About "Dima" DimaratisGudmund "Dima" Dimaratis
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Travel Domain:
Animal Focus (6 minutes/day) (Su) As a swift action, gain bonuses from emulated animal(s). 6/6 remaining.
Magne the Alligator, Celestial Animal Companion:
Magne
Celestial alligator NG Medium animal Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +5 --------------------
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Tricks Learned:
Divine Hunter/Celestial Companion Abilities:
Alligator Abilities:
Other Ability Notes:
-------------------- Special Abilities -------------------- Animal Companion Link (Ex) Handle or push Animal Companion faster, +4 to checks vs. them. Hero Points Hero Points can be spent at any time to grant a variety of bonuses. Improved Empathic Link (1 mile) (Su) As the familiar ability, but as a swift action can see through companion's eyes (but not own). Nature Training (Ex) Hunter levels count as druid/ranger levels for feats, traits, and options to improve animal companions. Outflank Increase flank bonus by +2 if flanking ally has same feat. If you crit, ally gets an AoO. Share Spells with Companion (Ex) Can cast spells with a target of "you" on animal companion, as touch spells. Track +3 Add the listed bonus to survival checks made to track. Vain -2 to Cha checks for 24h after failing an opposed Cha check Wild Empathy +6 (Ex) Improve the attitude of an animal, as if using Diplomacy. Woodland Stride (Ex) Move through undergrowth at normal speed. --------------------
Personal Gear:
- tattoo holy symbol of Kurgess
- Ulfen patterned kilt - poncho - +1 darkleaf cloth lamellar (leather) armor - aegis of recovery (looks like a torc) - ring of protection +1 - boots of elvenkind - hip flask - tin tankard - air bladder - underwater light crossbow
- wrist sheath
- wrist sheath
- belt pouch
- spell component pouch
- bandolier
- masterwork backpack
- waterproof bag
Encumbrance: Light Load (74.0 lbs, limits 116/233/350 lbs.) Dima's Rowboat:
- rowboat (12' long, 3 person capacity or 1000 lbs. cargo, max speed 30')
- 2 oars
- small tent
Encumbrance: 96 lbs.
Cost of Living: Poor (3gp/month, includes food/drink/normal taxes of 1sp or less) --------------------
Accomplishments of Note for Dima:
Description:
Height: 6′3″, Weight: 220 lbs., Hair: Sandy Brown, Eyes: Brown
Dima is a strapping and strong young man: tall, broad-shouldered, and beset with hardened muscles from all manner of exertion and exercise. His skin is tanned from years of traveling and working outdoors despite his lighter Ulfen heritage. His hair is sandy brown with lighter streaks from the sun, while his eyes are almond-shaped and a rich brown color. Still, his hawkish nose and pointed chin lessen his attractiveness, normally hidden somewhat by the Ulfen bearded style but which Dima himself eschews for shorter hair and a “southlander” short beard. His hands and feet are tough and calloused from long days out fishing, swimming, climbing…and the occasional fight with armaments. While possessing a proud and athletic physique, Dima likes to enhance this often with braided leather cords around his biceps, leather bands adorning his wrists and wearing a patterned heavy kilt without a shirt or a sleeveless vest. His most striking feature is an elaborate Varisian-styled tattoo of a muscular flexing arm breaking a metal chain, which runs from his heart over to his left shoulder and upper arm. Though adornments and jewelry are not common for Dima, he does fancy a thick golden open torc around his neck as well as a simpler silver rope-knot style ring. Personality:
The first thing about Dima’s demeanor is that he’s neither shy nor subtle. An open book, easygoing and friendly by nature, this plus his physical looks would seem to suggest he could gain the attention and admiration of most he comes across. Yet Dima tends to be off-putting to many by being boastful, loud…and not being too adept at social nuances. A bit of a braggart and overly prone to tell embellished stories (often badly as he’s not a great orator), those who know Dima come to learn his bravado and boasting are never meant to demean or ridicule others; in fact Dima loves to hear the tall tales and brave talk of any who would answer his own “mighty” exploits in return. He is self-assured and supremely confident in his physical talents, though many who meet him can (and do) misconstrue this as arrogance and pride. Unfortunately, Dima does not often perceive these subtle distinctions with those he meets…and even if he does he often dismisses it out-of-hand as their misunderstanding and not his fault. Fortunately, Dima rarely holds grudges and misgivings to those that might oppose him, willing to forgive and forget any misunderstandings with a drink, story or new round of games. Dima frequently challenges and wagers against others to see who is “best” at whatever happens to be important in that moment; he is highly competitive, but he is never mean-spirited about it. In fact, he sees it as his sacred duty to teach others the value of friendly competition without anger or envy getting in the way. Dima wants to win (of course) in whatever he does, but he is rarely a poor sport at losing, finding the camaraderie in competition with his athletic “brothers” and “sisters” to be the highlight of the challenge. Thus, he will almost never turn down a challenge to a race, game or match, even if the contestant is vastly inferior (or superior) to him. At the same time, he will never throw a contest to let an inferior competitor save face, as this is against the tenets of his patron deity Kurgess. Cheating, with outside powers or magicks that are not their own (either through a dweomered item or magical aid from another) is the one area where Dima will become angered and call out the act openly, seeing it as an affront to Kurgess and a violation of the “oath” of contest. There have been times where this has gotten Dima into the most ‘heated water’ of his varied escapades, but he will never betray his principles in this one regard. While Dima excels in physical challenges in honor of Kurgess, the social encounters he has with women-of-interest and crowds is a different story, revealing in Dima a weakness of vanity. Simply put, Dima just doesn’t understand why women don’t fall for him more, and why crowds do not cheer him whenever he tells a “fine” story! He’s neither quite bright enough nor socially subtle enough to realize the answer to this shortcoming, so instead he keeps trying with the zeal and energy of an aurochs in a Taldan porcelain shop. Inevitably he’s rebuffed, and when rebuffed socially he spends a lot of time chewing on his faults in his head and how he can do better next time. Dima means well…but even his closest friends know it’s unwise to have him speak to the courtly magistrate or enthrall the crowd in some fiery oratory to greatness. As a worshipper of Kurgess ‘The Strong Man’, Dima’s exuberance for boasting and exploits is akin to the worshippers of Cayden Cailean…but without the preponderance of drink and drunkenness, while his love for tales and traveling the world is akin to the wandering worshippers of Desna. Thus he pays homage to all three often, though Kurgess is whom he reveres above all else for the “divine” purpose of his travels in the world. Other deities such as Erastil, Gorum and Torag, he honors out of respect for his people and the culture he was raised in; though he finds them stodgy or bloodthirsty, there have been times in his adventures when his homage to them seemed prudent. Gozreh, too, is a god that Dima pays homage to whenever starting out on an ocean voyage or to survive a storm at sea. Dima’s other great passions are with the water (specifically the ocean) and his animal “friends” that he has an innate talent to bond with. As a boy before his naming day he was discovered as being a dyr’fylgja or “follower by beasts” after inadvertently bonding with a seal on the shoreline that died later in the winter. Turned to the clan’s shamans and the one dyr’fylgja of the island to train him, this is where Dima learned the less-observed tenets of Desna and Kurgess over the stodgy and rigid ways of Erastil and Torag that his family and most of the clan revered. Studying the many forms of animals and their ways in nature truly liberated Dima to a new way of thinking, and is what set him on a path to explore the world on his own, leaving his clan behind him. With his bonded companion and other animal friends though, Dima is never truly alone. As for water and the oceans, Dima always found comfort and natural skill in working in and by the water: fishing to feed his family or make extra coin, swimming to work a crab buoy loose or to patch a hole in a clan ship, working with ropes and knots and nets, or sailing fast on the open water with the power of the wind and the waves. The sea is part of his blood, and he has never gone “inland” for any long stretches of time. Learning the ways of a “follower by beasts” included the arts of healing and care, something Dima offers to those people and animals he comes across in need. Born Gudmund Dimaratis, he hates the name of his birthright, as it was constantly ridiculed by his brothers and the one island lassie he thought at one point he would grow up to marry. Not long after arriving to Magnimar and deciding not to return to the Ironbound, he took up the name “Dima” initially as a jest but soon preferred it over his other. No one but his Ulfen clan would know otherwise; he told a close lover in the Shackles once his true name, but she was murdered shortly thereafter and he has never revealed it since. Dima has had three “beastbonds” as a dyr’fylgja: “Ottar” the seal he bonded by accident before his naming day, his first intentional bond with “Bard” the orca whale upon the Ironbound Archipelago, and his latest bond with “Magne” the salt alligator in the waterways around Bloodcove at the fringes of the Mwangi Expanse. Though it seemed odd and unlikely that his god would favor Dima’s affinity to animals, his devotion to The Strong Man - and oftentimes his success in competition by adopting aspects of animal forms – was rewarded by Kurgess bestowing a divine essence to Bard (and later Magne), particularly as Dima’s explorations became more dangerous and deadly the farther south he traveled. Because of this, the bonded pair are formidable in their varied roles as scouts, trackers, hunters, competitors…and occasionally pirates or mercenaries. Dima has never considered himself a warrior, at least not in the Gorumite sense of his Ulfen forefathers. Yet his blood has been stirred to battle on multiple occasions, and he has reconciled killing in battle as another “deadly game” that occasionally must be played out, including participating in the ‘Carnival of Kurgess’ on Widowmaker Isle in The Shackles. Sailing on pirate vessels, however, showed him the limits of what he would tolerate in the arena of fighting and killing. Should it come to it, he will offer humanoids mercy if asked and will spare the lives of animals coerced into fighting if he can, but has no aversion to hunting and killing predatory beasts or other abominations. He loves the trident over all else, finding its versatility both in and out the water to be the best for him. Naturally as a worshipper of Kurgess he also favors the javelin, both as a hunting weapon and for the occasional festival competition. A gnomish traveler showed him the marvel of a crossbow rigged for underwater use, so this he keeps as well. Though Dima has been trained in the use of heavier chain hauberks and scale armor as befitting the Ulfen raids, he prefers lighter armors so as to not be restricted in his movements on land or in water.
