Trillium Anstarza's page

Female Aasimar (Musetouched) Bard (Studious Librarian) 1
CG Medium Humanoid (Human) / Native Outsider (Aasimar)
Init +3; Senses Perception +4
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DEFENSE
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AC 18, Touch 13, Flat-Footed 15 (+4 armor, +3 Dex, +1 Buckler)
HP 11
Fort +3, Ref +5, Will +2
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OFFENSE
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Speed 30 ft.

Melee +3

Ranged +3
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STATISTICS
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Str 10, Dex 17, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 10, Cha 18
Base Atk +0; CMB +0; CMD +13
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TRAITS:

The Snoop (Campaign)
You know a little bit about most everything and everyone. It may be your profession, as you could be an archivist, crier, or librarian—or you simply make a hobby of gossip. Either way, you have a gift for recall and reading others. You gain a +1 trait bonus on Knowledge (history) and Knowledge (local) checks, and these both become class skills for you. Once each day you can reroll a single Bluff or Sense Motive check against a creature you have known for at least 24 hours, using the better result.

Innocent (Race):
Requirement(s) Aasimar
No one can believe someone as pure as you could be deceptive in any way. You have an air of innocence about you, and people have a hard time believing you could ever do anyone harm. When you make a Bluff check to tell a lie, your target always wants to believe you, granting you the standard +5 bonus on your Bluff check. This bonus only applies if the lie you tell is either believable or unlikely.

Resilient (Combat):
+1 trait bonus on Fortitude saves.

FEATS:

Lingering Performance
The effects of your bardic performance carry on, even after you have stopped performing.
Prerequisite: Bardic performance class feature.
Benefit: The bonuses and penalties from your bardic performance continue for 2 rounds after you cease performing. Any other requirement, such as range or specific conditions, must still be met for the effect to continue. If you begin a new bardic performance during this time, the effects of the previous performance immediately cease.

Scribe Scroll
You can create magic scrolls.
Prerequisite: Caster level 1st.
Benefit: You can create a scroll of any spell that you know. Scribing a scroll takes 2 hours if its base price is 250 gp or less, otherwise scribing a scroll takes 1 day for each 1,000 gp in its base price. To scribe a scroll, you must use up raw materials costing half of this base price.

SKILLS: (9 points; 6 class, 1 INT, 2 Background)
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Acrobatics* +7 = DEX 3+1+3
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Appraise +1 = INT 1+0+0
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Bluff +8 = CHA 4+1+3 (+5 for telling a believable or unlikely lie)
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Climb* +0 = STR 0+0+0
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Craft +1 = INT 1+0+0
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Diplomacy +10 = CHA 4+1+3 (+2 Azata)
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Disable Device*† +3 = DEX 3+0+0
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Disguise +4 = CHA 4+0+0
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Escape Artist* +3 = DEX 3+0+0
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Fly* +3 = DEX 3+0+0
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Handle Animal† 4 = CHA 4+0+0
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Heal +0 = WIS 0+0+0
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Intimidate +4 = CHA 4+0+0
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K (Arcana)† +2 = INT 1+0+0+1 (+1 Bardic Knowledge)
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K (Dungeoneering)† +2 = INT 1+0+0+1 (+1 Bardic Knowledge)
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K (Engineering)† +2 = INT 1+0+0+1
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K (Geography)† +2 = INT 1+0+0+1 (+1 Bardic Knowledge)
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K (History)† +7 = INT 1+1+3+1+1 (+1 Background, +1 Bardic Knowledge, +1 Trait)
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K (Local)† +7 = INT 1+1+3+1+1 (+1 Bardic Knowledge, +1 Trait)
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K (Nature)† +2 = INT 1+0+0+1 (+1 Bardic Knowledge)
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K (Nobility)† +2 = INT 1+0+0+1 (+1 Bardic Knowledge)
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K (Planes)† +2 = INT 1+0+0+1 (+1 Bardic Knowledge)
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K (Religion)† +2 = INT 1+0+0+1 (+1 Bardic Knowledge)
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Linguistics† +1 = INT 1+0+0
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Perception +4 = WIS 0+1+3
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Perform (Sing): +10 = CHA 4+1+3 (+1 Background, +2 Azata)
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Profession† +0 = WIS 0+0+0
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Ride +3 = DEX 3+0+0
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Sense Motive +4 = WIS 0+1+3
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Sleight of Hand*† +3 = DEX 3+0+0
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Spellcraft† +1 = INT 1+0+0
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Stealth* +7 = DEX 3+1+3
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Survival +0 = WIS 0+0+0
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Swim* 0 = STR 0+0+0
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Use Magic Device† +4 = CHA 4+0+0
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ACP -2

