[D&D 4e] The Origins Expedition (Full, Starting)

[Paidi tou Selini]

[ Character Sheets ]

• 1] Vervain, Pixie Dreamwalker by Joseph Severn
  
• 2] Emrakul, Shadar-Kai Dilettante by Liquidor
  
• 3] Fyann The Fist Fraghubt, Gnome Genkosai by Rain Yupa
  
• 4] Lin Shi, The Walker Human Ghostwalker by Psychofish
  
• 5] Lysandra, Human Dusk Oracle by Kowsauni
  

[ Premise/Foreword ]
Dear Adventurer,

I hope this letter finds you well. My name is Professor Robert Godderd, chief researcher on the Origins Project. Let me be frank, I am looking for the bravest, most well-prepared adventurers to assist in a once in a lifetime expedition. Word of your incredible deeds upon the open sky have reached even me, and I believe you are the perfect candidate for this task. I will not lie, the danger of this expedition is great, but with great risk comes great reward, and I can certainly guarantee you will be well compensated for your assistance.

No doubt by now you have heard rumors of our accomplishment. Well let me put those rumors to rest. It is all true. Origin's TITAN IV is the first and only ship capable of traveling below the clouds. We have made several test runs already to ensure the safety of this expedition, and what we have found down there you will have to see to believe. You will find enclosed in this letter an invitation to the christening ceremony of the TITAN IV, on the day of Fairsky. I sincerely look forward to your acceptance and any questions you may have.


With High Regards,

~Professor Robert H. Godderd


[ Setting Information/Background ]
Azmuth is a land of high adventure. Long before recorded history a great cataclysm tore the land asunder and raised the shattered pieces into the sky. Beneath these floating islands there formed a barrier of clouds and torrential winds, forever separating the land from the world below. For generations civilizations lived isolated on their islands, but eventually people began to discover uses for the enchanted minerals upon which the islands were floating. The improvement and combination of Skystone and arcane technology led to the development of Airships, and a new era of trade and exploration began. This great golden age has continue to the present, but not all winds bring prosperity. The uncharted lands are filled with dangerous creatures and the availability of airships has seen a rise in piracy upon the open skies. Communities have come together to form city-states and nations, and bold new words like "conquest" and "war" are on people's lips without true understanding of what they actually mean. The time is ripe for brave adventurers to carve their legacy into a burgeoning world and influence the very course of history.


[ Game Introduction/Plot ]
The Origins Expedition is a one-shot dungeon crawl set in a world I designed for an Airship campaign. Unfortunately for anyone interested, there is only one airship in this game and no PC will be flying it. Basically what I'm trying to do is test the waters and see if I can properly DM a game here. If all goes well and anyone is still interested after this game I would be more than happy to run the real campaign; just consider this a fun introduction to the world's history.


[ Character Creation ]



Available Sources: I have access to pretty much every source. The only thing I require is that you ask before using anything from the Dragon Magazines.
Banned Resources: D&D Essentials. One of the rare few things I agree can complicate a game.

ECL: 13
Gold: 13,000 and one of each level 12, 13, and 14 magical item.
Races: Anything that doesn't come from a Monster Manual. If you can make it in the official Character Builder it's probably okay.
Ability Scores: 4d6 drop the lowest, 7 times drop the lowest score. If you don't like what you get, you can get a standard 22 point buy instead. (All rolls in this thread)
Alignments: Any, as long as Evil characters aren't being disruptive. (A.K.A.: Your motivations can be whatever you want, but don't use that to sabotage the game.)
Pantheon: Standard, and only necessary for Divine Classes.
Backgrounds: Anything within reason. This is just a one-shot so I'm not going to be too picky about it.

[ House/Optional Rules ]
I'm stealing some of Rain's house rules, because I like them. For the full list look here. I will be removing and slightly changing some, but they won't affect character creation so you can see the updated list when I get the final thread up.  

