for the Upcoming Experiment upon a Setting Sun. here is what i have
1. 35 Point Buy
2. 2 Traits, buy a 3rd with a Drawback
3. Background Skills
4. Automatic Bonus Progression with 2 extra effective levels as per no magic
5. Elephant in the Room
6. Path of War. Psionics and Spheres Permitted with submission of intent
7. Leadership Allowed as long as the Cohort and Followers aren't abused to hell and high water
8. Please don't abuse things, i give high power stuff so you don't need to abuse
9. most magic items are either consumeable or named artifacts, you don't just find a +1 dagger, you find the infamous Drow artifact Charlotte.
10. i do weaponize character descriptions and have a soft spot for petite cutesy feminine humanoids that can pass for humanesque
11. i'll allow the Nyxad homebrew i was working on if you wanna playtest it.
12. commonplace firearms and appropriate similar tech
13. i'll adjust item prices based on supply and demand, as appropriate to a settlement
14. i need you to come up with home countries and NPC connections to give me ideas
15. while i'll borrow a handful of things from golarion, golarion isn't the everything
16. for weapon attunement and armor attunement, i'm giving them the PF2 treatment of applying the bonus to every weapon, armor and shield you equip because dual wield tax on enhancements sucks
17. if your character gains something ABP already grants as a virtue of a character feature like race, the values don't stack, use the higher of the 2 applicable bonuses. wizards don't get much benefit from magic weapons after all
18. i will be liberal with special materials and special material based DRs, and i will generally monty haul with gear in preparation for a hard fight or as a reward for a deadly fight.
19. while ABP provides the base bonuses, i will still let you spend gold on special properties,
20. Starting level of 4, count as level 6 for ABP purposes, milestone advancement, new characters come in at party level. i'm not that cruel, just no random suicide characters, i mean, i gave such a high point buy to prevent suiciding for Rerolls
21. Hit Points per level are half hit die+2 or d4=4 d6=5 d8=6 d10 =7 d12 =8 but maxed at 1st level,
22. feats that count as combat expertise, power attack, deadly aim or weapon finesse for prerequisites are rolled into elephant in the room freebies
23. sorcerers can choose to use an alternative spell list wholesale for thematic reasons, for example, by giving up access to the wizard list, a sorcerer can for example choose to gain the spell list of another 9 level progression caster, like the cleric, druid, witch, or shaman for example, counting as that particular type of magic. assuming they can tie it into their bloodline, for example, a fey bloodline sorcerer can choose to cast as a divine caster off the druid list. they still use the same spellcasting ability and are still spontaneous casters. they gain no other features of that other class besides the exchange of spell list.
24. instead of charging a feat to craft magic items for special properties, or craft consumeables, most items can be crafted with the appropriate craft or profession skill befitting their description
25. i'm not going to charge a skill tax to use wands or scrolls of level 0 and level 1 spells. UMD is needed for higher level stuff.
26. i treat celestial healing as a clone of infernal healing, but good aligned, i also allow fey vigor, the neutral version that requires fey tears
27. i won't make you roll to Confirm a nat 20, but i will make you roll to confirm other critical threat ranges, specifically because NPCs with 15-20 crit ranges autocritting on 15+ is scary.
28. Post an online Digital Live Link to your Sheet in this thread. could be Myth Weavers or Google Docs for all i care, as long as i have access to a live version of the sheet.
1. 35 Point Buy
2. 2 Traits, buy a 3rd with a Drawback
3. Background Skills
4. Automatic Bonus Progression with 2 extra effective levels as per no magic
5. Elephant in the Room
6. Path of War. Psionics and Spheres Permitted with submission of intent
7. Leadership Allowed as long as the Cohort and Followers aren't abused to hell and high water
8. Please don't abuse things, i give high power stuff so you don't need to abuse
9. most magic items are either consumeable or named artifacts, you don't just find a +1 dagger, you find the infamous Drow artifact Charlotte.
10. i do weaponize character descriptions and have a soft spot for petite cutesy feminine humanoids that can pass for humanesque
11. i'll allow the Nyxad homebrew i was working on if you wanna playtest it.
