Female Wizard 7 | HP 71(66)/58(53) Lethal 43 Non-lethal 9 neg-lvl 1| PAC 18, BAC 12 | Fort +7, Ref +5, Will +7 | CMB +4, CMD 15 | Perc +13 | Init +1
About Ada Babbage
0 4 - Detect Magic, Oath of Anonymity, Vacuous Vessel, Ray of Frost
1 6 - Arcane Pocket, Ears of the City, Stone Fist, Heightened Awareness, Pierce Facade, Mage Armor
2 5 - Protection from Arrows, False Life, Bull’s Strength, Bullet Shield, BLANK
3 3 - Fearsome Duplicate, Blood Rage, Siphon Might
4 2 - Communal Nondetection, Night Armor
spells (note ritual and enduring spellcraft
False Life (20 hours or 13 HP)
Protection from Arrows (20 hours or 90 HP)
Mage Armor (20 hours)
Arcane Pocket (20 hours)
Assume Appearance (17 days)
Dear Diary…
I understand the need to leave an operational record for the future, and I even agree with the usefulness of a record that can survive where I can not if my mission fails. I realise that recording my feelings as well as the facts can provide valuable contextual information for the future. I still feel like a fool writing confessions in my diary.
…
I was fortunate that the boat left england before the Laundry officers chasing me thought to search in more depth. Sadly as soon as it cast off the safeties on the spell trying the event horizon that linked the miniature extradimensional space to the mirror detected the spatial anomaly and ejected me - violently. Just as well I was in a bathroom at the time, or I would have had a hell of a job cleaning up.
Without an extradimensional space to hide in I am reduced to hiding in the Bilge for the two months it will take to make landfall. Further it seems my episode with the mirror left me with a wonderful case of seasickness. I dreamed of home last night, which almost certainly means they are aware that I somehow messed up the assignment. I can only wonder how long it will take to re-earn their trust.
…
Which leaves me with the Question; why was I protecting von Braun? Surely letting the Russians take him out would only have served to end the war faster! The soul of his assassin is no help at all, and frankly I am worried if I keep going through his memories I am going to have a nervous breakdown. Bad enough to know I killed a man whose politics I agreed with, let alone knowing about his three children. I see them in my dreams, now. The next time I go home I am going to get them to take the memories away.
…
Whatever this mission in Prague is, it’s big. Big enough I’ve been told to drop what I’m doing and get involved.
Non-mechanics - contains actual spoilers:
Explanation of Build & Concept: Basics:Ada Babbage has made a pact with a hungry spirit from beyond, a preta. The contagion link principle means it can draw on her power, she can draw on its, and slowly she becomes more and more like the spirit. Her primary ‘natural’ powers are undead like, and she counts as undead for many purposes. One of her primary powers is the power to consume and bind souls, including her own.
Eating Souls: The Sanguine Invigoration talent means when she kills someone she gains strength. It is fleeting (1 turn temporary). She can store this soul in a gem (by casting Create Soul Gem) to consume later (as a material component via Soul Magic) or to question (by casting Harvest Knowledge).
Control the Dead: random undead can be controlled via a battle of wills (casting Control Undead). She can also channel undead spirits into corpses (casting Animate Dead and later Flesh Puppet).
Programmatical Magic: She has a number of magical rituals. Ada’s magical rituals are long, fiddly, but powerful processes. To help her cast more quickly she has an Analytical Engine, nicknamed an Infernal Engine. This is a mechanical computer built from clockwork, each part minutely forged from synthetic jewels by miniscule machines, and then the whole thing shrunk even further by magic. This computer is of incredible power, but the enchantments to keep it functional require significant magical power - only a well trained Arcanist can keep one running, and Ada is pushed to maintain even one, (Bonded Object, Improved Bonded Object). The computer takes the form of an ornate and somewhat bulky pendant clock (the female equivalent of the fob watch, now out of fashion by forty years). Ada’s soul is partly bound and entangled with the computer, allowing her to use it to cast spells more quickly. Rather than have these hardwired, the spells are programmed in, though it can take some time to ensure a program is ready to run. It also maintains a number of minor effects continuously that help the user in their role, and to protect the object (the Bonded Object’s ability to improve skills).
