Homecoming (Inactive)

Game Master The Wyrm Ouroboros

You'd have to direct me to where the information is. If it's using actual magma (instead of just being a name for it) as a heating element, then there may well be only one.

It is basically just that, a forge that uses magma for its heat source. Also, Dwarf Fortress isn't even a DnD thing with proper information on it (sorry if that wasn't clear).

If they can, they aren't telling anyone - which would include you.

Gotcha, thanks. I guess I'll just fix that one line in the backstory then

ScegfOd, you have my support for our new player. Any DF player can't be all bad.

Sorry I got held up covering the shifts of a guy who quit. Trying to apply to multiple games at once isn't helping either (they are just so intriguing).

I should go back to having time next week. Should.

Sooner would be better than later. If some other game has an application deadline of further along than the 9th or 10th, you might delay theirs in favor of this.

BTW, I noticed a lot of spoiler tags in the gameplay board, does that mean I shouldn't take a peek at any of those?

Nah. That's just how we differentiate what's happening to whom. If you get in, you should probably read at least some of them, so you have an idea what's going on.

Oh yeah I keep forgetting to ask, is militant merchant OK? Apparently it's from pathfinder companion: taldor, echoes of glory.

Here is the character for alicorn sage.

I will be putting in the skills and equipment shortly. I'll still need to organize it in a proper sheet and mark out derived stats, etc, but all the choices involved wil be notated.

Fancy that, I (ScegfOd) just more or less finished with Rose.
I'll probably tweak the background at some point in the near future though.

Alicorn/Zhai - work on your background first. I cannot stress this enough. An insufficient, or improper, background - and going by the name, 'Zhai Tamaki' just starting out is liable to be such - will negate any technical work you do.

ScegfOd, while you've PMed me Rose's bare-bones 'ten-second background', I would appreciate something more elaborate, extensive - or perhaps just more expressive. I get a sense of the characterization as being less a character and more a checklist. I won't accept a checklist for a character; sorry.

Yep, the mechanics need to reflect that backstory, and I tend to create characters that are unable to be created with the mechanics, so I have to do at least the basics of mechanics along side my bg because of the mechanical limitations which can influence the bg, at least if the mechanics are to even remotely resemble the bg anyway.

Zhai is one of very few who follow a particular way of life (think a cross between a monk and a classic witch [not the class]). They are generally frowned upon, or worse, in the place where the colonies are settled from, so a number of them came here where they hope to make a more positive impression on the locals before too many negative feelings about them cross over from the "homeland."

Her skill in papercraft comes from the tradition of making and using tarot cards and papercraft decorations for festivals, rituals, alters, and some other things such candle/incense holders, including paper mache, etc. Making books, particularly spellbooks or other such special books are also a common craft sold to others.

Living in the wilderness and relying on living off the land (plus avoiding the unpleasantness sent their way in the homeland) gives Zhai her experience with traps and survival.

Using magic, potions, and poultices are a major part of her people, thus her skill with alchemy, and unusual use of magic.

Up till recently, Zhai, her mentor, and a couple others were living outside the local town acting as healers and making potions and papercraft for the locals.

As for what Zhai has been doing recently, that is just room for getting her where she needs to be to join the party.

You misunderstand me. The mechanics might mesh with your written background perfectly, but if the background you write is entirely at odds with the game world, it is wasted. Right now, that is the case. While you seem to have read the background material, I'm not sure you've either read it all, or understood its consequences, so considering your name and presumed culture, it is critical that you do so. Let me give you the Cliff Notes version.

The game beings on the Ravennan continent, which is essentially North America, in a city in the west-central part of Canada, kind of (modified, but still). 'Zhai Tamaki' sounds Japanese / Chinese. In the HC world, this would be the Phoenix Empire - which is located essentially where China, Japan, Korea, etc. are - in addition to five colony-cities along the coast from Seattle to San Diego. Good as far as it goes, if you were human.

