Khravos Vortensis's page

Psychic warriors that value the strength of body as well as the strength of the mind gravitate toward the path of the Broken Blade. By realizing his potential through steel and iron, or by flesh and bone, the psychic warrior on this path turns his body into a living weapon.

Bonus class skill: Acrobatics

Powers: Biofeedback, tactical precognition

Skills: Acrobatics, Intimidate, Sense Motive

Trance: Beginning at 3rd level, while maintaining psionic focus and while in a Broken Blade stance, the psychic warrior gains a +1 bonus to damage while fighting with weapons associated with the Broken Blade discipline. This bonus increases by 1 every four psychic warrior levels thereafter.

Maneuver: Beginning at 3rd level, as an immediate action, the psychic warrior can expend his psionic focus to gain a +2 bonus to CMB checks to use the dirty trick, grapple, or trip combat maneuvers. This bonus increases by 1 for every five psychic warrior levels possessed.

Khravos dresses in simple clothing, usually loose-fitting, drab, and unassuming. His long hair is tied back in a tail which hangs down his back. His eyes seem to be constantly searching, as if quietly absorbing and cataloging every detail of his surroundings. He seems like the somber, quiet type, which usually causes his more open nature to surprise people who do not know him. He is aware that his natural inclination to trust has gotten him in trouble, and so he must remind himself to be vigilant about the motives of others. He neither smiles nor frowns often, but when frustrated, especially with the inconsiderate or offensive actions of other people, his jaw tends to clench noticeably, but involuntarily.

At each hip hangs a metal ring, a chakram, which he spent years training in the use of. He also wears a long arm-width tube at his side which tapers to a sharp point - his scizore. Both mark him as a disciple of the reclusive Summit Wren monks of Adar.

Outside of their own enclaves and communities, not many people know much about Kalashtar, but what they do know is that they do not dream. This is due to their dual nature with creatures from the realm whence Dreams come. Khravos has a problem with this. He dreams. In fact, he has nightmares. Visions of mist, fire, steel, and the screaming of terrified innocents wakes him form his slumber. Khravos has left his homeland seeking an answer to this riddle.

Hailing from the distant land of Adar, Khravos spent most of his life studying under the tutelage of Grand Master Skrahvis, teacher of the Peaceful Way in the Shalquar. Since his Joining Day, Khravos strove to excel in the pursuit of enlightenment, but found the provincial isolation too limiting. When he felt he had no more to learn in Shalquar, Khravos set out to distant lands, walking the breadth of Sarlona before taking ship for Khorvaire.

In his travels, he heard great tales of the War, from which he had mostly been shielded in the monastery in Shalquar. He wondered why, though learning power and prowess from the Grand Master, he was never sent to fight for his world and way of life. Many of the people he met shared their stories of tragedy and sacrifice, and Khravos reasoned that those with the power to preserve life had the obligation to do so, but that self-sacrifice was a waste of one's potential.

Khravos's primary motivation is enlightenment. He abhors wonton destruction and seeks peace where it is possible, but has devoted his mind to discipline and the power to preserve, and to follow the Path of Light to full awareness. In his path he has made many friends, and several enemies. His dual nature makes him hard to understand, while those who become close to him find him a loyal and faithful companion.

Khravos is fascinated by the Engineer. He glimpsed Warforged in his travels, but never interacted with them and always assumed they were automatons or some form of golem. Having met and gotten to know Three, he is fascinated that life and mind were created through magical means. To further deepen the mystery, he finds that Engineer #3 has dreams. As Khravos himself has had nightmares recently, which is something that no Kalashtar should ever experience, this fascinates him as well. His nature of close association with the Quori should give him insight to this phenomenon, but he finds nothing in his experience or knowledge to enlighten him.

It also interests Khravos that this created mind is capable of harnessing the psionic potential he has only known in living minds. Khravos hopes to learn more about Three, as well as learn from him.

He and Engineer #3 are tagging along with Daxur to the go to the festival in Sandpoint.

In his travels, Khravos has found a universal disgust of goblins and their ilk. He wonders at Daxur's motives, but finds it fascinating that such a despised creature would use his ability and uncanny intellect to preserve the civilization and safety of people who would despise him. Daxur has announced his intention to join his associates Satinder and Garrick to work on security duties in Sandpoint, and Khravos has decided to tag along with Engineer #3.

