Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Fithero 12-06-06, 08:35 AM	Im making a character based on 'Rafiki' from 'The Lion King' (the baboon) :D I'll be making his race a modified version of the Bhukas from Sandstorm (sort of crossed with the jungle goblin from UA). Instead of being a desert dwelling race with the neck frill and all those useless desert abilities, they will be a race that lives in the jungle treet tops (has a climb speed, bonus to climb and balance). The rest is basically the same, very tribal, family unit orientated, no written language yet a very in-depth vocal history. Now my character specifically will be a Spirit Shaman (from Complete Divine) who is sort of the tribes "shaman in training", so to speak. Sent out into the world to gain the wisdom and experience needed to correctly guide the tribe. Anyway, as far as personality and role playing points go, im basing him pretty heavily apon Rafiki, so he will be a bit of an odd character. The rest of the party is human, and they dont even know his race exists, so there is the first little hurdle. Second, he mostly speaks in his native tounge (though he can actually understand and speak common), but will converse properly when it is required. He doesnt do this out of any goal to be a pain in the butt, he just likes to give others the oportunity to figure things out for themselves (and cause a bit of mischief). As far as him being a spirit seer, he chatters to the spirits all the time (when others are around, he tells them what hes doing though so they dont think he's mad... tells them eventually anyway :P) Also... hes pretty much usually tripping on some sort of slug or jungle fungus... these effects are nothing serious... just him seeing things and being waaaay to calm, but like the spirits, sometimes they give him insights (going to take brew potion... but have it on mushrooms and such... think of the tribal shaman out of Fallout 2) Anyway, if you guys could throw me a few ideas to help flesh out this character, it would be great. Its barely a skeleton at the moment, but i think the whole "wise fool" would be fun to play. Peace
Kitaki 12-06-06, 09:00 AM	There is a monkey based race in the Oriental Adventures book if you are looking for additional information for race.
Agent Graves 12-06-06, 08:54 PM	what about the Hadozee from stormwrack? they have bonuses to dex, climb and balance.. plus they can glide. their fluff is all about the seas, but since they don't have any ocean specific abilities they're easy to drop into a jungle canopy.
Agent Graves 12-06-06, 09:05 PM	i'd suggest he has a pipe, and is almost always seen smoking it. Or he is always playing with seer stones. he'd be quite curious about the outside world. always picking things up and examining them, (can get him into trouble- especially in cities). how long has he been walking on the ground for? surely he'd find sleeping up a tree more comfortable. Maybe take ideas from terrey pratchet's two flower- his naivety and innocence in cities. It'd be a bit of a culture shock, and think of how people would react. have they seen a muttering ape before? maybe someone attempts to catch him for a zoo?
Fithero 12-08-06, 03:36 AM	Seeing as his race is on that people have never really heard of (let alone seen), his appearance will cause enough trouble, his exotic/excentric behaviour will just add to the confusion. I dont think he will use a pipe, its a bit too civilised for him, perhaps just sticking to live bugs, or dried out plant/ fungus matter... wether he just throws a piece into his mouth, or snorts it (after it was powdered of course :P) I like the idea of the whole "cultural shock" aspect, with him having no concept of 'property' (just walk into a shop and see all this useful stuff lying around... he'd try and take what he needs... eventually he will learn to either earn gold and pay... or become more sneaky in his attempts to take what he needs) Privacy is also another concept that will be an alien concept. As for his odd behaviour... ill have him do things like balance on his head for no reason, slap people when they do something stupid... or just do things in a needlessly hard fashion (ie: doing a back flip off a ledge when dropping off would be fine, or kart wheeling down stairs.) Any other help here would be great, what do you think the priority of stats should be? (Personally im thinking wis,cha and dex all high, con, str, int all low) Chiers guys, the more ideas the better... throw out whatever you have, no matter how stupid :P Peace
Apupunchau 12-08-06, 11:49 AM	Since a lot of others on concentrating on the race I think I'll touch on aspects of Shamanism, seeing as it's something I study. In the african form of spirit magic there are spirits called Orisha the best analogy to these are the voodoo loa seeing as food is just a mix of christianity and African Shamanism. The Orishas or Loa are generally incredibly powerful spirits but not quite goods who over look different aspects of existence without really being in control of them. If you are going for an african motif you may want to try naming the individual spirits and what they contorl maybe to a search for the named Lao of Voodoo and extapalate from that. The lesser spirits I'm unsure if they have a name in voodoo but they are still called Orisha in some of the African spiriit ways serve the greater spirits and so each spirit will represent a specific aspect of the greater spirit he serves, you may not want to name these but have a general kind of idea of which kind of minor spirits serve the greater spirit, this could bring alot of depth to the character. You seem to want to play a kind of trickster which is perfect for a spirit shaman. In North American native culture shamans served the tribe but because of their odd abilities were generally forced to live outside the tribe. Generally in a home away from the main camp but not too far. Some of the odd quirks aquired by Shamans turned them into a thing called contraries. As a guide for his people a shaman would do things contrary, some were cross dressers giving up their sex for the contrary one to show their dedication, some did everything backwards (Spoke backwards, walked backwards, slept during the day and stayed awake at night) and some would play tricks on their tribesmen as a way to show them the proper path for things. There are a lot of good books on Shamanism but if you want a short concise and relatively well researched gaming book to explain it White WOlf put out a book called Spirit Ways which has a lot of good ideas for roleplaying spirit speaking characters. Now on to race since you are speaking about being basically a humanoid animal you may want to have other forms of non-verbal communication. In one of my current groups we have a guy playing a thri kreen and rather then tell us how his character feels or emoting it with facial expressions he has a list of smells he exudes and whenever his chararacter feels a certain way he'll tell us that we smell a certain smell. The group hasn't peiced them all out yet but we are getting close. I hope this helps round out your chaarcter and good luck being a Shaman is an intense duty, especially for a monkey.
Fithero 12-09-06, 10:26 AM	Thanks alot Apupunchau (wicked name btw :D) there are alot of really great ideas there. Im totally taken by the idea of the Thri-kreen, and i think ill have my character use a modified version. Instead of funkin up the place with jazzy odours :yuck:, ill have him make some sort of noise when a certain situation occurs. A threat/danger near-by = Throaty gargle (Gets faster paced and more high pitched the closer the threat is.... think of the noise that ghost out of 'The Grudge' made :gah:) Someone says/does something stupid = Blows tongue (Like a chimp or monkey) Something exciting happens = Whoop! (continiously... over and over... and over again) Something sad/somber = Hums incessantly A situation continues for too long (one that he considers pointless) = clicks his tongue Those are just a few that i can think of at the moment... if anyone else can think of some good ones, throw them out there. Personally i got most of my ideas from 'The God's Must Be Crazy'... gotta love that film :) I will have him take the Primative caster feat... more for flavour than for the benefit (have him wave around a bunch of smoking leaves or something). Also, i want him to be somewhat of an acrobat... for no reason at all just start hopping or kartwheeling instead of simply walking (again, high ranks in balance)... and for some reason im really fond of the idea of him standing on his head :confused: Anyway, i think the key for this character is not for the focus on him being because of his excentric ways or being a trickster... but on his ability to do things that nobody knew he could do. Im gonna have fun at 9th lvl when he can turn into a spirit... thats gonna cause some confusion :P Again, thanks for all the help folks. Peace
Fithero 12-11-06, 10:57 AM	:bump:
Apupunchau 12-11-06, 03:07 PM	The name by the way is one of two belonging to the Incan Sun God... a little South American Shamism tidbit for you.