"It used to be that saying you saw a vampire would have you laughed at. That's the speak of superstitous, inbred folk of Ustalav; the kind who burn down their neighbor's house in the middle of the night screaming about cultists. Korvosa has changed though, and you'll no longer find people laughing at the villagers who, for their zeal, are at least active in defending themselves.
"We're too big to work like Lepistadt, and too corrupt to be trusted with that sort of self-policing. So much of our town guard is not prepared to handle these threats, and that is where we've need for you. You haven't lived in doubt like others have, and you've armed yourselves against these threats well before they made themselves known. You know what we're up against, and are the best people for the job of defeating them. This city needs you to protect it, and if you can't, then it will surely fall."
The Darkest Corners is a campaign drawing very heavy influences from the Urban Fantasy genre. Books like The Dresden Files and Iron Druid, shows like Supernatural or Sleepy Hollow, or comics like Hellboy and Hellblazer. Lots of hell involved. The usual adventuring party might run into the occasional vampire or necromancer, and treat them like any other enemy. This campaign will be a little different. You will play a group of people who specialise in some area of the art of hunting undead, demons, and strange creatures that most people don't know lie lurking in the shadows.
Maybe you're an academic who found their way into a very strange area of study. Or a holy warrior given an edict from your deity to fight a different sort of darkness. Perhaps a widow whose husband met death at the hands of an unspeakable creature, driving you to vengeance. Or, maybe you seek power and believe that in killing these beasts, you may gleam their secrets. Whatever your reason, you have gained some renown, and a few beleagured and desperate people of influence in Korvosa have called on you to aid them.
More than just kill these creatures, you will have to find them; investigate and hunt them down before you can slay them. In the process, you may uncover dark secrets about the city and the people in it.
This isn't quite a horror campaign, but there will be certain elements on that. The heavy emphasis will be on roleplay and intrigue. It will also be fairly high-power in terms of loot, and while I certainly compensate for that in the difficulty of enemies, it is something I like to be up-front about because some feel it diminishes any horror whatsoever.
I'm aiming for one post per day minimum from players. More is always really nice, but that's the baseline expectation. I'm forgiving about life getting in the way though. I'm on GMT -5, and will try to make sure that my eye is on the thread and that I am getting to things as quickly as possible.
Character creation:
Crunch
-I'm looking for characters who suit the setting and story elements we're going for. Because the party members have particular skills that have made them candidates for this elite group, they should be characters written around the idea, instead of just being an adventurer who happens to have killed a vampire one time.
-Characters begin at third level
-3,000 gold to start
-25 point buy
-Any race or class is acceptable. Even the weird ones, with a good reason. Archetypes are all open, and ones that compliment the campaign such as Dirge Bard or Yokai Hunter (Ranger) are adored.
-Any non-evil alignment. It's worth keeping in mind though that you may have to do some not-too-upstanding things, and so perhaps "that" kind of Lawful Good character isn't a great choice.
-All material printed by Paizo in any book is acceptable, though going way off the reservation might be worth asking. Third-party material is on a case-by-case basis, as I've seen some hilariously awful or just plain broken third party stuff. So, if you want a certain archetype or thing out of that, ask first.
-The campaign will have a lot of puzzle solving and investigating, which will include talking to people and looking for clues at crime scenes and such. In addition, there will be lots of intrigue, mystery, and politics in play. As such, charisma or intelligence-based characters with out-of-combat roles not only find use, but are necessary. Knowledges, charisma abilities, Survival, and such are all huge plusses. The vast bulk of the campaign will take place in a city, so building something like a Druid with lots of very nature-based spells might not be the best idea.
Fluff
-Since you're third level, your character should have something they've accomplished. Doesn't have to be big, but something notable enough to catch the attention of people. You've all been recruited for a reason, so let's see that reason. Doesn't have to be combat-oriented, either.
-I'm the sort of DM who gives certain extra bonuses rooted in backstory, so keep that in mind. The more vivid and rounded a character, the better I can see things to base these small boosts off of.
The Korvosa being used here is sort of an "in name only" one, and mostly for convenience since I have the book. Major elements and important people will definitely change, but setting it in such a fleshed-out location means that any locations and numbers are already in place and easily accessed.
