Ileana Cercel's page

Two Minds (Su): You gain a +2 bonus on Will saves against enchantment spells or effects. At 7th level, you may reroll a failed Will save once per day as an immediate action. You must take the second result, even if it is worse.

Undead Servitude (Su) 6/day: You gain Command Undead as a bonus feat. You can channel negative energy a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier, but only to use Command Undead. You can take other feats to add to this ability, such as Improved Channeling, but not feats that alter this ability, such as Alignment Channel.

Class Skills: An oracle with a bones mystery adds Bluff, Disguise, Intimidate, and Stealth to her list of class skills.

Bonus Spells: cause fear (2nd), false life (4th), animate dead (6th), fear (8th), slay living (10th), circle of death (12th), control undead (14th), horrid wilting (16th), wail of the banshee (18th).

Revelations

An oracle with the bones mystery can choose from any of the following revelations.

Armor of Bones (Su): You can conjure armor made of bones that grants you a +4 armor bonus. At 7th level, and every four levels thereafter, this bonus increases by +2. At 13th level, this armor grants you Damage Reduction 5/bludgeoning. You can use this armor for 1 hour per day per oracle level. This duration does not need to be consecutive, but it must be spent in 1-hour increments.

Bleeding Wounds (Su): Whenever a creature takes damage from one of your spells or effects that causes negative energy damage (such as inflict light wounds or the death’s touch revelation), it begins to bleed, taking 1 point of damage each round. At 5th level, and every five levels thereafter, this damage increases by 1. The bleeding can be stopped by a DC 15 Heal check or any effect that heals damage.

Death’s Touch (Su): You can cause terrible wounds to appear on a creature with a melee touch attack. This attack deals 1d6 points of negative energy damage +1 point for every two oracle levels you possess. If used against an undead creature, it heals damage and grants a +2 channel resistance for 1 minute. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.

Near Death (Su): You gain a +2 insight bonus on saves against diseases, mind-affecting effects, and poisons. At 7th level, this bonus also applies on saves against death effects, sleep effects, and stunning. At 11th level, the bonus increases to +4.

Raise the Dead (Su): As a standard action, you can summon a single skeleton or zombie to serve you. The undead creature has a number of Hit Dice equal to your oracle level. It remains for a number of rounds equal to your Charisma modifier. At 7th level, you can summon a bloody skeleton or fast zombie. At 15th level, you can summon an advanced skeleton or zombie. You can use this ability once per day plus one additional time per day at 10th level.

Resist Life (Su): You are treated as an undead creature when you are targeted by positive or negative energy. You are not subject to Turn Undead or Command Undead (or any other effect that specifically targets undead), unless you are actually an undead creature. At 7th level, you receive channel resistance +2. This bonus increases by +2 at 11th and 15th level.

Soul Siphon (Su): As a ranged touch attack, you can unleash a ray that causes a target to gain one negative level. The ray has a range of 30 feet. This negative level lasts for a number of minutes equal to your Charisma modifier. Whenever this ability gives a target a negative level, you heal a number of hit points equal to your oracle level. You can use this ability once per day, plus one additional time at 11th level and every four levels thereafter. You must be at least 7th level to select this revelation.

Spirit Walk (Su): As a standard action, you can become incorporeal and invisible. While in this form, you can move in any direction and through any object (except for those made of force). You can take no action other than to move while in this form. You remain in this form for a number of rounds equal to your oracle level, but you can end this effect prematurely with a standard action. You can use this ability once per day at 11th level, and twice per day at 15th level. You must be at least 11th level to select this revelation.

Undead Servitude (Su): You gain Command Undead as a bonus feat. You can channel negative energy a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier, but only to use Command Undead. You can take other feats to add to this ability, such as Improved Channeling, but not feats that alter this ability, such as Alignment Channel.

Voice of the Grave (Su): You can speak with dead, as per the spell, for a number of rounds per day equal to your oracle level. These rounds do not need to be consecutive. At 5th level, and every five levels thereafter, the dead creature takes a cumulative –2 penalty on its Will save to resist this effect.

