[Closed] PF2 - Grapper's Homebrew (Thursday, 7:30-10:30 EDT)

[grapper]

I plan on using “Automatic Bonus Progresion” and “Proficiency Without Level”

Disclaimer: I’m not wedded to this setting, but since people said that they would go with what I wanted…

Here is a setting I have been toying with for a while. It is human centric, but I might be able to work in some other races if people really want them as long as they are not too crazy. The tech level is lower than a typical D&D/PF setting, more medieval than renascence so guns and gears is out.

There are a lot of factions to align with and/or fight, so I would ask that we work together to decide a direction before people start making characters.

History

Creation Mythology

In the beginning, there were the celestial beings, with Sabazios and Atnihsa being the most powerful among them. The two fell in love, and from their union, Atnihsa gave birth to the world. In turn, Sabazios created the first humans and breathed life into them.

As the humans began to reproduce and spread across the world, Atnihsa grew angry, feeling that they were defiling her creation. This sparked a conflict between Sabazios and Atnihsa, each rallying other celestial beings to their side. Their disagreements escalated into a great war, but neither side could achieve victory.

Those celestials who refused to take sides fled to the fairy realm, seeking to avoid the conflict, and became the first fae.

When the war reached a stalemate, Atnihsa and her followers retreated beneath the world, and a cold war began between her and Sabazios. This conflict was waged indirectly among the humans, as Atnihsa’s minions tried to lure them with promises of power and riches.

Blinded by jealousy and hatred, Atnihsa’s followers were twisted by their own corruption, transforming into the devils and demons known today.

The Elvinal Empire

A powerful empire once rose among humans, centered in the city of Elvi. The Elvinal people, masters of magic, expanded their dominion, conquering neighboring lands one by one. In their pursuit of ever greater power, they struck dark deals with devils.

But just as their empire seemed unstoppable, the price of their bargains came due. Demons were unleashed upon the world, causing the Elvinal empire to crumble.

Amidst the chaos, a glimmer of hope emerged. The Church of Sabazios gathered holy warriors, who fought back the demonic forces, banishing them to the underworld. At the same time, the church purged the world of magic, wiping it out—including from the Elvians, many of whom had bound themselves to its power.

Fearing for their survival, some Elvians fled to the fairy realm, where they would live on as the elves we know today.

Recent History

Hundreds of years after the fall of the Elvinal empire, the Albian Isles, once part of its northern reach, have become nearly abandoned by humans and overrun by monsters. One of the last human settlements on the isles is Fienfold.

Less than a year ago, the secretive Cult of the Dragon awakened the great dragon Algweorn, also known as “The Great Lord” or “The Sleeper.” With his rise, the dormant Mt. Diognok volcano also erupted, spewing ash and smoke. Algweorn swiftly deposed the leaders of Fienfold and established a small kingdom in their place.

On the outskirts of civilization, the Order of the Inquisition has never held much influence in the region. But under Algweorn’s protection, all manner of heretics and mercenaries have gathered, seeking freedom from the church and the chance to plunder ancient magic for profit. So far, Algweorn has allowed the Inquisition to operate, as long as they avoid interfering with the Cult of the Dragon, who now form the kingdom’s elite.

The merchant class has flourished under the new regime, forming powerful cartels that prevent independent merchants from entering the market. Meanwhile, the ordinary people of Fienfold have suffered under this new order, increasingly turning to the criminal underworld for protection.

Religion

Church of Sabazios

The human church is the dominant faith in most human kingdoms. Divine spellcasters are extremely rare, and most clergy possess no spellcasting abilities at all. While divine magic, known as miracles, is not explicitly forbidden, those who perform miracles are often viewed with suspicion. This is because heretics—such as those practicing Arcane, Occult, and Primal magic—can imitate real miracles and lead others into heresy.

The majority of clerics are priests who oversee their churches and minister to their congregations. Monastic orders, on the other hand, are less tied to specific locations and often have more focused missions. Three of the most prominent orders are the Order of the Inquisition, the Order of Healing, and the Order of Demonology.

