📚 Deacon Varnt, Scribe of the Last Ember
“The dark devours the nameless. So I write.”
Race/Class: Human Cleric (Disciple of Vaughn, Chronicler)
Level: 3
Alignment: Lawful (with melancholic tendencies)
HP: 12 | AC: 7 (leather tabard and ceremonial chain)
Attack: Quill knife (1d4) or sacred chant (minor turn undead 1/day)
Saving Throws: As Cleric 3
Spells Prepared:
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Cure Light Wounds, Detect Evil, Sanctuary
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Daily Rituals: Bless Ink, Oathbinding Scroll, Memorial Rite
🕯️ Appearance
Varnt is a narrow man in his fifties with ink-stained fingers, a graying tonsure, and tired, sunken eyes behind soot-smeared spectacles. His robes are blackened with candle ash and oil blotches, layered with strips of stitched parchment, prayer tags, and iron charms. His voice is slow and deliberate, like a man who speaks only when he means to remember what he says.
✒️ Personality and Roleplaying Varnt
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Detached but Devoted – He speaks with calm finality, rarely showing outward emotion, but each name he writes is a quiet grief.
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Soot Ritualist – Varnt paints names of the dead in thick, curling script using a brush of vulture feather and a blend of lamp oil and grave soot.
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Believes in Memory as Salvation – To be remembered is to resist oblivion. His doctrine holds that even those damned or forgotten can be spiritually “lifted” through remembrance.
📖 Sacred Duty: The Wall of Ash Names
Varnt maintains the Wall of Ash Names in the Bastion Chapel—a mural of iron plates where he inscribes the names of the fallen in a mixture of holy oil and cremation soot. These names cannot be washed away without desecration. Each one is recorded with care, along with a short phrase—“Slain in duty,” “Burned in faith,” “Returned from dark,” etc.
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He records only those who die in service, or whose sacrifice is witnessed by the faithful.
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Any name denied by Varnt is considered spiritually unacknowledged—a devastating insult to many adventurers.
🔮 Special Abilities & Lore
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Ink of Binding: Once per day, Varnt may inscribe a name into a scroll that causes a willing creature’s soul to anchor to a relic or place. This protects them from possession or soul-stealing (e.g., Magic Jar).
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Final Chronicle: Varnt can inscribe a name during a character’s dying breath, ensuring they appear on the Wall even if their body is lost. This grants a +1 morale bonus to their companions for the next day.
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Oil Quill Knife: His ceremonial blade is dipped in holy oil and used for name-blessing sigils. Can deal 1d4 radiant damage to undead when used in defense.
📜 Adventure Hooks
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Name Refused: A PC requests the name of a fallen comrade to be added to the Wall. Varnt refuses, citing that the soul was "claimed by something else." Why?
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Lost Chronicle: Varnt's original Book of the Dead—a ledger from before the Bastion—was stolen or lost in the ruins near Stonehell. Recovering it might reveal forgotten heroes or cursed names.
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Ash Bleeds Ink: Strange markings appear on the Wall overnight—names Varnt did not write. He asks the PCs to investigate before he calls it divine—or demonic—in origin.
🖋️ Quote for the Table
“Their stories are burned into this stone. Not for us to remember... but so that the dark cannot forget who it failed to break.”