Fallen World- 13th lvl homebrew (dark and mature)

[Shayuri]

I think I'd better withdraw.

Not gelling for me. I don't do evil very well anyway. I need to empathize with my PC too much.

Have fun all.

 

[Blackrat]

Now I have a consept. This is something that has been running through my brain from time to time but I have never had a chance to play it. A kobold Druid/Sorcerer/Mythic theurge. He is a bit insane, having delusions of grandeur, believing that he is a great dragon imprisoned to this weak body. And if you are willing to pull it through he could also hear voices in his mind and have even some minor hallucinations.

 

[WarlockLord]

I think I will follow Shayuri and bow out. My guy would clash with an evil party, and I'm not really comfortable with graphic scenes of BoVD nature. Sorry to take up time, and I hope the rest of you have fun.

 

[Jemal]

Ya know Warlock, so far we have 2 good characters (Me and Caros) and one who is probably more good than evil (Autumn). It's NOT an EVIL group.
As for the Graphic scenes.. What are you talking about? There's not gonna be any sex/porn b/c that's not allowed on ENWorld, and as for the rest.. Describing gore isn't all that graphic or bad usually. Not sure what kind of 'graphic scenes' you're expecting.

Also, Nephtys - You seem to be of the mind that if we can't kill all the badguys we have to be evil... I'm not sure how 'evil' the world is, but unless we're physically FORCED at every step of the way to commit crimes, we can still lead perfectly GOOD lives.

You said

many of his actions, though done for his idea of the greater good, will have evil consequences. He may still be able to make a difference in the world, some evils are lesser than others, but even his victories may turn bitter in the end.

I'm not sure what you mean by that... ANYTHING can have bad consequences, whether the world's evil or good.
What it sounds like you're saying is that nothing good can come of anything we do, and that we should EXPECT everything to turn out bad, b/c any good deed will be automatically twisted to something bad.. So for example, if I feed a starving child, that means that he'll grow up to be a rapist... Or if I prevent someone from being mugged, he'll go on to kill somebody. If I rescue someone who's been kidnapped, I find out that they're actually the secret mastermind behind an evil cult that sacrifices a hundred innocents a week...

ON the other hand...

The problem with the good aligned is that there is not always a good path open to them. I want the PCs to be proactive and a good character can, perhaps, cause the game to slow down because the options available seem less attractive to them than they do to neutral or evil characters

Unless you're telling us "These are your ONLY options, don't think outside the box", that's just plain not true. The only way you can come up with a problem that DOESN't have both a good AND an evil solution IS by railroading. I've yet to come across a situation (that wasn't 100% Contrived) where I couldn't fairly easily see both the evil and good way to deal with it.
Can you give me some example of what you think is going to cause good characters problems other than the fact that there's a lot of demons in the world?

 

[Neurotic]

Defender

If you allow mix of demi human and planetouched I'd play dwarf mineral genasi, otherwise sacred dwarf from Quintessential dwarf. If fully eradicated then human teatium knight of tolgarium, guardian of Crystal Spire (enclave of wizards, artificers and keepers of human/dwarven/elven/other lore)

Something along the lines of Fig2/Clr(Dumathoin)3/Deepwarden2/Dwarven defender 5 or 6 depending if genasi (+1 ECL).

If human then Fig4/knight of tolgarien9

One of rare dwarves, Ebon of Crystal Spire is guardian of hidden enclave and explorer of deep places searching for both materials to combat demons and way back to his home plane of elemental crystal...

If defending his home can be made proactive by going out and bringing fight to the enemy all the better.

 

[Autumn]

To throw in my two cents, Jemal, I think all Nephtys is saying is that in a world where demons hold ultimate sway, it's somewhat tricky to achieve any power - and therefore any capacity for making things better - without getting your hands very dirty. You can refuse to cosy up with the demon lords, sure, but in that case your life is likely to turn very short, very unpleasant, and very much a lost cause so far as doing any good is concerned. Or else you can walk that line, retaining the demon lords' favor whilst trying your best to do some good along the way. But in that case, it's likely that you're going to have to do a lot of things that don't sit right with you in order to maintain yourself in a position of power.

many of his actions, though done for his idea of the greater good, will have evil consequences. He may still be able to make a difference in the world, some evils are lesser than others, but even his victories may turn bitter in the end.

The way I understand this is in the light of what I've said above. For the greater good, your character might need to do some very bad things. If he takes the path of virtue every time, he'll be trampled underfoot.

Trying to do good in a society like that isn't easy. To take a real world parallel, look at Nazi Germany. For those people who recognized the evil of what the state was doing and wanted to make it better, what were their options? Yes, they could stand up and say 'this is wrong' - that's the path of virtue, and it would have got them arrested instantly. They would have done no good whatsoever.

