Eswain's page

The familiar she gets from her Druid archetype will be capped at level 1, until she takes the Boon Companion feat - but it will then be forever capped at 5 unless we go for more levels of Druid, which I have no intention of doing. As such, I took a few more liberties with the raven than I would otherwise bother to, and need to get GM okay first.
First, I applied three familiar archetypes to it - Ambassador, Animal Exemplar, and Sage. The first two can stack as per normal, but Sage breaks the rules. Allow me to attempt to justify this.

Ambassador and Sage both modify the familiar's Intelligence progression - the Ambassador stops it at 6, and advances its Charisma instead at the normal rate. Sage increases the Intelligence progression to 5+Effective Druid Level, but halves the normal natural armor bonus. My personal reason for arguing for this is that, by EDL-5 (the cap), it will have an Int 10, Cha 8 and NA+1. As a Swarm, this particular familiar would keep the natural armor bonus, so by cutting it like this I'm hindering its use in combat - it is unlikely higher-level enemies would even be distracted by the swarm, and its damage will never increase beyond 1d6/round. It's weak and ineffective as a combat partner, something I swapped the Druid's Nature Bond feature for (and then will be replicating at the cost of three feats, one of which is my Human bonus. Mechanically that's a bad decision, but it fits her theme, and I'll offset her weakness by...well, by being a Paladin. However, I've even weakened that slightly by going Gray Paladin - I hate to use this as a justification, but the pally that is focused and optimized is a mean class in Runelords, and not as situational as usual.

Ambassador and Sage also replace Alertness - this is easy to justify for me, as Ambassador simply gives a different feat in exchange (one that isn't shared with the master like Alertness anyway), and Sage takes it away in exchange for 2sp/EDL and the ability to make Knowledge checks untrained with a +0.5/EDL bonus to them, while also losing the ability to share the master's skill ranks. This means that the familiar will be limited to 10 skill points in total, whereas normally it would still gain my skill ranks despite its personal level being capped at 5.

I will elaborate much further re: flavor once my kid goes to bed tonight, but for now, I view Malthus as an emissary of Abadar - its purpose in existing is to teach Eswain to be a Paladin. I will not lie, I do intend to use the Animal Exemplar abilities to have the familiar build an "army of ravens," but I do not forsee more than one or two instances in the entire campaign where that could even be useful, and one is before those abilities will even kick in.
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Next, for the same reasons as above, I swapped the base raven Weapon Finesse feat for Master of Your Kind - while Ambassador lets this kick in at level 3 instead, it is still unusable before then. However, Weapon Finesse is redundant on Familiars, so an advantage early is neither gained nor lost.

I did the same for the horse granted by the Friends and Enemies trait, replacing Run and Endurance with Narrow Frame and Well-Trained. As a lifetime native of Sandpoint and an animal breeder/trainer, I'm also reflavoring the lore of the trait that Eswain was given the "best foal of his stock" rather than a trained adult horse - wouldn't make sense that she would take one like that anyway.

While I hope that her background will provide justification enough, looking at this character from the outside is a difficult thing to do - it's all over the place.
I like the paladin class for this campaign, but I was not inspired by the traditional Golarion pally orders. Additionally, the Fey Foundling trait implies something is decidedly off about a character, and I wanted to highlight that with Eswain. She is a literal wild child from the wilderness - in a homebrew, sandbox-ier style, I'd argue for the GM to reveal that she's not actually human sometime later in the game - and was forced into civility and order by "normal" humanoids in a community. I tried to imagine the psychological effect of this on a person, while not being as Jodi Foster about it as the movies. My conclusion was that she would become obsessed with order and structure, seeing it as the hallmark of rightness. However, her nature is to not be so ordered - to that end, I have her dedicating herself to imposing order upon nature.

Lore-wise, Abadar is the God of Cities - but cities are not self-sustaining, and the larger and more ordered a civilization is, the more outlying support is required. Farmers for food, cloths and leathers; fishers; loggers and miners for building materials - these are all vital in the functioning of a city, so why would Abadar not support these as well?

