stonegod's Expedition to Castle Ravenloft: Ch. I [OOC]

DEFCON 1 said:

Right. The only was to get around that would be to also take the 'Thug' fighter variant as well, because that gives you 4+ skill points per fighter level plus makes Gather Info a class skill. And as it states that's it's often used in combo with the feat/sneak attack swap... you could perhaps do both if you so chose.

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Hrm. That's true. I didn't think about combining the two variants. Hrm.

Flametouched items are allowed at the appropriate cost (does flametouched armor actually *do* anything?)

stonegod said:

Flametouched items are allowed at the appropriate cost (does flametouched armor actually *do* anything?)

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Do? DO? My good man, flametouched iron is blessed by the Silver Flame itself! What else does it need to 'do' to prove the purity of the Flame? Does it need to banish demons? Slay dragons? 'Do,' indeed.

Crucify him, lads.

(It also grants a +1 resistance bonus to saving throws vs spells, etc of evil outsiders.)

I'll start going over the sheets in depth tomorrow night assuming everyone is near done.

Bringing It All Together

stonegod said:

I'd encourage everyone to talk about niches to make sure everyone is comfortable, though most of you have a good idea. In addition, we need to establish the basics of how everyone knows each other. Remember, it is assumed that you have all worked with each other in the past (no meeting at a bar for you!)

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While stonegod is doing the number-crunching for the sheets, how about we start discussing how we know one another? My character and DEFCON's character have an obvious connection, but what about the rest of us? Almost all of us have a 'And the Great War started, it sucked, now we are picking up the pieces' vibe to our backstories...maybe we all had a Bonding Moment at the end of the war and that's how we know each other?

• Jannis escaped Breland shortly after the Day of Mourning. That leaves an opening to be explored.
• Maarat has a tie-in with the other Flamers by dint of his time served in Thrane and service to the Silver Flame.
• Jaarith Bronns has a tie-in with the other Flamers; he and Khensu are already linked up.
• Khensu has a tie-in with the other Flamers; he and Jaarith are already linked up.
• Daellin is a Cyran expatriate as well as Jannis. Maybe he was involved in whatever caused her to flee Breland? I get the feeling from his background that Daellin is stil loyal to the Cyran remnants, while Jannis is much less so.
• Selase travels as a missionary throughout Khorvaire, spreading the Word of Vol.

Any thoughts?

I help w/ the BGs, I would suggest making a few 'vignettes' that demonstrate some of you group's earlier exploits. Not all of you may have been together at the same time, but a vignette at levels 1 (probably each individually or for those who initially knew each other, probably during/near the end of the Last War), level 3 (at or recently after the Last War, start to pull the group together), and level 5 (after you are all together). These vignettes do not have to be long (a paragraph or three), but give some 'glue' to use to pre-establish your character. I'll post them to the IC Thread when we are all said and done.

I'm shamelessly borrowing this from an idea I saw elsewhere on this board; BrandingOpprotunity's Reconquista thread, if I recall correctly.

GwydapLlew said:

• Daellin is a Cyran expatriate as well as Jannis. Maybe he was involved in whatever caused her to flee Breland? I get the feeling from his background that Daellin is stil loyal to the Cyran remnants, while Jannis is much less so.

Any thoughts?

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More accurately, Daellin is loyal to Prince Orgarev and the expatriate Cyran government in New Cyre, though as a career soldier he had little use for dissidents like Janis and the ir'Sandals.

From time to time over the course of the Last War, Cyre and Thrane made common cause against Karrnath; the Thranes of the group might well have met Daellin at one of those times. Or maybe one of their parents did -- Daellin was in Cyre's service almost the entirety of the war (everything but the first twenty or thirty years); at 168 years old, he's just barely short of middle age for an elf.

(FWIW, Daellin, like most Khorvaire elves, is a devotee of the Sovriegn Host, and like most Cyrans, isn't particularly religious.)

And Jannis actively dislikes the Wyngards (Prince Ogarev), because she blames them both for the problems with her family and the destruction of Cyre as a nation. The ir'Sandals were Populists, and held much of their power from the support of the common people. However, as I envision it, such sentiments during wartime invited agents of foreign powers to become wrapped up in the cells of peasantry that formed the ir'Sandal base and while they were too powerful a political voice to purge for that, they were certainly fair game for exile by threat of purging. So Jannis doesn't think of Cyre as having much to do at all with the nobility of Cyre, she's an advocate of the vocations and culture of Cyre. She thinks that Ogarev is a fool bent on launching the remnants of Cyre into direct opposition with a more powerful Breland with his political leanings, but she's not against the notion of a "New Cyre" in theory. She, in fact, entertains notions about such things herself. I think it's best, for these reasons, that Daellin and Jannis not know an awful lot about each other's past and histories unless there's some specific reason why Daellin's family might be aligned with the ir'Sandals and still support the Prince for some other reason. On the other hand, it's a backdrop and I don't really see why we have to chat about Cyran politics at all in character.

She might be a good candidate for a sympathetic ear for a priest of the blood of vol though, because it's obvious that the favor of the gods hasn't done Cyre any favors.

And yes, Branding Opportunity's Reconquista is where we knocked about vignettes from the past a bit to build up ties with each other's characters.

I had already added stuff to my Background about how Jarrith feels about the other characters, but that was just pulling stuff out of my ass and basing it on the minor amount of info from the stat blocks and background paragraphs. I have no problems editing that stuff whatsoever if we do some vignettes and feelings change (based upon how we actually write out characters). After all, I have Jarrith pretty harsh towards Selase... but if they've been working together for quite a while, most likely that disgust and anger has probably mellowed over time. Which will probably be highlighted by the vignettes.

Are these vignettes done in this thread? Do we just write a paragraph or two about past events and start intertwining our characters in them? Maybe I'll check out the Reconquista thread to see what it is they all did.

DEFCON 1 said:

Are these vignettes done in this thread? Do we just write a paragraph or two about past events and start intertwining our characters in them? Maybe I'll check out the Reconquista thread to see what it is they all did.

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I suggest you tweak them here, w/ feedback from others (such as James pointing out that Jannis is coy about it politics, etc.) here as you work on the later vignettes.