Ruins of Pathfinder: The Mysterium Compact (Mythic) (Inactive)

Game Master Robert Brookes

I'm at a conference until next Friday with minimal internet access. Posts will be few and far between until then.

Eidelon will probably be angelic

cheers

I've pretty much already laid out Shenhua's eidolon as a chinese dragon, which they call a Lung.

Most of the time it will be a tattoo on her back that periodically moves.

Oh and (especially if I go First Worlder instead of Wild Caller) I might want to make my eidolon a mini scout/rogue, since we won't have any skill monkeys amongst us as PCs...but I'd wait to make that kind of decision until we learn more about what Robert has in mind, and what others in the party are looking to build.

I recently made a master summoner for a real life Way of the Wicked game. At level 1 his serpentine eidolon has a +22 stealth and constant concealment from the shadow form evolution. So it's basically undetectable by CR appropriate foes, and has the equivalent of hide in plain sight (all you need to roll stealth is cover or concealment from something looking at you). So it's essentially a telepathic scout drone. If it does its job, it will never, ever, EVER be seen (except by me).

Haven't started playing it yet, but it should be fun :)

So even though there's about a dozen other fantastically written and fleshed out characters waiting for their shot into this campaign, I thought that I'd go ahead and start writing out my own, because I live to be disappointed.

I was thinking about an Ifrit character, actually, as a refugee from Katapesh. He and his family travel up to Osirion, then through Thuvia and into Rahadoum. However, I've hit a little creative snags due mainly to the whole age thing. Namely, what constitutes a child for a long lived race.

In the Ifrit's case, their 'adult' age is around 60 years. Now, my biggest concern about that is if that's physical age, or mental age. Are they both mentally and physically considered an adult around that age? Or just physically, or just mentally? They'll have decades more experience with the world, outlive their human parents and possibly their human siblings before they reach that adult age.

So to be perfectly frank, I'm not sure how that would apply here. Do they really not start going through puberty until their 40s or 50s? Or do they age the same as humans, but that adult age represents the average rate it takes for them to train into their field of choice?

Rob said earlier that they would physically be the equivalent of a human teenager. Mentally, obviously, they are much more mature.

So yeah I guess ifrit probably stay "teenage" at least in body for several decades. The alternative is a bunch of grumpy 45 year old ifrit who look like eight year olds and have watched their parents grow old and possibly die while they remain child-like. I'm pretty sure that's not the case on Golarion.

I guess it's good to be Ifrit, body of a teenager, experience and mentality of a sixty year old? I'm guessing there's plenty of people who would pay billions for that chance.

I decided that I didn't like the name "Madai" so here's the same character under a new name, "Devin Corbin".

As for the form of his eidolon I was thinking that if he were to design it (as a typical adolescent boy) it would be a buxom blond Valkyrie in bikini chainmail. However, Kiera would probably insist on something different. Probably something along the lines of Molly from William Gibson's "Neuromancer". Black leather, retractable claws and inset mirrored sunglasses

(Sorry about messing up the list but the link to Madai no longer works.)

*edit* For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the work, Molly was a 'street samurai' or 'razor girl'. The novel "Neuromancer" was arguably the beginning of cyberpunk.

Rob said earlier that they would physically be the equivalent of a human teenager. Mentally, obviously, they are much more mature.

So yeah I guess ifrit probably stay "teenage" at least in body for several decades. The alternative is a bunch of grumpy 45 year old ifrit who look like eight year olds and have watched their parents grow old and possibly die while they remain child-like. I'm pretty sure that's not the case on Golarion.

I guess it's good to be Ifrit, body of a teenager, experience and mentality of a sixty year old? I'm guessing there's plenty of people who would pay billions for that chance.

Guess that makes sense. I'll go with that, though considering his abysmally low Wisdom Score, he's definitely going to be a bit spacey. I'll finish him up and post him later.

I, Alanar Illani, hereby submit myself to the College of Shadows under the sign of The Empty Throne.

