Oooo, this sounds fun. Not sure what I'd make, probably an Occultist or Inquisitor (relic hunter) as I've had a hankering to play one of those since Occult Adventures came out.
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Can't decide if I want to make a Fractured Mind Spiritualist Halfling escaped slave or a Dwarven Brawler...
So I have an idea for an, um, Dwarven Inquisitor of Groetus. He'd be a seeker of ancient, ruined places to try and find his god in the darkness within them. He'd obviously be bonkers (he worships Groetus, after all) but I wouldn't be playing him as a violent maniac (heck, I see him being impossibly patient and uncaring for threats on his life), more an incredibly eccentric archaeologist with a bizarre, quasi-nihilistic view on the world.
I was hoping to stat up as Mesmerist for this game, but I'm unsure if you're allowing Occult Adventures, given the similarity between Psychic Magic and Psionics
I was wondering about if I should've altered Duran's background to make him wash up in Janderhoff (i used more or less the same background for a previous Giantslayer). It shouldn't be too difficult to give him an excuse to be there as it was his home prior to his tradgedy and descent into drink. I imagine he's been putting off going back home as he's sure there's nothing there for him as his family has been missing for years, but now he's (sorta) sobered up he'd journey back to check, for peace of mind.
This is my second time applying for a PbP on these boards, hopefully I've got everything in order here. Also apologies if the backstory is somewhat long :S Duran Copperhelm Backstory:
Duran was born to a clan of professional dragonslayers based out of Janderhoff, hunting draconic beasts wherever they troubled humanoids in Varisia and sometimes beyond. The Dwarves rarely sought payment - usually as the hoards of the dragons they slew more than covered the expenses of the hunt. Duran was raised on the hunt, taught how to identify the weaknesses of the great beasts they slew and their minions, how to spy traps and especially when it was best to roll. His father would often praise Duran on his great courage - few of the younger dwarves could stand the sight of a mighty dragon, yet Duran would stand fast, firing arrows. He also displayed a particularly strong resistance to magic - often shrugging off the enchantments his mischevious sister Vara would cast. His brothers could attest to him being to sloth in a fight either, though he always seemed strongest when he wielded no weapon at all. This was how Duran lived for the first half century of his life, until a fateful hunt of a red dragon within the Mindspun Mountains.
The hunt was not entirely abnormal - the red dragon, who had been pestering local farmers by eating their livestock and burning their barns, was followed to his mountain lair where the family of slayers dispatched him with little issue beyond Uncle Greyern having his beard burnt off and Duran's sister Sascha suffering a nasty claw slash. Little did the family know as they climbed down the mountain with the dragon's loot stowed on their mules that this particular red dragon had a rather uncharacteristically strong bond with his twin sister, who often visited her brother to compare hoards and trade valuables. When she visited the evening of the hunt she was dismayed to find her brother's headless corpse and, perhaps worse, entire hoard missing. Furious with rage but unwilling to directly confront a group apparently proficient in her kind's slaying, she used her magic to charm the leader of a nearby hill giant tribe, located her brother's murderers, and plotted. The dwarves had spent three days descending the mountain when the rock slide happened. While none of their number were badly hurt, their path down had been blocked. Unwilling to take a potentially dangerous detour to return to the base of the mountain, the copperhelm family set about shifting the large rocks, establishing a small camp. Towards the end of the second day, when it seemed they had almost made the route safe to travel, the Hill Giants attacked. Not strangers to an ambush, the dwarves reacted quickly and, though they took many injuries, felt like they were winning the fight. And then the dragon came. Having waited for her moment to strike, the great beast arrived to the scene with a volley of fireballs and enchantments, both burning and befuddling her prey. Duran watched in horror as Uncle Greyern was pulled into the air by the dragon and thrown down the cliff face, his sister Sascha laid low by a giant's club as she tried to avoid blasts of arcane fire. The dragon's rage was fierce, slaughtering dwarf without care to whether she also murdered her giant companions. As the fight seemed lost, Duran's father shouted at him to flee. Duran spat curses at his father for suggesting such a thing, but then a gout of dragonflame caught them both off-guard. Duran stumbled backwards off the cliff-face, ablaze, as his father became ashes before his very eyes. He rolled down the mountain side, bashing off rocks and branches until he came to a rest, smoking still, and passed out. The last thing he remembered as he fell was the cackling of the dragon and the light of the fires that burned his clan. Duran came to in the morning with his entire body aching, yet miraculously he had suffered no broken bones. Not