D&D 3.5, Homebrew Setting, Signup Thread

MSN Addresses: Mellhurst (Toteone@Gmail.com) - I'm on quite often, I do not know why I haven't seen you yet, and I suppose you aren't able to see me either?
GMs Email (I don't use it very often though): Mellhurstster@gmail.com

OOC Thread: http://z15.invisionfree.com/Revenant_Brave...65#entry5132691

Source Rules: D&D 3.5, All Sourcebooks

Rules Modifications
Magic: Replenishes After 8 hours sleep/rest
Paladins and Fighters: 4 skill points per level.
Diplomacy: http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go...20Rich%20Burlew, Perception (spot & listen, class skill for all), Stealth (move silently & hide), Skill Feats: +2*2
Quarterstaff (W.F. available), Spear (one/two-handed)
Flail (+1 to-hit, -1 AC), Scimitar (+1 from higher up), Cutlass (input?)
Arming Sword (= Longsword), Greataxe (2d6), Sledgehammer (input)
Eastern Weapons: Exist in the Western Regions of Estea


Player Characters
William Tatcher: http://www.thetangledweb.net/forums/profil...r.php?cid=50526
Magical Girl Val & Valrawn: http://www.thetangledweb.net/forums/profil...r.php?cid=50544
Edgar Lavelle: http://api.viglink.com/api/click?format=go...Edgar%20LaVelle
Milo: a Paladin

NPCs
Stettin Smithson

Rumours Known & General Information
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread....83#post11493183


Introduction

The world of Vita, a large planet orbited by two moons and closely circling a dying sun.
The Date is 450 after the Great Discovery.
The Known World consists of the Continent of Vita and the New World, the continent of Estea. Estea is a mostly uncivilized land currently being settled from over the eastern oceans by Orcs, Dwarves, High Elves and Humans of the continent of Vita. This untamed land is a frontier state close to the center of Estea, and a vassal of the Gaborean Empire. The Gaborean Empire itself is merely the largest of human polities established by the easterners which itself is subject to the authority of the Phoenix Throne which governs half of the Old World directly (through the nation of Burndum) and indirectly through vassals, tributaries and alliances (mostly its southern and western halves closer to Estea).
The nation of Burndum had long practiced a policy of vassalisations and non-intervention outside its sphere of influence, a philosophy ably adopted by the Phoenix Throne. Yet since then the Throne's monopolistic policies towards Estea has led to the cementing of a Vitan coalition against the colonial policies of the Phoenix Throne, uniting an opposition to the dominant power of the Known World for the first time since the end of the great war five centuries ago. Yet while Estea too may be facing interesting times, the frontier remains a fairly idyllic if backwards existence.

Throughout the boundaries of the Known World halflings are classified as mischievous vermin, pygmee parasites who raid and steal from honest agrarians. Back east they were slowly exterminated over these concerns and their frequent dabbling in crime, assassination and revanchist politics. The ethnic cleansing finally reached a crescendo half a millennia ago, culminating in a holocaust of epic proportions which ended in the complete destruction of a refugee fleet bound for the west. It was this strange behavior and the retrieval of evidence and testimonials that led the Phoenix Throne to sponsor sailing expeditions west. Thankfully the halflings encountered so far on Estea have been mostly feral in nature, preying on towns in a cunning yet animalistic manner. Nomadic tribes with considerable magical talent have been encountered, and are speculated to descend from the refugees of ages past, but as of yet these have retreated further to the west.
In general animals are accorded more positive emotions and feelings than these wretched enemies of civilization. The stereotypical halfling is pictured as a small, human-like creatures with feral canines, a ragged dark cloak and eyes in a hollow emaciated face ready to bear down on you and eat your liver.

Goblins are a very small minority. They are typically the slaves of wealthy first-generation (usually Orcish) immigrants from the east in the more prosperous areas of Estea. The Phoenix Throne has recently lifted the export cap on Goblins due to Orcish demands for increased exports and it is speculated that the Vitan Continental Traps and Puzzle Championship may be cancelled due to the lack of participants.

