I’m recruiting up to 2 tables worth of PCs for a non-Golarion Pathfinder campaign I’ve been working on for several months. The world is very loosely defined, in part because I’m still considering attempting to publish the campaign at some point in the future, and want it to be relatively easy to fit into any world.
I’m seeing this as a preliminary interest check, that will become a recruitment. Please read the following and let me know what questions you have (ie I know I’ll probably need to provide more details on the setting, but didn’t want to do a complete wall of text until I see what aspects people want to hear about).
The campaign is set primarily within a border province that’s traded hands repeatedly between two kingdoms. As written, the campaign tends to keep the PCs within the confines, however, I’m feeling more interested in just letting things flow -- ideally my planned story would still be a central theme, but open for extensive character driven side quests to journey far and wide if that’s desired. If we leave the border province, I would expect there to be a great deal of collaborative world building. If I get two tables, I will likely try to incorporate ideas from both into the world. (ie shared world, alternate timelines)
The primary kingdom, Wodmarch, is fairly standard medieval realm with faux-Germanic naming. Their key adversary to the north is Lochlannach, a fairly standard viking themed kingdom. The border region is known as the Voyllr Plains. To the east, is generally unexplored wilderness. The west and south are open for player definition. Directly south is the dissolving remains of an ancient empire; Wodmarch used to be the northernmost province and is now an independent kingdom. Most of the “nearby” lands should be under-populated,under-settled. This might be the beginning of a dark age for this area of the world
Magic is relatively uncommon in Wodmarch and Lochlannach -- you can expect a court wizard or equivalent, a famous wizard-sage-recluse or two, but in general you won’t find magic stores or arcane casters as routine features. Crafting will be encouraged, but might (probably) require a quest or two to unlock.
The campaign starts with the PCs summoned to meet King Oleg of Wodmarch to be rewarded for their actions during the recently concluded war. PC will be 1st level (but with 1000XP) your back story should include how your character affected the outcome of the war (please try to make it fit within the 1000xp budget). Most of you should be seen as popular or idolized heroes of the realm, by the common folk, though if you want to be less well known I can work with that. King Oleg was crowned during the final stages of the war, after the war-death of his father and older brother/crown prince -- both of whom were well known and loved throughout the country.
1) 1 post/day weekday requirement. Hope to still see 1/day over the weekends, but no need to pre-clear/announce slow weekends. I tend to post multiple times a day (morning, lunch, evening) as the GM if there are questions/followups needed for people, but I try to wait either for all party members to chime in, or ~24 hour before moving plot along or bot-ing in a major way.
2) I’ll use roll20 for complicated battles and obsidian portal for the wiki/world building.
3) Expect Downtime & Kingdom Building (but probably not hexploration), Mythic is unlikely -- though I could see Tiers 1-3 coming into play for a limited time and then draining away.
0) Character concept is all that’s required not full build!
1) Sources
A) Core Paizo content is greatly preferred (by Core Paizo I mean OGL, non-Golarion specific)
B) Re-fluffing Golarion-specific content is allowed. Please identify the source when you do so, in general the more different the better.
C) Splat books that aren’t as intrinsically Golarion specific (Blood of Angels, etc) are fine.
2) When it comes time for a full build (only saying this now to help people understand the races/classes allowed, please don’t do a full build right away, unless you want to)
A) 20 point
B) Races: Core + Aasimar/Tiefling.
C) Classes: Paizo only. No playtest content, no gunslinger (gunpowder is unknown).
D) 2x Max starting wealth (given that you’re halfway through level 1) -- no wealth increasing traits.
E) Two traits (or three with a drawback) There’s no campaign trait requirement (but you’re free to take and refluff any (I might regret this) AP campaign trait).
F) I also might regret this, but I’ll entertain evil alignments. I like PCs to be heroic, not villainous. but if you can sell me on the character concept, and I don’t think you’d destroy the party/derail everything I’ll give you consideration.
