Spooky's Carrion Crown

Game Master Jonas El 'Adan

As the alias name kind of implies, I like spooky undead s!%@, so I'd adore the opportunity to play Creepy Undead S*%@: The Adventure Path. While I'd love to play it with my meatspace group, I feel like play-by-post lends itself more to the horror and roleplay of the matter than my riends will, so I turn to you, Paizo forums. I'd like to run a game of Carrion Crown that is heavy on the roleplay and soaks in all the horror and atmosphere, and am looking for a group who can help make that a reality.

Character Creation Guidelines:
-1st level
-20 point buy
-All official Paizo classes except for Gunslinger, and all archetypes except for Synthesist Summoner.
--Occult Adventures Playtest material is allowed, but know the risks of playing a class that may get heavily errata'd in July (we'll deal with it when we get there) and which currently has no equipment or feat support.
-All Core races, as well as Aasimar, Changeling, Dhampir, and Tiefling are allowed without question. Drow, Goblin, Hobgoblin, and Svirfneblin are banned. All other Featured and Uncommon races are allowed so long as you can make it work. As the player's guide states though, Ustalav is not a trusting or friendly place, so being visibly weird is not to your benefit.
-Two traits, one of which must come from the Carrion Crown Player's Guide. Your campaign trait is your connection to the Professor (read the guide in full to understand what's going on/expected of you), and thus should be worked into your backstory in some way.
-Average starting gold for your class
-No evil characters allowed
-Material from any official Paizo material is allowed.
-Third party material is banned.
-I am open to the refluffing or houseruling of matters, so feel free to ask.
-A backstory (preferably of several or more paragraphs), as well as a general idea of their personality, motivation, etc.
-A general rundown of your character, play-wise. What they can do is the meat of it, but if you're planning on multiclassing or prestige classing them, let me know that bit too. That way I have an idea of what we're getting into, balance-wise.

And a few notes about how I run games/DM stuff:
-I don't use maps. I prefer narrative combat, and especially in a horror game, it allows for more mood and atmosphere than moving pieces around a map.
-Unless you dump Strength, I'm pretty lax about carrying capacity, so don't fret too much about it.
-In addition to wanting some deep roleplay and real getting-into of the atmosphere, I intend to add small bits of side content where necessary. My love of monster myths and such mean there are a lot of goodies in various bestiaries that no game ever includes, and I'd like a chance to do so. If all you're looking to do is race to the end of the book, this is not the game for you.
-I'm looking for people who can make at least one post a day on weekdays, and once on the weekends. More is good, naturally, and I'm understanding about things. Life > RP.

Due to my adoration of the spooky s~@& going on, characters that have their own spooky s#$~ going on are much adored. It's not necessary, but characters I can find plot hooks for and play on assorted fears of tend to be much more fun to run through, and getting into the spirit and gimmick of an AP is something I'm big on. Something to consider when kicking ideas around.

I'm not sure how big a party I'll be taking, but 4-6. As evidenced by the point buy, I'll be rebalancing and scaling up the encounters as needed to keep difficulty consistent, since walks through the park are kind of the antithesis of horror. Running Wrath of the Righteous for a bunch of optimizers has made me rather good at that. My recruitment will take party balance into account, but individual selections will be based largely on which characters take me the most. If you want to know how you can best make a character that interests me, see the above paragraph.

Dot

I'll be submitting Merick for this. Probably going with warpriest (all my levels will go into warpriest). I'll stat him up over the next day or two.

How much of an emphasis will you be placing on resource management? (Food, water, etc.)

I think I'd like to repurpose a character from a game that didn't get going - specifically, an Aasimar Oracle of Yog-Sothoth (CN alignment, but leaning good - not the crazy backstabbing kind of CN), but I'd like to know how important the little details will be. XD

All of my yes. Dotting for interest!

