Recruiting for 3.5 campaign

[Paranoia]

Good afternoon I am the player for an ongoing 3.5 campaign and we are looking for a few more... stable players to join.

The old thread is linked below though a lot of things have changed since it was first put up so I decided a new thread focusing on all the real information would be a better route to go. You can read the previous thread to try and get some information if you want but I'll be providing the current situation and major points here.

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?19129-Gaugeing-interest-in-a-weekly-D-amp-D-3-5-campaign-on-Saturday-s-or-Sunday-s

Current Forums for our Campaign - https://beyondeliador.freeforums.net/

We currently have 3 players in our group while the DM would prefer a grand total of six. Here's an updated Campaign Details

CAMPAIGN DETAILS:

DM: Thrylax
License: Full License (players must own at least a FG2 Lite License to play)
Game System: D&D v3.5

Time Zone: Eastern Time Zone, USA

Game Time: Some day Monday - Thursday 8PM to Midnight
Planned Frequency: Weekly
Term: Hopefully a full campaign that goes from 1st level till the party is dead.

Text or Voice: Text Only (I find that text only tends to make for better role-play in the few FG2 games I've played in)

Roleplay & Combat Mix: 75/25, Combat gives 1/3rd exp while most of it is made up for by role-playing with the rest of the party as well as plot advancement.
Number of Players in Game: 3 Right now, Looking for three more though would be please with even one more consistent player.
Character Starting Level & Equipment: Standard 1st level starting equipment.
Character Restrictions: As discussed previously in this thread. (You could look at the old thread or just ask me for information about them and I can try to get it worked out for you)

Scenario Details: Eliador, a town under siege. Legions of undead assault the small hamlet when twilight falls. A frightened child pleads for help to rescue his family and the remaining citizens. Can your stalwart party of adventurers discover the secret behind the attacks and survive the Nightfall in Eliador?

UPDATED: The group has evacuated the town in question and now has headed to the crypt of long dead barbarians to try and figure out why the undead were assaulting in the first place.

The party right now stands as....
Gustav - Knight 2nd Level
Gavin - Rogue 2nd Level
Lantis - Rogue 1st Level

It has been requested of me to "Look for Characters and not builds." I stress this majorly because it needs to be understood that this is not a kick in the door campaign and if you come expecting that you will be disappointed. Feel free to ask any questions you might have, I'll probably end up taking a lot of information from the previous thread so you can have a look for yourself if you wish... I just know it's a decent bit to read through that's related to characters not even in the game anymore.

[Neruz]

Colour me interested; but if you're after complex and well thought out characters some more setting information would be a lot of use. I can think of half a dozen different potential characters that I should be able to make work mechanically as well as thematically but not all of them are going to make sense depending on the setting.

[Paranoia]

Right. Here I found a post from the GM that seems to fit...

"My campaign is a homebrew world that I have been DM'ing since the late 80's. It currently operates under a slightly modified D&D 3.5 rules. It is a gritty style fantasy setting with a lower level of magic then what most would be used to. The only allowed books are the core rules PHB, DMG and MM.

The key changes to the rules involve hit points and how much damage a character can withstand before their wounds have an impact on them. I am using the Wound Point System from 3.5 Unearthed Arcana. In short, low level characters can take a bit more abuse, but high level characters cannot take nearly as much as before.

Everything from the core rules are available to play, but bear in mind that while wizards exist, they are extremely rare and most people are in fear or awe of them.
Elves too are extremely rare and despised by most humans. Elves traveling in company of other races usually do so using magical disguises to hide their heritage.
"

I know from what I have heard that Wizard/Sorcs are pretty rare. We were going to have one in our party but he never really showed up.

Rangers work a bit different as they tend to be more Nature oriented (They have guardian spirits from what I understand and well... are more nature oriented).

Paladins are RARE holy knights picked specifically by a god, from what was talked about a Paladin's like most likely will end in Martyrdom for some cause. That's what I remember off the top of my head. I'm going to go through the thread and pull out a bunch of relevant information for people to look through, but I decided posting this now would give you a quicker insight to the campaign at hand.

[Paranoia]

Here is a useful link to things regarding this campaign - https://drive.google.com/folderview?...FU&usp=sharing

Also we are using a 32 point buy character creation.


"But unfortunately I don't use psionics at all."

Some basic world information

"Some things to bear in mind if you decide to play in this campaign. It is a homebrew campaign that has been going on since the late 80's called the World of Enrdorth. More details about the campaign will be forthcoming, but some things to bear in mind are as follows.

Magic exists, but is more rare than one would be used to in a standard fantasy campaign. Player's are allowed to play an arcane caster if they so wish, though expect most (but not all) NPC's to be in awe and/or fear of your powers. This can be both a blessing and a curse depending on where you are the the circumstances of the encounter.

Elves also exist, but most humans live in fear of elves largely because they were responsible for the destruction of the Empire of Aldariah over a thousand years before. After the destruction of Aldariah, the elves retreated north into the Great Forest of Vyalliah supposedly never to be seen again (or so most believe).
Elves that travel in human lands are usually given Glamourstones so that they may magically disguise themselves as humans so that they may travel unmolested. Elves usually have an alternate human identity that they use when not in their homeland.
Elves that travel away from Vyalliah are usually on missions for their homeland that involve uncovering magical knowledge lost to humans since the destruction of Aldariah in order to keep humans from relearning the knowledge they had lost. The elves also like to keep tabs on any human arcane caster who could grow too powerful and eventually threaten the people of Vyalliah. If a wizard/sorcerer is what the elves would deem as dangerous, they will on rare occasions send out groups of arcane assassins to deal with the threat once and for all.
Like wizards, players are allowed to play elves as characters, though they will usually remain in disguise (even among their non-elven companions) at least until they know that their companions can be trusted with their true identity.

All characters should also note, but warrior types specifically, that the setting makes use of the wound point system from the v3.5 Unearthed Arcana which gives combat a much more gritty feel than the regular hit point system does. In general, lower-level characters will be more powerful, but high level characters will be much less powerful.

The life of an adventurer is deadly and you can be sure that your character will break some bones from time to time or be beaten near to deaths door on occasion. Unless you have a cleric in the party healing from battle is an undertaking that you "may" not recover from with only a single 8 hour rest. For this reason, there is usually a LOT of down-time between adventures in this campaign, so I encourage players to have some sort of "day-job" that their characters can be assumed to be performing when their not plundering tombs for gold or selling their sword arm to the fat merchant across the way.
In my last tabletop campaign, down-time of six months (in game time) or more was not uncommon between adventures. This style of play also neatly does away with a pet peeve of mine, which is the issue of "yesterday I was 1st level novice and now, 24 hours later, I'm a 15th level master of the arcane and leader of my order.....yay!"

The rules for masterwork items and magical items have been greatly enhanced largely due to the fact that permanent magical items of any type are extremely RARE. Don't expect to get a new magic item after every adventure. Although I'm not against giving out magic items earlier if it makes sense to do so. Also, magic shops of any type simply do not exist in this setting. To help compensate for this, magic items are slightly more powerful then they would be in a typical D&D campaign.
Magic Item Creation Feats are also heavily restricted and a character will only ever receive the knowledge to craft their own magic items as a reward for a major quest, and even then only at higher levels. Crafting magic items not only requires a lot of gold to create, but also major magical components known as power components. Just finding out what sort of power component is required to create a particular magic item will usually require a quest, to say nothing of getting the component itself once you do know what your looking for."

