Nicolai Fortunescu's page

0 level:
Acid Splash
Arcane Mark
Dancing Lights
Detect Magic
Detect Poison
Flare
Ghost Sound
Light
Mage Hand
Mending
Message
Open/Close
Ray of Frost
Read Magic
Resistance

1st level:
Color Spray
Comprehend Languages
Enlarge Person
Grease
Heightened Awareness
Mage Armor
Magic Missile
Shield
Silent Image
Summon Monster I

Nicolai Antonescu’s childhood had not been easy. His mother died when he was two from the latest plague to sweep through Korvosa and he and his older sister, Natalia, were raised by his father, Anton.
Anton tried his best, but he often ended up taking his frustrations with the world out on his children. One night, a drunken Anton tried to force himself on Natalia. Fortunately, with Nicolai’s help, she escaped unharmed and fled into the night, never to return.
Nicolai endured his father’s abuse for several long years, until he too could take it no longer. One night while his father was out drinking his take home pay, Nicolai grabbed his cloak and the one thing his mother had left behind, an old worn-out harrow deck, and disappeared out onto the streets.
That night cold and shivering he spotted a group of children around his age robbing a nearby merchant’s stall. Unfortunately, the children didn’t see the approaching guard before Nicolai did. A shouted warning brought the law down on him as the gang disappeared into the crowds. After a night spent in the Citadel he was kicked back into the city.
That night Nicolai returned to the same street corner and, as luck would have it, the same gang of kids showed up again, this time at a different merchant’s shop. Nicolai tried to follow them, but he was soon discovered. One of the older boys recognized him from last night and allowed him to join them as they returned to their hideout.
Once there the gang’s leader, Finnegan, introduced young Nicolai to an older man, whose age seemed indescribable to one so young, one Gaedren Lamm. Lamm welcomed Nicolai into his troupe and gave the boy a hot meal and a warm blanket to sleep under.
Soon Nicolai was running the streets as one of “Lamm’s Lambs”, the gang gave Nicolai a sense of belonging he had never had before. One day, while doing a simple “brush pass” he pinched something that would change his life more than any amount of gold. It was a simple wooden mask, one side white as alabaster, the other as black as ebony. Days passed and Nicolai couldn’t shake the intriguing feeling of the unknown mask.
One day, while Nicolai was on overwatch for one the gangs, he noticed a couple of people walking by with the exact same mask dangling from their necks. Unable to control himself he followed the pair back to a small temple dedicated to the god Nethys, the god of magic. After attending the service Nicolai returned to the hideout only to find that the group of children he was to be a lookout for were captured by the guards because he wasn’t there.
Furious, Lamm snatched the holy symbol from Nicolai and broke it in two while ordering the rest of the children to punish him. Beaten nearly to death Lamm had Nicolai’s battered body dumped onto the steps of the temple of Nethys. Nicolai could just make out the sneer of contempt on Lamm’s face as he tossed the broken mask on the ground next to him. An unconscious Nicolai was soon discovered by one of the lay brothers of the temple and brought inside where his wounds were cured, and his body was tended to.
One of the priests recognized the shattered mask as his own, which had been stolen from him just the week before. Intrigued that it would be returned in such an unorthodox way, the priest cast a simple spell upon the mask, making it whole once again.
Upon waking Nicolai saw the smiling face of the priest he had robbed. Not angry, just…curious the priest and Nicolai talked for hours. Perhaps sensing something in the young boy, the cleric offered Nicolai a place in the temple. It was soon discovered that while he had the intellect for magic, he did not have the aptitude for the priesthood, so the temple sponsored his enrollment in the prestigious Acadamae. Enduring the grueling training regimen he excelled in all his classes (except those of enchantment and necromancy which he just couldn’t seem grasp). Shortly before graduation Nicolai realized that he just didn’t have the temperament to pass the final exam, and fearing what could go wrong if he failed his summoning, he left the Acadamae.
On the streets once again, Nicolai found himself wandering the neighborhood where his old gang once roamed. Intrigued, he sought out the old warehouse they once used as a hideout. Wandering into the, once again, abandoned building he found his mother’s old deck of harrow cards sitting on a broken crate, covered in dust after all these years, waiting for him. He had an epiphany as he picked up the deck and he knew, perhaps for the first time, what he had to do.
Soon he was doing readings for the local populace, using his magic to enhance the prophecies. Soon his clientele grew with each eerily accurate reading he gave. It was during one such reading that Nicolai froze in shock, as one of the cards in his deck wasn’t his as this one had an entirely different backing. Turning the card over, his eyes widened in shock as he saw the face of the card.