Bold = Prepared : Strike = Used
A Cartomancer keeps their spells within their Harrow deck, written with magic runes that blend into the lavish images on the faces of the cards.
Aura moderate divination; CL 10th
Weight 1 lb.
Statistics Alignment CG; Ego 8
Senses 60 ft. vision and hearing
Int 10, Wis 13, Cha 13
Communication empathy
Lesser Powers identify 3/day, major image 1/day
Special Purpose defend Korvosa
Description
Hand-painted images decorate this Harrow deck, the frames gilt in silver so that under lighting they sparkle and flash. Despite the worn condition of the card backs, the images on the faces are so vibrant they seem to move when viewed out of the corner of the eye. The deck itself handles with surprising ease, almost shuffling itself. A bent, torn, or lost card always seems to mend itself or reappear when no one is looking.
These features are subtle manifestations of the spirit that haunts the cards. In life, Zellara lived by this deck, and in death, she has become the deck. Although this magical Harrow deck wasn’t created using the standard method for creating magic items, it should nonetheless be treated as an intelligent magic item. Zellara can sense the world around the deck via sight and sound, and she can communicate with anyone who holds the deck via empathy. She can create a major image once per day, often doing so to generate an image of herself manipulating the cards—in this manner, she can carry on conversations with other creatures. She can also identify a magic item’s properties if one of her cards is touched to it, as the spell identify, up to 3 times per day. When she does so, knowledge of the item identified manifests in the mind of one creature she chooses who is also holding at least one card, or she can opt to describe the item’s functions via a major image.
Zellara’s Harrow deck has a special purpose as well: to defend and protect the city of Korvosa, her home in life and in death. In order to attain this purpose, she can periodically perform powerful Harrow readings for those she has chosen as Korvosa’s defenders—the PCs. Consult the Harrow article on page 58 and the notes on Zellara’s reading on page 12 for details on how these potent divinations can help the PCs during this Adventure Path. Zellara can suppress the deck’s powers at will and doesn’t hesitate to do so if anyone attempts to sell the deck or otherwise displeases her. At best, a foolish character could possibly sell the cards as a standard Harrow deck—thus, no pricing information for the deck itself is needed.
Personality Traits:
Positive
Von is a inefficient Robin Hood. It is his full intention to rip off wealthy gulible folks in the Midlands in order to spread the wealth in Old Korvosa, but things shake out at a wash and Von fades into the noise of the city as just another eccentric piece of Varisian flavor.
Von's positive, upbeat, and makes lame jokes.
Negative
Von makes lame jokes.
Living part time as a good willed con man in Korvosa's street gambling underground, Von is overconfident with games of chance. He'll take unnecessary risks under the enticement of large rewards because he believes he can fix the odds, foresee the future, or manipulate the system.
Quirks
Von thinks he is a smooth talking street performer and that this is why people come to him for a reading. In reality Von is a rambling flow-of-consciousness mess that attracts visitors seeking an eccentric memory with the great city's renown underbelly.
Appearance:
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 110lbs
Age: 110
Hair: Thinning Sandy-Blonde
Eyes: Skeptical
Skin: Pale
Build: Weak, mild hunch, noodley.
Features:
-Wears a black Bowler hat, his messy blonde hair spilling out from under it and his proud Elven ears sticking up past it on the sides.
-Wears common theatrical street garb; black and white stripped pants held up by suspenders, a white ruffle breasted s&%~, a brown knee length overcoat, grey gloves without finger tips, and black leather mid-ankle boots.
- Von walks with a cane and a briefcase. Though the case does contain a backpack encase a scramble across the Shingles is necessary, he prefers to idle along the streets from Old Korvosa to the Midlands.
10 Minute Background:
Current Situation
Von is a native of Korvosa. He lived alone with his mother until she succumbed to addition of Shiver when he was an adolescent. He got by in (a then young) Gaedren Lamm's crime family as "payment" for his mothers debts, until the cruel man was tired of the inquisitive child's unending assault of questions. Tortured, beaten thoroughly, and left for dead in heaps of trash, Von survived and was free to turn over a new leaf working for himself.
Starting as a beggar, he shorty had a chance of fate. After a particularly successful afternoon, Von was lured into a strange looking Occult shop on the Midland fringes. A beautiful woman insisted on selling him a certain deck of cards, no matter how drawn he was to a stupid dragon statue he could never afford. The Harrow deck Von acquired was much more than he'd ever imagine. The cards that are imbued with powers that slowly transferred themselves to Von because of his natural Elven link to the Arcane.
The cards were created by an evil Ifrit Blood Mage. The mad woman slaughtered an over trusting traveling halfling circus in a black magic ritual, creating with the creatures ashes the dyes with which the cards were drawn. The souls of this troupe have since been bound to the Harrow deck. It would seem natural for the deck to be evil after such a creation, but a sufficient number of the halfling souls forgave the mage thus rendering the artifact neutrally aligned and useless to the woman. Once Von was given it the voices and powers have slowly seeped out of the deck and into him as he performs readings. Von soon named the deck Capovolgere once they started filling the long lonely nights with forays into future possibilities.
ConvictionsWrite five things about your character’s concept and background, five things that you think are the most essential parts of your character.
1) At his core Von wants to help his community. Ease the suffering of the poor and sick people around him. This is eternally at odds with his greed, developed by years of poverty, jealousy, and abuse. He longs to have things. Von usually hordes gold until he loses it in a gamble or feels guilty, then he will make a donation or act of kindness.
