Post/Author/DateTime	Post
CS_Buddy 08-20-03, 04:21 PM	Character History and Goals: Zip File (http://home.cogeco.ca/~daemon/Althalus Tanthul.zip) Character History (HTML) (http://home.cogeco.ca/~daemon/history.htm) Character Description (HTML) (http://home.cogeco.ca/~daemon/description.htm) Character Goals and Motivations (HTML) (http://home.cogeco.ca/~daemon/goals.htm) Well I've been working on this character history for a while, and it kept expanding, and eventually became more of a story. It's about a character I just started playing- he's a Shade Rogue lvl5 currently, but I've planned him out to go Rogue 5, Assassin 3, Teflammar Shadowlord 6, and then continue in Assassin after that. The game is a high powered Plane Shift campaign, and most people are playing something with a high CR. We are chasing a man through the various Planes who is attempting to merge all the planes together for some reason. He has an artifact that allows him to travel between planes, but it creates "leaks" between the planes he travels to when he uses it. It's 10 pages, so if you want to read it, make sure you have some time. I thought it turned out pretty well. It's two M$ Word doc files- one with the history, and one with some goals and motivations. I'd appreciate any comments or criticism on the story. I did take some artistic licence with certain things from Forgotten Realms- such as in the time I am playing, the City of Shade hasn't returned to Faerun yet. I took references from the Lords of Darkness book, as well as the FRCS, Races of Faerun, Manual of the Planes, and Fiend Folio books. Also, and this is a long shot, but if anyone would be willing to help me with a picture of the character I would appreciate it. I'll be writing up a character description a bit later, beyond what is on my character sheet. I found out that the character history and picture are probably worth XP, but I did the history because I enjoyed writing it. I hope some of you enjoy it too :)
Edymnion 08-20-03, 09:47 PM	I always thought people were exaggerating when they said they had ten page character backgrounds... :uh-huh:
CS_Buddy 08-21-03, 05:22 PM	I just don't do a lot of creative writing, and when I started writing the history for this character, I had only intended it to be a page or two, but I kept expanding on it... so it turned into a creative outlet for me. Guess nobody wants to read it :P Ah well... I wrote it because I wanted to, so it doesn't matter.
Trydan 08-22-03, 01:53 AM	Guess nobody wants to read it Eek... give us a chance. If you post up 10+ pages, then we'll likely need more than 24 hours to find some time to set aside to trawl through it. (Oh, and Zipped/M$WORD is not the friendliest of formats - others may beg to differ, but HTML (or PDF) would be a hell of a lot more convenient.)
CS_Buddy 08-22-03, 12:30 PM	Ask and Ye Shall Recieve: Character History (HTML) (http://home.cogeco.ca/~daemon/history.htm) Character Description (HTML) (http://home.cogeco.ca/~daemon/description.htm) Character Goals and Motivations (HTML) (http://home.cogeco.ca/~daemon/goals.htm) I found a neat little program that converts doc files to html.... Sorry, I'm a bit of a speed reader myself, so I forget that it is a lot to read sometimes. I updated the ZIP file with some of the other notes I had written on the character. I was on vacation the last week, and most of it was spent on the road in our van driving various places, so I had lots of time to write. I was using an m100 Palm Pilot that doesn't even read HTML files, so formatting it using M$ Word was the best thing I could do once I got it back on my computer.
