Venture-Captain, Minnesota
|
| 13 people marked this as a favorite. |
In honor of Season 10, I’m giving away a complete mermaid boon.
I have all the parts:
Born to the Sea: You may play an aquatic elf character (Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The Inner Sea World Guide 25, Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Races 242), beginning at level 1 as normal. Other than access to this additional race, all character creation rules are the same as those outlined in the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide. This Chronicle sheet must be the first Chronicle sheet for the given character, and you must bring a copy of one of the rulebooks listed above to all sessions in which this character appears as if access to this race selection were granted by the Additional Resources list.
Inheritor of Azlant: Azlant may have fallen 10,000 years ago, but your ancestors survived that cataclysm by adapting to life beneath the waves. By combining this boon with a boon that enables you to play an aasimar or tiefling, you may play a gillman character (Pathfinder Campaign Setting: The Inner Sea World Guide 310, Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Races 243). Other than access to this additional race, all character creation rules are the same as those outlined in the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide. This Chronicle sheet must be the first Chronicle sheet for the given character, and you must bring a copy of one of the rulebooks listed above to all sessions in which this character appears as if access to this race selection were granted by the Additional Resources list.
Aquatic Agent: Most merfolk are xenophobic and unwilling to travel beyond the easy reach of the waves. You are a very rare exception, having braved life on the surface long enough to secure membership in the Pathfinder Society. You can combine this boon with three boons that enable you to play any combination of the following races: dhampir, grippli, ratfolk, samsaran, or vanara. If you do so, you may play a merfolk character (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 204, Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Races 246). Other than access to this additional race, all character creation rules are the same as those outlined in the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide. This Chronicle sheet must be the first Chronicle sheet for the given character, and you must bring a copy of one of the rulebooks listed above to all sessions in which this character appears as if access to this race selection were granted by the Additional Resources list.
It takes 1 Aquatic Agent Boon + any three of these to make a mermaid.
1 Dhampir
2 Ratfolk
1 Samsaran
3 Grippli
2 Vanara
You’ll note that I have more component boons listed than are strictly needed for the Mermaid. There is no way I will ever play them all, so I want to share it around!
RULES
You can enter this contest in one of three ways:
1) THE MERMAID OPTION. Tell me about the awesome mermaid character you would build with this boon. Who are they? Don’t just give me a class or gaming stats. Instead, tell me about who this person is and why they decided to go adventuring in the Pathfinder Society. All entries for mermaids must include one original poem, song or song parody that has something to do with the sea, mermaids or watery adventures. It does not need to be a work of art; just write it and have fun!
2) THE BUDDIES OPTION. This option is only available to people who plan to share the boons with a group of friends so that four people can play. For the buddies option, you must pick the race boons in advance from the list above. It is most definitely not required that you pick an aquatic elf here. Tell me about the crazy PFS party you would build with characters built from the boons above, and who all the players are. Remember that I like roleplay, so tell me about personalities and how these adventuring friends work together.
Want bonus points? Include a song. Seriously, I love to read song parodies. Make one about gaming, or about these characters, and include a song. In lieu of a song, you can get bonus points by having all four of your buddies post here.
3) THE MYSTERY OPTION. Nominate a deserving player or GM in Pathfinder Organized Play who is a volunteer and who makes your lodge great. Tell me about this person, and what they have done to build Organized Play. Who are they? I would prefer that this option go to players or volunteers who haven’t had much chance to accumulate race boons.
Remember, you cannot nominate yourself. Only someone else. Special: You may nominate someone else AND submit an entry for option 1 or 2. A buddy from option 2 cannot be nominated.
All entries must be posted by August 13th. I reserve the right to choose winners any way I see fit, including doing a lottery as a tie breaker between equally excellent submissions. I will try to pick winners in a timely manner.
Thanks!
Hmm
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
What a great, and generous, idea Hmm!
I have had a gluttonous cleric of Urgathoa on the drawing board for some time. Converting the concept to a mermaid would be fun! I choose option 1.
I present: Aurora Arulius, priestess of the pallid princess!
Aurora Arulius was not a typical mermaid. As a youth she hungered for more than the soft, idyllic undersea existence of her tribe. She longed to know more of the world, and lusted for knowledge and experience of far-away places above and below the surface of the ocean. Most especially, she wanted to experience more and different foods.
A chance encounter would change Aurora's destiny, and grant her desires.
For a lich, a lair beneath the waves held great attraction. More difficult to penetrate than an underground dungeon, most would-be crusaders would have to take greater precautions and would find any enchanted bludgeons that they hoped to employ against the skeletal undead less effective. Water-breathing spells could be easily dispelled. Vortig Volus was one such lich, a powerful priest of Urgathoa, he sought a safe haven from righteous adventurers and militant Pharasmins. On a foray into the deeps he encountered Aurora and several of her tribe. Ordinarily it might be expected that violence would be inevitable – the isolationist merfolk would not tolerate the presence of an evil lich-priest in their territory, and Volus would take that territory by force with no qualms. Aurora, however, saw something in Volus. Opportunity perhaps, or a spark of the divine. She sang to him:
♫♫"Oh my, you are really boney!
Even more boney than me
And I find it's really tricky
Nobody knows what I need
I search for a new sensation
I long for a different life
I've eaten fish and crustacean
Even that awful seawife!
Under the sea
Under the sea
I'm always starving
No good at farming
That's just not me!
I know there's more to life than this
I want to leave, that would be bliss!
To get what I need
To properly feed
Oh please set me free!
I see you're a man of knowledge
An explorer of unknowns
You surely have lots of courage
Coming so deep all alone
There are sharks and sahuagin
They think that they rule the sea
I don't care for any of them,
They can't give me what I need!
Under the sea
Under the sea
There's no horizon
It's not surprisin'
I've got to flee!
I'll go right up to the surface
Though it sure makes me nervous
Please take me with you
I'm sure I can aid you
Oh please set me free!"♫♫
And so it was the Vortig Volus took Aurora as an apprentice cleric. For many years Aurora served as an undersea guide. She helped Volus find a suitable lair, and she made trips out into the deep to procure rare items that her master needed for spells or for research. Most of all she enjoyed it when she was sent to the surface, where she could experience food that wasn't grown in the sea! Whilst she did not much care for some of Volus' more depraved dogma, Aurora embraced the lust for physical experience that Urgathoa taught. Volus, though he could no longer eat, took vicarious pleasure in watching Aurora feast.
One day, not long ago, Aurora returned from an expedition to find Volus vanished. There was no message, nor any sign of intrusion. The only clue was a broken Wayfinder, left in her master's study. Aurora took the Wayfinder to every wise and knowledgeable personage known to her, beneath and above the waves, learning that the device was commonly accepted as a symbol of the Pathfinder Society, based out of Absalom.
Determined to discover where her mentor had gone, and why he had vanished with no message but a broken Wayfinder, Aurora signed up to be trained as a Pathfinder Agent. And along her quest, she was sure to experience many, many culinary delights...
|
RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
As a priestess of Zon-Kuthon, Zambezi Loire believes that only through suffering can an individual truly appreciate that which they love. She exemplifies this by denying herself the very thing her kind requires: the sea. As she ventures and lives among land dwellers for the Pathfinder Society, Zambezi suffers an existence distant from the sea that leaves her feeling alienated and helpless.
