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Spore
2016-02-28, 01:53 AM
Greetings playground,

after weeks of arguing with myself, and later on the DM I finally decided to take my Alchemist out of our game of Pathfinder and introduce another character. The reason is actually my dumped Charisma which I roleplayed in turn as severe antisocial behaviour and little to no empathy. And because I like 180° degree turns, I replace my Strength/Intelligence/6 Cha Alchemist with a Dexterity/Charisma Bard but this time with intelligence and wisdom investment to temper his mental stats a tad bit.

I have agreed with the DM on the following backstory bits so far. And for that you'd need some backstory bits from our Paladin as well:

Ivy is the second daughter of Hakkon the ruler of the Dark Flame (Antipaladin source of powers) and sister to Tanja (who is not an antipaladin but still evil). After nearly being sacrificed to the gods, Ivy was rescued by an order of Paladins and subsequentially raised in the order, becoming a Paladin herself. Her monastery was razed by the Inquisition (because Ivy was the daughter of evil incarnate) and Ivy went to a mercenary school afterwards (she fled with one of the knights).

Several years later. On a continental and bigger scheme the group has made a name for themselves by:
- besting the lizardfolk of the southern isles and preventing a dark ritual to summon an evil half god into the world
- paving the way into a "pirate nation" amongst these islands
- twarting the schemes of a noble house that tries to puzzle together an ancient golem which is said to be the key to produce warforged soldiers on a grand scale
- stopping the human sacrifice and torture of (good) outsiders in one major facility (again said noble house is involved)

The nation Hakkon ruled is now in the wakes of a civil war because the thirteen Antipaladins ruling the country are not unified anymore. I want to play a diplomat and agent for Tanja because she has created a domain for herself which is relatively peaceful (still tyrannic but it offers more freedom than say: the nation in which Asmodeus is the main deity). And while my bard does condemn her methods he has decided that the best course of action is being close with the ruler in order to avoid any unnecessary bloodshed. For some reason or another he is now joining the group in order to accomplish something he could not do while closer to her.

I figure the party's reputation is enough for the bard to simply ask them to help stabilizing his country - or at least parts of it. Another reason is that he is sent out to spy on the paladin which I will be blunt about just because the players don't like having secrets. "Listen, darlin'. I was sent out to spy on you, so I might just tell you about it. I won't tell her your secrets but you need to help me to keep my cover."

But I want a bit of extensive backstory. A 9th level bard doesn't fall from the sky nor can he accomplish this degree of swordplay and magic like a wizard sitting in a tower or a gladiator fighting for years in an arena. I need some backstories, some tales to tell that fit his uplifting, charming and daring personality.


tl;dr: I need some adventuring anecdotes where a swashbuckling bard can fit into the story. I need many because frankly after some time of telling stories he WILL start to make up stories to show off in every possible way.

TheYell
2016-02-29, 10:01 PM
Another word for open spy is "diplomat" so perhaps that is your bard's backstory. He is tied in by blood to a ruling class and is loyal to their interests without being ambitious; he enjoys solving problems others have failed at; he feels comfortable traveling outside the country without thinking himself exiled or escaping; he has disarming candor and collusion with strangers where others might have been closed and distrusting. Perhaps he has done that sort of thing before serving as a military advisor to neighboring factions, helping them fight common enemies, and then reporting home on their fighting capabilities. Maybe he had straight battle experience and was promoted into special assignments.

A great read is Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy MacLean. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Approaches He was a diplomat in Paris who got bored, decided to get assigned to the Soviet Union, decided he was going to see the country with or without permission (preferred not to ask, it gave warning) then became one of the first SAS in WW2, kidnapped an Iranian general for the Allies, then was promoted to Brigadier and assigned to parachute into Yugoslavia, find out who the devil Tito was and whether he was more serious about fighting Nazis than the Cetniks. How a conservative member of Parliament became military attache to Communist guerrillas is a great story and maybe that is the sort of swashbuckler your bard is.

TheYell
2016-02-29, 11:12 PM
I forget the Imperial German diplomat who had "an infallible method for setting one man against another: he smiles and says, 'He doesn't like you, you know'". I think it was von Bulow, a man whose posthumous memoir revealed him so petty and devious that the Kaiser said "Von Bulow is the only man I know who died and then committed suicide."