12. commonplace firearms and appropriate similar tech
13. i'll adjust item prices based on supply and demand, as appropriate to a settlement
14. i need you to come up with home countries and NPC connections to give me ideas
15. while i'll borrow a handful of things from golarion, golarion isn't the everything
16. for weapon attunement and armor attunement, i'm giving them the PF2 treatment of applying the bonus to every weapon, armor and shield you equip because dual wield tax on enhancements sucks
17. if your character gains something ABP already grants as a virtue of a character feature like race, the values don't stack, use the higher of the 2 applicable bonuses. wizards don't get much benefit from magic weapons after all
18. i will be liberal with special materials and special material based DRs, and i will generally monty haul with gear in preparation for a hard fight or as a reward for a deadly fight.
19. while ABP provides the base bonuses, i will still let you spend gold on special properties,
20. Starting level of 4, count as level 6 for ABP purposes, milestone advancement, new characters come in at party level. i'm not that cruel, just no random suicide characters, i mean, i gave such a high point buy to prevent suiciding for Rerolls
21. Hit Points per level are half hit die+2 or d4=4 d6=5 d8=6 d10 =7 d12 =8 but maxed at 1st level,
22. feats that count as combat expertise, power attack, deadly aim or weapon finesse for prerequisites are rolled into elephant in the room freebies
23. sorcerers can choose to use an alternative spell list wholesale for thematic reasons, for example, by giving up access to the wizard list, a sorcerer can for example choose to gain the spell list of another 9 level progression caster, like the cleric, druid, witch, or shaman for example, counting as that particular type of magic. assuming they can tie it into their bloodline, for example, a fey bloodline sorcerer can choose to cast as a divine caster off the druid list. they still use the same spellcasting ability and are still spontaneous casters. they gain no other features of that other class besides the exchange of spell list.
24. instead of charging a feat to craft magic items for special properties, or craft consumeables, most items can be crafted with the appropriate craft or profession skill befitting their description
25. i'm not going to charge a skill tax to use wands or scrolls of level 0 and level 1 spells. UMD is needed for higher level stuff.
26. i treat celestial healing as a clone of infernal healing, but good aligned, i also allow fey vigor, the neutral version that requires fey tears
27. i won't make you roll to Confirm a nat 20, but i will make you roll to confirm other critical threat ranges, specifically because NPCs with 15-20 crit ranges autocritting on 15+ is scary.
28. Post an online Digital Live Link to your Sheet in this thread. could be Myth Weavers or Google Docs for all i care, as long as i have access to a live version of the sheet.
Alysa, Hero of the Commons
Far to the west of the common lands once lay a kingdom, immense in both land and treasure, raised up to mighty heights by the excellent diplomacy and guile of its' King, Lord Thaldren. It was a kingdom of men, elves, dwarves, and giants, with immense cosmopolitan heartlands beringed by fortresses and farms in equal measure. The common man lived well, if not always comfortably, and its' laws and strictures were the envy of the chaotic lands of their neighbors.
It was this superiority, however, which led to its' downfall.
Much as other civilizations had risen and fallen through the murky rivers of history, this one rose to great and powerful heights, only to be undone by the tragic arrogance of the King's eldest son. Raised within the highest of society, burdened with wealth and influence from his childhood onward, the eldest son, Henry, overthrew his father by use of bitter poison, robbing his father of first his senses, and later his very life. Henry was not, however, the diplomat his father had been; he was jealous, petty, spiteful. Beneath his rule, Elfkind saw itself placed upon a pedestal, with Humans and Dwarves kept as second class citizens, stripping their people of political power within the Kingdom. Not long after, even the mighty Giants were deposed from their place among society, the brutish creatures taken from their positions as architects and planners, instead to be chained and forced to be laborers, transmuting their pride into grief. There had always been dissension within the Kingdom, but beneath the thousand year reign of King Thaldren, they had seen prosperity despite it; without his steady hand and fair mind, however, rivalries flared between them, the people who had once formed the very mortar of the kingdom's foundations now were riven apart.
