Skull & Shackles: AP #55 - 60 (Inactive)

Game Master ThatEvilGuy

Init +4
Senses Perception -1
Languages Common, Aquan
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AC 13, touch 10, flat-footed 13; CMD 12
(+3 armor)
hp 11 (1d8 + 3)
Fort +4, Ref +0, Will +1
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Speed 30ft
Melee longspear +2 (1d8+3/x3), or
Melee heavy mace +2 (1d8+3/x2), or
Melee dagger +2 (1d4+2/19-20/x2), or
Melee unarmed strike +2 (1d3+2 nonlethal/x2), or
Ranged light crossbow +0 (1d8/19-20/x2)
Base Atk +0; CMB +2
Combat Gear: Crossbow bolts x10
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Oracle Spells Known (Caster Level 1st, Concentration +5)

1st (4/day) - bless, cause fear, cure light wounds
Cantrips (at will) - create water, detect magic, light, purify food and drink
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Abilities Str 14, Dex 10, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 19
SQ Mystery (waves), Oracle's Curse (tongues: Aquan), Revelation (Fluid Travel)
Feats: Great Fortitude, Improved Initiative
Traits Eastern Mysteries, Touched by the Sea
Skills Acrobatics +4, Diplomacy +8, Knowledge (arcana) +2, Knowledge (religion) +5, Spellcraft +5, Swim +7

Possessions (105gp): Longspear (5), heavy mace (12), dagger (2), light crossbow (35), 10 crossbow bolts (1), waterskin (1), backpack (2), studded leather armor (25), scroll case (1), 100ft rope (2), 3 sunrods (6), 10 gp, 30 sp.

Arsames tried to bring up his son and teach him the sailor's trade - and filled his mind with stories of his journeys around the Inner Sea - but the old man grew no richer now that he was too old to work, and a son was expensive. When Nashur was ten, Arsames was forced by poverty to give him up to a temple of Sarenrae, to work as an acolyte in return for the temple's supporting the child.

Nashur took well to academic study, but less well to the teaching of clerical magic - something that despite many lessons he repeatedly failed to grasp, much to his humiliation. His fellow acolytes muttered that lack of faith in Sarenrae was to blame, while old and wise clerics murmured among themselves about lack of self-knowledge, or about anger clouding the young man's judgment and preventing him from embracing the forgiving aspects of the goddess. Whatever the source, Nashur watched in shame as acolytes of his age mastered magic and rose within the church, while he did not.

Angry, he delved into the temple library, searching for information on other forms of magic either arcane or divine - and while dozing off one night over a tome of Vudran mysteries, he seems to have found what he sought. While he has never told anyone exactly what he dreamed of, he fled the temple the very next day, convinced that a better destiny awaited him on the high seas. He has occasionally hinted that he struck a deal with some kind of god or spirit - exactly who, even he does not know - and it is this god or spirit that both promised him a better place in the world, and showed him magic with which to seize it: magic he could master through force of will instead of faith.

Nashur left the Padishah Empire - a land where the vast power of the empire left little room for independent-minded men to rise - and has come west, through the Inner Sea to Port Peril, seeking seas where a man might carve out his own fate...

He generally dresses in a sailor's loose and practical clothing, if for no other reason than that he cannot afford more luxurious clothing. If expecting trouble, he generally carries a long, ash-hafted spear.

The boy grew up on the rigid discipline of Erastil's creed, and although he sometimes felt stifled and pressured to take his role in the community, he had a strong will and took the role of priest with ease. The gentle young man called "Ned" was well-liked in the community, dedicated, virtuous and honorbound. Sometimes people commented on his aloofness and distractions, when he would gaze into the sea in the middle of a sentence or even for hours. Like his mother, he always would spend some special days looking at the sea, specially in the anniversaries of his father's disappearance and his mother's death.

At nineteen he become engaged. It was expected of him, and the fiancée was actually a nice honest woman if not sharp of mind called Gwen. But all that would change on one fateful afternoon.

Exactly ten years before, the Smiling Eagle left port, never to be seen again. He spent that entire day at the salt-blasted rocks of the coast, gazing at the horizon. His fiancée brought hot soup and a blanket and left, for she knew that was his way of honoring his family. When the sun had set, he got up and walked away from the coast, but his foot slip and he lost his balance. A bruised knee and elbow later, he got up, cursing. And then he noted the small wooden amulet with the flying eagle in his hand had cracked.

Ned panicked for a couple seconds when he thought the only memento of his family was destroyed. But then he noticed that the amulet had a small hinge and a clever hatch, and could be opened. He did with fumbling fingers, his wounds (along with everything else) forgotten for the moment. Inside one could see on the left side a carved image of a skull and bones and to the right carvings indicating a couple geographic coordinates, some particular unknown coast and a marked X.

Even years later he could barely remember those next few days. They passed in a blur while he gathered his things and arranged for passage in a merchant ship going southwest. He must've said "I'll be back" to his fiancée and to the priest who raised him at some point, he figured. He only remembers feeling the sea wind on his lungs and that sweet moment when the last sliver of land disappeared on the horizon. It was as if he had broken the invisible shackles that were chaining him into a life of farming and community, of duty and devotion. He made excuses for himself ("I'm only trying to discover what happened to my father") and for his god ("It's a duty I have to perform for the honor of my family") but seeing the wide open sea made him more alive than the simple community life had ever made him.

All was well until the wreck. Sometime after they Mediogalti Island, another sail was spotted in the distance. Pirates, they said, with fear in their voice. The captain was a veteran man of the sea, so he dared the unthinkable; he approached the Eye of Abendego hoping the pirates would drop pursuit. The strategy worked; the pirates gave up their prey, but the sailing was hard and the sea unforgiving. After struggling with the tempest for two days straight, they managed to leave the influence of the Eye just to discover themselves in the middle of the Shackles archipelago and into a hidden reef.

