Inja Osiris [Archive] - Wizards Community

Inja Osiris [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Twilly
12-01-03, 04:50 PM Hello there,

I would like to hear your ideas and suggestions. I've made up a good deal for my character's history but I still need some help for a good complete character history. This is what I got:

"She and her twinsister were born on a cold winter night. They both had a mark on their back just like every woman in the family. The mark resembles a snake crawling over a pentagram. It was the sign that sorcery was in their blood. The day the girls were birthed their father died as he was struck by lightning.
All women in the Osiris family were born with the gift of sorcery and all carried the same mark. All those women suffered from the same curse that passes from generation to generation.
The twin girls developed their magical abilities quickly. They started using simple magic as babies. Their mother encouraged the magical developments and monitored it closely.
Their mother worked day and night to find a way to get of the family curse. While their mother was working the girls played inside the castle and in it's beautiful gardens. The girls were very close and developed a telepathic link with one another."

This is what I've got so far. I have a general idea what is going to happen, but nothing is final.

The girls have a wonderful time living in the castle. Their mother does research on how to lift the curse. She summoned a gravecrawler (see MMII, if you want some general info on the gravecrawler just ask). She used the gravecrawler to get information from dead family members. This worked quiet well but people in the village nearby started turning into stone because of the gravecrawler's nightly visits.
The villagers suspect the sorceresses from the Osiris family are behind this and hire some adventurers/assasins/some other power to chase away/kill the family.
On the evening of the attack the girls must flee in the carriage and get split up in their escape attempt. Inja ends up in a monestary. She learned through the monks' teachings how to control her own magic that is strongly depended on her own emotional state. When angry or panicked black magic took over.

I can give more info but I think this is enough for my first message.

Well....?
LiXinjian
12-02-03, 08:38 PM If she still has that telepathic link with her sister, perhaps she senses when her sibbling is in danger? Perhaps Inja has trouble telling when it's *she* who's in danger, and when it's her sister who is? Or she feels quite clearly when her sister's in trouble, and becomes nervous and unbearable to be around until the danger is gone?

I'm assuming from your backstory that Inja is going both Monk and Sorceror. If she feels any regret, any loss at all over being separated from her family, or anger towards the villagers, a priestess of Shar might be able to seduce her to the "dark side". Shar's Monks of the Dark Moon are famous sorceror monks.

Also, what is the family curse?
Twilly
12-03-03, 03:31 PM Thanks for your reply liXinjian.

I will first tell you about the curse, sorry I had not included it in my previous post. I like your idea about her bond with her sister.

The curse:
Inja does not know exactly how the curse works. Her great great great..... great grandmother once made a deal/pact with a devil. This grandmother received the gift of sorcery it is unclear what she had to do/give/promise in return for this gift. Since this moment all women in the family had the gift of sorcery, but all of them had the same mark on their back (see previous post).
Whenever she has feeling like hate/ anger/ fear/ frustration/ jealousy or another negative emotion, a dark side comes up. Spells that are cast when experiencing these emotions/feelings turn these spells into an evil spell. These spells are from the Book of Vile Darkness (the DM decides what spell from the book is cast). If she would try to cast Magic Missile (when she is full of hate), she might cast Seething Eyebane instead.
If not casting a spell she starts talking Darkspeech without the ability to stop it. The mark on her back hurts when someone channels positive energy (it might deal damage or leave her shaken or sickened).
And last but not least: whenever she falls in love and he falls in love with her, then he wil eventually die an unfortunate death. Just like her father and mother were in love, and father died because he got struck by lightning on the day of her birth. Inja has had one boyfriend (a boy that worked in the stables), he died when the horses got wild suddenly and trampled him to death.

I am still not happy with the last part of the background I wrote down in my previous post. (BTW the monastry will be more like a nunnery instead of some eastern monk temple). Eventually she will end up in the Order of the Knights of Solamnia. The nuns didn't want to let her go, but Inja wanted to go out finding a way to break the curse and to find her sister. The monastry became too much a prison for Inja, so eventually they let her go but made sure that she would have enough protection and that she would fight for a good cause.

