GM Merc's Savage Tide

Game Master Mercurion

GM Merc's Savage Tide


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@GM
Warmage doesnt have starting gold value... what do i do in this case?
Take fighter? Cleric?

Since a warmage needs armor/weapons/shield i doubt it will be sorc/wiz starting


Here's my first-draft background:

Walton's History:
Walton's mother is the survivor of an orc raid--which was how he came to be. Her husband and children were killed in the raid, and she herself decided to run as far away from the memories as she could. It turned out that Sasserine was as far as she could go before she had to stop to have her child.

She named her son Walton, aiming for something that sounded as un-orcish as possible. She struggled to support him as he grew, but she also struggled to love him, for while he was her son, every time she looked at his face she saw the orcs that had killed her family. Somehow, she managed to (mostly) push that aside, and raised him as best as she could.

Walton's orcish blood and poor mother won him few friends growing up. Most kids his age would rather make fun of him than get to know him, and he soon learned that responding with his fists just got him in trouble. Still, he made a few friends, and those he had he held to fiercely.

He grew up quick, though, and Walton slowly found himself drifting away from his friends as he matured, hastened on when his mother finally saved up enough money from working as a seamstress to move from their squalid rooms in the seedier parts of the Azure district to a slightly less squalid home in the Sunrise district.

It was here that Walton discovered the world outside of the city, and found for the first time a place he felt at home. The beasts didn't care that his father was an orc, only if he were predator or prey. The trees shaded him just as much as a full-blooded human. And, he soon found, most of those who hunted out in the jungle cared more for how well you could draw a bow than for what kind of blood ran in your veins.

Of course, at first, he wasn't that great at it, but there were still a couple in Zelkarune's Horns who saw potential in him. Under their tutelage he quickly learned to be a proficient scout and hunter, showing considerable talent for tracking and navigating the wilderness, though rather less for the bow. He proved handy with an axe when things got too close, though.

Walton continued to wander the wilds on his own whenever he had the time, and it was on one of these recent rambles that he nearly died. A young tiger, weakened by hunger, ambushed him during a distracted moment. It was upon him before he could react, its claws digging through his armor, its fangs almost around his neck before he got his hands on its head. He was just barely able to throw it off, but he had no time to draw a weapon before it jumped at him again.

As it leaped toward him, Walton swung at it with an open hand... and something strange happened. Something deep within him responded to his desperation, and he shocked to find that he had tiger-like claws of his own on his hands when he struck the tiger. Not that it was enough to stop it from pouncing on him, but this time, as it stood upon him, he slashed its throat with his claws.

It took him a moment to realize that it was dead and he was still alive--long enough that, when he looked at his hands again, the claws were gone. Uttering a quiet prayer of thanks whatever god or goddess of nature had seen fit to arm him in his moment of extremity, he skinned the beast and brought its hide back to Sasserine.

A tiger skin is wont to get tongues flapping, even one as small as the one Walton brought back to town, and it's only a matter of time before someone takes notice. For his own part, Walton is still trying to figure out just what happened out there in the wild... and if he might be able to do it again.

A couple things I'm still debating on:
*The name. I picked 'Walton' as something vaguely fantasy-human-ish, but it *is* a real-world name, too, so I may want something more fantasy-ish. I want it to be clearly a human name, though.
*He's going to start out with a level of Ranger, and I checked and the Wild Talent feat just gives a couple of Power Points. I'll probably still have him start with the feat, and just say that he won't be able to reproduce his sprouting-claws feat until second level when he actually becomes a Psychic Warrior.

Let me know if there are any issues with his background.

...I guess I shouldn't have bothered making an alias if we're not going to be playing on the Paizo boards. Oh, well. I'll just have to post fewer than ten things using it so I can repurpose the alias later.


Her profile. Editing now


a very initial draft of:

Shane (aka Shaney, aka Shiney)

A Sailor/Rogue/Swashbuckler, just starting his journey in life.:

Appearance:
Slim halfelf, youthful, good looking and athletic

Personality
Usually of cheerful and boisterous disposition, honest, honourable, enthusiastic and prone to showing off
Carries a grudge against those of wealth and influence, and is currently considering a middle road between honesty and piracy, namely smuggling through Shadowshore

Background
Born of fisherfolk, Shane grew up in the Azure district, just another kid with a desire to get out of the slums and earn some money and position that would suit his worldly ambitions (which were never high, but given his starting point, any movement at all was likely to be upwards). Along with the rest of the kids, he ran in the streets, earning whatever he could, stealing when necessary (although only as a last resort), helping out around the boats whenever a coin was possible, learning to fight where necessary and to talk his way out of trouble when he could get away with it.

Over the years, he crewed on a number of small boats as a simple sailor and fisherman, starting with the smaller fishing boats such as his father’s (a desperate and hardworking life which he loathed with a passion) and rapidly moving onto whaling and then trading ships, running the yards, climbing the lines, and developing a love of the sea, which, given that he knew little of anything else, was just as well. In the process he occasionally worked as a leading hand or second mate, but never quite making it to first mate or bosun.

