'Fain' Phainopepla Grassbottom's page

(+6class +1int) 7rnks +2background/lvl
Acrobatics rnks 2 bonus (+3dex +2race) +7
Appraise rnks 0 bonus (+1int) +1
Artistry- illustration rnks 1 bonus (+3class +1int) +5 1 bkgrnd rank
Artistry- journaling rnks 1 bonus (+3class +1int) +5 1 bkgrnd rank
Bluff rnks 1 bonus (+3cha) +4/+6 animals*
(C) Climb rnks 1 bonus (+3class +2race) +6
(C) Craft- leather/taxidermy rnks 3 bonus (+3class +1 int +2mw tools) +9 3 bkgrnd rnks
Diplomacy rnks 1 bonus (+1 trait +3cha) +5
Disable Device rnks 0 bonus n/a
Disguise rnks 0 bonus (+3cha) +3
Escape Artist rnks 0 bonus (+3dex) +3
Fly rnks 0 bonus (+3dex) +3
(C) Handle Animal rnks 1 bonus (+3class +1wis) +5
(C) Heal rnks 1 bonus (+3class +1wis) +5
(C) Intimidate rnks 0 bonus (+3cha) +3
Knowledge (arcana) rnks 0 bonus n/a
(C) Knowledge (dungeon.) rnks 0 bonus n/a
Knowledge (engin.) rnks 0 bonus n/a
(C) Knowledge (geog.) rnks 1 bonus (+3class +1int) +5/+7wooded areas
Knowledge (history) ranks 0 bonus n/a
(C) Knowledge (local) rnks 1 bonus (+3class +1trait +1int) +6
(C) Knowledge (nature) rnks 1 bonus (+3class +1int) +5/+7 animals
Knowledge (nobility) rnks 0 bonus n/a
Knowledge (planes) ranks 0 bonus n/a
Knowledge (religion) rnks 0 bonus n/a
Linguistics rnks 0 bonus (+1int) n/a
(C) Perception rnks 1 bonus (+3class +2race +1wis) +7/+9 animals
- in wooded areas (+2sp. class) +9/+11animals
Perform rnks 0 bonus (+3cha) +3
(C) Profession (gardner) rnks 1 bonus (+3class +1wis) +5 1 rnk bkgrnd
(C) Ride rnks 1 bonus (+3class +3dex) +6
(C) Sense Motive rnks 2 bonus (+3class +1trait +1wis) +7/+9 animals
Slight of Hand rnks 0 bonus n/a
(C) Spell Craft rnks 0 bonus n/a
(C) Stealth rnks 3 bonus (+3class +4size +3dex) +13
- in wooded areas (+2 sp. class) +15
(C) Survival rnks 3 bonus (+3class +1wis) +7
- Tracking (+1/2 lvl) +8/+10 animals
- Tracking in woods (+2sp. class) +10/+12 animals
(C) Swim rnks 1 bonus (+3class) +4
Use Magic Device rnks 0 bonus n/a

Encumbrence: Light 0-33lbs / Moderate 34-66lbs / Heavy 67-100lbs
Everyday
(n/a) Explorer's Outfit - hearty canvas short breaches with leather knees, suspenders, a wide brown belt, sensible ochre shirt with evergreen over-tunic, gard'ner's gloves, and a rain cloak. The clothes have plenty of pockets. He keeps a large handkerchief in his back pocket and his cloak hood down for his wide brimmed hat.
(01lb) Waist pouch (74gp 7sp)
(01lb) mw Kukri
(02lb) Ink (x2), Ink pen (x3), Field Journal (x2; only a few pages used)
Sub Total 4 lbs lightly encumbered

Armed
(10lbs) +1 Studded Leather Armor
(1.5lb) mw Halfling Long Bow
(1.5lb) Common Arrows (16)
Sub Total 13 lbs Total 17 lbs lightly encumbered

Traveling/Hunting
Encumbrence: Light 0-38lbs / Moderate 39-76lbs / Heavy 77-115lbs
(17lbs) Ranger's Kit - mw backpack, a bedroll, a belt pouch, a flint and steel, iron pot, mess kit, rope, everburning torch, trail rations (5 days), a waterskin, travelers dictionary, 12 hand written letters.
(03lbs) Fishing Kit - simple fishing pole and a small box that contains fishing tackle (hooks, lines, sinkers, floats, and lures).
(05lbs) mw Leatherworker's Tools
(01lb) Healer's Kit (10 uses)
Sub Total 25lbs Total 42lbs moderately encumbered