Yet, her love for the ocean's splendors grows with each day, driving her into an eternal craving for the cool waters, swift currents, and beauties within. Her desire is teased by her magical ability to create and control limited amounts of water -- no doubt a gift from the Dark Prince himself. She adventures for the Society and heals wounds of her companions at the cost of inflicting injuries upon herself. Zambezi hopes her new friends will learn that pain is a reminder that the most important things in life are precious and fleeting.
Appearance
Zambezi is a beautiful mermaid with long hair and clad in chains showing Zon-Kuthon's symbol. Her body is covered in ritualistic scars self-inflicted by her kinetic healing (see below). The scars are carved into intricate designs meant to demonstrate that pain can be beautiful and strengthen the body as well as one's faith and love.
Build
Zambezi will be a hydrokineiticist with the kinetic chirurgeon and aquakineticist archetypes. She specializes in healing party members with kinetic healer by suffering burn and nonlethal damage. Unlike most merfolk, she will not have the strong tail trait. Instead, she will use the water dancer wild talent to glide across land with a conjured current of water -- her only reprieve from the enlightening agony of dwelling on land.
Poem
Oh fish, why do you flounder?
Gasping for water as the sea moves yonder?
It has forsaken you; you've done likewise
Teasing you with an untimely demise.
The sea grew jealous of your lust
For the land unknown, covered with dust
You wondered of the grass so green
And people and places, from the ocean, unseen
Lying helpless on the sandy shore
Doomed you became by desire for more
Light fades, your mind goes numb
Curiosity adding up to a morbid sum
Yet like a fickle mistress she is
The sea returns, kissing you with eternal bliss
Carried away from the false promises of land
Into the sea, having learned something grand
The things we love are all but fleeting
Forsaking them for ends unworth meeting
Life renewed, the fish swims and endeavor
Embraced by the ocean, love strengthened forever
Venture-Lieutenant, Finland—Turku
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'd like to begin with nominating Hstyle: We're a relatively young lodge, less than a year old, and Hstyle has been with us from the beginning. He isn't our VL nor our VA, but he could very well be: He's active on our forums (not here though), picks up the game and runs it if the other GM's aren't available or if we need a GM on short notice. He's the one everyone can rely on to bring the chronicles when you don't have an opportunity to print them yourself, or the one to provide a place to play in when the store is closed, and even when we have 2 games on a monday and a game on thursday and he already ran one of those and played on another, he's usually the one arranging one more game on the weekend. He's cosiderate, fair, and caring, and always eager to teach new players.
He's also a bit of a colorful person, which can sometimes cause some friction, but he's always ready to listen to the opinions of others and work with them to find solutions.
Then comes the mermaid option:
Dalon is a young merman from the tribe of Koiallas in the sea of eels near the shores of Shokuro - a tribe easily recognized from their white and gold scales and skin.
As a little merman, Dalon was always intriqued by the "big blue" that was above the surface of the sea. Despite the warnings of his elders, he couldn't really keep his curiosity in check, and often explored the waters near the shoreline, sometimes even swimming a short distance up the river, but never really daring to go onto the land.
One day when he was exploring the shoreline, he encountered something peculiar. Where the sea met the cliffs, there was wall of water going straight up for some twenty feet or so! Or, on closer observation, the water seemed to be actually going down from the cliffs, straight into the sea - a waterfall, first one Dalon had ever seen. Even more amazing was the school of fish that were swimming near the waterfall, for every now and then, some of them tried to swim up the fall, sometimes making it two or even three feet before falling out of it and splashing back into the sea. This didn't seem to serve any purpose, since clearly there was no chance for the fishes to ever reach the top of the waterfall, so he inquired the elders of the tribe about this behaviour.
"carp reach for the top
Struggling for one hundred years
Determination
Gods reward perseverance
Golden scales adorn wings"
Hearing the poem filled Dalon with determination. Like the fish from the legend, he too would shed the shackles of the sea and find a path through the Big Blue that was above it.
(I *had* a merfolk boon but I traded it away because I figured I'd never be able to get all the race boons that were needed to actually turn it into a merfolk :( )
Organized Play Line Developer
|
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hi there, Hmmm! Wow, kudos for being so generous! Apologies in advance for our excessively long entry...
I'll be entering with option number two: the buddies option. But, I'm not sharing it with friends. Oh, no! I'm sharing it with my family.
I GM a lot at home for my husband and children, but the only chance I ever have to be a player alongside them is here, via play-by-post. We love getting to play PFS scenarios together, and leap at the chance to get to play as a team. The question my kids ask me most often is: "Mom, why can't I be any race I want?" Unfortunately, at the ages of six and seven, the idea of holding out for race boons is absurd. Haha. The follow up question I most often get after any explanation I can concoct is: "Yeah. But WHY?"
That's why my family and I are so excited to see your many lovely race boons up for offer. Since reading your contest rules they've been brainstorming their little hearts out. They've had a blast deciding which race they'd rather be, who they are, and what they like to do. My kids are great at making quirky, fun, unique characters, so win or lose, they had a great time. If we do win, we'll be making them into PFS characters for use right here on the message boards, and your welcome to lurk to your hearts content.
OUR ENTRY:
My family and I would like to make a quartet of characters who are (and were) universally considered outcasts among their people and Golarion at large. They're weird, and different. But what's strange for one culture isn't strange for others, and it's those very oddities that the others embraced and connected with. After all, who cares if the Vanara has unnaturally large eyes, if he's hanging out with a grippli? These guys are friends, companions, and (in many ways) family. They don't have the same interests, and they don't always get along. But, hey? What family does?
My six year old daughter leapt at the chance (literally) to play a grippli. Her character's name? Croak. Croak's a hyperactive, bouncy little thing that's constantly moving and talking. She's impulsive, impatient, and finds it difficult to settle. She loves to climb, swim, and play. She's got the colourations of a bright pink and purple tree-frog with yellow eyes so bright they practically glow. Unfortunately, life among the grippli of the Mushfens is hard. It requires patience, and relies on stealth and camouflage. Croak did not fit in. After a particularly disastrous fishing expedition involving sixteen butterflies, a rubber ball, a fishing net, and seven very upset grippli, Croak was finally cast from her tribe. It sucked! She was very upset! But, in time, she made new friends. They didn't mind that she never sat still. After all, they were always travelling anyway! And Croak never slowed them down. They didn't mind that she squirmed around and bounced through the battlefield. She was a very distracting target! They didn't mind that she talked all the time. They didn't even mind her singing! Well, okay, maybe they minded her singing. She couldn't really be sure when she was singing, after all. She was rather loud. Besides, surely those ear plugs were just to help with the volume?
Mechanically, Croak is going to be a ranger with the poison darter archetype. My daughter's thrilled to make use of a blowgun, and her delightful tongue attacks. She's been demonstrating her tongue attacks at home, and although I'd prefer not to be licked anymore, she is rather cute. Particularly when she tries to lick her own eyeball. (A hopeless endeavour, as she can't reach much further than her own lips). She intends for Croak to be very mobile and acrobatic, cartwheeling, dancing, and diving across the battlefield. She'll be a big target, but she'll also be able to slow down their enemies, both with her tongue, her poisons, and the nets that she intends to throw. Croak is the funny member of the group. Naive, and boundlessly optimistic. She looks on the bright side of everything, even if she has to get pretty creative to find that bright side! She's the team member who keeps everyone moving, and brings a smile on a dour day. She's their spirit.
