Okay. I'm seriously impressed now. Not only do have we exceeded 80 IC pages as of today, we've also gone through 50 pages of OOC blather and bonding over 1.5 years.
That's approximately 3,960 posts* (7.233 posts per day on average) and about enough text to crush a large dog, or perhaps a very small horse under.** No, I don't know where we found the time to get out that many posts per day. Yes, it is awesome.
Centuries ago, there were dragons. Not that many, but they were there. Attalin was not the capital, merely a large town that housed the headquarters of the paladin order, which at the time was not so deeply involved in politics. Sorcerers were feared, but also pitied. Tavetiir was half the size it is today. The Iraness River, which now runs almost exactly down the center of Tavetiir, used to be the border between Tavetiir and Kallean. Kallean is gone now, crumbling magic-laden ruins all that remains of an empire that, nearly a thousand years ago, stretched from the Iraness to the Temarian, on the eastern edge of Rysal. (In the context of the real world, think a sort of Celtic-ish version of Han China, except it collapsed 400 years ago into what is now the eastern half of modern Tavetiir)
Kallean guarded their side of the border with mage towers, which polluted the Iraness with arcane energies. Kallean employed gnomes and sorcerers in their armies. Kallean was a monarchy, and Tavetiiir was and is a theocracy, ruled by a triumvirate of priests. It is largely agreed that two of the three were more or less crazy during this particular time period.
378 years ago, Kallean and Tavetiir were at war. Tavetiir was holding out, but just barely. The dwarves of Dvenukkaim were not our allies yet, and Kallean had better farmlands, more soldiers, and did not have to battle elves at their northern border.
The triumvirate had the bright idea to enlist sorcerers in the army *facepalm*. Get them killed, and get a nice little boost of power while we're at it. So when Kallean's soldiers attacked Attalin, sorcerers stood by paladins, and defended Attalin with sword and spell.
We won, technically. Their army was demolished, they had no more real soldiers to send. Kallean was conquered within a year, the gnomes driven out and the mage towers demolished. You can still see the remains of the foundations along the river today. But the sorcerers were no longer satisfied with the way things were, no longer willing to be set apart and, in some ways, looked down on. They had seen now what they could do if they banded together. They plotted and schemed, contacted the elves and the gnomes, made pacts with devils and fey. Three years later, when Attalin was expanded drastically and declared the new capital, the sorcerers were allowed to enter the city. They entered, and called upon their newfound allies.
It was a bloodbath. A city that had taken two and a half years to construct, destroyed in under a day, as some sort of blind revenge against crimes that had never been commited. Ten thousand innocent citizens ripped limb from limb, their corpses desecrated and revived as undead soldiers, as revenge for the few hundred sorcerers who we had driven away from our territories.
We fled to the mountains, finding allies in the dwarves. They armed us, gave us food, shelter, and marched with us back to Attalin. We hadn't ever killed the sorcerers without giving them a chance to flee, leave Tavetiir. Not before that. The army retook Attalin by force, human and halfling marching side by side with dwarf, beating back and slaying every elf and gnome, every demon and faerie, every warlock and sorcerer. We burned their corpses, buried the city, prayed that their gods take their twisted souls, for we were too angry, too resentful, to perform the rites over them, as we had always done before.
The triumvirate was overthrown (for idiocy), a new one elected to their place. Laws were placed, paladins rose in status, eventually gaining the chance to be elected to the triumvirate, and from there to the current way it is, where there is always one paladin in the triumvirate. Teruk Stoneaxe became the first dwarven paladin when he was 153, and eventually rose to the triumvirate, the second paladin to do so, where he ruled for 80 more years before abdicating in favor of Lianya Iboron, a priestess from East Tavetiir. Sorcerers were ostracized, hunted, and slain. No rites were ever again performed over their corpses, and in time, the prayers for their damaged souls stopped as well. We redoubled our efforts to keep the elves out, the gnomes down, and the arcane arts abolished.
Never again would we trust the sorcerers. They always had been insane. No mortal has been truly able to channel the arcane without harm coming to mind, body, or both. They always had been hateful, angry that we could not live with them, that we did not, could not, fully accept them because of the legitimate danger they posed to our citizens. Angry that we had killed some of them before they burnt themselves out, angry that we did not let the arcane consume their souls. (see, insane!)
Never again will we let them get a chance to taste power. Never again. We won't live through those years again.
Local Deities:
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Aldaran, God of the Sun, the main deity, Patron of Paladins. Holy Symbol: A sun. Domains: Sun, Strength, War. Favored Weapon: Warhammer
The Wanderer, patron god of travelers and tricksters everywhere, halflings especially. Symbol: A hood, with a face barely visible inside. Domains: Luck, Travel, Trickery. Favored weapon: Quarterstaff
Andarra, Goddess of Death. Symbol: A rotting hand. Domains: Death, Destruction, Protection. Favored weapon: Glaive.
