Nicolas Oblonsky

[HereticForLife]

First Name: Nicolas
Last Name: Oblonsky

Appearance:
Race: Human
Age: 19
Height: 6’3”
Weight: 210 lbs.
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Short, dark brown
Facial Hair Style: Clean-shaven or stubble

Personality Profile:
Personality Traits:
Day/night dissonance: In the daytime, Nicolas is struck by a compulsion to study and artifice. His studies take up most of his attention, and he rarely feels like occupying his time with other matters. He will hardly travel outside, unless he is in the mood to hunt or practice with his crossbow. At night however, Nicolas has an insatiable desire for socializing, clubbing, and courting. While adventuring or otherwise kept very focused and away from city life, Nicolas is kept busy, and this dissonance is far less evident, though he is still somewhat less willing to adventure and more willing to drink and chat at night.
Lazy: Nicolas is incredibly lazy, rarely attending to matters of serious importance. He will work, however, if it involves the acquisition of wealth, arcane knowledge or artificing components, or if he is pressured by others. He is certainly capable of working when it is necessary, but his laziness frequently makes him unwilling to put forth the effort.
Flirtatious: Nicolas is flirtatious with many upper-class human, elf, or half-elf women, as well as many women who simply give off a royal or sophisticated aura. This is far more evident in the nighttime, or when he has been drinking.
General Health: Somewhat plump, but healthy
Deity: Mystra
Initial Alignment: True Neutral
Profession: Artificer
Base Class & Proposed Development: Wizard
Habits/Hobbies:
Daytime: reading, studying arcane texts, practicing the crossbow, hunting
Nighttime: courting noblewomen, smoking, going to taverns and nobles’ clubs
Languages: Common, Undercommon, Elven, Draconic
Weapon of Choice: Crossbow

Background:
Nicolas Oblonsky was born the son of a wealthy fabric merchant in Neverwinter, the Jewel of the North. For many years, Nicolas lived comfortably in his father’s household, planning to study mercantilism and one day deal in magical artifacts. He was decadent, proud, and highly flirtatious with the noblewomen of the city, but focused on his study of magic. Since a young age however, when he was often forced to accompany older male relatives to nobles’ clubs at night but stay at home or watch his father’s hunts in the daytime, he has felt a peculiar mental dissonance. As a result, he becomes especially hedonic, playful, and flirtatious at night, and somewhat reverts to normal in the daytime, such that he only spent his time studying, working, or hunting in the daytime and courting young girls or clubbing at night. Regardless, he proved quite competent as a novice artificer, enchanting small coins and other objects. His family supported him greatly in his studies, particularly his father, who often gave him crude magical items with which to further his knowledge.

On the eve of his 15th birthday, his home was attacked by an extraordinarily powerful wizard, part of a cabal of artificers in Neverwinter. After destroying much of the household, the wizard gathered the family together in the main hall of the mansion, aided by several summoned beasts. He stated that several valuable scrolls had been stolen from the cabal, and that the wizards had traced the path of the thieves to the Oblonsky household. Nicolas’s father stepped forth, admitting that he had hired several rogues to steal the artifacts in order to further his son’s education. He produced the rings from his pocket, and returned them to the wizard.

The wizard declared that he and his companions would do no further harm to the family, but Nicolas would be banished from Neverwinter forever, beginning that night, as punishment to his father. If the wizards – all of whom possessed crystal balls – discovered him anywhere near the city, he and his family would suffer the cabal’s full wrath. The wizard forced Nicolas out immediately, leaving him no time to gather any belongings and declaring that he would kill the boy if he was not out of the city by sunrise.

Nicolas then traveled around the Sword Coast, passing through countless cities. He learned he had no talent for roguery after being nearly killed by a sorceress after attempting to pick her pocket, and failing after countless attempts to pick the locks of wealthy nobles, earning the ire of city guards in the process and being forced to flee from one settlement to another, hungry and cold. Nicolas escaped starvation only through scavenging and the borrowing of money from bankers, some of whom he was able to fool after coming across old nobleman’s robes in his scavenges.

After several years, once he had just turned 17, Nicolas came across the tower of a wizard on the outskirts of a city whose creditors had begun to grow suspicious of him. Noticing that the door was open, he entered, finding the place unwarded. He explored the tower for several minutes, seeing countless artifacts he had never before heard of but touching nothing. After some time, he noticed a philosopher’s stone, and realized how useful it might be to paying off his debts and perhaps achieving some measure of peace. Hoping its owner had no great need for it, he took it.

He stepped out of the tower with the stone in hand, and came face-to-face with a robed, middle-aged wizard. This wizard, who had begun leaving the door of his tower open in order to root out thieves, prepared to kill Nicolas for his act as he did with all others. But, Nicolas dropped to his knees and begged for mercy, telling the wizard his tale. Sensing no deception in the boy’s words, and believing the boy had great potential to become a wizard himself, the wizard agreed to not only spare his life but to take him in as a student as well.

Two years passed, during which Nicolas paid back the city’s bankers and developed into a full-fledged wizard. Occasionally, he would mail his family in Neverwinter, assuring them that he was well and they need no longer worry for his safety. He quickly fell back into his old day/night cycle of study and decadence, but was nonetheless able to learn all he needed. Eventually, he set off on his own, at last independent of creditors, his master, and the hunger and misery which had afflicted him following the Neverwinter wizard’s fateful visit.

Goals:
- To amass as much wealth as necessary to acquire and maintain the comfortable, expensive lifestyle he had as a young man before his banishment.
- To one day return to Neverwinter and enjoy what pleasures the city has to offer.
- To continue his studies of magic and magic items, in order to improve his skill as an artificer of all types of magic items.
- To take revenge upon the artificer cabal if they ever slight him again. While he finds the first instance highly unfair, and he despises what his banishment put him through, he has come to appreciate the unintended lessons and arcane training that came about as a result, so he does not feel slighted enough that he is willing to plot revenge against them.

Possible Plot-Hook Ideas:
- Nicolas comes across the wizard who banished him from Neverwinter
- Nicolas learns that the Neverwinter artificer cabal has sent assassins after him
- Nicolas learns that the Neverwinter artificer cabal has old ties to his master
- Nicolas begins to be assailed by some force, group, or entity (not necessarily the artificer cabal), forcing him out of his life of relative comfort
- Nicolas learns of some extraordinary magical artifact or incredibly rare alchemical component, and feels compelled to obtain it
- Nicolas hears of some plot involving either Red Wizards or the wizards in Neverwinter, which he suspects may be related.

[DM RabidBadger]

*bump. Waiting to see them in game to reward.