That's probably wise, Jesse. From what I'm seeing, Blood Hunter is effectively a pure damage class. I'll be able to take some hits, but the majority of my talent pool will be burning HP to kill, maim, and kill some more.
Hey all, extremely trying week/weekend and I'm just wrapping up the tail end of an extremely busy 17 hour work day. I'll reply to questions and such sometime tomorrow afternoon/evening.
DH - Human Barbarian (Refugee)
Cyrr Tik-Cha - Aarakocra Druid (Native)
Jesse - Undecided ATM (Unk origin yet)
Attryn - Halfling Sorcerer (Refugee)
Hulgruum - Mountain Dwarf Blood Hunter (Unk origin yet)
Okay, to answer a few questions that Beast brought up in a PM. All characters will start off at 1st level. For your starting gear, you can choose between taking the equipment based off your class OR you can roll for the amount listed for your class and make purchases that way.
Once you guys have started wrapping up the little things on which background you want and which group you plan on joining, I'll start working with you all on fleshing out the specifics of your backgrounds. For those that are ready for that, let me know!
Jesse is the actual hero.
Beast here.
Officially declaring ol' Hulgruum here for the "Initial Pilgrims" group of people who have been settled here for a while. I think that gives him some nice flavoring as a Hunter.
"You are sworn to visit furious vengeance upon the horrific entities of the world, but we aren't going to tell you why we're so dedicated to this cause beyond 'they're the worst.'" That sort of thing.
I was thinking over the setting background and I've decided that instead of a wild-blooded sorcerer, I will play a Shadow-blooded sorcerer instead.
Okay, so riddle me ree, party.
I'm looking over our current line-up, and we've got a lot of strong offense (barbarian, druid, sorcerer), and Jesse is easily pulling double duty as a tank/front line fighter with their paladin.
However, I'm not seeing a huge amount of buff support and enhancement potential (sorcs and druids are primarily damage classes most of the time, after all).
I'm curious if we're thinking I should switch off Blood Hunter. It's starting to look a little redundant given our fighting lineup, and I was thinking I might try to improve our offensive variety. I was giving the forge cleric an eyeball, for example, and thought it would complement our team nicely by giving us some extra combat edge and improving the variety of magics and knowledge available to us. The ability to give one of y'all a +1 weapon or +1 set of armor from first level sounds pretty great to me, and I'm not really sacrificing melee capability, as the forge cleric is still pretty front line.
Thoughts?
I apologize for my absence! I traveled to Washington D.C. with my department for police memorial week from Saturday to yesterday. I had planned on having much more time at my disposal than I actually did. I had essentially no free time during the past few days; in addition to that, while we were in D.C. one of our officers back home got into a shooting with a suspect (luckily he was not injured), so that just added even more to the hectic schedule. I am home now though and working on getting caught up!
I will look over all the posted questions and get back to you all very soon!
DM, can you give the name of a city with a feudal/chivalric political structure, mostly benign and law-abiding?
Okay, sorry for taking so long to get back to your questions! First of all, to be a human your character will either need to be from the Refugee group or the Initial Pilgrim group. The Local/Natives are limited to the Aaracokra/Goliath/Tabaxi races. So, depending on that choice I can give you more of the information you're seeking, Jesse!
Beast, I would be fine with your switching up your character to anything at all! Having some healing is never a bad idea!
Attryn, I am clear on your switch!
For everyone, since Jesse and Attryn rolled so high I will allow the other two players to reroll their stats if you'd like! I hate to see such disparity in attributes.
For everyone, since Jesse and Attryn rolled so high I will allow the other two players to reroll their stats if you'd like! I hate to see such disparity in attributes.
You are just and merciful.
full-hexapedal
Betraying my ignorance here, but what does that mean?
-> 18
-> 12
-> 17
Reroll: -> 12
-> 14
-> 16
18, 17, 16, 14, 12, 12
That is... so much better.
Argh, I used to love aarakocra, but when they went full-hexapedal I lost all interest in them.
Since the character I made is human, I guess that means I need to come from abroad.
Well, as human you could either be part of the group that is either part of the initial wave of Pilgrims that have recently come to New Mairena or you can be part of the group that is still back on your homeworld and preparing to enter the portal to join the others. Once you make your choice, you can see the spoilers I posted on the previous page for a little more information.
Once everyone has made their choices and gotten closer to finishing up their characters I will start working with each of you directly in hammering out the specific details on your characters. Once you have reached that point, please let me know here or via PM and I will begin the process with you individually.
