Hi everyone.
Just a warning: This post might get a bit longer. I'd still appreciate anyone who reads and helps me with this! :)
I'm starting RotRl AE next month and am gathering my players and am trying to figure out some background stories with them that will fit the campaign nicely. The thing is, my players don't have much (if any) knowledge of Golarion. So they basically give me a rough draft, some with some more details then others, and I try to expand on that, give them some more details and background and try to link it to the campaign and the world in some way.
The thing is, I have some ideas based on my players wishes, but I have a hard time to make those stories work, or at least I think I have. So I thought I'd come to you fine and creative folks, show you my ideas and see if you have any further ideas.
So, let's begin, I'll go through the ideas I have up to now for each character. For now I'll just begin with one character and add the others later.
Female Aasimar Fighter
Players input
So the player hat this idea about playing an Aasimar who once had actual wings and was a apprentice cleric. But due to some trouble after loosing her twin brother (and wasn't able to help/heal him) she lost her believes, her wings and her few clerical powers. She wants to play a fighter, but would like the option to recover her faith and maybe even get her wings back (there's that 10th level feat for Aasimars somewhere).
My ideas
I think I'd place her in Magnimar as a young cleric of Desna, maybe in the Cynosure Tower in Keystone, having her and her brother being raised by Bevaluu Zimantiu, a cleric of Desna (see Magnimar, City of Monuments). I'd like to give the PC a similar background as Nualia has, as her being harassed by people all the time, making it easier for her to fall from her faith and maybe this results in some nice "maybe Nualia was just mistreated!" roleplay at the end of BO. :)
Her brother should have gone in a quite different direction, being raised to be a Paladin. He was probably gone quite often to study somewhere else and to learn some more fighting. He probably taught his sister some fighting too at that point.
Now, this is the easy part (though I'd be happy for any ideas as to where I could tune this a bit more). Now its about killing her brother somehow, having her fall from her faith and linking her to Sandpoint somehow.
I'd really love to have her brother being killed by the Skinsaw Men. But I can't quite fit it into the background without feeling I'm changing too much. What I'd like to have:
- A way for the PC to witness the death of her brother without being able to help him and without actually seeing the murderer.
- A way to recognize at a later point that the cult they are after had something to do with his death.
- I'm not sure though why they would kill him, as he wouldn't be greedy really.
- There should be at least a few month between the murder and the beginning of the adventure.
- Maybe even have Nualia being involved somehow, as she was in town for a while and would probably either seek some help of other "mistreated Aasimars" or feeling some deep hate for others who seem to have it better then her.
- I even thought about making Nualia some sort of lost third sister who was just raised by someone else since Bevaluu couldn't take care of all three. But in that case: Why wouldn't they know of each other? Or Maybe the brother and Nualia did know each other?
- How would I kill him in a way that would the PC allow to witness it?
Ok, so, after having her brother dead without her being able to heal him she looses her faith (as in "why wouldn't Desna help her n healing her brother, who was a Paladin of her faith?") she tries to find out who is responsible. But after living on the streets for a while (she wouldn't want to live in that temple anymore) she finds it rather hard to get any answers when asking in those shady dock taverns (where else would you ask around? ;)) with her having wings and all. Also people start looking for her, some may be friendly (Bevaluu), others are not (what? A little girl angel is running loose? That sounds like fun...). So it doesn't take long for her to get into trouble. This is where I'm thought I'd send a "shining hero" to help: Jubrayl Vhiski, who is in town for some business. Ok, granted, he's not a big hero, but who would let such an opportunity pass by? So he helps her out, maybe defends her from some thugs (be they real or payed by him) and shows her around the streets, even gives her some tips how "not to die" and just plays the understanding, helpful guy. I mean, there must be some money in a loose angel. And since she doesn't look bad there might at least be some great bed storys he might be able to tell later ;). So after she starts complaining about her "godly gift", especially about her wings, over and over again, he makes her a totally "selfless" offer: He knows a guy who knows a guy who'd help her to get rid of those annoying wings. It's totally safe!
So, since he helped her before and she kind of trusts him, she agrees. So he finds someone, who actually does a quite good job, and even "gets rid" of those nasty, bloody wings. So now the PC is wingless and (without her knowledge) Jubrayl quite a few gp richer.
But the time comes (after maybe 2 or 3 weeks) where he has to leave back to Sandpoint. She still wants to find out some more about her brothers killer, so she stays in Magnimar, just a while longer. But he gives her an invitation to visit him in Sandpoint when she's got enough of the big city.
So, just before the festival she picks up on his offer and goes to Sandpoint.
- So, does this sound reasonable at all?
