Starseeker Chronicles [OOC][INFO] - Recruitment

[+ seitensei 37]

Starseeker Chronicles

Three thousand cycles ago, the world of Alleras was plundged into an unnatural darkness, so deep that even the stars were blotted out. The panic that ensued saw the destruction of the great empires of the world, in petty squabbles over resources: Food to feed armies, and wood to sustain fires. The conclusion to the great conflict, remembered by many as the Fall, left a broken people that sought respite away from the ruined world. The races of men delved down into the deep caverns of Alleras, the realm of the dwarves, and built enclaves sustained by small fragments of arcane knowledge and the ever-flowing lava from the core of the planet. The elves, unable to defend their once majestic forest fortresses retreated to the hidden corners of the world and beyond the ancient Feygates into the realm of the nature spirits.

Starseeker Chronicles is a fantasy roleplaying campaign based upon the Pathfinder RPG. Rules for the Pathfinder RPG can be accessed at the Pathfinder Reference Document for free (you can also use the hardcopy books or PDFs published by Paizo), and The Archives of Nethys under the Open Game License. Characters will be managed using the Automated Pathfinder Character Sheet.

There are some minor differences from the Pathfinder rules for this campaign.

• Available Races: Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Half-Elves (if you want to play another race, let me know and we can discuss it)
• Elves and Dwarves are unable to take Paladin or Cleric classes. Instead, Elves have access to the Druid class.
• Human Clerics are required to undertake the Magic Domain and the Knowledge Domain, to represent how they've developed their own divine magic in absence of any divine involvement since the Fall.
• Paladins are playable, but they derive their abilities from arcane knowledge rather than a deity. At 1st level, a Paladin starts with a unique class item, the Symbol of Unity, which allows them to use their special abilities. Paladins that lose this item are unable to use their abilities.

This thread is mainly a general information thread, as well as a thread to check for interest and recruit players. If there's anything that's unclear, anything that needs to be addressed, or anything that you're like to point out or ask, this is the place to voice it. If there's sufficient interest/participation, I'll branch out another thread for RP and character information.

Edit: Dice rolls will use Invisible Castle.

You don't need to know how to play Pathfinder- Just be familiar with basic overview of skills and items, I'll handle all the rules and crunch. If you are interested in learning the ruleset, or have difficulty understanding something, contact me! Edited April 1, 2015 by seitensei

[Jupitera 3]

I am super interested in this. Never done pathfinder, but I've played D&D 3.5e a bit and loved it. The story/setting sounds pretty cool too, and I'd like to hear a bit more before I inevitably spend days working out a character.

 

Does this world affect any of the base classes? (For example, witches getting power from 'the unknown' or gunslingers using gunpowder)

 

Also, race rule wise, I'm really interested in more details there. Since I like to make things difficult, my interest is in things like Ifrits or Undines (since humans went underground to play with magic and lava, the Ifrits sound like a possible thing). Or even a Tiefling/Goblin sounds fun, since they're normally looked down upon anyway, it'd be interesting in how the change in the world affects them as well.

 

Anyway sounds super fun. Interested to see where this goes.

[+ seitensei 37]

Thanks for the reply. I'll probably throw up a little more detail on the different environments specific to the different races if there's any interest in them.

 

To some extent, the base classes are indeed effected by the state of the world. The deities are no longer in the world or unable to commune with their followers, so Oracles are unable channel divine power, and Inquisitors don't really have a role in society outside of their ability to rely on similar magic trinkets like Paladins. Witches can still rely on outsiders or entities from other planes, but are more likely to be involved with something from beyond the Feygates, as that particular plane is the closest in connection to Alleras. Alchemists and Gunslingers are definitely going to be more prevalent in human and dwarven societies, due to magic becoming even more secret from most of the population. You don't have any magic academies, but your wizards and clerics are going to be a fairly secretive and exclusive group.

