Mummy's Mask - Empty Graves [Pathfinder] (Inactive)

Game Master Stiehle

Greetings! I am currently recruiting two or three players for a Pathfinder game using the Mummy's Mask adventure path. Starting character level is 4, so you will be creating new characters at that level, with some starting magical gear as well. Note that this adventure has already started with the first adventure (The Half-Dead City), and has continued into the second (Empty Graves), but it has not advanced very far at all into the second module. The new recruits will be joining three other players, who began the adventure path some three and a half years ago. Before I go into further detail about character creation and rest of the party, I’d like to introduce how this game came to be on the Paizo board in the first place.

As a long-time player and GM for another play-by-post board called d20 World of Greyhawk, that has been around for 20 years or so, I have decided to move my ongoing adventures to the Paizo board for two big reasons.

First, our pbp board started with EZBoard, then it became Yuku in 2008 - which resulted in many problems, not the least of which was the loss of countless numbers of posts where entire chunks of pbp stories were lost forever. We got through it though, and only recently when Yuku became Tapatalk did many folks on our happy board begin to get really upset. There have been only a few instances of data loss, but mostly it's the style of the board that folks don't like. Switching between profiles is a real pain, and though the board has a couple of high points that, as a GM I find quite helpful, the majority of the changes are a real pain to deal with.

Second, over the years our group of dedicated players have seen new ones come, and others go. Unfortunately, the latter category is larger than the first, and attrition has taken its toll. There are now probably upwards of only ten or twelve active players left on the board. And when these long-term adventures see a great deal of turnover like this, it tends to disturb the momentum and flow of the game and slows things down even more than usually seen in a play-by-post game. Which is why most of my games have been lingering for years with very slow activity.

So, in moving to the Paizo board, I am hoping to recruit more players to join, and based on my experiences thus far on Paizo (I’ve been playing PFS, SFS and a couple other games here over the past several months) I am hoping that an infusion of new, experienced pbp gamers will help revitalize my adventures and get them moving again.

All that said, any players interested in joining this adventure will be creating 4th level characters from scratch - though if you have established characters feel free to bring them as well. Players can spend 25 points on their ability scores, using Table 1-1 in the core rulebook (pg 16) for point costs. Once your character is created, you can spend up to 6k gp on magic items as you’d like, and/or allow me to bestow randomly determined magic items upon you that might deviate from that amount by no more than 1k either up or down.

A character history would also be nice, especially if you have the time and inclination to read either the entire adventure that has taken place over the past three and a half years (if you have a LOT of time on your hands!), or maybe even just skim over Part III to get an idea of what's happened thus far in the most recent module. I definitely will give extra consideration to players who tie their background story into the adventure history thus far. Links below will lead you to the d20 World of Greyhawk board, and as mentioned, the change from Yuku to Tapatalk caused a LOT of ugliness with regard to font color schemes and coding, so some of the posts are a bit... messy. Apologies for that!

Part I

Part II
Part III

Lastly, the three players from the d20 WoG board that are migrating along with this adventure to Paizo are Francis (Human Cleric 4 [Theologian Archetype] of Pharasma), Hasina (Human Fighter 4 [Unbreakable Archetype]), and Herdouck (Dwarf Paladin 4 [Undead Scourge Archetype]). When creating characters for this adventure, I’d ask new players to try and chose other roles beyond those that are currently covered. Obviously a rogue or other skill monkey-type would be a very nice addition!

Lulu is a PFS character originally designed for a Mummy’s Mask campaign—kind of a telekinetic rogue.

dot.

Hmm, I had interest in playing an Oread long ago for this particular campaign.

I wanna toss out my crunch, but I am planning on playing a Barbarian Two Handed Weapon Wielder. As a person who enjoys tossing his hat into any risk a GM offers at character creation. Please give me an assortment of gear not of my choosing!

I'll gladly start working on a backstory and reading once I see what gear I've obtained in my journey. (It will give me some flavor and a bit more feel for the character is the only reason I'm holding.)

Well what do you know, I just happen to have an advanced character made for starting at Book 2 of Mummy's Mask laying around! That campaign ended practically as soon as it started, so I haven't really gotten a chance to play her yet.

Sefanit here is a Medium archetype Witch. She considers herself a historian and linguist though, the witch stuff is an accident. I'll need to shave a level off and adjust the point buy downward since the campaign she was made for was using a small number of players with very generous creation rules.

Her backstory and so forth are ready to go, and it shouldn't take me long at all to make the adjustments since they will all be subtractive.

How much do we have to spend on mundane equipment?

I have a character that is perfect for this campaign! I made him a while ago for a group that was starting Mummy's Mask, but I never got to play him. I've advanced him up to level 4, and you can see everything about his character on his profile page.

Hi! Seems a very nice game. Will have a look and see if I can gather something for you :)

Color me interested at a shot at gaming with some longtime players. I'll have to do some reviewing and see if inspiration strikes. I may have an alias or two I can sculpt to fit if need be.

How did you handle traits? Normal rules--two traits, one must be campaign?

