Most excellent. :D Glad people are getting into their backstories. I've both played a paladin of Abadar (who was very grouchy about being a paladin of Abadar), and play with one in another game I'm in, ha! But you can fix your personal dearth of Abadarian paladins, at any rate.
Here's some questions you guys can consider answering somewhere when you write your characters-- they're not 100% mandatory, I mean, you're all in the game regardless ;), so you can answer them or not as I choose-- some, or any, or none. They're just the sort of character-building questions I often think about when I write new characters, to give some depth and think about them as people.
- What's a personal item they always have with them that means a lot to them, sentimentally? Why? What's the story there?
- What do they do to relax or kill time on a day where there's no enemies threatening?
- Which of the seven sins would be most tempting to them?
- What person in their life is most important to them? Why?
- What's their strongest memory of childhood?
- Have they ever killed an intelligent creature before, directly or indirectly, self-defense or otherwise? More than once? How do they feel about this?
- Where would they like to be in ten years? Do they envision a farm and family, a thriving trade, service to a church? What does their 'happily ever after' look like? 'They don't yet know' is a valid answer.
- What flaw(s) would they say they have? What flaw(s) would you say they have?
(For the record, I am not the sort of GM who asks about your treasured position or important people in order to just have something to destroy.)
I love these sorts of questions! In one game in the past I did a '100 questions you should know about your character' thing just for fun.
Yeah, me too. :) I play a lot of freeform, diceless RPGs as well, where all you really have is the character and no stats, so....
...also please ignore my typos in that post above. It's too late to edit but wow they're annoying me.
This has given me much to think on.
Brains storming.
Creative juices flowing.
Ideas coalescing.
Answers to come. :D
How's those sheets coming, gentlefolk?
As an update for ETA: I have a big work deadline on the 23rd and will be scrambling to hit that this week, but after that I hope to get started in reasonably short order. So you have about a week to start compiling finished sheets. Obviously we won't start before people are READY, just giving you a timeline on my end.
Nice! I just passed my own big deadline of graduation, so I should have lots of time to finish up my sheet.
Yah ... my house just went under contract, and I have 3 kids. Time is not something I have much of currently. Regardless, I should also have all my stuff together and ready to rock before weekend.
I'll try and get stuff done this week. I'm out of my mind until after tomorrow. ;)
Oof. This became more of a thing than I originally anticipated.
Two items: an old arrowhead and a small straw-and-leather Shoanti doll. The arrowhead is that of the arrow with which he brought down his first quarry. There was nothing particularly unique about the creature–a highland stone tusk–other than it was the first he tracked, killed, dressed, and brought home all by himself. The doll belonged to Markov’s (see below, important people) daughter. She had given it to Markov—ya know, cause daughter thought dolly could protect daddy—before Markov came to meet Rokan for the meeting of the shaman’s. When Markov and Rokan were sent south, giant scouts attacked. Markov was killed. Torn between wanting to get Markov’s body back to his family and needing to fulfill his task, he took the doll. He’s not sure why. He can barely bring himself to look at it, but won’t give it up until he can give Markov’s family the news personally.
What do they do to relax or kill time on a day where there's no enemies threatening?
When Rokan has free time—or when he needs to think—he likes to go hiking or hunting. He feels at home among the Lost Coast wilds in a way that grounds him. The constant mental demands of survival and navigation lets him push his troubles to the back of his mind, where his subconscious can work on them. He also finds comfort in the discipline of practicing with his bow. He finds focus in the smooth, repetitive actions, and feels comfort in knowing every practice shot brings him one step closer to being the best.
Which of the seven sins would be most tempting to them?
Pride. Rokan is focused, competitive, and ambitious. Since his birth–marked by his celebrated Shoanti birthmark–he's seen himself as set apart for something unique. He has a pride in himself that extends to a pride in the history and ways of his people. He takes himself seriously and expects others to do so, as well. Inversely, he constantly fights a struggle to be overly concerned with how people perceive him.
What person in their life is most important to them? Why?
