About Quylle
Quylle
Female Strix Zen Archer Qinggong Monk 1
Expected Mythic Path Champion
LN Medium humanoid (strix)
Init +9; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +10
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Defense
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AC 17, touch 17, flat-footed 14 (+3 Dex, +4 class)
hp 9 (1d8+1)
Fort +4, Ref +5, Will +6
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft., fly 60 ft.
Melee unarmed strike +2 (1d6+2)
Ranged shortbow +3 (1d6/×3, 60 ft.)
Flurry shortbow +2/+2 (1d6/x3, 60 ft.)
Special Attacks flurry of blows, hatred
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Statistics
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Str 14, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 18, Cha 6
Base Atk +0; CMB +2 (+2 vs. humans, +3 vs. demons); CMD 19
Feats Improved Initiative, Improved Unarmed Strike, Perfect Strike, Precise Shot
Traits Exile, Stolen Fury
Skills Craft (bows) +1, Fly +3, Linguistics +0, Perception +10; Racial Modifiers +2 Perception
Languages Common, Strix
SQ track
Other Gear Arrows (20/20, 1 gp), Blunt arrows (20/20, 2 gp), Shortbow (30 gp), Trail rations (2, 1gp), Waterskin (1 gp)
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Special Abilities
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Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white vision only).
Exile: For whatever reason, you were forced to flee your homeland. Chance or fate has brought you to town, and it's here that your money ran out, leaving you stranded in this small town. You are also being pursued by enemies from your homeland, and that has made you paranoid and quick to react to danger. You gain a +2 trait bonus on Initiative checks.
Hatred +1 (Ex) Gain a bonus to attacks vs humans.
Improved Initiative You get a +4 bonus on initiative checks.
Improved Unarmed Strike You are considered to be armed even when unarmed—you do not provoke attacks of opportunity when you attack foes while unarmed. Your unarmed strikes can deal lethal or nonlethal damage, at your choice.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.
Perfect Strike (2d20, 1/day) At 1st level, a zen archer gains Perfect Strike as a bonus feat, even if he does not meet the prerequisites. A zen archer can use Perfect Strike with any bow. At 10th level, the monk can roll his attack roll three times and take the highest result. If one of these rolls is a critical threat, the monk must choose one of his other two rolls to use as his confirmation roll. This ability replaces Stunning Fist.
Precise Shot
Stolen Fury You were forced to take part in a demonic ritual as a youth after having been captured by cultists. Whatever the ritual’s purpose may have been, it didn’t work out the way your captors envisioned before you escaped to safety. Ever since, you’ve been haunted by strange nightmares about the ritual, and have long felt that the energies it bathed you in have changed you.
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Description
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- Strix
- Lean, lanky
- Black-skinned and feathered
- Scars from where the cultists tried to inject with demon blood
- Raspy voice from vapors of cultist’s ritual
- Ragged clothes
- Always carries longbow and quiver
- An old and battered longsword, with spots of rust (note that I have not counted this in her starting gold, perhaps because it is still broken and she keeps it in her aerie)
- Always hungry, snacking (and she'll eat things humans wouldn't remotely consider)
- Hasn’t been able to afford armor yet
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Short Background
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Quylle was born in the Devil's Perch, the mountains above the city of Pezzack. Knocked from the sky in a battle against the evil grounders (humans), the worshipper of Pazuzu was captured by human cultists of Lamashtu. She prayed to Pazuzu for deliverance with no answer. But Iomedae and Ylimancha did. Quylle fought her way free with a rusty longsword and fled north to Kenabres seeking the reason for Iomedae's intervention.
Four years have passed. Quylle left Pezzack. It hasn’t been what she expected. Her own prejudices have been turned against her. Many of the grounders see her as a demon. In spite of her fighting skills, the crusaders of Kenabres refuse to let her join them in sallies against the Worldwound. Instead she has found service among the cities bowyers. Many are elves or other non-human races. They seem to hold less prejudice against her and frankly, she is more comfortable with them than the other grounders. She has found a perch in the steeple of an abandoned temple of Iomedae. Something about it makes her feel more at peace and the longsword seems to shimmer more when she polishes it in the morning light. The courier work is not difficult. It lets her fly and she doesn’t have to interact too much with the grounders.
Every day she looks for a sign. Something to help her see why the Inheritor sent Harborwing to save her. Why is she here?
