The Frightmare's page

Some agents of good work out in the light. Not Kuro Nisshoku. Her talents weren't the sort that honourable samurai or noble guardians showed. Hers were darker and more twisted than that. She walked a path of darkness, perhaps lingering on the fringes of what was good in the process, but it was all with a simple goal in mind: to do what those righteous, honourable sorts were never all that willing to do. Someone had to.

Kuro was born impoverished, to a very poor pair of Kitsune struggling to get by running a small noodle shop. The reality of life at the bottom of society was brutal and unforgiving, and from an early age Kuro had to resort to crime to make sure her family had enough money to eat. There was little upward movement or help for the people at the bottom, and those who did flourish there did so by oppressing and hurting the people around them. Criminals and gangs who took and took and took, abusing and bullying people, doing things that were not necessary or even in their best nature, simply to hurt. Learning how to survive didn't only mean stealing enough to see another day, but to avoid running afoul of bigger, badder criminals.

Chen Ho was the biggest, baddest of criminals in her neighborhood. A cruel man who had declared himself to be the king of thieves, and he demanded a weekly tax from the neighborhood. Refusal meant his agents would bang on doors and kick them in, and in lieu of accepting a shakily-clutched bag of coins, would simply take someone's belongings, happily taking far, far more than the tithe was worth for the sake of lining their own pockets. Fighting against it was hopeless; Chen's power only made him more attractive to thieves in the area, who increasingly began to work for him in exchange for his "protection", and the more thugs he got, the more that thieves who didn't fall in with him found themselves beaten and left in the streets.

It was the poorest part of Chango, and the guard cared little for what happened. Maybe they'd been paid not to care. Whatever it was, the years only made it harder for Kuro and her family, as they found themselves paying weekly to Chen. Kuro had been press ganged into joining up with Chen Ho under threat of violence upon both her and her family, and so only a teen, Kuro began to work for the cruel human, hating every second of it. He would mock her race, and his men would often pull on her tail to further taunt and humiliate her. But it gave her skills. Gave her talents and abilities that quickly took her far beyond the rabble of a pickpocket or even a street thug. She could afford a proper blade, and put herself to work at mastering it. Sneaking and deceiving came naturally to her, and soon she found herself within Chen's truster inner circle. She was almost a woman by then, having spent years working for a man she hated and learning how to perform the duties he expected of her, all while she waited and watched carefully, biding the time before she was able to strike.

For all of her cunning and her sneaking, Kuro's truest talent lay in her excellence with a blade. She stayed her hand as much as possible, in stark contrast to many of the others she ran with, but when she showed mercy, it was respected. If she insisted someone could go, anyone who objected would have to duel her to prove otherwise, and though she never cut down any of the other criminals in such duels, humiliation was hardly beneath her. She would soundly defeat them, leave them face-down in the mud, and make some wry remark about how she had meant what she said. Even those above her learned she wasn't to be trifled with. The more she honed her talents, the more she found they worked well together, and she began to tap into martial disciplines that were far more advanced and complicated than a common street tough could have ever handled. But Kuro was no common anything.

Growing in parallel to Kuro's abilities was Chen's criminal empre, as he began to push out into other parts of the city, and Kuro quickly became onf his lieutenants, charged with tasks that involved sneaking into local government buildings to burn records or listening in on conversations. She didn't have the harshness to command the lower thugs, refused to beat or berate the men, but she could perform so well in any other capacity that Chen nonetheless kept her close. He was a cruel man, but he was not a foolish man, and demanding more of her would only earn her ire. He may have been a bit more of a fool than he thought though; for Kuro had resented him all these years, and the secret she wore close to her heart, so well that he couldn't see his star spy was never truly on his side, was that she had ever intention of one day driving her blade into his heart.

It was on her seventeenth birthday, days after she had burned evidence that led to the technicality release of a dozen of Chen's men, that she struck. Chen had taken the incidence as reason to throw a party, celebrating Kuro for both her abilities, and her 'transition into womanhood'. The thought made her shiver, but she saw the opportunity, plying Chen with more drinks and leaning on his arm all night, a sweet and blushing picture of puppy love for a powerful man. He presented her with a birthday gift: an absolutely beautiful wakizashi. She had taken up the art of using such a blade in the course of his work, and to buy her affections, he had spared no expense rewarding her. It was beautiful, and Kuro was taken by the gesture. An hour later, before she had to make love to the hateful man, that very same gift had been driven into his chest.

When they found her covered in blood, sobbing as she clung to the dead crime lord and screamed for help, she explained that an assassin had broken into the room and used the very gift blade he'd just given Kuro to kill him. She didn't know if it would actually work, but they all believed her, as she cried about how she'd loved him and she was finally going to be his. It seemed too good to be true, and yet she had fooled everyone, and she spent the night being consoled. She had done it. It had taken years, but she had killed him, and perhaps more importantly, killed him before he could make her his.

Chen was a ruthless and cunning man who had all the right skills necessary to make people fear him. None of the men directly under him did. Some were brutes, some were needlessly cruel to the point of self-destruction, some were simply idiots. They splintered off and fought each other, but without Chen around their positions were weaker and skirmishes only further reduced their numbers as individual groups. There were a few outliers who did hold enough acumen to begin to make decent gangs for themselves, but the two who had much chance at succeeding were killed in the night by "someone", while the third perished in a street skirmish.

With her neighborhood spared, Kuro hadn't really solved anything. She knew that fact before the sun rose. There would still be crime, still be poverty, still be a need to make something of a world that didn't care. There were few opportunities out there for people. She'd swiped a fat bag of platinum coins from Chen's safe that would help her family for quite some time to come if they were smart with the money, but that was only her family; what of the people who still needed help? Kuro felt like she had to do something for them.

She also needed a day job. Swearing she had given up her life of crime due to her heartbreak, Kuro needed to find some way to put herself out there with a 'real job', and athletics felt a natural choice. Running was something she already did well, and she was dexterous enough to show off what she could do on a public stage, proving she had a devoted, disciplined day job to keep her occupied with. She began to pursue running by day, seeming like a normal girl with incredible athletic ability, but when the night called, she could slip on a mask and dole out a bit of justice. Not in any major gestures or any sort of masked vigilante capacity; simply keeping the most dangerous of her neighborhood from being able to hurt people, stealing back family heirlooms taken by loan sharks, occasionally rescuiong girls kidnapped into prostitution. Whatever it took to protect people. Kuro was not going to be selfish about her gifts and her abilities. They needed to be shared.

It became harder and harder to balance her priorities as she actually found that she was really good at running. She'd already known she could run, but to do it in a competitive and professional athletic setting proved an altogether different kind of issue; she placed first in her very first competition, and then in her second. And her third. Po Li placed great value on athletes and celebrated them, and so Kuro, for all of her talent, found herself in a prominent position in the city, celebrated for her running ability. Whether for distance, for speed, or with hurdles in the way, Kuro was able to succeed. The teary-eyed story she told of a young girl coming up from poverty, who 'had to run fast so she could survive', began to win the hearts of athletics fans in the city, and soon enough, she found herself a minor celebrity of sorts.

Due to her Minkaian and Kitsune heritages, she found particular connections in those segments of society in Chango. There were not grand numbers of Minkai expatriates in the city, but those who were saw Kuro as 'theirs', as did the Kitsunes. However, for her inspiring story and her incredible ability, she was loved by many, regardless of race or heritage, and so Kuro found herself a life away from the crime and the pain. Her family moved into a slightly better neighborhood thanks to the prize money she could make. She would advertise her family's restaurant when possible, which only helped bring more business to them and allow them to move the store into a somewhat better neighborhood as well. She took the chance to be more worldly, and to begin traveling as competitions took place in other parts of Po Li. She began to learn languages and pick up information about her surroundings, seeing it all as the helpful means of further expanding her view of the world.

But still, Kuro kept going back to the slum. She kept close in contact with her neighbors and her friends, always tyring to learn of what was happening and to eke out some information about the goings on. She could then take that information and apply it to her nightly activities, making sure that people remained as safe and as free as she could. There were a lot of problems in Changdo that needed solving, and the more she began to see the rest of the city, she more she realized it wasn't only her little slum that had such problems. The entire political structure and stability of Changdo felt like it hung by on a thread. There was a lot that needed to be solved in this city, and she didn't feel like she could do it alone. Frustrated, she kept to her little corner of the city a bit longer, hoping that something might happen that could set into motion the action she found herself lingering around so impatiently for.

Kuro is a product of the poorest and most helpless corners of Changdo, and she wears it proudly, albeit with an edge of bitterness. She had to learn to be tough on the streets, had to learn cunning and smarts that she often wishes hadn't been necessary. Although she believes herself a fundamentally good person whose acts are in the name of a higher cause and justice, she is also a scoundrel sneaking in the shadows, leaping out only to strike when needed before slinking back under the cover of darkness. In her eyes, it needs to be done; the lowlives and the scum of the world are all too happy to play dirty and hide in the shadows, why should the "good" not do the same?

Which is not an excuse to break the law and flaunt chaos. Kuro believes there is something to be said for the law, but it doesn't always work and isn't always the solution people need. What Kuro does, she does by necessity; she was faced with a life of crime, and she could have either continued to hurt people, or kill the one man who held it all together. She chose murder, the greatest and most brutal of all crimes, for the greater good. It is what her eye is set on, what she will do anything to work toward. She may not have the means to do so now, but if one day she could put her blade behind the promise of a better Chandgo, she wouldn't hesitate for a moment. It means the chance a young Kitsune girl in the slums might not have to be forced into crime to survive.

Her choices do weigh heavy upon her because of it though. She knows it's all for a good cause, but the hard things are hard for a reason, and slumping into bed sore and with bloodstained clothing crumpled in the corner is not always an easy thing to deal with. But that's a sign she's on the right track, she supposes; if she felt so okay with what she was doing then perhaps she wouldn't have been so good a soul after all.

Over the dark, morally complicated underbelly of her secret life is a girl who has risen up from the lowest rung of society and is grateful every day for her family's security. Being at the bottom has given her an appreciation for life that lets her carry on with a genuine smile most days, feeling less stressed and more secure without the oppressive shadows of fear and the need for crime hanging over her head. With the wind of celebrity at her back, she tries her best to be a friendly and warm presence when out in public whether someone knows her or not; if she is to be a cultural hero, then she had best set a good example. And what better to hide behind as a cover than the smiling feel-good story of a star athlete?

After so long not being able to trust people and living lies to get closer to Chen, Kuro values loyalty, honesty, and friendship wherever she can find it. Kindness was one something she only received from her parents, and so she takes as well as she can to being friendly and kind to others, hoping for kindness in return. Playfulness, something she could never show as a teen, breaks through now as a young woman who can finally know what fun feels like, and who craves it.

But living lies has also given a certain duplicitous quality to Kuro. She is more than capable of spinning lies and weaving disguises to feign being something she isn't. It's a talent 'sthat served her well, and which she could just as easily apply in other areas of her life if given the direction to. She has no problem being something she isn't or lying to further her purposes; if anything, it's her greatest strength.

Politics are over Kuro's head, at least for the moment. She has spent too long toiling in the slums to care about the deepest of specifics, but she understands the situation, and she craves change. Change that can bring Po Li into better days and improve society. A good idea and a willing ruler with a kind heart is all she needs. Someone who she can put her blade behind, who she feels cares about making things better. It's something the Oracular Council, so obsessed with finding a reincarnation to bother solving the city themselves, clearly do not.

Kuro Nisshoku
Female Kitsune Unchained Rogue (Kitsune Trickster, Hidden Blade) 1/Fighter (Two-Weapon Warrior) 1
Chaotic Good Medium Humanoid (Kitsune, Shapechanger)
Init +6; Perception +6
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DEFENSE
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AC 16, touch 14, flatfooted 12 ( +4 Dex +2 Armor)
HP 11 (1d10 + 1 Con)
Fort +3, Ref +6, Will +1
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OFFENSE
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee
-1 Wakizashi +5 (1d6+1, 18-20/x2, P/S)
-2 Wakizashi +3 (1d6+1, 18-20/x2, P/S)
-Bite +5 (1d4+1)
-Bite as a secondary weapon +0 (1d4+1)
-Dagger +5 (1d4+1, 19-20/x2, P/S)
-2 Daggers +3 (1d6+1, 19-20/x2, P/S)
-Sap +5 (1d6+1, x2, B, nonlethal)
Ranged
-Longbow +5 (1d8, x3, B or P depending on arrow used)
Maneuvers readied: Leaping Dragon, Dimensional Strike, Inner Sense
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STATISTICS
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XP
Str 12, Dex 18, Con 12, Int 16, Wis 12, Cha 10
Base Attack +1; CMB 2; CMD 16
Feats: Fox Shape, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Wakizashi), Weapon Finesse, Two-Weapon Fighting, Quick Draw
Traits: Athletic Champion (Climb and Perception), Reactionary
Favoured Class: Rogue (1 skill point)
Skills: Background points are Sleight of Hand (1) and Linguistics (1)
Acrobatics +10
Bluff +7
Climb +6
Diplomacy +7
Disable Device +8
Disguise +7
Escape Artist +8
Knowledge (Local) +7
Linguistics +7
Perception +6
Sense Motive +7
Sleight of Hand +8
Stealth +8
Swim +5
Languages: Tien, Sylvan, Minkaian, Senzar, Dtang, Hwan
Equipment: 2 Wakizashi, 2 Daggers, Longbow, 20 Common Arrows, 20 Blunt Arrows, Leather Armor, Traveler's Outfit, 2 Spring-Loaded Wrist Sheaths, Thieves' Tools, Glass Cutter, 10 sheets of Glue Paper, Thieves' Tools, 2 Smoke Pellets, Fint And Steel, Caltrops
Other Notes: Unlisted items from her Rogue's Kit are kept at home, daggers are loaded into her wrist sheaths
Current encumberance: 41 lbs
Money: 21 gp
Carrying capacity: 43, 44–86, 87–130
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SPECIAL ABILITIES
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-Core Rogue Abilities-
Finesse Training
Sneak Attack 1d6

-Kitsune Trickster Abilities-
Kitsune's Guile: Kuro adds her Intelligence modifier to Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, and Sense Motive checks.

-Hidden Blade Abilities-
Maneuvers: Disciplines available are Mithral Current, Thrashing Dragon, Veiled Moon, Tempest Gale
Thrashing Dragon Maneuvers: Inner Sphere Stance, Leaping Dragon
Veiled Moon Maneuvers: Dimensional Strike, Inner Sense
Hidden Weapons: Gain Quick Draw as a bonus feat, and drawing hidden weapons is a free action rather than a movie action.
Portable Hole Specialist: Can retrieve items from extradimensional spaces as a move action regardless of how full or unorganizedd the bag is.
Gambits: Coward's Gambit, Flanker's Gambit

-Fighter Abilities-
Feat Factory (Two-Weapon Fighting at 1)

-Kitsune Abilities-
Alternate Racial Traits: Keen Kitsune in exchange for standard ability score modifiers, Superior Shapeshifter for Kitsune Magic
Change Shape: Human form and fox form

-Thrashing Dragon-
Inner Sphere Stance: Swift action, stance, while wielding two weapons, gain +2 dodge bonus to AC and +2 morale bonus on Will saves. Increases by +1 at 6, 12, and 18.
Leaping Dragon: Swift action, make an Acrobatics check to jump, gain a +10 competence bonus, and treat as if a running start

-Veiled Moon-
Dimensional Strike: Standard action, melee/ranged attack. Causes foe to be flat-footed to this attack.
Inner Sense: Immediate action, +2 insight bonus to a single saving throw

-Gambits-
Coward's Gambit: Against a flat-footed or opponent Kuro is flanking: Allies gain bonus on damage rolls equal to initiation modifier for one round
Flanker's Gambit: Against an opponent adjacent to an ally: Kuro is considered flanking until the end of her next turn, even if she is no longer in a position that would allow flanking.

Living in Kintargo had given Colm what he felt was a very unique experience, as far as a life in Cheliax went. It was still a Chelish city, still rife with devil worship, but it had a certain freedom and culture to it that could not have flourished under the more oppressive and brutal of cities. At least, it had been, until Barzillai Thrune took over the city, seized the opera house and shut down all of its performances, and began to press what freedom the city had been able to muster under a steel boot heel. Everything about Kintargo that Colm had felt made it a city worth living in was gone, and the faults behind it? His own faith.

When Colm Ceannair was born, he had a myriad of scars all over his body, and the doctor who delivered him had no idea why. Through his childhood, he had a strange relationship with health, finding it was easy for his scars to open up and bleed, but also that he rarely caught sicknesses, even when a flu tore through the rest of his family. Healers could not find anything wrong with him, and as the fifth of six children, that reassurance was enough for his parents to not drag him across Golarion in pursuit of someone who could help him. For years, he simply went about his childhood and learned how to bake, his parents both bakers who wished for their children to take over the job. The quiet little storefront, Hearts and Flours, fit the eclectic nature of Old Korvosa, and the family lived up on the second floor, rising up before the dawn to begin preparing the day's loaves. It was a modest upbringing, but generally free of trouble. He was a well behaved and well principled child who spent his days baking and cleaning, content with the unspectacular.