Eventually, Pinesong reached the edge of the woods and found something amazing! A TOWN. They had homes made from dead trees, and could shape the earth into little cute rectangles for making things! Apparently they were called bricks and they were not for throwing. Pinesong was fascinated! He moved in right away, but still finds the ways of the city strange. He doesn't understand why they get mad when he sleeps on rooftops. Or why they greet him with shrieks and screams. His concepts of ownership are, admittedly, in need of some work. They offered him a home at this place with barred windows, but he got bored so he left. They didn't like that very much. He loves trying to build beautiful things, like the city folk do, but he's horrible at it. His inventions always malfunction and break, usually causing him to hurt himself. A minor price to pay for mastering a craft! In time, Pinesong made some great friends. There was a grippli who was delightfully exciting! She thought his big eyes were beautiful, which made him blush all the way to the tips of his wonderfully styled fur. There was an elf who could breathe water! A feat he'd like to accomplish one day! And there was a ratfolk who knew the many intricacies of city life which so eluded him. Recently he found a little pig who was being chased by naughty children with sticks! Pinesong swooped in to save the pig, and he hasn't let his side since. He's decided to call the pig 'Cutie Pie.' Pinesong loves his curly little tail and his happy squeals.
Mechanically, Pinesong Rippleroot is going to be a druid. Despite his newfound fascination with city-life, Pinesong cares deeply for the natural world. He wants to protect the many animals, plants, and delicate eco-systems of Golarion. He has a soft spot for lost things, foundlings, and orphans of all kinds. He's a happy fellow, with a jolly, screeching laugh. He's a bit oblivious to the intricacies of society, and the cultures around him, but loves learning about such things. He's constantly trying to make friends, even though most people are creeped out or irritated by him. Despite his goofy demeanour, Pinesong is uncommonly wise, and his group of friends often turn to him for advice, comfort, healing, and guidance.
Mechanically, he's going to be a nimble, scrappy shifter with the mouse aspect who transforms into a tiny rat and slinks around. He's nosy and curious. Constantly hungry. And more than a little greedy. He's the group's main combatant, and is going to make use of the weapon's finesse and shifter's edge feats to be a dextrous shifter, instead of a powerful bruiser. In many ways, he's going to be the streetwise member of the group. He's the guy who knows how the world works, and how to get by in it.
Her world fell apart.
The pearl transported her to a strange place where the seafloor was hard, and the oceans were hot air that burned and cracked her skin. She could breathe -- thank the gods! -- but swimming was off limits with water nowhere in sight. She learned to walk, an exhausting experience, for never before had be body felt so heavy. And there, on the surface of Golarion, Sereia faced a harsh reality. She had been reckless. Broken taboos. She had been banished by her own foolishness. Even if she found her way home, she would not be welcome. Not without penance. She needed a great offering for her people. An ancient relic that belonged under the waves, which she could return to her people with pride. And so she set out to acquire such a prize, and -- impossibly -- find her way home.
Sereia joined the Pathfinder Society as an excavator and a scholar. She went on missions, but made few friends. She was aloof, and distant. Her fellow agents found her strange -- particularly her habit of eating everything raw. She never sought companionship, but in time, it found her. She met a grippli as curious as she was, who made no effort to reel in her excitement and urges. She met a vanara, with a respect for the natural world as deep as her own. And she met a ratfolk who didn't seem to care he had no place in the world. They befriended her. Changed her. Inspired her. And, in time, she changed them. She sponsored their entry into the Pathfinder Society, and now they work together as a single, very strange, team. With their help, the ancient relic Sereia needs in order to return home has never been closer. And she's never wanted it less. For, what need was there to earn a prize to return home, when she had a family right here in Absalom?
BONUS POINTS
Write a song?! My kids are thrilled! My daughter insisted it have a lot of 'croaks' 'ribbits' and 'boings' throughout! And my son? Clearly the song needs jokes! ...Got it. Thanks kids. I'll just put that all together then, shall I? Haha.
Our song's a mess. Which is exactly how it should be. It's a song written by Croak the grippli, and sung by the whole team. But, like any group of friends, a song's not just a song. It's interspersed with conversation, heckling, and a fair amount of confusion! It's a song, but it's also them singing it. Enjoying it. And messing it up. It's a work in progress that will never be perfect. And even if it could be, they wouldn't want it that way.
Everyone:
Croak! Croak! Oo! Oo! Ee!
We like swamps and we like trees!
Whee! Wahoo! Sniffle scrounge!
We like to play and we like to lounge!
Croak: “Wait! What? I don’t like to lounge! That’s boring!”
Ratfolk: “Nothing wrong with sitting still once in a while, Croak.”
Sereia: “Sniffle? Is someone sick?”
Croak: “Nope! That’s Ratty! His nose twitches like crazy.”
Ratfolk: “Hey! I’m not some hound dog, ya’ know!”
Pinesong: “Mmm… Treeeees… Oh, yeah! I love a good climb!”
Sereia:: “Oh, dear. I’m not sure I can climb a tree. My limbs are far too heavy to — “
Croak: “Come on! Back to the song guys!”
Everyone:
Boing! Boing! Ribbit! Croak! Croak! Croak!
Time to splash and time to soak!
Nibble Nibble! Whisper! Sing!
We love the adventure! What will the tomorrow bring?
Sereia: “We should call ourselves the Children of the Waves.”
Croak: “Waves? The swamp doesn’t have waves! Let’s call ourselves the Bog Jumpers!”
Sereia: “Bog? Ugh, that water’s filthy.”
Pinesong: “It’s not filthy! Bog’s are a very important eco-system, you know.”
Ratfolk: “Yeah, yeah. For bugs and junk, maybe. Let’s call ourselves The Rat Kings!”
Croak: “Kings? I want to be Queens!”
Sereia: “Rat Queens? That’s taken already, dear.”
Pinesong: “Aaaaand, cue the finale!”
Everyone:
Chitter, chatter! Talk, talk, talk!
We swim, we climb, we dance and walk!
We’re all different. We’re not the same.
But we’re all friends!
Croak: “Something, something… aim?”
Pinesong: “That’s not it! Think of something else… tame? blame?”
Sereia: “I don’t like any of those words. Let’s think positive.”
Ratfolk: “Pfft! Songs don’t have to rhyme! Conformity’s lame.”
Croak: “That did rhyme.”
Ratfolk: “Nope. Definitely didn’t.”
Sereia: “It certainly did.”
Pinesong: “I’ve got it! Everybody smile!”
Frieeeeeeeends!
Croak: “Wow! Great job! That was an awesome ending!
Sereia: “The end is where we’re supposed to stop talking, dear.”
Croak: “Stop? Aww, shucks! I’ll stop when —“
Ratfolk: *nibble nibble*
Sereia: “Are you chewing on a stick?” *GASP* “Spit that wand out this instant!”
Ratfolk: “Hey, if it ain’t meant for chewing, its shouldn’t taste this good.”
Sereia: "No respect for history..."[/b]
To be continued…?
Double Bonus Points..?
We hope you enjoyed our entry, and got a laugh out of it, if nothing else. And, just in case we can get super, double bonus points, we're each making a posting! Stay tuned!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hi! I'm gemmik! Meloriel is my Mom and I am seven years old. I want to play Pinesong Rippleroot the vanara! I want to make him because I love nature. And I love monkeys. But, I love pigs the most. And someone needs to protect them (in Golarion and in real life!). And I want to be that person. But, since I am a bit too little to save the planet in real life, even though I am trying, I am going to do it with my druid monkey! It will be lots of fun.
