Ammogromin's page

Hi everyone!
I'm currently prepping for a HB game and I was kinda flummoxed over how to start my players off in this campaign.
First some background.
My setting is sort of like ancient Greek city-states with good old fashioned catholic orthodoxy kinda societal structuring. At least the main focus will be such.
The region of Wymalt has a deep history of miracle and many faiths lay claim their holy land upon its hallowed ground. Because of this the various theocracies fight amongst each other and within themselves.
The main idea behind this setting is that the gods are not as transparent as they tend to be in many traditional cases. People know they exist to some extent as their are divine powers granted and creation and ascension myths, but the nuance of the various faiths cannot be agreed upon. So you'd see more morally questionable clergymen and the occasional inquisition.
Magic of the Arcane sort is seen as socially dubious at best and an act of blasphemy punishable by death at worst. These sentiments are reinforced by the gnomish country of Tryspon that is to the North of Wymalt. This country is run by gnomish clans sort of like the triad or mafia in their behavior and power structure, there is constant cloak and dagger activities going on within the clans. This is made worse by their constant meddling with all facets of the arcane morally evil or otherwise.

Common races(elves, dwarves, halflings, humans) are the most prevalent with humans and halflings being the most common, dwarves to be the occasional oddity, and elves to be a rare occurrence. As for the other races they are pensively accepted as long as their features wouldn't be considered monstrous. Aasamirs are non-existent(sort of), and tieflings are seen as devils or demons. And gnomes are seen as sorcerous cretins.

An important thing to note is that while I do enjoy the Golarion pantheon I've decided to go with the Forgotten Realms pantheon as my players are a bit too familiar with the Golarion Deities. I kind of want to keep the mysticism of higher powers prevalent and I feel that the familiarity my players have would ruin it somewhat.

Now my current idea is somewhat cliché but I was going to have them all imprisoned for heresy and have to escape and be on the run from a zealous inquisitor(is there any other kind?). They'd start with no equipment and would have to scavenge for what they could while on the run.
This is the best thing I could think of to start off with to introduce the party to the setting. Yet I don't know how to run it or even if it would be what I really wanted. It feels somewhat like immediately throwing a child to the wolves when they have no way of being prepared.
I'm looking for suggestions on either the scenario I've presented or
new ideas all together.

My party of five is
Human-Arcanist
Human-Witch-Winter Witch
Human-Cleric of Caylan(one exception)-Crusader
Tengu-Brawler
Tiefling-Unchained Rouge

So as it says in the title I used to play/ Gm pathfinder all the time. As of now though I have been struggling with personal issues I feel have drained my creativity.
So I feel like I need some help with some substance to help me with my general setting/ plot.

The setting I am working with is within the Pathfinder/Starfinder universe but is placed within a fringe system.

The system is Known as the Orgidus system.
It is a Red Giant system with a star known as Sultan Zsolt.
Its a system with a few desolate planets and one that seems to be habitable. But that really wont matter at the moment.

The starting locale for my players will be a mining city/ station floating within the system's large asteroid belt. Newly discovered after the gap.
Named Arkwell after the family of dwarves that discovered the abandoned Archeo station.
The dwarf family will have been usurped at one point by a rival family of dwarves known as the bloodstones. The bloodstones at this point in time have become essentially a crime syndicate as they have become more and more desperate with finding their goal. The head of the bloodstones is known as Calrund Bloodstone. A man willing to do anything to achieve his ultimate goal within the Orgidus system.
Which at this point I don't know what it is I want to do to bring these jerks in my group together. I have a basic idea of what direction I want the group to go in but I'm floundering on the details.

My players are a
tengu ace pilot envoy
drow icon technomancer
Ysoki outlaw mechanic
Android space faring technomancer
And a space caterpillar( read as mutant shirren) priest mystic
As you can tell my players are generally zany weirdos per the norm.

Any criticisms are welcome. Thank you.

So I've been GMing Pathfinder for friends for awhile now
(mostly homebrew)
And I finally got around to reading the occult adventures book.
Which brought out a lot of interesting ideas.
Seeing the mesmerist class and the nifty abilities it gets got me thinking of possible villain ideas (ie a legato type character)
With the addition of the nemesis guidelines in UI I thought it'd be the perfect type of character to go with my current setting.

However here's my issue.
A mesmerist is a gish class by nature and while it does have some neat mind control abilities, it seems to be more melee/team combat oriented.

So how would I go about making an effective nemesis out of this?
Should I even use this or just go for a different class (such as a enchantment focused sorcerer)?
Or should I drop classes all together and give it abilities?

I would like to make this enemy memorable in a way and have an entrance set up so any and all advice is helpful.