Queenie
Queen of Everything
So maybe change the thread title to show we are recruiting 1-2 players? Fresh blood might help get some things done
[5e] Spell & Crossbones
So maybe change the thread title to show we are recruiting 1-2 players? Fresh blood might help get some things done
tuxgeo
Adventurer
Please excuse me for once again jumping into your thread here, but I wanted to pose a couple of questions:
(1) If you can get Kid and Caillou back into play, you'll have your seven, right? If CB and unsung are reachable (not always a given), couldn't the party just go forward that way?
(2) Without Caillou, your party has Swashbucklers but no Ship Mage. I may never see the "Ghost Rigging" cantrip in action in your IC thread, so I wanted to ask: with a Range of 30 feet and an effect of rigging lashing out 30 feet, does the rigging go to a maximum distance of 60 feet from the caster? And does the rope lash out from the rigging, or from the caster? (Could a Ship Mage who is walking the plank cast the cantrip to have rope lash out from the rigging and catch him?)
(1) If you can get Kid and Caillou back into play, you'll have your seven, right? If CB and unsung are reachable (not always a given), couldn't the party just go forward that way?
(2) Without Caillou, your party has Swashbucklers but no Ship Mage. I may never see the "Ghost Rigging" cantrip in action in your IC thread, so I wanted to ask: with a Range of 30 feet and an effect of rigging lashing out 30 feet, does the rigging go to a maximum distance of 60 feet from the caster? And does the rope lash out from the rigging, or from the caster? (Could a Ship Mage who is walking the plank cast the cantrip to have rope lash out from the rigging and catch him?)
Queenie
Queen of Everything
Please excuse me for once again jumping into your thread here, but I wanted to pose a couple of questions:
(1) If you can get Kid and Caillou back into play, you'll have your seven, right? If CB and unsung are reachable (not always a given), couldn't the party just go forward that way?
(2) Without Caillou, your party has Swashbucklers but no Ship Mage. I may never see the "Ghost Rigging" cantrip in action in your IC thread, so I wanted to ask: with a Range of 30 feet and an effect of rigging lashing out 30 feet, does the rigging go to a maximum distance of 60 feet from the caster? And does the rope lash out from the rigging, or from the caster? (Could a Ship Mage who is walking the plank cast the cantrip to have rope lash out from the rigging and catch him?)
I don't think either CB or Unsung are back here playing on the boards at the moment.
[MENTION=61026]tuxgeo[/MENTION] Are you next on the list to play?
Quickleaf
Legend
So maybe change the thread title to show we are recruiting 1-2 players? Fresh blood might help get some things done
Aye aye, captain!
Quickleaf
Legend
Please excuse me for once again jumping into your thread here, but I wanted to pose a couple of questions:
(1) If you can get Kid and Caillou back into play, you'll have your seven, right? If CB and unsung are reachable (not always a given), couldn't the party just go forward that way?
(2) Without Caillou, your party has Swashbucklers but no Ship Mage. I may never see the "Ghost Rigging" cantrip in action in your IC thread, so I wanted to ask: with a Range of 30 feet and an effect of rigging lashing out 30 feet, does the rigging go to a maximum distance of 60 feet from the caster? And does the rope lash out from the rigging, or from the caster? (Could a Ship Mage who is walking the plank cast the cantrip to have rope lash out from the rigging and catch him?)
(1) I haven't seen CB and Unsung around for several months, don't think they're currently playing.
(2) Yep, ghost rigging might be described as a fling of the caster's hand, and then a mast line (within 30 feet) wraps around a boarding enemy's foot, hauling them up 30 feet to dangle above the deck, or something along those lines. So, yes, the maximum effective distance would be 60 feet if you just wanted to tangle an enemy up with a bit of rope. The rope lash originates from the rigging. Yes, totally, a Ship Mage walking the plank could cast ghost rigging to have the rope lash out from the rigging and catch him (though I can't remember if I designed the cantrip to function like a reaction feather fall or not).
Fenris
Adventurer
Please excuse me for once again jumping into your thread here, but I wanted to pose a couple of questions:
(1) If you can get Kid and Caillou back into play, you'll have your seven, right? If CB and unsung are reachable (not always a given), couldn't the party just go forward that way?
