Welcome to Hero Craftsmen #18, where you make a character and get it voted on according to all its facets by our judges, to see who can make the best character!
This time our chosen theme is the Summer Movie Blockbuster Star. Your goal for this Hero Craftsman contest is to make a character suitable for play in a heroic, high-action, on the edge of seat excitement style of campaign.
The required level for this competition is 9th level, with 36,000gp to spend on magic items and equipment, though no more than 12,000gp can be spent on any one item.
The following section contains the specific rules of the competition, as well as the standards for how the characters will be scored, and general tips to consider when creating a submission.
The Rules
Contest Rules
The following are rules for the Hero Craftsmen competition, and are subject to change at any time between competition periods.
Do note that the Code of Conduct is in effect for all aspects of this contest, and those who break it will be disqualified, and their post will be reported.
Character Creation Parameters
Effective Character Level (ECL): 9th
Ability Score Generation: 28 pt. buy (DMG p.169)
Character Wealth: 36,000gp
Max. Value of any single item: 12,000gp
1) All entries must be submitted with a complete stat block of any format or length, (so long as the stat block is complete, including content like equipment, skills, special abilities etc.) accompanied by a character background also of any format or length.
2) All entries must be submitted by the date and time given by the Coordinating Judge; any entries submitted late will not be judged but they are still allowed to be commented on by other users/judges, and may provide a valuable resource to other players out there. The time given for any competition is likely to be within 2-3 weeks; the exact times and dates will be stated by the Coordinating Judge during the contest's start.
3) After submitting an entry, a 30-minute grace period is allowed to edit your work, in the case of mechanical or formatting errors, typos, and the like. Editing your work after 30 minutes is considered breaking the rules. Hence, we urge you to revise your entry thoroughly prior to submitting it, to save hassle. Making use of the preview button in the post window will help you catch most errors before posting.
4) One Entry Per Contestant, and that creator must be the submitter (meaning that all work has to be original, and not stolen from someone else.) Also, do not post an entry if you do not want it to be officially judged.
5) At the start of each competition, the coordinating judge will state a single theme around which to base your entry. There are no restrictions based on the character theme itself; it is merely a suggested guideline, but following it in a creative and interesting way will give merit to your entry.
6) There are other restrictions, however. Material in the three core books is allowed. Any material found in the following books is also permitted: Expanded Psionics Handbook, Complete Adventurer, Complete Arcane, Complete Divine, Complete Warrior, Complete Mage, Complete Scoundrel, Complete Champion, Complete Psionic, Player's Handbook II, Tome of Battle, Magic Item Compendium and Spell Compendium. The use of Psionics, Item Creation rules, Epic Characters, and anything else in the Official SRD is permitted. No other rules sources -- including any variant Unearthed Arcana rules available on non-official SRD sites -- are permitted for use in this round of the contest.
7) Additionally, the character must be created with the wealth parameters discussed above, with average hit points per hit die (eg-2.5hp for d4, 3.5hp for d6, 4.5hp for d8, 5.5hp for d10, 6.5hp for d12; Max hit points at 1st level), using the 28 point-buy system, as discussed in the DMG pg169.
For those who do not have access to the DMG, the following sample arrays of scores have been set up for your convenience:
18, 14, 12, 10, 8, 8
15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10
8) One special rule regarding Crafting: When crafting a magic item from your character, you may pay the 50% gp cost and ignore the XP cost. However, your character must still meet all prerequisites in spells, minimum level requirements, etc., or account for the cost of hiring a spell caster to cast the spells for you.
9) Judges reserve the right to disqualify entries that do not follow the above rules, as they see fit.
The following are rules for the Hero Craftsmen competition, and are subject to change at any time between competition periods.
Do note that the Code of Conduct is in effect for all aspects of this contest, and those who break it will be disqualified, and their post will be reported.
Character Creation Parameters
Effective Character Level (ECL): 9th
Ability Score Generation: 28 pt. buy (DMG p.169)
Character Wealth: 36,000gp
Max. Value of any single item: 12,000gp
1) All entries must be submitted with a complete stat block of any format or length, (so long as the stat block is complete, including content like equipment, skills, special abilities etc.) accompanied by a character background also of any format or length.
2) All entries must be submitted by the date and time given by the Coordinating Judge; any entries submitted late will not be judged but they are still allowed to be commented on by other users/judges, and may provide a valuable resource to other players out there. The time given for any competition is likely to be within 2-3 weeks; the exact times and dates will be stated by the Coordinating Judge during the contest's start.
3) After submitting an entry, a 30-minute grace period is allowed to edit your work, in the case of mechanical or formatting errors, typos, and the like. Editing your work after 30 minutes is considered breaking the rules. Hence, we urge you to revise your entry thoroughly prior to submitting it, to save hassle. Making use of the preview button in the post window will help you catch most errors before posting.
4) One Entry Per Contestant, and that creator must be the submitter (meaning that all work has to be original, and not stolen from someone else.) Also, do not post an entry if you do not want it to be officially judged.
5) At the start of each competition, the coordinating judge will state a single theme around which to base your entry. There are no restrictions based on the character theme itself; it is merely a suggested guideline, but following it in a creative and interesting way will give merit to your entry.
6) There are other restrictions, however. Material in the three core books is allowed. Any material found in the following books is also permitted: Expanded Psionics Handbook, Complete Adventurer, Complete Arcane, Complete Divine, Complete Warrior, Complete Mage, Complete Scoundrel, Complete Champion, Complete Psionic, Player's Handbook II, Tome of Battle, Magic Item Compendium and Spell Compendium. The use of Psionics, Item Creation rules, Epic Characters, and anything else in the Official SRD is permitted. No other rules sources -- including any variant Unearthed Arcana rules available on non-official SRD sites -- are permitted for use in this round of the contest.
7) Additionally, the character must be created with the wealth parameters discussed above, with average hit points per hit die (eg-2.5hp for d4, 3.5hp for d6, 4.5hp for d8, 5.5hp for d10, 6.5hp for d12; Max hit points at 1st level), using the 28 point-buy system, as discussed in the DMG pg169.
For those who do not have access to the DMG, the following sample arrays of scores have been set up for your convenience:
18, 14, 12, 10, 8, 8
15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10
8) One special rule regarding Crafting: When crafting a magic item from your character, you may pay the 50% gp cost and ignore the XP cost. However, your character must still meet all prerequisites in spells, minimum level requirements, etc., or account for the cost of hiring a spell caster to cast the spells for you.
9) Judges reserve the right to disqualify entries that do not follow the above rules, as they see fit.
- Jaheem the Redeemed, by Black Kitten
- Viktus, the Azure Wanderer, by Kongming
- Devin M'Khenzy Fiend Hunter, by SaintKeeleon
- Lonely Sjeth, by Omnirahk, half-Rahkshi
- Hibiki, by gullas
- Roget Steverson, aka "Captain Vierge", by Mercurius
- Drusik Halderrek, by Heros_Backpack
- Grable Moonrain, by jennibert
- The Shadow, by Eldritch_Lord (DQ'ed for being a late entry)
Question about the end date.
According to my calender August 23, 2008 is a Saturday - about 1 1/2 weeks away. So...
Did you mean Saturday the 23rd, or Friday the 22nd, or Friday the 29th?
Thanks,
It's supposed to be the 29th. I rushed to get it posted; I'm surprised that's the only mistake. I like to give two weekends for people to work on their characters. The first post now reflects the correct end date.Judges, first question:
According to Tome of Battle, page 16, a Swordsage's class skills are (6+INT modifier per level, x6 at 1st level).
Now, it's a rather commonly accepted belief that that's a typo and it should be x4 at first level, but without errata, that's the rules as written. Which should I use?
X4 is what it's obviously supposed to be. Use that.Okay, so, a few more questions for the judges, all pertaining to one particular magic item...
1) The Spectral Dagger (MIC pg 59-60) is a magic weapon that does damage as per Chill Touch. Does it count as a dagger (as per its name) for the purposes of feats/abilities.
2) Does one add their STR bonus to damage with it?
3) If a character had the Shadow Blade feat that allows him to add his DEX to damage in certain circumstances, can he deal that extra damage with it?
I mostly agree with Jason's interpretation. Questions 2 and 3 are covered by the "don't deal damage normally" clause (in my opinion). I think a DM could reasonably rule either way for Question 1. I'd be inclined, however, to say it is treated as a dagger for feats such as Weapon Focus.
Of course, me giving you a different interpretation from Jason doesn't help at all, because now either way you're going to get rules dinged from a judge. So, for the competition, we'll go with Jason's ruling (it's not a dagger at all) for the purposes of scoring Rules Use.Can I post a 4e Hero?
Just to sort of tag along on what Jenni and Jason have already said... this specific contest is for 3.5 characters. I'm working on A) learning the 4e rules (other things keep taking my time away) and B) organizing a 4e version of the contest on this forum. We'll be running it as a separate contest with the same basic rule structure.
That said, you are absolutely welcome to post up a 4e character. It'll be disqualified from winning the contest, but it would be an awesome opportunity for folks to see some of what can be done with the 4e races and classes.can one apply weapon focus on eldrich blast?
Mercurius's answer is correct -- Weapon Focus (and the other feats in the chain, if you end up with enough Fighter levels to take them) can be applied to eldritch blast.
:D
According to my calender August 23, 2008 is a Saturday - about 1 1/2 weeks away. So...
Did you mean Saturday the 23rd, or Friday the 22nd, or Friday the 29th?
Thanks,
I'm holding out for an answer 'till the end of the ni-ight, do do do do! And its got to be strong, and its got to be fast, and its got to be fresh from the fight...
According to Tome of Battle, page 16, a Swordsage's class skills are (6+INT modifier per level, x6 at 1st level).
Now, it's a rather commonly accepted belief that that's a typo and it should be x4 at first level, but without errata, that's the rules as written. Which should I use?
Jaheem the Redeemed
(formerly) pasha Jaheem ibn Zamir
“I have done… great evil.” - Jaheem
Description
Show
Jaheem is a dark-skinned tall man (6’05” or 1m95) with greying hair (though in most light it appears more black than white). He is of a strong build, with especially broad shoulders. His usual clothing is loose, light-fitting and black. On his feet he wears simple boots, in the same colours and on his back a large, silk cloak can be seen. Closer inspection reveals a jagged longsword on his back, underneath his cloak. He carries no other weapons and on his back he has a small backpack made of a strong leather.
His motions are always calm and fluid. Jaheem prefers to stay in the lesser lid locations wherever he is. His dark brown eyes are attentive and most people find it hard to look into them for any long time. They claim they show them the true guilt that hides within this man. Jaheem rarely speaks. When he does, it is said his voice is that of a young man, but with an eerie dead undertone. Others say his voice is dark, harsh and soft, but penetrating bone. Again others say that his voice is that of a wise old man; soft, considerate and full of hope. Everyone agrees his voice is one they never forgot. His right hand is shrouded in a silver coating, mirroring the silver lining of the pommel of his sword, that carries his finger prints.
Those few who have accounted for him fighting have remarked on his seeming lack of combat powers. He always seems to get heavily wounded unless he ends a fight quickly. What marks this man a hero is that he never seems to face fights alone; there are always allies accompanying him. Those times when he had no allies, those close to him found themselves compelled to help him. When hard pressed in a fight, he has been known to pull out tricks that seemed to wound him, conjuring up a mist that conceals the area of the fight.
His motions are always calm and fluid. Jaheem prefers to stay in the lesser lid locations wherever he is. His dark brown eyes are attentive and most people find it hard to look into them for any long time. They claim they show them the true guilt that hides within this man. Jaheem rarely speaks. When he does, it is said his voice is that of a young man, but with an eerie dead undertone. Others say his voice is dark, harsh and soft, but penetrating bone. Again others say that his voice is that of a wise old man; soft, considerate and full of hope. Everyone agrees his voice is one they never forgot. His right hand is shrouded in a silver coating, mirroring the silver lining of the pommel of his sword, that carries his finger prints.
Those few who have accounted for him fighting have remarked on his seeming lack of combat powers. He always seems to get heavily wounded unless he ends a fight quickly. What marks this man a hero is that he never seems to face fights alone; there are always allies accompanying him. Those times when he had no allies, those close to him found themselves compelled to help him. When hard pressed in a fight, he has been known to pull out tricks that seemed to wound him, conjuring up a mist that conceals the area of the fight.
Judges, first question:
According to Tome of Battle, page 16, a Swordsage's class skills are (6+INT modifier per level, x6 at 1st level).
Now, it's a rather commonly accepted belief that that's a typo and it should be x4 at first level, but without errata, that's the rules as written. Which should I use?
Err on the side of caution. Since every other class in every other supplement ever produced by WotC for D&D's 3rd Edition - including the other martial adepts in Tome of Battle - uses a x4 Character Level skill point multiplier, you probably won't go wrong with (6+Int Mod)x4 skill points.
Err on the side of caution. Since every other class in every other supplement ever produced by WotC for D&D's 3rd Edition - including the other martial adepts in Tome of Battle - uses a x4 Character Level skill point multiplier, you probably won't go wrong with (6+Int Mod)x4 skill points.
That's certainly what I would rule as a DM, but this is a contest largely about rules use. As there is no errata on the subject, the rule is x6. I want the judges' to give me confirmation as to which direction would be more appropriate when it comes to the "rules use" category.
Judges, first question:
According to Tome of Battle, page 16, a Swordsage's class skills are (6+INT modifier per level, x6 at 1st level).
Now, it's a rather commonly accepted belief that that's a typo and it should be x4 at first level, but without errata, that's the rules as written. Which should I use?
Use the x4 as normal. I think we can all agree, safely, that is what was intended. Here I think common sense outweighs RAW.
--
Viktus, the Azure Wanderer
“I don’t kill a man who’s down. I do kill him, though, if he gets up and tries to stab me in the back while I’m walking away.” – Viktus, as an enemy was considering a last-ditch sneak attack
Stats
Viktus
Male Half-Elven Warblade 9
True Neutral Medium Humanoid
Languages: Common, Elven, Dwarven
Age: 29; Height: 5"11"; Weight: 183 lb
Deity: None
Base Ability Scores
Strength: 16 (10 points)
Dexterity: 14 (6 points)
Constitution: 14 (6 points)
Intelligence: 12 (4 points)
Wisdom: 10 (2 points)
Charisma: 8 (0 points)
Point total: 28
Modified Ability Scores
Str: 18 (+1 at level 4, +1 at level 8)
Dex: 14
Con: 16 (+2 from Amulet of Health)
Int: 12
Wis: 10
Cha: 8
HP: 91 (9d12 + 18 Con + 9 Con from Amulet of Health)
AC: 25 (10 + 7 armor + 4 shield + 2 Dex + 2 deflect)
Initiative: +2 (+2 Dex)
Fortitude Save: +9 (6 base + 3 ability mod)
Reflex Save: + 6 (3 base + 5 ability mod + 1 Insight bonus from Intelligence mod when not flat-footed)
Will Save: + 3 (3 base)
Conditional: +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells or effects
Senses
Speed: 20’, 30’ while in Absolute Steel Stance
Base Attack Bonus: +9/+4
Grapple: +13 (+9 BAB, +4 Str)
Male Half-Elven Warblade 9
True Neutral Medium Humanoid
Languages: Common, Elven, Dwarven
Age: 29; Height: 5"11"; Weight: 183 lb
Deity: None
Base Ability Scores
Strength: 16 (10 points)
Dexterity: 14 (6 points)
Constitution: 14 (6 points)
Intelligence: 12 (4 points)
Wisdom: 10 (2 points)
Charisma: 8 (0 points)
Point total: 28
Modified Ability Scores
Str: 18 (+1 at level 4, +1 at level 8)
Dex: 14
Con: 16 (+2 from Amulet of Health)
Int: 12
Wis: 10
Cha: 8
HP: 91 (9d12 + 18 Con + 9 Con from Amulet of Health)
AC: 25 (10 + 7 armor + 4 shield + 2 Dex + 2 deflect)
Initiative: +2 (+2 Dex)
Fortitude Save: +9 (6 base + 3 ability mod)
Reflex Save: + 6 (3 base + 5 ability mod + 1 Insight bonus from Intelligence mod when not flat-footed)
Will Save: + 3 (3 base)
Conditional: +2 racial saving throw bonus against enchantment spells or effects
Senses
- +1 racial bonus to Listen, Search, and Spot
- Low-light vision
Speed: 20’, 30’ while in Absolute Steel Stance
Base Attack Bonus: +9/+4
Grapple: +13 (+9 BAB, +4 Str)
And now off to write my background.....;)
And yes, judges, that is a threat.
I'm finally back in town... and now I have to make up for three weeks of not cleaning my apartment...
As for the ToB... use x4 for skill points. I doubt Wizards will offer a 3.5 errrata on the supplement, but it's pretty clear what the RAI would be in this case, so we can pretty safely assume that x4 is the correct reading of that class.
I would say that the 23rd date will probably stand. I was out of town when Z posted the thread, so he has final say about what he intended to post... but until we hear from him, the safest assumption is that the 23rd does represent the proper deadline. (Note: He's out of town at the moment, so it may be a bit before we get a response.)
And considering the typical length of a "jennibert entry," combined with the shorter than normal contest length...
:evillaugh
Stats are largely planned out... Now to write up the background and compile it all.
1) The Spectral Dagger (MIC pg 59-60) is a magic weapon that does damage as per Chill Touch. Does it count as a dagger (as per its name) for the purposes of feats/abilities.
2) Does one add their STR bonus to damage with it?
3) If a character had the Shadow Blade feat that allows him to add his DEX to damage in certain circumstances, can he deal that extra damage with it?
Okay, so, a few more questions for the judges, all pertaining to one particular magic item...
1) The Spectral Dagger (MIC pg 59-60) is a magic weapon that does damage as per Chill Touch. Does it count as a dagger (as per its name) for the purposes of feats/abilities.
2) Does one add their STR bonus to damage with it?
3) If a character had the Shadow Blade feat that allows him to add his DEX to damage in certain circumstances, can he deal that extra damage with it?
To quote MIC p.60 under the Spectral Dagger...
"...the weapon does not deal damage normally."
As such, 2 & 3 are basically out from the beginning. If the spectral dagger doesn't deal damage normally, then adding Str to damage (as well as other options) wouldn't apply.
On #1, I'm up in the air. For certain feats (such as Weapon Specialization), it is outside the point. The dagger doesn't deal damage normally, so that feat wouldn't modify the normal damage.
However, I'm not sure about feats such Weapon Focus. On one hand, the dagger can not be further enchanted, which means it probably isn't considered a weapon (and thus, a dagger). On the other hand, it does require the Craft Magic Arms/Armor feat... which sort of implies that it is a weapon.
Personally, I'm going to say that it is not considered a dagger for any purpose. The cost of the weapon does not include the price of a masterwork dagger. As such, the item should probably be considered an item that allows repeated use of a spell, not an actual weapon.
The other judges may feel differently, however.
Can I post a 4e Hero?
At this time, Hero Craftsman is remaining a 3.5e competition--not the least reason of which being that not all of the eligible judges for the competition (including at least one who is currently judging) own the new books. Zherog is trying to get a 4e version of the competition going, but has not as of yet. (And won't for a while at least, as he's currently out of town;).)
So the short answer is not for this competition. At least, not and have it eligible for a prize. If you want to post one, no one's going to stop you, but you'll be listed as disqualified for using ineligible material.
But as long as you don't mind that....post away! I love to read backgrounds, so feel free to post as long as you keep in mind that you won't be officially judged. (Some of our judges are known to offer comments on entries that have been disqualified for whatever reason, depending on the time they have available.)
Yeah, exactly what jennibert said. 4e material isn't allowed for this particular competition. I'm one of several eligible judges who doesn't own 4e, which means that we couldn't validly evaluate such material, were it presented. Though, as jenni already mentioned, Z is working on a 4e version of the competition, hopefully to go up in the (relatively) near future...
...whenever that may be.
(Seriously, it's not like us judges have ever been 'quick' to resolve any of the responsibilities that come our way. For example, I could get a head start on judging the early entries... or I could go cook some pizza rolls...)
can one apply weapon focus on eldrich blast?
Not a judge this time, but from my reading of Complete Arcane, yes. You can take Weapon Focus [Ranged Touch Attacks] or Weapon Focus [Touch Attacks] and apply the bonus to all attack rolls with the appropriate weapon type. This is covered by the section "Feats and Weaponlike Spells" on pages 72 and 73.
Weapon Focus: Choose one category of weaponlike spells (ranged spells or touch spells) and gain a +1 bonus on all attack rolls made with such spells. You can gain this feat a second time, choosing a different category of weaponlike spells.
Question about the end date.
According to my calender August 23, 2008 is a Saturday - about 1 1/2 weeks away. So...
Did you mean Saturday the 23rd, or Friday the 22nd, or Friday the 29th?
Thanks,
It's supposed to be the 29th. I rushed to get it posted; I'm surprised that's the only mistake. I like to give two weekends for people to work on their characters. I'll make fixing that one of my to-do items shortly, along with updated the character list.
Judges, first question:
According to Tome of Battle, page 16, a Swordsage's class skills are (6+INT modifier per level, x6 at 1st level).
Now, it's a rather commonly accepted belief that that's a typo and it should be x4 at first level, but without errata, that's the rules as written. Which should I use?
Just to chime in here, I agree with the others -- x4 is what it's obviously supposed to be. Use that.
Err on the side of caution. Since every other class in every other supplement ever produced by WotC for D&D's 3rd Edition - including the other martial adepts in Tome of Battle - uses a x4 Character Level skill point multiplier, you probably won't go wrong with (6+Int Mod)x4 skill points.
I expect an entry from the Good Doctor, now that he's jumped into the thread. ;)
Okay, so, a few more questions for the judges, all pertaining to one particular magic item...
1) The Spectral Dagger (MIC pg 59-60) is a magic weapon that does damage as per Chill Touch. Does it count as a dagger (as per its name) for the purposes of feats/abilities.
2) Does one add their STR bonus to damage with it?
3) If a character had the Shadow Blade feat that allows him to add his DEX to damage in certain circumstances, can he deal that extra damage with it?
I mostly agree with Jason's interpretation. Questions 2 and 3 are covered by the "don't deal damage normally" clause (in my opinion). I think a DM could reasonably rule either way for Question 1. I'd be inclined, however, to say it is treated as a dagger for feats such as Weapon Focus.
Of course, me giving you a different interpretation from Jason doesn't help at all, because now either way you're going to get rules dinged from a judge. So, for the competition, we'll go with Jason's ruling (it's not a dagger at all) for the purposes of scoring Rules Use.
Can I post a 4e Hero?
Just to sort of tag along on what Jenni and Jason have already said... this specific contest is for 3.5 characters. I'm working on A) learning the 4e rules (other things keep taking my time away) and B) organizing a 4e version of the contest on this forum. We'll be running it as a separate contest with the same basic rule structure.
That said, you are absolutely welcome to post up a 4e character. It'll be disqualified from winning the contest, but it would be an awesome opportunity for folks to see some of what can be done with the 4e races and classes.
*
OK - I think all the questions are answered. Now to fix the deadline date and add our characters to the master list! Welcome to our new folks! I look forward to reading your characters later this week, after I've had more time to recover from GenCon!
can one apply weapon focus on eldrich blast?
Ah - I missed one question.
Mercurius's answer is correct -- Weapon Focus (and the other feats in the chain, if you end up with enough Fighter levels to take them) can be applied to eldritch blast.
...so, in this case, Two Weapon Defense would only apply to the weapons covered by the "Two Weapons as One" ability.
You may, however, want to wait to hear from a judge who actually has the books in front of them.
Devin M'Khenzy Fiend Hunter
Background
Devin was born the son of tinkers who were killed in a wagon raid when he was small. His sister, Phyllis managed to escape with him in tow and they settled in an abandoned house in the first city they found.
They became really good thieves as a way to provide for themselves. As they got older, their thievery skills compounded and their tricks became full fledged scams. They purchased several houses both in the city and towns close by, had several cellars and even a small cottage in the forest outside of town to hide in when they were in trouble. They were professionals at a very young age.
Their greatest scam was one big game. Phyllis would seek out gentry that were in need of servants and “sell” her younger brother as a house boy. He would take a week or two to case his new home, steal what he could and meet his sister at a pre-appointed property.
They went through several different fences both in the city and the neighboring towns and were generally very hard to pin down.
However, nothing goes right forever and the same could be said of the scamming waifs' plot. There was a devil that called himself Brulaxis the Archfiend. He had stolen a couple of holy weapons in order to do combat with higher ranked devils in an effort to increase his standing.
He found that with such holy weapons in his possession though, he could have no peace in Baator, so he took the weapons and decided to complete his battle plan in the relative safety of a whole other plane.
In an effort to keep from drawing too much unwanted attention, he settled in a medium sized city and hired a house boy in an attempt at normalcy. The houseboy was called Devin.
Devin slipped away into the night with the weapons, but he had a follower that was much more skilled than he. Brulaxis followed him clear to their meeting place in the woods. Phyllis and their fence, Marce, were waiting and Marce was the first to spot the intruder. Chaos ensued.
Marce attacked the man that was following Devin, and Phyllis joined in the fight. Horribly overmatched in his human body, Brulaxis polymorphed back to his proper form. Too frightened to do anything else, Devin fled with the weapons, never looking back.
He hid out for several weeks before he braved the outside world. He returned to the meeting place, but found no sign of anyone. Thinking that they'd just given up the house as a known dive, he returned to the city to see if anyone knew where his sister and Marce were.
He was told that Marce had been found dead, a seeming wild animal attack, and there was no trace of anyone else at the site. Phyllis had disappeared. Devin told the crowd what had happened and vowed to chase the devil down and kill it, and was laughed out of the bar. Embarrassed and angry, he too vanished for seven years.
He took on one of their cellars as a home and did nothing but train with the devil's weapons, learning their intricacies inside and out. He trained until the weapons felt like nothing in his hands. He trained his mind as well as his body and when he emerged, he was unrecognizable.
He sold all the property he and his sister had owned and purchased as fine a shirt of chain as he could buy, along with a few tools for the road and he set out in search of Brulaxis the Archfiend.
He has spent the last five years traveling around searching for Brulaxis, but killing any evil being that crosses his path. He is more than happy to take on a favor from a town plagued by villains or monsters. It's his feeling that the more evil he fights, the better he will be prepared for the ultimate battle with Brulaxis.
He's become a hero of his kingdom and it's well known that he charges nothing for his services with the rare exception of a celebratory meal which he and Gorgon partake of alone. Though none know him personally, everyone knows his face and it's a welcome sight to those in need.
