History

Player: Ben Persinger; Integrated campaign (GM: Kelly Berger) character for The North Revealed, created 5/2025.

Background/Origins

No one remembers or uses last names – those old identities are gone. Your name is partially too high pitched – not natural to the folk you find yourself with, and so you go by the name of Gil.

Imperium Origins

Gil was taken on a Neogin slaver raid on a transport ship on its way to the ring station of Kalmukh in the Hekreif-Meraht System. Gil was born to Elven terraformer parents. Although young when taken, the call and answer of the cosmic water spirits instilled in him by his parents was constant and comforting. He had just ‘ridden the wave’ to signify he would continue his parents work in building more life at the age of 20, and going with them to assist the Tapethian peoples in settling/forming a newly discovered system.
> Gains the benefits of Imperium Accelerata.

Helca Origins

ARRIVAL = Herald’s Quarterly 9168, 2nd Quarter = spaceship crash
The spirit of water of your people has sheltered you in your harrowing journey. Your inner self has sheltered in a cool, supportive place the whole time of your capture, slavery, and freedom. You have remained calm deep inside, despite the chaos outside… Here on a planet called Helca, Kaerslein is the elemental manifestation of the blessed life giving water. You sense a living world with great unrealized potential. Additionally, there is a divine spirit on the planet you find yourself on – at least bound to the great oceans of the world Helca – her name is Elancil. Her too you draw upon as inspiration to fight for yourself and others. In this place, you must acknowledge both, though your embrace is fully to the great Prince of Waters – Ashkoos.

The characters share the same experience (North Revealed: The Soul Scourge) in regard to The Soul Scourge of Gruxxand the Necromancer. It is a recurring shared experience of a strange astral ship and crew over and over, with the Eorthna named Binnu-Burr of the foundlings imprinting it. She has done this over and over for years, even on the ones that did not directly experience it, so that it is a defining moment in all their lives.

Connecting to the Powers of Helca:

Driven to Ashkoos:

A Myriad of Faces:

The Slaveship Work

The Others:

The Escape:

The Ship:

Shared Campaign Experience – Theme/symbolism of water. The entire {original} group of PCs is bound in their adoption of the gods, goddesses, and elemental ideals of water and what they represent. Additionally, they share a common background of Sailor.

Favored/Spirit Animal Story: FALCON – On one of my training sessions as a teen, I was left to fend for myself for 5 days in the northern wilderness. The first day was brutal, and by the second I was starving. Suddenly I heard a scream like a banshee wail and saw a blur of movement. Diving for the brush, I slowly peaked out and saw a Gyrfalcon had dove near me, bringing down a hare. It pecked a few times, then took off again. Minutes later, it dove once more, again and again. 5 hares dead, and it grabbed the last to carry off after staring at me in what I can only assume as annoyance. I grabbed the remaining hares and followed its direction for an hour, and found a thick stream for fresh water. I never saw the bird again, but I watch for it constantly when we travel north.

END OF THE SOUL SCOURGE: Herald’s Quarterly 9179, 3rd Quarter CY 9179 – Something has happened. You know not what, but a powerful mystic force has slammed into everyone – finding you wherever you may be; In bed, in the street, asleep, eating, working or in the midst of romance. All at once, you feel as if the sun and all light have been swallowed – everything is dark. Your belly burns with a hunger you have never felt before, a desire to consume all within reach, a great emptiness that must be filled. Around you in the darkness are motes of life. You’re not sure if anything you’ve ever heard of is comparable to this… perhaps the Soul Scourge, or being near a gods’ manifestation. Do you feast… or resist the hunger?
= Gives into the Worms’ Hunger

Do you have a character concept you were thinking of for the next character? I have a list of several integrated character ideas i will try and match with (it looks like we are going in that direction). Im not giving the list out to everyone because i want things to remain a surprise for a while.

Trying to resist my knee-jerk response of “whatever the group needs!” Id like to play either a straight up wizard, preferably Divination, or a Warlock, dealer’s choice on patron.

Warlock works, ive got one of the character concepts built around it. Its REALLY interesting. All the character concepts i’ve outlined have mechanisms to be viable, despite some of their strange appearances and traits (which make for RP opportunities).

Weird really works for me.

