So we are about to kick off AoW next week, and we met last night to work up characters and do a little background.
With the standard, "I'm poor and need money to get out of this dump!" motivation for adventuring in the Whispering Cairn, 3 of the 7 players decided to make up characters that are siblings, including myself.
Since the standard adventure hook for the campaign is somewhat limiting compared to a more open choice in character backgrounds, has anyone else gone this way and tied the party together even more by making two or more PCs family members?
Incidently, I'll be posting a campaign journal sometime this week once we finalize some things.
So we are about to kick off AoW next week, and we met last night to work up characters and do a little background.
With the standard, "I'm poor and need money to get out of this dump!" motivation for adventuring in the Whispering Cairn, 3 of the 7 players decided to make up characters that are siblings, including myself.
Since the standard adventure hook for the campaign is somewhat limiting compared to a more open choice in character backgrounds, has anyone else gone this way and tied the party together even more by making two or more PCs family members?
Incidently, I'll be posting a campaign journal sometime this week once we finalize some things.
I'm playing the campaign one-on-one with my son, who is running a pair of twin brothers (paladin and bard) while I supply two DMPCs. A little different, but did provide a rationale for two rather different character types to cooperate closely. You're welcome to check out the campaign journal I've posted--AFTER you've passed us up, and IF your DM gives permission. (There might still be some spoilers in there for you, depending on what your DM reveals to you. We're on the 2nd adventure right now, and should be into the 3rd one by the end of next week, but will be on hiatus for a couple of months afterwards.)
Oh, and one other thing--you really should be careful in this section of the Paizo boards if you're a player in AOW. You don't want to spoil the fun for yourself and the group!
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Kind of halfway off subject, but I had two friends I was going to game with, and I was going to make them twins against their will. Then, when they chose their stats, I was going to make them do opposed attribute checks for all six stats, and whoever won each got a point to that stat stolen from the other. This was to simulate fraternal competition.
I know this sounds kinda awful, but the guys I knew would've got a kick out of it.
Oh, and one other thing--you really should be careful in this section of the Paizo boards if you're a player in AOW. You don't want to spoil the fun for yourself and the group!
Yeah, I know. None of my players read these boards as far as I know. I'm actually playing, not DM'ing this time around, and while I have read (however briefly, I wasn't planning on running AoW until our current campaign ended) AoW adventures, I'll just have to keep that knowledge seperate from my PC knowledge. I know the basic plot outline and the highlights, but not the details, like where secret doors or whatever. And I've handed over a year's worth of Dungeon to the current DM, so I won't be tempted to peek, lol
I'm a little torn about the campaign journal thing. I tend to write them anyways on my laptop or in a notebook as we play anyways, so I figured I'd post them here on the boards... I guess we'll just go on the honor system for our players, b/c it isn't like they couldn't figure out the address of the Paizo boards on their own if they wanted to "cheat".
So the eldest brother of the three is a cleric of Procan, who ran away from home as a boy and became a sailor, found religion, and then the Prodigal Son returned to Diamond Lake in his late twenties, right before the beginning of the campaign.
The second brother was disillusioned by the flight of his favorite brother, and fell into the wrong crowds in diamond lake, and became a member of one of the gangs that frequent the Feral Dog. In a job gone bad, which he won't talk about unless drunk, he was involved in a mystical explosion out near the Monastery, which granted him power over darkness, making him a warlock. Another gang member, a dwarf named Culp, was also involved in the explosion, and hasn't been seen from since. If you are a DCU fan, you might recognize this bit, as he modelled the character after Shade (and Culp) from Starman.