I also was thinking war priest or cleric, maybe an inquisitor, kinslayer archetype

@Rednal: I'll be placing some emphasis onto it; when you get to adventuring (you will not be starting out adventuring) you should make sure to have food and water at the ready. And I don't think I'm going to allow Yog-Sothoth, given that I'm considering using Carrion Hill in between adventures and your character may have some issues with that.

Well, she's always thought that evil cultists give her faith a bad name (Yog-Sothoth is officially CN, not CE, and she thinks anyone who brings morality into it is completely missing the point - while those who are insane are merely to be pitied and removed from society), and she wouldn't mind opposing them on general principle since they make her life harder... XD Buuuuut you are the GM, so it's your call.

If she would be willing to work against evil cultists of her own faith, then I suppose it would be okay. I just didn't think a character would really be wanting to move against agents of her own god and all.

I'd like to submit Alexander, A human Warpriest

I am very interested in joining, I would be creating an inquisitor who may possibly multiclass as a summoner, I don't know yet. Where should a put a char submission? Also is it okay if my reference source is d20pfsrd?

Character submissions go in this thread. Using d20PFSRD is fine.

If she would be willing to work against evil cultists of her own faith, then I suppose it would be okay. I just didn't think a character would really be wanting to move against agents of her own god and all.

In the case of a normal god I would tend to agree since things are spoon feed from on high or at least it would seem to be on Golarion but the great old ones don't much care about mortals and what they do in most cases and a god of chaos might even enjoy different factions of the religion fighting about what is dogma or even the actions that should be taken as a member of the religion as a whole. Real life examples are all around us today of such situations. Heck chaos itself even in their own rank and file maybe more important to the great old one then any particular plan. Just my two coppers

Thinking about putting together a character need to flesh out a concept thinking maybe a Mystic Theurge.

Here is Spugnoir, Alchemist who can provide support with buffs, healing, and some martial support.

After some thought, looking REEEEEAL hard at an Infiltrator + Skirmisher Ranger; less of a nature-loving hippy and more of a grim and gritty hunter of monsters. Will have that up first thing tomorrow after getting some sleep :p

Dotting for interest. I'm thinking possibly a True Neutral Changeling Possessed Oracle ...with the tongues curse (and occult or bones mystery, I haven't decided which at this time, but leaning toward occult). I don't envisage multi-classing.

I will put something together soon.

Dot for interest. Right now I'm thinking an Arcanist.

I'm considering slayer or urban ranger. Possibly a mishmash of slayer and swashbuckler. I'll let the juices simmer for a bit before deciding.

Edit: Are variant aasimar heritages allowed? I'm liking the idea of an angelkin aasimar slayer with a dark past who's taken to implementing intimidating tactics on the field of battle.

Maybe a snake folk sorcerer.

I'm reading over the Player's Guide at this point in time. I just wanted to put forth the point that I am interested in joining in.

Edit: Spooky GM, do you plan on using the Harrow Points: Cards of Fate optional rules?

Additional Edit: I'm leaning towards incorporating the Harrow Deck into my characters background in some way or another. I did like the various archetypes that brought the Harrow Deck to life so I will likely choose one of them to play with and perhaps even make my way into the Harrower prestige class.

Will do crunch later, but here is the backstory and motivation for Kerk Jenkins Human Inquisitor of Pharasma and a subject of the good Professor's study.

He'll be a medium armoured THF with the Final Rest Inquisition. Motivation is a hatred for undead explained by his backstory. Melee, monster knowledge and tracking skills. Let me know what you think please.

I humbly submit Dr. Stefan von Herzog, a physician from Lepidstadt.

Dr. Herzog also has a second job as an expert on the undead. In that regard, he is a wizard that specializes in the school of necromancy. The idea of the character is a necromancer who hates the undead, and uses the tools of necromancy to gain advantages over them to put walking corpses back into their graves permanently. The character concept is essentially Dr. Van Helsing from the original novel Dracula.

I have run Dr. Herzog in two other short-lived Carrion Crown games, both of which fizzled out on the second game-day of play.

