Session 0: Character Creation

[Marullus]

-Isabelee needs to choose her enemy.

Loren the Thaumaturge is an apprentice to the Wizard Lorgoron in Hazla. He recognized the potency of her blood and devised plans to have her committed to his service that he might twist her gifts as Tools to his own ends. He has sought fruitlessly for her since the church took her into protective custody, but now she is again in the world...

Have you guys decided how you all know each other, or do I need to make a story thing for that? I know Peitharian is Isabelle's mentor, and I think it was mentioned that Swelan was Isabelle's mentor before he died. How does Magda fit into this group?

My understanding was:

• We all reside at the monastery. The monastery is a secluded locale in the mountains above Nabara - Magda and Isabelle as "questionable" assets being kept away from town, Peitharian as my Guardian and as a loner who likes monastic life and hates town. We are less clear why Swelan was there as a Paladin, though his life/unlife was changed forever by his presence.
• Isabelle is the ward of Peitharian, so that is a close relationship. She's quite outgoing and I like her being a close friend of Swelan in his Paladin days. He's much more approachable and worldly than boring old Peitharian, at least. I imagine she at least knew "of" Magda as a fellow resident, but whether Magda reciprocated with any depth is up to Enoch.
• Presumably the monastery was there for another reason which we may or may not know - what is under the monastery? Why would the church choose THIS spot? [I figured this ties in with Peitharian's knowledge of Church Secrets, and why he's there.]
• The monastery was attacked and burned while we were driven out. I think we liked this happening immediately prior to the game-start so that it is fresh and can be explored during roleplay. It is unknown (until GM reveal) if they were after one of us or something else in this attack. Magda and Peitharian needing to work with others, Isabelle thrust unprepared into life outside the monastery walls, and Swelan's fresh conversion to vengeful unlife are all fresh story elements.
• We're together by circumstance as we flee from the monastery. We need to do-whatever-we-are-doing before we reach the first town and hope for safety. We all serve the same church, have common cause in our home's destruction, and are sharing a joint experience as fleeing refugees which creates tight bonds.

Faolin: what is your call about using my scavenging nature to repair my plate armor?

I think it's a faux pas to ask him that before you commit to dice by trying as an in-game action. You start with it broken either way.

[Rusty Tincanne]

A couple of ideas on what sort of vows a paladin may have:

• An oath of charity. This would be really painful in Torchbearer, and I wouldn't recommend it, although an oath to donate a portion of your income to the Church (i.e., make an offering before praying at the shrine during Town phase) could work, I suppose, if you argued that looking for and gaining money was in support of this Belief.
• An oath of loyalty. Perhaps you swore to support your companions, right or wrong.
• An oath of protection. You took the oath in life, and died in defense of the Church; in death your vow is no less strong, and you will always protect your companions.
• An oath of vengeance. You swore to hunt down those who burnt down the monastery and others like them.
• A missionary vow--you swore to spread the teachings of the Church to unbelievers.
• A vow of honor. You swore to always fight honorably, and treat others justly. (That could be "exciting" with a half-vampire that needs to drink blood; it could be fun RP but does stray toward the potential for PVP conflict--though I'm willing to try to sneak around if the hulking undead knight doesn't approve).
• A vow of truth. You have sworn never to lie, or support a falsehood.
• A vow of hospitality. You have sworn to give comfort to all those who need it. This may mean inviting a lone goblin to share our camp, for instance.

I suppose the paladin order might have a slightly different bent than other clergy, but what is Coil's take on this?

As a proposal of how we all know one another: Swelan would know Peith from around the monastery though what their relationship was, I am not sure. Book group? Mancala night nemesis?

I was thinking Swelan might know Enoch's character from escorting her around occasionally. Probably he found her blood lust distasteful and dislikes allowing her to do so, but that darned cow of hospitality.... Now he is faced with being worse than that. But since he is fighting the urge, he would want her to do so as well. Not that we could enforce that in his game. You don't go hungry if you can help it.

