Leinathan's Legacy of Fire PbP AP (Inactive)

Game Master leinathan

Ranger Animal Companion: Baby T-Rex (currently not combat ready, or even old enough to be considered level 1 in game. It just makes more sense to have him with Apollo from the start, so when Apollo reaches level 4 and is allowed the companion as a Class feature, he wouldn;t just turn up out of nowhere).

Background, personality and history:

Born on the outskirts of Katapesh, Apollo's parents weren't ready for a kid, so when his mother gave birth to him in a small forest, by a stream just on the outskirts of Katapesh, in fear of losing her boyfriend at the time, she padded out a picnic basket with some cloth, then placed baby Apollo in the basket and set him free down the stream.

This was when a group of fairly nice Barbarians found him and decided to take him in as their own.

He grew up with them, but when he hit 15 he decided he wanted to do more with his life, and having heard of how busy and exciting Katapesh was meant to be, he found himself there searching for a job, at which point he became a Duskwalker Agent.

He worked here for a while, often returning to the forest where his Barbarian foster family lived, and it was because of this that he came across a giant egg.

Out of curiosity he decided to keep it, and when it eventually hatched, inside was a fairly large lizard.

Little did he know, this Lizard would grow and bond with him, to become his best friend, aiding him with his battles and survivability.

He named his T-Rex Nom, and it pretty much follows what he says, because when you've grown up amongst Barbarians, people and creatures tend not to argue with you...unless they're looking for trouble.

Apollo, not liking those who belittle others, and seeing stronger opponents as a challenge and not a threat, takes his pride and joy from smashing opponents heads in, wrestling with his pet T-Rex (and best bud) in his spare time, intimidating others who are hostile and intimidating towards him (just to see how they like it) and switches to Archery if an opponent thinks it can outrun or fly away from him.

The most trouble he's had has been with the Gnoll's around the region.

They raid and kill for the sake of it, and Apollo has had one too many run ins with their kind. He doesn't hate them as such. He just dislikes them, and his dislike has grown enough to make them his favourite enemies to kill.

Having caught rumour of there being some kind of Gnoll Leader known as the Carrion King, he's taken it upon himself to hunt this creature down, to hopefully lessen the Gnoll issues in and around Katapesh.

Hobbies: Scouting, Collecting Arrows, spending time with certain animals, Dino-Riding, making friends, drinking and bashing unfriendly skulls in.

Attitude towards friend: Cocky, funny, friendly
Attitude towards foe: Cocky, sarcastic, annoying

Stats

HP: 12 (1d10 +1Con +1 Favoured Class)
AC: 18, Flat-Footed: 16, Touch: 12

Initiative: 2
Speed: 20ft

Str: 18
Dex: 14
Con: 12
Wis: 13
Int: 10
Cha: 12

Fort: 3
Ref: 4
Will: 1

BAB: 1
CMB: 5
CMD: 17

Combat:

Earthbreaker: +5, 2d6+6 x3
Vs Gnolls: +7, 2d6+8 x3
FE Vs Gnolls: +9, 2d6+10 x3

With Power Attack:

Earthbreaker: +4, 2d6+9 x3
Vs Gnolls: +6, 2d6+11 x3
FE Vs Gnolls: +8, 2d6+13 x3

+2 Strength Composite Longbow: +3, 1d8+2 x3 (110ft)
Vs Gnolls: +5, 1d8+4 x3 (110ft)
FE Vs Gnolls: +7, 1d8+6 x3 (110ft)

Feats:

1. Power Attack

Traits:

1. Gnoll Killer (campaign)
3. Dusk Agent - Double starting gold, selling gains 10% profit of gp and buying lowers the cost by 10%. Also applies for starting equipment.

Skills (All Class Skills):

Climb*: 8 (class, 4 str, 1 rank)
Handle Animal*: 5 (class, 1 cha, 1 rank)
Intimidate*: 5 (class, 1 cha, 1 rank)
Perception*: 5 (class, 1 wis, 1 rank)
Ride*: 6 (class, 2 dex, 1 rank)
Survival*: 5 (class, 1 wis, 1 rank)

Favoured Enemy:

1st. Gnoll

Gear:

250g to spend (doubled to 500 with Duskwalker Agent Trait):

Earthbreaker Hammer 36gp, +2 Str Composite Longbow 270gp, 40 arrows 1gp + 8sp, Breastplate 180gp, 4 days rations 1gp 8sp, bedroll 9cp, waterskin 9sp, canvas 9cp

Remaining = 9gp, 3sp, 2cp (10% discount on all items bought and sold within Katapesh).

