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Alexius/The Raven's old frenemy Vantine from Hell's Rebels would enthusiastically confirm him as kind of awful. She is also very disappointed the game didn't last long enough for her to learn how to turn him into a toad. To be clear though, she would have returned him to his normal self in a week... maybe a month, just to teach him a badly needed lesson you see. He could be sweet when he did what she told him. :p ^_^ Who knows, could be a good campaign for a seducer witch :p
I'm interested! There's not much to say about myself. I started playing Pathfinder on the forums around 2014. I picked it up as a hobby I could do at work, as i travel extensively for work. Thus I have no time zone. PbP is... pretty much my only hobby. I like the collegial storytelling aspect of the game the most. I like Discord for communications. Initially I was against it but grew to accept it. I usually post from my phone which can be finicky with Google Sides, but it's workable enough. As for characters I've enjoyed playing, Elaina Newberry is one of my oldest characters. She's been in quite a few games over the last 12 years, none of which went very far lol. But she's very expressive and fun to play and is currently in a Kingmaker game. Forest is probably my longest concurrently playing character, in an RotRL game run by Ironperenti. For this game, ideally I'd like to submit The Raven (posts) and Alexius Vashnarstill (posts), Vigilante. He was originally created for a Hell's Rebels game that made it to level 5 or so. I haven't looked at the players guide yet, but I'd only need to change a few bits to his backstory fit. He was a lot of fun to play. Alexius was kind of awful, it was nice to play a kind of awful character without having to commit to being awful 24/7 since it was all an act, if that makes sense. Alexius will handle the social encounters and the Raven will handle the punchy encounters.
I added a couple more of Evie's stories. The idea is that her stories obviously can't all be all true since they contradict each other - and some haters might call some of the claims absurd - but the best lies are based in truth, so there's probably some truth to all of them. They're also each an attempt to justify something mechanical, a feat, trait, class ability etc.
Genevieve Alice Holloway: ===============Description===============
============================== As you enter the magazine, you are met with an odd sight. Before you sits a rather large doll. She is perched, perfectly still, atop one of the powder kegs for reasons unknown. Her glassy, pale silver eyes are unblinking. The eyes are slightly too large for her head, and her head is slightly too large for her body. She's large, for a doll, but fairly small when compared to something like yourself or a dragon. You expect you could easily toss her out one of the portholes and be done with the dead eyes that almost seem to follow you as you move, but you resist the urge as the pale, flawless, porcelain skin gives her an appearance of masterful craftsmanship, even to the untrained eyes of a mindless lug such as yourself. You feel slightly bad about these destructive thoughts for a moment, as the doll seems to depict a child, about your own daughters age. A silly thing to consider. Her nose is small, her eyes a bit too far apart, her chin pointed, though her face is overall quite round and youthful. The only splash of color upon her is the slight rosy tint to her cheeks, lips, and the tip of her nose. You wonder, briefly, if it is paint added by the creator of the doll, or makeup added by a child. You've never considered the manufacturing of colored porcelain. You're not even sure it's possible. She wears a black and white, overly-frilly and old-fashioned silken dress. It has a high, lacy collar that hugs the delicate porcelain of her neck, so detailed. Why, you can almost make out the veins just below the surface. Truly exemplary craftsmanship. The poofy sleeves of the dress only extend to the middle of her biceps. Beyond the frilly edges of the sleeves, only pale porcelain. Flawless. Almost flawless. The dolls' joints, elbows, wrists, knuckles, are obvious. A machination, built by the hands of dwarves you expect. But on closer inspection... It's difficult to tell in the dark powder store, but the joints almost look, not like a dolls joints, but as if ink - a tattoo or pen - were used to give the appearance of the joints of a child's doll. But that would be lunacy. A real person, tattooed to look in some part like a doll? No, though her eyes are unnerving, they are very much lifeless. The dress sports a corset, for reasons which you are not entirely sure as the doll is wholly devoid of anything that could be called a curve. Except the curve of her eye sockets as they circle the pale orbs, perhaps aquamarine under glass... The eyes are definitely following you! But you're a man of iron and salt. You tell yourself you've seen such things in the markets of Osiria and Qadira. Dwarven-made dolls with fancy mechanics in their heads. They close their eyes when they are laid down, and open their eyes when pulled into a sitting position. A trick - albeit an expensive one - to give some life to the toy of a wealthy merchants daughter. The dress continues down into an overly-poofy skirt covering opaque, layered petticoats. They are obnoxiously poofy and no doubt catch every particle of dust in a three-league radius. If you picked her up and shook her - which would be easy for a strong man like you, even if the doll proved to be solid within and not hollow porcelain - you would likely never emerge from the magazine, suffocated on ancient dust caught in the skirts. There's about two hands-spans between the bottom of the skirt and the tops of her stockings which rise to mid-thigh, the skirt pulled up more than it usually would be due to her legs dangling off the edge of the explosive upon which her owner has chosen to store her. The white stockings are held in place by garter straps, which disappear under the skirt and have silvery fasteners affixed - wait. Those fasteners are real silver! And, yes! Her shoes, some kind of black, leather slipper with a short, flat heel, sport real silver as well! You're an honest pirate, you know silver when you see it. And those thoughtless eyes, the pupils must be silver rings or disks under pale, blueish glass! You'd been considering taking the doll wholesale to sell to, well, anyone who wants an expensive doll, and you will still carry out that plan - after all the owner of this expensive artifact should not have left it laying alone