I need a good reason why Inja has not been sent home after the attack on the castle. Why should she be kept in a nunnery for so long (a few years)?
Who attacked the castle and why?
Was it someone from within the castle that betrayed the family and hired (an) assasin(s), or was it the village or something else?
LiXinjian
12-03-03, 09:49 PM Isn't there a feat in the Book of Vile Darkness that allows you to add the [evil] descriptor to a spell? Perhaps every time she's mad her spells simply turn evil. Altough having your DM pick a random spell from the BoVD is also cool and not as rule-breaking (since I think adding the evil descriptor to a spell increases its spell level by 1)

I like the idea of your character suddenly switching to Dark Speech when angry. It's like those old stories of posessed people suddenly shouting curses in latin.

Why should she be kept in a nunnery for so long (a few years)?
Who attacked the castle and why?
Was it someone from within the castle that betrayed the family and hired (an) assasin(s), or was it the village or something else?

Perhaps she had nowhere else to go. Perhaps the attack destroyed her home and the monks/nuns couldn't bring themselves to send her away to fend for herself while she was emotionally unstable. Instead, they taught her stuff (possibly religion-related stuff that would fit with the Knights of Solamia) and had her do some chores. Over time, routine settled in. Also, maybe Inja stayed there simply because she thought it would make it easier for someone inquiring as to her whereabouts to locate her. This someone being, of course, her mother or sister.

The person who organized the attack could be a fanatic but influential man from the village (like priests were in medieval times) who carries a grudge against Inja's mother since, well, since a long time. Perhaps he even framed the whole thing, and the gravecrawler didn't turn anyone to stone. Or, at least, not as many people as the fanatic priest claims. He simply gathered a mob who marched on the castle/manor with pikes and torches.

Just a few suggestions.

edit: changed a word that appeared as ****** to "angry". :rolleyes:
Morka
12-04-03, 10:22 AM Originally posted by Twilly

I need a good reason why Inja has not been sent home after the attack on the castle. Why should she be kept in a nunnery for so long (a few years)?
Who attacked the castle and why?
Was it someone from within the castle that betrayed the family and hired (an) assasin(s), or was it the village or something else?

How vicious was the attack? There could be no more castle at all, only ruins! :smirk:

On a more subtle way, all the villagers could think her dead, with proof the adventurers provided (a simulacre of her head). So each time she try to return to the abandonned castle, she is took for an undead; women hide their children, men run after her with scythes, hayfork and picks. Naturally, this cause her negative emotions, and instead of casting Haste to flee, she casted something like Sunfire, and now she feels too guilty to return to the castle. Alternatively, the villagers could simply hate her for her link with the gravecrawler.

I'm not sure to have seen it in your posts, what happen to her mother? Is she dead, or if Inja searching her also?
Twilly
12-06-03, 09:31 AM Thank you for your replies.

I like both your ideas, I think I will mix them a little bit.

The castle is attacked/infiltraded by (a) Consecrated Harrier(s) (from Defenders of the Faith).

The village still hates the family Osiris (that is why Inja has not returned home yet).

Her mother probably died, but Inja does not know what happened to her.

I going to talk with my DM about it, see what he thinks. If you like I can give you a final version of my character history when it is finished. If you have some cool ideas, don't hesistate to post them. It will take a while before I have written everything down completly, so I can always make some changes. I will let you know what my DM and I have discussed (if we get any further).
LiXinjian
12-07-03, 07:04 AM Sure, keep us posted. I'm curious to see what backstory you'll end up with.

As far as cool ideas go, I have only one more thing to add to my previous idea (the one about the man in town having a grudge against Inja's mother). Perhaps the reason for this grudge was so shameful, Inja's mother didn't wish to talk about it. Now that she is dead, Inja must seek out former friends of hers (now scattered in the nearby villages/towns and some even further away) to first discover what that secret was, before she can discover who planned the death of her mother. Maybe the influential man was only a pawn, after all...
Twilly
01-13-04, 02:33 PM It has taken a while before my DM and I had worked it all out, but here it is:

"She and her twinsister were born on a cold winter night. They both had a mark on their back just like every woman in the family. The mark resembles a snake crawling over a pentagram. It was the sign that sorcery was in their blood. The day the girls were birthed their father died as he was struck by lightning.
All women in the Osiris family were born with the gift of sorcery and all carried the same mark. All those women suffered from the same curse that passes from generation to generation.
The twin girls developed their magical abilities quickly. They started using simple magic as babies. Their mother encouraged the magical developments and monitored it closely.
Emilia (their mother) worked day and night to find a way to get of the family curse. While Emilia was working the girls played inside the castle and in it's beautiful gardens. The girls were very close and developed a telepathic link with one another.
The girls have a wonderful time living in the castle. Emilia summoned a gravecrawler one day. She used the gravecrawler to get information from dead family members. This seemed to work quiet well.
One day when Emilia went to the gravecrawler, she noticed that it had escaped. The lock was opened and she was sure she had locked the cage. In the next days the population of the village nearby slowly turned into stone. Every days new victims were found. The village people suspected that the Familie Osiris was responsible for this (which is not far from the the truth). They hired some mercenaries to get rid of the familie.
On a cold night in december the castle was attacked by a group of mercenaries. Most soldiers were caught off guard. Emilia brought her two daughters to two cavaliers. The two cavaliers had to bring the two girls to the nunnery.
Emilia died that evening, while her daughters were chased by a few men of the mercenary force. The cavaliers decided to extinguish their torches, to improve the odds of their escape. They escaped in the darkness of the night, riding blindly on their horses. At dawn they realised that they had lost each other. Inja was safely delivered to the nunnery but her sister Indra had vanished without a trace."
LiXinjian
01-13-04, 07:32 PM Nice. I like the part where the two riders loose each other in the dead of the night.
Twilly
01-14-04, 11:53 AM I forgot to include the curse in my previous post. I will post it now, so everything is complete.

Whenever Inja experiences negative emotions (hate, anger, sadness, fear.......) , there is a chance that her spells become evil spells from BoVD. It is up to the DM when this happens exactly. So instead of casting Greater Invisibility she might cast Wrack on the person she is trying to hide from.
- Whenever negative emotions overtake her she starts talking in Dark Speech. She can only stop talking this way when she can master her emotions again.
-Whenever she is on holy ground on whenever someone tries to turn undead in her prescence, she is subject to a Symbol of Pain spell (3.0 version).
- All persons that she falls in love with will die in a very unexpected way. (She has once experienced this when the stableguy was trampled by the horses)
Morka
01-14-04, 02:52 PM In your final description, I don't see why this familly is living in a castle. Are they of noble blood? Are they a wealthy familly?
Twilly
01-14-04, 03:16 PM Yes, they are indeed of noble blood.

The family ruled a small piece of land. The land is now deserted. The escaped gravecrawler turned a lot of people into stone. The local druid was not able to undo the effects. Every day more people turned into stone. Even after the death of Emilia, things didn't turn to normal. The land is now believed to be cursed, no visitors have returned from this barony.
Villigers that fled the area claim that witches of Osiris have cursed the lands, and now it isn't save anymore.

Inja did return to the castle once, by the way. She visited it while in disguise. She buried her mother which she found dead. The local druid had noticed Inja's prescence and told her (after the burial) that this place was no longer safe for her, the mercenaries that attacked the castle were probably still looking for her.
nick012000
01-17-04, 04:45 AM So you're character's great-great-great-great-grandmother signed a contract with baatezu? Why? :confused: It is probably one of the dumbest things a berk can do, only contested by signing a contract with a yugoloth. Especially one that condemns your descendents as well. I bet the devil that suckered your ancestor in got a promotion. All of your descentants? That's a lot of lemures.

So, what do you do now? Contact the baatezu. Find out how you can escape from the contract. After all, you don't want to be a lemure, and you don't want your children to be lemures, either.
Twilly
01-17-04, 10:23 AM Why make a deal with the devil?
Inja doesn't know what kind of deal once was made by her ancestor. She doesn't have a clue. My DM knows the answer to the question.
The devil that did this, probably got promoted. It could be that it was one of the arch-devils that set everything up.

