What to play?

[TheBrogueadier]

Alrighty then, awkward question time. Its been a long while since I flexed my aching player muscles and I've been longing to do so again.

While I've got a vault full of characters I love, there's something a bit wrong about digging out those faces from ages past and trying to play them again!

I've narrowed it down to three choices, all three appeal equally to me in terms of mechanics and story, though each for different reasons.

1. Itinerant low-priest of Kossuth (cleric / bard). LN. A fairly devout chap returned to Sundren after being sent away in childhood. Arrived with plans to assist with Kossuthian shenanigans, religious arson and choral singing.
Based around a few loose concepts stolen from ancient Greek civilisation mixed in with some pseudo medieval religious overtones. Focused on the importance of the right balance of humours within people, and more specifically the need for heat and fire in all their doings.

2. Paladin of Chuantea (either straight paladin or paladin / ranger). Very earthy type chap in the sense of being a practical farm worker rather than idealistic green avenger type. Based on a few scatchy parts of rural idealism, athleticism and some trappings of Victoriana. Less of a Green Knight style figure and more of a common man thrust into an unwanted position and possessed of a strong sense of right, wrong and lambing.

3. Paladin of Sune (paladin / bard). A foreign chap on a pilgrimage to Sundren (chosen by throwing a dart at a map of the known world). Abstains from sex, takes lots of drugs and drinks. Inspired by a few medieval illustrations, a treatise on Courtly Love and Welsh bards. A defender of beauty and art, frowns on pointless promiscuity as it dilutes true love, a bit whimsical but with the core of bastard iron you'd expect from a Paladin.

Anyway, help me decide please! Is there room for these kind of characters on the server, would having any one of those dotted around make anyone's life less or more complicated (in a good way)?

[roguethree]

1. Itinerant low-priest of Kossuth (cleric / bard)

Can you do it better than it's been done before? Across all servers, pyromaniacs quickly descend into maddened tropes. I'd love to see this done well.

2. Paladin of Chuantea

Paladinhood should carry with it some religious education and understanding of what's expected of the paladin. Favored Souls are born, paladins are made.

3. Paladin of Sune ... frowns on pointless promiscuity as it dilutes true love

"Pointless" being a subjective word, there. Sexual abstention would run counter to the mainstream Sunite dogma, so you'd have good RP conflict there if other Sunites with more traditional views show up.

The earthy paladin is my favorite concept among the three. You should have plenty of conflict in trying to do the best by the land and the people but still needing to smite the evil.

[Fateful Encounter]

There are other Chaunteans and Sunites active right now, I think, which might help with fending off the loneliness of being the singular faithful of your god on the server.

[Kaybrie]

There are other Chaunteans and Sunites active right now, I think, which might help with fending off the loneliness of being the singular faithful of your god on the server.

I'm strongly considering rolling off of Gabrielle for this exact reason.

I would say the sunite would be an interesting addition, adding flavor some extra flavor to the sunites (Who are already a cool group to roll with anyways).

[TheBrogueadier]

Awesome, thanks for your feedback R3, very much appreciated!


Kossuthian chap

Can you do it better than it's been done before? Across all servers, pyromaniacs quickly descend into maddened tropes. I'd love to see this done well.

I really want to avoid the fire for the sake of fire thing that I've seen with a few pyromaniac characters. Mania and madness in general are staggeringly hard to play convincingly and I'm under no illusions that I'd be anything more than yet another failed attempt if I tried.

I'd rather focus on the many other angles Kossuth offers other than setting fire to things/places/people (though obviously that would still need to feature). Plus the primary priestly roles of Acceptance and Conversion in all their shapes and forms.

So, the Firelord as practical, passionate and everyday, rather than rarified, deranged and arsonist (unless its Istishians, damned fishfriggers deserve everything they get).


Paladin in green

Paladinhood should carry with it some religious education and understanding of what's expected of the paladin. Favored Souls are born, paladins are made.

You're right, there. I hadn't really factored in the needed indepth (more than your average worshipper) education on the role. I'll have to the ideas on this guy and see if I can smooth out that bump.

