Ludmila "Ludmi" Ingosi is the youngest of the nine daughters of Ura Baba, the Duchess of the Swamp. Ludmi was the only of Ura's children, excepting her closest sister Ismila, to not inherit Ura's profound mastery of the arcane. Ludmi and Ismila were doted upon by their mother, who often feared for their safety, but envied by their other seven sisters, who considered themselves their betters.
When Ura Baba died, and her oldest daughter Liudra inherited her position as ruler of the swamp and master of their great mansion, deals were struck with nearby human and half-elf communities, allowing them to start settling the swamplands. The other eight Ingosi siblings did not take kindly to this, and it was Ismila who was first to confront the humans about their incursions into the Ingosi lands. A confrontation ensued, and Ismila--alone and effectively defenseless--was killed by a human soldier named Rodran. Half-mad with grief and anger, Ludmila ran into the swamp and plotted to seek vengeance. It was then that she was visited by the strange spirit Inxeligxus, who took the form of a dragon composed of green fire. Ingxeligxus claimed to be the embodiment of the swamp, and in return for five years of her natural lifespan, Ingxeligxus granted Ludmila the powers of a warlock.
Rodran died in a mysterious accident not long after, and Ludmila left the swamplands. Now, she communes with several spirits of the swamp in her adventures as she searches for new purpose in a life she now lives so far from her home. The Great Swamp Grimoire:
The Swamp Grimoire was a spellbook written by Ludmila's mother Ura Baba, as a warlock, it is not necessarily of much use to Ludmila, but she has begun appending her own notes on the swamp spirits to the end of the book, and the book's non-spellbook components (containing, among other things: advice from Ura Baba to her children, a geneology of the Ingosi family, and a history of the swamp) are still relevant to Ludmi.
Patron Spirits
Inxeligxus: Ludmila is powered by and endebted to first and foremost the swamp spirit Inxeligxus. Inxeligxus is a mysterious entity, and resembles a dragon composed of green witchfire. He is a fey of some sort but what kind exactly is not known, nor is why he wished for five years of Ludmila's lifespan in return for her powers. Inxeligxus appears to be very powerful however, and is served by a bevy of strange spirits, Ludmila's other patrons two among them.
Baron Markonus: The embodiment of the greed that drove humans to attempt to enter the swamp, and its consequences. Markonus takes the form of a skeleton dressed in a rich man's clothing. He provides Ludmila with no powers, but advises her frequently, and tries to direct her to particularly rich treasure troves.
Udilon, The Pestilence: The swamps are a disease-ridden place when untamed by civilization, and Udilon is the embodiment of such facts. He takes the form of a hooded, scythe-wielding figure who wears a plague doctor's mask. He provides Ludmila with the majority of her curses, and her Pact Arm, the ability to conjure a scythe.
In addition, Ludmila is sometimes visited by lesser swamp spirits such as phantoms, shadows, fairies, or will-o'-the-wisps.
Miscellanea
The five years Ludmila owes Inxeligxus were not taken immediately, or all at once. Instead, she developed a very heavy pipe-smoking habit, and the detrimental effects this has on her health are effectively what powers her spells. As such, Ludmi is often mildly ill. Furthermore, Ludmila is compelled by her lesser pact with Baron Markonus to collect magical trinkets whenever possible, and has a number of them (all long used) on her person.
In spite of everything, Ludmila keeps a surprisingly even demeanor the vast majority of the time. Neither particularly serious nor particularly prone to antics, Ludmila's levelheadedness comes in spite of her troubled twenty-two years on this earth. Ultimately, even Ludmila herself does not know what it is she is searching for in the world now that she has left her loved ones and home behind her.
Ludmila's Equipment:
x1 Staff (can be converted to a sickle via Pact Arm)
x1 Spellbook (Swamp Grimoire)
x1 stick of charcoal or chalk
x1 Evil Eye (dark grey ball of glass. Used for curses).