far from where he had come to rest he found his Uncle's far less fortunate form. Relieving him of his climbing tools and offering him a quiet prayer, he scaled the cliff back to where the camp had been, his pain dulled by his determination to ascertain if any of his family still lived. Alas, at the top of his climb he found nothing but ashes and corpses - giant, dwarf and mule. He gave what parts of his family he could still identify a burial on that mountainside, took the supplies and small sack of dragon's gold that had been overlooked by the victors, picked up his fathers blackened battleaxe, and walked. Duran walked for many days, sleeping little as his dreams were full of fire and cackling, his pace sometimes quickening as his fatigue made him imagine the sounds of great wings flapping or a distant, draconic chortling. When he eventually reached civilisation he walked straight to the nearest tavern, set a gem upon the bar and demanded all the drink he could handle. For the next few years (the exact number something Duran was in no state to remember) Duran walked and drank and walked and drank. Many were the establishments he was ejected from for starting barfights or simply passing out from drinking literally all of the ale. The substantial amount of coin he had managed to salvage from the mountain dwindled slowly on alcohol, despite him overpaying the barkeep more often than not. How he managed to get on a merchant caravan to the town of Trunau is a mystery even to himself, and his first night saw him ejected from the local, the 'Killin' Ground' after his umpteenth drink. His last fuzzy memory of that night is stumbling towards the city gate with a tankard still in hand. So it was much to his confusion the next morning when he awoke in the wilderness, a pair of broken shackles on his legs, his hands coated in blood and orc brains, slumped against a tree with a one-eyed, silver-haired wolf sitting before him, clutching a flask with the symbol of Cayden Cailean emblazoned on it between its jaws. His baffling situation became more concerning when he realised his tree was next to what appeared to be a burnt-down orcish camp, a pair of orcish corpses lying at the centre with caved-in skulls surrounded by atleast a dozen other broken shackles. Duran took the flask holy symbol from the wolf, which gave a happy yelp as he did so, gave its interior an inspection, closed the lid, and vomited on the ground beside himself. The wolf followed as he stumbled back to Tranau, the town guards wordlessly opening the gate and exchanged confused glances, muttering something about 'rescued slaves' and a 'drunken dwarven god of fists' as he passed. It followed still as he stumbled into the inn. It sat outside his room, tail wagging, as he changed into something with less red on it, and continued to follow as he walked into the local, the 'Killin' Ground', ignored the filthy look the barkeep shot him, and stopped. He looked at the drinks on display, then to the flask he was still carrying, then to the wolf still shadowing him. "Eh... maybe I'll have one later," he murmured, as he closed his eyes and fell backwards, and had the best sleep he'd had in years. Duran has stayed in Tranau for quite some time now, frequently a visitor to the Killin' Ground, or 'his church' as he now calls it. He often goes on patrols with his wolf sidekick he jokingly named 'Sobriety' but feels there could be something more he could be doing. He has grown quite fond of Tranau's inhabitants and them of him, though his frequent drunken hi-jinks have more than one cleric of Iomedae annoyed. He is still a drinker, but he is no longer a slave to it. This is probably a good thing, as his dragon's gold is almost all dried up. It certainly seems he has pulled himself out of his rut. But still he sometimes wakes at night from visions of fire, and hopes the echoing cackle is all in his head. Very Abridged Backstory and Reason for Adventure:
Duran was raised by a dragonhunting clan based out of Janderhoff. After one successful hunt in the Mindspun Mountains, the clan was attacked by the slain dragon's angry sister who left Duran the only survivor. Following this, Duran descended into drink, drunkenly stumbling across the continent until he found enlightenment outside Tranau. After too many drinks at the tavern, he awoke the next morning to find himself beside the remains of an orcish slaver camp with a grateful wolf who seemed to present him with a flask bearing the symbol of Cayden Cailean. He no longer allows himself to be slave to the drink, and has formed a strong bond of friendship with the wolf he rescued.
Duran has grown restless in the town of Tranau, and despite enjoying his role as a protector of the people there, wishes he could perhaps be part of something greater. Physical Description and Mannerisms:
Duran is a muscular dwarf of average height. His face is a criss-cross of scars and bruises from encounters both draconic and drunken. However, what most people focus on first are the burns - the left side of Duran's scalp is hairless, red and leathery, a reminder of the dragonfire on the mountain that never seems to heal. His left ear is a dark, shriveled mess. What hair he has is unkempt along with his short beard, and are a sooty black. His left eye is noticeably more bloodshot than his right, and both his irises are jade.