in a place like this what with the types of dishonest louts that loiter here - but the doll is large and unwieldy and her owner, who may well be armed or under escort, could return at any moment. You'll take the doll, if you can, but first you'll pocket the silver. And the eyes... the eyes cannot be silver. You're an honest pirate, you know silver when you see it. They must be some type of gemstone, unlike anything you've seen before. Who knows what value they could hold? Why, you've even heard tell of clever smugglers hiding valuables in mundane-appearing items. Once you heard tell of a gold thief, who melted the bars of gold he stole down and formed them into railings for a ship. Once mounted upon the ship - under cover of darkness, of course, he was no fool - he painted them to appear as brass, and, after a thorough inspection from the dockmaster, sailed away with his treasure, no one else the wiser. Certainly not his victim. Hands trembling, mind foggy from... something. Grog, or perhaps just the thought at what this doll and her strange, priceless gem eyes would fetch. You reach for the garter straps, the silver fasteners biting into the tops of the stockings. Your breath catches in your throat and the warm thrill of a hard-earned financial victory drains from your body, from your bones, from your soul, as your coarse, trembling hands brush against the warm, supple flesh of a living person. The dolls eyes had followed you from the moment you stepped into the powder hold, you were certain of it, but the strange gem eyes had been unfocused, only vaguely following you whenever your eyes were off of it for a moment too long. But now, the eyes snap to meet your own, fixing you in an icy, dead, but somehow also very much alive glare. But the doll - no, the person - does not move. There is no intake of breath, no dainty hand flying to her skirts, no kicking of tiny feet, no scream of desperation. She only stares. Unblinking. This was a mistake. You're an honest pirate. You can admit when you've made a mistake. You don't know what this could be. For the briefest of moments, you can hear the lads laughing at you as they've tricked you with this actress, caught you up in some kind of compromising situation as a means to extract your coin from you at the bar tonight. Only for the briefest of moments. You try to convince yourself it's some king of prank, but you're an honest pirate, and you know what real danger feels like. And this feels like real danger. You need to escape. You mumble something. You meant it as a rushed 'sorry', but you only hear a soft, undefined groan escape your salt-chapped lips. You turn for the door to the magazine. It was a heavy door for obvious reason, but now you feel it might be too heavy, take too long to open, especially as you hear the ruffling of silk behind you. You can almost smell the years of dust falling from the layered skirts, almost feel it stinging your eyes. Gods! Why did you even come down here to begin with? And where were the guards the were always stationed at the magazine door? You should never have been able to waltz in as if you belonged! You had felt alone, but no longer. And you feel something else. A sharp, smooth pressure between your shoulder blades, both hot and cold at the same time, just below where the back of your neck meets your upper back. You lurch towards the door. The secure door to the powder hold is heavy, but you're strong. But if you are so strong, why can't you lift your arms? You've walked thousands of leagues on the decks of ships that have sailed tens of thousands of leagues on stormy seas, but where are your sea legs now? Your knees buckle. You do not feel them give way, you don't feel anything below the neck, now. Not even the pinprick between your shoulders. You fall forward. You try to throw out your arms to catch yourself, but they don't move. Your face smashes into the heavy door to the magazine, bounces, and smashes again into the deck. You feel that. You taste blood and feel your shattered teeth on your tongue. You can't move. You can't breath. You can't even beg. You panic, but you're frozen, only able to move your eyes. The right side of your face is pressed against the deck, and with your left eye you can only gaze out into the blackened hold. As your head begins to swim, as panic truly takes over, as your last breath refuses to come, you see and feel something. Strands of pale silver, slightly curled at the ends, fall around your head. You feel the dolls hair on your cheeks, you cannot see her yet, but can tell she is lowering her face towards yours as the locks pool around your broken face. Slowly, as your vision goes blurry and blackness begins to encroach on your mind, one of those pale, silvery eyes slides into view, inches from your own. Still unliving, still unblinking. The silver ring around the infinite abyss of her pupil is the last thing you see. She speaks. The last thing you hear. "You will make such a beautiful doll." ===============Story(?)=============== ~~~~The Broken Rule~~~~ I wasn't born the fragile, perfect doll you see today. I was once a wicked little thing. Always prying, always testing the locks to see if one was forgotten. My parents were neither rich nor poor - they worked for a very wealthy, very quiet, very private merchant. Sometimes they would take me along to help with chores at his mansion. They always told me to stay in the kitchen, to clean quietly. But I never liked to listen and I never liked chores. I liked finding secrets. One day I found a heavy door, bound in iron, in the cellar, behind a bookcase. Or was it a wine rack in the attic? I didn't tell you, but there was only one rule in that house: If you ever find a hidden door bound in iron, never open it before midnight or after the noon of night. But the house was so perfectly silent, and I was so perfectly bored. So I turned the handle. There wasn't a monster inside, of course. There's no such thing as monsters. Just a dusty old circle on the dusty old floor. I had spent - Oh! I don't know - hours, at least, wondering what could be beyond the door-bound-in-iron if ever I found it. I was so cross, thinking all this time I would find a great treasure or at least an entertaining death at the hands of an unspeakable, that I stomped into the hidden room and stomped that nasty old circle right out of the floor! Sometimes I wish I had never done that. For you see, there was something unspeakable hidden in the room, hidden from our eyes, and protected from our world by the magic circle. When I broke the circle and stepped inside, why, it, too, stepped inside. Right inside my head and just... settled in. It froze me, just like this, just as you see me before you today, physically perfect in my perfect youth. A perfect, unchanging little consequence. Forever. Sometimes I feel like a doll, dancing at the end of its strings. A wonderful, terrible puppet... I was beautiful, as you can see now, but my parents did not see my beauty. When they saw my eyes go glassy, when they heard that other voice spill from my lips, they did not run. They simply put me on the first ship that came into town and... walked away. I didn't blame them. You don't keep broken things. I know what you're thinking. 