Masters of Golarion II Recruitment

[DM Fnord]

As a child your parents told stories of Rovagug and his world destroying minions. It kept you eating your vegetables and brushing your teeth before bed.

Over the years you grew, matured, studied. And then, you realized that you no longer feared such creatures from your childhood nightmares. Now you feared for what they could do for the people. Your family, your village, your kingdom, the world. And you could do something about it.

Sometime ago (at least a decade) you were approached by a being that offered you membership in a inter-planar group of protectors, known as the Custodians of the Membrane. Yes, it's a cheesy name, but it was there before your ancestors learned to use a wheel.

An elite force of powerful entities from the various planes who have dedicated themselves to ensuring the planes of the world remain in a state of dynamic equilibrium. Without their careful maintenance the Planes and their inhabitants would be overwhelmed and unbalance each other, merging and falling back into the chaotic nothingness from whence all of Creation sprang.

The Custodians cite their origins as shortly after the Great Beyond arose, when the (then) young gods of the cosmos discovered that there were Beings in the spaces between the planes, powerful and incomprehensible enough to drive even them mad and destroy them. In fear the gods agreed to work together, to create a singular membrane that would keep the Maelstrom at bay. At first, there was no need for custodians, but neglect and inattention took their toll, as the gods turned their minds to conflicts over what the interior of the single realm they had protected should be like. Eventually a breach occurred, and a god traveled outside it. What he encountered there would shake his very nature.

When he returned, he fashioned the Worldweavers of the titans to keep the horrors he had experienced at bay. It was they who died in droves seeking to recover the portions of the realm that had been lost, and discovering that to be futile, it was they who conceived a bold and audacious plan by which the rest of the realm might be saved.

And so the three eldest of them, the last to survive walking into the Maelstrom and whatever they encountered there, journeyed to the Membrane the gods had made, where it still remained, and pulled it inwards, twisting and pinching it until they had formed an arrangement where the incursion was contained. It was a change too drastic for the gods to ignore, as new boundaries sprung up, and powers were constricted. When at last the gods came upon the Worldweavers, they were told that if the changes were undone, so they and all they valued would also be. "Look upon the cocoon we weave." said the eldest of the Worldweavers "And know it for what it is... our tomb, woven of our own flesh and souls, to keep you safe. For it, we extract a price... that your realms will be divided, your powers forever more constrained and your influences limited. This is how it must be, if it is to be."

The gods, it is said, did not see the wisdom of this, but did see that the changes were beyond them to undo less they worked as a whole again... and each of them had made enemies they would not trust enough to work with again. The Worldweavers went into their tomb, set at the center of the newly arranged planes, and were forgotten to time with their passing. The gods decided to set up a watch upon the membranes of the planes, so that each might know of any other's attempt to unbalance and pierce them. And so the Custodians were created.

Astrarium, the city of the Custodians, carved into the dead husks of the Worldweavers that surrounds Groteus and keeps the entity therein at bay, for Groteus is said to be what was created when the Maelstrom's intrusion was cut off and isolated. This was to be your home as a Custodian. Unfortunately, Astrarium was cutoff from all. It has been several years since you have had any contact with a Custodian other than a few scattered about Golarin.

A month ago one of Rovagug's spawn decimated a large tract of Taldor, A couple of week's later a large portion of Rahadoum has become nearly inaccessible. You were called before a Convocation of herald's. Dozen's of heralds were present representing their gods, and yours. Your many years of caring for the world were noted and rewarded with an expectation of further service. Upon accepting and receiving a token of your god's favor, you were imbued with just a tiny drop of godly power and sent out to protect Golarion.

If you're still reading, then know that this is a game that has been around for a few years, through several iterations. And we are looking for a few good players. This is not your standard game invitation. Please do NOT start posting character ideas or builds. Building an appropriate epic level character for this game is more than just building the most badass uber slayer possible.

We will expect that you have considered how and why your character managed to survive and become one of the most powerful heroes of Golarion. Your back story and inclusion into the backgrounds of the current players will carry more weight than how effectively you can optimize a 25th level character.

That's right, 25th level. I'm not getting into the rules for character generation yet. Like I said before, this game requires more than just making an awesome character. It also needs a player that understands cooperative play between players and the GM's. Yes, GM's. It takes a lot of work to make an epic character. It takes many times as much effort to make an encounter that can challenge epic level players.

Your eventual character will be good. That is not negotiable, don't ask (asking about something that has not been clarified is more than welcome. Asking for an exception to something clearly stated, not so much).

Please don't dot for interest. Feel free to take the time in framing your post for interest. Several of us that have been involved with this game through several iterations since August of 2012 will be reviewing your interest.

We will be looking at your posting history on this forum, including:
How many games you have posted in, the level of those games, the types of posts you have submitted for those games, and the tone of your conversations with other players and GM's in the game, discussion, and recruitment threads.

If you have never played a game higher than 15th level, this is probably not for you. If you have only ever played hack'n'slash, this is definitely not for you. If you haven't played play-by-post/email, this is not the type of game to learn it.

For your first post we would like to see your viewpoint on how a character would successfully exist in Golarion at 15th level. With this kind of power a character is probably one of less than half a dozen in an entire country. We are not looking for how the specific character you may eventually build would have lived, but how 'a' character would fit into the world.

We would also like your post to provide some of your history with RPGs in general. Which ones are your favorites? what is the longest table top you have played in? Your longest pbp/pbem? From the viewpoint of a townsfolk, describe one of your favorite characters.

[Lessah]

Hello!

