Abella Tribastarion's page

Me? Oh, I am insufferably lazy and have an all-around atrocious personality, as appropriate for someone of my natural genius.

Oh you want more than that? I am feeling magnanimous, so why not.

My twin sister Cainabeth and I were born in Nidal, the land of pain and ugly piercings. Beth got all the vivacity and color between us, which is fine by me. We did not know our parents, as they kindly decided to sell us to some nobles before we were old enough to remember their faces. A wise move, as we would have bleached their skulls for my mantle if we knew where to find them.

Where was I? Ah the Nidal nobles. In a fascinating illustration of nature beating out nurture, Beth and I never got along with the Nidalese taste for torture, even after being raised with it for our entire lives. Almost as though the body has an instinctual hatred of pain. Who would have guessed. We spent years planning escapes, only to finally pull it off when we were both 16. The plan had been to just sneak away, but our masters decided to be gracious and offer up their lives. I picked up this lovely thornblade from them, too.

Side note: the last name is one we picked ourselves based on the following criteria: 1. Has at least one dirty joke 2. Lampshades that we are more than a little bit of b+*%#es 3. Contains a reference to the number 3 and 4. Has a sound at the crossroads of cool and elegant. I will not explain why these criteria or what the dirty joke is. The only clue I will give you is that it is in Jistkan.

Where was I? Ah, yes. Heading out into the cruel world at the age of 16, we became convinced of two facts: 1. most people are some mixture of dreadfully boring and boringly dreadful and 2. They expect us to work for a living. We ended up in Korvosa more by chance than anything, though I do admit to a passing interest in the Acadamae.

I was able to make some money off my talents in necromancy and energy manipulation, though most have no appreciation for my work and I refuse to do any work for those dreadful Kuthites. Beth, a true darling, took odd jobs while those fools at the Acadamae kept rejecting my applications for some ridiculous reason or another year-after-year. I do not know why I even bothered entertaining those idiots. In a moment of boredom, I decided to try out this Shiver—supplied by a Mr. Gaedren Lamm—to see what the whole excitement was, and—well—I found it. My dear sister, my lovely darling sister, she had to work extra hard to keep us fed and clothed in those days.

I had a particularly bad go of it one day and Beth had to quite literally drag me out of the river. In a spat of righteous indignation, she rushed off to Lamm to give him a piece of her mind. He did not take it very well. I was knocked out the whole while. I only found her hours later.

Do you have any idea how deep the bond between twin sisters is? I have always been able to count the number of other people in this world I cared about on one finger. Now I cannot even do that.

I spent the last month making sure I was entirely clean. Now I am not a vengeful person by nature. Frankly, I do not care about most people enough to put in the effort. But certain actions cannot go unanswered. There is simply only one thing to do now, and that is to murder the man who murdered my beloved sister. Then, I need to get stronger, whatever it takes. Resurrection is powerful magic, and I will do whatever it takes to learn it and bring her back.

Abella dresses like a gothic vampire, complete with riding boots and pants and a poofy white blouse. She has the coloring for it, her skin mimicking dried smooth plaster and her hair like yellowed milk. While she can affect that certain vampiric decadence at a glance, she perpetually has the baggy eyes and blank scowl of a graduate student on finals week being kept conscious by caffeine and spite.

Her body holds numerous scars of old Kuthite torture, including a brand on her right hand of Zon-Kuthon’s holy symbol that she cannot get rid of no matter what she tries.

Abella has an idiosyncratic genius for negative and positive energy—thanergy and thalergy as she insists on calling them, respectively—and she makes sure everyone else knows it. She is insufferable as a point of pride and always thinks of herself as the coolest person in any room (she almost never is). She finds both altruism and cruelty dull and childish and makes sure to never be caught doing something so ridiculous, though she has been known to indulge in both from time-to-time. She prefers being beholden to nobody and nothing, and she does not trust anything that offers easy power, as she knows it will invariably expect things of her. She dislikes leadership—not that she is suited for it anyways—and would always rather be the catty follower providing witty commentary than actually have responsibility.

She saves special venom only for Lamm and his like as well as for Zon-Kuthon and his followers.