*ACP applies to these skills
Non-Standard Skill Bonuses

+1 K Local & K History (Trait)
+5 Bluff for telling a believable or unlikely lie (Trait)
+1 Diplomacy & Perform (Musetouched)
+1 All Knowledge Skills: (Bardic Knowledge)

Languages Taldane, Elven

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SPECIAL ABILITIES
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AASIMAR (Azata-Blooded)

Scion of Humanity: Some aasimars’ heavenly ancestry is extremely distant. An aasimar with this racial trait counts as an outsider (native) and a humanoid (human) for any effect related to race, including feat prerequisites and spells that affect humanoids. She can pass for human without using the Disguise skill. This racial trait replaces the Celestial language and alters the native subtype.
Ability Modifiers +2 Dex, +2 Cha

Skill Modifiers: Diplomacy, Perform

Spell-Like Ability: Musetouched gain Glitterdust as a spell-like ability.

Darkvision: Aasimars can see in the dark up to 60 feet.

Celestial Resistance: Aasimars have acid resistance 5, cold resistance 5, and electricity resistance 5.

BARD (Studious Librarian)

Performance: (8 Rounds / Day)
A bard is trained to use the Perform skill to create magical effects on those around him, including himself if desired. He can use this ability for a number of rounds per day equal to 4 + his Charisma modifier. At each level after 1st a bard can use bardic performance for 2 additional rounds per day. Each round, the bard can produce any one of the types of bardic performance that he has mastered, as indicated by his level.
Starting a bardic performance is a standard action, but it can be maintained each round as a free action. Changing a bardic performance from one effect to another requires the bard to stop the previous performance and start a new one as a standard action. A bardic performance cannot be disrupted, but it ends immediately if the bard is killed, paralyzed, stunned, knocked unconscious, or otherwise prevented from taking a free action to maintain it each round. A bard cannot have more than one bardic performance in effect at one time.
At 7th level, a bard can start a bardic performance as a move action instead of a standard action. At 13th level, a bard can start a bardic performance as a swift action.
Each bardic performance has audible components, visual components, or both.
If a bardic performance has audible components, the targets must be able to hear the bard for the performance to have any effect, and such performances are language dependent. A deaf bard has a 20% chance to fail when attempting to use a bardic performance with an audible component. If he fails this check, the attempt still counts against his daily limit. Deaf creatures are immune to bardic performances with audible components.
If a bardic performance has a visual component, the targets must have line of sight to the bard for the performance to have any effect. A blind bard has a 50% chance to fail when attempting to use a bardic performance with a visual component. If he fails this check, the attempt still counts against his daily limit. Blind creatures are immune to bardic performances with visual components.

Countersong (Su):
At 1st level, a bard learns to counter magic effects that depend on sound (but not spells that have verbal components). Each round of the countersong he makes a Perform (keyboard, percussion, wind, string, or sing) skill check. Any creature within 30 feet of the bard (including the bard himself) that is affected by a sonic or language-dependent magical attack may use the bard's Perform check result in place of its saving throw if, after the saving throw is rolled, the Perform check result proves to be higher. If a creature within range of the countersong is already under the effect of a noninstantaneous sonic or language-dependent magical attack, it gains another saving throw against the effect each round it hears the countersong, but it must use the bard's Perform skill check result for the save. Countersong does not work on effects that don't allow saves. Countersong relies on audible components.

