Ava Wavesdotter's page

Immediate Goals: Acquire gold. Find a suitable candidate to mould into a champion for Westcrown. Ride their coat-tails to glory (and riches).

Long-Term Goals: Remake or tear down the city, as the situation demands. Investigate her mother and ancestry, find Liesel, find out who was responsible for Gabriel’s death and avenge him.

Dreams and Ambitions: Gain world-wide renown (or infamy), become obscenely rich and know all there is to know.

In a word, Ava is greedy. She feels like she has been robbed of some better life that she deserved, and now seeks to accumulate as much power as she can to compensate. She knows that true power comes not in magic spells or strength of arms, but in coin and knowledge. With these two things you can topple empires and control the masses. Ava is slow to trust, but a staunch ally for any who can earn her respect. She prefers mediation to outright conflict, as a live ally is more valuable than a dead foe. She both loves and hates the city at the same time - It has come to represent both her salvation and the destruction of her innocence. She has to believe that it can be restored, but she also suspects that its utter destruction would bring her just as much closure. Though she does not believe it, Ava has the potential for heroism within her and the fervor to create a better world, born from her time with Gabriel, has not been erased completely.

Outwardly, Ava is boisterous and loud, but this is little more than a mask to conceal her true nature - that of a coldly analytical rogue forged from decades on the streets of Westcrown.

Ava has been regarded as a deviant since the day she was born. She came into the world beneath the creaking decks of the Black Gale - a child born out of wedlock to piratical corsair excommunicated by her clan. She remembers little of her childhood save the gentle sway and ebb of the ocean, the sounds of cracking whips and barking orders and the intermingling smells of sweat, rum and exotic spices. Little more than into her tenth year did she find herself abandoned at port, returning to the docks only to see her mother's ship on the horizon, never to be seen again.

From here her life was one filled with fear and violence. The streets of Westcrown were not kind to Ava, and she quickly learned that one needed to be ruthless in order to survive. Most of the time she managed to scrape by, survive by the skin of her teeth – but it only takes one mistake to change everything. Her name was Liesel. A tiefling. A bastard just like her. A young, fiery-eyed outcast who had been abandoned and forgotten by her ashamed family – alive only for the kindness of a house servant who had smuggled her away in a bedpan before they could dispose of the child properly. A stillborn, they had said. As far as anyone was concerned, Liesel did not exist.

Ava had met her by chance. As her hand slipped over the stall, it met another. Looking up, she had expected the burning gaze of the market vendor, but instead was met by a pair of amber eyes. Dumbfounded, the two stared at each other before the vendor took notice and took chase after them, wildly swinging a cane. They bolted through the streets, zigging and zagging, working in tandem to provide the vendor hell to chase and escaped with smiles on their faces, finding their way into a secluded alley where they collapsed in peals of laughter. Liesel was her first real friend.

For the next ten years, they were inseparable, working two-man cons all throughout Westcrown and reaping their ill-gotten spoils. Their friendship blossomed in the gutters of Westcrown, a gleaming lily amongst the refuse. Ava grew to love her as she would love a sister, perhaps even more than that - she couldn’t say, but one thing was certain: Liesel was her life, and she would do anything for her. However, things began to change. She began to change. Liesel was becoming different, more distant. She would disappear for hours at a time, returning in silence, her arms and legs covered in scratches and cuts. There was something going on, but Ava would never have the chance to find out what.

It was summer when it happened. The night was humid, and the smell of the ocean lingered on the air. Ava stood below the pier, the place where she and her contacts often met. There was nothing special about the job: Just fencing another stolen bit of jewellery. Someone appeared in the shadows, but it was not a face she could recognize. This was not the man she had arranged to meet. She turned to escape, but found that they weren’t alone. She had been set-up. She fought her hardest, but was outnumbered five to one – there was nothing she could do to escape. Blow after blow rained down on her, fists and clubs pummelling her to the ground. They stripped her and robbed her for all she was worth before tossing her down onto the rocky strip below the pier. Everything was numb. It didn’t feel real, like it was happening to someone else somewhere far away. The memories warped and faded, blurring into each other like drops of ink across wet parchment. Only one thing remained clear, a soft voice that cut through the haze of memory, one that she recognized immediately.
“Forgive me, my sister, my friend. This pains me as much as it does you, but it is for your own good. Where I am going, you cannot follow.” Something warm pressed down on her forehead, briefly – a kiss. “Goodbye, Ava.”
She never saw Liesel again.

