About Harran, former son of NogwierBackground:
Until very recently, Harran had always belonged to the Bronzewood lodge. As far as he knew, he was a son of the ancient and wise druid Nogwier, but didn’t seem to have a mother. Fortunately for him, during one of his toddler temper tantrums, he was able to noise-blackmail one of the lodge’s caretakers into sharing the name. As it turned out, he was brought to the lodge as a baby by an infamous exiled female druid named Liadan. As he grew older, he piece by piece discovered that this Liadan had apparently walked up to Nogwier one night, unnoticed by any of lodge’s sentries, handed his baby self to the esteemed druid and simply left (or escaped?) without as much as a word. Whatever tryst, debt, deal or otherwise between the two of them caused Nogwier to formally acknowledge him as a son had always been a favorite topic of covert speculation among the lodge's inhabitants. But perhaps even more interesting was his mother’s reason for exile: she was discovered to be a Stormbringer, a living bad omen and herald for an age of ruin, according to even the oldest texts of the Green Faith. Because of this, some whispered she was not even a druid, but a witch, serving some dark entity or another. Yet, he’d always found this hard to believe. For even though he’d never met her in person, he’d sometimes had these very vivid dreams, of being in a cozy hut somewhere – if filled with a lot of very strange trinkets – and where a kind woman would show him this or that about some herb or some spell, of magic, even if he couldn’t quite remember how to do them afterwards – he’d do the motions, but nothing ever came of them. And… there was always a subtle but ever-present wind. He’d liked that – it made him feel at ease. He’d always preferred the open and outside for it. He’d always assumed those moments were real and actually with his mother rather than wishful thinking on his part, and that she’d tried her best to be a part of his growing up from a distance. What did stick, however, was a sense of warning on something going wrong with the land…
Regardless, Harran himself followed in the path of his father as the collective lodge of rangers and druids raised him in the ways of nature and protecting it from the outsiders by magical and martial means. He chose the part of a Sentinel druid, a harder role which focused on forcefully defending nature itself from both natural and unnatural forces that sought to destroy it. And for a time, this worked out well… …Until the time had come for him to summon his animal companion. Even though he prepared the ritual perfectly, and had given the exact traditional offerings during the summer solstice at the circle of forebears, it failed utterly. What appeared before him wasn’t a powerful guardian of nature, but rather, a rat – a traditional carrier of plague and rot. He knew there were no second chances – he’d either be accepted by the forces of nature or not, and they’d given a clear verdict that he was a piece of trash. His last chance was to appeal to this father, telling him the rat gave him the ability to channel healing energy, but that had also been the wrong thing to do. Those sorts of abilities belonged to upstart gods, which Nogwier hated, and if either of those held his son in enough favor to grant him such abilities, he had obviously betrayed both the Green Faith and the Lodge, which would explain his spectacular failure.
Not knowing where else to go and still reeling from the loss of his home and family, he trudged over to the nearby mining town of Diamond Lake. If he was going to travel far away, possibly search the deep woods or surrounding lands for his mother -assuming she was alive, it had been months since the last Dream - it would be a good thing to have a lot of supplies, and money for the road. And at least one of the local mining lords, Ellival Moonmeadow, was known for hiring elves… so perhaps a half-blood like him had a shot at temporary employment, if not as a guard or medic, then as a miner? Actually… wasn’t that where Shayenna, his former love, had also gone to investigate something, a few days ago? Some ideas for plot hooks and ideas for character progression:
I wrote his background mostly to tie in to the eventual plot of the coming blight, and a lot about his exact parentage and the role of his supposed mother, or even he himself, in coming events is left to fill in for story convenience (and maximum drama, of course!). I also wouldn’t role out that perhaps his druid trial was sabotaged by someone else, maybe even his own father for an ulterior purpose. I added in a former love interest investigating something odd near the mines recently to give him a more personal reason to involve himself with the happenings at Diamond Lake other than just for money. I’m assuming that at least part of the supposed dungeon crawling happens in the mines but it could be tied to anything. True, just a name is a bit bland and lazy perhaps, and I could fill her in more if there’s a chance she lives through the start of the story. I’m planning to use him remembering the Dreams he received/receives from his mother as explanations for how he learns the Witch parts of his shaman hex pool as he grows, and which now work as he formerly lacked a familiar to channel their power through. And perhaps this Rat familiar is also more than he appears to be. He has the sage archetype, so he will eventually be a wise kind of entity able to offer lots of advice and insight on matters. Maybe he’s actually a reincarnated legendary druid himself, or more humorously, a wizard/bard caught in a really unfortunate transmutation accident/curse? :P
Appearance:
Rough outline for apppearance would be a younger version of Agagorn (going with the classics and being raised in a part-ranger lodge and all!), but as a half-elf, displaying the characteristics that come with elven heritage and being a life shaman (Vibrant health, celurian eyes that seem to glow softly and shift in exact iris pattern, among others). If selected I'll expand on this further, probably an appropriate amount of scars and stories of where he might have gotten those, along with some local peripheria of the town and lodge and perhaps a memento of Shayenna. On his overall bearing, he's intended to look young but also as someone who's been in quite a bit of fights. Personality:
I usually improvise my character’s personalities in the first dozens of posts as I’m mostly an improvisional writer. However, for Harran, I’d imagine he used to be a proud young druid/soldier type of character who’s just been exiled and disowned, he’ll start out a bit sullen and snarky as he looks for something new to believe in. He’ll also actively seek out opportunities to ‘prove them all wrong for banishing him’ and would rush into danger to reclaim pieces of his youthful pride. Ultimately, however, he is still a bit of a Ranger at heart and will seek to do what's right and protect those who can't do so themselves.He genuinely loves nature and the outdoors, and might make unneccesary but hopefully flavorful comments about critter x or plant/tree Y the party encounters. Stat block:
Harran the Exiled, former son of Nogwier
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Elven Brached spear* +2 vs ac, 1d8+3 Piercing, 20/x3.