Or else they could attempt to gain a position of power within the hierarchy and then do what they could to alleviate the horror à la Schindler's List. But that would mean complicity in many, many horrible things along the road that got you to the position where you could help out. And even once you're there, the amount of good you can do might seem a little bit like pissing in the ocean.

No wonder that in the real world, many people chose simply to flee to avoid complicity with a situation that they hated but could do nothing about.

In this setting that's not an option.

Of course, this is DnD, so whilst the baddies are supersized into demons, the goodies are supersized too. We do actually have the remote chance of attaining so much personal power that we can make a very real and very dramatic change. So the option of collaboration for the greater good suddenly seems much more attractive.

* * *

That, any way, is how I have been looking at it. Forgive me if it was presumptuous to go into all that, obviously I'm not Nephtys and I don't speak for him. Just trying to give my input on how I see the setting.

 

[Shayuri]

Or they could join the underground Resistance...supply aid and shelter to rebels...help smuggle people out of the country...

Dangerous, yeah, but doesn't require complicity...and it doesn't require more power than any citizen has.

But it would only really work if everyone wanted to do it.

 

[Nephtys]

Okay, so mechanically I have two options that I'm running through my head, and I wanted thoughts. I was thinking:

Transmuter 3 | Master Specialist 6 | Master of the Unseen Hand 4

or

Vow of Poverty Druid 5 | Master of Many Forms 8

Curious, requirements for Master Specialist states a couple class skills at 5 ranks and the ability to cast 2nd level spells. Would you interpret that as being able to qualify for the PrC at 3rd level, when you have the ability to cast 2nd level spells? Or at 4th level, which is what I've listed above.

The vow of Poverty is actually one exalted feat that would be appropriate for the game (but I'll need to see it in writing anyway since I only have a general impression of it and don't know the details). If the prerequisites involve being absolutely completely good all the time... well I'm the DM I can change the prerequisites if I want. There is power in self denial, wether you are good or evil.

I interpret it so that you can take you first level as the Prc after you've gained the ability to cast 2nd level spells, not just when you're about to gain that ability. You need to be a 3rd level transmuter first, just like you wrote above.

Hi. Sorry I'm late. I was wondering if I could get in with an Archivist11/Alienist 1/Contemplative 1. Kind of the "dark summoner, knower of forbidden lore, wielder of the darkness, etc" IC, and for a more metagamey version, a "what in the Nine Hells is that?" guy. He'd be against the lords, but only to increase his power. Not of depravity, but seeks to prevent it. Neither a servant of the fallen lord of sacrifice nor a servant of self,yet seeks to restore the balance. For only with one can the other survive.

Fine with depravity, just no porn. I like dark stuff, though.

The archivist is here. I'd use contemplative to get the Balance domain from SC, if you'd allow it. Warrior of balance is almost never done, but is a fascinating concept in it's own right.

Does this sound good to you?

You're not late. Welcome WarlockLord .

The Archivist seems pretty balanced compared with the cleric, but you'll have to show me the other non-srd material too. It's a good choice for this game. Your character also seems like he'd be able to get along well with most of the other consepts I've seen.

It sounds good.

Hmm, how about a shadowy fighter/rogue sort, undead thrown in for fun? Probably pull the shadow creature template from lords of madness and a +0/1 LA undead such as necropolitan or crypt spawn..

Alternatively a were bat monk. Isn't a dark world appropriate for "bat man" after all?

Third.. um, psionic guy, probably an ardent...

Undead, lycantropes (and psionics) are all appropriate. But if you're making an evil character consider that he'll have to be able to cooperate with non-evil characters. Still, even as an undead he'd be the lesser of two evils and if you don't betray the group openly it should be ok. When it comes down to it all the PCs will have to adapt to the situation and find their reasons to work together at least most of the time.

I think I'd better withdraw.

Not gelling for me. I don't do evil very well anyway. I need to empathize with my PC too much.

Have fun all.

I'm sorry you feel that way. It's not that you have to be evil, you just have to adapt to the fact that evil rules the world.

Now I have a consept. This is something that has been running through my brain from time to time but I have never had a chance to play it. A goblin Druid/Sorcerer/Mythic theurge. He is a bit insane, having delusions of grandeur, believing that he is a great dragon imprisoned to this weak body. And if you are willing to pull it through he could also hear voices in his mind and have even some minor hallucinations.

A comic relief guy, or a tragic figure, or both? There's no lack of madmen in the world, an insane character would be right at home. Just try not to make him too silly, the flavour of the game is quite dark, but there's still room for some twisted comedy.

