Ascendant

Prerequisites

Benefits

You and your apparent allies gain a +2 bonus on skill checks to gain influence or request a favor. This bonus no longer applies on checks against a person or organization once you fail a skill check to gain influence over or request a favor from that person or organization. Additionally, the DC of Sense Motive checks to get hunches about you and your apparent allies increases by 2.

Goal

Achieve a position in a high social class (such as the nobility) or an esteemed military position (such as general) without any substantiated rumors impugning your reputation. If your secret is exposed, you can replace this feat with Redemption after 1 month without meeting that feat's prerequisite.

Completion Benefit

You no longer lose this feat's bonus for failing a skill check. Your Bluff checks to maintain a good reputation are always at worst unlikely (if not believable), and Bluff checks attempted by others to spoil your reputation are always at best unlikely (if not harder to believe). Quest (Roll a 1d4) Your fellow knights would never let you live it down if they learned you were once a slave and are still technically a fugitive, so you seek a leadership position among the Hellknights, which would make questioning you unthinkable. You stole the identity of a slain noble to claim the fortune you used to begin your adventuring career, rather than leaving the funds to rot in a foreign bank. Now agents or inquisitors threaten to destroy your new life, and you must gain a position of influence strong enough to order them to stop their investigations. You struggle to put your past of piracy or other crimes behind you and seek a position of power. You found the corpse of a dead linnorm and chose to use it to make a claim on a throne. You must present your claim and defend yourself from inevitable inquiries into the truth of your conquest.