I will have to nudge his stats a bit to comply with your character generation guidelines, but he's pretty much ready to start! One character generation note: Dr. Herzog has a custom trait that fits his background.

In order to not step on anyone else's toes, and to hopefully prevent anyone from stepping on my own, I would like to put forth that I am creating a Human (Ustalav/Varisian) Cartomancer Witch who will progress into the Harrower prestige class for Spooky GMs perusal.

Having been raised by an Ustalavic father and Varisian mother, this character very strongly believes in the paranormal. While his father taught him of the things that go bump in the night, his mother taught him about how everything is tied together by fate and how he might glean information about the future through the use of a harrow deck.

His prized possession is the harrow deck his mother left him. His knowledge of the folklore and use of said deck is what garnered Professor Lorrimor's attention.

With that information in mind, I have chosen to take the Harrowed Chosen and On the Payroll traits.

Draken was born in a smallish town in a rural area. When he was born he looked human enough to pass and was accepted for over two years. Unfortunately, one day he was discovered drinking the blood of a slaughtered hog, and upon inspection of the local clergy, branded a Dhamphir. His mother was driven out of the town after refusing to abandon the “monster” child to death. In the wilds, not terribly far from town, his mother raised Draken as best she could. She managed to build a small, very small, cabin after months of work, learned to hunt, and managed to start a small farm behind her house. Draken grew up never knowing what he was, he never had other children to play with only his mother and he loved her dearly. Eventually he grew old enough to help around the house, and they lived poorly, but happily, for several years. Sadly, on his 14th birthday, he ventured too far out hunting and was seen by the member of the town. When he attempted to approach the woman screamed out, running back towards town, fascinated by a girl who appeared to be his own age, he followed her. Once he got to the town he was overwhelmed with the amount of people. He saw the girl again, she was speaking to a group of men in leather and chain, when she pointed back and turned she screamed again. Draken merely waved, smiling. Not understanding. However, after the men started shouting and firing arrows at him, he began to question. Why do they try to harm me? Have I done something wrong? when an arrow hit his arm, he questioned no longer; he turned and ran as hard as he could. He quickly outpaced the town guard, but unknowingly left a trail of blood straight to his home… Once home, he spoke to his mother about everything and her face darkened as she slumped her head, and shoulders. She spoke not a word as she tended his wound, but when she finished sat back and covered her face with her hands. She spoke then, she told the boy everything. She told him of his heritage, of his birth, the town running them off, thinking them both dead. The boy didn’t understand. He had never harmed anyone; he had never even drunk blood once he learned it was long. But they didn’t care, He couldn’t comprehend how people could so harshly and quickly judge someone because of their lineage, how even though he was one of the most honest children they would know, they condemned him to death merely because of his blood. It wasn’t more than a day that a mob found them. His mother begged and pleaded, she told them how innocent, how kind and loving the child was. Her pleas fell on deaf ears. For still protecting them, they labeled her a witch, and a vampire lover, even her once husband, shouted in fear. They rushed the house and tied her and Draken up, then dragged them outside. Outside stood a wooden alter to Desna, and firewood was being placed on it, but instead of the boy, who they gave to the local clergyman, they tied his mother up to it. They said, that she would be burned, and that in the fire her soul would be purged. Ravens and crows had gathered among the trees, awaiting the feast surely to come. As the men held Draken’s face, forcing him to watch, they lit a torch and moved to light the alter. Just then, a voice boomed out of the mobs noise.
CEASE THIS FOOLERY AT ONCE! YOU MAKE A FOOLISH MISTAKE!
Everything grew very still and quite, as a man made his way through the crowd, he carried a backpack filled with books, and had a walking stick. With him was a lad with blade in hand, eyes darting all around the gathering. The man spoke again.
This is naught but foolishness! You kill an innocent woman! This child has done less wrong than anyone of us! I have watched them, and spoken to the mother on several occasion. To kill these people would be murder!
From the crowd, faceless voices shout.
