Cha'Tima Achak's page

The child's birth was a momentous occasion in his tribe. All the signs aligned to produce a child seemingly tailor made for greatness. Born to a fully human mother and father, he nevertheless bore the blood of the Garuda, the Celestial being most revered by his tribe, the clan of the Falcon. He was born at exactly noon as the tribe's sacred animal flew near the sun, shadowing the small tent pitched as a birthing chamber for his mother, and a birthsign of an eclipsed sun was visible on his forehead, a black mark with a fain glow surrounding it on skin otherwise reminiscent of burnished bronze.

The tribal elders named him Cha'Tima, Spirit Walker in their tongue, son of Achak.

As a child he spent much time with the tribal shaman, learning the history of their people. As he grew older, he began spending more and more time with the warriors as well as the hunters, learning a bit of all their trades. Throughout this time it was drilled and drilled into his head that the portents said he had a great destiny.

Tima grew arrogant, overconfident. He excelled at everything he did, quickly taking to the bow, to stealth, to surviving off the land, and all of his studies. He absorbed knowledge and skills like a sponge, and began to think himself better than others. No surprise, since that was essentially what everyone told him.

So when he came of age, naturally he demanded not only to be taken with the war party on one of their many skirmishes with the Moon clan, but to be put in command. Trusting in his destiny, the elders allowed this.

It, of course, ended in unmitigated disaster.

His inexperience led to mistake after mistake, and he would listen to no advice from the usual war leaders and more experienced soldiers. He had never truly been denied anything he asked for, and the men were reluctant to go against the elders' wishes, and so he lead them onward, directly to engage in a "glorious battle" with the rival clan.

He was never sure exactly what factor led them into the ambush. His botched navigation in unfamiliar territory, perhaps, or maybe his unwillingness to take an indirect route while following the tracks. Perhaps it was just bad luck. Regardless, the entire raiding party, twenty men plus Cha'Tima stumbled into a conclave of hidden Snake warriors, and they were beset from three sides. The Falcon warriors fought bravely, and well, but so did those of the Snake, and they had the element of surprise and larger numbers on their side. The Falcon clan warriors dwindled quickly, and they began fighting a retreating battle, protecting Tima at every step. Tima managed to drop two men on his own...but even here his inexperience betrayed him, making himself a tempting target in a losing battle. The enemy focused fire on that side, slaying three of the men guarding him. Tima felt an intense pain in his right eye, saw a red mist well up, and then nothing.

When he awoke, it was in agony and shame. Of his twenty men, only two made it back, and one died later of infection. Tima felt failure for the first time in his life, and had lost an eye in the process. His days as an archer were through, or so he thought. He couldn't fight, he couldn't hunt, so what use was he?

Given his failure and his disability, the elders began to doubt his destiny, and the preferential treatment ceased almost immediately.

But again, for the first time, Cha'Tima had something to prove. He practiced and felt failure once more, archery no longer being an easy thing for him, distances feeling off, hard to judge.

Eventually he compensated, able to function well enough to take care of himself, but no longer felt as though he belonged with his people. The easy camaraderie he felt with everyone vanished once he got nineteen of their best warriors killed, weakening their clan and bring hard times on them.

In the years that followed, Cha'Tima had many adventures, honing his skills as a merchant guard, traveler, sellsword, and general do-gooder. From the lost crypt of the foul Ghoul King to the iron fortress of the orc warlord Baruk Axe-Splitter, and many more in between and after, Cha'tim Achak made a name for himself as a defender of the downtrodden, and a peerless warrior who channeled the power of the sun and moon to destroy his foes. But despite his success, his missing eye was a constant reminder of the danger of hubris, and he endeavored to never stumble into that pitfall again. Though he always had a nagging sense that the elders of his tribe were correct. he must be meant for SOMETHING more.

When he heard of the expedition to retrieve the wand of Orcus, he felt something tug at his soul. This was it. THIS was his destiny, to do something no mortal had ever dared to do before, to spit in the Prince of Undeath's eye and strike him a blow like one he hadn't felt since his ascension.

