I do like evil campaigns, so long as you are't talking evil for the Lulz, or boring Morderhobos. I feel that they are ripe for RP that isn't normally done, espically if you have villains who believe they have the best interest of society as a whole at heart
This character was in an evil game where he was in an assisian's guild which he was using as a stepping stone for building a utopia where no one had to do much if any work that they didn't want to do, with all jobs like farming, construction, and to a lesser extent warfare done by constructs and undead.
that being said he did a lot of evil things like expiramenting on living creatures to improve them, (including himself, he was rather crazy) most were not willing. he also killed anyone who even unconvinced his plans. (Not to mention the previously mentioned assisian's guild thing)
Very fun.
Religious themed games like Wrath of the Righteous as mentioned, have to be done tactfully and carefully, and require more effort than most so I'm generally not fond of them. There are exceptions but I do not reccomend them do this group.
That being said, if you don't like that I'm perfectly fine with not playing them. There are lots of different kinds of games.
I use heal for torturing people (technically knowledge nature) and I'm really quite good at it,
I also have or will have most of the crafting feats I already have brew potion and craft wondrous, next level comes craft arms and armor, two levels after that comes craft construct and that's when I reaaaaly get to have some fun.
My construct has darkvision and I will have it soon
As for leveling, we've already leveled once, so probably pretty fast
And Virgil plans to get as stein as possible, stronger than possible if that's possible, he's a visionary after all
Cool, be sure to put in a story reason why he feels they need to be opposed in the first place.
It doesn't have to be complicated it just has to exist
And just in case you haven't read the gameplay, here's our curent job
Agents, well done on your first task. Others for the time being are moving in the shadows as we do to address the situation. As for you, Joran has been made aware of your promotion to Agent. Congratulations. It is a little bit quicker than normal, but you've all proven yourselves quite competent, well, those of you that remain anyway.
Your next task is an infiltration. You must go to the Academy and enter the 6th floor of the complex, two levels above what students are normally allowed, there will be sporadic faculty and I would hope that casualties could be kept to a minimum as I don't wish to draw unwanted attention to your activities right now. On the 6th floor the Grandmaster of the Academy and the Leader of the Mage's Collective is quartered. He is a powerful spellcaster, possibly above the likes of you. He is away however for several days and during that time, I would like you to liberate several documents and any magical artifacts you find in his personal safe.
We are assassins by occupation for now, but we also do a little bit of other things requiring discretion and a lack of morals and cost lots of money
On the other hand, we're villains, we have plans of our own
Virgil plans to build utopia, constructs providing labor and supplementing the keeping of the peace, allowing most everyone to devote their time primarily doing what they want to do instead of what they must do to survive
He foresees a massive increase in scholars, artists, engineers, alchemistand spellcasters
The problem is that first the easiest rout to getting this would involve going to war with Numeria.
As to what I can do
I can heal and I have sneak attack, mutagen, and a robot flanking partner/additional fighter for melee
I can bypass and disable traps
I also do a decent job as a skill monkey
The limited spells can be worked around with a second casting class, but even still that's a good point,
Telapath/wizard's pretty clasic,
So is sorcerer/oracle
Whenever you have more details, stuff like gender, personality, mystery/bloodline/specialty school/archetypes, race, future build plans etc be sure to post!
@Rynjin: Magus has an awesome (but hard to pronounce or spell) archer archtype called myramadirch
And if you want psionics and ranged, there is the marksman class,
A lot of psionic classes would go decently with magus, ageis, psion, soulknife, marksman,
Lots of options there mechanically, just need a good flavor
@areth: I've found it's generally best to stick to one primary mental stat, (say an alchemist /wizard or an oracle/sorcerer if you want a good necromancer)
But whatever you feel you'll have fun with is the important part
The curent machinesmith is from the region of numeria,
I said primary caster because it's something we don't have
We don't need it persay, but it's generally agreed that having one is a good idea
A caster could also help as a sort of inside man on our current job involving the infiltration of a mage's guild
I was asking for some casting because so far we have hitting things, and drinking potions as what both of our current party members do
We have no black Mage to "cast the spells that make the people fall down!"
No giggling pyromaniacs
No wannabe dark gods or even worshipers of eldritch horrors
No wizards questing for knowledge that man was not meant to know
No necromancer or even necrophiliacs
No seductive enchantress/illusionists
No self centered master of the mind
I'm a machinesmith/alchemist (vivisectionist)
I'm one of the original characters
I am a mad scientist
I take care of traps and am good at melee, and can heal decently well with either my repair flesh ability or with potions
We also have a slayer/investigator still on the team
"well then, the institution lies before us, does anyone have any plans? he pauses to see if anyone speaks up, if no one speaks up he offers "I could distract the guards by pretending I wanted to study here, while the rest of you sneak around their defences heck we all could pretend to be prospective students, of course that'd be a subtlety different strategy"
The big thing I got this level was using my craft (clockwork) bonus for perception and disable device
5th is when I start getting the really good stuff
Virgil sells everything but a horse and saddle for him and each of his team mates, the potions of invisibility, the drow poison and one of the noble's outfit
-----
When inbetween jobs he can be found at his blacksmithing shop, working on various orders or on little tweaks to his creation, or at the local library, reading a variety of books, the vast majority being not fiction or historical.