(2) Without Caillou, your party has Swashbucklers but no Ship Mage. I may never see the "Ghost Rigging" cantrip in action in your IC thread, so I wanted to ask: with a Range of 30 feet and an effect of rigging lashing out 30 feet, does the rigging go to a maximum distance of 60 feet from the caster? And does the rope lash out from the rigging, or from the caster? (Could a Ship Mage who is walking the plank cast the cantrip to have rope lash out from the rigging and catch him?)
Eh em!
tuxgeo
Adventurer
Eh em!
But I didn't forget Old Zef! His Wizard Archetype is "School of Conjuration," not the special "Ship Mage" archetype that QL created and posted as one of his "Seafaring Archetypes."
Edit to add: I had mentioned Caillou in connection with the Ship Mage archetype because unsung had given Caillou the "Ship Mage" Fortune as one Fortune among a total of eight that he took (including "Enemy" twice).
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tuxgeo
Adventurer
I don't think either CB or Unsung are back here playing on the boards at the moment.
@tuxgeo Are you next on the list to play?
What? Is there a list somewhere?
I'm thinking maybe not? There are reasons: (1) my experience playing D&D is very limited; (2) I'm slow to build characters, so others may hop in before me; (3) I'm not nearly as imaginative a writer as you lot are; (4) I don't know whether I would fit in with the group as far as style is concerned.
More about style: I have played in one campaign with Shayuri -- Li Shenron's Dungeon Crawl. In that, I was so green to the process that I didn't take her up on the idea of having our characters have a prior connection (both characters elves). However, reading the posts in Spell & Crossbones shows me how contrary-to-style that is.
I also played in one campaign with both CanadienneBacon and KoboldStew -- CB's Stonefast. Again, I created my character in isolation. (Dwarf that time.) CB did give my PC Inspiration for roleplaying one time, but the campaign was mostly a dungeon crawl.
Most recently, I played a human cleric in mips42's Lost Mines. I noticed that one of my fellow players from there, Neurotic, was determined not to be a good fit for QL's Al-Qadim game, though that might be as much due to the fact that the AQ effort is a high-level playtest as it is due to the player's personal style.
So, yeah, I've been working on building a character for this campaign for months.* OK, years: this has been going on since 2014, and it's now 2017. (How time flies.) The character is still not coming together well. (I'm slow!) Details may not be necessary, as I haven't the background of piratical inspiration that the members of the party seems to have. (Never watched the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, for example.)
* Edit to spoilerize speculation about possible PC:
[sblock]Current status: Irish wood elf Warlock 3 / Sorcerer 1, Lachlan ("Lanny") Feeney from County Sligo, who can't go back to the Emerald Isle again (for reasons I'm not sure about. Maybe the Flight of the Earls?). (Because you've lost your Irishman and need another?) Made his home in Montserrat until his house and effects there were seized by the French when they took that island from the English for a year. Maybe marooned once? Without a strong Bond to La Gloriosa del Mar, which I haven't been able to come up with, this may continue to be an exercise in character-building.[/sblock]
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[MENTION=61026]tuxgeo[/MENTION] The best advice that I can give you is to try. A lot of your hesitation sounds like you're worried about your inexperience. The only way to fix that is to play. Actually playing will allow you to stretch yourself and get some confidence while growing your skill.
PbP is a safe place to write. No one is expecting your posts to be novels or great literature. We're all just playing a game. As long as you focus your play on trying to create fun for yourself and everyone else, you'll do great.
The big question to ask yourself is whether you think you would have fun playing in the game. If so and you're excited about it, go for it.
I don't follow threads that I don't play in so I don't know the ins and outs of the stories you reference. However, I would throw out that everyone in this thread has been incredibly nice to me since I joined. You always want to play with cool people. This thread is filled with them.
If you're interested, let's brainstorm your character. There's lots of ways to approach building a character. You've got your heart set on using the Ship Mage archetype (which is awesome). So, for you, let's start with mechanics first and work from there.
You're mostly a Warlock which has a lot of character hooks baked into its premise. Luckily, Quickleaf has provided some great fodder already in his setting description:
"Warlocks are called "bokors" in the setting. Pacts with The Archfey involve ancient island guardians who the warlock is sworn to appease, and water spirits guiding the warlock toward his or her destiny. Pacts with The Fiend include proverbial deals with the Devil, who takes many guises in the Caribbean. Pacts with the Great Old One involve a dealin with one of the Abyssal Lords like Dagon, Keto, Zargon, Cthulu, or even the Kraken. Some warlocks are Ship Mages, having sworn a pact with Davy Jones of the Flying Dutchman, a terrible captain of a ghost ship, or even to a sentient or cursed ship itself!"