What is Inja going to do?
She wants to go back to the castle and see if she can find the research done by her mother. The ghost of the castle will probably still live in there. Inja might be able to get some information from him, about what happened during the attack.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Twilly 12-01-03, 04:50 PM	Hello there, I would like to hear your ideas and suggestions. I've made up a good deal for my character's history but I still need some help for a good complete character history. This is what I got: "She and her twinsister were born on a cold winter night. They both had a mark on their back just like every woman in the family. The mark resembles a snake crawling over a pentagram. It was the sign that sorcery was in their blood. The day the girls were birthed their father died as he was struck by lightning. All women in the Osiris family were born with the gift of sorcery and all carried the same mark. All those women suffered from the same curse that passes from generation to generation. The twin girls developed their magical abilities quickly. They started using simple magic as babies. Their mother encouraged the magical developments and monitored it closely. Their mother worked day and night to find a way to get of the family curse. While their mother was working the girls played inside the castle and in it's beautiful gardens. The girls were very close and developed a telepathic link with one another." This is what I've got so far. I have a general idea what is going to happen, but nothing is final. The girls have a wonderful time living in the castle. Their mother does research on how to lift the curse. She summoned a gravecrawler (see MMII, if you want some general info on the gravecrawler just ask). She used the gravecrawler to get information from dead family members. This worked quiet well but people in the village nearby started turning into stone because of the gravecrawler's nightly visits. The villagers suspect the sorceresses from the Osiris family are behind this and hire some adventurers/assasins/some other power to chase away/kill the family. On the evening of the attack the girls must flee in the carriage and get split up in their escape attempt. Inja ends up in a monestary. She learned through the monks' teachings how to control her own magic that is strongly depended on her own emotional state. When angry or panicked black magic took over. I can give more info but I think this is enough for my first message. Well....?
LiXinjian 12-02-03, 08:38 PM	If she still has that telepathic link with her sister, perhaps she senses when her sibbling is in danger? Perhaps Inja has trouble telling when it's she who's in danger, and when it's her sister who is? Or she feels quite clearly when her sister's in trouble, and becomes nervous and unbearable to be around until the danger is gone? I'm assuming from your backstory that Inja is going both Monk and Sorceror. If she feels any regret, any loss at all over being separated from her family, or anger towards the villagers, a priestess of Shar might be able to seduce her to the "dark side". Shar's Monks of the Dark Moon are famous sorceror monks. Also, what is the family curse?
Twilly 12-03-03, 03:31 PM	Thanks for your reply liXinjian. I will first tell you about the curse, sorry I had not included it in my previous post. I like your idea about her bond with her sister. The curse: Inja does not know exactly how the curse works. Her great great great..... great grandmother once made a deal/pact with a devil. This grandmother received the gift of sorcery it is unclear what she had to do/give/promise in return for this gift. Since this moment all women in the family had the gift of sorcery, but all of them had the same mark on their back (see previous post). Whenever she has feeling like hate/ anger/ fear/ frustration/ jealousy or another negative emotion, a dark side comes up. Spells that are cast when experiencing these emotions/feelings turn these spells into an evil spell. These spells are from the Book of Vile Darkness (the DM decides what spell from the book is cast). If she would try to cast Magic Missile (when she is full of hate), she might cast Seething Eyebane instead. If not casting a spell she starts talking Darkspeech without the ability to stop it. The mark on her back hurts when someone channels positive energy (it might deal damage or leave her shaken or sickened). And last but not least: whenever she falls in love and he falls in love with her, then he wil eventually die an unfortunate death. Just like her father and mother were in love, and father died because he got struck by lightning on the day of her birth. Inja has had one boyfriend (a boy that worked in the stables), he died when the horses got wild suddenly and trampled him to death. I am still not happy with the last part of the background I wrote down in my previous post. (BTW the monastry will be more like a nunnery instead of some eastern monk temple). Eventually she will end up in the Order of the Knights of Solamnia. The nuns didn't want to let her go, but Inja wanted to go out finding a way to break the curse and to find her sister. The monastry became too much a prison for Inja, so eventually they let her go but made sure that she would have enough protection and that she would fight for a good cause. I need a good reason why Inja has not been sent home after the attack on the castle. Why should she be kept in a nunnery for so long (a few years)? Who attacked the castle and why? Was it someone from within the castle that betrayed the family and hired (an) assasin(s), or was it the village or something else?
