| Relatives | Chadicus Atherton (father), Maria Allen (mother), Dale and Lucy (younger siblings) |
|---|---|
| Languages | Common, Draconic |
| Affiliations | Tempest Brothers Expeditionary Company |
| Aliases | Allen Nittany, Nicholas Seawell, Suzie Bluth |
| Marital Status | single |
| Place of Birth | Seawell |
| Date of Death | N/A |
| Place of Death | N/A |
| Species | Human (Variant) |
| Gender | Male (he/him) |
| Height | 5'9" |
| Weight | 140 lbs |
| Eye Color | Gray |
Ren Atherton is a chaotic good human from Seawell. He has the Criminal background since he was falsely accused of a crime and exiled from the town. He started with one level in Rogue, and then began as a Warlock (Great Old One - Pact of the Chain).
Physical Appearance
Ren is a 21-year-old man. At 5'9" and 140 pounds, Ren is average height and thin. He has gray eyes, sometimes glasses, medium-length black hair, and generally dresses in darker clothes and wears a black cape.
Personality
Ren is social and laid back, but he is hesitant to get too close with people too soon. While around town, he often hides his face, since he doesn't trust others quite as much after being exiled.
In his free time (if he isn't forging an item or learning something), he's usually petting his cat Morgana and trying different coffees around the neighborhood.
He's becoming a bit more comfortable with everyone in the company since doing a few missions with them, but he is also a bit nervous about there being a spy potentially.
Still, he doesn't relax at big festivals too much, since the one time he truly relaxed with others since arriving in Galik, it didn't go well - he doesn't remember it well, but vaguely tells people not to go to the circus.
History
Ren grew up in the coastal city of Seawell with two parents and two siblings. His father Chadicus Atherton is a dragonborn blacksmith and locksmith, so he learned how to pick locks as his apprentice as a child. His mother Maria Allen is a changeling bard who teaches at the local school. He gets along well with his younger siblings Dale and Lucy.
Ren often ran late for school as a kid, so he learned to dash and hide as needed to convince teachers he'd been in class the whole time and was not late as they had thought.
He befriended a former thief named Ashe (out of character: his criminal contact from his "criminal" background), who changed his ways after breaking into a noble's house and being adopted instead of arrested. Ashe still knew how to pick locks and remain undetected however, and taught Ren how to do some of these things when absolutely necessary for the greater good.
While attending Seawell Community College, Ren saw a drunk man harassing a woman on the street at night, so he intervened, accidentally pushing the man to the ground. The man said that the city guard all follow him, claiming he'd sue for assault. The city guard believed the drunk man (who Ren was unable to identify, but suspects it was a member of the Stone or Bluth family), so Ren was found guilty of assault and exiled from Seawell.
Ren set out for the only major city he knew of, Galik, and stopped at an inn on the way there. That night in his dreams, a mysterious entity calling himself Igor spoke to him, offering a deal. In exchange for fighting for justice and taking down powerful and corrupt villains, Igor would grant him eldritch powers. Ren agreed and continued to Galik, where he joined the Tempest Brothers Expeditionary Company.
When he got to Galik, he signed a Pact of the Chain with Igor, and when he cast Find Familiar, it took the form of a magical cat named Morgana. The two then began adventuring together with the party.
Since joining the company, he has gone on four missions:
He helped the party move the Arcane Forge away from the camp when it was under attack. That same month, he also saw the weird robots that melted when defeated; he doesn't really understand what was going on there.
After some combat, he realized the importance of moving quickly, so he gained an additional level in rogue as the company returned to Galik. He decided to go with a few others to the circus, but isn't sure if they ever got there or not. He has vague memories of some circus employee at the dart game trying to jump in front of the darts? He tried to send Morgana to distract him by being an adorable cat, but even with a high persuasion roll, Morgana was afraid of this employee. Ren does not remember this person's face.
He doesn't really remember most of the rest of the circus, but he does remember the dream he had. His patron Igor sounded remarkably different and was torturing him. "Igor" or whoever he was, told him that if his family wanted to, they probably could have kept Ren from being exiled. He woke up and found out it was apparently a dream, but this whole encounter left him disturbed. He's also worried about his patron and still has a lingering doubt about his family. He then made sure to have some things under control that he could count on, so he spent his January downtime forging a Clockwork Amulet. This way, at least one attack a day would not be up to luck.
