Brother Silas Benedictine's page

Brother Silas Benedictine
Male Human Rogue (Charlatan) 3
CN Medium Humanoid (human)
Init +2; Senses Perception +6
--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 15, touch 12, flat-footed 13 (+3 armor, +2 Dex)
hp 24 (3d8)
Fort +1, Ref +5, Will +1
Defensive Abilities evasion
--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 30 ft.
Melee Shortsword +4 (1d6-1/19-20/x2)
Special Attacks sneak attack +2d6
--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 8, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 16
Base Atk +2; CMB +1; CMD 13
Feats Deceitful, Self-sufficient, Weapon Finesse
Traits Acolyte of Razmir (Knowledge [religion])
Skills Acrobatics +7 (+11 to move through a threatened square or enemy's space), Bluff +13, Climb -2, Diplomacy +8, Disable Device +5, Disguise +10, Escape Artist +1, Fly +1, Heal +2, Knowledge (local) +6, Knowledge (nature) +4, Knowledge (religion) +8, Linguistics +6, Perception +6, Profession (soothsayer) +6, Ride +1, Sense Motive +7, Stealth +6, Survival +5, Swim -2
Languages Celestial, Common, Orc, Sign Language
SQ natural born liar, rogue talents (convincing lie [4 days]), rumormonger (3/week)
Other Gear Hide shirt, Shortsword, Belt of tumbling, Cleric's vestments, Explorer's outfit, Holy symbol, flask (Gin), Holy text (Sacred Scripture), Pickpocket's outfit, Rogue's kit, Thieves' tools, 145 GP
--------------------
Special Abilities
--------------------
Acolyte of Razmir (Knowledge [religion]) +1 trait bonus on Knowledge (local) and Knowledge (religion) checks, and one of these skills is always a class skill for you. This bonus increases to +2 when dealing with specifics of the Razmiri faith.
Belt of tumbling +4 competence bonus on Acrobatics to move through threatened square or enemy's space.
Convincing Lie (4 days) (Ex) When a rogue with this talent lies, she creates fabrications so convincing that others treat them as truth. When a rogue with this talent successfully uses the Bluff skill to convince someone that what she is saying is true, if that individual is que
Evasion (Ex) If you succeed at a Reflex save for half damage, you take none instead.
Natural Born Liar (Ex) Creatures deceived by Bluff check take a -2 penalty vs your Bluff checks for 24 hours.
Rumormonger (3/week) (Ex) Use Bluff to spread a rumor through a community.
Sneak Attack +2d6 +2d6 damage if you flank your target or your target is flat-footed.

Five years ago, Brother Silas Benedictine came to the village of Daggermark on a mission from the gods: to build a church and to settle in amongst the people, and bring unto them the good and holy word. His was not a sermon of fire and brimstone but of peace, love, fellowship and community in the name of Erastil. He testified before the people to the reformative power of the truth, how it lifted him from his previous life, that den of iniquity occupied by shadows and fear, and raised him into the light of a new day!

Of course, the people of Daggermark were not so easily convinced. So Silas took his word directly to the people and set out to accomplish the building of his church. Lumber came easily after shaming the town drunk, also a career carpenter, into giving up the sauce and repairing the local lumberber's leaky roof; coin was gathered from lonely widows and lonelier wives in exchange for a touch of the spirit; and the telltale heart of a towncouncilman's furtive glances at someone other than his wife of twenty-five years earned Silas the town council's approval for the building of the church. From this pulpit he preaches ascendance through truth. Those who listen can hear a man speaking from authority and experience, but not in the way they might imagine.

Brother Silas Benedictine was born Marshall Mayhew in a large metropolis to the south of Avistan. His father was a devout man of faith who taught the tenets and dogma of the church with belt, switch, and bare hand. His mother was a passionate revivalist who was a willing vessel for the holy spirit. Marshall was an acolyte by the age of 6, with every intent to travel to seminary and secure a good place in the afterlife for himself and his family. Of course, living in such a strict household taught Marshall how to evade punishment. He didn't split his sister's lip with a smack to the mouth; she fell down the stairs when they were playing together. The scorch marks on the rug in the den are not from him playing with the hearth; he woke up early that morning and saw that somebody had left it open last night before bed. Oh, and mommy, I found this open bottle of whiskey by the rocking chair, too! Marshall had just the right amount of teaching from his father and just the right amount of passionate influence from his mother to make him a natural born liar.

Then he got older and no wiser. It seemed ridiculous to suffer in this life for rewards in the next one, so Marshall left home and went to live in a hostel with a court stenographer, a poet, and a butcher's assistant. He worked intermittently as a professional mourner, a lobbyist, a typesetter, a courier, a town crier, an actor, and a town crier. Each job earned him enough in wages to quit and live the low life for a few months before starting all over again. Eventually, Marshall found it was easier to make a different kind of living. He could earn two weeks' worth of living wages by giving a good story to the constable about who robbed the grocer last week just because he happened to know that the assisstant had a friend who had a friend who had gambling debts and the friend of the friend owed the gambler and a favor and next thing you know the grocer's out several bags of flour, six dozen eggs and a few jars of moonshine.

Eventually Marshall narced on the wrong people. When he woke up in the middle of the night to a burning apartment, barely escaping the inferno with his hide intact and nothing of his personal possessions, it seemed a good idea to leave town. Find a nice place and settle down. Farendale.

Now as Daggermark's town priest, Brother Silas Benedictine has brought his own version of the Faith of the Good and Holy Word of Erastil to the villagers. He subscribes chiefly to the practice of Confession, which is the act of revealing one's sins, vices, flaws and shortcomings to a confessor, a represtative of the gods, in order to cleanse the soul. There is a special room in the rear of the church, a room with no exterior walls at which one may listen with a rounded glass or a good ear. Into this room, Brother Silas invites the locals to confess their misdeeds while he wears the golden mask of the Confessor (its really brass, but most of them can't tell the difference.) This information provides Silas with a veritable smorgasboard of manipulatable information and material for soothsaying, predicting peoples' actions by what he knows of them by their own admission, and what he knows of them by the admission of others.

Once upon a time, Silas thought of the people of Daggermark as a bunch of rubes willing to build him a new home and make it easy for him to live a nice life here in the backwoods. But after ten years living among them, hearing their stories, learning their lives, getting to know them intimately (some far, far more than others!), Silas has come to respect and even like many of them. Thus, although he is sitting on a gold mine of blackmail information and dirty little secrets, a budding conscience makes it difficult for him to take absolute and total advantage of everyone.

Maybe he's just gotten to the point where he's been lying so well he believes his own deception...