Almonihah's page

Greetings everyone! I was playing a solo Wrath of the Righteous game (link here) where my character Sverixalint was a young bronze dragon, a gestalt Draconic Exemplar (from In the Company of Dragons) / Warpriest of Apsu. It had progressed up to maybe a third of the way through the second module before the GM had to bow out.

So, I'm now looking for someone else who'd be willing to pick up where it left off. I recognize that GMing is a lot of work, so I'm willing to run a game in return.

So I was looking through my pile of third-party content and realizing I have an awful lot of ways to play monster characters. A fairly brief look through things reveals I have rules for playing chimera, unicorn, gargoyle, treant, dragon, minotaur, ooze, pseudodragon, winter wolf, giants, golems, undead, hound archon, succubus, living magical item, centaur (for a certain definition of monster), lamia, several kinds of lycanthrope, and several kinds of fey.

Yes, I may have a certain interest in playing monsters. :D

But since it's not very frequent that games allow such characters, I'm considering running one myself. I don't have the time and creative energy nowadays to make something from scratch, and it's funny to think about anyways, so I was thinking of possibly running such a party through a Pathfinder Adventure Path.

If I did so, who would want to play? And what Adventure Path would you suggest? Obviously a more outdoor one like Ironfang Invasion or something would work better, but it's kind of funnier thinking of a winter wolf trying to pull off a successful rebellion in Hell's Rebels or something. XD

I'm not promising right now I will run it, just wanting to feel things out and see what kind of interest there might be.

Just to dot for now

The city of Silverymoon is widely thought to be one of the jewels of the North, a bastion of civilization and beauty in the often savage northlands. The Moonbridge's magical arc was a widely-known wonder, and its residents' efforts to live with than rather against nature were widely admired.

All of that, however, does not mean that all of its residents understand the value of all forms of life. Dragons, for example, are not viewed with the proper respect by many who live in Silverymoon. At least, the chromatic ones are not. And so it is that you are here.

A table over from where you sit, four humanoids are deep in discussion. You've caught enough to gather that they believe the rumors about a young red dragon having moved into the area, and that they plan to kill it. You have not, however, managed to hear exactly how they plan to do so. They seem aware of the possibility of eavesdroppers, and huddle close together over the table, speaking in low voices.

All right, so here's what I'm thinking--you'll play a native of the Mwangi (perhaps one of the more civilized locations within it) who has decided to try uniting some of the various tribes to stop raiding each other and get along...

...and we'll see where it goes from there. ;) For character creation, I'm thinking level 5, Automatic Bonus Progression, Background Skills, and standard starting gold (with the modification for ABP). Sound good?

Here's the discussion thread! I might ask a few questions here if I'm away from my computer with Discord on it, otherwise I'll just post things I think we'll both want to see long-term.

A number of the campaigns I'm in have slowed down or died after the holidays. One in particular is a solo game I was really enjoying, but the GM doing it for me has been kind of crushed by his real life circumstances as far as I can tell, so I'm looking for another GM to take over for him (unless he says otherwise in the next couple of weeks). The solo game is one where I'm playing a gestalt dragon (using the Draconic Exemplar class from In the Company of Dragons) through Wrath of the Righteous. If I actually hear from the current GM, I'd still be interested in starting a new game of some type.

Of course, I realize GMing a solo game can be a lot of work, even when it's a published module, so I'm willing to GM something in return. This can be just about anything--a solo game, an AP with friends, or some crazy idea like playing an adventurer that's slowly turning into a kaiju. I'm pretty fond of strange campaign ideas and unusual characters.

So, is anyone interested?

A perusal of my role-playing history will reveal my penchant for playing the non-humanoid: a shapeshifting cat, a griffon, a [url]dragon[/url], and a [url]http://paizo.com/people/Terexaltherin[/url] pseudodragon are the examples here on the Paizo boards, and of course I've GM'd for a party of ravens and am currently GMing for a hydra. The truth is, I'm something of a xenophile when it comes to my role-playing tastes--the more removed from my everyday experience a character is, in general, the more excited I am to play them.

One itch that I've never scratched, however, regards familiars. I love giving my familiars their own personalities and motivations whenever I play a character with one, but it's not enough. I want to be able to focus exclusively on a familiar's unique perspective on the world.

I want to play a familiar.

I think the boards here are perfect for this, because, unlike at a table where, should the familiar's master decide to shove him in an extradimensional space for a while, I'd have to sit around and do nothing, here on the boards I can just keep reading the thread while I'm waiting to be back on the Prime Material (and maybe write a post or two grumbling about being left out of everything).

