Yesteryear’s Hope is dedicated to the memory of Jack Brown, a passionate and much beloved member of our Organized Play community who passed away in 2023. It’s our honor to bring one of Jack’s memorable characters into this adventure as one of the three special guests that you can show around the festival. Much thanks to Hilary Moon Murphy, to Thurston Hillman, and especially to Jack’s family for letting us introduce Jack’s character Lucius to the world.
A FITTING TRIBUTE TO A TRUE ULFEN RAT. MAY HIS MEMORY NEVER FADE, MAY HIS LIFE BE AN INSPIRATION TO OTHERS, MAY JACK BE THE GOAL FOR WHICH ALL ULFEN ASPIRE.
THUNDERLIPS! WILL STAND GUARD FOR LUCIUS; NOW AND FOREVER.
I have toned down his description based on how others reacted. I have also reigned in the stupidity of both him and his familiar based on others at the table. He’s a big dumb barbarian that happens to wear silken ceremonial armor of a certain cut.
In addition (as some of the developers already know), I'd love to see an unarmored combat option. Ideally class-agnostic, but if it had to be class-specific, barbarian would be the one. ^_^
Take a 1d4 and put it on 1 when you rage and advance the number as you keep raging: when you flip it to 4 you're fatigued. Seems super simple to track.
What is the rule or guidelibe if we wish to drop a game late (such as of we find unscheduled activities like the Delvs I read about)
There will be a corkboard in the center bit at Paizocon that people can pin unwanted/needed/conflicting tickets to and others can come by and take them
I lost the corkboard :( but we used a table last year near the delves and that seemed to work out well.
I know that several of my fellow local VOs would have a blast with this sort of opportunity to generate content. I think the QC problems are a little bit overblown...
My biggest concerns would be the possible departure from accepted Golarion canon and the temptation to fall into fanservice.
I'm playing in Minnesota and while the Minnesota crew is a great bunch of folks (love you guys!), if that leadership is responsible for the creation and oversight of our regional content, I fear those mission briefings from Venture-Captain THUNDERLIPS! and how "Lucious" Lucius Vizinni might repurpose Absolam's Grand Lodge.
And I think a lot of Secondary Success Conditions might involve drink and drinking.
Mission:THUNDERLIPS!:
SIR THUNDERLIPS!, Knight Captain, Eagle Knight, strides down the halls of Skyreach. A chicken struts beside him. THUNDERLIPS! whistles the jaunty notes of a traditional Ulfen drinking song. One hand carries his earthbreaker, TONDERNOTTER, the other a wooden keg, papers sand-witched between both arms and his silky glowing blond chest pelt. He nods at you all gathered in his office; "The Not-So-Restful Pathfinder Retreat."
"GOOD MORNING PATHFINDERS!" the tall Ulfen bellows as he sets the keg on the table and rests his trusty hammer against his chair.
"YOU ALL WERE SELECTED FOR A MISSION OF UTMOST IMPORTANCE. THE HALL OF THE DRUNKEN HERO REACHED OUT FOR OUR HELP FOR A RATHER DELICATE MANNER. SOMEONE OR SOMETHING IS POISONING THE BEER SERVED IN THE HALL. THIS HAS CAUSED A CRISIS OF FAITH AMONG THE FAITHFUL. SO FAR THEIR DIVINATIONS HAVE REVEALED NOTHING MORE THAN JUDICIOUS USES OF LESSER RESTORATION TO REMOVE THEIR HANGOVERS. THE PRIESTS HAVE PRODUCED A LIST OF POSSIBLE SUSPECTS.Give players handout #1: A cleric of Abadar, a warpriest of Calistria, a hop farmer, and Nigel Aldain
"INVESTIGATE THESE PEOPLE AND DETERMINE IF ANY ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS SACRIL-, SACROLO-, THIS BLASPHEMY AGAINST A HOLY BEVERAGE MORE THAN JUST A BREAKFAST DRINK."
Eyes dart to and fro, before settling on the brightly feathered tengu.
GODS! HAS SHELYN HERSELF COME TO COMFORT THUNDERLIPS! IN THUNDERLIPS!'S TIME OF NEED? NOW I MUST FIGHT, MY DEAR GODDES OF LOVE, SO THAT THUNDERLIPS! MAY HAVE TIME TO LOVE THE LADIES.
