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Styrax
06-25-15, 12:05 PM
Name: Jolok Gauntless
Nickname/Alias:*Red-Bone, Gaunt, Hemo
Age: 29
Race: Mixed-breed Orc/Urodin human
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 185 lbs
Occupation:* rogue Blood Mage, Itinerant criminal freelancer
Personality: Reticent, furtive, suspicious, cynical, loyal, friendly, optomistic.
History: ((I had a 8-10 paragraph history ranging from his odd parentage to his immediate past but lost the entire post. I'll come back to this and flesh it out later.)) Parents - Gunt Red Bone and Faelhna; born "Gunt-Loss". After his father's estrangement, his mother changed it to "Gauntless" and made it their surname. Homeland - Old Knife, Salvar. Notable enemy - Khorkevic "Crow", member of the Thieves' Guild and leader of the Crow gang, Jolok drew his ire at age 19 and fled Rubble Town and Old Knife to search out the Red Bone Tribe and his father to the north. A decade later, he has emerged from the snowy forest with unkempt hair, a ragged beard, and hunted eyes, fleeing south-east seeking the harbor town.

Appearance:
Orc and Urodin heritage have mixed to form a man taller than his human kin, though only average compared to Salvarians. Likewise, his lean muscled frame lacks the overt bulk of the Salvarians or Skavians, let alone Orcs. He has the dark brown hair of Urodin stock and olive green eyes.

His Orcish blood is largely unnoticeable save for a few tells - his brow is slightly sloped toward heavy, he has elongated lower canine teeth which, while hidden behind his lips, create the effect of a pronounced underbite, and his tanned skin has a grey tint to it that combines to seem faintly olive.

He is dressed in layers of threadbare, heavy cloth underneath a leather jerkin. Over all, he wears a well-worn hooded coat which reaches down to just above his knees and features wide, cuffed sleeves. From his rugged leather belt hang a small crossbow, a battered camp fire pot, and a sheathed short sword.

Upon arrival in Scara Brae, his hair is unkempt, naturally curly and reaching his shoulders and sports a short, bristly beard.

Skills:
Literacy: Jolok can read and write in the languages he knows. He speaks Salvic, Tradespeak, and Orcish.
Basic Survivalism: Jolok has minor knowledge in Herbology from his mother's teaching and can adequately forage. He has spent a deal of time travelling between small settlements and has learned to survive with only a few necessities.

Fishing: Jolok began fishing at a young age on the banks of the great river separating Old Knife from Knife's Edge and has been an avid fisherman his whole life.

Stealth: Adolescence spent among the criminals of Rubble Town and a decade in the wilderness have left Jolok skilled at avoiding detection in urban and forested environments.

Dirty Fighting: Jolok learned to fight in dark alleys with darker allies. He is versed in the underhanded tactics used in gang brawls and desperate single combat.

Arcane Dabbler: Like most practitioners of Blood Magic, Jolok uses his secret knowledge to supplement his skill in more acceptable fields of magic that he would otherwise lack the ability to use.

Blood Magic: Jolok is a Novice Blood Mage, using forbidden rites to draw upon the power of blood. This allows him a smattering of combat spells, as well as the ability to strengthen magic by channeling the life essence of blood. It provides the following minor cantrips:

Sear: burns blood into an object to "engrave" a message or image. Most effective on flesh; it causes stinging pain but no lasting damage.

Dark Lore: In his endless search to decipher the secrets of Blood Magic, Jolok has also come across similar magical schools including Necromancy, Demonology, and Nethermancy(shadow magic). Because of this exposure to these dark arts, he can identify or suspect the use of such and can sometimes spout lore about them.

Basic First Aid: Due to the nature of his skillset, Jolok must often patch wounds with little down-time.

Abilities:

Blood Charged (empower): Jolok can harness the power of blood to empower his magic. If an ability indicates Blood Charge, he can expend a single Charge to create the listed effect. He starts with maximum 3 Charges and cannot exceed his maximum. He can deal slight damage to himself to gain 1 Charge.

