Not real monsters per se, but what passes for monstrous in Ustalav. Seeing as it is a primarily humand dominated nation, people in Ravengro seeing a Tiefling (with the Fiendish Heritage feat, so he can't even pose as a human) and a Half-Orc, I'm unsure how would they react. Shriek in terror and run away? Refuse to talk to them? Stone them?
Now of course, those are the extreemes, but I wan't for them to feel opressed by the society (since those races are prone to prejudice), I'm just fishing for ideas how to best represent that. :)
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Make the sign of the evil eye and spit between your fingers.
Cross the street if you see one walking toward you.
In a shop, they're always out of whatever the "monstrous" customer wants, or it just went up in price several times over even though the person before them got it for list price.
Restaurants don't let them sit in the main room--if they'll serve them at all.
Conversations stop when one passes by, with everyone who was talking staring at them until they go away.
In a bar, anything they say is interpreted as an insult or an excuse to start a fight.
If one gets killed... well, it's unfortunate that a death happened, of course, but at least it didn't happen to a real person.
And so on. As someone who's studying real historical racism this semester, pitching in on fantasy racism is not only all too easy, it's eminently disturbing to boot. =/
Depends on who sees them, and how many friends s/he has.
One person is unlikely to be confrontational, especially if it's your average commoner (as in social class, not NPC class...someone not acustom to killing violent things for a living). As the group gets bigger, so to does the bravery of those in it.
NPCs are part of the world though, and the world understands the capabilities of the PCs. Ten angry commoners (now we're talking NPC class) armed with pickforks and hoes are unlikely to do much to a reasonably leveled tiefling with a PC class...and very well may know this. Especially if said tiefling has developed any reputation for being an adventurer. Just something to keep in mind.
If you havent yet, read Prince of Wolves. There are a couple scenes where a tiefling gets mobed up on by a small village in Ustalav, but for the most part it's more of a social issue than physical one. Mechants would refuse service, inns would make them sleep in the barn if they let them stay at all. They might get talked to by the local "good 'ol boys" club about just how short their stay in town should be...things like that.
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The series (or at least the 1st AP) has a trust point system. The party starts at a 20 - I would reduce the starting score by -2 per (or more) per monstrous looking PC in the group.
In the end if the party performs heroic actions they will earn the trust of the people (trust points), it will just take longer as people work through their prejudices and accept each member as a true hero and go beyond their appearances.
Creative Director
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The series (or at least the 1st AP) has a trust point system. The party starts at a 20 - I would reduce the starting score by -2 per (or more) per monstrous looking PC in the group.
In the end if the party performs heroic actions they will earn the trust of the people (trust points), it will just take longer as people work through their prejudices and accept each member as a true hero and go beyond their appearances.
This is a GREAT solution.
Heh, well it seems my party will start with 16 Trust Points then. :D
It will be intresting to see how it plays out, since the tiefling will be of Lawful Evil alignment.
Might it not be a bad idea to keep trust score for each PC separate?
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Creative Director
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Heh, well it seems my party will start with 16 Trust Points then. :D
It will be intresting to see how it plays out, since the tiefling will be of Lawful Evil alignment.
Might it not be a bad idea to keep trust score for each PC separate?
Nope. It's a team effort, after all. If one player decides to make some sort of monster, having the other players help to "police" that character and, honestly, the PLAYER is a good thing.
In addition to Auxmaulous' -2 starting penalty, I'd increase Trust loss amounts when a monstrous PC is directly responsible. If Alice the Human Fighter starts a barfight, the Trust loss might only be two or three, whereas if Alice the Tiefling Ranger initiates a brawl, the loss would be around three or four. I might also reduce Trust gains, that a monstrous PC is directly responsible for, by 0.5.
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You could treat the tiefling character has being one trust tier below the rest of the party if he tries to act alone. So if he is with the rest of the party then he can benefit from the high trust score of the party, but if he goes the the general store by himself, they don't treat him as well.
I had a PC in Second Darkness who was a kobold. Initially he spent a lot of time in disguise, and as a bard did a lot of work to sway public opinion. Still he was often treated like a common kobold by everyone on first meeting. Once he weathered the abuse he often role played his way into their trust. As he grew in notoriety, the initial reaction from the more worldly people he met was initially less negative, and the difficulty in gaining trust much less. He still tended to go in disguise when dealing with mundane shopping.
Rule of Fear and the Carrion Crown Player's Guide go into this a bit, but half-orcs especially are likely to have a rough time in Ustalav. This is a country that has been invaded, conquered (with the Whispering Tyrant's legions), and harassed for centuries by orcs. In the same way we see cultures in the real-world harbor centuries-old hatreds with their neighbors for similar antagonism, imagine if one of those rival groups were full-on monsters like orcs are. Most of Ustalav's people have two interactions with orcs and half-orc, either as monsters in stories or as frontiersmen who have lost property, wealth, and family to raiders in the night. So, for GMs who want to play up this nuance, there's some very real orc (and to a slightly lesser extent, Kellid) prejudices going on in Ustalav. These fade slightly as you get away from the western border with Belkzen and the northern border with barbaric human lands, but they're still there.