They became really good thieves as a way to provide for themselves. As they got older, their thievery skills compounded and their tricks became full fledged scams. They purchased several houses both in the city and towns close by, had several cellars and even a small cottage in the forest outside of town to hide in when they were in trouble. They were professionals at a very young age.
Their greatest scam was one big game. Phyllis would seek out gentry that were in need of servants and “sell” her younger brother as a house boy. He would take a week or two to case his new home, steal what he could and meet his sister at a pre-appointed property.
They went through several different fences both in the city and the neighboring towns and were generally very hard to pin down.
However, nothing goes right forever and the same could be said of the scamming waifs' plot. There was a devil that called himself Brulaxis the Archfiend. He had stolen a couple of holy weapons in order to do combat with higher ranked devils in an effort to increase his standing.
He found that with such holy weapons in his possession though, he could have no peace in Baator, so he took the weapons and decided to complete his battle plan in the relative safety of a whole other plane.
In an effort to keep from drawing too much unwanted attention, he settled in a medium sized city and hired a house boy in an attempt at normalcy. The houseboy was called Devin.
Devin slipped away into the night with the weapons, but he had a follower that was much more skilled than he. Brulaxis followed him clear to their meeting place in the woods. Phyllis and their fence, Marce, were waiting and Marce was the first to spot the intruder. Chaos ensued.
Marce attacked the man that was following Devin, and Phyllis joined in the fight. Horribly overmatched in his human body, Brulaxis polymorphed back to his proper form. Too frightened to do anything else, Devin fled with the weapons, never looking back.
He hid out for several weeks before he braved the outside world. He returned to the meeting place, but found no sign of anyone. Thinking that they'd just given up the house as a known dive, he returned to the city to see if anyone knew where his sister and Marce were.
He was told that Marce had been found dead, a seeming wild animal attack, and there was no trace of anyone else at the site. Phyllis had disappeared. Devin told the crowd what had happened and vowed to chase the devil down and kill it, and was laughed out of the bar. Embarrassed and angry, he too vanished for seven years.
He took on one of their cellars as a home and did nothing but train with the devil's weapons, learning their intricacies inside and out. He trained until the weapons felt like nothing in his hands. He trained his mind as well as his body and when he emerged, he was unrecognizable.
He sold all the property he and his sister had owned and purchased as fine a shirt of chain as he could buy, along with a few tools for the road and he set out in search of Brulaxis the Archfiend.
He has spent the last five years traveling around searching for Brulaxis, but killing any evil being that crosses his path. He is more than happy to take on a favor from a town plagued by villains or monsters. It's his feeling that the more evil he fights, the better he will be prepared for the ultimate battle with Brulaxis.
He's become a hero of his kingdom and it's well known that he charges nothing for his services with the rare exception of a celebratory meal which he and Gorgon partake of alone. Though none know him personally, everyone knows his face and it's a welcome sight to those in need.
Lonely Sjeth
background
The wandering kobold known simply as Sjeth was not always alone (or alone as kobolds see it - tribeless and forced to travel with adventurers to survive). Once, not that long ago, he belonged to a tribe of kobolds working for (enslaved to) a great blue dragon, Ashtavilacorax. There, Sjeth was the master trapsmith. But Sjeth grew tired of the thankless work and harsh living under the dragon's rule, and he led a revolt. Well, the kobold version of a revolt, which means Sjeth rigged the traps to backfire on Ashtavilacorax the next time adventurers raided, and the other kobolds conveniently weren't around. Unfortunately, the dragon had predicted Sjeth's disloyalty and had made preparations to return as a hoard haunt, slaughtering Sjeth's tribe in retribution. Sjeth managed to flee with little more than his typical trap-building supplies. Homeless, friendless, and without food or water, Sjeth wandered the desert until nearly dead, when he was found by the very adventurers he had helped defeat Ashtavilacorax. They took Sjeth in and gave him food and water. Sjeth wanders with them until he finds suitable home, thrust into a life he never wanted.
From what I can see in the entry, it says you are treated as having TWF when using a katana and wakizashi. So, I'm inclined to agree with Jason so far. I'd wait til you hear from Z and/or Jason on this though.
This is correct, as far as "as written" rules interpretations go. And since I see nothing wrong with that interpretation, I'd also say it's the "as intended" interpretation as well. ;)
I was glad to see a contest that's still 3.5! Between 4E and glasses I unfortunately had to choose the facewear. I think these contests are neat though! I should have joined these forums much sooner!
Oh yeah, is it okay to put up a picture of my hero if I get one drawn up, or can you only put those in the Community Art Forum?
2 1st level spells/day. Spells known: animate rope, disguise self, shield, ventriloquism
1 2nd level spell/day. Spells known: blinding color surge, phantom trap.
I know I can't use this for my official entry, but I at least want to share.
Thanks Zherog. Unfortunately, I don't think I'll be getting full credit for the stats. I woke up at 4 in the morning, realizing I'd forgotten the spells. And then the forums crash. Oh well, it still would've been too late to get credit. But for those interested, here it is:
2 1st level spells/day. Spells known: animate rope, disguise self, shield, ventriloquism
1 2nd level spell/day. Spells known: blinding color surge, phantom trap.
I know I can't use this for my official entry, but I at least want to share.
Little tip - pointing out your mechanics flaws only helps the judges count against you. If you hadn't, there's a slim possibility they would have missed them... Though with these judges, it's very slim...
I wonder if that bribe hint was subtle enough...
Little tip - pointing out your mechanics flaws only helps the judges count against you. If you hadn't, there's a slim possibility they would have missed them... Though with these judges, it's very slim...
This happened to me to a small extent in the MDMC. I don't have the 4E books but I entered anyway! I told them right out I was just winging it and I STILL got better rules use than some people!
Maybe your story and concept will overshadow your having left out some spells! Good luck to you anyway, Omnirahk!
Little tip - pointing out your mechanics flaws only helps the judges count against you. If you hadn't, there's a slim possibility they would have missed them... Though with these judges, it's very slim...
Well, I'm a paladin at heart. It takes extreme effort to even attempt that minor dishonesty. Besides, even the spell choices are part of his story, so I had to share them.
This happened to me to a small extent in the MDMC. I don't have the 4E books but I entered anyway! I told them right out I was just winging it and I STILL got better rules use than some people!
Maybe your story and concept will overshadow your having left out some spells! Good luck to you anyway, Omnirahk!
Thank you. Good luck to you too. Devin was one of my favorite entries (vying, of course, with mine).
Still...
...most contestants hide rules related comments in sblocks so that they can hide errors from judges, desperately hoping that we will be lazy by the time we start reading their entry. A sample is included below.
No Judges Allowed
You see, as long as it's written in here, I won't have any clue what you're saying... assuming I'm honorable, of course... ;)
The overall purpose of these competitions isn't to vie for a medal, but to help improve character creation skills for the various individuals who participate in this competition. As such, Omni is already on target with the intention of this contest.
Still...
...most contestants hide rules related comments in sblocks so that they can hide errors from judges, desperately hoping that we will be lazy by the time we start reading their entry. A sample is included below.No Judges AllowedYou see, as long as it's written in here, I won't have any clue what you're saying... assuming I'm honorable, of course... ;)
I read through your entry finally and it's a good one! I like the idea that a Kobold can be a hero too. It's a well done entry.
Thanks for the compliments on Devin! He's actually the hero of the manga I am creating. He seemed to fit the blockbuster movie hero title. I did this to get feedback on how he will actually be received once I get the thing done.
Good luck with the manga! It sounds promising. I've actually got quite a blockbuster character I'm writing about too. (Though he's in a novel). He just doesn't translate well into a low-level character. One of his iconic tactics is Raven's Glamer (4e warlock level 22) followed by a backstab.
His tactics aren't complicated at all. He disarms, trips and stabs. No muss, no fuss, no hassle.
Do you publish your story in the writing forum here? I haven't really looked at that yet, but I should.
I have had several college professors tell me that I should attempt to publish my short stories, but I have had very little opportunity to discover how to go about doing that. Do either of you know how to go about getting work published?
As a frequent Best in Background winner in these competitions, a chance to get paid for creative writing would be nice.
Spam whatever publisher you want to publish your work. I'm assuming it's fantasy based so send copies of your work to Tor and WotC. You can get any publishing company's information from their website.
Write short stories and send them to different magazines also. You have a few more choices in that department as well because SciFi mags will publish fantasy work sometimes too. Send stuff all the time. Don't send your favorite stuff first either. A disappointing percentage of authors get their first, second and usually third works ignored. You have to be persistent and productive. It helps to not get discouraged either.
Many, many great writers started out doing short stories for magazines.
I've sent some of my drawings to the art department here at WotC, even though I was warned fairly by a Wiz-O that I probably wouldn't get anywhere that way. He was right.
The advice he gave me was to go to GenCon which would be wonderful if I could afford such a thing. That would be something you could consider too. When they have those gatherings, they have people that are looking at stuff like that.
If you live in a large city, you might even have bookstores that sponsor writing competitions and that's a good way to get local recognition too. Remember that even if it takes a while, true talent must out.
I'm not really up on all the magazines and publishing companies that do fantasy. I read very little of it, for as much as I write. If you don't know many either, you can start a thread in the rec room asking people for their favorite publishing companies. Ninety-five percent of the answers will be the same two or three, but there will always be a little gem or two you can dust off and use.
Oh yeah, is it okay to put up a picture of my hero if I get one drawn up, or can you only put those in the Community Art Forum?
Yep, you can most certainly post a picture of your character within the thread. And once judging is finished, you should consider editing your post to include the picture right with your entry! But please remember to wait until scores are posted to do that so you don't get DQ'ed for the edit.
"You've probably seen this before," [illusory copy created] "but it's a classic" [illusory copy created] "and I've added a twist." [alternating copies speak now] "Three cups." "One ball." "Where is it?" The demon now swipes at the middle one, and passes through it. "Here's a hint: it's never the middle one." Enraged demon lunges, and suddenly a sword is shoved through it's back. "Don't you know? Dealer always palms the ball." Sword thrust deeper, and demon dies.
It seems publishing's been covered now. I doubt I'll submit a lot of works - I work too slowly. I'll just persevere with this one. Maybe save up to privately publish if all else fails (though that'll be expensive). Anyway, I've always liked Del Rey Fantasy as a publisher, if anyone wants a recommendation.
EDIT: Of course, there's another reason I'm not publishing it here on the boards: CoC. The story is intimately intwined with real-world religion, and philosophical discussions are pretty much required. The story loses potency if I clean it up for the boards.
fluff
“I newer knew my family, maybe it was because they didn’t have enough to raise me or maybe I was a bastard’s son, I’m not sure what it was.
Instead of having a blood related family, my family consisted of my fellow siblings, who all obeyed lord Hinshya’s will.
At young we played together, practiced together in our teens and fought together in our adulthood.
“Always aim for the greater good” lord Hinshya used to say.
They were all brutally murdered by the Serpent.´´
The Serpent was once lord Hinshya’s most promising student but it didn’t have the patience to master the way of Bushidō some say but others say it was because the way of the warrior didn’t give the serpent enough power over others. So the Serpent decided to give its soul to the dragon god and transformed into a part man, part beast.
The Serpent became the dragon’s god general of destruction, leading a massive army of beasts to conquer all living things. After it had conquered most of the land, it attacked the monastery killing all except for Hibiki.
“I was retrieving a lost book for lord Hinshya. I do not have a clue what it contains and I will not look at the content under any circumstances.
I came back to the monastery only to find it burning in flames. Lord Hinsya was almost dead when I found him on the doorstep. His last request was to avenge our order and defeat the serpent.
This task seems impossible, stupid and suicidal but failure is not an option. “
Looks and personality: Hibiki wears red and black traditional samurai armor. He has black hair wich he puts in a mullet. Hibiki has very smooth facial features but has an ugly scar on his forhead.
Hibiki is a very relaxed person but gets very angry and possibly aggresive when his faith and honor is questioned.
allies: Soon after Hibiki whent on to obey his lord's last order, he quikly learned in order to complete this task he would need asistance.
Daria(sorc9)elven princess from a country wich the serpent enslaved was the first wich teamed up with Hibiki on his quest. The were soon accompanied by Thor(fight4,barb5) a berserker from the north who had got lost from his clan's scouting party. Remor(clr9), human defender of a foreign faith with the goal of ridding the world of evil and Janice(rog6,ranger3) soon joined them.
Instead of having a blood related family, my family consisted of my fellow siblings, who all obeyed lord Hinshya’s will.
At young we played together, practiced together in our teens and fought together in our adulthood.
“Always aim for the greater good” lord Hinshya used to say.
They were all brutally murdered by the Serpent.´´
The Serpent was once lord Hinshya’s most promising student but it didn’t have the patience to master the way of Bushidō some say but others say it was because the way of the warrior didn’t give the serpent enough power over others. So the Serpent decided to give its soul to the dragon god and transformed into a part man, part beast.
The Serpent became the dragon’s god general of destruction, leading a massive army of beasts to conquer all living things. After it had conquered most of the land, it attacked the monastery killing all except for Hibiki.
“I was retrieving a lost book for lord Hinshya. I do not have a clue what it contains and I will not look at the content under any circumstances.
I came back to the monastery only to find it burning in flames. Lord Hinsya was almost dead when I found him on the doorstep. His last request was to avenge our order and defeat the serpent.
This task seems impossible, stupid and suicidal but failure is not an option. “
Looks and personality: Hibiki wears red and black traditional samurai armor. He has black hair wich he puts in a mullet. Hibiki has very smooth facial features but has an ugly scar on his forhead.
Hibiki is a very relaxed person but gets very angry and possibly aggresive when his faith and honor is questioned.
allies: Soon after Hibiki whent on to obey his lord's last order, he quikly learned in order to complete this task he would need asistance.
Daria(sorc9)elven princess from a country wich the serpent enslaved was the first wich teamed up with Hibiki on his quest. The were soon accompanied by Thor(fight4,barb5) a berserker from the north who had got lost from his clan's scouting party. Remor(clr9), human defender of a foreign faith with the goal of ridding the world of evil and Janice(rog6,ranger3) soon joined them.
Yep, you can most certainly post a picture of your character within the thread. And once judging is finished, you should consider editing your post to include the picture right with your entry! But please remember to wait until scores are posted to do that so you don't get DQ'ed for the edit.
Rockin'! I'll bang out a pic and get it posted later today!
Have to give the judges more to do, after all! :DRoget Steverson, aka "Captain Vierge"
Fluff
The elderly gnome woman climbed up the small ladder to the podium in front of the blackboard and surveyed her class. Half the students were clearly disinterested in the history lessons, and half were likely feigning interest. Only the aasimar child and his farmer friend seemed to really pay much attention. Still, that was why she had prepared the current lecture - the students would be much more likely to pay attention to old war heroes than to facts about kings and royal succession. Such a sorry state, she thought to herself. Gnome children would certainly pay much more attention to every part of her lecture. But she wouldn't be paid nearly as much, she mused wryly.
"Today, class, we will continue our discussion of the Vierge/Weltall cold war. As you will remember, the empire of Weltall was once located to the north and east of Vierge, along the coast and bordering the World Spine Mountains. The emperors of Weltall were of the opinion that the control of the state was of vital importance, and that the individual rights of the nation's citizens were less so. They were also avaricious and frequently contested Vierge for control of territory and resources. Both sides had agents, warriors, and eldritch might, and they found themselves locked in a cold war for the better part of a century. Anyone remotely familiar with history and religion knows how the conflict ended. Yes?"
The white haired aasimar boy raised his hand earnestly. "The Door was discovered in Or, Weltall's capital, and agents from Vierge were sent to apprehend the Door, lest the emperor used it to destroy us. The king's champion, Tempus, was corrupted by the Door and attempted to transform himself into a dark god, and Esyerik slew Tempus and claimed possession of the Door, purifying the magical energies of the world and ascending to godhood as the new god of magic."
"Precisely right," the teacher nodded. "But there were certainly other players in the history of Vierge and Weltall - even those who did not become gods or dark lords. One such hero was Roget Steverson, known to many as Captain Vierge." She began to wave her hands in arcane gestures, the illusion magics coalescing out of thin air for the students to see. History is so much more interesting when it comes alive, after all.
"Origins are sketchy, but historians believe that Roget was once a simple farm hand who was a staunch supporter of our holy kingdom. He was born in -25 AR, and volunteered for service to the nation's military when he was merely fourteen. Apparently sickly as a youth," the illusory image of the Captain shrunk to that of a wiry, melancholic youth, "his devotion to the kingdom and his zeal caught the attention of a nobleman, who supported his petition to join. Some time around his 18th year, Roget joined the military of Vierge, a warrior of no small stature with agility, strength, and fortitude beyond anything he appeared capable of." The sickly child transformed into an adult male, full of vigor and power, his muscled form an impressive display of human might. "Historians differ on exactly how the transformation took place. Some argue that he subjected himself to an intensive physical regimen overseen by exceedingly harsh task masters. Others argue that he was modified by means alchemical and magical into something of a 'super soldier.' The third school of thought posits that we was chosen as an erabaresi of Miara or Alran-Kor, and his divine gifts transformed him into a champion. Sadly, we cannot be certain, but the predominant school of thought is that he was simply well trained and surpassed the limitations of his youth."
The illusions danced among images of action and battle. "Roget Steverson ranged far and wide during the next eight years, dealing with hostilities along the Hella/Vierge border, engaging in diplomatic missions with the gnomes of Denedeep and the elves of Olaril. He bested the black dragon Viscerachk as it fled the soldiers of Thorsgrim and attacked the plains of Vierge, and he is known to have defeated a covey of hags residing along the southern border after they abducted the king's niece. But his primary enemy was Weltall. On countless occasions, he battled the black knights of the nation as they marched upon Viergan townships and cities, and he made several daring raids against fortifications that housed eldritch machines within Weltall's borders, as well. 'Captain Vierge,' as he was known to friend and foe alike, became a symbol of Vierge's honor, strength, and resolve. He never backed down, never failed in his mission. Often he acted alone deep within enemy lines, and successfully dealt a great many blows to the despotic empire of Weltall. Some say that the emperor's desperate searches for new ateliers that lead to the discovery of the Door was precipitated by his desire to best Vierge's great champion.
"Now then, where was Captain Vierge when the Door was found and Weltall was destroyed? He was already engaged in activities within Weltall on another urgent mission when the king discovered the dire news and dispatched the fateful expedition to Or. According to records, Roget was dealing with a magical facility that was designed to harness the elemental plane of cold to launch a devastating freezing ray at Vallah. Needless to say, the facility and all of its contents were lost when the Door was opened and Weltall was razed - it was in close proximity to Or, after all. Captain Vierge likely had no warning of the impending destruction, and was lost with the nation. Though Esyerik had ended the tyranny of Weltall's emperor and cleansed the world of the Dark, Captain Vierge had most certainly saved Vierge on countless occasions before falling in the line of duty."
The classroom was abuzz with excitement as the students' lecture came to an end. The dramatic illusory depiction of Captain Vierge, alone and armed only with his trusty shield, battling hundreds of black and red clad knights of Weltall as the entire facility was destroyed by the blast that created the blighted wasteland of Or captured every one of their attentions. In the back of the room, the aasimar boy looked over at his friend and smiled. As Edgar had expected, Cecil was lost in thought, no doubt imagining further adventures of the great hero. He was always so prone to fanciful accounts of champions like that. Such a shame, Edgar thought, that things like that just didn't happen anymore...
---
The great hulk battened down the stone wall, the dust of the collapse filling the stale air and concealing the contents of the chamber. The other insect men entered the room, following in the hulk's wake. A massive room, much of it still containing old and broken eldritch machinery, buried for centuries. One of them conjured a light to better inspect the area, and a glitter caught his attention. Along the north wall, lay a massive hunk of ice, perfectly intact despite the oppressive heat of the nearby geothermal vents. And within the ice, a human clad in blue, white, and red with a great shield bearing the heraldry of Vierge. The insect men ignored the ice - a question for a later time - and began to busy themselves with the eldritch devices lost from time.
Adventures
Captain Vierge's adventures could be set at two different times - either before his imprisonment in ice, or he could become unfrozen, some eight hundred years after the fall of Weltall. In either time, his motivations for adventure are to protect his nation and its people. He is an idealistic warrior who believes strongly in the greatness of Vierge, and he opposes tyranny and despots before all else. He fights with honor and courage, but is a tactically minded warrior, doing his best to minimize losses on his side through surgical strikes.
Character
Captain Vierge is a tall man, fully six foot three, with a well muscled physique. His blonde hair is kept short, and he has piercing blue eyes. His armor is tinted with blue, and he wears a white and red surcoat over his chainshirt. His adamantine shield bears the heraldry of King Lysander I, a white star on a red and white field. He is trained in unarmed combat and is deadly with his fists, but his preference is to wield his shield, both at range and in melee.
Before being frozen for centuries, Captain Vierge was an honorable and zealous supporter of his king and country, battling the forces of tyranny and monstrous assailants. He was serious but not stern, and very idealistic. If he was to be freed from his centuries of icy interment, he would likely try to find a place for himself in the new world order. Vierge still stands, but has changed in many ways. After a devastating conflict against their once loyal allies in Thorsgrim, it was further devastated by the Erabaresi Conflict. The king's house has come under fire from several nobles due to its ties to a dragon, long reviled throughout Agris, and even the eternal gods have changed. It would take a great deal for Captain Vierge to deal with the changes, and finding a place for himself in the new order would be a compelling story all by itself.
Allies and Enemies
During the cold war period, Captain Vierge had countless enemies throughout Weltall, most notorious of which were fellow spies and strike force agents. His allies were also numerous, as he was considered something of a symbol to his countrymen.
Buchanan Winter: Buchanan was a fellow soldier who frequently fought alongside Roget during the cold war. An expert marksman, he frequently provided ranged support for Cap while he engaged enemies at close range. The two were good friends and staunch allies, but Buchanan was never as widely known or celebrated as his friend.
The Crimson Skull: A powerful lich necromancer who served as a key advisor/manipulator of the Weltallian empire, the Crimson Skull had several of his plans foiled by Captain Vierge throughout his career. The necromancer's legion of specialized skeletal soldiers and bone knights served on the Weltallian front-lines and were formidable foes, even to Vierge's cadre of paladins and priests. What happened to the Crimson Skull after the collapse of Vierge is unknown, though most hope that he was destroyed. Some suspect that the Crimson Skull may have himself been a pawn or catspaw for the Sanguine Empress, the self-styled queen of undeath.
Faust: The telepath known as Faust threw his lot in with the Weltallian regime, using his powers to act as a spy and assassin. His key tactics involved dominating soldiers or nobles and using them to strike against key targets in Vierge. Historical documents show that, after the destruction of Weltall, Faust attempted to insinuate himself into a position of power and security in Vierge, but was assassinated by Buchanan.
Setting Information
As written, Captain Vierge dates from about -25 AR, though the current year of my campaign setting is 861 AR. However, it is possible for Captain Vierge to adventure in either time period with enough dramatic license.
Miara: The lawful good goddess of love, mercy, and healing, Miara is the patron deity of Vierge. She has had several erabaresi throughout the years, including Cecil Aonir, who made a brief cameo in this background.
Alran-Kor: The lawful neutral god of honorable battle is an ally of Miara's, and the patron of Kerubina, a country along the north of the continent (though Kerubina didn't exist while Captain Vierge was active).
Weltall: The old empire of Weltall was constantly at odds with Vierge, the oldest kingdom on the continent of Agris. Its capital was razed and the surrounding area rendered into a blighted wasteland after the Door, an ancient artifact from a prior age. What remained of Weltall was eventually absorbed into Vierge itself, and even the language of Weltall has been largely lost to history books and buffs of historical languages.
Vierge: Vierge is the oldest sovereign nation on Agris, having grown out of a tradition of horse nomads. It is predominantly lawful good, and has a high concentration of paladins and knights. Its capital city is Vallah.
The elderly gnome woman climbed up the small ladder to the podium in front of the blackboard and surveyed her class. Half the students were clearly disinterested in the history lessons, and half were likely feigning interest. Only the aasimar child and his farmer friend seemed to really pay much attention. Still, that was why she had prepared the current lecture - the students would be much more likely to pay attention to old war heroes than to facts about kings and royal succession. Such a sorry state, she thought to herself. Gnome children would certainly pay much more attention to every part of her lecture. But she wouldn't be paid nearly as much, she mused wryly.
"Today, class, we will continue our discussion of the Vierge/Weltall cold war. As you will remember, the empire of Weltall was once located to the north and east of Vierge, along the coast and bordering the World Spine Mountains. The emperors of Weltall were of the opinion that the control of the state was of vital importance, and that the individual rights of the nation's citizens were less so. They were also avaricious and frequently contested Vierge for control of territory and resources. Both sides had agents, warriors, and eldritch might, and they found themselves locked in a cold war for the better part of a century. Anyone remotely familiar with history and religion knows how the conflict ended. Yes?"
The white haired aasimar boy raised his hand earnestly. "The Door was discovered in Or, Weltall's capital, and agents from Vierge were sent to apprehend the Door, lest the emperor used it to destroy us. The king's champion, Tempus, was corrupted by the Door and attempted to transform himself into a dark god, and Esyerik slew Tempus and claimed possession of the Door, purifying the magical energies of the world and ascending to godhood as the new god of magic."
"Precisely right," the teacher nodded. "But there were certainly other players in the history of Vierge and Weltall - even those who did not become gods or dark lords. One such hero was Roget Steverson, known to many as Captain Vierge." She began to wave her hands in arcane gestures, the illusion magics coalescing out of thin air for the students to see. History is so much more interesting when it comes alive, after all.
"Origins are sketchy, but historians believe that Roget was once a simple farm hand who was a staunch supporter of our holy kingdom. He was born in -25 AR, and volunteered for service to the nation's military when he was merely fourteen. Apparently sickly as a youth," the illusory image of the Captain shrunk to that of a wiry, melancholic youth, "his devotion to the kingdom and his zeal caught the attention of a nobleman, who supported his petition to join. Some time around his 18th year, Roget joined the military of Vierge, a warrior of no small stature with agility, strength, and fortitude beyond anything he appeared capable of." The sickly child transformed into an adult male, full of vigor and power, his muscled form an impressive display of human might. "Historians differ on exactly how the transformation took place. Some argue that he subjected himself to an intensive physical regimen overseen by exceedingly harsh task masters. Others argue that he was modified by means alchemical and magical into something of a 'super soldier.' The third school of thought posits that we was chosen as an erabaresi of Miara or Alran-Kor, and his divine gifts transformed him into a champion. Sadly, we cannot be certain, but the predominant school of thought is that he was simply well trained and surpassed the limitations of his youth."