Garret Wilson The Keep (Half Elf spear guy)

Aemelya The Survivor (Fetchling Orphan)

Zanithane The Lost (Tiefling slave)

Anlessa Kowan The Survivor (Human Runaway)

Alyona Elvanna The Betrayal (Human evil princess)

Yaz The Tangled Briar (Half-orc, raised by orcs)

Vathan The Forge (Aasimar prisoner)

Devin Corbin The Twins (Human varisian with imaginary friend)

Cassandra norst The Eclipse (changeling adoptee with teddy bear)

Shen Hua The Dance (Human bastard princess of Tian Ja)

Taeo Oneshape The Joke (Aasimar fey born)

Deriku The Owl (Shoanti foundling)

Dmitri Valkov The Inquisitor (Razmiran agitator’s son)

Erik Vargas The Big Sky (Chelaxian orphan)

Alanar the Firehearted The Empty Throne (Ifrit regugee from Katapesh)

Hey guys! I was pretty busy this weekend so I haven't had a chance to respond to anything yet. I'll be going through posts now and responding to things as I come across them!

@Dmitri: Excellent background! One point to keep in mind (it won't affect your backstory much but might be something you reference in character), when Kyonin was destroyed by a falling comet (around 7 years ago in-game history) there was a tidal wave that did significant damage to Razmiran's capital and much of the coastal villages and towns. Thousands died and many more were displaced. Razmir wound up working some [s]wish spells[/i]miracles to repair some of the damage, but there was a period of high taxation, homelessness and vagrancy greater than the country had ever experienced. Whether Dmitri's family was impacted directly or indirectly is something you may be able to use as character development later on :)

do you still have room

Yes! Recruitment is open until 11pm EST (-5GMT) on Friday.

@Erik Vargas: Love the background and that we now have a Wiscrani character in the roster, I'm glad to see that region being represented. Lots of opportunity with a background from there, especially with the Harrow card chosen.

In the Ifrit's case, their 'adult' age is around 60 years. Now, my biggest concern about that is if that's physical age, or mental age. Are they both mentally and physically considered an adult around that age? Or just physically, or just mentally? They'll have decades more experience with the world, outlive their human parents and possibly their human siblings before they reach that adult age.

So to be perfectly frank, I'm not sure how that would apply here. Do they really not start going through puberty until their 40s or 50s? Or do they age the same as humans, but that adult age represents the average rate it takes for them to train into their field of choice?

That's a really good question and it's sort of a mixed bag. Paizo's official stance is that the "plane-touched" races shouldn't mature any differently than humans (same goes for Dhampir too), however they've basically said that it can go several ways.

1) Human starting age but extended overall life-span.

2) Extended age all together (as shown in the Advanced Race Guide)

3) Ages as human

In options 1 and 3, you'd start at the default human age-range as applicable with human experiences, and with option 1 you'd just start maturing slower once you reached adulthood and use the longer-lived tables.

In option 2 (which is as they're written in the ARG), you'd mature somewhat like an elf. You'd live as a child for a few decades, but while you'd have numerous more life experiences you wouldn't quite be an adult mentally, as the physical brain development is slower as well. You'd definitely be precocious and more mature than a human child, but still be lacking the full mental faculties of an adult.

Basically, you have lee-way to play it how you'd prefer, and there's no problem with a young long-lived character with high Int/Wis/Cha playing that up. Though they'd still have child-like moments/development issues.

We can discuss it further if you have more questions, of course. That goes for anyone playing a long-lived race from the ARG or otherwise.

@Alanar: Great background, great description/personality, excellent Harrow card choice for the character. Really impressed by that one, races like Ifrit are often hard to get a handle on the mentality/history of, I really dig it.

Re the childhood of the plane-touched, if you start to look too closely it definitely gets odd. Let's start with two human parents with twins, one human (Joe) and the other plane-touched (Sue). Let’s say the parents give birth at 20, become grandparents at 40, great-grandparents at 60, and great-great-grandparents at 80. If the parents make it to 80, they’ll get to see Sue reach adulthood and be ready to fend for herself...right about the same time Sue’s twin Joe’s great-grandchildren reach maturity. It seems (in a world with option #2) that in practice raising a plane-touched child would be a task for several generations of a family to share. “OK little, Joe-the-third, now that you’re 10 you need to know that your great-aunt Sue is an aasimar. That means you’ll need to help raise her, just like your father Joe-the-second and your grandfather (her brother) Joe-the-first did.”

My inclination as a world-builder would be to take either option #1 or #3 and say that plane-touched children reach maturity at roughly the same age as their non-plane-touched parent(s)...or to say there's no one pattern and allow anything from a child who reaches maturity at the same age as their humanoid race to a child who matures at the much slower pace of their outsider race.

