DnD:AnimalPlanet
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Animal Planet
Cast List
Brian: Maya-Owichapaka ("He who pushes you off a cliff") of the Anapokangi ("dawn crow") clan, a jackal paladin of the Raven Queen
James: Inyan Ozuye, Badger warrior, protector of the folk
Chuk: Kohana ("swift") of the Cagawakonda ("ice magicians") pack, a wolf wizard
Doug: Sadian Sagecrest, Lynx Bard, Speaker of the Wild
Marcus: Lucan Varis, Coyote Ranger, Striker of the Umbral Path
Retired Characters
Marie: Hecheto Welo ("It is done well"), Fox Cleric, Student of Wise Owl
Cheryl: Kaliska Hepechen, Wildcat Cleric, Sister of the Fierce Kestrel
Pet: Shinte Shinte Iktomi (Tail of the Trickster Spirit) - A fox thief
History of the People
It has been 300 seasons since the end of the world. The Humans wrote a lot, in their stories, about the end of the world -- they even had a word for it: Apocalypse. How would it happen? What would happen? What would be left, if anything? Who would survive, if anyone? It's unclear what actually happened, but what is clear is that it killed the humans. All of them. For that matter, all of the primates were wiped out, with the only exception of abominations: mindless, corrupted creatures, horrors and shambling mutated monsters left roaming the great, empty ruins left behind by a world-spanning civilization, now failed. And what was left behind by these absent humans? A handful of creatures, once dumb animals but now thinking, cooperating, speaking families of folk. Were they deliberately released, or did they escape? The histories of The People disagree, depending on which family is telling the tale. What is known is that there were, many moons ago, a motley collection of confused, frightened, newly-intelligent creatures, cast into the wild to fend for themselves and live or die as the world found them. Not all of the families made it, but some did, and some thrived, and now there is what may be the last free gathering of thinking people left on the face of the planet. Here on Isla Anheles, The People survive.
The view of the island... http://tinyurl.com/c2zasr
The island keeps The People safe from outside threats, but the island is too small to sustain the 1750 or so souls, adults and children, split almost equally among the seven families of The People. To keep from starving, The People send out parties to scavenge and salvage tools, supplies, and other resources needed to keep what is effectively a small village from dying out. From a very early age, adventurous souls are found, grouped together, and trained to explore the ruins of human civilized space -- which surrounds the island on all sides. Trained teams are then ferried from the Island to the mainland to gather different resources, or sent on missions by the elders of The People. The warriors and explorers protect and explore and supply, and hopefully avoid dying in the ruins.
The Bloodlines
Bloodlines are the seven clans of The People: Badgers, Wolves, Coyotes, Jackals, Foxes, Wildcats, and Lynxes.
The Pantheon
The spirits of the people are diverse and multiple.
The Economy
Discussion of the Economy has it's own forum discussion thread now: Economy Thread
The Magic of The World
The Cosmography of Magic in The World is extremely personal, and therefore relatively controlled.
Character Creation
As far as 4E resources are concerned, I have copies of the PHB and PHB2 that can be borrowed, and if there's interest I have a subscription to DnD Insider, so I can create character sheets complete with personalized power cards if needed.
Stat Creation
You are welcome to keep the stats you created the character with, or you may use the following process to generate new stats:
- roll 4d6 and drop the lowest die
- repeat 7 times
- assign 6 as you like
- divide the 7th roll in half, rounding down, and use the remainder as stat adjustment points
Note that this will result in a net increase in stats of about 9 points from the standard array, which means that the characters are going to be extremely special. This is acceptable based on the concept behind the characters.
Backgrounds
Backgrounds available in this campaign are:
- Blessed
- Cursed
- Omen
- Prophecy
- Occupation: Artisan
- Occupation: Mariner
- Occupation: Scholar
Character Hooks
There are two concepts from a different game that I'm thinking about using in this game, to help keep direction and momentum for each of the characters as well as keeping the players engaged and excited about the campaign. These are stolen liberally borrowed from games like Feng Shui and There Is No Spoon, and serve to help a lazy GM like me allow spotlight time for everyone involved.
The first is The Deal. As in, "What's the Deal with that Inyan?" To borrow a quote from a better writer than I:
This represents their chief mental hang-up, which both drives them to action yet sometimes paralyses them. It is the voice in their ear that causes them to do rash and crazy things, to go beyond their orders, beyond reason and beyond their limitations. ... Deals should be simple, and able to be expressed simply. Most importantly, they should be defining concepts, something which informs, controls and consumes almost everything your character does in the game, and everything they want.