The illusions danced among images of action and battle. "Roget Steverson ranged far and wide during the next eight years, dealing with hostilities along the Hella/Vierge border, engaging in diplomatic missions with the gnomes of Denedeep and the elves of Olaril. He bested the black dragon Viscerachk as it fled the soldiers of Thorsgrim and attacked the plains of Vierge, and he is known to have defeated a covey of hags residing along the southern border after they abducted the king's niece. But his primary enemy was Weltall. On countless occasions, he battled the black knights of the nation as they marched upon Viergan townships and cities, and he made several daring raids against fortifications that housed eldritch machines within Weltall's borders, as well. 'Captain Vierge,' as he was known to friend and foe alike, became a symbol of Vierge's honor, strength, and resolve. He never backed down, never failed in his mission. Often he acted alone deep within enemy lines, and successfully dealt a great many blows to the despotic empire of Weltall. Some say that the emperor's desperate searches for new ateliers that lead to the discovery of the Door was precipitated by his desire to best Vierge's great champion.
"Now then, where was Captain Vierge when the Door was found and Weltall was destroyed? He was already engaged in activities within Weltall on another urgent mission when the king discovered the dire news and dispatched the fateful expedition to Or. According to records, Roget was dealing with a magical facility that was designed to harness the elemental plane of cold to launch a devastating freezing ray at Vallah. Needless to say, the facility and all of its contents were lost when the Door was opened and Weltall was razed - it was in close proximity to Or, after all. Captain Vierge likely had no warning of the impending destruction, and was lost with the nation. Though Esyerik had ended the tyranny of Weltall's emperor and cleansed the world of the Dark, Captain Vierge had most certainly saved Vierge on countless occasions before falling in the line of duty."
The classroom was abuzz with excitement as the students' lecture came to an end. The dramatic illusory depiction of Captain Vierge, alone and armed only with his trusty shield, battling hundreds of black and red clad knights of Weltall as the entire facility was destroyed by the blast that created the blighted wasteland of Or captured every one of their attentions. In the back of the room, the aasimar boy looked over at his friend and smiled. As Edgar had expected, Cecil was lost in thought, no doubt imagining further adventures of the great hero. He was always so prone to fanciful accounts of champions like that. Such a shame, Edgar thought, that things like that just didn't happen anymore...
---
The great hulk battened down the stone wall, the dust of the collapse filling the stale air and concealing the contents of the chamber. The other insect men entered the room, following in the hulk's wake. A massive room, much of it still containing old and broken eldritch machinery, buried for centuries. One of them conjured a light to better inspect the area, and a glitter caught his attention. Along the north wall, lay a massive hunk of ice, perfectly intact despite the oppressive heat of the nearby geothermal vents. And within the ice, a human clad in blue, white, and red with a great shield bearing the heraldry of Vierge. The insect men ignored the ice - a question for a later time - and began to busy themselves with the eldritch devices lost from time.
Adventures
Captain Vierge's adventures could be set at two different times - either before his imprisonment in ice, or he could become unfrozen, some eight hundred years after the fall of Weltall. In either time, his motivations for adventure are to protect his nation and its people. He is an idealistic warrior who believes strongly in the greatness of Vierge, and he opposes tyranny and despots before all else. He fights with honor and courage, but is a tactically minded warrior, doing his best to minimize losses on his side through surgical strikes.
Character
Captain Vierge is a tall man, fully six foot three, with a well muscled physique. His blonde hair is kept short, and he has piercing blue eyes. His armor is tinted with blue, and he wears a white and red surcoat over his chainshirt. His adamantine shield bears the heraldry of King Lysander I, a white star on a red and white field. He is trained in unarmed combat and is deadly with his fists, but his preference is to wield his shield, both at range and in melee.
Before being frozen for centuries, Captain Vierge was an honorable and zealous supporter of his king and country, battling the forces of tyranny and monstrous assailants. He was serious but not stern, and very idealistic. If he was to be freed from his centuries of icy interment, he would likely try to find a place for himself in the new world order. Vierge still stands, but has changed in many ways. After a devastating conflict against their once loyal allies in Thorsgrim, it was further devastated by the Erabaresi Conflict. The king's house has come under fire from several nobles due to its ties to a dragon, long reviled throughout Agris, and even the eternal gods have changed. It would take a great deal for Captain Vierge to deal with the changes, and finding a place for himself in the new order would be a compelling story all by itself.
Allies and Enemies
During the cold war period, Captain Vierge had countless enemies throughout Weltall, most notorious of which were fellow spies and strike force agents. His allies were also numerous, as he was considered something of a symbol to his countrymen.
Buchanan Winter: Buchanan was a fellow soldier who frequently fought alongside Roget during the cold war. An expert marksman, he frequently provided ranged support for Cap while he engaged enemies at close range. The two were good friends and staunch allies, but Buchanan was never as widely known or celebrated as his friend.
The Crimson Skull: A powerful lich necromancer who served as a key advisor/manipulator of the Weltallian empire, the Crimson Skull had several of his plans foiled by Captain Vierge throughout his career. The necromancer's legion of specialized skeletal soldiers and bone knights served on the Weltallian front-lines and were formidable foes, even to Vierge's cadre of paladins and priests. What happened to the Crimson Skull after the collapse of Vierge is unknown, though most hope that he was destroyed. Some suspect that the Crimson Skull may have himself been a pawn or catspaw for the Sanguine Empress, the self-styled queen of undeath.
Faust: The telepath known as Faust threw his lot in with the Weltallian regime, using his powers to act as a spy and assassin. His key tactics involved dominating soldiers or nobles and using them to strike against key targets in Vierge. Historical documents show that, after the destruction of Weltall, Faust attempted to insinuate himself into a position of power and security in Vierge, but was assassinated by Buchanan.
Setting Information
As written, Captain Vierge dates from about -25 AR, though the current year of my campaign setting is 861 AR. However, it is possible for Captain Vierge to adventure in either time period with enough dramatic license.
Miara: The lawful good goddess of love, mercy, and healing, Miara is the patron deity of Vierge. She has had several erabaresi throughout the years, including Cecil Aonir, who made a brief cameo in this background.
Alran-Kor: The lawful neutral god of honorable battle is an ally of Miara's, and the patron of Kerubina, a country along the north of the continent (though Kerubina didn't exist while Captain Vierge was active).
Weltall: The old empire of Weltall was constantly at odds with Vierge, the oldest kingdom on the continent of Agris. Its capital was razed and the surrounding area rendered into a blighted wasteland after the Door, an ancient artifact from a prior age. What remained of Weltall was eventually absorbed into Vierge itself, and even the language of Weltall has been largely lost to history books and buffs of historical languages.
Vierge: Vierge is the oldest sovereign nation on Agris, having grown out of a tradition of horse nomads. It is predominantly lawful good, and has a high concentration of paladins and knights. Its capital city is Vallah.
Rockin'! I'll bang out a pic and get it posted later today!
Hahaha! So much for that! I'll be lucky to get around to it before the contest ends at the rate I'm going! Oh well, I'll probably end up waiting for the end of the contest and adding it right to the entry post.
"Oooohhh... look... a distraction..."
We saw the horde coming like a flood of black and we ran. We ran for our lives, while the horde roared behind us. Then we saw him waiting in the pass, black death glinting in his fiery beard. He called us on, sent us past while he waited there for the horde to catch up. Even as the horde screamed for his blood, we could hear him behind us. He was laughing...
[RIGHT]Eyewitness
Legends of the Halderrek[/RIGHT]
Stats
Drusik Halderrek
Male dwarf Fighter 9
NG medium humanoid
Initiative +1 (+1 Dex), Senses: Listen +0, Spot +5
Languages: Common, Dwarven, Orc
Age 70, Height 4’ 2”, Weight 190 lb
Deity: Moradin
AC 19 (23 vs giant class) (+6 armor, +1 dex, +1 nat armor, +1 deflection (+4 dodge bonus from race)) Touch 12, Flatfooted 18
DR 2/- (armor)
HP 81 (9d10 + 27 Con)
Fort +10 (+6 Fighter, +3 Con, +1 cloak)
Ref +5 (+3 Fighter, + 1 Dex, +1 cloak)
Will +6 (+3 Fighter, +0 Wis, +2 feat, +1 cloak)
(+2 racial vs poison, +2 racial vs spells and spell-like effects)
Speed 20’
Melee: +2 Dwarven Waraxe (2H), +17/+13, Dam 1d10+10, 19-20 x3
Or: Unarmed Attack, +10/+5, Dam 1d3+4, x2
Ranged: mwk throwing axe (3), +11/+6, Dam 1d6+4, x2, Range 10ft
BAB +9/+4 (+9 Fighter) Grapple +13
Base Abilities (28 pt array - 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10)
Str 15
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 13
Wis 10
Cha 11
Current Abilities (modifier)
Str 18 (+4) (+ 2 gauntlets, +1 level)
Dex 12 (+1)
Con 16 (+3) (+2 race)
Int 13 (+1)
Wis 10 (+0)
Cha 10 (+0) (-2 race, +1 level)
Special Abilities
Darkvision 60'
Stability
Stonecunning
Feats: Combat Expertise (Class bonus), Diehard, Endurance, Improved Critical (Dwarven waraxe) (Class bonus), Improved Unarmed Strike, Iron will, Power Attack (Class bonus), Weapon Focus (Dwarven Waraxe) (Class bonus), Weapon Specialisation (Dwarven Waraxe) (Class bonus)
Skills:
Appraise +1 (+3 for stone and metal) (+1 Int, +2 race)
Balance +5 (+1 Dex, 6 ranks, -2 armor)
Climb +10 (+4 Str, 6 ranks, +2 circ (kit) -2 armor)
Intimidate +12 (+0 Cha, 12 ranks)
Jump +8 (+4 Str, 6 ranks, -2 armor)
Listen + 0 (+0 Wis)
Spot +5 (+0 Wis, +5 circ (eyes of eagle))
Possessions (all prices in gp):
+1 Adamantine Breastplate (11,200)
+2 Dwarven Waraxe (8,330)
3 mwk throwing axes (924)
Heward's Handy Haversack (2,000)
Gauntlets of Ogre Power (4,000)
Cloak of Resistance +1 (1,000)
Ring of Protection +1 (2,000)
Amulet of Natural Armor +1 (2.000)
4 potions CLW (200)
Feather token (bird) (300)
Eyes of the Eagle (2,500)
Traveller's Outfit (Free at creation)
Waterskin (1)
8 days trail rations (4)
Flint and Steel (1)
100 ft silk rope (20)
Bedroll (0.1)
Winter Blanket (0.5)
Spyglass (1,000)
2 sacks (0.2)
Grappling hook (1)
Everburning torch (110)
12 spare pitons (1.2)
Hammer (0.5)
Iron pot (0.5)
Climber's Kit (80
10 Obsidian beads (120)
Cash: 106gp
TOTAL OWNED: 27,000gp
Level breakdown
Level 1: Fighter 1
Skills (8 class + 4 Int): Balance (cc) 2, Climb 2, Intimidate 4, Jump 2
Levels 2, 4, 6, 8
Skills (2 class + 1 Int): 1 point spent on each of Balance, Climb, Intimidate
Levels 3, 5, 7, 9
Skills (2 class + 1 Int): 1 point spent on each of Balance, Intimidate, Jump
Level 1 feat: Endurance, Power Attack (fighter bonus)
Level 2 feat: Combat Expertise (fighter bonus)
Level 3 feat: Diehard
Level 4 feat: Weapon Focus (Dwarven Waraxe) (fighter bonus)
Level 4 ability: Cha +1
Level 6 feat: Iron Will, Weapon Specialisation (Dwarven Waraxe) (fighter bonus)
Level 8 feat: Improved Critical (Dwarven Waraxe) (fighter bonus)
Level 8 ability: Str +1
Level 9 feat: Improved Unarmed Strike
Drusik Halderrek
Male dwarf Fighter 9
NG medium humanoid
Initiative +1 (+1 Dex), Senses: Listen +0, Spot +5
Languages: Common, Dwarven, Orc
Age 70, Height 4’ 2”, Weight 190 lb
Deity: Moradin
AC 19 (23 vs giant class) (+6 armor, +1 dex, +1 nat armor, +1 deflection (+4 dodge bonus from race)) Touch 12, Flatfooted 18
DR 2/- (armor)
HP 81 (9d10 + 27 Con)
Fort +10 (+6 Fighter, +3 Con, +1 cloak)
Ref +5 (+3 Fighter, + 1 Dex, +1 cloak)
Will +6 (+3 Fighter, +0 Wis, +2 feat, +1 cloak)
(+2 racial vs poison, +2 racial vs spells and spell-like effects)
Speed 20’
Melee: +2 Dwarven Waraxe (2H), +17/+13, Dam 1d10+10, 19-20 x3
Or: Unarmed Attack, +10/+5, Dam 1d3+4, x2
Ranged: mwk throwing axe (3), +11/+6, Dam 1d6+4, x2, Range 10ft
BAB +9/+4 (+9 Fighter) Grapple +13
Base Abilities (28 pt array - 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10)
Str 15
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 13
Wis 10
Cha 11
Current Abilities (modifier)
Str 18 (+4) (+ 2 gauntlets, +1 level)
Dex 12 (+1)
Con 16 (+3) (+2 race)
Int 13 (+1)
Wis 10 (+0)
Cha 10 (+0) (-2 race, +1 level)
Special Abilities
Darkvision 60'
Stability
Stonecunning
Feats: Combat Expertise (Class bonus), Diehard, Endurance, Improved Critical (Dwarven waraxe) (Class bonus), Improved Unarmed Strike, Iron will, Power Attack (Class bonus), Weapon Focus (Dwarven Waraxe) (Class bonus), Weapon Specialisation (Dwarven Waraxe) (Class bonus)
Skills:
Appraise +1 (+3 for stone and metal) (+1 Int, +2 race)
Balance +5 (+1 Dex, 6 ranks, -2 armor)
Climb +10 (+4 Str, 6 ranks, +2 circ (kit) -2 armor)
Intimidate +12 (+0 Cha, 12 ranks)
Jump +8 (+4 Str, 6 ranks, -2 armor)
Listen + 0 (+0 Wis)
Spot +5 (+0 Wis, +5 circ (eyes of eagle))
Possessions (all prices in gp):
+1 Adamantine Breastplate (11,200)
+2 Dwarven Waraxe (8,330)
3 mwk throwing axes (924)
Heward's Handy Haversack (2,000)
Gauntlets of Ogre Power (4,000)
Cloak of Resistance +1 (1,000)
Ring of Protection +1 (2,000)
Amulet of Natural Armor +1 (2.000)
4 potions CLW (200)
Feather token (bird) (300)
Eyes of the Eagle (2,500)
Traveller's Outfit (Free at creation)
Waterskin (1)
8 days trail rations (4)
Flint and Steel (1)
100 ft silk rope (20)
Bedroll (0.1)
Winter Blanket (0.5)
Spyglass (1,000)
2 sacks (0.2)
Grappling hook (1)
Everburning torch (110)
12 spare pitons (1.2)
Hammer (0.5)
Iron pot (0.5)
Climber's Kit (80
10 Obsidian beads (120)
Cash: 106gp
TOTAL OWNED: 27,000gp
Level breakdown
Level 1: Fighter 1
Skills (8 class + 4 Int): Balance (cc) 2, Climb 2, Intimidate 4, Jump 2
Levels 2, 4, 6, 8
Skills (2 class + 1 Int): 1 point spent on each of Balance, Climb, Intimidate
Levels 3, 5, 7, 9
Skills (2 class + 1 Int): 1 point spent on each of Balance, Intimidate, Jump
Level 1 feat: Endurance, Power Attack (fighter bonus)
Level 2 feat: Combat Expertise (fighter bonus)
Level 3 feat: Diehard
Level 4 feat: Weapon Focus (Dwarven Waraxe) (fighter bonus)
Level 4 ability: Cha +1
Level 6 feat: Iron Will, Weapon Specialisation (Dwarven Waraxe) (fighter bonus)
Level 8 feat: Improved Critical (Dwarven Waraxe) (fighter bonus)
Level 8 ability: Str +1
Level 9 feat: Improved Unarmed Strike
Contestants -- please make sure your character is listed on the Big List of Entries! I'm old and senile, and on at least one occasion in the past I missed a character. Several judges (including myself) use the list to find the entries, so it's in your interest to make sure I've got your character on the list. ;)
List updated!
Contestants -- please make sure your character is listed on the Big List of Entries! I'm old and senile, and on at least one occasion in the past I missed a character. Several judges (including myself) use the list to find the entries, so it's in your interest to make sure I've got your character on the list. ;)
There's a problem with the list - it implies that the other contestants have a chance against me. You really should save everyone the trouble and just list mine alone...:P
Background
I almost cannot remember a time before Talya. This is partially because I was only seven when I met her, but also because the years I lived with my mother, with only occasional visits from my father, were so painful that I seem to have largely blacked them out. I know that in the end, after the death of her cruel but proud father meant an end to his protection over me, my mother chose to sell me into slavery rather than leave me subject to the whims of her deranged elder brother, Dmitri.
I knew only that I was to go with these strange men until my Daddy came to pick me up, and then I could live wih him. I adored my father, and so wasn't worried until the first time I didn't obey an order quickly enough and was whipped because of it. As I huddled in a corner, scared and confused, a little girl sat down beside me. She was tiny, barely three, with soft dark curls and huge gray eyes. She put a hand on my arm, and sat in silence until I had stopped crying, and then beckoned me to follow her.
Talya took me to her mother. The two had been in the caravan for some months after Stacia had talked back to her previous mistress one too many times. She alone believed my insistence that my father would come for me, and was determined to keep me safe for him. But not long after taking me on, she told off one of the slavers, and was beaten severely. She died of her injuries less than two weeks after I met her, begging Talya and I to take care of each other.
The weeks after Stacia's death are largely a blur, as I fought to keep the slavers from selling either of us, convinced that to do so would lessen the chance that my father would find us. In the end though, I only succeeded in having us sold together, to a buyer who bought several other children along with us. They had to drag me away, screaming all the while, until we were out of sight of the camp. And then the appearance of the human who had bought us wavered, and resolved itself into a tall elven figure with red-gold hair that sparkled in the sun and dark blue-violet eyes exactly like my own.
"I'm sorry I'm late, Grable," my father said, his voice thick, as he held me in his arms. "Please forgive me."
He took us across the border from my mother's home country of Cathar into the city of Khafla in neighboring Khalafae, where the other children were largely bundled off to relatives. The city was under near-continual attack by the Catharn, and Daddy was working with a group of fighters to help the Khaflans. Despite the atmosphere of war and near-siege, I remember an atmosphere of comfort. I was fond of his friends--particularly Caiti, the dwarven bard who taught me to play her drums--and the inn we lived in was relatively safe. My only complaint was that my father was often away on missions, but someone was always there to be with Talya and me, so we weren't overly concerned. Eventually the battle was won, and I looked forward to life with my father and Talya.
It wouldn't be exactly like that, as before we began traveling to his home in the north, my father married his girlfriend, Berea. We spent the three years that followed at her home, an estate in the Far North, while my father first went looking for something for her, and then brooded as she grew away from him. In the end he left her (and, with even more regret, her daughter, my sister Tabitha) and took us to his own hometown of Atamas, where we lived with Artemisia, his best friend and the mother of my sister Iralla. He then disappeared for two years, during which time Berea came to Atamas in pursuit of him and gave birth to a second daughter, Mariah. When he returned that time, he brought another sister, Jessa, and Raven, a woman he had been seeing before Berea. Then Daddy took Raven and Berea and left again.
We finally settled down when I was fifteen and Talya ten, into a rambling house just outside of a human village named Rallen. With the addition of Raven's son Devon and my brother Elijah, whose origin was never really explained, we were up to seven children (since Iralla stayed with Artemisia), a number that grew when Berea had Lenore a year later, and Raven had Angelica a few years after that. My father, finally happily settled with the ones he loved, announced he would not be going away again.
Those years were the most blissful, as Talya and I grew into adulthood and moved from nearly inseparable friends to lovers. My father didn't seem surprised by that turn, and cautioned us only to be careful of each other. We left home to find adventure, the two of us and Jessa, when I was twenty-three and Talya eighteen.
We traveled together, sometimes with others, sometimes not, for three years, fighting orcs and goblins and the occasional undead until Jessa fell in love and left us to adventure with her new husband, a young nobleman named Kellen. After that it was just Talya and I together. We were blissfully happy when we discovered we were expecting a child.
We were traveling in the south at the time, and decided that we should return to the country of our birth. We had remembered Cathar as bleak, but the reality of it twenty years after we had left was appalling. Homes falling apart, people despairing as the necromancer-controlled government ignored them while it pursued the resurrection of the dark god it had worshiped years before my birth. We made our way to the place of my birth, and discovered the house abandoned and in disrepair. A few questions asked around town determined that my mother had died in childbirth not long after I had disappeared, and that Uncle Dmitri had taken her son, named Sergey for his father, who had disappeared, and moved to the capital. No one had heard anything from any of the Connellys for years.
I did my best to bring hope to the people, telling them stories of life beyond Cathar, and Talya did her best to assist by speaking of Trelayne, the goddess of good who gave her the power to heal. Apparently our actions were not well received by the authorities, as we found ourselves suddenly being pursued by their minions.
It was not a good time for it, since Talya was nearing the end of her pregnancy. We tried to hide, but were still discovered by a group of low level thugs who managed to overwhelm us and hold us until their supervisor arrived.
He was human and younger than Talya's twenty-three years...and looked at me with my mother's pale blue eyes.
"Sergey?" I asked, keeping Talya behind me as we faced him.
"Hello, dear brother," he said with a smile that reminded me powerfully of my uncle. "Nice to meet you, and my lovely sister-in-law! Grab her," he added to his minions, and they pulled Talya away from me despite my attempts at stopping them. "And it seems I'm to be an uncle, as well. How nice. I should give you a gift."
"Sergey, please! Doesn't blood mean anything to you?" I struggled ineffectually against the hold his minions had on me. By the gods, they were strong.
"If our mother hadn't wasted her time and energy bearing you to that elf, then she might have lived long enough to raise me. If your father hadn't killed mine. I might have known him. Your father is out of my reach, so I'll make you pay instead." He pulled a scroll from the robes he wore, and began to cast from it.
I fought madly, and managed to slip from the hold they had, lunging for him, but too late. He had already cast his spell on Talya.
She stared at him with unflinching gray eyes, and showed no sign of effect from the spell. While he stared, dumbfounded, I pulled out my rapier and put it through his shoulder. I grabbed Talya, and the two of us fought our way out.
"Grable, we have to hide," Talya said urgently. "As soon as possible." I didn't argue with or question her, but simply helped her out and headed back to a cave I remembered seeing on our way in.
"Help me spread this," she said urgently, handing me a pouch of silver dust from her bag.
"Talya, what's wrong?"
"I didn't stop the spell he cast on me," she said evenly. "It's just delayed. I need to consecrate the area so that I can continue to delay it until the baby's born."
"What?"
"It's a high level spell, Grable, and it will begin to kill me as soon as my magic circle wears off. I need to consecrate the area so that when the effect hits me, I won't rise as an undead." I stopped, staring at her in horror. "Grable, hurry! I can only cast the magic circle once more today, and I want to get the consecration done first."
"Talya--" I began in a choked voice.
"Don't think. Just do what I say. Please, Grable. For the baby's sake."
I followed her directions, spreading the silver, helping her down, finding the herbs that would induce and speed her labor. And then I could only try to make her comfortable as the combined effects of the spell and the labor took my Talya from me. She lived only long enough to see our daughter born, and to beg me to burn her body before the consecration effect ended.
I have some memory of wandering blindly to the next town, where I paid a farm woman a handful of silver for a goat I could milk to feed my little Stacia. The next thing I remember clearly after that is standing on the doorstep of the house near Rallen as Tabitha answered the door and asked me where Talya was. I couldn't even answer her.
Talya and I hadn't been apart for more than a few hours in twenty years. How was I supposed to go on? What did anything matter now that she was no longer there to share it with me? Even our little girl couldn't raise me from the depth of despair I sunk into. Some days I spent wandering the hills, trying to escape from everything that reminded me of her; others I passed entirely in the room that had been ours when we returned home, steeping myself in her.
My family tried to help, but none of them could understand, no matter how they tried. I started to avoid them, all but Raven. She still thought of herself as part of the order of monks who raised her, and helped me to meditate in an attempt to control my grief, even if it didn't lessen it. Slowly I began to come to terms with my loss enough to function.
My daughter was more than six months old the first time I looked at her and really saw her. Even so young, I could see Talya in her round cheeks and snub nose, though her eyes were the brilliant blue-violet I shared with my father and siblings. To this point my father and Berea had been her primary caretakers, but I became determined to see her every day, to rejoice that I had this small part of my Talya still with me.
But as my grief became easier to manage, my anger grew. It was not my fault I had been born, nor even fully my father's--it takes two to create a child, after all, and my mother had never even put up the pretense that she hadn't been willing to be with him. And as for Sergey's father...my own father admitted there was some truth in so far as the elder Sergey had gone after him, but my father had spared his life. He had been executed for murder and attempted murder by the city of Khafla after a trial. That monster had no right to blame me for his life, and none at all to attempt to create a monster of my Talya. Anyone who could even conceive of such a thing was evil beyond
the possibility of the redemption that Raven preached.
I approached my father on the evening of Stacia's first birthday. I didn't even have to say anything--he looked at my eyes and asked only if I was sure I wanted to leave my child.
"No," I replied. "I know I don't want to. But I have to. For her mother."
"Very well. We'll take good care of her for you. But Grable," he added, laying a hand on my shoulder, "don't forget to come home occasionally."
It's been two years since I left home. My plan is two-pronged: bringing hope to the people as my Talya and I had tried to do before, but also to attack the monsters that run the land as the opportunity presents. Thus far I've taken out only two minor functionaries and cause some havoc at government installations. But it's enough of a start--there's a price on my head. And I intend to make it a bigger one when I take out their rising star: Sergey Connelly.
Appearance and Personality
The people of Cathar tend to be short and stocky; the elves of this world tend towards tall and thin. Grable has ended up with an odd combination of the two, standing six feet tall with a broad build for a half-elf. His face is rather round, but with his father's sharply defined cheekbones, an odd combination that makes him rather distinctive. He typically wears his black hair loose, allowing it to fall just past his shoulders. But his most distinctive feature are the dark eyes that shine from his pale skin. From a distance they seem black, but when one closes on him, one can see that they are actually a shade of deep blue-violet. (If he wants to pass unnoticed, Grable makes use of a hat of disguise to minimize his height, smooth the elven looks from his features, and fade his eyes to a more normal blue.)
