GM Koen and I have been talking about doing an epic campaign for a while now. There are a number of campaigns I’d love to play or GM, mainly for Chaosium games like Call of Cthulhu and Pendragon. In the generic fantasy genre however, 2 are on my list. The Shackled City campaign and Rise of the Runelords. After an unfortunate event that destroyed Koen’s computer and thus also his preparations for an epic post zombie apocalypse Forgotten Realms campaign, he told our group that Rise of the Runelords is on the menu. Which leads us to Rise of the Runelords Session 1 – Character Creation.

General introduction

Koen starts off with a general introduction on the setting of Golarion, and more specifically Varisia where the campaign will take place. He explains he really wants to immerse us into the setting, and that it might be a good idea if the characters would all be locals from Sandpoint. In that way, he can introduce certain aspects of the setting through flashbacks where we’d play as children for the first time meeting goblins or Sczarni. He’d like us to play young adults between 17 and 20 years old, preferably human. Elves and Gnomes will not be allowed. Only the basic character classes will be allowed: fighter, wizard, cleric, bard, rogue, paladin, ranger.

Koen would like us to be somehow linked to the Turandarok Academy, Sandpoint’s school and orphanage. This way the characters would know each other through the retired adventurer Ilsoari Gandethus.

Koen is not a big fan of the complexity of the Pathfinder RPG rules so we’ll be playing D&D 5th edition since that’s a bit simpler and I have already played and GM’ed so I can help out with the rules.

The Rise of the Runelords Characters

I had the idea of resurrecting my first character ever, a halfling rogue called Forge Chaosfounder. Marc would like to play a wizard while Canan was thinking of a fighter but in the end decided on a paladin.

Eldon ‘Forge’ Leagallow: Forge is a former slave that was purchased by master Gandethus in Egorian. He has lived in the Academy ever since. I want Forge to be that guy that can arrange things in a prison. You want something ? Go talk to that guy and he’ll arrange it. For a price of course. Or a favor-for-the-future. Forge will be working in the Pixie’s Kitten, Sandpoint’s brothel. I see the character as fiercely loyal to master Gandethus who might start to get a bit worried about Forge’s career choices. I introduce the character as the son Titus Scarnetti would have loved to have. I choose the Criminal background and choose an expertise in Perception and Thieves’ Tools.

Lucius Scarnetti: Marc would like his character to be from a family of nobles that have left Cheliax in disgrace. Marc describes his dad as being a politician, trying to make deals everywhere who would like to become mayor of Sandpoint. Koen proposes to use one of the local noble/merchant families. After a short description of the families, Marc chooses to belong to the Scarnetti family. He describes his character as the black/white sheep of the family who’s burdened by his family’s history and bad reputation. He has had to work extra hard to prove that despite his name, he is nothing like his father. The Scarnetti family taught Lucius magic during homeschooling but sent him to the Academy to scrounge as many secrets and rumors he could wrestle from the other kids which Titus could then use to enhance his political games. Marc’s character however did not listen and suffered the consequences for failing his father’s ambitions. The staff Lucius uses as an arcane focus is carved from the same wood Chopper used to carve his bird statues. Marc chooses the noble background.

Akash: Canan’s character is the daughter of one of the local fishermen. Akash was sent to the Academy to learn the necessary skills in order to help her parents sell fish on the local market. As a child she was always walking around with branches fighting off imaginary opponents. Koen asks Canan to think about some code that her character wants to abide to if she wants to pursue a paladin career. She chooses the folk hero background.

Colwyn Drakken: Koen decides to create a character himself as well. just in case the fourth player Guido, who’s not present for this session, won’t be able to join. He decides on a cleric of Desna.

Memorable moments of character creation

• Canan rolls 4d6, counts the total of three dice and comes up with a score of 21.
• Koen describes Ilsoari Gandethus as a retired adventurer while everyone at the table understood retarded adventurer.

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