It is not a typical elf. Ill start fleshing it out more

Oh dear. We’re aliens? That explains why no one recognized our language.

Note about character personality – I would like to play an anti-paladin. The most morally questionable character, switch up from the holy do-gooder I usually run. Will that still work?
I know this guy is described as calm and centered, almost aloof. He may end up more like a sociopath. Purely “what is going to most directly benefit me in the long run.”
If that doesnt fit your vision, I can try a different character.

I think we need to revisit something. an anti paladin elven warlock sociopath is not a good integrated campaign character. I am not sure how much Alanna cares, but shes the only one who has not voted on character approach. Thus far its been integrated campaign characters, and i began work on it. I can easily go another direction and will if the vote is a tie and you can get whatever personality you want at that point. 24 hours roughly voting period left.

No problem. I will fit whatever role needed.

Im not going to be an absolutist, i will work with you, but the definition of campaign integrated means i have a lot of the job to make the glue that holds the party together and binds them into the story, so i cant really have a sociopath. As one of the off worlders, and a member of “the foundlings” – you are all outsiders. Morally questionable i can work with if its simply not cut and dry and more pragmatic… Its going to be a rough group. A world of black and white is a luxury, and hard decisions sometimes have to be made that prioritize YOUR group over the rest of the world. You are the one to advocate for that… constantly 🙂 – does that give enough of a bent in that direction? Trust me, you’d be working against the other extreme in the party of “its only through law that we maximize our potential”…

Thats perfect.

this is going to be fun. it reminds me a lot of my character Rivkin and his clash with the LG character Tereya (the leader in our group) – a lot of memorable “conversations” about morality

please state the gender of character you wish to play (i can change it)

Sorry, I just realized my phone had died.
As an otherworldly elf, pretty androgynous. But male on close inspection.

thats my general classification (“male/suggestive female structures”), so that dovetails

Exactly. If they ever see him naked he has a penis, but up til then its almost impossible to tell.

Well, it seems like there wont be a stark contrast to your viewpoint through background story. The cohesion is not quite what i hoped for, so i will document and suggest differences be worked out in session 0 for the players. Thats a bit cryptic, but i want many things to remain a surprise for a while. Suffice to say, there may be more of your outlook in the party than any law and order for a greater good. buckle up!
> ARCHIVED all up here: male, imperium elf, warlock (bound to marid/genie patron)

All characters are going to have a common background. Please review it and let me know if you have any questions about the background itself and what it encompasses. Any questions beyond that hold off until later. https://incarna.net/feature/experience/background/sailor/

I have some questions about the race, but they can wait. Mostly RP stuff.

I’m going to call the background complete.

Sounds good.. The Imperial Elf, is it any different physically from the elves of Steel Realms other than the soulstone?

i at least have the basics of it here: https://incarna.net/verse/set/grml/creat/faerie/

Msg to ALL players: The basics of your character concept are done – superficial ideas and basic race and class (at least narrowed to a couple choices in a few cases). The next phase is the fleshing out of deeper asapects, concepts and back story. You have 2 options at this point. 1) I’ll present you with enough information for you to finish out the character with nearly complete freedom and agency using standard rules with any exceptions already noted in what you’ve discussed with me so far. Or 2) You can let the GM flesh out the character using the more deeply integrated character concepts and options beyond std. rules. This always nets the character more capabilities but a few more roleplaying and interaction restrictions. Which approach would you like?

Let’s go ahead and do Option 2.
I like having more RP hooks to focus on.

ACTUALLY (as i push my glasses up the bridge of my nose in my best Athol voice), #2 is easiest for me since i already have the concept hooks and plot points for campaign characters.

Do you want me to assign your attributes or assign them yourself? Either way you will get to choose where your initial ASI goes on top of that (generally a pair of +1s); i use this for attribute point buy: https://chicken-dinner.com/5e/5e-point-buy.html

I’d go to a 6 in Wisdom for 10 Int if it let me.
He’s charismatic, agile and resilient from his time on the ship, and earned a moderate amount of muscle. But he’s brash, and frequently reacts without thinking.
ASI would go into Dex and Cha to make them round numbers.

i can make that wis/int switch work. Blown by the winds of the seas.

Exactly. Mercurial as the sea.
But not stupid, when he remembers to think.

