Maester Tolbric

"The pine stays green in winter... wisdom in hardship." - Norman Douglas

"Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge." - Kahlil Gibran (1883 - 1931), The Voice of the Master

Maester Tolbric

Maester Tolbric is the Maester of House Graben as well as their current Master of the Hunt. He is teacher and caretaker of Liza, a child who lives in the Graben household and works in the kitchen, though she spends far more time in the kennels. Tolbric is of average height with a stocky build. He has short brown hair and has grown out his beard. He prefers to wear earth tones and dark colors. His slight limp from a childhood injury involving a tumble down a flight of stairs coupled with a more recent series of injuries has been upgraded to an all out hobble, thus he has started carrying around a staff in order to help him get around easier. He personally owns two ravens he calls Ash and Ruin and a horse named Sugar, though he considers all of the Graben animals to be his personal wards.

Maester Tolbric had been raised in Blackhaven until he was shipped off to Old Town to undergo training to become a Maester following a bit of adolescent romance and scandal. The young heartbroken man quickly exchanged his love for a little blond girl to his love for knowledge. He took to his studies with an obsessive eagerness. He excelled in healing and ravenry, gaining the attention of a number of his superiors. Once his chain had been forged he took his oaths, gave up his connections to House Dondarrion and the Stormlands and was accepted as a Maester. He was soon assigned to House Wisent in the North at which point he packed his bags and began the long trek north. Maester Tolbric served House Wisent well, but in the end, the house fell to a violent usurpation and he fled the carnage in fear for his life. He traveled south and hiding his identity, sought employment in the kennels of a Stormland house, House Graben. He was soon promoted to Master of the Hunt after the prior Hunt Master died alongside the Lord of the House in a terrible hunting accident. When recognized and confronted by another Maester who threatened to reveal his identity, Maester Tolbric decided to presented himself and his story to a Lord of Hightower and the Graben household. His title was restored and he assumed the position of Maester for House Graben, who had been without since their previous Maester had died. Tolbric is an honest man, both by choice and due to the fact that he is a pathetic liar, which has caused him some serious discomfort and misfortune in his years. It has been noted during his time in Oldtown, that his inability to tell a convincing lie nearly bordered on supernatural in magnitude. In addition to these traits, Tolbric is obsessive and tends to neglect his personal surroundings when he finds something intriguing to engage his mind with - mysteries and anomalies that contradict his knowledge being chief amongst these things. Also in this vein, his foolishness tends to manifest in his tendency to always think he is safe, regardless of the information surrounding him to the contrary. He has been forced to flee from bandits on more than one occasion for wandering into the wilderness looking for rare breeds of honey bees and black berries or wandering alone into root cellars where murders lie in wait to throw him down garbage chutes.

Rumors & Tendencies

There are a variety of local rumors about Tolbric:

• Tolbric is a terrible liar. He begins to sweat, stutter and gibbers about aromatic herbs or the like when attempting to be deceptive. He compensates with his impressive ability to sense out perfect hiding spots or his tendency to outright flee from uncomfortable social encounters.
• There are a number of rumors linking Tolbric with a strange bear that lurks within the wilderness. Hunters say that the bear had come to Tolbric's aid once when he had been attacked by a shadow cat and that it had appeared again during the wolf pack attack that had claimed the life of the old Master of the Hunt - if not for that bizarre intervention, the entire hunting party would likely have died. Others speak of having seen him with the bear during his forages into the forest to gather herbs. Tolbric gets prickly when the bear is brought up in conversation.
• While he is a natural leader and coordinator in a hunt, possesses a wealth of knowledge regarding animals, nature and the land, skilled with animals and can set a broken leg within seconds, Tolbric is probably the worst actual hunter this side of the Narrow Sea. He is more likely to stab himself than his target with a blade and is doing well when he remembers which end of the crossbow to point away from himself.
• Tolbric and his assistant Liza both adhere to the Old Gods.
• Tolbric is easily distracted and can become so focused on a particular task or subject that he becomes oblivious to his surroundings.
• Tolbric is extremely protective of the household animals; he remains very involved with all aspects of the dogs and horses, even though he has underlings to do such work, and is protective to the point of paranoia over the well being of the ravens.
• Tolbric has more scars than some Ironborn warriors.