It doesn’t matter for Taeo Oneshape. Since he was raised in the dreamy twilight of the First World by it’s immortal, it’s easy to imagine that 54 years have passed for him and he’s still a teen. I really like the way Vathan’s several orphaned childhoods works out too; I can picture this long-lived kid who’s in some ways mature beyond his years and in other ways just a kid on the streets...who happens to have been there (in a few different forms) for a long time. Alanar (another nice write-up -- I don’t envy Robert in having to whittle this pool down) uses a blurrier lens, as I did, noting that his parents are dead and his younger sister is grown and married while he’s still a child...but not really going into how independent he is or who’s been raising him or what his arc of maturing has been.

I gave the whole Ifrit thing a good thinking about when I wrote up his background, and writing it in journal format helped me to peg Alanar's character. He's flighty and leaps from one focus to the next, like a wildfire. His maturity, mentally at least, is stunted a bit by his elemental nature, though he's no less intelligent. There's also the whole physical development thing as well.

I wrote Alanar up as an Option 2, where he physically and mentally ages as a longer lived race. I thought it would be interesting to see how he tries to process the loss of his family, how they get older and he stays younger, and that his younger sibling still treats him like a child because he can't help acting like one.

He's wild in nature, prone to go off on his own without notice, and struggles with doing the simple things necessary to live as a functioning adult in the world. Part of his growth as I imagine it is for him to stabilize his mind view - rather than being the wild flame leaping from one source to the next and riding the winds, he'll be as steady and constant as a lantern, more focused.

I suppose that planetouched races can be considered on a case-by-case basis - some mature faster than the rest. Maybe their physical maturity is linked to their mental one. Alanar certainly still needs time to grow.

Shenhua has been updated to reflect her "young" age category. I took the opportunity to change some of her stats around as well as her feats.

Doing so brought up an interesting point. I went ahead and plotted Shenhua out to 10th level, mostly to get an idea of her eidolon. It's actually a good thing that I did as I switched her eidolon from serpentine to quadruped and then back again. In the meantime, her role has really changed.

I would like Shenhua's eidolon to represent a spirit, sent by her ancestors to watch over her. It is tied to this plane by the tattoo on her back. And yes, I know that sounds a lot like Mulan and Mushu.

I plan to play Shenhua's eidolon as a wise ancestor guiding her through growing up. She will see it as a mentor and a way of staying in touch with her homeland despite being on the other side of the world. In this way, it will be an ancient soul contrasted with her youthful one.

My final question regards traits. I want to avoid putting a feat into martial weapon proficiency by using Heirloom Weapon to give proficiency with the longbow. This is complicated by the admonition that we possess no equipment. May I have the bow but no arrows, therefore rendering it unusable? Or may I take the trait and get the bow later? Or may I get really greedy and take longbow proficiency as a trait?

Come to think of it, do we get traits at all?

PS: I don't know why they made Heirloom Weapon such a mess. It seems to me that if a trait is half a feat, and the feat martial weapon prof gives you proficiency in a group of weapons, surely a trait giving you proficiency in a single weapon would be reasonable. I suspect however, that I may be the only one that thinks so.

We get one trait and one more once we graduate. For my trait I chose Talented so my character could use the Totem Spear to speak for 5 years of his life. As a Half-Elf I took the alternate racial trait to get an exotic weapon prof. so he wouldn't take any penalties on using the weapon.

I took Merchant's Child to reflect Alanar's background. He likes shiny things, and he likes to make shiny things. He also likes to dance, which is why I chose Appraise, Craft (Jewelry), and Perform (Dance) as the skills he has ranks in. I wanted to reflect that he hasn't exactly lived his life so far prepping to be a summoner.

Though I'm also sure that I could probably do with some suggestions for building him. I took Scorching Weapons as his feat because I had this idea about him growing alongside his eidelon as a meleeist, though it's hard to balance out the stats with 15 points and the Young Character adjustments.

Speaking of the Young Character Adjustments, you do the -2 Str, Con and Wis and the +2 Dex for that after spending points, right? So if you put 5 points in Str with no racial mods, you'd end up with 12 (14-2), not 13 (Start at 8, add 5 points)?

@shenhua: From my reading on the forums, Heirloom Weapon gives you Prof in that specific weapon you get from the trait. If you pick up a different Long bow for example, you are not proficient with it. Of course, Robert DOES have last say and may even let it slide, which would make my comment a moot point. :D

EDIT: BTW, I agree with you on the Heirloom Weapon trait being a mess. While I don't agree with what they did to it with the Errata, I do understand why they did it. IMO either way you turn it, I love that trait for RP purposes, even if you DO have to buy the weapon with starting cash to have it.

