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The Sheltered Hand: Character 5

2022-09-01T11:35:02Z

CKirby: /* Arohata */

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

== Arohata ==
[[File:Arohata2.png|300px]]

----

Level 5 Variant Human Monk, Way of the Astral Self. About 5'3", 120 lbs; shrimpy but wiry. Maybe 40? He's got grey in his hair but his face is linelessly smooth. Characteristic Delisse complexion. Hair and beard are shaven when he remembers to do so, but he often neglects it, so he usually has some scruff. "Astral Self" has no obvious visual characteristics, but conveys a cognitive or emotive impression of strength or influence beyond his unremarkable physique.

----

Str 8 (-1)

Dex 16 (+3) [+1 from Variant Human, already counted]

Con 14 (+2) [+1 campaign bonus point, already counted]

Int 12 (+1)

Wis 18 (+4) [+1 from VH, +1 from Skill Expertise, +2 at level 4, already counted]

Cha 10 (0)

----

AL: NG

HP: 48

AC: 17

Prof bonus: +3

----

Attacks: Barehanded or staff +6/1d6+3; Empowered +7/1d6+4

Proficiencies:

--Armor: None.

--Save: Str, Dex.

--Skill: Acrobatics (+6), Athletics (+2/+7), Insight (+7), Nature (+4), Perception (+10), Stealth (+6), Survival (+7).

--Tool: Cook's utensils, land vehicles, musical instrument (samisen/cigar-box guitar).

--Weapon: Simple weapons, shortswords.

Feats: Skill Expertise: Perception; Tough.

----

Background: Folk Hero/Outsider/Hermit hybrid

--Defining event: I stood up to a tyrant's agents.

--Personality trait: If someone is in trouble, I'm always ready to lend help.

--Ideal: Respect. People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

--Bond: I'm still seeking the enlightenment I pursued in my seclusion, and it still eludes me.

--Flaw: I have a weakness for the vices of the city, especially strong drink.

--Feature: Rustic Hospitality. Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

----

Equipment: Necklace of Adaptation; Staff of Flowers; Heward's Handy Spice Pouch; 10 darts; cook's utensils; shovel; iron pot; common clothes; musical instrument (cigar-box guitar/dulcimer/samisen hybrid that sounds like a musical saw or theremin and whose hollow body can be used for percussion); explorer's pack (includes backpack, bedroll, mess kit, tinderbox, 10 torches, 10 days of rations, waterskin, 50 feet of hempen rope); pouch with 10 gp.

----

Prose:

Arohata, The Flag Laid Waste -- the name was given to him in a monastery, and it's the only one he uses any more -- is an itinerant philosopher and do-gooder. It didn't start that way; he grew up as just another Delisse swamp farmer. Oh, sure, nobles killed his parents, but it wasn't personal or even unusual; they just died because they were poor and malnourished and they got worked to death. It happened to everybody's parents, really.

The child who would become Arohata wasn't having it; he didn't have it in him to work the paddies, or anything else, day in and day out. The day when he didn't want to hoe his row and a jumped-up squire told him, with the end of a bronze-mailed fist, that he didn't have a choice in the matter, was the day he left that village. Although, admittedly, not without leaving behind a lot of teeth and blood.

He wandered out into the swamp and made his own way with an ease nobody had ever told him was impossible. Or maybe they had told him and he just hadn't listened; hard to say, because he wasn't listening. He needed food and he figured out foraging and cooking; he needed entertainment and he figured out music. Sometimes he needed to defend himself, and he figured out how to punch things. The latter part got a lot easier when he found his first martial monastery; he proved to be adept at the fighting techniques he was taught, but he was never able to sit comfortably with the philosophical teachings. He left that monastery, thinking that maybe the answers were outside after all.

Arohata made his way for years acting as an itinerant tavern cook and musician, or just living off the land. He'd get bored of the wilderness and head to the city, where he'd drink his profits every night; he'd get into a fight with the wrong people or just start missing trees, and he'd head back to the country. He'd take up with a new monastery, advance through the ranks, and leave or get kicked out, the calls of the world and the spirit alternating in their urgency for him. Along the way, several chief abbots recognized his gifts, or possibly thought that he was so deficient he needed magical guidance; he was given a necklace of prayer beads that once belonged to an ascetic whose tapasya was so pure, she had learned to exist without breathing, and a staff formerly used by a holy fool whose gift of manifesting celestial flowers brought joy to all he encountered. On the road, he fried his last couple of eggs for an old witch, who gave him a magical spice bag in return. "Needs more pepper, boy," she said.

Along the way he realized that he just hated it when people with power lorded it over people without; he became an admirer of Carran, who had the revelation that the gods had '''all''' of the power. (More than one abbot has told him that Carran wasn't this antagonistic toward the gods, but Arohata has always been very committed to making his own mistakes.) He was never a "rob from the rich" kind of guy, because that demanded a little too much advance planning, but he was definitely a "punch the city guardsman shaking down the kids from the poor section of town" kind of guy. Word spread, and pretty soon Arohata's face was known to the downtrodden, even as the local gendarmerie never really seemed to get a good description from witnesses.

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

The Sheltered Hand: Character 5

2022-09-01T11:34:26Z

CKirby: /* Arohata */

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

== Arohata ==
[[File:Arohata2.png|300px]] Level 5 Variant Human Monk, Way of the Astral Self. About 5'3", 120 lbs; shrimpy but wiry. Maybe 40? He's got grey in his hair but his face is linelessly smooth. Characteristic Delisse complexion. Hair and beard are shaven when he remembers to do so, but he often neglects it, so he usually has some scruff. "Astral Self" has no obvious visual characteristics, but conveys a cognitive or emotive impression of strength or influence beyond his unremarkable physique.

----

Level 5 Variant Human Monk, Way of the Astral Self. About 5'3", 120 lbs; shrimpy but wiry. Maybe 40? He's got grey in his hair but his face is linelessly smooth. Characteristic Delisse complexion. Hair and beard are shaven when he remembers to do so, but he often neglects it, so he usually has some scruff. "Astral Self" has no obvious visual characteristics, but conveys a cognitive or emotive impression of strength or influence beyond his unremarkable physique.

----

Str 8 (-1)

Dex 16 (+3) [+1 from Variant Human, already counted]

Con 14 (+2) [+1 campaign bonus point, already counted]

Int 12 (+1)

Wis 18 (+4) [+1 from VH, +1 from Skill Expertise, +2 at level 4, already counted]

Cha 10 (0)

----

AL: NG

HP: 48

AC: 17

Prof bonus: +3

----

Attacks: Barehanded or staff +6/1d6+3; Empowered +7/1d6+4

Proficiencies:

--Armor: None.

--Save: Str, Dex.

--Skill: Acrobatics (+6), Athletics (+2/+7), Insight (+7), Nature (+4), Perception (+10), Stealth (+6), Survival (+7).

--Tool: Cook's utensils, land vehicles, musical instrument (samisen/cigar-box guitar).

--Weapon: Simple weapons, shortswords.

Feats: Skill Expertise: Perception; Tough.

----

Background: Folk Hero/Outsider/Hermit hybrid

--Defining event: I stood up to a tyrant's agents.

--Personality trait: If someone is in trouble, I'm always ready to lend help.

