Kellan Ved's page

Any opponent who takes damage bears your symbol until an equal amount of damage is healed. Any branded opponent takes -2 to save versus your spells and spell-like abilities.

Gold = 1475 (700 stashed)
MW Armored Coat +4 (+3 Dex), -2 Check
Cloak of Resistance +1
MW Buckler +1 shield, -1 check
Morningstar 1d8 (B+P)
Dagger x2 1d4 (P+S)
MW Light Crossbow 1d8
10 Cold Iron Bolts, 20 Regular Bolts

MW Backpack
CLW Wand
Perfume of Shendilavri one dose that grants the wearer a +10 competence bonus on Diplomacy checks for 1 hour.
Elixir of Swimming
Potion of Lesser Restoration
Bedroll
Blanket
Outfit, Burglar's
Pouch, belt
Pouch, spell components

Encumbrance 52.5 Medium

Craft (Int), Bluff (Cha, Noble), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha, Noble), Knowledge (history)(Int, + 2 Ac Grad), Knowledge (planes) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int), Use Magic Device (Cha, Noble)

Bluff, Intimidate, and Use Magic Device are class skills. In addition, you gain a +2 bonus on Knowledge (history) and Knowledge (nobility and royalty) checks, and may use these skills untrained.

Benefit: You gain a +1 trait bonus on Knowledge (local) checks, and Knowledge (local) is a class skill for you. In addition, you can choose any one notorious citizen from below as an ally; depending on the person you pick, you’ll get different benefits.
Benefit: Bitter Nobleman: Your work for him gives you a +1 trait bonus on Stealth, and it is always a class skill for you.

Benefit: You gain a +2 trait bonus on initiative checks.

Benefit: Add +1 to the Difficulty Class for all saving throws against spells from the school of magic you select.

You conjure a cloak of shadowy darkness that grants you a +4 armor bonus and a +2 circumstance bonus on Stealth checks. At 7th level, and every four levels thereafter, these bonuses increase by +2. You can use this cloak for 1 hour per day per oracle level. The duration does not need to be consecutive, but it must be spent in 1-hour increments.

At 1st level, as an immediate action, you can force a creature within 30 feet to reroll any one d20 roll that it has just made before the results of the roll are revealed. The creature must take the result of the reroll, even if it’s worse than the original roll. Once a creature has suffered from your misfortune, it cannot be the target of this revelation again for 1 day.

You learn the hidden secrets surrounding the casting of shadow spells. You can add a number of spells from the sorcerer/wizard spell list equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1, maximum equal to half your oracle level) to your spell list and your list of spells known as divine spells. These have a spell level equal to their sorcerer/wizard spell level. You can add only illusion spells from the shadow subschool or spells with the darkness descriptor to your list of spells known in this manner. Each time you gain an oracle level after taking this revelation, you can choose to replace one of these spells for a new appropriate spell on the sorcerer/wizard spell list.

A dual-cursed oracle must choose two curses at 1st level. One of these curses (oracle’s choice, Branded) never changes its abilities as the oracle gains levels. A dual-cursed oracle gains a new revelation at 5th level and 13th level. These are in addition to the normal revelations she receives at 3rd level, 7th level, and so on.

Retrieving any stored item from your gear requires a standard action, unless it would normally take longer. Any item you drop lands 10 feet away from you in a random direction. Add mage hand and ghost sound to your list of spells known. At 5th level, add levitate and minor image to your list of spells known. At 10th level, add telekinesis to your list of spells known. At 15th level, add reverse gravity to your list of spells known.

Your brand cannot be disguised or altered, even with magic, although you can still benefit from cover or concealment, and you can cover it by wearing a hood or robe (as appropriate). Some NPCs may recognize the brand and become hostile, per the GM’s choice. As a supernatural ability, you can touch an enemy for 1d6 +(1/2 your curse level) fire damage; any opponent who takes damage bears your symbol until an equal amount of damage is healed. Any branded opponent takes -2 to save versus your spells and spell-like abilities. You can perform this branding touch a number of times per day equal to 1 +your Charisma bonus (minimum 1).

Benefit You gain a +1 trait bonus on Knowledge (local) checks, and Knowledge (local) is a class skill for you. In addition, you can choose any one notorious citizen from below as an ally; depending on the person you pick, you’ll get different benefits.
Benefit Choose one of the following skills: Stealth. Your work for him gives you a +1 trait bonus on that skill, and it is always a class skill for you.

Benefit: You gain a +2 trait bonus on initiative checks.

