This is very much a work in progress, but you can see what I'm going for. I'll likely finish tomorrow. ~o~0~o~ [color=tan]Name:[/color] Lucas Reedsinger [color=tan]TL;DR:[/color] Cross a [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil]Snake-Oil Salesman[/url], "Psychic", Used-Car Salesman of the slimeiest sort, [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheFixer]Fixer[/url], and Dwarf. That's Lucas. [color=tan]Age:[/color] 67 [color=tan]Height:[/color] 4'2" (1.27m) [color=tan]Weight:[/color] 125lb (56.7kg) [color=tan]Build:[/color] Heavy [color=tan]Race:[/color] Dwarf [color=tan]Appearance:[/color] Lucas is short, pudgy, and has a gray-haired combover. He keeps his beard and moustache neatly trimmed and wears glasses - bulky wooden things with a hinge in the center and no arms. He wears a turban with a geode at the center. His clothing is generally loose, flowing, and checkered where it isn't stretched tight by his pudge. On his left hand, Lucas has three rings. On his right, four. He wears an iron necklace with a silver pendant of indeterminate religious iconography. [color=tan]Equipment:[/color] -Parcel containing bottles of Soul Ward.[hider=Soul Ward] [center][h2]==|Lucas Reedsinger's|==[/h2][sup]TRUE SWORDSEEKER of the SPHINX RANK[/sup][h3](THE GENUINE ARTICLE)[/h3] The STRONGEST and BEST Soul Ward liniment [sup]--for the IMMEDIATE release of-- [B]SPIRITUAL ENERGYS STRANGE MAGICKS DEMONIK FORMS SHADOWMEN CURSED ITEMS or PERSONS MALODOROUS LUCK BAD AURAS[/B][/sup] [h1][b]☞ Soul Ward ☜[/b][/h1] ◈A cure for what haunts you! ◈Accept NO SUBSTITUTES! [b]Personally blessed by the GREAT PRIEST OF THE MOUNTAIN[/b] EXTERNAL USE ONLY[/center][/hider]-One-of-a-kind knife with strange markings (4x) -Charcoal with which one might make strange markings -Flash powder -Smoke powder -Various small alchemical tools (mortal and pestle, retort) -Hallucinogenic powder [color=tan]Story:[/color] Lucas grew up on the fringes of dwarven society. The Reedsinger lineage were famed for their musical prowess, creating and playing complex brass instruments with intricate windings of pipes. Lucas took to the lineage business like a rock to flying. As soon as he could, he left and joined the ranks of the unlineaged. He always got strange stares in cities - nothing he did was quite [i]dwarven[/i] enough. When the Feast of the Golden Heart of the Mountain (or the feasts of the Diamond, Emerald, Iron, Copper, or Tin hearts of the Mountain) came around, he was lackluster in his tributary crafts, failed to mine much of the requisite metal or jewel, and ate rather more than he ought to. He tended toward loose clothing that ripped impractically easily in the tunnels of the Undercomplex. His hands were smooth and barely calloused, and his sleeves covered what few burns he had from forgework. Lucas was, in particular, fascinated with human culture. He learned about their large merchant class, and just decided one day that was what he wanted to become. His friends rapidly left him as he began to hawk whatever he could in a poor imitation of human merchants that he picked up from a single book about the Art of Salesmanship. He tried selling rocks to miners, pens to clerics, small vials of scented things to the dwarven middle class, and time shares of a particularly dingy forest site. It was during the last scheme, and his last true friend finally disowning him, that he realized he needed something more. He needed a better reputation. He tried joining the Tocratian army - which was the first thing that popped into his head, for whatever reason - and they rejected him for being physically unfit. If he couldn't have a good reputation, then he'd at least have good connections. As eagerly as he took to merchanting, he took to becoming a swordseeker even more so. He threw himself into practice, training, tutelage, and genuinely seemed to be on the upswing from his disreputable past. And then training ended, and he was left adrift. For a while, he was content to hire himself out to those who asked, but he felt himself slipping back to a place he didn't want to go. So, he pushed for Sphinx rating. This time, he was feverishly dedicated. He hurled himself through obstacles, pushing past the physical problems only with concerted effort of will. The hallucinogenic portion of his trial was harrowing, but he could fall back on what alchemy he'd learned in his studies, and succeeded in diluting the hallucinations. Perhaps not in the spirit of the trial, but a success nonetheless. At last, he achieved Sphinx rate. It wasn't what it had cracked up to be. After a few years, he re-read the Art of Salesmanship. People in the realm had a need. He had the training and reputation to provide a solution. Most of the time, people complaining of spirits never had anything more truly wrong with them than grief or guilt regarding a lost relative. If Lucas could provide comfort by claiming to dispell a spirit, or tell the living that the dead forgave them --- well, what was the harm? And it's only natural to charge for services rendered! Never mind that his services often lead him to new adventures. He tries not to stay in one town or another for too long. Sell what you can, and take what you can't and dress it up as something the populace needs. Each town he's in, however, he pays his dues. Sometimes it's to the right guards, or a tithe to the local temple (even once to a nobleman's daughter who thought herself something of a Pirate Lady), but most often to the local equivalent of crime lord enforcers. In return, they'd politely tell him when to get the hell out of town. Particularly well-formed relationships keyed him onto new leads, or would ask for services that he himself couldn't render, but Lucas knew someone who knew someone. Wetwork? That was never his gig. Lucas' best skill in a fight is to create enough of a flashy distraction that he can get out of it. But he knows a guy the village over yonder. Suddenly have a need for authentic-seeming prayer beads for the next festival? Lucas can scrounge some through his large trail of favors and broken homes. Need someone to delay the 25-merchant convoy because of a fight with your mistress? Lucas can spin a tale about the Horse Inspection Tax and a need to ensure all horses of the train are impeccably groomed (excepting draft horses), forcing everyone to spend an extra twenty minutes arguing over the meaning of "draft horse" vs. "work horse" and which, exactly, would be exempt from the tax. What if you have a passing thought about getting an audience with the local nobleman? Lucas knows a guard that knows the cousin of the nobleman's mistress, who can whisper in the nobleman's ear about a need for connecting with the populace as long as you get a good whore for the cousin and a bottle of elven drink for the guard. And, oh, look at that, an upstanding citizen of the populace just happens to be asking for an audience at the right time (the next day) and in the right place. Lucas happens to be wanted for crimes of only a peripheral nature to his own upstanding business (which you can't prove he was involved in [i]anyway[/i]) by guards and nobles with far-too-big sticks up their asses. Don't worry about it.