RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4
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“Nothing is yet in its true form.”
-C.S. Lewis
Welcome, one and all, to the recruitment for The Mysterium Compact, a Pathfinder adventure set in the post-apocalyptic Ruins of Pathfinder alternate reality. In this variant of the Pathfinder setting, numerous apocalyptic events have ocurred due to the failure of heroes to stave off disaster as presented in Pathfinder's published adventure paths, up to (but not including) Shattered Star.
For full information on the Ruins of Pathfinder alternate reality, please view the "regional changes" section at this link and also check out our work-in-progress wiki at The Ruins of Pathfinder.
The Mysterium Compact is a story about an ancient school hidden away in the deserts of Rahadoum, the Kingdom of Man. Here, wayward youths with the potential to become summoners are shepherded by a mysterious fortune-teller to their destiny at Akrabahadran, the College of Shadows where they will be tutored by the best and brightest summoners in all of Golarion on how to utilize their unique gifts. But a sinister secret lies buried deep within Akrabahadran, the College of Shadows, one that demands to be discovered...
You are among a group of potential students recruited from all across the world by the mysterious Tian-min fortune-teller Hokuto Ichihara, who travels Golarion in search of potential summoners to bring back to Akrabahadran, the College of Shadows for training. You have been promised a new start, a new life, and training in a power that you will one day mature into, a power that could change the face of the world itself.
WHERE IN THE APOCALYPSE ARE WE?
Those familiar with the Ruins of Pathfinder alternate reality from previous campaigns will know that it is currently 4715 AR, two years ahead of the date established Pathfinder Campaign Setting, and the world is falling into an ice age as the events of Reign of Winter play out. Global temperatures have dropped, it snows as far south as Osirion and foot shortages are becomming commonplace. For more details, please visit.
Please pay close attention to the character creation guidelines below.
CHARACTER CREATION
Your character in the Mysterium Compact will be one of a handful of special children brought to the country of Rahadoum by way of caravan or ship, collected by a mysterious Tian-min fortune-teller named Hokuto Ichihara. From Azir, the capitol of Rahadoum, you were escorted via a wagon caravan across the ancient Rahadoumi desert to where Hokuto promises a new future awaits. Your past lives, your history, all will be forgiven or forgotten in the Akrabahadran, the College of Shadows.
This campaign will begin during the last leg of the long journey across the desert.
Characters in Ruins of Pathfinder come from a harder, more cut-throat world than normal. However, characters in the Mysterium Company are children and as such have different strengths and weaknesses than adult characters in this world. Character creation options help outline this:
Starting Level: PCs will start at 1st level.
Starting Class: PCs begin play as 1st-level commoners. Later on, Summoner only.
Alignment: Any, though extreme alignment choices (Lawful Good, Chaotic Good, Lawful Evil or Chaotic Evil) will take exceptional justification to explain this rigid way of thinking so young in life. Alignment may change over the course of the campaign.
Starting Age: Maximum young age for commoners, as detailed here.
Ability Scores: 15 point-buy (with additional ability score increases along the way during gameplay)
HP: Max HP rolls at 1st and 2nd level. Players will roll for HP from level 3 onward.
Traits: 1 trait at start (you will gain access to additional traits later)
Base Starting Money: One free starting outfit and no personal wealth.
Races: Any.
When you create a submission, please create a character alias and include your character information in the form of a bestiary stat block like Liette's profile.
Also, include the following information in your profile:
1) Physical Appearance
Remember that your character is young and should reflect that. You will also be evolving this description as the campaign goes on and your character matures (or in the case of extremely long-lived races, stays youthful).
2) Personality
This is one of the most important parts of your background. The personality if a pre-teen character is formed by only a handful of life experiences in the case of beings of human-like age, or decades in the case of elven or other children of long-lived races. Please reflect this!