Taxidermy (stays in his rented room)
(01lb) Field Journal - filled
(01lb) Murder Journal - filled
(0.1lb) Little brown bat
(0.3lbs) Speckled Cape Tortoise
(70lbs) Razorback (6gp and a dozen letters are hidden inside)
(04lbs) Ferret-badger
(0.5ibs) Five different breeds of mouse (cypriot, wood, deer, yellow-necked, and gairdner's shrewmouse)

Dear Genoise,

That’s it, I’m packing up and heading out. The floods have ruined every likelihood for a real yield, and my parents, Yondalla hold them to her ampleness, did not leave me enough to keep our interest in the community farm going. Shpaikler’s Medow is used up. But don’t go looking for me amongst the diaspora of Halbmench just trying to find another plentiful gathering of our people. I’m headed for the coast. Illsurian’s the ticket. I’m sure to find work in a free town like that. And not more farming! Something with some style, something more devil-may-care, something like … freelance gardening!
Give crotchety old man Solehide my best. I won’t go to see him before I leave, but, when I get to where I’m going, I’ll write. There’s no talking me out of it this time. In fact, by the time you find this I’ll already be gone. Tell him that the northern pigmy owl is his. I know how much he admired it. The leather satchel, I made for you. I think it’s my best yet.
And, please, every once in a while go see Muter and Fater. The poppy and pink carnation you find there were from me.

Your best of all acquaintances,
Fain

Dear Headmaster Solehide,

I’m sorry for not having written you sooner but I wanted to be set up in a room and working before you had a chance to get me entangled in one of your debates. Also, my deepest apologies for how I left but I’m gone now and that’s that. I’m in Illsurian. You know how much I’ve been wanting to be amongst Men, amongst human’s and their beautiful mess.Here all debate has been milled into dispute, all of the spirits have been turned into ghosts, and all of the traditions into sun beaten duty. It’s wonderful.
I’m gardening now. It’s ok. There is money in it, in-fact, I’ve been earning about seven or eight crowns a week.
There is quiet also. I’ve been hiking out of town. There is some wildlife not far from Skull River. I’ve even cracked my old journals and started some new pages. I saw a phyla-wolf the other day. They call them thrush hounds here. It was digging for brown thrasher eggs until daylight then trotted off.
Thank you for letting me keep up my strange animals studies back then. I know you thought it was a bit foolish, that I was ‘indulging myself in idleness’, but it gives me peace.

and I hope peace is what you have now,
Phainopepla Grassbottom

Master P. Grassbottom,

We are writing you to express our gratitude for your finding ‘Cavalier’, the Arasmes Family’s Korvosian leapard dog. You have shown yourself a very capable pet tracker and I’m sure that Lord Arasmes will be able to find some small reward for your labour … but, we find we must repeat our previous warning that you not pass around idle speculation about how the animal had come to be missing! The Varisian in question has been detained, we have proper witnesses, and suggestions of show tampering by the Narsius Family will not be taken lightly.
If there is any recurrence of these rumours please expect to be charged.

Most sincerely,
The Visiting Judge Committee

Dear Genoise,

If only you could have been there! I was behind the blind I built, remember? The one I wrote about last time? I had a stuffed cypriot mouse fastened on the end of a thread trying to coax an osprey down from it’s perch. So, it worked … a little too well.
The osprey dove for my bait but as it reached the forest bed I could hear something charging through the brush. The osprey had lured out a massive razorback which barrelled through the duck blind and bowled me over. I was face first in the earth as it started it’s wide turn getting ready to come back for more. Well, you don’t have to write the instructions on the heel to get me to pour pee out of a boot - I grabbed my bow and made a run for it … right against a thorny thicket!
So there I was, backed against a bramble, a one hundred and seventy-five pound wild boar charging my way, me holding my bow in one hand and one arrow in the other.
I did the only thing I could do. I armed the bow, got down on one knee, closed one eye, took a breath, and fired. I shot it from fifty feet! Right in the breast … and it kept charging!! I ducked down and the beast put two hooves deep into the middle of my back and went head first into the thorns. It was sad really. I had to limp back to my shelter for more arrows to give the beast some comfort.
Anyway, I think I have enough cotton to immortalize the razorback in all of it’s glory.