Arms rise from the floor; hands, weak, grasp at the void clutching nothing; no schedule; no list of scenarios.. A low, throaty grumbling escapes the prone barbarian.
THUNDERLIPS! lays on the floor, his face even more blank than normal. His eyes bore a hole in some unseen terror from beyond the stars. His breathing is rapid and shallow.
"LADY PUSHITALITTLE MAKE HER APPEARANCE AS SOON AS SHE RECOVERS FROM INTRODUCTION OF ULFEN LINEAGE. SHE MIGHT BE FASHIONABLE IF SHE CAN FIND HER FASHION"
The room is cold. Dark. Needle pricks race up and down THUNDERLIPS!'S spine. His fingers are numb from the cold. The Abyss stares at him; its never shifting gaze absorbs all light.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" the Ulfen man-child screams.Slumping over, the barbarian reaches out a hand towards the gaping maw in the floor.
Awesome! Thanks Silbeg. Can't wait to see what's on the schedule.
Lots of classics.
I, personally, am running Hall of Drunken Heroes. Some would say it is apt.
I plan to introduce players to the nicest halflings they will ever meet.
I scrawny yet well muscle toned halfling strides into the room. "Drunken Hero's." " Are you calling me?" " That is me." "Can I help?" "I come prepared!" "I got whisky." "Mead." "Brandy." "Ale." "Whatever you need." the halfling rattles off in near seconds
Both THUNDERLIPS! and THUNDERCOCK! eye the new arrival.
”HEEEEYYYYY... YER SMALL ARENT YOU?”
Ulfen and chicken move to either side of the unsuspecting halfling.
THUNDERLIPS! looks around, nervous and sweaty. The itching grows. THUNDERLIPS!'S eyes dart around the room. He is looking for something yet his admittedly small understanding of the world can not process his feeling of existential dread.
"ARRRRGGGGHHHHH!!!!"
The Primal Scream echoes.
THUNDERLIPS! drops to his knees, trembling. The pattern on the stone floor loses focus. A swirling pattern replaces the floor. Falling yet not falling, eyes wide with terror, THUNDERLIPS! gazes in to the Abyss. The Abyss gazes back.
HILARY MISS ROWDINESS OF OLD FOUR UMS! CHOPCHOP! SHE SAYS THERE IS NO AIR IN THESE FOUR UMS, WHICH THUNDERLIPS! FIND HARD TO BELIEVE AS AS DEVELOPER HIGHER THAN CAPTAIN JOHN CMPTON TELLS THUNDERLIPS! AIR IS NEEDED FOR SOUND AND THUNDERLIPS! HEARS MANY THINGS IN THESE FOUR UMS.
LIKE JUST IN WOOD POND, THUNDERLIPS! READY TO BRING THE ROWDY BACK. ASK NETHER PEO-, NO... NEDE... NO... DUTCH PEOPLE? THEY SAW THUNDERLIPS!'S NEW SILK THONG IN ACTION. NEW THONG BROUGHT SOMETHING THEY SAID. THUNDERLIPS! BELIEVE IT BROUGHT THE ROWDY BACK.
AS THE... UM, UH... RES UH DENT PATHFINDER DANGEROUSLY CURIOUS MAN OF INFLUENCE THUNDERLIPS! WILL DO MORE FOR ROWDY AIR IN FOUR UMS. YOU CAN NOT BLAME THUNDERLIPS! FOR THE SMELL-O-FOUR UMS, THOUGH. IT WAS LIKE THAT WHEN THUNDERLIPS! GOT HERE.
YOU HANDLE INTRODUCTION OF ULFEN LINEAGE; FIRM, POTENT ULFEN LINEAGE.
Full Name
Eyvindr the Proud, son of Harulf, of House Falon
Race
Human (Dorn)
Classes/Levels
Wildlander / 1
Gender
Male
Size
6'3
Age
30s?
Special Abilities
+1 to hit when fighting in group of 5 or more Dorns; others.
Alignment
LN/CN
Deity
--
Location
Home: Nalford
Languages
Norther, Erenlander, Traders' Tongue, High Elven
Strength
17
Dexterity
16
Constitution
0
Intelligence
11
Wisdom
14
Charisma
14
About Eyvindr the Proud
Dornish Wildlander, Fellhunter heroic path
Favoured terrain: Northlands
White bone item: Sharpened clothes pin made from a wolf's rib
XP: 1200
FP: 1 (finding and activating stepping stone)
ESSENTIAL GAME STATS
Hit points: 13 (1d10 + 2 CHA + 1 favoured class)
Current hit points: 8 (-3?)