Rokan has a number of important people in his life. Family and friends. But one notable person is (was) Markov Wind-Steps, a fellow shaman apprentice who was one part mentor and one part friend. Kind of like an older brother or cousin, though they shared no blood. Markov and Rokan trained under the same Shrikiiri shamans, though Markov was six years older than Rokan. While the Markov wasn’t officially Rokar’s trainer, he taught the young Rokar many, many lessons about being a Shriikirri, a hunter, and a man. When Markov died after the massacre—killed by giant raiders while they were both trying to make it to Sandpoint—Rokan was heartbroken.
What's their strongest memory of childhood?
Two sets of memories stand out in his memory (though one is not really from childhood). Rokan’s proudest moments as a child were when he successfully hunted his first quarry (mentioned above), and when he passed the Shriikirri rites of manhood, earning his first tattoo, his name, and his place among the warriors and hunters of his people. The second memory that stands out was the massacre at what was to be the shaman meeting-place.
Have they ever killed an intelligent creature before, directly or indirectly, self-defense or otherwise? More than once? How do they feel about this?
Rokan has hunted all his life, but he’s only been directly involved in the killing of intelligent creatures recently … giants. He views it as warfare and cultural defense. He’s got no qualms with it; protecting his people is one of his guiding stars.
Where would they like to be in ten years? Do they envision a farm and family, a thriving trade, service to a church? What does their 'happily ever after' look like? 'They don't yet know' is a valid answer.
While Rokan doesn’t see himself as any kind of leader of men, he dreams of taking his rightful place as a prominent shaman among he Shriikirri. He only cares for money as far as it advances that goal. And while often won’t admit it, he’s
What flaw(s) would they say they have? What flaw(s) would you say they have?
Rokan knows he doesn’t make friends easily. He knows he’s often unsympathetic towards others, and he knows he struggles with patience. I know the reason he rubs people wrong is because he’s blunt and pragmatic by nature, more concerned with results than making people feel good about themselves. And he expects much from himself, and gets annoyed with people who don’t work hard to rise to challenges (or people that complain about circumstances). This impatience goes back to his disciplined, competitive nature. And he does pretty much believe the Shoanti ways are the best ways.
Let me know your thoughts, questions, critiques. Specifically for Dien, but if someone else wants an insight—especially Hrothdane—feel free.
Only thing I noticed is that the "Where would they like to be in 10 years" ends in a sentence fragment.
Looks really cool otherwise!
This is Hrothdane! Stat block up now. Might purchase some extra stuff, but otherwise good to go mechanically. Just gotta finish writing up the rest!
Only thing I noticed is that the "Where would they like to be in 10 years" ends in a sentence fragment.
Looks really cool otherwise!
I like to keep the reader guessing?
/facepalmSERAKA LIVES! Im getting excited for this.
Reworking some of my answers to those questions - I realized that I was just kinda restating things I had already mentioned or explained in my backstory, instead of expanding in some way.
Also I'm torn between whether I should go for Ultimate Mercy. It's super cool, I have the stats to get it early and I love the idea - but it also takes 2-3 feats to get, and would probably be unused for most of the campaign. Plus we'll already have a cleric and druid, so pretty easy access to 'no wait, I don't wanna die' sorts of spells.
Edit: I suppose it won't matter until level 3 when I have to choose a new feat anyway which is a long ways off - I just always try to plan too far ahead of time. Back to writing!
Battlespy here, I think I'm all done, save for maybe a few minor edits.
If we have our crunch ironed out, should we make our profession/craft/perform roll for extra starting gold?
Oh yeah, go ahead and feel free to do those.
Sorry for no substantial feedback yet-- today is big work deadline, and tomorrow my grandmother is having a heart procedure, so we probably won't get going until Wednesday at the soonest.
Don't sweat it. I'd rather wait to launch strong then rush it and you begin the game feeling overwhelmed.
I think characters are still coming together, anyway. Though it does look like 3 of us are in pretty good shape. Can't wait to see how our Cleric/Rogue is shaping up.
I know he's been slammed lately by work and school, but we talk regularly and I'll pester him in a gentle, supportive, therapeutic fashion. :P
Therapeutic for whom? >:D
Also, extra moola!