Grable is a gifted storyteller and avid student of history. He's adapted those loves to be a persuasive speaker as well. These traits, combined with his outgoing personality and inherent charm, have won him a lot of allies. But if left alone for too long, he is apt to relapse into the depression that gripped him after Talya's death--periods that are always followed by insane plans to injure the government against which he has sworn vengeance.
Tactics
Grable plays a dangerous game, having made a name for himself as a revolutionary in a country where "death penalty" means a long period of torture followed by being raised as an undead servant. He typically uses his hat of disguise and ranks in Bluff and Diplomacy to infiltrate an enemy stronghold, and then begins wreaking havoc. He usually opens a battle with a rousing speech to inspire courage in his allies, and takes advantage of his Lingering Song and Battle Dancer feats to spend the following minute being more accurate while he uses his ranks in Tumble to move rapidly around the battlefield. He makes full use of his maneuvers to increase his damage against the toughest opponents, generally saving his Insightful Strike for a finishing move.
Allies
Family: Grable's father, Dallas, is a powerful druid. Dallas's wife, Berea, is a human psion(telepath) of considerable ability, and his other girlfriend, Raven, is actually an exalted good succubus monk/swordsage*. Grable has an assortment of half-siblings as well. Iralla and Elijah are full-blood elves, and Raven's children, Devon and Angelica, are half-fiend elves. All are too young to leave home, as are Berea's younger girls, Mariah and Lenore. Twenty-two-year-old Tabitha, on the other hand, is a telepath like her mother, and raring to go out on adventures--and eager to avenge Talya's death.
Jessa of Fiaren (half-elf ranger). Grable's other sister married Kellen (human knight), heir to the powerful Lord of Fiaren. Grable and Jessa are only a few months apart in age, and though they were twelve when they met, they quickly became close. Both Jessa and her husband are fond of Grable and would come to his aid, even if Fiaren is far from Cathar.
Anya Rasmussen (human expert). A longtime servant of the Connelly family, Anya was one of the few people who was kind to Grable as a child. She still works for the Connellys, but only because it allows her to pass information to the resistance--and she would love to meet back up with Grable.
Patrick Ivanov (human rogue). Grable worked with Patrick in the town of Murfree, a small town where he managed to take out a cleric who felt entitled to use the locals as test subjects in his attempts at creating new forms of undead. Patrick has great respect for Grable, and would aid him again without question.
There are many others like Patrick in other towns, and the common people of Cathar usually know Grable's name, and are often willing to shelter him even if they don't feel up to assisting him openly.
Enemies
Sergey Connelly (human necromancer). Sergey is determined to rise in the government of Cathar, and is doing a fine job of it. He has little conscience, and is not entirely sane. He knows Grable is looking for him, and has no problems with meeting him again, but he means it to be on his terms.
Dmitri Connelly (human fighter). Dmitri truly loved his father and sister, but their deaths caused him to lose the only thing restraining a deep-running strain of cruelty. He is now rising on his nephew's coattails through the ministries of Cathar.
Countless government agents, functionaries, and necromancers in the assortment of towns Grable has passed through in the past few years.
*Yes, an exalted good succubus. Ask Mercurius about her--he actually played Raven in the short-lived campaign for which I created Dallas.
I almost cannot remember a time before Talya. This is partially because I was only seven when I met her, but also because the years I lived with my mother, with only occasional visits from my father, were so painful that I seem to have largely blacked them out. I know that in the end, after the death of her cruel but proud father meant an end to his protection over me, my mother chose to sell me into slavery rather than leave me subject to the whims of her deranged elder brother, Dmitri.
I knew only that I was to go with these strange men until my Daddy came to pick me up, and then I could live wih him. I adored my father, and so wasn't worried until the first time I didn't obey an order quickly enough and was whipped because of it. As I huddled in a corner, scared and confused, a little girl sat down beside me. She was tiny, barely three, with soft dark curls and huge gray eyes. She put a hand on my arm, and sat in silence until I had stopped crying, and then beckoned me to follow her.
Talya took me to her mother. The two had been in the caravan for some months after Stacia had talked back to her previous mistress one too many times. She alone believed my insistence that my father would come for me, and was determined to keep me safe for him. But not long after taking me on, she told off one of the slavers, and was beaten severely. She died of her injuries less than two weeks after I met her, begging Talya and I to take care of each other.
The weeks after Stacia's death are largely a blur, as I fought to keep the slavers from selling either of us, convinced that to do so would lessen the chance that my father would find us. In the end though, I only succeeded in having us sold together, to a buyer who bought several other children along with us. They had to drag me away, screaming all the while, until we were out of sight of the camp. And then the appearance of the human who had bought us wavered, and resolved itself into a tall elven figure with red-gold hair that sparkled in the sun and dark blue-violet eyes exactly like my own.
"I'm sorry I'm late, Grable," my father said, his voice thick, as he held me in his arms. "Please forgive me."
He took us across the border from my mother's home country of Cathar into the city of Khafla in neighboring Khalafae, where the other children were largely bundled off to relatives. The city was under near-continual attack by the Catharn, and Daddy was working with a group of fighters to help the Khaflans. Despite the atmosphere of war and near-siege, I remember an atmosphere of comfort. I was fond of his friends--particularly Caiti, the dwarven bard who taught me to play her drums--and the inn we lived in was relatively safe. My only complaint was that my father was often away on missions, but someone was always there to be with Talya and me, so we weren't overly concerned. Eventually the battle was won, and I looked forward to life with my father and Talya.
It wouldn't be exactly like that, as before we began traveling to his home in the north, my father married his girlfriend, Berea. We spent the three years that followed at her home, an estate in the Far North, while my father first went looking for something for her, and then brooded as she grew away from him. In the end he left her (and, with even more regret, her daughter, my sister Tabitha) and took us to his own hometown of Atamas, where we lived with Artemisia, his best friend and the mother of my sister Iralla. He then disappeared for two years, during which time Berea came to Atamas in pursuit of him and gave birth to a second daughter, Mariah. When he returned that time, he brought another sister, Jessa, and Raven, a woman he had been seeing before Berea. Then Daddy took Raven and Berea and left again.
We finally settled down when I was fifteen and Talya ten, into a rambling house just outside of a human village named Rallen. With the addition of Raven's son Devon and my brother Elijah, whose origin was never really explained, we were up to seven children (since Iralla stayed with Artemisia), a number that grew when Berea had Lenore a year later, and Raven had Angelica a few years after that. My father, finally happily settled with the ones he loved, announced he would not be going away again.
Those years were the most blissful, as Talya and I grew into adulthood and moved from nearly inseparable friends to lovers. My father didn't seem surprised by that turn, and cautioned us only to be careful of each other. We left home to find adventure, the two of us and Jessa, when I was twenty-three and Talya eighteen.
We traveled together, sometimes with others, sometimes not, for three years, fighting orcs and goblins and the occasional undead until Jessa fell in love and left us to adventure with her new husband, a young nobleman named Kellen. After that it was just Talya and I together. We were blissfully happy when we discovered we were expecting a child.
We were traveling in the south at the time, and decided that we should return to the country of our birth. We had remembered Cathar as bleak, but the reality of it twenty years after we had left was appalling. Homes falling apart, people despairing as the necromancer-controlled government ignored them while it pursued the resurrection of the dark god it had worshiped years before my birth. We made our way to the place of my birth, and discovered the house abandoned and in disrepair. A few questions asked around town determined that my mother had died in childbirth not long after I had disappeared, and that Uncle Dmitri had taken her son, named Sergey for his father, who had disappeared, and moved to the capital. No one had heard anything from any of the Connellys for years.
I did my best to bring hope to the people, telling them stories of life beyond Cathar, and Talya did her best to assist by speaking of Trelayne, the goddess of good who gave her the power to heal. Apparently our actions were not well received by the authorities, as we found ourselves suddenly being pursued by their minions.
It was not a good time for it, since Talya was nearing the end of her pregnancy. We tried to hide, but were still discovered by a group of low level thugs who managed to overwhelm us and hold us until their supervisor arrived.
He was human and younger than Talya's twenty-three years...and looked at me with my mother's pale blue eyes.
"Sergey?" I asked, keeping Talya behind me as we faced him.
"Hello, dear brother," he said with a smile that reminded me powerfully of my uncle. "Nice to meet you, and my lovely sister-in-law! Grab her," he added to his minions, and they pulled Talya away from me despite my attempts at stopping them. "And it seems I'm to be an uncle, as well. How nice. I should give you a gift."
"Sergey, please! Doesn't blood mean anything to you?" I struggled ineffectually against the hold his minions had on me. By the gods, they were strong.
"If our mother hadn't wasted her time and energy bearing you to that elf, then she might have lived long enough to raise me. If your father hadn't killed mine. I might have known him. Your father is out of my reach, so I'll make you pay instead." He pulled a scroll from the robes he wore, and began to cast from it.
I fought madly, and managed to slip from the hold they had, lunging for him, but too late. He had already cast his spell on Talya.
She stared at him with unflinching gray eyes, and showed no sign of effect from the spell. While he stared, dumbfounded, I pulled out my rapier and put it through his shoulder. I grabbed Talya, and the two of us fought our way out.
"Grable, we have to hide," Talya said urgently. "As soon as possible." I didn't argue with or question her, but simply helped her out and headed back to a cave I remembered seeing on our way in.
"Help me spread this," she said urgently, handing me a pouch of silver dust from her bag.
"Talya, what's wrong?"
"I didn't stop the spell he cast on me," she said evenly. "It's just delayed. I need to consecrate the area so that I can continue to delay it until the baby's born."
"What?"
"It's a high level spell, Grable, and it will begin to kill me as soon as my magic circle wears off. I need to consecrate the area so that when the effect hits me, I won't rise as an undead." I stopped, staring at her in horror. "Grable, hurry! I can only cast the magic circle once more today, and I want to get the consecration done first."
"Talya--" I began in a choked voice.
"Don't think. Just do what I say. Please, Grable. For the baby's sake."
I followed her directions, spreading the silver, helping her down, finding the herbs that would induce and speed her labor. And then I could only try to make her comfortable as the combined effects of the spell and the labor took my Talya from me. She lived only long enough to see our daughter born, and to beg me to burn her body before the consecration effect ended.
I have some memory of wandering blindly to the next town, where I paid a farm woman a handful of silver for a goat I could milk to feed my little Stacia. The next thing I remember clearly after that is standing on the doorstep of the house near Rallen as Tabitha answered the door and asked me where Talya was. I couldn't even answer her.
Talya and I hadn't been apart for more than a few hours in twenty years. How was I supposed to go on? What did anything matter now that she was no longer there to share it with me? Even our little girl couldn't raise me from the depth of despair I sunk into. Some days I spent wandering the hills, trying to escape from everything that reminded me of her; others I passed entirely in the room that had been ours when we returned home, steeping myself in her.
My family tried to help, but none of them could understand, no matter how they tried. I started to avoid them, all but Raven. She still thought of herself as part of the order of monks who raised her, and helped me to meditate in an attempt to control my grief, even if it didn't lessen it. Slowly I began to come to terms with my loss enough to function.
My daughter was more than six months old the first time I looked at her and really saw her. Even so young, I could see Talya in her round cheeks and snub nose, though her eyes were the brilliant blue-violet I shared with my father and siblings. To this point my father and Berea had been her primary caretakers, but I became determined to see her every day, to rejoice that I had this small part of my Talya still with me.
But as my grief became easier to manage, my anger grew. It was not my fault I had been born, nor even fully my father's--it takes two to create a child, after all, and my mother had never even put up the pretense that she hadn't been willing to be with him. And as for Sergey's father...my own father admitted there was some truth in so far as the elder Sergey had gone after him, but my father had spared his life. He had been executed for murder and attempted murder by the city of Khafla after a trial. That monster had no right to blame me for his life, and none at all to attempt to create a monster of my Talya. Anyone who could even conceive of such a thing was evil beyond
the possibility of the redemption that Raven preached.
I approached my father on the evening of Stacia's first birthday. I didn't even have to say anything--he looked at my eyes and asked only if I was sure I wanted to leave my child.
"No," I replied. "I know I don't want to. But I have to. For her mother."
"Very well. We'll take good care of her for you. But Grable," he added, laying a hand on my shoulder, "don't forget to come home occasionally."
It's been two years since I left home. My plan is two-pronged: bringing hope to the people as my Talya and I had tried to do before, but also to attack the monsters that run the land as the opportunity presents. Thus far I've taken out only two minor functionaries and cause some havoc at government installations. But it's enough of a start--there's a price on my head. And I intend to make it a bigger one when I take out their rising star: Sergey Connelly.
Appearance and Personality
The people of Cathar tend to be short and stocky; the elves of this world tend towards tall and thin. Grable has ended up with an odd combination of the two, standing six feet tall with a broad build for a half-elf. His face is rather round, but with his father's sharply defined cheekbones, an odd combination that makes him rather distinctive. He typically wears his black hair loose, allowing it to fall just past his shoulders. But his most distinctive feature are the dark eyes that shine from his pale skin. From a distance they seem black, but when one closes on him, one can see that they are actually a shade of deep blue-violet. (If he wants to pass unnoticed, Grable makes use of a hat of disguise to minimize his height, smooth the elven looks from his features, and fade his eyes to a more normal blue.)
Grable is a gifted storyteller and avid student of history. He's adapted those loves to be a persuasive speaker as well. These traits, combined with his outgoing personality and inherent charm, have won him a lot of allies. But if left alone for too long, he is apt to relapse into the depression that gripped him after Talya's death--periods that are always followed by insane plans to injure the government against which he has sworn vengeance.
Tactics
Grable plays a dangerous game, having made a name for himself as a revolutionary in a country where "death penalty" means a long period of torture followed by being raised as an undead servant. He typically uses his hat of disguise and ranks in Bluff and Diplomacy to infiltrate an enemy stronghold, and then begins wreaking havoc. He usually opens a battle with a rousing speech to inspire courage in his allies, and takes advantage of his Lingering Song and Battle Dancer feats to spend the following minute being more accurate while he uses his ranks in Tumble to move rapidly around the battlefield. He makes full use of his maneuvers to increase his damage against the toughest opponents, generally saving his Insightful Strike for a finishing move.
Allies
Family: Grable's father, Dallas, is a powerful druid. Dallas's wife, Berea, is a human psion(telepath) of considerable ability, and his other girlfriend, Raven, is actually an exalted good succubus monk/swordsage*. Grable has an assortment of half-siblings as well. Iralla and Elijah are full-blood elves, and Raven's children, Devon and Angelica, are half-fiend elves. All are too young to leave home, as are Berea's younger girls, Mariah and Lenore. Twenty-two-year-old Tabitha, on the other hand, is a telepath like her mother, and raring to go out on adventures--and eager to avenge Talya's death.
Jessa of Fiaren (half-elf ranger). Grable's other sister married Kellen (human knight), heir to the powerful Lord of Fiaren. Grable and Jessa are only a few months apart in age, and though they were twelve when they met, they quickly became close. Both Jessa and her husband are fond of Grable and would come to his aid, even if Fiaren is far from Cathar.
Anya Rasmussen (human expert). A longtime servant of the Connelly family, Anya was one of the few people who was kind to Grable as a child. She still works for the Connellys, but only because it allows her to pass information to the resistance--and she would love to meet back up with Grable.
Patrick Ivanov (human rogue). Grable worked with Patrick in the town of Murfree, a small town where he managed to take out a cleric who felt entitled to use the locals as test subjects in his attempts at creating new forms of undead. Patrick has great respect for Grable, and would aid him again without question.
There are many others like Patrick in other towns, and the common people of Cathar usually know Grable's name, and are often willing to shelter him even if they don't feel up to assisting him openly.
Enemies
Sergey Connelly (human necromancer). Sergey is determined to rise in the government of Cathar, and is doing a fine job of it. He has little conscience, and is not entirely sane. He knows Grable is looking for him, and has no problems with meeting him again, but he means it to be on his terms.
Dmitri Connelly (human fighter). Dmitri truly loved his father and sister, but their deaths caused him to lose the only thing restraining a deep-running strain of cruelty. He is now rising on his nephew's coattails through the ministries of Cathar.
Countless government agents, functionaries, and necromancers in the assortment of towns Grable has passed through in the past few years.
*Yes, an exalted good succubus. Ask Mercurius about her--he actually played Raven in the short-lived campaign for which I created Dallas.
...btw, with the official judging about to begin, let me remind you to get any last minute 'gift packages' for the judges in the mail. It would be a real shame if your gifts arrived after your entry was already judged. ;)
stupid old age, making me senile so I forget simple things...
List updated to include jennibert's novel. Er, I mean... character.
Just to let you know, his background was longer, but I cut a lot out of the early part. :angelhide
And Jason, I have snickerdoodle cookie dough in my fridge now, waiting for me to have time to cook it....Z and Endarrion? Requests? Ask quickly, before work takes over my life again....
:D
...I think it's called 'having a real job.'
Oh, and jenni, I really hope you aren't taunting me... again...
...you see, tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of Snickerdoodle Awesomeness. Last year, for my birthday, my parents took me to Texas Roadhouse, and while I was there, the waitresses brought out a giant Snickerdoodle Cookie Cake, which served as my birthday cake. It was glorious, and I would be really sad if my memories were being brought up, only to fly away taunting me...
So... who caught the subtle, 'my birthday is tomorrow,' hint?
Is it okay to post heroes still, not for judging but just to put them up for people to see?
Always! Post away! I love to read backgrounds, please feel free to go ahead and submit if you've got something.
Oh, and speaking of backgrounds, I went through and read everyone's today. We've got some very interesting stuff here...Good job, all!
I had a good time reading yours too Jennibert. I didn't realize how long the judges would want the backstory to be so I clipped mine really short. I tend to have binders for my characters. That is, one character per binder. I didn't do much this time, but after having read yours, I know what sort of thing is called for, for next time.
Don't let jennibert's length of prose fool you. Shorter backgrounds can be just as good and can beat even her in the category. It is a lot of work judging multiple entries that have backgrounds that long, I can attest.
Length of Background does not equal Score of Background.
In fact, in HC #5 (which also happened to be the first competition w/ category awards... yes, I'm full of useless trivia), jenni didn't take Best in Background, despite the tremendous length of her entry. Though it was a quality background (and I believe she earned a silver medal overall), she didn't tie her character to dragons nearly as well as many of the other contestants, which cost her points.
As judges, we are looking at background content, not word count.
And, if this post proves anything, it's that you can ramble forever without really hitting the point. (Btw, all above comments should not be seen as a reflection of my thoughts on jenni's entry this time around... like usual, I haven't actually started judging yet...)
Well, now I must go get ready for my birthday supper... after that, I could get started on judging...
OOOOHHHH!!!!!!!! LOOK!!!!!!!! A Distraction!!!
Always! Post away! I love to read backgrounds, please feel free to go ahead and submit if you've got something.
Okay then, here you go!
Flavor
At dawn, the clerics of the sun god began the long parade to the pyramid where the month's sacrifice to the gods was to be held. The citizens stayed indoors; sometimes additional sacrifices were “acquired” en route to the temple, and while the clerics' magic was undeniably useful, the clerics' cruelty (and their god's) was widely known and widely feared. The thoroughfare was lit as if with the noon-time sun—as it always was—and the light shined brightly on the clerics' white and yellow robes...and their ritual knives.
The face of one acolyte, bringing up the rear, did not share the haughty expression of his superiors. He was an outcast in the temple, mocked and scorned because he had not yet been able to invoke the simplest prayer. Thus, he had been relegated to the ranks of the ritual helpers rather than the priests. Another acolyte turned to him and jeered, “So, de la Sol, you think you can come with us in the procession? You've been divested of your rank; get back with the rest of the servants!” Meekly, the former acolyte turned and trudged towards the end of the procession.
As he approached the temple servants, he glanced around; seeing no one, he ducked into an alley and quickly ran to the other end of it. By the time he had reached the next street, his plain white acolyte tunic had become a silk vest and expensive cloak, making him just one more of the ruling nobility turned out to see the procession. A merchant seeing him fell to one knee. “Don Carlos! How good it is to see you again! Turned out early for the procession, I see; that is good.” The merchant continued to speak with the noble, who wasn't listening at all, but rather searching for the sacrifices in the priests' litters. Having noted their positions and those of the temple guards, the noble excused himself and ran ahead.
He made it to the top of the temple just ahead of the priests, where his noble garments once again changed, this time into the scripture-inscribed robes of a priest. He walked proudly to the temple guards, who bowed and let him through. Finding the altar room empty, the figure smiled and changed his garments one last time. The guards raised their eyes to find, not a dignified member of the religious caste, but a black-clad figure holding a glowing white sword. Before they could call for reinforcements, the figure's blade made short work of them and disappeared once again. Slipping a scarf over the lower half of his face, the figure moved to the rooftop outside.
The ceremony was in full swing; priests were chanting, acolytes were spreading incense, and servants were ritually preparing the sacrificial knives. The figure stood silently waiting to be noticed; no one in the temple party looked in his direction, but those commoners forced to attend saw him and began whispering excitedly. He cleared his throat; the servants shushed him. He tapped the wall beside him; they made dismissive motions. The figure smiled; this was his favorite part. With a second of meditation, the figure gathered darkness about him, and lowering his arms he snuffed out the closest lights to him. That stopped the ceremony cold. All eyes turned to the figure, and he spoke.
“Good morning, gentlemen. Once again you have ignored my warning to cease the human sacrifices you use to instill fear, and once again it seems nothing short of violence will get that point across. Shall we do this the easy way or the hard way?” The priests finally regained their composure enough to call for the guards; one pointed and exclaimed, “The Shadow! He returns! Strike down the accursed being of darkness! Destroy the—” As the Shadow (for that is who he was) removed his blade from the priest's body he shook his head mockingly. “The hard way, I see. Well, I can't say I won't enjoy this.”
With another instant of concentration, the Shadow became a blur of darkness. Darting from guard to guard, he emptied the rooftop of the priests' protectors while the priests fled in terror. Archers fired at him, to no effect; the shifting shadows making up his form made him impossible to hit. Spells slung at him had the same lack of impact; with a moment of thought, the Shadow dodged their rays and ignored their curses. The Shadow leaped off the temple into the crowd, who cheered him on and parted to allow him entry while impeding the priests. As the priests launched fire and light at the crowd, the Shadow called, “Stay back! You need not face their burning light for me; the Shadow can face the cowardly and sniveling slaves of the harsh and searing sun and defeat them!”
The crowd parted, and the priest ran into a tower close by; guards barred the door and prepared to slaughter the Shadow—they had the odds in their favor, after all. But the Shadow ignored them; without breaking stride, he ran to the tower, jumped up on the wall, and began running up to the top. “Your cruel sun is not the only one that rises in the morning,” he sneered. Reaching the roof, he once again manifested his blade of light and crossed his arms; when the priests reached the battlements on the roof, he cut them down quickly and efficiently. Turning, he beheld another guard, this one much fiercer and better-armed than the rest. This guard rushed him and they traded several blows; a few minutes later, they disengaged.
“You think you are so heroic, defending the common masses. That stops now. I am called the Executioner, for I slay heretics and infidels in the name of the One True God. No one has escaped my blade before.” The crowd booed the Executioner, but the Shadow motioned for them to quiet down. “Really? Interesting. You think you are so pious, murdering the people. That stops now. I am called the Shadow, for I slay followers of the One True God. No one has escaped my blade before either.” Several exchanges later, they once again disengaged to rest. The Executioner heard the sound of footfalls upon the stair and smirked. “It seems your killing streak is about to be broken; there's no way you can defeat me now.” The shadow bowed mockingly. “Likewise.” As he straightened, he saw the Executioner charging him, trying to knock him off the roof. With a quick gesture, the Shadow made three quick slashes in the Executioner's shirt; once again wrapping darkness around himself, he disappeared, leaving the Executioner holding nothing but air with an “S” on his chest.
Two blocks away, a shadow coalesced into the shape of a man, one wearing acolyte robes, who slipped out of the shadows into a group of novices. The high priest came by to collect them and herded them back to the temple. As the high priest and the acolyte were walking back, the high priest turned and whispered that the acolyte should join them in their meeting. “This is a horrific setback; the Shadow has stopped the past three ceremonies, and the God is angered. We will need all the acolytes and priest to come up with a plan to stop him. First, we search everyone's quarters for that accursed sword of his to ensure we do not have a traitor among us." The acolyte bowed and reassured the high priest that certainly no one would find such a thing in his room. "Remember," the high priest continued, "nothing leaves the inner sanctuary; if the Shadow heard of our plans, he would be able to stop them effortlessly.” Smiling softly to himself, the acolyte whispered an acknowledgment. “We certainly wouldn't want that.
Description
In a large yet remote city-state resembling a cross between colonial Mexico and an ancient Aztec empire, a caste of priests rules with an iron fist. Their god, an evil god of the sun [thread=846926]kind of like Pelor[/thread], demands constant sacrifices and the oppression of the populace; his name is never spoken, for to do so would invite his wrath on the speaker. Constant sunlight burns his worshipers and constant pain is visited on all. In the midst of this evil and cruelty, one man has the courage and conviction to throw off the oppressors: the Shadow. Clad in black, surrounded by darkness, and armed with a sword of shining righteousness drawn from his own soul, he fights for the freedom of the people, killing the evil clerics and leaving his trademark “S” on his enemies' bodies.
The priesthood reviles the Shadow for using the power of shadow, which obviously must be evil given that their oh-so-perfect god is the sun, but the common folk secretly love him and help him at any turn. The Shadow is always on the move, and with the help of his appearance-changing armor he can listen in on the priests' plans as a simple acolyte or move unchallenged through the city as a noble. No one knows his true name, no one has ever seen him without his mask on, and no one knows where he will appear next—but whenever he does appear, he strikes a blow (several, in fact) for freedom.