Defying his shaggy, damaged appearance Duran is upbeat and social, always quick to crack a terrible joke and always keen to drink with his friends after a hard day's work. However, he is a very free spirit, and is unlikely to heed the counsel of anyone unless they have gained his respect. In battle he is focused, fearless and sometimes a little too reckless. He will not back down if innocents are in danger. Sobriety in many ways mimics his chosen master. The silver-furred wolf is covered in scars and burns, most likely from being abused by orcs. His left eye is missing, so Duran bought the wolf an eye-patch. Since then, Duran has many a time tried to convince fellow drunks the wolf is a former privateer. The wolf is playful and affectionate, but if anyone seems to threaten his master Sobriety will quickly turn protective, though rarely attacks without permission from Duran. Loves and Hates:
Duran's first love should be obvious - drink! Though it took him to some dark places, Duran feels that the mysterious flask he received and its patron deity are justification enough to continue what was once an incredibly self-destructive habit - albeit at a FAR smaller rate of consumption. He likes to think himself an expert on Dwarven Stouts and whiskies.
The second of Duran's great loves are arm-wrestling contests. Duran likes to think he has left quite the reputation behind him as a travelling arm wrestler, though anger at his losses are what most likely caused half the bar fights he took part in - his wins probably contributed a few brawls as well. The scarred dwarf cannot abide slavery. At all. He was once slave to substance, and in his brief time at Tranau has seen slaves to orckind, a much worse fate. He believes that no one should dictate another's actions, to the point where he will frown on the use of enchantment magic to alter the thoughts and perceptions of even his enemies. Duran hates, above all things, fire. Being near it is uncomfortable to him, though he tries his best to hide it. Even torches put him on edge, and he especially hates them being anywhere near his head. When festivals call for a bonfire he can usually be found as far as possible, drinking but watchful. He will be the first to the water buckets should anything go awry. The Stats:
Male Dwarf Wild Child Brawler 1
CG Medium Humanoid (Dwarf) Init +2; Senses darkvision 60ft., Perception +5 ---- AC 16, touch 12, flat-footed 14 (+1 vs Dragons, +4 vs Giants) hp 14 Fort +5, Ref +4 (+6 vs Dragon Breath Weapons), Will +1; +2 vs Poison, Fear; +4 vs Spells and Spell-like abilities. ---- Speed 20ft. Melee +4 Unarmed Strike (1d6 +3) or +4 Battleaxe (1d8+3/x3) Ranged +3 Light Crossbow (1d8/19-20) Special Attacks: Dwarven Hatred ---- Str 16, Dex 14, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 10 Base Atk +1; CMB +4; CMD 16 (+4 vs Trip and Bull Rush when standing on ground) Feats: Steel Soul Skills Intimidate +4, Knowledge (arcana) +0, Perception +5 Traits: Courageous, Dragonfoe Languages Common, Dwarven SQ: Brawler's Cunning, Dwarf Traits, Martial Flexibility (4/day), Martial Training, Unarmed Strike. Gear: Battleaxe, Lamellar (leather) armour, Light Crossbow with 20 bolts, Explorer's Outfit, Iron Flask Holy Symbol of Cayden Cailean filled with mugworth of ale, backpack, bedroll, belt pouch, flint and steel, rope, torches (10), trail rations (5 days), one severely underused waterskin, 18gp, 9sp, 6cp. Sobriety (Wolf Animal Companion)
I was in quite a few PbP games quite a while ago, and am looking to get back into the swing of things. I am online nearly every day so can post daily. I live in Scotland so my posting hours will probably be about afternoon EST time.
This is my first time applying for an RPG on these boards so hopefully everything I have here is in order :) Duran Copperhelm Backstory:
Duran was born to a clan of professional dragonslayers who travelled across Avistan, hunting draconic beasts wherever they troubled humanoids. The Dwarves rarely sought payment - usually as the hoards of the dragons they slew more than covered the expenses of the hunt. Duran was raised on the hunt, taught how to identify the weaknesses of the great beasts they slew and their minions, how to spy traps and especially when it was best to roll. His father would often praise Duran on his great courage - few of the younger dwarves could stand the sight of a mighty dragon, yet Duran would stand fast, firing arrows. He also displayed a particularly strong resistance to magic - often shrugging off the enchantments his mischevious sister Vara would cast. This was how Duran lived for the first half century of his life, until a fateful hunt of a red dragon within the Mindspun Mountains.