Gem based magic: It was obvious early on that storing the information in a mind would require an enormously complex storage device - on the order of trillions of punchcards. The preta early on gave the clues necessary to use magical to store information in a five dimensional crystal matrix - ostensibly a gem. This can also be used to store other information, including Ada’s spells. The display for this is also a gem - in this case a polarised “lens” that flips out of her Infernal Engine, and has internal components that can swivel, changing the polarisation of the light passing through the various parts to allow Ada to see information stored within the object itself. The information is stored non-linearly, with pages conceptually linked in an organic method reflecting the hyper-dimensional organisation of the brain itself. The preta refers to this with some approval as a Memex, and it is of grave concern to the organisation that the genius Vannevar Bush, deep in the American research complex, is rumoured to have started to taking to use the word. The memex is also capable of storing information by capturing the light passing through a second lens - but this is a time consuming process little better than a poor man’s camera. When consulting her Memex around others, Ada uses it as a lens on a blank book she carries, claiming (falsely) that it lets her read information hidden in the book by magic. As a side effect of this the correspondences usually added to a spell through “material components” can be stored as information in much smaller gems as well. (Yuelral’s Blessing)
Fighting Style: like most of the young Babbages Ada has been trained to fight unarmed. In her case, poorly. When she lets her instincts take over she is extremely aggressive, but not actually very skilled. She is tenacious however. Her soul is bound to her body more strongly than most, and she can take a truly terrifying amount of punishment (Berserker, Deathless, Mastered Talent, casting Deathless). She is a little afraid of cutting loose for this reason, and always carries enough healing magic to fully restore her (Wand of Repair Undead) and numerous protective invocations (Protection from Arrows, Draconic Reservoir, Armor of Night, etc.). She has not been trained to use firearms, as these are considered a last ditch weapon better used for misdirection. Should it be necessary she has an aiming algorithm to allow her Engine to shoot the weapon (casting True Strike).
Skills: Ada’s understanding of intricate machinery (Knowledge: Engineering, Craft:Clockwork) is greater than the general knowledge of the world, and could in theory be used to make Engines, though with the technology available in the World she’s be as hard pressed to build anything truly useful as a modern programmer trapped in the valve-era WWII. Her understanding of mathematics is excellent, but also highly focussed on the esoteric branch of programming (Artistry: programming, Knowledge: Engineering, Linguistics) almost theoretical at this point - and note this is programming of analog mechanical machines rather than digital electronic ones. She’s been trained in elementary spycraft since she was a girl, though this has been more focussed on social infiltration rather than physical she does know the basics. Her understanding of manipulating people is focussed on areas useful in her career, rather than in making genuine social contacts (Student of Philosophy, Bluff, Disguise, Diplomacy, Stealth, Disable Device, Perception, Profession: Spy). It is in her understanding of magic that she truly excels (Knowledge: Arcana, Spellcraft), with the preta’s education giving her a level of systematized understanding, ruthlessly exhaustive ontology, and pragmatic understanding of underlying principles that wildly exceeds almost every other practitioner on the planet. Even with much of her knowledge excised for security reasons her understanding would be sufficient to land her a high level job in any occult organisation in the world.
Operational Security: Though she has no memory of how, some of Ada’s knowledge has been removed (typically via Hidden Knowledge and Transfer Tattoo - there are bodies in cold storage in Adelaide whose only purpose is to hold some of her knowledged). Operationally critically knowledge is protected by Geasa, and there is some information she has never known stored in her Bonded Object, awaiting the correct keyword to unlock it. Just like the Laundry she uses Keyword Based security.
While out in the world she uses a three stage cover; a mortal identity, being used by an independent contractor, which is in turn used by a supernatural entity.