Half-Elves, Half-Orcs, Orcs, Paladins, Rangers

"Half-elves are extremely rare, largely due to the fact that "most" elves would never dream of compromising their people by mating with a non-elf. For this reason half-elves will "almost" certainly be raised by their elven parent as an elf given the feelings most humans have toward elves. But the opposite, while unheard of, is not impossible.
Just give some thought about your characters early life if he/she was raised by humans and what sort of treatment they received. Perhaps your mother fell in love with a wandering bard, not knowing all the while that he was a disguised Vyallian agent. Perhaps after the tryst your father wandered off never knowing that he had sired a child. Maybe after you were born with pointy ears your mother thought you were cursed and left you to the wolves. Maybe she thought you were blessed by the gods instead. Did she force you to hide your strange features? Did she display them proudly? Just some things to think about.

Half-orcs on the other hand, get on about as well as you'd expect. If the half-orc were raised by humans (usually NOT the case) then he/she would may have a human name and behave as a human. Was your half-orc shunned? Reviled? Pittied?

Orcs on the other hand (surprisingly) are not quite as racist as most humans. Orcs value strength above all else and even if it were a half-breed who wields it, they will be treated with honor in "most" orc tribes. Although there can be a lot of difference on race between particular tribes. Half-orc raised by orcs will likely be given orc names and behave as an orc, which means there are far more likely to be barbarians rather than fighters and sorcerers rather than wizards, etc.

Paladins and Rangers are an odd case. Because both are extremely rare, you should give a lot of thought to how your character became a paladin or ranger. Such classes are not careers, they are ways of life. Most do not choose to become these classes, but are rather chosen.

Paladins are the chosen of a particular god (usually Alainus, the god of Justice and Valor). As such, there is automatically a good case to be made for them to become adventurers, as they are spoken to (usually in dreams and with signs) directly from the gods. As such, there are not officially part of any particular faith, but are honored by any faith of good alignment.

Rangers are likewise chosen of a particular spirit of nature and usually act as wardens and defenders for that particular nature spirits domain. As such, most rangers do not travel too far from their spirits domain and a good case must be made for why a particular ranger operates as an adventurer. Perhaps the ranger was sent on some long-term quest of some import to his particular nature spirit. Thats up to you to decide, but you'll need to make a good case for it."

Elves as Rangers

"Elves are an exception with rangers however, as elven rangers receive their powers from an elven god rather than a nature spirit. Thus is can be easier to make a claim for an elven ranger as an adventurer. They can be operating largely as an other elf away from Vyalliah would, and for the same reason.

Remember, being an adventurer is not a normal life choice for people. What sort of person consciously chooses to live the life of an adventurer? What sort of personality quirks must such a character possess?
Just some things to think about as you make your character."

Dwarves

"As for dwarves. They too exist, but are extremely rare as well. Largely due to the fact they usually keep to themselves in their mountain homes. The only dwarven stronghold which has contact with humans is Baraz-Gathol located deep within the Aerimar Mountains. Other than there relative rarity (halflings being more common than the other two), dwarves, gnomes and halflings are treated more or less fairly by most humans. In other words there is no inherent advantage/disadvantage to playing one.

Something to keep in mind however, non-humans being as rare as they are, your party may be more likely to encounter social resistance if the group is not composed of mostly humans (or can pass for human)."

Healing skill

" Herbalism to assist in healing is used, but is simply spun into the healing skill. Characters with knowledge of the healing skill will automatically be assumed to be making used of any herbs or remedies that assist with healing. Optionally, the healing skill can be used in a fashion similar to what you describe above. The wound point system causes "truely wounded" characters to have penalties to their rolls. A characters could for example make a healing check to negate some of those penalties after combat by administering pain reducing medications, etc, etc.

[Paranoia]

World setting

"The World of Erndorth can be basically set in one of two distinct styles of campaign.

There is the 4th Age, which is what we are going to be playing. The 4th Age is set about 1000 years after the fall of the Aldarian Empire. The 4th Age is a more gritty style of Sword & Sorcery where magic is rare. The campaign focuses more on role-playing than monster slaying. Although there is a good amount of both. The ruleset used here is a modified v3.5 ruleset with some Unearthed Arcana thrown in for good measure to lend itself to the particular style I'm going for.

Then there is the Age of Light Campaign which is set during the time of the Aldarian Empire. The Age of Light Campaign is for more High Fantasy style that is pretty much straight-up Pathfinder Rules with little modifications. The Age of Light campaign, while it has a good share of role-playing as well, tends to focus more on high adventure and a little less on characters. But again, there is a fair amount of both styles on both settings.

The other races you saw, such as Red-Goblins, Tauroks and Draconians are really only for the Age of Light Campaign. Like I said prior, the players guide has not been updated in some time and still has some references to the Age of Light in it. Although I do have a dedicated players guide to the Age of Light as well that is about 3 times the size of the 4th Age player guide that I posted.

Although all of those other races still exist in the 4th Age Campaign, they are not really suited as player-character races because of the main focus of the game. The only races available to 4th Age players is standard v3.5 Rules, and even then, any race other than human should be VERY rare. I tend to only allow one non-human character per party, otherwise one of the things that makes the character special (i.e. his non-human-ness) is lessened. Also, due to the pervading views of most humans, a party consisting of too many non-humans would tend to cause no end of trouble for the group in role-playing situations.

I have made exceptions to that guideline in the past if the concept is interesting enough. For example, I once ran a party of all elven players. The entire party were working as agents of the Sin'Dorei (yes, I "lovingly borrowed" the name from WoW). But in the 4th Age Campaign, the Sin'Dorei are a violent sect of Vyallian elves that believe humans will never stop until all elves are wiped from the face of Erndorth. They therefore take a more "pro-active" approach to their dealings with humans than what other Vyalians would consider "proper". They are basically an elven extreamist terrorist group that actively work to undermine human civilization by causing chaos and anarchy wherever they go. They truely believe that they are working in the best interest of their people, even though they are shunned by their own people for the efforts. It was a short, but very fun campaign."


Monks

"...with Monk being an oddity because while there is an oriental themed place on the World of Erndorth, it is located many thousands of miles away, so a monk would need to come up with a pretty good back-story as to why he will be traveling so far from home. One possibility to help get you started, there is a small host (less than 1000 people) of refugees from Tien-Lun (the oriental themed region of Enrdorth) who are living in the City of Aramahn which is the lordcity "capitol" of Ciriah which is the seat of power for the Empire of Ciriah. Any monk character in Landor will almost certainly be one of them. If you play a monk, be prepared for a rude reception in some of the less cosmopolitan regions of Landor. Many NPC's will have never seen someone from Tien-Lun and will react to your strange ways with curiosity at best, and xenophobia and racism at worst."


Starting Area Information

"The first game I'm going to run is something I converted to FG2 called "Nightfall In Eliador" which is set in the distant mountainous region of Aerimar. It is a Protectorate of the Empire of Ciriah in name only and tends to be pretty independent. The region is inspired from and modeled after medieval Scotland, so if your character hails from this region, then choose a Scottish themed name for your character.
Aerimar has traditionally been ruled by the Ard-Ri (or High King) which in this region is really only a first among equals sort of king, with the other "equals" being the chieftains of all the various clans who reside in Aerimar. After a bloody cival war about 30 years ago, the previous High King was slain and replaced with a userper from another clan. The High Kings son, who was raised in Ciriah, had fled with a host of loyal men and pledged fealty to the then king Tredorian I of Ciriah. The king of Ciriah eventually sent a large host of knights back to Aerimar with his new vassal and took back the crown in his name. After regaining control of Aerimar, the son of the old High King named himself Ard-Ri and demanded his lords swear fealty to him. Most did so, but most of the highland clans, who were loyal to the userpers clan have yet to do so.
So Aerimar is really two different kingdoms in one. There is the more cosmopolitan Ciriahn backed lowland clans ruled by the Ard-Ri, and then there is the highland clans who while nominally are still loyal to the Ard-Ri, are really only loyal to their individual clans and see the foreign interference of Ciriah in their affairs as a blight on their honor.