The raven fixation is admittedly modeled after the League of Legends character Swain - but the choices for Swarm Monger are limited, so when raven was an option it's clear why my mind took me there. And while many farmers consider birds to be pests on their crops, they also prevent crippling insect infestations - thus, trained birds would be nothing but a boon to farmers, and indeed the interior of the cities as well.

With the Nature Soul/Animal Ally feats, plus a second Boon Companion, I get a true Nature Bond as well, though limited to yet another small list. This isn't an issue, as Abadar is fond of golden eagles - but even a full-level eagle is low down on the combat spectrum of companions. I have not gone about seeing how I'll develop that one yet, but I'm sure it will be similar to the raven - a beacon of Abadar's faith to show Eswain the way, and mechanically scout and get help over acting in combat itself.

There are a lot of extra animals - a monkey, 3 ravens, 5 thrush, 2 mongooses, 2 goats, and 10 common cats. I have their tricks listed, but the only ones trained in Attack are the cats, and only the simple version. However, I do not plan to take them into combat - it is another part of the theme. At her farm, she keeps upwards of 100 cats. While they're "common," she has bred them to behave more akin with wild species - in addition to vermin control, their primary purpose is to guard her livestock. Many farmers keep a few donkey with their cattle, as a donkey will fight a coyote and serve almost like a guard dog in that respect. For Eswain, these are her cats (one of Abadar's favored animals, as well) - they guard and protect her herds, and woe to the dozen coyotes who think they can fight ten cats each.

For our campaign, the cats will likely disperse after we leave Sandpoint - she brings them with her into town to set loose and find any vermin that are around as a service to the people (and free food for the cats). They monkey (Abadar's main favored animal) will stick around but is strictly non-combat - his main use is as an aid for daily chores, and he knows Break Out should that ever come into play. The ravens and thrush are scouts and watch guards, also trained to seek out the familiar, Ameiko, and/or Ilsoari Gandethus - the usefulness of which is up to you, as they'd all just fly back to Sandpoint. The mongooses are the trackers, like dogs would be in these scenarios. The two goats are the nannies who bore the marked kids, freshened and producting milk but also ready to be shorn, so she brought them to sell the angora and milk them. I will probably drag them along for most of the campaign until they're impractical, but they're just for the milk at that point, as well as the bearers of omens or what have you that's indicating Eswain's about to be a Paladin.

Lastly, I will opt for Gray Paladin in order to have the Neutral requirement from Druid, as well as Legate to remove the need for metal armor or the crazy-priced replacements that're offered. I may or may not take Mount, depending on the flow of the campaign, but I do not want to throw yet another combat animal onto the field, and the skillset I have is built is not optimized for riding. If it is an alternate, it will likely be the Archon Bond, as having debilitating, glowing red eyes also fits with the swarm of ravens and general impending doom vibe - however if my dips have hindered my self-healing (which is the primary "tank" mechanism here), I'll pick Agathion Bond.

Eswain was discovered roaming the unnamed forest near The Three Cormorants (now called Shank's Wood) by Niska Mvashti and her company of Druids in 4685 AR when she was around nine years old - completely feral and unable to even speak, the Druids were forced to improvize their Wild Empathy in order to calm her and bring her to Mvashti Manor. Madam raised her for three years, slowly but steadily integrating her into society - at least to a point. She asked to be sent to Turandarok Academy in 4689, where she split her time between studies, helping with the younger children (including the infant Tsuto Kaijitsu), and escorting Madam Mvashti into the woods to learn of more natural ways - it was during these hikes that Eswain felt most at home, though she yearned for the structure and order provided by city life.
She left Sandpoint proper in 4694, where she established a small ranch near Weasel Creek, raising mostly chickens, goats, and pigs. She developed a fondness for stray cats, and soon large numbers flocked to her land, where she integrated them into the herd as protectors and guardians of her livestock.