Order of the Inquisition

This sect is concerned with stamping out of heresy.
Edicts seek out and destroy Arcane, Occult or Primal magic and their practitioners
Anathema use of Arcane, Occult or Primal magic

Devotee Benefits

Cleric Spells 1st: Sure Strike 3rd: Mind Reading 5th: Mind Probe
Divine Font harm or heal
Divine Sanctification may choose holy or unholy
Divine Skill Intimidation
Domains Confidence, Pain, Truth, Zeal
Favored Weapon Longsword

Order of Healing

This sect is concerned with caring for the sick and injured. Some members operate leper colonies or hospitals, while others travel seeking to bring health and healing wherever they go.

Edicts fight against disease outbreaks
Anathema refusal to grant mercy to those who ask for it

Devotee Benefits

Cleric Spells 1st: Soothe 3rd: Tempest Cloak 4th: Peaceful Bubble
Divine Font heal
Divine Sanctification may choose holy
Divine Skill Medicine
Domains Death, Family, Healing, Protection
Favored Weapon Flail

Order of Demonology

Unlike the Inquisition, who seek out heresies of all kinds, demonologists are specifically concerned with understanding and combating fiends and the undead. Many suspect them of secretly being demon worshippers.

Edicts destroy fiends and the undead, and seek out secret information about them
Anathema create undead, summon or bargain with fiends

Devotee Benefits

Cleric Spells 1st: Mindlink 4th: Containment 6th: Scrying
Divine Font harm or heal
Divine Sanctification may choose holy or unholy
Divine Skill Occultism
Domains Death, Knowledge, Secrecy, Sun
Favored Weapon Light Hammer

[grapper]

Hero Points

I plan to steal the parts of Aspects and Fate Points from the Fate System and use them for Hero Points. The Fate rules are free to download if you want to look at this in more detail. The essence is that you earn Hero Points for doing things that make the story more interesting by adding complications to the narrative. Aspects are going to be important, because I want them to drive the story. Also, aspects can change over time as your character changes and grows. Review your aspects when you level up or a story arc concludes to make sure they remain relevant.

Aspects

An aspect is a word, phrase, or sentence that describes something centrally important to your character. It can be a motto your character lives by, a personality quirk, a description of a relationship you have with another character, an important possession or bit of equipment your character has, or any other part of your character that is vitally important.

Aspects allow you to change the story in ways that tie in with your character’s tendencies, skills, or problems. You can also use them to establish facts about the setting, such as the existence of a useful ally, dangerous enemy, or secret organization.

Your character will have a handful of aspects (between three and five), including a high concept and a trouble.

High Concept

First, decide on your character’s high concept. This is a single phrase or sentence that neatly sums up your character, saying who you are, what you do, what your “deal” is. It is the main reason that you go on adventures. When you think about your high concept, try to think of two things: how this aspect could help you, and how it might make things harder for you. Good high concept aspects do both.

Trouble

Next, decide on the thing that always gets you into trouble. It could be a personal weakness, or a recurring enemy, or an important obligation—anything that makes your life complicated.

Examples: Steel Assassins Want Me Dead; Cast Now, Ask Questions Later; Gotta Look Out for My Little Brother

Another Aspect

Now compose another aspect. Think of something really important or interesting about your character. Are they the strongest person in their hometown? Do they carry an item known through history? Do they talk too much? Are they from a noble family?

Optional: One or Two Additional Aspects

If you wish, you may create one or two more aspects. These aspects might describe your character’s relationship with other player characters or with an NPC. Or, like the third aspect you composed above, it might describe something especially interesting about your character.

If you prefer, you can leave one or both aspects blank right now and fill them in later, after the game has started.

Earning Hero Points

At the start of the session, if you have no hero points, you get one for free. If you had one or more Hero Points left over at the end of the last session, you carry them over into the new session. There is no reason to fear losing them.