Gnomes are also present on the continent, as traders and technical experts. They hail from the archipelago of Aurora far to the north of Estea and speak a language distantly related to the Dwarves from the east. In general they find Vitan civilization to be harshly reactionary but reliable and prosperous.

Dwarves form several important regions of the nation of Burndum in Vita. While a respectable race responsible for most mechanics and inventions they are not as clever as the Gnomish inventors of Aurora, and they tend towards isolationism. As such they have endeavoured to build strong, independent communities on Estea seperate from the settler polities of other races. Unlike the Orcs and their Confederacy however there is a great amount of solidarity between the Dwarves as a race and they tend towards unity.

Elves exist indigenously on Estea in the form of sea elves to the far west and south, sylvans in the deepest forests and feral elves all over. While the people of Vita bear no grudge against the sylvans they have nevertheless enclosed their forests for the use of their peoples and driven the sylvans to the most forbidding domains of Estea where even magical tree logging companies will not venture.
High Elves are of colonial origin as well. They are often duel citizens of Westermark, but their religious loyalties are questionable as they rarely abandon Correlon and the other elven deities. In general their magical abilities are more refined but less potent than that of other elvish races, and their breeding with humans have drastically reduced their maximal lifespans. While some elves are technically immortal the average elven lifespan is about four millennia (though very few of such age exist, mainly due to accidents and the assassination attempts of jealous races) but the high elven average has fallen to only a thousand years due to its position under the Phoenix Throne. High Elves are the most open of the elven races and their norms and provincial laws do not expressly forbid intermarriage with humans, though much of this is a product of the political pressure by the nation of Burndum in the past and outright intervention in the domestic affairs of its vassals by the Phoenix Throne in recent years.

Orcs are rarely citizens of Westermark, or at least they used to be in the good old days as far as the faux nobility and administrators and their noble backers in Gaborea are concerned. There is a significant minority in the most urbane provinces of the Gaborean Empire. They and their Hobgoblin commandos make excellent laborers, soldiers and police forces and are often hired on a permanent retainer to guard sensitive locations.
It is not common for there to be so many orcs as far out as Esterley river, but a minority of orcs display a taste for agriculture for which they are physically well suited, and it is in the Orkin blood to seek out new challenges and test one's limits against the frontier and its elements... especially if there are hills around, in which case they feel more at home and better able to defend themselves.

Nobility does not exist on the frontier in name though often in practice. The people are free to do as they wish with the expectation that they will eventually form a tributary at the least, though the norm is vassalization. Such frontier settlements that remain democratic as they grow closer to the center are usually annexed. However the power of the nobility, while powerful in Estea is challenged by the factors of trade, industry and the clergy who draw their support from the rural areas and the frontier lobbies. However in Vita the Phoenix Throne is considerably more centralized, though the throne is, at least in theory, subject to fundamental religious canon, and as a force of autocracy it is balanced by competing arms of government and provincial assemblies. Its relative stability owes largely to its prosperity and the continued and literal revival of its ruling dynasty. It is an uneasy arrangement, as provincial assemblies run the provinces at a regional level and execute the orders of an immortal noble lineage facilitated through the system of an infighting beurocratic dictatorship. Yet its ascent has now gone mostly unstopped for over a millennia.

Most nobles are happy to brag about their arcane abilities, though this often means a fey bloodline through intermarriage with elves. Human nobles of a pure lineage will tend more towards divine magic, and very rarely sorcery, however those of exceptional skill are also unfortunately more often the victim of birth defects.


