Nurture is the first area the character received training or which they put effort into improving. The adult (cuz it’s strength 5) black dragon here picks up the themes of the Spirit card ~ cunning, sneakiness, and lies. It appears that it was one of those random things which exert so much force on our lives that led this character to their class. They didn’t set out to become a vigilante; chance pushed them down this path. Nurture gives its token to Dexterity.
I think I’ll name the character Boanerges, or something like that; they remind me of those two somehow. They have all the force of a lightning bolt, funneled into a subtle fight for minds and souls in order to save their own infected one.
The Red Dragon 10 in Dexterity steals Strength’s two tokens, furthering the theme of constrained force, I suppose. I think Boanerges was raised to be a soldier, a vain and venereal bravo filled with a dark panache, but a chance encounter in a military raid brought them to the side of the angels. Literally. But one soldier against an army, let alone the nation that sent them, is a losing proposition. So Boanerges turned to shadier methods to spread the word.
Strength, in its turn, steals two tokens from Intelligence as it is also an adult Red Dragon. Panache was glorified and fostered in the army’s ranks, but questions weren’t. Venal tastes were catered to, pointless pleasures and decadent diversons employed to keep the bravos from rebelling. A third adult Red Dragon lurks in Intelligence’s land, stealing two tokens from Wisdom. Armies like this one present a paradox: it does everything it can to restrict the exercise of intelligence, which means that a piercing mind is the only thing that allows promotion.
An old bronze dragon in Wisdom gives its token to Dexterity. Constraining the thunderous force of Boanerges’s personality into clandestine activities breeds skill, but discernment has a tendency to disappear into discomfort. Planning is replaced by quick wits. As Boanerges’s angelic master pushed them away from their chaotic life into one of discipline and honor, their heuristic, social, and behavioral skills prove less and less useful, more and more foolish, even when drawn upon in the appropriate situations. But it also pushes them to become damn good at what they do.
The old Gold Dragon in Charisma passes two of its four tokens to Constitution. Recently, Boanerges had to take a severe beating in order to cover for a fellow bravo they had managed to convert to the way of good after months of work. This act of self-sacrificing nobility left them humbled but even more resilient than before. Significantly more resilient, as the Dracolich in Constitution (the last card in the reading) steals a token from all the evil dragons in the spread: Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence.
Constitution ends up with a freakin’ 14 tokens! That’s one more than the 13 needed for a 17 Constitution. According to the article, I take that token and apply it to the next highest score. But Dexterity would be in the situation, as it has exactly enough for a high Dex. I should skip the tie between Intelligence and Charisma and apply the token to Strength. However, it makes more sense for this character to give it to Charisma, I think, so I’ma do that. Boanerges’s ability scores come out to
Strength 11 [1 point]
Dexterity 15 [7 points]
Constitution 17 [13 points]
Intelligence 12 [2 points]
Wisdom 9 [-1 point]
Charisma 13 [3 points]
OK, I seem to have chosen a class and even an initial feat for Boanerges, so lemme backtack a bit and consider a class. The region of my campaign world in which celestials are the biggest deal religiously is roughly equivalent (in geographical and geohistorical relation to other regions, at least) to Eastern Africa. Ethiopia and the like. While I always try to do all the research and include actual elements from a variety of real-world and literary sources, I am by no means an Africa scholar, and this region is in no ways intended to actually represent East Africa. As a nod to the ancient, questionable European legends that inspired me to make this region the angelic one, I’ve named it Prester.
My world-creation has been focused on Aoqina (roughly, Europe) and Scarhas (roughly, the Middle East) so far, so I’m not yet certain what the racial makeup of the area is like. Elfs exist all across the surface of the world, and dwarfs can easily pop up anywhere. Halflings are an Aoqinan race, but they’ve been around a helluva long time, so they’ve spread. Gnomes came into existence on the border between Aoqina and Scarhas, as dwarfin sailors bred with merbunnies (descendants of outcast anthropomorphic rabbits from the moon) in the Hemaya Sea, but that was also a long time ago. Now, gnomes range far and wide. Gnomes gave rise to gnolls in Aoqina a decent time ago by breeding with trolls OD&D style, so they’ve had time to spread, but they’re prolly pretty exotic by the time you hit the equivalent of, say, western China or of the Congo Basin (though more headed south from Aoqina than any other direction). Humans are the leavings of a uselessly successful gnollish magickal experiment. They sought to remove all that was obedient from them to ensure their everlasting freedom, but that left only an unintelligent animal: the hyena. The intelligent humans were the obedient bits they discarded, and are pretty young as a race, so are unlikely to be found in significant numbers outside of the three regions bordering the Voda Sea (Aoqina, Scarhas, and my equivalent of the Maghreb/North Africa).
So, Prester’s population of standard races, to summarize:
Dwarfs: Possible, but somewhat unlikely
Elfs: As common as elfs ever get
Gnomes: Uncommon
Halflings: Common, but a minority
Humans: Rare
Orcs: Absent
I also note that a full quarter of the Three-Dragon Ante spread is red dragons ~ this suggests maybe a direction to start looking beyond the standard seven races. Red dragons live in warm mountains, I wonder what comes up on www.pfsrd.com with that ecology . . . . Naw, nothing useful comes from that search. I consider ifrit (I don’t think I want an elemental theme to races in Presterjho), kobold (possible, draconic, but a little small for the sheer force of personality I’m imagining), tiefling (currently the front-runner, but a little on-the-nose), kuru (tied with tiefling, currently), I keep coming back to the goblinoids but their homes are on an entirely different continent. The charau-ka are interesting, with tactics based on intimidation and exuberance which could blend in the swashbuckly elements I’m imagining.
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