Hi everyone!

I actually reworked the character a lot. No longer barbarian, now ranger. No longer interested in arm wrestling, now interested in exploring and making a fortune doing so. He's the son of NPC Hedra Rowe, inherited her love for adventuring (and wealth), and like many of the other PCs, yearning to make his mark on the world. Still working out the details, but he's an aspiring merchant-explorer, speaks several languages and is always looking for a new way of making some coin.

Ilyana, will you be a stabby rogue or an archer rogue? Still figuring out Arren's fighting style and it could help narrow things down!

Hi everyone,

I'm playing the same character: Cinni is a self-thought wizard farm girl. Most of her life has been spent either doing chores, or with her nose in a book (often at the same time).

Her personal short term goal would be to find out if there is any local lore, secrets, excitement and adventure to be found in the area (without too much danger involved).

Her personal long term goal is to see the world, which she has only read about in books. To explore ancient mysteries. To visit grand cities. To learn mighty arcane magic.

Definitely a stabby rogue, who's planning to become a Swashbuckler later.

Those are some great questions Ilyana. I'll try and post some good answers today as time allows.

For the non-detailed version of the answers. The Baron isn't well known at all. He personally visited once about five years ago during a harvast festival. He made a speech about how proud he was to have such good and wholesome people living in his realm and praised the quality of the village's fish as well as the quality of the wares provided by the Duval family. There was a feast that night that some would have been welcomed to, as well as a dance, then he and his entourage of landless knights and Men at Arms rode on in the morning on some unknown mission.

Mostly the Baron is just someone to whom you know that you owe taxes or hear stories about. I'll set up a proper description for him with rumors and such later today.

The season is late Fall. I'm thinking that it would be fun to start the game during this year's Harvest's Close Festival. Winter in indeed coming, and early in this northern climate, but the heavy snows are still weeks, or even a month, away.

I'd like to offer a few connections to the other characters as well:

Andrea Duval: Arren shares her desire to leave the village and go off on their own, and has long filled her head with stories and facts about far off places she could one day visit, or has even offered to leave with her when she decides to leave. He would also be happy to go with her on her hunting and foraging trips, though he would be more interested crawling into a cave or looking for old ruins than hunting for critters. He might even be the bad influence telling her to shirk her duties and go on an "adventure". Whether she takes him up on that or not is up to her.

Cinni: Arren shares her inquisitive mind and thirst for knowledge, but prefers to experience things over reading about them. Still, he would pepper her with questions about nature, geography, history and a dozen other subjects (which he would then pass off as his own knowledge). In return, he always lets her know if his mother receives anything that could be of interest to her (an old book or scroll), help her translate texts or share in any juicy rumors that might interest her.

Ilyana: Probably a tavern buddy, swapping scandalous rumors, bawdy songs and tales, and up to mischief and shenanigans around the village. They might have a friendly competition in the dexterous arts: fencing, archery, climbing, pickpocketing things off each other. He's probably a little jealous of her wealth, and always tries to get invited to the Warrick estate to gawk at all the expensive stuff they have (and she might want to check his pockets on the way out).
This message was last edited by the player at 20:13, Sun 28 Mar 2021.

Sounds good! Ilyana is probably a bit put off by Arren's fixation on money, but otherwise they sound like they have a lot in common. And I like the idea of them having pickpocketing competitions. :-) Having them train with swords together (and try to outdo each other) makes sense as well since they use the same weapons.

She doesn't really understand why he'd want to visit the stuffy old keep, but if it's important to him, sure, she'll smuggle him in and show him around.

About our ties to the Baron, should they be direct connections to him, or would a connection to, say, one of his knights work as well?

That is a good question Ilyana. I have been giving it some thought and I can honestly work with either option. Sir Aektor is one of the Baron's more trusted knights, but if you want to have a connection with another knight as well I'm open to it. The Baron himself hasn't been to the village very often, as I stated, but if you want to have a more tangable connection to him, or one of his children, I'm good with that. Just let me know what sounds fun to you and I'll do my best to work it in.

I've gone ahead and posted the start of the game. I still have some details to post in other areas, but I doubt that they will overly influence what people do during the first part of the game.  I've taken a look at everyone's character sheets and thus far everything looks good! So, we are ready to start!

Please feel free to place your characters anywhere within the village square that sounds interesting to you!

I just realized I'd been so wrapped up in character/lore stuff via PM-with-the-DM that I hadn't posted here in the OOC at all!  Sorry everyone.  ^^;

Andrea Goals
Short Term: Explore local rumors, win top placement in the next major festival/sporting competition, travel to a neighboring major city as part of a merchant caravan, finish her tutelage in runic/Giant language.

