Pathfinder: Life Under the Axe (interest check closed)

[HopeFox]

Thirty years ago, the orc chieftain Grask Uldeth accomplished what the neighbouring races had hoped, and prayed, was impossible: He united the disparate orc tribes of the Hold of Belkzen into a single empire, determined to conquer the surrounding realms. The land of Varisia was his first target for conquest, and the many city-states and settlements of that wild land banded together to make a valiant stand against the invading orcish horde.

They failed.

Today, the village of Ilsurian lives under orcish rule. The humans and other humanoids that make up the village are serfs and slaves, forced to toil at the behest of their orcish masters. Some people remember a time when Ilsurian stood free and proud, ready to take on all challenges to its independence. Some were born under orcish rule, never having known true freedom. But in spite of the cruel oppression of their orc overlords, life goes on.

This is an interest check for "Life Under the Axe", a Pathfinder game for about five players, set in a version of Golarion in which Varisia has been conquered by orcs. The PCs are either personal slaves belonging to individual orcs, or serfs who work at the behest of their orc overlords as a whole. There will be adventures and violence and politics, exploring themes of slavery, feudalism, and what it means to live in a conquered nation. And of course there will be plenty of sex for whoever wants it.

So who would be interested in such a game? I'm not actually terribly familiar with the Golarion setting, so I'm rather winging the stuff with Varisia, but if I do get the game going I'll most likely buy the Orcs of Golarion PDF so that I can portray orcish society and culture properly. If I have to twist things a bit to make the game work, though, then I'll do so, and make sure everyone knows what I'm changing. My aim is to present a ruling orcish empire made up of people - bad people, for the most part, but people nonetheless - who have motivations and relationships that will make interacting with them an interesting and intriguing roleplaying experience.

The game will be held in NC-Human Systems. Rape will certainly be on the table for players who request it, and will definitely happen between NPCs, but anyone who doesn't want it for their character won't need to worry. There will also be plenty of opportunity for sex between PCs, or with fellow slaves, or even (dubiously) consensual encounters with the orcs. As for the system, at this time I'll just say that we'll be starting at level 1, and that most of the usual races are available with the exception of orcs and half-orcs.

One final note: the objective of the game is not to overthrow the orcish empire. At least, not at first. I hope to give the PCs a lot of physical and social adventure as part of the empire. Life goes on, after all, and after a while, even being the brutally subjugated slaves of an empire of cruel, stupid masters starts to seem normal. At higher levels... well, who knows?

[ererruz]

I'm tentatively interested but I've a question: what kind of sexual content should we expect? I tend to write MxM but it's not something most people do, so here's just me asking :)

[HopeFox]

MxM is fine! If you play a male slave, you can have a male master, or have fun with other male slaves, no problem at all! I'm happy to play in any configuration.

[ererruz]

MxM is fine! If you play a male slave, you can have a male master, or have fun with other male slaves, no problem at all! I'm happy to play in any configuration.

Awesome! I'm definitely game then!

EDIT. Most likely an Oracle.

[Yukina]

I might want to join. I'm presuming FxF is fine then as well? :)

[HopeFox]

I might want to join. I'm presuming FxF is fine then as well? :)

You presume correctly! Some orc ladies do love their slave girls. ;)

Awesome! I'm definitely game then!

EDIT. Most likely an Oracle.

Great! Yes, an oracle could work very well.

[Yukina]

Wonderful. I think I might make a bard then :)

[Muse]

  Ooh!   Ooh!  May I play? 

  This story seems to lend it self naturaly to a sorceress.  :) 

[Melieli]

Really interested ! I would love to get involved with this.

[ChaoticSky]

Also interested!

Though if i may offer a suggestion;

Varisia is the 'primary' setting of Pathfinder, its basically Adventure Land. Its also extremely intricately developed and we as players know where all the bones are buried so to speak. Most of this stuff is unlikely to change if it was conquered since alot of is steeped in a ancient and long dead civilization called Thassilonia. Those ruins will still be there, and everything that implies. So if your not very fammilar with Golarion yourself, it might be better to go a different way.

