"Murderer? I'm afraid you are mistaken. I am an artist, and death is my medium."
-Rikki
Character Name: Rikki
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Character Class: Wizard
Archetype: Shadowcaster
Prestige Class: Assassin
Race: Ratfolk
Rikki was born in a set of triplets alongside two siblings. A brother who was named Tikki, and a sister by the name of Tavi. The three grew up together, and while Tikki and Tavi could both be seen as normal children, Rikki had grown up rather disturbed, with an obsession for death.
Rikki saw the end of one's life differently than others, rather than viewing it as a tragic end to one's existence, Rikki saw it as a sort of climax of life. Everything builds up to one's final moment in this world, and within that moment, Rikki saw something beautiful...
Was everything leading up to one's demise a result of their own doing? Like a soldier who perishes in a grand battle... Or perhaps one who ran, and was executed for cowardice? What were their final words? Did they scream? Or did they quietly accept their own fate?
There was an indescribable feeling with every passing to Rikki, and even the humblest of deaths told a grand story, some full of joy, some of sorrow, some of mystery, and some of intrigue. Rikki viewed the final fate of all life and everything leading up to it as a sort of "portrait" portraying the truest essence of one's very being, ironically, at the very end of such being...
It was this obsession that drove Rikki to begin killing, starting with her family. A tragedy of this magnitude would have such delectable irony; Rikki's parents, her siblings, slain by their own kin... Thoughts of the magnificence of the "portraits" of their deaths stirred within Rikki as she slit the throats of her parents in their sleep, and plunged her dagger deep into the chest of Tikki, who let out the most wonderful scream, changing into a gurgle as the blood pooled in her mouth, and finally silence as Rikki let the limp corpse fall to the floor. It was at this moment that something wicked had awoken within Rikki. A lust, an insatiable thirst to create the perfect killing; Rikki's "masterpiece".
Tavi, hearing the scream, had woken up and upon seeing her own sister standing over the body of Tikki, ran. She seeked sanctuary at the town's local church of Sarenrae, and was taken in by the priests and clerics. It was here that Tavi decided to become a paladin, with an oath of vengeance against her murderous sister, Rikki.
Rikki had fled town, living in the shadows from that moment onward, and relying on a basic understanding of the arcane to further her ability to remain hidden until she became capable of bending the very shadows themselves to her will. Rikki remained in hiding until she knew she had mastered the art of stealth well enough to begin her murderous rampage once again. Her modus operandi even involved engulfing her victims in shadow before attacking to better hide her identity. From the outside, this method looked horrifying, as if a giant cloud of darkness consumed a civilian, who would then scream... and as the cloud cleared, all that remained was their carcass.
This method of killing started wild rumors about a blood-thirsty eldritch entity haunting the town, with the sight of a vanishing black rat serving as its omen of certain death. Rikki would continue her serial killings until the town was abandoned, everybody either fleeing, or meeting their end to Rikki and her search for her "masterpiece." Rikki would then move on to the next village, until it too was barren.
Conflict arose, however, when Rikki returned to destroy the village from which she fled, and was reunited once again with her sister, Tavi... By now, Tavi had told the clerics and priests of her sister, and when Rikki struck, it did not take long before Tavi had figured out who was responsible.
In an effort to exterminate the blight on Golarion that was Rikki, Tavi gathered together the strongest priests that their church had to offer, but one by one, they all fell to the diabolical ratfolk. The only one left alive was Tavi, as Rikki realized their relationship was everything Rikki could hope for... If Tavi and Rikki both became as powerful as they could, and then eventually fought, one of them would have to die; and that death, with everything that had built up to it, no matter which one died, would be Rikki's masterpiece. Until then, all Rikki had to do was breed as much resentment in Tavi's heart as she could, to make the final confrontation all the greater.
With the downfall of the local church of Sarenrae, Rikki had succeeded in destroying yet another town, and then traveled north to Ustalav: a land scarred with monsters and abominations, where Rikki could seek further power in the form of vampirism... While Tavi pursued, always one step behind, always continuing their deadly game of cat and mouse.