--Ideal: Respect. People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

--Bond: I'm still seeking the enlightenment I pursued in my seclusion, and it still eludes me.

--Flaw: I have a weakness for the vices of the city, especially strong drink.

--Feature: Rustic Hospitality. Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

----

Equipment: Necklace of Adaptation; Staff of Flowers; Heward's Handy Spice Pouch; 10 darts; cook's utensils; shovel; iron pot; common clothes; musical instrument (cigar-box guitar/dulcimer/samisen hybrid that sounds like a musical saw or theremin and whose hollow body can be used for percussion); explorer's pack (includes backpack, bedroll, mess kit, tinderbox, 10 torches, 10 days of rations, waterskin, 50 feet of hempen rope); pouch with 10 gp.

----

Prose:

Arohata, The Flag Laid Waste -- the name was given to him in a monastery, and it's the only one he uses any more -- is an itinerant philosopher and do-gooder. It didn't start that way; he grew up as just another Delisse swamp farmer. Oh, sure, nobles killed his parents, but it wasn't personal or even unusual; they just died because they were poor and malnourished and they got worked to death. It happened to everybody's parents, really.

The child who would become Arohata wasn't having it; he didn't have it in him to work the paddies, or anything else, day in and day out. The day when he didn't want to hoe his row and a jumped-up squire told him, with the end of a bronze-mailed fist, that he didn't have a choice in the matter, was the day he left that village. Although, admittedly, not without leaving behind a lot of teeth and blood.

He wandered out into the swamp and made his own way with an ease nobody had ever told him was impossible. Or maybe they had told him and he just hadn't listened; hard to say, because he wasn't listening. He needed food and he figured out foraging and cooking; he needed entertainment and he figured out music. Sometimes he needed to defend himself, and he figured out how to punch things. The latter part got a lot easier when he found his first martial monastery; he proved to be adept at the fighting techniques he was taught, but he was never able to sit comfortably with the philosophical teachings. He left that monastery, thinking that maybe the answers were outside after all.

Arohata made his way for years acting as an itinerant tavern cook and musician, or just living off the land. He'd get bored of the wilderness and head to the city, where he'd drink his profits every night; he'd get into a fight with the wrong people or just start missing trees, and he'd head back to the country. He'd take up with a new monastery, advance through the ranks, and leave or get kicked out, the calls of the world and the spirit alternating in their urgency for him. Along the way, several chief abbots recognized his gifts, or possibly thought that he was so deficient he needed magical guidance; he was given a necklace of prayer beads that once belonged to an ascetic whose tapasya was so pure, she had learned to exist without breathing, and a staff formerly used by a holy fool whose gift of manifesting celestial flowers brought joy to all he encountered. On the road, he fried his last couple of eggs for an old witch, who gave him a magical spice bag in return. "Needs more pepper, boy," she said.

Along the way he realized that he just hated it when people with power lorded it over people without; he became an admirer of Carran, who had the revelation that the gods had '''all''' of the power. (More than one abbot has told him that Carran wasn't this antagonistic toward the gods, but Arohata has always been very committed to making his own mistakes.) He was never a "rob from the rich" kind of guy, because that demanded a little too much advance planning, but he was definitely a "punch the city guardsman shaking down the kids from the poor section of town" kind of guy. Word spread, and pretty soon Arohata's face was known to the downtrodden, even as the local gendarmerie never really seemed to get a good description from witnesses.

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

The Sheltered Hand: Character 5

2022-09-01T11:34:05Z

CKirby: /* Arohata */

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

== Arohata ==
[[File:Arohata2.png|300px]] Test text here

----

Level 5 Variant Human Monk, Way of the Astral Self. About 5'3", 120 lbs; shrimpy but wiry. Maybe 40? He's got grey in his hair but his face is linelessly smooth. Characteristic Delisse complexion. Hair and beard are shaven when he remembers to do so, but he often neglects it, so he usually has some scruff. "Astral Self" has no obvious visual characteristics, but conveys a cognitive or emotive impression of strength or influence beyond his unremarkable physique.

----

Str 8 (-1)

Dex 16 (+3) [+1 from Variant Human, already counted]

Con 14 (+2) [+1 campaign bonus point, already counted]

Int 12 (+1)

Wis 18 (+4) [+1 from VH, +1 from Skill Expertise, +2 at level 4, already counted]

Cha 10 (0)

----

AL: NG

HP: 48

AC: 17

Prof bonus: +3

----

Attacks: Barehanded or staff +6/1d6+3; Empowered +7/1d6+4

Proficiencies:

--Armor: None.

--Save: Str, Dex.

--Skill: Acrobatics (+6), Athletics (+2/+7), Insight (+7), Nature (+4), Perception (+10), Stealth (+6), Survival (+7).

--Tool: Cook's utensils, land vehicles, musical instrument (samisen/cigar-box guitar).

--Weapon: Simple weapons, shortswords.

Feats: Skill Expertise: Perception; Tough.

----

Background: Folk Hero/Outsider/Hermit hybrid

--Defining event: I stood up to a tyrant's agents.

--Personality trait: If someone is in trouble, I'm always ready to lend help.

--Ideal: Respect. People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

--Bond: I'm still seeking the enlightenment I pursued in my seclusion, and it still eludes me.

--Flaw: I have a weakness for the vices of the city, especially strong drink.

--Feature: Rustic Hospitality. Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

----

Equipment: Necklace of Adaptation; Staff of Flowers; Heward's Handy Spice Pouch; 10 darts; cook's utensils; shovel; iron pot; common clothes; musical instrument (cigar-box guitar/dulcimer/samisen hybrid that sounds like a musical saw or theremin and whose hollow body can be used for percussion); explorer's pack (includes backpack, bedroll, mess kit, tinderbox, 10 torches, 10 days of rations, waterskin, 50 feet of hempen rope); pouch with 10 gp.

----

Prose:

Arohata, The Flag Laid Waste -- the name was given to him in a monastery, and it's the only one he uses any more -- is an itinerant philosopher and do-gooder. It didn't start that way; he grew up as just another Delisse swamp farmer. Oh, sure, nobles killed his parents, but it wasn't personal or even unusual; they just died because they were poor and malnourished and they got worked to death. It happened to everybody's parents, really.

The child who would become Arohata wasn't having it; he didn't have it in him to work the paddies, or anything else, day in and day out. The day when he didn't want to hoe his row and a jumped-up squire told him, with the end of a bronze-mailed fist, that he didn't have a choice in the matter, was the day he left that village. Although, admittedly, not without leaving behind a lot of teeth and blood.

He wandered out into the swamp and made his own way with an ease nobody had ever told him was impossible. Or maybe they had told him and he just hadn't listened; hard to say, because he wasn't listening. He needed food and he figured out foraging and cooking; he needed entertainment and he figured out music. Sometimes he needed to defend himself, and he figured out how to punch things. The latter part got a lot easier when he found his first martial monastery; he proved to be adept at the fighting techniques he was taught, but he was never able to sit comfortably with the philosophical teachings. He left that monastery, thinking that maybe the answers were outside after all.

