Half-Horned Kal

Level 3 Savant (Detective)

Gender: Female

Age: 22

Heritage: Minotaur

Culture: Underbridge

Background: Criminal

Languages: Can read, write, speak, and sign Common, Giant, and Goblin

Destiny: Light

Combat

Hit Points: 21/21

Speed: 30 feet

Size: medium

Armor Class: 16 (Adroit Defense, +1 Magic Coat)

Attacks

• Dagger:+4 | 1d4+2 Piercing | Simple, Finesse, Dual-Wielding
• Sling: +4 | 1d4+2 Bludgeoning | Simple, Range (30/120)
• Garotte:+1 (disadvantage) | On a hit against a large or smaller target that requires air to breathe, the creature is grappled and begins to suffocate.

Skills

Proficiencies

• Weapons: Simple and Improvised
• Saving Throws: Dexterity and Intelligence
• Skills: Arcana, Deception, Engineering, Insight, Investigation, Medicine, Perception, Sleight of Hand, and after each long rest, one of (Culture, Nature, or Religion)
• Tools: Alchemists Supplies, Forgery Kit, Gaming Set, Thieves' Tools

Expertise

• Investigation can always use Intelligence (Academic Exemplar)
• Investigation counts as a lore skill (Academic Exemplar)
• expertise on Investigation can go up from d8 to d12 (Academic Exemplar)
• +1 expertise on Investigation (Academic Exemplar)
• +1 expertise on Investigation to locate or gather info about black markets and so on (A Nose for Vice)
• +1 expertise on the Gossip journey activity (An Ear for Gossip)
• +1 expertise on checks to navigate underground, +2 if in the underbridge (Underroute Native)
• +1 expertise on Initiative checks (Guard Instinct)

Specialities

• Investigation (Forensics, Gathering Rumours)
• Engineering (Architecture)
• Medicine (Autopsy)

Abilities

Dominant Presence

Making use of her prominent size or deep voice, Kal can gain advantage on a Charisma check or saving throw once per long rest.

Labyrinthine Recall

As a Minotaur, Kal can perfectly recall any path she have traveled. Her memory is similarly reliable regarding knowledge, though it can take her a while to methodically retrace how she learned something. Whenever Kal completes a long rest, she can choose one of the following skills: Arcana, Culture, Engineering, Nature, Religion. She gains proficiency in that skill until she takes another long rest.

Guard Instinct

Kal can spend an action to stamp her hoof and sense vibrations and reverberations in the ground, granting her tremorsense with a range of 30 feet until the start of her next turn or until she moves, whichever comes first. She also gains an expertise die on Initiative checks.

Underoute Native

While Kal is in an urban environment (including, but not limited to, sewers, cemeteries, settlements, or ruins) or a bridge, her player can ask the Narrator if the Underbridge reaches to this area. If it does, she is always able to locate a safe, hidden location to use as a haven - though it may already have occupants. Furthermore, she gains an expertise die on checks to navigate underground, which increases to a d6 while in the Underbridge.

A Nose for Vice

Growing up underbridge has made Kal familiar with illicit activity. She gains an expertise die on Investigation checks to locate or gather information about black markets and similar locations.

An Ear for Gossip

Her childhood spent in the Underbridge’s markets has given Kal a knack for gathering and spreading rumors. She gains an expertise die to all checks to perform the Gossip journey activity.

Thieves’ Cant

Kal know thieves’ cant: a set of slang, hand signals, and code terms used by professional criminals. A creature that knows thieves’ cant can hide a short message within a seemingly innocent statement. A listener who knows thieves’ cant understands the message.

Thieves’ cant also includes a set of secret written symbols which can convey simple concepts associated with crime such as danger, secret exits, sellers of stolen goods, and whether a location is the territory of a specific gang.

Adroit Defense

Kal constantly analyzes combat situations to improve her defensive posture, proactively interfering to guide attacks away from herself. While she isn't wearing armour, her AC equals 10 + her Dexterity modifier + her Intelligence modifier. She cannot use a shield and still gain this benefit.

Furthermore, when she is wearing armor she's proficient in, she can use her Intelligence in place of her Dexterity to determine her AC.

Schemes, Tricks, and Maneuvers

Clever Schemes

Memory Palace

Kal can recall everything she's seen or heard within the past three weeks (Intelligence Bonus). In addition, she can retain expertise dice gained from the last two masterwork books she's read rather than one, and the size of the expertise die she gains from the most recent masterwork book she's read increases to d6 (but decreases to d4 once she reads another).

Reserved Seating

Kal has forethought of when and where she might need to be places. If she knew you would be in a given area, once per day she can call upon this forethought to have a vehicle or mount waiting for her and her companions, or to have a reservation available at a venue. She pays any appropriate costs. For exceptional requests, she may need to make a Persuasion check or owe someone a favor.

Savant Tricks

• Sweeping Stride: When Kal moves at least 10 feet and enters a space adjacent to a creature no more than one size larger than her, she can try to trip it. If the creature fails a Dexterity saving throw , it falls prone . If it succeeds, instead Kal's movement ends in the space she entered to use this ability.
• Look Closely: Kal may expend this trick to take the Search action as a free action, gaining advantage on the check she makes.
• Assess Vulnerability: When Kal attacks a creature, she can use her Intelligence bonus in place of another ability score bonus for the attack roll and damage roll. This applies to all attacks she makes against it before the start of her next turn, but not to attacks she makes against other creatures.

Maneuvers

Martial Traditions: Mirror's Glint, Razor's Edge.

• Deceptive Stance (1 point)

  1st degree Mist and Shade Bonus Action (Stance)

  With practice and training you learn how to shut off your facial reactions amidst battle, taking on a passive countenance from which nothing can be easily gleaned.

