Topic: Citadel of Bvan'Telvarth (Pathfinder RPG)

[Myrleena]

Some time ago, (a very, very long time ago, in fact), I ran a series of games called the Dungeon of Bvan'Telvarth. Via self-inflicted wounds I ended up with a game series that I could not maintain. After much consideration and brainstorming, I have come up with a new game idea, the Citadel of Bvan'Telvarth. Without further ado, here it is.

Citadel of Bvan'Telvarth

Near the center of the great continent of Helath and surrounded by primeval forests is a ancient volcano. This volcano has been carved into a citadel without equal, the sides cut into smooth planes and the edge of the caldera atop the mountain turned into vast walls. Within this caldera that is warded from attackers by magic, rests a city crafted by the alien minds of the fey. Lush vegetation grows within and produces fruit and vegetables year round, even when not tended. Lakes well up from nothing and spill down the sides of the caldera, meandering down carefully designed pathways. Streets wind through the caldera, seemingly without purpose, but all lead to the center of the caldera. There, glittering within a vast crystal, is the palace of Tyrenial Bvan'Telvarth, an ancient lord of the fey whose people vanished overnight.

From this palace flows forth such great power that none can harm the mountain, nor can entry to the palace be achieved by even the most powerful of beings. Yet in front of the gates is set a simple plinth, upon which is set a message in the sylvan tongue. Within the depths of the ever-changing Citadel rests the Lord's blade. To whomsoever claims his sword alone will the power and possessions of Lord Bvan'Telvarth go.

Upon finding this message, the three great powers of Helath forged a treaty. These three were Phindarous, Dragon Emperor of the Flametower Empire, Queen Alysarin, High Angel of the Shimmerdawn Kingdom, and Varthak the Tyrant, Demon Lord of the Hellsmouth Dominion. Each powerful beyond measure, they were nonetheless close enough in power that any of the three that moved too soon would be set upon by the others and destroyed. So the Citadel was deemed neutral ground, and the three powers each encouraged their servants to enter the Citadel, for the first whom gained the power of the ancient lord and citadel would tip the balance of power in all the realms.

This was a century ago, and things have settled down since the first rush of adventurers entered the Citadel. Monsters, guardians, and traps lie in wait within, and the dungeon changes seemingly from one moment to the next, though the path an explorer takes stays the same until they leave the dungeon. Many adventurers have returned with immense wealth, and its been learned that the dungeon empowers the gods to more easily save their worshipers, returning them to their temples above when they are on the verge of death, within limits. Few hold any hope of gaining anything more than wealth and fame within the Citadel anymore, but even that is a great attraction to many.

Game Details

Playable races are two types each of 0-HD angels and demons, the typical dwarves, elves, gnomes, half-elves, half-orcs, halflings, humans, an alternate drow race, and a dragonblooded template that can be applied to all but the angels and demons. The new races will be listed in the Character Creation thread.

These games will be solo threads inside the dungeon, and I will allow a maximum of 2 players inside a single dungeon of the Citadel at a time. Fortunately, the Citadel was created by a fey lord, so even if you use the same entrance within 10 minutes of each other, you won't end up in the same dungeon unless you want to be.

Conversely, I will be putting up several 'public' threads for the city above for various districts. Any PC can interact with any others inside these threads, and may control most NPCs within reason.

I am also removing Lawful and Chaotic as alignments, and adjustments to account for this will be in the Character Creation thread. I would put more here, but I'm still in the process of building the Character Creation thread, so it will be going up later, and you should refer to it for most questions. Warning: I have dramatically altered Spell Resistance, and monsters should NOT be expected to be the same as in the core rules! I will be altering many, MANY things about monsters!

For combats, we can either play it out in the thread, or try to get onto IM at the same time and run through the combat there and post a summary of what happened. I personally feel that the latter is better for giving a cinematic feel to the game without getting too bogged down by the vagarities of the system.

As forewarning, while sexual encounters may occur in this game, it is not going to be the rule of the day. Additionally, your characters can die permanently. It's difficult, for the most part, but possible. In warning, the three nations involved in Bvan'Telvarth are strictly caste-based systems, and using any ability at all to pose as a member of a higher caste outside of the dungeon is guaranteed to get your character executed by drawing and quartering if you're caught. This is the easiest way to die permanently, and if you somehow get yourself raised from the dead, they will repeat the process, and this time soul bind you to make certain it sticks. I am not joking.