Arohata made his way for years acting as an itinerant tavern cook and musician, or just living off the land. He'd get bored of the wilderness and head to the city, where he'd drink his profits every night; he'd get into a fight with the wrong people or just start missing trees, and he'd head back to the country. He'd take up with a new monastery, advance through the ranks, and leave or get kicked out, the calls of the world and the spirit alternating in their urgency for him. Along the way, several chief abbots recognized his gifts, or possibly thought that he was so deficient he needed magical guidance; he was given a necklace of prayer beads that once belonged to an ascetic whose tapasya was so pure, she had learned to exist without breathing, and a staff formerly used by a holy fool whose gift of manifesting celestial flowers brought joy to all he encountered. On the road, he fried his last couple of eggs for an old witch, who gave him a magical spice bag in return. "Needs more pepper, boy," she said.

Along the way he realized that he just hated it when people with power lorded it over people without; he became an admirer of Carran, who had the revelation that the gods had '''all''' of the power. (More than one abbot has told him that Carran wasn't this antagonistic toward the gods, but Arohata has always been very committed to making his own mistakes.) He was never a "rob from the rich" kind of guy, because that demanded a little too much advance planning, but he was definitely a "punch the city guardsman shaking down the kids from the poor section of town" kind of guy. Word spread, and pretty soon Arohata's face was known to the downtrodden, even as the local gendarmerie never really seemed to get a good description from witnesses.

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

The Sheltered Hand: Character 5

2022-09-01T11:32:56Z

CKirby: /* Arohata */

The Sheltered Hand: Character 5

2022-09-01T11:32:15Z

CKirby: /* Arohata */

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

== Arohata ==
[[File:Arohata2.png|200px]]

----

Level 5 Variant Human Monk, Way of the Astral Self. About 5'3", 120 lbs; shrimpy but wiry. Maybe 40? He's got grey in his hair but his face is linelessly smooth. Characteristic Delisse complexion. Hair and beard are shaven when he remembers to do so, but he often neglects it, so he usually has some scruff. "Astral Self" has no obvious visual characteristics, but conveys a cognitive or emotive impression of strength or influence beyond his unremarkable physique.

----

Str 8 (-1)

Dex 16 (+3) [+1 from Variant Human, already counted]

Con 14 (+2) [+1 campaign bonus point, already counted]

Int 12 (+1)

Wis 18 (+4) [+1 from VH, +1 from Skill Expertise, +2 at level 4, already counted]

Cha 10 (0)

----

AL: NG

HP: 48

AC: 17

Prof bonus: +3

----

Attacks: Barehanded or staff +6/1d6+3; Empowered +7/1d6+4

Proficiencies:

--Armor: None.

--Save: Str, Dex.

--Skill: Acrobatics (+6), Athletics (+2/+7), Insight (+7), Nature (+4), Perception (+10), Stealth (+6), Survival (+7).

--Tool: Cook's utensils, land vehicles, musical instrument (samisen/cigar-box guitar).

--Weapon: Simple weapons, shortswords.

Feats: Skill Expertise: Perception; Tough.

----

Background: Folk Hero/Outsider/Hermit hybrid

--Defining event: I stood up to a tyrant's agents.

--Personality trait: If someone is in trouble, I'm always ready to lend help.

--Ideal: Respect. People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

--Bond: I'm still seeking the enlightenment I pursued in my seclusion, and it still eludes me.

--Flaw: I have a weakness for the vices of the city, especially strong drink.

--Feature: Rustic Hospitality. Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

----

Equipment: Necklace of Adaptation; Staff of Flowers; Heward's Handy Spice Pouch; 10 darts; cook's utensils; shovel; iron pot; common clothes; musical instrument (cigar-box guitar/dulcimer/samisen hybrid that sounds like a musical saw or theremin and whose hollow body can be used for percussion); explorer's pack (includes backpack, bedroll, mess kit, tinderbox, 10 torches, 10 days of rations, waterskin, 50 feet of hempen rope); pouch with 10 gp.

----

Prose:

Arohata, The Flag Laid Waste -- the name was given to him in a monastery, and it's the only one he uses any more -- is an itinerant philosopher and do-gooder. It didn't start that way; he grew up as just another Delisse swamp farmer. Oh, sure, nobles killed his parents, but it wasn't personal or even unusual; they just died because they were poor and malnourished and they got worked to death. It happened to everybody's parents, really.

The child who would become Arohata wasn't having it; he didn't have it in him to work the paddies, or anything else, day in and day out. The day when he didn't want to hoe his row and a jumped-up squire told him, with the end of a bronze-mailed fist, that he didn't have a choice in the matter, was the day he left that village. Although, admittedly, not without leaving behind a lot of teeth and blood.

He wandered out into the swamp and made his own way with an ease nobody had ever told him was impossible. Or maybe they had told him and he just hadn't listened; hard to say, because he wasn't listening. He needed food and he figured out foraging and cooking; he needed entertainment and he figured out music. Sometimes he needed to defend himself, and he figured out how to punch things. The latter part got a lot easier when he found his first martial monastery; he proved to be adept at the fighting techniques he was taught, but he was never able to sit comfortably with the philosophical teachings. He left that monastery, thinking that maybe the answers were outside after all.

Arohata made his way for years acting as an itinerant tavern cook and musician, or just living off the land. He'd get bored of the wilderness and head to the city, where he'd drink his profits every night; he'd get into a fight with the wrong people or just start missing trees, and he'd head back to the country. He'd take up with a new monastery, advance through the ranks, and leave or get kicked out, the calls of the world and the spirit alternating in their urgency for him. Along the way, several chief abbots recognized his gifts, or possibly thought that he was so deficient he needed magical guidance; he was given a necklace of prayer beads that once belonged to an ascetic whose tapasya was so pure, she had learned to exist without breathing, and a staff formerly used by a holy fool whose gift of manifesting celestial flowers brought joy to all he encountered. On the road, he fried his last couple of eggs for an old witch, who gave him a magical spice bag in return. "Needs more pepper, boy," she said.

Along the way he realized that he just hated it when people with power lorded it over people without; he became an admirer of Carran, who had the revelation that the gods had '''all''' of the power. (More than one abbot has told him that Carran wasn't this antagonistic toward the gods, but Arohata has always been very committed to making his own mistakes.) He was never a "rob from the rich" kind of guy, because that demanded a little too much advance planning, but he was definitely a "punch the city guardsman shaking down the kids from the poor section of town" kind of guy. Word spread, and pretty soon Arohata's face was known to the downtrodden, even as the local gendarmerie never really seemed to get a good description from witnesses.

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

The Sheltered Hand: Character 5

2022-09-01T11:31:34Z

CKirby: /* Arohata */

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

== Arohata ==
[[File:Arohata2.png]]

----

Level 5 Variant Human Monk, Way of the Astral Self. About 5'3", 120 lbs; shrimpy but wiry. Maybe 40? He's got grey in his hair but his face is linelessly smooth. Characteristic Delisse complexion. Hair and beard are shaven when he remembers to do so, but he often neglects it, so he usually has some scruff. "Astral Self" has no obvious visual characteristics, but conveys a cognitive or emotive impression of strength or influence beyond his unremarkable physique.