No worries! I'll probably flip between silly little decisions right up until we start haha
Cash money!
*sits on the couch while our DM pulls out a clipboard and asks questions.*
I'm good, it's been a hectic two weeks. I thought today was going to be slow at work but... that didn't happen.
I actually have most of the mechanics for E worked out, come up with a framework background and did the questionnaire. (Which I'll post soon.)
My goal is to spend some time soon and flesh out the backstory more, and come up with more playable personality quirks to fall back on.
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I am in a similar place to onelung. I already have the framework of her backstory and began going through the questions; I'm mainly working on making sure that I will be completely happy playing this character for a long time on a day-to-day basis.
I also keep getting stuff coming up or being more consuming than I thought. I'm still recovering from my first Pride last weekend haha
I was super lazy yesterday *yawns* and got very little done. Going to sleep right now, but later today I'll go over all the sheets posted so far in more depth than I have to date, and see where we stand as far as getting started goes!
Sweet! Look forward to any questions and feedback!
On that note, does anybody have any recommended websites or pdf's for getting s deeper look into the Shoanti culture (deeper than wiki or Inner Sea book)?
As for getting Rokan to a "fun on a day-to-day basis", I usually try to get the big rocks of a characters personality into place, and then let his quirks and mannerisms develop in-play. I don't know if it's the best process, but there it is. :/
Also, you guys might find this interesting (maybe not). Rokan will be a bit of an experiment for me. I don't usually play Lawful characters because I don't get that mindset. I'm the type of player who needs to see myself in my characters to really get into them, so Rokan (who's all about tradition and customs) should be interesting.
So, you might ask, how will I do a good job of him? The answer is simple: some of his defining features (his competitiveness, his ambition, his adherence to rules and customs, his pragmatism) are all modeled after my wife. (I'm all loosey-goosey, feelsy; she's all "this is the way we'll win/follow the rules")
... so this game could be interesting. :D
(Though it's worth nothing that my wife is far more deep than just this component of Rokan. And she certainly doesn't have a cultural superiority complex like Rokan does.)
I always end up writing all sorts of a bunch of stuff for my characters and how I expect to play them, and then the game starts and I end up playing them differently than I expected. So now I'm trying to just focus on backstory and facts, and letting personality show up more naturally.
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Most of my friends from my F2F campaigns also prefer to kind of let things happen and build and not really plan things out. It's a more "improv" manner of playing.
I don't even think like an actor when I'm acting. I think like a writer, planning out a loose arc for my characters with a beginning, middle, and end. Naturally, I leave a lot of room for flexibility and natural developments, but it rarely changes the direction I want to go in. I also tend to do voices in-person and practice typical tics and phrases to fall back to.
I'm sort of in the middle as well. I like having a framework and one or two things to work with, and then just seeing where it goes.
I had a PC develop a phobia of trees and semi-sentient/aware flora after he climbed out of a tree and it's treehouse fell over him. Random, completely unexpected, fun. It became a good quirk for character drive for when his planned stuff is irrelevant or in the way. ;)
I'm bad with voices, but tend to try to do ones for monsters. Not so much for my PCs because it makes me feel awkward. In the If I talk with a terrible asian accent I hope someone doesn't get offended (he says as a half asian person) kind of way.
Battlespy! Some thoughts on Sonya:
Crunch:
-I believe your Init should be one less since Noble Scion means you swap out your Dex for your Cha entirely, not getting to use both Cha and Dex;
-What, no crossbow? ;) ;) Bad paladin! (I'm mostly teasing; I've always thought crossbow was such a lame weapon for such a prominent god...)
Fluff:
-As you've got right now, her family sort of shrugged and went 'well hope she comes back' when Sonya wandered off. Was there any sort of 'being worried she was dead,' if she just left with no communication? Familial resentment on her return ("we thought you were dead! We looked for days!")?
I like your choice of drawback, this should be fun for me. :3
Ah you're right on the initiative! Bad math on my part.