However, I recognize that such an unusual situation requires a significant degree of trust between all players involved (including the GM). So this is kind of a shot in the dark here, asking if anyone would be interested in having me play as a familiar. Nonetheless, on the off chance someone is willing to take the chance, I'd love to try.

(And let me note here that other bonded creatures, like Eidolons, would be interesting to play, too, so this isn't limited to familiars.)

Out-of-character discussion goes here!

You wake up somewhere pitch black, with rough wood behind your back. The world around you seems to rock and sway rhythmically, and you're pretty sure it's not just from the splitting headache you have. Around you, you can hear the sounds of others stirring, though just how many there are is unclear.

Feel free to talk for a second, but you won't have long before something happens.

Any city of size has its seedy side, and Absalom is no exception. The Watch does a good enough job for most cases, but there's always someone they missed, and sometimes there's good money to be made filling in those gaps. Some might call it a good cause, too, but things are never so black-and-white in the shadows.

Okay, here's what I'm thinking for character creation:

30 point buy
Full HP at first level, and roll for the subsequent levels, taking half if you roll less than that. (i.e. results of 1 to 5 on a d12 becomes 6.)
Any race, any class--I'll even open it up to third-party materials, subject to review of course. I'll probably use some spherecasters in the game.
Starting at 5th level

I'd also like to use a variation of the Pathways system for helping us collaborate on some characters/themes for the game. Sound good to you? Any questions?

As an avid commissioner of art for my various role-playing characters, I love showing off the awesome things I've paid other people to produce for me. It's a lot of fun seeing someone interpret your character description into a piece of art, but it's even better when you get to share it!

So, this thread is for sharing any art you've commissioned! Please attribute your commissions correctly, of course--this can also serve as a resource for those looking for artists to commission if we have attributions, and it's just good courtesy to do so. So without further ado, my commissions, organized by character:

Xihe Kitaro a.k.a. Kit Vulpik
Kitsune swordsfox and dashing gentleman, Kit has been a ton of fun to play and have illustrated. He's an active character in a Reign of Winter campaign, so some of these pictures could be considered spoilers for that AP--you've been warned!

The first picture I ever commissioned of Kit, taking a dramatic pose with his girlfriend/fiancee Greta. Yes, the Kitsune got engaged to the Winter Wolf.
Kit at a paper lantern festival. Kit worships many deities, including Desna... and a paper lantern festival seems like the kind of party some Tien Desnans might throw.
Kit in his three forms. This is just to show off Kit's different forms. I love how it turned out.
Kit & friends vs. Yrax. Because you just have to have a picture of the aerial battle with a dragon warlord.
Kit's reference sheet. This shows off his high-level gear (left) vs. his low-level gear (right, human form).
Kit vs. Ice Troll. Kit attacked the ice troll in the Pale Tower's courtyard by taking a flying leap off the wall onto its back. I had to have a picture of that.
Kit bowing. Because Kit considers himself quite the dashing gentlefox.
Pensive stare. In a quiet moment when he thinks he's unobserved, Kit ponders the costs of adventure.
Kit watercolor headshot (and another). Paired with another of my characters.
Kit and Greta taking a walk. Their relationship has been fun to play with.
Kit being dramatic in snow. Because when you have that many tails, just jumping around in the snow can look awesome.

Garkhen
One of my earlier characters, I still have a certain fondness for Garkhen. Not to mention he's one of the three I'm writing a web novel for... slowly.

Garkhen's reference sheet. Showing off his armor and some of the unusual bits of his half-dragon half-dwarf anatomy.
Garkhen fighting a wolf-monster. Chaos-corrupted animals are one of his most frequent opponents in the novel.
Talking with Almonihah. Yes, I have a character named Almonihah. It's a legacy thing.
With both other main characters. These three are the main characters of the novel.
Walking in town. Eventually enough people have heard of Garkhen that he doesn't get *that* many weird looks in town...

Almonihah Zrathanzon
Another old character, Almonihah Zrathanzon a.k.a. AZ was one of a number of characters I made as a teenager who all had the same name. Not out of any sense of connection between them, just because I was lazy. This includes my screen name. He's another of the main characters in my web novel. Ironically enough he's the least-illustrated of the three.

AZ vs. a half-silver dragon. This scene still hasn't happened yet in the web novel.
In the woods. This picture fits my mental image of him best. He's a ranger--he belongs in the woods!
I have another, but apparently the artist didn't post it to her gallery.

Zakhin'Dakh
The last of my web novel characters, Zakhin'Dakh started out as a giant griffon mount for Almonihah in his D&D 3.5 incarnation and eventually developed into his own character. His exuberant love of maps and life is amusing to play, especially when compared with the sudden violence he's capable of as a giant aerial predator.

