[PF-2e] Brassfield, Population 2431

[Ermine]

Game Name Brassfield, Population 2431

Game System PF 2e

Theme Some moral greyness and unpredictability

Flavour Typical High Fantasy

Plot Summary Brassfield and Beyond Welcome to Brassfield, population 2431 as of the last census. It is walled in on three sides and most of the fourth, and opens to farmland on the fourth side. Following the partially unwalled side out for about a mile is the cemetery, which serves many of the nearby cities and towns, including Bellmoor. At the center of the cemetery is a large mansion owned by the caretaker, an older ysoki man named Digsby, and his family. It is warded against undead, and has many secret rooms if any do get in. This is also where they embalm, burn, or even mummify the dead. Digsby has an adopted kitsune daughter - adopted because she spontaneously appeared in the graveyard as a duskwalker. She and the rest of his many children and grandchildren work as morticians, but also as doctors and other jobs requiring a good education, which they can afford. His kitsune daughter, who just goes by Lady with most people she meets, often runs errands in town, and acts as the family's Face, running their office in Brassfield, specifically. There is a massive cave system nearby that is home to many kobold tribes that mostly stay out of the way and seem harmless. Also nearby (nearer to the cemetery than to Brassfield) is the massive, layered, machine city of Bellmoor, known for its vast libraries and universities. Brassfield's duchy, Ealdlich, has a temperate climate with a mix of coniferous and deciduous trees. It rains a decent amount throughout the year, especially on the southern coast, which is surrounded by mountains, but most rain comes in the third and fourth month, which are considered the rainy season. There is usually high wind during this season as well, calming somewhat the rest of the year. The farms grow mostly barley, corn, and potatoes, but they do have other crops. Some World Information Dragons and other sapient creatures are not forced into a specific alignment; a red dragon could be good, while an angel could just as likely be evil; alignment is not an absolute based on ancestry, but a judgment placed by others based on cultural beliefs. I won't bother tracking alignment except when spells are involved. Lichdom (which does not require human sacrifice as some believe) and mummydom are seen as the natural end to a life of arcane toil or religious devotion, respectively, and are closely guarded secrets so that people reach enlightenment on their own, and in their own time. Reincarnation is also a fact in this world, and lichdom and mummydom are seen as ways to be able to reach a state of enlightenment in a single lifetime. Occult and Primal casters like bards and druids can gain immortality, but usually see reincarnation as an intrinsic part of enlightenment...though some seek to enhance their bodies through any means to live longer, such as replacing bodyparts with plants, other creatures' parts, or even magic-infused technological devices. Fey are not intrinsically pranksters, their culture just enforces it, just like dragon culture has them hoard valuables, and angelic culture encourages them to be blessed couriers for the gods. Fey are often fickle and/or aloof by culture, and don't seem to mind this stereotype. Brassfield's mayor, Revona Mae, on the other hand, is very much not fickle, and is quite passionate about getting to know her constituents, despite (or because of) being a melixie. Deities Using Pathfinder Eldests of the First World as most commonly worshipped deities for simplicity, plus Brigh, Nethys, Pharasma (who is reflavored to be the goddess of the final death and enlightenment, with the Boneyard being the resting place of those who have reached enlightenment and have chosen not to return to help others. Souls are ushered to their new body by psychopomps, or to the Boneyard when they reach enlightenment), the Ancient Osirian Gods (who are only worshipped by a handful of people still, but are widely known about as figures in history. It's uncertain how much power they've retained with so few worshippers), Outer Gods, and Great Old Ones, the last two categories worshipped in secret by cults who believe that their return will be the end of the "old" ways of the world and usher in an age of even older ways (most go insane from mere contact with the dreams of their gods, so they don't often think about this topic rationally). Shyka and Nethys are the most commonly worshipped of all deities, though Brigh has a strong following in Bellmoor. Gods can and do die and reincarnate (sometimes fully formed, sometimes from a mother, sometimes crafted with a spark of life), retaining their memories but changing their appearances. There is a group of atheists called the Dark Truth, who believe the gods are mortals and therefore should not be worshipped, This is a small group, but they are more or less omnipresent, and are seen as dangerous individuals by most. Other gods may exist in foreign lands. Game Information All ancestries, backgrounds, and classes are allowed. We are starting at level 1, and I'm totally willing to run this until level 20, if everyone sticks with it (or with a constantly changing team, if that's how it pans out). Post rate is once per week, but can be faster if everyone keeps up their posting. I'm thinking of giving this until sometime in mid-february, but I can move the date up or down to accommodate high or low interest. I'm willing to cater to new players as well. It's nice to get new players~ Remember, no rolling in this thread.

Application Name: Class: Ancestry and Heritage: Background: Description and Backstory: Include where you're from and why you're in Brassfield (it's fine to be FROM Brassfield). Feel free to make up events, NPCs, and locations, even. I don't require (or even really want) pictures for appearance (but you're free to use them if it helps you visualize your character. It won't count against you if you use one).

[Demandredd]

I have never played Pathfinder 2E before, but I'm very interested in learning the system. Would you be willing to take on a complete newbie to the system?

