Samantha Wilder

[Venefyxatu]

~Brief description~

 

Samantha Wilder – my favourite character, inspired by (coincidence?) my favourite song: Always a woman by Billy Joel. She was shaped through roleplay in many different ways : Ultima Online (most of her background story), roleplay in the Yahoo chat rooms before their decline (mostly her attitude towards magic), several other computer RPGs (details here and there), and pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons in the realm of Faerûn (the most important event in her adventuring life, I'll get back to that).

Her being played in so many systems tends to leave gaps and inconsistencies, so I'm going to make a heroïc effort to put her on (virtual) paper the way she is – to say it with the words of Douglas Adams : “Anything that is put down wrong here is, as far as I'm concerned, wrong for good.” And to add my own words : "If I remember something I forgot, I'll add it so as not to make things completely wrong "

 

Name : Wilder, Samantha

Race : Human, struggling with her Shade side

Gender : Female

Age : 28

 

 

Edit : Added proper formatting and some details I forgot.

Edit 2 : Reading through all that, it would seem that Samantha can now officially claim the title of "My most developed character." Even now I feel that there are many things that still need to be worked out, I just don't know what. Comments are always welcome.

Edited December 31, 2004 by Venefyxatu

[Venefyxatu]

~Physical Description~

 

Samantha stands 5ft7 (or is it 8? I hate conversions! either way, it's 1m75) tall and has a skin with a slightly grayish hue. In daylight, or any other light for that matter, she looks at the world with emerald green eyes but in darkness they turn completely white. Her hair is reddish brown hair and she usually wears it loose, falling just below her shoulders.

As far as clothes go she prefers a simple skirt reaching down to her feet combined with an ordinary shirt in dark colours for every-day (or every-night...) use. Her feet are protected by soft boots that also serve to hide a few daggers.

Whenever she is required to interact socially for more than a stay in an inn along the way she prefers clothes in shades of red - from bright red to a dark bordeaux. Depending on the social setting these clothes can range from simple peasant's garb to the rather more complicated noble's gowns and dresses; she feels comfortable in either style.

Edited December 31, 2004 by Venefyxatu

[Venefyxatu]

~History~

 

Samantha was raised in a small village that, to the casual observer, didn't have much contact with the outside world. Of course, every now and then some youths would go out and become adventurers, and there were regular trading caravans stopping by, but most of the people there had never left their village.

However, the local potion maker, Adam Wilder, had more contact with the outside world than he would let on – apart from brewing potions with various beneficial uses, he was also a poison maker, brewing poisons with effects verying from mild paralysis to quick and merciful or slow and painful death. He made good money from selling these to assassins from various cities and passed on his skills to his only daughter.

Samantha herself was always a free mind : she enjoyed going where she wasn't supposed to go, acquiring what she wasn't supposed to have (although only if the previous owner was either rich enough to replace it or didn't really need it anyway) and avoiding trouble by either not being caught or, if really necessary, talking her way out. Her allergy to authority didn't really help out very much...

When she was 19, a group of her friends decided they would go adventuring and she decided to join up.

After some adventures through which she perfected, among others, her acting skills they ended up in a big city where, through circumstances, a small boy ended up dying in her arms. With his dying breath, he asked her “to accept this gift”. Not one to argue with a dying person, she accepted, without knowing what he meant.

When she woke up that night, she felt strange and it took her quite some time to realize that she could perfectly see her room even though there was no light at all. After that, she noticed that she became even more comfortable in darkness than she already was.

It wasn't long after that the party decided to split up, everyone having a different goal to pursue. Samantha went on alone, trying to figure out what was happening to her, making a living off her potion and stealth skills, every now and then pretending to be a noble from a faraway country to both stay informed of the latest news as well as to keep her acting skills sharp, eventually becoming an assassin. Despite the image that profession has, she doesn't kill anyone unless there's a really good reason for it.

[Venefyxatu]

~Abilities~

 

Samantha is an assassin. She knows how to strike from the shadows effectively and can move without being detected even without using her special abilities (see next post).

She is skilled in the brewing and using of poisons as well as beneficial potions and is quite the actress - she has no problems with gatecrashing a noble's gathering and pretending to be one of them. If she wants to withstand close scrutiny, however, she needs to take her time to prepare (research on news, names, etiquette, ...)

Quick and agile, she can reach places that not everybody can and knows how to use this to her advantage. Also, from her initial adventures she has learned enough about traps to disarm the more basic ones but when she meets the more intricate traps she either needs to work her way around them or risk setting them off...

[Venefyxatu]

~Magical abilities~

 

This raises a rather interesting topic : her attitude towards magic. She has long lived with the idea that if she needed magic to accomplish a goal she wasn't good enough to accomplish it. She takes pride in being able to do seemingly impossible or at least very hard things without magic: the words "I don't need magic for that." may have been the last words of many an adventurer, they will not be hers.

One of her friends from her hometown (who was one of her partymembers when they set off to go adventuring) was, and probably still is, a mage. The way he kept botching experiments and blowing up his master's laboratory is one of the reasons why the latter was so quick to give him permission to go adventuring. She saw him do some... interesting things (the poor horse...) as well and has never really trusted magic and its users again.

 

Nevertheless, now that she has grown used to her special abilities, she doesn't shy back from using them where necessary. This probably has something to do with the fact that, even though they are magical in nature, they are not true magic requiring spell components, casting time, gestures, ...

