Tamhas Morganach's page

Tamhas Morganach
Human fighter (unbreakable) 1 (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide 79, Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Combat 31, 49)
CG Medium humanoid (human)
Init +1; Senses Perception +1

--------------------
Defense
--------------------
AC 17, touch 12, flat-footed 15 (+5 armor, +1 Dex, +1 dodge)
hp 13 (1d10+3)
Fort +5, Ref +1, Will +1

--------------------
Offense
--------------------
Speed 30 ft. (20 ft. in armor)
Melee bardiche +4 (1d10+9/19-20) or
longsword +4 (1d8+6/19-20)

--------------------
Statistics
--------------------
Str 18, Dex 12, Con 17, Int 13, Wis 11, Cha 5
Base Atk +1; CMB +4; CMD 16
Feats Combat Expertise, Diehard, Endurance, Power Attack
Traits superstitious, foreign opportunist, indomitable faith), threatening defender
Skills Acrobatics -2 (-6 to jump), Appraise +3, Climb +5, Craft (carpentry) +5, Perception +1
Languages Common, Skald
SQ heart of the fields,
Combat Gear potion of cure light wounds, oil (5); Other Gear kikko armor, bardiche, longsword, candle (2), chalk, hammer, hemp rope (50 ft.), hooded lantern, piton (4), sack (2), tindertwig (4), torch (2), 27 gp
--------------------
Tracked Resources
--------------------
Heart of the Fields +0 (Craft [carpentry], 1/day) - 0/1
Potion of cure light wounds - 0/1
Tindertwig - 0/4
Torch - 0/2

--------------------
Special Abilities
--------------------
Superstitious (Realm of the Mammoth Lords) - +1 trait bonus against arcane spells
Combat Expertise -0/+1 Bonus to AC in exchange for an equal penalty to attack.
Diehard You are stable and can choose how to act when at negative Hp.
Endurance +4 to a variety of fort saves, skill and ability checks. Sleep in L/M armor with no fatigue.
Indomitable Faith +1 Will saves.
Heart of the Fields +0 (Craft [carpentry], 1/day) 1/day, ignore an effect that would make you fatigued or exhausted. +1/2 character level to the selected Craft or Profession skill.
Power Attack -1/+2 You can subtract from your attack roll to add to your damage.

It was a bright, clear day when they came. He remembers how cold it was because he had to melt the frost from the axe's head before he could pull it from the ragged stump he used to chop wood outside the farmhouse.

Tilda was inside, stewing vegetables into a broth that he knew would taste no better than the dirty water than ran from the fields to the stream at the bottom of the hill. And yet he would smile and complement when he ate it because she had worked on it all day. His wife was not much of a cook but she was strong-willed and kind-hearted, two qualities far more important to his future son than being able to roast meat.

She was large by now. Her shoulders were still slight and her arms lined with wiry muscle from her own work in the fields but the stomach that had been flat when he met her now bulged like a sack. The bump was low and Old Maggie said that meant it would be a boy. That's good. He had always wanted a son.

He swung the axe down in a high arc, slicing through a thick lump of elm at the first attempt. After several more he began to feel that familiar burning in his shoulders and once again he gave silent thanks to Gorum that he was now chopping wood instead of necks. The Witch-War had scarred Irrisen badly and in the end he couldn't even remember whose side he was fighting on. Only that blood was brightest when it fell against snow.

He tightened the furs around his neck, dismissing the thought.

You've to raise crops and a son now, Tamhas, not arms.

He continued to chop his wood.

The riders came in the afternoon, black shapes moving out of the blustering snow. Every day from that to this he curses himself for a fool for not noticing their foreign skin beneath the low helms they wore. If he had perhaps thing would have been so different.

The lead rider approached and Tamhas, believing him lost or perhaps in need of shelter for the night against the coming storm, greeting the man. Except instead of pleasantries he received a cudgel to the skull. At once the world exploded in a dazzling light and he found himself lying in the snow, everything spinning around him. Somewhere, his wife was screaming and something hot and wet was running down his face.

He drifted in and out of consciousness for a time. Remembering vaguely being put on a horse and tied to the saddle. He has a distant memory of his wife's face, a mask of dread as she was thrown to the ground, hatred as Tamhas was taken away. That was the last thing he remembers.

