Aster Orodata's page

Aster physically resembles an orc much more than a human. She has a dark emerald green tone to her skin and easily stands over six feet in height when standing straight. Her hair is thick and black and cords easily, so she keeps it cropped to the back of her neck. Her body is fit and muscular, but more befitting someone with a lot of experience climbing or dancing than a bodybuilder or a powerful fighter. Her tusks are prominent and protruding, and her eyes are a deep burgundy tone, with flecks of yellow surrounding the iris. Her nose is ridged, as though it has been broken several times. She has a number of notable scars on her shoulders, arms, and neck from the times Benbow and Larkspur made her fight for money.The shape of an anchor is branded into her back, just between the shoulder blades. While she will occasionally stutter and stammer when nervous, when she is angry, excited, or particularly comfortable with the person she’s talking to, her voice is a low smooth alto with just enough gravel to it to remind the listener of a large jungle cat.

The flag she carries was one she stitched together, but is of Larkspur's design. It shows an eagle breaking a spear in its talons, while dozens of smaller, flamboyantly colored birds fly around the edges of the flag. Many of the smaller birds have been stained with blood already. She keeps the flag curled around her longspear, but it unfurls easily as soon as she swings it in combat. The flag is bright enough that it is still obviously present, even when wrapped up.

Despite her size and obvious heft, Aster flinches away from any obvious threat or direct confrontation like a kicked dog, preferring to keep other combatants between her and her enemies, even if the only other combatant is Larkspur. Aster desperately wants to help, and will occasionally put herself at risk to do this, believing that the only way she will be accepted by other people is to prove her usefulness. However, she is terrified of once again being injured like she was in the battle ring, and is double ashamed of this fear. She will try immensely to protect those she likes from harm, and is easily coerced by Larkspur into doing anything that he decides is important, which is frequently protect him on his road to supposed riches.

Aster is confident only when someone else benefits, and will try to shift direct praise onto someone she thinks is more appropriate whenever possible. Her scars and her time with larkspur has made her self conscious about her appearance, and she has not seen another half-orc as close in bloodline to a rainkin orc as herself, so she finds her own appearance startling and upsetting.

Her knowledge of nature mostly revolves around plants and jungle animals, but she adores growing things. Given the opportunity, she will ask anyone with a garden about every plant in the garden; how much light it gets, how much they water it, how much fertilizer it needs, what do they call it, and if it is used for anything.

Aster was born to a tribe of orcs and half-orcs on the southwest coast of Lake Ocota and given the name Zinza until she grew large enough to earn her own name. Shortly after she had turned five, her tribe was attacked by a large group of Angazhani apes, and though they fought the apes back, she fled from the attack into the jungle to the west, hoping to get as far away from the battle as possible. Being too young to have been taken out into the deep jungle yet, she quickly lost sight of the river, and soon lost her way beneath the canopy. After almost two weeks of wandering through the jungle, eating sand and water to keep the starving sensations at bay and exhausted from walking, she wandered onto the shores of a new river, which smelled distinctly different than her home, and collapsed. Zinza awoke in Nightfall Station, on the Buunta Flow, in the care of a two halfling sisters named Lobelia and Segovia along with their brother Oleander. The three were working as smugglers for the Aspis Consortium, moving furs, rubber wood, and rare nuts and meats up and down the river. The three siblings, unable to let a child, even a half-orc child, starve, nursed her back to health, and taught her “civilized” languages. Zinza took to these new words well, picking up both Common and Halfling in short order, although she struggled immensely with the pidgin of Polyglot, it’s mixed grammar always throwing her off.

As she became more healthy, and the weather turned towards months of rain, the halfling siblings decided to take her with them to Bloodcove to wait out the rains with work on the docks. Zinza spent the next several years travelling back and forth between Nightfall Station and Bloodcove with her trio of adopted parents. As she aged, Zinza would entertain them with singing and dancing, or aid Lobelia in gathering some of the rarer plants around Nightfall Station, and she felt honestly good about herself. It was during one of these trips back to Nightfall Station that she chose her adult name of Aster, following the pattern of her adopted parents, she chose a local plant, but one that she knew was useful medicinally, and she was ever so fond of helping people, the way that they had helped her.

She was never terribly fond of Bloodcove. There was too much violence and the people seemed too cruel. Whenever they were there her adopted parents seemed to be just as cruel to everyone else, even if they were kind to her. Oleander gambled, Lobelia traded in poisons and potions, and Segovia would frequently slip away in the night and come back in the morning to wash blood off of a pair of daggers. But still all three would tell her never to worry, that she was precious to them and never to be harmed.

