For the next entry, I will use one of my favorite RPGs - Sword of the Serpentine. It was one of the games I created the most characters for last year, and the game has since become one of my standards. For an explanation of how character creation works in this system, please check here.
For this one, I am thinking about a bunch of mercenaries who have working together for a while. Used to the rough life outside Eversink, where they fought bandits, monsters, and sometimes other mercenaries for the rich and powerful in uncomfortable places, they happily traded for life in far more comfort in the city. Where they get hired by the rich and powerful to fight other mercenaries, thieves, and sometimes monsters. But at least the lodgings and food are a lot better, and they do not have to sleep on the hard ground in bad weather as much.
I am not sure if I will make the whole band, but let us first look at who arguably is the heart of the group. Coba was born as Verayev Luiza Antonyevna in the vast, cold reaches of Irliev. She did leave her country as early as possible. If you listen to the stories this tall, dark-skinned woman with the flaming red braid tells in her booming voice she has had several different traumatic youths behind her. In reality, she just couldn’t stand the cold and really didn’t fit in very well. As it sometimes goes with habitual liars. In this small, nameless group of mercenaries, she has found a new family, one she will not easily let go of. They accept her for who she is.
Trained by her father in the ways of her people, she is a fair hand with a bow and axe, but also very competent in the dressing of wounds. She habitually prays to her ancestors and uses the tinctures and herbal mixtures she learned to make as a child for healing purposes. All of this also makes her a welcome companion on any outing, together with the loyalty she extends solely to the members of her little squad.
The team has been in Eversink coming up to two years. A few months ago they were employed by the Santambrogio family to delve into a thieves’ hideout, deep under Sag Harbor, to recover some stolen items and documents. The pay was good, and the agreement stated that they’d get to keep whatever else they’d find. And deep in the old houses and corridors, they did what they came to do. Only on arrival, they found most of the thieves dead, and the remainder binding their wounds. In a corner, crushed under rubble that probably had come loose in a fight lay an indiscernible figure. The mercenaries rushed in, unceremoniously dispatching the remaining thieves, to collect what treasure there was. Meanwhile, Coba investigated the crushed person and noticed weak movements. A bit uncharacteristically, she decided to help.
After a few weeks of nursing the victim back to health, the two became friends, of a sort. Or at least that is what Coba thinks. There might even be some truth to that. Meanwhile, Magararasanellis, one of the few remaining Serpent Folk, has started using the mercenaries to her own ends. And she has started teaching real sorcery to Coba, for reasons of her own.
Coba’s favorite things in life are:
- to celebrate life with loyal friends
- To tell the stories of an era
- the look in the eyes of someone who only survived thanks to you
Coba is Boisterous, Dishonest, Loyal, Opportunistic, Absentminded, and allied with Monstrosities and Mercenaries. As these things tend to go there are also Mercenary groups not fond of her at all.
She has points in Command, Intimidation, Liar’s Tell, Taunt, Ridiculous Luck, Corruption (with her sole sphere being Disease), Leechcraft, Tactics of Death, and Wilderness Mastery. She does have two points in Spot Frailty - she is a mean fighter, in part because she knows exactly where to strike. She also has a very sharp tongue if she wants to.
Her General Abilities are Athletics 4, Bind Wounds 8, Stealth 4, Sorcery 2, Sway 4, and Warfare 8. She can break it, but also patch it up again.
Her favorite Gear:
- a large, shoddy axe, and a nasty, notched knife
- comfortable chainmail, adorned with talismans and colorful leather straps
- tinctures, ointments, herbs, many collected in the swamps outside, some bought
- A fiery scar on her back, in the shape of a serpent's trail, which lights up when she uses sorcery.
- And a booming and quick laugh that makes her face light up like the sun.
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