sofianora’s character: Annwn

[sofianora]

Annwn (Ann or Annie for short)

“I was abandoned to the streets of a large Avalonian city at a very young age. It’s a long story, and I’ll thank you not to inquire further. The only thing I learned beforehand was how to tell fortunes with a deck of cards, a skill that I’ve basically been refining for my entire life. I’ve since come to learn over the years that what I practice is, at best, a superstition-driven hedge magic based on folkloric traditions, with nothing in common with certain true sorceries that also happen to utilize decks of cards. Nonetheless, I’d still like to think my fortune telling is right more often than it’s wrong.”

“Having previously been given no other names, or at least no consistent ones, I began calling myself Annwn, because it sounds pretty, and I survived on my own as a fortune telling novelty act for a surprising amount of time before the city’s authorities finally stumbled upon me. Fortunately, one of them was a druid who saw something in me that could be…cultivated, so I was spared the orphanage and instead introduced to the ways of his order.”

“While I showed only modest talents during attempts to train me in hunting animals, I was much more receptive to lessons about hunting plants, and how to leverage said plants within makeshift medical applications. I was also, of course, taught the druidic secrets of influencing the paths and fates of others via the shamanism of Gesa, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, I found my natural talents in this regard within the half a year most amenable towards plant growth, spring and summer. As I grew older, and as I continued to not grow out of behaviors typically considered more becoming of a girl than a boy, it was decided by my elders that I should also be trained to protect myself from unsavory characters. Despite my lack of natural talents, either physical or mental, constant drilling eventually taught me how to defend myself with an unassuming walking stick.”

“Eventually, the time came for me to strike out as a druid in my own right. I traveled a great deal of Avalon at first, teaching myself its other native languages and how to write in the main tongue as I ministered to its populace and helped to settle miscellaneous civil disputes via an ever-growing toolbox of soft social skills, complemented in no small part by my fortune-telling abilities, because sometimes superstitious individuals won’t lend you an ear unless a deck of cards is in agreement with you as an impartial-ish third party. However, this wandering did not last forever, and I settled into a more stationary lifestyle, again within a major metropolitan area, when I attracted the attentions of a wealthy patron that values me as much for my fortune telling as the skills more typically expected of a druid. This association serves me very well, providing a steady livelihood that I can still, if need be, complement with half-remembered survival skills from my earliest days on the streets, while still affording me the freedom to tend to the wider populace quite often. And I seem to find myself tending to ever more…colorful characters as time goes on.”

“Also, I know Ussuran. It’s another long story.”

[sofianora]

Annwn
Avalonian Druid, no template, 130 HP build
pronouns: yes

Traits (32 HP):
Brawn 2
Finesse 2
Wits 2
Resolve 1+1
Panache 2

Shamanism: Druid (32 HP), apprentice
-Knacks: Spring: 2 / Summer: 2

Career Advantage: Patron (4 HP, 40 gold/month)

Background: Orphaned (2 HP)

Languages (5 HP):
Avalon (literate)
Cymric
Inish
Ussuran

Martial Skills:

Staff (6 HP)
-Knacks: Attack 3 / Parry 3

Civil Skills:

Bard (19 HP)
-Knacks: Etiquette 3 / History 1 / Oratory 1(+1 from Fortune Telling) / Singing 1
-Advanced Knacks: Diplomacy 3 / Herb Lore 2

Doctor (3 HP)
-Knacks: Diagnosis 1(+1 from Herbalist) / First Aid 2(+2 from Herbalist)

Fortune Telling (14 HP)
-Knacks: Oratory 1(+1 from Bard) / Palm Reading 1
-Advanced Knacks: Card Reading 4

Herbalist (6 HP)
-Knacks: Cook 1 / Diagnosis 1(+1 from Doctor) / First Aid 2(+2 from Doctor) / Flora 4

Hunter (2 HP)
-Knacks: Stealth 1 / Survival 1 / Traps 1

Streetwise (5 HP)
-Knacks: Socializing 1 / Street Navigation 1
-Advanced Knacks: Scrounging 1

[salamanca]

Ok, you have one mechanical issue.

