You awake.
Gods... your head is on fire, there's a throbbing there like you've never quite experienced before. You take a few breaths to steady yourself, and soon the pain recedes to a dull throbbing. You look around, trying to get your bearings.
You find yourself in a room of rough stone. Up above, in the center of the room, is a glass globe, around the size of a clenched fist, hovering in the air. It gives off a pale blue light, giving you enough illumination to see your surroundings. The walls are roughly 15 feet high, and the room itself is roughly twice that wide and long.
You try to remember how you got here, and then it hits you.
Silver's Bar.
There, individuals would gather when they've fallen low enough that the dregs of society want nothing more to do with them. The destitute, the desolate, the downtrodden. Sooner or later, they find their way here to the back-alley of the city gutters.
And there you can always find someone to do something, for a price.
And it is there, at one table, that you gathered together to talk about a job.
You remember that the man sitting at the head of the table had his cowl up, and you could just make out his features. By his looks, he probably came from somewhere to the south in the Dominion. Not an uncommon sight up here in the Aldanian Empire, but not exactly an everyday one either. He was clean-shaven, and had a hard, haunted look about him. His cloak was travel-worn, placing doubt upon whether or not he even had the coin to pay. But a look at the fine sword on his hip gave a hint that there might be more to him than it would seem.
He spoke:
You've heard the stories told before. Pretty much every major city has a temple to Avacor, one of the prime deities of death. Each temple serves as a portal of sorts, leading to a massive extraplanar catacombs known as the Necropolis. It's defended by both the clerics of Avacor, and the various undead servants at their disposal. Many are laid to their eternal rest there, from kings to commoners, thieves to saints. And the riches there are untold. But getting in, that's the problem.Sayidi Jalil wrote:Right. Let's begin. My name is Jalil il Khoroushi, but you will call me Sayidi Jalil, or just Sayidi. A bit of background, I am an avid collector. I travel all over the continent, gathering interesting little curios here and there. I have seen many things, and I do rather enjoy having my collection complete. And that is where you come in. You'll be retrieving a certain item for me. The item was originally mine, but a thief stole it from me. The only problem is, that item is within a temple of Avacor, specifically, in the Necropolis, the catacombs beneath the temple.
He reached into his cloak once more and produced a small statue. The statue looks to be made of bronze, and is in the shape of a woman holding a sword in the air.
He held the bronze state aloft, and gestured towards it:Sayidi Jalil wrote:As you can imagine, not everyone has access to the Necropolis. Getting into the temples is easy enough, you just need to make an appointment. But the extra-planar catacombs that provides a link between all the temples all over the world? Much more difficult. That is where I come in. You will take this item, and it will teleport you to some place within the Necropolis. It will be near the item in question, but it won't be able to teleport you exactly. Just getting there is a feat enough, so don't ask for miracles. This is a one-way trip though, at least until you retrieve the item I am asking for, at which point this statue will teleport you back. Still, it's powerful enough to send six of you and perhaps a couple of pack animals.
While in the catacombs, you can activate this statue at will. Hold it steady in your hand, and focus on it. When you do, she will point her sword in the direction of the item I am looking for. Follow the statue, retrieve the item, and bring it back to me. She won't tell you the direction you need to go though, just the direction of the object. So she might very well point you towards a solid wall with no path through.
It was then that one of your number asked about payment. Of course, as a mercenary group, money was and is your top priority.Sayidi Jalil wrote:The item I need retrieved is similar to this one. The difference though, is that while this woman holds a sword, the other holds a shield. They are nothing more than trinkets, but they have sentimental value and I would like to see my collection restored to completion.
One of the more knowledgeable in your group pointed out then that according to legends, the catacombs are guarded by all sorts of vile and powerful undead monstrosities. The man nodded, and said:Sayidi Jalil wrote:Upon completion, you will receive 200,000 gold pieces, paid in gems. It will be up to you to divide it amongst yourselves. In addition, you are free to keep whatever loot you find in there. Many nobles are buried within the catacombs, along with plenty of their wealth, be it in the form of paintings, magical trinkets, or what have you. As you won't be entering through the front door, nor will you be leaving that way, it will be possible to make off with quite the haul, so long as you're not too squeamish about grave-robbing.
