Alaïs Thalanassa's page

Combat Gear scale mail armour, light wooden shield, shortbow and 20 arrows, elven thornblade, cold iron duelling dagger, morningstar, quarterstaff, spell component pouch; Alchemical tricks alchemist’s fire; Other Gear Backpack, scholar's outfit, belt pouch, journal, harp, bedroll, mess kit, iron pot, 4 days' trail rations, flint and steel, hooded lantern, whetstone, sewing needle, soap, mirror, scroll case, potion vial, 1 oz. ink and pen, wooden holy symbol of Findeladlara, 3 candles, 5 sheets parchment, waterskin, 10 torches, rope (50 ft.), 13 gp, 5 sp, 8 cp
Treasure signet ring, half the raw materials for a dose of alchemist's fire

Adds 1/2 her class level (minimum 1) on all Knowledge/Lore skill checks, and may make them untrained.

Insightful Contemplation: At 1st level, affected allies gain a +2 morale bonus to Int and Cha and a +1 morale bonus on Will saving throws, but take a –1 penalty to AC. While under the effects, allies other than the court poet can’t use any Str-based skills or make any physical effort that requires a Con check. At 4th level and every 4 skald levels thereafter, the song’s bonus on Will saves increases by 1; the penalty to AC doesn’t change. At 8th and 16th levels, the song’s bonuses to Int and Cha increase by 2. (Unlike the barbarian’s rage ability, those affected are not fatigued after the song ends.) This ability replaces inspired rage.
Song of Urging: At 3rd level, the bacchanal’s raging song can wordlessly influence creatures of the wild. This raging song functions just like a Diplomacy check to make a simple request or an Intimidate check but can influence only animals. Roll 1d20 + skald level + Cha mod. Bonuses and penalties that apply to wild empathy checks apply. The typical domestic animal has a starting attitude of indifferent, while wild animals are usually unfriendly. The song can influence plants or magical beasts with Intelligence scores of 1 or 2 as well as drunken creatures of any Intelligence (even without sharing a language), but against these nonanimals, the bacchanal takes a –4 penalty on this check. The bacchanal must continue to perform the song for the entire time required for the check; otherwise, its effect is wasted, but only 1 round of raging song is expended regardless of how long the check takes.
Arrowsong's Lament: A collection of poems perfectly documenting the process of memorizing arcane spells. Must be holding a spellbook, scroll, or a similar piece of arcane writing to consult. After completing the masterpiece, choose one arcane spell from bard spell list or from the sorcerer/wizard spell list that is written on the consulted arcane writing. If the spell is on bard spell list, it must be of the same level (or lower) as the spell level associated with this masterpiece, otherwise at least 2 spell levels lower than the spell level associated with this masterpiece. Add the chosen spell to the bard spell list and to your list of bard spells known until the next time that you rest and regain spells. If using spellbook with a preparation ritual, also gain the boon associated with that spellbook. Can add up to one spell per spell level selected with this masterpiece to list of bard spells known each day. Can gain this masterpiece multiple times, applying it to a different bard spell level. Uses 3 rounds of performance per spell level, takes 1 hour of meditation to perform.

Adds goodberry to her list of 1st-level skald spells known. In addition, can cast it as a spell-like ability once per day. The targeted berries ferment; this causes each berry to act as a serving of an alcoholic beverage. A creature that eats a fermented berry does not gain a meal’s nourishment, but it is cured of 1 point of damage and becomes slightly foolhardy as if tipsy, gaining a +1 bonus on saves against fear effects for 1 minute after eating the berry. This replaces Scribe Scroll.

At 2nd level, while maintaining a raging song, a bacchanal can consume a berry affected by goodberry, a potion, or a serving of alcohol as move action, no AoO. A normal goodberry or a potion has its normal effect, an alcoholic drink or a fermented fruit goodberry (see above) allows her to maintain her raging song that round without expending a round of raging song for the day (instead of the normal effects of the alcohol or fermented berry). For each drink or fermented berry consumed while raging, nauseated for 1 round after raging song ends.
At 7th level, when rage-singing and consumes an alcoholic drink or fermented berry can gain the benefits of cure light wounds or remove fear (for the duration of the raging song) at her caster level by spending 2 rounds of raging song. At 12th level, the bacchanal can gain heroism (for like duration). At 17th level, she can gain the benefits of persistent vigor (for the duration of the raging song) in this manner. This replaces versatile performance.

