Camellia Gray's page

Never liked much to talk about myself, really. Always seemed a bit presumptuous, like I was imposing on someone just by mentioning how I was feeling. I’ve gotten a bit better at it, though. Don’t know how much that’s just me picking up bits of confidence as I go and how much of it is this body. Never much cared for the old one, and I think the feeling was mutual. It always felt like a costume I could never get out of, like they had pulled me out of Mama and put it on me before I even opened my eyes the first time. Still, might never have figured out what I needed until...aw I’ll get to that.

I was born on a little Varisian farm out on the edge of Ilsurian. I was never much good at farming. Too much of the same damn thing every day, and none of it was particularly interesting when it was new, either. My mind would always wander and I’d forget to put the chickens away or think I already fed the pigs when I didn’t. I took to carpentry, so I at least earned my keep by mending and building. You milk a cow and you’re still gonna be pulling those teats again tomorrow, but you build a table or a chair and your grandkiddies’ll still be using it. That gets right down to it though: I wanted to leave a mark on the world. I’d always dream about running away, leave the Grays behind and make something of myself. The rest of the family was really into Old Deadeye and didn’t think too highly of shaking the boat. Still, I knew I wanted something I wasn’t getting from there, so I shook it anyways, shook it enough until I threw myself in the rapids. Paps decided to get a bit too handsy with my little sister, and well, guess you could say I got a very different kind of handsy with him and left him the kind of cold you don’t warm up from. I hefted a big ol’ cold treat into the pig pen—those fellows’ll eat anything you know--and packed that bag I’d always been dreaming of packing.

Now, what’s a 19-year-old farm kid out on their own supposed to do in Varisia? Well, everyone was talking about those Runelords after them Sihedron people figured out about ‘em existing and all. Adventuring has always been tempting in Varisia, but people were hungrier than a rabbit in a desert for more info ‘bout Thassilon, and it seemed good a time as any to get in on that action before it dried up. I wasn’t much good with much but my hands, so practiced some tinkering and tried out the thief business. Always need one of those around so you don’t step on the wrong crack and have a weight break your back. I was cocky and signed up with the first group I could find, figuring it’s best to find out if I’m good at it by trying it. They were going to this lighthouse with the fine old name of Lady’s Light. That’s a propitious name if I ever heard one.

Well, turns out I wasn’t too good at it. Got zapped by this fancy old coffin and woke up inside it. By the time I got out, rest of my traveling group was dead, killed by a bunch of cold ladies with gray and red armor. I looked down over the edge of the coffin and what do I see but my body, as dead as the cow you eat for dinner. I’m in this new one, naked as the day as I born and about a few thousand times prettier. I just stood there for who knows how long, just staring at that old body, the look of surprise on his face frozen there as he stared back. Don’t get much starker than that, standing over your own corpse like that. I finally pulled myself together enough that I decided it was probably time to put something on. Nothing my old body or any of my fellows wore would have fit, that group being entirely men of varying sizes, but before they died, they had taken a few of the gray and red armored ladies with them. One of the suits of armor didn’t even have a body in it anymore, zapped into dust by the wizard most like. I had no desire to handle more corpses than I absolutely needed to and that one looked about my size, so I figured why not.

As soon as I did, I knew something was wrong. All things considered, I’m a pretty level-headed gal; you have to work hard to get me to hate you. But gods damn, I felt like I wanted to crush the skull of every corpse around me, curl up in a ball and cry, and buckle over in agony all at once. I cannot even fully describe to you the full horrors unleashed upon my mind and body. But even with all that agony, I didn’t want to take it off. It felt like I needed to, like I could calm it or at least contain it, keep it from finding someone else who couldn’t handle it. I laid there for what felt like days while I wrestled with her, the woman who never left the armor. I didn’t realize until after that she was trying to kill me, take the body I had so recently occupied for her own. As we both came to understand our situations better, we began to feel each other out. I’d say we talked, but that doesn’t quite hit the nail on the head. It was like our souls were touching each other, bleeding together and then coming apart again. We understood each other better than anyone else ever would. She was the first person to know my new name, my real name. Mama always said she’d have named me Camellia if I’d’ve been a daughter, and the way I figure it, I was so it just made sense. The Woman in the Armor had chosen a name, too: Ira. Quite appropriate, if I do say so. At that point, I told her that we weren’t getting much of anywhere and unless we wanted to spend the rest of eternity arguing with each other in a room full of steadily decaying corpses, we should figure out a truce. She got awful quiet then. I thought maybe she had just left when she finally spoke up again. ”DEAL.” Maybe we were just tuckered out after all that fighting, but we finally came to an understanding pretty easily after that. I wear her as much as I can and take her with me everywhere I go, and—in return—she helps keep me alive, both as armor, and by teaching me everything she knows about fighting from the Gray Maidens.