Initiative mod.: +7 = +3 Dex + 4 Improved Initiative
Speed: 30' (currently 20', due to medium armour)
ARMOUR: Grizzly bear hide armour; +4 AC; +4 max dex; -3 AC check penalty.
SAVING THROWS
Fort: +5 (+9 vs. cold) = +2 base + +2 Cha (undead) +1/+5 Dorn racial trait
Ref: +6 = +2 base + 3 Dex + 1 Deft dodger trait
Will: +2 = +0 (base) + 2 (Wis. mod.)
SPECIAL TRAITS:
Spoiler:
. Immune to fear
. Immune to all mind-affecting effects (charms; compulsions; morale effects; patterns; and phantasms).
. Immune to death effects, disease, paralysis, poison, sleep effects and stunning.
. Not subject to non-lethal damage, ability drain or energy drain.
. Immune to changes to ability scores, as well as to exhaustion and fatigue effects.
. Can only heal damage by consuming flesh (1 hit point regenerated for each 10 lbs. of still-warm flesh consumed)
. otherwise, does not eat, breathe or sleep
BASE ATTACK BONUS: +1 CMB: +4 CMD:: 17
COMBAT
ALWAYS ADD ADDITIONAL +1 TO HIT IF FIGHTING IN GROUP OF 5 OR MORE DORNS...
Bastard sword: Attack bonus (+5; +6 2-handed; additional +2 vs. Fell); D: 1-10 (+3; +4 2-handed; additional +2 vs. Fell); Crit.: 19-20 (x2); Type: S.
Short bow: Attack bonus (+4; additional +2 vs. Fell); D: 1-6 (+2 vs. Fell); Crit.: 20 (x3); Range: 60'; Type: P. Ammo: 20 arrows.
. Power Attack
. Cleave
. Weapon focus: bastard sword (bonus)
. Improved Initiative (see Rapid Response under class abilities, below)
TRAITS
. World Traveler (from Iron Heroes) -- +2 to Diplomacy and gain two bonus language (Elvish and Trader's Tongue)
. Deft dodger (+1 to reflex saves)
Fellhunter heroic path
Lvl 1: Sense the dead (10 ft.)
OTHER TRAITS/QUALITIES:
. Degenerative/regenerative hunger
SKILLS
Acrobatics: +0 = +3 Dex - 3 AC check penalty
Appraise: +0 = +0 INT
Bluff: +2 (+4 vs. Fell) = +2 CHA +2 Vs. Fell
Climb: +0 = [b] +3 STR -3 for armour check penalty)
Craft (bows/arrows): [b]+4 = +0 INT + 1 rank + 3 class skill
Diplomacy: +4 = +2 CHA + 2 trait
Disguise: +2 = +2 CHA
Escape Artist: +0 = +3 Dex [b](-3 for armour check penalty)
Heal: +2 = +2 WIS
Intimidate: +6 = +2 CHA + 1 rank + 3 class skill
Jump: - (-3) = (-3 for armour check penalty)
Knowledge (local: Northlands): +4 = + 1 rank + 3 class skill
Knowledge (nature): +4 (+6 in Northlands) = + 1 rank + 3 class skill + 2 when in Northlands
Perception: +6 (+8 vs. Fell): +2 Wis + 1 rank + 3 class skill +2 vs. Fell
Perform: [b]+2 = +2 CHA
Ride: +0 = +3 DEX -3 AC check penalty
Perform: +2= +2 CHA
Sense Motive: +2 (+4 vs. Fell) = +2 WIS + 2 vs. Fell
Stealth: +4 (+6 vs. Fell): +3 Dex + 1 rank + 3 class skill - 3 AC check penalty + 2 Vs. Fell
Survival: +6 (+8 in Northlands; +2 more vs. Fell) = +2 WIS + 1 rank + 3 class skill +2 in Northlands + 2 vs. Fell
Swim: - (-3) = [b]+3 STR - 6 for armour check penalty)
EQUIPMENT:
Spoiler:
. Bastard sword, the personal sigil of our father, Thorgils Falon, etched on both sides of the blade, near the cross-guard; the pommel features the head of a grizzly bear (practically unrecognizable as a result of wear), carved out of obsidian. The scabbard is made of heavily worn leather, strapped across back (between my back and pack). (6 lbs.)