Zankas Gladdenstone, AKA Zankas the Blank, AKA The Stout Dagger
Dwarven Rogue, Chaotic Neutral
Equipment:
*Forgery Kit (Ink, Paper, Paints, Brushes, Pens)
*10 Lockpicks
*Dagger
*2 Bottles of Beer
*Tinderbox
*8 Smoke Bombs
Zankas the Blank was found as a child outside of an orphanage in the Halfling settlement of Gladdenstone, known for its gemcutters and its trade agreement with the Dwarven Mountain of Vergainsberg. At first, he was assumed to be a Gnomish child, as the settlement is a few hours away from Gnome territory by horse. As such, he was put under the care of Pan Shorttankard, a Gnomish teacher who was accepted into the settlement for his artistic skills. He served as Zankas's primary caretaker, as well as a teacher of the arts of painting and calligraphy. However, when his beard grew in and his shoulders grew broad, it became clear that he was a dwarf. As the nearest Dwarven settlement (the aging Mountain of Vergainsberg) was two days travel away, his presence at the orphanage was unprecedented.
In his adolescence, he was viciously teased by a number of children at the orphanage, who would throw rocks at him and tell him to mine jewels from them. This, in turn, led to a series of pranks by Zankas against his aggressors. After a particularly vicious prank that left three halflings tarred and feathered, along with two houses, Zankas gained much respect (and no little amount of fear) from his fellows. Simultaneously, he was asked to leave the orphanage to prevent any further property damage. So at the fresh age of 19, he left his home.
Since then, he's spent a decade traveling from town to town, offering his skills as a forger and a burglar (as all halflings are nurtured to be natural burglars), and learning from his unsavoury clientele and occasional co-workers. Often, when it's not safe in any nearby cities for a lawbreaker, he'll tag along with a band of adventurers, picking locks and springing traps in return for a share of the loot. Someday, he plans to go to Vergainsberg (where he suspects he was born) with enough wealth that families will climb over each other to claim him as their own child. That is, if he ever gets bored of causing trouble.
---
Zankas is thought to be, among thieves and robbers, an amicable sort. He's playful, good-natured, and, on rare occasion, can even be generous. However, he's also uniformly covetous and highly vindictive. He's feared by those who have slighted him, even by accident, and even his allies are cautious of him.
Zankas is slightly smaller than the average dwarf, at 4 feet and 150 pounds, with a thin face (for a dwarf) and a scraggly beard. The net effect is that he looks much younger than he actually is. While he prefers guile to outright assassination, he's more than capable of keeping his own in a fight.
I'm highly considering an over-the-top rogue bard who's a street magician
It would enable me to yell at the top of my lungs and be a giant fool all the time, which is definitely a plus
I was about to kick you for going as a rogue when I'm already going to be the rogue.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'll stick with the dwarf rogue. I'll try and finish him before sunset hits.
I thought you were going to be a cleric? I mean that's what you said earlier, and before that you said something about a minotaur.
I was between a minotaur cleric and a dwarf rogue. I decided on the latter. If it's necessary, I can still go with the former, but it'd take more time to to get his story right.
The minotaur cleric's god is more-or-less Cheribados from Dungeon Crawl (okay, it's exactly like Cheribados from DC. He even rides on a giant tortoise). And he's part of a species of minotaurs that function as nomads rather than maze-dwelling monsters. Figured that would involve too much canon-merging and custom-spells.
Zankas has the much lesser problem of not being primarily combat-oriented. I might add something else to his arsenal to balance it out later. Like tiny bombs or something.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
Yarrun: It's fine. You just need to add stats and stuff.
I'm taking a Paladin who is basically an Old West bounty hunter from hell. He has revolvers that are really just crossbows with the names changed.
So please note: We'll be starting at eighth level. We're all experienced adventurers at this point. Adjust character sheets accordingly.
