The Character:
Khalisara CR 1
XP 0
Female Musetouched Aasimar Tempered Champion/Dervish of Dawn 1
LG Medium Outsider (native)
Init +6; Senses darkvision 60ft. Perception +19
----- Defense -----
AC 20, touch 15, flat-footed 15 (+4 armor, +1 shield, +5 Dex)
hp 13 (1d10+3)
Fort +5, Ref +7, Will +4; +2 vs. death effects
----- Offense -----
Speed 30 ft.
Melee +7 scimitar (1d6+5)
Special Attacks smite evil 1/day
Smite Evil +11 scimitar (1d6+11)
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 1st; concentration +5)
At will - detect evil
1/day – glitterdust (DC 16)
Bard Spells (CL 1st; concentration +5)
0 - prestidigitation, spark, detect magic, message
1 (2/day) - cure light wounds, chord of shards
Bard performances (Su) 8 rounds/day
*Battle Dance* Inspire Courage - +2 to hit and damage, and save vs. charm and fear effects (self only)
Inspire Courage - +1 to hit and damage, and save vs. charm and fear effects (group)
Countersong - Allies within 30ft. use perform check for save vs sonic or language based effects
Fascinate - -4 Perception, 1 target; DC 15
Distraction - Allies within 30ft. use perform check for save vs. non-instant illusion effects
----- Tactics -----
Before Combat If the opponent isn't evil or in the midst of a blantantly evil act, Khai will try to diffuse the situation with words.
During Combat Fights defensively, attacking with her scimitar inflicting non-lethal damage, offering chances to stop, or surrender. If the opponent continuously refuses to cease or surrender, she uses her battle dance and switches to lethal damage. Versus multiple opponents, she will try to hit as many as possible with her chord of shards spell.
If her opponent is an evil cleric, dragon or a tougher undead creature, she will smite it, and offer no parlay.
----- Statistics -----
Str 12, Dex 20, Con 16, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 18
Base Atk +1; CMB +2; CMD 17
Feats dervish dance, weapon focus: scimitar
Skills Bluff +4, Diplomacy +10, Heal +6, Knowledge (local) +4, Knowledge (religion) +4, Perception +6, perform (dance) +10, Perform (sing) +10, Sense Motive +7, Spellcraft +4, Stealth +5, Swim +1
Traits fey foundling, survivor
Languages Common, Celestial
SQ aura of good
Other Gear holy symbol, chain shirt, buckler, scimitar, rations, etc.
Raised by a single mother in poverty, she grew up knowing early the strife of life. Providing for her in any way she could, her mother did well, all things considered. She awoke one morning to cries at her front door, Khali having been abandoned on her doorstep. Being a faithful follower of Sarenrae, her mother saw her as a gift from the goddess in a time of need, to snap her out of her depression. She had recently lost her husband in a Keleshite campaign in Taldor, and so went from the loving young wife of a soldier, to a young widowed woman with an orphaned infant. Other soldiers that knew her husband offered to help, some with noble intentions, some with ulterior motives, but that only lasted for a few years. Soon she and her daughter were moving from town to town, her trying to find work as a tailor, but often only finding coin in being a barmaid. Every once in a while, she would sing for the crowds, and draw in a little more coin, but those nights were few and far between. Her mother had a small shrine to Sarenrae, and lit candles in her name nightly, and shared this faith with her daughter. This, along with keeping a roof over her daughter’s head and food in her belly, was all that mattered to her. Khali discovered a love for music early in life, loving the hymns to Sarenrae her mother would sing to her, and hearing the cymbals and harps of the people that performed in the bars her mother worked in. She knew her mother was sad most of the time, and only around music did she seem to liven up. Khali would often dance upstairs, listening to the music played in the common room below, and dream of being a dancer herself one day.
Her mother found love again and married a bar owner who treated her daughter as his own, when Khali was 11 years old. When she showed talent in dancing and singing, her stepfather spoke with some people he knew to see about getting her proper training. She was tutored by a retired dancer, who was a bard in her own right during her adventuring days. Khali loved learning the steps and listening to the stories her tutor would tell her, and the histories that went along with the songs and dances she learned. Some of the other students of the bardess grew jealous of Khali’s talent and burgeoning skill, and as they aged, of her beauty as well. By the age of 14, she had long locks of strawberry blonde hair, and impossibly bright green eyes. Despite her training as a dancer, she still developed curves in all the right places that a young suitor would appreciate. “Unnatural” was a common term used to describe this young woman’s beauty. All this being true, she had no time for any romantic interest, wanting only to lose herself in her training and music. At the age of 16, the final test from her tutor was to compose her own song, and choreograph the moves for it. Using her mother as her inspiration, she wrote a sonnet about young love, love lost, and love found again, and performed it at her step father’s inn. It was a hit, and she performed it once a week drawing crowds, and loving every minute of it. After this success, her mentor began to teach her how to truly be a bard. She taught her other stories, and histories of the area, and the places she had been in her career, and how to blend singing and dancing and magic, in order to cast some spells that would aid her and others. Seeing a whole new area to master, Khali excitedly took to this training as well.
