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Aah, disgusting. I'm out too, thank you for letting us know.
Am I crazy, or does room 6 not have a door? Actually, it's not the only one. What, did you expect your wizard school to just PROVIDE you with doors? Cast some spells, make your own! :P FYI, I will be out of town this weekend at LARP, so I won't be able to post until Monday.
"Good meeting you both! I'm Andra." The young woman turns to Emmet. "Why don't you wait out here for now. I'll get your maintenance taken care of once Esi's shown us around."
"Neat!" says Andra, as Emmet bends down so she can climb atop his shoulder. The golem seems designed for this purpose - with a seat perfectly sized for its creator built into its shoulder, complete with handholds for easy climbing. "One of the people who raised me learned magic here," she explains as the golem begins to walk with a surprisingly fluid motion, easily keeping pace with Joseph and the others. "I grew up with stories about this place - and I always knew that one day I'd go here. I had a very... unusual introduction to magic that wasn't very good for me, but now I'm finally going to learn to use magic properly!"
I shall be away this weekend at LARP, so I won't be able to post until Monday.
"I'm sure there's some great books about swordsmanship and archery out there. I'll find you one - I bet you'll like it!" "Certainly! It's harder to get lost with a friend, after all. I'd love to explore some - I haven't had a chance to see the campus... yet..." Andra's voice trails off as she sways on her feet a moment, eyes unfocusing. Images flash through her mind - a dark tower silhouetted against a backdrop of tightly-packed clouds. Shadowy figures scurry about its base, while inside flickering light illuminates young children furiously scribbling away in large tomes... Her construct companion seems ready for Andra's momentary loss of balance, and quickly moves to support her with the same arm it's using to provide shelter from the rain. She grips the cool metal with a hand, and steadies herself after a moment. "...Sorry about that!" she says with an embarrassed smile. "Shall we get moving?" She looks to the other two. "You two are more than welcome to come, if you like!" she offers, though she suspects that Kijani at least is likely to decline.
Andra grins at Joseph. "That's the spirit! I bet you'll discover something really impressive and be a famous wizard someday." She turns to Kijani, despite his refusal to participate. "You look like you've gotten to swing that thing around more than a few times," she remarks, looking at the giant sword on the man's back. "Are you studying to master that too?"
Andra eyes Kijani and Joseph expectantly, sure that at least one of them will want to reply to the teacher's question! "Come on, boys! We're gonna be classmates here. What sort of students are we all gonna be?" she asks, grinning.
Andra thinks, smiling a bit as she listens to the teacher's words. "I think I'm a creator. I've always liked to make things - even when I was very little, I was drawing or making little houses out of sticks and leaves. Emmet's the best thing I've ever built - but I'm not going to stop there. I want to study magic to add another tool to my toolkit, and let me create even more wondrous things."
Thank you for your patience and support, everyone. I should be fine to continue now. Teacher Ot and others who study the history of arcane magic likely would recognize Andra's tattoos as fragments of Thassilonian magic, a common tradition among Varisians.
Andra moves forward to examine the symbols. As she gets close, a tattoo on her right shoulder seems to resonate with one of the symbols - pulsing with the same colored light as the sigil of the hand with the eye. Her eyes glow a soft blue as she instinctively casts a minor spell of her own, letting her perceive the magic of the symbols directly. "They're fascinating pieces of magic... but I think I'd prefer not to choose," she replies to Teacher Ot with a smile.
I may need a day or two before I'm able to make my next post. I'm dealing with a personal tragedy at the moment in real life.
"I'm Andra," the young woman says, smiling at the others. "And this is Emmet! I built him based on an old friend." She pats the robot on the leg fondly, and turns to address Teacher Ot. "My interest is in the integration of magical and mechanical methods of construct animation and automation - and in a broader sense, the combining of magic and technology. Emmet is based on both principles - mechanical articulation, with a magical power source. His intelligence is derived from an interaction between the two," she explains proudly. She looks thoughtfully at the bird. "It's a very beautiful bird. I'm not sure how to get a feather without plucking one, however..."
With the armor. Emmet is primarily made of metal, gears, cables, and wires. But he's also got lots of round surfaces and smooth plating - he's first and foremost a helper, transport, and companion for Andra. His combat functions are secondary.
