I want you to post your character backgrounds. As the DM, I'll reserve the right to adjust some minor details to fit your story into the campaign. I promise I'll do my best to preserve the most of your creativity.
Feel free to post some portrait or even a link to the character sheet via Google Docs.
Let the games begin
"No curse we can't reverse; no spell we can't break; no demon we can't exterminate; no plane we can't reach"
- Motto of the Magnificent Order of the Planeswalkers, as said by the first time by Veritatis, its founder and the Grimmchester Brothers mentor
All that I need is here on my person. My hooks, my lines, my chains. Yes, my chain. It is the legacy of my many hunts; every metal link is a finished hunt. Every circlet of iron reminds me of my prey. They stay with my through the chain, and they lend me support when I need it: forged strong, fashioned of metal and linked just as we were trained, hardened and linked in life. The difference between friends and enemies is whether I give you my life, or take yours.
I could make my hooks do things not seen in ages. They seemed to obey my very thoughts. When a hook leaves my grasp, it goes where it must. I am simply the instrument, the hook knows the way. My hook and line draws life together.
My chain is the record of my life so far. See that fifth chain link? The one with the sparkling notch? Kalae his name was; a merchant by trade, a thief by necessity. He took that which was not his to possess and he attempted to bargain for his stolen property. He shamed the bonds of trade. He will not do so again.
The scrap of map-cloth I carry was on Kalae’s person when I caught him. But truly, it is a gift from Kamsa; she gave it in reward for the successful hunt of Kalae. The parchment shows something of the lands. Parts of it seem familiar, but in its totality it seems imprecise… I will find its location. I have all the time I need.
Hoist stands 6'10" tall (180cm); lean and athletic. His eyes are dark, piercing and cast his face with a keen intensity. His pale hair is pulled back and tied with a strand of leather to dangle between his shoulders.
Hello! I have updated the google docs link above to the current version of Hoist (final) and I wanted to ask you something.
What do you think about adjusting the range on the Kor Hook to 5/10 instead of 3/6? It seems to me that something used to scale distances should have a little bit more of a practical range. I think 3 squares is a bit limiting for something that is Reach (2) to begin with.
Well, I must say I have a twofold opinion on this.
Flavorfully, we must not forget what the kors use their hooks for: vertical climbing. I'm not a specialist, but I think that throwing the hook more than 5 meters up reduces considerably the strength needed for it to "hook up" correctly.
Mechanically, giving more range to a wepon that can be handled as well as a melee weapon as a reach one, turns it into a range weapon also, comparing it to a vast collection of powers that others non-ranged characters have. For the sake of balance, I'd stick to the 3/6 range, sorry.
I'm open to other members' opinions, of course. Maybe I get convinced. And, of course, you can use your Christmas wish to get a kor hook with extra range. You never know what those other elves have been working on all this year.
"No curse we can't reverse; no spell we can't break; no demon we can't exterminate; no plane we can't reach"
- Motto of the Magnificent Order of the Planeswalkers, as said by the first time by Veritatis, its founder and the Grimmchester Brothers mentor
Well David, you have a very good way of extending the reach of the hook, when you miss with it, remember? I also like that power very much because I imagine Hoist having planned the miss all along to USE the missed enemy as a... Grapnel Hook extender!!
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Cylonea has been a typical Merfolk in many aspects, for most of her life. But this of course means that she has lived an experience unique to her and her only among the Merfolk, as per the famous individualism of the blue-skinned people.
She abandoned the depths of Halimar when she was just a child, and it was already a conscious choice, taken after a long period of pondering by Cylonea, with the consent of both her parents.
Already well versed in the arcane arts, and in particular in the brewing of concoctions able to cure wounds, and trained in the use of the staff as a weapon enhanced by arcane energies, she headed towards the Oran-Reef forest. It had fascinated her since its floating reefs were just a blurred and surreal painting in the sky, which she loved to gaze from the bottom of the shallowest waters of her home.
She survived to the wild of the shifting forest thanks to her curative magic and defensive combat skills, but she began to understand that her abilities were too limited and that her natural talents had always been broader than what she could understand when she was immersed in the arcane traditions of her family. She started to attune to the fluctuating primal energies of the Oran-Reef, and her already keen roil-sense became deeper and wider. She was becoming an elementalist shaman, able to summon to her side a piece of Zendikar itself, animated by the very Roil, and infused with an eldritch consciousness of some kind, although fully at her service.
With such a reliable companion, her dangerous and lonely voyage became safer and also more interesting, thanks to the new perspective that bloomed inside her mind after these discoveries. She began to understand why her parents and community always had so much faith in her , and why they always remembered about the extraordinary circumstances of her birth, that was said to have been accompanied by changes in the Roil. Before, she doubted those claims and regarded them as fairy tales, told to her just to make her feel special and loved. Now she started to think that after all, those strange happenings might have really been some kind of signs. A premonition of what would become an incredible link between her soul and the Roil. And maybe the reason why she was still alive after her incredibly precocious adventures.