Abilities

Agility - 2 Animal - 5; Charm 1b, Train 1b Athletics - 2 Awareness - 3 Cunning - 5; Memory 1b Deception - 2 Endurance - 2 Fighting - 1 Healing - 5; Diagnosis 2b, Treat Injury 2b, Treat Ailment 1b Language - 3

Knowledge - 4; Education 2b, Research 1b Marksmanship - 2 Persuasion - 3 Status - 4 Stealth - 4; Sneak 1b Survival - 3 Thievery - 2 Warfare - 2 Will - 4; Coordinate 1b

Intrigue & Combat

• Intrigue Defense: 12 (Awareness+Cunning+Status)
• Composure: 12 (Will Ranks x3)
• Combat Defense: 6 (Agility+Athletics+Awareness+Defensive Bonus-Armor Penalty)
• Health: 6 (Endurance Ranks x3)
• Armor: padded (1)
• Armor Rating: 1
• Armor Penalty: 0
• Weapons
  • Dagger: Test 1, Damage 1, Keywords: Defensive+1, Offhand+1
  • Light Crossbow: Test 3, Damage 3, Keywords: Long range, Reload (lesser), Slow

Qualities

• Destiny Points: 2
• Maester: You are a maester of the Citadel. You are now immune to the household fortunes of your birth house, but you suffer the effects of the household fortunes of the house to which you are assigned. In addition, you may add your Cunning rank to all Knowledge and Will test results. You must have the Narrator’s permission to select this quality. Taking this quality results in the loss of any Fate qualities tied to your birth house, although you regain invested Destiny Points for lost qualities.
• Knowledge Focus (geography): Select one of the following areas of expertise—alchemy, architecture, astronomy, geography, heraldry, history and legends, magic, nature, religion, or underworld. When testing Knowledge in the chosen area(s), convert your Education bonus dice into test dice. You may select this quality multiple times. Each time, select a new area of expertise.
• Knowledge Focus (history & legend): When testing Knowledge in this chosen area of knowledge, convert your Education bonus dice into test dice.
• Knowledge Focus (nature): When testing Knowledge in this chosen area of knowledge, convert your Education bonus dice into test dice.
• Master of Ravens: You may dispatch ravens to bear your messages. The Narrator makes a secret Routine (6) Animal Handling test on your behalf (the Charm specialty applies). Success means the raven delivers the message to the appointed destination while failure means the message (and possibly the raven) goes astray. Additional degrees of success may allow you to coax some extra speed or distance out of your birds, at the Narrator’s discretion, or get a message through dangerous or difficult weather or the like.
• Beast Friend: When using Animal Handling Train or Charm, add +1D to the roll.
• Furtive: When testing Stealth to sneak, you may re-roll any 1s. In addition, you may add your Agility rank to Stealth test results when sneaking.
• Miracle Worker: Whenever you test Healing to first diagnose your patient, you gain +2B for a successful test, plus 1 bonus die for each additional degree. You may convert two bonus dice into test dice for your Healing test to treat the patient. Finally, you may add your Education rank to your Healing test results.

Drawbacks & Flaws

• Honor Bound: Whenever you test Deception, you must re-roll any die result of a 6 and take the second roll.
• Honest (Deception flaw); Disregard the lowest test die result on Deception rolls.
• Unsubtle (Thievery flaw); Disregard the lowest test die result on Thievery rolls.
• Hyper Focused: Whenever you test Awareness, you must re-roll any die result of a 6 and take the second roll.
• Clumsy (Agility flaw); Disregard the lowest test die result on Agility rolls.
• Crippled: Movement reduced by #

Possessions

Possessions: 4 gold dragons, 138 silver stags, maester's chain, maester's robes, backback, journal, ink, a number of small bags & vials, flint & stone, maester's kit, dagger, light crossbow, padded armor, sturdy boots and carries various assortments of cheeses, meats, breads & sweets hidden away in numerous pockets & bags. He also has a roundsie horse named Sugar and two ravens named Ash and Ruin (he was having a bad few months when he came into possession of them). Tolbric owns an assortment of cherished books and scrolls.

Liza (Daughter)

• Tolbric's assistant and pupil Liza is an eight year old northern girl. She is apprenticing to become Kennelmaster for House Graben.
• She has a reputation as something of a little wild child, loving to play in the outdoors and to go exploring where she oughtn't. She also loves animals, and often balks at adult authority that isn't the Maester.

Perspective

• For each scene that you submit to the Narrator that is brought into play, you gain one Destiny Point. This can go above your normal allotment of Destiny Points, but these can only be spent, not burnt. Submit such scenes to the Narrator by email, please.
• You may also use Destiny Points to "buy in" a character into a scene, editing the scene so that it includes the character.

Goals

Please list three to five goals for your character. These can be goals the character has, or your goals for your character as a player. Please mark them as (Character) or (Player) as appropriate.

• Train Liza as an apprentice to become the new Kennel Master of House Graben and marry her off to a nice & exceedingly boring boy. (Character)
• New Goal Goes Here. (Character)
• Mysteries of the Old Gods; he had his experience that made him a believer, I'd like to see more in this vein (Player)

Advancement

Earned: 63xp + 6gl Session 7.8.13: Awarded 1 Destiny Point! Sessions prior to 8.12: 46xp Session 8.12.13: 4xp Session 8.19.13: 4xp Session 8.26.13: 3xp Session 9.23.13: 6xp

Spent: 50xp; Unspent: 13xp Burned 1 Destiny (avoid certain death; 7.8.13) Raised Healing from 4 to 5 (30) Raised Education from 1b to 2b (10) Raised Treat Injury from 1b to 2b (10)