Caerlei's page

Curse: Consumed—Your connection to The Plane of Shadow and the kytons that call it home has left you diminished but still able to scorn many mortal frailties.

Whenever you take lethal hit point damage, you take an additional number of points of nonlethal damage equal to 1/2 the lethal damage you took. You automatically stabilize when brought below 0 hit points.

Mystery: Metal

Revelations:
—Iron Weapon (Su): You can create a melee simple or martial weapon that lasts for 1 minute for every oracle level you possess. This weapon is appropriate for your size and entirely made of metal (even if it would normally include non-metal parts, such as a spear’s shaft) but functions as if it were a normal weapon of its type. You are considered proficient with this weapon. The weapon disappears after 1 round if it leaves your grasp. At 3rd level, the blade is made of cold iron. At 7th level, 15th level, and 19th level, the blade gains a +1 enhancement bonus. At 11th level, the blade is made of adamantine. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.

Caerlei is short and thin, but very well toned. Her palid skin betrays her heritage, remaining alabaster despite long periods of time spent in direct sunlight on the open seas. Metal "scales" have begun burrowing their way (quite bloodily) through the skin on her arms and legs, and a length of barbed chain (~3 ft.) protrudes from her tailbone. Despite its rather questionably grotesque appearance, it behaves in every respect as a tail. Caerlei's eyes shimmer with a faint, blue luminescence—another tell of her forebearer's ties to the Plane of Shadow. She wears her hair loose to her shoulders, an inky-black crown of tresses that always smell faintly of rusted steel. Her typical features are somewhere between a smirk and a devious grin, an unsettlingly pensive look that holds promises of pain yet to come.

Caerlei has a dry wit and a perverted sense of humor. She has no compunction about pretty much anything, and the ends always seem to justify the means. Owing to her place of birth and ancestry, Caerlei genuinely enjoys the exquisite pleasure of pain, a tapestry of myriad scars serving as an immutable testimony of such. While extremely attractive, she tends to win her privacy and fair treatment by scaring the piss out of everyone else. More than a few have tried to establish their dominance, though such encounters typically end with mild to moderate dismemberment for the offending party.

Caerlei is the product of a very voluntary, but unholy union between man and kyton. Krastiv, her father and a Kuthite summoner of some standing within the twisted lands of Nidal, had long been fascinated with the creatures known as kytons. His ambitions were great, even for a follower of Zon-Kuthon, and he made unceasing entreaties and offerings to one of the Kyton Demagogues—Inkariax, the White Death. Initially amused but aloof, she was soon pleased by the dedication of this would-be follower, and even deigned to humor the strange man's wicked desires for his devotion. Sending one of her foremost eremite servants, a wicked and beautiful kyton called Vinexia, Krastiv was finally able to enact his grand schemes that would surely cause the whole of the Inner Sea to tremble.

The results were less then pleasing, for both Krastiv and Vinexia. His plan to sire an army of half-breed kytons with Krastiv at their head, though a far reaching plan, grew to miss one of the key ingredients: the army of half-breed kytons. The vast majority of children were born fully human, and while selling these infants lined Krastiv's pockets it did little to exalt him or Inkariax. Occasionally, there would be... things birthed from the eremite that might have been of kyton heritage, though they were usually stillborn or lacked any semblance of a humanoid shape—gruesome tangles of chains, shards of metal, and pulsating masses of organs. Eventually Vinexia grew tired of being relegated to her duty as broodmother for the impudent summoner given the less-than-stellar results, and prematurely collected on Inkariax's half of the bargain—Krastiv himself.

There is a great irony in the entire undertaking. A small number of those children Krastiv sold to various black markets throughout Avistan were, in fact, Shackleborn tieflings, though their heritage took several years to properly manifest. Caerlei is one such child, initially sold to a particularly maddened Kuthite priest in Nidal, Prefect Grodnus, that delighted in plying the faith of his trade (See: Torture) on children. Much to his dismay, the child known as Caerlei seemed to delight in the horrible things the Kuthite inflicted upon her. He took it as a sign of Zon-Kuthon's favor, and resolved to elevate the infant to unfathomable heights in the name of his God. She spent a time learning something of the twisted Kuthite's ways, gaining a deep insight into the practice of both inflicting and enjoying pain.

Unfortunately for Grodnus, his decision to back the wrong horse in Westcrown backfired, and the Hellknight Order of the Chain quickly dispatched a contingent of their number to end the Kuthite for his impudence. Though powerful, Grodnus was no match for the vengeful Hellknights, and was quickly overcome. Once more, the person holding Caerlei's leash changed.

Most of the enslaved children of Grodnus' retreat were pressed into service for the Order of the Chain, though the defiant or weak were turned over to slave traders in Cheliax; Caerlei was given over to an obese nobleman based out of Corentyn who insisted she had a "favorable look." Though still a slave, Caerlei spent the majority of her youth and young adulthood in Lord Prestor Jeggare's care, and it was an easy life. Her mixed heritage began to manifest as she grew, shards of brilliant metal protruding along her arms and thighs like scales, and a barbed length of chain extending from the base of her spine like a tail. She quickly rose to a place of prominence as Lord Prestor's favorite concubine in spite of her appearance (or perhaps because of her appearance). Though comfortable, she was far from content. But she was patient, and bided her time until a real opportunity presented itself.

In the twilight of his years, Lord Prestor took it upon himself to vest an interest in Cheliax's campaigns into The Shackles. His coins went a long way towards establishing a foothold for the Chelish armada, a short-lived fort on the northern outskirts of the region named after the Lord Prestor himself. Against the wishes of smart advice, he resolved to visit this outpost himself, foolishly underestimating the brutality and cunning of the pirates of the Shackles. It didn't matter in the end—Prestor never made it to port to see his destroyed namesake fort. Expecting a long voyage and extended stay at Fort Prestor, the aged man elected to bring Caerlei—now fully grown—along for the trip. The gore the sailors found in the man's cabin was scarcely imaginable and unidentifiable. There were no signs of Prestor or Caerlei, and when the frigate caught sight of the burning embers of Fort Prestor, they called the entire voyage a cursed endeavor and returned to Corentyn to drown the experience in booze.

Caerlei, after slaughtering Prestor while he slept in his cabin, stole what she could safely carry from the dead man's trunk and dove out of the cabin's rear windows. She swam a short but exhausting distance to a tiny fleck of an island amid the archipelagos near to Drenchport. Half-drowned, and half-starved, she finally managed to make her way to the main island, and from there to Port Peril itself.

Ship's Surgeon (Campaign Trait): +1 Craft (Clothing), and +1 Heal.
Chain Master (Tiefling Trait): +2 CMB to trip with spiked chains or whip.

Type: Outsider (native)
Skilled: +2 Escape Artist, Intimidate
Darkvision: 60 ft.
Prehensile "Tail": Can retrieve small, stowed objects as a swift action.
"Scaled" Skin: 5 cold resistance; +1 natural AC.