I'm definitely going with the druid. Little lady with a big dog, big heart, who suffers no nonsense. This is just the bare bones stats with no description or background yet, and I'm still working on the magic item(s). I'm debating between something personal and specific given to her (healing gloves), a stash of things she found (potions/wands/scrolls), or a generally useful item she either commissioned or was pressed on her (handy haversack). Any opinions by other peoples?
[sblock=Little Druid with a Big Dog]
Ullara Halx
Female human druid 2
Alignment: True Neutral
Homeland: Witchwood region
Deity: Nature
Height: 4' 7''
Weight: 95 lbs
Hair: Golden Blonde
Eyes: Green
Age: 25
Str: 10 (+0) [0 points]
Dex: 12 (+1) [2 points]
Con: 13 (+1) [3 points]
Int: 13 (+1) [3 points]
Wis: 16 (+3) [5 points,+2 racial]
Cha: 14 (+2) [5 points]
Class and Racial Abilities: +2 to one ability score (chose Wisdom), Medium size, 30 ft. movement, bonus feat at 1st level, extra skill rank at 1st level and one additional rank whenever she gains a level. Favored Class: Druid.
Nature bond (animal companion), nature sense, wild empathy +3, divine spells, druidic oaths, woodland stride. Proficient with club, dagger, dart, quarterstaff, scimitar, sickle, short spear, sling, and spear, as well as light and medium armor and shields (though not tower shields), provided they are not metal.
Hit Dice: 2d8+2
HP: 16
AC: 13 (+1 Dex, +2 armor)
Init: +1 (+1 Dex)
Speed: 35 ft.
Saves:
Fortitude +4 [+3 base, +1 Con]
Reflex +1 [+0 base, +1 Dex]
Will +6 [+3 base, +3 Wis]
BAB: +1
CMB: +1
CMD: +2 (+2 vs being tripped, and saves to avoid being tripped)
Melee Atk: +1 (1d8/x3/P, spear)
Melee Atk: +1 (1d6/x2/B, quarterstaff)
Ranged Atk: +2 (1d4/x2/20 ft./P, dart)
Skills:
Handle Animal +7 [2 ranks, +2 Cha, +3 class skill]
Heal +10 [2 ranks, +3 Wis, +3 class skill, +2 Self-Sufficient]
Knowledge (geography) +6 [1 rank, +1 Int, +3 class skill]
Knowledge (nature) +8 [2 ranks, +1 Int, +3 class skill, +2 nature sense]
Perception +9 [1 ranks, +3 Wis, +3 class skill, +2 Alertness]
Profession (herbalist) +8 [2 ranks, +3 Wis, +3 class skill]
Sense Motive +10 [1 rank, +3 Wis, +3 class skill, +2 Alertness, +1 World-Traveler]
Spellcraft +5 [1 rank, +1 Int, +3 class skill]
Survival +12 [2 ranks, +3 Wis, +3 class skill, +2 nature sense, +2 Self-Sufficient]
Feats:
Self-Sufficient [human bonus feat]
Alertness [1st level]
Traits:
World-Traveler (+1 to Sense Motive, and is always class skill)
Sacred Touch (Can stabilize a dying creature as a standard action by touch)
Languages: Common, Druidic, Witchwood dialect
Spells Per Day
Save DC +3
0th – detect magic, detect poison, stabilize, light
1st - cure light wounds, magic fang, speak with animals
Equipment
Backpack
2 daggers
10 darts
Sickle
Agile Alpenstock (+5 foot enhancement bonus to speed, and +2 enhancement bonus to CMD against trips attempts and saving throws to avoid being tripped)
Leather armor
Bedroll
Waterskin
50 ft. rope
Trail rations (10 days’ worth)
Belt pouch
Holly and mistletoe
Traveler’s outfit
Explorer’s outfit
Healer’s kit
Flint and steel
Mug
Fishhook
Herbalists’ tools (mortar and pestle, sample jars, etc.)
