Statblocks
| HP | Temp | AC | Initiative |
|---|---|---|---|
| 59/59 | 0 | 18 | +4 |
[!|clean no-i left]
| Score | Mod | Save | |
|---|---|---|---|
| STR | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| DEX | 19 | +4 | +7 |
| CON | 14 | +2 | +2 |
| INT | 10 | 0 | +3 |
| WIS | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| CHA | 14 | +2 | +2 |
| Speed | 30ft |
| Passive Perception (WIS) | 12 |
| Proficiency Bonus | +3 |
Checks
- Hit Dice (d8)
- [ ]
- [ ]
- [ ]
- [ ]
- [ ]
- [ ]
- [ ]
- Death Saves
- ❌
- [ ]
- [ ]
- [ ]
- ✔
- [ ]
- [ ]
- [ ]
- Inspiration
- [x]
[!|clean no-i] | Skills | | | — | — | — | | Acrobatics (Dex) | +7 | P | | Animal Handling (Wis) | | | | Arcana (Int) | | | | Athletics (Str) | +3 | P | | Deception (Cha) | +5 | P | | History (Int) | | | | Insight (Wis) | | | | Intimidation (Cha) | | | | Investigation (Int) | +3 | P | | Medicine (Wis) | | | | Nature (Wis) | | | | Perception (Wis) | | | | Performance (Cha) | | | | Persuasion (Cha) | +8 | E | | Religion (Int) | | | | Sleight of Hand (Dex) | +7 | W | | Stealth (Dex) | +10 | E | | Survival (Wis) | +3 | P |
Attacks and Spellcasting
| Name | Atk Bonus | Damage/Type |
|---|---|---|
| Silver Tempo (+1) | +8 | 1d8 + 5 |
| Armblade (Shortsword) | +7 | 1d6 + 4 |
Checks
- Resources:
- Wails:
- [x]
- [x]
- [ ]
- [ ]
- Silver Tempo:
- [ ]
Traits
| Class | Phantom Rogue 8 |
| Sneak Attack: 4d6 dice | |
| Cunning Action | |
| Whispers of the Dead: Slight of Hand | |
| Wails from the Grave: 4 uses; recovers on Short Rest. | |
| Uncanny Dodge | |
| Evasion | |
| Racial Traits | Warforged |
| Constructed Resilience | |
| Sentry’s Rest | |
| Integrated Protection | |
| Feats | |
| Piercer | |
| Elven Accuracy | |
| Magic Items | |
| Momento Mori: Phantom | |
| Silver Tempo | |
| Armblade Shortsword | |
| Silenced Pistol Armblade | |
| Lionheart Studded Leather Armor |
Inventory
| Shortbow + 20 arrows | Studded Leather | One dagger | 10 Rations |
| Rapier | Shortsword | Traveler’s Clothes | Thieves’ tools |
| Explorer’s pack |
Other Proficiencies & Languages
Armor: Light armor Weapons: Simple weapons, hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers, shortswords Tools: Thieves’ tools, Tinkerer’s Tools Languages: Common, Thieves’ Cant, +2 Languages
Cairn
A warforged curious about death, he woke up approximately 100 years ago staring at the sunrise in a field in Everbloom. For 100 years, he was not able to leave the village and wandered about the village, wondering about death in this village that has escaped the relative brutality that the rest of the world suffers from. A year ago, he took in Jaemera a year ago as a “study subject,” treating the child’s life and grief as data to better understand mortality. He cares for Jaemera like a daughter (wont admit it)
Next ASI:
- Mobile
- Elven Accuracy
Player Notes
- A man of either too few words or too many words.
- Monologues. He loves monologues. He was a philosopher for 90 years.
- He has no motivation to help the party besides helping Jaemera. All actions he takes are to help Jaemera toward her goals.
- Loves denying that he cares for anyone; actually cares deeply for Jaemera
- He is very curious about death, not his own death, just death in general.
- Identification Number:
ca1m- Looks identical to Waldo
Backstory
Letter 1
March 23rd, 573 Dear Gabriel, A hornet circled me this morning. I watched it draw closer and closer and - only for a second - I lost it when it was behind my head. They’re the most curious creatures, unafraid of the time and wear that has been with me. Last night, I lay awake and remembered them. I first encountered one 3 years ago. I told you how its wings buzzed as it searched for purchase on me; as it eventually found a spot between where my shoulder plate extends over my arm and then attempted to sting me. And then, when it had given up and started flying around me, I wondered what had made me seem so threatening to it. Nevertheless, I stayed still for it.
I wanted to see what it would do next, whether it would try again or simply leave. It instead landed on my forearm and cleaned its legs. I think it decided I was just the landscape. This morning’s hornet did the same. It circled me before landing on the ridge of my knuckles. I held very still and I watched it breathe. I did not know they breathed too. The whole abdomen pulsed like the bellows of a furnace. It stayed for four minutes before it left. I have been thinking about hornets from between then and now. There were 6 that came to me on their own. None of them were the same. The first one had a marking on its back like a crooked thumbprint, the second did not and so on. Six hornets across three years, each one as brief as the last, each equally certain that I was an object worth investigating.
