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Brief description of Kaledun. More to come later...
Nightflier's Cemetery of Empires is set in a crumbling, sprawling, decadent, corrupt city, with history that stretches thousands of years - a city that outlived several empires which ruled it, and continues to exist in some kind of urban unlife. This is a darker place than Ptolus. Some of city's most interesting locations are: Night Market, where you can haggle with Hags and deal with the Devils; Old Court, where vampires dance to the silent music and trade in blood and dreams; Slaveport, located at the confluence of two great rivers, where barges bearing fresh slave-meat from East and West unload their cargo; Nightingale Street, where you can find any and all pleasures known to man or dragon; Old Dungeon, located beneath ruins of Constabulary, filled with corpses when the Great Plague struck the city two hundred years ago; Troll Bridge, built by Trolls at the bequest of Lord Mayor hundred years ago, and in return they got the toll rights and land to build their slums across the Grat River; Lord's Castle, overlooking the rivers, but without any lord living in it for the last 90 years...
...The city is called Kaledun, and both legends and history claim that it has arisen from it's ashes 39 times. One of the city's nicknames is "Crossroads of Worlds". That is true both literally and metaphorically. At the streets of Kaledun you can encounter an Elf from the far-away Crimson Empire, Dwarf from the fabled Orinor, devil-binder from the world of Golarion or Red Wizard from Toril. People come to Kaledun seeking all kinds of things: wealth, fame, drugs, sex, magic weapons, slaves, love potions... You can by anything and everything at one of the Kaledun's markets - if you're willing to pay the price. Empire after empire struggled to conquer the city, but all the empires which held it came to ruin in but few short centuries. Kaledun is now a free city, ruled by the Mayor and City Council...
...The large part of city's population is planetouched in some way. Half-fiends are numerous, as well as hagspawn. Half-vampires are less numerous away from the Vampire Court, but there are some, especially among halflings, who are favorite slave race for the city's upper class. Several dragons live in the city (in the human guise), so there are half-dragons as well...
...There are 5 Great Gods: Aron, the god of sky, storm, lightning, wilderness and mountaintops - his animal is wolf; Gaia, goddess of earth, fertility, women, forests, soil - her animal is bear; Sol, god of sun, justice, rulers and laws - his animal is eagle; Luna, goddess of moon, waters, dreams and magic - her animal is owl, Mitra, god of soldiers, sacrifice and mercy - his animal is bull...
...there's a prominent Hag in the community, sort of unofficial leader of Hag Market, called Baba Svetlana. She's 900 years old and rather uninterested in good or evil. She trades equally with heaven and hell and nobility often buys from her. She sells, among other things, used wishes, one night stand frog princes, slightly rotten pumpkin coaches and awakened mice bodyguards...
...There are several "subraces" of Mice: Field Mice, they are mostly fighters; White Mice, mostly wizards; Forest Mice, rangers and Church Mice, clerics - obviously. In addition to awakened mice Svetlana awoke some hamsters as well, but it turned out that hamsters for some reason prefer to become paladins. The Hag forgot about her creations one time several hundreds of years ago, so there's a numerous community of small awakened animals in the city...
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Well, Hag Market is one of five markets in the part of Kaledun called the Old City. The others are: Peasant Market, near the Sunrise Gate (which looks to the south, in fact, not east); Slave Market, near the port; Castle Market (defunct), near the Lord's Castle and Cattle Market, near the Sunset Gate (which looks to the north, obviously). If you need to buy flower, eggs or jam, you go to the Peasant Market; if you want to buy a broken dream, discarded wish, magic sword or slightly-used soul, you go to the Hag Market. Not every seller there is Hag; there are angels down on their luck, selling their feathers one by one and looking for a quick fix, dwarfs selling and buying weapons, members of Golem Syndicate looking for work... anyway, Svetlana is little above it all. She's old enough not to have to work and equally old to acquire a cynical view on both good and evil, so she drifted towards neutrality. If she's the owner of your character's contract, she would use him mostly as a messenger or a spy. These days Svetlana mostly trades in information, but she's always interested in some new magic item (or old and powerful), piece of property in the city or on some plane - and her not so secret passion is collecting (and reading) love novels.