In the short term, Andrea's goals are pretty centralized on town and her own personal achievements.  Nothing major there, really.  She wants to hitch her proverbial wagon as security/scouting for one of the various merchants who wander through Settenhowe on their way to other trade hubs in the area, but that would just be more of a temporary job that she'd immediately return from with tales from the "big city" rather than a permanent escape from her hometown.

Finishing her training in runic/Giant language is sort of a cop-out since it's an inevitability.  ^^;  She gets that automatically at Level 3, but it's still something she's been working on as part of her backstory all the same.

Long Term: Explore the realm, get some adventures under her belt, meet a Giant, own a horse, find a legacy item/have one crafted, build a good reputation, get married.

To summarize, Andrea's long-term goals basically revolve around gaining independence, having adventures, and acquiring elements that are all her own rather than inherited from her family.  A "legacy item" just broadly refers to some unique item (a weapon, armor, wondrous magical item, etc) that is uniquely her own.

The longest of the long term goals are building a reputation of her own (which would require accomplishments apart from her family name) and getting married, as she does eventually want to continue her family legacy.  Gaining independence from her heritage doesn't mean turning her back on it, after all.

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Andrea and Arren
Despite the shift to Ranger and some personal traits, I'd say Andre and Arren would probably be largely unchanged regarding their established antics from before.  She might be a little less inclined to playfully punch him as hard as previously, but would still roughhouse all the same.  ^^  Odds are the two have been friends for a very long time as well; Andrea hero worships Hedra Rowe given her history as an adventurer and Hedra's been business partners with the Duvals likely since before either Andrea and Arren were born.  So their families would be pretty close.

Given all that, as well as Arren's desire to explore and make his fortune, it seems like the two of them are perfect partners who share the same sort of idealistic dreams.  No doubt a lot of time on their hunts in the neighboring woods has been spent making plans and daydreams about striking out into the world to make a name for themselves.

Andrea and Cinni
Given Andrea's own fascination with local lore (albeit on the more practical side rather than scholarly approach), Cinni would always be able to find a partner in crime for such things.  Basically if anything discovered involves some level of risk or requires heavy lifting, Andrea would readily be there to help out on request.

Andrea and Ilyana
I like the competition angle mentioned and Andrea would surely be in on that to varying degrees.  Andrea is the most overtly combat-oriented character in the cast, so basically anyone who wants a sparring partner to practice their skills could go to her.

The Duval and the Warrick families are, given personal histories, very close families with a lot of interconnected relationships.  Andrea is already established as being good friends with Dame Kirsten, to the point that they spend a lot of time together and train with one another in combat.  Which raises the question of whether Ilyana is Andrea's friend on its own merit or if she sort of picked up the friendship through the family connection and already-existing friendship with her older sister.

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Staking Their Claim/Common Goal
All the characters thus far share an equal desire to set out into the world and put their mark on it, for various personal ends.  Given everyone's relatively similar age and apparent close friendships, it makes a lot of sense that they all might be planning to do all this together.  It might be that they don't necessarily have a shared long term goal (ie, becoming an adventuring team or establishing a company together) but have all at least agreed that they'll all leave Settenhowe on their first big adventure together.

So basically they'll all be looking out for one another in that regard.  Like if Andrea manages to get herself hired onto a merchant wagon heading for the city as security detail, she'd encourage the merchant to bring on the others as additional help or just otherwise do what she can to get them on board as passengers.

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What Others Know About the Duvals
Building lore with the DM has set the Duvals as being a lot more integrated with the town than I'd originally envisioned, but it makes for an interesting turn of events.  Here's some things that are relevant;

There's a lot of them: the Duvals are one of the larger families having around 30 members (mostly younger than Andrea, but still) who operate a large fodder farm outside of town.  They also raise hunting/war dogs and have a close relationship with the kingdom/military.  The Duvals have been part of Settenhowe long before the Warricks were granted leadership of the region and, given rumors, it's possible that Andrea's father was actually first pick for the job but turned it down.  On the whole, the Duvals are a common sight around Settenhowe and regularly relied upon for odd jobs, as security, or to organize hunting parties (especially for winter preparations).  They are also openly altruistic, taking in refugees and travelers on the regular, some of whom have basically become part of the family permanently and put down roots rather than leave their care.