3) Character Concept (not a full build) is all that’s needed to apply-- race, class, backstory.
A) In your backstory, if you’re from outside Wodmarch/Lochlannach/Voyllr Plains, be as creative as you like. No promises that we’ll ever visit there, but its possible. Respect the race/class restriction listed above. You don’t need to respect the “rare” magic property of the region if you’re creating a more distant land.
B) For deities, create your own, or pull from practically any source. Generally speaking the structure of the church and how they are viewed is apt to be different than their original source (I’ll generally respect your fluff on this if you provide it, or I’ll generally a quick version)
A little more background:
The party will be rapidly sent to pacify/improve the conquered province (Voyllr plains). The Voyllr plains are superficially prime real estate. Great sources of lumber, mines, a lake, and navigable rivers. However that's led to the province being fought over extensively and the primary settlement Daelsend has been razed more times than people care to remember. No one uses the word "cursed" but its never far from some persistent settler's minds.
The party's fame concerns the newly crowned king. He knows he's a second choice king to his dead brother and fears the popularity of the heroes. He grants them stewardship over the province to get them out of sight of the people, and set to lucrative, yet historically risky, task.
The central themes of the campaign are discovering the history of this region and attempting to make it as productive as it seems it should be.
Hm... As of now, I'm considering making a cavalier based off of Irish light cavalry. He'd be from a foreign land (probably as a human or halfling), and would be lightly armored and equipped with a sword, lance and javelins. ...And his horse would have no armor or saddle, of course.
Alternatively, I may just make a character based off the Gallowglass/Kern instead: A footsoldier of some sort, probably trained for military combat more than adventuring. The Tactician archetype stands out for this purpose (as does the Halfling race)...
My concept for such a character right now is a young nobleman with a lot of older brothers. He's been trained and bred for war, but doesn't like his chances of inheriting his father's lands; so, he's decided to go out into the world and seek adventure, fortune and glory so he can found his own house.
I would be most definitely interested in this campaign. I'll have to give a little thought to my concept but the setup sounds great!
Very interested. For some reason, my first character concept that popped into my head is based off of the Spartans from 300. I know it's not historically accurate, but I've always wanted to build one. If I decide to build this, I'll probably go Half-Orc.
the primary settlement Daelsend has been razed more times than people care to remember.
When I read this, I couldn't help but hear Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon: "Old village, lots and lots of new buildings."
EDIT: Oh, by the way, your comment on questing for crafting components made me wonder. Are you planning on using the Talismanic Components variant from the Ultimate Campaign? Also, Leadership feat, yay or nay?
Homebrews make me happy, consider this an expression of interest!
Gonna go for a Half-orc Samuri out of the west. I will teach honor to these lands!
Character: Ong'rag, Half-Orc Samurai. LN
The Iron Empire is embroiled in constant warfare over resources, land and honor. Mighty warrior clans are led by warlords into battle. The strongest of these is declared the Shogun and is Warlord over all and would unite the different armies against an outside force if nessecary.
Ong'Rag has been sent east by the Shogun to see about expanding the territory and if the lands east are ripe for a conquest from the heart of the empire.
Traveling alone and finding himself in a wartorn land, Ong'Rag stumbled upon a caravan of settlers beset by bandits, after dispatching them all, he took a small reward of valubles and food offered by the grateful folks and continued on his journey.
To answer the direct questions:
Re: Talismanic Components for crafting: its one of the options I've been looking at. I generally like the idea, but I don't want to cripple crafting completely. Was primaryily leaning towards a) having a quest reward (fairly early, but not immediately) give out an ancient tome that teaches basic crafting (unlocks crafting of things more complicated than potions/scrolls) and then Talismanic -- however not requiring talismanic -- using components would be worth twice their value towards construction costs -- so there would be an advantage to seeking out components, but you aren't limited to what you find of forced to grind for ingredients.
Leadership feat will be allowed. If it becomes abusive we'll work something out. (Same thing applies to crazy summoner builds)
All the character concepts mentioned so far are definitely things I can work with.