----

Str 8 (-1)

Dex 16 (+3) [+1 from Variant Human, already counted]

Con 14 (+2) [+1 campaign bonus point, already counted]

Int 12 (+1)

Wis 18 (+4) [+1 from VH, +1 from Skill Expertise, +2 at level 4, already counted]

Cha 10 (0)

----

AL: NG

HP: 48

AC: 17

Prof bonus: +3

----

Attacks: Barehanded or staff +6/1d6+3; Empowered +7/1d6+4

Proficiencies:

--Armor: None.

--Save: Str, Dex.

--Skill: Acrobatics (+6), Athletics (+2/+7), Insight (+7), Nature (+4), Perception (+10), Stealth (+6), Survival (+7).

--Tool: Cook's utensils, land vehicles, musical instrument (samisen/cigar-box guitar).

--Weapon: Simple weapons, shortswords.

Feats: Skill Expertise: Perception; Tough.

----

Background: Folk Hero/Outsider/Hermit hybrid

--Defining event: I stood up to a tyrant's agents.

--Personality trait: If someone is in trouble, I'm always ready to lend help.

--Ideal: Respect. People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

--Bond: I'm still seeking the enlightenment I pursued in my seclusion, and it still eludes me.

--Flaw: I have a weakness for the vices of the city, especially strong drink.

--Feature: Rustic Hospitality. Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

----

Equipment: Necklace of Adaptation; Staff of Flowers; Heward's Handy Spice Pouch; 10 darts; cook's utensils; shovel; iron pot; common clothes; musical instrument (cigar-box guitar/dulcimer/samisen hybrid that sounds like a musical saw or theremin and whose hollow body can be used for percussion); explorer's pack (includes backpack, bedroll, mess kit, tinderbox, 10 torches, 10 days of rations, waterskin, 50 feet of hempen rope); pouch with 10 gp.

----

Prose:

Arohata, The Flag Laid Waste -- the name was given to him in a monastery, and it's the only one he uses any more -- is an itinerant philosopher and do-gooder. It didn't start that way; he grew up as just another Delisse swamp farmer. Oh, sure, nobles killed his parents, but it wasn't personal or even unusual; they just died because they were poor and malnourished and they got worked to death. It happened to everybody's parents, really.

The child who would become Arohata wasn't having it; he didn't have it in him to work the paddies, or anything else, day in and day out. The day when he didn't want to hoe his row and a jumped-up squire told him, with the end of a bronze-mailed fist, that he didn't have a choice in the matter, was the day he left that village. Although, admittedly, not without leaving behind a lot of teeth and blood.

He wandered out into the swamp and made his own way with an ease nobody had ever told him was impossible. Or maybe they had told him and he just hadn't listened; hard to say, because he wasn't listening. He needed food and he figured out foraging and cooking; he needed entertainment and he figured out music. Sometimes he needed to defend himself, and he figured out how to punch things. The latter part got a lot easier when he found his first martial monastery; he proved to be adept at the fighting techniques he was taught, but he was never able to sit comfortably with the philosophical teachings. He left that monastery, thinking that maybe the answers were outside after all.

Arohata made his way for years acting as an itinerant tavern cook and musician, or just living off the land. He'd get bored of the wilderness and head to the city, where he'd drink his profits every night; he'd get into a fight with the wrong people or just start missing trees, and he'd head back to the country. He'd take up with a new monastery, advance through the ranks, and leave or get kicked out, the calls of the world and the spirit alternating in their urgency for him. Along the way, several chief abbots recognized his gifts, or possibly thought that he was so deficient he needed magical guidance; he was given a necklace of prayer beads that once belonged to an ascetic whose tapasya was so pure, she had learned to exist without breathing, and a staff formerly used by a holy fool whose gift of manifesting celestial flowers brought joy to all he encountered. On the road, he fried his last couple of eggs for an old witch, who gave him a magical spice bag in return. "Needs more pepper, boy," she said.

Along the way he realized that he just hated it when people with power lorded it over people without; he became an admirer of Carran, who had the revelation that the gods had '''all''' of the power. (More than one abbot has told him that Carran wasn't this antagonistic toward the gods, but Arohata has always been very committed to making his own mistakes.) He was never a "rob from the rich" kind of guy, because that demanded a little too much advance planning, but he was definitely a "punch the city guardsman shaking down the kids from the poor section of town" kind of guy. Word spread, and pretty soon Arohata's face was known to the downtrodden, even as the local gendarmerie never really seemed to get a good description from witnesses.

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

The Sheltered Hand

2022-08-31T14:38:52Z

CKirby:

[[File:The_Sheltered_Hand.png]]

'''Acalan'''

[[File:Acalan.png]]

==Player Characters==
[[The_Sheltered_Hand:_Mama Nguyen|'''Mama Nguyen''']] ''played by'' [https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?members/brahnamin.70442/ brahnamin]

[[The_Sheltered_Hand:_Character 1|'''Character Name''']] ''played by'' [https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?members/llayne.162426/ Llanye]

[[The_Sheltered_Hand:_Tereza|'''Tereza Dalca''']] ''played by'' [https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?members/potted-plant.24190/ Potted Plant]

[[The_Sheltered_Hand:_Character 3|'''Character Name''']] ''played by'' [https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?members/nightgoblyn.56962/ NightGoblyn]

[[The_Sheltered_Hand:_Character 4|'''Character Name''']] ''played by'' [https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?members/mr-adventurer.3201/ Mr Adventurer]

[[The_Sheltered_Hand:_Character 5|'''Arohata''']] ''played by'' [https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?members/ckirby.35473/ CKirby]

== A Brief History ==

The Sheltered Hand is a peninsula jutting off a larger continent. Called 'The Hand' originally as it separates into five smaller peninsulae.

It gains the name Sheltered in two ways.

First, the Suntoucher Mountains - a range of large mountains that blocks most travel to and from the peninsula. The Suntouchers extend into the ocean both to the North and South, making travel even by water treacherous.

Second, some three hundred years ago, the great prophet Carran, tired of the near constant war between the gods and their faithful, had the audacity and the courage to upbraid them.

While all know that the gods cannot - or at least, will not - slay mortals directly, as the saying goes, 'you'd be surprised what you can live through'. None doubt his courage.

Nor was his tongue lacking, either, as he convinced some of the gods - eighteen in all - to aid him. He took his followers and others as tired of the war as he, and removed to The Hand, home at the time to a long-isolated peoples - the Saram - who welcomed him and his followers.

The gods with him then put up The Shield. The passes between the mountains and even the water paths, could no longer be traversed by any armies, and no gods, nor their power, could operate from outside.

Several nations formed, but the people of the Sheltered Hand learned a lesson - the intervention of Gods wasn't needed for folk to fight, and fight they did.

The priests of the Gods and the followers of Carran strove mightily to stop the fighting, but all they managed was to limit it.

Until seventy years ago - give or take - when the followers of Carran, now calling themselves The Creed of Carran, showed their hand. In every nation then standing, The Creed had been building power, and they showed that power, stopping the wars and battles that were occurring. The Churches of the Gods, working with The Creed, helped to enforce that peace. Even the Gods, it seems place the Creed of Carran over worship to their own faiths, though they do still ask for worship.

Of course, no peace is perfect. There are still skirmishes, outlaws, and so on, but the Creed prepared for that, as well. They created an offshoot - the Carran Guild - which provides training and some support to the kind of outsiders who can act when others can't.