Friends and Foes
In general, anyone who worships the sun god is his enemy and everyone else he protects from them. There are a few specific friends and foes he has, however:
The Executioner: This anti-paladin, handpicked assassin of the sun god, has been tasked with hunting down and destroying the Shadow. He has also adopted a pseudonym to better fight his target—for if his enemy knew him he would be killed in his sleep—making their relationship somewhat of a cold war; neither can seek out and destroy the other, so it is a constant struggle to react and prepare to meet the other. (Game statistics: LE Human Swordsage 3/Cleric 3/Rogue 1/Black Flame Zealot 2; mostly Desert Wind maneuvers for Swordsage levels, cleric domains Sun and Death)
High Priest Montec: The leader of the sun god's clergy, Montec is also the power-mad dictator of the sun god's nation; surprisingly, he is not evil like most of the clergy or the sun god himself, but his absolute dedication to the sun gods' laws make him far more dangerous than a priest who would be evil for evil's sake. Though he did not work his way up through the sun god's clergy, he was specially chosen by the sun god to lead his nation and thus is able to invoke almost any prayer or miracle he wishes; other priests feel jealous of him, particularly the ones who would have been in the pool of candidates for high priest before him, but none question his rule for fear of an “accident.” He feels a personal hatred for the Shadow, as every time the Shadow strikes the sun god sends nightmares to him which drive him mad and leave him in horrible pain. Thus, he stops at nothing to kill the Shadow and frequently appears in public to burn down innocent commoners' homes to incite the Shadow to show himself. If he could only provoke the Shadow into fighting him he would easily be able to kill him, but the Shadow's refusal to show himself drives Montec to greater and greater depths of madness. (Game statistics: LN Human Warmage 6/Rainbow Servant 10; uses mostly fire spells, but he can spontaneously cast all cleric spells thanks to the Rainbow Servant 10 ability)
Don Carlos de la Sol: There are few nobles who question the sun god's clergy, but Don Carlos is one of them. He believes that the clergy's hold on the nation is evil and wrong, and does what he can to alleviate the common folk's suffering. He is the only one who knows the Shadow's true identity, and is the one who first set the Shadow on his path; the Shadow often uses Don Carlos's name and identity as a disguise, as he is already known as an eccentric and wouldn't raise too many questions. Don Carlos has a mansion outside of town where he houses former prisoners of the priests and other “undesirables” while convincing the priesthood that these are his servants; a small townhouse in the city where he actually lives serves as a hiding place for the Shadow when he needs one. (Game statistics: CG Human Archivist 7/Loremaster 1)
The face of one acolyte, bringing up the rear, did not share the haughty expression of his superiors. He was an outcast in the temple, mocked and scorned because he had not yet been able to invoke the simplest prayer. Thus, he had been relegated to the ranks of the ritual helpers rather than the priests. Another acolyte turned to him and jeered, “So, de la Sol, you think you can come with us in the procession? You've been divested of your rank; get back with the rest of the servants!” Meekly, the former acolyte turned and trudged towards the end of the procession.
As he approached the temple servants, he glanced around; seeing no one, he ducked into an alley and quickly ran to the other end of it. By the time he had reached the next street, his plain white acolyte tunic had become a silk vest and expensive cloak, making him just one more of the ruling nobility turned out to see the procession. A merchant seeing him fell to one knee. “Don Carlos! How good it is to see you again! Turned out early for the procession, I see; that is good.” The merchant continued to speak with the noble, who wasn't listening at all, but rather searching for the sacrifices in the priests' litters. Having noted their positions and those of the temple guards, the noble excused himself and ran ahead.
He made it to the top of the temple just ahead of the priests, where his noble garments once again changed, this time into the scripture-inscribed robes of a priest. He walked proudly to the temple guards, who bowed and let him through. Finding the altar room empty, the figure smiled and changed his garments one last time. The guards raised their eyes to find, not a dignified member of the religious caste, but a black-clad figure holding a glowing white sword. Before they could call for reinforcements, the figure's blade made short work of them and disappeared once again. Slipping a scarf over the lower half of his face, the figure moved to the rooftop outside.
The ceremony was in full swing; priests were chanting, acolytes were spreading incense, and servants were ritually preparing the sacrificial knives. The figure stood silently waiting to be noticed; no one in the temple party looked in his direction, but those commoners forced to attend saw him and began whispering excitedly. He cleared his throat; the servants shushed him. He tapped the wall beside him; they made dismissive motions. The figure smiled; this was his favorite part. With a second of meditation, the figure gathered darkness about him, and lowering his arms he snuffed out the closest lights to him. That stopped the ceremony cold. All eyes turned to the figure, and he spoke.
“Good morning, gentlemen. Once again you have ignored my warning to cease the human sacrifices you use to instill fear, and once again it seems nothing short of violence will get that point across. Shall we do this the easy way or the hard way?” The priests finally regained their composure enough to call for the guards; one pointed and exclaimed, “The Shadow! He returns! Strike down the accursed being of darkness! Destroy the—” As the Shadow (for that is who he was) removed his blade from the priest's body he shook his head mockingly. “The hard way, I see. Well, I can't say I won't enjoy this.”
With another instant of concentration, the Shadow became a blur of darkness. Darting from guard to guard, he emptied the rooftop of the priests' protectors while the priests fled in terror. Archers fired at him, to no effect; the shifting shadows making up his form made him impossible to hit. Spells slung at him had the same lack of impact; with a moment of thought, the Shadow dodged their rays and ignored their curses. The Shadow leaped off the temple into the crowd, who cheered him on and parted to allow him entry while impeding the priests. As the priests launched fire and light at the crowd, the Shadow called, “Stay back! You need not face their burning light for me; the Shadow can face the cowardly and sniveling slaves of the harsh and searing sun and defeat them!”
The crowd parted, and the priest ran into a tower close by; guards barred the door and prepared to slaughter the Shadow—they had the odds in their favor, after all. But the Shadow ignored them; without breaking stride, he ran to the tower, jumped up on the wall, and began running up to the top. “Your cruel sun is not the only one that rises in the morning,” he sneered. Reaching the roof, he once again manifested his blade of light and crossed his arms; when the priests reached the battlements on the roof, he cut them down quickly and efficiently. Turning, he beheld another guard, this one much fiercer and better-armed than the rest. This guard rushed him and they traded several blows; a few minutes later, they disengaged.
“You think you are so heroic, defending the common masses. That stops now. I am called the Executioner, for I slay heretics and infidels in the name of the One True God. No one has escaped my blade before.” The crowd booed the Executioner, but the Shadow motioned for them to quiet down. “Really? Interesting. You think you are so pious, murdering the people. That stops now. I am called the Shadow, for I slay followers of the One True God. No one has escaped my blade before either.” Several exchanges later, they once again disengaged to rest. The Executioner heard the sound of footfalls upon the stair and smirked. “It seems your killing streak is about to be broken; there's no way you can defeat me now.” The shadow bowed mockingly. “Likewise.” As he straightened, he saw the Executioner charging him, trying to knock him off the roof. With a quick gesture, the Shadow made three quick slashes in the Executioner's shirt; once again wrapping darkness around himself, he disappeared, leaving the Executioner holding nothing but air with an “S” on his chest.
Two blocks away, a shadow coalesced into the shape of a man, one wearing acolyte robes, who slipped out of the shadows into a group of novices. The high priest came by to collect them and herded them back to the temple. As the high priest and the acolyte were walking back, the high priest turned and whispered that the acolyte should join them in their meeting. “This is a horrific setback; the Shadow has stopped the past three ceremonies, and the God is angered. We will need all the acolytes and priest to come up with a plan to stop him. First, we search everyone's quarters for that accursed sword of his to ensure we do not have a traitor among us." The acolyte bowed and reassured the high priest that certainly no one would find such a thing in his room. "Remember," the high priest continued, "nothing leaves the inner sanctuary; if the Shadow heard of our plans, he would be able to stop them effortlessly.” Smiling softly to himself, the acolyte whispered an acknowledgment. “We certainly wouldn't want that.
Description
In a large yet remote city-state resembling a cross between colonial Mexico and an ancient Aztec empire, a caste of priests rules with an iron fist. Their god, an evil god of the sun [thread=846926]kind of like Pelor[/thread], demands constant sacrifices and the oppression of the populace; his name is never spoken, for to do so would invite his wrath on the speaker. Constant sunlight burns his worshipers and constant pain is visited on all. In the midst of this evil and cruelty, one man has the courage and conviction to throw off the oppressors: the Shadow. Clad in black, surrounded by darkness, and armed with a sword of shining righteousness drawn from his own soul, he fights for the freedom of the people, killing the evil clerics and leaving his trademark “S” on his enemies' bodies.
The priesthood reviles the Shadow for using the power of shadow, which obviously must be evil given that their oh-so-perfect god is the sun, but the common folk secretly love him and help him at any turn. The Shadow is always on the move, and with the help of his appearance-changing armor he can listen in on the priests' plans as a simple acolyte or move unchallenged through the city as a noble. No one knows his true name, no one has ever seen him without his mask on, and no one knows where he will appear next—but whenever he does appear, he strikes a blow (several, in fact) for freedom.
Friends and Foes
In general, anyone who worships the sun god is his enemy and everyone else he protects from them. There are a few specific friends and foes he has, however:
The Executioner: This anti-paladin, handpicked assassin of the sun god, has been tasked with hunting down and destroying the Shadow. He has also adopted a pseudonym to better fight his target—for if his enemy knew him he would be killed in his sleep—making their relationship somewhat of a cold war; neither can seek out and destroy the other, so it is a constant struggle to react and prepare to meet the other. (Game statistics: LE Human Swordsage 3/Cleric 3/Rogue 1/Black Flame Zealot 2; mostly Desert Wind maneuvers for Swordsage levels, cleric domains Sun and Death)
High Priest Montec: The leader of the sun god's clergy, Montec is also the power-mad dictator of the sun god's nation; surprisingly, he is not evil like most of the clergy or the sun god himself, but his absolute dedication to the sun gods' laws make him far more dangerous than a priest who would be evil for evil's sake. Though he did not work his way up through the sun god's clergy, he was specially chosen by the sun god to lead his nation and thus is able to invoke almost any prayer or miracle he wishes; other priests feel jealous of him, particularly the ones who would have been in the pool of candidates for high priest before him, but none question his rule for fear of an “accident.” He feels a personal hatred for the Shadow, as every time the Shadow strikes the sun god sends nightmares to him which drive him mad and leave him in horrible pain. Thus, he stops at nothing to kill the Shadow and frequently appears in public to burn down innocent commoners' homes to incite the Shadow to show himself. If he could only provoke the Shadow into fighting him he would easily be able to kill him, but the Shadow's refusal to show himself drives Montec to greater and greater depths of madness. (Game statistics: LN Human Warmage 6/Rainbow Servant 10; uses mostly fire spells, but he can spontaneously cast all cleric spells thanks to the Rainbow Servant 10 ability)
Don Carlos de la Sol: There are few nobles who question the sun god's clergy, but Don Carlos is one of them. He believes that the clergy's hold on the nation is evil and wrong, and does what he can to alleviate the common folk's suffering. He is the only one who knows the Shadow's true identity, and is the one who first set the Shadow on his path; the Shadow often uses Don Carlos's name and identity as a disguise, as he is already known as an eccentric and wouldn't raise too many questions. Don Carlos has a mansion outside of town where he houses former prisoners of the priests and other “undesirables” while convincing the priesthood that these are his servants; a small townhouse in the city where he actually lives serves as a hiding place for the Shadow when he needs one. (Game statistics: CG Human Archivist 7/Loremaster 1)
So, Z, when does the senility set in?
I used to know, but I forget.
:D
*
Speaking of HC5 and the dragon contest... I very intentionally wrote a shorter background for that contest, because A) I can also get verbose and wanted to keep myself on a short leash as a writing exercise; and B) to demonstrate that you can in fact have a short-ish background for a higher level character that covers all the necessary elements.
I'm still not sure if I succeeded in either endeavor, to be honest...
But, anyway, don't feel you have to be very long. We've had a lot of really god entires that hit all the bases without being as longwinded as I tend to be. (FWIW, I am trying to control that. I do better when it's a character I made up for the competition and not one I've had in my head for a while, which was the problem with the dragon competition entry.)
no judges!--ha ha, I can do it too!
Saint Keeleon, I thought your entry did a very good job of covering the bases judges often tend to look at, and if I were judging instead of competing in this competition, I'd score you well. So feel free to write longer if you feel it appropriate, but don't feel obligated to do so.
On a separate note, I think I'm gonna get smacked for Thematic Creativity on this competition...knew it when I entered, but was too freaking tired to care. Oh well.
Saint Keeleon, I thought your entry did a very good job of covering the bases judges often tend to look at, and if I were judging instead of competing in this competition, I'd score you well. So feel free to write longer if you feel it appropriate, but don't feel obligated to do so.
On a separate note, I think I'm gonna get smacked for Thematic Creativity on this competition...knew it when I entered, but was too freaking tired to care. Oh well.
But, anyway, don't feel you have to be very long. We've had a lot of really god entires that hit all the bases without being as longwinded as I tend to be.
Now jennibert, you know that's just not true. We haven't had any competitions that allowed the Divine Rank rules to be applied to characters. Still, that might be a fun competition to keep in mind...
Now jennibert, you know that's just not true. We haven't had any competitions that allowed the Divine Rank rules to be applied to characters. Still, that might be a fun competition to keep in mind...
:P
Thank you for the kind words, Jennibert! I loved your story and I wish I had a couple players just like you! We're trying to teach my mom to roleplay. She plays DnD with us, but she's a true hack 'n' slasher.
I plan on using your entry as a sample background to give her a few ideas.
Wow!
Thank you for the kind words, Jennibert! I loved your story and I wish I had a couple players just like you! We're trying to teach my mom to roleplay. She plays DnD with us, but she's a true hack 'n' slasher.
I plan on using your entry as a sample background to give her a few ideas.
Wow! Thank you very much. I'm glad you liked Grable...he and his (extensive) family are rather favorites of mine.
Feel free to look at some of the previous entries as well--the first post on this thread should have a link to the Feedback thread, which has links to all of the HCs. We've got a lot of really good writers floating around here
I gave her a bunch of the character descriptions to read. Hopefully when we go to character creation next time she'll have some ideas. When I asked her what her last character was like she told me, "She has a sword!" Aaand that's her DnD in a nutshell.
She's got some great ideas for adventures and I ask her for inspiration when I'm stuck, but when it comes to character attitude, it's all about the equipment and little else.
On the other hand, sometimes I build a character and then have to pick gear for them without any idea what they should have.
I've been known to start with equipment once or twice - I had a character idea that was "sorceress with a greatsword" and the character generation went into coming up with a reasoning and justification for the concept. That character never did manage to get played (the DM didn't seem to think that learning how to use a greatsword was really justified until you knew how to use longswords and shortswords and lots of other things...), but from her sprung the vast majority of my campaign setting. She spawned my world.
On the other hand, sometimes I build a character and then have to pick gear for them without any idea what they should have.
It's great to have equipment in mind, but usually when I ask someone what their character is like, I'm digging for a back story, some hooks, what kind of stuff will intrigue and interest the character, etc. Mom sees "She has a sword!" as all the definition that particular character needs. Well, used to.
Thanks to Jennibert, Mercurius, Jason Orlando Hawk, Heros_Backpack and others, I think I have her well on her way to her first totally developed character. She was going crazy reading through the stories I printed from here last night. With the help of a sister that could sweet talk her way out of Baator to help guide her in role playing, I think we'll have a more well balanced game.
Thanks to everyone that has competed in these contests!
My most recent character was an elven enchanter. I've always liked the enchantment school, and I had never actually played a wizard in 3.5. So in that case I started off with the class, and built outwards from there. The rest of the crunchy bits and the backstory just sort of fell into place once I got started.
Just as there's no "wrong way" to play the game, there's also no "wrong way" to build a character. If your mom is having fun playing the game -- and she's not detracting from anybody else's fun -- then she's doing it "right." Give her some time to learn roleplaying skills, and I'm sure she'll start developing more of a history and personality for her character.
If you're the DM, you can facilitate that a bit by putting her character in a position where she has to roleplay.
My character creation process is pretty stream-lined since every character is a member of the same family: the Hawks. Years ago, I created a character by the name of Jason Orlando Hawk, who eventually retired b/c the DMs I played under got really tired of my eerie ability to always roll natural 20's on Demolitions checks while playing Jason. His penchant for flame, not to mention his complex background, is actually one of my eventual publishing goals.
Since then, I've created a family for him, and every character (at least the humans) is somehow related to him.
Edmund Ross Hawk: His son.
Jessica Lynn Hawk: His wife.
etc...
etc...
When I add to the family, there are two things that must be determined:
-Ability Concept
&
-Internal Conflict
For example, years ago I created a female member of the Hawk family (Jason's cousin, by marriage) named Michelle, who was a heavy armor expert, with a tendency to rely on heavy weapons to the extent that her superhero name could've been "Collateral Damage Man."
Of course, after I came up with her abilities, I needed a struggle, which would eventually become 'self-esteem.' Michelle has severe self-esteem issues, to the point that she doesn't want anyone to know what she was capable of doing. Her heavy armor wasn't there to protect her, it was there to hide her identity, and it did it so well that she had fooled most of her companions into thinking she was a guy.
The character concept was refined through a few games.
Eventually, she became the central character in my only Sci-Fi short story to-date: "Skin Deep as Steel."
So... you see that you can start w/ equipment, so long as you make sure to keep the background in mind as well.
My current character in construction is Orion Hawk, a sorcerer who can not cast any spells w/ the Darkness descriptor... someone who specializes in the study of light and fire (the second concept in keeping w/ the family tradition of blowing things up). In 3.5, he's has a heavy abjuration/evocation focus.
In this case, "magic" is the substitute for equipment.
I haven't worked out every aspect of his personality (he's only been played in three games thus far), but he's developing a classic superhero mindset: "My powers put the people I love at risk..."
While I want to develop him some more before I actually do any serious writing, I've already had some inspiration for his story: "Dead Man's Fire."
My current character in construction is Orion Hawk, a sorcerer who can not cast any spells w/ the Darkness descriptor... someone who specializes in the study of light and fire (the second concept in keeping w/ the family tradition of blowing things up). In 3.5, he's has a heavy abjuration/evocation focus.
...
I haven't worked out every aspect of his personality (he's only been played in three games thus far), but he's developing a classic superhero mindset: "My powers put the people I love at risk..."
This raises a point that's worth going over more, too. Despite the impression you might get from these contests, it's OK to not completely develop your character before the game starts.
This is especially true of personality, but I've seen very effective characters that came into a game with a minimal background, and as the game develops more and more of the background develops.
My wife, actually, does this quite a bit because she doesn't really enjoy sitting down to write a backstory. She'll develop her character idea, and come up with a skeleton of a background, as well as a basic personality idea. As the game progresses, she works with the DM to fill in more and more of the details of her background.
For example, I DMed a game where she played a rogue/cleric of Olidammara. All she knew going in was that she wanted to play a "divine trickster" type character, and that she was raised by her older sister. Over time, we developed that her parents were murdered and her sister and brother-in-law took her in. Rosa was young and impressionable, and Quinna (Rosa's sister) lacked a moral compass, so she used her sister to help steal things. Sometimes Rosa was just a lookout, and sometimes she served as a distraction while Quinna picked somebody's pocket. Rosa went along with it because she thought it made Quinna happy.
But that particular detail didn't fall into place in her background until we were about six months into the campaign. The group had two rogues, and very early on my wife and her friend Shannon decided they would be very careful and not overlap "rogue skills." So Shannon took Open Lock and Disable Device, and Sue took Spot and Listen and Sleight of Hand. I don't recall exactly why that part of her background had to develop, but it played into future events.
Anyway, to make a short story long... character develop can most definitely occur over time, rather than all in one sitting. Don't be afraid to leave parts of your background as a skeleton that can be fleshed out in more detail in the future. The most important thing, in my opinion, is having fun. If everybody is having fun, everything else is secondary.
My favorite character I have ever played was Misery, my cleric (and entry into HC#8). When I actually began playing her, she was level 1, and her background was about a page long, and her main character trait was a tendency towards stand-offish-ness. Not actually being capable of roelplaying that trait (I always forgot about it when talking to others), she started developing in a different direction. It occurred to me that the daughter of a two-bit prostitute clawing her way into the most prestigious military academy on the continent had to have an iron will...and rather a complex about her background when she realizes how well off most of her classmates are. And then things progressed further...she developed a fear of leeches when we ran into a swarm of them in the sewers (mostly because I thought it was funny). A big story point fight to which I had raced to get to after having been at another activity all day ended for her in the second round of combat when she got hit with a color spray, and I let her pick up my furious frustration. Things like that.
I definitely am glad that your mom is enjoying our stories, and hope that she does start thinking more about her character. But I agree with some of the others: put her in situations where she has to interact and roleplay, and see what develops. Those characters are the most fun
When my whole family plays together, we do the hack 'n' slash bit because there's seven of us and we all have the same oddball sense of humor. Roleplaying tends to degenerate. Not that we don't have fun, but if anything gets done it's the fighting.
Recently my sister and I lured my mom into more of a roleplaying game. We found out that her idea of PC/NPC interaction is telling the shopkeeper what she wants. She's never seen a Dragon Quest hero make small talk, so neither does she. She acted out a gather information check and she marched right up to this random NPC and told me, "I talk to him, what does he say?" We went through how this was more like real life, he didn't just have a sentence or two assigned to him and she finally caught on.
She decided after I showed her some of these stories that she wanted to totally redo her character because she had a great idea for a half-orc barbarian. Mohib is coming along well now.
From the theme, I then first develop a few key characteristics. For example with Jaheem, I started with his appearance: He's a dark figure, he has a big sword, he is actually good and he leaves an impression. From there, I developed a few key characteristics that he could have mechanically, such as his class(es) and what lead to the combination of classes. Usually I never get that far before the game starts, though.
Then, I just continue fleshing the character out over the course of games or time (PBEM RPG-style), adding what I feel the character needs. And the end result are characters that can leave permanent impressions (for example, I mechanically played Shareena Whiteheart as a level 11 fighter that dual-wielded Bastard Swords (I just got the complete adventurer) that was terrifying according to my group. The DM of the time still recalls that she was giving him the creeps, as his subtle plans often went south when key opponents, rather than talked to, where hacked to pieces before he could shut the trap, etc.
EDIT: I have some background available for Shareena still if anyone wants it.
Its also something that I have found interesting to discover: Actually playing different kinds of RPGs gives you a deep knowledge about how characters can be build, as there is (for example) no mechanical part of any PBEM RPG.
See, I used to buy D&D minis pretty rabidly, and I had just gotten the Dwarf Ancestor mini and the Dwarf Battle Plate Marshal mini had been sighted, and I sort of came up with this idea for a dwarf psion (shaper) with astral constructs that appeared as his ancestors' spirits - he was using psionics to accomplish a mechanical goal. Basically, it was reflavoring.
I started building him for a game with very generous stat generation methods (like, "roll 4d6, reroll 1s, drop the lowest, generate three sets, pick the set you like best" sort of generous). With an 18 CON and INT starting off, he had lots of skill points, and not a lot to spend them on, I found myself contemplating some different sort of skills. This led to taking ranks in profession (brewer) and this generated Gredand Forge:
Gredand Forge
Once, Gredand Forge was a rather happy but unremarkable dwarf. He resided in the city of Waterdeep, plying his one great skill – brewing. Gredand was a skilled brewer, much to the consternation of his family, and he was known for his particular brand of ale. Though not the greatest of brewers, he was very good with his mixtures, and maintained employment at a somewhat popular tavern known as the "Hanging Orc." At the Hanging Orc, Gredand was well liked. He was jovial, paternal, and had a strong affection for several of the regular customers, several of whom were adventurers or planned to become adventurers in due time. Gredand lived comfortably, and had a great deal of friends, even if his family didn't approve much of his trade or his living amidst humans rather than other dwarves. He was happy.
If there was any particular problem with Gredand, it was his other hobby. You see, Gredand was not only skilled at creating brews; he was also very adept at consuming them, as well. While his tolerance for alcohol was greater than most men, he was still known to spend much of his leisure time in a drunken stupor. It was in one of these stupors that the forgotten scion of the Forge family's life took a very peculiar turn...
After brewing a particularly strong batch of "Gredand's Troll Bath," a pungent concoction even at its weakest, Gredand helped himself to more than half of the contents in one sitting. Without eating a bite first. It is said that the dwarf wandered out of his room, reeking of booze and muttering to himself, stumbling in the direction of the wharf. Gredand, however, recalls a very different evening.
The ancestors of the Forge family appeared before him, beckoning him on. Presuming he had finally killed himself, Gredand followed them into the winding stone corridors of his homeland, until, finally, he came upon a great altar of Moradin. The enormous statue of the dwarf-father looked down upon him, and a great, booming voice reverberated throughout the temple.
"Gredand Forge! You have disappointed myself and have left a stain upon the blood of your ancestors. You have forgotten the greatness that is your birthright and abandoned your family. I charge you, therefore, to change your ways, and to bring greatness to your name in honor of those who have come before you. Your ancestors will amass to help you, and you shall be a gateway by which they affect the world at hand. In time, your skill shall grow, and I will call upon you to accomplish a task of dire importance. But, for now, you must simply grow in strength."
So overpowered by Moradin's words was he, that Gredand felt his great strength fail him and his mind reeled as his ancestors chastised him while they filled him with their power. He awoke the next morning in bay, and from that moment on, he could hear the voices of his ancestors speaking to him and guiding him on to greatness.
In no time at all, he called upon his friends at the Hanging Orc and made arrangements to join a party of adventurers who planned on traveling into a nearby dungeon for wealth and greatness. The dungeon was a long and arduous affair, but he bolstered the powers of his ancestors with skill at arms he learned from the half-orc warrior he had known since she was but a child, and his powers yielded great results in many conflicts against kobolds, orcs, and other monsters. His ancestors even materialized in the world to bolster the party's ranks, though Gredand found himself greatly disabled by their transition into the real world.
Sadly, the dungeon was far too dangerous for the ambitious party, and they ran afoul of a group of ogres, lead by a terrible ogre barbarian chieftain. Thanks in large part to Gredand's skill, the party managed to slay the four ogres, but the chieftain was another matter. Despite their best efforts, the party was overmatched by the hulking monster, and Gredand, spent from using too much of his ancestors' power, willingly bought his party the time they needed to retreat. His last sight as the ogre's club came down upon his head was of his friends' reluctant withdrawal.
Though all had thought the old brewer had died, he had instead merely been subdued by the ogre. Greedy more than murderous, the ogre had gathered up his defeated foes and sold them to the hideous Neogi slavers that roamed deep beneath the dungeon. Gredand found himself amidst many other monsters, and, try as he might, he was unable to escape captivity. His ancestral waraxe was taken from him, and he was left, naked and bound, along with many goblins, orcs, humans, and other creatures. The lot were dragged through the winding tunnels of the Underdark until the Neogi found their goal – a city populated by dread illithids. The Mindflayers payed handsomely for the slaves, and many were shortly thereafter devoured. Gredand, miraculously, avoided such a fate, as he was able of body and demonstrated none of the characteristics the illithids expected in a tasty morsel of highly intelligent gray-matter. Instead, he was put to work in their mines alongside many other dwarf slaves, their minds broken and wills sapped. While he worked in the mines, he refused to let the power his ancestors go to waste, and he developed it more and more while no one was watching him closely.
