Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Lyinginbedmon 09-23-06, 08:28 PM	I've written this background for a villain that'll show up later in my game and I'd like the opinion of every one (Or at least some) of the people that frequent this board on it. Sasori used to be an ordinary kid; he had 2 parents (A mother and father, though the former was usually busy with his numerous siblings, and the latter a contemptible layabout). With such uninteresting family members, Sasori looked elsewhere for entertainment, and was happened upon by a passing Druid, who, seeing the small child as a tactical opportunity, quickly picked him up and took him with him. Sasori thought that at the time this was an excellent chance for boundless fun, he was soon to be proven wrong. The Druid, who he would later discover to be known as Seahorn Droverson, had a Wizard friend, Coremita Pegason, and they both saw in him the very same prospect: A very small and very powerful weapon. Coremita revived Sasori as a zombie, then awakened him to semi-sentience. The two then spent several years and a large amount of finance improving Sasori, making him wiser, smarter, and slowly nudging him toward the haphazard path of the sorcerers. With his newfound necromantic sentience, Sasori didn’t plan on staying around long now that Coremita and Seahorn had no actual control over him. He quickly fled, aided in hiding more by his small size than by his speed. He escaped into the woods and the pair never found him afterwards, their cries of annoyance could be heard for many miles. Sasori had other plans than escape, however. He wanted vengeance, a revenge to be told in stories and over campfires for aeons to come. And so, in his rage at the monstrosity the pair had made him, he quickly wiped out a large number of his family, beginning with his siblings and his layabout father, though he left his caring and nurturing mother alive. Over the next few years, Sasori grew increasingly strong and increasingly bold. He became tired of attacking mere creatures like his family, small birds, and dogs, cats, and badgers. He started venturing nearer to human civilisations, delighting in taking out both human and half-elf alike (The races of the duo), and gradually carting away their wealth in a small sack (About 100 coins at a time as a light load). He once even got lucky and acquired a rare black onyx gem, which he decided to keep rather than pawn, its perfect ancient lustre reminding him of his enemies. At one time, he was even luckier and caught a passing glimpse of an inquisitor into his actions, a Solar, and stood for a measure of time merely observing the creature, its perfection utterly amazing him. Fortunately, the Solar didn’t take much notice of him despite his proximity. Admiring the beauty of design, which he often saw in the slaves of his victims (Generally Warforged, but sometimes including Shield Guardians), Sasori grew favourable of long periods of meditation and contemplation, and eventually achieved a nirvana state, and saw how to achieve his vengeance at last. He used his prized gem and took control of the body of a merchant. And day after day he used the merchant’s body and resources to build himself a collection of unique creations. He toiled away at their construction; though incapable of the skills to build them himself he used his wealth to hire artisans who could. Eventually, they were finished, his constructs. He gave them names that they deserved, his primary vassal with the form of a human he named Deodatus, the massive vision of his former life he named Croakus, the wondrous gathering of hundreds of small shards he named Aspasia, and the towering watchdog of metal and stone he named Mache. Lastly, he set his craftsmen to work building the last part of his collection, a towering monolith of living flesh he named Akanerune. Each one was in some way designed to accommodate a small prism. He had the prism constructed from adamantine 3 inches thick, large enough to hold his onyx gem and his normal undead body. This prism was designed to fit into his allies with his soul possessing their bodies that he might never be caused to die by the range limitation of his spells. Seahorn and Coremita had no idea what befell them when they were struck. Unfortunately, it was not Sasori that killed them, but their further experimentation in utilising trolls and ogres for similar tasks as they considered Sasori. Distraught at this revelation, Sasori joined arms with the Boshcorah Touched faction, in order to in some way achieve his vengeance by the destruction of those with similar thoughts and ideals as the duo. His tactic is to use magic jar to take control of his constructs and use their comparable physical capabilities with his own magical ones to cause extreme devastation. The Human-shaped construct, Deodatus, also has 2 scrolls, one the target of a teleportation circle in Sasori's lair, the other a teleportation circle to it, allowing him to effectively 'summon' a construct from his lair to his aid, though the positioning of the second scroll makes it impossible for him to use it to teleport back. EDIT: Oh, and he's a Cleric 10/Contemplative 1 (Domains: Envy, Planning, Undeath), he uses Divine Metamagic, Persistant Spell, and Extra Turning with a 10 Cha to cast magic jar to last 24 hours, allowing him to experience a virtually perpetual effect. So, scale of 1-10, review, pros and cons, whatever way you want to rate it, I eagerly await your responses! :)
Nightwalk 09-24-06, 03:22 AM	I think the background is well-thought and as such deserves a fair 7-8 with not many points I criticise. The point that he fled from his former masters without taking revenge and maybe reanimating them as zombies or semi-sentient undead is the main point of criticism. Maybe you should get more into detail why he killed nearly his entire family, I didn`t get the point why he did so, they never hurt him. How much are the PC´s to learn about his background? Are they to fight him in his real form in the climax of the campaign?
