Barris Astelan, Historian

[RedSavant]

 Barris Astelan

Character Sheet  MW Sheet

(Source) "The things we do here today will be remembered for centuries."

Basic Information Race: Human  Sex: Male Age: 27 Height: 5'9" Weight: 130 Alignment: NG  Background: Acolyte Class: Wizard 8 (Scribes)

Proficiency Bonus +3 |  AC: 18 |  Max HP: 48 |  Speed: 30 ft |  PP: 16 |  Init: +3

STRENGTH	DEXTERITY	CONSTITUTION	INTELLIGENCE	WISDOM	CHARISMA
12 (+1)	16 (+3)	10 (+0)	20 (+5)	12 (+1)	11 (+0)
+1 Str Save	+3 Dex Save	+0 Con Save	+8 Int Save	+4 Wis Save	+0 Cha Save
+1 Athletics	+3 Acrobatics +3 Sleight of Hand +3 Stealth		+8 Arcana +8 History +5 Investigation +5 Nature +8 Religion	+1 A. Handling +4 Insight +1 Medicine +1 Perception +1 Survival	+0 Deception +0 Intimidation +0 Performance +0 Persuasion

 

Features

Class Features Wizardly QuillAs 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 spellbook 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. Awakened SpellbookUsing specially prepared inks and ancient incantations passed down by your wizardly order, you have awakened an arcane sentience within your spellbook. 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. Manifest MindYou can conjure forth the mind of your Awakened Spellbook. As a bonus action while the book is on your person, you can cause the mind to manifest as a Tiny spectral object, hovering in an unoccupied space of your choice within 60 feet of you. The spectral mind is intangible and doesn't occupy its space, and it sheds dim light in a 10-foot radius. It looks like a ghostly tome, a cascade of text, or a scholar from the past (your choice). While manifested, the spectral mind can hear and see, and it has darkvision with a range of 60 feet. The mind can telepathically share with you what it sees and hears (no action required). Whenever you cast a wizard spell on your turn, you can cast it as if you were in the spectral mind's space, instead of your own, using its senses. You can do so a number of times per day equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. As a bonus action, you can cause the spectral mind to hover up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space that you or it can see. It can pass through creatures but not objects. The spectral mind stops manifesting if it is ever more than 300 feet away from you, if someone casts dispel magic on it, if the Awakened Spellbook is destroyed, if you die, or if you dismiss the spectral mind as a bonus action. Once you conjure the mind, you can't do so again until you finish a long rest, unless you expend a spell slot of any level to conjure it again.      Tools Dart Dagger Quarterstaff Light crossbow

Feats Keen MindYou have a mind that can track time, direction, and detail with uncanny precision. You gain the following benefits: Increase your Intelligence score by 1, to a maximum of 20. You always know which way is north. You always know the number of hours left before the next sunrise or sunset. You can accurately recall anything you have seen or heard within the past month. Observant Increase your Intelligence or Wisdom by 1, to a maximum of 20. If you can see a creature's mouth while it is speaking a language you understand, you can interpret what it's saying by reading its lips. You have a +5 bonus to your passive Wisdom (Perception) and passive Intelligence (Investigation) scores.    Racial & Background Features Human Base ASI    Languages Common Others applicable to setting?

Acolyte As an acolyte, you command the respect of those who share your faith, and you can perform the religious ceremonies of your deity. You and your adventuring companions can expect to receive free healing and care at a temple, shrine, or other established presence of your faith, though you must provide any material components needed for spells. Those who share your religion will support you (but only you) at a modest lifestyle. You might also have ties to a specific temple dedicated to your chosen deity or pantheon, and you have a residence there. This could be the temple where you used to serve, if you remain on good terms with it, or a temple where you have found a new home. While near your temple, you can call upon the priests for assistance, provided the assistance you ask for is not hazardous and you remain in good standing with your temple.