== Character Creation ==

D&D 5th Edition characters.

PHB, Xanathar's and Tasha's are in play.

People:
*Human (You can play as either Standard or Variant)
*Sinandre (Wood Elf)
*Esinandre (High Elf)
*Halfling (½ Elf)
*Tarat (Dwarf)
*Yryc (½ Orc) - No actual Half-Orcs, the Yryc are an Orcish People, using the ½ Orc rules.
*Gnomon (Gnome)
*Havlin (Halfing)

No Tieflings, no Dragonborn.

Basic Array for Stats with a single free +1.

All PCs get 1 Feat free at 1st Level. (Variant Humans therefore have two)

Starting Level is 5th. HPs are Max at 1st level and average for class after that.

Multi-classing - One class only, after 4th level (so all PCs will have 4 levels of their main class minimum)

All PCs get starting funds +35 GP per level (with the assumption that 15 GP per level went to living it up, paying needed dues, etc.)

All PCs can have 4 Common or 2 Common and 1 Uncommon Magic Item.

Weapons and metal armour are assumed to be Bronze or Brass.

Every character may have 3 Iron Weapons or 1 Steel Weapon.

Iron Weapons will have a +1 to Hit '''or''' a +1 to Damage.

Iron Armour (including Shields) gain a +1 to AC

Steel Weapons will have a +1 to Hit and Damage.

Steel Armour will have a +1 to AC and increases the allowed Dex Mod by 1 / grants a +1 Max Dex Mod if there wasn't one.

Other items which might benefit from Iron or Steel construction will have similar bonuses.

Any items found in the three allowed books can be purchased with available gold.

== Peoples ==

'''The Sinandre''' (Elves)

'''The Tarat''' (Dwarves)

'''Yryc''' (Orc)

'''The Havlin''' (Halfing/Hobbit)

'''Gnomon''' (Gnome)

'''Halflings''' (Half Elf)

'''Humans'''

[[Anam:Peoples|Additional Information on the Peoples of the Sheltered Hand]]

== Cultures ==

The Sheltered Hand is in the very '''very''' early Iron Age for the most part.

Armour and Weapons are mostly of Bronze, with some Iron here and there.

Two nations know how to make Steel, and do, but neither sells the secret, and costs for Steel weapons are astronomical.

[[Anam:Cultures|Cultural Information]]

== Backgrounds ==

Backgrounds from any of the three allowed books can be used.

If you want a custom background, speak to me.

== Professions ==

AKA Classes. Only classes and class options found in the three main books are allowed.

Each Culture has preferred and scorned classes. Each also provides a Bonus Skill. As with all such skill gains, if your PCs class or background would give them the same skill, you may choose another.

'''Acalani''' - The Acalani prefer Bards, Paladins and Wizards. They scorn Barbarians, Rogues and Warlocks.
*Bonus Skill: Persuasion

'''Trakken''' - The Trakken prefer Druids, Rangers and Fighters. They scorn Clerics, Rogues and Wizards.
*Bonus Skill: Survival

'''Caslaht''' - The Caslaht prefer Fighters, Paladins and Bards. They scorn Barbarians, Rogues and Sorcerers.
*Bonus Skill: Nature

'''Delisse''' - The Delisse prefer Druids, Clerics and Rangers. They scorn Fighters, Rogues and Warlocks.
*Bonus Skill: Nature

'''Sartana''' - The Sartana prefer Barbarians, Clerics and Monks. They scorn Druids, Rangers and Sorcerers.
*Bonus Skill: Religion

'''Kal Tora''' - The Kal Tora prefer Clerics, Paladins and Sorcerers. They scorn Barbarians, Rogues and Wizards.
*Bonus Skill: Athletics

'''Faram''' - The Faram prefer Bards, Sorcerers and Wizards. They scorn Barbarians, Fighters and Rogues.
*Bonus Skill: Investigation

'''Anlat''' - The Anlat prefer Barbarians, Druids and Rangers. They scorn Monks, Rogues and Warlocks.
*Bonus Skill: Survival

'''Sinandre''' - The Sinandre prefer Druids, Rangers and Sorcerers. They scorn Paladins, Monks and Wizards.
*Bonus Skill: Athletics

'''Esinandre''' - The Esinandre live amongst Humans and take the culture in which they live.

'''Tarat''' - The Tarat prefer Clerics, Fighters, and Paladins. They scorn Barbarians, Rogues and Wizards.
*Bonus Skill: Perception

'''Yryc''' - The Yryc take the Culture in which they live. They can be found amongst all save only the Tarat.

'''Havlin''' - The Havlin take the Culture in which they live. They can be found amongst all Peoples.

'''Gnomon''' - The Gnomon can be found amongst the Tarat, the Sartana, or the Kal Tora, and take that culture.

== The Creed ==

The Creed – more properly known as The Creed of Carran – are the primary Church within the Sheltered Hand. Individual gods have their own churches and centers of worship, yet almost all acknowledge the authority of the Creed of Carran.

The Creed takes its name from the agreement that Carran reached with the gods that they would not war against each other, an agreement which they have upheld. As none of the gods who were part of a pantheon were able to convince their entire pantheon to join Carran, the Gods within the Shield represent numerous cultures and belief structures, the Creed gives them all some stability and a framework within which they can work together.

The Creed do not worship any single God, rather they give reverence to the agreement – the Creed – which Carran made, and in general to the Gods for upholding the Creed.

To this end, they have amassed a great deal of temporal power. The various nations are allowed to function as they will, within their borders, saving only that they do not persecute any followers of the Creed, or of Gods who follow the Creed.

Any conflicts between nations are expected to be placed before the Creed for arbitration.

Most of those currently ruling the nations have been put into place by the Creed, either directly or by more subtle means.

== Gods of the Sheltered Hand ==

The Creed recognise 18 Gods – these are the ones who came with Carran and created The Shield.

They are, as noted, representative of numerous cultures and pantheons. Most of these Gods can be found in any nation, though each nation does tend to have favourites.

[[Anam:The_Rosseni|The Rosseni]] - Popular amongst the Acalani

[[Anam:The_Twins|The Twins]] - Most popular amongst the Anlat and the Delisse

[[Anam:The_Family_of_Rehma|The Family of Rehma]] - Most popular with the Trakken and the Delisse (as well as any fisherfolk, no matter where they live)

[[Anam:Individual_Gods|Individual Gods]]

[[Anam:Non-Creed_Gods|Non-Creed Gods]]

[[Anam:The_Anathema|The Anathema]]

The Sheltered Hand: Character 5

2022-08-31T12:40:45Z

CKirby: /* Arohata */

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

== Arohata ==

Level 5 Variant Human Monk, Way of the Astral Self. About 5'3", 120 lbs; shrimpy but wiry. Maybe 40? He's got grey in his hair but his face is linelessly smooth. Characteristic Delisse complexion. Hair and beard are shaven when he remembers to do so, but he often neglects it, so he usually has some scruff. "Astral Self" has no obvious visual characteristics, but conveys a cognitive or emotive impression of strength or influence beyond his unremarkable physique.

