New Character Submission - Riatha Swansong

[Lillith6]

Character: Riatha Swansong
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Classes: Fighter/Wizard
Race: Half Elf
Alignment: Neutral Good
Deity: Lucinda


Biography:

Riatha is a very ambitious and compassionate Halfelf who seeks to combat evil and bring good to Layonara as far as she can spread it. Tained as a warrior, she plans to train in magic down the road so she can grow in power and lead people against the evil in the world. She feels training in magic will make for more formidable in battle, and aid her in her quest to right the wrong's of Layonara. Her mother was a skilled Mage and Riatha caught on to this spending much time watching her mother's alchemy and study and served as her pupil, studying, and learning lore. Her mother had an Alchemy lab in the Hammerbound Peaks, where Riatha was born. Riatha is'nt a mage, but knows the basics of magic and has studied for hours as a wizards apprentice, watching and learning and feeding her vast interest in magic. Riatha loves her mother dearly and feels she is the only reason she is alive. This may have a strong factor in her wish to become a mage as well, seeing that her father was a Grayelf and had treacherous plans for his daughter. Deborah, Riatha's mothers first name, also was a skilled jewelcrafter in their mountain home, where she worshipped Beryl and learned the art of jewelcraft. Deborah, a human, married a haughty Gray elf, who trained Riatha with the Greatsword, Broadsword and Longsword, Longbow, and throwing axe, mostly in the goblin wastelands and a ruin south of these mountains, in silkwood Forest, which she want's to travel to once more. Her father trained her on hunt's and taught her to outsmart small groups of goblins and orcs and to use throwing axes as they are cheap and the user can arm themselves with a shield and defend themselves against orc and goblin archers while she takes out the footsoldiers. She is very skilled in these tactics and uses them to this day as her gear as of now is rather meager. She spent her adolescence training in war and Melee with her father, who she deeply respected, but disliked, mostly due to his disrespectful tone of speaking to her and her mother, as Gray elves usually do, basically for having human blood. This attitude is what caused her to develop a problem with male authority figures throughout her childhood and early adolencense for her father trained her well, yet spoke in a matter as if he never really wanted her. Riatha's ambition is pure, and she only cares to gain power to become stronger and more capable down the road so she may combat the more dangerous evil elsewhere in Layonara. Riatha is not evil at all and is known as an honest and loyal companion to those who befriend her, and is known as somewhat of a leader. Though she wont lead a party down a black corridor with ghouls at the end, she will follow a close second in line and fight vigorously to defend her friends first, then put her own needs second. She has leadership qualities and feels these will grow as she gains experience. She loves a challenge, and is well trained in combat, and is a skilled archer as well as a warrio. When she was younger she had problems with male authourity figures and this affected her behaviour somewhat, but she has learned to control this, and it no longer affects her judgemant. Her mother, Deborah, was a beautiful human woman, which Riatha believes was the only reason her father was involved with her in the first place. Deborah used her magic to spy on her husband and discovered that he planned on leaving her and orphaning Riatha. Fleeing their mountain home during the Ice Age and taking with them a good amount of provision's and armed with a bow, a sword, survival gear, and her mothers magic (invisibility, light, magical fire and food), they made their way to Hlint, where they now reside. Deborah used her jewel craft a little, along with the few reamaining gem'she crafted back in the mountains to pay for her alchemy and magical studiesto pay for food and shelter during this time after their journey to see themselves through the Ice Age, and Riatha was a mercenary in her early adulthood. During their stay in Hlint, her mother lost her spellbook which planned on handing down to Riatha so she could carry on a legacy through her future family, and carry on a line of great wizard's. Riatha seeks to reclaim her mother's spellbook, whether it was stolen or lost, she does not know. She want's to find it so she can carry on her mother's wishes of her training in the weave before the time comes.(At level 7 she will start wizard levels so she wants to be skilled enough in war before she can learn magic.) Riatha is 5'9" and weighs about 155 lbs. She has green eyes and jet black hair and is rather pretty. She has a good personality and has travelled around Mistone and has some wisdom to her since she is in early adulthood. She seeks companions to grow with so she can fight evil and bring justice to Layonara. She is always looking to help people and want's to be a force for good in the world. She want's to explore the area's around Hlint to start and has an interest in finding out about the witch in the nearby Forest. Now, being mature and in adulthood, she has basic equipment which she is well trained with and has some gold and is ready to venture off and face Layonara and do her best to see that her future is much happier than her dark past.

[Lillith6]

Re-editted Riatha and added some things about her younger years and how she fled her father's mountain home with her mother to Hlint.

[darkstorme]

Hi there, and welcome to Layonara!

You have indeed chosen a good server - the best, I'd say, that's out there. (But then, I'm biased.) Anyway, on to the character review.

While this is a good start, we do expect a little more from character bios - have a look at some Recent Approvals to get a sense of the depth of detail that we look for.

Aside from that, there is the issue of the dual-class split. If you're seeking approval for both classes at submission, we treat that as "has experience in both occupations, but is only pursuing X at the moment, before turning to Y". To that end, I'd like to see greater justification for the wizard class - or you could remove that class for now, and request the class split at a later point, either through a well-maintained CDT or a CDQ.

Once you've updated your bio, post again to this thread. If you have any additional questions, don't hesitate to ask, either here, or in the Ask a Gamemaster thread.