The Duvals have a long military history but have, at Andrea's father's urging, shifted away to a more passive means of supporting the kingdom through agriculture and trade.  As far as anyone knows it wasn't due to any sort of crisis or problem; her father just decided to go a different route and make a homestead to raise a few generations of the family in peace.  Andrea's father and several other relatives all served (either alongside or in cooperation with) the Warricks of the same generation, including Sir Aektor.  The basic vibe is that the Duvals could have been just as wealthy/powerful/influential as the Warricks, but had no real aspirations for power and took a different path rather than seek nobility.  The Duvals are a mixed-race family; while the majority of the adults are Human, there are various members who are Dwarf, Halfing, and at least one Half-Orc.  The younger generations are a mix thereof as well.

One of Andrea's uncles is an accomplished wizard who, after being badly injured during his career, came to Settenhowe on his brother's invitation to join the homestead.  Whether this is a permanent early retirement or just a break in his adventuring career is unknown.  In the meantime, he's taken on something of an arcane scholar position for the town's benefit and works closely alongside Loveday for the sake of educating the citizens.

Doveth Harrow is married to one of Andrea's aunts and is thus a Duval-by-marriage, making Andrea and Doveth's daughter cousins.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:07, Tue 30 Mar 2021.

I've also added a bit about Crime and Punishment. I don't expect we will have to deal with that too much, but it can be important to have an idea of how such things work. Especially for those who want to have skirted the law a few times in the past.

If I missed any offenses that you'd like to have detailed just let me know.

Time in the pillory is a common punishment because it is visible, doesn't maim the offender, and lets the people know what the crime was since the offender usually has the evidence against them hung around their neck. Once the sentence is served, however, the matter is considered closed and the person is allowed to go about their lives with no further sanction aside from the glares they'll get from their neighbors.

Shall we start posting in the prologue thread?

Please do. :)

If you have something important to your character’s background that you’d like added to the game, like NPCs and such, let me know and I’ll get them set up. Otherwise, I think everyone is ready to start. I’ll work on adding setting information and details as we go, but the essentials have all been posted.

Thanks,

Cinni's family members are her father Tormon and her two older brothers Herek and Hendar. They're all the salt of the earth, although Hendar is a bit of drunkard.

I'd say it probably started as the latter. Ilyana is a few years younger than Andrea, so she probably just used to be Kirsten's annoying kid sister who always hung around and insisted on being included in everything. Then as everyone grew older and the age difference became less important, they discovered they actually had things in common (like their dreams of seeing the world), and became friends in their own right.

I believe that I have posted blurbs about all of the relevant NPCs for the current setting. If you want/need another NPC for your backgrounds just let me know.

It is just after one am where I am. I'm going to get some sleep. I'll try to get another 'in game' post up tomorrow before I start work.

Gotta say, I love all the effort invested into the setting.  I know all the PCs are raring to get out of Settenhowe and see the world, but I hope we spend a lot of time here with how much life has been worked into it.  ^^  I love seeing a "new post" ping on the People You Know thread.

Thank you very much!

I hope it continues to help, and I'll continue to add in more NPCs as the party encounters them.

  "Itsh nish to she you thish morning."

Took me a second glance to get that, and now I'm happy.  :3

Ohhh... and I even thought, he's going to say something like, I'm here for your head, and I still didn't get that. :-D

I apologize for being quiet. Yesterday was unexpectedly rough with work related stuff, even though I'm technically on vacation. :( I hope that those of you who celebrate the recent religious holiday enjoyed it!

I've gone ahead and advanced the time to 11am. There is still more time for people to interact with each other or the setting before more events take place. Don't be shy. If you have any questions about how the various games or activities will work just let me know. I'll try to remember to post their 'rules' as you interact with each one.

My apologies. I'm taking part in a conference in addition to my regular routine and it has been kicking my butt. I'll try and get a post or two off in the morning before my events start for the day.

No worries. Real life comes first, even if it's the less pleasant, work-related part of real life. :-) Thanks for telling us, and don't put more stress on yourself just for the game.

I must apologize. I hadn't realized how long it had been since I'd posted.

Work has been kicking my butt. We went from a standard schedule to needed people to work split schedules about two weeks ago. However, because I'm a supervisor that really just means I work a twelve hour day. This is not an excuse. Just an explanation. I will try to do better.

I actually didn't even realize there'd been a reply from Loveday back on the 22nd and thought things had gone quiet this whole time.  ^^;  Don't know how I overlooked it, so sorry about that on my part.

Still, given the way of things now, it might be best to assume a bit more structure in the scene so we can all keep on a task and improve our posting schedule.  Time for some friendly competition and dice rolling, perhaps?