Gaerzil Thallander, Tiefling Wizard

[Kavonde]

Name: Gaerzil Thallander
Race: Tiefling (Glasya)
Class: Wizard
Background: Urchin
 - Background Feat: Skilled
Alignment: True Neutral
Deities: Oghma, Mystra
Pronouns: He/Him
Song: "Dig Deep Epic Orchestra Cover" by Rareman

Str: 8 (-1) - 8
Dex: 16 (+3) - 15 + 1
Con: 13 (+1) - 13
Int: 16 (+3) - 14 + 2
Wis: 12 (+1) - 12
Cha: 10 (+0) - 10

Skills: Arcana +5, History +5, Investigation +5, Nature +5, Religion +5, Sleight of Hand +5, Stealth +5

Tool Proficiencies: Thieves' Tools, Disguise Kit

Cantrips: Minor Illusion (racial), Prestidigitation, Ray of Frost, Thunderclap

Spells Known: Chromatic Orb, Find Familiar, Frost Fingers, Mage Armor, Magic Missile, Shield

Ideal: There is always more to learn, and learning gives life meaning.

Bonds:

• I have come to respect and appreciate my mother Carrina far more than I did as a child.
• I value the wisdom and guidance of my mentor, Nathros Greenapple.
• My namesake, Dawngreeter Gaerzil, tried to be a good influence; I regret that I failed him.

Flaws:

• I know I have greatness within me. I just need an opportunity to prove it.
• I am ashamed of the life I led in my youth and try to conceal it from others.

Adventure Hook: Local Connections (born and raised in Elturiel)

---

Description:
Gaerzil is a slender tiefling man of average height with blue eyes, copper-colored skin, blonde hair, and a pair of long, elegantly tapering horns sweeping back and up from his forehead. His tail is thin and ends in a symmetrical set of small barbs. He dresses as he believes a wizard should: layered robes, usually in shades of blue and black, sturdy leather boots, and an assortment of pouches, scroll cases, and books hanging from a wide belt around his waist. He uses a wand as his arcane focus, carved from black mahogany in imitation of his horns. He's very handsome, a side effect of his Glasyan heritage, though he makes little effort to accentuate it beyond shaving daily and keeping his long, wavy hair from getting too wild.

Past is Prologue:
Gaerzil Thallander, born 1465 DR, is the only child of Carrina Thallander, co-owner of the Sun Rye Bakery in Elturiel. Carrina wasn't always a baker; born to minor Eltergardian nobility who cast her out and disowned her when her "fiendish blood" manifested in minor acts of teenage rebellion, Carrina did what she had to do to survive on Elturiel's streets, including using the good looks her blood (descended from the archdevil and Queen of the Erinyes, Glasye) granted her. This eventually led to the birth of a son, Gaerzil, named after a priest of Lathander who befriended and cared for the young tiefling woman.

Gaerzil's boyhood was rough and wild, despite his namesake's attempts to help raise the increasingly wayward child. Carrina herself transitioned into a more socially approved career as soon as she had the opportunity, pooling her savings with a halfling friend named Halleen to open a bakery, but Gaerzil was already a half-feral wild child by this point. A talented pickpocket skilled at avoiding notice, the young tiefling often found himself in trouble with Elturiel's increasingly humorless authorities.

When he was eleven years old, on a dare from his friends, he broke into the home of a local wizard. Though he tripped the mage's hidden alarm spells, the wizard (a human by the name of Nathros Greenapple) was impressed with the young tiefling's skill, boldness, and obvious (if unpolished) intelligence. The timing was perfect; Nathros' former apprentice had recently moved on to her own pursuits, and the aging spellweaver was beginning to feel lonesome. It took a bit of convincing, but once Gaerzil realized the potential benefits of being "respectable," he agreed to the apprenticeship.

Gaerzil discovered an unexpected love of learning. He devoured every tome in Nathros' library over the next few years, then became a familiar face at local booksellers and lecture halls. Most of the stipend his master provided him went towards purchasing books of all kinds--histories, memoirs, fantastical tales, and even Volo's often ludicrous mixtures of the above. He began to cultivate a new, more refined persona for himself, working to shed his street rat roots and mannerisms to present himself as a genteel and erudite scholar.

His apprenticeship with Nathros ended amicably on his 24th birthday, with the elder wizard declaring that, while there would always be more for Gaerzil to learn, he would learn it best on his own. To that end, he put his now-former apprentice in contact with an associate in Baldur's Gate: Rivalen Blackhand, the owner of the esteemed arcane emporium Sorcerous Sundries.

Gaerzil worked as a clerk there for almost three years, browsing the shop's extensive library when he could but growing increasingly restless. Every day, he interacted with adventurers and famous arcanists from across the Realms--he even helped Elminster find a particular book on the reproductive cycle of flumphs--and yet, for all his potential and all the knowledge crammed into his head, he was little more than a cashier at a high-end curio shop.

