Coming forth by Day: the Death and Life of Zalvius Curiata

[Tauschitz]

Character Biography

First Name: Zalvius
Last Name: Curiata

Appearance:
Race: Human
Age: 44
Height: 6’1”
Weight: 198
Eyes: green
Hair: brown
Facial Hair Style: full beard

Personality Profile:
General Health: Fair, but poorer than it should be; prematurely aged (see background)
Deity: Mystra
Initial Alignment: Neutral Good
Profession: Adventurer, Researcher, Scholar
Base Class & Proposed Development: Wizard, Scholar of Candlekeep, Eldrich Knight
Habits/Hobbies: pipe smoking, collecting souvenirs from his most important conquests (so far has mind flayer tentacles, eyestalks from a beholder, and vampire teeth), keeping watch on any development in the necromantic arts (though without participating in any way, see background), exploratory mapping in exquisite detail and globe making.
Languages: (see character sheet)
Weapon of Choice: Sword, Crossbow

Background: Zalvius Curiata was born Leiche Pancrates. He was born to a farming family, in a nameless northern village by a small lake. When he was four, his mother died of disease. Leiche’ father, Thanatos, was a kind and somewhat meek man, aged prematurely by grief for his deceased wife. For ten years the two of them got by the best that they could.

One cold bright autumn day, while inspecting pumpkins on the west side his small farm, Thanatos happened upon an unconscious woman lying pale, and half-frozen amidst the large round fruits. Taking her home and nursing her back to health, the two fell in love and were eventually married in a quiet ceremony.

Bastinda (for so was the name of Leiche’ new mother) was kind to her husband and loved her stepson dearly. And while the love was eagerly returned by the young boy, he sensed that there was something different, something not quite right about his new mother. Indeed, sometimes when he glimpsed her in just the right light, he thought he could almost see through her. Other times she seemed to emerge suddenly, as if from the shadows in a room. Soon, Bastinda revealed to her stepson the sorcery that she could command. And in return for teaching him the ways of the arcane arts, she made him promise not to tell anyone of her powers.

Amongst the villagers, hostility and suspicion towards Bastinda reigned at first. Only by brewing the simplest of sleeping, health and love tonics for them over the course of almost ten years did she manage to win some amount of goodwill. The fact that she charged them nothing for these potions and that they worked splendidly was of key importance in effecting this turnaround.

All the while, Leiche learned more and more from his stepmother, including where she kept her large book of enchantments – only, as the boy would later come to discover, many of these spells were those of the necromantic arts.

When Leiche reached twenty-four years of age, people in the village began to weaken for no explainable reason, and, eventually, to die. The villagers’ suspicion and hostility centered on the Pancrates family. And just as suddenly as she had come, Bastinda vanished. Yet she left a note for Leiche, and a large black-scaled leather spellbook with spells written into it. The note said only, “you must go now too, and chart your own course in the world.” The young man left the village soon thereafter and wandered the nearby lands never straying too far afield.

Leiche wandered for years. He survived by doing odd jobs, and occasionally casting the odd cantrip or brewing the odd potion, then moving on. Restless in his homeland and curious about just what else he might be able to accomplish with his magical abilities he moved on eventually discovering the whereabouts of his mother. Under her tutelage Leiche became a necromancer of some power by his early 30s. But he fell in with the wrong company through unhappy accident.

While adventuring with his cutthroat companions in the depths of a hidden temple, the party was overrun and all but annihilated. Only by sheer luck did Leiche reach the surface, though he soon collapsed from the severity of his wounds. It was then that a paladin of Tyr, Zalvius Curiata, found Leiche’s broken body and saved his life.

The unlikely friendship that developed was enduring, if strained at times, Leiche hiding his nefarious activities from his newfound friend. Over time, however, Zalvius’ influence upon Leiche made the latter question his pursuit of the dark arts. Yet the friendship was not destined to last. Zalvius eventually discovered the identity of Leiche and the whereabouts of his mother Bastinda. In the ensuing battle, all were destroyed save Leiche. In the aftermath, Leiche tried to make sense of his survival, and he came to believe that it was Tyr who had saved his life in order to have him champion the destruction of the necromantic arts, with which he had such intimate knowledge.

In homage to his old friend, and to hide his past, Leiche changed his name to Zalvius Curiata. Although he retained possession of the few books that survived the destruction of his mother’s laboratory, he began anew his study of the arcane arts with a focus on the magics of evocation. Zalvius then left the northern lands and headed to the Sword Coast, where he has lived for almost a decade.

