Into the New World - Recruitment OPEN (Current players stay OUT!)

[Dire Lemming]

Just how common are exiles? Any in recent memory besides the one three years ago that I'm adding in my story? Has one ever been forgiven?

The reason I'm asking is that I'm writing this:

Enko is a very compassionate young man. A little too compassionate, some might say. Three years ago another young man named Ceryan was sentenced to exile for angering the spirits of the hunt, the boy, for indeed, he was no older than Enko had been at that time was an orphan who’s parents had both died in a hunt. Enko felt great sadness, as Ceryan cried his protests, that the spirits had abandoned his mother and father, so why should he not do the same to them. Still the decision had been made, since he would not repent and make amends, he must be banished. In the end, the boy went quietly, though there were tears in his eyes. He ran into the forest as Enko watched him, feeling almost as bad.

Enko decided to follow the boy, though he knew that he should not help an exile, and that his parents did not want him to enter the forest, he could not help himself. As he passed the first tree he found to his surprise that the place was not anywhere near as dark and foreboding as his parents had made it out to be when he was a child. Perhaps that had merely been an exaggeration of their part in order to scare him away. All of this was because of what had happened when he was three. He sighed and started looking carefully around for signs of the other boy. He did not to be so thorough. “What are you doing here?” called an angry voice to his left. He turned to see the red eyes boy from before sitting hunched against the trunk of a nearby tree. “I…” Enko started to reply, but trailed off as no words came to him. “I know you… Blackfrond boy. You’re a spirit talker, your family has lots of furs and your mom is Niada of the Guiding Star. What are you doing here?” “I’m… Enko.” Enko stuttered “And I’m trash! They’ve thrown me to the wolves!” The boy shouted in return, his voice breaking. “I don’t… no. Why would you not respect the spirits? You knew what would happen.” The boy glared at him “Spirits!? What spirits!? The spirits my mother and father honored every day without fail until the day they were killed!? The spirits let them die!” “No!” Enko shouted. “They did not abandon them!” “Then why are they dead!?” “They-….” Enko once again trailed off. The boy put his head down on his knees and started weeping quietly. It was clear that he did not even intend to try to survive. He had given up on everything. “The spirits… they cannot always protect everyone. And that beast was a monster. Perhaps that beast’s spirit was stronger than the one protecting your parents… I… That monster is to blame for their deaths, but they have been avenged… You should be at peace.” The young man looked up, his eyes still wet. “M- My name is Ceryan …” Enko nodded, “Wait here, I’m going to get you some food and a branch you can make into a spear.” “I can-“ Ceryan shouted, but Enko had already left. He returned quickly, hauling a sturdy tree branch with a freshly sharpened end and holding his shirt so that it formed a basket full of berries and mushrooms. “These are the safe kind. You can tell because of the black rings on the trunk and the slits on the top. Don’t eat any other fungus. The only berries you have to watch out for are the bright red ones that shine in the darkness, and the green ones. The green ones aren’t ripe yet. Therefore the moon spirit shall protect you by showing you the bad berries. The pine spirit shall protect you from wolves, and the spirits of these berries and fungus shall protect you from starvation.” Ceryan stared up at him. “Why are you…” now it was his turn to trail off. “No one should die like this… but for the safety of everyone, those that do not respect the spirits, and incur their wrath, must be exiled.” Ceryan did not reply, he simply sat there with a thoughtful expression on his face. “Don’t go too far into the woods, make a fire. I’ll try to come back tomorrow if I can.” Enko said, turning to leave. He knew that Ceryan already would have done those things. Everyone else seemed afraid of the forest. He didn’t know why, the only really dangerous things in here were wolves, and they usually avoided humans.

He carefully returned to town, and somehow made it back without being spotted, or so he thought. As he came around a building he nearly slammed into a girl who it seemed had been waiting for him, for she immediately reached out and grabbed him, saying in a quiet but urgent voice. “You, you’re Enko Blackfrond! You followed him didn’t you?” “I…” Enko said, a feeling of familiarity coming over him. “I saw you! Did you find him? Is he alright?” She continued without even giving him a chance to answer. “Eh… yeah, he’s fine… just, unwell in spirit. He blamed the spirits for his parent’s deaths, so he abandoned them… but I think he might understand now. Um, who are you?” “I am… Eleinya…” The girl said, now that he wasn’t worried that she was going to pound on him or expose what he’d done he got a chance to look at her. She was dressed in mostly leather clothes, so perhaps she was a hunter. Like Ceryan’s parents… She had long brown hair that was tied back out of her eyes in a horse tail fashion, and she had a pretty, freckled face with dark brown eyes that bore same red marks around them that meant she had been crying recently. Eleinya continued speaking. “You… said he understood… does that mean he can come back?” She asked him hopefully. “I don’t know… It’s up to the elders… but… I’ll try to convince them. Maybe because I am an apprentice spirit talker they will listen, but… well I’m only an apprentice.” As her face started to fall he quickly repeated, “But I’ll try!”