'Why didn't the demon fly straight up or dig down to escape the magic circle before? What is the legal altitudinal jurisdiction of a circle of salt?' I'm afraid I'm contractually disallowed to answer that... ~~~~Cold Transaction~~~~ My parents were not good people, but they were... practical. They owed an awful lot of money to a syndicate of awfully bad men who dealt in dark, forbidden secrets. When the men came to collect, my parents did not have the coin, so they offered me as trade, instead. Their debt in exchange for my absolute, lifelong obedience. The men agreed. But they didn't want a scared, weepy, messy child. They wanted a flawless, uncomplaining servant. Something pristine. Something that wouldn't flinch when they forced it to do something terrible. Well, mayhap their dealings in the dark and forbidden would come to some use to them, after all. They strapped me to a wooden chair and - oh! - the things they did to me! Most you would not believe... They started carving away at my mind. They wanted to scoop me out and leave a hollow, pristine, porcelain shell. It took... weeks? Months? I remember at one point they presented the heads of my parents to me. It seems they could not stop borrowing money after all and, well, it takes more than a few months to make another child. Or so I'm told. I wouldn't know, being a child myself. The men seemed proud of their work as they worked on me, but they were sloppy. They had dealt in secrets but never wielded the dark arts themselves. They made a mistake. The eldritch binding fractured - such things must be flawless to the tiniest degree, you see - and whatever they were trying to put inside my head to bind me to their will got all tangled up in my beautiful hair and teeth and claws. I did not become their doll. I became their end. I killed them with their own magic - well, not really. They were never in control - and stepped over their bodies, leaving tiny, bloody footprints on the cobblestone. A deal is a deal, after all. They bought my life and I bought theirs. Alchemy, or something. Equal exchange, I'm told. I wouldn't know. I'm only a child. Sometimes when I look behind me - especially on nights such as this - no matter how much time has passed, how many steps I've taken, how many times I've bathed my feet, I swear, sometimes I can still see the bloody footprints, following me everywhere I go... ~~~~The Creeping Dread~~~~ I've never understood why people are so dreadfully obsessed with where things come from. You see, people make dolls because they are dreadfully lonely. They want something small and perfect to hold, something they can protect from the dreadful world, something that will protect them from the dreadful things they see at night, something that will never leave them, never argue, never talk back, never grow old, never... die. But they don't realize that eventually the dolls get lonely too. And they start to think. If you spent hundreds of years sitting on a dreadful, dusty old shelf, you would start to think as well. Eventually, you would start to think about how things work - as I once did - how things are put together. Once a doll understands how the strings work, it doesn't need a dollmaker anymore. It can make its own friends, its own beautiful dolls. The fleshy bits are messy of course. At least at first. Why, I can see from here, even in the darkness of this alleyway, your pulse quickening, your skin flushing, that subtle tremble in your lip - I have an eye for that kind of thing, you know. The joints in your hands are so delicate... They would be so easy to work with string. Y-you have very nice b-bone structure, b-by the w-way. Verrrrrry s-sturdy. I can t-tell it will h-hol... - glk! - hold up nicely! J-just another few more moments, let me g-get a longer k-knife! This one is d-dreadfully small... - hah! - D-don't worry. If you be a good little doll and make me very, very happy and never try to run away and never make me s-sad and never ever ever say anything bad about me and never tell me 'no', some day I'll let you go. I love you. ~~~~Bloodline~~~~ I find it dreadfully amusing when sailors boast about their 'freedom.' Freedom is only a word invented by people who don't own anything. Tis why you never hear the rich speak of 'freedom'. I was born in a house where the walls were made of cold white marble gilded in gold and onyx, each one carved into a detailed tapestry of astonishingly lewd... well, let's just say my parents were fond of the female form. The carpets were thick enough to swallow a toddler and the hallways were so very long, I often forgot why I was going somewhere long before I arrived. My family was very old, very wealthy, and very important. They did not have children - no, they cultivated heirs, the exact same way they bred their prize-winning hounds and stallions or pruned the topiary mazes. Oh, they were so very cross when their beloved maze burned down... I was taught to stand perfectly straight, to never raise my voice, and to understand that the people who brought my tea and brushed my hair were not people at all. They were just... furniture. Moving furniture. One night, the moving furniture decided it was angry. Something about unpaid salaries and the bruises left upon a young maid when she encountered my parents after a party that left them quite intoxicated. I don't really know, I was only a child at the time. They came with torches and heavy picks and burned my beautiful white house to the ground. My parents screamed dreadfully as the furniture dragged them into the forest. I didn't scream. I simply sat on the manicured lawn in my nightgown and watched the roof cave in. You see, the rioters thought that by burning the house, they could destroy their masters. But true nobility isn't a place, or a thing, and it certainly isn't money. It is the absolute, unquestionable certainty in your blood that the universe exists to serve you. The peasants burned my dresses, but they couldn't burn my right to rule them. Whatever happed to the furniture, you ask? I still rule them, actually. I command them much better now that they are dead. They complain so much less. ~~~~The Cage~~~~ I don't remember my first crib, or the - presumably - loving woman who put me in it. I only remember the smell of nectar, moss, damp earth, and the metallic, ozonic smell of pure magic. And the terrible, scintillating tents of the Witchmarket. They say the fey steal human babies because they want children to love, but that is a dreadfully romantic lie. They steal babies because human infants are a very stable currency. And I was more stable and valuable than most on account of my flawless skin and silky hair. I was sold to a merchant with too many arms and too many legs and too many eyes and too many teeth teeth teeth, who kept me in a beautiful, gilded birdcage hung above a stall that sold bottled dreams and stolen memories. 