Woot woot! I know you may not see this anytime soon, but-- starting gold? (Or should I even bother as we go into dollification ;) )
I have always been alone. I have always been an outcast. I have always been discarded. I have always waited…until now.
I was conceived from the rape of my human mother by her drow master; I was ripped from her body when she could no longer conceal her shame as yet another mans to torture her and break her spirit. In this final act of horrible pain and suffering, the drow finally succeeded after years of efforts. My mother dies from her broken spirit as much as her broken body.
Somehow I survived. Discarded, thrown away as so much garbage, yet I lived. I was given to the slavers, where I was never allowed to forget my mixed blood nor my unworthiness of the food, clothes, and shelter I received. I was beaten, ignored, taunted, and used as slave labor for the Mistress and her staff. I was never allowed to learn what the other drow children learned, and human children always perished quickly after being taken by drow. So I learned my own lessons…
I learned to fight. I learned to hide. I learned to disappear and strike from the shadows. At eleven I killed my first person – a kitchen scullion who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It felt…liberating. For the first time in my life I was in control. I decided the outcome. I controlled not only my fate, but the fate of someone else. It was glorious. And I knew what I was. Not an outcast...not a slave...I was the hand of vengeance.
So here I am, condemned of High Treason for almost killing my ‘father.’ I searched for years to determine who he was, and once found I plotted his death for months. I had the bastard in my sights - perfectly hidden in the shadows with an old bow and a specially crafted arrow that would tear his flesh with the tiny barbs I had cut into the head and spread poison that I had stolen from the Mistress into his blood. I slowed my breathing; drew; aimed; and let my pain, my anguish, my hate fly towards his heart. The High Counsel for the Mistress. My father. Who lives only because a chill wind blew at the wrong time. The breath of Lolth, perhaps. It matters not.
So I ran. I escaped the dark underground drow city into the world of light, where I live in the shadows, on the edge. I do what I know best. I fight. I hide. I disappear and strike from the shadows. And I plot my return to finish my prime task...to destroy the drow city and every living creature in it.
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Here I am, all dolled up and nowhere to go!!
Whaddya think? Did I do the conversion right?
Here, have a doll.
I've got a ravenloft doll for ya.
*waves at Shaggar* Very cheerful. :P
@ bluedove-- okay, I think I've done doll conversion right...
Soulbound Doll
LN Tiny construct
Init +6; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +5
DEFENSE
AC 15, touch 14, flat-footed 13 (+2 Dex, +1 natural, +2 size)
hp 19 (3d10+3)
Fort +1, Ref +3, Will +3
DR 2/magic; Immune construct traits
Weaknesses susceptible to mind-affecting effects
OFFENSE
Speed 20 ft.
Melee dagger +3 (1d2–2/19–20)
unarmed strike +5 (1d2-2)
grapple +7 (BAB +3, Improved Grapple +2, Insightful Strike +2)
Space 1 ft.; Reach 1 ft.
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 3rd, concentration +2):
Once per day, Suggestion, DC 12.
STATISTICS
Str 7, Dex 14, Con --, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 10
Base Atk +3; CMB +3; CMD 11
Feats: Improved Initiative, Toughness, Improved Grapple, Improved Unarmed Strike, Dodge, Combat Expertise
Skills: Acrobatics: +6, Diplomacy +4, Knowledge (history) +4, Knowledge (local) +4, Knowledge (nature) +4, Perception +6, Perform (oratory) +4, Profession (cook) +6, Profession (fisherman) +6, Sense Motive +6, Stealth +14, Survival +3
Languages: Common, Tien
SQ alignment variation, soul focus
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Lawful Neutral: suggestion (DC 12)
AC Bonus +2 The Monk adds his Wisdom bonus to AC and CMD, more at higher levels.
Advice (4 rounds/day) (Ex) A sensei's advice is identical to bardic performance (using oratory), allowing him to inspire courage at 1st level, inspire competence at 3rd level, and inspire greatness at 9th level, as a bard of the sensei's level
Advice: Inspire Courage +1 (Su) Morale bonus on some saving throws, competence bonus to attack and damage rolls.
Combat Expertise +/-1 Bonus to AC in exchange for an equal penalty to attack.
Improved Grapple You don't provoke attacks of opportunity when grappling a foe.
Improved Unarmed Strike Unarmed strikes don't cause attacks of opportunity, and can be lethal.
Insightful Strike (Ex) At 2nd level, a sensei may use his Wisdom bonus in lieu of his Strength or Dexterity on attack rolls and combat maneuver checks with unarmed strikes or monk weapons. This ability replaces evasion and the bonus feat gained at 2nd level.
Monastic (1/day) Swift action: +1 trait bonus to AC for 1 min, if not wearing armor, shield, holding something, or encumbered.
Stunning Fist (2/day) (DC 13) You can stun an opponent with an unarmed attack.
Stunning Fist (Stun) (Ex) At 1st level, the monk gains Stunning Fist as a bonus feat, even if he does not meet the prerequisites.
Unarmed Strike (1d6) The Monk does lethal damage with his unarmed strikes.
Wisdom in the Flesh (Swim) Swim becomes a Wisdom-based, class skill.
Soul Focus (Su)
The soul bound to the doll lives within a focus integrated into the doll or its apparel, typically one of the doll’s eyes or a gem embedded into its neck or chest. As long as this soul focus remains intact, it can be used to animate another doll, using the same cost as creating a new construct. Once bound into the soul focus, the soul continues to learn, and so if later it is put into a new doll body, the soul retains its personality and memories from its previous body or bodies. A soul focus has hardness 8, 12 hit points, and a break DC of 20.