Next order of business, we're going to go through a question-answering phase. It's not a DnD thing, but it will let me accurately gauge what kind of game you guys want to play. Not every question has to be answered in-depth, but everyone needs to answer them. There are a total of ten steps, but we'll start with two of them.
Step One: What Media Do You Want To Play? I want to play a game like Bastion.
Step Two: What Of This Work Inspires You?
Bastion is a game where the ruin of civilization looming over us in both figuratively and literally. Where nature has attempted to reclaim the hubris of man, and as such the frontier is everywhere. Where everyone is trying to make everyone else pay for their hubris and crimes, before the time runs out.
So my inspirations would be:
Fall of Caelondia,
Frontier Everywhere
Beware Your Sins Will Find You Out
Your own inspirations could be "I want to perform high-stakes heists" or "I want to make deals with monsters" or "I want to have chivalrous duels".
Step Three: How Big Should The Game Start?
A small-scale game is something where the problems of the day don't stretch too far beyond a small town. A large-scale game has its problems stretching past the ends of the earth. My personal medium would be the troubles of a particular province.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
You can be a bear, but your Intelligence will be really low. Lower than all of ours, probably. Even with levels.
Unfortunately, that's the problem. Mages (who can learn necromancy spells) use Intelligence to cast spells, so not only will you be a pretty smart bear but a pretty stupid person, but you'd also be a very weak mage.
Man is a most complex simple creature: see what he weaves, and how base his reasons for doing so.
There's a third-level spell that lets you animate the dead (possibly into a skeleton), but it lasts for twenty-four hours you need to re-cast it every twenty-three.
I'm still interested I might work toward a druid, neutral/chaotic good, circle of the land (not sure which land yet), race-wise, I would rather go for something exotic if possible, but I'm fine with human. I'll make a backstory according to the universe this game is going to be in.
I want to play a game like half of Diablo II (explained below)
Step Two: What Of This Work Inspires You?
I love adventure--big and small--and especially dungeoncrawling, with unique bosses and cool treasure at the end. I care less about D2's atmosphere, while I like it a lot, it's not what I'm wanting to play in a D&D game.
Step Three: How Big Should The Game Start?
Small! To start at least, I'd rather us explore a mysterious ruin on the edge of a town than engage in a long campaign against some nebulously evil evil from beyond hte starz.
FYI, I'm in a campaign right now with two rogues. But one of them is a crazy combat rogue, while the other (my character) is the skill monkey, with huge bonuses to disable device and open lock. (This is 3.5e fwiw).
So I doubt it's a huge issue even in 5e. There should be multiple archetypes a rogue can fulfill.
One of the main complaints I've heard about D&DNext is that most classes are pretty stuck to one particular niche, but in any case I have a sort of tangential problem.
I can't open more than one .pdf file at once on this computer (because Windows 8 apps are BS), does anyone know anything I could use to pop more than one open?
Comments
Ludmila "Ludmi" Ingosi is the youngest of the nine daughters of Ura Baba, the Duchess of the Swamp. Ludmi was the only of Ura's children, excepting her closest sister Ismila, to not inherit Ura's profound mastery of the arcane. Ludmi and Ismila were doted upon by their mother, who often feared for their safety, but envied by their other seven sisters, who considered themselves their betters.
When Ura Baba died, and her oldest daughter Liudra inherited her position as ruler of the swamp and master of their great mansion, deals were struck with nearby human and half-elf communities, allowing them to start settling the swamplands. The other eight Ingosi siblings did not take kindly to this, and it was Ismila who was first to confront the humans about their incursions into the Ingosi lands. A confrontation ensued, and Ismila--alone and effectively defenseless--was killed by a human soldier named Rodran. Half-mad with grief and anger, Ludmila ran into the swamp and plotted to seek vengeance. It was then that she was visited by the strange spirit Inxeligxus, who took the form of a dragon composed of green fire. Ingxeligxus claimed to be the embodiment of the swamp, and in return for five years of her natural lifespan, Ingxeligxus granted Ludmila the powers of a warlock.