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Quylle’s Story
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She still wakes screaming in the night. Visions of dark wings and claws. Arrows arcing through the moonlight. Crimson blood and bright orange flame. Pain.
The path of the Inheritor has been harder than she could have imagined.
Four years ago, Pezzack burned. Something stretched and snapped among the hateful grounders of the foul town. Shouts of anger and cries of pain carried across the open skies to the Perch. A golden opportunity to break them and shatter the town once and for all.
She was a Dayguard. All day long, the sounds had grown louder. More intense. Whatever happened the night before wasn’t subsiding. The clan’s leaders listened with intense interest. Their eyes grew wild and strix flew from peak to peak as the sun set over the ocean to the west.
While much of that night is still a blur, she remembers the conclave of the Bloody Talons. Pazuzu’s chosen built a giant bonfire upon the Aerie. Huge logs that had been gathered since before she was a fledgling lit and she remembers the pride she felt as similar fires began to burn on peaks throughout the perch. Prayers to the dark lord who granted flight to the strix. The sacrifice of a wing-clipped cripple. All a lie. But then she believed.
Her breast filled with gratification when she was chosen to be one of the log bearers. Surely Pazuzu would see and lend strength and speed to her wings. He would brush the arrows away with the ocean wind and steel her mind against the magic of their priest’s. She was one of the first to have the priest drizzle the blood of the sacrifice over her feathers and she took wing gripping the burning log with her winged partner, its heat an almost carnal contrast with the cool night air.
The rest of the night flew by. The first few logs fell upon the town without retribution. The satisfying crash of the logs quickly replaced by even more satisfying sparks, smoke and flame. Pezzack burned. And then she fell. A stray arrow. A mad alchemist’s concoction. A wizard’s spell. She doesn't remember. Only that horrible feeling of lost control. The rush of wind. And the pain when she hit the ground. And darkness.
Until the voices. That harsh tongue of the grounders. She was too tired. Stupid, pathetic, terrified creatures. Her mind drifted. Hard to understand. But something she had heard it enough as a Dayguard to know they still panicked. Hard to follow. But not the strix. So tired. Something about water...and ships...and war.
Lost time. The voices changed. Now excited. Fanatic. Then a name she had known since the nest. Lamashtu. Now she knew fear.
Like flying out of the Aerie into a hard, cold rain, he mind snapped back. They planned to make her a monster. A weapon against their enemies. The warships. The strix. Rough hands held her. Her throat was choked with foul vapors and her body burned with something being rubbed into her wounds. She prayed to Pazuzu. Three times in a breath she called his name. Again and again and again. He didn’t answer. Someone else did.
She felt the tang of salt in her mouth. Then a beautiful song of seabirds. It was funny. She’d always thought they sounded like befuddled idiots before. Then she saw her. A woman. She was tall and lean and looked like a grounder except for the head of an osprey. A beautiful teak longbow strung with gold was strapped to her back. Harborwing. Ylimancha.
When she spoke, every word echoed with the beautiful sound of waves crashing against the foot of the Perch. A reassuring sound. Ylimancha told her Pazuzu had forsaken her and that she was needed. Not here. In the north. Harborwing was here because the Inheritor wanted Quylle in her army. Pazuzu’s wretched spawn Deskari had to be stopped.
A new strength filled her limbs. For a moment, the pain fled. She threw the grounders off. That’s when she saw it. A single brilliant beam of light lanced through the darkness of the dank and fouled basement in which she struggled and lit an old, rusty longsword tangled in bricks and garbage. She grabbed the sword and whirled on Lamashtu’s cultists. One by one they fell. Each time the sword seemed stronger. Rust fell off. She was free.
Four years have passed. Quylle left Pezzack. She left the Perch. She flew to Kenabres to serve the Inheritor. Her wings weren't ready for the strain, but she made it. It hasn’t been what she expected. Her own prejudices have been turned against her. Many of the grounders see her as a demon. Knowledge of her past would make it worse. In spite of her fighting skills, the crusaders of Kenabres refuse to let her join them in sallies against the Worldwound. Instead she has found service among the cities bowyers. Many are elves or other non-human races. They seem to hold less prejudice against her and frankly, she is more comfortable with them than the other grounders. She has found a perch in the steeple of an abandoned temple of Iomedae, supposedly haunted by ghosts of innocent victims of the witch hunters of the Third Crusade. Something about it makes her feel more at peace and the longsword seems to shimmer more when she polishes it in the morning light. The courier work is not difficult. It lets her fly and she doesn’t have to interact too much with the grounders. But every day she looks for a sign. Something to help her see why the Inheritor sent Harborwing to save her. Why is she here?