He is deaths spawn! What can he ever be but evil? and calls of He is a vampire too! BURN HIM! STAKE HIM!
The professor appears to grow angry
SILENCE NOW! Control your fears or they will control you! These two have been living here since you ran them out, and have done you NO HARM! Use your heads! Stop a moment and THINK! I beseech you, ask yourselves, what have they done to deserve this?
As he speaks many torches are lowered, people begin to glance around, questioning there intents, the frenzy begins to die down... but then the clergyman speaks
DEVIL, DEMON AND DEATH LOVER! MISGUIDER AND BEGUILER! Surely you are this foul beasts Father! he jerks up young Draken.
YOU SEEK ONLY TO SAVE YOUR EVIL ILK! YOU PLAN TO TURN US ALL INTO YOUR SLAVES! The man rants longer, as he rants people begin to frown, and voices start to rise again. But then, as if an epiphany comes to him, the strange man speaks again.
I AM PROF. LORRIMOR, The Leading expert on undead and seeker of evil. I work with many of the church to root out evil and plots before they happen, and you sir I find guilty!
He pulls out a silver holy symbol of Iomeade, pressing towards the clergyman, suddenly the priest jerks away, hissing. The Prof presses on, and the man still flees. Suddenly a light as bright as day appears shining directly over the priest and he stumbles and falls, his wide brimmed hat flies from his head and soon the man begins smoldering.
You are the vampire that taints this town, YOU infused that child with the blood of undeath, You would have them kill an innocent woman, would say that child escaped, and blame any deaths, feedings and the like on him. Well you shall torment this town NEVERMORE! Now, GO TO YOUR ENTERNAL DAMNATION!
As it writhed in agony the vampire spit out a curse, and managed the sputterings of a spell, let you be cursed Lorrimar, let you and your family suffer for eternity! If I am to go to damnation, then I will see you in hell! Then suddenly, the gathering of ravens and crows took flight, and attacked Drakens mother, knocking the torchs from the mens hands and alighting the alter. They pecked eyes, and clawed ears, allowing the flame to grow and begin to burn the woman. Then they flew at the professor, only to implode upon coming near him. But the distraction caused the light to vanish, and the holy symbol to be turned away. The vampire morphed into green gas and escaped, leaving behind an echo of laughter as Draken watched In horror as his mother was burned alive, the flames too strong to be stopped. The screams where forever ingrained into his memory. Later, he was given the “key to the town” and apologized to directly by every single towns member. Draken only nodded, he didn’t want to forgive them, he wanted to blame them, wanted to get away from this narrowminded and stupid town. That night he snuck away from his "father" and new “family” and caught up with the man that had saved his life.
I want to learn from you. I want to avenge my mother, and make sure nothing like it ever happens again. I want to prove that even people like me, can bring good to the world.
Lorrimar, after a grueling session of questions, accepted. After teaching the child for 5 years, he figured he had learned most he knew to teach for now, and bid him join a church that Lorrimar had ties in. After a long discussion, Draken Accepted, and joined the church to learn to combat undead, and evil, further. He was trained in his deities favored weapon, and taking advantage of his natural agility, taught him how to wield a crossbow, and bow. He learned more about the weakness of the undead, even studied fiends and demons, though to a lesser extent. Eventually, he was sent on his first mission, clean out a small catacomb of any undead and slay the necromancer there, he was accompanied by a paladin and a cleric. He proved his worth that night when he personally slew the necromancer with a crossbow shot to the head. After that he began to study a new weapon, black powder, and firearms anything to help him find, and kill the monster that took his entire world from him. Eventually, a few years after the day he was first left at the church, a letter came. It told of Lorrimars death, and that he sought to gather his friends together for a reading of his will. It mentioned that it was of the utmost important to come. Not more than a day later, Draken put his quest of vengeance on hold. Not more than a day after that, Draken Caladran Lorrimar, set off to the professors home town. A heavy heart and a heavy step followed him the entire way, he was forced to stay away from towns, lest his blood hinder him. He couldn’t help but think, one day, I will be allowed to freely walk where I please, I will prove to the world that a dhamphir can be… good. . Finally he reached the town where the man that saved his life would be buried, the man he looked up to, idolized, a man he called father.