It was on one of the trading trips, sailing between Sasserine and ???, that the ship was ambushed by 2 smaller shiploads of pirates. Most of the crew were killed in the capture, leaving Shane and 2 others wounded and knocked unconscious in the battle, plus the captain and his daughter (on board for this trip) who were captured and held for ransom. The 3 surviving sailors were given the option of joining the pirate crew or death, and all were offloaded to a small schooner for the ransom to be arranged while the rest of the pirates sailed their prize, plus its cargo, away.

During the night, Shane managed to wiggle free of his ropes and, after freeing the other 2 surviving crewmembers, crept out and slaughtered the pirate crew while they slept (while dishonourable, they all agreed that it was probably the best option). Shane managed to kill the pirate captain in single combat (admittedly he was a very poor excuse for a pirate, being only capable of captaining a small ship, and was still half-asleep when Shane’s cutlass took away his hand, and then half his head). After freeing the trading ship’s captain and daughter, Shane took command of the ship and sailed it back to Sasserine.

Unfortunately, on their arrival, the trader captain immediately claimed the captured schooner as partial recompense for his pirated trading vessel, and Shane had no influential support for his own claims of ownership due to capturing (freeing) the ship from its previous owners, and so the ship was “returned” to its new owner, leaving Shane back on the docks once more, moderately rewarded for freeing the trader, but otherwise looking for a new opportunity, and with a slight grudge against the nobility. Not enough to hate or shun them completely (after all, they do usually have the coin to pay), but enough to distrust them, and take an excessive glee if he manages to put one over on them.


Seth86 wrote:

@GM

Warmage doesnt have starting gold value... what do i do in this case?
Take fighter? Cleric?

Since a warmage needs armor/weapons/shield i doubt it will be sorc/wiz starting

Based on the starting equipment package for the Warmage in Complete Arcane, start with 70+1d10gp


will you allow dragon magic just going to use it for eldritch glaive for a for a eldritch disciple


This is a character I made for a Savage Tide campaign years ago that wound up never happening. I elaborated some details and updated him for this campaign. However, he is a binder from the Pact Magic section of "Tome of Magic." Would you consider allowing that class? (It's the most balanced in that book.) I just love how the class drips with interesting flavor. If you need more info on the class, let me know. If you do not want to allow it, that's fine, I can come up with another concept. Thank you for your consideration!

Tomar Dunadrien
Noble District, associated with the Seekers
Male Human Binder

BACKGROUND:

The Dunadriens are a noble family that arrived in Sasserine shortly after the overthrow of the Sea Princes. Renn and Esme Dunadrein were scholars and infrequent adventurers from the North, who wished to retire in the newly revealed city of Sasserine with their young son, Tomar. They found a natural fit with the Seekers and possessed enough wealth to settle in as a minor noble family. In the years since, they have been a quiet family, with Tomar studying at Thenalar Academy, and his parents proving some value as scholars of particularly obscure and esoteric mysteries. So it has continued for several years, with Tomar doing moderately well in his studies and his parents being moderately beneficial to the Seekers' quest for knowledge. Overall, they are a moderately uninteresting family of middling status in a city large enough to scarcely notice them - which is exactly how they wish to be perceived.

Because the Dunadriens have a deep and terrible secret.

They did not recently arrive in Sasserine, but are actually the current members of a very old noble family whose original name was stricken from the city's records centuries ago. The Dunadriens are the remnants of a long line of pact magic binders. They have passed down the ancient practice of offering their souls up as vessels for vestiges - beings that exist outside of reality itself. The practice is shunned by most major religions as blasphemous (either for claiming the existence of beings outside the influence of the gods, or for making pacts with beings that have been cast out of reality by the gods - depending upon the theology involved).

Several times throughout Sasserine's history, these pact magic practitioners have been forced to hide themselves or face extermination. The most recent time began with the arrival of the Sea Princes, which lead to the surviving family members spending generations hiding within the Shadowshore and Merchant Districts under the guise of a couple different families over time. Now, with the Sea Princes driven off, the Dunadriens have created a new name, a false story of their arrival, and are trying to re-emerge into noble society.

Tomar knows very little about his true ancestry. There are whispers of being descendants of someone that now exists as the vestige Dantalion, although that being is still beyond Tomar's understanding. There are also vague memories from early childhood of a grandfather - stern and knowledgeable about so many great mysteries. Tomar also remembers him as profoundly twisted in appearance and somedays scarcely human. His scant memories of Grandfather end one night when Tomar was woken by screams and crashing sounds in the basement. Tomar laid terrified in bed until his parents came in. With their hands still bloody, they grabbed the young boy and said it was time to move to a new home and a new name.

"Is Grandfather coming with us?"

"No, Grandfather wasn't careful. He tried to find an answer where he should never have looked. We will not speak of him again."

Every time Tomar asked about his grandfather after that, his parents calmly told him that he never knew his grandparents and they all died before he was born. Tomar doesn't even know if the man was his paternal or maternal grandfather, or even his name. Tomar was so young that even now he doesn't even remember if his own birth name before then was Tomar or something else entirely.

