Malen Arturian's page

Extra Channel
Selective Channel
Combat Casting
Improved Initiative
Alertness
Skill Focus (Sense Motive)
Lightning Reflexes

Focused Disciple - You gain a +2 trait bonus on saving throws against charm and compulsion effects.

Desperate Focus - You gain a +2 trait bonus on concentration checks.

Diplomacy +19 (13 ranks, 3 Class, 3 Cha)
Heal +21 (13 ranks, 3 Class, 5 Wis)
Kn (Religion) +17 (13 ranks, 3 Class, 1 Int)
Perception +20 (13 ranks, 5 Wis, 2 Feat)
Sense Motive +29 (13 ranks, 3 Class, 5 Wis, 8 Feat)

Common, Varisian

Channel Energy 9d6 9/day DC 20 (7d6 without phylactery)

Domains:

Healing

Rebuke Death - You can touch a living creature as a standard action, healing it for 1d4 points of damage plus 1 for every two cleric levels you possess. You can only use this ability on a creature that is below 0 hit points. 8/day

Healer's Blessing - At 6th level, all of your cure spells are treated as if they were empowered, increasing the amount of damage healed by half (+50%). This does not apply to damage dealt to undead with a cure spell. This does not stack with the Empower Spell metamagic feat.

Repose

Gentle Rest - Your touch can fill a creature with lethargy, causing a living creature to become staggered for 1 round as a melee touch attack. If you touch a staggered living creature, that creature falls asleep for 1 round instead. Undead creatures touched are staggered for a number of rounds equal to your Wisdom modifier. 8/day

Ward Against Death - At 8th level, you can emit a 30-foot aura that wards against death for a number of rounds per day equal to your cleric level. Living creatures in this area are immune to all death effects, energy drain, and effects that cause negative levels. This ward does not remove negative levels that a creature has already gained, but the negative levels have no effect while the creature is inside the warded area. These rounds do not need to be consecutive.

574 gp, 18 sp, +3 Breastplate, MW Dagger, MW Crossbow, 20 Bolts, Phylactery of Positive Channeling, +4 Cloak of Resistance, +2 Ring of Protection, Incandescent Blue Ioun Stone (Wis), Cleric's Vestments, Handy Haversack, Bedroll, Silver Holy Symbol of Pharasma, 10 Days Rations, Waterskin, Flask of Holy Water, 50' Silk Rope, Unguent of Timelessness, Elixir of Vision, 500 gp diamond dust, Wand of Cure Disease (6), Wand of Cure Serious (34), Wand of Cure Moderate (16), Belt of Physical Might (Con/Dex) +2, Deathwatch Eyes, Pearl of Power (4th), Necklace of Adaptation, Wand of Cure Moderate (50), Scroll of Raise Dead*, Scroll of Restoration*, Scroll of Word of Recall*, Scroll of Heal*, Wand of Cure Critical Wounds (15), Pink & Green sphere Ioun Stone (Cha), Candle of Invocation

Malen was born in Korvosa to a pair of ordinary, working-class parents. His mother washed clothes for several of the more well-to-do merchants in the area, while his father was a grave-digger for the Pharasmans in the Gray District. When he was small, he would accompany his mom to the various places she went to pick up dirty laundry and deliver freshly cleaned clothes, but as he grew older he split his time between helping his father at his back-breaking work and playing with the other children in the poor section of the city he lived in.

The nature of the area forced Malen to become a shrewd judge of character, which began to seriously limit his circle of friends. His main two companions were Alric, a rather stern young man who was constantly standing up for Malen in the face of the frequent bullies, and Rantil, a brutally honest child who had trouble mingling with others for that other reason. When the boys were close to their teenage years, several older boys started to throw things at Rantil, a frequent target of their abuse. Alric ran over and began assaulting the thugs, with Malen and Rantil on his heels. To the surprise of the boys and even his own companions, the leader of the bullies pulled out a knife and stuck it in Alric's gut.

The older boys quickly ran off in shock as much as for any other reason, while Malen and Rantil struggled to get help. Unfortunately, Alric's mother couldn't afford proper healing for the young man, and the local herbalist was only able to ease his suffering as he slipped away. Malen assisted his father in digging the grave, and attended the small ceremony, helping to soothe the grief of Alric's mother even as he himself wept.

Curious about the words of the Pharasmans as they implored The Lady of Graves to speed the young man's soul to its final destination, Malen began to speak to the priests over the next several years, learning about the doctrine and dogma of Pharasma and what happened to the soul after death. Rantil and Malen still maintained their friendship, but both were more subdued after the death of their friend. Rantil was sent off to the Academae soon after his fifteenth birthday, his natural intellect and bend towards truthfulness making him a perfect fit for the studies awaiting him there.