I think I will follow Shayuri and bow out. My guy would clash with an evil party, and I'm not really comfortable with graphic scenes of BoVD nature. Sorry to take up time, and I hope the rest of you have fun.

That's a pity, your character seemed perfectly suited for the game. As far as the graphic scenes... really it's just text, you probably see worse things on tv every day. The concepts can be morally disgusting, but not really likely to physically disgust or frighten an adult it's mostly stuff like:

"The man was bound and stripped of his skin, ribbons of poorly flayed hide still hang encrusted in filthy blood along his sides and back. Apparently the one who had murdered him had been in a hurry or driven by an uncontrollable rage. Looking closer you see things moving inside his flesh."

"She screamed, and a torrent of mucous exploded from her mouth burning your characters skin. Looking down at the seared skin of his chest he notices a couple of tiny chunks of flesh among the semi-digested mess, what can only be a little finger clinging by its infants fingernail to his skin for a moment before dropping to the floor. 'And you never thought you'd see your little girl again,' she cackles, wiping her chin. Smiling she watches you, a contemptuous glimt in her eye as she prepares her bloated body for his reaction."

"'Why do you think we invaded your world in the first place? To plunder, kill, revel in destruction for its own sake? We're Greater Beings, do not take us for just another orc-horde in a different skin. This is where souls are made, you live for the harvest. But your lives are not short enough, you are not fertile enough to sate our needs and you are too hard to manage for some of us. That is why we created the Towers of Life.' Her voice takes on an enraptured tone as she continues her tale, her monstrous words sliding life caresses into your ears.
'Imagine, a hundred thousand wombs blown up to the size of houses inside still living women, each of them packed full of identical feati growing at an accelerated pace drawing life from her pain, each woman packed into concentric circles within a frame of stone and steel rising to the clouds. A hundred thousand women, a hundred million children ripening to the harvest every year... Do you understand now why the Towers must not fall? In our hunger we would exterminate you all within a decade.
Ingarr, the fool, would starve his own power all because of his mindless need for destruction. He must die, but he cannot fall for demonic hand. No, I need mortals to save mortalkind."

Basically nothing worse than what you can read in Piratcat's Story Hour (though worse in quality, I'll admit).

I'm not sure what you mean by that... ANYTHING can have bad consequences, whether the world's evil or good.
What it sounds like you're saying is that nothing good can come of anything we do, and that we should EXPECT everything to turn out bad, b/c any good deed will be automatically twisted to something bad.. So for example, if I feed a starving child, that means that he'll grow up to be a rapist... Or if I prevent someone from being mugged, he'll go on to kill somebody. If I rescue someone who's been kidnapped, I find out that they're actually the secret mastermind behind an evil cult that sacrifices a hundred innocents a week...

ON the other hand...

Unless you're telling us "These are your ONLY options, don't think outside the box", that's just plain not true. The only way you can come up with a problem that DOESN't have both a good AND an evil solution IS by railroading. I've yet to come across a situation (that wasn't 100% Contrived) where I couldn't fairly easily see both the evil and good way to deal with it.
Can you give me some example of what you think is going to cause good characters problems other than the fact that there's a lot of demons in the world?

You're perfectly free to think your way out of any box. My purpose with the game is not to torture or humiliate your characters or to dictate your actions, I'm only telling you that playing good alignments will be morally challenging. Sometimes good intentions do pave the road to hell, sometimes you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. In an evil world evil is the path of least resistance, and the good path can be narrow and muddy and full of pitfalls.
Say you want to get rid of the demons, because you're good aligned or you just don't like them very much. Now, how would you go about doing that? The obvious answer, causing a civil war, will lead not only to the demons being decimated but also to hundreds of millions of mortals being killed in the process. Still, if you get rid of the demons you've spared the potential billions of future generations a life in suffering and a death in damnation. But who knows? Maybe all the deaths will be for nothing, maybe there will emerge a demonic lord strong enough from his victory to make himself a King and rule the world forever, drawing on the souls of the dead to make himself too powerful to ever be overthrown? Or maybe enough demons will die that an alliance of mortals can take back the world. Even such an alliance would likely be dominated by evil mortals, since they have been better adapted to the world they grew up in.

Hey, looks like I've given you a plot-line .

If you allow mix of demi human and planetouched I'd play dwarf mineral genasi, otherwise sacred dwarf from Quintessential dwarf. If fully eradicated then human teatium knight of tolgarium, guardian of Crystal Spire (enclave of wizards, artificers and keepers of human/dwarven/elven/other lore)

Something along the lines of Fig2/Clr(Dumathoin)3/Deepwarden2/Dwarven defender 5 or 6 depending if genasi (+1 ECL).

