GM of Rust's "Whims of Fate" Table 1 (Inactive)

Game Master Knight of Rust

Guild Questionnaire

For what reason does your character become an adventurer? What motive keeps them going? Tekaronhió:ken originally left home on the trail of a man from Cheliax who kidnapped several children from Arcadia including some from his own village. He hopes to one day find the man but is starting to come to terms with the fact that he may have failed in his mission.

How did your character first hear about the House of Fate and Fire?I had recently heard of a man travelling through Taldor who matched the description of The Chelishman. My investigation turned out to be little more than rumors. Feeling like the hungry bear by an empty stream - that is, to say, frustrated - I decided to spend the last of my coin in a roadside tavern. There I overheard patrons speaking of the House and how they paid a decent wage and provided lodging.

Why did your character decide to join the House over other options available to them? (Feel free to come up with some liberties on this one, whether they were recruited or tried out for the guild) How does the House fit into your motives as an adventurer? As luck would have it, the patrons in the tavern were members of The House of Fate and Fire returning from a recent assignment. We spent the evening sharing tales over pints and roast duck. In the morning, I asked the group if I could join them on their trek back to Zimar and they agreed.

The adventuring parties live in dormitory-style apartments. The rooms are quite spacious, and the living/kitchen area is shared. What does your room look like? What kind of roommate are you? I keep my living quarters clean and tidy at all times save for a few trinkets from home. Easy to do when you spend as much time as possible outdoors. More than once I have come in to find someone asking my roommates if “This bed is vacant.” I suppose many might consider me the perfect roommate: clean and hardly ever around.

While Teladora insists that adventurers don't need as much rest as normal people, Layla disagrees. The lamia makes sure that all parties get at least a week of downtime between adventures unless they ask for less. What does your character do to unwind? Nothing beats a day of fishing and napping followed by sitting around an open fire. Conversation is optional. I would never turn down a tale swap but, sometimes it is good to just watch the flames dance and think of the ones you miss.

Lost, orphaned or abandoned as a small child in the streets of Zimar, the girl fell into a sewer drain and was thereafter raised by the mice and rats of the Undercity. As years passed, the oytugh Gulreesh, "The King of Filth," took special interest in her and considered her an important subject in his kingdom, teaching her to speak and read Taldane in exchange for performing tasks he either could not or did not desire to perform himself.

In her years underground, she had lost her native tongue (or perhaps she had never had one) and began to speak solely in Ratlish, viewing herself as one of the rodents in the Undercity, but perhaps not as good at sneaking, stealing, or squeezing into small places. It was only thru her service to Gulreesh that she realized she was different.

The King was well known by the rats to eat those that disobeyed him, and this fear served as a powerful motivator for the girl. She was in all things a faithful servant, and if the rats were her family, Gulreesh was her father.

But fear is no foundation for love. A way out was always at the back of her mind, and although escape was possible, she felt she owed the King a reason. The rats knew they could not defy the oytugh, any betrayal committed by one of their kind would see punishment to the rest. Thus diplomacy was the only way out.

Gulreesh was fond of diplomacy. He fashioned a large cistern in the sewers as his 'royal court,' a facsimile of beauty and refinement well suited to a massive mouth on three legs such as he. Those who sought audience with him did so within. There, he maintained relationships with many of the nobles and organizations above, although what they wanted from him was never clear to the girl, he was a collector of secrets, rumors and gossip, as well as art and weaponry.

The King kept an ambiguous rivalry with was 'The House of Fate and Fire', an adventurer's guild in Zimar who occasionally needed favors or space in the Undercity, and while Gulreesh was always happy to propose a fair trade (that is, one where he benefits most), he was sometimes convinced their interest in the sewers was a plot to overthrow him.

The House became an impossible ideal in the girl's mind, a place away from the Undercity that Gulreesh feared or respected enough that he would not come looking for her, a bastion of safety. The rats warned her not to go, he would eat her, the only point of living is to do it, to be alive, nothing is worth death.

They convinced her, and for years she stayed beneath the city, out of loyalty to her adopted family.

But rats live short, brutal lives, and after generations of parents and siblings passed away, or were killed or eaten, she felt little remaining loyalty to anything but herself.

The girl sought audience with the oytugh king Gulreesh in his Court of Filth, thanked him for his part in raising her, and told him she would be leaving to find the House of Fate and Fire. He was silent for a time, and then trundled towards her through the thin layer of water, slime and waste, supporting his weight on massive legs.