I think I'll try to build an archeologist of some kind, a la Indy (yeah, I know, sorta cliché, but this AP just asks for it). I guess Rogue or Investigator would do, I'll see to write a nice background).

Awesome to see some interest! I'm a big fan of Egyptian-themed campaigns, and was bummed in a big way to see this one stall out on the old board. Traits are just fine, you can pick any two traits at all (so long as they are from different types, as usual) - no need to select campaign unless one strikes you as fitting, in which case go for it. :)

I would like to apply with my Investigator

Oooooh, I'm interested in this! Never actually ran an AP, nor done a PbP on the Paizo Forums. Gotta get an Achaelogist Bard out quick...

Rather than grab a character I've previously generated (I actually kind of have tons) I'll bring something that's been banging around in my brain for awhile. A shruken focused ninja with a likely pair of dips. Would be a very skilled character with a niche close range specialty but it ramps very nicely.

I'll likely re-flavor the Ninja as being a more Egyptian styled rouge/assassin

Oh, by the by...GM, are you familiar with Mythweavers? Great site, lots of fillable character sheets for lots of games, great way to make a profile without having to worry about a template and the like. Are you okay with folks keeping an updated link in their profile? I find it so much less hassle than fidgeting with the forum syntax all the time.

I am familiar with Mythweavers (I play a couple of 5e games over there!) and I have no problem with character sheets on another site, so long as I have a handy link. In fact, the characters that the new players in this game will be joining have their character sheets on the d20 WoG board where the adventure started. I plan to keep them there for them.

I'm a LONG time Myth-Weavers player, and would love to join in a game of Mummy's Mask!

Converted to 4th level now.

How are you doing HP after 1st level?

Everything except gear is done now I believe. I'm still mulling the magic options...

I've been scanning through the campaign history and it looks like it's been great fun, a good group of characters. Too bad the bard and sorcerer got killed off, they were a fun couple.

I've finished the archaelogist bard! Most everything is done, I've left 1280 GP to either keep or spend on rolled magic items. (If you wanna roll that is.) All that's really left is the background, but that'll take a bit more of an indepth reading through the campaign's history and maybe the player's handbook... (This is Brolof BTW, stats and all that are in the profile.)

I'm gonna back out (with this character, at least), because what this party needs is an arcane caster and an archaeologist bard or rogue, and I see a few good ones in the submissions. :)

Funny thing about that bard and sorcerer, they weren't happy with their character builds so asked me to 'take them out' so they could create new characters and bring them back into the game with them instead. :)

I'm thinking of writing up a sorcerer with the blood of pharaohs trait. (don't have the guide open atm, but IIRC its something to that affect)

Can I assume all Paizo classes are acceptable? Also what races are available?

I'm not shutting down any character concepts due to racial or class considerations. Granted, I'm not as familiar with some of them (I have many of the splatbooks, but not all of them by far). My final selection will probably tend towards classes I'm more familiar with though, and also with consideration to what sounds 'likely', given that the adventure takes place in a desert environment. Water elemental based races would be unlikely to me, unless there is a really good backstory that explains how they came to Wati.

Hello! If you would consider an Aasimar Cleric of Calistria then this would be the character with which I would like to apply. Is based on 20 Point Buy with only Paizo material and is 1st level at the moment but I can change everything for this campaign and level up to 4 immediately. ;-)

I'm actually ironing out some details for a "Human" ranger who specs in thrown weapons--and favors an unusual one at that, brings a surprising assortment of skills (I was actually surprised at the skill totals I managed) and is good at bringing people in alive when needed.

Sadly, our magic item budget wasn't QUITE enough to get exactly the weapon I wanted, but that's perfectly okay; I'll work on that later.
I'll still be quite skillmonkey enough to fill the gap and whup plenty of tush in between traps and locked doors.

Upon reading a few pages, I gather that you handle tactical encounters on a separate chat board of a sort. Seems your boards had very different practices than here. How do you plan on proceeding here? Adjusting new players to your old methods? Or having old players adjust to new ones?

Heh, I spent all of Mahzuzi's 6,000 gp down to the last copper! That was quite an achievement, if I do say so myself. ;)

I also read through what has gone before and modified Mahzuzi's background accordingly. :)

The backstory is done and ready to be read!

Definite Dot.

The entire adventure, including tactical encounters, will be handled solely on this board. I do like the other board for uploading a combat table (it shows notes of ongoing effects and other details I track during combat), as well as combat maps. The links you likely saw will point to those.

Here we are. I've managed to keep the backstory somewhat general so we have an opportunity to fill in details as befits the story, but it should be enough to explain why she's in Wati and looking to join a group...

Ah, sorry, still need to write up something, though I have some loose ends in my mind:

-The PC will be a half-elf, whose parents were left for dead.
-He was raised by halflings and taught about the old wonders and mysteries of Osirion.
-He was late for the exploration assignments in Waki, and stayed around looking for a chance to cover a vacant, when he got caught by some skeletons trying to cut off his head.
-Unbeknown to him, his human parent survived and had another child: one of the old, defunct PCs (most probably Zarah Hakor).

