Sorena Ortho - Traitor to Cheliax Seeking Redemption

[TheRaconteur]

Sorena Ortho
Human • Kintecist 3 (Metal/Fire)
Medium • Lawful Neutral • AlloysmithBlacksmithing might be an ancient profession, but you are its cutting edge. You’ve studied the properties of different metals, experimented with them by combining them, exposing them to different elements and processes, and have even delved into the metaphysical nature of metal in your quest to master it. You might have taken up adventuring to acquire more funding and materials or to test your designs.

Choose two attribute boosts. One must be to Strength or Intelligence, and one is a free attribute boost. You’re trained in the Crafting skill and the Plane of Metal Lore skill. You gain the Specialty Crafting skill feat with the blacksmithing specialty.

"A life wasted, I will not waste whatever this is."

Theme • Burn and buried by hubris, yet still unlearned 
Character Sheet • Pathbuilder

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Abilities
Strength 16 (+3) • Dexterity 12 (+1) • Constitution 18 (+4) • Intelligence 12 (+0) • Wisdom 10 (+0) • Charisma 10 (+0)

Boosts
• Ancestry: + Con, + Str
• Background: + Con, + Str
• Class: + Con
• Free: + Con, + Dex, +Str, + Int

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Adventuring & Combat
HP 56/56
Perception +6 • Trained 6 • Wis 0 • Item 0 • Senses
Initiative +0
Speed 25 ft.
Class DC 20 • Trained 6 • Base 10 • Con 4 • Item 0

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Armor and Shields
AC 19 • Trained 6 • Base 10 • Dex 1 • Studded Leather 2
• Trained:
Shield • Bulk 0 • +0 AC, Hard 0, HP 0 (0)

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Saving Throws 
• Fortitude +12 • Expert 8 • Con 4 • Item 0
• Reflex +9 • Expert 8 • Dex 1 • Item 0
• Will +8 • Expert 8 • Wis 0 • Item 0

Weapon Proficiencies
• Trained: Simple, Unarmed

Weapon +0 • Untrained 0 • Str 0 • Item 0 • Damage 1d0 • Notes

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Skills
Acrobatics +1 • Untrained 0 • Dex 1 • Item 0
Arcana +7 • Trained 6 • Int 1 • Item 0
Athletics +9 • Trained 6 • Str 3 • Item 0 • Armor -0
Crafting +10 • Expert 8 • Int 1 • Item 0• Skill Potency 1
Deception +0 • Untrained 0 • Cha 0 • Item 0
Diplomacy +0 • Untrained 0 • Cha 0 • Item 0
Intimidation +6 • Trained 6 • Cha 0 • Item 0
Lore: Devils +9 • Expert 8 • Int 1 • Item 0
Lore: Plane of Metal +7 • Trained 6 • Int 1 • Item 0
Medicine +0 • Untrained 0 • Wis 0 • Item 0
Nature +0 • Untrained 0 • Wis 0 • Item 0
Occultism +1 • Untrained 0 • Int 1 • Item 0
Performance +0 • Untrained 0 • Cha 0 • Item 0
Religion +0 • Untrained 0 • Wis 0 • Item 0
Society +7 • Trained 6 • Int 1 • Item 0
Stealth +1 • Untrained 0 • Dex 1 • Item 0 • Armor -0
Survival +8 • Expert 8 • Wis 0 • Item 0
Thievery +1 • Untrained 0 • Dex 3 • Item 0

Languages: Common, Mwangi

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Starting Abilities

Heritage • Versatile HeritageHumanity's versatility and ambition have fueled its ascendance to be the most common ancestry in most nations throughout the world. Select a general feat of your choice for which you meet the prerequisites (as with your ancestry feat, you can select this general feat at any point during character creation).
Free Archetype • Wizard DedicationArchetype Dedication Multiclass

Prerequisites Intelligence 14

You cast spells like a wizard, gaining a spellbook with four common arcane cantrips of your choice. You gain the Cast a Spell activity. You can prepare two cantrips each day from your spellbook. You’re trained in arcane spell attack rolls and spell DCs. Your key spellcasting ability for wizard archetype spells is Int, and they are arcane wizard spells. You become trained in Arcana; if you were already trained in Arcana, you instead become trained in a skill of your choice.