The first game will take place in a holdfast in the Highlands of Aerimar known as Pendruin. Pendruin is ruled by Lord Muireach (moo-ruk) Argyle. So really you just need to account for your characters being from wherever they hail from, to the wild and mountainous highlands of Aerimar.

If you have trouble coming up with a good rationale, reply on this thread and we can all see what we can come up with together.
"

Dwarf Accents

"As an interesting side-note (at least I thought it was interesting). The only dwarves that are known to interact with people on Landor hail from the dwarven stronghold of Baraz-Gathol which is located in the high mountains of Aerimar. It is for this reason that most dwarves on Landor tend to speak with a scottish accent when speaking the common tongue. It is because the only humans they are accustomed to dealing with are from Aerimar and that is simply how they speak.
It always sort of bothered me that everyone who ever played dwarves always spoke with that accent given that there was no real reason for it.....so I decided to make a reason for it. This is it."

Spellcasters

" Actually, in this campaign, both wizards and sorcerers are by blood. While wizards learn to control their innate powers though logical reason and intense study, Sorcerers just sort of "feel" their way into controlling it. This is the reason that nobody can later multi-class into a arcane class unless they select either the Magical Training back-groud feat or the Arcane Empathy feat at 1st level. Wizards automatically get Magical Training for free while Sorcerers automatically get Arcane Empathy for free.

It sort of works like this, arcane casters, regardless of class, are really just untrained sorcerers. Characters who are more intelligent, will naturally seek to logic and reason their way into controlling their powers, so their arcane focus shifts slowly from charisma to intelligence. Characters with higher charisma on the other hand will tend to just let nature takes its course and intuitively "feel out" how to use their powers. The former will become wizards, while the latter will become sorcerers.

It would be unheard of for a wizard to in effect "train himself" its not impossible if said person were intelligent enough."


More about Monks

"I suppose a Monk is OK so long as you understand what I posted in Post #48 about monk's in this setting. I don't normally allow them as this is traditionally a medieval European themed sword & sorcery setting. Just be prepared for the negative reactions and racism you are sure to encounter from NPC's along the way. The rest of the party should also be willing to accept that as well.

Like I posted earlier, any Monk in Landor will most likely be one of the thousand or so refugees living in the Ciriahn Lordcity of Aramahn (the Capitol of the Ciriahn Empire). These refugees fled from their homeland of Tien-Lun after facing persecution and violence from the new emperor of Tien-Lun, Ming Shao Kang. These refugees have only been living in Landor for about the last 15 years or so and none of them have fully assimilated to life in Landor. They largely keep to themselves in a section of Aramahn's dockside district known as "The Heap". It is a sort of little China-Town of the city of Aramahn.

If your character is young, then you may not even remember your homeland. You may or may not speak Landrin (the Common Tongue) fluently depending on how assimilated your parents were with Ciriahn culture. Your native language is known as Xan and Common would be a secondary language for you, meaning that you would speak it as well as however many ranks your willing to spend in the Knowledge: Languages skill (Linguistics). See the description of the Knowledge: Languages skill under the Languages heading of the Player's Guide for more info.

If you would rather, you have the option of making Landrin (common) your native language and Xan you secondary language. This would mean that your parents have fully assimilated into Landrin culture and you grew up speaking Landrin, meaning that you would have no strange accent when speaking it.....although you would still have a Ciriahn accent."

[Paranoia]

Religious Zealots

"There are actually holy orders that match pretty well what your describing. There are a faction of the Holy Order of Alainus known as the Children of the Light, or a more common and often derogatory term for them is White Cloaks (yes, "borrowed" that idea too). They are a fanatic group of human supremacists that believe that all non-humans and all arcane spell-caster are evil. Playing one would be a problem if you plan on playing one in a party that consists of arcanists and/or non-humans, which so far seems likely.

Although, if your willing to play with the concept a bit and willing to change your characters views later on it could be a great role-playing opportunity for you. Just a thought, but for example, you could start the campaign as a White Cloak, forced to join forces with "evil" spell-casters in order to destroy an even greater evil.....which I can already tell you will be encountered in the first game. Then, after adventuring with these so-called "evil" arcanists and non-humans, you slowly, over time, begrudgingly begin to accept that not all of them are always evil. Then over time, as your character begins to come to trust his companions more and more, you eventually come to see that some of them are in fact good and your entire religion is built upon a false idea. Maybe you start your own crusade to "save" the doomed souls of your former compatriots in the White Cloaks and convert to a new faith. Just some ideas.

The only other religions (other than Alainus) that hold a place for inquisitors are evil religions, and that just will not work in this particular campaign. The Children of the Light on the other hand are not evil, per se (depending on who you ask), but they are certainly misguided.
"

Paladins

"Actually, there are no "ranks of paladins". As I noted previously, paladins are chosen of the gods. They are rare in the extreme. So much so that most people believe that they all died out during the Age of Light, or believe them myths altogether. Because they are chosen by a god to be their servants on Endorth, they are almost treated as direct avatars of a particular god. This is why a character may not choose to multi-class into a paladin later, unless the player and I work something out ahead of time that is.
Paladins are almost universally wandering adventurers. Unlike everyone else, their very class is a perfect case for why they are adventuers to begin with. As such, paladins already have a perfect excuse to be adventurers. It's what they do.
A paladin character will almost certainly never encounter another paladin in their entire adventuring career, as such, there are no "paladin ranks" to speak of. Although you can expect your paladin character to be treated with extreme reverence and respect by other member of your faith, and extreme animosity and hatred from clerics of gods of opposing alignments.
For many paladins, they do not even want to be wandering adventurers, but they have no choice. Some may even feel, on occasions, resentment to their god for there ever being driven to strange places by dreams and unmistakable signs. They are ever urged to do good in the name of their particular god.

The calling to become a paladin can come to anyone, at any time. When a god chooses a new paladin (which they do only rarely) then they can choose anyone. Men, women, the very young, the very old. But once chosen, it is a lifetime appointment and will almost always end with the violent martyrdom of said paladin. Such a death though always seems to serve some higher purpose."


More about Paladins

"I don't advise anyone play a paladin unless you REALLY want to be a paladin. Paladins are extraordinarily difficult characters to play over a long term campaign and unless your devoted to the idea of a consummate selfless do-gooder than you will likely not enjoy your character.
A relaxed slacker is certainly not a typical paladin. Maybe you could play it off as a character who never took life very seriously until he started having strange dreams which urged him to travel the world. Maybe the character does not think too highly of himself and the god in question (likely Alainus) see more worth in him then he sees in himself. Maybe eventually the character, after a while, turns his life around because of the experience and becomes a new person. That could be a fun idea.

Although making a paladin with the express intention of having the character fall from grace can be a fun idea for a character.

In a Age of Light campaign I ran before, I had a player who made an Ogre Paladin. Ogres in the Age of Light are not like normal ogres. They are highly intelligent, though evil, with an advanced culture. But anyway, an ogre paladin who as part of his character back-story had been tricked into donning a Helm of Opposite Alignment, which changed his previous alignment from Chaotic-Evil to Lawful-Good. He thereafter became a paladin. But as part of his character advancement the player (not the character obviously) wanted the curse left by the helm to eventually be lifted. Once the curse was removed after about 8 levels or so of the campaign, his total life experience had shifted and he chose to became Lawful-Evil and became a Blackguard. It was a great character concept, created by one of my better role-players, so it was fun to see."