@Alana, yes, you apply adjustments after spending points. Keep in mind though that Robert has said we'll eventually (1) lose the young template, and (2) get some other stat increases.

I'd initially thought about building a small character who could ride around on his eidolon with a lance...but in the end the concept I hit on didn't feel right for a gnome or halfling.

Crusty, and chance Gobgob will be charging about astride his eidolon(s)?

*Skim thread skim thread*
A friend told me about this one and it sounds interesting. I've done very very little forum-based RP, but given that I'm pretty much starving for something text-based I figured I'd give it another go.

I, Veshka, hereby submit myself to the College of Shadows under the sign of The Courtesan.

I think it'll be interesting to re-imagine Veshka as a summoner (missing context: Veshka is a character I built for a GURPS game, the child of another PC, mostly to make his character's life more difficult--he did it to me, so this was the GM giving me fair turnabout; I promised the player that Veshka would not have magical abilities, so readapting her in a different setting should be interesting).

Draco18s, welcome to the boards.

You'll want to read the submission guidelines again in the first post in this recruitment thread. You need to have a back story, appearance, personality, and crunch all posted in a particular format in a profile for the character in order to apply.

Jelani has collected all the applicants so far, with links, so you can see plenty of examples. Best of luck.

And...that's what I get for skimming. I'll have to do that tonight if I can.

@Dmitri: Excellent background! One point to keep in mind (it won't affect your backstory much but might be something you reference in character), when Kyonin was destroyed by a falling comet (around 7 years ago in-game history) there was a tidal wave that did significant damage to Razmiran's capital and much of the coastal villages and towns. Thousands died and many more were displaced. Razmir wound up working some [s]wish spells[/i]miracles to repair some of the damage, but there was a period of high taxation, homelessness and vagrancy greater than the country had ever experienced. Whether Dmitri's family was impacted directly or indirectly is something you may be able to use as character development later on :)

That's the one thing I wasn't sure about - I wasn't sure how Razmiran was affected by the failure of the APs, as I've not read most of them. In order to keep rewrites to a minimum, his family was far enough from the coast that they weren't displaced, but the region was flooded with a number of refugees. That influx of people meant the meager resources his family had were almost non-existent. What wasn't taken by the priests went to relief work, and I think it's safe to say that one or two of his siblings died from starvation. Just another thing that makes him question why Razmir can't just wave his hand a fix all of this for his people.

One more thing - any winter portals in or near Razmiran?

None I've established directly, though there's some close enough to directly impact the weather, probably out in the river kingdoms.

Dagnabit I have gotta get this character ready!
*grumblegrumblegrumble*

Background in profile, I'll get a write up of the personality tonight hopefully......or tomorrow, we'll see.

I now have an alias.

The website helpfully ate the background I wrote (click save changes, get taken to Piazo homepage), which was like a page long. I'll redo it later when I'm not so frustrated. Put up a cliffnotes version.

If you are writing in the profile window it erases everything after ten minutes if you don't hit preview every few minutes. Best to write in an external place (notepad, word) and then copy it over to the profile when you're finished. You've also only got one hour to edit posts after they've been made.

Actually, I think the site logged me out. >:(
Good to know in the future though.

WOULD BE NICE IF THEY PUT A WARNING ON THAT PAGE, TOO.

@Draco18s: I know the feeling, I made that mistake with my first character. I actually had to remake him 3 seperate times before I learned a few tricks.

• Type it up in a word document or something similar (As mentioned by DM Jelani)
  
• Always select all the text and copy it before hitting submit. That way if it DOES freak out on you or log you out, you have the option to just paste the most recent and up to date version of your write up and try a resubmit.
  

EDIT: Also, the nice thing about doing it in a word document, you can put all the bolds, italics, and ooc tags after you make the text look the way you want it to. an example is you bold the text during the initial write up for headings of feats and such. Once you finish the write up, you can put the appropriate tags provided by the visual cue you placed. (I am not particularly sure if any of that just made sense, but I hope it was clear enough to understand.) :D

Made sense to me.

Yeah, I got burned by the same thing early on. I'm big on Google Docs (I love that they're always saved, and that I can go from my work laptop to my phone to my computer at home and they're in exactly the same state, and that they have a revision history in case I screw something up) so I keep one Google Doc for each character I create and almost never compose anything but the shortest message straight on the boards.

