Character Building Discussions

[Radrabbit]

Everyone also has a private forum.

[Paladin]

Now I see reply buttons everywhere. Woo!

I'll hammer out my character sheet this evening.

[Paladin]

Are we using feats and/or the variant human? I'm weighing options and just wondered. Got ideas either way we go.

[Marullus]

Hasn't been discussed or come into play yet...
No humans so far.

My Aarokocra has no darkvision (and uses a Light spell), so that's already a thing.

[Enoch]

I keep forgetting feats are an optional rule- I've never played in a game without them.

[Paladin]

If it's permitted, I'm considering a variant human bard with the Diplomat feat from Unearthed Arcana. If we need a face/negotiator, that'd do the trick. If it isn't, I'm looking at a by-the-book half-elven bard for the initial charisma bump. It'll be a fun change, either way. Never played a bard.

[Marullus]

Wow, that feat is awesome. That's a good schmoozy Bard!

For a Face, I am enamored with the Warlock investment that allows unlimited use of the Disguise Self spell. <3

[Enoch]

Yeah, Diplomat is right up there with Lucky for some of the best feats in the game- and very thematic for a bard.

[Radrabbit]

Feats are fine. Like I mentioned earlier I'm not too familiar with 5e but I'm happy to go with the flow and see what happens.

[Paladin]

Gotcha. I'll whip it up and see what you think. Don't mind adjusting on the fly, as needed.

[Rex]

The bard sounds like a good fit.

[Paladin]

Sweet goodness, that took hours. I think I'm done, though. Forgot how involved these 5e character sheets are!

If anything is wonky, just let me know and I'll run through and double-check.

[jemmus]

Hi, thanks for inviting me, and sorry for the late response. Looks like we're in the resistance. That sounds good to me also.

I'd like to play Lothien of Blackacre, a male half-elf druid, if that would fit into the campaign setting. Lothien is the son of a rural human knight/squire/keep holder/farmer. He grew up doing farm work and was trained in arms, riding and estate management, but he was a spacey, dreamy lad, more comfortable around plants and animals than around people. Upon becoming a young adult, he received permission to travel to the land of his elvish mother's family. There, among elvish rangers and druids, he found that he was a natural-born druid. His family back on the farm were displaced due to the current political situation. Unable to aid them directly, he has returned to help in the resistance effort.

How do we find the game (game ID 840)? (I'm very new to The Unseen Servant).

[Enoch]

You're in it now! You'll use the campaign ID when you create a character sheet in the dice roller (unseenservant.COM; the forums here are unseenservant.US--the difference messed me up for a long time). I'm going to throw Marullus under the bus and suggest that he'd be a great guide for creating a character in the dice roller and getting it set up.

I'm kind of excited about a druid. I'm planning on going Path of the Totem Warrior and focusing on the wolf (teamwork) totems rather than the bear (tanking) options. The level 3 benefit is to grant advantage to nearby melee allies, and it looks like that will be a monk, a fighter and a druid. We're light on spellcasters too, so a druid fits right in.

[Marullus]

Sure thing and glad to help, Jemmus!

Click the big, golden die in the upper right corner, or this link here. That's the companion roller site for this forum (as Enoch explained). Do whatever it needs to make an account and/or login.

One in, click the Characters link
Then, click Create a new Character
It will ask you to provide a name (you can rename later if needed) and the Campaign ID which is where you type '840'. then click Aye.

You should now see your character on the list. To the right of your character name, click the golden 20-sided die (under Roll Stats). Follow the prompts, choosing to roll 4d6c1, and assign your attributes however you like, one per attribute.

Go make your character using 5e rules, ask if you need help. You can then click on the Scroll icon to open the character sheet and put your information in. It is designed for early D&D editions so needs to be finagled to fit 5e - feel free to use this as an example.

The advantage of the die roller attached to the forum is that it keeps everything together per-campaign and it creates an audit log of all rolls for each character, so there's never a question about that.

[Marullus]

Ooooh.... I see ybn1197 has a Dragonborn Warlock. I am super-excited to hear how he turned traitor on the Dragon Empire! Whatcha makin'?

[Bluehorse]

Sure thing and glad to help, Jemmus!

Click the big, golden die in the upper right corner, or this link here. That's the companion roller site for this forum (as Enoch explained). Do whatever it needs to make an account and/or login.

One in, click the Characters link
Then, click Create a new Character
It will ask you to provide a name (you can rename later if needed) and the Campaign ID which is where you type '840'. then click Aye.

You should now see your character on the list. To the right of your character name, click the golden 20-sided die (under Roll Stats). Follow the prompts, choosing to roll 4d6c1, and assign your attributes however you like, one per attribute.

