[Pathfinder] Altered Adventurers

[DedWards]

I've started working on a campaign idea that resulted from my group looking through creature templates and joking about how they would make for cool character builds.


Templates (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates)
Templates by CR Adjustment (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/indexes-and-tables/templates-by-cr-adjustment)

Now there's a problem of the templates messing with the overall power of the character(s) because Pathfinder doesn't use Level Adjustment (LA) like DnD 3.5, but I did find a rule in the in Bestiary 1 "Monsters as PCs (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/monsters/monstersAsPCs.html)" (pgs 313 & 314) that gives a suggestion on how to use the monster's CR to calculate how many Class levels it should have, etc. I decided to use that as reference with the CR adjustment of the templates to get a starting Class level for my campaign idea. Currently using the quick formula of 4 minus CR adjustment equals the starting Class level, as I'm limiting the players to templates of CR 3 or less.


Now onto the actual game world. I'll start with the history, or how much I've come up with so far.

Thousands of years ago, there was a virus (or something) that no, then modern, magic nor alchemy nor medicine could cure was slowly killing off all the major races (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/races) (Core; Featured; and Uncommon races as per the Advanced Race Guide). So, in a last ditch effort to save their races, a series of Alchemists and Wizards, among other scholars, decided on a drastic measure: fusing their kind with animals and / or outsiders might just save them. They where right, the Alteration, as they called the procedure, made the subjects, or Altered, immune to the virus. But there was a number of down sides, among them where failures: people who died due to the Alteration Procedure; people who came out more animal; mad; or lacking in intelligence. They found more successes after implementing an incubation period as part of the procedure. This incubation resulted in the need to store the Altered for long periods of time.

The PC's where part of the last to go through with the Alteration Procedure and where being kept in an incubation room and part way into incubation, their room's entrance and part of the passageway outside. This collapse was a side effect of an outbreak of of the more animalistic and mindless Altered and the ensuing battle that killed a good number of the Altered and all the Wizards and Alchemists involved in the fight. The room's entrance's cave in saved the PC's from being killed by the remaining animalistic and mindless Altered, unlike all the other Altered in incubation, who were killed. Sadly, with no one to wake the PC's, they slept on in their incubation tubes for thousands of years, until a shift of earth damaged one of the PC's incubation tubes, causing him/her to awaken (preferably someone of a good alignment). After the PC wakes up the rest of the PC's, all that's left is to get out. And this is as far as I've gotten for now.

The ideas I'm having include the escaped Altered banding together in to form clans of sorts with similar 'species' of Altered, with each generation of offspring gaining more intelligence than their parents until they match equivalent level to the normal races as we know. Even going so far as to create young societies, with some being more advanced than others.

With Altered races, nature also altered itself. While most just adapted new ways to survive, natural Abominations (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/abomination-cr-1-tohc) occurred too.

Ideas? Thoughts? Suggestions?

[Vrock_Summoner]

It seems like an interesting concept. It could definitely use some more development.

Bear (heh, puns) in mind that racism will probably be a huge issue in your world. Not only do people tend to divide themselves over issues of appearance anyway, but that's been combined with the typical animal instinct to preserve self and, at most, other members of one's own species. Very few animals have a significant number of members who are altruistic to members of other species, never mind that plenty of animals aren't even social among their own. You might draw a lot of inspiration for how your various anthro societies interact with one another by looking at attempts in fiction to personify animals and how they interact with one another, as well as their actual interactions in nature (but remember that the human elements would generally cause more social grouping in typically solitary animals, and will probably cause predator-anthros to have an aversion to what they see as "cannibalizing" prey anthros).

If you feel like it, this neatly justifies a sort of "Forgotten Gods" situation. Like, the Altered will have their own various religions, but all will be false in some form, with the real gods being the ones left behind in the human society. But that lends itself to a darker tone than you might want to go with.

Assuming the virus only killed humans, most of the damage to ruins and the like would pretty much be from, like, looters and anarchists at the end, maybe? I mean, as far as apocalyptic events go, viruses don't cause much collateral damage, so you have to justify why these Altered couldn't or didn't just move right back into the abandoned ruins and pretty much reforge some level of society then and there.

I'll kick more thoughts your way when I think of them, but it's painful to look at World-Building posts with zero replies.

[Mlmiii]

Very few animals have a significant number of members who are altruistic to members of other species, never mind that plenty of animals aren't even social among their own.

A starting point might be to model major political groups after the few animals who do form interspecies co-operation. Ravens and wolves, for example. Ravens annoy the wolves by pulling on their tails (they do this to everyone), but because the wolves often leave scraps that the ravens scavenge, the ravens will develop special calls roughly translating to "EY WOLFY! THERE'S FOOD HERE!", which the wolves eventually catch onto and use to skip the tracking portion of hunting. Wolf-Raven combo tribes would likely follow a similar dynamic and use their differing skills to dominate the forests, leaving the rest of the forest-focused Altered as minorities, second-class citizens, and/or exiled from their woodland homes.