Heroes of Darmon OOC

In part reposted from another thread :

I'm starting a game featuring the gods, churches and cosmology of the Book of the Righteous. You don't need the BotR to play but it is helpful. The campaign will be centered around the Houses of Darmon, the church of Darmon, god of merchants, travel, joy and free thoughts (in any order ... ).

Current Players/Characters:
Creamsteak -> Gray the Nomad, Male Half-Orc Druid
Dark Nemesis -> Brandy Galadonel, Female Elf Rogue
Isida Kep'Tukari -> Vivri, Female Human Holy Warrior of Darmon
Jarval -> Dacre Argyros, Male Human Cleric of Darmon (Commerce and Trickery domains)
Tailspinner -> Galstadt Trustryke, Male Human Conjurer

Alternates:
Nac Mac Feegle
dead_radish


The campaign will follow the 3.5 rules. Use stuff from the cores books and the BotR. Most of the Complete Warrior is also OK but run it by me to be sure.
Characters start at 1st level;
32 point-buy;
hp: max at first level, average after that
gold: average value for your class (assume you 'rolled' 2.5 for each d4)
Race: Use the PHB races only;
Class: All the classes from the PHB, except the paladin which is replaced by the Holy Warrior (see this link for a revised version of this class). The Swashbuckler and the Hex Blade from the CW are also OK.

Since each church has an holy warrior, the cleric class is slightly changed to make it less of a warrior and more of spellcaster.

First, the cleric can spontanously use up a prepared spell to cast one their domain spell of equal or lower level. The cleric never have memorize spells for the extra domain slot at each level. They can spontanously cast either of their domain spell with this slot. Clerics lose the ability to spontaneously cast cure spells.
Second, the cleric get 4+int mod skill points per level, sense motive as a class skill, but lose medium and heavy armor proficiency.
Third, the cleric hit dice is reduced to d6.

Also, I don't feel like rangers should receive spells in this game. The divine spellcasting warrior from the wilds will either be a Holy Warrior with the Hunt domain and a character with levels in some prestige class from the BoTR (like those crazy Hawks of Urian). So I'll use the non-spellcasting ranger variant from the CW.

Since this is a game centered around the Lords of Good, there should be no character with an evil alignment.

Your character should also have some link to a House of Darmon or at least be willing to work for one of them. Faithfuls of Urian, Zheenkeef, Tinel, Maal, Aymara, Korak or Canelle (but not cinnamon ! ok, never mind ... ) might also be appropriate for this game.

Gauraxoloth’s Legacy

Here's some information on the campaign world :

About 50 years ago, the great blue dragon Gauraxoloth and his clan were banished from the western ‘endless’ steppes that border the Kingdoms of Solvagny. Even to the most learned sages are ignorant of the reasons of this banishment but most suppose that he was once the king of the western dragons but a greater power forced him to look elsewhere for loyal subjects. And that he did. The divided kingdoms of the once great Solvagne Empire were ripe for conquest. At first, there was little concern in the Kingdoms when it was known that someone or something had united the human and orcish nomad tribes of the steppes. But little did they know that Gauraxoloth and his flock had not only been busy in the steppes. They also made deals with various groups in the Kingdoms. Cults of Kador, opportunistic nobles, crime lords, goblinoïds from the Quoraf Mountains, and even power hungry and corrupted Bishops of the Great Church were all promised certain things for the help they would bring to what was to be later called the invasion of the Blue Horde.

One by one the Kingdoms fell to the might of the draconic horde. It seem no one were able to stop them. Gauraxoloth himself and his offspring would fly over the battlefields, killing the champions and frightening the others. Even a mighty army of Teraketh was defeated at the battle of Saer Yellios. The fear of the horde began spread from the soldiers to the population. Thousands fled the onslaught, leaving their country for the relative safety of the eastern Kingdoms or the colonies on Hurunam, the hot and mysterious continent across the Sea of Ariane. Finally, the old capital and seat of the Head of the Great Church, Saer Solva, was taken by the Blue Horde. The Great Patriarch himself was killed and hope became a luxury.

A few still resisted the invader however. The elves and the druids of Great Wood of Eliwyn were among those. As for the Kingdoms, the only ones left were the island Kingdom of Gerde, the mountainous Kingdom of Burmanny, and, beyond it, the small kingdom of Peridive. Lady Tellaria, a dwarven Paladin of the Great Church, was able to piece together an army of paladins, dwarves and refugees of the other kingdoms. With many costly victories, her army was able to end the advance of the Horde in the valley of Burmanny. Gauraxoloth was nonetheless the master of most of the old Empire of Solvagny.