I like Marullus' idea for a relationship. Like an older brother or uncle who lived life and went on trips while she was stuck with the cleric with a stick in the butt.


Coil: good choice with the shield. It makes it more difficult to recover from exhausted (ornisnit to become exhausted?) if you are carrying one.

[Faolan7]

@Marullus: Ah, okay. Thanks! Also, I misspelled your character's name earlier, so... *Isabelle

@Rusty: I cannot think of a way for using your scavenging nature to repair armor. Maybe to get supplies, but not to repair it. If you can come up with way for it to work, go ahead and try though .

[Enoch]

Honestly, repairing the armor seems like Personal Business in Town...though depending on the nature of the first adventure, finding someone who can repair it might make a good Goal!

[Rusty Tincanne]

Great idea, Enoch! I might use that.

And I apologize for asking about using my nature prior to committing. I had forgotten that cardinal rule. If Faolin wants to set an OB and have me roll, I'll be happy to. Fixing plate mail without tools... I'd go that alone and used a trait against myself for a check probably. And hope the twist isn't that the armor falls apart!

[Faolan7]

@Rusty: Eh, I forgot about that too. Unless you really want to try, I'd say we just forget about it, and you try to fix your armor at town or something.

[Enoch]

Don't worry, I think there are far more creative ways to screw with you for failing that Armorer test. Maybe somebody very creepy comes along--a cunning deep dwarf or something--and offers to repair your armor for you...for a price. More likely, you repair it but get a condition in the process--you Exhaust yourself in the effort, make yourself Angry because "the smiths make this look so easy, and I remember how I used to mock them during my days among the living for not being fighting-men", or you even Injure yourself.

[Faolan7]

I now have devious deviousness ready , aka I finished the intro to the campaign.

Also, your guys' character sheets are missing the following:

Enoch: You need to choose your belief and Health/Will spread. You can distribute 8 points between them, but Will cannot be higher than Health

Marullus: You need to add your belief and mark your specialty.

Coil: You need to mark your specialty

Rusty: You need to add your enemy and your Circles. I didn't see anything special for your class, so find them as normal (page 17 in the Basic Rulebook).

Everyone: Finish choosing your equipment and say so when you're done.

[Marullus]

On it!

Belief:

Being both a teenager and also not Lawful, she naturally undercuts and challenges his attempts to instill Church Law on her. But her age is about experimentation. She honestly DOES want to be good and follow the Doctrine that he impresses upon her but can't help but find and question the gray areas.

I would like to work collaboratively on her beliefs. I see her taking a stern point of Peith's church doctrine and making it her guiding principal for each session, then struggling with it in the face of reality accordingly. For example, if the first one is "Undead are unclean and unholy and have no place on this earth," she adopts what should be a clear principle from the Church. She's immediately faced with teaming up with a Half-Vampire (is she undead or not? Does it apply? How do I tell?) and a Paladin friend who has been nothing but kind to her and loyal to the Faith but is now undisputedly undead (Do I need to hate him now? Does who he was before matter? Do undead still have feelings?). She needs to struggle through all these questions of faith with Peith's help as they go through the first session and come to some kind of resolution about this Church tenet. She then earns the Fate point or Persona point at the end of the session and I'll change it to a new Tenet for a belief in the next session. I intend to have her experiment her way through church doctrine as a questioning teenager session by session rather than having a fixed and firm principle like and adult set in their ways would.

Does that work for the others? I see this is a good way (mechanically and storywise) to add an appropriate amount of teenage drama to the story in a way that benefits the narrative rather than being a distraction. Her explicit exploration of church doctrine helps pull out and highlight the contradictions that the group will be dealing with regardless.

If nobody has a problem with the above, then I'll add this to the sheet: Undead are unclean and unholy and have no place on this earth.

Her specialty is Persuader. I already added it in. I'll put a note next to it.