----

Str 8 (-1)

Dex 16 (+3) [+1 from Variant Human, already counted]

Con 14 (+2) [+1 campaign bonus point, already counted]

Int 12 (+1)

Wis 18 (+4) [+1 from VH, +1 from Skill Expertise, +2 at level 4, already counted]

Cha 10 (0)

----

AL: NG

HP: 48

AC: 17

Prof bonus: +3

----

Attacks: Barehanded or staff +6/1d6+3; Empowered +7/1d6+4

Proficiencies:

--Armor: None.

--Save: Str, Dex.

--Skill: Acrobatics (+6), Athletics (+2/+7), Insight (+7), Nature (+4), Perception (+10), Stealth (+6), Survival (+7).

--Tool: Cook's utensils, land vehicles, musical instrument (samisen/cigar-box guitar).

--Weapon: Simple weapons, shortswords.

Feats: Skill Expertise: Perception; Tough.

----

Background: Folk Hero/Outsider/Hermit hybrid

--Defining event: I stood up to a tyrant's agents.

--Personality trait: If someone is in trouble, I'm always ready to lend help.

--Ideal: Respect. People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

--Bond: I'm still seeking the enlightenment I pursued in my seclusion, and it still eludes me.

--Flaw: I have a weakness for the vices of the city, especially strong drink.

--Feature: Rustic Hospitality. Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

----

Equipment: Necklace of Adaptation; Staff of Flowers; Heward's Handy Spice Pouch; 10 darts; cook's utensils; shovel; iron pot; common clothes; musical instrument (cigar-box guitar/dulcimer/samisen hybrid that sounds like a musical saw or theremin and whose hollow body can be used for percussion); explorer's pack (includes backpack, bedroll, mess kit, tinderbox, 10 torches, 10 days of rations, waterskin, 50 feet of hempen rope); pouch with 10 gp.

----

Prose:

Arohata, The Flag Laid Waste -- the name was given to him in a monastery, and it's the only one he uses any more -- is an itinerant philosopher and do-gooder. It didn't start that way; he grew up as just another Delisse swamp farmer. Oh, sure, nobles killed his parents, but it wasn't personal or even unusual; they just died because they were poor and malnourished and they got worked to death. It happened to everybody's parents, really.

The child who would become Arohata wasn't having it; he didn't have it in him to work the paddies, or anything else, day in and day out. The day when he didn't want to hoe his row and a jumped-up squire told him, with the end of a bronze-mailed fist, that he didn't have a choice in the matter, was the day he left that village. Although, admittedly, not without leaving behind a lot of teeth and blood.

He wandered out into the swamp and made his own way with an ease nobody had ever told him was impossible. Or maybe they had told him and he just hadn't listened; hard to say, because he wasn't listening. He needed food and he figured out foraging and cooking; he needed entertainment and he figured out music. Sometimes he needed to defend himself, and he figured out how to punch things. The latter part got a lot easier when he found his first martial monastery; he proved to be adept at the fighting techniques he was taught, but he was never able to sit comfortably with the philosophical teachings. He left that monastery, thinking that maybe the answers were outside after all.

Arohata made his way for years acting as an itinerant tavern cook and musician, or just living off the land. He'd get bored of the wilderness and head to the city, where he'd drink his profits every night; he'd get into a fight with the wrong people or just start missing trees, and he'd head back to the country. He'd take up with a new monastery, advance through the ranks, and leave or get kicked out, the calls of the world and the spirit alternating in their urgency for him. Along the way, several chief abbots recognized his gifts, or possibly thought that he was so deficient he needed magical guidance; he was given a necklace of prayer beads that once belonged to an ascetic whose tapasya was so pure, she had learned to exist without breathing, and a staff formerly used by a holy fool whose gift of manifesting celestial flowers brought joy to all he encountered. On the road, he fried his last couple of eggs for an old witch, who gave him a magical spice bag in return. "Needs more pepper, boy," she said.

Along the way he realized that he just hated it when people with power lorded it over people without; he became an admirer of Carran, who had the revelation that the gods had '''all''' of the power. (More than one abbot has told him that Carran wasn't this antagonistic toward the gods, but Arohata has always been very committed to making his own mistakes.) He was never a "rob from the rich" kind of guy, because that demanded a little too much advance planning, but he was definitely a "punch the city guardsman shaking down the kids from the poor section of town" kind of guy. Word spread, and pretty soon Arohata's face was known to the downtrodden, even as the local gendarmerie never really seemed to get a good description from witnesses.

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

The Sheltered Hand: Character 5

2022-08-31T12:33:25Z

CKirby: /* Arohata */

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

== Arohata ==

Level 5 Variant Human Monk, Way of the Astral Self. About 5'3", 120 lbs; shrimpy but wiry. Maybe 40? He's got grey in his hair but his face is linelessly smooth. Characteristic Delisse complexion. Hair and beard are shaven when he remembers to do so, but he often neglects it, so he usually has some scruff.

----

Str 8 (-1)

Dex 16 (+3) [+1 from Variant Human, already counted]

Con 14 (+2) [+1 campaign bonus point, already counted]

Int 12 (+1)

Wis 18 (+4) [+1 from VH, +1 from Skill Expertise, +2 at level 4, already counted]

Cha 10 (0)

----

AL: NG

HP: 48

AC: 17

Prof bonus: +3

----

Attacks: Barehanded or staff +6/1d6+3; Empowered +7/1d6+4

Proficiencies:

--Armor: None.

--Save: Str, Dex.

--Skill: Acrobatics (+6), Athletics (+2/+7), Insight (+7), Nature (+4), Perception (+10), Stealth (+6), Survival (+7).

--Tool: Cook's utensils, land vehicles, musical instrument (samisen/cigar-box guitar).

--Weapon: Simple weapons, shortswords.

Feats: Skill Expertise: Perception; Tough.

----

Background: Folk Hero/Outsider/Hermit hybrid

--Defining event: I stood up to a tyrant's agents.

--Personality trait: If someone is in trouble, I'm always ready to lend help.

--Ideal: Respect. People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

--Bond: I'm still seeking the enlightenment I pursued in my seclusion, and it still eludes me.

--Flaw: I have a weakness for the vices of the city, especially strong drink.

--Feature: Rustic Hospitality. Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

----

Equipment: Necklace of Adaptation; Staff of Flowers; Heward's Handy Spice Pouch; 10 darts; cook's utensils; shovel; iron pot; common clothes; musical instrument (cigar-box guitar/dulcimer/samisen hybrid that sounds like a musical saw or theremin and whose hollow body can be used for percussion); explorer's pack (includes backpack, bedroll, mess kit, tinderbox, 10 torches, 10 days of rations, waterskin, 50 feet of hempen rope); pouch with 10 gp.

----

Notes:
I went Astral Self because it simplifies tactics, and I am a combat simpleton. But I hate the sfx! If allowed, I'd like to just reskin this as mystical techniques that don't have any particular visual appearance. If obviousness of abilities seems like a game-balance concern, I propose that Arohata's "astral self" doesn't LOOK like anything, but it BETRAYS ITS NATURE to any observer in the same way that beings in dreams can possess an obvious nature despite looking like something else -- you dream of a dog, but it's really the brother you never had. Arohata's "astral self" would then manifest as his suddenly just obviously being strong, despite looking quite weedy, when he activates his Arms of the Astral Self; as being heroic or intimidating, when he manifests his Visage; and so on.

