Introducing Forsetilafom (Fantasy Friday #11)

In time, even this character’s watchfulness couldn’t see every gradual corruption. As questionable magical activities came into vogue amongst this character’s peers, they almost fell to the same subtle spiritual disease as everyone else, almost found themself transformed into a wrathful brute. The nobility of their spirit wouldn’t allow them to trip over the line, however, and that drove them back into study. The loremaster’s smug grin as this character sheepishly came to the library after some years of frippery and social engineering was a bother, but a small price to pay as the pair’s research unearthed ancient secrets and a creeping spiritual rot. Strengthening all the spiritual purity they had, this character managed to throw off the effect and once more act as the Bulwark of Courtly Virtue to exorcise it, finally. The old Gold Dragon in Strength gives two tokens it doesn’t actually have to Intelligence.

This character’s incipient devotion to study was somewhat cut short as they were given an actual position, with power as well as honor, within the court. As High-Reeve, this character served to decide cases brought to the court in their host’s stead. Though young, they served well, with justice and supreme judgment as such until they decided to go adventuring. Despite some grumbling at their age, the sheer force and easy joy of their presence prevented anyone from moving against them. Nonetheless, they felt the need to prove themself and that was what brought them to travel the realm as High-Reeve Adventurer. The Silver Dragon in Intelligence gives one of its tokens to Charisma.

This character’s final ability score array thus comes out as:
Strength 8 [-2 points]
Dexterity 14 [5 points]
Constitution 15 [7 points]
Intelligence 13 [3 points]
Wisdom 15 [7 points]
Charisma 14 [5 points]
Constitution missed a 16 by one point, giving one point to Wisdom and one to Charisma. Similarly, Dexterity has one extra point, which trickles down to Intelligence.

We seem to have already determined a race and a homeland for this character ~ they are an asimar (yes, it’s spelt that way in my world) from Natsiyaasim. We should probably name them; I rather like the idea of naming them Forseti, after the most just of the Aesir. One’s noble house is important to most of Natisyaasim’s populace. Each raskokabajho who settled there with Blessed Imye gave rise to several such noble houses, each descended from that raskokabajho. Looking over my notes, I determine that Forseti is a scion of the raskokabajho Nosilebo, patron of Natsiyaasim’s various houses of carnal love. Taking a peek over at a Kushiel’s Legacy series wiki, I see that Namarrese houses include L’Envers, Fhirze, Le Blanc, Le Doux, and Lafons. (Namarre is the region of Terre d’Ange settled by Naamah, the equivalent to Nosilebo; the equivalent region of Natsiyaasim is called Nosleborre). Looking at the meanings of these names, I decide Lafons (http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Lafond) is the most appropriate for Forseti and remove the end to make the name work better with Natsiyaasim’s langauge.

In English/D’Angeline, their name would thus be “Forseti Lafo”, but in the language of Natsiyaasim, such a name would be constructed as a genitive phrase (Forseti of Lafo). I based the genitive construction in this language on that of Sumerian, so they are expressed as a single word constructed as follows: OWNED.OWNER.m. In this case, Forseti is the “owned” and Lafo the “owner”, so their name comes out as Forsetilafom, the asimar (a word that means “pertaining to that which is of the angel”, much like D’Angeline is an adjectival form of the prepositional phrase “d’Ange”).

As an aasimar descended from Nosilebo, Forsetilafonsom gains +2 Wisdom and +2 Charisma, some protection against negative energy, a +2 bonus on Diplomacy and Perform (erotic arts), the ability to cast detect desires once per day, and darkvision. As to Forsetilafonsom’s class, well, that’s not nearly as obvious (this is an interesting inversion of Boanerges’s process!) I think looking through the book Heroes of the High Court might be a good place to start . . . . The biggest things that jump out at me from that book are a couple of spells (one far in the future, as its 6th or 7th level) that would seem to entice Forsetilafonsom into becoming a cleric, inquisitor, sorcerer, witch, or wizard. And the silksworn occultist. At first, I was ready to pass on the silksworn, as psychic powers are a Scarhasi thing, but the silksworn occultist’s spells are arcane! For the moment, that puts occultist in the front running.