I suppose I could afford a crossbow now with the profession roll - but yeah they're very disappointing weapons haha. I imagine all of the Abadar worshipers probably just get really fancy crossbows to hang on their mantle (and collect dust).
I didn't expand too much on that, you're right. I had imagined that they sent out people to go track her down, and when she came back it was the kind of quiet disappointment. If she hadn't left she might have had a bigger part in the business in Magnimar, but instead it was a sort of "well until we can trust you a bit more, go make sure your grandfather has everything he needs in Sandpoint."
It always struck me as like "wellllll we don't have a god who favors a crossbow yet.... uh sure, Abadar... that... makes sense... sort of.... something-something balance and finely made instruments..."
My paladin-of-Abadar had a proper greatsword. As does the other PoA I'm in a game with. Hmn.
Makes sense! Okay then.
Rokan/Eben!
Want to finish up that paragraph on "in ten years" for me? Because now I'm just so curious. :D
How long has Rokan been in Sandpoint at the Start of Things? Given the errand of 'find Belor and warn him', my assumption is: not very long at all, since he'd clearly beeline for the sheriff and not be tarrying, nor be happy to wait if Belor didn't meet with him right away. Is he arriving on the same day as Campaign Start?
Want to finish up that paragraph on "in ten years" for me? Because now I'm just so curious. :D
So am I (unfortunately). Since walking away from this, I can't for the life of me remember where I was going with that line. Until (if) I remember, I'll pull it.
And yah, I was considering him arriving right at the festival, more out of coincidence than anything else. I figure he's not all that interested in it, far more motivated to find Belor.
And just to clarify, he's been tasked with "finding and recruiting Sandpoint" ... which gives him a need to do more than drop his note and run off north to fight some giants. :)
Thirdly—and I'm going to need some feedback on this one, cause I keep going back and forth on it—I've been toying with making him a half-elf. Mechanically, it's incredibly intriguing. He only gets bigger and badder at what he's supposed to do in the party. And I had intentionally left the story of his parents empty because I was considering this option all along. But that gives him yet another reason to fully embrace being a Shoanti. Being born with outsider blood, he feels the drive to "out-Shoanti" everyone around.
I'd love hear people's thoughts. Does this water down his story? Or enhance it? I keep flip-flopping. :/
Second question, I was revisiting his story and list of questions, and I thought of something I wanted to ask you, Dien.
I hate that archers (due to starting budget) have to start with crappy bows that they have to upgrade constantly. What do you think of Rokan starting the game with a well-made but so-broken-it's-useless bow of his dead friend Markov? That's the bow he'd want to improve over time, but couldn't use until it was rebuilt/fixed. Mechanically, I'm thinking he pays what he can towards the cost of a masterwork composite (2 strength) longbow, but it's completely non-functional until he can have someone repair it (basically find the money to pay out the rest of its price).
It makes it more of a signature item, and I can work it into his description and background. AS well as have it be one of his "prized personal items" from our questions.
Love to hear your thoughts.
Eben: I think running with half-elf is interesting! I noticed you didn't say a whole lot about Rokan's parents. It could definitely provide that little bit of 'outsider' that would push him even harder to prove himself as Shoanti-- and depending on exactly what happened with his parents could also make for interesting plot hookage.
Hmm, I also dig the bow idea, if only because I run into some of that same emotional stuff with Chiquq over in our ROW game-- the idea that my tribal archer lady is going to inevitably have to give up the bow she started with for the bow of some other culture, because it'll be better mechanically, etc. I'd be down for allowing this; are you planning on using a back-up cheaper ranged weapon like a sling or something as you work towards full repair?
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Question for everyone: is there any preference between Google Slides, Google Drawings, and Roll 20 for a map? They each have pros and cons.
Re: parent plot hook ... did you have something in mind? I'm always down with letting the DM have some fun to incorporate my characters a bit deeper into the story. :)
Re: bow ... Cool! For the short-term, I was thinking I'd go with a plain old shortbow. I lose too much effectiveness if I don't use a bow, and I figure he could have picked up a simple how somewhere along the way.