Zakhin'Dakh being mad it's snowy. Snow melts in fur and gets it all wet. It's annoying!
Zakhin'Dakh reading a map. It's a big map, but it looks small compared to him.
Zakhin'Dakh vs. a Behir. This was just an excuse to get a Behir drawn along with Zakhin'Dakh.
Zakhin'Dakh in fall. This was a fun little watercolor of leaves falling on his head.
Zakhin'Dakh greeting a fellow griffon. Zakhin'Dakh is around twice the length of your average griffon. He tends to make other griffons nervous.
Zakhin'Dakh discovers a cartographer's shop. Fortunately, he knows by now not to just take things from people.
Oh yeah, I forgot this combat scene. It's another one with all three of them together, though a bit off-model.

...I think that's enough for now. I still have a lot more to show off, but I should go be useful for a while now...

Your people have always been here.

When the serpents ruled the land and fought with ancient Azlant, the lizardfolk watched from their swamps and deep jungles. When darkness fell across all Golarion, your people endured. They have watched the second rise of the warm-bloods, and while they have been pushed ever further into the wilderness, they have kept the old ways, and they have endured.

But they have not thrived. And that which does not thrive is dying, although it be a very slow death.

There are a lot of things to talk about.

First, we'll need to establish exactly who your characters are. Is rknop a tribal chief and Razzocnor his right-hand lizard? Myself, I think it would be an interesting story if the two of you had somehow joined with some human(oid) adventurers, which is where your strange ideas for a nation originated, and are now returning to your tribe just as your chief is thinking of naming a successor. Then the first arc of the campaign would basically be becoming the chief of your tribe and starting your plans for change. Up to you, though.

Second, we'll need to fill out your tribe and the world around them. I'd like to give you a lot of input on both of these elements, particularly the makeup of your tribe. I've got some thoughts on what we could do with this, but I need a little bit longer to put these thoughts together.

Third, we'll need to decide exactly how to do the kingdom-building portion of the campaign. I'm re-reading the Ultimate Campaign rules, and I think we'll run mostly with those, but maybe with some tweaks. We'll probably also use some of the Ultimate Intrigue rules for social encounters, since a lot of this campaign will depend on diplomacy rather than combat. There will definitely be combat--being a powerful hunter or great hero will give you a lot of sway with the lizardfolk tribes--but I think the social aspects of the game will dominate. Unless you'd rather they don't.

So, with that being said, why don't we start with character creation? Here's what I'm thinking:

*25-point buy--it's going to take heroes like those from old tales to unify the lizardfolk
*Using the ARG version of lizardfolk
*I'd like to use the Automatic Bonus Progression (ABP) rules from Pathfinder Unchained--any objections?
*Starting at 6th level, with standard (for ABP) Wealth By Level
*Roll hit dice for levels past 1st, but if you roll less than half just take half.

Any questions about character creation? Any changes you'd like? This is as much your game as mine.

One last thing... since this is a more open game, how would you feel about going through something like this to generate some of the themes, NPC's, and antagonists for the game? Obviously we'd ignore the system-specific bits of that post, and probably adapt some pieces of it to better fit our circumstances, but I found it quite interesting the one time I used it, and was rather excited to play what we'd built when we finished. Would you be interested?

Some time ago, I started a solo game, where I played a bronze dragon fighting the hordes of the Worldwound--which is to say, he's going through the Wrath of the Righteous Adventure Path. I was enjoying myself, and the GM seemed to be, too... but then, just over a month ago, the GM disappeared from the Paizo forums, as far as I can tell.

While I can understand being busy around this time of year, I haven't even seen a response to the PM I sent, so I'm now in the market for a new GM for this campaign. In return, I'm willing to GM just about anything I have or can adapt a module for. I can stretch modules pretty far, so don't consider that too much of a hindrance. I do love GMing unusual games, so if there's a crazy idea you've always wanted to play, this may be your chance! It wouldn't have to be a solo game, either.

So, what I'd like to know from potential GM's is the following:
*Do you have Wrath of the Righteous? It's going to be... rather hard to GM if you don't.
*Would you be willing to go somewhat 'off the rails' for the AP? I'm playing an unusual character, and I know there are some elements of the AP that are unpopular, so I'd like it if you're flexible.
*Do you have In the Company of Dragons? This 3rd-party PDF contains the rules I'm using for building my character. Part of the rules are on the d20pfsrd, so it's workable if you don't have it, but it would make it easier.
*What would you like me to GM? All else being equal, I'll pick someone whose request is something I think I can do well.

I'll run this until I either see a submission I like or it becomes clear no one is interested in this trade.