Making sure to stamp out evil forces that use magic for cruelty, he and other company members went on the Galik City Railway to pursue a high-ranking cult member, one of the Groomsmen. There, he met a more experienced warlock from the company, Marion, who gave him a Dark Shard Amulet, since they had too many items and this could only be used by a warlock. Ren disguised himself as Allen Nittany, a student at the local college, to avoid suspicion. On the train, the party split up to investigate each car, and Ren had the misfortune of finding the conductor's dead body. Rather than startle the train, he tried to alert the party first, but did not hide his stress well, so some of the passengers thought he was the killer. Fortunately the party found the true killer, who then gambled everyone's lives in a game of poker. He and Marion ended up betting showing their true faces, and they lost that round, so the cult wizard has seen his face. The wizard then died though, so unless someone else was Scrying on the wizard, Ren hopes he should be ok. He then got his share of the gold they confiscated on the train and is in the good graces of the noblewoman whose gold was stolen.
Aliases
Since learning to disguise himself, Ren has taken on three go-to identities:
Allen Nittany passes himself off as a student at the nearest college to access their libraries and listen in on conversations to gather intel. This is the disguise he uses the most, including on the train.
Nicholas Seawell is allegedly a merchant with connections to the Port of Seawell. Ren sometimes takes on this identity to meet nobles and other officials.
Suzie Bluth claims to be a member of the powerful Bluth family of carpenters and developers that own a disturbing amount of the land in the Seawell area. She claims to be surveying other lands to find some places to build real estate, but Ren usually takes on this identity to gather info from men at taverns, before leaving when the 1-hour duration of Disguise Self is up.
Languages
Like most people in Seawell, he learned Common. He also learned Draconic from his father, who mostly spoke Common in town but would use Draconic half of the time at home and always when swearing after a workplace injury.
Powers and Abilities
Ren is the embodiment of "the power of friendship and this gun I found" (persuasion and Eldritch Blast). He tries to avoid violence if he can, turning toward Persuasion first. If he can stay hidden and disengage from melee, he almost always will try to. But if needed, he's happy to use Eldritch Blast and Hex to hurt and hinder enemies from a (hopefully) safe distance. With high dexterity and Mage Armor, he's harder to hit, but if he does get hit, things get rough for him.
Since his mother and siblings are changelings but he is a human and unable to shapeshift freely, he learned the Mask of Many Faces invocation so he could do the same once he returns home to his family.
His familiar, Morgana, can take on many forms, but is usually in the form of a cat. Ren plans on developing Morgana's surveillance skills as he gains a better understanding of the Pact of the Chain. Morgana can apparently speak duck, though he is usually in the form of a cat.
Within 30 feet anyway, he can psychically communicate with people, but only one-way. He's used this on the train to communicate secretly without alerting bystanders.
He now has a Clockwork Amulet, so he can get a guaranteed 10 roll on an attack once a day, and a Dark Shard Amulet, so (with a DC 10 Arcana roll), he can cast any warlock cantrip. He sometimes uses this to clean, via Prestidigitation.
Ren trained as a rogue since he needed a lot of skills to survive in Seawell given all the political backstabbing that happens there. He is Proficient in Deception, Insight, Investigation, Perception, Persuasion, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth, with Expertise in Persuasion. Sadly most of these aren't that useful in the wilds between there and Galik, so he needed to take a Warlock Pact to make it to Galik alive. And like any good rogue, he's also proficient with Thieves' Tools.
With his second level in rogue since getting to Galik, he learned how to dash, disengage, or hide as a bonus action, since he can't take a hit very well.
On the train, he learned how to play poker; oddly enough, he learned from the cultist who was holding everyone hostage, who kindly paused the game to teach others how to play. Ren was proficient with a playing card set already, but this game hadn't made it to the small city of Seawell, so he never learned until then.
Instead, his favorite card game is called Palace, called Castle in some regions, which involves running out of your whole set of cards by placing a higher or lower card as needed, with 2s as wild cards, and 10s as wild cards that also clear the board. After playing your whole hand, each player still hs six additional cards: three face up, and below those, three face down, which even the player does not see until randomly playing one. He likes that this game has equal parts strategy and mystery. His patron Igor also likes explaining powers via playing cards.
Attacks and Weapons
Ren occasionally uses a shortbow from a distance, or of he's forced into melee, a rapier for sneak attack. He doesn't like melee though, so he tries to stay out of it.
While at Bulio's Bubbles and Boons to buy Boots of Elvenkind, he ran into Thordon, who was feeling generous. Thordon bought this new adventurer the Bracers of Archery, so he can deal additional damage when he lands a hit with his bow. These boots make his steps totally silent, giving him advantage on stealth checks no matter what surface he's walking on.
Most of the time though, he uses Shadow Blade, since it counts as a finesse weapon which means it can work for sneak attack, and it deals psychic damage, which few enemies resist. He doesn't have many spell slots though, since he's a warlock, so he does his best to maintain concentration by staying out of the fray.
Financial History:
He arrived at Galik with 0G on his person.
He earned 160G adventuring in the first three sessions total, and then gained 1200G from the train, for 1360 total.
Then he spent 800G on the Boots of Elvenkind, and 100G to make the clockwork amulet, so as of the start of February, he has 460G.