A great starting point for a Warlock is to decide who the Patron is and what your relationship is to him/her/it. Generally, that should give you something to start building your history off of (since it is almost inherently a defining trait of the character).
PbP is a safe place to write. No one is expecting your posts to be novels or great literature. We're all just playing a game. As long as you focus your play on trying to create fun for yourself and everyone else, you'll do great.
The big question to ask yourself is whether you think you would have fun playing in the game. If so and you're excited about it, go for it.
I don't follow threads that I don't play in so I don't know the ins and outs of the stories you reference. However, I would throw out that everyone in this thread has been incredibly nice to me since I joined. You always want to play with cool people. This thread is filled with them.
If you're interested, let's brainstorm your character. There's lots of ways to approach building a character. You've got your heart set on using the Ship Mage archetype (which is awesome). So, for you, let's start with mechanics first and work from there.
You're mostly a Warlock which has a lot of character hooks baked into its premise. Luckily, Quickleaf has provided some great fodder already in his setting description:
"Warlocks are called "bokors" in the setting. Pacts with The Archfey involve ancient island guardians who the warlock is sworn to appease, and water spirits guiding the warlock toward his or her destiny. Pacts with The Fiend include proverbial deals with the Devil, who takes many guises in the Caribbean. Pacts with the Great Old One involve a dealin with one of the Abyssal Lords like Dagon, Keto, Zargon, Cthulu, or even the Kraken. Some warlocks are Ship Mages, having sworn a pact with Davy Jones of the Flying Dutchman, a terrible captain of a ghost ship, or even to a sentient or cursed ship itself!"
A great starting point for a Warlock is to decide who the Patron is and what your relationship is to him/her/it. Generally, that should give you something to start building your history off of (since it is almost inherently a defining trait of the character).
tuxgeo
Adventurer
Matthan, thank you for the kind words and the encouragement.
Yes, my inexperience has been one cause of my reluctance; but another cause has been my growing suspicion that I have been going about it bass-ackward, or "back end foremost": trying to build a concept out of parts, Frankenstein-style, instead of starting with a concept and seeing what parts will best approximate it.
People in this thread have had great concepts: Katarina, Gunner Teague, Barrington, Old Zef, Hugo van Haan, Caillou, Nia Steeleyes, and maybe even Kid were distinctly memorable concepts. I did get confused between Blaise and Etienne, but that's my own fault for having referred to each of them in turn as "the French guy" in my head.
There was a slight bit of talk in the thread earlier about things such as, "Oh, you're going for a Tia Dalma sort of vibe," or "Oh, you're making sort of a Gibbs character." To my regret, I haven't yet seen any of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies; but I did look up the entry on Wikipedia, and suddenly started to recognize several parts of the Spell & Crossbones setting in the text there, such as the Immortality fortune: the whole crew are immortal because. . . . Yeah, and the "Curse of the Aztec Gold," which ties into that.
So I started with the idea of the Ship Mage archetype, which nobody had bothered with; and there was talk in the IC thread about being able to Detect Magic, which a Warlock can do at will with the right Invocation; and I noticed that QL had broken the Dwarves into mostly Dutch and Scottish, speaking different languages; and the Elves were the Irish and Welsh, the (what?) Mayans, and some others. That led me to considering an Irish Druid; but the party already has a Druid in Nia. Further research showed me the island of Montserrat, which in the 17th and 18th centuries had a large Irish population; but QL said the Irish were marginalized in the British holdings in the Caribbean, and Montserrat was one of those holding (except for a year when France took over, then gave it back in the peace agreement); and Montserrat is a lovely conundrum for prophecy: if the Irish Warlock could have to live there for some reason, and was very long-lived, he might have to face the dilemma of "When Ireland gets her freedom, boy, you can come on home again," coupled with another prophecy saying that half the island would be wiped out or made uninhabitable by a volcanic eruption in the 20th century (including the capital, Plymouth) -- leaving him to wonder: will Ireland get her freedom first, or will the volcano blow first? (With the benefit of hindsight, we know these days that Irish Freedom came about 1922 (treaty), 1937 (status of dominion), and 1948 (republic of ireland act); while the volcano didn't blow until 18th July 1995. No Irish Warlock without the power of Foresight could have known that exact sequence in 1702 - 1713.)
That led me to recognize that I was doing it again: building a new character in singular isolation, having a background replete with historical relevance but having not a trace of dramatic relevance: no links to the other characters, no bond to seeking the sunken treasure ship.
