Andion "Half-Elven"

CG Half-Elf Duskblade 7 / Ranger 1
HP: 62 (08 HD)
Init: +5
Speed: 60 feet
Space/Reach: 5 feet
AC: 23
BAB: +10/+5
Attack: +2 Keen Vorpal Scimitar (1d6+2 16-20/x2)
Abilities: STR 12, DEX 20, CON 14, INT 14, WIS 11, CHA 14
Saves: Fort +11, Ref +11, Will +09
Skills: Concentration +7, Diplomacy +4, Gather Information +4, Handle Animal +3, Heal +5, Hide +10, Knowledge (Nature) +8, Knowledge (Arcana) +8, Knowledge (Local) +6, Listen +4, Move Silently +10, Search +3, Spellcraft +8, Spot +3, Survival +12
Languages: Common, Elven, Draconic, Giant
Feats: Weapon Focus (Scimitar), Improved Critical (Scimitar)
Possessions: Rope of Climbing, Bracers of Armor +2, Ring of Protection +2, Boots of Springing and Striding, Cloak of Resistance +2, Nimble Chain Shirt of Healing, Joy of Death
Patron: Corellon Larethian
Features:
Half-Elf Qualities
Favored Enemy (Ex): Andion has selected Giants as his Favored Enemy. He gains a +2 bonus on Bluff, Listen, Sense Motive, Spot, and Survival checks when using these skills against Giants. Likewise, he gets a +2 bonus on weapon damage rolls against such creatures.
Track: Andion gains Track as a Bonus Feat.
Wild Empathy (Ex): Andion can improve the attitude of an animal. This ability functions just like a Diplomacy check to improve the attitude of a person. He rolls 1d20 and adds 3 to determine the wild empathy check result. The typical domestic animal has a starting attitude of indifferent, while wild animals are usually unfriendly. To use wild empathy, Andion and the animal must be able to study each other, which means that they must be within 30 feet of one another under normal visibility conditions. Generally, influencing an animal in this way takes 1 minute, but, as with influencing people, it might take more or less time. He can also use this ability to influence a magical beast with an Intelligence score of 1 or 2, but he takes a -4 penalty on the check.
Arcane Attunement (Sp): Andion can cast Dancing Lights, Detect Magic, Flare, Ghost Sound and Read Magic a combined five times per day. These spell-like powers do not count against his spells known or spells per day.
Armored Mage (Ex): Normally, armor of any type interferes with an Arcane spellcaster’s gestures, which cause those spells to fail if they have somatic components. Andion’s limited focus and specialized training allows him to avoid Arcane Spell Failure so long as he sticks to Medium armors and/or light or heavy shields.
Combat Casting: Andion gains Combat Casting as a bonus feat.
Arcane Channeling (Su): Andion can use a Standard Action to cast any touch spells he knows and deliver the spell through his weapon with a melee attack. Casting a spell in this manner does not provoke an Attack of Opportunity. The spell must have a casting time of one Standard Action or less. If the melee attack is successful, the attack does damage normally; then the effect of the spell is resolved.
Quick Cast: Once per day, Andion can cast a single spell as a Swift Action, so long as the casting time of the spell is one Standard Action or less.
Spell Power (Ex): Andion can more easily overcome the Spell Resistance of any opponent he successfully injures with a melee attack. If he injures an opponent with a melee attack, he gains a +2 bonus on his caster level check to overcome Spell Resistance for the remainder of the encounter.
Spellcasting:
Duskblade Spells Per Day (CL 07): 6 / 6 / 5
Combat/Tactics: Andion’s spell selection primarily augments his fighting abilities. When possible, he improves his fighting capabilities with magic before entering into combat. In combat, he resists the attempts by his sword to possess him, unless the situation he is in is dire. He finds being possessed by the sword discomforting, but understands that the sword’s abilities are oftentimes his best chance for survival.
Friends/Allies: The only ally that Andion has is his sword, Joy of Death. Because he is constantly moving from place to place, he has never had enough time to form permanent and long-lasting friendships. From time to time, he bands together with others to accomplish some sort of goal, but, invariably, these allies are only temporary.
Foes/Enemies: Andion considers his primary foe to be the Minotaur King, though the Minotaur King himself might not even remember Andion, or the battle between the two. By virtue of living on the road, Andion has made enemies of numerous petty thugs, highway bandits, and other individuals and creatures often encountered on the road.
Appearance: Andion possesses the blood of both Humans and Elves. He is shorter and more lithe than the typical human, but is taller and stockier than the typical Elf. He keeps his blue hair tied in a ponytail behind his head. He has brown eyes, and peach skin, which bears numerous scars, a testament to the many battles he has seen over the course of his life.