In the days that followed, a civil war was looming near, its' darkness overshadowing the kingdom with fear and death. It was in this shadow that Henry claimed for himself the title of Emperor, and began to take by conquest what had already been won by guile; allies became vassals, citizens enslaved, and swiftly thereafter did the curtain fall upon it; still, here and there, you may find the broad roads which once carried the kingdom's lifeblood - the broken feet of gigantic statues, the name chiseled away, overshadowing the diminutive road markers bearing the name and faded, weatherworn visage of noble King Thaldren; of the Empire, of the Kingdom, little else remains. What by the hands of dwarves was carved, the hands of giants built, by the minds of elves and the ingenuity of man constructed, was all too easily torn down by those very same forces. Now, here and there amongst the settlements which freckled the vast countryside could be found cleanly cut, beautiful marble stones used as the foundation plinths of old homes, the landscape growing in the fuzzy-edged squares that once demarcated immense farmlands, their borders and crops lost and wild, their order dissolved into the patient chaos of nature.
As her Order tells it, the Empire was torn apart by Henry's own hands; one of the Order's Purifiers, a woman by the name of Kaerennis, later to become the First Justicar of our order, an Elf of common blood and parentage, who had witnessed within the span of her life both the kingdom's rise and the empire's fall, bore up a rare and remarkable weapon for the time - a pistol of dwarvenmake, fine and lovely, made of shining metal and immaculate filigree - and with it cast down the tyrant Henry. Her fatal blow, instead of slaying him outright, instead tore away the darkness and evil that shrouded him, revealing the darkness which he had brought unto his people, and bringing to light the full depravity which he had visited upon those who had once mattered most to him. In his rage and grief, he pulled down the very stones of the Empire around him, and it is said the capital city and its' vile host had been drowned in the very soil of the land, buried in an earthquake which sundered the mountains for miles around.
The kingdom has no name, any more; it has been lost to time. Like so, Thaldren's forebears and progeny are otherwise unknown; the kingdom is believed to be equal parts myth and reality, cobbled together from bits and pieces of other empires, other kingdoms, other times. Its' place in the Order's history is, therefore, nearly biblical; as much built upon allegory as upon fact, though the Order's Grand Hall claims to be built upon the shattered wreckage of the old Kingdom, standing within the heart of a mountain that appears cleaved in two, as if by the blade of an immense being.
Of course, how deeply one believes such a thing is a matter of personal faith, a topic little-discussed in nearly agnostic Daelanth, the city built into the ravines which cross the lands beneath like a spiderweb, old caverns and tunnels linking the disparate strands into a cohesive whole. Some like to believe that Daelanth may have even been built within the rubble of the Kingdom, though it had become in the latest centuries an assumed form of ignorant arrogance; after all, who but a fool would claim to live in a place which few believed to be real? While the tortured stone of the land certainly hinted to some great cataclysm, it was certainly some other great event which spawned it; such arrogance to believe that they might dwell within those sacred and storied lands!
Of course, despite being raised upon this tale of tragedy and arrogance, it is easy for a man to believe himself forewarned, and thereby avoid a similar trap, and falling to a similar fate; many are those who are proven wrong, their footsteps joining countless others upon the well-trod roads to darkness and tyranny.
It is from one who walked upon the Path of the Tyrant that she came to be; a man, married to a woman who shared his dream; a world bereft of darkness and cruelty, of petty wickedness, of the unfair tides of fortune. He strode the path of a Paladin, and she beside him, carrying forth the name of their God of Light and Loyalty, defiant in the face of the worst things the world had to offer. Alas, it was to be the true monsters which became their undoing; her death, by the hands of the people whom they had sworn to protect, and his fall from grace into the thirsting darkness which demands no loyalty except to oneself, and offers no promises save those enforced by pain and blood. Arcturus was his name, and he rode forth beneath a dark banner, calling to his cause all who felt themselves wronged and pained by the whims of fickle fortune. He promised them no joy but that which their own hands could create, no reward save that which they were strong enough to hold onto, and a ruthless, reckless sort of order created by strength of arms. For many, it was to become a paradise; those who could take, took, and those who could not worked to grow stronger, or else fell beneath its' shadow.
