Lyinginbedmon
2007-09-28, 04:43 AM
Saleme Gouticus came about as I was considering villains for a science fantasy story, combined with a legend from my campaign world of the Lost War.
History
Fourty years ago, there was a psionicist of great power by the name of Saleme Gouticus. She was known as a Shaper, renowned for her skill with Astral Constructs, and condemned for her usage of them for malicious and greedy purposes. She would duplicate a person of great power or wealth, and then replace them long enough to gain great wealth from the victim.
Eventually, she was discovered, as one of her constructs dissipated in the middle of rewriting a last will and testament. She was hunted down across the continent, until at last she was captured and died at the hands of an arrow volley. Rumours still persist that this was still just another one of her constructs.
The primary reason that such myths continue to inflame the public mind, is that there is someone working in the world today by the name of Saleme Gouticus. Before she died, Saleme prepared her psicrystal to revive her from death in the event of her capture and plunged it into a pool of Quintessence. Thirty years ago, the psicrystal was found by a young scholar in a small village.
The scholar removed much of the Quintessence, save minor scraps she could barely perceive against the white crystal, and studied the psicrystal extensively for weeks. The crystal knew what it was to do now that it could no-longer detect the life of Saleme, but the Quintessence prevented it from carrying out its purpose. Instead, when it attempted to revive its mistress, the power mixed with the condensed time of the Quintessence and imbued within the psicrystal a sense of psionic power and sentience. Saleme Gouticus II was born.
"She" was still a fairly useless hunk of carved crystal however. But knowing the tricks of her mistress, she fashioned for herself an Astral Construct in the precise likeness of the scholar and proceeded to murder her. After ensuring that it appeared to be suicide brought about by madness from some ancient tome, Saleme left the village and has travelled the world since, hoping to work her machiavellian plan into full success, and acquire a far more...permanent, form.
CrunchSaleme Gouticus: Psicrystal Shaper 12/Body Leech 5
Feats: Expanded Knowledge (mind switch), Noncombatant (Skin of the Construct), Overchannel, Skill Focus (craft (sculpting)), Extend Power, Inquisitor, Talented, Metapower (astral construct, extend), Boost Construct, Quicken Power
Before she gets to Body Fuel, she needs to find a Tome of Understanding +2, which with 1 level-gained point equals 13, allowing her to qualify for it. All other level points go into Intelligence. For Saleme to be in any way effective as a villainess, she needs to retain the original +9 to her Intelligence from her master, this is a DM Fiat situation on what happens to a psicrystal without it's master and will probably make her unsuitable as a Player Character.
In order to interact with the world in virtually any way, Saleme needs to first manifest Astral Construct and utilise Skin of the Construct to merge with it. As a result, she gains a humanoid corporeal form she can use. Because of the very high Craft (sculpter) bonus, she can create constructs that look almost exactly like specific people (18 Int, +3 Skill Focus, 20 ranks = +27), which is where her edge really comes in. Her stasis cocoons allow her a fairly substantial power point reserve, which she uses to make multiple constructs to serve her purposes.
Other than her Astral Construct specialities and her Body Leech abilities, she's a fairly normal Shaper.
In Adventures
Seleme herself almost never acts directly in adventures, she prefers to manipulate things from behind the scenes, and always works to achieve more than one goal simultaneously. Her primary goals are to acquire a permanent physical body beyond the crystal her mind is contained in, avenge Saleme I, and bring ruin to the continent, with riches for herself. She prefers to work toward all goals simultaneously, so that she isn't spotted for working on them individually (Hmm...this woman appears to be amassing significant wealth and casualties! She must be up to something!) Her Skin of the Construct form allows her significant espionage capabilities.
Saleme is impersonating a secretary for a mayor in a large city. Several people have gone missing in the city, and the mayor is at a loss for what to do. But it is Saleme that suggests hiring adventurers to search for the missing citizens... She is looking to build the mayor's reputation for greater political movements, and intends to cocoon the adventurers for the power points she can drain from them. Once they are captured, she assumes their likenesses with her constructs and releases the victims. When the mayor reaches high tiers of society, she replaces him and brings down the country from inside.
The PCs arrive in a small village to rest. They are well received, but an argument breaks out between the villagers and a group of royal knights. Apparently, the king has raised taxes recently in the area and the villagers are unable to pay the toll because it will leave them unable to survive through the coming winter. Both sides ask for assistance from the PCs, so they decide to help the oppressed villagers. They attack the royal knights, but one survives and swears to inform the king of their actions. The villagers rejoice, though some of them admit that the corruption of taxation may cover the entire country, and that the king has become greedy and corrupt. In reality, the knights and those they argue with are all constructs, and Saleme keeps control from the position of the barmaid, who she has cocooned in the tavern basement. Her aim here is create a distrust and spite of the monarchy, so that she can take power as a revolutionary later.
The queen is finally going to give birth this week, and the king is very anxious to see if it will be a boy to inherit his throne, because of the recent deaths of his twin princes (A riding accident and an ill-fated dueling challenge). The child is a boy, but he is malformed and hideous. The king sends the PCs on a quest to find a high class noble capable of seeding his wife for a new heir, as he tries to keep secret the misshapen child. Travelling across the land, the PCs meet Earl Alexander Home, a handsome man skilled in both swordsmanship and diplomacy. He is taken back to the king, and successfully seeds the queen, who nine months later births a beautiful bouncing baby. Earl Home is given a place as a wealthy landowner in the kingdom under the condition that he never reveal his place as father of the new prince. The first is discarded and forgotten. In reality, the twin princes never died and have been cocooned, their demises elaborately orchestrated by Saleme, who replaced the queen until her real birth, as well as playing the part of Alexander Home. From this, she gains blackmail material over the king, in addition to a substantial wealth. By releasing the information of the misshapen prince, she can destroy the monarchy.
The Cronies
Saleme's cronies are her Astral Constructs, she can have up to 33 of them at any one time (Though for 1 round, then she's just replacing them for another 6 before she runs out of points). She can make up to 8th level constructs, though she only has enough base power points to make up to 33 3rd level constructs (Factoring in Overchannel), and has the added bonus of acquiring one of the Menu A abilities for herself, thanks to Skin of the Construct. Thanks to her Craft (sculpting) bonus, she can make them look like specific people with a very high chance of sucess. Perhaps she even makes construct doppelgangers of the PCs!
History
Fourty years ago, there was a psionicist of great power by the name of Saleme Gouticus. She was known as a Shaper, renowned for her skill with Astral Constructs, and condemned for her usage of them for malicious and greedy purposes. She would duplicate a person of great power or wealth, and then replace them long enough to gain great wealth from the victim.
Eventually, she was discovered, as one of her constructs dissipated in the middle of rewriting a last will and testament. She was hunted down across the continent, until at last she was captured and died at the hands of an arrow volley. Rumours still persist that this was still just another one of her constructs.
The primary reason that such myths continue to inflame the public mind, is that there is someone working in the world today by the name of Saleme Gouticus. Before she died, Saleme prepared her psicrystal to revive her from death in the event of her capture and plunged it into a pool of Quintessence. Thirty years ago, the psicrystal was found by a young scholar in a small village.
The scholar removed much of the Quintessence, save minor scraps she could barely perceive against the white crystal, and studied the psicrystal extensively for weeks. The crystal knew what it was to do now that it could no-longer detect the life of Saleme, but the Quintessence prevented it from carrying out its purpose. Instead, when it attempted to revive its mistress, the power mixed with the condensed time of the Quintessence and imbued within the psicrystal a sense of psionic power and sentience. Saleme Gouticus II was born.
"She" was still a fairly useless hunk of carved crystal however. But knowing the tricks of her mistress, she fashioned for herself an Astral Construct in the precise likeness of the scholar and proceeded to murder her. After ensuring that it appeared to be suicide brought about by madness from some ancient tome, Saleme left the village and has travelled the world since, hoping to work her machiavellian plan into full success, and acquire a far more...permanent, form.
CrunchSaleme Gouticus: Psicrystal Shaper 12/Body Leech 5
Feats: Expanded Knowledge (mind switch), Noncombatant (Skin of the Construct), Overchannel, Skill Focus (craft (sculpting)), Extend Power, Inquisitor, Talented, Metapower (astral construct, extend), Boost Construct, Quicken Power
Before she gets to Body Fuel, she needs to find a Tome of Understanding +2, which with 1 level-gained point equals 13, allowing her to qualify for it. All other level points go into Intelligence. For Saleme to be in any way effective as a villainess, she needs to retain the original +9 to her Intelligence from her master, this is a DM Fiat situation on what happens to a psicrystal without it's master and will probably make her unsuitable as a Player Character.
In order to interact with the world in virtually any way, Saleme needs to first manifest Astral Construct and utilise Skin of the Construct to merge with it. As a result, she gains a humanoid corporeal form she can use. Because of the very high Craft (sculpter) bonus, she can create constructs that look almost exactly like specific people (18 Int, +3 Skill Focus, 20 ranks = +27), which is where her edge really comes in. Her stasis cocoons allow her a fairly substantial power point reserve, which she uses to make multiple constructs to serve her purposes.
Other than her Astral Construct specialities and her Body Leech abilities, she's a fairly normal Shaper.
In Adventures
Seleme herself almost never acts directly in adventures, she prefers to manipulate things from behind the scenes, and always works to achieve more than one goal simultaneously. Her primary goals are to acquire a permanent physical body beyond the crystal her mind is contained in, avenge Saleme I, and bring ruin to the continent, with riches for herself. She prefers to work toward all goals simultaneously, so that she isn't spotted for working on them individually (Hmm...this woman appears to be amassing significant wealth and casualties! She must be up to something!) Her Skin of the Construct form allows her significant espionage capabilities.
Saleme is impersonating a secretary for a mayor in a large city. Several people have gone missing in the city, and the mayor is at a loss for what to do. But it is Saleme that suggests hiring adventurers to search for the missing citizens... She is looking to build the mayor's reputation for greater political movements, and intends to cocoon the adventurers for the power points she can drain from them. Once they are captured, she assumes their likenesses with her constructs and releases the victims. When the mayor reaches high tiers of society, she replaces him and brings down the country from inside.
The PCs arrive in a small village to rest. They are well received, but an argument breaks out between the villagers and a group of royal knights. Apparently, the king has raised taxes recently in the area and the villagers are unable to pay the toll because it will leave them unable to survive through the coming winter. Both sides ask for assistance from the PCs, so they decide to help the oppressed villagers. They attack the royal knights, but one survives and swears to inform the king of their actions. The villagers rejoice, though some of them admit that the corruption of taxation may cover the entire country, and that the king has become greedy and corrupt. In reality, the knights and those they argue with are all constructs, and Saleme keeps control from the position of the barmaid, who she has cocooned in the tavern basement. Her aim here is create a distrust and spite of the monarchy, so that she can take power as a revolutionary later.
The queen is finally going to give birth this week, and the king is very anxious to see if it will be a boy to inherit his throne, because of the recent deaths of his twin princes (A riding accident and an ill-fated dueling challenge). The child is a boy, but he is malformed and hideous. The king sends the PCs on a quest to find a high class noble capable of seeding his wife for a new heir, as he tries to keep secret the misshapen child. Travelling across the land, the PCs meet Earl Alexander Home, a handsome man skilled in both swordsmanship and diplomacy. He is taken back to the king, and successfully seeds the queen, who nine months later births a beautiful bouncing baby. Earl Home is given a place as a wealthy landowner in the kingdom under the condition that he never reveal his place as father of the new prince. The first is discarded and forgotten. In reality, the twin princes never died and have been cocooned, their demises elaborately orchestrated by Saleme, who replaced the queen until her real birth, as well as playing the part of Alexander Home. From this, she gains blackmail material over the king, in addition to a substantial wealth. By releasing the information of the misshapen prince, she can destroy the monarchy.
The Cronies
Saleme's cronies are her Astral Constructs, she can have up to 33 of them at any one time (Though for 1 round, then she's just replacing them for another 6 before she runs out of points). She can make up to 8th level constructs, though she only has enough base power points to make up to 33 3rd level constructs (Factoring in Overchannel), and has the added bonus of acquiring one of the Menu A abilities for herself, thanks to Skin of the Construct. Thanks to her Craft (sculpting) bonus, she can make them look like specific people with a very high chance of sucess. Perhaps she even makes construct doppelgangers of the PCs!