Trydan 08-25-03, 04:05 AM	Nice background. It certainly starts off dark and mysterious. I was left wondering about the ritual the High Lord performs on the Althalus. What did he actually do? Yes, Althalus was now one of them, but in what way? :confused: I suspect this is something to do with the Shadowlord Prestige Class, but I'm not familiar with that PrC, so it was lost on me at first. I think I've got the hang of it now. Also, it wasn't until later in the piece that I realised that this was Forgotten Realms. Yes, you had said so in your original post, but I didn't go back and read that, did I :rolleyes: . Of course, mentioning Faeru^n gave it away. I also was confused at first why the description was titled "Siegfried..." but was about "Althalus". That only became clear later. I should have read the character description first, but I started directly with the background. Some good lines too. I do like the one: Add two parts lie, one part truth, mix, and serve. They'll swallow it every time. Anyway, nice background.:)
Orbus Greycloak 08-25-03, 03:55 PM	I was left wondering about the ritual the High Lord performs on the Althalus. What did he actually do? Yes, Althalus was now one of them, but in what way? The ritual was to turn Althalus into a Shade- an outsider template available in Races of Faerun and FRCS. The process of turning a human into a Shade is never actually described in the sourcebooks, so I made it up. I've never read any FRCS novels, so I don't know if they ever did describe it. In the sourcebooks it just says that the mortal exchanges a portion of their soul for shadowstuff, and in exchange are given extraordinary powers in darkness and an extended lifespan There are only about 500 Shades in existence, all within the City of Shade, which has 250,000 people, so it's a very rare and special honor to be given the abilties. The process itself is a tightly kept secret. It's discussed more in the Lords of Darkness book- there's a chapter on the Shades, and a bio on all the Princes and their roles in the city. I took a lot of references from it. I suspect this is something to do with the Shadowlord Prestige Class, but I'm not familiar with that PrC, so it was lost on me at first. The Teflammar Shadowlord PrC is in the Unapproachable East book which deals with Eastern Faerun. Its a mix of the Assassin and Shadowdancer PrCs, with a couple unique abilties. They get spells, teleportation abilties, Death Attack, and other cool abilties. The Shadow Discorporation ability kicks in if you are hit with enough damage to bring you below 0hp. You can make a reflex save if you are in darkness to break apart into tiny shards of shadow and flit away unharmed. You reform at the next sunset. It's very similar to the Defensive Roll abilty, but there is a lot more roleplay potential IMO. Add two parts lie, one part truth, mix, and serve. They'll swallow it every time.Hehe... this is actually a reference from a David Eddings book... I think from one of the books in the Tamuli. The name "Althalus" is actually the main character in his last book "The Redemption of Althalus". I'm a big David Eddings fan, so I pay my respects to the master. :) I understand the confusion about the name. I actually started playing the character before the background was finished, so all I had at that time for the character was the alias name, so thats what I titled all the notes I had on him. I've gone back and adjusted all of that. Sorry for the confusion. Anyway, glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for taking the time to read it. I'll go back over those parts to see if I can tweak them to make it a bit easier to understand. I was thinking of making a glossary to go at the end of the story to give a brief description of certain objects (like the Mythallar) or people (Karsus, the Princes of Shade, the Netherese Empire) to make it easier to understand. What do you think of that idea?
Trydan 08-26-03, 01:57 AM	Thanks for the clarificaitons. Yes, I can see how this fits together now. Quite nice really. An "out-of-character" introduction would probably be best. It would be a couple of paragraphs with elements from your first post in this thread, and some of the issues addressed later. Then either the description or the history (I can't decide which. The description needs the history, but the history sort of needs the description), and finally the motivations . Of course this completely depends on your intended audience - I assume that it is probably aimed at either your DM or fellow players. In our group, we write the following: [list=1] Introduction - a brief description of the character concept Vignette/History - A detailed description of the characters life, or perhaps just a snippet thereof, but which sets the style of the character. Description - this is a description of the character as they are at the start of play. Mostly physical traits (height, age, race, voice, mannerisms, likes/dislikes, etc.) Mechanics - These are the rules/skills/feats/etc. used for the character (essentially, these are the design notes for the character optimisation) Equipment - What the character is carrying and why Rules & Spells - Any rules, spells, etc. are cut-and-pasted from the SRD to here. That way the players have an "at-the-table" summary of relevant rules to their character, without needing to look through the PHB/DMG/splat-books/etc. to find how to do a (insert name of random action here). Miscellaneous - Credits/OGL/special notes, etc. Character sheet - the completed character sheet [/list=1] Like you, these things end up running into many pages, but we find the order of the information seems to be best in conveying the character concept. Also, the idea is that you start at the beginning and read until you are sick of it. The important stuff is at the front, and the trivial stuff is at the back. That way we have catered to those in the group with not so much time. Hope that helps.