Could I have the Unbreakable minor effect on my Staff of Flowers? It's supposed to be a holy artifact, but really, this is just me expressing a player preference to not lose fancy dinguses.

Also, I didn't take any extra equipment; with GM permission, and assuming that it's not important to the game that we have monetary resources, I assume Arohata just gave all his accumulated gold away to peasant families.

----

Prose:

Arohata, The Flag Laid Waste -- the name was given to him in a monastery, and it's the only one he uses any more -- is an itinerant philosopher and do-gooder. It didn't start that way; he grew up as just another Delisse swamp farmer. Oh, sure, nobles killed his parents, but it wasn't personal or even unusual; they just died because they were poor and malnourished and they got worked to death. It happened to everybody's parents, really.

The child who would become Arohata wasn't having it; he didn't have it in him to work the paddies, or anything else, day in and day out. The day when he didn't want to hoe his row and a jumped-up squire told him, with the end of a bronze-mailed fist, that he didn't have a choice in the matter, was the day he left that village. Although, admittedly, not without leaving behind a lot of teeth and blood.

He wandered out into the swamp and made his own way with an ease nobody had ever told him was impossible. Or maybe they had told him and he just hadn't listened; hard to say, because he wasn't listening. He needed food and he figured out foraging and cooking; he needed entertainment and he figured out music. Sometimes he needed to defend himself, and he figured out how to punch things. The latter part got a lot easier when he found his first martial monastery; he proved to be adept at the fighting techniques he was taught, but he was never able to sit comfortably with the philosophical teachings. He left that monastery, thinking that maybe the answers were outside after all.

Arohata made his way for years acting as an itinerant tavern cook and musician, or just living off the land. He'd get bored of the wilderness and head to the city, where he'd drink his profits every night; he'd get into a fight with the wrong people or just start missing trees, and he'd head back to the country. He'd take up with a new monastery, advance through the ranks, and leave or get kicked out, the calls of the world and the spirit alternating in their urgency for him. Along the way, several chief abbots recognized his gifts, or possibly thought that he was so deficient he needed magical guidance; he was given a necklace of prayer beads that once belonged to an ascetic whose tapasya was so pure, she had learned to exist without breathing, and a staff formerly used by a holy fool whose gift of manifesting celestial flowers brought joy to all he encountered. On the road, he fried his last couple of eggs for an old witch, who gave him a magical spice bag in return. "Needs more pepper, boy," she said.

Along the way he realized that he just hated it when people with power lorded it over people without; he became an admirer of Carran, who had the revelation that the gods had all of the power. (More than one abbot has told him that Carran wasn't quite so antagonistic toward the gods, but Arohata has always been very committed to making his own mistakes.) He was never a "rob from the rich" kind of guy, because that demanded a little too much advance planning, but he was definitely a "punch the city guardsman shaking down the kids from the poor section of town" kind of guy. Word spread, and pretty soon Arohata's face was known to the downtrodden, even as the local gendarmerie never really seemed to get a good description from witnesses.

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

The Sheltered Hand: Character 5

2022-08-31T12:30:37Z

CKirby: /* Arohata */

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

== Arohata ==

Level 5 Variant Human Monk, Way of the Astral Self. About 5'3", 120 lbs; shrimpy but wiry. Maybe 40? He's got grey in his hair but his face is linelessly smooth. Characteristic Delisse complexion. Hair and beard are shaven when he remembers to do so, but he often neglects it, so he usually has some scruff. "Astral Self" has no obvious visual characteristics, but conveys a cognitive or emotive impression of strength or influence beyond his unremarkable physique.

----

Str 8 (-1)

Dex 16 (+3) [+1 from Variant Human, already counted]

Con 14 (+2) [+1 campaign bonus point, already counted]

Int 12 (+1)

Wis 18 (+4) [+1 from VH, +1 from Skill Expertise, +2 at level 4, already counted]

Cha 10 (0)

----

AL: NG

HP: 48

AC: 17

Prof bonus: +3

----

Attacks: Barehanded or staff +6/1d6+3; Empowered +7/1d6+4

Proficiencies:

--Armor: None.

--Save: Str, Dex.

--Skill: Acrobatics (+6), Athletics (+2/+7), Insight (+7), Nature (+4), Perception (+10), Stealth (+6), Survival (+7).

--Tool: Cook's utensils, land vehicles, musical instrument (samisen/cigar-box guitar).

--Weapon: Simple weapons, shortswords.

Feats: Skill Expertise: Perception; Tough.

----

Background: Folk Hero/Outsider/Hermit hybrid

--Defining event: I stood up to a tyrant's agents.

--Personality trait: If someone is in trouble, I'm always ready to lend help.

--Ideal: Respect. People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

--Bond: I'm still seeking the enlightenment I pursued in my seclusion, and it still eludes me.

--Flaw: I have a weakness for the vices of the city, especially strong drink.

--Feature: Rustic Hospitality. Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

----

Equipment: Necklace of Adaptation; Staff of Flowers; Heward's Handy Spice Pouch; 10 darts; cook's utensils; shovel; iron pot; common clothes; musical instrument (cigar-box guitar/dulcimer/samisen hybrid that sounds like a musical saw or theremin and whose hollow body can be used for percussion); explorer's pack (includes backpack, bedroll, mess kit, tinderbox, 10 torches, 10 days of rations, waterskin, 50 feet of hempen rope); pouch with 10 gp.

----

Prose:

Arohata, The Flag Laid Waste -- the name was given to him in a monastery, and it's the only one he uses any more -- is an itinerant philosopher and do-gooder. It didn't start that way; he grew up as just another Delisse swamp farmer. Oh, sure, nobles killed his parents, but it wasn't a Batman thing; they just died because they were poor and malnourished and they got worked to death. It happened to everybody's parents, really.

The child who would become Arohata wasn't having it; he didn't have it in him to work the paddies, or anything else, day in and day out. The day when he didn't want to hoe his row and a jumped-up squire told him, with the end of a mailed fist, that he didn't have a choice in the matter, was the day he left that village. Although, admittedly, not without leaving behind a lot of teeth and blood.

He wandered out into the swamp and made his own way with a kind of Taoist ease nobody had ever told him was impossible. Or maybe they had told him and he just hadn't listened; hard to say, because he wasn't listening. He needed food and he figured out foraging and cooking; he needed entertainment and he figured out music. Sometimes he needed to defend himself, and he figured out how to punch things. The latter part got a lot easier when he found his first martial monastery; he proved to be adept at the fighting techniques he was taught, but he was never able to sit comfortably with the philosophical teachings. He left that monastery, thinking that maybe the answers were outside after all.

Arohata made his way for years acting as an itinerant tavern cook and musician, or just living off the land. He'd get bored of the wilderness and head to the city, where he'd drink his profits every night; he'd get into a fight with the wrong people or just start missing trees, and he'd head back to the country. He'd take up with a new monastery, advance through the ranks, and leave or get kicked out, the calls of the world and the spirit alternating in their urgency for him. Along the way, several chief abbots recognized his gifts, or possibly thought that he was so deficient he needed magical guidance; he was given a necklace of prayer beads that once belonged to an ascetic whose tapasya was so pure, she had learned to exist without breathing, and a staff formerly used by a holy fool whose gift of manifesting celestial flowers brought joy to all he encountered. On the road, he fried his last couple of eggs for an old witch, who gave him a magical spice bag in return. "Needs more pepper, boy," she said.

