Iko Ilue's page

Warpriest 1 - focused study: perception, feat: improved initiative, improved unarmed strike
Warpriest 2 -
Warpriest 3 - feat: combat reflexes
Warpriest 4 -
Warpriest 5 - feat: additional traits
Warpriest 6 - style: panther style, combat: step up
Warpriest 7 - feat: weapon focus (unarmed)
Warpriest 8 - focused study: acrobatics
Warpriest 9 - feat: panther claw
Warpriest 10 -
Warpriest 11 - feat: quicken blessing (air)
Warpriest 12 - style: panther parry, combat: following step
Warpriest 13 - feat: quicken blessing (destruction)
Warpriest 14 -
Warpriest 15 - feat: step up and strike, fighter: weapon focus, greater (unarmed)
Warpriest 16 - focused study: use magical device

Youth

Iko Ilue was born and raised in the the port town of Diobel (a short distance from the city of Absolom on the Isle of Kortos). At the age of seventeen he was offered a dangerous but potentially lucrative spot as a ship’s boy on a six month expedition aboard the Great Horizon to find, explore, and (hopefully) loot the fabled continent of Sarusan.

As a young man with little other opportunity before him -- and designs on a dowry large enough to marry his lover Fauana -- he seized the opportunity. After more than a month a-sea, they sighted strange birds in the sky and set sail straight toward them. 7 hours later the lookout did indeed see land...but his excitement was short-lived as a brutal tempest arose about them from all sides at once. The crew fought bravely to keep the Great Horizon afloat but it was tossed like a child’s toy and eventually torn asunder by the storm.

Iko has a vivid memory of being thrown from the ship and struggling to keep the sea water out of his mouth-- followed by the frightened realization that he was drowning as the swirling storm dragged him under. His next memory is waking on an unfamiliar shore, parched, hungry, sunburnt, and with a pounding in his head.

Stumbling among the tropical trees that lined the edge of the beach, Iko managed to find some overripe fruit to eat. It dulled his thirst and hunger, but the tempest in his head only continued to grow. Finally when he was near ready to take a rock to his own skull to end the throbbing, he heard a voice in the pounding waves that somehow matched and eased the pounding in his head.

”Kneel before Hei Feng, God of Thunder, The Dark Wind, The Crashing Waves, The Tempest That Wears All Things To Rubble. I have pulled you back from your death, and in so doing claim you for my own. You shall serve as my sacred fist, smashing hubris, showing the world that all eventually crumbles before wind and wave, thwarting those who seek to manipulate or destroy nature’s sacred might, and pushing back those meddling outsiders who attempt to encroach into this material plane.”

Iko Ilue dropped to his knees sputtering and stammering. ”You-- what does this mean? What happened to my--? What happens now? Wh-where do I go?” ...but the voice within the waves had faded and he was alone.

Walking along the beach, he collected what flotsam he could: sparse salvage from the Golden Horizon that had washed ashore on the same spot of coast. His most intriguing discovery was a wand of some sort, with a light wooden handle and tipped with obsidian. He walked for days, expecting more divine guidance but getting only silence.

Over the course of the next few weeks, he found that -- while he could no longer hear the voice of the Dark Wind -- if he lay out beneath the howling wind or beside the crashing waves he was filled with some modicum of Hei Feng’s power. He found access to magic that could create fresh water and purify rotten food, and to help him endure the elements....and in so doing he survived and regained his health as he walked North along the unfamiliar coast.

At night he would take out the wand and try to wrap his mind around it. He failed countless times and came near throwing it in frustration back into the sea, but eventually he found that he could -- occasionally -- activate it, and he was fascinated to find that it granted him thick armored skin like the bark of a tree.

Reborn in Tian Xa

For a few weeks he ate what he could scavenge while traveling north along the rocky coast, eventually arriving on the outskirts of the sprawling Tian Xa city of Goka. There he fell in with a mercenary company of irregulars that were tasked with combating the incursions of insatiable oni along the Wall of Heaven. During this time, he learned some of the native weapons of the region (such as the shuriken) and over time developed a level of comfort wearing armor while marching and fighting in the tropical heat.

Meanwhile his mastery of his newfound connection to Hei Feng grew...and he learned to understand the tempest pounding in his head: how it compelled him to fight those who would upset the balance of nature, especially those outsiders (of any stripe) who sought to twist, distort, or impose their artificial order onto the material world. The Dark Wind rarely spoke to him, and when it did it was in brief commands:

• ”That man believes his wealth can buy immortality. You will demonstrate to him that the sea claims all things, in time.”
  
• “That ruin is home to an other-dimensional abomination. You will smash it or send it running to the world it came from.”
  
• “That village houses a summoner who seeks to warp the fabric of nature. You will stop him.”

Sometimes months would pass without a command, and other times he’ll hear three in a week. In either case, Iko Ilue learned quickly that to delay following through on these orders would result in a pounding storm in his head that grew until he was incapable of any other action.

It took Iko nearly three years to return to Diobel, but eventually he earned enough money to book passage across the sea and back to Absolom. By the time he returned he was a profoundly changed man: his head was filled with the restless pounding of the sea. He’d known the horrors of war against the oni and the terrible trembling awe of hearing the voice of a god. Perhaps all the more so because of what had transpired, he craved to reunite with his betrothed, Fauana-- only to discover to his shock that she had been with child when he left...and that when he didn’t return after a year she was married off to his cousin Moti.