The primary way to gain aspects is through Compels.

Compelling Aspects

If you’re in a situation where having or being around a certain aspect means your character’s life is more dramatic or complicated, anyone can compel the aspect. You can even compel it on yourself—that’s called a self-compel. Compels are the most common way for players to earn more Hero Points. In other words, if you want a Hero Point, do something that makes the story more interesting.

There are two types of compels.

Decision compels: This sort of compel suggests the answer to a decision your character has to make. If your character is Princess of Alaria, for example, you may need to stay to lead the defense of the Royal Alarian Castle rather than fleeing to safety. Or if you have a Defiant Streak a Mile Wide, maybe you can’t help but mouth off to the Dean of Discipline when he questions you.

Event compels: Other times a compel reflects something happening that makes life more complicated for you. If you have Strange Luck, of course that spell you’re working on in class accidentally turns the dour Potions Master’s hair orange. If you Owe Don Valdeon a Favor, then Don Valdeon shows up and demands that you perform a service for him just when it’s least convenient.

In any case, when an aspect is compelled against you, the person compelling it suggests that the aspect has a certain effect—that you’ll make a certain decision or that a particular event will occur. You can discuss it back and forth, proposing tweaks or changes to the suggested compel. After a moment or two, you need to decide whether to accept the compel. If you agree, you take the Hero Point and your character makes the suggested decision or the event happens.

Using Hero Points

In addition to the normal uses of Hero Points, you can use them to create a beneficial situation based on your Aspects. Say, for example, you are having difficulty deciphering an ancient tome, and you have the aspect Former Member of Castile Thieves Guild, spend a Hero Point and you know a local fence who deals in rare books who can point you in the right direction.

[Rando]

!

/3char

[Daemoro]

I will play an elf. I call dibs on the name Velvet. I don’t know much else about the character right now but I WILL be The Velvet Elvi. I will have multiple personality disorder (hence the plural, Elvi) and most everyone in the world thinks I’m dead… except for a few “True Believers”.

[Daemoro]

I wonder if one of my Aspect thingies could be rolling a die in a stressful situation to figure out which personality come to the fore and guides my actions?

[Daemoro]

OK once I started typing out a system where the random die roll didn’t only decide my personality upon rolling initiative it also changed my character class… I may have gone off the rails a little bit. Sure it wouldn’t change my ability scores, just my class and class abilities. I would just need multiple character sheets to track it all. It would be fine really. No really, it would be fine.

My morning creative brain was in overdrive and now that my first cup of coffee is down I look back and think “Maybe I was going a bit overboard.”

[Daemoro]

But Mastermind Rogue, Wizard, Dex based Fighter or Ranger would be 3 solid choices with Dex and Int as primary ability scores…

[Rando]

I’m guessing(?) that we’re gonna have to decide - as a party - which side of the eternal conflict we’re on? Do we like the Cult of the Dragon and/or Algweorn? Is the church of Sabazios swell? Are we heretics who luv the Occult, Primal, and Arcane spell lists? Is Atnihsa just misunderstood and just needs hugs (from us)?

[Daemoro]

@grapper :

For the proficiency without level is it the one with untrained penalty or not?

You forgot to mention that we get Free Archetype in the first post.

[Daemoro]

Oh and I’m seriously leaning towards a Mastermind Rogue… I don’t care which side of the conflict we choose. I can pivot easily.

[Daemoro]

I also want to play this character… I don’t know what it is right now but I want to play it:

Yes I know she said human centric but I’m trying to ignore that.

[Daemoro]

Or ignore all the guidelines and make a Leshy Gunslinger!

[Uglybugger]

Grapper, let me know if this concept is acceptable for this campaign setting. I’m assuming that the campaign will largely take place on the Albion Isles and around Fienfold to start, given the group’s propensity to play “non-humans.” If not, I can try again!

Backstory
Professor Sylvester Styles was in trouble. He was soggy, cramped, and miserable too, but mostly he was in trouble. Everything had been going so well!