I think that, if I'm going to be able to make a good character for this adventure, I'm going to need help from the others here; and a second thing I'm going to need is to find copies of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and watch them all, so I'm at least halfway caught up with piratical-horror culture. (I've seen the Disney "Treasure island" and one version of "Kidnapped," so the Stevenson side is covered.)
Edit to add: Ooh. Patron. That was going to be The Archfey until I saw that the Ship Mage archetype replaces the Otherworldly Patron in the Warlock; and that gave impetus to the idea of multiclassing into Sorcerer to get Ship Mage at 1st level of Sorcerer, so the Warlock levels could still be devoted to The Archfey. (Since Sorcerers have origin troubles in this game, with Dragonblooded not allowed and Wild Mages having a different Wild Surge table, it's likely just as well to replace the Sorcerous Origin with the Ship Mage thing, and keep the Warlock patron intact.)
Yes, my inexperience has been one cause of my reluctance; but another cause has been my growing suspicion that I have been going about it bass-ackward, or "back end foremost": trying to build a concept out of parts, Frankenstein-style, instead of starting with a concept and seeing what parts will best approximate it.
People in this thread have had great concepts: Katarina, Gunner Teague, Barrington, Old Zef, Hugo van Haan, Caillou, Nia Steeleyes, and maybe even Kid were distinctly memorable concepts. I did get confused between Blaise and Etienne, but that's my own fault for having referred to each of them in turn as "the French guy" in my head.
There was a slight bit of talk in the thread earlier about things such as, "Oh, you're going for a Tia Dalma sort of vibe," or "Oh, you're making sort of a Gibbs character." To my regret, I haven't yet seen any of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies; but I did look up the entry on Wikipedia, and suddenly started to recognize several parts of the Spell & Crossbones setting in the text there, such as the Immortality fortune: the whole crew are immortal because. . . . Yeah, and the "Curse of the Aztec Gold," which ties into that.
So I started with the idea of the Ship Mage archetype, which nobody had bothered with; and there was talk in the IC thread about being able to Detect Magic, which a Warlock can do at will with the right Invocation; and I noticed that QL had broken the Dwarves into mostly Dutch and Scottish, speaking different languages; and the Elves were the Irish and Welsh, the (what?) Mayans, and some others. That led me to considering an Irish Druid; but the party already has a Druid in Nia. Further research showed me the island of Montserrat, which in the 17th and 18th centuries had a large Irish population; but QL said the Irish were marginalized in the British holdings in the Caribbean, and Montserrat was one of those holding (except for a year when France took over, then gave it back in the peace agreement); and Montserrat is a lovely conundrum for prophecy: if the Irish Warlock could have to live there for some reason, and was very long-lived, he might have to face the dilemma of "When Ireland gets her freedom, boy, you can come on home again," coupled with another prophecy saying that half the island would be wiped out or made uninhabitable by a volcanic eruption in the 20th century (including the capital, Plymouth) -- leaving him to wonder: will Ireland get her freedom first, or will the volcano blow first? (With the benefit of hindsight, we know these days that Irish Freedom came about 1922 (treaty), 1937 (status of dominion), and 1948 (republic of ireland act); while the volcano didn't blow until 18th July 1995. No Irish Warlock without the power of Foresight could have known that exact sequence in 1702 - 1713.)
That led me to recognize that I was doing it again: building a new character in singular isolation, having a background replete with historical relevance but having not a trace of dramatic relevance: no links to the other characters, no bond to seeking the sunken treasure ship.
I think that, if I'm going to be able to make a good character for this adventure, I'm going to need help from the others here; and a second thing I'm going to need is to find copies of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and watch them all, so I'm at least halfway caught up with piratical-horror culture. (I've seen the Disney "Treasure island" and one version of "Kidnapped," so the Stevenson side is covered.)
Edit to add: Ooh. Patron. That was going to be The Archfey until I saw that the Ship Mage archetype replaces the Otherworldly Patron in the Warlock; and that gave impetus to the idea of multiclassing into Sorcerer to get Ship Mage at 1st level of Sorcerer, so the Warlock levels could still be devoted to The Archfey. (Since Sorcerers have origin troubles in this game, with Dragonblooded not allowed and Wild Mages having a different Wild Surge table, it's likely just as well to replace the Sorcerous Origin with the Ship Mage thing, and keep the Warlock patron intact.)
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