I don't know what else I should say on here. Thanks for making a fun contest?
If you want to see some of my other fun characters you should look at Fuzzzy my forgetful wizard, and Sir Lansle, my paladin who is a big chicken. They are my most fun. I also really like Mr. Ice, my ranger who is always cold. Oh! I also play a really fun gnome in a Legacy of Fire campaign named Min Bunnisbeldar. He and his sister (who is also my sister) are a lot of fun together.
Thanks!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hi! I am RabbitAlmiraj. I love rabbits. A lot.
Meloriel is my Mom and I am only six years old. I love playing Pathfinder and Starfinder. I am going to make the grippli Croak! She is going to be so much fun.
My brother's characters are funny, but I like mine better. Lady Naysha is my favourite from the Pathfinder Society. She has a lot of fairy friends and is lots of fun. Rab-rab Bunnis, who is Min's sister is also a lot of fun. Wow. Making those links is hard work. Good thing I made my Mom type it for me! Hahaha!
Thank you for looking at my stuff!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hey there, I'm hoping to make the ratfolk shifter from the entry above.
Thanks for making an entertaining contest. My kids have really enjoyed themselves.
Best of luck to all the entrants.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I just came in this thread because I saw HMM and Mermaid and got excited. I had no idea what it was going to be about.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hello! As the others have said, thank you for having this wonderful giveaway! It's been great fun to read all of the submissions people have made and I hope more will trickle in over the next several days. That being said, I have a submission of my own to make!
The Mystery Option
I would like to nominate a player from my local lodge, RowynStarr. While he doesn't have much of a presence here on the forums and isn't a Venture critter, I believe that he has been an invaluable asset to the launch and growth of our local Pathfinder lodge over the past year. How?
Networking
Until roughly this time last year, my area had no local Pathfinder lodge. While I chose to get my PFS fix online via PbP, Rowyn preferred the social aspect of sitting at live tables and so he often combed through Warhorn for surrounding areas to try and find games to attend. This led to him driving a considerable distance at times just for a game - to southern Kentucky, to Chattanooga, to the Nashville area, to Knoxville. He would always be greeted warmly at these other lodges but also with surprise at the distance he'd traveled to come and play. And inevitably, he would always have a good time and always be invited to come back and play again in the future, when he could.
These travels put Rowyn in contact with a couple of players from the Knoxville area (one of whom was already a VA for the lodge there) who were planning to eventually move to our area for work and graduate school and who had interest in forming a lodge there. Rowyn, long-time GM for our home group, helped to put these players in contact with a local game store as well as recruited the majority of our home group as players for the first few games that our new lodge ran. And things have slowly, but surely, taken off from there. While we're still small and have seen a couple of players come and go already, we've managed to develop enough of a core group of players that we can consistently run a table each time we have a game day. This month sees our lodge starting to offer games at a second store in a neighboring town and so hopefully our lodge will continue to grow and blossom.
While our wonderful Venture-Lieutenant and her partner have undoubtedly invested a lot of time and effort into growing our little Cookeville lodge, I also believe that RowynStarr's contribution has been just as meaningful and not just in the area of networking. Why do I say that? Well...
Enthusiasm
I mentioned before that Rowyn's traveled a fair bit (and still does, on occasion) just to play some Pathfinder Society. While part of this is a result of mostly only GMing and rarely getting to play, it's also a result of what I believe is just a simple, genuine enjoyment of Pathfinder and the Pathfinder Society. After every game that he plays in he writes up a summary about it to share on Facebook. Every single time. Not only do the write-ups contain his own thoughts on the scenario but he also offers explanations of some of the game/Society mechanics in ways that are simple enough for the unfamiliar to understand. Here are a few, reposted with permission. Beware, some minor spoilers ahead:
As promised, here is my Pathfinder Society post.
SEASON 7, EPISODE 5
'School Of Spirits'
LOCATION: Drownyard, Absalom COUNTRY: Isle of KortosSUMMARY
'Seven years ago, Pathfinders entered Absalom’s shattered Precipice Quarter in pursuit of a ruby ring but also rescued a strange survivor. She has since grown to adulthood and exhibited a rebellious spirit connected to the ruined school where the Pathfinders found her. The woman’s family has contacted the Society, hoping that its agents can escort her back to the haunted site and unravel the Drownyard’s relentless mysteries.'MY THOUGHTS
I played this scenario this past Sunday at the Louisville Game Shop in Louisville, KY. This was my second visit to this location as a player and I ran my wizard Bert for this scenario. This scenario also serves as a sequel to a Season 0 scenario, 'Black Waters'.There are a few reasons why I choose to play in this scenario. Primarily, my main reason is that I've been running Bert through the Destiny of the Sands story arc in PFS Organized Play. While being able to play through the first two parts of the story arc, the third and final scenario in the story is written as a level 3-7 scenario. Bert is only a Level 2 wizard, but I only needed to play him through one more scenario successfully in order for him to reach third level. DING! Mission accomplished and now I can play the last part of Destiny of the Sands without having to play a pre-gen character for it!
The other reason I played in this scenario is this locale is was to also take care of some business for another character. My friend John and I played in the Season 0 PFS scenario, 'The Prince of Augustana' back in November 2017, but the GM that ran the event forgot to sign off on our chronicle sheets that we received for the scenario. This was pointed out to me by our local lodge Venture Captain later on. Pretty much, for the boons and items on a chronicle sheet to be legal for a PFS character to have, the GM has to sign off on it as well as list the event code and date. Without it, it can look like a player found a PDF of the chronicle sheet online, printed it off and added it to their character to show they'd played the scenario and could get the boons and items without having played the scenario. Luckily, the GM that ran that scenario was playing in this one and he gladly rectified the problem in signing off on my sheet and making it legal.
But to the scenario...I managed another first in PFS Organized Play as this was the first time playing through an entire scenario where the party never once had to resort to combat to get through the scenario! We managed to talk our way through most of the encounters, either through diplomacy or intimidation, which was good since our group consisted of two wizards, a druid with a wolf companion, and a rogue. No martial characters whatsoever! The only time we had to roll initiative at all was when dealing with a haunt (think of the haunts in 'Poltergeist') that could have dealt us serious harm.
The other strong memory I have was of a character that the aforementioned GM/player I mentioned earlier was playing. Like myself, he was playing a wizard who specialized in necromancy named Philmore Graves. His character was the only one who'd played in 'Black Waters', so it was fun to actually interact with him in character to get a little backstory on the girl rescued and her return to the place where she was rescued from. It also helped that I was playing my own wizard because due to his specialization in necromancy magic, it fell to me to be the group's diviner in detecting magic and I did my job well.
The big thing I remember most about the scenario was how much I felt welcome travelling so far to play. Daniel (Phil) and Conor (the GM) remembered me from November and I got to meet Ian, a player who'd moved to the area from Asheville and who was very excited when I mentioned about knowing the events his former lodge (Appalachian PFS Lodge) ran annually. They enjoyed what I brought to the table in terms of role-playing and invited me to come back anytime I got the chance. Also was mentioned about a couple of them maybe coming to play at the Cookeville lodge sometime when we have an event. It felt great to be an ambassador for my home lodge in this event!
I'm not sure when my next PFS event will be, but once I know what it is, I'll let you know and post about it after I do it. Until then, game on!
