Zandu

Zandu is my Human Gunslinger from Eric's campaign, the Carrion Crown adventure path from Paizo. I really like  the class. I am a fan of westerns and alternate fantasy settings that don't fit the whole never ending faux-medieval time period setting that seems mandatory for a fantasy RPG to have longevity. I believe Blackmoor had firearms though and the 2nd Edition AD&D PHB had arquebus on the equipment list. I have a lot of affection for the Deadlands game/setting because my love of westerns and fantasy and for those same reasons, the Gunslinger is a pretty cool alternate to Fighter for me. 

Anyway, I played Zandu in a fashion that I would consider brash and straight forward and honest. I have listed his alignment as Chaotic Good and I feel that is appropriate. Eric kind of called me Derf, but I don't think he understands the character.

Zandu is a Varisian, he is swarthy and has dark hair and eyes. His facial hair is scraggly at best, and his mustache could be described as a creeper's. He has a multicolored and embroidered scarf wrapped around his head, thin enough that it is more like a doo-rag or bandana than a turban. This is his kapenia, a Varisian tradition of plotting an entire family tree on a scarf.

Anyway, he is bold and brash and honest. He has no ranks in Intimidate, Bluff, or Diplomacy and I have played him as such. The first part of the scenario involved the party carrying professor Lorrimor's casket to his grave where he was to be laid to rest. Professor Lorrimor was Zandu's friend and Zandu had saved his life more than once, and Professor Lorrimor had returned the favor. When inbred hicks decided that the professor was a necromancer and decided to desecrate his funeral and waylay the procession, there was only one response available to Zandu: stop them. His pistol is literally chained to his hand, and never far from being drawn, so he produced and brandished it and then warned the hicks that if they attacked, he would kill them. Then delayed till after they went in the initiative order.

Eric asked for an Intimidate check, which I didn't give, I wasn't trying to make Zandu intimidate them, I was just informing the hicks of cause and effects. Anyway, they attacked, I tried to kill them, then the plot took precedence and apparently bullets only wound in Golarion. Anyway, the logic behind the attempted murder of hicks, is thus: Lorrimor was a friend that had died, it was supposed to be a quiet and reserved burial honoring the death of a friend that spent much time doing good in the world. The hicks blundering in like inbred buffoons was offensive and sacrilegious to the proceedings.

Zandu isn't Lawful, and isn't concerned with murder being illegal and certainly doesn't care about the laws of some inbred hick town. He isn't Neutral Good so he isn't terribly concerned with the greater good or anything like that. He is Chaotic Good, he tries to be a good guy, in his own way. Warning the hicks of the consequences of their intent to defile his trusted friend's corpse was his way of being good. Killing them outright with no warning would have been an evil act in Zandu's mind.

I'm genuinely annoyed that all of a sudden a priest came out of nowhere and magicked the dead hicks back to life. Zandu wanted them dead for interrupting Professor Lorrimor's funeral procession, and Eric took that from him. DnD is utterly boring and uninteresting if you cannot make meaningful choices in the game to determine your characters actions. Obviously, murdering hicks would have cost us trust in the community, fuck if Zandu cares about the backwater community of Ustalav. 

Anyway, a little bit prior to play I was filling in some blank spots on my character sheet and noticed that deity was empty. There is a god I really like in Golarion, Cayden Cailean. He started life as a sellsword and drunkard, a Good one, but nonethless a drunkard and sellsword. Apparently, he got drunk one night and during his revelry he was dared to touch the Starstone and drunkenly stumbled through a series of trials that resulted in him attaining godhood. As a god, he acted as he was as a mortal, a drunken warrior fighting for the cause of good. 

So, when I filled in deity, I put Cayden Cailean. I kind of felt that Cayden was a good choice for Gunslingers. They are supposed to bold and brash and perform deeds of daring do, and that is pretty much Cayden's wheelhouse. Right before I printed out the character sheet, I purchased a gallon jug of ale and decided that Zandu would spill it on fallen foes as an offering to Cayden Cailean. 

This character is ending up more devout than I ever intended, and I guess I am considering running a Gunslinger/Cleric. I have no intention of playing him as like a healer Cleric, more like a wrath of the god(s) Cleric. Jeremy is kind of the healer of the group, what with the access to the healing spells and whatnot, and I have no intention of stealing that from him, and I don't want to. I think I just want to explore this aspect of Zandu that I haven't fully thought about until now. We'll see, I don't necessarily need levels in a divine class to play a character as devout, it would certainly be impressive if his bullets were guided by the hand of his god though. 

Eric has said that if we are displeased with our class or abilities scores, or anything really, we can reroll or pick a new class or change whatever has displeased us. So I guess any choice we make now isn't going to cripple for the rest of the adventure and we'll be able to keep tweaking till we have something we like. . For now I am happy with my Gunslinger, and we'll see how far I take the whole divinity thing. Eventually, when Ultimate Combat comes out, there is going to be a Gunmage archetype, and that sounds delicious, so we'll see how I feel then.