Cerebeth's page

Cerebeth
Android Unchained Rogue 1
N Medium humanoid (android)
Init +4; Senses Perception +7 (+8 Trapfinding); Darkvision 60 ft.
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Defense
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AC 16, Touch 14, Flat-Footed 12 (+2 armor)
HP 11
Fort +2, Ref +6, Will +1
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee Shortsword +4 (1d6/18-20)
Melee Dagger +4 (1d4/19-20)
Ranged Dagger (thrown) +4 (1d4/19-20)
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Statistics
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Str 11, Dex 19, Con 14, Int 15, Wis 13, Cha 7
Base Atk +0; CMB +0; CMD 14
Feats Technologist, Weapon Finesse
Traits Numerian Archaeologist
Skills Acrobatics +8, Bluff +2, Climb +4, Disguise +2, Disable Device +9, Escape Artist +8, Knowledge (Engineering) +6, Knowledge (Local) +6, Perception +7 (+8 Trapfinding), Sleight of Hand +8, Stealth +8
Languages Common, Androffan, Hallit
SQ Sneak Attack (1d6)
Gear leather armor, shortsword, dagger (5), belt pouch, backpack, bedroll, rope (hemp/50 ft.), soap, torch (5), waterskin, caltrops, chalk (10), flint and steel, grappling hook, mess kit, mirror (small/steel), pitons (10), thieves' tools, trail rations (5)
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Special Abilities
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Numerian Archaeologist Roll twice for determining glitches when using timeworn technology; able to read the Androffan language.
Sneak Attack The rogue's attack deals extra damage anytime her target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC (whether the target actually has a Dexterity bonus or not), or when the rogue flanks her target. This extra damage is 1d6 at 1st level, and increases by 1d6 every 2 rogue levels thereafter. Ranged attacks can count as sneak attacks only if the target is within 30 feet. This additional damage is precision damage and is not multiplied on a critical hit.
Trapfinding A rogue adds 1/2 her level on Perception checks to locate traps and on Disable Device checks (minimum +1). A rogue can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps.
Finesse Training At 1st level, a rogue gains Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat. In addition, starting at 3rd level, she can select any one type of weapon that can be used with Weapon Finesse (such as rapiers or daggers). Once this choice is made, it cannot be changed. Whenever she makes a successful melee attack with the selected weapon, she adds her Dexterity modifier instead of her Strength modifier to the damage roll. If any effect would prevent the rogue from adding her Strength modifier to the damage roll, she does not add her Dexterity modifier. The rogue can select a second weapon at 11th level and a third at 19th level.
Exceptional Senses Androids have darkvision to a range of 60 feet and low-light vision. They also gain a +2 racial bonus on perception checks.
Constructed For the purposes of effects targeting creatures by type, androids count as both humanoids and constructs. Androids gain a +4 racial bonus on all saving throws against mind-affecting effects, paralysis, poison, and stun effects, are not subject to fatigue or exhaustion, and are immune to disease and sleep effects. Androids can never gain moral bonuses, and are immune to fear effects and all emotion-based effects.
Emotionless Androids have problems processing emotions properly, and thus take a -4 penalty on Sense Motive checks.
Nanite Surge An android's body is infused with nanites. Once per day as an immediate action, an android can cause her nanites to surge, granting a bonus equal to 3+ the android's character level on any one d20 roll; this ability must be activated before the roll is made. When an android uses this power, her circuitry-tattoos glow with light equivalent to that of a torch in illumination for one round.
Technologist (feat) You are familiar with the basic mechanics of technology. Benefit: You are considered to be trained in any skill used against a technology-based subject. If the skill in question requires training to use even against non-technological subjects, you must still have ranks in that skill in order to gain the benefit of Technologist.

