| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'm GMing a PBEM (NOT a pbp on the forums) of Carrion Crown, and Real Life has struck one of my players hard enough that they had to drop out - right before the BBEG fight of the first module.
So, I'm looking for between 1-3 new characters to join the party, to beef us up against similar player attrition. I'm not looking for any builds at the moment - just interesting character concepts. What I'm really looking for, though, are people who enjoy the roleplaying/writing aspect of time-async gaming.
The current characters are: an Unchained rogue, a brawler, and an occultist (and potentially a bone oracle, if her player's life calms down), and the party is level 3. Most Paizo sources are approved (summoners must be Unchained, and please make Ustalav area-appropriate character concepts, however you flavor whatever class you choose), and 3pp is possible (POSSIBLE) if a) it's a source I already have or is available on d20pfsrd, and b) it's approved by the group.
The party, who traveled to the town of Ravengro for the funeral of their beloved Professor Lorrimor, has been working hard to secure the town from increasing paranormal activity. As mentioned, they've been making enough headway (between sidequests) to be on the cusp of confronting the BBEG of the first module.
Our game is run from groups.io, and we have a Discord server/subgroup channel where we chat and roll dice. We have a support site with all the actual build rules (and an archive of the story so far in story form); I'll link you if the group likes your concept. :) Our posting rate is VERY reasonable, since we all have lives and jobs to worry about - in general, we expect at least one post a week, though, and to keep an eye on Discord.
Edit: I'll probably let this recruitment run for at least one week; if you see it and are interested after that, feel free to DM me. Any questions, just ask. I hope you'll come game with us!
I'm not familiar with groups.io. Is that how you handle maps?
It sounds like in-character play happens via email, dice rolls are handled on Discord (and linked to in the emails), and OOC chat is on Discord. Is that about right?
It's similar to the old Yahoo Groups, if you were on those in days of yore. Yeah, there's a Files section on the game subgroup where I upload the map every round.
Other than that we don't need to link rolls, just paste them, sounds about right.
Sent you a message with more details via PM, but would you and the group be open to consider the Moonlight Meditant? It's third party, an archetype for Soulknife.
I'll tell the group about it for consideration - in the meantime, I'll send you a PM. :)
I'm offering dwarven lorekeeper druid (reincarnated menhir savant), doomsday prophet of Ustalav.
|
I'm very interested. This is a Hedge Witch that was in a CC game that ended after the GM mysteriously disappeared. I'd update her to level 3 for your game. Posting in her alias so you have a feel of the character.
Can you give away some insights in terms of build rules and gear for a 3rd level character, please?
@Lapyd: The Moonlight Mendicant is the favorite of the group among your concepts, but the powerscaling of the mechanics has me a bit concerned. Is this concept something that might also be achieved with, say, the Legendary Shifter by Legendary Games?
@shajnal: Thanks! A bit of flavor text for the background wouldn't hurt though! ;)
@Carla: Interesting! I don't think I've ever gamed with someone using that archetype before. I'm deliberately trying to stay away from build rules, though, to avoid people putting a lot of effort into a build and then being disappointed about wasted effort if they aren't chosen. Just a general concept and some background flavor is good for now! Multiple concepts are fine, too!
Thanks GM! I haven’t tried before, but honestly the scaling of the archetype has “some” gimmicks that become moot if compared to the mobility of monks and magi, and miles behind 9-level spellcasters. Even in shapeshifting perspective, a Druid with plant shape or fey shape would be absurdly stronger :) It also loses/replaces a lot from the soulknife class itself. Anyway, please feel free to message me via pm what concerns the group, and maybe we can talk over the mechanics and plan together. I’d be happy to do so - I like the flavor and the visuals of the archetype.
@shajnal: Thanks! A bit of flavor text for the background wouldn't hurt though! ;)
More "meat" for the druid
History (Ustalav Adaptation)
A second son of a miner and a priestess of Torag, Drâth Isidar was raised in order, stone, and tradition beneath Janderhoff. Durmag, his elder brother, chose the cloth early. Drâth chose the tunnels.