Spells

Spell Save DC: 18

Spell Attack Bonus: +10

Cantrips Light Mage Hand Message Mind Sliver

1st Level [4] Comprehend Languages Identify (R) Magic Missile

2nd Level [3] Detect Thoughts Hold Person Vortex Warp

3rd Level [3] Fireball Fly Leomund's Tiny Hut (R) Melf's Minute Meteors Tongues

4th Level [2] Dimension Door Storm Sphere

Spellbook(s)

 

Barris's Spellbook

1st

Burning Hands

Chromatic Orb

Comprehend Languages

Ice Knife

Identify (R)

Mage Armor

Magic Missile

Sleep

 

2nd

Detect Thoughts

Hold Person

Melf's Acid Arrow

Vortex Warp

 

3rd

Fireball

Fly

Leomund's Tiny Hut (R)

Melf's Minute Meteors

Tongues

Water Breathing

 

4th

Dimension Door

Storm Sphere

Formatting stopper text.

 

Equipment

Quarterstaff Component Pouch Scholar's Pack Fine clothes

Magic Items Awakened Spellbook of Memory "Manyminds" Robe of the Faithful

Character

Appearance

A lanky, brown-haired human man with wire-frame spectacles and a squareish face. Despite staying clean-shaven and otherwise well-groomed, he has seemingly permanent deep bags under his eyes, and a slight squint that gets much worse if he ever takes his glasses off. He dresses modestly in simple linen clothing appropriate for a townsman; the leather book sling he wears across his shoulder, and the hefty tome it carries, are the most expensive-looking things he wears.

Personality

Barris is a curious man, always interested in asking questions (and writing down the answers, of course). Despite spending his teenage years in a cloister, he still has his merchant's training, and approaches strangers with a pleasant, though not servile, demeanor. However, Barris can slip his easy smile on and off as easily as putting on a mask, and behind it is a man who is tired beyond his years. With a habit of lapsing into a thoughtful haze, and a devotion to preserving knowledge of all kinds that borders on the fanatical, he can be somewhat troublesome to handle for those who seek to get to know him beyond the surface level.

Backstory

Barris was born to a fairly renowned potter and his wife in a moderately large city. He grew up comfortably, the firstborn son of an up-and-coming skilled craftsman, and poised to succeed his father when he came of age, he was given a formal education that no town nobleman's child would be ashamed of.

By day, Barris learned the potter's trade, numbers, bookkeeping, and accounting from his father; by night, he learned more scholarly topics from his mother, a low-level acolyte at the city's small, but cozy branch of the Faith of the Martyr. Even at a young age he showed a huge appetite for learning, devouring history, mythology, and traveling accounts whenever he could get his hands on them.

However, all that ended when Barris was eight years old. His mother fell ill, and despite the best efforts of the Faith, she passed away after an all-too-long period of suffering. Barris and his father both took it badly, with the boy drawing in on himself, but his father, mad with grief, attacked the little church, smashing the windows and furniture, going so far as to burn the scriptures and records stored within before he was caught by the city guard. His father was imprisoned, and Barris, left without a family, was adopted by the Faith.

Barris spent his teenage years at a scholarly cloister in a city far away from his birthplace, where he was the youngest person around by a factor of two or so, and spent most of his time among candlesticks and old tomes. While he was called the "heretic's child" behind his back, he hadn't lost his appetite for study, and threw himself into the old records and stories, even working on transcribing his own copies. He found a knack for teasing fragments of power out of the written word, but in all the books he read, he never truly found answers for the half-formed questions that swirled in his mind. Eventually, he turned his gaze outward, away from the musty records of the cloister, and vanished in the night, leaving no note.

Now, the prodigal son has returned. Older, and by his own accounting wiser, Barris believes that the Faith, once thriving, has declined irretrievably. The upcoming Remembrance may well be the final observation of the rite, and Barris has petitioned to join the party assembled to perform it, for reasons that are his own.

For DM's Eyes Only!

Barris's secret is simple - he's dying. The same disease that claimed his mother's life is eating away at him, though unlike her, he harbors no illusions that he'll be cured. The Remembrance is likely one of the last things he'll be able to do before losing his freedom of movement.

