About Kata Coszmacrunch:
human female bard 3 (dirge bard) N medium human Init +2; Senses Perception +8 (+9 vs. traps) -------------
AC 15 , Touch 12, Flat footed 13, (10 +3 armor +2 dex)
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Spd 30 ft
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Str 14 Dex 14 Con 12 Int 14 Wis 8 Cha 18
Feats:
Traits:
Skills 36 (18 base + 3 human + 6 background + 6 int + 3 favored class)
Languages Taldane, Necrill, Varisian, Varisian Sign Language SQ: Focused Learner (trades out Bonus Feat); Skilled; Favored Class (3 skill); Bardic knowledge +1, Bardic performance (12 rounds; Inspire Competence +2; Inspire Courage +1); Trapfinding +1; Haunted eyes (+4 saves vs fear, energy drain, death effects necromantic effects); Secrets of the grave (+ half level to Lore[undead] checks to ID undead creatures and abilities, add necromancy spell to spell list at 2nd level and every four levels thereafter); -------------
0 (6; ∞/day; DC 14) - Daze, Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Light, Lullaby
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Longspear (5 gp; 9#), Sling (-;-), MW drums (50 gp, 1#), mw thieves' tools (100 gp, 5#), dagger (2 gp; 1#), studded leather (25 gp, 20#), backpack (2 gp, 2#), traveler's outfit (1 gp, 5#), trail rations x2 (1 gp, 2#), Goggles of minute seeing (2500 gp, -#) consumables: Bullets (10, 0.1gp, 5#), Scrolls (Share Language CL1, Silent Image CL1), bedroll (0.1, 5#) -------------
Light load: 58# Medium Load: 59-116# Heavy Load: 117-175# Total load: #54 -------------
13.8 --------------
Item GP Total -------------
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1st level spells: 2nd level spells: blindness/deafness, ancestral communion, blistering invective, cacophonous call, gallant inspiration, heroism, hold person, sound burst, silence 3rd: arcane concordance, channel the gift, charm monster, confusion, crushing despair, dispel magic, fear, good hope, haste, overwhelming grief, purging finale, reviving finale, shadow enchantment, slow, thunderous drums, feats: eldritch heritage (3rd - 7th), additional traits (3rd - 7th), heighten spell, improved eldritch heritage (11th & 13th), improved familiar (7th - 9th), intensify spell (5th - 15th), skill focus (8th & 16th), spell focus (enchantment, necromancy) (3rd - 9th), greater spell focus (enchantment, necromancy) (3rd - 9th), spell penetration (3rd - 9th), greater spell penetration (3rd - 9th) familiar: whippoorwill (thrush) 1. Lingering performance
Charisma boosting item
fluff:
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Kata clambered the rubble, grey streaks of dirt covering her hands and dress. Climbing was the most fun! Standing atop her pile of cairn stones, wind blew gently past Kata’s cheek, rustling the girl’s curly black hair and resonant with the Cairn’s phenomena - strange gusts of wind, improbable in the tomb’s chilly damp air, which sounded, vaguely, like whispers in a long dead and forgotten tongue. A shiver crawled up Kata’s back and Kata smiled, a crook-toothed grin lost in the cairn’s dim light. Climbing was not the most fun. ”Caith!” Kata yelled, her voice rebounding into the darkness. ”Did you hear that one? I think it said, I’m going to EAT YOU UP!” Further in the tomb, a small mote of light appeared above Caith’s head, silhouetting the girl, who’s voice echoed back to Kata, disembodied. ”Look at you, Ka! Queen of the mountaintop!” Kata beamed - Caith was the girls’ leader: smart, athletic, and naturally gifted with sorcery. Any praise from her was to be relished and held close and nursed, like the kiss of a butterfly’s wings. Kata yelled something back - something unimportant and lost to the fog of memory - and Caith’s silhouette, backlit by her bauble of warm light, moved further into the winding cairn, the girl’s shadow spilling along the tomb walls as she went, stretched and fluttering, a cloud of shifting black shapes. Kata turned her attention to one of the old traps nearby - she thought of them as puzzles - and the girl went to work by her candle’s light, putting the rusted metal and stone parts back together as best she could figure. Minutes passed, and the desiccated form of the trap began to take shape - a claw that would rise from the floor, intended to snare the unwary. ”Caith! Look at this! I--” Another gust of wind blew by Kata, the whispers with it more forceful, almost hungry in their delivery. Kata’s candle’s flame flickered in the wind, winking out for a second, and the cairn plunged into darkness. Kata blinked, another shiver dragged its way across her back and up her neck. Caith’s light was gone. ”Caith… Caith?” The light - and the girl attached to it - disappeared and snuffed from existence. This was the last time anyone visited the Whispering Cairn. =============
