Colorfoot, are you sure Thief is the right pick for your concept? I ask because of the Thief's biggest advantages is Dex to melee damage, which won't come up with a ranged weapon. It's very good for having a backup melee option, though, so I'm definitely not saying it's a bad call!
Submissions:
Submitted
Philo Pharynx - Teoban Kessler (he/him), LN Skeleton Bard (Archetype?) from Karnath
(A combat medic with offensive magic, plus bardic buffs. Possible Ship Roles: Ship's Doctor)
Dorian 'Grey' - Enoch the Wonderer (he/him), LN Warforged Magus (Wrestler)
(Seems to be a frontliner with a lot of knowledge skills--basically everything but Nature. Possible Ship Roles: Researcher, Engineer)
Brainiac - Kamishana (she/her), LG Kalashtar Paladin (Psychic) from Breland(?)
(Seems to be a frontliner tank with face skills and some magic. Possible Ship Roles: Guard, could be Envoy)
KoboldCatgirl - Collie Shepherd (sheet) (she/her), CN Shifter Druid (Fighter) from the Eldeen Reaches
(Buffs/healing, nature skills, and secondary martial alongside her animal companion. Possible Ship Roles: Ship's Doctor, Ecologist, Guard)
Jereru - Khaddrak Stormwalker (he/him), CG Human Fighter (Dragon Barbarian) from the Seren Isles
(Seems to be mainly a frontliner tank with engineering/sailing skills. Possible Ship Roles: Guard, Engineer, Sailor/Pilot)
Simeon - Gnarok (he/him), NG Halfling Fighter (Cavalier) from the Talenta Plains
(Seems to be a mounted frontliner with wilderness lore skills. Possible Ship Roles: Ecologist, Guard)
Codanous - Alanis Olaris (she/her), TN Elf Ranger (Archetype?) from House Phiarlin
(A ranged martial with "roguery" skills and some face skills. Possible Ship Roles: Guard, Envoy)
Mike-2000 - Rugmar (he/him), LN Shifter (Shoony) Inventor (Archetype?) from Sharn
(An engineer with some healing and damaging abilities, I think, plus some roguish skills. I'm not a huge expert on Inventors. Possible Ship Roles: Engineer)
Ken Marable - Sugu (Backstory) (he/him), NG Goblin Thaumaturge (Vehicle Mechanic) from Sharn
(A martial crafter with a lot of versatility but some focus on lore. Possible Ship Roles: Engineer, Researcher, but very flexible.)
Colorfoot - Arthain (he/him), [Nonevil] Half-Elf Human Rogue (Unexpected Sharpshooter) from House Lyrandar
(A skill monkey and sliiightly squishy ranged martial with some sailing skills and, obviously, sneaky thieving skills. Possible Ship Roles: Sailor/Pilot, Deckhand.)
A +1 weapon is usually a good pick* for your level 2 item, though full plate is also a pretty darn good option. The 1st-level items are trickier. Since you have Medicine, I'd recommend a set of healer's tools as a pretty safe bet? Never hurts to have some extra healing on hand.
Quick summary of who we have applying so far, by my count:
Submissions:
Submitted
Philo Pharynx - Teoban Kessler (he/him), LN Skeleton Bard (Archetype?) from Karnath
(Seems to be sort of a combat medic with offensive magic, plus bardic buffs. Possible Ship Roles: Ship's Doctor, Scout)
Dorian 'Grey' - Enoch the Wonderer (he/him), LN Warforged Magus (Wrestler)
(Seems to be a frontliner with a lot of knowledge skills--basically everything but Nature. Possible Ship Roles: Guard, Researcher, Engineer)
Brainiac - Kamishana (she/her), LG Kalashtar Paladin (Psychic) from Breland(?)
(Seems to be a frontliner tank with face skills and some magic. Possible Ship Roles: Guard, could be Envoy)
KoboldCatgirl - Collie Shepherd (she/her), CN Shifter Druid (Fighter) from the Eldeen Reaches
(Buffs/healing, nature skills, and secondary martial alongside her animal companion. Possible Ship Roles: Ship's Doctor, Ecologist, Guard)
Jereru - Khaddrak Stormwalker (he/him), CG Human Fighter (Dragon Barbarian) from the Seren Isles
(Seems to be mainly a frontliner tank with some repair skills. Possible Ship Roles: Guard, Engineer, Pilot)
Simeon - Gnarok (he/him), NG Halfling Fighter (Cavalier) from the Talenta Plains
(Seems to be a mounted frontliner with wilderness lore skills. Possible Ship Roles: Ecologist, Guard)
Expressed Interest
MikeM_1001 (considering a shifter inventor, potentially an engineer)
Ken Marable
Interesting Patterns:
We have 2 (and a half, really) Fighters, 1 Champion, 1 Bard, 1 Druid, and 1 Magus.