he believes that not all undead are evil, but that those that are good should be assayed like gold in the furnace. While he pretends to not care, he truly seeks to be accepted in most societies and works towards the goal of proving that not all of his bloodline are evil, though he can have bouts of rage where he slays any and all related to undead and or evil, he usually seeks to stay his hand if possible, as the killings, whilst just and for the better of others, are often seen as a monster sating his bloodlust.

stats- undecided
Str: 12
Dex: 16
Con: 10
Int: 12
Wis: 15
Cha: 14

Traits: signature moves

Still smoothing out the back story and I am undecided on the stats, depending a clarification or two

Will do crunch later, but here is the backstory and motivation for Kerk Jenkins Human Inquisitor of Pharasma and a subject of the good Professor's study.

He'll be a medium armoured THF with the Final Rest Inquisition. Motivation is a hatred for undead explained by his backstory. Melee, monster knowledge and tracking skills. Let me know what you think please.

** spoiler omitted **...

Bah! You beat me to the punch, as I had a wildly similar idea! :p

Plan B then: Investigator of the Sleepless Agency inspired by the late, great Professor Lorrimor!

I present you with Maia, since someone has already made an undead hunting inquisitor...

Oh man, I guess I went for a pretty cliche character :). Or I'll say great minds think alike rgramen and Maia! *ahem*.

I'd say there's theoretical room for more than one undead hunter in a party, given that it's kind of a major archetype, so I'd advise everyone not to worry too much about barking up the same alley if your characters differ enough and aren't also the same class and such.

@Sixteenbitcoin: Variants are allowed.

@Joshua Hirtz: Yeah, I think I will be including them.

@Dr. Stefan: Don't worry too much about tweaking him for build rules before selection.

That only strengthens my decision to go with what I'm currently making then. Unfortunately, I may have to wait until tomorrow to really work on a background story and the like. However, I have the basic mechanical aspects of the character done.

Going with what I've put up so far the character will be based around his harrow deck. In fact, he even pulls his spells from it when studying each morning. Later on he will begin using his cards as weapons as well.

Otherwise, he will start out with a deck he inherited from his mother along with a carrying case and mat. I see him going from village to village healing those he can so I have prepped him with a rank in heal and cure light wounds will be a known spell.

@Spooky what's your thinking on AOOs and builds that try to take advantage of them (e.g. reach cleric).

Running an AOO-centric build is a little complicated by not using the grid, obviously, but AOOs still exist and will still come up, so if you can map things out in your head then it should be fine. I'll still be providing description and telling you when stuff happens.

OK Cool. So I have this idea, an initially happy go lucky Cleric of Shelyn finds out just how ugly and brutal the world can be, and (assuming he survives the shock, and of course the constitution and or level drain) he grows into a grizzled veteran dedicated to destroying the brutal horrors that seek to snuff out all the life and beauty in the world. Wouldn't be surprised if he goes a bit mad along the way.

Is that the sort of thing you're looking for? :)

Mechanically I was thinking of an Evangelist with the luck domain, or just a regular cleric if there's a bard in the party.

Submitting Vivia Zoran, Goblin Firebomber Alchemist, for your consideration.

Yeah, that could definitely work. "Bitter monster hunter" is kind of a classic trope that definitely fits with the setting.

Also, just to kind of lay out what tickles my fancy in the genre so that you can get an idea of what's in mind by "characters with spooky s!%#": I'm a massive horror junkie into pretty much everything except for gore porn and zombie flicks, and I tend to enjoy atmosphere more than gore and jump scares. I'm also huge into monster myths, and by extension urban fantasy like The Dresden Files, early seasons Supernatural, and the like. On top of that of course are the classics like Poe, Stoker, and Lovecraft. There are few tropes or derivative characters one could propose that are outside of "my kind of horror", so feel free to pursue pretty much any avenue.