Breaking south into Nirmathas, Mothune and Lastwall might serve you better, since the area is less developed than Varisia and most importantly lacks Varisia's history. Wipe the slate clean with a orcish victory and we can say that everything is different. Its also worth noting that Lastwall has had it's boarders driven back by Belz several times in the last few hundred years so a serious push might have tipped the scale to catastrophe

[ThatFantasticBard]

Huehue, this game's caught my interest! I happen to have a fondness for Orcs, so it could definitely be fun. I'd imagine they'd have a fighting pit for entertainment? If so I might make a Brawler, if that's alright.

[Muse]

  Should we expect, to an extent, to be under-equiped?  Or should we--with reasonable justification--expect to have things like spellbooks and key weapons and such? 

[PixelatedPixie]

I would be interested but have to think on a character concept, and brush up on the setting.  What would be the timeframe for the specific area being conquered?  Thirty years or more recently?

[HopeFox]

Wonderful. I think I might make a bard then :)

Sounds good!

  Ooh!   Ooh!  May I play? 

  This story seems to lend it self naturaly to a sorceress.  :) 

As does that!

Also interested!

Though if i may offer a suggestion;

Varisia is the 'primary' setting of Pathfinder, its basically Adventure Land. Its also extremely intricately developed and we as players know where all the bones are buried so to speak. Most of this stuff is unlikely to change if it was conquered since alot of is steeped in a ancient and long dead civilization called Thassilonia. Those ruins will still be there, and everything that implies. So if your not very fammilar with Golarion yourself, it might be better to go a different way.

Breaking south into Nirmathas, Mothune and Lastwall might serve you better, since the area is less developed than Varisia and most importantly lacks Varisia's history. Wipe the slate clean with a orcish victory and we can say that everything is different. Its also worth noting that Lastwall has had it's boarders driven back by Belz several times in the last few hundred years so a serious push might have tipped the scale to catastrophe

Hmm. That's a very good point. I do very much like the geography of Varisia, though. Also, I think that player familiarity with Varisia will be a plus, because it will help people build backgrounds from various nearby towns and regions. If the campaign moves from Ilsurian into wider Varisia, the existing background can give me a starting point on which to build adventures, with thirty years of subjugation to shake things up. So I think I will stick with Varisia, but I will make sure to read up on its background.

Huehue, this game's caught my interest! I happen to have a fondness for Orcs, so it could definitely be fun. I'd imagine they'd have a fighting pit for entertainment? If so I might make a Brawler, if that's alright.

A brawler would be fine! The big cities certainly have gladiatorial pits. Ilsurian is more like that town where there are only four other people who play Magic: the Gathering, except instead of cards it's watching your slaves beat each other up. If your character is from a city, he (/she) could have been a dedicated pit fighting slave, but now that he and his master (/mistress) are in Ilsurian, it would be more like occasional cockfighting, with most of his time spent doing other work.

  Should we expect, to an extent, to be under-equiped?  Or should we--with reasonable justification--expect to have things like spellbooks and key weapons and such? 

Good question! Slaves don't have any property rights, in that an orc can always take their stuff... but then again, orcs don't really have property rights either, because a stronger orc can always take their stuff. The orcs don't really want to micromanage their slaves, though, so their slaves can have things that are, for all intents and purposes, "theirs".

If you have dangerous items like weapons and spellbooks, the orcs might keep them locked up until they decide that you need them in order to do your jobs. Or they might not bother. They're lazy. And there is also the option of keeping some items hidden from the orcs, which introduces its own problems. So, overall, access to your gear will not be 100% guaranteed, but for the most part you can expect to have all your gear when you actually go adventuring. I don't want people to feel that they should stay away from equipment-dependent classes.

I may also use the Automatic Bonus Progression rules, which mean that characters get half of the usual wealth per level, in exchange for some enhancement bonuses that obviate the need for generic enhancement bonus items. That will reduce the wealth accumulation of lowly slaves a bit, while still keeping characters at an appropriate power level.

On a related note, slaves are allowed to know how to fight. The orcs are more than happy to use slaves in their armies, or for gladiatorial matches, or even just for mundane tasks like hunting.

I would be interested but have to think on a character concept, and brush up on the setting.  What would be the timeframe for the specific area being conquered?  Thirty years or more recently?

The conquest of Varisia as a whole was complete thirty years ago. Ilsurian probably fell a couple of years earlier than that.

Now, sadly, I only think I can run for about five players. So I will leave expressions of interest open until tomorrow, and then try to decide whom to pick. I do apologize in advance to everyone who doesn't get to play. I would like players to commit to at least one post per week.

