Cleric of Irori.
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Born without breath, a dead child, she was brought to life by the touch of curative magic from the attendent priest. As often happens with such children, snatched from death at the moment of their birth, her hair grew in white, an unnatural color for the dark-complexioned people of her homeland, associated with ghosts, with a soul that has already come one step closer to the spirit world than the world of the living, and not expected in anyone not of advanced age and wisdom, with, as the westerners say, 'one foot already in the grave.' Her natural beauty obscured by runic tattoos and a sometimes harsh and humorless mien, Mikara Kandalahar is one of a half-dozen scouts, coordinated from a central temple in Jalmeray, sent to scour the lands for chosen warriors, to join the Kusari-Gama. She travels with a retinue of experts, diplomats, low-level monks and adepts, each of them dedicated to the cause, and assisting her in locating, analyzing and judging the performance of the living weapons the Kusari-Gama seek to recruit. Those with both the skill and the temperament are referred to those higher in the organization than herself, and she is no final judge of the worthiness of a potential recruit. Avistan is her territory, and she has struggled to master the Taldan tongue, so that she might recruit from Absalom, Andora, Cheliax and Taldor, among other lands. Others, known only to her by name and reputation, handle the recruitment of potentials from Qadira, Osirion or the Mwangi Expanse, and she recognizes that she has the lands with the least and furthest-separated groups of potentials, as befits her low station within the Kusari-Gama. She is eager to change that status, and spends much time travelling the lands, refusing to accept the hospitality for long of the jaded Taldans and Absalomi ‘patrons’ who wish to invite her colorful and ‘exotic’ retinue to their parties the same way that they would like to have elephants in their parades, to ‘show them off.’ She has found the Andoran situation to be tiresome, with far too much emphasis on heavily armed and armored knights, who, to her mindset, lack physical, mental or spiritual discipline (or, at least, the sort of discipline that her order believes to be necessary, in the coming days). For all their distasteful associations, the Chelaxian martial artists, with their devil-emulating techniques, are of more interest to her, and some in her retinue have come perilously close to insubordination with their carefully-phrased doubts of her interest in these diabolists and their fighting styles… Mikara has only a bare minimum of permanent retainers accompanying her on her mission, and so finds it necessary to sometimes recruit temporary help from locals, either in seeking out rumored monasteries, which are rarely conveniently located, or terribly well-documented, or in defending recruits whom she believes are in danger from sinister forces that oppose her mission, or in escorting potentials to safe transport from the point of recruitment to Absalom, and, eventually, the Kusari-Gama training temple on Jalmeray. Boons Can have a member of her entourage tattoo a valued ally with a special Tien glyph of Knowledge that allows the recipient to use his Wisdom modifier in place of his Intelligence modifier for a single Knowledge skill, or a glyph of Strength that grants him a +2 bonus to checks made with one Strength-based skill. She also has access to secret techniques that would require a monk or cleric of Irori to travel to Jalmeray or the Tien lands to be inscribed with one of two special alchemical silver tattoos that can either function as a holy symbol, for a cleric, or allow a monk to treat his unarmed attacks as if made with a silver weapon for penetrating DR, so long as he spends a ki point to ‘charge’ the tattoos with power for a single round (as a swift action). Tattoos that confer bonuses related to the Healing, Law or Rune Domains are also available, at the temple in Jalmeray, and a disciple of Irori may benefit from a tattoo that allows them to decipher written scripts or inscribe arcane marks, imbue an unarmed strike with Lawful properties by expending a ki point or channel energy attempt, or gain a small bonus to damage healed (to self or others) via cure wounds, channel energy or wholeness of body. On a more mundane level, her retinue has an assortment of unusual weapon options, such as battle poi, or Mikara’s own weapon of choice, the meteor hammer, and can provide training in such exotic weaponry, or even teach local craftsmen how to manufacture them. |