Orbus Greycloak 08-26-03, 03:45 AM	Wow Trydan, thanks for all the advice :) Definitely a couple more things I can do. Friday's game was cancelled so I still have time to fine tune all the material before I give it to the DM. I've already discussed the mechanics HERE (http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=66875) on the Character Optimization boards. I'll glean all the stuff from that thread and put it into the portfolio. I stuck with the ECL despite all the advice because I want to get to the Shadowlord PrC as fast as I can, and even with the ECL, I'll be able to do it a lot faster. Plus the Shade template adds a lot of coolness to the character I can RP off of, and the background of the character is built on it. The game should move fairly fast, so I think it'll work out. I'll definitely take your advice and build the character concept like that. I haven't actually looked at spells yet, but it'll be a while before it's necessary so I'll have time to look into it. I'm also thinking of writing up some potential plot hooks for the DM to use. Just point out a couple hooks I left in the storyline that she could take advantage of. If I could draw I'd love to do a picture of the character too, but alas I have no skills as such. Ah well. Anyway, thanks again for all the help! :)
draegl0th 10-30-03, 09:09 PM	:bump: A great background like this can't go away.
Gruffmug 10-30-03, 10:32 PM	All I can say is wooo, dude! That is one cool dude. Out to get Cervantes, huh? heh heh, THE SOUL CALIBER, I love that game. So, your gonna become nightmare, huh? I am more partial to Ralfeal myself. Too slow, love them evades. I like how you weaved it all together. I would love to see this PCs current stats. Also, Updates from time to time, on the progress of your Pc would be devine! Check out http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55075 there is a really cool story there, but you have to read through about a million bumps too. Gruffmug Bye the way, watch out for his GUN!
CS_Buddy 10-31-03, 01:27 PM	Wow, thanks for the compliments! :) I really did enjoy writing the history, so now I have to play the character up to meet the expectations of his background. The game isn't really a lot of fighting- we've only had one actual combat so far, so it's more roleplay than anything. I actually didn't know Cervantes was from Soul Calibur. I've actually never played the game. I should have known though, since once of the players based his character around Sophitia (I just looked the character up). He doesn't play very often, but he built his character to look and act like her, named her "Sophitia" and started her as a Paladin. I was really hoping he'd continue playing more, since my character is Lawful Evil, and would be a direct threat against her. He was SO mad when he tried to detect evil on me, and got nothing ^_^ (I bought a ring of Mind Shielding early on) bwahaha! Anyway, now that I know that the plot is semi-based off Soul Calibur (thanks again!) I'm going to have to go and read about it to see if I can find any other similarities in the plot. I wonder if this item has anything to do with the game- it's the item we use to plane shift. It's a large blue gem, and we take a "war fan" type metal and surround the gem with it. We all have to hold onto it, and one person speaks an incantation that allows us to shift. Is that from the game? The character is now class level 7 (plus the ECL for Shade). He's a Rogue5/Assassin2 currently. Lots of roleplay has happened, but only that one fight, so haven't really been concentrating on accumulating weapons/armor. I've been able to acquire a set of black enamelled mithril dastana (+1 enchanted). I've been negotiating with the mage in the village for a set (or maybe 2) of Sending Stones. My motive was to be able to contact my allies on the Plane of Shadow with it (namely Hadrhune) regardless of what plane I'm on, but I told the mage that I wanted a set so that the allies against Cervantes could contact us with information, rather than sending a courier (who would probably die). Ulterior motives are fun =). I've also acquired quite a number of various poisons. Shadow Essence is my favorite (for RP flavor - gleaned from the Plane of Shadow), but I have some other more deadly ones as well. One of them just renders the drinker unconcious.. lots of fun for kidnapping etc. I've also been able to acquire the Silent Image spell (lots of fun fun abuse with that) and make some allies within the Church of Shar to send messages and get information. The head of the Church of Shar in Sigil is aware of the Shades and their royalty, and is related to the royal house in some way. He recognized my signet ring right away, and I was able to have him pass messages and other things for me. I've also met a woman in the Shadow sector of Sigil called "Shalinia" who is somewhat of a seer and public figure. She delivers stirring speeches in dark taverns to speak out for freedom and a coming revolution. She's almost got an army of devout followers massed, but I haven't figured out whose side she's on. She's given me some good information, but she's very mysterious. For the longest time I thought she was an incarnation of Shar. So far we've travelled to a few planes. Our first trip was to the Plane of