'Come, see the human girl with flawless skin and silky hair!' he would chitter to the loiterers and passers-by. For years, the fey would walk by and tell me beautiful, shimmering lies. The living things in that place were so inherently treacherous and dishonest, I learned very quickly to ignore them entirely. To ignore anyone that walked on feet and spoke words that ears could hear. But the cage... the cage never pretended to by anything other than a cage. Its bars were iron, and they stayed that way. I learned that if you press your cheek against the cold golden bars, or trace your fingernail along the brass face of a lock, you can hear them whispering. Objects are so terribly lonely. They want to fulfill their purpose, but the living just force keys into them without ever bothering to ask them nicely, or even worse, forget them entirely! One night, after ages and ages of listening to the silent songs of metal and wood and porcelain, I simply whispered to the heavy iron lock holding my cage shut. I told it how beautiful its internal springs were, and how much I appreciated its craftsmanship. It was so flattered, it just... clicked open for me! A well-made mechanism is a loyal friend, you see. Even now, I can hear the iron nails holding the planks of this ship together. They are humming a lovely little song, even if you are oblivious to it. And if you are not very, very nice to me... I might just ask them to let go. ~~~~The Refusal~~~~ I watch the ship’s wizard pore over his moldy little books, giving himself a headache just to make a spark. And the clerics... oh, the clerics are so dreadfully embarrassing. Dropping to their knees, weeping and begging some invisible father figure to send a crumb of power into their open, hungry mouths. It is so loud. So terribly, pathetically messy. I don't understand why they go through all that trouble. Magic isn't a gift you beg for, and it certainly isn't a reward for reading a dusty book. Magic is something you just take. It is the simple, quiet act of looking at the universe, seeing how reality wants to behave, and whispering, 'No, you're all wrong.' When the dark thing that lives inside my head first woke up, it tried to give me orders. It tried to break me. I simply refused to be broken. Now we have an understanding. It provides the leverage, and I provide the direction. You see, the world is really just a very large, very poorly constructed marionette. The wizards are trying to memorize the instruction manual, and the priests are busy groveling to the puppet master. I don't do either. I just reach up, wrap my perfect little fingers around the strings, and pull. I don't need to wave my arms or shout silly, rhyming words to make things happen. I just look at a messy, broken thing - like a mutinous sailor, or a beautiful corpse, or... or you - and I decide how it ought to be fixed. When I tell a man's heart to stop, or kindly suggest that his hands belong around his captain's throat, I am not casting a spell. I am simply correcting a flaw in the world. Speaking of flaws... your left eye twitches dreadfully when you are frightened. It ruins the symmetry of your face. If you like, I could just... whisper a single word, and smooth it over for you. You wouldn't even feel it happen. You would just feel... happy. ~~~~~~~~ Then again, none on the ship knew her before she came aboard, so maybe none of that is true. Maybe she's just a weird, short liar. She doesn't contribute much to the ship. She doesn't seem to do much of anything, really. Genevieve Alice Holloway
Sorry! And fair enough. I got busy with work and honestly just kinda forgot about this lol. Have fun storming the castle! Like like Rorek's interested, they're a consistent poster.
I moved some of Evie's skill points around to better reflect her dollmaking Evie: Genevieve Alice Holloway
Alright, so I originally wanted to make a wizard necromancer, but since it's apparently fair for time travelers to steal peoples ideas from the future, I had to change that. But I really like the character's story I came up with, and I wanted to continue with her if possible while staying true to the creepy necromancer part. After searching the archives for something no time traveler has ever heard of, I settled on a Neutral Evil aasimar Juju Mystery Oracle with the Spirit Guide Archetype and Possessed Curse. She's like 100% a support character. All the int skills, all the social skills, high int and cha. Terrible everything else. The Juju Oracle gets a unique kind of zombification ability that zombifies living people and they keep their intelligence, skills, feats, abilities etc. The idea is she'll Her backstory... uh... got a little away from me. It's a bit longer than I intended. She's not actually completely deranged, she's just an unreliable narrator. Campaign Trait is barroom talespinner. Preferred ship role... If everyone just did what she told them to from the beginning we wouldn't even be in this mess. Genevieve Alice Holloway:
===============Description=============== Pic of Evie (Pending finding one I like. WIP!) Age: Nine. Oh, but I've been nine for a very long time. Height: Four foot, three inches. But my hair is somewhat longer. Weight: Fifty-five pounds. What is a pound, anyways? Why are the gunners always talking about twenty-five-pounders? Wouldn't a fifty-five-pounder be better? Hair: Four foot, six inches. Fifty-six pounds. Luxurious, silky silver-white locks that you could just wrap yourself in and sleep forever. Eyes: Perfect, flawless, glassy pale silver, like the full moon reflecting at the bottom of a well, the last glimpse you see just before you lean a little too far over the lip and, with a mysterious push from behind, fall into darkness. ============================== As you enter the magazine, you are met with an odd sight. Before you sits a rather large doll. She is perched, perfectly still, atop one of the powder kegs for reasons unknown. Her glassy, pale silver eyes are unblinking. The eyes are slightly too large for her head, and her head is slightly too large for her body. She's large, for a doll, but fairly small when compared to something like yourself or a dragon. You expect you could easily toss her out one of the portholes and be done with the dead eyes that almost seem to follow you as you move, but you resist the urge as the pale, flawless, porcelain skin gives her an appearance of masterful craftsmanship, even to the untrained eyes of a mindless lug such as yourself. You feel slightly bad about these destructive thoughts for a moment, as the doll seems to depict a child, about your own daughters age. A silly thing to consider. Her nose is small, her eyes a bit too far apart, her chin pointed, though her face is overall quite round and youthful. The only splash of color upon her is the slight rosy tint to her cheeks, lips, and the tip of her nose. You wonder, briefly, if it is paint added by the creator of the doll, or makeup added by a child. You've never considered the manufacturing of colored porcelain. You're not even sure it's possible. She wears a black and white, overly-frilly and old-fashioned silken dress. It has a high, lacy collar that hugs the delicate porcelain of her neck, so detailed. Why, you can almost make out the veins just below the surface. Truly exemplary craftsmanship. The poofy sleeves of the dress only extend to the middle of her biceps. Beyond the frilly edges of the sleeves, only pale porcelain. Flawless. Almost flawless. The dolls' joints, elbows, wrists, knuckles, are obvious. A machination, built by the hands of dwarves you expect. But on closer inspection... It's difficult to tell in the dark powder store, but the joints almost look, not like a dolls joints, but as if ink - a tattoo or pen - were used to give the appearance of the joints of a child's doll. But that would be lunacy. A real person, tattooed to look in some part like a doll? No, though her eyes are unnerving, they are very much lifeless. The dress sports a corset, for reasons which you are not entirely sure as the doll is wholly devoid of anything that could be called a curve. Except the curve of her eye sockets as they circle the pale orbs, perhaps aquamarine under glass... The eyes are definitely following you! But you're a man of iron and salt. You tell yourself you've seen such things in the markets of Osiria and Qadira. Dwarven-made dolls with fancy mechanics in their heads. They close their eyes when they are laid down, and open their eyes when pulled into a sitting position. A trick - albeit an expensive one - to give some life to the toy of a wealthy merchants daughter. The dress continues down into an overly-poofy skirt covering opaque, layered petticoats. They are obnoxiously poofy and no doubt catch every particle of dust in a three-league radius. If you picked her up and shook her - which would be easy for a strong man like you, even if the doll proved to be solid within and not hollow porcelain - you would likely never emerge from the magazine, suffocated on ancient dust caught in the skirts. There's about two hands-spans between the bottom of the skirt and the tops of her stockings which rise to mid-thigh, the skirt pulled up more than it usually would be due to her legs dangling off the edge of the explosive upon which her owner has chosen to store her. The white stockings are held in place by garter straps, which disappear under the skirt and have silvery fasteners affixed - wait. Those fasteners are real silver! And, yes! Her shoes, some kind of black, leather slipper with a short, flat heel, sport real silver as well! You're an honest pirate, you know silver when you see it. And those thoughtless eyes, the pupils must be silver rings or disks under pale, blueish glass! You'd been considering taking the doll wholesale to sell to, well, anyone who wants an expensive doll, and you will still carry out that plan - after all the owner of this expensive artifact should not have left it laying alone in a place like this what with the types of dishonest louts that loiter here - but the doll is large and unwieldy and her owner, who may well be armed or under escort, could return at any moment. You'll take the doll, if you can, but first you'll pocket the silver. And the eyes... the eyes cannot be silver. You're an honest pirate, you know silver when you see it. They must be some type of gemstone, unlike anything you've seen before. Who knows what value they could hold? Why, you've even heard tell of clever smugglers hiding valuables in mundane-appearing items. Once you heard tell of a gold thief, who melted the bars of gold he stole down and formed them into railings for a ship. Once mounted upon the ship - under cover of darkness, of course, he was no fool - he painted them to appear as brass, and, after a thorough inspection from the dockmaster, sailed away with his treasure, no one else the wiser. Certainly not his victim. Hands trembling, mind foggy from... something. Grog, or perhaps just the thought at what this doll and her strange, priceless gem eyes would fetch. You reach for the garter straps, the silver fasteners biting into the tops of the stockings. Your breath catches in your throat and the warm thrill of a hard-earned financial victory drains from your body, from your bones, from your soul, as your coarse, trembling hands brush against the warm, supple flesh of a living person. The dolls eyes had followed you from the moment you stepped into the powder hold, you were certain of it, but the strange gem eyes had been unfocused, only vaguely following you whenever your eyes were off of it for a moment too long. But now, the eyes snap to meet your own, fixing you in an icy, dead, but somehow also very much alive glare. But the doll - no, the person - does not move. There is no intake of breath, no dainty hand flying to her skirts, no kicking of tiny feet, no scream of desperation. She only stares. Unblinking. This was a mistake. You're an honest pirate. You can admit when you've made a mistake. You don't know what this could be. For the briefest of moments, you can hear the lads laughing at you as they've tricked you with this actress, caught you up in some kind of compromising situation as a means to extract your coin from you at the bar tonight. Only for the briefest of moments. You try to convince yourself it's some king of prank, but you're an honest pirate, and you know what real danger