Description: age 26, 5’3″, #120, brown (snake-like) eyes, olive dusky skinned, hair: raven black; right half head shaved, right handed
Strength [8] -1
Dexterity [16] +3
Constitution [16] +3
Intelligence [16] +3
Wisdom [10]
Charisma [10]
Sanity [11]
ESSENCE = 18-5=13
Aptitude: Divine 1
Anima: Synergy = 3 (returns 1/Short Rest)
Armor: Light Armor
Attributes: Dexterity, Intelligence
Communication: Gladnorian (literate and spoken), Cant (verbal and sign), Druidic (sign and verbal), Feyloise (elvish; spoken), Draconic (spoken)
Feats: Fighting Initiate
Skills: Nature (intelligence/specialized PB x2), Survival (wisdom/specialized PB x2), Acrobatics (dexterity), Athletics (strength), Stealth (dexterity/specialized PB x2), Perception (wisdom/specialized PB x2), Medicine (intelligence), Religion (intelligence), Animal Handling (wisdom)
Tools: Thieves’ tools, Herbalism Kit
Weapons: Simple weapons, hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers, shortswords
Principal: Ssisssllenn – lord of serpents; crawler in the shadows, silent fang in the night
Normal SPELL SAVE DC = 11 / +3 Spell Attack
Values > Snakes and serpents are sacred – they carry the memory of the world and must not be killed; They fulfill a function and keep the ecosystem in balance and must be protected. I am their protector, i will promote their welfare; those who actively do them death or harm, must be killed themselves and made an example of.
Dragon Mark: {Flaw} Your looks change slightly whenever you use the mark – your skin becomes scaled and your shadow becomes that of a snake for 1 hour. In return, the character gain 2 cantrips (CON spell save 8+PB+Con = 14); by using 1 Synergy, the additional HD of damage can be exchanged for using it through the sacred bow of The Serpent’s Arch.
Armor Class = studded + dex = 15 (1 resilience)
Health = 8,5,5,5,5 +12 = 40
Sneak Attack: +2d6;7/12/24
Skirmisher: You can move up to half your speed as a reaction when an enemy ends its turn within 5 feet of you. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks.
Uncanny Dodge: When an attacker that you can see hits you with an attack, you can use your reaction to halve the attack’s damage against you.
Cunning Action: You can take a bonus action on each of your turns in combat. This action can be used only to take the Dash, Disengage, or Hide action.
Close Quarters Shooter (UA). When making a ranged attack while you are within 5 feet of a hostile creature, you do not have disadvantage on the attack roll. Your ranged attacks ignore half cover and three-quarters cover against targets within 30 feet of you. You have a +1 bonus to attack rolls on ranged attacks.
Armor: studded leather (AC 12/1 resilience)
Arms: quarter staff (d6{d8 2h}, 2/5/11; +2 attack), short bow (r=80/320; d6, 6/9/15; +7 attack), short sword (d6, 6/9/15; + 6 attack)
> quiver with 12 arrows
Tools: herbalist kit (10 uses; 1 healing per wound), healer kit (10 uses; 1 per stabilize wound), thieves tools
Packs: Explorer
The Serpents Arch: {Can only be used by those devoted to Ssissllenn} Short Bow +1 attack (+2 with sneak attack) damage and initiative; Range = 100’/320′; When sighted to target an attack, it gives its wielder Dark Vision 100′; Any critical hit done by the bow also gives the Poisoned condition (resist with CON save DC 14 or the wielder spell save DC – whichever is better).
> Attack +1+1+PB+Dex = +8 (+9 with Sneak Attack) / Dmg = d6;7/10/16
Watchful Eye of Sissllenn: A small green viper is kept in her clothes around her waist/thigh. It stays awake and will bite her if anyone attempts to sneak up on her in her sleep – giving her the Poisoned condition for 3 rounds, but adding +10 to her initiative bonus during that time as well. If killed, it cannot be re-summoned until a Long Rest is had.
Created by Rocky Bliss 2/2024 for Dunstrand Rising campaign; GM Kelly Berger
Background: Hermit / Life of Seclusion = I needed to commune with nature, far from civilization.
Discovery: [related Ssissllenn]
Personality: I am utterly serene, even in the face of disaster.
