[5e] Spell & Crossbones
- Thread starter Quickleaf
- Start date
(not the reassurance he was looking for, I think.)
Quickleaf
Legend
Man, I feel I'm missing out on being Canadian! That was some quality public television 
[MENTION=6781406]Unsung[/MENTION] I like your new concept, and definitely the Arcane Rivalry bond will be interesting. I'm away from my Monster Manual for the holiday so I can't write up a Kenku (keeteel) race entry, but feel free to use your best judgement.
[MENTION=6781406]Unsung[/MENTION] I like your new concept, and definitely the Arcane Rivalry bond will be interesting. I'm away from my Monster Manual for the holiday so I can't write up a Kenku (keeteel) race entry, but feel free to use your best judgement.
Unsung
First Post
Caillou's probably a lot more annoying if you have kids, I grant you. I still like the name, though. Mayyybe I'll change it. If the jokes start getting to me. I'm still finding the idea funny, myself. I'm reclaiming it!
[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]- I was thinking I'd just start with the half-elf and swap out Fey Ancestry for Mimicry. Quick hack, feels about right. Does that look alright to you?
Could I also adjust my domain spells a little? I'd want:
1st level: disguise self, animal messenger (requires the animal to be dead, animates it temporarily for the duration of the spell) (replaces false life, inflict wounds)
2nd level: hex (replaces ray of enfeeblement)
A mix of the Trickery and Death domains, with a little bit of Nature, but still on track for attaining animate dead at level 5. A stopgap Voodoo domain, if you will.
[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]- I was thinking I'd just start with the half-elf and swap out Fey Ancestry for Mimicry. Quick hack, feels about right. Does that look alright to you?
Could I also adjust my domain spells a little? I'd want:
1st level: disguise self, animal messenger (requires the animal to be dead, animates it temporarily for the duration of the spell) (replaces false life, inflict wounds)
2nd level: hex (replaces ray of enfeeblement)
A mix of the Trickery and Death domains, with a little bit of Nature, but still on track for attaining animate dead at level 5. A stopgap Voodoo domain, if you will.
Quickleaf
Legend
I like how you and fireinthedust have gone for outside the box races that still feel *right* for a pirate game.
I think your idea is on the right track. My only thought is that in balancing the racial abilities, generally something active/player-driven (Mimicry) should have greater "weight" than something passive/reactive (Fey Ancestry). Does that make sense? I'm thinking maybe Mimicry is worth Fey Ancestry and one of the floating +1 ability scores, or Fey Ancestry and one of the half-elf's bonus skills.
Oh yes, absolutely. Nice touch on the (undead) animal messenger.
Look forward to seeing your new character!
Unsung
First Post
Caillou
Chaotic good kenku Cleric 4
Urchin
[sblock=Character Sheet]
CG kenku (keeteel) Cleric 4 (Death domain)
Background: Urchin (Feature- Retainers)
Bond: Arcane Rivalry
Duties: Lookout (Navigator)
Fortunes: Good- Cause (abolition of slavery in the Caribbean), Magic Trinkets (five trinkets, two unknown magic items), Secrets of the Deep (map on the back of a scarred sailor), Ship Mage; Ill- Enemy (Baron Bernard Desjean de Pointis), Enemy (the real Sir D’Arcy), Fighting Words, Outlaw Slave
Notes: Pronounced ‘kai-YOU’; reskinned half-elf, can only speak using Mimicry (most often uses his previous masters’ voices)
Armour Class: 15
Hit Points: 27/27
Hit Dice (+1): 4d8
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Abilities: Str 7 (-2), Con 12 (+1), Dex 16 (+3), Int 16 (+3), Wis 18 (+4), Cha 14 (+2)
Initiative: +3
Senses: Passive Perception 16, darkvision 60 ft
Inspiration: ?
Experience: --
Proficiency Bonus: +2
Armour: Light armour, medium armour
Weapons: Simple weapons
Tools: Alchemist’s supplies, navigator’s tools
Saving Throws: Wisdom +6, Charisma +4
Skills: Stealth +5, Deception +4, Perception +6, Sleight of Hand +5, Investigation +5
Languages: English, French, Greek, Latin
Equipment
Bone needle (dagger; finesse, light). Melee weapon attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. Hit: 1d4 + 3 piercing damage.
