[D&D-5e] The Land of the Dead

[Arkanis]

Originally Posted by The Rat Queen

From what I understand, Ravenloft is kind of a dimensional pocket thingie, with connections to several worlds like Forgotten Realms, Greyhawk, and even Earth.

Exactly so, Ravenloft exists in the Shadowfell which, canonically in D&D lore, is a realm that has connections to each of the core D&D settings. Its kind of a one-size-fits-all one way ticket to madness.

[Xbow]

Originally Posted by Arkanis

Exactly so, Ravenloft exists in the Shadowfell which, canonically in D&D lore, is a realm that has connections to each of the core D&D settings. Its kind of a one-size-fits-all one way ticket to madness.

Who doesn't love madness

[Togot]

question, do our characters know each other?

[silveroak]

Name: Flitter
Race: Fairy (Wild Beyond the witchlight)
Class: Warlock with Archfey patron
Alignment: CG
Personality Traits: prankster
restless

Ideal
Everything in life should have an element of fun
Bond:
I am loyal to the Lord of Spring, and his man in all things

Flaw:
lecherous

Go into a bit more detail on the below:

Appearance: A short elfin looking figure with blue and purple insect wings, he sports a pair of short spiral horns on his forehead and silver colored eyes.

Personality:
History: Flitter was born in the court of the Lord of Spring, where survival for young faeries was often amatter of not appearing to be a threat to far more powerful fey creatures who would use you as their plaything before destroying you. In a land ruled by immortals there are no laws of succession, and boredom can be an enemy as dangerous as any foe. Thus it was that Flitter made a name for himself in his youth, seducing many of the ladies of the court, playing at pranks and pointless intrigues, and becoming a jester to entertain th court. Life was a game to him, but the conflict between the Archfey was simply the biggest game of all. When he came of age and the Lord of Spring asked him what his calling would be as an adult he surprised everyone by pledging himself on the spot to the Lord of Spirng rather than choose a trivial or lighthearted profession like a craftsman or merchant. The Lord accepted, becoming his patron in a pact quickly agreed to, and Flitter became his warlock. In that capacity he served as a secret agent, traveling to realms within the feywild he would have never seen had he not boldly put himself forward, and acting as eyes of the Feylord, as well as managing small incidents either for points of pride or because those small acts would portend larger things when fully realized.
The steps changed but the dance of the four lords of the seasons was fundamentally unchanged- spring stole lands from winter, and they began to flower and bloom, honey formed, and young animals were born, but more substantial food, like berries and fruit were always scarce, and so the Lord of Spring would trade land to the Lady of Summer for those foods, who in turn traded them to autumn for the grains and fruits of the later season. It was winter who stole them from autumn in the end, stripping the land bare of its bounty before Spring rescued those lands once more. Other parts of the feywild played by different rules, and different alliances were struck. The Cat lord allied with summer, the flower children with spring. It was useful to keep an eye on friends and foes alike, and the four continued in their pattern for as long as Flitter could remember. Boredom can be an enemy in the land of the fey, but now things are different.

RP Sample: Flitter slipped into the Winter Hag's castle, the dungeons were where he would expect to find the captured troops. He flew silently above the guards. The third story window would mean more of the castle to go through, but he was less likely to be observed entering. The room was filled with arcane symbols and for a moment Flitter considered heading back out, to another window. That could mean more chance of capture. It would make sense for the witch to have trapped the door to her lab, so Flitter used his mage hand to push at the door. As he invoked his eldritch power he felt another power behind him as he was sucked towards the vortex as a wave of heat erupted on his back.
"Why would the winter Hag be using heat?" was his last thought before he found himself in an endless desert.

1) What is it you would like to get out of the game? What kind of things appeal to you in a PbP game?
Mostly I have been a DM for some time, but I have not been a actual player in a D&D game since first edition (I have been in other systems) and I am wanting to get a better appreciation of the player perspective in a more modern D&D game.
2) What sort of things do you not want to see in a PbP game? I am confident that other people's limitations will be more restrictive than my own. The only thing I really don't want is to feel like I am just along for the ride and have no real ability to affect where teh story is going.

3) What is it that made you want to apply to this game?
Of the available games it is the one which best appealed to my sense of what I wanted to pay in.

4) Do you prefer PbP games that are predominantly focused on combat, or predominantly focused on role-play? Or a mixture of the two?
I would like to see a mixture of the two, which I'm certain is nearly everyone's answer. One of the things I am interested in seeing from this perspective is how the game flows in terms of making that decision.

[Arkanis]

Originally Posted by Togot

question, do our characters know each other?

It is up to the players in question. Not everyone will know each other certainly, but if you want to go ahead and have some of you know each other prior to the start then that's all good to me. The intention was that the group will not have adventured with each other before prior to game start and that most, if not all, will be strangers.

[Togot]

Gotcha

[The Rat Queen]

Ielenia is finished, other than tweaking I decide to do.

