Hoping I get all the syntax correct here...
Hooman 1
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So maybe I -won't- roll up several characters, as I quite like this first one. Here are the roll results:
Background: You saved your town from terrible monsters.
Background: 1d20 ⇒ 15
Personality: Might makes right. Obedience to authority is the highest ideal.
Personality: 3d6 ⇒ (1, 3, 1) = 5
Religion: None
Religion: 3d6 ⇒ (6, 4, 6) = 16
Age: 18 to 35
Age: 3d6 ⇒ (1, 6, 4) = 11
Build: Slender
Build: 3d6 ⇒ (4, 1, 2) = 7
Appearance: Attractive
Appearance: 3d6 ⇒ (3, 5, 6) = 14
Profession 1: Mercenary
Profession 1: 1d6 ⇒ 4 1d20 ⇒ 8
Profession 2: Hunter
Profession 2: 1d6 ⇒ 6 1d20 ⇒ 9
Lifestyle: Comfortable
Lifestyle: 3d6 ⇒ (3, 6, 5) = 14
Interesting Thing: Pet mouse, squirrel, or rabbit.
Interesting Thing: 1d6 ⇒ 2 1d20 ⇒ 5
Positive Personality Traits: Helpful or Honest
Positive Personality Traits: 2d20 ⇒ (12, 13) = 25
Negative Personality Traits: Deceitful or Stingy
Negative Personality Traits: 2d20 ⇒ (15, 5) = 20
Languages: Common Tongue, Woad Tongue
There are a few pieces that still need maturing -- I'm seeing her obedience to a higher authority as something that comes later, and I can detail the pet at that time as well.
See how this works for an initial take on tying most of this together...
Kahtia Yarza
As a young Woad child traveling nomadically across the Northern Reach with her clan, Kahtia Yarza was never a quiet, sweet, or well-behaved girl. No, the raven-haired, usually barefoot tomboy was always up to something, was always questioning the wisdom of the elders, was always pushing every boundary she came into contact with. It was no real surprise to her parents when she ran off rather than be married to the man she was promised to... after all, he was thirty years her elder and she would have made wife number five.
Kahtia's uncle, a mercenary named Dorsus who had himself rejected the old Woad ways years prior, took the fourteen year old girl in and gave her shelter and safety. The living was hard and lean with that band, and Kahtia paid her way -- she tended to the camp, cooking, cleaning, hunting, foraging. She leaned from Old Arda, a wise woman who tagged along with the sellswords for some reason that would never be revealed to the young Woadin. From her, Kahtia learned to set wounds, to make healing salves and poultices, to identify the helpful qualities of plants and rendered animals.
For four years Kahtia traveled with the Shining Freeblades, growing as a valued member of the company and as a woman. A dark-haired, olive-skinned beauty, she grew skilled at fending off unwanted advances, and with her own deadly blade. Still, coin was always in short supply, and no one questioned her uncle's decision to take on a dangerous job in the Crusader States, close to the deadly, windswept sands of t he Desolation. Tidwell, a small farming town that existed only to supply the soldiers of Martyr's Point, was about to come under attack. One of the incursions into the Desolation had gone badly wrong for the Crusaders, and as they retreated back to the walls of their fortifications, ravenous graveborn streamed out of the desert, out of the black tombs the Paladins and Priests of the New God had foolishly cracked open. As a black, foul host bore down on Tidwell, her leaders hired every mercenary they could find to defend the town.
It was a massacre. Kahtia's faith, never beating strong in her breast to begin with, died that day, along with dozens of townsfolk, her uncle and many of his soldiers. The Seer watched silently, giving no warning, no counsel. Father Death stayed no bony, cold and wretched hands. The Queen of Summer's glorious gaze saved no one, not a soul. The Maiden in the Moon held her tongue and danced, alone and aloof. And the World Mother? She stood and watched as her children screamed and bled and died. Even the New God and his Inquisitors and iron-clad Crusaders were powerless -- the dead came clawing and gnashing, devouring everything in their path.
Devouring everything... until Kahtia saved what was left of the town, and her father's brother's mercenary company. Arthenias Akim gave her the means. He was a wizard of some standing, a local man who had also sworn to protect his neighbors and fellows -- but as the terrible wight leading the undead host came into sight, the old man lost his nerve. He never even unrolled the scroll he'd found in his adventurous youth, a mighty incantation, a spell of pure destructive force that could smite the creature where it stood in the center of the town square. Such magic could exact a terrible toll on the caster, and rather than risk that toll, Akim ran. Before he fled, though, Kahtia took from him the scroll, along with his dignity. He is known now as Tidwell's Coward Wizard, as much as the Yarza girl is called its savior.
Kahtia read that scroll, she bore the brunt of its cost, bleeding and screaming in agony as the leader of the black horde detonated, blasted to pieces by ancient magic and the will of a girl who believed only in herself...
That's such a great story. Let's count that as her Level 0 Adventure. You're free to level up to 1 now.
For your efforts fighting off the monster, you received a medal (worth 1 ss if you chose to sell it).
No story is required for this Downtime event or this level up, as it all plays so perfectly into your story so far.
Level 1 -> Level 2 Adventure:
A few weeks later, you find yourself in Vanguard. The citadel holds 300 soldiers, but the larger civilian support lives in a tent city outside the castle walls.