There are other possibilities as well. Several elder fay have their stalls at the market or shops around the market square, as well as alu-fiend twins, Mayala and Nayala. These sorceresses mostly deal in poisons and potions. In fact, possibilities are endless. Depends on your ideas for your character. Svetlana is not harsh mistress or evil one, despite her ugliness and race. Some snow elf witches who sell icy apples are. There are no rules in Kaledun. One other possibility is for your mistress to be someone from the Vampire Court. That would be more dark and bloody. Mostly they deal amongst themselves in blood of the bought slaves and then sell souls of said slaves to fiends.
Okay this is Caffeineated, here's my character(it's pronounce nim vee-airn--ah-sahdd). She's a Cleric Wizard, still thinking up her background. Half-Eladrin, Half-Human thing I was discussing earlier, will flesh all that out in her background.
She'll originally be from Faerun, also part of her background I'm working of fleshing out. She worships the entirety of the Faerunic Elven Pantheon(Outlined in the Forgotten Realms Supplement, Faiths and Pantheons), though especially Corellon Larethian and Sehanine Moonbow, as I'll be pulling one domain from each of them.
Okay, this is Luff so far... I'm still leaning towards Sorcerer/Rogue, but now you've mentioned Warlock, I'm tempted by Warlock/Rogue instead.
I'm thinking that the woman that appeared in the garden to claim him could be one of the Sidhe, who then went on to trade his contract to Baba Svetlana. How does this sound to you?
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Okay, this is Luff so far... I'm still leaning towards Sorcerer/Rogue, but now you've mentioned Warlock, I'm tempted by Warlock/Rogue instead.
I'm thinking that the woman that appeared in the garden to claim him could be one of the Sidhe, who then went on to trade his contract to Baba Svetlana. How does this sound to you?
If you decide to go warlock, we'll use SmiloDan's version of the class. It's somewhere on this board.
To all players (house rules): spontaneous casters use spell points; warlocks must have a pact with a supernatural entity, much as sorcerers have bloodlines; wizards and some other arcane casters can take Ritual Caster feat and gain ability to participate in rituals and cast them (example of rituals: Extra Familiar, Improve Familiar I-IX, Obtain Familiar, Obtain Minion, Obtain Improved Familiar, Create Pact, Trade Soul...)
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This one?
Yep, that one. If you like it and want to play it, you could ask SmiloDan to post pact entities and other stuff that he has... I'm sure he'd want to see his warlock variant in play.
Oh, and for ultimate Master Blaster... warlock/sorcerer! (Just kidding. Play whatever suits your mood. This campaign is intended for libertines.)
Sehanine is my favorite elven diety, so go right ahead.
To all players: use 4d6 drop the lowest for generating stats.
Yeah she's my fave elven too, but I've never played a cleric, I have no aversion to them, but up to this point most of my well used character have been arc casters, and usually any cleric I'd make wouldn't be elf, and unlikely to be a half-elf even, so I've never had a character worship her.
I think I'm starting to get a hang on her origins, obviously more flavor will be necessary, but basic outline is this:
She ended up seeking the former Archwizard of the school, who far outshone all the other wizardly teachers, even the one that replaced him, and had retired to recently reclaimed Myth Drannor(Once again using things from Richard Baker's The Last Mythal series). Knowing she required more aid studying the arcane arts than she did with her faith, something that's more a personal journey in any case. At first he was unwilling to take her in. But she was resolute and waited at his door for many days until he took her in as an apprentice. There she completed the basics of her wizardly training.