There was the case of Blowitz the correspondent, who got the text of the Treaty of Berlin by asking the German delegate to give him the opening sentence, then quoted the opening sentence to the Russian delegate and convinced him Blowitz had read the whole thing and just needed the final version for his article.

Fitzroy MacClean was asked to "arrest" a Persian general. After walking around the town he decided only treachery would work. He asked for permission to impersonate a general, but this was declined; a real general was sent out to help him. MacClean made a lunch appointment with the Persian general to meet the British general. When they met he jumped the Persian with a pistol and told him to drive to an airport where a plane was waiting to take him to British Palestine. Then he went back to the general's HQ with a truckload of soldiers and found everybody eager to cooperate. A search of the Persian's house showed he was sending arms to the Germans so his arrest had been necessary.

MacClean stayed in a town the Partisans had recently liberated from the pro-German Croats. His landlady was a Croat and refused to give them any food and sat up playing Croatian songs on a mandolin. "Looking back, her behavior seems courageous and admirable; at the time it was merely annoying, as no doubt it was meant to be. Shortly after we moved on we learned she had informed the Germans of our whereabouts. We christened her The Little Ray of Sunshine."

MacClean himself found out that because he was a diplomat he was forbidden by law from joining the armed forces in WW2. He enlisted anyhow and was chosen for officer training. He heard rumors the Foriegn Office was going to yank him back by force, so he offered to run for Parliament and was told to quit the Diplomatic Service immediately. He won, but he had promised his constituents he would serve in the Army so went to North Africa. Churchill, who had been something of a swashbuckler himself, was very glad to hear the story and delighted in introducing MacClean to others. "Here is the young man who used the Mother of Parliaments as a public conveyance".

At one point MacClean walked ten miles into Bokhara and slept in a park for want of anything better, tailed by two KGB men who were pretending just to happen to be following him. On the next night he told the KGB that maybe if the hotel would not give him a room, he would just walk back to the train station. The KGB told him to stay put and forced the hotel to give them a bed immediately.

Another of MacClean's escapades involved reaching Afghanistan by way of the Oxus river. It was only after he got to the Afghan side that he realized nobody there spoke any language he understood. He was held at gunpoint and put in a locked room in a mountain fort. With nothing better to do, he started sucking on an orange and spitting out the seeds. As if this was a signal, he said, he was taken out and put on a horse and ridden back to the main road and left to himself.

In Yugoslavia, after Tito mysteriously vanished for a week, MacClean asked him what he had thought of Russia. Tito demanded to know who had betrayed the secret of his visit. MacClean said Churchill had asked Stalin where Tito was and Stalin had told him. Tito laughed it off. He said Churchill had gone to talk to FDR without telling Tito, so, what was the difference? MacClean said he decided not to tell Churchill what Tito had said.

MacClean met the Red Army as it pushed into Belgrade. "Seeing it was an occasion when decorations were to be worn, I took the Order of Kutuzov out of my kit and screwed it onto my blouse." The Russians boasted in Russian that their trucks were better than anything coming out of Detroit, while his American driver said it was a damn shame so many Chevy trucks were going to the Reds. MacClean thought it best not to translate these remarks.

Spore
2016-03-01, 11:41 PM
Thanks TheYell. These stories are tremendously helpful for flavor.


Another word for open spy is "diplomat" so perhaps that is your bard's backstory. He is tied in by blood to a ruling class and is loyal to their interests without being ambitious; he enjoys solving problems others have failed at; he feels comfortable traveling outside the country without thinking himself exiled or escaping; he has disarming candor and collusion with strangers where others might have been closed and distrusting. Perhaps he has done that sort of thing before serving as a military advisor to neighboring factions, helping them fight common enemies, and then reporting home on their fighting capabilities. Maybe he had straight battle experience and was promoted into special assignments.

I will have a hard time portraying any openminded character. Not because I don't think I am open minded but because my usual demeanor is quite timid and agreeable while the character could be brash from time to time. But I actually meant for him to be promoted to that rank in order to stop revolutions in their tracks. Talking down key members of the resistance, basically anything that doesn't get the local populace killed.

The rule in his home district is brutal and somwhat unfair but it stabilizes the area in a time of chaos and war. He looks to support this stability while influencing the evil ruler to be more fair - usually by bringing important people into positions where an execution would start a major riot while convincing these people that major action cannot be done from outside but from within.