---
He shrugs "so long as I have Dryden I'm good...the academy eh? I've always wanted to visit... This should be fun know (local):1d20 + 5 ⇒ (3) + 5 = 8 know (arcana):1d20 + 10 ⇒ (13) + 10 = 23
Virgil sits with a book in one hand with a hunk of cheese in the other, a hulking automaton at his back, he glances up as you enter, "it's about time you got here, where's the rest?
Virgil feeds the potions to his robot and heads out and straps the equipment to the horses and heads back to their sanctuary
dryden can now cast invisibility as a spell like ability, woo
HA!
Oh my, that reminds me of my face to face game last Saturday
I found a robe of useful items (cost me about 100gp)
Inside were no fewer than 5 light war trained horses, there was also one heavy war trained horses, 5 rowboats, 4 ladders and well over a thousand gold pieces of precious gems and silver
It is better to fail at something glorious than to succeed at something mediocre
Though I will point out that it's more important than an empire he's building, it's a utopia
He nods and looks over the accumulated wealth he had gained and takes an inventory of it "feel free to check which of your men are still alive, and be sure to see that they don't try anything stupid, it would be a shame if I were to have to kill them after they were fortunate to survive the first bit
I know, but the whole gaining draconic abilities and such just resembles too much of the bond between us getting closer and closer, doesn't really fit his character, and I like the abilities from the slayer and inquisitor more.
I was planning on either the leadership feat, or just RPing enslaving a dragon and just have control of an NPC, much like hiring a bodyguard or keeping a slave around you.
As for the legion, yes i would get leadership for that.
flavor it as you stealing their power, which is why the dragon(s) you are bonded to are so much weaker than a normal dragon of that size
Flavor it as a sort of slavery, you mind rape them into servitude, then you steal their power
Think of eragon, the antagonist's bond to his dragon specifically.
Also I think that mythic eldritch heritage would be cool for the whole party
Rileng Sulfach wrote:
@Virgil
Personally I think Nex would be the one to worry about. Geb is more of the reactionary type, at least Geb himself is. Just attempting to take over Numeria, which personally I don't think is going to be quick or easy in the least, is going to draw attention from a lot of world powers. Should you do it, again I don't put it pass the league to nuke themselves and the whole place before falling to someone, then not only will you get a lot of attention. But your going to be targeted by rivals for your magic/technology or merely as a threat. Nex has been the magic capital for ages, dangle that kind of magic/technology and their going for it. You already have an excuse for them to justify it by taking over a nation....
Just to be clear, step one and two he projects to take somewhere from 30-80 years
Step three (taking over numeria) he projects to take another 10-20 years, and that's if nex doesn't interfere,
That being said, he isn't genre Savvy about how fast protagonists level up, and he hasn't fully factored you guys into his projections so his projections will likely be off in numerous ways in both directions
Not to rain on your parade, but I hope your PC finds out it's not going to be that easy, quick. Or you may want to have a back up PC in mind, I know I do and my guy is cautious. Prime examples of his vision not working out, Geb and Nex, likely to be the first to knock him down as well.
Oh definitly yes, but we're taking about the timescale of someone who believes he will become imortall
Question: do you figure they would attack before or after the conquest of numeria and why?
Rileng Sulfach wrote:
P.S. Rileng will make a few homunculus when he feels the time is right, they will not be regular models I promise. >:)
Ooh, interesting, like Dryden, or are we talking more human like, sorta a fusion of juju zombie, flesh golem and homuculous
Also the plural of homuculous is homuculi
_Pain wrote:
As of right now, Pain's only goal is to slay the dragon that has haunted his childhood. As a player though, I see him eventually coming into power of a legion of dragons and/or wyverns. Perhaps even leading an army of Dragonriders.
If that isn't too far-fetched that is.
There is a 3rd party dragon rider class, which in a regular game is rather balanced for crunch is potentially unbalanced for story purposes,
In a gestalt game it's a bit more powerful as it has all good saves, d12 HD and full BAB, and in gestalt you take the best of both,
Hmm I'm not actually sure, for the moment he is content to be here, safe from the police that want him back home,
He dreams of a world where everyone important is effectvely immortal through becoming a cyborg, and even the proletariat masses don't have to do menial labor because robots and/or summons and/or undead do it for them, leving them more able to devote their time to other tasks, ones like learning how to cast spells, or at least how to repair constructs,
He doesn't think the full realization will happen anytime soon, but he figures personal imortality is within reach, within 5 years certianly, probably sooner with access to the resources available to the guild he just joined, after that he figures it's just a matter of time,
Notes on the subject of his vision of a perfect country
You could replace fifty farmers with ten constructs and a spellcaster or engineer
Each of these workers would be able to fight back in the event of invasion by a foreign power, and only the manager would have to sleep and eat and age , and even that's optional
Those farmers and slaves can then be redistributed to be added to the army or be taught to be engineers and wizards if they have any aptitude for either
Within a generation you have an extreamly fortified and highly magical nation, with a large army
The next step includes invading and conquering Numeria,
After that, the world.
