Interest Check -- Play-by-Post RPG?

[Bluelantern]

What religions have to say about dragonmarks and the aberrant marks?

@kappa dont ignore the most important thing: will StevenChainsaw allow a smol team to climb him?

[Kappa]

@kappa dont ignore the most important thing: will StevenChainsaw allow a smol team to climb him?

For the "tons of halflings" mental image: StevenChainsaws are 6'6" by default, and if the other party members were small and charming and wanted to climb all over him I bet he'd let 'em.

[Bluelantern]

@kappa dont ignore the most important thing: will StevenChainsaw allow a smol team to climb him?

For the "tons of halflings" mental image: StevenChainsaws are 6'6" by default, and if the other party members were small and charming and wanted to climb all over him I bet he'd let 'em.

(That was mostly joking but anyway) *Squee*! :D

What are the character concepts so far? Syberis Halfling Cleric; Aberrant Marked; Indiana Gnomes or Smol Reporter; The Robot...?

[PlainDealingVillain]

The Robot is not the most important part of Team Smol. Team Smol climbing Mt. Friend is the most important part.

I have had further ideas about Indiana Gnomes; I think he is really, really sick of gnome politics and is an expeditioning academic because it is the best option that keeps him mostly away from gnomish power struggles while still bringing an acceptable level of honor and secrets (which are the same thing, in Zilargo) to his family.

[Urpriest]

What are the character concepts so far? Syberis Halfling Cleric; Aberrant Marked; Indiana Gnomes or Smol Reporter; The Robot...?

Collecting various character concept posts for ease of reference:

I still unsure what I want for my character if it should be original or a template. My preliminary concept: a halfling (or human) raised by the Host's church who became a cleric of Boldrei, whom might ot might not have developed a Mark of Syberis for Healing. It would be the Meghan template (healer with some problems of being seen as weak for being a healer). I might complete change the concept

Stevens generally have parents who are authoritarian rich-or-noble-types; Chainsaws generally have parents who are neglectful or outright absent; the template-wide parenting situation of StevenChainsaws is largely undefined, but I do have one fairly well-defined example to draw from even if it might end up just one attractor cluster of many. Where can I go where humans are in the local majority and there's an opportunity for a recent ancestor to have ditched rich/noble connections to have a quiet unassuming life with a less prosperous partner?

...*brain goes click*

Actually, if one of this StevenChainsaw's parents was a noble who ran away with a commoner and the commoner was dragonmarked and possibly hiding from their attached House, this fits Sefton's parenting backstory of "noble girl who ran away with an apostate mage" really really well, and is a pretty good setup for the StevenChainsaw to turn out with an aberrant dragonmark. *checks dragonmarks list* If daddy wasn't aberrant himself, he was probably Cannith.

The Robot is not the most important part of Team Smol. Team Smol climbing Mt. Friend is the most important part.

I have had further ideas about Indiana Gnomes; I think he is really, really sick of gnome politics and is an expeditioning academic because it is the best option that keeps him mostly away from gnomish power struggles while still bringing an acceptable level of honor and secrets (which are the same thing, in Zilargo) to his family.

Since people seem to be unsure of what they want to do or how to move forward making specific plans, I will help narrow the decision space by declaring that I intend to play a halfling of House Ghallanda, who idolized the elves of Phiarlan and grew up dreaming of being a dancer and working hard towards that goal, and then manifested a dragonmark and suddenly had to learn to play hostess and diplomat. (I am kindof expecting we will have a lot of dragonmarked people in our party, given that most of the info we have on the setting is about the marks and their corresponding houses.) Other people with vague character concepts: let's try to figure out how our characters know each other/are connected and what might have got them both traveling in Xen'drik. (At minimum, my character is here because she can manifest food and shelter and has been hired by our patrons to do so for the party, but I'd *prefer* more personal motivation than that.)

I'd like to know what will count my character as sufficiently-created-soas-to-be-playable-in-this-game. I may just build her as a lvl 4 halfling bard in 3.5e, but IIRC the idea was for this to be a bit more free-form roleplaying and not strictly D&D rules?

I'm thinking about a warforged (or perhaps a warforged scout). A former soldier who gradually takes on more scouting roles, and picks up a little artificing along the way, maybe running into some of the weird warforged-related stuff in Xen'drik. Bluelantern, you're not going for the warforged concept anymore, right?

Given how things are going, a warforged scout (smol warforged) is sounding more and more appealing. Probably Mithril-plated, for ease of climbing. Given that we're setting off before the end of the war, he'd probably still be the property of house Cannith, likely sent along as their contribution to the mission (if the mission ends up being a collaboration of dragonmarked houses).

[atheistcanuck]

and I am playing with the idea of a gnome mage. It's quite possible if the mission is a collaboration of houses that she got volunteered to get her out of somebody's hair, and didn't fight it too hard because she was Bored Of Politics.

[Adelene]

If warforged come in 'considered property, not recognized as people', Lurker could probably come in smol scouty warforged form. I'd have to go actually read the backstory stuff, though.

[Bluelantern]

If warforged come in 'considered property, not recognized as people', Lurker could probably come in smol scouty warforged form. I'd have to go actually read the backstory stuff, though.

@_@ smol warforged Lurker

On your question: i think Standard Warforged are legally people, but suffer a lot of prejudices as former war machines. It shouldn't be hard to come with a situation/backstory where a off-standard warforged was kept as property.

[Adelene]

Or it could just be part of her history, that'd also work and seems very easy to arrange.

[Adelene]

Further thoughts on Smol Warforged Lurker

- She was one of the first 'forged made. She's small and not optimized for fighting because she was experimental and they weren't sure she'd come out controllable. She may have other physical oddities related to this - I'm actually not quite sure she's even bipedal.
- She more-or-less can't talk; this is due to either that part of the spell being cast wrong or being experimental and flawed. Whatever it is is relatively obvious to mages and could be fixed, but she's disinclined to allow that; I suspect she's sabotaged a fix at least once and it's not impossible that she's attacked someone over it. This isn't a matter of not wanting to be able to talk (or at least not mostly); it's a matter of not trusting artificers.
- She spent some time with another faction when she was fairly young. (...does Eberron have kobolds?... yes. cool. probably kobolds, then.) I don't know if she went back on her own or was 'rescued', but she ended up back with her [s]creators[/s] owners afterward somehow, though not before picking up both an interesting skill of some sort and the idea that she didn't have to be just a machine.
- She's been involved with warforged liberation since there's been the concept of warforged liberation, just about - since well before the war ended, in fact. (She might have a local equivalent of Dusk in her background, if the canon has room for them.)
- If she was directly involved with the warforged being freed at the end of the war, making that happen required some kind of compromise that she in particular ended up on the wrong side of. If she wasn't, the specific implementation in her area went poorly for her. Either way, she ended up going 'fuck this' and disappearing from society for a while.
- And then something happened and she's back, details to be worked out later. It is very plausible that the group's patron has enough power over her to assign her to the group without her preferences particularly coming into it, though. Or, alternately, she's got a new project that tagging along with the group will help with.
- Whatever it is, she's been fairly careful to avoid being recognized now (she may've made physical modifications to herself in pursuit of this; there's a decent chance that another warforged would recognize her original look), and is passing herself off as having a much less interesting backstory.

I'm still reading the background stuff, so none of this is set in stone, but I don't plan on changing it any more than I need to, if it helps anyone figure out what the group's story is.