Andra eyes Kijani from her position by Emmet's hip. She'd seen the young man produce the fire as asked - but seemed even more unwilling than her to use his abilities. Curious, that, she thinks. Perhaps he doesn't want the attention.
A look of recognition flashes across Andra's face for a moment as a memory surges to the surface. She sees herself casting a simple spell to light a similar candle, years earlier as a young girl. The memory changes in an instant, to another - mighty gouts of flame leaping from her fingertips to engulf entire buildings in flame as a wicked grin curls across her young face. The memory fades as quickly as it had come, and she winces at a sudden stab of pain in her head and wavers on her feet a moment. Her construct guardian seems to sense her moment of weakness, and bends down to place its large hand against her back to lean on. She recovers after a moment, looking up at the teacher. "I... think I might destroy the candle if I tried," she admits. She speaks the local tongue with familiarity, though with the accent of a foreigner. "Perhaps someone else should try first."
Ah, very cool! Somehow I'd missed that optional rule - seems a great option for a lot of builds!
Chomski, how do you have two 18s in your ability scores? I'm not sure that's possible.
Andra hops off of its shoulder, landing on the ground. She's quite short for a human, barely coming up to the large construct's knee - though at least she's taller than the gnome! Andra smiles excitedly as the teacher introduces himself and welcomes them to the school. This is what she's been waiting for all these years - a chance to learn magic the right way.
Yeah, the free archetype is what gave me the idea to remake Andra for this game - she was created for an old 1e game that never got off the ground, and an Inventor with a dash of wizard works really great for her.
Hello! I'm excited to play with you all!
Apologies for not getting this in before the deadline - I've been dealing with a bad cold and only just now recovered. If you're still willing to consider Andra, here's her 10-Minute Background: Ten Minute Background:
Step 1: Five facts about Andra 1) As a young child, Andra was abducted from her home by goblin minions of a powerful dark entity possessing a wizard's tower. Goblins still remind her of that time, and often make her nervous. 2) Her young mind was infused with vast intellect and knowledge by a magic item, which was then forcibly stripped away after she had come to rely upon it. 3) Manipulated into becoming the entity's apprentice, Andra rapidly became a powerful wizard - but those knowledge and memories were stripped from her when she was freed from captivity, forcing her to start over as a mere beginner. 4) The loss of the magic that her developing mind relied upon has left Andra suffering from occasional issues with memory and comprehension, but its lingering influence is the source of her natural talent for wizardry. 5) Since Andra's family was slain during her abduction, since then she has been raised by the five eclectic adventurers who rescued her - growing up enamored with their tales of magic and heroism. Step 2: Character Goals
Step 3: Secrets
Step 4: NPCs: Two friendly, one unfriendly
Step 5: Memories
Flaw & Quirk: Flaw: Andra suffers from occasional moments of confusion when something triggers a lost or fragmented memory, occasionally also experiencing piercing migraines. Quirk: Andra whistles, sings, or hums while she works - she struggles to focus if she's forced to work in silence.
Spent the weekend away at a LARP - back in town now and will get the rest of Andra's details picked out shortly!
Awesome, I love the ten-minute background. It's really helped flesh out some of my characters in the past. I'll get the rest of Andra's sheet fleshed out, get her construct companion together, and get to work on that background.
I have the first book but would need some prep work. I think we would all appreciate that very much and I'm sure we can all be patient for any prep work that you'd need!
Sounds like a solid party already... This AP really seems like a unique experience and I'm hoping we all get a chance to play it!
I would LOVE to play in this. The character I have in mind is an Inventor (Construct Innovation) with the Wizard multiclass archetype, with the dream of building her own golem. As a little girl, Andra was used as an unwilling conduit for powerful magic and watched over by an awakened clay golem. She was rescued, but retains a natural aptitude for magic to this day and misses her mechanical protector. All grown up, she's ready to go off to study magic the right way at the Magaambya, and she's bringing the masterpiece of her studies - a (smaller) replica of her former guardian, powered by a fragment of the clay golem's shattered armor.
Unfortunately I have not been able to keep up with so many PbPs and I have been forced to abandon this one. Good luck in my absence - make the Tower proud.
Makes sense that you'd learn your druidic discovery from the druid who abducted you. :P
"Fine, but I'm giving him a bath when he comes back inside." Andra snapped her fingers, Emmet's cue to lower her back down to the floor. She stepped onto his massive hand as the golem lowered her to the ground, and she hopped off and skipped back inside.
