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Usgar lived in the Eldeen Reaches and was part of a small shifter community of Gorebrutes, those shifters which are loud and aggressive even for their kind. These shifters even are more likely to threaten violence than most other shifter individuals … maybe that is because of their connection to the Wereboars of the past.

Nobody knows what exactly caused the incident, but the amnesia that Usgar suffered from the magical force that hit him, gave Usgar the powers associated with his bloodline and forced him to leave his home in the Eldeen Reaches because he had to escape the unbearable environment where everyone believed to know Usgar although he did not know himself anymore.

Usgar still feels an anger inside of him because the loss of his memories and that is sometimes hard to control but that is also paired with an uncontrollable lust to travel and seek something beyond his reach.

But Usgar also was clearly advised that beyond his community he has to control himself because the past crusade of the silver flame makes it especially important for him to not constantly escalate situations so that that those that are still feeling uneasy among shifters don’t continue the prosecution of his race instead of chasing real lycanthropes.

He has now recently left his home and although he has no clue about religion, something inside of him feels that the Traveler is pushing him onwards … where to l he does not know but he remains ready for the journey yet to come!

CN Male Medium Skinwalker Wereboar-Kin (Humanoid Shapeshifter)

Bloodrager 1 (Blood Conduit, Shapeshifter Bloodline)

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-- STATS --

Str: 18, Dex: 14, Con: 18*, Int: 7, Wis: 12, Cha: 9

* 16 if not in wereboar form.
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–– SAVES ––

Fortitude: +6 (Con +4, Bloodrager +2)
Reflex: +2 (Dex +2, Bloodrager +0)
Will: +1 (Wis +1, Bloodrager +0)

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–– COMBAT ––

Ranged to hit: +3 (BAB +1, Dex +2)
Melee to hit: +5 (BAB +1, Str +4)

~

CMB: +5 (BAB +1, Str +4)

Speed: 30 ft.

Initiative: +2 (Dex +2)

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–– AC / CMD ––

• AC 18, T 12, FF 16 (Dex +2, Breastplate +6)
• Armor Check Penalty - 4: Breastplate -4

CMD: 17 (BAB +1, Str +4, Dex +2)

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–– SKILLS ––

Handle Animal +2 (Rank 0, Cha +0, Racial +2)
Perception +7 (Rank 1, Class +3, Wis +1, Racial +2)

Survival +5 (Rank 1, Class +3, Wis +1)
Swim +4 (Rank 1, Class +3, Str +4, ACP -4)

Skill Points

TOTAL: 3 Skill Points

Languages:
• Racial: Common

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–– LIMITED ABILITIES––

• Bloodrager RAGE 8 = 4 + Con +4 + Bloodrager Lvl beyond 1
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–– HIT POINTS ––
Lvl 1 - 14 Hit Points: 10 Bloodrager + Con +4

TOTAL - 14 Hit Points

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–– GOLD ––

22 gp
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–– GEAR ––

Breatplate
Morningstar
Backpack
Compass
Snorkel masterwork
Bardiche
Earplugs
Smoked Goggles
Whistle signal
Potion of Touch of Sea in Potion Sponge
Oil of ‘Unwelcome Halo’
Vermin repellent
Smelling Salts
Air Crystal
Antiplague
Antipoison
3 x Acid

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–– TRAITS ––
• COMMUNITY-MINDED (Region: Rahadoum) While some pray to the gods for mercy or prosperity, you follow a different tack—you believe in improving the lives of those around you through earnest labor and the efforts of you and your community. Your hard-earned discipline and the candor of your words affect all who bear witness. Any morale bonuses you confer upon your allies through your own abilities or spells last 2 additional rounds.
• FATE’s FAVORED (Faith): The fates watch over you. Whenever you are under the effect of a luck bonus of any kind, that bonus increases by 1.

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–– FEATS ––
• Lvl 1 (Blood Conduit Archetype free feat): IMPROVED TRIP
• Lvl 1: EXTRA FEATURE: You are an exceptional shapechanger. Prerequisites: Con 13, skinwalker. Benefit: When you change shape to your bestial form, you may choose one additional feature from those listed in your shapechange ability and gain that benefit while in bestial form. Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.__

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–– CLASS ABILITIES ––

BLOODRAGER

BLOOD CONDUIT Archetype

SHAPECHANGER Bloodline

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— SKINWALKER Wereboar-Kin (Ragebred) RACIAL TRAITS --

These skinwalkers are known for their fiery tempers and stubborn streaks, features that have earned them respect in remote corners of Garund, Cheliax, and Varisia as freedom fighters.