Pistol (44 bullets; loading). Ranged weapon attack: +5 to hit, range 20/60 ft, one target. Hit: 1d10 + 3 piercing damage.
Voodoo doll(s) (holy symbol; divine focus). Melee/ranged spell attack: +6 to hit.
Carried: Filthy longcoat (worn), leather armour (sewn into longcoat lining), explorer’s pack (distributed throughout longcoat pockets; also contains small knife, map of Paris, pet mouse, change of common clothes, alchemist’s supplies), rags (worn), purse (9 gp)
Trinkets:
- water-damaged logbook (in coat) of one Captain Henry ‘Long Ben’, every page filled with cryptic navigation charts and unknown islands
- spring-loaded device that wraps around the wrist (worn), designed to launch a dagger into hand
- pocket watch with hands at 10 o'clock counting backwards one hour per month (in coat), resisting all attempts to reset or repair it
- detailed map of French (western) Hispaniola, with notes on assassination targets written in Spanish
- ship in a bottle that seems to come to life at night (in bunk), wracked by thunder and stormy seas
- silver flask with a golden peryton coat-of-arms worked on the side (in coat)
In bunk: Ship in a bottle (trinket, listed above)
Purchased this level (10 starting gp): 24x bullets 1 gp
Racial Traits
Kenku (reskinned Half-elf): Mimicry (replaces Fey Ancestry, Skill Versatility-- one Skill instead of two)
Class Features
Cleric : Channel Divinity 1/rest (Turn Undead, Death Touch)
Divine Domain (Death/Vodoun): Reaper
Spellcasting (Cleric 4)
Spell save DC 14, +6 to hit with spell attacks, prepared spells (8)
Cantrips (4): drowned likeness, spare the dying, thaumaturgy, unfasten; Ship Mage: ghost rigging; Reaper- chill touch
1st level 4/day: command, cure wounds, protection from evil and good, shield of faith; Domain Spells- animal messenger*, disguise self (replaces false life, inflict wounds)
2nd level 3/day: augury, enhance ability, gentle repose, prayer of healing; Domain Spells- blindness/deafness, hex (replaces ray of enfeeblement)
* (Requires the animal to be dead, temporarily animates it for the duration of the spell)
Feats
Cleric 4: Keen Mind (+1 to Intelligence, always know which way is north, always know how many hours until sunrise or sunset, accurately recall anything you have seen or heard within a month)
[sblock=Other Notes]
Background
Urchin
Personality Traits: I bluntly say what other people are hiding or hinting.
Ideals: Retribution- The rich need to be shown what life and death are like in the gutters. (Evil)
Bonds: No one else should have to endure the hardships I’ve been through.
Flaws: I will never fully trust anyone other than myself.
Calculations
Armour Class: 15 = 12 leather armour + Dex mod (+3)
Hit Points 27/27 = 8 for 1st level cleric + (3 x 5 per cleric level) + (4 x +1 Con modifier)
Ability Scores: Rolled 18 15 15 12 11 7, +2 to Charisma, +1 to Dexterity, and +1 to Constitution from half-elf Ability Score Increase; +1 to Intelligence from Keen Mind feat
Tools: 2 background
Skills: 1 race + 2 class + 2 background
Languages: 3 race + 1 campaign bonus
[/sblock]
[/sblock]
[sblock=Background]
alias “Sir D’Arcy”, “Doctor l’Arcand”, “Lucién Ménage, le Comte de Foix”, “King Rook”
When he hatched, Caillou was drab for his tribe-- only five different shades of black and iridescent green, violet, and orange.
Caillou still dreams of the hills of Hispaniola, but in truth his earliest memories are of the cage in which he arrived in Paris, thirteen years ago-- a lifetime. His first master was the disgraced halfling naturalist, Sir D’Arcy Hailstone-Millstone, in exile from his native England and masquerading as a French surgeon, operating a back-alley clinic under the assumed guise of Monsieur le docteur l’Arcand.