I originally ran this in December of last year, before a catastrophic computer in mid-January. I'm looking to run the game again, with half of the original party returning, and the rest made up of newcomers out of this thread. They were just short of completing their first case when real life happened, so I'll give that a quick narration summary and wrap-up for the sake of tidiness. I'm currently waiting on one more response from the original group, but right now the party as it stands consists of:
-Laznist, Human Arcanist
-Ophelia Hale, Clockwork Automaton Archivist
-Walther, Half-Elf Inquisitor/Detective
I'm aiming for a party of six, and balance is going to be taken into consideration. That said, don't intentionally try to aim for a non-present role if you have a good idea. Depending on how many applicants there are and if I can find nine characters I rather like, I could run a second table of this starting from the beginning. That all depends on what happens and what response this gets, though, so I make no promises.
Recruitment will run at least through next weekend, so the current deadline is the evening of Sunday, March 30th.
Dot.
How much will aberrations factor into this? I've always wanted to play an aberration-focused character that hunts aberrations but also incorporates parts of them into himself (via grafts and/or abilities of some sort, maybe Infiltrator Ranger). Just wanted to see if that idea was feasible in this scenario or not.
Is playtest allowed? I think so due to the Arcanist in the party. If so I would really like to make a slayer for this game, the hunting particular things is a really cool flavor for this type of game.
@Woodsmoke: Aberrations won't be a greatly focused monster type, as I don't really intend to make the campaign "go Cthulhu" as the story goes on. The idea might work with a different sort monster type, if you're not married to the aberration bit? Undead, humanoids, and monstrous humanoids are the big ones.
@Bane88: Yeah, playtest classes are allowed.
Fair enough. I'm not actually sure if there are graft rules in Pathfinder, so that concept might not work out anyway. I've also always liked the monstrous humanoid type. Assuming graft rules do exist or something gets worked out over the campaign for it, would taking parts from humanoid, sentient beings be considered too evil? Ah, forgive me, I feel as though I am getting ahead of myself.
I might look into a Bloodrager with a celestial bloodline, fitting to the theme a bit more by having his childhood have been plagued by dreams and voices of angels or some such. Since you mentioned Supernatural in the original post, I thought of how angels are represented in that show (as not-so benevolent, intimidating, sometimes frightening, etc). Drawn into the supernatural world, as it were, via his celestial connection, takes to fighting monsters or whatever due to a mix of anger and motivation.
Either way, I definitely want to roll something up for submission.
On the subject of third party, how do feel about pact magic and the occultist class? It's a PF conversion of the 3.5 binder from the Tome of Magic.
On the one hand, it's a bit complicated and doesn't really map to any Paizo classes. On the other hand, the complexity is front-loaded, so that once you've bound a spirit the class is very straightforward. It's also a great fit in both crunch (Cha-based jack-of-all trades type) and crunch (practitioner of forbidden magic that forges pacts with otherwordly being which influence its appearance and personality) for a dark, RP-heavy campaign.
Spooky, are we treating the previous go-round as having happened, or is it a complete re-boot? Basically, do Laznist, Ophelia and I already know one another and the guys who hired us? Or are we re-booting entirely?
I'm back in, too!
Shang was the person I was waiting for, so now the original party is up to four, adding an Alchemist to the group. Which is good news for any applicants, since now I'll be seeking one fewer character and means that a second group is much more likely.
@Woodsmoke: I don't know of any graft rules, no. I think Infiltrator is the only thing sort of along those lines. A Celestial Bloodrager would be cool though; there might be some outsiders and such splashed in as the campaign progresses.
@Zahmahkibo: My biggest concern with what I'm seeing is that the class is really hands-off when doing things. It has no spells or direct combat stuff, so everything would be relegated to the bound spirits, which would undermine some of the potential horror or suspense. It definitely fits, but looking at it, it feels much more like something I'd make a villain out of than have as a player character.
@Walther: Your first case happened, and the four of you know each other. Dara and Anastasia no longer being around will be a plot point maybe, and in their place will simply be two other people contacted. I mentioned other groups working under this arrangement early on, which was partially a way to account for needing new players. And yes please, everyone who was playing goes up to third level. Not because you'd have leveled after the case, but because there's too few applicable threats at low level and this'll help keep a better case variety.
sounds interesting let me see what I can come up with.
I'm not sure I get what you mean--some of the spirits do grant temporary familiars or weakened animal companions, but the spirit isn't like a summoner's eidolon that lets the occultist can just sit in the back lines and direct from afar. It's more like wildshape with a 24-hour duration, where you can pick from a variety of forms, but expose yourself just as much as any other class would to use granted ranged or melee abilities.