In the midst of Vladimir losing at poker again, his secretary bursts into the lounge. He gasps out, "Adventurers... everywhere!" and then collapses to the ground.

Preposterous! There weren't any groups scheduled for today, and there shouldn't be any possible way for a group to get this deep this fast without you knowing about it. Rushing out into the library (through the large secret door behind one of the bookshelves), you find nothing immediately amiss, save for the trail of blood left by Vladimir's dying secretary.

Wait... if there are unscheduled adventurers in the dungeon, and there's now a trail of blood leading back here...

Pausing to allow reaction time, but you don't have long to talk.

Feel free to discuss how your poker game was going, what kind of relations your dungeon lords have, or whatever else while you're waiting for me to wreck your dungeon floors.

Oh, also, I've decided on who has what floor. From top to bottom:

Cephalon
Tikkik
The Matron
Vladimir

If for any reason you want a different floor, go ahead and make your arguments for it.

The city of Wati is a bustling place, and especially so now that the Ruby Prince has ordered the opening of its ancient necropolis. Now various sorts of... 'archaeologists' have swarmed its inns, bringing with them all sorts of business.

This is, of course, why you're here, but unfortunately, most of those others have an advantage over you. They weren't late. The lottery at the Grand Mausoleum for exploration sites is tomorrow, and you've just barely gotten into town. Fortunately, the registration process is supposed to be simple--just giving the name of your group and its members, basically.

Unfortunately, they did say group, meaning, more than just the one of you.

Now, there's no doubt some others in town still looking for someone to partner with. How do you want to go about finding someone suitable?

You have no idea how long I agonized over that name. Anyway, here's the OOC thread for the game. I'll have an IC thread up tonight. I was figuring we'd start with you arriving in Wati. Sound good?

I like coming up with ideas for campaigns. In fact, I like it much more than actually running most of them. As such, most of my ideas will probably never see the light of day (and for some of them, that's likely a good thing).

But it occurs to me that there are probably other people with this same affliction. Which made me curious what kinds of ideas other people have come up with that will probably never make it to being a game. And of course, there's always the small chance that someone will see one of the ideas, say "Hey, that sounds like I could run with it," and then they can ask to run it.

So, to start off the discussion, here's an idea of mine:

The Champions' War

The Age of Lost Omens has ended. The Last Age may well have begun.

The demons were the first to notice the disruption in the flow of souls. When fresh souls ceased streaming into the Abyss, they immediately swarmed to the Boneyard to investigate... only to find it in ruins. No more did the deadly moon of Groetus hang over it, no longer did Pharasma judge souls. The demons found only scattered, disorganized psychopomps, desperately trying to put some kind of order back in place amongst the ever-swelling number of lost souls. The hordes of the Abyss wasted no time in taking advantage of the situation.

This, of course, drew the rest of the Outer Sphere's attention, and soon the forces of every deity had invaded the shattered plane, each fighting to 'save' the souls destined for their realms... and some seeking to seize a few extra while they were at it. A tenuous truce has developed, but it is a fragile one, frequently broken, drawing ever more forces into its enforcement and evasion.

On the Prime Material, the first sign of this expanding chaos was the sudden loss of divine power flowing to Pharasma's priests. (Not many people knew any priests of Groetus, so it took some time before anyone noticed their sudden loss of connection had happened at the same time.) At first they tried to hide the absence of their divine patron, but it was not long before they were forced to divulge the truth.

Since then, it is not only the afterlife that has suffered. With the deities focusing more and more of their attention on the shattered Boneyard, the Prime Material has increasingly been left on its own... save that the chaos in the beyond leaks through to the mortal realms.

It may be more than two thousand years since the death of Aroden, but Golarion still remembers the upheavals of those dark times. Now, there are those who say the destruction of that age was only a foretaste of what is now happening. Demons and angels appear in broad daylight in city streets, locked in combat, their battles killing any bystanders that cannot flee fast enough. Titanic storms make their way inland, traveling over mountains to soak deserts with decades worth of rain in a day. The shining cities of Numeria, once thriving under the watchful eye of their Iron Goddess, now find themselves fighting horrors thought banished a millennium ago.

And through it all, volcanoes erupt and the ground trembles, for the Rough Beast smells the stench of a dying universe, and rages that he is not free to kill it himself.

Only one light still gleams in these dark times. Partly freed from the strictures of former agreements, the goodly gods have chosen a handful of their servants to fight back against the madness engulfing Golarion. Blessed with divine power, and reincarnated upon death due to their deities' watch over the realm of the dead, these champions are the Prime Material's last hope to avert total annihilation.

But what the goodly gods have done, the dark ones have done also, and these champions may soon find themselves facing their dark mirrors...

