Lady Briar Rose Applestar's page

About Lady Briar Rose Applestar

Briar Rose
Female human (Varisian) warrior 1
LG Medium humanoid (human)
Init 4; Senses low-light vision; Perception +3
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Defense
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AC 20, touch 12, flat-footed 18 (+6 armor, +2 Dex, +2 shield)
hp 12 (1d10+2)
Fort 4, Ref 3, Will 0; +2 vs. death
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft. (20 ft. in armor)
Melee dagger +4 (1d4+3 P or S/19+) or
. . glaive +4 (1d10+4 S/×3) or
. . scimitar +4 (1d6+3 S/18+)
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Statistics
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Str 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 9, Cha 16
Base Atk +1; CMB 4; CMD 16
Feats Fey Foundling, Power Attack
Skills Acrobatics -5 (-9 to jump), Diplomacy +4, Linguistics +2, Perception +3, Undead Slayer! +3
Languages Common, Necril, Sylvan, Varisian
Combat Gear four-mirror, heavy wooden shield, dagger, glaive, scimitar, wooden holy symbol
Other Gear backpack, bedroll, belt pouch, blanket, canteen, flint and steel, hooded lantern, oil; 1 gp, 3 sp
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Special Abilities
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Fey Foundling Magical healing works better on you
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in dim light, distinguishing color and detail.
Power Attack -1/+2 You can subtract from your attack roll to add to your damage.
Trait Sacred Conduit: +1 Channel DCs.
Trait Chance Savior: +2 Init.

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Paladin Code
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The paladins of the Dawnflower are fierce warriors, like their goddess. They provide hope to the weak and support to the righteous. Their tenets include the following adages.
- I will protect my allies with my life. They are my light and my strength, as I am their light and their strength. We rise together.
- I will seek out and destroy the spawn of the Rough Beast. If I cannot defeat them, I will give my life trying. If my life would be wasted in the attempt, I will find allies. If any fall because of my inaction, their deaths lie upon my soul, and I will atone for each.
- I am fair to others. I expect nothing for myself but that which I need to survive.
- The best battle is a battle I win. If I die, I can no longer fight. I will fight fairly when the fight is fair, and I will strike quickly and without mercy when it is not.
- I will redeem the ignorant with my words and my actions. If they will not turn toward the light, I will redeem them by the sword.
- I will not abide evil, and will combat it with steel when words are not enough. I do not flinch from my faith, and do not fear embarrassment. My soul cannot be bought for all the stars in the sky.
- I will show the less fortunate the light of the Dawnflower. I will live my life as her mortal blade, shining with the light of truth.
- Each day is another step toward perfection. I will not turn back into the dark.

The paladins of Shelyn are peaceable promoters of art and beauty. They see the ugliness in evil, even when cloaked in the form of beauty, and their mission is to defend those who devote their lives to the creation of beauty, bring it forth themselves, and prevent the weak and foolish from being seduced by false promises. Their tenets include the following adages.
- I see beauty in others. As a rough stone hides a diamond, a drab face may hide the heart of a saint.
- I am peaceful. I come first with a rose rather than a weapon, and act to prevent conflict before it blossoms. I never strike first, unless it is the only way to protect the innocent.
- I accept surrender if my opponent can be redeemed—and I never assume that they cannot be. All things that live love beauty, and - I will show beauty’s answer to them.
- I live my life as art. I will choose an art and perfect it. When I have mastered it, I will choose another. The works I leave behind make life richer for those who follow.
- I will never destroy a work of art, nor allow one to come to harm, unless greater art arises from its loss. I will only sacrifice art if doing so allows me to save a life, for untold beauty can arise from an awakened soul.
- I lead by example, not with my blade. Where my blade passes, a life is cut short, and the world’s potential for beauty is lessened.

