Editing Karsten Schneck

Once upon a time, there was a young man named Karsten Schneck, who lived in Seaquen, with his family.

Young Karsten was born to be a bard. He would spend hours listening to his parents sing, though they were a bookbinder and a medical orderly for the nearby Lyceum. He always looked forward for when the Wayfarers came around, and his aunt, a historian and bard by the name of Annelie, would come with them. She would tell such wonderful stories of foreign lands, and sing beautiful songs she had heard from there.

Until, one day, Annelie was discovered saving the songs and histories of a place and people that had been endangered, and perhaps doomed to die, by the hunger of Ragesia and its emperor. This made the Inquisition very angry with her, and afraid this was a front for spreading whispers of rebellion among the common folk, and so she was taken away to a dungeon, perhaps never to be seen again, and her stories burned. When Karsten heard this, just before his apprenticeship, and grew very sad - and very scared.

How many stories would be lost forever? How many stories left unsung?

So, Karsten began to focus on a different field. Initially, it seemed as if he was instead going to be a diviner, focusing on the past to reclaim Annelie's work, but it soon became clear there was something more desperate - more obsessive. To lose so much, when so much had already been lost to Coaltongue's hunger? It was too much, especially for the grieving young man.

Was someone watching him? Is that how he found the scroll with the music that whispered in that archive in Glaskeel, the notes that made his eyes sting with tears simply from reading, that his throat charred from simply singing, each tone echoing with voices? Or was it simply drawn to him, and his need for all songs to be remembered? Whatever the case is, when he sung, those who he sung about would answer him - when he played his lyre, those same souls would dance - when he took out a wand as a baton, those souls would sing. He would learn the name of his strange musical style, this conducting of the dead, was not something new in the world - the spektralchronik had been played eons ago, when Dassen was not one kingdom, but many, and its maestros had become mad with power, twisting the tales to suit them and their ambitions. It was a dark art, one forgotten for fear of its abuse.

But to Karsten? It was a miracle. Now, no sword or fire could silence a word, for the soul lived past its body's end, and fire could not burn ash further. His fellows were alarmed, of course - to truly play the notes of the ghost-song, to hear them, one needed to be close to half-dead himself, so say nothing of the dancing dead conjured from saga of long-ago battle. But no one could deny that when he played the songs of the peoples Annelie had studied, that their ancestors answering was not the salvation of everything she wished for. The boy Karsten was gone, but the sage who came in his place was someone the boy would have been good friends with. Then, the elders realized - could, perhaps, his songs be used to weave a new one of how Ragesia fell?

And so he set out into the night - sonorously ever after.

'''Karsten Schneck, Human Necromancer, Lv. 1'''

'''Abilities'''

Strength 8 (-1)

Dexterity 8 (-1)

Constitution 10 (-1)

Intelligence 18 (+4)

Wisdom 14 (+2)

Charisma 18 (+4)

'''Backgrounds'''

Bardic Historian +4

Wayfarer Performer +2

Scholar of Less-Than-Savory Arcane Lore +2

'''One Unique Thing'''

I am the first spektralchroniker, a musician who summons forth the dead with arcane songs of their achievements and legends in life, in generations.

'''Icons'''

Wayfarers 2

Inquisition (negative) 1

'''Powers And Talents'''

Arcane Implements

Death Priest

Redeemer

Ritual Magic

Quick To Fight

Skeletal Minion (Adventurer Feat: When an enemy attempts to disengage from the skeletal minion, it takes a penalty to the check equal to the escalation die.)

Summoning

Wasting Away

'''Spells'''

'''Chant of Endings'''

Ranged spell - At-Will

Target: The nearby enemy with the fewest hit points (you choose
if there’s a tie; you also don’t have to be able to see that enemy)

Attack: Intelligence + Level vs. MD

Hit: 1d10 + Intelligence negative energy damage


'''Death’s Gauntlet'''

Ranged spell - At-Will

Target: One nearby creature

Attack: Intelligence + Level vs. PD

Hit: 1d4 + Intelligence modifier ongoing negative energy damage.

Special: Instead of taking the ongoing damage at the end of
its turn, the target can use its standard action to strike out
at the skeletal limbs or spectral arms that are flailing at it.
When it does, the ongoing damage ends and you can’t use
death’s gauntlet again until the end of your next turn.

Adventurer Feat: When a target uses a standard action to end death’s gauntlet ongoing damage, it takes negative energy damage equal to your level.

'''Summon Undead (1st level)'''

Ranged spell - Daily

Effect: You summon a mob of 1d3 + 1 crumbling skeleton mooks,
as per the summoning rules on page 11. These skeletons
fight for you until the end of the battle or until they drop to 0
hp, whichever comes first.

'''Gear'''
25 gp 

Traveling clothes

Dagger

Throwing knives

Walking staff

Conductor's baton/wand

Small but durable lyre

Funerary urns

One urn in particular that his skeletal minion returns to when defeated or not in use (what one it is varies, but he uses the bones of people who died protecting something until he resolves their unfinished business, then moves on).

'''Initiative:''' -1 + 1 = 0

'''Armor Class (light armor)''': 10 + 9 (mod) + 1 = 20

'''Physical Defense:''' 10 + 9 + 1 = 20

'''Mental Defense:'''  11 + 17 + 1 = 29
'''
Hit Points:''' 18

'''Recoveries:''' 8
'''
Recovery Dice:''' 1d6