SunstonePhoenix's page

Eh? I suppose the term irks me a bit, if only because it sets me apart from my friends. I enjoy gaming as much as anyone else at my table, and don't think it's necessary that someone would feel the need to watch their language around me or alter their speech because I lack an appendage between my legs. It's a bit... saddening, I suppose.

And the glamour armor...? edit: You mentioned addressing that in your trait. I'll wait, :D

As for a real world culture, I am partial to Chinese culture, to the point where my username stems from my given name, 权凤, or powerful phoenix. I can't wait to see what you come up with!

Does it count as a drawback, trait, or both at once?

Didn't know if you wanted these here of on another thread, but...

My most frequent posting hours are between 4-11 PM CST. When it comes to gore in your writing, I say have at it. While I may not be inclined to write such graphic imagery myself (may change in time though, who knows), I most certainly can appreciate a well written battle sequence by a talented writer.

Now, a few questions of my own! First of all, I'm still having trouble figuring out what to write for my character's birthplace and cultural home. Would a name of a dark elven underground colony be okay for a birthplace, or do I need to include its relative position in the world of this campaign? If so, I'll need a bit of aid. As for cultural home, I have no idea what to put. Second question, is this trait okay if reflavored? I have a soft spot for companions and familiars, and love a character with a zealous little sidekick or two. A trait to replace a feat tax would be much appreciated, if you'll allow a druid with both a companion and a familiar. Additional lore, of course, would be established for the familiar.

Lastly! We were speaking of a way to possibly aid with the sunlight weakness, and I've been working dutifully to come up with a solution. While this one doesn't compensate for light blindness, it may keep poor little Naila from turning to stone. I was wondering if I could use a piece of leather armor with the glamoured special quality as a cloak of sorts to keep the sun's rays from harming her skin. Here's really my question: does the glamoured quality prevent light from passing through the illusion? I have no idea if there's official answer on this, but I was curious as to if you'd house rule it in. Plus, it also acts as an interesting vulnerability: if someone realizes that Naila's a dark elf or forces her to take her glamoured armor off, the loss is practically a death sentence. Her armor is her lifeline to staying on the surface world.

One last question, now that I've pestered you this much. This drawback has the potential to be a goldmine of characterization. Do you think you could give me an idea of what you'd want her attached item/other character to be so that I may work it into her lore? Her familiar might be an interesting emotional centerpiece, but I want to know what you think before I start going gangbusters on her backstory.

Please, tell me what you think of any of these ideas. Naila's very loose right now, and her character concept isn't rock solid. If playing a character who practically treats sunlight like poison is too difficult to work into your game, I'm not married to the concept and can change, even if I do like dark elves as a concept.

I wanted to ask for some advice here. Since dark elves come from underground cave complexes, what region would my character most likely be from? I've been trying to read through the guide, but it's a bit difficult to find specific bits of information in there.

On that same vein, what is intended for us to do with the noble title/rank? Do I delete noble title if my character doesn't have one? Is there a page in the campaign setting guide with ranks?

Whoa, this is an interesting setting. Count me interested.

I've been reading through some of the materials, and am thinking of playing a dark elf. The idea of playing a character with great strength yet great weaknesses, combined with the race's uncanny outward appearance, seems interesting to play. Thinking of either going druid or oracle.

I'll be posting more later when I gather my ideas.

Edit: The fact that you have an adventurer's pack known as the "Rapscallion’s Package" amuses me to no end. So, you could be a wanderer, scholar, artist, etc, or you can be a rapscallion. This shouldn't be as funny as it somehow is to me, heh. Thank you for making my day.

Okay, that took long enough! Gadriel ended up going animal domain, and I decided to make a sheet for her booned panther, Chet, as well.

Gadriel's sheet.

Chet's sheet.

I've been working a lot on Gadriel's backstory since then, adding more connections to Kaer Maga itself and generally filling in what happened before the Chelish invasion and Gadriel's turn to demon worshipping. Everything stated prior about Gadriel still stands.

-------------------

Gadriel, a qlippoth-spawned tiefling, has lived in Kaer Maga for as long as she can remember. Her childhood in the Warren passed her by in a flash, with her favorite pastime being the exploration of the nooks and crannies of the district. She was educated by her distant mother, who had long since ceased using arcane magic after the advent of her qlippoth induced trauma. While the single mother was not at all wealthy, food was kept on the table and life, though humble, was comfortable.

But Gadriel wanted more.

More knowledge, more experiences, more power. She left her home to wander the city when she was an adolescent, and stumbled across a very profitable trade within the twisting streets of the Downmarket- smuggling. While the Downmarket represented complete freedom of trade, other areas of the city did not. Gadriel's job was simple: get goods from one area of the city to an area in which they were illegal. Poisons, magical and cursed items, rare wildlife; all were treasured by certain residents of various well-guarded districts who were willing to pay a pretty penny to obtain them. Gadriel participated in the business for years, and grew into an adult with her nose buried in old, demonic tomes that were transported between various cults throughout the city.