 

[Lorthanoth]

Hmm.. this is tricky.. all the concepts I'm coming up with have all been offered up as PCs... young female marshal, spiritual hunter etc... thinking cap on!

OK, I'm tempted by a Bard/Adept or Rogue/Adept gestalt or maybe Warrior/Bard - Orephion isn't a spirit talker but he can charm the birds out of the trees and always has some poultice or other for a cut or sore (i.e. I'd go for a mix of his 'spells' being actual magical effects as well as 'head-ology'. He's always to be found where you don't expect him to be found; one day he will happen across a lambing ewe in trouble, and the next moment he will be making honey-cakes, or more likely trying to charm young Alistia into giving him some (cakes that is!).

He is never without a story to tell, albeit one that is made up of the most outrageous lies regarding his achievements and exploits. Everyone knows of course that the stories are ridiculous which only makes them even funnier, and spurs Orephion on to add more and more bizarre details. His latest one for the children is how he found a girl asleep by the river who had a pair of goose's wings beside her - so of course he strapped the wings on and flew up to the moon. There he met the hare-king of the moon, who gave Orephion a crown made of wheat, making him prince of the moon. When he came down to earth, he found the girl had woken up, and was distraught to find her wings gone, without them she could no longer turn into a goose! When she saw the thief she made a switch of reeds and chased after him, and he threw the wings back and escaped.

"And that, children, is why I haven't helped with any fishing lately, in case the goose-woman is there and gets me with that switch!"

OK... kind of got too much into character there! Would you like some stats to go with that?

 

[Lorthanoth]

Or if he seems a bit unfocused, there's Alistia herself, the baker's daughter; sassy, confident, good-looking and always with an ear to the ground. She's a bit of a dreamer but has her finger on the pulse of the community. Heck, I like her more than Orephion now as a character! Consider her my first choice if I did get selected, please.

Background
Alistia's mother is a baker, her father is a brewer. That's the way things are, my girl, and wishing doesn't change anything. Huh. I can wish, can't I? It must be exciting to go out into the forest and hunt the boars. More exciting than *slam* kneading *whack* stupid bread all day.

I bet Kallistrate doesn't make her own bread... and she gets to spend all day with men like Eusathios *sigh*. It must be amazing to be a spirit talker too... to see things and do things no-one else can do. It's all very well Pantheras saying "Alistia, which each have our own gifts, and yours is one without which none of us can live. We will always need bread! blah blah blah"; he means well, but I don't see him tending an oven...

Ah, here comes Orephion... probably thinks he can get some cakes, the lazy good-for-nothing.

Alistia
Commoner 1
NG
Str 11
Dex 14
Con 12
Int 12
Wis 11
Cha 18

Age: 18
Height: 5' 4''
Weight:
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Auburn

VP: 5
WP: 12

Init: +2
BAB: +0 Melee: +0 Ranged: +2
Saves:
Fort +1
Ref +2
Will +2

Skills:

Profession (baker) 4
Profession (brewer) 2
Knowledge (local) 4
Craft (weaving) 2
Listen 3
Spot 3
Diplomacy cc 2
Bluff cc 1

Feats:

Negotiator (bonus) +2 to Dip and Sense Motive
Dodge
Iron Will

Proficient with club, and no armour or shields.

 

[Zurai]

Alright, here is my submission so far. I hope I'm understanding the whole spirit mark-to-spirit talker relationship thing you've got going on with Antiklites. I tried to capture a bit of that whole greek feeling you seem to be working with in the naming structure.

Hah! Someone noticed! Yeah, the names are greek/greek-inspired. I'm not requiring PCs to follow the naming scheme, but I like having consistent cultural themes for NPC names. I'll touch on the spirit-talker thing at the end.