All had gone well for her, until she read the book. It was an incredibly potent magical text, borrowed by her Master from Araevin Teshur. It had been left out in her Master's study in the open, and since she'd gone to meet him there, and he hadn't arrived, she sat down to read it, as she often did with interesting texts while waiting for him. Only a great deal of magic was bound in those pages, and once she began reading, the magic urged her on and kept her from stopping as it led her through the ritual as Araevin Teshur had years before to battle House Dlardrageth, as the ancient mages of Aryvandaar had before him to face the same house.
Her soul was led to Arvandor where she was met by a Ghaelele Eladrin. The Eladrin saw her pure heart, wanting only to sccumulate ever more knowledge, to ever improve herself, and to do right by those she met, offered her the same deal that Teshur and the mages before him had. She took it, seeing it both as a way to become more like the direct servants of her gods, and for the benefit the power would grant to her arcane studies. It is important to note that it was only the advancement of her studies, and perhaps the ability to use it for good works, that the power interested her at all, an important factor to Eladrin when it reviewed Niamh's heat to see if it considered her worthy of the gift, for she was young and had no desperate cause that she needed the power for to have any hope of success. But she was deemed worthy, and much of her soulstuff was changed and made to be more like that of what an Eladrin's Soul(And body, since theirs are one and the same) was made up of.
Upon awakening from the ritual she has not changed visibly, her physical and mental abilities have greatly benefited from the change, and there was an undeniable aura of freedom and goodness about her, or so said her mentor. Who'd come upon her halfway into the ritual but was unable to stop it without risking her health. He fully explained to her what had happened, explained that her newfound celestial power and intellect would effect the way she worked magic, only subtly, but enough to make learning by his hand more cumbersome than studying magic on her own, learning how to best use the magic on her own. He suggested that she travel the world, explore new magic, and a few days alter that's precisely what she did.
Soon after, while exploring one of the areas of Myth Drannor still in ruins and unwatched, she fell through to an ancient level of the city, long buried, after some exploration she came upon a portal, which she managed to activate, despite it's age and fraying enchantment(which was a mighty one even then, being a near unique elven artifact that could punch through the barrier to the palne of shadow and past that barrier into other cosmologies, though only for a one way trip, and it took decades to build up enough magical power for even one person to travel through, longer still with the enchantment weakening from it's great age). That's how she stumbled into Kaledun, though she found she could not return to Faerun. She has not been there long, and usually makes coin by serving as an assistant and some extent an apprentice to wizards in need of the help, or selling minor enchantments and healing.
If she ends up getting a bonus feat, I'd want it to be either collegiate wizard from the back pages complete arcana, a metamagic feat, or an item creation feat.
I'll be giving bonus feats only when the characters are fully fleshed, and those feats will probably be tied with the metagame in some manner.
that's fine, you just mentioned them, so I figured I'd suggest what it seemed liked she might get from her background to me.
NF -
Incarnate construct is from savage species. So it might not apply as it is 3rd edition I think.
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NF -
Incarnate construct is from savage species. So it might not apply as it is 3rd edition I think.
I've read the template and I think that maugs are already some kind of living construct, so I would rule that you can not apply that template to that race.
You could create a) Somewhat more powerful maug; that can be achieved by taking a npc class level or by tweaking the race and adding some modifiers. In the City of Kaledun there's an organization called Golem Syndicate and all kind of intelligent constructs are members. Or you could create b) Somewhat more powerful half-dragon, using the same methods as above. In accordance with Pathfinder races, Lizarmen are ecl +0, so we would still need to do some tweaking. Lizardmen are numerous in Kaledun bacause they have there own settlement some 200 miles down the river Gath, and they frequently swim upstream looking for work.
There are some disadvantages in choosing maug over lizard. Size is a huge factor. You would have to adventure pretty much alone, because you could not follow the rest of the group in most of the houses, sewers or things like that.
