About Ri'elBack-story:
When asked about his early childhood, Ri'el (Ri for short) usually falls silent, not out of shame or grief, but simply because he cannot remember. He remembers a ship in a storm, his parents (whose faces he can only vaguely remember) holding on to him as they cast off in a rowboat whilst the ship succumbed to the waves, and then the rowboat itself being tossed upside down, emptying its passengers into the merciless ocean. He remembers his father pulling him from the depths with one arm and clinging onto what must have been a fragment of the boat with the other. He remembers being pulled onto a beach before his father collapsed beside him, and then darkness. His next memory is of waking up surrounded by strange lizard-like men, terrified and calling for his father, and the strange scaled ones calming him, nursing him to health, and saying a strange word over and over again in his presence. Over time he learned that the larger of the scaled creatures were called lizardfolk (the warriors), whilst the smaller ones were called kobolds (the servants). The strange word that they had repeated around him was the name they had given him, on account of his iridiscent eyes, the one hint of his celestial heritage. Isk Vrak. Star child. As Ri'el grew up with the lizardfolk/kobold tribe, he learned that from time immemorial the island he was on had been home only to the scaled ones, the lizardfolk and the kobold. (There were goblins too, but they were never seen as much more than a pest-infestation.) However, that changed several years ago, when the men who wore bug-heads and bore serrated metal "spears" carved out a portion of the island for themselves, building their citadel on the ancestral lands of the scaled ones. Though the scaled ones sought to reclaim their lands, they were rebuffed time and time again, and soon were even hunted by the invaders from time to time. Tarssalox, the witch doctor of the tribe, came to conclude that the tribe's survival would only come from understanding and parlaying with the invaders, and decided it would be prudent to raise a liaison and emissary, one who could walk with the invaders as one of them, but who understood the tribe's ways and was loyal to them. But Tarssalox was also adamant that the one to be chosen had to be exceptional amongst the scaleless-ones, one who would be able to hold sway over them. Potential candidates however proved difficult to procure, so when Tarssalox found the child with the star-filled eyes washed ashore beside his dead father, he was convinced that the spirits had given him a boon and a sign. For years, Ri'el was raised by Tarssalox amongst the tribe of the scaled ones, learning their language and the ways of the spirits from his adopted witch-doctor father. He wanted for nothing, for Tarssalox was firm that Ri'el, the Isk Vrak, had been chosen and marked by the spirits, and when Ri successfully called to himself his own animal spirit guide, the rest of the tribe came to fully accept him as Tarssalox's apprentice and their future witch doctor. Unfortunately, many of the tribe's warriors misunderstood the purpose for which Tarssalox was personally grooming Ri. Warlike in their ways and thinking, they had thought that Ri was being raised to lead them to war against the invaders, and as Ri's abilities grew, so too did their boldness. The tribe soon earned the ire of the Red Mantises, who decided that taking out the tribe would be a suitable "training exercise". When they struck, Tarssalox was one of the first to be targeted, and Ri'el was knocked out early in the skirmish. The tribe was massacred that day, but the Mantises assumed that Ri'el was simply the tribe's captive for their next dinner, and he was taken back to Ilizmagorti to be sold as a slave. Perhaps there the fates played one last joke, for Ri'el too had come to see himself as one of the tribe, and in raising him, they had indeed secured the survival of their tribe through its last surviving member. Ri'el soon found himself serving as an indentured swab on the crew of one "Barizel, Terror of the Sea" (or "Barrel Belly", as some of the crew called him behind his back). Although his somewhat privileged upbringing in the tribe had rendered him physically unimpressive, his grooming by Tarssalox had granted him an agile mind, and he quickly learned the ropes of seamanship. But whilst below decks, when the rest of the crew slept off their binge-drinking, the young witch doctor continued to commune with the spirits, strengthening his connection with them and learning to channel the powers they gave. One night, after the crew had spent a considerable amount of time celebrating a particularly successful raid, he cast a spell to put his jailor into a deep slumber and freed himself from his cell with the help of his spirit animal guide. With a few more carefully-selected spells, he altered his body to enable himself to climb silently overboard and swim ashore. The monkeyfish spell is awesome. After laying low for a few weeks, he procured passage on a ship bound for Port Peril to seek his fortune on his own terms... and to amass enough power and resources to one day return and seek vengeance for his slaughtered tribesmen.
Appearance:
Ri'el is slight of build but well-tanned from long hours in the sun. He wears a light white shirt under a weathered dark green shirt worn open at the front and pair of matching loose-fitting trousers. A pair of cloth shoes, a curiously bulky satchel slung at his side and a straw hat over his roughly-cropped shoulder-length hair completes the ensemble. Ri's facial features suggest some Tien blood in his ancestry, but his iridiscent eyes and the various tribal tattoos on his arms and torso hint at a somewhat more storied heritage and history. This is accentuated by his somewhat sibilant manner of speech and the occasional awkward expression that he uses when speaking in the common tongue (he is far more fluent in draconian and Celestial, the latter being the language that he and Thali converse in). Personality:
Ri'el carries himself with a confidence and quiet dignity befitting a tribal spiritual leader. Despite his savage upbringing, the constant companionship and influence of spirit of the heavens have kept alive in him some measure of morality and compassion - though in battle, he still exhibits both the fierce aggression of the lizardfolk and the cunning of the kobolds who raised him. (He hovers at the border of CG and CN, but Thali's influence has kept him from crossing over thus far.)
Ri'el still harbours grief in his heart from the massacre of his tribe, and can be somewhat withdrawn. However, he is currently alone in the world (apart from Thali) and he does have a desire to find a few more individuals he can trust as friends. To that end, he will push himself to be friendly and social if he thinks a friend might be made. He identifies with kobolds and lizardfolk as though they were of the same race, but has no tolerance for anyone affiliated with the Red Mantises on account of what they did to his adopted family. Crunch:
Aasimar Shaman 4 Alignment: Chaotic Good Favoured Class: Shaman Patron: Lythertida (Though as a shaman his spells are granted by the spirits he communes with?) Primary Stats
Size: Medium
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------------------------------------------- Statistics: Racial traits:
Traits:
Feats: Alertness (only when Thali is nearby)
Skills(ranks): Acrobatics: +1(1)
Languages: Common, Tien, Celestial, Draconic (native language of his lizardfolk tribe), Sylvan, Class abilities:
Spells
Prehensile Hair: minutes 1 1 1 1 --------------------------------------------------------
Heavy Crossbow (8lb)
232gp and 7sp |
