Hmm, would hailing from House Arvanxi work?
Arvanxi works extremely well.
House Arvanxi is an old House with significant influence and power that has been hampered by weak members in the last couple generations. But now some members are starting to show promise as being powerful, intelligent and ambitious. Arvanxi may be on the rise. They do claim a heritage from old Azlant.
Aberian Arvanxi is the patriarch. He is the governing Lord Mayor of Westcrown and feudally its ParaCount. He is not very sharp and is overall quite the untalented, effete dilettante.
Ileosa Arvanxi left Cheliax for Korvosa in the butt-hole-nowhere-Varisian wilderness. But now she's pretty powerful there (as Queen!) and is bringing the hillbilly dingle-berries of Korvosa fully under the sway of Cheliax.
Lady Dressarosa Arvanxi, Ileosa's sister, has recently also been sent to Korvosa by Abrogail Thrune to personally see to Korvosa's subversion to Cheliax, bringing the colony back as part of the Chelaxian Empire.
And there are other Arvanxi House nobles, of course, as well.
Monkeygod- How does Magnius feel about trying to woo the Baroness into marriage? After her intended [in everyone else's opinion] has a slight mishap.
Of the party, Manius wants to marry the queen [aim high], Alfred is a Halfling and I am female. Which leaves you, unless...
Hey DM Ray- does Cheliax recognise gay marriage?
And on your participation in the discussion thread- I think it is a good idea for the reasons given in the hidden part of your post.
Alright, cool. I like Arvanxi a lot.
I'd like to be related to one of the above sisters, if possible. Maybe via marriage? Like a generation or two back? Or something?
Followed by further marriage into Gheredescci?
Manius wants to marry Abrogail?? Good luck LOL
--Yeah I chuckled at Manius' desire for Abrogail's hand as well. But who knows what could happen?!
--Regarding gay marriage and other issues-for-us-in-the-modern-day, I think the default for most of the Pathfinder world would be liberal. Cheliax and the rest of the world, in general, wouldn't have an issue with gay rights, abortions, protecting the environment, etc., etc. There would Absolutely be individual exceptions. A DM could decide that, I dunno, Archheathen Kettermaul Charthagion is a homophobic gay-basher and tries to implement laws and intimidation policies against gay marriage. Or a DM could decide that, I dunno, Lord Avid in Diobel believes that children of divorced parents have fewer rights than others and make abortion illegal. But these would be the exceptions. As a general rule, the Pathfinder world fixes (gets right) lots of the issues our society struggles with and gets others (such as slavery and religious freedoms) wrong. However, because these are hot issues for us, and especially since we're in a PbP and are strangers, I'd like to keep those issues-for-us-in-the-modern-day out of the game as often as possible.
Archheathen Kettermaul Charthagion might also think lesbians are top stuff because his porno collection is full of them.:P
I know Paizo has a very inclusive attitude towards sexual minorities, and I agree DM Ray it is a pity this isn't more widely shared.
But I am not engaging in any campaigning about gay rights or anything. The person who marries the baroness is going to find themselves in a powerful position. So I am hoping Cheliax has marriage equality not as a matter of human rights, but as a ruthless megalomaniac hell bent on advancement.
@ Lord Magnius,
You can do a quick design for Lady Dressarosa's immediate family -- and include Lord Magnius somewhere. She's not a published NPC but one I stole from another DM's PbP campaign. She's become an important NPC in my homegame in Korvosa but I don't have anything of her personal background (except that she's Queen Ileosa's half-sister). Lady Dressarosa is not in Aberian Arvanxi's immediate family (Maybe she's a second cousin or something.). The minor Houses, Mhartis, Ciucci & Rasdovain 'serve' House Arvanxi.
If I hail from House Arvanxi, would that be my last name?
....Yes, Arvanxi
Unless there was a reason it wasn't,.... such as an Arvanxi mother instead of father. Or a reason your parents lied about your last name, maybe to protect you if they were out of favor with the House. Or you changed it for some reason.
I added a special features/class abilities section to my profile, specifically showing how I can have such a high bonus to certain rolls.
As someone who is claiming decent from the Azlanti, as well as when Aroden was alive, I figure making Magnius an expert par excellence at dealing with people and a focus on humans made a lot of sense.
I'm actually kinda excited to see how he does in actual situations where his skills are far more needed than a couple of knowledge checks.
Also, should we use the recruitment page for our out of game discussion? I feel like the actual discussion page is tied to closely to the game to make posts like this, or if we have to leave for a few days, etc.
For right now the Discussion Thread is getting what will become Gameplay posts but I'm sure once we really get rolling, Recruitment will go the way of the dodo and Discussion will be used as it usually is.
You can put this stuff in Discussion.