Over time, his ancestors' powers began to bolster his stamina, guide him as he struck with his pick, and even steel him against the blows his captors and fellow captives would periodically heap upon him. Finally, after who-knows how many months or years of captivity, Moradin came once again to the dwarf. He lead him to a small cavern, not yet thoroughly excavated by the slaves of the fell aberrations who even now plotted against the surface. Gredand worked tirelessly throughout the night, away from the prying eyes of his overseers and aided by his skilled ancestors and the strength of the dwarf-father himself. Finally, his pick breached stone and earth, and uncovered a long-lost dwarf tunnel complex. The dwarven peoples who had inhabited the forgotten halls had clearly fallen against the terrible mindflayers themselves, for several bore the characteristic breaches to the skull that marked the illithid's eating habits. Amidst the skeletons of his fallen brethren, he found a dwarven waraxe, carved out of a jet-black crystal, which reacted as Gredand held it aloft. Surely, Moradin had guided him to this place so that he might find freedom again, thought the weary slave. He gathered up what he could gain from the lost forge, and secreted it away where he could gain it again.
Before long, he had formulated an escape plan. Using his new axe and powers, he set upon a small overseer group, slaying one and leaving the other to the tender mercies of his embodied ancestors. He hurried into the tunnels of the Underdark, and followed the spirits as they guided him to the surface. He found himself in the cellar of an old cobbler, who had secretly been working with his illithid masters to provide them with slaves and news from the surface. The old man presented little threat, but Gredand restrained himself and dragged the dominated peasant before his authorities rather than slay him where he stood. He warned the town against the illithid plot beneath their feet, and joined them in their hunt, guiding them through darkness and stone caverns until, at last, they slew the handful of vile aberrations that had been overseeing the region.
Gredand has now dedicated his life to the eradication of the loathsome mindflayers, as well as the other abominations that haunt the Underdark. He holds his waraxe aloft, and trusts in the power of his ancestors to protect his people, and all others, from a fate far worse than simple death.
Appearance
Gredand is a dwarf of strong stature, standing almost four and a half feet tall. His once blond hair has become dry and grayed from his years of hardship, and his carefree face now bears several scars and the wrinkles of stress and worry. His eyes are an intense blue, shining slightly when his ancestors work their will through his flesh and sinew. He carries himself gruffly and seriously, and he has apparently forgotten the pleasures he once drew from mirth and ale.
He wears platemail of fine dwarven make, with a red tabard and a helm adorned with stylized dragon wings of a crimson hue. His red shield is trimmed in gold and emblazoned with the rune of his family, and his waraxe is hewn from a single piece of deep crystal.
Flavor
Gredand views his psionic powers as a gift from his ancestors and Moradin. His Astral Constructs take the form of ghostly dwarven warriors, and he calls many of them by name. His other powers also are interpreted through this lense: Offensive Precognition is his ancestors guiding his strike, while Biofeedback is a blessing his ancestors bestow upon his flesh to protect him from harm. His Psionic Blast ability was gained after watching the actions of the illithids, and is the only power Gredand has that he does not directly attribute to his forebears.
His next level will be in the Illithid Slayer Prestige Class from the XPH. He meets all the requirements, and would greatly benefit from the increasted BAB and skill points.
Gredand Forge
LN Dwarf Psion (Shaper) 6/Fighter 1
Strength: 14 (6 points)
Dexterity: 10 (2 points)
Constitution: 14 (12 (4 points) + 2 Racial Bonus)
Intelligence: 18 (17 (13 points) + 1 Level Bonus)
Wisdom: 11 (3 points)
Charisma: 6 (8 (0 points) - 2 Racial Penalty)
Fortitude: +7 = + 4 Base (+2 Psion 6/ +2 Fighter 1) + 2 Constitution + 1 Resistance
Reflex: +3 = + 2 Base (Psion 6) + 0 Dexterity + 1 Resistance
Will: +6 = +5 Base (Psion 6) + 0 Wisdom + 1 Resistance
BAB/Grapple: +4 (+3 Psion 6/+1 Fighter 1) / +6
Initiative: +0
Armor Class: 21 = 10 + 0 (Dex) + 9 (Armor) + 3 (Shield)
Hit Dice: 44hp = 4 (1st level max) + 12.5 (5d4) + 5.5 (1d10) + 14 (CONx7) + 8 (Psionic Body)
Skills
Bluff -1 = 1 rank (Psion) - 2 Charisma
Concentration +11 = 9 ranks + 2 Constitution
Intimidate -1 = 1 rank (Fighter) - 2 Charisma
Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +8 = 4 ranks + 4 Intelligence
Knowledge (Psionics) +13 = 9 ranks + 4 Intelligence
Profession (Brewer) +4 = 4 ranks
Psicraft +15 = 9 ranks + 4 Intelligence + 2 Synergy (Know: Psi)
Survival (cc) +4 = 4 ranks (2 from fighter, 2 from Psion)
Feats (note: FB - Fighter Bonus / PB - Psion Bonus)
1st Level
- Overchannel (XPH p. 49)
- Talented (PB) (XPH p. 51)
2nd Level
- Weapon Focus (Dwarven Waraxe) (FB)
3rd Level
- Boost Construct (XPH p. 43)
6th Level
- Track
- Psionic Body (PB) (XPH p. 49)
Proficiencies
All simple and martial weapons. All types of armor and shields, including Tower Shields.
Powers Known (Shaper Discipline) (Listed in order acquired)
1st Level
- Astral Construct
- Mind Thrust
- Disable
- Precognition; Offensive
- Vigor
2nd Level
- Biofeedback
- Energy Stun
- Ego Whip
- Inflict Pain
3rd Level
- Keen Edge; Psionic
- Energy Burst
- Psionic Blast
- Body Adjustment
Power Point Reserve 47 (35 (Psion 6) + 12 (18 INT @ 6th level Manifester)
Save DC 14 + Power Level + Augmented DC
Equipment (19,000 gp total character wealth)
+1 Full Plate of Quickness (5,650 gp) - +8 AC bonus, -5 Armor Check Penalty, +5' Base Speed (XPH p. 163)
+1 Shield, Heavy, Wooden (1,157 gp)
+1 Deep Crystal Dwarven Waraxe (XPH p. 182) (3,330 gp)
4 Potion of Cure Light Wounds (200 gp = 50 gp each)
Everburning Torch (110 gp)
Cloak of Resistance + 1 (1,000 gp)
Brooch of Shielding (1,500 gp)
Lens of Detection (3,500 gp)
Dorje of Inertial Armor (750 gp)
MW Mighty Composite Longbow (+ 2 STR) (600 gp)
50 Arrows (50 gp)
Pouch, Belt (1 gp)
Bedroll (1 sp)
Blanket, Winter (5 sp)
Caltrops (1 gp)
Rope, silk. 50 ft. (10 gp)
Waterskin (1 gp)
Whetstone (2 cp)
Tent (10 gp)
Rations, trail. 5 days (25 sp)
Antitoxin vial (50 gp)
Club (0 gp)
Remaining Money: 1,076 gp, 8 sp, 8 cp (He's saving up to get an Aberration Bane enchantment put upon his axe.
If there was any particular problem with Gredand, it was his other hobby. You see, Gredand was not only skilled at creating brews; he was also very adept at consuming them, as well. While his tolerance for alcohol was greater than most men, he was still known to spend much of his leisure time in a drunken stupor. It was in one of these stupors that the forgotten scion of the Forge family's life took a very peculiar turn...
After brewing a particularly strong batch of "Gredand's Troll Bath," a pungent concoction even at its weakest, Gredand helped himself to more than half of the contents in one sitting. Without eating a bite first. It is said that the dwarf wandered out of his room, reeking of booze and muttering to himself, stumbling in the direction of the wharf. Gredand, however, recalls a very different evening.
The ancestors of the Forge family appeared before him, beckoning him on. Presuming he had finally killed himself, Gredand followed them into the winding stone corridors of his homeland, until, finally, he came upon a great altar of Moradin. The enormous statue of the dwarf-father looked down upon him, and a great, booming voice reverberated throughout the temple.
"Gredand Forge! You have disappointed myself and have left a stain upon the blood of your ancestors. You have forgotten the greatness that is your birthright and abandoned your family. I charge you, therefore, to change your ways, and to bring greatness to your name in honor of those who have come before you. Your ancestors will amass to help you, and you shall be a gateway by which they affect the world at hand. In time, your skill shall grow, and I will call upon you to accomplish a task of dire importance. But, for now, you must simply grow in strength."
So overpowered by Moradin's words was he, that Gredand felt his great strength fail him and his mind reeled as his ancestors chastised him while they filled him with their power. He awoke the next morning in bay, and from that moment on, he could hear the voices of his ancestors speaking to him and guiding him on to greatness.
In no time at all, he called upon his friends at the Hanging Orc and made arrangements to join a party of adventurers who planned on traveling into a nearby dungeon for wealth and greatness. The dungeon was a long and arduous affair, but he bolstered the powers of his ancestors with skill at arms he learned from the half-orc warrior he had known since she was but a child, and his powers yielded great results in many conflicts against kobolds, orcs, and other monsters. His ancestors even materialized in the world to bolster the party's ranks, though Gredand found himself greatly disabled by their transition into the real world.
Sadly, the dungeon was far too dangerous for the ambitious party, and they ran afoul of a group of ogres, lead by a terrible ogre barbarian chieftain. Thanks in large part to Gredand's skill, the party managed to slay the four ogres, but the chieftain was another matter. Despite their best efforts, the party was overmatched by the hulking monster, and Gredand, spent from using too much of his ancestors' power, willingly bought his party the time they needed to retreat. His last sight as the ogre's club came down upon his head was of his friends' reluctant withdrawal.
Though all had thought the old brewer had died, he had instead merely been subdued by the ogre. Greedy more than murderous, the ogre had gathered up his defeated foes and sold them to the hideous Neogi slavers that roamed deep beneath the dungeon. Gredand found himself amidst many other monsters, and, try as he might, he was unable to escape captivity. His ancestral waraxe was taken from him, and he was left, naked and bound, along with many goblins, orcs, humans, and other creatures. The lot were dragged through the winding tunnels of the Underdark until the Neogi found their goal – a city populated by dread illithids. The Mindflayers payed handsomely for the slaves, and many were shortly thereafter devoured. Gredand, miraculously, avoided such a fate, as he was able of body and demonstrated none of the characteristics the illithids expected in a tasty morsel of highly intelligent gray-matter. Instead, he was put to work in their mines alongside many other dwarf slaves, their minds broken and wills sapped. While he worked in the mines, he refused to let the power his ancestors go to waste, and he developed it more and more while no one was watching him closely.
Over time, his ancestors' powers began to bolster his stamina, guide him as he struck with his pick, and even steel him against the blows his captors and fellow captives would periodically heap upon him. Finally, after who-knows how many months or years of captivity, Moradin came once again to the dwarf. He lead him to a small cavern, not yet thoroughly excavated by the slaves of the fell aberrations who even now plotted against the surface. Gredand worked tirelessly throughout the night, away from the prying eyes of his overseers and aided by his skilled ancestors and the strength of the dwarf-father himself. Finally, his pick breached stone and earth, and uncovered a long-lost dwarf tunnel complex. The dwarven peoples who had inhabited the forgotten halls had clearly fallen against the terrible mindflayers themselves, for several bore the characteristic breaches to the skull that marked the illithid's eating habits. Amidst the skeletons of his fallen brethren, he found a dwarven waraxe, carved out of a jet-black crystal, which reacted as Gredand held it aloft. Surely, Moradin had guided him to this place so that he might find freedom again, thought the weary slave. He gathered up what he could gain from the lost forge, and secreted it away where he could gain it again.
Before long, he had formulated an escape plan. Using his new axe and powers, he set upon a small overseer group, slaying one and leaving the other to the tender mercies of his embodied ancestors. He hurried into the tunnels of the Underdark, and followed the spirits as they guided him to the surface. He found himself in the cellar of an old cobbler, who had secretly been working with his illithid masters to provide them with slaves and news from the surface. The old man presented little threat, but Gredand restrained himself and dragged the dominated peasant before his authorities rather than slay him where he stood. He warned the town against the illithid plot beneath their feet, and joined them in their hunt, guiding them through darkness and stone caverns until, at last, they slew the handful of vile aberrations that had been overseeing the region.
Gredand has now dedicated his life to the eradication of the loathsome mindflayers, as well as the other abominations that haunt the Underdark. He holds his waraxe aloft, and trusts in the power of his ancestors to protect his people, and all others, from a fate far worse than simple death.
Appearance
Gredand is a dwarf of strong stature, standing almost four and a half feet tall. His once blond hair has become dry and grayed from his years of hardship, and his carefree face now bears several scars and the wrinkles of stress and worry. His eyes are an intense blue, shining slightly when his ancestors work their will through his flesh and sinew. He carries himself gruffly and seriously, and he has apparently forgotten the pleasures he once drew from mirth and ale.
He wears platemail of fine dwarven make, with a red tabard and a helm adorned with stylized dragon wings of a crimson hue. His red shield is trimmed in gold and emblazoned with the rune of his family, and his waraxe is hewn from a single piece of deep crystal.
Flavor
Gredand views his psionic powers as a gift from his ancestors and Moradin. His Astral Constructs take the form of ghostly dwarven warriors, and he calls many of them by name. His other powers also are interpreted through this lense: Offensive Precognition is his ancestors guiding his strike, while Biofeedback is a blessing his ancestors bestow upon his flesh to protect him from harm. His Psionic Blast ability was gained after watching the actions of the illithids, and is the only power Gredand has that he does not directly attribute to his forebears.
His next level will be in the Illithid Slayer Prestige Class from the XPH. He meets all the requirements, and would greatly benefit from the increasted BAB and skill points.
Gredand Forge
LN Dwarf Psion (Shaper) 6/Fighter 1
Strength: 14 (6 points)
Dexterity: 10 (2 points)
Constitution: 14 (12 (4 points) + 2 Racial Bonus)
Intelligence: 18 (17 (13 points) + 1 Level Bonus)
Wisdom: 11 (3 points)
Charisma: 6 (8 (0 points) - 2 Racial Penalty)
Fortitude: +7 = + 4 Base (+2 Psion 6/ +2 Fighter 1) + 2 Constitution + 1 Resistance
Reflex: +3 = + 2 Base (Psion 6) + 0 Dexterity + 1 Resistance
Will: +6 = +5 Base (Psion 6) + 0 Wisdom + 1 Resistance
BAB/Grapple: +4 (+3 Psion 6/+1 Fighter 1) / +6
Initiative: +0
Armor Class: 21 = 10 + 0 (Dex) + 9 (Armor) + 3 (Shield)
Hit Dice: 44hp = 4 (1st level max) + 12.5 (5d4) + 5.5 (1d10) + 14 (CONx7) + 8 (Psionic Body)
Skills
Bluff -1 = 1 rank (Psion) - 2 Charisma
Concentration +11 = 9 ranks + 2 Constitution
Intimidate -1 = 1 rank (Fighter) - 2 Charisma
Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +8 = 4 ranks + 4 Intelligence
Knowledge (Psionics) +13 = 9 ranks + 4 Intelligence
Profession (Brewer) +4 = 4 ranks
Psicraft +15 = 9 ranks + 4 Intelligence + 2 Synergy (Know: Psi)
Survival (cc) +4 = 4 ranks (2 from fighter, 2 from Psion)
Feats (note: FB - Fighter Bonus / PB - Psion Bonus)
1st Level
- Overchannel (XPH p. 49)
- Talented (PB) (XPH p. 51)
2nd Level
- Weapon Focus (Dwarven Waraxe) (FB)
3rd Level
- Boost Construct (XPH p. 43)
6th Level
- Track
- Psionic Body (PB) (XPH p. 49)
Proficiencies
All simple and martial weapons. All types of armor and shields, including Tower Shields.
Powers Known (Shaper Discipline) (Listed in order acquired)
1st Level
- Astral Construct
- Mind Thrust
- Disable
- Precognition; Offensive
- Vigor
2nd Level
- Biofeedback
- Energy Stun
- Ego Whip
- Inflict Pain
3rd Level
- Keen Edge; Psionic
- Energy Burst
- Psionic Blast
- Body Adjustment
Power Point Reserve 47 (35 (Psion 6) + 12 (18 INT @ 6th level Manifester)
Save DC 14 + Power Level + Augmented DC
Equipment (19,000 gp total character wealth)
+1 Full Plate of Quickness (5,650 gp) - +8 AC bonus, -5 Armor Check Penalty, +5' Base Speed (XPH p. 163)
+1 Shield, Heavy, Wooden (1,157 gp)
+1 Deep Crystal Dwarven Waraxe (XPH p. 182) (3,330 gp)
4 Potion of Cure Light Wounds (200 gp = 50 gp each)
Everburning Torch (110 gp)
Cloak of Resistance + 1 (1,000 gp)
Brooch of Shielding (1,500 gp)
Lens of Detection (3,500 gp)
Dorje of Inertial Armor (750 gp)
MW Mighty Composite Longbow (+ 2 STR) (600 gp)
50 Arrows (50 gp)
Pouch, Belt (1 gp)
Bedroll (1 sp)
Blanket, Winter (5 sp)
Caltrops (1 gp)
Rope, silk. 50 ft. (10 gp)
Waterskin (1 gp)
Whetstone (2 cp)
Tent (10 gp)
Rations, trail. 5 days (25 sp)
Antitoxin vial (50 gp)
Club (0 gp)
Remaining Money: 1,076 gp, 8 sp, 8 cp (He's saving up to get an Aberration Bane enchantment put upon his axe.
So guys....ya done yet?
WHAT?!?!?!
...in all in sincerity, I'm about to hit a delay. School's going to set me back two days, starting tomorrow...
If I have to give an estimation, I'll either get scores to Z on Thursday afternoon, or next week Tuesday (weekends are rough...).
no judges
I've only gone through the background of the entries but its all quality stuff.
Only if some of the people I play with came with backgrounds like these.
Only if some of the people I play with came with backgrounds like these. no judgesI've only gone through the background of the entries but its all quality stuff.
gory details - fo' real
I've spent the last 3 days or so barfing up my intestines.
I've spent the last 3 days or so barfing up my intestines.
There will be a slight delay in scores. Likely timeframe is middle next week. If anybody wants the gory details:gory details - fo' real
I've spent the last 3 days or so barfing up my intestines.
Barf Dance! Barf Dance! Wha-?
Grow up?! Nevah!
Get better dude! Barfin's the sucky bats!
Psst--everybody, that means send in your bribes now!
Once I do get electricity back, I will have to deal with some school-work related issues that were also delayed by the loss of power, but hopefully, I will be able to finish work by Sunday...
...if nothing else goes wrong.
Very sorry guys.
For those of you who I haven't successfully scored yet, and who haven't gotten around to sending your usual "gifts," may I recommend hot water?
I am seriously sick of cold showers right now!!!
Hey guys, there will be a serious delay in my finishing scores. Kentucky was hit by a powerful wind storm a few days ago, and my electricity is completely out. I have been told that it will be restored by tomorrow (I'll believe it when I see it), but the lack of electricity has left me unable to access the scores for the entries that I have completed.
Once I do get electricity back, I will have to deal with some school-work related issues that were also delayed by the loss of power, but hopefully, I will be able to finish work by Sunday...
...if nothing else goes wrong.
My sympathies. We were only out for 36 hours, and that was bad enough! Hope it gets back on soon!
On another note....anyone have a break enchantment or remove curse handy to cast on the judges of this competition?
My sympathies. We were only out for 36 hours, and that was bad enough! Hope it gets back on soon!
My parents in Virginia were hit, though not too badly; I'm in college in New York, though, so I'm fine. :D
On another note....anyone have a break enchantment or remove curse handy to cast on the judges of this competition?
*riffles through pockets* Dammit, I knew I forgot to pack something....
As an update, I'm catching up on my entirely electronic school work (man, that storm picked the perfect weekend to hit...), and I should have my home computer repaired by tomorrow (no major worries there), so hopefully, I will get back to work tomorrow night.
I am out of town this weekend, so my estimation of Sunday will probably stand.
So, judges.....are you done yet, or must I roll out the adorable pathetic face of DOOM?
(yeah, I know Jason said Sunday.....I just felt like being annoying when I bumped the thread.
)As a general update, this was my original schedule for today:
-Church
-Lunch
-Catch up on Scoring
-Evening Church
-Send Scores to Z
Here is how my day has progressed thus far (please note any subtle changes):
-Church
-Lunch
-BEE INFESTATION!!!
As such, it will be later tonight when I get to dive back into my scoring routine. If Z chooses to wait for my scores, it will probably be tomorrow afternoon before I get them posted.
When I find out which one of you decided to cast Insect Swarm...
-- wake up
-- get a cup of coffee
-- watch the power go out for the whole. damn. day.
-- call the power company, to have them say, "What power outage?"
-- twiddle thumbs
-- turn on work laptop, then remember that without an internet connect it's just a giant paperweight
We got power back about... 2 hours ago? little less?
Your Sunday went slightly better than mine. My Sunday schedule went:
-- wake up
-- get a cup of coffee
-- watch the power go out for the whole. damn. day.
-- call the power company, to have them say, "What power outage?"
-- twiddle thumbs
-- turn on work laptop, then remember that without an internet connect it's just a giant paperweight
We got power back about... 2 hours ago? little less?
That's why I keep a blue dragon in the basement. It's a quick fix generator, it takes care of annoying neighbors and solicitors, it keeps the cats company and it takes care of itself.
That's why I keep a blue dragon in the basement. It's a quick fix generator, it takes care of annoying neighbors and solicitors, it keeps the cats company and it takes care of itself.
Amateur.
Shocker lizards, my friend. They're easier to control, they're smaller, they eat less, and if they try to fight you you can kill and animate them to power a regular generate by running tirelessly in a hamster wheel.
...guess that's the price you pay. Aberrations: good for global domination, bad for green living (unless, of course, you're referring to your skin color after a few years exposure).
:coolcthul
Judging update: apparently, I'm not the only severely cursed judge. While I don't know specifics, I can at least fill you all in on my status. I am going to be side-tracked through tomorrow evening, and I won't get to start working again until Thursday night. While I hope I can post scores Friday, I'm going to say Saturday given my recent string of luck.
She puts trash over our fence into our yard, she came over and KICKED our dog! He's a sweet natured border collie. He ran right up to her and BLAMMO! Yerp! Poor dog! I called the cops and made her wait until they got to my house on that one. They took one look at how scared my dog was of her and they gave her a ticket too.
We actually gave the pup to a farmer because we caught her kicking him again later and the police won't do anything else. Lucky our cats are only inside!
So yeah, neighbor eating dragon for the win. Whadda think o' my NEW dog
?!She's not got much longer before I make a suggestion that she either be put in a funny farm or nursing home, (or even put down would be okay) and we can let our pets outside again without fearing for their safety.
Demons are the answer! I'm not sure that she doesn't walk with them about half the time anyway. She's a fruitcake. I am nice. I do my best to be kind to everyone but that lady stretches my limits.
I woke up with a spider squished to my face this evening and felt bad for killing it, but I find my idle time taken up with thoughts of how best to deal with her.
I think I'm going Craaaaaaaaaaazy!
...do you know how hard it is to get potential mind slaves out of the Infinite Layers of the Abyss?
Although, it is important to keep your creatures divided according to purpose & utility. For example, my aberration minions are grouped according to "Phase #." Group #3 should be reporting in around Nov. 6th... ;)
No demons either ,huh? I can understand your point of view though. It would be a mess, I'm sure.
I could always go the owlbear route, but I don't mind my neighbor dude, nor the neighbors on the other side. I would hate like anything to see it caught and stuffed in a zoo too. Heaven only knows what would happen next. They'd probably start calling it "Sasquatch" or something! :D
...do you know how hard it is to get potential mind slaves out of the Infinite Layers of the Abyss?
As a matter of fact, yes: Not hard at all. Cast an arcane mark on your target surreptitiously; when they are killed (eventually, and not too soon :devil
, their corpse becomes an inanimate object. One Drawmij's instant summons and either a revivify or resurrection later, you have your mind slave back and unharmed.:D
While I hope I can post scores Friday, I'm going to say Saturday given my recent string of luck.
I will have to remember those things if I have any bad neighbors in our new place....I thought that perhaps the evil demon cats would be enough, but....
I have a couple of those myself. I've found if you are waiting on them to attack the neighbors, heck! if you're waiting on them to do anything though, you're backing up.
AND, I'm a Mind Flayer in a Priest's outfit... how could I possibly tick off a greater deity?!?!
...
...
...
...on second thought, don't answer that...
AND, I'm a Mind Flayer in a Priest's outfit... how could I possibly tick off a greater deity?!?!
...
...
...
...on second thought, don't answer that...
Where do you live, exactly? 'Cause I want to make sure I'm far enough away from the lightning bolts and smiting when they finally show up.
Hey! As the Mind Flayer in a Priest outfit, I have to object to the use of demons for tormenting of neighbors...
You could Aversion on the woman: she would stay away from your yard if it worked. You are a Mind Flayer...you do have psionics, right?
Oh, and Bees love Mind Flayers. So that might be your problem there.
Where do you live, exactly? 'Cause I want to make sure I'm far enough away from the lightning bolts and smiting when they finally show up.
Somewhere in Kentucky, as I remember it. Sadly, not close enough to where I live in KY. Seems to me it'd be fun to game with the mind flaying priest...
If I remember correctly, I think Mercurius & jennibert are from around Louisville, right? Only 2 1/2 hours from my current residence...
Although, Eldritch, I should warn you, I travel a lot. If the lightning comes when I'm on the road, you might be in trouble.
Although, Eldritch, I should warn you, I travel a lot. If the lightning comes when I'm on the road, you might be in trouble.
Just avoid New York until you get scores in and you should be fine. Or rather, I should be fine, and that's what I'm concerned about. ;)
Good News: My computer has been repaired, and is running great!
Bad News: An elder at my church passed away tonight, and as such, I will be tied up for a few days.
As such, I can not offer a reasonable guess as to when I will finish scores. Thought you'd at least appreciate an update.
Good news & Bad news:
Good News: My computer has been repaired, and is running great!
Bad News: An elder at my church passed away tonight, and as such, I will be tied up for a few days.
