Malachi Constant's page

1-Level

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Equipment

Quaterstaff
Component Pouch
Scholar’s Pack (Backpack, Book of Lore, Bottle of Ink, Ink pen, 10 sheets of parchment, Little bag of sand, Small knife)
Heavy Overwear
Dagger (x3)
A set of fine clothes
A disguise kit
A deck of marked cards
A belt pouch containing $20.
A lamp with three flasks of oil
A mess kit
5 days of Rations
50ft of Rope and a Grappling Hook
Playing card set
Pistol w/ 20 bullets

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Background

Background:
- Charlatan
Personality:
- I often tell myself that I shouldn’t get involved, but do anyway.
Ideals:
- Aspiration. I’m determined to make something of myself. (Any)
- Logic. Emotions must not cloud our sense of what is right and true, or our logical thinking. (Lawful)
Bonds
- I’m on the run to hide from the ones who might still be hunting me. I must someday confront them
- I have an ancient text that holds terrible secrets that must not fall into the wrong hands.
Flaws
- Despite my best efforts, I am unreliable to my friends.
- I’d risk too much to uncover a lost bit of knowledge.

BACKSTORY
Malachi Constant was always searching for something greater. He was born to unremarkable parents in an unremarkable town, and - a thought that would plague him most nights - was unremarkable himself.

In his youth, he’d had some trouble with sleepwalking, and would often be found wandering the small town in the middle of the night, as if searching for something he wasn’t even conscious of. The dreams never made much sense to him. There was lots of trees and grass, things he’d only ever heard about and had never seen. He assumed it was the wanderlust within wanting to explore, to leave the desert, and nothing more than that. He decided that he would leave, but being unremarkable, didn’t. Instead he settled into an ordinary life, and ignored his dreams. For a time, they stopped.

In his mid 30’s, Malachi has begun having the dreams again, and whether it’s that he’s older or that they’re more forceful, but he’s remembering more and more details about them. He dreamed of a time when the desert wasn’t so, when it had thick grass and towering trees. He dreamed of birds and rivers, and a clearing. The clearing itself possessed an enormous tree that the others kept a distance from, seemingly intentionally.

As Malachi moved closer to the tree, he saw that it had arms, and a face. It spoke to him, and showed him a wound that it had sustained on its chest. It was not simply a slash, but was an actual hole, that lead into pure darkness. “You must recover it”. The tree said. Before Malachi could ask what it was, he had a vision of s small book, with a cover of bark. “Recover it for me, and I will reward you with whatever your human heart desires. Fail me and you wll wish you had never been born. When you find it, you would be wise not to open it.”

When the morning game, Malachi took one of the guns he had inherited from his father, something he’d never learned to use, and left. He didn’t tell anyone, or sell his home, because he assumed that an obstacle would deter him and he’d return home within a few hours. It felt juvenile, and he kicked himself as he traveled to where he believed the book would be.

His imagination made all kinds of potential situations up for what it would be like. Maybe it would be held by a cult, or maybe he would have to steal it from a running train. It ended up simply as part of someone’s collection of artifacts, and stealing it left him with a feeling of intense disappointment. He wondered if he had dreamed the entire thing, if there was no giant tree at all.

Until he looked inside.

Opening the book imbued in Malachi a feeling of understanding. Though he could not tell you what was written on the pages, it became instantly clear that there was a much bigger world than the one he had seen so far. Not only was the book real, but it almost pulsed with power. “They’ll be after you now, too” a voice said.

In the five months since, Malachi hasn’t stopped running. He doesn’t know truly who is after him, who the mysterious tree being is, or what it wants. Though he’s been unable to unlock some of the books magic, he cannot even fathom what other secrets might be locked away in the mysterious texts.

PERSONALITY
Malachi is going to be trying to stay alive and keep a book safe. He’s part of something larger than himself that he doesn’t understand and is pretty afraid of. It gives him a sort of aloofness at times. While he knows he shouldn’t get involved in other people’s problems and lives, he often wants to help and does it anyway. With that said, he can still be an inconsistent friend to have around because of his “higher calling” - it’s entirely possible that he’d sacrifice the lives of others to keep the tome out of the hands of the wicked.