[Gender Ender]

Huzzah! Registering interest, playing an controller-y type, details forthcoming. Approximately 50% of dice rolls incoming- it'd be the whole shebang but Gaia can't handle 28 dice apparently. Tch.

ACTION EDIT

• Roll 01: 12
  
• Roll 02: 13
  
• Roll 03: 14
  

Pretty middle-of-the-road so far!  

[Gender Ender]

Other 50% or so of die rolls!

I'll also go ahead and use this as a placeholder for the sheet link, when I have it ready.

ADVENTURE EDIT:

• Roll 04: 15
  
• Roll 05: 13
  
• Roll 06: 14
  
• Roll 07: 10
  

Which gives us a final array of 12, 13, 13, 14, 14, 15 before adjustments.
At least a +1 to every score is kinda nice, but I feel deeply uncomfortable without at least one 16 before adjustments, so point buy it is.

The fates, they were not kind today.

DOUBLE ADVENTURE EDIT:
Since you asked to verify anything from Dragon, I'd like to use Faulty Memory, a Bluff skill power from Dragon 389. To reproduce it in full:

Encounter|Standard|Ranged 10
Target: One Creature that shares a language with you
Effect: You make a Bluff check opposed by an Insight check
that the target makes as a free action. The target gains a +5
bonus to Insight if the target is unfriendly to the character,
or a +10 bonus if the target is hostile. If your check suc-
ceeds, you make the target doubt its memory and believe
your version of events.

And as long as I'm asking- I'd agree that mixing standard and essentials characters can get a little odd, however...there are a couple Essentials feats that are very, very desirable- I'm thinking here of Improved Defenses and Orb Expertise.
If they're out-of-bounds I can find others, but Orb Expertise is just better than Implement Expertise, and Improved Defenses is similarly just better than Iron Will and its hideous, feat-tax ilk.

TRIPLE ADVENTURE EDIT:
Here's the crunchy bits for Vervain, vaguely sinister Pixie Psion. Her full backstory is a bit flexible due to minimal setting knowledge, but essentially she's a sharp-tongued and scholarly sort who believes she can cheat death, even the long-delayed death that comes to her nearly immortal race; ironically, her psionic manifestations tend to take the form of symbols of mortality like flies and the scent of rotting flesh, evidence of her subconscious fear.

Anything you've got on the role of psionics and/or fey would be welcome for fleshing-out purposes!  

[Paidi tou Selini]

Welcome! Thank you for your interest. If you've ever taken a peek at the Settlers game it's probably pretty obvious that I'm a fan of pixies so *thumbs up*.

I have no issues with Faulty Memory. Feel free to keep it. The Essentials feats, however... well, let me put it this way. If it's a character option that isn't available elsewhere and is centric to your enjoyment of the character I might consider it. If it's "this feat is better than the alternatives" then... yes, it is better. That's why it's banned.

Psions play about the same role in this world as they do in most others. Which is to say no more or less than other roles. They are a rare breed that the common person has trouble distinguishing from the more abundant "magic" and "divine" users.

Fey are a bit different. Due to the cataclysm pathways to this world from others were almost completely disrupted. Extraplanar travel was made incredibly dangerous, with much greater chance of arriving in the middle of the ocean or violently torn apart by the Cloud Barrier than arriving safely on an island. And of course, even if you do arrive on land there's no guarantee it will be civilized (and getting from one island to another is quite impossible without some manner of flight; preferably stable flight 'lest you get caught by a storm or rough air pocket and fall into the Cloud Barrier). As a result most fey in this world are native, several generations removed from the original residents who survived the cataclysm. There is, however, a single stable door in the mostly elven city-state of An'Onhur connecting to Sigil, but extraplanar travel is still unpopular.  

[Gender Ender]

I hadn't! At least, not in sufficient detail to notice that. Good to hear, though.

Awww....well, I understand and sympathize with your reasoning. I'll replace them with...something. I'll figure it out.

Okay, interesting! I think I'll have her be a native-born fey, then; probably from somewhere that would qualify for the center of learning/library city sort of deal most settings seem to have tucked away somewhere.