He could not let her go, he explained. She was too valuable, too useful. But if she insisted, he could not stop her. He would allow her to leave the Undercity. He wrapped her in one of his three strong, slimy tentacles, and brought her wriggling towards his mouth.

Rats streamed from all corners, enveloping them both, furiously swarming and clawing and biting at his arm until his grip loosened and the girl was free. Knowing the sewers better than anyone, rivers of rats raced alongside her and led her through tubes and tunnels, heading towards the basement of the guild, where she would be safe.

The oytugh king, too, knew where to find this entrance, and plodded after them, screaming for his 'Maggot' to return to him. If she would just kneel and remain here, he would let her live. The rats and the girl rapidly outpaced him, but his voice and his thunderous steps echoed behind them, never ceasing.

As Maggot stared at the basement drain above her, she knew she could never make the climb alone, but the rats urged her to try anyway, having sacrificed their safety for hers. She stuck her hands into empty space in the shit-slicked bricks, pulling herself up with all her might, but slipping and falling each time. Gulreesh drew closer and closer but it seemed all she could do was fail, become a snack for the mad monstrosity and nothing more.

Urgently, rats scrambled up the pipe and helped her along, and with their help, she finally managed to make her way to the top, throwing herself over the lip. But unused to climbing, she had forgotten to loose her hand first. It remained now, horribly twisted and broken, stuck in the final handhold. Gulreesh stood near the pipe and slid a tentacle up to reach her.

As a last act of giving, her family of rats swarmed around her hand and bit and clawed it loose of her arm, tearing it away at the bone. She screamed in pain and the oytugh, too, screamed in frustration. The rats' cheering squeaks and yells turned into pained and frightened yelps as the king of the Undercity swatted and collected and ate as many as he could. Then there was silence.

She cowered and whimpered by the pipe for a long time, bleeding and filthy and scared. A voice whispered to her from below. Gulreesh's last gift to her.

His words remained a precise echo in her mind, the rest of her days. "I will let you live, girl. I shall not come for you. But your family shall pay the price for it. No longer shall rodents be welcome in Zimar. Not til you, yourself, are the last mouse standing."

Time passed. How much, she did not know, as she faded into unconsciousness and awoke anew, washed and in a sickbed.

"Who are you," a new voice asked. "Where do you come from?"

Her name she gave as "Maggot," the oytugh king's affectionate title for her.

"That's no name for a young woman," said the voice. As the girl blearily opened her eyes, she saw the figure of a woman sat atop the body of a snake. "May I call you Maggs?"

The lamia introduced herself as Layla, her caretaker these last several days as the girl sat comatose in bed. Layla was part of the guild, the 'House of Fire and Fate,' and she would see to it that Maggs was treated well while she was here, before they returned her to wherever she came from.

Desperately, Maggs pleaded not to leave. She had sacrificed everything to come here, her family, her right hand, everything she had ever known. "I can help you! I'm crafty and clever and good with my hands-" she stopped suddenly, and brought her bandaged arm up to her eyes. "I'll do anything if I don't have to go back there."

Layla smiled. "We'll talk about it."

The guild agreed to host the girl as long as she could prove useful, and she fought to prove herself at all moments. She apprenticed under a smith and learned much in the way of crafting rings and rods, and took on the name Maggart Craft as she rose in the ranks.

As years passed, she discovered a talent for natural magic, striking similarities between Ratlish and Druidic, and a way with animals that always escaped her with people. She missed her family, but in their sacrifice they had gifted her new life and new purpose.

Survive at all costs. She had clawed her way here and here she would remain.

But Maggart's dreams were not easy. She imagined her family dying, being chased by cats, squashed under the heavy feet of the oytugh, fed wriggling to great beasts. This guilt pulled at her and even spread to her new family. In dreams she would sometimes watch a miniature Layla drop into the massive maw of her adoptive father Gulreesh. He would leave her alone, he said, but her family would take the punishment.

With time, she separated herself from this guilt, and sought to learn how to grow a new hand, so nothing about her life could remind her of the way it was before. Her old hand she had pickled and preserved and kept on a chain around her neck, by taking flakes and bits off it, sought to bring it back alchemically, to perhaps clone it.