Special You can’t select another dedication feat until you have gained two other feats from the wizard archetype.
Kinetic Gate • Dual GateYour kinetic gate is a harmonious conduit between two planes, allowing you to combine their elements to give you a versatile set of abilities. Select two elements to be your kinetic elements. Then, select two 1st-level impulse feats, one with the trait of the first element and one with the trait of the other.

(Fire, Metal)

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Feats

Free Feat • Specialty Crafting: ArmorerPrerequisites trained in Crafting

Your training focused on Crafting one particular kind of item. Select one of the specialties listed on page 267; you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to Crafting checks to Craft items of that type. If you are a master in Crafting, this bonus increases to +2. If it’s unclear whether the specialty applies, the GM decides. Some specialties might apply only partially. For example, if you were making a morningstar and had specialty in woodworking, the GM might give you half your bonus because the item requires both blacksmithing and woodworking.
General Feat Adopted AncestryGeneral

You’re fully immersed in another ancestry's culture and traditions, whether born into them, earned through rite of passage, or bonded through a deep friendship or romance. Choose a common ancestry. You can select ancestry feats from the ancestry you chose, in addition to your character's own ancestry, as long as the ancestry feats don’t require any physiological feature that you lack, as determined by the GM.
Ancestry Feat • Unburdened IronDwarf

You’ve learned techniques first devised by your ancestors during their ancient wars, allowing you to comfortably wear massive suits of armor. Ignore the reduction to your Speed from any armor you wear.

In addition, any time you’re taking a penalty to your Speed from some other reason (such as from the encumbered condition or from a spell), deduct 5 feet from the penalty. For example, the encumbered condition normally gives a –10-foot penalty to Speed, but it gives you only a –5-foot penalty. If your Speed is taking multiple penalties, pick only one penalty to reduce.
Class Feat • Weapon InfusionInfusion, Kineticist

With a signature flair, you shape blasts of elemental power into the form of a weapon, such as a sword made of whirling wind or a bow that shoots flames. If your next action is an Elemental Blast, chose a weapon shape for it to take. You can choose to change the blast's damage type to bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing - whichever suits the weapon shape - and you can choose other alterations depending on if you ame a melee or ranged blast

Melee - Add one of the following traits of your choice: agile, backswing, forceful, reach, sweep

Ranged - Chose one of three options: range increment 100 feet and volley 30 feet trait, range increment 50 feet and the propulsive trait, range increment 20 feet and the thrown trait.
Impulse Feat • Magnetic PinionsImpulse, Kineticist, Metal, Overflow, Primal

Small pieces of metal fly from you, propelled with magnetism at great velocity. Make ranged impulse attack rolls against up to three creatures within 60 feet of you; you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to your attack roll against any target wearing metal armor or made of metal. All three attacks count towards your multiple attack penalty, but it doesn't increase until after all the attacks. The metal pieces deal 1d4 bludgeoning damage and 1d4 piercing damage on a hit (or double damage on a critical hit).

Level (+2) Each type of damage increases by 1d4
Impulse Feat • Metal CarapaceImpulse, Kineticist, Metal, Primal

Sheets of bent and rusted metal cover you in an armored shell. The carapace is medium armor but uses your highest armor proficiency. The carapace's statistics are: AC bonus +3, Dex Cap +2, Check Penalty -2, Speed Penalty -5 feet, Strength 14, Bulk 2, Group plate, Armor Traits noisy. An bonuses, runes, and magical abilities of your actual armor are suppressed, but any that could apply to the metal carapace are replicated onto it.

When you use this impulse, you can create a rusty steel shield in a free hand, which uses the statistics of a regular steel shield. You can Shield Block with this shield even if you don't have that feat. The hand wielding this shield counts as a dree hand for using impulses. The shield crumbles to flakes of rust if it becomes broken or leaves your grasp.

Hardness 6; HP (BT) 24 (12)

The impulse lasts for 10 minutes, and you can Dismiss this impulse. If you use this impulse again, any existing one ends. The metal is rusted and fragile. If you take damage from a critical hit, the metal shatters and the impulse ends.