Go make your character using 5e rules, ask if you need help. You can then click on the Scroll icon to open the character sheet and put your information in. It is designed for early D&D editions so needs to be finagled to fit 5e - feel free to use this as an example.

The advantage of the die roller attached to the forum is that it keeps everything together per-campaign and it creates an audit log of all rolls for each character, so there's never a question about that.

I just shamelessly took this and added it with appropriate tweaks for my Ghostbusters game VERY well done!!!

[Marullus]

Moving my reply to this to this thread, as it's not unrelated OOC chatter.

Given 3 of 4's warlike past I would be less surprised if at least one character handn't been involved or impacted by the warlord he was serving 17 to 32 years ago Would be good for some in party tension. Though it might be 1 sided.

3of4 is certainly an interesting guy! He's probably built in the Free City of Zobeck (info below), where the clockworks are prolific and Zava, Goddess of Gears, reigns.

THE CROSSROADS
Here lies the heart of Midgard: The Free City of Zobeck,
whose revolt 90 years ago forged a thriving city ruled
by freepeople and gave birth to a trading hub famous
throughout Midgard for its alchemy, star and shadow
magic, steamworks, and egalitarianism. Known for its
magical clockwork masterpieces, its unique magical
traditions of gear mages and star mages, its magnificent
Arcane Collegium, and its status as a protectorate of
Rava, the Gear Goddess, it is a bustling city of glorious
achievements and dark, deadly alleyways.
The 14 dwarven Ironcrag Cantons in the Ironcrag
Mountains border the vampire realm of the Blood
Kingdom and the dwarves are stout enemies of the
undead in both the Blood Kingdom and the underground
Ghoul Imperium residing below. While their axes are
sometimes for sale, when danger threatens their cantonal
halls, all dwarves unite to drive away the common enemy.
Also in the Crossroads region is the Magdar Kingdom,
a land of rolling grasslands, noble knights, fickle
mercenaries, and massive war wagons, many of which
are built in Zobeck. To the east of Zobeck is the Duchy of
Perun’s Daughter, a realm renowned for the demigoddess
who rules there: Vasilka Soulay, daughter of the storm
god Perun. Just as important are its Amazonian archers,
and its schools for the learned and the wise. This small but
powerful duchy also hosts many elvish ruins from the days
of the Valeran Empire.
The Crossroads is rife for urban adventure and intrigue,
old-school dungeon delving, and the discovery of ancient
secrets long buried.

Given your backstory - he's one of four automations built for a wealthy king - it sounds like he's commissioned work shipped to the King's realm outside and away from Zobeck where seeing him would be more rare and impressive. Picking something that touches another PC is really a cool idea.

You defined that you were made 32 years ago, worked for your King in war for 15 years, and have been self-actualizing for 17 years since then.

For the other PCs -

• Awwwrak is going to be very recently descended from the mountains. He's explicitly looking for knowledge on insurgencies and lucked into finding Sade (or Sade finding him and redirecting him correctly). (Link: Sade.) I want to roleplay his outsider acculturation and assume I'll know few people, but I'm okay if someone wants to establish a tie.
• Kura is from the southlands (i.e. North Africa, across the Mediteranian) (Link: Travelling north with Sade.)
• Sade is returing from Nuria Natal (Link: Picked up Kura.)
• Rodrigo López is an urbane smuggler (assume a boat?). I think him transporting Kura and Sade to their current locale (as suggested by Enoch above) sounds really cool. (Link: Kura and Sade?)
• Qelnaar Tiancec is undefined - he is presumably from the Dragon Empire we wish to oppose, which sounds cool!
• Lothien of Blackacre grew up on his human-dad's holdings (Keep, estate, vassal farmers) then went to his mother's people and was trained as a druid. He's now come out to help.

So, using some imagination... here's brainstorming?

• If 3of4's King was above Lothien's hedgeknight dad, then perhaps 3of4's war was responsible for the human/elf alliance which produced the druid? (17 to 32 years ago) If so, then Lothien would certainly know about the war's end with the King being assassinated by his famed mechanical bodyguards.
• Maybe that kingdom is part of Illuriya? (Why you're both here now?)
• What is 3of4 doing for the last 17 years for his self-actualization tour? He could have tied himself to Rodrigo, Sade, or Qelnaar and their goals.

[Bluehorse]

Wow! Thanks Marullus.

I like those ideas so far as long as the other characters are interested in that.

As far as the last 17 years he has one fleeting memory that comes up now and then that of someone connected to his maker being in the area of the Mistbane wood. He is slowly getting a trace of his memory from before he was put in the soul stone that powers him and might be close to wanting to pursue that.

