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eudas 10-23-03, 10:49 AM

Hey all, I am planning on playing a Druid in an upcoming Seafaring campaign, based on a book series (the Coldfire trilogy) set on the planet Erna. The campaign will be set approximately 100 years after "The Change", which reduces the amount of magic which will be around drastically, but also increases the amount of technology (approx 15th-16th century). Because of the change, human magic has dropped significantly; most caster-types are going to be non-human or taught by non-humans. My character, thus far, has been a tough choice; I wanted to play the style of the Wild ELf, but I've had a really tough time getting past the disadvantages of playing an Elf Druid vs a Human Druid, in the character-optimization sense. In the end, I've pretty much (90%+) decided on going with a human druid, with the following variant of Ye Olde Abandoned As A Childe backstory: With the advent of the change, exploration and settlement of the lands previously considered "the wilds" has become much more prevalent (not to mention, with the reduction of the fae, SAFE) amongst humans. The character's parents would have been settlers (think: American pioneers) in the remote wilds/forest, and having established their claim, begun to farm. However, the Wild Elves (think: American Indians) resented and abhorred this intrusion (our territory, plus "who the hell are you?", plus you're chopping down all the WHAT?). So when the Wild Elves sent an envoy to try to get the newcomers to leave, the humans (which are pretty fae-phobic from thousands of years of dealing with it and would consider anything non-human dangerous and bizarre at a minimum, and xenophobically in need of absolute genocide at a maximum) attacked them ("Get off mah land!") and killed a few. Enraged, the Wild Elves brought a larger force and razed the farm; however, they are savages, not murderers of small children; thus, they did not kill the child, and instead took it back to their settlement to be raised as something of a cross between "one of their own" and "a pet dog you found on the streets". The human child would have grown up with the Wild Elves, speaking Elven [1] and learning their ways (druid/ranger styles, etc), how to hunt, collect herbs/fungi, how to apply medicine (heal), and how to craft leather (clothes, moccasins, tool belts, hide shields, etc). [2] [1] the character prefers to speak elven; he knows common, but almost always refuses to use it unless the need is dire. He can understand it just fine, but considers it an uncouth language. [2] the character will not wear anything that he did not make. i'm not sure if i'm going to make this extend to weaponry, though it could easily do so; Craft Wondrous Item is likely to be part of his eventual repertoire, so he won't suffer total magic item deprivation. At this point, he is pretty much grown up (Druid 1) and needs a reason to go adventuring. I could use a) his "master" (primary teacher/favorite old man/whatever) disappears and he goes in search of him (it could be a1) a test by the old man of his skills or a2) the old man went off to die somewhere or a3) an actual, honest-to-god disappearance and he'll find him eventually) or b) now a young man, the rest of the tribe is somewhat restless about him; he starts getting into fights with others, etc due to some prejudice against him, and has to leave or c) just gets wanderlust and just decides to go on walkabout (aborigine style). I was going to have him eventually wander to human settlements, possibly working with some farmers to help them grow crops in exchange for learning common (unless the elves taught it to him? or he still knew it from learning it as a child?), and eventually make his way to a port city, where, since i was originally going to use plot (a3), the trail would end and he would drown his sorrows in wine at the taverns, occasionally working as a sailor (since that's the work that's primarily available in a port town) for some coin to turn around and spend on wine again... This is where the DM would pick up, with the PC's being hired for a particular mission on a particular boat. Other relevant information: [3] the wildshaping ability, at druid5, would likely come as a *tremendous* surprise, and would probably freak him out for a level or so; it's probably not something his master warned him about (possibly due to expecting to be there to help him through it, or something similar). He would, though, take Natural Spell (motw) at clvl6, for both CharOpt reasons and also because I think he would have gotten used to wildshape by druid6, comfortable enough to cast while shaped anyway. Also, since we are likely to be at sea much of the time, he will have had exposure to mostly deep-woods land animals (birds, snakes, bears, etc), and will have to learn a new repertoire of shapes (sharks, mantis rays, eels, etc). Ideas are welcome! eudas p.s. this guy is still in the Wild Elf style, the leather-clothes, leaves-in-the-hair kind of civilized, but-just-barely sort of thing, sort of the way most people think about D&D barbs but more American-Indian style. p.p.s. i am thinking of naming him 'Malachi'; if you have name ideas, those are welcome as well. eudas