• Str: +2 Strength, –2 Charisma (+2 Constitution while shapechanged)
• TYPE: Humanoid (Shapechanger)
• SIZE: Medium
• SPEED: 30 feet
• Low-Light Vision: Skinwalkers can see twice as far as humans can in dim light.
• Alternate Skill Modifiers: +2 Handle Animal, +2 Perception
• Alternate Spell-Like Ability: Speak with animals (pigs and boars only) 3/day

• Change Shape (Su): A skinwalker can change shape to a bestial form as a standard action. While in this form, a skinwalker also takes on an animalistic feature that provides a special effect. Each time a skinwalker assumes bestial form, he can choose to gain one of the available bestial features. These benefits last until the skinwalker returns to his humanoid form as a swift action. A skinwalker must first return to his humanoid form before changing to bestial form again to change benefits.
• Bestial Features: a) +10 foot racial bonus to base speed, b) Gore attack that deals 1d6 points of damage; c) 2 hoof attacks that each deal 1d4 points of damage; d) Scent to a range of 30 feet

• LANGUAGES: Skinwalkers all begin play speaking Common. Skinwalkers with high Intelligence scores can choose any languages they want (except secret languages, such as Druidic).

–– BACKGROUND ––

stat roll : 4d6 ⇒ (5, 1, 2, 5) = 13 12
stat roll : 4d6 ⇒ (5, 2, 5, 4) = 16 14
stat roll : 4d6 ⇒ (6, 6, 3, 5) = 20 17
stat roll : 4d6 ⇒ (3, 4, 6, 3) = 16 13
stat roll : 4d6 ⇒ (3, 5, 4, 2) = 14 12
stat roll : 4d6 ⇒ (5, 5, 2, 4) = 16 14

Seke is as you outlined the last surviving member of the adventuring group as some of her companions were slain in the initial combat with the hags and others became victims of the hag's cruel passions for torturing and then eating their captives. Seke is truly exhausted and a little bit traumatized. She does not know why she is still alive but she assumes that she is either the last to be eaten or perhaps is being kept alive for some other reason.

I hope I summarized it ok?

So the character's name is Seke Tiiz and she is a female Wayang. Here is her char sheet for your reference. I just took that out of my binder and scanned it. But more important are the answers to your questions:

• The character must have a reason to find and rescue Baba Yaga to return her and allow her to reestablish the usual order and replace the current queen. This could be a desire to prevent Golarian turning into the Hoth system or it could be devotion to Baba Yaga or hatred of the present queen or a combination of these.

Thanks for this explanation. Based on the backstory of Seke that I had detailed earlier the main motivation is the devotion to Baba Yaga and the Black Rider who had a strong influence on Seke during her youth and who she believes will explain to her the source of her powers and can be the mentors that she never had.

• Involvement of the Three Riders is not absolutely necessary although that is an option. The new players recently brought in were assumed to have followed a similar track to the primary group, just through a different port in a different part of Golarian and a different Rider.

That is great! Because also Seke's story evolved in a similar way: She entered Irrisen through a gate that was opened by the cold Rider that strangely was fierce Tengu. The cold rider somehow also changed the group and gave them the mission to open a gate to a cold place from a white witch’s tower to a place where Baba Yaga had a secret weapon stored and bring that weapon back to the cold rider so that we can together free the hut of Baba Yaga. Later one of the other players felt how the cold rider actually died.

(Short excursus: I was wondering all the time why the cold rider was a Tengu and did some research and found this reference "The White Rider for Queen Urvalane appeared as a snowyfeathered tengu, wielding an oversized scythe as if it were as light as a child’s toy. Accounts from the time tell that this Rider trilled a lovely, mesmerizing song as it gleefully lopped off the heads of those deemed lacking." and that is exactly how rider was described in the story Seke was in.)

• The character must be in the Maiden section of Atrosa. Atrosa was created by Baba Yaga long ago and she maintains guardians to oversee the place in her absence. The character may have been captured and forced to serve as a guardian of Atrosa, perhaps as punishment or just a whim of Baba Yaga. Or the character could be a devoted servant of Baba Yaga who serves willingly and would therefore be willing to join the PCs in their quest to locate her. Or the character might have been captured by the frost giant and centaur group. [I can give you more information on them if you want.

That also fits perfectly! I am repeating for a moment what I wrote earlier what happened to Seke after the group was in Irrisen: "[...] I think that our PCs allied with a group of humans that also worked for Baba Yaga. We followed the plan to open a gate to a frosty place outside of Irrisen and we had to invade a tower of the white witches but when we arrived the tower had already been attacked and we entered nonetheless and fought the decimated guards. We found out that a magical gate was just closed and all our PCs home locations were connected to Irrisen via magical lines and that this is also a connection for the PCs.