These were the first words Asht’el spoke to Haleen, when she found Asht’el on the streets and took him home. She was walking down a dark, quiet street in the Lower City, the teeming market district of Katapesh. Hearing a young boy’s voice cry out, and seeing a sudden streak of flame, Haleen couldn’t help but go investigate. She saw Asht’el, a boy of no more than twelve rains, his coppery red hair glinting like embers in the darkness, holding up an empty hand and saying “Stay away or I’ll burn you too!” A handful of thugs, veils across their faces, menaced Asht’el, though one kneeled on the ground, cursing and clutching his arm, the smell of seared flesh wafting off of him. Seeing the boy bravely facing off against clearly unwinnable odds, Haleen drew her weapon and charged in howling, surprising the thugs so greatly they simply fled into the night. Asht’el turned on her, and she held up an empty hand and said, “Calmly, little one. I mean you no harm. Come with me – you’ll be safe.”

Though he took some convincing, Asht’el went home with Haleen that night. She fed him, and let him rest, Asht’el not speaking a word until the next morning. When he woke, he began his story in the middle.

“I didn’t know it would burn. I knew the workers kept the room dark, even in the daytime, but I didn’t know it was because the worms and their cocoons would burn so fast and so hot.”

“I just wanted a place where I could be alone and play with my fire, and think what to do. I knew my father would hate me and throw me out if he knew about my taint. And the silkworms’ room was dark and quiet all the time, and the workers only went in there in the mornings, to feed the worms and harvest the cocoons. I wasn’t supposed to be in there, but I could usually slip in, and when I learned to shrink myself, it was easy to get in and out.”

“I’m not making much sense, am I? Let me try again. My name is Asht’el, and my father is - or was, really - a silk merchant. We have – well, had – a large room on the top of our house where the silkworms lived and grew and spun their cocoons. And I destroyed it all. I haven’t told anyone this, I don’t even know why I’m telling you, but I can’t stop myself. A couple of years ago, soon after I turned 10, I started noticing changes - changes in me, in who I am. I always thought I was human, like my parents. But I began to be able to do things, mostly things with fire at first. And my hair changed from brown to red, though not so red as you see it now, and my skin began to redden. My parents only saw the physical changes, and somehow thought it was a part of my growing to be a man. But I knew about all the changes, and feared I was growing away from men.”

“When I was young, my father used to say that I must do as I was told, or an efreeti would come from the desert and get me. He told me of the efreet’s fiery ways, and strong sense of what was right and wrong, and I feared them, and tried to obey my father. When my…powers appeared, they all seemed to match with the stories of the efreet. I wondered, Is this how the efreet come to get me? Not by hurting or killing me, but by taking me over, making me one of them?

“This scared me, as I wanted to be me, and live my life – and I knew my father used the efreet as a threat because he hated and feared them. He was a good man, though a strict and law-abiding one, and I feared how he would react to the changes in his son. But at the same time, I loved the feeling of using my powers. I would sneak away to my secret spots and practice making flame from my fingers, and later, as my powers grew, enlarging and shrinking myself. I was almost caught once or twice, but I could usually talk my way out of things with the servants.”

“To make an already long story shorter – one night I crept into the silkworm room, to practice...well, really, to play with fire. I didn’t know it would all catch on fire so easily. I wanted to see how large a stream of fire I could make in my hands. A rack of cocoons caught fire. It spread so fast, to the other cocoons, to the whole room, to the rest of the house. I stood in the fire for a moment, transfixed and unharmed, then ran from the room, down the stairs and through the long halls of my family home as it burned. One of the halls held a long mirror, and as I ran by, I saw I had changed, that the fire had somehow ignited the efreeti blood in me. My hair was always red, but now it was as you see it, this dark coppery red, and it glints like a burning ember and occasionally flickers with licks of flame. My eyes darkened to almost black, and my ears took on these points you see.”

“The fire destroyed my family's business and my mother was badly burned. When I got outside my father saw me, and knew me for what I was. He cursed me and said I had destroyed everything, ruining the family and perhaps killing my own mother. He said I was no son of his, and raised his fists to strike me. I fled into the night.”

