Elfriede Vass's page

Hi guys.

I tend to get hyperfocused on one or two things in my life to the detriment of everything else. It's an issue that I'm aware of, but there's not much I've been able to do to break that pattern.

I'm starting up a new career path after leaving teaching in December, and also working through some mental health stuff. I've also been fortunate enough to reconnect with a few friends from years ago. Finally, I'm starting to write a novel, which is something I've always wanted to do but never tried before.

In short, PbP isn't something I'm focused on. Running a game or playing in one just isn't something I'm committed to, and it's showing in the quality and quantity of my posts, and on how well I'm following what's even going on in my games. I'm going to drop this game. Sorry. I really enjoyed playing in it while I could.

Elfriede coughs, the choking she received during the fight still rough on her throat. She looks at Malin's corpse dispassionately. I've seen worse. I've been through worse.

"I have a spell that can plant an idea in the talking *cough* orc's mind. It's...invasive, but he'll believe it if it's something believable. Any suggestions about what to use? Otherwise, I'm planting the idea that Emerald's a demon and he should hate the bounty-giver for the suicide mission."

Assuming that's fine, I'll cast Sow Thought, DC 16 Will or plant the idea stated. Sow Thought.

Elfriede shakes off her wounds, glaring at the orcs. With a few down, the fight feels much more manageable. She mutters hoarsely to herself. "Omamljivanje, waving her hand over her eyes and sending a wave of sluggishness at the orc threatening Sigvald.

Casting Daze, DC 15 Will or lose actions next turn, on the Purple orc.

CMB Break Grapple: 1d20 ⇒ 11

Elfriede struggles to break the grapple she's in, but (presume ably) isn't very successful.

Elfriede continues to stare as she moves forward next to the tree person, this time focusing on one of of the orcs fighting Sigvald.

I've highlighted my current target in Blue, giving him the same Evil Eye w/ DC 14 save, -2 AC for the round on pass, -2 AC for 3 rounds on fail. By the way, how do you want to handle my drawback, given that we've been in daylight for a while?

Elfriede finishes her stretches in a hurry, then starts muttering under her breath and staring off into the woods toward where the half-orc threw his spear.

Readied Action: Cast Evil Eye hex at the first enemy to get within 30 feet. Will DC 14 save, -2 to AC.

Elfriede slips off Horse, landing poorly and stumbling a bit. "If there's enemies out there, I'm not getting caught on some panicky animal." When she's recovered, she stands near one of the middle wagons and glares out into the woods, then kicks at one of the driftwood idols.

Your mother wouldn't have had any trouble with this. She'd have just - no, we're not solving problems her way. Not if there's another option. Elfriede stretches her arms, hands, and fingers, popping each knuckle and wriggling her fingers around to make sure she's ready for magic if needed.

Elfriede can't make those Perceptions. Not even going to bother.

Elfriede tenses at first when the cavalry show up, then relaxes astride Horse the horse when she realizes they're not threats to the caravan. She stares at Sigvald for a moment, not following his joke. "I don't have a best kill. Not that I know of. Iswixel was a small town, and there wasn't a call for killing in Restov..."

I'd have done it, though, if he hadn't left.

"People didn't like me much in either place, but they didn't need to die for it. The Vass family wasn't much for keeping their kids safe, and small villages aren't too understanding of differences." She subconsciously adjusts her eyepatch as she talks.

Spellcraft: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (6) + 7 = 13

"Let me see that. Elfriede grabs the wand from Sigvald, stares at it doubtfully, then tosses it back to the half-orc. "It could be what we want, but I'm not sure. I guess we're stuck with it, though. Nowhere else to buy a wand here."

She stalks off before the singing can get to be too much, ignoring that her shift at the Behir and Beholder isn't over yet. Instead, she shuts the door to the tiny room she rents from the tavern, tosses the empty bag that once held a fortune to the side, and stares at it. That was supposed to be the run-away fund. For emergencies. And now it's gone, and I have another animal to take care of. The opposite of what I need right now.

Elfriede packs the saddlebag she purchased quickly, shoving only the essentials into it, all the while feeling a prickling on her neck. Something's wrong about all this. Something she should be seeing. It's right in front of her, but who's the problem? Or what? Eventually, she gets to sleep, her dreams plagued by a hideous crone who laughs and chases after her.

Elfriede holds her bag of gold protectively, staring at the others as they talk about purchases for the trip. They share too much. I'll be polite, but not everyone needs to know everything about everyone.

Listening to the noble-sounding fop make his demands, Elfriede stares, this time confused, especially when Remis mentions he's actually a noble. "I'm sure the Captain would want a member of some House or other along. The questions is why would he would want to come. He can't be gaining from the pay we're getting."

"I can give some of my coin for a wand." Elfriede looks reluctant, but counts out her share of the coins for it. "The rest of my money is for me, though. Have to buy a horse or something."

I'll be buying a combat-trained light horse, a saddle, saddlebags, and food for it. I'll put the other 125 toward a wand for the team. 110 for the horse, 10 for the saddle, 4 for the saddlebags, and 1 for the feed gives me 250-125-125=what I had before.

One day, the Skull and Shackles game I was in hit 22 in the time I was at work, haha.

