Griffin

Novak Griffin

Race: Scindo Elf, Class: Sorcerer 17 Background: Boss Griffin, previously Osiel, Kepheril before that, Senariel before that, and Nefiel before that, Alignment: Neutral Good Patron Deity: Lliira Factions: {{{Factions}}}

Ability Scores

Strength 13 (+1), Dexterity 16 (+3), Constitution 14 (+2), Intelligence 16 (+3), Wisdom 15 (+2), Charisma 18 (+4)

Proficiencies

Bonus: +6 Saving Throws: Constitution & Charisma Skills: Arcana (Int), Insight (Wis), Investigation (Int), Perception (Wis), Survival (Wis); Passive: Insight 18, Perception 18 Tools: Navigator's tools Languages: Threxantran (Local Common), Misantil, Darshinian, Krom, Orbaan, Celestial Armor: None Weapons: Quarterstaffs, daggers, darts, slings, light crossbows, longbow, shortbow, long sword, short sword

Traits

Darkvision, Elemental Affinity, Fey Ancestry, Trance, Wanderer

Feats

Ritual Caster, Lucky, Elemental Adept (Lightning)

Combat

Attacks: Spell +11, Quarterstaff +7 (1d6 + 1 bludgeoning; two-handed 1d8 +1), Long Sword +7 (1d8 + 1 slashing; two-handed 1d10 + 1), Light Crossbow +9 (1d8 + 3 piercing; (range 80/320); two-handed) Armor Class: 19 (13 + Dex + Ring + Bracers), Initiative: +3, Speed: 30 Hit Points: 146, Hit Dice: 17d7

Social

Personality Traits: Ideals: Be good. Be selfish. Look out for number one, as long as no one else gets hurt. No, dammit. Everybody else is on their own. Remember that! Bonds: Lady Jinala (until he fulfills his debt or finds a way to escape); Talen, his son (maybe); his companions (at least for as long as he's with them) Flaws: Amnesia, cowardice, resistant of his better nature, terrified that his "unnatural" magical ability will get him killed

“I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” - Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Traits

• Darkvision: 60 ft. You can see in dim light as if bright & in darkness as if dim. Can't discern color in darkness.
• Elemental Affinity: When you cast a spell that deals damage of the type associated with your draconic ancestry (Lightning), add your Charisma modifier to that damage. You can spend 1 sorcery point to gain resistance to that damage type for 1 hour.
• Fey Ancestry: You have advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic cannot put you to sleep.
• Trance: Elves do not need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply for 4 hours a day.
• Wanderer: You have an excellent memory for maps and geography, and you can always recall the general layout of terrain, settlements, and other features around you. In addition, you can find food and fresh water for yourself and up to five other people each day, provided that the land offers berries, small game, water, and so forth.

Feats

• Elemental Adept (Lightning): Spells you cast ignore resistance to lightning damage. In addition, when you roll damage for a spell you cast that deals lightning damage, you can reroll any 1 on a damage die.
• Lucky: You have 3 luck points. Whenever you make an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can spend one luck point to roll an additional d20. Choose to spend one of your luck points after you roll the die, but before the outcome is determined. You choose which of the d20s is used. You can also spend one luck point when an attack roll is made against you. Roll a d20, and then choose whether the attack uses the attacker’s roll or yours. If more than one creature spends a luck point to influence the outcome of a roll, the points cancel each other out; no additional dice are rolled. You regain your expended luck points when you finish a long rest.
• Ritual Caster: You can cast ritual versions of wizard spells if they are in your ritual book & you have ritual book in hand. If you find a wizard ritual in written form, you can add it to your ritual book if its level is no higher than half your level (rounded up). Takes 2 hrs and costs 50 gp per spell level to copy new ritual.

Magic

Magic Items

• Moonstone Staff: shod and banded with elemental silver; grants +1 to melee attacks/damage and +1 to spell attacks & spell DC's, requires attunement
• Silver Serpent Ring: a serpent with tiny amethyst eyes biting its tail; grants +1 AC
• Bracers of Defense: (wondrous item, rare, requires attunement) While wearing these bracers, you gain a +2 bonus to AC if you are wearing no armor and using no shield.
• Amulet of Far Reaching (amulet with bright blue gemstone): adds 25% to ranged spells, requires attunement
• Ring of Mind Shielding: While wearing this ring, you are immune to magic that allows other creatures to read your thoughts, determine whether you are lying, know your alignment, or know your creature type. Creatures can telepathically communicate with you only if you allow it. You can use an action to cause the ring to become invisible until you use another action to make it visible, until you remove the ring, or until you die. If you die while wearing the ring, your soul enters it, unless it already houses a soul. You can remain in the ring or depart for the afterlife. As long as your soul is in the ring, you can telepathically communicate with any creature wearing it. A wearer can’t prevent this telepathic communication. Requires attunement.
• Ice Quarterstaff: against Blight creatures, this staff grants +2 to attack & damage. All successful hits are critical hits and inflict the Poisoned condition.