Ada is supposed to avoid making “waves”, and to leave continuity alone as much as possible. This ensures the divinations, prophecies and understandings that steer the organisation are left accurate.
Basic History: Ada is fairly new to deep cover work.
She is the granddaughter of the original Ada Babbage, born into the family and introduced to the Preta when a month old. She studied at home and reached Grade 1 Soul Eater while still young.
Between Grades 2 (16) and 4 (19) she studied in germany, being contacted for regular dream-based tutorials and returned to Adelaide at the outbreak of WWII.
She then worked out of Adelaide, primarily in technical and administrative areas, with only occasional (supervised) fieldwork until she managed to reach Grade 5.
At that point she took a long term observation assignment to England, following up leads she didn’t understand and discretely planting information from the house Seers into the Laundry - terrifying, but not especially dangerous… until she slipped up and had to flee England about the same time she reached Grade 6/7.
She has now completed a few deep cover assignments. While she detests them she understands the need, and has been led to believe she’ll acclimatise. Her assignments so far are; assassinating a german general and staging his death to look like a suicide, foiling an assassination attempt on von Braun (she doesn’t know why), stealing the soul of a german occultist and interrogating it for information on frost giants (there was none), and subtly convincing a german scientist to incorrectly record data readings regarding heavy water. None of them seem important, and she worries the family has lost faith in her.
Personality: Brilliant, creative, and with very little real self-confidence. Lonely, but too scared to let anyone in. Worried about what she’ll become, but with the feeling the fate of the world may be on her shoulders. She knows some of her knowledge is locked down, and the rest is protected by Geasa, and has been promised that should she die the preta will eat her soul.
Ada Babbage
LE Medium Humanoid (Human)
Wizard 7 (Pact Wizard, Ritualist)
Init +1 Senses; Perception +7
----- Defense ----- AC (Enhancement +2, Armor +1, Natural +1, Deflection +1, Dex +1) PAC 16 BAC 12
hp 58 (7d6+ 21con + 7 favored)
Fort +7 (2b 2r) Ref +5 (2b 2r), Will +7(5b 2r)
----- Offense ----- Speed 30 ft.,
Melee punch +7 (d3+4 B),
Ranged pistol +4 (2d6)
Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft.
Memorised Spells (CL 7/8/9/10; concentration +13)
4 0th, 6 1st, 5 2nd, 3 3rd, 2 4th.
Spell load out depends on mission
0th—zz, zz, zz, zz
1st—zz, zz, zz, zz, zz, zz
2nd—zz, zz, zz, zz, zz
3rd—zz, zz, zz
4th—zz, zz ----- Statistics ----- Str 12 Dex 12 Con 14 (16) Int 20 (22) Wis 10 Cha 8
Base Atk +3 CMB +4 CMD 15
Feats Power Attack, Extra Combat Talent (Berserker Sphere), Extra Combat Talent (Deathless), Improved Bonded Object, Soul Magic, Yuelral’s Blessing
Skills
Skill Points; (2 trained + 6 int + 2 background+1 skilled)*7=63r + 14b = 77
Spellcraft +22 (3 trained + 6 int + 7 ranks +6 item)
Bluff +12 (-1 cha, 7 ranks +6 item) [Student of Philosophy is +18]
Disguise +6 (-1 cha, 7 ranks)
Linguistics +16 (3 trained 6 int 7 ranks)
Perception +13 (7 ranks 6 item)
Knowledge: Arcana +17 (3 trained 6 int 7 ranks 1 trait)
Knowledge: Engineering +16 (3 trained 6 int 7 rank)
Diplomacy +0 (1 rank -1 cha) [Student of Philosophy is +7]
Disable Device +2 (1 dex 1 ranks)
Knowledge: Local +14 (3 trained 6 int 4 rank 1 trait)
Knowledge: Religion +10 (3 trained 6 int 1 rank)
Knowledge: Geography +10 (3 trained 6 int 1 rank)
Knowledge: Dungeoneering +10 (3 trained 6 int 1 rank)
Knowledge: Nobility +10 (3 trained 6 int 1 rank)
Knowledge: Planes +10 (3 trained 6 int 1 rank)
Knowledge: History +10 (3 trained 6 int 1 rank)
Knowledge: Nature +10 (3 trained 6 int 1 rank)
Stealth +2 (1 rank 1 dex)
Craft Clockwork +14 (3 trained 5 background 6 int)
Profession: Spy +8 (3 trained 5 background)
Artistry Programming +13 (3 trained 6 int 4 background)
Traits Independent Contractor, Enduring Spellcraft, Student of Philosophy (Social), Doubt (Drawback)