In recent years, she has set up camp in unassuming little houses within the Downmarket, having enough gold to pay consistent rent. She's well-acquainted with Downmarket traders (at least, the ones running more shady businesses), and repeat clients throughout Kaer Maga. With a growing reputation, however, comes growing danger. Gadriel has begun to be more cautious with her routes. She solely works by the cover of night, and has added a sort of guard 'dog' to her arsenal. In a trading mishap, she was left with an illegally bought panther cub in her possession, and decided to train it to guard her home and follow her on days when she is transporting a more dangerous artifact. The creature has grown into more than a simple guard on her missions, and is the only thing in Gadriel's life that she truly needs to be permanent.

Chet recieving a deadly injury is the only thing that could possibly cause Gadriel to break her otherwise constant level-head.

----------

Within the campaign, I imagine Chet being a sort of intimidation tactic used by Gadriel to instill fear in her victims enemies. Nothing quite nonverbally says 'I'm willing to use lethal force' like a snarling panther licking its chops.

Once again, feedback is appreciated. I look forward to it!

Working on stats. I may post them later if I can finish them before I head off to sleep.

In case I don't post later tonight, I just wanted to ask: are you potentially on board with an evil PC for this game, or would you have preference toward a good aligned character? If you're genuinely uncomfortable with the whole fiendish vessel thing, I completely understand. I am reading the post you made about your soul as jest, but such nuances are easier to identify in face to face speech. I want to avoid creating a character that would be uncomfortable to GM for, especially if it's the only one.

I sent Kenneth a message explaining the situation. I will not be joining this campaign.

A note about alignment. If I were to use this character, I would be chaotic evil. With that said, I understand that there's certainly a difference between chaotic evil and stupid. This tiefling is definetly not dumb. She's chaotic in the sense that she strives to undermine any oppressive authority, and evil in the sense that she will do anything in her power to get there. (And obviously both on the fact that she's a demon worshipper who has thrown her soul to the Abyss, hahaha) She's wary of others and disregards the law. She will kill as many of her enemies as possible. She does not, however, betray a valuable ally who has enough power to aid her in the future, or murder unrelated bystanders for the sole sake of murder. She believes that those who are not involved in her crusade to destroy Asmodeans are beneath her, and don't even deserve the physical energy that it would take to dispose of them. She would, however, take any opportunity to kill a Chelaxian soldier, no matter how low status, or stab a scheming ally in the back so that they don't get the drop on her.

Just wanted to share my thoughts on alignment. CE characters can be a really touchy subject for some people.

Heh, my writing turned out to be longer than anticipated. Read at your leisure. Feedback in any way, shape, or form would be highly appreciated.

Over the past day or so, I've come up with a tiefling character with the Fiendish Vessel cleric archetype. She's ruthless, cunning, and manipulative, and uses both a serpent's tongue and sheer intimidation to claw her way up society's ranks.

This tiefling's birth was the unfortunate result of a sorceress's failed attempt to bind a Qlippoth- a terrible tentacled monstrosity from the depths of the Abyss. While the sorceress escaped death, her body was tainted with the creature's foul magic. The effects of this magic only became clear once she bore her first child.

Her baby, a girl, was born with obsidian-colored skin, calculating crimson eyes, and a thick, tentaclelike appendage jutting out from the base of her spine. The mother was mortified. She grew to think that the child was a punishment from the gods for her misdeeds of the past, and decided that she would raise the qlippoth-spawn as a loving mother in a last ditch attempt to save her soul from eternal damnation. The sorceress fled to Kaer Maga to start her life anew.

-------------------------

Any attempts to change the fate of the qlippoth-spawned child were in vain. The tiefling, from a frighteningly young age, began to heed the call of the Abyss and all of its horrors. She spent much of her time obsessively seeking out any tiny scrap of information relating to her progenitors, demon lords, or the Abyss. Experimentation with all manners of dark spellcasting were a natural next step.

The straw that broke the camel's back came in the form of the Chelish invasion of Kaer Maga. The harbingers of draconic devil-worshipping rule came swiftly, brutally, and without warning, capturing the city in a matter of days.

The ignition of the tiefling's chaotic potential was immediate. With the coming of Cheliax meant the coming of Asmodean worship. Within a week of the invasion, the tiefling made a decision: she would give control of her fate to the Abyss, and offer her life to whatever powers from beyond would accept her into their army. She called into the void, an the answer was swift. A quasit appeared to her bringing whispers of great power, sent from the hated rival of the Prince of Hell himself.

From that moment forth, the young tiefling has constantly molded herself into a vessel for the unholy will of the Demon Lord Baphomet. His sole goal: reduce the influence of Asmodeus by any means possible.

The line between Baphomet's wishes and the tiefling's independent thought blurs more and more with every passing day.

Greetings again, Mowque!

