About Sykes From Under The Empty MoonVitals:
HP: 10
MaB: +1+3=4
Fort: +2+0+1=3
Perception: 1+3+1=5
Smite Good 1/Day
Spells:
Race:
Moroi-Born (Svetocher) Dhampir: Dhampirs are humanoids with the dhampir subtype. Medium: Dhampirs are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size. Normal Speed: Dhampirs have a base speed of 30 feet. Senses: Low-light vision and darkvision 60 feet. Undead Resistance: Dhampirs gain a +2 racial bonus on saving throws against disease and mind-affecting effects. Negative Energy Affinity: Though a living creature, a dhampir reacts to positive and negative energy as if it were undead, positive energy harms it, while negative energy heals it. Resist Level Drain (Ex): A dhampir takes no penalties from energy drain effects, though it can still be killed if it accrues more negative levels than it has Hit Dice. After 24 hours, any negative levels a dhampir takes are removed without the need for an additional saving throw. Languages: Dhampirs begin play speaking Common. Alternate Spell-Like Ability: Svetochers gain obscuring mist as a spell-like ability. Alternate Weakness: Svetochers take a –1 penalty on saves against effects that deal positive energy damage. Vampiric Empathy: Though dhampirs often relate poorly to humanoids, some share an affinity with baser creatures. These dhampirs gain the ability to communicate with bats, rats, and wolves as if under the effects of a speak with animals spell (caster level equal to 1/2 the dhampir’s Hit Dice). In addition, they gain a +2 racial bonus on Diplomacy checks when dealing with these animals. Whenever these dhampirs initiate an exchange, animals begin with a starting attitude of indifferent. This is a supernatural ability. This racial trait replaces manipulative. Class:
Antipaladin The antipaladin’s class skills are Bluff (Cha), Craft (Int), Disguise (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and Stealth (Dex). Weapon and Armor Proficiency Antipaladins are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with all types of armor (heavy, medium, and light), and with shields (except tower shields). Aura of Evil (Ex) The power of an antipaladin’s aura of evil (see the detect evil spell) is equal to his antipaladin level. A paladin who uses smite evil on an antipaladin deals 2 points of damage per paladin level on his first successful attack. Detect Good (Sp) At will, an antipaladin can use detect good, as the spell. An antipaladin can, as a move action, concentrate on a single Item or individual within 60 feet and determine if it is good, learning the strength of its aura as if having studied it for 3 rounds. While focusing on one individual or object, the antipaladin does not detect good in any other object or individual within range. Smite Good (Su) Once per day, an antipaladin can call out to the dark powers to crush the forces of good. As a swift action, the antipaladin chooses one target within sight to smite. If this target is good, the antipaladin adds his Charisma bonus (if any) on his attack rolls and adds his antipaladin level on all damage rolls made against the target of his smite. If the target of smite good is an outsider with the good subtype, a good-aligned dragon, or a good creature with levels of cleric or paladin, the bonus to damage on the first successful attack increases to 2 points of damage per level the antipaladin possesses. Regardless of the target, smite good attacks automatically bypass any DR the creature might possess.
The bard’s class skills are Acrobatics (Dex), Appraise (Int), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (all) (Int), Linguistics (Int), Perception (Wis), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spellcraft (Int), Stealth (Dex), and Use Magic Device (Cha). Weapon and Armor Proficiency A bard is proficient with all simple weapons, plus the longsword, rapier, sap, shortsword, shortbow, and whip. Bards are also proficient with light armor and shields (except tower shields). A bard can cast bard spells while wearing light armor and using a shield without incurring the normal arcane spell failure chance. Like any other arcane spellcaster, a bard wearing medium or heavy armor incurs a chance of arcane spell failure if the spell in question has a somatic component. A multiclass bard still incurs the normal arcane spell failure chance for arcane spells received from other classes. Bardic Performance Archaeologists do not gain the bardic performance ability or any of its performance types. Archaeologist’s Luck (Ex) Fortune favors the archaeologist. As a swift action, an archaeologist can call on fortune’s favor, giving him a +1 luck bonus on attack rolls, saving throws, skill checks, and weapon damage rolls. He can use this ability for a number of rounds per day equal to 4 + his Charisma modifier. Maintaining this bonus is a free action, but it ends immediately if the archaeologist is killed, paralyzed, stunned, knocked unconscious, or otherwise prevented from taking a free action to maintain it each round. Archaeologist’s luck is treated as bardic performance for the purposes of feats, abilities, effects, and the like that affect bardic performance. Like bardic performance, it cannot be maintained at the same time as other performance abilities. This bonus increases to +2 at 5th level, +3 at 11th level, and +4 at 17th level. Bardic Knowledge (Ex) A bard adds half his class level (minimum 1) to all Knowledge skill checks and may make all Knowledge skill checks untrained. Feats & Traits:
Dueling unto Death You have engaged in a duel to the death and mortally wounded an opponent. The opponent was honorable enough to say nothing before he expired. Alas that his family or companions was nowhere near so honorable. Dueling was once common in Talingarde before the House of Darius came to power. The House of Barca all but encouraged duels of honor. Now, dueling of any sort is punished severely. Dueling to the death is a sure way to be sent to Branderscar Prison.