- Arterial Armor: Jolok drains a corpse of all fluids, gain 1 Charge and form a protective aura of magically charged blood. Whenever an attack would deal non-psychic damage to Jolok, he can spend 1 Charge to negate moderate attacks such as large fireballs and blasts of magic, or reduce the damage of more advanced ones'.t. The armor is lost afterwards. He can only use this spell 1 time per day due to the level of concentration and magical control required.

Blood Magic (school): Jolok is an aspiring Blood Mage, having ritually consumed the heart of a living creature under appropriate rituals. Through hidden rites culminating in the inscribing of his Blood Ward, he can cast a selection of arcane spells:

- Hemorrhage: Touches the target and utters the trigger word to deal medium bleeding damage as the blood vessels in the localized area of the touch rupture, causing internal injury and severe pain. Gains 1 Charge.He can use this 3 times before exhausting himself. Charged Hemorrhage - Gain no Charge; instead expend 1 Charge when casting to cause a second, weaker Hemorrhage to trigger a short time later (1 post from the cast) in the target for slight damage. Only 3 Charges can be used to this effect without significant rest (regardless of total charges remaining) as it requires extreme exertion by Jolok. Requires blood.

Cheap Shot: Jolok takes advantage through unscrupulous means such as a kick to the groin, sand in the eyes, clever maneuvering or a momentary arcane distraction to stun the target for about 3 seconds. The maximum distance he can reach with this is 10 meters and he can use 3 different tactics before the opponents become to wary of his tricks.

Weaknesses:

Blood Dependency: Blood Magic requires blood to be most effective. Any spell that requires blood requires a corporeal, living creature with bodily fluids, or a vampire.

Evil Aura: Due to his association with foul magics, Jolok is considered Evil aligned for any abilities that have a specific effect on Evil creatures (such as detecting or repelling)regardless of his actual alignment. His "aura" matches the cleric of an evil deity.

Stiff Hand: Jolok's left hand is covered in scars of various length, but all are clearly knife wounds. It lacks dexterous ability due to nerve damage and can do no more than grip an object, and his grip strength is weaker as well.

Equipment/Weapons:
Alley-piece: A simple crossbow, small enough to be fired with one hand or used in two hands. Perfect for cramped quarters and favored among urban skirmishers, it lacks the range of even short bows

Curved Shortsword: Long knife or short sword depending on who you ask, it is of iron quality. The blade is broad and gently curved like a saber.

Concealed Knife: A straight iron dagger hidden up a sleeve or among the folds of his rags, used in rituals or as an emergency defense.

Old Cooking Pot: Small iron pot used for cooking over campfires; a memento of his mother. It's seen a lot of use.

Sanguine Compendium of Taergash: A stolen spell book filled with blood magic rituals, incantations, treatises, theories and wisdom, complete with illustrations and penned in red ink...

Blood Ward: The ritual tattoo covering Jolok's left arm in dark red ink...it glows like embers when he casts a spell.

Blood Vials (3): Three small vials of precious glass used to collect and store blood.

Tattoo Instruments: The basic tools needed to permanently apply ink to skin.

Fishing Line: Fine gut-line, hook,and bobber used to catch fish.

Bandages: Used to staunch and bind wounds.

Styrax
06-26-15, 05:24 PM
I made some edits and color coding to clarify a few things:

(Blood Magic) is a school with no "mechanic" effect that will have other specific spells with mechanical effects added to it as Jolok gains levels.
(Blood Charge) has no effect other than to make (Blood Magic) spells more versatile, essentially like "Speed" or "Strength" but more limited and structured.
The synergy

Hysteria
06-29-15, 07:05 AM
With Hemorrhage's blood charge, what sort of projectile does he use? Is it visable/dodgable?

Styrax
06-29-15, 06:25 PM
I envisioned it not being a projectile, but basically reaching out magically. More akin to causing someone to burst into flame than to shoot fire at them. Obviously, a magical defense like arcane shield etc would still work. I'm not sure about dodging...thematically it doesn't make sense but I do see how that might be considered overpowered.

