Wild Iron (Inactive)

Game Master caster4life

I'm getting some good progress done on Ives... name of my plant boy.

Questions: With combat stamina, do you have to do the combat trick that costs stamina, or can you still do the vanilla versions.

Trying to pick fun traits instead of the same drivel. Traits seem inherently boring.

Can I call this trait Tree Climber?

Cliff Jumper - +1 bonus on Acrobatics and Climb, and on Reflex saves to avoid falling.

I've got a pile of five totally different enchanters at this point. Waiting to learn a bit more about the world before I finalize anything. I like to make characters that fit the world.

On a totally unrelated note, it annoys me when Paizo's site tells me that there are two new posts, and I click the link to go there, and wind up staring at old posts because the two new ones are the top of a new page and the site has inexplicably sent me to the bottom of the old page.

You are never required to spend stamina points.

Yeah that is a really annoying "feature." It directed me thus unhelpfully as well.

And yes you can definitely rename that trait. No problems there.

Alright I've got enough nailed down that I'm comfortable sharing a portion of my notes with you guys to help with character creation. Unfortunately, paizo's campaign info tabs can't be edited right now... *sigh* So here's a google doc. I've started the world map but it's not done yet and I don't want to share it in its current state. There are two continents: The western one has been settled for all of history but the eastern one was only discovered a century ago and has been settled a bit. A line of islands (the Unol Islands) runs north to south through the ocean between the two.

Let me know if there's specific information you'd like for character creation while I'm fleshing out my notes and world-building anyhow.

Ives will be from Pentrefan then, the middle child of a Cooper who makes barrels for the local brewery. He runs off into the montane area and disappears for years. Are you hoping that Tinalles character answers the advertisement and then encounters Ives in the region? Also I am assuming that it isn't Ives that has been doing the vandalization but wanted to make sure. I do see him as a bit of an true-neutral innocent at the start, but perhaps starts heading toward more of a monkeywrench gang attitude as his immediate home region in the woods gets threatened.

From your notes
Opening plot hook: The small iron mining town of Pentrefan in the Dur Mountains around Dinas Diwydiant is almost entirely owned by the Sackbury Mining Corporation, which has turned a destitute mountain village into a prosperous operation, employing the vast majority of the locals. But the SMC is posting advertisements for guards, bounty hunters, diplomats, investigators, or anyone else who can help them out. Vital equipment has been vandalized in the area and several workers have been beaten in the night. Instead of tracks, odd wet marks and eroded earth imply that some of the mountains’ wilder inhabitants may be involved.

Yes I would understand Tinalles as answering the advertisement and perhaps Ives too. Or each character could hook into the plot in a different way. That's just the main hook and sub-hooks I'm providing. I'm definitely not assuming Ives is a vandal from the get-go here. If it doesn't make sense for Ives to answer the advertisement, we can arrange something else. Perhaps he saw something in the woods and wants to let somebody know about it.

Yeah Ives wouldn't know about the advertisement. I think a more realistic plot-hook for him is that he sees Tinalles' character threatened by something and that draws him to help and eventually back to civilization.

Ok, Ives is all put together in his alias, I believe! Except for the backstory. I'll spend some time on that to flesh out details, but you've already gotten the gist.

I changed his last name to Tunnbindare- swedish for Cooper. It seemed like you were going for a nordic theme in your names for the area so I changed to match.

Appearance

Ives is a handsome 15 year boy of average height and slender build but combined with the firm muscles that come from daily physical outdoor work. Yet that is not what a person sees when they first encounter Ives. His long brown hair, usually pulled back into a ponytail, grows a smattering of tiny white snowdrop and yellow sundrop flowers, and vines and greens mix in with the lot. His skin- though genetically pale- is dark and browned from daily sun exposure in the montane. Bits of bark shows through the skin as well... a present from the Mother Tree.

Backstory

Ives was born the third son of Asger and Freya Tunnbindare, coopers living in the small iron mining town of Pentrefan in the Dur Mountains. His brothers Bjorn and Brandt were strong big lads like their father, while Ives took after the slender build of his mamma. Ives was followed soon after by his sisters Aster and Eira, the apples of their mother's eyes. Left in the middle, Ives was usually overlooked by his father, who preferred the older two, and his mother, who doted on her daughters. Ives found his time spent wandering the town, and eventually, once he realized his parents paid him little mind in his comings and goings, Ives took to exploring the mountains forests bordering the town, and it is there he felt at home.

At the age of eight, Ives began to wonder if anyone would really notice if he simply... disappeared. And so he began to make preparations- he slowly stockpiled warm clothes, food, and basic tools in a hollowed out tree out of the town's limits. And one day, he simply didn't come home.

But of course, things we not as easy as he had planned. Though naturally an explorer, and used to the montane, he had never gone more than a few hours outside of town. For this trip, he kept going, hours and hours and hours into the wilderness. His first night was very cold despite what he brought, and he quickly realized his food supply was not going to last beyond a few days. However, by this point it was too late. He was deep in the woods, and lost. He could not go back to town even if he wanted.