For now he simply has been wandering a la the grey wizard Gandolf (Haha) but without the focus. He has found a little work as a mercenary or on various small quests and requests for someone like him. He has no real use for food or sleep so mostly he walks when not doing maintenance on himself.

He still mostly thinks that his programming has a fault because of the episode of anger 17 years ago and a few recurrences of it since, and though he doesn't understand the term worry, that is his equivalent to how he views the memory since he is not quite "awoken" enough yet to really realize its significance.

As far as tasks he has done it has been everything from town guards hiring him on to break in a door to a young girl asking him to reach up and rescue her kitty. It is all the same to him since he is sort of a-moral, but still has a preprogrammed idea of right and wrong that acts as somewhat of a code of honor he weighs his decisions against which is why I gave him the Chaotic Good alignment. He's not a saint by far, but on whatever level he understands good, he does try.

I think his main personal narrative for this story will be figuring out what it is to be human again and come to terms that he is very much Frankenstein's Monster and what that means for him now if anything, but that is also going to be very long term.

[Marullus]

Trying to pull things together as I make sense of it...

Cascading maps:

Midgard - Big Map.png (802.94 KiB) Viewed 1530 times

Midgard - Small Map 2.jpg (187.38 KiB) Viewed 1530 times

player area.JPG (128.59 KiB) Viewed 1530 times

The Mharoti Empire crushed the Minotaur City States and has added the Arch Duchy of Illyria to its extensive lands.

You now stand in the newest province of the empire, now called Rumela.

As of right now, the Empire has control of the eastern half of Illyria. The Griffoncrags have formed a natural boundary of defense although the Empire of the Dragon's forces no doubt prepares sooner rather than later to complete its conquest of Illyria.

We're starting in Chelfort, at the foot of the Griffoncrags, near Mistwood and Watchtower. They're connected by river to the coast (the dotted lines on the middle map.) The original justification from Radrabbit is:

Since Chelfort is a busy merchant hub, characters could be from anywhere in the continent, having arrived with merchant trains etc

Linking to the bigger picture: its a vaguely European map, so I'm going to discuss in those terms.

• Kura is from the Southlands, which are functionally the Saharah Dessert in North Africa. He says he met Sade in Nuria Natal, which is roughly Egypt (and has an Egyptian pantheon). They travelled by sea across, north-northwest, to land where we are now.
• If 3of4 was made in Zobeck, that's at Crossroads, which is mid-continent. It's directly north-northeast of our current location, all the way across the Magdar Kingdom. That may or may not be relevant depending where his King was and where he walked since.
• The Dragon Empire of the Mharoti (forged by the legendary dragon Mharot) has expanded to basically fill the area on the other side of the Griffoncrag mountains east and north, now covering all the space northward to the Crossroads where Zobeck is.
• "Griffoncrags: The southern Griffoncrags once served as an important buffer between the Mharoti Empire and Illyria. Now, garrisoned by the Mharoti kobolds, eleven brass Anaxi Towers dot the peaks keeping watch on the mountain passes." This is what brings Awwrak and the aarokocra into it. Their eeries may still be hidden at the utmost peaks, but all the passes below are now in the empire and their world is painfully small.
• I'm choosing this mountain range for Awwwrak to be from as the one closest to our startpoint. His religion, howwer is Norse Gods, and shares dieties with the Northlands waaay at the top of the map. I'm willing to assume his family was originally more north and relocated to flee previous wars and ended up in eeries here. Kind of a "last stand of who's left" that is making the aarokocra take action.
• The eastern part of Illyria is the most recent to fall (where we are, just west of the mountains) and free Illyria lies to our west. Downriver is the coast of the Middle Sea (the Med).
• Don't know what to say about Qelnaar and Lothien, but hopefully this helps orient.

This is cool background of where we're starting. Triolo is further up the coast to our northwest, just off the map RadRabbit gave us.

To the south, you will find the Maritime Republic of
Triolo with its magnificent navy and fierce privateers
and its ally, the minotaur-ruled Serene Isle of Kyprion,
besieged by the navies of the expanding Dragon Empire
of the Mharoti. Most recently, it has been absorbing a tide
of refugees fleeing the fall of the Grand Duchy of Illyria,
once an ally to Triolo, now another in the long string of
draconic conquests.
Adventures in this region include discovering ancient,
elven secrets, restoring the glories of the imperial past,
questing for fame, fortune and power, descending into the
darkness under ancient imperial ruins, settling ancient
rivalries, protecting trade routes against draconic raiders,
and fighting to free Illyria from the Mharoti yoke.