About Rhys Talloran. . . . Rhys Talloran
Size / Type: Medium Humanoid (Elf)
Initiative: +3 (+3 Dex)
Deity: Desna
Attributes
BAB: +0 (+0 Investigator) Rapier
Notes
HP: 9 (1d8 Investigator + Con/Level)[/bigger] AC: 16 (10 + 3 Dex + 3 Armour) CMB: 0 (0 BAB + 0 Str)
Fort +1 (0 Investigator + 1 Con)
Notes
13 / Level (6 Base + 4 Int + 2 Background + 1 Favoured) Class Skills: Acrobatics, Appraise, Bluff, Climb, Craft, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Disguise, Escape Artist, Heal, Intimidate, Kn (All), Linguistics, Perception, Perform, Profession, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Spellcraft, Stealth, Use Magic Device.
Notes:
Friend of the Family (Campaign): Your family has been close friends with the Mvashtis for as long as you’ve been alive. Old Niska Mvashti’s recent death wasn’t all that unexpected— she must have been over a hundred years old, as far as you know—but it was a sobering moment nonetheless. What no one else in your family knows, though, is that in the weeks before her death, Niska must have known that her days were numbered, because she called you to her house one day and made you make a promise: If her daughter Koya ever went on a long trip, you would go with her to ensure her safety. Although the chances of Koya going on a long trip seem remote (she must be at least 60 years old, after all), you’ve made a promise to Niska to accompany her daughter if such an event comes to pass. Ever since you made this promise, you’ve felt a strange sense of destiny looming in your future—you might even think that Niska is now watching over your shoulder, just as she asked you to watch over her daughter. As a result of this eerie sense of being watched over, you’ve been able to react to dangerous situations more quickly than ever. As long as Koya remains alive, you gain a +1 trait bonus on Perception checks, and Perception becomes a class skill for you. In addition, you gain a +1 trait bonus on all attack rolls against foes that threaten Koya. Spark of Creation (Magic): You have always had a knack for making useful things, and your talent as an artisan was evident even at an early age. You gain a +1 trait bonus on Craft checks, and the cost of creating magic items is reduced by 5%. Student of Philosophy (Social): You can use your Intelligence modifier in place of your Charisma modifier on Diplomacy checks to persuade others and on Bluff checks to convince others that a lie is true. (This trait does not affect Diplomacy checks to gather information or Bluff checks to feint in combat). Overprotective (Drawback): If one of your allies should fall unconscious from hit point damage, you take a –2 penalty on attack rolls and skill checks as long as you are farther than 10 feet away from your fallen ally.
Weapon Finesse: With a light weapon, elven curve blade, rapier, whip, or spiked chain made for a creature of your size category, you may use your Dexterity modifier instead of your Strength modifier on attack rolls. If you carry a shield, its armor check penalty applies to your attack rolls. (Feat Tax) Breadth of Experience: You get a +2 bonus on all Knowledge and Profession skill checks, and can make checks with those skills untrained. (Level 1 Feat) Brew Potion: You can create a potion of any 3rd-level or lower spell that you know and that targets one or more creatures or objects. Brewing a potion takes 2 hours if its base price is 250 gp or less, otherwise brewing a potion takes 1 day for each 1,000 gp in its base price. When you create a potion, you set the caster level, which must be sufficient to cast the spell in question and no higher than your own level. To brew a potion, you must use up raw materials costing one half this base price. When you create a potion, you make any choices that you would normally make when casting the spell. Whoever drinks the potion is the target of the spell and spells with a range of personal cannot be made into potions. (Bonus Feat)