Wouldn’t you know it, been around five years since then. We—Ira and I—spent the time traveling, picking up work as mercenaries and whatnot to make a living, though I will be the first to admit I have a tendency to offer free help more than I probably should. I’d probably be eating day-old bread crusts if it weren’t for Ira being the practical one. All the traveling is also useful for trying to make sense of our circumstances. We figured out that my new body belonged to one of those Runelords, the Lust one, Sorshen. So really lucked out there on the looks, though there’s a certain amount of baggage, especially if she ever decides to show up again. Sorshen, bless her heart, probably wouldn’t be too happy to find out what I’ve done with her back-up body. Picked up more than my share of scars and put on more than a little bulk. Not to mention cut my hair short, too. Way I see it, it’s my body now, so she don’t get much say in what I do with it. Heck, maybe she’d be into it. Way I read it, she was into most things. I wonder sometimes if her body’s arcane history and connections to her power haven’t helped Ira and I staying so connected. All those years of psychic linking have made it so we can use magic of a sort, though we are still getting used to the idea of having any kinda supernatural abilities at all.

We manage pretty well, Ira and me. You might think that it’s a pretty clean division between her in the armor and me wearing it, but it really ain’t. I can sometimes hear myself saying things I know I wouldn’t say or my voice will come out instead of hers. We’ll get a memory confused as to which of us it belonged to. I can even say we’ve taken a bit of a liking to each other. More than a bit, if I’m being entirely honest. Kinda hard to not build up a bit of intimacy after all those years together. I won’t say any more, though, as Mama always said not to kiss and tell.

Dying was the best thing that ever happened to me, and yeah, that tells you exactly how f&&~ed my life was. I want you to understand exactly f~&~ed up. Don’t get me wrong; I’d rather stop-up your ears with a good horizontal stabbing than say anything to you. But, well, I don’t have much else to do, and Cammy would get “cross” with me if I used her arm to stab you. She’s a good woman, and there aren’t many of them in this world. You do anything to f*~$ with her, and I will do far worse than ramming a sword horizontally through your skull.

Where was I? Cammy says I always get so caught up talking about how I’m going to kill people that I lose the thread. Oh, right. How much my life was f+*&ed. I was born in Korvosa, which if you don’t know what it’s like, it’s like someone took the worst parts of Varisia and the worst parts of Cheliax and thought: “Hey, why don’t we smash all these together? That sounds like a f%%%ing good time.” All the repression and racism of Cheliax with the dreamy-worthlessness of Desnans. “Wandering” and “dreams” have a lot less romance to it when you are a homeless orphan girl. And I was “pretty,” too, and I’ll leave it to your imagination the particular brand of s!*+ that brings to your life on the streets.

That was basically most of my life. I got good enough at fighting to keep myself safe and people learned to leave me the f%!@ alone. That’s how I got known as Ira. I made sure that if people f!*$ed with me I would crush them. The plague hitting made people even more wary. Not long after that, I got the news about Ileosa putting together this new unit, needing women who wouldn’t f@@# around to protect her fancy ass. I said sure, why not. I get to occasionally f%~+ someone up and to sleep around a palace. And I mean sleep around. Just imagining all those buff women in the barracks with me, f&+%ing hells, that was worth it alone. I was a dumb f~+% from the street and even I knew the kinda women that would sign up for a job like that, and I was as horny as I was dumb.

