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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dr Simon" data-source="post: 4771908" data-attributes="member: 21938">Hello, hello.Hmm.. lots of questions to address. I'll start at the beginning.Tiali:  As Blackrat says, pretty much any party position is open. The two existing characters, Three Flowers and Annika, are frontline combat/etiquette and arcane magic respectively. Of the characters who we've recently lost, Xielt was a typical ranger - frontline combat and wilderness skills. Jar'Thol was mostly non-combative, a combination healer and lore-master, with potential for sneakiness if required. Growling Ape was something of an all-rounder, a druid with reasonable combat prowess (particularly when coupled with shillelagh cast on his quarterstaff) and wilderness skills.  I sort of tailor the adventure to fit the character's strength (and weaknesses), so it doesn't matter too much.PC classes - core SRD ones are allowed, and I'm happy to have variants from Arcana Unearthed. I don't see much need for Oriental Adventure classes, although I do allow spells from that book. Culturally speaking there are no samurai or ninja types anyway. Blackrat's character Three Flowers is a noble-born warrior with poetic skill, but he uses the paladin class. You can use Psion or Psychic Warrior to emulate the yana mystics of Ut'Bharma, although they consider their powers to be a different form of magic (The Way of Six Energies) rather than a completely different power source.For the record, I don't have any of the Complete series, PHB2 or many other supplements, so I prefer the core classes, although I'm prepared to allow some tinkering, and might be open to other classes if you can provide me with the details.Theroc: Any of those ideas are good for me. I might prefer, from a play-testing point of view, one of the non-human races, but doesn't really matter. Whichever concept grabs you most, I think.Non-SRD fighting styles.  Hmm, not sure how many I have detailed.  There are a few ideas, but not many with concrete rules, so I'm happy to work something out with you if you want.  The two main salsham'ai styles - Skill of Raindrops and Spider in Amber are detailed, but non-salsham'ai rarely use them. There's the <a href="http://www.creativeconclave.co.uk/shanzu.html" target="_blank">Kingfisher over Flowing Water</a> style which is a fairly rare, old-fashioned two-wepaon style. White Fist is a sort of default karate-ish style. Crane Style is an escrima-like style, using fast strikes with quarterstaff of jo sticks. Butterfly with Iron Wings style is a technique designed for women, an aikkido-ish style favouring flowing defence. Oh, there's Opal Tiger style, but you need to be a loopy cultist to learn it....Tlaxu taking natural weapon feats - I don't see why not.Bloodline levels - well, these are full character-class style levels, so you get hit points, BAB, saves and skills, plus a special ability or two, perhaps ability score increases, at each of three levels. I've only actually worked out the River Spirit bloodline as used by Three Flowers, I think full details are somewhere up-topic. I have vague ideas for a wind spirit as well. For draconic bloodlines I was thinking something more subtle than scales and a breath weapon. I'm using a mix of Lung and Western dragons, but the standard chromatic/metallic dragons are converted into their function rather than colour. Blue dragons become Storm Dragons, Gold Dragons are Sun Dragons and so on. Expect abilities based on those aspects, as well as some elemental/energy resistance. River Dragon bloodline, for example, would give swim, scaly command, fiery water, something like that.Re: crocodile nai-nek-chai. Swimming has been useful in the past, may crop up again. Looking at what's coming, not *massively* so for a while, probably.Raging badger/wolverine barbarians.  Hmm... I'd say that if wounded whilst aready raging, there's no extra effect. I've not seen any precendent for stacked raging. However, if you end up raging because you were wounded in your animal form, that doesn't count towards your daily uses of barbarian rage.Wisdom for shamans.  (However, I'm open to the idea of flexible casting stats, depending on casting style. So could be Charisma for someone who commands the spirits to act. Or a wizard who uses Wisdom because they follow the more intuition-based Syllabic Magic style).I assume you mean "racial weapons", not racial races.  Hmm... sounds reasonable, although not all tlaxu races use the same weapons. Within sub-culture seems appropriate, though.Finally, character hook:The existing characters nominally work for the Vashti of Cormondal. Vashti is an honourific peculiar to Cormondal, a priestess combining the old worship of the river as a source of life, healing and prosperity, and of the the newer reverence for the great sage Manrupashnar, a woman who taught a way of living based on humility, charity, understanding and meditation. The "Young Vashti", Aru Leng, has recently taken over from her revered great aunt, the "Old Vashti" who died and left a puzzle in her will for the existing characters. The temple complex, the narvinda, is a mixture of temple, orphanage, school, hospital, beguinage and traveller's hostel. The poor and sick are attended, many offer some service in return. Although many occupants are women in religious orders, this is not a requirement. many men, and many secular folk, also offere their services.Cormondal is placed on the border of three powers. To the south, nominally in charge, is Fnoi Province, under the rule of the city of Llaza and the Merchants League. A League family, the Turifim, have a strong presence in Cormondal with the aim to re-open abandoned iron mines. Otherwise, Cormondal is almost self-governing. To the west, across the great Anhoi River, lies the fading and decandent Empire of Splendour, that looks jealously at its old holdings and nervously at the new powers occupying them. To the north, across the smaller Leng River, lies the Ashoyin Protectorate, a war-torn land where independence from the Empire was swiftly followed by prolonged civil war. Life for the average citizen in Ashoyin goes on as normal until an army descends on your village. If you are lucky, they take all your grain, livestock and anything that can be used to make weapons. If you are unlucky they kill all the young men, rape the women and burn your house down. It doesn't seem to make much difference which side they are on. There are many reasons to come to Cormondal - it is at a crossroads, after all. It has fallen into disrepair, but there are signs of recovery and possibilites to make money or renown. You will probably have ended up seeking the Vashti, either because you are a good-hearted soul who has heard that she needs help, or because you have done something wrong and seek to atone. There are rumours of troop movements in Ashoyin that may affect this side of the Leng, there are rumours of the Turifim having trouble with their mines, there are rumours of wolves savaging livestock in the surrounding farms. The general idea is that your characters will be the kind of people who will want to help, although I'll leave the true motivation up to you.</blockquote>

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