About PatizamoCrunch:
Patizamo • Ancestry: Human (Skilled) • Background: Sponsored by a Stranger • Class: Magus (Laughing Shadow) • Deity: Nethys (maybe?) • Alignment: N Perception (T) +8 Stats:
HP 67
Languages: Common, Osiriani, Garundi, Mwangi Skills:
Feats:
Proficiencies:
Combat:
Special: Arcane Cascade Stance (+5’ speed, +1 damage (+3 vs flat-footed)), Spellstrike (2 actions) Spellcasting:
Saves:
Equipment: +1 striking Shortsword, dagger, shortbow with 10 arrows, studded leather armor, adventurer’s pack, Thieves’ tools, spellbook, hand of the mage, bracelet of dashing, hat of the magi
Magus Spellbook:
Cascade Bearer Ranks/Benefits:
Rank 1 - Additional Lore (Academia Lore) Rank 2 - Steeped in History +1 Rank 3 - Magaambyan Attendant Dedication (Cascade Bearers) Rank 4 - Skill Feat (Trained - Arcane Sense) Rank 5 - Branch Influence +1 Emerald Boughs Ranks/Benefits:
Rank 1 - Additional Lore (Merab Lore) Rank 2 - Steeped in History +1 (applies to Emerald Boughs now, as well) Backstory:
Patizamo was born in the Thuvian city of Merab in a neighborhood that was just one step above what many considered a slum. His parents were a laborer and a washerwoman, respectively, but they loved him and they still did their best to keep a roof over his head and food on the table. His father would tell him stories that had been passed down to him from his father, and his father before him - stories of their ancestors, who commanded the winds and lived among the clouds. His ancestors, who stood with honor and fought against the Rough Beast and all those who would attempt to plunge the world into darkness. His father said that, one day, they would reclaim their birthright and once again they would be able to command the skies. Patizamo knew they were just fanciful stories used to entertain and inspire hope in a young boy, but he always dreamed, one day, of flying as the heroes of those stories had. Despite his family’s relative poverty, they still managed to give him a basic education, teaching him how to read, write, and do some basic math. His childhood could have been much worse - as he found out firsthand. When he was nine years old, a plague swept through the neighborhood, and by the time it was done, his mother had died and his father was so weakened from the plague that he could no longer work. They found themselves forced from their home into the slums, begging for food or coin where they could and sleeping in what shelter they could find. His father began to despair of their life, and became moody and taciturn, often ignoring Patizamo as he drew in on himself. He no longer told stories as he once did, even when Patizamo asked, in the hopes it would bring back the father he’d known. Out of desperation and loneliness, Patizamo began stealing food from merchants’ stalls and digging through refuse piles. One day he found a decently-dressed man, drunk and passed out in an alley. He quickly rifled the man’s pockets, taking everything before running off to see what he’d found in case the man woke up. In addition to some coin - enough that he’d be able to eat well for a month - there were a few locks and a set of lock picks. Intrigued, the clever boy put his nimble fingers to work and taught himself how to pick the locks. With his new-found skills, the boy’s thefts moved beyond the simple, and he began breaking into people’s homes. He was always careful to watch the home and make sure no one was there - he didn’t want to be caught, after all - and then broke in, often taking some jewelry or coin where he could find it in order to get food for himself and his father. When he was twelve, he broke into a modest-looking house owned by a scholar of some kind. While searching the scholar’s office for any coin, he came across some notes about someone or something called the “Shory”. Intrigued, he began reading them, and found that the description sounded remarkably similar to the stories his father would tell him. Excited, thinking he’d found the key to getting his father out of his dark mood, he forgot about stealing anything else and left the house. He went to his father and showed him the notes, telling him that these were their ancestors, the people in the stories his father would tell. His father listened until Patizamo stopped talking, then asked how he’d gotten the notes. Patizamo revealed to his father that he had taught himself to pick locks and had been stealing to get them food, and he had come across them after breaking into a house. His father became angry, and berated him for having fallen so far from their ancestors’ ideal. They were a proud and dignified family, regardless of their current circumstances, and he would have nothing to do with any thief. Then his father turned away from him and said, ”Better you had died in the plague than become a criminal. Begone from my sight!” Patizamo was heartbroken by his father’s rejection of him, and he tearfully fled, the notes still clutched in his hand. He wandered the streets for much of the night, until he suddenly found himself standing in an alley across from the scholar’s house. A light burned in one of the windows - the window of the study he had found the notes in. Patizamo stared at the light for a long moment, then made a decision. He crossed the street to the door and knocked. After a short while, the scholar opened the door and looked at him. Patizamo confessed to having broken into the house earlier and stolen the notes, and he was returning them because it had been wrong for him to do so. He asked for the man’s forgiveness, and said that if the man wished to turn him over to the courts, he would go willingly. The man took the notes, looked at them, then looked at Patizamo for a long moment, then said, ”My name is Ha’tuko. Will you come in, child?” Ha’tuko offered Patizamo some food and drink as he asked