If I missed the point, there are also pact magic archetypes for every base and core class. These grant a limited form of spirit binding, enough to get most of the flavor, but not so much that the player can ignore their other class features. (Ex: magus that trades spells for pacts, or a rogue that always makes poor pacts, but trades sneak attack for flexible skill buffs).
I'm much more into the fluff than the crunch of pact magic for this setting, and would play any of these archetypes if allowed. That said, if you're just opposed to PC binders of any variety, no hard feelings, and I'll hunt down something else thematically appropriate.
Bane88's WIP Tiefling Slayer.
Still working on a (hopefully) cool background. Also gear and stuff.
@Zahmahkibo: Oh, my bad. I skimmed the pages really quick to get a general idea and apparently missed those bits. Somehow I took away a much more summoner-ey, really shouldn't read things while trying to make supper. Now that I've read up a little more closely and have a better idea of what this is, yeah, this seems pretty cool. Personally, I think one of the pact archetypes might make for something more interesting, but I'm not opposed to running a plain Occultist if that's the idea you've got.
Just posting to roll lvl 3 hp. Updated Walther will be in profile soonish. Extra gold will be spent mostly on his office.
No problem. You see what I mean by the front-loaded complexity--the original binder was complicated enough, but it took me like 45 minutes on my first read-through to figure out what the hell a "constellation aspect" was.
I actually agree about the archetypes, come to think of it. The spirit binding is the cool part, and the occultist's other class features are mostly fiddly little number adjustments with no real roleplay potential. Most of the archetypes cut all that out, while gaining more recognizable class features that ground the class better in the world.
Thanks for humoring, I'll get a character up within a day or two.
Walther's Profile is updated. I figure that in the months (maybe a year?) since our previous session, Walther's finished equipping his office, has filled out his library, had his first Chronicle published by the Pathfinders, and picked up a couple of other odds & ends.
@Zahmahkibo: Yeah, that seems like the problem. I also feel like "(class) that binds spirits to do s!%&" would make for an interesting twist over basing the character around it.
@Walther: It would have been like, a week, tops. Not really going for a time lapse; "things" just sort of happened to your previous allies.
Oh. Then I guess the changes to Walther's office & gear can just be retconned. It's not like he actually made use of his reference library last time.
I'm back with a slightly more reliable computer and hoping to get a better one soon. And I always enjoy me some horror.
How would you feel about a big-eared goblin gunslinger who hunts down things in the dark because he likes getting paid for making things explode, and nobody seems to object to killing already dead things?
@Walther: Yeah, we're just retconning everything up to third level.
@Ford: I'd prefer a character a little more on-point and relevant to the idea than "likes to blow up things and these particular things are convenient". I'm big on these sorts of characters having some kind of character-driven reason.
Dot. What's the word on traits? :)
@Lady Ladile: Gah, I forgot that I forgot that in the original recruitment thrad (most of this was a copy/paste job). Everyone gets two traits, drawbacks are allowed.
@Chizzad40: There should be information elsewhere about the workings of PBP on this site, but for now, no character profiles are being made. This is just recruitment, so you only need to worry about posting a backstory and stats in here.
I'm okay with the Occult Mystery. Tongues I'm a little iffier on, just because it seems like it would make any kind of party communication or coordination nearly impossible unless everyone has that language too, and even then you can miss some pretty important out-of-party queues.
The pain of trying to decide between two concepts that sound good....thinking either a Lunar Oracle, possibly with the Stargazer archetype or an Infiltrator/Skirmisher Ranger. For either concept, how do you feel about animal companions in this particular game/setting?
I'm fine with animal companions. It's more expendable and replaceable minions that I get concerned about.
I'd like to get involved, an ooky spooky sort of gothic game sounds like an interesting change of pace. The character calling to me is a jaded ranger. Bitter, callous, and harboring a deeply rooted hatred for the undead scourge that stalk the night. She'll be taking the form of a blond woman, short tempered and rash, with pale white skin and an upturned nose.