Disdainful Defender You are resistant to the magic of other faiths.
Vagabond Child You grew up among the outcasts and outlaws of your society, learning to forage and survive in an urban environment. Select one of the following skills: Disable Device, Escape Artist, or Sleight of Hand. You gain a +1 trait bonus on checks with that skill, and it is always a class skill for you. Umbral Unmasking You cast no shadow whatsoever, or the shadow you do have is monstrous. Under normal lighted conditions, this is not hard to observe—but uncommon to notice. Creatures that succeed at a DC 15 Wisdom check notice it plainly (an additional Perception check may be required based on environmental conditions). This telltale sign of wickedness cannot be concealed by misdirection, nondetection, or illusions, except those that also affect shadows (such as invisibility). Unusual Origin (Dhampir) Your undead progenitor left you with more than a hint of vampiric nature.
Backstory:
There are many such tales of noble knights diving headfirst into darkness to slay whatever unholy monsters lay within, to return to the cheering jubilations of the common folk they have protected. But this is no such tale. Late one dead winter morning a knight returned home to his wife after he and his brothers in arms had successfully followed an undead abomination back to its lair. And while the valiant knights had succeeded in bringing the beast low it was not without great cost into themselves. The knights perished in their attempt to stop the beast, but the did not lay idly afterwards as good corpses are apt to do. With foul magic they had before in life or gained in undeath they each returned back to the lives they once had, or rather, what had belonged to the corpses that now unnaturally walked about as men. To the unawares of his wife, family, and friends who were altogether too trusting (though the use of illusion and enchantment played no small part in the beguilement) the once valiant knight went on about his life till one day members of his order he once called brothers came upon him with weapons drawn. One of the former vampire hunters had had a twinge of guilt and disgust at his unlife and had revealed the truth about their existence to the other living members of the monster hunting order. In the ensuing all too familiar fight of knights against a monster wearing a familiar face one of the aids to the hunters turned on the wife of the former knight, thinking her a willing compliant accessory rather than a unwitting thrall. Filled with self assured righteous indignation but lacking the most basic combat skills the the attempt was feeble, and the wife was able to escape. Her terrified mind now broken free from the dark manipulations of her once-living husband. Fleeing from everything she had once known she took refuge in the many caverned mountains that dotted the land, and within them finding a long forgotten monastery. Or mausoleum. It was here in this solemn sanctuary that she would give birth to a child of a monster, in and of itself a monster. Although disgusted with what the baby boy was maternal love won out and she could not find it in herself to blame the child for the sins of the father. So she stayed in the dark depths of those cold unforgiving mountains for the safety of not only herself, but for that of her child. The monastery, part memorial, part mausoleum, all just a memory now to those save for the mother and her child had in its prime served as a haven for The Sisterhood of Eiseth, a cult dedicated to the Erinyes Queen. It was here in these unhallowed walls that the boy grew up, finding dark crypts and hidden dark passageways and even darker scriptures and relics. As a woman scorned herself the mother came to believe they had been guided here to safety by Eiseth herself, and so took up whole heart and soul the worship of the dark but benevolent queen. A worship and ideology her son was all too eager to follow in. Trying to raise the half feral child though became harder with each passing year though, as his birth had seemed to wring most of her life force away from her, and his continued presence proved to leech more and more until one day she did not wake. And although the boy was sad he did not know loneliness for he kept his mother and Eiseth in his prayers, hoping that she had become a beautiful angel of hell in service to their benefactor upon her passing the pale. And while he was not sad, he did know anger, and each day he awoke with more loathing for the world that had rebuked him and his mother, a world that he had never known until recently. Restless with his hermetic life he came down from the mountains to world below, to varying degrees of hatred on first sight and fear and indifference and curiosity. As the seasons came and went he