 

These abilities come from the fact that Samantha is becoming a Shade. Shades were once human but through a prolonged stay in the Plane of Shadows have become something darker and more evil yet more powerful. Since she is not a full Shade and resisting the change, she doesn't have all of the abilities a full Shade has. Because her resistance is not entirely without success, she did gain some slightly different abilities.

Depending on what happens, other abilities may surface, but they will never deviate much from the Shadowdancer prestige class (DnD 3E, DMG p 34 – 36) and the Shade template (Forgotten Realms p 314 – 315)

• As long as there are shadows near, she can hide
• She has a limited ability to jump from one shadow to another, as long as she can see her target
• She is slightly faster and more coordinated when in darkness
• She can see clearly, though black and white, in total darkness
• While in darkness, she heals faster than normally, although deadly wounds will take a long time to heal as well. They just aren't as life-threatening anymore. In spite of that : dead is dead, she can't heal that.
• Those who are sensitive to this kind of thing will know that she is no ordinary human and just might perceive her as evil. Those who are insensitive might notice her slightly grayish skin.

[Venefyxatu]

~Items~

• Weapons :
• 7 daggers, one of which is called Fir'nae, one of which is silver, two of which are treated with poison : one deadly and one stunning
• 1 covered hand crossbow
• 10 mouth darts, created to deliver poison through the hollow point without poisoning the user
• 1 wire garrote

Fir'nae (shadow whisper) : Is a sentient dagger that was cursed. Once it accepts someone as its owner, it cannot leave this person for very long – somehow it will always find its way back, whether the owner likes this or not.

It has some telepathic ability and the power to increase (or decrease) the accuracy of a strike. It is pretty headstrong about bringing any job to a good end, no matter the consequences.

 

 

Other than that, she carries some standard adventuring gear, a finely crafted set of lockpicks and some pouches and flasks to store herbs or other potion ingredients.

 

 

Note : I'm forgetting something here... If only I knew what!

[Venefyxatu]

~Personality~

 

Samantha is actually a very nice woman. She's quick to offer help to anyone needing it and has been known to... "work" (let's be discreet here - apparently it's the better part of valor) for free in cases where it was the only way to deal justice.

If she feels that she has a good reason she'll feel no guilt about stealing things from someone who doesn't need them but she'll never take items or money from those who need them.

 

Like most people she enjoys having a good time but she has developed a habit of not letting her guard down whatever she's doing. Her definition of "a good time" varies : one day she'll have fun at a fair in a poor village or enjoy an evening in an inn, either sitting alone or mingling with the locals, the next day she might be dancing and dining at the royal court, carefully gathering information or just pretending to be someone she is not. Yet another night she could be trying to get into the best-guarded place in the city just to test herself. As you might've guessed, honing her skills and putting them to the test are her favoured pass-times.

 

The thing she resents the most is being treated "wrongly". If she's mingling with commoners and a noble looks down on her she'll try to get him or her back somehow. If she is treated like "a woman who should be taking care of her household" she tends to get snapping and if someone treats her as being inferior, unskilled or dumb while that's not her intention then cold and silent outrage comes over her.

 

She can hold a grudge for a long time or she can be extremely forgiving - that depends on the offender and their behaviour.

[Venefyxatu]

~Relationships~

 

Some of this can be found back in the part describing her personality : she'll act friendly to anyone who hasn't offended her without letting her guard down until she knows them better.

Someone who did offend her had better be wary...

 

What I didn't mention yet is that sometimes she likes to play a trick on someone - rearranging the items they are carrying (like moving their purse from one pocket to another, removing a piece of jewellery and placing it in one of their pockets or somewhere else entirely, ...). This side of her only shows up with people she considers as friends, though.

 

Also, she tries to keep her Shade side hidden. When asked about it she'll answer truthfully but either very briefly or in an avoiding way. Her abilities are something she doesn't talk about unless it's necessary for planning something - otherwise the only way to find out about them is by seeing them used.

 

Summing up all the people she knows would take me too far, but I'll include at least the people she started her adventures with. Note that these were all characters created by other D&D players! It's been a while so I'm a bit foggy on the details (e.g. the god the cleric worshipped)...

 

Karptar the Gray : Dwarf. 'Nuff said. He tried to sneak up on her once while she was bathing in the river. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that sneaking through water makes noise... For some reason she still didn't get back at him.

Lasumias : Elf with a greedy streak. When he gained possession of a large quantity of gold coins (several thousand) she replaced I believe at least half of them (the lower half...) with stones (so the weight difference wouldn't be too obvious). Most of the part she took became "party gold", some of it went to her own purse.

Charles "Caramba" : Human and a magic-user. This is the guy who blew up his master's laboratory so often that the latter was glad to see him leave. The horse the party had when they started off is probably still afraid of him. Poor animal... It'll never chew on a violin again, and it probably still panics at the mere thought of coming near a battle.

 

Someone deserving special mention is her brother. She doesn't know him, doesn't even know she has a brother, and he never knew his parents. It was partly superstition and partly their own wants that drove them to get rid of little Ian not long after he was born. I'm not going to give too many details about him here (he'll get his own thread "when the time is right") but he grew up to be a thief in a big city and doesn't know he has a sister. His name won't give it away either, since he has taken the name Blacktear, but the way he looks like his father just might, one day...