 

Extraplanar influence in humans is going to be present, but since it's about 3000 years since the world changed, individuals with very obvious extraplanar traits aren't going to be the norm. Those that do have obvious traits- horns, auras, fire, rock...etc are going to be found outside of the human enclaves, within their own camps or communities.

[Jupitera 3]

Like I said, I'm pretty intrigued by the story. Did you come up with all of this yourself? I find myself wanting to know more and more. What happened? Why is X the way it is? What's possible? What's impossible? That sort of thing.

 

The environments for races thing I'd be interested in as well, if for no other reason than I want to know what races are prevalent, which are rare, and which ones just straight don't exist. (Rare and unique races are pretty fun to play after all.)

 

Hope I'm not asking for too much information right off the bat. I've had an RP itch for a while now, and this is making me want to stab that itch with a knife.    But I'll just sit back and read up on pathfinder classes/rules for now.

[+ seitensei 37]

Thanks for your interest, Jupitera. The world is one of two that I've been designing for use in roleplay- the other one being a more traditional fantasy setting that I use for my tabletop sessions when I run a game with some of my friends and family.

Within the Alleras itself, the most dominant race are the dwarves (including Duergar). Dwarves in Starseeker are similar to those in Dragon Age in that they rarely venture to the surface, so their entire civilization is based underground in different factions based around family. They were the least affected by the the darkness that fell on the world, but they were subject to attacks by the surface dwelling humans prior to the Fall. Unlike what you might see in other fiction, the dwarves don't construct massive complexes with open spaces (Moria/Lonely Mountain), they're a short and tough people and that's reflected in their construction, which tends to consist of small spaces and chokepoints that enhance the defensibility of dwarven settlements.

 

The humans are next, with all sorts of different races mixed into their bloodlines (extraplanar, elven...etc). While humans have made good progress recovering from the Fall, the human population hasn't risen much, due to supply and space constraits. Human settlements in the underground are known as 'enclaves', and tend to be constructed in proximity to lava flows, where there's ample heat and light. Enclaves are also home to halfings, although they're a lot rarer.

 

Elves are the least populated species in Alleras, although they've recovered a lot better than humanity. Elven settlements tend to be centered around the Feygates, allowing them to recieve supplies and support from the Fey plane, as well as defending the gates from creatures that thrive in the darkness that shrouds the planet.

Less civilized known races, although not necessarily less intelligent, include goblins, who moved underground after the humans, orcs, who have embraced the darkness and roam across the wastelands of the surface world as nomads, as well as the outcasts from other races that have been shunned or carry more extraplanar blood than is the norm, who live in camps in the vicinity of settlements, or even, in the ruins of failed settlements.

There are more races that populate the Fey plane, as well as other planes, but they rarely cross into the material plane (a notable exception being demons). As a character on Alleras, this is something you don't know very well, and even the old records from before the Fall are unclear on this matter.

Hope this scratches some of that itch. These aren't all the environments and races on Alleras- I've just picked the ones I feel are most relevant to the start of the campaign.

[Jupitera 3]

(Getting email updates on this thread is going to make me ask way too many questions. Sorry.)

 

Thanks for all the info by the way. Didn't expect such an in-depth post.

 

Reading through a bunch of Pathfinder stuff today, I'm excited to see how certain classes/races will play out in such an interesting world. Though I have a few rough ideas for characters, I'll wait a bit for other people that are interested to get into this.

 

(Also, is there a reason I can't copy/download/edit that character sheet template to play around? Or am I just dumb?)

[+ seitensei 37]

(Getting email updates on this thread is going to make me ask way too many questions. Sorry.)

 

Thanks for all the info by the way. Didn't expect such an in-depth post.

 

Reading through a bunch of Pathfinder stuff today, I'm excited to see how certain classes/races will play out in such an interesting world. Though I have a few rough ideas for characters, I'll wait a bit for other people that are interested to get into this.

 

(Also, is there a reason I can't copy/download/edit that character sheet template to play around? Or am I just dumb?)

Go into file, and save a copy of the template to your Google Drive.