The Oracle of Life
A Pathfinder Home Campaign
Downtime in Oracle of Life
This campaign makes use of Ultimate Campaign Downtime. The Oracle of Life campaign will span at least 2 years of Golarion calendar time. Players will have excursions/adventures/outings from their base of operations, and then return to their ‘ordinary’ lives.
Henceforward, players will be responsible for generating gold via Downtime, and this method is expected to provide a minority but substantive portion of the Pathfinder Wealth by Level amount listed in the CRB. You will thus need some form of gold-generating building or team (and ultimately more than one).
This is aimed at facilitating the passage of time required for occurrences of sizeable geopolitical ramifications, as well as giving you more avenues with which to interpret your character. There will be large stretches of time (as much as an entire season) in which the player characters will simply be living their lives. During these long stretches, the players will want to use their Downtime to ensure continuity of income for their characters.
In addition, based on my conversations with each player, I have assigned each character a set of Downtime tasks which must be completed as part of the Book 1 goals. Characters may pool and transfer any resource except Magic (if agreeable by the players) and it is not necessary for a player to complete his or her Downtime assignment alone. The specific assignments relate to your characters’ interest as stated by you the player.
Each player's Book1 Downtime tasks can be found in the Excel file above. Current revision of this document is Revision 0.
The file has a sheet for each player character, and also has a sample downtime sheet. For questions feel free to contact the GM.
A short description of the goings on and actions by your characters which led to the Downtime tasks can be found at each character's link on to their section on this page.
Signy Downtime Background
The wounded Oracle of the Moon resides in the Undermark with the Stonegutter Clan, while the rest of the city presumes she has departed for Kyonin. The occurrences of the Loric Fells are kept secret as you, Aeryn, and Calithildor (a.k.a. the Cartographer) begin planning an expedition to find Rookwarden's secret entrance, which is west of the actual settlement.
The plan is to send Cal into the Loric Fells with a crew of soldiers and a small team of carpenters with enough lumber and supplies to begin construction of a small encampment. They will find someplace relatively safe and easily hidden from search (and map, since the Loric Fells have few accurate maps) and from there a search can commence. Once the entrance is found, Calithildor will send notice and an expedition into Rookwarden can begin from an unanticipated direction.
If all goes well, this encampment could become the start of something larger (i.e. a caravanserai or waystation), and perhaps even another waypoint on the route from Daggermark to the Mendev Crusades against the Worldwound. This could be a very profitable venture. Also, having a defensible position inside the Fells may make future settlement possible.
Cerenthir Downtime Background
You found a mostly burned out husk of a Tavern in the Downriver section (where Vazrun’s home is) and looked in to acquiring it because it lies on the main thoroughfare from the lower docks to the city center. This is an ideal location from which to anchor the reconstruction of the Downriver district. Foot traffic could be monstrous.
For good or ill, the Tavern is surrounded by a few other burned structures, which makes the prospect of a welcoming tavern a little more difficult to construct. However, it also means you have the capability to expand into those locations once you have the funds and the need. In the meantime, you buy up the whole group of properties.
The tavern itself can be refurbished, but making it stylish and enticing looks to be a task requiring master craftsmen and engineers. Fortunately your group has allies with the Stonegutters, and they have no shortage of such craftsmen. Koradu’Tir Stonegutter assigns 4 dwarves to the clearing and rebuilding phase of your project (this is flavor text; it won’t affect Downtime costs/times). It won’t be as large as the Rim of Hell anytime soon, but it’s closer to the docks by a longshot.
Vazrun Downtime Background
Reflecting on the needs of your group for the time-being, you recognize the need for a growth plan for your business. While you have shoppers interested in your wares, you are far from your normal suppliers and craftspeople. You have to compete with the craftsmen of the Galton District, who have long-established businesses, and who benefit from Door Doorud’s cozy affiliation with the Chelaxians. They deal well (but not exclusively) in opulence. You estimate that you should be moving in that direction.
In addition, you recognize the possibilities of N’Kiir to use magic, and hope to work together with her to imbue items in the future. Certainly that should raise your capability to compete (Note that magic item shops don’t exist in my game, and you wouldn’t technically be allowed to run one – it would be robbed blind.) Before you can practice that craft, you will need to develop some space with such capabilities.
Lothrien Downtime Background
In the downtime, you begin walking with Dubalaney Gore on his rounds throughout the city. You get a feel for the wrestling match he fights with multiple districts with competing agendas in a city with a substantial food supply problem, and fear of invasion from west, north, and east. Daggermark is a stressed-out city. It reminds you in some ways of the volatility you saw fighting in the parts of Cheliax that have now become Andoran. The populace is in shock by the sheer volume of problems and violence.
Gore’s prime goal is to keep law and order, and as you know, he is unashamed to put criminals to death. You learn of the maneuverings of the Chelaxians to keep from paying their fair share of taxes, and you help Gore multiple times by using your ability to discern when people are lying. Duly impressed, Gore suggests that if you could establish an office to give professional credibility to the effort, Gore would recruit you as a tax auditor.
With you as the interrogator, Gore believes he can chip away at some of the problems in the city if he can secure the tax revenue that Daggermark is duly owed. Gore arranges a meeting between you and an unnamed and self-confessed assassin of Daggermark – he gives you some ideas for how to ensure that you get ‘the truth’ out of your interviewees.
Interrogating Chelaxian loyalists might lead you a step closer in the search for your father…
N'Kiir Downtime Background
The city at first tortures you with its incessant sounds, lack of natural flora and fauna, the awful smells, and the ugliness of 'civilized people.’ However, after a few days of that discomfort, you adapt to the rhythm of Daggermark living. You realize that with all the people around, it is quite easy to go unseen, and the feeling of being invisible in plain sight makes you cackle. And you often disappear into back alleyways to explore and ensure that you can escape any unwanted encounter.
In ranging further into the city’s uglier places, you find the suffering of others so troubling that you begin working as a nurse without knowing the word for the term. You use your healing powers, you identify sicknesses and injuries intuitively, and you bring the most needy to the places where aid workers can hopefully provide more service than you.
And in doing this, you are recognized by Joanri Chellon (head priestess of Desna in the city) and Aldalyn Warmheart as a being with natural talent for triage. Over the downtime, you start to identify improvements to healing facilities that could bring great relief to the city, so you begin working with Vazrun on remembering how to read and write (and do mathematics) in Elven so that you can make lists and costs and achieve on your own what the city of Daggermark cannot afford to do for its citizens.