Half and more than half of your life.  Half of the world you know, half of the world your elders tell the long tales of, half of the spirit-folk you and your small tribe live with in various degrees of uneasiness.  Half of the sacrifices your tribe makes go to appease the dark things...half of the whispered prayers and entreaties are not made to hopes and dreams, but to ward off the frightening, the unknown, the violent and unanticipated...and always these events seem to be clothed in darkness.

Darkness of the seasons and year.

Darkness of the moods and the tribal spirit.

Darkness of the mind and the lone soul...surrounded by tribal kin, but isolated still.

The great peril of our existence lies in the fact that our diet consists entirely of souls.

--customary Inuit saying


It will be a cold, cold world.

Game mechanics:

Character creation:

This will be a point-based assignment of ability scores--pg. 15-16 in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook.  We're using the high fantasy point total of 20.  Assign ability scores as you see fit.

Races:  Humans are the absolute most likely for this campaign.  This is, initially, a very primitive tribe-based social and cultural context with a very limited tech level.  Outsiders are just not a part of the starting picture.  I will allow half-orc or half-elves if folks are absolutely set on playing one of those races, but the back-story will have to be very convincing...not the suspend-your-disbelief backstory of Totmacher and Villhalas, for example.  No other races are an option.

Classes:  We're starting this campaign with a very constrained set of character class options.  You may choose one of the five NPC classes in the Pathfinder Core Rules (pg. 448-450):  adept, aristocrat, commoner, expert, or warrior.  Note that a class like aristocrat has a more specific meaning here (e.g. chief's son or daughter, etc.).  You'll note that the commoner class is very, very limited, so I'm introducing some additional rules to offset that to some degree.  It is likely that you will need to take at least two additional levels in the NPC class you've chosen before you can multi-class to a more standard Pathfinder PC class.  There will be at least one feat that will allow you to do this sooner, but it is only available to the commoner class at this time.

You receive skill points per the rules, and one feat at 1st level plus any racial bonuses.  Commoners receive one additional feat at 1st level...thus, a human commoner would start with three feats at 1st level.  The list of available feats will be more limited initially, both due to the campaign and the nature of starting NPC classes--however, there will likely be a few campaign-specific feats that are non-standard.  I will post a list of available feats.

More later...post a message if you have any questions.  I'm working up a description of the campaign environment.  Suffice it to say that you'll be starting in the far north of a different continent...one far to the east of the world you're more familiar with, where ancient primitive peoples were driven into hostile or challenging environments by ancient evil (think the fabled and benighted realms of Kra Kaan and you'd be getting warm).
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:50, Sat 23 July 2016.