The Bell, the Book and the Rabbit( Fantasy, horror, NC, exotic)

[WindVoyager]

Thinking of making a small group based off a series of short stories based in a medium level magic world that has some steam punk and horror elements. I wrote it many, many years ago.

Game:

Who will be GM:  Currently myself. I will not be playing any characters, I will be Dming and playing NPCs only

Setting: The city of Salt Marsh and the surrounding areas. It was founded 150 years ago by a small band of adventures who had the land cleared and used their wealth to build a small town the slowly grew into a small city over the years. Its population settled at around 1,000 inhabitants until slavers ransacked the near by city of Salton, and nearly a thousand refugees flooded the streets of Slatmarsh.

Today Saltmarsh is on the verge of becoming a legitimate city. Many travelers and merchants have decided to settle here because the town is located in a prime position-one the edge of the sea and is protected by shallow reefs and the Kingfisher river runs near by allowing for merchants to use massive flat bottomed barges to ship and receive goods. The city is far enough form other cities that it's safe from external politics and the surrounding land is ripe for exploration.


Adventure Background

There are many strange happenings in the smaller towns and villages in the surrounding areas, from disappearances to a house that kills all who enter to strange unnatural creatures and roving packs of gnolls and lizard folk. You will be part of a group that is hired to clear these rouge packs of brutish beasts or help find those who have vanished.

What kind of game this is:  A sandbox game with GM events\locations\monsters and NPCs thrown in at certain times. These include: searching for missing NPCs, visiting haunted and non haunted locations

While this is not a system game, feel free to use D&D and Pathfinder classes and races

Magic Medium level, no huge elaborate effects or insta kill effects.

Who is the RP open to? EVERYONE! Characters still have to be approved by me.

OOC KNOWLEDGE DOES NOT EQUAL IC KNOWLEDGE!

Will players be allowed to create environment or setting details? Yes. But please run them by me beforehand.

Character Types Allowed: humans, half elves, fantasy based creatures, pretty much anything that isn't gaming breaking or on the banned list. If you are not sure about something just PM me

Character Limits:  For now, the limit is going to be four per player. 

The Straw Goat is small pub\inn that is often used as a starting point for the players. Its run by an older portly halfing who has an undead dire boar for a pet.


Races\species that do not exist in this word

Elves- they went extinct thousands of years ago due to a plague
Vampire- They just don't exist
Were creatures -same, they just don't exist
demons and angels



New things

Dread companions\dread familiars

A dread companion share an emphatic link with their master. Through the link, they are privy to all their masters innermost thoughts and desires. Their masters may understand why some wishes are best left unspoken, but dread companions utterly lack a  conscience. They can not grasp why their masters desires should be repressed, no matter how dark or selfish. If the master desires something the dread companion may try to steal it. If a rival shoudl cause its master harm of any kind, the companion may seek revenge. The dread companion of a scrupulous master knows that its master does not want to acknowledge his\her unspoken desires, and may act in secret. In physiological terms, a dread companion is the characters own Id in the flesh.

A dread companion is capable of crafting cunning and devious plots.


New creature

Geist

Alignment-Always Neutral Evil


Geists are  undead spirits the form from places of great sorrow, suffering or depravity. The older a geist is the stronger it is and beocme very dangerous. They have a hatred for the living and greatly enjoy tricking and manipulating the living.

They have two forms, they take one of some small harmless appearing magical aniaml and their true form which is always wreathed by ethereal mists or from the waist down they are ethereal mist which they can use to manipulate objects or wrap around the living.

Spell-like abilities

Chill touch- Geist born of cold places have a chilling touch

Phantom Shift- The ability to shift between two forms at will

Heat Drain- Geists have the ability to drain the heat from a single source with in 20 feet of them They can use this ability to extinguish a touch, lantern or small campfire. Or to drain a living beings body heat leaving behind a desiccated frozen corpse. 

