Poor Cronchobhar


Skull & Shackles


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From the looks of other threads, Cronchobhar seems to be the single most villi-fied NPC from the Wormwood, minus the designated villains. In preparation of running my own S&S game, I did some math to be able to roll a d% for each member of the Wormwood's crew each day to determine if any of them would get punished at Bloody Hour - figured it would be weird if the PC's were only ever the ones to be punished for doing a poor job.

The results were a bit startling: Since you need to fail your daily task skill/ability checks by 5 or more to be punished, it turns out generic Rigger NPC's only have a 3% chance to receive punishment (I took the % chance of a failed roll for all jobs and found the average - all had a 0% chance of failure, except lookout had a 20% chance XD). Poor Cronchobhar is also a Rigger, and yet has the highest chance to receive punishment out of the entire NPC crew (a 25% chance!).

This guy just can't get a break! He's the most likely of the featured NPC's to find enemies in the PC's, and meanwhile, he's getting whipped every 1 in 4 days! I kind of want to make it up to him. Maybe give him a shiny new class? Bard is by no means a bad class, though. Maybe a cool archetype? I don't know yet. Has anyone ever given ol' Crunch Bar an upgrade/reskin? Preferably something that still plays to a high Cha?


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I just removed him from my game because I didn't like him. No love for Conchobhar xD


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Nooooooooo!


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No Conchobhars were hurt in my game. He was just removed harmlessly from existence.
I have to admit that, being a Drafonlance game, the decission of removing him had also a lot to do with being difficult to adapt as he didn't fit the lore of Dragonlance gnomes. What would I do? Make him another race? After considering it, I thought removing him was more simple.

If you want him to be a high Cha character, maybe a swashbuckler?


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Our drow dedicated most of the mutiny combat to slowly kill conchobar after disarming him and making him plea every round (note, this IS a drow).

No love for Conchobar.

Perhaps making him a swashbuckler would suit him.


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Definitely no love for Conchobhar xD
Did the drow suffer a lot on the ship? I mean... tropical weather, a lot of sunlight... poor guy xD
We had a human who wasn't from the region and was kinda pale. He mutated from white to red to very tanned in a short time.


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He made an effort to cover up (wide breamed hats with fluffy feathers) and took plenty penalties during the daylight. However, suffering wise, it was whoever antagonised the drow that suffered the most!

Conchobsr if left alive could always be a wonderful returning character/villain. Once he goes solo and then makes it big. Or if his luck continues as is, he runs afoul of someone and becomes a puppet that chases the pcs.


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The one who held a grudge against the PCs was Cog. When the rigging test was held, our swashbuckler was about to lose against Cog. He didn't even want to be a rigger as he hadn't been on a ship on all his life, but he couldn't stand losing, as he was very competitive. So he grabbed Cog by a foot and tossed him from the top of the mast. Nobody said nothing about it (being pirates they didn't care about playing fair). Since then Cog couldn't stand the swashbuckler or his friends.

Shadow Lodge

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This sort of thing ended up happening almost intentionally when I ran S&S:

His introduction was given through Plugg & Scourge picking on him, and all the PCs ended up feeling sorry for him. They happily helped him get Rosie's fiddle back, and they made beautiful (if lewd) music together.

They rescued him from his capture later (though they weren't able to save Sandara), and they put him in charge of shipboard entertainment. Even though one PC couldn't pronounce his name and just called him "Shorty", Conchobar Turlach "Shorty" Shortstone wasn't bothered at all.

Basically, I played him as plucky & idealistic, so he ended up coming off as pitiful rather than annoying.

As for Dragonlance, there was always the possibility of making him kender instead, though I don't know how well your PCs would have taken that.


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We had Rosie as a half kender. Making him a kender would have made sense even if I'd have to change his personality a bit.
I guess I just removed him because I didn't like him and I felt he wasn't needed on my game.


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In my S&S game, Conchobar was in the crows nest with Finbar: "The Arch Duke of Neck Punching"(Human Brawler) who found Conchobar annoying. One day he decided to take Conchobar's hat a toss it into the breeze landing in the water to never been seen again. after a short fight in the crows nest, in which Conchobar actually managed to successfully fear the Brawler out of the crows nest and down into the rigging. The rivalry then heated up and Chonchobar was sold to Ricktey Hake who eventually sold them into slavery in Bloodcove.

The group doesn't know how/why yet, but then dropped the Dominator off to get squibbed at Ricktey Squibbs and left to continue piracy. When they came back they found Squibbs burned to the foundations and their boat stolen. with a "Foppish Hat" left as a calling card.....


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My group actually kinda liked him. I used him as comic relief. He was horrible at his job, but was quick with his tongue. (Not like that, Kileana) He even made himself useful once, when the shipped was attacked while the PCs were away.


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Interesting thread,
in my game table Conchobar had a starring role as an NPC. He wasn't as important as Sandara, as she was a love interest and helpful ally, or Crimson with his characteristic accent, or the great Kroop. But yes, he was a victim.
He was in love with a girl who didn't love him back
He wasn't well suited for life in the Wormwood
He got better at doing his job but then he got captured by the grindylows and lost and arm and leg
After such traumatic event, given that my PCs rescued him and Sandara from the cave, my group's witch (who kinda acts like a cleric) had to spend some off-time hours tending to his wounds and his PTSD of sorts. PCs and NPCs retired after TWWMutiny and I guess Conchobhar would have called it quits as well, but given that I had fewer players and NPCs who were relevant, I had to assume he was compromised and felt in debt to the PCs and for that reason he'd stay.
He's currently wearing a mask and he's got way more eccentric. Living in "the Revenge's" crows nest


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Very interesting, Salvanel! And it fits perfectly with the thread's title.