I might be (and that's why I left the Wis so high, in case it became available as an option) be interested in taking this character into invention of the very first priesthood ("My spirit mark is better than the others, because it's freaking awesome and scares the wee out of me. Deer? Clouds? Mine is scary scary scary, please place your tithes in the bowls on the way out.") Ok, maybe not exactly like that, but I figured I'd give you a heads up if the story strung out that way later on or to get a "NO WAY" early on so I could think about rethinking things.

There are very, very few things that will get a "NO WAY" response from me in this game. Someone wanting to form a rudimentary priesthood is not one of those things; knock yourself out. Don't expect a lot of traction to it, though, unless Antiklites spends a lot of time and effort into it.

Antiklites

Character sheet looks good, with one minor caveat I'll get to after your background.

background

The background looks excellent. There are two things that I have notes on, here:
One, if it became known that Antiklites cannot hear his spirit, that would cause unease among the spirit-talkers, and unease there translates to unfriendly villagers. It gives me some very nice plot hooks, though
Two, there is only one building made of stone in the area - the ancient temple Cuirlen was founded around. No one knows who built it or how. There are no quarries in the vicinity. Antiklites can certainly be incredibly interested in the construction of the temple, still; I left that as a dangling plot hook in the setting info for a reason I just wanted to be sure you were aware that a stonemason isn't really a useful profession in Cuirlen at the present time. Architect is, however.

 

[EvolutionKB]

After thinking things over some more, I think I'd rather go dex than str based. With only having prof in light armor, the higher dex would be a better choice I think.

Bathinias
Sprit Shaman1
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Height: 6-2
Weight: 190lbs
Age: 22

Str: 10 +0(2pts)
Dex: 14 +2(6pts)
Con: 12 +1(4pts)
Int: 10 +0(2pts)
Wis: 14 +2(6pts)
Chr: 16 +3(10pts)

AC: 15 (10 base +2 studded leather +1 light shield +2 dex)
DR: 1/steel?
Vitality points: 9, Wound points: 12
Speed: 30'
Init: +2
BAB: +0
Saves:
Fort: +3 (2 base +1con)
Dex: +2 (0 base +2dex)
Will: +4(2 base +2wis)

Attacks:
Melee: Shortspear +0, 1d6
Ranged: Javelin +2 1d6

Class features:
Wild empathy +4
Sprit Guide(gains Alertness feat)

Feats:
Extend Spell(1)
Energy Substitution(Electricity,Human bonus)
Skill focus(Survival, houserules bonus)

Skills
Concentration +5 (4 ranks +1 con)
Heal +4 (2 ranks + 2 wis)
Knowledge(Nature) +4 (4 ranks + 0 int)
Listen +8 (4 ranks +2 wis +2 sprit guide)
Profession(herder)+6 (4 ranks + 2 wis)
Spot +8 (4 ranks + 2 wis +2 sprit guide)
Spellcraft +2 (2 ranks +0 int)
Survival +9 (4 ranks +2 wis +3 skill focus)

Spells Retrieved: (3/1)
Spells per day: (3/2+1)
Spells retrieved:
0: Resistance, light, cure minor wounds
1: Produce Storm Spheres(electricity substituted produce flame)

Equipment: To come later.


Appearance: Taller than most others in the villiage, Bathinias is easy to spot. His head is bald, a reminder of the spirits of the storm that taught him a lesson. His sprit mark, a jagged line on his scalp, the shape of a lightning bolt, is black against his skin. He is clad in bronze studded leather armor, and a light wooden shield hangs on his arm. A large quiver hangs over his shoulder. He keeps his supply of javelins as well as a shortspear there. A short pointed black beard adorns his chin.

Personality: Though Bathinias no longer says he commands the spirits, he is still quite cocky. His confidence has rubbed some other spirt talkers the wrong way, though they all do respect what abilities he does have. Although generally a good person, Bathinias is ready for to show off what he can do, whether that be with javelins, his spells, or just his knowledge of weather or the creatures in the surrounding area. During storms, Bathinias can be seen standing in the fields, chanting a prayer to the sprits, arms raised towards the heavens, clothing soaked and stuck to his skin.