- I love the idea of her wings being used in the main plot somehow, just to have her find out at a later point that this was a terrible mistake. Any ideas on that?
- What about Jubrayl? I like to present him to the Player/PC as a nice guy and have her later find out who he really is and that he has his fingers in some really shady businesses. I also think of him trying to have some fun with her without it being serious. He basically just wants to use her to his advantage.
- Any ideas for Campaign traits?
As a side note, the Player quite likes it when her characters get some serious personal troubles ;)
I really hope for some great ideas and I'd love some feedback of what you think about my ideas so far.
The Skinsaw Men don't kill just greedy people. They kill people whose deaths may affect society itself in some way. So have him die by the Skinsaw Men... and have her be a block away. She sees him get his throat cut... and ran to him, tried to save him with her power... and it failed to save him. Thus she loses faith. (Don't have Nualia be involved at all in this, btw.)
I'd almost recommend giving her a level of Cleric and having her with the "ex-member" aspect. You might even give it to her gratis but have her still start with zero XPs (in other words she's a 2nd level character with a level of Cleric that she's an ex-member of, and a level of fighter).
Now, if you want to be completely evil? Have her be the twin sister of Nualia. People in Sandpoint will grow pale and believe her at first to be Nualia. And Nualia has no idea she's even around so when Nualia runs into her? Rage. She fixates on her specifically and tries to kill just her, even at the expense of being attacked by others.
This sounds interesting, i'm not sure what the people of sandpoint would make of this. Most would probably just think they're seeing ghosts... others might just think all of those angel blooded folks look alike. The more suspicious people might try to keep their distance and hide their children ;-)
Any more great ideas?
I'm not quite sure how Tsuto would react to her. Initially? When he sees her for the first time? Have him behave as if he's been poleaxed. He'll initially refuse to hit her even as he goes after the others or only tries to subdue her. If he lives through the initial encounter (even if captured)... you might have him not be willing to kill himself because here's this perfect copy of Nualia right here, who's not trying to become a demon... giving him this one chance at redemption. They'd meet up with him again after he's sent to Magnimar... as one of the Rangers who were captured by the half-Ogres in Book 3.
As for her wings... it could be her wings were a manifestation of her faith. When she lost faith, she lost her wings. And even if she ever does regain her faith, it would not be 'til she's proven herself (ie, reached a high enough level to take the appropriate Feat) before she'd get them back.
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as for an in game reason why she could not heal her brother. Cure spells only heal someone still alive. In her haste and grief she did not check and assumed Desna prevented her from saving him. She kinda did seeing as breath of life is a spell.
Maybe ask her to make an Oracle - they have good melee options. She can retrain it later if it does not fit her concept. But maybe Desna has not abandoned her and is trying to teach her, which is where she still gets her power from.
I like the ideas about Tsuto. Especially if he really lives. I might even have him show a bit of his obsession towards the Aasimar. This way, when Aldern starts his killings and writes the letters to a PC (which will very likely be the Aasimar, since she's playing the most attractive female), they might actually think it's Tsuto again! :D
About her class: I think I'll just let her be fighter as she wished, we can still figure something out later on if she decides to return to her faith.
But: What do I do about the recognition of the killer? I don't want her to find out who killed her brother at the beginning, but would like to have her find out somewhere in the second adventure. Would I just carve a Sihedron-Rune into her brother? Would the killer wear his mask and be seen by the PC? Though the mask would be easily known when asking around town, wouldn't it? Any other ideas?
No. Have the death of her brother be before the Cult started with the Sihedron Carving. But do have the killer wear the mask. And the mask may NOT be known around town. The Skinsaw Men only wear it when murdering someone and I doubt they let a lot of witnesses watch their deeds. They attacked in the street because that was the only place they could reach him.
Thanks for the ideas, they are very helpful and I'm sure to use some of them!
So, the next character:
Male human occultist (see below or d20pfsrd)
Player input:
So first of all he'd like to play an occultist. That's a 3rd party class. I don't know if it's balanced, but I like the flavor. Basically he gets do do pacts with some spirits and gains some power by doing so. The higher his level the more pacts he can make. There are some predefined spirits, but I might re-flavor some of them to better fit the campaign.
