Evil Bard

This is a character I thought would be fun to play entirely from a role-playing perspective. Essentially, he is a chameleon character designed for a standard, good aligned campaign. He blends himself into a party of good adventurers, perhaps even appearing to be among the best of them, all the while serving only himself through the most subtle means. The basic idea is to roleplay a willfully evil character, but trick the rest of the party into thinking you are one of them. After all, you're a bard, so it makes sense to ingratiate yourself into a strong group. The challenge is to behave in a completely self-serving way, while on the surface still appearing to be a character with a good alignment.

Note: this character makes use of some of the supplemental feats, spells and equipment from Song and Silence, the handbook on bards & rogues.

Roscoe Silead

Neutral Evil Human Bard

Strength: 11 +0

Dexterity: 13 +1

Constitution: 10 +0

Intelligence: 13 +2

Wisdom: 9 -1

Charisma: 16 +3

Feats: Disguise Spell (Song & Silence; disguise spellcasting as part of performance)

Trustworthy (Song & Silence; bonus to diplomacy & gather info)

Skills:

Appraise: 4

Bluff: 6

Diplomacy: 4

Gather Information: 4

Knowledge (local): 3

Listen: 3

Perform (Stringed Instrument): 12

Sense Motive: 4

Tumble: 2

Equipment:

Rapier -20 gp

10 Darts -5 gp

Studded Leather Armour -25 gp

Common Lyre -5 gp

Small Steel Shield -9 gp

Spell Component Pouch -5 gp

Traveler's outfit -

31 gp left.

Spells:

0 level- Easy Math (Song and Silence)

Ghost Sound

Presdigitation

Read Magic

Roscoe Silead is a son of a bitch. A younger child of minor nobility, Roscoe learned from an early age how to get what he wanted through social leverage and charm, appearing to be a friend to everyone, taking from his supposed friends while giving nothing of himself, and generally existing as a spoiled, self-serving sponge. His life was thrown into turmoil during a minor civil war in his home state, resulting in a shuffling of the noble houses' positions in the power structure. The Sileads were unlucky enough to be on the losing side of this war, and as a fairly minor house lacked the power base to keep their heads attached to their necks in the war's aftermath. Roscoe's silver tongue saved him during this time, and he was able to convince the parliament of the victors that he was essentially out of the loop of his family's actions in the war and played no role in their participation in the war. As a largely well-liked court figure in the time before the war and effective non-participant during, Roscoe was able to talk down his execution into banishment, keeping his head on the promise that he never show it in his home country again.

Thrust out into the world with nothing but the shirt on his back, Roscoe found that things harder going than he was used to in court. Spending his time in idle pursuits in court, he found his skills ill-suited to life on the road, and the world somewhat at odds with his opinion that it owed him a living. Fortunately, in his life of leisure Roscoe was something of a musician, and found that he could play for his income on the road. Morever, music gave him an "in" with people that he could exploit, and a way to somewhat rebuild his old life of leisure and idleness. Soon he developed a pattern; sing his way into whatever local court held power, ingratiate himself with the power brokers and see who was in and out of favour, and work whatever angle he could find, usually by fleecing some unfortunate out of some valuable or other and finding a way to pin it on someone or other in bad graces, someone everyone else seemed to want to blame anyways. Come to a choice of believing a misdeed was committed by an unpopular outcast or the charming, friendly bard, Roscoe felt confident in siding with human nature. Around this time, Roscoe began experimenting with spellcraft as another way of augmenting his fleecing.

Unfortunately, Roscoe's luck eventually failed him. To this day, he doesn't know what exactly happened; maybe the fall guy proved not to be so unpopular after all, maybe someone noticed their missing ring on Roscoe's finger, or maybe some noble's daughter announced her upcoming nuptials before he could leave town, but for whatever reason, Roscoe found himself fleeing for his life from some very displeased locals. Now, more than anything, Roscoe needs protection, and what better way than by joining up with a party of adventurers? For now, the life of a party bard is the life for Roscoe, and if any angles come up during the course of his travels, he's in the perfect position to exploit them. After all, if anything goes wrong, there's not many people who are liable to challenge a man backed by three to five heavily armed mercenaries.

Half-Orc Cleric

As an inaugural post, here's a character I thought would be fun to roleplay from a fairly embattled perspective; someone who wants nothing but to do good, but who's very existence is in some way offensive to the people he wants to protect. If you want to take this character for a campaign, customization is always welcome (really, it's not as though I can stop you), but I will point out that I think the god I chose is a pretty good choice for a character with the backstory given. As for the equipment, I just bought the basics. Part of the fun of designing characters and not using them is not having to deal with that tedious tent, rations and flint & steel shit.

Derek Granshksson

Male Half-Orc Cleric of Heiroeous (Domains: Good, War)

Lawful Good

Strength: 16 +3

Dexterity: 10 +0

Constitution: 13 +2

Intelligence: 9 -1

Wisdom: 17 +3

Charisma: 9 -1

Derek was born unwanted in the human border village of Leshe, where he was raised. Fathered on an unwilling mother by a neighboring orc raider named Granshk during one of the borderlands' frequent territorial conflicts, the young maiden's fragile constitution proved unfairly taxed by the burden of her child, and she died shortly after her son came to term. Despite protest from some in the village, however, his mother, Helga Freestrom, determined before she died that her son be given the right to be raised in her village as one of her community. Upon her death, wardenship of the son, named Derek Freestrom after his great-grandfather, passed to the girl's parents.

Her parents had a troubled relationship with their charge, half the time seeing in his actions the echoes of the daughter they had lost, and the other half those of the monster that had raped and, ultimately, killed her. In this they were kinder than most, though, as the rest of the village had no trouble in linking the offspring solely as the spawn of their ancient blood enemies, even tarring the youth with the name "Granshksson" in place of his given name Freestrom.

It would be hard to expect any youth not to take such scorn to heart, and Derek felt the sting of ostracization harder than most, feeling both the scorn of being a blood enemy of the people and the sorrow of living as a constant reminder of his grandparents' lost daughter. Derek felt a shame in his very life, and a deepseated need to give back to the community he felt his existence so greatly wronged.

In that spirit, Derek full committed himself to Heironeous, God of Valour and symbol of everything he feels that his own existence offends. Where Derek sees in his heart that he is a product of lust and villainy run amok in war, he dedicates himself to nobility and valour in just combat, fighting to push back the orcs who press against his community, proving himself their better in his piety and honour in the face of their baser instincts. A lifetime of shunning has taught him well the lessons in human nature needed of a devoted cleric, and with these and the native strength born of his hated blood, he is determined to defend his people from the aggressors who beset them and, in the name of his mother, win over their distrust.

Feats: Weapon focus: Longsword

Toughness

Skills: Concentration: II

Spellcraft: I

Knowledge: Religion: I

Equipment

Longsword -15gp

Scale mail -50gp

Large Steel Shield -20 gp

3 Javelins -3 gp

Wooden Holy Symbol -1 gp

Cleric's Vestments -

51 gp Left.