A Scarred Moon over the Harrowed City

You were the first to be experimented upon, teleporting to the moon using the Somal Telescope.

You have adapted to the moon's low gravity; you can report to others that they will similarly adapt in about 24 hours. Until adapted, movement is awkward, and combat more dangerous.

You have reported back some basics of the Moonscar. The jungle itself has an atmosphere, but it is extremely hot for 15 earth-days, and then extremely cold for 15 earth-days. Traveling straight through the jungle is a hard trek, and exposes one to much poisonous demon nettle sap. Large creatures cannot readily move through the jungle because of its density. Flight is faster but even more dangerous -- it attracts crippling strands of an astral parasite. There is some pack of monsters that moves about, clearing trails. So long as that force is at work, travel on the trails is straight-forward, but is liable to lead you from one habitation or patrol-point or structure of demons, to another.

Prerequisite: This background kind of begs to be a ranger demon-slayer.

Benefits: You are preadapted to lunar gravity. You start with a free Keffiyeh of Cooling. You have Knowledge (lunar)/1 rank -- and no one else in the world has any ranks in Knowledge (lunar). If you have skills or abilities pertaining to jungle terrain you may use them on abyssal terrain, and vs-a-vs. If you are skilled at both, use the best +1. (There may be additional circumstances in which others may find it harder to adapt their Earthly skills and abilities to this novel environment than you do.)

A famed and far flung explorer -- you have seen it all. You were a natural choice to recruit for this mission, given your perfectly adapted skill set.

You were seduced by a succubus, and received her dark blessing. For some months you served as a covert agent of evil within Ysidra -- roving around the colossal unearthly megastructures of the Government District, and mingling among the most wealthy, elite and influential of the vast urban city-state. You helped convey intelligence to the demons, and helped entrap others into seduction.

At last, your will reasserted itself; you broke free of this depraved and sinister bondage, and you repented of the vile things your mistress's compulsion forced you into. That atonement was an arduous and costly process. Now you bear a wrathful grudge against your captor and her ilk, and your spirit is hardened against their influence.

Prerequisite: non-evil

Benefit: +2 will saves vs charm and compulsion. +2 to hit and damage vs succubi.

You are likely an adventurer have served as companion to others in the group in the past. Being a person of some accomplishment and fame, your fall and restoration has likely become known to them, at least in rough outline if not in great detail. Though you had acquired a taint, they harbor no doubt about your earnestness to combat the Moonscar's Insatiable Queen and her minions.

Within Ysidra's internal politics and divisions, you represent someone in the government hardliner faction. You are committed to protection and preservation of the community against all threats. For now, the Moonscar presents the largest threat, and so you are united with others -- with whom you might have some real differences -- against that threat. Being among the nation's elite, you have a little extra resources to bring to bear against problems.

Prerequisite: lawful; race must be human, catfolk or dwarf.

Benefit: You gain a +1 trait bonus on Diplomacy, Knowledge (nobility), and Knowledge (local), and two are class skills Additionally, you gain +30,000gp starting wealth.

Beyond this mission: you work for stability and the prosperity of the status quo. The established nobility and aristocrats, the guilds and the military and academia: all of these time honored social structures must be conserved and protected, as they are integral to the power pyramid that supports the Government. In the long run, the Great Telescope is a strategic asset or a peril to the city's stability: it must be under the control of your faction, or destroyed.

The present injustice of Ysidra's rulership under corrupt nobles and aristocrats deeply disturbs you, and you are part of a mighty movement that hopes to someday soon establish a new and better social and economic order. You have a rebel's heart, and you know that much must be torn down, and it may take gentler hands that your own thereafter to rebuild anew. For now, however, a treasured comrade of yours has been kidnapped, and you must see him brought to liberty. That one urgent need overrides all other concerns.