In a way, it worked. Somehow, she managed to gift herself a new hand. She had to completely relearn its uses, how to hold things, open and close it, and it seemed at times to fight her, as if it had a mind of its own. She woke one morning to it clutched tight to her throat, strangling her. Wrestling with her own arm, she pinned it down and slowly sawed it off.

But with time it grew back. Twitching and veiny and stubborn, it grew back. She tried to ignore it, but again when it threatened her, she removed it, and again, days later, it returned.

Maggs spoke nothing of it to those that cared about her, but as she struggled she grew more and more reclusive, more obsessed with solving this issue.

Finally, after over a year of this endless back and forth, this time, when she removed her hand, it did not die. It remained twitching on the table. Flipping rightside up, it began to skitter towards her but she grabbed the thing and wrestled it down, pinning it through each finger.

A seam split in its surface and a strange mouth opened.

It spoke in Ratlish and hissed in many voices. "You seek to abandon us? We do not forgive you. Your life was not worth the lives of uncountable thousands. We made a mistake and have paid for it dearly."

The voices were that of her family. The many ghosts of her past had found her and haunted her anew. Somehow she had chained her soul to the rats that had damned themselves helping her escape.

Although she could not now separate herself from her guilt, an uneasy peace was brokered. Through her, the rats could live a second life. Through her magic, they could still protect her.

As a child, the rats taught her, the only thing that matters is survival. And as she carries her past with her in the palm of her hand, she sees no other way forward.

Djir was born in Geb, under the thumb of the Blood Lords. He has seen the dead walk, and hates it…
As a 6 year old (note that ratfolk are much shorter lived than humans, they become middle aged at 20), he was working with his family as a message runner in the markets of Mechitar, when he was forced to flee as a major riot broke out, and the undead hordes were used to crush it. Caught up in the trouble, when he got back to where his family’s herbalist stall had been, all he found was wreckage... He has been looking for his family ever since (he is now 17) (Finding Haleen Campaign Trait).
Abandoned and alone, with charity for the living being in short supply in Geb, he was soon close to starving. He survived through the grace of his patron, who sent his familiar *** to him. Dijr doesn’t know what his patron sees in him, but whatever it is seems pleased with him. Said entity is mysterious, although it clearly has connections to the season of summer… (It and Dijr also share a hatred of the undead and a love of green and growing things).
He is by nature a very studious rat, and his patron has encouraged him in this. *** acting as a tutor with a wide variety of esoteric knowledge.

After nearly a year on the streets of Mechitar, Dijr took ship for Taldor. In Taldor, he has drifted, studying all the lore he could find. Unable to find stable employment due to anti-ratfolk prejudice, he turned to adventuring as both lucrative and flex-time enough to allow him to continue his researches. After a several adventures, and a couple of close calls, he joined the House of Fate and Fire in Zimar, looking for a better, more professional, quality of fellows.

3’2”, grey fur, black eyes. One ear is chewed. Typically wears green clothing.

Studious, has mild obsessions with immortality, plants, and spell research. He hates the undead, and loves green and growing things.

For what reason does your character become an adventurer? What motive keeps them going?
Witches are not much loved anywhere, and Taldor is little different. Regular employment (never mind something like noble patronage) was hard to come by. Dijr adventures for money to support his researches (and to put food in his belly).

How did your character first hear about the House of Fate and Fire?
When his travels took him near Zimar, he met some adventurering members of the house on the opposite side of the field; they won. He survived the encounter (unlike several of his companions), much impressed by their professionalism. Several months later, in Zimar itself, he took the opportunity to visit the House and see if they were reruiting. They were, and he was able to pass the entrance tests…

Why did your character decide to join the House over other options available to them? (Feel free to come up with some liberties on this one, whether they were recruited or tried out for the guild) How does the House fit into your motives as an adventurer?
He could have continued as an independent adventurer, but he was much impressed with the guild when he was on the opposite side of a battlefield. After a couple of close calls due to (in his opinion of course) foolish and incompetent companions, being on the side of the professionals seemed a very good idea. The House doesn’t take too much of a cut from the spoils and provides very good support (companions, advertising, supporting facilities). In all honesty, being in the House has increased his income (more and better-paying jobs), facilitate his living arrangements (he doesn’t have to deal with Taldan prejudices any more). He’s also coming to like many of the members – in particular he’s coming to value Guildmaster Teladora Whizzlefizz ‘s arcane insights.