However, you are a halfling. Smallfolk - halflings and gnomes - are automatically slaves for as far as Imperial law will reach. Any Imperial who spots one should either a) report you to the nearest Imperial outpost, where they will be given a pittance reward or b) clap you in chains and turn you over to the nearest Imperial outpost, where they will be awarded 20% of your sale price. This means that if you're an Imperial halfling, which is essentially unheard of, because the Imperial-smallfolk racial phenotype has moved on (i.e. they became gnomes, see the next paragraph), you are a slave. Kind of removes you from the game.

Now, in regards to the gnomes. A whole hell of a long time ago (10-12k years) the gnomes (who were the smallfolk who didn't manage to get brought out of the Empire during human/halfling expansion) had had enough, developed unarmed martial arts, and revolted against their Imperial masters. Bloodily. Hundreds of thousands were slain, but in the end the gnomes left the Empire to a man, woman, and child, and came to the Ravennan Continent and established Houses in which they would be safe. (The local such house is the House of Laughter.) The monkish arts and attitudes derive specifically from them.

So the greatest cultural likelihood for a halfling would be Valen; a secondary, and one you might be interested in instead, would be Romny, i.e. gypsy. The greatest racial likelihood for the flavor you're seeking would flat-out be gnome, if you're local; if you aren't local, then human. I would appreciate you not going that option, because we already have a foreigner (Nissa), and you two would reeeeally have issues with each other.

The racial requirement of halfling for a rogue character, incidentally, is no more; I anticipated a straight swap-out for the one in the room, but I removed that from the table in order to not have to worry about whatever new player I get needing to read backstory, be able to develop new story with them, and limber up their choices.

So your application has new flexibility in one part, but a bit of restriction in another - use it wisely, and hit the Google Docs files.

I wasn't going for the japanese culture or anything and I don't think that would fit for what I was envisioning anyway. With three posts, I think I can edit the name, but I'd have to check.

I found the pic a while back and liked it, so I created the alias with it's name and left it blank waiting for a good character to put in it. I figured the visual style looked neat and fit what I was envisioning so I used it for this character.

As for being foreign, how recently the group moved to this side of the sea is rather unimportant, though I like being foreigner as a player since it lets me ask about the local lore or cover any mistakes on my part regarding lore since my character is nearly as clueless about it as me, but that is hardly a major thing, so if you want to make it farther in the past that my people came here, and have my character grow up here, that is fine with me.

While my character is certainly skilled in unarmed, there is no need for it to be anything like the gnomish arts as I don't figure it being anything like the monk class style, but rather more like some of the recent modern hard styles.

Um ... you ... seem to not be understanding the thrust of my point, so maybe it'd be better for us to take it a step at a time. Let's start with the culture.

The sense I am getting with the papercraft, the unarmed combat, the potions/poultices is at this point Chinese. The 'wandering folk' would be gypsy. If I am wrong, let me know; if I'm not, please confirm that. The two, note, are not compatable with each other in regards to the HC world.

Nothing asian inspired this character, though I can understand why the name may seem that way. Actually the name "Zhai" comes from a half drow character in a fantasy game I played nearly a decade ago, so I never even considered the chance it might be seen as asian. I just liked it a lot and have used it occasionally. The last name is syllabic mostly because I fiddle with contructed languages and prefer syllabic languages and scripts, so many names I create tend be syllabic.

The potions/alchemy, nature, and living outside the city come from the classic concept of witches, of those who are skilled in herbology and concoctions but stay on the fringe of society. The unarmed part really comes in mostly as an aspect of the discipline needed for spellcasting as well as the need to survive without reliance on others. Living alone makes a prime target for bandits, of course in the real world, "witches" were thought to have power beyond normal people and were feared and respected for it, but in a world where they lack a monopoly on that power, they are less protected by that fear and respect, thus more likely to need to defend themselves plus the background of them being outcasts adds nicely to that need for defense. Unarmed rather than weapons comes into it even more as being an outcast to begin with will only make others less tolerant of one carrying a weapon around, particularly when one is trying to get rid of the negative stigma.

Also, being outcasts, I saw them as living on the fringes of society, but also of civilized lands, living on the borders of the wilderness or even way out in the wilderness, and not so much as travelers.