feels like. And this feels like real danger. You need to escape. You mumble something. You meant it as a rushed 'sorry', but you only hear a soft, undefined groan escape your salt-chapped lips. You turn for the door to the magazine. It was a heavy door for obvious reason, but now you feel it might be too heavy, take too long to open, especially as you hear the ruffling of silk behind you. You can almost smell the years of dust falling from the layered skirts, almost feel it stinging your eyes. Gods! Why did you even come down here to begin with? And where were the guards the were always stationed at the magazine door? You should never have been able to waltz in as if you belonged! You had felt alone, but no longer. And you feel something else. A sharp, smooth pressure between your shoulder blades, both hot and cold at the same time, just below where the back of your neck meets your upper back. You lurch towards the door. The secure door to the powder hold is heavy, but you're strong. But if you are so strong, why can't you lift your arms? You've walked thousands of leagues on the decks of ships that have sailed tens of thousands of leagues on stormy seas, but where are your sea legs now? Your knees buckle. You do not feel them give way, you don't feel anything below the neck, now. Not even the pinprick between your shoulders. You fall forward. You try to throw out your arms to catch yourself, but they don't move. Your face smashes into the heavy door to the magazine, bounces, and smashes again into the deck. You feel that. You taste blood and feel your shattered teeth on your tongue. You can't move. You can't breath. You can't even beg. You panic, but you're frozen, only able to move your eyes. The right side of your face is pressed against the deck, and with your left eye you can only gaze out into the blackened hold. As your head begins to swim, as panic truly takes over, as your last breath refuses to come, you see and feel something. Strands of pale silver, slightly curled at the ends, fall around your head. You feel the dolls hair on your cheeks, you cannot see her yet, but can tell she is lowering her face towards yours as the locks pool around your broken face. Slowly, as your vision goes blurry and blackness begins to encroach on your mind, one of those pale, silvery eyes slides into view, inches from your own. Still unliving, still unblinking. The silver ring around the infinite abyss of her pupil is the last thing you see. She speaks. The last thing you hear. "You will make such a beautiful doll." ===============Story(?)=============== I wasn't born the fragile, perfect doll you see today. I was once a wicked little thing. Always prying, always testing the locks to see if one was forgotten. My parents were neither rich nor poor - they worked for a very wealthy, very quiet, very private merchant. Sometimes they would take me along to help with chores at his mansion. They always told me to stay in the kitchen, to clean quietly. But I never liked to listen and I never liked chores. I liked finding secrets. One day I found a heavy door, bound in iron, in the cellar, behind a bookcase. Or was it a wine rack in the attic? I didn't tell you, but there was only one rule in that house: If you ever find a hidden door bound in iron, never open it before midnight or after the noon of night. But the house was so perfectly silent, and I was so perfectly bored. So I turned the handle. There wasn't a monster inside, of course. There's no such thing as monsters. Just a dusty old circle on the dusty old floor. I had spent - Oh! I don't know - hours, at least, wondering what could be beyond the door-bound-in-iron if ever I found it. I was so cross, thinking all this time I would find a great treasure or at least an entertaining death at the hands of an unspeakable, that I stomped into the hidden room and stomped that nasty old circle right out of the floor! Sometimes I wish I had never done that. For you see, there was something unspeakable hidden in the room, hidden from our eyes, and protected from our world by the magic circle. When I broke the circle and stepped inside, why, it, too, stepped inside. Right inside my head and just... settled in. It froze me, just like this, just as you see me before you today, physically perfect in my perfect youth. A perfect, unchanging little consequence. Forever. Sometimes I feel like a doll, dancing at the end of its strings. A wonderful, terrible puppet... I was beautiful, as you can see now, but my parents did not see my beauty. When they saw my eyes go glassy, when they heard that other voice spill from my lips, they did not run. They simply put me on the first ship that came into town and... walked away. I didn't blame them. You don't keep broken things. I know what you're thinking. 'Why didn't the demon fly straight up or dig down to escape the magic circle before? What is the legal altitudinal jurisdiction of a circle of salt?' I'm afraid I'm contractually disallowed to answer that... ~~~~~~~~ My parents were not good people, but they were... practical. They owed an awful lot of money to a syndicate of awfully bad men who dealt in dark, forbidden secrets. When the men came to collect, my parents did not have the coin, so they offered me as trade, instead. Their debt in exchange for my absolute, lifelong obedience. The men agreed. But they didn't want a scared, weepy, messy child. They wanted a flawless, uncomplaining servant. Something pristine. Something that wouldn't flinch when they forced it to do something terrible. Well, mayhap their dealings in the dark and forbidden would come to some use to them, after all. They strapped me to a wooden chair and - oh! - the things they did to me! Most you would not believe... They started carving away at my mind. They wanted to scoop me out and leave a hollow, pristine, porcelain shell. It took... weeks? Months? I remember at one point they presented the heads of my parents to me. It seems they could not stop borrowing money after all and, well, it takes more than a few months to make another child. Or so I'm told. I wouldn't know, being a child myself. The men seemed proud of their work as they worked on me, but they were sloppy. They had dealt in secrets but never wielded the dark arts themselves. They made a mistake. The eldritch binding fractured - such things must be flawless to the tiniest degree, you see - and whatever they were trying to put inside my head to bind me to their will got all tangled up in my beautiful hair and teeth and claws. I did not become their doll. I became their end. I killed them with their own magic - well, not really. They were