Adventure Title
Starting Log (aktualisierter Log 20.03.26)

Levels Gained
4

Location Played
Roll20

Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # **Shia, the Blender** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Height: 175 cm (Medium) Weight: 45 kg Build: Slender, light frame Eyes: Amber-orange, sharp and observant Hair: Violet shifting toward deep cherry-red depending on the light Skin: Tanned, with a dragon tattoo curling over her right shoulder ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Clothing – Normal Outfit Shia usually wears fitted black leather reinforced for mobility, covered by a dark hooded coat with feather-like edges. Multiple belts and bandoliers carry vials, syringes, smoke bombs, and alchemical mixtures ready for quick use. Her plague doctor mask is made of pale metal with crimson lenses and a long beaked filter filled with herbs and reagents. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Clothing – Winter Outfit (Icewind Dale) In the extreme cold of Icewind Dale she wears a heavy black winter cloak lined with pale fur around the hood and shoulders. The cloak protects against the relentless wind while still concealing her equipment belts full of alchemical tools and mixtures. When masked, the faint red glow of the lenses and the colored smoke of her mixtures make her silhouette stand out eerily against the white snow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Costomizing your Origin: Race: Mod. Human (Dhampier) Creature Type: Humanoid Size: Medium (about 4-7 feet tall) Speed: 35 feet, Climb equal to your walking speed Darkvision. You have Darkvision with a range of 60 feet. Spider Climb, Trace of Undeath, Vampiric Bite., Strengthen Language: Common, Elvish, Goliath Ability Score Point ´Buy: St 8, Dex 14, Con 15 (+1) , Int 15 (+2+1), Wis 10, Cha 8 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Class: Artificer Primary Ability: Intelligence Hit Point Die: D8 per Artificer level Hit Points at Level 1: 8 + Con. modifier Hit Points per additional Artificer Level: D8 + your Con. modifier, or, 5 + your Con. modifier Saving Throw Proficiencies: Constitution, Intelligence Skill Proficiencies: Choose 2: Arcana, Medicine Weapon Proficiencies: Simple weapons Tool Proficiencies: Thieves' Tools, Tinker's Tools, and Poisoner's Kit Armor Training: Light and Medium armor and Shields Level 1: Spellcasting, Level 1: Tinker's Magic Level 2: Replicate Magic Item Level 3: Artificer Subclass - Alchemist Level 3: Tools of the Trade, Alchemist Spells, Experimental Elixir Tool Proficiency. You gain proficiency with Alchemist's Supplies and the Herbalism Kit. Level 4: Feat - Warkaster + 1 Int Level 5: Alchemical Savant ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Choose a Background:** *Blender of Bryn Shander* (Criminal) Skill Proficiencies: Slight of Hand, Stealth Tool Proficiency: Thieves' Tools Free Feat: Magic Initiate Source: Ability One +2, +1 Chose: Int +2, Con +1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Class Equipment** (A) Studded Leather Armor, Dagger, Thieves' Tools, Tinker's Tools, Dungeoneer's Pack, and 16 GP **Equipment from Background** *Blender of Bryn Shander* (Criminal) (A) 2 Daggers, Thieves' Tools, Crowbar, 2 Pouches, Traveler's Clothes, 16 GP ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ # **Biography** ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shia - The Mask in the Snow The wind in Bryn Shander never truly stopped. It did not simply blow. It pressed. It leaned against the timber walls of the city as if searching patiently for weaknesses. It scraped frost along the stone ramparts and slipped through every poorly sealed window and door. Even silence carried weight in Icewind Dale — a brittle, crystalline stillness that felt less like peace and more like restraint. On the night Shia was born, that wind howled loud enough to swallow the sound of a dying woman’s breath. The room was narrow and poorly lit, hidden behind a pleasure house along the southern edge of the city. Snow filtered through the gaps in the warped roof above, drifting slowly to the floor like pale ash. A single lantern flickered weakly on a bent iron hook, casting uneven shadows across the walls. There were no midwives. No priests. No clean linens prepared in warm water. There was only a young woman who had sold too much of herself for too little coin, clutching a newborn child with trembling hands. By the time dawn crept over the horizon — a thin grey smear in the sky — the woman was dead. The child was not. The monks of Ilmater found the infant hours later, wrapped in torn cloth beside her mother’s cooling body. They spoke softly as they lifted the child into their arms, murmuring prayers of compassion and endurance. They called her fortunate. They called her blessed. They said suffering purified the soul. The infant did not cry. She simply stared up at them with wide