Originally I had Charged version remain melee but breifly debilitate the area, such as making a leg unable to support itself (snare), an arm unable to hold a weapon effectively (disarm) obscure their vision them as their eyes bleed when done to the head (blind), or cause them to double over in extreme pain of done to the torso (stun) but I thought this seemed too strong and switched it to extending the range instead. Though I suppose it is less potent than simply saying "Charged: in addition to the damage, the target is stunned for a few moments by the internal pain."

I could indicate that the charged version requires him to basically "hold firing position" for a few moments while he focuses his will to the ranged target's internal system, allowing a person to dodge away if they are quick enough before his focus can generate the ranged form, giving the mechanical effect of it being an avoidable projectile even though there is none in the narrative.

I'll keep thinking on it, maybe I can come up with a more elegant solution. For example, being able to use it on two (one for each hand) people in melee at once instead of making it ranged? Or having the charged version cause it to leach their blood to also heal himself for slight damage? Or perhaps lowering the damage to slight normally and making it moderate when charged, and then when gaining a level increasing the base damage to moderate and making the charged version deal heavy? (Although that particular idea is very boring to me, just feels like adding +1dmg type thing, I could play any number of crunchy RPG's if I wanted to work with that sort of metric =P)

I could redo and standardize the Blood Charge so that in all the damaging spells the Charge version also causes it to self heal. That might make it much easier to manage as spells are added and keep me from having to think up creative Charge effects for each, as well as make it easier to delineate between them without overlapping effects. Here's an example of what I'm thinking:

Spells:

-Hemorrhage: melee, medium bleeding damage, 4 uses. -Charged:The spell also heals the caster of slight wounds. Requires blood. 3 uses (regardless of total charges remaining), does not expend basic uses.
-Crimson Bolt: ranged 30 meters, medium damage, decent accuracy, 3 uses. -Charged: Also heals the caster of slight wounds, 3 uses (regardless of total charges remaining), does not expend basic uses. Requires blood.
-Blood Transfusion: deal slight damage to self and heal slight wounds of another, 3 uses. Requires Blood -Charged: Deal slight damage to another instead of yourself. 3 uses (regardless of total charges remaining), does not expend basic uses. Requires blood.


I don't know, I'll keep thinking on it. I'm trying to balance between the fact that I'm sacrificing one ability to only making the blood magic school more versatile and keeping the spells themselves from being too strong when used with the Charge. The Blood Charge itself will never get more powerful as I level except possibly adding +1 maximum charges, which will allow more empowered spells to be used per thread (but not increase the amount of charges any given spell can use, i.e Hemorrhage will always be limited to 3 Charged versions). I obviously don't want to be overpowered, but I also don't want to be under-powered. I need a spreadsheet, curse my synergy idea!

Styrax
06-29-15, 06:51 PM
OH and one thing I really need clarified.

In the use of "schools" you talk about adding various effects/spells all counting as a single ability, per http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?29137-Ability-Tips!-Read-amp-Share.

I WAS confused, but I believe after rereading a few times that it's only spells with similar effects that count as one single ability? In my spell example above, Hemorrhage and Crimson Bolt could be the same School being added to as it levels, while Transfusion would be a separate ability because it is essentially a heal, rather than a basic damager. Is that correct?

Meaning that just because I have 5 "Blood Magic" spells wouldn't mean it only cost one ability slot total unless they were all just variations of the same effect with minor differences to severity, range, cost etc. A Blood Magic healing spell and a Blood Magic shielding spell would still be two more abilities. That seems right to me, makes more sense than I first misunderstood =P.

Hysteria
06-30-15, 08:36 AM
I WAS confused, but I believe after rereading a few times that it's only spells with similar effects that count as one single ability? In my spell example above, Hemorrhage and Crimson Bolt could be the same School being added to as it levels, while Transfusion would be a separate ability because it is essentially a heal, rather than a basic damager. Is that correct?

Meaning that just because I have 5 "Blood Magic" spells wouldn't mean it only cost one ability slot total unless they were all just variations of the same effect with minor differences to severity, range, cost etc. A Blood Magic healing spell and a Blood Magic shielding spell would still be two more abilities. That seems right to me, makes more sense than I first misunderstood =P.

