Post by Wids on Nov 30, 2017 16:35:35 GMT -5
You know something? Out of all the years I've played Neverwinter Nights, I have never once played a Shifter, in no small part because of many of the servers that I've played on outright banning Shifters because of all the munchkins ruining the server with Lawful Neutral Monk/Druid/Shifters (and the DMs of those servers were too lazy to police the munchkins on an individual basis, I assume). I've played a few Druids and a Druid/Ranger before, but never a Shifter. It might be time for me to try one out.
Two questions right quick:
1) What is "LPD"?
2) It's probably a non-issue, since I'm playing a Druid (and, I hope, a soon-to-be Druid/Shifter) and Druids can't untake Wildshape, but how would a character lose the ability to change shape? This is probably the only server in which non-Druids can become Shifters (because Kalbaern's an innovator and a visionary like that...
), and all I can think of is a Sorcerer unlearning the Polymorph Self spell on taking a Level. Just curious here.
So anyway, on with the character in question. Right off, I decided that my first Shifter should be something unique and non-stereotypical. So rather than go with the usual "Tree-hugging, bearded man who wears green clothes, lives in the woods and turns into animals to learn about nature from the inside" kind of Druid/Shifter, I decided to model my character after all the Native American legends about people changing into animals, animals changing into people, or people changing into monsters or trees or what-have-you: The Yee Naaldlooshii or "Skin-Walkers" of the Navajo, Coyote (the Trickster of Navajo legend, among the legends of other tribes), Changing Bear of the Navajo and the Hopi, Deer Woman of the Choctaw and the Cherokee, the Stikini of the Seminole, Kanaima of the Akawaio and Patamona, the Rugaru of the Cree and the Metis, the Wendigo of the Algonquian and the Chippewa (caveat: the Wendigo's change from human to monstrous man-eating beast is permanent), the "Stone Coats" or Ot-ne-yar-heh of the Iriquois (same deal as the Wendigo, but replace "man-eating beast" with "stone-skinned giant"), Tezcatlipoca and the Jaguar People of the Aztecs, and so on. As you can guess, the Native American tribes — North, South and Central — have oodles of shapeshifters in their collected mythologies.
Naturally, my Druid had to be of Maztican descent. Of all the Maztican tribes and ethnicities, the Nexalan people are the only ones to have successfully migrated from Maztica to Faerun. Nexalans are described as being tall, lean people with angular features, like the northern, northwestern and midwestern tribes of our own North America (ie. the Cherokee, the Crow, the Lakota and the Blackfoot); the indigenous peoples of South America tend to be shorter and stockier than North American tribesfolk, so even though the Maztica setting and its ethnicities seem to be a hodge-podge of North, South and Central Native American analogues, I went with the idea of a more North American appearance. Enter, Maralah the Druid.
As her Alignment isn't perfectly True Neutral, neither is her identification with the Elements; she leans heavily towards Earth and prefers dealing with creatures of the land, such as jaguars, wolves, bison and bears. She has several other rotes identified with elemental earth too: her name ("Maralah" being a female Native American name meaning "Born during an earthquake," though no one seems to know exactly which tribe it came from...), her faith and devotion split between Grumbar of the West and Maztica of the East (two Earth deities), the mix of earth tones and subdued colors in her dress, shoelessness (from the whole "bare feet = direct skin-to-soil physical/mystic contact with the earth" idea), terseness and brevity in speech, great patience, maybe a little more. Earth may not be the best fit, though; considering that she has modest Strength, modest Constitution but really high Dexterity and is thus the opposite of the "slow, strong and beefy" Earth type, Air or Fire may have been more suitable. Then again, horses, deer and antelope are Earth creatures too, and they're swift and/or agile as all get-out. Eh, I dunno.