I'd like to hear more about people's character ideas! Characters can be from Ilsurian itself - younger characters would have been born under orcish rule, older ones would remember the invasion and maybe even fought against it. They can be slaves from other parts of Varisia, or even captured or purchased elsewhere in the world. Most non-orcish (and non-aquatic) races are fine, although some may require a bit of explanation as to what they're doing in Ilsurian, which is a majority human town.

Think about whether your character is the personal slave of a particular orc (or an orc family), or if they belong to the town as a whole. Most communal slaves are labourers or professionals of some kind, providing a service that is of use to the orcs and their slaves, while some are soldiers. Personal slaves can perform almost any task, with cooking, housekeeping and sex being the most common. The relationships between orcs and their slaves can be very complicated, often with some degree of mutual respect, if not affection.

[Yukina]

(Some more character pondering)

My character (Sara Nadis, age 22) would most likely be a personal slave to her mistress. The only reason she knows how to fight is that her owner simply wants someone to hold down the fort at night. Her mistress finds her meek nature simply amusing and loves to tease her (sexually or otherwise :) ). She is a native to Ilsurian and was born under the orcish rule. She has no idea where her mother is though, as she was sold off to her current owner at a young age.

[ThatFantasticBard]

Name: Aryla
Age: 103
Class: Brawler
Gender: Female
Race: Ifrit
Sexual Orientation: Bisexual
Deity: None

Physical: Aryla was once a very regal and proud looking Ifrit. However, due to her years in servitude her appearance has become more downtrodden, with only her pride remaining. Her once long, luscious hair is now a disheveled mess from years of neglect and abuse. Her gown now mere tatters clinging to her body, barely giving her any modesty and her skin, smooth and flawless before her imprisonment, now covered in scars and bruises from the pit fights she's had to endure over the years. As far as Ifrit go, Aryla looks surprisingly Human, with only her dark red skin giving away her extraplanar heritage. Despite her curvaceous figure her body is covered in well defined muscle, showing off her years of combat training.
Personality: Before the Orcs conquered Varisia, Aryla was a proud and arrogant woman, using her looks and innate magical ability to get what she wanted, seducing nobles out of their gold and valuables. After years of imprisonment, her past charm has faded, replaced by a more brutal and feral personality. Her arrogance remains though, with her hatred of the Orcs burning just as brightly as the day they captured her. She finds her enslavement to be suffocating, having been stuck in the same city for decades akin to torture for her.
Backstory: Before the invasion, Aryla traveled across Golarion, never staying in one place for very long. Throughout the years of travel she learned various ways to defend herself, though she always had a preference for hand to hand combat. It was only by complete coincidence that she happened to be in Varisia when the Orcs attacked. While she managed to evade or fight them off for a time, they eventually cornered and captured her, forcing her into slavery. Taking advantage of her fighting ability, her first Master had her fight in a gladiatorial pits where she had to fight or die. After a few years of fighting, she even made a bit of a name for herself, winning her Master a fair amount of gold. Were it not for her stubborn nature, she might've even had a fairly comfortable life as a slave, however she refused to cooperate with the Orcs, no matter what was done to her. Over the past three decades she's had many Masters and Mistresses, having endured torture, rape, starvation and the constant abuse from the pit fights. A few weeks ago she was sent to Ilsurian, where a new Orc Master awaited her and while he was kinder than most of the others, his patience quickly wore thin with Aryla and he left her bound and gagged whenever she wasn't doing any physical labor or attending to the Orcs' needs.

[HopeFox]

(Some more character pondering)

My character (Sara Nadis, age 22) would most likely be a personal slave to her mistress. The only reason she knows how to fight is that her owner simply wants someone to hold down the fort at night. Her mistress finds her meek nature simply amusing and loves to tease her (sexually or otherwise :) ). She is a native to Ilsurian and was born under the orcish rule. She has no idea where her mother is though, as she was sold off to her current owner at a young age.

Sounds great! Her mistress seems like a lot of fun. :) Is she a bard too, maybe? I could definitely see an orc bard keeping a human bard as a slave to handle all the boring parts of being a bard (especially since very few orcs are literate).