More about Sorc/Wiz with a brief mention of Prestige classes

"It always bothered me that both sorcerers and wizards are essentially the exact same class. I don't think the game needs two different classes that do the exact same thing. If anything, I always thought sorcerer just should have been a variant of wizard, just like a ranger chooses whether to go down the bow path or the two-weapon path. But on the other hand, I still like the concept of a sorcerer, and since its in the rules anyway, I'll just keep it.
But because they are basically the same as wizards, I want to draw as much distinction as I possibly can between a sorcerer and a wizard, which is why I use the variant sorcerer from Monte Cook's excellent Book of Eldritch Might 2. As such, sorcerers get familiars, wizards get staffs. Sorceres can cast more spells with less variety than a wizard, who gets less spells, but with more variety. Sorcerers in this variant are also a bit hardier than are wizards, in that they get a d6 for hit die, and betters skill selection with 4 skills/level rather than a wizards 2. But to compensate, they do not get the bonus magical feats that a wizard gets.
It is for these reasons that staffs and familiars are not interchangeable unfortunately. But your not required to use a familiar if you don't want to. Its just a minor little class feature. As for staffs, there nothing stopping a sorcerer from discovering a magical staff and using it, or creating your own later in the game (if you can discover the means to do it).

As for prestige classes, yes I use them, but they are treated as a reward for in game developments to their character. Nobody can simply decide they want a prestige class and take it all of a sudden. Gaining a prestige class is a big deal and an important moment in the life of a character and is treated as such. I actually toyed with the idea of limiting Paladins and Rangers to prestige classes only, but I did not really like they way they decided to work them in Unearthed Arcana."

[Paranoia]

DM explaining his Plot structure

"Whenever I run adventures, I like to use the A-B Plot structure so that characters can become more developed and interesting. Although the A plot is the more important for a particular adventure, the B plot (at least to me) is as least as important in the overall progression of the campaign as a whole.

The A plot is what you'd expect. Its the main reason for the particular adventure your currently running. For example, if the players were hired by some local lord to go to the Howling Caves and deal with the recent goblin problem that has recently cropped up in a local town, that would be the A plot. Its the main focus of that particular adventure, and the one in which the entire party will be participating.

The B plot on the other hand is what I like to use to drive deeper character development for the characters. I usually only focus the B plot on one particular character per overall adventure (not session). After that characters deals with his particular B plot (hopefully by the time the A plot wraps up), then another character will get their own B plot for the next adventure, and so on.

While other characters can certainly participate in another characters B plot, it will primarily be focused on that first character. Sometimes the A plot and B plot can be related or more rarely, even be the same thing.

As an example, while the party is wandering through the streets of Illad trying to located the secret hideout of the gang known as the Black Dragon Boys (The A plot); the parties fighter tries to hook up once more with a favored bar wench he frequented the last time he was in the city about six years back (The B plot). After he locates where she lived, he discovers that the poor girl has been murdered some years back and her young son (who is now about six years old) has been sent to work the stables across town by the dead girls former employer.

In the process of uncovering the location of the young boy, the fighter discovers that the dead girls former employer, the local tavern-keep, is in fact a ranking member of the Black Dragon Boys gang and had murdered the girl for spurning his advances. He then sold the dead girls young son into slavery to a "friend" of his who operates the stables across town. After saving the young boy (who may or may not turn out to be the fighters newly discovered son) and giving the corrupt tavern-keep a firm boot up the rear, they manage to wrangle from him the location of the Black Dragon Boys hideout which leads them neatly back to the A plot again.

Anyway, my point is, that if you want a B plot for your character, then you need to give me stuff to work with. This is the main reason why I insist on characters and not just builds. Its the B plots that matter more over the long run I believe. They are whats makes the characters more memorable not just to yourself, but to everyone your playing with too. So please avoid the temptation of saying that your fighter character (for example) is a wandering loner who never met anything or cared for anyone in his entire life. All he lives for is fighting and money.

If you give me stuff to work with that is interesting and/or entertaining, you will find that you end up with more B plots then other players."

Character Concept post, Dip into how undead are going to be prominent

"There is no reason you can't do that character concept with a class other than bard. Just make a character with high intelligence and get a lot of ranks in Knowledge skills. There are very few skills that most classes actually "need" so anything left over from a high intelligence can go over to build a concept like what you have in mind.
I actually prefer that players make some tough choice in order to build interesting characters. Even if in the process the end up with a build that is not "mechanically optimized" to what a power-gamer would build. For me at least, its not about mechanical optimization to squeeze the most DPS out of a build, its about making a real life living, breathing character, with their own wants, desires, hopes and dreams. This to me is what a true RPG has over any MMO that has been or ever will be. Its the one thing that I get from real tabletop D&D that I can't get from WoW or DDO, or Elder Scrolls Online or any computer game that will ever be.

So don't worry if in the process of spending skills on things that your build "don't need" you end up with the true character you want to be. Trust me when I say you will absolutely not feel the lesser for it in the long run. At least not in THIS campaign.

As for the previous posts about Sun vs Healing domains, I can tell you that both would be extremely valuable in this campaign arc I have dreamed up. Although the overall campaign arc is still in its infancy and subject to change, I can say with a good degree of certainty that undead will feature prominently throughout, beginning with the very first adventure. I'd like to run Expedition to Castle Ravenloft for this campaign as well, so there is a whole series where undead abound.
As for healing, in this campaign, where much in game time will be lost to the party simply recovering from their wounds from the previous adventure and specific injuries to critical locations will be numerous and often, I can say that clerics who can heal would be a godsend......pun intended."

In between adventures

" Once we get past the initial hook, things will go smoother and all I'll need to worry about is the adventure at have and possibly whats happened during the significant downtime since the last adventure.

Like I said before, make sure your character has something to do during downtime, as in this campaign it tends to be a long time in game-time between different adventures. Costs of living will be incurred, as well income for those of you lucky enough to have a means of making coin. The down-time is also a great time to work on little pet projects like crafting, researching and generally practicing your skills to keep from getting rusty. To say nothing of healing from serious wounds from your last adventure for those not fortunate enough to have a cleric in the party.

Which reminds me, I do have a system in place for "skill rust" which means that characters who have been non-active for a extended period of time will inevitably become rusty in certain aspects of their characters. This "skill rust" can be mitigated by continued practice, but there is not enough time in a day to practice everything. Don't worry though, as "skill rust" only really starts to apply if its been over a year of in-game time since your last adventure, and that rarely happens. Especially if the characters make it known that they are "actively seeking" another bit of excitement.
If a character incurs "skill rust" then its just basically applied as a "negative level" as from an energy drain attack that goes away naturally as a character adventures once more. It only usually applies to the first few encounters of a new adventure and then goes away by itself.

In general, skill rust is something that rarely comes up and when it does its just a minor annoyance rather than a serious debilitation. Its just something I use to wring a little more detail out of the game."

Languages

"You can learn a new language by spending a feat on it, but you also have a number of additional language slots equal to your Intelligence modifier bonus. In any case, ALL characters automatically get Landrin (Common) for free regardless of where they come from. You also know your native language for free as well if that language is not common.

Please take note however that just because you can learn additional languages, does NOT mean your character necessarily has them at first level. You must justify why your character knows a particular language before they can select it. Most people do not go around knowing a lot of languages, even if they are capable of learning them.
Knowing Landrin (Common) is automatically justified since it is a trade tongue and the most common language on Landor. Just about everyone along any trade route anywhere in Landor can speak that.

If your character is a scholarly type, that can also be a justfication for speaking multiple languages as well. Wizards, Cleric and Bards are automatically justified for knowing any language they choose. But other classes are not. So if you want your character to speak a certain language that is not their native language and not common, you must explain why they know that language and where they learned it.

Theoretically there are cultural traits for people from Tien-Lun as well, but since nobody has every played a character from there (at least not since 2nd Edition D&D) I have yet to determine what those cultural traits would be. If you have some suggestions, please feel free to post there here, otherwise I'll look into it sometime before this weekend when I get some more time. As a side note, cultural traits are not required. Players have the option to select them by spending their 1st level feats on them, but you don't "need" them. Cultural traits and Background traits are a tiny bit more powerful than standard feats however."

