The Sheltered Hand: Character 4

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Caledon the Outsider [L5] Human Revelator [Paladin]

Moment of revelation

Almost

Closeup

Appearance

People: Acalani | Gender: Male | Ht: 6' 3" | Wt: 140 lb | Age: 29 | Hair: Dark brown | Skin: Pale | Eyes: Grey | Markings: None

Background: Sage

Researcher: When you attempt to learn or recall a piece of lore, if you do not know that information, you often know where and from whom you can obtain it. Usually, this information comes from a library, scriptorium, university, or a sage or other learned person or creature. Your DM might rule that the knowledge you seek is secreted away in an almost inaccessible place, or that it simply cannot be found. Unearthing the deepest secrets of the multiverse can require an adventure or even a whole campaign.

Personality Trait: "I looked too far. Reality is an illusion stretched thin over the turning wheels behind it."

Ideal: "I must know. Give me secrets, that I may arm myself."

Bond: "I have to save myself from that which turns above us."

Flaw: "I allow my higher purposes to obscure everything else from me."

Deities Observed: Caledon was raised in an expatriate Acalani family in Faram. His family honoured the Creed in a general way, and invoked their names at the appropriate times, but Caledon soon found himself giving the gods no more than lip service as his studies into the esoteric deepened. After the Revelation... the names of the gods are absent from his lips, almost as though he fears drawing their attention.

Attributes

STR: 12 [+1] DEX: 16 [+3] CON: 12 [+1] INT: 14 [+2] *WIS: 9 [-1] *CHA: 18 [+4]

Proficiency Bonus: +3 | Saves: Charisma [+7] Wisdom [+2] | Initiative +3

Skills/Tools/Languages/Feats

Athletics [+4] | Arcana [+5] | History [+5] | Investigation [+5] (Passive 15) | Nature [+5]

Navigator's Tools

Common | Chorthon | Asalan

Ritual Caster (Wizard)

Combat

Proficient Light Armor, Medium Armour, Heavy Armour | Proficient: Simple Weapons, Martial Weapons

AC: 18 (Steel Breastplate) | HP: 39

Key of Stars: +6 melee (1d8+3 piercing)

Longbow: +6 ranged 150/600 feet (1d8+3 piercing)

Dagger: +6 melee or thrown 20/60 feet (1d4+3 piercing)

Toll the Dead: Wisdom save DC 16 ranged spell 60 feet (2d8 necrotic, or 2d12 if already missing hit points)

Magic and Features

Spell DC 15 | Spell Att +7 | Spell Slots 4/2

Paladin spells prepared: Cantrips - Toll the Dead, Thaumaturgy | 1st - Alarm[o], Detect Magic[o], Command, Protection from Good and Evil, Thunderous Smite, Shield of Faith | 2nd - Moonbeam[o], See Invisiblity[o], Locate Object, Find Steed

[o] = Oath spell

Wizard Ritual Book: 1st - Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Identify | 2nd - Augury | 3rd - none

Features: Sense the Occult [Divine Sense], Undo Illusion [Lay on Hands], Sear Flesh [Divine Smite], Fighting Style (Otherwordly Energies [Blessed Warrior]), Body Rejects Body [Divine Health], Sacred Oath of Preservation, Extra Attack, Channel Cosmic Energies [Channel Divinity], Harness Occult Power [Channel Divinity: Harness Divine Power], Share Revelation [Channel Divinity: Watcher's Will], Abjure the Extraplanar

Oath of Preservation: Caledon saw the infinite wheels turning beyond the skin of creation, and the things with their hands on those wheels - and it terrified him. He swore a soul-oath in that moment, to free himself of their terrible power. His obsession with the occult drives him still, and now it has a terrible aim: to draw to himself enough power to pierce the dome of the sky once more, and break the chains that string all things to those inexorable wheels. [Oath of the Watchers]

Weapons and Armour

• Steel Breastplate (AC 15 + Dex (max 3))
• Engram of Warding [+1 Amulet of the Devout]
• The Key of Stars [Moon-touched Rapier]
• Longbow, quiver of 20 arrows
• Dagger