Five pounds of soap
Money
10gp
Bran, dog animal companion: Small animal; HD 3d8+3: hp 26; Init +3; Spd 40 ft.; AC 15 (+3 Dex, +2 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 12; Base Atk +2; CMB +2; CMD +5; Atk: bite +5 melee (1d4+1); full Atk: bite +5 melee (1d4+1); Space/Reach 5ft./5ft.; SQ low-light vision, link, share spells, scent; AL N; SV Fort +5, Ref +6, Will +2; Str 13, Dex 17, Con 15, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 6.
Skills and Feats: Perception +3, Stealth +4; Weapon Finesse (bite).
Tricks Known: Attack, Defend, Down, Heel, Come, Guard, Seek
~~~~~
Appearance: Ullara Halx is an exceptionally short woman, not much taller than a youth, with bright golden hair and clear green eyes. With a bit of imagination, one could imagine her in a gown at a party of some nobleman, fluttering a fan and her eyelashes at whatever silk-dressed dandy looked to gather her into his circle. But it does take some imagination, because Ullara is usually found wearing leather armor over tough homespun skirts and leggings, with a practical pocketed vest and hooded cloak over all. A sickle wrapped in leather to protect her from its edge is tied to her belt, and she bears a small quiver of heavy darts at her side. She usually has a well-made staff in one hand, carved with a hint of vines and the serpent of wisdom, symbols of healing. The carving is not terribly good, but it’s recognizable. She bears a well-used backpack, and bunches of herbs dangle from a small portable drying rack she has tied to it. Her hair is usually tightly braided, often with strips of fine dyed leather.
Her companion, a brindle mastiff she calls Bran, comes up nearly to her shoulder. He’s an outsized hulk of a beast, and looks even larger next to Ullara’s tiny frame.
Personality: Ullara is more ready with a smile than a frown, but that only after she’s had a chance to take your measure. She’s quick as assessing a situation, and ready to deliver advice in a gentle or acerbic manner as is needed to get folks on an even keel again. Practical and driven by a need to restore order, she does not suffer fools well, though gets along amazingly with children.
Background: Most folks do not travel far beyond their villages. There is danger in the world, from weather, from brigands, wild beasts, even from the dangers of the magical paths that merchants do trod. Ullara’s kin, in that respect, were different. They sought the fringes between their villages and the woodlands, gleaning healing herbs and growing in knowledge as they traded their lore with others of their kind. Though those in the villages were willing to trade with them for poultices and tonics, they were not always welcome when there was no need. The “wildling Halxes” were considered by some to be half-fey, born of some nature spirit and enjoying their unpredictable favor, because how else could they survive out there, beyond the safety of walls?
Ullara’s father, her mother never spoke of. When she was very young, Ullara had thought surely her father was the forest spirit the villagers claimed, because how else could her mother have known as much as she did. When she grew older, Ullara suspected that she had been fathered by one of the villagers, a man who would never speak up and claim her out of fear or shame or dread of her mother’s wrath. But just before Ullara found herself on her own, she began to wonder if her first suspicion wasn’t true, for her mother had been raven-haired and brown-eyed, and nearly every villager the same. Where, then, had come her sun-hair and moss-eyes? But her mother loved her dearly, and questions of her ancestry seemed rather silly in the grand scheme of things.
Ullara learned from a young age to ignore the suspicions of the insular and let her skill speak for itself. When a girl could track a wounded deer over a league of broken ground, or help break the wound-fever of a man in delirium, the stares of the villagers seemed less hostile when they were tinged with gratitude. Her mother was proud of Ullara’s skill, and the two of them made their rounds of a half-dozen villages together. Despite the villagers’ suspicions, living on the fringes of the woods was indeed hard, and it took all their cunning to keep the two of them alive when winter-thin wolves would stalk them, or stranger things out of the depths would come a-calling.