As for Ravengro, it's a pretty quiet place and too far from the border to get raided in modern times. That said, there are probably residents who have family or who themselves used to be exposed to orc threats and likely harbor some rightfully nasty opinions. With all this going on, half-orc characters who look especially like orcs might be working with a significant social/diplomatic deficit. Those who can conceal their traits, though, probably have less trouble.
It's a tricky situation, and not really a part of any of the Carrion Crown adventures. If you're a GM who wants to add details of racial politics and prejudices to your game, Ustalavs have a lot of reasons to hate and this can take some nasty turns when dealing with less than cosmopolitan natives. You should make sure half-orc players especially know this when choosing their race. This could be a fun challenge for some players, but others might feel like they are being - literally - discriminated against. However, if you don't want to deal with this, it's not a factor in Carrion Crown and you can play the campaign perfectly without this sort of real-world nastiness coming up.
In the end, as always, it's all about the game you want to play and what you think your players will have fun with.
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One thing I've used is semi-backhanded complements from otherwise-nice NPCs towards these sort of characters. Sort of like that Professor Slughorn guy (best example I could think of). Even the nicest people have prejudices that color their thinking, even if they make an effort to not be blatantly racist.
Like, someone who's super-impressed with a Tiefling Paladin or Half-Orc Wizard, since they've obviously overcome massive deficiencies to be so good at their chosen path.
Such was the thinking applied to Black intellectuals back in the day, for example.
I can only imagine the reception a ranger who happens to be one of my custom races might receive. Imagine something akin to a lupin or the fantasy equivalent of Smokey the Bear the coming to town.
I can only imagine the reception a ranger who happens to be one of my custom races might receive. Imagine something akin to a lupin or the fantasy equivalent of Smokey the Bear the coming to town.
"It's a werewolf! Kill it before it eats our children!"
Though that would probably be a bit much. Or, of course, you could have the villagers kiss up to him in a somewhat scared way, in the hopes that he'll ask the "other werewolves" to leave them alone or the like.
Someone might ask/try to bribe the character into killing someone they have a grudge against. After all, aren't all of those 'monsters' fiendish murderers?
And of course you could always have someone make an ostentatious public show of befriending your lupin or whatever as a way to show their moral superiority to the rest of the town. Of course, should things turn sour they'll be the first ones leading the torch-wielding mob against you.
Maybe someone shows up, sneaking into the lupin's room and begging to be bitten by them. For whatever reason they want to become a werewolf. This can range from a fanboy to a would-be cannibalistic serial killer who gets very angry indeed when you refuse to 'share the blessing of the moon'.
But I figure that most people would simply not speak to the character directly, not look them in the face, and otherwise be obviously uncomfortable and ill at ease around them. It's one thing to dislike someone, another thing to get violent about it. Especially when said 'monster' is in the company of 4-5 heavily-armed strangers who look like they're ready to sack the town. It's not much different from how many a small town IRL would react to half a dozen guys showing up in full kevlar and with assault rifles, pistols, and bandoliers of grenades draped on their bodies. Especially if they were never seen in public without all that ironmongery. How would you react to that? With sneers and insults, or with fearful submission and a desire to get Very Far Away?
And in that first scene in Harrowstone, the Kaenyd ranger will use their perceptions of him to help intimidate the mob into leaving peacefully or something resembling that.
I just got an idea for a weird, especially by Ustalav standards, party that would come into play:
A wolf ranger (Archery Combat Style and maybe a Spirit ranger from the APG)
A vixen sorceress (My own Witch bloodline which I offer for free to all http://www.pathfinderdb.com/character-options/class-options/411-sorcerer-bl oodline-witch)
A cat oracle of life
A skunk alchemist
A rabbit bard (archivist archetype)
After saving Ravengro and teaching one group of humans that there are monsters they can trust they move on to defend the Beast of Leipistadt. I can only imagine what the freakshow would make of them.
I just got an idea for a weird, especially by Ustalav standards, party that would come into play:
A wolf ranger (Archery Combat Style and maybe a Spirit ranger from the APG)
A vixen sorceress (My own Witch bloodline which I offer for free to all http://www.pathfinderdb.com/character-options/class-options/411-sorcerer-bl oodline-witch)
A cat oracle of life
A skunk alchemist
A rabbit bard (archivist archetype)
After saving Ravengro and teaching one group of humans that there are monsters they can trust they move on to defend the Beast of Leipistadt. I can only imagine what the freakshow would make of them.