As such, I can not offer a reasonable guess as to when I will finish scores. Thought you'd at least appreciate an update.
"Passed away." Yeah. I'm sure there was no brain-extracting involved, Mr. Illithid-in-a-Roman-collar.
More seriously, that obviously takes precedence over the contest. Take your time and do the scores when you can.
I like the comments. That's part of why I think I'm a crappy judge - I'm terrible about actually posting commentary on entries.
I would hate to do that to someone that worked so hard on an entry. I hope I never have the opportunity to judge. I don't think I'll ever have to worry about it though, thankfully.
I'm quite determined to get done with my scores this week. To the point where I'm seriously considering calling in sick from work so I can spend a full day working on it if necessary. I feel downright terrible that this has gone on this long.
I'd feel weird commenting on others' entries. I can tell people how cool the ideas are all day long, but if one should fall in the bucket of craptitude, I couldn't think of a tactful way to say such a thing. I'd inevitably end up sticking a few awkward things like, "well, your grammar wasn't too bad" or something.
One of the great things about these contests is the comments. Getting feedback from the judges is great; but in my opinion, the feedback from the other contestants is even better.
If you have feedback for somebody, please share. You don't have to comment on every entry -- if you think one person did a great job, then say so. And tell them why. Even if you only comment on one or two entries, your feedback means a lot to the people who create the character.
I would hate to do that to someone that worked so hard on an entry. I hope I never have the opportunity to judge. I don't think I'll ever have to worry about it though, thankfully.
Judging is entirely voluntary, so don't sweat it; if you become eligible but don't want to, you don't have to.
so judges... do we have to wait for the next millennium for the results?
Time is irrelevant, resistance is irrelevant. You will be assimilated.
Patience comes with age.
I'm torn between two extremes...
Half of me wants to rush through the scores like lightning, but to get them posted in a quicker time frame would mean I would barely skim the surface of the characters. This would mean that my feedback would be thread-bare and nigh unto useless... but you would have scores & a winner.
The other half of me believes that the primary purpose of this competition is to help contestants improve their abilities as players & hero "craftsmen," which means that detailed commentary is almost a must-have.
What really throws a kink in my plans: Since I have already completed some of the scores, it wouldn't be fair to "rush through" my remaining entries. However, if I take the detailed, critical approach, it requires that mythological entity called "free time."
The lack of energy that comes from several high-strain events isn't helping the situation much. I know that nothing I've said here gives even an iota of a time frame for the scores to get posted, but you at least deserve an honest statement of the causes for this delay. Know I am trying, and that ,surely, my "discover free time" checks can't keep botching forever.
/Jason
(WARNING: The use of Fibble's Freedom Potion may lead to tardiness under working conditions and as a result may cause a loss of employment. Fibbles Luck and Charms cannot be held accountable for such losses.)
Schtuff happens. Nothing to be done but grab what you can as it comes by.
I've waited this long. What's another month or two? ;)
Maybe I'll look out that Time stop spell I've got lying around somewhere and send it over for you.
Basically, life has managed to kick me in the stones. Some of it's good (I've secured more freelance writing work than I can handle, it seems). Some of it's not so good (stuff I don't want to get into).
I've made some progress; but like Jason, I basically refuse to rush through the entries. That's not fair, in my opinion, to entrants. I'm thinking that by this time next week, I'll be done. A lot of my freelance work clears out shortly, so hopefully I can find the dozen or so hours I need to complete the work.
That said, I'm going to bump the "main" thread and recommend basic discussion of HC19 get under way. I don't want these contests to lose all their momentum by sitting idly.
[shameless self promotion]
Recent work includes several "Monday Monsters" on the Kobold Quarterly site, including Skinned Tom, the Jersey Devil, and le Nain Rouge. All are monsters based on modern myths and legends, and there's more to come.
On the editing side, I'm a staff editor (and columnist) for Phoenix Lore Magazine. Phoenix Lore is (more or less) the spiritual successor to the Knowledge Arcana magazine that used to be produced by WotC based upon submissions from the forum community.
[/shameless self promotion]
All of the above are free to whomever wants 'em. I can certainly post more shameless self promotions for paid products, if anybody is curious. ;)
I thought it was a neat story and I looked it up to see if there was any rumor about there being a gryphon roaming the woods behind the college like they thought. I couldn't find anything about it, but the idea stays with me.
I'd never heard of Skinner Tom before, nor le Nain Rouge. Those are great monsters to add to my Folklore campaign. That was some good advertising on your part as well. I'd never heard of either of those, but now I'll certainly be checking them out in great depth.
I spent most of the afternoon yesterday cutting drywall out of my ceiling and cleaning up my rugs. Today I'll actually be fixing the toilet, and later in the week (hopefully) patching the drywall.Finishing my scores (I'm more than halfway, might be as much as three-quarters of the way) is my second-highest priority, right behind some editing work I need to get done.
So, I am offering an ESTIMATE that I will be able to submit my scores to Z by Nov. 8th.
Granted, that's assuming that my free days aren't actually my next "regularly scheduled emergency."
With that latest emergency set aside, I was actually able to get quite a bit of my editing and writing work that has piled up out of the way! double yay! Barring anything else going wrong in my life, I expect to be done with my scores (and, therefore, comments) this week. I'd say it would be possible to be done by midweek, but I don't want to jinx things!
somebody, do not divide the results with zero...Actually, my fortunes have reversed this week. Where once, fate conspired against me, now it works in my favor. I still have two more entries to judge, and I have a lot of homework to do today, or at least I had a lot of homework. One of the teachers offered a very welcome extension to the class, which means I have half as much work as I anticipated. I should finish up here at school in about an hour, at which point I can go home and get this mess straitened out.
I don't know if Z will get scores posted tonight, but I should have my scores to him by 10:00 tonight.
Spoke to soon... car trouble...
Spoke to soon... car trouble...
Get a bicycle
.PEEEDAAAAL POWER!
[/Dutchmode :invasion:]
Before we delve into the individual character comments, I'm gonna take a brief moment to explain the format for those who have never had their entries reviewed by me. I break my comments down into three sections: math, background, and other.
Math Anything having to do with your character's stats is here. That might be a math related item, such as your AC or saves being wrong; or it might be a comment about equipment choices; or it might be me mentioning a problem with your languages; or it might be a rant about something I dislike. The point, though, is that it isn't all math stuff directly. Instead, it's details about your character sheet.
Background I'll talk about your fluff here. It might be a question about something that wasn't clear; or a comment about not having much to go on. General rule of thumb: I view your background as two things. First, it's a guide for you about your character's past. Second, it's a guide for your DM to allow him/her to tailor future encounters so that you're more directly invested in the outcome. In that regard, there's some basic things I expect to see -- plot hooks, personality, allies, adversaries, family. You don't have to explicitly list them -- for example, you don't need to write a paragraph about your character's personality. But I should be able to get an idea of what to expect based on what you have. And so on.
Other This is the catch-all. If it isn't directly crunch or fluff related, it's here. I might mention how much I like a class or race you used; I might tell you that I really liked your presentation. Whatever. If it's not in the first two categories, it's here. Not every character has an "other" section for comments.
On to the characters!
Jaheem the Redeemed
Math
Interesting little quirk in the rules. There's no "human" subtype.
By my math, you should have 69 hit points.
You get max at first level (6), 3.5 for each additional warlock level (a total of 14), 5.5 for each fighter level (a total of 22), and 27 from your Con. 6 + 14 + 22 + 27 = 69.
*
I don't see your actual ability scores listed anywhere. Did I miss them somehow? This makes it tough to verify your character. I can grab your ability bonuses from various places (AC, skills, etc). But I have no way to verify you spent your points correctly.
*
Assuming you have a +0 Wisdom modifier, these check out. Of course, I can't confirm that's true.
This is technically incorrect. Combat Casting only gives you a +4 bonus to cast defensively. For all other uses of the Concentration skill (such as to cast while suffering from continuous damage), it doesn't apply. The better way to list this is something like:
[indent]Concentration +11 (+15 to cast defensively)[/indent]
On a purely min/max note, if you're going to spend a feat on this, it's probably better to take Skill Focus. The bonus is one point less (+3 instead of +4), but it applies to everything.
You missed the synergy Bluff grants on Disguise checks.
8 + 2 + 4 = 14
Two general notes on skills. I find it's easier to reference when they're in alphabetical order. This doesn't affect your score, it's just a comment. Second, I like to see Listen and Spot listed for every character, even when they have no ranks. Again, it doesn't impact your score.
Just another optimization note: you'll get much more bang for your buck by spending that 2250 gp on three wands of cure light wounds instead. With one potion, you get 3d8+5 hit points; with one wand (which costs the same as the potion) you'd get 50d8+50 hit points. Now, yes, the potion will return more hit points to you in any one use. But in the long run, you're better off with the wand.
This only costs 300 gold pieces.
In the first case, you listed the extended price. In the second, you listed the unit price. I caught it, but it caused a tiny bit of confusion for me. It's best to stick to one or the other.
With the exception of paying 200 gold too much for the one potion, your gold checks out. Basically, you have more "pocket change" than you thought -- which is a "better" mistake than not having enough.
Finally, Jason is going to point out that your character must be naked, because you don't have clothing listed in your possessions list.
Overall, I think you picked a very poor multiclass combo. There's precious little synergy between warlock and fighter, and you've lessened that synergy by gearing your fighter feats towards the longsword rather than your eldritch blast. I'm quite certain your character would have a difficult time surviving level-appropriate challenges, even in a group.
Background
You're certainly not the first person to go with this sort of angle in a story. And yet, I still find it completely unbelievable. I have a really hard time understanding why a seriously evil dude would take in a 10 year little brat just because the kid asked. *shrug*
Another common theme in stories. However, this I find completely believable. At least, as far as homicide by magic can be, anyway.
This is great for either a solo game or a story. Overall, though, neither of those are really the goal of these contests. In theory, you're making a character that'll join an existing party (or become part of a brand new party). Given that, it's very unlikely NPCs would follow your character around (unless he had the Leadership feat of course). That said, I understand the stylistic intent, so really no biggie.
In addition, he sure has a lot of high-level allies!
I would've preferred to see his allies and enemies woven into his backstory, rather than just listed. Telling me he's friends with an 18th level barbarian or enemies with 15th level assassin is one thing; weaving that into his backstory is another, though. Make the NPCs in his life an actual part of his story.
That's an awfully advanced ECL for somebody who's only 18!
This is completely unbelievable. Unless Doh is completely incompetent, he could kill Celia just by sneezing on her. In fact, Celia is so easy for Doh to defeat, he wouldn't even get XP for doing so.
This one is also unbeleivable (to me) for the same reason. If an assasin of this caliber wanted Jaheem dead, he'd be dead. I suppose you tried to cover for this a bit, but I still find it difficult to buy that our hero has such a high level enemy and still lives.
Now this villian I like. As a DM I can get into this, and use Xento in interesting and amusing ways. As mentioned above, however, it would've been even cooler if the NPC's details were actually woven into the hero's story.
This section would be great if you were building an NPC patron. But you're not; you're building a hero, somebody who will be one of the PCs - not somebody who hires the PCs.
As DM, I wouldn't allow either of those. *shrug*
Overall, your background is OK, but I think it could've been so much better. There's so much you could've explored - integrating your friends and foes, telling more of his life story, exploring some of his key battles that earned him XP, delving deeper into his conversion from evil to good. There's a lot of great touch points, and I really would've liked to have seen some of those explored more deeply, if for no other reason than to show what sort of person he was/is.
Other
Generally speaking, I'd prefer fewer sblocks. You may hear the same thing from Jason, but probably for a different reason. I know he (and a lot of other judges) copies the info into Word and works from there; and sblocks make that a bit tougher. For me, it's all about presentation; I like to see the background and other fluffy bits more as a story, and it's tough sometimes to read that story when it's scattered across multiple sblocks.
I enjoyed the "quotes" section. They really help frame the character's mindset.
Your entry really could've made great use of Book of Exalted Deeds! There's lots of great stuff in that book for a character of this ilk.
Overall, you made decent enough references to non-core material that I was able to find it.
Jaheem didn't really feel like an "action hero" to me. He'd be a great entry in a "redeemed villian" theme, but I'm not so convinced he fits the theme of this contest.
I do hope we see more of your characters in future contests. You have great potential with your character-building.
Math
Medium humanoid (human)
Interesting little quirk in the rules. There's no "human" subtype.
HD 5d6+15 plus 4d10+12 (79hp)
By my math, you should have 69 hit points.
You get max at first level (6), 3.5 for each additional warlock level (a total of 14), 5.5 for each fighter level (a total of 22), and 27 from your Con. 6 + 14 + 22 + 27 = 69.
*
I don't see your actual ability scores listed anywhere. Did I miss them somehow? This makes it tough to verify your character. I can grab your ability bonuses from various places (AC, skills, etc). But I have no way to verify you spent your points correctly.
*
Saves: Fort +8, Ref +4, Will +5
Assuming you have a +0 Wisdom modifier, these check out. Of course, I can't confirm that's true.
Concentration = 8 (points) + 4 (feat) + 3 (CON) = +15
This is technically incorrect. Combat Casting only gives you a +4 bonus to cast defensively. For all other uses of the Concentration skill (such as to cast while suffering from continuous damage), it doesn't apply. The better way to list this is something like:
[indent]Concentration +11 (+15 to cast defensively)[/indent]
On a purely min/max note, if you're going to spend a feat on this, it's probably better to take Skill Focus. The bonus is one point less (+3 instead of +4), but it applies to everything.
You missed the synergy Bluff grants on Disguise checks.
Bluff = 8 (points) + 2 (feat) + 4 (CHA) = +13 (17!)
8 + 2 + 4 = 14
Two general notes on skills. I find it's easier to reference when they're in alphabetical order. This doesn't affect your score, it's just a comment. Second, I like to see Listen and Spot listed for every character, even when they have no ranks. Again, it doesn't impact your score.
Potion of Cure Serious Wounds (x3), 750gp
Just another optimization note: you'll get much more bang for your buck by spending that 2250 gp on three wands of cure light wounds instead. With one potion, you get 3d8+5 hit points; with one wand (which costs the same as the potion) you'd get 50d8+50 hit points. Now, yes, the potion will return more hit points to you in any one use. But in the long run, you're better off with the wand.
Potion of Cure Moderate Wounds, 500gp
This only costs 300 gold pieces.
Scroll of Expeditious Retreat (x3), 75gp
...
Potion of Cure Serious Wounds (x3), 750gp
In the first case, you listed the extended price. In the second, you listed the unit price. I caught it, but it caused a tiny bit of confusion for me. It's best to stick to one or the other.
With the exception of paying 200 gold too much for the one potion, your gold checks out. Basically, you have more "pocket change" than you thought -- which is a "better" mistake than not having enough.
Finally, Jason is going to point out that your character must be naked, because you don't have clothing listed in your possessions list.
Overall, I think you picked a very poor multiclass combo. There's precious little synergy between warlock and fighter, and you've lessened that synergy by gearing your fighter feats towards the longsword rather than your eldritch blast. I'm quite certain your character would have a difficult time surviving level-appropriate challenges, even in a group.
Background
When he was 10, he saw how a strange man vaporised 2 guards on the middle of the street. While the other people had fled, Jaheem had asked them man to be his mentor. The man had agreed and together they had left.
You're certainly not the first person to go with this sort of angle in a story. And yet, I still find it completely unbelievable. I have a really hard time understanding why a seriously evil dude would take in a 10 year little brat just because the kid asked. *shrug*
At 17 years of age, he returned home to his family and sacrificed them all to the altar of Shar, erasing all of his past with them.
Another common theme in stories. However, this I find completely believable. At least, as far as homicide by magic can be, anyway.
He still has a number of important allies that frequent accompany him for longer or shorter amounts of time.
This is great for either a solo game or a story. Overall, though, neither of those are really the goal of these contests. In theory, you're making a character that'll join an existing party (or become part of a brand new party). Given that, it's very unlikely NPCs would follow your character around (unless he had the Leadership feat of course). That said, I understand the stylistic intent, so really no biggie.
In addition, he sure has a lot of high-level allies!
I would've preferred to see his allies and enemies woven into his backstory, rather than just listed. Telling me he's friends with an 18th level barbarian or enemies with 15th level assassin is one thing; weaving that into his backstory is another, though. Make the NPCs in his life an actual part of his story.
Half-fiend/Half-human female LE bard 6, age 18
That's an awfully advanced ECL for somebody who's only 18!
Of all Jaheems current enemies, [Celia] came close twice, but was both times nearly slain by Doh.
This is completely unbelievable. Unless Doh is completely incompetent, he could kill Celia just by sneezing on her. In fact, Celia is so easy for Doh to defeat, he wouldn't even get XP for doing so.
Jona the Ripper (Halfling male NE Rogue 10/Assasin 5, age 40): One of Jaheems most dangerous enemies, Jona is a small, innocent looking Halfling with blades of death. Jaheem once succeeded in shutting down most of his thieves- and assassins guild, costing Jona his money and his reputation, giving him a lot of enemies at once to deal with. But once he’s done with his enemies… he will come for Jaheem.
This one is also unbeleivable (to me) for the same reason. If an assasin of this caliber wanted Jaheem dead, he'd be dead. I suppose you tried to cover for this a bit, but I still find it difficult to buy that our hero has such a high level enemy and still lives.
Xento (Doppleganger male CN Wizard 6, age unknown): Jaheem and Xento have never met, yet Xento considers Jaheems death the only outcome possible for this world. His father once foretold Xento that Jaheem would be the death of his whole family. Since then Xento has tried to hunt Jaheem, but with little luck. If anything, Xento has been the most unlucky enemy Jaheem has ever had, even though Jaheem doesn’t know it.
Now this villian I like. As a DM I can get into this, and use Xento in interesting and amusing ways. As mentioned above, however, it would've been even cooler if the NPC's details were actually woven into the hero's story.
Plot hooks
>>snip<<
This section would be great if you were building an NPC patron. But you're not; you're building a hero, somebody who will be one of the PCs - not somebody who hires the PCs.
Purified taint:
...
Demon age:
...
As DM, I wouldn't allow either of those. *shrug*
Overall, your background is OK, but I think it could've been so much better. There's so much you could've explored - integrating your friends and foes, telling more of his life story, exploring some of his key battles that earned him XP, delving deeper into his conversion from evil to good. There's a lot of great touch points, and I really would've liked to have seen some of those explored more deeply, if for no other reason than to show what sort of person he was/is.
Other
Generally speaking, I'd prefer fewer sblocks. You may hear the same thing from Jason, but probably for a different reason. I know he (and a lot of other judges) copies the info into Word and works from there; and sblocks make that a bit tougher. For me, it's all about presentation; I like to see the background and other fluffy bits more as a story, and it's tough sometimes to read that story when it's scattered across multiple sblocks.
I enjoyed the "quotes" section. They really help frame the character's mindset.
Your entry really could've made great use of Book of Exalted Deeds! There's lots of great stuff in that book for a character of this ilk.
Overall, you made decent enough references to non-core material that I was able to find it.
Jaheem didn't really feel like an "action hero" to me. He'd be a great entry in a "redeemed villian" theme, but I'm not so convinced he fits the theme of this contest.
I do hope we see more of your characters in future contests. You have great potential with your character-building.
Roget Steverson, aka "Captain Vierge"
Math
rules quirk: there's no "human" subtype defined in the game. That said, I can see why it's probably good to mention it, just so there's no confusion over your race.
A bit low, but there isn't too much you can do about it. I was happy to see Iron Will on your character sheet to help it get at least this high. A 9th level wizard built similar to you (that is, a total of 18 in her primary stat) will have a DC 19 with her 5th level spells, such as dominate person. That requires you roll a 14 or better to make your save. Not good odds.
Your Reflex is nearly as bad; however, you have the hit points to soak up area effect damage, the most likely cause of a Reflex save.
This would definitely be a weakness you'd want to address going forward.
I had some difficulty backing into your skills. I didn't notice your explanation at the bottom until after I was done. I managed to get the same totals as you, but a different way. It worked out, though.
I'm going to go ahead and assume these are languages from your homebrew? And that one of these is the equivelant of "common?"
Heh. Mini-rant, based on noticing this goofiness during our game session yesterday... How the hell is a common farmer supposed to afford a horse? Even if you go with a non-warhorse the light variety costs 75 gp. That's two years' wages! A donkey or mule, I suppose, is more reasonable at 8 gp. I dunno - I was born and raised in the city. But every farm I've ever been to has horses not mules. Sometimes I hate D&D's economic system...
As expected, not too many errors.
Background
Typo. Hey - I had to find something... :P :P
Telling the backstory as a history lesson is a crazy-unique idea! I love it! The "frozen in ice" theme coupled with the thinly veiled references to Captain America ( ;) ) most definitely fit the theme of this contest.
I think the best thing I can say about your character is this: As I sit here and read your entry, all sorts of campaign ideas are coming to my mind! Before I even read about The Crimson Skull, my mind was turning over the possibility of a villain from his era existing in the current time (probably also frozen in the ice). And all sorts of ideas about introducing the new world to this oldtimer are bubbling up!
Very nicely done! Plenty of material for a DM, and it fits very nicely into the contest's theme too.
responsesJust a few responses...
1) Subtype - According to the Ranger's favored enemy ability, in the type (subtype) header, there's "humanoid (human)" listed. So I guess there is a human subtype, but it has no special abilities necessitating extrapolation. I guess I'm at least being nice to the enemy rangers out there...
2) Will Save - I'm a melee character in a 28 point stat buy game. I don't have much of a way to increase my will save besides Iron Will (which many would attest is a "sucker's feat"). I may level dip into knight as a possibility, but there's not much I can do with my saves beyond what I've got.
3) Reflex Save - at least I can boost both my INT and my DEX to get my reflex up a bit higher. That'll help a fair bit in the long run. But saves are one of those things that are always a problem for fighter builds like this.
4) Languages - yeah, in my homebrew, there isn't a "common" and I've taken to ignoring it as a language in my entries. They typically have the languages of the human kingdoms that they inhabit as their "common" and additional languages chosen from neighboring kingdoms. It's just a quirk of my setting that I like carrying over. *shrug* I think it started in some competition where the discussion came up and it was determined that substituting languages is fine.
5) Background - I actually veiled my Captain America references?
6) I desperately wanted to buy an Angel Helm from the Magic Item Compendium so that Roget would have wings on his helmet for a reason, but I just couldn't swing the gold and have the other gear I liked more. One more level, though...
Show
2&3) Indeed. It's just something to consider, was the point.
Oh, indeed. It's not easy, really. Meleers have the deck stacked against them that way. I think the Angel Helm actually helped in that regard, too, but I can't remember much about it.
4) No sweat. I don't remember your homebrew stuff from one contest to the next, but I figured it was something like that.
It's all good. I just didn't even think about specifying this time around.
5) Well, I'm not a comic book fan. So, really, I was impressed that I caught on. ;)
Heh. I think I did pretty well, considering the only time I've read a Captain America-specific comic was when I flipped through the Death of Captain America at the store one time. I have read the Ultimates vol 1, and I brought up the Wiki for additional ideas.
Jaheem the Redeemed
Math
Interesting little quirk in the rules. There's no "human" subtype.
By my math, you should have 69 hit points.
You get max at first level (6), 3.5 for each additional warlock level (a total of 14), 5.5 for each fighter level (a total of 22), and 27 from your Con. 6 + 14 + 22 + 27 = 69.
*
I don't see your actual ability scores listed anywhere. Did I miss them somehow? This makes it tough to verify your character. I can grab your ability bonuses from various places (AC, skills, etc). But I have no way to verify you spent your points correctly.
*
Assuming you have a +0 Wisdom modifier, these check out. Of course, I can't confirm that's true.
This is technically incorrect. Combat Casting only gives you a +4 bonus to cast defensively. For all other uses of the Concentration skill (such as to cast while suffering from continuous damage), it doesn't apply. The better way to list this is something like:
[indent]Concentration +11 (+15 to cast defensively)[/indent]
On a purely min/max note, if you're going to spend a feat on this, it's probably better to take Skill Focus. The bonus is one point less (+3 instead of +4), but it applies to everything.
You missed the synergy Bluff grants on Disguise checks.
8 + 2 + 4 = 14
Two general notes on skills. I find it's easier to reference when they're in alphabetical order. This doesn't affect your score, it's just a comment. Second, I like to see Listen and Spot listed for every character, even when they have no ranks. Again, it doesn't impact your score.
Just another optimization note: you'll get much more bang for your buck by spending that 2250 gp on three wands of cure light wounds instead. With one potion, you get 3d8+5 hit points; with one wand (which costs the same as the potion) you'd get 50d8+50 hit points. Now, yes, the potion will return more hit points to you in any one use. But in the long run, you're better off with the wand.
This only costs 300 gold pieces.
In the first case, you listed the extended price. In the second, you listed the unit price. I caught it, but it caused a tiny bit of confusion for me. It's best to stick to one or the other.
With the exception of paying 200 gold too much for the one potion, your gold checks out. Basically, you have more "pocket change" than you thought -- which is a "better" mistake than not having enough.
Finally, Jason is going to point out that your character must be naked, because you don't have clothing listed in your possessions list.
Overall, I think you picked a very poor multiclass combo. There's precious little synergy between warlock and fighter, and you've lessened that synergy by gearing your fighter feats towards the longsword rather than your eldritch blast. I'm quite certain your character would have a difficult time surviving level-appropriate challenges, even in a group.
Background
You're certainly not the first person to go with this sort of angle in a story. And yet, I still find it completely unbelievable. I have a really hard time understanding why a seriously evil dude would take in a 10 year little brat just because the kid asked. *shrug*
Another common theme in stories. However, this I find completely believable. At least, as far as homicide by magic can be, anyway.
This is great for either a solo game or a story. Overall, though, neither of those are really the goal of these contests. In theory, you're making a character that'll join an existing party (or become part of a brand new party). Given that, it's very unlikely NPCs would follow your character around (unless he had the Leadership feat of course). That said, I understand the stylistic intent, so really no biggie.
In addition, he sure has a lot of high-level allies!
I would've preferred to see his allies and enemies woven into his backstory, rather than just listed. Telling me he's friends with an 18th level barbarian or enemies with 15th level assassin is one thing; weaving that into his backstory is another, though. Make the NPCs in his life an actual part of his story.
That's an awfully advanced ECL for somebody who's only 18!
This is completely unbelievable. Unless Doh is completely incompetent, he could kill Celia just by sneezing on her. In fact, Celia is so easy for Doh to defeat, he wouldn't even get XP for doing so.