When Aster was 14, almost an adult and already almost six feet tall, she took a package from Oleander to a Nicholas Benbow at the Benbow Inn. Unbeknownst to her, it contained a title of ownership with her own forged signature within, selling her into slavery for Benbow’s fighting rings in exchange for a cancellation of Oleander’s gambling debts. Benbow branded her as his slave with his mark, an anchor between the shoulderblades, and set her to training for the fights. Aster trained hard, although not with much choice, and found herself utterly useless for singles combats. She was knocked unconscious or put on death’s door many times and more, until Benbow cursed ever purchasing her. Eventually, he sold her to one of his gamblers, a small man named Andrew McCullen. McCullen turned out, however, to be little more than another slave serving as a catspaw for a very aggressive songbird named Larkspur. Larkspur was only quiet on the gambling floor, because he could not gamble on his own any other time. He made up for that in spades at every other opportunity with loud, aggressive, insulting rants. He pushed Aster back into the ring, this time in double and triples combats, only to see her excel. His tiny feathers rolled in coin at her expense until Aster was 19, and he exposed himself for what he truly was during a match when she was knocked down by a particularly vicious blow. No longer able to gamble in these parts, he gave McCullen his freedom, and set out to gamble in the greener pastures of RiddlePort, Aster in tow.

Aster
Half-Orc (rainkin) Bard (duettist) 1
LN Medium humanoid (human, orc)
Init +4; Senses Perception +6; low-light vision; Darkvision 60 ft.
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 15, touch 12, flat-footed 13 (+3 armor, 2 Dexterity)
Hp 9 (1d8+1)
Fort +1, Ref +4, Will +6
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 30 ft.
Melee longspear +3 (1d8+4/x2)
Special Attacks bardic performance 7 rounds/day (countersong, distraction, fascinate, inspire courage +1)
Bard Spells Known (CL 1st; concentration +4)
1st (2/day)— liberating command, saving finale
0th (at will)— light, mending, prestidigitation, summon instrument
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 14, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 16
Base Atk +0; CMB +2; CMD 14
Feats Flagbearer
Alternate Racial Traits Bestial
Traits Adopted (Halfling), Battlefield Disciple (bonus from drawback), Fool for Friends, Helpful (Bonus from Adopted)
Drawback Anxious
Skills Acrobatics+6, Bluff +1, Diplomacy +1, Climb+6, Linguistics+4, Knowledge (nature) +4, Perception+6, Perform (dance)+6, Perform (sing)+6
Languages Common, Halfling, Orc
Combat Gear dagger, longspear Other Gear backpack, bedroll, bell, caltrops, 10 candles, canvas, 10 pieces of chalk, clay mug, 2 fishhooks, Flag (decorated with larkspur's gaudy emblem), flint and steel, 2 vials of ink, 2 inkpens, journal, oil (1-pint flask), 10 peasant’s outfits, rope (silk, 50 ft.), 4 sacks, scroll case, 2 sewing needles, signal whistle, small steel mirror, spell component pouch, string (50 ft.), studded leather armor, trail rations, 2 vials (empty), 13s, 36c

Bardic Performance: A bard is trained to use the Perform skill to create magical effects on those around him, including himself if desired. He can use this ability for a number of rounds per day equal to 4 + his Charisma modifier. At each level after 1st a bard can use bardic performance for 2 additional rounds per day. Each round, the bard can produce any one of the types of bardic performance that he has mastered, as indicated by his level.

Starting a bardic performance is a standard action, but it can be maintained each round as a free action. Changing a bardic performance from one effect to another requires the bard to stop the previous performance and start a new one as a standard action. A bardic performance cannot be disrupted, but it ends immediately if the bard is killed, paralyzed, stunned, knocked unconscious, or otherwise prevented from taking a free action to maintain it each round. A bard cannot have more than one bardic performance in effect at one time.

At 7th level, a bard can start a bardic performance as a move action instead of a standard action. At 13th level, a bard can start a bardic performance as a swift action.

Each bardic performance has audible components, visual components, or both.

If a bardic performance has audible components, the targets must be able to hear the bard for the performance to have any effect, and such performances are language dependent. A deaf bard has a 20% chance to fail when attempting to use a bardic performance with an audible component. If he fails this check, the attempt still counts against his daily limit. Deaf creatures are immune to bardic performances with audible components.

