Talin

Talin is B Team’s fourth specialist and the last person required to make “4 crew adventuring party” look like a plan instead of a suspiciously round budget entry. She is a 4th-level human swashbuckler, a Free Ports mercenary, and the sort of negotiator a captain hires when surrender would be cheaper than combat but the other ship has not realized it yet.

She joined the ironclad job for a paycheck. Then she heard Kahu preach about reforming the world in the fire of Old Moa and discovered, to her considerable annoyance, that she might care.


Ancestry / background	Skilled Human · Charlatan
Class	Swashbuckler 4 · Dexterity +4 · Charisma +3
Specialties	Diplomacy, Deception, Acrobatics, Stealth, social engineering
Assignment	Recruiter, face, taunt-powered duelist, professional reader of tells
Shipboard accomplice	Cardinal, a lean half-eared dock cat and ruthless ratter

From the Free Ports

Talin grew up in the salt-and-tar underside of one of the five Free Ports, where foreign factors and priests could spend more on a night’s wine than her neighbors earned in a season. She learned that she could not outspend them, but she could read them. By twelve she was fleecing merchant clerks at cards; by fifteen she could do it in three registers of accent.

Her real education came from Auntie Nane, a washed-up duelist and troupe-master who taught the cutlass and the con as one discipline: make them look where you point, then strike somewhere else. Nane was the closest thing Talin had to a mother—and the sharpest person Talin knew—until the Carolingian church won her over with silver, services, and promises of salvation.

Talin recognizes a stacked deck. What she cannot accept is that Nane does not. She still sends part of every score home, furious the entire time and unable to stop.

Sheet snapshot


Defenses	AC 20 · 56 HP · Fortitude +10 · Reflex +12 · Will +8
Awareness	Perception +8 · Speed 25 feet · Class DC 20
Cutlass	+10 · 1d6 piercing · deadly d8, disarm, finesse; mechanically a rapier
Fist	+10 · 1d4 bludgeoning · agile, finesse, nonlethal, unarmed
Best skills	Deception +11 · Diplomacy +11 · Acrobatics +10 · Stealth +10
Other strengths	Intimidation +9 · Athletics +6 · Sailing Lore +6 · Underworld Lore +6

Key features and feats: Panache, Precise Strike, Bon Mot, Confident Finisher, Unbalancing Finisher, Flashy Dodge, Opportune Riposte, Swaggering Initiative, General Training, Confabulator, Sow Rumor, and Stylish Tricks.

Persona

Dresses a full class above her station in a “liberated” officer’s coat, good boots, and cheap rings worn like expensive ones.
Carries cards and dice everywhere and is lethal at liar’s dice. Do not play her for money.
Appraises strangers by reflex and can usually tell you their net worth before their name.
Answers to at least four names and never shuts up in a fight; the taunts are part of the weapon.
Fights with a salt-pitted officer’s cutlass that is mechanically a rapier. She would rather put an opponent’s sword and dignity on the deck than kill them.

Cardinal

Cardinal is the lean, half-eared dock cat who adopted Talin off a gangplank and has extorted her for fish ever since. He rides in her coat or across her shoulders, despises everyone but her, and is genuinely useful aboard ship as a ratter.

The name is a petty jab at the church that took Nane: Talin can spend all day ordering a “cardinal” around and watching him ignore her. He is also her favorite accomplice in a con. If a mark objects, she has a second opinion ready: “Even he thinks you’re lying.”

Field role

Talin works before initiative whenever possible. She reads the room, makes the guards blink first, and gives B Team a credible voice when “mariachi band near the military elevator” attracts questions. If steel comes out, Bon Mot attacks the insecurity behind an opponent’s guard and feeds the confident, taunting rhythm described in her character notes. Panache and Precise Strike add bite while she controls the exchange; a finisher closes it with a flourish.

Unbalancing Finisher leaves a target off-guard until the end of her next turn, creating an opening for Jimothy, Jekyll, or Talin herself. Flashy Dodge and Opportune Riposte reward her for living on nerve instead of armor, while Swaggering Initiative makes entering a fight look like part of the con.

The practical sequence is simple: get under the mark’s skin, make the team’s opening, put the sword on the deck, and bow as if all four steps were inevitable.

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