Fascinate (Su):
At 1st level, a bard can use his performance to cause one or more creatures to become fascinated with him. Each creature to be fascinated must be within 90 feet, able to see and hear the bard, and capable of paying attention to him. The bard must also be able to see the creatures affected. The distraction of a nearby combat or other dangers prevents this ability from working. For every three levels the bard has attained beyond 1st, he can target one additional creature with this ability.
Each creature within range receives a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 the bard's level + the bard's Cha modifier) to negate the effect. If a creature's saving throw succeeds, the bard cannot attempt to fascinate that creature again for 24 hours. If its saving throw fails, the creature sits quietly and observes the performance for as long as the bard continues to maintain it. While fascinated, a target takes a –4 penalty on all skill checks made as reactions, such as Perception checks. Any potential threat to the target allows the target to make a new saving throw against the effect. Any obvious threat, such as someone drawing a weapon, casting a spell, or aiming a weapon at the target, automatically breaks the effect.
Fascinate is an enchantment (compulsion), mind-affecting ability. Fascinate relies on audible and visual components in order to function.

Inspire Courage (Su):
A 1st-level bard can use his performance to inspire courage in his allies (including himself), bolstering them against fear and improving their combat abilities. To be affected, an ally must be able to perceive the bard's performance. An affected ally receives a +1 morale bonus on saving throws against charm and fear effects and a +1 competence bonus on attack and weapon damage rolls. At 5th level, and every six bard levels thereafter, this bonus increases by +1, to a maximum of +4 at 17th level. Inspire courage is a mind-affecting ability. Inspire courage can use audible or visual components. The bard must choose which component to use when starting his performance.

Bardic Knowledge (Ex):
A bard adds half his class level (minimum 1) to all Knowledge skill checks and may make all Knowledge skill checks untrained.

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0 Level (Cantrips)

Dancing Lights
Ghost Sound
Message
Prestidigitation

1st (1+1/day)

Cure Light Wounds
Grease

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GEAR/POSSESSIONS

Chain Shirt
Rapier (cold iron)
Short Bow (20 arrows)
Dagger
MWK Backpack
Gittern (travel-sized lute)
Waterskin
Whetstone
Bedroll
Belt Pouch
Notebook
Pen & Ink
Flint & Steel
Iron Pot
Mess Kit
Soap
Torches
Rations (5 Days)
Grooming Kit
Basic Dress
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Carrying Capacity
Light 0-33 lb. Medium 34-67 lb. Heavy 68-100 lb.
Current Load Carried 0 lb.

Money 4 GP 7 SP 0 CP

To understand Trillium one must first know about her mother, a forlorn elf named Lenorilla Anstarza. This is not her true name of course, but a Taldan name she adopted long ago. Lenorilla has not uttered her original name in a very long time. She came out of the Verduran Forest and into Taldor as a young girl. Back then Aroden was still the god of humans and Taldor’s endless wars with Qadira still raged. By the time Lenorilla was a young adult, Aroden was dead, and Taldor was at peace with its rival to the southeast.

While all these things happened, Lenorilla was remaking herself into a highly sought-after courtesan in Oppara. Lenorilla has told Trillium many of her stories from this time and after, always driving home a set of central points to her daughter. To be a courtesan is not to be a mere prostitute. The common folk may believe that, but they do not understand aristocratic marriage, nor do they understand the real workings of power. When most all marriages are arranged to secure alliances between great families, or to advance the fortunes of the not yet quite so great families, the partners within the resulting marriage must often search elsewhere for their personal happiness and fulfillment.

The courtesan makes the lives of these seekers fulfilling, even bearable sometimes. They are companions, confidantes, and even partners who fill the holes life as an aristocrat or royal leaves in their patrons. Of course, the courtesan is well-compensated for doing so. But this is only right since the skillset, as well as the physical and intellectual attributes needed for the work is rarely found and must be cultivated over many years.

Stripped to the core, a true courtesan is in the business of fulfillment in whatever form that may be needed by a patron. A patron may need intellectual companionship, or someone who can always entertain them with music or witty conversation when they need to relax. A physical relationship is usually part of of the picture, but not always. More important is the courtesan’s ability to make a patron feel secure in being themself, to be someone they trust enough to drop the defenses they put up against the world outside.

Lenorilla mastered all these things in Taldor, but left there many decades ago for the north. There were a number a reasons involved, a less favorable costs to profits ratio was part of it, but also Trillium had a half-bother who was born there around four human generations ago, and who died tragically as a young man. Lenorilla settled in Brevoy afterward and rebuilt her business there. Her brand has always been the trademark attributes of elves in general, grace, beauty, and intelligence. But in rustic Brevoy she added the classiness of Taldan high society to what she could offer.

