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15:02, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Background Knowledge.

Posted by AkalFor group 0
Akal
GM, 1 post
Tue 1 Nov 2011
at 03:17
  • msg #1

Background Knowledge

Most stuff should be covered in the Kingmaker Player's Guide, but I'll include stuff here when necessary.
This message was last updated by the GM at 03:42, Tue 01 Nov 2011.
Akal
GM, 3 posts
Tue 1 Nov 2011
at 03:38
  • msg #2

Re: Background Knowledge

Core books:
Pathfinder Core Rulebook
Player's Guide to Kingmaker
Traits Handbook

Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting
Ultimate Magic
Ultimate Combat
Ultimate
Advanced Players' Guide


Anything else:
Ask!
Akal
GM, 4 posts
Tue 1 Nov 2011
at 03:39
  • msg #3

Re: Background Knowledge

Classes

Bard: gains Extra Music as a free bonus feat

Barbarian: gains Extra Rage as a free bonus feat


Identify

Roll 1d6 to see what you can tell about an item.  On a failed roll, can try again next level, or cast Identify and try again.

Detect Magic and Read Magic

These do not occupy slots for your cantrip spells, and are also at-will.

Initiative

Initiative is simplified: it goes enemies -> PCs -> enemies.  You and any characters or summoned creatures you control all go in the same round, in any order of turns (though unless you do delayed/readied actions each much complete a full turn before the next can act).  Your initiative for the group is based on your average initiative.
Akal
GM, 5 posts
Tue 1 Nov 2011
at 03:40
  • msg #4

Re: Background Knowledge

Character creation guidelines

    * Choose any race or class listed in the available books
    * Determine your stats by 32 Point Buy or 4d6, drop lowest, 3 sets
    * You begin at level 1 with appropriate gold for your class, as well as a staff and basic clothes.
    * You may keep any unspent money.
    * You gain two traits based on your background. One trait must be from the Player's Guide to Kingmaker, and the other can be from the Traits Handbook.
    * Bear in mind that you will definitely have opportunities to make use of non-combat skills.
Akal
GM, 6 posts
Tue 1 Nov 2011
at 03:40
Akal
GM, 16 posts
Fri 4 Nov 2011
at 05:43
  • msg #6

Re: Background Knowledge

The Stolen Lands have long resisted attempts at
colonization. Wedged between the River Kingdoms and
Brevoy, the approximately 35,000-square-mile swath
of wilderness has a long history of being regarded as
“stolen”—from and by whom depending on the point
of view. In Brevoy, the lands are considered stolen
from that nation’s southern expanse by bandits and
barbarians variously from Numeria, Iobaria, or the
River Kingdoms themselves. In the River Kingdoms,
the general impression is that Brevoy allowed the lands
to fall into the hands of monsters and worse in order to
rob the lords of the River Kingdoms of more lands to
rule. Even within the wildlands themselves, lands are
stolen and conquered in constant struggles between
bickering tribes of centaurs, kobolds, fey, trolls, bandits,
lizardfolk, boggards, barbarians, and more, all constantly
skirmishing to expand their holdings while not ceding
their own lands to the enemy.

In truth, the Stolen Lands belong to no one, and are
stolen from no one. Many have tried to claim them, but
the abandoned ruins that dot the swath of wilderness
stand as testaments to the difficulty of ruling these savage
lands. They have remained wild with a fierce tenacity, a
haven for monsters and criminals and dangerous secrets,
and as such have posed a menace to their neighboring
nations as long as anyone can remember.
Akal
GM, 27 posts
Wed 9 Nov 2011
at 23:20
  • msg #7

Re: Background Knowledge

Stolen Land Explorers

Your group is but one of four groups chartered by the
swordlords to explore and settle the Stolen Land. Here’s
what you know about the four regions in the Stolen Lands
and who Brevoy sent to explore them. If you wish to learn
more, your characters will need to ask around once the
campaign begins.

The Greenbelt: Dominated by the woodland known as
the Narlmarches and the rolling hills of the Kamelands,
this region is the one your group has been chartered
to explore. Bandits are particularly rife in this area, and
the rumors that they’ve organized under the banner of
a bandit warlord who calls himself the Stag Lord are
particularly troubling. You are to explore as much of the
northern half of the Greenbelt as you can and, if possible,
to find out more about this “Stag Lord” and remove the
bandit threat from the region. Other rumored problems
in the region include a tribe of mites, a tribe of kobolds,
mischievous fey, and numerous dangerous monsters
and wildlife.