If you have the time and desire, Arkanis, I wouldn't object to a review and suggestions.

[Arkanis]

Originally Posted by The Rat Queen

Ielenia is finished, other than tweaking I decide to do.

If you have the time and desire, Arkanis, I wouldn't object to a review and suggestions.

Not a problem at all, I’ll come back with feedback as soon as I can

[Red Leper]

Would I be able to modify the fighter's Archery fighting style to pertain to throwing knives?

Nevermind, better idea

[Seekr34]

before I get started on my character's history, are all the pcs from Ravenloft? Or is that up to us?

[Xbow]

Originally Posted by Arkanis

Not a problem at all, I’ll come back with feedback as soon as I can

Me too! Please and thanks

[Red Leper]

Trying to convince myself that I don't need another game. lol

[Seekr34]

lol

[Red Leper]

 

Whispers in the Woods: Name: Talia Ravensfeather Race: Wood Elf Class: Ranger Alignment: Chaotic Neutral Background: Outlander Personality Traits: -I place no stock in the wealthy or well-mannered folk. Money and manners won't save you from a hungry owlbear. -I was, in fact, raised by wolves...of the two-legged variety. Ideal: -Nature. The natural world is more important than all the constructs of civilization. Bond: -I will bring terrible wrath down on the evildoers who destroyed my home. Flaw: -I am slow to trust members of other races, especially humans. Appearance: Talia stands around five and half feet tall with a lithe athletic build like most of her kind. She has long blonde hair that drapes a face that often wears a scowl, a gauging look in her golden-hued eyes. Talia's one identifying mark is a tattoo on the back of her left shoulder, a sword splitting a skull down the middle. She wears a dark green weather cloak over piece-meal armor, patched many times over several years and added to with other pieces of armor. She carries a longbow across her torso and a quiver over her right shoulder. A pair of shortwords ride in a pair of scabbards that hang upside down across her back and beneath her cloak, easily reachable to draw backhanded. Personality: Talia can't be described as a happy sort, more like a solemn, thoughtful sort. She often loses herself in reflection upon her life, which, despite her youthful appearance, spans over a hundred years. She doesn't enjoy the pleasures of life like a normal person, instead she is driven, always forward by some kind of mission. She watches any companions she chooses warily as she is slow to trust anyone who might lead her back to a path of indiscriminate killing for a 'cause'. Talia was once a killer that killed without hesitation but no more, she seeks the reason before she kills, trying to justify the spilling of blood if it isn't plain in front of her. History: Talia was born deep in the Chondalwood, her home was the whole forest, as her tribe was a one of the several tribes of wild elves that wandered the forest. As a child in the Chondalwood, she learned many things, how to track, how to shoot a bow for the purpose of hunting for food. She was wild and free even under the watchful eye of her people, for there was safety in numbers even if those numbers were unseen. As she reached adulthood, she was struck with a terrible tragedy. Talia's tribe had made camp for the night and she awoke to the smell of burning wood, a very bad thing when you live in a forest. She was immediately alert and on the move, She had to find her parents and sibling. The flames had engulfed the camp, surrounding it, as if someone had set the fire intentionally and in a way to trap most of the occupants. As Talia tried to locate her family through the smoke, she was overtaken by a group of young adults around her age, fleeing the flames themselves. Before she knew what was going on, she was whisked out into the forest, away from the fire and smoke. As part of this small group of near-adults, she found a bit of security. Talia didn't know who else survived the inferno from the night previous but she could do nothing but rest and in the morning, she would look for her family. As she woke though, she was greeted by another sight, a group of elves armed and armored, calling themselves Eldreth Valuuthra. They told the youths that humans had ambushed their tribe and started the fires but they would help, they would take them in. Talia made her first mistake, trusting these warriors although she didn't see it at the beginning, she thought it made sense. The Eldreth Valuuthra took her in and began to train her. She had trained how to hunt animals before and for food only in a respectful way to nature, the these elves taught her how to hunt humans. They indoctrinated Talia and the other orphaned elves, they were made to believe that all humans were evil and they would always try to encroach on the natural places in the world. In time, they were even pitted against humans, at first, in the camp, they executed captured humans and then they were sent to ambush humans, soldiers that made the mistake of moving through the forests. The time came for their first real mission, the leaders of the cell sent the group of elves to the Ardeep Forest. They had often ambushed caravans and groups of soldiers in Chondalwood but this was different, a challenge to prove themselves. The small troupe was scattered and beaten back to into the forest, each one on the run, every elf for themselves. Talia ran down a hill and into a gully where she couldn't get back out. A soldier followed and was about to kill her but he held his blade, for some reason. She was out of arrows and had lost both her daggers or else it would have been over, even at sword-point. The soldier let her live, gave her a chance to escape. This act of mercy made her question her conviction to the code of the Eldreth Valuuthra. She never returned to the war camp, for fear of what they would do due to her failure. Hiding in the forest, she reflected on the incident with the soldier and came to the conclusion that maybe not all humans were evil, just the ones that had burned her home and the ones she