Jim Butcher is one of my favorite authors :)

So spooky stuff, how about the Harrow deck feats and traits? Fortune telling seems to fit with the Luck domain, and naturally the character would be Varisian. Of the Carrion Crown traits, Chance Savior seems to fit the theme. I think that's enough for me to write up an interesting background.

Possible plot hook: A reading like the ones Fiddler did in the various Malazan books would be awesome.

@Vivia: Sorry, not allowin Goblins.

@FangDragon: Another player is whipping up a Witch bound for Harrower, so not sure how you feel about stepping on toes and s%@#, but depending on how much you actually intend to use the deck, I don't necessarily see an issue with two applicants who read fortunes. If you did intend to class into Harrower though, only one of you would be getting in becuse no point doubling up on that.

Right didn't spot that, I'll find another angle.

Sadly, my spookiest stuff tends to be... kind of homebrewed (especially for a Master Summoner using an alternate Summon Monster list built around Lovecraftian Horrors - just about all the monsters are official, and with spell level-appropriate CR, but it's still a big change for the class). I find something intrinsically fun about summoning eldritch horrors to fight the hordes of evil, reminding them that goodness and light aren't the only things they need to be scared of. XD

Honestly, that would be really interesting; if it's balanced properly I may allow that, should you be interested in running it over Sana.

There don't seem to be many traits for spooky stuff, I'm surprised and a bit disappointed by that.

Getting back to the Harrow deck idea, if the Witch is also Variasian, perhaps we know each other, maybe even part of the same Troupe? I agree about having only one Harrower PRC, and actually I don't mind going full Cleric at all.

dit.

I think balance is REALLY tricky when dealing with Summoners. XD Still, I made this list with that in mind - strict attention to CR ranges, keeping a similar number of options, et cetera.

Also, it badly needs a homebrewed feat to be at all practical - something similar to Selective Channeling that lets the summoner exclude allies from all the auras and such that some of these monsters have. XD Otherwise a significant chunk of the list becomes practically unusable unless the Summoner is alone. Admittedly, I kind of like the flavor of summoning things that break even your own mind, but that's not very practical for players in a game.

Oh, and they're all hyperlinked for easy referencing.

Got to say, I'm kind of digging the idea.

I can always try submitting a character with this build if you'd like to see them. ^^ I'll just casually get started on that, then...

Darn it, i'll have to rework her into a gnome or something

If i think of horror then i generally have 1 image in mind.
To start, its a halfling with the craven racial trait and the Shaken drawback.

Ahem. Not sure what class or anything but he would be quite the little scardycat :)

Hello! This is a character I submitted to another Carrion Crown PBP, but that recruitment thread seems to be dying on the vine and I'm starting to really like what I've got going for Maryska here.

I haven't gotten a chance to work out all the angles yet (just came up with her last night), but I think she'd be a good fit since I oriented her pretty heavily towards RP.

Here's my initial rough pass at her background:

And here is my rough idea of how she would function, crunch-wise:

Let me know if you think she'd be a good fit and I'll fill in all the other details.

Playing with the idea of a changling dreamweaver witch.

To help relieve the matters of people potentially stepping on toes, or who can't really decide between ideas, I'll permit players to submit up to two different characters. Also, recruitment is currently set to close Sunday or Monday, depending on how much time people still need. We'll play it by ear.

@Cam James: It's important to know that while horror is very much an element, the AP is written with the expectation you can still handle your threats. Craven works fine, but I think that Spooked might be a bit too much, because you'll spend literally every the entire game shaken. Drawbacks are fine and can definitely lend some drama and tenseness to situations, but Spooked seems kinda overkill-ey, sorry.

@Orannis: Yeah, Maryska sounds like she's right up this game's alley.