Proficiencies: Investigators are proficient with simple weapons, plus the hand crossbow, rapier, sap, shortbow, short sword, and sword cane. They are proficient in light armors, but not shields. Inspiration (4 / Day): An investigator is beyond knowledgeable and skilled—he also possesses keen powers of observation and deduction that far surpass the abilities of others. An investigator typically uses these powers to aid in their investigations, but can also use these flashes of inspiration in other situations. An investigator has the ability to augment skill checks and ability checks through his brilliant inspiration. The investigator has an inspiration pool equal to 1/2 his investigator level + his Intelligence modifier (minimum 1). An investigator’s inspiration pool refreshes each day, typically after he gets a restful night’s sleep. As a free action, he can expend one use of inspiration from his pool to add 1d6 to the result of that check, including any on which he takes 10 or 20. This choice is made after the check is rolled and before the results are revealed. An investigator can only use inspiration once per check or roll. The investigator can use inspiration on any Knowledge, Linguistics, or Spellcraft skill checks without expending a use of inspiration, provided he’s trained in the skill. Inspiration can also be used on attack rolls and saving throws, at the cost of expending two uses of inspiration each time from the investigator’s pool. In the case of saving throws, using inspiration is an immediate action rather than a free action. Alchemy: When using Craft (alchemy) to create an alchemical item, an investigator gains a competence bonus equal to his class level on the skill check. In addition, an investigator can use Craft (alchemy) to identify potions as if using detect magic. He must hold the potion for 1 round to attempt such a check. Like an alchemist, an investigator prepares his spells by mixing ingredients and a tiny fraction of his own magical power into a number of extracts, and then effectively casts the spell by drinking the extract. These extracts have powerful effects, but they are also bound to their creator. Extracts behave like spells in potion form, and as such their effects can be dispelled by dispel magic and similar effects, using the investigator’s level as the caster level. An investigator can create only a certain number of extracts of each level per day. His base daily allotment of extracts per day is given on Table: Investigator. In addition, he receives bonus extracts per day if he has a high Intelligence score, in the same way a wizard receives bonus spells per day. When an investigator mixes an extract, he infuses the chemicals and reagents in the extract with magic siphoned from his own magical aura. An extract immediately become inert if it leaves the investigator’s possession, reactivating as soon as it returns to his keeping—an investigator cannot normally pass out his extracts for allies to use. An extract, once created, remains potent for 1 day before losing its magic, so an investigator must reprepare his extracts every day. Mixing an extract takes 1 minute of work. Creating extracts consumes raw material, but the cost of those materials is insignificant—comparable to the valueless material components of most spells. If a spell normally has a costly material component, that component is expended during the consumption of that particular extract. Extracts cannot be made from spells that have focus requirements; extracts that duplicate divine spells never have a divine focus requirement. An investigator uses the alchemist formulae list to determine the extracts he can know. An investigator can prepare an extract of any formulae he knows. To learn or use an extract, an investigator must have at least an Intelligence score equal to 10 + the extract’s level. The saving throw DC for an investigator’s extract is equal to 10 + the extract’s level + the investigator’s Intelligence modifier. An investigator may know any number of formulae. He stores his formulae in a special tome called a formula book. He must refer to this book whenever he prepares an extract. At 1st level, an investigator starts with two 1st-level formulae of his choice, plus a number of additional formulae equal to his Intelligence modifier. At each new investigator level, he gains one new formula for any level that he can create. An investigator can also add formulae to his book just like a wizard adds spells to his spellbook, using the same costs, pages, and time requirements. A formula book costs as much as a spellbook. An investigator can study a wizard’s spellbook to learn any formula that is equivalent to a spell the spellbook contains. A wizard, however, cannot learn spells from a formula book. An investigator can also learn formulae from another investigator’s or an alchemist’s formula book (and vice versa). An investigator does not need to decipher arcane writing before copying that formulae.
1-Level (2 / Day)
Currency: X
Vignette:
Koya stared off into the sunset, her mother’s funeral having ended, but the weight of it still resting solidly on her chest. The log she sat on at her mother’s estate gave a view unlike any other in all of Sandpoint. Koya wondered if she’d chosen it before the town was even founded.