had been made to execute. As she began her way back to Chondalwood is when something unexpected happened. The deep forest grew darker than it ever had, even to her elven eyes, a mist rolled in and swept her to another world, far from her path but sometimes, life led one down paths one didn't intend to find. RP Sample (a scene from the character’s perspective): Talia waited, crouched in the bushes along the goat path. She could see her leader, the one that had been chosen as their leader, Saphira, perched in a tree just fifteen feet away, her bow laid across her lap, an arrow knocked but not pulled. They waited for the clattering, clanging caravan that trundled with difficulty down the path, heading this way. They would wait until the caravan had moved between the group's gauntlet. Talia peeked out of the bush to see her friend, Estriel, a male elf ducked down low behind a downed tree trunk on the other side of the path as he wetted the fletchings of an arrow with his tongue as he peered down the path, more with his ears as he wouldn't be able to see the soldiers until they rounded the last bend. He was handsome, even with the scars he had gotten from the fiery inferno that bound them as young adults. Talia mused for a moment that perhaps, if their lives had been different, perhaps they would be together now but those types of feelings were purged from them now. Saphira clicked and whistled a bird call, a signal for everyone to be ready and on alert. The soldiers came clanging into view on the path, stupid humans in their stupid armor, their chainmail rattling and grunts of effort so loud, the elves could have shot them in the dark. Bowstrings drew, coated in natural oils to dampen the sound of the string creaking under the pressure of drawing. As the troop of humans passed Estriel's position on the other side of the road, seven arrows whispered as they flew through the leaves of the bushes and trees, three from one side of the path and four from Talia's side. Seven humans fell with arrows embedded in their faces or throats. Two elves emerged from behind the troop, setting fire to flammable oils that were set on the path before, a trap to stop them from retreating. It wasn't until they heard the shouts from the other side of the flames did they realize it was a trap. Talia moved past the tree where Saphira was perched and bypassed the flames to see what was coming. Saphira rounded the other two elves and gave hand signals to the elves on the other side of the path. Arrows began to loose, peppering the soldiers who were now on the offensive. Talia emerged from the trees on the far side of the fire to be greeted by another contingent of soldiers, she dropped her bow and drew her daggers as quick as she could, just enough time to parry several blades and turn them away so she could retreat to a safer position. Talia cursed as she leapt over the embankment of the path and into the woods, the humans had known they were coming. She heard two soldiers pursue her into the underbrush but she kept running and leaping over roots and bushes. The heavy footfalls and struggle of one of the humans faded, she had lost one, now she just had to lose the other then she could circle back and help the others. She lost focus for a moment, leaped over a fallen tree trunk and the heavy brush beneath her feet gave way, throwing her into a roll as she tumbled downhill. She lost one dagger, then the other in the fall and couldn't stop herself as she felt the hard edge of stone as she rolled and plummeted. The gully swallowed her as she fell straight down, struck something hard then landed in a pile of leaves. Talia laid there for several seconds before she heard the stumbling footsteps of a heavily armored person join her in the gully. She raised her head, just slightly to see the armored figure of a human, his sword raised defensively, peering around for her. A twig snapped beneath her and the human turned, lifted the visor of his helmet so he could see better in the dim forest then gripped his sword, pointing it right at her. Talia knew she was caught but maybe she could get the sword away from him. She looked upon the face of a young man, they all looked alike to her but this one she could tell was younger. As she rose into a kneeling position in the leaves, she felt a twinge of pain in her upper thigh, she must has sprained it. The soldier was breathing heavy but that didn't cause his words to be a whisper, "Go, get away from here." it caught Talia off-guard and she remained still for a moment but then he raised his voice and repeated himself, lowering his sword to rest the tip in in the dirt. Talia rose the rest of the way and ran, climbed and scrambled to get out of the gully, back they way she had came and the soldier didn't pursue her.   --------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) What is it you would like to get out of the game? What kind of things appeal to you in a PbP game? -I would like some deep roleplay between characters strong enough where they would give their lives to stand against the forces of evil together. 2) What sort of things do you not want to see in a PbP game? -I haven't been in a game long enough to come across anything that I didn't like. 3) What is it that made you want to apply to this game? -I'm always interested in seeing a different GMing style and to learn from different GM's so I can improve and learn to be a better GM. Not to mention, the shining recommendations you seem to be getting in the thread, I want to see a good GM in action. 4) Do you prefer PbP games that are predominantly focused on combat, or predominantly focused on role-play? Or a mixture of the two? -I like a mixture of the two, something where I can feel my backstory can be put to full use as well as my character building skills.

[Arkanis]

Originally Posted by Seekr34

before I get started on my character's history, are all the pcs from Ravenloft? Or is that up to us?

Completely up to you, although if they come from Ravenloft they are not residents of Har'Akir before the game starts.