Aryla looks good! I really like that picture for her, how it displays her pride even through her servitude. A pit fighter from the big cities could be very fun. If she's lucky, she may get to go on hunting trips now, which may be the closest thing she can get to being able to move around freely. Or maybe they just use her to light cooking fires. :)

I've closed the interest check to new applicants now, but I'm keen to hear about character ideas from everyone who's posted already!

[Yukina]

That sounds lovely, Hopefox. (Also, my apologies that my character info so far isn't too organized)

---

Mistress: I'll have the- *looks at menu* What is this word, Sara?

Sara: "Bread, M-Mistress."

Mistress: I'll have the bread.

---

Also, this is her pic. :)

[Yukina]

(Sorry for double posting, but here's a more organized sheet for the moment.)

Name: Sara Nadis
Age: 22
Race: Human
Class: Bard
Orientation: Lesbian
Height: 5'6"
Personality: Growing up as slave didn't really install her with much confidence and her mistress was perfectly fine with that due to how cute it made her. Thus, she quick to follow her owner's commands, despite with a natural stutter. Nonetheless, she is rather smart and insightful, hence why she made an excellent bard and didn't give her mistress much of a reason to sell her away. 
Short Bio: Sara Nadis is a personal slave to her mistress. The only reason she knows how to fight is that her owner simply wants someone to hold down the fort at night. She is a native to Ilsurian and was born under the orcish rule. She has no idea where her mother is though, as she was sold off to her current owner at a young age. Her mistress finds her meek nature simply amusing and loves to tease her (sexually or otherwise :) ). The only reason she has such a decent outfit is that her owner prefers her to be dressed in a way she can easily ogle. Not to mention, it makes her much softer to hold as her mistress uses her like second pillow when she feels like it at night.

[PixelatedPixie]

Name: Nerisa Drovers
Age: 35~
Race: Half-Elf
Class: Ranger (of some variety)
Orientation: Straight
Height: 5'2"
Personality: Nerisa is a somber individual who lives in fear of sharing her mother's fate, or even that of many of the personal slaves she sees about.  She shrouds herself in heavy clothing and deals with the orcs as little as possible as a result.  She relishes what little freedom she has, and it is little.  She despises the orcs, but has no delusions of overthrowing them.  At best she hopes to someday escape.
Short Bio: Nerisa is an orphan of the invasion.  Her human father fought against the orcs, and died in the process, while her elven mother was dragged off by a group of celebrating orcs for a 'bit of fun' and never returned.  Nerisa grew up on the streets, one of numerous orphans who competed for scraps traded by the orcs for work.  Nerisa developed a knack for rat hunting at a young age.  She survived for years by selling the rats for food to those who lacked the ability to find a proper meal.  She did her best to avoid the attention of any one orc, and by the time she was an adult she made her living as a hunter of animals that the orcs couldn't be bothered with.  Rats, coyotes, feral dogs, and other creature not worth the effort.

[ererruz]

still looking for a perfect picture,
but this one comes pretty close:
except the horns are way too big;
think Dionysus/Cernunnos-inspired
human-like with a touch of otherworldly