He should basically try and set up a revolution under his master's nose with the royalty fulling knowing. His new assignment should lead him elsewhere (the party!) and his organizations should be able to stand up against at least moderate resistance.

daremetoidareyo
2016-03-02, 12:18 AM
At first you were afraid
Then you were petrified
You Kept thinking you would never outlive
slaad eggs in your side
But then you spent so many nights
Thinking how to sing this song
And you grew strong
And you learned how to get along


And so you're back
From outer planes
party just walked to find you here
With that sad face in chains
You should have picked that stupid lock
You should have made an anrcane key
If you'd known for just one second
You'd be sold into slavery

Go on now go break down the door
Just turn around now
and bullrush once more
Weren't you the one who tried to hurt them with lullabies
Did you think they were humanoid
Did you think they hadn't died?
Oh no, not I
You will survive

TheYell
2016-03-02, 02:43 PM
At first you were afraid

Well that's one way to play it! He's a secret agent, may as well have a Bond Theme

Where did he learn to fight? Why did he stop? He was a junior officer aboard the Forceful when it was sent to the South Seas to chastise a pirate kingdom for eating an ambassador. The Forceful was attacked by four pirate dhows and the captain slain. BARD took command, rammed the pirate chief's dhow, the Painful Death, took it by boarding, and hung the chief from the yardarm. The other dhows fled.

At the first landing at Purlingao he broke a pirate charge by charging with his own section and beheading the first three men he ran into with single strokes.

"I'm here because of four heads - the one god gave me and the three I took at Purlingao."

The Forceful was sent upriver under a new captain to seize a pirate fort at Makkagka. It was ambushed by war canoes and ran aground. The new captain was killed. BARD took command again and repelled ten waves of pirate boarders before the fort ran out of cannon shot. Then he took the fort. He hanged the pirate leaders but promised to spare the lives of the crews if they would submit. Outnumbered 5:1 by pirates, his crew burned the wreck of the Forceful, marched four days through the jungle back to Purlingao, and then he browbeat the admiral into honoring his deal to spare the pirate crew. The pirates told BARD that if they had been free they would have voted to follow him.

BARD wears his dress whites with Navy blue at the collar and cuffs and sports two awards for Valor, the Severe Combat badge, and a Broken Fort. That's almost unheard of in the Navy, but with the Civil War there are steep reductions in ships and he was beached. Tanja decided this bold young man has to be given a new career.

TheYell
2016-03-02, 03:07 PM
Normally Marshal Vogy as head of the Army would be in charge of repression of treason with mass reprisals and stiff penalties for even speaking against the regime and death for acting against it. With the coming Civil War Tanja believes that the Army has to focus on fighting other elements. And she wants to give BARD the chance to try what worked on the pirates.

BARD has responded by setting up a civilian Secret Service. This has two parts. Organized Crime and State Secrets.

Organized Crime goes after the underworld. This is brutal, vicious, and uncontrolled. BARD is actually shaping it up into something tamer and organized by territory. He is doing this by finding the most violent and aggressive mobsters and throwing them to the Army lock stock and barrel. No murder mobs, rape contracts, kidnapping for ransom, burglarizing tax houses, arsons or active treason. If they stick to their territory and modest tax evasion, loan sharking, smuggling and gambling, BARD lets them operate.

When BARD finds aristocrats dissatisfied with the regime, instead of handing them over to the Army he recruits them to the Secret Service and puts them on Organized Crime.

Not all the bosses go quietly. King Bagna tried to have BARD assassinated twice and murdered four agents of the Secret Service. BARD killed the assassins, called up the Army and went in with the troops. Despite being shot in the chest with a poisoned bolt he dropped Bagna himself and sent his whole gang to the gallows.

The younger Army officers like BARD. "Gypsy's got guts for a navy puke." The underworld has a supernatural explanation.
"Them pirates put a juju on the Hellraiser. He can't die a hero's death."

State Secrets is simply spying on the aristocracy. There are hundreds of nobles in dozens of families who were rewarded with estates and titles and serfs by Haakon. Actually most of them have no disloyalty to Tanja, but the Secret Service has files on them all, who drinks, who gambles too much, who steals, who is sleeping with who. BARD is sensible enough to see that Tanja is fascinated with all the details he is gathering, that Vogy with his noble ties was too stolid or shamefaced to share.