Glenebon Uplands: The swordlords sent a relatively
experienced band of adventurers into the westernmost
reach of the Stolen Lands—an area that is supposedly
under the rule of the bandit kingdom of Pitax (although
that River Kingdom has done very little to prove its claims
over this area).

The Slough: The East Sellen River runs through the
swamps known as Hooktongue Slough. Rumor holds that
the swordlords sent actual Brevic government agents into
this swampy area.

Nomen Heights: The easternmost reaches of the Stolen
Lands contain a low mountain range and border the longruined
realm of Iobaria. The swordlords sent a band of
mercenaries into this region, rumors hold.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:21, Wed 09 Nov 2011.
Akal
GM, 28 posts
Wed 9 Nov 2011
at 23:26
  • msg #8

Re: Background Knowledge

KYONIN

Alignment: CG
Capital: Iadara (56,340)
Notable Settlements: Greengold (10,400)
Ruler: Queen Telandia Edasseril, the Viridian
Crown
Government: Monarchy
Languages: Elven
Religion: Calistria, Desna, Nethys, several
obscure elven deities

During the long centuries of
elven abandonment, many
of the elves left behind
gradually grew away from their
traditions, becoming erratic
hermits or assimilating into
the barbaric human societies as
the long-lived Forlorn. Others
delved deep beneath the earth,
seeking a refuge to wait out the
coming destruction from above,
and in the process became forever
twisted and darkened by what
they found there. Those loyalists
who remained in Kyonin kept
primarily to Iadara, their illusionshrouded
capital, and carefully
hoarded their racial lore. Locked
up behind their graceful walls,
the residents of Iadara could
only watch in frustration as their
abandoned communities were
looted by vandals and bandits,
their former homes annexed by
tribes of squatters. Artifacts and
treasures lifted from these fallow
communities flooded the markets
of Avistan, and to this day many
elves of Kyonin consider their sale a slight against elvenkind.


Yet sprawling human nations were hardly the largest threat to
beset Kyonin during the dark years of the elves’ absence.
In 2497, the great demon Cyth-V’gug, Lord of Filth and Pollution, grew
dissatisfied with the work of one of his spawn. As punishment,
the enraged demon exiled his minion Treerazer, the self-styled
Lord of Blasted Tarn, to the Material Plane, where he would stay
until such time as he could prove his worth. Suddenly finding
himself among the lush, carefully tended trees of the southern
Fierani Forest, Treerazer quickly realized that his prison could
also be his playground, and he immediately set about sucking
the life from the forest, poisoning the very earth with his fecund
filth. In his wake, the wilderness grew twisted and dark, and
men and elves feared to tread within its borders. As the demon
pressed north and encountered Iadara, however, he discovered
the true scope of its opportunity. With whispered feelers probing
the minds of the remaining elves, he learned of the Sovyrian Stone,
and set about trying to corrupt it, attempting to break its connection
to the elves’ strange refuge and use its power to bring Golarion in line with
the Abyss, opening its gates to the demonic hordes.

In far away Sovyrian, the elves felt the shift and took action. In a
great procession that took weeks to complete, the elves marched back
through the gate and into Golarion, the sun shining on their armor
and f lowing pennants. With sword and spell they descended on the
corrupted woods, cleansing the land and driving Treerazer back into a far
corner of the forest. There, however, the demon entrenched himself, and
despite their best efforts, the elves were unable to truly slay the Lord of
Blasted Tarn. Instead, they wrote off the tainted groves as lost, naming the
dark section of woods the Tanglebriar and setting guards to watch it, lest the
demon ever attempt to stray beyond the polluted vale’s borders once more.


The demon dealt with, the elves
looked around for the next threat,
expecting at any moment to be descended upon by teeming
hordes of humans. Instead, they found the land recovered from
the darkness following the Earthfall far quicker than they had
projected, with their former human adversaries now deep in
the Age of Enthronement—an era of relative civilization and
refinement. Believing these new human nations capable of
reason, the elves elected not to use the Sovyrian Stone to leave
once more, but instead proceeded forth into the world, intent
on retaking former holdings and resuming their residence
among Golarion’s green places, starting with the abandoned
communities in Kyonin. While in many places the elves met
armed resistance from humans to whom the idea of elven society
was but a half-remembered fairy tale, the suddenness of the elven
return was its greatest strength, and before the rulers of Avistan
and Garund could react, fires burned once more in forgotten
hearths, and strange new banners f lew over the crumbled
remnants of ancient cities.