When Ullara was sixteen, she woke one morning on the forest’s edge to find herself alone, all her mother’s things gone, as if she had just walked away. There was no trail, though her mother had left behind the tome of collected knowledge of the Halxes, a book of devotion to nature and the processes of the natural world. Ullara went to each of the villages on her route, asking after her mother, Jarda Halx. No one had seen her.
Ullara traded hunting skill and her healing gift to a stout and fearless woodcutter named Gresh for houseroom one winter, and he took her in, heedless of her “unnatural” reputation (he was not the sharpest axe on the rack). She used her time to study the book of Halx more thoroughly than she ever had before, and within its pages found not just recipes for healing bruises, but for calling upon the powers of nature itself. When winter was up and she was determined to set out wandering again, much to her surprise Gresh handed her a polished staff that he had crudely carved with healer’s symbols during the long winter.
“Was given me by my granda, who got it from his granda, who said he got it from a tree who talked to him and asked him to spare its life. Granda said the tree said because he’d let it stay, the tree would make it easy for him to go and find another. It’s a traveler’s staff; makes you walk fast and sure.” Gresh thrust it into Ullara’s hands, blushing. “You be knowing more about trees than even me, knowing more than anyone ever did. Seems be like it should belong to you. You be a good egg, no matter what peoples say. I lives on the edges too. I t’ain’t ‘fraid of you.” And he would say no more about it, ducking his head if she tried to ask.
That summer, she walked into the woods. Two years later, she walked out again, still having found no trace of her mother, but having been accepted by the deep power of the earth. Now Ullara sees the power of nature in not just the trees of her forest, but the people and animals of the world around her. She would see them safe in her hands and in her care, those careful stewards of the land. And to those who would despoil it or cause needless death? Well, she also walked out of the woods with a half-feral hound who acted as her helper, and her temper.
That temper gave her the boldness to not just brave the wilderness, but the villagers and even the townsfolk she had rarely met. She’d learned that nature extended everywhere, even where the trees had been cut to make houses, where animals all lived under harness or roof, where people rarely saw a living plant. Yet life thrived there as well. Ullara was determined to widen her circle, to add to the book of Halx, to gain in knowledge not just for own sake, but for that of her family. Whether had mother had left or been taken, Ullara would not let obsession deter her from honoring her.
Slowly Ullara began to offer her services farther afield, sometimes only going on the tales of travelers as she ventured beyond the Witchwood region into the larger towns, and even the cities. Healing skill was valued whether it was used on a man savaged by a wolf or a man cut in a bar fight, and a burn was a burn whether it came from kitchen fire or forge. And her ability to keep herself alive along roads without having to burden herself with a caravan, to travel swiftly to even remote and distant places, meant Ullara was a swift and competent person to hire for a wide number of situations. Not many necessarily would at first glance, as she looked like a slightly overgrown doll, but once they’d seen the mastiff that came to shoulder-height on her, most chose to keep their opinions out of her earshot.
She came to the attention of the local Baron when she darted in to heal a guardsman of his Chancellor when they’d been attacked by bandits on the road. The Chancellor’s guards were beating off the desperate rogues, but one man had fallen to a chance arrow and likely would have died before anyone could have seen to him. Ullara had been traveling to a nearby town, shadowing the Chancellor’s carriage so as to avoid the very problem the Chancellor was suffering from, and she would not allow someone to suffer on her watch. She empowered Bran with magic to defend them, and healed the guard on the spot, Bran snarling at anyone who got near.
The Chancellor had a rather good first impression of her, and recommended her to the Baron as someone who could be of use for the odd, incidental problems that do come up from time to time. Though Ullara was startled that someone of such high rank would take enough interest in her, who had been a village healer most of her life, to employ her to see to issues beyond her own little sphere, she has become rather intrigued by the possibilities to see more of the world and the people in it.
Ullara is a wandering healer, hunter, and guide with a ruthlessly practical outlook on life. Her tongue can be fierce when provoked by fools, but with children and animals she can be very gentle indeed.
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