I think I'll be working on a tiefling character for this game. I've been reading about Cheliax a bit, and found it really interesting that tieflings are looked down upon within the empire, being the offspring of fiends and all. It seemed a bit backwards for an empire of devil worshipers, until I got to a part explaining that Chelaxians view hell as a tool to use as a power source, and refuse to be controlled by the creatures that lie within. Tieflings are a reminder that Chelaxians can be weak, and succumb to the words of those they are supposed to control.

Maybe the character has some sort of superiority complex, believing that their heritage is proof that the people of Cheliax are not as strong-willed as they are made out to be. Maybe they're just sick of being second class citizens. I'm still working on that part. I just think that a tiefling in this environment seems to have a really interesting relationship with the people whom devils are supposed to serve.

With all of this said, what do you think about the Fiendish Heritage feat? More specifically, should I roll on the table before deciding to take the feat, and then decide if I want to take it, or wait until I've completed the rest of character creation to roll and see what I get?

Thanks for the consideration, and congrats to those selected!

I suppose I wanted to provide a bit more insight as to who my character is, as well as let you get more of a feel for how they act and how I will portray them. I found some character background questions and answered them below.

Edit: I highly recommend taking a peek at the Figment familiar archetype if you haven't already. The whole character concept is rooted in this aspect of the familiar.

I found this to be a pretty fun exercise, and I hope it shined a bit more light onto who Deirdre actually is!

Dang. I found this thread pretty early on, and just caught that it was closing. I'm submitting a character fairly late in this process, but I've had her in my head for a while and wanted to make sure she could get considered.

All of the crunch is here.

As for items she'd recover, Deirdre would wear studded leather armor and wield a falchion.

As for fluff...

Deirdre is a half orc (carnivalist) rogue, that like many of the characters here, has no concrete memories of her past. The event of losing her memories has left her nervous, on edge, and most of all, desperate to latch onto the companionship of any creature who might offer it, no matter how unstable they might appear to anyone else.

She's so desperate for guidance, in fact, that her own mind has conjured up a leader for her: a tiny thrush, delicate and pure, with a much more solid personality than Deirdre and a much less solid body. The bird, whom Deirdre has dubbed Tyrp, acts as a voice of reason. Tyrp is extremely untrusting of strangers to compensate for Deirdre's overconfidence in the goodness of everyone, and tries her hardest to protect Deirdre from the perceived horrors looming all around her.

Tyrp, however, is but a figment of Deirdre's imagination. Deirdre uses Tyrp as a tap into her own mind: Tyrp is her knowledge, Tyrp is her morality, Tyrp is the tiny bit of sanity that she has left. And yet, Deirdre can't help but feel that Tyrp lives outside of herself.

The bird, whom Deirdre sets on a golden pedestal, is really nothing more than the other end of her internal conversations.

@Peet

I originally intended for grippli tribes to be largely independent, but I think the idea of unity in death is a wonderful concept. While some grippli tribes in other areas of the world would have their own death rituals, I do like the idea that the various swamp tribes all take their dead to one place to join in the afterlife together. When you bring it up, it makes a lot of sense. In nature, all things end up in the same place: decomposing in the soil, nutrients to be soaked up into another organism.

If we can keep the understanding that in life, various tribes stay separate, however, that would be much appreciated. I feel like the different ideologies would cause quite a bit of conflict between some tribes, and no tribe wants more death upon their hands.

Oh, if you want to keep the name schemes consistent, Vor means tribe. Baot means turtle.

I just wanted to let you know how much I love your lore! The thought put into it is amazing.

@GM

I don't mind some more skill points. :D

This sounds interesting! I'll eagerly await more info.

First of all, I'm definetly taking the trait you provided. I love it.

As for the player progression, I'd be keeping it on Kvoak. Companions are companions. They should have some survivability, but I don't think I want my turtle being on center stage more than my actual PC.

Oh! One other question! I went back and looked at snapping turtle companions to see that they advanced at level seven. Should this be lowered to level six, or should it be a part of post-leveling material?

Edit: Rollin' for gold. Gold: 2d6 ⇒ (1, 6) = 7

...So, I could stick with this roll, and halve it to 35, or take the average, and halve it to 35.

It's a really tough decision here.

Angel, in response to this, humans are still supposed to be the dominant race. Grippli were a race that we inserted into the environment to give people another choice. If you wanted to play a human, please do so. It would be an advantage to have humans in this party.

There's a trait called Addict that I was wondering if I could reskin. The trait itself gives you +1 to bluff, sense motive, and knowledge local, as well as making one of them a class skill, but comes at the cost of half of your starting gold. I'd only start with 35 gold, in this case.

With that said, I feel like the bonuses fit Kvoak but the flavor doesn't. Kvoak himself seems like he's traded with human settlements for quite a while, thus knowing the local area as well as knowing how to barter (sense motive and bluff). With him being a grippli, however, he lives in large part off the land and doesn't have much need for gold in the first place. He trades only to obtain basic gear. Maybe I could call it "Simple Lifestyle" or something of the sort?

