Special Abilities
Pyrotechnics (Sp): 1/day, CL 5
Shift (Su): At 1st level, you can teleport to a nearby space as a swift action as if using dimension door. This movement does not provoke an attack of opportunity. You must be able to see the space that you are moving into. You cannot take other creatures with you when you use this ability (except for familiars). You can move 5 feet for every two wizard levels you possess (minimum 5 feet). You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier.
Tactics
Contingency: “When I cast feather fall” activate emergency force sphere.
Magic Aura: Cast every day, changing the properties of a different item, 14/days per item. Items marked ** are altered, dagger, scimitar, and longbow are altered to appear greater than reality.
Stats, Skills, Spells:
STATISTICS
STR 12 +2 gear
DEX 19 +1 4th, +4 gear
CON 12 +2 gear
INT 26 +2 race; +1 8th, 12th; +6 gear
WIS 14 +4 gear
CHA 20 +2 race; +4 gear
Traits
Reactionary (Combat):You gain a +2 trait bonus on initiative checks.
Without a Past (Social): You earn +1 trait bonus to Bluff and Linguistics when used to forge documents, and choose one as a class skill. (Bluff)
Magical Knack (Wizard) (Magic): Pick a class when you gain this trait—your caster level in that class gains a +2 trait bonus as long as this bonus doesn’t increase your caster level higher than your current Hit Dice.
Zealous (Drawback): When you attack a creature that you know worships a different religion than you do, you take a –5 penalty on the attack roll and a +2 trait bonus on the damage roll with your first attack.
Class Features
Arcane Bond: Familiar (Rhamphorhynchus) 5th level master
Aura of Law (Ex): The power of a Hell Knight enforcer's aura of law (see detect law) is equal to his total character level.
Hellknight Order of the Gate.
Mask (Su): Upon initiation, a Hell Knight enforcer receives a mask, often devoid of eyeholes or other personal features. This mask doesn't obscure the enforcer's vision, and while wearing it he gains a +2 competence bonus on Sense Motive checks and on saving throws against spells and abilities that rely on visual effects.
A Hell Knight enforcer with a bonded object from the arcane bond class feature can perform a special ritual that costs 500 gp and takes 8 hours to complete. This ritual converts the enforcer's mask into his new bonded item, which takes up the head slot. In this case, Hell Knight enforcer levels stack with levels from the class that grants the bonded item for determining what additional magical abilities can be added to the bonded item.
Arcane Armor Expertise: At 2nd level, if a Hell Knight enforcer has the Arcane Armor Training feat, he gains Arcane Armor Mastery as a bonus feat.
At 5th level, the action required to use this feat changes from a swift action to an immediate action.
Signifier Armor Training: At 3rd level, while a Hell Knight enforcer wears armor, he reduces the armor check penalty by 1 (to a minimum of 0), and reduces the arcane spell failure chance by 5%.
At 8th level, he reduces his armor check penalty by an additional 1, and reduces his arcane spell failure by an additional 5%. Additionally, at 8th level, when a Hell Knight enforcer's speed is reduced by wearing medium or heavy armor, his unique training offsets the speed reduction by 5 feet.
Assiduous Gaze: At 4th level and again at 7th level, a Hell Knight enforcer gains an assiduous gaze ability chosen from the list below. A Hell Knight enforcer can use each assiduous gaze ability he possesses for a number of rounds per day equal to 1/2 his class level. These rounds need not be consecutive. A Hell Knight enforcer can activate an assiduous gaze ability as a swift action to examine a single creature, object, or 5-foot square within 30 feet. A Hell Knight enforcer must be wearing his enforcer mask to use these abilities, and his caster level while using them is equal to his character level.
--Elucidation (Su): Discern each active spell on the target, including the spell's effect and caster level.
--Veracity (Sp): Observe the target as if using true seeing. A Hell Knight enforcer must be 7th level to select this ability.
Discern Lies (Sp): At 6th level, a Hell Knight enforcer can use discern lies as a spell-like ability a number of times per day equal to 3 plus his Charismamodifier. These rounds need not be consecutive. His caster level is equal to his total character level.
Consumed:
Spells Written to blessed book based on cost to copy from another spellbook:
0: (0) 2.5g
1: (2) 5g 10g
2: (10) 20g 200g
3: (15) 45g 675g
4: (17) 80g 1360g
5: (16) 125g 2000g
6: (18) 360g 6480g
7: (8) 245g 1960g
Total 12685g
Coin:
platinum:
Gold:
Silver:
Copper:
Total Spent: 183660
Crafted: 90100 (2400)
Start 185,000
Background:
My name is Ferod Coulserk. No, that’s not the name I was born with. That name has been lost to history. Where it should stay. I was raised in the slums of Korvosa. It wasn’t an easy life, an orphan in a city of have’s and have nots, I most certainly was not one of the have’s. Not knowing any better, I soon fell in with Lamm’s Lambs, who thinks up these names? It was by far never an easy life, but it was survival. I barely remember this part of my life, I never talk of it, so don’t ask. I was nine when my life changed, I remember because it was my birthday. Not that any of the other’s in Lamm’s gang knew, or cared. But that night, while I tried to sleep on the floor of an abandoned fishery, with the stench of half rotten offal clogging my nostrils, soft whimpering from the younger children, and the swish of something swimming under the fishery. That night hell broke loose on Gaedren Lamm and his cronies. And nothing felt so good as to see justice done. I learned that some of our rescuers were prior children of Lamm that had escaped, or been left for dead. That saying “careful what you wish for” well now I was back on the streets. Those ‘rescuers’ were only after some old deck of cards.
