Hail and well met, bloods!

Howdy, all.  Reckon I'll move the discussion over here.  I'm perfectly happy with 7th level as a place to start.  As for class, I'm leaning toward bard and something.  As for race, before I commit to anything in particular, I'm curious about what range of options are available to us.  Shall I plan to stick to core, standard, or other races?  If "other", what range of RP should I consider?

I'm somewhat inclined to redux "Topaz", a faun/satyr bard from another game; he was quite a flavorful soul and quite entertaining to play.  He was dialed down a fair bit from the standard DnD satyr there, too.  Unfortunately, both of those are a bit wrong mechanically for a game like this, I think.

Thoughts?

I'm open to customized or tinkered with races.  Anything around the power level of tieflings/aasimar would be fine.

I will be playing a seeker of lost knowledge. Part tomb delver, part scholar, he is an expert in lore of the arcane and the art of spellcraft, ancient history and languages of forgotten civilizations, the cosmology, geographies and creatures of the planes, the local customs and folklore of numerous regions and cities, and stories of fabled ruins and tombs and the denizens who lurk therein.

phorcys, perhaps this character and your bard (should you decide that's what you want to play) are good friends with some common interests?
This message was last edited by the player at 07:21, Thu 19 Jan 2023.

I should hopefully have some specific questions re: characters by tomorrow.

Okay, so just to confirm how you want the point buy to work, is this "all attributes start at ten, and then each point above that is one point, with 26 total to spend"? Just checking before I start writing the sheet up with that method.

Right. Starting at 10, with the same max of 18 before racial adjustments.

So, obviously everyone is going to have their own characters with their own wildly different agendas and personal missions.

I'm thinking that for an initial plot, everyone will brought together by some mutual acquaintance in order to seek out a particular planar store of knowledge... one which may or may not hold clues to the questions they wish to answer.

I think that'd be a grand thing!

My wife and I have friends coming to New Year's with us, but maybe we can firm this up over the next few days?

Sure thing! I'll message you privately and we can work out the details together.

And Her Serenity, that sounds perfect to me. I also have some ideas for my character's personal interests which might tie into this undertaking (I'll message you about those when I have time).

Almost done with my sheet! I ended up going for dual cursed with lycanthropy and wrecker, so in addition to having everything she touches break, Ruin also finds herself unable to talk and just growling and snarling like a wolf instead when she's stressed. As expected she's got a pretty decent array of buffs, notably prayer, haste, resist energy, and tears to wine. Lots of summoning, as well. Her wolf, named Glimmer, is remarkably good at tracking by scent (something like a +24 I think?) and bites things very, very hard. The sheets are on mythweavers right now just to make getting all the bonuses right a bit easier.

Just a couple questions while I work on getting it finished up. Would you be okay using the background skills optional rule? Also, are traits in use? Also, I took Inscribe Magical Tattoo as a feat on the logic that Ruin would have figured out how just trying to get around the limitations on her ability to have functioning items - just make them a part of her instead. Hopefully that is okay?

Yeah, that should be cool.

phorcys and I are currently establishing an existing friendship between our characters, and it occurs to me that a very sociable tattoo artist and singer might have easily befriended a talented bard (phorcys's character, Topaz) and an adventurous raconteur (my character, Garidan) as well. They might all have met in a tavern somewhere in Sigil (maybe Topaz and Ruin were both performing/singing at the same pub one evening), or it could be that two of our characters were already companions when one or both of them met the third, or one is a mutual friend of the other two.

Perhaps they've even had some adventures together already (level 7 is pretty experienced), something that would solidify bonds which outlast any incidental job they might do with one another? Maybe a couple of them were on some quest out in the wild together when they encountered the third, and teamed up for mutual interests — an arrangement which brought them all success and fortune (and thus, a strong incentive to stick together afterward)? Since Ruin values her own pack most of all, perhaps the others aided her or her wolf when she was in a particularly bad bind, and thereby earned her friendship?
This message was last edited by the player at 01:48, Sun 01 Jan 2023.

Sounds quite reasonable to me! Maybe casual acquaintances from having been at the same taverns before, and then happened on each other while working? You're right that Ruin would be quite loyal if someone helped her or Glimmer out of a bind, maybe by being able to treat some condition on Glimmer that Ruin doesn't have a way to solve. She's got some cure spells, but no particular ability to remove things like diseases, poisons, or curses affecting someone.

Okay, so how about this: Topaz and Garidan were adventuring together somewhere (maybe in the Outlands?) and encountered Ruin while exploring some...ruins (no pun intended), having overheard the sounds of a violent skirmish she and Glimmer were engaged in with some hostile creatures. These monsters (any ideas for what type?) had taken Ruin by surprise and overwhelmed her summoned minions, and Glimmer — wounded and weakened — was desperately fending them off to protect her. Seeing this, Topaz and Garidan rushed to Ruin's aid, and their spells quickly turned the battle's tide, enabling the four of them to finish off the creatures together.