Ideal: Logic. Emotions must not cloud our sense of what is right and true, or our logical thinking. (Lawful)
Bond: I entered seclusion to hide from the ones who might still be hunting me. I must someday confront them.
Flaw: I like keeping secrets and won’t share them with anyone.
Athena was a foundling, discovered adrift on wreckage along the edge of the Pranin Moorswood on the Hoolip Coast of Bar-Innis by the lizard folk after a storm sent by Elancil. Due to her unusual eyes, she was delivered to the druids of the wood instead of eaten. She was raised by the druids, a mostly feral guardian of the deep woods and sacred places. Although her eyes was seen as a sign of the serpent lords favor, she never truly felt connected or particularly fond of his sacred druids of the Moorswood – though she grew up venerating her “silent father” Ssissllenn. She rarely spoke, and spent countless hours alone in the deep woods. When she was 10, she told her surrogate family of the druids she was going to “strike” out, traveling on her own to the Hoolip Coast. There she sought out the lizard folk, and spent years with them, learning the area, their tongue, and what little history of her finding she could uncover. She learned that the Gwinnish had sent many a boat seeming to find the wreckage afterwards. They believed that she had to come to them for a reason. Here she also learned the clear logic and practicality of the lizard folk – and they even came to accept her and gave her a dragon mark.
She traveled among the halflings of Loamwold along the coast as well, picking up social skills from the affable folk. She learned some of the ways of the small folk, honing her athletic and acrobatic skills fishing, hunting, and spying on the folk of Crestwold, Gwinn and Umbak and learning of the ongoing war between Dunstrand and Gwinn. When along the waters edge, she could sometimes see a storm in the distance, and felt as if someone were looking for her – as if the eye of the storm was the eye of the storm goddess. When she was 17, she was called on by the druids to fulfill her service. They taught her to read and write for this, under the mentoring of a speaking serpent. She spent years harassing and spying on the humans, traveling on the edges of civilization. She hunted troglodytes in the delta and along the Black Shore, sabotaged and killed smugglers, and scouted and hunted areas the druids wished to be scoured. She spent many days in Yarans Vale – dodging willow-wisps (Umbakian restless spirits) and counting animal populations – including the dreaded moorcats (though kept her distance, even with a safeguard from the druids). She saw many things – an ancient site of the Bronzefolk, a fallen church of light, old buried battlefields and even watching battles from afar between Gwinn and Dunstrand. When she was done, at the age of 25, she was rewarded with a bow of ancient willow from the Pranin Moorswood, wrapped in serpent skin from the father of serpents himself (it loses all properties except the +1 if skin wrapping is destroyed) – it is named The Serpents Arch.
She was asked what she saw as the new direction she would strike out in, and she answered that she wished to join the woman named Feather. Over the past couple years, she had observed her, delivered messages to her, and watched her descend into a strange fervor based on her alliance with the druids. Her clandestine meetings with the beast known as Kynar on the edge of the Dwindor Swamp intrigued her – though she could never get close enough to overhear anything due to the goblin scouts Kynar surrounded himself with (they were too damn good!). She has several conversations with the woman and Feather seemed more at home by herself than around others, but had managed to come to grips with being among people. She felt a kinship in that, and so traveled to the castle to see her. Feather was startled and surprised when she showed up. “I figured you to be a child of the forest forever” she said. However, it was time for you to strike out and be your own person, letting go of the family that had overshadowed her. She understood this and her hard look softened. Feather explained that there was a greater good at stake, and her understanding of the war, the dragon that had interfered, the myriad of deaths and strange ocurrences. She said there was an organization known as The League of the White Lily – and that she was working for them and for the Gallantine Order to realize the dream of prosperity returned to the Grand Duchy of Dunstrand that would usher in a better age for all the inhabitants of the Heartlands of the Steel Realms. It was a lot to take in, and she treated it all with a certain reverence. Her bloodline was tied directly to the Earldom of Bar-Innis and its fate from generations back. She was even granted a new Wardenship in Crestwold under a new house name of “Aelishan of the Black Feathers”. She whispered the sacred creed under a moonlit night, and you swore an oath to her order and cause. Imbued with a sense of purpose, she introduces you to the group and says that you are now among the “Pin Feathers” – a nickname she gives the group.