After a few months, she began to feel the draw to a life of adventure, and after some sad goodbyes to her parents, she joined a group of local adventurers, and left town to investigate rumors of a cult. She got along well with them, but with one of the young men especially. Their romance was off to a good start, as they traveled and fought together for the better part of a year. On one such trip, the group ran across evidence of kobold raids, and following clues, it led them to a den of witches, manipulating the creatures through fear to raid local villages. The group assaulted the network of caves the den was in, and as they went further and further in, soon realized they were being led into ambushes by the wily kobolds. Khali did her best to bolster and encourage her group mates, and healing them when she could. After one particularly nasty ambush, the crones themselves attacked their would-be vanquishers, and in a desperate moment, her beloved told her to run to save herself. Her spells expended and seeing one member already fallen, with another and her beloved close to follow, she nodded through teary eyes and fled, vowing to return with help. She stumbled upon a group of kobolds they had missed on the way in, and startled, blasted the area with glowing motes that clung to them, and blinded them. Confused but glad for the distraction, she continued on.
The kobolds hunted her through the tunnels, trying to cut her off from her escape. She fought well, the need to get her love and teammates out of there driving her on. As she was in sight of the exit from the tunnels, she was attacked again, and mortally wounded. The kobolds taunted her as she used the remainder of her strength to drag herself out of the tunnel into the sunlight, prodding her with their spears. With her last breath, she cried out to Sarenrae for help, and fell unconscious.
Her dreams were flashes of gleaming armor, and horses, and the flashing of steel. She saw the image of a beautiful, angelic woman, looking at her with a sad but determined face, urging her to keep fighting.
She awoke in an unfamiliar place, confused. A woman standing nearby saw she had awoken and asked her name, taking care to make sure she remained in her cot. Khali told the woman her name, and then was told that she was in the care of a group of Sarenites that were in the area hunting the witches that her group had been fighting. While they were victorious, Khali was the only survivor from her group. She did not take the news of her friends and her lover’s death well, sinking into a depression, nearly losing her will to live after their burial. The woman who found her just outside the witch’s den, a Paladin of Sarenrae, visited her often, trying to draw her out of her sadness. She was strong and compassionate, and as Khali healed, she began to teach her more about Sarenrae. She told Khalisara that she did not believe their force showing up when they did and her cry to their goddess for help was a coincidence. They were planning on attacking from a different entrance to the warren, and she felt lead to attack from the other side, and now she knew why.
As Khalisara recovered she learned a lot about the Sarenites, and the teachings of Sarenrae. She saw their compassion first hand, having been nursed to health without them asking anything in return. She decided to travel with them, if they would have her. Not wanting to turn away another willing healer, they accepted. She spent her time tending the wounded when the warriors returned from battle, entertaining the camp with song and dance, and talking with the clerics. She knew the spell she had cast in the tunnels was a form of glitterdust, but it wasn’t like any of the other spells she had cast before. When she asked the clerics, they told her that they believed she was some kind of Aasimar, a mortal with the blood of angels in her veins. As she thought about this revelation, she realized that while she felt a sense of purpose here among the faithful, she also felt driven to be out in the field fighting and helping with her gifts there. She had a conversation with the Paladin that saved her about how she felt called to dedicate her life in service to Sarenrae, to help the weak as she had been helped, and drive out the evil that preyed on them. After talking with the others, the paladin took her as her squire, and Khali began training with her and the other fighters. After a handful of battles, they deemed Khali ready, and she took her oaths in front of her knew brothers and sisters, and became a paladin in her own right. She took a brief trip to return to her parents, and share the news. Her mother was proud of her, and shared the story of how she found her on her doorstep, believing her to be a gift from the same goddess she was in service to now. Khali just smiled, and told her about how she was found dying by the Sarenites, and how she didn’t believe it was coincidence, and she didn’t believe this was either.
She stayed in town a few days, performing her song for the familiar crowd of family and friends at the bar one night, and helping out around town as she could. She once again said her goodbyes, and headed out to bring the Dawnflower’s light to the world.
About Khali:
Khalisara is a clever, charismatic and unnaturally beautiful woman, with dark, freckled skin, fiery strawberry blond hair, and bright green eyes. She has an athletic build, having studied as a dancer, and is a bit short, at 5’5”, compared to other paladins of Sarenrae. She is also kind, showing compassion to those less fortunate and in need of help or healing. For those that do not respect her or attempt to treat her or other women as second class citizens, she keeps them in check with her rapier wit.
On the battlefield she also shows patience and compassion to her enemies, offering them multiple chances to surrender or repent, looking for the chance to offer redemption. If they prove unwilling to relent or are unredeemable, she quickly changes tack and becomes a whirlwind of sound, fire and steel, as she dances about the battlefield, singing hymns and smiting her enemies with her scimitar, laying them low in the Dawnflower’s name.
She carries very little aside from food, water, her vestments, armor, and scimitar, trusting Sarenrae to provide all that she needs to do her work. The one personal item she has is the gift of a silver locket with a likeness of her first love.