Heroes of the High Court also reminded me of Ultimate Intrigue, so I’ll check that out now. And the dandy archetype for rangers wins the day! It’s absolutely perfect! Forsetilafom is officially a ranger (dandy). 6d6 roll a dead average 21, making them 41 years old (significantly younger than Boanerges). I’ve been thinking about Forsetilafom’s gender, and I think I really like the idea of them being genderqueer. I often feel myself as an inside-outsider in a society so heavily binarily-gendered and have found that such a position can be both quite revealing and very powerful. Perfect for Forsetilafom. So I’ll average the heights and weights listed for male and female aasimar. Again, the dice come out right in the average; in this case, it’s 2d8 and that gives Forsetilafom 5’10” of height. They’re just a tiny bit skinny, at 140 pounds.

But does it always turn out the same? (Fantasy Friday #10)

Let’s create another character with the Three-Dragon Ante system. It’s a test of the reliability of the system: if this second character comes out significantly different from the first, it’s a sign that the system is a robust and a useful one. If every character comes out the same, then this system wouldn’t be very useful, would it?

This character’s card spread is:
Nature: Blue Dragon 2
Spirit: White Dragon 4
Body: Princess
Mind: Brass Dragon 2
Nurture: Silver Dragon 8
Strength: Gold Dragon 6
Dexterity: Blue Dragon 1
Constitution: Blue Dragon 7
Intelligence: Silver Dragon 2
Wisdom: Gold Dragon 13
Charisma: Brass Dragon 7

Much more heroic than Boanerges, with six metallic dragons! And yet at the same time, three blue dragons, which hits a threshold of significance. Maybe this character is from the desert (Not!Sahara? The Scarhasi deserts? Somewhere further afield?) . . . Or mebbe the character has some electrical association. Ironic, since the name I stole from the Bible for the last character (Boanerges) means “Sons of Thunder” in Aramaic bastardized by Hellenic authors. Also, because I’m already thinking about Africa cause of Boanerges, I’m reminded of Shango, the Yoruba orisha associated with lightning, and his wife Oya, who is the thunder, and their rather . . . tumultuous marriage (storms occur whenever they argue, which is often).

This character’s nature is almost as vain, resilient, and forceful as the last’s; I give six tokens from Nature to Body and three to Mind. Not a great sign when looking for differentiation between the two. Luck pushed them, however, towards the speed, ferocity, and agility of a white dragon. My first thought is that, while Boanerges is a preening barbarian dandy (when not the Unseen Heart of the Flame, of course), this character is more akin to the arrogant villain of a racing movie. They know they’re the best and they are overly assured that anyone who contests that will be eating their dust. They don’t show off to convince people to give them whatever they want, they just win always. Regardless, Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma all get a token each.

The next card, somewhat sadly, inspires chuckles as I read it. The Princess denotes something very different from anything in Boanerges’s spread ~ that being diplomacy and influence ~ but has (at least for now) a very similar result. Constitution gets 4 tokens and Dexterity 2. I’m going to say that, however this turns out, that Princess in the Body position indicates that this character is devastatingly beautiful. Who knows if that will be in line with the rest of their occupation and reality or just a three-dimensionalizing extra quality? Although, a brass dragon’s wise and very perceptive mind lurks behind those good looks, so maybe they really are a social character who fights in courts rather than blood-mudded fields or the fantasy fucking Vietnam of a dungeon. Wisdom gets all three of Mind’s tokens, in a dramatic departure from Boanerges’s stats.