Magical Equipment

• Focus Charm Bracelet (each charm represents a school of magic and has an appropriate rune carved into it):
  • Abjuration: bronze shield (algiz; elk)
  • Conjuration: ivory rallying horn (nauthiz; need)
  • Divination: obsidian scrying mirror (dagaz; day)
  • Enchantment: playing card (perthro; game)
  • Evocation: fiery red crystal (hagalaz; hail)
  • Illusion: round mirror framed in silver (kenaz; torch)
  • Necromancy: skull carved from bone (isa; ice)
  • Transmutation: crescent-shaped moonstone (cweorth; fire)

Novak's Tattoo

• Book of instructions on how to create a homunculus
• Large book filled with strange runes & symbols (contains 5th level old-school permanent polymorph)
• Pearl worth 100 gp for Identify spell
• Diamond worth 50 gp for Chromatic Orb spell

Origin

Six months ago, Griffin woke up.

He woke to pain and thirst and a shocking hollowness. Where there should have been memory, identity, self, there was nothing. All that he had been was gone, swallowed into a black, aching void inside his mind.

His life began in a modest private room at a charity hospice in Dulnai. The healers there told him he’d been found in one of the rougher areas of the city by a pair of watchmen. He’d been badly beaten and near death, still half-buried in the shallow grave he’d clawed his way out of. The watchmen would likely have let him die in a jail cell had it not been for the surprising appearance of a young noblewoman, Lady Jinala of House Bannik.

How Jinala knew to be at that watch house on that night was a mystery. She’d brought along a priestess of Selune to heal Griffin enough to keep him breathing, then had him moved to the charity hospice (which she’d given a generous donation to only days before). Despite the priestess’s healing magic, Griffin had remained comatose for weeks. The hospice healers admitted to being stunned at his recovery; they’d never expected him to wake up.

For the first few weeks after Griffin regained consciousness, he saw no one except the healers who tended to him. Then one day, without invitation or announcement, Lady Jinala and her priestess friend came to see him. The priestess looked Griffin over and determined that his amnesia was not caused by magic, proclaiming unhelpfully that the memory loss was “an injury to the mind of your spirit and not the mind of your body.” Such hurts were beyond her ability to heal. She suggested rest, regular meditation, and inward reflection. Perhaps with time, Griffin’s memory might return.

After the priestess left, Jinala explained to Griffin that rescuing him was not wholly altruistic on her part. She needed a way to escape the machinations of her sister, who recently ordered her to accompany the Baroness Malnova as part of a new settlement in Katrica forest. Jinala had no intention of going, so Griffin would be repaying her kindness by going in her place. As her “champion,” as she put it.

Griffin only half-listened as Jinala proceeded to expound on what a grand opportunity this would be for him. His mind raced. He didn’t know who he was or where he was from or why anyone would want to kill him, and now this strange woman wanted to send him even further into the unknown by exiling him from the one place where he might find answers. He wanted to refuse her, but was terrified to do so. He was alone, in pain, without identity or resources, unable to walk or care for himself. He was utterly at Jinala’s mercy, and though she hadn’t threatened him, he didn’t want to know what would happen to him if she withdrew that mercy. So when she asked him if he agreed to her terms, it wasn’t logic or greed or hope that made him say yes. It was simple, stark fear.

Griffin spent four months at the hospice recuperating from his injuries. His physical recovery has been remarkable, or so the healers tell him, though he still walks with a limp at times. But while he’s rediscovered some skills and an unsettling (and likely illegal) talent for magic, he is no closer to remembering anything about his past, his home, who might be missing him, or who wants him dead.

Appearance

Before the removal of Keraptis, Novak had brown eyes, and the scales that run down his spine and the backs of his arms & legs were a faint blue.

Now his eyes and scales change color constantly, fluctuating between red, blue, green, black, and white - a clear reflection of his particular draconic heritage. His eyes are rarely a single color anymore, as each hue slowly bleeds into the next, and his scales have developed a strange iridescence, gleaming a different draconic color depending how the light hits them.

Only when Novak casts an elemental spell or changes his elemental affinity does his coloration remain static for any length of time and even then for only a few hours. Electricity turns him a crackling blue; poison, an unwholesome green; fire, a blazing red-gold; acid, a lustrous black; and cold, a shimmering white.

Meren (Familiar)

Meren (formerly Strife, formerly "Hey, You!")

• Ability Scores: Strength 5 (–3), Dexterity 16 (+3), Constitution 8 (–1), Intelligence 2 (–4), Wisdom 14 (+2), Charisma 6 (–2)
• Hit Points: 2
• Armor Class: 13
• Speed: 10 ft. ground, 60 ft. fly
• Keen Sight: Advantage on Perception (Wis) checks that rely on sight.
• Skills: Perception (+4)

Your familiar acts independently, but always obeys your commands. In combat, it rolls its own initiative and acts on its own turn. A familiar cannot make attacks, but can take other actions as normal. Within 100 ft. of your familiar, you can communicate with it telepathically. As an action, you can see and hear through your familiar's senses until the start of your next turn, gaining the benefits of any special senses the familiar has. During this time, you are deaf and blind with regard to your own senses. Within 100 ft. of your familiar, you can have it deliver a touch attack spell on your turn. The familiar uses its reaction to deliver the spell as you cast it. If the spell requires an attack roll, you use your attack modifier for the roll. As an action, you can temporarily dismiss your familiar. While it's dismissed, you can cause it to reappear w/in 30 ft of you as an action. If your familiar drops to 0 HP, it disappears, leaving behind no physical form. Your familiar can't reappear until you recall it by casting Find Familiar again.

