NPC Adventurer - Glorianna Maltese

 Glorianna Maltese -  Human Fighter 3

Will be encountered leading a party of 1d4 fellow adventurers and 2d4 hirelings, or trying to recruit such in taverns throughout Stormcrown Barony.

 Until I draw a proper portrait this will have to serve

Claims to be a noble knight. Is neither. Everything about her---including the name Glorianna Maltese---is a fraud (she is really a peasant woman from Hochsump named Lette Schunk). It all began when she stumbled across a dead man in a bog wearing an out-of-date but very fancy suit of armor.  Since then she's run various scams pretending to be a knight for nearly a decade.  Has inhabited the role of Glorianna so long that she has actually learned how to fight very well, but only out of self-preservation, and if personally threatened she will flee at the first opportunity. Her current scheme is to recruit a large number of followers and "lead" from the rear while they excavate treasure from the ruins in the Wylde, then collect the lion's share of the loot under terms of a signed contract. She has a hundred stories of her own heroism (all of them in conveniently distant lands: "This is like that little job I took for the Sultan of Transpooria..." "You think this is wet, let me tell you about the time I did an errand for an Archmage on the Elemental Plane of Water...") but is brilliant at inventing excuses at the last minute--an old injury flare-up, a spat of pneumonia, she has just learned of her beloved husband's death---whenever called to actually do something.

Quirks:  Is constantly just making up bullshit to convince people she's a veteran adventurer like, "did you know wyverns can only turn clockwise when they fly?" "did you know goblins spontaneously generate in dead cows?" "Did you know if you rub a ruby over a wound it stops any sickness?" "There really is a country where they walk backwards, I've seen it." a lot of this is taken from bestiaries and childrens' storybooks.  She has a thing for kids and tries to amuse them when she meets one. 

Alignment: Probably Chaotic Neutral tending towards evil.  Not a murderer (if exposed she will try to bluff or bargain but not kill to protect her fake name).   Is haunted by some of the things she's done---once took the money a village scraped together to hire an Ogre-hunter and never actually hunted the Ogre.  Wonders what happened to that village sometimes.  Her notions of knighthood are taken straight from goofy Romance stories and she believes a lot of silly stuff like: you can have your knighthood revoked if you don't protect the innocent, or all priests can curse a knight who doesn't do good, so in this way it is actually fairly easy to guilt her into spontaneous acts of selflessness. 


Stats for Pathfinder
Human Fighter [Tower Shield Specialist] 3 - Med. Humanoid; HD 3d10+6 (21 hp); Init: +7; Spd: 20 ft (x3 run heavy armor); AC: 19 (+1 Dex, +8 half plate) Touch 11, FF 18 (24/12/22 tower shield); Atks: Pistol  +7 ranged (+8 PBS) 20 ft (1d10 x3 bludg/pierce) or dual pistols +5 ranged (+6 PBS), or springblade pistol +6 ranged 15 ft (1d4 19-20/x2 pierce) or short sword +4 melee (1d6+1 19-20/x2 pierce); S/R: 5/5 ft; SA: N/A; SQ: Fvrd Class: Fighter (+3 HP), Heart of the Streets (+1 AC/Ref adj. at least two allies, crowds not difficult terrain), Burst Barrier (+1 Ref vs AoE spells behind Tower Shield)  Armor/Tower Shield Training 1 - (-3 chk pn/+2 max dex tower shield, -1/+1 armor); Svs: Fort +4, Ref +4, Will +0; Ablts: Str 13 Dex 16 Con 12 Int 13 Wis 08 Cha 15 
Feats - Imp. Init, Weapon Focus [Pistol], Quickdraw, Two Weapon Fighting, Point Blank Shot, Flick of the Wrist
Skills (3/9) - Bluff (cc) +4, Diplomacy  +7, Sleight of Hand (cc) +0*, Ride +1*, Handle Animal +6, Perform: Tall Tales +6, Stealth +1*
*-6 armor chk pn.
Traits - Barroom Tale-Spinner (+1 Diplomacy & Perform: Tall Story, both class skills); 1x/week roll Int for chance of knowing a legend or story of relevance.  
Slippery - +1 stealth and considered a class skill.

Equipment - Ornate & Antique Suit of Plates (Half-Plate Armor, +300 gp value), six pistols--four matchlock and two snaphance, short sword w/OMW release, pair of springblade pistols, ox powderhorn, six brass cartridges, bag of shot, extra coil of slowmatch, mechanical bootblade

oil of magic weapon +1 x2 (one in sword)
potion cat's grace
potion CLW x2

books:
Houses of the Red March, History & Deeds (+5 kn. history/nobility concerning noble houses of Redmarch, can make kn. rolls untrained)
Wych Lurkes Beelowe - (+3 kn. Dungeoneering to identify underground creatures, can make checks untrained.  If a check is successful (i.e. the monster is in the book, roll 50% chance for misinformation.)
A Seemple Ladey's Mirror (+3 kn. nobility for ettiquette and behavior, can make kn. checks untrained)
Letters Patent of nobility, a poor fraud (as a further obfuscation, written in the language of Dasan. Anyone familiar with the language will note obvious grammatical errors)
Letter from the Printing House of Mr. Jon Peter of Windwake, rejecting for publication The Complete Truth of a Dame's Adventures & Strange Tales of Wars Abroad on the ground of it being "clear fabrication without merit in turgid and self-aggrandizing prose."  The manuscript is being held for return at an address in Rubene. 

Springblade Pistol: Of gnomish make, these extremely skinny pistols have 7" barrels of bore about the width of a coin, and grips so small as to disappear in the hand.  They fire a three-sided, sharp-pointed metal dart which fits over the barrel by means of a mechanical steel spring and pressurized air.  The pistol can shoot no further than 15 feet. 

NOTE - Glorianna keeps her springblade pistols in special holders attached to opposite sides of her gauntlets with the grips at the elbows.  Her springblades use all-metal furniture, meaning they are disguised to appear as part of her armor, with a DC 20 perception check to notice.  If the pistols go unnoticed Glorianna can quickdraw them and enjoy the benefit of surprise (targeting an opponent's FF AC).  She will usually try this move as a last resort, taking a called-shot to shoot her blades at an enemy's face or neck. 

Boot Blade:  Concealed blades such as this, released by a hard stomp of the heel, take the target by surprise and use their Flat Footed AC unless the target beats a DC 20 Perception check, but take a -2 penalty to hit. 

OMW-Release: Weapons with this ability have a hollow in the hilt which contains a pool of oil of magic weapon.  By pushing in a stud on the hilt the oil is released to flow down the  blade, granting it the enchantment as a swift action.  Weapons with the hollow suffer from an imbalance and cannot be made Masterwork.  

A NOTE ON HOW I DO HITPOINTS:  In my campaign, rather than roll HP for leveled NPCs I just give them half of whatever they get from their HD plus Con bonus &c.  This has the effect of making NPCs fairly fragile while the players have a certain advantage over any equally-leveled NPC individually, which is how I like it.  If you want to use Glorianna in your campaign and don't have my predilection for sudden death you may want to roll her hitpoints normally.
WHY ARE THE PISTOL DAMAGES WEIRD:  I upgrade all ranged weapons a damage die in my campaign and brought down firearms' crit from x4 to x3.