Character Biography: William "Billy" Eventow

[Hullack]

A Sucker’s Bet

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William looked into the dark water gently lapping against the sun-and-salt weathered pier of the boat slip. Behind him issued the ambient noise and torchlight of the lower city; ahead he saw only the endless black of the ocean and his own shabby boots dangling over the edge of the pier. Soles worn-through, leather torn and filthy, all in all they did nothing to protect from the everlasting damp of the docks and offered even less comfort.

“Useless,” he assessed. “Worthless. Just like the man inside them.” He thought for a moment to simply kick them off into the void and be rid of them. A second darker thought bubbled up.

“Don’t. You might need the extra weight.”

He wiped the back of his hand across his split lip. The blood smear left a small red streak in the filth. Small pains flared at the movement: torn muscles from loading crates; aching lungs lowly fevered from the constant dank air; bruises from the beating he’d taken; and something sharper – a throbbing sting in his palm.

He opened his hand and looked. A single gold-piece glinted dimly. Blood has dried in the grooves of its face. He’d held it so tightly during the beating it’d bit into his palm and it took some effort to pull it free from the wound. A sticky red-rimmed imprint remained in its place. Why had he cared so much to keep it? Driven by desperation for Spice they’d taken everything else; everything of value at least. They’d left only his rags, his battered boots, and his life. What did one last gold piece matter? What could it even buy that mattered?

“A warm room. A night off the streets,” his mind answered back. William’s eyes drifted over his shoulder to the glow of the lower city. Even at night he spotted the alley leading to his father’s hovel almost as if it called to him.

“This is where you belong,” was its song. “You know your place.”

He turned back to the sea. There were no ships on the water. Nothing disturbed the silence and dark.

“How bad could it be?” he wondered. It would be easy enough to slip in, a breath of brine, maybe a few moments panic, and then off to what the Gods promised after. He sat with the question a while and weighed the finality of it.

“Enough,” he decided, “I won’t live like this anymore.” His arms flexed. His weight shifted forward.

“Well then, what if I could change it?”

William froze. The voice was out of place. It was too refined for the lower city, and the accent was strange. Loading cargo he’d overheard crews sailing from the jungles of Chult to the frigid shores of Icewind Dale and every port between and yet couldn’t place it. And it was also much too close. William knew the docks. He’d walked them since he had any memory of walking at all. The wooden boards of this pier were so worn and battered they groaned and squealed if even a cat crossed them. In the quiet of the night he should have heard the approach. He turned and what he saw made no sense – a man dressed in well tailored finery, noble bearing, alone, at night, unarmed and wearing an easy smile.

William’s placed his hand into his tattered pocket, pantomimed a concealed blade, and hoped the bluff seemed less pathetic than it felt.

“The hells you say to me, freak?”

“… a chance to live differently.” The man offered no reaction to threat or insult, and spoke again in the same unbothered tone, “a chance to explore your potential.”

“Did he overhear me? I didn’t even say any of that out loud did I,” some part of William’s mind demanded protectively. “Could I ha-” There was a shimmer in the dim light and some fluttering movement that broke his train of thought. It took William a moment to understand that it was a coin flipping in the darkness. The stranger caught it between two fingers. Another part of William’s mind recognized it. There was blood drying on its face, his finger traced the imprint it had left on his palm. When had he taken it?

“… but that’s all it is. A chance.” The words were spoken as if in apology, but the mans eyes reflected no matching sympathy. “How’s your luck?”

Profile

Full name: William “Billy” Eventow
Aliases/Nicknames: Billy Bad-Luck, Back-Luck Bill, Billy Flotsam, Billy Slice (Self-Granted), Fancy-Bill (Self-Granted), Billy Big-Boots (Self-Granted), The Legend Himself (Self-Granted)
Age: 20
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Date of birth: Shieldmeet, 1340
Place of birth: Baldur’s Gate
Alignment: CN
Patron deity: Beshaba
Profession: Former: Stevedore and Petty Criminal / Current: Adventurer
Classes: Rogue, Warlock, Shifter
Primary language: Chondathan, Common

Secondary languages:

Thieves Cant:	Fluent
Elven:	Spoken Proficiency: Intermediate High	Written Proficiency: Intermediate Low
Dwarven:	Spoken Proficiency: Advanced	Written Proficiency: Intermediate Low
Halfling:	Spoken Proficiency: Advanced	Written Proficiency: Intermediate High
Orcish:	Spoken Proficiency: Intermediate High	Written Proficiency: Intermediate Low
Infernal:	Spoken Proficiency: Supernaturally Fluent	Written Proficiency: Supernaturally Fluent

Physical description:
William is scrawny young man with muted brown hair and dark eyes. He dresses in opulent clothing which is often overstated for situation at hand resulting in a somewhat odd pastiche of nobility. He rarely smiles instead defaulting to a hard expression meant to intimidate would-be aggressors. Due to his small size and nonthreatening appearance this can often have the opposite effect. A marred coin is worn around his neck like an amulet. If closely examined it appears to have a thumbprint scorched onto its face and a rust colored substance has settled and dried in the hollows of its etchings.

Psychological description:
William projects a veneer of bravado and toughness learned from a childhood spent in the rough and squalid streets of the lower city. He learned early lessons that any outward show of weakness was exploited by those around him. When threatened he will nearly always escalate assuming that backing down will only lead to future victimization. For similar reasons he will often react sharply to any joke at his expense even if good natured.

As William has amassed wealth through adventuring he has begun to cloak himself in the trappings of those he sees as ‘above’ him in a desperate attempt to distance himself from his former life. He lacks refinement and any real understanding of decorum due to his upbringing which hinders such efforts.

