Metamorphosis's page

The dark sky ominously rumbles as its continual tears fall on the uncertain populous below. Two years previously the unimaginable happened Valens Augustus fell vaingloriously upon the fields of Adrianople to rabble, that a strong Roman sneeze should have scattered to the four winds.

Now Theodoseous the younger, a man who has never known Constantinople, commands the armies of the east. Will he be enough to extinguish the fire that burns in the gothic heart and tame their unbridled souls, or will he follow Valens to the land of his ancestors? Where will his allegiances lay in matters of faith? For in this land every creed has felt the oppression of the state. These and others questions hung heavy in the mind of the men of Constantinople. The world had turned upside down; long and far ranging will be its repercussions. But a for few, their only thoughts for the moment are where to escape the rain….

Constantinople, the Kalendes of Aprilis, in the year of our lord Iesous Christos 380 ad

In the shadowy portico of the Basilica of the Holy Apostles had gathered a collection of beings, fruit that only a city such as Constantinople could have bore.
Among the manicured Greeks stood tall and pale northmen, while dark eyed Syrians animatedly quarrelled in their inflected tongue. Even a Nubian porter had set aside his bundle to repose against a marble column.

All had gathered to escape the rain and wait for the storm to break; a storm that had transformed the Mese from road to a silvery stream as the over burdened storm drains struggled to keep up with the torrent.
Luckily for what might have been a tedious wait, among the crowd was one Flavious Lupius Hibernius predominant and esteemed member of the senate. His reputation for amiability, candour and Patrician sensibilities had for once proven to be true. Even those who had been much critical now stood in rapt attention eager for their turn to gain plainspoken answers from someone truly in the know. An oddity in such a byzantine city.

I have my list of background feats prepared which are available at first level only, but you my chose one for free when you created your character. Hopefully this will help spark some interest, as it has been pretty quiet here this far. I have plenty of other neat ideas I hope to reveal during the course of the campaign.
I truly enjoy history so many of my campaigns have a historical flavour like this one and it also makes for a favourable setting for sword and sorcery flavour of play which appeals to me.

Background Feats

Mighty and hulking
Prerequisites:13str and over ¾ the maximum weight for your race.
You are more massive then most and know how to throw your bulk around best to your advantage.
Benefits: You are considered one size larger when favourable like for grappling, against bull rushes, trip attempts and special abilities of creatures like improve grab and swallow whole. You are still medium in size and use the same space, reach and cannot use over sized objects.

Hail and hearty
Prerequisites: 13 con
Your have always taken your health as given, injures that would have laid other men up for days you have recovered from over night.
Benefits: Whenever you spend the whole days resting you add your constitution modifier to the amount you gain for resting.

Poised and stable
Prerequisites: 13 dex
You are able to traverse the must difficult terrains with the same grace as if you were walking on level ground.
Benefits: You retain your dex bonus modifier even when climbing and balancing.

Night eyes
Shadows hold no fears, your acute vision penetrates there depths..
Benefits: You gain low light vision.

Lonewolf - as in the rise of the runelords player’s guide, except you cannot have booth this feat and face in the crowd.

Part of the crowd (You cannot have booth this feat and lone wolf.)
You gain you are never seen without your cliché of friends or outside of bustling public places. It is second nature for you to fade into the background or to appear unexpectedly.
Benefit: You suffer only half the movement penalty for moving through a crowded places as well as +2 to hide checks. So is your intuition of the chaotic environments of masses humanity that Non combatants count as flanking partners for you when a foe is squeezing through a crowd..

Merchant house scion
You were born to one of the largest mercantile families in Rome. Painstakingly trade tries have been spun the length of the empire and beyond to carry provincial goods and foreign luxuries alike to the teaming and hungry markets of the cities.
Benefits: +2 to appraise checks and you gain an additional 10% on the value of object you sell

Trade apprenticeship
Some of your earliest recollections are of watching and listening to either your family or their friend’s lessons on the art and secrets of their craft.
Benefits: +2 to any one profession or craft skill and one masterwork tool associated with that trade or profession for free.

Tenement urchin
Surviving through youth in the most vile of neighbourhoods has given light fingers and fast feet.
Benefits: +2 to pick pockets and +5ft. to your movement rate.

Pupil of the learned
You have been introduced to the most profound thoughts of both past and present at the foot of a renowned Greek tutor.
Benefits: Because of your better then normal education you gain an additional sages talent if you are a non-spell casting class you must use this as a skill bonus (+2) and all knowledge skills become class skills.

City Born – as in the raise of the ruinlords players guide except Magnimar becomes Antioch or Thessalonica, Riddleport to Jerusalem or Tarsus and Korvosa is replaced by Constantinople or Alexandria.

Country born- as in the raise of the ruinlords player’s guide

Wildness born (you can not have this feat and city born, country born or Garrison born)
Benefits: Struggling for life in the wilderness has forged you into a silent and deadly predator easily providing for yourself the essentials of life in the harshest of environments.
+2 to survival checks and you can move silently are your normal speed without penalty.

Garrison born
In his duty to in the legions of Rome your father crisscrossed the empire bring you in your mother in tow. Wherever soldiers where need you have been giving you first hand experience of the most distant of places and the true scope of the variety of subjects within Rome’s territories. You made it a point to learn something of the character of all of these places as well as your father’s comrades in arms and this unusual classroom has severed your education well.
Benifits:+1 to knowledge: local and knowledge: geography checks. You also speak one additional language that does not count against you maxim learnable languages.