Sanguine Rose

The Mystery of Castle Larendale

I am extremely sorry for my disappearance. I became extremely ill and haven't been able to really do much else aside from rest and recover. I'm doing much better now, and hope my delay hasn't killed anyone's desire to participate.

The Mystery of Castle Larendale

Hey, just wanted to let you all know I haven't forgot about a response. I just haven't had the opportunity to get to it yet. I'll get something together tomorrow, Sunday at the latest.

The Mystery of Castle Larendale

Chose this color for narrative/setting. Will probably use this for NPCs as well.

Feel free to insert your characters as desired. I won't get around to writing something for Tia until tomorrow. I will have NPC responses/narrative/setting for anyone that goes to interact with any of them sometime tomorrow evening (hopefully within 24 hours of now) as well.

And perhaps in the future, time and technology willing, I will manage to get a reference layout of the town and such together and made available for you. For now, feel free to establish the layout as you want (keeping consistent with what someone else has established, as much as possible.) Figured doing it that way was easier than going into detail about how the village was laid out, makes it easier for everyone in my opinion.

The Mystery of Castle Larendale

The village of Kasdella is a quaint town. Outside of the distress from their current predicament and what the former lord of the land had done, they live a rather peaceful life. A town mostly inhabited by every day folk - such as farmers and bakers - they see their fair share of foot traffic as a town on the way between two larger towns. Crime, while it does happen on occasion, isn't a daily or even weekly occurrence - as far as something that involves the authorities anyways - and thus most of the town's justice is handled by the churches; St Cuthbert and Pelor are the main two that share the responsibility, all with a dedicated church within short distance of the town center. Shrines dedicated to many of the other gods are located along the town's main streets. There is a decent sized inn that serves as the local pub as well. An alchemist that also occasionally dabbles in magic items and scrolls resides in town, as well as a goods trader that has workers that travel to other towns to procure objects of desire should there be demand for things not in his shop. Nearly any goods one could expect of a stay town can be obtained, either from vendor stalls or being directed to the proper craftsman.

On the hill to the north, overlooking the town, stands tall a massive castle surrounded by a sentry wall. A dark and twisted forest has grown up a decent way of the hill to make the untended pathway from Kasdella seem even more forlorn. Farmers taking down rotted crops and adding to their compost heaps, as well as herders dealing with dead livestock, can be seen from the main road leading to town. Not every farmland has these problems, but it can be seen those closer to the forest and hill leading to Castle Larendale seem to be the ones with the problems heard about abroad.

The Mystery of Castle Larendale

Tia Nialo

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--BASICS--
Name: Tivona “Tia” Nialo
Age: 115
Race: Elf
Class: Wizard, specializing in Evocation
Religion or Worshiped Deity: None, though she occasionally pays respects to the various gods of magic.
Height: 5’
Weight: 115

--SKILLS & EQUIPMENT--

Equipment: A bag enchanted to hold far more inside than outside (i.e. Bag of Holding, type 3), rapier, light crossbow, magical vestments (designed to hold many pockets to allow massive amounts of spell components to be held on person without ladening her with pouches), spell components (including a decent amount of pearls kept in her enchanted bag.) Has 3 large tomes (kept in enchanted bag) for her spells, and 2 more blank tomes for scribing more spells into.

Skills: Charismatic and quite in tune with detecting others intentions, she can adapt quite well in conversation to get the result she wants whether it means being diplomatic or intimidating. Quite inventive with spells, able to cast spells in a variety of ways. Decent with a rapier if necessary, but prefers light crossbow when out of spells as she is slightly more experienced with it. Extremely good at spotting magical items or individuals of magical persuasion, and estimating resell value of magical items. Decent Hearing and Sight. Capable of crafting potions, scrolls, and wands from spells she knows but is far better at crafting scrolls than anything else and better at potions than embedding wands with spells.

Class or Racial Features: Has a familiar, Low-Light Vision, Immune to magical sleep, increased resistance to enchantments, has an increased sense for hidden rooms and compartments

Languages: Common, Elvish, Draconic, Dwarven, Infernal, Celestial (can read languages associated with those alphabets as well.)

--BIOGRAPHY--

Ideals: Mastering magic to the point of creating it is paramount for her. Safety for those around the use of magic comes second, closely followed by general safety for herself and those around her. Sharing - knowledge, money, supplies, etc - is also important, but not at the risk of any of the other things. These are all things she learned from the elders in her home village, as well as the masters at the mage college where she studied.

Bonds: She is strongly connected to those of her village as equally as her family. There is no individual she is connected with stronger than any other in the village. The only individual she is strongly connected to, and occasionally does still write for advice, is Master Evoker Aramil Xiloscient who was her mentor and had been the one to suggest she follow the path of a wizard when she was still knee high.

Personality traits: Energetic with a short attention span, often charging into situations with very little planning ahead of time. Extremely confident, but avoids flaunting capabilities - though has very little problem attempting to verbally intimidate others when necessary and using cantrips to help sell it. At times, tends to be exceedingly curious about others, and has a habit of asking inappropriate personal questions to find out more about someone. Enjoys troubleshooting problems, coming up with creative solutions to obstacles.