As he grew older, his scars grew with him and remained firm and strong. But what was curious was the scarring on the back of Colm's right hand; he was about eleven when it had grown enough to be clearly distinguishable, startled to find that the scar in question was of Iomedae's holy symbol. Not ambiguously, either; it stood in stark clarity, well defined and clear. Confused, his parents brought the boy before one of the few Iomedaean priests in Kintargo, who was startled by Colm's scar and believed it to possibly be a sign from the Inheritor that he was born to join her faith. After an interview of sorts and with the permission of his parents, Colm was sent to a small Iomedaean church in northern Cheliax where he was inducted into the faith as a priest.

The same principles he applied to baking, Colm applied to his studies. He learned how to cast spells, how to give sermons, and perhaps most startlingly, how to fight. Iomedae was a goddess of war, and his role in learning the faith often felt more like that of a squire than of a priest. He took well to it, eager to learn and to adapt. For the most part, he held fully to the church line and agreed wholeheartedly with the ideals of protecting the innocent, but there was one problem he came around to again and again: if their job is to root out evil, and Cheliax is a nation held by tyrants and devils, why don't they rise up and overthrow House Thrune for the good of the people?

There was no easy answer to that, and Colm was too young to fully grasp the nuance of matters, but even as he grew older and the answers became more complicated, he never fully found himself satisfied with them. Not when Halflings were oppressed and enslaved, when law and justice were perverted, when faiths of freedom were persecuted. These questions grated away at him, and at his teachers as they tried to calm the restless youth, but ultimately he kept in line, and was otherwise a well behaved and well spoken man. In time, he graduated from his studies, and chose to return back to Kintargo, where the faith was not so strong, and seek to spread Iomedae's word there. Reunited with his family again, he returned home a holy man, the sickly and easily-bled boy replaced by a man who wore armor and carried a sword, whose principles had been tempered by a need for justice, but who was still in every way that counted the boy who had left them.

Colm often still helped out at the bakery. Bread making was a calming activity for Colm, and he could only sermonize so often. He offered healing to the people who needed it and preached on the street corner about the Inheritor, framing his sermons around valor and acts of kindness or charity toward your fellow man rather than about overthrowing evil. But even in Kintargo, now, Colm could see it all. The diabolists hadn't grown stronger, they just bothered Colm more. Halfling slaves being beaten in the street by their 'masters' made Colm's blood boil and as much as he wanted to reach for his sword, he used impassioned pleas and words to try and stay angry fists. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes the fists flew his way instead.

Public interventions became a public scene, and Colm began to form notoriety around some of his more frequent haunts for being a bit of a rabble rouser. The guards began to side-eye him suspiciously, and through it all, Colm struggled to keep his rhetoric to things that would not have him branded a radical. He had returned to Kintargo at age twenty, and over three years, the city's failings and atrocities began to weigh on him heavier and heavier. Frustration mounted as he witnessed atrocities he couldn't take a stand to, watched as people suffered under House Thrune's rule. This was not law; law was not worth the day-to-day oppression and horrors that came with life in Chelish society, and if Kintargo was a more metropolitan and varied city than the rest of Cheliax, he shuddered to think about what terrors went on in areas far more prominent in the worship of devils.

Finally, it became too much of a burden for Colm. One day, his temperance failed him, and he raised his sword in protection of a Halfling being beaten in public. The man in question was a very powerful one, a rich man with somewhat distant ties to a noble house, but with enough connections to cause problems for Colm. He was not found guilty of any crimes, but he was forbidden from his street practice any longer, silencing him and forcing him to run back to the bakery, no longer able to extol his faith in the city of Kintargo.

Disgraced, Colm return to bread making full time, but more restless and frustrated than ever. He began to grow his hair and a full beard out, which tacked age onto what was a very youthful face beneath. Partly out of a depressive frustration with the world around him and partly due to the worries that he had spent years learning to be a priest of Iomedae only to be barred from ceremony in the city he grew up in--in the one city he cared about most--he found himself sliding deeper away. He tried to stay to just bread making, but that only made him feel more restless. He needed to do something, lest he go mad struggling to keep himself together.

Refusing to let up on what was right, Colm decided to wait until he had grown his hair and beard enough to look like a different man before setting out into the streets. Not often, as he still had his full time bakery commitments to deal with, but Colm believed he could do some good even if the city wouldn't let him. With a hook drawn over his head, Colm continued to heal and continued to find little places where he could do good; vigilante justice may have been questionable, but it was all against evil, and certainly for the greater good.

The more acts of clandestine kindness Colm performed, the more he began to wonder if this was his path. A cleric of Iomedae hiding and disguising themselves was not by any consideration a proud mode befitting such a lofty, valorous position, but something needed to be done about House Thrune, and there was a certain revolutionary spark that bloomed within him over the passing months, increasingly enticed by the idea of finding some way to do what the other priests had never been willing to do and never truly been able to explain why they wouldn't.

And then came the Glorious Reclamation. News swept across the region about the Iomedaean knights who had lashed out in rebellion and began to work to liberate Westcrown. It whipped Colm into action and excitement as he realized some radical element within the church had finally decided that enough was enough, and that such evil and perversion of law could no longer be abided by. There was an opportunity at last for Colm, in a sense. He was cut off from the mainstream of the church, in a port city to the north that didn't hold much following for the Inheritor, but Colm didn't wish to flee south and join them. He ached for revolution at home; Kintargo was the city he had grown up in, the city that molded him, and he wished for it to change above all else. To strike out against corruption and fiendish influence here felt like a much more reasonable goal than to flee into a revolution he had not been invited to and to engage in open battle on the front lines, something he had never done before.

The iron fist of martial law bore down upon Kintargo, which enraged Colm further. Art was choked out as the new lord mayor took the opera house as his own personal headquarters, the sensibilities and more open minded nature of the city compared to the rest of Cheliax began to fade away, and everything that Colm began to love about the city was harshly suppressed. A Thrune now ruled the city directly and he brought with it all of the diabolism and tyranny that Iomedae refused to stand for. Fittingly, worship of Iomedae was suppressed, driving what few other priests were in the city into the same kind of hiding as Colm. But Colm held one special advantage; his scars, and an increasing willingness to play in the shadows, to do things that felt perhaps to be bordering the line a little bit on the measure of valor.

Colm would never stab someone from the shadows. He was still a warrior trained to fight with honour and to wield his blade with principle and control. But disguises and lies felt like a grand departure from the knight in shining armor ideals he was told were the proper way to carry oneself. This was the time to strike, however. To fight tyranny and find the means of liberating Kintargo, and Colm didn't yet know how, but as the protest against martial law in Aria Park sounded as good a place as any to make an impact and to seek some means of fighting against things; even if he could not play the priest, perhaps impassioned rhetoric could win some hearts regardless.

In some ways, Colm carries himself like a warrior priest of Iomedae should. Proud, valorous, principled, driven by honour and a belief that good is something one should live, not just do. He values discipline and martial excellence, cares deeply for the weak and downtrodden, and devotes himself to fighting against acts of evil, no matter how small they may be. Slavery and diabolism are crimes he cannot forgive, and he sees himself and his blade as extensions of a righteous will that doles out justice and honour in equal measure. Someone in Cheliax needs to stand up for the weak, and Colm has decided he will take on that responsibility.

But within the ranks of Iomedae's priests, he also grates against doctrine when it comes to doing something. He wished to see the church rise up against House Thrune years before they did, and in truth the Glorious Reclamation's very church-centric ideals of wishing to reclaim an important relic feels less like a gesture of justice than he would like. Still, he has been whipped into a revolutionary fervor, and he's willing to go to many lengths to get it. Hiding his faith and stalking the streets in disguise and under cover of darkness is not valor, but Colm does not stand with an army, and he understands that unless one finds itself one Kintargo's doorstep, anyone he fell in with would likely be someone with those sorts of skill sets. It cast him as an odd man, a valorous holy man traipsing about in the darkness. But the real madness may lie in being a man of goodness in a nation like Cheliax.

Waking up before the dawn to make bread as a child instilled a firm discipline in Colm, but when he doesn't have need of it, he is a warm and caring man. He has to be, in a city as pained as Kintargo has become. Bitterness and cynicism offer nothing to the world and only serve to keep people from rising up and doing what is right. No matter how hard, he strives to be kind and to be open, believing in turn that it will enrich those around him and perhaps open their hearts and minds up.

Colm Ceannair
Cleric 1
Neutral Good Medium Humanoid (Human)
Init +1; Perception +3
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DEFENSE
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AC 16, touch 11, flatfooted 15 ( +1 Dex +5 Armor)
HP 9 (1d8 + 1 Con)
Fort +3, Ref +1, Will +3 (an additional +1 against mind-affecting effects)
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OFFENSE
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee
-Longsword +1 (1d8+1, 19-20/x2, S)
Spells Prepared:
0th DC 13: Detect Magic, Enhanced Diplomacy, Light
1st DC 14: Obscuring Mist, Shield of Faith (D), Summon Monster 1
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STATISTICS
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XP
Str 12, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 17, Cha 14
Base Attack +0; CMB 1; CMD 12
Feats: Extra Channel, Alignment Channel
Traits: Magical Knack, Fed-Up Citizen
Favoured Class: Cleric (1 skill point)
Skills:
Diplomacy +6
Disguise +7
Heal +7
Knowledge (Religion) +5
Stealth -2 (2 -4 armor check penalty)
Languages: Common, Celestial
Equipment: Longsword, Scale Mail, Treveler's Outfit, Iron Holy Symbol, Holy Text, Spring-Loaded Wrist Sheath, Dagger, Holy Water, Healer's Kit, 1 flask of Holy Water

Current encumberance: 40 lbs
Money: 8 gp
Carrying capacity: 43, 44–86, 87–130
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SPECIAL ABILITIES
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-Class Abilities-
Domains: Good and Glory (Heroism)
Channel Positive Energy: 1d6, 7/day, DC 12
Spontaneous Casting: Cure

-Domain Abilities-
Touch of Glory: 7/day, can touch a creature as a standard action to give a bonus equal to Colm's Cleric level on a single Charisma-based check. Lasts for one hour or until the creatue elects to apply the bonus to a roll.
Touch of Good: 7/day, can touch a creature as a standard action, granting a sacred bonus on attack rolls, skill checks, ability checks, and saving throws equal to half Colm's Cleric level (minimum 1) for one round.

-Equipment Notes-
Colm has both Leather and Scale Mail armor. He wears one or the other depending on the situation, leaving the other at home, and whether he feels he will need to be stealthy more than he'll need to be protected, he suit up as needed. At the start of play, he has his Scale Mail on.
Colm has a dagger located inside of his spring-loaded wrist sheath, and gains a +2 on Sleight of Hand checks opposed to Perception checks to locate the dagger.

Sarenrae's faith was a faith of feeling and emotion, which certainly opened up a lot of beauty and history that Paige loved to learn about, but it lacked in the sort of clinical learning that she had come to live from an early age. It was with Paige that she found that, someone she considered a friend in the city, a connection outside of the church and someone who she could talk to not only about life and about the goings on, but about the world. Ariana was a studied woman who knew more and had read more than Paige ever could, and sometimes Paige would want to come by and for hours just listen to her talking about what she was working on or what she was reading. Paige turned into a wide-eyed little girl again soaking it all in again.

Other times, she would beg to borrow books from her that looked interesting, and not in any specific field either. Just any old book, anything she could learn about and know. In return, Paige often offered pragmatic street smarts and advice about the more local and centralized world to Ariana, the sorts of things you didn't learn on the streets or in a book. She appreciated the way in which Ariana could still speak compellingly and interestingly through pure worldplay and conversational talent, a sharp mind and solid logic doing what Paige's natural charms could, but with a much more practised sort of discipline than what had just been innate for the bard. It also made for captivating conversation, as she listened carefully to her words and picked up little bits and details where she could to subtly improve her own rhetoric.

The story of Ariana's framing was an awful one, and Paige promised to keep her ears to the ground in the event she heard anything about what happened, keeping in touch with a few criminal contacts here and there. In some ways she almost considered Ariana to be one such contact; though clearly a good woman of solid moral standing, her research was funded by and in part might benefit the thieves' guild. Paige didn't sermonize and preach on about its wrongness, and understood the nuance in what she was doing and in the need to survive, but she always checked in to make sure they weren't pushing her into anything. She didn't fear for Ariana's soul, but she understood what working with the likes of the thieves' guild meant, and she was always just a little concerned for her safety. It was clear to Paige that what Ariana needed wasn't someone to preach, but a friend, and she was happy to be that for her.

Due to doing most of her good deeds by day, Paige has only heard rumour of The Silver Ghost, but welcomes any who would help serve Korvosa to the better. Why this is important isn't certain, because this is about Portia Cillathis, who is a completely different person.

As a community organizer for the Church of Sarenrae, Paige focuses primarily on charity work and on putting her silver tnogue to work at trying to help loosen some coin from the highest of society. The Cillathis family, notable as they are, have more than once had the bard on their doorstep asking for audience with any member onf the family at all in support of causes that could enrich society. She does this often holding back some measure of resentment or frustration due to her very poor upbringing and the reality of wealth inequality and its effects on Korvosa. She is always courteous when she arrives, whether turned away or not, and when passing Portia on the street in the course of the day is always eager to make small talk and maintain a friendly relationship with her in hopes of using that good will to help her see that the people of Korvosa need help, but in secret she wishes that like many of the rich and powerful in Korvosa, they could use their money and influence to make the city a better place for all.

[ooc]I didn't want to presume that Portia would open up to Paige about her giving to charity, but it could also be possible that Paige might be one of the people her intermediaries work with or something to that effect. I just didn't want to push in that assuption.

Paige knew that life on the streets in Korvosa was a miserable and arduous experience. But it was still somehow, for all of the cold and the starvation, more preferable than life as one of Gaedren's "Little Lamms", and Paige thought that was one of the least miserable of that lot. The plucky orphan girl had been left on the streets at the age of six when her mother passed away from illness and her father's new love didn't wish to raise another woman's child. She didn't even remember her last name anymore; it had long since been beaten and cried out of her. She spent only a few days begging on the streets before she found herself before Gaedren, who offered the young girl who didn't know any better a bed and some food.

It took little time for her to be put to work at performing petty crimes for him. Paige started out running distractions so that the other children could pick pockets, but as she grew older she began to sneak and pick as well, proving a surprising acumen for devious behavior. Not necessarily out of some grand joy for it, but because the only way that she could stay in Gaedren's good graces--for as much as the loathsome toad of a man could be kind to anyone--was to excel in her duties and bring him plenty of gold for him. She often managed to allay his wrath because of that, though there were some days when her luck simply didn't help her and she came home nearly empty handed, and when she did, none of her successes meant anything to the criminal.

Aside from being a good sneak, Paige had a certain charm about her even at a young age, a smart girl who could speak well, and whose sweet singing voice often provided the most potent form of distraction for others to do the pocket picking. She began to pilfer other things as well, and in a small corner of a back alley where nobody looked, she had a small stash of books she hid in someone's bushes. It was a small joy, but it was all that Paige had in life, and she would absorb any knowledge she could gleam of the world beyond, not wishing to spend her life a criminal under a horrible man's fist. Sometimes she could only manage a few pages a day amid her other duties, but when she found the time, she did her best to read as much as she could.

When her bardic magic manifested, it only made her more valuable to him. Paige didn't know how she had an innate gift for magic, but she didn't shy away from it, for whatever good it did her. She used it to help further her goals in stealing, although the shame of putting such a beautiful gift to work to better serve such a horrible man weighed on her conscience more and more. Her spells and her captivating song, which she learned had held people through magic as much as through her sweet voice, were gifts she felt too valuable to be used for Lamm, but she knew she had no choice but to do exactly as she was told.

As she grew older, Paige became the big sister figure to many of the children there, some of whom were in fact older than her. She did her best to teach them her tricks and to help them out, and often if she pilfered a particularly generously plump coin purse or managed to pilfer something very valuable from a shop, she would slide some coins to the other children so that they could claim to have 'succeeded' as well. Lamm's cruelty angered her more and more with time, even though she became better at avoiding his torture and his ire through her successes. The criminal grew weaker with age and with that only came cruelty, and she wished for the day she could rise up and do something to stop him.

Such a day never came, but her fall from grace did. When she was sixteen, Paige was found giving some of her haul to a small boy who had been beaten for the past several days straight for his failures, so that he could avoid the torture this time around, and for it, she was savagely beaten. The other children were made to watch as for hours, Paige was tortured and cut at, left with scars all over her torso from the abuse. Her body was left in an alley for dead, and she would have perished right there were it not for the kindness of a Sarenite cleric who found her while she lay dying in the gutters. Taking her back to the church, the priest, named Doriana, healed Paige and showed her the first kindness she had known from an adult in years.

When she awoke, Doriana asked how Paige had come to lie in such a horrible predicament, and for as much as Paige wanted to lie and fight against confessing what she had done, she couldn't help herself. She opened up everything to the priest, explaining that she had spent a decade working for Gaedren, pouring out her soul in such swift and feverish confession it overwhelmed her, but the priest remained patient, calm, and gave her a shoulder to cry on, letting her work through all of her frustration and sorrow. It was a cathartic but very miserable experience for Paige as a lifetime of pain was unloaded, and Doriana understood one thing above all else: this poor girl had never been given a chance to be free or make decisions for herself, let alone have somebody care about her at all. It was a bizarre feeling, but a relieving one, in some odd ways.