Name: Auren Avramitru
Age: 49 (going by the assumption that the starting ages given here are indeed correct, i.e. that aasimar can live looong lives)
Race: Agathion-blooded Aasimar
Class: Oracle of Life (possibly a Cleric)* (expect a PM with some questions as for the mechanics part of this character)
Deity: Cayden Cailean
Orientation: Homosexual
Height: 6'
Background: Born to parents of Sarkoris descent, on a particularly dark, starless night, Auren was always destined for great things, good or bad. Whether cursed or blessed by the empyreal lord of stars and aurorae, Pulura, the ancestral deity of his family, the boy was sure to live in interesting times. What his parents had always feared though was that it was a bad omen -- that the boy, devoid of the goddess' starlit protection, would meet his doom sooner rather than later. They did their best to prevent anything from happening to him. They settled down in a remote, safe area. They kept him from as any possible danger. They tried to control every aspect of his life, always ready to circumvent the prophecy they saw in the stars... or their lack of at the very night he was born. This, however, backfired as the boy, possessed of an agathion's divine spark and curiosity of an explorer, craved nothing more than to explore, discover and fight the good fight against the demons that claimed his ancestral homeland, of which he heard a lot in his father's stories. He had always been close to the natural world and its spirits -- be it thanks to his celestial heritage, or another divine boon. He often heard the whispers of these spirits. Their whispers finally pushed him to what he had always wanted to do. And so he rebelled. At first, it was just small things, but seeing that it did nothing, or even that his parents were even more protective than usual, he decided to run away and never look back. Gathering all he could he escaped the town with a help of a newly-ordained priest of Cayden Cailean. The tales he heard about the Drunken Hero filled him with courage and motivation to follow in his footsteps. For a time, he even worked with the god's clergy and it was there that he discovered that he could perform small miracles -- even though he was never ordained a cleric. He probably would have followed that path if not for the orc invasion. He fought against them -- quite valiantly, some might even say. The truth is, wars breeds atrocity and rarely is there any valiant or heroic side. Auren's friends from the temple were almost all slain -- but the gods did not let him die that day. He managed to escape with his current lover. While running away, they stumbled upon a group of mortally wounded, both human and orc, but Auren, knowing full well that any time wasted on helping them would probably doom their chance at freedom, urged to press forward. When his lover refused, insisting that they needed to help them in any way they could, Auren, furious, knocked him unconscious and fleed. For that of cowardice he was struck down, cursed by a divinity he was not sure of -- was it his patron god, Cayden Cailean? -- and laid upon a geas of hospitality and never refusing to help and heal a person who'd ask for it. Both Auren and his lover were caught and taken captive, but Auren never saw his lover's face again. Auren himself was first sold to fight as a gladiator in the pits, and then, when his healing talents were discovered in the arena, sold to a pair of very ambitious warlord brothers who came to rely on their aasimar slave's healing hands, spells and sometimes even councel, perhaps a little bit too much. While Auren still harbors hatred in his heart towards his occupants, it has lessened somehow -- although he will never admit that it had. He still abhors his orcish masters' bloodlust-driven, violent ways but deep inside him, he is attracted to their strong and indomitable physique and thrilled at the thought of serving such dominant masters in all the ways they require of him. He is deeply torn between all these thoughts -- it feels like he is leaving behind everything that he once fought for, and yet... his body craves this kind of attention. Auren has never forgotten what freedom tastes like however, and so every day he prays to Cayden Cailean for the moment when he will finally be able to redeem himself and prove the hero that he truly is -- and free himself and others.

[HopeFox]

Sara is so cute! I think she and her mistress will complement each other very well. (Btw, orcs are nocturnal, so they try to sleep during the day. That actually colours a lot of village life, come to think of it.)

I like the look of Nerisa, too! She's not really anybody's slave, she's just... around. Orcs, indeed, do not care for hunting small prey, so they would definitely delegate that to a slave. They might rope her in to help with some major hunts, though, and maybe even give her some scraps from the kill if she's very lucky.

Auren looks great! There will be no shortage of orcs and others who want a piece of him. Yes, we're using the aasimar ages in the SRD, rather than the most recent version of the ARG. I like aasimar being very long-lived. Who owns him now that he's in Ilsurian? "Very ambitious warlord brothers" sound too ambitious to get stuck in a backwater human slave camp, unless one of them is the overseer of the entire town. Which could be cool - being a slave of the local chief is a position of power, after all.

I'm really liking everything I've seen so far. Everyone seems to be getting into the spirit of the game as I imagined it.

[ererruz]

Auren looks great! There will be no shortage of orcs and others who want a piece of him. Yes, we're using the aasimar ages in the SRD, rather than the most recent version of the ARG. I like aasimar being very long-lived. Who owns him now that he's in Ilsurian? "Very ambitious warlord brothers" sound too ambitious to get stuck in a backwater human slave camp, unless one of them is the overseer of the entire town. Which could be cool - being a slave of the local chief is a position of power, after all.

Ah, sorry for that. If you're fine with the overseer being the master, I'm all for it! Sounds very interesting to me! :)

[Yukina]

Sara is so cute! I think she and her mistress will complement each other very well. (Btw, orcs are nocturnal, so they try to sleep during the day. That actually colours a lot of village life, come to think of it.)

Thank you :) (I'll be sure to edit that later)

[HopeFox]

Ah, sorry for that. If you're fine with the overseer being the master, I'm all for it! Sounds very interesting to me! :)

Yes, that's fine. Having some PCs in the households of the major orc movers and shakers in town will give us a good handle on the politics. (Yes, orc politics is a thing. A very violent thing.) I think Sara's mistress might be pretty important too. But I also like having some looser characters, like Nerisa.