A lean elf approached slowly, sitting down beside her, and spoke not for a few seconds, simply letting his presence be of some comfort. “I was already old when she was born, you know.” Rhys began. Koya snorted, noting that his hair had barely begun to gray. “It’s true,” He said with a smile, though whether it actually was or not, Koya couldn’t say. “Your mother was quite the woman. Strong and independent. My people, we… tend not to couple with humans. It’s too hard, you understand. But I don’t think there’s an elf living that wouldn’t have gone through it all for her.” Koya didn’t say anything, so Rhys fell silent as well, and the two just enjoyed each other’s company for a few moments. Koya had heard many things about the elf over the years, that he was a war hero, that he had buried his own children, that his cottage on the edge of Churlwood wasn’t a cozy retirement as much as self-imposed exile for the things he had done, the things he had helped do. She wondered how hard it must be to see death on that scale. “Does it get easier?” She asked. “Yes. But then… no. And then yes.” He replied with a dry laugh. “I buried my own parents a very, very long time ago, but there are still moments when the wounds feel fresh. We elves, we think we understand death. Those of us who live only with our own kind see it as this abstraction. When an entire nation rises and falls, and generations are born and die out before we reach adulthood, it can be… distancing.” “For the rest of us who live close to other races, it’s the opposite. We feel it as a presence beside us, one that quickly takes away all we care about. We fear it, and it wears on us… Did you know that the leading cause of death among elves is suicide?” Koya shook her head, shocked. “There comes a time when our friends have all gone, and we feel too old and too tired to go through it all again. All we want is to go wherever our loved ones have gone to. A hundred years, a thousand years, and we would throw it away for one more day with humans like your mother.” “I’ll be heading back to Churlwood soon.” He adds, wiping his eyes. “I trust I’ll see you in 6 months time?” He said it as though he were making plans to have coffee later in the week, rather than the months of travel that it would take for her caravan to make the same lap it always made - Riddleport, Magnimar, and Korvosa, with a brief stop by his cottage in Churlwood, to swap stories and supplies, and to enjoy each other’s company. To his surprise, Koya shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’ve been in Varisia for so long, Rhys. So very long. I may live as long as she did, but I may not, and I want to see more of the world before I go. I want to see the jungles and the snow, to be in a ship on the ocean.” The promise he made to Niska immediately popped into Rhys’s mind. That he would watch over Koya, and protect her if she went on, as Niska called it, “some fool adventure”. Rhys looked over to her with a smile. “Well, what are we waiting for?” Background:
At almost 200 years old, Rhys has reached middle age, and while it has not come with very much in the ways of wisdom, he has spent decades mostly alone, learning what he can of the world.
Rhys has, for the bulk of the past 50 years, kept himself in a self-imposed exile in a small cabin outside of the Churlwood forest - trading with those who pass by, and going to the town of Ravenmoor only once or twice a year to trade goods. In the earlier years of his life, Rhys was very brash and headstrong. He fought in the early years of the defense against the Worldwound (~4630-4638), hoping to make a name for himself. At the time, there were very few elves there, and all of those who went, he knew. And all of them, he watched die. He fell in love, and saw her die, too. It would be a difficult situation for anyone, but is especially so for elves. Before stepping onto that battlefield, Rhys had not only never seen someone die, but could count on one hand the number of people who had died in his entire 120-year life. To go from that to the slaughter of thousands is jarring, to say the least. In 4638, after the fall of Drezen and the deaths of some 2000 crusaders, Rhys could do it no longer, and he left the campaign, spending the next couple of decades traveling. It was during these travels that he met Niska Mvashti. But everywhere he went, he only saw more death. In 4635 Absalom had legalized slavery, and people could work their slaves to death. In 4657, the founder of Nirmathas was assassinated, and then finally, in 4658, rebels trying to free the town of Biston from Korvosan rule were all executed. Rhys felt an overwhelming futility of life, and decided to shut himself away. During his self-imposed exile, he would still meet those that came through, and he began to appreciate more the Individual. He’d been thinking for so long about people as large numbers of dead and all of the untapped potential, but in engaging with them more in groups of less than 10, and only once or twice a year, he grew to focus much more on who they were, their feelings and dreams and hopes. This wasn’t the Worldwound when you scarcely had a minute to catch your breath, and everyone’s goal was to see another day. Rather, it was people keeping simple lives, not unlike his, and dreaming of the possibilities. As more time wore on, Rhys felt less and less like he had the courage to leave, so he didn’t. It wasn’t until Niska Mvashti was dying that he made the journey to Sandpoint, a town that hadn’t even existed when he had last been in the area. And there, she made him promise to look after his daughter, and dread filled him as to what that might mean. Before her death, Niska made one last reading for him, using bones rather than tarot cards. She gave him a knowing smile that he didn’t understand, and she said that for the first time in a long time of doing readings, “the future looks bright” Personality:
I want to play Rhys in a way similar to Doctor Who (specifically the 10th Doctor), or Gandalf. The idea of being this older, “more advanced” species, but finding humans incredibly endearing and not as insects, but giants.
A lot of it comes down to this idea, which Rhys understood in his youth, but has since forgotten: "Some people live more in twenty years than others do in eighty. It's not the time that matters, it's the person." While elves are much longer-lived, they don’t live with the same passion and ferocity that the other races do, and it’s this feature that Rhys is drawn to. What he’ll come to understand over the course of the campaign, is that it hurts to lose people close to you, but when they’re people who had that fire, they’re worth it for the experience, and they change you for the better. |