==========Description==========
Picture of Briar Rose
Height: 5'3" | Weight: 145 lbs. | Hair: Red | Eyes: Light Brown
Briar Rose is on the short side for a human, with an athletic build. Her eyes are dark brown and her red hair hangs nearly to her waist, her face heart-shaped with an angular jaw and small, pointed nose. Her complexion is tanned.
She usually dresses in loose-fitting brown or black cotton trousers and brightly colored, loose-fitting, sleeveless silk blouses. The sleeveless tops not only display her impressive musculature but also the tattoos – songbirds all colors of the rainbow are tattooed from the tips of both her fingers and running the lengths of her arms up to her shoulders. The birds turn to kaleidoscopic leaves near her shoulder blades, forming the canopy of an oak tree that covers most of her upper back. The trunk of the oak tree runs down the center of her back where it meets a pool of water at her lower back; Briar Rose's nymph mother lounges in the pool. The tree’s roots plunge below the surface of the water, down her buttocks and snaking down her legs, turning into multicolored ribbons, tapering off and ending at her toes. This large tattoo is not visible under her normal clothing, but she dresses to show it off when she can. She carries herself with confidence and moves in a way that suggests both grace and power.

==========Personality==========
Briar Rose is confident, patient, and kind. Outgoing and extroverted, she has a huge circle of friends and acquaintances. She quickly flits from one group of friends to the next, not favoring any groups or individuals over any others. She takes the tenets of her faith seriously, promoting ideals of peace, forgiveness, love, and acceptance to those she meets. She can often be found counseling quarreling couples or business partners. While she often comes off as naïve due to her insistence that all conflicts can be solved peacefully, she was raised in circles of duplicitous nobility and is more than capable of sussing out those with ulterior motives.
Briar Rose adores all forms of artistic expression. Very often she is late to appointments because she stops to enjoy any street performance she comes across. She spends a probably foolish amount of coin attending theater and the opera. Never one to take things too seriously, Briar Rose is quick to laugh. Free-spirited and bubbling with positivity, she always offers a bright spark of hope in dark times. She has a burning passion for all forms of art and loves to sing and dance, even if she is not very skilled at either.

==========Story==========
Dandelion Honeywood, nymph of the Sanos Forest in central Varisia, was used to the little gnomes of the forest bringing her petitions from outsiders. Most of the petitions implored her to save failing crops or relocate dangerous magical beasts. Lord Cornelis Lukas Applestar of Magnimar’s request was unique: sit for a year as a model for a marble sculpture. Magnimar was far further afield than she had ever been and the idea of leaving her secluded spring for a whole year frankly terrified her, but the flowery prose of lord Applestar’s petition and the rough sketch of the finished sculpture, as well as the adventure of traveling to and from the city, convinced her.

Lord Cornelis Lukas Applestar of Magnimar was the youngest son of lord and lady Applestar. With many older brothers and sisters to fulfil the families’ noble obligations, Cornelis was free to pursue his own desires in life. His passions turned out to be the arts, primarily painting and sculptures. In a vivid dream one night he was inspired to create a sculpture of a nymph standing in her pond. Cornelis decided to pursue the dream and create the statue. It was to be the largest sculpture he had ever produced and, in keeping with his dream, he sought out an appropriate nymph to be his muse, and a muse he found.

Dandelion Honeywood was the most beautiful being Cornelis had ever seen or could even imagine. It took him some time to acclimatize to working with such a stunning subject, but eventually work on the sculpture began in earnest. Despite having no other obligations to distract him from his work, the sculpture, made to be twice as large as Dandelion was, took over a year to complete. The artistic duo got to know and enjoy each other’s company over the months and were sorry to part ways as the project was finished. The pair were not romantically inclined towards each other but, perhaps with their passions fired by the long-awaited completion of the sculpture, they spent Dandelion’s last night in Magnimar together. Dandelion returned to her spring and Cornelis returned to smaller artistic projects.

