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The hulking figure stalked through the underbrush with speed and agility the belied its bulk. So it was true after all, what they say - fear grants flight. More figures followed close behind, huddling and quiet but for the occasional yelp of surprise as roots and branches would snag them in their haste. The leader kept going even when none were left to follow, out of the forest and into the farmland. He knew they didn't have the stones to flee from him, but somewhere in the depths of his soul, he wouldn't have blamed them either. The horrors they... He, had unleashed. It was almost enough to see him abandon everything and run with them. His pride had been great, and his lust greater still. He would be the strongest of any shaman, and damn his god if he didn't, or couldn't, make that happen. He'd find his own way, his own power, break it, chain it, and master it. He'd found an ally, one as cunning and ruthless and ambitious as he was. Only too late did he realise that had been a deadly underestimation.

The figure reached the outer fields and shed his great club. Cast aside his trinkets, his symbols of office and of power, and he prayed. He fell into supplication the likes of which he'd never known before. True, genuine, immutable terror drove him now, and only divine intervention might get him through it. So he danced, and he hollered, and he prayed in his garbled tongue that Hruggek might grant his blessing to this most worthless of his children.

CW: Meditations on grief, lack of purpose, and the inexorable march of time.

Theresa sat on her bed, a loose grip on her small hand mirror as she stared at it and the faintly smudged reflection that stared back at her with the face of a stranger. Who was this woman with her hair, grey and frayed? With her worry lines etched deep and irreversible into her skin, itself sagging in jowls? With her hollow and listless eyes? She did not recognise her. Had she really changed so much in the span of a year? It hardly seemed possible, yet there were her hands around the mirror. Those liver spots were no trick of the light, the wrinkling around her fingers no smudge of the glass. Theresa stared at those hands, not quite done withering yet but well on their way, and she felt sick. Her other things were packed, the papers were signed, the coin all accounted for... She should be happy. Just the other day she had met with the young woman who wanted to purchase her inheritance, to deliver her from the worries of the last year. She was so pretty, Theresa thought. The effortless ease of youth, even as she took her for all she was worth. For a moment, she had felt alive, she felt her old self roaring to life and she wanted to cheer, to brag, to kiss Veloth like it was the night of their wedding all over again... And then she remembered. Veloth was a year in the grave, and his dream had died with him. The house felt so terribly lonely, and Theresa herself finally realised she was hardly more than a wretched spectre roaming its halls, desperate for something. Anything. And now here it was, her chance. But a chance to do what? Who was she, without him? Her joints ached, not with age but with nervous excitement, vibrating as if they wanted to escape her body all at once. She wanted to scream. To sob. To dance or jump or drink. Anything but another moment of this. There was nothing but silence, and the hot tears that smudged her reflection.

Galard woke up with a jolt of pain in his bandaged arm. He grunted, twisting and turning in vain hopes of finding a position that at least began to resemble comfort. With a resentful sigh he finally conceded defeat and threw away the bed covers. A pause for breath. One, two, and sideways swung his legs over the rim of the bed, one at a time until he finally managed to land on the floor in a half-crouch. Despite the sling keeping his limb mostly immobile, the shock of it was enough to send another surge of stabbing pain up his forearm. Gritting his teeth, the young soldier paused to wait it out, slowly forcing out an even breath. Somehow, he found even this excruciating experience more bearable than the indignity he was subjected to all of last tenday as the medics fussed over him, and his father had assigned not one but two adjutants to assist his every step. He couldn't move, couldn't eat, couldn't so much as think of walking to the chamber pot without someone stepping in to all but do it for him. It drove Galard mad. The pain, the humiliation, the loss... His head was swimming well after the fever broke, and behind his closed eyelids he saw the damnable forest, dark leaves concealing volleys of crossbow bolts. The ringing of shouts wouldn't quit his ears day or night, and the death rattles that inevitably followed them were infinitely worse. Yet worst of all was the inaction. On some deep, rational level he understood his father's caution, but that was poor comfort to his raging heart. He dreamed of leading the charge, of rounding up each and every one responsible for the attack that killed his people. The soldiers on the ground, the officers who masterminded it, the rulers in their dark citadel, the very deity they pledged themselves to... Another unexpected stab of pulsating pain in his arm broke Galard from his ruminations and he cursed loudly. The door to his room creaked open and he whipped around, ready to yell and throw something, anything. But he stayed his hand when his squinting eyes spotted the conspicuous horns silhouetted against the dim light of the corridor. The one person who seemed to understand his pain. The only one, it felt, in the whole damned world. The door closed behind her with a soft click.

All the best going forward, BH. Get that book published!

Classes are an IC thing to a degree, and while some concepts may share overlap (see: a Cleric of Silvanus, a High Forest Druid, and a Wood Elf Ranger), they are still distinct things both mechanically and in-universe. Note in the write up shown in OP that ranger guild halls will ally themselves with druid groves, but still keep their distinct practices. For another example of similar but distinct entities, Paladin orders and the larger clergy of their respective deities. While opening it up enough so that players may get involved to some degree (like the Starlight Grove, for example) is certainly a good thing, it's important to maintain and reinforce where possible the unique fantasy and niche of specific concepts, in this case Rangers. As one more example off the top of my head, membership in the Violet Flame requires that you have Wizard or Sorcerer levels, despite being called more generically a mage guild.