So this last gate that we opened could have led exactly to "the Maiden section of Atrosa" and that this area was created by Baba Yaga fits perfectly because we were guided by followers of Baba Yaga to open the gate. I very much like your option "Or the character could be a devoted servant of Baba Yaga who serves willingly and would therefore be willing to join the PCs in their quest to locate her." because is exactly what has been driving Seke continuously ... to find Baba Yaga and learn from her who and what she actually is!

• There could be other options, such as the PC is just an adventurer who entered Atrosa to look for treasure and ended up trapped there.
• There are hags involved in this adventure and they sometimes create changlings which eventually become hags (usually). You could be a changling ally of the hags in this part of the dungeon. Or you could be one of their prisoner servants or a captive they plan to use for some evil purpose.

These are all very good options in case I would bring in a new character. If Seke would be allowed then the option to be a servant to Baba Yaga in Atrosa is the preferred option for me! ;-)

~

I hope this helps! Just tell me what you think is the best option and I will immediately either create a new character with the "hags" background idea you outlined or level up Seke to continue her path to find Baba Yaga in the story.

So the GM that I played with earlier actually GMed this AP for two different groups at the same time and I know that there were homebrew elements in my former campaign. I read selectively through the gameplay of your campaign GM and now realized that some of the following plot elements were very different:

The GM asked all players to either make a character with core rulebook races that definitely had a connection to cold, fire or shadow (so either by bloodline or archetype or something else) or play a race with a connection to ‘cold’ (Frost Undine or Tengu), ‘fire’ (Ifrit or Suli), or ‘shadow’ (Wayang or Fetchling). This was also because the Player’s guide stated that the PCs will all be foreigners in strange lands, so this campaign might be a good chance for players to try uncommon races.
Before the campaign started the GM explained that all characters in the campaign actually were children of mothers that conceived the child without ever having a husband. These children were visited in their dreams by a rider in their early youth. It was either a shadow or a fire or a cold rider and they all implanted something in the PCs which visited their dreams again and again and actually drew all of them from across Golarion to a town in Taldor. I think this was a magical mind control effect. It took my character a whole year from the island of Minata in Tian Xia to arrive in Taldor and that’s where the PCs met for the first time.
In the group that I played in there were similarities in the beginning of the adventure to what happened in your campaign but the major difference was that the gate that led the PCs to Irrisen was opened by a frosty Tengu rider of Baba Yaga that represented the morning and the rider used the dreams that the PCs had since their youth to show them that they had to save Baba Yaga and I think there was some mental control involved. We were tasked to open a gate to a cold place from a white witch’s tower to a place where Baba Yaga had a secret weapon stored and bring that back to the cold rider so that we can together free the hut of Baba Yaga.
The rider was able to change their appearance and bestowed this gift to all PCs (effectively this was a hat of disguise for all PCs and we received almost no treasure to pay this off mechanically as far as I remember). We crossed to Irrisen in disguise and the ‘cold’ rider did not die like the rider in your gameplay but left us alone with the task to handle other things. Then a couple of sessions later the frost Undine in our group that had a connection to the ‘cold’ rider actually felt that the ‘cold’ rider had died.
Here my memory becomes a little fuzzy to be honest because I think that our PCs allied with a group of humans that also worked for Baba Yaga. We followed the plan to open a gate to a frosty place outside of Irrisen and we had to invade a tower of the white witches but when we arrived the tower had already been attacked and we entered nonetheless and fought the decimated guards. We found out that a magical gate was just closed and all our PCs home locations were connected to Irrisen via magical lines and that this is also a connection for the PCs.
We then opened another gate via a ritual to this cold place outside of Irrisen and stepped through with these humans … that’s more or less where we stopped the campaign.

I don’t know how official the above is versus what you played. I hope this answers some questions that you raised. So the character is still somehow under the influence of the shadow rider who she sees as some kind of soul mate and is driven to help Baba Yaga and free their hut to ultimately rescue her.

~

But based on your statements I understood that you’d rather like to see a more general race.

So I imagined playing a half-elven summoner or unchained summoner depending on what you would find more acceptable.

Another possible way to link a new PC to the storyline is to have the PC start as an ally of the yet-to-be encountered warden of Atrosa, Jadrenka. Once Jadrenka meets the PCs, proper diplomacy might cause her to want to help locate Baba Yaga. The PC might then be asked to accompany the group and take on the mantle of the riders.

Your idea above sounds good! I could include being an ally of the warden into my background!