Cha'Tima Achak TN Aasimar Oracle (Spirit Guide)//Soulknife (War Soul/Deadly Fist)

Str: 10
Dex: 14
Con: 14
Int: 12
Wis: 18
Cha: 16

HP: 16/16

AC: 16 (Touch 12, FF 14)
CMD: 13 (FF 11)
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +4, Will +6

Attacks: Soulfists +1 (1d6, 20/x2)

Feats:

1.) Tactical Rush: Once per day as a Swift action move up to your speed
Soulknife Bonus: Power Attack

Revelations:

Spirit Shield: You can call upon the spirits of your ancestors to form a shield around you that blocks incoming attacks and grants you a +4 armor bonus. At 7th level, and every four levels thereafter, this bonus increases by +2. At 13th level, this shield causes arrows, rays, and other ranged attacks requiring an attack roll against you to have a 50% miss chance. You can use this shield for 1 hour per day per oracle level. This duration does not need to be consecutive, but it must be spent in 1-hour increments.

Stances:

1.) Inner Sphere Stance: A defensive stance that focuses on using the disciple's dance-like movements to confound his foe, Inner Sphere Stance allows the disciple to use erratic movements to defend himself and bolster his confidence. When wielding two weapons while in this stance, the disciple gains a +2 dodge bonus to AC and a +2 morale bonus to Will saves. These bonuses increase by +1 when the character's initiator level reaches 6th, and increases again by +1 at 12th and 18th initiator level.

1st Level maneuvers:

Swift Claws: The Thrashing Dragon disciple's skill with his dual weapons allows him to strike with practiced speed and alacrity, allowing him to make an attack with two wielded weapons (or unarmed strikes), using the same attack action. Creatures with more than two arms may still only strike with two wielded weapons. Standard action.

Shards of Iron Strike: By mimicking the speed and piercing power of the legendary shattered blade of the founder of this discipline, the disciple makes a hard jabbing strike at his opponent's vulnerable spots for maximum pain. The initiator makes an attack against his target foe and if successful, the target is staggered for one round in addition to normal damage. Standard action.

Inner Sense: By sensing ripples in the spiritual world around him, the Veiled Moon disciple is capable of better avoiding dangerous effects and situations. This counter grants the disciple a +2 insight bonus to a single saving throw. Immediate action.

Spells Known:

Cantrips: Read Magic, Detect Magic, Create Water, Purify Food and Drink

1st level spells: Cure Light Wounds, Divine Favor, Murderous Command

Skills:

Craft: Alchemy +5 (1 rank)
Spellcraft +5 (1 rank)
Profession: Herbalist +8 (1 rank)
Kn. Geography +5 (1 rank)
Kn. History +5 (1 rank)
Kn. Nature +5 (1 rank)
Kn. Religion +5 (1 rank)
Linguistics +2 (1 rank)
Perception +8 (1 rank)

Languages Known:

Common, Celestial, Shoanti, Draconic, Sylvan, Necril

Traits:

TBD (Need Player's Guide)

Cha’tima Achak (Tima to his friends) is, or was, an apprentice to Ashkuwet, one of the shamans of the Skoan-Qua. He was selected at a young age to commune with the spirits, his heritage being seen as a good omen, and has been raised to revere his ancestors, and trained to call upon them for guidance when he is in need.
Tima, despite much of his time being taken up by spiritual education, learning the art of mixing herbs and medicines, and meditation was also a natural warrior. Often, he would sneak out and watch the warriors of the clan train in combat, and wished to join in. It took him a long time to work up the courage to ask to be trained himself, and when he did the men were naturally reluctant, fearful of harming the shaman’s favored. But his natural charm eventually won them over, and he began to learn the art of war piecemeal.

He took to it like a fish to water, though his growth was stunted by his practice time being limited. Nevertheless, his natural talent made up for it, putting him only slightly behind the boys who were training to be warriors full time. He began to pray to the spirits “make me a warrior”.

They obliged, though perhaps not in the manner he would have liked.
In the night, goblins attacked where Tima’s clan had made camp for the night. He was awoken by the sound of a goblin splashing a vial of fire against the tent he and Ashkuwet shared and cackling in mad glee. Tima rushed out, foolishly in hindsight, being neither armed nor armored into a dangerous situation.

Sure enough, he was quickly set upon by a pair of goblins, dogslicers gleaming wickedy in the fire light and their nasty teeth showing through their grins. Tima was convinced this was the end.
“Please, spirits.” he implored “Arm me so I can fight.”
And again, they obliged, pure force sheathing his hands, much to the shock of both himself and the goblins facing him. Recovering quickly, he crushed the skull of one before it could react, and then turned to face the other. A mistake, as it turned out, as the crude knife bit into his face, taking one of his eyes and scarring his face.
He awoke several days later, slightly panicked at the darkness shrouding the world to the right of him.