Arcturus had only two legacies of his wife's passing; the wicked empire which had been forged from the ashes of her home, and the twin daughters she had borne him before her passing.
Alysa was the younger of the two daughters, by the minutes which defined their early days, and strove always for his love and approval, acquiring neither; her elder sister, Milita, took the lion's share of both. At every turn, Alyse was to be outsmarted, outwitted, outfought; but where her sister carried the strength of arms and gained the kind of easy confidence that is the natural growth of comfort and a full belly, Alysa never had that chance; her hunger shaped her, depriving her of the nutrition needed to match her sister's greater strength and height. In its' place she learned the animal cunning that hunger brings, and became a skillful manipulator. In time, it was to be Alysa first trusted by Arcturus to take charge of an invasion upon a neighboring province, one beringed on all sides by shattered mountains, tortured earthflesh crossed by ravines like the strands of a spider's web, and it was there that she was slain.
In many ways, Alysa considers it her first death; the bullet that nearly stole her heart, instead cleaved away the evil that wracked her spirit, breaking the chains her father had set upon her soul, freeing her from the burden of her sins. It was this very same pattern from which her own firearm was created. 'The Good Shepherd must always be keen of eye and swift of judgment to shelter his Flock from the Wolves Within;' a passage that spoke to her heart, reminding her of the darkness which once enslaved her; for it, she named the wheellock 'The Good Shepherd', that she would always remain vigilant against the wolves of the world. She trained with the Paladins of the Order of the Grand Purifier for a handful of years, and was taught wholeheartedly that darkness was a disease for which a bullet to the heart was the only cure, if the spirit is willing to be redeemed; for some, redemption will be forever beyond them, and their only cure is a cessation of suffering.
Now, Alysa is loose among lands distant from her homeland, carrying the scars of one life, and the garments of another, her pennant of dedication to Milani, the Goddess of Freedom standing proudly beside her, striding boldly forth into the light of a new life, a glorious purpose: to free all those who suffer in tyranny.
Named attacks. "Sin Eater Bullet/Blade" for her Purifier ability.
Taught her abilities by an Antipaladin, her father, until she was Purified by another Grand Purifier, a Paladin of Milani, who taught her how to cleave the darkness from one's soul. Now she pursued freedom and righteousness no matter where the road may take her. Desires above all else to rescue her sister, who is still in her father's thrall.
Wields 'The Good Shepherd,' a wheel-lock pistol crafted for her by her mentor.
Far to the west of the common lands once lay a kingdom, immense in both land and treasure, raised up to mighty heights by the excellent diplomacy and guile of its' King, Lord Thaldren. It was a kingdom of men, elves, dwarves, and giants, with immense cosmopolitan heartlands beringed by fortresses and farms in equal measure. The common man lived well, if not always comfortably, and its' laws and strictures were the envy of the chaotic lands of their neighbors.
It was this superiority, however, which led to its' downfall.
Much as other civilizations had risen and fallen through the murky rivers of history, this one rose to great and powerful heights, only to be undone by the tragic arrogance of the King's eldest son. Raised within the highest of society, burdened with wealth and influence from his childhood onward, the eldest son, Henry, overthrew his father by use of bitter poison, robbing his father of first his senses, and later his very life. Henry was not, however, the diplomat his father had been; he was jealous, petty, spiteful. Beneath his rule, Elfkind saw itself placed upon a pedestal, with Humans and Dwarves kept as second class citizens, stripping their people of political power within the Kingdom. Not long after, even the mighty Giants were deposed from their place among society, the brutish creatures taken from their positions as architects and planners, instead to be chained and forced to be laborers, transmuting their pride into grief. There had always been dissension within the Kingdom, but beneath the thousand year reign of King Thaldren, they had seen prosperity despite it; without his steady hand and fair mind, however, rivalries flared between them, the people who had once formed the very mortar of the kingdom's foundations now were riven apart.
