GM Parrot's The Ferry and the Depths: Rappan Athuk (Inactive)

Game Master parrot familiar

markofbane: Tragershen (Diviner Wizard)
Lazyclownfish: Chases Moonlight (Lunar Oracle)
Groundhog: Hakram (Warpriest of Iomedae)
pinvendor: Ranger, possibly Trapper
LadyGrayRose: Cleric of Nethys
wanderer82: Unchained Rogue

Potent looking party.

Do you want to roll HD after level one, or take average rounded up? I'm inclined toward the latter but if you're a gambling type, by all means.

Background skills are fun. I love Lore and Artistry. Personally I think some of the skills rolled into Background Skills are pretty darn good to be flavor, but I'm feeling generous. Let's do it.

For those who may not have a rank Lore:Pathfinder, Background Skills .

Dex to damage is hard to get, and I'm pretty ok with that (and one relatively successful RA character of mine is a dex-to-damage Daring Champion/Cleric). While I don't want to adopt the feat tax revision, I'm also into people getting cool toys as long as the party stays balanced.

Good point on Dervish Dance, Groundhog. Background skills lower the tax on that, too.

LadyGrayRose: clerics of Nethys are rad!

As soon as everyone has a character concept ready, we can start!

Sorry I haven't gotten my PC up yet. I'll try to get it soonish.

Half rounded-up sounds like a safe bet to me!

Just rounding out equipment now; Since we're starting at level 2 will we be using WBL for level 2 or the stated average starting wealth for level 1?

WBL for 2 makes the most sense to me.

Also, no worries Pinvendor--considering how recently I joined this endeavor things are humming along as quite a fast pace.

I'm eager to hearing more about your motivations, and whether you'll manage a shared background. If not, that's ok--you'll just find yourselves on a boat together, each with their own reasons for being aboard.

This is the preliminary build for Chases Moonlight and her wolf companion, Bites Ears. I'm using a re-purposed alias so ignore the first 2 posts :)

I still have to finish up gear and write up a background/appearance section.

I'm open to suggestions if anyone thinks I should change the build at all.

Do you guys think it's important to create a second alias for the wolf?

As for shared background, my character could easily have been drawn to someone specific by the spirits that surround her.

*looks at saves* Ahem... I AM A GOD!

Aurora is a wandering priestess of Nethys who moves from place to place and town to town in search of greater knowledge and arcana; she's interested in being hands-on in her studies and acquisitions, as opposed to locking herself up in a library to study or a laboraty to craft. I'm certainly willing to work with my fellow deathseeking schmucks on tying together character backgrounds~

This is a really cool feat option for characters who worship Nethys.

Also, I think Nethys has one of the better Divine Obediences. Did you look at this archetype?

The evangelist boons can get you fly or mirror image as a cleric. :P

For the list of boons and other Nethys-specific options, you can check here.

You automatically get some extra spells on your spell list that might be useful.

Ah shoot, got busy and forgot to check on this.... have fun!

Ah shoot, got busy and forgot to check on this.... have fun!

I'll PM you if we ever need someone to fill a gap!

This is a really cool feat option for characters who worship Nethys.

Also, I think Nethys has one of the better Divine Obediences. Did you look at this archetype?

The evangelist boons can get you fly or mirror image as a cleric. :P

For the list of boons and other Nethys-specific options, you can check here.

You automatically get some extra spells on your spell list that might be useful.

Lazyclownfish is in love with Nethys, confirmed.

Divine Paragon is certainly a nice archetype, but it doesn't quite fit with my image of this cleric... and I like my free resistance bonus from the Protection domain.

Magical Epiphany is a neat feat though! It might just be worth either swapping something out for or taking at level 3 (if she makes it to level 3.)

On that cool Magical Epiphany feat: you might consider it (or something else) because I'm not sure that Versatile Channel will work until you hit level 3. Some controversy on this on the rules forums. I wouldn't mind you channeling neg as a "cleric of your level -2 (houserule minimum 1)" if you'd like, though.

I have Tragershen as a follower of Nethys too! I am still debating switching out for the Magic is Life trait. A bonus on death effects may be handy. And, assuming he survives a few levels, I was thinking about crafting items with sacred bonuses. I'll have to consider Magical Epiphany for a later level; how have I not seen that before now?!?

LadyGrayRose, let me know if a wandering wizard would figure into your background. I have him as having left Kyonin because he was a little too willing to be 'edgy' when it came to ways of gathering lore and power.

