For those of you who have yet to have the pleasure of playing one of my short lived Goofy Rougelike games, allow me to give you a couple quick pointers.
1: Once character creation is complete, the fourth wall will cease to exist, and the individuals who make up the b12 hivemind may interact freely and directly with the players and GM.
2: Graphics for this game will come from tilesets for ASCII rougelikes, shitty pictures taken of objects around my house, and creative commons image searches. Player contributions are also accepted, and donating your own artwork or photography is a great way to earn the favor of the characters and other boons. In fact, anybody who contributes an original image for the main character will have their vote on character creation counted twice.
Your people,
the naga, are a
marginally tolerated minority within the greater population of human lands. Your family however,
The Bloodline of Mamba, are hated and feared for their practice of the most vile of magics, and for generations have been exiled to the
Stink Marshes, a region known for rough terrain, the constant threat of orc raids, and a charmingly vibrant population of feral undead.
Recently the naga community has been rocked so hard that even The Bloodline of Mamba, which usually does its best to ignore the more accepted members of its race out of spite, has taken notice.
The Rattletail Staff, a powerful artifact that is the prized possession of the Serpentine Elder herself, has been stolen by parties unknown. Hoping to regain her treasure, the childless leader has declared that any naga responsible for returning it to her
will be named her heir.
This is a perfect opportunity for you. As an up and coming mage of the Mamba Bloodline, should you retrieve the staff, you might personally be responsible for
redeeming the reputation of the black arts across human lands, and as it happens you have a leg up on the competition in the form of a lead; A week ago, a small party consisting of
a human, an elf, and an unknown cloaked figure offered to sell you the Rattletail Staff. You turned them away, because you were sure at the time that what they were selling had to be a counterfeit, but did happen to witness them leaving your family compound through the west gates, which gives you
a fifty-fifty chance of picking up their trail.
You have told your grandfather,
The Mamba Elder, about the encounter, and he advised you to set out after them as quickly and quietly as possible; He imagines that some of the haters might
impede your progress if it occurred to them that someone of your bloodline might be the one to retrieve the staff.
Character Creation:The Mamba Elder has invited you to take a spell book from the family library to aid you in your adventures, and there happen to be two that you are comfortable with using.
The Wicked Tome of Decay and Bone is full of spells to torment the living and make temporary allies out of the dead.
The Encyclopedia of Lost Spirits is less effective in direct combat, and instead focuses on exploiting the souls of those you slay for a more long term gain.
When you came of age, you received full body tattoos marking you as a necromancer of the Mamba Bloodline, but because
your mother happens to be the family tattoo artist, she threw in an
enchanted tattoo that might help you on your adventures as well.
Choose one of the Following:A - The Mark of the Wizard, which grants you an additional slot for any mid-level spell, including ones that necromancers might not easily learn
B - The Mark of the Demon, which doubles the damage output of a single successful attack or spell once per dungeon
C - The Mark of the Spider, which improves upon your venomous bite attack
D - The Mark of the Corpse, which causes magic to treat you as if you were undead, and makes it a bit easier to recruit undead allies
E - The Mark of the Samurai, which increases your max HP
F - The Mark of the Phantom, which increases your base AC
G - The Mark of the Ninja, which automatically grants you proficiency with any weapon you might choose to wield
Naga prefer to travel by night, and presently it happens to be just after sunrise.
You have some time to kill before you leave, so how do you want to spend it?
1 - You could explain your quest to your mother, and try to get another tattoo out of her. (pick another boon from the above list)
2 - You could search the compound for allies willing to travel with you. (Gain a random party member based on a d10 roll; Higher is better, and seven results in somebody who is about your equal)
3 - You could visit the compound watering hole and search for side quests to complete. (Gain 1d2 Active Side Quests)
4 - You could suck it up and leave during the day, wasting no further time. (Mystery reward down the road)
You know the party with the staff left through the west gate, which leads to two possible dungeons.
Chaos Avenue is the winding path that moves northwest towards Orc territory, and is plagued by various raiding parties of humans, orc, and sentient undead.
Liberty Woods to the southwest lead deeper into the desolate and sparsely populated Stink Marshes, and is home to dangerous feral undead, as well as the monkeys and apes from which the human races descend. It has rained heavily since the strangers you will be persuing left the compound, so tracking them will be impossible, you are just going to have to
choose a route based on instinct and hope you get lucky.
...Oh yeah. Our main character needs a
name and gender as well.