To say Arilith went to the school of hard knocks would be the understatement to end all understatements. Her mother, violated by a demon nine months earlier, abandoned her mere minutes after birth, naked and crying on the cobblestones of an alleyway in a pool of uterine fluid.
Looking back on it, Arilith figured it wasn't too bad a start in life. From there, the only way to go was up.
A good samaritan followed the sound of crying and picked the newborn baby up. Arilith was left at a temple in the city, where the monks and nuns raised her, always with barely-concealed distaste at her demonic heritage. Other orphans lived in the temple, too, but Arilith was always treated more harshly than them – with her fiendish taint so visible, the monks considered it their duty to straighten her out and make sure she didn't follow her blood, doling out tougher punishments and harsher penalties for rule-breaking and misbehaviour. Of no great surprise to experience parents, it didn't work, and Arilith ran away from the temple at thirteen.
Her life from there on out was a litany of pain and struggle. Forced to beat, lie, cheat and steal for her bread, she become harsh and hard as iron. Eventually she found employment as a thug and strongman for local criminals, years later legitimising into a caravan guard. With combat experience under her belt, she joined a mercenary company for a few years, taking part in two separate campaigns when her host was hired by the sitting duke. After interpersonal conflicts made life with the company impossible, she struck out on her own, renting her services as a guard, mercenary and sellsword.
Arilith [150]
ST: 12 HP: 12 Speed: 6.0
DX: 11 Will: 10 Move: 6
IQ: 10 Per: 10
HT: 11 FP: 11 SM: +0
Dodge: 10 Parry: 10 DR: 2
Kick (11): 1d+1 cr, Reach C, 1
Punch (13): 1d-1 cr, Reach C
Shield (13): Block-12; shield bash is 1d-1 cr, Reach 1
Shield (13): Block-12; shield bash is 1d-1 cr, Reach 1
Spear (13): 1d+1 imp (one-handed) or 1d+2 imp (two-handed), Reach 1, 2*
Thrusting Broadsword (13): 1d+3 cut or 1d+1 imp, Reach 1
Traits: Antiromantic (see Notes); Appearance (Attractive); Bad Temper (12); Combat Reflexes; Decisive; Fit; Impatient; Selfish (12); Social Stigma (Minority Group, Demon-Touched); Street-Smart 2; Suspicious; Uncongenial; Unfazeable; Unnatural Features 2 (Red Eyes, Horns)Skills: Area Knowledge (Home City)-11; Area Knowledge (Home Duchy)-10; Bow-11; Brawling-13; Broadsword-13; Carousing-11; Current Affairs (Conflicts)-10; First Aid-10; Forced Entry-11; Hiking-11; Holdout-10; Intimidation-11; Knife-12; Merchant-11; Observation-11; Pickpocket-10; Polearm-12; Savoir-Fair (Criminal Organisations)-11; Scrounging-14; Shadowing-10; Shield (Shield)-13; Soldier-11; Spear-12; Stealth-11; Streetwise-13; Survival (Plains)-9; Survival (Woodlands)-9; Urban Survival-13
Notes: DR is medium hardened leather, covering the torso. Antiromantic is a quirk-level Delusion: You believe that attempts at seduction, courting or romance are all schemes to exploit or humiliate you, and react at -2 to all attempts, even if genuine.
Arilith is a demon-touched warrior, mercenary, thug and sellsword. She is highly-skilled in fighting, especially fighting dirty, and doesn't believe in concepts such as "honour", "sportsmanship" or "honesty". She's a pragmatist, pure and simple – do whatever it takes to survive. If that means lying and stealing, or fighting and killing, it makes no difference.
In person Arilith is abrasive, hostile, quick to anger, doesn't respect authority and always suspects people are out to get her. She sees the worst in everyone. When someone is pleasant because that's how they are, or if someone goes out of their way to be nice to her, she becomes convinced they're trying to exploit her and treats them even worse. Mercenaries in the company shortened this unflattering description of her to "bitch", though only when Arilith was out of earshot.
Arilith is designed with a PC-scale point total because she has the power level, experience and outlook that many PCs in fantasy RPGs have – she could be a PC, even if she's not. She fits from late TL2 to early TL5 with minimal modification – later-TL settings may add guns as important battlefield weapons; give her Guns (Pistol) or Guns (Musket), depending on personal taste. Though it may seem random at first, Arilith's high Spear and Polearm skills represent her training in fighting in formation: most Medieval armies used polearms and spears extensively.
Click here for a GCS file compatible with GURPS Character Sheet. It will look like text; just click the download icon and you should be able to load it in GCS without issue.
Arilith as a Non-Player Character
Arilith could serve a number of roles as an NPC. She could be an Ally, fighting alongside a PC for money or a share of loot. She might be a Contact, useful as an ear to both the local criminal underground as well as the the rumblings of war, as part of a mercenary's job is to keep track of potentially-profitable conflicts. Arilith would also work well as an antagonist. She might be a thug hired by the local Thieves' Guild to beat the players, a lieutenant of an evil duke or noble, or any other antagonist with funds to spend on killing the players.
While Arilith is a mercenary, she is also mercenary. This is probably the most important aspect of her character when played as NPC – she is motivated exclusively by money. Some extensive character development may change this. Finding out what it takes to soften the heart of a grizzled and beaten mercenary might make an interesting storyline, though will be out of place in slaying-and-looting campaigns, where Arilith is best played straight as a henchman or antagonist.
Arilith as a Player Character
Arilith works exceptionally well as a player character with minimal tweaking. If your campaign is about wandering murderhobos, Arilith is violent, slightly psychotic and refuses to settle down, so she fits like a glove. If your campaign is about more-developed characters, she has a classic fundamental conflict – the need to belong and feel wanted, clashing against the manifold experiences of people seeing only her horns and her heritage and fearing and hating her for it – that provides excellent material for character development.
As-is, Arilith is a "gritty" fantasy character. If you want to make her into a Dungeon Fantasy adventurer, she needs another 100 points. She's essentially a warrior with a smattering of rogue/criminal skill, so choose whatever upgrades are relevant for those two templates: extra levels of ST and DX are the most obvious, followed by a point or two of IQ to boost up all the IQ-based skills. Past that, next priorities are higher weapon skills and some expensive advantages that wouldn't be appropriate for lower-power games.
Excellent character!
ReplyDeleteI like her!