop him into almost any setting without much knowledge of the setting itself and then learn about it as you go. No worries though.

I read the wiki/description of the cerulean seas stuff in one of the links that were provided above, and I've also read your plot synopsis in the Campaign Info tab, and I'm thinking I will make a Sea Elf necromancer, built on the idea that he takes the bones that the Great Tunbaaq leaves behind and turns them into useful soldiers. Class-wise, I'm currently leaning towards Occultist and...not sure what to do with my other gestalt half. Possibly Witch, but I'm open to suggestions, and having 35 stat points to play with means that I can do other things besides just Int casting.


That's fine; there's a difference between Sea Elves and Ice Elves, both of which exist in the setting -- the Ice Elves are the ones I've been describing. I'm fine if you're playing one, but I'd like to develop a character plot to explain this since they might be the main antagonists for the first few levels. I have something interesting in mind but I don't want to give it away in the public forum. If you end up making the character, we can PM so I can explain the details.


Is the race Abyssal Rusalka allowed? That's what I want to play, if so. It would be a great base backstory no matter which way you went with that inherent need. ... The race is from Azure Abyss, but they aren't pressure sensitive, so they can hang out in shallower water, and often do (for obviously super-secret reasons of their own). ;)


Yes! It sounds like the physiology won't be an issue -- we can make up work-arounds for anything with depth sensitivity, water-breathing issues if it comes up, so don't let that constrict you.


Grumbaki wrote:

Looked at the campaign info...

Sea Dwarves rumored to have recently re-emerged into the known seas…

I am suddenly very interested. Can you tell me more about them?

Some of that is quasi-secret setting secret material that starts to get at the conspiracy going on -- let me PM you so I don't spoil it for everyone else if you end up playing such a character.


Grumbaki wrote:

Looked at the campaign info...

Sea Dwarves rumored to have recently re-emerged into the known seas…

I am suddenly very interested. Can you tell me more about them?

I’m guessing that they are mechanically normal dwarves with amphibious and swim speed (ie: same as aquatic elf)?

I think they're pretty close to that, but culturally there are lots of distinctive elements: PM'd you fluff and rules -- take a look and let me know if you're interested, would be great to have another player.


Before I roll...will I be locked into what I roll, or can I go back to 35pt buy if that is higher?


You can select the best


5d6 ⇒ (6, 5, 5, 6, 5) = 27 17
5d6 ⇒ (1, 2, 4, 3, 1) = 11 9
5d6 ⇒ (2, 4, 4, 4, 4) = 18 12
5d6 ⇒ (2, 2, 4, 3, 5) = 16 12
5d6 ⇒ (3, 2, 4, 6, 3) = 18 13
5d6 ⇒ (2, 4, 4, 4, 4) = 18 12

Rolled all my 5s and 6s with the first five. And from there it’s all subpar. 21 point buy. Ah well.

Just out of curiosity to see how bad my luck is...

5d6 ⇒ (6, 6, 3, 6, 4) = 25 18
5d6 ⇒ (3, 5, 5, 6, 4) = 23 16
5d6 ⇒ (5, 2, 5, 1, 4) = 17 14
5d6 ⇒ (1, 6, 6, 3, 3) = 19 15
5d6 ⇒ (6, 6, 2, 2, 4) = 20 16
5d6 ⇒ (2, 3, 1, 4, 4) = 14 11

Much better! Though that was just for fun. ;) Will make a character soon.


I'm fine with making a Sea Elf. I assume that mechanically they're just Elves that breath water and have a swim speed?


Vrog Skyreaver wrote:
I'm fine with making a Sea Elf. I assume that mechanically they're just Elves that breath water and have a swim speed?

The issue is that Sea Elves and Ice Elves are different races. The Sea Elves don't worship the Great Tunbaaq or have a delegation at Ghostlight Keep, so you should be an Ice Elf if you want to stay with the Necromancer idea. I think they're both very similar in stats to the baseline, I will PM you the racial attributes sometime this evening for both.

I have a really cool scenario in mind if you want to play an Ice Elf, I'll include that with the PM if you're interested in considering it.


Grumbaki here. Starting to put together an aquatic dwarf. He will be a...primalist Spelleater bloodrager (Aquatic Bloodline) and a cleric (Exploration and Ice domains). Worships the ocean itself.


I'm going with Abyssal Rusalka, and I think Siren/Oracle, but not sure of the mystery or curse for the Oracle yet. Actually thinking about possibly working toward the Seductor prestige class in Azure Abyss (if we get that far).

Since Siren effectively takes the place of Bard, can we tack Bard Archetypes onto the Siren class if we work out with you how it would work? I don't believe any Siren archetypes exist (although I just started reading these Cerulean Sea books today, so I might just have not gotten some supplement in the bulk package I bought). Totally okay with a no answer... just thought I would ask. :)


I don't have an issue in principle with the archetype idea, I'm just not sure how it would work if you are switching out Bard class features that the Siren doesn't have.

I certainly hope we'll get to do prestige classes! I have lots of neat ideas and hope the ongoing mystery and weird world will keep people interested enough to keep up posting for a long time.

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