4xCantrips
Detect Magic
Prestidigitation
Dancing Lights
Read Magic
6x1st
Feather Fall
Disguise Self
Illusion of Calm
Hypnotism
Memory Lapse
True Strike
4x2nd
Invisibility
False Life
Protection From Arrows
Invisibility
3x3rd
Extended Mirror Hideaway
Fearsome Duplicate
Acqueous Orb
2x4th
Shadow Projection
Extended Acqueous Orb (Cast)
Advancement Choices:
1st: Wizard (Spell Sage); Favoured Class = HP. Cantrips. Scribe Scroll. Focussed Spells. Human Feat: Spell Focus (Conjuration). Spell Specialization: Ice Spears
2nd: Wizard (Spell Sage); Favoured Class = HP. Spell Study 1
3rd: Wizard (Spell Sage); Favoured Class = Spell. Craft Wondrous Item
4th: Wizard (Spell Sage); Favoured Class = Spell
5th: Wizard (Spell Sage); Favoured Class = Spell. Craft Arms and Armour. Craft Construct
6th: Wizard (Spell Sage); Favoured Class = Spell. Spell Study 2/day
7th: Wizard (Spell Sage); Favoured Class = Spell. Extend Spell
Male Human (English) Wizard (Spell Sage) 7 Age 19
N Medium Humanoid (Human)
Init +3; Senses ; Perception +8
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DEFENSE
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AC 13, touch 13, flat-footed 10 (+3 dex, +0 armor)
HP 51 (7*6+7con+2Favored class)
Fort +3 2 base, Ref +5 2 base, Will +7 5 base +1 trait
Note: +2 trait bonus versus divination effects.
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OFFENSE
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Speed 30 ft.
Melee
Ranged
Space 5 ft., Reach 5 ft.
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SPECIAL ABILITIES
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Cantrips - cast zero level spells as often as desired. (see Wizard)
Focused Spells 1/day (+4 CL)
Spell Study 2/day
Can prepare 4 cantrips, 6 level 1, 4 level 2, 3 level 3 and 2 level 4
Spellbook: all cantrips except opposition schools, 12 1st level spells, 6 2nd level spells, 5 3rd level spells, 2 4th level spells.
Molly Jackson’s first encounter with the supernatural was when she came home from her shift as a resident at Cambridge’s Addenbrooke's Hospital and found her husband on the roof of their apartment. She begged him not to, talked about their 5 year old son Nick, talked about the tenure he was so close to getting. He kept saying he didn’t want to do it, but he had to, and then - crying - he jumped.
Molly had a bit of a breakdown, and her son stayed with his grandparents in Manchester for a while. Then she finished her training and took a forensic pathology residency position in Texas, moving both her son and herself to live there. They had a nice house, and she had a nice office , and if many times her son Nick did his homework there or played on the internet while she worked, he didn’t seem to mind.
There was, in Texas, one of the Wise. This Wizard had failed to find immortality through his magic and rather than simply die took it upon himself to start a Cult. Shortly after Molly moved to the area this Wizard died, and his students scattered throughout Houston.
There is this about Humanity - it was never meant to have true Power. Let an upstanding citizen acquire money, or political favours, or judicial power and soon that citizen will face temptation - a temptation most give in to. But whereas there are some checks and balances to mortal power, Magic was never meant for the likes of us, and its power and corruption leave mundane temptations in the dust.
An example? There is a simple spell - something that can be learned in a few months - that renders you temporarily hypnotic. How easy it is to use that to get ahead at work, or to get the girl you like to come home with you. How easy to start to rely on it. To use it more, and more. To make all your people-problems just go away. That is one of the lesser spells. Whatever humans wish for, it seems there is a spell to make that easy.
Sam Tailor was a detective with the Houston police when he began to see strange cases popping up. He took this up with the local ME and was shot down, but found a sympathetic ear in the attractive assistant Molly. Molly and Sam, together, untangled the first of these cases. In the process they discovered Magic existed, that it corrupted, that if the mentioned it they would be thought mad, and an attraction to each other.
They took the notes back to Molly’s work - taking over ‘the attic’ - and then started to work together on untangling these strange cases of the supernatural together. Soon whenever a strange case was found the call would go out for Molly and Sam.