And that brings us to my character, the youngest of the siblings. I knew I didn't want to be a dirt farmer or a hard-rock miner for a living, and I didn't see being a gang member or running away to sea as a path to a good life either. So I started poking around in the abandoned cairns by myself, looking for anything that might of possibly been missed and that I could sell. During one such exploration, I found an alcove that looked like it had been walled up and then revealed during a recent landslide. Digging out the alcove, I found a humanoid skeleton, as well as a ring and spellbook. Studying the spellbook, I found the ability to cast minor cantrips, starting with light. Further experimentation over a few years and a failed apprenticeship with Allustan later, I am a first level wizard out to start his adventuring career in earnest. And I have a personality quirk in that I don't think I can cast magic by myself, I believe the power is really coming from the ring I found. Which is actually non-magical, but hey, I couldn't cast magic until after I found it, so the association stuck.
And apparently we might have more family members either in the militia or working in the mines.
I have, in my AoW campaign, the player with the most-developed backstory running half-elven twins. The player's stepson is a sometimes-participant in the game, which is interesting because the two half-elven characters' personalities reflect their real relationship, as one might expect.
The player, an old school 1st edition veteran, plays the Ranger/Hexblade Elladen. He's very self-confident and a natural leader, as well as the deadliest melee combatant in the party. He's rough with, but also protective of, his twin sibling.
His stepson, when he is able to game, plays the Ranger/Warlock Elrohir, the junior of the twins by a few minutes but in reality 25 years younger than his stepdad. He is quiet but not introverted, inexperienced in the game but very canny and able to surprise even the DM with a rule or an ability he'd looked up and uses at a key moment to his advantage.
The player will usually run both characters, but defers to his stepson in matters of leveling up and ability selection- and often making a quick cellphone call to congratulate or give bad news (such as when Elrohir's eye was put out by a Grimlock javelin).
As for the backstory, the twins were first presented as the semi-legitimate sons of an elven woman from Celene (WoG)and the great hero Elendir (one of the player's 1st edition PCs), a mighty human Ranger Lord, veteran of the Giant and Underdark campaigns, sometime wielder of Blackrazor, werebear, etc, etc.
Raised at the Court of Celene (Noble1 NPC class), the brothers were later sent to the Bronzewood Lodge for Ranger training by their father. They were determined to find their own way to glory, however, and did not return to Celene as planned. Due to their father Elendir's past use of (addiction to)Blackrazor and shift to CN alignment (while still suffering bouts of conscience while in wereform-talk about conflicted!), the twins manifested minor lycanthropic bloodline traits (Unearthed Arcana)as well as unusual arcane abilities (Hexblade and Warlock classes).
The best thing about this, of course, is watching the player and his stepson bond at the table as they struggle to prevent the Age of Worms!
A player in my Eberronian AoW is playing a Dvati (Dragon Compendium) rogue. Two bodies, one soul. So far, it's been great fun.
Sibblings, no but three of my players are orphans who grew up in Diamond Lake together. Made backgrounds alot easier.
Veritek - Human Warlock, left the orphanage at age 14 after the "fire" incident. Taken in by Allustan, who was intersted in his strange magic
Liam - Human Fighter, left the orphanage at age 13 and became an accolyte at the temple of Lathander. Wants to become a paladin.
Matteo - Human Rogue, was kicked out of the orphange at age 15 and went to work at the Emporium doing odd jobs. Would like nothing more than to never see Diamond Lake again.