More background on the war & its effects:
Most of Wodmarch is on a massive wooden plateau. The western and northern areas have tall steep cliffs, while the southern and eastern edges taper and have a more gradual drop off. Its rich in wood, and has ample mines, however the land is not the best farmland.
The Voyllr plains are north of the plateau -- sandwiched between the cliff face and the Northern Mountain range. The Eagle river flows through the plains (mainly flowing east to west), the western end opens into a salt water sea. The Eagle river flows around the plateau and continues far to south below Wodmarch -- its a major trading river (think Amazon or MIssissippi in scope). A tributary flows from the capitol of Wodmarch down to the Eagle river. Its a long, long path, but the easiest way to move cargo up or down stream. There are a series of cranes and switchbacks to take a more direct route from the port to the capital, but its only used for small, light goods.
Wodmarch reclaimed the Voyllr plains about 40 years ago. Prince Henrik, a cousin of King Oleg journeyed to Daelsend, the one settlement of note in the Voyllr plains, on the shores of Stilllake, and began to rebuild the small settlement into a merchanter's dream. Large warehouses, docks, offices for factors, etc. Trade increased and the town flourished.
The war broke out seven years ago. It started with Lochlannach yougnlings raiding across the mountains as part of the manhood trials; each clan tried to one-up the others and as the raids increased, Daelsend requested additional guards. Both sides continued to escalate. Swathes of forests were burned, and wells and springs along the mountain roads were poisoned. Eventually all out war broke out. King Johann (Oleg's sire) was beloved of the people and had little trouble continually raising troops; he spent freely of the kingdoms funds.
Last year General Öjvind of Lochlannach conquered Daelsend, razed it, and sent Prince Henrick back to King Johann (Oleg's sire) in pieces. This was the last straw for Johann; he rallied a huge army, near bankrupting the royal treasury (and pulling so many people from the fields that the harvest was in danger). The army rolled forth, retook Daelsend, but both the king and crown prince Franco were killed in the assault.
The Lochlannacians took advantage of the lack of leadership and retook Daelsend. Newly crowned King Oleg, was able to reach the front quickly and rallied the troops to avenge their king. FInally succeeding in driving the Lochlanniacians from the land. Neither land has the resources to pursue the war further and an uneasy peace has broken out.
Because it's rarely listed beforehand: Are templates acceptable?
Aside from that, I'm liking what I've seen so far. ^^ I'm not entirely sure what I want to play, but I'm leaning towards something like a druid who wants to be sure that the lands are used and managed responsibly, rather than razed to the ground. Unless I can play a ghost, anyway, but that miiiight be a little unfair for a campaign starting at a lower level. XD
I think I need to say no to templates.
Under my command, maybe :)
One last thought came to mind: I may try playing the same sort of character background described above, but as a caster instead. Namely, the son of the nobleman with a big family may be a Wizard, Witch or Bard. He'd have taken up the study of magic because there was simply no possibility of gaining land.
Hm... Bard actually would be really fun for that. Specifically, Arcane Duelist would be really fun. Martial capability + some magic, and a high Charisma would be a thing to boot... I'd probably go for the Leadership feat as well whether I choose Cavalier or Bard.
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When I first read your description of the world, what popped into my head was classic fairy tale. So without further ado.
Willows mother an elven witch, who runs an herbalism/potion shop on the outskirts of wodmarch, She never speaks of her father, other than to discuss his blood had power in it and this power flows in her veins. Before her birth her mother entered into a contract with a powerful fey creature named Lea( a leaning sidhe) to serve as Willows fairy godmother. She has both the right and obligation to see to her training and fully realize the power in her blood.
Fallen_Mage here, and this is my submission:
Jason Argus was born to a family of settlers sent from Pastar, a splinter kingdom from the once great empire to the south. Pastar was once renowned for its nearly unstoppable warriors that fought with nothing but spear, shield and sometimes sword. Over the past few decades however, the kingdom has been in decline. To keep its culture alive, the Pastar King sent groups of settlers to distant lands; perhaps there they would live on.
