[MENTION=6855130]Jago[/MENTION] What a great pitch! I'm in, if you're looking for a final player.
So I was thinking the party could use a spellcaster, that there must be some real interesting politics regarding The Magi and non-The Magi spellcasters, and the whole idea of a society with golem "gestapo" sparked an idea...
"Oppenheimer's Apprentice" a.k.a. The Curmudgeon
A curmudgeonly gnomish tinker with a heart of gold, a guilty conscience, and unflappably bleak humor.
Story Brief: Anytime a denizen of The City passed the "Rumpels", as the rock gnomes who aligned themselves with The Magi were known, spitting on the ground would be the kindest of responses. It was rock gnomes who were responsible for the failure of the Tower Incident, so human great grandparents and demi-human elders say. Whether this was because the rock gnomes truly were geased by The Magi as they claim or because the cowardly wretches sought only to line their own pockets is a secret as murky as any other hiding behind the gnomish ledgers. Puttering away in the counting houses to grow the vast fortunes The Magi needed for their rites of power, the "Rumpels" are despised.
Fitz Augertorque was especially loathsome, possessing all the charm of a porcupine. However, it seemed that with his dismal spirits came labyrinthine intellect. Recognizing the magical talent of the Augertorque family, Severen the Gaunt (a ranking member of The Magi overseeing translation of several archaic
manuals of folems) saw fit to take on the misshapen gnome as his apprentice. And so Fitz studied the art and craft of making all manner of mechanical marvels. These marvels, the sour yet kindly gnome believed, would improve the lives of The City's subjects. Golems and other automatons, after all, meant the citizens could spend more time bettering themselves and no longer fear for famine. Misguided in his belief that he would at last receive the recognition that eluded others of his benighted race, Fitz worked tirelessly in the golem forges... until the day came when he was confronted with the reality of how The Magi actually used the golems. And by then it was too late.
A snide remark to Severen the Gaunt (coupled with an attempt to sabotage a golem) resulted in Fitz being beaten, expelled from the household and deposited in the gutter. The sagacious mage could not bring himself to kill his Apprentice, either out of some sick care for the ugly gnome or a fierce pride in the face of the criticism of his mage peers. Swearing revenge, Fitz gathered some poison, planning to dump it in the soup pot of Severen's household, but < INSERT ANOTHER PC'S NAME > stopped him from doing something Fitz would have regretted and instead introduced him to a desperate underground resistance...
Mechanics: Rock Gnome / 2nd level Wizard (transmuter OR
artificer if allowed) / Lawful Good
1. Is the Unearthed Arcana artificer allowed? It can make potions & scrolls. If not, I'm thinking a transmuter fits as a close second.
2. Pretty please, may I have rolled stats? You're welcome to roll them to make sure it's fair. I just really like the randomness as an idea springboard, and I think some abysmal, extreme, or middling scores would suit this character better than point buy / standard array.
3. I'm still figuring out which background to take, but I'm wondering if we could ad lib a feature that might correspond to "Construct/Engineering Knowledge of The City." For example, it might give him a network of rock gnomes he can learn about various golems or infrastructure from, maybe allowing him to learn passwords to bypass certain constructs or acquiring illicit control rods which allow him to deactivate/de-berserk a berserk golem. That sort of stuff.