I knew it was gonna be too good to be true, but I really had no g~!*+&n idea. Do you have any idea of the pain I was put through? Ileosa and those Zon-Kuthon s&$&s dug rusty nails through my flesh, cracked whips against my back for hours, and screamed in my ears until they bled. I cannot even fully describe to you the full horrors unleashed upon my mind and body, how they would meticulously play upon our emotions for weeks and months only to make the pain that much worse. That was the longest year of my life, and it burned itself so deep into my body that I don’t think it’s ever going away, even with my body gone. At least the sex was good, but g%~#+@n the drama.

And then it was over. Some adventurer a%%+#%~s came in and killed a bunch of us, got Sabina to defect, and offed the queen. Nobody knew what to do with us Gray Maidens afterwards, including us. We were just expected to disappear, let that whole ordeal in Korvosa fade away so people didn’t have to think about it. All we had were our Sisters, and we immediately started breaking up into factions. Oriana had some plan for taking back Korvosa, or bringing back Ileosa, or something. I don’t really know the details. Bunch of Sisters I liked were going with her, and I figured why not. I thought those Scarlet Rose people were too good to be true and there was no way in any of the Nine Hells that I was going with Erinyes Company, so I didn’t really have any other options to keep myself from being alone again. Gotta say I underestimated Fillarina with her Scarlet Rose idea, and I probably should have stayed. I’m a big enough woman to admit when I’m wrong.

I should have never followed that b+%+@ Orianna. She was always jealous that Ileosa f#@@ed Sabina instead of her. I thought she at least had a practical enough head on her shoulders to not get us all f&@$ing murdered by the first cocky f**!s to cross our path. As I saw that wizard casting his spell, I knew it was gonna hit me, and I knew it was gonna kill me, and I was just so f@%*ing furious. What a horrible story: orphan girl has a s%$# life and dies a s!%@ death. That’s it! Nothing to do about it. No do-overs. You roll snake eyes every time and the game just ends. I knew that people never get what they deserve, but I guess there was some part of me that still thought it could happen, as long as I just hung on long enough. So, when I felt that pull of the Boneyard, I held on with all I had to the only piece of me left: the armor that had become my second skin. What was left of my mind was pure unleashed rage. If Pharasma was going to try to grab me, I was going to be so hot that she burned her hand. I couldn’t really tell you how or why it worked, but it did. I’d have probably still been a slavering ball of rage if Cammy hadn’t thought it’d be a good idea to put on my armor. I just remember hating her, wanting to crush her and strangle her and consume her, but she was so calm. Disoriented, but calm. She was the wall I beat my fists against for what felt like one long moment, but she says was at least a week. The longer I raged against her, the more I felt like my old self, like there was something left of me besides fury. So when she offered me a truce, I said the first word that popped in my head, the first word I was able to articulate since I died. “DEAL.”

She can tell you most of the rest and what we’ve been up to since then. It hasn’t been half bad, considering I’m basically an inanimate suit of armor now. I get to have myself all over the body of the hottest woman in Golarion and—even better—she actually treats me like you’re supposed to treat a person. I honestly have a hard time believing it myself. I guess it’s kinda like how I imagined being married.

Don’t tell her I said that.

Camellia’s five years in her new body have allowed her to make it her own, and while the resemblance is still stark and easily noticeable, she looks more like a sister to Sorshen than an exact duplicate. That she was able to take such ownership of her new body has left her fairly confident that she won’t have to worry about Sorshen taking it back, though she does feel a lingering connection to the Runelord. Camellia’s voice is also distinct, as Sorshen was skilled at assuming an astounding array of vocal disguises and her vocal chords maintained such a strong versatility. Camellia thus speaks with the same accent she has always had and a touch deeper voice than Sorshen’s natural timbre, and it takes actual effort to speak more like Sorshen. The most telling similarities between the two are likely Sorshen’s strikingly green eyes and the Thassilonian rune tattoos strategically place about her body. Camellia keeps her armor on as often as possible partly to keep both of those give-aways hidden away. Lacking the runelord’s vanity, Camellia has sustained numerous scars and broken bones over the years that she does not cover up. She also was quick to bulk up, preferring a strong, practical body to a lithe one. She’s a big woman, but she never seems to take up more than her share of space, and she often gets told that she has a calm presence. Camellia tends to dress androgynous and keeps her hair short. She considers herself just as much a woman as any other; her image of womanhood was just built by her Mama and sisters, who eschewed make-up for the rough-and-tumble aesthetic and lifestyle of hard farm labor and further reinforced by Ira’s butch styling.

