About Meliora CastafioreMeliora Castafiore:
Female Human Wizard 4 (Diviner/Foresight Subschool)
CN Medium Humanoid (Chelaxian) Init +14; Perception +9 (+11) Defense:
AC 12; Touch 12; Flat-Footed 10; (+2 dex, +0 armor) HP 27 (4d6+8) Fort +2 (1 base+1 con)
Offense:
Speed 30 ft
Space 5ft; Reach 5ft Melee
Ranged
Special
Spells:
Touch +2, Ranged Touch +4, DC 15+SL, CL 4th, Concentration +9 SPD: 4+1/5+1/3+1 Skills:
8/level + 2 background
Perception +9 (4 rank +3 trained +1 trait +1 wis) Escape Artist +8 (4 rank +2 dex +2 feat) Spellcraft +12 (4 rank +5 int +3 trained) Knowledge (Arcana) +12 (4 rank +5 int +3 trained) Knowledge (Local) +12 (4 rank +5 int +3 trained) Knowledge (Religion) +8 (1 rank +4 int +3 trained) Knowledge (Planes) +12 (4 rank +5 int +3 trained) Diplomacy +3 (4 rank -1 cha) Stealth +8 (4 rank +2 dex +2 feat) -- Knowledge (Geography) +12 (4 rank +5 int +3 trained) Linguistics +12 (4 rank +5 int +3 trained) +2 perception/sense motive when familiar is within arm's reach Statistics:
Str 10 +0
Dex 14 +2 Con 12 +1 Int 20 +5 Wis 12 +1 Cha 8 -1 Base Atk +2; CMB +2; CMD 14 Feats
Traits
Racial Modifiers
Languages: Common, Infernal, Elven, Halfling, Shadowtongue, Draconic, Celestial, Strix, Dwarven Class abilities:
Gear:
Combat Gear: 17 bolts, scroll of Mage Armor, scroll of Silent Image, scroll of Obscuring Mist, scroll of Comprehend Languages, scroll of True Strike, scroll of Disguise Self, scroll of misdirection, scroll of whispering winds, potion of invisibility
Other Gear: cold iron dagger, alchemical silver dagger, Silver Raven Figurine of Wonderous Power, dagger, light crossbow, backpack, bedroll, belt pouch, flint and steel, ink, inkpen, iron pot, a mess kit, soap, spell component pouch, torches (10), trail rations (5 days), waterskin, spellbook, scholar's outfit, 2x Scroll Case, Gold Holy Symbol of Calistria, 776.25 gp Initial Backstory:
Small, medium, large. It was a maxim that'd been in Meliora's life since she first started at Lady Docur's School for Girls--one that existed to remind her of the order in which things always happened. Small issues grew over a medium amount of time and became large problems. Unfortunately for her teenage years, the first example she got of it was her small preference towards not wearing formal dresses. This didn't go over well in a finishing school for the daughters of rich nobles, and developed over a medium amount of time into the large problem of having gossip and rumors being spread about her behind her back. This in turn proved to be a small issue when her increasing isolation and inability to talk to girls in pretty dresses without a lot of stuttering changed over a medium amount of time into the larger still problem of starting a fight with one of her fellow students, who had called her an unappealing, unwedable tomboy to her face. She had won the fight, but was expelled for her trouble. Good girls didn't fight. With her family ready to disown her (as her father was hoping to use her as a pawn to marry into one of the more successful families), she took the initiative and ran away from home in shame. Alone and destitute without a cent of restitution, she would have died in the streets if she had been less astute. Instead, she wrote treatises on the stars and the patterns they hold within them--she earned her way into another academy (Thrune's Grace Academy, also known to some as the Thrice Damned House of Learning) on scholarship, and trained in the art of being a wizard. Ah, but that's another story. Meliora's current predicament also involved a small issue: her increasing dependence upon a cute girl named Eliza Carmine. A Calistrian cleric, Meliora had developed a habit of buying time with her so that she could complain about whatever inane things had raised her ire of late to a sympathetic ear. To be honest, she couldn't even say for sure they were friends, but having never been very good at having any of those she was willing to take what she could get. Over a medium amount of time after a certain Thrune's recent ascension to power, however, Meliora found herself with another large problem: Her favorite place of respite was gone and in its place was a bank. Eliza was nowhere to be found, and that left a new small problem: she no longer had anyone to talk to. She'd always focused too much on her studies to do a thing like make real friends... and now even the fake one had stopped calling. She was alone, and without a way to properly express her frustrations. Calistria's tenets here were clear: seek vengeance. Thrune had opponents, and some of them were organized. She heard about a planned protest in a park, and decided to go to add her voice to the din. She could see it already: A small issue like Thrune suddenly coming into power, given a medium amount of time... Large problems were looming on the horizon. "For better or worse, I'll get my revenge." At least this time, they were problems she was going to make herself. Physical Description and a note:
Meliora is a very tall 5'11" with hair that she's bleached white in order to try and hide her family resemblance. She's all but destroyed the poise a noble is supposed to have, usually keeping her shoulders hunched forward and slouching. Her one point of pride is the length of her hair, she likes doing it in a pair of ponytails and it falls to about her waist. When she thinks no one's looking she tends to be scowly, but in front of people she usually has a cocksure smirk on her face. She never actually uses her last name, she's just 'Meliora' to her academy.