Geists are immune to damage from non blessed weapons, poison, mind effecting spells or spell like abilities and do not need to sleep, eat or breath through the do need to drain the heat and life force from the living



NPC




Name: Rapskal

Species: Geist

Gender: Identifies as male

Orientation: Pansexual

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Equipment\weapons: Book of Lore, he has no weapons aside his natural ones, claws and teeth.

Spell like abilities: Chill Touch

Draining Touch

Haunt

Phantom shift

Appearance: His usual form is that of a silvery-blue rabbit the size of a large Lynx with a pair of gossamer fragile-appearing wings. His true form is far more frightening to behold. His face is a humanoid and skeletal with large glowing white eyes. The way his jaw upturns give the illusion of a permanent smile. His upper body is covered in fine blue and silvery white fur, from the waist down his body is comprised of black and blue swirling mists. His wings are comprised of silvery-white and blue semi--transparent feathers that seem to have no real substance to them.

He can move through solid objects such as doors and walls that are not geist-warded

Personalty: Rapskal hates the living. He hates how warm the living are. How soft they are. He is manipulative, cares for no one but himself and uses those around him to further his own goals. Once he acquired the Book he began to join adventuring parties pretending to be a harmless nature spirit, leading them to their doom. 

History: To any who ask, Rapskal will tell them he is a simple nature spirit cursed by a wicked evil druid. In truth Rapskal is a Geist, a powerful spirit formed spontaneously from a place of great sorrow, pain and evil. A thousand years ago in a tiny village was caught by an unseasonably cold fall, the early frost killed off most the crops and froze the ground preventing the harvest of any root vegetables. The village was remote and snow drifts cut them off from neighboring villages. Time past and all the food ran out so the villagers resorted to slaughtering the livestock and even pets. Time worn on and the village was buried under many feet of snow and ice and food had ran out. Growing desperate  some of the villagers turned towards eating the dead, but some did the unspeakable.

Months latter when spring had melted the snow and ice from the paths, a small group of worried villagers from a near by town bravery ventured into the small early quiet village. All the small squat cabins where devoid of life. When they checked the small stone and wood building that served as the store room they found the villagers, their twisted desiccated corpses frozen. But they could only find adults. Upon closer inspection of a make shift cauldron on a fire pit, they came to a grim and grisly sight.

The village was shunned after that, allowed to slowly rot away.

From the suffering, pain and depravity of the villagers sprung forth a powerful geist of the cold.

For the first hundred years or so Rapsakl haunted the nearby villages, luring away any unwary villager or traveler then draining their heat and life essence leaving behind a frozen corpses. After a while he grew very bored and eventually left the wilds, leaning how to shift his shape into something small and harmless appearing so he could get closer to his favorite prey, humans.

Rapsakl discovered he greatly enjoyed manipulating the humans and leading them deep into dangerous wild lands before picking them off one by one. That's how he meet a half elf thief by the name of Lida. Using his alternative form he gained her trust and learned that she had stolen a powerful artifact called the Book Of Lore from an abandoned church. He used and manipulated her, even showing her his true form and told her he was a nature spirit. When an elderly druid sensed what he was and tried to warm Lida of his true nature he murdered the druid then murdered lida, pulling the warmth from her body.

Book of Lore No one, not even Rapskal knows the origins of the Book. It appears to be a normal tome of unknown age covered in white leather and bound by a large brass lock with no discernible key hole. When opened the Book provides information on a certain location, creatures and the history of certain places. 

Raspkal uses the book to lead unsuspecting parties into the wilds and into dangerous locations, providing only small amounts of lore on any given location and some times lying.

The book itself is locked and will not open for any one other then Rapskal though a powerful magic wielder could possibly find a way to open the book, the consequences would be terrible to behold. 

[Interdiction of words]

Lo and Behold, the interest is hear to see how this game will go. I enjoy the idea but can I be a dragonborn? With some magic like you say but what is your level of magic?

[WindVoyager]

Lo and Behold, the interest is hear to see how this game will go. I enjoy the idea but can I be a dragonborn? With some magic like you say but what is your level of magic?

You can be a dragonborn. Its a medium level world so I'd say anything that falls under a 10th level character

[Interdiction of words]

Alright, my character is ready to go