I'm glad you like it!

I'd love to keep tengu relations in there if someone wants to play a tengu, but yeah, we can ditch that part of the lore if no one expresses interest.

As for physiological requirements, I don't want to restrict someone from learning a language if they wish to. In game, the throatiness probably makes it a difficult language to learn, but nothing that a skilled linguist couldn't learn to imitate. A member of another race can't speak Grippli exactly like a grippli can, but they can mimic the sounds closely enough that interracial communications is possible. The difficulty of the language, however, means that it isn't standard human fare.

I'm also thinking that Grippli doesn't contain a standard method of written communications. "Writing" is displayed in pictographs that vary from region to region, though are detailed enough that even a non-Grippli speaker could figure out what they mean. ie: An account of a battle would literally be depicted as many figures holding weapons and bodies scattered on the ground, possibly accompanied by a sketchy map of the location it took place in and a drawing of a great hero or villain.

Grippli tribes keep history alive through oral tradition anyway, so the need to have a written language isn't as pressing as it is in many cultures.

Oh, this looks fun. I'm going to have to give it a shot. Everything below is just for my reference. I'll fix it up into a new post once I have my ideas collected.

Law/Chaos: 1d3 ⇒ 1
Good/Evil: 1d3 ⇒ 3
Size: 1d20 ⇒ 16
Government: 1d12 ⇒ 8
Qualities: 5d28 ⇒ (9, 11, 2, 28, 27) = 77
Location: 1d5 ⇒ 3
Dominant Race: 1d20 ⇒ 11

LE (Law +1, Corruption +1) Large City (Modifiers +2, Danger 10, Spellcasting 7)

Eastern Region
Core or Featured Race

Government:
Overlord (Corruption and Law +2, Crime and Society -2)

Qualities:
Holy Site (Spellcasting +2, Corruption -2)
Rumormongering Citizens (Lore +1, Society -1)
Superstitious (Law and Society +2, Spellcasting -2, Crime -4)
No Questions Asked (Society +1, Lore -1)
Deep Traditions (Law +2, Crime and Society -2)

Totals: Law +9, Corruption +3, Economy +2, Lore +2, Society 0, Crime -6

As this thread is labeled "interest check", it might be a good idea to create a separate one for official submissions. This thread didn't have an end date on it, so some people might not know that they could submit characters here.

It is impossible to understand the motives of an individual without first understanding the foundation upon which they grew. Before I formally introduce my character, I wish to write a piece about his native people, the grippli, or as they refer to themselves in their native tongue, gr'sebi.

A quick note on the term gr'sebi: While the Grippli language is a matter of pride for the swamp dwelling race, it is notoriously throaty and difficult for the untrained ear to make out. Grippli, for the sake of trade relations, are all to happy to omit words from their language around other humanoids, and thus the term "gr'sebi" is vastly unknown in interracial circles.

Without further ado...

THE CULTURE OF THE GR'SEBI

Grippli culture varies wildly from tribe to tribe, however, one thing is common between them all: their connection with the land that fosters their way of life. From the weather to the plants to the animals around them, grippli try to derive meaning from everyday sights and occurrences in nature, going as far as to elect a leader based upon the individual's understanding of natural phenomena.

All grippli tribes are organized roughly the same way: a shaman acts as a leader, and those under him have different roles though are considered of equal status for all intents and purposes. Each shaman leader is to act as an interpreter between a tribe's animal spirit of choice and the people of the tribe.

Here's where the variance between tribes comes from. As grippli draw so much of their worldview from nature, tribes identify with an animal from their native land, and attempt to embody the essence of the animal as closely as possible. A tribe identifying with the trout, for example, would place emphasis on high energy, tight bonds between tribe members, alertness, and an affinity for swimming. A tribe identifying with the crocodile would encourage patience, stealth, the building of physical strength, and the mastery of physical combat.

BAOT-VOR: THE TRIBE OF THE TURTLE

The Baot-vor Gr'sebi, a grippli tribe that reveres the turtle, are somewhat unusual when compared to the average tribe. They tend to be somewhat aloof, in the sense that they emphasize personal growth and careful solo exploration instead of heavy bonding. This can sometimes be disadvantageous. The Baot-vor don't have the safety net of numbers. While they all return to their home often enough, individuals can never be counted on to be within the tribe's territory at a given time. The flip side of this is that Baot-vor are master solo survivalists and individually know more of the land than the average grippli. They travel farther out on scouting missions because they can take their time- no one expects them back at their home by a set date. The Baot-vor tribe has the most sturdy trade relations with general human society because its indivuals aren't afraid to travel to towns by themselves and trade their fish and meat for other goods. Their temperaments help quite a bit when dealing with human relations, as well. Baot-vor are generally very easygoing.