Also, she used to have a gambling habit--losing a couple gold here or there at various games of chance. That stopped when she became a divination specialist, not because she suddenly could cheat, but because when she used her foresight to try and see what the result would be she realized that she just had terrible luck at any game involving dice or cards. Vignette 1: Much ado about nothing:
"So then, after that, I was supposed to go out in the field to collect some bat guano, right? Like I'm going to be casting fireballs same as any common sorcerer! It's so dumb, right?" It was the latest thought in what had been, to that point, a solid fifteen minutes of Meliora's favorite thing in the universe: complaining. She was laying on one of the balconies of the House of Satin Veils, staring up at the sky with her head in the lap of a woman in a simple yet well-tailored yellow silk robe. The woman, one Eliza Carmine, was busying herself brushing out the tangles in one of Meliora's ponytails a little bit at a time. There weren't any knots to be found, but Meliora'd found the feeling theraputic, almost as much as complaining. The woman gave a small 'mmm' of affirmation, nodding down at her as she busied herself with her work. Taking the noise to mean that Eliza agreed, Meliora continued.
"I mean... seriously... wizardry is about shaping and sculpting and reading reality. Only a dullard would focus on something as crass as a fireball, right?" "Oh, I don't know about that. I've always been devoted to serving the Unquenchable Fire..." It was a diplomatic answer, and one that made Meliora laugh. "That's different! But you get me, right? Not everyone's got the head for wizardry, and even fewer have my sheer level of genius. You're basically the perfect cleric, though." "Oh? How you figure?" The brushing had paused, and Eliza's sudden grin coupled with her vibrant red hair and her slightly pointed half-elven ears to make her seem like a lion looking at a mouse. If Meliora knew anything about patterns (and she did), she needed to tread carefully. Luckily, Meliora aspired to be a particularly clever mouse. "You wash away all my stress without a single spell~" The room fell silent, as Meliora beamed at Eliza from her place in her lap. The silence lasted for a few seconds, and ended when the cleric grabbed Meliora by both ponytails, yanking them hard. "Ow ow ow ow hey, this isn't what I'm paying you for!" She winced, hand shooting to her head to try and pull back. "Revenge is always free in the House of Satin Veils, dear customer~♥" Eliza's voice was saccharine, though she did let go of the hair she'd been pulling on--after about a minute or so, of course. "That didn't need revenging at all!" "Oh, didn't it? You just read that line in some book somewhere, admit it." Meliora looked away, mumbling something under her breath. "I'm guessing that wasn't a 'no.'" Eliza said, pulling at her hair just far enough to feel it without causing pain. "I-I-" Nothing for it, it was time for Meliora to admit her defeat. "The--the stars are really pretty tonight! You can see the daughter, and the rose! Right there!" She wasn't very good at admitting defeat. Eliza stared at her, quirked an eyebrow, and laughed. Letting go of her hair, she picked up the brush she'd dropped and returned to her work. "So... you were talking about some bat guano?" "Oh, right!" Thankful for the mercy, Meliora returned to her story with a smile on her face. "So I decided to buy some, but the professor knew every supplier in town so I had to get really godsdamn creative. That's when I see this teddy bear, must've been some kind of golem 'cause it was moving, but it gestured to follow it and I..." The story continued on and on until the sunrise, like it did on every night that Meliora had saved the spare gold. Sometimes Eliza followed along like she was barely listening. Others, she interjected with the same sort of teasing affection that Meliora had been so taken in by in the first place. Regardless of the specifics of what was said, by the end of the night she didn't feel alone anymore. That was all that mattered. Vignette 2: Cramping Ensues:
Since graduating from her academy lifestyle, Meliora had always run into one consistent problem: gold. Rent wasn't free, neither was food, and while she could eke out an existence on the occasional freelance translation job or contracted spellcasting service, there wasn't enough money in it to pay for the little extras that she wanted out of life--like food with actual flavor, for one. If she'd known there wasn't much public need for a diviner who didn't yet know how to properly cast Augury, she would have gone into conjuration like most of the Thrice-Damned Class of 4713. There was always a call for a diabolist. Always.