I'll try to put this into proper writing, and finish the crunch which I also have in mind (a Questioner Investigator)

Kaphiri Hakor ready for action.

Crunch still to be done, though as said above he'll be an investigator a la Indiana Jones, with a light focus on Aid Another.

I know some corners of his backstory might still seem a bit obscure; they're either things I have in mind for later description (though feel free to ask about my ideas) or things I have left ambiguous for the GM to use as he sees fit.

No worries at all about an elaborate backstory, just something to give me an idea of why you're in Wati would be great - as it would save me the job of figuring out something myself.

I'm thinking I'll make the decision by this weekend, probably on Friday. Looks like I'll be taking three players to join the three already in the adventure. Thanks again for the interest everyone!

Alright, um... how are we doing HP after level 1?

Also, I'm picking, if you don't mind, one item and let the rest be picked by you. Kaphiri would wear his mithral chainshirt, an item inherited from his halfling adoptive parents (because there was no one else in the village who could wear it). The rest of the items are probably things he has acquired at the auctions or from different shops in Waki, letting his fascination for the matter loose until he ran out of money.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention about hit points! You roll 'em, but if you roll less than half the die take the half instead.

HP: 3d6 ⇒ (6, 6, 6) = 18

Well holy crap! I'll take that!

Hit Points: 3d8 ⇒ (4, 4, 3) = 11

That will be 4+4+4 :( plus Con bonus and 8 from level 1 that adds up to 28.

HP: 3d8 ⇒ (4, 7, 6) = 17 This helped my HP situation sweet.

HP: 3d8 ⇒ (5, 8, 1) = 14 I took average, but it'll be updated real quick.

Emilia, only take the '4' on that roll of '1'. The '5' and '8' can stand - so not too bad! :)

Emilia, only take the '4' on that roll of '1'. The '5' and '8' can stand - so not too bad! :)

I know, I just listed a one for the sake of accuracy. The sheet's HP is counting the 4. I'll figure out a way to mark it.

HP: 3d10 ⇒ (1, 4, 4) = 9

Hah! looks like my assumption of average HP was on the money after all.

I hadn't posted my WIP character yet becaus eI'm still tuning background and equip but here's where I'm at

Storing on a google doc at present Akoris Sands

I haven't quite equipment (4,824 GP of 6k spent thus far thinking about a defensive item aside from cloak of prot) and I'm working on background now (wanted to read a bit of the old thread and find a tie in.

The main beats of the story I have thus far:
-1st level trained by a Tengu Monk that turned out to be LE and was using him.
-Had some unfair run ins with the law because of being set up as a fall guy by the Tengu
-Made friends on the streets and sort of turned into an aladin type street rat
-Learned to be a Ninja by blending monk training with working with a rogue crew that followed int he wake of these adventurers exploring tombs.
-Found faith in Bastet matching new outlook which went from LG to CG.

Adventure Hooks
-Possibly had a bad run in with those scorched hand characters I know are in the AP
-Tengu mentor could be tied into whatever evils you want to cook up

Okay finished equipment I found a keen magic item I wanted and ended up trading out some wand charges (prorated at 15gp a charge) to cover the overage giving a R of 1 gp :D

Bard hit points: 3d8 ⇒ (8, 2, 2) = 12

A bit better than average! Yay!

"My mom always used to say that average people are the most special people in the world. And that's why the gods made so many."

Hit points: 3d8 ⇒ (1, 8, 4) = 13

Hi, this is a character of mine who has played through book 1 of MM and didn't get very far in book 2 before the game was put on indefinite hold. You can find the game HERE.

Mechanically she's a fighter - which I realise may be a problem with the current group composition. She is however a fairly vanilla one, so if there's a fighting style not being covered yet (archery say) she could easily do that. Equally I don't mind rebuilding her mechanics - but I am very attached to her backstory and would like to keep as much of her history as possible (Perhaps she worked for a rival team which has disbanded/died?) [Ideally I really want to keep Akhenkepi too... perhaps once his tomb was opened his spirit flew to his nearest living relative?]

So can I keep Say'ri and her backstory, as much as possible? I'm happy to refit the crunch to help the party (some more detail on how the fighter and the paladin fight would be useful!).

EDIT: having looked at your old threads - Herdouk is a sword/board-er, and Hasina is going down the 2 handed heavy flail route?

EDIT 2: Thinking either Slayer or Kineticist, attempting to round out the parties ranged ability.

I now read through your current set-up and it really looks interesting!

I have to admit that leveling the character to level 4 is not hard but that I would like to know if you can at least give me a first indication if the character would be viable in your campaign and your current party composition. :-)

If so I will update the profile until tomorrow!

Thanks a lot!

Hello Say'ri, an extra fighter would be just fine, especially if that character would complement the fighter already in the group. An archer type or even a swashbuckler. If you don't mind tweaking your character a bit, her background and having played in the first module would be a great fit.

Hi Ramin, a cleric would probably not be ideal, as the party already has a cleric and a paladin. Really looking for an arcanist, a rogue (or other skill monkey type) and likely another fighter type as described above.