Regarding his story (keep in mind that he doesn't have much idea about the world of Golarion):
His character grew up in Riddleport with his father. His mother died when he was born. His father is a scholar and was lured to riddleport by the cyphergate, where he met his wife and married her. He had a business in riddleport, though this wasn't really defined by the player. I guess he just did scholar stuff ;). Though it was probably related to Thassilon somehow, as the player wanted to take Scholar of the Ancients as trait. The PC was born and his father introduced him into this undefined business, but that was boring. So he wanted to learn magic, but was neither a natural talent nor could his father pay for a magic school or something. His father apparently grew more and more frustrated as he caught his son trying to learn magic. One day his father left riddleport without telling the PC if he'd ever come back and left the business to his son. His life got even more boring as he accepted that he would probably never do anything else but whatever that business was. Apparently it has something to do with "translating thassilonian writings"... anyways, he kept to himself and his job, becoming more and more isolated. He was really envy of other wizards who sometimes came by to get stuff translated as they were able to cast spells. But some day (somewhere after his 31. birthday) he found something in one of those old books. It said something about old rituals and spirits which could grant a lot of power but are very dangerous. He studied that book and found some rituals and formulas. It took him some time to gather everything, but after 4 years of trying with different materials, formulas and runes he finally managed to summon a spirit. And so his first pact was made.
My ideas
Phew, that was quite a lot and I see some problems with his ideas. First of all, I have another player who announced early on that she'd like to play an expert on thassilon, which would basically be the center of her concept. So I already talked to the player of this character that we'd probably strip out the "Scholar of the Ancients" stuff somehow, which he was fine with. Also I don't see any thassilonian books existing outside of special places like the library in chapter 4. So he'd have to find his knowledge somewhere else.
Ok, I think I'd like to connect him and his father more to the cyphergate. What if his father was a member of the cypherlodge and he worked with them. Outside of that he had a quite mundane business, maybe he had a simple bookstore. Even riddleport should have some people interested in books, no? Now, I don't really know how to connect him more to thassilon without making the PC an expert on the subject. But I'd love to have the spirits be connected to thassilon somehow. Maybe this whole kind of pact magic is connected to the thassilonian school of conjuration.
As for the "my dad left me alone" stuff: Maybe his father found something out about the whole "Karzoug is coming back". Maybe one of Karzougs agents has infiltrated the cypherlodge a few years ago. There should be plenty of greedy souls in riddleport! And some members of the lodge might even be interested in seeing Karzoug to return! But the PCs father found out about it and doesn't want the Runelord to come back. he spoke up but didn't find anyone who wanted to help him. Instead they actually tried to get rid of him. So he fled town in a hurry, telling his son to watch out. Maybe this was the moment where he gave his son a tome of some of his research telling him to keep it safe. This tome then contained the knowledge needed to use the old thassilonian pact magic.
This way, I could have the father reappear later in the AP as he tries to find a way to stop Karzoug (or at least the cypherlodge). But where could I best introduce him? Also, I bet he'd want to return to riddleport some day to find out what exactly happened. Should I try to move all this to Magnimar as to give the PC a way to stop whoever was after his father without derailing from the AP? This would give him a closer connection to the other PC I mentioned before, as they kind of shared an enemy.
Any idea is appreciated! :)
Actually, being a scribe was an actual job back then. You might want him to take a couple levels of Linguistics for this. As he was in Riddleport, his dad may very well have done "other" jobs as well (forgery), which his son might not have been aware of... but it may also explain what happened to his father. (In other words, his father's disappearance may have been due to people in Riddleport... or even his being hired by someone investigating a ruin and something went wrong).
Of course, the problem with this dad just being kidnapped or killed by the "wrong" people in Riddleport doesn't really give any adventure hooks as to what happened to his father. But really, some backgrounds don't need to have closure. ;)
I like the idea of some of his infernal contacts being interested in Karzoug. I've seen one other group mentioned in which an Infernalist was trying to capture Karzoug's soul to send to Hell properly. So this could end up a longer goal of the character.
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One thing that jumps out at me is that outsider binding thing. Have him discover that Alaznist, the Runelord of Wrath, was an expert at summoning and binding. Since Sandpoint was on the border between Bakrakahn and Shalast, he surmises that he may be able to find something there. Then you can add a little something for him in the Catacombs under the Glassworks.
One thing that I would do is that I would have him actually know Orik Vancaskerkin. It may help them when they meet him in Burnt Offerings.
Well, as I read it the occultist doesn't really bind outsiders but rather spirits. So it's probably more like "great people who once lived", which would fit the thassilon theme I guess. They might be able to get some information they might have missed before by talking to those spirits.
I want to give the players who take the time to actually think about a story some connection to the overall AP as to help to motivate them. The background doesn't need to be fully resolved within the game (though it would be nice), but I'd like it to have some connection to the plot (or at least to specific locations/NPCs in the AP). I like it when the players get the feeling it all fits together somehow.
I like the idea to have some connection to Alaznist, as I have to add some places where the PC can find new spirits to call upon, this might just be the first place to do so. I have to think about the frequency.