Trillium knows all of these things in much greater detail than is given here because her mother has raised her from an early age to take up the same profession. When Trillium was born, Lenorilla decided to take a vacation from work to raise her. Lenorilla had made a lot of money over the years so it was not a struggle for her to take twenty or so years off. Furthermore, she has always been a wise investor, benefiting from several sources of passive income.

Lenorilla has alway preferred to keep a small, tight circle of friends around her, staying out of public notice. This was the environment Trillium grew up in, lots of her mother all the time, leavened by social events involving her mother’s curated handful of friends. Trillium and Lenorilla are deeply entangled in each other’s lives, which makes them extremely close to each other, but also brings conflict. Trillium is not just a newer version of her mother.

Trillium does admire and respect her mother a great deal. She started with absolutely nothing and built a business that has made her wealthy. Trillium has grown up in comfort with plenty of luxuries as a result. Trillium doesn’t doubt Lenorilla can teach her everything she needs to know to follow in her footsteps and be very successful as well. Trillium thinks she may do exactly that, eventually. But as she’s become an adult herself, Trillium has noticed things, maybe flaws or cracks in her mother’s facade, that have made her wonder if she wants to at least try something different first.

Her mother’s hold over Trillium’s thinking had already slipped some by the time Lenorilla packed Trillium off to the Kitharodian Academy in Oppara for a couple of years when she was seventeen. This was Trillium’s first and only experience with formal education. Until then she had been taught by her mother and various tutors. According to Lenorilla the Kitharodian Academy would teach Trillium to be a versatile and skilled performer while also allowing “Taldaness” to rub off on Trillium. Lenorilla assured Trillium Brevoy’s upper class takes it’s cues on culture, the arts, fashion, and intellectual currents from Taldor. When Trillium started her own career, her time in Taldor would give her a significant edge in desirability.

While at “the Kith”, as Trillium calls the academy because anyone who has actually attended calls it the Kith, she did find her studies to be very informative as her mother described. But she also found them to be personally enriching, which was a new way of thinking for her. Of course most of the students there did have professional ambitions, but they also cared deeply about what they were doing. The actors loved acting. The musicians loved music. Even without an audience or a patron they would perform simply for the fulfillment of doing the thing that gave them purpose. Trillium thought her mother seemed to be lacking this piece. She was accomplished in many things, but only in service of pleasing a patron, making them happy in order to get them and then keep them. In the absence of a benefactor, Lenorilla didn’t seem to care much about any of it except managing the business. Trillium found it sad to think about.

When she returned to Restov from the Kith, Trillium brought her new habits and lifestyle with her. She was rarely at home if she could be out with the friends she started making so readily. Lenorilla was happy to let her socialize, Trillium would need to become a known quantity in the city if she was going to attract potential patrons. Lenorilla could make many key introductions for her daughter, but she could not be sure she wasn’t behind the times due to her now twenty-two year vacation to raise her daughter. There may be new up-and-comers Lenorilla may not be aware of.

Trillium however isn’t looking for potential patrons, and has no interest in any business arrangements at this point in her life. She respects her mother’s business model and is confident she could do well for herself following it. But, she has plenty of time for that later. Trillium wants to try making it doing something else first. She wants to become famous as a “history detective” (Trillium is still workshopping the title of her new profession). What she learned about herself at the Kith was she has a very fine singing voice, some talent perhaps as a writer of poetry and song lyrics, and she can play the lute proficiently. None of these things are the passion that makes her want to get out of bed in the morning though. Trillium loves information, especially secrets.

At the Kith she had found her true talents lay in ferreting out information and piecing the bits together into a story. Her facility applied both to people and archives or libraries. Of course when she can hear first-hand from a parent about events from 100 or 150 years ago, history also becomes a passion.

It took her a period of considering and discarding ideas before Trillium landed upon the achievement that would make her famous in her own right, solving the mystery of what happened to all the Rogarvians in 4699. How did they all disappear? Where did they go? There is no bigger mystery in all of Brevoy than their fate. If she could solve the mystery everyone would know her name. Perhaps she could then work backward to discover the identity and fate of Choral the Conquerer, probably the second greatest of Brevoy’s historical mysteries.