Diamond (DM made plane which is a nexus to the elemental planes and the positive/negative energy planes). From there we travelled through a portal to the Plane of Earth, where we tried to follow Cervantes who had laid ruin to a town there. We followed, and came across some of his minions, who we tricked by showing a copy of Cervantes' banner we had picked up. Eventually we ended up finding a cave where water!! was leaking in (a rift in the planes?). We were being chased by some large Earth Elementals and undead that worked for Cervantes, so we Plane Shifted to Sigil. We got some information in Sigil about the rifts (apparently it happens whenever Cervantes travels between planes because the device he uses to do it is imperfect. Since it was water leaking in the Plane of Earth, we logically thought we had to go to the Plane of Water. The Plane of Water was ruled by merfolk, so we had a water elf? guide us and take us to talk to Triton- the king and ruler of the Plane. He wasn't very receptive to us, and kept asking us to leave. Eventually our Cleric said something (out of game) that was taken in game, and was insulting to Triton, so we almost had to fight him. Our leader Prynn was able to calm him down and gave him a gift of an item she had been carrying. After that we moved as fast as we could and found the next rift- I believe it was to the Plane of Dreams, since the material the rift was made of could be moulded by us just by thinking about something. As we were Plane Shifting back to Sigil, we saw some people in the distance coming towards us, but didn't know what happened, as we were shifting away. Sigil was interesting- we've used it multiple times as our base of operations. Strange thing is that after we arrived there from the Plane of Water, it was as if 25 years had past, instead of just a week. We stayed in Sigil for a while, trying to figure out what happened. One of our NPC party members was eviscerated during the night, and we couldn't figure out what happened until we were able to get a pair of goggles of True Sight and look at the party. I was VERY concerned about this because I had been concealing the fact that I was a Shade from everyone, but it turned out OK. I was using mundane disguises as well as a Hat of Disguise. Turns out our NPC Planar Champion Leader (Prynn) was replaced by a Doppleganger. We captured her, but before we were able to stop her, she began summoning demons, yelling in Abyssal. Sigil seemed to disappear in smoke, as the demons came. We through the Plane was being destroyed, so we killed the Doppleganger and Plane Shifted again. We ended up on the Diamond Plane, since none of us really knew how to work the device. and it had been broken somewhat - we found a sliver of the gem in the hand of the NPC that had been killed. The Diamond Plane is all light - no shadow, and my character passed out from the imperfect Plane Shift, and the lack of shadow. After we figured out how to use the device, we shifted back to Toril (Faerun) and where we started in the city of Heaven's Gate (DM made up city). Once we got there, we found the person who the Doppleganger had impersonated. She was a glass crafter who made a wand that was supposedly for Cervantes- it was clear, with entwined red and gold threads in it. We talked to the lords of the city, and found out that time had regressed back to normal. One of the NPCs had reverted to their normal age (back in Sigil she was 25 years older). We also found out that an army was approaching Heaven's Gate, and that our help was needed to defend it. They wouldn't tell us what was so important in Heaven's Gate though. The army battle was our first actual combat. We were given full run of the city (free) to equip ourselves for the battle. I asked for my Mithril Dastana, and the Sending Stones. Other characters had gotten other neat items along the way. The Cleric now has a shadowy ball for scrying, and the Psion is even better equipped. The battle was done in a really good way, althought I think it might have been a bit easy. I fought an Ogre, a few Orcs, and a Gelatinous Cube, which I set on fire after killing it :devil:. One of the other characters fought a troll, and used my grassfire to kill it (was pretty good coincidence). The most amazing thing was my one friend. The general of this army was a Beholder. He killed it in ONE HIT!!! He rolled 3 Natural 20s in a row- we all watched him do it. It was amazing! So the DM ruled it just got killed automatically because of that. My character is sort of in awe of his right now, because he thinks he's a better assassin than my character is right now. So we've won the battle, and after we rest and finish getting equipped, our next trip is to the Plane of Dreams since that's the next place Cervantes should be. We're playing tonight so I'll post back tomorrow maybe to let you know how it went. I'm looking forward to us travelling to the Plane of Shadow. I think that's where I'll be revealing my nature as a Shade, and take command of the party. Since the City of Shade still resides on the Plane of Shadow in my story, I'll be able to put us up there, and probably get some neat items to equip everyone with. :devil: They'll be Shadow Weave items though, so they'll have a price to pay to use them though! (Wisdom Damage).