That's correct. You might have a fire mage who uses fire to do several things, but it is only a school if the end spell effects are also similar.

There are a few ideas that were goo you touched on. First thing, I don't see Blood Charged as a seperate ability, it ties in with the others and change's their strength slightly (but applying an overall use limit).

You can keep it as a seperate heading, it just shouldn't count as a seperate ability from the ROG mod's point of view (that might change if you alter it too much). What it does mean is that your hemorrhage can be a bit stronger than a normal starting ability. If you had three abilities all with charged versions it'd be too strong. You could have something like this:

Hemorrhage: Touches the target and utters the trigger word to deal medium bleeding damage as the blood vessels in the localized area of the touch rupture, causing internal injury and severe pain. He can use this 4 times before exhausting himself.

Blood Charge - Expend a charge to imprint a stored version of Hemorrhage. A short time (a post) after the touch, the blood vessels burst again causing greater pain and bleed damage. This needs to be attached to a use of the base version of Hemorrhage.

Or, you could physicall shoot a sort of parasitic blood projectile that causes pain and pulls blood out of the person for two posts.

In honesty, you'll probably need to just RP with the character for a bit before you find something you like.

Styrax
06-30-15, 02:01 PM
Thanks for the continuing feedback!

One more question regarding Ability Schools - I assumed you could only add different sub-moves as you upgrade the ability. Is that the case, or could one start with more than one "spell" in a school? For me specifically it would mean the melee, moderate damage spell and a ranged, slight damage spell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~

I've had an idea to make it all a bit more streamlined and hopefully workable. I've edited the sheet appropriately.

To summarize - I eliminated the wording regarding Blood Charges not being spent when sources of blood exist and hurting himself to create said source. Instead, I fully embraced the charge mechanic and allowed Hemorrhage to gain a charge in its normal form and for him to gain a charge by dealing damage to himself. It has the same effect in the end, but is less words and simpler to regulate/keep track of.

I also gave Blood Charge it's own subset of spells that REQUIRE the use of charges, rather than optional boosts. Thus, the Charge mechanic is now more of a resource management system for the "class", while still providing it's own benefit as a separate ability. And of course anything added here that is different from the Arterial Armor effect will be a separate ability.

The original plan was for all the blood magic specific spells to have some interaction with Blood Charge where it makes sense , which is why I did want to keep it as a separate ability. Since it is giving an increasing number of other abilities marginal boosts as I level and I will be adding other abilities that require Charges to use, it makes sense to me to keep it as it's own ability school for ease of use.

The result is going to be playing a balance of deciding which ability to use not jut because of their own allotment of uses, but also factoring that if it uses a Charge, it also limits what other abilities can be used by depriving them of resources. It really appeals to me as a way of implementing the precarious balance of power and destruction my idea of a Blood Mage must navigate.

All that said, I agree. I really need to play it out and see how things work in practice rather than in theory, because I haven't really planned out all the spells or anything to get a full picture of how it would look later on. If it works as-is for now but later turns out to be stronger than I anticipated, I can always radically change it upon updating.

*edit* Oh I also made the Blood Dependency more narrow, mostly because upon research into every version of the class I could find, blood-like fluids were deemed equal to actual blood. It cleans up the writing a bit. If a situation arises where there is controversy concerning whether certain creatures count as having blood or not, I'm confident it can be resolved fairly. If you deem that acceptable, I'll delete that struck-out portion.

Hysteria
07-01-15, 03:29 AM
You can leave Blood Dependency as pretty vauge. If you fight someone without blood (that will probably be rare) then you and he/she can work out the effects. If it's an NPC, you can choose whatever the most appropriate storyline angle you want.

Arterial Armor, can you bring this down a bit in strength? Rather than completely blocking one attack, for now it should limit to 'negate moderate attacks such as large fireballs and blasts of magic, or reduce the damage more advanced ones'.

Styrax
07-01-15, 11:15 AM
Yep sure can, and edited appropriately!

Hysteria
07-02-15, 05:19 AM
Approved!