Phannel Zerrah, female half-orc Expert (artist)
Phannel works in sculpture using cast off materials, creating works of exceptional beauty. This juxtaposition captured Khravos's attention soon after his arrival in Breland. She is rugged in appearance, with braided blonde hair and brown eyes, and many tattoos along her arms and over her back. She wears tailored clothing and a gold amulet. Phannel is fascinated by magic and arcana. When they met in Sharn, Khravos and Phannel became romantically involved for a time. They parted as friends. (Possible hook: Phannel hopes to market her wares at the Sandpoint Festival.)

Since deciding to travel to Sandpoint with Engineer #3 and Daxur, he intends to enjoy the festival. He has also decided to stay in Sandpoint to learn the stories of the people there, and find what motivates them. He is in particular interested in how the War affected them.

Khravos intends on staying in Sandpoint until he has learned enough about the people and found ways in which their way of life differs from those in other lands. If Engineer #3 moves on, he might decide to follow with him, depending on which way he goes. Khravos is inclined to follow the coast south, looking for other communities to explore.

Khravos had spent most of the day wandering through the city, and was on his way out of the teeming metropolis, having seen many strange sights for the first time in his life. His calm center set him apart, and made him an impassive observer in this world of turmoil.

In a merchant stall near the gate on the northern edge of the city, he spotted a scuffle. A whim made him investigate. A merchant was beating a human child, Khravos could not discern boy or girl through the rags it wore. Stepping closer, Khravos stopped the merchant's arm in its path to deliver a stinging blow to the child's shoulders. Astonished, the merchant turned to face Khravos. "What do you want?" He shouted in Khravos's face.

"I think whatever lesson you seek to impart, the child has learned," Khravos responded evenly. The child flinched away from the interrupted blow, slipping out of sight and back into the moving throng of people.

The merchant glared at Khravos. "You let that thief get away! I'll have you arrested for robbery!"

"It cannot be robbery if I pay for what was taken, can it?" Khravos smiled at the simple solution. The merchant grabbed Khravos by the arm before he could withdraw the coins.

"The hells it won't! GUARD!" Khravos was astonished that the merchant was pushing the issue past its obvious solution. He felt his blood race. Getting arrested in the first city he passed through on his way out of the monastery would send him home in shame. His muscles started to shake.

"I said... I'd pay!" He reversed the hold the merchant had on him, and twisted the fat arm back, sending the merchant to his knees. The merchant only increased his howls and calls for help. Khravos used his free hand to slip coins from his pouch onto the merchant's table. "The cost is paid!" As the shaking took over his body, he heard the cracking of the merchant's wrist. The cries for help became screams of pain and Khravos pushed the man back. He reached down and covered his mouth, causing the cries to become whimpers. His free hand pummeled the man until the whimpers stopped entirely. Khravos felt a horrible shaking in his body and ran, seeing nothing but a haze as he fled out the gates of the city, running far along the road and into the hills. He felt his body shuddering in odd uncontrollable ways, and when he finally stopped, it was with horror and revulsion that he was able to identify what caused the shuddering tremors.

Khravos was laughing.

From this point, Khravos became fearful and nervous any time he found himself being personally opposed in a way that defied the logic and reason that he was trained to revere. This event has solidified into his biggest shame, and he has been vigilant, but not entirely victorious, in warding himself against his own rage.

The village always seemed to Khravos to flow down the mountain toward the lake. The positions of the houses higher up seemed to turn the eye to the next houses down the slope, and so on down to the Dreaming Pool. It was the center of their lives, and the center of the mountain village. Each villager emerging from his house would see the Dreaming Pool first of all. It dominated Khravos’s awareness throughout his childhood. “It’s where the Dreamfolk live,” his mother told him. The Quori, whom they were pledged to give physical form, to host in this world. Each man and woman in his village was bonded to a quori, the Dreamers who came through from the mystic waters of the lake. On everyone’s thirteenth year, their time of Joining would come. They would go into the Dreaming Pool as children, and emerge as men or women. Changed forever with the gift of bonding, now become living, wandering dreams, true Kalashtar.