At 2nd level, a court poet gains a +1 bonus to AC and on Perform checks when adjacent to two or more creatures. In addition, her movement is not impeded by crowds and she gains a bonus equal to 1/2 her skald level on Diplomacy checks to influence crowds. This ability replaces well-versed.

Fine folk like Alaïs Thalanassa are not a particularly common sight in Diamond Lake, Ellival Moonmeadow’s pretensions notwithstanding. She is, at least notionally, on her way to Crying Leaf to see if she can track down some information about a bit of property she owns, but she’s in no particular rush and has a broad interest in arcane lore, so she thought she might go through Galduria to visit the Twilight Academy, and on the way there stopped at Diamond Lake, was introduced to Allustan Neff and so… At any rate, she’s been in town for a few days.

It takes only a moment of conversation to notice that the travelling aristocrat is rather out of her place, and mostly only somewhat curious about Diamond Lake because of the stories her wizardly host has shared with her. The occasional quiet mysteries – a bit of light, the slightest breeze, that cannot be explained by any spell she might have cast – have not prepossessed the locals in Alaïs’ favour. Fortunately, Allustan’s guidance does mostly keep her out of trouble, though recently the little quests the wizard sets for her have taken an unnerving turn. In keeping with the rumblings from the Bronzewood Lodge outside of town, Allustan has been sending her to keep an eye on the cairns scattered around Diamond Lake, so far to no result, but…

There is something in the air. Despite her studied air of languid grace and leisurely ease, Alaïs is not unobservant and able to tell when something is real, at least when things are this obvious. The disturbances that haunt her steps are growing stronger, and though she can’t be sure it’s at all related, she can’t help but wonder whether it has something to do with what the local folk are worried about, and what that might say about her own connections to the region.