Moons came and went by, and the sylphlike merfolk child was also becoming a young and tall woman in the meantime. But she payed way more attention to the changes outside of her than to those going on inside. So much so that she didn't quite understand what was going on when a young Tajuru elf started to follow her in her travels, protecting her with unasked arrows and spear, to the point that after some time she felt smothered by his behavior and she eventually expressed her anger to him, only to be left bewildered and blushful by the following explanation of his motives...
They never crossed roads again after that embarrassing moment, much to her relief, so she continued her lone adventure, never actually feeling lonely thanks to her elemental companion and the strange, comforting sense of commune with the wild nature all around her, which she sensed more and more.
Her arcane powers advanced with time too, but they differed from the traditional ones, seemingly changing from land to land as she travelled, another sign of her strong bond with Zendikar. Spells that she had always perceived as flashy and sparkling effects when they were casted in her community, displayed as more... "Organic" when coming out of her mind and hands.
Quite suddenly, one stormy afternoon she felt a deep turmoil in the land, and she began to interrogate the elements, looking for answers. But she ended up feeling nothing more than a hazy sense of "awakening of the world", so for the first time in her long voyage, she decided to head towards civilization and in particular the Lighthouse of Sea Gate, the largest center of knowledge and studies in Tazeem and perhaps in all Zendikar. There, she hoped to find the answers she needed to know about the land. Or perhaps about herself.
Cylonea possess the typical merfolk figure, slender to the point of looking thin. But even if she hasn't got any visible muscles (she's not athletic at all), compared to other merfolk women she has quite an imposing frame all in all, especially because of her considerable height of 5' 10'' (177-178 cm).
Her fins and hair are crimson red, but with variable gradients ranging from a nearly orange hue to a slightly purpleish red. The appearance and variation of the gradients on her fins is dictated by her mood and/or ambiental conditions. Her hair color is more or less fixed, changing only with humidity and sun exposure.
Her hair is long and wild and she dresses in a practical and unobtrusive way, with leather armor placed only on vital spots. She prefers to keep her enemies at a distance, so she doesn't gear up for close combat often, even if sometimes she even enjoys it.
What's more striking about the appearance of Cylonea is her nearly palpable aura of keen perception of her surroundings. She seems to anticipate many events and when she's hit in combat, she often seems to be able to minimize damage in some way. So she's more resilient than she may look like.
Contributing to her protection is her elemental companion. It is a being infused with the Roil, so its appearance is incredibly variable, but a constant element is the constant rotating movement of the various chunks of stone, dirt, vegetation or anything that composes the entity. All the components are always orbiting around a center which is usually marked by the display of some kind of eyes, often made by the glowing patterns of hedron chips. The terrain under the elemental companion shifts constantly, so that's why it is able to stop a creature in its tracks: it literally changes the terrain around it. Cylonea is currently trying to devise a way to take advantage of this in another way, by making the terrain easier for her and her allies when needed.
The most striking thing about Cylonea's personality is that it can be described in opposite ways, since depending on the onlooker she may appear as nearly devoid of a definite personality, or incredibly rich of features. This is because she's strongly influenced by the environment around her, and this can be interpreted as being very moody or utterly dull.
Going a bit deeper inside Cylonea's mind and emotional sphere, her "world-symbiotic cocoon" can be pierced and the true Cylonea starts to come out. And the most important things about her at this level are two: her very young age and subsequently naive way of processing emotions, and her inextinguishable flame of passion and curiosity. This contrasts a bit with her deep and cultured mind and primal spirituality. She truly seems to include inside her all the elements: the ardent energy of fire, the depth and fluidness of water, the protective nature of earth, and the variability and lightness of air.
(to be continued)
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1) What's your character's name? Vurokslaw Dedahvrov. Shortened and polished by him into Vurokk Dahvre, to sound more badass! 2) How old is he/she? Doesn't know/remember exactly. He guesses somewhere between 24 and 28. 3) Is your OC a boy or girl? ... A "boy"... 4) What's his/her race? Shade. Previously human, underwent the ritual in the depths of Guul Draaz, udner the supervision of a vaguely remembered flying vampire shaman.