. Short bow and 20 arrows, fletched with crow feathers. The bow is slung over right shoulder, and the quiver is attached to the left side of my pack with leather thongs. (5 lbs.)
. daggers (2) (2 lbs.), one curved for skinning and gutting (inside pack), the other straight and narrow, intended for melee/throwing (hangs from belt in elven-made sheath, with intricate knot-work patterns).
. Backpack, badly worn, made from deer skin (2 lbs.)
. Cold weather outfit -- grizzly bear hide. (7 lbs.)
. Bedroll, lined with bear fur (5 lbs.)
. Flint and steel (-)
. Waterskin -- deer bladder (4 lbs.)
. 5 days rations -- dried and salted bear and deer meat (5 lbs.)
. Whetstone (1 lbs.)
. Belt pouch (0.5 lbs.)
. Hide armour -- grizzly bear, with hood made from the bear's head (25 lbs.)
. Sling and 10 stones (5 lbs.)
. crown of Nalford (worn around left bicep)
. wooden tafl board and finely carved, but damaged playing pieces shaped like Dorns and orcs (5 lbs.) - see http://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/VirtualExhibits/Vikings/Tafl/viking/ind ex.html
. two matching, tarnished silver wine goblets with the Falon crest
Total weight: 67.5 lbs
Light enc.: 86; Moderate: 173; Heavy: 260.
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
Spoiler:
Eyvindr is a decade older than his brother, but seems much older. During the battle of Nalford, the terror that struck his very soul aged him physically by a few more decades. As a result, his straight, shoulder length hair is salt and pepper in hue rather than the golden blonde it was prior to that fateful night when Nalford fell, and even his face has permanent creases around the eyes and forehead. Eyvindr's face seems haggard, with sickly pale grey skin that seems stretched too tight over his hard features. His chin is perpetually covered in prickly stubble that never seems to grow. His tired, sunken eyes are a steely blue-grey. The man never smiles.
Eyvindr has the typical Dornish stature, standing 6’3 in height. He is broad-shouldered, and his muscular frame seems even broader due to the bulky, mangy grizzly bear hide he wears, which serves as both cloak and armour. His boots likewise are made of bear fur, his trousers and jerkin from deer skin. He carries a bastard sword in a worn scabbard across his back, nestled there by his deerskin backpack; a short bow is slung over his right shoulder, his quiver attached on the left side of his pack. Any other items are either carried in his pack, or concealed within his hides. One of those concealed items is the Crown of Nalford, which he wears around his left bicep, out of sight.
BACKGROUND
Spoiler:
We knew they were coming, and we knew they would hit hard. Outriders told us that the great orc host had broken through the Fortress Wall and were slaughtering all before them. The Shadow in the North had unleashed its fury for the third time. We were ready... or so we tried to tell ourselves. I did my best to act brave, to make my fathers and their fathers proud. Nalford had been loyal to the elven court, and I had volunteered to be a runner between the city and our allies in the great woodland realm (it is via my role as runner that I rapidly learned the tongues of our elvish and gnomish allies). As such, when the great host approached, I was still relatively unblooded and had certainly never participated in a mass battle. I had gotten the occasional taste of smaller skirmishes and had on occasion had to fight off wild beasts, but those did little to prepare me for what was to come... but I did my best to appear confident and strong... bold and fearless... though inside, I feared I might die on sight of the enemy and shame my ancestors...
On that fateful night, I gave my younger brother Ragnar a sword, as our father had given me a blade in that same manner when he was still among us. I sent Ragnar to watch over the old and the sick and the young and the lame. He would be safe there, indoors, and he would be spared from the fighting. I told him to be brave, gave him a brotherly slap on the back, then joined my companions on the wall, to wait... I myself did not feel very brave...
We never knew what hit us... The hair rising on the back of my neck was the first sign of impending danger. Then, small fires broke out spontaneously, without cause. Then, a panic like none I had felt before gripped my heart, and that of my brothers-in-arms. Screams on the wind... an unnatural cold... shrieks that threatened to drive all who heard them mad... Black flames leaping from torches to devour flesh, pouncing from man to man, that neither snow or water could douse... They were there and they weren’t... they were everywhere... but try as I might, as the best warriors might, our blades seem to slice only at empty air... and then, we began to stab at one another in stark terror, as some maniacal laughter carried over the walls on the wind...
