speed 25 ft | focus 0/0| Hero 0 | Active Conditions: None| Esoteric Lore +9
Gender
NG female (she/her) suli human thaumaturge 4
About Trista Lortella
Backstory:
The fires began even before Trista could remember them. Certainly, according to her old nurse, she was too young for any suspicion to fall on her. At least, for the first few years of her life.
As she grew, however, it became difficult to ignore that fact that furnishings, toys, and clothing had an alarming tendency to smolder when Trista was around, or even outright burst into flame. Whispers started to spread through society that there was something unnatural about the girl after what her father referred to as The Incident, when half of Oppara's second-best day school for young ladies went up in flames. Perhaps it was some sort of curse, or a malignant foreign influence. (Trista was one-quarter Keleshite, on her mother's side. The result of a scandalous dalliance during one of the border wars.)
One day, with her parents at wits end, and Trista herself becoming concerned about her ability to safely handle paper, embroidery, and linens, the fires simply...stopped. Her family attributed the whole chain of events to growing pains, and the less said about it the better. Trista, however, knew that the cessation of the fires was due to The Book.
Ever since she found it sitting on the edge of the fountain in the courtyard, Trista knew that The Book was special. It was not large, the size of a small journal or date book, and easy to slip into her bag or tuck unobtrusively under her arm. The cover was a deep green leather, and embossed with a spiral of mother of pearl. Touching the tome made her feel deliciously cool, like slipping into a pleasant bath on a hot afternoon. If her minders had troubled to look at it very closely, they would likely have been concerned about the way the lines changed, and new phrases appeared in familiar passages, but as Trista was mostly left to her own devices now that her "difficulties" had passed, no one made a fuss about the fact that she always carried The Book with her.
With the protections of her book, Trista finished her schooling with mostly decent, though undistinguished, marks. She did earn top scores in Fencing and Charm, and teachers made special note of her ability to make lively small talk, always peppering conversation with little-known facts sure to amuse. Rather than immediately take her place helping to manage the family's affairs, Trista elected to go on tour and see some of the country. She gave her chaperone the slip in Kozan and took ship for Isger.
One thing The Book hadn't been able to stop was the nightmares. She had always had them, to some extent, but these days they happened almost every night. And, if she was going to have any peace, Trista needed to investigate why, when she closed her eyes, she saw the small town of Breechill in ruins, with a dragon-shaped inferno stretching up toward the sky.
Trista Lortella
NG Female Suli Human Thaumaturge 4
Perception +8; Low-Light Vision
Languages Common, Draconic, Elven
Skills Arcana +7, Athletics +7, Diplomacy +11, Intimidation +9, Lore: Esoteric +9, Lore: Dahak +7, Nature +6, Occultism +7, Religion +6, Society +7, Stealth +9, Thievery +11(M); Tome Skills (Trained): Acrobatics +9, Survival +6
Str +1, Dex +3, Con +1, Int +1, Wis +0, Cha +3
Items Studded Leather, Backpack, Bedroll, Chalk (10), Flint and Steel, Rope, Rations (2), Torch (5), Waterskin, Soap, elixir of life (minor), thieves' tools. 6 sp
AC 21, Fort +8, Ref +10, Will +7
HP 44
Speed 25 feet
◆ Exploit Vulnerability (Esoterica, Manipulate, Thaumaturge) Frequency once per round Requirements You are holding your implement. You scour your experiences and learning to identify something that might repel your foe. You retrieve an object from your esoterica with the appropriate supernatural qualities, then use your implement to stoke the remnants of its power into a blaze. Select a creature you can see and attempt an Esoteric Lore check against a standard DC for its level, as you retrieve the right object from your esoterica and use your implement to empower it. You gain the following effects until you Exploit Vulnerabilities again.
Critical Success You remember the creature's weaknesses, and as you empower your esoterica, you have a flash of insight that grants even more knowledge about the creature. You learn all of the creature's resistances, weaknesses, and immunities, including the amounts of the resistances and weaknesses and any unusual weaknesses or vulnerabilities, such as what spells will pass through a golem's antimagic. You can exploit either the creature's mortal weakness or personal antithesis (see below). Your unarmed and weapon Strikes against the creature also become magical if they weren't already.
Success You recall an important fact about the creature, learning its highest weakness (or one of its highest weaknesses, if it has multiple with the same value) but not its other weaknesses, resistances,
or immunities. You can exploit either the creature's mortal weakness or personal antithesis. Your unarmed and weapon Strikes against the creature also become magical if they weren't already.
Failure Failing to recall a salient weakness about the creature, you instead attempt to exploit a more personal vulnerability. You can exploit only the creature's personal antithesis. Your unarmed and weapon Strikes against the creature also become magical if they weren't already.
Critical Failure You couldn't remember the right object to use and become distracted while you rummage through your esoterica. You become flat-footed until the beginning of your next turn.
You can attempt to Exploit Vulnerabilities in one of two ways: either by invoking properties that repel that type of creature, or by attempting a more improvisational, ad-hoc method with your esoterica that can impose a custom weakness on any creature, albeit one that usually isn't as dire as a creature's existing weakness.
Mortal Weakness After identifying a creature's weakness, you use a thematically resonant bit of esoterica to attune your attacks to your
discovery. Your unarmed and weapon Strikes activate the highest weakness you discovered with Exploit Vulnerability, even though the damage type your weapon deals doesn't change. This damage affects the target of
your Exploit Vulnerability, as well as any other creatures of the exact same type, but not other creatures with the same weakness. For example, when fighting a pack of werewolves, you might use silver shavings or crushed moonstone to deal damage that applies their weakness to silver to your attacks against any of the werewolves, but you wouldn't apply this damage to any other monsters with a weakness to silver.
Personal Antithesis You improvise a custom weakness on a creature by forcefully presenting and empowering a piece of esoterica that
repels it on an individual level; for instance, against a tyrant, you might procure a broken chain that once held a captive. This causes the target creature, and only the target creature, to gain a weakness against your unarmed and weapon Strikes equal to 2 + half your level.
Additional Feats Diverse Lore, Dualborn, Dubious Knowledge, Student of the Canon, Suli, Trick Magic Item, Marshal Dedication, Ancestral Paragon (Elemental Embellish), Scroll Thaumaturgy, Natural Medicine
Additional Specials Esoteric Lore, First Implement And Esoterica (Tome), Geniekin Ancestry 1 (Fire), Geniekin Ancestry 2 (Water), Implement's Empowerment, Tome Initiate Benefit