Corsair (Valexi Mount)

• Proficiency Bonus: +2
• Ability Scores: Strength 18 (+4), Dexterity 12 (+1), Constitution 13 (+1), Intelligence 10 (+0), Wisdom 12 (+1), Charisma 7 (–2)
• Senses: Darkvision, Passive Perception 11
• Traits/Feats: Hellish Resistance (resistance to fire damage), Evasion (blessing)
• Skills: Athletics (+4), Perception (+1)
• Combat: Hit Points 55 (5d10+5), AC 16 (mithril chain barding), Speed 60 ft
• Attacks:
  • Hooves: Melee Weapon Attack: Hooves (+5 to hit, reach 5ft, one target, 2d6+4 bludgeoning damage)
  • Trampling Charge: If Corsair moves at least 20 ft straight toward a creature before hitting it with hooves attack, target must succeed on a DC 14 Strength saving throw or be knocked prone. If the target is prone, the horse can take a bonus action to make another attack with its hooves against the target.
• Magic:
  • Thaumaturgy: Transmutation cantrip, 1 action, 30 ft, up to 1 minute, V. You create one of the following magical effects within range: your voice booms up to three times as loud as normal for 1 minute; cause flames to flicker, brighten, dim, or change color for 1 minute; cause harmless tremors in the ground for 1 minute; create an instantaneous sound that originates from a point of your choice within range, such as a rumble of thunder; instantaneously cause an unlocked door or window to fly open or slam shut; alter the appearance of your eyes for 1 minute. If you cast this spell multiple times, you can have up to three of its 1-minute effects active at a time, and you can dismiss such an effect as an action.
  • Hellish Rebuke: 1/day as a 2nd level spell. Evocation, 1 reaction (which you take in response to being damaged by a creature within 60 feet of you that you can see), 60 feet, instant, VS. Creature that damaged you is momentarily surrounded by hellish flames. It must make a Dexterity save, DC 10. Takes 3d10 fire damage on a failed save, half as much on a successful one.

Corsair (Post-Abyss)

Corsair (Pre-Abyss)

Cats

Katrina apparently gives cats to those she likes and finds interesting, and she gifted Novak with three of them after their first real meeting. She also gave him memories of always having them, so that he would love them and take good care of them.

Lindar

Arquen

Dagmor

• Dagmor: named for Victoria (elven for slayer of darkness)
• Arquen: named for Martinique (elven for noble knight)
• Lindar: named for Cedric (elven for bard)

Resources

Coin

• Platinum: 0 (=10 gp ea)
• Gold: 1162
• Electrum: 0 (=1/2 gp or 5 sp ea)
• Silver: 11
• Copper: 11

Equipment

• Carried:
  • Well-made traveling clothes
  • Badge bearing the crest of House Bannik: an owl in flight holding a sword in its claws
  • Belt pouch & backpack
  • Ink & pen, loose paper, chalk, sealing wax, journal
  • Navigator’s tools, exceptional quality
  • Soap, candles, tinderbox, lantern, & oil
  • Mess kit, waterskin, knife, & whetstone, healer's kit
  • Bedroll, blanket, tent

Notes

• Griffin/Osiel's parentage & birth:
  • Mother was a Scindo priestess of Tiamat acting as Tiamat's surrogate. She volunteered even though she knew giving birth to Tiamat's child would kill her.
  • Father was Prince Ratigan of Kovanna (human). He was not a willing participant.
  • According to Katrina, Osiel was conceived as part of a dark ritual enacted by Tiamat's followers. There were others like him who were destroyed. Katrina claims to be his "midwife," having cut him from his surrogate mother's womb. She says she knew he was evil and wanted to kill him then and there, but one of her companions insisted that they spare him because he was just an infant.
  • Osiel was given to his father, who somehow managed to suppress his sorcerous potential, thereby partially thwarting Tiamat's intentions.
• Griffin & Alcaine former identities:
  • Osiel & Osien: worked w/Keraptis & Anaya Ro
  • Kepheril & Kepherin: godkiller twins; killed Ra, the father of their race
• Talin Oah: half-elf, nephew...er, son of Griffin/Osiel
• Beruniche: chief of Griffin's wives, ancient witch and enemy of the sidhe, having slaughtered many of them, married a Scindo crime lord
• Avelariet: rakshasa, ally of Osiel who helped him pull world into the abyss for Tiamat

Links

New Dawn, Old Shadows

Greeph's Burden

Rose Magi Mission Statement

Creed of the Beacon

NDOS PC Notes