You can create two characters if you like, one independent of the rest of the players - some kind of lone wolf - and one part of the group.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, 2011 Top 32
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NF,
I'm definitely interested in Tibbit, possibly with 2 levels of aristocrat and 2 of either warrior or expert. I'm envisioning him as a known middleman, the kind of guy who goes between, a neutral party who can walk anywhere, knows to keep his eyes open and mouth shut. Possibly moonlighting as a fence. Less a thief than a useful type who can be counted on to know a person who knows a person. Think Puss in Boots, with a spy angle.
I think he'd work well in a fairy tale. Every tale has a useful fellow who knows things...
James
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NF,
I'm definitely interested in Tibbit, possibly with 2 levels of aristocrat and 2 of either warrior or expert. I'm envisioning him as a known middleman, the kind of guy who goes between, a neutral party who can walk anywhere, knows to keep his eyes open and mouth shut. Possibly moonlighting as a fence. Less a thief than a useful type who can be counted on to know a person who knows a person. Think Puss in Boots, with a spy angle.
I think he'd work well in a fairy tale. Every tale has a useful fellow who knows things...
James
Do you have Green Ronin's The Noble's Handbook from the Master Class series? if you do, you can use Noble class from that source. On the other hand, I'll require that you create some kind of aristocratic background for your character. I don't have any intelligent cats in my world except litorians, and they're on the other continent.
One other thing: the campaign may have fairy tale feeling to it, but those kind of tales are bloody as hell. And if you leave the city you may find yourself in altogether different gaming environment.
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Ah fair enough, didn't realise size would be an issue. Lizardman/half dragon it is. From what I can find in the pathfinder beta thing lizardmen have +2 strength and +2 constitution, do they still have their hold breath ability?
As for the bringing it up to +4 ecl I could either take a level of warrior or use the feral template in savage species to make a really barbaric lizardman, reasonably thoroughly out of his depth in the city.
Only thing is that you might want to tone down the feral template a bit, it looks kind overpowered for a +1 ecl.
Everything else is like it was in MM1.
When you decide on dragon type, we'll modify the half-dragon template together to give it some more punch. Ok?
Copper dragon seems good. A certain Gaulauntyr, an adult copper ended up betting a quite considerable amount of money with a bronze dragon over who could first infiltrate a simple tribe and eventually set themselves up as said tribe's God. Gaulauntyr decided to mingle with a tribe of lizardfolk living around the river which passed through the valley he lived above. Long story short, he ended up appearing as quite an attractive male and sleeping with a sizeable number of the unattached females in the village.
One of the eggs that came from his amorous adventure eventually hatched to reveal a a bizarre looking cross between dragon and lizard.
Preliminary stats for Jack Ketch, the Marquis de Carabas! Background and description to follow soon...
Hey, thinking about second character, hey for the npc classes to balance out leftover ecl can we gestalt two nps classes? that might do a better job at making up the ecl difference
Created profile for Albrecht, Half-Fiend.
No stats done yet, as I'm still contemplating class combos, but he'll probably be a Fighter/Sorcerer.
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I posted in Gamer Connection, but I'll jump in here too.
I'd love to play, possibly as a Half-Fiend Fighter/Sorcerer (Fiendish Bloodline). He's about because of a bargain between his mother (a member of a noble/wealthy house) and one of the Devils of the Night Market.
You'll have to modify character's background a bit. He must be new to the city.
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Copper dragon seems good. A certain Gaulauntyr, an adult copper ended up betting a quite considerable amount of money with a bronze dragon over who could first infiltrate a simple tribe and eventually set themselves up as said tribe's God. Gaulauntyr decided to mingle with a tribe of lizardfolk living around the river which passed through the valley he lived above. Long story short, he ended up appearing as quite an attractive male and sleeping with a sizeable number of the unattached females in the village.
One of the eggs that came from his amorous adventure eventually hatched to reveal a a bizarre looking cross between dragon and lizard.
Nice background. I'll translate my notes on Lizardfolk in Kaledun by tomorrow.
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You'll have to modify character's background a bit. He must be new to the city.
