INTRO!
“I’m gonna be honest buddy” Byron Drake leaned forward in his seat, scraping at the stubble along his temples with the backs of his fingernails. “I don’t really wanna sell any of this. Not to you, not to anyone. But I’m on the verge of making a major purchase here, so I’m willing to part with one of my curios if you make a good offer, and make up your mind right now.” He placed his elbows on the table, and rested his hands in meshed fingers, fixing the gnome in front of him with eyes the color of red leather, a gaze like a fading fire.
The little man scrunched his nose and squinted hard--not a flattering expression given that he already looked like a troll had pinched his face between forefinger and thumb. “I dunno. Is this stuff even worth anything?” He scanned the makeshift market stall, and Byron’s leg began to bounce. “It just looks like junk.”
Junk. Byron reached into his desert-colored robes, extracted a glass pipe, struck a match, and took a long drag from the smoke it produced. He held it in, longer, longer, longer, letting the mild narcotic fill his mind with fog, dulling his agitation and buying time to think. At last he parted his thin lips and let a river of milky smoke flow out, offending his patron at least as much as the J-word had offended him. Without breaking eye contact with the chinless little rat, he picked up a small bell from his table. It was copper, green now, and a little fuzzy, but it must once have shone like a setting sun. “Do you know that this once belonged to the lead elephant from a sultan’s escort? A man who once ruled a kingdom wouldn’t leave his f@~%ing house without an animal covered in these things.”
“Yeah.” The gnome sniffed. “Once. Where is he now? Dead.”
“Look buddy. Do you know what I could do with this? An object like this has such latent power that I could make a legion of the dead dance to its chime.”
“Yeah, you could. You’re one of those mystic types. I’m an artificer. This is only worth its weight in copper when I melt it down to make components.” Sensing Byron’s discomfiture, he licked his lips and crossed his legs on the rickety stool. “Why you selling it anyway?” The gnome sniffed again. Snotty nose. Snotty attitude. Gross. “To make a purchase? Of what? Drugs I bet. I think you’re a junkie.”
“I think you’re an a*$&%!~.”
The gnome shrugged. “Ten gold. And we both know I’m doing you a favor.”
Byron took another hit from his pipe and stuffed it back in his robes. “Fine.” He practically threw the bell at the gnome, who literally threw the gold at the Occultist before scampering off into the market square. He muttered and swept the rest of the objects on the table back into his pouch. Awful, awful to sell such things. He had half a novel written about that sultan’s exploits, and now he was going to have to make up the rest, or go by memory. His work was always a far cry from its full potential when he couldn’t live those memories himself. But whatever. It would do, and he needed the ten gold--wait no eight, the little prick short-changed him--today more than he needed another best-seller six months from now. His pipe was almost empty and. . .
Junkie.
But it was the only thing that kept the dreams away and the addiction seemed to interfere somehow with his sisters’ telepathy. Invaluable.
“Eight gold. . .f%*#.” He stood up from his makeshift stall and made his way back towards the guild hall. Rumor had it there was something interesting cooking, and that tingly little feeling in the back of his head told him it might lead to a good payout. Maybe enough this time. Maybe.
He strolled in the late afternoon sun, enjoying the warmth, enjoying the noise, enjoying the high. Something about being in a city like this had an almost addictive quality of its own. Compared to the cultish isolation he had grown up with in that dark, bloody, graveyard house, even a small town felt like a haven of life and light to him. A major metropolis was a proper paradise in some ways, full of sounds, and smells, and people. There were many things to enjoy here, and many opportunities to make money and acquire surprisingly powerful artefacts that the more standard-issue vagabonds--fighters, monks, wizards, and the like--overlooked as kitschy garbage but that he could use to access powerful magical forces or, at the very least, perform a reading of to write a decent short story about the original owner. There were plenty of perils too, but within the first few years of working for the guild he had made connections and developed his street sense enough to avoid the worst of situations. Mostly.
All in all, urban life was pretty sweet. He could even afford to let his guard down and get laid once in a while.
“But you know we can’t stay here, right?”
Byron started, and looked around. Eventually he spotted Kat, across the street though her voice had seemed to come from somewhere much closer. Okay. We’re good. Just another hallucination. Means the milkweed is really kicking in. Still, he knew he had to answer her--when you had psychic powers it was best to play along with any and all hallucinations, visions, or waking dreams you had. Otherwise things could get. . .distressing. He crossed the street as casually as possible and embraced his kid sister, in all her rigid early-teen ‘don’t touch me’ glory. “I know kid.” He said. “We won’t be here much longer. I just need another good score or two, and then I need to find you, and then we can head out.”
The Kat-lucination didn’t respond right away, simply regarding him skeptically with the intense, red-brown eyes that were characteristic of their family. Finally she smirked a little. Sassy, even when she wasn’t actually here. “You do know Leigh and Anita are looking for me too, right?” She used their sister Annabelle’s middle name, just the way she hated them to. That was Kat though, always the antagonist. “I think dad even has Hayden out and about.”
“Hayden’s an oaf.” Byron said with a roll of his eyes. “A big stupid beast. I wouldn’t want to run into him, but he hasn’t got the brains to even know how to start a manhunt. He’ll follow the Twins’ orders to the letter, but won’t so much as fire a synapse beyond what they tell him to do.”