The hunt was not entirely abnormal - the red dragon, who had been pestering local farmers by eating their livestock and burning their barns, was followed to his mountain lair where the family of slayers dispatched him with little issue beyond Uncle Greyern having his beard burnt off and Duran's sister Sascha suffering a nasty claw slash. Little did the family know as they climbed down the mountain with the dragon's loot stowed on their mules that this particular red dragon had a rather uncharacteristically strong bond with his twin sister, who often visited her brother to compare hoards and trade valuables. When she visited the evening of the hunt she was dismayed to find her brother's headless corpse and, perhaps worse, entire hoard missing. Furious with rage but unwilling to directly confront a group apparently proficient in her kind's slaying, she used her magic to charm the leader of a nearby hill giant tribe, located her brother's murderers, and plotted. The dwarves had spent three days descending the mountain when the rock slide happened. While none of their number were badly hurt, their path down had been blocked. Unwilling to take a potentially dangerous detour to return to the base of the mountain, the copperhelm family set about shifting the large rocks, establishing a small camp. Towards the end of the second day, when it seemed they had almost made the route safe to travel, the Hill Giants attacked. Not strangers to an ambush, the dwarves reacted quickly and, though they took many injuries, felt like they were winning the fight. And then the dragon came. Having waited for her moment to strike, the great beast arrived to the scene with a volley of fireballs and enchantments, both burning and befuddling her prey. Duran watched in horror as Uncle Greyern was pulled into the air by the dragon and thrown down the cliff face, his sister Sascha laid low by a giant's club as she tried to avoid blasts of arcane fire. The dragon's rage was fierce, slaughtering dwarf without care to whether she also murdered her giant companions. As the fight seemed lost, Duran's father shouted at him to flee. Duran spat curses at his father for suggesting such a thing, but then a gout of dragonflame caught them both off-guard. Duran stumbled backwards off the cliff-face, ablaze, as his father became ashes before his very eyes. He rolled down the mountain side, bashing off rocks and branches until he came to a rest, smoking still, and passed out. The last thing he remembered as he fell was the cackling of the dragon as it stared down the mountain at him. Duran came to in the morning with his entire body aching, yet miraculously he had suffered no broken bones. Not far from where he had come to rest he found his Uncle's far less fortunate form. Relieving him of his climbing tools and offering him a quiet prayer to whoever was listening, he scaled the cliff back to where the camp had been, his pain dulled by his determination to ascertain if any of his family still lived. Alas, at the top of his climb he found nothing but ashes and corpses - giant, dwarf and mule. He gave what parts of his family he could still identify a burial on that mountainside, took the supplies and small sack of dragon's gold that had been overlooked by the victors, and walked. Duran walked for many days, sleeping little as his dreams were full of fire and cackling, his pace sometimes quickening as his fatigue made him imagine the sounds of great wings flapping or the distant, draconic chortling. When he eventually reached civilisation he walked straight to the nearest tavern, set a gem upon the bar and demanded all the drink he could handle. For the next few years (the exact number something Duran was in no state to remember) Duran walked and drank and walked and drank. Many were the establishments he was ejected from for starting barfights or simply passing out from drinking literally all of the ale. The substantial amount of coin he had managed to salvage from the mountain dwindled slowly on alcohol, despite him overpaying the barkeep more often than not. How he managed to get on a merchant caravan to the town of Trunau is a mystery even to himself, and his first night saw him ejected from the Killin' Ground. His last fuzzy memory of that night is stumbling towards the city gate with a tankard still in hand. So it was much to his confusion the next morning when he awoke covered in blood that was not his own, wielding in one hand his trusty axe, slumped against a tree with a one-eyed, silver-haired wolf sitting before him, clutching an iron lidded tankard with the symbol of Cayden Cailean emblazoned on it between its jaws that seemed coated in blood and maybe orc brain. His baffling situation became more concerning when he realised his tree was next to what appeared to be a burnt-down orcish camp, a pair of orcish corpses lying at the centre with caved-in skulls surrounded by atleast a dozen other broken shackles. Duran took the flask holy symbol
Duran has stayed in Tranau for quite some time now, frequently a visitor to the Killin' Ground, or 'his church' as he now calls it. He often goes on patrols with his wolf sidekick he jokingly named 'Sobriety' but feels there could be something more he could be doing. He frequently baffles the clerics of the town by displaying command of divine magics despite never having read one of his patron's prayerbooks. He has no intention yet of leaving town as he has grown quite fond of its inhabitants and them of him, though his frequent drunken hi-jinks and terrible sense of humour have left more than one cleric of Iomedae disgruntled. He is still a drinker, but by no means close to the terrible shape he was previously in. This is probably a good thing, as his dragon's gold is almost all dried up. It certainly seems he has pulled himself out of his rut. But still he sometimes wakes at night from visions of fire, and hopes the echoing cackle is all in his head. Physical Descriptions:
Duran is an average-sized dwarf with a tan complexion and black hair. He sports an unkempt beard that he trims roughly once a fortnight. His more striking features, however, are the dozens of scars that criss-cross his face, mementos of drake-hunts and bar-brawls. From a distance his hairstyle looks bizarre, only the left half of his head having any hair and it being a rough, short mess. However, it is when the viewer gets closer they realise the other half of his scalp is horribly burnt, a burn from the same fire that claimed his father's life. Duran's muscular body is covered in more of the same scars.