Alright. Same idea, only the deal wasn't made by a resident, but Albrecht is still the product of a deal nonetheless. He's in the city looking for his father.
I'm soo tempted to make him a Monk/Sorcerer - that'd be pretty badass in gestalt.
Thanks for letting me in, BTW.
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You'll have to modify character's background a bit. He must be new to the city.Alright. Same idea, only the deal wasn't made by a resident, but Albrecht is still the product of a deal nonetheless. He's in the city looking for his father.
I'm soo tempted to make him a Monk/Sorcerer - that'd be pretty badass in gestalt.
Thanks for letting me in, BTW.
Not sure if the monk would fit your character's background. In this campaign monks are found only in the East, in the subjugated nations of the Sultanate of Tamur. In the West, monks are cloistered clerics, specialized in different aspects of clerical life, so there are military orders, healing orders, fiend-fighting orders...
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Do they have Knights? What do you think of a Knight/Sorcerer?
Heh, Albrecht the Hell-knight.
I like it.
They do have knights, but not hell knights. I'm afraid your character would be hunted as heretic and burned to death in Hohenbaurg. In the Sultanate as well. In fact, that's one of the main reasons why Kaledun is so filled with supernatural creatures. You can be anything you like in Kaledun, provided you have the money.
To all players: a) money: max gold for your class; b) you are encouraged to use traits and disadvantages from all the sources at your disposal. There are some new traits and flaws from my own campaign:
Flaws
Powerful Enemy: There's someone in your past who wants you dead - and he will spare no effort or expense to be able to spit in your dead eyes.
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They do have knights, but not hell knights.
I was more meaning that he starts getting called Albrecht the Hell-Knight. Like a title. When/if he becomes famous anyway.
"By the gods, that's the Hell-Knight! I hear he once fought off a half-dozen ogres single-handedly! I'm sure glad he's on our side."You know, when he's a legend.
FlawsPowerful Enemy: There's someone in your past who wants you dead - and he will spare no effort or expense to be able to spit in your dead eyes.
I'm sooo taking that flaw.
Jack is nearly done. He just needs a good looking over to finish.
Here is most of my character. May have done stuff wrong, not sure.
Yep, that one. If you like it and want to play it, you could ask SmiloDan to post pact entities and other stuff that he has... I'm sure he'd want to see his warlock variant in play.
I think since the supernatural being with whom Luff has a contract is Baba Svetlana, it might be better to come up with the pact details based on her abilities... You would know better of course, but I'd imagine that since she's a Hag, the elemental resistances would be fire and cold and the DR would be cold iron or magic. Not sure about the Pact Ward though.
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I'll review your characters in the morning. Today was a long day. Just few things I'd like to mention:
Jack is a great character and very well written. Background is great and it fits the mood of the campaign. I'll look it over when it's finished, but here's what I call a Storytellers Reward: choose two bonus feats or raise one ability to 18 before you apply modifiers.
Lizarman is great as well. I haven't read it thoroughly, but here's some stuff that should be mentioned: treat barbarian as favorite class; have you considered playing a barbarian/druid combination? Shapechanging with those stats would be terrifying. Ofcourse, you create your character according to your wishes and style of play. I'm just suggesting. When I look it over, we'll upgrade it a bit. I'm thinking along the lines of breath weapon. Perhaps additional use per day or something like that. I'd like to hear your ideas.
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I think since the supernatural being with whom Luff has a contract is Baba Svetlana, it might be better to come up with the pact details based on her abilities... You would know better of course, but I'd imagine that since she's a Hag, the elemental resistances would be fire and cold and the DR would be cold iron or magic. Not sure about the Pact Ward though.Yep, that one. If you like it and want to play it, you could ask SmiloDan to post pact entities and other stuff that he has... I'm sure he'd want to see his warlock variant in play.