Expectation Management
- I am more easily worn out by games than I was a few years ago. Thus, the most often I will promise a response is once a week. I will try to reply every day or so, but I can't promise that. If I'm hitting writer's block, I will PM you.
- If you have questions, ask! I am not a mind-reader!
- I have no intention of letting anyone get the Sword within the Citadel! It'd pretty well end the campaign, and I don't want to do that.
- The game is in the Extreme Forum, however...it likely won't come up. Unless you get yourself executed.

If, in spite of my oddities, players are interested, post here or PM me to let me know. ^_^

Character Creation Thread
Setting Information Thread

[Myrleena]

Forgot to add links initially. Fixed that.

[Tonberryshuffle]

Definitely interested.  Having never done so though I just have to figure out how i want to make a Monk for PF that doesn't outright suck. 

[Chulanowa]

Definitely interested.  Having never done so though I just have to figure out how i want to make a Monk for PF that doesn't outright suck.

if you want straight optimization, you should go with a brawler. But Monks aren't that bad in pathfinder!

They read like they're MAD, but really, they're not. Your job is to hit things consistently and make them hurt. You don't need a sunny personality or a head full of brains. being able to take and avoid a hit helps, and you'll want at least SOME Ki... so it works like this...

Str > Dex / Wis (pick one) > Con > Dex / Wis (pick the other) > Int > Cha

I would suggest prioritizing Wisdom over Dexterity; the Wisdom armor bonus applies even when you're Flat-footed, Dex bonus doesn't. Further, your Ki is based off Wisdom, and Wil lsaves are more important than reflex saves.

Feats: At 1st level, you won't be able to qualify for Power Attack or weapon Focus, and you ideally won't need weapon Finesse, since you'll have good strength. Toughness, Dodge, and Improved initiative are good options here. If you have Dex 13+, Improved Grapple isn't a terrible option. If you picked a race that has an Arcane SLA (Gnome, for instance) Arcane strike is also an option.

And that's basically it.

Ahem. anyway. interesting-looking game. The alterations are a little bit much for me, but i like hte idea of a good ol' dungeon crawl even so. looks like one people will have fun with!

[indarkestknight]

Not going to lie, my first thought when I saw that angels and demons are playable races was Panty & Stocking and Scanty & Kneesocks.

I'm intrigued, but I do have a few questions.

One - glancing over your ons and offs, must all characters submitted be female?

Two - You mention using the Golarion pantheon. This includes Asmodeus and Lamashtu?

Three - The castes mention spellcasters of certain level. Does this include all spellcasters, such as paladins and rangers?

Four - Are any of the following verboten?: a. Synthesist summoners. b. Bloodragers. c. Antipaladins.

[Myrleena]

So, first off I'm going to answer a question several people asked in PMs.

I'm doing solo threads simply because it tends to keep games going. I've noticed that if you have lots of player characters in a single thread, things get bogged down and nothing ever really happens. Thus, I'm willing to run a Citadel Dungeon thread for a pair of PCs, but that's the most I'll run it for. However, all of the 'public' threads (which I'm currently working on) do not have that restriction.

Now, to reply, indarkestknight:

1: No. As this is not primarily an erotic game, and instead more focused on combat and such, characters can be male, female, or anything in-between. (Was going to put that in character creation, but couldn't figure out where it would fit).

2: Yes, yes it does. I will note, however, that all 'fiends' are referred to as demons, and all celestial outsiders are referred to as angels. This is due to the alignment changes.

3: It's spellcasters who are granted spells by the god-king in question (Hint: They're Mythic). Thus, a ranger cannot be granted spells, but a cleric, inquisitor, paladin, or anti-paladin can. Now that my brain is working, (did way too much typing yesterday), I may add classes to the allowed list.

4: No synthesist summoners, as they get to ignore some stats and the rules were badly written. Bloodragers...I'll allow. And Anti-paladins are allowed. I suppose I should have called the last out, as it's essentially a massive archetype for paladins.

[indarkestknight]

I was referring to the Gold and Silver castes, actually, not Topaz, Wyrmling, or 1st Circle.

As a side question, what are the consequences for falsely accusing someone of pretending to be a higher caste?

[Myrleena]

Ah, yes...and in the case of Gold and Silver castes, yes, Paladins and similar casters would count for the purposes of gaining higher castes.

As to the consequences of accusing someone of pretending to be a higher caste...doing so is dangerous. In this case, the inquisitors (not necessarily the class) who question you would try to determine your intent. If it was an honest mistake, they'll probably let it slide, unless the person is 3 castes or more above you, at which point they would determine your punishment. If you were trying to get them in trouble...best case, you get fined. More likely, you'd get dropped a caste rank. Worst case, imprisonment or execution. I do not intend to do the last unless I have to.