Flaws: Will act without others if there is too much time discussing form of action. Can be intrusive/persistent to get answers. Cannot cast spells from Enchantment or Necromancy schools of magic. Often follows the philosophy of magic solves everything. Doesn’t like being up close in fights. Tends to touch and examine things without verifying it’s safe first, which also occasionally (often) leads to pocketing things. Obsessed with magic objects.

Background: Tivona is the youngest daughter of a farmer and a bard. Her mother taught her long ago to value the safety of others (both creatures and beings) and the sanctity of sharing with those around her. Her father taught her curiosity, pushing to get what she wants, and never giving up. While her mother worked the fields, she spent a lot of time with her father and the other educators in the village to learn all that they could teach. It was doing this that she met Master Aramil Xiloscient - an instructor from a mage college not far from the village - who had come on a journey to recruit young magically inclined individuals to join the college. She quickly persuaded her parents that was where she needed to be, and started attending the college by the age of 65 - still relatively considered a teenager.
She started off with learning everything she could, experimenting with various schools of magic and even experimenting as a divine magic caster for a while. This experimenting continued for just under three decades. It was after a deep conversation with Master Aramil - following her hundredth year celebration where she chose a new name to go by - that she finally figured out what she really enjoyed as a spellcaster. It was then that she focused on evocation, and specialized in it.
About a year ago, she set out from the college to experience the world abroad as well as learn magic beyond the confines of a structured setting. That was how she happened upon hearing the call for help for the small town and couldn’t resist the opportunity.

--MISC--

Other: Her familiar - Cele’bagar - is a pseudodragon. He is pretty average in size, roughly three feet long - though most of that is tail - with typical features aside from being a silvery red color. Cele is pretty mischievous, and loves shiny things almost as much as Tia enjoys magic things. He also enjoys preening and loves being complimented. When he feels like it, he can communicate with others via telepathy using Common - though this isn’t a very common occurrence until he gets to know them well. For the most part, he stays draped over Tia’s shoulders while napping or just to not have to do any moving on his own.

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The Mystery of Castle Larendale

<Snipped quote by Sanguine Rose>

Sounds good, I'd be willing to still let people in as we begin the intro! And I'll add your character to the cast.

@compass

All right. Oh, also, don't forget Deft Dreamer's character. Forgot to give her a stamp of approval.

The Mystery of Castle Larendale

I am working on the intro for this now. Haven't had the time today like I was hoping. I will do my best to get it started tomorrow, but I cannot guarantee when it will be. If there is anyone else that is interested, I think we could still manage to bring people in until our characters finally start off toward the castle. @compass - what do you think about that?
The first few posts are intended for our characters to be arriving at the town and gathering information to help with the venture into the castle.

Also, here's my character.

Tia Nialo

image

--BASICS--
Name: Tivona “Tia” Nialo
Age: 115
Race: Elf
Class: Wizard, specializing in Evocation
Religion or Worshiped Deity: None, though she occasionally pays respects to the various gods of magic.
Height: 5’
Weight: 115

--SKILLS & EQUIPMENT--

Equipment: A bag enchanted to hold far more inside than outside (i.e. Bag of Holding, type 3), rapier, light crossbow, magical vestments (designed to hold many pockets to allow massive amounts of spell components to be held on person without ladening her with pouches), spell components (including a decent amount of pearls kept in her enchanted bag.) Has 3 large tomes (kept in enchanted bag) for her spells, and 2 more blank tomes for scribing more spells into.

Skills: Charismatic and quite in tune with detecting others intentions, she can adapt quite well in conversation to get the result she wants whether it means being diplomatic or intimidating. Quite inventive with spells, able to cast spells in a variety of ways. Decent with a rapier if necessary, but prefers light crossbow when out of spells as she is slightly more experienced with it. Extremely good at spotting magical items or individuals of magical persuasion, and estimating resell value of magical items. Decent Hearing and Sight. Capable of crafting potions, scrolls, and wands from spells she knows but is far better at crafting scrolls than anything else and better at potions than embedding wands with spells.

Class or Racial Features: Has a familiar, Low-Light Vision, Immune to magical sleep, increased resistance to enchantments, has an increased sense for hidden rooms and compartments

Languages: Common, Elvish, Draconic, Dwarven, Infernal, Celestial (can read languages associated with those alphabets as well.)

--BIOGRAPHY--

Ideals: Mastering magic to the point of creating it is paramount for her. Safety for those around the use of magic comes second, closely followed by general safety for herself and those around her. Sharing - knowledge, money, supplies, etc - is also important, but not at the risk of any of the other things. These are all things she learned from the elders in her home village, as well as the masters at the mage college where she studied.

Bonds: She is strongly connected to those of her village as equally as her family. There is no individual she is connected with stronger than any other in the village. The only individual she is strongly connected to, and occasionally does still write for advice, is Master Evoker Aramil Xiloscient who was her mentor and had been the one to suggest she follow the path of a wizard when she was still knee high.