The paper mache was really inspired by seeing a paper mache mask that reminded me of Zecora's hut, which was of african styling, and given the desire to have the tarot (decks of which they make themselves) play prominently in their traditions and rituals, having papercraft seemed like an interesting twist to it all, and the african and voodoo stuff actually fits well with the European/classical witch concepts in my opinion.

So the papercraft decorations and such would be closer to african and european styles (though obviously used to craft things that might normally be made from other materials) than asian styles. No paper lantarns or things like that.

About the only thing I'd consider even close to asian would be the colorful robes and clothes.

For example, an alter might have paper mache pillers and sculptures, possibly with accent gems or jewels set into the paper as it is crafted, then all sealed and protected with a lacquer. Not good for holding great amounts of weight but very light, easy to move, and forgiving of children knocking them over all the time.

In which case, you're thinking Romani/gypsy; the old 'classical witch' concepts came primarily from the wandering folk. In HC, this is the Romny; you might take a look here for more culturally likely names. Understand that while you may have had the name from a drow character, you are bringing it into a world that has cultures based off those IRL. 'Zhai' is an actual Chinese name; 'Tamaki', a Japanese one. Both would be appropriate for a Phoenix Empire character.

In addition, the Chinese and Japanese are by far the pioneers of papercraft; most other cultures didn't have it as finely-made or as copiously produced as those cultures did, which means 'papercraft' in HC equates to 'Phoenix Empire'. Added to the image you selected, while you may not have consciously intended to bring a Japanese/Chinese character in, you functionally have proposed such.

This isn't totally impossible; you could be an Imperial human (the only kind of Imperial there is, really). If you want to go with a different race, the gnomes retain some amount of Imperial influence in their culture.

Or, if you don't want the Imperial culture at all, and you want the 'witchy' aspect retained, then you'd want the Romny, which consist of both humans and halfling families.

Considering the halfings were taken from the Phoenix Empire, is it possible certain crafts may have been kept despite now appearing in a different form?

In fact, that could even have been the original now forgotten reason why her folk were looked down on. Could even become an interesting plot point too.

Tsura is a romani name, lol, and yet it uses japanse syllables.

Finding out Tamaki is a real name is kinda funny, but looking back I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Japan only has around 80 or so syllables. Every combination of 2-4 syllables is probably used somewhere.

I could try the name Vai Ziroli.

Halflings and humans share culture pretty much completely. Except for a very, very exclusive group - the Iceborn halflings, who are rank barbarians - there is no seperate halfling culture. Nor is there any special reason, craft, or 'thing they did' that caused humans to look down on smallfolk thirteen thousand years ago in the proto-Phoenix Empire.

You can go with human for the full papercraft/funky cultural remedies/colorful robes/unarmed combat thing (which, okay, yeah they have, but they're not as good at it as the gnomish monks) that the Phoenix Empire has, or you can stick with Romny for witchyness / wandering folk / colorful in other ways, and substitute flowers and the like for paper, and have both human and halfling available, or you can go very-faint-Oriental-flavor and go gnome. Your choice.

I never meant that it was only small people, in fact i expected it to be halfling and human since they left together (it just happened that my character was a halfling), then again I don't associate race and culture as a rule anyway.

That aside, I see you are far more controlling of the world then expected. Most GMs allow "blank spaces" in the world that players can fill and I expected the same here is all.

Since you won't allow minor countercultures, I'm not sure yet what to do. I will at least keep this character as-is for another day, as I really liked the result I got from mixing those things together.

Except for the tarot cards themselves, I'm not much a fan of the gypsy culture, but the witchcraft was rather the appealing way to handle magic and I don't really know enough to care about oriental anything, certainly oriental papercraft is a far cry from the papercraft I was thinking.

I'll just need to think on this for a bit.

I don't really mind human vs halfling flavorwise. They are just downright pathetic mechanically. I took halfling for being small sized.