Been rather ill the last week but I really like this game, so while I finish my background...

I, Nanya Sinhaziri, hereby submit myself to the College of Shadows under the sign of the Courtesan.

Profile updated. It's got all the same info I originally wrote, although it doesn't feel like its arranged as nicely ("This is a tribute to the greatest song ever written").

I, Sehskinari, hereby submit myself to the College of Shadows under the sign of The Twin.

I, Aldon Burke, hereby submit myself to the College of Shadows under the sign of The Trumpet.

@Nanya: Let me know when your background is finished, I'd rather not review it until then.

@Sehskinari: Wow! Inventive and interesting! I didn't really expect to see a Nagaji here, but this one is just full of interesting background and development possibilities. I love the vestigial twin angle too, that's just crazy! To fill in the blank of your background, it would be Hokuto Ichihara who would have found Sehsk, there's some more detail about her upthread.

@Aldon: Very nice background, I love the final scene between he and his father. Also that is a crazy avatar, I've never seen that one used before.

Hello RB. I started reading this a couple days ago, and I am hooked already. Hope you don't mind the last minute submission!

I, Turin Samosi, hereby submit myself to the College of Shadows under the sign of The Tyrant.

Garret Wilson The Keep (Half Elf spear guy)

Aemelya The Survivor (Fetchling Orphan)

Zanithane The Lost (Tiefling slave)

Anlessa Kowan The Survivor (Human Runaway)

Alyona Elvanna The Betrayal (Human evil princess)

Yaz The Tangled Briar (Half-orc, raised by orcs)

Vathan The Forge (Aasimar prisoner)

Devin Corbin The Twins (Human varisian with imaginary friend)

Cassandra norst The Eclipse (changeling adoptee with teddy bear)

Shen Hua The Dance (Human bastard princess of Tian Ja)

Taeo Oneshape The Joke (Aasimar fey born)

Deriku The Owl (Shoanti foundling)

Dmitri Valkov The Inquisitor (Razmiran agitator’s son)

Erik Vargas The Big Sky (Chelaxian orphan)

Alanar the Firehearted The Empty Throne (Ifrit regugee from Katapesh)

Sehskinari The Twin (Female nagaji)

Aldon The Trumpet (Male human)

Turn Samosi The Tyrant (male half-elf from Nidal)

I'll be dropping as RL is getting in the way of me completing the backstory for my submission.

@Sehskinari: Wow! Inventive and interesting! I didn't really expect to see a Nagaji here, but this one is just full of interesting background and development possibilities. I love the vestigial twin angle too, that's just crazy! To fill in the blank of your background, it would be Hokuto Ichihara who would have found Sehsk, there's some more detail about her upthread.

Ahh whoops! I wrote the background up while I was away from internet and meant to look that up before I posted. I forgot :p

Hehe, glad that it's caught your interest, I look forward to your decision.

Background is done.

The way I envision her eventual eidolon by the way is as a manifestation of her anger but also fitting for one of her as being part of the Padaprajna caste (the elite warriors and generals). Think something between a Marilith and a six armed Lillend, but with a Vudrani twist.

I've visualized Alanar's eidolon as an embodiment of fire and destruction - eventually. Starting out, his eidolon will be little more than a creature of ash, rising from the dust and hacking its lungs out, only the smouldering ember like pinpricks of its pupils aglow. It is lumpy, misshapen and every movement it makes crumbles dust off of it onto the ground, like a flash-heated victim from a volcano eruption come to life.

Of course, that's just to start. Eidolons evolve, grow stronger and change their shapes, so the journey going from weak creature to awesome avatar of badassitude will be quite fun.

Recruitment ends at 11:59 pm eastern time (-5 GMT). That's roughly 16 hours from now.

Final decision on party composition will be made Saturday.

Mysterium Compact will start Monday.

Good luck!

@Aldon: Very nice background, I love the final scene between he and his father. Also that is a crazy avatar, I've never seen that one used before.

Thank you very much! I'm glad you liked it. As for the avatar... well, to be completely honest, it was the first result for child or kid or something similar... maybe it was youth? Anyway, it fit my vision of him and it has a certain style to it, so it was just a lucky find.

And yes, good luck everyone!

Robert Brookes: Did you want me to reformat the character stats before the recruitment ends? Or was it okay to do it if I get in?