They'll be on there. I actually went with the staff of caustic fury (same spells, but they deal acid damage). I'll let you know once I have all the spells picked out. It's a pretty massive undertaking and I've never played a full 9/9 caster before at such a high level.
"Hush. They're still stinky. You're not mellifluous enough to convince them anyway," Andra replied, idly picking apart the petals from a flower she'd retrieved from her spell component pouch.
Andra wrinkled her nose at Unk, perched atop her gigantic friend Emmet. She hated it when he used big words like "acquiescent." She knew what it meant - ever since she'd first donned the magic hat she had known so many things - but she didn't like it. She replied, her voice a Taldan accent rather than what one would expect from a Thuvian like her and Unk - yet another side effect of the enchanted garment. "I don't like talking to them, and Emmet thinks they smell bad," she claims absurdly. "Make Bogdirt do it. Maggie is strong but she just wants to scare 'em. They're much more likely to acquiesce to Bogdirt's demands. As long as he doesn't say 'acquiesce' too much."
She probably has the same spell available most days but she's afraid of heights. XD Emmet's shoulder is okay though.
BTW, before I post about Unk watching while floating just off the floor behind the parapets, would Andra be watching from atop Albarath too? XD She'll be riding on Emmett's shoulder, taking time out of his daily patrol route to carry her to the edge. (She's not tall enough to see over the parapets.) I'll wait for your post to make mine.
Andra is a little afraid of the undead that Unk-Sempai creates but she tries to hide her fear so no one thinks she's just a little kid! And I'll add a Blessed Book and a Haversack.
Ok, Andra's gear is done. I'm getting 72,950 gp worth of goodies (so it should cost Unk 36,475 gp worth of materials). GM, one question - One of the staves I was looking at is from a Pathfinder Society chronicle sheet - is it ok if I get a staff of caustic fury? It's identical to a staff of fire but all the spells deal acid damage instead of fire.
Got back from the convention, spent Monday wrapping up loose ends - gear will be done Tuesday evening. Thanks for putting up with my delay, everyone.
Thanks, will do. Fair warning, I have a Pathfinder convention coming up this weekend where I am GMing several games, so all my current Pathfinder attention is focused on that. I'll have more time to get Andra up and running afterwards - apologies for the awkward timing of this game's setup period clashing with convention prep.
I really haven't bought any items yet, I'm gonna need more than 20k if I want to have a full set of equipment. How much is my share, after all the stuff has been divided up and the goblins armed? I feel like 20k is way too little.
I'm not entirely set on her age. She could be as old as 12.
Hooray! Unk-Sempai noticed me! It's been a crazy week. I'll get to work on Andra's magic items - I'm sure they're all handcrafted by Unk. :)
I doubt Andra will do much with illusion but she'll at least have a few illusion spells. She'll favor flashy, big, important-feeling spells like fireball and empowered fireball and quickened fireball. :P
Okay, looks like Unk will handle the minion-creation/conjuration side of magic, so Andra won't focus on summoning. I honestly might just make her a blaster, with a side focus on counterspelling. I'll get the final details of her build done soon.
Wow! Lots of details. I love what you added to the hat, very nice. I definitely think the hat belonged to the dead wizard, whether or not it was magical back then. I'll first pick the spells that Andra would get naturally simply by gaining Arcanist levels, and Unk and I can decide what additional spells we should purchase. I'd definitely like a staff of some kind as well. Probably a metamagic rod or three.
I like the idea that you're his first successful student. Andra might be the most recent acquisition - in recent years, villages have grown wary of the goblin raids, and prospective
Oh my god, Andra could call on Emmett to help her with her spellcrafting homework, since he has more ranks than she does. Hahaha.
Andra still has the emotional maturity of a child, so she probably would happily share her spellbook with Unk, who she probably sees as a big brother type - as an older student, she would look up to him. I think I am going to tweak her abilities a bit and give her the Occultist archetype, so she can be an effective summoner. I think Albarath has learned a bit more about how to care for children by the time Andra was kidnapped - she's more well-clothed and paid more attention to than Unk was at her age. Maybe he resents her a bit for that, but perhaps her childish affection wins him over. Her favorite companion is definitely Emmett, and she never leaves the Tower except when riding on the clay golem's large shoulders.
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