After that.... Any were else you want as dictated by your whims.
Along the way, might as well take the test of the starstone
This plan will work for keeping him occupied for at least a century he figures.
Tldr: takeing the skyrim route to go from assasian guild to government would be cool. Virgil wants to build utopia
He would also like to be able to satisfy any scientific curousoty he wants
i believe I said arm, but whatever, thigh works too,"see now was that so hard, I do so appriciate your cooperation, which means, good news! You and those of your men here who are not already dead, you get to live! All you have to do is answer a few more questions, allow me to take your remaining gold, magic items and weapons with me and never associate with chilexians ever again in any manor that isn't shooting them, you might want to give up the pirating too, just to be on the safe side, but that part's optional, it's just that when you steel from someone, they're liable to be upset and hire someone like me to stop you from doing that again, oh, and if you go back to being pirates, you might need a new boat, but hey, you and most of your men here get to live and not in agony! How's that sound, just remember I hate liars, so if you lie I'll hunt down everyone deer to you, and kill them as a warning to anyone else who would try"
if he objects to my terms:
"tut tut, It sounds like you need another lesson in manors"move on to spoiler #2
if he doesn't answer:
he calmly pulls out a small bag with several metal needles "these are something I picked up in my travels to the islands of Tien, they're known as senbon needles, the locals use them for acupuncture, which is kind of like a high intensity, high precision massage, by sticking the needles in juuuust the right spot I can do all kinds of things, I could relieve tension, I could induce partial paralysis, I could improve blood flow, or I could induce an enormous amount of pain, I mentioned putting one through your sinus cavity earlier, that one's simply unbearable, most people black out from the sheer pain, imagine the most intense ice cream headache of your life, add into that the feeling of a massive head cold, now mix that together with the feeling of being stabbed in the face with a dagger made of fire, except worse, because with fire you eventually stop feeling it, that's because it kills the part of you that can feel the pain, this wouldn't ever end, until you simply shut down from the pain, that's when I take it out, wake you up, and start again... Now then, who's ready to tell me what I want to know...
if/when they accept my terms:
He claps his hand in glee "good good for that, you can have the knife removed, first question, what was the purpose of this meeting" as he spells he takes out some rope and ties it tightly above where the cut is and removes the knife, he then quickly applies a bandage before removing the rope
"why yes, the dark ones have been issued a contract for your deaths, it seems you've been naughty, attacking merchant ships, tsk tsk, not very nice, now then, where is your ship, answer that question and I'll be merciful, I'll slit your throat and you'll be dead in seconds... Try to keep the information from me and this could take hours
He pulls our a few small and extremely sharp knives, a shaker of salt and some medical tape masterwork tools for heal checks made to torture someone
if he resists:
torture:1d20 + 12 ⇒ (20) + 12 = 32ha! Natural twenty I almost hope he resists at the first sign of resistance he immediately jabs one of his blades into the fleshy part of his arm "tut tut, that's not the right answer, I think next I'll pry out your finger and toe nails, maybe after that I'll remove one of your eyes as a souvenir, perhaps then I could remove each of your hairs, place a needle through your sinus cavity or simply chop off your balls, I can make you live through a world of hurt, and as a gentle reminder, I'm a medical professional, I can make you live through it, long after you beg for death... So I ask again.... Where is your ship...
Virgil uses his medical expertise to save all of the nobles that are still alive given that they were each taking two bleed a round some may have died when each one wakes up he instructs them to sit on their hands, until he leaves, he then goes to wake up the leader of the pirates, and slaps him in the face to wake him up, "wake-y wake-y mon capitan, I have a few questions to ask of you, I can be nice in asking them or I could be terribly rude, and the best part is that it's all up to you which one I use tonight, are you going to tell me what I need to know, or am I going to make you make the most beautiful of screams, if you'd like you could ask the gentry over there how their deal went, when they cooperated they didn't die, and I even helped revive those I could of their fellows foolish enough to cross me
"there, was that so hard? he then goes to one of the downed noblemen and removed all their weapons, and money before healing him with a touch"you can expidite the process by disarming your fellows, it should give them a better shot at survival, remember, remove all weapons magic items and money, place them in a pile here repair:2d6 ⇒ (4, 6) = 10 7 repairs left for the day