Camellia is a thoughtful and patient woman by nature. She is slow to anger, giving people seemingly endless chances to do better. But once she is done, she is done. She is curious about the world and the history of it in particular, and loves learning as much as she can, but she cares more about people than facts. She’d rather spend a night shooting the breeze over drinks with a random person at a bar than reading a book, and if a homeless person walked up to her and just started talking to her, she’d happily speak to them as anyone else. It’s less that she’s a trusting person and more that she spends most of her life a suit of armor, even sleeping in it, and she’s not too worried about anyone hurting her should their intentions be bad. She likes to live life at her own pace and hates to rush anything, but she also knows that sometimes life hits you with a swift current and the best thing to do is just to ride it out.

Ira was covered in nasty scars from her Gray Maiden training, the most noticeable of which is one flaring from the left side of her lip that made her always appear to be smirking, a punishment for her attitude that she never took as one. Her hair was long, red, and tossed over the right side of her head. The left side of her skull is completely bare, the hair killed piece-by-piece over a year with a superheated needle so that the scar “art” her masters imposed on her head would always be visible with her helmet off. The scar “art” was meticulously patterned to look like chains dancing across her skull, a reminder of her subservience. Ira just thought it looked damn cool and meant nobody would mess with her. When Camellia gets her Spirit Warrior spell like ability at 5, the form of the spiritual ally will be Ira’s, for obvious reasons, so even if she isn’t seen normally, her physical appearance will come up later

Ira is surprisingly happy with being a sentient suit of armor, especially for someone as angry and traumatized as she is, but she is still a rough person and given to rough behavior. There’s a certain amount of merging that has gone on between her and Camellia, so she sometimes comes out when really upset or excited, but she otherwise stays in the depths. She can exert limited direct control over the armor and thus the person in it, but she rarely uses it. She trusts, even loves, Camellia, but is bad about saying so explicitly, preferring to show those feelings through overprotectiveness and jealousy. As you might have gathered from Ira’s reaction to many of punishments her superiors attempted to inflict on her, she was notoriously resistant to the mental conditioning that all Gray Maidens were subjected to. She was savvy enough to know when to bow her head for her own good, but she was happy to push boundaries the rest of the time. She was kept around because her superiors believed that they could harness her rage and natural tendency towards violence, but she frustrated their every attempt to indoctrinate her thanks to her pure willfulness. In fact, should Ileosa’s regime have lasted much longer without any change from Ira, there were plans to “retire” her forcibly. If she weren’t so tall, everyone that met her would have described Ira as having a terminal case of Short Person Complex, and if she hadn’t go so lucky with the timing of Ileosa’s downfall, they’d have been right.