When finally her emotionally grueling release was over and she had been given some food, a question posed to Paige gave her a lot of thought: was she willing to atone? The question struck deep, as so concerned with survival, Paige had stolen and lied for years. Suddenly, she was confronted by those decisions, as the priest sought to help her turn from the dark path and find light in her life. That question set Paige on the course to right her life and to set right what had been up to that point a life of crime. Necessary crime, but she had still taken from people who needed, still hurt people. She needed to make up for that.

Doriana took Paige on as a ward of the Church of Sarenrae, and she had finally settled on that as her last name. "Ward". It was simple, and she liked something about the ring it had. At sixteen, she was a little too old to be sent to an orphanage, so she remained at the temple and was put to work in various ways to serve the church, not only to earn her keep (and very modest stipend of personal money every week), but to help serve to further her redemption; her soul was not blackened and her heart was true, but she still had to make up for what she had done, and being put to work with the church helped. She served as an aid to the healers by fetching things, changing bandages, and even doing menial cleaning and upkeep around the temple. She did it happily, because the priests were kind to her, her meals were warm, and she even had a small room of sorts where she had stacks of books lying about everywhere in mild disorder.

It was clear the girl did not have the discipline to be clergy, but she wished to continue serving the church into adulthood, and there were indeed uses for the girl. With her sweet charms and her very versatile skill set fostered from a life of petty street crime and knowledge-seeking, Paige found work serving the church out on the street. Sometimes, that meant playing bodyguard for priests who had to venture into dingier parts of the city for one reason or another, other times it was to sing on street corners about church events or even just the Dawnflower's glory. There were many in need in the city of Korvosa, and rather than bilking them for her own sake, she put her skills toward helping them.

With ample people skills and a streetwise sense of how to use them, Paige began to fall into a community organizer position for the church. She had a certain way with words, and charity efforts under the church found more success thanks to her well crafted and eloquent, impassioned speech. Other times, she would serve to help stop crime in the streets, as no shortage of incidental crime took place in open daylight every day, and when Paige was nearby she could always be counted on to stop it, which was something the city guard had mixed views on. Some saw her as a good samaritan, others found her overbearing, and some crooked guards simply wished there wasn't some do-gooder poking around.

But where she really threw her efforts was in regard to the "Little Lamms". The poor children still stuck under Gaedren's grasp needed help, and Paige did the best she could to try and keep them out of trouble, negotiating more than once with friendly guards when a child was about to be arrested, and on more than one occasion managing to rescue a child by bringing them to the church and personally ensuring they were placed in an orphanage where they could be safe.

It wasn't always easy work, but Paige felt fulfilled and joyful for the first time in years. The scars all over her body were horrible reminders of her past, but she had found redemption and a new, better life under Sarenrae's grace, and she was eager to show her devotion to the church back in return for it, giving her life to the Dawnflower as an agent, perhaps not one of divine magic, but one who could help her clergy and the people find common ground and understanding, a bridge between the ailing street and the temple that wanted to help them.

Korvosa was a city with problems. Paige had known that from an early age, but now, with the Dawnflower's guidance, she felt like she had a divine mission to fix it, and to help all the people she could along the way. The church had saved her life and set her on the path of redemption, and she would in kind return the favour for all who needed it.

After a decade of living under the oppressive control of Gaedren Lamm, freedom has given Paige reason to be bright and bubbly, and perhaps in her new line of working skirting the pun a little too cutely on being a ray of sunshine. Some in Korvosa need someone like that sometimes. Her life of crime is behind her now, and she has resolved herself to kindness whenever she can afford it, performing acts of charity and carrying herself with joy in the hopes of lifting the spirits of others. Sometimes it's the smallest gestures that matter most.

On the inside, she is a bit more torn up. Her old traumas don't fade easily, and every night she has the scars she earned from Lamm's beatings to remind her of her past. She doesn't let her pain show through, and she's come to a point in life where she can be genuinely happy and open about such matters, but beneath the surface there is often a twinge of pain and regret. She channels it as best she can into empathy for those also suffering, and her inner pain gives her all the more reason to throw herself into what is right for the purposes of distracting herself and burying her trauma beneath the satisfied feeling of doing a good thing to help someone.

Due to the abuse she suffered as a child, she is particularly sympathetic toward children, always committing hardest when there is a child in danger, sometimes going out of her way to help them. Of all the things Paige is willing to do for a greater good, harming a child is out of the question. She sees Gaedren Lamm in particular as a grave threat to the city and its children, and hopes for the day she may be able to cleanse such an evil off of the face of Golarion. She does not push the church to act in haste, but nothing could disappoint her more than his natural passing or some rival criminal stabbing him in an alley before she was able to mete out justice upon him.

Somewhere out there is Paige's father, the answers about where she came from and what her family name even is, and perhaps what her role in this world is. She's disconnected from it all, unsure what to think, but knowing her father, if he's alive, is a man who cast out his daughter callously and left her to starve on the streets. She does not seek him out, but on some mornings she awakes wondering if today would be the day she would finally meet him and be able to receive the answers and apologies she craved. Surely, he was still somewhere in Korvosa, and perhaps there was more to her heritage than she knows, but for the time being, she has work to do, and she cannot let her parentage be a distraction against that.

Although not officially a part of the clergy, Paige is still a member of the Church of Sarenrae, and she carries herself as such, holding herself to the tenets that a knight of Sarenrae often would: protecting the weak,fairness to others, offering redemption before offering the blade, and upholding truth. Faith helped her survive and turn her life around, and so Paige holds onto it firmly, and wishes above all else to find a role to play in bringing Sarenrae's word, finding some way to serve the church as more than an errands girl performing small duties for them. Now an adult, surely there is something she can do and some purpose she can serve, if not the church directly then Korvosa in Sarenrae's name. Some wrong she can right, some evil she can vanquish.

It gives Paige an almost restless yearning for something. She has found her redemption, but now she craves higher purpose. The weak will always need protecting and her blade is happy to serve in any capacity needed, but surely there is something deeper that she can do instead. Whatever she does, she only hopes it can make the streets of Korvosa a better place, for its dangers and failings were what drove her to suffer as she did. This city has hurt her a lot, but a large part of redemption is forgiveness, and Paige is ready to forgive Korvosa for failing her.

Paige is a tall, slender woman with long, straight brown hair and light brown skin often tanned from lots of work and time in the sun. A faint Qadiran heritage lingers in her blood and informs her very strong facial features, but she doesn't know enough about her family to know much more beyond that fact, and she holds little connection to that heritage due to her life as a child of the streets.

She dresses the part a little bit though, owing largely to her interest in the lighter of fashion senses among some of the clerics in the church who came from Qadira. It helps her cut a distinct but also distinctly Sarenite figure when she walks, her leather armor showing colours and symbols of the Dawnflower proudly. A blue cloak drawn over her shoulders billows as she walks, something she feels gives her a bit more presence. She makes sure to always keep clean and to wear fresh clothes, as she spent long periods of time wearing the same ratty old unwashed clothes under Lamm. Being able to dress properly is of the utmost importance to her as a result of that.

She's always dressed for action, due to how dangerous Korvosan streets can sometimes be. A weapon at her hip and often a few more hidden away just for security's sake; unlike the clergy she often guards, Paige understands the streets and has to be prepared for anything, and part of that process is to show that she's armed and not to be trifled with. Paired with her armour and the symbol around her neck, she makes sure it's clear that she's part of the church, availing her self of help at any moment. She's often confused for a priest because of that, and she doesn't mind the confusion; if anything, it's an advatange. Certain expectations about how to deal with a priest make it easer to come out swinging as a plucky, streetwise fighter.

All across her torso and arms are a myriad of scars from the almost lethal beating she endured thanks to Lamm. She hides them under her armor as best she could, and has worked slowly at trying to hide the ones on parts of her that are exposed with tattoos meant to help her grow from her traumas in constructive ways. It's not much, but it's something, helping to hide the reminders bit by bit as she grows into it. Ornate designs and fancy symbols help her make beauty out of her tragedy.

Paige Ward
Human Bard (Dawnflower Dervish/Faith Singer) 2
Neutral Good Medium Humanoid (Human)
Init +4; Perception +5
------------------------------------------
DEFENSE
------------------------------------------
AC 14, touch 12, flatfooted 12 ( +2 Dex +2 Armor)
HP 18 (2d8 (16) + 2 Con)
Fort +1, Ref +5, Will +3 (an additional +4 bonus on saving throws made against bardic performance, sonic, and language-dependent effects)
------------------------------------------
OFFENSE
------------------------------------------
Speed 30 ft.
Melee
-Scimitar +4 (1d6+2, 18-20/x2, S, +2 fire damage on a critical hit)
-Dagger +1 (1d4, 19-20/x2 P/S)
Ranged
-Shortbow +3 (1d6, x3, P)
Spells Known
0th (infinite) DC 14: Dancing Lights, Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation
1st (3/day) DC 15: Cure Light Wounds, Ear-Piercing Scream, Grease
------------------------------------------
STATISTICS
------------------------------------------
XP
Str 11, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 18
Base Attack +1; CMB 1; CMD 13
Feats: Extra Performance, Dervish Dance, Weapon Focus (Scimitar)
Traits: Flame of the Dawnflower, Reactionary
Favoured Class: Bard (2 skill points)
Skills:
Bluff +9
Climb +4
Diplomacy +9
Disguise +9
Escape Artist +6
Heal +1
Intimidate +8
Knowledge (Local) +6
Knowledge (Religion) +6
Perception +5
Perform (Sing) +9
Sleight of Hand +7 (+8 against perception to look for the daggers in her wrist sheaths)
Stealth +7
Languages: Common, Celestial
Equipment: Scimitar, 2 Daggers, 2 Spring-Loaded Wrist Sheaths, Shortbow, 20 Arrows, Leather Armor, Traveler's Any-Tool, Holy Symbol of Iomedae, 2 Smokesticks, Smoke Pellet, Flint and Steel, Spell Component Pouch, Backpack, Belt Pouch, Whistle, Crowbar, Glass Cutter, 10 sheets of Glue Paper, Healer's Kit, Pickpocket's Outfit
Current encumberance: 36 lbs
Money: 13 gp
Carrying capacity: 38, 39–76, 77–115
------------------------------------------
SPECIAL ABILITIES
------------------------------------------
-Core Bardic Abilities-
Bardic Performance 14/day: Countersong, Distraction, Fascinate

-Dawnflower Dervish Abilities-
Battle Dances: Inspire Courage +2
Dervish Dance as a bonus feat
Well Versed

-Faith Singer Abilities-
Fire Domain: Paige may use the following as spell-like abilities 1/day while performing, using her Bard level as her caster level
-Burning Hands

Notes: Paige keeps a dagger in each of her spring-loaded wrist sheaths at all time, items not specified on her person from a Bard's Kit are kept atthe church

Paige knew that life on the streets in Korvosa was a miserable and arduous experience. But it was still somehow, for all of the cold and the starvation, more preferable than life as one of Gaedren's "Little Lamms", and Paige thought that was one of the least miserable of that lot. The plucky orphan girl had been left on the streets at the age of six when her mother passed away from illness and her father's new love didn't wish to raise another woman's child. She didn't even remember her last name anymore; it had long since been beaten and cried out of her. She spent only a few days begging on the streets before she found herself before Gaedren, who offered the young girl who didn't know any better a bed and some food.

It took little time for her to be put to work at performing petty crimes for him. Paige started out running distractions so that the other children could pick pockets, but as she grew older she began to sneak and pick as well, proving a surprising acumen for devious behavior. Not necessarily out of some grand joy for it, but because the only way that she could stay in Gaedren's good graces--for as much as the loathsome toad of a man could be kind to anyone--was to excel in her duties and bring him plenty of gold for him. She often managed to allay his wrath because of that, though there were some days when her luck simply didn't help her and she came home nearly empty handed, and when she did, none of her successes meant anything to the criminal.

Aside from being a good sneak, Paige had a certain charm about her even at a young age, a smart girl who could speak well, and whose sweet singing voice often provided the most potent form of distraction for others to do the pocket picking. She began to pilfer other things as well, and in a small corner of a back alley where nobody looked, she had a small stash of books she hid in someone's bushes. It was a small joy, but it was all that Paige had in life, and she would absorb any knowledge she could gleam of the world beyond, not wishing to spend her life a criminal under a horrible man's fist. Sometimes she could only manage a few pages a day amid her other duties, but when she found the time, she did her best to read as much as she could.

When her bardic magic manifested, it only made her more valuable to him. Paige didn't know how she had an innate gift for magic, but she didn't shy away from it, for whatever good it did her. She used it to help further her goals in stealing, although the shame of putting such a beautiful gift to work to better serve such a horrible man weighed on her conscience more and more. Her spells and her captivating song, which she learned had held people through magic as much as through her sweet voice, were gifts she felt too valuable to be used for Lamm, but she knew she had no choice but to do exactly as she was told.

As she grew older, Paige became the big sister figure to many of the children there, some of whom were in fact older than her. She did her best to teach them her tricks and to help them out, and often if she pilfered a particularly generously plump coin purse or managed to pilfer something very valuable from a shop, she would slide some coins to the other children so that they could claim to have 'succeeded' as well. Lamm's cruelty angered her more and more with time, even though she became better at avoiding his torture and his ire through her successes. The criminal grew weaker with age and with that only came cruelty, and she wished for the day she could rise up and do something to stop him.

Such a day never came, but her fall from grace did. When she was sixteen, Paige was found giving some of her haul to a small boy who had been beaten for the past several days straight for his failures, so that he could avoid the torture this time around, and for it, she was savagely beaten. The other children were made to watch as for hours, Paige was tortured and cut at, left with scars all over her torso from the abuse. Her body was left in an alley for dead, and she would have perished right there were it not for the kindness of a Sarenite cleric who found her while she lay dying in the gutters. Taking her back to the church, the priest, named Doriana, healed Paige and showed her the first kindness she had known from an adult in years.

When she awoke, Doriana asked how Paige had come to lie in such a horrible predicament, and for as much as Paige wanted to lie and fight against confessing what she had done, she couldn't help herself. She opened up everything to the priest, explaining that she had spent a decade working for Gaedren, pouring out her soul in such swift and feverish confession it overwhelmed her, but the priest remained patient, calm, and gave her a shoulder to cry on, letting her work through all of her frustration and sorrow. It was a cathartic but very miserable experience for Paige as a lifetime of pain was unloaded, and Doriana understood one thing above all else: this poor girl had never been given a chance to be free or make decisions for herself, let alone have somebody care about her at all. It was a bizarre feeling, but a relieving one, in some odd ways.

When finally her emotionally grueling release was over and she had been given some food, a question posed to Paige gave her a lot of thought: was she willing to atone? The question struck deep, as so concerned with survival, Paige had stolen and lied for years. Suddenly, she was confronted by those decisions, as the priest sought to help her turn from the dark path and find light in her life. That question set Paige on the course to right her life and to set right what had been up to that point a life of crime. Necessary crime, but she had still taken from people who needed, still hurt people. She needed to make up for that.

Doriana took Paige on as a ward of the Church of Sarenrae, and she had finally settled on that as her last name. "Ward". It was simple, and she liked something about the ring it had. At sixteen, she was a little too old to be sent to an orphanage, so she remained at the temple and was put to work in various ways to serve the church, not only to earn her keep (and very modest stipend of personal money every week), but to help serve to further her redemption; her soul was not blackened and her heart was true, but she still had to make up for what she had done, and being put to work with the church helped. She served as an aid to the healers by fetching things, changing bandages, and even doing menial cleaning and upkeep around the temple. She did it happily, because the priests were kind to her, her meals were warm, and she even had a small room of sorts where she had stacks of books lying about everywhere in mild disorder.

It was clear the girl did not have the discipline to be clergy, but she wished to continue serving the church into adulthood, and there were indeed uses for the girl. With her sweet charms and her very versatile skill set fostered from a life of petty street crime and knowledge-seeking, Paige found work serving the church out on the street. Sometimes, that meant playing bodyguard for priests who had to venture into dingier parts of the city for one reason or another, other times it was to sing on street corners about church events or even just the Dawnflower's glory. There were many in need in the city of Korvosa, and rather than bilking them for her own sake, she put her skills toward helping them.

With ample people skills and a streetwise sense of how to use them, Paige began to fall into a community organizer position for the church. She had a certain way with words, and charity efforts under the church found more success thanks to her well crafted and eloquent, impassioned speech. Other times, she would serve to help stop crime in the streets, as no shortage of incidental crime took place in open daylight every day, and when Paige was nearby she could always be counted on to stop it, which was something the city guard had mixed views on. Some saw her as a good samaritan, others found her overbearing, and some crooked guards simply wished there wasn't some do-gooder poking around.

But where she really threw her efforts was in regard to the "Little Lamms". The poor children still stuck under Gaedren's grasp needed help, and Paige did the best she could to try and keep them out of trouble, negotiating more than once with friendly guards when a child was about to be arrested, and on more than one occasion managing to rescue a child by bringing them to the church and personally ensuring they were placed in an orphanage where they could be safe.

