@Kogan: My objections to playing an awakened cat are fourfold: A] it doesn't make sense RP-wise for an awakened animal to be chosen for this mission,
I agree, but it does make sense for a Sea Vessel to have a Ship's cat, so it's less of being "chosen" for the mission and more of being a tool for the sea vessel.
B] the backstory that the cat was accidentally hit with Awaken, a spell takes 24 hours to cast and has a range of touch, is just silly,
Do you have cats? Those damn things don't leave you alone when you are trying to do something. I imagine the awaken was meant for something else and the caster failed a concentration check.
C] even if I could bring myself to take the character concept seriously, the charater's goals to "overthrow the system" and put cats in charge would conflict with the premise of this campaign, which is to go exploring in the ocean
That goal isn't supposed to be taken seriously, it just explains the cat's base personality. Organizing secret revolutionary meetings with a bunch of non-awakened cats that comes to less than nothing and stuff, and always complaining about how the humanoid is keeping the cats down.
D] perhaps most importantly, awakened cats don't have opposable thumbs. There is a time and a place for silly characters and playing awakened cats named "Mister Puffins". This isn't it.
It's not as silly as it seems.
However, you may play an adolescent troll:
Humm, this would work I think. He's not a full-fledged samurai, but was training to become one.
Alright, here it is.
Hailing from a small fiefdom in Dramscrag, Kenzcla is a young Samurai in training. Born in a traditional Samurai family with ties to the local lord leading back to before memory, Kenzcla is a very loyal retainer of his lord. He grew up with 3 brothers, all of them who are older and already full-fledged samurai in the service of his Liege.
When the Elfin King's council declared that Dramscrag was not to send troops to fight the Merica as they had promised, many of the lords felt they lost honor. The lords were bound to obey their king, whom had to obey the council, and so ultimately the trolls did not go off to war. Kenzcla's lord did not forget his broken oaths though, and was constantly looking for ways to atone for this affront on his honor. He heard of the Empire's plan to explore the Sunless Sea, and figured that it was not against the order of the Council to send one of his younger vassals to help in the endeavor. He sent a young samurai in training, Kenzcla, to assist in the effort.
Kenzcla of DramscragBecause troll class is more growth, I am assuming I can raise samurai in the middle of troll classes normally. I'll be doing 1 Samurai, 5 Troll, the rest Samurai. This puts my final troll growth at level 6. I could just do all troll first, but the Samurai part is important for the RP.
Speaking of Samurai skills, I feel I need to have magical armor so that my growth later on won't be a problem. With +1 Full plate costing 2650, that leaves 50 gold left over to get the swords. This makes it so I can't afford to have them masterwork or Large (I'd need 595 more gold than what a level 3 character gets for that for masterwork, plus an additional 45 gold to make them large). As such, I'm playing it off as his older brothers all got the good stuff from the family, although Kenzcla still managed to get a +1 Ō-yoroi
. This is fitting though, since he can only really use "Training" versions of the weapons anyway due to his smaller than adult size. It's silly to send off a untrained samurai at all, but honor demands it, and his liege is confident that Kenzcla will do all he can to redeem the honor of Dramscrag.