Lyinginbedmon 09-24-06, 03:42 AM	The point that he fled from his former masters without taking revenge and maybe reanimating them as zombies or semi-sentient undead is the main point of criticism. Maybe you should get more into detail why he killed nearly his entire family, I didn`t get the point why he did so, they never hurt him. He fled without taking revenge because he was too weak to take revenge, he was a level 1 character then and not a particularly strong one either. He had to retreat and bide his time to get strong enough to take them out. None of his family did anything to try and save him or rescue him, his biggest thought during his captivity was that they would be rallying everyone else in the forest to his aid and come and rescue him. How much are the PC´s to learn about his background? Are they to fight him in his real form in the climax of the campaign? They'll learn a little about him in game, as well as a lot OOC (I tend to have little written diary-form snippets of history for certain characters in certain campaigns), but mostly he'll be the villain they need to find, defeat, and rescue the person he captured. At the end of the campaign, yes they'll find out what his real form is, I can only guess what they'll do to him then...
Fithero 09-24-06, 05:34 AM	sounds like a cool character, a few things- -what race was he and what race is he now? (Sorry if it was listed, i may have missed it) -why would a druid work with a wizard to create undead? Dont druids usually dispise anything unnatural...? -is there any reasoning behind the forms of the constructs that he has created? Or were they just randomly chosen? -whats his ultimate goal? Does he intend to try and get back to being alive or does he just want more power? 7/10 Peace
Lyinginbedmon 09-24-06, 05:53 AM	sounds like a cool character, a few things- -what race was he and what race is he now? (Sorry if it was listed, i may have missed it) Yes, I purposefully left out what race he is, though I left a couple little hints. He's now an Awakened Zombie, he used to be a Toad :D -why would a druid work with a wizard to create undead? Dont druids usually dispise anything unnatural...? Well, yes, if they're good or neutral-aligned. This one could probably have qualified for Blighter -is there any reasoning behind the forms of the constructs that he has created? Or were they just randomly chosen? Yup: He chose Human for Deodatus because it meant he could use things easily and cast his spells He chose Shredstorm for Aspasia because of its speed and combat capabilities, especially as a scout He chose Titanic Toad for Croakus because the inspiration came from his father (In his words "My father taught me one thing before I killed him: the big ones fall harder") He chose Slaughterstone Behemoth for Mache because it's stronger than Croakus and can fit into smaller spaces. He chose Incarnate Iron Colossus for Akanerune because it's the most powerful one he could get. If you look at the different shapes, he actually seems to go through an evolutionary stage, somewhat echoing his own transmutation perhaps. Human - It was sentient humanoid beings that stole him from his family and altered him, and it was his use of Deodatus that led to the other constructs being made Adamantine Whirlwind - Perhaps echoing his mental state after he fled, or the chaos of his transformation from Toad to Monster, this is an intermediate period signifying turmoil and change Great Toad - The final product, something irrevocably Toad-like but so much more powerful, though it carries a heavy burden of its history and past Stone Dog - Transforming from something lament-oriented into something much more vengeance-oriented, it shows his descent into bloodlust and anger at his new state and how he was treated. It also shows a more intelligent evolution, he's thinking more about what he needs to do to get his revenge Towering Colossus - The final form, the realisation. In his quest to become more powerful to destroy his tormentors, he's become exactly what he wanted to destroy: Something that has no regard for anyone's comfort or safety and that takes great pains to harm them in order to get what it wants. Lastly, he is no longer the little Toad he once was, now he's a fully sentient person. -whats his ultimate goal? Does he intend to try and get back to being alive or does he just want more power? Prior to their deaths, his goal was to get revenge on Coremita and Seahorn. Now, with no way to harm them, he wants to gore their ideology by attacking Humans, Half-Elves, and people who seek more power without concern for those they harm in the process. He joined the Boshcorah Touched because they give him a large number of choices to do this. In the campaign he appears in, he's assigned to capture a Human for the Touched to use as a sacrifice to revive their creators, the Human is a Dread Necromancer who created a large water-based undead army and caused lots of harm to many people. So yeah, he's kind of an anti-hero
Lyinginbedmon 09-24-06, 01:03 PM	Any other comments?