If human then Fig4/knight of tolgarien9

One of rare dwarves, Ebon of Crystal Spire is guardian of hidden enclave and explorer of deep places searching for both materials to combat demons and way back to his home plane of elemental crystal...

If defending his home can be made proactive by going out and bringing fight to the enemy all the better.

Lots of classes and templates I've never heard of there (which I need to see to be able to approve or use), but dwarves have strong links to the element of stone and your character could easily be native to the world even with such a template. Planestravelling is hard, basically it only works safely trough a handful of portals all under the control of the Lords, it has to be or you'd all be sipping cocktails in Elysium by now. But your character and his ancestors could easily have been born in the world.
If he comes from an enclave it will not be easy for him to ever get back there. The enclaves are defended fanatically and they're all pretty paranoid by now. Those who leave almost never come back and those who try are suspected of being trojan horses for the Demons. Still, knowing that only makes your character a greater hero.

Yeah, and Welcome

To throw in my two cents, Jemal, I think all Nephtys is saying is that in a world where demons hold ultimate sway, it's somewhat tricky to achieve any power - and therefore any capacity for making things better - without getting your hands very dirty. You can refuse to cosy up with the demon lords, sure, but in that case your life is likely to turn very short, very unpleasant, and very much a lost cause so far as doing any good is concerned. Or else you can walk that line, retaining the demon lords' favor whilst trying your best to do some good along the way. But in that case, it's likely that you're going to have to do a lot of things that don't sit right with you in order to maintain yourself in a position of power.



The way I understand this is in the light of what I've said above. For the greater good, your character might need to do some very bad things. If he takes the path of virtue every time, he'll be trampled underfoot.

Trying to do good in a society like that isn't easy. To take a real world parallel, look at Nazi Germany. For those people who recognized the evil of what the state was doing and wanted to make it better, what were their options? Yes, they could stand up and say 'this is wrong' - that's the path of virtue, and it would have got them arrested instantly. They would have done no good whatsoever.

Or else they could attempt to gain a position of power within the hierarchy and then do what they could to alleviate the horror à la Schindler's List. But that would mean complicity in many, many horrible things along the road that got you to the position where you could help out. And even once you're there, the amount of good you can do might seem a little bit like pissing in the ocean.

No wonder that in the real world, many people chose simply to flee to avoid complicity with a situation that they hated but could do nothing about.

In this setting that's not an option.

Of course, this is DnD, so whilst the baddies are supersized into demons, the goodies are supersized too. We do actually have the remote chance of attaining so much personal power that we can make a very real and very dramatic change. So the option of collaboration for the greater good suddenly seems much more attractive.

* * *

That, any way, is how I have been looking at it. Forgive me if it was presumptuous to go into all that, obviously I'm not Nephtys and I don't speak for him. Just trying to give my input on how I see the setting.

You've been reading my mind... STOP IT! (Just kidding, thanks for understanding ).

Or they could join the underground Resistance...supply aid and shelter to rebels...help smuggle people out of the country...

Dangerous, yeah, but doesn't require complicity...and it doesn't require more power than any citizen has.

But it would only really work if everyone wanted to do it.

Good point. The portals are under Demonic control. But demons will be demons, they're not the best organized type of people (Kinda like the Nazis who were pretty damn chaotic evil at times, the nazi-state was a disorganised mess, the order was all superficial, (mental) disorder was the rule. The army otoh, was a well oiled machine when the nazis didn't interfere too much. But, eh, no talking politics on En-World, so back to the game...)

 

[Blackrat]

I actually edited it a bit while you were writing. I thought a kobold would be more enjoyable. I was actually thinking more of a serious madman, perhaps somekind of seer(with the problem that some of his visions are just hallucinations), a tragic figure who just believes himself to be better than others. He kind of looks down upon those not of scalykind. Although his claims to be a dragon might get a pitying smile from others.

 

[Trollbabe]

I'm drawn towards the idea of playing a Bard in a setting like this. A wandering chancer who's so far managed to keep just about above water by playing the right games with the right people at the right times, but who is always on the edge of going too far and coming to a sticky end. Also probably not, in the end, a bad person. Perhaps driven to try as far as possible to bring a little light into people's lives, but forced to make a lot of bad compromises in order to carry on with that work.

I really like the idea for this game unfortunately it seems Autumn and I think too much alike... This is very similar to an idea I had in mind. I'll try and think up a different concept. Should full character sheets be posted in this thread or just concepts? If that has already been discussed I must have missed it in my readings.