“You’re a fool boy.” His master sighed as he applied more poultice, out of sight the way Tima’s head was turned “But at least you’re alive.”
He would later find out that the “battle” as he referred to it (little more than a raid from a dozen goblins, if that) had been repelled swiftly and mercilessly by the tribe’s warriors, the most grievous injury being to himself.

For a while after that, the clan warriors refused to train him further, feeling both guilty, and ashamed of him at the same time. If they hadn’t taught him to fight, would he have been so foolish as to rush into combat?

This left him with time for much meditation, and to continue his shamanly training. The encounter with the goblin had had one beneficial side effect. Whether because of an awakening of his spiritual powers, the trauma of his partial blinding, or both, Cha’Tima now had a much closer connection to the spirit world. He could see and manipulate the spirits much more freely than before, his eye blind to the natural world, but free to see the spirit world at all times. His master was pleased with his newfound rapid progress, and permitted him much more time to himself, since he required less time devoted to his studies (the hardest part of communing with the spirits is being able to train yourself to see and hear them, after all, and Tima had mastered that).
He began to “train” his martial abilities by himself, but it was little more than boyish flailing without guidance. Worse, the loss of his eye had thrown off his balance, and given him a weakness to compensate for, setting him back years of training.

After a while, the men took pity on him, feeling he had suffered long enough away from something he clearly had the dedication to pursue, and Mazka, a one-eyed veteran of the group took over his training, teaching him to compensate for his weakness, and soon he was back on track.
More secretively, he honed his ability to conjure “sprit fists”, though still has yet to progress beyond being able to form it at will and determine whether it bears spiked knuckles, a sharp blade, or merely covers his hands.

While he had learned mostly to fight with the tribal weapons of the Shoanti (the spear, Earthbreaker hammer, and Klar shield), he had been given a rudimentary education in hand to hand combat. With his newfound ability, he asked the men to further that knowledge. They taught what they could, and Tima felt very comfortable wielding a weapon that was literally an extension of himself, but there were no experts of this kind in his village.

He pondered long and hard, but eventually decided he must leave, to everyone’s disappointment. The shaman’s life was not for him, he believed. The spirits called him to follow the path of war, though for what purpose he did not know.

He left the village at 16, and never looked back.
Despite his decision not to become a shaman, his connection with the spirits was close, and only became closer as he relied on them to help him overcome the dangers of the outside world.
Having no money, and no knowledge of life outside of the tribe, he found life in the city impossible, and living in a village only slightly more palatable.

As such, he lived off the land, and eventually made his home for a while in some ruins, little remaining but a stone foundation and two half walls that would shelter him from the wind. But over time, he made it his own.

As his connection with the place grew and he began to think of it as his new home, his connection with the lingering spirits grew as well. He learned that this had, centuries ago, been a monastery to the god Irori. In his years there he learned from the spirits many things. A working knowledge of the history and geography of the region (not just the history and territory of the Skoan-Qua tribe, and to a lesser extent the Shoanti as a whole, which is all his former master had been concerned with) and religious knowledge he absorbed from them. And not least among the things he learned was how to hone his skills with an unarmed fighting style. He turned his body into a weapon, guided by his will and protected by the spirits.

Cha’tima felt he could have spent his whole life here, meditating and learning form the spirits, but nature had other plans. One night a terrible storm rose up as he was returning from gathering food. A great bolt of lightning struck the two remaining walls and they exploded into little chunks of rock, along with everything Cha’Tima owned that he wasn’t carrying on him at the time.

Cha’tima considered staying, and meditated to speak with the spirits again, but they didn’t appear. Whether it was because they felt he must move on, or the destruction of the last standing bits of the temple had jogged loose their souls, Tima would never know. But the spirits of the monks no longer answered him.

He moved on, and coming across a small village named Holver’s Ferry, decided he had been alone long enough. His time in the wilderness had honed his herbalist skills on a practical level, and he made a meager wage brewing up chemical mixtures and selling raw components, and offering his services as a healer for a fee. Currently, that is where he stays, unaware of what the spirits have in store for him in the coming weeks.