Rendylyn the Red Waif's page

Rendylyn looks like a tall, skinny kid about the right age to be worrying about pimples and matchmakers and mean girls. Her natural expression is a smirk. She has a habit of brushing her straw-colored bangs forward over one eye to make it harder for others to notice it's not black like the other, but deep red. She wears a filthy, torn shift, and the fading bruises her captors gave her when they tossed her in her cell.

"I hope that this court will be merciful. After all, I am but a homeless orphan..."

"An orphan, Miss Stoker? You are on trial for the murder of your parents!"

"...and how is that relevant?"

The ancient house of Stoker, opulent and imperial, long concealed a line of diabolists who worshipped both Asmodeus and their patron devil: Alichino, Hell's Jester. But generations ago, a faction of young Stokers who supported House Darius over House Barca rebelled against their family's tradition, renounced hell, exposed their elders' secrets and aided in their arrests. For eighty years, these reformed Stokers and their descendants strove to atone for their ancestors' crimes, becoming devout Trinitarians and citizens beyond reproach.

Still this was not enough for Micah and Jonah Stoker, Rendylyn's adoptive parents. Haunted by terrible dreams, Micah believed the taint of his family's evil was wrought in his very bones. Instead of finding a surrogate to bear the next generation of Stokers, he and his husband decided to adopt children who could redeem the Stoker name without the stain of Stoker blood. They took in many children, among them an angelic baby girl whose only flaw was her heterochromatic eyes.

Micah and Jonah let her keep the name in the note pinned to the basket she was abandoned in: Rendylyn. It would be the girl's one inheritance from her wayward mother, they decided.

They were wrong. Rendylyn inherited many gifts from her mother, which she instinctively concealed: Mismatched eyes that could pierce the blackest midnight. Nails that could scratch furrows in iron. A whispering tongue that could wish ill on others...and have that evil happen. Ears that could hear a voice, a loving voice, from the coals of dying fires, offering her courtesy and compliments and wicked encouragement.

This voice guided young Rendylyn to a secret stair under the hearth, unused for generations. She descended to the lightless depths of onyx-inlaid catacombs laid by the first Stokers, where from rune-covered altars she learned the rites of appeasement and abasement that would gain her the favor of hell's dark masters. With blood and oaths she sealed a compact: Her fealty for their tutelage.

What she learned of power, of commands and flame, delighted her. Hellfire bent easily to her will. This, she was told, was another gift from her mother, a powerful hag who expected her to claw her own way to dominance. She also learned that she had been adopted into a family of traitors, weaklings who had abandoned the battlefield to the light and broken every law and promise that bound them.

Disgusted by the Stokers' oathbreaking, and eager to prove her own worth, Rendylyn put a simple but murderous plan into action. One night at dinner, she barred her adoptive parents and siblings and old family servants into the dining hall, then lit Stoker House afire as she called accusations to them through the oaken doors. Only she survived the conflagration, found coughing and laughing among the collapsing timbers by the townsfolk throwing vain buckets of water on the blazing building. Her levity was taken as an admission of guilt, and she was soon arrested.

Rendylyn's court-appointed advocate mounted a marvellous defense that claimed the young girl had been frightened of horrors haunting the blood-soaked stones of the ancient Stoker house, and set the fire to rid the world of them. While she didn't openly deny this, Rendylyn would not testify in her own defense, instead subjecting the court to a series of mocking and contemptuous speeches. When she giggled during a description of the inferno, the prosecutor dubbed her "the Red Waif," a nickname that spread everywhere eager tongues shared the scandalous story of her trial. Though the court could not prove murder, her complete lack of remorse and general aura of wickedness led them to sentence her to death by burning, the maximum penalty for arson, despite her young age.

"Do you feel any remorse at all, Miss Stoker?"

"Why, of course! I could do so much more if you'd let me!"

Rendylyn doesn't think of herself as an innocent corrupted by Asmodeus, Alichino, her mother, or the stones of Stoker House. None of this is any of her fault, either--if people would simply obey all the laws of hell all the time, she'd have no reason to punish them, so really this is all their own doing.

Neither can she sympathize with all the mourning and wailing. People should realize that it's all just a grand farce, a nasty joke played by the gods, and you're either in on the punchline or you're a victim of the prank. Though she pays her devotions to her god Asmodeus, her sympathies lie closer to her patron devil Alichino, whose doctrines teach that law is every bit as arbitrary and capricious as chaos, and that our need for order is the true madness, and that madness is greatness, and isn't that all just too wonderfully funny? Until someone gets hurt...then it's hilarious.