Filled with pastoral beauty and picturesque landscapes,
Kyonin is the largest enclave of elves on Golarion. Although even
their own scholars are hard-pressed to say when and where the
elves first arose, all agree that the rolling fields and deep, vibrant
forests of Kyonin are where their hearts lie. For thousands of
years, the elves lived in harmony with the land, building elegant
settlements that seemingly grew from the landscape itself,
or else festooning the land with monuments and fountains,
orreries and sculptures of unknown meaning and function.
The ancient, abandoned ruins of these structures
still dot the Fireani Forest north of the Five Kings
Mountains, their scars eloquent of a time when
the elves fought tooth and nail with the humans
of Old Azlant. These conf licts came to an
abrupt end just before the Earthfall, when elves
from across the world gathered in Kyonin to
step through the gate created by the sacred
Sovyrian Stone and abandoned Golarion to the
coming cataclysm, traveling across unknown
distances to their mysterious community of
Sovyrian—the unknown country or world
from which they are whispered to have
originated. What transpired in this faroff
land is unknown to outsiders, but for
thousands of years the elves remained
missing, leaving behind only a few
stragglers and stewards to watch over
their former homes.
Kyonin is a standoffish realm, a serene
place where the elves can seek refuge from a
human-focused world paced far too quickly for
their tastes. While gnomes, being closely tied to nature
and the fey of the First World, are largely tolerated by the elves,
the few visitors from other races allowed within Kyonin’s borders
are pointed toward the human-run community of Greengold.

Government:
Kyonin is ruled by Queen Telandia Edasseril,
the current bearer of the Viridian Crown. Although her serene
beauty and calm authority cannot be questioned, there are many
within her elaborate councils and courts in Iadara who grow
dissatisfied with the current state of affairs, urging the queen
to reopen more of the ancestral holdings across Avistan and
Garund, or else pushing for a final solution to the problems of
Treerazer and their dark cousins below the surface.

Iadara: A glorious affair of wood and crystal spires, Iadara’s
buildings are built in perfect harmony with the trees and streams
of the forest. Its beauty, however, is deceptive—the walls and
structures of Kyonin’s capital are shrouded in layer upon layer
of artistic illusion, their constantly shifting edifices making
it hard to tell where the magic ends and reality begins. In ages
past, these illusions transformed the entire city into a canvas, but
of late the illusions ref lect the citizen’s isolationist tendencies,
and magical fog and vines frequently shroud the glimmering
towers. Indeed, many enemies have trouble locating the city at
all, so perfectly can it blend with the surrounding landscape.

Greengold:
While small hamlets and farming
communities lie scattered across Kyonin, it remains a nation too
small for its borders, and many ancient settlements sit uninhabited
due to its people’s slow population growth. As a result, the largest
city save Iadara is, ironically, the human-run trading town of
Greengold. Here, the elves are content to allow human traders and
politicians their own carefully governed community within elven
lands—an ongoing experiment to determine if the elves can trust
other civilized races to help rebuild their fallen empire.

ELF GATES
The exodus of an entire race is a difficult thing to organize.
In order to better facilitate the elves’ original departure, many
communities built the aiudara, magical portals those races that
came behind them vulgarly termed “elf gates.” Through these
elaborately sculpted stone arches, elves were able to step easily
between settlements on opposite sides of the globe, although
only the gate deep in Kyonin was capable of reaching fabled
Sovyrian. Powered by the same artifact, the Sovyrian Stone, these
gates represented a huge part of the elves’ power, as resources
could be called instantly from across continents.
Akal
GM, 30 posts
Wed 9 Nov 2011
at 23:42
  • msg #9

Re: Background Knowledge (Correlations to Real-world stuff)

STOLEN LANDS

The Stolen Lands in this campaign are based on 12th century Prussia. Specifically, Germany's Black Forest region is the cultural and geographic inspiration for the Stolen Lands. It was a wild, mountainous and river area that was notorious for lawlessness, sort of like Sherwood Forest in the Robin Hood tales.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Forest
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussia

Awesome sidenote: Black Forest Ham and Black Forest Cake both originated from this area!
Akal
GM, 118 posts
Wed 24 Jul 2013
at 00:29
  • msg #10

Re: Background Knowledge (Correlations to Real-world stuff)

The Prophecy of Armag the Twice-Born:
“A son of Mammoths, Tiger’s clan
“He came upon the Stolen Lands.
“By sword he smote, and rage he swore
“To subjugate all in his war.”