became increasingly tired of people and their holier than thou ways and culture and so set forth to a smaller island nation off the coast from the mainland, although upon making land it soon turned out the land he had ventured to was even more bigoted and self righteous. With only a few days spent on the soil he elected to travel elsewhere but was accosted by a group of young knights, who were more than a little under the weather at the time. One knight stepped forward from the others and declaring the half-spawn an abomination upon his God Mitra challenged him to a duel to the death. While possessed of no qualms about taking lives the repercussions of a monster killing someone in shiny expensive armor and livery was immediately apparent to him. Wanting to just leave the man with a beating that a drunk deserved to snap them to their senses the boy, now a man, agreed. Although the challenge had been declared and the knight's weapons drawn and his equally inebriated friends boxing the half-vampire in the challenger simply drolled on in a puffed up self righteous monologue, completely fascinated by the sound of how own voice. Thinking the man would soon fall over due to his drunken grandstanding the traveler simply waited and let the idiot ply his superfluous beliefs. Until the intoxicated mockery of a holy champion touched on the subject of what kind of women would willingly lay with a monster to produce whatever it was that the drunkard saw before him, although using less kind words. Having enough of the knight's nonsense the traveler removed a dagger from his vest and tossed it into the man's throat. It found the enlarged organ easily and sank deeply, putting an end to the man who made a better half assed bard than a sellsword in fancy armor. The events that played out next were as predictable as they were stupid. The man garbled as his mind forever failed to even conceive that he had been wounded, let alone slain. The man fell with eyes wide open with a look as if he had aged ten years. The other Knights and the gathered guards and townsfolk swiftly fell upon the traveler and although he couldn't remember much from before his vision went black he did fall with a grin on his face for his teeth clutched a large piece of flesh from one of his attackers. And it soon simply spiraled from there. The drunken knight became a self sacrificing martyr who valiantly gave his own precious life to hold off a savage monster from ravaging the innocents around him. With an over abundance of testimony from Knights dressed in similar holy garb and clutching the sacred symbols of their God calling for righteous vengeance against a foreign monster who did little more than snark about the current situation and insult the victim in lieu of putting up a defense the outcome was predetermined and clear. And so the monster was shipped off to where all monsters are sent to on the island nation.
Appearance:
Tall and gaunt with bone white skin almost untouched by the blessing of the sun Sykes moves about with a sombrous if feral grace. Underneath his long wiry gray hair are two piercing blue eyes of a predator, if one apparently uninterested with his current meal. His voice, not being used often, is deep but not altogether harsh, akin to gravel mixed with honey. Personality:
Honorable if not exactly moral and aloof Sykes isn't necessarily against being around people, in fact he would rather like to find some like minded individuals, or even friends if at all possible. He just happens to have a low tolerance for bigotry and stupidity, a handicap that severly limits what all Talingarde citizens he can stand to be around. Having grown up in a cluster full of apocrypha and tales and sequestered knowledge he has developed quite the love of reading and art. Motivation:
If freed and given the chance Sykes would like to help make a peaceful and tolerant (regarding races anyway) land, even if he has to grind the current incarnation into mulch, especially if he has to grind the current incarnation into mulch. Having allies that while not may worship Esiseth but worship or follow those associated with her would also give him impetus to stick together with them, finally finding others with similar stories and goals (even if it's just the destruction of Talingarde) and being so close to finally ending his life long loneliness would make him feel like he's finally found somewhere he belongs, a goal he wants to strive for. Gameplay:
Basically a damage dealer/buffer/trap-spotter-dealer-with. While he doesn't have a tank amount of health he can heal himself with ToC and works even better with evil divine characters in the party. Most likely will not multiclass or Prestige class, although if Variant Multiclassing from Unchained is allowed he might take something from there. |