Zalvis Curiata is now 44 years old and has fallen in for the last two years with the friendship of an ornery and sharp tongued dwarf Brun, a brutish but skilled warrior Sador, and, more recently a sarcastic and tempermental female rogue Shialla. All have become good and reliable friends.

Most recently Zalvius met and became the mentee of a great and powerful Evoker Beldore. He hopes to become his greatest pupil and to wage war together against the forces of darkness in honor of his fallen friend and namesake.

Goals: Break the back of the necromantic arts along the sword coast

Possible Plot-Hook Ideas and Misc Facts: someone identifying him from his previous activities; involvement with anti-necromantic campaigns; some aspect of his developing relationship with Beldore the Evoker, his new mentor and master.

[Tauschitz]

Zalvis Curiata's Personal Library, Book I: Thirty-Six Important Steps for Preparing the Skeleton.



This book is modestly bound in dull green linen with cardboard covers and the author's former initials are still embossed in gold on the cover L. P. (Zalvius has not wanted to erase all traces of his former identy). Inside, it details the most critial steps one must take in preparing a skeleton for any and all purposes, from melting the flesh, sinew and muscle to shining and buffing the finished preparation for display. Also discussed are various perfumes, herbs and spices that can be used to mask the odors caused in the various processes, which would otherwise be sure to offend neighbors.

[Tauschitz]

Those who examine the book Thirty-Six Important Steps for Preparing the Skeleton will likely find the following two pages:

A trace of blood is splattered on this particular page, and, as well, there are several bloody smeared fingerprints.

Note to self: When raising a skeleton servant, it is most important that the body of the skeleton be complete. If the skeleton is missing crucial bones, the results can be frustrating and even dangerous - as they were today. One should only attempt to raise skeletons when you are sure that all or nearly all the bones are present.

==============================================

Crusted ichor and and dried gore splatters decorate this yellowed and damaged page of notes

Fresh and decayed corpses with most of the flesh, muscle and sinew upon them can be extremely useful. (If their decay is advanced it is better to simply strip the corpse of flesh and create a skeletal servant instead. Of course, one may also simply collect a still living being and take the necessary steps to make it amenable to animation.)

In order to create a zombie servant, one need bring the corpse to a suitable site – a temple of Bane, for example - and enact the proper rituals. If one has sufficient power, one my reanimate the corpse by spell.

However, there are a few tips that a young Necromancer might want to know. For instance, a decayed servant may be raised many times, even if they have been dismembered by those who do not appreciate our Art. If one of your servants comes to an unfortunate end, you may raise the servant again by carefully gathering as many parts as you can find, binding the bones with leather straps, and sewing the flesh (if it not too decayed) with catgut. Your servant may be weaker each time this is done, but with care and maintenance, one may raise zombies dozens of times.


Leiche (Zalvius has not wanted to erase all evidence of his former identity)

[Tauschitz]

Zalvius Curiata's Personal Library, Book II: The Book of Games



This is a book of games of infinite supply. Chess is but one game in a thousand in this volume, merely occupying two pages, pages 112 and 113. The book contains board games to be played with counters and dice, with cards and flags and miniature pyramids, small figures of the gods, the winds in colored crystal, Dread Brothers in bone armor, ample busts, the oceans of the world, exotic animals, pieces of coral, gold stags, and corpses.

The games represented in the book cover as many situations as there are experiences. There are games of death, necromancy, resurrection, love, peace, famine, war, sexual cruelty, astronomy, diplomacy, the stars, destruction, the future, magic, retribution, and torture. There are boards of red and black triangles, grey and blue diamonds, pages of text, diagrams of the brain, boards in the shape of the constellations, animals, maps, boards created to mimic the hells and the heavens.

[Tauschitz]

Written in a very perfunctory and direct style.

It has now been some time since I have last seen my former mentor and friend, Beldore Senfer the Scholar. I fear I have seen the last of him; that he has moved on and no longer resides on the Sword Coast, or, perhaps that he has left the Prime Material Plane altogether. I miss his friendship and advice dearly. I also find that, alone, I am not as able to act as I might be in cooperation with others who share my aims and goals. I have therefore decided to approach the scholars of Candlekeep with a view towards joining them, though, the last several approaches have not been very successful.