Barris's fear is not being remembered. This informs his desire to preserve everything he can, and the root of it comes from reading old records and tomes, some priceless, and realizing that a jerk of his hand, or a careless knock against a candle or a glass of water, could destroy hundreds of years of history, leaving no one behind to remember the words of the long dead. He fears dying without having made any impact on anyone, and fading into irrelevance.

Barris's wish is to perform, or witness, an act of heroism or bravery like those in the old songs. While he still has doubts about the Remembrance, he at least sincerely hopes to pull it off and record it, even if it's close to one of the last things he'll be able to do.

This line is here to make sure I never run out of space below the formatting.

Edited October 20, 2023 by RedSavant (see edit history)

[RedSavant]

Level Accounting

Level 1

STR 12 DEX 16 CON 10 INT 16 WIS 12 CHA 11

HP: 6

Feat: Keen Mind INT +1 to 17

Cantrips: Mage Hand, Mind Sliver, Message

Spells: Burning Hands, Chromatic Orb, Comprehend Languages, Ice Knife, Mage Armor, Sleep

 

Level 2: Order of Scribes

HP: 12

Arcane Tradition: Wizardly Quill, Awakened Spellbook

Spells: Identify, Magic Missile

 

Level 3

HP: 18

Spells: Detect Thoughts, Melf's Acid Arrow

 

Level 4

HP: 24

Cantrip: Light

Spells: Hold Person, Vortex Warp

Feat: Observant INT +1 to 18

 

Level 5

HP: 30

Spells: Leomund's Tiny Hut, Melf's Minute Meteors

 

Level 6

Arcane Tradition: Manifest Mind

HP: 36

Spells: Tongues, Water Breathing

 

Level 7

HP: 42

Spells: Dimension Door, Storm Sphere

 

Level 8

HP: 48

ASI: INT +2 to 20

Spells: Fireball, Fly

Edited April 20, 2023 by RedSavant (see edit history)

[Peacemonger]

Takes a read...

For magic items, we can call the custom one an "Awakened Spellbook of Memory". 

 

For the rest...

Changes

• Need his wish still. Can be tied to the fear and/or secret, or can be its own unique thing.
• Need to know why he left the faith and what he's been doing with his time. You can share it in private tags, and doesn't have to be too elaborate, but feel that'll be relevant to the story.

Considerations

• Nothing that needs to be changed, and in fact I love it, but of course being outside the faith proper since he disappeared will make him stand out. There should be some tension with at least some in the party, and as long as the degree of tension's mutually agreed on by the players, should be all good. 

Clarifications

• How did Barris explain his absence when making his petition, if he included any explanation at all? 

Questions

• What does the faith mean to Barris now that he's seen all sides of it? He's been in it, outside of it, seen the best and worst. How does this complicated relationship guide his current opinion knowing that too may change?
• What does Barris do for fun outside of books and learning? What kind of food does he enjoy, music, art, etc.?
• What is magic for Barris? What is his personal philosophy on what magic means to him personally? Does he see any distinction between the arcane and divine? No right or wrong answer, just his opinion on it.
• Does Barris regret leaving? Why or why not? If he could do things over again would he make a different choice?
• Has Barris ever visited his father since his conviction and imprisonment? Why or why not? If so, how did it go? If not, how would he feel if he saw his father again?

Additional Setting Info

• The faith was already very much in its decline even when Barris was a student. Of course, now it's even worse with the only capable leadership being the four he'll travel with.
• The faith spread to lands far and wide, as Her deeds saved the world, even places far removed. Far away lands were the first to move on, the temple dedicated to Her tweaked and changed to fit other more local spirits and deities. Of course, the symbols and other tributes can still be found across the world.
• Even wielders of the arcane once worshipped the Martyred Radiance, the faith once even had a military arm specific to arcane casters. No more, Barris was the last hope for an arcane revival, and he left.
• The faith cannot properly maintain all its records and files, simply had too much going on centuries ago and there's not enough hands in the present.

 

 

[RedSavant]

Let's see here... (I'll fold all this info into his profile post up top, but just to address the points in an ordered way.)

