(dramatic instrumental music)
- Hey there, everybody.
I'm Jason Bulmahn, the game master for Knights of Everflame,
and today, we're here to talk to Jeremy about Ikyulys.
Hey there, Jeremy.
- How are you?
- [Jason] I'm not too bad.
How are you?
- I'm doing well.
- So let's talk, let's dig into Ikyulys.
- [Jeremy] Okay.
- Let's peel back the mask, as you will,
and learn a little bit about what makes this character tic.
Now, whenever we build characters in Pathfinder,
we like to talk about the main choices they make,
the ancestry, the background, and the class.
When we started building Ikyulys,
kind of one of the first choices you're gonna make
is your choice of ancestry
and the heritage that comes with it.
- [Jeremy] Yes.
- Now, in the case of deciding to be a half-elf,
those two choices are kind of made at the same time, right?
You decide that you're a human with a half-elf heritage.
Why did you go half-elf?
- Well, I like the idea of joining two, like, I guess,
races together, whether it be ancestries--
- [Jason] Ancestries, yeah.
- Together and, you know, I love that, you know,
the elven ancestry's beautiful.
- [Jason] Yeah.
- And human, I thought, you know,
if we could bring the two together,
especially with the deity that I chose,
because I'll be honest, I actually chose the deity
before I chose anything else.
- [Jason] Oh, really?
Okay, so you started by picking Shelyn?
- I started by picking Shelyn, and when I chose Shelyn,
I was like, it sort of tied everything together.
It was like, okay, that would make sense to bring
the elven ancestry and the human ancestry together
because elves are beautiful.
Shelyn is the goddess of art, beauty,
and all these different things, and then I almost like,
it's very strange, I almost like, started backwards
because I wrote out the backstory and everything
before even really thinking about what I was gonna do
for ancestry and heritage, so.
- More so than almost any other character at the table,
your choice of deity defines you totally.
I honestly think that, you know, even Linneus,
and she's a cleric, isn't quite defined the same way
you're defined by Shelyn.
- [Jeremy] Yes.
- Being a champion.
That kind of led to your ancestry choices.
Let's talk about how that led into your background,
and what background did you choose for Ikyulys?
- Noble.
- [Jason] Noble?
- Yeah.
- Which, also, yeah, I mean, let's go into that
a little bit.
How did that come in to be?
Why'd you go with that?
- Well, again, I think, you know, I come from,
me personally, I'm an actor and a writer,
and I've always, you know, been very fascinated
with creating a backstory.
- [Jason] Sure.
- And when I wrote out the backstory
of why I was going to be joining the Last Wall Army,
it was like, well, I'm gonna come up with this idea
of my father being this well-known minister,
priest, whatever, of Shelyn, and traveling around and,
you know, preaching the word, but also being someone
who's you know, been well-known in a very broad range
of, I guess, races around Galaria,
so also someone who was a well-known craftsman
and musician himself, so somebody who probably had
a lot of money, and typically, in the world of Pathfinder,
that would make him a noble.
- There's a very good chance that could land you a noble.
I mean, there's a couple different ways you can go,
but noble's a perfectly good choice.
- Yeah, and the part of the nation that I'm coming from,
being Taldor, which would be, there's a lot of nobles.
- There's a lot of nobles.
They have so many nobles,
they export them into other places.
- [Jeremy] Yeah, exactly.
- It's one of their chief exports.
- Yes.
- Wealthy nobles.
- Yeah, hey.
- You know, so you know, I think all of this
comes down to the most important choice
you made for Ikyulys, which was your class
and the choices therein, and, you know,
you decided to go with champion.
- [Jeremy] I did.
- And so much of this is tied into your backstory,
and led down the route of, you know,
when you approach and said,
"Hey, I want to play your character"
"whose wearing a mask,"
and we have no idea who he is at all,
for who knows how much of the first season.
Like, we didn't actually know
that you were even gonna take the mask off during Season 1.
- [Jeremy] Nope, we did not.
That wasn't planned.
That was just the right moment to do it.
You know, we were going to have you just be
mysterious champion the entire time, so, but, you know,
let's talk a bit about being a champion and what that means,
and the first big choice is what, you know,
type of champion you are.
What code do you follow?
And for that, you went with--?
- Liberator.
- [Jason] The Liberator.
- Chaotic good.
- That makes you chaotic good, yeah,
because your choice of alignment dictates that,
which fits with Shelyn, who is a chaotic good deity,
so Liberator, that means you kind of break bonds.
You won't abide by people being forced into servitude,
and things like that.
That's an interesting choice
for someone who worships Shelyn.
- Yes.
- [Jason] Yeah.
- Well, if you've seen Season 1,
and if you've seen the final episode of Season 1,
which I'm assuming most of you have.
- [Jason] Yeah, spoilers.