[Paranoia]

Information about character

"Remember, their stats and gear don't matter so much as their traits and mannerisms. I'm not asking for a novella here either. Just a quick paragraph or three that gives a brief description of "who" your character is. Perhaps the way they dress or speak. Their personality, or most important, what sorts of things motivate them to be who they are.

Choosing to be an adventurer is NOT a normal life decision for most people. What is it about your character that is driving them to be the perhaps one person in ten thousand who did make that choice? Or was it your choice at all? Maybe your character was subject to a curse or geas that forces them to do what they are doing. In the case of paladins, they rarely choose to be where they are, but are rather driven there by an unseen and overwhelming urge."


"I assume that most characters have "other" interests to persue in addition to making a living. So my system is modified slightly and is your total skill check result (or just take 10) in gold per month, which allows the characters to perform other activities as well, such as practicing other skills to prevent skill rust, maintaining relationships with people who are important to that character, etc, etc.
In addition to allowing characters time for "other things" during down-time, this system also cuts down on profession rolls as well, which is always a plus in my book."


Inspiration

"Almost everyplace in the campaign is in fact based off of real world history. I cherry pick interesting times and places from history, do some fantasy make-over surgery on it, and drop it into the campaign world. Not every place meshes exactly with real world times and places however. Some are a mix of several places and times, and some are outright fantasy fabrications with no real-world equivalents. But for a very rough draft of inspiration for places I will put down the following list.

Kingdom of Erlan = Roughly medieval France, sorta.

Kingdom of Rowanos = Roughly dark ages England, sorta.

Aerimar = Based on medieval Scottland.

Ethengar Freehold = Mix of Renaissance Italy in political theme, and southern United States in dress and speech.

Ryliah = medieval Spain in style with a good dash of Persian mixed in due to that countries history.

Tara-Moldav = medieval Hungary, Romania

Kharadas (The Ulthian Empire) = medieval Germany (The Holy Roman Empire)

Ciriah = Wierd mix of King Authur's mythical England and the Roman Empire

Northwilde & Khorvaire = Roughly medieval Slovakia, Hungary

Rhakier & The Vos = Medieval Russia (The Rus Khaganate)

Nordenheim = Dark Age Finland, Sweden, Norway (The Vikings)

The Khazrani = The Mongols

(Kingdoms of Avongar) = Get a little weird here as these are very fantasy themed regions. But roughly, most of them are themed after Greek civilization during the late Roman Empire (Byzantium) in style, dress and speech, but with a heavy dose of fantasy elements."

Rangers

" In which case there are things you need to know about Rangers, and that is that they receive their powers from nature spirits rather than traditional gods (unless your an elf). They are extremely rare and tend not to travel much as they typically act as guardians of their particular natures spirits demense.

These natures spirits are tied to a particular area or thing, such as a great boulder at the heart of a vast forest, a group of standing stones built by ancient druids in ages past, a great tree, a clear still pond, really just about anything natural. While these nature spirits can inhabit something with some mobility (such as a great white stag for example) they cannot range too far from their place of power. They possess great powers while within their demense, but their power diminishes the further away they get.

These spirits typically invest druids and rangers to act as their defenders and as a supplementary set of eyes. In exchange for this service, druids and rangers are given great powers and responsibilities. Since they act as defenders, they tend not to travel too far afield from their particular nature spirits demense. But if a nature spirit is powerful enough, and has enough protection to spare a couple of rangers for something important enough to it, they may allow for a ranger to wander the world if it serves their purpose.

I can say that there are events transpiring in the world (or will soon enough) that would certainly be cause for concern for just about all nature spirits (and a few gods as well). So there is your excuse to be a travelling adventurer (because rangers especially need one). While the reason is as yet unknown by your nature spirit (let alone yourself) there is concern enough for druids and rangers the world over to be travelling the realm to look for signs of the "unnatural".

There is no need to report back home, as your spirit always has the ability to see what you see and knows what you know. Just follow the signs and seek the unnatural. Eventually, if enough rangers and druids find enough of these signs, the pieces of the puzzle will hopefully slowly begin to take shape. If there is some great danger to the natural order, the spirits of nature will eventually uncover it; hopefully before its too late."


Languages

"The accepted list of languages currently stands at the following. . . . . . . .

abyssal
aquan
auran
celestial
draconic
druidic
giant
gnome
goblin
gnoll
halfling
ignan
infernal
orc
sylvan
terran
undercommon
aldarian
apian
avarin
izondian
kas
khazrani
khuzdul
landrin
nord
rhakiri
rohirric
varghani
voslic
vyallian
xan"

Current Forums for our Campaign - https://beyondeliador.freeforums.net/

[Neruz]

I note you have a Knight in the group; does that mean PHB2 content is available or would that be a case by case basis?

Either way, tell me more about Orcs. I have a character concept in mind that I think should work fairly well.

[Paranoia]

Alright after going through the thread that's most of the things he has already said about various people, places, and things.

Any questions you might have feel free to ask me, and if you're interested in playing a specific something I'll see if I can help you along with it.

[Paranoia]

Ahh well it's a more case by case basis. The knight was allowed after Paladin didn't really fall into what he wanted to do. About orcs in specific... There's a small section on them near the top... and if I could get into the google drive right now I'm pretty sure one of those books goes into details about the current status of most races in the world. So I think Orcs should be in there too. Unfortunately it wont open for me right at this moment, so I'll get you a response to where to find that soon.

[thrylax]

Either way, tell me more about Orcs. I have a character concept in mind that I think should work fairly well.
Orcs do exist. One can generally define an orc as being from one of three varieties. They are all members of the same race, but the three varieties have different cultures.

There are what are known to humans as brown orcs, which are usually wandering gangs of marauders that can be found on the outskirts of just about any human civilization. They make their living wandering from place to place pillaging isolated villages and hiring themselves out as mercenaries to some of the less scrupulous of employers. In other words a typical D&D orc. Their native language is usually a bastard mixture of Ortuuk (orcish) and the local language of the native human culture in which they operate. For all intents and purposes, their native language matches the culture in which they operate.

Then there are what are known to humans as the black orcs. These foul creatures are gray-skinned, bestial savages that roam the wild lands of The Maradda Vast in south-western Landor. With each tribe being led by powerful orcish sorcerers, the black orcs lay claim to the vast territory of the ruins of the once mighty Empire of Aldariah. Black orcs never seem too willing to leave their lands however but react violently to trespassers in their domain. Some of the most powerful sorcerers on Landor are in fact orcs of the black orc variety. They speak a language known as the Black Speech which is a mixture of old ancient Aldarian and Ortuuk, though different enough to be considered its own language.

Then there are the Ortuuk. These are the original orcs from which all other orcs descend. During the Age of Light, the Ortuuk held sway over the entire region known as The Savage Lands. An area of Landor that is now a human dominated land known as The Ethengar Freeholds. After being driven out of the then Savage Lands, the Ortuuk wandered east into the vast plains known as The Wildelands with what remained of their proud culture. These orcs are not usually evil, but rather neutral and more closely match the orcs as depicted in Warcraft 3. The Ortuuk worship nature spirits and have a shamanistic culture led by druids.

[thrylax]

I note you have a Knight in the group; does that mean PHB2 content is available or would that be a case by case basis?
Really everything is a case-by-case basis. But I can say that later in the era of D&D 3.5, books tended to develope what I call power-creep. You'll begin to notice that new classes later in the series tended to be much better than their standard 3.5 counterparts. Therefore I tend not to allow classes outside of standard 3.5. I made an exception for the Knight because it was not as broke as other classes outside standard tend to be, and it also fit with my campaign concept rather well.
So really all I can say is run it by me and we'll see what happens. But it must be from 3.0 or 3.5 material. Pathfinder classes are right out as they are way OP from standard 3.5.

