Obviously you guys have are giving me some great stuff to work with. Sorry if I'm a bit behind.
Redclaw said:
I'm fine with all of it, and can just see Eldan doing his best to keep gramps from upsetting Enric again. It feels like a very real dynamic to me.
Great.
Redclaw said:
I see what you mean about the dwindling supplies. I guess it's a more traditional approach, present a problem and challenge the PCs to fix it. I appreciate the new take, but it'll apparently take me a while to adjust.
It's a very cool idea.
I don't think you have adjustment issues, if anything I see your suggestion as pushing the game a little bit more into PoL; in essence
through PoL and into post-apocalyptic.
It's a great genre. As you move further and further into the genre it's very tight, you create a sort of claustrophobic environment where things are tough and victory is rare and avoiding failure/destruction is a success.
But I think that a setting like that requires the "buy in" of the whole group and a greater degree of trust than normal DnD (or even PoL DnD). The DM is supposed to be hard on the PCs, you're supposed to suffer losses to give your partial successes the sweetness that makes them bittersweet.
I think anyway.
Redclaw said:
I'll keep working on the cousin. I haven't figured out which of the gods he is unknowingly attached to. On the other hand, I figured having our very own oracle might be a fun tool for the DM.
I -do- appreciate the thought and I like the cousin. Someone like that may be useful. I will say that, as of now, I am not planning on using him extensively. (see also the whole DM character discussion)
This does -not- mean you can't use him btw.
Redclaw said:
I like the glowing globe in the castle, and it seems like a great hook for a new character.
I'm thinking that the castle may not be the best place. Most people, I assume, are near the market.
I suppose we need a new big building... any ideas?
NPCs in the starting area
doghead said:
For example, the mystic lives somewhere in the east of town.
d'Anconia said:
one of the shadowy figures suddenly appeared on the edge of the river and just stood there. Its entire body was concealed in a cloak, but it certainly wasn’t his imagination.
hewligan said:
He is intrigued by a young lady who speaks to him in private like she has some of the fear in her that he holds. An ancient lady, all leathered flesh, from down the street, whispers almost indecipherable remembrances to him. He ensures she is well fed and clothed.
hewligan said:
Eldan's cousin is the only person Eldan has noticed doing anything unusual, getting Eldan to help him sneak into a section of the castle and then just sitting there, kneeling and talking to himself in front of a broken statue of some sort.
Each of these ideas is good/cool/interesting. They offer mystery, they can function as plot and roleplaying type interactions.
My instinct is to say that I'm not so keen on having DM NPCs in the starting area. I'm not so keen on running them, honestly, and I think that it threatens to be something of a crutch. If you have somebody who "knows something" when the PCs "don't know anything" then going to that person and getting information becomes the most intelligent thing to do (especially if they're in your back yard).
-Having- said that I had a concept in mind that would probably fulfill a similar function (as well as addressing some story needs i see as needing addressing). So lets just throw them all in and see what happens.
doghead said:
For example, the mystic lives somewhere in the east of town.
The Big Green Eyes is a rumor, a story children tell other children. The stories all differ in the details, but supposedly, if you run deep enough into the bramble, where it's so deep and dark that there's very little light at all, even at noon you can find the lair of something. Some stories say that you can only find the lair at a certain time of day, or day of the month, or time of year; others say that you must have eaten something, or nothing at all, or you have to be lost, or you have be trying to find it. Some tell you that Big Green Eyes will chase you, and eat you, or give you something, or ask you questions, or tell you a story.
Every child talks about Green Eyes differently.
With they grow up, of course, they forget.
Depending on doghead's and/or other people's characters they may have an exaltation around remembering an encounter with Big Green Eyes.
d'Anconia said:
one of the shadowy figures
[sblock=Graf's suggestion]Quite frequently, Alexander's chores around the farm would take him to the river. Whether it was fetching water for the animals, of getting water to irrigate the crops, he got to know the section of river just beyond the bridge quite well. The massive forest on the other side of the river would sometimes break the concentration that he usually had with his work. He would stare into it and wonder what was out there. He began to feel truly alive with just the thought of wandering its depths and exploring its secrets. Soemtimes, looking at the forest, he'd see something, just for a moment, a pale figure. He's shiver, and realize how cold he was, look down to see that the river was unnaturally still, and his breath was fogging. Then, usually, the daze would overcome him. Later when he would always chalk up the fragmentary memory to his imagination.
Until a few weeks ago, that is. While bathing in the river after a long days work, he realized, suddenly that he was icy icy cold in the river. His breath was fogging and he was freezing. When he looked up he saw a small figure in a cloak of rich vermilion. The cloak was held closed with an ornate golden clasp, in the shape of a strange creature, something a snake with wings.
He felt a powerful urge to kneel before this person. He felt his knees buckle, the current pulling him.
He remembers a slim, pale hand reaching out toward him. A face of a beautiful young girl, white as a tooth. A voice, "You were not born to kneel."
Alexander's next coherent memory is of spitting out lungful after lungful of water, racked with freezing spasms. His friend Eldan, and his father Enric, were kneeling nearby, worried looks on their faces.
[/sblock]
hewligan said:
An ancient lady, all leathered flesh, from down the street, whispers almost indecipherable remembrances to him. He ensures she is well fed and clothed.
