Beyond Vinland: the party

Here's what the players came up with for my new campaign.

Doug took advantage of my pantheon clerics house rule to make Erik the Conqueror, a badass Cleric with the Death and War domains. The rest of the party subscribes to the Norse pantheon as well, so he was busting out a lot of faith healing last night. That's a new spell that work's like cure light but you don't roll dice. It does a flat 8+caster level. The trick is you have to be a believer in the cleric's faith. Erik dubs himself the Conqueror because he sees the new world as a land that rightfully belongs to men, not the inhuman monsters that presently occupy it. He plans on doing something about it.

Stuart whipped up Hjorek Hafgarson, a Bardic Sage/Warblade. Bardic Sage is a brainier, slightly nerdier bard variant from Unearthed Arcana. Warblade is the hot new class from Book of 9 Swords. Hjorek's deal is that he isn't the bard his daddy (the famous bard Hafgar) tried to raise him up as, but he spent a lot of time studying the legendary feats of great heroes and gods. His nifty Warblade powers represent his ability to mimic the deeds of past heroes. Pretty cool.

Jason created Zoyd Sampson, who wins the award for the least Viking sounding name in the group. But hey, I don't really care. We're not shooting for authenticity here, but awesome-osity. Zoyd is a Battle Sorcerer, another Unearthed Arcana variant. These guys trade in some of their spells slots to get a better hit die, better BAB, and the ability to wear light armor while casting. Zoyd desparately wants to be a sword-swinging hero even though his talents naturally lean towards sorcery, so he spend much of his time using his spells to make himself a buffer fight guy.

Pat's dude is Grandfather Thorne, a dwarf Fighter/Archivist. Archivist is a sweet class from Heroes of Horror. The main deal is that it's a divine casting class that uses a wizard-like spellbook. But viking wizards in this game don't use spellbooks. They use staves covered in runes. In Thorne's case he actually carves his runes into the haft of his bigass axe. I can't tell you yet exactly what Thorne's deal is, except that he's a grumpy old dwarf.

So that's Our Gang.