Mackenzie Half-Kender (Pathfinder)

by Trampas Whiteman

Racial Abilities:

• Fearless: Half-Kender receive a +2 racial bonus on all saving throws against fear. Although they do not have the fearlessness of kender, Half-Kender find it much easier to shake off the effects of panic and fright.
• Kender Blood: Half-Kender count as both kender and humans for any effect related to race.
• Keen Senses: Half-Kender receive a +2 racial bonus on Perception skill checks.
• Nimble Fingers: Half-Kender receive a +2 bonus to Disable Device and Sleight of Hand checks.
• Taunt: Like their kender parent, a Half-Kender has an uncanny insight into the motivations and characteristics of other races. Although they do not have quite the mastery of this ability as kender do, a Half-Kender receives a +2 racial bonus on all Bluff checks to taunt someone.
• Weapon Familiarity: Half-Kender are proficient with slings and treat any weapon with the word "kender" in its name as a martial weapon.

Class Abilities:

• Bloodline Arcana (Fey): Increase the DC of spells from the compulsion subschool by +2
• Bloodline Power (Laughing Touch) (Sp) - 6/day: Mackenzie can cause a creature to burst out laughing for 1 round as a melee touch attack. A laughing creature can only take a move action but can defend itself normally. Once a creature has been affected by laughing touch, it is immune to its effects for 24 hours.
• Bloodline Power (Woodland Stride) (Ex): Mackenzie can move through any sort of undergrowth (such as natural thorns, briars, overgrown areas, and similar terrain) at your normal speed and without taking damage or suffering any other impairment. Thorns, briars, and overgrown areas that have been magically manipulated to impede motion, however, still affect you.
• Cantrips: Mackenzie knows a number of 0-level spells, but they do not consume any slots and may be used again.
• Evasion (Ex): On a successful Reflex saving throw against an attack that normally deals half damage on a successful save, Mackenzie instead takes no damage.
• Rogue Talent (Finesse Rogue): Gain Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat.
• Sneak Attack +2d6: Mackenzie's attack deals extra damage anytime his target would be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC, or when Mac flanks his target. This extra damage is not multiplied on a critical hit. Ranged attacks count as sneak attacks so long as the target is within 30 feet. Sneak attacks can be used for nonlethal damage.
• Trap Sense (Ex): Mac has an intuitive sense that alerts him to danger from traps, giving him a +1 bonus on Reflex saves made to avoid traps and a +1 dodge bonus to AC against attacks made by traps.
• Trapfinding: Mackenzie adds +1 to Perception skill checks made to locate traps and to Disable Device skill checks. Mackenzie can use Disable Device to disarm magic traps.

Feats:

Deft Hands, Eschew Materials, Improved Initiative, Weapon Finesse

Languages

Common, Kenderspeak, Dwarven.

Spells:

Sorcerer Spells Known (6/3/1; spell save DC 13 + spell level, DC15 + spell level for compulsion subschool)

• 0 (Cantrips):Dancing Lights, Daze, Ghost Sound, Mage Hand, Open/Close, Prestidigitation
• 1st (7):Burning Hands, Entangle, Expeditious Retreat, Obscuring Mist
• 2nd (4):Hideous Laughter

*Bonus 1st level spell due to Vizier's Turban.

Weapons:

Dagger (+1) +7 (1d4+1 - 19-20/x2)

Combat:

CMB: +3
CMD: 15

Possessions:

Kefree pot and kefree root (Khurish coffee equivalent), Vizier's Turban, 1 week of trail rations, 2 waterskins, hooded lantern, flint & steel, 3 flasks of oil, 2 sacks, dagger +1, bracers of armor +1, wand of color spray (25 chgs).

Description:

Mackenzie looks like a human adolescent around 15 years old, though he's actually 30. He has curly brown hair, brown eyes, weighs 125 pounds, and stands 5'4" tall.

Background:

Mackenzie always seemed to have a knack for trouble. He inherited certain kender tendencies from his mother, which often plague him in life. Wanderlust took Mackenzie across the continent, going from job to job to pay his way. He would never stay anywhere for too long. Mackenzie was almost fearless, causing him to be reckless. He also had a knack for picking pockets, although he did so consciously, unlike his kender kin. This ability saw him in more than one jail.

Mackenzie exists between worlds. He feels that his mother and her people are far too carefree about life. Yet he feels awkward in human communities where he appears as little more than a young adolescent.

Mackenzie never knew his father. His mother doesn't remember much about him, other than "he was a nice man". He's not sure what frustrates him more – not having a father, or the fact that his mother treats the events of his conception as trivial at best. While he loves his mother, he is simultaneously frustrated by her.

What Mackenzie is unaware of is that his human father carried with him the blood of the fey. Dormant for many generations, this bloodline kicked in with Mackenzie, perhaps due to his half-breed nature. This has caused Mackenzie to have a certain sense of mischief. Combined with his kender heritage, it is a dangerous combination.

Eventually, wanderlust settled upon Mackenzie and he left home. While somewhat sad to leave, he knew that it was time for change and to meet his father's people. The humans he encountered always treated Mackenzie with scorn if they knew about his kender heritage. If not, he was treated as an adolescent. Mackenzie learned to survive on the streets, moving from town to town so as to avoid trouble.

Mackenzie also discovered within himself a talent for magic. He had heard about a school of magic in Solace, and soon enrolled at the Academy of Sorcery. Yet trouble was not far behind. One of Mackenzie's instructors accused him of stealing an item imbued with the old magic. There was talk among the instructors, and it looked as if Mackenzie might be expelled.

Angered that once again his kender heritage got him into trouble, even when he was innocent of the crime, Mackenzie left. He soon fell into old habits, going from town to town. He eventually found himself on a few adventures with a Qualinesti ranger and became close friends with a centaur named Tarbash.

Mackenzie started to grow in power, and realized that his studies at the Academy of Sorcery were largely responsible for unlocking his hidden potential. He decided to return to the Academy to continue his studies, yet he returned too late. The Academy of Sorcery had been destroyed.

Of all the lessons Mackenzie learned at the Academy, perhaps the most important was that no one ever stops being a student of sorcery. Mackenzie has now gone out into the world, seeking to develop his own potential. Mackenzie uses his magic for good, having a soft spot in his heart for other "misfits".

Ears

Mackenzie travels with a bassett hound named Ears, a rather ugly mutt of a dog who Mackenzie believes is being watched and scorned by the gods.

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