Final Revelation

Upon reaching 20th level, you become a master of death. Once per round, you can cast bleed or stabilize as a free action. If you are brought to below 0 hit points, you automatically stabilize. You can cast animate dead at will without paying a material component cost (although you are still subject to the usual Hit Die control limit). Once per day, you can cast power word kill, but the spell can target a creature with 150 hit points or less.

Tongues

In times of stress or unease, you speak in tongues.

Effect

Pick one of the following languages: Abyssal, Aklo, Aquan, Auran, Celestial, Ignan, Infernal, or Terran.

Whenever you are in combat, you can only speak and understand the selected language. This does not interfere with spellcasting, but it does apply to spells that are language dependent. You gain the selected language as a bonus language.

At 5th level, pick an additional language to speak in combat and add it to your list of known languages.

At 10th level, you can understand any spoken language, as if under the effects of tongues, even during combat.

At 15th level, you can speak and understand any language, but your speech is still restricted during combat.

Gavril Cercel had been informed of a babe in a wicker basket (of sorts, made from gnarled black roots and branches and tied together with what looked like human hair) discovered on the doorstep of his townhouse in Caliphas city in Ustalav. The man paled upon the news and inwardly quaked, the enormity and consequence of a prior, secret, intimate assignation falling down around him in the moment. He had been taken in by the likes of a hag – she had appeared comely to him at first and being a young man of 22 years of age he had succumbed to the charms of the villainous female, only realising too late her true form/nature. The hag had disappeared as soon as the act was complete.

Gavril was the only son of a notable silk merchant in the city. Alas, his father, Eugen, had succumbed to drink and withered away into death, leaving his then ten year old son in the sole care of a dispassionate mother. The austere matriarch, Daciana Cercel, ruled the household with a sharp tongue and dour disposition. She was a cruel woman deep inside.
Upon first glance at the sweet, sleeping babe with fairest skin and darkest hair, Gavril could not turn her away – to be confined to one of the miserable foundling homes in the city. He steeled himself and explained the tawdry tale to Daciana. As Daciana Cercel looked down upon her first grandchild, a thin-lipped cold smile marked her face – A girl, she had thought – Not a boy to carry on the family name. She bade her son to drown the child immediately and never think of it again. That such an act would be mercy on such a poor, woe begotten soul. It was in that moment that the babe awoke and slowly opened her eyes. Daciana gasped and furiously warded herself against the evil that bore an innocent face with mismatched eyes. The baby girl had one brown eye (left) and one blue eye (right). ”It is not human! It must be put down, Gavril!” Daciana had decried; her own brown eyes flat/hard. Gavril would not permit such a foul deed and reminded his mother that he was the man of the household and his word was law. They were no murderers of innocent children.

The unusual, pretty babe stared up at her father and Gavril, transfixed, could not turn his gaze away…It was then he named her Ileana. Ileana watched him silently, no cry to rent the peace of the household, the mismatched eyes measuring his worth, or so he felt. She was beautiful in an uncommon way, yet the babe did not smile or gurgle happily. Her face was emotionless and breathtaking at the same time. Gavril made the babe’s birthday the day she was discovered, not knowing when Ileana’s foul mother had actually given birth to the child.

Ileana grew up in a household where her father spent little time with her and her grandmother hated the very sight of her. Daciana lurked the corridors; dark eyes following her granddaughter at every turn. When Ileana was three years old, her father married a woman named Violeta, whose father was a business associate of Gavril’s. Violeta never took kindly to her stepdaughter and, try as she might, could not bear her husband a child of their very own. She blamed Ileana, of course, saying the child, out of spite, had put a curse on her to remain barren. Daciana had eagerly beaten the child with merciless strokes upon her small back, but Ileana never once cried out during the punishment. It was a miracle that such a frail-looking child could withstand the violence and spite. A grandmother should protect not harm her grandchild. Three year old Ileana did not understand what she had done to make her grandmother hate her, but she felt the negative emotion coat all the chambers and corridors of her home; what should have been a safe haven for the small child, felt corrupted and threatening.

