Mad_Jack
Legend
I made a 5e gnome illusionist character just to turn the stereotype on its head... He's the complete antithesis of the standard whimsical gnome spellcaster...
Magnus Magnussen is a somewhat older gnome who dresses in what used to be, some twenty years ago, the uniform and armor of a siege engineer/sapper - now it's clearly of no use as protection since it's been patched, and repatched, and covered in burns and battle damage. (He's loosely based on this Reaper miniature.)
And you can see from his uniform that he used to be a member of the Hell Badgers, an infamous gnomish mercenary unit known for their siege work and use of incendiary and illusion magic. Often, the first sign that the Badgers had taken the field in battle was when the ground of the castle's inner courtyard erupted in a shower of rubble and fire, and dozens of gnomes came charging up out of the hole hurling incendiaries and screaming the same cries as the trained giant badgers that fought beside them.
It's been said that the Hell Badgers once brought peace between two enemies by hiring themselves out to both sides at once and then informing the two that they would fight against whichever side refused to come to the bargaining table.
Magnus, or "1st Sergeant Gramps" as he used to be known, is a gruff and sarcastic old soldier, a wily and cunning old goat, and clearly both highly dangerous and borderline insane* - he usually saves his illusions for stealth and ambushes, preferring to throw fireballs or incendiary devices in combat.
He's also multiclassed as a Fiend-pact tomelock - years ago, some fiend took a shine to Magnus' unit and its capacity for ferocity and utter mayhem, and became something of a patron of theirs for the sheer entertainment value they provided. In his younger days, Magnus found himself cut off from his squad, surrounded and about to die, and the fiend granted him a Pact simply so that Magnus could continue to entertain him. Magnus' patron rarely asks for anything as long as Magnus continues to fight.
*Nobody survives long enough to be forcibly retired from a sapper unit due to old age without being incredibly dangerous, tough, lucky, and crazy as a brewery rat, lol.
And you can see from his uniform that he used to be a member of the Hell Badgers, an infamous gnomish mercenary unit known for their siege work and use of incendiary and illusion magic. Often, the first sign that the Badgers had taken the field in battle was when the ground of the castle's inner courtyard erupted in a shower of rubble and fire, and dozens of gnomes came charging up out of the hole hurling incendiaries and screaming the same cries as the trained giant badgers that fought beside them.
It's been said that the Hell Badgers once brought peace between two enemies by hiring themselves out to both sides at once and then informing the two that they would fight against whichever side refused to come to the bargaining table.
Magnus, or "1st Sergeant Gramps" as he used to be known, is a gruff and sarcastic old soldier, a wily and cunning old goat, and clearly both highly dangerous and borderline insane* - he usually saves his illusions for stealth and ambushes, preferring to throw fireballs or incendiary devices in combat.
He's also multiclassed as a Fiend-pact tomelock - years ago, some fiend took a shine to Magnus' unit and its capacity for ferocity and utter mayhem, and became something of a patron of theirs for the sheer entertainment value they provided. In his younger days, Magnus found himself cut off from his squad, surrounded and about to die, and the fiend granted him a Pact simply so that Magnus could continue to entertain him. Magnus' patron rarely asks for anything as long as Magnus continues to fight.
*Nobody survives long enough to be forcibly retired from a sapper unit due to old age without being incredibly dangerous, tough, lucky, and crazy as a brewery rat, lol.