In my game, Kileanna killed him before even starting the first session!


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Mwahahahahaha


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The Shifty Mongoose wrote:

This sort of thing ended up happening almost intentionally when I ran S&S:

His introduction was given through Plugg & Scourge picking on him, and all the PCs ended up feeling sorry for him. They happily helped him get Rosie's fiddle back, and they made beautiful (if lewd) music together.

They rescued him from his capture later (though they weren't able to save Sandara), and they put him in charge of shipboard entertainment. Even though one PC couldn't pronounce his name and just called him "Shorty", Conchobar Turlach "Shorty" Shortstone wasn't bothered at all.

Basically, I played him as plucky & idealistic, so he ended up coming off as pitiful rather than annoying.

As for Dragonlance, there was always the possibility of making him kender instead, though I don't know how well your PCs would have taken that.

Turning him into shark bait. I know that the creators just love to write about how 'The truly wise value kender.' but then one doesn't become a pirate due to their ability to make good life choices.


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Motives of my players' PCs to be pirates:
-I awoke in a pirate ship after getting drunk and singing on a tavern's table most of the night. It looked like a good life so I stayed.
-I was running away from a life of slavery and forced commitment. Pirates don't have to commit to anything so I learned to enjoy this life.
-I left home because I didn't want to work hard. The pirate life is the easy life (this last character was the cookmate and was so lucky that he mostly spent all his time slacking!).

No, not the most wise and deeply thought life choices.

Liberty's Edge

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My party attempted to win Conchobhar over in the first session. The vanara rogue failed the check by about 12, immediately dropping Conchobhar's attitude to hostile. From that point on, the rogue made it his job to intentionally annoy Conchobhar at every opportunity, even planting stolen goods in Conchobhar's footlocker so he was beaten by Scourge. Of course, he found out the PCs were responsible for his punishment and hated them even more.

During the mutiny (which happened before the storm that wrecked the Man's Promise), Jaundice Jape bullrushed Conchobhar over the ship's bow and the gnome bounced along the ship's hull, essentially keel-hauling himself. The eventual captain was angry with Jape for several weeks for "stealing his kill." Capt. Mez kept the foppish hat as a souvenir.


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Conchobar had the most possible love in my campaign. Not all of the characters liked him, but the players thought he was a hoot. I played him as a fop, but competent. He was eventually captured in a battle with a Chelish ship. (The party at this point was way out of the sandbox of the campaign off stealing the Sun Orchid Elixer.) They escaped, but he was left behind. They found him again while breaking someone else out of an island prison. He was playing it all out, wearing rags, used prestidigitation to grow his hair and beard long and crazy.

End of campaign spoiler:
Long story short, none of the party wanted to be the Hurricane King, and they decided what they needed was someone committed to the role. So Conchobar became and remains the Hurricane King in our Golarion.


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This is my new hope and dream for my group's S&S game.

Liberty's Edge

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tumbler wrote:

Conchobar had the most possible love in my campaign. Not all of the characters liked him, but the players thought he was a hoot. I played him as a fop, but competent. He was eventually captured in a battle with a Chelish ship. (The party at this point was way out of the sandbox of the campaign off stealing the Sun Orchid Elixer.) They escaped, but he was left behind. They found him again while breaking someone else out of an island prison. He was playing it all out, wearing rags, used prestidigitation to grow his hair and beard long and crazy.

** spoiler omitted **

That is incredible.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

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Kileanna wrote:

We had Rosie as a half kender. Making him a kender would have made sense even if I'd have to change his personality a bit.

I guess I just removed him because I didn't like him and I felt he wasn't needed on my game.

A tinker gnome?


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Of all the Irish names to pick for a character in a fantasy world, this is the one that most bugs me, because it's one of the ones where the actual Irish pronunciation is farthest from the English transliteration. (It's 'Cruh-hoor', for what that's worth. And yes, I know that makes no sense whatsoever. If I run S&S he will go by his middle name, because there seems a significantly better chance of people pronouncing Turlough right from the get go.)


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Although our band of merciless ragamuffins didn't hate Conchobar, per se, it still wound up as a "poor Conchobar" story. Because, you see, my Halfling female companion turned wannabe B$$#+ of the High Seas was really out of sorts after being press-ganged. Not only did she need a trustworthy scurve to broker information through, but she also really needed someone to schtup on the regular just to keep her nerves from fraying.

So when my Halfling Babette was unilaterally named Captain, he by default became first mate. Not First Mate, a paid position with some amount of power and influence on board, because she gave that to a capable PC; Conchobar instead always carried the honorarium of first mate.

And of course she forgot his name by the second book and either responded with a perplexed "who?" when he was brought up by other crew or called him Cinnabon or Camaroon or Conklebuns because she knew his name was something like that, but...yeah, you get the picture.

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