[Faolan7]

Thanks for the quick reply Marullus! I guess I missed it earlier, and normally you underline your specialty (book says so), but writing "specialty" next to it works too. You're all taken care of now!

[coil23]

First order of business: Apologies on the truancy. School is kicking my ass right now. I will do my best for the next two weeks and then things should ease up a little for me.

Specialty (healer) has now been indicated on character sheet

Regarding the monastery being razed and all driven away...would it add a layer of intrigue if none of us are even sure why it happened? Maybe one or two of us could have a suspicion on the reason but it is a mystery even as we flee.

Peitharian's relationship with the paladin before when he was still alive and now as undead..... I admit I have no inspiration on this so far but it is so ripe for potential. I am open to ideas and will continue to think on this. My cleric is cranky and opinionated on even trifles so this simply must have its own story.

[Enoch]

I imagine he'd see the Military Orders as useful, but they have this annoying tendency to think they're "holy". It's not like they're clerics, or anything. They're handy guys that do the fighting so the clerics can do what really matters.

[Marullus]

Regarding the monastery being razed and all driven away...would it add a layer of intrigue if none of us are even sure why it happened? Maybe one or two of us could have a suspicion on the reason but it is a mystery even as we flee.

I always prefer things to unfold in-game. Certainly, Peith's "Church Secret-Wise" will be useful as theories begin to come together.

I thought that Rusty's "Graveyard-Wise" might come in to play in the same way, if the Monestary had a reliquary/saint's tomb type of function. He took "Battlefield-Wise" instead, though, so that'll pull a different direction.

Multiple pulls is always good, though.

[Rusty Tincanne]

Interesting point, Marullus. I guess I was thinking of paladins as warriors, fighting in crusades and such. But that isn't really this guy, now that I think about it.

I'd like to switch that to Graveyard-wise, gaining his wisdom from their monastery's reliquary/saint's tomb function AND that his order has its origins in routing out the undead (hundreds of hears prior to our adventure). This makes him an anathema to himself. Or is that too much as it created PVP tension? Yeah. Probably that. We have a lot of grist as it is, so just the former.

[Enoch]

Well, you can certainly have the self-loathing as part of the character. It's always up to you in the moment to decide what actions to take based on it. Heck, it would probably be best displayed by using Traits against yourself, anyway...Scarred doesn't have to be just physical. You can be psychologically scarred by finding yourself to be the very thing you've fought against for so long.

[coil23]

If I am interpreting all this correctly: it seems like the PVP aspect is avoided precisely because the monastery was razed and we are all on the run, fending for ourselves. We are no longer cloaked in the comforting (read: stifling though familiar) accoutrement of an intact church with all the attendant hierarchy and rules. Suddenly all we have is ourselves and our remaining ties to the church we had known. If the church was still intact then PVP would raise its head. But now there may be ambivalence but more pressing is the certain knowledge that all we have is ourselves. And that one member may officially be anathema- but he is also one of the few remaining shreds of our beloved church, not to mention one of the only people who can help ensure our very survival (let alone one of the few who would even care).

Not sure if all that tracks or may even be too overwrought. ( I excel in overwrought! )

[Enoch]

I think that is actually an excellent in-game reason for us to make a real effort to get along, even if we're not naturally that compatible.

[Marullus]

I think that's cool. As above, I am using my belief to bring this to the fore and resolve it in our story.

[Faolan7]

As it's been a week, I'm updating what we still need.

Enoch: You still need to choose your belief and Health/Will spread. You can distribute 8 points between them, but Will cannot be higher than Health

Marullus: You're done!

Coil: You still need to mark your specialty

Rusty: You need to add your enemy and your Circles. I didn't see anything special for your class, so find them as normal (page 17 in the Basic Rulebook).

Everyone: Your equipment looks good, are y'all done?

[Enoch]

Crap, I forgot! I'll split Will/Health evenly. Belief: I am not a monster.