The adventuring parties live in dormitory-style apartments. The rooms are quite spacious, and the living/kitchen area is shared. What does your room look like? What kind of roommate are you?

Djir’s room is piled with books, and a small jungle’s worth of plants. As a rooomate, he’s quiet; 90% of the time his nose is in a book.

While Teladora insists that adventurers don't need as much rest as normal people, Layla disagrees. The lamia makes sure that all parties get at least a week of downtime between adventures unless they ask for less. What does your character do to unwind?

In all honesty, adventuring is his unwinding. In downtime, he gets caught up in his research...

Dijr Primo
CG Male Ratfolk

Witch 8 (Season Witch, Summer)
Init +3
Speed 30 ft
Low Light Vision
Defense
AC : 16 = 10 + 1 (armor) + 2 Buckler + 3 Dex
HP *** = 6 +7d6+8*2 Con+8 Trait
Fort + 7 =+2 Witch +2 Con +3 Resist
Ref + 8 =+2 Witch +3 Dex +3 Resist
Will +10 =+6 Witch +1 Wis +3 Resist
+2 vs Disease
CMD : 16 = 10 +4 bab+3 dex -1 small
Offense
Melee: ***
Ranged: ***
BAB : +4

CMB : +6 = +4 +3 dex -1 small

Witch Spells
L0 (4,*) DC ***
L1 (4+1) DC ***
L2 (3+1) DC ***
L3 (3+1) DC ***
L4 (2+1) DC ***

Hexes: Misfortune (Bonus), Slumber (1st), Protective Luck (2nd), Soothsayer (4th) Gift of Consumption (6th), Greater Gift of Consumption (8th)

Stats
Str 10 = 12 (2 pts)-2 racial
Dex 16 =14 (5 pts) +2 racial
Con 14 =14 (5 pts)
Int 20 = 16 (10 pts)+2 racial +2 lvl 4, 8
Wis 13 = 13 (3 pts)
Cha 10 = 10 (0 pts)

Feats: Deadly Aim (EitR), Weapon Finesse (EitR), Accursed Hex (1st), Scribe Scroll (3ed), Ritual Hex (5th), Craft Wondrous Item (7th), Eldritch Researcher (9th)

Traits : Naive (drawback, -2 against dirty trick and improvised weapons), *** (Faith), *** (Social), Finding Haleen (Campaign)
FCB: ???
Skills (2*8+8*5(int) /lvl) (Ranks, skill roll. NOT INCLUDING ACP)
Perception (+11 = 8 ranks +1 Wis +2 Tinker)
Spellcraft (+ 16 = 8 ranks +5 int +3 trained)
K Arcana (+ 16 = 8 ranks +5 int +3 trained)
K History (+ 16 = 8 ranks +5 int +3 trained)
K Nature (+ 16 = 8 ranks +5 int +3 trained)
Craft (Alchemy) (+ 16 = 8 ranks +5 int +3 trained+2 Tinker)
Profession (Herbalist) (+ 16 = 8 ranks +1 wis +3 trained)
Ride (+ 11 = 8 ranks +3 Dex)

From Headband
UMD (+ 11 = 8 ranks +3 trained +2 TInker)
K Planes (+ 16 = 8 ranks +5 int +3 trained)
Languages : Common, Aklo, Draconic, Dwarven, Undercommon,

Hex: Witches learn a number of magic tricks, called hexes, that grant them powers or weaken foes. At 1st level, a witch gains one hex of her choice. She gains an additional hex at 2nd level and for every 2 levels attained after 2nd level, as noted on Table 2–10. A witch cannot select an individual hex more than once.

Unless otherwise noted, using a hex is a standard action that does not provoke an attack of opportunity. The save to resist a hex is equal to 10 + 1/2 the witch's level + the witch's Intelligence modifier.

The full list of hexes can be found here.

Witch's Familiar (Ex): At 1st level, a witch forms a close bond with a familiar, a creature that teaches her magic and helps to guide her along her path. Familiars also aid a witch by granting her skill bonuses, additional spells, and help with some types of magic. This functions like the wizard's arcane bond class feature, except as noted in the Witch's Familiar section.