  You gain an expertise die on Deception and Sleight of Hand checks made in combat

• Perceptive Stance (1 point)

  1st degree Razor’s Edge Bonus Action (Stance)

  Nothing within your sight is of minor significance and you take in your surroundings with great care even as arrows fly and blades clash upon shields.

  Your passive Perception score increases by 3. In addition, you gain an expertise die on Perception checks.

• Wary Stance (0 points)

  1st degree Mirror’s Glint Bonus Action (Stance)

  With a keen eye you constantly assess everything within sight, paying close attention to subtle visual cues and tells to better anticipate an opponent.

  You gain an expertise die on Insight checks and increase your passive Insight score by 3.

• Blind Stance (1 Point)

  1st degree Mindful Body Bonus Action (Stance)

  Even when you can’t see, you are able to sense your environment.

  While in this stance you have blindsight to a range of 30 feet, and you are immune to the blinded condition.

• Leading Throw (1 point)

  1st degree Mirror’s Glint Reaction

  An opponent that strikes at you invites peril as they find the momentum from their attack turned against them.

  When a creature within your reach misses you with a melee weapon attack, you can use your reaction to try to throw it. The creature makes a Dexterity saving throw or moves 15 feet in a straight line in a direction of your choice.

Equipment

Total Weight: 34.5 lbs

Petty cash on hand: 4 gold, 7 silver.

Worn

• Common Clothes 5s, 3lbs
• Signet Ring 5s, 0lbs
• signal whistle 5c, 0lbs
• dagger 2g, 1lbs
• hooded lantern 5g, 2lbs
• Raven Gang Scimitar 3lbs

Map Case

• Memento: A newspaper clipping announcing the apprehension of a hobgoblin pimp, the target of her first case after escaping her family.

Pouch #1

• Forgery Kit 15g 5w
• 10 pieces of Chalk 1s, 0w
• tinderbox 5s, 1w

Pouch #2

• Flask of Ether 20g, 1lb
• 5 flasks of Oil 5s, 5lbs

Pouch #3

• Thieves' Tools 25g, 1lb
• Silk Rope (50 feet) 10g, 5lbs

Pouch #4

• Sack 1c, 0.5lbs
• 4 Vials (can hold 4 oz each) 4g, 0lbs
• Ball Bearings (1000) 1g, 2lbs
• String (100 feet) 1g, 0lbs
• Bell 1g, 0lbs
• Magnifying Glass 25g, 0lbs
• Steel Mirror 5g, 0.5lbs
• Dice Set 1s, 0lbs

Pouch #5

• Garotte 3s, 0lbs
• Sling 2s, 0lbs
• 20 sling bullets 4c, 1.5lbs

Destiny: Light

Kal is primarily motivated by a desire for truth and understanding. She works as a detective, not only because she is very good at it, nor because she wants to get back at her criminal family, but because of her deep and abiding love of the truth. She abhors secrets, and has an insatiable curiosity to get to the bottom of things.

She gains inspiration whenever she uncovers a secret that someone went to great lengths to hide.

Whenever she fails an Insight or Perception check, she may use her reaction and spend her Inspiration to get any information that would've been revealed had she succeeded.

Fulfilling her Destiny

She will fulfill her destiny when she reveals a truth that alters the public's perception of the world.

When she does, she will gain the "Illuminating Figure" ability, which grants +1 Expertise on Insight checks and all checks to find hidden enemies or see through illusions.

Character Notes

Backstory

She was raised the daughter of the godfather of the minotaur crime family, an old and powerful syndicate in the big city. At a young age, her tutors recognized her brilliant deductive mind, and her father put her on the task of finding ways to cause legal troubles for their criminal competetion.

Around the age of 15, she found out that her father had betrothed her in an arranged marriage to a rival syndicate to cement their alliance. She objected and refused to go through with it. A couple of her fathers goons beat the daylights out of her, breaking both of her horns, in order to try and 'beat some sense into her'. Naturally, she fled, and made her home in the Underbridge, a complex maze of tunnels beneath the city.

While in the Underbridge, she honed her deductive skills by leveraging her criminal background towards the solving of crimes, funneling evidence to the authorities to cause trouble for the various syndicates above the city streets.

• Connection: Her father, the Minotaur Don, who had her cast out and her horns broken.
• Memento: A newspaper clipping announcing the apprehension of a hobgoblin pimp, the target of her first case after escaping her family.

Home

Kal and Ali rent the second floor of a crumbling brick apartment building in a rough neiborhood. Four rooms clustered around a narrow stairwell. Two of the rooms are devoted to Ali's tinkering, while one is a sitting room where Kal likes to interview potential clients, and the last is Kal's cramped bedroom/library/office/laboratory. They try to keep the sitting room in decent order, but the other rooms are a perpetual mess of projects, cases, and so on, piled up on one another. The detritus of an interesting life.

Interests, Hobbies, & Friends

Kal is a woman of single-minded focus. She lives for the case, the mystery solved, for justice served. When she doesn't have a case to focus on, she loafs about aimlessly, reads any book or newspaper she can get her hands on, and experiments with assorted drugs with a crew of trollkin under the Pastry Avenue bridge. Her dealer in the Underbridge is an easy-going Gnoll lady, who goes by "The Walrus", with whom she has a friendly personal and professional relationship with. She also likes to occasionally gamble on games of chance down at her favored local pub. The owner there, Hera, an old woman with a crystal eye, has been fond of Kal ever since she turned up in the neighborhood as a young teenager, years ago, and will readily feed rumors and discount drinks her way. She has kind of been like a surrogate aunt to the wayward minotaur. Once a case is on her table, all of her friends quickly turn into contacts, from whom she tries to get any information or rumors that can help her solve the mystery.