When she came to, she was in an unfamiliar environment. A small and cosy room owned, she would soon learn, by the smuggler Gabriel Dirk. He was an older man with pale blue eyes and a rakish smile. A thick mustachio accompanied scraggly stubble and his skin was pockmarked by some childhood disease. He had taken her in and nursed her back to health. When asked why, he simply shrugged as said that it felt like “The right thing to do.” His was a kindness she had not seen before, and she found herself almost stunned that anyone could be so selfless. She found it completely disarming, and as soon as she recovered she pledged herself to work for him in any way that she could until her debt was repaid. He laughed the idea off, informing her that “one doesn’t need to pay for the gift of life – it is something freely given.” Nevertheless, she persisted in her offer and he finally caved, allowing her to stay and work with him – not out of a sense of debt, but in a relationship of mutual respect and equality.

Over time she came to learn he was a proponent of the Bellflower Network, and that one of his specialties was smuggling escaped slaves out of Cheliax and away to freedom. His ideas were radical and dangerous – ones that could quickly find him locked away in the dungeons or with his head on the executioner’s block, but he didn’t seem to care about this at all. “We can make this city a better place.” Ava soon grew to accept his philosophies and lifestyle, relearning the art of smuggling, bribery and deceit but this time in the name of freedom, rather than personal gain. She would accompany him for many long years, and during this time – she was happy. It would not last. As it turned out, it was not only the ire of the lawmen that Gabriel’s work had drawn. They had recently smuggled out the slaves of a prominent crime lord, and he was not pleased. Soon after, the Hellknights received an anonymous tip off about his smuggling racket and not long after that his body was found floating in the bay. That was almost a decade ago.

Ava was no stranger to loss, and Gabriel's death only seemed to harden her heart further. Since then, she has taken over his smuggling racket. For a time she enjoyed success – no longer operating for the causes she once had, she focused on turning a profit, hoarding wealth and knowledge. She grew jaded by the city’s filth – what brightness had been in her life had been extinguished along with Gabriel’s life. Her home disgusted her, made her sick to her core. At night she was restless, constantly pacing about in her ramshackle warehouse down by the docks. More and more she grew into a creature of the shadows, seldom going out during the daylight hours. She would spend much of her time chasing leads – Trying to find the identity of those responsible for Gabriel’s death, trying to track down Liesel, trying to find out more about her own past. She was making headway – her obsession was turning up results, but fate would conspire to deny her of her closure. Like Gabriel before her, she found herself ratted out. Unlike him, however, she was prepared. A squad of Hellknights burst into her warehouse, but instead of the smuggler they expected to find they came across a dozen barrels of gunpowder, packed with nails and shredded glass all primed to go. The explosion was heard across the city.

It was time for her to escape this meagre existence and claw her way to the top. Gabriel was right – she could change this city. She would change it. Nobody else needed to suffer as she did. She would see to that, one way or another.

In the explosion, Ava lost much of her wealth as well as many of the leads she had developed. She was in no position to continue her research, and so she turned back to the cause that had died the night of Gabriel’s death: The restoration of Westcrown. She would be a part of it, not only for the closure it would help bring her, but for the immense profit that she could gain from it – profit that could bring her closer to finding out the truth. Through the whispers of her criminal contacts, she gained knowledge of a group of dissidents taking sanctuary in the abandoned temple of Aroden, men and women who shared a rather dim view of the city’s political system at best. Where better to start?

Captain Brunhilde Wavesdotter, Age Unknown (F Dwarf Ranger/10) – A notorious and enigmatic pirate, excommunicated from her clan for reasons unknown. She is Ava’s mother, who abandoned her in Westcrown when she was only 10 years of age. From an early age, Brunhilde whipped Ava into a strong and fiercely independent youth.
“Belay that sniffling. You cannae let your parents define who you are. One day you’ll understand that.”

Liesel, 48 (F Tiefling Rogue/???) – Ava’s best friend throughout her youth and the first person she ever truly loved. They were inseparable up until she mysteriously disappeared. That was almost thirty years ago. Ava sometimes wonders if the tiefling’s fiendish blood had managed to preserve her beauty or if, like many of the faces from her youth, she too had grown old.
“Forgive me. Where I am going, you cannot follow.”