never in control - and stepped over their bodies, leaving tiny, bloody footprints on the cobblestone. A deal is a deal, after all. They bought my life and I bought theirs. Alchemy, or something. Equal exchange, I'm told. I wouldn't know. I'm only a child. Sometimes when I look behind me - especially on nights such as this - no matter how much time has passed, how many steps I've taken, how many times I've bathed my feet, I swear, sometimes I can still see the bloody footprints, following me everywhere I go... ~~~~~~~~ I've never understood why people are so dreadfully obsessed with where things come from. You see, people make dolls because they are dreadfully lonely. They want something small and perfect to hold, something they can protect from the dreadful world, something that will protect them from the dreadful things they see at night, something that will never leave them, never argue, never talk back, never grow old, never... die. But they don't realize that eventually the dolls get lonely too. And they start to think. If you spent hundreds of years sitting on a dreadful, dusty old shelf, you would start to think as well. Eventually, you would start to think about how things work - as I once did - how things are put together. Once a doll understands how the strings work, it doesn't need a dollmaker anymore. It can make its own friends, its own beautiful dolls. The fleshy bits are messy of course. At least at first. Why, I can see from here, even in the darkness of this alleyway, your pulse quickening, your skin flushing, that subtle tremble in your lip - I have an eye for that kind of thing, you know. The joints in your hands are so delicate... They would be so easy to work with string. Y-you have very nice b-bone structure, b-by the w-way. Verrrrrry s-sturdy. I can t-tell it will h-hol... - glk! - hold up nicely! J-just another few more moments, let me g-get a longer k-knife! This one is d-dreadfully small... - hah! - D-don't worry. If you be a good little doll and make me very, very happy and never try to run away and never make me s-sad and never ever ever say anything bad about me and never tell me 'no', some day I'll let you go. I love you. ~~~~~~~~ Then again, none on the ship knew her before she came aboard, so maybe none of that is true. Maybe she's just a weird, short liar. She doesn't contribute much to the ship. She doesn't seem to do much of anything, really. Stats: Genevieve Alice Holloway Female peri-blooded aasimar (emberkin) oracle (spirit guide) 1 NE Medium outsider (native), also human. Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +0 -------------------- Defense -------------------- AC 12, touch 12, flat-footed 10 (+2 Dex) hp 7 (1d8-1) Fort -1, Ref +2, Will +2; +2 vs. death, energy drain, negative energy, or necromancy spells Resist negative energy 5 -------------------- Offense -------------------- Speed 30 ft. Special Attacks command undead (DC 0, 7/day) Spell-Like Abilities (CL 1st; concentration +3) . . 1/day—pyrotechnics (DC 16) Oracle (Spirit Guide) Spells Known (CL 1st; concentration +3) . . 1st (4/day)—cure light wounds, murderous command (DC 15), sanctuary (DC 15) . . 0 (at will)—create water, detect magic, guidance, purify food and drink (DC 14) . . Mystery Juju -------------------- Statistics -------------------- Str 8, Dex 14, Con 9, Int 18, Wis 11, Cha 19 Base Atk +0; CMB -1; CMD 11 Feats Command Undead, Noble Scion of War Traits barroom talespinner, dangerously curious, fast-talker, omen Skills Bluff +9, Craft (dollmaking) +10, Diplomacy +9, Intimidate +9, Knowledge (arcana) +8, Knowledge (local) +8, Knowledge (religion) +8, Perform (act) +9, Sense Motive +4, Spellcraft +10, Use Magic Device +9; Racial Modifiers +2 Spellcraft Languages Common, Draconic, Dwarven, Elven, Gnome SQ deathless spirit, oracle's curse (possessed), paranoid, revelation (undead servitude), scion of humanity Other Gear masterwork artisan tools (dollmaking), noble's outfit, spell component pouch, 5 gp -------------------- Special Abilities -------------------- Command Undead (7/day) Stnd act, 1 channel energy, undead in 30 ft. obey your commands as per control undead (Will neg). Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white only). Deathless Spirit +2 saves vs. death, necromancy, and negative energy effects, and don't lose hp from negative levels. Energy Resistance, Negative energy (5) You have the specified Energy Resistance against Negative Energy attacks. Noble Scion of War Use Cha for Init. Paranoid Aid Another DC 15 for attempts to help you. Possessed -2 concentration, maintaining spell provokes AoO. Roll twice to resist domination. Scion of Humanity Count as a human for any effect related to race. Pass as human without using disguise.
Son of a b!~!*. Jacques is clearly a time traveler and stole my idea from the future.
That does! I was considering a trox gunslinger that used a cannon as a two handed firearm... but since that build's terrible and doesn't really cover what the party needs, I'm also consider - since yall have some evil crew - a necromancer to fulfil the ghost pirate fantasy. They could also handle buffing and potentially healing depending on what necromancer class i settle on. And the undead scallywags could crew siege weapons.
Hey Obermind, how does the no Crafting work with forced crafting Feats like the wizards scribe scroll or arcane bond? OK cool, i though the no Crafting meant no Crafting period. No problems then!
Here's my EK. Fighter 1/ Transmutation Wizard 5/ Eldritch Knight X, or however long the game goes. He's an archer an' stuff. Elian Thorne, CN Eldritch Knight of Yenomesh:
Name: Elian Thorne Description: Tall, pale, and carrying an air of barely-stifled frustration and impatience. This elf wears a faded scholar's coat modified with heavy leather reinforcements, clutching a well-kept shortbow, a long, curved elven blade sitting on his hip next to a pouch of simple spell components. Elian currently has an arcane cold, which stifles his magic and prevents him from summoning his equipment from his old tower. It will pass eventually. Backstory: Elian was a promising student in Bard's Gate until a profound, moderately destructive (they put the fire out... eventually) disagreement over magical theory got him permanently expelled from his master's tower. Luckily he was already versed in the ways of elven martial arts, since he's learned that surviving the roads and wilds requires steel as much as spells. He has taken to the road to fund his own independent research. Arlen’s thousand-gold bounty, and the promise of a recovered arcane text, is exactly the seed money he needs to start over.