amber eyes that reflected the lanternlight like molten metal. Even then, there was something unsettlingly alert in her gaze. The Orphanage of Enduring Pain Shia grew up within the orphanage walls near Bryn Shander’s inner rampart. The building itself was old and sturdy, constructed from heavy timbers meant to survive the brutal winters of Icewind Dale. Snow piled high against its sides each season, sometimes burying the lower windows entirely. The monks of Ilmater believed in compassion through endurance. Children were taught patience before letters. They were taught to share food before they were taught to count coin. They were taught to kneel before they were taught to run. The Crying God, the monks said, embraced suffering so that others might learn mercy. Shia listened. But she did not learn the same lessons. While other children huddled close to one another for warmth during the coldest nights, Shia watched the world around her with quiet intensity. She noticed the way frost crept across the iron hinges of doors. She noticed how the breath of sick children condensed differently in the cold air than the breath of healthy ones. Illness fascinated her. Not the pain. The pattern. Every winter brought fevers. It always began the same way. First came the coughing — dry and persistent. Then weakness, followed by the burning heat of fevered skin despite the bitter cold outside. The monks treated the sick with gentle devotion. They brewed herbal teas. They pressed damp cloths to burning foreheads. They whispered prayers of comfort. Shia observed everything. She memorized which herbs the monks reached for first. She noticed which poultices actually reduced swelling. And she quickly learned which remedies were merely rituals meant to comfort rather than cure. When she was nine years old, sickness swept through the orphanage dormitory like an invisible tide. Three children died within two days. One of them had slept beside her every night. The monks told Shia that Ilmater had embraced their suffering. They told her that endurance was holy. Shia listened politely. Then she went to the storage room after dark. Dried herbs hung in brittle bundles from the rafters. She touched each one carefully, inhaling the scents of sage, juniper, and bitter frostleaf. She tasted small fragments on her tongue despite the unpleasant bitterness. If suffering was sacred, she decided, then she would study it. If death was common, she would learn its habits. Before the Endless Winter For most of her childhood, Icewind Dale had been harsh but predictable. Winters were long. Summers were brief. Trade caravans from the south brought supplies often enough to keep the Ten-Towns alive. Then Auril’s Rime began. Shia was nearly eighteen when the sun stopped rising properly. At first it seemed like a strange winter. Then the thaw never came. Trade caravans stopped arriving. Food grew scarce. Fishing holes froze deeper than before. The name of Auril passed from mouth to mouth in fearful whispers. Some cursed the Frostmaiden openly. Others prayed to her desperately. Shia did neither. She watched. Winter had always been part of life in Icewind Dale. Now it had simply become absolute. Pressure reveals weakness. Pressure reveals truth. If Auril valued endurance — as many whispered she did — then the Rime was not merely cruelty. It was a test. And Shia had never feared tests. The First Mask The idea of the mask came to her years earlier, during a quarantine outbreak in the poorer districts of Bryn Shander. She carved the first one from leather torn off an old boot. It was crude and uneven, stitched together with thread she had stolen from the sewing room. The beak was filled with charcoal, dried pine needles, and crushed herbs she believed might filter the air. She had no proof it worked. But she understood something more important. Symbols command space. When she pulled the hood low and secured the mask over her face, people recoiled instinctively. They stepped back. They made room. And in that moment, Shia felt something rare and powerful. Control. Under the Rime she refined the design. The leather became reinforced. Metal rivets strengthened the seams. Red glass lenses protected her eyes from snow glare. Fur lined the inner hood to guard against the cutting wind. Some who saw her silhouette whispered that the shape resembled artistic depictions of the Frostmaiden herself — sharp, pale, severe. Shia never denied the resemblance. But she never worshipped Auril. Winter had a shape. She had simply chosen to mirror it. The Education of a Rogue By sixteen, Shia understood Bryn Shander better than most adults. Coin ruled quietly beneath sermons. Information ruled louder than coin. She knew which guards drank too heavily. Which merchants watered their ale. Which houses hid illness behind shuttered windows. When someone in the city became sick, Shia often appeared. Always masked. Always