This is what happens when dealing with what's primarily a monoculture, yes, with 'exotic cultures' well on the fringe - and only powerful exotic cultures from off-continent even managing to make it to that fringe. In some backwater in the HC-World-version of Uzbekistan or Khazakstan, I expect there's a Romny/Imperial cultural cross that bears great similarity to your concept; the point here is that they are way over there and not in Campaign City.

Standard PF is an extremely cosmopolitan world; it's a frenetic mix of European, African, Middle-Eastern, and Asiatic cultures, where everyone is travelling and trading all over the place, and where cultural blends such as what you're talking about are not only possible, but inevitable; such a place (the only other versions of which I can really think of as being existant are Greyhawk and Spelljammer, because Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and Eberron are all pretty much thoroughly identified, culturally) allows for the GM to wave his hand at the player and say, 'okay, that's fine, whatever you come up with, just don't go overboard'.

That, as you've noticed, is not this. Mosval is only a city of ten thousand, and the nearest city to surpass it is not quite an entire month's travel away, and though like most cities Mosval survives primarily on trade, it isn't a huge amount of trade, or else the city would be bigger. As well, though it's been eighteen hundred years since the end of the Second Ravennan Empire, that relative monoculture persists - by GM fiat, if you'd prefer.

Simply put, I would prefer you not say 'I want this this this and this as a culture, make it fit into your world', and instead say 'what's this culture got going for it?' and express interest in what's going on here already. This is why I created the world, and why I run games in it; because yeah, I do have these things created, and while I'm willing to bend somewhat - talk to pretty much any other current player to find out what I pushed and nudged and shifted in the world in order to enable them to play their characters - I'm not willing to declare it open season.

If that means you won't submit an application, that's fine.

I don't mind that you are doing, it just makes it harder to start, takes more learning upfront rather than during play.

It doesn't, really. What it does require is a basic familiarity with both archaic and modern cultures (because none of the colony cultures are based off the modern version of their nationalities, but instead on old versions, e.g. old Irish and English, German, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, Norse, etc. - even Ravennan culture is a blend of early American attitudes, Native American thought-process, and Middle-Ages European social structure) as well as communication on your part - you asking me questions. "What is X like? What is Y like?" Without this latter, all I can really do is try to guide you towards something similar (which is what I did above) or else simply say 'no' (which is what I also did).

Well I admit to lacking very much knowledge of archaic cultures or asian cultures. In fact, the occasional anime and a couple episodes of korean dramas are about the limit of my asian cultural knowledge unless you want to include disneys mulan, though I do know a small bit of their tech (packed earth construction, repeating crossbows, etc).

In terms of learning about X and y, I usually am looking forward to that in game (one of the reasons I play foreigners a lot. My character has an excuse to ask.).

In any case, I wouldn't know where start with gypsies, asians have the family honor thing but beyond that I'm clueless. Quite honestly I wouldn't even know where to begin trying to figure out the boundaries, and the fact that many aspects of my characters are developed during play on the fly, I'm thinking I'd probably be better off as a lurker than a player. I don't want to be constantly worrying about whether my character fits the world or not everytime i get inspired for something to add.

Fixed/changed some things after chatting with Kubular.

Her backbackstory needs a bit of work and I was wondering if any of you guys have any ideas for filling it out.
In a nut shell her backstory so far is that she started out south of mosval but her home got wrecked, was adopted by a small group of dorfs that live further south (they found a very nice quarry somewhere down there), became a stonemason/merchant growing up, had some sort of religious experience which prompted her to go to the local clergy and become a paladin, and finally she decided to go around getting rid of bandits (starting with her becoming the captain of the militia in her original hometown).

What would you be doing up in Mosval, then? You're the leader of whatever militia you're the head of. What still makes you think you have to go to the local clergy to become a paladin? What religion do you think you were a part of before becoming a Quintarian? Why should a stonemason go about fighting bandits?

In a homebrew, background is far more essential than it is in an established world; yours is a double handful of disconnected sentences that could maybe eventually be a coherent story, but is a long way from it. I get the sense that your background was put together to fit your stats/gear decisions, to give an excuse why you have 'PC Levels' and 'are an adventurer' than it is what I begged from you from the start: a character history that hangs together, something that gets hammered out before you even bother to start working on your stats.