[Ermine]

Absolutely~

[Demandredd]

Awesome, consider this a placeholder then until I can get an application sorted.

[Apocrypha]

I'm new to the system as well. Like a lot of experienced 5e players, I've recently been feeling motivated to learn about alternatives, especially Pathfinder. I'd love to make a character and have a chance to try out the system.

Is there any particular plot hook around which you'd like us to build characters? Would you like our character concepts to include plot hooks you could use, or would you like characters that don't have personal quests of their own yet and are more ready to respond to plot hooks that come up in gameplay?

[GleefulNihilism]

I might have a thought or two. Also a PF2 newb.

Application Name: Initiate Kalee, formerly Kalee Sykesdaughter Class: Swashbucker Ancestry and Heritage: Half-Elf Background: Deckhand Description and Backstory Initiate Kalee at the Temple of the Dawnflower is pretty much the last person you’d expect to see in a church at all, which is why it always is so flabbergasting to know that she’s not only often there but she’s *technically* one of the Nuns of the Goddess Sarenrae. She sleeps in, she drinks frequently, she is loud, brags frequently, cavorts with various forms of company also frequently - there’s no getting around it. She’s a *terrible* Nun. But that’s not what you asked. When they finally brought the notorious Pirate Captain Proverb “Blackmane” Sykes to Justice, it was more than a little surprising that he actually had some redeeming qualities. Among them was that he was a surprisingly loving father for a teenage half-elf that he claimed was his daughter. Granted, the penalty for Piracy is still Hanging but Kalee’s then young age meant she was spared the noose. She currently is the holder of the record of the youngest person in the kingdom convicted of Piracy, as far as she knows. Instead, she was sentenced to a lifetime of service as a Nun of the Dawnflower. She has never advanced in rank beyond Initiate and pretty much the only reason she hasn’t been kicked out of the convent is because if she ever is kicked out of the clergy for the Dawnflower she is to get another trial where death by hanging is an option and her superiors don’t feel she’s done anything *that* bad. In fact, she’ll be the first to deny it but she has picked up a taste for doing the right thing, if in the wrong way. She’s a terrible nun, but she’s a much better person then she tells herself she is and all the other clergy except her see it. Frequently transferred around thanks to her tendency to rub against authority figures wrong, Brassfield is where she's currently stationed to minimize the damage she can do to the faith. Not to mention the skills of the daughter of one of the most notorious pirates and swordsman to ever sail the seas comes in surprisingly handy. He did teach her some of the Art of the Blade... In Her Own Words You know, everyone keeps telling me how Evil my father was. I'm getting sick of it, frankly. Like I wouldn't know. Yes, my father was the Dread Pirate Captain "Blackmane" Sykes - I know what he did. I only lived with the man my whole life as far as I know. I don't know who my mother was, some Elf obviously - but he can't have been that bad to her. She let him raise me after all. So yeah, he was a Pirate Captain. I know what that means. But you know who else he was? He was the man who could sing so big that it filled even the Ocean. He was the man who knew how to cook fish in butter in that perfect way I liked. And he was the man who could make a sword sing like art and I loved him for it. He taught me too, what he could before time ran out. Dad liked to say that this Life was the kind of life where you have to be able to Fight to take what's yours. Gold, Power, Respect - whatever. So he taught me some of what he called the Art of the Blade. And as I got older, sure - I did what I could on Raids. But father went out of his way to make sure I didn't kill anyone. Not that he was against it on moral grounds, he just would say that he thought someone's first kill should be personal, special, something that resonates with the soul like a blade on a blade. And he thought me just killing some random sea-farer with his raids wasn't good enough for his little princess. Strange, I know - but I think he wanted me to take command of the ship if he died and this was his way of working me into the family business a little more. I get what he was trying to do. The irony of course is that when Dad was finally brought to justice he was actually doing something arguably good. Still being the Dread Pirate Blackmane, but I'd talked him to concentrating on Slaver-Ships for a while. Someone leaked that to the Authorities though and they set a trap. I'm told I hold the record for the youngest person in the kingdom whose ever been convicted of Piracy. So young that the Judge supposedly decided got squimish and didn't send me to the Gallows. I - I didn't get to say Goodbye. I've been hearing rumors that the Judge's stomach had nothing to do with it, Dad made some sort of deal. I don't know what that deal was, just that apparently keeping me off the gallows was part of it. I like to imagine that he outsmarted the courts, somehow. That he's still out there, sailing the seas and looking for me. It's just a dream, I know - but my life has always been a Dream anyway. I'm the Daughter of Captain Proverb "Blackmane" Sykes. I appreciate what the Church is trying to do - but if they think they're going to turn my Sea Shanty into just another Hymnal - they have another thing coming.

[Ermine]

Originally Posted by Apocrypha

Is there any particular plot hook around which you'd like us to build characters? Would you like our character concepts to include plot hooks you could use, or would you like characters that don't have personal quests of their own yet and are more ready to respond to plot hooks that come up in gameplay?

I love when players have plot hooks built into their characters.

[Kaigen]

What is this game going to be about? What are the players going to be doing? What do you expect the "on-screen" focus of roleplaying to be?