1) If this character were to suddenly become part of the real world, and ended up in a heavily-populated area, how many stares would he/she get? MANY stares. He's a sophisticated black-knight type that can hide in plain sight, leaving only a 4,5x4,5 meters zone of dim light, and carries a wicked and exotic blade. 2) Is your character considered normal in his/her own world? Not much. Shades are not common in Zendikar. He can look human since he's in full armor always, but the fact that he's so silent and stealthy even like that, is something supernatural even in Zendikar. 3) What would be his/her most recognizable feature(s)? The eyes that glow green in the dark, the custom armor with a very exotic and practical look. The fact that he can appear right behind you... 4) Would you consider your OC attractive? Very. His hidden facial features are very handsome and he's very magnetic. His force of personality is strong and apparent even when the face is hidden by the helm-mask.
1) Temper: He's a blackguard of fury, so he's accustomed to extraordinary high levels of anger. This actually makes it easy for him to stay very calm when needed. After all he releases supernatural amounts of wrath when battling. 2) Does your character ever get depressed? He's probably constantly depressed, a bit. He has been through a lot of violence, so the world is not a very happy place for him. But he has stoically accepted this and his role of killer, so in the end, he's more cynic than depressed. 3) Leader or follower? Strangely enough, he's a follower. He lacks the knowledge to truly make goals of his own, not very interesting ones anyway, so he prefers to follow the lead of knowledgeable people, he already experienced that the best battles can happen like this, and he constructed himself as an infiltrator and shock-troop of invaluable tactical aid, so expeditionary houses always look for his presence. 4) What is the main aspect of his/her personality? Pragmatic to the level of using even emotions for a purpose. He separates his work from ethics, and the fury he channels, he feels it, but only because he decided that it's the best way to fight. He went through dark rituals that possibly scarred his soul and body, only because it was tactically advantageous to do so. But out of combat, he's quite calm, likes to be of service, and can even be charming and poetic.
1) Does your OC have a family of any sort? He has some memories of a family, but doesn't remember much of his childhood. He remembers that he needed to make money and that he chose his present path because of that need. He lost contact and memory of his family and previous life when he underwent the scarring process of becoming a Shade, in the depths of Guul Draaz. 2) Is your character out on his/her own? Out on his own... Definitely 3) Has he/she encountered any traumatizing events? Well, practically all of his life is a traumatizing event. But one could say that he managed to deal with most of it very well. His strong personality prevented him from loosing the sense of identity. 4) What was probably the best time in his/her life so far? Every pitched, bloody, and difficult battle is told by him as a "wonderful time". But it's more because he feels accomplished by the fact that he managed to survive and win the battle...
1) Single? Yes, single 2) Has your OC developed any romantic relationships? Yes, a few... During his travels and in Nimana, sometimes a woman (vampire more often than not) decides to savour his fury outside of battle... ;-) He also became quite attached to some of them, but it didn't work out. Most women were scared to have a deep relationship with him, and he's constantly on the move anyway, so little time to actually do it. 3) Virgin? Nope. 4) Does your character like flirting? He likes it, but passively so. He's not the type who actively flirts, at least not when he sees that there are no competitors of his level, or that his mere looks are already enough of an attraction.
1) What animal would you associate your OC with? Animal... Some creature of the night. A panther, a solitary predator and killer. But it should be a reptile. Maybe a crocodile, biting suddenly from the murky waters! 2) Musical Instrument? Saxophone, just because! 3) Element? Fire, even if cold in appearance... A spectral blue-green flame..! 4) Planet? Neptune: the farthest, big, cold, but with an expressive "eye" and a strong personality.
1) Is your character wanted for anything? He's wanted to kill people and beasts alike, especially when there are many of them, when the fight is expected to be long, and when being stealthy is the best approach. 2) What are three weaknesses in him/her? Even if he manages to be stealthy, he can't have very good reflexes. He carries a shield and a lighter sword to compensate, but it's difficult for him to renounce to his mighty Bloodclaw falchion. He's also quite fond of alcohol and hallucinogenics, which is quite a weakness. And he can suffer from sorrow and regretfulness after killing intelligent people, or sometimes abruptly for no apparent reason. 3) Strengths? His physical strength and force of personality. His access to dark powers. His ability to be both resilient and stealthy. 4) Does your OC drink or smoke (etc.)? Yes and yes. Although he doesn't smoke much when on "duty". He still drinks, it helps him channel his powers (and cope with the sorrow...) 5) What's one quirk about him/her? He has a weird accent (I wonder what real-world one would it resemble... ;-) ), and he likes to be cynical, of few words, but also sympathetic while at it. He manages to be very funny, but never laughs himself! 6) Does your character have any phobias? No phobias: he HAD to fight any and all of them completely. He remembers having had some, even mighty ones, but doesn't remember which ones exactly. He also secretly fears a life of loneliness without love. 7) What could you do to get him/her into a blind rage? Even if not exactly blind, rage is his constant state when fighting. However, what enrages him outside of battle is essentially when the strong hurt the weak. He's quick at showing them no mercy for their behaviour.