Doing a gaming post today, but it's actually not about a Pathfinder Society event....it's about a Starfinder Society event!
SEASON 1-Year Of Scoured Stars
EPISODE 0-Claim To Salvation
LOCATION-Absalom Station
PLANET-UlmaridSUMMARY
'Following the disastrous Scoured Stars Incident, the Starfinder Society fights to remain relevant as the rest of the galaxy moves on. With surviving agents stretched to the limit, the First Seeker launches a desperate bid to search the false moon of Salvation's End. Will the mission reveal a discovery that can stabilize the Society long enough for a new generation of Starfinders to come to the fore?'MY THOUGHTS
I got to play in my first ever Starfinder Society event back on June 24 at Bob's Games And Collectibles in Cookeville. It was the first ever Starfinder Society event that our PFS/SFS lodge had done, and to sum it up in four words, it was very interesting.When it comes to role-playing, usually my comfort zone is in a fantasy world setting. That's not to say that I don't like things outside of the fantasy genre in terms of role-playing. I like anything that's got a dash of horror in it and I enjoy the old west settings, which makes Deadlands a really fun RPG to play in. I also enjoyed playing in a lesser known RPG called Dark Conspiracy, which is set in a dystopian futuristic setting and has horror elements. But here's a confession I must make: I've really never been a huge fan or RPG games set in the boundaries of space. Shocking? Maybe so if you know how big of a Star Wars fan I am. I've even played the Star Wars RPG a few times, but I could never really immerse myself into the experience despite my fandom for the franchise.
When Starfinder was released last year by the creators of Pathfinder, I was intrigued, but I was also skeptical of what Starfinder had to offer that Star Wars hadn't already done. At the same time, I wanted to play Starfinder at least one time before I decided whether or not I would like it, let alone enjoy it. (Plus, I also wanted to dust off the player's handbook Kristin got me as a Christmas gift last year and put it to use). When this particular scenario was scheduled, so was my chance to try it out.
With this scenario being the pilot scenario for the first season of Starfinder Society, it came with pre-generated 4th level characters to play as a way for new players like myself to try out Starfinder and get a demonstration of how the gameplay and the game mechanics worked. After letting the others at my table choose from the pre-gens, I decided to play Quiq, a ysoki bounty hunter mechanic. A ysoki in terms of race is what is known in Starfinder derogatory slang as a 'mouseman'. The neat thing was that Quig came with a robot drone companion named Scout. One of the ways I got into the character was having Quig have one-sided conversations with Scout just to give him a little bit of a eccentric, if not crazy, persona.
My friend Rob was playing an androld operative and he acted as our ship's ace pilot. Another player, Thomas was playing a shirren mystic (shirrens are an insectoid race) who was our ship's science officer, and our forth player, Nathan was playing a vesk soldier (vesks are a reptilian race) and he was the ship's gunner. Meanwhile, Amber was our GM, guiding our motley crew as we journeyed to Salvation's End in search of truth and fun.
The one new aspect of Starfinder that made it different from Pathfinder was the introduction of ship combat, how it worked, and how players could do different things to affect the combat situation. One of Quig's abilities was that during the action phase of crew members on the ship, he could choose to try to increase the power of either the ships weapons, engines, or shields with his mechanic class. I got to reference Star Trek during an action phase of powering up the engines by retorting, 'I'm givin' 'er all she's got, Cap'n!' when tasked by our pilot to work on increasing the ship's speed in one round.
The exploration involved after landing near our mission objective was a little bit like Pathfinder in terms of the exploration and some of the skills were similar. I think the one aspect of Starfinder is the use of ranged combat being higher than in Pathfinder now that you have ranged modern weaponry that you don't throw or launch with a bowstring or black powder. But there were also actions that can be taken to improve battlefield conditions, at least on Quig's part. If there's enough debris lying around, he's got an ability to use it to make a temporary makeshift barricade from enemy fire.
A lot of the skills were similar to Pathfinder and some even had the same names, while some were differently named, but worked in the same way as skills in Pathfinder that I was familiar with.
Overall, I was surprised to find myself enjoying the experience. It had a little bit of a Star Wars feel, but it stood on its own feet in terms of the game world and the backdrop of what little I know about in current events in the galaxy it's set in. I won't be trying to run a Starfinder home game or play in one because I just have so much invested in Pathfinder, but I am going to create a SFS character to play in future scenarios.
I'm not sure when I'll be playing SFS again, but I do know that I will play it when I get the chance. And since an example of play featured a space reality star, it's given me an idea to make a character who's a frontman for a popular band in the galaxy. That could work in a world filled with renegades, rebels, and rogues and in locations that are nothing more than wretched hives of scum and villany. Or can it?
I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. Until next time, game on!
Guess what day it is? Can you, etc. Actually it's Monday, but any day's a good day to make a Pathfinder Society post!
SEASON 9
LEVELS:1-5
EPISODE 23-Grotto Of The Deluged God
LOCATION: The Grinning Pixie aka The Arcadian Mariner's Lodge, Tempest Cay
COUNTRY: The ShacklesSUMMARY
'When a ship that Venture-Captain Calisro Benarry hired to ferry Pathfinders to the Gloomspires vanished, she called upon diviners to speak to the sailors, only to learn that they had met a watery grave. Benarry has narrowed down the ship’s location to the shoals off the coast of the pirate island of Tempest Cay. While the venture-captain asks some questions on shore and searches for survivors, the PCs must travel out to the shipwreck, uncover the reason why a crew of experienced sailors met their doom, and discover why the nearby ocean has been growing increasingly perilous.'MY THOUGHTS
I got to play in this scenario yesterday at the Level Up game store in Knoxville. My friend John and I met up with Amber and Matt, our Cookeville lodge GMs and we represented our lodge well...at least they did. There were two tables for this event. Matt was GMimg the high-level table and Amber and John were playing high level characters. I was on the low end table but it was a very fun group of five other players & GM from the Knoxville lodge. I ran through this scenario with Chalsarda (Chalsey), my Level 1 druid and her wolf animal companion Dieffenbaker. This was my third scenario with her and completing it was enough to get Chalsey to Level 2...but it almost didn't happen.You know why it almost didn't happen? I had crabs, and the whole party had crabs...and our GM did, too, although he seemed not to be adversely affected by the whole situation. Before you start wondering what PFS is all about.....or if you've had enough time to draw breath between gales of laughter, let me clue you in. During the scenario, the party stumbled upon a huge (and almost lethal) swarm of hungry crabs in a nearby shoal.
To give you an idea of how a type of monster swarm works in Pathfinder in general, imagine you're out in the woods and dislodge a hornet's nest from its branch by accident and the hornets attack you en masse. You try to fend them off by waving your arms around and covering your face up and you manage to knock a few down and step on them in the process, but there's several hundred more in the air, landing on you and lighting you up with their stingers. Got the picture?
It works the exact same way in Pathfinder. Most swarms can't be hurt with physical weapons damage because of the sheer numbers and tiny to diminutive size of each individual creature in said swarm. However, area element attacks are effective against monster swarms and to be fair one of the player's character was carrying a wand of burning hands, but being near the front of the party when we ran into the swarm, he was snowed under and almost died after only having time to get off one charge with the wand.
