Roderick Pale
"In time you will come to understand that the academic mindset requires one to set aside petty societal taboos. The pursuit of knowledge cannot be allowed to falter before the meaningless constraints of ethics, faith, or mortality."
Roderick Pale is young for a graduate of the Grey Academy, the first and foremost wizarding school of the land. This is in no small part to his primary choice of study. While all branches of magic are represented in the academy, necromancy attracts the fewest students. Due to the cultural taboos and imposed restrictios, the school of necromancy gains the least funding, the least attention, and has the fewest instructors.
Roderick was, in fact, the only student of his class to choose Necromancy as his primary course of study, and as such his lessons were conducted almost as the apprenticeships of a hedge mage, just him and his instructor, alone for hours poring over those few spellbooks and scraps of literature not outright banned by edict of the king. There Roderick learned his love of knowledge, and cultivated a deep seated belief that there is no evil in learning, though evil things could be done with it. Could not an evoker burn down an orphanage? Could not a Diviner invade the privacy of men, or undermine the safety of a nation through spying? Could not a conjurer open gates to deadly extraplanar realms? Does closing your eyes to an attacking ogre prevent it from smashing you to pieces?
Because of the one-on one nature of his teaching, and because of the artificially limited nature of the curriculum, Roderick graduated early, at which point he set out for a life of adventuring. If the known books of necromancy were forbidden to him, then he would seek out unknown books in lost and forgotten tombs. He would rediscover old lore, craft new spells, earn his fortune, and found his own school of wizardry, an academy that would advance knowledge for it's own sake, away from the close-minded superstitions of mortal society.
And so he did. In time, the school he founded would come to be known as the Bleak Academy, and in generations to come it would shape the destiny of the world through the graduates it produced.
Race: Human
Class: Wizard 1
Favored Class: Wizard, +1 HP/HD
Alignment: Neutral
Stats- 20 point buy
Str: 7
Dex: 14
Con: 12
Int: 20 (including racial bonus)
Wis: 8
Cha: 12
Specialist School: Necromancy
Forbidden Schools: Enchantment & Evocation
Arcane Bond: Raven Familiar (eventually to be traded for an Imp or Quasit)
Feats:
- Scribe Scroll
- Improved Initiative
- Toughness
Skills, 1 rank each:
- Spellcraft
- Know: Arcana
- Know: Religion
- Know: the Planes
- Know: History
- Perception
- Linguistics
- Fly
Spellbook, level 0 spells
- all except for enchantment & evocation
Spellbook, level 1 spells
- Cause Fear (generally memorize 1)
- Color Spray (generally memorize 2)
- Mage Armor
- Protection from Evil
- Silent Image
- Feather Fall
- Identify
- Comprehend Languages
Equipment: standard adventurer's kit, spellbook, light crossbow, dagger, spell component pouch, alchemist fire.
Tactics: first level is ugly for wizards. If you see a cluster of enemies that look like they're vulnerable to mind-affecting spells, bust out a color spray. If you see a cluster of enemies that look like 1HD undead, bust out your channeled 'Command Undead' feat - one of them will probably fail the save and join your side. Otherwise, avoid melee like the plague and keep shooting your crossbow at unengaged enemies.
Note that all the level 0 and level 1 necromancy spells are just bad. You won't have any decent spells in your school until you get second level spells, including Blindness (a decent single target save or lose), False Life (a long lasting personal HP buff), and Command Undead (a situational spell, but extremely powerful if you encounter mindless undead). Just grin and bare it. Color Spray's still hot potatoes, so that should help you through.