The Aristocrats have a mixed view of BARD. The lower nobility think his title and war record make him a role model for their sons and a potential match for their daughters. The upper nobility think he has a disgusting job. Too often BARD has had to come to a family head about a younger scion who's debauchery is getting mixed with organized crime and can't be overlooked. Marshal Vogy didn't bother about it, since he's nobility himself. But even they admit that Bard has the manners of a gentleman and his war record, and a gentleman's interest in fine horses, good food and the odd gamble.

When BARD finds commoners with dissatisfaction with the regime, instead of turning them over to the Army for a prison sentence, he recruits them into the Secret Service to spy on the aristocrats.

When Bard wants to talk about nothing, he gossips about aristocrats and their foibles. He really doesn't care, except he's weeding out which ones are sober, decent, hardy, sensible, and looking for change...

TheYell
2016-03-02, 03:33 PM
Bard does have a secret.

The Tropical Chess Club seems to be a harmless den of navy vets who like to play endless games of chess over jugs of fortified wine like they did in the War. Actually it is the executive cell of an underground. BARD has five cell mates, and those each have five secret cell mates, and those five have five. BARD doesn't know any of the others. He doesn't need to or want to, but they are in the district's government. They are presently just growing in strength and biding their time.

BARD doesn't discuss the TCC conspiracy with anybody. It is his serious passion.

Marshal Vogy thinks BARD is full of softness and collusion. Recently he made his showdown move.

Vogy said he had proof BARD recruits traitorous criminals and sympathizers into the Secret Service. He told Tanja in front of BARD that BARD ignores disloyal crimes like tax evasion and smuggling. He accused BARD of distrusting the nobility, the old guardians of the realm.

BARD lost his temper.

"Marshal Vogy regrets he cannot reconquer the realm and put it to the sword...Of course I have whiners and cowards and malcontents in my Service. The heroes without a gripe go into the Army like Marshal Vogy here...I can't wave papers and say, here's what's wrong with the Army. Not my job. Show me your softness, your collusion! Or do you pretend you haven't got any? You see the files my Service fills on aristocrats like Vogy, details he never bothered to file because its all on his friends!... I was asked to apply the principle I learned in the South Sea- take heads! Take the head and the riffraff fall down thanking you. I cull heads. I don't waste time with riffraff. They call me Hellraiser...ask them who's soft...they openly say I can't die a hero but Marshal Vogy will put me on a gallows yet...get off my back and let me do the job you won't!"

Then Tanja lost her temper at both of them. She told the Marshal that there were enough military threats to the State to preclude him from telling her how to run it, and she chose BARD for a minor task and he was doing it her way and it was not for a Marshal to undermine the Queen's ministers. Then she blew up at BARD. "Conceited little parrot who never did wrong, eh? Savior of the Empire! But I know what you're worth! To the penny! Riffraff? You call the best families in the Realm riffraff? You jumped up bosun's mate, you forget who you're talking to! Get back to work then! Both of you!"

The TCC was greatly concerned to learn of this encounter. They believe Tanja's wrath is a real threat. They also do not discount the myth about the curse. They told BARD that the Secret Service can operate without him, which is a hint to him that the TCC has tendrils in his own department. They want BARD to go abroad, for his own safety, and also to find resources for the TCC abroad. The TCC doesn't dare steal or embezzle anything. Finally, they do agree that the State could use some help in the Civil War so they aren't consumed by a more demonic power.


So anyhow that's a sample backstory. That's why a fighting bard got involved in repression of revolt, did it his own way, and now seeks to join a party out of the country.

Spore
2016-03-02, 11:04 PM
These are incredible pointers for an enjoyable backstory. I might mix in a few details from a future NPC admiral planned for my own campaign. After the initially timid responses I had small hopes for this thread but you have surprised me with ample participation and brilliant ideas. I'm kind of a knobhead when it comes to storytelling: I am figuratively and possibly literally too pragmatic to invest much time into writing a short story for any character I play but you have given me enough material to force me to increase my character's age to a point where I have to start bothering about middle aged penalties.

I will try and combine your ideas with mine this weekend and post the result here. This might take a while because I will then have to translate 3-4 pages from German into (broken) English.

TheYell
2016-03-03, 12:27 AM
Very glad you like it!

Age shouldnt be a problem. In the old days a boy went into the navy as an officer at the age of 12. BARD could have been a teenager in the Pirate War when combat pushed him to leadership. Also if we assume he is minor aristocracy then that will open doors into government that others would have to labor hard to earn. He could still be in his early thirties or late twenties. His youth might be one reason his reforms are so firecely resented by traditionalists.