Four out of our six players, including me, had Level 1 characters and one of them was playing a brand new character. Low level characters usually don't have the means to fight monster swarms, but one thing that helps against swarms is a non-magical item called alchemist's fire. Think of them as a type of white phosphorus grenade that can do fire damage on a successful hit. Thankfully, I had the foresight to buy a couple of them at the start of the scenario (20 gold pieces a flask) and our highest level character (Level 3) had some as well. The problem was, none of us could hit the swarm's touch armor class and the best we were doing was dealing a point of splash damage per flask. It was another 'our dice are trying to kill us' moment. I'm very thankful it wasn't another Bonekeep scenario this time. Half of the party went into negatives on their hit points and almost died, and of the remaining three of us that were standing, two of us (including me) only had 1 hit point left. Luckily, we'd been given a wand of cure light wounds so none of us had to burn healing spells and only had to use charges from our own wands to stabilize those who were bleeding out and about to die.
The encounter woke us up as a group and as I was quick to point out in character, it was an objective lesson in better planning and to be more careful going forward. We got better as a group in working together and being prepared for the rest of the scenario.
I can't share a whole lot about this scenario as it's one of the newest ones to be released and I don't want to give away spoilers to those who haven't played it. Since the scenario contributed to my characters PFS faction, the Concordance of Elements, I got a little more on my chronicle sheet for this successful completion, but I was a bit let down by nothing special being on it for a good deed our group did. I can't tell you what we did (spoiler), but to be fair, though, that's not to say that our good deed for this scenario won't be used as part of a storyline for a future scenario in PFS. It might....and it might not.
Anyways, I hope you had fun reading over my latest PFS experience. I can tell you now that my next PFS post will come sometime next week. Until then....and, as always...game on!
It's late Monday morning, and that means I get to make another Pathfinder Society post. Here we go!
SEASON-3
EPISODE-21
The Temple Of Empyreal Enlightenment
LOCATION-Hao Jin Tapestry (Demiplane)
COUNTRY-Isle Of Kortos, AbsalomSUMMARY
'In order to learn about the esoteric faith of the Empyreal Lord Korada, the PCs are sent by the Pathfinder Society to explore an abandoned aasimar temple to the benevolent deity. But what they find there is anything but an opportunity for peaceful reflection and enlightenment.'MY THOUGHTS
I got to play in this scenario this past Saturday at Bob's Games & Collectibles in Cookeville. I played Marcel, my Level 3 ranger for this scenario. We had a full group of seven people for this one. Nathan was our GM, and our players included Holli (Octavia-druid), Robert (Arthur-swashbuckler) , Katie (Taco-barbarian), Lucas (Alexandria-sorcerer), a new player and a friend of Lucas named Chris (Othello-cleric), and Kristin (Fran-witch and her cat animal companion Mr. Sunshine).I got a chance to put my character building skills to use before the start of this session to help Chris with creating his character. Not only was this Chris's first time playing PFS, but it was also the first time he'd ever tabletop roleplayed in general. He wanted to play a healer class and I was able to help him, along with great tips from the Pathfinder Strategy Guide book to help him build the kind of cleric he wanted to play. It's very easy to be overwhelmed by the character creation process, especially when it's your first time creating one. My normal tip for anyone playing Pathfinder, Dungeons & Dragons, or any other type of fantasy setting is to play a fighter class. They're simple to play in terms of the class and the rules, plus while playing them, a new player gets to see experienced players playing classes not as simple all the while witnessing how the rules and the mechanics of the game work for everyone. But with Chris's first time at the table, everyone took the time to help him get off to a good start for his first game and I'm very proud of all of them for doing that.
The top thing I will remember most about playing this scenario for my character was just how quickly one can cross a line between good and evil, and in this case, Marcel came within a whisker of doing that. Our group had just defeated, subdued, and stabilized an NPC gnome character who'd maimed our swashbuckler with a cunning trap set under the guise of doing a ritual to seek enlightenment and we were trying to gather information from him. My character had discovered this gnome was carrying flayleaf, an illegal drug in the world of Golarian. Like a true junkie, he wanted it back and we were using it as a bargaining chip to get information we needed to figure out what was going on in the temple. Marcel was willing to put this flayleaf in the same trap, have the gnome released to get it if he wanted to get it and then spring the trap on him. The GM was quick (and nice enough) to give me a warning that I was willingly about to commit an evil act by doing this. Even though Marcel's alignment was chaotic good, to torture someone, no matter the situation is still considered an evil act and it would have resulted in an alignment shift had I went through with it. Even worse, I would have lost my ranger status and all of the class abilities a ranger gives. From a roleplaying standpoint, it also made me aware that in the heat of the moment, it's very easy to forget what alignment your character is supposed to be playing and act in a way that violates said alignment. Heed this lesson and don't fall into such a trap like I almost did when it comes to the lengths you'll go to succeed on a mission or quest.
Despite this and Marcel's near crossing over to the dark side (I wonder if they had cookies there), we completed the scenario successfully. Not only did Marcel reach Level 4, but the characters ran by Holli, Katie, and Kristin all leveled up as well from completing the scenario successfully. DING! Congrats!
As of now, the next time I'll get to play PFS will be in September when we get to run through a playtest scenario for the upcoming Pathfinder 2nd Edition series that will be released in August 2019! Also, I'll be creating a Starfinder Society character to play when our lodge runs the first episode of the first season of SFS Organized play in September as well. Before all that, I'll get to revisit Silent Tide next week when I step behind the screen to GM the scenario for our lodge on Sunday afternoon at Critical Games in Sparta. I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I did writing about it. As always, game on!
Sure, you could say that doing write-ups might not mean much since plenty of people do that but I think it could potentially make a big difference to those that might be on the fence about giving PFS a try. If the writer of such things obviously enjoyed themselves, it shows. If it shows, it might just make someone think, "You know, this sounds pretty cool actually...maybe I'll give it a try."
There are other things. Rowyn is always willing to do what he can to help newer players with their characters, even when it gets into territory that he himself isn't as familiar with. Though he enjoys getting to play, he's been willing to step up and run some games for the lodge as well, so that it's not all on the same one or two people to run all the games. And most of all, he always shows up excited to play (or GM) and I think that's one of the most important things you could ask for in a player and a GM.
And in the interests of honesty, I will admit that I might be a little biased here because RowynStarr is my brother and I think he's a pretty spiffy guy in general. However, I also believe that our wonderful Venture-Lieutenant would be more than willing to back up my words as a neutral third party if necessary. He doesn't know that I've nominated him for this contest and, though he does have his favorite races, I believe he would be genuinely happy and excited to receive anything from the available boons should he be selected. He's just that kind of person :)
Anyhoo, thanks for bearing with this entry (which ended up longer than I'd intended) and thanks again for hosting such a neat contest!
I’m just dotting for now because I’d like to enter if/when I can make some time. I’m a total noob at society play (I’m currently playing my very first PFS adventure ever, with Lady Ladille actually) but I love the idea of a mermaid/merman druid who rides on the back of some kind creature with ties to water like a turtle or hippo.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
1) THE MERMAID OPTION. The only option!
Princess Mindy (Avatar name secured? --> Affirmative!) knows the name of all the sea creatures.
She often walksswims the lengths of undersea villages to warn her future subjects about impending catastrophes from her father. She grants quests to mollusks, inspires fish to action, and at times proposes that octopi should also be allowed to relax. Some clever tentacled denizens have attempted to circumvent her R&R edict by filing for a name change to the 'octopuses' family, but Princess Mindy has shrugged off such behavior and went on to mount a boycott against such greedy entrepreneurs. The punitive ban is still in effect to this day.