A witch must commune with her familiar each day to prepare her spells. Familiars store all of the spells that a witch knows, and a witch cannot prepare a spell that is not stored by her familiar. A witch's familiar begins play storing all of the 0-level witch spells plus three 1st-level spells of the witch's choice. The witch also selects a number of additional 1st-level spells equal to her Intelligence modifier to store in her familiar. At each new witch level, she adds two new spells of any spell level or levels that she can cast (based on her new witch level) to her familiar. A witch can also add additional spells to her familiar through a special ritual (see sidebar).

Patron Spells: At 1st level, when a witch gains her familiar, she must also select a patron. This patron is a vague and mysterious force, granting the witch power for reasons that she might not entirely understand. While these forces need not be named, they typically hold influence over one of the following forces. At 2nd level, and every two levels thereafter, a witch's patron adds new spells to a witch's list of spells known. These spells are also automatically added to the list of spells stored by the familiar. The spells gained depend upon the patron chosen. Each patron is listed by its theme. Its actual name is up to the GM and the witch to decide.
Season of the Witch (Su): A season witch observes the cycles of life through symbolic festivals and the very real passage of time. Their covens celebrate the seasons and their impact on magic. These seasonal cycles alter their magic and mind-set, focusing their spells and hexes on a predominant energy type and philosophy.
A season witch makes a commitment to embody the sacred symbolism of a season year round, and learns her spells through communion with nature, divining secrets from shapes in the clouds or the play of leaves on the wind. At 1st level, a season witch chooses the season that defines her abilities as her patron; this choice also provides her certain benefits.
A summer witch has dominion over growth, the harvest, and toil. The save DCs of her spells that deal fire damage increase by 1. At 1st level, she gains either the fortune hex or misfortune hex as a bonus hex.
This alters patron and the hex gained at 1st level.

Small: Ratfolk are Small and gain a +1 size bonus to their AC, a +1 size bonus on attack rolls, a –1 penalty on combat maneuver checks and to their Combat Maneuver Defense, and a +4 size bonus on Stealth checks.
Surface Sprinter: Some ratfolk spend as much time as they can aboveground and become very fast runners. This comes at the cost of their night vision, which becomes less acute after years of sunlight. These ratfolk gain low-light vision and have a base speed of 30 feet. This racial trait replaces darkvision and slow speed.
Cleanliness: Ratfolk strive to keep themselves and each other immaculately clean, to make it difficult for disease to spread. A ratfolk with this racial trait gains a +2 bonus on saving throws against disease, and whenever she exceeds the save DC to recover from a disease effect by 5 or more, she is treated as though she had succeeded at two consecutive saving throws. This racial trait replaces rodent empathy.
Cornered Fury: Ratfolk can fight viciously when cut off from friends and allies. Whenever a ratfolk with this racial trait is reduced to half or fewer of his hit points, and has no conscious ally within 30 feet, he gains a +2 racial bonus on melee attack rolls and to Armor Class. This racial trait replaces swarming.
Tinker: Ratfolk gain a +2 racial bonus on Craft (alchemy), Perception, and Use Magic Device checks.

Magic: Handy Haversack (1000gp, CW), Cackling Hag’s Blouse (3000 gp, CW), Headband of Vast Intelligence +4 (8000 gp, CW), Cloak of Resistance + 3 (4500 gp, CW), Metamagic Rod of Extend (Lesser) 3000 gp, Metamagic Rod of Reach (Lesser) 3000 gp, Wand of Cure Light Wounds (750 gp), Ring of Sustenance (2500 gp),
Weapons: Spiked Gauntlet (5gp), Dagger (2 gp)
Armor: Haramaki, Mithril Buckler+1 (2005 gp)
Equipment
Explorer’s outfit, heavy cloak (1 sp), wide brim hat (2 sp), bedroll (1sp), blanket(5sp), hammock (1sp), 50 ft hemp rope (1gp), String 50 ft (1 sp), trail rations 10 days (5gp), belt pouch(1 gp), chalk (1 cp), flint and steel (1 gp), waterskin (1 gp), spell component pouch (X2, 10 gp), mess kit (2 sp), Rice Notepaper in a scrollcase (2 gp) , pen(1 sp), ink (8 gp), 7 sp in assorted coinage

L0 : All
L1:
L2:
L3:
L4:

Patron Spells: Summer
2nd — goodberry, 4th — flaming sphere, 6th — daylight, 8th — greater flaming sphere, 10th — wall of fire, 12th — sirocco, 14th — sunbeam, 16th — sunburst, 18th — fiery body.