So yeah, the basic idea of this campaign would be, it's the Apocalypse, everything is falling apart, and the PC's are the only ones who can maybe save something. The central unique mechanic would be reincarnation--when the PC's die, they show up in the Boneyard among their deity's forces, their deity looks them over, says something like, "Why don't you try that again as a Hound Archon?" and sends them back as a new race.

Of course, they'd have to face enemies who also get to do the same thing, and it's a bit unclear just how and what they're supposed to do to save the world... but there are so many problems to solve, they can jump in and start trying to save something while searching for bigger solutions. I'd probably go for a kind of Saturday morning cartoon/anime hero feel to it, maybe throw in one Mythic Rank (but probably no more) to really hammer home the whole "Last hope of the universe" thing.

It seems like it'd be a fun game to run, if I could pull it off... but there's no way I'll have the time and energy to do it justice. Even though I spent the time to write all of this out. XD

So, who else has some unusual ideas they'll never play? Comments on ideas are welcome, too, as are requests to use them.

Ever made a character you just hated? Or maybe you have a build you're desperate to see but could never play? Or maybe you just have a bunch of old characters lying around that would be fun to kill off?

Well, fear not! You see, in my current GMing efforts, I've found I'll have need for large numbers of adventurers to bravely die to my PC's. So I'll be perfectly happy to take any character you care to give me and throw them to the wolves... err, rather, the hydra. Or the dungeon lords. Whichever. It won't be pleasant either way.

To be a little more serious, I'm currently running or about to run a couple of campaigns that, at some time or another, are going to involve adventurers coming into conflict with the (more or less monstrous) PC's. As such, I was thinking it would be fun if people could submit characters to face/fight/flee in terror from these PC's.

To be clear, these will be NPC's. I, as GM, will be playing them when they show up. You're welcome (even encouraged) to watch what happens to them. I'll shoot you a PM when they're going to show up in the game if you'd like. You can even PM me suggestions of what they would do. But I'll be playing them.

With that out of the way, what I'm looking for is any 8th-12th level characters (or even entire parties) that you wouldn't mind me playing for the purposes of dying to the PC's. I'm not going to put any restrictions on creating them, but remember--they'll need to be beatable by either a six-headed-hydra where each head has class levels (for the lower-level characters) or a group of four dungeon lords (for the higher-level characters). They'll also need to not have too much in the way of expensive gear, so I reserve the right to take away some of their gear to avoid giving my PC's too many goodies to play with too fast.

So, with all of that said, you're welcome to start giving me some dungeon fodder!

Being co-dungeon-lords has its ups and downs, but until today, it'd been a pretty nice job. Sure, every now and again you had to pretend to die to get some 'heroes' off the backs of your clients, but usually you could get paid for killing would-be adventurers and taking their gear.

Sometimes things were slow, of course, like they had been until just a few minutes ago. You'd been minding your own business in your lounge with your co-lords, enjoying a game of poker (which, in your version, involves more poking of goblins with hot irons than usual), when suddenly one of your minions burst in, gabbled something about 'Humans Everywhere!', and then collapsed on the floor, bleeding all over an expensive rug you'd looted from a village way back in the day.

Even worse, he was followed by some 'rogue'-type adventurer. He was delicious, of course, but he wasn't supposed to be able to get into the employee sections of the dungeons. Just what was going on out there...?

We've all played heroes bravely delving into dungeons, fighting their way through bizarre monsters and crazy traps to reach the bottom of the dungeon. But what if we inverted that paradigm?

In this campaign, you and your fellow PC's will be co-lords of a four-level dungeon complex. You had an agreement between yourselves on sharing the 'pretend to get killed' duties, with all the expensive clean-up it entailed, as well as various deals with more active dark lords in the area where you'd pretend to be at the root of a threat to draw heat off of them. It was a pretty lucrative deal, but now, your dungeon has been completely overrun by adventurers, from the top all the way down to your lounge on the fourth floor.

This campaign will consist of playing with the tropes of the dungeon crawl by having you be the monsters, fighting your way from the bottom of your dungeon through hordes of heroes to reach the top. As such, it's going to be rather tongue-in-cheek--don't expect any detailed simulations of dungeon life, but do expect to have to fight heroes that are investigating the dubious fare in your behind-the-scenes employee cafeteria.

So! You may be wondering by now just how you're supposed to make a character. The answer? Don't yet. At least, not all the way. What I'd like to see right now are outlines of the character you will build. Specifically, I would like to see:

1) What kind of dungeon lord are you? Aim for something in the CR 9 range, whether that be a level 10 goblin shaman or a young blue dragon, or something in between.
2) What kind of dungeon floor did you lord over? (Those chosen will have to actually build this floor)
3) A sketch of your character's personality and goals.
4) Some discussion of what you, as a player, would like to do/see in this campaign.