You spoke amongst yourselves for a while, discussing how you might divide the wealth. As far as shady proposals go, this is definitely one of the shadier ones you've seen. But when you find yourself a regular at Silver's Bar, you don't really have the luxury of choice when it comes to these sorts of deals.Sayidi Jalil wrote:Indeed. While Avacor is the deity of funerals, her clergy are not above using undead to guard her catacombs. Still, if you're careful, you should be able to avoid them. Or, failing that, turn them into piles of bones. You might also have to contend with her clergy as well, so be ready to have to kill a few of those clerics, or at least find a way to get them out of the way. As for traps, as far as I know that temple does add a few to the catacombs, but these are mostly mundane. Summoning guards, sending blades into trespassers, that sort of thing. The nobles who are interred there though, that's a different matter. They might very well have their tombs trapped, but that would depend on the individual noble. I've even heard stories of a few who would include elaborate puzzles and tricks to torment would-be grave robbers.
So you took the deal.
With that, he left you to your own devices. You spent some time talking about the job, then finished your meal. It was on him after all, and with times being what they were, you were not one to pass up a free meal. When that was done, you left Silver's Bar as a group. You gathered together around the bronze statue, activated it, and...Sayidi Jalil wrote:Capital! Now, to activate the item, you need to all be touching the figurine. If you're going to be bringing in any pack animals with you, take a hold of its reins or saddle or what-have-you before touching the item. When ready, say the words 'ur'xili bayda'ana'. That will activate the magic and begin the teleportation. If there is nothing else, I will leave you to finish your meal. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
--nothing--
After that, you don't remember what happened. All that you know is that one minute you were gathering around the statuette, and the next you were waking up here in this room. By the looks of it, the magic of the statuette worked, so perhaps now all that remains is to find the item in question.
Righto folks, so after talking about it on Discord for a while, it looks like we've got a few folks interested. I'll be doing this Pathfinder campaign, which will be a pretty straightforward dungeon crawl. Of course, there will be stuff beyond just hack and slash, but this will still be fairly combat-heavy.
We'll be using Pathfinder, and everything that you need to play is on this site, with a few caveats mentioned below, of course..
For those that are interested, here are the guidelines to use:
Character Creation
- Starting Level: 1
- Race: Any of the races on d20pfsrd, although try to keep it bipedal at least.
- Class: Any of the Core, Base, or Hybrid classes. Newcomers might want to stick to Core. No Gunslinger, no occult.
- Archetypes: Most any, but I reserve the right to veto any that don't fit
- Alignment: Just about any, but you'll have to justify how you ended up in the pitiful state you're in, taking shady jobs and all that. So LG might be hard, but not impossible, to pull off.
- Stats: 20 point-buy, you can use this site.
- Traits and Drawbacks: Choose either three traits and one drawbacks or two traits.
- Starting Equipment: 50 gp plus average class starting gold
- Deities: This is a homebrew setting, so if you need a deity, get in touch with me and we'll pick one out for you. There's no ideal-worship here, divine casters need a deity.
- HP: Max HP at first level, either roll for subsequent or take the average roll
- Picture: It would be great, but not required, if you could provide me an image (or at least a description) as to what your character looks like. I will be using this for tokens in combat maps.
House Rules
- Background Skills: This should provide you with more skill points to flesh out your character. Basically, you get an additional 2 skill points each level, but these can only be used on Background skills (as listed on that page).
- Hero Points: You start out with 1 hero point, I will be awarding more depending on how you roleplay things.
- Food and Water: Starvation and dehydration will be taken into consideration.
- Teleportation Magic: Because of the effects of the Catacombs, all spells with the Teleportation sub-school use a spell-slot two higher than normal.
And that's about it! If you need help with putting together a character, or if this is your first time doing so, don't hesitate to ask either here or on Discord. I'll be more than happy to help!
I'll be limiting this to four players only, so first come, first serve!
Finished Characters
- James as Catt Zhivago the CN Tiefling Rogue
- JourneySword as Daimo Namida the N Tengu Inquisitor
- Morpheus as Valie Tornstod the TN Human Witch
- Ravancloak as Ara Birde the CN Human Oracle