Spore
2016-03-03, 11:02 AM
His youth might be one reason his reforms are so firecely resented by traditionalists.

With his home country being - and I quote - "like Mordor but more evil" I fully expect a slew of Orcish, Ogre and Trollish halfbreed in rank and file. And with the country being evil I actually fully expect the monstrous races looking down onto the feeble humankind in a very racist way.

TheYell
2016-03-03, 12:29 PM
The racial angle makes it complex then. I look forward to seeing what you post. Remember to break it up into multiple posts if its that long. I tried my backstory as one post and had to retype it as several.

Spore
2016-03-05, 05:27 PM
Oh boy, translating two pages of backstory after throwing away two drafts. Here we go.

You see a wiry young man, approximately 20 years old. His skin is weather-beaten but is well-tended as is his beard. His typical outfit consists of a clean but damaged captain's uniform. His shoes are worn but well-kept his jacket was pierced by several weapons but is mended. He wears his leather vest open but his belt keeps his clothes from flying around during battle. Black gloves cover his hands and you can make out a big scar across his chest leaving you to wonder how many duels this man has actually lost but still survived.

He has typically a positive demeanor and a smile upon his face. There isn't much that can ruin his day.

http://i.imgur.com/s9o4t7J.png
http://i.imgur.com/M4NRcBq.jpg

Lord Carim Preston - otherwise known under the alias Captain Flint - is the son of Joselyn and Rinaldo Preston. As the kid of two noble diplomats Carim enjoyed an orderly childhood. Early in his life, Carim was taught manners for the royal court and fencing in order to bring him to the court of the Thirteen the Antipaladin rulers of the kingdom. In this time Carim didn't really see his parents and only saw his two servants: his governess Erica and his fencing teacher Mirus.

At the age of 13 Carim was sent to an elite academy in order to increase his education and to learn arcane magics. At the age of 16 however he was drafted into the Marine as a junior officer and sailed aboard the Battlecry. Working under a captain Bellows the Battlecry escorted trading ships that were sacked by pirates. As they learned later these pirates were paid by certain agents of the Thirteen in order to increase their personal ressources for the upcoming civil war.

These skirmishes became more and more aggressive with the time until the pirates were sailing with whole fleets. The Battlecry was confonted by three dhows and a larger flag ship. After being boarded by the second dhow Bellows was killed in the fray. Leaving Preston to guide the fight to victory he ordered the crew to ram the flag ship and charged through the enemy ranks in order to duel and kill their captain after taking several heavy hits.

This dazzling display intimidated the rest of the pirates into fleeing. Carim however, for whom Bellows was the first real father figure swore bloody revenge. He followed the much quicker ships to a secret harbor where they had to stock up on supplies. He again fought himself through the pirates, killing their leaders and offering the remaining pirates safety, freedom, a pay and a small piece of land once the civil war was over.

Back in the harbor of Thunderstone the Battlecry was given a new captain because the admiral decided that Carim was too young and careless despite his deeds and the support of his troops. Captain Loubard was a typical noble fleabag. Condescending to everyone that is below his rank only the incredible support of the clergy as well as the fear he inspired in the hearts of everyone kept him in office. The new objective was to find and destroy a Pirate fort on the coast. Captain Loubard was in favor of bombarding the fort from sea but his men told him that the cliffs could make the Battlecry immovable. Ignoring the warning the Battlecry was steered in front of the pirate fort and the battle started. In his panic however he felt that he needed the aid of a summoned demon. Thus he began the bloody ritual. After having sacrificed five crewman, Preston had enough and pierced his heart, thus canceling the dark invocation. He ordered to run the Battlecry into the beach and then hide in defensive positions.

The pirates left the fort with a small group to kill the stragglers but got ambushed by the Marines. Carim repelled ten waves of pirates until they ran out of ammunition and supplies and gave into Carims demands. He again agreed to integrate the pirates into the royal marine. After a long march back to Thunderstone, the Avatar of the Black Flame noticed Carims deeds. He was conscripted as her advisor as well as to the secret service, stopping smuggling, and killing a handful of smaller crime bosses as well as Bagna the beggar king and bringing a lot of order to the city of Thunderstone.