Background: Bathinias was the 2nd son of a herder. He spent much of his time tagging along with his father and older brother tending the livestock. Whether from instinct or just luck, Bathinias became quite good at predicting the weather. He knew when the rains were coming and whether the sun would be shining in a week. His skills helped his family procure one of the larger herds of animals in town. Aric grew quite cocky as his skills developed, almost to the point where he said that the sprits listened to his commands.

The family's luck continued...until one day Bathinias was wrong. He had predicted sunny skies ahead for the day, so he and his brother went to take the cows out to pasture. Out of nowhere a storm brewed, lightning and thunder tore through the skies. Bathinias squinted in the driving rain, trying to gather the herd to shelter, then he was blinded by lightning, and that is all he remembers. His brother says a bolt of lightning, straight from the sky struck his brother. Somehow Bathinias survived, not without the help of several of the shamans. From that day forward Bathinias felt more respect for the sprits of the storms that he often said he could predict. He continued to study the weather patterns and he still carries the scars from that day. The hair on his head is scorched off, never grown back, but that reveals the birthmark that he had always carried, a jagged line on his scalp, like a bolt of lightning. Where the line was pink before, it is now black, a constant reminder to those that look upon him that he is blessed by the sprit of the storm.

 

[Zurai]

Rinos

A couple notes on the character sheet:

1) This is probably the smartest, wisest 1st level barbarian I've ever seen
2) He should have 14 Vitality Points and 14 Wound Points rather than 14 hit points.
3) No warhammers. I'd give you a light hammer or a sledgehammer, though (sledge being equivalent of a greatclub).
4) By my count you're missing 8 skill points. You should have 4*4 from Barbarian, 2*4 from Intelligence bonus, 1*4 from being Human, and 2*4 to be spent only on Craft, Knowledge, and Profession (with no cross-class penalties for these particular skill points) from my house rule. I count it up as you having maxed 9 skills; you should be able to max 11.

Other than those notes (and #1 is just an amusing anecdote, not a criticism of your stats), the character sheet looks fine.

 

[Zurai]

Say Zurai, are there enough magical beasts around for Ryon to take them as favored enemies? Seeing as he loves natural animals so much, choosing them seems anathema.

WarShrike

"Favored Enemy" isn't the same flavor as the old "Hated Foe" from AD&D (or was it original 3E? Whichever). It's just the creature type you've particularly studied the habits and weaknesses of. Animal would be a perfectly flavorful FE to choose.

To answer your question, though: Yes, Magical Beasts is also fine. I can certainly see a young ranger itching to repeat Kallistrate's success in killing one of the strange monsters lurking in the Noonshadow.

I'll do my best to widen the potential FE candidate pool quickly through plot hooks. I realize it's a little shallow right now.

 

[Zurai]

Alright, here's my entry:

Thane, Woodsman

Background looks great! From my count of your ability scores, you shorted yourself 2 points. Scores of 10, 16, 12, 8, 14, 8 adds up to a 22 point buy; you get 24 PB with the single-NPC-class gestalt option. Other than that, character sheet looks good, too.

 

[Zurai]

Just how common are exiles? Any in recent memory besides the one three years ago that I'm adding in my story? Has one ever been forgiven?

Exiles aren't very common; the fact that the majority end up as mangled corpses found mysteriously close to the village within a couple days' time tends to convince people that they should really pay attention to what the spirit-talkers say. I'll go ahead and say that the exile you've written up is the most recent, unless someone else wants to write one into their backstory as well.

As for forgiving one - the only way it could possibly happen is if the exile survived. The spirits tend to be a bit vengeful by the time a person gets around to being exiled, so only people that are either wrongfully exiled or manage to appease the vengeful spirits (not an easy task) will manage to survive.

If the exile were to have a spirit-talker champion and survive for a sufficiently long period of time in the wild, he might be allowed back into town. He would be shunned for a very long time afterwards, though, and the spirit-talker would have to champion him without letting it be known that he or she interfered with an exile.

 

[Zurai]

Orephion and Alistia

Both are great concepts.

Alistia's character sheet looks good. I'd like to see some background on her if she's who you're going with.

Two notes on her sheet:
1) You appear to be shortchanging yourself a stat point. 11, 14, 12, 12, 10, 18 costs 35 points; you appear to be taking the 36 PB option for her.
2) Just a reminder: If you do take that 36 PB, you will only be able to level as Adept, Commoner, Expert, Warrior, or a Prestige Class. Aristocrat too, if it becomes available later on.