How his life was taken from him.

------------

The sun pounds down on him like a hammer.

By the gods, I am not made for this weather. he breathes the words into the full-face helm.

The man before him, wielding the actual hammer, strides forward through the sand, swinging the weapon in sweeping arcs.

He's strong, and quick too. But every time he swings he has to check himself and I think that's how I'll beat him.

Tamhas lunges forward with his spear, getting inside the man's guard. The hammer comes around in an arc that would crush his head like an apple but he ducks swiftly and drives his own weapon home into the man's gut.
The roar of the crowd is deafening even under the helmet but he wonders, not for the first time, if they'd be so enthusiastic if it were them down here in the pit.

Later, he knew that he would be washed and oiled and sent to the chambers of his Domina - owner's wife. His body was hard and lean, his face chiseled and exotic, to these dark-skinned southerners at least and so in the six years of his captivity his life had become days of fighting and nights of pleasure.

The fighting was nothing new to him. The Witch War had made sure of that. But at first he had refused to visit the chamber of his owner's friends, leading to many beatings. In fact, his body wore more scars from those refusals than the pit itself. But in the end he had relented, not for fear of further pain, or even of his own life. But because he still harboured hope that he would get home one day and hold the son he has never seen.

It is a hope seemingly destined to be dashed. Seeking to give his audience a different sort of entertainment, Tamhas' Dominus decided to put him in the pits with a bear, a great shaggy beast from the forests far north. The fight was as one-sided as any rational man might expect.

The beast tore into Tamhas with all the ferocity of it's kind. The very first swipe of it's great paw smashed his spear to pieces, the second tore his belly open like a split water-skin. He doesn't even remember the pain, just the horror of having to hold in his own guts as they threatened to spill out over his boots. In staggering back, he saved himself from a certain death blow, a swinging claw that would have ripped his head from his shoulders but instead tore off most of his face. As the blow turned his vision turned red as a mask of blood suddenly enveloped his face, he wiped at it desperately and with a kind of weird detachment was able to recognise pieces of his own flesh lying in the sand. A bit of ear, most of a nose, possibly a lip, definitely some teeth. He slumped to his knees and toppled, awaiting a biting death that never came. Darkness took him.

It was after this that his owner turned him onto the street, months after his wounds had 'healed.' In truth his body was a ruin. A mass of scar tissue and a horrific visage of pain that made men turn away and women weep. In all the months he took to heal he saw his owner's opulence where he would fall and twist an ankle - a cleric was sent for immediately, healing hands reducing the swelling. And yet Tamhas still lay on that cot, head bandaged in layers of dirty cloth.

Bastard! After all the money I made him he never even sent for a healer!

Lying on that bed, sweltering in his own fever sweat, he made the hardest decision of his life. He would not attempt the journey back north. With his body ravaged, he doubted Tilda would even recognise him and he didn’t want his son to see his father a broken, beaten husk. Better he never knew him at all.

A year had passed since his freedom, since he was let out on to the street with nothing but his weapon, a battered suit of armor and 6 gold pieces. One for every year of his captivity. It took every ounce of his willpower not to throw himself on his Dominus. If he thought he could get to him before being struck down, he would have.

In that year Tamhas had lived on the streets masking his face and finding shelter from the heat of the noon-day sun in any patch of shade he could find before being moved on by the guards. In those times, he would spend his days whittling. With a well-worn knife he could turn scraps of palm wood and cane into tiny, detailed gladiators. Some he sold for coppers, most he gave to the many street children who could be found in the alleys and dark places of the city.

They were his friends now. His family even. Never had they been afraid of him, even before he got the mask. They loved his tales of being a soldier, their eyes wide with wonder as he described mountains of white, flakes of thick snow that covered the ground where he came from like a blanket. Every time he told the tales he felt a great belly laugh building up within and tears falling from his one, good eye as they gasped in fright as he told of Ice Trolls, cheered in glee as he told of the dancing lights that lit up the sky of the north. He had always been a good storyteller, something he had been looking forward to sharing with his son.

He knew he would never see his son. But he decided to take part in the lottery, to help all the street kids he had come across in that first year, the kids that made his life worth living.