Dozens of people died in the wreck. Most of the sailors, still tired from the ordeal, weren't able to swim away in time. Chaos and panic followed, and the lucky ones died drowning; the unlucky ones froze to death during the harsh night that followed. Ned didn't hold onto the wooden plank half as strong as he did hold on to the amulet. He lost his consciousness sometime during the night, and then his memories get fuzzy.

Today he swears for the truth of his words, and very few believe him. He swears a beautiful dark-haired woman was waiting for him under the waves, and her kiss breathed life into his lungs and love into his heart. She said something about what a waste his death would've been and how she despises waste of good talent. And then he woke up on the island of Besmara's Throne.

The faithful there only spared him because his hand had been grasping a holy symbol of Besmara, the skull and bones. They nursed him back to health, and said the goddess must have some purpose for the man if he managed to not only survive the wreck but land on the most holy of places.

Ned felt he had been given a second chance at life, that he had been reborn with new-found purpose. He truly believed that the goddess had spared him for something, and he wouldn't shame her by not living it up to it. And so he applied his strong will and industrious spirit to learning all there is to know about ropes, sails, currents and tides. During the following years he has been a part of fishing ships, whaling ships, merchant ships and many others, earning a few coppers in pay but greater riches of experience.

It's been 3 years since he left Andoran, but it feels like a lifetime. The young man now sports a shabby beard, salt-sprayed hair and a wicked smile, and is quick to preach that his goddess saved him from a life of virtue and honor. During his travels he has discovered that his father was known as Smiling Jack, and his ship was actually named Besmara's Smile. He was a violent opponent of Chelish slaving ships, and he consorted with pirates and scoundrels. Apparently Smiling Jack was betrayed by a member of his crew paid by the Chelish and was killed all those years ago. Rumor has it his first mate renamed the ship and roams the Shackles searching for the spot where Smiling Jack buried his treasure, but he can't seem to find it even after all those years. Apparently the old scoundrel used some kind of amulet to indicate the way...

He is called "Lucky Ned" and indeed he has the scars to show. Many a time before a blade dodge his throat to slash at his cheek, and once an arrow pierced a whole gold coin before just cutting his skin. He recounts the tales of those brushes with death with much gusto, and at times it really seems like he puts himself at risk too much.

The secret is that he really does. He has the delusional certainty of a true believer, and he firmly believes Besmara has saved him for a purpose. At the times where he puts himself at ridiculous risk he feels her reaching out to save him, and he longs for another kiss to blow life into his body. He not only worships the goddess, he is truly in love with her. If he becomes a fearsome pirate and dedicate enough booty and lives to her, she'll notice him and reward him for his faithful service.

And so he puts himself in ludicrous situations, knowing he'll survive and honor his goddess. He has a really cheery disposition, and is bound to lift up spirits in merry and song.

Mechanically, he would go towards the battle cleric route; buffing himself and the party and jumping towards battle with a cutlass.

Alignment: CN

Description: Korgoth is a hulking half-orc, his skin a dark green from many years in the broiling sun of the Shackles. He has two prominent tusks that protrude up from his bottom teeth. Numerous scars criss cross his body from a long life of piracy. The most notable feature about him though is his missing leg, replaced with a stump of wood that makes a hollow thump as he walks. Despite this, his gate is steady and assured, no awkwardness to his movement.

Backstory: Korgoth is a Shackles pirate to his core. Born in Port Peril, he was weaned on tales of the first great Free Captains, who carved their way into history on seas of blood and plunder. He set out on the first ship that would have him and he never looked back.

During one of his first voyages he learned that both the sea and a ship could be unforgiving mistresses. One of the other sailors took an instant disliking to Korgoth's orc-ish lineage and wasted no time in explaining it to him in vivid and insulting detail. Being young and foolish, Korgoth wasted no time in handing the man a beating. It became a savage affair and Korgoth ended up killing the man with his hare hands. Rather than feeling remorse or pity, he simply felt gratified that he had shut the loud mouth up in a most satisfying way. Spilling blood proved to be an easy task but in this case it was too easy as Korgoth hadn't known that the man he killed was incidently the captain's brother.

Pitched over the side, Korgoth wasted no time in swimming for the nearest island he could remember seeing. Still he knew his fate was pretty much sealed. Whispering a last prayer to Besmara, he swam feebly onward. At the first tug, Korgoth almost didn't notice, so tired was he from his time adrift. The second and following tugs though were no mystery as the shark's teeth dug into his leg. With a renewed energy born of fear and desperation, he lashed out as much as he could, hurting the beast enough to drive it off. But he could already see other fins quickly approaching.

Yet apparently Besmara decided he had paid an adequate price for her aid for as the other sharks approached so too did a distant vessel, apparently drawn to his splashing defense and the slick of blood that was now spreading through the sea. Hauling him aboard, he barely maintained his vision before the ship's surgeon began sawing the rest of his nub off.

Since then Korgoth has walked with a wooden beam in place of his leg, although after such an amount of time it has almost become one with him. Far from slowing him down, it has added even more to his fearsome appearance and men who've sailed with him know that he is not one to be trifled with. He walked away from one of the single greatest threats a pirate can know and rather than confining him to land, it only further drove him to pursue a life of plunder and blood.

Personality: Korgoth is a quietly violent man. Loyal to those who earn it, he has no fear of standing up to those that oppose him. He has dreams of one day captaining his own ship but he knows that it is best to have a crew you trust and so attempts to build relations with those around him that prove of a similar mindset.