It wasn't always easy work, but Paige felt fulfilled and joyful for the first time in years. The scars all over her body were horrible reminders of her past, but she had found redemption and a new, better life under Sarenrae's grace, and she was eager to show her devotion to the church back in return for it, giving her life to the Dawnflower as an agent, perhaps not one of divine magic, but one who could help her clergy and the people find common ground and understanding, a bridge between the ailing street and the temple that wanted to help them.

Korvosa was a city with problems. Paige had known that from an early age, but now, with the Dawnflower's guidance, she felt like she had a divine mission to fix it, and to help all the people she could along the way. The church had saved her life and set her on the path of redemption, and she would in kind return the favour for all who needed it.

After a decade of living under the oppressive control of Gaedren Lamm, freedom has given Paige reason to be bright and bubbly, and perhaps in her new line of working skirting the pun a little too cutely on being a ray of sunshine. Some in Korvosa need someone like that sometimes. Her life of crime is behind her now, and she has resolved herself to kindness whenever she can afford it, performing acts of charity and carrying herself with joy in the hopes of lifting the spirits of others. Sometimes it's the smallest gestures that matter most.

On the inside, she is a bit more torn up. Her old traumas don't fade easily, and every night she has the scars she earned from Lamm's beatings to remind her of her past. She doesn't let her pain show through, and she's come to a point in life where she can be genuinely happy and open about such matters, but beneath the surface there is often a twinge of pain and regret. She channels it as best she can into empathy for those also suffering, and her inner pain gives her all the more reason to throw herself into what is right for the purposes of distracting herself and burying her trauma beneath the satisfied feeling of doing a good thing to help someone.

Due to the abuse she suffered as a child, she is particularly sympathetic toward children, always committing hardest when there is a child in danger, sometimes going out of her way to help them. Of all the things Paige is willing to do for a greater good, harming a child is out of the question. She sees Gaedren Lamm in particular as a grave threat to the city and its children, and hopes for the day she may be able to cleanse such an evil off of the face of Golarion. She does not push the church to act in haste, but nothing could disappoint her more than his natural passing or some rival criminal stabbing him in an alley before she was able to mete out justice upon him.

Somewhere out there is Paige's father, the answers about where she came from and what her family name even is, and perhaps what her role in this world is. She's disconnected from it all, unsure what to think, but knowing her father, if he's alive, is a man who cast out his daughter callously and left her to starve on the streets. She does not seek him out, but on some mornings she awakes wondering if today would be the day she would finally meet him and be able to receive the answers and apologies she craved. Surely, he was still somewhere in Korvosa, and perhaps there was more to her heritage than she knows, but for the time being, she has work to do, and she cannot let her parentage be a distraction against that.

Although not officially a part of the clergy, Paige is still a member of the Church of Sarenrae, and she carries herself as such, holding herself to the tenets that a knight of Sarenrae often would: protecting the weak,fairness to others, offering redemption before offering the blade, and upholding truth. Faith helped her survive and turn her life around, and so Paige holds onto it firmly, and wishes above all else to find a role to play in bringing Sarenrae's word, finding some way to serve the church as more than an errands girl performing small duties for them. Now an adult, surely there is something she can do and some purpose she can serve, if not the church directly then Korvosa in Sarenrae's name. Some wrong she can right, some evil she can vanquish.

It gives Paige an almost restless yearning for something. She has found her redemption, but now she craves higher purpose. The weak will always need protecting and her blade is happy to serve in any capacity needed, but surely there is something deeper that she can do instead. Whatever she does, she only hopes it can make the streets of Korvosa a better place, for its dangers and failings were what drove her to suffer as she did. This city has hurt her a lot, but a large part of redemption is forgiveness, and Paige is ready to forgive Korvosa for failing her.

Paige is a tall, slender woman with long, straight brown hair and light brown skin often tanned from lots of work and time in the sun. A faint Qadiran heritage lingers in her blood and informs her very strong facial features, but she doesn't know enough about her family to know much more beyond that fact, and she holds little connection to that heritage due to her life as a child of the streets.

She dresses the part a little bit though, owing largely to her interest in the lighter of fashion senses among some of the clerics in the church who came from Qadira. It helps her cut a distinct but also distinctly Sarenite figure when she walks, her leather armor showing colours and symbols of the Dawnflower proudly. A blue cloak drawn over her shoulders billows as she walks, something she feels gives her a bit more presence. She makes sure to always keep clean and to wear fresh clothes, as she spent long periods of time wearing the same ratty old unwashed clothes under Lamm. Being able to dress properly is of the utmost importance to her as a result of that.

She's always dressed for action, due to how dangerous Korvosan streets can sometimes be. A weapon at her hip and often a few more hidden away just for security's sake; unlike the clergy she often guards, Paige understands the streets and has to be prepared for anything, and part of that process is to show that she's armed and not to be trifled with. Paired with her armour and the symbol around her neck, she makes sure it's clear that she's part of the church, availing her self of help at any moment. She's often confused for a priest because of that, and she doesn't mind the confusion; if anything, it's an advatange. Certain expectations about how to deal with a priest make it easer to come out swinging as a plucky, streetwise fighter.

All across her torso and arms are a myriad of scars from the almost lethal beating she endured thanks to Lamm. She hides them under her armor as best she could, and has worked slowly at trying to hide the ones on parts of her that are exposed with tattoos meant to help her grow from her traumas in constructive ways. It's not much, but it's something, helping to hide the reminders bit by bit as she grows into it. Ornate designs and fancy symbols help her make beauty out of her tragedy.

Persephone Divella Solistar IV clings to the title 'Lady' as little more than a sardonic joke, a private little remark to laugh at and never share with anyone, lest they ask why or how she holds a noble title, and to admit as much would be to condemn herself under the Second Decree. Princess Sheraya Solistar's aunt--Perspehone's grandmother--had fled the country in the midst of the Chelish civil war for her own protection under her maiden name as others of House Asgavan were found 'mysteriously dead' all across Cheliax. When Princess Sherava disappeared and House Thrune ascended to the throne, she knew that to go back would lead to her and her family's deaths. So they remained in Galt, hiding their status as Chelish royalty, and when the First Blades began to take heads, those who might threaten them if they knew their identity perished. The First and Second Decrees ensured they would have to remain in secret, but there was revolution in the air, and perhaps it would not have to be that way for long.

The Divella family found other diabolists left in the wake of revolution, and believed that House Asgavan may have stood a chance of reclaiming Cheliax if only they could bring another revolution to Galt. One bloodier and more violent, backed by demonic patrons who could overwhelm the mere mortal forces of the revolutionary councils. They moved in secret, and Persephone II trained her daughter, just as she would in turn trained Persephone IV, in the arts of infiltration and intrigue. They needed to lead their lives in secret and avoid ever disclosing their true identities, not only for their safety, but to secure revolutionary success.

Persephone IV was a different sort of woman than her mother and her grandmother before her. She took well to her lessons, which blended swordplay and infiltration with how to carry oneself properly as a noble on the belief she may one day truly become one again. Raised on promises she would one day perhaps be princess and then queen of Galt when their bloody devilish revolution took hold, Persephone found herself deeply uninterested in such foolishness. She found more excitement in picking locks and pockets than she did in learning table manners, and she was far more taken by stories of Courage Heart and the trashy, battered novels she could get her hands on than she was by stories of Asmodeus's might and Cheliax's colonization of Golarion.

The heroines of the adventure and romance books that Persephone snuck into her room like contraband filled her head with vivid ideas of a different kind of revolution. Of justice and justice. The iron heel of a boot holding down its people to keep them in line did not entice her one bit, and the chaotic whims of the people murdering their way into power didn't seem quite so right either. There had to be a middle ground there, had to be a way to find freedom and allow the people to rule without entertaining tyranny and endless bloodshed. The more inspiration she found in those books, the less she agreed with her family's crusade and the more she began to dream of her own idea of revolution.

In Persephone's mind, whatever was just had to come from the people, but not from whipping the people into a frenzy of populist furor, and certainly not from naming scapegoats. The people needed a voice in the process, not merely to have representatives pander to them. When the guillotines fell and the New Revolutionary Council took over, she saw through much of their means immediately, and found Korran Goss a dishonest man with insincere intentions, focusing peoples' attention to an outside enemy in the hopes of sparing himself the same trip to the final blades that his predecessors had fallen victim to. She dreamt of a Galt that drew its focus inward to fix its problems and address its societal ills intelligently rather than externalizing its aggressions and falling victim to xenophobic vitriol.

But she had no clear mind for revolution, still playing kind with her family and the assorted hangers-on who formed a group calling themselves The Circle of Flame. Those same lessons on lying that Persephone learned now became the means by which she kept a facade up for her family, avoiding letting it show that she had fallen out of love with their revolution and dreamt of something as diametrically opposed to their diabolic rule as possible. She began to revere Milani and trace roses wistfully into pages with her fingers, knowing she could never let the symbol shine through while she lived amid Asmodeans. But she had thrown out any belongings that tied her to the Prince of Hell, and held off for as long as she could on initiation into the Circle of Flame, which would have involved being branded on the shoulder with Asmodeus's symbol.

The Circle of Flame never had the chance to launch their revolution. The store they used as a front was raided on an anonymous tip, and the Grey Gardeners led a small raid. Persephone was home at the time, but both her parents, as well as the other ranking members of the group's inner circle, were arrested for diabolism and sentenced to death. Persephone barely talked her way out of it, explaining with impassioned fervor that she didn't know her parents were devil worshipers and that she was certainly not one herself. A tense, hours-long dismantling of her room as Grey Gardeners went through her possessions looking for any sign of devil worship, paired with smart words, convincing tears, and the lack of the same brand the others had, were enough for Persephone to be let go of, and when her parents were executed, Persephone became the sole heir of their fortune.

Persephone may have had no love for their views, but she still loved her parents. They had never been cruel to her, simply wanted from her something she didn't believe in, and she didn't feel they deserved to die solely for their beliefs. It galvanized what had already been brewing inside of Persephone as she found herself enraged by what had happened, by the insane influence of the 'revolutionaries' who constantly overthrew one another in the name of justice only to rule with iron fists and kill all who they thought might oppose them. She mourned for many nights, but then when the tears dried up, she was left with something more fierce than that.

A resolve to change Galt.

The books that Persephone had always been captivated by became a special kind of inspiration. All of the dashing heroines who had captured her imagination, the women who could cross swords with the men and who demanded control of their own destinies spoke out to a girl who suddenly found herself alone in a world steeped in injustice. All of the lessons she'd received, in swordplay and intrigue, could still find use, just not in the direction of driving Galt into the hands of devil worshipers. No doubt, Persephone would be in trouble were she found out of line after narrowly avoiding the guillotine herself, but a costume and an ideal came to mind, and she found herself a means with which to change things, even just a little bit.

Money was no object in creating a costume that could match the inspired majesty of her deepest dreams. Red and black seemed obvious to Persephone, who donned a disguise to commission a costume, blending the fine dress of high society with the flair of a swashbuckler to create something bold and heroic. Knee high boots, a fancy red hat with a feather in it, a fine red jacket that flowed like a cape, and a mask to obscure her face to cap it all off, allowed Persephone to take up a new role as La Vengeresse Des Roses, a rapier-wielding freedom fighter who wore her devotion to Milani on her sleeve. Quite literally, given the rose symbolism throughout the costume. Finally, Persephone was ready to right wrongs in the world.

By day, Persephone hid the modest, hidden fortune that she had funded her life of vigilantism off of by working as an alchemist, playing on what she hoped would have been the least suspicious of her talents given the circumstances. She found decent money in that, coming off as a strange but bright girl to the local stores that she sold her wares through, not possessing a storefront of her own through which to work and not wishing to gather that kind of attention. It wasn't the most glamorous of lives. But by night, Persephone could be La Vengeresse Des Roses, a vigilante who stalked the streets of Isarn in pursuit of wrongs to right. Whether it be criminals or even corrupt city guards, she would happily offer her rapier to the defense of any who needed it.

As La Vengeresse Des Roses, Persephone played herself up not only as a woman of the people, but as a dashing, romantic figure, whose talents were formidable and who could do whatever she pleased with impunity. She had developed a calling card; when she broke into somewhere and wanted somebody to know it, she would throw three rose petals into the air, pierce them with one delicate and precise stroke of her rapier, and then leave them laid on the floor. In her eyes, the ability to so carefully pierce the frail petals without leaving anything more than the hole was a sign of her precision and grace. If you stole a precious family heirloom from somebody and La Vengeresse des Roses meted our justice, she wanted you to know it.

While not as grand a reputation as some other vigilantes in the city may have had, La Vengeresse Des Roses was, in her mind, certainly starting to make an impact. She had run afoul of the city guard a few times in saving people from shakedowns by corrupt guardsmen, clashed intermittently with organized crime of all stripes and had one been involved in a very public and unfortunate incident wherein she murdered a man attacking a courtesan in plain view of a few too many people. She also used the alchemical items she crafted in the midst of her day job, supplementing a lack of magical ability with the threatrics and trickery they provided to her.

Though there was no noble class left to Galt due to its constant instability, Persephone carried herself like she was born into high society nonetheless. She dressed as well as she could, and found workarounds to deal with the banned materials that in any other nation would have been symbols of wealth and status. She became a very frequent customer fo the Louis Vauquelin Clothing Company, who made well designed clothing with high society aesthetics and low quality materials. Persephone would not dare be seen by day in anything else. She couldn't help herself; she had been raised expecting a certain life, and she may not have wanted it, but the comforts and styles still appealed to her, and what sort of dashing heroine would run about in rags?

To those who knew her, it cast a very strange air over Persephone. She was certainly charming, but her eccentricities and dramatic nature made her come off a bit of a fool, a strange woman with what seemed like a disingenuous affectation of nobility. By birth, Persephone was nobility, and in truth there was no affectation, but the more that people thought she was merely an eccentric oddity the easier it would be to keep herself removed from suspicion, and so she happily fostered the idea she was simply an odd woman with a strange upbringing, and not genuine nobility from a land whose name could not lay on anyone's tongue without tasting sour.

Persephone understood her family history, understood that she could possibly lay claim to power and riches in Cheliax deeper than she could have ever imagined, but Cheliax was not her home, Isarn was. She had been raised being told she was nobility over and over, that one day she could become princess of Galt when her family's revolution succeeded, but power was empty and fleeting, and should only come by the will of the peopl;e. The title she laughed at in secret meant little more to Persephone than a danger; one day she may join the heights of a healthier Galtan society, but she wished to do so on her terms and in support of something greather than merely seeking to deepen her coffers and enrich her surname.

To her incredible frustration, she could not truly find any grounding in meeting with the disparate worshipers of Milani, who she thought she might relate to due to her upbringing of 'worshiping' in secret. But it was no use; The Blood Rose were bloodthirsty madmen in direct opposition to Milani's will, The Courageous Council were ironically named cowards who sat around waiting for a solution to come to them, and the Sisters of the Everbloom, while noble in their aim, did not understand that Galt could not heal under the conditions with which it operated.

As she stalked the streets and even perhaps developed a name for herself, there was one injustice Persephone remained fixated upon above all else: her family. She didn't know for certain who betrayed The Circle of Flame to the Grey Gardeners, but she felt it must have come from someone on the inside. Only ten or so of the few dozen members of the group in total, now presumably scattered. Persephone didn't know all of them and didn't know for certain who was killed, but they had grown sloppy in their recruiting, and Persephone feared they had recruited a spy who sold them out. Regardless of her feelings for Asmodeus and his worship, nothing mattered to Persephone more than finding who had led to her parents' death, and any piece of information she may have been able to gleam was the most valuable of prizes.

But even if she cannot find answers to the questions she seeks, if she can make Galt a place where the gods one chooses to revere do not earn you a trip to the executioner, she would have done her job.

Having been raised as an infiltrator, Persephone excels as playing whatever role she has to take, and whether in her civilian persona or as La Vengeresse Des Roses, she's playing a part. Persephone Divella is a demure, well spoken lady with a clever tongue but a general respect for polite society, careful to only let her lips taste venom when she's spreading salacious gossip with other young women about the town, playing just as two-faced as the city folk who can't wait to discuss someone's failings and dirty laundry once they've left earshot, mere seconds after making nice with them. In every way she acts the stereotype of a harmless noble lady despite her lack of social status or any room in Galt for such a person, even if she is, by “her own admission”, not of noble descent. She comes off much more harmless that way, fanning herself and feigning daintiness, she makes sure to hide a fairly strong and firm body underneath lots of large dresses that help obscure her figure.

As La Vengeresse Des Roses, Persephone embraces the spirit of the dashing, romantic adventure heroine. Wielding her rapier wit with as much finesse and danger as her rapier proper, she lays on the charm thick. Affable, mysterious, but with a clear nobility and righteousness to her actions, she cultivates the persona of a phantom thief, rising above the lowly criminals of the underworld to protect the weak, accepting that she is a criminal herself and that she breaks the law, but that she does it for noble reasons.

Underneath the layers and the lies, the real Persephone is a woman of firm moral belief in the pursuit of justice and the protection of the weak. Her over-dramatic personae are not affectations so much as reflections of the natural flair and boldness of a strong personality that doesn't always know how to turn it down. A calm and quiet Persephone is more of an act than the overbearing and strongly present Persephone is, though she understands tone and when to keep quiet for a moment. She's a well behaved and tactful lady, she's just perhaps a bit more dramatic than most.