I find myself heartened by their attention. To be a hornet, I imagine, is a busy life. They stand guard by their nests, lingering for a threat that might come. When they aren’t serving to protect the lives inside their homes, they search for food. I cannot imagine what a hornet would do for fun, does a baby hornet, like a human child, run with one another screaming and yelling? I cannot imagine so. My existence serves no threat to a hornet and provides no food, nevertheless they so endearingly provide me attention.
I wonder sometimes if they are all drawn to me for the same reason, or if each one finds something different. I wonder if the first hornet is still alive. I suspect not. I have read that they live for perhaps a single season, and that seems a terrible answer to a question I did not mean to ask.
The road east of the village is overtaken with clovers. I thought you might like to know.
Cairn
Letter 2
March 25th, 573 Dear Maren, Thank you for writing to me. I understand. I would like to attend the funeral, if that is permitted. I did not know Gabriel very well. But I would like to be there
I have a few questions, if they’re not too much trouble. Was he ill long? He did not mention it. I don’t know if that means his passing was sudden or something others prepared for. Or is it simply something one does not put in a letter.
I have never attended a funeral in Everbloom. Is there something I should bring? I have seen flowers laid at graves, but I wonder what sort of flowers I should bring. I also wondered what would become of his belongings. I do not ask out of any claim to them, I simply find it strange that a life is so filled with belonging, yet those items remain after. Does someone take the house? Do his belongings go to his family? He mentioned a brother once, I think, though I may be misremembering.
The clovers on the east road are still blooming, they would be foolish flowers if they only bloomed a week.
Please let me know when and where. I will be there.
Cairn
Letter 3
December 11th, 574 Dear Gabriel, Yesterday I lay between rows of wheat and watched the sunset from the north of the village. The light broke between the trees at a low angle. The world burned in black and white for six minutes, save for the red light of the sun. Not the red of rust or of clay, but a red I have not seen the sun produce before. The wheat was still. There was no wind. Before, the shadows were long and then they were gone and the red was everywhere. For those six minutes, the horizon and the sun were indistinguishable from one another, as if the sun had smeared itself flat across the entire edge of the world.
I am trying to describe it accurately and I find that I have already failed. The color was red, I have said this already, but it does not account for what happened.
I never told you of this. Twenty-three years ago, I woke up in a field east of here. I did not pull myself from sleep, as you might. I was not, and then I was. The sun was rising. It was pink that day, it rolled out over the entire sky from the furthest point I could see, to the clouds over my head. I stood and watched as it turned from a soft pink to a deep one, as the clouds went to embrace the sunrise that dyed them. The trees in the distance were black as the night that followed and yet, the only thing that didn’t seem to be graced by light was the patch I stood over. I watched the pink drain from the sky and I thought something. I have spent twenty-three years believing the thought was, “I hope that when I die, my blood stains the ground this beautifully.”
I think now that was not quite right. I was trying to name something else, and that was as close as I could get.
I have no blood. I know this. I have no heart, no oil reservoir that would rupture and pool beneath me. The nearest thing to dying in my sleep would be my joints rusting shut until I could not move, which is not death. I have known all of this since my first morning, so I do not really think I was hoping for a beautiful death. The sun was so bright that morning that the shadow beneath me was the darkest thing in the field. I think I looked down at it and the feeling was ‘I hope my death looks like this.’
I have seen more than a thousand sunrises and sunsets in this village. I have seen them from every field and hill and rooftop. They are always different and I remember each one precisely, which is not something you could do. But yesterday was only the second time the light has done this particular thing to me, and I still do not know what to call it.
I thought of writing that it felt as though something inside me was burning. But I do not burn. I thought it might be awe, which I have read is what humans feel in the presence of something vast, but the sunset was not vast. It was six minutes in a wheat field.
Something burned away inside of me. I do not think I can be more precise. I hope you have a memory like this, of the sun burned into your mind. One where something happened to you that you could not find the right words for, no matter how many times you tried. I hope you have a memory that is entirely overwhelming and leaves you feeling better and worse for its glory.
I hope we saw the same sunrise once.
Cairn
Letter 4
June 3rd, 575 Dear Gabriel, I walked to your house this morning with an envelope in my hand. Your name was already written on it. I had written it the night before, after watching a fox cross the east road where the clovers grew. It moved so carefully, and I wanted to tell you about it.
I was halfway there when I remembered.
I have been writing to you for two years. You have been dead for all of them. I knew this. I attended your funeral. I brought clovers because I did not know what sort of flowers were appropriate, and Maren told me afterward that they were fine but that most people bring lilies. I remember the dirt and the smell of petrichor even though it had not rained. I remember all of it and still, I addressed an envelope, walked to your house and delivered a letter then waited for a reply that could not come.
You told me once about a dog you had as a boy. It was brown, you said, with a torn ear and every morning it would follow you to the river. You were smiling when you told me. I told you about the first hornet. You asked me if it hurt when it tried to sting me, and I told you I did not think so, and you laughed and said it was a good answer. I think that was the longest conversation we shared.