In the days that followed, a civil war was looming near, its' darkness overshadowing the kingdom with fear and death. It was in this shadow that Henry claimed for himself the title of Emperor, and began to take by conquest what had already been won by guile; allies became vassals, citizens enslaved, and swiftly thereafter did the curtain fall upon it; still, here and there, you may find the broad roads which once carried the kingdom's lifeblood - the broken feet of gigantic statues, the name chiseled away, overshadowing the diminutive road markers bearing the name and faded, weatherworn visage of noble King Thaldren; of the Empire, of the Kingdom, little else remains. What by the hands of dwarves was carved, the hands of giants built, by the minds of elves and the ingenuity of man constructed, was all too easily torn down by those very same forces. Now, here and there amongst the settlements which freckled the vast countryside could be found cleanly cut, beautiful marble stones used as the foundation plinths of old homes, the landscape growing in the fuzzy-edged squares that once demarcated immense farmlands, their borders and crops lost and wild, their order dissolved into the patient chaos of nature.
As her Order tells it, the Empire was torn apart by Henry's own hands; one of the Order's Purifiers, a woman by the name of Kaerennis, later to become the First Justicar of our order, an Elf of common blood and parentage, who had witnessed within the span of her life both the kingdom's rise and the empire's fall, bore up a rare and remarkable weapon for the time - a pistol of dwarvenmake, fine and lovely, made of shining metal and immaculate filigree - and with it cast down the tyrant Henry. Her fatal blow, instead of slaying him outright, instead tore away the darkness and evil that shrouded him, revealing the darkness which he had brought unto his people, and bringing to light the full depravity which he had visited upon those who had once mattered most to him. In his rage and grief, he pulled down the very stones of the Empire around him, and it is said the capital city and its' vile host had been drowned in the very soil of the land, buried in an earthquake which sundered the mountains for miles around.
The kingdom has no name, any more; it has been lost to time. Like so, Thaldren's forebears and progeny are otherwise unknown; the kingdom is believed to be equal parts myth and reality, cobbled together from bits and pieces of other empires, other kingdoms, other times. Its' place in the Order's history is, therefore, nearly biblical; as much built upon allegory as upon fact, though the Order's Grand Hall claims to be built upon the shattered wreckage of the old Kingdom, standing within the heart of a mountain that appears cleaved in two, as if by the blade of an immense being.
Of course, how deeply one believes such a thing is a matter of personal faith, a topic little-discussed in nearly agnostic Daelanth, the city built into the ravines which cross the lands beneath like a spiderweb, old caverns and tunnels linking the disparate strands into a cohesive whole. Some like to believe that Daelanth may have even been built within the rubble of the Kingdom, though it had become in the latest centuries an assumed form of ignorant arrogance; after all, who but a fool would claim to live in a place which few believed to be real? While the tortured stone of the land certainly hinted to some great cataclysm, it was certainly some other great event which spawned it; such arrogance to believe that they might dwell within those sacred and storied lands!
Of course, despite being raised upon this tale of tragedy and arrogance, it is easy for a man to believe himself forewarned, and thereby avoid a similar trap, and falling to a similar fate; many are those who are proven wrong, their footsteps joining countless others upon the well-trod roads to darkness and tyranny.
It is from one who walked upon the Path of the Tyrant that she came to be; a man, married to a woman who shared his dream; a world bereft of darkness and cruelty, of petty wickedness, of the unfair tides of fortune. He strode the path of a Paladin, and she beside him, carrying forth the name of their God of Light and Loyalty, defiant in the face of the worst things the world had to offer. Alas, it was to be the true monsters which became their undoing; her death, by the hands of the people whom they had sworn to protect, and his fall from grace into the thirsting darkness which demands no loyalty except to oneself, and offers no promises save those enforced by pain and blood. Arcturus was his name, and he rode forth beneath a dark banner, calling to his cause all who felt themselves wronged and pained by the whims of fickle fortune. He promised them no joy but that which their own hands could create, no reward save that which they were strong enough to hold onto, and a ruthless, reckless sort of order created by strength of arms. For many, it was to become a paradise; those who could take, took, and those who could not worked to grow stronger, or else fell beneath its' shadow.