[Ermine]

It's going to be a typical high fantasy adventure. But not always in the character's favor. I don't want to spoil the very early inciting incident, however. The town of Brassfield may be a main focus for a while, but not in the most obvious way. And it may not be, depending on how you guys play.

[Kaigen]

I get that you don't want to spoil anything, but I'm having trouble seeing the player character hooks or knowing what kind of character would fit the game. When you say "typical high fantasy," do you mean "dungeon crawl" or "long overland journey for a Quest" or what?

[Apocrypha]

Application Name: Careless Gylli Class: Alchemist/Chirurgeon Ancestry and Heritage: Human (skilled or versatile heritage, TBD) Background: Herbalist Description Gylli is a skinny, gangly slip of a girl in her late teenage years, her unruly red hair worn short and her homespun garments usually stained with chemical residue that she carelessly wipes on her clothes, or smudged with soot from the last time an experiment caught fire or blew up in her face. Despite her generally unkempt appearance and distracted, head-in-the-clouds expression, her demeanor is always sunny, with sparkling eyes and an irrepressible smile. Backstory: Gylli’s parents, honest freeholders from the farmlands outside Brassfield, have never known quite what to do with their eldest daughter. Ever since a childhood illness left Gylli in the care of a local apothecary some years ago, the girl’s been fascinated with herbs and concoctions, much to the detriment of her chores on the farm. Instead of tending the livestock or weeding the gardens, Gylli’s taken to wandering in the woods outside Brassfield, hunting for the ingredients that she clumsily mixes in her crude home laboratory, stinking up the place with burning herbs and nearly setting the farmhouse on fire once or twice. Her parents’ admonitions not to be so careless have grown so frequent, and so exasperated, that the nickname ‘Careless Gylli’ has stuck - but Gylli, always distractedly musing over her next harebrained formula or experiment, scarcely notices. And for all the berating, her concoctions do work, mostly. The sick or injured animals she takes in, and the occasional farmhand she treats in lieu of an expensive doctor, tend to recover with miraculous speed - and only occasionally turn interesting colors while they do so. Her parents might be content to apprentice her off to an apothecary in town and be done with it - but, worse than a taste for noxious potions and explosive concoctions, Gylli’s developed a fascination with books. An indulgent doctor practicing in Brassfield, impressed or perhaps exasperated by Gylli’s amateurish enthusiasm for alchemy, gave her a look at some of his texts, and now the girl’s taken it into her head that she’s going to be more than some rural apothecary’s apprentice. She’s going to study at the Bellmoor Alchemical Institute, earning formal accreditation and taking her place among the foremost pioneers of the alchemical and chirurgical arts in all of Ealdlich. She reads only haltingly, practices in a lab stocked with salvaged cast-offs and repurposed kitchen utensils, and tends to brew her potions with more enthusiasm than attention to detail - but none of that can dissuade Gylli from her dream. Admission to the Institute, however, requires more than a keen mind and insatiable curiosity. Like most of the universities and colleges of Bellmoor, the Institute is for the most part the preserve of those born to wealth and high station, and Gylli, the daughter of modestly well-off farmers outside Brassfield, has neither. The tuition, to say nothing of the alchemical supplies that students are expected to purchase for themselves, are both well beyond her family’s means, and she hasn’t the social connections to win an introduction or a scholarship. As her impatience with her humble farm life grows, Gylli entertains ever wilder ideas for escaping her provincial station and winning admission to the Alchemical Institute. If she could impress some patron with her self-taught talent for alchemy, or do something to win her fortune… or, ideally, both… surely the Institute would have to let her in. And someone always needs a healer, don’t they?

I went with something that's less 'plot hook' and more 'strong reason to bite on any plot hook that presents itself.' I hope this setup works with Digby and Lady and that whole element of Brassfield - the setting writeup mentions that they've got doctors as well as morticians among their number, so maybe the doctor who inadvertently encouraged her ambitions is part of that family, and it's their patronage she's trying to win?

[Ermine]

Originally Posted by Kaigen

I get that you don't want to spoil anything, but I'm having trouble seeing the player character hooks or knowing what kind of character would fit the game. When you say "typical high fantasy," do you mean "dungeon crawl" or "long overland journey for a Quest" or what?

It'll be closer to a long overland journey for a quest.

[Kaigen]

Okay, good luck with your recruitment/game!

[Sirviantis]

Fantastic, a rather open PF2e high fantasy game with a posting rate that I can easily support. I'll get you an application soon!

[GleefulNihilism]

Which remind me.

Comments and Critique are Welcome. For Kalee I kind of picture that the big plot line comes in a few parts.
A.) She thinks she’s CE or CN, she’s actually CG.
B.) She’s only an Initiate Nun because she’s a convicted Pirate that was considered too young for Hanging when she was arrested and as of right now if she ever quits or is fired from the Nunnery Hanging her is at least on the table. If she can find a way to quit the convent without worrying about the noose she’s up for it.
C.) She thinks she wants to be a Pirate again. Some aspects of Piracy however she actually wouldn’t able to go through with.