As I mentioned in the interest check, this isn't going to be an extended campaign--once you clear the heroes out of your dungeon, it's over. I may run a longer-form version of this in the future, more of a 'dungeon lords campaign', but this is not that campaign.

This first phase of recruitment will run for two weeks, until (roughly) the 18th. At that point, I will select up to eight finalists who will actually build characters and dungeon floors, from which I will select the final four characters who will play the game. I look forward to seeing some fun dungeon lord ideas!

Heldren is just the sort of sleepy village you'd expect in southern Taldor--quiet, unassuming, and suspicious of strangers. Even in the short time Theodric had been in town, however, he had gotten a feeling for the uneasiness now disturbing the village's usual quiet. The unnatural snows had everyone on edge.

Taverns were often good spots to hear the local news, and afternoon found Theodric in the Silver Stoat, Heldren's only tavern. He'd hardly had time to order a drink from the barkeep--a practical-looking middle-aged woman--before fate came knocking on the door.

Or rather, barging through it.

The man was quite a mess--his extremities were blackened with frostbite, an ugly wound in his side still oozed blood, and his cold iron sword was still in his hand.

"Send help!" he gasped, panting hard between words. "The Lady... they've... they've taken the Lady!"

"Quick! You!" The barkeep points at one of her long-time patrons. "To the apothecary! Off with you!"

The farmer stumbles to his feet and jogs to the door, apologizing to the wounded man as he warily makes his way around him.

"No, do not... worry about me..." he pants. "The Lady... I left them..." He falls to his knees as the barkeep gets out from behind the bar to do what she can for him.

My plan for character creation was a 25-point buy, starting at 2nd level (gestalt), standard WBL (so 1000 gp), and the usual two traits. You don't have to pick a campaign trait if you don't want to, though it is, of course, encouraged. I'm pretty open to third-party stuff, just run it by me first.

One thing I should note is that Reign of Winter is a very varied adventure path, so you'll probably want to use your two different classes to increase your versatility. I'll tweak things to not be impossible for you, of course, but I'm not going to eliminate entire plot points, so you'll want to be able to handle everything from wilderness survival to diplomacy to countering witch magic if you can.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Since people seem to be enjoying the hydra campaign, I was wondering how much interest there might be in another of my crazy campaigns I ran back in college. The basic idea is that the players would be the 'boss monsters' of a dungeon, running a profitable enterprise in which various evil overlords pay you to be 'the threat' that the heroes will fight while the real evil does its thing unopposed (you've figured out some ways to 'die' without it sticking). However, one day you discover that a huge number of unscheduled adventurers have descended on your dungeon and killed all of your minions during your weekly game of Hearts. So now you have to fight your way through all of these would-be heroes to reclaim your home.

Now, if I do this, I'll be requesting a lot from my potential players. Specifically, in addition to building a nasty monster character, each player will be the 'boss' of one floor of the dungeon, and will thus be responsible for creating their own themed dungeon level (that I will then populate with hostile adventurers). And they'll have to do all this while maintaining a fairly light-hearted tone (I'm not a fan of serious evil in PC's, even when they're evil monsters, so I'd be going for more of a cartoon-villain tone).

So, given all of that, who would be interested? Note that this isn't an actual recruitment yet--I'll only come up with the character/dungeon floor creation rules and such if there's enough people interested for me to do so. I also don't want to run another campaign until Nevermore ends, which I'm guessing will be towards the end of October. So if there's enough interest, I'll likely begin recruiting early next month, with an eye towards starting the game in November.

Heldren is just the sort of sleepy village you'd expect in southern Taldor--quiet, unassuming, and suspicious of strangers. Even in the short time Kazmir had been in town, however, he had gotten a feeling for the uneasiness now disturbing the village's usual quiet. The unnatural snows had everyone on edge.

Taverns were often good spots to hear the local news, and afternoon found Kazmir in the Silver Stoat, Heldren's only tavern. He'd hardly had time to order a drink from the barkeep--a practical-looking middle-aged woman--before fate came knocking on the door.

Or rather, barging through it.

The man was quite a mess--his extremities were blackened with frostbite, an ugly wound in his side still oozed blood, and his cold iron sword was still in his hand.

"Send help!" he gasped, panting hard between words. "The Lady... they've... they've taken the Lady!"

"Quick! You!" The barkeep points at one of her long-time patrons. "To the apothecary! Off with you!"

The farmer stumbles to his feet and jogs to the door, apologizing to the wounded man as he warily makes his way around him.