[Neruz]

It's less power creep and more that several of the original classes were very poorly designed but yes later classes do tend to be able to do things better than some of the core classes. Pathfinder though is just straight up stronger than the 3.5 equivilant.
Allow me to throw my first character concept out and see what you think; note that I completely understand if you think this guy isn't right so feel free to just say so and I'll move on to a more conventional character.

The concept is that a group of Orcs conducted a dark ritual in an attempt to imbue their strongest warrior with the spirit of a demon. Unfortunately for them (but fortunately for everyone who isn't evil) they botched the ritual and instead of getting a demon they got the Voices. The Orc in question who we shall give the working name of Kuroc because that is my go-to Orc name emerged from the ritual seemingly unchanged but with a head full of chattering and conflicting commands. Exactly how many Voices there are, Kuroc doesn't know. Exactly what the Voices are, Kuroc has no idea. In his dreams he sometimes has visions of a... thing with mouths and eyes and wings and wheels within wheels and an infinite chorus of whispering and shouting. As Kuroc listened to the voices (assuming they were the Demon that possessed him) he found himself drowning in a sea of words and completely lost touch with reality for an unknown length of time, when he awoke Kuroc found himself surrounded by death and destruction; his tribe and entire village obliterated leaving behind nothing more than scorched earth and blackened bone.
Then the Deep Voice spoke in an overpowering tone like massive slabs of rock grinding together, it demanded that Kuroc leave and travel and though Kuroc saw no reason to do so he found his body obeying the Deep Voice without any input from his conscious mind. And so he marched away from everything he had ever known into a world he knew nothing about at the end of strings pulled by a creature that should not be.

As Kuroc travelled he has learned much about the Voices. Though they wax and wane seemingly at random there are several Voices that are almost always there. The Old Voice speaks to Kuroc in his confusion and grants to him small pieces of knowledge about the world, through its tutelage Kuroc's mind has expanded far beyond the norm for his kind. The Painful Voice speaks to Kuroc of his darkest desires, it sears his mind with images of rape, pillage, destruction and death. The Kind Voice speaks to Kuroc of love and acceptance and is frequently at odds with the Painful Voice, though not always. The Silent Voice does not speak so much as make itself known, Kuroc simply finds himself aware that the Silent Voice has spoken to him about a topic without ever actually hearing it. The Gibbering Voice is the most disturbing of the Voices, it rarely talks sense but occasionally has moments of stark lucidity where it speaks of things no mortal should know. Finally the Deep Voice overpowers all when it intones its sonorous commands to travel towards an unknown goal, though any of the Voices can take over Kuroc and force him to do things he does not neccessarily want to do, with the other Voices it feels like a contest of mental strength, a contest that Kuroc is getting better at with practice. But there is no contest with the Deep Voice, the Deep Voice overpowers everything Kuroc has and he finds himself helpless to disobey it.

For months Kuroc has travelled towards the goal of the Deep Voice and he has encountered many Humans as he has done so. Though the Voices are frequently conflicted they all seem to be concerned with Kuroc not dying and at their behest he did his best to avoid contact with any of them; disguising himself with many layers of heavy clothing and pigment rubbed into his skin, Kuroc has thus far successfully managed to pass himself off as either a crooked, ancient old man or a very strange Ortuuk. At first Kuroc simply though he was lucky, but after noticing that people he met tended to just sort of brush away his presence and believe his story Kuroc has begun to wonder if perhaps the ritual that gave him the Voices gave him other abilities as well. One thing Kuroc has learned beyond a shadow of a doubt however is that none of the Voices can be completely trusted; not only do they have an over-arching goal but each individual Voice has its own agenda and that agenda frequently conflicts with the agendas of other Voices. If Kuroc knew about our world he would probably call the Voices 'Parliament'.


Mechanically I think the best fit for Kuroc is the Warlock class from Complete Arcane with Beguiling Influence as his first Invocation. Thematically I plan to play him as not having any real knowledge of what he's capable of (Kuroc still doesn't even know he can use Eldrich Blast) and finding that out through experimentation and desperation. Alignment-wise Kuroc is extremely conflicted which I plan to represent with a Chaotic Neutral alignment; his Orc nature still makes him think Evil thoughts but the Voices have been making it steadily more and more difficult for Kuroc to act on those thoughts and he doesn't know why. What Kuroc says and what he does are often two completely seperate things, even when his body isn't doing things on its own (his hands have a tendancy to wander off and start touching things around him if he doesn't pay attention to them.)

Origin-wise, Kuroc is probably a Brown Orc since it sounds like the Black Orcs wouldn't botch a ritual like that.

The B plot with this guy is pretty ovbious; what the hell are the Voices and what do they want? My working theory is that when the Orcs botched the ritual they reached waaaay further than whatever foul dimension they were aiming for and accidentally punched a hole outside the universe, letting in a thing from beyond which is the source of the Voices. The creature is neither good nor evil, in fact it doesn't even really understand the concept of morality, but what it does understand is experiences and it suddenly has access to an entire universe of experiences through Kuroc that it has never had before and it has no intention of letting those experiences get away. It has never had an opportunity to actually exist before and it is taking that opportunity in both hands, assuming it has hands which it probably doesn't.

Whether or not any of that is right and indeed the true nature of the Voices themselves I'd rather leave up to you, both because you know the world a lot better than I do and because I don't actually want to know just yet. Actually being in the dark as to their true nature will make it easier to play Kuroc as being in the dark and also gives you ample opportunity to screw with him and set up some elaborate gambits which are always entertaining.


Have a read and tell me what you think; if you don't like Kuroc I'll come up with something else. An overview of the setting's Gods would be useful too.

[Paranoia]

Oh man I love me some Warlock. One of my favorite classes though I never really get the chance to use it. I could see it being a pretty interesting character... seems a bit more on the... bizarre side than the existing backstories but that doesn't mean it's bad. It just has more going on in the background that could be viewed as a bit more interesting.

It sounds like a character that would need to find the right world to be in, it'll be up to the DM to say if it fits in or not. Though if this does hypothetically get accepted there is something major to note... This is generally a low magic world. Not saying that I think this is overpowered or anything I more mean potential reactions people might have. The general... feeling that tends to go with Warlock magic (Evocations) has always seemed a bit different to me. It's a magic that I think would very often be considered evil, hell "Warlock" is a word that I still feel has fairly negative connotations. We might end up with a witch (or warlock as it may be) hunt on our hands, again not a complaint. I'd actually kind of look forward to it. RP reasons.

Though now that I think about it most of the group would probably just assume he's some kind of Mage when he accidentally starts shooting bolts of something out of his hand. Seriously I think our groups magic knowledge might somehow have wound up in the negative.

[Neruz]

Oh yes, I fully expect that the general reaction to knowing exactly what 'Kuroc' is would be utter horror, hence why the Voices have generally instructed him to avoid contact as much as possible. The one thing the Voices can agree on is they don't want Kuroc to get dead.

Of course it is helped immensely by the fact that Kuroc doesn't really know what he is either. It's difficult to give yourself away as a mage when you don't actually know you can do magic.

[thrylax]

I am torn on this one to be honest. I really love the concept and I can say that nobody has ever approached a concept like this in any of my campaign before.....bonus for originality. But the concept, while very well thought out and unique, would seem to fit better with my Age of Light Campaign than it does with this campaign. As I said in prior posts, The World of Erndorth can be generally broken up into two distinct campaign styles.
There is the Age of Light, which is built on the Pathfinder rules and is pretty much straight high adventure style, traditional D&D.
Then I have the 4th Age, also called the dark age by some of my other players, which is what we are playing now. The 4th Age takes place over 1000 years after the end of the Age of Light, and is a v3.5 variant that relies heavily on rules mods from Unearthed Arcana. The 4th Age is a low powered, low magic campaign with a stronger emphasis on character development and role-play.

