Character Name: Skarrab-Alea
Race: Arakhan - A race of humanoid spider people, though they're technically akin to mammals such as apes in as many ways as arachnids. That said, they possess as many eyes and limbs as you'd expect of a spider person, and whilst they are highly flexible, and possess tough exoskeletal plates to supplement a more standard endoskeleton, they take a long time to heal fully when actually damaged.
Gender: Female
Age: 29
Appearance:
Personality and Motivations: Skarrab-Alea is a prime example of a rich aristocrat amongst the Arakhan race, and arguably most races - difficult to amuse, thinking little of the lower classes of society, and often incognisant of how well-off she is by comparison. This has led her to be the sort of person who take on many, sometimes eccentric hobbies, but abandons most after a time; indeed, sheer boredom is the primary reason she has decided to take on this mission, rather than any particular desire to help perform the king's tasks, and indeed considers the opportunity to "do something different for once" a trifle, rather than the life-risking adventure it really is. That said, and in spite of how many view her race, she isn't by any means a sociopath, nor is she needlessly cruel to others, though she often refers to those of lesser fortune than herself in a casually-dismissive tone until otherwise humbled. She is inordinately fond of cute things, however, a trait which extends to people too, and surprisingly interested in the function of her weapon of choice.
Class and Alignment: Neutral Gunslinger/Enchanter
History: Born into the ranks of the
vieux riche via the Skarrab line, Alea hatched the first of her mother's first egg brood, and was therefore entitled to a far larger share of her family's riches than any of her future siblings, as was traditional in the otherwise-crowded families of the Arakhan. Also traditional: a tendency for siblings to fight and kill one another as hatchlings until only a few remain, or until they reach around two or three years of age and develop from just looking like rather large spiders into having a proper upper body, though retaining a spider-like lower half. Alea evidently reached this stage, along with four or five siblings, and from there found herself being taught a great many things by her mother (her father taking the role in her life of most Arakhan fathers, namely not that much at all) throughout childhood, such as etiquette around those of similar status to herself and how and where to continue investing money to provide for her future young, insofar as that was even necessary. Naturally, this led to a generally superior attitude, as tends to happen when one is a rich child, and eventually a rich adolescent.
Indeed, it was during adolescence that the exoskeleton of her spider half began creeping up her body. She was at first frightened and distraught, but as she learned from her mother early, it was simply the start of a wonderful blossoming into adulthood... which, for Arakhan teenagers, involves a form of semi-metamorphosis, starting from the encasement of much of the upper body, then progressing through a gradual and rather painful malfunction of the lower half of their bodies until they cease to function completely (as you might expect when the internal organs and musculature slowly turn to goo), and officially ending once the Arakhan succeeds in freeing themselves from a cocoon which by that stage covers everything below their armpits, a much more talldwarfoid body now fully formed, complete with six arms rather than the two they would previously have been used to.
This is quite standard, of course; what isn't generally standard is for the teenager to actually be accosted during this long process, even if that isn't technically immoral by Arakhan standards. Even so, one of Alea's sisters from the brood after hers decided, since she and her eldest siblings were vulnerable, that she'd take a literal stab at every survivor from the first brood, therefore ensuring that she, as the eldest from the second brood, would acquire all the money that would otherwise be offered to Alea at their respective mother's death. Inexplicably, she started with Alea's youngest sibling and attempted to end it with Alea herself, perhaps an effort to ensure the first-hatched would be as non-functional as possible, and in truth Alea survived mostly by quickly figuring out what was going on and crawling over to a recently-purchased gun of her mother's, then using it to blow a hole through her errant sister's head from point blank range, just before her life would have been ended. The experience wasn't fun for her, but it did teach her the substantial power of that recent technological advance, the flintlock pistol.
This would lead her, once she'd emerged fully from her cocoon as an official adult, to look more deeply into the technology in question throughout her early twenties. Whilst quite strong indeed, they had their flaws, namely how long they took to reload after firing... in the midst of a variety of other hobbies taken up and abandoned throughout her life, she would often try to determine if they'd offer any significant benefit to improving the strength and speed of such weapons, just in case she was ever attacked again, but she had little success until after her mother died in a terrible cart accident. This allowed her to inherit her portion of the family's funds at last, putting them to work in research toward the topic, and not long after that, she struck gold with the discovery that she was surprisingly talented in the field of enchantment.
