Pathfinder: Sasha Whiptongue
Why To Not Show Me Weird Things
I’m not telling anyone anything new by saying that sometimes inspiration can come from strange places. I have, on many occasions, built entire world concepts for movies, games, etc. out of a single image and what it set off in my brain. I also have a habit of trying to turn certain ideas into something I can play with, mostly in game settings, tabletop or online.
This particular example was inspired by this:
I found this image looking for something totally unrelated, but it definitely caught my attention. The orc with a bow tie, the Maid Cafe outfit as interpreted by orcs, and the way the artist clearly made the subject not have a typical orcish (or half-orcish) build yet still made her quite muscular, those were the things that caught my attention, and provided the inspiration to develop a character, which ended up being best handled by Pathfinder rules.
Consider yourself warned…
Character: Sasha Whiptongue
Race: Half-Orc
Classes: Bard / Barbarian
Background:
Sasha’s story really begins with her parents. Unlike most half-orcs, Sasha’s parents were also half-orcs — her father came about the usual way half-orcs are conceived, but her mother was the daughter of an evil human woman. According to Sasha’s mother, the woman was a bandit chief who had “grown bored with human men.” Sasha didn’t ask for details, and has never met her maternal grandparents, because one of her mother’s early adventures was to eliminate the bandit gang Sasha’s grandmother led.
Both of Sasha’s parents were adventurers, actually. They met working as mercenaries, hit it off, got married, settled down in a moderately sized human village, and had Sasha and Sasha’s older brother Tarv. Mostly they worked as guards, dealing with local monsters and troublemakers; the locals didn’t like the half-orc couple much, but didn’t hate them either, so Sasha and her brother didn’t have to deal with much of the usual prejudice against half-orcs.
Things changed when Sasha was about three. A tribe of orcs known as the Rude Finger Clan (literal translation, it sounds more impressive in Orcish) moved into the area and started causing problems. To be fair, the Rude Finger Clan was rather down on their luck; their chief was big and strong but very dumb, their shaman was a zealot, and they’d run afoul of first a rival clan of orcs and then, while fleeing, an elven raiding party. Still, orcs don’t make good neighbors, even if it’s only a few dozen, and when livestock started going missing, the villagers asked Sasha’s parents to intervene.
Sasha’s parents were both retired adventurers, and managed to negotiate peace with the orc clan through the time-honored orcish tradition of challenging and killing the chief, the shaman, and any other clan members that objected to behaving themselves. Truth be told, the Rude Finger Clan didn’t object very much — they were less than happy with the way their clan had been led, so after half a dozen challenges, the clan agreed to be reasonable neighbors to the human village and took up residence in a nearby series of caverns that had little to offer besides shelter for the usual things that take up residence in caverns near human settlements. Sasha’s parents became the chieftains that the Rude Finger Clan didn’t actually have, and the human villagers became a great deal more friendly.
Sasha grew up splitting her time between the human village and the orc caves. Mostly, this meant being an arbiter — her parents educated her in the elements of orcish culture that didn’t expressly involve murdering non-orcs, and the humans taught her about how human culture worked. A lot of her time ended up being acting as a mediator between the humans and the orcs, helping to resolve misunderstandings before one of Sasha’s parents needed to be called out to resolve the issue by punching everyone into compliance. With Sasha’s help, the orcs gradually absorbed elements of human culture (often with mixed results); they had an inn (mostly frequented by orcs), developed trade agreements with the humans, and even found work in the village doing jobs that were suited to large, strong people. Fights still happened, but by the time Sasha was a teenager, they were more akin to typical country disagreements than actual battles between humans and orcs.
As things settled down, Sasha had more free time on her hands. Sure, her parents taught her the ways of barbarian warriors, but her real interest was in stories of adventure, and in the bards and other performers who’d occasionally pass through the village. More than a few were unsettled by the half-orc girl staring raptly at them, but Sasha still learned enough to keep her interest… and as it turned out, Sasha had a talent for music people with less than progressive opinions about half-orcs wouldn’t expect. She learned to play the lute and dance, but her best skill was singing, developing a husky voice which could be surprisingly emotive and attractive. The locals all appreciate her talent, but visitors are often surprised, if not outright shocked.
Sasha has also developed a local reputation for being cheery, friendly, and helpful, but also for having a sharp tongue when annoyed, which is where her “Whiptongue” epithet comes from. To be fair, a decent portion of her ability to browbeat orcs into behaving was due to who her parents were, but she’s not unskilled in invective either. The Rude Finger Clan liked her enough to officially “adopt” her, giving her some of their tribal tattoos. With her parents’ permission, of course. The question of having an orc mate wasn’t discussed.
Unsurprisingly, Sasha’s interest in adventure stories developed into the sort of wanderlust that causes people to become adventurers themselves. She works part-time at both the human tavern and the orcish tavern, but it wouldn’t take a great deal to convince her to pack up her stuff and hit the road.
Other Character Notes:
- Sasha is 6'6" tall, and while she has green skin, small tusks, and muscles, she definitely takes more after the human side of her family than the orcish side. Her brother Tarv, on the other hand, looks more orc than human, a trait that causes customers at the bakery he operates to invariably be polite and never, ever try to leave without paying.
- Assuming Sasha begins play somewhere other than her home village, her difficulty getting mercenary work on account of not being a half-orc musclehead and not being a traditionally pretty Bard would likely result in her making ends meet by part-time work as a tavern wench.
- Her preferred weapon is a greataxe that was a gift from her mother. It isn’t magical or anything, but she gets annoyed if someone tries to take it away or suggests that a greataxe isn’t ladylike.
- Sasha is big, but is just too cheerful to get a bonus on Intimidation. On the other hand, she’s unusually tough and energetic, which I felt was best represented by the “Shaman’s Apprentice” Alternate Racial Trait and the Invulnerable Rager Archetype.
Character Build Information (Version 1):
Race: Half-Orc (+2 Charisma, Human Raised, Shaman’s Apprentice)
Primary Class: Bard (Diva, Sound Striker)
(Note: Yes, I’m aware of the Pathfinder rule that two Archetypes that replace the same base class ability can’t be applied to the same character, however, Diva and Sound Striker both replace Inspire Competence with the exact same ability using the exact same wording. Only the name is different.)
Secondary Cass: Barbarian (Invulnerable Rager, Urban Barbarian)
Feats of Note: Pass For Human, War Singer
Character Build Information (Version 2):
Race: Half-Orc (+2 Charisma, Sacred Tattoo, Shaman’s Apprentice)
Class: Bard (Diva, Sound Striker)
Variant Multiclass: Barbarian
Feats of Note: Pass For Human, War Singer
As a side note, I find it amusing that half-orcs are proficient in “all weapons with ‘orc’ in their name” but there’s only one (or possibly two) orc weapons.
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