Alistair Kaine

Human / Warlock

Submitted character story

Alistair was a con man. A good one. He played lyre at noble estates, charmed his way into private collections, and left with things that weren't his. He had a decent reputation as a traveling musician and a much better reputation among fences as someone who could get into places most thieves couldn't.

Then he got invited to the wrong party.

Some noble's manor. Big gala. Alistair figured it was another easy job. Play some songs, pocket some silverware, maybe lift a painting if the guards were lazy. What he found instead was a cult in the basement planning to sacrifice him and a bunch of other entertainers to something none of them had a name for. He grabbed what he could on his way out. A tome. An odd obsidian orb. Some gold. And he ran.

He's been running since.

The orb is in his left eye now. Not by choice. It sort of... found its way there. One eye is normal blue, the other is this dark obsidian thing with a faint blue glow and a pupil that looks almost reptilian. He's got scars around it that he can't fully explain. The tome talks to him. Not loudly. Not clearly. Just enough to make him paranoid. It feeds him magic in pieces, like it's teaching him something he didn't ask to learn, and the price for that education hasn't come due yet.

The thing I like about playing him is he's still trying to be the guy he was before. Traveling clothes, studded leather, a hat he thinks makes him look cool, a cherrywood lyre he actually takes care of. He keeps his knife on his left side and his tome on his belt and he sits in the back corner of every tavern facing the door because he's always watching for whoever might be coming for him. He wears two plain rings and a hidden amulet and none of it is flashy because the whole point of Alistair is that you're not supposed to notice him until he wants you to.

He's 20. He's in way over his head. He has a warlock patron that his DM won't fully describe to him yet. All he knows is it's called Hexxus and it's this massive fog creature made of smoke and ash with a pulsing core that looks like a heart, and my DM said I'd learn more 'when the tome decides you're ready' which is very ominous and I'm choosing not to think about it.

He's charismatic and manipulative and patient and cautious and also deeply terrified at all times. That's the fun of him. He smirks like he's got everything figured out and he absolutely does not. He is faking it constantly and the party is only just starting to notice.