Enamoured by fabled heroes and how they can transcend their own names and deeds to embody ideals, Persephone sees herself as holding the potential to be just that sort of heroine, and just what Galt needs. A firm sense of justice and a belief that the people need a stronger voice than the Revolutionary Councils during her lifetime have been willing to give them, and a belief that power as it's now held in Galt is used to subjugate the poor and the helpless, help guide her actions and form the basis with which she fights for a cause, not yet organized or committed to a specific cause, but still fighting the fight before she truly has a direction for it.

The death of her parents lit a fire in Persephone that now rages with the conviction she needed to take up her blade and help people, but in the back of her mind, the possible betrayal behind her parents' death and the bitter reality that they remain unavenged gives her a lot to think about. She craves answers and follows up any lead she can find on the issue, and in the meantime she uses her quest to clean up the streets as the means of keeping her on the straight and narrow, too consumed with being a hero to fall into despair or lash out in some clumsy and destructive manner that would see her kiled next. Milani is not allows to be worshiped either, after all; she would simply die a different kind of heretic than her parents if she weren't careful.

Ultimately, Persephone is a wide-eyed idealist with strong convictions, but not much of a fight. She thirsts for change, and romanticizes the notions of heroism and revolution as beautiful things when they can be used to help people. She lacks a specific cause or a name to put her efforts behind, but until she finds one she is still committed to helping people, as you don't need to be overthrowing those in power to do the right thing. She does long for a cause she can truly support though, whether it be as Persephone Divella or as La Vengeresse Des Roses.

Persephone stands tall and wears her height with noble poise and grace that stands out as odd given the circumstances of her life. Her features are strongly refined and hold a firm Chelish heritage, something she feigns ignorance about if anyone asks--Galt had plenty of Chelaxians about during their occupation, surely some blood was bound to mingle somewhere. Her skin is pale in colour, owing to days spent working on alchemical creations on top of a nighttime lifestyle that sees her outside mostly during the moonlit hours. Her black hair is almost always kept up, often in ornate braids or buns that work to show off more of that noble affectation, as surely only a woman of means could spend so much time on their own hair every morning. Her taste for clothing likewise leans toward the fanciful, and she dresses as nicely as she can under the laws of the land, which means well designed clothes made from cheaper and more plain materials. Elegant dresses with lots of lace and room not only help further her act as a strange and eccentric loon with nothing better to do, but to help obscure her figure, which is much more defined and strong than she's willing to let on.

Persephone's frame leans toward being more slender, but she has added some measure of musculature to her body thanks to the shape she keeps in and the work she does at night. She's built for endurance and agility, with lots of lean, taut muscle rather than showy but decorative muscles or flat, hard-working bulk, but her arms still hold strong definition, and she works to keep them beneath loose sleeves as much as she possibly can.

As La Vengeresse Des Roses, she wears an even more elegant and lavish ensemble, one of red and black but of exquisite make and fine materials. Black thigh-high boots, red pants, a frilly black blouse over which a corset-shaped top provides some form fitting but does not cinch, simply there for aesthetic. A red jacket pumes outward from the hip to billow out like a cape, and white scarves underneath furthe sway and disorient when she runs. Her jacket plumes out at the shoulders, and elbow-length gloves with lacy trim at the end are the only sensible handwear for a duelist of her caliber. A frilly collar piece adds more lace, and holds wears a pendant of Milani's holy symbol for all to see. Her hair is worn down to flow long and proud, but through use of either magic or make-up as the situation demands, it is tinged with red highlights that further guard against recognition. A red domino mask and a black bandana pulled over her mouth protect her distinct features, while a large red pirate hat capped off with a fluffy white feather complete her swashbuckling heroine aesthetic. She often carries her rapier proudly, but a quiver slung over her back ensures that even at a distance, she can cut a fearsome silhouette.

Lady Persephone Divella Solistar IV/La Vengeresse des Roses - Swashbuckler (Inspired Blade) 5/Rose Warden 2
Chaotic Good Medium Humanoid (Human)
Init +6 (additional +2 with at least 1 panache point, +2 in urban areas); Perception +10 (+12 in Urban Areas)
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DEFENSE
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AC 20, touch 15, flatfooted 15 ( +4 Dex +4 Armor +1 Shield +1 Dodge)
HP 56 (5d10 + 2d8 + 14 Con + 5 FCB)
Fort +5, Ref +10, Will +6 (+2 against charm, compulsion, and fear effects)
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OFFENSE
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee
-Rapier +13/+8 (1d6+6, P, 15-20/x2)
-Dagger +11/+6 (1d4+4, B/P, 17-20/x2)
-Sword Cane +11/+6 (1d6+4, P, x2)
-Sap +10/+5 (1d6 nonlethal, B, x2)
--Sneak Attack +1d6
Ranged
-Longbow +10/+5 (1d8, B/P, x3)
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STATISTICS
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XP
Str 13, Dex 18 (15 + 2 racial, +1 at 4), Con 13, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 14
Base Attack +6; CMB +9; CMD 20 (+22 against disarm with at least 1 panache point)
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Dazzling Display, Deceitful, Extra Panache, Fencing Grace, Iron Will, Shatter Defenses, Weapon Focus (Rapier)
Traits: Former Noble, Reactionary
Favoured Class: Swashbuckler
Skills: Acrobatics +9, Appraise +3, Climb +5, Craft (Alchemy) +12, Bluff +16, Escape Artist +8, Disable Device +10, Disguise +16, Knowledge (History) +3, Knowledge (Local) +6 (+8 in urban areas), Knowledge (Nobility) +7, Intimidate +11, Linguistics +3, Perception +10 (+12 in urban areas), Sense Motive +5, Sleight of Hand +10 (+12 to hide daggers in wrist sheaths and Thieves' Ring), Stealth +14 (+16 in urban areas)
Languages: Common (Taldane), Hallit, Dwarven, Halfling
Equipment: +1 Rapier, two Daggers, Sap, Mithral Chain Shirt, Buckler, Handy Haversack, Hat of Disguise, Cloak of Resistance +1, two Spring-Loaded Wrist Sheaths, Thieves' Ring, Belt Pouch, Sleeves of Many Garments
Located in her Haversack: Noble's Outfit/Vigilante outfit (whichever is not presently being worn), Peasant's Outfit, Longbow, 20 Regular Arrows, 20 Blunt Arrows, 4 Grappling Arrows, 5 Dye Arrows, Crowbar, Glass Cutter, 30 sheets of Glue Paper, Grappling Hook, Torch, 1 length of Hemp Rope, Waterskin, Flint and Steel, Sword Cane, 2 Alchemical Glues, Alchemical Glue Accelerant, 2 Alchemist Fires, 2 Sunrods, 2 Flasks of Acid, Alchemical Solvent, Impact Foam, Good Invisible Ink, Quill, Glowing Ink, Itching Powder, Flash Powder, 2 Tanglefoot Bags, 2 Paper Candle Fireworks, Thunderstone, 2 Tindertwigs, 2 Smokesticks, 2 Potions of Invisibility, 2 Potions of Jump, 2 Potions of Keen Senses,
Current encumberance: 42 lbs
Money: 206 GP, 4 SP
Carrying capacity: 50 lbs. or less, 51–100, 101–150
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SPECIAL ABILITIES
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-Swashbuckler Abilities-
Panache: 6/day, only refreshes on a confirmed critical with a Rapier
Inspired Finesse: Gain Weapon Focus (Rapier) as a bonus feat
Deeds: Derring-Do, Dodging Panache, Opportune Parry and Riposte, Kip-Up, Menacing Swordplay, Precise Strike, Swashbuckler Initiative
Charmed Life: 3/day, +2
Rapier Training: +1 to attacks, +2 to damage with Rapiers, and they gain the benefit of Improved Critical

-Rose Warden Abilities-
Anonymity: Adds her Rose Warden level to Bluff and Disguise rolls.
Insurgent Technique: Chaos Hammer 1/day as a spell-like ability
Liberated Mind: +2 against charm, compulsion, and fear effects
Street Sentinel: +2 to Initiative, Knowledge (Local), Survival, Perception, and Stealth checks in urban areas. While in an urban area, Persephone leaves no trail and can't be tracked unless she wishes to be
Sneak Attack: +1d6
Voice of the Masses: Persephone's movement is not impeded by crowds, and she gains a bonus equal to her Rose Warden level on checks to influence crowds

-Other Abilities-
Safe House: As the Vigilante Social Talent. The safe house is located in Persephone's family home and is a 70-foot cube covering from the basement up to the roof and much of the house itself, but the workspace and any incriminatory elements are primarily hidden in the basement.

Notes:
-Save for objects explicitly taken out, all alchemical items and potions are stored inside of her Handy Haversack. These items will then be stored on her person. Her bow will also be stored by default, even when she is in costume.
-Her daggers are located inside of her spring-loaded wrist sheaths any time she is wearing them, including during her day-to-day where the danger of being mugged is always real. She only goes without when absolutely necessary.
-Her Noble's Outfit lacks a signet ring but still possesses 100 GP worth of jewelry to 'belong' in such circles
-Her vigilante outfit is estimated to cost the same as a functional Noble's outfit with the jewelry, to provide reference for quality
-Equipment located at home: Alchemist's Lab, Merchant's Scale, 2 Alchemist Fires, 8 Sunrods, Alchemical Solvent, Impact Foam, Vial of Good Invisible Ink, 2 Tanglefoot Bags, 8 Paper Candle Fireworks, Thunderstone, 3 Tindertwigs, 2 Smokesticks, 2 Lengths of Hemp Rope

Persephone is a flexible but primarily martial-focused character, who stocks up on versatile options and skills to bolster her combat abilities. With ample social and intrigue skills, she can move around in society however needed, whether as herself, as La Vengeresse des Roses, or using her magic equipment to assume another disguise for whatever purpose. She can charm and lie her way through anything she's asked to do and assume whatever personality is needed for the role she's performing. Bolstered by the abilities from Rose Warden and her alchemical trickery, she is able to respond to a myriad of problems with solutions to help her see another day if a fight won't go her way, but when in a fight, her Swashbuckler abilities make her a formidable opponent. She excels in melee combat, using her deeds to counter attacks and to strike back with intimidation that will then allow her to jump on opportunities to strike at intimidated foes with her sneak attacks. As an all-around and self-sufficient character, Persephone is designed to work well in whatever capacity she has to, and use versatile options to tailor her response to situations rather than finding herself useless when a sole gimmick isn't going to solve a problem.

Vaius Freeman was the man people went to when they needed help and nobody would give it to them. In Isarn, there were too few people who the common folk could trust, and for Vaius's liking, too many of them wore masks, and too few were the people in power who should have worked to serve the people. The guard were unprincipled thugs who were just as bad as the gangs who paid them hush money to keep operating and do harm with impunity. The politicians only cared about whether the guard would protect them from the guillotines to truly care about doing anything but keeping the people form revolt. The chairman was too busy demonizing their neighbors and stoking fear of 'the other' to pay attention to the fact that Galt was sick, and its ills were coming from the inside. Some days, Vaius woke up feeling like he was the only one left who really cared. All the others must have died, because Isarn had gone to s&#@ and nobody was doing a damn thing to stop it.

There was a time where the Tiefling led a fairly quiet life as a promising mage with a bright future ahead of him. His family lineage traced back to Diabolic servants held by Chelish nobles who met their deaths during the start of the very first revolution, and the newly freed Tieflings were suddenly free citizens in society, but even with revolution in the air, there was little room in society for freed Tiefling slaves, and they struggled to make their lives work. Vaius was born months before the Golden Council fell to Kalltus and Morliah, who had taken the surname Freeman upon being granted freedom for the first time in generations. They had a daughter Valeria from a few years earlier, and worried about how to provide for their children as they performed their former duties now for money, but generational poverty would surely condemn their children to the same fate.

From a very young age, Vaius showed an acumen for magic and learning, and out of the belief that their son may have had some chance at getting out and finding a better life, the Freemans scrounged together every coin they could to have their son sent to Andoran to be evaluated by a magic school. He was a young boy then, but the school saw so much promise in him that they accepted him as their yearly charity entrant, given his teachings and board at cost or tuition. He left his family and Galt to learn, with the hope of saving himself and his family from a live of poverty.

It wasn't long for Vaius to show that he had a keen eye for magic and an ability to learn and hold onto information that put him above and beyond his peers. His talents went beyond simple magical knowledge, into learning about other topics, picking up skills that were easy ways to get a teenage boy into trouble. Vaius even had a habit of sneaking into restricted library sections, and once or twice was found in a professor's office, having picked the lock not to seek answers for an upcoming test, but to dive through the private notes of their research in fascination for the art of learning. When he was caught, his sharp mind also had a means of talking his way out of trouble, not because he was a particularly charming or charismatic man, but because he understood the art of rhetoric and how to wield the power of words with as much gravity as a gifted orator.

Able to avoid any real trouble, Vaius continued to excel in his studies and show a promise for magic that seemed to be only growing stronger and stronger, but while his talents developed, Galt remained aflame. Revolutions came and went, and his family's letters often spoke of tumultuous struggles. One of the professors most fond of Vaius took him on as his apprentice after graduation, which came with a salaried position as a teaching and research assistant. Within a year of working, he would have been able to bring his family over from Galt and give them a fresh start in a land brimming with more opportunities than their home was. But it wasn't meant to be, and a month before Vaius would have had the money, tragedy struck.

Vaius's sister Valeria did not have the same fortunes that her brother did. She was not born with a sharp mind and a gift for magic, but she possessed something else: looks. In Isarn there was no position with the chance of lifting up from poverty for a woman with a pretty face as attractive as prostitution, where not only would one find work, but earn the protection of one of the few factions in the city that could effectively look after its own interests and people. Valeria began to work as a prostitute, and after a few years in smaller brothels she had worked her way 'up' to one more notable, though not for the right reasons. The madame who ran The Dungeon saw Valeria, a devilish looking, red skinned woman of incredible beauty but clear fiendish heritage, and offered her more money than she was making to come work under her employ, believing that her fiendish appearance would be very popular with the masochistic clientele they drew.

And she was. Valeria found good money for a prostitute in role playing as a sadistic corrupter who sometimes outright tortured the men who came to see her, inducing ecstasy through brutality that felt a little demeaning given the way being a Tiefling became a fetishized commodity. Her brother's magic job gave her hope for finding new beginnings in Andoran and not having to resort to prostitution there as well, and she tried to scrounge modest savings together from the extra money she made so that she could have a fresh start and perhaps even find better, more honest work.

One night, Valeria was found dead in the streets with her throat slit.

When the news reached Vaius, he rushed home as quickly as he could to console his parents, but when he returned he found there had been no justice. The guards had not found any evidence, and when he went to pay them a visit himself they dismissed him, one of them even asking, "Which one?" in a way that confirmed to Vaius that nothing was being done. After years away from Galt, the injustice and the corruption burned away at him, infuriating the Tiefling as he realized just how fetid a place Isarn had become. Nobody cared, and nobody was going to do anything about his sister. She was just a dead prostitute now, and the only people who mourned her loss were the men who liked to be whipped by her. It was a horror greater than Vaius could stand, but if he had learned one thing from his experiences at school, it was that he could do and see things that some others couldn't.

Vaius sent his letter of resignation back to Andoran, apologizing for the abrupt departure but insisting there were family matters too important to ignore. And then, he began to ask questions. Maybe too many questions, around the wrong places in town, but he didn't let that stop him and refused to let anybody intimidate him. Valeria's death was too important for Vaius to be able to let it go ignored, and he continued to push. On the streets, his more mundane talents proved just as useful as his magical ones, and he tried his best to use them all in tandem to keep people cooperative, but it wasn't always so easy, and he found himself resorting to a blade more than a few times to defend himself. The more he tried to delve into the goings on of the city, the more resistance he found.

What Vaius could gleam from some less than reputable sources was that someone in Isarn had a peculiar interest in killing prostitutes. Few wanted to talk about it too much, leaving him to wonder just what sorts of secrets may have been lingering around these rumours, what possible reason people could have for refusing to tell Vaius what they knew about it. Were they protecting somebody powerful within the Revolutionary Council or some other strong faction in the city? Was there a lot of money behind keeping people quiet? He didn't know, but more and more, Vaius learned that he should back off and not think about it anymore.

Then someone stuck a bloody dagger into the front door of his parents' home.

Vaius railed at the idea of stopping, at the idea of abandoning the only chance he saw to get justice for Valeria, but he didn't want to lose his parents, too. He had to slow down, but he didn't need to stop, he just needed to make it seem like he he was. The well of willing informants had dried up anyway; he'd have to wait and to bide his time. He took the savings he'd earned from his teaching position and used it to set up shop in Nord Rivière. The store was called Embers and Ashes, and it was as much a magic shop as it was a private detective agency of sorts. There were a lot of people in Isarn who needed help, and if he couldn't find his sister's killer, he would at least put in the work to aid the people of Isarn until he had the chance.