Fithero 09-24-06, 01:32 PM	...a *toad*?:uh-huh:
Lyinginbedmon 09-24-06, 03:15 PM	...a *toad*?:uh-huh: Well, he got better Yup, a (Not so) regular, (Now) old, Awakened Zombie Toad That said, he's a pretty strong Toad. Good mental statistics, high casting ability as stated above, and high AC considering he's going up against a group of 4 about 8th level PCs (29 base)
Lyinginbedmon 09-25-06, 01:04 PM	Anyone else care to take a shot?
Lyinginbedmon 09-27-06, 04:35 AM	Okay, loading the barrel for anyone thinking of reviewing here... Why I chose to make a Fine-sized Toad BBEG: Well, for starters there's the tactical advantage of having a +8 size bonus to AC, and the fact that they look so absolutely offenceless that they could walk right in to an enemy camp and probably would only get passingly considered as an hors d'oeuvre. Next, there's the fact that creating something like this is exactly the kind of crazy stunt that my players would pull. They are always discussing what kind of insane creatures they are going to create with Epic spells once they get the chance (I keep reminding them that they need DM approval...), and with all of their crazy ideas I thought that it was about time they met a villain who was the direct result of one. Hopefully, it'll show them that the things they do have definitive consequences, after all Coremita and Seahorn wanted to create a super-powerful minion and they ended up with this super-powerful enemy who loathes their very ideology and will quickly work to undermine the plans of anyone seeking similar plots. And they always love a good NPC, particularly the ones with tragic histories. When he was first introduced, they loved the present BBEG. When he created an undead that revolted and now works against him, they loved the undead. So, if I make this Toad and give him a rich history and character, I'm sure that they'll like him and I'm sure that they'll be less likely to try and slaughter him (Which is a good thing if they can try and turn him to their side, it makes for very good RPXP) and should help them to develop their roleplaying aspect of their characters.
KShaver 09-27-06, 04:32 PM	His tactic is to use magic jar to take control of his constructs and use their comparable physical capabilities with his own magical ones to cause extreme devastation. I was looking into this for an effigy master, Magic Jar didn seem to quite cover it. Couldn't find a spell that allowed one to take over a construct, not even something to make it temporarily follow your commands.
Lyinginbedmon 09-27-06, 04:48 PM	I was looking into this for an effigy master, Magic Jar didn seem to quite cover it. Couldn't find a spell that allowed one to take over a construct, not even something to make it temporarily follow your commands. Which is why I designed all of the constructs with a lack of immunity to Necromancy, easily achieved through either the Incarnate Construct template or the Living Construct subtype (Acquired via the Soulfused Construct template). Both end up with something generally immune to Necromancy one way or another, so magic jar can affect them.
Lyinginbedmon 10-08-06, 02:55 PM	Of course, the traditional fallback plan is to think that, being their creator, the Constructs will follow them naturally because that's precedent, constructs always follow what their creators tell them. Of course, with living constructs like Warforged that's a whole other story.