Kellan had a privileged upbringing. Not in love, but certainly in stature. His parents managed a modest (on paper) trading empire in various goods and shipping services with a small fleet of ships and a middling estate within the noble district. The Ved family were respected members of the community and wealthy enough to afford an academy education within Wee Jas’s temple for their sole heir. Kellan was an average student but was admired by both peers and tutors alike. His ability to access divinity came instinctively and impressed his tutors. However, his connection to the patron of the academy was tarnished by his parents influence and his lack of deep connection with the tenets of the faith did not go unnoticed by his instructors.
Behind his parents’ façade of modest traders ran a deeply evil undertow. The Ved family’s true wealth primarily derived from their extensive black market provision of exotic poison and dark alchemical goods. Clandestine members of the cult of Nerull, his parents lead a double life and while they were not cruel to Kellan their support of murder in its various covert forms and their absent regard, if not disdain, for life (except their own) had a dark influence on young Kellan. They never planned for Kellan to become a cleric of Wee Jas and with assistance from various private tutors, secretly clerics of The Reaper Nerull, Kellan’s faith was subverted towards Wee Jas’s darker aspects in preparation for full conversion to the cult of The Reaper while potentially remaining as a mole within the church of Wee Jas.
On the night of Kellan’s initiate graduation ceremony his parents were murdered by members of their own cell; their company and estate legally claimed for rival members within The Reaper’s cult. Kellan was left alive as a potential asset but legally removed from the will and estate. Had it not been for his father’s foresight in securing a secret safe house and sharing the location with his wife and son, Kellan would have been left homeless and penniless, fully susceptible to the cult’s coercion. Kellan was devastated. While not apprised fully of his parents shady business or profane worship, he was aware that they were members of a secret brotherhood as his “tutors” described it. When he was approached by a former tutor and the full depravity of his parents business dealings and worship were revealed to him, he faced a crisis of identity.
Kellan’s powerful innate ability to draw the attentions of the divine coupled with the newfound knowledge of the striking contrast between his father’s public persona and, to Kellan’s skewed moral compass, lone act of good in protecting his family over an astonishingly evil life garnished an offer from a divine source of Balance.
Kellan’s former tutor, Meanas, approached him at dusk. Only a few days after Kellan had attempted to return from the academy to bury his parents only to be barred from the premise. The tutor exited from a postern gate of his former family estate and approached Kellan, slouched, disconsolate, against the far wall of the cramped back alley. His tutor crouched in front of him, offering a skein of wine. ”Lad we have matters to discuss, come, break bread with me in the garden.”
”Aye, we do, such as what the hell happened? Why have I been barred from my own estate?” Meanas simply walked back through the gate without reply. Kellan slowly stood, took a swig from the skein for courage, and followed, a guard in unrecognizable livery closing the gate behind him. Meanas sat in the gazebo of the gardens Kellan had played in as a child. The smell of the cultivated grounds took him back to the distant but not un-warm affection his mother showed him here surrounded by her favored flora. As he sat Meanas dispassionately laid out the Ved's involvement in the black market and the real source of their income.
Tears slowly began to fall as the threads of his upbringing were woven into a tapestry of evil. Kellan was not unaware of the nature of his family and the perversions his private tutors wove seamlessly into his academy education whilst at home between semesters. The level to which he had been groomed and the ruthlessness of his own parents and their colleagues being laid bare so suddenly, without empathy was nearly too much for the lad. Even so, he could feel his will being bent to Meanas’ goals as the family involvement in an as-yet unnamed cult of evil was slowly revealed. Just as he began to feel his will sap of any resistance to becoming another member in the momentarily to be revealed cult, Meanas’s words became distant, the dusk shadows in the garden behind the tutor coalesced and darkened. A shifting form appeared. Twirling what may have been a miniature sword across wispy knuckles, the form shifted from deepening shadow to deepening shadow. A voice was heard but not heard, whispering from shadows in front, behind, below and above ”Kellan, this… You recognize now… Is one extreme… You can be… A force… For this extreme… Or another… Or… The final choice… BALANCE. Balance at a cost… You must choose…”
Kellan could recognize the divinity in the shadowy figure. He’d had contact with aspects of Wee Jas in his clerical training, but nothing so direct as this; his contact with that diety felt forced, misaligned. This deity was different, there was no misalignment or alignment but it came natural, Kellan felt power flowing in both directions here, whereas with Wee Jas it was at best communication, and typically only in one direction or the other.
Meanas’s voice faded back in as he unfurled his huge reveal. Meanwhile the deity behind him continued to twirl a dusky miniature blade across ill defined knuckles. ”They were agents of Nerull, Kellan: The Reaper, The Foe of All Good, Hater of Life, Bringer of Darkness, King of All Gloom, The Reaper of Flesh!” Meanas pulled a medallion of a Skull and Scythe from his robes holding it before him, his words imbued in the darkness of death, destruction, murder and evil: Nerull. His form was clear to Kellan now, a cleric of Nerull. The precipice upon which he was balanced was not lost upon him. Down one path, submission to a being of ultimate evil. Meanas and his god were making it eminently clear that their only other option for Kellan was a torturous death as the medallion began to emanate darkness far deeper than those of the deity shifting around the garden behind him. The third path, only Kellan and his un-named divine visitor could see, her voice, it became clear now, indeed this shifting form was certainly feminine, whispered again”Choose Kellan.”