“For months afterward, I spied on my father's house as it was rebuilt, looking for some sign of my mother. One day I saw her. She had been to the healers, and the burn scars were bad, but not horrific. But she had once been so beautiful. I stood rooted to the spot, horrified by what I had done - until my father saw me and called for the guard at the house's front door to kill me. Again, I fled my father's house, knowing I would not return.”

“Because of what they have done to my family and my life, I have hated my powers. But the awful thing is I also love what I can do. There is an incredible feeling of power, even joy, that runs through me when I make fire, or otherwise draw on my efreet blood. And, when I left home, my powers were the only thing I had to survive. Not only to protect myself, but to earn some coin. I took to working for merchants in the grand medina, as a way of protecting their stock. Even when I was smaller, after the change in the way I look, I was clearly of efreeti blood, and many feared me. I learned to use that fear of me, and merchants would pay me to stay by their stalls and discourage theft. They got a magical guard for a few coppers, and I was able to earn enough to survive.”

“But having a few coppers meant I became the target of thieves, especially the gangs of child thieves, who hated me for acting the guard. They have been chasing me, hunting me, for months now, and I've managed to escape them so far. But last night they caught me, as you know.”

“I tried to scare them away with my fire, but they were too many to be scared. If you had not shown up when you did, they would certainly have robbed and beaten me, and might have killed me. I don't know what I'll do now, as they'll want my blood even more. But I thank you for saving me, and giving me a safe place for the night.”

After hearing this improbable, incredible, but clearly true, tale, Haleen took Asht’el under her wing. He lived with her for a time, and she let it be known in the lower city that Asht’el was under her protection, so the thieves who had stalked him still glared and threatened, but did not dare hurt him. After a few years, Asht’el rented his own room near Haleen's, and still visited her almost daily.

Asht’el and Haleen have lived quite happily and companionably for years now, and she has taken the place of the family he once had. Asht’el no longer needs her protection so much, but he values her friendship and affection fiercely. Because of this, he became concerned a few months ago, when she began acting oddly morose. Though Haleen has always had a temper, Asht’el had never known her to be depressed. One night, he went to see her, as he so often did, and found only a strange note. It said that Asht’el must forget her and get on with his life – something that made no sense to him. In many ways, she is his life – he could never have survived without her, and he certainly can’t forget her.

Asht’el knew there was something wrong, and searched high and low for an explanation. He talked to the many people he knew in the medina, asking nicely and bullying when needed, to find any who knew what might have happened to Haleen. After months of looking, he found nothing. He finally used some of his small stash of saved coin to pay a gypsy woman to find Haleen. He is not certain that the woman was genuine, but she gave him the only lead he has found so far – she spoke the name “Kelmarane.” Asht’el began to look into what this name could mean. At about the same time he learned that it was on old ghost town, he heard of an expedition looking for mercenaries to travel there. Haleen had not hesitated to step in and save Asht’el all those years ago, and Asht’el knows he must do the same.

Keth Gobersheck
Male Oread Druid (Desert Druid) 1
CN Medium Outsider (native)
Init +1, Senses Perception +9, Darkvision 60ft.
Defense:
AC 15, touch 11, flat-footed 14 (+4 armor, +1 Dex)
hp 14 (1d8+6)
Fort +5, Ref +1, Will +7
acid resistance 5

Offense:
Speed 15ft.
Melee scythe +1 (2d4+1)
Ranged sling +1 (1d4+1)
Special attacks: treacherous earth, acid dart +1 (1d6+1 acid)8/day

Statistics:
STR 13, DEX 12, CON 14, INT 11, WIS 20, CHA 9
Base Atk +0, CMB +1, CMD 12
Feats Toughness
Traits Freed Slave, Finding Haleen
Skills Knowledge (Nature) +7, Handle Animal +3, Heal +9, Perception +9, Survival +11
Languages Common and Terran
SQ wild empathy +0, nature bond (Domain [Earth]), earth affinity
Gear scythe, hide armor, sling, sling bullets (10), druid's kit 203gp

Keth never met his parents. More than a decade of his early life, he doesn’t remember. His first memories were of Haleen, the girl that protected and raised him as he was growing up. She told him that she didn’t know where he came from, but that she’d found him, small and hungry and crying in a gutter. She’d taken him in, fed him what she had (which wasn’t much). Up until he began adolescence, he was much like all of the other children that stayed on the streets with them, if a little beefier, but as soon as puberty began to hit, Keth’s body changed. His skin grayed, and thickened. He stopped growing vertically, and he became much stouter than the other boys. In addition, things started happening. Things happened that he didn’t quite understand. Once, when running from a Katapesh city guard, loaf of bread in hand, the ground around him cracked and broke into jagged shards, which he leapt over but the guards had to take several moments to navigate around, buying him time for his escape. Haleen had always told him that he was special, but this…this was something different.