Her hatred for the living dead can be traced to her adolescence, when she was serving as one of many slaves to an eccentric academic. For a few months her master had been studying the various occult methods for awakening the dead from their morbid slumber, day dreaming of conquering the surrounding fifedoms with his frothing legions of the undead. Alas, the poor fool was a man of science, not of magic, and so he turned away from the backwards blood rituals and incantations, and instead graverobbed the surrounding towns for spare parts, stitching together a beefy flesh golem. The inanimate beast was set upon a lead slab and pumped full of electricity until it's rotten heart began to beat. The mad man of science cried out in joy before his creation immediately seperated his head from the rest of his body, it's decomposing mind knowing only death. The beast then began to rampage throughout the estate, exterminating all life it came across, except, of course, our intrepid heroine, My PC, who managed to narrowly escape, covered in the blood of her friends (Well, coworkers, really) by means of a small service tunnel. She found her way to a nearby town in a few days time and wove her tale. That night of bloodshed and carnage broke something in her head, and now she is forever convinced that the dead should stay dead, and that there are magics that man is not meant to tamper with.
Sorry about the wall of text, just getting a rough fluff vomit out there.
Pfft, don't worry about word vomit. It's still nothing compared to the wall Walther dropped on me. Looks like a pretty solid idea though; never seen someone run with the idea of basically being Dr. Frankenstein's assistant; they always want to be the doctor himself, or the monster. Interesting take.
An Igor to my Renfield. Cool.
Dotting for Interest. Thinking about making a Dhamphir Paladin 2 (Undead Scourge)/Oracle 1(Battle).
She forgives her mother for her weak will, but can never forgive her father or his kind for the manipulation of her family and her birth. She took up with some crusaders of Iomedae as she grew up, horrified by her heritage, and trying to find a better way. The goddess looked down on her favourably despite her race, and blessed the Dhamphir with her holy powers. she is glad of the blessings recieved by Iomedae and uses the powers to bring divine vengenace against all things undead and evil in the world.
Concept is a Paladin who having negative energy affinity only uses her positive energy (such as LoH) offensively or to heal others. Early on in her training Iomedae offered her the ability to heal herself (via oracle w/ inflict light wounds) though the healing itself causes her great turmoil, the power doing the healing in such opposition to her.
Her code of conduct is to actively seek out and fight all the evils in the world, horrified that what happened to her could happen again. Living in the dark of the world she understands that following the laws of a particular town doesn't always work in the fight against evil and she accepts that in order to complete her divinely given duty sometimes laws will be broken, but so long as she never wavers from her own personal moral code (e.g. Never willingly walk away from someone commiting an evil act, protect the innocent) Iomedae will continue to grant her the powers necessary.
Will work out more of the fluff and crunch throught the day today and should have something up by tonight just wanted to get the concept out there.
I think I applied for this with an investigator as well but had to drop due to time constraints. I'll look around, see if any class archetype inspires in me an interesting character.
This sounds quite interesting, i will defently have to throw my hat into the ring :)
Let me see what i can come up with.
Hrm, I've got an idea that's wound up being a rather large amalgamation of things, but ideally it should work.
I'm going for a Catfolk Rogue/Swashbuckler who will eventually go into the Master Spy prestige class.
GM: Judging by your reference to Ustalav, we're still treating that nation as a den of gothic horror, correct?
Edit: And one more question: Are you going to use the emerging guns rules? If so, how far should I go to explain the acquisition of a firearm in my backstory?
So i have figured out what my submission is going to be :)
Sadly i do have lots of competition :(
He will be a goblin rogue with the cape of human guise as well as having good disguise, bluff, sneak, and acrobatics skills. He will always try and pass himself off as human and blend into the town environment. If he can have his way, no one would know he was a goblin, and think, a charasmatic goblin! Will get more of the idea fleshed out later :)
Dotting for interest. I have an Inquisitor of Pharasma floating around from a previous submission to a Carrion Crown game that I think would have a suitable edge for this.
@Blindebandit: Sounds like a solid enough idea, interesting to see how it'll play out.
@Rasputin17: Gah, I really should have gone through the previous recruitment thread and added a lot of the questions into the first post. Korvosa in this is actually a little more Victorian than Medieval, nowhere near anything steampunk-ey, but it means that we're actually playing under Commonplace Guns rules. And yes, in my marring of the setting, Ustalav is still everything it is, and Korvosa is trying to find a way to handle the issue a little less lynch mob-ey.
I'm seriously considering an investigator (the playtest class), but of which sort, I'm not sure yet. :)
I like this idea, and feel I have a good PC for this:
Either an Elven or Aasimar Celestial blooded Sorcerer or possibly a Warpriest with likely the Good and War Blessings who takes on a role of a "bringer of light" and banisher of evil and darkness.