One tendency of the tribe, however, is that of its members deciding to set out on their own permanently. A good quarter of mature Baot-vor grippli build homes for themselves outside of tribal lands and bidding their colleagues farewell. This is in no way looked down upon, in fact quite the opposite. Those that leave are said to be the true embodiments of the turtle- strong and wise enough to take care of themselves, with the fortitude and independence to keep plodding forward one steady step at a time.

Grippli that have ventured out on their own will sometimes make a pilgrimage to visit the Baot-vor who are at their tribe's home at a given time, and are welcomed to share their stories with open arms. The young, growing grippli residing there eagerly await the presence of an old, battle-torn grippli returning to the tribe for even a single day, simply to impart wisdom on the youngsters before leaving once more.

Sorry for not posting today, and I may not post again tomorrow. I have an eleven hour shift (with a small break in there, but still) of really physically intensive work, and I come home dead tired on Saturdays and Sundays. You can expect more from me come the week.

You might want to ask about the playable races. I went with grippli because it was suggested earlier. Speak with Kenneth if you want to introduce another one.

Alternatively, you could work on a tengu, and we could be friends.

Don't want to speak for the GM, but I feel like there's a difference between castable spells and all of magic. Sure, we as spellcasters have some nice tricks in our arsenal, but old, ancient devices or powerful beings beyond our understanding can harness raw magic much more innately than a simple caster might be able to.

Eh, that's just how I think of it. We can cast spells up to a certain level (third level, actually), but third level spellcasting may not account for what fully powered raw magical energy can do.

----

I'm working hard on tribal lore. I'll be back to post it sooner or later.

I think the reason why dragons were brought up was to explain the wyrmer. We certainly could base the plot around them, but we don't have to.

Edit: The GM hasn't posted in a while. We should probably just let them figure out what to do with all of this new information. Besides! We don't want to know the plot twist from the very beginning!

Welp. That's eight minutes of my life I'm not getting back, hahaha

I'd started sketching the two of them last night, actually, and you've just given me a little bit more encouragement to work on it. Thanks!

Oh, there's no need to actually fight dragons, but having them in the lore is okay, right? I think it's GOOD that beings exist that we'd never be able to take down. It is an indication that while we as characters could become somewhat powerful, we are still completely mortal.

I'm going to put the idea out there that the wyrmer is a higher status character. A dragon may be more likely to make a deal with a character with more power in society...? Just an idea, no need to use it if you don't want to!

As for the grippli character, I think that he's going to have a snapping turtle companion that he rides upon. As grippli are small and lack strength, the turtle effectively acts as a friendly beast of burden that carries supplies and meat/fish upon its back. The turtle also acts as a tracker, as it has the scent ability and will have track as one of its tricks.

...I'm now imagining a grippli happily riding a lumbering turtle through the woods of his homeland. I love these two.

Going to roll now.

4d6 ⇒ (2, 6, 1, 4) = 13 =12
4d6 ⇒ (1, 3, 1, 6) = 11 =10
4d6 ⇒ (6, 1, 6, 3) = 16 =15
4d6 ⇒ (2, 6, 2, 5) = 15 =13
4d6 ⇒ (2, 6, 4, 2) = 14 =12
4d6 ⇒ (2, 5, 5, 3) = 15 =13

Eh. I think I'll go with point buy.

If we're going with a 'villagers called to action' setup, and decide to go with the idea of a human middle/upper class and tengu/grippli lower class, I think I'be developed a character that would fit the common villager idea whilst still using magic.

What do you think of a grippli druid who works as a fisher and a hunter? I feel as though they'd be a pretty laid back character, and be fairly naive about the world outside of their stretch of the woods. Their commonly used spells would be along the lines of spark, guidance, and create water as cantrips and ant haul or speak to animals as first level spells, more utility based than offensive. Magic to them is a tool to be used within daily life. As for a companion, they'd either have a tracking animal to help them locate quarry, such as a wolf or bird of prey, or an amphibious animal that they related emotionally with.

Eh, this is just me throwing ideas out there. I'm wanting to focus on making a believable character that would fit into the setting. Feedback would be appreciated.

I completely agree with what everyone else said above. While I personally am not the most fond of playing a human, I didn't mean to imply that other people shouldn't. The idea that there are two to three races with a symbiotic relationship is a lovely idea.

Just wanted to throw some support for the concept out there!

Edit: The grippli/tengu idea above, or at least two races with an inseparable bond, is wonderful, and seems like it would allow for some really interesting scenarios.

Hey! This looks pretty interesting! I read through the Backgrounds and Occupations, Bonus Progression, and a good amount of the P6 document, and I think it'd be a really interesting idea to try a game like this out. I'm really open to the world that this takes place in, though generally enjoy playing Core/APG classes. I don't use third party material much, so I can't speak to any recommendations.

The one thing that I really want to push for is an ability to play a non-core race. While playing a human or elf has its advantages, it isn't as interesting to me as playing a creature with a different social or hierarchical structure, or a creature with a very different outlook on life than a human might. Not saying we all need to play goblins or something, but being able to introduce a ratfolk (etc) character sounds pretty fun!

