About Freya GillesFreya Gilles's family had once meant something in Cheliax; so her parents had always told her. Unfortunately, when the House of Thrune arose, her ancestors had chosen unwisely, believing that the status quo would crush the ambitious upstarts. When their reckoning proved fatally mistaken, the family's aspirations were permanently dashed. The family themselves, however, persisted, handing down a constant grudge against the Thrunes and the diabolist power structure. Oh, they attended all the required festivals and paid lip service to Asmodeus, but in the privacy of their own home, they bitterly mocked their so-called social "betters" and taught their children to do the same. Freya was raised on stories of the privileges that ought rightfully to have been hers, if the House of Thrune and their sycophant hangers-on hadn't come along. All this changed, however, when Freya was about 14 years old and her older sister, a remarkably pretty girl, attracted the attentions of the son of one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in Egorian. The noble family the Gilleses had once railed against as Johnny-come-latelys, they now courted and flattered assiduously. As the betrothal negatiations commenced, a difficulty arose, however, in the general reputation of the Gilleses as not sufficiently devout. On the spot, Freya's parents denounced such scurrilous rumors and announced that their younger daughter was, in fact, on the brink of joining a religous order of Asmodean sisters. Freya found herself seized by family retainers and forcibly entered into the Most Diabolical Order of Asmodean Sisters, an adjunct to the cathedral which her family had always mocked as a whorehouse of weak-minded girls for the ranks of the Asmodean priesthood. The "education" Freya was to benefit from consisted of lessons in the greatness of House Thrune, instruction in the benefits of worshipping Asmodeus, and, most of all, the drumming into her head of the supreme importance of obedience. Punishments for disobedience were harsh, and Freya, being both naturally stubborn and nurtured to disobey, lived the next few years in a near-constant state of punishment. One of the common denominators of the punishments she endured was isolation. In theory, she shared a common room with other sisters of the same age; in practice, she spent virtually every night locked in a small dusty room in a tower, an open window of which let in the chilly breeze as well as numerous vermin and the occasional bat, to "examine herself and reflect on the benefits of obedience." One night, she was, as usual, locked in the dark room, lying on the cold stone floor among bird feces and bat guano and being pelted by a cold rain that blew through the high window. She was not examining herself but sobbing in rage and hatred for the Asmodeans who tormented her and the family that had abandoned her. She wished a particularly gruesome fate on the sister for whose benefit she had been sacrificed. It was not unlike any other night, until, out of the dark corners of the room where the vermin lived, a rather large centipede crawled toward her, stopped, and raised its upper body in the air, multiple legs waving, as if examining her. With a shudder of revulsion, she drew away from the creature. Then, she heard a voice, whether in her mind or from all around her in the room, she didn't know. Accept my gift, and I can free you. Looking wildly around her, she could see no one who could be addressing her, but the voice spoke again: Accept my gift and be free. She looked again at the centipede, and the thought of its tiny grasping legs and smooth segments touching her body made her skin crawl. On the other hand, the thought of enduring endless years imprisoned in the Asmodean sisterhood ... well, that was unthinkable. Slowly, reluctantly, she lowered her hand toward the verminous creature. As soon as it could reach, it scurried up her arm and curled around her neck as quick as lightning. Freya suffered a moment of nausea and disgust, but only a moment. After that, power flooded into her very being: power and understanding and ... kinship with the centipede. With a tiny smile curling her lips, she climbed up to the sill of the window, looked down at the lights of Egorian 60 feet below ... and stepped out into a new life. FREYA GILLES CR 1
Created With Hero Lab® - try it for free at http://www.wolflair.com! centipede (familiar):
ARCANE FAMILIAR CR 1/8
Male Centipede, House Tiny Magical Beast Init +4; Senses Darkvision (60 feet); Perception +9 -------------------- DEFENSE -------------------- AC 19, touch 16, flat-footed 15. . (+4 Dex, +2 size, +3 natural) hp 10 (1d10) Fort +2, Ref +6, Will +3 Immune mind-affecting -------------------- OFFENSE -------------------- Spd 40 ft., Climbing (40 feet) Melee Bite (Centipede, House) +7 (1d3-5/20/x2) Space 2.5 ft.; Reach 0 ft. -------------------- STATISTICS -------------------- Str 1, Dex 19, Con 10, Int 6, Wis 10, Cha 2 Base Atk +1; CMB +3; CMD 8 (can't be Tripped) Feats Go Unnoticed, Weapon Finesse Skills Acrobatics +8, Climb +16, Escape Artist +6, Fly +8, Intimidate -2, Perception +9, Stealth +25, Swim +4 Languages SQ Improved Evasion (Ex), Poison: Bite-injury (DC 10) (Ex) --------------------
Created With Hero Lab® - try it for free at http://www.wolflair.com! Familiar's Spells:
XP: 3012 |