Indifference to much apart from his work, rather than any native compassion, made the halfling one of Caillou’s kinder masters. Hailstone-Millstone passed on his own extensive knowledge of mathematics, science, history, and scraps of magic, again for no nobler purpose than to satisfy his own curiosity and to see if he could. Thus the keeteel was burdened with an unusually thorough education-- for anyone, let alone an oddity from the New World. If Caillou was eager to please the doctor, it was because if the man was not truly kind, he was at least not cruel. Indeed, Ssir D’Arcy seemed to lack all such human impulses, and once his secret was found out, and his surgery burnt to the ground by thugs in the employ of English spies, the doctor fled Paris without so much as a by-your-leave.
Discovered in the rubble by the city guards, Caillou was captured and again caged, starved, and stared at. He later found his way into merchant hands, to be auctioned to the nobility, advertised not even as a slave but rather some exotic pet. A bidding war broke out between the Lessaints of Foix, and the Baron de Pointis. The Lessaints, who owned several vineyards and had powerful allies in the Church, won this first battle between them and the Baron; they would not win the war, however, not against Baron Bernard Desjean de Pointis.
For two years, Caillou lived among the Lessaints, behind gilded bars, a centerpiece to the carefully tended fronds and blossoms of the great solarium at the heart of the Lessaints’ Paris estate.
[...]
When the dust settled, the Lessaints had retreated from Paris, and nothing stood between Caillou and the Baron de Pointis but his own bare wit. He fled his upturned cage, into the labyrinthine streets of the city’s slums-- into the arms of thieves, heretics, and gypsies. If he was meant with contempt or mockery, at least it was not more ‘scientific curiosity’. If they came at him with knives, at least he would not be sent to the taxidermist afterward. The lessons of his youth returned to him, the ways of camouflage and passing unnoticed by the local human tribes, the conquistadors of old, the freshly arrived colonists. A certain natural cunning let him mold that knowledge to better suit the Old World alleys and sundry dens of iniquity.
Eventually, accomplices became allies, then finally friends. All told, it took a lifetime, more than ten years, for Caillou to escape the City of Light and return home. He spent much of that time stewing, studying, plotting. A ship of kobolds, smugglers from Denmark, brought him as far as Tortuga a year and a half ago. Were you to ask the French or Spanish what has changed in the hills of Hispaniola, they would not be able to tell you...yet. And that is how the keeteel prefers it, for now.
[/sblock]
[sblock=Retainers]
Lorelei- CG female human (Romani/Vistani?) thief. Caillou often travels under heavy disguise, and uses a few allies he’s collected along the way to stand in for him when dealing with those he does not believe to be sufficiently sympathetic to his cause. Lorelei was one of his first converts, and the loyalest so far. She speaks several languages passingly well, and cultivates an air of refinement and mystery.
Verner Magnussen- NG male kobold (Norwegian) shipwright. Uneasy with the moral lassitude demanded in the smuggling trade, Verner ‘The Wyrm’ is well-mannered and unassuming, but good with his hands, and his small size lets him go places others can’t. What most fail to notice, Caillou spotted immediately: his impressive, downright imperious draconic glower. Seated on the shoulders of a larger man, swathed in scarves and mystic paraphernalia, the full effect can be terrifying.
‘Gunner’ Teague- CN male human (English) deckhand. The latest addition to Caillou’s travelling band, Teague is a washed up old salt. The sailor’s fish stories may be unreliable, but his back is still strong, and the map tattooed on his back is an invaluable part of Caillou’s future schemes.
[/sblock]
[sblock=Enemies]
Sir D’Arcy Roderike Hailstone-Millstone- The bastard son of a nearly-defunct noble lineage in Ireland, Sir D’Arcy is a naturalist, a surgeon formerly of great renown, and a gentleman. He is also an outlaw, alleged of having spoken treason against the British Crown, although there is no sign of his having committed any other crime on the soil of Mother England. In France he is even more infamous, wanted on charges of fraud, impersonating a nobleman, and several murders. He is also a halfling.
Caillou has taken Sir D’Arcy’s name and aliases for his own. For the time being, Sir D’Arcy is merely curious who would use his name in such a manner. His mildness makes him no less dangerous, however.
Baron Bernard Desjean de Pointis- The Baron was an enemy to Sir D’Arcy and the Lessaints, and an antagonist of the young Caillou before the Baron even recognized the latter as a sentient being, much less a rival.
