NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="touc" data-source="post: 8008703" data-attributes="member: 19270">Some groups did, but I wouldn't. Lavinia needs to grow (up) as a person, not in levels, and be a complex mix. Otherwise, players won't care about her and won't be motivated. This makes your job challenging. My Lavinia is influenced by how the party handles things.<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Early on, she is a mix of motivated (to save her family), naïve (to what evils people are capable of), vulnerable (trying to hide how bad things are for her home), and unwavering (she will do what it takes). She loves her brother based off memories of him, not what he actually is, and it should be frustrating, yet rewarding, for the party to bring her around as they dig deeper into what he's done.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> After the Bullywug Gambit, she's seen what weapons and force can do. My Lavinia grabbed a sword and insisted on coming with the party to reclaim her house, even having just been cut badly during a hostage scene. She no longer wants to be vulnerable like that, but she's also not meant to be a swashbuckler. She's not built for it. Still, she begins to become cold. She's willing to see her brother dead. This may trouble some players, to see the change after the home attack, and it should. They're a big influence on whether she keeps that open heart to forgiving people despite their evil, or whether she becomes the type that will make people walk the plank and has no problem ordering death.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"> Random, but because Lavinia is in the face of danger, you'll want some good explanations if she dies (e.g. does she have an "insurance policy" to be restored).</li> </ul>Later, you'll want to amend the story to get away from "Lavinia gets kidnapped" and instead make it her choice, possibly motivated by something the PCs have done. Long story short, this really can't be done too well with a PC, and Lavinia comes and goes in the PCs lives, making her a poor adventurer. She's got a colony to think about, the lives of dozens if not hundreds depending on her. Definitely. Vermillio's campaign made this a bit more forward by letting PCs later recover Vanthus's personal diaries in which the DM fleshed out the story with imaginary letters to Lavinia detailing his descent into dark acts. While not sexual in nature, they're more than creepy about how his feelings. It goes a long way to explain why (when you run Vanthus in a prequel for example, or when the PCs meet him later) he takes such a severe offense about their closeness to her, and why he disparages his own sister as some sort of "whore whoring for mercenaries." It helps make him an additional layer of vile.</blockquote>

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