It was a mistake for Trillium to tell her mother about her new ambition. It wasn’t the time or effort Trillium would spend on it when she could be following in her footsteps that troubled Lenorilla. She was perfectly content to let her daughter move at her own speed as long as it wasn’t too slow. It was the subject that troubled her. Lenorilla had known several members of of House Rogarvia, just as she knew members of most of the other great families of Brevoy, House Medvyed being a notable exception. One of Lenorilla’s dictums (there is a whole list) is absolute political neutrality. Lenorilla doubts Trillium could get anywhere with the project, plenty of people had tried to figure out the mystery and all had failed. But, Trillium does have a habit of talking big and loudly, while the great families tend toward conspiratorial thinking and paranoia. It seems to Lenorilla a very bad idea to poke that particular bear, or even seem to be within poking distance of it.

Lenorilla put her foot down, no Rogarvia snooping. Trillium took umbrage at being ordered to drop her brilliant idea and refused to stop, although really she hadn’t started yet. Lenorilla upped the ante, telling Trillium she would not financially support her while she engaged in reckless behavior that could permanently damage both their reputations. Trillium called her mother’s bluff, telling her she would find a way to succeed in solving the mystery without any help from her. Lenorilla shocked Trillium by having not been bluffing. But, it was way too late for Trillium to back down at that point.

The next day Trillium packed up as much of her things as she could move in a single trip and went to stay with one of her friends until she found a place of her own. Trillium had her own money to cover her needs in the short term, but past a few months there would be problems.
Trillium started putting together an estimated budget for her endeavor. Aside from funds to cover her essential needs like housing, food, clothes, and entertainment, she would need money for fees to access some libraries and archives, for purchasing books, and travel expenses for visiting New Stetven, perhaps repeatedly. She would need salaries for a research assistant, a couple of scribes, obviously a lawyer on retainer, and although she hoped not to need it, protection in the form of a bodyguard or two in some situations she could imagine. Of course there will also have to be bribes given to loosen some highly placed peoples’ tongues. Finally, her groundbreaking work revealing the solution to the “Rogarvian Conundrum”™ (Trillium really likes that title for the mystery so she’s keeping it to herself until publication time) will need to be printed and bound as a publication. She expects to solve the mystery in no less than one year, but it could take as much as two years. It’s a lot more money than she had been anticipating.

Raising all that cash would not be easy. She tried getting a line of credit, but nobody was willing to lend to her. The obvious way to get a bunch of money quickly would be to go into business like her mother. But, Trillium was feeling spiteful toward her mother and wouldn’t consider doing anything that might suggest she was doing what her mother preferred for her. In fact, Trillium cut off her hair, which was more than waist length, into a short bob. She put her hair in a fine gift box tied with ribbons and had it delivered to Lenorilla. That would show her mother just how serious she was. Short hairstyles for women might be highly fashionable in Absalom, that was the second-hand word in Oppara when Trillium was last there about a year and a half ago. But Brevoy hasn’t gotten the message. Trillium effectively removed becoming a courtesan as a practical possibility for a couple of years until her hair grows back to a presentable length. It did occur to Trillium a while after the box had been sent to Lenorilla that she could have sold her hair instead for a really good price. But Trillium is too proud to backtrack and go ask her mother to return the hair to her.

A few weeks of networking through friends and acquaintances and otherwise rooting about for ways to make a large sum of money quickly and legally only turned up a single, somewhat dodgy possibility. Trillium learned the Aldori are chartering adventurers to explore and reclaim the Stolen Lands to the southwest of Restov. From what she can gather, it seems a goodly portion of the work is getting rid of bandits there. Who could be against that? The tricky thing is, it seems the Swordlords aren’t actually offering pay, which would make things easier. But Trillium figures if she can grab up a bunch of land there and sell it, that’s almost as good as getting paid, maybe better in the end. Besides, everyone knows that any decently competent bandits have buried treasure, they can’t use banks.

Best of all, she can probably get a charter. A friend of hers has a friend who has a friend who can see to it that one of charters comes to her, for free no less. Her friend, a very handsome Aldori himself, is being such a darling and looking into pulling those strings for her.