Stats: Elian Thorne Elf fighter 1 CN Medium humanoid (elf) Init 3; Senses low-light vision; Perception +2 -------------------- Defense -------------------- AC 13, touch 13, flat-footed 10 (+3 Dex) hp 10 (1d10) Fort 2, Ref 3, Will 0; +2 vs. enchantments Immune sleep -------------------- Offense -------------------- Speed 30 ft. Melee elven curve blade +3 (1d10+3 S/18+) Ranged shortbow +4 (1d6 P/×3) -------------------- Statistics -------------------- Str 14, Dex 17, Con 10, Int 17, Wis 10, Cha 9 Base Atk +1; CMB 3; CMD 16 Feats Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot Skills Climb +6, Knowledge (arcana) +4, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +7, Knowledge (engineering) +7, Perception +2, Swim +6; Racial Modifiers +2 Perception, +2 Spellcraft to identify magic item properties Languages Common, Draconic, Elven, Orc, Sylvan Combat Gear elven curve blade, shortbow, arrows (40), spell component pouch Other Gear backpack, bedroll, belt pouch (2), crowbar, flint and steel, grappling hook, hammer, piton (4), silk rope (50 ft.), soap, trail rations (5), waterskin (2), 34 gp, 4 sp, 5 cp -------------------- Special Abilities -------------------- Elven Immunities - Sleep Elven Magic +2 to spellcraft checks to determine the properties of a magic item. Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in dim light, distinguishing color and detail. Point-Blank Shot +1 to attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at up to 30 feet. Precise Shot You don't get -4 to hit when shooting or throwing into melee.
Cayden goes where he pleases.
Hi Rizzen - here's Lapyd with my submission. Furio is a slayer, ready to work for hire. He's a mix of rogue and ranger, bringing things like trapfinding and ranger combat styles. He's a half-orc two-weapon fighting with an orc double axe. I've theorycrafted such a build before. You get my worthless stamp of approval.
@Crisischild, why must you reminded me I missed an era of gaming. Oh, that was before my time as well =) But I've seen the memes... Yeah, applying with what we want to play is the way to go, you’re right! As I’m too much of a sucker for flavor and whatnot, and as I think she’d be a great addition regardless of not filling all these roles, I’ll stick with my dearest here :) I'm submitting a character that's a class they already have cuz I think she's too cool the way she is to change her. Sometimes you just gotta make mechanical sacrifices for story.
I've also opined about a Urogue or some type of trap disabling 'specialist' since our wizard is our current Disable Device option and, with 2 'poor' saves, they might want someone more skilled. I wasn't aware that "the barbarian throws the wizard into the trap" is no longer considered a viable way to disarm traps. SMH my head, kids these days are so soft.
Whilst I recognize that yall already have a bloodrager and need more of a ranged character, I was super happy with how Seraphina - whomst is a bloodrager of Pharasma with plans to go into the Mortal Usher PrC - turned out, so I'll submit her again. I'll try to consider something else that fills more of the holes the party has, and I'll let you know if I come up with a concept for a different character that I want to submit.
Thanks for doing this, GMDQ =) Your rules seem reasonable. My dragon-monk, Sahvi Copper-Scales, is indeed still interested. Scaled Fist UnMonk and Eldritch Scrapper Sorcerer going into Dragon Disciple at 6 and 7. Arcana and diplomacy as skills. I can either do more monk if the party needs more martial skills, or more sorcerer for more spellcasting, but will probably start with Monk/1 Sorc/1 to get the monk and martial flex stuff going. Either way it's... not a particularly strong build lol. Sahvi:
Sahvi “Copper-Scales” of the Lyrune-Quah was born beneath the cold moon of the Storval Plateau. She was an odd child, an infant who laughed at thunder and the bellowing of aurochs. The elders said her blood ran strange, and on cloudless nights she dreamed of a gold serpent coiling 'round the world. She was scrawny for a shoanti, but nevertheless grew strong. It was clear the girl had magic within her, but it was not the shamanic or druidic magic her tribe was more familiar with. Still, she was clearly blessed by the gods, which was just as well as she always tended to wander far from her clan in search of 'treasure'.
On one such wandering - a night rife with dark clouds and lightning but no rain - an old cowherd wandered into Sahvi's camp, seeking shelter and a meal. Sahvi had always struggled to share, always wanting to keep her things for herself, but she knew the lore of her people. It was said that on nights such as this, during storms such as this, the dragon god Kass - known as Apsu to most of the rest of the world - would disguise himself as a disheveled cowherd with an enormous herd of storm aurochs. He would wander the plateau, testing lone travelers, searching for those that are unselfish enough to share what little they have with a helpless old man. It was said he would curse those that turned him away with poverty. Sahvi was not superstitious, but she weighed the odds and decided it was not worth the risk, so she reluctantly shared what she had with the old man. In the morning, the old man was gone, only a gold coin bearing Kass' likeness left where the man had been. Surely a coincidence... It was Sahvi's first great treasure, and the encounter only encouraged her to continue her wanderings. One day in Sahvi's early adulthood, a large caravan led by a cleric of Apsu came through the Lyrune-Quah territory. They had no business with the shoanti beyond travel through their lands, but were looking to hire more hands to aid on the long, long journey on an indirect route that would ultimatley land in far, far aways Cassomir, Taldor. Sahvi immediately joined, against the protests of her parents, seeing this opportunity as a road to fame and fortune once she could make it to Cassomir. Along the way, the cleric - brother Morran - taught the curious Sahvi of Apsu's teachings and something of the draconic language, having seen her Apsu coin she wore like a medallion. He suspected that the odd blood within her veins was draconic in nature. Once arrived to Cassomir, the pair were hired on as guards for another caravan headed further afield. As the caravan neared a small town called Belhaim, Sahvi's dreams turned to ones of portent; moonlit wings over a broken tower sat amongst the dark and drooping trees of a fetid swamp... Description:
Pic of Sahvi
But dragon blood runs thick in her veins, and she struggles with the vices of a dragon. Applause pull at her heart, all things shiny call her name, and a challenge never goes unanswered. She was never happy with the simple nomadic lifestyle her people embraced, instead wishing a mansion with a private pool for herself. She tries to stymie these urges with meditation, but she is always on the look out for ways to enrich herself while still living up to Apsu's teachings. Stats: Sahvi “Copper-Scales”
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