Dimir Operative Custom Background: Lorehold Student

You're a spy. Secrets and misinformation are your stock in trade. You skulk in the shadows, infiltrate other guilds, and steal the most precious secrets, whether they're written in locked journals or hidden away in someone's mind. Even you might not be aware of all the reasons behind the missions you carry out. Sometimes a mission's sole purpose is to conceal the motivation behind another strike performed in a different part of the city, or simply to spread fear.

As part of your covert work for House Dimir, you maintain a false identity as a member of another guild. You can choose your secondary guild or roll to determine it randomly. This secondary guild membership determines a portion of your starting equipment and is also where most of your contacts come from. You infiltrate your secondary guild to learn its secrets, keep tabs on its activities, or perhaps undermine it from within.

Skill Proficiencies: Two of your choice

Tool Proficiencies: One tool proficiency or language of your choice

Languages: One tool proficiency or language of your choice

Equipment: A Dimir insignia, three small knives, a set of dark-colored common clothes

Spell List

Prerequisite: Spellcasting or Pact Magic class feature

For you, the spells on the Dimir Guild Spells table are added to the spell list of your spellcasting class. (If you are a multiclass character with multiple spell lists, these spells are added to all of them.)

 

Spell Level	Spells
Cantrip	encode thoughts, mage hand
1st	comprehend languages, disguise self, identify, sleep
2nd	borrowed knowledge, detect thoughts, locate object, pass without trace
3rd	gaseous form, meld into stone, nondetection, speak with dead, spirit guardians
4th	arcane eye, freedom of movement, stone shape
5th	flame strike, legend lore, modify memory

Your magic is meant to be subtle and undetectable, but it might pull shadows or clouds of mist around you as you cast your spells. Using the Encode Thoughts cantrip, you can turn a creature's thoughts (including your own) into a thought strand that others can potentially read, share, or steal. These thought strands are treated as valuable currency among the Dimir.

Consider customizing how your spells look when you can cast them. Your Lorehold spells might create displays of golden light. You might use a tome or a scroll as a spellcasting focus, and your spell effects might reflect the appearance of the reference books you study.

Suggested Characteristics

Skilled at infiltration, disguise, and deception, members of House Dimir appear inscrutable. Your true personality and ideals might never manifest, or they might mark you as a quirky member of your secondary guild.

d8	Personality Trait
1	I'm good at hiding my true thoughts and feelings.
2	When I'm in doubt about revealing something, I assume it's a secret, and I don't share it.
3	I like to sound mysterious, because wisdom hidden grows deeper with time.
4	I have no patience with people who get in my way.
5	I love hearing about other people's nightmares.
6	Combat is meant to be quick, clean, and one-sided.
7	I like to stick to the shadows.
8	I never show my anger. I just plot my revenge.

d6	Ideal
1	Guild. My guild is all that really matters. (Any)
2	Control. I like pulling the strings. (Lawful)
3	Secrets. I collect secrets and never reveal them. (Any)
4	Knowledge. I want to know as much as I can about this city and how it works. (Any)
5	Independence. I value the freedom to pursue my own goals without interference. (Chaotic)
6	Nihilism. I don't believe in anything, and anyone who does is a fool. (Neutral)

d6	Bond
1	I discovered a secret I can't let anyone else uncover - including my guild superiors.
2	I formed a close friendship or romance with someone in the guild I'm infiltrating.
3	The Dimir agent who recruited me was unmasked and killed. My revenge on the killers will be thorough and painful.
4	I spend as much time as I can in the Ismeri Library because I'm certain an information hub operates behind its facade. I want its secrets!
5	I'm utterly loyal to my superior in the guild, more than to the guild or its guildmaster.
6	Someone has discovered my true identity.

d6	Flaw
1	I like secrets so much that I'm reluctant to share details of a plan even with those who need to know.
2	I would let my friends die rather than reveal my true identity.
3	I have trouble trusting anyone but myself.
4	I have a particular vice that puts all my secrets at risk if I'm not careful.
5	I'm pretty sure I've done something horrible that I can't remember because of the guild's mind magic.
6	I put too much trust in the people who give me orders.

Contacts

As an agent of House Dimir working undercover, you have limited contacts within your guild. Your relationships within your secondary guild, in the guise of your false identity, are usually more extensive.

Roll once on the Dimir Contacts table, giving you an ally who serves as your contact in Dimir. 

d8	Contact
1	I know a Dimir courier who relays messages to me from someone higher up on the chain of command.
2	I get orders from a shapeshifter I recognize only through a series of code phrases we exchange.
3	An ostentatiously wealthy vampire is my secret guild superior, summoning me to a luxurious estate by means of coded messages.
4	I have never met my guild contact, but I receive telepathic messages, usually in my dreams.
5	I've never met my guild contact, but I get coded messages from a pattern of street lights and graffiti.
6	I didn't discover the identity of my guild contact until after we had begun a romantic relationship.
7	My superior maintains an elaborate identity as a young street urchin … unless it's all a lie, and I'm being sent on ridiculous missions by a twisted child.
8	My sibling and I both get telepathic orders from a mysterious contact, and I'm starting to question the authenticity of my sibling's orders.