3) Background
The absolute most important part of the character background. As a child-character your history should be no less detailed than another character in any other campaign. These children are exceptional, interesting and special. Perhaps they hail from unique backgrounds, tragic circumstances, or other interesting scenarios. Your characters are being taken away from your past life to train at a secret academy. Your characters' families (if they are even alive) would not be given any detail of this, save that your character is being taken to a "special school" in an undisclosed location to be "trained to their full potential" and will not be allowed to leave until completion. As this is such an important part of character generation, please ask questions if you are unsure of details.
GROWING UP
While the campaign's onset features the PCs as children, you will grow up over the course of the story's six year timeline. Characters will begin at the maximum age for their race to still be considered "young" as detailed here.
While you will begin the campaign as 1st-level commoners, you will learn to become summoners early on in the first adventure and gain access to your Eidolon. However, the rules for determinign the base form and abilities of your eidolon will differ from the traditional summoner class and you will recieve more options and the ultimate final form of your eidolon will differ depending on in-game choices you make. There will be more detail on this as the campaign goes on.
CAMPAIGN THEME
The Mysterium Compact is a heavy roleplaying/dungeon exploration/mystery investigation campaign. The entire campaign will be set within the grounds of the College of Shadows and will span a period of six years while your characters are students of the academy. If the words Harry Potter meets Shin Megami Tensei: Persona excite you, this is the campaign for you!
POSTING CONSIDERATIONS
When the campaign begins you will be expected to post at least once every 48 hours. If you are going on a vacation, very busy, or otherwise unable to post just let me know and I will consider you on "standby" for the amount of time specified.
If anyone disappears for 7 straight days without posting or leaving notice you will be moved off camera and may not be invited back, depending on the circumstances. This is extremely generous in terms of time span, so please don't let it get to that level of uninvolvement.
HARROWING
Once you have completed your character, please consult the harrow deck and pick a card that you feel represents your character, be it who they are deep down inside or perhaps what you feel their destiny could be. The card should have a very personal meaning to the character, whether they realize it yet or not.
This choice of card is very important.
MYTHIC?
At a point in the Mysterium Compact you will take use fo the new Mythic pathfinder rules. However, there will be a twist to this use of mythic rules that will be revealed as the story progresses.
SUBMISSION
When you have completed all of the requested information and built your alias, please make a post here with the following format (so I can ctrl+f submissions easily):
I, <character name>, hereby submit myself to the College of Shadows under the sign of <harrow card name>.
SELECTION
I will be selecting 6 students from the submitted characters to seek out the answers to the Mysterium Compact. Recruitment ends on October 11th at 11:00pm (-5GMT). Late submissions will not be considered.
You are not alone.
Will you be allowing archetypes of the summoner class? How physically mature is a 61 year old elf? I'm thinking it might be fun to play the "old man" of the party. Or any of the other of millions of ideas flooding into my head right now.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4
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As for the question of elven maturity: 61 years is adolescent, so a pre-teen/young teenager. Mentally they've had more life experiences so they're probably a little more mature, but physically everyone will look about the same age to start, though long-lived races won't physically mature over the course of a mere years.
Jelani pointed out to me that I forgot to link to this profile as an example, so here it is for those curious!
Interested, Summoner only seemed steep until you mentioned the Persona bit then it made sense. Very RP heave campaign it seems.
Also if I remember right, the Master Summoner archetype isn't really eidolon friendly and I've heard tale of it being banned in PFS. Are you sure that you want this archetype?
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4
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Interested, Summoner only seemed steep until you mentioned the Persona bit then it made sense. Very RP heave campaign it seems.
Also if I remember right, the Master Summoner archetype isn't really eidolon friendly and I've heard tale of it being banned in PFS. Are you sure that you want this archetype?
There is going to be a lot of inter-character play in this campaign, not only between the PCs but faculty/students of the College. I would say the split between RP and action is 50/50 given the dungeon crawl elements of the campaign. Don't forget that you will eventually be designing the personality/details of an eidolon as well, which will effectively give you two characters to play off (or even against!) each other.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4
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temping....
