Loleda (Halfling Rogue)
Loleda is a wily little Halfling tart who makes a living as a petty thief, prostitute, and adventuress. There are not too many things, in fact, she will not do to earn a few coins, to include passing herself off as an adolescent Human female, rolling drunks, or looting graves. She moves from one drug addiction to another, and is variously dependent on alcohol, pipeweed, or other substances.
Loleda is one of the archetypal characters of the Swords of Kos Fantasy Campaign Setting. She is not really either a hero or a villain but exists rather in some narcissistic and self-indulgent gray area in between. This stat-free universal description of her and other characters that appear in the Kos setting can be used in adventures associated with it or in ones set in other milieus altogether.
Loleda is a wily little Halfling tart who makes a living as a petty thief, prostitute, and adventuress. One of her favorite professional shticks is to pass herself off as an adolescent Human female, a routine that attracts a particular clientele. There are not too many things, in fact, that she will not do to earn a few coins, from rolling drunks to looting graves. She moves from one drug addiction to another, and is variously dependent on alcohol, pipeweed, or other substances. While in Kos City between adventures or schemes she can often be found drinking at the Four Winds Bar or residing at the flophouse known as Proteon’s House of the Thundering Sea.
Loleda is quick, resilient, bright, and generally likeable. She has very little common sense, however, and suffers from poor judgment. She is keen-eared and skilled at determining the value of her ill-gotten gains, finding and disabling traps, opening locks, discovering hidden things, sleight of hand, and scaling walls, and is accomplished at telling and detecting lies. As result of her nimbleness and small size she is adept at all forms of stealth and sometimes augments this with appropriate disguises (e.g., a Human child, a Goblin). She plays wind instruments well and generally has a set of pan pipes on her. Loleda speaks Greek, Halfling, Gnome, and Goblin and is proficient at deciphering written texts of all sorts.
Because she is small and not particularly strong, Loleda prefers to avoid combat altogether. If forced to fight, however, she prefers to strike by surprise and eliminate opponents as quickly as possible; make ranged attacks with a sling, throwing knives, or other sorts of missiles; or incapacitate foes with one of the painful strikes to the groin that she is known for.
Loleda’s possessions generally include a set of masterwork or enchanted leather or studded leather armor, a masterwork or magical dagger, a brace of high-quality throwing knives, a sap, the best thieves’ tools she can lay her hands on; various costumes, disguise components, cosmetics, and items of jewelry; a coil of silk rope; various ointments and lubricants; one or more healing potions; and a pipe, hookah, or similar device for smoking pipeweed and other intoxicants.
Loleda has been caught committing crimes a number of times during her adventures around Kos and has been briefly jailed in both the village of Kefalos, at the western end of the island, and at the military base of Fort Karpathios. Most of her companions are at least somewhat more respectable than her and include the priest Kord (q.v.), the ranger Shovelless (q.v.), the wizard Zoltar (q.v.), the guide Anne Pieger (q.v.), and the minstrel Desdinova.