Growing up in the settlement was not so bad, partially due to the fact that his human father was a retired Captain of the Royal Guard. His mother was a voluptuous Orc from one of the nearby tribes the settlers had brokered a steady peace with. During his childhood, Jason was taught the ways of war from his father, lessons that he still takes to heart to this day.
When the war broke out, Jason felt it was his right of passage to be baptized in the fires of combat. With his parents blessing, the young Orc set off to join the war against the Lochlannacians. In the battles that followed, Jason didn’t see much, because his commander kept assigning him to guard duty. Then one night, their came a raid on the camp, and Jason proved himself an exceptional warrior. Ten of the Lochlannacian raiders were heading to the medical tent, when the Half-Orc intercepted them. With flawless precision, he quickly dispatched the raiders and kept the medical tent safe. The Commander, who was nursing an arrow wound from earlier that day, saw Jason’s prowess from inside the tent and came to the realization of how valuable this young warrior was. Since that night, he has been proclaimed quite the hero among his fellow soldiers.
Willem von Doggenbúrg, is heir to the von Doggenbúrg cadet branch of the royal line. Sadly the Doggenbúrg's have fallen on hard times and are now upper middle class purely by virtue of their name. In ancient times the family held dominion over the Voyllir plains, but the lands were granted to another family after having been lost and regained a few times. The family has high hopes for Willem, who has shown an aptitude for learning and magic. After years of training, further depleting the family coffers. Willem is now an accomplished wizard, and plans to reverse his family's fortunes.
When the war broke out the head of house Dietrich von Doggenbúrg, Willem's father, volunteered Willem for the kings guard. Due Willem's gift for support magic, and despite his high born station, he was put in a position of support with some of the kings elite troops. While not a position of command Willem, set to the task setting his allies up for one of the war's more memorable moment's when a large brute received a hefty enhancement which turned the tide in the skirmish when prince Franco fell, allowing his body to be recovered.
Here's my current list of whose expressed interest, please let me know if I missed you or mis-summarized your concept:
Inlaa -- Light Cav or bard from foreign land, Irish feel
Rysky -- Antipaladin of war/vengeance/nihilism
Liandri El'Shuwadh -- Tiefling Magus or Aasimir Inquisitor
Jason Argus (Fallen Mage) -- Spartan-esque half-orc
Tin Foil Yamakah -- Half Elf Fey bloodline sorc
Bane 88 (Ong'rag) Half Orc Samurai from the west
Jrcmarine -- Half Orc/Aasimar skirmisher, hatred of humans
Rednal -- druid
Willow Feywind -- elven witch, fairy tale flavor
Willem vo Doggenburg (Kallikrates) -- buffing arcane caster
Barvo -- interest expressed
I'll try to give a more thorough review tonight of the more detailed ones with an eye towards feedback and integrating with the gameworld. We seem to have critical mass so I'll also plan on closing the recruitment window on Friday midnight, EST (GMT-5). I'll aim to announce selection/table assignments by Sunday midnight EST. If you see character concepts that you think gives more interested RP opportunities for what you have in mind, please let me know and I'll keep that in mind when I figure out the two tables.
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Firstly I thanks for posting the extra infomation on the war.
I decided to go with Aasimar inquisitor one quick question would I be ok to go with Garuda blooded?
My idea so far is this:
The result was she was forced to flee the city, hearing of the war in woodmarch she made her way there figuring her skills with the bow and striking at night quietly would come into use until she figured out her next step.
These skills really came to the forefront when she was recruited to raid against camps at night lying about her background claiming she was merely a travelling mercenary with a history of hunting at night. After a string of success and taking command when their commander was mortally wounded she was given the honor of leading the raids. After the war ended she in light of her action was asked to see the king.
Any suggestions to bring it more in line with the campaign would be appreciated if anything particular sticks out.