Personality traits: Energetic with a short attention span, often charging into situations with very little planning ahead of time. Extremely confident, but avoids flaunting capabilities - though has very little problem attempting to verbally intimidate others when necessary and using cantrips to help sell it. At times, tends to be exceedingly curious about others, and has a habit of asking inappropriate personal questions to find out more about someone. Enjoys troubleshooting problems, coming up with creative solutions to obstacles.

Flaws: Will act without others if there is too much time discussing form of action. Can be intrusive/persistent to get answers. Cannot cast spells from Enchantment or Necromancy schools of magic. Often follows the philosophy of magic solves everything. Doesn’t like being up close in fights. Tends to touch and examine things without verifying it’s safe first, which also occasionally (often) leads to pocketing things. Obsessed with magic objects.

Background: Tivona is the youngest daughter of a farmer and a bard. Her mother taught her long ago to value the safety of others (both creatures and beings) and the sanctity of sharing with those around her. Her father taught her curiosity, pushing to get what she wants, and never giving up. While her mother worked the fields, she spent a lot of time with her father and the other educators in the village to learn all that they could teach. It was doing this that she met Master Aramil Xiloscient - an instructor from a mage college not far from the village - who had come on a journey to recruit young magically inclined individuals to join the college. She quickly persuaded her parents that was where she needed to be, and started attending the college by the age of 65 - still relatively considered a teenager.
She started off with learning everything she could, experimenting with various schools of magic and even experimenting as a divine magic caster for a while. This experimenting continued for just under three decades. It was after a deep conversation with Master Aramil - following her hundredth year celebration where she chose a new name to go by - that she finally figured out what she really enjoyed as a spellcaster. It was then that she focused on evocation, and specialized in it.
About a year ago, she set out from the college to experience the world abroad as well as learn magic beyond the confines of a structured setting. That was how she happened upon hearing the call for help for the small town and couldn’t resist the opportunity.

--MISC--

Other: Her familiar - Cele’bagar - is a pseudodragon. He is pretty average in size, roughly three feet long - though most of that is tail - with typical features aside from being a silvery red color. Cele is pretty mischievous, and loves shiny things almost as much as Tia enjoys magic things. He also enjoys preening and loves being complimented. When he feels like it, he can communicate with others via telepathy using Common - though this isn’t a very common occurrence until he gets to know them well. For the most part, he stays draped over Tia’s shoulders while napping or just to not have to do any moving on his own.

image

The Mystery of Castle Larendale

Ok. Well I guess I have a few more questions before I commit.

How much of this do you have planned out? I ask because I am a fan of structure and find RPs without it tend to die quickly.

Is this basicly a dungeon dive? Im Just curious.

How do you feel about more mature content, like cursing, violence, and Romance? I tend to like things on the darker side of things and prefer to write with those that arnt squeamish.

@Fuzzybootz

I'm going to tackle this from the bottom up.

Mature content is fine as long as everyone in the RP is okay with it. While violence can be avoided in interacting with the NPCs beyond the village, I'll be honest in saying it is likely to happen so no one gets the wrong impression of mature content in the RP. Romance is up to those involved in it, and if you plan to have characters sneak off for sexy times - forum rules say it goes to PM or just fade.

For the most part, yes, I believe this could be summed up as a dungeon dive. If everyone enjoys playing it - and we actually manage to get to an end instead of it fading out of existence - our characters can stick together for a larger campaign, but for the most part this is designed as a one shot "dungeon dive".

While this isn't a set campaign like most campaign manuals, there is the information/exposition that will definitely happen at the beginning, and there is definitely an end. The stuff in between is mostly notes dependent on what characters there are and how the group deals with certain problems.

The Mystery of Castle Larendale

Im interested. Can we play any any Level Adjusted character race, for instance a Pixie Rogue?

@Fuzzybootz

I would prefer sticking to only the core races - exceptions for standard sub-races can be made.

As far as my own character, I am trying to narrow down what I'm going to play. I plan to let everyone else make characters and use that to determine what character may compliment the rest the best.

The Mystery of Castle Larendale

I was thinking a Favored Soul, or at the very least, a Duskblade

@Cu Chulainn

So, with regards to Favored Soul, while we aren't focusing too heavily on mechanics - I do request definitely adhering to the mechanics that separate it from playing a cleric. So the character would be limited from wearing any kind of heavy armor, and only have a handful of spells they actually know and can cast from, unlike their cleric counterparts; they would still maintain their freedom to cast whatever spells they know without preparing a selection ahead of time, as well as the increased number of times they can cast spells per day. In addition to that, I think it's prudent to mention they shouldn't be crafted after a high level Favored Soul (i.e. no wings or damage reduction yet) as this particular setting isn't necessarily designed for such a high level character, but any other features from the core class (Complete Divine) are fine to include.

As for Duskblade, I'm going to outright say no. While Favored Soul and Bloodrager both are alternatives to regular classes with either extended limits to compliment their new benefits or a new spin to existing class features (cleric and barbarian respectively), combined-classes - like the duskblade - don't hold the same balance of drawback to benefit that alternative classes do and overpower other classes much faster because of this.