Kat giggled. She always loved the insults Hayden leveled at their brother. “You’re right. Hayden’s dumb. But what about Kiegan? I dreamed about him the other night for the first time since we left.”
Kiegan? The mention of their eldest brother made Byron’s blood run cold. Hayden, the youngest, was a dangerous moron, capable of extreme violence but unable to act constructively on his own. The twins Annabelle and Anita were forces of nature--devastatingly powerful psychics, ice-cold and organized, but so obviously evil they practically left a trail of black grease everywhere they went. Byron was frightened of them, true, and so much so that they appeared in his dreams any time he went to bed sober. Sometimes he even worried it was intentional on their part, that they were trying to scry for him, or even just messing with him to get him to make a mistake. But if they had their fingers in something, he was sure he’d puzzle it out before they ensnared him. Kiegan though. . .
Kiegan Drake was a charmer, through and through. He was their father’s favorite, the most powerful of his children and capable of achieving just about anything without even looking like he was trying. He was intelligent, likable, and suave. Even someone like Byron could forget his remorseless menace if they spoke for more than a few minutes. In the past five years Byron hadn’t sensed even an iota of interest from his oldest sibling. But if Kat was dreaming about him. . .
Hayden shook his head. This wasn’t Kat. This was a hallucination. He was tripping, and talking to himself in public. That this particular daytrip had mentioned their eldest sibling by name when that had literally never happened before was obviously just a sign of his own anxieties.
“Right Kat?” He shook his head. The hallucination melted away, but Kat was still there, about two feet too tall and staring him dead in the eye. “Uh.” He shook his head again, squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed until he saw stars. When he opened them again she was still there, her but not her--it was a missing persons poster plastered against the side of some restaurant. In his effort to avoid drawing attention to his plight he had never once relied on public announcements to look for his little sister. That meant. . .
“Ah. Shit.”
Questionnaire!
1. For what reason does your character become an adventurer? What motive keeps them going?
Lookin’ for work, simple as that. Byron struck out on his own, not wanting to live like a leech off his rich daddy’s money. His whole family is a pack of gifted psychics, and his talents in particular--those of the Occultist--allowed him to make use of himself as a detective/archeologist/author of some renown. Eventually he decided to try something a little riskier. Hence, Adventurer for Hire.
2/3. How did your character first hear about the House of Fate and Fire? Why did your character decide to join the House over other options available to them? How does the House fit into your motives as an adventurer?
Recruiters. They were active in one of the regions he was wandering through and, being pretty naive about the adventuring business, he asked them a few vague questions and figured they seemed good enough. For reasons he refuses to elaborate on, he seems to believe the guild owes him something and is known to use House resources for personal endeavors, often pushing the limit of what would be considered acceptable.
When he isn’t being a salty, cagey weirdo he finds it genuinely pleasant that his guildwork often puts him in positions of being able to find new artefacts for his collection.
4. The adventuring parties live in dormitory-style apartments. The rooms are quite spacious, and the living/kitchen area is shared. What does your room look like? What kind of roommate are you?
Being an occultist, and therefore a person who draws great power from seemingly mundane objects, Byron is pretty possessive of his things. He dislikes it when people touch anything in his space, but he is aware that this is an annoying behavioral habit and so, to try and facilitate peace, he keeps said things meticulously organized in clearly-labeled shelves and drawers. Once, some lower-ranking House members thought it might be funny to rearrange his things as a prank. He disagreed and, while he did not harm them, he did respond in the most Byron way possible: he put together a very well-organized, well-worded complaint to House leadership and ended up getting one of the pranksters expelled while the other got latrine duty for half a year. This is a well-known story in the guild, and now only the brashest of guild members would repeat such a stunt.
Other than that, he tends to be easygoing. His milkweed habit keeps him laid back and friendly--so much so that he seems like a totally different person if he’s in a fit about his things. If he likes you well enough, and you’re game, he may even share a hit from his pipe. He tries to act like an open book, but he has some very abrupt boundaries and at times he’ll tell obvious lies to explain away gaps in his personal narrative, seemingly nonchalant about whether or not the person he is talking to is aware of his deceit (read: he may not even feel the need to attempt a check when lying about himself, considering the obviousness of his dishonesty to be fair warning that you shouldn’t press him about whatever you were talking about).
He has a lot of writing materials in his personal room. He doesn’t like to talk about them, and has never been seen using them. Like. At all.
5. While Teladora insists that adventurers don't need as much rest as normal people, Layla disagrees. The lamia makes sure that all parties get at least a week of downtime between adventures unless they ask for less. What does your character do to unwind?
Byron is an author. He has always had an artistic tendency, and learned at an early age that he could use his Occult powers to write all manner of texts, drawing inspiration from the objects he handled. He has published textbooks, poetry collections, short story collections, and novels all based on historical events and derived from visions received during deep meditative sessions with select objects from his collection. He does not discuss this openly, and only writes in secret. None of his guildmates know that he is the true identify of the successful author L. C. Geschichtsschreiber. He is also a bit of a scholar, and enjoys studying the historical works of others, even if he himself often feels he “knows better” about certain subjects or figures.
He is socially withdrawn, but can be persuaded to party it up a little from time to time. No one can seem to figure out what causes him to decide when it is and isn’t appropriate to do so though.