Now with the Sea Princes gone and great change occurring in Sasserine, his parents felt the time was right to rejoin noble society, and especially the Seekers and their resources. They secretly hope there are other signs of distant relations or other pact magic binders in or near Sasserine, although they fear they may be the last within the city. If nothing else, the records of the Seekers may contain information on new and more powerful vestiges that they can contact.

PERSONALITY:

Tomar can be quite friendly and easy-going, but this is simply a mask. It is a skill that he has learned growing up in hiding and living a lie. Underneath, Tomar is paranoid and confused, but he knows his survival may depend on hiding those feelings from others, and even himself.

He knows that that pact magic his family practices is taboo, and must be kept as secret as possible. However, he does not know who he needs to keep the secret from, and consequently worries that every city guard might be watching him, or priests walking by might have magical abilities to detect a vestige within him. Furthermore, from his studies of pact magic as well as other ancient forbidden knowledge, Tomar knows that this world is just the polish on the surface of unimaginable power and unknowable beings existing in impossible places. His biggest weakness in keeping up his facade is when he gets comfortable with others, he can easily slip into rambling about the great unknown lurking all around and within them, and leave others his age feeling disconcerted around him. But he finds these mysteries fascinating and underneath all of the deception and paranoia, he is basically an extremely curious person about what lies between realities.

So he keeps a smile on his face (but not too big of a smile), says hi to his neighbors (but doesn't ask about their day for fear they might inquire about his), and generally tries to be as ordinary as possible while seeing a reality that is impossibly far from ordinary.

RECENT INCIDENT:

For the past 10 years, life had been going well, and the Dunadriens felt they had re-integrated into society quite well. That changed when they found a simple note on their door one morning claiming "I know your secret" and demanding a sum of 1000 gp to keep from revealing the secret. Tomar's father Renn, claimed it was a hoax. "Likely every family in this district has some secret they don't want revealed. Make a vague claim on a random nice home, and you will eventually get someone panicked enough to pay. It's best just ignored."

Tomar's mother, Esme, took the threat seriously, however. After almost 10 years rebuilding their reputation, she did not want to see it crumble. So one night she had Tomar accompany her to the Shadowshore District near where they once lived when he was young. She asked him to keep watch while she met a rather shifty looking man behind a tavern. Tomar thought he looked familiar and may have been welcomed in their home on a few occasions in his youth. However, he was shocked when his mother and the man began to argue, and when the man reached for a knife at his belt, Tomar's mother killed him with an attack so quick, Tomar stood frozen trying to comprehend what just happened.

Esme then grabbed Tomar and began to hurry away, but unfortunately ran into the bartender escorting a drunk traveler into the alley for a quiet place to sleep off his inebriation. Panicked, Esme said that man tried to attack them, but Tomar managed to fight him off and save his poor, weary mother. Not knowing what else to do, Tomar played along. His mother spun a tale (of sufficient detail to appease without enough to detail to warrant corroboration) about seeking to find a shipment that arrived late and then becoming lost before being set upon by the man. The local city guard properly admonished them for traveling in the district after dark but congratulated the boy on saving his mother and sent them on their way.

His mother refuses to discuss the incident, and Tomar, again, is left wondering what really happened and why. He does not know if the shifty man left the message or if the argument was about another matter and the note was a hoax as his father claims. Either way, Tomar knows that asking his parents will not get him any answers.

FUTURE:

Tomar is someone who has actually done very little. Most of his life he has had things happen *to* him, rather than actually doing anything himself. In the campaign, he will make the interesting transition to attempting to take control of his life and actually doing things and seeking answers rather than letting events simply happen to him.

Also, although the "family secret" is an important part of his background and could easily play a role in the campaign, I know secrets rarely work well between characters. Once he feels comfortable with the rest of the party (which shouldn't take long if he doesn't scare them off), he will "out" himself very early on rather than trying to hide it from the other characters for long.


1d10 ⇒ 8 78gp

Mammoth Leather Armor 45gp
Rapier 20gp
Light Steel Shield 6gp
Backpack
Bedroll
Canteen
Whetsone
Signal Whistle
Chalk
Soap


Her equipment (Official, added to sheet):
Light steel shield,
Rapier,
Hide Shirt
Backpack,
Bedroll,
Chalk x9,
Entertainer's Outfit (Free),
Flask x2,
Soap,
Spell component pouch;
Money 7sp 5cp


I hate having to tell good players no, but the game has now been filled, pending acceptances. There were a number of good concepts that just fell victim to the number of applicants. In the case of the seemingly inevitable player turnover, or someone backs out, I will ping those that didn't make the final roster to see if they would like to join at that point.

Here is the final roster:
Player Character Race Class
Nonny/Reyth Reyth Female Human Sorcerer (Draconic)
Seth86 Erin Female Allurin Warmage
WarTortoise Tidal Male Human Barbarian
Fitzroy95 Shane Male Half-Elf Rogue/Swashbuckler
Jewdabega Tybalt Fishbones Male Human Cleric
Almonihah Walton Pere Male Half-Orc Ranger/Psychic Warrior
Morbis Meh Jynx Female Whisper Gnome Sagesword

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