It was right after the whipping that Ileana (in her state of physical weakness and pain) started to hear the voice in her head. It was not her usual, child-like thoughts/prattle, but something other, older and earthier – a raspy, genderless voice, reaching and grasping at Ileana. When the voice first spoke, little Ileana felt pushed out from her body, as if her fragile spirit was semi-detached and watching from the outside in. The oil lights in the chamber and hallway outside began to flicker, slowly then more quickly until they started to dim and then extinguish one at a time. A deep chill pervaded her skin, into her very bones, and a dank, earthy smell filled the spaces. Frightened and confused anew, the child scratched at her head with her unusually long and strong fingernails, trying to tear the voice out. However, she only managed to mark her forehead and ears with a multitude of deep, bleeding scratches. Ileana didn’t feel the pain of them as her body was still shuddering from the recent assault upon her back.

When her father returned from the markets, he noticed the facial wounds upon his daughter (but not the covered back wounds). Gavril scolded Daciana for her cruelty on the poor child, and asked his wife, Violeta, to bandage the numerous cuts and provide some relief to Ileana. When her husband moved away, toward their bed chamber, Violeta had thrown the salve and cloth strips at Ileana, ”Tend to yourself, dark one. I will not touch your tainted flesh” and then left her, alone. The injured three year old child mended herself as best as she could. The raspy voice was persistent – brushing across Ileana’s mind – pulling at it, bidding her to act. Young Ileana wondered if she was going mad, yet she had no one to talk to about it. No loving kin to tell her everything would be alright. That night, she locked herself in her bed chamber, placing a chair up against the door knob lest her grandmother return to finish her off. Ileana did that every night thereafter.

When Ileana reached adolescence, another voice came to her. Outwardly, the child showed no visible signs of her malady – Ileana veiled her face with soft, pretty smiles and enacted a pleasant/pleasing outward demeanour – practiced and ready. Ileana’s dreams were seized by an ominous blurry image and a silvery voice insistently calling her and bidding her to follow. Ileana sought the original voice – the raspy one – Other - to help shut it out; push it from her mind lest she go completely and utterly mad. The second, silvery voice persisted for over a week before Ileana and the Other silenced it for good. Ileana was relieved to not have her head filled with so many voices. The second voice did not make her skin feel cold or affect the lights. It had been different and now it was gone. Ileana wondered at how powerful the Other was and if one day it would consume her will and spirit entirely. What will become of me?

Gavril ensured his daughter was well educated – tutors and religious teachers were brought into the home as Daciana would not have the child wandering about Calipha and polluting/disgracing the Cercel name through Ileana’s obvious oddity and the unpalatable circumstance of her birth. Gavril noted the growing list of wounds and injuries on his daughter yet could not get an answer from Ileana as to she had incurred them. He was oblivious to the harm perpetrated, on Ileana, by his own mother and even his wife at times. However, he concluded a little defensive training would be good for Ileana – noting her physical strength (even for one so petite/slight in body) and her strong, long nails which could cut and mark skin with ease. For all the Other instructed her to do, Ileana never once struck out at her grandmother and/or step-mother, even when they were at their cruellest.

As she aged, Ileana grew lovelier in face and form, yet the household staff, Daciana and Violeta feared/reviled the mismatched eyes and the child’s propensity to keep her own company and talk alone in a strange, made-up language. There was the question of the flickering lights and strange smell, as well, but no one voiced the concern openly for fear of repercussion.

When Ileana was fourteen years old, a renowned scholar by the name of Petros Lorrimor was commissioned for a short time to further her higher-level studies. Professor Lorrimor was unlike any of her other tutors and treated her relatively well – he seemed rather intrigued by Ileana, especially when the lights flickered and the earthy smell filled the library.