The adult Silver Dragon in Nurture continues the welcome distinction from Boanerges, as its judgment and justice give its token to Wisdom. I’m starting to get an image of this character ~ a noble of an evil realm forced by an uprising to flee as a child to another kingdom which, despite (or perhaps because of) its own goodness took them in and gave her a home. All that remains of their home culture is a vanity and an unrelenting drive for survival; all the rest of them is filled with the wisdom and the empathy and the justice of their rescuers. At the same time, their noble status among the houses of the realm and the friendship of their host has given them a solid place in their host’s court but their lack of any sort of realm or muster has left them without any sort of power amongst that court’s intrigues. Some years before they came of age, they learned to rely on a creative wit and judicious use of their good looks when those intrigues threatened the virtue of that court, maneuvering the host noble into uselessness and leaving the strong will of this character as the only advocate for justice. It was very Jacqueline Carey. Which, in turn, suggests that the character comes from Aoqina, my campaign world’s Europe-equivalent, specifically the realm of Natsiyaasim, which is based on Terre d’Ange (with influences from the Vikings and a religion tracing back to the grandchild of a Presterjho archangel who fought at a Troy-equivalent with Jedi expies).

Anyway, the adult Gold Dragon in the Wisdom slot gives two tokens to Charisma as the struggle for the soul of the court brings them much fame and skill at leading people with honor and nobility of spirit. That their host showered honors upon them as the Bulwark of Courtly Virtue only deepened the effect. Hilariously, the old Brass Dragon in Charisma just gives it right back. Where many would be tempted to just revel in the glory and the veneration of all the nobles around them ~ and this character was sorely tempted, considering their nature and early training ~ they resisted, and took the position of Bulwark quite seriously. Piercing eyes watched everyone, and discerned when and how to intervene without conflict to preserve the sanctity of the realm. Without conflict, to be sure, as this was a job of glittering laughter, not the dim and judgmental work of an inquisitor.

Of course, vanity could not be held at bay for long. It never hindered their work, but it is true that this character came to enjoy their position, the favor of their host, and the rewards of their good looks. Several relationships ended in tears and anger as this character’s incisive mind caught notice that they were founded upon the other’s desire for advancement, privilege, or ability to get away with some vice or crime, but for the most part, this character was free to indulge themselves in the gleaming giggles of play amongst the court. That old Blue Dragon in Constitution steals two tokens from Strength. The Blue Dragon in Dexterity isn’t so old, however, so it only steals one token from Intelligence, as these pleasures and this work call for time to be spent on them to succeed. Besides, studying with the castle’s loremaster was always yawn-inducing, so the distractions were quite welcome.

Boanerges of Prester is born (Fantasy Friday #2)

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.

Dragon Magazine's Cartomantic Character Creation (Fantasy Friday #1)

Way long ago in an earlier age, an eighth of a century ago, in the inexplicably ancient time of 2005, Wizards of the Coast released a card game that could function as a game prop, much like White Wolf’s series of vampiric, werewolf (including the bad ones), hunter, demon, and mage scriptures (published long before Zak's name was associated with the company ~ like at least two decades before), or Pathfinder’s Harrow Deck. The game was called Three-Dragon Ante; I own it but I’ve never played it.

It’s a betting game designed by Rob Heinsoo in which you compile flights of cards of various strengths, many of which have various triggered abilities whose activation is dependent on its strength compared to those played previously. After each “gambit” (kinda like a trick, I guess), the stakes go to the player with the most strength and a new gambit begins. Collecting matching sets of same-color or same-strength dragons triggers extra gold-earning effects. The idea is that this is a game that exists within Greyhawk (the default setting for D&D 3.x) so you can play while your characters play. 

I’m most interested in it not for this, however. No, far more interesting is that the August ‘06 issue of Dragon included a Tarot-like character generation method using the deck. The only thing better than a cartomantic spread for 2nd-generation RPG character creation is a good lifepath system. I’m a sucker for those, as Traveller Tuesdays will no doubt eventually show. I thought I’d create an adventuring party by this method (using Pathfinder rules, however, cuz duh) and see how it does at providing me with story seeds and interesting character details. Join me in this adventure? 

