Nikeltas "Nik" Alset was born and raised in Arcanix, under the shadow of the wizard's towers. His father was a blacksmith, skilled in beating out the complex custom orders for unexplainable purposes and smelting specialty metals. Early on, while other children played with wooden swords or dolls, Alset was scrounging around, collecting and examining cast off junk from the experiments going on above. Whatever his father could smelt and reuse went back to him but Alset was allowed to keep everything else. Through trial and error, burns, and electrocutions, Alset learned a great deal of engineering prowess. Soon, arcanists came to look at the marvelous inventions of the boy, but lost interest when it was clear that nothing he made seemed to work once they got it from him. Not at all discouraged, Alset continued to work on his inventions, just changing his tactics. If a local farmer needed help with the harvest, Alset would make an automatic harvest wagon and run it himself. If a wizard needed electricity for an experiment, Alset would take a crackling generator up to the towers and monitor its output. Each thing, once used, was disassembled again for the next creation. This was fun and reasonably lucrative for a time, but Alset became bored with the mundane sameness of it all. He stopped taking new jobs and started working on a special project, a suit of powered armor. His earliest attempts were not without failure, scars, and singed eyebrows, but eventually he was successful. His armor looks like cobbled together junk but it dramatically increases his strength and durability. He is eager to show anyone who asks about his future plans for the armor. Flight, electricity generating coils, and other possibilities abound in his reams of notes and diagrams.
Alset is cheerful, inquisitive, and energetic. He is interested in adventure and new experiences. And, of course, tinkering with his beloved armor. All this he plans to do on the road. There is no better way to hone a design than by use. He feels this applies equally to himself and his armor.
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Gameplay
Nik will probably be armored up most of the time but when he isn't I'll probably be describing his Summon Monster SLA as mechanical creatures impossibly unfolding from a small box. No gameplay effect but flavorful. I'd probably describe his magic as technological, but again there will be no gameplay effect to this. As his inventions are just a prop for him to understand and use his latent magical ability, they will be affected by antimagic fields and the like as expected.
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Future Stuff
You might have guessed that there will be an electricity thing going on here eventually, given that Alset is Tesla backwards. When it becomes available at level 5, I will be getting the energy attacks (electricity) evolution. I don't know whether to wait until then to start describing the smell around him to be like ozone and for him to have a slightly static-y effect on hair or have that imagery from the get go.
I acknowledge that it's probably possible for Synthesists to get out of hand powerwise. I'll be trying to self limit that by staying away from additional primary attacks other than the claws, adding secondary attacks like hooves (kicks) and wing buffets down the road.
