Survivor

Aryah Wraithscar's page

15 posts. Alias of R0B0GEISHA.


Classes/Levels

Female Human Cleric of Pharasma 1 | HP 11/11 | AC 18 TO 11 FF 17 | F +4 R +1 W +6 | CMD 13 | Init +1 | Perc +4 | 1 HP

About Aryah Wraithscar

Stats:
Female human cleric of Pharasma 1
LN Medium humanoid (human)
Init +1; Senses Perception +4
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Defense
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AC 18, touch 11, flat-footed 17 (+5 armor, +1 Dex, +2 shield)
hp 11 (1d8+3)
Fort +4, Ref +1, Will +6
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Offense
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Speed 20 ft.
Melee shortspear +2 (1d6+2), club +2 (1d6+2), dagger +2 (1d4+2/19–20)
Ranged shortspear +1 (1d6+2), club +1 (1d6+2), dagger +1 (1d4+2/19–20)
Special Attacks channel positive energy 4/day (DC 11, 1d6)
Domain Spell-Like Abilities (CL 1st; concentration +5)
6/day—bleeding touch (1 round)
At will—lore keeper (20)
Cleric Spells Prepared (CL 1st; concentration +5)
1st—cause fear (DC 15), divine favor, shield of faith
0 (at will)—light, stabilize, virtue
Domains Death, Knowledge
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Statistics
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Str 14, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 18, Cha 13
Base Atk +0; CMB +2; CMD 13
Feats Diehard, Endurance
Skills Knowledge (religion) +4, Sense Motive +7, Survival +9
Languages Common, Shoanti
SQ aura, personal addiction, poverty-stricken
Combat Gear potion of cure light wounds, scroll of comprehend languages, scroll of hide from undead, scroll of remove fear, scroll of remove sickness
Other Gear bedroll (5 lbs), belt pouch (.5 lb), candles (10), cheap copy of The Bones Land in a Spiral (1 lb), club (3 lbs), dagger (1 lb), flint and steel, heavy wooden shield (10 lbs) horn lamellar (30 lbs), iron pot (4 lbs), masterwork backpack (4 lbs), mess kit (1 lb), rope (10 lbs), scroll case (.5 lb), shortspear (3 lbs) soap (.5 lb), spell component pouch (2 lbs), torches (10) (10 lbs), trail rations (5) (5 lbs), traveler’s outfit (5 lbs), waterskin (4 lbs), whetstone (1 lb), winter blanket (3 lbs), wooden holy symbol, 51 gp Encumbrance: 101.5 lbs

Background:
Few have died and returned from the grave...much less twice. Yet fate delivered Aryah from an early death exactly that many times. The first occurrence happened after orcs from the Hold of Belkzen raided her Shoanti tribe in the Cinderlands. Only 11 years old, she took an arrow in the back while attempting to warn her family of the attack. The men of the Skoan-Quah eventually fended off the orcs, but not before they cut down a number of Shoanti -- Aryah among them.

Her family mourned her passing and interred her in a burial mound on the Storval Plateau, but Aryah later awakened and dug her way out to rejoin them. She emerged carrying a human skull, caked in mud, and still delirious from the orc poison infecting her wound. This caused great fear and concern among the Skoan-Quah. Some among the tribe believed she had become one of the walking dead and sought to kill her again. But thankfully, her grandfather, the tribe's shaman, saw through her suffering. He declared that Aryah had completed a rite of passage into the realm of death itself and had emerged still fully alive. She would take her totem from the skull of their ancestors and perform great deeds for their people.

Since that time, and despite fully recovering from her wounds, Aryah's reputation continued to suffer. Her friends called her a ptokh-shau or deadwalker, someone especially attuned to the afterlife in Shoanti lore and only half-alive. This ostracized her from her fellow tribemates. As a result, she soon developed more of a relationship with her grandfather than anyone else. He served the tribe for years as an adept, studying and commanding divine powers beyond the understanding of most Shoanti. She learned much of her philosophy and wisdom while assisting him. And his teachings eventually served as the foundation for her faith in Pharasma.
While learning at her grandfather's feet, Aryah developed an unusual gift. At night, her dreams would warn of future events. And during the day, visions of the past would impart timely knowledge. One particularly vivid dream of a shining city by the sea continued to call to her...both in her waking hours and her nightly slumber. After describing it to her grandfather, he recognized it as the city of Korvosa in the southlands...a place lost to Chelish invaders after many wars with the Shoanti. Aryah wished to know more, but he refused to elaborate on the significance of the place.

Sensing her destiny somehow depended on Korvosa, Aryah used some of her grandfather's medicine to expand her mind and enhance her dreams, hoping to delve deeper into the mystery. This enabled her to receive a clear message that she should go to the city. Unknown to her at the time, the message emanated directly from Pharasma, the goddess of fate. When she awakened, Aryah willingly left behind the Skoan-Quah to journey into the southlands. Before leaving, she borrowed several of her grandfather's scrolls, a potion, and one of his spears to protect her during the trip.