He was competent underground. Careful. Methodical. But he lacked the instinct other dwarves claimed to feel in their bones—the pulse of stone, the whisper of fault lines. What he possessed instead was theory. Records. Patterns. He read about collapses before they happened. He memorized precedents.
When Durmag once cast a simple spell in a cavern chamber, Drâth felt the resonance in the walls more clearly than the words of the prayer. That tremor—divine energy answering stone—changed the course of his life. Testing followed. Training followed. He entered temple instruction, though never comfortably.
He learned ritual. He learned the old chants. He learned to let Torag’s doctrine settle into the current of natural power rather than replace it.
His early callings were… excessive. A bat large enough to fill a corridor. A swarm that blackened a shrine. A centipede the size of a mountain pony. He had power, but not proportion. Mentors advised restraint.
Over decades he walked patrols, guided miners, escorted caravans. Yet he did not fit cleanly among druids either. He preferred libraries to groves. Records to omens. City walls to deep wilderness. He spoke with trappers, caravan guards, scholars. He bridged temple and root, rune and river.
He never bonded to a companion animal. Among dwarves, this was not unusual. Stone corridors are unforgiving to large beasts. He accepted it without complaint.
A century ago, troubling patterns emerged along the eastern trade arteries. Not raids. Not politics. Something subtler. Grave sites disturbed without bodies missing. Animals refusing certain passes. Ley lines thickening beneath abandoned structures.
Diviners reported necromantic residue in places no necromancer had been found.
Drâth was assigned to a fortified pass overlooking routes that eventually wound toward lands that would one day be known to him too well: the broken counties of Ustalav.
His brother Durmag commanded the garrison.
Drâth warned them: reinforce wards. Rotate priests with patrols. Double-check burial protocols. The stone felt wrong. He could not explain it better than that.
The attack came at night.
Shadows passed through reinforced gates. Wraiths ignored barricades. The wards failed from within, not without. Channeling light and primal flame slowed the assault but did not stop it. One by one, defenders fell.
Drâth died standing.
Reinforcements arrived before dawn—paladins, engineers, rune-casters. They traced the corruption to a hidden chamber beneath the pass. Not a warlord. Not an army. A ritual site. Stone etched to amplify death.
The structure was destroyed.
Bodies were burned.
Drâth did not burn.
As the first light struck him, breath returned. The transformation had begun but had not completed. He rose with memory flooding in—not knowledge, but impressions.
Cities built atop catacombs. Empires that treated ghosts as tools. Civilizations that anchored power in burial grounds. He had seen it before. More than once.
The weight of those impressions broke something in him. His strength faded. His magic thinned. For years he functioned as little more than an apprentice in an aging body.
The priesthood and druids did not discard him. Instead, they repurposed him.
He was sent east.
Officially, as an aide to dwarven representatives in human lands. Unofficially, to watch for the patterns he alone seemed able to sense. He was stationed for a time in Caliphas, observing trade, ruins, burial practices.
He recognized the signs immediately.
Ustalav was not merely haunted. It was layered. Battlefields beneath farms. Prisons built atop fault lines of spiritual pressure. Counties where the dead outnumbered the living in quiet, cumulative ways.
He traveled constantly. Villages. Monasteries. Ruined keeps. He offered practical aid—blessings, weather control, mediation of disputes—while quietly measuring soil, stone, and silence.
Human generations passed. He aged. Became short-tempered. Withdrawn. Known.
“Old Doom.”
He did not deny it.
Dreams persisted. Fragmented images of prior collapses. Societies hollowed from within. Death turned into architecture.
He concluded one thing:
Decay is never spontaneous. It is engineered.
When word reached him of disturbances in Ravengro and the aftermath of Harrowstone, he did not hesitate.
He had seen prisons fail before.
He was too old for another cycle.
But he would stand in it anyway.
Comment on the mendicant: maybe if you just remove exceptions for enchantments (max +10 total), penalties for size (use rules for size normally), maybe some limit on temp hp etc...
Using standard rules would make the build much less over the top.
There are still DR, magical enhanced claws, size alteration...