Sunday 21 June 2015

Devin Panesar - Pathfinder Bard

Been going through my roleplay folder and found the sketchy character sheets I made for Svetlana's friends - Devin, Piotr, Anya and Misha. I made them up as first level player characters because I really enjoy character creation - I find it strangely soothing - rather than to assist my GM, instead allowing him to flesh them out from the background I gave him as he sees fit (he received rather more pages than I shared here!). For a bit of info about the place they grew up, see here and for Svetlana's background, see here. (Update to add links for Anya, Misha and Piotr).

There's been a bit of talk again about how characters get their names: in Devin's case, I liked the name Devin. His surname is borrowed from a schoolfriend with the intention of invoking an image of Golarion-India for his father's family.

Devin Panesar - Chaotic Neutral Human Bard (level 1)
Abilities: Str9, Dex13, Con11, Int17, Wis14, Cha16
Skills: Appraise 1, Bluff 1, Diplomacy 1, Disguise 1, Knowledge (Geography) 1, Linguistics 1, Perception 1, Perform (Sing) 1, Sense Motive 1, Sleight of Hand 1, Spellcraft 1
Feats: Persuasive (bonus to diplomacy and intimidate), Deceitful (bonus to bluff and disguise)
Trait: Charming (+1 bonus to bluff/diplomacy and +1 bonus to DC on language dependent spells against those sexual attracted to him)
Special Abilities: Bardic knowledge, Bardic performance: Countersong, Distraction, Fascinate, Inspire Courage 1
Spells: Level 0 - Canny Effort (+2 bonus insight bonus to next skill check; 1001 Spells), Mage Hand, Message, Open/Close
Level 1 - Charm Person, Innocence (+10 bonus on bluff checks to convince others of your innocence; Advanced Players Guide)
Languages: Common, Elven, Dwarven, Gnomic, Vudrani

Appearance/Personality: Average height and scarwny build, Devin's dark hair, dark eyes and dusky skin mark him out in this village of very pale people. He would like to be described as "moving with a dancer's grace" or "smooth, lithe as a snake" or "flowing like water" or other such comparisons as are given to the master-thieves of mythology, but it isn't true. He moves quickly and fidgets without noticing - although if he's focused on a task, he can stay almost impossibly still, as if his internal energy simply needs grounding.

He laughs easily, as often at another's misfortune as at something the other villagers would deem appropriate. This is not malice and he does not lack empathy but he does, perhaps, feel the world is his to play with.

Background: Devin is unusual in not having been born in the village - his mother Katya had been, but left as soon as she could and her experiences are a novel in themselves (one I'd like to write, one day). After hardship, she joined a travelling merchant family from a southern continent, falling in love with Vivek, marrying him and starting a family on the road. She returned with her husband and eldest children when she heard her brothers had both died and her parents were unwell. Vivek and their daughter Timpani settled happily into the sedentary life, but her second child - Devin - had inherited her restlessness and always seemed out of place. It was possibly their shared wildness that drew him to Svetlana. The two are very close, their Chaotic nature at odds with the Lawful predominance of their home, something Devin struggled against more fiercely than Svetlana because he'd experienced other places.

Devin can sing beautifully and can talk his way out of most situations; Piotr may believe he's the leader of their group, but the others have always watched Devin pull his strings. Whilst he often led the quintet into trouble, his charmed tongue could usually get them out of it again.

It was Devin who taught Svetlana to speak Elven. When they first met, he greeted her in such and was surprised that the young half-elf merely cocked her head in curiosity. He'd arrived a year or so after she met her father, and once he'd taught her the language she trusted him enough to tell him of that meeting - and in doing so was delighted to earn an ally who believed her. He vowed to fiind her father for some arbitrary vengeance, but she didn't believe him and didn't really care; she's believes she's at peace with the situation, but struggled to express that to her hot-headed friend.

His family is much closer and much larger - as well as his elder sister, he has many younger siblings named for friends of his parents from around Golarion, and whilst he never sees his cousins any more, he has many and was close to them before coming to the village.

His first kiss was with Svetlana, although they were both just playing and their attraction has always been more the closeness of siblings.

As well as charming, he is incredibly smart and this accounts for some of his restlessness: there simply isn't enough to fill his interest in the small and sleepy community he grew up in. When Svetlana told him of the call to clear out the Stolen Lands, he filled with excitement and swore he'd be there, already dreaming of his adventures and the way history would speak of him.

His father, quiet and calm, tried to dissuade him gently. It was his mother - his mother who'd run away herself younger than he was - who forbade him to leave. Could he not understand that she was looking out for him? That she knew the dangers and was simply protecting him from the risks she'd been lucky to survive?

No. No, he could not.

He arranged to meet Svetlana at the pub her adventure started in - promised to be there before the coach left. She waited for the second coach (and who knows how that would have gone if she'd left with the first and never met Alexei?), but he still didn't show.

Spinning the game forward, it was not until her wedding anyone would hear from him again: he was working as a guard in the Osirion region. Svetlana received this with mixed feelings: relief that he was ok, disappointment that he wasn't at her wedding and a little jealousy at what he was seeing.

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