Level (+3) The shield's Hardness increases by 1, its HPP by 4, and its BT by 2.  
Impulse Feat • Flying FlameImpulse, Kineticist, Fire, Primal

It flies from you up to 30 feet in a path you choose. Each creature it passes through takes 2d6 fire damage with a basic Reflex save against your class DC. A creature attempts only one save, even if the flame passes through it multiple times
Skill Feat • Additional Lore: DevilsGeneral Skill

Prerequisites trained in Lore
Your knowledge has expanded to encompass a new field. Choose an additional Lore skill subcategory. You become trained in it. At 3rd, 7th, and 15th levels, you gain an additional skill increase you can apply only to the chosen Lore subcategory.

Special You can select this feat more than once. Each time you must select a new subcategory of Lore and you gain the additional skill increases to that subcategory for the listed levels
General Feat • Shield BlockGeneral

Trigger While you have your shield raised, you would take damage from a physical attack.

You snap your shield in place to ward off a blow. Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to the shield’s Hardness. You and the shield each take any remaining damage, possibly breaking or destroying the shield.
Class Feat • Thermal NimbusFire Impulse Kineticist Primal Stance

You direct waves of warmth into or out of your kinetic gate to drastically shift the temperature around you. Choose cold or fire. You and allies in your kinetic aura gain resistance equal to your level to damage of that type. Any creature that starts its turn in your kinetic aura or moves into your aura during its turn takes damage equal to half your level of the chosen type. Elemental resistance from a gate junction is cumulative with resistance from Thermal Nimbus.  
Free Archetype • Basic Wizard SpellcastingArchetype

Prerequisites Wizard Dedication

You gain the basic spellcasting benefits. Each time you gain a spell slot of a new level from the wizard archetype, add two common spells of that level to your spellbook.
Skill Feat • Magical CraftingGeneral Skill

Prerequisites expert in Crafting

You can Craft magic items, though some have other requirements, as listed in Chapter 11. When you select this feat, you gain formulas for four common magic items of 2nd level or lower.

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Powers
Impulse Attack +11 • Trained 5 • Con 4 • Attack Potency 1
Impulse DC 20 • Trained 5 • Base 10 • Con 4
Channel ElementsAura, Kineticist, Primal

Requirements: You kinetic gate isn't active

You tap into your kinetic gate to make elements flow around you. Your kinetic aura activates, and as a part of this action, yo can use a 1-action Elemental Blast or a 1-action stance impulse. Your kinetic aura is a 10-foot emanation where pieces if your kinetic element (or all your kinetic elements, if you can channel more than one) flow around you. The kinetic aura can't damage anything or affect the the environment around you unless another ability allows you to. Channel Elements has the traits of all your kinetic elements.
Base Kinesis Impulse Kineticist Primal

It's trivial for you to create some of your element or alter a portion of it that already exists. Choose one of your kinetic elements to affect. This impulse has a range of 30 feet, and the Bulk of the target must be negligible or light. The GM decides what Bulk the element is. You can't affect an element that's magical, secured in place (like a stone mortared in a wall), or attended by a creature unwilling to let you. Choose one of the following options, though the GM might allow you to make similar small alterations. Base Kinesis can't deal damage or cause conditions unless otherwise noted.

• Generate You bring an ordinary, non-magical piece of the chosen element from its elemental plane. The element can be used for any of its normal uses. For example, air can be breathed by an air-breathing creature, and fire casts light and can ignite flammable substances.
• Move Move an existing piece of the element up to 20 feet in any direction. If you bring it into your space, you can catch it in an open hand. You can Sustain the impulse to keep moving the element.
• Suppress You destroy an existing piece of element, such as snuffing out a flame or evaporating water from a cup. This affects only natural forms of the element, not durable, crafted goods like a stone statue, metal lock, or wooden door.

Level (+4) The range increases by 15 feet, and the maximum Bulk increases by 1 (allowing Bulk 1 at 5th level).
Extract ElementImpulse Kineticist Primal

You extract elemental matter from a creature's body to weaken it and take its power for your own. Target a creature within 30 feet that has a trait matching one of your kinetic elements or is made of one of your kinetic elements. The target takes 2d4 damage (with no damage type) and becomes susceptible to your impulses, depending on its Fortitude save against your class DC.


