Se’ket
Female human druid 1
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Region: Eldeen Reaches
Sect: Children of Winter
Height: 4' 9''
Weight: 103lbs
Hair: Blue-black
Eyes: Black
Age: 21
XP: 0
Str: 10 (+0) [2 points]
Dex: 12 (+1) [4 points]
Con: 14 (+2) [6 points]
Int: 14 (+2) [6 points]
Wis: 16 (+3) [10 points]
Cha: 12 (+1) [4 points]
Class and Racial Abilities: Extra feat at 1st level, 4 extra skill points at 1st level and 1 additional on at each level thereafter. Animal companion, nature sense, wild empathy +2, divine spells, druidic oaths. Proficient with club, dagger, dart, quarterstaff, scimitar, sickle, short spear, sling, and spear, as well as light and medium armor and shields (provided they are not metal).
Hit Dice: 1d8+2
HP: 10
AC: 14 (+1 Dex, +2 armor, +1 shield)
ACP: -1
Init: +1 (+1 Dex)
Speed: 30ft.
Action Points: 5
Saves:
Fortitude +4 [+2 base, +2 Con]
Reflex +1 [+0 base, +1 Dex]
Will +5 [+2 base, +3 Wis]
BAB/Grapple: +0/+0
Melee Atk: +0 (1d6/x2/S, sickle)
Ranged Atk: +1 (1d4/x2/20 ft./P, dart)
Skills:
Diplomacy +5 [4 ranks, +1 Cha]
Handle Animal +5 [4 ranks, +1 Cha]
Heal +7 [4 ranks, +3 Wis]
Knowledge (nature) +8 [4 ranks, +2 Int, +2 nature sense]
Listen +7 [4 ranks, +3 Wis]
Spot +7 [4 ranks, +3 Wis]
Survival +9 [4 ranks, +3 Wis, +2 nature sense]
Feats:
Swarm’s Embrace (human bonus) [Sharn, CoT]
Child of Winter (1st level) [ECS]
Languages: Common, Druidic, Sylvan, Elven
Spells Per Day
Save DC +3
0th – cure minor wounds, detect magic, detect poison
1st - goodberry, produce flame
Equipment
Backpack - 2gp
2 daggers – 4gp
10 darts – 5gp
Sickle – 6gp
Leather armor - 10gp
Light wooden shield - 3gp
Identification papers - 2gp
Traveling papers (Eldeen Reaches to Breland) – 2sp
Bedroll - 5sp
Hammock – 5gp
Waterskin - 1gp
50 ft. rope - 1gp
Trail rations (10 days worth) - 5gp
Belt pouch - 1gp
Holly and mistletoe
Traveler’s outfit (Free)
Money
4gp, 3sp
~~~~~
Se'ket was born amidst a raging snowstorm, in the depths of a lightless cave. This may have seemed inauspicious, but that was not even the worse of it. Her mother, heavily pregnant with her, had been the victim of a vicious bandit attack. It was her wish to give birth in her home village where her mother lived, and in haste and fear, she was willing to travel in a late fall caravan. Of Se'ket's father, her mother never had named him to anyone, for no one came forth later to claim the child.
The small caravan was laden with winter meat and other foods, along with the few people desperate enough to travel in such uncertain weather. Today, however, the gods were not with them. The caravan was set upon by brutal and lawless men as a terrible snowstorm began to blow, men more interesting in stealing their bread than earning it. The passengers were simply a means of amusement to the cruel bandits, and their dead or unconscious bodies were tossed in a deep cave afterward, thrown away like garbage.
There are several legends and tales of babes being adopted by wolves or lions or unicorns, raising them when their mothers meet with tragic ends in the wilderness. But for Se'ket's mother, no such magic was in the offing. In pain and fear, she gave birth to her daughter; then died of her wounds. In this cave, full of the bandits' discards, there were no friendly wolves, only the smallest of creatures, the insects. They were no tales of insects guarding human babes, at least until two days later.
In the depths of the cavern crept a druid, a man sent by those of his sect, the Children of Winter. They believed the world must be cleansed to make way for a new and brilliant spring, and by accepting and accelerating death, this could be brought about. Tugor had come to this cave to study the actions of the insects upon the dead; hoping to learn both more about the natural process and to gain insight into the shape of the world to come.
It was with astonishment that he found a healthy girl-child lying upon the breast of a decayed woman, the many insects around her paying her no mind. Seeing this as a sign from the forces of nature, Tugor brought the girl back to his home and told the others the tale. Though it seemed too far-fetched to be true, Tugor was not a man who lied. Therefore the girl had to have come as a sign from the Winter to Come.
She lived and was given the name of Se’ket, an imitation of a beetle’s chittering. Often she heard the story of her birth and rescue, and the elder Children would tell her what they believed it meant. Se’ket had no reason to doubt them. She could sit in the middle of a fire-ant hill and take no harm; she could gather honey from a hive without getting a single sting. It was clear that the creatures of the Winter to Come favored her, and she was instructed at a young age on how to channel their power.
Se'ket has great affection for Tugor, the man who found her and helped raise her with the Children, along with several others in her small sect. He stood in as a foster father, and Se'ket has great love for him. Irigane, the leader, was a stern but fair woman who was responsible for Se'ket's education. She taught her both the philosophy of the sect and the manners she needed to learn.