Arcturus had only two legacies of his wife's passing; the wicked empire which had been forged from the ashes of her home, and the twin daughters she had borne him before her passing.
Alysa was the younger of the two daughters, by the minutes which defined their early days, and strove always for his love and approval, acquiring neither; her elder sister, Milita, took the lion's share of both. At every turn, Alyse was to be outsmarted, outwitted, outfought; but where her sister carried the strength of arms and gained the kind of easy confidence that is the natural growth of comfort and a full belly, Alysa never had that chance; her hunger shaped her, depriving her of the nutrition needed to match her sister's greater strength and height. In its' place she learned the animal cunning that hunger brings, and became a skillful manipulator. In time, it was to be Alysa first trusted by Arcturus to take charge of an invasion upon a neighboring province, one beringed on all sides by shattered mountains, tortured earthflesh crossed by ravines like the strands of a spider's web, and it was there that she was slain.
In many ways, Alysa considers it her first death; the bullet that nearly stole her heart, instead cleaved away the evil that wracked her spirit, breaking the chains her father had set upon her soul, freeing her from the burden of her sins. It was this very same pattern from which her own firearm was created. 'The Good Shepherd must always be keen of eye and swift of judgment to shelter his Flock from the Wolves Within;' a passage that spoke to her heart, reminding her of the darkness which once enslaved her; for it, she named the wheellock 'The Good Shepherd', that she would always remain vigilant against the wolves of the world. She trained with the Paladins of the Order of the Grand Purifier for a handful of years, and was taught wholeheartedly that darkness was a disease for which a bullet to the heart was the only cure, if the spirit is willing to be redeemed; for some, redemption will be forever beyond them, and their only cure is a cessation of suffering.
Now, Alysa is loose among lands distant from her homeland, carrying the scars of one life, and the garments of another, her pennant of dedication to Milani, the Goddess of Freedom standing proudly beside her, striding boldly forth into the light of a new life, a glorious purpose: to free all those who suffer in tyranny.
Named attacks. "Sin Eater Bullet/Blade" for her Purifier ability.
Taught her abilities by an Antipaladin, her father, until she was Purified by another Grand Purifier, a Paladin of Milani, who taught her how to cleave the darkness from one's soul. Now she pursued freedom and righteousness no matter where the road may take her. Desires above all else to rescue her sister, who is still in her father's thrall.
Wields 'The Good Shepherd,' a wheel-lock pistol crafted for her by her mentor.
Eseld, Town Guard
Eseld works as a town guard for the city of Dornwich. Her parents left on a crusade to take the blade to the orks and never returned, leaving Eseld as a young orphan. She was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Ambershake, both halflings. She spends her mornings helping around the house (fetching items on tall shelves, sweeping, cooking prep). During the day, she trains and studies the finer points of being a knight. She has attempted to join the local order, the Knights of Windhund, whenever they host tournaments and the like. The recruiter for the order, Sir Geffrey, sends her away and informs her that she didn't make the cut, with each attempt. You have to be great to become a knight and she is nowhere near as talented as either of her parents.
At night, she watches over the city, patrolling and escorting drunks home safely. It's modest work and pays about as much. She's saved up a bit of coin living at her parents, looking for opportunities to make a name for herself so that one day she may become a knight's squire, and eventually a landed knight.
Eseld works as a town guard for the city of Dornwich. Her parents left on a crusade to take the blade to the orks and never returned, leaving Eseld as a young orphan. She was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Ambershake, both halflings. She spends her mornings helping around the house (fetching items on tall shelves, sweeping, cooking prep). During the day, she trains and studies the finer points of being a knight. She has attempted to join the local order, the Knights of Windhund, whenever they host tournaments and the like. The recruiter for the order, Sir Geffrey, sends her away and informs her that she didn't make the cut, with each attempt. You have to be great to become a knight and she is nowhere near as talented as either of her parents.
At night, she watches over the city, patrolling and escorting drunks home safely. It's modest work and pays about as much. She's saved up a bit of coin living at her parents, looking for opportunities to make a name for herself so that one day she may become a knight's squire, and eventually a landed knight.
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