Re: mapping ... I'm good with whatever. Google images and Roll20 equate to the same thing for me (only updating it when I'm on my computer). But that's fine with me as I've never figured the trick or updating Google slides docs from my iPhone.
I'm always a fan of odd/outsider characters, it's what I usually tend to play.
I might have a feat slot open for Craft Magic Arms and Armor in the future, so it might even be possible to take your backstory longbow from 1 to 15 or whenever we stop!
No preference on the three! I've never used Roll20 for a play by post, only online games.
Cool. I'd pitch in, but Spellcraft isn't likely to one of his strong suits.
I do like the depth of Roll20, but I don't know if it's difficul for anyone to use.
Also, Dien, I'd like to swap Elven for Shoanti as his racial language. It makes sense for his story. Also, I'm still noodling on the question of his parents. Shout me any thoughts you like. My only concrete detail is that one of his parents be full-blooded Shoanti human. Could be interesting if the other parent was half-elf (which is why his Elven features are subtle, and he looks so Shoanti).
So here's a question: if Seraka and Rokan are both from Shoanti tribes, would they know of each others tribes?
Cool. I'd pitch in, but Spellcraft isn't likely to one of his strong suits.
Actually, I may have some open feat slots, as well. So I can pick up Spellcraft along the way and maybe help out with Craft Wondrous Items. Or, if someone else was already planning to take that, help out with hitting construction requirements.
And I believe the plan was for both Shoanti to be Shriiikirri, on the same assignment. So I like the idea that they at least somewhat know each other. Though the relationship should be interesting. :)
Hokay, sorry for the weekend slowin' me down!
Eben: Elven ---> Shoanti is fine by me.
Regarding parentage: obviously if you think the elf-blooded parent being half-elf themselves is interesting, that's your call-- in my head a full elf is also pretty interesting, since I'd be curious to know what drew an elf to a Shoanti and vice versa, whether this was a matter of the elf temporarily (or long-term) dwelling with the Shoanti (and accordingly whether they are still living among the Shoanti)... or just a visit for trade/one-night stand kinda thing, and whether Rokan knew that parent at all. The idea that that parent has been absent from Rokan's life of course leaves me a lot of freedom to make up all sorts of things about who they are *evil GM laughter* but I'm open to whatever you'd like to do there.
Sheet statuses:
Sonya = good to go!
Rokan = good to go, barring any further fleshing out you wanna do!
Esegia = mechanics looked good on my last glance through, waiting on some backstory
Seraka = same as Esegia - if either of you wrote up backstory/et al in one specific place (rather than just thread discussion) and I missed it, plz to be linking again.
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Some minor changes: the fate points I mentioned will just operate like regular Hero Points, because there is no need for me to re-invent the wheel when there's already a rules system to cover this. As mentioned, I also get some Hero Points >:3 . You'll all start with one.
Crafting, since that's being discussed: as the bulk of my PF play comes via PFS, where there is no crafting, I'm not terribly experienced with it in gameplay other than the Core crafting rules being dumb. The Unchained crafting rules seem to be straightforward to me on my read-through; does anyone have actual experience of them in play to offer opinions?
The idea that that parent has been absent from Rokan's life of course leaves me a lot of freedom to make up all sorts of things about who they are *evil GM laughter* but I'm open to whatever you'd like to do there.
I am 100% down with this. Flex your DM-y muscles on Rokan! I don't have a preference if Rokan was raised by mother or father, but let's say the elf/half-elf parent was absent and no one really talked of them much. It's yet another reason Rokan feels a bit the outsider and pushes so hard to prove he's Shoanti.
Let me know if you want me to create more details, or if you're happy to take it from here. If you do, though, just let me know which was the absentee, elf-blooded parent.
I think Rokan's mother will have been the Shoanti, then, because I can already think of something to do with his father.
Coolio. I'll adjust his write up accordingly. :)
Luckily if any crafting happens on my end, it will be the very simple magic item crafting - every 1000g value takes 8 hours. Some minor other things like using spellcraft to meet requirements, but that probably won't be too much of a problem.
But if anyone is doing normal craft with their background skills, the unchained rulesystem is a little bit simpler and easier to walk through