So that's four character concepts so far, out of seven expressions of interest. Any further thoughts from the others?

[Mister Ugly]

would you be open to another character concept?

MU

[Muse]

  Is there a template you want for our initial apilcation, Fox? 

[HopeFox]

No particular format, just enough that I can see what everyone has in mind for their characters.

[Muse]

Name: Lara Thorn
Age: 16
Race: Human
Class: Sorceress (Verdant Bloodline)
Orientation: Bisexual, Submissive, and virginal. 
Height:
Personality: 
Short Bio: Cuckolding an orc never ends well. 
   As a slave in the home of Thrandal Brax, Marta grew up knowing that she had been selected to be one of Thrandal's concubines upon coming of age.  Working as a young house slave, she was very afraid of her master, but quite in love with Boyd, a boy who helped care for Thrandal's worgs. 
   Marta persuaded Boyd to flee with her on her sixteenth birthday.  They hid in the woods together for the better part of a year.  Hiding in a sacred grove where they believed they could not be found, Marta offered her purity to Boyd.  They cuddled together in passionate bliss 'til dawn.  In the first light of the new day, Marta placed her hand over her womb and whispered to Boyd, “You have given me a daughter.” 
   They two loved and frolicked together for a full turning of the moon before Thrandal found them.  Marta then learned the price of her defiance.  She was forced to watch as Boyd was torn apart by the worgs.  She was ravished Thrandal's men for a week. 
   Then Marta was given eight month's peace.  When her daughter was born with hair like roses in the rising sun, Thradal took the girl babe to one of his concubine's to nurse with the words, “You have been sold to a brothel.  My son has agreed to give your daughter the chance you rejected.  She will live a happy live as a treasured concubine.  You will spend the rest of your days in shame .
   Lara grew up never knowing her parents.  She was nursed by Thrandals' chief concubine, an elfkin girl named Amaranth, and somewhat considered Amaranth's daughter Shiva a sister when they were both very young. 
   When Lara grew old enough to understand that she was a slave, it didn't bother her much.  After all, weren’t all humans slaves?  Amaranth was very much in love with her master and Shiva didn't grow cold and cruel when they came to realize their true relationship.  This was just the way things were.  “A flower doesn't rip up her roots and walk away,” Lara said once, “She blooms wherever you plant her.” 
   As a house slave, Little Lara's youth was mostly devoted to chores, though she goet a bit of word of mouth education.  She loved working in the garden most and learned that, if she waited 'til the right time, and inquired with proper respect and deference, the men saw to it she got to do most of her work there. 
   Lara occasionally watched the boy who would one day own her at a distance.  He was growing up strong, training hard to triumph on the battlefield and be a leader of men.  She thought it would be an honor to be his.  It wasn't 'til Lara was nine and her future master 15 that she fell in love with him.  Some other house slaves, a little older than she, came to tear up the garden.  Fearing for the plants, she tried to stop them, but two boys grabed her by the arms, and one punched her in the belly. 
   The others moved to stomp on the flowers, when her master fell upon the boys in a fury, yelling out commands, striking them with his whip, and having them all sent to the stocks for a day.  “he didn’t' even know that I was his.  He was just angry to see me treated like that.  Maybe the flowers, too.” 
   Two things changed in Lara's life that night.  First, she quietly devoted herself to being the best slave for him she could possibly be. 
   Second, as she tended the flowers that had been stomped, she started hearing them.  Feeling their pain, their relief, their joy, and their love in her heart and soul.  It was they who taught her magic. 

[ChaoticSky]

Having a busy week. Ill have my concept up tomorrow. Weekend at the latest.

[HopeFox]

Hey, guys! I've created threads over in the NC-Human Systems forum, and am closing this thread. ererruz, Yugishogun, Muse, Aryla, Nerisa, you can post your characters in the Character thread, and edit them as we go along. Character creation rules are in the OOC thread. ChaoticSky and Melieli, if you are still interested, PM me with your character concepts, and if they seem workable we'll get them into the game threads. I'm prepared to try to run with all of you, so let's see how it goes! Anyone else, I'm afraid that's all I can take on this time.

The OOC thread is here. Other threads are linked from there.