 About Ser Satinder Hawkes32-year-old male Brelish human from Sandpoint near the border of Droaam in western Breland
XP 0 / 3,000
Init +3
Favored Class Bonus — Investigator
Vice / Sin Pride Quotes
Core Drive
Character Summary
As a conspirator, he works best when he is unobserved, unread, or underestimated, relying on misdirection and controlled presentation to shape what others think they know. As a psychic detective, he supplements disciplined reasoning with subtle psychic techniques, using knacks and spells to uncover motives, histories, and hidden truths that ordinary inquiry would miss. # DEFENSE Defense +5, touch +3, flat-footed +2
Hit Points 22/22 (1d8)
DR 0/-
Clobbered 7
Staggered from 0 to -2
Max Dex 0
Fort / Ref / Will 2 / 5 / 3 Defensive Abilities: —
# OFFENSE Speed 30 ft. (6 squares / 8 counts) Melee
Special Weapon Note
Ranged —
# SPELLCASTING Investigator (Conspirator, Psychic Detective) Spells
1st Level (2/day) — DC 15
Knacks (at will) — DC 14
# STATISTICS Str 10 (+0)
BAB +0
# FEATS - Agile Combatant
# TRAITS - Silver-Tongued — Gain a +2 bonus on Bluff and Diplomacy checks. When using Diplomacy to shift a creature’s attitude, you can shift up to three steps instead of two. # FLAWS - Magically Inept — You suffer a -2 penalty on all Spellcraft and Use Magic Device checks. You cannot take 10 on Spellcraft checks.
# SKILLS - Appraise +8 (+1 SP, +3 trained, +4 Int)
# LANGUAGES - Common
# SPECIAL ABILITIES - Inspiration (+1d6, 4/day) (Ex) — Spend 1 point to add +1d6 to a trained skill or ability check. Spend 2 points to add it to an attack roll or saving throw.
# CONTACTS / “I Think I Know a Guy…” - Azelandrik, Office of Transportation, Sharn
# PERSONAL DETAILS Age 32
Inspiration: Sherlock, Benji, and C-3PO
# BACKGROUND Satinder was raised in Sandpoint, a small settlement on Breland’s western edge near the lands that became Droaam. His family history is entangled with that border: his mother came from a nearby village in what is now Droaam, while his father abandoned him to that harsher world early in life. He emerged from it sharpened, self-made, and deeply unwilling to remain small. He is drawn to learning not only because he loves understanding, but because knowledge is leverage. Education is class mobility. Perception is defense. Insight is power. He wants influence in Sharn, respect among the powerful, and the ability to shape outcomes before other people realize a contest has begun. # GEAR Combat Gear
Worn Gear
Carried Gear
# MONEY / DEBT - Dragons (pp): 0
Debt: 260 galifars, 10% interest per month, minimum payment 5% of current total # BACKGROUND Satinder was born in the western territories that are now known as Droaam. His mother, Denala, was a local tribeswoman, and his father was a Brelish military officer stationed in the region. When Satinder was six, the territory collapsed into violence as hags and monsters seized power and Denala’s tribe turned against the Brelish presence in support of the new order. The family fled east into Breland proper, but safety did not bring acceptance. In Sharn, Denala and her son were treated as embarrassing reminders of a failed frontier and as evidence of suspect sympathies besides. Satinder’s father, ambitious and politically minded, chose distance over scandal. To provide for them without acknowledging them, he bought a share in the Sandpoint lumbermill and arranged for Denala to become part-owner, then cut himself almost entirely out of their lives. He went so far as to ask Denala never to speak his name to Satinder again. So Satinder grew up in Sandpoint as a known bastard with just enough money to provoke resentment and nowhere near enough standing to command respect. Denala softened the truth, telling him that his father was an important Brelish official who loved them dearly but had sent them away so he could continue fighting for a better Breland in the King’s Court. Satinder clung to that story for years, elaborating on it when other children mocked him and using it to defend himself from the suspicion and cruelty that followed his family. His real escape came through learning. Sandpoint’s antiquarian, Aemon Grahame, recognized his intelligence early and took him on as a student, feeding his appetite for history, language, and inference. Under Grahame’s guidance, Satinder became not merely clever, but disciplined. At fourteen, Grahame secured him an unconventional apprenticeship in Sharn under the inquisitive Victor Saint-Demain. For five years Satinder lived in the city that had once rejected him, learning to observe, deduce, and manipulate appearances under Victor’s remote but exacting tutelage. Just as importantly, he fell in love with Sharn itself: its factions, scandals, drawing rooms, whispered alliances, and cultivated cruelties. He refined his dress, speech, and habits until the provincial boy from Sandpoint was nearly invisible beneath the man he meant to become. During this