Please write soon. It’s been a while,
Fain

Dearest Fain,

It’s been two years since you’ve left for that fishing town and I’m afraid I have bad news. The floods have returned and the family house is ruined. Old Solehide is packing up and moving. So am I. It’s why I haven’t written. I’m afraid I’ll be going to one of those strongholds of our people you once showed such disdain for. Don’t worry. I won’t be so far away that I can't be reached by post, though, these letters are already too expensive. I won’t be able to write even this often.
I found myself trying to picture you yesterday. Do you still look the same? I try to remember your ochre shirts, perpetually earthy knees, and that wide brimmed hat of your Fater’s. How your wild brown hair stuck out from beneath it. Do you still go barefoot? or have the town fashions tricked you into wearing shoes like the biguns? I think not. I still envision you proud-footed with that gentle smile you used to open doors. You could insinuate yourself into the private business of a clergyman’s solicitor and have him serving you tea and cheese.
Please be careful. Remember what my Muter used to say, ‘Your meddling may be exciting but some laundry is best dried at night’.

Your oldest friend,
Genny

PS. The crotchety headmaster still has the little owl you stuffed and takes it out to admire when he thinks no one is looking.

Dearest Genoise,
I find I'm awake at an ungodly hour and there is nothing for it but I have to write you.

First, I am sorry. I met a young boy here in Illsurian who reminded me of something I'd forgotten. I'd forgot just how much I delayed leaving, hoping you would change your mind and join me. It is right that you should have stayed with our people and I will never bring myself to regret breaking from them, but I never want to forget how much I wanted your company then. Something happened to me recently and I wanted to be sure you knew.

Second, I may have made something quite valuable. I think I have made friends. Sure I have acquaintances enough in Illsurian but these are not that.

There's Thrym, a tsofndiky, a proper nord. He could grimace the bark off an ash and I've seen him bring a soul without sign of life back to breathing first hand. He's got a weight about him. One of those always but never alone types. Haunted. Oh, I'm sure a story would come pouring out of him, accompanied by fiery angels and strange profits. Given enough time.

There's Luk Luk. She's the oddest elf I've met - though I haven't met many. She can be kindness itself but, occasionally, if you look hard enough it seems there is a furnace behind her eyes. She is a studied type. She knows more than is healthy to know about fireworks. I believe she is a deception. Someone with immense hidden skill and it is only her good will that keeps people from knowing what terror she is capable of. You might find that dramatic but but I am certain she would never let it come to that.

And you'll laugh. The very finest of them is halbmench. Not some runaway like me but a kind of roving justiciar and quite the most earnest halfling (if you'll excuse the bigun' slang) I've ever met ... excepting yourself. He has this shod gaming mallet that I've seen him beat down terrible folk with - but not an ounce of snobbery when he is amongst others. Part of me wants to be him when I grow up.

The last two are almost sisters - I'm sure there's some familial connection there somewhere. One Alenka, sometimes called goggles, who is also a studied sort. She is much like me but without my sentimentality. Like me she's very interested in the workings of the body and the natural world, and the smartest person I've ever met (apologies to Solehide). Her sister I'm sure is part orc. She is terrifying and powerful and goes by the name Jenni. She seems a little hard on herself but I've heard her utter some of the most profound rationalizations - and you should have seen her riddle out some flawless trickery at the local traveling circus. There is nothing that she says that doesn't have a zen master's simplicity.

Anyway, I think they will be leaving soon. I will call myself quite unlucky if we never meet again. I will miss them.

As I miss you,
your great friend always,
F

Dearest Fain,

We are doing alright here. The settlement was already about three hundred big before we Shpaikler’s refugees arrived and increased it by half again. The place is called Niderikgable, and it’s near Eranmas in Molthune. Please send your letters here now, I almost missed your last one but it was transferred on by a few stragglers from Lastwall who remembered you (you remember little Ner's sister Glucke?)

Which brings me to your last letter.

First of all, thank you for the pressed flowers. They’re astonishing. I recognize some of them but had to confer with Old Solehide to be sure. One of them is a Desna’s Slipper! But they grow south of Qadira? So do the heliconias, and the bromeliads. Are the seeds you sent more of these?
Where did you go? You’re not in Ilsurian any more?
The drawings are rather fine and a little frightening. It looks like some sort of ruin and the note on the back says Jalmeray. Please be careful. Remember what my muter used to say, “the curious make bad lawyers.”

Secondly, how were you able to secure the letter of credit? One thousand crowns! I have never seen a sum so big. We are all in need here and I cannot turn it down … or else be sure that I would. It’s too generous. I only promise that it is being used well by as many as it can be stretched to.
Don’t worry. I’ve only told Solehide where it came from. I know you wouldn’t want people feeling … indebted. You don’t belong to us anymore but I don’t think you’ve cut the string yet.

Lastly, please send more tales about your new friends. Several of the sisters here are swooning over this Vard and his fighting demons with his great mallet – surely this is just a story. Your descriptions of the northerner, the elven wonder worker, and this Varisian , um, mortician? have us all wanting more.

Your friend,
Genoise