ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

A r?nin (???) or rounin was a Bushi with no lord or master during the feudal period (1185–1868) of Japan. A samurai became masterless from the death or fall of his master, or after the loss of his master's favor or privilege.

According to the Bushido Shoshinshu (the Code of the Samurai), a samurai was supposed to commit oibara seppuku (also "hara kiri" – ritual suicide) upon the loss of his master. One who chose not to honor the code was "on his own" and was meant to suffer great shame. The undesirability of r?nin status was mainly a discrimination imposed by other samurai and by the daimyo (the feudal lords).

Like regular samurai, r?nin wore their two swords. R?nin used a variety of other weapons too. Some r?nin, usually if they lacked money, would carry a b? (staff around 5 to 6 ft) or j? (smaller staff or walking stick around 3 to 5 ft) or they would use a yumi (bow). Most weapons would reflect the ry? or martial arts school they came from if they were students.

I'm thinking a more finesse and versatile version of the current Cursed that can focus on any type of physical combat, but shines with dual exotics. He can learn diplomacy skills to reintegrate him into society, but his physical defects and rumors of his past will limit his people interactions somehow.

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A Ronin is truly on his own in the world, and has been on the run for many years. Brutal samurai from his homeland have been hunting him endlessly, townsfolk scheme behind him with hopes of earning a reward bounty, and parents tell fairy tales to their children about his public execution in order to keep them in line. He is the most hated man in the Far East, although he does not know this because he has no recollection of it.

Ostracized from his continent, he built himself a makeshift raft and sailed West hoping to find dry land. After weeks of drifting, starving and melting under the sun, he finally gave in and accepted his fate right there in the middle of the ocean. He eyes shut with the weight of a thousand slain cowards and tried to die atop his floating logs in the Sea of Maj'Eyal.

Little did he know that he was just miles off the coast of Lost Hope, stuck in an ocean current that carries most of the floating debris and carrion straight to the mouth of Irondeep River. If he had known that the graveyard located there was also the septic tank of the planet's toilet, he might have thought better about building that floatation device.

Because in that graveyard, all sorts of unnatural things are going on. Necromancers and barely breathing squiggly things with bones sticking out from where they shouldn't shamble back and forth in random sequences. A woman screams blood curdling incantations from the dark glow
of an underground stairwell. And it really stinks. The dying Ronin can barely smell it from his stick float a few miles off coast as he breathes his last few breaths.

But for some unknown reason, those last few breaths just refuse to stop coming. They actually get stronger the closer he gets to this unholy place. He is not quite dead yet, but his body is devoid of any nutrition and completely dehydrated. His muscles are atrophied and he lacks any potential for strength or movement in his being. All he can do is lay and breathe. He loses conciousness.

He wakes up on the beach of Lost Hope. He can see the city from where he lay. He can not remember his name, or anything about himself. Somehow he manages to stand up, and makes his way to the huge statues outside Lost Hope.
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Will update later with some skill trees and whatnot. I just wanted to get the idea and back story up before I forgot about it.

Huh. I kind of like it, although I'm not sure about the backstory.

A few thoughts.
- Ronin are cool, and a nifty place to start from a storytelling perspective... but the Samurai society that they are fundamentally defined by doesn't actually work here, and your story first dumps it into the backstory and then scrubs with amnesia so that it doesn't apply anymore. It seems both out of place and not terribly applicable.
- The idea of someone who becomes afflicted by trying to survive as long as he could, finally giving up and letting himself die, only to be "saved" by twisted magics and turned into an Afflicted... that has some possibilities, and it works just fine with the amnesia thing. Maybe there could be some suggestion back east that there was someone who'd been rejected by the society there for whatever reason (doing something horrible, possibly via unwise use of magic) and let people draw the connection if they see it, but we don't need to import bushido to make this go.
- It's an interesting story, but what sorts of powers are we looking at? What are the primary stats? What makes this guy interesting and distinct from, say, the Cursed?

As something of an idea transference, you could possibly see a person rejected from the Far East society by embracing darkness (negative energy) alone. This isn't part of the existing lore, but the classes so far are pure light or light and darkness balanced, so embracing darkness and rejecting light may be seen as evil or dangerous by them. Then, as the character drifts away, the 'curse' or otherwise not understood power, could imbue them with the ability to regenerate darkness somehow (though I don't think as a passive regeneration like mana or stamina, that'd just be boring).

This could excise the samurai-based aspects of this class, while still keeping the core melee/multi-weapons idea mixed with a little magic power.

It'd make it celestial rather than Hate-based, though. It sounds like an interesting idea for a completely *different* class (though, to be fair, there have been a lot of vague ideas about darkness-only classes since the celestials came out.

I'm fairly certain that there's an official darkness only class planned, but it will take a bit of work before it's ready.