Unfortunately, though victorious, Glimmer was badly injured and had become infected by some sort of disease or affliction which none of them could alleviate themselves (either something he'd contracted from these creatures or had suffered elsewhere in the ruins before the battle). But Topaz and Garidan knew of someone in this region who could possibly treat such maladies (a witch? A druid? Occultist? Something else?), and offered to help Ruin get to this person's dwelling before Glimmer's condition grew fatal. Combining their talents, they managed to reach the healer in time and Glimmer was cured — in exchange for a special favor they agreed to do for this person (any ideas?). This led to further adventures together, and Ruin's abilities proved just as beneficial to Topaz and Garidan as their aid had been to her and Glimmer. The four of them have been companions ever since.

This is just one possibility, of course. I welcome any ideas the rest of you might have.

Character sheets are up if anyone wants to use that section.




to clarify, yes, everyone should get two traits and we can go ahead and use the background skills rules.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:54, Mon 02 Jan 2023.

It may also be helpful if everyone edits their character description with information that would be known to others. Anything they wouldn't be keeping a secret. Just so I can sort out what is supposed to be "GM only" knowledge.



Also, with Ruin having the Inscribe magical tattoo feat, I should probably address this. If anyone wants to reduce equipment/item costs with feats or skills their character might have, that's totally fine.

I'm not really one for nickel-diming people on that stuff.

That sounds fine to me, Alarus!

Great! Do you have any ideas for where this might have occurred and what Ruin was doing there, what sorts of monsters she and Glimmer were fighting, what malady had afflicted Glimmer, who the healer was and what they agreed to do for her/him in return for curing Glimmer?

phorcys/Topaz, does all this suit you? Any ideas you'd like to add?

Yonir/Shakrik, Her Serenity told me your character wants to join the Sensates. Garidan is a Sensate — maybe there's a connection there? Or perhaps the other characters ran into Shakrik while they were fulfilling whatever favor they'd agreed to do for the healer who aided Glimmer? Any ideas?

Her Serenity, I'm completely open to any ideas you might have for these past encounters and adventures as well. Maybe something that ties directly into what you've prepared for our starting point?

Ideally, I'd like whatever we settle on to be a combination of everyone's ideas, not just my own. :)

Hm. I don't know where it would have been, but probably Ruin was there on business, since while she's a perfectly competent singer and tattooist, she's also doing jobs for people on the side to make money. They might have sent her there to get some relic or something, without actually disclosing how dangerous it was? For an affliction I lean towards a curse just because Ruin has such a heavy cursed and damned theme going on - dual cursed oracle gets hit with some pretty steep effects. There's a lot of irony to be played in the girl who is laboring under a lot of curses and can inflict a lot of them on others not being able to clear one from someone important to her.

The healer, then, would just be anyone who can cast remove curse. Maybe a cleric that Ruin knows from her affiliation with the Transcendent Order or a bard who hangs out in similar semi-criminal circles as she does? I kind of like the idea that she's not actually paid off the debt, or only partially, and it's hanging over her as an unmet obligation waiting for them to call in their marker.

Oh, also I have introduced a plot element for our GM to work with, related to people, mostly semihuman or planetouched of various kinds, starting to disappear. And in some cases reappear after a while, with no recollection of what happened, a tendency to have complete breakdowns when pushed to remember, and a distressing lack of Self going on. Kind of as though they had been mindwiped or lobotomized. Ruin is freaking out about it somewhat.

Sounds good to me. Maybe somewhere in the Outlands then.

Her Serenity, I'll defer to you on this — any ideas?


That works. What sorts of creatures or spirits might have inflicted this curse? Some sort of wraith maybe?


Hmm. Well, Topaz is a bard but I don't know if he has Remove Curse. Does he, Phorcys?

I think it might be best if the healer was either someone Topaz or Garidan knew (so that Ruin needed their help in finding them), or someone Ruin knew but needed Topaz's and Garidan's help getting to (perhaps due to having exhausted much of her spells and resources, or simply because of the dangers present in the surrounding wilderness and doubting her ability to get to this healer alone). This would provide a dependence on Topaz's and Garidan's help, which incentivizes their sticking together after that chance encounter.


Nice. Unsettled debts are a great plot hook, as well as a long-term problem for a character to work toward resolving.


Interesting! That gives me some ideas for my own plot elements...
This message was last edited by the player at 23:02, Tue 03 Jan 2023.

Well if the situation was bad enough Shakrik 'works' for Baalzebul which would be a source of  healing of any problem for a price.

In terms of contacts he's perfectly happy to do mercenary work in return for unique experiences and given the rest of the party's makeup he may just have been along for the experience.  Afterall he grew up in Malagard, anywhere in the outlands is a pleasant place to be for him.

Maybe a Gate-Town on the Outlands? Somewhere that would be a good place to start the campaign.

s

Well, on the subject of past events, I wanted to know what everyone thought of the NPC I posted in the notes thread. Who, as a possible employer/patron/chance ally of the PCs could have provided some kind of healing services.