Between her great Dexterity, her great Intelligence and her good Charisma, she doesn't really have the Wisdom to be a career Druid anyway, so assuming that I can successfully apply to make her a Shifter (and it shouldn't be too long before she meets all the requisites and becomes eligible...another Level or two at most), I was wondering how I would go about applying for the Prestige Class. The garment above is what she wears in towns and other civilized areas, but then there's her Dexterity-friendly "field dress" for stalking around out in the wilderness:
Sure, the "Cherokee Bikini" is cheesecakey, but it also plays off the common idea that clothing or armor can interfere with shapeshifting; changing yourself into a grizzly bear while you're wearing head-to-toe full plate armor could cause all kinds of problems, at least in theory. Even in Werewolf: The Apocalypse, you have to have each article of clothing attuned to you so that it won't be ripped to shreds by your shapechanging; if you shift to the man-beast Crinos form while you're wearing some off-the-rack outfit from K-Mart, don't be surprised if you're naked when you revert to human form. So when she's in the field, Maralah wears very light and simple clothing which can be quickly and easily doffed and set aside before she goes changing herself into a bear, a timber wolf, an alligator or whatnot. Then when she's done being beastly, she can come back for her garb, slip it on and head back to town without drawing too many stares.
Also, regarding this thread, I have a few more questions about Maralah:
3) How do I go about applying for a Prestige Class, again?
4) So part of Maralah's backstory involves her parents and/or grandparents emigrating to Faerun before she was born, only to be taken by Thayan slavers. Even though Shou people have the same restriction as Maztican people (namely, they have to have been born in Faerun, not Kara-Tur or Maztica), the server doesn't have any widgets for Maztican languages like the Shou language does. Is it safe to assume that Thay culture, being as dastardly and brutally domineering as it is, very strongly discouraged Maralah's forebears from speaking their native language as soon as the chains were put on, and that's why Maralah's native language is Mulhorandi instead of Nexalan?
5) Characters are forbidden to include advantageous people or factions in their backstories (ie. "My uncle is Aznar Thrul, so that's why Thayan people have to bow down to me!"). But what about a disadvantageous relationship, like a debt owed? In Maralah's case, she fled to the Western Heartlands after the Harpers smuggled her out of Thay and set her free (as the Harpers have been known to do with slaves in Thay), so now she owes the Harpers a life debt and is hoping to find a way to pay them back for their mercy and compassion. Is that detail of her story kosher or verboten?
I think that's all I have to ask for now. Thank you.
Two questions right quick:
1) What is "LPD"?
2) It's probably a non-issue, since I'm playing a Druid (and, I hope, a soon-to-be Druid/Shifter) and Druids can't untake Wildshape, but how would a character lose the ability to change shape? This is probably the only server in which non-Druids can become Shifters (because Kalbaern's an innovator and a visionary like that...
), and all I can think of is a Sorcerer unlearning the Polymorph Self spell on taking a Level. Just curious here.So anyway, on with the character in question. Right off, I decided that my first Shifter should be something unique and non-stereotypical. So rather than go with the usual "Tree-hugging, bearded man who wears green clothes, lives in the woods and turns into animals to learn about nature from the inside" kind of Druid/Shifter, I decided to model my character after all the Native American legends about people changing into animals, animals changing into people, or people changing into monsters or trees or what-have-you: The Yee Naaldlooshii or "Skin-Walkers" of the Navajo, Coyote (the Trickster of Navajo legend, among the legends of other tribes), Changing Bear of the Navajo and the Hopi, Deer Woman of the Choctaw and the Cherokee, the Stikini of the Seminole, Kanaima of the Akawaio and Patamona, the Rugaru of the Cree and the Metis, the Wendigo of the Algonquian and the Chippewa (caveat: the Wendigo's change from human to monstrous man-eating beast is permanent), the "Stone Coats" or Ot-ne-yar-heh of the Iriquois (same deal as the Wendigo, but replace "man-eating beast" with "stone-skinned giant"), Tezcatlipoca and the Jaguar People of the Aztecs, and so on. As you can guess, the Native American tribes — North, South and Central — have oodles of shapeshifters in their collected mythologies.