“But pride for pride, and blood for blood,
“With Gorum’s aid, did he succumb
“To boasting loud, with haughty eye
“That he, Armag, would never die.”

“To Gozreh and Pharasma’s eyes
“The boast was nothing but a lie.
“’How dare,’ said they, ‘Armag should cry
“’That he, mere man, should never die!’”

“The Pale One plotted from her home
“To steal him to her Yard of Bones.
“When she and Gozreh had their way,
“That time was Armag’s dying day.”

“Black dragon sent by vengeful gods
“Ripped out Armag’s heart with its claws.
“But Gorum had last laugh that day;
“Armag’s black soul was here to stay.”

“Ovinrbaane, so named the Sword
“Was crafted by the Iron Lord
“To keep the warrior’s soul interred
“Until the stars had their last word.”

“And born again, he shall return
“To widow wives, your fields to burn.
“Twice-Born, Armag, with damning cry
“Shall show the gods he’ll never die.”

“Gyronna’s chosen, without Name!
“Black Sisters wielding hatred’s flame!
“They’ll crack the Earth, and bleed the Sky:
“Armag Twice-Born shall never die!”
Akal
GM, 122 posts
Tue 29 Dec 2015
at 03:13
  • msg #11

Re: Background Knowledge (Correlations to Real-world stuff)

Zuddiger's Picnic
Zuddiger’s Picnic is a short picture book, written and published in Pitax 42 years ago.

The author and artist of this book was a talented painter named Karn Zuddiger. After from disappearing from sight for nearly a month, he abruptly returned home, and he spent the next 3 years of his life crafting the woodcut illustrations and story for Zuddiger’s Picnic.

Only a month after the book’s publication, however, Zuddiger succumbed to madness. He went on a killing spree, murdering a new victim every week and using the remains to restage scenes from his illustrations for the citizenry of Pitax to find the next morning. He was caught soon enough and swiftly executed, and the majority of his books were burned by shocked and scandalized parents. His tale remains as a lurid bedtime story told to naughty girls and boys.


Asmeranda Ilata, the diva of the Sapphire Imp performing group, owns a copy of Zuddiger's Picnic, given to her by Irovetti's wererat seneschal, Gaetane, while she was held captive in Irovetti's palace.

While the images of the book vary from copy to copy, the text always remains the same.


Book with illustrations:
http://silkenray.deviantart.co...-Silkenray-448591205

The book reads:

“All of what follows is true.”

I was having a picnic that first day of spring when a pesky crow flew down and stole my spoon.

The nasty bird flew into the trees and then through a gate, but I followed with haste.

He flew over a swirling lake, and the black swans honked at him in anger.

I chased him through a garden and tried not to disturb the locals.

Unfortunately, some of the locals were already disturbed.

It got very cold and my boat froze, so I had to chase the crow through the graveyard on foot.

But the crow had an older brother.

I was beginning to worry that I would not be able to finish my picnic after all.

Fortunately, I landed on something soft.

And also fortunately, I’m faster and craftier than a silly old troll.

But I still didn’t have my spoon.

As it turned out, neither did that nasty crow!

So I traded my sword for a spoon and a bird.

And made it back home in time for dinner.

It was the best picnic ever.
Akal
GM, 126 posts
Sun 27 Nov 2016
at 20:56
  • msg #12

Re: Background Knowledge (Correlations to Real-world stuff)

Ravings in a cell:

Do not fear these uncertain times, my friends. This is not a new age
of lost omens, but a new age of hope and freedom! We have seen the
results of prophecy too many times before, and those who believe the
future is preordained are but fated to set their own fates in stone. For yea,
those who would look to tomorrow are destined to create that tomorrow, and
those who would cast their stones to seek enlightenment from the spirits of
the future do not know that they only slave their will to destiny. Only those
who wake to each new day with eyes shrouded to their fate are truly free to
forge their own destinies. And now, in this new age of hope, we shall all
forge our own fates!
LIES LIES LIES
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