This one is also unbeleivable (to me) for the same reason. If an assasin of this caliber wanted Jaheem dead, he'd be dead. I suppose you tried to cover for this a bit, but I still find it difficult to buy that our hero has such a high level enemy and still lives.
Now this villian I like. As a DM I can get into this, and use Xento in interesting and amusing ways. As mentioned above, however, it would've been even cooler if the NPC's details were actually woven into the hero's story.
This section would be great if you were building an NPC patron. But you're not; you're building a hero, somebody who will be one of the PCs - not somebody who hires the PCs.
As DM, I wouldn't allow either of those. *shrug*
Overall, your background is OK, but I think it could've been so much better. There's so much you could've explored - integrating your friends and foes, telling more of his life story, exploring some of his key battles that earned him XP, delving deeper into his conversion from evil to good. There's a lot of great touch points, and I really would've liked to have seen some of those explored more deeply, if for no other reason than to show what sort of person he was/is.
Other
Generally speaking, I'd prefer fewer sblocks. You may hear the same thing from Jason, but probably for a different reason. I know he (and a lot of other judges) copies the info into Word and works from there; and sblocks make that a bit tougher. For me, it's all about presentation; I like to see the background and other fluffy bits more as a story, and it's tough sometimes to read that story when it's scattered across multiple sblocks.
I enjoyed the "quotes" section. They really help frame the character's mindset.
Your entry really could've made great use of Book of Exalted Deeds! There's lots of great stuff in that book for a character of this ilk.
Overall, you made decent enough references to non-core material that I was able to find it.
Jaheem didn't really feel like an "action hero" to me. He'd be a great entry in a "redeemed villian" theme, but I'm not so convinced he fits the theme of this contest.
I do hope we see more of your characters in future contests. You have great potential with your character-building.
Grable
Hey, how come my character's the only one not to have his full name listed on your list? What's up with that?
Math
Looks as though you forgot to add your hit points from Con; your Con mod is +1 after donning the amulet.
Again, you missed your Con mod. This should be +4.
Even at +4, this is quite low. You're going to fall a lot of Fortitude saves. Great Fortitude would certainly help; so would a magic item to boost your saves. And, of course, increasing your Con even further.
I found your skills a little tough to back into, but I got there eventually.
5 + 3 + 2 = 10.
Your total is correct, but your listed Con mod is incorrect.
Due to the synergy from Bluff, Intimidate should be listed (total of +9) as should Disguise (+7, +9 to act in character)
Darn it, and I thought I had that table memorized!
I think this is an under-appreciated aspect of the bard -- his ability to use wands of cure spells.
My first D&D character was a bard. She was also the only PC healer. A cure wand is something I always drop on a bard character.
Background
Your story is interesting, though a bit complex. I have to say, though, that it's the first time a character's parent was a polygamist. :P
Actually no. Dallas's polygamy was just less of an issue in my entry for the Desert Competition. (I forget which number.) After all, Zaina and Grable are half-siblings.
I'm not quite sure there's enough in your background to explain 9 levels.
And finally, I would've liked to have seen a bit more about Grable's freedom fighting. Yeah, I can't believe I just asked you to write a longer background either. :P
Ha ha! I am victorious! :evillaugh
I think you missed an opportunity by not talking about the present more. In part, you could've used that to explain the ninth level dealio - a fight with a necromancer or cleric or whatever. But just as important, in my opinion you danced around the action hero theme. The concept is certainly there, but I sure would've loved to see a bit of the "bringing hope to the masses" stuff as a means to further entrench the character in the theme.
Your backstory definitely gives a DM plot hooks and such to work with, though. No worries there!
Viktus, the Azure Wanderer
Math
A) I'm always wary of a PC who claims to be true neutral. In my experience, it's not far behind chaotic neutral in the "I'm really evil but not putting an evil alignment" scale. I allow it as DM, but I pay close attention. Reading more will tell the story, I suppose...
B) You forgot to mention your "(elf)" sub-type that you gain by virtue of your race.
Your Dex mod is only +2. I suspect the "+5" is a typo, though. Ideally, you probably should list your Reflex save as +5, and make note of the +1 insight bonus. Uncanny dodge doesn't prevent your character from becoming flat-footed; it just allows him to maintain his Dex bonus to AC in that situation. That said, as long as you remember to subtract one from your Reflex save in those rare moments you're flat-footed, it works out the same.
This is one of my favorite feats.
Each of these should be reduced by 4 because of your armor check penalties. In addition, for the Tumble skill:
Your character's speed is reduced by his breastplate. Obviously, this has a big effect on your stated tactics. To correct this problem, you should be looking to get a mithral breastplate as soon as possible, and probably use a chain shirt of some sort in the interim.
Mini rant: this item is misnamed. It should be 3-times-a-day-full mug.
Two things. 1) while it's worth 1gp, it's free to you at character creation. 2) While it weighs 5 pounds, it doesn't count towards your weight carried for the purposes of computing encumbrance.
I compute the value of your items at 35817.6 (including removing 1g for the clothes). However, this error just reduces your available cash, so it could've been worse.
I worry about your character's lack of ranged attack. I know you covered it by saying you can get there by using skills, but that's not always the case. One example: an appropriate challenge for a party of your level would be a 9th level wizard, who could happen to cast fly and stay well out of your ability to do anything other than pick your nose. ;) Basically, it's a weakness in your character that's unnecessary. Grab a bow or crossbow just for emergencies.
Background
I very much liked the mixing of first person quotes and a narrative style! Very nice, and well written!
I would've liked just a little more in his background, though. Perhaps a tale of how he earned some of his XP would be a way to flesh it out. What has he encountered while wandering?
Very good details for a DM to latch on to and develop storylines to favor your character, whether large or small. Your father's details being blurry give a DM great lattitude to do all sorts of cool things, and you still have a villian in reserve with Vell. Very nice.
Other
As with Black_Kitten's entry, I think you went a bit overboard on the sblocks. I tend to only open one sblock at a time (yeah, personal quirk, I know), so having information spread across multiple blocks makes it a bit tougher to find.
Other than that, though, your presentation was spectacular! Very clear to read, excellent descriptions of abilities, great detail on items (perhaps too much in some cases). Now, that said... I would avoid such detail in the future, just because it skims kinda close to copyright issues, which are enforced more strictly on this forum than necessary (which is a good thing, in my opinion). But, your detail really helped me a lot, since ToB is a book I don't own and I was relying on notes from Jason to explain your abilities and such; it was good to get a second copy of those notes for verification purposes.
On reading your character, I don't get a true neutral vibe from him. I get more of a neutral good vibe; that's not particularly important, though.
Good citations. That's appreciated, since it makes research easier.
I hope we see you in future contests!
Edit: Note to Mercurius: In his comments on one of the entries, Zherog made fun of your hair...and then admitted to having once worn the same style himself....;)
Hey, with that and my calculator watch, I'm a walking anachronism, baby!
Instead, I will focus on Thematic Creativity & Background...
General Comments
This competition narrowed itself a lot more than the original framework I had established as a judge. When I thought "Summer Blockbuster," I was thinking about a wide variety of movie types. However, somewhere between the start-up process and the submission of entries, "Summer Blockbuster" was translated "Action Movie Star," so it is in that vein that I graded the entries.
I tried to look at your entries from the perspective of a movie director.
Specifically, I asked the following question: Would I want to make a movie about this character?
I identified three "Movie Elements" that I considered critical to each entry, and that served as the basis for my grading scale. Since these three items overlap between Thematic Creativity & Background, I will use these as the basis for my individual comments below. The Elements are as follows:
Persona: Movie characters do not have a long time to develop personalities, which means that "on-screen," they have to drip w/ personality. I don't care if you're a Marvel Super Hero or Legally Blonde, your personality should be clearly evident, not just in your background (which is maybe 10 minutes in some films), but also in the way you walk, talk, move, & fight. I didn't have a preferred persona, but I did expect a well developed persona.
Villain: In every Hero Craftsman, we expect a strong antagonist, but this was a particularly strong requirement this time around (at least for me). Good movies are defined by convincing antagonists, and I expected such this time around. If I didn't dream of the fight between your character and his/her antagonist, you lost a lot of points. There were two major issues here:
Threatening Villain Status: First, your villain had to be a THREAT. Halfling Commoners with asthma may have offended you deeply, but that fight scene would leave me in a coma. Your villain had to be at a power level that would provide an appropriate challenge to your character.
Personal Villain Status: Second, your villain had to be PERSONAL. Sure, your villain may have delusions of global domination, but there should be something that ties you to your villain so closely that the only outcome worth mentioning CGI Showdown of the Ages! In other words, convince me that YOUR hero is the hero that is taking that villain down.
Action Scenes: This is almost a persona issue, but it's specific enough to warrant specific comments. I wanted to see your character IN ACTION. I needed at least one scene of your character kicking tail (or getting their tail kicked) that would serve to awe the audiences. Side note: the showdown w/ the villain does not count.
Some final universal comments:
-Overall, you all did an excellent job Citing Sources, but remember, if you use non-core material, you lose Clarity points unless you tell both the BOOK and PAGE NUMBER.
-Red Ink was better this time around, but there were a few entries that were messy. Please take time to edit your work before you submit it. Spelling & Grammar errors cost you points when the teacher pulls out his pen.
-For mechanics comments... see Z's post. I'm feeling lazy.
-Just to reiterate, the following comments assume I'm (considering) making a movie about your character.
I tried to look at your entries from the perspective of a movie director.
Specifically, I asked the following question: Would I want to make a movie about this character?
I identified three "Movie Elements" that I considered critical to each entry, and that served as the basis for my grading scale. Since these three items overlap between Thematic Creativity & Background, I will use these as the basis for my individual comments below. The Elements are as follows:
Persona: Movie characters do not have a long time to develop personalities, which means that "on-screen," they have to drip w/ personality. I don't care if you're a Marvel Super Hero or Legally Blonde, your personality should be clearly evident, not just in your background (which is maybe 10 minutes in some films), but also in the way you walk, talk, move, & fight. I didn't have a preferred persona, but I did expect a well developed persona.
Villain: In every Hero Craftsman, we expect a strong antagonist, but this was a particularly strong requirement this time around (at least for me). Good movies are defined by convincing antagonists, and I expected such this time around. If I didn't dream of the fight between your character and his/her antagonist, you lost a lot of points. There were two major issues here:
Threatening Villain Status: First, your villain had to be a THREAT. Halfling Commoners with asthma may have offended you deeply, but that fight scene would leave me in a coma. Your villain had to be at a power level that would provide an appropriate challenge to your character.
Personal Villain Status: Second, your villain had to be PERSONAL. Sure, your villain may have delusions of global domination, but there should be something that ties you to your villain so closely that the only outcome worth mentioning CGI Showdown of the Ages! In other words, convince me that YOUR hero is the hero that is taking that villain down.
Action Scenes: This is almost a persona issue, but it's specific enough to warrant specific comments. I wanted to see your character IN ACTION. I needed at least one scene of your character kicking tail (or getting their tail kicked) that would serve to awe the audiences. Side note: the showdown w/ the villain does not count.
Some final universal comments:
-Overall, you all did an excellent job Citing Sources, but remember, if you use non-core material, you lose Clarity points unless you tell both the BOOK and PAGE NUMBER.
-Red Ink was better this time around, but there were a few entries that were messy. Please take time to edit your work before you submit it. Spelling & Grammar errors cost you points when the teacher pulls out his pen.
-For mechanics comments... see Z's post. I'm feeling lazy.
-Just to reiterate, the following comments assume I'm (considering) making a movie about your character.
...largely because my copy doesn't arrive until Monday...
I need a nap now.
Captain ViergePersona:I think I'll leave it at that.
Well, thanks very much for that.
Villain: Ok... you sort of hit this standard, but that's only IF I include all the background info I have from reading comic books. You don't actually develop the Crimson Skull and Faust to the level of Nemesis for the Cap, particularly in a "current" time line. I do, however, like the internal struggles he would face in a modern setting.
Overall, cool shout out to one of my favorite Marvel Characters, but let me caution you: do not rely too heavily on the background knowledge of the judges.
Honestly, I've never read much Captain America. I skimmed (heavily) through the Death of Captain America volume, and I've read the first two trades of the Ultimates and most of the Civil War trade. That's pretty much as much Cap as I've ever read. So I wiki'd his rogues gallery a bit, but I mostly just wanted to get a better idea of what Dr. Faustus and the Red Skull were like. I wasn't entirely sure how personally they related to Cap himself, and so I used them more as general antagonists. Of course, Captain Vierge does find himself at odds with people primarily because they were enemy combatants.
And believe me, I learned my lesson about counting on prior knowledge from the judges when I entered Atem during the Munchkin contest.:embarrass
Action Scenes: Yeah, you got that covered. Too bad you couldn't include my favorite scene from Civil War: punching through the window of a jet fighter.
Yeah, a jet fighter would have been kinda hard to include. He's too recent in my world's history to even get to do something like that with an airship...
Grable
Persona: While your entry is short, your background is almost enough material for a trilogy in my opinion. I have a solid sense of Grable's personality, motives, and character. Really, the only problem is that the cast of characters is so large and unusual (including, but not limited to, an Exalted Good Succubus) that it causes Grable to lose some shine. If I were to cram all of this into one "movie," Grable would seem almost lackluster next to his co-stars.
Yeah, the reason for that is that if a movie were ever made about Grable, it would be because the trilogy about Dallas (and his tumultuous relationships with Raven and Berea) had already made a smash and someone was trying to capitalize on it. Since I couldn't build my beloved Exalted Good Womanizing PHBII-variant Druid under the allowed rules, I opted for his son instead. :D
Villains:
*bows* Thangyouverymuch.[/elvis]
Action Scenes: It wasn't a full scale action scene, but Talya's death... very, very well done.
Thank you. A scene I've had in my head for some time that was very fun to write. Also the genesis of Mercurius's decision that Grable should have "Protection from Evil Overdeity" as a feat. (He thinks I'm too mean to my characters.....can't figure out why....:angelhide )
I've had to piece the story together from the issues I can find immediately before or after the actual death. Quite frustrating!
I don't actually collect comics, so I'm not too upset to not own a copy. The only comic series I ever thought about collecting was the year long Gambit (X-men) series they ran a couple years ago, but I dropped in too late and missed the first two issues. The series was great though...
The X-men movies somehow managed to cut Gambit, my favorite character, from every single script...
The X-men movies somehow managed to cut Gambit, my favorite character, from every single script...
In X-2, when Mystique is searching Striker's database, he has a list of mutants, including "LeBeau, Remy." Supposedly they considered including a picture, but decided against it in case they wound up casting someone else for an actual part (like, y'know, the three faces of Kitty Pride...). In next year's X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie, Taylor Kitsch will play Gambit.
"I'll believe it when I see it."
I maintain some hope, but after three films w/o my favorite, I must admit some disappointment. Then again, my opinion of the next film is probably tainted by the fact that I'm about the only non-Wolverine fan among the X-men fan community. I'll probably see the movie anyways, but Wolverine has never really struck a cord with me.
I've heard similar statements myself... but I'm filing that one under:
"I'll believe it when I see it."
I maintain some hope, but after three films w/o my favorite, I must admit some disappointment. Then again, my opinion of the next film is probably tainted by the fact that I'm about the only non-Wolverine fan among the X-men fan community. I'll probably see the movie anyways, but Wolverine has never really struck a cord with me.
He's not exactly my favorite X-Man, either, but he's been done rather well in the movies. Of course, I seem to be one of the only Cyclops fans on the planet, though that may just be because of his Ultimate persona...
But the Taylor Kitsch thing has been in articles about the movie published in Wizard, so unless it goes through one massive rewrite/edit before then, I'd say that there's very good chances Gambit will make an appearance. Along with Deadpool...
Jaheem the RedeemedPersona: You definitely dripped persona with this entry, from quotes, to an awesome sword, and a silver hand. The conflicting, but powerful, impressions could make for some very interesting camera work. I believe that this character would be excellent on screen.
It is worth noting that I really enjoyed this character b/c you created an "Action Movie Hero" w/ a "seeming lack of combat powers." Well done.
Villain: Ok, you throw out 4 villains, which any DM can make good use of in this case... but... All of them are either high THREAT, low PERSONAL (ie: Halfling Assassin), or high PERSONAL, low THREAT (ie: lower level ex-wife). Having one villain to serve as your character's focus would've helped this entry.
Action Scenes: You don't have any current action scenes. While I loved the scene w/ your sword, all of the detailed encounters you offer occurred in the past. I wanted something more up to date.
First and foremost, I'd like to thank everybody for their patience on this one. To call the various events that interrupted the judging process of comedy of errors is an understatement. And through it all, everybody remained patient - at least outwardly - as Jason and I dealt with our issues. Thank you, all, for that.
So let's get into it, eh?
Coming in third place and winning a BRONZE medal, with a final average score of 26.5:
Bronze Medal Winner
Grable Moonrain, by jennibert
Grable Moonrain, by jennibert
Yay! Scores!
:OMG! 
Thirty-freakin'-two?! Holy crap! And I thought I'd probably jumped the shark with Alanna.I'm very happy I didn't go with my vigilante with the Garb of the Cat equipment now... That was just so much lamer in comparison.
Congrats to everyone who competed. I really should stop putting my hat in the ring, huh? But this is always so much fun, even though I feel kinda guilty now.
well I did better then the last time didn't I :P?
I'll take the judges comments and try to do better next time:D
Can't complete my collection with a bronze this time then... :P But 2 separate characters nominated for Best Clarity? I think Sasha is left from last time, clearly.
I seem to remember I was in rather a hurry over Drusik. I guess it showed.
But 2 separate characters nominated for Best Clarity? I think Sasha is left from last time, clearly.
Gah! I copy/paste the previous contest's posts (starting and ending) to save myself time. And yet, I always seem to miss something.
One thing that always gets me is that I seldom score well on Clarity (or at least, I never get nominated for it). If I may ask the judges, what, specifically, could be done to further improve the clarity of my entries?
I'll look through my notes a bit later, though I put most of my notes into my comments. But I'll review what I have, tell you what score I gave you in clarity, and try to explain why.
One thing you do that I like is only two sblocks, one for crunch and one for fluff. I can tell you that without looking at my notes.
Your attacks section is the really nice, concise style that I prefer.
You also do a good job of breaking down everything in your entries.
What you run into isn't that your Clarity is poor, but rather that other people just do a little better. I think the most likely cause is this: you make very complex builds.
Complex builds are always harder to check than simple builds, so when I have two high scores for Clarity (actually more, this is hypothetical), and I can only nominate one... I'm probably going to go for the "simple" build since it easier to check, all other things being equal.
Please don't feel like I'm insulting you, btw... the idea I'm kicking around in my head for HC#19 is currently going to require 6 source books... complex builds are fun, but in a Clarity race, they lose to simple builds quite often.
Also, runner up for best in Thematic Creativity! :OMG! That's what I entered for, I'm glad that you thought it was that cool. Thanks!
Zherog
Yeah, I realized some of the mechanics mistakes after I posted, but I didn't realize I'd made such a pig's ear of it! XD
It's funny you would say that he should have been ranger, because as a character that I'd actually played, that's what he was, Ranger and Rogue. I made him a fighter instead because of the feats that he can take to improve his weapon use.
Yeah, it's easier to crunch all that time training and beating monsters to a single scene or two in a comic or movie, so I just left that part. I was working from my rough drafts and a level thirty-eight (Devin's real level) character sheet. Some stuff should have been translated much better.
I put that in because in a fighter's background in my games, I like a player to show me why the character can use what they use. Especially if the background is non-military. I figured seven years of constant training would do the trick.
As far as evil, he is, starting out. I ran into a few problems there, because he ends up as good, but it takes some time. I wasn't sure how much he had changed by that level. Not as much as I thought. Also, I put in the part about the priest of Heironeus because the DM that ran this character loves drama and made me chase down said priest because he'd been infected with vampirism and was sneaking around making more of them throughout the church.
Devin is in high epic levels, both the character I played and in the comic book, so Fortula is an actual speaking character. They had some interesting times at first. Between Burt and Fortula, Devin is eventually steered down the path of good.
Also, yeah, I realize the "parents dead" thing is kind of an booger flicker, but it's the only thing that makes sense. They needed to be dead for Devin to be anything but a tinker. He wouldn't have been nearly so close to his sister if they hadn't had to rely on each other for everything.
It's funny you would say that he should have been ranger, because as a character that I'd actually played, that's what he was, Ranger and Rogue. I made him a fighter instead because of the feats that he can take to improve his weapon use.
Yeah, it's easier to crunch all that time training and beating monsters to a single scene or two in a comic or movie, so I just left that part. I was working from my rough drafts and a level thirty-eight (Devin's real level) character sheet. Some stuff should have been translated much better.
I put that in because in a fighter's background in my games, I like a player to show me why the character can use what they use. Especially if the background is non-military. I figured seven years of constant training would do the trick.
As far as evil, he is, starting out. I ran into a few problems there, because he ends up as good, but it takes some time. I wasn't sure how much he had changed by that level. Not as much as I thought. Also, I put in the part about the priest of Heironeus because the DM that ran this character loves drama and made me chase down said priest because he'd been infected with vampirism and was sneaking around making more of them throughout the church.
Devin is in high epic levels, both the character I played and in the comic book, so Fortula is an actual speaking character. They had some interesting times at first. Between Burt and Fortula, Devin is eventually steered down the path of good.
Also, yeah, I realize the "parents dead" thing is kind of an booger flicker, but it's the only thing that makes sense. They needed to be dead for Devin to be anything but a tinker. He wouldn't have been nearly so close to his sister if they hadn't had to rely on each other for everything.
First of all, sorry to the judges, I didn't realize you guys took this thing that seriously or I'd have done the same.
The contests are intended to be fun. There's no doubt about that. I don't want to speak for Jason (or any other eligible judge), but I know that when I judge a contest I treat it as a responsibility. Basically, I feel that I'm making a commitment to the contest and it's important for me to keep those commitments.
This contest was extremely frustrating from that point of view, because all sorts of things got in the way of me keeping that commitment. Now, some of those things were good, such as my becoming swamped with freelance writing work. But in the end, I do feel as though I let folks down because it took two months to get this thing judged.
Also, now that I know that you guys don't mind tons of backstory, I will do better in that regard also.
You'll have a hard time surpassing the length of a jennibert entry. :D
It's not so much about the length as it is about making the character's background justify his level. A short background can be effective, as long as you can convince the judges of that contest that you've covered the bases. Generally speaking, there's two really important items to cover in your background: plot hooks and justification. And, really, this is true whether you're producing a background for this contest or a character at home.
Plot Hooks Your DM doesn't need these, but it sure makes it a lot easier for him/her if you provide some. Most importantly, they allow the DM to tailor part of the game content directly towards your character. This helps immerse you in the game, and generally makes it more fun for everybody.
An antagonist is the biggest plot hook you can give. Give your DM somebody your character despises. In terms of this particular contest, you need an arch-enemy. But there's other plot hooks you can give as well: family, friends, and mentors all work as plot hook devices.
Justification This one's a little trickier, I think. In this contest you made a 9th level character. What I personally want when I read your background is a sense that your character really is 9th level. If all you ever fight are orcs and goblins (for example), that doesn't sound very 9th level to me. If you started out fighting orcs and goblins, and found a cult dedicated to Vecna working in the background and then pursued the cult, taking out operatives along the way, then that begins to sound a bit more level appropriate.
In a previous contest, one entrant (I think it was Mercurius) covered that entire concept in one sentence by listing a creature of CR 1, 3, 5, and 7 that he had defeated. It was a simple yet elegant way to demonstrate that the character had fought level-appropriate challenges as he moved up.
*
I'm the only original judge still around. The contest has changed quite a bit over the 19 various versions. But in the end, I can say for certain that the ultimate goals are the same: have fun and improve character building skills. So, hopefully in the end you had fun and learned a thing or two. If so, then the contest was a success.
One thing that always gets me is that I seldom score well on Clarity (or at least, I never get nominated for it). If I may ask the judges, what, specifically, could be done to further improve the clarity of my entries?
OK, I've had a chance to go back through and look at stuff. First, I'll say this: I didn't score you badly in clarity -- in fact, you tied for the third-highest score I gave out in the category.
I liked Jason's theory, and so I checked into it. Sure enough, the two entries I had scored higher than you were both single-classed entries. So I do think there's something to that. A simpler entry makes it easier to verify. In addition to that, you're one of the few contestants who takes advantage of the rules in MIC for adding abilities to certain items. I agree those rules are useful, but it's just one more thing to check. The fact that you provided a footnote is great -- I didn't have to flip through the book to find those rules again. But I think that the extra checking probably does play an impact.
You do a lot of things I like in formatting.
- You keep sblocks to a minimum.
- You use "white space" to break up sections such as ability scores, saves, attack routines, and so on.
- You use some simple formatting like bold to make text stand out in appropriate spots.
- Your background reads like a story, has few spelling and grammar errors, and effectively uses white space to prevent "wall of text" syndrome.
some things that probably hurt your score a bit, aside from the complexity:
- I had trouble with your skills. Giving a break down is a great help, but I generally try to verify first before checking how the contestant did it. And I spent a long time going over your skills.
- More a style thing than a problem, but I prefer the LIST tag instead of prefacing a line with a dash, like you did with equipment and stances.
And I think that last point hits on something key. As you know, a lot of the judging criteria is purely subjective. Rules Use is probably the most objective of the categories; everything else really relies on the whim of that particular judge. For example, while I don't like a lot of sblocks, it wouldn't surprise me in the least to hear from a judge who is thankful when somebody uses lots of them to present smaller chunks of data.
You can also take heart that I've never scored particularly well in clarity either - or, at least, I've never been nominated for "Best Of" with any of my characters.
Hopefully, that helps a little bit. In the end, I don't think you do anything wrong. It's just a few other folks seem to have a slightly cleaner style of presentation.
You'll have a hard time surpassing the length of a jennibert entry. :D
It wasn't THAT long.
Not this time. Go back and look at some of her past entries, though.
Not until I'm done with my background for HC19, since I don't want to get destracted from that
Good idea. The length of some of them might not leave you enough time to finish your character! :angelhide
I'm mostly working on background/core atm. I'm more concerned with the stats (side-fluff), since I'm rather sloppy generally. And I haven't played 3.5 for over a month (main campaign is 4th).
But I have a rather fylosophical approach to hunting for ya :D
Not this time. Go back and look at some of her past entries, though.
No need to hide....that was my exact thought as well.....
Bronze, huh? Actually better than I expected
Congrats to everyone, but particularly Mercurius and Heros_Backpack--a lot of great entries this time! And thanks again to the judges for their time.