Talented, but of course untrained at first. Even under a tutor (paid well to balance out her own impatience on the matter), Alea purchased and broke a great number of flintlocks attempting to figure out a good combination of enchantments. Eventually, at the age of twenty eight, she found a combination of weapon and ammunition enchantment that worked well together and to her eyes was very smart indeed, seemingly providing the gun so enchanted with a nigh-unlimited supply of ammunition, able to be fired far more quickly than any normal flintlock weapon. Though useful, she felt she needed more of the same, so she naturally decided to enchant several more flintlocks with this combination, just in case she needed spares. She stopped at her sixth, however, after realising that if she placed one on each foot, she wouldn't be able to fire them normally... and for the difficult nature of enchantment, this has stumped her all over again, right up until the present day, wherein she has received a message about the head advisor of the king's need for adventurers to brave the Believer's Crypt and clear it of undead monstrosities; being tired of her present problem for now, she has decided to take up this challenge, and perhaps find inspiration for the matter within as she slays the undead alongside a number of other people.
Equipment:
Spider Kisses - A set of six flintlock pistols, magically enchanted to cock themselves automatically with but a portion of focus from Alea. This on its own is not particularly useful; however, each weapon's lead shot is also enchanted to return to spherical form and teleport back into the barrel of its respective gun when it slows to a halt, in doing so triggering another enchantment in each weapon to create more gunpowder and paper wrapping for each gun from thin air when they do, essentially ensuring every single pistol possesses infinite ammunition and a far greater fire rate than any normal flintlock weapon.
Whilst a hail of gunfire is very useful and very effective in combat, the downside is that they are the first six pistols she has enchanted in this manner, and they have not been very thoroughly tested, meaning they are essentially prototype weapons as a result: Alea doesn't necessarily know that every enchantment applied will work as intended every single time, nor that they will last forever, nor that they won't occasionally do something random and unanticipated, though she has yet to encounter such issues. And of course, there's always the matter of what happens when the weapon itself misfires, most notably the difficulties involved, e.g. timing, in ensuring the barrel of each weapon doesn't melt, or worse having the gun itself explode, due to much higher heat output than they were intended for.
The two weapons on her heels have yet to be enchanted at all, and are essentially decoration at this point in time, though they can function as standard flintlocks too.
Pistol maintenance kit - For maintenance of Spider Kisses, in particular a cleaning kit, extra round supplies (enchanted shot, paper wrapping, black powder), and a ramrod. Alea doesn't expect to have to use any of this in the field; it's mostly precautionary.
Portable enchantment kit - For on-the-road enchantments, though the equipment she is carrying is mostly geared for emulating, fixing, and modifying the present enchantments of Spider Kisses at the present time.
Journal, quill and inkpot - Alea is considering spending some time after all this is over to write a book about the experience. To that end, she intends to write down notes about what happens during it, to use as a basis for the book proper, thus necessitating some extra equipment for that purpose.
Skills and Spells:
Gunplay - Evidently, Alea is very skilled at aiming and firing her flintlock pistols, even to the extent of being able to aim them mostly independently of one another. Five eyes and six arms does wonders for your hand-eye coordination. By contrast, actively reloading them is a rare necessity, but she is also capable of this to a reasonable degree of speed.
Battle Gymnastics/Dancing - One might expect a small arsenal of hobbies facilitating gunplay to include more battle-oriented supports like swordplay, but it happens that substantial flexibility and dexterity is actually very useful for making sure Alea can avoid threats to her life. She has also put a certain degree of focus into still being able to aim whilst flipping and spinning everywhere, again helped by having five eyes to observe the world through.
Enchantment - Of course, Alea has made herself fairly proficient in the field of enchanting items to be more useful than typical, with a particular focus in guns of various sorts, primarily the most modern variation of flintlocks, though the concept is not so dissimilar in the case of matchlock and wheellock weapons either. The degree to which this is useful within a dungeon is questionable, but she is nonetheless capable of some minor enchantment with the tools she has packed for the dungeon crawl.
Reading and Writing - The poor are oft separated from the rich by the latter's capacity to understand and communicate via the written word. So sayeth the Skarrab family, anyway, and Alea has evidently been taught how to read and write, for it wouldn't be proper for a lady of her caliber to not have done so.
Baking - Surprisingly enough, but understandable considering the similar degree of logic required for both enchantment and baking, Alea also has a knack for producing the most delectable breads, cakes, and other such baked good, even if the dough is often deliberately seeded with spiders, beetles, and/or flies before cooking. "For extra flavour", as she says, not that many Arakhan disagree with the notion; regardless, whilst the prospect is unlikely within a dungeon, if you can get her in front of an oven with the right ingredients, there's a good chance that she'll produce something quite tasty indeed.
Miscellaneous: Her outfit is made of dyed spider silk, with various valuable trinkets attached to it. It won't exactly stop a blade or bullet, but it's high fashion amongst the Arakhan to wear their evolutionary cousin's butt-thread on their bodies.