Her well-behaved and markedly trained animals grew popular among Sandpoints more self-sufficient residents, and it wasn't long before she was sought out as a trainer and supplier of "city chickens" and other farm animals typically too obtrusive to be kept within the walls. In 4699, Lonjiku Kaijitsu acquired her services for a centipede infestation in his glassworks, and Eswain bred a small army of geckos for the nobleman, trained to exit their enclosure to hunt at night and return during the day.

She gained some small noteriety in 4700 when a minor swarm of locusts moved down the Lost Coast and over Sandpoint - a raven, which no one who knew her had seen her without since she was a teenager (though none could say for sure that it was the same bird) flew from her shoulder and burst forth into a swarm of its own, making quick work of devouring the pests - and she was rewarded by an extension of her property by the mayor.

In 4702, Lonjiku approached Eswain again, but this time with a new problem - his daughter had run away a few hours prior, and he wished for the Druid to find her and keep her safe. Eswain met with Ameiko on the road to Magnimar, using birds to pinpoint her location. Under the guise of acquiring a new breed of goat from Janderhoff, Eswain escorted the young woman to the city, where she regularly reported her status to Lonjiku.

News of Ameiko's mother's death sent the girl home, and Eswain (who had indeed found goats reknowned for their coats during her stint in the city) returned with her. Lonjiku rewarded her with a hefty sum, which Eswain used to expand her ranch once more, leading nearly to the boundries of Biston's Pond.

During her frequent visits to the city, Eswain became acquainted with Sabyl Sorn - the monk was intrigued by her large stature, and pestered the druid into a wrestling match. Though Eswain was always at the disadvantage, both from her misshapen leg and her lack of martial training, she enjoyed the bouts, and they became regular occurrences.

One such visit is today - with the Swallowtail Festival kicking off the dedication to the new cathedral, Eswain and her troop of animals has arrived in the city. She hopes to sell the coats of two goats during the festivities, as well as celebrate the accomplishments of Kendra Deverin and the rest of the townsfolk.

Eswain was discovered roaming the unnamed forest near The Three Cormorants (now called Shank's Wood) by Niska Mvashti and her company of Druids in 4685 AR when she was around nine years old - completely feral and unable to even speak, the Druids were forced to improvize their Wild Empathy in order to calm her and bring her to Mvashti Manor. Madam raised her for three years, slowly but steadily integrating her into society - at least to a point. She asked to be sent to Turandarok Academy in 4689, where she split her time between studies, helping with the younger children (including the infant Tsuto Kaijitsu), and escorting Madam Mvashti into the woods to learn of more natural ways - it was during these hikes that Eswain felt most at home, though she yearned for the structure and order provided by city life.

She left Sandpoint proper in 4694, where she established a small ranch near Weasel Creek, raising mostly chickens, goats, and pigs. She developed a fondness for stray cats, and soon large numbers flocked to her land, where she integrated them into the herd as protectors and guardians of her livestock.

Her well-behaved and markedly trained animals grew popular among Sandpoints more self-sufficient residents, and it wasn't long before she was sought out as a trainer and supplier of "city chickens" and other farm animals typically too obtrusive to be kept within the walls. In 4699, Lonjiku Kaijitsu acquired her services for a centipede infestation in his glassworks, and Eswain bred a small army of geckos for the nobleman, trained to exit their enclosure to hunt at night and return during the day.

She gained some small noteriety in 4700 when a minor swarm of locusts moved down the Lost Coast and over Sandpoint - a raven, which no one who knew her had seen her without since she was a teenager (though none could say for sure that it was the same bird) flew from her shoulder and burst forth into a swarm of its own, making quick work of devouring the pests - and she was rewarded by an extension of her property by the mayor.

In 4702, Lonjiku approached Eswain again, but this time with a new problem - his daughter had run away a few hours prior, and he wished for the Druid to find her and keep her safe. Eswain met with Ameiko on the road to Magnimar, using birds to pinpoint her location. Under the guise of acquiring a new breed of goat from Janderhoff, Eswain escorted the young woman to the city, where she regularly reported her status to Lonjiku.