"No, do not... worry about me..." he pants. "The Lady... I left them..." He falls to his knees as the barkeep gets out from behind the bar to do what she can for him.

I'm still working up the exact changes for the later part of the module, but I'm ready to start when you are! I just hadn't thought to make the thread yet...

I assume you'd stop in the nearest town for news, right? I can write up a first post in Heldren's tavern if you'd stop there.

Since before your father's father's father's time, the Elder Witch has watched over the Great Unkindness. Her feathers have grown white and ragged, her beak cracked, and her eyes clouded, yet is her mind still sharp, and her eyes see things beyond the physical world. Many times have her words saved the Unkindness, and so when her apprentices arrive to call you to her presence, you listen.

She awaits you in the heart of the Eldest Tree, the huge sycamore in the Great Wood that is your roost, perched within her nest (which she rarely leaves), gazing out between the massive branches of the Tree, waiting for you to arrive.

You'll arrive in the order you post. Go ahead and fly to the Elder Witch!

All right, everyone, let me know if you have any questions here! Go ahead and dot in even if you don't.

For many generations, the Great Unkindness has roosted in the many branches of the Eldest Tree. The ravens who dwell here have intelligence and the power of speech, unlike their kin in the rest of the Great Wood. For as long as your stories tell, your ancestors have lived in relative peace. Certainly, the occasional snake tries to sneak into your nests, or a wildcat will bring one of your kin down, but there has never been a threat to the whole Unkindness.

But now, an ill wind blows from the north, rattling the Elder Witch's white feathers. Her dreams are dark of late, and so she calls for you, the greatest heroes the Unkindness knows in this generation, to fly out into the Great Wood... lest her dreams of the forest's doom come true.

Greetings, everyone! I'm going to run a short game based on the fun little module Nevermore. You will play as awakened ravens, seeking out a threat that endangers the forest itself. Expect to face situations where cunning and a clever tongue will serve you better than battle, for you're little ravens in a big forest, and many are the threats that could eat you given half the chance.

This is a very short module (about a half-dozen encounters), and the David-vs-Goliath feel of the adventure could easily be shattered by some clever spell selection, so we will use the pre-generated characters that come with the module. They are:
C’a’rrrar’kkk the Singer, a bard
R’rrr ar’kkk, Son of T’r’k, a sorcerer
T’rrr’aaa’rrr’k of the Great Tree, a druid
S’kkk’aaa’rrrk the Shadow, a rogue

If you are interested, please list at least two characters you'd be willing to play, in order of preference. I don't anticipate a huge demand to get in the game, but I'd also like a short bit of in-character writing with your submission, using the voice of whichever character you'd like to play.

Please let me know if there are any questions. I look forward to toying... er, playing with some ravens!

Every now and again, a hydra loses a head. Usually this is no cause for concern, but in the case of one very unusual hydra, that sometimes means a head with a whole new personality grows in. This is such a case.

The long and the short of it is, one of the players in my hydra campaign has to bow out, so we have an opening for a new head! Requirements for building a head can be found in the old recruitment thread, with further information in the Campaign Info tab. Your head will sprout out with his or her full faculties, utterly convinced you've been here all along even though you can't remember a thing you were just doing.

Those whose heads didn't make the cut first time are welcome to re-submit! If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

This is just a quick interest check to see if there would be at least four people interested in playing the short module Nevermore from Kobold Press. The basic idea of the module is that you are awakened ravens from the Great Unkindness, a community of intelligent ravens living in an enormous tree. You have to use your wits and cunning to save your home from a mysterious threat the eldest raven has sensed closing in on the tree.

This is not a recruitment thread yet--I haven't really prepared the game or anything, I just want to see if there is enough interest for me to bother doing so. The module comes with four pre-generated characters--a bard, a sorcerer, a druid, and a rogue--and due to the shortness of the module (it's shorter than a PFS scenario) and the unusual nature of the PC's, I would probably insist on using the pre-gens.

So, would anyone be interested in being a raven for a bit?

This is kind of a 'Paizo Online Campaign forums etiquette question', I guess. I was thinking it would be fun to solicit some NPC builds from the community for my online campaign I'm running right now (basically, some hydra-chow heroes), but I'm not sure if it's considered good taste here or not to use the Recruitment forum for such a thing. I want to say I saw a similar thread in Recruitment once before, but I didn't follow it to see if it was well-received or told to move elsewhere.

Obviously, I'd have to be very clear that was what I was doing, but assuming I did that, would it be appropriate to make a thread in the Recruitment subforum for soliciting some NPC builds?