With a keen analytical eye and magic to throw around, Vaius made for a good investigator. He often worked to track down stolen heirlooms, tail cheating spouses, and worked the occasional murder the guard didn't give a damn about , but many of his jobs were a bit more peculiar than that. He excelled at forgery, passing on messages, breaking coded communications, and a myriad of other talents that landed him peculiar sorts of clients. Being posted up in Nord Rivière meant that Vaius couldn't escape organized crime, and they often wanted work from him, something he had negotiated out of them as an equivalent to gold payment for their 'protection'. He held rules about his dealings with them, in particular stressing that he would not hurt a child, he wasn't going to kill anybody innocent, and that he wouldn't do any harm to a courtesan. The last one in particular was always said quite bitterly.

Often, they wanted him to divine his way through solving a murder of one of their boys, which kept him busy with work that he could at least say wasn't directly harming anybody. He hated working with The Vice thoroughly, but he knew there was no way to live a righteous life in Galt. Not without dying in an alley somewhere. His sister's death had hardened him in ways that killed off any brightness and hope within him. Vaius had grown bitter and cynical, and the realities of his work, between dealings with criminals and the crushing truths of death, infidelity, and sorrow that pervaded everyday Galtan life, had left him a burnt out shell.

But he persevered. The world was s!$* and he could do nothing to stop it, but people still needed saving. People who hadn't given up on their lives. People who hadn't stopped believing. He did his best, and often he walked away from jobs with no money gained because the deeply impoverished people of Isarn couldn't afford to pay him but were also the most vulnerable and victimized of the lot. His store got on okay thanks to his magical wares and the jobs that did pay, in addition to the occasional barter he'd receive, like the baker who couldn't pay him for his trouble a few years ago but to that day still sent him a loaf every once in a while when there were too many left over. Those little gestures of gratefulness were sometimes the only gleams of light in the world he would see in his day to day life.

Isarn, for all of its ugliness, tore the light out of Vaius. Tragedy took his sister from him, then in turn took hope for escaping with his family from him as her death chained him to this horrible, broken down city until he could find her justice. He hadn't wanted the world to stop turning, just for someone to help him. For someone to care about justice. It seemed nobody did. That emptiness kept Vaius moving even as the years dragged on with little progress. Somebody needed to help these people, and he'd never wanted to be the one to do it, but as the surly and odd looking Tiefling's reputation for helping those who needed it grew, he understood that it wasn't a choice.

In twenty years, Vaius found little evidence to help him find his sister's murderer. He had come to Isarn a young man, but now he was sore, older, and time had exacted a heavy toll on him, adding another fifteen years onto the age of his face as he lived every day through the misery and the horror, knowing that there was no depth to which people could not sink, no horror too unbelievable to not be true somewhere. He'd lived through most Revolutionary Councils, and four revolutions had taken place since the day Valeria died. Not one of those upheavals had loosened anybody's tongue, and prostitutes continued to die intermittently in similar circumstances and with similar public dumpings of bodies in the gutters.

A government should fear its people not for the worry they will be violently overthrown, but because their power comes from their people. Galt was a nation ruled by people in fear and by a people who seemed to fetishize revolution and uprising. Nothing got better, nothing changed, it was simply new leaders cycling in to bring new problems while the old ones often remained unaddressed. Vaius knew that there needed to be change, but he was dubious of the word 'revolution' and all that came with it, as it hadn't yet solved the problem.

Vaius couldn't change the world, but he could make it just a little less horrible for a few people, and that wasn't going to make him feel better, but it was going to keep him getting out of bed every morning and staying in Isarn no matter what toll the city took on him. He wasn't leaving until he found whoever murdered his sister, and leaving their body dead in the street.

Vaius is world weary and cynical to a fault, a man whose response to tragedy was to deeply embed himself into the grime and the darkness, which continued to beat any hope left in him out. He's solved horrific crimes, witnessed the worst, deepest darkness that can dwell within one's heart, and watched as Isarn remained sick through endless bloodshed and revolt, all for nothing. It's given him a very bitter outlook on life and on society, but he presses on through his misery and through every last tragedy he has to bear witness to out of the belief that he can help other people, shouldering their burden so that they don't have to turn into the same empty husk that he has. Vaius sold his heart for stones, and nobody else should have to.

Endless moral compromise and the necessity of dealing with The Vice, not to mention other crimes he's had to commit for money, have left him even more hardened. Necessary evils are still evils, and he believes himself a compromised man for it, having kept his hands as clean as he could, but knowing himself complicit in letting crime run free. More than once, he let a guilty man go because he was too well connected, and he was able to sell out that agreement to walk away as a few months' protection pay. Vaius Vaius does not see himself as a good man, no matter how many people he will help for free and no matter what his intentions are. He can't be a good man when he's done the things he's done.

Revolution doesn't interest him in large part due to how little it's managed to solve anything in the years he's witnessed it. The endless cycle of revolution has changed nothing and brought better lives only to those who grab power and can live well before also meeting the executioner. He's willing to help people, and willing to even work with revolutionaries if it means meting out some measure of justice or helping to right some kind of wrong in society, but to become truly committed to and believing a cause is a lot harder for Vaius, who has trouble believing in much of anything. But he does at least know that the current way is wrong and the lack of elections goes against his belief a government should serve its people and that democracy should be oriented around ensuring whoever vies for power does.

Although not charismatic or holding any special presence, and perhaps even coming off a bit strange, Vaius has a way with words through logic and meaning that give them gravity regardless. Peculiar and surly as he is, he easily conveys a depth of knowledge, being well read and ravenous in his pursuit of understanding most anything. Reading technical manuals and research tomes is one of the only joys in life he genuinely holds, and when not at his workbench, on the street, our writing mad, cynical ramblings into his journal, he will go through all of the books he can get his hands on, a habit he developed as a boy and only stopped during his most dire of times.

The desire to do the right thing keeps him moving, but he remains where he is and pushes himself as hard as he does for Valeria's sake. Every day he keeps his eyes open, obsessively investigating crimes involving courtesans hoping to see some new development or clue, and often he will seek first to bargain for information about his sister over proper payment if he believes someone may be able to tell him something. Almost none can, and of them, there is little they're willing to say.

Persephone Divella Solistar IV clings to the title 'Lady' as little more than a sardonic joke, a private little remark to laugh at and never share with anyone, lest they ask why or how she holds a noble title, and to admit as much would be to condemn herself under the Second Decree. Princess Sheraya Solistar's aunt--Perspehone's grandmother--had fled the country in the midst of the Chelish civil war for her own protection under her maiden name as others of House Asgavan were found 'mysteriously dead' all across Cheliax. When Princess Sherava disappeared and House Thrune ascended to the throne, she knew that to go back would lead to her and her family's deaths. So they remained in Galt, hiding their status as Chelish royalty, and when the First Blades began to take heads, those who might threaten them if they knew their identity perished. The First and Second Decrees ensured they would have to remain in secret, but there was revolution in the air, and perhaps it would not have to be that way for long.

The Divella family found other diabolists left in the wake of revolution, and believed that House Asgavan may have stood a chance of reclaiming Cheliax if only they could bring another revolution to Galt. One bloodier and more violent, backed by demonic patrons who could overwhelm the mere mortal forces of the revolutionary councils. They moved in secret, and Persephone II trained her daughter, just as she would in turn trained Persephone IV, in the arts of infiltration and intrigue. They needed to lead their lives in secret and avoid ever disclosing their true identities, not only for their safety, but to secure revolutionary success.

Persephone IV was a different sort of woman than her mother and her grandmother before her. She took well to her lessons, which blended swordplay and infiltration with how to carry oneself properly as a noble on the belief she may one day truly become one again. Raised on promises she would one day perhaps be princess and then queen of Galt when their bloody devilish revolution took hold, Persephone found herself deeply uninterested in such foolishness. She found more excitement in picking locks and pockets than she did in learning table manners, and she was far more taken by stories of Courage Heart and the trashy, battered novels she could get her hands on than she was by stories of Asmodeus's might and Cheliax's colonization of Golarion.

The heroines of the adventure and romance books that Persephone snuck into her room like contraband filled her head with vivid ideas of a different kind of revolution. Of justice and justice. The iron heel of a boot holding down its people to keep them in line did not entice her one bit, and the chaotic whims of the people murdering their way into power didn't seem quite so right either. There had to be a middle ground there, had to be a way to find freedom and allow the people to rule without entertaining tyranny and endless bloodshed. The more inspiration she found in those books, the less she agreed with her family's crusade and the more she began to dream of her own idea of revolution.

In Persephone's mind, whatever was just had to come from the people, but not from whipping the people into a frenzy of populist furor, and certainly not from naming scapegoats. The people needed a voice in the process, not merely to have representatives pander to them. When the guillotines fell and the New Revolutionary Council took over, she saw through much of their means immediately, and found Korran Goss a dishonest man with insincere intentions, focusing peoples' attention to an outside enemy in the hopes of sparing himself the same trip to the final blades that his predecessors had fallen victim to. She dreamt of a Galt that drew its focus inward to fix its problems and address its societal ills intelligently rather than externalizing its aggressions and falling victim to xenophobic vitriol.

But she had no clear mind for revolution, still playing kind with her family and the assorted hangers-on who formed a group calling themselves The Circle of Flame. Those same lessons on lying that Persephone learned now became the means by which she kept a facade up for her family, avoiding letting it show that she had fallen out of love with their revolution and dreamt of something as diametrically opposed to their diabolic rule as possible. She began to revere Milani and trace roses wistfully into pages with her fingers, knowing she could never let the symbol shine through while she lived amid Asmodeans. But she had thrown out any belongings that tied her to the Prince of Hell, and held off for as long as she could on initiation into the Circle of Flame, which would have involved being branded on the shoulder with Asmodeus's symbol.

The Circle of Flame never had the chance to launch their revolution. The store they used as a front was raided on an anonymous tip, and the Grey Gardeners led a small raid. Persephone was home at the time, but both her parents, as well as the other ranking members of the group's inner circle, were arrested for diabolism and sentenced to death. Persephone barely talked her way out of it, explaining with impassioned fervor that she didn't know her parents were devil worshipers and that she was certainly not one herself. A tense, hours-long dismantling of her room as Grey Gardeners went through her possessions looking for any sign of devil worship, paired with smart words, convincing tears, and the lack of the same brand the others had, were enough for Persephone to be let go of, and when her parents were executed, Persephone became the sole heir of their fortune.

Persephone may have had no love for their views, but she still loved her parents. They had never been cruel to her, simply wanted from her something she didn't believe in, and she didn't feel they deserved to die solely for their beliefs. It galvanized what had already been brewing inside of Persephone as she found herself enraged by what had happened, by the insane influence of the 'revolutionaries' who constantly overthrew one another in the name of justice only to rule with iron fists and kill all who they thought might oppose them. She mourned for many nights, but then when the tears dried up, she was left with something more fierce than that.

A resolve to change Galt.

The books that Persephone had always been captivated by became a special kind of inspiration. All of the dashing heroines who had captured her imagination, the women who could cross swords with the men and who demanded control of their own destinies spoke out to a girl who suddenly found herself alone in a world steeped in injustice. All of the lessons she'd received, in swordplay and intrigue, could still find use, just not in the direction of driving Galt into the hands of devil worshipers. No doubt, Persephone would be in trouble were she found out of line after narrowly avoiding the guillotine herself, but a costume and an ideal came to mind, and she found herself a means with which to change things, even just a little bit.

Money was no object in creating a costume that could match the inspired majesty of her deepest dreams. Red and black seemed obvious to Persephone, who donned a disguise to commission a costume, blending the fine dress of high society with the flair of a swashbuckler to create something bold and heroic. Knee high boots, a fancy red hat with a feather in it, a fine red jacket that flowed like a cape, and a mask to obscure her face to cap it all off, allowed Persephone to take up a new role as La Vengeresse Des Roses, a rapier-wielding freedom fighter who wore her devotion to Milani on her sleeve. Quite literally, given the rose symbolism throughout the costume. Finally, Persephone was ready to right wrongs in the world.

By day, Persephone would play the lowly heiress to a modest fortune, mingling about in the lower reaches of high society, never truly relaying that she was of genuine noble blood for the sake of keeping her fortune intact. She was merely an aristocrat of mild standing, a girl who came from enough money to not be so scandalous paying visit to social functions from time to time, and who would surely have to find a good man to settle down with before she became too old to ever find her way in life. But by night, Persephone could be La Vengeresse Des Roses, a vigilante who stalked about the streets of Isarn in pursuit of wrongs to right. Whether it be criminals or even corrupt city guards, she would happily offer her rapier to the defense of any who needed it. Sometimes, her quests to right wrongs even had her interacting with people whom she would see by day, some even perhaps people she would call friends, whose homes she would slip into in pursuit of a piece of evidence or some family heirloom they had stolen to recoup an exploitative loan.

As La Vengeresse Des Roses, Persephone played herself up not only as a woman of the people, but as a dashing, romantic figure, whose talents were formidable and who could do whatever she pleased with impunity. She had developed a calling card; when she broke into somewhere and wanted somebody to know it, she would throw three rose petals into the air, pierce them with one delicate and precise stroke of her rapier, and then leave them laid on the floor. In her eyes, the ability to so carefully pierce the frail petals without leaving anything more than the hole was a sign of her precision and grace.

While not as grand a reputation as some other vigilantes in the city may have had, La Vengeresse Des Roses was, in her mind, certainly starting to make an impact. She had run afoul of the city guard a few times in saving people from shakedowns by corrupt guardsmen, left her mark in the homes of several nobles--sometimes even without stealing anything, but just to know she had made it into the deepest point in their homes, and once even their vault, before leaving--and had one been involved in a very public and unfortunate incident wherein she murdered a man attacking a courtesan in plain view of a few too many people. She also sought knowledge to teach herself how to create alchemical items, lacking in magical ability but hoping she could find some help in the wonders of science to still give her fantastical means of escape, trickery, and theatrics.

Raised in isolation, Persephone simply didn't mind lashing out against even the nobles she may consider 'friends'. The Persephone who wore nice dresses and mingled with the aristocracy was as much a facade as La Vengeresse Des Roses was, perhaps even more dishonest a persona. Persephone understood her family history, understood that she could possibly lay claim to power and riches in Cheliax deeper than she could have ever imagined, but Cheliax was not her home, Isarn was. She had been raised being told she was nobility over and over, that one day she could become princess of Galt when her family succeeded, but power was empty and fleeting, and should only come by will of the people. The title she laughed at in secret meant little more to Persephone than a danger; one day she may join the heights of society, but she wished to do so on her terms and in support of something greater than merely seeking to deepen her coffers and enrich her surname.

To her incredible frustration, she could not truly find any grounding in meeting with the disparate worshipers of Milani, who she thought she might relate to due to her upbringing of 'worshiping' in secret. But it was no use; The Blood Rose were bloodthirsty madmen in direct opposition to Milani's will, The Courageous Council were ironically named cowards who sat around waiting for a solution to come to them, and the Sisters of the Everbloom, while noble in their aim, did not understand that Galt could not heal under the conditions with which it operated.

As she stalked the streets and even perhaps developed a name for herself, there was one injustice Persephone remained fixated upon above all else: her family. She didn't know for certain who betrayed The Circle of Flame to the Grey Gardeners, but she felt it must have come from someone on the inside. Only ten or so of the few dozen members of the group in total, now presumably scattered. Persephone didn't know all of them and didn't know for certain who was killed, but they had grown sloppy in their recruiting, and Persephone feared they had recruited a spy who sold them out. Regardless of her feelings for Asmodeus and his worship, nothing mattered to Persephone more than finding who had led to her parents' death, and any piece of information she may have been able to gleam was the most valuable of prizes.

But even if she cannot find answers to the questions she seeks, if she can make Galt a place where the gods one chooses to revere do not earn you a trip to the executioner, she would have done her job.

Having been raised as an infiltrator, Persephone excels as playing whatever role she has to take, and whether in her civilian persona or as La Vengeresse Des Roses, she's playing a part. Persephone Divella is a demure, well spoken lady with a clever tongue but a general respect for polite society, careful to only let her lips taste venom when she's spreading salacious gossip, playing just as two-faced as the nobles who can't wait to discuss someone's failings and dirty laundry once they've left earshot, mere seconds after making nice with them. In every way she acts the stereotype of a harmless noble lady, even if she is, by “her own admission”, not of noble descent. She comes off much more harmless that way, fanning herself and feigning daintiness, she makes sure to hide a fairly strong and firm body underneath lots of big dresses and lace that help obscure her figure.

As La Vengeresse Des Roses, Persephone embraces the spirit of the dashing, romantic adventure heroine. Wielding her rapier wit with as much finesse and danger as her rapier proper, she lays on the charm thick. Affable, mysterious, but with a clear nobility and righteousness to her actions, she cultivates the persona of a phantom thief, rising above the lowly criminals of the underworld to protect the weak, accepting that she is a criminal herself and that she breaks the law, but that she does it for noble reasons.

Underneath the layers and the lies, the real Persephone is a woman of firm moral belief in the pursuit of justice and the protection of the weak. Her over-dramatic personae are not affectations so much as reflections of the natural flair and boldness of a strong personality that doesn't always know how to turn it down. A calm and quiet Persephone is more of an act than the overbearing and strongly present Persephone is, though she understands tone and when to keep quiet for a moment. She's a well behaved and tactful lady, she's just perhaps a bit more dramatic than most.

