Equipment

CP 30SP 18EP 0GP 42PP 2

• Studded leather worn — Road-worn. Copper rivets. Worn under the doublet, not instead of it.
• Dagger worn — The stage knife. Balanced for the hand, not for show.
• Dagger worn — A plain second knife in the boot.
• Shortbow worn — Taken off a broken wagon. He is better with it than he admits.
• Arrows ×20 worn — In a soft quiver so they do not talk while he walks.
• Lute worn — Spell focus. The soundboard has a hairline crack he will not let anyone glue.
• Wine doublet worn — Copper thread at the collar. Stage clothes, also the clothes he is willing to be seen in.
• Traveler's clothes worn — Cloak the color of wet bark. Gloves. Boots that have been reheeled twice.
• Entertainer's pack worn — Backpack, bedroll, five candles, five days of rations, waterskin.
• Songbook worn — Tunes in the front. A moon calendar in the back, written as if it were only a touring schedule.
• Lyre — Musician's second instrument. Quieter rooms.
• Flute — Musician's third. He plays it when he does not want to be looked at.
• Magpie coat — The troupe costume. Its twin was buried with Pell. He does not wear this one.
• Disguise kit — Greasepaint, a false scar he does not need, and powder for the silver streak.
• Silver chain — Never worn against the skin. He buys one in any town that has a silversmith, and leaves the last one behind.
• Wolfsbane, wrapped — Dried. He knows the stories and does not trust them. He keeps it anyway.

Proficiencies & languages

Armor. Light armor

Weapons. Simple weapons

Tools. Lute, Lyre, Flute, Disguise kit

Languages. Common, Elvish, Sylvan

Features, continued

• Expertise Bard. Performance and Persuasion.
• Jack of All Trades Bard. Half proficiency, rounded down, on any ability check that does not already include proficiency.
• Bonus Proficiencies College of Lore. Arcana, History, and Investigation.
• Cutting Words College of Lore. Reaction, when a creature he can see within 60 feet rolls an attack, a check, or damage. He spends a Bardic Inspiration die and subtracts the roll. They can still succeed if the remainder is enough.
• Ability Score Improvement Bard. Charisma +2. The score is 20.
• Font of Inspiration Bard. Bardic Inspiration returns on a short or long rest. The die is a d8.
• Afflicted lycanthropy Curse. Werewolf, taken, not born. In hybrid or wolf the curse lends speed and a Strength floor of 15. His own Strength is already 14, so the moon does not make him much stronger. It makes him less careful. Confirm the book's curse if you play the affliction strict. Silver and the full moon are the truths he trusts.

Personality

Traits. laughs a half-second late, after he has checked who is listening

Ideal. a story should leave people braver, even when the story was a kindness and not the whole truth

Bond. his sister Maret, who still believes the only thing he hides is a bad contract

Flaw. he walks toward a secret, including his own, even when the people beside him are not ready

Appearance

he/him. Age 29. 5 ft 11 in. amber eyes, dark auburn, with a silver streak at the left temple hair, warm olive skin.

Lean, not thin. A neat beard. The silver streak started the winter after the bite and he powders it when he is working a room that might have seen a poster.

Clothing. On a stage: the wine doublet, copper thread at the collar, clean boots, the lute on its strap. On the road the studded leather goes under the doublet, with a cloak the color of wet bark and gloves he does not take off in moonlight. The magpie coat stays in the pack. Its twin was buried with Pell, and wearing this one feels like a costume of a dead man.

Voice. A tenor that fills a taproom without shouting. The speaking voice drops when he is telling the truth.

Allies & organization

The Last Lamp

Maret Hale — Younger sister, Greywharf. She keeps the taproom their parents left. She thinks he is late, not lost. Letters from him are funny, and they leave out every road that runs north.

Pell — Drummer, buried. The other half of the Magpie Circuit's sound. Corvin still leaves a beat of silence in the bridge where Pell's drum would have answered.

Osric Venn — The Last Lamp. Retired watch sergeant. Heavy hands, light sleep. He hired Corvin as a voice for a door that needed talking through, and then did not fire him.

Sera Quill — The Last Lamp. Tiefling locksmith. She reads other people's letters only when the seal is already broken, which she considers a professional courtesy. She is the one writing down his missing nights.

Backstory

Corvin Hale learned songs in a river taproom in Greywharf and left at sixteen with a troupe called the Magpie Circuit. He was the voice. Pell was the drum. They were good, and then they were known, which is a different problem. Three years ago, on the Northroad, a man in a good coat asked to hear the bridge of a song Corvin had not sung in that town. The man sang it back, wrong by one note, and bit him when the note resolved. Pell died of the same night. Corvin buried him in the other magpie coat and told the troupe it was wolves. He still tells Maret, his sister, that the work is only songs and bad contracts. The Last Lamp is Osric Venn and Sera Quill. They know he leaves the fire on certain nights. They do not yet know why.