Pardon my asking, but are you using homebrew rules for your beast-folk characters or the Fursona PDF from Skortched Urf? I'm just curious.
I'm going to be running the Carrion Crown AP in Ravenloft (using the Sward and Sorcery Studios books and the 3.5 rules) and I'll be reducing the initial Trust Points by the character's Outcast Ratings.
We have a Half-Vistani Monk (OR 2), a Dhampyr Wizard (OR 1), a Changeling Bard (OR 1), and a Caliban Warlock (Normally OR 5, but reduced to OR 4 because of her specific caliban type).
Pardon my asking, but are you using homebrew rules for your beast-folk characters or the Fursona PDF from Skortched Urf? I'm just curious.I just got an idea for a weird, especially by Ustalav standards, party that would come into play:
A wolf ranger (Archery Combat Style and maybe a Spirit ranger from the APG)
A vixen sorceress (My own Witch bloodline which I offer for free to all http://www.pathfinderdb.com/character-options/class-options/411-sorcerer-bl oodline-witch)
A cat oracle of life
A skunk alchemist
A rabbit bard (archivist archetype)
After saving Ravengro and teaching one group of humans that there are monsters they can trust they move on to defend the Beast of Leipistadt. I can only imagine what the freakshow would make of them.
My own races, I have most of them up on the Pathfinder Database.
Not real monsters per se, but what passes for monstrous in Ustalav. Seeing as it is a primarily humand dominated nation, people in Ravengro seeing a Tiefling (with the Fiendish Heritage feat, so he can't even pose as a human) and a Half-Orc, I'm unsure how would they react. Shriek in terror and run away? Refuse to talk to them? Stone them?
Now of course, those are the extreemes, but I wan't for them to feel opressed by the society (since those races are prone to prejudice), I'm just fishing for ideas how to best represent that. :)
Commoners? The same reaction as to all adventurers, i.e., either trying to draw as little attention to themselves as possible in general, and to avoid irritating these guys in particular, simply because they are armed-to-the-teeth career killers; or informed by their reputation.
Local tough guys will be somewhat more likely to try and pick a fight with them, or try to bully them, but considering that it is DnD land, where appearances mean little before access to True Seeing, freaks and crossbreeds are everywhere and attacking them on sight for being freaks tends to be detrimental to a community's survival (in this particular case your PCs most likely are their only real hope to not be completely screwed by the endgame badguys, for example), not radically more likely.
Another option for animal characters is the Noble Wild book. Sorry to get off topic.
Pardon my asking, but are you using homebrew rules for your beast-folk characters or the Fursona PDF from Skortched Urf? I'm just curious.
That it is, and thanks for the reminder, though critters from the Noble Wild look more like actual animals AFAIK (I have yet to get the book). They might work easier than beast-folk, though; you can always say that they're pets/mounts/the druid's buddy.
Just so long as they don't go casting spells or talking in public.
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Another option for animal characters is the Noble Wild book. Sorry to get off topic.
Pardon my asking, but are you using homebrew rules for your beast-folk characters or the Fursona PDF from Skortched Urf? I'm just curious.That it is, and thanks for the reminder, though critters from the Noble Wild look more like actual animals AFAIK (I have yet to get the book). They might work easier than beast-folk, though; you can always say that they're pets/mounts/the druid's buddy.
Just so long as they don't go casting spells or talking in public.
I prefer Fursona. Anthro equine FTW. : )
I recently bought Fursona and it's a good idea, now I just need to get it as a print book so it's more accessible for where I need it. Scortched Urf does some great stuff, but I for one really would like be able to have print copy as an option.
One of the players in our group wants to play a CN goblin cleric of Calistria. I'm curious. How do you think the common folk of Ustalav would react to her?
One of the players in our group wants to play a CN goblin cleric of Calistria. I'm curious. How do you think the common folk of Ustalav would react to her?
Ask the player why they haven't been killed by crossbow shots from wary commoners yet.
"Look-- what's that coming up the road? Is that... it's a goblin in a dress? Is it preaching the beauty of love? ... It must be up to something. Shoot it."
One of the players in our group wants to play a CN goblin cleric of Calistria. I'm curious. How do you think the common folk of Ustalav would react to her?Ask the player why they haven't been killed by crossbow shots from wary commoners yet.
"Look-- what's that coming up the road? Is that... it's a goblin in a dress? Is it preaching the beauty of love? ... It must be up to something. Shoot it."
I"m expecting massive ranks in Bluff( No,No im just really ugly for a gnome!)or Diplomacy (Please Please don't kill me I'll wash your feet wax your ears, Please pretty pretty please I don't want to die! Should be fun one way or the other. Mwahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!
I suppose when my wizard was reincarnated as a kobold in kingmaker it helped alot that I traveled in the king's company. That and when people talked poorly of me well, I was a wizard of short temper.