The Sheltered Hand: Character 4
Caledon the Outsider [L5] Human Revelator [Paladin]
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 [+6] | History [+6] | Investigation [+5] (Passive 15) | Nature [+6]
Navigator's Tools
Common | Chorthon | Fomorii
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 15 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, Zone of Truth
[o] = Oath spell
Wizard Ritual Book: 1st - Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic | 2nd - none | 3rd - Phantom Steed
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], Channel Cosmic Energies: Share Revelation [Watcher's Will], Channel Cosmic Energies: 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]
Gear/Magic Items/Wealth
- Steel Breastplate (AC 15 + Dex (max 3))
- Engram of Warding [+1 Amulet of the Devout]
- The Key of Stars [Moon-touched Rapier]
- Amulet of That Within [Clockwork Amulet]
- Longbow, quiver of 20 arrows
- Dagger
- Explorer's Pack
- backpack
- bedroll
- mess kit
- tinderbox
- 10 torches
- 10 days of rations
- waterskin
- 50 feet of hempen rope
- tent, 2-person
- bottle of black ink, quill, small knife
- a letter from a dead colleague posing a question you have not yet been able to answer
- common clothes (tattered dark robes)
- ritual book
- spell component pouch
- navigator's tools
- belt pouch
18gp, 5sp
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.
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.