Despite these changes, life was good for Keth and Haleen. That is, until the day. When Keth was 59 (or as he believed, 17) a group of men came to the apartment Haleen and Keth now shared. Keth didn’t know these men, but Haleen did, although she didn’t tell him how. They demanded money, and when she didn’t have any, they barged into the home. They rooted around, not finding much of value, and then their leader seized upon the idea of taking Keth. He looked to be a big, strong enough lad. Surely he would fetch a good price in the fleshmarkets. At that suggestion Haleen grew cold, and whipped out a blade that she used to skewer one of the men. She yelled at Keth to run, and he did, but he didn’t get far before they knocked her out and caught him. He was too heavy to move very quickly, and the men dragged him away, satisfied with their prize.

The next years were tough on him, as he passed through many owners. He earned frequent lashings due to his disrespect, and was eventually so disliked by his masters that they took to making him sleep in the barns, and take care of and clean the animals. Keth massively preferred this task, and the animals swiftly took a liking to him. He used his natural abilities to calm them when they got stressed, to heal them when they were whipped, and to speak to them when he was lonely. His master sent him to the market to fetch some lantern oil one afternoon, and while he was there he caught a glimpse of Haleen. Or maybe it was just that he thought he did, but it gave rise in him a desperate bout of energy, and he spent the next hour searching for her. Alas, he’d lost her. For taking so long on his shopping run, he was whipped, but he didn’t care. He knew that Haleen was alive, now, and he would do anything to find her again. During the night, he spoke to the animals about his plan, and they agreed: they would be released, and would make as big of a ruckus as they could to buy him time to escape. The plan went off without a hitch, and Keth slipped off into the night in the crowded city of Katapesh, losing himself in the crowd (which, for an Oread, is not very easy anywhere but the cosmopolitan city). He spent the next few years searching for her, to no avail. He had to flee the city when his previous masters nearly found him, bringing him to the city of Solku. Searching for something to occupy his time while he waited for the situation in Katapesh to die down (so he could return to search for Haleen), he began looking for work. That’s when he heard of Almah and her expedition to Kelmerane, and the attempt to re-civilize it. He thought of this as a noble job, and sought out Garavel, the man in charge of recruitment, to volunteer.

68 years old Light Gray skinned and haired, 4’8’’ 206lbs. Oread with Dark hazel eyes

Keth while often enjoying nature its self is a strong willed Oread who strives for what he wants whole heartedly and doesn’t let anything get in his way. He believes in true freedom and loves to pull pranks. However he is rather selfish and lacks compassion for others. He also believes that he is a human.

Five days after the fall of Kelmarane a caravan heading for Solku and passing twenty miles south of the village came across a 5 year old girl, seemingly mute and wandering aimlessly. Taken for a survivor from the village, none of the caravaners noticed either that she was surpisingly hale for so long alone, nor the tiny scorpion the girl was intent on following to navigate the trade route.

Fostered in Solku, Sabeen grew up fey and otherwordly, seemingly able to hear and see things that others could not. While she spoke it was often of things that made no sense. Of persons and events that seemed imagined. Many thought her made slow by her ordeal or the harshness of the sun. She simply did not fit in with the simple family who took her in and she spent more and more time wandering alone in the bleak northern lands. Her companion, her friend, she kept secret. As time went on he (he was most certainly a he) taught her many amazing things. And with that knowledge came a power for her to influence, for the first time, the things happening around her.

At seventeen summers she left, wandering the wildlands of Katapesh. For a time she travelled with a tribe of jann who thought her an oracle. Other times alone, a small, thin figure, cloaked and veiled, there was something about her that made commoners sign the evil eye as she passed, even when it was to pause and help a sickened child, and made bashers and raiders think twice about crossing her path.

She wandered and when she dreamed it was of flames: a great beast setting the world to fire. Kelmarane, her ruined home, was always at their heart.

During an infrequent trip to [Katapesh/Solku] she heard news of Almah's expedition, a mission to reclaim and resettle the village after decades. She felt compelled to join and she approached Garavel the expedition factor about joining. A small demonstration of her abilities secured a place.

Whatever she would find there, she would finally be coming home.