Suffering from loneliness, Malen became more involved with the priests, helping with their ceremonies and preparations for sending off the departed, noting that much of the work involved with helping the living grieve for their lost loved ones. Some nights he stayed at the temple, as the high priest, Jaster, said that Pharasma sometimes sent omens and prophecy to those who stayed within its walls.

One day, he was helping the priests and noticed that his father was nowhere to be seen. Hurrying home, he found both his parents in bed, red bumps visible on the exposed portions of their bodies. Alarmed at the state of his parents and having seen similar markings before, he tried to care for them as best he could, staving off the disease for several days before first his mother, then father succumbed.

Jaster agreed to house the young man after both his parents were buried, though at sixteen he was already of age. Even more morose and despondent, Malen went through the motions until he woke up with a feeling of power inside him. Experimenting, he found he could cure those around him and call upon other divine magic. Jaster explained the blessings of Pharasma, and how She had decided to include Malen in them. Though thankful, Malen was also upset at the late timing...with such gifts, he could have fully cured his parents and healed his friend those years ago.

Figuring that Malen needed time away from Korvosa to both heal and to see the suffering and death in the world and that his wasn't a unique case, Jaster charged the young man with becoming a roving cleric of the Lady of Graves, visiting the small villages and towns in Varisia that had no priests of their own. Eager to see the world and wanting to put Korvosa behind him for a time, Malen readily agreed.

For the next few months, Malen traveled to the collection of villages that fell into the persuasion of Korvosa, paying a limited amount of fealty to the City-State in return for a just-as-limited arrangement of protection should they have trouble with the Shoanti or any other serious invader. The young man at first went door to door, the reactions of the villagers ranging all over the place, from worry, to irritation, to downright unpleasantness. Malen quickly learned to find a mayor or village elder, and get himself introduced to the other townsfolk by the authority figure.

After returning to Korvosa to report to Jaster, the young priest ventured out again, traveling farther with each subsequent excursion as he grew more comfortable both with talking to the people he met and more confident in his growing powers granted him by The Lady of Graves. Though he longed to help more, his assistance was typically confined to blessing the resting places of those who had died after the last priest of some sort had been through, explaining the mysteries of Beyond to those that's time was drawing close, and easing the fears of those who saw Pharasma as an evil deity because she reigned over death.

Things changed from the norm a couple of years later in early autumn when he went to the town of Larston, about fifty miles from his home city. The villagers had many bodies to bury, and recent at that. The elder, Lars (the sixth of that name) confided in the young man that the culprit was some kind of flesh-eating monster that was ambushing the lone farmers on their fields near dusk. The populace was refusing to stay out near dark (or even go out at all, in some cases), and there was a serious likelihood that at least some of the harvest would die in the field from lack of care due to the shortage of man-hours.

Anxious to help, the young man eagerly accepted the help of a few of the more stalwart souls in the town, burly farmers who were tired of hiding and ashamed of doing so. The young priest led the group outwards in a spiral away from the town, hoping to find the den of the creature. Near dusk, the creatures found them. Two of the things leapt out of hiding, scratching at the farmers on the flanks. To Malen's horror, their limbs locked up, and the look of terror on their faces as the creatures started eating them alive would never leave his memory. Another one, slightly larger and more deliberate, stepped out of hiding, a gaping grin on its toothy maw as it approached the other two farmhands and Malen.

Perhaps thankfully, the other two creatures were too lost in their blood frenzy to help their leader as the trio began to strike at the beast frantically. Malen remembered the way it laughed as their sickles and daggers glanced off its surprisingly tough hide as it casually swiped at first one, then the other of Malen's companions, their bodies going rigid just like their fellows. "Your God has no power here." The thing gloated as it slowly advanced on Malen, claws extended and dripping blood. Grasping his holy symbol, the priest prayed to his Goddess to help him against the abominations, and she delivered.

Righteous and holy energy flowed outward from him, searing the flesh from the undead creatures as it sought to end their unnatural existence. The two peripheral creatures collapsed in a smoking pile, but the other one hissed even as its skin smoked and lunged forward, its teeth sinking into Malen's shoulder. Screaming in pain, the young man gritted his teeth and called upon Pharasma's grace once again, the second surge of energy completing the job against the last creature. Returning to the village after the two living men had recovered from their paralysis, the priest found himself an object of scorn as much as gratefulness as the people wept over the two dead men.