Mannerisms & Quirks:
* Dima is brash and boastful when he is having “fun” at the tavern or great hall, though he will quiet down if a friend or friendly acquaintance asks him to. He doesn’t hold grudges about challenges or losing a match. * Dima likes to wear his kilt with a sleeveless leather vest for social occasions, with leather cords and bracers that accentuate his muscles. * Dima likes to tell boastful stories of his exploits, which are embellished and exaggerated but always contain a core of truth to them. He often tells stories poorly, as he has no talent as a skald or orator. * Dima likes simple games of chance such as dice, and keeps dice handy for any occasion of waiting. He likes to wager (coin, favors, barter) but isn’t necessarily keen on wealth, other than what entertainment it can buy he and his fellows. * Dima loves to hear stories of brave deeds, forgotten lore, undiscovered lands, legends of adventure and excitement, etc. He will pause whatever he’s doing to listen to something worthy. * Dima will regard a failure in a social setting with hurt to his vanity, and chews on it in his mind excessively for a time until he can “sort out” how to do better next time. * Dima can be dared to do almost anything if it concerns swimming, diving, climbing, jumping, balancing, throwing, lifting and the like. He does have an innate sense of danger, but doesn’t tend to calculate the “odds” of the success of something, trusting in Desnan luck and his own skills to see him through. * Dima loves to fish and hunt in the water – with pole, net, trident, javelin or lined bolt. * Dima likes to help heal rural peoples of hurts and maladies, and has some healing skills to help both people and animals if he comes across them in need. * Dima has a grudge against full-blooded elven males, even though he knows he shouldn’t. Elves of the Mordant Spire harried and sunk clan vessels in his youth on occasion when trading to the gnomish haven of Gogpodda. Later in The Shackles, the elvish pirate captain Morgani Lestrix feuded with Dima’s captain and had several crew ambushed and murdered in Drenchport, including Dima’s lover at the time. Later in a pitched battle at sea, Lestrix killed Bard by magic, though the elvish pirate was slain by others shortly thereafter. The experience has given Dima one of his few grudges of distrust. * Dima is fond of gnomes, as his clan traded with Gogpodda in the Ironbound Archipelago and he went with his family to see it. In Magnimar he became well-acquainted with a gnomish enclave there, and has learned their language in his travels with them. He finds their passion to pursue what excites them to be invigorating, seeing their outlook as similar to his own. * Dima is a poor book-learner, his knowledge of the lands and cultures to be something he has to feel and experience firsthand, not read about. The exception to this is his knack for languages, of which he knows several and is eager to learn more. He prefers oral storytelling over written stories, but he will read prose if there is nothing else to do! * Dima’s true name is not Dima. It is Gudmund, which he hates. He will only tell those he’s truly close to his true name…and probably not even then unless it comes up for a reason. * Dima has had wealth and riches at various times in his life, only to spend it on magical curios that help his travels as well as on all kinds of entertainment. From Magnimar to Vyre to Port Peril, Dima has seen and spent a lot! Since losing Bard and leaving piracy behind, he has come to appreciate the simpler existence of a boat, a bonded friend, fresh fish, clean water and doing favors for folk that appreciate it. This is what drew him to Hyrantam. Language Translation Notes
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