jasin
Explorer
I'm creating a 5th-level character for an existing Eberron party based in Sharn (they're an dwarf Rog/Wiz and a human Rog/Pal running a inquisitive agency currently investigating a series of abductions of wizards and artificers), and I have two concepts:
First off, an introductory explanation: the DM and I went brainstorming and Stormreach ended up being Eberron's version of (the stereotype of) New Orleans: an exotic, beautiful, dangerous city, where the "civilized" ways meet the ways of the exotic natives. Grand, but run down mansions, built when Galifar dreamed of making a prosperous colony and left to decay during the War, line the streets, half-drow creole beauties twirl their parasols, creepy things go on in the swamps, and the relationship between the workers and wealthy plantation owners is all but chattel slavery.
Gavrin ir'Jurians, an ex-Knight Arcane came to Stormreach from Aundair about ten years ago, and bought a small plantation. Appaled by the conditions of the slaves/workers, many of them drow and other natives of Xen'drik, he soon shifted his goal from running a business onto buying out slaves and setting them free. Sometimes, that created workers that were happier and more productive than those of the competition, but many wanted to return to their families, work elsewhere, and otherwise lead their own lives, so Gavrin slowly but steadily lost money.
But no amount of money was too much to pay for what Gavrin found in Stormreach: love. One of the freed slaves, a drow woman named Kirris who practiced a strange form of drow magic, became Gavrin's lover. So despite teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Gavrin was content.
Then true tragedy hit: one night, the plantation was attacked, and Kirris was kidnapped. The clues pointed towards Sharn, and Gavrin sold his plantation and returned to Khorvaire to search for his lover.
Gavrin is a Ftr1/Wiz4, going for the Knight Phantom PrC. His 6th-level feat is going to be Leadership with Kirris as his cohort. Kirris is an artificer, and was kidnapped by the Emerald Claw, just like the wizards and artificers whose disappearances the existing party is investigating. With a few changes, primarily exchanging the "mechanical" abilities (trapfinding, open locks) for something else, an artificer can be a tribal item-crafting shaman as easily as it can be an urbane, industrial mage: just imagine a Xen'drik drow crooning over a small bundle sticks and feathers tied up with her own hair... and then, when she needs, snapping the bundle to cast fly. Or preparing a small lump of clay with a few drops of her blood, for polymorph. (This is actually just using the spell storing item infusion, with suitably flavour text.)
I guess there's one thing I might need help with: why did Gavrin leave Khorvaire while the War still lasted? I really don't want him exiled or running away, since I want at least reasonably good relations with the Aundair military, because I want the Knight Phantom PrC... but I guess I could work it out with the DM so that those are regained over the course of the next two levels, just in time to take the PrC.
I'm also thinking about making Gavrin an artificer instead of a Knight Arcane. Perhaps a Cannith scholar-artificer with the Education feat and a bunch of knowledges who came to Xen'drik to find out more about the history of the warforged, but then got caught up fighting against the local slavery problems (after that the story merges with the original one).
It's hardly the best choice to take Leadership and take another character with the same class, but I really like the idea of a tribal artificer and I want to use it, but I also still haven't gotten the chance to really try out what the artificer can do, and with Kirris being 4 levels behind the party, I still won't just playing her. It should be fun anyway, but I won't be really able to compare what an ArtX can do compared to a WizX or a FtrX that way...
The other idea is a noble from Karrnath. A scion of an ancient family of Blood of Vol worshippers, Alarich ir'Wynarn ("Yes, we can trace our blood to the royal families of Galifar. We care about such things.") was sent to Rekkenmark Academy, as any able-bodied young Karrnathi noble should. He did reasonably well there, but at first opportunity, he quite returned to his true interests: scholarship and arcana. His father didn't pay much attention, since Alarich's older brother Adalstan was the family hope.