Critical Success The creature is unaffected.
Success The creature takes half damage, and you add some of its elemental matter to your kinetic aura. Your impulses bypass any immunity the creature has to their elemental trait or traits, and the target takes a –1 circumstance penalty to its saves and AC against your impulses. If the target normally has a resistance that would apply to damage from one of your impulses, ignore that resistance; if it normally would be immune to that damage type, it instead has resistance equal to its level to damage from the impulse. You can't target a creature with Extract Element if elemental matter you extracted from it is already in your kinetic aura. These effects last for 5 minutes or until your kinetic aura ends, whichever comes first.
Failure As success, but the creature takes full damage.
Critical Failure As failure, but the creature takes double damage.
Level (+2) The damage increases by 1d4.
Will ExpertiseYour mental defenses grow stronger. Your proficiency rank for Will saves increases to expert.

Impulses
Elemental BlastAttack, Impulse, Kineticist, Primal

With a wave of your hand, you collect elemental matter from your aura and swing or hurl it. Choose one of your kinetic elements and a damage type listed for that element, then make a melee or ranged impulse attack against the AC of one creature. Add your Strength modifier to the damage roll for a melee Elemental Blast. If you make a 2-action Elemental Blast, you gains a status bonus equal to the damage roll equal to your Constitution modifier. The element determines the damage die, damage type, and range (for a ranged blast). A damage type other than a physical damage type adds its traits to the blast.

Metal - 1d8 piercing or slashing, 30 feet.
Fire - 1d6 fire, range 60 feet or
Metal CarapaceImpulse, Kineticist, Metal, Primal

Sheets of bent and rusted metal cover you in an armored shell. The carapace is medium armor but uses your highest armor proficiency. The carapace's statistics are: AC bonus +3, Dex Cap +2, Check Penalty -2, Speed Penalty -5 feet, Strength 14, Bulk 2, Group plate, Armor Traits noisy. An bonuses, runes, and magical abilities of your actual armor are suppressed, but any that could apply to the metal carapace are replicated onto it.

When you use this impulse, you can create a rusty steel shield in a free hand, which uses the statistics of a regular steel shield. You can Shield Block with this shield even if you don't have that feat. The hand wielding this shield counts as a dree hand for using impulses. The shield crumbles to flakes of rust if it becomes broken or leaves your grasp.

Hardness 5; HP (BT) 20 (10)

The impulse lasts for 10 minutes, and you can Dismiss this impulse. If you use this impulse again, any existing one ends. The metal is rusted and fragile. If you take damage from a critical hit, the metal shatters and the impulse ends.

Level (+3) The shield's Hardness increases by 1, its HPP by 4, and its BT by 2.  
Flying FlameImpulse, Kineticist, Fire, Primal

It Flies from you up to 30 feet in a path you choose. Each creature it passes through takes 1d6 fire damage with a basic Reflex save against your class DC. A creature attempts only one save, even if the flame passes through it multiple times
Magnetic PinionsImpulse, Kineticist, Metal, Overflow, Primal

Small pieces of metal fly from you, propelled with magnetism at great velocity. Make ranged impulse attack rolls against up to three creatures within 60 feet of you; you gain a +1 circumstance bonus to your attack roll against any target wearing metal armor or made of metal. All three attacks count towards your multiple attack penalty, but it doesn't increase until after all the attacks. The metal pieces deal 2d4 bludgeoning damage and 2d4 piercing damage on a hit (or double damage on a critical hit).
Thermal NimbusFire Impulse Kineticist Primal Stance

You direct waves of warmth into or out of your kinetic gate to drastically shift the temperature around you. Choose cold or fire. You and allies in your kinetic aura gain resistance equal to your level to damage of that type. Any creature that starts its turn in your kinetic aura or moves into your aura during its turn takes damage equal to half your level of the chosen type. Elemental resistance from a gate junction is cumulative with resistance from Thermal Nimbus.  