William holds a bitter resentment towards his father, an abusive alcoholic. He refuses to use or recognize his surname in an attempt to avoid connecting himself to the man, and violently resists attempts to pry into his past.

Religious views:
Primary Deity: Beshaba

Due to the hardship of life and his penchant for rotten luck, William has accepted the mantle of a born loser and wears it with an almost defiant pride. He offers a bitter thanks to the Maid of Misfortune when life frequently dumps its misery upon him.

William offers prayers to other Gods as life demands as most do. He holds elevated respect for the Church of Ilmater for their work in the Docks, and to the Bitch Queen due to his upbringing around seafarers. If Faerun had a 'missed connections' listing, it may feature William and Hoar. As a doomed man who refuses to back down or turn the other cheek William defaults to many of the Doombringer's teachings. However, due to his limited religious knowledge and Hoar's relatively small presence in the sword coast he and the Lord of Three Thunders remain strangers.


Pact:

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Bakassur, a powerful rahshasa who’s true nature is unknown to William, revealed himself to William in a moment of desperation and weakness. Bakassur offered William a coin-toss and should William call correctly the ability to change his life in exchange for his ‘last coin.’ The toss was rigged in William's "favor" and William was bestowed a seed of potential – one which he has grown through practice – learning to channel it outward into shifting energies of fire, lightning, and rime and to focus it inward to warp his body into various forms. This boon came with a high cost which was not revealed to William. Bakassur marked the coin with powerful necromancy akin to a soul gem. Upon William's death, should Bakassur will it, William's soul will be bound to the coin and unable to pass into the afterlife.

Bakassur's seat of power is in Calimport where he wields considerable political, economic, and social power gained through his corrupted dealings, spying, and manipulations. Possessed by unending avarice he now hopes to extend his claws north along the trade-way into the sword coast. In William he saw a vulnerable man he mold into a useful lackey and control under threat to his soul. He has given William a long leash since their first encounter hoping the man would grow in capability. However it is only a matter of time before the fiend returns to collect on his investment.

Biography

Family
Silas Eventow (Father)

• Lives a the docks in Baldur’s Gate.
• Aging and resentful at the circumstances and failures of his life.
• Expresses his anger through alcoholism, abuse, and violence.
• Directs this anger at William following his mother’s abandonment.

Lindsey Eventow (Mother)

• Alive in Neverwinter, working in a laundry.
• Stashed away enough coin for take a ship to Neverwinter in 1345 and fled Silas’ abuse leaving William, aged 5, behind.
• Feels guilt at leaving William for her abandonment, but avoids confronting those feelings.
• Whereabouts unknown to William

History
The unplanned result of a youthful tryst, William’s parents decided to marry and make a go of it when the pregnancy was discovered. The marriage was a disaster and resulted in misery for everyone involved. Silas, his father, took to constant drinking which left him unable to hold down any jobs short of manual labor. It also turned him from an already ill-tempered man, to one prone to unpredictable and frequent bouts of violence. William’s mother Lindsey was the usual object of this abuse until she fled the household on a boat for Neverwinter. With her absence William became focus leading him to spend as much time away from the home as he could.

Raised mostly on the streets, William grew into bog-standard Balduran dock trash doing unskilled labor and seizing on opportune moments for less-than-legal income when presented. His only claim to any notoriety was a seeming preternatural tendency for bad luck. He earned him the nickname “Billy Bad-Luck” from the gamblers who took his money, the Fist who jailed him when his petty crimes inevitably failed, and those that hired him only to have the job stymied by some inexplicable accident.

William’s fortunes have drastically changed in last months following an encounter with a stranger one night at the docks which granted him a seed of power that he has cultivated beyond what he once thought possible. Now living the life of an adventurer, he’s acquired wealth he once only dreamed of and seeks to redefine himself as something better than the man he once was.

Future

• William sought out the tutelage of Niyressa Dawncrow of the Bladestone academy having heard that she offers instruction on how to best fight in forms other than one’s own. During his initial interview the arcanist examined the source of Williams’ powers, alerted him to their infernal origin, and warned him of potential cost they may carry. William now hopes to find those more familiar with matters of infernal pacts to find better understanding and a way out of any trouble he may have brought upon himself. His leads include the Red Wizards of the Thayan Enclave, skilled priests/priestesses of the City’s temples, the Witch of Darkhold, and the Scribes of Candlekeep. Niyressa also offered to contact Lord Osric Vale who may have some insight on the nature of Pact Magic. As of yet William has been unable to reconnect with the arcanist and study under her.
• In an attempt to reinvent himself, William sought the services of House Divine. Appalled by William’s uncouth manners, Mistress Netanya instructed him to seek out Aidan Thatcher if he wished to learn to become a man of worth.

Potential Heirloom Items

• Marked Coin: Worn as an amulet by William, it is, unbeknownst to him, a yet incomplete soul coin marked with his blood and awaiting his soul. Anyone sufficiently skilled in divination magics may reveal otherwise invisible writing circling its rim and spelling out the details of his pact.
• A jeweled ring stolen while unloading a wealthy merchant ship from Caminshan. A theft which brought Bakassur's eye upon William.
• A loaded die carved of black pearl (palmed from a lost dice game) and subtly infused with misfortune.

Plot hooks

• William was marked by the servants of Malar during the high hunt as special prey to be hunted. He helped lead a large band of adventurers into the Wood of Sharp teeth and prevailed, however in characteristic turn of fate he also accidently sowed the seed of their return in the future.
• The terms of William’s pact have left his soul imperiled, and he will naturally find conflict with the one who seeks to claim it. He may also be leveraged by those who can offer him a way to untangle himself from the mess he’s created.