Vervain is a mean librarian who wants to be the world's cutest, tiniest lich: that is her backstory.

UPDATE:
All essentials feats replaced with alternates; also switched out two of the AW powers for a better balance of effects.  

[Rain Yupa]

Trust me, you wouldn't want me piloting any sort of vehicle. I tend to turn the dial to kamikaze with almost no provocation whatsoever.

I'm horrible at Tsuro.

Anywho, let's throw some dice at Ms. Selini and see what happens.

GO MY MINIONS  

[Rain Yupa]

I kid, I kid. Let us discuss peace over tea.

FOOLED YOU, SECONDARY BARRAGE!  

[Rain Yupa]

4, 4, 1, 6 = 14
5, 3, 2, 1 = 10
2, 2, 2, 5 = 9
1, 4, 5, 1 = 10
4, 3, 1, 1 = 8
6, 6, 4, 2 = 16
2, 5, 2, 3 = 10

Yuck. 9, 10, 10, 10, 14, 16? 15/22 of a point buy.

Save me some point buy Severn!  

[Rain Yupa]

Definitely playing a Cleric because I don't see enough Clerics in this guild. The ones I *have* seen have always been pacifistic. But I say "ENOUGH!" I say "NO LONGER SHALL CLERICS LIVE UNDER THE SHADOW OF STEREOTYPE AND OBSCURITY!"

Just seeing what my race roll would be. That or human, whichever I feel more strongly about.

Races 1-8 = PHB
Races 9-14 = PHB2
Races 15-18 = PHB3

Halfling or Human Cleric. Hm.

Yeah. Halfling melee cleric, because making a halfling casty cleric is what a normal person would do. I can do this.

STR 16
CON 14
DEX 12
INT 10
WIS 9
CHA 14

EDIT

Melora made me change my stats.
STR 16
CON 14
DEX 12
INT 8
WIS 11
CHA 14  

[Gender Ender]

Brain powers and god powers: an unbeatable super-team. :3

I look forward to finding out more so as to engineer witty banter!  

[Rain Yupa]

You could always switch to Half-Elf and take witty banter as your Dilettante? Half-Elves are cool like that.  

[Gender Ender]

Rain Yupa

You could always switch to Half-Elf and take witty banter as your Dilettante? Half-Elves are cool like that.

Half-elf? Harrumph to that. Pixie fo' life!  

[Paidi tou Selini]

Who needs witty banter when you can just make them think your banter was witty?

Also, I'm just gonna leave this here in case anyone else has similar questions.

More Background

Basically you have an entire world's landmass shattered and raised into the sky as islands. Ecosystems in the uncharted lands are bizarre combinations of natural formations. You never know what you might find.
---------------------
Dragons are virtually unheard of in the charted skyroutes. Rumors of them exist in the uncharted lands, but again, you never really know what you'll find out there. Demons not so much because of the extraplanar difficulties, but occultists have been known to surface on very rare occasions. Anyone who attempts to venture below the Cloud Barrier is never seen or heard from again. Most of them can be seen being torn apart by the torrential winds before they even disappear into the clouds.
---------------------
In regards to specific-creature-slayers: They don't have the slightest idea what to expect down there, so being prepared for anything sounds like a good idea. But it's a little more realistic to recruit all-around adventurers instead of trying to get a specialist for every little thing.

 

[Rain Yupa]

Sergei's about 50% done.

Still need to do:

Combat stats
Equipment
Background

I took a trio of Halfling Cleric feats. Now if I use Second Chance, the enemy rerolls with a -2 penalty; if they miss, both me and one ally get to spend a healing surge for free. WEEEE!

I'm intending to be nice to my GM and simply spend my 13k on another level 12 item.  

[KytanaTheThief]

....I really shouldn't join another campaign. I'm not doing a great job of keeping up with the ones I'm in.

I shouldn't.

I really shouldn't.

*sighs and starts debating races/classes*