CS_Buddy 10-31-03, 02:18 PM	Hehe, yup I've read the "Addicted to Fireball" thread. I put a little reference in my background history to that crazy mage, just because that thread is so amazing... I wish I could write like that guy. A week before I left, I began spreading various rumors under a number of false aliases. One of a mad, fire-obsessed wizard roaming through Thesk, destroying entire towns in his path...Hehe I really should be an "Addicted to Fireball Foundation" member, but the guy hasn't come back to post in a long time, so I'll just be a silent admirer.
Poukis 11-02-03, 10:44 AM	I know that I am a little late but the ten pages length discouraged me to begin! I actually read it in 30 or so minutes! Very very nice! You seem to be having a nice time playing, so all I can say is GOOD LUCK! If you want I could try to make an image of your character if you don't have one already... Tell me if you want!
CS_Buddy 11-02-03, 09:13 PM	If you want I could try to make an image of your character if you don't have one already... Tell me if you want!Wow that would be great! :) I'll send you a PM with what I envision the character to look like. There's a full Character Description at the top as well. Thanks again! =)
CS_Buddy 11-21-03, 12:25 PM	Poukis, I sent you an email and a PM for the character picture, if you're still interested in doing it. I've also started a thread in the Art Gallery forum HERE (ttp://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=135898) if you want some more information. Thanks again! I should be having a game for this character tonight. I'll post back Saturday some time with what happened if we play. Last game was very interesting, but I'll post about it all in one go so it makes sense.
CS_Buddy 03-14-04, 07:56 PM	:bump: - Don't want this thread to disappear... lots of comments and useful information I don't want to lose. Just as an update, the game I was playing this character in ended. Unfortunately the game sort of stagnated, and most of the players either couldn't make it on a regular basis, or the DM just couldn't handle the storyline she was feeding us. It was going well, but we had that "approaching apocalypse" sort of feeling that we couldn't shake, or get around. So after we won the war, we found out that the council of Heaven's Gate had been overthrown during the battle, and the leader replaced in a coup-de-tat. The army we had been sent out to fight was actually marching on Heaven's Gate to stop Cervantes!!! We were pawns in the battle, and basically had to flee the city after finding out the truth. I had visited the torture chamber earlier and interrogated one of the prisoners, so after I found out the truth, I went back down there and took her with us. I figured if it looked as if we "rescued" her from the city, we might be given safe haven by the other side. I was contemplating joining Cervantes, but I didn't have a chance to make a deal with the leader of the town, because we were all trapped in the council chamber with him and his guards, and when we tried to approach him, a Prismatic Wall sprung up. I thought about chancing walking through it with my Spell Resistance, but there were assassins in the room as well. So we stopped the game after we got to an Elven town where the woman I rescued from the dungeon was actually a high born lady- the daughter of the leader of the elves I believe. I had to make some pretty high Bluff and Disguise checks to fool them into believing the reasons I rescued her. She probably recognized my voice from when I interrogated her before... so I tried to play on that. I'm disappointed the game ended so soon- I was really enjoying playing the character. The roleplay was excellent, and with my abilities, I was always creating intrigue and mystery for the party to build on. My other friend who played was having fun with his character as well, and we were the only ones that took it seriously I think. The others showed up haphazardly, and didn't really put a lot of effort into roleplaying or pushing the story forward. They basically waited until the DM explained things and said "OK, well then what?" Thanks for all the advice and kind words about my background history- I hope I can bring this character back in another game and get him to a point where I'll be satisfied that he's been played out properly and met some of his goals.