So the real question probably boils down to this: What do the following statements from the Campaign Info tab mean to you?

You aren't adventurers; people don't become adventurers...

... you're people who get things done. You're adults, practicing your profession. When something needs to get done that's a little unusual, odds are better than even that you're the person that they'll come to ...

You might have a farm; you might have a business. But when a problem knocks at your door ... it's time to put your boots on.

What would you be doing up in Mosval, then? You're the leader of whatever militia you're the head of.

Are you implying that leaders of things never go anywhere? I hadn't decided yet, but after chatting with Kubular today I figured they'd probably have some sort of problem that they needed big guns for.

It doesn't have to be that. Heck, maybe it's the other way around, maybe Mosval is recruiting/drafting people from near the city for something,
after all

...When something needs to get done that's a little unusual, odds are better than even that you're the person that they'll come to ...

What still makes you think you have to go to the local clergy to become a paladin?

I'm beginning to think that we don't agree on what a paladin is. What's a paladin?

What religion do you think you were a part of before becoming a Quintarian?

Sorry if I implied she didn't grow up Quintarian, I'll go make that more clear. What she did do was basically go from someone who showed up on sunday if they felt like it to a lay dedicat or something along those lines; she studied with the priest/clergydorf/cleric. Based off of my understanding of pathfinder paladins, I feel that probably all paladins have something to do with a church. Are our paladins very different? should she not need the gods at all or something?

Why should a stonemason go about fighting bandits?

people who get things done.

I figured that if the village was too small to label on the map, someone as charismatic as her would naturally be put in some sort of leadership position.

In a homebrew, background is far more essential than it is in an established world; yours is a double handful of disconnected sentences that could maybe eventually be a coherent story, but is a long way from it. I get the sense that your background was put together to fit your stats/gear decisions, to give an excuse why you have 'PC Levels' and 'are an adventurer' than it is what I begged from you from the start: a character history that hangs together, something that gets hammered out before you even bother to start working on your stats.

So the real question probably boils down to this: What do the following statements from the Campaign Info tab mean to you?

Campaign Info wrote:

You aren't adventurers; people don't become adventurers...

... you're people who get things done. You're adults, practicing your profession. When something needs to get done that's a little unusual, odds are better than even that you're the person that they'll come to ...

You might have a farm; you might have a business. But when a problem knocks at your door ... it's time to put your boots on.

While that's not entirely unfair, I would like to point out that I only really made a couple of major character decisions before trying to tie everything together.

I was already pretty much given that she was... sort of one of a chosen (evil) people (Changling); I was already told that he/she must be a Paladin, a chosen warrior of the gods/a god; and I was already given that she lived south/southeast/east of Mosval. I felt like I was given reverse Darth Vader to start.

Anyway, to answer your question at last, I took those statements from the campaign info to be deliciously flavorful descriptions of how we're a group of only-somewhat-above-average folk with real jobs.
...Which doesn't fit well with my understanding of what a paladin is...

I'm gonna chime in here with a couple of points. If I'm out of line by butting into the conversation like this, please let me know, and feel free to ignore this post.

1) I don't understand why a Paladin would go to the clergy to become a Paladin either, to be frank. As I understand it, it's more of a "chosen by the gods" thing, not a "I think I wanna be a Paladin" thing. Which brings us to

2) Yeah, it actually does kinda make sense that as a Paladin, she would be an actual adventurer, rather than just a person with a job who sometimes finds the need to show off her extra skills. Which brings us to

3) Assuming that's the case, what is she doing as the captain of a militia group? If she's the leader of any sort of location-based group, she kinda has an obligation to stay there. If you need help, you send your second-in-command to get it. So the DM's question of "what is she doing in Mosval?" is perfectly valid.

Having just deleted half of an intended post, I've decided to put this one out of its misery; thank you for your interest, ScegfOd, but your reading and writing are not what I would like them to be for a player in this game, and I am turning down your application. I wish you all the best in your other games and applications.

