Insight's Dark Sun: Burning Sands Campaign [OOC]


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Brandis, human swordmage (templar)

Okay, here's an idea

[sblock=Preliminary character sheet]====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Brandis, level 1
Human, Swordmage
Build: Shielding Swordmage
Swordmage Aegis: Aegis of Shielding
Background: Oathbound Fellow (Bluff class skill)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 10, Con 14, Dex 13, Int 18, Wis 8, Cha 14.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 10, Con 14, Dex 13, Int 16, Wis 8, Cha 14.


AC: 20 Fort: 13 Reflex: 15 Will: 15
HP: 29 Surges: 10 Surge Value: 7

TRAINED SKILLS
Bluff +7, Arcana +9, Intimidate +7, Insight +4, History +9

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +1, Diplomacy +2, Dungeoneering -1, Endurance +2, Heal -1, Nature -1, Perception -1, Religion +4, Stealth +1, Streetwise +2, Thievery +1, Athletics

FEATS
Human: Improved Swordmage Warding
Level 1: Intelligent Blademaster

POWERS
Bonus At-Will Power: Booming Blade
Swordmage at-will 1: Lightning Lure
Swordmage at-will 1: Sword Burst
Swordmage encounter 1: Sword of Sigils
Swordmage daily 1: Frost Backlash

ITEMS
Leather Armor, Adventurer's Kit, Longsword
====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======[/sblock]

[sblock=mechanics note]
I'd add in the Templar theme power and probably swap one or two of his powers for Templar powers, but those aren't in the Character Builder right now.
[/sblock]

[sblock=background]
Brandis was his name. Not long ago he could have claimed membership in one of the great Houses of Balic. Not long ago he was a newly-elected templar in Androponis' service. Perhaps with a little more compassion for the common man than was healthy, but the Sorcerer-King had been of a mind to indulge the people for a time by allowing him to hold office.

When Darian Haraxes' men had come for him he'd claimed it had just been a matter of ignoring some smuggling for the favors of a pretty merchant girl. Templars in every city on Athas did that sort of thing all the time, even if that was a bit against his reputation. He'd kept up with that story right up to the time they decided that his family was not so important as that, and he could be tortured after all. Actually a bit beyond that; he'd kept silent until they actually did torture him. By then his lover had escaped the city, but someone had learned she was a courier for the Veiled Alliance. And that he had been covering for her.

He'd been stripped of his titles, and sold into slavery soon after that. He wondered why he hadn't been executed. Did they want a lever on his lover? Or his family? Or was he to be 'repatriated' when Androponis wanted to make another show of his generosity? In any case, he had been sold, and sold again before reaching the salt mines of Rarun. And kept at the most back-breaking labor; no slave would take his orders, and House Njeer was not about to let anyone with his intelligence near the accounts.
[/sblock]

[sblock=plot hooks]
- What happened to Brendis' lover after she escaped Balic? Is she plotting his rescue, or angry that he somehow let her secrets be uncovered?
- Does his family still protest his innocence, or at least maintain that belief in private?
[/sblock]
 
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My humble submission. The background was the best part. :)

Zimno, Last of the Winterfell (and Mystic Icebox)
Eladrin Wilder Swordmage 1

Appearance & Personality
Zimno is tall and gaunt, and unnaturally pale in a world of dark tans. His remaining clothes that have not been taken by his masters are furs of a white animal about his waste. The eladrin has striking blue eyes, filled with coldness and dispassion, his hair a tangle of what may have been white once. His is almost always chained and blindfolded within the camps of his masters.

Zimno has hardly spoken any words to those in the camps, the few that have seen him. Stories speak of his chilling threats to his captors, of his constant, frigid rage. Tales circulate that he has killed no less than four guards, but his value seems to outweigh this loss.

Background

Zimno comes from a lost city from the Lands of Winds, a place only the most learned scholars know as the Winterfell. A bastion of civilization in a dying realm, its spires of black ice were as unforgiving as beautiful. The eladrin of Winterfell defended it with zeal; their battleminds and psions killing any that may pass near the secluded interplanar fortress.

But Winterfell was dying. Defiling magic was slowly eating away at its foundations. Generation by generation, glacial homesteads would vanish into nothing, none hearing from those that lived there again.

Zimno was a promising battlemind student, but he felt his training was not enough. He needed to stop what was going on. And to do that, he felt he needed to understand the enemy. In forbidden tomes and frozen tablets, he found the stances, the positions, and the way of the sword mage. Over years, he slowly mastered the taboo arcane art, it somehow tainting his fledging mastery of the Way until it was but a thin thread, only reachable in anger. But anger he had, for Winterfell's deterioration was worse every year.

