Antonia of Taldor's page

About Antonia of Taldor

"When a leggy blonde offered to mingle bodily fluids with me, how could I say no?"

Leidang Antonia comes from a long line of Forlorn, as can be seen by her stone-gray skin and the golden eyes developed by her ancestors in the era of the Gilded City. As a priestess of the Savored Sting, she has long worked as an information broker in the political intrigues of the Taldan capital. She has gone on to pit the enemies of her faction against one another in the Pathfinder Society, not because of any particular loyalty, but because it's fun. She prefers the city, where she can maintain her voluminous wig and fine dress, as a stage of adventure. Still, she tries to strike a balance between fashion and practicality. As her enemies (and many friends) find, under her dress, she wears leather to match her whip. This support, along with her holy symbol, also helps to push up her bosom, which is less plump than those of the Taldan women among whom she grew up.

Antonia first came to the Calistrian faith during her youth, when Oppara was flooded with cute refugees from Sarkoris and Osirion looking for warm beds, and she found herself happy to oblige. This led to work with charities for the church and eventually to her own initiation. Her experience dealing with gossip on the street translated well to being a courtesan and, when she later in life chose to took on an adventuring life, as a seeker of secrets. After all, the beard-centric modern Taldan men's fashion put her off almost exactly half of her potential clientèle.

None of the other recent graduates have caught so much as a glimpse of Antonia undertaking the austere life of an initiate. She claims that she was field-commissioned after reporting something she discovered in her previous occupation, but rumors say that this knowledge was of the carnal sort. Given her distaste for hairy men, this would suggest that of the current Three Masters, Kreighton was the one who proctored her Confirmation.

Although she is eligible for free lodging at the Grand Lodge when working in Absalom, Antonia prefers to stay with her fellows at the Pleasure Salon. After all, she reasons, it's worth it to pay for bed and board if she can also add one (or more, depending on her mood) of the employees to warm the former. Just to ignite more interesting theological debates, she claims that her room is the one with the statue of Calistria and Shelyn—always emphasizing that they are depicted in a single contiguous piece of stone. By traveling to the City at the Center of the World, Antonia found a few other colleagues from exotic lands (1 2), and she always welcomes an opportunity to compare notes at an all-night study session.

After rising through the hierarchy of the Taldan court, Antonia happened to find an opportunity to become a leidang of the Ulfen Guard. She seems to be quite taken with the human with whom she was bonded, and has even started focusing more on her combat skills. Her fickle nature has already resulted in some collateral damage, but it remains to be seen whether she will be as attached to this woman as she has to any for the Ulfen's brief lifespan.

To work on her fighting, Antonia considered combining rondelero buckler forms with the Savored Sting's favored weapon, but decided instead to work on her élite naked skills. After all, many are the times she has had to deal with an angry spouse or treacherous bedmate without immediate access to her equipment. She got a start to this when Baron Ja(c)quo sent her to assess the martial arts of the Tiger's Eye monks of Jalmeray, and she started practicing some of the forms herself to match her new headgear for masquerade balls, as many of her associates enjoy rôle-playing. However, although her knowledge of anatomy helps her target sensitive spots when necessary, she yet lacks the agility to match what defenses she could derive from her belovèd leather accoutrements, so she instead adapted the latter fashion to a quick-release system that is also useful when she finds a playmate on short notice.

Nota Bene: I am aware that this is a sexist portrayal of a character. Paizo has prudently avoided trying the monumental task of making D&D politically correct, and the prevalent adult themes and the fact that it is a much more byzantine system than the obvious alternative will ideally provide fellow players who are mature enough to deal with that. If it helps, the fact that I made her a female character has nothing to do with her promiscuity. I simply wanted to make use of the setting detail that Taldane high fashion prescribes wigs for the ladies; it seemed more appealing than an elf with a beard, and having this character be a man who dresses in ladies' fashion would probably be just as offensive. And no, I don't know whether that's what the Ulfen blood-sister ritual entails, but Antonia would probably prefer if it did.