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Ashes of Zeitgeist: Campaign Thread
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<blockquote data-quote="RegularPerson15" data-source="post: 8595465" data-attributes="member: 7029955"><p><h2>THE PROTAGONISTS</h2><p></p><h3>Gambit O'Hara</h3><p>[ATTACH=full]154860[/ATTACH]</p><p>Gambit is a recent immigrant from Crisillyir, along with his uncle, Morgan O'Hara. He's a martial scientist, and a halfling psionic rogue. He has a lot of reservations about his crime family background, which is why he struggled so mightily to get himself and his brother out of that life, but he brings many of the skills his uncle taught him to his work at the RHC.</p><p></p><p><em>Gambit's player told me that his character concept was the ex-scion of a crime family; I immediately thought, why not just make The Family, the O'Hara's - or at least an offshoot of them? This required some tinkering with the world. The O'Hara's then had to be primarily a halfling family, and thus I decided to just go ahead and make Crisillyir a halfling-centric culture. Apologies if this does not line up with the setting, but if the elves get Elfaivar and the dwarves get Drakr, why can't halflings get a spot too!</em></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><h3></h3><h3>Dapper Daniel[ATTACH=full]154862[/ATTACH]</h3><p>Daniel is a half-elf wizard who comes from the upper crust of Risur's aristocracy. Born to a human mother who died early and a distant elven father, his primary companion was his charismatic, do-good brother, who was a stark contrast to his own care-free, dilletante ways. However, after witnesssing the random murder of his brother, he vowed to combat injustice, and found a place in the Vekeshi Mystics, who ordered him to join the RHC and await further instructions.</p><p></p><p><em>Daniel's character also left their backstory pretty open for interpretation. I've been having a lot of fun secretly giving them the Vekeshi side-missions during the last two adventures and watching them try to accomplish them while keeping them hidden from the rest of the party. </em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I think I'm going to have his father be involved in the Obscurati in some fashion, as I think he would be allied with Duchess Ethelyn and disdains industry. I am not sure how high up to make him though.</em></p><h3></h3><h3>Raqalien[ATTACH=full]154864[/ATTACH]</h3><p>Raqalien is a Kobold that was an enslaved from a young age in Risur to work in a factory by some Ber/Risuri faction, but found a strange artifact - an ancient telescope. This artifact connected him to some ancient power in the world whom he made a pact with, gaining spirit medium powers and becoming a warlock, freeing himself from his shackles. He later joins the RHC to save more in need of freedom.</p><p></p><p><em>A new addition to the party after this player decided to have his previous character (A.I.G.) retire from active service. I gave the player the option of having their patron be very significantly tied to the campaign, but they surprisingly didn't want that, as they sensed it would lead to some difficult requests on their end! </em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>I would've had their patron be the Voice of Rot in that case, but instead I have decided to have it be the frozen giant lich from Adventure 7, who I will need to alter as required. </em></p><p></p><p></p><h3>AIG (<em>retired</em>)[ATTACH=full]154867[/ATTACH]</h3><p>AIG (short for Artificial Intelligence Guardian) was a war-forged artificer built by a gnome from Danor during the Fourth Yerasol War, who then switched allegiance halfway through the war and fled with his creation to Risur. AIG fought in the war, and looking for purpose after it, joined the RHC.</p><p></p><p><em>Seeing so many natural similarities between Tinker Oddcog and the gnome creator that this player had come up with, I decided it might be fun and hopefully not too complicated for AIG's creator to have also been involved in the Obscurati project in some fashion. I am not entirely sure how involved yet (initially I thought maybe I could replace Tinker entirely with him, but that was too much alteration of the plot I think - maybe a fellow researcher of Tinker who eventually came to disapprove of how far Danor/Ob were going and wanted to flee? </em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>At the end of Book 2, the player felt AIG had reached a natural concluding point and wanted to retire him from active service. I've had this character now join the RHC engineering team.</em></p><h3>Snow[ATTACH=full]154861[/ATTACH]</h3><p>Snow is a deva that has lost the memories of his previous lives. The only thing he remembers is waking up years ago in a snowbank, deposited in the outreaches of the City of Flint. He later decided to turn his passion for shooting and gun smithing into a job with the RHC.</p><p></p><p><em>Snow's player asked me if I would be okay with them making an amnesiac character and having me fill in their backstory. I thought this would be a lot of fun, but I have embroiled his backstory so heavily into the plot of the adventure that it has become very complicated to manage.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>In my current draft for Snow, he was an eladrin that was engaged to Dala, Kasvarina Varal's daughter, and who looked to Varal herself as a matriarchal figure. I have been feeding him vague glimpses of memories at appropriate times (when he saw Asrabey Varal for the first time, for example), and so far he knows the name Kasvarina Varal, and knows that he was engaged to her daughter. I also added the constant theme of fire and burning to these memories. As I go forward, I'll be giving him glimpses of more memories, many of them analogues to Kasvarina's memories from Act 2. </em></p><p><em></em></p><p><em>There's still so much open-ended for this character that I have to decide though, its a bit overwhelming. What did he do after Dala's death? Did he stay with Kasvarina and help her? Was he there for Launga's death? Something must have happened to shatter the bond between him and Kasvarina, and what ultimately lead him to where he was found now?</em></p><p></p><p>As I hope you can see, I've tried to enmesh all these characters in the setting and story of the adventure. Hopefully, that'll result in cool payoffs for my players down the line.