A series of murders are being committed with the modus operandi of an executed killer. What happened? How were you involved?
Level 2 downtime event:
You did something that made you unwelcome to a certain group of people, such as a religious community, a guild, or the city guard. These people are unfriendly to you. What happened?
You may tie this in to the L1->L2 story, or make it a separate story.
Cool beans. Will try to get at least one of these done today.
Kind of blasting this out so forgive typos and awful writing and such, please.
Level 1-2 Story
A number of months after the incident at Tidwell, Kahtia decided to move on from the mercenary life. Her uncle was dead, the company was all but decimated, and that invocation she'd cast... despite the wracking pain, the girl had an affinity for magic, she could feel it. She searched far and wide for a teacher, for a mentor, for ancient tomes and spellbooks to pour through. The slender woman eventually found herself in Vanguard, knocking on the door to the tower that housed a contingent of Imperial Wizards from Caecras, the capital of the Empire. They had come from the Tower Arcane itself to battle the horrors spawned in the Desolation -- who better to teach a hungry young wizardess-in-the-making?!
But there was one problem. No Imperial Wizard would give the dirty-faced Woadin girl the time of day, let alone agree to teach her high sorceries. Heroine of Tidwell or no, they paid the desperate young woman no mind, casting her out of their tower as they laughed at her, instructing the captain of the guard to throw her in chains should she keep making a nuisance of herself.
And so it was that Kahtia bided her time, slinking in the shadows of the shantytown that clung to the fortress walls like pimples and boils from a pox, keeping to the edges of the wizards' perception, never quite out of sight, but also never in the way. Gradually she ingratiated herself to a man named Jodhan, a relatively recent arrival who longed for female companionship and the finer things in life. Late at night, while he slept, exhausted, Kahtia would slink about the tower, reading what she could, listening to private, arcane conversations that stirred her imagination, filled her mind with ambition, and sent her spirits soaring.
They would not last, those lustful nights between the sheets and secret lessons taught in hushed tones. The cantrips and other small magics Jodhan began teaching her, the foundation of a proper wizard's education -- it all slipped the girls grasp in the summer of her 20th year. Eeyriada Fane, reportedly one of the most powerful spellcasters in the Empire, revealed an ancient tome in her possession that she believed contained forbidden spells that would allow her complete mastery over the disquieted dead. She would command the roving and seemingly endless hoards of living corpses, zombies and worse that the Crusaders threw their blood and steel against on a daily basis. With one stroke, the mage would end the threat -- or so she believed. Her fellow wizards protested and cautioned against the idea of even opening the Book of Night, and so Eeyriada cloistered herself away, barricading herself in the keep's tallest tower for weeks while she poured over the dark tome and it's twisted contents. Soon enough her sanity began to slip away, and those few people who saw her during those grim days say she was not herself, that she became something terrible and obscene.
All six members of Vanguard's mage council voted to put a stop to Fane's plan, but before the great magicians could act they were murdered, almost all of them, in disturbing fashion. The murderer seemed an impossible one -- a famed Crusader knight, dead fully a century -- seemed to have returned from the grave to complete the work he'd started all those years ago. Sir Markas Grumb believed that magic -- all magic -- was evil, and was responsible for the terrors of the Desolation, and indeed, the world. The New God whispered to the man, he often said, the Prophet Astrid herself counseled him, sat on his bedside as he flayed impure thoughts from his bloodied, trembling body. One night, in a fit of rage and madness, the knight killed each of the seven mages the Tower Arcane had sent to Vanguard. In the midnight hours, Grumb murdered them all, cutting out their tongues and eyes, cutting off their fingers and ears.
The story was well-known in Vanguard, and when the head of the council was found in such a state, a panic gripped the castle. Eeyriada had raised Sir Markas from the grave, and now the death-knight continued his fearsome work without hesitation! Or so everyone believed. The mages were not defenseless -- but their counter-spells had no affect on the creature, for it was not undead at all, but rather merely animated by Fane, a puppet that she danced on the end of strings leading straight to her tower where she meditated, in direct control of Markas. Kahtia discovered this too late -- the realization came as Jodhan was killed in front of her, but as the creature fell to its horrific work she ran, she climbed, she leaped -- and she finally gained entrance into the dread mage's secret chambers as the decrepit fiend began choking the life from the last of the seven wizards, a young woman who had only recently arrived from the Tower.
Kahtia made quick work of the entranced wizardess, plunging her dagger deep, opening the witch from gullet to throat with a vicious stoke that spilled steaming guts and organs all over the floor.
She wept, that night, Kahtia did, and then she left Vanguard, never to go back.
Nice!
Here's your Level 2->3 prompt:
"You have achieved a rank among the Wizards of the Tower Arcane, a fabulous institute of magic that hovers above the Empire’s capital city. As a member of this powerful organization, you dress yourself in clothes made of only one color that you choose (except white, which is reserved solely for the Archmage)."
Please tell a story about how that happened, as well as level your character up to 3. Please state which level 3 abilities and spells you grab.
Downtime: You worked. Choose a number of years that this goes on for. You may blend this in to your L2->L3 story, stretching out your wizard training for years if you like.
You have also gained a new Interesting Thing: A skull made from a crystal. Please blend this into your story. It is your choice as to its size and what creature it is from.