You've always been an unusual hydra. Well, at least you think so. And you think your other heads think so, though you've never asked. At least, when you ran into that other hydra in the swamp, it didn't really seem much like you. It didn't talk, for one thing. It did taste good, though.

But swamps get boring after a while, and you're convinced there must be something more interesting out there somewhere. And so, after considerable debate, you've walked out of the swamp. After wandering around for a while in a drier forest, you can hear some odd sounds in the distance. In fact... you think they're voices! They're too far away to see the source of right now through the forest.

Greetings, everyone! I'm looking forward to having some fun with this campaign. However, I think we do need to discuss some things as a group to make sure things will be smooth.

First, playing this campaign well will require a good balance of bickering, agreement, and compromise. Part of the fun of the game will be constantly arguing with one another, but if you never come to an agreement nothing will get done. So, I suggest that you try to agree or at least compromise on generally what you're going to do, and keep the long-term bickering to silly, small things that don't get in the way of accomplishing things. I might be wrong on this, but I think that's how it will be the most fun.

Second, this is my first time GMing Pathfinder as a play-by-post, so I may be a bit rough around the edges at first. In particular, I'm planning to play a bit fast and loose with the rules when we're not in combat. This isn't to say that I'll be ignoring them, just that I might not always ask for every single roll the game would require for certain things if I think it's getting in the way of keeping things moving. If you find that bothers you, please let me know soonest.

For that matter, I'm always open to PM's on ideas, compliments, or complaints. And if PM's are too slow, you can ask me for my Skype or e-mail info, and I'd be glad to discuss things with you that way, whether that be plots for how your head is going to wake up in the middle of the night and spit chewed-up grass on your sibling head that annoyed you or whatever.

On the subject of combats, I'm planning on just using Google Presentation or whatever it's called for the battle map. For minor combats I think I won't even ask for rolls--just tell me what your head does and I'll weave it all into a short narrative of the slaughter. After all, anything short of a TPK is just an inconvenience for you, so I don't think we need to play out exactly how you defeat the village militia of a couple dozen level 1 warriors or whatever happens. For major combats we'll still use full Pathfinder rules, however.

One of the first things you're going to need to agree on is how you're going to interact with humans. It's not going to work if four of you want to befriend them and then the other two start eating them, after all. So I'd suggest you agree on whether befriending, enslaving, terrorizing, eating, or something else will be your general strategy within the first couple of days here.

Oh, one last thing--if there's a decision to be made on where to move, please be clear on where you're voting to move. If all else fails, put it in big bold letters at the end of your post, like Hungry votes to charge towards the troll so he can eat it!

All right, I think that's enough for now. I hope we all have fun!

You've always been an unusual hydra. Well, at least you think so. And you think your other heads think so, though you've never asked. At least, when you ran into that other hydra in the swamp, it didn't really seem much like you. It didn't talk, for one thing. It did taste good, though.

But swamps get boring after a while, and you're convinced there must be something more interesting out there somewhere. And so, after considerable debate, you've walked out of the swamp. After wandering around for a while in a drier forest, you can hear some odd sounds in the distance. In fact... you think they're voices!

This is going to be a fairly light-hearted campaign, where each player plays an individual head on a very unusual hydra. I'm expecting lots of arguing heads, quite a bit of you being thrown into situations you're entirely unsuited for, and probably quite a bit of you getting lopped off only to grow back later. I've got the rules for making your character over in the Campaign Info, so please take a look there.

I'm looking for six heads to graft onto this beast, but given the interest I've already gotten I think I'll get a lot more submissions. Top picks will be heads that sound like they'll clash with one another entertainingly while still being able to get something done eventually.

I don't expect this to be a particularly long campaign, but I'll run it as long as people are interested in it. It's quite possible we'll cycle through some heads, so if you don't get picked initially, keep an eye out for slots later.

This is my first time running a PbP campaign with complete strangers, so I apologize if I'm missing something. Please ask any questions you'll have and I'll make something up off the top of my head that sounds good.

I'm debating on whether or not to use maps for battles. I'll probably just use a Google Doc.

Some time ago I ran a campaign where every character was one of the heads on a hydra. It was a pretty funny concept, but a bit difficult to handle in real time.

So! I was thinking of trying to run it again here as a play-by-post. That way you'd have all the time in the world to argue with each other, disagree on where to go, bite each other off, and maybe occasionally actually get something done. I'd run it with Pathfinder rules, each head having its own character levels, and probably throw you in a Pathfinder module or some such, just for the hilarity of being in a situation you're completely unsuited for.

Clearly this is only a rough idea, but I was wondering how much interest there would be in playing it if I were to run it. So, if this sounds like fun to you, please let me know! That way I know whether or not to flesh the idea out.