Gabriel Dirk (M Human Rogue/3) – A smuggler and revolutionary, Gabriel wished to try and forge Westcrown into a better city for all its inhabitants. His ideas, life and death have had a profound impact on Ava’s growth as a person. He was killed over a decade ago after a local crime lord tipped the Hellknights off about his smuggling business.
“Don’t you understand? We can make this city a better place, Ava, we just need to get the ball rolling.”

Rat, Age Unknown (M Goblin Wererat Alchemist/6) – A goblin whose lycanthropy and experimentation with magical substances has granted unnatural longevity (at least for a goblin). Ava has known him since her youth, and he serves as her main connection to the criminal underworld. She buys potions and alchemical substances from him, or gets him to patch her up when she’s injured (for a fee, of course). However, while they are long time acquaintances they are far from being close friends. They share the occasional friendly jab at each other, but she wouldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. He is based underground, somewhere within Westcrown’s labyrinthine sewers.
“Tak tak tak, lookit you needs an’udda spot of ‘ealing. Now don'cha you be drippin’ bloods in da chems.”

Anvengen’s Edge
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 13th
Slot none; Price 11,508 gp; Weight 10 lbs.
Statistics
AL LE; Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 10; Ego 5
Senses: 30 ft.; Communication: empathy
Powers: bleed at will; divine favor 3/day

Description
This +1 keen glaive bears a fragment of the soul and mind of Westcrown’s first mayor after the fall of Aroden and the rise of the House of Thrune. The glaive itself has taken Anvengen’s name for its own, but can only communicate with its wielder via empathic urges. If its wielder worships Asmodeus, the glaive uses bleed on any of its wielder’s foes it notices is dying, and grants divine favor on a wielder who commands it to do so. If the wielder doesn’t worship Asmodeus, the glaive uses bleed on any dying creature it notices and only grants divine favor against chaotic or good foes—if a wielder commands it to not use bleed in a battle or commands it to grant divine favor against a nongood or nonchaotic foe, a personality conflict occurs and the glaive attempts to gain control of the wielder.

However, and this would have come up in-game, but none of the soul fragments retained their exact powers once they left the Knot. The glaive does remain magical, but is no longer sentient. It's now a +1 keen glaive and it's two powers (bleed at will, divine favor) are intact but cannot be used against an evil alignment.

(8 x 4) + (4 x 1) = (36) + 4 favoured class

Skill (Ranks) + Ability + Misc = Total
Acrobatics (4) + 2 + 3 = 9
Bluff (5) + 1 + 6 = 12
Climb (1) + 3 + 3 = 8
Diplomacy (1) + 3 + 1 = 5
Disguise (1) + 1 + 5 = 7
Disable Device (3) + 2 + 3 = 8
Knowledge: Local (1) + 0 + 3 = 4
Knowledge: Planes (2) + 0 + 0 = 2
Perception (4) + 0 + 3 = 7
Escape Artist (3) + 2 + 3 = 8
Ride (5) + 2 + 3 = 10
Stealth (5) + 2 + 3 = 10
Swim (1) + 3 + 3 = 7
Use Magic Device (3) + 1 + 3 = 7

Anvengen's Edge
Once a shard of the late Lord-Mayor Anvengen's soul, this crystalline glaive has since lost its sentience. However, it remains a potent weapon for those who wield it with dark thoughts in mind.

Masterwork Battlaxe
This single-bit bearded axe is of dwarven make, and was a gift to her from Gabriel upon their first successful smuggling run together. It is the only thing she has to remember him by.

Silvered Warhammer
Ava's insurance should a devil-binder ever come after her. She hears whispers on the streets that the fiends are repelled by silver like water from oil - that the mere touch burns them and is enough to keep them at bay. Thankfully however, she has never had to test this theory herself.

Ava will always try to catch the enemy by surprise, hoping to end fights before they begin.

If this doesn't work out she fights in tandem with her allies, using acrobatics to get into positions to flank.

She believes that positioning is paramount and will always try to avoid getting into combat with more than one opponent at a time. If melee combat is too dangerous or not viable, she hurls darts instead.

She uses any opportunity she can get to stealth (Such as hiding in a cloud of fog or smoke bomb)