A short history of Estea and Westermark since the dawn of the age of colonialism, 0 Great Discovery:

Settlement of the continent began nine hundred years ago at the beginning of the age, fifty years after the unity wars on Vita (-50 GD) ended with the destruction of the Hobbit refugee fleet. In 100 GD a number of brush wars emerged between newly emergent nations the newly established Phoenix Throne intervened to organize the majority of new world nations into vassal states.
The Gaborean Empire was established as the defender of the human race on Estea, and as such most core human territories were included within its boundaries as well as a significant near abroad containing large minorities of elves and orcs. The elves, spread out except for a series of coastal nations (most of them to the east and southeast) were happy to comply with the new order of things, but Kavardun, the Orcish Confederacy sharing the central northern coast with Gaborea wished to see an exchange of non-contiguous territories at worst and a population swap at best.
Neither was acceptable to Gaborea and the war that began in 175 GD was one of stalemate and mutual detriment. In 182 GD the Dwarven Clans of the Temkyrian Coast attacked the Confederacy from their core territories in the barrier mountains running along the northwestern coast and center west of Estea and the Orcs were forced to cede numerous provinces rich in natural resources in return for peace, the safety of Orcish citizens in the now Dwarven lands and the aid of the Dwarven guardsmen, berserkers and gryphon riders in the battle against Gaborea. The stalemate was broken in 190 GD and the Gaborean Empire was defeated. Such it was that while the Orcs were compensated with Gaborean lands with the conclusion of the peace treaty in 193 GD Gaborea was forced to rely more heavily on its elven population and her colonization of the Estean interior.
The last two centuries has seen the strengthening of the Empire of Gaborea, a growing population of and increased trade with the elves and the integration of newly settled provinces. Settlement of Westermark began in earnest a hundred years ago, but the outlying town of Esterley Crossing was founded a mere 48 years ago in 402 GD and spent its first few years as a toll post for the bridge constructed over the river by the Imperial army. However its potential was not missed. The number of settlers passing through each year was reliable, and the local climate was unusually mild if a bit dry. A middle-aged couple eventually bought the rights to the toll and opened an inn. Settlers began to stay and the Imperial Engineering Companies accelerated their improvements of the Imperial roads and trade with the Dwarven Mining communities to the southeast rose at a rapid clip as they diverted their export products to the closer market of Westermark and the Gaborean Empire rather than their kinsmen and the native polities to the south.
In contrast to the booming prosperity of Gaborea the Confederate economy never fully recovered its competetiveness after the loss of its western mines. However the Dwarven guarantors of the status quo have blocked human dreams of revanchism in general and Gaborean plots in specific.
Worse yet the Orcs have consistently defended the rights of their merchants and remaining population in human lands and demanded access to and through the Gaborean lands for their own settlement purposes, but numerous orcs do not even bother to leave Gaborea once in it and simply settle down in unregulated frontier provinces. Of this Esterley Crossing is a prime example. The Orcish population while useful is nevertheless unpopular, it is often the cause of crime and the target of oppressive economic policies.

Esterley Crossing remains a small rural town at this point, a settlement of some 523 souls (primarly half-elves and humans) is situated at the bend of Esterley, a medium-sized river running from the southwest to the north through semi-fertile plains. To the north the Esterley river enters the aboreal Dennel forest, while upriver it originates from the Partakk hills that border the south and east which host the mining communities, the raison de etre for the Imperial road constructed sixty summers ago connecting the mines to provinces further west. Esterley Crossing is one of a handful of civilized towns and villages in the province of Eluihne, a predominantly fey corner of the nation known as Westermark.
As a trading stop Esterley Cr. is occasionally frequented by Dwarves and Gnomes buying precious and bulk metals and selling consumer goods. This however attracts the attention of bandits, though without their dastardliness the crossing would still be pestered by the aboriginal population of gnolls, hobbits, wild elves, magical forest creatures and those monsters that wander down from the mountains to stalk the night and hide at day.

The Silver Mug Inn: As the snow melted in Early Spring a small caravan of Dwarves selling arms and armor stopped in the town for a week's rest on their way to the mines, offering their goods at a discount. As a convoy offering military goods in itself was unusual the offer stirred something of a flame among the more restive lads and lasses of Esterley tired of their bucolic existence. By the third day of their stay the young lad Stettin Smithson had gathered the cream of the town's youth in the Silver Mug Inn to persuade them to invest their life savings in weapons and supplies and take up the mantel of the brave explorers and frontier adventurers. After all the oppertunities were rife in the air, they could deal with the local menace of monsters, investigate the ruins of native temples in the area, hire on as convoy guards, travel to the capital or even explore the unmapped frontiers beyond the hills to the south and east.