Abella Tribastarion
Half-elf Shaman (speaker for the past)/4
N Medium humanoid (half-elf)
Init +2 Senses: Low-light Vision, Perception +13
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Defense
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AC 17, touch 12, flat-footed 15 (+4 armor, +2 dex, +1 shield)
HP 33
Fort +4, Ref +3, Will +8
Conditional Modifiers +2 vs enchantment
Immune Sleep
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft
Melee Elven Thornblade +5 (1d6+1/18-20)
Ranged
Special Attacks Touch of the Grave (1d4, 1/day), Shaman Hex (Evil Eye DC 16, Chant)
Shaman Spells Prepared (CL 4th; Concentration +8)
2nd— Barkskin, Necrostasis (DC 17), Cure Moderate Wounds. False Life(s)
1st--Chill Touch, Cure Light Wounds, Divine Favor, Positive Pulse (DC 16), Cause Fear (s)
0--Light, Touch of Fatigue, Detect Magic, Guidance
Spirit Bones
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Statistics
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Str 13, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 18, Cha 7
Base Atk +3; CMB +4 CMD 16
Feats
Spell Focus (necromancy)
Exotic Weapon Proficiency (elven thornblade)(b)
Varisian Tattoo (necromancy)
Alternate Racial Traits
Ancestral Arms (elven thornblade)
Fey Thoughts (bluff, sense motive)
Traits
Drug Addict (personal addiction)
Mathematical Prodigy
Shadow Shaman
Drawback
Foul Brand (Zon-Kuthon, on hand)
Skills (Armor check penalty -1, not included below)
Acrobatics +2
Appraise +1
Bluff* +2
Climb +1
Craft (alchemy)* +5
Diplomacy* +2
Disguise -3
Escape Artist +2
Fly* +2
Heal* +8
Intimidate -2
Knowledge (arcana)* +6
Knowledge (history)* +5
Knowledge (local)* +5
Knowledge (nature)* +5
Knowledge (planes)* +5
Knowledge (religion)* +8
Linguistics* +6
Lore (negative energy)* +8
Perception* +13
Ride* +2
Sense Motive* +9
Spellcraft* +5
Stealth +2
Survival* +8
Swim +1
Use Magic Device* +2
Languages Taldane (common), Elven, Shadowtongue, Infernal, Shoanti
SQ: Revelations of the Past (spirit shield [4 hrs/day, +4 armor])
Gear
Elven thornblade on weapon cord, chain mail, studded leather, Robe of Bones, buckler, spell component pouch, traveler’s outfit, backpack (common), blue book (Korvosa), grooming kit, rope (50 ft), ear plugs, 1896.33 gp

1st—Divine Favor, Shield of Faith

Spiritual Weapon (46 charges)

Remove Fear x1
Monkey Fish x1
Magic Weapon x1
Bless x0
Comprehend Languages x1
Cure Light Wounds x1
Wood Shape x0
Calm Emotions x1

664.75
-25 scroll remove fear
-25 scroll monkey fish
-25 scroll magic weapon
-25 scroll bless
-25 scroll comprehend languages
-25 scroll cure light wounds
-150 scroll wood shape
-150 scroll calm emotions
-150 chain mail
+12.5 sell studded leather
76.25gp

Cainabeth Tribastarion (deceased)—Abella’s twin sister. She was a gorgeous, vibrant young woman in all the ways that Abella is not. Stylish, fit, muscular, charming—Cainabeth was always the star, and Abella was happy to linger in her shadow. Nobody ever had a bad thing to say about her, and she was especially beloved by children, who she loved to dote on. She loved to sneak gifts to the Lambs and tell them outrageous stories. Despite her charisma, she has never had much luck in love, leaving a string of ex-girlfriends she has remained friends with. She carried a torch up until her death for her commander in the Korvosan Guard, Cressida, who she was never quite able to tell.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Cainabeth carried a dark side as well, turning more than a bit unhinged and histrionic when she is pressed and stressed, and she often privately suffered bouts of severe depression that forced Abella into the role of caretaker, a role Abella took to with uncharacteristic ease when it came to her sister. However, Abella’s shiver addiction caused her to be less-and-less reliable and leave Cainabeth carrying more-and-more of the weight, culminating in Cainabeth losing her cool and going to confront Lamm himself. He did not take kindly to this and had her killed.

Abella stole her sister’s skull and right hand bones after she was buried, and she keeps both on her all at all times, the bones in a necklace. While they are meant to be tokens of morbid affection, she also needs to have pieces of her sister’s body in order for a Resurrection spell to work.

Ira—(reference for appearance) the closest Abella has to an actual friend, and a “double ex” of her and Cainabeth. She’s a stocky woman with a viciously beautiful grin and a caustic sense of humor. She grew up orphaned on the streets of Korvosa and learned to protect herself through retaliating violently and decisively against everyone who wronged her, which earned her her name—“Ira” being an old Thassilonian word for wrath. Nobody, including her, remembers her original name or even if she had one. She has worked as a low level thug for various bosses around the city, but she has always wanted more, and she secretly has more romantic dreams of a gorgeous noblewoman picking her off the streets to be her champion.

I’m a huge Gray Maidens fan so wanted to include someone setup to be one in the future. A great opportunity for drama!

Raymer Doming—Abella and Cainabeth’s escape from Nidal was a bit less clean than they would characterize. Their former masters—the nobles Maxine and Emmanuel Doming—had standing on the Umbral Court itself. Most of Nidal’s nobility merely looked down at them with disdain and amusement at being murdered by two slaves, driving Maxine’s younger brother Raymer to even greater frustration and anger. As he tries to reestablish his family’s standing, he has made it a point to try to track down the girls that shamed his family and ensure they are properly punished. Raymer and his own son Callum have been patiently and systematically searching for the past five years, and soon their eyes will be turning to Korvosa….