GM, would you be good with Tragershen scribing scrolls with some of his starting wealth before we get rolling?

Oh, Clownfish, you asked about an alias for Bites Ears a while back. I can go either way or both ways there--I'm running a druid right now, and have aliases for both him and his camel. But when Cammy is not doing much, I sometimes combine their posts to save the fiddling.

More importantly--how should we do initiative for the two of you? In that game they both roll, but the first automatically delays to the second and they always act together. Makes them a little slow, but saves having to take two turns separated by other folks.

Yup, I imagine that Tragershen's ability to scribe scrolls will be extremely useful. And maybe he and Aurora know each other.

Maybe Nethys has sent a message via a strange oscillation in a phase of the moon, calling the chosen to attend to the deep magic of Rappan Athuk? And only Tragershen and Aurora Fallowarc both noticed and were bold (or foolish) enough to investigate... except for a woman from the tribes, who happened to intercept the message while moongazing. They find each other when trying to put together an expedition, and choose to combine forces. It's exhilarating to find someone else who believes your lunatic theory, so imagine how happy the cleric and wizard were to find something of an outside source 'confirming' that they did indeed see something that cold, clear night--a feeling mirrored by Chases Moonlight.

As the expedition is fitted out, the Nethysians advertise for experienced thieves, trackers, warriors, mages and whatnot, managing to reel in a few with their tall tales and promises of power and treasure. An Iroran Warpriest catches wind of the operation and decides this a good chance to crush evil, and perhaps sees a good chance to keep an eye on a few powerful people who look vulnerable to temptation. Others respond as well. These are the remaining characters, though by all means work yourselves in elsewhere if you want--the remaining characters could be friends of Chases, other followers of Nethys, maybe someone else who noticed the mooncall, or just someone with their own reasons to loiter around the docks waiting for a ship to The Ferry.

They wait, and they wait. Nobody sails to Rivenrake Island. But as the weeks pass, finally, the rumor reaches them of a ship heading to Zelkor's Ferry. They book a passage west from Riddleport on the Laughing Dolphin. Most of the people on board seem to be running away from something. These six, though, seem to be searching...

Something like that? Eh? Feel free to suggest changes!

I don't mind doing it however you want. We could simplify it further and I could just roll once with the lowest modifier and have both act then. I also don't mind having them both act independently. Whatever you want to do.

The wolf has combat reflexes so he'll be able to defend even if he's delaying.

The background stuff seems good to me. Chases Moonlight is primitive and probably strange to the others, but is surprisingly comfortable around foreign people.

Spazmodeus wrote:

Ah shoot, got busy and forgot to check on this.... have fun!

I'll PM you if we ever need someone to fill a gap!

Sounds good!

I'll swap out Versatile Channeling for Magical Epiphany; it'll be really good for those spells you didn't know you needed... until you suddenly need them and soon.

I quite like Parrot's idea for how the group came together.

@Tragershen: I could see Aurora having met Tragershen some time after he left Kyonin and grouping up with him; the more Nethysians to travel together is the better, in Aurora's book, and less likely to run into trouble they can't beat up~

I could see Hakram having followed a vision to "help the followers of the two-faced one", or something similar.

He might even have gotten a little annoying, if the group wasn't looking for company at the time.

Hahaha, damn, I have wandered down the rabbit's hole of endless builds - a rogue(unchained) 2, a bard(archaeologist) 2, and a rogue(unchained) 1 / bard(archaeologist) 1. Good thing is, my first character will likely die. Soooo, I will go rogue 2. Will have it posted shortly.

I know that feeling - Hakram has gone through iterations of Dwarven Barbarianship, Fighterhood, and even a brief stint as a potential paladin.

I like that you folks seem to enjoy the simple pleasures of character creation! That really helps in Rappan Athuk. I'm only half-joking. Personally, I found it exciting to work through the backlog of builds I'd let pile up.

The party begins to take shape... perhaps this weekend will be a good time to launch?

Yeah, I'm going to try and get my stuff put together tonight hopefully.

Great! If Wanderer can do the same, we'll launch either overnight or tomorrow morning.

Get excited for a world of fearsome monsters, devious traps, absurd random encounter tables, fabulous treasures, and terrible dangers... and the sandbox-y social-economic world of the village and its environs!

Ok I finished gear and filled out an appearance/personality section. I may get time to do a quick background tomorrow but I either way, I should be ready to start!