questions about the youth - where did he live, where was his family, and similar things. Patizamo told him of the circumstances of his family and what he knew. Hatuko weighed his answers for a moment, then offered to employ Patizamo to help out as a runner and with the cleaning in exchange for steady pay. Patizamo accepted immediately. He knew his father would not forgive him right away, but he hoped that if he told his father he had proper employment that might be a start. Patizamo slept at Ha’tuko’s that night, and then the next day began working for the scholar. The job was not difficult - Ha’tuko did not make much mess outside of his study, and working as a runner often meant either delivering correspondence to others or picking up parcels on Ha’tuko’s behalf. After the first week of working for Ha’tuko, Patizamo took some of his wages and bought food and clean water, then went to where he had last known his father to be. He found him there, stoic and stone-faced towards him. Taking a deep breath, Patizamo told his father he’d returned the papers to the scholar, and that he was now working for the man. He’d brought food and water for his father, paid for with the honest wages he’d made. His father said nothing the entire time, merely looked at him with a frown on his face. Patizamo set the food down and left again, hiding his tears that the man who raised him could not muster a word to his son. After a few months working for Ha’tuko, Patizamo was given permission to read books from the library. Ha’tuko also began teaching him history, geography, and more advanced mathematics, as well as swordplay, a skill Ha’tuko would not say where he learned. Ha’tuko had many ideas and theories - some of which were quite outlandish and scorned by other scholars, but which he insisted were true. Patizamo wasn’t sure what to think, but he eagerly devoured knowledge from any source he could find. Each week, Patizamo would take some of his wages and take food to his father, and tell him something of what he’d learned from Ha’tuko. Each week, his father would silently look at him as he delivered the food and spoke to him, never uttering a word. After two years working for Ha’tuko, Patizamo found one of the scholar’s books on magic. Ha’tuko had once tried to learn magic, but had lacked the necessary gift to do so. Still, he’d collected some books out of interest, and encouraged Patizamo to read them and see if he, perhaps, possessed the necessary gift of magic. Ha’tuko could help him to understand the theory and the incantations, but he could not demonstrate their use. After a year of study, Patizamo successfully mastered his first cantrip. From there, slowly, he learned more spells, with Ha’tuko providing guidance as he learned. At first, he did not tell his father of these successes, sure as he was that his father would not believe him. On the day he successfully conjured a gust of wind, however, in the fifth year of his study, he could not resist. When he told his father of what he’d been doing, and how he’d learned such magic, his father finally spoke to him. His father thanked him for the food he had brought, and said that, perhaps, he may yet make his ancestors proud. He had a long way to go before he would do that, however, and walking the path of the thief for however short a time meant he had much further to go. Still, at least Patizamo could talk to his father again. Three years later, Patizamo had reached the end of Ha’tuko’s knowledge of magic, and Ha’tuko felt that he should set out on his own, perhaps seek out a college to study at. Patizamo didn’t know where to start, though, until something - perhaps fate - intervened. He was in the market buying food for his father when a strange man approached him. The man looked frail and weak, although his head was strangely large. He asked him several questions, leaping from one topic to the next. Though he doesn’t remember all the questions, he distinctly remembers the stranger asking him if he’d ever studied magic, and that when he was asked how he’d met his teacher, he couldn’t stop himself from answering, revealing his past crime of stealing Ha’tuko’s notes on the Shory and how that led to his working for Ha’tuko. When the questioning ended, the questioner smiled and said he’d do very well studying at the Magaambya before disappearing. Confused by the conversation, he returned to Ha’tuko’s home with the food and found a letter waiting for him, informing him of his acceptance to the Magaambya and his sponsorship. Ha’tuko insisted he leave at once, but Patizamo wanted to speak to his father, for he’d never heard of the Magaambya. He went to his father and told him of the strange encounter and the letter, and, for the first time in years, his father smiled at him. He told him that this was the moment he’d been waiting for, and that the Magaambya was a place where the best of the wizards trained. He said that one day, Patizamo would truly be able to carry on the legacy of the family and reclaim the skills of their ancestors. He wanted his son to go to the Magaambya and fulfill his potential. His father said he would miss Patizamo, but that his heart would go with his son. They hugged, finally having bridged the gulf between them. The next day, Patizamo set out for the Magaambya with a merchant caravan - first, across Thuvia to Pashow, a city of magic users, then from there into the Mwangi Expanse, bound for the city of Nantambu. It was a long journey, and Patizamo was called upon to use both sword and spell to defend the caravan from brigands, gnolls, and others who sought to claim its cargo for themselves. Now, finally, after many months, he has arrived at the Magaambya. He isn’t sure who the man that questioned him was or why the stranger had said he would do well, but he’s ready to see what his future holds. |