"Most people regard us as fanatics, and indeed there are many who spread our word with the tact of charging moose and the subtlety of a tornado. We must help temper their enthusiasm with persistence and logic, for if we are written off as insane, no one will be able aid the Coming of Winter," was something she said often. Se'ket understands persistence, and her own human blood helped her understand the logic, so she brings Irigane's presence with her whenever she starts speaking of the Children
Se’ket devoured her learning of the natural world, but began to long to see even more of it beyond the borders of her forest. She was very knowledgeable about all insects and other vermin, but wished to see and observe as many as she could in their own habitats. She felt that she could learn more of the Winter to Come by the movements and habits of the insect world. Perhaps not so strangely, she ended up in Sharn. Though crammed with people and not at all like anything she had seen before, she almost immediately felt at home.
This was a place where people lived like ants or termites, all together in a great hive. And down below, in the depths of UnderSharn, lived muckdwellers, carrion crawlers, and great swarms of unusual beetles, species she had never seen before! It was entirely by coincidence that a pair of students from Morgrave University came to her depths to study a rancid beetle swarm. While they remained at a safe distance, their jaws literally dropped as they watched a young woman walk in the middle of the swarm, almost seeming to become like a beetle herself.
Almost before she could turn around, Se’ket found herself hired as a “research assistant” to Regalt Turmin, Professor of Natural Sciences. He was a bustling man, bursting with energy about his chosen topics of natural behavior. Se’ket’s life story had him enthralled, and the fact that she understood insects and even wouldn’t take harm from small ones made her priceless to him. Though philosophically the two couldn’t be more different, Se’ket has been helping the Professor and his staff research various insect species.
At the university, she's made a few friends, alienated a few others, and probably made at least one real enemy. Professor Rugalt and his two doctoral students, Sharrin and Festral, have become her little family away from home. There are about a dozen others in programs of naturals sciences and entomology who she counts as casual friends or friendly acquaintances. Some people, however, found her presence offensive.
"She's not a scholar, she has no references, is not even a native of Breland, has never been enrolled here... you got her out of the sewers for gods' sake!" Professor Toffin has said frequently and often whenever the subject of Se'ket comes up. He doesn't like the fact that Rugalt has been teaching her in his classes without asking for tuition, that he is willing to pay for her lodgings on campus, or that her skills have brought Rugalt significant fame in the entomological field. Toffin is an academic rival, most of his bitterness stems from the fact that Rugalt found her first. Predictably Toffin's own students and research assistants try to make life hard for her whenever they can get away with it, but they have expressed nothing more than petty jealousy towards her, not real hatred.
Hatred towards her comes from one man, Suvarin Tu'gesh, a Warden of the Wood and also a druid. However, he sees all life as worth preserving, even city life, and fights against unnatural death with every fiber of his being. Someone dying of a disease is not necessarily a tragedy, unless that disease was given to him by letting diseased fleas into his home. He has come across the works of the Children of Winter before, and finds Se'ket's presence an offense to his morals. He is at the university to learn about the mindset of those that live in cities, while simultaneously learning about animals and plants he might never see himself.
He tried to get Se'ket banned from the university shortly after he found out her sect, and when that didn't work, has tried many forms of harassment to get her to leave. Se'ket feels that he may do anything short of death to keep her ideas out of Morgrave.
As for Se'ket herself, she had short, straight blue-black hair cut in a sleek cap around her head. Her skin is a dark ivory, with odd flat features, and her eyes are nearly black. She is slender, short, and graceful, and tends to wear body-hugging clothes in silk, usually in shiny hues of blue, blue-black, or blue-green, like a beetle's wings. She really doesn’t resemble any of the races of Khorvaire, which led the Children of Winter to believe her mother was a foreigner from across some distant sea.
Se'ket doesn't trumpet her friendship with insects and her membership to the Children of Winter, but she doesn't care to hide it. She casually speaks of the Winter to Come in a calm and logical manner when asked of her beliefs. She has never had the occasion to lie, though has found ways of honey-coating the truth to avoid unnecessary hardships in her life. She knows that though she has found some friends in Sharn, her sect is not well loved, and some would see her harmed or dead before spreading her philosophy around.
Despite her preoccupation with the Winter to Come, Se'ket is not morbid. However, she is very accepting of death. Her affairs for such things are always in order, and she finds the life-risking behaviors of healers to save the lives of the dying as curiosities. She often helps people work to an acceptance of death, which means she can often be found at the sites of fires, plagues, and other disasters as a very strange grief counselor.
Se’ket is an expert on insects; she knows their types and habitats, their behaviors, and even why they do what they do. She knows their affects on flesh and vegetable manner, and often has an educated guess as to when a person died, by observing the insects present. But she knows her knowledge is limited by where she’s been. She may be an expert in the Reaches or in Sharn, but not in Zilargo or Droaam or Xen’drik.
Recently, Professor Rugalt has sent her to the Wroat campus to attend some lectures by other experts in the natural sciences. He can't afford the time to go himself, and his two research assistants have too many ties to Sharn to leave right now, so Se'ket is the logical choice. She's quite interested in seeing some more of the world and learning everything she can. Who knows what fascinating new friends she might meet there…