Elfriede's thoughts take over as the sergeant and the half-orc discuss tactics and expectations. Before long, she's tuned the conversation out almost entirely, just making mental notes for the important-sounding bits and ignoring the sergeant's outburst about killing every lizardfolk completely. She spends most of her time keeping Jaki away from the bag of coins in her lap and glowering at the others. We're wasting time. I have shopping to do. A horse or a mule? Save some coin, just in case I don't make it back for the big money?

The others naming themselves to officially accept the job jars her out of her thoughts. "Elfriede Vass. From..." Her face shifts to a look of disgust or loathing for a moment before she composes herself. "...Iswixel. And Jaki. I said we're in, so we're in." She digs through the holy symbols around her neck again and comes up with a wooden butterfly, which she stares at for a few moments before turning it over and over in her hands.

Elfriede sits, but ignores the wine, crossing her arms and glowering at the guard captain as he makes his speech.

Jaki hops over to Elfriede's sack of gold and starts trying to pull it open as Elfriede thinks about the job. It gets us out of here, sends us south, and if we don't come back with the others, we still get away with these coins. The tingle on the back of her neck happens again.

"Jaki and I are in." She pushes the magpie off the bag, then scoops it toward her with both arms.

Elfriede rolls her eye at Emerald. Business always has to wait for pleasure here. She turns her head just slightly toward some man paying for a drink, then looks away from him.

"I think I just said I was taking my break. You'll have to..."

She trails off as Jaki the magpie hops over, grabs the man's coin, and deposits it in a little pouch on Elfriede's waist. "Jaki gains! Now work!"

With a quick glance at the bartender to make sure he didn't see the coin or what the bird did with it, Elfriede grabs a mug and fills it, spilling a bit. She passes it over to the man, slopping a touch more on the counter, then looks away from both him and the fool of a half elf who's singing. "There. Now, I'm on my break."

After the song is over, she stares at the now-dozen guards in the tavern. "If it was a cell, they'd have hustled us out of here, song or no. If it was a beating, they'd do that one at a time, and they wouldn't be talking. So it's either a job...or something else."

If it's getting thrown out again, it wouldn't be the first time. I guess it'd be further south toward Pitax if that happened?

As per Elfriede's background, she was working in a tavern in Greatwall. With this being the only one, I assumed it'd be fine if she was employed there. Hope that's cool!

Elfriede sets down a few mugs of ale on one of the tables, narrowing her eye at the guard sergeant. She's about to shake her head no and go back for the next tray of beer - after all, nothing the guards could offer her is worth messing up a good thing, not when she hasn't had good things going in a while. Still, there's that feeling on the back of her neck, like she's being watched but not by anyone she can see, so instead she unties her apron and sets it on the counter. "I'm taking my break now. Jaki, let's go."

"Jaki doesn't gain if you won't work!" A magpie hops onto Elfriede's shoulder and pulls on a chain around her neck. Once he's pulled up a trio of holy symbols, he starts picking at an eye with his beak before she grabs it and pushes it back into her dress, pushing his head back as she does.

Turning from the counter, she continues staring at the guard captain."What do you lot want this time? Is this about Restov? I already told you, I had nothing to do with it, and I'm sure that young man will be fine." Hopefully... As she talks, she pulls the eyepatch over her left eye down, making sure it's fully covered. Her right eye blinks a few times and waters against the tavern's scant light.

No, it's really not the first time. This is Aris from that Wrath of the Righteous game that petered out before Christmas. Hi!

I feel like vivisectionist might work. I don't really see a lot of archetypes that impact other people, but there's a few discoveries that allow your extracts and whatnot to be useable by others. Those could work for the flavor you're after.

As someone from the "evil" group, I'm hoping there's a good or neutral character or two to keep us in line, haha. A paladin would be interesting, if we could bend/handwave that rule slightly.

Dotted into the gameplay, then deleted.

Elfriede is also supposed to be a cooperative character, even if she's Chaotic Evil. She's more of a product of her mother, a hag, and less of a "want to be" evil character. So there'd be room for a good or neutral character to influence her in the right direction.

I look at alignment as a snapshot of where a character is right now, not necessarily where they'd like to be. I also found a chart that explained good as "puts others before self, even if it hurts themselves" and evil as "puts self before others, even if it hurts others", that felt really accurate to me.

Ideally, we could get at least 4 so we could get the game off the ground. I'm thinking between a bard, witch, and alchemist, we wouldn't *need* a divine character for healing, but really, anything is workable if we're semi-intelligent as a party.

I'm from the other thread! This is the CE changeling witch I mentioned over there. She's C/E not because she's mustache twirling, but because it's a not-exactly-rare path for changeling witches to take and she's done some bad things in the past.

I should say I'm totally down with good characters in the group, as long as they want to be here.

Okay, given that response, I'm going to throw Elfriede Vass's hat in the ring. She's not mustache twirly evil, just messed up emotionally. She's a changeling witch, backstory attached. I'll be tweaking the last little bit of it to account for the different start to the game.

Two tables would be amazing. I'm not super familiar with the system, but I'll get there pretty quickly.

Whoops! I was on my phone, and didn't realize Id never updated Elfriede's profile to include the 2e character sheet. That should be fixed now.

Elfriede is interested. I tried to convert her, more or less, to 2e, but she's my first build in 2e, so if anyone has advice or wants to explain that I messed something up, I'm game to hear it.

Elfriede is built for PF1 Kingmaker, but would be fun for anything. I'm an older hand at PbP who lost the email for my original account. Let me know!