Character 99 - Mkpulunma Usweko

Picking a class for this week’s character was difficult. Although the high charisma screamed some kind of charisma caster; Bard, Bloodrager, Oracle, Skald, and Sorcerer all had magic that in the Mana Wastes would be unreliable at best and dangerous at worst. This goes to show that although the stats may lean toward one thing, background information may dictate another.

I was originally thinking that she would be some sort of charisma-monkey rogue. Then I remembered that constitution was the core stat for the kineticist from Occult Adventures. In looking through their archetypes I found one for specifically for changelings out of the Blood of the Coven book called the Arakineticist. Upon further delving I also found the Overwhelming Soul, which replaced con as the core stat with charisma. The fact that they stacked was just the providence I needed to make this character.

Mkpulunma Usweko

The Mana Wastes is a barren place, but life can be found here and there amongst the mutants and monsters. In many instances, these small towns and village fall along what few trade routes pass through these desolate lands. In one of these towns is where Yafeu Usweko made his home after leaving the jungles of Mwangi with his first wife and son.

Yafeu was a merchant among his people and used what money he made to expand his business upon his arrival in the Wastes. Just as his career grew, his family did as well. His late wife bore him one more child, although she passed before her youngest son even turned ten.

It took a few years but the merchant eventually remarried. The woman reminded him very much of his first wife. The married quickly and within a year she produced a daughter. But on the night of their child’s birth, the mother mysteriously disappeared leaving Yafeu to raise the child alone. The coming of a daughter and the loss of a second wife was bittersweet.

Mkpulunma grew the youngest child with two overprotective brothers. Even if she was only their half-sister they still loved her very much. As she grew up, the young girl exhibited a certain unnatural beauty that attracted many of the boys in their town. Nothing ever lasted and she often used her brothers to help her break off a romance that she decided she was over so as to protect her ego from the pain of being broken up with.

When she was spurned for another girl by a young man who she took a fancy to she became exceedingly jealous. She used her position as the daughter of one of the more prominent tradesmen to humiliate the young girl, who she felt stole the affections of the boy she wanted. Again her pride would not let her be hurt in this way.

Things began to change for her when Mkpulunma was sixteen. Aspects of her true heritage began to show themselves. The curse of her mother’s bloodline began to overwhelm her body with negative energy. The blood of a hag almost tried to kill her and those around her as she began to lash out with blasts of entropy and decay.

The young changeling began to hide from the world; her ego could not allow for those around her to see her so vulnerable. In her quest to remain unseen she turned to the lady of veils. She begged to be made invisible to those who would seek to know her. She also took up the wearing of many veils to cover the green hair and different color eyes that gave her away as the daughter of a hag.

The Mana Wastes are full of chaos. Magic has gone awry when it even works at all. Those who exhibit some of these wild talents do not go unnoticed. Although Mkpulunma’s abilities were neither divine nor arcane in nature they were still seen to some as a symptom of the anarchy of power in the region. One such person to take notice was the hunter Heracrix.

Heracrix’s powers came from the discordant nature of the land around them. His wild soul infused with the beasts of the land, but not so much that he could manage true druidic magic. As a member of one of the few druid groups in the region who looked to heal the land, he chooses to do so by helping others with wild talent to find some sort of balance within themselves.

The Hunter took Mkpulunma under his wing as her mentor and trainer. He found her strength in the force of personality she exhibited and helped her to learn to use that to control the power of her curse. Although it lessened what she was able to accomplish, it did keep her constant production of negative energy from eating away at her physical being.

Through years of constant study, learning to force her mind over her body, Mkpulunma eventually gained control of her curse. She still wanted very little to do with others, lest her fragile pride be hurt. She decided to leave all those who knew her in the past and make her way in the world where the new her was the only her people would know. What that will bring she is quite unsure of.

With that I give you a complete background but what class do you think this character would have become? Who was her mentor? Why was she jealous enough to humiliate someone? Where did her worship of Sivanah come from?

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