Still, there was one thing that everyone always needed more of: Scrolls. Scrolls were big business, and while there weren't any lack of wizards to write them the number of applications for spells like Silent Image and Ghost Sound onstage were limitless, not to mention the useful way that a True Strike could allow a stagehand hidden in the wings to throw a dagger perfectly at a target ten times in ten. So it was that Meliora spent eight hours a day, every day, scribbling her life away on making the low level spell scrolls that were so frequently required to make the magic of the stage truly magic. Tonight as well she approached hour six of her daily work, having to stand up and stretch after completing her latest scroll: a Vanish spell this time, as she'd heard the Opera House was running low on them. Her face was smudged with ink, and sleepily rubbing at it to try and perk herself up for the home stretch only made it worse. Her hand was cramping, her back ached somewhere between her shoulderblades, and she needed a break. Clambering out of her window and up a small ladder, she went to the roof to lie down and stretch out. The sky above was full of clouds, the sun still out but the pinks and oranges breaking through showing that it was near sunset. She frowned a little, running over her budget in her head again. If she stayed on plan with her funds, and if she cut back a little on expenses for the rest of the week, she could go see Eliza again after she got paid for this batch of scrolls. The idea of talking for the first time in a couple weeks about something other than business was beyond exciting, since with no cash to do anything interesting Meliora was the sort to stay at home and idle the hours away lost in either thought or the skies above. Sitting up, she decided to just do the last scroll up here. The lighting was fine, and tonight was a quiet night by Kintargo's standards. With a carefully placed Mage Hand, she pulled both her inks and her papers up to the roof and went to work scribbling down the various arcane formulas for yet another copy of True Strike. As she got bored, on occasion she would also doodle this or that in the margins of the spell--little embellishments that had nothing to do with the spell itself, but she thought gave her scrolls a personal touch and made people want to buy them. A poorly drawn dog here, a thing that looks like a heart there, a stick figure making a gesture at a part of the formula that she was particularly proud of somewhere else, they were a distinction that made her work uniquely hers, and she'd know when someone had used one of her scrolls because those particular bits of writing didn't fade like the magic bits. Her masterpiece on this particular scroll, though, was a series of unrelated letters interlaced throughout the magical scribblings which, when the magic writing faded, would spell out the phrase 'YOU GOT THIS! BELIEVE!' She hoped that it'd give whoever cast the spell that little bit of extra confidence at just the right time. The skies were dark and she was having to constantly refresh a Light spell on her quill by the time she was done with this one some two hours and change later. She rolled it up and pushed it into a scroll case alongside the others she'd created before taking a look over the horizon one last time. The clouds hadn't broken yet, but there was a glow of red coming from somewhere over in Jarvis End. Meliora gave a small, wry smirk as she looked over at it. Of course there was a fire. Thrune'd instated his martial law decree not even last night and already he was proving that he couldn't even keep a building from burning. Just like any politician, this one was all talk too. Idiots, the lot of them. She watched the fire for a bit longer, before heading back inside. As she did, she added Thrune to her mental list of 'things to complain to Eliza about.' She hadn't been anywhere but her home, The Newt Market, and Jarvis End to sell her wares in a while... she'd listen for some gossip while she was out and see if maybe this time she could properly be impressive when she finally made it to Temple Hill. After watching the flickering light and the smoke for a while longer, Meliora went back into her room and collapsed facefirst on her bed without even remembering to clear off the smudges she'd gotten all over from her work. Why bother? She'd have time to clean off tomorrow, after she prepared Prestidigitation and her host of other spells. As she let the exhaustion and the writer's cramp really sink in in the way it only can when a writer finally relaxes, Meliora put herself to sleep by reminding herself that it was all worth it as long as she could hang out with the only person in the world who seemed to give two about how she was doing. Just like always, it was enough to stave off the crushing loneliness she felt whenever she allowed her mind to wander. Familiar:
Stinger CN Tiny Magical Beast Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +4 DEFENSE
OFFENSE
STATISTICS
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Poison (Ex)
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