5 key concept elements:
Traditional elven aristocrat: That elf that everyone loves to hate? Pretentious, flighty, and oh-so mysteriously magical? That’s Alaïs. :) The fourth child and only daughter of a noble Kyoni family, while she had far fewer expectations to live up to compared to her brothers, she did grow up accustomed to the whispery politics of court life and able to find a certain amount of amusement in the game. That said, her heart is in the right place, and she tries to keep the game fair for those not used to it, and to respect those who have no interest in it, to labour the metaphor. While whimsical and aesthetical, she is fiercely loyal to her family, friends, and the ideal of kind-hearted freedom.
Connoisseur: As an aesthete, Alaïs piques herself on at least a reasonably informed opinion about all of the finer things in life: the arts, the pleasures of company, and the rarified delights of a couple of the natural sciences and arcane theory. Strolling through a gallery or attending a concert with others with an appreciation for what’s on offer, and the subsequent conversation, are some of the greatest pleasures she knows.
“Sportswoman”: Nonetheless, from the occasions when she did get bored with being the perfect lady at home and took a vacation elsewhere, Alaïs has developed a persona of an outdoorswoman comfortable in the wilds. Nonetheless, it is self-consciously a performance, and she is under no illusion that she would actually choose to make a living from the wilds, while at the same time never hunting purely for sport and being careful not to overharvest any resource.
Voracious reader: At heart, she is a poet, musician, and mage, and reads everything she can get her hands on that addresses or, even better, combines those interests. She knows she will probably never have the focus of one or two of her brothers, especially her eldest, who maintains the family’s standard of wizardry, but she hopes eventually to be able to at least follow along what cleverer mages than she come up with, and she’s convinced that there are a few things that only music can do right there too.
Haunted: Since forever, slightly odd things follow in Alaïs’ wake: breezes that almost sound like whispers, the occasional ball or eddying mist of dim witchlight that she can’t remember casting, a cold shiver down her spine. In recent years, these occurrences have started to manifest more frequently and strongly, and she’s moved figuring out what’s going on up on her list of priorities. If it’s a/some spirit(s), she wants to know what they want, though they don’t seem to be hostile.
Goals:
(IC): Claim her Varisian estate, which she gathers is a small tower that her family has all but lost track of. She expects that the best place to start looking would be within the records of the Mierani, especially Crying Leaf, but there’s no harm in stopping to look along the way, especially in places that may once have been part of the elven kingdom, such as the lands around Riddleport.
(IC): Get a better sense of what’s haunting her, and see if she’s comfortable with it sticking around.
(IC): Broaden her spell repertoire as much as possible without sacrificing depth, and protect spell lore by collecting spellbooks and magical music.
(OOC): Pretty much the same as the last, only from a mechanical point of view, and with the addition of acquiring a few thematic bard masterpieces? Oh, and I suppose a pet snark, for giggles, perhaps, if they’re not too too whimsical for this campaign?
Secrets:
1) Alaïs keeps her precise rank to herself, as a mostly lone traveller so far. It’s not that she has so many liquid assets to her own name (as opposed to in land, trusts, &c.), but she would hate to tempt ruffians to attempt to capture her for ransom (tedious), and they probably wouldn’t appreciate it anyway. She’s certainly not that important in the grand scheme of things. Even in the middling scheme of. That said, she’s obviously used to a more comfortable life than the usual wandering bard, and it will take more than a knight or two to make her quail. Back home, if it came to that, she would be expected to provide a couple of lances herself, should the queen command.
2) Although she is yet to discover this, the haunting that Alaïs experiences is a sign of her claim to the small tower that’s waiting for her somewhere in the west of Varisia. It is, of course, rather inconveniently removed from the bulk of her family’s holdings, which are in Kyonin, but her brothers never had such a problem with mysterious manifestations when they came of age and claimed their personal shares of the estate. If she does find her tower, Alaïs will discover that in the long time since anyone’s visited, it too has been haunted, perhaps by something less friendly than her own manifestation, which is, nonetheless, linked to the awakening of her tower’s defenses.
Important people:
Hyalinnea Kyrithra: Alaïs’ on-again-off-again girlfriend, an itinerant witchy herbalist from the River Kingdoms. They are devoted to one another and an excellent match, but still dancing around one another until they work out their generous concerns for each other’s needs, what a long-distance relationship between them would look like or who would move where or when. If Alaïs manages to find her share of her family’s holdings in Varisia, that might give her the courage to think more purposefully about the whole situation. For now, they exchange fond letters whenever they can find someone travelling in the right direction that are full of affection, horticultural/herbal advice, and thoughts on abstruse mage-y problems.
Allustan Neff: Although Alaïs’ technique is too informal for Allustan to do much with, he was kind enough to take a curious, haunted dilettante under his wing upon her arrival in town, and in the ensuing discussions about both unusual local phenomena and what she thinks might be spirits following her around, Alaïs decided the least she could do is look into some of the things that the Bronzewood Lodge is worried about on behalf of the more urbanized magic-users.
Ellival Moonmeadow: It was almost inevitable that Ellival and Alaïs would either become fast friends or despise one another. In the event, it proved the latter. If he is a prince – which she rather doubts, given the state of Diamond Lake – he’s doing a bad job of it (noblesse oblige, and all that), and if he’s actually managing his own mine as opposed to having his people do it, then he’s in trade, the poor thing. What he thinks about the airy, aesthetical Kyonin “princess” is perhaps best not shared in polite company.
Quirks:
Amateur diviner: Although untrained and not particularly interested in rectifying that, Alaïs does have a casual interest in various forms of divination, perhaps if only because it gives her something to do with her hands when she’s nervous or distracted. Perhaps it’s because it’s letters rather than illustrations, but she prefers various runic systems to the Harrow, and at many a campsite in her trail a scattered set of runes carved into twigs collected from old brushwood marks her passage as she gets bored with one makeshift kit or another.
Oenophile: As a lady of taste, it is perhaps unsurprising that Alaïs knows about wine and even makes her own. While under ordinary circumstances she will nurse a drink or two at most of a good vintage over the course of a party, if circumstances call for it, she can fuel her powers by truly appalling concoctions in quantities that would impress even a strong-stomached dwarf.
Wild dancer: Of all the accomplishments that one might expect of an elven lady interested in the performance arts, Alaïs is curiously a bit less adept at dancing than, say, music. Her technique may have been skewed by too many fantastical nocturnal revels.

Tall and slender, Alaïs is the picture of a Kyoni rose, down to her subtle coloration, though she would sigh extravagantly at the commonplace, her hazel eyes sparkling with bemusement. She would never turn down a compliment, though, especially if it’s at all clever (thus her inexplicable fondness for the one memory she has of an erstwhile suitor, who praised the natural highlights in the long loose curls of her dark blonde hair as ‘like sunbeams through a bright summer wood’) and has been known to preen.
She dresses well, even somewhat showily, as a rule, and keeps her equipment carefully tidy, from shield to sword to her travelling harp – even if the latter isn’t as fine an instrument as she has at home.