Good luck on the exam, by the way!

Words cannot describe how much I hate the name policy. A place I work at makes a Facebook profile mandatory, and even having my name out there without attachment to a photograph or phone number makes me squirm.

I just don't like being tracked by people I don't even know the name of, when they can learn quite a bit about me.

*shivers*

With how surveillance in America is going, I guess I should get used to it...

Playing kobolds is just plain fun. Their stats might suck, but if I'm playing a game where every combat isn't a deathtrap, the fact that they have an inferiority complex and want so desperately to be dragons makes for great roleplaying.

Having a little kobold warrior yearning to make her patron dragon proud is just too great of a concept to not play a time or two.

Hey, don't worry about it! Most of my Pathfinder characters are extremely odd. Using archetypes to gain unusual class features (paladin with a familiar, etc), building around an unusual race, or just flat out crafting a zany personality for a character are what make roleplaying games so interesting, at least to me. I find them fun because I get to walk a mile in a crow-person's shoes or play a valiant hero fighting for justice with her trusty dog-sized rat by her side.

If a lot of people in your typical tabletop group play humans with a vanilla class, then that's just how they enjoy the game! I, however, enjoy the opportunity to become a creature that I'd never be able to even fathom existing in my day-to-day life.

As for an odd character, I have quite a few, but my most recent creation is the freshest in my mind. Souban is a human fighter, but has an intelligence stat as high as her strength. In our party, it's not uncommon for her to trump the bard on knowledge checks and identify high level spells being cast by enemies. Her intelligence isn't her oddest feature, however! She also has the Eldritch Guardian archetype and thus a familiar. Having taken the improved familiar feat, she has a ratling sitting on her shoulder at any given time. The ratling is a demanding little fellow, though casts spells off of scrolls in combat in exchange for getting to sup his master's blood every so often. She's not the wackiest of characters in my collection, but words cannot describe how fun she is to play.

Anyway, that's my two coppers on the topic!

Edit: I should probably also mention that Souban had a familiar before the ratling; a donkey rat. While we're on the subject of familiar archetypes in your original post, the rat was a figment familiar. He was accidentally created by Souban as a traveling companion when she spent a little bit too much time in the mountains, completely isolated from society. Thought you might get a bit of a kick out of that.

The child within me still wonders why Warriors hasn't been adapted yet. The story lines, the characters, the interpretation of a gritty feline society... I practically inhaled the book series when I was younger, and I feel like the story still holds quite a bit of appeal for both younger and older audiences. If the books were ever to be adapted into a television series, I'd watch it in a heartbeat.

I have no idea what we're talking about, but Sweden. Sweden rocks.

Hmm? You can have more than five ranks in a skill and still qualify for a prestige class, but you must have at least five ranks.

Kullen wrote:

SunstonePhoenix wrote:

I've always been creative.

And modest, too, huh?

And succint!

I'm really sorry, guys, I didn't mean to be arrogant.

A great GM of mine has been running a home brew campaign of his making that centers entirely around Aroden, and I love the way that's it's been presented.

Here's the thing: everyone calls Aroden "dead" simply because his followers have stopped gaining power from him. Pharasma says nothing on the matter. Considering that gods generally don't just die, out of the blue, with no warning and no explanation, it almost seems more likely that he's somehow been banished or sealed away somewhere where his power cannot extend to the vast planes of the Pathfinder universe. There's a good chance that Aroden is not dead- simply missing in action. Almost anything could have happened.

That's how our party views Golarion, anyway.

Guys, you're killin' me here! The Scottish play is quoted as "Double, double, toil and trouble" partly because the next line proceeds to talk about bubbling. (Fire burn and cauldron bubble.)

...I'm beginning to realize how much of a nitpick this is. Don't mind me too much, haha.

Out of curiosity, does this mean that characters with special abilities that allow them to stay up after negative hit points have been reached can use that time to stop themselves from bleeding out just before they would normally die?

Suddenly, I feel like pushing more heal skill points into one of my characters. Somehow, I find having her patch up her own internal organs to be a hilarious mental image.

Hey, it may seem really cumbersome at first, but many "card flipping" games revolve around playing cards that allow you to pull cards from decks and then reshuffle them or shuffle really helpful cards back into your deck.

Again, it may seem cumbersome, but it's well worth it when a really helpful card comes back late-game.