And, after much sweating and work, I've created the various OOC and Public Threads. Only going to link the ones I think are most important...namely the OOC, Adventurer's Inn, and Market Plaza.

OOC Thread
Adventurer's Inn
Market Plaza

[ExisD]

Is there a specific list of gods that you're using for this game or would we come up with one based on our characters?

[indarkestknight]

Setting page mentions all Golarion deities are on the table, as are Phindarous, Dragon Emperor of the Flametower Empire, Queen Alysarin, High Angel of the Shimmerdawn Kingdom, and Varthak the Tyrant, Demon Lord of the Hellsmouth Dominion.

[Myrleena]

I should specify that the 'all Golarion deities' means the Big 20. Main reason is because I'm not willing, at the moment, to come up with my own 'full' deity list to cover all of the domains. I've spent most of my free time the last two days on the game as it is.

[rikka]

So where do we post our character sheets? Or do we pm them to you?

[Muse]

ooh!  Hi Myr-chan.  May I play?  :) 

[Myrleena]

So where do we post our character sheets? Or do we pm them to you?

Character Thread is Here, along with my personal version of a character sheet. As it says there, you don't have to use that one. I just know where everything is on it.

And yes, Muse, you may.

[TheGlyphstone]

This looks fascinating, if you're not already capped out on the number of players you want to be managing here. I'd love to sign up.

[Myrleena]

*starts counting potential players...* Heck with it. I know it's less than 10 so far. You're good to go, Glyph.

[TheGlyphstone]

Sweet.

Two questions, then:

1) Does Magic Circle/Protection Against Neutrality affect both the Ethical and Moral axis (thus making Prot vs. Neutrality effectively Prot vs. Everyone), or is the intent to remove the Ethical axis entirely and only have the three categories of Good, Neutral, and Evil, with a specialized protection spell for each?

2) Do Alchemists count as spellcasters for the purpose of membership in the Silver  Caste? I'm going to be making one, with an eye on the Master Chymist prestige class as soon as I can level up a bit, so it's possibly relevant.

[Myrleena]

Okay, Answers! I have answers!

1) The intent is that there's a specialized protection spell for each category, Good, Neutral, and Evil. No more Neutral Enchanters ignoring every existing protection spell that I can think of off the top of my head.

2) Yes, yes they do. Spellcasters are the best for raising your caste as a mortal.

[TheGlyphstone]

Mechanics question next:

The Vivisectionist Archetype for alchemist replaces Bomb with Sneak Attack as a Rogue. The Master Chymist's Bomb-Thrower class feature stacks base+PRC levels for determining bomb damage, but not for uses/day. Once I qualify for MC (will take 2 level-ups), would you consider Bomb-Thrower to affect the archetype substitution and continue to progress Sneak Attack?

[Myrleena]

First off, you have to get approval for archetypes (I hereby approve Vivisectionist).

As to the second, no, I would not allow Bomb-Thrower to increase your effective level for sneak attack.

[TheGlyphstone]

That greatly reduces the value of Vivisectionist - not sure whether or not it's worth it, especially since I'll be fighting solo and have no reliable way to set up the flanking or flat-footed conditions needed to trigger it. Might be better off keeping Bombs for their ranged utility.

The ban on crafting makes me a sad panda, but whatchagonnado. I think that's everything I need to know for now, I'll get to work creating a character.

[Myrleena]

Wait, when...oh, crafting before character generation! You're perfectly free to craft your items after character generation. But your starting gear is worth 20k gold. Which is 25% more than a 6th level character would start with (16,000 gp standardly), so you're all but getting the benefit out of the gate. I just don't want anyone effectively doubling an already generous starting wealth with crafting feats.

[indarkestknight]

... Couldn't someone just save their gp and craft post character creation before venturing into the dungeon?

[Myrleena]

Yes, they could. However, crafting that much gear would take a minimum of 40 days, which is more than a month in-game, which would get them the Evil Eye from the Powers That Be who know they're supposed to be down in the Citadel adventuring. Additionally, since you start without any lodging, that's also up to 40 days that you have to pay for food and housing, which cuts into your crafting, and...you get the drift. It's just easier to say: "No crafting with your starting cash."

[indarkestknight]

How are paladins handled in the Hellsmouth Dominion? How are antipaladins handled in the Shimmerdawn Kingdom?

One of the character concepts I'm batting around is an antipaladin from the Shimmerdawn Kingdom venturing to the Citadel in order to gain something of great enough value that if he defected to the Hellsmouth Dominion or the Flametower Empire there's a chance he might be given refuge.