Caillou has been picking up the wreckage Baron de Pointis has left behind him for over a decade. Far more so than Sir D’Arcy, Caillou despises the Baron and all that he represents. The man is a tyrant, and deserves a tyrant’s reward.
[/sblock]
Chaotic good kenku Cleric 4
Urchin
[sblock=Character Sheet]
CG kenku (keeteel) Cleric 4 (Death domain)
Background: Urchin (Feature- Retainers)
Bond: Arcane Rivalry
Duties: Lookout (Navigator)
Fortunes: Good- Cause (abolition of slavery in the Caribbean), Magic Trinkets (five trinkets, two unknown magic items), Secrets of the Deep (map on the back of a scarred sailor), Ship Mage; Ill- Enemy (Baron Bernard Desjean de Pointis), Enemy (the real Sir D’Arcy), Fighting Words, Outlaw Slave
Notes: Pronounced ‘kai-YOU’; reskinned half-elf, can only speak using Mimicry (most often uses his previous masters’ voices)
Armour Class: 15
Hit Points: 27/27
Hit Dice (+1): 4d8
Size: Medium
Speed: 30 feet
Abilities: Str 7 (-2), Con 12 (+1), Dex 16 (+3), Int 16 (+3), Wis 18 (+4), Cha 14 (+2)
Initiative: +3
Senses: Passive Perception 16, darkvision 60 ft
Inspiration: ?
Experience: --
Proficiency Bonus: +2
Armour: Light armour, medium armour
Weapons: Simple weapons
Tools: Alchemist’s supplies, navigator’s tools
Saving Throws: Wisdom +6, Charisma +4
Skills: Stealth +5, Deception +4, Perception +6, Sleight of Hand +5, Investigation +5
Languages: English, French, Greek, Latin
Equipment
Bone needle (dagger; finesse, light). Melee weapon attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft, one target. Hit: 1d4 + 3 piercing damage.
Pistol (44 bullets; loading). Ranged weapon attack: +5 to hit, range 20/60 ft, one target. Hit: 1d10 + 3 piercing damage.
Voodoo doll(s) (holy symbol; divine focus). Melee/ranged spell attack: +6 to hit.
Carried: Filthy longcoat (worn), leather armour (sewn into longcoat lining), explorer’s pack (distributed throughout longcoat pockets; also contains small knife, map of Paris, pet mouse, change of common clothes, alchemist’s supplies), rags (worn), purse (9 gp)
Trinkets:
- water-damaged logbook (in coat) of one Captain Henry ‘Long Ben’, every page filled with cryptic navigation charts and unknown islands
- spring-loaded device that wraps around the wrist (worn), designed to launch a dagger into hand
- pocket watch with hands at 10 o'clock counting backwards one hour per month (in coat), resisting all attempts to reset or repair it
- detailed map of French (western) Hispaniola, with notes on assassination targets written in Spanish
- ship in a bottle that seems to come to life at night (in bunk), wracked by thunder and stormy seas
- silver flask with a golden peryton coat-of-arms worked on the side (in coat)
In bunk: Ship in a bottle (trinket, listed above)
Purchased this level (10 starting gp): 24x bullets 1 gp
Racial Traits
Kenku (reskinned Half-elf): Mimicry (replaces Fey Ancestry, Skill Versatility-- one Skill instead of two)
Class Features
Cleric : Channel Divinity 1/rest (Turn Undead, Death Touch)
Divine Domain (Death/Vodoun): Reaper
Spellcasting (Cleric 4)
Spell save DC 14, +6 to hit with spell attacks, prepared spells (8)
Cantrips (4): drowned likeness, spare the dying, thaumaturgy, unfasten; Ship Mage: ghost rigging; Reaper- chill touch
1st level 4/day: command, cure wounds, protection from evil and good, shield of faith; Domain Spells- animal messenger*, disguise self (replaces false life, inflict wounds)
2nd level 3/day: augury, enhance ability, gentle repose, prayer of healing; Domain Spells- blindness/deafness, hex (replaces ray of enfeeblement)
* (Requires the animal to be dead, temporarily animates it for the duration of the spell)
Feats
Cleric 4: Keen Mind (+1 to Intelligence, always know which way is north, always know how many hours until sunrise or sunset, accurately recall anything you have seen or heard within a month)
[sblock=Other Notes]
Background
Urchin
Personality Traits: I bluntly say what other people are hiding or hinting.