Rendylyn doesn't believe she's fallen--she believes she's flying. Not until the flames of her stake caress her will she believe that Branderscar is the end of her legend...and perhaps not even then.

STR 8 (-1)
DEX 17 (+3)
CON 9 (-1)
INT 11
WIS 20 (+5)
CHA 17 (+3)

AL: LE
Initiative: +3
Size: Medium
Speed: 30'
HP: 8
Languages: Common, Infernal

Defenses:
AC: 13, Touch: 13, Flat-footed: 10
CMD: 15
Fort: +1, Ref: +3, Will: +6

Attacks:
Claws: +3/+3 1d4-1/1d4 -1

Feats:
Spell Focus (Evocation): +1 to the save DC of evocation spells she casts.

Traits:
Crime of Arson: Whenever you score a critical hit with a fire attack, you receive a +2 fire damage bonus to your damage roll. This bonus is a trait bonus.
Vile Domain: You gain a +1 trait bonus to your caster level when casting spells granted by the Fire domain.

Racial Abilities:
Claws: Two claw attacks (1d4-1 points of damage each)
Darkvision: 60’ range
Hag Magic: Can use Ill Omen 1/day (caster level 1)
Pyrophile (Ash Hag): +1 racial bonus on damage rolls when using spells with the fire descriptor.

Class Features
Channel Negative Energy: Standard action to do 1d6 damage (or healing to undead) to living creatures in a 30’ radius, 6 times a day. DC 15 will save for half.
Focused Domain (Fire): Only one Domain. Domain powers operate at +2 cleric levels. Can prepare domain spells in regular spell slots.
Fire Bolt (Sp): Standard action to target any single foe within 30 feet with a ranged touch attack fire bolt that deals 1d6+2 points of fire damage. Usable 8 times a day. (8 remaining)

Skills:
[2 (Cleric) + 2 (campaign bonus)] x 1 (lvl) = 4
Knowledge: Religion +4 [1 ranks + 3 class]
Perception +6 [1 ranks + 5 wisdom]
Perform (Comedy) +4 [1 rank + 3 charisma]
Sense Motive +9 [1 ranks + 3 class + 5 wisdom]

Combat Gear:

Other Gear:

Spell Slots: Orisons: 3; 1st: 4 (1 is domain only)

Spell DC: 14 + spell level; 15 + spell level for evocations

Spells Prepared:
Orisons:
Create Water
Guidance
Purify Food and Drink
Stabilize

Level 1:
Burning Hands
Command
Forbid Action
Murderous Command

I hope to give Rendylyn levels in the Exalted prestige class eventually and start slinging hellfire. It would be great if we could introduce her ash hag mother into the plot somehow. I like the idea that the catacombs beneath the charred skeleton of Stoker House remain undiscovered, and that when we characters reach Daveryn we might explore them and the adjoining onyx mines, perhaps converting them to a base of operations. If some among her distant relations have laid claim to the estate since her conviction, Rendylyn is sure to take offense.

Diabolism wasn't always completely forbidden in Talingarde, but it was never popular. Only one rite of hell was widely observed outside of the conspiratorial circles of Asmodeus's followers, and that was the Feast of Great Alichino, or, as it was known to society at large, Fool's Night.

On the Caged Jester's profane eve, all must follow his rule: "Seem a fool, or be made one". The common folk of Talingarde celebrated by wearing outrageous costumes, most usually black-and-red-checkered fool's motley with horns and bells and other frippery. Spoilsports who didn't dress for the occasion were fair play for all manner of silly pranks at the hands of their more festive neighbors. There were traditional cakes, and dances, and a great deal of drinking...harmless fun, on the surface. But hidden beneath a layer of symbolism were the sinister mysteries of Alichino, wherein the pranks were inhuman acts of sadism, and the laughter was indistinguishable from screams.

Since the ascension of House Darius and the Trinity, the Feast of Alichino has long been suppressed and is largely forgotten. Older dwarves and elves may remember their merry nights in motley, and some few humans may have heard tales from their parents or grandparents, but none speak openly of celebrations now called blasphemous.

From Rendylyn's perspective, Talingarde is guilty of not observing Alichino's rites for generations. She's imagined many hilarious punishments to deal out on his next Feast to anyone who neglects to wear motley, which is likely to be anyone she meets. If she has her way, the whole of Talingarde will learn that it's best to have some fun on Fool's Night--that this devil must have his due.