 

Junctions

 

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Inventory
Money: 22 GP • 15 SP • 8 CP
Bulk 1/8 • Enc 8 (5 + Str 3) • Max 13 (10 + Str 3)

Backpack • Spellbook, Backpack, bedroll, belt pouch (2), chalk (10), flint and steel, rope (50 ft.), rations (14), soap, torches (5), waterskin, writing set

Arms and Armor
Studded Leather • Bulk 0 • Notes

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Appearance
In life, Sorena was wide of shoulder and strong of back, the legacy of a youth spent at the forge.

In this new existence, she is grafted to the half slagged mask she coveted, the lines where her flesh begins and the metal which calls to her unclear. She is the armor in which she encases herself, the glowing metal weapons she wields, glowing with forgefire. It is impossible to say where one ends and another begins. She is even larger than she was alive, for the iron which binds her can make her a massive thing. What she looks like behind the ruined and frequently still burning mask is anyone's guess.

Personality

Ambition

Ambition guides Sorena more than any other trait. It was ambition that led her to claim the Signifier's ruined spellbook, and ambition that was eventually her undoing.

She longs for her lost country now, and strives to be the Cheliaxian she failed to be in the past.

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History

Born to a family of serfs on the slopes of the Citadel Enferac, Sorena was fated to a life at the bottom rungs of the society of Infernal Cheliax. Her family were simple laborers within the fortress, mostly tending its mighty forges with an unending supply of wood and coal. Such would have been her fate too, had she not been possessed of something long burned and beaten out of many of the lower classes of society.

Sorena had dreams.

Specifically, Sorena dreamed of the grandeur and authority that came with the mantle of the Hellknight Signifiers, the command of souls and the master of magic that such rank and station would grant her. To that aim, she waited, and she watched. She had no gift of natural magic, no understanding of its complexities, but she knew her chance would come. On the year of her 17th birthday she found her opportunity. She had been serving as an apprentice blacksmith to a Dwarf in the forges, learning to fashion the mail that the Signifiers wore. She was not trusted with the creation of their signature masks, merely the creation of the nails that were a minor component of the Hellplate. On that fateful evening, the still smoking Corpse of a Signifier was brought into the forge. Seared by infernal flame, the Order needed the mask recovered from the body, and tasked Sorena's Dwarven master with cutting the half slagged thing off. What the Hellknights had missed was that the Signifier's spellbook had been partially shielded from the flames, encased in half burnt leather in a satchel on the man's belt. She took her chance, stealing the spellbook away to her private cell (and half the discarded mask), there to vainly read its contents. For many long years she deciphered the coded writings, learning their meanings and the significance of them. She gathered the components, stealing them mostly, learned the gestures, and spoke the words.

Magic did not come to her.

Her long years in the forge shaped and molded her into a hulking beast of a woman, and eventually her sheer bulk attracted the attention she had sought so long. A Hellknight by the name of Arcadi was briefly stationed at Citadel Enferac while escorting a Noble , and noticed the large woman. He purchased her from the Forgemaster, taking her under his wing and training the now late twenty something Sorena in the basics of fighting. Sorena thought that he might raise her as a Squire, but after three years of traveling with the Knight she grew more and more frustrated to be treated as nothing more than a woman-at-arms. It was traveling with Hellknight Arcadi that she met Ekul Ghosssalm, for the Necromancer had nefarious dealings with the Hellknight on several occasions.

It was on just such a mission when she finally snapped, after their company was caught in an ambush and Arcadi's Squire was killed. She fully expected to be granted a battlefield promotion, and when she was again denied she let the rage take her. Arcadi was still badly wounded, and Sorena had come through the ambush mostly unscathed. It was not a fair fight, and when the dust was settled Sorena finally found herself in possession of her own suit of Hellplate. Unbeknownst to her, Ekul also survived, and witnessing Sorena turn on her commander beat a hasty retreat to Citadel Enferac.

She returned to the fortress prepared to spin her tale of  violent ambush, mortal wounds, and a battlefield promotion. Instead, she found the Inquisitors waiting for her with her stolen spellbook and the half slagged Signifier's mask, her rooms having been turned over when the Commander heard Ekul's story. She was not even given a chance to speak, instead being grabbed by a coterie of Hellknights and gagged. They stripped her of her stolen armor, giving her instead the mostly ruined Signifier's helm that she had so coveted. Then she was chained, laid out upon the ground, and a mound of heavy stone was built over her, leaving her struggling and straining in the dark and the cold.

