Character discussion

[Anastasia]

Mihail

I've written this one out a few times, but I've never been quite happy with how it's resolved. In case I mention something that I didn't actually write, club me and I'll correct this. Odds are that my train of thought is going to be wild'n'crazy.

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Early in Balmuria's development I had to look at the scenario and go 'You know, with low magic around, mages are going to be pretty scattered on the ground. Still, I want more than one in Balmuria. I have the sketch for this Countess Stronger girl done, but what about another...? Oh, duh! Why don't I just make an opposite and see which fits the party better? Brilliant!'  If you've taken the time to compare Mihail and Elle, you notice a fair few differences. One is a generalist mage, the other was a specialist(Even if this somewhat became overshadowed later), one was open and one was closed, that sorta thing. This line of thought lead me to Mihail.

On his basic generation, he was a secluded mage who kept to himself. He had his home in Balmuria but otherwise kept himself away from the common dealings of the town. This wasn't meant to show him as an anti social creep as much as a hermit. I gave him a few interests for plot hooks: Animals, control, a dislike for Malmuth.  Well...that same Mihail was still in there at the end, but things got warped. I didn't originally design him as being evil, but instead purely neutral. He could be a bit controlling and oblivious to others for his goals, but he wasn't heartless, just reclusive.

Yeah, that didn't work out at all. He came off rather nasty to Shamal in his first screen times; I think her meeting him was something of a snafu. For someone like that to work it's best not to pair them off with someone so blindingly -nice and good- right away. I tried to establish his character against Shamal's; Mihail came off as an asshole instead. I should have known better in retrospect, I've made missteps like that before. While I was ruminating that over, it turned out that Shamal gave him the Book of the Pact. Y'know, the mysterious gnomish artifact book that I never imagined would be freely given away like that? Well shit.

What happens when you give a hermit type that sort of thing? Obsession felt like the logical progression. Admittedly this was aided by the fact that I saw some really nifty long term plot lines springing up from this. So while he was offscreen, I had the milieu of obsession, artifact and nasty to work with. It wasn't much of a surprise that I felt he drifted into evil during this time.  When he appeared on screen next, Demedais and Alicia had made the scene. As I recall(Correct me, my memory of this stretch of the game is hazy regarding Mihail's exact actions), he got the guard's attention and they investigated. A long story short, Alicia detected him as evil. Seira had this and other reasons to dislike Mihail, as well as some evidence that shit was afoot. She ordered him watched.

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I'll take a moment here to say a few things. I don't fault Shamal for reflecting Mihail in a poor light. I don't regret turning Mihail to an evil alignment for a time. I don't blame Seira for having him watched. These were either logical actions or simply character RP. I'm just sayin'.

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As another result of that incident, Mihail got dragged to the garrison and got off on a really bad foot with the Crimson Guard. Further, he was now being watched. What happens when you do that to a hermit who's sliding into obsession? Because of this, he began to harbor a serious grudge against the guard. Thus the seeds of wrath and anger were planted. These progressed into paranoia in due time. Mihail made an offer to the guard and had a few other moderate encounters - none of these went well. He made an effort even if it was doomed and it fed into his emotions. He began work on his great fire caverns, losing himself into it and unraveling great secrets.

Not too much happened from there until the first two seals were busted. During the interim, I was doing deity related research for the seals. I hadn't planned for Mihail to follow any particular god, but Kossuth felt like a flawless choice. He's a fire aligned N god who is distant. His doctrine is that the flames can bring pain, but ultimately forge his worshipers into strong, unbending steel. Mihail's current complexes were the fire, Kossuth saw a chance to make a strong temple and turn the troubled wizard into something greater than he was. It was a match made in...uh...Limbo? The Fire Elemental Plane? Whatever. Anyway, the synergy rocked and I went with it. I felt like Mihail's story was taking another good turn and would soon lead to all sorts of interesting events. It would take some more time, probably until the PCs were level 12-13 or so, for Mihail to have shifted and fully embraced Kossuth. I intended for him to have regained his neutral alignment and a certain degree of zealotry in that time.

To further that, I wanted to have a few vignettes and side scenes to show what Mihail was up to. The carnival coming to town fit into this, so I had him go. Deme happened to run into him and...ah hell. I can't really sugarcoat this; Deme, you took Mihail's words to mean something they weren't. I was pretty careful to keep his comments within a certain field. They were meant to be foreshadowing. I figured that the PCs wouldn't do much about it, since they'd let it go this far and not dredged up a reason to drop the boom on him. I really, really, really didn't anticipate Deme taking his words that way. As you found out later, Mihail had no plans to blow up Balmuria.

From there, you know what happened. You saw his works and his aide(Who's now back on the Fire Elemental Plane, having slipped away at first chance.). You saw what he was planning and you know what was going on. I do rather wish you hadn't found him there - you guys showing up was entirely at the wrong time and in the wrong way. He rather backslid during the encounter. It wasn't quite a perfect storm of :psyduck:, but it wasn't too far off. Still, my regrets aren't so much with that. That could've been salvaged with a bit of work. My personal gripes with it are twofold and connected:

1. Mihail's death was pretty unimpressive. For someone with all that buildup, a more dramatic offing was desired. I've had so-so luck with those this game and this was decidedly the low point.

2. Related to that, what the fuck was I thinking with that book? I had this out in PM after the fact, but having it blow up to one slash was...uh....uh....yeah. Not my shining moment of DMing aptitude.  I dunno if some irritation crept in and manifested wrong or if I just critically failed my improvisation check, but damned that sucked. Alicia got the short end of that...ah hell, all of you did. For what it's worth, I didn't really want the Book of the Pact back in active circulation, either. You guys have enough toys without that one. 

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I don't particularly regret Mihail. He left a large, interesting footprint in the game world and he won't be forgotten anytime soon. Sure, he never went how I wanted and there were some failings, but overall I had fun with him. Even if 99% of him was off camera, I had fun with his entire scenario.

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For all his flaws, Mihail didn't particularly help the opposition. He rejected Febras' inquiry for aide and he was trying to protect his home, Balmuria, in his own way. This is what I was going to work with if he had lived longer. It probably would've happened a little in the future, like when you're back from the devil invasion. Having grown and been guided by Kossuth, he'd begin to try to feel out the guard and see if he could patch things up. After all, he needed good relations if he was going to open his temple to the public. There would've been some interesting scenes, reactions and choices made.

He also had that dislike for Malmuth, which showed even in the end. If you guys hadn't found him out and had gotten Balmuria under siege? It would've been a helluva scene to see the ground erupt in lava and Malmuth's spearhead get turned into slag. Dealing with that while on the invasion's edge or thereafter would have been ripe with potential for awesome.

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Mihail was a pure specialist wizard. He was going to take Cleric levels for Kossuth once he got under control and then go after Mystic Theurge. Now that I think of it, Mystic Theurges or those in training have had shitty luck throughout Balmuria. Well no, it's only two, but still. His stats were solid but not spectacular.

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I had a complete blast designing Mihail's house, fire caverns and encounters. With such a strong theme to work with my creativity found plenty of applications and the structure to produce. Of particular note was the lava worm. This was meant to be a full party optional encounter, based around fighting the worm as it lunged out of the lava and destroyed the floor you were fighting on. I loved the images and the dramatic potential it had. Smart fighting allowed Alicia and Elle to deal with it themselves, however.

Antenora was damn near a complete spoiler for that worm anyway. Fire immunity and flying really does make it's life difficult. Antenora in general was a ringer for the entire fire caves due to her fire immunity. Her sickness wasn't planned with that in mind, just one of those nutty synergies that happen when divergent plot lines crash into each other. If you guys had been of the mind? Antenora could've soloed that dungeon with a bit of support while the rest of you kicked back, or close enough to it to be impressive.

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Mihail was my backup if something happened to Elle early on. It wasn't likely, as her disposition made combat unlikely, but shit has a way of happening. I imagine Berlioz trying to sweet talk Mihail instead of Stronger or Seira asking to be his apprentice and I end up laughing out loud.  He wouldn't have opened a magic shop like Elle's, but if an ally he would've done some lesser form of aide.

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Mihail's name is based on Mihai 1, the king of Romania during World War 2. In other words, he was called Mihai I. It's not hard to see how that blends into one name, is it?  There weren't many other inspirations for him beyond being a counter to Elle's personality. The rest came over time and developments.

[Ebiris]

Ahhh, Mihail.

I really gave him the benefit of the doubt, at first. Sure, he wasn't the most personable of people, but he still seemed basically harmless. Considering charming/dominating animals gets a lot of play in the druidic spell selection, I couldn't even legitimately have Shamal get upset about that, so long as he still treated the tiger well.

Trading the book was probably overkill, but I didn't think I had anything else that he'd be willing to accept, and I got the impression during that sequence that I was being somewhat tested, and leaving Khan to idle away in crushing boredom and captivity would've been bad for Shamal's future as a druid. Still, the book wasn't *that* useful - I'd already yanked all the spells out of it, and situational SR vs a small subset of spells isn't really amazing. I even figured if Mihail did get anything really cool out of it, he might still be willing to share it.

Then he went crazy and evil and Shamal died. Hurray!

Alicia had no reason to like or trust Mihail, and was basically hoping he'd slip up somewhere and give justification to bring him down before he did something really bad, which she considered near enough inevitable.

But, he kept his nose clean as far as we could tell, and there were more pressing problems. Until Demedais told us of Mihail's plan to sacrifice the city. Alicia had been pretty much waiting for this, and trusts Demedais implicitly, so there was no reason at all to question the story put forward.

Certainly, his freakshow house didn't inspire any sort of belief in there being a reasonable explanation. The place was a deathtrap just waiting to spill out into the city (and Huge Fire Elementals, wtf? Who has a hall big enough to accommodate two elephant-sized creatures?). Still, when acting as a peacekeeper within the city, Alicia is very loathe to use lethal measures, so I was able to justify a desire to take Mihail in alive - admittedly somewhat based on the OOC knowledge that he had no intention of any fiery sacrifice.

Alas, things didn't work out when fighting him. I admit to being really pissed off after the fact that the one PC trying not to kill Mihail wound up doing just that - and when using a combat maneuver specifically meant to cause no harm, to boot! The fact that the explosion had a pretty decent chance of killing Alicia outright, and fairly good odds of causing a permanent debuff to her just added to my indignation. Had either of those outcomes occured, I'd probably have just dropped the game and not looked back.

As for the fate of Mystic Theurges in Balmuria? Perhaps its divine punishment for picking such a shitty class?

[Anastasia]

Ahhh, Mihail.

I really gave him the benefit of the doubt, at first. Sure, he wasn't the most personable of people, but he still seemed basically harmless. Considering charming/dominating animals gets a lot of play in the druidic spell selection, I couldn't even legitimately have Shamal get upset about that, so long as he still treated the tiger well.

Trading the book was probably overkill, but I didn't think I had anything else that he'd be willing to accept, and I got the impression during that sequence that I was being somewhat tested, and leaving Khan to idle away in crushing boredom and captivity would've been bad for Shamal's future as a druid. Still, the book wasn't *that* useful - I'd already yanked all the spells out of it, and situational SR vs a small subset of spells isn't really amazing. I even figured if Mihail did get anything really cool out of it, he might still be willing to share it.

Mmm. I'm glad he came off as harmless right off. That was some of the intent.

It wasn't a break all-be all test like Shamal surmised. The parallels with Shamal's skillset and uses is obvious enough to where it was ultimately a moral choice but not a defining one. At least not automatically, yeah?  It ended up being so in a few ways, some of them impossible to know at the time.

Trading the book was overkill but it also worked without a hitch. Would he have shared? Well, that was the question that was going to be answered down the line with the Temple to Kossuth. It would depend on what terms the party was on with him. I'm not sure if Shamal would've changed much if she was there(Ignoring Alicia things like detecting evil on him), it would depend on if she took any serious interest.

Then he went crazy and evil and Shamal died. Hurray!

To use one of Cor's expressions:  :(

Certainly, his freakshow house didn't inspire any sort of belief in there being a reasonable explanation. The place was a deathtrap just waiting to spill out into the city (and Huge Fire Elementals, wtf? Who has a hall big enough to accommodate two elephant-sized creatures?). Still, when acting as a peacekeeper within the city, Alicia is very loathe to use lethal measures, so I was able to justify a desire to take Mihail in alive - admittedly somewhat based on the OOC knowledge that he had no intention of any fiery sacrifice.

Mmm. I don't think it violated Alicia's mindset at all. She's shown a tendency towards being willing to take foes in alive and let the law deal with 'em. Miahil didn't strike me as odd since it fit the pattern Alicia had set before. OOC I had mild suspicions based on the #elysium chatter, but everyone's actions fit their personalities.

Alas, things didn't work out when fighting him. I admit to being really pissed off after the fact that the one PC trying not to kill Mihail wound up doing just that - and when using a combat maneuver specifically meant to cause no harm, to boot! The fact that the explosion had a pretty decent chance of killing Alicia outright, and fairly good odds of causing a permanent debuff to her just added to my indignation. Had either of those outcomes occured, I'd probably have just dropped the game and not looked back.

I'm sorry. That really wasn't my finest hour. I'm not gonna defend it, just shake my head at doing it in the first damned place. Normally I don't drop the ball like that.

As for the fate of Mystic Theurges in Balmuria? Perhaps its divine punishment for picking such a shitty class?

Mystic Theurges are nice. They might suck until endgame compared to caster of doom, but that's such a shitty standard to hold everything to.

[Anastasia]

Lord Stargazer and court

To talk about Lord Stargazer inevitably entails a lot of game world and game design discussion. The reason for his world's existence is tied to Balmuria's own in a certain perspective. For when you look at Balmuria's setup, many planar matters don't quite make sense with a sealed Prime. Basic D and D assumes that the Prime Material plane is open, so I decided on going with a multi/spread Prime setup. This lets a mostly normal planar setup be waiting for the PCs, as their world is an exception and not by itself. The Gods can still have millions of worshipers, planar dealings can still be normal and all that good jazz.

Yes, I could hand wave and change a lot of this to taste. However, I felt the basic world was complex enough without muddying the waters further. As a beginning 3.5 GM at the time, I didn't want to overstretch myself. Therefore a fundamentally familiar planar situation would prevent miscommunication and misunderstanding.  I think that my choice here was fully justified, as all the D and D familiar PCs instinctively ported their assumptions about how things worked.

To contrast the situation in Balmuria I made Lord Stargazer's court a typical fantasy D and D court.  Mages and clerics had honored positions, lords were powerful, well trained warriors, there were plenty of adventuring places nearby and so on. Combine this with the appearance the the Gods were active here and I thought the contrast worked very well. With all this said?

Lord Stargazer himself was a typical fantasy king. He was not unwise nor unkind, very much a decent ruler dealing with an unusual situation on his hands. He didn't trust the PCs straightaway, but went along with them once they proved themselves in the dragon attack. Past that he was happy that the heroes saved the day and bailed them out of a nasty little situation.  I thought I played him very well for what he was.

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Lord Stargazer's first name was mentioned to be Cinq. Cinq is French for five, a reference to the Fifth Resort and the section of the ruins you were in. This was meant to be an inside joke as well as a slight tweak at metagaming. Despite first appearances his court was very real, with one of the misleading hints otherwise being that. It's only grokkable on an OOC sense, so I wondered if anyone would bite.