If a bardic performance has a visual component, the targets must have line of sight to the bard for the performance to have any effect. A blind bard has a 50% chance to fail when attempting to use a bardic performance with a visual component. If he fails this check, the attempt still counts against his daily limit. Blind creatures are immune to bardic performances with visual components.

Countersong (Su): At 1st level, a bard learns to counter magic effects that depend on sound (but not spells that have verbal components). Each round of the countersong he makes a Perform (keyboard, percussion, wind, string, or sing) skill check. Any creature within 30 feet of the bard (including the bard himself) that is affected by a sonic or language-dependent magical attack may use the bard's Perform check result in place of its saving throw if, after the saving throw is rolled, the Perform check result proves to be higher. If a creature within range of the countersong is already under the effect of a noninstantaneous sonic or language-dependent magical attack, it gains another saving throw against the effect each round it hears the countersong, but it must use the bard's Perform skill check result for the save. Countersong does not work on effects that don't allow saves. Countersong relies on audible components.

Distraction (Su): At 1st level, a bard can use his performance to counter magic effects that depend on sight. Each round of the distraction, he makes a Perform (act, comedy, dance, or oratory) skill check. Any creature within 30 feet of the bard (including the bard himself) that is affected by an illusion (pattern) or illusion (figment) magical attack may use the bard's Perform check result in place of its saving throw if, after the saving throw is rolled, the Perform skill check proves to be higher. If a creature within range of the distraction is already under the effect of a noninstantaneous illusion (pattern) or illusion (figment) magical attack, it gains another saving throw against the effect each round it sees the distraction, but it must use the bard's Perform skill check result for the save. Distraction does not work on effects that don't allow saves. Distraction relies on visual components.

Fascinate (Su): At 1st level, a bard can use his performance to cause one or more creatures to become fascinated with him. Each creature to be fascinated must be within 90 feet, able to see and hear the bard, and capable of paying attention to him. The bard must also be able to see the creatures affected. The distraction of a nearby combat or other dangers prevents this ability from working. For every three levels the bard has attained beyond 1st, he can target one additional creature with this ability.

Each creature within range receives a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the bard's level + the bard's Cha modifier) to negate the effect. If a creature's saving throw succeeds, the bard cannot attempt to fascinate that creature again for 24 hours. If its saving throw fails, the creature sits quietly and observes the performance for as long as the bard continues to maintain it. While fascinated, a target takes a –4 penalty on all skill checks made as reactions, such as Perception checks. Any potential threat to the target allows the target to make a new saving throw against the effect. Any obvious threat, such as someone drawing a weapon, casting a spell, or aiming a weapon at the target, automatically breaks the effect.

Fascinate is an enchantment (compulsion), mind-affecting ability. Fascinate relies on audible and visual components in order to function.

Inspire Courage (Su): A 1st-level bard can use his performance to inspire courage in his allies (including himself), bolstering them against fear and improving their combat abilities. To be affected, an ally must be able to perceive the bard's performance. An affected ally receives a +1 morale bonus on saving throws against charm and fear effects and a +1 competence bonus on attack and weapon damage rolls. At 5th level, and every six bard levels thereafter, this bonus increases by +1, to a maximum of +4 at 17th level. Inspire courage is a mind-affecting ability. Inspire courage can use audible or visual components. The bard must choose which component to use when starting his performance.

Familiar (Ex): At 1st level, a duettist gains a familiar, treating his bard level as his effective wizard level for the purpose of this ability. This ability replaces bardic knowledge.

Larkspur
Superb Starling (reflavored thrush) Familiar (protector)
N Diminutive animal
Init +2; Senses low-light vision; Perception +5
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 17, touch 16, flat-footed 15 (+2 Dex, +1 natural, +4 size)
Hp 4
Fort +0, Ref +4, Will +4
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 10 ft., fly 40 ft. (average)
Melee bite –1 (1d2–5)
Space 1 ft., Reach 0 ft.
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 1, Dex 15, Con 6, Int 6, Wis 15, Cha 6
Base Atk +0; CMB -2; CMD 3
Feats Bodyguard, Combat Reflexes, Skill Focus (Perception)
Skills Acrobatics +6, Bluff -2, Climb +6, Diplomacy -2, Fly +12, Linguistics -1, Knowledge (nature) -1, Perception +9, Perform (dance) -1, Perform (sing) -1
Languages Common, Orc
SQ Loyal Bodyguard