Languages English (Native, free), German (Native, 3), Czech (Proficient, 2), French (Proficient, 2), Sanskrit (Proficient, free+1), Sumerian (Proficient, 2), Latin (School, 1), Gaelic (School, 1), Hebrew (School, 1)
----- Special Abilities ----- Skilled: +1 skill point
Cantrips: Can cast 0 level spells at will
Bonded Object:Wizards who select a bonded object begin play with one at no cost. Objects that are the subject of an arcane bond must fall into one of the following categories: amulet, ring, staff, wand, or weapon. These objects are always masterwork quality. Weapons acquired at 1st level are not made of any special material. If the object is an amulet or ring, it must be worn to have effect, while staves, wands, and weapons must be held in one hand. If a wizard attempts to cast a spell without his bonded object worn or in hand, he must make a concentration check or lose the spell. The DC for this check is equal to 20 + the spell’s level. If the object is a ring or amulet, it occupies the ring or neck slot accordingly.
A bonded object can be used once per day to cast any one spell that the wizard has in his spellbook and is capable of casting, even if the spell is not prepared. This spell is treated like any other spell cast by the wizard, including casting time, duration, and other effects dependent on the wizard’s level. This spell cannot be modified by metamagic feats or other abilities. The bonded object cannot be used to cast spells from the wizard’s opposition schools (see arcane school below).
A wizard can add additional magic abilities to his bonded object as if he has the required Item Creation Feats and if he meets the level prerequisites of the feat. For example, a wizard with a bonded dagger must be at least 5th level to add magic abilities to the dagger (see Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat). If the bonded object is a wand, it loses its wand abilities when its last charge is consumed, but it is not destroyed and it retains all of its bonded object properties and can be used to craft a new wand. The magic properties of a bonded object, including any magic abilities added to the object, only function for the wizard who owns it. If a bonded object’s owner dies, or the item is replaced, the object reverts to being an ordinary masterwork item of the appropriate type.
If a bonded object is damaged, it is restored to full hit points the next time the wizard prepares his spells. If the object of an arcane bond is lost or destroyed, it can be replaced after 1 week in a special ritual that costs 200 gp per wizard level plus the cost of the masterwork item. This ritual takes 8 hours to complete. Items replaced in this way do not possess any of the additional enchantments of the previous bonded item. A wizard can designate an existing magic item as his bonded item. This functions in the same way as replacing a lost or destroyed item except that the new magic item retains its abilities while gaining the benefits and drawbacks of becoming a bonded item.
Improved Bonded Object: The benefits you receive are based on your caster level. You automatically gain each benefit when your caster level reaches the specified level, even if you gain the caster level after taking this feat:
Improved Bonded Object, CL 3rd: You add your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifier (whichever is highest) to your CMD against attempts to sunder, disarm, steal, or otherwise attack your bonded object, as well as to any saving throws your bonded object must make. If the bonded object must be held in one hand, you can use the hand holding your bonded object to perform the somatic components of spells.
Improved Bonded Object, CL 7th: Choose any three skills. As long as you are in possession of your bonded object, you add your Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma modifier (whichever is highest) as an additional bonus to those skill checks. You can change which three skills this benefit applies to once per week. The concentration DC to cast spells without your bonded object is reduced by 5.
