About Rhis AlberutiShort, thin, and impossibly pale, Rhis would be a ghost if not for the flamboyant, colourful attire she so purposely chooses to don, appearing every bit the young and flighty priestess of Desna, right down to the butterfly crest at her chest. And yet something about this picture...something about her strikes you as altogether, unmistakably, irrefutably...off.
Few alive in Sandpoint know the lackadaisical archer by name, but a great many more recognize her face, a visage ignored by time as the rest of the world continues to age, prosper, and grow. Thirty years have passed since Rhis's first arrival to the coastal town, and for thirty years she has remained almost exactly the same, as if she had never aged at all. Rumors fly about the method involved, that she uses magic to maintain her youth, or disguise her age, or that she's something altogether not human. The truth is that Rhis doesn't truly know herself, and for her part tends not to think on it, choosing to believe her longevity, much like her close friends the Mvashtis, is a gift of fate and divine luck. Whether or not this is true, she neither knows nor particularly cares, for dogslicers and arrows don't care for age, and the priestess has the scars to prove it. Despite being an accomplished archer and devotee of Desna, Rhis is infamous beyond her eerie lifespan, possessing a reputation for being lazy, capable of sleeping anywhere, and sometimes appearing downright apathetic. Those who've known her for an extended length of time can profess that this is simply untrue. She is apathetic, but only towards causes she feels are pointless, or already consumed by fate. That said, her paycheck must come from somewhere--and few have anything offensive to say of the Desnan's carefree ways, as she appears equally likely to assist as she is to ignore a request entirely. On most days, Rhis can be found wasting time and coin in The Rusty Dragon, probably napping on the bar, over a table, or sometimes even hanging in the rafters, should the establishment's glorious owner take an eye off the Desnan for more than a few minutes. Rhis is convinced that Ameiko's revenge ploy is to feed her out of house, home, and wardrobe ("Your stupid foreign cuisine is making me fat, Kaijitsu. I hope you're happy.")
Statblock / Private Info:
Rhis Alberuti
Female sylph warpriest of Desna 1 (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Class Guide 60, Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 258) CG Medium outsider, humanoid (native, human) Init +3; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +7 -------------------- Defense -------------------- AC 18, touch 13, flat-footed 15 (+4 armor, +3 Dex, +1 shield) hp 9 (1d8+1) Fort +3, Ref +3, Will +4; -2 vs. sleep effects -------------------- Offense -------------------- Speed 35 ft. (25 ft. in armor) Melee dagger +2 (1d4+2/19-20) or . . starknife +2 (1d6+2/×3) Ranged longbow +4 (1d8/×3) Special Attacks blessings 3/day, sacred weapon (1d6, 0) Warpriest Spells Prepared (CL 1st; concentration +3) . . 1st—clarion call, protection from evil . . 0 (at will)—create water, detect fiendish presence, detect magic -------------------- Statistics -------------------- Str 14, Dex 17, Con 12, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 10 Base Atk +0; CMB +2; CMD 15 Feats Point-Blank Shot, Weapon Focus (longbow) Traits fate's favored, friend of the family, wind-carried voices Skills Acrobatics +0 (-4 to jump), Appraise +1, Linguistics +1, Perception +7, Sense Motive +6 (+7 to discern lies), Stealth +4; Racial Modifiers +4 Stealth Languages Common, Varisian SQ blessings (luck: lucky presence, unlucky enemy, travel: agile feet, dimensional hop), mostly human, sleepy, storm in the blood Other Gear armored coat[APG], buckler, arrows (20), blunt arrows[APG] (20), dagger, longbow, starknife, backpack, chewing stick, comb (0.2 lb), flint and steel, fortune-teller's deck[APG], hairbrush (0.3 lb), hemp rope (50 ft.), iron holy symbol of desna[UE], iron spike[APG] (4), mirror, nail file (0.1 lb), piton, scissors (0.3 lb), soap, sponge, tooth powder (0.1 lb), trail rations (5), 2 gp, 2 sp -------------------- Special Abilities -------------------- Blessings (3/day) (Su) Pool of power used to activate Blessing abilities. Darkvision (60 feet) You can see in the dark (black and white only). Mostly Human Appear mostly human, count