But when Adalstan was killed in Aundair, and Alarich's father rode off west in a rage to follow him into death, Alarich was left in charge of the family estates. He waited for years for the summons to war to come (not that he had any particular desire to go)... but news, first of the Mourning, and then the Thronehold Accords came first. People get forgotten, papers get misplaced; even in the military machine that is Karrnath.
Alarich is a Ftr1/Wiz4 going for eldritch knight (I'll take Education so as to keep all knowledges class skills for EK), or if I'm feeling adventurous, loremaster (not the best choice for a Ftr/Wiz, but fits very nicely otherwise).
Alarich isn't as well thought out as Gavrin, though: why does he go adventuring, and why does he go to Sharn in particular, and make friends with the party? He's Neutral leaning towards Good. His loyalty for the Blood is not that strong, and will probably be shattered completely once he finds out for sure they're maniacs headed by a half-dragon/half-elf lich bent on world domination. I thought that perhaps he goes Emerald-Claw-hunting; official Karrnath calls them terrorists, after all. But I don't see his loyalty to the state as being strong enough to bother.
BTW, I'm kinda-sorta modeling him on Ulric von Bek from Moorcock's The Dreamthief's Daughter: a decent guy at the end of a very long, very dark family line. Maybe that's why he starts adventuring? He finds out at least part of the truth about the Blood, and feels the need to redeem his family in some way by fighting them...?
I also thought about making it a family of Dragon Below cultists ("You might think all Karrnathi necromancers, but we serve a deeper and older power than the Blood..."); that would give him reason to fight the Emerald Claw and Blood of Vol, with their weak newfangled ways ...
But the DB cultists are... well, cultists. Crazy Cthulu-worshipping maniacs. Is there a reasonable way to create a fundamentally decent, even heroic person that's a Dragon Below worshipper? Again, perhaps when he finally finds out his big family secret, he is appalled and tries to make things better... but it'd make more sense if he started killin' Dragon Below cultists, than the Emerald Claw soldiers the party is currently fighting.
Perhaps the DB version would work better as a Ftr/Sor? That way he keeps a strong (if personal) tie to the Dragon Below even if he turns actively against the cults...
Any thoughts, suggestions, questions?
First off, an introductory explanation: the DM and I went brainstorming and Stormreach ended up being Eberron's version of (the stereotype of) New Orleans: an exotic, beautiful, dangerous city, where the "civilized" ways meet the ways of the exotic natives. Grand, but run down mansions, built when Galifar dreamed of making a prosperous colony and left to decay during the War, line the streets, half-drow creole beauties twirl their parasols, creepy things go on in the swamps, and the relationship between the workers and wealthy plantation owners is all but chattel slavery.
Gavrin ir'Jurians, an ex-Knight Arcane came to Stormreach from Aundair about ten years ago, and bought a small plantation. Appaled by the conditions of the slaves/workers, many of them drow and other natives of Xen'drik, he soon shifted his goal from running a business onto buying out slaves and setting them free. Sometimes, that created workers that were happier and more productive than those of the competition, but many wanted to return to their families, work elsewhere, and otherwise lead their own lives, so Gavrin slowly but steadily lost money.
But no amount of money was too much to pay for what Gavrin found in Stormreach: love. One of the freed slaves, a drow woman named Kirris who practiced a strange form of drow magic, became Gavrin's lover. So despite teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Gavrin was content.
Then true tragedy hit: one night, the plantation was attacked, and Kirris was kidnapped. The clues pointed towards Sharn, and Gavrin sold his plantation and returned to Khorvaire to search for his lover.
Gavrin is a Ftr1/Wiz4, going for the Knight Phantom PrC. His 6th-level feat is going to be Leadership with Kirris as his cohort. Kirris is an artificer, and was kidnapped by the Emerald Claw, just like the wizards and artificers whose disappearances the existing party is investigating. With a few changes, primarily exchanging the "mechanical" abilities (trapfinding, open locks) for something else, an artificer can be a tribal item-crafting shaman as easily as it can be an urbane, industrial mage: just imagine a Xen'drik drow crooning over a small bundle sticks and feathers tied up with her own hair... and then, when she needs, snapping the bundle to cast fly. Or preparing a small lump of clay with a few drops of her blood, for polymorph. (This is actually just using the spell storing item infusion, with suitably flavour text.)