Life as a Pathfinder

His love married to another and no real prospects for himself in Diobel, Iko made his way to Absolom to join the Pathfinders. He found that his abilities were of great use, and that the journeys and explorations of a Pathfinder were a welcome distraction from the thunder that all too often roiled at the back of his head.

His last Pathfinder mission had grew in the end into something much more epic, and more painful. He was part of a small team of seasoned Pathfinders sent into the Mwangi Expanse to explore a lost Azlanti city whose location was recently discovered...only to find that there were ophidian cultists of the half-dead god Ydersius in the undercity, and that those cultists were attempting to restore the serpent-god to his former power. The odd assortment of Pathfinders -- Rathel, a human paladin of Iomadae, a halfeven witch named Tursul, a halfling investigator named Malley Butterhill, and Gork, a hobgoblin ranger -- spent more than a year tracking the cultists across the Mwangi and Sargava. Along the way they fought serpentfolk cultists of Ydersius and demons in the service of the Gorilla King Ruthazek and his demon-lord Angazhan. Malley was the first of them to die, brought down by a brutal tropical fever that none of their magic could tame. Later Tursul had his throat pierced by a serpentfolk’s poisoned arrow. Meanwhile Rathel’s righteousness had attracted a new companion: a Trumpet Archon of purity and light named Ifaeli, who helped them to finally defeat the half-risen Ydersius.

The surviving Pathfinders -- Iko Ilue, Rathel, Gork, and the archon Ifaeli -- celebrated their victory. As they divided their loot and planned their next steps, Rathel and Ifaeli announced with excitement that they’d realized what the next step of their mission was: to wipe out the insect-born diseases so endemic to the region, to teach the surrounding tribes to live by Iomedae’s divine laws, and to establish a bastion of Heaven and Purity here on Golarion.

Iko Ilue felt the thunderous roar of the god of nature’s destructive might growing in his head. These idiots-- Rathel and her angel-- are making the exact same mistake we fought against: the want to recreate nature in a distorted image, so confident that they can improve on the world of mortals.

They argued until Iko Ilue stormed off into the night. They’re intent on doing this, the fools! Well, if they want the heavens then I’ll send them there-- but I won’t allow them to tame and distort this land I’ve fought this last year and a half to protect.

Over the next few weeks, Iko Ilue scoured the surrounding jungle for allies and eventually made common cause with some odd ones: a group of local bloodragers who had lost their direction when Ruthazek’s forces abandoned them in retreat, and Obente, a saurian shaman from a local tribe of dinosaur worshipers who had had an uneasy truce with Ydersius’ cultists. Iko knew that to defeat Rathel, Ifaeli, and the lantern archons who had come at Ifaeli’s call to help in their misguided project, they needed to strike fast and hard.

The night they struck, Iko cast his preparatory spells, said a prayer for a clean death to his stubborn, misguided friends...and then gave the signal. The shaman summoned an earthquake to destroy the heavenly citadel they were building, crushing several lantern archons in the process and injuring Rathel and Ifaeli.

The trumpet archon rose from the rubble and retaliated with a mighty blast, paralyzing half the bloodragers where they stood. Obente (in the form of an allosaurus) charged in beside her mighty spinosaurus companion. Rathel’s glowing greatsword dug deep into the spinosaurous’ side, but the shaman and the dinosaur continued to claw and bite at the paladin. Meanwhile Iko Ilue -- filled with the crackling thunder of the Dark Wind -- flew at the meddling archon. He seized his opportunity, pummeling Ifaeli hard enough to shatter the archon’s jaw and pulp half of her face, but not quite hard enough to fell her. Ifaeli considered teleporting away but wasn’t willing to abandon her partner, Rathel. Instead the archon attempted to shift Iko Ilue into the Positive Energy Plane. Iko felt his body start to tingle and shift, but somehow managed to resist. Winding up into another haymaker, Iko felt himself channeling the pure destructive might of The Tempest That Wears All Things To Rubble. With a sigh, his fist once again connected, this time shattering ribs and bursting lungs until the archon collapsed inward in a burst of light.

Iko turned to see the look of despair and hatred on his old friend’s face. Taking advantage of her shock, the allosaurus-shaman and his spinosaurus companion managed, together, to pin the horrified paladin in their jaws. As Iko stepped in to bind Rathel, she spit in his face and screamed that he had betrayed his companions. Iko Ilue shook his head in sadness and replied. ”No, you betrayed our own mission when you decided to bring heaven to Golarion. That dream is over now and this land -- diseases and all -- is safe for the moment. I’m tying you up and sending you back to Cheliax. Fight devils there -- or the undead in Ustalav -- or get yourself to the Worldwound for all I care...just keep your meddling paws away from trying to control and make orderly that which is not yours to change.”

A brief retirement

Disheartened by the need to fight against his allies, Iko returned to Absolom but told the lodge he was on an extended break. He hadn’t seen his daughter for years -- and had never had the time around her to become truly close -- but he’d made sure she had the money she needed to open doors, and he was proud when he heard that she wanted to study directly with Brythen Blood at the College of Mysteries. Iko’s reputation was tainted by stories of his turning on his famous paladin companion, but still he was a powerful and respected Pathfinder, and he’d brought several priceless treasures back to the lodge from his time in the Mwangi. It was easy for him to get his daughter the opportunity.

More and more, he spent his time at the outskirts of Absolom, avoiding conversation and instead immersing himself in nature’s soothing might -- from crashing waves to beating sun. He checked up on his daughter regularly though (wishing for a closeness that he knew would never be possible) and when she told him about Blood’s sudden disappearance, Iko promised to do whatever he could to find him.