While your character is a great concept, the fact of him being a Warlock is a problem in this particular campaign, as is the fact of his Chaotic-Neutral alignment, to say nothing of his heritage. All of these things are going to spell trouble not only for Kuroc the orc, but also the entire party as a whole. It also stretches the imagination a bit for any of the others characters to even want to associate with him, let alone place their lives in his hands on a daily basis.
Don't get me wrong, I love the concept and detail you put in the character, and it certainly fits what I would call a character rather than a build, but this particular character is going to be a problem with this particular campaign. That said, if we ever get around to playing in my Age of Light Campaign, then it would work beautifully and I'd love to welcome him to the group. But for this particular 4th Age Campaign, I fear that the character is going to be more trouble than not.

[Neruz]

I suspected as much, but I liked the character idea so much that I figured I'd give it a shot.

What does your universe have in the way of deities and the religions around them? My second character concept is pretty heavily tied to religion and whether or not it's viable depends on what kind of gods you've got.

[Neruz]

Wellp here's my backup concept: Aiden the Sun Cleric.

Aiden loves the sun, and the sun loves Aiden; at the very moment that his head crowned the sun rose above the horizon and the first ray of dawn fell squarely upon the baby. This overt sign was followed by more; the flames in the hearth reached out as if to pay tribute to the newborn whenever he came close and every morning he was found to stare directly towards the rising sun for precisely one hour with no exceptions. As Aiden grew the signs became clearer and clearer; the sun would break through the clouds to shine upon Aiden even while rain fell not twenty yards away, fire obeyed Aiden's call and he could make flames leap from his hands with but a moments thought by the time he was six. By the time he was nine his home village was torn into two violently opposing sides; those who saw Aiden as a holy symbol and a sign of divine favour and those who saw him as magical demonspawn. It was in the midst of these rising tensions that a wandering Priest of [Sun\Light God, I'll use Pelor as a fill-in] found his way to the source of signs and portents he had been following for nine years; Aiden.

The Priest explained to Aiden's parents that he believed Aiden was chosen by Pelor to be the next great Hierophant and spun tales of Aiden leading undead-purging crusades across the land to bring the holy light to the world's darkest corners. Swayed by his words and fearing the rising anger of the townsfolk, Aiden's parents agreed to let the Priest take Aiden to [Major temple\basilica of sun-based religion] to train his powers and learn what Pelor had planned for the youth. The Priest promised to return in six years with Aiden and they would decide how to proceed from there.
That was the last time Aiden saw his parents alive.

At the [Temple] Aiden proved himself to be gifted in the arts, and though less than spectacular at book study the channeling of divine energies came naturally to him and he showed an ovbious affinity for fire and light. Six years passed in what seemed like a blink of an eye to Aiden and soon the boy, now a young man, found himself heading home with Priest who had found him all those years ago; a wandering Healer and devotee of Pelor by the name of Erek. Unfortunately as they crested a hill in the late afternoon instead of finding Aiden's village the two found only death and destruction.

Aiden himself remembers little of the following days until long after he was brought in covered in wounds and screaming divine retribution by a ragged and frantic Erek. By Erek's account the two discovered Aiden's home village raided and abandoned at least a year ago, but that was only the beginning. Erek went to search the village proper for clues while Aiden left to search his old home, a short while later Erek heard a scream followed by a pulse of divine energy. Arriving at Aiden's house at a run, Erek found the young man huddled in the corner and clutching his holy symbol; across the room lay a twisted corpse blackened as if by searing fire. Erek had little time to ponder this mysterious state of affairs before a groaning shape shambled out from a side room; one look was all Erek needed to know that it had been a long time since that creature had been alive, but before he could grab Aiden and flee the young man leapt up and grasped the zombie by the shoulder. Moments later the zombie was reduced to another burned corpse as positive energy seared the foul magics from the dead flesh.

It was now apparant to Erek what had happened here.

Aiden and Erek were forced to fight for their lives as they fled from the living dead and Aiden very nearly joined their ranks several times throughout the night, finally as the sun rose it found Aiden and Erek battered but alive. They had escaped.

The Village was cleansed of the unholy plague that had infested it, but Aiden never truely recovered from the ordeal. Seeing his mother and father as mindless zombies and having to purge them both with positive energy fractured the young mans mind and his elders feared that Aiden might not be able to repair the pieces. A fear that Aiden proved correct, but not in the way the elders expected. Instead of repairing his mind, Aiden took the shattered pieces of his psyche and reforged them into an unforgiving blade. Driven by the horrors he had seen Aiden swore to never let another experience what he had, he swore to purge every last speck of undeath from the known world and he swore to hunt down any and all who would dare try to cheat death and burn them all to ash.

Driven by this virtuous zeal, Aiden has travelled to Eliador where he has heard reports of Undead in the region, vowing to begin his crusade against the darkness and usher in a golden age of prosperity and peace there.


Mechanically Aiden is a perfectly normal Neutral Good human Cleric with the Sun and Fire domains. He actually has two B plots; his vow to become the next great Heirophant and lead an undead-purging crusade across the world and finding out exactly what happened to his village; why was the village destroyed and its inhabitants raised as the living dead? To provide for himself he sells his services as a healer; services which are greatly appreciated by any he meets. Aiden's primary goal is to protect as many people as possible from the Undead and he does not consider himself bound by petty laws and government, for after all his quest is righteous and seeks to strike out the greatest evil known to man; how could Aiden be anything other than in the right?

[Paranoia]

Hah, this should be interesting. I'm interested to see some party interactions now as the question of, "What is right" is brought up and pushed about. Also it would be nice to have a cleric because I can't sneak attack undead. Oh also Gustav getting a chunk bitten out of his leg. An actual "Chunk".

[DeusSpud]

My name is Sir Gustav Langsdorfer, and I approve having someone who can heal in the party. Especially because I'm an idiot that apparently loves throwing myself into every trap possible if it means I can help someone.

[Neruz]

Losing a literal chunk of leg meat does sound like the sort of thing a cleric might be useful for.

[thrylax]

Not surprisingly, this character fits PERFECTLY with this particular campaign. I think everyone in the party will agree that you services would be GREATLY appreciated.
As for gods, Pelor does in fact exist, but the old religion of Pelor the Sun God is on the wane. Very few places still worship the old gods, of which Pelor is one. One of the places that still cling to Pelor worship however is Aerimar, the very place in which you now are. Although the people of Aerimar still know Pelor by his old Tuath name of Belenos, God of Hearth and Home. But rest assured that it is the same Pelor nontheless, just a different aspect of his divinity. Different gods often go by different names and aspects in different regions of the world. Its a cultural thing.
Anyway, you could even be from Aerimar if you like. A temple to Belenos (Pelor) exists in the isolated hills between Aerimar's low-lands and highlands. This temple is really a monastery known as Kilbel Abbey (litterally meaning the Church of Bel) and is populated with cloistered monks devoted to Pelor's nobler aspect of peace and healing.
Your background also makes it really easy to find a way to realistically fit you into the game without feeling like I need a shoehorn to do it, which I love. You also have plenty of backstory to get me something to work with as well, which I also love. Personally, I hope you go with this idea for your character, because I'm already very curious to see what becomes of Aiden over the hopefully many years of hard roads and high adventure ahead.

[Neruz]

Sounds perfect, I'll stat Aiden up and should be ready to join you guys for the next session.

