About MaokaoriASPIS CONSORTIUM RIVAL: Maokaori
SQ nature bond (companion), nature sense, orisons, wild empathy (1d20+4), woodland stride, trackless step, resist nature’s lure, wild shape 1/day (S or M animal as beast shape I for 5 hours) Combat Gear mw longbow w/20 arrows, ‘dragonscale’ hide armor (330 gp), darkwood shield (257 gp), dagger, wand of cure light wounds (CL 1, 25 charges, 375 gp), tanglefoot bags (2), beastlure musk (vermin, 3); Other gear 50 ft. silk rope, climbing gear, scent cloak, vermin repellent (2)
Maokaori (mow-COW-ree) is a lean woman, taller than most Sargavan expatriate men, and with the darker coloration common to the demon-worshipping Bekyar. Her hair is cut short, raised up in spiky tufts with animal fat and bound in place with bits of fiber. She is no Bekyar, but is more than willing to allow the pale men to believe that, and worse things as well, staining her teeth reddish-black with the mildly toxic berries of the akabi vine, to make her smile all the more gruesome. She uses the same berries to dye her hair with the tint of copper metal. Her faith is that of the horned hunter the sweaty men call Erastil, although she does not call him by that name, seeing him as a patron of fertility, the hunt, and law, particularly the sometimes cruel law of the wild. In keeping with those beliefs, she regards the beasts and plants of the Mwangi Expanse as a part of the natural world, and feels no regrets when she must bind them into service, for the protection of the greater whole, being willing to sacrifice an animal companion with little regret, so long as the animal’s sacrifice helps to protect the jungle itself from the intruders and their lumbering and pillaging. Her current Companion is an Ape, although she does not bother coming up with names for the animals, finding it disrespectful (and she attempts to avoid becoming so attached to them, given that she's on her fourth). As a youth, she lost her family to shadows in the shape of men, shadows that had a cold touch that brought death to those who stood to fight them. She knew that these night shapes had come from a taboo ruin that the foreign explorers had disturbed, and as her mother carried her away into the night, screaming in confusion as she saw her father fall and rise again as another of the shadow-men, she swore that she would repay this injustice. She now works behind the scenes to prevent the foreign fools of Bloodcove from pillaging too deep into the surrounding native ruins, sometimes leading them astray, sometimes leading them directly too ruins that she knows hold dangers that will cause them pain, and then increasing that pain by sending conjured animals or hindering magical effects that cut short their attempts to retreat. She has, in her overconfidence, been seen, and there is a price upon her head in Bloodcove, where she is called a demon-lover, a cannibal and worse besides. She smiles her predatory smile, and continues to become as much a bloody jungle-spirit as the monsters that took her father from her. Any who would assist her, pale foreigner or no, in foiling a Consortium expedition, may earn her favor, and learn from her some secrets that even the Consortium has not yet plundered from the Expanse. Boons: Maokaori has access to a limited supply of some unknown reptilian hide, thickly-scaled, that is treated as dragonhide (although lacking any special abilities relating to energy damage) for costs and use. For a favored ally, she can craft such armor, although she will never reveal the source of this hide. (Knowledge nature will reveal that whatever it is, the creature it comes from is aquatic in nature.) She can also provide access to items crafted of a local form of darkwood that is paler in color, but stains a dark red when treated with the alchemical hardening agents typically used on darkwood shields and items. If the Consortium were to suspect the existence of another potential source of darkwood, they would spare no expense to interrogate her as to the whereabouts of this wood… In addition to the normal uses of such wood, she has crafted the equivalent of studded leather armor with ‘darkwood’ studs, at an increased cost of 100 gp and weighing 17.5 lbs, and can provide such armor to a fellow druid who has earned her favor. She has attempted several times to craft a breastplate of this wood, but her attempts have met with no success, as of yet. Maokaori can teach another druids how to attract dinosaur companions (ankylosaur, brachiosaur, elasmosaur, pteranodon, stegosaur, triceratops, tyrannosaur, from the Bestiary), a ranger how to attract a deinonychus or velociraptor companion (PFRG p. 54) or a sorcerer or wizard how to attract a compsognathus (+3 to scent-based Perception checks or to Survival rolls to track by scent) or pterodactylus (+3 to sight-based Perception checks during the day) familiar, as well as familiarize a druid or user of the beast shape line of spells with the forms and abilities of various dinosaurs. Quote:
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