In the once-prosperous Kingdom of Gyt there lies a small town of little interest to anyone, named Falk.
Falk is a town barley sustained by it's own populace. It's located on the farther edges of Gyt and attracts no real attention; it has no major trade routes running through it, it has no luxuries of note, it doesn't have much of any military might or presence, nor does it even make much of a surplus when it comes to food and basic goods. Falk is, on it's best day, a ailing town, and on it's worst - a dying one. The people of Falk come mostly from the downtrodden of Gyt, and have settled this town as a way to live with some semblance of dignity. Many of the town's founding members were once low profile criminals, poor farmers, unskilled craftsmen, unlucky merchants, and generally unfortunate innocents of the waning Golden Age of Gyt.
The Golden Age of Gyt lasted for as long as even the oldest citizens remember. As far as many were concerned, the Golden Age would last forever; even the Lords of Gyt were not much concerned by an eventual end to the prosperity. Many speculate that the true turning point in Gyt's magnificence was when King Valle passed away, not leaving any heirs to his throne. The Lords were quick to decide on a split of the kingdom, each member taking what he considered as his fair share. The Golden Age has long since been over. It was a slow but steady decline into a darkening age, and many have coined this new age as The Age of Embers.
It is in this Age of Embers that our heroes are born into. Falk is their new adopted home, as unnoticed as it is, and Gyt is in the middle of turmoil. The Lords have split the country, there is poverty, disease, famine. Some whisper of war, others of genocide; the smaller towns, like Falk, seem to get passed over more frequently as calls for aid go unanswered. It is a dying age, a horrific age, a dark age.
This is, of course, just a preamble. If you have any specific setting questions beyond the broad information presented here, feel free to ask in the discussion thread. To try and divert a few questions, the age I'm shooting for is around the Dark Ages, so no guns or anything particularly modern in concept - like airships and the like. Gyt is a good size country on the western half of a continent (around the size of Europe, sharing a single border with a country to the East.) Falk is in the far North-West of the Country next to the ocean. To the North is a mountainous, mostly uninhabited land. To the South is another ocean. The Continent actually contains 3 countries, however Gyt only shares a boarder with 1 of them, the other is to the south of this neighbor. The City of Gyt was originally a city state which grew over a number of prosperous years into the Kingdom of Gyt, and now most people just refer to it's capital as "The City".
Corruption in government affairs is rampant
the guards/military of the country don't do much to protect the smaller towns
there is a slowly growing divide between the Haves and the Have Nots, with really nothing in the middle
Character Generation:
As for character generation rules they are as follows
1. We will be using the point buy method. You have 20 points (High Fantasy)
2. We are going to be starting this grand adventure at level 1. Get Good Scrub.
3. Use the standard starting wealth.
4. 2 Traits. If you want to take a drawback for a 3rd trait I'm not stopping you.
5. Core Races Only. Other races on case by case basis, no custom races.
6. All Paizo approved Clasess, with the exception of Samurai, Ninja, Gunslinger for setting reasons.
7. Fast XP progression
8. Health is max at first level, then Average +1.
9. No evil alignments, we gonna be heroes.
Background Requirements:
[Written Backstory Here]
Around a single paragraph is more than enough of a written backstory, but you can always write more if you feel the need to.
I'd also like you to fill out this little breakdown so 1) I can reference your character quickly, and 2) you can think about some questions that aren't usually part of the standard backgrounds.
Three to Five pieces of character background:
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One or Two Goals as a character/player:
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One or Two Secrets about my character: (preferably one known, one unknown)
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One to Three people that are close to the Character:
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