{
  "character": {
    "id": "a3f99694-d487-4060-9d1a-a3cd4c161d92",
    "slug": "epsilon",
    "name": "Epsilon",
    "race": "Warforged",
    "character_class": "Artificer",
    "jan_favorite": false,
    "is_ff_portrait": false,
    "profile_url": "https://framedfantasy.com/pages/hero?h=epsilon",
    "character_url": "https://hall-library.framedfantasy.com/characters/epsilon",
    "character_json_url": "https://hall-library.framedfantasy.com/characters/epsilon.json",
    "character_markdown_url": "https://hall-library.framedfantasy.com/characters/epsilon.md",
    "original_image_url": "https://obadckrukccwkjgpbsxa.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/portraits/1785832100627_oisli4.webp",
    "image_url": "https://hall-library.framedfantasy.com/images/epsilon",
    "thumbnail_url": "https://obadckrukccwkjgpbsxa.supabase.co/storage/v1/object/public/portraits/1785832100627_oisli4_thumb.webp",
    "crop": {
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      "y": 0,
      "zoom": 100
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    "story_excerpt": "A room lit by the warm glow of incandescent light bulbs. Workbenches covered with tools, gears, and various machinery surround you. In the center of the workshop is a crackling forge. You are lying on a table, an old woman bending over you. She is short and plump, with nut-brown skin and a large amo",
    "story": "A room lit by the warm glow of incandescent light bulbs. Workbenches covered with tools, gears, and various machinery surround you. In the center of the workshop is a crackling forge. You are lying on a table, an old woman bending over you. She is short and plump, with nut-brown skin and a large amount of very curly white hair piled on top of her head in a messy bun. She’s wearing a thick cotton dress with leather boots, gloves, and an apron. The woman has opened the access panel in your chest and is working on the delicate parts that give you life. She stops, sets down her tools, and rises. She rests her hands on the small of her back and stretches. Wiping the sweat off her brow, she removes the magnifying goggles from her eyes, letting them hang from her neck. As you have seen, she is quite short; she is possibly an elf or a dwarf, but you cannot tell which. You see her face clearly now. Deep wrinkles crisscross her face like cobwebs, liver spots appear here and there on her forehead, her skin has toughened and darkened from years of working near the hot forge, and freckles are just visible, splashed across her face. She notices you looking at her. Smiling softly, she moves near your head and bends down so that her face is close to yours. Her eyes are a rich hazel with streaks of gold, and curls of hair escape her bun and form a loose halo around her face. She reaches up with a calloused, wrinkled hand to cup your cheek, as gently as a mother putting her child to bed…\n\nThis is Epsilon’s earliest memory, or at least the earliest that isn’t fragmented by random sounds or flashes of light. He knows very little about the early years of his life. He wouldn’t even know his own name if it wasn’t embossed on the inner panel of his chest. As far as he knows, his history begins with him walking through a lonely cornfield, limbs creaking from rust. For a time, he’d work here and there, repairing tools and equipment, making enough gold to get him to the next town. No matter where he goes, he’s greeted the same way, with suspicious glances and open stares. Faces look out from curtained windows, farmers pause in their fields, and merchants hesitate before handing him their goods. He understands their reaction to his appearance and has grown accustomed to this reception; he even welcomes the solitude their apprehension gives him. He sees no reason to form attachments with those who are so fragile and short-lived. Generations are born and die as he watches. Friendships become memories that fade. With no friends or relatives to take up his time, he is free to focus on his work.\n\nHowever, there are occasions where someone breaks through this cold exterior and reveals the humanity beneath. These moments tend to make Epsilon feel uncomfortable and vulnerable, giving him yet another reason to avoid people. The time spent with a traveling companion or the kindness of a stranger may be able to draw him out, but nothing is more successful, nor gives Epsilon more anxiety, than the curiosity of a child. When Epsilon enters a town, it is not long before its children break free from their parents’ protective hold to go see the “Toy Man.” They’d bombard him with an endless stream of questions, ignoring his curt responses. It isn’t long before they’re playing around him, swinging from his arms as if he were some kind of walking merry-go-round. Epsilon will often complain, stating that they are distracting him from his work or that they are putting themselves in danger. Yet despite his protestations he never actually tells them to leave, and adjusts his movements so they cannot fall. Soon enough he’ll repair the toys they break, and quietly creates little mechanical gifts for them when he believes no one is watching. The adults’ own curiosity eventually overcomes their apprehension. The blacksmith might invite him to their workshop to compare techniques. The farmer may ask him to repair broken tools. The town elder will sit down with him to discuss days gone by. These moments are brief, but they linger with Epsilon long after he leaves. Despite his pretense of antipathy, the towns that accept him may find that the roads are a little safer and their children have a few more toys than before.\n\nJust as there are some people who will welcome him into their lives, there are still others who will attempt to take advantage of the lone traveler. Thieves and cutthroats thinking to rob the tin box of his rare goods or break him up to sell him will instead discover the true heartlessness of the machine, as the artificer dispatches them with the same cool efficiency he uses when approaching all his tasks.\n\nEpsilon does not know how old he is. Time means little to a body that does not age, though wear accumulates in quieter ways. Rust gathers beneath old joints, memories degrade like weathered paper, and parts of himself have been replaced so many times that he sometimes wonders whether any of the original machine remains. He keeps meticulous journals out of fear that one day even the old woman’s face will vanish from his mind. These are among the few treasured items Epsilon carries with him, along with a multitude of interchangeable tools built into his arms and his pet potted athelas plant, “Bob,” which he keeps in a secret compartment in his chest along with his journals.\n\nEpsilon’s personality goes from cold efficiency to surprisingly compassionate, with dry, razor-sharp sarcasm occasionally thrown in for spice. Intelligent, rigid, protective, self-deprecating, soft-spoken, and patient, Epsilon possesses an unsettling resilience. He can spend days motionless beneath the rain, tirelessly rebuild shattered mechanisms, or walk for weeks without complaint. He has an instinctive understanding of machinery that borders on supernatural; engines, locks, and automatons often make sense to him long before he consciously understands why. But despite this innate knowledge, Epsilon knows little about his own nature. He knows enough about his inner workings to repair himself, but not enough to tell you how he’s alive or how to make another like himself. He’s far too complex and self-aware to be your regular run-of-the-mill automaton. His encounters with Warforged have led him to believe that he was created through a similar process, though in a way different enough to separate him from normal Warforged. Across countless towns and planes, he searches for fragments of his origin: a familiar symbol stamped into old brass, abandoned workshops smelling of metal and oil, and rumors of an artificer that could create life."
  }
}