I guess there's a few ways to do it, tho ideally I want to avoid the handy but now dead knightly figure and AFAIK Sundren doesn't really have an existing Chuantea order.

Paladin in red

"Pointless" being a subjective word, there. Sexual abstention would run counter to the mainstream Sunite dogma, so you'd have good RP conflict there if other Sunites with more traditional views show up.

I've always thought there was quite a lot of Sune's dogma that was rather subjective, love beauty and art all being in the eye of the beholder. Having strong views on a subjective issue is the bread and butter of religion

I've got to admit this is the weakest of the three to me, there are so many juggling acts and contradictions with a Paladin of Sune that the risk of being a mushy soup is quite high. Buuuut, if I can get more of his mind down prior to playing I guess I can avoid some of the traditional sunite paladin pitfalls.

The earthy paladin is my favorite concept among the three. You should have plenty of conflict in trying to do the best by the land and the people but still needing to smite the evil.

I think I'm erring between him and the Kossuthian. I might just write out some history for both and see what pops.

Thanks again!

Thanks too FE and Kasso, your right it would be handy to have other faithful on the server that I wouldn't need to (try and) convert. The Sunites are a cool bunch and from what I've read and seen they're probably the most active of the minor faiths right now.

I probably need to decide what flavour of character would work best at the moment, the more proactive converter or the more reactive defender of faiths. Paladiny Good vs Evil, or Law v Chaos zealotry.

[Lothoir]

Chauntean Paladin: Sundarian peasant who lost everything during the Second Sundering and became a squire to a paladin who saved him, though when it came time to do his vows, he found Chauntea called him stronger than Helm/Torm/Tyr/etc, and remains on good terms with his former knight, but is now blazing his own trail for him and the other peasants.

[TheBrogueadier]

I started crafting a reply to this sometime this morning, but I made the mistake of checking something on TVTropes and now it's nearly midnight.

The trouble with having a non-chauntea knight teaching him the ropes is the implication that all paladins are the same, only differing by choice of deity. I've no desire to start off a 'what is / how to play a Paladin' debate, but given the heavily disparate natures of the faiths the various paladins of those faiths (and even within the same faith) should be equally dissimilar.

You're right though that his teacher/patron needs to be living and doing well, if every mentor went the way of Obi Wan / Dumbledore it'd mean decent teachers would be hard to find ("What, take on a promising but troubled new student? So close to my upcoming marriage and retirement? You're crazy, Have you ever read a book?").

While it's really appealing to tie him into the Second Sundering through firsthand experience there's the nagging "and suddenly he'd always been there" with situations like that, plus I need to come up with suitable antics that explain his level (I'll be retiring a high level for this).

I'll write out a bio for options 1 & 2 (too much time with pen, paper and no computer access at the moment) and see what sticks, or if anything new gets born from the writing.

[Peridan]

I'm of the opinion that you should play Eira again.

[Lothoir]

For me, the thing about having a paladin of a differing faith teach him is because at their core, paladins all strive for similar things. Goodness. Lawfulness. More goodness.

It would also give the character more opportunity to be wider in his skillsets. He comes from farming/peasantry, so he's got that knowledge. He has been exposed to other faiths so he knows more than just the basics of the other paladins out there, allowing him to be a mediator of sorts between faiths as he'll be recognized by others as a holy paladin, not just some upstart [other class] trying to tell paladins how to paladin.

As for second sundering 'poof he's there' concerns, maybe he went somewhere else. The city was overflowing with refugees and his mentor is too old to fight in combat, so he gathered up some children and other such downtrodden folk and helped them to settle in and around Sivlerymoon or wherever, and now that he's retired his protege is returning with his blade, which could be cool. A Chauntean fighting with a Tormite or Tyrran blessed weapon would be a talking point.

But of course, whatever you think would be most fun!

[Torgar]

Hey, I'm down for another Chauntean on the server for my favored of Chauntea to be able to lean on in tough times.