Everyone is looking good, with just a few corrections to make, but I'm headed to bed so I'll post the notes tomorrow. Love the background, the creepy dolls (I swear I know that clown!) and the puppet names! XD
Tickle-me Shi-Ru...LOL!!
GM bluedove,
Here is the druid I promised to post. She has a background but it is not yet tied in with the others. Reading up on the town and others now. Ideas are welcome.
Cinder is a gnomish herbalist and druid who sees her role as a guardian of nature extending to humanoid settlements and she is in town to act as a healer for the kids before and during the festival. Does that fit with anyone's background?
Sorry! Been a bit busy with online schoolwork and Halloween. I'm planning to have you guys ready to jump in early next week. (Tuesday at the latest)
Since the original group is working through a combat to make it upstairs, that's where you're group will be, already in puppet form and locked away.
Yes, Shi-Ru will get the AC bonus in puppet form as well. Also, give me your thoughts on the young man she is tracking. Do you want him to be a part of your story as an NPC played by me? Would he be capable of a great evil? Does he care for Shi-ru as she cares for him? Also if Shi-ru is from Golarion, she need not have come through the mists, but simply come to Piazza because she believed the festival would attract him, maybe.
Cinder, I could tie you in with the Apothacary here, a human woman named Hazel as well as connect you with the NPC family. If you have an animal companion, you will be separated at first and then that animal goes on the list of things you're searching for. Everything will turn up sooner or later.
Lanarial, I think I want to lead you through the mists in a rather innocent manner, so let me know something that would intrigue him enough to wander into a dense fog.
Everyone give me some physical description too, I plan to start writing soon!
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I left the young man fairly open-ended in the rough bio so that we could work that stuff out, so I'm open to whatever works for the story. But, loosely, yes, I was thinking he could be the NPC tie-in as used and abused by you. Definitely capable of great evil (imagine the martial arts trope of the one arrogant student who goes off and comes back evil having gone to the dark side, or what not) but maybe not past redemption, either.
Shi-ru definitely cares for him more than he cares for her-- to him, she's just an old lady who he's maybe fond of but he doesn't take all that seriously, whereas, she is projecting onto him all the 'failures' of her past (with her biological children), and is desperate to save him.
And yes, he could have been headed to meet someone at the Piazza, or something, and therefore Shi-ru follows right along on puppet strings...
Appearance: Shi-ru stands five-foot even, and is somewhere around fifty years old, with a stocky build. If you've ever known one of those women who has worked her entire life at manual labor, raised ten kids and worked her fingers to the bone doing other people's laundry and cooking and cleaning, you have an idea of the sort of pragmatic weathering that such a life imparts. Callused, hard, knobby hands and feet. Round-faced, with black hair turning grey (usually worn in a bun) and lots of laugh lines and crow's feet.
The outfit of the woman in red is a good idea of what she's wearing, although hers is probably not red but a nondescript greyish-beige with a traveling cloak.
And I was totally looking for THIS PICTURE earlier to be a doll form, haha, but I couldn't find it at the time.
How can I have missed?!? the young man wondered, running as silently as he could through the vast dark caverns of Undergloaming, the underground drow city he must now escape. He should be dead! I may never get another chance to kill my father. the half-drow laments to himself. A noise in the distance jerks him back to his current situation, and he freezes by a pillar of stone, blending into the already dark recesses as a drow slaving team runs by. They were already after him.
I need more time! he thinks, then focuses on the reality he had rather than a wished-for alternate. Wishes accomplish nothing. Where do they think I would go? Where would they never think to check? As he thinks he starts moving again, letting his instincts guide him as his mind chews on the gristle of his dilemma. Before long, and quite beyond his concious thoughts, Lanarial finds himself sneaking past two guards on the path to the Overrealm - the one place no drow would willingly wander. For the Overrealm was a land of painful light, and noise, and strange creatures and plants all brightly colored and gaudy. Yes...I must leave Undergloaming for now...build my skills and strength...and return to finish my task...to kill the @*!^&&@% who fathered me...
As Lanarial emerged from the ground for the first time in his life, he was surprised it wasn't brighter. He had heard stories of the painful light and bright colors and how you could see so far it seemed you would be lost forever in the vast nothingness of the overrealm. But he was surrounded by a white-greyness, with swirling wispy shapes. Sound was dampened and everything was almost as dull and grey as objects in Undergloaming when seen around the cookfires they used. He was greatful, though, for this strange, wet thing would help him escape, making him even harder to see and hear if the slavers made it out here.
And so, believing himself relatively safe and his escape complete, Lanarial set off through the dense fog and let his hatred and anger boil once more...
The tie in with the Apothecary and Hazel works well. Cinder is an attractive and easily liked young gnome in her threens (30s) who has set off to human lands looking for adventure and to help people and nature where she encounters problems. She is quick to smile and lend a hand, generous to both friends and stranger alike, and slow to anger. But when she does anger she his quite the "hot" temper. She would likely be helping Hazel for room and board and both teaching her and learning from her both herbal arts and healing skills in general.
She looks like her icon as well, except for that he hair is fire red.
I think she will forgo the animal companion in favor of the fire domain. This is a role playing decision and will cost her later. But at low levels it might be handy to have more fire to throw around. :)
Am excited to met all of you!