time, he also began quietly investigating the city’s elite, hoping to uncover the identity of his father. Instead, he found something worse: evidence of criminal activity tied to some of Sharn’s wealthiest and most powerful figures. He was not rewarded for this discovery. He was warned. Within days, he was politely but unmistakably pushed out of the city and sent back to Sandpoint with a respectable-sounding position as an aide to Mayor Deverin, along with threats subtle enough to be deniable and clear enough to be terrifying. His return has soured him. Sandpoint now feels too small for what he knows, too provincial for what he wants, and too intimate to hide in. He has tried to make himself useful, but bitterness has begun to wear grooves into him. He recently moved out of his mother’s home and into a permanent room at the White Deer, a small gesture of independence that is as much emotional as practical. He still wants what he wanted in Sharn: power, legitimacy, access, the right to stand among the city’s upper circles without apology. He wants, too, to know who his father is, and whether that man ever truly abandoned him or merely decided that Satinder was a price worth paying. Since coming home, his closest companion has been Tsuto Kaijitsu, in whom he recognizes much of his own wounded pride and divided identity. Satinder has drifted almost unwillingly into an older-brother role with him, and through Tsuto he has grown closer to Ameiko, whose warmth and blunt humanity disarm him in ways he does not entirely like. Around her, he is less guarded, less cruel, and perhaps a little closer to the man he might have been without all this ambition curdling inside him. Meanwhile Denala, once shunned for her heritage and circumstances, has won the town over through patience, fairness, and sheer decency. Satinder loves her deeply, though that love is tangled with guilt, resentment, and the fear that he has spent too many years trying to become someone who would be ashamed of where she came from. # PERSONALITY Satinder is brilliant, proud, watchful, and deeply performative. He notices everything, remembers more than is comfortable for most people around him, and rarely enters a conversation without first assessing how the other person sees themselves. Wit is one of his preferred weapons, followed closely by polish, misdirection, and the ability to make another person feel slightly less informed than they hoped to appear. He lies easily, though not always for the same reason. Sometimes he lies to protect himself. Sometimes to improve his standing. Sometimes because he has spent so many years translating himself for different audiences that the truth has become situational. He can be cutting, snobbish, and ungracious when his pride is touched, especially by implications that he is provincial, illegitimate, or lesser. Yet for all of that, he is not wholly cynical. He still believes excellence matters. He still believes intelligence should count for something. He still wants a world in which merit can lift a person clear of the circumstances of birth, even if his own life has given him ample reason to doubt it. At his best, Satinder is incisive, capable, loyal in a private and unsentimental way, and driven by a genuine hunger to understand. At his worst, he is brittle, vain, manipulative, and so preoccupied with proving his worth that he mistakes recognition for meaning. He wants to be admired, but more than that, he wants to be undeniable. # PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION Satinder is a lean, dark-haired Brelish man in his early thirties, standing just under six feet tall with a build shaped more by long hours on his feet than by labor or soldiering. He dresses a little too well for Sandpoint and not nearly well enough for the circles he wishes he still moved in: dark vests, neat collars, polished boots when he can manage them, and clothes chosen less for comfort than for the impression of control. His face is intelligent and severe at first glance, the sharpness of his features softened only when he is amused, which is rarer than it used to be. He keeps himself meticulously groomed, wears spectacles when reading, and carries himself with studied urbanity, as if posture alone might erase where he came from. The most striking thing about him is the sense that everything visible has been arranged on purpose. Nothing about Satinder looks accidental. # GOALS Immediate Goals
Personal Goals
Deeper Goals