- Yeah, you know, I didn't really follow,
I took a hard right turn, I would say, from,
if this is right, left,
I don't know which direction I'm going.
I took a hard turn from what I believe
Ikyulys' path was intended to be.
You know my, in my character creation backstory,
I thought, "Well, I would be following the path"
"of my father," which, you know
he's sworn into the priesthood.
He decided he was gonna do this,
and really, really preach the word of Shelyn,
and then after his assassination, no.
I'm finding out where I'm gonna go.
I'm finding this killer.
This was my direction in life, and, you know,
to do that would be, obviously,
to essentially break the bond
of what my family really wanted me to do, and you know,
I don't think my family really, of course,
my mother is not happy with the choice that I made.
- I can't imagine.
- Yeah, my sister, who's certainly not a, you know,
she was very young when my father was assassinated,
so, but she misses her big brother, needs him,
and so my family wishes that I would, obviously,
just come home, put all this away, go back to, you know,
crafting, making music, you know,
being a believer in Shelyn, which I still am,
but really, really following her tenants and code,
and I just got something I gotta do.
- That's kind of the thing, right,
is that of all the characters in the group,
you have a vendetta, right?
You have a score to settle with
the individual or individuals
who orchestrated the death of your father.
- [Jeremy] Absolutely.
- And, you know, we didn't really quite know
where that was gonna go when we started Season 1.
- Yeah.
- But I think by the end, you've got a pretty good lead
that there's a particularly lucky half-link who--
- Who's probably not gonna be so lucky
if I get my hands on him.
- That's fair, yeah.
If he knew you were coming, he'd be quivering in his boots.
So let's talk a little bit about
some of the choices you made as a champion.
Let's talk about some of the feats you chose.
- Sure.
Courtly graces.
- Courtly graces, yeah, that has been
one of the most delightful parts, you know,
just seeing the other players
react to the fact that there's this big, hulking brute,
and, to be clear, your armor is gigantic.
You wear a mask.
You have this titanic sword.
- Yes.
- And then you talk eloquently and turn down grubby food
and like, prefer to stay in a nicer, like, inn.
- Exactly.
- It's jarring, and kind of, everyone has been kind of like,
"What is his deal?"
They just don't get it.
You know, so, but I was really excited
to see you choose like, you know, smite evil
as one of your champion feats when you hit six level.
Why smite evil?
- Well, you know, I like the idea of really, really,
focusing my attention on something that,
and being that Shelyn is very much a goddess of love,
and beauty, and then you think about Shelyn's brother.
- [Jason] Not so much.
- Not so much.
- Yeah, Zon-Kuthon is not so much about love and beauty.
- [Jeremy] Exactly.
Known as the Midnight Lord.
He's a piece of work.
- [Jeremy] He's a piece of work.
He's evil.
- [Jason] Yeah, yeah.
- And so I believe that, you know, Ikyulys' path
has really focused him on, "I'm going to do all I can"
"to stop the evil in the world," and by smiting evil,
being something that focuses that attention,
and really, really can harm that,
when I go after, when I'm in combat,
I thought that that was just an appropriate choice.
- [Jason] Fair.
No, no, I mean, it makes perfect sense, right?
So, and it also kind of plays out
in how you play Ikyulys, right?
You run into the middle of danger
and you single out a foe and take them on.
- [Jeremy] Yeah.
- All right, so is there anything else you wanna share
about Ikyulys and any other choices you made,
or any other gear that you wanna talk about,
or anything like that?
Just to wrap things up in a nice bow?
- Well, let's see, we haven't really,
I did choose Dragonslayer Oath.
I haven't had a chance to use that yet.
- At some point in time, we'll have to delve into the order
that trains you, right?
Because at some point in time, you left your family behind
and were trained with an order of champions,
and they trained you in this,
in the techniques and the ways to fight dragons,
and we don't really know why,
and we haven't really explored that,
but I'm interested to see if it comes up during play,
although I'm sure none of the rest of your compatriots are.
- No, no, no, we'll see.
I mean, my Lord Dragonbane is actually who trained me.
- See, there we go.
- So, you know, we will, he taught me the way,
and I just wanna show that I'm gonna be able to use that.
If we get this, you know, hey--.
- If a dragon shows up, you'll be ready.
- If a dragon shows up, I'm ready.
- Yeah.
- But I'm always ready.
- I will let the other players know
that you are the one who has asked to fight more dragons,
so it's fine.
It's fine.
I'm the benevolent one.
This is all on you.
(Jeremy laughs)
All right, Jeremy, I want to thank you
for stopping by here today, and for all of you at home,
I wanna thank you for watching.
If you want to see more of Ikyulys' adventures,
tune in to Season 2 of Knights of Everflame.
I wanna thank you all for watching.
We'll see you next time everybody.
Buh-bye.
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