Caralaria

Art by shinsokuken

Personality

Though trying hard to follow the path of the monk, Caralaria is often frustrated by those around her and prone to petulant temper tantrums and violent rages. She is also eager to do well.

Appearance

While living in the wilderness as a girl, she ran into some form of chaos magic, which altered her appearance, giving her violet eyes and long pink hair. She dresses in the robes typical of her monastery, which seems to constantly adjust themselves to inadvertently show off her cleavage.

History

Born in a barbarian tribe, she fought as a warrior even when very young. Her whole family and most of her clan was wiped out in a raid, and she was severely wounded and left for dead. She was found by a traveling monk, who took her back to the monastery. Once healed, she decided to become a monk herself, in order to quell her violent rages.

Affiliations

Part of a monastic order called the Path of Iron, Caralaria and the other monks look to iron and other metals for inspiration, trying to emulate its attributes in their fighting style. The order reveres The Iron God, and contains a number of blacksmiths and other metal workers.

Caralaria is a guildsman in the Delver's Guild, giving her access to guild information, library, maproom and waystations. She also gains a 10% discount at Ebbert's Outfitters.

Associations

Some of the people Caralaria knows are:

• Rentata Lug, female stonelost dwarf, cleric of the Iron God. Lives in Crispin Street in the Longbottom section of Midtown. On of the priests at the Foundry in the the Guildsman District. She found Caralaria when she had been left for dead, and brought here to the monastery.
• Brother Traeis Qin, male human, monk of the Path of Iron. Lives in the Iron Monastery, where he is one of the more advanced (and strict) teachers. He is continually disappointed in Caralaria's attitude and lack of focus, but is dedicated to her training.
• Myraeth Tuneweaver, a male shoal elf runs Myraeth's Oddities Delver Square, the place to buy and sell second hand magic items in Ptolus (although not weapons and armor, nor any newly created items). He is extremely popular with adventurers and knows most of them by name. His inventory changes constantly.

Future Advancement

Some possibilities for future advancement. This is not an exhaustive list.

Since she cannot advance in Barbarian any longer, chances are her next level will go to Monk. Monk 3 provides: +1 BAB, Still Mind (+2 on saves vs. enchantment), +10 ft to speed when unarmored, +1d8 hp, +7 skill points.

As monks have a hard time multi-classing, few prestige classes are open to Caralaria.

All characters gain a feat every three levels. Since her next level will make her total character level (CL) 6, she gets a new feat of her choice. Her next such feat will come at CL 9. Some of the feats you have the prerequisites for are (there are, of course, others):

• Caralaria currently has Combat Expertise. This is a disciplined, defensive combat technique that, in hindsight, might not fit her character. Les would allow her to swap this feat for something else, if desired.
• Retroactively applying the "alternate class features" from Complete Mage, Les would allow Caralaria to swap the barbarian feature Trap Sense for Spell Sense, if desired. This gives a +1 AC bonus to spells and spell-like effects.
• Retroactively applying the "alternate class features" from Complete Mage, Les would allow Caralaria to swap the Evasion ability she gained as a second level monk with Spell Reflection, if desired. With this ability, any spell aimed at you that misses is sent back at the caster (who rerolls to hit herself).
• Power Attack: Subtract x from an attack roll to deal an additional x damage, where x cannot exceed your base attack bonus. Using this feat with a two-handed weapon adds twice x as damage.
• Defensive Strike (requires Combat Expertise): The turn after successfully using total defense, gain +4 to hit the person that missed you.
• Fists of Iron: Use one of your Stunning Fist attempts to deal an additional 1d6 damage instead of a stun effect.
• Extra Stunning: Gain three additional uses of Stunning Fist per day.
• Faster Healing: Rest provides more healing.
• Weapon Focus (unarmed): Gain +1 to unarmed attacks
• Pain Touch: On a successful use of Stunning Fist against a creature of Large size or smaller, the target becomes nauseated (can do nothing but take a move action) for 1 round following the round they are stunned.
• Karmic Strike (requires Combat Expertise): On your turn, take a -4 to AC. If someone hits you, you can make an attack of opportunity on them.
• Kiai Shout: Up to 3 times per day, spend a standard action to shout. Those with fewer hit dice than you who hear it make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 your level + Cha mod) or become shaken (-2 to attacks, saves, skill and ability checks) for 1d6 rounds.
• Flying Kick: (Requires Power Attack) When making an unarmed charge attack, deal +1d12 damage.
• Improved Feint (requires Combat Expertise): Make a Bluff check to feint in combat as a move action. (Successful feints prevent targets from using their Dex bonus to AC.) In Caralaria's case, this feat would probably involve using her cleavage in combat.

In spending the skill points gained on her next level, she should probably put some ranks into Tumble, as this was neglected by accident in her creation (this might have been corrected already). Teachers in her monastery have also encouraged her to learn Craft (Blacksmith), Craft (Weaponsmithing) or Craft (Armorsmithing) as a way to become more in tune with the properties of iron. The monastery has tools and facilities for metalworking of all kinds.

Caralaria should probably start carrying a weapon for use against targets resistant to bashing damage. Her barbarian levels let her use a wide selection of weapons (all simple and martial weapons) and her monk levels add a few more (exotic martial arts weapons like nunchaku and kama). Only a small subset of these, however, are usable with her flurry of blows ability. These are: kama, nunchaku, quarterstaff, sai, shuriken and siangham. (See the SRD for stats). You'll note that only the kama, siangham and shuriken are non-bashing weapons. She could go two ways here: either embrace the monk flurry and use one of those three weapons or forgo the flurry and get a barbarian weapon. Being in the city, you should be able to find weapons with minor enchantment for sale. The exotic weapons, however, are less likely to be found in magical versions. Something like a +1 kama would run around 2,300gp. Note that the flurry of blow ability assumes each strike is coming from a different weapon/fist/foot, so you'd need pairs of weapons for a flurry.

Caralaria will now have a bit of wealth. Monks don't particularly care for hording wealth for its own sake, so would encourage spending it to improve others or herself. The monastery does not require donations from monks, but most monks contribute to the running of the monastery when they can, either with cash, food, raw materials, etc. Sacrifices to the Iron God are also appreciated. As for spending it on herself, monks don't need much compared to other classes. In addition to the aforementioned weapons, you might be able to find some useful magic items for sale. Some possibilities:

• Defensive items like rings of protection (+1 2,000gp, +2 8,000gp, +3 18,000gp), bracers of armor (+1 1,000gp, +2 4,000gp, +3 9,000gp) or amulets of natural armor (same as ring). You already have on ring of protection +1.
• A monk's belt (13,000gp) lets you add five to your effective monk level when figuring out your unarmed damage and AC bonus (e.g. an 8th level monk gets a +1 AC and does 1d10 with unarmed attacks). It also gives you an extra use of Stunning Fist per day. This is a fairly rare item to find for sale.
• A pair of gloves of dexterity (+2 4,000gp, +4 16,000gp, +6 36,000 gp)
• Potions or other random magical items

Data

• Character sheet