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Sajiri
2014-09-17, 03:28 PM
In a solo campaign I finally started just the other week in which my character is a pirate captain, I've just picked up an interesting member of the crew. Before I go any further, this is a homebrew system that is based far more on just roleplaying than any actual rules (its a kind of prompt based text system the DM is making, with some occasional dice rolling) that was based very loosely on pathfinder lore - its got similar races, classes, etc, but they are far more customizable.

So I just rescued a two-tailed kitsune boy we found trying to use magic to hide himself while he was floating around in a tiny boat in the middle of the sea after escaping a ship of people that were going to sacrifice him, and now he's the cabin boy on my ship since he's basically pledged his life to my character. The DM has told me that aside from the stuff he can already do, I can basically assign him to learn and study whatever I want and invest in him to eventually make him pretty powerful.

He can already cast illusions and use his kitsune magic. He's also incredibly intelligent (child prodigy) and has self appointed himself to disperse and handle some of the funds of the ship (on his first morning he saw fit to replace some of my character's furniture with a filing cabinet in her quarters). He has a special story power of murder (randomly rolled from a table), where he can take any inanimate object and force it through someone- aka he could take a stick and slice someone's arm off with no effort, but he has to actually WANT to do this, it's not done by accident. This can be levelled up.

Now Im to give him some assignments and stuff to study, at the moment he can handle three tasks at once, but Im completely stumped on what to do with this kid.

1. I told him to study first aid and some healing magic. We already had a healer on this ship this was more for roleplaying purposes- he's upset about having the power of murder, so my character has him study healing to make him feel better

2. Arcane magic from the sorcerer on the ship, he's already learning or knows other types of magic, so he might as well learn this too.

3. ....? I thought of having him learn a weapon, but he doesnt really need a weapon with that murder-power of his, and I have plenty of fighters on the ship already. Various suggestions the DM made as examples- diplomacy, bluffing/honeyed words, guns, I can also think of navigation (already got 4 people on the ship that can do this to varying degrees), mercantile since he's already dealing with money. Of course there's weaponry but for roleplay purposes my character would probably want to keep him out of direct fighting being that he's a child (yes she's a pirate, but she just had her two sons of about the same age as him murdered only months before)

So if you had a child prodigy with high intelligence, natural magic in the form of illusions, charms and enchantments, a murder power he can use when he gets really pissed off, who you could train to be whatever kind of character you wanted, what would you do with him?

LokiRagnarok
2014-09-17, 04:39 PM
What is your alignment?
This is a shorthand way of asking: What does your character care about? Does she think other people deserve to have the things she wants to aquire for herself?

As a example, a Neutral character might teach him everything he needs to care for himself (ie Survival skills, maybe a honest Craft/Profession). A Good character might teach him the values of friendship, loyalty and honesty and how to make friends - so maybe stuff like Sense Motive or even Divine Magic.
An Evil character, on the other hand, might teach him to be reliant on her. LE might add a spice of "obey authority" to it and would be not interested in teaching him anything beyond what he needs to be useful to her.

If she has longterm goals, she might teach him skills conducive to them. Ie if she is a priestess guarding the Portal Through Which Horrible Things Try To Break Into Our World, she might teach him enough to carry on her legacy.

Depending on her social standing, she might see value in teaching him proper behaviour (ie court etiquette, genealogy trees of nobility, or the secret handshake of her guild).

Sajiri
2014-09-17, 07:52 PM
A bit more about them then.

My character is official chaotic neutral, but she's more of a borderline between the good-neutral scale (at the moment anyway). She's a noble who's home just got razed to the ground and most people think she's dead, so she doesn't have many long term goals at the moment other than find her missing daughter who they think got taken away by the invaders of her home, and find a new place for her small crew to settle since atm they're all just living off their (tiny) ship. She's kind of motherly toward this npc, at least when nobody else is around, due to the previously mentioned murder of her sons during the attack, so she probably wouldnt be keen on him fighting (he's only 9-10)

As for this npc, he was upper class and has exceptional manners and organization already. He said he wanted to be a judge until he was selected for this ritual sacrifice. He drew up his own contract when he was offered to stay on the ship and took it on himself to organize my character's funds and room and I think he was looking into their trading opportunities as well (cant quite remember that one, was getting late at that point)

The other npc's already on the crew only consist of two characters with actual experience at sea. One is a fighter, one a bard, there's a sorcerer (specializes in necromancy), a barbarian mercenary, a wandering priestess appointed as the ships surgeon, a gunslinging former detective who's appointed himself to gather information in ports, and a couple of random peasants (one's a cook, one's a carpenter, one's learning from the quartermaster, one's a former prison guard). Basically just a bunch of people who happened to be in a cell block with my character at the start of the game when they all busted out.

Demidos
2014-09-19, 07:25 PM
Well, you say he has some talent for illusions, and it seems it would be best to keep him out of direct combat.

Based of schools of magic (may not be relevant in your campaign, but an easy way to categorize spells), you could make him some sort of Transmuter, Illusionist, Abjurer, or Conjurer.

However, based off your descriptions, my first thought would be to make him an infiltrator and spy. He has the necessary knowledge to mingle with the upper class, but can probably pick up enough from the detective to also pass for anything else. He has a good knowledge of laws and can impersonate policemen and such with illusions. If you can pick up some form of minor shapechanging ability, you'd be golden. If he turns out to be an amoral sociopath or if at some point in the future you become fine with not coddling him, you could always set him up as an assassin.