Enamoured by fabled heroes and how they can transcend their own names and deeds to embody ideals, Persephone sees herself as holding the potential to be just that sort of heroine, and just what Galt needs. A firm sense of justice and a belief that the people need a stronger voice than the Revolutionary Councils during her lifetime have been willing to give them, and a belief that power as it's now held in Galt is used to subjugate the poor and the helpless, help guide her actions and form the basis with which she fights for a cause, not yet organized or committed to a specific cause, but still fighting the fight before she truly has a direction for it.

The death of her parents lit a fire in Persephone that now rages with the conviction she needed to take up her blade and help people, but in the back of her mind, the possible betrayal behind her parents' death and the bitter reality that they remain unavenged gives her a lot to think about. She craves answers and follows up any lead she can find on the issue, and in the meantime she uses her quest to clean up the streets as the means of keeping her on the straight and narrow, too consumed with being a hero to fall into despair or lash out in some clumsy and destructive manner that would see her kiled next. Milani is not allows to be worshiped either, after all; she would simply die a different kind of heretic than her parents if she weren't careful.

Ultimately, Persephone is a wide-eyed idealist with strong convictions, but not much of a fight. She thirsts for change, and romanticizes the notions of heroism and revolution as beautiful things when they can be used to help people. She lacks a specific cause or a name to put her efforts behind, but until she finds one she is still committed to helping people, as you don't need to be overthrowing those in power to do the right thing. She does long for a cause she can truly support though, whether it be as Persephone Divella or as La Vengeresse Des Roses.

Persephone stands tall and wears her height with noble poise and grace that often draws comments about how well composed she is for being so close to mere commonfolk. Her features are strongly refined and hold a firm Chelish heritage, something she feigns ignorance about if anyone asks--Galt had plenty of Chelaxians about during their occupation, surely some blood was bound to mingle somewhere. Her skin is pale in colour, owing to a comfortable and indepently wealthy life, on top of a nighttime lifestyle that sees her outside mostly during the moonlit hours. Her black hair is almost always kept up, often in ornate braids or buns that work to show beyond her clothes that she is a woman of means and able to afford the time to work on her hair so much before leaving the house during the day. Her taste for clothing likewise leans toward the fanciful, rarely seen in anything cheapter than thirty gold pieces unless she is dressing down for 'work' purposes. Elegant dresses with lots of lace and room not only help further her act as a bored, rich woman with nothing better to do, but to help obscure her figure, which is much more defined and strong than she's willing to let on.

Persephone's frame leans toward being more slender, but she has added some measure of musculature to her body thanks to the shape she keeps in and the work she does at night. She's built for endurance and agility, with lots of lean, taut muscle rather than showy but decorative muscles or flat, hard-working bulk, but her arms still hold strong definition, and she works to keep them beneath loose sleeves as much as she possibly can.

As La Vengeresse Des Roses, she wears an even more elegant and lavish ensemble, one of red and black but of exquisite make and fine materials. Black thigh-high boots, red pants, a frilly black blouse over which a corset-shaped top provides some form fitting but does not cinch, simply there for aesthetic. A red jacket pumes outward from the hip to billow out like a cape, and white scarves underneath furthe sway and disorient when she runs. Her jacket plumes out at the shoulders, and elbow-length gloves with lacy trim at the end are the only sensible handwear for a duelist of her caliber. A frilly collar piece adds more lace, and holds wears a pendant of Milani's holy symbol for all to see. Her hair is worn down to flow long and proud, but through use of either magic or make-up as the situation demands, it is tinged with red highlights that further guard against recognition. A red domino mask and a black bandana pulled over her mouth protect her distinct features, while a large red pirate hat capped off with a fluffy white feather complete her swashbuckling heroine aesthetic. She often carries her rapier proudly, but a quiver slung over her back ensures that even at a distance, she can cut a fearsome silhouette.

Lady Persephone Divella Solistar IV/La Vengeresse des Roses - Swashbuckler (Inspired Blade) 5/Rose Warden 2
Chaotic Good Medium Humanoid (Human)
Init +6 (additional +2 with at least 1 panache point, +2 in urban areas); Perception +10 (+12 in Urban Areas)
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DEFENSE
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AC 20, touch 15, flatfooted 15 ( +4 Dex +4 Armor +1 Shield +1 Dodge)
HP 56 (5d10 + 2d8 + 14 Con + 5 FCB)
Fort +5, Ref +10, Will +6 (+2 against charm, compulsion, and fear effects)
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OFFENSE
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee
-Rapier +13/+8 (1d6+6, P, 15-20/x2)
-Dagger +11/+6 (1d4+4, B/P, 17-20/x2)
-Sword Cane +11/+6 (1d6+4, P, x2)
-Sap +10/+5 (1d6 nonlethal, B, x2)
--Sneak Attack +1d6
Ranged
-Longbow +10/+5 (1d8, B/P, x3)
------------------------------------------
STATISTICS
------------------------------------------
XP
Str 13, Dex 18 (15 + 2 racial, +1 at 4), Con 13, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 14
Base Attack +6; CMB +9; CMD 20 (+22 against disarm with at least 1 panache point)
Feats: Combat Reflexes, Dazzling Display, Deceitful, Extra Panache, Fencing Grace, Iron Will, Shatter Defenses, Weapon Focus (Rapier)
Traits: Former Noble, Reactionary
Favoured Class: Swashbuckler
Skills: Acrobatics +9, Appraise +3, Climb +5, Craft (Alchemy) +12, Bluff +16, Escape Artist +8, Disable Device +10, Disguise +16, Knowledge (History) +3, Knowledge (Local) +6 (+8 in urban areas), Knowledge (Nobility) +7, Intimidate +11, Linguistics +3, Perception +10 (+12 in urban areas), Sense Motive +5, Sleight of Hand +10 (+12 to hide daggers in wrist sheaths and Thieves' Ring), Stealth +14 (+16 in urban areas)
Languages: Common (Taldane), Hallit, Dwarven, Halfling
Equipment: +1 Rapier, two Daggers, Sap, Mithral Chain Shirt, Buckler, Handy Haversack, Hat of Disguise, Cloak of Resistance +1, two Spring-Loaded Wrist Sheaths, Thieves' Ring, Belt Pouch, Sleeves of Many Garments
Located in her Haversack: Noble's Outfit/Vigilante outfit (whichever is not presently being worn), Peasant's Outfit, Longbow, 20 Regular Arrows, 20 Blunt Arrows, 4 Grappling Arrows, 5 Dye Arrows, Crowbar, Glass Cutter, 30 sheets of Glue Paper, Grappling Hook, Torch, 1 length of Hemp Rope, Waterskin, Flint and Steel, Sword Cane, 2 Alchemical Glues, Alchemical Glue Accelerant, 2 Alchemist Fires, 2 Sunrods, 2 Flasks of Acid, Alchemical Solvent, Impact Foam, Good Invisible Ink, Quill, Glowing Ink, Itching Powder, Flash Powder, 2 Tanglefoot Bags, 2 Paper Candle Fireworks, Thunderstone, 2 Tindertwigs, 2 Smokesticks, 2 Potions of Invisibility, 2 Potions of Jump, 2 Potions of Keen Senses,
Current encumberance: 42 lbs
Money: 206 GP, 4 SP
Carrying capacity: 50 lbs. or less, 51–100, 101–150
------------------------------------------
SPECIAL ABILITIES
------------------------------------------
-Swashbuckler Abilities-
Panache: 6/day, only refreshes on a confirmed critical with a Rapier
Inspired Finesse: Gain Weapon Focus (Rapier) as a bonus feat
Deeds: Derring-Do, Dodging Panache, Opportune Parry and Riposte, Kip-Up, Menacing Swordplay, Precise Strike, Swashbuckler Initiative
Charmed Life: 3/day, +2
Rapier Training: +1 to attacks, +2 to damage with Rapiers, and they gain the benefit of Improved Critical

-Rose Warden Abilities-
Anonymity: Adds her Rose Warden level to Bluff and Disguise rolls.
Insurgent Technique: Chaos Hammer 1/day as a spell-like ability
Liberated Mind: +2 against charm, compulsion, and fear effects
Street Sentinel: +2 to Initiative, Knowledge (Local), Survival, Perception, and Stealth checks in urban areas. While in an urban area, Persephone leaves no trail and can't be tracked unless she wishes to be
Sneak Attack: +1d6
Voice of the Masses: Persephone's movement is not impeded by crowds, and she gains a bonus equal to her Rose Warden level on checks to influence crowds

-Other Abilities-
Safe House: As the Vigilante Social Talent. The safe house is located in Persephone's family home and is a 70-foot cube covering from the basement up to the roof and much of the house itself, but the workspace and any incriminatory elements are primarily hidden in the basement.

Notes:
-Save for objects explicitly taken out, all alchemical items and potions are stored inside of her Handy Haversack. These items will then be stored on her person. Her bow will also be stored by default, even when she is in costume.
-Her daggers are located inside of her spring-loaded wrist sheaths any time she is wearing them, including during her day-to-day where the danger of being mugged is always real. She only goes without when absolutely necessary.
-Her Noble's Outfit lacks a signet ring but still possesses 100 GP worth of jewelry to 'belong' in such circles
-Her vigilante outfit is estimated to cost the same as a functional Noble's outfit with the jewelry, to provide reference for quality
-Equipment located at home: Alchemist's Lab, Merchant's Scale, 2 Alchemist Fires, 8 Sunrods, Alchemical Solvent, Impact Foam, Vial of Good Invisible Ink, 2 Tanglefoot Bags, 8 Paper Candle Fireworks, Thunderstone, 3 Tindertwigs, 2 Smokesticks, 2 Lengths of Hemp Rope

Persephone is a flexible but primarily martial-focused character, who stocks up on versatile options and skills to bolster her combat abilities. With ample social and intrigue skills, she can move around in society however needed, whether as herself, as La Vengeresse des Roses, or using her magic equipment to assume another disguise for whatever purpose. She can charm and lie her way through anything she's asked to do and assume whatever personality is needed for the role she's performing. Bolstered by the abilities from Rose Warden and her alchemical trickery, she is able to respond to a myriad of problems with solutions to help her see another day if a fight won't go her way, but when in a fight, her Swashbuckler abilities make her a formidable opponent. She excels in melee combat, using her deeds to counter attacks and to strike back with intimidation that will then allow her to jump on opportunities to strike at intimidated foes with her sneak attacks. As an all-around and self-sufficient character, Persephone is designed to work well in whatever capacity she has to, and use versatile options to tailor her response to situations rather than finding herself useless when a sole gimmick isn't going to solve a problem.

Vriskella was conceived through a profane ritual between a priestess of Asmodeus and a fiendish patron conjured to impregnate her, a goal pushed by a small pocket of Asmodean worshipers who wanted a fiendish child to raise from birth as an instrument of Asmodeus's will. She was to be an agent for corruption, combining the materialistic manipulation of a Rakshasa's twisted words with the sweet and harmless veneer of a humanoid. But she would need to be protected; Tiefling children aged much slower, and it would over sixty years before Vriskella would reach adulthood. In that time, they worked to give her lessons in all manner of infiltration and subterfuge with the intention of making her into a living weapon against the Mitran regime.

Taught by the sharpest minds and blades that the underground sect could offer, Vriskella was trained in the arts of deception, swordplay, magic, and intrigue. Her agile body showed a certain aptitude for performance, which served both in her spy training as she learned to fill the role of performer who could charm and distract, while also mixing into her swordplay, allowing her to deftly wield her weapons of choice with speed and grace rather than brutality. Learning to hide the signs of fiendish heritage were a little trickier, as Vriskella, for all of her striking beauty, bore the obvious signs of a devil. Disguises became a necessity for her as she learned her way through life, having to master it before she ever stepped out into the world without a heavy cloak on, lest she be killed on sight.

Decades living almost only in a dingy, dank dungeon temple did little to help temper Vriskella's mood. Through her maturation, she became more tempestuous and impatient, insistent she was ready and that the outside world should be her plaything. Feeling almost like a prisoner, she continued to work at her studies, and her faith for Asmodeus remained strong, but she could not shake the longing for something more. She aged so miserably slowly, and through it all she was forced to only listen to the promises that she would one day know her destiny, if she only kept at it. More and more, she grew miserable and rebellious, hate taking root as she found herself loathing the Asmodeans who held her in their dungeon more than she loathed the outside world she was raised to hate. She thirsted for freedom, no matter what it cost.

Perhaps it was the cruelty of the Asmodean priests who schooled her. Even for devil worshipers, they were always cruel and distant, treating her like a weapon rather than like a child. Only her mother saw her as a person, and when her mother died when Vriskella was sixty four, something inside of the Tiefling finally snapped. She held no attachment to the ever changing guard of priests who pushed her in her studies, whose bouts of occasional 'discipline' left her with scars that took years to heal. With her mother gone, there was nobody to hold her together, nobody whose word she respected, no single reason to stay behind. Asmodeus had certainly earned Vriskella's loyalty, but these stuffy old men had not, and she would not be their weapon any longer; she would carve her own path

The 'temple' was hidden under a small trinket shop one of the priests owned, the door always kept locked, with the priests coming and going as needed. A simple lock was easy enough to get around; Vriskella simply threw some of the same magic she had learned to use against their enemies to convince one of the priests to unlock it after handing over his coin purse. She had a disguise prepared to make her look human, something none of them felt odd amid her studies in precisely that, but she used it for wicked purposes as the door was opened. She burst out, fleeing into the streets and screaming about an Asmodean cult hidden in the old trinket store, that she had been their prisoner. A furor whipped up in the streets as people flocked over to help the poor, screaming girl, whose sobs sounded convincing enough that as men emerged from the store a barricade from some upstanding citizens helped keep the girl safe as guards were called.

Vriskella slipped away from the guard trying to question her with another charm spell, and fled into the night with the scant few possessions she had hidden in her cloak. She was free, and she had no idea where she would go now, having almost never before seen the city of Talingarde, knowing only that her destiny had been to help bring it under the iron boot heel of Asmodeus. Vriskella understood she couldn't live out on the street, that her disguises were good, but they were not flawless, and that being discovered as a Tiefling would almost certainly lead to her turn at the stake. She would need to be careful about what she did and how she did it.

Bouncing between inns and the beds of people she could offer her body to was hardly the freedom Vriskella sought, but it was good enough. If she felt she could get away with it and be able to live comfortably in their home for a few days, she would sometimes murder someone who seemed isolated enough from the world, lounging about and enjoying their food before it ran dry or neighbors began to wonder about smells. She was always gone before anyone caught on, although a few close calls involving guards at the door had given Vriskella a rush of something primal. She'd even killed one guard, and after being raised to detest Talingarde, something about murdering one of their guards gave her an incredible rush. One she needed more of.

Talingarde was a nation too 'righteous' to have the kind of seedy, fetid underbelly she could truly thrive in, but it was enough. She could ply her trade as a dancer for coin and use her talents of sneaking and listening to blackmail money out of nobles, but in time she grew tired of these acts. For three years she lived a mercenary caring only for her survival, and that simply would not do; Vriskella needed more, and she needed to achieve the goals she had been trained for. She needed to bring Asmodeus's rule to Talingarde. She put herself to work at finding some Asmodean dissidents, certain that the tiny pocket sect she was raised by would not be the only force in the city. Such a thing sounded almost unthinkable to Vriskella; she had surely been raised by some inept offshoot of a broader movement, she was sure of it.

But Asmodeans in Talingarde were sparse to a frustrating degree. Vriskella was left having to ensnare what few she could find and use charm spells to have others do small tasks toward her larger goals; she would send someone to deliver a letter to a place or fetch her a specific ingredient for a spell she needed but didn't want to be seen buying. What few pathetic aspirants to cultist glory she could find were weak and ineffectual; not one had the piety to find a divine magical spark or the aptitude to properly wield a blade. They were simply extra hands for an increasingly frustrated Vriskella, who began to wonder if she was the only Asmodean in Talingarde who wasn't absolute dead weight. She needed help, and such help would not be found here.

Vriskella arranged to have a devil summoned. The ritual was one of the more complex magical efforts she'd put together, far beyond the usual reaches of charm magic she had grown apt for, but she believed it was the only way to find what she needed. She called up a devil. A minor devil, something almost disappointing in its lack of power, but it was still a fiend with knowledge of the infernal host, and it still offered her valuable counsel in exchange for one thing: he wanted to impregnate the wife of a pious man with a devilish spawn of his own. Ambition flared inside of Vriskella, who had heard of one man in particular whose piety was known through the kingdom due to his status as a famed witch hunter: Sir Balin of Karfeld. Surely there were easier options, but after so long waiting for this moment, Vriskella wished to challenge Talingarde on the belief she was on a level far beyond her true power.

Weeks of spying and studying followed by a few incidental meetings and a staged robbery where one of Vriskella's thugs tried to mug his wife only for Vriskella to fend him off and offer her air helped ingratiate her to the woman. They began a small, budding friendship that Vriskella was happy to betray by conjuring her patron devil right there in the bedroom, intent on making her mark and leaving the damage to be found by Sir Balin as a declaration of war. The unholy sight was nightmarish enough to make even the followers Vriskella had gathered uneasy, but the depraved Tiefling saw only victory in the horrific sight of the devil having his way with Balin's wife. It was a foolish plan, reckless and made only worse by the sloppy followers who left so many indications something was wrong that Sir Balin was able to rally up some nearby guards and push into the bedroom. The men cut down Vriskella's followers as they attacked, and an arrow to her calf prevented Vriskella from fleeing as she collapsed to the floor. She would not know the mercy of a swift death; Balin promised her that much.