The next several years passed by, the priest growing older and wiser as he started making return trips to many of the places he had come to as a youth. As he suspected, he found that time had eased the memories of many who had regarded him with derision on his first attempts, and he spoke to any and all who would listen about the many facets of Pharasman faith and what comes after death.

Just after his 28th birthday, Malen returned to Korvosa to find it strangely different. Gone were the massive crowds in the markets. There were strange new guards with enclosed helms with red plumes. Perhaps most alarmingly, he even saw a person with a plague-doctor's mask accompanied by guards hurrying through the streets. Hurrying to the Gray District, Malen sought out Jaster to find out what was going on. When he arrived at the temple, he was directed by the resident Pharasmans to the graveyard, where Jaster's remains had been left behind by his spirit.

Grieving for his mentor at the graveside, Malen fought back tears, his faith having educated him that this was the natural way of things and Jaster had moved on to his final home and peace. Fighting through despair with determination, the priest learned from his fellows that there was a strange new disease, Blood Veil, that was sweeping through Korvosa, devastating the populace. The King was dead, thought assassinated by a harlot artist. The Queen had dispatched physicians to try to help contain it, along with creating a new force, the Gray Maidens, an elite force to help facilitate control in the rising chaos that had followed the King's death.

Malen decided to sleep on the rapid influx of information before deciding on what to do, as he was unsure of whether to continue his travels or if he should stay in Korvosa to help with the situation, and likely wasn't in a frame of mind to make a hasty decision. He visited Jaster's graveside again, privately, and offered several prayers to Pharasma for the quick passage of his soul to the Boneyard, where he would help The Lady of Graves usher in souls and send them to their final reward or damnation for eternity. That night, he dreamed.

He walked through the streets of Korvosa, the lack of sound almost a menacing aspect as his footsteps echoed lightly in the red hues of dusk. Glancing left and right along the wide avenue, he saw people, sprawled in various states, their eyes unseeing. Old, young, man, woman, child, there was no discrimination evident in the victims as he passed them by. Some had the red pox-marks of plague, others slashes from weapons, still others reposed as though resting, their staring eyes the only indication that their souls had moved on.

Unsure of his destination, but urged onward, Malen continued to walk in what he assumed was a northwesterly direction, by the placement of the setting sun. The houses changed, becoming more fanciful and large, the shop fronts more decorative in the quest for a more upscale clientele, but the scene in the streets didn't change at all. Aristocrats in their finery laid next to colorful merchants, while the rag-clad beggars filled in the gaps. The priest didn't have to check any of them...he instinctively knew they were dead. He wondered what had happened.

Soon after, he came to where the street opened out into a plaza, a low hill rising in the distance. Castle Korvosa. The bodies were thick here, though a path was available through them to the steps that led up to the gates. Malen ascended the steps slowly, turning as he arrived at the entrance to the castle. From the vantage, he could see that all the avenues leading to the castle were the same, clogged with the citizens of Korvosa. No smoke rose from any chimneys or foundries. Not a living creature stirred, besides himself.

He turned about, opening the door to the castle with a gentle push. The portal loomed, but only blackness lay beyond. Feeling a rush of wind at his back, he spun about, eyes going wide as a gargantuan skeletal figure hovered above him, its eyes like daggers of flame as it screamed out, "MINE!" before lunging forward at him, maw opened wide as it sought to extinguish him as it had all the others...

The priest started awake, startled by the vivid imagery in the nightmare. Hurrying to the common area before the dawn, surely unable to go back to sleep, he was the priest available when a messenger from the Citadel arrived, claiming that both a large group of indigents had arrived and needed care, and there were dead that needed to be examined and processed. Needing a chance to clear his head and thinking that a bit of work was exactly what he needed to do so, he decided to accompany the man to Citadel Volshyanek and see what help he could provide.

Malen is a relatively small man, about five and a half feet tall with a slender build. While not meticulous about it, he does groom himself often, his wavy, brown hair kept cut short and out of his green eyes and no more than a short growth of stubble pops up on his face before encountering a razor's edge. He carries himself with the dignity and purpose of an older man, though his face betrays his age. While solemn more often than not, he has learned how to speak to both individuals and crowds well in his travels and is a skilled conversationalist.

Malen is slow to anger, having a mild manner in regards to most things. He tries to look at all sides of an issue before making a decision, with few exceptions. He always attempts to do his best, particularly in the service of his Goddess, and is willing to die in the attempt if victory is attainable by doing so.