As we started playing my players asked if they chould be the sons and daughters of the last set of characters. As the last set was a Planescape group i said "sure but your parents are missing and the last thing they did was to hide you on thins plane"
So we got a Dwarf Priest son of the Dwarf Barbarian/Fighter/Planar Champion
A H-Elf Fighter/Priest daughter of the H-Elf Fighter/Rouge/Necromancer/Spellsword and a Elven Princess
A H-Elf Rouge/Ranger/Fighter daugter of the H-Elf Sorcerer/Planar Mage (cant remember whats its called) and the same Elven Princess (inter party GF stealing)
and a H-Elf Fighter/Sorcerer son of the H-Elf Sorcerer/Planar Mage and some unnamed elf girl (most likely a servant of the other)
Other players have joined the group now but we still have the core family
As we started playing my players asked if they chould be the sons and daughters of the last set of characters. As the last set was a Planescape group i said "sure but your parents are missing and the last thing they did was to hide you on thins plane"
So we got a Dwarf Priest son of the Dwarf Barbarian/Fighter/Planar Champion
A H-Elf Fighter/Priest daughter of the H-Elf Fighter/Rouge/Necromancer/Spellsword and a Elven Princess
A H-Elf Rouge/Ranger/Fighter daugter of the H-Elf Sorcerer/Planar Mage (cant remember whats its called) and the same Elven Princess (inter party GF stealing)
and a H-Elf Fighter/Sorcerer son of the H-Elf Sorcerer/Planar Mage and some unnamed elf girl (most likely a servant of the other)
Other players have joined the group now but we still have the core family
Thats cool, I've done the inter-generational thing before when retiring characters and starting a new campaign. It gives the players an immediate sense of attacgment to their new characters.
The other nice thing is does is give a nice sense of party cohesion. In our campaign, A CN cleric of Procan, a CN Warlock and a NG Wizard don't really have much in common... but in this case, we are brothers, so blood should trump minor differences. The are doing a kinda "wiki" background for the party and forwarding an email around that everyone is contributing the "public" bits of thier character backgrounds too. And it tiurns out that most of the other players are connected to tthe party as a whole through one of the brothers. ie. Our rogue is connected to the party through the ex-gang member turned warlock, and the other wizard was another apprentice of Allustan at the same time I had my failed apprenticeship, etc.
Its a little lesss of the cliche "You all met at the bar" or "You are all called together by a patron" beginning for a 1st level party. Instead, the 3 brothers decided to try and loot tthe whispering cairn as per the adventure hook, and then went out and recruited teammates from among their other friends.
What you have done sounds really cool (especially the half-sibling bit with the Elven Princess)... but wouldn't all the offspring of a 1/2Elf & Elf union be elves, not 1/2 elves?
I just started Age of Worms with my group, and the elf scout is the youngest son of Ellival Moonmeadow (last name Graycloak in our campaign). The scout and his older brothers act as "regulators" for their father's mine and other endeavors. They stand in opposition to Neff and Smenk, using their charm and their skills to wield and uneasy truce of sorts. Though the elf scout has stepped away from his brothers on his own path (being much younger), the other six are loyal to family, and act as good allies should I choose to use them in-game. Certainly, if the PCs choose to confront Smenk or Dourstone with formal charges, the brothers will act as fair and perilous sentinals. I might also use them when the group travels to Blackwall Keep.
Kind of halfway off subject, but I had two friends I was going to game with, and I was going to make them twins against their will. Then, when they chose their stats, I was going to make them do opposed attribute checks for all six stats, and whoever won each got a point to that stat stolen from the other. This was to simulate fraternal competition.
I know this sounds kinda awful, but the guys I knew would've got a kick out of it.
I can't think of anyone who would want to do that. That's just a bad way to start a campaign. With railroading.
What you have done sounds really cool (especially the half-sibling bit with the Elven Princess)... but wouldn't all the offspring of a 1/2Elf & Elf union be elves, not 1/2 elves?
This is how we do it (Think we adopted it from someware)
Human + Elf = H-Elf
Human + H-Elf = Human
Elf + H-Elf = H-Elf
Once you go mixing you cant get a clean elf again but you can get a clean human as humans have "stronger" genes or something explaines why there isint a 1/6 Elf 1/6 Orc 1/6 Dragon 1/6 Fiend 1/6 Ogre 1/6 Human tribe running around killing and maiming all they see...
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Yes I have the most screwed up pair ever. One is a human sorceress worshiper of wee Jas. And her half-brother (A product of their mother being raped by a vasharan human) A cleric of Nerull. One is Lawful Neutral, the other is Neutral Evil. So the pair are really creepy one is a goth chick who only travels to see how they all die or her enemies die. And the other takes unfettered joy in death and especially gruesome unusual deaths. So we are having lots of fun.