Witchcraft was the crime she was sentenced for. She laughed it off, remarking to all who would listen that her list of crimes ran long. Officially, the scene at Sir Balin's home was left off the record; she had brought intense shame to his family and they wished to keep people from learning about it, leaving her with a much, much lighter sentence than she deserved only to maintain their dignity. She would still be burned at the stake for it, still suffer the most painful slow death Talingarde offered, so she would not be getting off lightly in the process.

Sent to Branderscar prison, Vriskella still held hope there was some way out of this, still gripped the belief that she would see her way back to freedom. She had fought too much to gain what little freedom she gleamed, and even that was hardly the life she deserved. Asmodeus would see to it that she would be free, she was certain of it. Vriskella had been born to serve and raised to be a powerful weapon, and her end could surely not come at a pyre before she had been able to do much more than petty theft and senseless murder. There had to be some way out.

Vriskella - Arcane Duelist Bard 1 (Dervish Dancer)
Lawful Evil Medium Humanoid (Tiefling (Rakshasa-spawn))
Init +6; Perception +4
------------------------------------------
DEFENSE
------------------------------------------
AC 17, touch 14, flatfooted 13 (+4 Dex +0 Armor +3 Natural)
HP 11 (1d8 (8) + 2 Con + 1 FCB)
Fort +2, Ref +6, Will +2
------------------------------------------
OFFENSE
------------------------------------------
Speed 30 ft. (40 ft. when doing a Battle Dance)
Melee
-
Ranged
-
Spells Known
0th (infinite) DC: Dancing Lights, Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Prestidigitation
1st (3/day) DC: Charm Person, Grease
------------------------------------------
STATISTICS
------------------------------------------
XP
Str 14, Dex 19 (17+2 racial), Con 15, Int 14, Wis 11 (13-2 Racial), Cha 20 (18 +2 racial)
Base Attack +0; CMB +2; CMD 16
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (Scimitar), Armor of the Pit, Arcane Strike
Traits: Reactionary, Consorting With Dark Powers, Tempter's Tongue
Favoured Class: Bard (1 HP)
Skills:
Bluff +9
Diplomacy +9
Disguise +11
Knowledge (Arcana) +7
Knowledge (Planes) +6
Knowledge (Religion) +7
Perception +4
Perform (Dance) +9
Sense Motive +6
Sleight of Hand +8
Stealth +8
Languages: Common, Infernal, Draconic, Abyssal
Equipment: Nothing
Current encumberance: 0 lbs.
Money: 0
Carrying capacity: 58 lbs. or less, 59–116 lbs., 117–175 lbs.
------------------------------------------
SPECIAL ABILITIES
------------------------------------------
-Class Abilities-
Bardic Performance/Battle Dance: Inspire Courage +1, Distraction, Fascinate, Rallying Cry
Fleet: Vriskella gains +10 ft. of speed per round when performing

-Other Abilities-
Detect Thoughts as an SLA 1/day

Freebies and changes noted:
Archetype: Dervish Dancer
Feats: Weapon Finesse, Armor of the Pit
Rakshasha-spawn changes: +2 Dex, +2 Cha, -2 Wis, +2 to Disguise and Sense Motive, Detect Thoughts SLA
Alternate Racial Traits: traded out Fiendish Sorcery for Prehensile Tail, Fiendish Resistance for Scaled Skin
Background Skills: Perform (Dance) 1 rank, Sleight of Hand 1 rank
Free Skill point: Knowledge (Religion)

Vriskella was conceived of and raised expressly to serve as a tool for Asmodean power grabs, and as a result she holds a deeply ingrained faith toward him. Though her belief in or respect of mortals who call themselves his agents can wane at times, her reverence for the King of Hell has never shaken. Perhaps due to her birth, she carries an intense arrogance with her, believing herself better than many others who follow him due to her upbringing and her pedigree, a sort of Tiefling pride. Her pride and arrogance often go hand in hand with sloppiness, where she is too sure of herself and makes mistakes that she should know better than to, like orchestrating her plan with Sir Balin's wife right in his home rather than taking her somewhere they would not risk being found in.

The nature of her upbringing and the time she spent virtually imprisoned by her superiors has given her a taste for freedom and an irreverence that she does little to hide when she's open and being herself. Operating as a spy gives her a certain open appreciation for her emotions, which she's often willing to share freely and almost disrespectfully at times, all wrapped up in a darkly playful package. When she's given a task or a mission, she's an entirely different person. Her spy training allows her to move deftly between identities and covers as needed, disguising herself in all manner of illusions to do whatever she has to do. Whether the seductress, the mercenary, the damsel, or brute, she is committed to playing whatever role she feels necessary to achieve her goals, whatever they might be.

Her rough upbringing also gave her a certain proclivity for comfort and decadence; after decades locked up, she adores any chance she can get for the high life, especially if she can do it on someone else's dime. In her eyes, once she has succeeded in her plans to bring Asmodeus's worship back into Talingarde, she will be positioned for such a life, and is simply living the life she wants and deserves. There's a selfishness to Vriskella, a greedy and careless approach to life that only her devotion to Asmodeus and her discipline can temper, reigning in her decadence only enough to keep her from truly plunging into wanton hedonism at times.

Underneath it all is a cruel, clever woman whose sharp mind has been trained almost from birth to enact the most efficient or the most cruel solution to a problem she can conceive of. There are few lines that would keep Vriskella from acting, and few things truly sacred to her. Lying, stealing, killing... It's all worth it to bring glory to Asmodeus. To bring glory to herself. To achieve the things she has spent her whole life working toward.

In combat, Vriskella is built for highly mobile melee attacks, using her dances and performances to buff her and her allies while she weaves around the battlefield using her blade to strike out at enemies. Her spells will be focused on buffing and battlefield control, whether through charm effects to distract and inhibit enemies, or through debuffs like Glitterdust and Grease.

Out of combat, Vriskella is oriented as a broad variety party face and infiltrator. Her skill investment leans toward social interaction and sneaking in varying ways, allowing her to solve a variety of problems without needing to go for her blade if the peaceful solution might work out better.

The Nickham family were always nobility of the lowest order, scribes and clerks who handled the most important of information within the nation. The silent writer transcribing a senatorial meeting, the military clerk rifling through paperwork with expert precision, the writer composing an official letter on behalf of a duke so that his attempt to negotiate a political marriage would be as neat and eloquent as it could be. Such roles often involved information too important for a mere commoner to handle, and so the Nickham family were granted the role of Knight, little in the way of political advancement granting much glory for the family, but they lived comfortably as a result.

Stechris Nickham was happily born into such a role, but he had other aspirations, like attending the Kitharodian Academy and pursuing his love of the arts. The presitge of such work was not equal to that of military service, but Stechris believed honing such talents may be the key to charming his way further up the social ladder, that he might ingratiate himself through such means to some powerful noble scion, or even find a noble's hand in marriage with his fame. Ambition took him, as he wished for something greater than simply to record history; he wished to be a part of it, wished to make it. From an early age he threw himself into learning etiquette and how to deal with nobility more readily than most children would, with the intention of being ready for such a time.

Stechris's father Jorick rose up in prominence as well. An accomplished scribe whose fast, deft hand never left a single mark out of place, he found himself the scribe of High Strategos Maxilar Pythareus himself, an incredible honour that Jorick was incredibly grateful for. Performing well in this role could have launched the family's stock much further and perhaps even come with a rise up the social ladder, but Jorich had grown up just low enough on the social ladder to see the plight of the lower classes, and found himself arguing with the commander about certain issues that the more traditional military leader vehemently disagreed with him on.

Perhaps it was the way Jorick said it, perhaps it was the idea that Maxillar as a matter of pride would not let a mere scribe stand against him in front of his men, perhaps there was some other slight that Jorick hadn't even known he'd committed that turned the commander against him. Whatever the case, it took mere days for allegations to arise that Jorick Nickham was a social radical who changed what the dictations he was told to write down to fit his own social views. There was no proof he had written anything but precisely what he had been told, but it was enough to have the Nickham family stripped of their titles and of almost all their wealth, taken in retribution and in lieu of imprisoning Jorick; the sort of prison sentence a knight would have earned paled in comparison to the stripping of a family's wealth and prestige, and being sent tumbling down into the ranks of the Unbearded proved a much more bitter and scathing punishment.

Stechris was a teen by then, and all of the comfort he'd known vanished overnight. His dreams of attending a bardic college were dashed, as the family only had what small fortune they had stashed away. It was enough that they never starved, but for Stechris, the idea of losing all luxury and comfort was devastating. His dreams crumbled and he knew that his chances of finding his way back up were gone. He could have accepted his fate and become a destitute street performer, seeking pittance from nobles, but he refused to give up. Those same talents he believed could bring him to higher station weren't gone, he'd simply have to develop them himself, and find new ways to use them.

The streets required their own skills that Stechris had to develop. He learned how to sneak, how to pick pockets, how to listen in on conversations. Rather than getting a real job or plying a dead end trade he believed would only distract him from finding ways to redeem his family name, he resorted to thieving here and there where needed. Eventually, he realized that such talents could be easily employed with nobility as well, that his knack for sneaking about and going from the vibrant center of attention to the quiet, slinking shadow was almost too easy for him. The more he learned his way around it, the more confident he felt in exploring and expressing the idea that such unsavory talents could do something for him.

Fake names and personas soon filled in, as Stechris began to experiment with lies and dsiguises, further developing his means of infiltrating the upper class. Were he to truly make a move, he would need to have an identity other than Stechris Nickham, though he now mostly called himself Chris. His last name carried too much baggage, and so he often claimed his name was simply Chris Nicks when he didn't feel like concocting an elaborate lie for himself. He knew not to feel bad about his lies; lies were what had put him into this predicament, and it was lying his way back up and finding a means of redeeming his family that would surely save the day.

His performances soon became notable enough that despite a lack of classical training, Chris found himself occasionally paid to perform for the events of minor nobility or merchants. Parties that were the lowest of high society. It was there where he could charm his way into information, zeroing in on the most loose-lipped gossips for dirt. Rumours were powerful tools; they could be traded for information, or even simply used as leverage or blackmail. A forged letter and a vague threat were sometimes all it took to loosen up some information or even simply some money. It was not the act of an upstanding man, but the secrets Chris dug up were rearely about the upstanding and the moral. In his mind, the idea of abiding the law had died the moment his family was slandered into poverty; he needed only walk the line of being a good man and not hurting those who didn't deserve to be hurt.

The system was irreparably broken, and Stechris didn't believe he could fix it all himself, but he could at least right the wrong done to his family, right other wrongs along the way, and perhaps if he could find his way to a position of prominence, put his charmed words and sharp wit to work at righting as many wrongs as one man could.

Strechris "Chris" Nickham - Human Bard (Court Bard) 1
Chaotic Good Medium Humanoid (Blah)
Init +7; Perception +5
------------------------------------------
DEFENSE
------------------------------------------
AC 13, touch 11, flatfooted 12 ( +1 Dex +2 Armor)
HP 9 (1d8 (8) + 1 Con + 1 Favored Class)
Fort +1, Ref +3, Will +3
------------------------------------------
OFFENSE
------------------------------------------
Speed 30 ft.
Melee
-Longsword +3 (1d8+1/19-20)
Spells Known
0th (infinite) DC 13: Dancing Lights, Detect Magic, Prestidigitation, Read Magic
1st 2/day DC 14: Ear-Piercing Scream, Sleep
------------------------------------------
STATISTICS
------------------------------------------
XP
Str 14, Dex 12, Con 12, Int 12 Wis 12, Cha 17
Base Attack +0; CMB +2; CMD 13
Feats: Improved Initiative, Weapon Focus (Longsword)
Traits: Reactionary, Disgraced Noble
Favoured Class: Bard (1 GP)
Skills: Bluff +7 (+9 to coneal his identity), Diplomacy +8, Disguise +7, Knowledge (Local) +6, Knowledge (Nobility) +6, Intimidate +7, Linguistics +5 (+7 to spot forgeries), Perception +5, Perform (Singing) +7, Stealth +5
Languages: Common, Kelish, Celestial
Equipment: Longsword, Leather Armor
Current encumberance:
Money:
Carrying capacity:
------------------------------------------
SPECIAL ABILITIES
------------------------------------------
-Class Abilities-
Bardic Performance 7/day: Satire (-1), Countersong, Distraction, Fascinate

The Nickham family were always nobility of the lowest order, scribes and clerks who handled the most important of information within the nation. The silent writer transcribing a senatorial meeting, the military clerk rifling through paperwork with expert precision, the writer composing an official letter on behalf of a duke so that his attempt to negotiate a political marriage would be as neat and eloquent as it could be. Such roles often involved information too important for a mere commoner to handle, and so the Nickham family were granted the role of Knight, little in the way of political advancement granting much glory for the family, but they lived comfortably as a result.

Stechris Nickham was happily born into such a role, but he had other aspirations, like attending the Kitharodian Academy and pursuing his love of the arts. The prestige of such work was not equal to that of military service, but Stechris believed honing such talents may be the key to charming his way further up the social ladder, that he might ingratiate himself through such means to some powerful noble scion, or even find a noble's hand in marriage with his fame. Ambition took him, as he wished for something greater than simply to record history; he wished to be a part of it, wished to make it. From an early age he threw himself into learning etiquette and how to deal with nobility more readily than most children would, with the intention of being ready for such a time.

Stechris's father Jorick rose up in prominence as well. An accomplished scribe whose fast, deft hand never left a single mark out of place, he found himself the scribe of High Strategos Maxillar Pythareus himself, an incredible honour that Jorick was incredibly grateful for. Performing well in this role could have launched the family's stock much further and perhaps even come with a rise up the social ladder, but Jorick had grown up just low enough on the social ladder to see the plight of the lower classes, and found himself arguing with the commander about certain issues that the more traditional military leader vehemently disagreed with him on.

Perhaps it was the way Jorick said it, perhaps it was the idea that Maxillar as a matter of pride would not let a mere scribe stand against him in front of his men, perhaps there was some other slight that Jorick hadn't even known he'd committed that turned the commander against him. Whatever the case, it took mere days for allegations to arise that Jorick Nickham was a social radical who changed what the dictations he was told to write down to fit his own social views. There was no proof he had written anything but precisely what he had been told, but it was enough to have the Nickham family stripped of their titles and of almost all their wealth, taken in retribution and in lieu of imprisoning Jorick; the sort of prison sentence a knight would have earned paled in comparison to the stripping of a family's wealth and prestige, and being sent tumbling down into the ranks of the Unbearded proved a much more bitter and scathing punishment.

Stechris was a teen by then, and all of the comfort he'd known vanished overnight. His dreams of attending a bardic college were dashed, as the family only had what small fortune they had stashed away. It was enough that they never starved, but for Stechris, the idea of losing all luxury and comfort was devastating. His dreams crumbled and he knew that his chances of finding his way back up were gone. He could have accepted his fate and become a destitute street performer, seeking pittance from nobles, but he refused to give up. Those same talents he believed could bring him to higher station weren't gone, he'd simply have to develop them himself, and find new ways to use them.

The streets required their own skills that Stechris had to develop. He learned how to sneak, how to pick pockets, how to listen in on conversations. Rather than getting a real job or plying a dead end trade he believed would only distract him from finding ways to redeem his family name, he resorted to thieving here and there where needed. Eventually, he realized that such talents could be easily employed with nobility as well, that his knack for sneaking about and going from the vibrant center of attention to the quiet, slinking shadow was almost too easy for him. The more he learned his way around it, the more confident he felt in exploring and expressing the idea that such unsavory talents could do something for him.

Fake names and personas soon filled in, as Stechris began to experiment with lies and disguises, further developing his means of infiltrating the upper class. Were he to truly make a move, he would need to have an identity other than Stechris Nickham, though he now mostly called himself Chris. His last name carried too much baggage, and so he often claimed his name was simply Chris Nicks when he didn't feel like concocting an elaborate lie for himself. He knew not to feel bad about his lies; lies were what had put him into this predicament, and it was lying his way back up and finding a means of redeeming his family that would surely save the day.

His performances soon became notable enough that despite a lack of classical training, Chris found himself occasionally paid to perform for the events of minor nobility or merchants. Parties that were the lowest of high society. It was there where he could charm his way into information, zeroing in on the most loose-lipped gossips for dirt. Rumours were powerful tools; they could be traded for information, or even simply used as leverage or blackmail. A forged letter and a vague threat were sometimes all it took to loosen up some information or even simply some money. It was not the act of an upstanding man, but the secrets Chris dug up were rarely about the upstanding and the moral. In his mind, the idea of abiding the law had died the moment his family was slandered into poverty; he needed only walk the line of being a good man and not hurting those who didn't deserve to be hurt.

The system was irreparably broken, and Stechris didn't believe he could fix it all himself, but he could at least right the wrong done to his family, right other wrongs along the way, and perhaps if he could find his way to a position of prominence, put his charmed words and sharp wit to work at righting as many wrongs as one man could.