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Every band of investigator types has to have some kind of muscle with them. Muscle with the same ideology.
(enjoy my fairy tale fluff)
Lothtoralymmutryr was sent by his kind to investigate a rise in necromancy near his lair. Upon arriving at the neighboring Kingdom of ________, he was able to charm his way into the castle to not only see if the Kingdom could be currupted, but to get intelligence as well.
He managed his way into the royal court and charmed the oldest princess to believe he was the one for her. They were married after courting for a year and the princess became pregnant shortly there after.
While all of this is going along, the Kingdom has not one, but two necromancers trying to establish their territory along with the aid of a local cult. During the princess' pregnancy, Lothtoralymmutryr spent more and more time meeting secretly with the forces of cultist within the walls of the Kingdom.
Tragedy struck the Princess one day when she woke up next to a demon in her bed. Lothtoralymmutryr didn't hide who he was from her and removed himself from the Kingdom. The experience was so traumatic for the princess, she went into labor that evening.
Born "different" than the other humans, the princess and her son shortly fled from the kingdom. She loved her son too much to hand him over to her father the king to be slain.
During his time inside the womb, Herdge had an emotional link with his mother. He had an awareness to her feelings about Lothtoralymmutryr and an awareness that necromancy plagued the land.
During his upbringing, Herdge learned that people were going to judge him based on his appearance, and that deceiving people (like his father did to his mother) was not the right way to live one's life. That actions spoke louder than words.
Herdge: Lvl 3 Tiefling Slayer
@Monkeygood: Either of those would work. Someone suggested a Celestial-Blooded Sorc up top, so maybe consider the Warpriest idea a little more.
@Chizzad40: While the idea of a martial character to help do the killey stuff that skill-based characters might have trouble with is a good one, Half-dragon isn't actually a playable race, and sticking a monster template onto a PC would severely imbalance them in a game where everyone else is just pretty standard in regards to their race. So sorry, but I can't let that fly.
I could do Warpriest, might even work better with the concept I have in mind. It would more or less be the same fluff wise, save for the WP being more martial.
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@Chizzad40: While the idea of a martial character to help do the killey stuff that skill-based characters might have trouble with is a good one, Half-dragon isn't actually a playable race, and sticking a monster template onto a PC would severely imbalance them in a game where everyone else is just pretty standard in regards to their race. So sorry, but I can't let that fly.
No worries, I can adapt. Thank you.
Martial is definitely appreciated, since in the first thread I sort of undersold martial and so there were only like two completed martial characters for me to choose from.
Definitely going Infiltrator (and possibly Skirmisher) ranger I think; seems like Spooky needs more martials to pick from and I've got enough caster characters already. Will take me a day or two to finalize crunch and fluff :)
Party one is currently 3 1/2 casters (Alchemist is sort of borderline). If table two happens some magic would be nice in it too, but yes, martial and lockpickey people are much adored right now.
Sorry, I'm having some trouble exactly understanding your character's motivation. His father was a demon who consorted with necromancers, and so he decided to devote his life to fighting the undead, which is a lot more vampires and ghosts than demons and s~!#? It's not really clicking for me. Not to mention your backstory is paragraphs of explaining the circumstances of his birth and some out-of-the-way kingdom, but only two sentences that sort of barely explain the character's anything else. Nothing about his upbringing, personality, motivations, or even any kind of "did something to get noticed for this undertaking" deed, which was something I'd asked for.
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Sorry, I'm having some trouble exactly understanding your character's motivation. His father was a demon who consorted with necromancers, and so he decided to devote his life to fighting the undead, which is a lot more vampires and ghosts than demons and s@!+? It's not really clicking for me. Not to mention your backstory is paragraphs of explaining the circumstances of his birth and some out-of-the-way kingdom, but only two sentences that sort of barely explain the character's anything else. Nothing about his upbringing, personality, motivations, or even any kind of "did something to get noticed for this undertaking" deed, which was something I'd asked for.
Sorry, new to this whole fluff bit. Thank you for your patience.
Maybe you'd be more comfortable with something a little more newbie-friendly? I'm not sure what your in-game experience level is, but perhaps joining a Pathfinder Society PBP would be a better fit for you? They usually wrap up inside a month of play and are a better way to learn.