[sblock=Graf's suggestion]The ancient lady is truly ancient. She hadn't teeth or hair or even fingernails; she's so old her ears seem to be withering in exhaustion and she looks much like a vulture. Everyone calls her Old Grandmother though she loathes the name.
And Karothen has known her for as long has he had lived. She is well and truly dazed, never coming out of it, and as such she isn't a threat but when he was a child he was powerful scared of her. For she loathed him to the point of incoherence, the mere sight of him was enough to drive her into a froth and she'd follow him and his mother about town around until they could lose her, mouthing incomprehensibilities and making strange gestures.
Karothen grew into childhood and the woman got older and older and more and more bent Karothen began to realize, as children do, that she was great fun. And he would seek her out, to appear and upset her, run her around the town, for she would hobble after him cane in hand from one end of the town to another and then all the way back. It was a great thing to do in a town where your own parents could often barely speak to you.
In fact other children would come to the courtyard house where Karothen lived on the second floor (for stairs were old grand's nemesis, she could no more climb a stair than a normal person could fly and his mother insisted they stay at the top of the steepest, most treacherous steps in the entire town) and call out that they wanted to "play with old gran!" and Karothen's attendance was required.
This was generally considered, after berry picking in the bramble, and various dares involving the castle and the ghost town beyond it, to be the best game and seldom did a day go buy when a pack of children was not spotted running pell mell through town with Karothen in the middle and old gran hot on their tail.
For all that she was dazed old gran was powerful cunning, quiet when she wanted to be and knew the streets and paths as well as any child. The children much loved her ability to suddenly pop out of a side alley and sent the pack scattering, screaming and laughing.
As the years past she became so bent her head faced down into the dirt and she could not raise it, and to catch her eye he had to come to her side. After her right eye became milky only the left side would do. The game was not nearly so much fun then and Karothen had few companions for his "game".
When her second eye grew white he had to speak, for the sound of his voice was the only thing that roused her from her spot the corner of the building with the stained glass windows. She could not walk well, let alone chase him, so he had to hold her frail arm and help her move about; even then she had a decently strong voice, and could babble her non-words at him, punctuating them with an occasional vigorous gesture and a hiss.
She would not eat, save if Karothen were about and even then sometimes only if he would tease her, remind her that she couldn't catch him if she didn't eat.
As such his existence was frequently punctuated with this person or that person who lived near the stained glass building (for no-one would live inside save gran) saying that old gran "hadn't moved in a day or two" and he had to come. And he would have to go down and carry her to market, where the other old women would ply her with thick soup and some of the sour berries from the bramble that she liked so much.
And once she began to hiss and mutter belligerences at him he'd know she'd regained enough of her strength and he'd carry her and a little kettle of soup with him back to the building with the stained glass windows.
[/sblock]
It feels like people might avoid them subconsciously. Maybe I'm envisioning them as more sinister than they are.
I see where you're coming from but the daze really overwhelms anything like that to my mind. I see the walls as being black, and very irregular. Sometimes 20 feet tall sometimes only a foot.
doghead said:
Food and animals could be farmed in small plots throughout the city. Chickens and goats wondering the streets.
Can you believe I hadn't thought about animals... at all.
Obviously they need to be wandering around somewhere.
Maybe the NE zone? For some reason I like the idea that it's overrun with goats, they go into the NE zone to eat from the edges of the bramble but don't stay for long.
Re: Gods
My intent is to have the "gods" be on the back burner for a while. If group has a cleric then they'll be interacting in a sort of transcendental way with
something. But it won't be like "I worship balnor the beastlord, NG god of furry critters, special weapon: flail". It'll be like: "I have this relationship with this
other, I want to do something suddenly I'm babbling in tongues and magic happens."
[At least that's my vision right now, without a cleric or anything. If people propose other character types we can see what comes out of that.]
-If- the group decides to pursue the whole religion angle in character then you'll be able to find out more and I'll probably have people (probably the cleric) "make up" the gods/whatever that you're contacting as you find them.
(obviously there are limits, but that's my thought in the matter).
hewligan said:
Intended Class: Not sure yet - perhaps wizard? Need to see the core rules. Clearly something intellectual though, and not a fighter or rogue!
Unless you want to "reskin" another class the wizard is the intellectual at this stage.
You could do warlock (non-fiendish) too.
If the group wants a "controller" to start (there are four character types now: Defender (Tank), Leader (Healer), Striker (damage dealer), and Controller (Area of Effect attachs/terrain management)): then wizard is the only option.
I, personally, don't really mind whether the group has all the types or not. If you wind up with 4 strikers or whatever we'll work it out (though it looks like the group has decent balance already).
There is a "coldspot" in the bramble, where it is always misty and cool. In the morning the dew freezes into little icicles.
The "market" is actually a strange little space, bounded by walls on four sides.
Sorry if I've missed anybody. I'm trying to get most of it but I can be a bit dazed myself sometimes.
I'll take a pass at the map; finalize the character template; do a bit on relationships and we should be close to starting roleplaying (I think).
@hewligan
Very glad to have you. It means a lot to me that people run games on EnWorld, and (though I honestly didn't to more than take a brief look) it looks like you've got a great long running one (which is particularly hard to do).