[thrylax]

Sounds perfect, I'll stat Aiden up and should be ready to join you guys for the next session.
Make sure to head over to our forums and log in to introduce yourself.
https://beyondeliador.freeforums.net/
I also encourage you to post about your character as well so that the other players (if not their characters) can get to know you a bit better. Feel free to read about everyone else's character to get some ideas.

[thrylax]

Sounds perfect, I'll stat Aiden up and should be ready to join you guys for the next session.
Not sure if you'll read this here or not, so I'll repost it here and over at the beyondeliador forums. I don't really make use of these forums or the game calender page on FG2 anymore, but you'll need to know the server alias and password that we use to log into the FG2 games. I saw that you had an e-mail associated with your profile, so I'll e-mail you the info there. If that e-mail is not correct, just post over at the beyondeliador forums and let me know.

[d1wright]

I would be interested in joining and generally available Thursday nights but sometimes flexible. I like the low magic setting and emphasis on role play. Query drB to see if I may fit in with your play style. Tell him Ulla says hi.

I have a concept for a fighter, or rather a sheepherder's wife who lost everything when the undead overran their farm not far from town. It's a gruesome tale and not one she'll often tell. And to give you an idea of what I think a good fighter/sheepherder's wife stats are I'll give you the first three in no particular order. 11 11 12. That should tell you where I'm going with this and what I'm interested in playing. Drop me some FG mail if you're interested and I'll drop a background. Thanks.

[Paranoia]

Can't say it's not interesting at least. I threw the DM a message on our main forums so maybe he'll notice and jump over here to look at your post. Only concern I would have is our group essentially saying, "Ma'am. We got this. No, no it's fine don't put your life at risk over this. Here have a bag of gold and go on your way." By the group I mean Gustav.

[DeusSpud]

Gustav respects adventuring women. He doesn't just automatically assume they have no idea what they're doing. Now, if she's just doing this to try and survive, yeah he'll probably just give her a lump sum of gold and ask her to go someplace safe. But that's vaguely understandable I think.

[d1wright]

In her younger days, Moira Revie had yearned for adventure and even joined the town’s small militia for a few years. That was where she’d met Greig. Only after their first real encounter clearing a pocket of banditry from the forest did Greig begin to have second thoughts of this adventure. When his father died a few months later from the blood cough, leaving him the farm, he asked her to marry him. She loved him and she did.

She loved her husband, her three children, and their small farm. Greig was now a sheepherder and she knitted and sewed with the yarn that he spun from them. Their eldest son of eleven, Cormac, often helped his father while his two younger sisters, Aileas and Fenella did chores about the farm with their mother. Apart from a few dozen sheep, the farm was also home to a few chickens, ducks, goats, a horse, and their third hand, a sheepdog named Bruc.

While her husband was in town with their youngest, Moira had ridden up to the upper field to watch the flock with Bruc. Cormac was ill so she had taken up the daily chore for the past few days. Setting out the horse to graze while Bruc patrolled the perimeter of the nearby forest, Moira settled down to her knitting. She sang an old tune as she knit and the clouds floated merrily overhead to pass the time.

She and Bruc were driving the last of the sheep into the barn at twilight when she saw a tall figure leave the house. “Greig,” she called. “How did you do in town? Were you able to get the shears fixed?” Bruc growled and barked as the man plodded towards them and another shambled out from her home. “Who are you!” she shouted. “Leave now or my husband will put an arrow through your hide!”

----------------------------------------

She rode a bay gelding and the long woolen coat the woman wore might once have been quite nice. Now it, as well as the horse, was stained with splatters of brownish gore. The same covered the cudgel hanging loosely at her side. The woman was thirtyish and not unattractive if it weren’t for the vacant look she turned upon them and asked in a hollow voice, “Do you travel to Eliador?”

[thrylax]

I am pleased that other people seem to like to concept of a low-powered, role-play focus D&D game. I was beginning to think I was the only one. Not at all saying that I'm against more traditional high-powered games either, it just seems to be the only thing that people run anymore and I wanted a change of pace. That said, theres nothing wrong with having high stats either. While high stat builds may not necessarily make for good character, neither does low-stat builds. Its not the stats that should be important, one way or another, but rather the soul of the character. Who are they?; What do they want?; Why do they do things the way they do?; Who do they care about and why?; But more importantly for us at least, why have they chosen to live life as an adventurer?; What makes an otherwise normal person choose to do something so beyond the normal?
These are the questions whose answers make for characters that are both dynamic and interesting. Not just to the person playing that character, but to everyone at the table (or computer screen in this case).

This is why I have chosen to give everyone a 32 point buy build for this campaign. In the distant past, I once ran power-games the likes of which would make the gods of RPG weep. The characters were not just cartoonish, but outright ridiculous. I mistakenly attributed that to the power level of the game. But believe me when I tell you that you can have just as many cartoonish and ridiculous characters in low-powered games as well.
So then, after a while, I ran games that were so low-powered that for a character to EVER get even a measly +1 dagger, let alone a level beyond say 5th or so was an epic achievement.
After a while, it dawned on me, that its not the power level of the game that was the problem. But rather the way in which the game was run. Running randomly from dungeon to dungeon, kicking in the next door. Killing all the monsters, take all their loot, wash rinse and repeat. THAT was the problem.

I realize that the game we've been playing in so far has seemed a lot like what I just described, but that is only because of the nature of where you are currently at. Once you get back to a town, or even speak to something that will not mindlessly try to bite chunks from your leg as a response, things will change. The B plots will start to trickle in....I promise.
But in any case, I still enjoy playing the game, even now, in the middle of the Catacombs of Kethmere Field. It still has the feel of a role-playing game even now. The reason for that is of coarse the players I am lucky enough to have in the group. Even while aimlessly wandering random passage after random passage, they stay in character and speak as their character would speak. Its fun to read. I realize that it slows the game down considerably, but it also is what makes the game more enjoyable, so I for one hope it continues.

Anyone who wants to participate in this style of campaign please feel free to submit a character concept here. Remember that we are looking for characters, not builds. The phrase, I am a lawful-evil drow elf fighter/cleric is a build, whereas the phrase my character is a half-orc woman who carries a chip on her shoulder because of her looks. She has always been judged by the way people perceive her appearance and had a rough child-hood as a result. She tries fruitlessly to fight the stereotypes by always being well groomed, well spoken and level-headed. THAT is a character.
Not to say that the former could not make for a good character, but it takes more than a race, class, alignment and least of all stats, to make for an interesting character.

I like the concept of a farmers wife who has lost everything and now wanders the world as an adventurer in a vain hope to avenge her family. That seems like a good place to start for a character concept. Something that will need answering however, is how did a sheppards wife become a fighter? Is is something that requires training, even for 1st level, and the general attitudes against women with swords will also be an issue, but a potentially fun one to explore.

Anyway, game day is near upon us (Thursday, October 3rd at 8pm EST) and anyone who would like to play, please have your characters completed before game time. I have a hard but simple rule for equipment. That is that if it is not on your character sheet, you don't have it. So make sure to buy everything you think you'll need before heading out.

Make sure also that I have some way of giving you the server alias and password to enter the FG2 game on Thursday. I will need either an e-mail, or you can e-mail me. My e-mail address is my user name at gee mail dot com.

[Paranoia]

From what I read it's basically that the farmers wife was on the path to be an adventurer for a few years before turning off the road for a family. After events happened she returned to the road with a kind of, "Now what am I going to do with my life?" perspective and just going with the flow back into the land of adventures. It should add some more fun dynamics to the group...

Current party would be...
Gustav (Knight)
Lantis (Rogue)
Gavin (Rogue)
Aiden (Cleric)
Farmer's Wife (Fighter)

Of course this is the BUILDS and not the CHARACTERS. But each of them are interesting and when you check out the main forum you can read into each of their backstories. Get a general idea of the people you're working with. I assure you we're all great.