Filling in details...
Great backgrounds, so far, all. I'm enjoying reading them. A few notes, and a few answers:
Rybaer: Hallis Hill--check. I'll have to get that on the map.
By two weeks' journey, do you mean on foot, horseback, or what exactly? It makes sense for Hallis Hill to be up above the 3000-foot contour.
Shalimar: There is a thieves' guild in Alten's Rock, though it's a relatively small one--20 or 25 members. They reluctantly accept you into their ranks, and happily provide you some protection from the law while taking quite a cut of your thieving. The leader is a halfling named Forell, a rather charismatic thief who, you guess, could probably charm his way into someone's home and rob them while they watched him. You also suspect you wouldn't be able to out-bluff him about the amounts you're stealing.
Zerth: I really hate the new Perform, don't you? Yeah, I thought you did.
I dislike it because it goes for verisimilitude where none was needed, takes away some of the Bard's extra skill points, and defines random categories that mean you can automatically play a flute, an ocarina, a clarinet, and pan pipes with the same skill.
I'm making Perform one skill again, but a bit differently (a suggestion from another thread, actually). For each rank in Perform, take that rank's number in 'pips.' At rank 4, you have 1+2+3+4 = 10 pips. Divide those pips as you wish among instruments, styles, etc., with no more than your actual rank in any one of them. Thus you might have:
Perform (4) [voice +7 (4), pan pies +7 (4), flute +5 (2)]
for ten total 'pips.' Let me know if I need to explain this better.
Tanstaafl: Well... if you're going to be minor nobility, then let's do it correctly. Conrad is a lowish-ranking noble, Baron dul Resta. The Barony of Resta is situated about a hundred miles southeast of Colinna, but let's face it... court is in Colinna, and that's where you probably spent much of your time growing up. You may have spent summers at the baronial mansion, as it would have been cooler and court functions less frequent.
As a minor noble, Duke Iobin Desell (the Duke of Colinna) would barely know your father if not for his statistical ability, but that's caught his eye, and your father's in line for a Viscountcy if the current Viscount dul Marnett dies without children, a very likely possibility.