Graduating at the top of his class from the Academy, specializing in mathematics and engineering, he had taken the lucrative position of tutoring noble brats in various academic subjects. Everything was going relatively swimmingly until he became upset with a particularly dense, obstinate, and spoiled student and lost his temper. Something in him just snapped, and an explosion of energy threw objects around the classroom. No one was seriously injured, but you’d never know that for how his students had fled the room, screaming bloody murder and shouting phrases like “witchcraft” and “demonspawn.” Confused and afraid himself, Sylvester fled the room as well, and then he fled the city.

Sylvester knew that he’d never find work in the city again, and he very well could be hunted by the Inquisition for his use of “magics” even though he had never trained in anything of the sort (aside from history and theory taught at the Academy). He could do the math, and he knew his cozy life, as he knew it, was over. The math never lied.

What’s more, whatever had unlocked in his mind was… still unlocked. As he sat, scrunched up in a shipping crate, he idly flicked a pebble at a passing bilge rat he spied through an airhole with nothing but the power of his mind. It wasn’t witchcraft. He knew it. He was no witch! He didn’t know what he was. There was no getting away from the evidence that he was more than just a professor now, though. He could feel the fabric of the universe now, and with the right calculations, he could move it.

No, the only way for him to keep living was to find a new place to do it. Somewhere that he could blend in. Where “magic” was still a thing. So he’d paid most of his remaining funds to obtain “passage” on a ship traveling to the Albian Isles. The captain had sensed Styles’ desperation to be smuggled out of the country, and had taken horrible advantage of it. Oh well, nothing for it now. At least he had enough money left to buy a few pieces of equipment and some rations. Soon, the ship would dock, and he could begin his new life.

Sylvester Styles
Race: Human
Background: Teacher
Class: Psychic

Note: This is not a min/max’d character! I’d plan to play him like a slightly snooty scholar who is very much out of his depth to start. My 1st level skills and feats will be assigned according to his backstory, and not so much to make him a better adventurer.

[Daemoro]

Despite all my shenanigans here I’ve mostly been making human characters.

I haven’t really settled on anything yet.

[eddyteagle]

That’s a lot of history to take in. gonna start coming up with a good background. Do I remember correctly that you said starting level i 3rd?

[Rando]

I’m guessing we’re embracing heretical thoughts and an Inquisitor of Sabazios would be “bad”?

[Daemoro]

I must admit that even though I have read the background stuff I don’t have a good feel for it yet. Maybe we can dis uss it a bit Thursday?

[Rando]

I can definitely dis use it.

[eddyteagle]

Early draft

Backstory: Jered is the Bastard son of an elven servant. His mother was kicked out of the house as soon as it was discovered she was pregnant which forced her to live out her few remaining years begging and scrapping together all she could to raise her son.

Jerads early life was harsh. He was bullied for his half elven heritage and spent much of his early life in fights with the other kids. His resentment for the wealthy nobility only grew as he saw how much they had and how little the poor in the city had.

As a teenager he had been running with a small band of outlaws and robbers stealing from the richer side of town. One day he came home to find his mother had been beaten and left for dead, she developed pneumonia and would pass away soon after. Before her death she admitted to Jerad who his father was and asked that he go try and get help from him.

Jerad was spying on his new family when he could only assume was his half brother come screaming into the house, with a tale of his teacher attacking him with dark magic…

Jerad
Race: Human (Elf heritage)
Background: Criminal
Class: Monk

[Uglybugger]

In response to Rando’s earlier question, I definitely lean towards the “Occult, Primal, and Arcane” heretics. Although, to be clear, I don’t think that excludes the Dragon Cult (it is by its very nature Occult, Primal, and Arcane; possibly even Divine depending on how powerful the dragons are). I think I would also have difficulty being a religious extremist asshole. I might not expect the Spanish Inquisition, but I’m fine with fighting them if they show up!