The terror was so great that I suddenly felt as if years passed me by in mere moments...
Fast though I may have been as a result of my training as a runner, a weariness crept in my bones and in my soul as I lashed out against folk who had until moment ago been my friends and loved ones... I fell to my best friend Ulf’s spear... and was relieved when I did... for I had driven my own sword through the heart of our Thengil... I could not bear the thought of what I had done...
The dream of death, of release, was all too brief... I heard my brother calling me back. Somehow, miraculously, he had survived. We were the only ones who had. But the battle had left little Ragnar scarred in the mind... He kept seeing things that were not... the fall of Nalford repeated itself over and over in his waking dreams. All I saw was death and ruin, every last person we knew scorched or butchered... I feared that I might need to put Ragnar out of his misery, for he claimed that he still saw folk about, battling on... And I tell you, the life of the madman is no life at all... But then, on the night of the first full moon, I saw what he saw...
The spirits of the dead slowly came into focus and took physical form once again. That whole fateful night played out again in horrible clarity. The spirits of our kinsmen attacked us, cursed us, accused us of being shadowspawn. We ran hid back in the cellar where I had first ordered Ragnar to hide and protect the weak. We held tight through the night, praying that our vengeful Thengil would not break through the barricade, and that the tortured wails of innocent children and the sounds of a battle that could not be for it had already been, would subside. And come the dawn, they did subside, and the King had become still...
During subsequent days and nights, weeks and arcs, we would seek escape from the city, but to no avail. Some sorcery made it so that the walls and streets would stretch out as far as we would walk. Why or how we had been spared in the first place was inexplicable... was it the will of our ancestors? A cruel joke played by the Shadow in the North or his legates? I no longer question this
The hungry dead stalked us... and I soon stalked them in return, with even greater skill. Ragnar continued to treat with the spirit-children, but I was glad to be blind and deaf to them... save on those nights of the full moon, where the massacre played itself out anew, and all spirits manifested in plain sight...
Fortunately, we had plenty of food and access to a well in the basement where we sheltered... but I had lost and never really regained my appetite since the night of the original onslaught... I seemed to live on sheer determination, and perhaps on the will of our ancestors... whatever had spared Ragnar and I had also given me the ability to function well without food, without sleep even...
Now, countless arcs later, with the help of a pack of wolves, Ragnar has finally guided us out of cursed Nalford... I know not where we go, and I really do not care. So long as we hold true to one another, that we stay away from the hell that once was our home, and that we keep always ahead of our enemies, then nothing else matters. It is hard to believe that, as the eldest survivor of the massacre, I am now the heir to the Crown and Throne of Nalford; I have not yet fully come to term with this outcome, and, for the time being, travel with the crown concealed as an arm band beneath my hides. Yet for all that I should be Nalford's rightful ruler now, my brother clearly is the spirit of Nalford reborn, the embodiment of the collective wisdom of its people. Though it has taken me a long time to reach this conclusion, I am certain of it now, and will protect him at all cost, as a king would protect his subjects, as a brother is meant to protect a brother. I am no longer afraid. Ragnar has acquired mystical powers that I do not understand, but I believe that he has a greater destiny, one that surely must be intertwined with my own. Now we must see what became of the rest of House Falon and the other clans in the wake of the Shadow's attack. Although the endless arcs spent fleeing from and fighting the Fell have honed my skills and inflamed my hatred of those abominations, I understand that the Fell would not exist, and that Nalford would not have fallen into ruin, were it not for the Shadow in the North. I therefore hate the Shadow and its minions with equal measure...
Yet despite the oath I have sworn to protect my brother from all harm, on occasion, I find horrific thoughts slipping into my mind--a sudden and barely controllable urge to tear Ragnar apart and feast on his flesh and blood... I have no idea where those urges come from, and promptly banish them from my mind...
[This background indicates that Eyvindr does not know what he has become, which means that he has never strayed far from Ragnar or spent significant time with other mortals since fleeing Nalford, and that he has not sustained any wounds since becoming Fell... I figured that part of the game, for me, would be about Eyvindr gradually learning the truth about himself... and perhaps struggling vs. degeneracy over time?]