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Personality
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- Alert Quylle was a Dayguard among the strix clan known as the Bloody Talon's. Aside from her natural gifts of exceptional eyesight and hearing, she was trained to be more effective than others of her race in day as well as night.
- Apprehensive Quylle is wary of other races, the grounders as she calls them. Humans in particular. The strix of Devil's Perch are xenophobic because of the long-standing problems with the humans of the area. But, Quylle has faced additional persecution in Mendev. The strix are not common and many have mistaken her as a demon. She also fears that her past hunts her. She has seen other winged creatures in the skies of Kenabres and cultists who prowl its alleys.
- Blunt Quylle speaks her opinion bluntly and seems to have a complete lack of understanding of diplomatic ways of phrasing something. This is partly her nature and upbringing, but it is also affected by Common being her second language and one that she still struggles with. It is much harder for her to wrap her tongue around and as a result, she tends to say what she thinks with little "fancy speech."
- Caustic Her blunt nature has a tendency to come out even stronger when she is annoyed, frustrated, hungry, or tired. At these times, she can be outright rude or even threatening.
- Prejudiced (humans) Quylle is definitely prejudiced toward grounders (humans in particular, but also also non-flying races). She has started to open up to other races, especially elves and other fey as a result of her time in Kenabres, but she still finds it difficult to trust humans.
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Quylle and Kenabres
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Spruce Hall
Location The Garrison in Old Kenabres
Bowyer Opharnel Dramatos is an ancient elven craftsman who came to Kenabres long before the creation of the Worldwound and who has seen the entire Worldwound conflict unfold. Opharnel has armed generations of crusaders with his exquisitely crafted composite bows.
Description A small shop nestled in a cramped room in the upper floors of the Garrison covered in wood shavings, horn, sinew, and jars of glue.
Relationship with Quylle From his workshop, Opharnel spied Quylle perched in the upper reaches of the Cathedral of Saint Clydwell within days of her arrival in Kenabres. Curious, Opharnel managed the harrowing climb to the top of the cathedral. Fortunately the elderly elf managed to avoid being thrown to his death and managed to befriend the starving strix, going on to become her first grounder friend in Kenabres.
Demonbane Cave
Location Southgate, just below street level on a little-used side street three blocks from the Temple of Torag
Bowyer Ithik is the pale, raven-haired Kellid grimspawn tiefling proprietress of Demonbane Cave. She has parlayed her arcane talents and hatred of demons into a well-earned reputation as crafter of the most deadly ammunition in Kenabres.
Description Ithik's workshop has but a single known entrance, but the shop seems to sprawl below the entire city block. Filled with countless rooms of materials, partially finished work and masterpieces, few would probably visit were it not for her remarkable talents that result in such weapons as her thunderwing arrows made from vrock feathers.
Relationship with Quylle Ithik and her shop seriously creep Quylle out. Ithik of course plays it up without mercy, delighting in tormenting the poor strix. For her part, Quylle procrastinates horribly when she is asked to courier packages involving the Cave. Being underground in Ithik's overheated, stifling shop while the grimspawn's hacking cough echoes through the chambers stirs terrors in Quylle that she would rather not consider.
Straight Arrow
Location Gate District near the Temple of Abadar
Bowyer Eireen Chammady, a halfling bowyer and devotee of Iomedae, seeking perfection in the crafting of bows.
Description The Straight Arrow is a tidy one-story woodworking shop in the Gate District. Eireen maintains an extensive network of suppliers throughout Mendev and Brevoy with more exotic materials shipped from Casmoran through Qadira, Taldor and the River Kingdoms.
Relationship with Quylle Eireen has grown to be Quylle's closest companion in Kenabres. The halfling, a strict devotee of Iomedae has grown to be a friend and in many ways, a mentor. She has helped Quylle to deal with her nightmares and to learn more of the Inheritor. She has begun to teach Quylle how to craft bows, arrows and that there is more than killing to be found in the grace of a bow or perfection of a well-made arrow.