Race: 1d100 ⇒ 37 Wayang
Race: 1d100 ⇒ 81 Gearman (Constructed race)
Race: 1d100 ⇒ 38 Grippli
Race: 1d100 ⇒ 8 Orc
Race: 1d100 ⇒ 84 Uldra (Small, cold-weather fey creatures)

Long ago, Ozarrk was a massive planet dominated by thick-barked trees of godlike proportions, tall and with canopies scraping the murky, misty heavens. These trees encompassed the entire ecosystem of the planet, the crust of which had no dry land, only water cloudy enough to match the foggy heavens above. The trees were supported by towers of roots seeping into the swampy soup. Somehow, the bottoms of the trees were massive hollows surrounded by a ring of column-like roots supporting the massive trunks, and were as dark as pitch, an eternal night. In the murky depths of the water, nothing lived. All deceased creatures would drop from the mile high trees into the waters to be recycled back into the life cycle of the planet.

In the first few billion years of the strange Ozarrk's existence, two main humanoid races established a foothold within the trees: the Grippli and the Orc. They lived very different lives, and for millennia never knew of the other species. Grippli lived on branches near the canopies of the trees, hungrily devouring their way through the swarms of monster insects that lived in the sunniest reaches of the trees. The thin atmosphere of the planet ended up allowing the Grippli of the high canopy to develop a unique adaption: Heat storage. During the day, the canopy would heat to scalding temperatures, and the Grippli would store the heat in sacs near their stomachs to help them digest food. During the night, the sacs would let heat flow into the naturally cold-blooded animal's blood stream to heat its body. Grippli learned to do the majority of their hunting at night to help keep their bodies from freezing in the frigid night air.

Orcs, on the other hand, are blind on this planet. Well, blind sensing. They lived since the dawn of their era in the outer layers of the thick trees' bark, carving out colonies in the wood and never seeing the light of the sun. They developed acute vibrational senses that help them to detect when prey is munching its way through the mid-layers of the bark. From there, the orcs used their natural strength to tear through the sappy wood and reach a meal- typically one large enough to last a fully grown male orc for days, making the vast amount of energy expended to catch the prey entirely worth it.

Ozarrk was untouched in this state for billions of years. There was a minor amount of evolution in the creatures of the planet and the trees themselves, but the trees still stretched upwards for miles and lived for hundreds of thousands of years.

---

8.13 Billion Years Post Formation- The Ripping

---

Deities get bored. Deities get rambunctious. And sometimes, deities make mistakes. The Ripping was one of these mistakes. It changed Ozarrk forever.

One moment, a powerful god of entropic chaos plane-shifts between three planes at once, trying to see if it can exist on all three at the same time. The next moment, all three planes were torn up and down, spacial anomalies and planar overlaps everywhere. Ozarrk was the center of the Material Plane's ripping. A shadowy deity's army of millions of wayang slave engineers was the center of the Shadow Plane's ripping. A frozen tundra of a demiplane was completely destroyed at the chaos deity's third point of connection, and an entire race of tiny icy fae known as Uldra were almost entirely wiped out of existence in the process.

When the dust settled, half of Ozarrk was completely missing, leaving the planet a bizarre semi-sphere of a planet, held together only by the arcane magics expelled from the decimated demiplane in The Ripping. What was left of Ozarrk was alien and fragmented. Trees grew upward into black voids, and what used to be the canopy was split from the trees entirely and hung in the air as if held in place by invisible puppet strings. The temperature of the entire planet had dropped drastically. The murky waters of the planet's crust was frozen in place.

What Ozarrk is currently is chaos, as if the deity who destroyed the planet had somehow become an integral part of the planet itself. The Wayang, seeing that their homes in Shadow plane were being crushed under mile-wide tree trunks, began to tunnel into the trees as the orcs had once done, only to be greeted by the barbarous orcs themselves. The orcs, who had never sensed a creature living beyond the bark of their precious trees, fought bravely against the alien Wayang as any territorial warrior would.

As the Wayang population diminished to tiny numbers, the Wayang's deity realized that there was only one way for his creations to live on: create their own race. The Wayang were used to the fires of the forges and clash of hammers on metal; they had been forced to serve the deity for their entire millennia-long lives. So they created a protection from the orcs. An anti-orc in its own right. The Wayang created a race called the Gearmen. They were the antithesis of orcs, were everything that the orcs needed to learn to be. They were programmed to act as a cohesive unit. They were weaponized, while orcs fought with their sharp teeth and filed claws. They had no fleshy organs to target. The orcs didn't know how to destroy this new menece, and the tables have suddenly turned. The Wayang and the Gearmen have, as of late, destroyed the orc population, leaving only a few orc undiscovered in the most remote trees of Ozarrk. The orc are dying out, and a new order of Wayang is beginning to replace them.

---

The Uldra and the Grippli, on the other hand, are a success story of utmost teamwork and cooperation. Neither have the slightest clue about the constant war between the Wayang and the Orc, and are not at all affected by it. See, both of these races were left to fend for themselves in a new, frigid environment full of rapidly evolving monsters and nightmarish terrors from the Shadow Plane. Grippli are used to the canopy, but many died from the cold, not knowing how to stay warm without the blaring daily sunlight of above. The Uldra have always lived on a tundra, and have no idea how to fend for themselves in the thick foliage of the ex-canopy. Though they were shy and afraid of each other at first, the two races have come together and learned that they are an extremely mutually beneficial pair: Grippli help Uldra build shelter and find food, and Uldra use their knowledge of the tundra to craft heat-efficient garb for the Grippli from the furs and hides that the Grippli hunt.