as humanoid (human) for all purposes, as well as outsider (native). Point-Blank Shot +1 to attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at up to 30 feet. Sacred Weapon (Su) As a swift action, grant weapon enhancement bonus or certain powers. Sleepy You must sleep at least 12 hours to be rested, and you take -2 to save vs. sleep effects. Storm in the Blood (2 HP/day) Gain fast healing 2 for 1 round anytime you takes electricity damage. -------------------- Favored Class Bonus -------------------- 1st Level +1/6 of a Bonus Combat Feat (Human) -------------------- Backstory -------------------- Being as it is, rarely does a day pass in Sandpoint without some measure of madness or plot looming on the horizon. Sometimes, though rarely, something just...drops in, falling out of the infinite sky to grace the world below; several decades ago, not at all long after the founding of Sandpoint itself, Rhis (apparently) did precisely that...though ‘grace’ might be a strong word. As old rumors would have you believe, Rhis arrived after a night of shooting stars, washing upon the shore like a gurgling, disheveled piece of driftwood. The woman herself doesn’t actually know the circumstances. In fact Rhis doesn’t remember much of that night at all; not the journey, not the waves, not even her own name, whatever that might’ve been...but archer eagerly recalls the well-worn, old hands of a healer, and the song that brought her to life. They say it was a stroke of luck that the Mvashtis had come so close to the sea that day; that it was luck that they found the frozen heap that was Rhis’s body. Hell, it was luck that she could be revived at all. Those old enough to remember the unconscious, perpetually waterlogged woman as she hacked oceans from her lungs almost all universally agree: Niska Mvashti treated her wounds, warmed her bones, offered words and a name to fill in the blanks of her mind--but it was Desna, Luck Incarnate, that had saved her soul. Rhis stayed with the caravans for a time, her lackadaisical demeanor a queer addition to their hot-blooded Varisian troop, but it was clear to anyone that the woman was not up for a far-flung journey, her health acting in direct opposition to any realistic prospect of travel. Instead, Rhis settled in the newborn town of Sandpoint, offering herself whole as a proper, if lethargic, servant of Good ("...or whatever else’ll put food on the table, I guess..") It’s been some thirty years since then however and, though she's fully recovered and has made small excursions to the likes of Magnimar and Ilsurian, Rhis has always found herself returning to Sandpoint for one reason or another. To say she stayed in touch with her saviors would be something of an understatement. Unable to recant anything of her history before her spontaneous arrival in Varisia, Rhis found in Niska a lifelong friend, the two sharing eerily similar, aged outlooks of the world despite their increasingly obvious differences, keeping in contact by letter and (though rarely) spellcraft. Perhaps the most striking of their differences, and the one that undoubtedly conjures the most confusion amongst the people of Sandpoint, is that though Niska, Koya, and later Sandru continued to age (each admittedly in their own ways) Rhis has proved to be...really quite unbothered by the nuances of time, appearing as fit and fair as she had been the day of her arrival (though Niska would never hesitate to point out the continually worsening bags under Rhis’s eyes as a mark to her age). Honestly, she understands it as much as the next person, and is largely disinterested in finding out what twist of fate led to her current life. More recently, before her passing, Niska sent for the archer and for her time more or less forced Rhis into something of a pact; a promise to keep what were now well-trained eyes on her next of kin. Rhis’s answer was, at first, a nonchalant shrug and an offhand agreement. Now she thinks the better of it and, though she mightn’t say it aloud, keeps a serious bead on Mvashti cleric, and an even sharper one on those that would wish her harm. Though she makes an effort to keep up an aloof appearance, the truth is that Rhis has recently been making preparations to consolidate her affairs in Sandpoint, readying to join Koya and Sandru if their thoughts of a more long-term adventure ever come to fruition. |
