Favorite characters

It was pretty clear that Katoichi from an earlier post is a Kobold ripoff of  hommage to the long-time Japanese movie character Zatoichi., the blind masseuse-gambler-swordsman. Wonder Wife and I are great fans of Beat Takeshi's 2004 version of Zatoichi, and that film directly inspired these two characters as well. This backstory is from an email to the DM.

Elsa & Adrien

Karmin and Walter will be playing Elsa and Adrien, twin sisters. Elsa is the butch one (older by a minute), a nimble rogue, and Adrien is the femme one, a charming bard. They hail from a middle-class family in the hinterlands (you tell us where), a merchant clan with the roots of its small fortune in piracy and smuggling. Dad wants the family to be more legit, so he insisted his children go to university and he had the resources to pay their way in. Adrien is truly interested in learning more about these magic powers she has been experiencing; she has been up to now attempting to be a model student even though her own moral standards can be fairly elastic. Elsa really just came along (a) to protect Adrien and (b) to con/steal from the townies to line her own pockets (she takes after her mother's side of the family). As such, while Elsa attends classes and sometimes even enjoys them, much of her time is spent off-campus in various taverns around town, drinking and gambling with the townies.

Now here are the deets only the DM needs to know:

First of all, Adrien is actually a boy. He is a cross-dresser, living as a woman to avoid a longstanding feud involving the first-born sons of rival families in [whatever hinterland we're from] as part of dad's plan to go legit and leave the clan past behind. Adrien has Disguise and Bluff at 9 and Act at 8 and has been doing this almost his whole life, so I imagine she passes very well. Other than that, the backstory is accurate.

Adrien has focused exclusively on Enchantment spells and carries a small ornate masterwork light crossbow (a going-away gift from daddy) in her pack and no other weapons. She wears only padded armor, which has very intricate and ornate embroidery. Some paper and pen in her backpack and that's about it. I have attached a picture that gets the flavor: she is practicing Perform (Dance). Since this is a one-shot, if you think the Enchantment focus is a little off for the flavor of the adventure (or if I just change my mind) I might go Conjuration.

Elsa almost always has numerous daggers secreted about her body, which she draws -- and sheathes -- with sleight-of-hand. Since many people in town go armed, however, she often openly carries one very plain-looking dagger, lest anyone mistakenly suspect she's an easy, defenseless mark. One of the hidden daggers is a masterwork dagger that she recently was given after finally -- and just barely -- proving herself by managing to nick her mother during one of their many combat lessons. While she cannot use magic herself, due to her sister's coming into some ability with it, she's been interested in learning more about magic -- specifically, say, methods for how those without magical talents can try to use magical artifacts. Otherwise, she focuses on her own, personal lessons: making local connections with smugglers, thieves, and others with dubious morals so that she may someday, despite father's wishes, keep up the family tradition; learning the local gossip; and trying to make just enough money gambling each week to cover her bar tabs and incidentals -- by cheating, if need be. Since town-gown relations are strained, however, she doesn't advertise that she's a student, instead preferring to leave her affiliations and profession nebulously undefined -- and leaving her books and school supplies on campus.

Karmin is my best gaming buddy and we did have a swell time playing these siblings for a campaign that was all too short...