Eska Renn
The handler for the Cold Harbor ark.
Eska Renn is half-Kith, mid-forties, sharp-featured and polite. She is broke in the particular way a person is broke when somebody else is paying them to look broke.
She has run the Drift Logistics franchise on Hollow Keep for eleven years and has been a House Sareth asset for nine of them. Nine years ago a long-range scan caught the Penitent's Light on a defunct pre-Fold encryption and matched the registry. She has had nine years to think about what the ark carries, nine years to think about who would want it, and nine years to decide what she would do when it arrived.
She is good at her job. Her job is to get a party aboard the ark, to bring the casket back, and to hand it to her buyer. She will not admit any of that until the party returns to Hollow Keep, with the casket or without it.
Eska is a resource, not an ally. She pays for results and provides information in proportion to them. She will not risk herself, and her loyalty runs to the buyer. The party are the first-in party: the ones who go into the dark so that the people on the dock do not have to.
She does not fight. She arranges. Cut her off from her contacts and she is a tired woman in a converted cargo bay with a working kettle and a star chart covering one wall.
Rules Reference
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Abilities / Cha | 15 |
| Abilities / Con | 11 |
| Abilities / Dex | 12 |
| Abilities / Int | 16 |
| Abilities / Str | 9 |
| Abilities / Wis | 14 |
| Armor Class | 13 |
| Base Attack Bonus | 2 |
| Creature Type | Humanoid |
| Flat Ac | 11 |
| Hd Count | 3 |
| Hd Sides | 8 |
| Hit Dice | 3d8+4 |
| Hit Points | 18 |
| Hp Bonus | 4 |
| Initiative | 1 |
| Languages | Trade Cant (fluent); Core Standard; Kith trade dialect from her mother's side |
| Senses | Normal human vision; franchise feeds and dock gossip from eleven years on one station; passive Perception 14 |
| Size | M |
| Skills / Bureaucracy | 4 |
| Skills / Deception | 5 |
| Skills / Notice | 3 |
| Skills / Persuasion | 5 |
| Skills / Sense Motive | 4 |
| Skills / Streetwise | 6 |
| Speed | 30 |
| Threat Rating | 3 |
| Touch Ac | 12 |
| Xp | 400 |
| Dialogue Path | game/dialogue/npc-eska-renn.yaml |
Attacks
Holdout blaster
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
bonus | 3 |
category | ranged |
damage | 1d6 |
name | Holdout blaster |
notes | Range 30 ft. Carried out of habit rather than intent; she has never drawn it in eleven years on the Keep. |
Knife
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
bonus | 1 |
category | melee |
damage | 1d4 |
name | Knife |
notes | For opening crates. |
Special Abilities
Fixer Network
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
actionCost | Immediate (1/encounter) |
name | Fixer Network |
description: Eska calls in a contact for a +2 bonus on one roll made through them. Her standing contacts are a Legion deserter (NPC-DESERTER, TR 3) and a House Sareth proxy (NPC-SARETH-PROXY, TR 4). Player-visible: she makes one short call and does not explain it.
Nine Years of Thinking
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
actionCost | passive |
name | Nine Years of Thinking |
description: Eska has rehearsed this conversation for nine years. Catching her in the omission is DC 18 rather than her Deception total, until the party returns from the ark. She does not fight, she arranges; she will not risk herself, and her loyalty runs to the buyer rather than the party. Player-visible: she answers the question you asked, exactly, and none of the one you meant.