Some specifics on races and the such, I like the idea of all the races (including the longer lived races) physically maturing at approximately the same rates or close enough so that we don't have to deal with the whole 'elves should really die off before they can proliferate because it takes them 100+ years to be self-dependent' thing. Also, that way if any of you want to be the classic long-lived race orphan thing it is not a pain in the ass. As far as reaching 'adult-hood' based on the traditions of the those people, we can still use the ages in the race entries.
So, it is essentially a blending of some of the options presented based on the preferences of the players. The campaign will still be an exploration-based game of going out into wild, unknown areas. I wanted to give things a bit of a twist to provide a fun, interesting (I hope) twist as to why this group will be going out and exploring. Once the game officially kicks off, I hope you all enjoy the little twist I plan on throwing in there to keep things interesting.
So, there are essentially three "starting areas" for the PCs and the choice will be dependent on your choice of race. There are three races that are considered "Native" to the world where the campaign will be taking place and should you choose one of those three races you have to be 'Native'. Those races are the Aaracokra, the Goliath, and the Tabaxi. Any other race would be part of two other group "Starting areas" and those groups would be the "Pilgrims" or the "Refugees". The Pilgrims were the first group of people that fled from the Old World into the new world while the "Refugees" are the people still on the Old World and are preparing to make their way into the new world. I hope that clears things up a bit for you, Jesse.
Also, if you all would rather just have all the information up front I'm perfectly okay with that!
Jesse, based on what I believe your character concept would be, you could really go with either the "starting areas" for your paladin. Although, I think the Refugee area might go better with the Oath you currently have selected.
->15
->14
->15
->18
->14
->14
Much better!
Your people maintain an alliance with the goliath and tabaxi to preserve your way of life here in the wild lands of the continent. The aaracokra provide the spiritual base of the alliance and help to keep the younger, less mature races grounded and focused. The goliath clans provide the strength and militia of the alliance, though it often takes the guidance of the aaracokra to keep the various clans of the goliath in check long enough to work together. The tabaxi are the explorers and scouts of the alliance; they are the race most likely to venture out further than any of the others in search of secrets or possessions. It was the tabaxi that first discovered the arrival of these new, strange people upon the shores of the Neverien Sea far to the west.
As far as the 'civilized' races are concerned... they are long gone as far as your people are concerned. No one has seen a living member of those races in hundreds of years. Legends among the alliance claim they left behind many kingdoms behind, emptied completely of their people without much of a trace of their fate. The are myths that two centuries ago a large group of tabaxi, goliath, and aaracokra volunteered to go forth into those lands to explore and scout, to gather information, but none ever returned. After that day, it was declared that your people would remain in their ancestral lands and guard them against whatever threat loomed to the east of the mountain range and however far south the lands beyond go.
The original presentation of the aarakocra was a parrot-like humanoid with wings bearing midpoint claws. This meant that they would fly using their wings/"arms" and thus would carry javelins in their feet.
The later 5e presentation of the aarakocra is an eagle-like humanoid with arms and wings (so six limbs: 2 arms, 2 legs, 2 wings = hexapedal).
Essentially, I find "Sam the Eagle, dude with wings" to be much more aesthetically boring than the parrot- or vulture-like humanoid form, especially since there are already plenty of character types that are "person, plus wings," such as avariel or certain aasimar.
Ahhh, gotcha. I did not know about their previous iterations, and yeah, I'd be inclined to agree that the style and reorganization of basic movement and actions that come with not having arms is a lot more interesting. That is a bit of a bummer.
Also, here's the Hulgruum Forge Cleric redux. Starting to put the finishing touches on him!
Okay, for your Jesse, if you see your paladin as more of the traditional mounted paladin that is fairly straight forward, then I would suggest Arcadia. The Arcadian's military specialty was heavy-mounted combat, they are known as straight-shooters and not ones to mince words much. They hailed from the breadbasket of Mairena. Being from open plains, these people did not have much use for privacy and secrecy. Secrets do not last very long in the open.
Much obliged, wise one.
Ready.
Sooo... anything happening?
I hope so! I'm thinkin' Hulgruum is ready to go.
Sorry all, I've been waiting for hear back from more folks on where they are in regards to the completion of their characters. I know DH is still interested in joining us and made even help work with him on creation through PM.
Perette, I will hit you up with some additional information regarding your PC and her history. I'll hit you up via PM so we can do a little back and forth without clogging the Discussion thread.