Three of us are Lawful, two are Chaotic, three are Good, and three are morally Neutral.
Two of us have pets--a dinosaur mount and a dog.
In terms of factions, one member of the Warden of the Woods, one former Karrnathi soldier, a follower of the Path of Light, one presumably loyal to Dragons In General, and I think a member of House Ghallanda.
Most ACs are 20-21, with one notable druid-shaped exception. Me and my dog are pretty limited for armor right now (and pretty much always--thanks, druid anathemas), so if I get in, I'll probably be taking a fair amount of hits. Hence Toughness.
I didn't look closely, but it looks like three of us happen to have a connection of some kind to necromancers in our backstories. Funny coincidence! Maybe we could use that, if two or more of us get in.
What Roles Have or Haven't Been Filled Yet:
Party Roles
Melee: So far, almost everyone in the group has a melee focus, which I've found is quite common on Recruitment threads. Even the bard and druid are ready to throw down to some extent.
Ranged: None, though most of us at least have ranged weapons.
Face: Only one of us is even trained in Diplomacy or Deception.
Roguery: A few of us have Stealth, but no Thievery.
Healing: Several characters with Medicine, and two characters with both healing spells and Battle Medicine.
Magic: A smattering.
- Arcane: Only a magus.
- Divine: None
- Primal: A druid.
- Occult: A bard and a psychic multiclass.
Ship Roles
Guard: Oh, we are all set on guards no matter who gets in.
Doctor: A couple good candidates.
Engineer: 1-2 candidates focused on Crafting.
Ship's Cook: A couple characters have Crafting, but Khaddrak's explicitly more of a carpenter/repairman. Maybe a warforged chef? ;)
Researcher: A few--two for Nature, one more general loremaster-type.
Pilot/Ship-Stuff-Expert: One character has Sailing Lore, though not the arcane lore that the Crystalmark might require.
Envoy: None, really. Maybe the champion. Our best Charisma score belongs to a talking skeleton. :P
*And if you were to put that +1 on the melee weapon you currently have, that'd be a pretty great pick. ;)
And Collie's pretty much complete! Sorry to spam, but just to recap so all the info is on the thread:
Collie Shepherd, shifter druid (Animal Order) Why She's Here: A Warden of the Wood, Collie set herself apart during the Last War for her toughness, her wilderness skills, and her ability to take care of others while under extreme personal duress.
Ship Roles: Medic, backup muscle, ecologist, ship's dog groomer.
Personality: Jaded, but in a really mellow way. Hates being alone, but won't say it. Doesn't like showing her real feelings, and honestly, has a lot of trouble letting herself feel them anyways.
Dog: Oh, also, she has a sheepdog. His name's Wynarn. He's, like, a billion years old. I wasn't sure where to mention this, but it seemed important to mention somewhere.
Appearance:
Collie stands a bit over five feet, her plump form belying a powerful, muscular build. Her shoulder-length white hair is fluffy and soft like sheep's wool. She usually dresses in simple greens and browns, favoring long skirts and midriff-bearing tops, with a small collection of collars and chokers. Her smile is tranquil and difficult to break, and she speaks with an easygoing drawl. Though she doesn't smoke, Collie likes to chew an old pipe.
When in her beast form, weighty ram horns curl around velvety sheeplike ears, her face shape shifts very subtly, and her lower body morphs to trot upon a pair of dainty sheep hooves.
Backstory:
[tl;dr: Sheep-shifter shepherdess, raised among extremist cults and sent off to war eight years ago when she was only sixteen, now struggling to adjust to peacetime.] Okay, so this's just gonna, what, record what I'm saying? Well, that's neat. Yeah, so, right. My story. Here goes.
Columbine Shepherd, of the Eldeen Reaches. Friends call me Collie. Well, most people call me Collie. Ma, Pa, my folks were shepherds. Now, shepherds, the whole job is pushing people around who don't know what's good for them, but you try pushing a shepherd around and you don't know what's good for you. Ma and Pa hated Breland, didn't trust Aundair, and thought the Silver Flame was a devil's heart in a jar. That's the kind of people they were. Kind of people we were, growing up. No gods, no kings, just the land and the land's law. Loyal to the Wardens of the Wood as anyone you'd meet. You shoulda seen how they lit up when they realized I had the Gift.