She joined the Pathfinder Society one night after a dalliance with a Pathfinder Agent with the Ship Vanity... Little did she know that the little known sea captain paladin would go on to write a song about the tryst and almost lost his paladinhood over it.
Here it goes, friends... gather 'round!
I signed onto a sailing ship
My very first day at sea
I seen the Mermaid in the waves,
Reaching out to me
"Come live with me in the sea said she,
Down on the ocean floor
And I'll show you a million wonderous things
You've never seen before
So over I jumped and she pulled me down,
Down to her seaweed bed
On a pillow made of a tortoise-shell
She placed beneath my head
She fed me shrimp and caviar
Upon a silver dish
From her head to her waist it was just my taste
But the rest of her was a fish
'Cause ...
But then one day, she swam away
So I sang to the clams and the whales
"Oh, how I miss her seaweed hair
And the silver shine of her scales
But then her sister, she swam by
And set my heart awhirl
Cause her upper part was an ugly fish
But her bottom part was a girl
Yes her hair was green as seaweed
Her skin was blue and pale
Her legs they are a work of art,
I loved that girl with all my heart
And I don't give a damn about the upper part
Cause that's how I get my tail.
|
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
"Aspis (Aquarium) Paradise" (featuring Mr. Z)
With apologies to Coolio (and Weird Al).
As I swim through the fake castle in the shadow of Turmen
I take a look at my life and realize there's nothing left
'Cause I've been splashing and laughing so long,
Even my papa surely thinks that I am far gone
I haven't ever crossed the glass of the cage since I was put here
Treated like a koi, paraded out for parties and the odd sight-seer
'You better watch how you're swimming and what you're singing
Or you might find yourself on a hook a'swinging'
I really can't be tripped, but I have to laugh
As they practice misdirection, I see myself in their reflection
I'm the kinda girl the scheming merchants wanna own outright
On my fins in the night saying prayers to be left alone in the moonlight
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Look at the situation they got me in
I can't live a normal life, I was raised in a bowl
So I'm forced to listen to their criminal schemes
From the edge of a pretty prison without any seams
I'm an educated fool with the ocean on my mind
Got some sharp coral in my hand and a gleam in my eye
I'm a locked-in siren set banging on the glass
And then one day the Pathfinders came, salvation at last
But death ain't nothing but a dry heartbeat away,
I'm being flounced through a desert, what can I say
It's hour 23 now, but will I live to see 24
The way things are going I don't know
|
|
Oh fools, why we were unprepared for their raid
We've got to cut them off at Sothis with our blockade
Been spending most her life, living in an Aspis paradise
Been spending most her life, living in an Aspis paradise
We cleaned her tank once or twice, living in an Aspis paradise
Been spending most her life, living in an Aspis paradise
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Power and the gold, the gold and the power
Minute after minute, hour after hour
Everybody's hunting, all of them soving and urgin'
What's going on in the market, they don't check out the sturgeon
They say I gotta lay still, I've got to let them pass
my face beneath the flounder, I feel a breeze all the way to my- fool
They can't understand it, how did I get a way
There's a tug round a pulley, and I start to float
Dropped hard on a deck of a big merchant boat
Turn round quick cause I'm wary
Stare into the eyes of Captain Benarry
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Been spending most her life, living in an Aspis paradise
Been spending most her life, living in an Aspis paradise
We cleaned her tank once or twice, living in an Aspis paradise
Been spending most her life, living in an Aspis paradise
Oh fools, why we were unprepared for their raid
We've got to cut them off at Sothis with our blockade
Oh fools, why we were unprepared for their raid
We've got to cut them off at Sothis with our blockade
Oh, hey, would you like a beignet?
[Fade out]
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
...In honor of Season 10, I’m giving away a complete mermaid boon.
I have all the parts:
** spoiler omitted **
I don't know if this is consistent with established canon or completely contradicts it or what, but I had fun writing it and I'll throw it in for consideration:
On a world as diverse as Golarion, every race has opinions about the other creatures with whom they share the planet. As in many things, there is usually a spectrum to these views. On one end, for example, there is little agreement about what makes the notoriously diverse gnomes so quintessentially, well gnomish. For the majority of races, however, there is a sort of general agreement about what makes, say, a drow a drow.
And then there are the merfolk. Ask an elf about them and they may call them “irresponsible”. Ask a human and they may say “capricious”. (Well, the second thing they’ll say, that is, if you pick a human male to question.) Ask a gillman, who might just know them best, and they may call them “flighty” (if they don’t first call them “stuck up”).
The point is, just about every non-merfolk inhabitant of the world thinks they know what to expect from each merchild. There are no mermaid accountants, for example. While the actuarial sciences are unknown on Golarion if they were, you can be sure that there would be large buildings of busily-calculating dwarfs and humans yet you can be equally certain they would not take lunch breaks with their mer-colleagues (presumably in some sort of half-cafeteria, half-aquarium arrangement). As for a merman podiatrist, well, that sort of goes without saying.
What strange coalescence of genetic and environmental and perhaps even arcane forces produced Cerulean, then, will probably forever remain a mystery. For starters, Cerulean liked other races, particularly the air-breathing ones. For most of his fellows, this would be as if your child started making pets out of, say, foot fungus.
But the oddest thing about Cerulean was the way he would sit on a sunny rock above the waves just, well, breathing. None of his fellow merfolk understood when Cerulean tried to explain what he was doing. He called it “rumination”, which most of his family and friends thought was a thing sea-cows did with their eelgrass.
Cerulean was, in fact, the first merfolk monk in Jehyseel. Having no-one to teach him, Cerulean has had to largely make up his practices as he went along. This single-minded determination and commitment to his goal of achieving what he calls “omnipelagism” has made him a complete outcast from merfolk society. As for his stated goal of becoming “one with the entire ocean”, well, the explanations of that were condemned as heretical by several authorities.
Deprived, therefore, of fellowship below the waves Cerulean has instead sought it above. He even has started calling himself a “Triton-Avistani” instead of a merman. He trolled for inspiration through the religions of the air breathers in deep conversations with mystics, oracles, wise men, shamans, clerics and holy women. Cerulean now professes to follow the tenets of Irori. Privately, however, considers even the Master of Masters to have not quite yet mastered himself enough. A truly perfect seeker would not be satisfied with mere (or even mer-) godhood, but would transcend the Great Beyond itself, he says.
This unique worldview has driven Cerulean towards seeking ever-increasing sources of knowledge about religions, planar matters, and perfection of the material form of creatures. When a Pathfinder agent told him about the stores of knowledge deposited at the Grand Lodge, then, it was a very short time before Cerulean presented himself to the rather confused gatekeepers of that place begging admission. Although the Society prides itself on not discriminating on the basis of race, some of the tests for applicants were simply not applicable to Cerulean’s physiology. He was told that the Society might not be the correct place to pursue his quest for knowledge. Taking the news with apparent equanimity, he went off towards the harbor.
The next morning at dawn, he was again waiting at the gates to the Lodge, again requesting entrance, only to receive the same answer. He accepted the answer he was given, but did not leave the forecourt until nightfall, when he again returned to the harbor. For the next week, every dawn found Cerulean at the gates of the lodge where he remained in the baking sun until dusk. This display of persistence (and being able to endure no small measure of discomfort) eventually served as evidence that Cerulean was fit to join and he was admitted to start his journey towards becoming a full Pathfinder.