It was during one of these study sessions that her stepmother (who had finally fallen pregnant and was due to give birth to Ileana’s little brother or sister) had gone into labour. The birthing was a long, arduous and painful process and the townhouse was filled with Violet’s belaboured cries and screams. Ileana was fascinated by the labouring sounds and cries and the Other inside her head whispered endlessly, even as Professor Lorrimor taught his lesson and noticed the happenings. Then a complete silence descended over the house before it was broken by an anguished scream/wail! ”My child is dead. My boy is dead. The thing downstairs killed it; killed my baby with her evil heart and soul. My son is dead!” Her stepmother was unjustly accusing her and before Ileana could register it entirely the Other’s voice came flooding in before her grandmother came rushing into the library, murderous intent blazing from her dark eyes, large kitchen knife in hand. Professor Lorrimor reacted immediately, standing up and stepped in, placing himself between the child and the elder. ”Mistress Daciana, Ileana is not at fault. She has been here with me all evening, studying. Calm yourself, madam. I realise that you are distraught at the loss of your anticipated grandson, but killing your granddaughter will not return him to you. You must attend Mistress Violeta at this time. I shall oversee Ileana.” Daciana scowled at the scholar, her stern features a mask of fury and pain. The oil lights flickered erratically and Lorrimor reached for the knife, taking it from the matriach’s hand. Daciana left the chamber soon after, slamming the heavy door behind her. Sobbing could be heard as the matriarch hurried up the stone stairway, back to the chamber of her daughter-in-law and stillborn grandson.

Professor Lorrimor put the knife down on the table, turned to Ileana and stated quietly, ”There will be a time when I shall call upon your service in restitution for interceding on your behalf this day. You shall not ignore my summons. Do you understand, Ileana? Remember me and this promise.” The child nodded her head, the Other’s voice silent at this time, the lights and smells returned to normal. Lorrimor waited with Ileana until her distraught father returned home. Lorrimor knew Daciana would not attempt to kill the child again with her father present.

Life followed a similar pattern for the next few years. Ileana’s fascination with death and un-death intensified and she immersed herself in her studies (both sanctioned and secret/private). The beatings had stopped but the murderous looks and constant disapproval (from Daciana and Violeta) were regular and abiding. Violeta and her father had tried to conceive another child after losing their son, whom they named ‘Eugen’ after Gavril’s father, but they were unsuccessful. Ileana became Gavril’s only child. Violeta had grown distant and her melancholy and anger consumed her. When Ileana was sixteen years old, Violeta gave into her anguish and failure and slit her wrists in the copper tub in her personal bathing room, bleeding out before she was discovered in the early evening by her husband. Daciana once again reared her ugly head and sought to have Ileana imprisoned for causing the death of her step-mother. Gavril would not hear the accusations and bade his elderly mother to still her viperous tongue and long-time vendetta. Daciana pretended to set aside her grievances when Gavril was in their vicinity. But the old woman wished Ileana ill and the Other wished for Daciana’s death.

Ileana never forgot the unusual scholar and constantly and anxiously wondered when he would call in her debt to him. She never saw Professor Lorrimor again, nor heard from him after the day of her brother’s birth; not until Ileana received word of the scholar’s death three years after their last meeting. Ileana was informed that she was named in his will and would have to travel to Ravengro for the funeral and the reading of the will.

Ileana is 4’10” tall and weighs 112 lbs. Long black hair, alabaster-pale skin, mismatched eyes (right eye blue, left eye brown) attractive, petite, slender and on the taller side for most of her kind. She is well dressed and speaks with a low, husky voice. When the Other is speaking to her/present, Ileana gives off an earthy scent...like freshly tilled soil.

Ileana is used to her own company (if you don't count the Other inside her mind). She does not get bored easily and is resourceful/studious/curious. She is adept at bluffing her way in certain social (and other) situations. Her immediate/foremost persona is cool (but not unsociable). When she meets people for the first time, she immediately assumes she will see their cruelty before their kindness (learned response from her "family"). She is a little odd, due to the possession thing, but she isn't consistently off-putting. She likes being different and has embraced her "madness" (via the Other). When she plays her part in social circles, she can be very charming/engaging, however her unique beauty can either attract or repulse. She bids her time ... and isn't impulsive or thoughtless. Ileana is keenly fascinated with death and undeath ... and she enjoys experimenting with and studying both.