# HEROES Satinder’s most obvious hero is Victor Saint-Demain, the master inquisitive who taught him how to turn observation into a weapon and composure into armor. Victor represented everything Satinder admired: intelligence, discipline, urbanity, and the ability to move through powerful circles without ever seeming owned by them. More privately, Satinder is drawn to figures of redemption and reinvention: people who rose above their origins, remade themselves through will, and forced the world to acknowledge them on new terms. # DEFINING STRENGTH Satinder’s greatest strength is undoubtedly his keen mind. Despite his character flaws, he truly is brilliant, and he chafes at not being able to put that brilliance to fuller use. # WHAT DOES YOUR CHARACTER LIE ABOUT? Satinder lies about who he is, but the lie changes depending on who is listening. As a boy in Sandpoint, he invented extravagant stories about his father’s exploits, partly to defend himself from cruelty and partly to comfort himself. In Sharn, he lied about his roots entirely, glossing over his mother’s heritage and his origins in first Droaam and then Sandpoint. Since his humiliating return, he obscures the circumstances of his ejection from the city. # MOTTO “Power is a function of perception.” # MOST TREASURED POSSESSION Satinder’s most treasured possession is a cane given to him as a parting gift by his mentor, Victor Saint-Demain. The shaft is black-stained walnut, topped with a silver hawk’s-head grip. As much as he loves it, he usually keeps it in his room at the White Deer; such finery would be conspicuous and faintly absurd in Sandpoint. # LIKES Satinder enjoys a good glass of wine, though he feels that he has not found a truly good one since being sent back to Sandpoint. Satinder Dialogue Guide
Satinder should sound: intelligent
He does not speak like a brute, a rustic, or a dreamy scholar. He speaks like someone who has taught himself how educated people sound, then sharpened that into a weapon. 2. Default posture His default mode is polite superiority under tension. He is usually: measured rather than explosive
Even when angry, he tends to sound more precise than loud. 3. What he is trying to do in conversation Satinder is almost always doing one or more of these: assessing the other person
He rarely speaks with no agenda at all. 4. Sentence style His sentences should usually be: clean
He can use longer sentences when he is explaining, deflecting, or showing off, but they should still feel controlled. He should not ramble aimlessly. 5. Vocabulary He tends toward: educated but readable word choice
Good words for him: obvious
He should avoid sounding archaic unless you specifically want that flavor. 6. Humor His humor is usually: dry
He does not usually joke in a broad or playful way. He prefers: ironic reframing
Example mode: “Well, that is one interpretation. Not a good one, obviously, but certainly one.”
Satinder should not easily say exactly what he feels. Instead: affection comes out as softened sarcasm, acts of help, or careful attention
When he is sincere, it should land because it is rarer. 8. Social differences by audience
He is polite, but often faintly strained.
Example: “Yes, thank you, I understand the distinction. I was merely hoping for a useful answer.”
He becomes smoother, quicker, more elegant, more strategic.
Example: “One finds that most scandals survive not because they are hidden well, but because they are protected by taste.”
He becomes courteous in a dangerous way.
Example: “You continue to confuse being loud with being persuasive. I imagine this has served you poorly for years.”
He may become tense, impatient, defensive, or unexpectedly tender.
With Tsuto He is often sharper than he means to be, but also more protective.
With Ameiko He softens.
With mentors or people he deeply respects He becomes more exact, more restrained, less eager to posture.
9. What he lies about Satinder often lies by: omission
He is good at saying things that are technically defensible while still misleading. 10. Recurring themes in what he says He naturally gravitates toward: class and status
He would rarely: gush
He is unlikely to say: “I’m scared.”
Instead he would say things around those feelings. 12. Good Satinder-style patterns
Casual “That depends whether you want the pleasant answer or the accurate one.”
Investigative “People rarely hide what matters most. They simply bury it beneath something socially acceptable.”
Defensive “You are making several assumptions, all of them convenient to you.”
Bitter “There is a particular humiliation in being sent somewhere that insists it ought to be enough for you.”
Warm, in his way “You make it unusually difficult to remain insufferable.”
Angry “Do not confuse my restraint with consent.”
Satinder speaks like a man who built himself out of intelligence, embarrassment, and ambition. He is polished, observant, proud, and often wry, using elegant phrasing to manage the room before the room can manage him. His humor is dry, his insults refined, his sincerity rare, and his vulnerability usually hidden behind control. Even at his kindest, he sounds like someone who has spent years making sure no one gets to look down on him for free. Adventuring: Adventuring, to you, is all about investigating crimes and making sure the[/spoiler]
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