Starting Characters DO have a limit of no more than 3 points in any trait or knack (excepting the nation trait bonus) of 3.

You have at least 3 knacks listed at 4, those all need to be reduced.

I have a couple skill recommendations: If you want to get the most out of that card reading charlatan idea, you need a few other social knacks to prop it up. Look skills including Cold Read and Sincerity to let you get an idea about what you are predicting and convincing your mark what you said is true.

And you have a glaring gap in your defenses. Parry is fine when you are blocking a cutlass or a punch but you are wide open to everything else including pistols.

You are going to want Footwork at the very least and Balance is strongly recommended. They are the default passive defenses for you in every situation.

You can drop the Patron to help pay for that. Use those other skills to earn a few coins if you need it.

[sofianora]

Summary of updates to appear in subsequent posts:

Skills greater than 3 have been reduced to 3, and other skills have also been rebalanced to make sense in that context.

Patron has been deleted. To be more consistent with being an itinerant druid, I’ve instead added outdoors-y things, including the Athlete skill and modifications to the Hunter skill, so the character can camp outside of cities if flat broke.

Background has been dropped from a 2 HP investment to a 1 HP investment, which is probably more consistent with how big of a deal the background is in the character’s day-to-day life anyway. If I feel like I’d like to participate in more Personal Agendas at Origins, I can sink some XP into it later.

Combat abilities have been adjusted downward and now focus more on defense (including modest Footwork/Balance investments). This character is intended to be, at best, more of a “support” unit (via the First Aid and Gesa) when it comes to physical combat, and the stats hopefully better reflect that now.

Streetwise has been replaced with Urchin. Not only is that more consistent with the character’s backstory, but it also bumps up Survival, which, again, makes more sense for a druid. It also allows access to Sincerity, per character design recommendations.

Also per recommendations, Cold Read has been added as well, but only 1 rank, because this character, as a druid, is probably more accustomed to others coming to them with obvious civil arbitration issues. Worst comes to worst, the character might be able to leverage their existing Etiquette/Diplomacy/Sincerity capabilities to tease out underlying motivations instead.

[sofianora]

Annwn (Ann or Annie for short)

“I was abandoned to the streets of a large Avalonian city at a very young age. It’s a long story, and I’ll thank you not to inquire further. The only thing I learned beforehand was how to tell fortunes with a deck of cards. I’ve since come to learn over the years that what I practice is, at best, a superstition-driven hedge magic based on folkloric traditions, with nothing in common with certain true sorceries that also happen to utilize decks of cards. Nonetheless, I’d still like to think my fortune telling is right more often than it’s wrong.”

“Having previously been given no other names, or at least no consistent ones, I began calling myself Annwn, because it sounds pretty, and I survived on my own as a fortune telling novelty act for a surprising amount of time before the city’s authorities finally stumbled upon me. Fortunately, one of them was a druid who saw something in me that could be…cultivated, so I was spared the orphanage and instead introduced into the ways of his order.”

“The druids taught me how to survive outside of cities, and I was particularly receptive to learning about foraging and how to leverage the resulting herbs and other plants within makeshift medical applications. I was also, of course, taught the druidic secrets of influencing the paths and fates of others via the shamanism of Gesa, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, I found my natural talents in this regard within the half a year most amenable towards plant growth, spring and summer. As I grew older, and as I continued to not grow out of behaviors typically considered more becoming of a girl than a boy, it was decided by my elders that I should also be trained to protect myself from unsavory characters. Despite my lack of natural talents, either physical or mental, constant drilling eventually taught me how to defend myself with an unassuming walking stick, albeit barely.”

“Eventually, the time came for me to strike out as a druid in my own right, which led to me traveling a great deal of Avalon, teaching myself its other native languages and how to write in the main tongue as I ministered to its populace and helped to settle miscellaneous civil disputes via an ever-growing toolbox of soft social skills, complemented in no small part by my fortune-telling abilities, because sometimes superstitious individuals won’t lend you an ear unless a deck of cards is in agreement with you as an impartial-ish third party. And my travels have recently led to me tending to, and otherwise associating with, ever more…colorful characters.”