Rodran died in a mysterious accident not long after, and Ludmila left the swamplands. Now, she communes with several spirits of the swamp in her adventures as she searches for new purpose in a life she now lives so far from her home.
The Great Swamp Grimoire:
The Swamp Grimoire was a spellbook written by Ludmila's mother Ura Baba, as a warlock, it is not necessarily of much use to Ludmila, but she has begun appending her own notes on the swamp spirits to the end of the book, and the book's non-spellbook components (containing, among other things: advice from Ura Baba to her children, a geneology of the Ingosi family, and a history of the swamp) are still relevant to Ludmi.
Patron Spirits
Inxeligxus: Ludmila is powered by and endebted to first and foremost the swamp spirit Inxeligxus. Inxeligxus is a mysterious entity, and resembles a dragon composed of green witchfire. He is a fey of some sort but what kind exactly is not known, nor is why he wished for five years of Ludmila's lifespan in return for her powers. Inxeligxus appears to be very powerful however, and is served by a bevy of strange spirits, Ludmila's other patrons two among them.
Baron Markonus: The embodiment of the greed that drove humans to attempt to enter the swamp, and its consequences. Markonus takes the form of a skeleton dressed in a rich man's clothing. He provides Ludmila with no powers, but advises her frequently, and tries to direct her to particularly rich treasure troves.
Udilon, The Pestilence: The swamps are a disease-ridden place when untamed by civilization, and Udilon is the embodiment of such facts. He takes the form of a hooded, scythe-wielding figure who wears a plague doctor's mask. He provides Ludmila with the majority of her curses, and her Pact Arm, the ability to conjure a scythe.
In addition, Ludmila is sometimes visited by lesser swamp spirits such as phantoms, shadows, fairies, or will-o'-the-wisps.
Miscellanea
The five years Ludmila owes Inxeligxus were not taken immediately, or all at once. Instead, she developed a very heavy pipe-smoking habit, and the detrimental effects this has on her health are effectively what powers her spells. As such, Ludmi is often mildly ill. Furthermore, Ludmila is compelled by her lesser pact with Baron Markonus to collect magical trinkets whenever possible, and has a number of them (all long used) on her person.
In spite of everything, Ludmila keeps a surprisingly even demeanor the vast majority of the time. Neither particularly serious nor particularly prone to antics, Ludmila's levelheadedness comes in spite of her troubled twenty-two years on this earth. Ultimately, even Ludmila herself does not know what it is she is searching for in the world now that she has left her loved ones and home behind her.
Ludmila's Equipment:
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I don't care either way personally, I was just confused.
I do like your character though.
I'd assume we're doing a typical "you all meet at an inn" beginning, which I am fine with, but it doesn't hurt to ask.
Assassin poems, Poems that shoot
guns. Poems that wrestle cops into alleys
and take their weapons leaving them dead
I think Bunny should be a combat class of some sort so we're well-rounded, but that's just my opinion.
I want to play a game like Bastion.
I definitely do not.
Could I see a class/race list then, perhaps you linked to it earlier in the thread, but I can't find it.
Also Crackers, if I have a say in the matter, I would prefer there to not be DMPCs, especially since it looks like more peeps are now interested.
in any case I will answer the questions you have posed.
i don't feel i can commit to an RP right now
Small! To start at least, I'd rather us explore a mysterious ruin on the edge of a town than engage in a long campaign against some nebulously evil evil from beyond hte starz.
So I doubt it's a huge issue even in 5e. There should be multiple archetypes a rogue can fulfill.
I can't open more than one .pdf file at once on this computer (because Windows 8 apps are BS), does anyone know anything I could use to pop more than one open?
Well, that's even worse.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
OK so this should be workable.
and if the former, do we get any mulligans (for lack of a better term) if we get really bad rolls?