That sounds like a great group.

My favorite character is my first bard, a halfling named Frigan Dezibel Excess or Dezi for short. She was joined by my fifteen year-old nephew's half orc fighter, Armedwall and a rogue created by my nephew's friend. Being blown away by my young nephew's creativity inspired Dezi's songs. I remember in the first five minutes of our first gaming session, Armedwall tripped and tumbled down a hill, just because he thought it seemed like something he would do. Later on while exploring a dungeon, Armedwall poked at a pile of old rags with a spear which was really the only way to release the poisonous spores. I must see if I can find the notebook peppered with songs about our adventures.

My turn to add a profile. I only got to play this character once, but I was particularly fond of the backstory. This was a 4th Ed character, on a concept I carried over from Living Greyhawk. There was a dwarven demigod of fatalism and obsession called Gendwar Argrim that caught my eye, and I had some ideas for a favoured soul thereof. However, Argrim didn't appear in Living Forgotten Realms (and favoured souls weren't in 4E). The closest I could get to the original idea was a dwarven cleric following an elven exarch of Corellon called Shevarath. I mixed up my original notion with the question of why this dwarf was worshipping an elven god, and came up with this backstory:

Glim is a dwarf accursed – at least, that’s how he sees it. He lived a simple, average dwarven life, with a wife and two sons just reaching adulthood (the sons, not the wife), when his family was killed in a drow attack while he was in Delzimmer on business. It was a devastating loss, but loss is common in the East Rift, and stoicism is the dwarven way. He mourned them, retired from a business that meant little to him without a family to support, and resigned himself to a dismal and monochrome widowerhood. It was in this frame of mind that an avatar of Shevarash, Corellon’s exarch of vengeance, appeared to him one night. The conversation went something like this:

Glim: “Bgdaaa! Who the hell are you? Get out of my bedchamber!”
Shevarash: “GLIM BROKENFOOT! I HAVE WITNESSED THE HAMMER BLOW OF YOUR LOSS AND HEARD YOUR SOUL’S CRY FOR VENGEANCE! I HAVE COME TO YOU TO GRANT ITS FULFILMENT!”
Glim: “Is this a joke? Can’t everyone just leave me alone?”
Shevarash: “I AM SHEVARASH, EXARCH OF VENGEANCE! HENCEFORTH YOU SHALL SMITE YOUR ENEMIES IN MY NAME! TAKE FROM THEM WHAT HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM YOU, AND BE COMFORTED!”
Glim: “And anyway, aren’t you one of those elven gods? I’m a dwarf, honest. Nothing against elves I’m sure, well, except the black ones, but I think you’ve made some sort of mist–”
Shevarash: “REJOICE, GLIM BROKENFOOT! YOUR FOES HAVE LEFT NAUGHT BUT ASHES IN YOUR MOUTH, BUT YOUR DESPAIR SHALL BE VISITED UPON THEM TENFOLD! GIVE WHAT REMAINS OF YOUR LIFE TO THE RIGHTEOUS SLAUGHTER OF THE WICKED! WHEN YOU FINALLY FALL IN BATTLE, YOUR ENEMIES SCATTERED ABOUT YOU LIKE BROKEN KINDLING, YOU SHALL AGAIN BE UNITED WITH YOUR FAMILY AND SAY, ‘I DID THIS FOR YOU!’”
Glim: “But I – What was that? ‘Fall in battle’? What do you mean, ‘Fall in battle’? What am I doing in battle? Hey! Come back here!”

But by then, the avatar had disappeared, leaving behind a holy symbol of Corellon and, apparently, directions to Glim’s house for every pointy-eared god-botherer in the vicinity.

So here he is today, deeply confused about how his retirement turned into knocking about with a bunch of murdering hoboes, and convinced that for some unknown reason his god – whom a year ago he neither knew nor cared about – is trying to kill him. No wonder he’s back on the sauce.

Hah. That's pretty hilarious, BT. Somewhere I get this vision of Correllon and Moradin sitting around on the Outer Planes making wagers.

I've been trying to get a facespace Pathfinder game together for about 3 years, but there's no convenient place to run a game on our main floor and our basement is still full of boxes from us moving into the house almost 6 years ago. (Most of it is the gf's stuff, otherwise I would have just pitched what I needed to make room years ago.) So I decided to give running a game online with a VTT a try.

Since I'm experimenting anyway, I decided to run the Rise of the Runelords adventure path. (I've been gaming for over 25 years and have never actually run or played through a published adventure, but have heard plenty of stories from friends who have.) This should be an interesting experience both for the novelty and because the AP features some darker elements than I normally incorporate into my own games. (The first half of the campaign has storylines involving a serial killer, a highly deadly haunted house and an encounter with a family of ogrekin that's an homage to the X-Files episode "Home.")

I've warned the players I'm going to try to evoke the old school published adventure feel by letting the dice fall where they may and not pulling any punches (I'm normally willing to fudge when necessary to prevent unlucky die rolls from killing a character outright, though suicidal stupidity will still lead to their demise.) though I am using the Hero Point mechanics to allow them to earn a chance to cheat death if they wish. (Two of them so far have opted to forgo Hero Points in favor of a bonus feat.)

Should be interesting.

Oh, Laga, I meant to agree that bards can be a lot of fun to play, especially when they have memorable companions.

I once joined a game in progress with a bard and the DM asked "Why would your character want to join up with them?" My response was "Are you kidding me? These guys are a goldmine of potential tales."

The PAX live game.

SKYRIM

Wow. Spent the better part of the whole day playing today. Knocked off a handful of smaller quests, and a couple major ones with achievements.

Two things. One, Lyda died. Ugg. How do I get another follower to carry the plunder?

Two? I'm starting to realize, but please confirm... is there any end to this game?

Skyrim I have not reached the end but then I'm the kind who realizes she would have done something differently and starts all over with a whole new character.

Each time you buy property you get a house carl who will follow you if asked. You can also gain followers by doing things for people. If you have the Hearth...somthing pack this is also how you get a spouse and many followers can also be spouses. Hint setting up the lovers in Riverwood is an easy one .

Why did I ever think running a published Adventure Path would actually be less work then running a homebrew game?

Finally got character histories (mostly) settled for my players and I have all the maps for the encounters I expect them to get through in first season setup in Roll20 for the game tomorrow night, but it's taken about 20 hours of work according to Roll20's playtime counter and it'd probably take another 20 hours to implement everything I'd like to have setup.

I'm also stressing my self trying to remember all the major players in Sandpoint. On one hand, it's nice to have a ready answer, but on the other it's a lot more work then just making up "Lar the tailor" on the fly.

Of course, it's a tossup whether my players will want to spend time chatting up the locals, or if they'll just want to push on to the next adventure.

I feel your pain. The one time I GM'd our BSG, I felt a bit... Well, what you are. And that is cake compared. I'm very grateful for all the hard work BT does to keep our games moving.