Eostre of the Crying Moon's page

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AC 15, touch 12, flat-footed 13 (+2 armor, +1 shield, +2 Dex)
hp 8 (1d8)
Fort +0, Ref +2, Will +3
Weakness oracle's curses (haunted)

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Speed 30 ft.
Melee Light Shield Bash -3 (1d3+1/x2) and
Dagger +1 (1d4+1/19-20/x2) and
Light mace +1 (1d6+1/x2)
Ranged Sling +2 (1d4+1/x2)
Oracle Spells Known (CL 1):
1 (4/day) Cure Light Wounds, Protection from Evil, Bless
0 (at will) Guidance, Light, Stabilize, Ghost Sound (DC 14), Detect Magic, Mage Hand

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Str 12, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 12, Wis 11, Cha 18
Base Atk +0; CMB +1; CMD 13
Feats Selective Channeling, Totem Spirit - Skoan-Quah (Skull Clan)
Traits Auspicious Tattoo (Shoanti), Student of Faith
Skills Diplomacy +8, Heal +8, Knowledge (nature) +5, Knowledge (religion) +5, Sense Motive +4, Spellcraft +5, Survival +4
Languages Common, Shoanti, Varisian
SQ haunted, mysteries (life), oracle channel positive energy 1d6 (5/day) (dc 15), revelations (oracle channel positive energy)
Combat Gear Healer's kit; Other Gear Lamellar cuirass, Light wooden shield, Dagger, Light mace, Sling, Sling bullets (10), Backpack (10 @ 16 lbs), Bedroll, Belt pouch (13 @ 5.22 lbs), Blanket, Canteen, Flint and steel, Grooming kit, Holy symbol, wooden (Pharasma), Mess kit, Poncho, Trail rations (3), 10 GP, 1 SP

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Haunted Retrieving stored gear is a Standard action or worse, dropped items land 10' away.
Oracle Channel Positive Energy 1d6 (5/day) (DC 15) (Su) Positive energy heals the living and harms the undead; negative has the reverse effect.
Selective Channeling Exclude targets from the area of your Channel Energy
Student of Faith +1 caster level of cure spells. +1 to DC of channeled energy.
Totem Spirit - Skoan-Quah (Skull Clan) +2 weapon damage vs. undead, +2 Heal

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As the old woman threw the handful of herbs and powders onto the small fire in the hearth there was a brief flash of green flame, and the puff of incense rose up to join the pungent veil of smoke which already filled the small, yurt-like tent.

"So child, there is little room for doubt... your path lies to the south." The shaman bent over the bowl of bones in her lap once again, stirring the contents with a bony, age-withered finger. "The spirits are clear for once. Ancient sins are returning to the world, and they are calling you to face them, for good or ill."

Eostre frowned at the old woman. At least her mentor wasn't speaking pure gibberish for once, but that didn't mean that the young oracle understood clearly. "But there's nothing to the south of importance to the Shoanti. A few scattered families of various Quahs perhaps - otherwise there are only the towns of the Chelish invaders."

The crone cackled mirthlessly at the raven-haired girl's confusion. "Ha! You think only of the limits of your present horizons. If old evils are stirring under the land, they will not care who is Shoanti and who is not. The augury is clear, I said - if you do not seek out this menace and confront it, all the Shoanti will be enslaved, as well as the city-dwellers. Better to face the test there, in the south, than wait for it to find us here."

"But where to the south, and what is this 'ancient evil' you're talking about?" Eostre was almost growling with frustration. "You're telling me to go confront this thing, but I need more to go on than that!"

Despite the fact that the old woman's eyes were milky-white and clouded by cataracts, the shaman looked sharply back across the hearth, facing down the younger woman's anger. After a minute, it was Eostre who looked away, biting her lip to stop herself from cursing at her mistress. The shaman sighed then, and spoke once more.

"One of the Varisians who traded at our camp told me of a new temple nearing completion to the south, in a town named 'Sand Point'. There a great ceremony is to be held, several weeks hence, where the city-dwellers will dedicate this new temple to the gods." She held out the bowl, filled with scraps of etched bone, scented twigs and shards of colored stone. "See for yourself, child. The evil will reveal itself at that time. You must be there when it does - to protect the Skoan-quah and all of the Shoanti - although the spirits have not told me what form this evil will take."

Rising to her feet, Eostre continued to frown back at her mistress. "You know I can't read the bones myself - not yet, anyway - so I just have to trust that the spirits speak true to you. You are asking me to leave the Quah and travel among strangers, all to face some nameless evil from long ago."

The young oracle, still stooping slightly to avoid hitting her head on the low roof of the tent, stepped across to the flap of leather that served as a door. Turning back to the old woman as she lifted the flap, Eostre spoke again, this time with less heat in her voice. "I don't fully understand what is being asked of me, mistress. But I will obey, and go to this 'Sand Point', and if there is anything to find there, I will try to face it."

Still squatting by the small fire on the other side of the tent, the old woman watched her go. "May the spirits go with you child..." she murmured quietly into the smoke.

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Eostre was born into the Skoan-Quah of the Shoanti - the Skull clan - keepers of the spirits and speakers for the dead. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the child - perhaps she was beautiful and charismatic, certainly full of life, but she was small for a Shoanti and lacked the vigour expected of a brave. Raised in the Curchain Hills region of Varisia, just south of the Stony Mountains and west of the Storval Plateau, she was apprenticed as a girl to one of the clan's shamans, and a shaman she would have become if her rite-of-passage ceremony had not taken an odd turn.

After entering the Yawning Caves in the Mindspin Mountains, the traditional site for Skoan-Quah braves to undertake their spirit-quest to become adults, Eostre did not re-emerge for over eight days. At first she was given up for lost, trapped within the complex maze by the fear-inducing magics with which the shamans warded the place. However on the day she reappeared at the cave mouth, she was not carrying the expected animal skull of her future totem; instead in her hands was a human skull, etched with ancient runes, and marked with the Endless Spiral.

The girl herself had no memory of what had transpired within the maze, but the portent was clear to the assembled shamans - Pharasma had marked Eostre as an oracle of the Mother of Souls. That evening at her naming ceremony a further portent - a meteor shower crossing over the full moon, as though the sky was shedding tears - gave rise to the name she would first bear as a adult of the Skoan-Quah: Eostre of the Crying Moon. Although she was not to follow the shaman's path, it seemed certain that Pharasma had some great task in mind for the young Shoanti woman, but what that task might be none could say.