News of Ameiko's mother's death sent the girl home, and Eswain (who had indeed found goats reknowned for their coats during her stint in the city) returned with her. Lonjiku rewarded her with a hefty sum, which Eswain used to expand her ranch once more, leading nearly to the boundries of Biston's Pond.

During her frequent visits to the city, Eswain became acquainted with Sabyl Sorn - the monk was intrigued by her large stature, and pestered the druid into a wrestling match. Though Eswain was always at the disadvantage, both from her misshapen leg and her lack of martial training, she enjoyed the bouts, and they became regular occurrences.

One such visit is today - with the Swallowtail Festival kicking off the dedication to the new cathedral, Eswain and her troop of animals has arrived in the city. She hopes to sell the coats of two goats during the festivities, as well as celebrate the accomplishments of Kendra Deverin and the rest of the townsfolk.

The familiar she gets from her Druid archetype will be capped at level 1, until she takes the Boon Companion feat - but it will then be forever capped at 5 unless we go for more levels of Druid, which I have no intention of doing. As such, I took a few more liberties with the raven than I would otherwise bother to, and need to get GM okay first.

First, I applied three familiar archetypes to it - Ambassador, Animal Exemplar, and Sage. The first two can stack as per normal, but Sage breaks the rules. Allow me to attempt to justify this.

Ambassador and Sage both modify the familiar's Intelligence progression - the Ambassador stops it at 6, and advances its Charisma instead at the normal rate. Sage increases the Intelligence progression to 5+Effective Druid Level, but halves the normal natural armor bonus. My personal reason for arguing for this is that, by EDL-5 (the cap), it will have an Int 10, Cha 8 and NA+1. As a Swarm, this particular familiar would keep the natural armor bonus, so by cutting it like this I'm hindering its use in combat - it is unlikely higher-level enemies would even be distracted by the swarm, and its damage will never increase beyond 1d6/round. It's weak and ineffective as a combat partner, something I swapped the Druid's Nature Bond feature for (and then will be replicating at the cost of three feats, one of which is my Human bonus. Mechanically that's a bad decision, but it fits her theme, and I'll offset her weakness by...well, by being a Paladin. However, I've even weakened that slightly by going Gray Paladin - I hate to use this as a justification, but the pally that is focused and optimized is a mean class in Runelords, and not as situational as usual.

Ambassador and Sage also replace Alertness - this is easy to justify for me, as Ambassador simply gives a different feat in exchange (one that isn't shared with the master like Alertness anyway), and Sage takes it away in exchange for 2sp/EDL and the ability to make Knowledge checks untrained with a +0.5/EDL bonus to them, while also losing the ability to share the master's skill ranks. This means that the familiar will be limited to 10 skill points in total, whereas normally it would still gain my skill ranks despite its personal level being capped at 5.

I will elaborate much further re: flavor once my kid goes to bed tonight, but for now, I view Malthus as an emissary of Abadar - its purpose in existing is to teach Eswain to be a Paladin. I will not lie, I do intend to use the Animal Exemplar abilities to have the familiar build an "army of ravens," but I do not forsee more than one or two instances in the entire campaign where that could even be useful, and one is before those abilities will even kick in.
-----
Next, for the same reasons as above, I swapped the base raven Weapon Finesse feat for Master of Your Kind - while Ambassador lets this kick in at level 3 instead, it is still unusable before then. However, Weapon Finesse is redundant on Familiars, so an advantage early is neither gained nor lost.

I did the same for the horse granted by the Friends and Enemies trait, replacing Run and Endurance with Narrow Frame and Well-Trained. As a lifetime native of Sandpoint and an animal breeder/trainer, I'm also reflavoring the lore of the trait that Eswain was given the "best foal of his stock" rather than a trained adult horse - wouldn't make sense that she would take one like that anyway.