2) To discover what Tasha is hiding.
3) Von is motivated by a new type of reading he has developed with Capovolgere, he seeks to spread the influence of this enlightened 'Tri'omfi way'
4) To prevent the horrible fate he has seen for Korvosa.
5) To know the Future.
*6) To free the Patron, the Arbiter, and the Overlord from Capovolgere
GoalsList two goals for the character that you, as a player, think would be cool to see accomplished in-game.
1) Subdue an enemy solely by revealing their future in a reading.
2) Start a Coven of Harrowers that perform readings in what becomes known as 'The Tri'omfi way'.
Secrets Von Keeps from Others
1) Von had a good week once. He got s*#@faced and eventually took a hallucinogen while out enjoying the wild underground society. Out of his mind Von felt the pull of his Harrow deck and was ultimately drawn to a small room with a table and single chair pushed up against a wall and facing a mirror. He declared that this was the Soul of Korvosa and there he read the fate of the city, that at the time he was feeling in tune and one with. "What will be the end of us all." By the end of the reading Von was raving mad. He spent a week underground hiding and recovering. It took a friend to drag him up to the surface where the daylight finally cleansed him of his delusions. The memories of that time never left him though, and he silently waits for the day.
2) The history of his Mother. It is a sad and shameful fate. He remembers the good healthy times as well, and wishes only those to live on.
3) Von does not like to admit that he steals from the market. Roughly half of what he needs to survive comes from common theft. Fortune telling does not pay well, or at all if Bergrund Schmidt is around.
4) Von has no home. He squats or roams at night, the elven lack of need for sleep saved him on an embarrassing need.
Secrets Kept from Von
1) The true nature of Capovolgere being a murdered Halfling Circus troupe. Von believes the deck is merely sentient. He learns truths concerning Capovolgere in small parts. First he discovers that the deck is actually several different entities, some helpful, some neutral, and some quite maligned. Once this secret is revealed to him he'll categorize the entities as the Patron whom is a benefactor, the Arbiter whom is neutral, and the Overlord whom is manipulative and vindictive. Towards the end of the quest arc, Von is learn the full truth. Once he is faced with a cursed and blood soaked deck, he will not want to use it anymore. If he does use it, it will solely be to free the poor souls inside.
2) Although he thinks he's charismatic, Von really isn't.
AcquaintancesDescribe people that are tied to the character though blood, romance or honor. Two of them are friendly to the character, one is hostile.
1) Tasha - Half Elf Gypsy (Dervish Dancing Bard). Tasha is Von's crush. He regards her like water, flows through his fingers while purifying and nourishing. Elusive yet essential. He always tries to read her fate in the cards without her knowing, but she is always able to thwart it and set the plan askew. It's a flirtatious game they play, along with word play, speaking in quotes and allusions. Eternally trying to outsmart and trick the other into a harmless moment of realization. Their courting has never progressed past this point.
2) Zeeva Foxglove - Proprietor of the Green Market in South Shore, a small indoor market for food, clothing, jewelry, and commodities. She is well aware that Von comes to pickpocket items from her market, and had once considered reporting him to the Korvosan Guard, or worse the Thieves' Guild. Luckily for Von, Miss Foxglove finds him irresistably handsome and charming in a strange, quirky way. She has never been able to tell him as much, but does not do well hiding it.
3) Destin Smish: Proprietor and barkeep of the Creaky Hammock inn and tavern in Midland. He allows Von to run his gambling and harrow reading schemes for 25% of the profit. He even provides a bouncer should any fellow gamblers get upset and turn rowdy (which happens frequently).
4) Bergrund Schmidt - Human Hellknight Enforcer. Bergrund is a Lawful Evil Enforcer for the Hellknights Order of the Nail. He enjoys harassing and picking on Von during the day in the marketplaces. In particular, he intentionally breaks up Von's readings towards the end so Von suffers the most time wasted possible and the 'dumb superstitious folks' are left in disheartening confusion.
5) Zkeltva Fulvano - Human Fortune Teller. Von's nemesis. She is the owner of a small fortune telling/harrow reading shop in Midland called Doom and Gloom". Zkeltva is a chaotic evil hag of a woman who has cursed Von several times. Recently Von has been the one with the upper hand, having bought a rare scroll he was able to inflict her with Dysentery.
MemoriesDescribe three memories that your character has.
1) Von remember's his mother's transformation from impoverished healer to drug addled victim. Since he is a Elf, he lived with her for several decades in simple happiness. A common injury combined with the stresses of society caused her to become addicted and thus began her decline. The happy times are as vivid as the sad.
2) Happy nights with Tasha. Some are up on the Shingles, a fresh cool breeze blowing off the harbor allowing them to feel out of the hot stinking city and free. Some are squatting in a rich manor that is temporarily empty. Some of those nights he'd watch her sleep and wonder what it was like to dream.
3) The many times he's seen Hellknights kill in the streets or execute aggressive zealous justice on the common folk. Cut the hand from a mother who stole to feed her child. Beat a beggar who ventured to where they shouldn't be.
Fears
1) Von has a legitimate suspicion and fear of what Tasha's fate holds. He knows there is a dark depth to her that may be beyond repair.
2) That Hell itself will literally rise up through the belly of the city and pour out of the sewers like the fountains of mayhem, as he foresaw when reading the cities future.
