Hildegard Colvezzo

Hildegard Bulphara Colvezzo is the second heir to a financially-deficit noble family in the Archduchy of Sirmium. While her early childhood was relatively uneventful, her poorer status and height were common targets for her fellows among the court, and eventually she broke down and took her parents' advice to get out of the nobility's sight for a while. While she initially enlisted in the Cheliax army, she would eventually find herself in the service of a local duke nearby the Briarwood. Her childhood and time as a soldier would begin to foster certain ideas regarding deception, fear, and her status as a noble, but it would be under his employ that she began to fuse them together; he took notice of her trickery, and took her in as an assistant, promising greater connections in the political world if she remained loyal to him. While he wasn't exactly the best boss in the world (to put it mildly), it would be here that she was exposed to how effective her act as a naive "princess" could be, given the right words and a bit of additional force.

She had set her sights higher than that, however. With his untimely death, which she denied any involvement in, she began to find work as a bodyguard and spy among the nobility (and, rarely, royalty). It would also be during this time that she trained in secret as a martial artist, seeing underhanded potential in the ability to fight with no weaponry. She would eventually attract high-profile targets thanks to her increasing wealth and good track record, and became popular enough to garner the interest of certain contacts in Molthune. Seeing this as a chance to work for easier targets (or, more likely, due to a certain half-elf she met on a political visit and quickly fell in love with), she decided to escape Cheliax and move there.

In any case, her work eventually attracted the interest of the Order, who contracted her for a few jobs before the events of Chapter 7. She knows of the party due to their fame, but (most likely) has not met any of them personally. She announced her engagement with Euclari Terragnan (who was absolutely not the reason she moved to Molthune) a few months ago; she plans to move to a less risky career if this job ends up paying well enough, as she has largely accomplished everything she set out to do when she joined the military all those years ago.

✦ Info/Personality

My fourth and final character created for our group's 2E playtest campaign, made to replace my old character Lukas since he started becoming a bit boring to play both mechanically and RP-wise. Given her upbringing in Cheliax, she puts a lot of stock into the Lawful Evil ideology, although she has softened a bit in her older age. While technically a Monk (her actual spellcasting is limited to three cantrips), she is meant to evoke the Warlock concept via a heavy focus on Wild Winds Stance and ki powers.

Before taking up adventuring, her main sources of income come from working as a bodyguard for nobles and occasionally royal figures, and espionage. Her concept of Lawful Evil is a bit less destructive than most; she follows her given orders and keeps a personal moral code, but she's also a prideful, selfish jerkass who has few issues with killing. That being said, she cares enough about the potential fame and/or money that comes with being a savior of the world to not screw over her teammates (especially since she wants to change careers into legal work fairly soon). Don't expect her to act heroically in combat, however.

✦ Appearance

As most gnomes, she has a childish appearance, and is recognizable by her large eyebrows. She's around four feet in height thanks to her heritage, which (to her embarrassment) is significantly taller than the average gnome but still extremely short for a human. She often wears formal clothing to almost any event, especially dresses; that being said, she's trained to fight in any kind of clothing. Her hair is well-kept, although done in a slightly odd design.

Her primary class, Monk, pushes her towards a high-movement melee fighter with good AC, lowish offense, and a wide range of utility. That being said, though, she is built much closer to a Rogue; her main focus is on ranged sneak attacks, given to her either by the ki-powered Wild Winds Stance or a heavy crossbow she keeps for emergencies. Her multiclass archetypes, Sorcerer and Rogue, aren't meant to give her anything particularly new so much as shore up her existing abilities - Sorcerer gives her more utility and increases the power of her familiar (which I'll get to later), while Rogue gives her additional skills and skill feats to help her multitasking build get to where it needs to be.

As most monks, she only uses weapons for emergencies; her main method of offense is punching people. But not just physical contact - she's mastered the ability to punch wind so hard it punches people for her. Ok, not really; the in-universe justification will be her manipulating the air with her innate magic to attack, but I like the other idea better, don't you? Wild Winds Stance also has one other key part that I'll be taking advantage of heavily - with the 14th-level feat Wild Winds Gust, she can use her Wild Winds Crash as a 30 ft. cone or 60 ft. line, allowing her to sneak attack multiple people at once while not hitting her allies due to it allowing her to choose targets (this also pairs well with Greater Shock, as she can arc to additional targets on a critical hit for greater overall damage). If she needs to fight in melee, she also has the option of Crane Stance and a Greater Sturdy Shield - this allows her to spike her AC up to 45, ensuring a hit rate of 55% or below for on-level enemies (although this comes at the disadvantage of action economy, my greatest nemesis). She doesn't necessarily have to deal with people just parking themselves next to her, either - Ki Rush allows her to safely maneuver out of range if her opponent's reach isn't too high, while Whirling Throw circumvents the issue entirely by kicking opponents away from her.

It's worth mentioning, though, that these defensive measures may not even be necessary. Legendary Sneak allows her to sneak around the battlefield without needing cover, which can be further bolstered with Create a Diversion if a plausible excuse is needed. The secondary ability also allows her to consistently get Stealth to initiative, letting her take advantage of her higher rolls to position and take advantage of Surprise Attack. Her high movement speed and access to crossbows also lets her transition to ranged without much issue, helped along by her familiar performing reload actions for her.

She does have a few notable weaknesses, though. Due to a lack of feats and ability boosts, her HP is on the lower side for a Monk; Wholeness of Body lets her heal off some damage every now and then, but she can't afford to take too many hits. She also relies heavily on initiative, as positioning and getting flat-footed on targets is extremely important for her to do meaningful damage; as such, getting her caught off guard means she might be stuck using her lower Perception. Her kit also falls apart against resistances/elemental immunities, as her attacks deal lowish amounts of multiple damage types, and she can't really do much else in combat apart from flanking, dodge-tanking, and maybe Aiding other PCs.

Outside of combat, her best role is probably scouting (which Tim can probably do better but on the off chance divinations don't work/are a bad idea) due to having a solid Stealth kit and Deception to help draw off suspicion. She can also serve as a decoy (which she doesn't mind, as it's happened a lot in her line of work), perform a bit of parkour, and get through social situations decently well thanks to high Deception and workable Diplomacy (although she probably should avoid taking a lead position here).