Kelly Berger – Game Master — Yesterday at 2:56 PM

North Revealed Experience: The Fate of Asil

How long after the baron’s death does Asil and the ship go down? How old will the foundlings be?

Remind me, is his Archetype set?
Im thinking Narrow Path, pure warlock.
Split path, maybe Sorcerer? But I think pure Warlock will be easier and a better focus.
Oh wait its Djinn
I remember

Patron is set. Pact is not. Do you want to focus on spell casting? If so, pact of the tome.

Yeah, spellcaster. He doesnt have the strength for a melee build. Better at dodging and keeping distance, blasting from range or controlling the field with AoE.

IF theres not anything you want to add to the history, i’ll publish it out to everyone
> I split it up into two tales

Attributes, do I get a +2 to one, or +1 to two? If its +2 to one, I’d rather have the high score in CHA instead of DEX.

I just took what you had without imposing Imperium ideas. With the WIS drop, you are non standard for anything. If you want to go CHA, i’d allow that.
> wont get the +1 init from imperium

Can I use a seaglass sphere as my Djinn bottle? About the size of a large apple.

I have something even better already worked out.

ill be switching your normal air bond for elves of the imperium, with one of water unless you want to keep the air and only have your warlock focus on water

I dont know what this is referring to.

Elves in the iverse our creatures bound to air. They all have some mystical powers. Very minor. They can be amplified by a soul well. I could switch yours to water if you want. Or you could go a diverse route and keep the air powers . There’s a story tie-in for a group if you want one. It’s not a guild and you wouldn’t be tithing. It would just be a group that helped you unlock your potential and more of a story thread. There was a period of a dozen years where? asil spent money helping every one of the foundlings get tutored and trained and explore their potential.

Oh, okay.
Bonded fully to water seems fitting, the pact has taken over the spirit binding. And a group will give me more ties to this land.

As elemental creatures, the bond can be switched. But that’s usually for the elves that live in the water or dwell under the Earth. I have a single line of notes and I’ll expound on it to explain the group and how you help them and they helped you and it’s just a resource you can explore later in game. No commitments

also do you want to be more of an independant spirit or draw inspiration from a mystical group? the later gives you contacts, credit, inspioration of like minded, and you would have to make an infrequent ‘pilgrimage’ to stay in touch and maintain benefits.

Group would be neat, but I’m not sure where he’d find one for his faith if he’s an alien who crash-landed here after being kidnapped by slavers.

With https://incarna.net/feature/experience/background/sailor/, each person should pick a role/position of accomplished activity. It does not mean you are a pro, but it is essentially where you focused most of your experience on.

Dibs on First Mate.

AND… Think of an animal you would like to be your “spirit animal”. This is more symbolic of personal meaning – not your faith. Write up a brief 2-3 sentence (min) story that describes the event that it came to have meaning for you in. For instance, “When I was a child, and one of my friends had gotten lost playing, a crow came to me. It kept cawing until I tried to shoo it away with rocks, always flying off in the same direction. I realized it was trying to get me to follow it, and it led me to Timmy, trapped in a well.” The only provision is the animal should be common, mouse sized or larger, not an insect, and it should not be a water breathing /dwelling one.

NOT aquatic. Interesting…
What’s the name of that little mouse? The one that jumps…. Mua’dib!

mauve bib

“On one of my training sessions as a teen, I was left to fend for myself for 5 days in the northern wilderness. The first day was brutal, and by the second I was starving. Suddenly I heard a scream like a banshee wail and saw a blur of movement. Diving for the brush, I slowly peaked out and saw a Gyrfalcon had dove near me, bringing down a hare. It pecked a few times, then took off again. Minutes later, it dove once more, again and again. 5 hares dead, and it grabbed the last to carry off after staring at me in what I can only assume as annoyance. I grabbed the remaining hares and followed its direction for an hour, and found a thick stream for fresh water.
I never saw the bird again, but I watch for it constantly when we travel north.”

Make a DC 10 Dexterity check to see if you grab something from the ships’ captain galley (secure room w/some items) before your character gets off the boat as it sank.

RESULT – 15

Major success, 2 items

Each character should identify some small unique mannerism for role-playing emphasis: Behavior (Mannerisms)