You can scribe scrolls for any spell your character knows though the higher level ones require ink that's found in dungeons, and certain ones require additional ingredients also found in dungeons. Wands can take spells up to innate caster level 6, amd potions go up to 5. Generally they're all quite useful though wands perhaps most of all between storing 50 charges and the very low exp cost. And yes, you can find the basic ingredients for all three sold in bulk in various shops.

[What:]

What: To commemorate the milestone of building a house and moving in together, Kara Marsk and Pelass Leafwind invite any and all friends to celebrate.
Who: Anyone who considers themselves a friend to either or both, and has the time to spare!
Where: Beyond the transition dead ahead of the first bend in the road on the West of Arabel map.
When: 3 Jan 25, 3pm est/8pm uk start to go as long as it goes. Countdown!

[Login:]

Login: murder and mayhem
Discord ID: themirror3417
DM Name: aDM Mirror

Timezone: UK-based (UTC/BST) i.e. EST+5
Availability: Afternoons and evenings my time, more often than not.

Preferred Number of Players: 4-6
Preferred Length of Quest: 2-3 hours per session. I like the idea of ad-hocs cohering into a larger storyline.

Thematic Styles and Specialties:
I love magic. If you want to do interesting magical things, you have my attention.
I love it when my players take initiative and try to keep my prompting to a minimum.
I'm a big fan of moral conundrums and characters having their convictions tested.
Politics and politicking. I adore good social play and if you bring me doublespeak, you're taking home bonus exp. 
The latest piece of media I enjoyed. This is not a joke.

Wishes to Avoid:
Tag-alongs. Please only sign up for my events if you see something which appeals to you outside of the exp reward at the end.
In the moment arguments. I will make mistakes, and calls you disagree with. Please save it for after the event is over.
Intra-party antagonism. Conflict and disagreements are fine so long as they actually resolve into something actionable.
The Deep Lore (tm). I'm not a Realms lore buff by any stretch of the imagination, I make up for it with frantic googling. It's not that I don't enjoy it, or won't prepare in advance if forewarned, but please be gentle with springing on me someone's great aunt thrice removed who is actually mega relevant right now.

Queue and Wishlist:
I'm perusing the quest requests and fleshing out a few ideas, one about a wizard and a tower, another about a high ranking military officer, and yet another about a region under siege.

Misc. Notes:
While I have many years of roleplay and DMing behind my back, I'm extremely new to the NWN DM and Build clients. Your patience is greatly appreciated.
The usual - party chat, /touchon, /diceprivate. Hold on transitions for descriptions. Always ask ahead of time if you want to prepare non-NWN spells. Always ask before flying/teleporting to a place.
Always indicate what you're rolling for if unprompted, either in private or preferrably through your emote.
I'm open for suggestions and discussions on just about anything and everything, preferably over discord.

10.A - IC Slavery

As something of a specific corollary to these rules, please note that in-character enslavement or slave status of PCs does fall under mature content rules and the secret associations rules to a degree, because it is similar to torture/etc in that it's the sort of thing that forces players to react to it. In particular, this sort of thing is ICly illegal in Cormyr, and in most of the Dales as well, so it should not be brought up/must be kept quiet in those areas. Also, due to the implications inherent in such an event/story, existing characters cannot be made into slaves, even with OOC agreement, because this forces such an event on any number of other characters. As such, IC Slavery is limited to characters explicitly made for that purpose. If someone no longer wishes to play their formerly enslaved character, this requires retirement of that character, lest it provoke a giant PVP/drama situation that many unwilling players will inevitably get pulled into.

Please note that under 10.A, this is specifically limiting PC and PC interaction. A character may still have a background in slavery, and speak of it in general terms (Not explicit details), as long as the antagonist is an NPC. As said in the above rule - and that about backstories, trying to gather dislike or hatred towards a specific PC isn't kosher.

Emphasis mine. I've not heard of a rules change saying otherwise.

Making it a different color will help you determine what is what at a glance. I use the whisper chat in a crowded environment sometimes for precisely this reason - to see exactly what those around me are saying when things get busy. OOC chat being the same text as regular say and whispers is more of a burden, to me at least, because I have to look at it, especially when it's multiple people talking and it mixes in with IC text, which is not uncommon. Like I said above, it's not much, but it's definitely a quality of life improvement.

Grey is default for whispers so that would likely lead to at least some minor confusion down the line which is better avoided. Cyan I think would stand out too much unless it's quite a faded, pastel shade, which I think is the overall answer here. Personally I envision some light pink color but anything that straddles the line of soft enough to blend in without losing readability would suffice.

That's a more difficult question. It should be something not taken up by the game's setting by default, and not particularly contrasting like the green of tells is. Readable, but unobtrusive.

Making the usual signifiers of ooc // and (( produce a different colored text makes sense to me. It helps separate it at a glance which is not much, but sometimes I'd really rather not skim through prolonged tangents or back and forths to not miss on actual ic text. +1

The problem with omitting Knowledge Nature that OP alludes to but does not explicitly spell out is that that is the skill tied to learning and casting epic spells for a druid. In other words, druid is pretty terrible for a MT build right now despite being otherwise supported.