Can't say what the gm has in mind for his world, but any other time I've dealt with or read about paladins, they are basically church guardsmen and crusaders, who protect the church and fight whatever that church believes should be fought.

Thus it makes sense to me that a paladin would need to go to and be accepted by the clergy, since they basically work for the church.

Though clearly the GM has his own well defined world where player assumptions are likely to fall through.

Well that was unfortunate.

The GM has actually recommended reading, and has written extensively, in regards to how he sees paladins - and, after someone, y'know, asked him a question can actually add 'Dresden Files' onto that, directing you to the Knights of the Cross in those books as very damn good examples of paladins.

The origin of paladins, in actuality, come from early French literature, as the foremost warriors of Charlemagne's court, and companions of his nephew Roland; they pretty closely parallel the Knights of the Round Table, though they have some basis in fact. That said, these original paladins were ass-kickers for the king, with parallels drawn to Jesus and the twelve apostles and reminders of the king's divine right to rule. In any case.

Paladins do not work for a church; how can they work for a particular church when six different churches proclaim that they are the one true way to follow God, a god, or the entire group of 'em? Paladins are called by a god, or by several of them.

It is given to a paladin to be called, to answer that call, and to act in service to that call - to face down the Darkness in places where it will do the most good to redeem those likely to fall into it, or at critical junctures to bring to naught the plans of evil beings. To bring Light where there is none; to stand as examples of goodness and right when people fear to speak. This is why they generally kick six different kinds of ass, and they're given immunity to all the nastiness that can befall a body.

ScegfOd is right, in that if you feel godtouched, going to a local member of whatever clergy is a good first step. But it is at least the Quintarian viewpoint that when approached by such individuals, you get out of their way and only then ask 'How can we help?' But even in Pathfinder where there is little fragmenting of a god's worship, a paladin listens to their god first, and his/her clergy second.

I'm sorry if this is somehow misunderstood; this is the sort of thing I cared to establish from the beginning with whatever player wanted to play a paladin. This is why I wanted questions to be asked of me, so that I can provide distinct and necessary clarification. This is also why I wanted a background hammered out - and hammered out well, instead of the mostly-one-liners provided by ScegfOd, to be contrasted with the way the same questions were answered by Kubular - this individual has to be a person, not the sheet of information and vague gestures in the direction of a character that was offered.

Again, thank you for your interest and patience, ScegfOd.

I suspect part of the communication problem is that there is a whole bunch of stuff that players tend to take for granted without realizing it, stuff that is based on their common experience.

For example, in dnd, paladins are always associated with a churcb. I have never seen otherwise, whatever their actual history may be. And the fact that I, and I suspect others as well, assume that our gaming experience is sufficient, when in fact this game seems more like a game written for history buffs as it seems to rely far more on real history than common gaming culture. The inclusion of fantasy elements just shadows the whole thing, giving the impression of a gaming culture game with hints of real history, instead of a history based game with hints of gaming culture.

I would try making a statement that "real history should be consider the basis for all things except where specifically stated otherwise" instead of the reverse.

That may help things a bit. Me realizing that history is more than just a minor influence to the game is a major reason I decided to lurk instead of play. I have too much to do to study this kind of history (I am working 60-75 hours weeks), and all my previous history classes were very generic and either ww2 or ancient world, so nothing of the right time periods.

I have given ample information and suggested reading material. This is not the place to discuss this, nor is this open to debate. Thank you for your thoughts, TAS, but if you care to talk about it further, please open up a thread outside of the game.

Can't say what the gm has in mind for his world, but any other time I've dealt with or read about paladins, they are basically church guardsmen and crusaders, who protect the church and fight whatever that church believes should be fought.

Thus it makes sense to me that a paladin would need to go to and be accepted by the clergy, since they basically work for the church.

Though clearly the GM has his own well defined world where player assumptions are likely to fall through.

I'm beginning to think we're of very similar minds.

Well that was unfortunate.

Or maybe it's better this way; as good a read as they may be, I'm not going to read several novels to prepare myself for a PbP.

You might direct newcomers to the chalion wikia. I found it a useful refresher to the world of the novels.

Put into the campaign info up top. :D