It was then that the Hellknights drenched the stones in oil.

Ekul marked her flaming burial cairn well, for he knew he might someday have use for such a thing.

Redemption:

Such a purpose did not come for seven long years, when Ekul was a different man. He found the burial cairn, and employing his Necromancy called to the soul that had been lost within. Even in her rebirth, Sorena craved what she had forever been denied. Made a part of the land by her execution, her yearning soul pulled iron from the roots of the earth itself to encase her in her in a suit of Hellplate. As tied to the mountain of her death as she is the armor in which she cloaks herself, Sorena seeks a different sort of redemption. She is wracked with guilt for the ways in which she betrayed her commander, the Hellknight Arcadi, and the people of her Nation. She does not understand how she will redeem herself before Cheliax, but in service to Ekul she might find some trace of the honor which her own pride got in the way of for so long.

She traveled with Ekul for several years, learning a new sort of life. Where before she had served truly served only herself, paying lip service to her nation without actually meaning the words. That by itself might not have been enough to hold her, for she had always been weak. Yet Ekul offered her something that no one ever had before.

He offered her a chance to study magic.

With a teacher, she found that she was at last able to understand concepts that had forever evaded her within her own bunk in Citadel Enferac. She was a poor student, but she was capable of it, and that realization was electrifying for her. It was a promise she'd wanted someone to fulfill for her for her entire life, and the tears she shed as the first spell left her fingertips took hours to quell. Seeing the joy suffusing his protégé, Ekul made arrangements for her to be admitted to Magaambya, so that she might begin a new life as a student of the Academy. Ekul understood well her torn loyalties, the guilt she felt over her murderous betrayal to Cheliax. He hopes that through this new life, she might find another path, another nation to bind herself too that isn't under the dominion of a literal devil.

Edited March 20 by TheRaconteur (see edit history)

[TheRaconteur]

One and done, hope you like her @LDDragon. I'm absolutely in love with the idea of a Chelaxian who covets Hellplate, and so forms their own out of metal kinesis.

Fired her off and got her formatted this morning so that you can see I mean it when I say with confidence that the thing I can 100% promise you is consistency. I will post, I will post frequently. If you're going to go to all the effort of running a game, I think it's really rude for me to not show up and not give it consistent and quality posts.

Edited August 25, 2023 by TheRaconteur (see edit history)

[LDDragon]

Apologies for the late reply. Ok cool, the application looks good! One note is that I typically update the games only once a week, but have been relatively consistent at doing so. Looks like you put a lot of effort into this, very well crafted application! 😀

[TheRaconteur]

I can totally do once a week.

[LDDragon]

Cool. 😀

[TheRaconteur]

Level 4:

• Class Feat: Thermal Nimbus
• Free Archetype: Basic Wizard Spellcasting
• Skill Feat: Magical Crafting

Downtime Activities:

• Trying to find small samples of rare metals (especially the kind that creatures are vulnerable too).
• Earn an income crafting magic.

 

When you take on a job, the GM secretly sets the DC of your skill check. After your rst day of work, you roll to determine your earnings. You gain an amount of income based on your result, the task’s level, and your prociency rank (as listed on Table 4–2: Income Earned). You can continue working at the task on subsequent days without needing to roll again. For each day you spend after the first, you earn the same amount as the first day, up until the task’s completion. The GM determines how long you can work at the task. Most tasks last a week or two, though some can take
months or even years.

@LDDragon Hello boss, might I please have a ruling on the DC of my Magical Crafting DCs for the 3 months of downtime/3 weeks of downtime activities?

 

Edited March 20 by TheRaconteur (see edit history)

[LDDragon]

Cool, thanks for posting the rules! I will say for this you can choose a task level, as long as it is the same one that applies to all three rolls. Then for future rolls, announce in advance what task level you are going for, and can choose differently each time you roll. 😃

[TheRaconteur]

Cool!

 

I'll do a bog standard, 50% chance of success Task level 5 for all three. So that I'm not cheating it.

Two successes and a failure.

14 gold and 14 silver earned.

Edited March 20 by TheRaconteur (see edit history)