Winterfell's destruction came at the instigation of a sorcerer-king obsessed with its secrets; Zimno never did identify the Templars that awaited the planar junction. Psionic power and arcane arts filled the frozen halls, dark eladrin blood freezing as it was spilt.

It was then Zimno attempted to save his city. Using a ritual from the most forbidden text, he channeled power into his frozen arts. First, it seemed as if it was working as templar after templar fell. But with each arcane strike, more and more of Winterfell melted and collapsed around him. Zimno, however, was blind to it, the battle-lust fueled by his defiling arts sustaining him.

Mid-battle, Winterfell collapsed. One moment, he was in the Great Hall of Sighing Snowflakes, fighting a templar in white, Zimno's fellows looking horrified as what he had become. And then... the desert. Hot. Unforgiving. Alone.

A lesser man would have died. But Zimno endured, his rage chilling him to the heat. Rage at the templars. Rage at his compatriots for their cries of betrayal. Rage at everything and anything. He had done what needed to be done and would do it again.

Weak, Zimno was easy fodder for a band of slavers. They thought the pale eladrin easy prey, but he escape again and again. It took 23 attempts and the death of a quarter of the caravan before someone put a blindfold on him, preventing his "miraculous" escapes. Four more perished before they kept him bound, for even unarmed, his arts were a danger.

He was sold Njeer, for they knew his true worth. As a result of his arcane training, Zimno radiates a faint aura of cold even when not attacking with shards of ice. The auara is not enough to harm, but, in a dark room, meats and fruits keep without salting longer. So, in a dark chamber not large enough to stand in, a shackled, blinded eladrin sits, cooling the food and planning revenge.

Hooks
- Did any of Winterfell survive? What do then think of Zimno?
- Who was the sorcerer-king that sent the templars? Does he still seek Zimno and others from Winterfell?
- Will Zimno temper his rage and seek a perserver path, and do what has to be done and turn even more to defiling?[sblock=Zimno]====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======
Zimno, level 1
Eladrin, Swordmage
Swordmage Aegis: Aegis of Assault
Background: Eladrin - Estranged Fey (+2 to Endurance)
Theme: Wilder

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 12, Con 16, Dex 12, Int 18, Wis 12, Cha 8.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 12, Con 16, Dex 10, Int 16, Wis 12, Cha 8.


AC: 14 Fort: 13 Reflex: 14 Will: 14
HP: 31 Surges: 11 Surge Value: 7

TRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +6, Arcana +11, Athletics +6, Intimidate +4, Endurance +10

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Bluff -1, Diplomacy -1, Dungeoneering +1, Heal +1, History +6, Insight +1, Nature +1, Perception +1, Religion +4, Stealth +1, Streetwise -1, Thievery +1

FEATS
Level 1: Intelligent Blademaster

POWERS
Swordmage at-will 1: Frigid Blade
Swordmage at-will 1: Sword Burst
Swordmage encounter 1: Chilling Blow
Swordmage daily 1: Frost Backlash
Wilder encounter 1: Psychic Surge

====== Copy to Clipboard and Press the Import Button on the Summary Tab ======[/sblock]
 

Wow, me and drothgery posting similar builds (but very different bgs) within a few minutes. :)

Zimno could be a wizard with little change.
 

We have six submissions so far and I have updated the "Roster" post on page one to reflect which characters are competing for which spots.

We have at least 2 of every role except Controller (currently none). I'm not necessarily taking one of each role, but you can be sure that a Defender and a Leader will be selected (I'm of the belief that you can't have one without the other). Everything else is up in the air.
 

A psion is a controller...

Granted I haven't submitted it yet. :)

...

It is hard to think of what this character would be doing in a salt mine. Physical ability = not much.
 

A psion is a controller...

Granted I haven't submitted it yet. :)

...

It is hard to think of what this character would be doing in a salt mine. Physical ability = not much.

There are other jobs slaves could be doing other than moving rock, swinging pick axes, and so forth. I could even envision slaves watching over other slaves, delivering supplies, creating reports for the overseers, etc.

EDIT: And BTW, in case someone gets the bright idea to use telekinesis or something to escape their bonds... there is something ominously keeping you from doing so. Think something large, slimy, and tentacle-y.
 

Wow, me and drothgery posting similar builds (but very different bgs) within a few minutes. :)

Zimno could be a wizard with little change.

Yeah, that was odd.

Brendis really could be just about any Int-primary class, as I haven't really given a lot of detail to his combat abilities; I just like swordmages.
 


Just getting used to 4e, but always loved the Dark Sun setting. I'll throw a concept in:


[sblock=Journal of Balfen Onell, final entry:]

I thought there were many truths, but now I know there is only one: Power is everything. It is nurturing, destructive, enthralling, seductive. Gods-who-abandoned-us, but is it seductive...