They finally got together six months later, and were married at the end of the year. Sam slowly befriended Nick, but Nick never did change his last name to Tailor to match his mom and dad. A few other cops started to believe and work with them. It took seven years of tracking the fleeing cultists first through Texas and then most of the continental US, but they got them. They finally killed the last one - having learned that was the only way to safely stop a wizard - who was trying to summon some demon in New York and cause an apocalypse.
Molly and Sam weren’t sure what to do with their newfound free time, and determined to spend more time with their son Nick.
Sam surprised Nick - now eighteen - by showing up at his University dorm with a new computer. He used his credentials to get in and set up the new computer in place of Nick’s old one. He’d just gone under the desk to plug it in when Nick slammed the door open thinking he had an intruder. Sam came out, hands up, joking… and with an investigator’;s eye trained through seven years of hell saw Nick finishing up the gestures for a warding spell.
If I hadn’t had the ward up Sam’s bullet would have killed me. But then, if I hadn’t had it up he wouldn’t have tried to kill me, and I wouldn’t have killed him in self defence.
I’d read through enough of the case files mom and dad had put together to know what was going to happen next. This wasn’t going to look like an accident. My mother was too good at her job not to work out exactly what happened here, especially given the witnesses in the other rooms. It was going to come down to me, or her.
Even after reading all those grimoires and shadow-books they’d brought back from their cases I hadn’t been corrupted enough to kill my mother. Tears streaming down my face I grabbed my go-bag and left. It took a lot of my savings, but I tried to fake my death in the US to buy time, then made it back to the UK. Now I live off the grid in Manchester.
I have to be careful: my mother won’t stop looking and if I slip up then one day she’s going to find me. If she does find me, she’s going to kill me, because there is no way I can kill her.
I hope.
Description
Ht: 5' 6"
Wt: 130lbs
Age: 19
Hair: dark brown
Eyes: deepset, bloodshot and dark brown
Skin: pasty
Odds are you don’t really remember Nick. He’s “and that other guy”. He’s not handsome or ugly and has all the animal magnetism of a sheep. He tends to blend into the background when he’s quiet, and annoy people when he’s not. He does have a studied ability to put together a convincing lie, and a natural lack of tells that make lying easier for him.
Nick doesn’t really take very good care of himself, and doesn’t really care what he looks like. He has pasty skin, greasy hair, a perpetual cold, bags under his eyes and clothes that look a little like they were salvaged from charity bins, and chosen more for warmth than style at that. He can speak fluent english with a cambridge, manchester or texan accent. He typically pays for everything with crumpled Euros.
OCCUPATION
Nick works as a computer programmer on an open source project, setting himself up to be hired as an expert. This not only doesn’t make him any money, he actually makes a loss. Still, once he gets it over the line and people start adopting it he’ll be in a position to earn a solid five digit annual salary as a consultant.
He got the money he does have by building what he refers to as ‘the mp4 of Dorian Grey’. A custom magic item for an aging A-list star not ready to start playing people’s mothers. He built it for Rook (who tracked Nick down). Nick got $120K. Rook got more. The Studio got the star. Nick feels sort of dirty about it, but given what he could have been making and how desperate he was tries very hard to forget it.
CONTACTS
Rook. All over England, lair is Rook is an infernal Tiefling with a natural talent for finding interesting items and centuries of collecting them. She’s not so much evil as greedy and selfish, but she knows how to find things, and how to fence things. Rook wants Nick to come work for her, because not many people have the skills to push magic into an item and make it stick.
Tiffany Milligan. Manchester. Tiffany manages/works the midnight-to-dawn shift at the McDonald’s near Nick’s grandparent’s old house. She’s the person he’s most interacted with in the last few months, and they’ve sort-of flirted. Tiffany is a short girl at 5’3”, a little overweight and prone to smiling. Like Nick she’s a night person.
WHAT MAGUFFIN
I’d like Nick’s biological father to have been killed by a Wizard using magic (Dominate Person, perhaps?) to stop him winning Tenure at Cambridge. I’d like Nick to eventually work this out.
ENEMY: Molly Tailor, detective, crack shot, medical examiner, witch finder, and Nick’s mom. Molly thought she finally had the life she wanted, then her son turned out to be evil and killed her husband. Now she hunts Nick. Genius intellect but without magic. Ideally an alchemy-less investigator or rogue.