His love interests are pretty much those of a typical sailor with one exception.

http://i.imgur.com/zfNkklJ.jpg

Amelia, a half-orcish bodyguard for one of his harshest critics, Marshall Dunstan, is a stalwart fighter and also a fan of liberal use of the whip. Although their affair only was short, they are both still in love with each other. While Amelia finds Carim to weak to defend himself, she has a soft spot for men who can talk even the fiercest orc into helping him while Carim admires her strength. These feelings however don't stop Carim from petty flirting and sex.

TheYell
2016-03-05, 08:12 PM
Very good! Glad I could help!

I like how you cover his love life which is something a bard should have.

Spore
2016-03-06, 07:01 AM
I like how you cover his love life which is something a bard should have.

At this point I am not sure if he loves his mistress or his blade more.

The Lady Henrietta
http://i.imgur.com/xVdITXP.jpg

Henrietta is Carim's Pride and his most valuable possession. As a parting gift from his fencing teacher Mirus Carim received this masterfully made rapier on the day he left to joint the academy.

He then received some magical oils for a dump price at a foreign market with the enigmatic words: "Care for the Lady and the Lady will care for you." After using these oils on the weapon the blade became objectively more powerful but part of his soul, his very essence was linked to it as well.

He can cast his spells through her blade and fight with seemingly overpowering foes but he seems to loose his entire calm and collectedness when leaving the blade. His magic becomes unstable, his face becomes more wrinkled and his aura looses its strength, making him look rather ill to the eye of a stranger. Like a husband whose wife has died he looses part of himself when he is parted with the weapon.

TheYell
2016-03-06, 04:10 PM
I like the sword! Your DM should allow you to have something special by level 9.

I have a thought about what you said that humans tend to be looked down on by the tougher races.

His grandfather Evelyn Preston was a Level-20 bloodrager sorcerer with the Abyssal bloodline- sufficiently inhuman to be respectable. The Preston family, although human, was enrolled in the bloodline nobility, a minor and cash-free dignity of lordship with the limit that their marriages must be approved by the Throne. This irritates Carim with the regime since he doesn't want to be married for breeding.

Evelyn Preston enslaved some elemental wizards and summoners and put them to work carving a castle out of a mountain pass, so he was made a Baron with timber and mining villages around his castle. This barony passed to Carim's uncle Alistair, who is a Lawful Evil bloodrager sorcerer as are his two sons, so Carim will not inherit the estate. It was Alistair as head of family who decreed Carim must go into the Marine when it became clear he does not have the family talent in full (he refused to pay for any other option). Baron Alistair is far too conventional to approve the match with Amelia unless something radical changes.

TheYell
2016-03-06, 05:13 PM
You said you wanted anecdotes:

Countess Mesmeralda was a stunning half-orc noble with estates on both sides of what is now the border. She visited Thunderstone and commenced a brazen flirtation with Carim. He thought it was real, but found to his horror that she was using the flirtation with him as cover to have affairs with regimental commanders along the border in advance of a sneak attack. He confronted her and begged her to surrender and confess her contacts in order to be spared the gallows. She stunned him with an enchanted bedroom whip (!), poured poison into his frozen open mouth, dressed for travel, went to her carriage, and was arrested by the guards Carim brought with him. Carim survived. Mesmeralda said nothing about his plea for mercy, probably disgusted and figuring her duty was to leave such a mooncalf in office with the enemy. She went to the gallows. Poor Carim actually misses her (lingering enchantment?) and holds her death against the regime. But bizarrely and probably due to his magical good fortune, the affair worked to his advantage. Almost everyone thinks Carim set out to have his lover executed for treason. Tanja is delighted he passed the ultimate test of loyalty. Dozens of other minor nobles who might have intrigued for his position are scared off, they think he is his grandfather all over again, much too dangerous to cross over a mere job. Nobles who might have demanded Permission for him to marry their daughters are hesitant, suspecting him of great cruelty and fanatic ambition and being more of an adventurer than a stable aristocrat, so he is free to carouse where he might have been tied down by now.

Spore
2016-03-07, 02:01 AM
I like the sword! Your DM should allow you to have something special by level 9.


Oh it does. It can parry (as the duelist/swashbuckler ability) or riposte (counterattack after successful hit) yet but not both like the real deal. 3/day.

I like both stories but I figure I will make the DM pick the NPC's (both father's and Alistair's) class.

TheYell
2016-03-07, 05:21 AM
Yes it was the author Robert A Heinlein who said always let the editor monkey with your story, he will like it better.