Who Are You? Part 6 - Niobe Morkoth

One of the players from Hubris and Ascension invited me to play in his home-brew campaign. He described his world of the Fifth Sorcerer and the premise intrigued me. He was hoping it would a long running game, with our characters making it up to 20th level. Ambitious indeed! How could I say no? But the question became, what kind of character should I play this time.

Well part of me never felt all that satisfied with the way Milo turned, so I figured it was time to try a roguish character again. But in so many ways Klio would be the opposite of Milo. Where he was short, mild mannered and didn't like to draw attention to himself, Klio was tall, spoiled and loved all the attention on her constantly. Yeah, this was going to be quite a switch.

My pal Kat drew this lovely bust of Klio with her
ridiculous hat. "The hat says it all, darling."

• Niobe Morkoth (aka Klio Illuvia) - High Elf Rogue/Swashbuckler - The Fifth Sorcerer (Home-brew)
• It was time for another long term epic campaign. I really love playing rogue characters (I usually create stealth ranged attackers in roleplaying video games), so I wanted to try a rogue character who could potentially get to high levels. Milo was a thief/spy focus, but for this character I wanted to try the swashbuckler subclass.
• The DM and I talked about a potential backstory for the character, and based on that discussion, I felt it would be interesting for the character to be High Elf. Klio doesn't really get all that many benefits because of that (High Elves are more suited for magic focused classes). But it makes for an interesting racial element that has come into play a few times.
• This is the first time I've played an actual evil character. Klio is a noble born selfish woman. She is essentially the femme fatale of the group, and her dark secrets threaten the whole party time and time again.
• The hardest thing was figuring out how an evil character could and would work with a party of mostly good people. I worked with the DM to come up with a story, and added that Klio will have an arc. If the other party members try to help her, she may become less and less selfish - and perhaps a little less evil. 
• While building Klio's backstory I thought it would be fun if all of her family and the elves in the area would use ancient Greek names. It was fun - until we had to pronounce them. Ugh!
• Morkoth is a corruption for the Tolkien elvish word for Darkness. It is also a hideous monster in Volo's Guide to Monsters. Only one of these was intentional.
• Backstory - I essentially took the noble story from Milo's backstory and turned the noble sisters into the main characters. The Morkoth family has fallen out of favor in the grand game of the elven political world. The family turned to dealing with devils to regain the power. Niobe and her sister Kallisto were raised in this environment of diabolical dealings and backstabbing. Niobe was the older and saw first hand the evils around her. She rebelled in her own way, becoming the black sheep of the family. Kallisto was treated much differently, because her parents had other plans. A ritual was performed and Kallisto was somehow linked to a devil lord, but Niobe managed to resist (with some infernal help). Kallisto's sweet and caring personality was changed into a malicious and spiteful one. A series of unfortunate events lead to Niobe killing her lover based on Kallisto's schemes. Niobe fled County Morkoth in search of a way to kill her sister once and for all. A "curse" keeps the sisters from directly hurting each other. Niobe changed her name to Klio and joined the party. She is using them to help her find a way to remove the "curse" and finally take her revenge. (just a little bit complicated, but that's just Klio).
• Typical Klio- Arrogant, spoiled and snarky: Klio is a blast to play. She flirts with just about everyone. Loves to drink wine and is a connoisseur. She has no problem lying or weaving stories. She loves her ridiculous hat, and uses it to distract from her other actions (such as cheating at cards, or preparing a dagger for stabbing). Over the course of the game she refers to everyone in the party as "darling", is obsessed with seeing the stronger characters do push-ups for her and has managed to get two party members to fall head over heels in love with her.
• Favorite Moment - I have to pick one? Is that possible? Well one moment does stand out, and once again my rogue just can't roll right when it comes to something she should be insanely good at. During the exploration of a ruined town Klio and her cleric buddy found a wine cellar. Since Klio LOVES wine of all kinds she was very excited. I said that Klio dances over to the wine rack. The DM took this literally (as well he should) and had me roll a performance check. Klio has a wicked high performance skill - and she rolled a natural 1. So the DM said she tripped and crashed into the wine rack, the whole thing fell over and shattered, covering her in wine. She was only able save a single bottle, and it wasn't even that good of a vintage. As she was lamenting her ruined clothing, the cleric decided to "help" with a spell called "create water". Three gallons of freezing water fell onto Klio drenching her further, but hey, now she was clean. The cleric couldn't stop laughing. When the two ladies got back to the group, Klio looked like a half drowned cat holding a bottle of shitty wine. Klio was not amused, but everyone else was. Klio did get her revenge on the cleric - the woman is now hopelessly in love with her.

Klio isn't all pretty hats and wine. When it comes to
adventuring, she is ready to go. "Oh how cute.
They think they going to get out of this alive."
SpaceFriend drew this image of Klio plotting
an ambush.

But yeah, she is mostly about hats, and wine.
"Oh have you come to join me darling. How nice,
and with a lovely Merlot. Well, the evening just got
better." Kat strikes back with another sketch
of Klio.