Esari, Wife of Alderan. Goddess of the home. Symbol: Two hands with palms together. Domains: Healing, Protection. Favored Weapon: Dagger
Elves tend to worship Obad-hai (the dude in the player's handbook) or the Moon Lady (Domains: Magic, Protection, Knowledge, Healing), represented by the largest moon (There are 3, but one is tiny and the other is blue and comes around about once every 7 years), considering celestials to be her children. A good portion of them are atheists.
The Big 16:
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1. What game system are you running (D&D, Call of Cthulu, Palladium, GURPS, etc.), and if applicable what edition (Original, Classic, Revised, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 10th, etc.)? D&D 3.5
2. What 'type' or variant of game will it be (i.e. "Shadow Chasers" or "Agents of Psi" for d20 Modern)? What is the setting for the game (eg. historic period, published or homebrewed campaign setting, alternate reality, modern world, etc.)? Homebrewed setting.
3. How many Players are you looking for? Will you be taking alternates, and if so, how many? 4-6 players, no alternates on account of the fact this is my first time DMing a PbP and I'd like to keep it simple.
4. What's the gaming medium (OOTS, chat, e-mail etc.)? This Forum.
5. What is the characters' starting status (i.e. experience level)?
ECL 3. Note that non-human characters are distrusted at best and hunted and killed at worst.
6. How much gold or other starting funds will the characters begin with? 1000 gp, nothing magical.
7. Are there any particular character classes, professions, orders, etc. that you want... or do not want? What are your rules on 'prestige' and/or homebrewed classes? No clerics. No wizards. No beguilers. No psionics. No wu jen. Someone better have Heal as a class skill. I'm not about to go easy on you. Your character MUST have a legitimate way to have gained his/her class(es). Show me the homebrew if you want it allowed.
8. What races, subraces, species, etc. are allowed for your game? Will you allow homebrewed races or species? 'Prestige' races or species? As above: just show me the homebrew.
9. By what method should Players generate their attributes/ability scores and Hit Points? Roll for hit points. You are a ragtag bunch of misfits who really aren't supposed to be here and this is represented by the way I am determining your stats. 25 point buy or roll 4d6b3 in order for your stats, switch any two to represent training. If you want to roll, make 2 arrays and choose one.
10. Does your game use alignment? What are your restrictions, if so?
There is alignment for roleplaying and restrictions (paladins must be LG), but no alignment-specific spells. See point 13.
11. Do you allow multi-classing, or have any particular rules in regards to it? No penalties for multiclassing. Not everyone can be a sorcerer. You must start with at least 1 level of sorcerer, be a race with spell-like abilities, or be a race with sorcerer as its favored class to take levels in sorcerer over the course of the campaign.
12. Will you be doing all of the die rolling during the course of the game? Will die rolls be altered, or left to the honor system? If players can make die rolls, which ones do they make, how should they make the rolls, and how should they report them? Forum Dice Roller please. Make all the rolls you want.
13. Are there any homebrewed or optional/variant rules that your Players should know about? If so, list and explain them, or provide relevant links to learn about these new rules.
Detect alignment, undetectable alignment, protection from alignment, Alignment-specific domains, anything else that does something like that, out. Any spells that deals bonus damage/effects against a creature of a certain alignment now either deals that extra damage to arcane spellcasters, divine spellcasters, or non-spellcasters (Something that affected evil now affects arcane, something that affected chaos now affects divine, something that affected law now affects the non-spellcasters, something that affects good has no equivalent.) Elf Favored Class is Sorcerer instead of Wizard.
Other:
Monk: Just use this one. It's a lot better than my stupid fix.
Paladin(Witch-hunter): Smite Arcane (Replaces Smite Evil) granted at a different progression (1st, 4th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th, 20th) as opposed to whatever it does right now.
Gain Knowledge (Arcana) and Spellcraft as class skills.
Replace Detect Evil with Detect Magic
Remove Disease X/Week is replaced by Greater Dispel Magic (Targeted only) as a Spell-Like Melee Touch Attack usable X times/day. Caster Level = Paladin Level
Remove Aura of Courage
8th Level Paladin Ability: The paladin gains spell resistance=Paladin level+Charisma score.