I must say, I was a minute away from just dotting for interest there : )

A 15th level character in Golarion?:

These are the men and women whom have fought, slain and survived almost every conceivable foe or situation. They would have heard and seen everything Golarion has to offer, because these people would be limited to one area. They would be the seafarer whom sailed across the ocean and back, the traveller whom trekked across Irrisen to the top of the world. The ones whom visited Heaven and Hell and came back.

They would not be unknown or anonymous.

Lords, Queens and Kings would come to air their concern, not to speak of the common man - wherever the concern is a dragon terrorizing the land or a mere ogre. Because hey - you know that guy/gal fought a deamon and tricked a sphinx, so he/she should be able to fix this - right?

This means a character of this power has three basic options:

1) Comply - This is the true altruistic hero, the one whom spends his life using his power to help whenever he can. The classic superhero if you will. He receives every request with compassion and tries his best to do all in his power to help. Most likely, he has a quite public place of residence and mostly does the main share of his work in the local geographical area - as most people would choose to 'pilgrimage' to their closes hero.

This hero will be/are a national treasure, and his/her name will be cemented in the books of history forever in his home. Sadly, this hero spends the largest part of his life helping others - and as such have precious few moments of peace. These heroes help protect civilization and maintain status quo between different countries. Every major invasion would be a cause for this hero to mobilize - something above the paygrade of most goblin hordes or army grunts.

2) Hide - This hero just wants to be left alone for a while, tired of all the people whom wants a piece of him. He fought and bled and ... Now he just wants to rest, to have a family - to do the things he *really* wanted before fate decided to push him down a different path. He changes his name and, perhaps with some help, his appearance. The hardened fighter might settle down on the frontier and build a farmstead, worrying only about if the boy two towns over is really the right one for his daughter - or the wizard in his tower in some remote land wanting to simply catch up on his research and that backlog of 200 books he have.

This hero will fade into obscurity relatively fast. Some might see them as traitors - they could have done more but instead the chose a selfish path. But most realize that they did their part and queue up outside 1) mansion instead. These heroes, with their mere existence, provides some measure of safeguard for the wilder frontiers. Every troll knows the tale of that uncle whom tried to eat that strange hermit only to end up scattered across atleast five acres and this gives them some pause in their pillaging.

3) Rise - These are the heroes whom holds ambition close to their heart. They use their standing and power to secure land, followers and more power. They establish guilds, schools, temples, companies, fortresses and even new cities/countries. They might take requests but usually only trough intermediates and from those they wish to ally. Instead they focus, on their own initiative, to further the goals of whatever drives them.

These heroes are the other sort of public character. When the peasant speak in awe of the leader of the mage's guild - they refer to this hero. They are not as folkly as 1). The hero whom resides in a temple Oracle of Deli style and only rarely responds with anything but cryptic prophecies is another example.

The above might be a bit more general then you wished for - and it certainly does not include every single case. But it should hopefully provide some insight in how I think about the issue : )

My first RPG experience came from the old Baldur's Gate series of computer games. The atmosphere and sense of wonder caught me in an instant and I played the heck out of both games (dam BG2 disc2 always get scratchy!) - even though when I started, my English was so bad I only understood half of it. From that moment D&D and Forgotten Realms especially, was something I was itching to play 'for real'. But it would take some years until that would come to pass.

In the meanwhile, I played various other RPGs with my figure wargamming group (Warhammer at first, then Warmachine with various excursions into other systems). We ran many different systems - Call of Chutulu, Mutant, EON, ect ect. Most campaigns where quite short lived - but when Dark Heresy (warhammer 40k roleplaying game) first came out, our most consistent GM gave it a shot. With just the right combination of stupidity, kludgeness and quirky characters the adventures of our team of acolytes must be my favourite all time campaign. We investigated cults, possessed ships and zombie uprisings all while trying our hardest to not piss off everything and everyone within the sector. This was the longest table top campaign which were run at a ~bi-monthly basis for around 2 years.

Around this time we also noticed the new shiny Pathfinder RPG and someone decided to give it a shot. It took a while to get everything together and the first campaign hilariously crashed and burned after only a few sessions. Turns out starting at around level 10 with a first-time gm wasn't our best plan! Another campaign started at a lower level, but time had come for me to move to another town and start at a university.

It turns out, there was a club for RPGs there too - but a hectic first year and constantly varying schedule made it a very unsatisfying experience. Instead, I turned to the wonder that is PBP here at these forums. I lurked around for a while before gathering the courage to try it out. And I liked it! One can craft posts at ones own leisure and one gets the chance to really express oneself without having to worry about time.

*Note: chronological order may wary +/- a few years

The longest PBP (still running) I've been in will turn one year old in 6 days (well, the recruitment thread :) ). My awkward tiefling magus has mostly overcome her aversion to crowds, fear of people and general skittishness. Instead she gained friend & comrades, confidence and soon the first large arc will come to an end. Fire still bothers her (since everything and everyone seems to be on fire. Why is that?!). This is probably my favourite pbp - but I'm not sure! It might be that we are closing the end of our really long chase.

Other pbps that are currently running is a mysterious E6 planehopping campaign - where we just now have started to scatch the surface of Tar'Baphons mysterious trap. And there is one Kingmaker game which I joined a bit late that has run for a decent amount of time - sadly we have had some GM troubles now for a while, but we shall endure and overcome : )

Those are the longest - but I was in another short but sweet space-faring campaign that sadly died. I really like my character from that game, Leila Redtistle, so feel free to check that one out too!

Sadly - time is running short today and I'll have to return with the description from the POV of the townsfolk a bit later. I hope this is okay.

In the meanwhile, could I ask if one can check out the previous games to get a feel for how they are running/where ran?

//Lessah