Strength: 15
Dexterity: 15
Constitution: 13
Intelligence: 16
Wisdom: 14
Charisma: 14
Comeliness: 16

And I rolled a 10 on the magic die.

What does comeliness effect? Is it just looks?

These are pretty good stats though, not utterly fantastic but pretty good for whatever he tries his hands at I guess. I still have a floating stat swap though, so I'll probably be using that for whatever class I choose. I'm thinking of a caster, since I got a 10 on the magic roll and all.

EDIT: Are we going to be staying in the area for long or is it just the beginning?

I'm totally in! I'm just going to roll, but if you would prefer to roll for me, I'll swap out my random numbers for the random numbers you witnessed.

Magic roll: 9

That fits the human requirement for magic, so I'm going to go human.

Stats:

Strength: 4,6,6,5 => 17
Dexterity: 6,1,4,4 => 14
Constitution: 3,1,4,4 => 11
Intelligence: 6,4,6,5 => 17
Wisdom: 6,2,3,6 =>15
Charisma: 4,1,3,1 => 8
Comeliness: 3,3,4,5 => 12

I think I will swap strength for constitution.

Strength: 11
Dexterity: 14
Constitution: 17
Intelligence:17
Wisdom: 15
Charisma: 8
Comeliness: 12

...Eh... Gender: 1d4. => 2 => ♀

---

Vuanaunt the level one Magical girl! human wizard, reporting for duty!

(Actually no, still a Work in progress. I'm holding off on my backstory, feats, and skills until I see some of the other characters.)


P.S. How are we dealing with Spell books and Wizard spells known?

I think I'll play an Illusionist Wizard. But if not enough people join I may have to play something less squishy.

With a roll of 10 you can be any type of magic user that you want to be. (I forgot to mention the rarer types needs a 10)

Comeliness just affect your looks and are highly race specific outside of the five great races (humans, orcs, elves, dwarves, gnomes). Basically its a way of inserting ugliness into NPCs and PCs and making a pretty face cost a bit in other PC stats while on the other hand becoming something to be proud of more than usually.

As for staying with your starting location? Nah, that's pretty much up to you guys, learn to love the place or shake the dust off at it. My greatest strength and weakness is I am very loose with the directions. I'm bad at prodding players (at worst the world can seem rather daily-life on the local and sometimes even regional scale), but there is tons of freedom to explore and/or create havoc or plot!
I'm ok with very local and good with very geopolitical plots, but for the wide middle ground of semi-local to regional/dungeon-linked conspiracies and temple raiding and such I will be using such prepared materials I find in RPG magazines and online.
Basically you are free to do exactly what you want! Anything from protecting Esterley Crossing, making friends with people you meet, building and running orphanages in the Capital, recovering the lost orb of Phanastacoria (Darths and Droids ref!) to seducing sorceresses, tobogganing down mountains, pioneering catapult airlines, awakening and possibly destroying the ancient dire Chocolisk, participating in the Halfling Olympics, fighting for 'small people' rights, becoming bandits/river pirates, forming a trading guild/constructing a minor polity, shoving people into communal city latrines and taking bets on how long till they drown/lose consciousness, organizing tea parties to impress/humble enemies/friends, to exterminating the goblins/orcs/hill giants.

Glad to hear you're in! : )

Spell books and wizard spells known? Well, you can get a basic one from your parents/family or your mentor (and the resultant social debt to your benefactor) with your known spells and the blank pages on top of your 150 gold.

Note!: Lol, if you both chose to be magic-users (and if you are both locals) the new magical talent of Esterley will be tapped out! : ) There is a female high/wild-elf Druid in a thicket outside of town who heals people and the wirey 50-year old brother of the Mayor, a bald man slightly bitter with his lot in life as a vanilla third-level human Wizard. He is probably your mentor unless you went by a combination of correspondance courses with (and occasional visits to) the cities to the west and self-studying (in which case I will roll one to three secret quirks for your quality of spellcasting).
The advantage of having a mentor is not having any spellcaster quirks you need to buy down or live with and a person to look to for help, but mentors tend to expect more in return than what you already paid them for their lessons.

