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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kelleris" data-source="post: 3033065" data-attributes="member: 19130">Bront - I'm in Loyola of Chicago's philosophy Ph.D. program.  I live on campus, essentially, so Roger's Park, right near Lake Michigan.  Do you know of any groups around here looking for people?Isida and others - Well, I've got two ideas I like, but unfortunately will be a bit too wimpy for my tastes if I can't get your help on a few things.  I'll go ahead and list them here and see what you think.Lupaz, the Hound of Ill Omen (N Male Blink Dog Hexblade) - A fantastically unlucky blink dog, Lupaz was exiled from his pack after a series of mishaps led to the tragic deaths of a litter of blink dogs at the hands (er, paws?  tentacles?) of a malicious and infinitely cruel displacer beast packlord.  After his banishment, Lupaz wandered, seeking a way to avoid the influence of the ill stars he was born under.  He came to the Kingdom of Knowledge, seeking the wisdom of the great elemental weirds.  Even these powerful beings could not divine a way to remove the dark eye cast over Lupaz's fate, however.  What they could do, however, was show him how to inflict his misfortune on others, channelling its power to cause mishaps and unforeseen errors for those around him.  And - they immediately gave Lupaz a job, and a home, suiting his special talents.  For even the incredible magic of the weirds is not infallible, and so these beings employ secretive agents, working alone, to tip the balance of fate and ensure that their prophecies came to pass.  Appearing as nothing more than an ordinary dog (albeit one with a deep sadness evident in his eyes) and blessed with the mastery of the ethereal common to all blink dogs, Lupaz could infiltrate almost anywhere, leaving the messages, ill omens, outright curses, and (occasional) dead bodies necessary to see to fruition the visions of the weirds.  For his services, he has been given a position on the island ship, although no one truly knows which of the inscrutable elemental masters he serves.  Lupaz, for his part, will do what needs to be done to repay the kindness shown him by the weirds - especially since his horrid luck will return again if he does not use it to influence the turbulent times ahead.* The problem here is mostly that I can, as things stand, take a grand total of 2 levels of Hexblade, which isn't nearly enough to make the cursing worthwhile.  I'd like to do something to lower the LA a bit (maybe reducing the number of natural HD or treating hexblade as nonassociated since I don't plan to focus on the martial aspect [I can only ever get one attack anyway, no matter what my BAB is]?).  Maybe fiddle with the Hexblade's class abilities (cleric BAB instead of fighter for a faster curse or spell progression?  dropping Mettle and Summon Familiar for cursing feats?).  I'd also like something like to be able to take, as a feat,  a Practiced Curser feat (like Practiced Spellcaster - +4 levels for determining cursing stuff as long as your total ability doesn't exceed your level).  Between those things and spending all my feats on the cursing feats from Dragon 339, I think I can cover the "Ill Omen" thing well enough.Kisoku Tenrai, Weird's Apprentice (CN Male Air Mephit Shugenja [Air]) - This surprisingly ancient air mephit (almost 300 years young!), styles himself a wanderer and apprentice diviner; all straw hat, oversized fan, and cryptic pronouncements.  In truth, he has only a modest amount of divinatory ability, nothing like the air weirds he claims as his honored ancestors.  He has made some progress, true, but the flighty nature of all his kind has kept him from true mastery of the mystic arts.  He serves, instead, as a messenger for his master's delivering their prophecies to places that are only reachable by air and not important enough for a more powerful elemental's time.  A bad habit of tweaking these missives has made him many (alarmingly many) low-key enemies over the years, the sort of antagonist who won't go out of his way to crush you, but will certainly take the time to make life hard for you when the opportunity arises.  Largely by dint of his greater elemental bloodline and sheer duration of service, Kisoku finds himself on the island-ship almost by accident.  He's not sure what to do about the succession (though he has decided to try to avoid annoying quite so many powerful functionaries in the future), but he fears for his life - when you've annoyed as many people as Kisoku has, the chaotic times of civil unrest are particularly bad news - and is willing to throw in his lot with the heroes he finds himself with.* And again, I just don't have the levels for this.  I really need four levels of Shugenja and a slightly modified spell list so I can get augury to be fairly divinery.  Strangely, augury isn't on the Shugenja spell list, but that's fixed easily enough by making up a new order to represent Kisoku's work with the weirds.  Not sure what to do about the LA problem, though - 3 HD plus +3 La means not enough levels in Shugenja.  Again, if there's some swapping I can do to make this work, that'd be really nice (particularly since LA races plus full spellcasters = bad, bad characters as a rule).  As it is, Kisoku wouldn't really be able to do anything of interest in an 8th level party.  It'd also be nice if someone could suggest a weak air-elemental creature instead of the mephit, which has a -4 Int penalty.How do one of those sound to everyone?  I'd like to play one of these guys, but I'll understand if Isida doesn't want to do the fiddling it'll take to make them viable characters, and keep looking for something else to try.   <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/nervous.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":heh:" title="Nervous Laugh    :heh:" data-shortname=":heh:" /></blockquote>

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