*Branched spear has a +2 to attack on attacks of opportunity. Special Attacks channel positive energy 3/day (DC 12, 1d6)
Level 0: Detect magic, create water, light.
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Feats Power Attack (bonus feat), Selective Channeling, Dirty fighting (bonus feat). Traits Fate’s Favored, Worm Chaser (+1 will vs undead, +1 lore undead)
Skills: Knowledge: Nature +4, Diplomacy +6, Perception +9, Heal +7, Sense Motive +3, Survival +7; handle animal* +6, profession (herbalist)* + 7. Racial Modifiers +2 Perception *=background skills. I was unsure which ones within the background rules and lore additions would best reflect a failed druid. I eventually figured handle animal and profession herbalist next to knowledge: nature would come closest. Languages Common, Elven
Equipment: chainmail (150 gp), Spiked gauntlet (5g), Elven Branched Spear (20g), Light crossbow with 20 x durable coldiron bolts (38g), normal bolt x 20 (1 g), dagger (2g) = 212 g. 2 x spring loaded wrist sheath (10 g), 1 x scroll of cure light wounds, 1 x scroll of bless (50 g). Total: 277 g. Gear in backpack: (backpack), bedroll, 1-pint flask, 1, 7 days’ trail rations, chalk x 5, flint and steel, tindertwig, waterskin = 8.5 g. Wilderness kit (at the Inn/lodgings): whetstone, shovel, hammer, 2 square yards canvas, fishing line and hook, iron pot, tent = +/- 12 g Left: 2.5 g. --------------------
-Relevant familiar stats: Always inactive/hidden on Shay unless specified, has int score of (5+level) and 2 bonus skillpoints per level (total 3/level atm). Can make all knowledge skills untrained, gains (1/2) level on all knowledge checks like bardic knowledge.
Action points: 5. Elf Blood Half-elves count as both elves and humans for any effect related to race. Elven Immunities - Sleep You are immune to magic sleep effects.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in dim light, distinguishing color and detail. Power Attack -1/+2 You can subtract from your attack roll to add to your damage. Selective Channeling Exclude targets from the area of your Channel Energy. Shaman Channel Positive Energy 1d6 (3/day, DC 12) (Su) Positive energy heals the living and harms the undead; negative has the reverse effect.
Spirit Animal If spirit animal is slain, cannot use spirit magic or prepare new spells. Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at https://www.wolflair.com
Party role and build going forward:
Harran is a life shaman intended to be a main healer, which he will do mostly by channeling but also by the healer’s hands and incredible healer feats later on. Shamans have access to most of the important cleric spells, but he can use the human’s favored class bonus to eventually get whichever ones the party doesn’t have. Since he offers some druid ones too, the party should be totally set in that department. However, to spice things up a bit, he will use the hexes the shaman gets for debuffing (and will eventually take a few buffing ones too, such as protective luck). Sometimes healing isn’t necessary, after all, and it’s nice to have a variety of options. For fun and to see if this works in practice, I gave him some secondary melee capacity with an elven branched spear. This Elven exotic weapon is basically a normal spear with a lot of porcupine needles which (somehow) add +2 to attacks of opportunity from enemies moving! So, hopefully, if team bad guy wants to take out that that pesky healer/debuffer, they have to move through his spear range and eat a decently accurate physical attack! …Again, hopefully :’) I have no idea if this works in practice, but it does sound like a fun and diverse tool kit, especially for a healer! His out of combat contribution will mostly resolve around skills like diplomacy, heal, perception, sense motive and those used in wilderness exploration and/or dealing with wild animals. If the blight becomes a more central issue later, I’ll probably start putting points into Lore (undead) or knowledge religion and study up on the supposed main threat, since it makes sense you’d want to do that in-character, too. While he mostly lacks in knowledge/lore skills, his yet unnamed Rat familiar gets increasingly good at this and will eventually be able to talk to Harran to compensate a bit. Why I’d really like to join this campaign:
I’ve never played anything from the Greyhawk era/setting before, but heard a lot of things about the living Greyhawk campaigns from d&d veterans. Having started playing around the time d&d 4e came out, it was from an era before my time. So I’m really curious to see how this conversion plays out and if Greyhawk’s reputation lives up to its legend :) I also do really appreciate that it’s more accessible for us newcomers by fusing the world with the known pathfinder one and accepting characters with backgrounds to either. On me as a player:
I am a very active poster and push forward in virtually every post I make. I've bookmarked each of my campaigns and check them all at least twice per day. I've maintained posting at least once per day on all of them except when the campaign went into a break with GM absense. I'd like to think my posts always avoid one-liners, are at least decently engaging and provide plenty of things for others to react to. I tend to adjust heavier or lighter RP according to the other posters and campaign tone, and I gravitate towards a leader role rather than a follower. To get an idea of my general posting style in an RP-heavy campaign I guess the best Alias of mine to check would be Raesilia Talbot. |