---

Ozarrk is a world of incredible variety, especially after The Ripping, but makeshift civilizations still live in its harsh climate. Whether fighting to protect a home or working together to survive, the races of the Ozarrk are varied, dangerous, and may prove to be Ozarrk's last hope.

Holy crap, that took a long time to write. I like how it turned out, though. Happy reading, if you have the time to get this far. ^_^'

An Ode to the Martial

It seemed very odd to me when I first came upon this little realization myself, but I seriously find nonmagical classes more rewarding to play. My favorite casting class, actually, is the druid, and I've only recently realized that I enjoy playing the druid more for the companion/wildshape than the nature-themed magical features. I've always been a person to love medieval fantasy and wizards and fae creatures and spells.

I've always been creative.

I used to think that playing martials would be boring, because they were too mundane and teathered down to reality. They weren't magical. But really, playing highly leveled casters was too much like playing god. I realized something. Being a god and having all of this power over a petty, boring world was not what I wanted in play. Being magical was not what I wanted in play. I didn't want to be magic. I wanted to experience magic.

And THAT was when I realized why I liked playing martials.

Martials are a stable point in a mad, chaotic world. A world where so much is unknown. Where so much is not understood. Martials are smart enough to realize that strange powers in such a dangerous world shouldn't be simply toyed with. We as humans crave understanding, and understanding is something that we do not yet have of magic. What martials understand is themselves. They know who they are, they know their capabilities, and they know their limits. Even if they don't understand the material upon which they stand, martials know that they are standing tall and firm with their feet holding them in place. They expand their understanding from there. They make a conscious choice that 'today, we will embrace the mysterious,' and prepare to experience both wonders and terrors. They adapt, using what they know to survive these fantastical situations that they get themselves into. Martials need to be fluid and innovative. They are a living tool belt of skeleton keys, learning to look for new keyholes, the likes of which they've never seen.

A caster, on the other hand, plays to me like a groundskeeper. He's a bit lost in life, and doesn't know himself, but he knows the grounds that he plods day after day. Nothing surprises him here; he's seen all that the worn landscape has to offer. He prepares his thick key ring full of heavy, complex and ancient keys every morning, ready to be placed in old locks that he's seen every day of his life.

Spells can be used in creative ways, yeah, but there's something inherently more rewarding about swinging Indiana Jones style across a pit of snakes, (why did it have to be snakes?!) grabbing plot hook B, then using your well practiced acrobatic maneuvers to avoid chunks of collapsing ceiling, than using a level zero mage hand spell and skipping the problem solving process almost entirely.

Some people might find the plight of the groundskeeper learning of his own worth in a world that is comparatively normal to him very interesting, and I can see why. My issue is that I already am the groundskeeper. I know what it's like to live in a boring, mundane world. For me, the most rewarding classes to play allow me to face incredible, alien challenges, and still know that a person as mundane as I overcame it with their sheer wit, strength, and strategy alone.

A caster on Golarian is as whimsical as a martial on Earth.

I enjoy unleashing the kraken on an average Joe and watching as the underdog somehow turns the tables and comes out victorious.

As this is a model for an unchained eidolon, I'm simply going to compare the strength of this eidolon to that of the other eidolon types.

Firstly, I'm simply guessing that this eidolon is neutral evil, as all eidolons now have a set alignment. The first, fourth, eighth and twentieth level advances all look perfectly equatable to other eidolon types. The twelfth and sixteenth level advances are what look a bit odd to me. Twelfth level is almost always a DR of some sort, and that is lacking entirely here. Then, the burrow speed, which IS an evolution, should be changed a bit. The entry for the three point evolution "burrow" reads that the eidolon that takes it would move at half speed while burrowing, not base land speed. It's simply a bit too fast.

Sixteenth level is errant in its phrasing. You write that the eidolon has immunity to AND a +4 bonus against mind-affecting effects. One or the other has to be chosen. I'd say that the +4 would be more balanced, as I can cite an eidolon with a bonus against mind-affecting effects but not one with full immunity to them.

Good luck with your eidolon! Cheers!

...Holy SH*T.

This is what happens after people get their degree and go live off on their own!? Graduation suddenly seems a whole lot less appealing...

My own multiplying anxiety complexes aside, the amount of accidental pregnancies, heart attacks, murders, and general death in this thread is really quite alarming.

I currently have the Hell's Vengeance Player's Guide sitting in my downloads, but I'm having one heck of a time trying to actually download it from the site. As the PDF is free for anyone to look at, is there any way that the campaign traits mandatory for use in this contest could be linked somewhere or posted in the comments? It'd be a huge help.

Do forgive me if I've missed some resource that I should have checked!