I do not know if that is enough to grieve over. I have read that grief is a large thing. What I feel is not that. It is smaller and I do not have a word for it.
Someone has been opening these letters. I have not thought, until now, about what that must be like. To open an envelope addressed to a man who lived in your house before you and find a stranger writing to him about hornets and sunsets. I do not know if you read them or set them aside or burned them. I am sorry for the trouble, whichever it was.
I will not send another letter
Cairn
Letter 5
August 8th, 579 Dear Gabriel, I slept at noon yesterday and woke up when the night was chilly. I couldn’t do anything as I lay there. It felt like a rabbit sat on my chest as I lay there, heavy and suffocating and yet, like there was this endless beating in my chest. I wanted to get up and dig a hole or chop down a tree, but there was nothing in me that could lift this rabbit off my chest. So, I lay stuck on the ground, staring at the moon. I felt like running, like getting away from my own thoughts. I lay there for seven hours and thirty-two minutes until I fell back asleep again.
I woke up at 4am. I sat up again, with my sorrow and regrets. I watched the sunrise dye the clouds a deep red. I have described sunsets to you before and they have not brought you back, so I will spare you this one.
A rabbit crossed the field while I sat there - a real one. It stopped and looked at me the way hornets do, as if deciding whether I was part of the ground. It decided I was. I watched it eat for a while and then it left.
I said I would not write to you again. I think I meant it when I said it. Maybe I could’ve brought you rabbits in your last years, eased the challenge of your life so that we could spend one more afternoon talking. I don’t know. Maybe you too decided I was part of the ground before the end.
Cairn
Letter 6
April 5th, 591 Dear Gabriel, I did not notice the date until I had already begun writing. April 5th. I wrote my first letter to you on this day twenty years ago. I did not plan this; I am not sentimental about dates the way I understand people to be, though I suppose the act of writing to a dead man on the anniversary of writing to that man might disprove that.
There is a dog in the village now. It belongs to the cooper’s granddaughter. One ear was torn as if it had been caught on wire and decided the wire would lose. It waits for her outside the mill each afternoon and follows her to the river at dusk.
It stands in the shallows, water moving around its legs, watching the current as if the river might at any moment produce a miracle. The girl was behind it, skipping stones. The dog did not chase them. It only stood there patiently, certain of its place beside her.
I stood there longer than was polite. The girl waved at me. The dog looked at me the way hornets do.
I have another story to tell.
I was walking the east road this afternoon. The clovers are still there. I was not thinking of you. I want you to know that. I was not thinking of anything in particular. I was watching the clovers move in a wind that I couldn’t feel when I saw a boy crouched at the edge of the road with his hands cupped together. He stood so still, I stopped and watched, because I know what stillness costs a child.
He had a hornet in his hand. He held his palms open like a bowl and the hornet sat there, cleaning its legs. I stood and watched him. Then, he opened his hands wider and the hornet left and the boy watched it go. He stayed crouched for a moment longer, looking at his empty palms. Then he stood and ran back to the village, and that was all.
I have not been able to stop thinking about it. The way the boy’s hands stayed open after the hornet had gone. The way he looked at the empty space where the hornet had been as though it had left something behind only he could see.
I have held hornets on my knuckles and my forearms and once on the ridge above where my eye sits. Forty-seven of them now, across forty years. I remember every one but I have never once looked at the place where one had been after it left. They land and I hold still for them. Then they go and they are gone and I continue. I did not know there was something else to do. That you could hold the absence of a thing in your hands and look at it.
I am sorry for not writing sooner. I have spent a long time believing I owed an apology to someone for these letters. To you, for not letting you rest. To whoever lives in your house, for the strange mail. To myself, for the indulgence of it. I do not believe that anymore. I think these letters are the open hands. I think they are me looking at the space where you were.
I do not measure my grief anymore, but it continues to change. It’s quieter than the rabbit on my chest or the red horizon. To me, it’s just the fact that when I see a brown dog with a torn ear or a hornet studying me, there is only one person I can think of to tell.
You are the only person who ever laughed at something I said. I have thought about this often. I have made observations to others since, ones I thought might produce the same effect, and sometimes people smile, but it is not the same. You laughed because I surprised you, and I do not think you expected to be surprised by me. I did not expect it either. I would like to make you laugh again. I think that is what I am doing every time I describe a sunset or a hornet or the clovers on the east road. I am trying to say something that would make you look at me the way you did that afternoon, as if I had become, just for a moment, something more than the landscape.
When I woke in that field east of here, I believed the most remarkable thing would be the light. I was wrong. It is the layering of days, the way a single memory can lay dormant for a decade and then rise at the sight of a dog in a river.
You asked me then if it hurt when the hornet tried to sting me. I said I did not think so, and you laughed. Now, I remember our conversation - the stings which do wound me and the absence of your voice. I will continue to watch the river. I will continue to write when something insists on being told. Not because I expect an answer, and certainly not because I have forgotten, but because - for a little while - when I put your name at the top of a page the world feels more like something I share with others.
The clovers still bloom east of the village. They have outlasted us both
Cairn