Strength: 15
Dexterity: 17
Constitution: 18
Intelligence: 15
Wisdom: 13
Charisma: 11
Comeliness: 14
Magic: 2

Eh, as far as rolls go, this isn't too bad. There's nothing particularly crippling, and I can swap Con for one of the others in case I really need it. Also, judging from the way thing are turning out, I'll probably land a class as a frontline fighter of some sort.

BTW, are we using splatbooks and what level do we start at?

Hmm. I might try to join this, though I'm not really fond of a number of D&D features (random stat generation, Vancian magic, all those save-or-die effects, Vancian magic, higher-level characters needing a bajillion boring magical items with no flavor to stay competitive, Vancian magic). We'll see.

Is there any exciting plot or setting information to hook us?

How do minor magic-users like rangers and paladins fit into this, or even classes with "supernatural" class features falling short of outright spells?

D&D doesn't have all that many completely mundane classes.

So with so many half-breeds, are there any elf-orcs? Or is this one of those "120 half-elves and 52 half-orcs doesn't mean there's 172 separate people" tricks?

Don't you need to... be a halfling for that?

You mentioned that one twice. I'm guessing you really like sorceresses?

That'll be interesting, considering a significant number of the local villagers are orcs!

Don't you need to... be a halfling for that?

No. Unless they're performing Detect Magic to constantly check for performance enhancing potions you should be fine.

They've already infiltrated the town.

Hey, Melhurst, do you think I can use this class for my character? As far as I can tell, it is pretty well balanced against the other core classes, and doesn't have any overtly supernatural skills that wouldn't fit within the campaign.

Would a Beguiler from the PHB II be cool?

I had a look, and while I'm not a great judge of balance (neither, for that matter, are the official D&D designers - clerics, druids, and wizards are infamously overpowered), the Precision Strike ability is obviously way over-the-top for a first-level class feature. Practically every melee fighter with a Dexterity higher than 11 will want to multiclass one level into this. Just for an obvious comparison, look at the Weapon Finesse feat (affects only attack rolls and not damage rolls, uses Dexterity instead of rather than in addition to Strength, applies only to light melee weapons and a few special cases like rapiers rather than EVERYTHING).

Oh, I was hoping that I could actually do something like the magical girl trope. I've acquired magical powers by a contract with my familiar. I'd still be playing a wizard, but I would just be relating a lot of my backstory and powers to originate from the trope.

I'm not sure if that would mean that I'm actually drawing from the town's pool of casters, if my magic was given to me by a contract.


Would you be fine with that?


Also, unrelated, but can I get a collapsible 10 foot pole as my staff?

If you want more innate magic with a touch of the Power of Friendship (hey, it's magical girls, right?), then sorcerer would be more fitting than wizard. Charisma-based casting, no spellbooks, you still get a cute pet. Of course, that doesn't work with a Cha of 8.

Also, the best magic wand is a light mace. (I'm sure you can decorate those with sparkles and gemstones if you want. Actually, gemstones are pretty hard, they'd make good crushing heads...)

Haha, yeah. Charisma isn't my strong point. (And I do enjoy Roleplaying a low charisma character.)



As for a sparkley mace, that's a good idea except that wizards aren't proficient with them. Still, I laughed. (It's tradition for someone in every party to carry a 10 foot pole. I don't actually expect it to come into play, and in all likeliness I'll just go with a staff, but I'd still like to ask for a collapsible one.)



Hey, Mellhurst, Do you have a MSN messenger account or any other IM?

I've decided, I want to play this: Red Mage.

The 5th and 6th level spells aren't completed yet but at level 1 it's practically a non issue. He's essentially someone who was apprenticed alongside Vua's character but was really unfocused in his training and discipline. I'll write up a backstory alongside Vua since our characters probably know each other.