Svetlana is one of Legendary Characters in my world. She's unique Hag and one of the Baba Yaga's disciples. In 2nd Ed. she was druid 20/witch 20. I haven't converted her in full yet, but in addition to being a unique hag, she's druid 20/sorcerer 20. I'll think a little and get back to you. I hope you don't mind waiting a day or so? Btw, what did you finaly decided to play? Warloc/sorcerer or warlock/rogue?
No problem, there's no rush.
I decided to go Warlock/Rogue in the end, I see him being a subtle tool that Svetlana can use to keep tabs on the happenings around the city - which was the reason for choosing the See the Unseen invocation.
Apparently there is a 'Pathfindered' version of the Knight class (last seen in PHB II) which I'd like to take a look at if anyone's seen it.
Regardless, I think I'm pretty solid on the Knight/Sorcerer angle.
Although, having said that, a Knight/Fighter would be fairly badass (crap loads of feats plus kickass combat skills).
Okay, that's a tempting one. What do you guys think? Do you want a 'super-tank'?
Apparently there is a 'Pathfindered' version of the Knight class (last seen in PHB II) which I'd like to take a look at if anyone's seen it.
Regardless, I think I'm pretty solid on the Knight/Sorcerer angle.
Although, having said that, a Knight/Fighter would be fairly badass (crap loads of feats plus kickass combat skills).
Okay, that's a tempting one. What do you guys think? Do you want a 'super-tank'?
I see nothing wrong with it assuming Niamh teams up with you, between cleric and wizard there won't be a lot I can't heal, buff, de-buff, or blow up
Sounds like a dream team. A celestial super-caster, and a fiendish super-warrior.
Man, i pity whoever comes up against us!
On second thought, I think I'll raise my Dex score to 18 before my modifiers. Thanks for the bonus!
Wow. Check out these stat rolls!
STR 17, DEX 16, CON 15, INT 13, WIS 11, CHA 13
Thanks to my +2 Human bonus and my bonuses from the Half-Fiend template, I'm all kinds of crazy. My lowest stat is a 13, and my highest a 21!
EDIT: I switched my Con and Dex rolls around so I have a 19 Con and a 18 Dex. Damn that's badass.
Oh, and I've decided on the 'super-tank' idea. Fighter/Knight here I come!
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Wow. Check out these stat rolls!
STR 17, DEX 16, CON 15, INT 13, WIS 11, CHA 13
Thanks to my +2 Human bonus and my bonuses from the Half-Fiend template, I'm all kinds of crazy. My lowest stat is a 13, and my highest a 21!
EDIT: I switched my Con and Dex rolls around so I have a 19 Con and a 18 Dex. Damn that's badass.
Oh, and I've decided on the 'super-tank' idea. Fighter/Knight here I come!
Just post me a link to that PAthfinder Knight you'll be using.
I did consider Druid, also Spirit Shaman. Not sure why I chose Scout in the end, maybe because it was late at night.
I also got reminded of a class that would fit thematically pretty much perfectly if I changed Zissaren's backstory a little bit.
Dragon Shaman, it seems like a good support class what with the auras and stuff. I also liked the way it would slowly add to his draconic-ness, the increase in natural armour and eventually the addition of draconic wings. It'd be a bit odd having the two separate breath weapons and the immunity to acid would be defunct but other than that I quite like the class.
As for boosting the halfdragon I'd be fine with increasing the breath weapon in some way or possibly giving him spell resistance.
On second thought, I think I'll raise my Dex score to 18 before my modifiers. Thanks for the bonus!
Sorry to modify this again, but I changed that magic 18 to CON, to hopefully reflect the nine lives of cats..
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On second thought, I think I'll raise my Dex score to 18 before my modifiers. Thanks for the bonus!Sorry to modify this again, but I changed that magic 18 to CON, to hopefully reflect the nine lives of cats..
Change it back to Dexterity. Your character will need a little boost to be able to keep up with the rest of the group. I'll do some tweaking on my end of things, but yours will be the last word. You'll be getting some bonus feats. Devil's Own Luck and Bonded weapon for sure. Perhaps one or two more.