Kemlin Vargo, Dawnbringer

[foxandwarlock]

The dreams came when I had seen eight Summers. Sharp, painted with wild colors and filled with the then-unknown smell of blood and death. Around me, men lived and died, battling dark creatures underneath cloudy skies. Some nights, I died.

And woke screaming and crying in the small hut that passed for my family's house. If those were my nights, then my days were filled with visits to midwives and augurs, herbalists and peddlers selling elixirs. We had little and my parents spent it on my night terrors.

By my tenth Summer, my parents had lost their patience. What little wealth they had was gone, spent without success and their once caring caresses turned to slaps when I woke sobbing in the night. And on a nameless day in the Summer, perhaps around my birthnight, I ran off to find the answers for myself. I drifted from village to village, living however I could. Until I met Azrith....

-----

Our campaign is set in the world of Midnight (Our GM has posted our campaign info http://www.burningwheel.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=508), a good way through the Third Age (for those that are familiar). So there are no gods or clerics and haven't been for several hundreds years. Basically, religion has died out.

That being said, Kemlin Vargo's dreams are memories from a past life when he fought against The Shadow (Midnight's Sauron, if you will) and was a paladin in service to Order of the Dawnbringers. The Dawnbringers were pledged to Aman-Ra, The Morninglord (yes, a straight rip off from Lathander) and were charged with delivering the world through the night and into the new dawn. With The Shadow pushing against the North, Kemlin Vargo has been called to service by his god once again.

After leaving his village he met Azrith, a man who had become a defacto priest of Aman-Ra - through self study, etc. and who recognized what was happening to Kemlin. Azrith took Kemlin in and raised him as a son and eventually administered the same vows that Kemlin took hundreds of years ago (or as close as possible based on records). Kemlin is a self-appointed paladin, a new type of Dawnbringer for a new day- a Hunter of the those that would steal the coming dawn.

DESCRIPTION: 5'8", 155 lbs. Sarcosan (Think Mongol), dark tan skin, long, coarse black hair with almond-shaped eyes to match. Lean and wiry from all the ranging with multiple knife belts crossing his waste. Most prominent is the kukri.

LIFEPATHS:
Born Peasant
Pilgrim (Lead To)
Cultist
Ranger (Lead To)
Scout

AGE: 27

STATS:
WILL 3
PER 4
SPEED 6
AGILITY 4
POWER 3
FORTE 4

BELIEFS (extra belief due to Cultist):
1) The enemy of my god is my enemy.
2) Izrador will be pushed back when the race of man unites.
3) The first strike should always be a surprise.
4) One must pass through the night to reach the dawn.

SACRED VOWS
1) Vow of Wrath (from Sacred Vows rules expansion- no bonuses due to lack of deific presence)

INSTINCTS
1) Wear gloves.
2) Wake at sunrise (to watch the sunrise).
3) Look & listen before going in.

TRAITS
1) Reincarnated
2) Dreamer
3) Keen Sight: Piercing Gaze (Always sees as if the dawn peers over his shoulder)
4) Rabble-Rouser
5) Road-Weary (being removed in gameplay)
6) Alms-Taker (being removed in gameplay)

SKILLS:
Foraging: 2
Orieteering: 4
Tracking: 3
Knife: 3
Bow: 3
Observation
Survival: Plains
Stealthy: 4
Herbalism: 2
Doctrine: 3
Plains-Wise: 3

GEAR:
Travelling Gear
Clothes & Boots
Leather Armor
Kukri (RoTM)
Dirk (RoTM)
Boot Knife (RoTM)
Hunting Bow (PQ)
Quiver

CONTACTS (Yes, a loner):
Azrith Vargo ("Priest" of Aman-Ra, Insig/Loyal)

[Calypso]

I like the idea of a former cultist Mongol who runs around with a kukri. And he's a self-appointed paladin. Call me old fashioned, but that just sounds like a good seed for a story.

[luke]

this character is GREAT!

His numbers are well-rounded, and the skill selection is spot on to the concept.

His traits are farking great, and instantly give you a sense of what this character is all about.

The Beliefs and Instincts are beautiful.

The best thing about him are the numbers, though. He's going to start growing and changing very quickly, and therefore he would be an absolute blast to play. I'd play 'im in a second!

good job and welcome!
-Luke

[Manicrack]

I really like the character but I ave one concern.

You say he is a self-appointed paladin:
For me a paladin was always somewhat of a holy knight, full of honor.
But you make him more a stealthy chracter(the ranger and the scout LP)

I would like to hear some story how he came to these lifepaths. Maybe compare him to other paladins(if there are any).

Anyway, a really nice character.

Btw, where does this world come from? Another RPG, or a book?
I am always up for good fantasy, so tell me.

-Crack

[foxandwarlock]

Thanks for the positive feedback (and keep your hands off my character, Luke! :D )

Mani, in response to your question, I thought it would be cool to try and break out of the classic fantasy mindset regarding paladins. Paladins are supposed to be holy warriors dedicated to the Cause (whatever it is)- nobody really ever said that they had to wear plate mail and fight from horseback with gleaming longswords. But we've (as a gaming community) been indoctrinated to think of them like that- so I thought it'd be cool to play a different kind of paladin.

And this character really couldn't be done in a regular fantasy setting. What facilitates his paladin-hood is that there aren't any other paladins- the paladins you are referring to died out with their associated religions almost 900 years ago. So people have even forgotten what they are- it left a void and allowed me (as the designing player) to fill in that definition. It was my attempt to take a classic concept and twist it up.

As for his later lifepaths (Ranger and Scout), I can say that he's literally been living his life in anticipation of this moment (the beginning of the campaign when the call goes out that the North is being attacked). So the Ranger lifepath was the evolution of Azrith's training and the need to prepare himself for hunting The Enemy. The Scout lifepath represented the formalization/evolution of his raw abilities picked up as a Ranger.

[Manicrack]

yeah, i see what yu're saying, I just made a merciful thief(he hates killing) and got out a little of the common stereotype.

For me, the story you told to your chracer was just a little short. I love these stories, sometimes even more than the actual chracter, (which is bad) I just had expected to hear more about hios life as ranger/scout.

-Crack

[Wuxing]

For me, the story you told to your chracer was just a little short. I love these stories, sometimes even more than the actual chracter, (which is bad) I just had expected to hear more about hios life as ranger/scout.

You can blame me, as GM of the group, for that. I'm a huge proponent of not telling the story before you create a story in game. Too many times I've seen the cool backstory that is just way too much for a starting character. You know you've seen them too, the stories with feats that truly seasoned vets would struggle to accomplish and the character has not even stopped out the door to adventure yet.

The lifepaths, BITs and a short paragraph and I have almost everything I need to know for a starting character without creating a story before the story happens. I dig it alot. :D

[luke]

The lifepaths, BITs and a short paragraph and I have almost everything I need to know for a starting character without creating a story before the story happens. I dig it alot. :D

Yes, yes, yes. This is the point. Lifepaths and BITs (and Resouces, really) are intended to provide all the story you need to get that character in play. I am not a fan of the character history novel -- I wanted a way to have a good background for the character without having to be Stephen King.

-L

[foxandwarlock]

Thought it might be nice for people to be able to see the progress made in five or six sessions (one Chapter of our campaign).

Kemlin Vargo (Post: The Fall of Steel Hill)

STATS
WILL 3
PER 5
SPEED 6
AGILITY 4
POWER 4
FORTE 5

TRAITS
1) Reincarnated
2) Dreamer
3) Keen Sight: Piercing Gaze
4) Rabble-Rouser
5) Fortitude
6) Man of Few Words

SKILLS:
Foraging: 2
Orieteering: 4
Tracking: 3
Knife: 4
Bow: 4
Observation
Survival: Plains
Stealthy: 4
Herbalism: 2
Doctrine: 3
Plains-Wise: 3
Brawling: 2

[Kublai]

Holy cow! Your stats are skyrocketing! :D awesome!

I see you are getting into a lot of fights as well! Both martial skill went up as well as Brawlingl appeared!

[Wuxing]

Well, we didn't really set out to run a military campaign but it turned into one extremely quickly. They are in combat every session, sometimes multiple times. As the GM, I have feared for their safety as often as they have. The fort town, Steel Hill, was just taken and less than a hundred people survived. Luckily the two of the PC's were some of the survivors. :D

This was set up as a chapter ending of sorts. I expect we'll move away from the combat intensive sessions at this point. Then again lots of things just sort of happen at the table. We started shooting for more of a independent guerilla war against the baddies type of campaign and ended up at a siege. Funny things happen at the table I tell you. :lol:

[foxandwarlock]

My Stealthy and Tracking are each one test out from bumping and I'm one Beginner's Luck roll shy of a Riding Skill. Its been a very intense six session chapter with a LOT of fighting (at least one serious combat every time we sit down). I was surprised, at the end of the night, to look down and find two fives, and a six in my Stat column.

But I suppose war will do that to you :x (<---Battle face)

[foxandwarlock]

Here's the update from Chapter 2.

STATS
WILL 3
PER 5
SPEED 6
AGILITY 4
POWER 4
FORTE 5

TRAITS
1) Reincarnated
2) Dreamer
3) Keen Sight: Piercing Gaze
4) Rabble-Rouser
5) Fortitude
6) Man of Few Words

SKILLS:
Foraging: 3
Orieteering: 4
Tracking: 4
Knife: 5
Bow: 4
Observation
Survival: Plains
Stealthy: 4
Herbalism: 3
Doctrine: 3
Plains-Wise: 3
Brawling: 3
Ride: 3

[foxandwarlock]

Update from Chapter 3 (pre-Revision):

STATS:
WILL 3
PERCEPTION 5
SPEED 6
AGILITY 4
POWER 5
FORTE 5

TRAITS:
1) Reincarnated
2) Dreamer
3) Keen Sight: Piercing Gaze
4) Rabble-Rouser
5) Fortitude
6) Man of Few Words

SKILLS:
Bow: 5
Brawling: 3
Climbing: 3
Doctrine: 4
Firebuilding: 2
Foraging: 3
Herbalism: 4
Hunting: 2
Knife: 5
Observation
Orienteering: 4
Plains-Wise: 4
Ride: 3
Stealthy: 5
Survival: Plains
Tracking: 4

We will be converting our Burning Midnight characters to the Revised Rules this weekend so I thought I should put up the latest version before stuff changes. We haven't done a Trait Vote (thus no changing in the last two chapters) but we will be handling that before we begin playing again.

[luke]

my one recommendation for the conversion that I see is change Observation to a skill equal to the Perception exponent. Not rooted from, but equal to.

What other plans do you guys have for upgraded/revising? Characters in play are almost always best left as is.

-L

[foxandwarlock]

Couldn't find a way to encapsulate our plan so here it is directly from Wuxing's email:

"Here's the proposal. Let's get together this Sunday. Everyone bring a copy of your character. I'll provide character worksheets. We'll reburn the character and take a peek at what they would look like. We can then figure out the best way to get from the old character to the new character. It's a chance to start semi fresh, clean up and refine BITs if necessary. We'll add points where we need to, transfer over artha and artha expenditures, subtract a few points if we need to. In other words, we'll tweak to fit Revised BW. Shouldn't be a big deal and there should be wheeling and dealing at the table, so come ready to haggle!"

Its basically a chance to get some character administration done. We left off without having done a Trait Vote in two chapters, no review of BITs, etc. So we are going to do all that in one fell swoop and also look at how the characters would have turned out if burned in Revised so that we aren't walking around with over/under powered characters for the Revision (i.e. if I had burned Kemlin in the Revised rules, I could not have gotten Dreamer AND Piercing Gaze). The Revision feels a lot tighter in terms of Trait points so we are going to try to bring the characters in line without losing core elements of their person - again, under no circumstances, would I give up Dreamer and Reincarnated, regardless of the new rules but would I give up Piercing Gaze and put Speaker of the Secret Language on my sheet this Sunday? Hell, yeah! We've had a long enough break that no one is going to "remember" the last chapter's details - i.e. I won't remember relying on my dark sight to get us through because it was 6 months ago real time.

[foxandwarlock]

Okay, so I reburned Kemlin using the Revision this weekend. Compared to the original, freshly burned Kemlin there are very few differences but here they are:

SKILLS:
1) Added Firebuilding: B3 (had more skill points then before)
2) Changed Knife B5 to Sword B5 (based on the new weapon length system and Kukri real-life size - it was no longer "shortest" like a knife)

TRAITS:
1) Lost Penetrating Gaze (not enough Trait points left to buy it)
2) Lost Alms-Taker (no longer a required Trait)
2) Added Speaker of the Secret Language (1pt)
3) Added Determined (1pt)

OTHER (We will not be using these in our campaign due to world situation)
1) Calculated Circles: B1
2) Calculated Resources: B0

Everything else stayed the same (Resources Points, Starting Age, etc.) In general, we found that we had more skill points but less Trait points (after buying the required ones).

We also took the opportunity to refine, alter and change BIT's in a kind of Trait Vote, where-are-we-going-with-the-next-chapter kind of way. Here's Kemlin's new BIT's after that discussion:

TRAITS:
1. Reincarnated
2. Dreamer
3. Determined
4. Loner
5. Predatory
6. Fortitude
7. Speaker of the Secret Language
8. Zealot

BELIEFS:
1. I am my brother's keeper.
2. As long as I have faith, there is a way.
3. My dreams are the works of Aman-Ra; they will guide me.

INSTINCTS:
1. Always wake at sunrise.
2. Always wear gloves.
3. Always look and listen before going in.

[luke]

you get an extra Belief with the Zealot trait, don't you?

-L

[foxandwarlock]

Yeah. Sorry about that.

9. Zealot: The enemy of my god is my enemy.