Prerequisite: chaotic, not evil

Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus on Diplomacy and Intimidate checks, and you may use Int or Wis on these if those scores are higher than Cha. Additionally, you acquire the Bombs feature of the alchemist class, but at 2/3 your character level. However, you do not count as an Alchemist in any other way. If you ever become an Alchemist with the bombs class feature, up to 4 of your non-alchemist levels will stack with your alchemist levels for bomb progression. If you become an Alchemist without the bombs class feature, this ability remains distinct but cannot benefit from any part of your Alchemist class features, such as Discoveries.

Its clear that you motivation to accomplish this mission is strong.

But after that -- you cannot trust some of your companions. They are ideological enemies. You are a leader of the coming revolution. The power of the people shall be unstoppable. The corruption of the present system will be purged in a storm of blood and fire. The Government and the Harrowers are your enemies. They and nobles and aristocrats and the guilds and bourgeoisie who have oppressed the working man and woman -- all those who have ground down orcs, goblins, halflings and others with boot of oppression -- they all shall be among first with their backs to the wall when the Revolution comes.

You serve the city's secret ruler, the undead lich called the Harrower Queen. She has long ruled this nation -- and the Insatiable Queen of the Moonscar is an ancient enemy and rival. You would destroy this enemy for your Queen, and doing so will raise up in her favor as the highest of her servants. You must tolerate working with your long-term enemies, for you have this vital task in common first. You must defeat the power behind the Moonscar.

Prerequisite: evil alignment. You must invest at least 5 ranks in each of Disguise, Sense Motives and Knowledge(Occult). You have an Occult affinity and cannot use Arcane, Psionic or Divine powers.

Benefit: You gain Harrowed as a bonus feat, a trait bonus of +1 to Disguise, Sense Motives and Knowledge(Occult), and two of these are class skills. Last you gain Spell Focus (Divination) as a bonus feat.

There was a time when you were not so deep involved in the Harrower faction. Since you began to climb their ranks, many of your former companions have come to view you with grave suspicion or fear. You have had to make sacrifices during your ascent to power. This mission, however, promises the greatest ascent.

You need no complicated justification to be on this mission. Demons threaten civilization: they must be defeated. Captives are taken and suffering? They must be liberated. You have been around a long time; you know your way around the battlefield, around churches and religions, and around the planes.

Prerequisite: lawful or good alignment, or both

Benefit: You gain a bonus of +1 to Knowledge(religion), and Knowledge(planes), and both are class skills. You can lay on hands three times per day, with effect as a Paladin of your level; additionally, you know a single mercy. If you are actually a paladin, these stack with your existing uses and mercies.

You were a past adventuring companion of Runnik, and of any who adventured with him. Your reputation as a crusader will proceed you in this group.

Whereas Runnik Gorestead was known and proved his value to all in this expedition, he was something more to you.

Perhaps you are siblings, perhaps partners, or perhaps you simply adventured together since 1st level. In any case, your bond with the barbarian is deeper and stronger than any others.

Prerequisite: not lawful, not evil

Benefit: +1 trait bonus to Lore(dwarves), Lore(mead) and Craft(bee-keeping).

Once you are within 1 mile of Runnik Gorestead, you will gain a +1 morale bonus to all ability scores. Once you are within 1000' of him, you will gain a +2 morale bonus to all ability scores. These bonuses apply only until you and he escape the Moon or die trying.

Everyone who knows you, going back decades. Aiding you, their friend, and rescuing Runnik, are one and the same.

You retired from a career as an adventurer, and have spent a number of years among the best and brightest minds in one of the arcane, occult or psionic institutions of higher learning in Ysidra. You've been in a dry spell of research and publication recently, and that is threatening you with the potential of failing to achieve tenure.

One or more of your adventuring companions reached out to you, offering the opportunity to join this interplanetary expedition. You jumped at the opportunity: perhaps you are motivated by the rescue opportunity, but you are certainly motivated by the extraordinary chance this affords you to make breakthrough research. Publishing the discoveries you hope for should rejuvenate your career.