While I hope that her background will provide justification enough, looking at this character from the outside is a difficult thing to do - it's all over the place.

I like the paladin class for this campaign, but I was not inspired by the traditional Golarion pally orders. Additionally, the Fey Foundling trait implies something is decidedly off about a character, and I wanted to highlight that with Eswain. She is a literal wild child from the wilderness - in a homebrew, sandbox-ier style, I'd argue for the GM to reveal that she's not actually human sometime later in the game - and was forced into civility and order by "normal" humanoids in a community. I tried to imagine the psychological effect of this on a person, while not being as Jodi Foster about it as the movies. My conclusion was that she would become obsessed with order and structure, seeing it as the hallmark of rightness. However, her nature is to not be so ordered - to that end, I have her dedicating herself to imposing order upon nature.

Lore-wise, Abadar is the God of Cities - but cities are not self-sustaining, and the larger and more ordered a civilization is, the more outlying support is required. Farmers for food, cloths and leathers; fishers; loggers and miners for building materials - these are all vital in the functioning of a city, so why would Abadar not support these as well?

The raven fixation is admittedly modeled after the League of Legends character Swain - but the choices for Swarm Monger are limited, so when raven was an option it's clear why my mind took me there. And while many farmers consider birds to be pests on their crops, they also prevent crippling insect infestations - thus, trained birds would be nothing but a boon to farmers, and indeed the interior of the cities as well.

With the Nature Soul/Animal Ally feats, plus a second Boon Companion, I get a true Nature Bond as well, though limited to yet another small list. This isn't an issue, as Abadar is fond of golden eagles - but even a full-level eagle is low down on the combat spectrum of companions. I have not gone about seeing how I'll develop that one yet, but I'm sure it will be similar to the raven - a beacon of Abadar's faith to show Eswain the way, and mechanically scout and get help over acting in combat itself.

There are a lot of extra animals - a monkey, 3 ravens, 5 thrush, 2 mongooses, 2 goats, and 10 common cats. I have their tricks listed, but the only ones trained in Attack are the cats, and only the simple version. However, I do not plan to take them into combat - it is another part of the theme. At her farm, she keeps upwards of 100 cats. While they're "common," she has bred them to behave more akin with wild species - in addition to vermin control, their primary purpose is to guard her livestock. Many farmers keep a few donkey with their cattle, as a donkey will fight a coyote and serve almost like a guard dog in that respect. For Eswain, these are her cats (one of Abadar's favored animals, as well) - they guard and protect her herds, and woe to the dozen coyotes who think they can fight ten cats each.

For our campaign, the cats will likely disperse after we leave Sandpoint - she brings them with her into town to set loose and find any vermin that are around as a service to the people (and free food for the cats). They monkey (Abadar's main favored animal) will stick around but is strictly non-combat - his main use is as an aid for daily chores, and he knows Break Out should that ever come into play. The ravens and thrush are scouts and watch guards, also trained to seek out the familiar, Ameiko, and/or Ilsoari Gandethus - the usefulness of which is up to you, as they'd all just fly back to Sandpoint. The mongooses are the trackers, like dogs would be in these scenarios. The two goats are the nannies who bore the marked kids, freshened and producting milk but also ready to be shorn, so she brought them to sell the angora and milk them. I will probably drag them along for most of the campaign until they're impractical, but they're just for the milk at that point, as well as the bearers of omens or what have you that's indicating Eswain's about to be a Paladin.

Lastly, I will opt for Gray Paladin in order to have the Neutral requirement from Druid, as well as Legate to remove the need for metal armor or the crazy-priced replacements that're offered. I may or may not take Mount, depending on the flow of the campaign, but I do not want to throw yet another combat animal onto the field, and the skillset I have is built is not optimized for riding. If it is an alternate, it will likely be the Archon Bond, as having debilitating, glowing red eyes also fits with the swarm of ravens and general impending doom vibe - however if my dips have hindered my self-healing (which is the primary "tank" mechanism here), I'll pick Agathion Bond.