One concept that I haven't seen that would probably useful is some form of archaeologist/historian/wannabe sage.
I'll admit that I probably haven't seeded that idea in my description so far, but learning the history of this portion of the world (and primarily the more ancient history) will be a key component at times.
There definitely would have been ruins within Wodmarch (and the southern empire), but the southern empire was very diligent in destroying any ruins it found of a previous era, seeking to bolster their claim to an 'eternal empire'. (Also leading to the dearth of magic items in the empire). The closest thing to an archaeologist from these a lands would be someone trained to "predict" or "identify" the location of structures that need to be cleansed.
Outside the lands that had been claimed by the empire would be a number of ancient/decaying structures & dungeons belonging to previous civilizations -- likely haunted by undead and brimming with lost knowledge.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16
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One concept that I haven't seen that would probably useful is some form of archaeologist/historian/wannabe sage.
I'll admit that I probably haven't seeded that idea in my description so far, but learning the history of this portion of the world (and primarily the more ancient history) will be a key component at times.
There definitely would have been ruins within Wodmarch (and the southern empire), but the southern empire was very diligent in destroying any ruins it found of a previous era, seeking to bolster their claim to an 'eternal empire'. (Also leading to the dearth of magic items in the empire). The closest thing to an archaeologist from these a lands would be someone trained to "predict" or "identify" the location of structures that need to be cleansed.
Outside the lands that had been claimed by the empire would be a number of ancient/decaying structures & dungeons belonging to previous civilizations -- likely haunted by undead and brimming with lost knowledge.
I will create my character this evening with a slight modification. I will still be going for ranger but will have a focus on reclaiming and/or preserving the land for its historic value. Maybe go guide archtype.
Still plenty of time. As posted earlier, leaving recruitment open until Friday. Was going to try to get some initial feedback done tonight, but got home late and Words of Radiance just arrived so I think I need to crack that open :)
Yup still room. Just to be 100% clear, I haven't accepted anyone yet. I'll close applications on friday and announce the two tables (of upto 6) on Sunday. So I'll have spots for 12, but its not first come first served.
Quick question: Will you accept a Mythweavers character sheet, or should I be making a new alias for my character?
I'm happy to review the character based on the mythweaver sheet. If accepted, I'd like to have an appropriate alias so that posts in the gameplay thread make sense.
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do you want only one character submission per player? or can I submit several :3
EDIT: also, how much backstory of the concepts do you want?
Concepts- Rogue (ninja) street urchin, taken under the wing of a traveling warrior after getting into trouble. TWF assassin
Duelist (if the swashbuckler class is allowed)-(will fill in later if OKed)
Bard- prideful showboat, good at everything great at nothing, with a dark side! (dirge bard)
list goes on. let me see what others are playing before I continue my rant :3
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ok, so I have 3 main concepts for this. I noticed I can't use ACG sadly, no swashbuckler for me :( ah well.
1- Knight of the Realm, noble, charming, powerful. Lead a counter charge that changed the outcome of a vital battle. Either paladin, cavalier or, well, that's it.
2- Assassin, Ninja,Rogue, worked as a "hitman" on enemy generals, intelligence gather, all around dirty work man. Oddly enough, he has a gentle heart.
3- Bard, spy, singer of poems, held the banner and inspired the men to fight on and win the day, even when all hope seemed lost.
Hm, your mention of a historian type has got me thinking. I do believe I might be submitting a wizard concept sometime soon.
I'll just give the details and setting information a some thought first.
Ok so as I considered my character I had a definite shift of concept.
Rather than a wizard I've been somewhat taken in by the idea of a Mindchemist Alchemist. A sort of caffeine pill popping academic if you will. Heavily concerned with proving his own intelligence to his peers by uncovering hidden/lost knowledge.
He would have a sort of unbalanced/autistic personality and would be focused on bombs for combat.
Let me know what you think!