When Hamanu's deific gaze fell upon me, when he told me I was destined for greatness and that he would teach me to harness powers others might never dream, if I only surrendered myself to him, how could the wastrel youngest son of Sirdar say no? My father gained his title through a military service I could never hope to replicate. Nor could I inherit it, as it was my sister's by right of birth. And even if life were different, and Alara had been born second, I could never remember a time she was not father's favorite. I was a layabout, a dreamer. I had nothing, and yet Hamanu chose me. I couldn't see what he did, but I bowed and pledged to be his before he had even finished speaking.

By the deserts and their harsh winds, I could never have imagined what it was like to channel the power, but once I had, I was little more than Hamanu's lapdog, begging for every bit of magic he could teach me, gladly laying waste to life if it only meant I could feel the glory of Athas' power rushing through me. I begged, I cajoled, I did whatever he bade gladly, and in the end I think my willingness and creativity even surprised Hamanu. Imagine, surprising a god among us?

Perhaps because I surprised him, perhaps because I did not surprise him enough, there came the day when my god-king's attention fell elsewhere. Not far. Not nearly far enough. He sent me to deliver the missive, though I did not know its contents. Did not know until she opened it that my sister was to come to the court, as well, to serve at Hamanu's pleasure.

It was too much. From the moment she was born, Alara was blessed. She was the firstborn, the favorite, the Sirdar without doing anything more than breathing the air. I had devoted myself to Hamanu to escape her, escape this life of always coming second. I was more than her now. I was better than her. I had power.

And I used it.

I still cannot bring myself to record the hour which followed. In the end, though, there was no sister to best me, no father to disdain me, not a single piece of the Sirdar's land that might nurture life again.

And now, there is not even Hamanu. I have been forsaken, as I should be. I gave myself over to power. Not to one who weilds it, but to power itself. I let it consume me. Let it consume everything that mattered. And, as with any embrace so all-encompassing in its passion, I have been destroyed by it. Once again, I am nothing. May the salt mines claim my body quickly; I have already burned away my soul.[/sblock]

EDIT: I hadn't looked too closely at wizards yet. From what I can tell, since only rituals and daily powers are in their spellbooks, it looks like those (and implement benefits) are actually all I'd lose having a wizard-turned-slave. And I suppose the daily power is debatable; it's not clear to me if you need a spellbook to 'recharge' a daily power, or just to switch between them. Either way, what the heck, let's give this a go. I threw a daily power in there just in case:

[sblock=stats]Balfen Onell
Human Wizard
Implement Expertise: Orb of Imposition
Background: Noble (+2 Diplomacy)
Theme: Noble Adept
Level 1

HP: 22 (bloodied 11)

STR 8 (-1)
CON 12 (+1)
DEX 10 (+0)
INT 18 (+4)
WIS 16 (+3)
CHA 12 (+1)

AC equation: 10 + stat (4) + armor (0) + enhancement (0) + feat (0) + race/class (0) + 1/2 (0)
Fort equation: 10 + stat (1) + armor (0) + enhancement (0) + feat (0) + race/class (1) + 1/2 (0)
Ref equation: 10 + stat (4) + armor (0) + enhancement (0) + feat (0) + race/class (1) + 1/2 (0)
Will equation: 10 + stat (3) + armor (0) + enhancement (0) + feat (0) + race/class (3) + 1/2 (0)

AC: 14
Fort: 12
Ref: 15
Will: 16

TRAINED SKILLS
Arcana +9, Diplomacy +8, Dungeoneering +8, Nature +8, Religion +9

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Athletics -1, Bluff +1, Endurance +1, Heal +3, History +4, Insight +3, Intimidate +1, Perception +3, Streetwise +1


Attack equation: 1/2 (0) + stat (4) + enhancement (0) + feat (0) + misc. (0)
Attack bonus: 4

Damage equation: stat (4) + enh (0) + feat (0)
Damage bonus: damage die + 4

Initiative: +0

Healing surges: 7 (value: 5)

Feats
Arcane Reserves (1st level) (+2 at-will damage when encounter used up)
Action Surge (Human bonus) (+3 attack on action point attack)

ABILITIES
Arcane Implement Mastery: Orb of Imposition (-Wis (3) to saves of spell target, or extend effect an extra turn)
Cantrips at will: Ghost Sound, Light, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation
Ritual Casting
Spellbook: 3 1st level rituals, 2 Daily / Utility powers for each slot

At-will powers: Scorching Burst, Thunderwave, Ray of Frost
Encounter: Chill Strike
Daily: Sleep
Theme Power: Adept's Insight [/sblock]
 
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