I'm waiting for Curr Tik-Cha to get a little more information together so I can work on fleshing out his backstory some more; however, I do not have much to go on with him right now.
Attryn looks like he's going pretty steady with his and has selected the Background path, but nothing more there. I think I'll hit Attryn up with a PM as well to give him something to play around with.
Hulgruum, I'll respond to your PM with more information that you requested shortly!
I'm pretty much ready to go at this point.
Working on it, sorry for the delay folks, had a lot of stuff come up this past week, and having a hard time catching up with everything.
Hey all, I think this weekend I will work on getting the first gameplay post up just to get things rolling. We can easily feed Doomed Hero's PC in when he gets it up and running.
Tik-Cha, I am replying to your PM now with some extra background info for your PC. I think I've given everyone a little something to work with, please let me know if I have not yet.
Perette, would your family be with you near the portal staging grounds? Or would they have been part of the initial wave? Or are they even alive still?
Okay, for now this will really only affect Tik-Cha (and maybe Hulgruum), but for those that might be interested in investigating the 'divine' aspect of the new world, I finally came up with a pantheon of sorts to represent the 11 cleric domains. Here is the list with the domain, name of the spirit that covers the domain, the gender that is often assigned to them, and the symbol that is associated with them. I will definitely delve into more detail as it arises. I am purposely leaving out any alignment to these spirits as I feel it does not represent their nature.
• Arcana: Edar (M) - Lynx
• Death: Nathafae (M) - Wendigo
• Forge: Idros (M) - Pheonix
• Grave: Iona (F) - Raven
• Knowledge: Odohr (M) - Crow
• Life: Eona (F) - Deer (Hart)
• Light: Oona (F) - Hummindbird
• Nature: Sylvanus (M) - Treant
• Tempest: Sytar (M) - Albatross
• Trickery: Synth (M/F) - Fox
• War: Aldione (F) - Bear
Not playing a dependant character on the spirits or anything like that, but it looks really cool anyway.
Alright, I know I had mentioned getting things rolling a bit sooner, but work has been progressively busier and we have been extremely short staffed due to vacations and such so I have been just outright exhausted recently after work
And this past weekend was my son's birthday party, so that took a lot of planning and such to make sure things went smoothly. I will be on vacation starting this weekend for next week and so I think rather than kick things off this week and then have another hiatus right after that I will plan on letting things simmer for just another week or so until after my vacation. Or if you guys would rather get sometime to just RP between characters, I can set the scene for you all and let you have some fun in the interim. Let me know which you would prefer.
Hey you're back! Uh, yeah! If you've got time, I think setting the scene would be good. But if you're still exhausted then don't worry about it too much.
So...
Still here.
Sorry all, work got stupid crazy there right before vacation kicked off and then I got horrible sun-burnt the other day at the beach on my back to the point of raw skin so I didn't really have any inclination. I've got pictures with the family tonight and then once I get the critter to bed I will work on getting the first post up and running! I am so sorry for the delay on things here.
Also apologies for my absence.
I've been travelling a lot lately in preparation for a big move, and it has kept me pretty busy. But I'm back now, and excited to start posting!
Hey guys, I'll be out of town this weekend and busy with my best friend's wedding. Just thought I would give you all a heads up before I disappeared.
Okay, after some time away and refreshment I'm ready to push this baby forward. Looks like Curr-Tik's player is currently away and I have not heard anything back from Doomed Hero on whether he's still interested in the game. So, we can either go forward with just 4 players or we can look at bringing someone new in. I'll leave that decision to you all. I will get a Gameplay post up tomorrow as work is starting to pick up with incident volume and the wife has family stuff planned for tonight.
Thank you all for bearing with me!
Maybe I should have been a bard.
Maybe I should have been a bard.
I dunno, there's a certain flair to a half-dead hobbit giving a quietly noble, inspiring speech to the whole motley gang.
I am going to wait until I know for certain the site is stable again before I start posting in my games. Please be patient with me, because I have already lost several long posts in the past week while attempting to get my games running again and have become incredibly frustrated by these issues.
That happens from time to time with the site itself whenever it just decides to time out. Site being down not withstanding. As such, I've learned to copy any post that is more than a few sentences long, sometimes opening Microsoft word.
Ok, still here! I too lost many a post to the outages.
Very very frustrating...
Yep, still here. Let me know when I can continue to "heroically" angst it up.