LiXinjian 12-03-03, 09:49 PM	Isn't there a feat in the Book of Vile Darkness that allows you to add the [evil] descriptor to a spell? Perhaps every time she's mad her spells simply turn evil. Altough having your DM pick a random spell from the BoVD is also cool and not as rule-breaking (since I think adding the evil descriptor to a spell increases its spell level by 1) I like the idea of your character suddenly switching to Dark Speech when angry. It's like those old stories of posessed people suddenly shouting curses in latin. Why should she be kept in a nunnery for so long (a few years)? Who attacked the castle and why? Was it someone from within the castle that betrayed the family and hired (an) assasin(s), or was it the village or something else? Perhaps she had nowhere else to go. Perhaps the attack destroyed her home and the monks/nuns couldn't bring themselves to send her away to fend for herself while she was emotionally unstable. Instead, they taught her stuff (possibly religion-related stuff that would fit with the Knights of Solamia) and had her do some chores. Over time, routine settled in. Also, maybe Inja stayed there simply because she thought it would make it easier for someone inquiring as to her whereabouts to locate her. This someone being, of course, her mother or sister. The person who organized the attack could be a fanatic but influential man from the village (like priests were in medieval times) who carries a grudge against Inja's mother since, well, since a long time. Perhaps he even framed the whole thing, and the gravecrawler didn't turn anyone to stone. Or, at least, not as many people as the fanatic priest claims. He simply gathered a mob who marched on the castle/manor with pikes and torches. Just a few suggestions. edit: changed a word that appeared as ****** to "angry". :rolleyes:
Morka 12-04-03, 10:22 AM	Originally posted by Twilly I need a good reason why Inja has not been sent home after the attack on the castle. Why should she be kept in a nunnery for so long (a few years)? Who attacked the castle and why? Was it someone from within the castle that betrayed the family and hired (an) assasin(s), or was it the village or something else? How vicious was the attack? There could be no more castle at all, only ruins! :smirk: On a more subtle way, all the villagers could think her dead, with proof the adventurers provided (a simulacre of her head). So each time she try to return to the abandonned castle, she is took for an undead; women hide their children, men run after her with scythes, hayfork and picks. Naturally, this cause her negative emotions, and instead of casting Haste to flee, she casted something like Sunfire, and now she feels too guilty to return to the castle. Alternatively, the villagers could simply hate her for her link with the gravecrawler. I'm not sure to have seen it in your posts, what happen to her mother? Is she dead, or if Inja searching her also?
Twilly 12-06-03, 09:31 AM	Thank you for your replies. I like both your ideas, I think I will mix them a little bit. The castle is attacked/infiltraded by (a) Consecrated Harrier(s) (from Defenders of the Faith). The village still hates the family Osiris (that is why Inja has not returned home yet). Her mother probably died, but Inja does not know what happened to her. I going to talk with my DM about it, see what he thinks. If you like I can give you a final version of my character history when it is finished. If you have some cool ideas, don't hesistate to post them. It will take a while before I have written everything down completly, so I can always make some changes. I will let you know what my DM and I have discussed (if we get any further).
LiXinjian 12-07-03, 07:04 AM	Sure, keep us posted. I'm curious to see what backstory you'll end up with. As far as cool ideas go, I have only one more thing to add to my previous idea (the one about the man in town having a grudge against Inja's mother). Perhaps the reason for this grudge was so shameful, Inja's mother didn't wish to talk about it. Now that she is dead, Inja must seek out former friends of hers (now scattered in the nearby villages/towns and some even further away) to first discover what that secret was, before she can discover who planned the death of her mother. Maybe the influential man was only a pawn, after all...