Along the way he realized that he just hated it when people with power lorded it over people without; he became an admirer of Carran, who had the revelation that the gods had all of the power. He was never a "rob from the rich" kind of guy, because that demanded a little too much advance planning, but he was definitely a "punch the city guardsman shaking down the kids from the poor section of town" kind of guy. Word spread, and pretty soon Arohata's face was known to the downtrodden, even as the local gendarmerie never really seemed to get a good description from witnesses.

These days, he wanders the Sheltered Hand, playing his crazy homemade samisen, making peasant food assembled from nothing taste uncannily delicious, punching the occasional wandering monster, like kobolds or priests. He's about ripe for a change, though; maybe he needs some more adventure in his life.

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

The Sheltered Hand: Character 5

2022-08-31T12:27:48Z

CKirby:

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

== Arohata ==

Level 5 Variant Human Monk, Way of the Astral Self. About 5'3", 120 lbs; shrimpy but wiry. Maybe 40? He's got grey in his hair but his face is linelessly smooth. Characteristic Delisse complexion. Hair and beard are shaven when he remembers to do so, but he often neglects it, so he usually has some scruff.

----

Str 8 (-1)

Dex 16 (+3) [+1 from Variant Human, already counted]

Con 14 (+2) [+1 campaign bonus point, already counted]

Int 12 (+1)

Wis 18 (+4) [+1 from VH, +1 from Skill Expertise, +2 at level 4, already counted]

Cha 10 (0)

----

AL: NG

HP: 48

AC: 17

Prof bonus: +3

----

Attacks: Barehanded or staff +6/1d6+3; Empowered +7/1d6+4

Proficiencies:

--Armor: None.

--Save: Str, Dex.

--Skill: Acrobatics (+6), Athletics (+2/+7), Insight (+7), Nature (+4), Perception (+10), Stealth (+6), Survival (+7).

--Tool: Cook's utensils, land vehicles, musical instrument (samisen/cigar-box guitar).

--Weapon: Simple weapons, shortswords.

Feats: Skill Expertise: Perception; Tough.

----

Background: Folk Hero/Outsider/Hermit hybrid

--Defining event: I stood up to a tyrant's agents.

--Personality trait: If someone is in trouble, I'm always ready to lend help.

--Ideal: Respect. People deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.

--Bond: I'm still seeking the enlightenment I pursued in my seclusion, and it still eludes me.

--Flaw: I have a weakness for the vices of the city, especially strong drink.

--Feature: Rustic Hospitality. Since you come from the ranks of the common folk, you fit in among them with ease. You can find a place to hide, rest, or recuperate among other commoners, unless you have shown yourself to be a danger to them. They will shield you from the law or anyone else searching for you, though they will not risk their lives for you.

----

Equipment: Necklace of Adaptation; Staff of Flowers; Heward's Handy Spice Pouch; 10 darts; cook's utensils; shovel; iron pot; common clothes; musical instrument (cigar-box guitar/dulcimer/samisen hybrid that sounds like a musical saw or theremin and whose hollow body can be used for percussion); explorer's pack (includes backpack, bedroll, mess kit, tinderbox, 10 torches, 10 days of rations, waterskin, 50 feet of hempen rope); pouch with 10 gp.

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Notes:
I went Astral Self because it simplifies tactics, and I am a combat simpleton. But I hate the sfx! If allowed, I'd like to just reskin this as mystical techniques that don't have any particular visual appearance. If obviousness of abilities seems like a game-balance concern, I propose that Arohata's "astral self" doesn't LOOK like anything, but it BETRAYS ITS NATURE to any observer in the same way that beings in dreams can possess an obvious nature despite looking like something else -- you dream of a dog, but it's really the brother you never had. Arohata's "astral self" would then manifest as his suddenly just obviously being strong, despite looking quite weedy, when he activates his Arms of the Astral Self; as being heroic or intimidating, when he manifests his Visage; and so on.

Could I have the Unbreakable minor effect on my Staff of Flowers? It's supposed to be a holy artifact, but really, this is just me expressing a player preference to not lose fancy dinguses.

Also, I didn't take any extra equipment; with GM permission, and assuming that it's not important to the game that we have monetary resources, I assume Arohata just gave all his accumulated gold away to peasant families.

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Prose:

Arohata, The Flag Laid Waste -- the name was given to him in a monastery, and it's the only one he uses any more -- is an itinerant philosopher and do-gooder. It didn't start that way; he grew up as just another Delisse swamp farmer. Oh, sure, nobles killed his parents, but it wasn't personal or even unusual; they just died because they were poor and malnourished and they got worked to death. It happened to everybody's parents, really.

The child who would become Arohata wasn't having it; he didn't have it in him to work the paddies, or anything else, day in and day out. The day when he didn't want to hoe his row and a jumped-up squire told him, with the end of a bronze-mailed fist, that he didn't have a choice in the matter, was the day he left that village. Although, admittedly, not without leaving behind a lot of teeth and blood.

He wandered out into the swamp and made his own way with an ease nobody had ever told him was impossible. Or maybe they had told him and he just hadn't listened; hard to say, because he wasn't listening. He needed food and he figured out foraging and cooking; he needed entertainment and he figured out music. Sometimes he needed to defend himself, and he figured out how to punch things. The latter part got a lot easier when he found his first martial monastery; he proved to be adept at the fighting techniques he was taught, but he was never able to sit comfortably with the philosophical teachings. He left that monastery, thinking that maybe the answers were outside after all.

Arohata made his way for years acting as an itinerant tavern cook and musician, or just living off the land. He'd get bored of the wilderness and head to the city, where he'd drink his profits every night; he'd get into a fight with the wrong people or just start missing trees, and he'd head back to the country. He'd take up with a new monastery, advance through the ranks, and leave or get kicked out, the calls of the world and the spirit alternating in their urgency for him. Along the way, several chief abbots recognized his gifts, or possibly thought that he was so deficient he needed magical guidance; he was given a necklace of prayer beads that once belonged to an ascetic whose tapasya was so pure, she had learned to exist without breathing, and a staff formerly used by a holy fool whose gift of manifesting celestial flowers brought joy to all he encountered. On the road, he fried his last couple of eggs for an old witch, who gave him a magical spice bag in return. "Needs more pepper, boy," she said.

Along the way he realized that he just hated it when people with power lorded it over people without; he became an admirer of Carran, who had the revelation that the gods had '''all''' the power. (Sure, abbots told him Carran himself didn't think this. Arohata's always been deeply committed to learning from his own mistakes.) He was never a "rob from the rich" kind of guy, because that demanded a little too much advance planning, but he was definitely a "punch the city guardsman shaking down the kids from the poor section of town" kind of guy. Word spread, and pretty soon Arohata's face was known to the downtrodden, even as the local gendarmerie never really seemed to get a good description from witnesses.

[[The_Sheltered_Hand|Back to Main Page]]

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2022-08-28T18:23:03Z

CKirby: