<strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">SENTHAYNATRIX LITERATOR</span></strong>(http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=563156)<br/>Female Neutral Kobold Alchemist,<strong>Level</strong>1,<strong>Init</strong>2,<strong>HP</strong>8/8,<strong>Speed</strong>20 (30)<br/><strong>AC</strong>15,<strong>Touch</strong>13,<strong>Flat-footed</strong>13,<strong>CMD</strong>10,<strong>Fort</strong>2,<strong>Ref</strong>4,<strong>Will</strong>1,<strong>CMB</strong>-2,<strong>Base Attack Bonus</strong>0<br/><strong>  Light Crossbow (10 normal, 5 iron, 5 silver (carried, rest in pack)) </strong>+3 (1d6, 19-20/x2)<br/><strong>  Morningstar </strong>0 (1d6, x2)<br/><strong>Cold Iron Dagger, Cold Iron (1) </strong>0 (1d3, 19-20/x2)<br/><strong>  Lamellar Cuirass</strong>(+2 Armor, +2 Dex, +1 Size)<br/><strong>Abilities</strong>Str 8, Dex 14, Con 10, Int 18, Wis 12, Cha 10<br/><strong>Condition</strong>None<br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Background</div><div class="spoiler_body">Senthaynatrix was born in a sulfurous tangle of tunnels under the volcanic ranges of the Kodar mountains, a somewhat draconically exemplary member of a tribe of ruddy-scaled kobolds who served the dragon Rasilanythrylax. As she grew to adulthood and her horns filled out, her more-draconic-than-usual features brought her to the attention of the dragon's small priesthood...who promptly regretted their offers to expand her education. <br/><br/>Senthaynatrix was one of those kobolds who used the word "Why?" where most other kobolds would use the word "Okay." She eventually came to the attention of the dragon himself, who was not averse to the odd conversation that wasn't based on boring rituals of worship. Of course, red drakes are not entirely known for their patience, and he banished her more than once on pain of being eaten if she returned before learning something worth his time to discuss. Astonishingly, she rose to the opportunity, spending more time investigating her surroundings than any other kobold in the tribe...And, by their lights, wasting a tremendous lot of time that could be better invested in mining, trap-making, or gathering food. Even worse, she busied herself learning the languages of the gnome, halfling, and dwarven slaves, and pestered<em> them</em> with her questions, resulting in even less work being done than her own personal perceived laziness could account for.<br/><br/>Understandably, this angered quite a few kobolds. On the other hand, she not only talked with the slaves, she talked with <em>the dragon</em>. Such individuals were not to be bullied lightly, and as a result she spent a great deal of time being shooed away from excavations and exploring the older parts of the tangle, making awkward notations on dried lizard skins in regards to the characteristics of stone and dirt (writing down what she had learned from captives and expanding on their accounts); the various lesser creatures which occasionally invaded the kobolds' burrows (slaves and small lizards and insects); and, in time, the peculiar uses to which various fungi, herbs, and other things were put and how they interacted with each other...a sort of fundamental approach to something between kobold herbalism and alchymystry. Senthaynatrix particularly became something of an expert on fungus, and (to the grudging approval of her peers) created several practical traps using potentially lethal fungi (after much careful research into how their defenses operated).<br/><br/>Eventually, an encroaching tribe of goblins killed off most of the kobolds, then retreated after realizing that pushing further would lead them into a dragon's den. While several of the other survivors decided to strike out and find another kobold tribe to join, Senthaynatrix spent her time studying the goblins, including the best methods to entrap them. This somewhat morose line of study resulted in her eventual encounter with a party of adventurers who were exploring the tunnels. She managed to get herself captured by the adventuring party rather than killed, and surprised the party somewhat by readily agreeing to show them around the tangle and disarm the traps providing they killed off the goblins...Who, she was quick to point out, had already accumulated most of the loot in the tangle.<br/><br/>She even offered to introduce them to Rasilanythrylax, but (wisely) they declined. <br/><br/>With both goblins and adventurers gone, the occupancy of the tunnels changed for the worst, and while Senthaynatrix was beginning to formulate a sort of ecological theory about empty tunnels and the hunting grounds of various sorts of creatures, she also was becoming more afraid of her situation...Not to mention more lonely and depressed. She hadn't been at the heart of her tribe's society, but it was one thing to be excluded and told frequently to get lost, and quite another to be the only kobold around. <br/><br/>Relief was afforded by another party of adventurers, and much to her surprise, the observant kobold was quite certain that the dwarf accompanying them was one of the party she had previously helped to exterminate the goblins. She checked her notes, and he certainly seemed to fit her previous description...Senthaynatrix tested her theory by the most expedient means...Waiting until the dwarf was alone, awake and on watch, then calling him by name. Sure enough, he'd returned, this time in the company of a scholar and several bodyguards. The scholar was hoping they would be able to set themselves up within the tangle and learn what they could of the dragon's habits. The rest of the party seemed to be along to ensure that the scholar was yanked out and pulled home before anything too terrible happened.<br/><br/>And, oddly enough, the whole expedition was predicated on the hope...put forward by the dwarf!... that they could find this particular reliable kobold who the dwarf had encountered a year before. <br/><br/>This time, Senthaynatrix bargained with a more forward-looking eye. The scholar, one Lorrimorr, seemed quite pleased with her explanation of the change-over of the inhabitants of the tunnels. Not, she finally realized, because the idea of more dangerous monsters was pleasant, no...He was actually familiar with some similar theory, and seemed happy to discuss it with her.  Over the course of a couple of nights, the little kobold's world-view collapsed and rebuilt itself as Lorrimorr explained to her that she had been reconstructing ideas which were well-known to various scholars...Albeit she was doing so from what he referred to as "first principles," where most of those living scholars had read about it from those who had come before them. It wasn't very long before she wrapped her mind around the idea that there were places where creatures harmoniously ("more or less" cautioned Lorrimorr) spent their time thinking and studying things, causes and effects and the ways the world worked; even more importantly, most of these places had libraries, which made her own lizard-skin notes look pathetic indeed. She wasn't sure she was willing to accept Lorrimorr's assertion that there were more pages of such notes in a good university library than there were grains of gravel in her entire tribal tangle; that was obviously an exaggeration. Right?<br/><br/>However, she was sure that, even if he was exaggerating, she wanted to see it. She was entirely happy to help the small party, although she suggested that the dragon was liable to take being observed rather negatively. Her price was simple. She wanted to be taken to a library and allowed to study it. And she wouldn't budge on that. She didn't want gold. She didn't want gems. She didn't even want them to clear the larger, stronger monsters out of the tunnels. She wanted <em>knowledge</em>.<br/><br/>Lorrimorr, perhaps unsurprisingly, understood. They tried for two weeks to find ways to study the dragon without getting <em>flambe'</em>d before Lorrimorr was willing to give up. Senthaynatrix very nearly got eaten herself; Rasilanythrylax was not at all pleased with how much she reeked of humans, particularly when the faint drafts that coursed through some of the tunnels were bringing him fresh human scents. She told him the truth, mostly (and perhaps that is why she lived). He was well aware of her prior association with adventurers in order to destroy the goblins, and approved of it. Perhaps she slightly misled him with regard to his expectation that she was once again using the adventurers to clear other monsters out of 'her' tunnels, but she was quite honest in saying that the party had no interest in braving him for his treasure. <br/><br/>In any case, Lorrimorr's frustration and a few near misses had the whole expedition ready to retreat after only two weeks of creeping around in tunnels where even the dwarf had to stoop.  The professor was also somewhat placated by Senthaynatrix's stories of her own experiences with the dragon...Stories which he eventually wrote into a rather lengthy paper regarding kobold-dragon relations.<br/><br/>The two traded stories for weeks on the road before he finally dropped her off at the University of Lepidstadt, leaving the little kobold and two barrels filled with carefully preserved lizardskins annotated in fungal ink while Lorrimorr hashed matters out with one of the Deans of the College of Natural Philosophy. There was some little unresolved matter of a duel, apparently, and it was (she was told explicitly) a great favor. There followed a long list of rules, any violation of which would result in  her expulsion from the University (and probable death, given the temperament of humans in most of Ustalav (Lepidstadt was notoriously tolerant) and the lack of regard most commoners had for kobolds). <br/><br/>Lorrimorr lectured at the University only a few times while she was there, but she managed to maintain an uneven correspondence with him. She took to alchemy like a fish to water, bringing all manner of her own experiences regarding diverse and peculiar cave-substances into the classroom (after all, how many members of the University had ever gone about even primitive experiments with substances as dangerous to acquire as fresh red-dragon molt, scales, and, well, other draconic substances?). Over time, she found herself lecturing as a specialist on kobolds (where her authority could not be doubted) and red dragons (where she was frequently met with skepticism by "enlightened minds" who "knew better").  She added Elven to her repertoire as a means to access even more of the University's great library, spending all her waking hours laboring over tomes, many of which were nearly as large as she was.<br/><br/>In time, she was grudgingly admitted to the circle of Masters, and proceeded to extend her inquiries in natural philosophy and alchymistry, becoming at least competent, albeit not renowned, as a lesser Professor. She even acquired a small dueling scar (a Lepidstadt tradition) from a gnome who insisted upon differing with her over a point of translation in ancient Draconic...A language which she had, she pointed out repeatedly, spoken since birth. She even participated in some mildly embarrassing 'experimentartion' with various mammalian companions; sex seeming to be something which most mammalian society revolved around...For her own part, they were warm, and it was...interesting in a delectably perverse sort of way that invariably encouraged more 'research.' The university life suited her, and she could have gone on meddling with machinery (quite a bit of physickal research and even clock-making was not dissimilar to trap-building), chymickals and the translation of obscure documents in draconic for the rest of her life, as she certainly intended to.<br/><br/>But then came the letter regarding Professor Lorrimorr. There was no possibility of her ignoring it. No individual, not even Rasilanythrylax, could be said to have shaped so much of her life. She had not, in truth, felt this sort of world-change since her tribe had lost its battle with the goblins. More than slightly worried, she made her preparations to attend the funeral; knowing full well that even getting there would be a challenge when so many of the peasant folk outside of the large city were inclined to attack her kind on sight.<br/><br/>Her professor's robes would provide some shelter, perhaps; and if they did not, well, there was that crossbow, and then there was that bottle, and that bottle, and that bottle...</div></div>