Low-lyin’ haze all ‘cross the sea
Is what sailors can expect to see
High of forty, but I don't know why
‘Scuse me while I check the sky
Low-lyin’ haze all around
Later showers should be comin’ down
After midnight, increased humidity
Whenever it is, tonight you’ll get wet at sea
{barometer solo}
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A Prayer of Adoration
Praise be to the mighty Wind and Waves.
Praise to the one who is their meeting, Gozreh is their name.
Theirs are the birds of the air and the fish of the sea.
Theirs are the tides and the storms.
Praise be to Hyjarth and Tourithia, the one who dwells above and below.
From the clouds he makes the winds and rains.
From the depths she sends the ocean’s flow.
Praise and honor and adoration be to Gozreh, King of Sky and Queen of Sea.
There is none like them, who rules over all the natural world.
~ Hymns to the Winds and Waves #137
Ondven might have lived a very different life had he been born in the shallows. Unfortunately, his school kept almost wholly to the deeps. In fact, some of his kin had even developed pupiless white eyes that let them see through the darkest waters. None of them, however, knew what a leaf looked like; so, when he was born marked with the dripping leaf that is Gozreh’s holy symbol they merely chuckled and joked that his birthmark looked sort of like a fat seahorse. When, as a young merchild, he dreamt of fish leaping above the waves and sky-fish (which he would later learn were called birds) diving beneath them, he was dismissed as an odd boy. The fact that he believed he could speak to fish and other animals did little to help his reputation.
Being thought peculiar by his kin was hardly the most life changing thing about living in the deeps though. You see, there are a great many other things that dwell in the darkened depths. On an otherwise forgettable day in Ondven’s eighth year, his school had the grave misfortune of happening upon a hungry kraken. There was a steep cliff less than a mile away and at his mother’s very stern bidding the young merboy swam for the shallows as fast as he could and never looked back.
For several weeks Ondven swam about the shallows eating and sleeping by the help of some friendly fish. The boy could, it turns out, speak with all manner of fish, crustaceans, and sea mammals. One particularly matronly old manta ray took the boy under her wing and led him about the shallows teaching him their boons and banes for nearly a year. When she grew weary, she brought him to an atoll where she knew there was a woman whose upperhalf resembled his, and who could speak with the fish as well.
The woman, Melian, was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, which is unsurprising if you’ve heard the tales of nymphs before. The kindhearted water-nymph immediately recognized his birthmark for what it truly was and welcomed Ondven to live in her cove. She raised him in the heart of Gozreh’s domain: that narrow stretch of the world where neither wind nor wave is ever far from reach. She taught him the magic of nature, and the finer points of conversation. To her great sorrow, she had seen firsthand clashes between the peoples of the land and the people of the sea and she feared that without merfolk taking to the land to foster better relations (and humans heading peacefully below the waves) a great war would eventually be inevitable. She also instilled in him a curiosity about Gozreh’s myriad creatures that lived outside the reach of the sea.
When Ondven came of age, his foster mother lead him on a long swim across the sea to the land of men. She aided him in the ritual to call a companion and seemed even more surprised than he was when the Wind and Waves provided a giant frog to aid him. After a bit of riding practice, Melian gave him what little human coin she had and sent him to find the Pathfinder Society. Years earlier she’d had a very positive interaction with an elven Pathfinder, she explained, and serving with them, she believed, would be a tremendous opportunity to show the landfolk how noble and good the people of the sea could be. So, with a spear and an armored shirt recovered from a fairly recent shipwreck, the young merman rode his trusty frog into the land of men to join the Pathfinder Lodge...
|
Venture-Captain, Minnesota
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
WOOT. Time to announce the winners!
1) THE MERMAID OPTION
We had several wonderful entries, which made this category particularly hard to judge. I was carried away by Driftborne of Almas’ depiction of how merfolk interact with Golarian as a whole, and with his story of how his gentle but persistent merfolk monk Cerulean decided to become a Pathfinder.
I know you’re not a Play-by-Post person, Driftborne, but I hope to someday see your merfolk monk, Cerulean, in action.
I didn’t plan to have a runner up in this contest, but Mister Z’s song about Aspis Paradise was outstanding. Mister Z, I can’t give you a full mermaid, but I would love to give you any one of the component boons: dhampir, samsaran, vanara, grippli, ratfolk that you would like. Please pick your choice of boon, sir.
2) THE BUDDIES OPTION
I had only one entrant in this category, but it was so unbelievably AWESOME that I am ecstatic to award Meloriel, Gemmik, Rabbit Almiraj, and Trinket Mike the boons that they requested to make these characters come to life. Your charming entry buoyed me up all through the insanity of GenCon.
Gemmik, those were great jokes. RabbitAlmiraj, that was an amazing song from Croak. (Now, both of you need to POKE your dad to name his Ratfolk.)
Meloriel, I am going to arrange for your boon to be coming from elsewhere, since I only had one Aquatic Elf boon. But it will be coming! Also, Dennis Muldoon is wondering if he can GM the maiden voyage of your little team in Heroes for Highdelve.
3) THE MYSTERY BOON
I only had two entrants in this category, but they are both winners!
Hstyle, you will be getting my Suli! (Or any other unclaimed component boon if you would like that instead.)
RowynnStarr, you sound like such an angel, you will be getting my Aasimar! (Or any other unclaimed component boon that you like instead.)
WINNERS
Please PM me your email, mailing address and Organized Play number.
Thanks to everyone for participating!
Hmm
PS If you participated in this contest but didn’t win, stay tuned. There may be one last lottery once the initial winners are settled.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I AM SO EXCITED!
THANK YOU!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Thank you very much.
My ratfolk will be named... Lomo!
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Wow...I'm still in surprise at this. Very humbled to be nominated for certain. Thank you for nominating me, Lady Ladile! (she gets just as excited as I do when it comes to PFS on PbP.) ;) A little info...I've been playing tabletop RPG's for a long time and I still get enthused now like I did when I was eighteen and playing my first D&D character, an 8th-level paladin for a one-off game. To keep that mindset, you have to love the RPG's that you play and I've loved several of them for different reasons, despite having a few character deaths that broke my heart. I loved Pathfinder because I felt that other than D&D's Forgotten Realms, Pathfinder has one of the best detailed worlds that I've seen in an RPG setting and I'm a big fan of the story and the lore of a game world. I also love Pathfinder's AP line (a first by any RPG) that deals exclusively with coming up with great stories to take a party from 1-15+ in levels. PFS does well with stories as well as featuring recurring characters, both hero and villain (Grandmaster Torch is one guy I love to hate). But I've made some great friends in my PFS travels to distant places to play and those are the kind of friends I pray will last a lifetime.
Have dice, will travel!
I also enjoyed reading this thread and the entries of other players who are just as passionate for Pathfinder as I am. Congratulations to all of the other winners, too! And to all of you, as always, game on!
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I didn’t plan to have a runner up in this contest, but Mister Z’s song about Aspis Paradise was outstanding. Mister Z, I can’t give you a full mermaid, but I would love to give you any one of the component boons: dhampir, samsaran, vanara, grippli, ratfolk that you would like. Please pick your choice of boon, sir.
Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle. And in order to be a monkey's uncle I'll need the Vanara (ba-)boon. All this for aping a song? It's too much. I'm going bananas. Thanks for the great game! Everyone here is great, even when the chimps are down.