Ideals: Retribution- The rich need to be shown what life and death are like in the gutters. (Evil)
Bonds: No one else should have to endure the hardships I’ve been through.
Flaws: I will never fully trust anyone other than myself.
Calculations
Armour Class: 15 = 12 leather armour + Dex mod (+3)
Hit Points 27/27 = 8 for 1st level cleric + (3 x 5 per cleric level) + (4 x +1 Con modifier)
Ability Scores: Rolled 18 15 15 12 11 7, +2 to Charisma, +1 to Dexterity, and +1 to Constitution from half-elf Ability Score Increase; +1 to Intelligence from Keen Mind feat
Tools: 2 background
Skills: 1 race + 2 class + 2 background
Languages: 3 race + 1 campaign bonus
[/sblock]
[/sblock]
[sblock=Background]
alias “Sir D’Arcy”, “Doctor l’Arcand”, “Lucién Ménage, le Comte de Foix”, “King Rook”
When he hatched, Caillou was drab for his tribe-- only five different shades of black and iridescent green, violet, and orange.
Caillou still dreams of the hills of Hispaniola, but in truth his earliest memories are of the cage in which he arrived in Paris, thirteen years ago-- a lifetime. His first master was the disgraced halfling naturalist, Sir D’Arcy Hailstone-Millstone, in exile from his native England and masquerading as a French surgeon, operating a back-alley clinic under the assumed guise of Monsieur le docteur l’Arcand.
Indifference to much apart from his work, rather than any native compassion, made the halfling one of Caillou’s kinder masters. Hailstone-Millstone passed on his own extensive knowledge of mathematics, science, history, and scraps of magic, again for no nobler purpose than to satisfy his own curiosity and to see if he could. Thus the keeteel was burdened with an unusually thorough education-- for anyone, let alone an oddity from the New World. If Caillou was eager to please the doctor, it was because if the man was not truly kind, he was at least not cruel. Indeed, Ssir D’Arcy seemed to lack all such human impulses, and once his secret was found out, and his surgery burnt to the ground by thugs in the employ of English spies, the doctor fled Paris without so much as a by-your-leave.
Discovered in the rubble by the city guards, Caillou was captured and again caged, starved, and stared at. He later found his way into merchant hands, to be auctioned to the nobility, advertised not even as a slave but rather some exotic pet. A bidding war broke out between the Lessaints of Foix, and the Baron de Pointis. The Lessaints, who owned several vineyards and had powerful allies in the Church, won this first battle between them and the Baron; they would not win the war, however, not against Baron Bernard Desjean de Pointis.
For two years, Caillou lived among the Lessaints, behind gilded bars, a centerpiece to the carefully tended fronds and blossoms of the great solarium at the heart of the Lessaints’ Paris estate.
[...]
When the dust settled, the Lessaints had retreated from Paris, and nothing stood between Caillou and the Baron de Pointis but his own bare wit. He fled his upturned cage, into the labyrinthine streets of the city’s slums-- into the arms of thieves, heretics, and gypsies. If he was meant with contempt or mockery, at least it was not more ‘scientific curiosity’. If they came at him with knives, at least he would not be sent to the taxidermist afterward. The lessons of his youth returned to him, the ways of camouflage and passing unnoticed by the local human tribes, the conquistadors of old, the freshly arrived colonists. A certain natural cunning let him mold that knowledge to better suit the Old World alleys and sundry dens of iniquity.
Eventually, accomplices became allies, then finally friends. All told, it took a lifetime, more than ten years, for Caillou to escape the City of Light and return home. He spent much of that time stewing, studying, plotting. A ship of kobolds, smugglers from Denmark, brought him as far as Tortuga a year and a half ago. Were you to ask the French or Spanish what has changed in the hills of Hispaniola, they would not be able to tell you...yet. And that is how the keeteel prefers it, for now.
[/sblock]
[sblock=Retainers]
Lorelei- CG female human (Romani/Vistani?) thief. Caillou often travels under heavy disguise, and uses a few allies he’s collected along the way to stand in for him when dealing with those he does not believe to be sufficiently sympathetic to his cause. Lorelei was one of his first converts, and the loyalest so far. She speaks several languages passingly well, and cultivates an air of refinement and mystery.