Naturally, my Druid had to be of Maztican descent. Of all the Maztican tribes and ethnicities, the Nexalan people are the only ones to have successfully migrated from Maztica to Faerun. Nexalans are described as being tall, lean people with angular features, like the northern, northwestern and midwestern tribes of our own North America (ie. the Cherokee, the Crow, the Lakota and the Blackfoot); the indigenous peoples of South America tend to be shorter and stockier than North American tribesfolk, so even though the Maztica setting and its ethnicities seem to be a hodge-podge of North, South and Central Native American analogues, I went with the idea of a more North American appearance. Enter, Maralah the Druid.
As her Alignment isn't perfectly True Neutral, neither is her identification with the Elements; she leans heavily towards Earth and prefers dealing with creatures of the land, such as jaguars, wolves, bison and bears. She has several other rotes identified with elemental earth too: her name ("Maralah" being a female Native American name meaning "Born during an earthquake," though no one seems to know exactly which tribe it came from...), her faith and devotion split between Grumbar of the West and Maztica of the East (two Earth deities), the mix of earth tones and subdued colors in her dress, shoelessness (from the whole "bare feet = direct skin-to-soil physical/mystic contact with the earth" idea), terseness and brevity in speech, great patience, maybe a little more. Earth may not be the best fit, though; considering that she has modest Strength, modest Constitution but really high Dexterity and is thus the opposite of the "slow, strong and beefy" Earth type, Air or Fire may have been more suitable. Then again, horses, deer and antelope are Earth creatures too, and they're swift and/or agile as all get-out. Eh, I dunno.
Between her great Dexterity, her great Intelligence and her good Charisma, she doesn't really have the Wisdom to be a career Druid anyway, so assuming that I can successfully apply to make her a Shifter (and it shouldn't be too long before she meets all the requisites and becomes eligible...another Level or two at most), I was wondering how I would go about applying for the Prestige Class. The garment above is what she wears in towns and other civilized areas, but then there's her Dexterity-friendly "field dress" for stalking around out in the wilderness:
Sure, the "Cherokee Bikini" is cheesecakey, but it also plays off the common idea that clothing or armor can interfere with shapeshifting; changing yourself into a grizzly bear while you're wearing head-to-toe full plate armor could cause all kinds of problems, at least in theory. Even in Werewolf: The Apocalypse, you have to have each article of clothing attuned to you so that it won't be ripped to shreds by your shapechanging; if you shift to the man-beast Crinos form while you're wearing some off-the-rack outfit from K-Mart, don't be surprised if you're naked when you revert to human form. So when she's in the field, Maralah wears very light and simple clothing which can be quickly and easily doffed and set aside before she goes changing herself into a bear, a timber wolf, an alligator or whatnot. Then when she's done being beastly, she can come back for her garb, slip it on and head back to town without drawing too many stares.
Also, regarding this thread, I have a few more questions about Maralah:
3) How do I go about applying for a Prestige Class, again?
4) So part of Maralah's backstory involves her parents and/or grandparents emigrating to Faerun before she was born, only to be taken by Thayan slavers. Even though Shou people have the same restriction as Maztican people (namely, they have to have been born in Faerun, not Kara-Tur or Maztica), the server doesn't have any widgets for Maztican languages like the Shou language does. Is it safe to assume that Thay culture, being as dastardly and brutally domineering as it is, very strongly discouraged Maralah's forebears from speaking their native language as soon as the chains were put on, and that's why Maralah's native language is Mulhorandi instead of Nexalan?
5) Characters are forbidden to include advantageous people or factions in their backstories (ie. "My uncle is Aznar Thrul, so that's why Thayan people have to bow down to me!"). But what about a disadvantageous relationship, like a debt owed? In Maralah's case, she fled to the Western Heartlands after the Harpers smuggled her out of Thay and set her free (as the Harpers have been known to do with slaves in Thay), so now she owes the Harpers a life debt and is hoping to find a way to pay them back for their mercy and compassion. Is that detail of her story kosher or verboten?
I think that's all I have to ask for now. Thank you.
Connecting to a well known individual NPC, like an Elminster or Drizzt, might be a stretch, but I don't see a problem with the red wizards or Harpers in general.