Thanks!

Additional: As an aside, 56 is rather old for a half-elf to be a starting-out adventurer. Why so late?

[Lillith6]

Re-edited The Raitha submission. Been working on it all afternoon since I got home. now 6:27 , It's been done for a while :-). Just waiting patiently. :-)

[Lillith6]

Re-editted the Bio. Don't really know where to reply to the thread. Quite new to this. Hope the Bio is good enogh. spent a good amount of time going into detail. Not really good at making character Bio's. :-) Thanks
Lou

[darkstorme]

Rest assured, your submission will be reviewed in turn. By "reply to the thread" we mean that you should do precisely what you did - edit the original bio, and then make an additional post to this thread to make it obvious that an edit has taken place.

Your submission will be reviewed soon.

[Lillith6]

Reeditted Riatha yesterday before dearstormmes reply

[darkstorme]

Hi again, and sorry for the wait; RL, as always, trumps forum diligence.

That being said, a few points I'd like to clarify:

• Layonara's ice age was a minor ice age - of similar severity to the aftereffects of Krakatoa, but more long-lasting. Still, it only lasted 18 years - barely a hiccup for elves, even if a long time for humans.
• While they might live in a small cabin in the mountains somewhere, it is highly unlikely (ie. near-impossible) that a grey elf enclave would permit a human to live among them. Elitism would probably drive them to cast out any who chose to marry outside of their race.
• The current starting areas for PCs are Hempstead and Vehl, rather than Hlint, as it once was. This doesn't need to affect your story, but it is a bit of a hike for a new player to travel from Hempstead to Hlint (though completely safe.)
• Finally, I don't see anything in the biography supporting Lucinda in the deity field. Filling that field would mean that Riatha was a devout worshiper - the sort who would direct prayers to Her every day, who would tithe to the church, and so forth. If you mean to keep this, I'll need to see at least some support. If not, simply leave the deity field blank on character creation.

With all those caveats in mind....
Your character has been approved.

Server address is west.layonara.com
Password is layoplayer

Some final notes on character creation:

• Please note that racial adjustments for players with subraces are skin based and thus get applied after getting in game.
• Only two ability scores can be less than 10 and only one can be less than 8 after racial adjustments
• Brownies, when selecting a head, the head you choose on the halfling selection will correspond to that numbered head for elves (for example, clicking right 6 times on the head selection during character creation will take the 6th head when clicking right on the elf creation)
• Half-giants and ogres, please ask for a GM (type /dm Anyone here?) if you would like to change to a custom skin.

Good luck!

[Lillith6]

I made a character to PM someone to find out how much xps id get for killing an orc or a goblin. See a few days ago I spent like hours downloading haks for a few servers and they looked great but i killed a bat and got 126 xps for it and I just left then and there. Saw alot of high level, split class characters, like epic and began to wonder anyway. Saw the same thing on Layonara but had to ask someone myself, knew I had to give it a chance, Anyway, I see that I'm slated to start off in Hlint, well, after talking to someone in the server, I was recommended to find groups if I was to go adventuring. No problem, I prefer groups over solo play anyway :-). If newbs start off in Vehl or Hempstead I'd like to request to start there if it's alright. Do you want me to reedit my online submission or just make some changes to Riatha's Bio about the mountain home and her religion? I might as well wait before you reset my start point if you will. I jotted down some notes about some changes and some new things that I feel should be added. Thanks, Lou

[darkstorme]

The start points are automatic, either in Hempstead or Vehl, and are decided upon character creation.

Killing an orc or a goblin ought to be well beyond the ken of a first-level player. The nearest goblins to the start point are, frankly, tough, and XP is quite in keeping with their difficulty.

The reason I provided all the information as caveats was that, with the understanding of all that was in them, the bio was approved. She could just as easily have been born in Hlint and moved off to the Big City when she came of age.

However, if you wish to edit your biography with this new information in mind, I can move it back to Submissions for you. Likewise, if you wish to expand upon her religion in order to fill that deity field.

[Acacea]

There is no need to have a starting point changed - all new players, regardless of bio, will start out in an OOC area where you can read rules and timeline and such if you are unfamiliar with them, and to enter the gameworld go through a portal that will take you to either Fort Vehl, or Port Hempstead. You can decide there which you would like to start at. darkstorme just meant that in your bio she can have gone to Hlint, but at some point she must have journeyed to one of the two starting locations.

Regarding the XP gain, I would not worry so much about how much there is per kill. Layo has a slower progression rate than the default campaign. For example, if a level 23 character from Layo exported their character and imported it into another module or the OC, it would read 'max level' because the amount of XP needed to progress is higher. We do have many epic players, but the server has also been up for years and people that put in the time do get there. They usually have lower leveled ones as well, and we encourage people of all levels to interact with each other, with the exception of using them to level your own. You can hire a veteran guide at the Shack, for example, to show you around and guide you to some place you would like to see, without using them to collect CNR or massive XP.

You can always add things to your bio at any time - we have had high level characters come back and completely resubmit their characters' backgrounds for approval just to flesh out their origins. You can continue to post here with changes if you feel the bio will be different enough that you would rather wait for re-approval, and we can move it back into submissions. Otherwise, with darkstorme's points in mind, you should be fine.

Edit - ninja'ed by darkstorme again!