Personality: Beneath his gruff exterior, Andion is an inquisitive person, a byproduct of his intellect. His desire for revenge, as well as the subtle promptings and manipulations of his sword have caused him to wander, never settling in one place for a prolonged period of time, making Andion something of a loner and enigma to others.
History: Andion was born to Isildarius and Aya Moonwood in the year 1,043. His mother was a Half-Elf wizard of some clout from the far-away world, who had left her world to explore the multiverse, and his father was the adventurer Isildarius, who had retired to his home, a small Wood Elven village in the Great Forest, after his band of adventurers had been broken up at the Port of Shards.
From an early age, Andion was weaned on an equal amount of martial prowess and magical might in the secretive Elven village. As a result, both swordplay and magic came fairly easily to him. In fact, Andion excellent so much, compared to his peers, that he was a child prodigy.
His village was attacked and sacked before Andion reached maturity. In the conflict, the young Andion attempted to turn aside the host of Gnolls and Minotaurs, like his father and mother were, but he was just still to young, and physically and mentally unprepared for such a thing. He was knocked unconscious, and blacked out.
When he awoke, the combat had ended, and he was the only living individual left in the village. Dazed and confused, he combed the ruins of the village, looking for the bodies of his parents. Like many other individuals who he knew, Andion did not find their bodies. Since they were not present, Andion realized that they might have been captured as prisoners, meaning that there was still a chance that they were still among the living.
Following the tracks that the Minotaurs and Gnolls left, Andion eventually came to the lair in which the small army had come from.
Relying on stealth and guile, the Elf snuck into the lair of his enemies, and began doing some reconnaissance, looking for his parents. He eventually discovered the prison room, where his father was among the prisoners. As Andion sat hidden, attempting to figure out how to free the prisoners, a large group of Minotaurs, including their leader, entered the room. Apparently praying in the language of the Minotaurs, the creatures then began a wholesale slaughter of the defenseless Elves, right in front of Andion’s eyes. The young Elf cried out, and his hiding place was discovered.
Using his smaller statue to his advantage, Andion backtracked, using small passages that the Minotaurs and Gnolls could simply not fit into, due to their size. In his haste, however, Andion became disorientated, and lost. While he had evaded the large group of Minotaurs looking for him, he was still lost, and needed to find his way out of the cave complex, so he could escape. While wandering around, Andion stumbled upon the treasure room of the Minotaur tribe. In the pile of treasure that had been sized over the course of the many raids these creatures went on was his father’s sword, a magical scimitar known called Joy of Death. Andion had never wielded this weapon before, as his father did not allow it, citing that the weapon was dangerous. This did not stop him from sneaking into the vault, and taking the weapon. Andion was able to successfully escape the cavern complex without getting himself killed. Disgusted with the fact that he was unable to stop the slaughter of his people, and consumed with the desire to find his mother, Andion swore to become a powerful warrior and wizard. He would find his mother, and would honor the name of his father.
Arriving in the nearby city of Louisa, Andion immediately enrolled in a local Wizard’s Guild as an apprentice, to both learn the fundamentals of magic that he did not learn while studying the Art in his own village, and to slowly build funds. Having never drawn his father blade, Andion drew the weapon from its scabbard, and was immediately possessed by the sentience of the weapon. The personality of the weapon sensed his desire for revenge, and brought the Elf to the mouth of the Minotaur tribe that had slaughtered his village.
Under the control of the deadly weapon, Andion slaughtered Minotaur and Gnoll after Minotaur and Gnoll, until the tribal leader, the Minotaur King, arrived. The Minotaur King was extremely powerful, and easily defeated the possessed Andion in combat. For the second time in his life, Andion was left for dead, not fully finished off.
Andion has since studied the path of the Duskblade, and now travels around the world, looking for his mother, hiring himself out as a mercenary. Though he knows where the Minotaurs who slaughtered his people are located, he does not believe himself powerful enough to destroy them yet, even though he has mastered the secrets of the sentient weapon Joy of Death, and can draw the sentient weapon without being possessed. Andion believes that his final confrontation with the Minotaur King will be the greatest challenge he will ever face, both emotionally and physically, and as such, is hesitant to confront him.
Motivations and Goals: Andion seeks to best the Minotaur King in combat, and extract some measure of revenge for slaughtering the people of his village. His sword urges him to wander from place to place, looking for the Minotaur tribe, seeking a spectacular battle.