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Birthplace: unknown. Possibly not even in Zendikar. This would justify his rather "alien" concept of style, shown in his armor and blade (that he made himself). Main base: Nimana. His first memories are there, and it's there where he started his life as a sell-sword, as many warriors in Nimana start to thrive... (Nimana Sell-sword ) The place where he became a shade: Helix of Zof, an Eldrazi ruin in Guul Draaz. He practically became in part a Zof Shade - card in which the Helix is cited. The supervisor of the ritual was a Vampire Nighthawk that he hasn't encountered again, at least not that he remembers. Secondary base: Zulaport. The first place he visited outside of Guul Draaz. He participated to (mainly hunting) expeditions throughout all of Beyeen, and he earned a reputation as a drake slayer in the Boilbasin
The drakes were vulnerable to his cold-based Dread Smite. He knows Ruta Legala of the Ondu expeditionary house, and was even given some man-hunt missions by Indorel, the vampire who practically rules Zulaport's economy and is the de-facto one-man-thieves'-guild of the settlement. (Link) His reputation among the civilized (and exiled) Ghet vampires of Nimana, and the knowledge of the Vampire language helped him a lot in Zulaport and specifically in dealing with Indorel. He practically became a Zulaport Enforcer . And also one of the best Zulaport Runners (Nighthaze ), due to his stealth abilities. Other places he has been to:
Pelakka Karst, in retrieving expeditions; he found his brooch of shielding there, where it served some arcane purpose within an ancient device inside the Hagra Cistern complex. (Link)
Malakir, only in the slum-like and flooded Ghet district where he had some contacts;
The Hanging Swamp.
Halimar in Tazeem (mainly as a mercenary in a vessel of a wealthy Nimana tradesman). (Link)
Seagate, where he decided to stay, sending messengers to cancel his contracts with the Ondu Expeditionary House, and abandoning the Nimana tradesman's well-paid job, with the hope of finding less unethical jobs within the Halimar Expeditionary house. There he came to know the Covenant of the Forgotten Relics... (link) ...And the rest is history.
Random facts:
Superstition: He's a very superstitious guy. After all, most of what he is, he can't understand (and even most sages can't), so he can believe in practically anything (low Insight)... But some of his superstitions have some solid theory behind. An example, he doesn't sleep in rooms with corners. He believes that Hedrons are evil in nature and a curse, and that their power lies in their precise geometry, so he avoids staying in similarly geometrically-shaped places for very long. Consciously or not, this also has to do with his stealth abilities, which are much better outdoors than indoors (Camouflage feat).
Religion: He also believes that the gods are evil, and that his abilities are a memento of that evil. He sometimes speaks in ancient Vampire "out of his mind" for a few seconds, and then remembers about it, and he believes that is a sign of bad things to come, and another proof of the evil presence of the gods. In particular, he believes that he's in some way associated to Cosi the Trickster.
Drugs: The swamps of Guul Draaz are home to many psychoactive plants and fungi, and Vurokk knows sufficiently well where to find them and what to pick (training in Nature due to his Ranger multiclassing). Connected to his superstitious and religious beliefs, he enjoys halucinogenics, even if sometimes he finds it hard to shake the effects off (mediocre Endurance bonus, even if he's trained in it). In his hallucinations he sees monsters of incredible kinds, and when he describes them, the horror stories that he can end up with are truly scary, especially because they're always between reality and hallucinations, with elements that make one (and himself) doubt about the unreality of the images he sees. It doesn't ehlp that he's actually able to display images out of his mind, with a blend of shadow and mental abilities (Psionic Image wild talent, refluffed to "Shadow Image").
Social: Vurokk is a socially-aware person, able to cope with many a difficult situations in which social skills are involved. He frequently sends messages to his contacts by means of messenger animals or humanoid travellers, just to keep in touch. He's revered by many not only for his combat skills but also for his intimidating presence, which sometimes is enough to avoid combat altogether, especially when his reputation precedes him. He aims at becoming a recognizable icon.
Carfting and equipment: Connected to this, he crafts his equipment himself in most cases, asking for magical aid from vampire shamans when he needs to, but giving them very specific requests. His sense of style is quite alien, but of great impact, seen as very modern by the few that are in a position to judge, and very intimidating by practically everyone else. His pragmatism is literally engraved in his equipment, which is functional and aimed at very specific purposes, both in combat and out of it. He likes being easily recognizable, and cares quite a bit about keeping both his body and his equipment clean and in a good state.
Vurokslaw under the hood. His skin is actually of a satin-like shade of grey, and his eyes are devoid of pupils, and have a strangely "gradient" iris. The whole forms an orb that seems made of quicksilver, and that glows green in the dark or when he channels his powers.
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