Zalvius Curiata

[Tauschitz]

Zalvius Curiata's Personal Library, Book III: A Book of Motion



This is a book that at the most simple level describes how birds fly and waves roll, how clouds form and apples fall from trees. It describes how the eye changes its shape when looking at great distances, how hairs grow in a beard, why the heart flutters and the lungs inflate involuntarily and how laughter changes the face. At its most complex level, it explains how ideas chase one another in the memory and where thought goes when it is finished with.

The book is semi-sentient and it is covered in tough medium blue leather. Because the book is always bursting open of its own volition, it is bound around with two leather straps buckled tightly at the spine. At night, it drums against the bookcase shelf and has to be held down with a brass weight. One of its sections is called 'The Dance of Nature' and here, codified and explained in animated drawings, are all the possibilities for movement in the human body.

[Tauschitz]

Written in a very perfunctory and direct style.

He likes to feel the dried kernels of corn give
beneath his hand's slow plummet, and the smell,
so rich a fragrance he has never quite
got used to it, under the seeming spell
of the charm of the commonplace. The white
hens bunch and strut, heads cocked, with tilted eyes,
till his hand sweeps out and the small kernels fly.

Well, I find myself once again in unusual circumstances, though, at last, of a far less dramatic sort. I have been accepted by the scholars of Candlekeep in their order on a provisionary basis. I must, however, prove myself worthy. Gratifyingly, the term "worthy" also seems to be a matter of character for the scholars of Candlekeep, rather than simply an issue of capability. Guide Wendel is to be commended for his caution.

Thus, I have been tasked with taking care of the livestock, washing and cleaning linens and laundry, and gardening. Some might think this beneath a wizard of my stature, but I find this activity restful, gratifying, and even fascinating - - except for the washing, which I loathe.

To take the point of fascinating, last week a rather extraordinary event happened to one of the young roosters we have. A dinner was to be prepared for several notables that were vising the keep, and I was instructed to slaughter a cockerel to be served at the festivities.

I chose a five-and-a-half-month-old rooster named Shady. But, being inexperienced with the axe, I missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact. (Who would have thought that my experience and knowledge of necromancy would be so useful in diagnosing what had gone amiss !)

Despite my botched handiwork, Shady was still able to balance on a perch and walk clumsily; within days of the failed killing he even attempted to preen and crow, although he could do neither. After the bird did not die, I decided to continue to care for Shady, feeding him a mixture of milk and water via a syringe from my laboratory; I also ground corn to a fine powder with mortar and pestle and mixed this into his nutrient liquid.

Shady is now growing used to his new and unusual center of mass (i.e., headless); he can easily get himself to the highest perches without falling. His crowing, though, is less impressive and consists of a gurgling sound made in his throat, leaving him unable to crow at dawn - which he still seems to detect despite having no eyes. Shady also spends his time preening and attempting to peck for food with his neck, though I keep him separated from the other chickens for fear that they might attack him.

I will conduct a port mortem after nature takes its course with Shady in order to see precisely what happened.

Zalvius Curiata

[Tauschitz]

Zalvius Curiata's Personal Library, Book IV: The Autobiography of the Succubus and Harlot, Alostriel

A pornography. It is a blackened and thumbed volume whose illustrations leave small ambiguity as to the book's content. The book is bound in black calfskin with damaged lead covers. The pages are grey-green and scattered with a sludge green powder, curled black hairs and stains of blood and other substances.

The slightest taint of steam or smoke rises from the pages when the book is opened, and it is always warm - like the little heat apparent in drying plaster or in flat stones after the sun has set. The pages leave acidic stains on the fingers and it is advisable to wear gloves when reading the volume.

Inside the front lead cover is the following sketch:



Inside the back lead cover is the following sketch:

[Tauschitz]

Zalvius Curiata's Personal Library, Book V: The Lore of Ruins



An antiquarian’s handbook, a checklist of the ancient world for the humanist interested in antiquity. Full of maps and plans of the archaeological sites of the world, temples, towns and ports, graveyards and ancient roads, measurements of one thousand statues of the gods Lolth, Qotal and Set, descriptions of every discovered obelisk and pedestal of the Celestial Sea, street plans of Procampur, Saerloon and the Ruins of Raudor, a directory of the possessions of the Lich Arklem Greeth, the tablets of Galaeron Nihmedu, the signatures of the half-demon Kaanyr Vhok; an essential volume for the melancholic historian who knows that nothing endures. The book’s proportions are like a block of stone, forty by thirty by twenty centimeters, the color of blue-veined marble, chalky and cool to the touch, with crisp, stiff pages printed in classical fonts with no W or J.