I guess there's one thing I might need help with: why did Gavrin leave Khorvaire while the War still lasted? I really don't want him exiled or running away, since I want at least reasonably good relations with the Aundair military, because I want the Knight Phantom PrC... but I guess I could work it out with the DM so that those are regained over the course of the next two levels, just in time to take the PrC.
I'm also thinking about making Gavrin an artificer instead of a Knight Arcane. Perhaps a Cannith scholar-artificer with the Education feat and a bunch of knowledges who came to Xen'drik to find out more about the history of the warforged, but then got caught up fighting against the local slavery problems (after that the story merges with the original one).
It's hardly the best choice to take Leadership and take another character with the same class, but I really like the idea of a tribal artificer and I want to use it, but I also still haven't gotten the chance to really try out what the artificer can do, and with Kirris being 4 levels behind the party, I still won't just playing her. It should be fun anyway, but I won't be really able to compare what an ArtX can do compared to a WizX or a FtrX that way...
The other idea is a noble from Karrnath. A scion of an ancient family of Blood of Vol worshippers, Alarich ir'Wynarn ("Yes, we can trace our blood to the royal families of Galifar. We care about such things.") was sent to Rekkenmark Academy, as any able-bodied young Karrnathi noble should. He did reasonably well there, but at first opportunity, he quite returned to his true interests: scholarship and arcana. His father didn't pay much attention, since Alarich's older brother Adalstan was the family hope.
But when Adalstan was killed in Aundair, and Alarich's father rode off west in a rage to follow him into death, Alarich was left in charge of the family estates. He waited for years for the summons to war to come (not that he had any particular desire to go)... but news, first of the Mourning, and then the Thronehold Accords came first. People get forgotten, papers get misplaced; even in the military machine that is Karrnath.
Alarich is a Ftr1/Wiz4 going for eldritch knight (I'll take Education so as to keep all knowledges class skills for EK), or if I'm feeling adventurous, loremaster (not the best choice for a Ftr/Wiz, but fits very nicely otherwise).
Alarich isn't as well thought out as Gavrin, though: why does he go adventuring, and why does he go to Sharn in particular, and make friends with the party? He's Neutral leaning towards Good. His loyalty for the Blood is not that strong, and will probably be shattered completely once he finds out for sure they're maniacs headed by a half-dragon/half-elf lich bent on world domination. I thought that perhaps he goes Emerald-Claw-hunting; official Karrnath calls them terrorists, after all. But I don't see his loyalty to the state as being strong enough to bother.
BTW, I'm kinda-sorta modeling him on Ulric von Bek from Moorcock's The Dreamthief's Daughter: a decent guy at the end of a very long, very dark family line. Maybe that's why he starts adventuring? He finds out at least part of the truth about the Blood, and feels the need to redeem his family in some way by fighting them...?
I also thought about making it a family of Dragon Below cultists ("You might think all Karrnathi necromancers, but we serve a deeper and older power than the Blood..."); that would give him reason to fight the Emerald Claw and Blood of Vol, with their weak newfangled ways ...
But the DB cultists are... well, cultists. Crazy Cthulu-worshipping maniacs. Is there a reasonable way to create a fundamentally decent, even heroic person that's a Dragon Below worshipper? Again, perhaps when he finally finds out his big family secret, he is appalled and tries to make things better... but it'd make more sense if he started killin' Dragon Below cultists, than the Emerald Claw soldiers the party is currently fighting.
Perhaps the DB version would work better as a Ftr/Sor? That way he keeps a strong (if personal) tie to the Dragon Below even if he turns actively against the cults...
Any thoughts, suggestions, questions?