Sorry for the relative silence today. One of those days at work... Working on feedback for y'all, but probably not until sometime tomorrow, but not feeling like its too critical -- I don't see anything that just plain outright wouldn't work.
Sorry about not posting a complete character concept yet. I have a name and a background already (Amren Ua Alanya, son of a warlord/chief in his homeland), but I'm having trouble deciding between Halfling or Human, ranged or melee, spears or axes, javelins or bows...
What I wanted to do at first was make the character as a Luring Cavalier specializing in javelin tossing (using the Order of the Land), but throwing builds work best with high Strength scores, which means problems at the low levels, so I'd want to go Human... going with a Halfling gets me a Medium mount, meaning I can go into dungeons (and I get a WOLF!), but then I have reduced STR and improved DEX. I could go gnome instead of halfling and enjoy increased CON and Darkvision with an alternate racial trait, but I still suffer from a low STR (4 less than if I made a Human, Half-Orc or Half-Elf) and it doesn't fit as well thematically. And then, of course, I could avoid the difficulty of this whole mess by going melee, but then I don't get the spear-chucker on a horse/wolf...
I'm so tempted to say "screw this" and make a camel-riding elf from a desert kingdom using a composite longbow instead... but Irish halflings with javelins! Or humans, whatever! Gah.
Some meta thoughts if it helps you decide:
The original campaign design was heavy on dungeon crawls; I've been doing what I can to rework that for a better balance, but there's still a modest number of dungeons/caverns to explore, with some prolonged delves. I think the halfling/gnome cavalier concept sounds more unique, and being easily able to keep your mount indoors would be an advantage -- which I think makes up for the lower strength, at least at low levels. And by mid levels hopefully you've found a set of feats/items that likewise works -- I don't want characters to feel like they need to min-max. If you fall behind on how fun the character is to play (because of a drop-off in effectiveness) then we need to be more permissive/creative in other aspects.
The meta-meta, the campaign came into being by wanting to craft an adventure path that made effective use of my dwarven forge terrain collection and effective use of minis from a lot of recent kickstarter. Basically an adventure path where the back matter was tips and tricks for enhancing the gaming experience with props/sounds/etc instead of fiction or setting fluff. But all that disappears in PbP so I'm trying to tweak places where I think I forced things before to fit and let it be more fluid.
I would have to change the build, if accepted, but this is the character I would be interested in playing. Kind of a throw back to the old elf fighter/mage. Believe it or not, this character was not built for this campaign. He's been sitting in limbo for some time now. He is a character I had stared in some short stories I'd written a couple of years ago. His adoptive father is a historian and Faisal has followed in his footsteps, but taken it to the next level. Hope you enjoy the concept.
I'm going to bed, but when I wake up I'm going to post my build. I still have a few choices to make, but it's a throwing-weapon focused character. I'm going on the assumption that thrown weapons that are also Light melee weapons (like the Light Hammer) can have Agile enchantments (which is true) and that the Agile enchantments would thus apply to their damage when they're thrown (which is up to your interpretation), thus allowing me to eventually (once we get moneys) have an effective DEX-based throwing weapon character. I'll be using a Cavalier of the Order of the Land.
Assuming that there's room for one more miscreant I'd like to climb aboard this game as Ulric Ver Niflheim, Half Elven Archaeologist.
He was born to a group of wandering traders that make their pilgrimage up and down the banks of the Eagle river yearly; bartering in all sorts of exotic spices, art, literature and livestock. Being a lad of reasonable intelligence Ulric's mind was set abuzz at a young age by the mystery that shrouded the cultures and peoples he encountered on the road, becoming fond of Swordplay, World History, Art, and Arcane study.
During war time his clan drove far south, fleeing the burning forests and fields of blood. But the seductive call of manhood and adventure seems to have been too much for young Ulric, as he now finds himself striking off northward along the banks of the Eagle River, headed for the bazaar in the Voyllr plains.
Just spitballing a backstory, that fit alright?
I just realized that I didn't upload Jason't crunch. That's fixed now.