Twilly 01-13-04, 02:33 PM	It has taken a while before my DM and I had worked it all out, but here it is: "She and her twinsister were born on a cold winter night. They both had a mark on their back just like every woman in the family. The mark resembles a snake crawling over a pentagram. It was the sign that sorcery was in their blood. The day the girls were birthed their father died as he was struck by lightning. All women in the Osiris family were born with the gift of sorcery and all carried the same mark. All those women suffered from the same curse that passes from generation to generation. The twin girls developed their magical abilities quickly. They started using simple magic as babies. Their mother encouraged the magical developments and monitored it closely. Emilia (their mother) worked day and night to find a way to get of the family curse. While Emilia was working the girls played inside the castle and in it's beautiful gardens. The girls were very close and developed a telepathic link with one another. The girls have a wonderful time living in the castle. Emilia summoned a gravecrawler one day. She used the gravecrawler to get information from dead family members. This seemed to work quiet well. One day when Emilia went to the gravecrawler, she noticed that it had escaped. The lock was opened and she was sure she had locked the cage. In the next days the population of the village nearby slowly turned into stone. Every days new victims were found. The village people suspected that the Familie Osiris was responsible for this (which is not far from the the truth). They hired some mercenaries to get rid of the familie. On a cold night in december the castle was attacked by a group of mercenaries. Most soldiers were caught off guard. Emilia brought her two daughters to two cavaliers. The two cavaliers had to bring the two girls to the nunnery. Emilia died that evening, while her daughters were chased by a few men of the mercenary force. The cavaliers decided to extinguish their torches, to improve the odds of their escape. They escaped in the darkness of the night, riding blindly on their horses. At dawn they realised that they had lost each other. Inja was safely delivered to the nunnery but her sister Indra had vanished without a trace."
LiXinjian 01-13-04, 07:32 PM	Nice. I like the part where the two riders loose each other in the dead of the night.
Twilly 01-14-04, 11:53 AM	I forgot to include the curse in my previous post. I will post it now, so everything is complete. Whenever Inja experiences negative emotions (hate, anger, sadness, fear.......) , there is a chance that her spells become evil spells from BoVD. It is up to the DM when this happens exactly. So instead of casting Greater Invisibility she might cast Wrack on the person she is trying to hide from. - Whenever negative emotions overtake her she starts talking in Dark Speech. She can only stop talking this way when she can master her emotions again. -Whenever she is on holy ground on whenever someone tries to turn undead in her prescence, she is subject to a Symbol of Pain spell (3.0 version). - All persons that she falls in love with will die in a very unexpected way. (She has once experienced this when the stableguy was trampled by the horses)
Morka 01-14-04, 02:52 PM	In your final description, I don't see why this familly is living in a castle. Are they of noble blood? Are they a wealthy familly?
Twilly 01-14-04, 03:16 PM	Yes, they are indeed of noble blood. The family ruled a small piece of land. The land is now deserted. The escaped gravecrawler turned a lot of people into stone. The local druid was not able to undo the effects. Every day more people turned into stone. Even after the death of Emilia, things didn't turn to normal. The land is now believed to be cursed, no visitors have returned from this barony. Villigers that fled the area claim that witches of Osiris have cursed the lands, and now it isn't save anymore. Inja did return to the castle once, by the way. She visited it while in disguise. She buried her mother which she found dead. The local druid had noticed Inja's prescence and told her (after the burial) that this place was no longer safe for her, the mercenaries that attacked the castle were probably still looking for her.
nick012000 01-17-04, 04:45 AM	So you're character's great-great-great-great-grandmother signed a contract with baatezu? Why? :confused: It is probably one of the dumbest things a berk can do, only contested by signing a contract with a yugoloth. Especially one that condemns your descendents as well. I bet the devil that suckered your ancestor in got a promotion. All of your descentants? That's a lot of lemures. So, what do you do now? Contact the baatezu. Find out how you can escape from the contract. After all, you don't want to be a lemure, and you don't want your children to be lemures, either.
Twilly 01-17-04, 10:23 AM	Why make a deal with the devil? Inja doesn't know what kind of deal once was made by her ancestor. She doesn't have a clue. My DM knows the answer to the question. The devil that did this, probably got promoted. It could be that it was one of the arch-devils that set everything up. What is Inja going to do? She wants to go back to the castle and see if she can find the research done by her mother. The ghost of the castle will probably still live in there. Inja might be able to get some information from him, about what happened during the attack.