Mastered Talent (Combat): You have focused on a single combat talent, gaining greater proficiency with it. Select 1 combat talent; you treat your base attack bonus as 1 higher for the purposes of its effects. At 5th level and every 4 levels afterwards, the chosen talent’s base attack bonus is treated as an additional 1 higher, although the talent’s effective base attack bonus cannot be higher than your character level.
Enduring Spellcraft: You have studied the enduring spells of ancient Azlant. Treat your caster level as 1 higher for the purpose of determining duration only.
Doubt: You lack confidence in your abilities or confidence in the universe at large. Whenever you fail a skill or ability check, you take a –4 penalty on that type of skill or ability check for the next hour.
Berserking: As a free action at the start of each turn, you may choose to take a -2 penalty to AC in exchange for 3 temporary hit points. The penalty and the temporary hit points end at the start of your next turn. For every point of base attack bonus you have, the granted temporary hit points increase by 1.
Brutal Strike: As a special attack action, you may make a melee attack against a target. Creatures damaged by a brutal strike gain the battered condition until the end of your next turn. You may expend martial focus to have the attack deal additional damage equal to twice your base attack bonus. Each brutal strike may be modified by a single (exertion) talent.
Unbattered: Your brutal strikes do not inflict the battered conditions on foes. You gain Sanguine Invigoration with this drawback.
Deathless: As long as you have martial focus, the number of hit points you can be reduced to below 0 without dying is doubled and you may choose to act as if you were disabled, rather than dying. You must make this decision as soon as you are reduced to negative hit points (even if it isn’t your turn). If you do not choose to act as if you were disabled, you immediately fall unconscious. When using this talent, you are staggered. You can take a move action without further injuring yourself, but if you perform any standard action (or any other action deemed as strenuous, including some swift actions, such as casting a quickened spell) you take 1 point of damage after completing the act. If your negative hit points are equal to or greater than twice your Constitution score, you immediately die. Associated Feat: Diehard.
Sanguine Invigoration: As long as you have martial focus, whenever you reduce a creature to 0 hit points or fewer with a melee or thrown weapon attack, you gain temporary hit points equal to your base attack bonus for 1 round. The creature must have a CR of at least half your character level (rounded down, minimum 1/2). These temporary hit points stack with those granted by the base sphere. Whenever this ability would be triggered, you may expend your martial focus as an immediate action to remove the fatigued condition, or lessen the exhausted condition to fatigued.
Effortless Magic (Ex): Although a pact wizard still uses a spellbook to prepare his wizard spells, his close ties with his otherworldly patron allow him to do so nearly effortlessly. A pact wizard can prepare all of his spells in only 15 minutes, and his minimum preparation time is only 1 minute. This alters the wizard’s spellcasting.
Patron Spells: At 1st level, a pact wizard must select a patron. This functions like the witch class ability of the same name, except the pact wizard automatically adds his patron’s spells to his spellbook instead of to his familiar. In addition, the pact wizard can expend any prepared spell that isn’t a spell prepared using the additional spell slot the wizard receives from his arcane school in order to spontaneously cast one of his patron’s spells of the same level or lower. This ability replaces scribe scroll.
2nd - grasping corpse, 4th - command undead, 6th - create soul gem, 8th - flesh puppet, 10th - slay living, 12th - antilife shell, 14th - contact entity IV, 16th - trap the soul, 18th - massacre
Great Power, Greater Expense (Ex): As a pact wizard grows in power, his choice of patron begins to affect his physical body. At 5th level, the pact wizard chooses one oracle curse, using 1/2 his character level as his effective oracle level when determining the effects of this curse. If an oracle curse would add spells to the oracle’s list of spells known, the pact wizard instead add those spells to the wizard’s spell list as well as to his spellbook.