Adventuring gear

• Sky-turning Amulet [Clockwork Amulet]
• Explorer's Pack
  • backpack
  • bedroll
  • mess kit
  • tinderbox
  • 10 torches
  • 10 days of rations
  • waterskin
  • 50 feet of hempen rope
• tent, 2-person
• belt pouch
• common clothes (tattered dark robes)
• Paladin scroll of Heroism

Tools and miscellanea

• bottle of black ink, quill, small knife
• a letter from a dead colleague posing a question you have not yet been able to answer
• ritual book
• spell component pouch
• specially-marked iron bars (Augury focus)
• navigator's tools (a sextant, a compass, calipers, a ruler, parchment, ink, and a quill)

5gp, 10sp

Backstory

Caledon was born to an Acalani family which emigrated to Faram when he was small. He left Faram as a teen-ager, though, to strike his own path of discovery. He moved around, settling briefly in a number of places with loci of knowledge, or rumours of secrets. He found his way to the Trabahl Academi of mages in Acalon (though the Academy has branches in several nations). There he met Joran Hansar - and the two did not get along at all. Caledon left the Academi on a sour note, and continued to pursue his own affairs. He joined the Guild of Carran to help support his lifestyle.

Caledon is a tall, pale, gaunt man with shadowed eyes and a wiry build from his long travels as an itinerant sage and natural philosopher. Though an academic, his long travels have left him still with skill in armour and weapons, and his strange experiences and undying oaths have filled him with other powers, besides. His study of wizardly ritual magic is but one of his obsessions.

He is typically swathed in tattered dark robes with strange ornaments, which almost hide a superlative steel breastplate. At his hip is a thin blade like an oversized stiletto - the Key of Stars, which glimmers whitely and glows when drawn in darkness.

Sadly, Caledon's promise as a youth was thwarted - some would say - and his obsessive travel and studies have left him... distracted. He is a powerful personality. When in the throes of one of his obsessions his eyes have the intense look of the demagogue; and his rants have spawned more than one more delver into the shadows from those listening.

Ten years ago. Caledon, already a pale and strange seeker of the occult, is travelling on the search for lore. He arrives with great excitement at the bungalow of Tranzius, a sage famous in rarefied academic circles for their expertise in the paths of the stars through the heavens. Another young man is leaving, in enough of a rush that he collides with Caledon as he comes out of the front door; the stranger spares only a haughty look before hurrying away. Caledon swallows his anger - he's looking forward to the consultation with the sage. But Tranzius will not meet him, only flinging imprecations from behind a firmly closed front door. Whatever transpired between Tranzius and that other man soured the sage on receiving any other visitors. Caledon is turned away without the consultation he desperately wanted.

Five years later. Caledon meets that man again, at the Academy, and learns his name. They are aspiring students for the same intake. Would-be students, having passed an aptitude test, must undertake a week-long residential assessment, and only a handful are admitted. Caledon's wild theories about the turning wheels under the skin of the universe are poorly received by the faculty at first, but it is Hansar that leads the student cohort's contempt. Caledon is remains convinced that he could have made them all see reason if Joran hadn't interfered - and in that, Caledon is probably right. Hansar doesn't recognise Caledon from the encounter at the house of Tranzius, but Caledon remembers. Hansar's more orthodox magical theory, obsession with status, and cruel demeanor only help cement Caledon's hatred. This week is when Caledon learns the most about Joran Hansar's personal life. Caledon is not admitted to the Academy.

How I'm using Paladin: Revelator

Caledon was always fascinated by arcane lore, but had a revelatory experience that sent him... askew, while at the same time filling him with both strange power and a desperate need to save himself (from the things that turn the wheels and from being, himself, simply an illusion painted on the skin of reality). So, he's a member of no Paladin or religious orders or sects, and doesn't identify with paladins as a profession. He considers himself an academic, possibly a wizard (though he's never been accredited), who has also unlocked some powers stolen from the energy behind the universe. So I'm basically doing a re-flavour with no mechanical effect.

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