What Walks By Lamplight:Uri

Name: Uri

Player: Baeraad

Campaign: What Walks By Lamplight

Race: Human

Class: Wizard

Look: Sharp eyes, wild hair, ragged robes, thin body

Alignment: Neutral

Level: 1

XP: 6

Stats

Strength 8 (-1)

Dexterity 12 (+0)

Constitution 13 (+1)

Intelligence 16 (+2)

Wisdom 15 (+1)

Charisma 9 (+0)

Hit Points 5

Base damage d4

Load 6

Moves

Spellbook

Prepare Spells

Cast a Spell

Spell Defense

Ritual

Spells

Light

Unseen Servant

Prestidigitation

Cause Fear

Contact Spirits

Detect Magic

Magic Missile

Gear

Sack of books (5 uses, 1 weight)

3 healing potions

2 antitoxins

Dagger (1 weight)

Dungeon rations (5 uses, 1 weight)

Spellbook (1 weight)

Bonds

Kyla will play an important role in events to come. I have foreseen it! (or at least that's what that demon I conjured up seemed to imply. Okay, I admit it was grinning in a really weird way, but I think that was just from the way its mouth was too small for its teeth...)

Tharra Wyrmthrottler is keeping an important secret from me. (she must know how that arm of hers work!)

Hawthorne is woefully misinformed about the world; I will teach them all I can. (he seems to think that it's all about good works and charity. It's sad, really. Anyone can see that it's really about making sure the morons support the few people who are able to do any actual thinking! Ah well, he's not a bad sort - I'm sure I'll get through to him eventually)

Description

The young wizard Uri has recently graduated from the City's arcane academy, much to his displeasure. He enjoyed being a student, which involved a lot of reading and absolutely no sullying of his elevated intellect with the base matters of earning a living. Now, sadly, his family refuses to further support him, so Uri has taken to looking for get-rich-quick schemes, looking to get the unpleasant business of finance over with quickly so he can buy himself a nice tower and lock himself away with his books for the rest of his natural life. (how hard can it possibly be to get rich? Merchants do it!) So far, he has only found a number of dead ends and, even more alarmingly, a number of Thieves' Guild bruisers looking to talk to him about some money he might possibly have borrowed to finance his latest escapade, but he remains an optimist.

Questions and Answers

Why won't Uri's family support him anymore?

They're merchants, with business interests throughout the city. They only sent Uri to the arcane academy because they'd been forced to give up on him ever taking an interest in cucumber sales, and they figured having a wizard on staff might be handy. Since Uri came out of the academy even less interested in helping out than he went into it, they have given him up as a bad investment. Frankly, they consider it quite generous of them to not demand that he pay back the money they spent on his tuition. (though the fact that they doubt he'll ever be able to raise that kind of money might have something to do with it too)

What was Uri's weakest subject at the arcane academy?

Enchantment, the art of enhancing mundane objects through magic. His attempt at creating an ever-flowing drinking horn resulting in the dormitories being flooded with something undrinkable, and that was on the third attempt, the one that actually made the damn thing do something. Uri is just generally not very good at anything that requires him to deal with crude physical objects, especially if he's expected to carve intricate runes into them.

Where do demons come from?

Technically "demon" is a catch-all term for any malevolent spiritual entity that isn't sufficiently powerful to smite you for calling it that (if a malevolent spiritual entity is powerful enough to smite you, the accepted term for it is "god"), but the kind of demons the wizards of the City are likely to summon comes from the Vortex, a dimension of chaos and madness that underlies earthly reality. It's not an afterlife, though some souls end up there through demonic bargains or trickery, and nor is it the lair of some ultimate evil (many wizards claim that there is something at the heart of the Vortex that you can feel staring back at you if you spend too much time examining it, but if it has an agenda it is too bizarre and far-reaching to be known to mortals). It's just the Vortex, a handy source of information and assistance that wizards never seem to learn is never quite worth the price you end up having to pay for it.