After arriving in Korvosa, Aryah had a difficult time adapting to the culture until she met Father Corvin, a priest from the church of Pharasma. The acolyte told her that the goddess led him to her...and that fate somehow had great things in store for her. She fully believed him, already trusting her dreams. So she accompanied him back to his temple, joined Pharasma's clergy, and waited for the goddess to reveal her purpose. But nothing happened. The dreams continued unabated and Aryah grew desperate to decipher their meaning.

While traveling with the rest of Pharasma's clergy to tend to the sick and injured throughout Korvosa, Aryah eventually discovered a popular street drug called shiver. Made from the distilled essence of dream spiders, Aryah took the drug as a sign that it would reveal Pharasma's message once and for all. After parting with most of the alms she had collected for the temple, she sampled the drug several times, but eventually took too large a dose. And so Aryah died for a second time…

When her heart stopped, however briefly, Aryah finally did gain clarity in her purpose. Pharasma brought her back from the brink of death once again, instructing her to prepare herself for a great danger that would threaten Korvosa. To what end, she doesn't know. But Aryah senses it will somehow lead to the first steps of whatever destiny awaits her.

Appearance:
Like all Shoanti women, Aryah stands quite tall, looking most men eye-to-eye at 5-feet, 10-inches. Years of hard living among the Skoan-Quah barbarians have made her into a lean, athletic runner. She weighs 145 pounds with hardly an ounce of fat, even after living among the "excesses" of Korvosa for a couple of years now. Traditional Shoanti tattooes circle her upper arms and ankles as both decoration and to ward off evil spirits. Because of her mystic status as a ptohk-shau, she doesn't shave her head like most Shoanti, wearing her dark brown hair quite long instead. She has deep brown expressive eyes and a darker complexion due to her Shoanti heritage and so much time spent under the harsh sun in the Cinderlands. A gruesome scar marks her back just below the right shoulder blade from the orc arrow that nearly killed her as a girl. She also bears a pale white birthmark close to her heart, earning her the surname of Scarred-By-Wraiths...even though she has yet to encounter such undead creatures.

While in Korvosa, Aryah has adopted much of the garb and mannerisms of the native Chelaxians. She wears the robes of a priestess of Pharasma and a hand-me-down traveler's outfit inherited from another acolyte who recently passed away. A silver chain about her neck holds a medallion depicting Pharasma's comet, whose tail spirals into infinity. Her traditional Shoanti armor is kept in good repair and Aryah often wears it under her robes when journeying into the less-safe areas of the city. For protection, she usually carries only a club and her ceremonial dagger, but can always return to her room at the local temple to retrieve her grandfather's spear and shield, if necessary.

Personality:
Aryah has two sides to her nature. When celebrating life, she enjoys interacting with other people and engaging them in conversation. She always speaks her mind and means what she says. It almost never occurs to her to lie about anything, because she views it as a waste of time which only defers the fate in store for one's true actions. Aryah only maintains relationships with people she respects, almost automatically sensing the dangerous destiny lying in store for those who abuse their authority or position in life. Pharasma has a way of twisting the fates of such people and Aryah strives to stay on her goddess' good side at all times.
When contemplating death, however, Aryah becomes much more withdrawn as a means of communing with her goddess and her Shoanti ancestors in the afterlife. After a particularly vivid dream or vision, she may not speak for a day or more as she seeks to understand it and more fully embrace Pharasma's message. Then, once Aryah has made that information a part of her, she returns to her normal outgoing demeanor so she can share Pharasma's message with the rest of the world. She just wishes people would take the warnings and prophecies of her goddess more seriously.

Aryah grew up among the Shoanti with an almost inborn distrust of the Chelish "invaders" from the southlands. But after spending a year or more in Korvosa, she's come to accept more of their culture than her family and tribe would approve. She shrugs off any guilt she feels about such concessions, viewing them as a necessary part of the fate Pharasma has in store for her. Indeed, Aryah views much of life (and the lives of those surrounding her) through the eyes of her goddess, striving to exercise patience and wisdom in all things.

Aryah also believes fate is well-organized and, although it's mostly determined by Pharasma ahead of time, there are still limited opportunities to make significant choices that steer people down one path or another. Aryah structures her life accordingly. Law and chaos come and go, but life is basically good. Evil should be opposed lest it upset the balance between order and free will. Aryah usually strives to do good unto other people, viewing her healing skills as a necessary part of changing the fate of those close to death, but also to ease the passing of anyone whose time has come. She views those who willingly commit evil acts as treading a dangerous path, knowing that Pharasma's fate will eventually find them and exact some form of justice -- whether delivered by her hand or someone else.