Surprisingly, the three books focused on social lalalas don’t provide any appropriate traits. Glancing through the social traits on the SRD reveals Bastard which, while not literally true, does kinda fit Forsetilafom’s childhood experiences of being an outsider and a noble without much power to back them up. Its benefit ~ +1 to Sense Motive and it’s always a class skill ~ works for Forsetilafom but is, truth be told, kinda blah. And their skill is already really fucking good, even without magic items: they succeed on a DC 20 (like for Sense Relationships) 70% of the time when dealing with people from Natsiyaasim. If they’re not humanoids and speaking a foreign language, that’s still a 20% success rate! Bastard is from Ultimate Campaign ~ mebbe I’ll take a look in there. The aasimar racial traits on the SRD give us some maybe slightly better options, and if I take a drawback from Ultimate Campaign ~ like Dependent, which makes perfect sense for Forsetilafom’s background ~ I can take both! Wary and Adrift work together to portray their background well, I think, and contribute both to their primary weapon being Sense Motive and their role as High Reeve.
As for spending Forsetilafom’s 3000gp, Heroes of the High Court provides nothing useful beyond a price for ostentatious garments and the other two courtly books only a handful more of interest that they can afford. Searching for magic items that would supercharge Forsetilafom’s primary weapon results in a lot of things that are too expensive for them to purchase, but also ioun stones, two of which are affordable and appropriate (cracked blue rhomboid and cracked magenta prism). Costing a total of 1200 gp together, and 1700 with a wayfinder, their power is simply supercharging but the image is powerful. The crown jewels of Forsetilafom’s family riven by their betrayal, circling around their beautiful head. I wonder about searching for magic items that mention aasimar, noble, court, justice, sex, seduction, seduce, and prostitution? Aasimar only gives 6 results, prompting me to add Blood of Angels to my list for Forsetilafom’s shopping. Noble gives a couple, including a constant detect poison which would be super useful, but court refuses to turn up anything useful as do justice and every other keyword I try. Blood of Angels turns up all of nothing either.
OK, so let’s start looking at some packages of magic items: A cracked dark blue rhomboid ioun stone and a magenta prism ioun stone in a standard wayfinder (which would give Forsetilafom +1 to Perception, Sense Motive, and one save, and +2 to one other skill that isn’t related to the save that got the bonus) add up to 1700, as I said. A noble’s vigilant pillbox with only the white pearl (the constant detect poison 10 feet that I mentioned, plus a one-time delay poison effect) would bring that up to 2450 gp. There’s some flashy magic items that I was looking at ~ the Kitharodian pen, platter of exquisite feasting, and sleeves of many garments ~ but you know what? Fuck it. The family jewels that I just described are much more appropriate. Let’s go with them. 650 gp remain, from which an immediate 320 is removed to purchase a masterwork rapier, leaving 330 gp. Another single gp gives a reinforced tunic so Forsetilafom’s AC isn’t, like, the worst ever.
Ultimate Intrigue has a sidebar entitled “Tools of Intrigue” which lists good equipment choices for various intrigue-related professions. The paragraph on reconaissance is prolly a super-good place to start. A 50-page journal, book lariat to ensure it doesn’t get stolen, inkpen, and vial of regular ink would cost Forsetilafom a total of 18 gp 4 sp. Adding a signet ring and sealing wax to serve as their mark adds another 6 gp. An ear trumpet and a mirror to aid in covert surveillance through doors and around corners sets them back 15 gp more, leaving them with 289 gp 6 sp.
We should take a look at Forsetilafom’s wardrobe, too, I suppose. One outfit of 10 gp or less is free, which will be a courtesan’s outfit, I do believe. A courtier’s outfit, for more formal occasions, costs another 30 gp; Forsetilafom had to run from their home chateau in quite the rush and then rebuild their life and (somewhat) their standing afterwards, so we’ll spend only 25 gp on jewelry and accessories, halfway in cost between an out-of-place commoner wearing fancy clothes and an actual established noble. We’re down to 234 gp 6 sp.
Let’s put some antitoxin in that vigilant pillbox for 50 gp for a vial, and buy some clear ear for 15 gp beside. A perfume kit would seem to be a good spend for 40 gp, bringing Forsetilafom’s coffers down to 129 gp 6 sp. A Nosleborrean blue book, a book of puzzles, and some flash seeds cost another 90 gp, leaving us with 39 gp 6 sp. Let’s update Forsetilafom’s ink to ghost ink, further protecting their investigations. That takes another 17 gp. A courtesan’s kit might be a good 10 gp spent, and a grooming kit would be another gp. We’re down to 10 gp 6 sp. A Medium treasure chest to hold everything while the High Reeve Adventurant travels brings us to 3 gp 6 sp. Considering that’s the equivalent of $720-$1800, that’s good walking around money for a noble with no real power to back their station. Let’s leave it at that!
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