By the third day, food was gone, and Ives was exhausted. Wandering through the snowy woods, looking for anything that could sustain him, his tired brain warned him too late of the ice below his feet... and *crack* through the ice he went, and into the freezing water of a small pond.

Ives almost died at that moment, but in the spark of soul that only true heroes possess, he decided that he was NOT going to die here at this moment and in this place. With a spurt of willpower, he pulled himself from the water and fell, shivering, at the base of a gigantic white fir tree. The tree felt... warm. He pulled himself around it, around it... and seem to fall within. He fell asleep.

Little ones should not be wandering the woods. A voice in his head woke Ives from his slumber. He looked around and saw no one. Stay here and be warm. Ives shook his head in confusion. He was in the huge fir tree.. a hollow opening inside the tree, and it WAS warm in here. Warm enough to live. Ives fell asleep again.

Ives spent the next seven years near this giant white fir. He began to think more and more of the tree as his true mother- a mother who loved him, who kept him warm at night. And indeed, there did seem to be some sort of magic about the region. The connection was weak at first, but as the time passed on he became more and more aware of an energy force surrounding this particular area of the Dur Mountains. The trees and bushes... they spoke to him. The grasses which emerged each spring sang of glorious new life and by mid-fall sang the laments of old age as they died. His Mother Tree and the other large firs in the area... they spoke to him like parents, aunts, and uncles, teaching him the ways of the forest and the ways of the creatures who dwell within.

In these seven years, Ives learned to forage, to hunt, to sew hides into clothes for warmth and protection. And he learned to kill. For the woods of the Dur Mountains are full of strange creatures, and even the Mother Tree can't protect him from the cold realities of nature. Ives needed no weapons, though, for the magic of the woods honed his hands into vicious branchlike claws that could slice through goblin skin and deer hide alike.

Hunters or traders would pass through the woods with a high enough frequency to always remind Ives of who he really was and he never forgot his past life living with humans. But Ives avoided conversation with these interlopers in his woods, instead gratefully welcoming the chance to sneak into their camps at night and steal knives, shovels, and other tools that he couldn't make himself.

One night, he was nearly caught...a lookout saw him stalking a camp and cried out a warning, and many of the travelers in that camp saw the boy running away in the moonlight. Stories of the boy in the woods turned into greatly exaggerated rumors by the time they reached the taverns of Pentrefan. His family perhaps heard these stories and thought of their own lost boy, but they never took them seriously...in their minds, their Ives was lost a long time ago, another death in a tough area of the world all too familiar with funerals for children.

The magic of the Dur Mountains now lives inside Ives, and he is one with them. But always in the world of men, elves, and dwarves, there are those that would cut down such trees and harness their energy for houses, fuel, and profit. At age 15, Ives is perhaps too young to realize that his world in the woods could be put to an end all too fast...

Hrm, based on the toponyms, I'd have guessed Welsh rather than Nordic.

Ideas are percolating. Updates soonish!

Dammit Jim, I'm an ecologist, not a linguist!

Well, if that is the case then Ives' family is a transplant from a nordic region.

Cool stuff, Ives! Gonna be fun.

Welsh is correct! Followed by Portuguese and Dutch for other reasons.

Nordic names are perfectly fine for PCs.

This is who I am -- Teleri ver Rhosyn, half-elf sorceress. Fey bloodline.

I have her stats basically worked out. The backstory is coming into along nicely as well, though it's a bit on the long side -- I had to write Teleri's mother's backstory first. Her name is Rhosyn ap Owain, and I've sent that bit to the GM via email.

I think I'll have Teleri's done in another day or two.

Awesome stuff. Looking cool, guys. I think we'll all probably be ready to start some time next week.

That profile picture is Dinvaya from the Iron Gods book 2, and Caster is just about to run into her in that campaign. pretty funny.

Haha. Small world. That's one of the better female elf avatars better on this site so I've seen it around a little.

Teleri, are you planning to take the Sylvan mutation for the animal companion? Just curious. I was considering a homebrew rule to make animal companion access slightly easier but if you're already getting one I won't mess with it.

No, she's straight fey bloodline. An animal companion wouldn't suit the character.

EDIT: Oh, and by the way, Mustache -- I haven't really read Ives' backstory. I caught the gist of it -- teen runaway with plant powers -- but I didn't read the full thing.

The reason being that I like to discover what the other PCs are like in-character rather than knowing it all up front. It adds an extra element of discovery to the game. And anyway ... when you meet people in real life, you don't automatically know everything about them.

That said, I know that not everyone likes to play that way, so I'll share Teleri's backstory once it's done, and you can choose to read it or not as you see fit.

That's fine. I am happy to learn about you as we meet. I will say that I took a point in ligustics just to learn Sylvan, so since you are a fey, that may give us an immediate connection.

We shall see!

When works well for you two to start? I think I might actually be ready in a couple of days. I’ll still have some details to fill in but I’ve generalities of most of the campaign planned and specifics of the first chapter 90% down.

I am ready when you are. Slow time of year for me at work and home.

I have just put a finished stat block on my profile here and filled in her stats on the profile lines.

I also just emailed the rest of her backstory off to Jason. It's basically done, barring any final tweaks following feedback from Jason.

So I think I'm basically good to go.