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Fatima’s tale begins half a world away, in the Empire of Greater Kel, to the east of Qadira. There, she was the daughter of a merchant, with airs to status, but insufficient compared to her higher ranked peers, who mocked her hooked nose and eye for the trappings of status beyond her own, calling her ‘bint-Nasr,’ or Daughter of the Vulture, for her habit of hovering around things that they regarded of lesser worth. When her father was assigned to travel to the ‘rustic province’ of Qadira, she regarded this as an opportunity to live as an exotic princess among the rude colonials, only to have these hopes dashed as well, as her new peers proved no easier to impress. Indeed, her airs were so tiresome that several of the locals decided to teach her a lesson in humility, and trick her into an inopportune encounter with a Katapeshi slaver, allowing her to believe that she had been sold into slavery.
The joke went further than intended when the slaver was forced to leave early, wayward teen in tow, and given the bridges he had already burned, he left her locked up with the other slaves and sold her when he arrived at port, thinking that he may never be able to show his face in that port again (for reasons having nothing to do with Fatima’s unintentional kidnapping), but laughing that the noble brats had unintentionally paid *him* to take one of their peers away to sell into slavery.
Fatima was soon sold to an Osirioni merchant, a gift to his father, as it was fashionable at the time to take Qadiri as house slaves (the higher station, the better) as a gesture of infamy towards the former occupiers of their reclaimed country. Trained at temple, intended in her youth to be a priestess of Abadar, she concealed her skills and swallowed her pride and instead learned the subtle arts of the perfumed dancing girl, only to discover that her owner liked song better than dance (his eyesight having failed more than his hearing), and grew strangely fond of the old man, who treated her with socially awkward familiarity, as if child, not slave. Fatima was less fond of his obnoxious son, and when she discovered that the old man’s poor health came not from the ravages of age, but from small doses of poison that his ambitious son had been slipping into his drink, the same drink that she served him (for he intended to frame the Qadiri slave girl for his father’s death, if the poisoning was discovered), she slipped into a cold rage. Six days she plotted and prepared, before seducing and slaying the son, using his own poisoned wine to weaken him (in a stronger dose than those he had arranged for his father), and then strangling him in his bed as he lay helpless to oppose even her slight strength.
She knew the old man would never believe that his son had been poisoning him, and would go to any lengths in his grief to avenge this murder, so she also had prepared an escape for herself, fleeing into the cities underworld, where she met among the ruffians and murderers, the man who would put her on another boat, to another life entirely, as a Red Mantis Assassin…
In truth, since turning her faith to that of the mantis god Achaekek, she has killed few, less perhaps than she killed getting out of Osirion. Her job is not to hold the sawtoothed sabre that she trained with in the hidden jungle camps, but to provide a safe haven and vital information and support to assassins travelling to an area to fulfill a contract. Corentyn is now her home, and she serves as a dancer, singer and minor seller of spellcasting services in her public guise, while allowing ‘relatives’ from afar to remain in her humble apartment while she fills them with the information they will need to target foes throughout Cheliax and, her area of expertise, Rahadoum, which is an area of great interest to the Red Mantis Sect, as they feel it is an important part of their holy mission to tear down this blasphemous ‘Kingdom of Man’ that has turned its back on the gods.
Fatima will favor those who assist her cover identity, as Aisha Sandor, a singer of songs and dabbler in the arcane (Varisian in heritage, and she changes even that from time to time, having posed as a henna-decorated Osirioni apothecary in a previous city), who may seem over her head (particularly if any local has reason to suspect that she is a Red Mantis operative!), and those who can bring her up to date information on various personages of interest scattered throughout Cheliax and Rahadoum, such as Asmodeans who are too disrespectfully dismantling or denying the churches of other gods (particularly Aroden, as she has a personal fondness for the dead god), or pretty much any secular Rahadoumi of note who might make a good example (or training exercise for a new Assassin).
Boons To those who know only her cover identity, Fatima will offer only limited spellcasting services, disguising any clerical spells as bardic trickery, perhaps pretending to read off of a scroll that she has ‘tricked’ into working for her. She has an assortment of local information that she will offer, but nothing that will put unsuspecting allies in the way of ongoing Red Mantis operations.
A fellow Red Mantis will receive the full benefit of her own personal magical resources, and she can also provide them with access to secure smuggling of both items and personnel to and from several local ports, and even to Ilzmagorti itself (as well as Assassin-specific items, such as the trademark red leather armor or sawtooth sabres used by the cult). She can also provide some single use items popular with the cult, such as tokens of red jade that when thrown down transform into a summon swarm composed of tiny red mantises*, or into a single crimson giant praying mantis** for a short time.
*Red Mantis Swarm – treat as a Bat Swarm, but with the Vermin type instead of the Animal type.
**Giant Red Mantis – treat as a Giant Scorpion but change Speed to 20 ft, fly 40 ft. (clumsy), increase Dexterity by 4 (and Initiative, Armor Class, Reflex save, CMD and Stealth score by 2), replace sting with a bite attack (1d8+6) that hits automatically if the target is grappled, and replace the constrict property with the wounding property (1d6 of bleed damage each round after a successful bite).