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="RegularPerson15, post: 8595465, member: 7029955"] [HEADING=1]THE PROTAGONISTS[/HEADING] [HEADING=2]Gambit O'Hara[/HEADING] [ATTACH type="full" align="right" alt="1649172500442.png"]154860[/ATTACH] Gambit is a recent immigrant from Crisillyir, along with his uncle, Morgan O'Hara. He's a martial scientist, and a halfling psionic rogue. He has a lot of reservations about his crime family background, which is why he struggled so mightily to get himself and his brother out of that life, but he brings many of the skills his uncle taught him to his work at the RHC. [I]Gambit's player told me that his character concept was the ex-scion of a crime family; I immediately thought, why not just make The Family, the O'Hara's - or at least an offshoot of them? This required some tinkering with the world. The O'Hara's then had to be primarily a halfling family, and thus I decided to just go ahead and make Crisillyir a halfling-centric culture. Apologies if this does not line up with the setting, but if the elves get Elfaivar and the dwarves get Drakr, why can't halflings get a spot too![/I] [HEADING=2][/HEADING] [HEADING=2]Dapper Daniel[ATTACH type="full" align="right" width="557px" alt="1649173517087.png"]154862[/ATTACH][/HEADING] Daniel is a half-elf wizard who comes from the upper crust of Risur's aristocracy. Born to a human mother who died early and a distant elven father, his primary companion was his charismatic, do-good brother, who was a stark contrast to his own care-free, dilletante ways. However, after witnesssing the random murder of his brother, he vowed to combat injustice, and found a place in the Vekeshi Mystics, who ordered him to join the RHC and await further instructions. [I]Daniel's character also left their backstory pretty open for interpretation. I've been having a lot of fun secretly giving them the Vekeshi side-missions during the last two adventures and watching them try to accomplish them while keeping them hidden from the rest of the party. I think I'm going to have his father be involved in the Obscurati in some fashion, as I think he would be allied with Duchess Ethelyn and disdains industry. I am not sure how high up to make him though.[/I] [HEADING=2][/HEADING] [HEADING=2]Raqalien[ATTACH type="full" align="right" width="551px" alt="1649176089113.png"]154864[/ATTACH][/HEADING] Raqalien is a Kobold that was an enslaved from a young age in Risur to work in a factory by some Ber/Risuri faction, but found a strange artifact - an ancient telescope. This artifact connected him to some ancient power in the world whom he made a pact with, gaining spirit medium powers and becoming a warlock, freeing himself from his shackles. He later joins the RHC to save more in need of freedom. [I]A new addition to the party after this player decided to have his previous character (A.I.G.) retire from active service. I gave the player the option of having their patron be very significantly tied to the campaign, but they surprisingly didn't want that, as they sensed it would lead to some difficult requests on their end! I would've had their patron be the Voice of Rot in that case, but instead I have decided to have it be the frozen giant lich from Adventure 7, who I will need to alter as required. [/I] [HEADING=2]AIG ([I]retired[/I])[ATTACH type="full" align="right" width="553px" alt="1649176816284.png"]154867[/ATTACH][/HEADING] AIG (short for Artificial Intelligence Guardian) was a war-forged artificer built by a gnome from Danor during the Fourth Yerasol War, who then switched allegiance halfway through the war and fled with his creation to Risur. AIG fought in the war, and looking for purpose after it, joined the RHC. [I]Seeing so many natural similarities between Tinker Oddcog and the gnome creator that this player had come up with, I decided it might be fun and hopefully not too complicated for AIG's creator to have also been involved in the Obscurati project in some fashion. I am not entirely sure how involved yet (initially I thought maybe I could replace Tinker entirely with him, but that was too much alteration of the plot I think - maybe a fellow researcher of Tinker who eventually came to disapprove of how far Danor/Ob were going and wanted to flee? At the end of Book 2, the player felt AIG had reached a natural concluding point and wanted to retire him from active service. I've had this character now join the RHC engineering team.[/I] [HEADING=2]Snow[ATTACH type="full" align="right" width="555px" alt="1649172538028.png"]154861[/ATTACH][/HEADING] Snow is a deva that has lost the memories of his previous lives. The only thing he remembers is waking up years ago in a snowbank, deposited in the outreaches of the City of Flint. He later decided to turn his passion for shooting and gun smithing into a job with the RHC. [I]Snow's player asked me if I would be okay with them making an amnesiac character and having me fill in their backstory. I thought this would be a lot of fun, but I have embroiled his backstory so heavily into the plot of the adventure that it has become very complicated to manage. In my current draft for Snow, he was an eladrin that was engaged to Dala, Kasvarina Varal's daughter, and who looked to Varal herself as a matriarchal figure. I have been feeding him vague glimpses of memories at appropriate times (when he saw Asrabey Varal for the first time, for example), and so far he knows the name Kasvarina Varal, and knows that he was engaged to her daughter. I also added the constant theme of fire and burning to these memories. As I go forward, I'll be giving him glimpses of more memories, many of them analogues to Kasvarina's memories from Act 2. There's still so much open-ended for this character that I have to decide though, its a bit overwhelming. What did he do after Dala's death? Did he stay with Kasvarina and help her? Was he there for Launga's death? Something must have happened to shatter the bond between him and Kasvarina, and what ultimately lead him to where he was found now?[/I] As I hope you can see, I've tried to enmesh all these characters in the setting and story of the adventure. Hopefully, that'll result in cool payoffs for my players down the line. [/QUOTE]
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