Lookin' good! I look forward to having the (REDACTED) you meet in (REDACTED) assume that Chases Moonlight and Tragershen are siblings due to their superficial resemblance.

And Pins, Wander: If you want, we can start the story while you finish up the crunch. If you send along names and general info about your characters, I'll ship you over and you all can do the in-character pre-quest stuff.

Ok, think Trapper Joden is finished. Here's the crunch for now, but I was toying with adding either the Deep Walker or Dungeon Rover to his kit but want to ask for everyone's opinion on which. Since they both replace Woodland Stride, I have to choose only one. :(

Alright! With Trapper Joden in the fold, we're just waiting for Wanderer's rogue. I might put a first post on the game thread soon so characters that want to can start bantering.

Since both options that replace Woodland Stride are more or less the same ability, I'd be OK with you creating a mega-dungeoneer triple-archetyped ranger using your choice of Rock Hopper or Subterranean Stride.

I will go with Rock Hopper then! Thank you! Hopefully he lives long enough to even make the choice useful, lol.

Couldn't contain myself any longer--first post is up!

I've been listening to Brother Dege a bit lately. Great song!

Stumbled across the artist and the song on a YouTube playlist a few days ago and was very glad to have such a perfect theme song for the first leg of the quest--he seems pretty great.

Is it too late for me to join?

@Yas: I think we have a full complement of six characters, with one alternate already ahead of you in line. If you want, you can be second on the list of people I'll contact if someone has to drop out.

Hakram does not like ships. He's usually nicer than this though.

So apparently I left this post in "preview" on my desktop since Saturday morning, never actually submitting it. As such, my apologies for the delay. Without further ado....

This is Wanderer82's submission, the street urchin, pickpocket, and grifter Brand Hornblower (halfling unchained rogue 2).

Welcome aboard, Mr. Hornblower! See you on deck!

Pardon me, but for clarification, are we starting with the hit dice from both levels at max, taking average for 2nd, or rolling for 2nd level?

To clarify, we are still at the docks at I assume around dawn? Is the moon still visible at all?

Pardon me, but for clarification, are we starting with the hit dice from both levels at max, taking average for 2nd, or rolling for 2nd level?

I seem to remember we were given the option of rolling or taking average rounded up for level 2 and beyond.

If you choose to roll for your hit dice, you may--just roll 'em out here on the forum (if you rolled at home for level 2, that's ok).

It might just be easier to take average, though.

If you have dockside business to attend to, go ahead and describe it, but I'd already launched us.

As for the moon, it'll be out later this afternoon, around 4 PM, hopefully about when you arrive at Zelkor's Ferry. It's a waning crescent. I'm (arbitrarily) going to tie our moonrise and set to January 1, 2018, Seattle--moving forward will advance the moon from that date.

Okay, I will cast the die for level 2. 1d8 ⇒ 6

Despite my better judgement considering the expectation of death, I find myself musing as to the background of an Underground Ranger. I feel like I've come up with some pretty good stuff especially banking on the lore of Golarion in regards to Earthfall, the moon's history, and the dwarven Quest for Sky. So pending a possible collaboration, I will get some of that written up a bit later.

Joden: that backstory sounds awesome!

One short story on character death interfering with beautiful backstories:

In my deadliest delve into Rappan Athuk, I had success linking character backstories of replacements to those of the recently fallen. So, a wizard who was searching for money to cure a sister's illness died before succeeding. But his now-plauge-witch sister showed up as my next character, on a quest for 1. the wizard's body (lost in the all-but TPK) and 2. enough money for a Resurrection.

The GM was going to allow my witch to take Leadership with the wizard if she ever succeeded in her quest (after all, dumping so much WBL into a resurrection for what had become an NPC deserved a reward). Alas, the campaign flamed out long before that point, but I'm SO into that kind of backstory-campaign interaction.

If I cast light on my earth breaker, does it emanate from the entire thing or from a specific point on it?

I ask because I'd like to be able to cover the light with a hand.

I'll just have her use a stone if that doesn't work.

Seems reasonable to expect some little dangly bit or inlaid gem or something that is separate enough to cast Light on. I imagine such would be very common in a magical world.

Ok cool. I'll describe that in my next post.

I very much like the way you described for running initiative.

Thanks, a fellow gamer in a different campaign suggested it, and it's the best method I've seen so far!