Verner Magnussen- NG male kobold (Norwegian) shipwright. Uneasy with the moral lassitude demanded in the smuggling trade, Verner ‘The Wyrm’ is well-mannered and unassuming, but good with his hands, and his small size lets him go places others can’t. What most fail to notice, Caillou spotted immediately: his impressive, downright imperious draconic glower. Seated on the shoulders of a larger man, swathed in scarves and mystic paraphernalia, the full effect can be terrifying.
‘Gunner’ Teague- CN male human (English) deckhand. The latest addition to Caillou’s travelling band, Teague is a washed up old salt. The sailor’s fish stories may be unreliable, but his back is still strong, and the map tattooed on his back is an invaluable part of Caillou’s future schemes.
[/sblock]
[sblock=Enemies]
Sir D’Arcy Roderike Hailstone-Millstone- The bastard son of a nearly-defunct noble lineage in Ireland, Sir D’Arcy is a naturalist, a surgeon formerly of great renown, and a gentleman. He is also an outlaw, alleged of having spoken treason against the British Crown, although there is no sign of his having committed any other crime on the soil of Mother England. In France he is even more infamous, wanted on charges of fraud, impersonating a nobleman, and several murders. He is also a halfling.
Caillou has taken Sir D’Arcy’s name and aliases for his own. For the time being, Sir D’Arcy is merely curious who would use his name in such a manner. His mildness makes him no less dangerous, however.
Baron Bernard Desjean de Pointis- The Baron was an enemy to Sir D’Arcy and the Lessaints, and an antagonist of the young Caillou before the Baron even recognized the latter as a sentient being, much less a rival.
Caillou has been picking up the wreckage Baron de Pointis has left behind him for over a decade. Far more so than Sir D’Arcy, Caillou despises the Baron and all that he represents. The man is a tyrant, and deserves a tyrant’s reward.
[/sblock]
Last edited:
Quickleaf
Legend
Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving!
[MENTION=6781406]Unsung[/MENTION] What a great character Caillou looks good. We'll just need to figure out his entrance into the story.
Also, since Caillou is a lookout, that means that the master gunner position is open for your party. I wonder [MENTION=23484]Kobold Stew[/MENTION] if you feel Gentleman Jim would be better suited as Quartermaster or as Master Gunner?
[MENTION=6781406]Unsung[/MENTION] What a great character
Caillou looks good. We'll just need to figure out his entrance into the story.Also, since Caillou is a lookout, that means that the master gunner position is open for your party. I wonder [MENTION=23484]Kobold Stew[/MENTION] if you feel Gentleman Jim would be better suited as Quartermaster or as Master Gunner?
Unsung
First Post
[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]- I just noticed that myself. I think I might have to go with Keen Mind. He's too small and frail to man the cannons, so Caillou has to make himself useful in other ways, mostly by holding secrets to ransom. He's deadweight otherwise and knows it. He also uses his knowledge of astronomy and innate sense of direction and distance to aid in navigation, and his magic to subtly help where he can. He trades a lot on the superstition that keeteel are 'lucky'...which is sort of like saying a rabbit's foot is lucky, ie. not so much for the rabbit.
Anyway, thanks! If [MENTION=4936]Shayuri[/MENTION] is still up for it, I think looking for a crew to man the Coral Curse would be a good in. Once it's been exorcised, of course. Probably would want a few hands on deck for that, too, if it really is haunted. He's not going to free Hispaniola or take his revenge on the Baron de Pointis all by his lonesome, after all. Even if they're not in it for his revolution, the promise of treasure and the chance to stick it to nobles and rich merchants often does wonders, especially when dealing with pirates, of all people.
Anyway, thanks! If [MENTION=4936]Shayuri[/MENTION] is still up for it, I think looking for a crew to man the Coral Curse would be a good in. Once it's been exorcised, of course. Probably would want a few hands on deck for that, too, if it really is haunted. He's not going to free Hispaniola or take his revenge on the Baron de Pointis all by his lonesome, after all. Even if they're not in it for his revolution, the promise of treasure and the chance to stick it to nobles and rich merchants often does wonders, especially when dealing with pirates, of all people.
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