Acrobatics +8
Bluff +2
Climb +4
Disable Device +9
Disguise +2
Escape Artist +8
Knowledge (Engineering) +6
Knowledge (Local) +6
Perception +7 (+8 Trapfinding)
Sleight of Hand +8
Stealth +8

Cerebeth is pretty enough, perhaps--if one discounts her utter lack of emotion, that is. At 5'10" in height, she stands tall for a human woman, with a lithe, agile figure. Her hair is a torrent of ebony waves, the blue-black tresses often left loose to tumble past her slim waist. Her skin is pale nigh to the point of translucence, and a readily visible network of blue circuitry-tattoos glimmers just beneath its surface. The consummate coolness of Cerebeth's expression belies the outward humanity of her appearance, as if the reticulum of shimmering blue didn't already betray her race.

Torch is quite literally all the world Cerebeth has ever known. As an android, she never had a childhood, per se; she merely came to consciousness precisely nineteen years, four months and twenty-two days ago. For the first eighteen years of her life, she served as an assistant to the technologist who brought her to being--her "mother". The quaintness of the terribly human terminology could always bring a smile to Cerebeth's typically impassive face.

Danetta Tremaine, the person Cerebeth holds to be her creator, was a human woman utterly devoted to researching the intriguing technological mysteries around Torch. So committed was she to her analysis that she never married or had children of her own. Danetta's android research assistant, Cerebeth, was her only "daughter". Cerebeth was engineered to make up for her creator's own shortcomings: dexterous hands to manipulate the fine work associated with Danetta's research, strength enough to carry interesting specimens, and a mind sharp enough to monitor salient details.

Everything went well for years. Sure, the citizens of Torch weren't always thrilled with the presence of an android in their midst--those that knew enough to recognize what Cerebeth was, anyway--but the research work interested Cerebeth, and it was a process with which she developed some skill. Learning more about the technology that was her probable progenitor always fascinated the young woman. About a year ago, however--eleven months and six days, to be precise--everything changed.

Cerebeth had spent a few days cataloguing a few of Danetta's recent discoveries at one of the sites near Torch, only to return home to find the small house ransacked. Danetta's body lay crumpled on the floor, a spray of blood splashed liberally across the area. The items that had served as her most recent foci of Danetta's study were gone, as were the records she had made of them. Danetta's laboratory at the house had also been thoroughly emptied. When Cerebeth alerted them to it, the local constables deemed the death a terrible tragedy, and life went on.

Although logically, Cerebeth knew that she should feel grief at Danetta's murder, she wasn't quite certain what the emotion should feel like. The best she could manage was a lingering regret that there would be no one to direct the course of her own study. Cerebeth did, however, need to survive. A tactical analysis of her own abilities led Cere to the decision that the pickpocket's trade should suit her deftness of hand. Observation was a skill with which Cerebeth was adept, and after time spent watching some of the local street urchins ply their trade, she set out to emulate them.

The work paid off, after a fashion, though Cerebeth was forced to sell Danetta's little home to pay for her own survival. She probably should have grieved losing the house as well, she supposed, but perhaps there were benefits to lacking the proper circuitry to process human emotion. Life was different, perhaps, but life went on. She chose to think of it as a game of logic. What effect would this move have upon the game at large, or this one? She does miss the technological research, however. That aspect of her life before Danetta's murder is certainly one thing Cerebeth does regret losing.

Cerebeth is quite cool and rational. The idea of human emotion intrigues her, but it's not something she has ever experienced. Certainly, she knows that there are things which she probably should feel sometimes, but to date, such things are beyond her knowledge. She is quick to process a conclusion that she feels is cogent, and once she has made up her mind, is likely to stick to her decision unless someone else can persuade her of a fallacy in her logic. Cerebeth is quite inquisitive about what, precisely, it means to be human. Observing people that don't know she's there is a pastime at which she can spend hours.

The plan is for Cerebeth to mature into a two-weapon fighter, trap and lock specialist, and techno-geek. If/when she learns of the involvement of the Technic League in her "mother's" murder, she may well plan to go after the perpetrators. I'd like to eventually have her develop the Empathy feat detailed in the People of the Stars player's companion volume, which would involve her learning how to feel emotion and essentially undoing the benefits from the Emotionless racial trait. Like most plans, this is subject to change, but that's the thought at the moment.