Order of Aecus 13th Age/Desmond Sparklethorpe

Desmond Sparklethorpe

Race: Rogue

Class: Gnome

• Str: 8 / -1
• Dex: 18 / +4
• Con: 12 / +1
• Int: 14 / +2
• Wis: 10 / 0
• Cha: 16 / +2

• Initiative: 5
• AC: 12 + 1 + 1 = 14
• Physical Defense: 12 + 1 + 1 = 14
• Mental Defense: 10 + 1 + 2 = 13
• Hit Points: 21
• Recoveries: 8
• Recovery Die: 1d8+1

Icons:

• Prince of Shadows - Weak Positive (2)
• Dwarf King: Weak Conflicted (1)

Racial Features:

• Befuddling: Once per battle, as an immediate action, a foe that is attacking you must roll a normal save. If it fails it is dazed until the end of your next turn. If it rolls a 1 on the save it is weakened until the end of your next turn.
• Minor Illusions: As a standard action, at-will, you can create a strong smell or a sound nearby. Creatures that pass a normal save don’t notice the smell or sound, creatures that fail hear it or smell it.
• Small: Gnomes PCs have a +2 bonus against opportunity attacks.

One Unique Thing: Desmond possesses a clockwork heart, an experimental device concocted in a rare collaboration between The Dwarf King and The Archmage. This apparatus preserved his life when he was ambushed and beaten while investigating a supposed conspiracy to capture The Prince of Shadows.

He knows not of the mechanical heart's existence, simply awakening bruised and battered in a dark alley several days later. Did these shadow conspirators simply desire a guinea pig for the latest model? Did the Prince of Shadows orchestrate this life-saving insertion to save his operative? And is the heart a vessel containing something else, now hidden and out of reach from prying eyes?

Icon Relationships: (3 points)

• Prince of Shadows - Weak Positive (2)
• The Dwarf King - Weak Conflicted (1)

Backgrounds: (12 points)

• Dapper Detective 4
• Prankster 4
• Bookseller's Son 4

Appearance Desmond is 3'6", with green eyes and curly orange hair. He often wears a grin on his boyish face, but his world-weary eyes have stress lines around them that betray his jovial exterior. The bright colors of his eyes and hair are offset by his all gray attire: a utilitarian cloak, tunic, trousers, and boots. He walks with a wolfs-head sword-cane and a slung shoulder bag contains his investigation kit. Desmond tends to twitch his nose when deep in thought or when scrutinizing a situation, as if trying to smell out hidden information.

Personality A lover of puzzles, riddles and mysteries, Desmond comes off as smart-mouthed, witty, and borderline arrogant. The gnome likes to talk big for his small stature, and enjoys throwing subtle, witty taunts at less intelligent opponents, getting him into an inordinate amount of trouble in social situations.

Background Desmond was born in a small gnome enclave near Twisp, the only child of the town sheriff and his bookish Lorekeeper. Perpetually curious, Desmond would get into trouble from the day he could crawl, picking up and fiddling with arcane objects and mystic artifacts in his mother's office that she was to catalogue. He pored over librams and tomes in her collection, and he developed a fascination with unlocking the secrets and magical properties these items possessed.

Although incredibly bright, an astute observer and a quick learner, he had the attention span of a goldfish and did poorly at school, mostly because he bored quickly and couldn't stay seated long enough to finish any of his examinations. Seeing his son's natural gifts, his father channeled the boy's aptitudes towards helping him solve various mysteries the harried lawman had no time for.

At first it was just simple things: somebody's lost cat, or a missing trinket. But eventually he developed a considerable reputation as a magic-empowered investigator, eventually assisting his father in a variety of cases.

Things were going quite swimmingly for the young gnome until the dreadful day he found his parents dead in their home, slaughtered by a mysterious assailant who left no traces — natural, magical or otherwise. Pursuing the slimmest thread of a lead passed on by a mysterious informant, Desmond found himself in the midst of a massive conspiracy that intimated the apprehension of the Prince of Shadows. He's in way over his head.