First thing I do, obvi, is shuffle the deck. Fun fact: I always shuffle decks 7 times because I picked up somewhere that a standard 52-card playing deck achieves pure, unpredictable randomness at seven riffle shuffles, combinatorily speaking. So I do that. The spread involves three cards (Body, Spirit, and Mind) surrounded by 4 others, laid horizontally, in the cardinal directions (Nature, Nurture, Dexterity, and Wisdom) and four more bursting diagonal at the corners (Strength, Constitution, Intelligence, and Charisma). The orientation of the cards plays a role in the reading, so you should know that Strength is in the upper left, followed in clockwise order by Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Constitution, and Dexterity. Thus, there’s a physical side (the left) and a mental (the right). 

I draw the following cards for my first character: 

Nature: Blue Dragon 4 

Spirit: Black Dragon 1 

Body: Green Dragon 6 

Mind: Silver Dragon 8 

{Oooh! An evil body, with evil instincts and urges, but a good mind stronger than it. It’s Driz’zt, sure, but the idea that I’m not even done drawing and already seeing interpretations suggests that this will be a useful creation method!} 

Nurture: Black Dragon 5 

Strength: Red Dragon 12 

Dexterity: Red Dragon 10 

Constitution: Dracolich 10 

Intelligence: Red Dragon 8 

Wisdom: Bronze Dragon 11 

Charisma: Gold Dragon 11 

Hmmm, there’s just so much evil in this spread ~ maybe the good mind, despite its being stronger than the evil body, is losing the battle, just outnumbered by instincts and culture. I have to be careful, though, cuz while I like the idea of deconstructing Driz’zt, these themes edge a little closer than I’d like to some truly disgusting ideas. 

Let’s see, we then put 9 tokens on Nature, 3 on Spirit, 1 on Nurture, and 2 on each ability card. These will eventually become points in standard point buy that will determine the character’s actual ability scores. 

The character’s nature, represented by a blue dragon, is resilient, vain, and forceful. I give six tokens to Body and three to Mind off the Nurture card as a result. Spirit, perhaps oddly-named, represents chance. We all have things that are central to who we are that just kind of bumbled their way into our path, whether it’s the career we discovered after a friend forwarded us a funny job posting or our love of Fleetwood Mac because the diner we ate lunch at everyday while homeless played a lot of it over the stereo. In this character’s case, these things involve the stealth, cunning, and deceit of the Black Dragon. Dexterity, Constitution, and Intelligence each receive a token as a result. 

More doubling themes! I’m seeing a character inclined toward vanity and forcefulness, but pushed by circumstance into acting secretly, maybe even from the shadows. Perhaps I’ll make them a vigilante . . . . I think it might be fun to play up the discomfort of the character, the strain of trying to stifle their usual habits and bearing in order to be most effective. These are much safer themes than the ones I mentioned earlier, thankfully, though they could be combined by creating a sneaky character from a member of a typically brutish race like ogres. Side note: Golarion’s ogres might exist as part of a long line of classist depictions of rural folk (as ogres usually are), but damn if their sheer, utter, going-for-it monstrosity is much more fun than standard D&D uses of the ogre! 

The Green Dragon in the Body position tells us that the character can handle most anything, accepting what would be maiming blows with nothing but a snarling belligerence. I kind of envision this more as the really annoying kind of person who is never down for very long, no matter what’s thrown at them, but always brings things to account. Many have tried to take them down, only to fall to the character’s retaliations. All six of these tokens go to Constitution. 

We finally get a glint of something pleasant and hopeful in this character ~ who seems very much like a Mean Girl, to be honest, vain, cunning, tricksy, and vengeful ~ as their Mind is filled with the judgment and justice of the Silver Dragon. I kind of want to make them a paladin, but it seems like that would fail to capture the duality of the character, the tidal wave forced into the trickle that rots your walls. Maybe there’s an archetype of vigilante that would be appropriate . . . not really (at least not one listed on www.pfsrd.com), though I did briefly consider a zealot. It didn’t quite fit what I wanted, however. I think I could model what I want with the Celestial Obedience feat, perhaps, as I’m getting an image of a character in an evil society who has turned to devious methods to promote a good religion. Sort of a Frank Miller villain by day, sneaky Superman by night kind of situation. More on that later. For now, that Silver Dragon gives two tokens to Charisma and one to Wisdom.