The next two years were a horror for a young child, let alone a homeless orphan. I won’t share the details of what I did to survive. No one should have to do that, or hear of it. It was during this time that Korvosa went mad. Plagues, Hellknights, rebels, martial law. It seemed the city was on the brink of complete chaos. I managed to earn a small living as a runner for various shops. I was small enough that I could easily navigate the shingles and avoid the patrols. With the city in shambles and the dead piling up, I found ready access to many homes that were now vacant. Scavenging for food and supplies soon became a prime means of making it through the day. Not just for myself, but for a couple of families that lived nearby. That’s where I met Maeve. A year younger than I, and just as adventurous. The two of us soon became a team, scrounging through every home and shop that was abandoned, dodging the patrols of guards and Hellknights. In one home we found an old man laying in bed. The surprising thing was not the dead body, those I’d seen too many for someone not yet a teenager. It was the large raven curled on the pillow next to the man. You’ve come, too late for Master Ginnesse. I haven’t much time, I can already feel myself fading. The wall, push the picture up. The book is for you... the raven sighed and settled down. A last heave and it stilled. Curious, I looked at the only picture on the wall, a picture of two people that I did not recognize. Later I realized that it was a portrait of Aroden and Iomedae, pictured as if they had a close relationship. Behind the picture was a small cavity. Inside was an envelope, a small sack and a book with a lock on it. Pulling the items out he casually shifted the dead body to the side, careful not to touch the body, likely plague ridden as it was, and opened the envelope.
Dear xxxx,
I told you, knowledge of that name wasn’t going to happen. Anyway…
I promised your parents that I would look after you, I guess that didn’t work as planned. I’ve made arrangements for your acceptance at the Acadamae, when you turn 15. The pouch has some money to help you until then, and there is an account for you at the bank of Abadar. The book is very important for you. Don’t ever lose it. Don’t leave it anywhere. Protect it, and it will protect you!
I pulled the book over and looked at it, the title read ‘Treatise on the settlement of Verisia and the supplanted Shoanti.’ Great, a history book. Inside the pouch, a handful of silver and a few gold. More than I had seen at one time, but little to last a couple of years.
With the treason of the queen revealed, a semblance of order returned to Korvosa. The city had changed, and only time would tell if for the better. I too had changed. With a steady income from the trust at Abadar’s bank I didn’t need to scrounge dead peoples homes anymore. I continued to work as a runner though, it kept me busy and it helped out Maeve’s father. For whatever reason, he took a shining to me. It seemed that Maeve and I were destined to marry, at least that’s what the neighbors seemed to think.
I’d never been to the Acadamae, everyone heard stories about it though. Good stories of graduates going on to make wonderful discoveries and travel the world. And not so good stories of students with too much ambition and not enough common sense. Hence the ever present population of wild imps in the city. Four years of study went by quickly, and it was after I cast my first spell that I heard a voice in my head. The voice of a history book that had collected dust on my shelf the last three years. Turns out the old coot left me himself, or at least his mind, magically instilled into the book. A book of spells hidden under the boring history I had read several times through.
Needless to say, my schooling progressed at a rapid rate with a wizened old wizard and his spells to guide me. I heard talk that I was considered a prodigy, that I might be selected for the next Breaching Festival. Only a week before I was to graduate, and I was still having trouble with planar binding. Another student, a rival, had surprisingly provided me with a scroll that he assured me would help me out. That evening, my fiance’ Maeve and I were in the basement of her family home. I kept the basement as an off-campus laboratory, and I had a cot in one corner. She and I had just finished marking out a circle of protection on the floor and she had settled down on the bed to watch as I began the incantation from the scroll. As I finished the spell, I felt a sudden tug on my essence, as if something was pulling on me, a swirling shape of smoke began to appear in the circle. Something was wrong, this wasn’t some creature from a celestial plane, it was a demon! A demon that laughed at my inexpierenced attempts to bind it. As Maeve screamed the vile creature stepped over the circle and with a single swipe of its claw silenced Maeve forever. Cackling with glee it slammed me against the wall before leaping up the stairs. Dazed, I crawled over to Maeve as screams tore through the air above me. I cradled Maeve in my arms as she looked up at me, questioning me. It’s a look I’ll never forget. With my blood covered hands I stumbled up the steps to find a scene of horror and chaos. Maeve’s parents and siblings slaughtered, their entrails and blood splattered around the room. The demon was gone. Gathering my few possessions, a bag and my book, I left Korvosa. There was nothing for me there.
Wandering the Varisian countryside, I found myself approaching Magnimar. With the last of my coin I acquired a room for the night, the first time I had slept in a bed in many months. The ache of loss from Korvosa still fresh within me.
I spent the next decade living an austere life in Magnimar as a simple scribe for a bookshop. I explored Magnimar, studying its history. It was here, at a shop on the docks of exotics that I came across the curious creature that became my familiar, a small pterasour. In one of my wanderings I located an ancient entrance to the ruins of Thassilonia below. It was here that I came upon a runeforge, and after much practicing I managed to activate it and scribed one of my gauntlets. Finding that Magnimar no longer held interest for me, I left. By this time I had acquired a new identity and was working to leave my tragic past behind me. My time as a scribe and historian, along with Korvosa’s recent events gave me ample opportunity for a new identity.
Here my travels led me to Cheliax. A country in bed with the devil. And yet something drew me there. Maybe it was the lack of stress from a less chaotic environment, maybe it was the challenge of dealing with denizens of the lower planes again. I had heard that the Hellknights were recruiting. I remembered them from Korvosa, always so ordered, so calm, resplendent in their armor. I applied, and I was inducted into the Order of the Gate. A new home. I’ve spent the last twenty years traveling across Cheliax, enforcing law, judging disputes, ordering chaos. Last year I was promoted to Investigator, provided a small stipend, and told to follow my own leads.
Why I received a letter of summons to Ziamar, I know not, but I leave in the morning.