I certainly recommend giving it a shot. The twist on mythic in this campaign will hopefully be interesting and unexpected. While I haven't finished detailing the last three chapters of the story, I expect mythic tiers will only go to 3 at max and will not kick in until later in the story.
I don't like the fact that were are all forced to take summoner.
I don't like the fact that were are all forced to take summoner.
The Synthesist is one of the two most broken Summoner Archetypes... The other one being the Master Summoner and that is just because of the sheer numbers of creatures it can put out.
This sounds amazing ^^ I've been thinking about playing a summoner. I have a few ideas for a character.
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Fiiiiine I'll write up a character. No archetypes for this guy. Maybe.
Any limit on race choices?
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4
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Any limit on race choices?
Core and Featured races are open, anything from the Uncommon/Other races categorization will require pre-approval. See d20pfsrd Races.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4
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Some further info: I run combat via maps housed in Google Drive. You can see an example of one of my combat maps here that is for my Reign of Winter campaign. I design most, if not all, of my maps myself.
I, Garrett Wilson, hereby submit myself to the College of Shadows under the sign of The Keep.
I was actually thinking possibly master summoner, or broodmaster. Of course you know me, and how I love synthesists. I've already played/am playing so many of them though. I think I'll just go straight up summoner this time.
Dotting this of course, I'll read over the thread and see what pops up
Curse youuuu! Stealing all my free time!
Summoner only? Interesting... Will multiclassing be allowed at all?
Hmm well I have an idea germinating already, will work on it when I can.
Dotting this of course, I'll read over the thread and see what pops up
How would you feel about a kitsune hailing from a Tian empire?
the young prince would be representative of "The Rabbit Prince"
I was thinking perhaps an heir to the throne, blessed by fate with a connection to the Nine-Tailed Fox. Essentially that's what his eidolon would be. Also, perhaps this kitsune blood or abnormality crops up once in a thousand generations. As such, he's whisked away to the academy to develop these abilities. Perhaps one day he'll return to Tian and unite his people, if he does so, he'll have to find a way to overcome his capricious nature and rise to his responsibilities.
When you mean maximum young age, in the example of humans, would that mean that the person is 8 years old?
When you mean maximum young age, in the example of humans, would that mean that the person is 8 years old?
I'm assuming the opposite,
maximum_young_age = (adult_age -1)
That actually makes a lot of sense. I think I just misunderstood the table.
I thought it was take the age of the child race you want to be and add the max die number for Commoner... Thus a Half-Elf would be 14.
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Before I get too far into it, my idea below (as it involves an uncommon race)
Born the only daughter of her mother's--an ascended Nagaji (High level Naga Aspirant)--first clutch, she was destined for greatness; at least in the eyes of her people. She was lavished with wealth and attention, servants and siblings at her beck and call, and generally spoiled rotten, which she loved. What she did not love however, was the expectations people had of her; the priestesses of Nalinivati pestered her for signs of sorcerous, or even divine ability like her mother's; her tutor tried to teach her of the kingdom she would one day rule of her people; her mother seemed only to be waiting for her to come of age so that she could continue her line; but the only thing she wanted to do was listen to her uncle's--and occasionally her mother's--stories from his travels to distant lands. The jungle was fine and all, but tales of the world to the north where one could see for miles around on open plains, his journey across the frozen crown of the world, and the strange, distant lands of Avistan enchanted her. She didn't want to follow her mother's footsteps, she wanted to rush off and explore... adventure even! When the news of the foreigner looking for students for his school reached her it seemed a perfect opportunity, and she used all her wiles and cunning to escape the clutches of her gilded cage (or so she thinks anyway), dragging her youngest brother from her own clutch with her.
Looking at the racial age categories for Nagaji, they're very similar to half-elf aging so I'd use that from the provided youngsters table :)
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Why Rob, WHYYYYYYYYYY must you present me with these DILEMMAS!?!