So, I signed on to be schooled in druidcraft. Left home. I was ten. And at the time, the Wardens were pretty desperate for magic-users. Not a lot of mages in the Reaches, see. All you got there is druids, and a druid's not as good as a wizard, but she's sure as sugar better than nothing. I went for schooling; what I got was drafted. They barely even learned me my letters, but they taught me how to--how to burn people alive, how to catch someone in vines so the archers can fill them with arrows, how to use magic over wood and rust to twist a warforged's body into scrapmetal. Those were the priorities. I learned a lot. *laughs*
... Learned a lot about my teachers, too. Greensingers, Ashborn, Children of Winter--anyone could be a teacher back then. Not a lot of oversight on what they taught us. Not a lot of room to make friends, either.
Hm? Oh, right. Yeah, I think I was sixteen when they shipped me out for an outpost by Silver Lake. Skeleton crew of old fossils. The next-youngest guy there was in his forties. That was a weird time to realize I was a girl. Sure as sugar got me my own room, though.
*cough* Okay, so, second year. Disease hits the outpost. I'm young, sleeping separate, no friends. I shrug it off pretty fast. A quarter of the soldiers died. We lost both our senior druids. Our reinforcements keep getting delayed, so now it's just me, our new Chief Mystic Officer. Most of the men are under blankets or under dirt. Winter rolls around, and suddenly we're snowed in. You remember that winter? Bad time, especially in the Reaches. We're getting pushed around by bandits--Aundair soldiers with nothing better to do who figured they could stroll in and take whatever they pleased--and it's pretty much up to me and, ah, maybe five guys to stop them.
Plus Ivy. I probably wouldn't have made it without her, but that's a messy subject. Let's just say my, uh, my track record in picking partners isn't so good. When you spend too much of your life alone, it gets mighty hard to say no to people who wanna be around you.
Reinforcements finally came next spring, five months late. I get kept on, still the outpost's only druid, having 'distinguished myself through my acts of valor'. Like all those men died just to test my mettle. *laughs* Oh, I was mighty proud of it at the time, though, sugar. The next couple years, things heat up in the war, and our outpost finally sees some real action. I guess I made a good account of myself. I kept my people alive.
It was almost my fifth year when the Last War ended and I finally got relieved of duty. I thought I'd be happy. I guess I was. I went back to my folks' fields. Found out my folks had died and left the farm to my big brother, my big sis had deserted the Wardens and signed on with House Deneith, and my little brother had run off with a Sharn baker or some-such. None of them were speaking to each other anymore. Just to me. I get back to sheep herding, try to ground myself. It mostly works. Only I don't sleep well. I get nerves when it's too cold, or when I'm hungry, or when there's no one around me. Get in a couple more bad breakups. Can't sleep right. And I keep getting in fights. Shepherds don't like feeling pushed around, and ex-soldiers know how to do something about it.
So, I wind up leaving home. Taking up odd jobs. Caravan guard, guide, bounty hunter once or twice. When I heard y'all were asking about me, I figured I'd save you the trouble of tracking me down. I didn't expect you to need my--what's that you called it? My psycho-profile? But I guess you heard about that Cannith guy I decked last year and had to make sure. That one was on him. The fella shoved a barmaid and kicked my dog. I don't have anything against House Cannith aside from that, though.
Anyways, yeah. 'War hero' isn't the term I'd use. I'm a medic, I know the wilds, and I can fight. But I got my people through the Winter of 593 simply 'cause they were counting on me.
That's the other thing about shepherds. You get used to a lot of lives hanging on you doing your job right. Your aching back's a luxury they can't afford.
So, do I get the job?
Also, I'm describing Collie on her sheet as Chaotic Neutral, but this is mainly because she's really bad at saying no to people who care about her--even when they're in the wrong--so her moral and ethical compass is a little wobbly. She's definitely not meant to be disruptive.
Oh, and if I make it in, I'd love to try to integrate her backstory with those of one or two other PCs! I always think that's really fun.
I've only just started on her, but here's Collie Shepherd, druid of the Eldeen Reaches! I know she fights with a shepherd's crook, so I'll need to decide between gaff and bo staff for how to represent it. In general, though, she's a tripping-focused healer/secondary frontliner with a wolf companion. Her spells will probably be mainly buffs, battlefield control and healing.