Dirge Singer: Unfortunately, in Diamond Lake, funerals are as common as weddings. Perhaps the miner’s lung ends your life before your grandchildren grow. Or a cave-in, if you're even more unlucky. Maybe you get stabbed in a dark alley over a debt or an insult. Whatever the case, death in old age is something to be celebrated. Every other death is a cause for mourning. The search party never found Caith, not even a trace of the girl. It was if, like one of those whispers that bedevil the Whispering Cairn, she was just gone, confined to memories in an instant. Even by Diamond Lake’s standards, Caith’s disappearance was a shocking event. The community publicly grieved, in the churches, in the streets, in the taverns. Most everyone turned out for the funeral procession, an empty coffin carried by hundreds of black-clad mourners through the streets, with singing, wailing, and praying spontaneously erupting, like waves crashing on a beach. If Kata were to be honest with herself, she loved every moment of it. Pharasman: To supplement her mother’s income, Kata went to work for the local temple of Pharasma. She started by assisting with the logistics of funerary services, cleaning the temple, and other mundane tasks, but as the years have gone by, her role has grown. Kata has charisma that the local priesthood, well-intentioned as it is, generally lacks. As such, Kata’s often called upon to counsel the grieving left behind, and to assist with funerary rights. She’s also studied with the Pharasman priests, and while not a member of the clergy, Kata has a good grounding in Phasman theology and its concerns, and a facility for minor magics. Elegist: If Diamond Lake had a soundtrack, it would consist of hacking coughs and grim curses spoken in gravelly, tired, and often inebriated tones. Kata’s voice is - without a doubt - the finest in town. She uses this gift to great effect in funerary services; she can hit high notes when called for in hymns, and can carry a poem across a crowd, often hushed into awed silence by her words. To have her speak an elegy or sing a hymn at a funeral is considered a great honor, and the Pharasmans have encouraged this gift. Kata supplements her income by singing at The Emporium, and can even quiet the crowds there from time to time. Smenk: Kata’s father died in a mining accident when Kata was a baby. The circumstances of his passing were due to negligence on the part of the mine’s owner, Balabar Smenk, who never faced any comeuppance for his complicity. Kata’s mother has preached patience and karma, but as the years have gone by and Smenk has grown more powerful, Kata’s hatred for the man has coalesced into her own diamond of sorts. It lurks within her, indestructible and enduring. Alone: Kata’s mother recently died, strangely of the Miner’s Lung, even though she worked her whole life as a domestic. Outside of the Pharasmans, Kata has little social contact these days. Worse still, her mother’s presence lingers over the town like a fluttering moth, constant reminders of her life bringing waves of unwelcome grief crashing down on Kata. The eligist has decided to leave Diamond Lake by any means necessary, and is only waiting for an opportunity to present itself, legal or otherwise. ==============
Kata has a patience that comes with dealing with those grieving. She is an attentive and active listener, and generally approaches situations from a point of empathy and kindness. Like her goddess, Kata has a fondness and sympathy for the grieving, elders, the cursed, expectant mothers, and the newly born. Also like her goddess, roused to anger, her fury is absolute and tempestuous, like the crescendo of a symphony of drums. Kata has a great appreciation for birds, and would never willingly harm one. ==============
Townsfolk whisper that Kata also left something behind in the Whispering Cairn the day that Caith disappeared. She is wisplike in stature and complexion, slender and pale, and yet somehow lumescent at the same time. She wears her curly black hair pulled back more often than not, or for formal occasions (funerals and singing gigs), plaited. She has a silver spiral tattoo on the back of her neck, and favors black clothes, which in a pinch can be used for her work as an elegist as well. When traveling about town, she uses a deep purple cloak emblazoned with a silver spiral across the back to keep the elements at bay. ==============
While they may seem somewhat overlapping in purpose, Kata’s bard can supplement a court poet skald quite well. The dirge bard’s performances, especially inspire courage, can assist melee types differently and in a complimentary way to the skald’s shared rage powers, while the skald’s performance boosts Kata’s spell DCs, which combined with high charisma and (eventually) spell focus, will narrow the gap between a mid-caster and a full caster. Kata’s spell selection will focus on enchantments and necromancy which will focus on debuffing and SOS effects, and can affect the living and the undead, so she can focus in short bursts like a full caster. Kata will also provide support and buffing to melee types via performance, spells, and occasionally mixing it up herself with her longspear. She’ll be good at identifying undead, and at later levels her human FCB will allow her to take various masterpieces, helping to further facilitate utility in and out of combat. |