Needing a change, Gaerzil decided to resign from his position at Sorcerous Sundries and return to Elturiel, at least for awhile. He looked forward to seeing his mother again; though they were never very close when he was a child, living on his own in a new city cultivated a deeper appreciation for what she went through. He was slightly less eager to see Nathros Greenapple, given that he'd just quit the job his mentor had landed for him. And he hoped he'd run into Dawngreeter Gaerzil, if only to apologize to the man for being such a brat as a child.

But when he arrived at the gates of Elturiel, the city he grew up in vanished.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Kavonde (see edit history)

[Kavonde]

Gaerzil | HP 11/11 | AC 13 | Initiative +3 | Passive Perception 11
Spell Slots: 1st Level 3/3

---

"These are my words."

These are my thoughts.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Kavonde (see edit history)

[Gregorotto]

A dramatic backstory and hell of a way to get started! Love how rich his backstory is. If he had to pick between Oghma and Mystra, who would he pick and why? Why those two and not, say, Deneir or Azuth?

On the Background Feat, what skills did you pick? I can assume based on the sheer number of Intelligence-based ones you have, but still. Otherwise the sheet checks out. What kind of wizard are you thinking about, long-term? No decision is required.

Is the character art BG3 and AI combined? I'm assuming that's the case.

[Kavonde]

1) Probably Oghma, as even if he wasn't a wizard, he'd still be very into reading and learning. He's not as much into art, however, so Deneir doesn't hold much appeal. Azuth is actually Nathros' favored deity, and Gaerzil has a high regard for him, but he's focused more on specifically magical knowledge than just learning as much as he can about everything, which doesn't gel quite as much with Gaery's worldview.

2) Huh, I think I got mixed up somewhere along the line. Urchin gave Sleight of Hand and Stealth, Wizard gave Arcana and Investigation, so Skilled should be giving History, Religion, and... ah. I think I took Acrobatics, but I'm gonna switch that to Nature. Get all the Int skills. As for subclass/school, I'm currently leaning towards the simplicity of Evocation, but Order of Scribes would definitely fit him as well.

3) Yep! BG3's Ridiculously Handsome Tiefling Face run through Dream's Illustrator AI.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Kavonde (see edit history)

[Gregorotto]

All of those check out, solid. I won't vote on which one I would prefer, because both fit him excellently as far as which school.

I'll have to experiment more with Dream, that's awesome.

[Kavonde]

Level 2!

HP Gained: (Ignore the roll, wizards gain 4 + Con, so 5 HP.)

Arcane Tradition: Order of the Scribes

Wizardly Quill

At 2nd level, as a bonus action, you can magically create a Tiny quill in your free hand. The magic quill has the following properties:

• The quill doesn't require ink. When you write with it, it produces ink in a color of your choice on the writing surface.

• The time you must spend to copy a spell into your spell book equals 2 minutes per spell level if you use the quill for the transcription.

• You can erase anything you write with the quill if you wave the feather over the text as a bonus action, provided the text is within 5 feet of you.

This quill disappears if you create another one or if you die.

Awakened Spellbook

Using specially prepared inks and ancient incantations passed down by your wizardly order, you have awakened an arcane sentience within your spellbook.

At 2nd level, while you are holding the book, it grants you the following benefits:

• You can use the book as a spellcasting focus for your wizard spells.

• When you cast a wizard spell with a spell slot, you can temporarily replace its damage type with a type that appears in another spell in your spellbook, which magically alters the spell's formula for this casting only. The latter spell must be of the same level as the spell slot you expend.

• When you cast a wizard spell as a ritual, you can use the spell's normal casting time, rather than adding 10 minutes to it. Once you use this benefit, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest.

If necessary, you can replace the book over the course of a short rest by using your Wizardly Quill to write arcane sigils in a blank book or a magic spellbook to which you're attuned. At the end of the rest, your spellbook's consciousness is summoned into the new book, which the consciousness transforms into your spellbook, along with all its spells. If the previous book still existed somewhere, all the spells vanish from its pages.

Spells Gained: Comprehend Languages, Fog Cloud

Edited October 23, 2023 by Kavonde (see edit history)

[Kavonde]

Level 3!

HP Gained: 5

Cantrip Formulas: You have scribed a set of arcane formulas in your spellbook that you can use to formulate a cantrip in your mind. Whenever you finish a long rest and consult these formulas in your spellbook, you can replace one wizard cantrip you know with another cantrip from the wizard spell list.
 (Gaerzil will swap out ray of frost for mind sliver after his next long rest.)

New Spells: Mind Thrust, Shatter