 

Changes

• I'll add his wish into the spoiler dropdown.
• Barris left the faith due to a seed of dissatisfaction planted by his mother's death, and by reading records of the great heroes, the Martyr included, that used to serve the faith, and are no longer anywhere to be seen. The crisis of direction that was pre-emptively ended by Aurelia's martial coup isn't the sort of thing that happens in a healthy institution, for instance.
• Barris initially ran away intending to distance himself from the Faith entirely and for good. He traveled by offering clerical services, copied books where he could, and wandered from place to place. After realizing he needed a (literal) direction, he started learning more about the new faiths and sciences that have begun growing in the world. But even that didn't quite fill the holes left by his dissatisfaction with the Faith. Finally he's realized that he didn't settle his questions, he's just been ignoring them.
• In terms of specific knives:
  • He stumbled on a price-fixing ring headed by a large mercantile guild called the Ruby Road and spent a while on his travels teaching people about the scam and how to spot it. As a result, he's wanted in several cities with bribable law enforcement.
  • Likewise, he has a reputation as a troublemaker who won't stand for price garnishing, scam deals, or other tricks used in the marketplace, and who will loudly interject if he sees someone being overcharged.
  • Despite a seriously low tolerance, Barris is fond of alcohol and often ends up spending a fair chunk of his money on beer when he finishes a big job. It happens so often that he's essentially resigned to losing his purse entirely, and sometimes even Manyminds, when he drinks too much.
  • For a brief period, he was betrothed to the daughter of a local lord after rescuing the lord from a bandit attack. He still has her favor.
  • He has three tattoos, two of which he remembers getting, one of which he doesn't - a mark that so far has resisted identification.
  • Some of the information written within Manyminds is the only written copy in the world, and it would be a problem if certain powerful people knew he possessed it.
  • His father was released from prison a few years ago. Barris hasn't been to see him, or written, and knows nothing about what he's doing nowadays. Similar to his relationship with the Faith, he hasn't resolved the hurt, just put it off.

 

Considerations

• I don't intend Barris to be intentionally dismissive of anyone's faith or opinions, and I'm always happy to talk things out!

 

Clarifications

• I think Barris would neither make excuses nor offer explanations for the specific reasons he left. What he would offer is his parentage, his experience studying at the cloister, his experience with record-keeping and his interest in helping with, and recording, the Pilgrimage. He would have been frank with the High Priest about the likelihood that this could be the last one.

 

Questions

• Overall, I'll be playing Barris as someone who still has a lot of attachment to the Faith alongside his many questions - a lapsed believer who hasn't found anything to replace it with yet, so he still feels the absence and sometimes leans on it when he's told himself he wouldn't anymore. His mother's steadfast belief predisposes him toward warm feelings toward believers, but there must be something causing the decline, and if anyone knows what that is, it's not the Faith's current leaders.
• Barris enjoys simple food and beer, and will often spend any money he gets buying drinks for the local tavern, tipping bards to play long epics, and so on. Very rarely he'll request to borrow a potter's studio to replace a bowl or a mug he's broken on his travels. His favorite kind of art to experience is poetry and/or song, and he likes to write down songs or passages that particularly capture his attention in Manyminds. He's also surprisingly not bad at handball.
• Barris sees magic as fragments of truth and will. A physical action can enforce will onto the world, but so can words - either spoken or written, and they can leave ripples that last for hundreds or thousands of years after the one who penned them. He writes his spells down as lines of poetry, or religious verse, that he has strong emotional connections to, through which he can manifest his will into the world. As for divine versus arcane, he's aware that there's magic that draws from gods and magic that doesn't, but he sees it as the same mechanism of will all the same.
• I would say that Barris doesn't regret leaving. Despite the hard times he fell on while he was traveling, it strengthened his conviction that getting a broader view of the world was for the best. In particular, it helped him realize that the cloister didn't have all the answers, and that if he wanted to find some, he would have to go looking himself.
• Mentioned above, but while he knows his father was released from prison, he hasn't been back home or written. He didn't fake his death or anything, but he's been staying away from his hometown and the nearby towns that his father's business used to trade with. Avoiding the resolution, basically.

Edited May 6, 2023 by RedSavant (see edit history)