14. Is a character background required? If so, how big? Are you looking for anything in particular (i.e. the backgrounds all ending up with the characters in the same city)? Yes. I need to know how you obtained your class and what the heck are you doing in the sewers of the capital of a human country anyways? In addition, those who write good backstories get 100 roleplaying XP. Those who have a special item from their backstory get a +1 bonus on Will saves when it is in their possession and a -2 morale penalty when it is lost or destroyed. Really good backstories will have a small story arc devoted to them. (Yes, I am shamelessly bribing you here.)
15. Does your game involve a lot of hack & slash, puzzle solving, roleplaying, or a combination of the above? Lots of roleplaying (roleplaying XP is available), quite a lot of hack and slash, definitely at least a little puzzle solving.
16. Are your Players restricted to particular rulebooks and supplements, or will you be allowing access to non-standard material? What sources can Players use for their characters? SRD, Completes (Arcane/Divine/Warrior/Adventurer/Scoundrel/Mage), PHB 2, the web with my approval (classes like the marshal, anything from an excerpt of the rulebooks)
And have I mentioned lately you guys and gals are awesome? Because you are.
Also, speking of awesome, I'd like to keep Ajadea's Christmas present on the first page, too. So here it is!
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Originally Posted by Ajadea
That picture never did get made, as was mentioned before. How about I remedy that? Enjoy the holidays!
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And yes, still snowing. It's kinda beautiful until you realize we are definitely not equipped for snow... last time it snowed here was around 1985. The factory I work in is closed on Monday and maybe Tuesday too, and there are Fire Department people everywhere to clear the streets. Like I said, crazy.
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Moving house. Posting schedule and PM replies may be erratic for a while. Pokes are very appreciated if I forget to post somewhere.
The roof of the cabin is completely flat. A little ladder in the very back of the ship gives access to it. There are no rails however. Small design oversight.
There was not enough time for you to reprepare spells.
But, as far as I can tell, Savannah's question was about whether there was time for you to reprepare spells between leaving Veltaros's house and getting on the boat (there was not).
Seriously, though, I've had my dogs climb playground ladders. It's really not that hard, if you keep one hand on them to keep them balanced. Oh, and she has wolf treats to encourage him.
Everyone awake? What about that load of seed potatoes?
...also, for those interested in weather in Italy...still snowing. Unbelievable. There must be some scary ancient prophecy nearing its fullfillment: it's the only reasonable explanation I may find.
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Moving house. Posting schedule and PM replies may be erratic for a while. Pokes are very appreciated if I forget to post somewhere.
*raises hand from under mountain of Chem homework*
Sorry. Little swamped at the moment. Working on it, though. I better be done by tonight - it's due tomorrow, after all. So you should be getting a post about 8-10 hours from now, hopefully less.
*raises hand from under mountain of Chem homework*
Ooooh, chem! Whar are you studying? BAD Strawberries! Do not distract people doing homework!
Quote:
Sorry. Little swamped at the moment. Working on it, though. I better be done by tonight - it's due tomorrow, after all. So you should be getting a post about 8-10 hours from now, hopefully less.
No worries, take your time!
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Moving house. Posting schedule and PM replies may be erratic for a while. Pokes are very appreciated if I forget to post somewhere.
Mostly conversion. Example problem (seriously, straight out of the book):
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Originally Posted by Ridiculous Chemistry Textbook
Among many alternative units that could be used to measure time is the shake. Based on the expression "faster than the shake of a lamb's tail", the shake will be defined as 2.5 x10-4 s. If a car is traveling at 55 mph, what is its speed in cm/shake?
I'm not sure where Jallorn is... maybe we should try to PM him.
In other news, I need to go to Caudry, France, for a business trip on Monday and Tuesday, but I'll be leaving tomorrow and spending the weekend in Paris. (yay )
I don't know if I'll be able to be online at all in this four days. I'll post if I can, otherwise see you on Wednesday!
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Moving house. Posting schedule and PM replies may be erratic for a while. Pokes are very appreciated if I forget to post somewhere.
Sorry, I should have mentioned it in the OOC, too. I PMed Jallorn, and he says he is definitely still with us, just a little busy right now, so he asked us to continue and autobot him if needed, just for a while until real life settles down for him.
As for me, I'm ready to continue if everyone else is.
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Moving house. Posting schedule and PM replies may be erratic for a while. Pokes are very appreciated if I forget to post somewhere.
.... so, uhm.... *poke*? Did I say something wrong? (IC or OOC)?
Also, as a warning to Savannah: sooner or later I'll got Audric to try and pet Shadow (at the moment he didn't follow through due to a mixture of nervousness around a wolf and respect for you). Of course, how Shadow reacts to it would be entirely up to you.
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Moving house. Posting schedule and PM replies may be erratic for a while. Pokes are very appreciated if I forget to post somewhere.