Lich Oracle Curse: Level = 3. You have (unknowingly) fulfilled most (but not all) of the ritualistic components to achieve lichdom. You have yet to turn into an undead creature, but you are close. You take damage from positive energy and heal from negative energy as if you were undead.
Ritualistic Spellcasting (Ex): A ritualist can cast a spell ritualistically to increase its power, but the spell is slower and less reliable. The ritualist gains a +2 bonus to his caster level and the spell’s save DC increases by 1. The spell’s duration is doubled. Casting a spell this way increases the casting time to 10 minutes. If the spell usually takes longer than 1 standard action but no more than 30 minutes to cast, it instead takes 1 hour to cast ritualistically. If it normally takes 30 minutes or longer to cast, it takes twice as long to cast ritualistically. To complete the ritual, the ritualist must succeed at a Profession (Yog-Sothothery philosopher) check against DC 10 + twice spell’s level or a Spellcraft check against DC 15 + twice spell’s level. Failure ruins the spell, wasting the spell slot with no effect. The ritualistic spell requires a written copy of the spell (such as your spellbook) as an additional focus component. This ability replaces arcane school.
Swift Inscriptions (Ex): A ritualist reduces the casting time of any ritual (but not ritualistic spellcasting) by half. He can cast any glyph, rune, or symbol spell in 1 round. Casting a spell faster with this ability is taxing and gives the ritualist the fatigued condition.
Yuelral's Blessing: You cast any spells that appear on both the wizard and druid spell lists at +1 caster level and with +1 to the save DC. In addition, you may replace the material component of any arcane spell with gems of the same value. You must be at least a 5th-level wizard to select this discovery.
----- ABP 9 -----
+2 resistance
+2 armor enhancement
+2 weapon enhancement
+1 deflection
+2 mental enhancement
+2 physical enhancement
+1 natural armor
----- Initial Equipment ----- Practitioner Requisition Pack
1 heavy pistol. 50 rounds of ammunition.
1 dagger, masterwork quality.
2 brass knuckles, 1 silvered, 1 not.
Radio
Healer’s Kit
.
Scrolls
Blood Money
Cultural Adaptation
Detect Secret Doors
Lose The Trail
Moment of Greatness
Obscuring Mist
Sure Casting
Darkvision x2
Knock
See Invisibility
Arcane Sight Potions
Ant Haul
Expeditious Retreat
Reduce Person
Urban Grace
Bear's Endurance
Wand
Repair Undead, 50 charges
Spellbook
==1st==
Alarm
Arcane Pocket
Chastise
Chill Touch
Crafter's Fortune
Detect Undead
Ears Of The City
Forced Quiet
Grasping Corpse
Heightened Awareness
Infernal Healing
Line In The Sand
Mage Armor
Pierce Facade
Repair Undead
Stone Fist
True Skill
True Strike
Vanish
==1st==
Bestow Insight
Blood Armor
Blood Transcription
Bloody Tears And Jagged Smile
Bull's Strength
Bullet Shield
Cat's Grace
Command Undead
Defending Bone
Detect Thoughts
Dress Corpse
Eagle's Splendor
False Life
Fox's Cunning
Haunting Mists
Investigative Mind
Invisibility
Mirror Hideaway
Page-Bound Epiphany
Protection From Arrows
Shadow Claws
Tears To Wine
Telekinetic Strikes
Vine Strike
Visualization Of The Body
Visualization Of The Mind
Warding Weapon
==3rd==
Aura Of Cannibalism
Blood Rage
Create Soul Gem
Dispel Magic
Displacement
Draconic Reservoir
Fearsome Duplicate
Gentle Repose
Haste
See Beyond
Shrink Item
Shroud Of Innocuity
Siphon Might
Undead Anatomy I
==4th==
Animate Dead
Assume Appearance, Greater
Deathless
Forgetful Slumber
Harvest Knowledge
Nondetection, Communal
Shadow Projection
Triggered Suggestion
Night Armor
30gp left for…
soul gem
bell & wire
blank book
silver button
tools
Hidden camera (in object)