”Take your parents place, swear fealty to The Reaper and regain all this, or…" the priest just smiled menacingly before continuing, "What will it be, Boy?” Meanas hissed maliciously as the darkness emanating from the medallion began sending out tendrils towards Kellan who staggered to his feet knocking his chair over with a crash. The darkness seemed almost a comforting end to his current misery were it not for the promise of pain in Meanas’s eyes, causing Kellan to hesitate. He knew fealty to Nerull was beyond his capacity for evil but death… Death was a briefly considered option.
”CHOOSE NOW!” The whisper came reverberating through Kellan’s skull. He came to a decision. His parents may have been evil and so in their murder was some good, however it allowed for greater evil to propagate. Kellan knew that even with a lifetime of heinous deeds behind them they were still capable of some good, raising a son and ensuring his safety, improving the economy with their legitimate business partners. There was a scale forming in his head that his parents had tipped too far in one direction. He would be the weight to balance theirs. He allowed the shadowy presence access to his soul as only a trained cleric could do, but this conjunction was different, the connection was made but his full access to the divinity was blocked, there was something yet to be done.
The deity coalesced next to Meanas and, careful as to avoid touching the medallion or it’s chain, grabbed Meanas wrist. The evil cleric suddenly was aware of the presence but appeared locked in place, only his eyes moved, their widening and sudden smoldering at the interruption the only indication he could now detect this disruptive presence. The hand that had previously been twirling the small blade across it’s knuckles, returned from sheathing a full sized falchion in it’s sheathe on the interloping God’s back to take hold of Kellan’s forearm opposite that of Meanas’s fist clenched around the chain and dangling medallion.
”There is a price to balance, there always is. Will you pay the price or suffer your fate amongst those under Nerull’s profane sway?” The god asked, now in an audible, soft voice.
Kellan knew he could not stand with the murderers of his parents. Knew that he was not destined to be a cleric of Wee Jas or lackey of Nerull when a connection such as this was possible. Knew, that there was a cosmic scale that he could aid in balancing. Knew too that this route offered his destiny. Without speaking, yet clear to both of them through the connection already made, Kellan replied: ”Balance.”
With that the god swiftly raised both men's arms bringing the medallion into contact with Kellan’s forearm halfway between his palm and elbow. Kellan screamed. Meanas glared.
”Your balancing of the scale may begin with this one.” She whispered.
Kellan gritted his teeth against the medallion searing his arm, causing pain beyond that of any mundane brand, melting his flesh without heat, marking him forever. Cursing him forever. He instinctively knew, this was a curse, but a curse with purpose. He reached up with his left hand placing his palm over Meanas’s face. He could feel the flow of evil coursing through one arm to the next, channeled now, amplified somehow with his new benefactor’s touch.
Could Meanas have screamed, he would have torn his vocal cords to shreds. The brand forming on Kellan’s arm was replicated upon Meanas’s face, the power transferred through the overpowering conduit of this shadowy deity amplified Kellan’s cursed new ability. The god released both men. Kellan could feel the power of his curse drop instantaneously to non-lethal levels but the damage was already done. Meanas dropped, a husk, lifeless, a blackened skull and scythe emblazoned across his face to match that on Kellan’s forearm.
The god was gone as quick as Meanas’ soul had left his body. Kellan stood momentarily over Meanas’ corpse. Shocked beyond action. Slowly he looked around, still alone in the garden, yet he felt a presence still. His parents were dead but somehow he felt they were with him in their former home. Shaking it off as wistful thinking, Kellan did not notice that two thin tendrils of darkness had crept across the ground from the misshapen lump of what was once the medallion of Nerull, and seemingly caressed his feet before disappearing.
After several moments, Kellan eventually came to the realization that Meanas was only the start, he would need to further balance the evil that had befallen his family. This was not vengeance, simply a levelling of the scale. As only a human can though, Kellan could twist his balancing act to self serving actions; envisioning restoring his estate and company, purely out of self interest. First though, he’d need a lead.
So began Kellan’s investigation into his parents’ former cell of The Reaper’s cult within the Noble District and greater Sasserine. Kellan had a few early successes, rooting out two other former tutors and several of his parents black market contacts. The bodies he left in his wake were never formally attributed to him in legitimate circles although the brands found upon them were never revealed to the greater public for fear of panic over the apparent emergence of The Reaper’s cult. Those in the ‘know’ and those with underground contacts knew Kellan’s fall from grace, rejection of the academy, ownership change of the Ved’s enterprises, and the branded deaths of several less than savoury players in darker circles were all connected to the sullen young man often found wreathed in shadow, lurking in the alleys of the Noble district, always wearing full sleeves.

Human ability went to Cha, 1st and 2nd level FCB +1 Skill point.