calm. Sometimes she accepted payment. Sometimes she asked for something else. A rumor. A key. A ledger. Information. She learned to move across rooftops in deep snow, adjusting her weight carefully to avoid collapsing brittle timbers. She practiced with knives not out of cruelty, but out of practicality. In Icewind Dale, survival required preparation. She never robbed without reason. But doors often opened for the girl who had saved someone’s life. Under the Rime, information became more valuable than gold. The Blender Her reputation changed when the smoke appeared. Shia had begun experimenting with volatile alchemical mixtures. Powdered frost fungus, resin oils, sulfur, and highly distilled alcohol reacted unpredictably in extreme cold. The first vial shattered in a narrow alley. Thick green vapor erupted outward, curling through the freezing air like a living thing. The alley emptied instantly. Shia coughed behind her mask, heart racing not from fear, but from exhilaration. She had created weather. Red smoke for distraction. Green for choking confusion. Purple haze for disorientation. She refined the mixtures carefully, learning how extreme cold affected the reactions. Rumors spread quickly through Bryn Shander. They began calling her the Blender. Because she mixed things. Because nothing she carried in her belts of glass vials was predictable. But Shia preferred another name. The Frost Doctor. Respecting Winter Many in the city cursed Auril. Shia did not. Winter was not cruel. Winter was indifferent. Nature did not negotiate. She spent time beyond the city walls when she could safely do so, studying the tundra itself. She watched wolves hunt beneath the snow crust and learned how ravens circled dying animals before storms intensified. The land itself demanded respect. Auril, if she truly ruled winter, embodied that principle. Shia did not worship her. But she understood the philosophy. If winter demanded endurance, then endurance was simply another natural law. The Experiments Her experiments began with poison. The logic was simple. If the body could be trained to endure toxins, it might endure disease as well. She began with extremely diluted venoms. Microdoses. Barely measurable quantities. The first attempts made her violently ill. But she adjusted. Measured. Documented. Over months, her tolerance increased. Her blood chemistry began to shift subtly. Illnesses that spread through Bryn Shander seemed to falter against her. Her senses sharpened. Her body required less warmth. Her metabolism changed. Eventually she discovered something unexpected. Blood — even small amounts — restored her strength far more efficiently than ordinary food when exhaustion overwhelmed her. The traits resembled those attributed to dhampirs in folklore. But Shia knew the truth. She had not become a creature of the night. She had modified herself. Engineered adaptation. She had reshaped her own biology through relentless experimentation. And the results were… effective. Beneath the Mask When Shia removes her mask at the end of long nights, she is still very young. Twenty years old. Violet hair spills across her shoulders. Amber eyes glow softly in lanternlight. The dragon tattoo coils across her shoulder blade — a symbol of survival she etched into her own skin years ago. She studies anatomy texts scavenged from abandoned caravans. She refines toxins and cures with equal fascination. She laughs quietly when experiments misfire. She is not heartless. But she is selective. Trust is rare. Affection rarer. The Legend Children whisper stories in Bryn Shander. They say the Mask walks the streets during blizzards. They say if you hoard bread, green smoke will follow you. They say if you survive winter honestly, she will nod once as she passes. Once, followers of Auril approached her. They mistook her mask for devotion. She corrected them calmly. “I respect winter,” she said. “I do not worship it.” They left uneasy. Because survival without submission unsettles zealots. What She Has Become Shia is not Auril’s servant. She is not her enemy. She is something winter itself creates when pressure is applied long enough. Precision. Adaptation. Resilience. A healer wrapped in smoke. A rogue wrapped in frost-lined leather. A woman who refused to kneel before inevitability. The wind still howls across Bryn Shander’s walls. But when it presses against her now— It does not swallow her. It measures her. And Shia walks through the snow, leaving barely a trace behind. One vial at a time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ STARTING PLAY AT LEVEL 5 Instead of creating a level 1 character, you may create a level 5 character. Receive standard starting gear for your class and background, 500 GP, 40 Downtime Days (DT), and choose or roll for one of the following magic items. Chose: • All-purpose Tool, +1 (TCE) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------