Meg Alekto/Valena Versade from Magnimar did Rise of the Runelords

Camellia Gray
Human (Azlanti) Occultist (battle-host/3)
NG Medium humanoid (human)
Init +1 Senses: Perception +3
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Defense
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AC 24, touch 13, flat-footed 21 (+10 armor, +1 dex, +3 shield)
HP 29 (+3 from FCB, +2 from Gray Maiden Initiate)
Fort +6, Ref +3, Will +3
Conditional Save Modifiers: +2 vs emotion and pain
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft (20 ft in armor)
Melee Mwk Cold Iron Longsword +8 (1d8+4/19-20), Shield Bash +6 (1d4+4/x2), or Mwk Cold Iron Dagger +7 (1d4+4/19-20)
Ranged Cold Iron Javelin +3 (1d6+4/x2), Alkali Flask +3 (1d6/x2) or Alchemist's Fire +3 (1d6/x2)
Implement Schools
Abjuration (+1 gray maiden plate, 2 points)—Resonant warding talisman (+1 resistence bonus to saves); Focus mind barrier (6 damage) (base), Aegis (+1)
Transmutation (+1 gray maiden plate, 3 points)—Resonant physical enhancement (+2 Str); Focus legacy weapon (+1) (base), Size Alteration
Occultist Spells Known (CL 3rd; concentration +5):
1st (4/day)—Fastidiousness, Lead Blades
0 (at will)--Resistance, Mending
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Statistics
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Str 18, Dex 13, Con 14, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 14
Base Atk +2; CMB +6; CMD 17
Feats
Gray Maiden Initiate
Shield Focus
Weapon Focus (longsword)
Traits
Permanent Scars
Friends in Low Places
Accidental Clone
Skills (Armor Check Penalty: -6)
Acrobatics +1 (-5 w/armor and shield)
Appraise +6 (1 background skill point)
Bluff +7 (1 adventuring skill point)
Climb +6 (+0 w/armor and shield)
Craft (woodworking) +8 (1 background skill point)
Diplomacy +9 (3 adventuring skill points)
Disable Device +7 (+1 w/armor and shield) (1 adventuring skill point)
Disguise +11 (3 adventuring skill points)
Escape Artist +1 (-5 w/armor and shield)
Heal -1
Intimidate +4
Knowledge (Arcana) +6 (1 adventuring skill point)
Knowledge (Engineering) +6 (1 background skill point)
Knowledge (History) +8 (3 adventuring skill points)
Knowledge (Local) +6 (1 adventuring skill point)
Knowledge (Nobility) +6 (1 background skill point)
Knowledge (Planes) +6 (1 adventuring skill point)
Knowledge (Religion) +6 (1 adventuring skill point)
Linguistics +8 (1 background skill point, 2 adventuring skill points
Perception +3 (1 adventuring skill point)
Perform +2
Profession (farmer) +3 (1 background skill point)
Ride +1 (-5 w/armor and shield)
Sense Motive +3 (1 adventuring skill point)
Sleight of Hand +5 (-1 w/armor and shield) (1 adventuring skill points)
Spellcraft +6 (1 adventuring skill point)
Languages Taldane, Varisian, Azlanti, Thassilonian, Shoanti, Infernal, Skald
Gear
+1 Gray Maiden Plate, Traveler’s outfit (free starting outfit), Mwk heavy steel shield, Mwk cold iron longsword, Cold Iron Javelin x5, Mwk backpack, Cold Iron Dagger, Disguise Kit, Mwk woodworking artisan’s tools, Mwk thieves tools, Air Crystals x2, Antiplague, Antitoxin, Canteen, Crowbar. Ioun Torch. Earplugs, Smoked goggles, Silk rope (100 ft), Weapon cord, Blue Books (Magnimar, Riddleport, Kaer Maga, Korvosa), Traveler’s any-tool, Pathfinder Chronicle (history), Alkali Flask x2, Alchemist’s Fire x2, Halfling Trail Rations x14, Oldlaw Whiskey (bottle), 35 gp 8 sp 7 cp

Special Abilities:

Darkvision x1

Potion Touch of the Sea x2
Oil Bless Weapon x1
Potion Cure Light Wounds x2

3000
-0 Mwk Gray Maiden Plate (free with panoply bond)
-0 Traveler’s outfit (free starting outfit)
-1000 +1 armor enhance
-170 Mwk heavy steel shield
-330 Mwk cold iron longsword
-10 Cold Iron Javelin x5
-50 Mwk backpack
-2 Cold Iron Dagger
-50 Disguise Kit
-55 Mwk woodworking artisan’s tools
-100 Mwk thieves tools
-100 Air Crystals x2
-100 Potion Touch of the Sea x2
-50 Oil Bless Weapon
-150 Scroll Darkvision
-50 Antiplague
-50 Antitoxin
733
-2 Canteen
-2 Crowbar
-75 Ioun Torch
-0.03 Earplugs
-10 Smoked goggles
-20 Silk rope (100 ft)
-0.1 Weapon cord
-20 Blue Book (Magnimar, Riddleport, Kaer Maga, Korvosa)
-150 Potion Cure Light Wounds x3
-250 Traveler’s anytool
-50 Pathfinder Chronicle (history)
-30 Alkali Flask x2
-40 Alchemist’s Fire x2
83.87
-28 Halfling Trail Rations x14
-20 Oldlaw Whiskey (bottle)