Playing In The Sandbox (Recruitment, Info, And OOC)

Ok, just did a rough map (only kind you'll ever likely get from me and my nonexistant artistic skills) and ended up with exactly 12 major cities. None of them being "the hub" but a few would serve as hubs between a few others.

...So, you gonna show us, or...

I drew it on a piece of paper..... I'll try to make a paint version or something later. That said, I think your character might be the only one who might even have one. It's not like there are schools in this society so everyone else mostly would just know the names of other places and their general direction. I don't know about Fury but, the other three characters seem unlikely to have ever left whichever city they come from. And being how you're all level 1, even those that have probably haven't gone very far. Maybe as far as another city but, most likely just to little towns or places within a few dozen miles.

I just want to see it so I can choose which town to base my character's home/shop in

Or do we all start in the same hometown?

You guys certainly all have to start the game near each other. Cities are really far away from each other and travel isn't exactly simple. I was figured I'd figure out where you guys start (and the situation the game starts in) after you guys had finished your characters. I'll try to make the map in Paint when I have the time. If you guys are going to pick a city it'd have to be a group decision, I honestly hadn't thought about it and just assumed I was going to. That said, there's only two cities I would say no to starting in. One is the home of the Minotaurs and the other is the home of the Vryloka and other free peoples. Interestingly those are on the opposite extremes of the map from each other.

Btw, any thoughts on anyone for what they want the land to be named?

Edit: Fury, I know there's a build for them in the Elemental Chaos book but, they might have shown up earlier. I never more than glanced at the Essentials stuff.

You can just put them in a post here. That way when people are done I can just add them all to the second post in spoilers or something.

Fury of the Tempest wrote:... Well I found this awesome template on G-docs and I used that so...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtgzhOkUJaGYdHFnUUd4NlMxdE1NVU1ybko5eGJFMEE#gid=0

Character.

Ok... I"m just going to outright say I don't think I'll ever be able to write up a sheet like this without somebody in real life next to me helping hold my hand all the way though it... This 4e stuff is just not user friendly to the newbies at all!

Would you believe it's considered to be the easiest for new players? It still takes me 2 hours to roll up a simple human character in 3.5.

Xel Unknown wrote:

Fury of the Tempest wrote:... Well I found this awesome template on G-docs and I used that so...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtgzhOkUJaGYdHFnUUd4NlMxdE1NVU1ybko5eGJFMEE#gid=0

Character.

Ok... I"m just going to outright say I don't think I'll ever be able to write up a sheet like this without somebody in real life next to me helping hold my hand all the way though it... This 4e stuff is just not user friendly to the newbies at all!

We're not going to use a character sheet. Just write down your ability scores, what you're trained in and a history.

And 4e is very newbie-friendly. It holds your hand and tells you what to pick to fit the class build you want. Of course, others might complain that this puts restrains on creativity as well...
But you're going to need the books for that. Or "acquire" these books in "electronic files" from the giant "series of tubes"

Demonu wrote:But you're going to need the books for that. Or "acquire" these books in "electronic files" from the giant "series of tubes"

It's not piracy if you're friend lets you copy his files for free. After he downloaded them. For free.

I have the books... They make my head spin... Maybe from them wanting to tell me what to do... Not give me options and telling me what I can use or something? I just think that 4e hates me personally when I start reading it's books I got form the interwebs....

Uh....why are we discussing this? That's not what we're using for character sheets for this game anyway. All we're doing is:

Name:
Race:
Class:
Abilities:
Trained Skills:
Profession(s):
Character details (description, short version of backstory, etc.):


As an aside, Bronymous, I have that same problem with 3.5. The thing is that you basically have to do the work of a research paper to figure out how you want your character to end up before you can even start making it if you want to end up with anything aside from just your starting class all the way up. I can make a starting 4th ed character in under an hour. Maybe under half if it's one of the classes I've looked over before. Sure if you want to chart out your character from 1st to max level it'll take longer (still way less time than 3.5 though) but, at least you don't basically have to do that at character creation like you do in 3.5. "I'm sorry, you picked neutral good and you didn't plan to spend skills getting cross class use rope? Can't take this prestige class. Not like you could anyway as you didn't save a baby from a divine encounter with the pink walrus of azkaban." 4th ed is a lot more lenient on requirements and has a mechanic for retraining stuff every level, in 3.5 once you pick something, you're stuck with it. 4th ed really gets a lot easier the more used to it you are, 3.5 is always a horrible tangled mess.

Yes. We're just looking at them for examples of stuff you can do at whatever level you are. We're not even doing damage rolls or anything.

Because the point is keeping things simple and moving quickly. We're just having attack rolls and those aren't even tied to stats at all. I'll keep in mind things like status effects, striker extra damage stuff, and other things a power would do but, mostly the effectiveness of attacks is just based on the result of the roll (and possibly modifiers and other info I'll keep to myself). Heck, we aren't even doing initiative.

Figured out clan names for the ninja and added another note about monk schools.

Well here's the starting of my sheet. better to start sooner then later.