It was not a long and prosperous reign however. All the factions to whom he had made promises to were now vying for power. For example, the new authority of the Great Church wanted the power Gauraxoloth gave them but, still, they hated the Asmodeans and the Orcs nomads. For a decade, the Great Dragon was able to keep them all in line and keel a few rebellions but he was not able to make any progress against Lady Tellaria’s army. An elite group of a few paladins, agents of the Watchers of Aymara and other servants of the Lords of Good were able to take advantage of this division and treachery in the ranks of the Great Dragon. They infiltrated the secret lair of Great Wyrm and slew him after a terrible battle that cost many of their own. The lands of the Great Dragon have been in relative chaos ever since.

Now, 25 years after the death of Gauraxoloth, the remaining Kingdoms and the principalities of Hurunam are stronger than ever while the remains of the Great Dragon Empire are divided and weaken by years of strife. Many Solvagnes speak of ‘reconquest’ but such a thing would cause much death and anguish. The Great Matriarch of the True Great Church*, of Gerde, and Queen Tellaria of Burmanny are the two strongest proponents of this new war of restoration. Will they be able to bring all the kingdoms, principalities, and churches of the Lord of Good together for this great endeavour? And what of the kingdom of the Koomago, in the southern part of Hurunam? Should those dark skinned humans feel worried by the coming of so many refugees in the principalities north of them? And maybe something darker and more ancient than Gauraxoloth threatens the lands, waiting for the ideal time to strike …

* Note that there was a schism in the Great Church after the invasion of the Blue Horde. One side was formed by the ‘exiles’ and is called the ‘True Great Church’ while the other kept the original name and is still based in Saer Solva. Most of main churches of the Lords of Good were banned in the land of the Great Dragon and had to go ‘underground’.

There you go. I wrote more than I first intended (as usual I guess …). I hope I was clear enough and that this was not too much history to absorb. Oh, and the game will start in one of the principalities (colony if you prefer) in Hurunam, just so you know.

One question, can we get a Rogue's Gallery please?

No problem : Rogue Gallery

I'm Back!

Sorry for the absence, I was out of town for a couple of days. I'll be posting a character later tonight. Looking forward to starting this up! Thinking of either a swashbuckler or ranger on the path to a runner

I'm going to go with either priest of Darmon or bard for my character. I'm starting to lean quite heavily towards the cleric option. He's not going to be all that big on the curative magics though, as Darmon doesn't grant access to the Healing domain.

The party is forming up nicely. It's good to hear from you d'Anconia. It was your initiative after all ...

What do you think of my variant cleric, Jarval ? I hope it's somewhat balanced but it has seen no action yet.

As for Vivri, I have only two little corrections: the ranged attack modifier should be +1 not 0 and the armor check penalty should be -6 (or -4) not -7 (-4 for scalemail, -2 for the heavy shield, the encumbrance ACP doesn't stacks with the armor's, the shield's ACP only applies when you have it in hand). As for the background, it fits the Holy Warrior of Darmon nicely. Not much of a formal training, just some martial training, some religious knowledge and a higher calling.

This sounds fairly tempting to me. I don't have the Book of the Righteous anymore (sold it on ebay). So I know the "general" content, but don't have access to the specifics. I'm interested in playing.

GPEKO said:

What do you think of my variant cleric, Jarval ? I hope it's somewhat balanced but it has seen no action yet.

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I'm fairly keen. It certainly does a much better job of representing how I see a typical follower of Darmon than the standard cleric. The only potential problem I see is the lack of spontaneous cure wounds spells, which might prove a problem unless we've got a cleric of Morwyn in the group.

There's a variant class in UA that's quite similar to your variant called the cloistered cleric, but I think your version works for a wider range of potential deities. There are some notes about spontaneous domain casting as well IIRC, including the potential issues arising from lack of healing. If you don't own UA (and if you're interested, of course ), I could type some of it up and e-mail it to you or post it here.

Creamsteak said:

This sounds fairly tempting to me. I don't have the Book of the Righteous anymore (sold it on ebay). So I know the "general" content, but don't have access to the specifics. I'm interested in playing.

Click to expand...

If you need a hand CS, myself or Brother Shatterstone would probably be willing to help you out with rules specifics