Sobriety in some ways matches his master. He has more than a few visible scars interrupting his silver fur, and his missing right eye is covered with an eyepatch. Allies and Enemies:
Known Ally: Rabus Clarenstone: Owner of the Killin' Ground. Rabus and Duran have seen each other nearly every day since Duran rolled into town, and have become fast friends. Duran and Sobriety have almost become unofficial bouncers for the tavern, often helping Rabus with those who've drank too much. Rabus is also one of the few people in town to have heard how Duran got his mangled visage, a story Duran shared when 'sober', whatever that means to the dwarf these days.
Unknown Ally: Argentpaw: Sobriety once belonged to a pack of wolves led by an awakened she-wolf, once the treasured companion of a druid who frequented the wilderness of Lastwall's previous border. When the orcs pushed south, the druid was slain, but not before he awakened his companion. Since then the wolf and its pack have hunted the orcs, until she and two of her sons came afoul of orc slavers near Trunau. The foul orcs tortured the wolves until a drunken dwarf possessed of some divine power stumbled into the camp and drove the orcs away, braining two of their number. Argentpaw left one of her sons to watch their slumbering hero and escaped to the rest of her pack. Known Enemy: Shaerazorlystx: A red dragon from the Mindspun Mountains who once had a twin brother she was rather fond of, Shaerazorlystx is the beast responsible for the death of the majority of Duran's immediate family and his descent to the bottom of the ale cask. Duran is not at all sure what would happen if he were to meet the dragon again. Unkwnown Enemy: Skaarg the Poet There are few things worse than an orc slaver, but one of them must be an orc slaver who thinks himself clever by speaking entirely in rhyme. Skaarg's works are usually scarred onto the backs of his victims, or scrawled on flesh recently taken from them. Worse, he often recites entire poems during battle. Skaarg recently lost several freshly-caught slaves, a trio of pretty wolves for torturing and several teeth when an insane, drunken dwarf stumbled into his camp and hit him in the face with a glowing mug and drove his fellow orcs away in fear. He hasn't forgotten the scarred and burnt dwarf, and has prepared a substantial work especially for when they next meet. He has even tried to learn Dwarven for it. Stats:
Duran Copperhelm, Male Dwarf Inquisitor (Sacred Huntmaster) of Cayden Cailean 1
CG Medium Humanoid (Dwarf) Init +1; Senses darkvision 60ft., Perception +6 ---- AC 15, touch 11, flat-footed 14 (+1 vs Dragons, +4 vs Giants) hp 11 Fort +4, Ref +1 (+3 vs Dragon Breath Weapons), Will +4; +2 vs Poison, Fear; +4 vs Spells and Spell-like abilities. ---- Speed 20ft. Melee Battleaxe +3 (1d8 +4/x3) Ranged Longbow +1 (1d8/x3) Special Attacks: Dwarven Hatred Spells Known (CL 1st; concentration +3) 1st (2/day) - Cure Light Wounds, Divine Favor 0 - Detect Magic, Guidance, Read Magic, Resistance ---- Str 16, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 11 Base Atk +0; CMB +3; CMD 14 (+4 vs Trip and Bull Rush when standing on ground) Feats: Steel Soul Skills Diplomacy +4, Intimidate +5, Knowledge (arcana) +4 (+6 Monster Lore), Perception +6 (+8 to notice unusual stonework), Sense Motive +3, Stealth +7, Survival +6 Traits: Courageous, Dragonfoe Languages Common, Dwarven SQ: Domain (Liberation, 1 round/day), Dwarf Traits, monster lore, stern gaze. Gear: Battleaxe, Longbow, 20 arrows, Hide Armour, Backpack, Bedroll, Belt Pouch, Flint and Steel, Iron Pot, Mess Kit, Rope, Torches (10), Trail Rations (5 days), One considerably underused waterskin, Spell Component Pouch, Iron Flask Holy Symbol of Cayden Cailean, 20 gp. Sobriety (Wolf Animal Companion)
The inspiration for my unknown enemy came from one particularly annoying Orc in Shadows of Mordor. I usually check the Paizo website daily for blogs anyway so getting a post in a day won't be a problem. Edit: Skills were wrong, fixed now. Hopefully |