Name: Cyrtanthus (Named for the genus of the Fire Lily)
Race: Pixie
Class: Warlock (Maybe has a future of Multiclassing to Shaman)
Abilities:
Str: 8
Con: 14
Dex: 16
Int: 13
Wis: 10
Chr: 18
Trained Skills: Arcana, Bluff, Diplomacy, Heal, Perception, Stealth, Thievery (She doesn't like her thief skills, but some days she needs them to eat and stuff.)
Profession(s): Street Performer (Uses fire) and Arsonist (she hides that profession, but she is quite skilled in that)
Character details (description, short version of backstory, etc.): Well Cyrtanthus isn't sure if she was born into being a slave or if she was just forced into the roll at just a very young age. But that doesn't really matter at all to The Pixie. Over all her life was a fun and she was lucky to have a Thoughtful Thri-Kreen Noble named Ca'Hak for an owner. He was a very good to Cyrta, and form the Pixie's point of view she thinks of him as having been kind and loving person to her. And Ca'Hak's extended Clutch, known to most as the Ack'cha Family, mostly did just think of her as a tool or weapon to use on their enemies, none of them disliked the fey. Also most of the Ack'cha Family highly respected her skills regardless of what she was to them. But to Cyrta, she thinks they all had loved her just as much as she still loves them. Sadly in reality only the rare few that decided to get to know her personally did think of her more then just a thing. Cyrta's official title and tasks were just be to look pritty and was viewed by most to just be Ca'Hak's pet. Also she loved to do most was to help around the Family's house wherever and whenever she could... After all just waiting around doing nothing got really boring quite quickly for the little fey. Cyrtanthus, because of both her magical affinity and her EXTREME and seemingly endless loyalty for the Ack'cha Family, was trained in secret as a Pyromancer and formed a pact with a Fire Elemental for her magic. Only the Leaders of the Ack'cha family and Ca'Hak knew of the Pixie's pyromancer skills. She used these skills to burn down buildings at the Ack'cha's command for whatever reason they wanted and Cyrta was a natural with this task, being able to both get inside of nearly any building, start the fire, and get out before anyone knew she was ever there. Also to The Ack'cha this saved them gold from not having to pay any ninja clan to do such a deed. Nobody ever found any proof the Pixie was ever in any of the building she had burned down, or was able to get proof that the Pixie had any skills to even start said fires. Also Cyrta was skilled with lieing so well that there are but only a rare few that still thought after having a short chat with the pixie that still think she was behind the fire. Then one day Ca'Hak died of old age at 29 and in his will, he gave Cyrtanthus her freedom, a move mostly everyone both inside and outside of The Ack'cha Family thought was just to spite them from getting ownership of the Pixie, but Cryta knows he did this because of the very real fear that her next owner would not be as kind or loving as Ca'Hak was. Also as far as anyone outside of The Ack'cha Family's leaders know, she officially learned her Fire Making skills about three weeks after she was given her freedom. And she had left her Owner's household little after she had ended up causing one of the minorest of burns to one a young Thri-Kreen. The Family was forced to kick her out at that time. But she is welcomed to return for a visit and they know that she'd do anything that they'd ask of her. She has been a free Pixie for about two years or so and will do ANYTHING to keep her freedom. To Cyrta, her freedom is her most meaningful gift Ca'Hak had ever gave her... Also she sometimes has to steal food when her Fire-Related Street Performance doesn't earn her enough money for the day, something she doesn't like doing, but does because she has to.

Ok, added your guys' character sheets to the bottom of the 2nd post. Though only Bronymous' and Xel's have anything in their spoilers.

Edit: I need two more city names since Bronymous gave 10 and there are 12. Also, c'mon guys, anyone have any thoughts for the land's name?

Edit 2: Ok, did a paint rendition of the map. The left half got kinda squashed a bit compared to how I have it down on paper. Just imagine it a bit more stretched out? The red dots are the cities. These are not to scale. The two that aren't named are the Broken Chains city in the north west and the Minotaur city in the south east (I'll add the names for those once you guys provide them and re-up the map, unless someone wants to make a nicer one or something). The blue is sea/ocean and rivers (which could probably use names). The brown is a mountain range. The map cuts off to the south not because the world drops away or something but, because nobody (as far as you know anyhow) has any idea what's past there. Most bets are on more sand.

Spoiler:

Disclaimer: This map might not be entirely accurate as it's just the map that Alma has and was provided by one of many mapmakers who all tend to have somewhat different maps and none of them (as far as you know) got their maps directly from the divine showing it to them or anything.

Edit 3: Bronymous, does Alma have a surname? Or rather...give her a surname. People in this land, unless on close terms, tend to refer to each other by last name. On the other hand Cyrtanthus doesn't need one because slaves often don't for one reason or another.

@ Xel Unknown:

Those are a lot of trained skills, especially for a starter character and a slave to boot. How are you going to justify all that, let alone if Ramsus is going to let you start with that many.
Also, I don't think Arsonist qualifies as a profession, more like a deranged hobby. Of course, it could be that a character is known for setting things on fire as for assasination attempts or insurance fraud but considering the ninja thing, arson would be a very overt way of killing someone. Meh, not that it matters anway. Just finding it strange someone can make a profession out of commiting crimes.

@ Everyone:

Looks like all characters, including mine, up to now are very heavy on the CHA and INT side. We're going to talk our way out of all problems

@ Ramsus:

Character creation is coming along slowly. Just keep putting it off due to college having started this week and having to commune 50 minutes to and 50 minutes back on bus, greatly tiring me out and slowing down the everything else. That aside, I should have something up by Friday/Saturday I figure.

Kabikyo looks like a good starting area/home town. Build on a crossroad of 2 rivers, centrally situated and not to far from the ocean, I assume it's a thriving merchant city and it wouldn't be too hard to come up with a reason why all of us are in such a location.