Basically, a Deal should be a seven-word synopsis of the character's personality (separate and distinct from the character's role or class or race).
The other is The Fortune. This isn't wealth, it's the other kind: as The People move from childhood into adolescence (about 40 seasons, or 10 years old), each Person is taken before a Wise One, traditionally a Medicine Caller in the bloodline, though there are certain Medicine Callers that are sought even by People of other bloodlines. The Medicine Caller then casts the person's Fortune. The result is a sentence or fragment — think Chinese Fortune Cookie length — that will be an important part of their future. Traditionally, one's Fortune is only discussed with mates or pack members.
The players should think about and come up with one or two possible Deals for their character, and the player and the DM can discuss both Deals and Fortunes via email or private discussions. The point of these, to reiterate, is to give the characters a hook, a reason to move the plot forward and keep people active in the game, rather than to make anything difficult or complicated. If the player base is uninterested in keeping the hooks, we can ditch them for something else. The primary goal is to keep everyone having fun.
Character Sheets
I don't like the result of the character sheet that was here before, so feel free to find and use your own, or we can work to get the character built using the Character Creator tool from DDI.
Player Participation
I'm interested in giving individual players a significant amount of leeway in creating the background of the individual bloodlines within The People, either solo or in cooperation with the other players. The world itself resembles Earth at some point in the future, after humans have disappeared. This means that some of the tropes of DnD will by necessity need to be warped, but I think there are ways to sidestep that. In addition, I'd like each player to also create (not mechanically, but think up as a personality) one of the seven elders of The People, who act as the presiding council (as much as any group of subsistence-level tribal social group has a presiding structure). The council has one member of every bloodline as representative, and generally the council members are older members who have either been successful adventurers or important members of the populace.
The elder discussion thread is here: Elder Discussion Thread
Once we have a good basis for each of the elders, we can move the discussion to a wiki page.
Notables and Notions
Locations of Note
- Midpoint Island, the stepping stone between the old cities, and the new settlement location of The People
- IKEA, a great place of resources waiting to be harvested
- Home of the Myconids, a place of much potable water...and much danger
- Lookout Point, home of the Spirit Box and high ground on Midpoint Island
- The Bridge, a span running from Midpoint Island to the East Bay.
- The Labyrinth, a large underground catacomb that runs under the Bay
Important Characters of Note
The Council of the People
- Shinte Mahpyua, Fox Elder
- Civette Stormwind, Lynx Elder
- Ohitika Ozutiwahe, Wolf Elder
- Chante Heska, Badger Elder
- Khern Von-Amort Ost Han, Wildcat Elder
- Mahpyua Heechanagin, Jackal Elder
- Harken, Coyote Elder
Other People of Note
- Windit Wavefoam, Lynx Oarsman
- Shurl Greencoat, Lynx Warden
- Ovide Stormwind, Lynx Scholar
- Wichakola Kagawakonda, Grandfather of all the Wolves
- Jacob Hachetewe, Wildcat Sailor and Captain of the Bay Rider (largest craft of the people)
Other Important Creatures
- Mother Bear - Great Dire Bear on Midpoint Island
- The Myconids - fungus-infected creatures, possibly human once
- The Spirit Box - a captured library spirit, powered by an 'ups' battery
- The Drowned Ones - a colony of fallen humans, hiding on Midpoint Island
- The Bear People - missing Bloodline of the people, left 50 seasons ago
Journals of the People
Sadian
The Beginning
Yerba Buena Island - Part I
Yerba Buena Island - Part II
Yerba Buena Island - Part III
Trip to EEKA - Part I
Trip to EEKA - Part II
Trip to EEKA - Part III
Trip to EEKA - Part IV
Trip to EEKA - Part V
Across the Bay - Part I
Across the Bay - Part II
Across the Bay - Part III
Shinte
Episode One
Episode Three
Episode Four
Episode Five
Episode Six
Kohana
Excerpts from the Cagawakonda Codex
How the Chief of Winter got the Bear's skin
Lucan
Lucan's Journal
Inyan
Inyan's Journal
Maya
Paladin's Log, Mission 2
Paladin's Log, Mission 3
Paladin's Log, session 7
Paladin's Log, session 8
Paladin's Log, session 10
Paladin's Log, session 11
Scheduling
Animal Planet runs alternating Sundays. Game begins at 1 PM PDT and runs until about 7:00 PM PDT, depending.
Current Host is Jerome, at the Tigard apartment. Summer accommodations may be necessary to prevent heat stroke, but we'll burn that bridge when we come to it.
Next game: Sunday, October 4th. (And this time, I mean it!)