Some months later, Dandelion surprised Cornelis at the family manor. She had not written that she would be visiting and, even more surprising, she carried an infant swaddled in oversized leaves in her arms. Their one night together had been more productive than they had planned. Dandelion, a flighty fey who lived in the woods and oft fought with owlbears and werewolves, had no desire to raise a child and she left their daughter with her father.

Briar Rose had a typical childhood for the daughter of a noble artist. Her education was focused more on the arts than practical knowledge and her father, who absolutely adored her, gave her free run of the manor and grounds. It was clear from early on that the girl was favored by the Radiant Prism; songbirds flocked to the half-nymph, announcing her presence wherever she went. Briar Rose spent much of her time traipsing through the expansive yards of the noble district of Magnimar, drawn to nature by her fey ancestry. Her skill with traditional arts surpassed most children her age, but there was one art she excelled at: martial arts. Her family was not entirely pleased that Briar Rose was traveling the path of a warrior, but it was obvious Sarenrae was calling her to something bigger than sculptures and paintings.

As an adolescent, Briar Rose was sent to the far side of the Inner Sea region to Oppara, the capital of Taldor, to be trained at the Golden Rose and House of Dawn's Redemption, the oldest and largest known temples to Shelyn and Sarenrae. Her father traveled with her to experience to art scene of the Taldane. It took much grooming and gentle but firm guidance from the priests, but Briar Rose learned to tame her wild, fey nature; she was molded into a warrior of strong morals, reflecting the virtues of the Radiant Prism. She was no stick in the mud, though, and enjoyed the city life.

Years passed and Briar Rose entered adulthood and completed her training. She was finally ready to set out on the missions Shelyn intended for her. Guided by her Muse and the scholars of Shelyn and Sarenrae's temples, Briar Rose was to delve in to forgotten crypts and temples and recover lost artworks to be catalogued and displayed as they were intended.

After many successful missions for Shelyn, Sarenrae called Briar Rose far to the north, to the haunted lands of Ustalav. Fragments of a powerful artifact, posited to be related to the Whispering Tyrant, had been uncovered deep in an old salt mine in the county of Barstoi, on the northeastern edge of Ustalav. The artifact was too powerful to be destroyed by the three temples of Pharasma the small county boasts, and needed to be transported to the Grand Cathedral of Pharasma in Korvosa to be properly disposed of. Many paladins and clerics of Sarenrae and Iomedae, led by a rather unpleasant paladin of Ragathiel, were drafted into the important move, and Briar Rose was included. The Sarenties were to meet the procession of Iomedaean in Caliphas to aid in moving the artifact through the treacherous Gravelands and then on through Varisia to Korvosa.

On her way to Caliphas, somewhere betwixt Grayce and the capital at a long forgotten and grown over cemetery, Briar Rose met professor Lorrimor, his scream through the fog drawing the young woman's attention. Using the haft of her glaive, she vaulted over the rotten wrought iron fence that bordered the lost collection of graves, sprinting over fallen headstones and cracked sarcophagi exposed by erosion or something more sinister. The sight of the two ghouls circling the scholar, hopelessly throwing various instruments of archeology and surveying at the undead, may have been enough to halt most people, but not Briar Rose. She had spent plenty of time in old necropoli searching for lost artwork and she was familiar with the monsters that haunt dark tombs and, being part fey, she was not threatened by the terrible diseases ghouls and their ilk carry. She quickly cut down one of the monsters, her polearm keeping her safe from its reaching claws, but lost her glaive when she struck an overhead tree branch. Quickly shifting to her shield and scimitar, she called upon the purifying holy flame of Sarenrae and cut down the second ghoul.

As it happened, professor Lorrimor was also headed to Caliphas once his research in the graveyard was finished. Briar Rose helped him, then the two made their way to Caliphas. the professor promised he would never forget what she had done for him. True to his word, months later, long after she had left Ustalav behind, a courier found her at a roadside chapel. He bore a letter sealed with wax—the crest of Petros Lorrimor. A summons from beyond the grave.