I'm starting college within the WEEK! I cannot responsibly keep up my obligations, maintain my educational focus, hold down a job an--ok, hang on. Haven't got to play a summoner yet, magical academies hold a special place in my heart DESPITE the cultural plague that is Harry Potter, and the only child campaign I was in fell through almost overnight. You couldn't have made it much more compelling unless there was an overlying Draconic theme on the first line...
Sigh. Damnit.
I'm physically and mentally incapable of passing this one up.
P.S.
STOP FEEDING MY ADDICTION FOR AMAZING CAMPAIGNS!!!
Is any 3PP Allowed?
This... this is what I like. It's a change of pace, an inspired, quirky and extravagantly different take on a campaign with the Pathfinder rules.
I'll have a half-elf young-lad rarin' to go within the next two weeks for your perusal. Regardless if I get in or not, it'll be interesting to see what people can come up with given the source material and the limits on character creation.
I think I am going to go with a fetchling shadow caller, working on the profile
That's interesting, I was also working on one. :p
I'm planning on randomisation for my race picking.
I remember that you had a game once that had everything randomized. How did it turn out?
I, Jen, hereby submit myself to the College of Shadows under the sign of the Survivor.
The games tend to run well until either players drop or RL gets in the way of GMing*, and one group keeps on trucking to the end.
The First BH set, had one group go to the end and they enjoyed it.
The Second BH (R2) set, only one group is still going.
And I did the randomisation method in a few recruitment threads and a few went with it and one player is now using it for character generation for himself and for character creation in his games.
Any limit on race choices?Core and Featured races are open, anything from the Uncommon/Other races categorization will require pre-approval. See d20pfsrd Races.
Damnit! Why did someone have to ask.. I was going to surprise Rob with an Ogre Summoner - using the non-HD-variety from the ARG.
Now considering he's specifically said what races (Instead of any race as per the char creation guide), I'll have to go with something else. :P
Oops sorry! ;)
While waiting on a response for my first question, I have another. Any chance of us taking an NPC class besides commoner? You've got us at age 14 for humans, that means highschool students. My character was raised as a Jadwiga, daughter of a princess, why would she have the commoner class over the aristocrat?
Definitely dotting my interest in this. I'd have a character up tonight, but it's just too late to finish what I have now. So, tomorrow!
Will look into the First Worlder archetype eventually. That one seems fun.
Alright, so I want my character to be the daughter of Princess Cassisoche Elvanna of Irrisen. Is that okay?
According to cannon, Baga Yaga would have come back in 4713 and placed a new daughter on the throne. Since it's 4715, who did she choose?
What happened to all the other Jadwiga Elvanna?
Did you ever get a timeline for the major cataclysms of the Ruins setting up somewhere?
Dot of Interest. I will work on the char for submission immediately.
Robert, these rolls are randomization for Fiendish Heritage to be applied to my char crunch and appearance.
While waiting on a response for my first question, I have another. Any chance of us taking an NPC class besides commoner? You've got us at age 14 for humans, that means highschool students. My character was raised as a Jadwiga, daughter of a princess, why would she have the commoner class over the aristocrat?
I was honestly thinking the same question for my proposed character concept, but I mean i wasn't sure if you're prefer to keep power level in line with the commoner.
But yeah.
Well I already built mine out as a commoner. Just thought I'd ask in case.
I think everyone wants something a bit better than commoner for their first level,
and maybe if the GM does switch to non-commoner NPC classes, each NPC class impacts something as well.
Dot. This is quite my speed.
Why does it matter what the GM starts it off as. I am sorry Azure, but you have done nothing but complain about this campaign from the get go. If you don't like it, then this is obviously not a campaign for you. Start your own or find one more up to your speed. Just stop trying to change what the GM wants to run.
And apologies to everyone else for that slight outburst. The comments were just getting under my skin.