Benefit: You have a magical thesis. After 24 hours of experiencing life on the moon and making at least 5 successful diverse investigative skill checks, you get to prove your thesis, and reveal to your companions what it is you have discovered. The benefit is: you the gain 1 bonus metamagic or metapsionic feat of your choice, and you learn 1 bonus spell or power of the highest level you are able to cast or manifest, along with either a permanent boost of +1 spell slot of that level or 2*level-1 power points.

Several of the PCs should take the stance of welcoming you back to their adventuring party after your prolonged immersion in civilian academic life.

The Insatiable Queen has been sending her minions to the earth for a long time, but before the Somal Tower had its Great Telescope activated, they had to travel the slow way: via a Fly spell that took two years to make the transit through the vacuum, cold and heat of space.

Your mother was a succubus who made that journey; your father was a mortal now vanished -- either dead or entrapped on the moon, or lost to some unknown fate.

Benefit: While Tiefling is not a regularly approved race for this game, this option lets you be an exception. You may be any race of Ysidra crossed with a Tiefling. Use Tiefling as your base race, and for your mortal side you are treated as of that race to meet prerequisites, for cosmetic purposes, to qualify for favored class bonuses. You may use either the basic Tiefling stat bonuses (+2 Dex, +2 Int, -2 Cha) or the demonspawn stat bonuses (+2 Str, +2 Cha, -2 Int), or mix-and match (+2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Int). You gain one bonus tiefling alternate racial trait and one bonus tiefling racial feat. If your secondary bloodline is a small race, you may be small.

You likely spent your life suffering a lonely and alienated life, enduring hardship and persecution due to a heritage that makes you feared and distrusted by post. However, some of the other PCs will know you well, and within their adventuring community you can be respected and appreciated.

You have been sent from afar, as an agent of higher planar powers who wish to remedy evils done to this solar system. Your mission is to eradicate the evils of the Moonscar, and if possible to provide aid, healing or restitution to lunar natives who have suffered harms due to the invasion of their sphere. Your assignment is primarily for the good of the Moon, than of the Earth -- as the Earth has its own gods and patrons who care for it, while the Moon has been somewhat neglected by the Higher Powers of the Great Beyond.

Prerequisite: Good alignment.

Benefit: You are from some place completely different than everyone else in this campaign. Your primary race is Aasimar, and your mix-in race can be any Core, Standard or Advanced race. You may choose to be any variant of Aasimar. If your secondary bloodline is a small race, you may be small.

Disadvantage: Everyone can see that you are quite foreign; some may appreciate that while others dislike it. You do not speak the local common tongue, nor is their time to learn it. But you may be able to communicate through magic, or through some racial language. While most of the other PCs will know each other, you are an outsider to their community.

You represent one of the major guilds of Ysidra. While others on this mission have a short term goal, such as "defeat evil" or "save captives" or even graciously "save the Earth", you have your own mission: to discover Lunar natives (the true natives, not these pesky demonic interlopers) and to establish a trade and commercial relationship with them. Gaining access to and ownership of the Great Telescope is paramount to establish a trade monopoly -- but follows second after verifying that there are natives worth trading with. Or exploiting. Or colonizing. Or with natural resources to plunder. One way or another, you've got your eye out for profit and for what is best for the Guild, of whom you a principle leader and active agent.

Prerequisite: true neutral.

Benefit: Once you interact in three separate non-violent encounters with differing non-demon intelligent lunar natives, you will discover a significant financial opportunity on the Moon. This might take a day or several in-character to accomplish. In the near term, this will manifest as a valuable magic item (to be determined, but up to 40,000 gp in price and chosen by me based on your character build.) This will also shape your character's long term goal.

You may be perceived by your peers as an untrustworthy or unprincipled self-seeker. The other faction leaders present on the mission will know you well; all the factions maneuver to gain benefit from the guilds, or to utilize the guilds as allies or tools -- so you are familiar with their political posturing and maneuvering.