Height: 5'7 | Weight: 125 | Hair: Dark Brown | Eyes: Pale Green

Appearance:

Trillium is nominally a Half-Elf. Trillium thinks so. Her mother thinks so. Everyone who knows anything at all about Half-Elves and meets her thinks so. She has some celestial blood though, which is subtly apparent but also can’t quite be pinned down.

Her celestial heritage might come from her mother. It might also come from her father, but the identity of her father is uncertain. He may be Lenorilla’s patron at the time. Her patron was a wealthy and highly positioned member of the Swordpact. His last name was Aldori (Ugh! They’re all Aldori of course. Lenorilla finds the sword fetishists to be overly cult-like for her tastes, and all the sword stuff banal). She has never given a name for him otherwise though, her patrons’ confidentiality is one of her dicta. The other possibility is Lenorilla’s lover at the time. His name was Balent. Balent was a Shelynite priest who was slowly traveling north to Mendev to join the crusaders there. He stopped in Restov for a couple months before continuing on. There was nothing at all untoward about Lenorilla having a patron and a lover simultaneously. Her contract with her patron did not include an exclusivity clause.

Neither Trillium and Lenorilla are unaware of Trillium’s celestial blood. They both sense there’s something they can’t place about her, but the something is very positive and so hard to pin down it might also be nothing. It has never occurred to either of them that Trillium might be Aasimar. Aasimar all have shining eyes and halos over their heads and so forth, right? The best Lenorilla could do would be to say Trillium has “It”.

“It isn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just 'It'." –Rudyard Kipling

“That quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force.
It can be a quality of the mind as well as a physical attraction.” — Elinor Glyn

As for Trillium, she doesn’t really give it much thought at all.

Personality

Trillium is an extrovert who enjoys, almost craves, the company of others most of the time. She is witty and engaging in conversation, with a fine sense of humor. Although it might not play well in all situations, Trillium doesn’t care much about convention and is very open to new experiences.

One of her greatest assets is her almost unassailable self-confidence. It helps her often avoid one of the pitfalls of being beautiful and having attention focused on her. She feels no need to be competitive, so she doesn’t engage in the kinds of behaviors that pit her against others for attention, praise, or prestige. She knows she rarely has a serious rival among the people around her, so she has nothing to prove. Among the less exalted, new up and comers social set she has found in Restov since returning from Taldor, eschewing drama and pettiness only enhances her position by making her seem more down to earth and relatable.

Trillium usually gets what she wants anyway, without needing to be combative or difficult. She is persuasive enough to subtly nudge things in the direction she wants them through making comments and observations, or obliquely signaling approval or disapproval, that she doesn’t need play the queen bee or diva.

Trillium’s curiosity is inveterate. She desperately needs to know all about the places and people around her. She might even be a little underhanded in finding things out if she has to go to great lengths and really must know something she doesn’t. But, it’s rarely been something to come up. People like and tend to trust Trillium and will often open up to her given time. Trillium isn’t judgmental and she doesn’t push people, she just keeps having conversations with them which she guides toward topics she wants to know more about. She doesn’t spill others’ secrets either. Trillium just wants to know, not hold what she finds out over people so she can have power over them.

Certainly Trillium has her weaknesses as well. It is easy for her to coast on her natural abilities so she’s not in the habit of trying very hard. Vantine can also be very fickle, picking up and dropping interests, goals, and people because she grows bored or finds something else more engaging to occupy her attention.

Because her life has mostly been externally managed for her, first by her mother and later by the Kitharodian Academy, Trillium can be naïve about a lot of things, or think about aspects of the world in an overly simplistic way. This can be especially true when money is involved. She has never not had adequate amounts of it for whatever she wanted. It’s current scarcity is a rather new thing for her which she expects to fix without much trouble. Trillium is also probably too trusting in many situations since she’s never really experienced dangerous consequences for trusting too much.

Cynics might conclude that Trillium is shallow and frivolous. But in the areas she’s familiar with, like how to manage aristocrats, or survive a dreadful weekend gala and come out the other side better liked by everyone in attendance, or bargaining when the stakes are high, few are sharper than her. Once she acclimates to the circumstances she finds herself in, Trillium is a real survivor.