“And, speaking of that, I know Ussuran. It’s another long story.”

[sofianora]

Annwn
Avalonian Druid, no template, 130 HP build
pronouns: yes

Traits (32 HP):
Brawn 2
Finesse 2
Wits 2
Resolve 1+1
Panache 2

Shamanism:
Druid (32 HP), apprentice
Knacks: Spring: 2 / Summer: 2

Background: Orphaned (1 HP)

Languages (5 HP):
Avalon (literate)
Cymric
Inish
Ussuran

Martial Skills:

Athlete (2 HP)

Knacks: Climb 1 / Footwork 1(+1 from Acrobat) / Sprint 1 / Throw 1

Staff (3 HP)

Knacks: Attack 1 / Parry 2

Civil Skills:

Acrobat (2 HP)

Knacks: Balance 1 / Footwork 1(+1 from Athlete)

Bard (22 HP)

Knacks: Etiquette 3 / History 1 / Oratory 1(+1 from Fortune Telling) / Sing 1
Advanced Knacks: Diplomacy 3 / Herb Lore 3

Doctor (2 HP)

Knacks: Diagnosis 1(+1 from Herbalist) / First Aid 1(+2 from Herbalist)

Fortune Telling (14 HP)

Knacks: Oratory 1(+1 from Bard) / Palm Reading 1
Advanced Knacks: Card Reading 3 / Cold Read 1

Herbalist (5 HP)

Knacks: Cook 1 / Diagnosis 1(+1 from Doctor) / First Aid 2(+1 from Doctor) / Flora 3

Hunter (2 HP)

Knacks: Fishing 1 / Stealth 1(+1 from Urchin) / Survival 1(+1 from Urchin)

Urchin (8 HP)

Knacks: Stealth 1(+1 from Hunter) / Street Navigation 1 / Survival 1(+1 from Hunter)
Advanced Knacks: Sincerity 2

[salamanca]

Ok, just so.you are clear on it.

Backgrounds are going to get built with a number of sessions planned based on how many points you sunk into it. Mark will build a starting point, ending and some steps in between based on that number.

Once you resolve it, you could certainly buy another background tied to what happened or something else. You could also buy yourself one based on some odd things going on in the campaign. (Last campaign, some players got really curious about the goings on of the tamale vendor)

There are also events in the episodes themselves that will trigger backgrounds you earn/ get saddled with for free.

My point, there is always something to do with Personal Agendas time. If you want a lot of it to revolve around your initial story, find the ppint to push that back to a 2.

As a GM, I am going to remind you that everyone at my table is considered the central character at some point. There are going to be sessions where your character may need to carry the day.

[sofianora]

I appreciate the clarifications regarding the downstream consequences of reducing the initial background investment, but I think I’m pretty comfortable freeing up some conceptual space for dynamically adding new backgrounds in the future in response to a living campaign (tamale vendors or no).

As a GM, I am going to remind you that everyone at my table is considered the central character at some point. There are going to be sessions where your character may need to carry the day.

Hey, just because this character can’t go toe-to-toe with a grizzly bear doesn’t mean they can’t use their Fishing knack to catch some salmon, their Cooking knack to fry it up real nice, their Flora and Herb Lore knacks to lace the dish with something soporific, their Survival knack to plant the dish somewhere the bear will feel comfortable eating it, and their Stealth knack to sneak around the bear while it’s distracted and drowsy. There’s more than one way to skin a cat…which is good, because this character didn’t take the Skinning knack.

(In all seriousness, though, if the campaign really requires characters to be proficient in physical combat, I should probably go back to the drawing board and build something around one of the sword schools. Probably before Origins. Just let me know.)

[kenderleech]

As long as you have something you can do During combat, then its all good. You can absolutely choose to roll combat unskilled, and use your drama dice to make it work. Or to not work. Thats your decision, as long as you are having fun, and not preventing anyone else from having fun.

[Black Jack Rackham]

, as long as you are having fun, and not preventing anyone else from having fun.

We already have Roger's Rule, now we can add Ken's Rule!

[kenderleech]

Be aware that the campaign year 1 is january and progresses at roughly one month per convention year.