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I really rather liked his domain. The snowy mountain setup was a lot of fun to run. I won't go into this too much as that's more Antenora stuff.

[Ebiris]

Alternate Prime Material Planes do exist in regular D&D, anyway - they're accessible via the Plane of Shadow and then have their own specific Outer Planes spinning off of them. So theoretically someone from Faerun could wind up in Greyhawk or whatever. Don't think anyone ever bothers, though, since there's plenty of adventure seeds with one Prime and all its adjacent Inner and Outer Planes without needing to double up.

Stargazer himself struck me as somewhat... not altogether there. Nothing entirely concrete, just his manner and mode of speech made him sound like he was a bit over his head.

I do wonder how things would have turned out if one of us had lost our temper and started murdering all the annoying 'illusory people' that populated his realm. Alicia certainly came very close to drawing her sword as her efforts to shove past the stuck up dancers were hilariously rebuffed, and I think Seira was on the verge of fireballing the guards that showed up... not to mention the duel Deme was challenged to. Though I wonder if he'd have been so quick to reject that girl if he'd known for sure that she was real, so I suppose it goes both ways.

[Anastasia]

Alternate Prime Material Planes do exist in regular D&D, anyway - they're accessible via the Plane of Shadow and then have their own specific Outer Planes spinning off of them. So theoretically someone from Faerun could wind up in Greyhawk or whatever. Don't think anyone ever bothers, though, since there's plenty of adventure seeds with one Prime and all its adjacent Inner and Outer Planes without needing to double up.

Agreed to that in principal, though I didn't know that until just now.  Oh well, whatever works.

Stargazer himself struck me as somewhat... not altogether there. Nothing entirely concrete, just his manner and mode of speech made him sound like he was a bit over his head.

Really? I wasn't trying to play him as refined, but more down to earth and decent. Kind of a contrast to how Lord Salman carries himself, or how Ferdi did.

I do wonder how things would have turned out if one of us had lost our temper and started murdering all the annoying 'illusory people' that populated his realm. Alicia certainly came very close to drawing her sword as her efforts to shove past the stuck up dancers were hilariously rebuffed, and I think Seira was on the verge of fireballing the guards that showed up... not to mention the duel Deme was challenged to. Though I wonder if he'd have been so quick to reject that girl if he'd known for sure that she was real, so I suppose it goes both ways.

This was by far the hardest part of the scenario to plan out and yet one of the most likely.

I wasn't going totally alignment hammer you if you sincerely thought it was a trap and went all homicidal.  You had plenty of reason to think this was just another illusion at first. Instead I'd have made it something you'd need to atone for and work out on your own. Once the other shoe fell and everyone figured out it was devilish manipulations screwing everything up? The scenario would posit on the party either trying to make amends or embracing/denying what they did.

This isn't to say Lord Stargazer would've given you a free ride if you'd wiped out half his court. If you'd survived until the manipulation came to light and everyone survived the dragon attack, you'd at least have a chance to try to make things right. On the flip side, if you went whole hog and did Antenora's work for her by wiping out Selah and Lord Stargazer? I'd have driven home the point by having a victorious Antenora attempt to turn the PCs into thralls.

At worst if you realized it was real but didn't atone or repent? Alicia would've fallen for the affair, as not repenting for murders like that is pretty vile. Deme might've, especially if he openly defied the law and leader of the land. Seira would've shifted to CN. This is the worst case scenario; while possible, this wasn't really meant to be an alignment clusterfuck as much as a creepy intro to an adventure. You guys would've had to have done it and refused to accept responsibility and atonement to bungle things hard. Even at worst I set it up so you'd have informed choices after the fact and a way to make things okay again.

If you guys completely failed(Wipe, partial wipe and domination, dominations or captured and executed/imprisoned for life)? While I can't do much if you'd wiped, the domination scenarios could be decent depending on who was dominated. Also, a prison break after a set amount of time could've been fun, with your exit out of the castle taking you back to the ruins.