Iron Gaze Investigator

"Secrets are not buried. They are only waiting for the right hands to unearth them."
— Gregor Velkholm, founder of the Iron Gaze

Description

As an Iron Gaze Investigator, you served within the Iron Gaze Investigative Agency, the most renowned private investigative force in Aetheris. Unlike city watchmen, provincial militias, or crown-bound law officers, the Iron Gaze is not tied to any single throne, council, or state. It goes where local justice is shackled by fear, corruption, coin, or political convenience. To some, that makes the Agency a rare instrument of truth. To others, it makes it a polished knife sold to whoever can afford to point it. Both views contain some truth, and every Iron Gaze operative learns quickly that justice rarely walks in clean boots.

Founded nearly a century ago by Gregor Velkholm, a former military intelligence officer disillusioned by bureaucratic paralysis and official corruption, the Iron Gaze was created to pursue crimes and conspiracies that governments would not touch or could not handle. From its headquarters in the Iron Hall of Veyndral, the Agency has grown into a continent-spanning network of investigators, analysts, covert operatives, and enforcers. Its case files reach into the courts of nobles, the tunnels of smugglers, the laboratories of rogue artificers, the camps of mercenary captains, and even the shifting intrigues of the Hallway of Worlds.

Your place within the Agency may have varied. Some serve openly as Investigators, the field agents who follow leads, interview witnesses, crack cases, and drag fugitives out of the dark. Others are part of the Shadow Division, vanishing beneath false names to infiltrate criminal circles, noble houses, or arcane institutions. Some become Iron Keepers, hardened operatives trusted with prisoner transport, high-risk seizures, and evidence protection. Others serve as Analysts, masters of forensic alchemy, magical examination, and pattern recognition, piecing together truths from blood traces, burned ledgers, coded letters, and the lies people tell when they think no one is listening closely enough. Wherever you stood, you were trained to be methodical, relentless, and difficult to fool.

Now, whether you still serve the Agency, left its employ, or operate as one of its unofficial alumni, you carry its habits into every investigation and every conversation. You notice the missing detail, the rehearsed alibi, the room that was cleaned too recently, the noble smile that arrives half a heartbeat too late. You know how to build a case from fragments, how to test fear against fact, and how to keep asking questions after other people have decided the truth is too expensive. In a world full of conspiracies, magical crime, organized smuggling, and politically useful silence, that makes you either invaluable or deeply inconvenient.

Attribute Bonuses

Life in the Iron Gaze sharpened your eye, instincts, and capacity for cool deduction.

Choose one of the following:

• Intelligence +2, Wisdom +1
• Intelligence +1, Wisdom +1, Dexterity +1

Using the Iron Gaze Investigator Background

This background is ideal for Rogues, Rangers, Fighters, Bards, Wizards, Artificers, Clerics, and certain Paladins or Warlocks who want ties to private investigation, organized crime cases, magical forensics, undercover work, intelligence gathering, and the uneasy intersection of justice and paid service.

An Iron Gaze Investigator might be:

• A field Investigator specializing in missing persons, organized crime, or conspiracy work
• A Shadow Division operative trained in infiltration, disguise, and embedded intelligence
• An Iron Keeper focused on dangerous extractions, witness security, and evidence protection
• An Analyst adept at forensic alchemy, magical crime examination, and hidden pattern detection
• A former operative disillusioned by the Agency’s wealthy clients
• A relentless detective who still believes the truth is worth hunting, even when it belongs to the wrong people

This background works especially well in campaigns involving:

• organized crime
• magical fraud
• political blackmail
• undercover investigations
• missing persons
• smuggling networks
• private justice
• the tension between neutral professionalism and moral compromise

"No secret stays buried forever. The only real question is who finds it first, and what they decide it is worth."

Ability Scores: Life in the Iron Gaze sharpened your eye, instincts, and capacity for cool deduction.

Choose one of the following:

• Intelligence +2, Wisdom +1
• Intelligence +1, Wisdom +1, Dexterity +1

Feat: Your background grants the following feat options, representing your trained perception and relentless professional awareness:

• Observant
• Alert

At the DM’s discretion, Skilled also suits investigators with especially broad operational training.

Skill Proficiencies: Your training emphasized deduction, fieldcraft, and the ability to interpret people and evidence under pressure.

• Investigation
• Perception

Tool Proficiencies: You were trained in the practical tools of surveillance, analysis, and covert inquiry.

• Thieves’ Tools
• Forgery Kit or Alchemist’s Supplies
• Choose one: Calligrapher’s Supplies, Herbalism Kit, or Investigator’s Forensic Kit (DM’s equivalent)

Languages: The Iron Gaze works across borders, classes, and criminal networks, requiring broad practical fluency.

• Common
• Two additional languages of your choice

These are often chosen from trade languages, criminal cants, diplomatic tongues, or regional languages useful for fieldwork and infiltration.

Equipment: You begin with the following equipment:

• A dark, well-made longcoat or reinforced investigator’s leathers
• A case journal containing coded notes, old leads, and unfinished observations
• Thieves’ Tools
• A Forgery Kit or compact alchemical testing set
• An evidence satchel containing wax markers, twine, charcoal sticks, and sample vials
• A badge, signet, or authority token of the Iron Gaze, current or retired
• A hooded lantern, magnifying lens, or collapsible spyglass
• A concealed dagger, baton, or sidearm appropriate to your campaign
• A belt pouch containing 15 gold pieces

Suggested Characteristics

d6	Personality Trait
1	I notice what has been moved, cleaned, rehearsed, or omitted almost instinctively.
2	I ask questions with the patience of someone already expecting resistance.
3	I prefer evidence to emotion, though I know both matter.
4	I keep my voice calm when others are frightened, angry, or lying.
5	I distrust coincidences that happen at politically useful moments.
6	I rarely stop investigating just because someone important tells me to.

d6	Ideal
1	Truth. The facts matter even when no one wants them to. (Lawful)
2	Justice. Someone has to pursue the crimes power would prefer forgotten. (Good)
3	Order. Society decays when conspirators act without consequence. (Lawful)
4	Pragmatism. A solved case is worth more than a beautiful theory. (Neutral)
5	Freedom. No authority should be above scrutiny, however respectable its seal. (Chaotic)
6	Discipline. Emotion may begin an investigation, but discipline finishes it. (Neutral)

d6	Bond
1	I still carry notes from the first case that taught me how ugly the truth can be.
2	A mentor in the Agency taught me to see the pattern beneath the panic, and I honor them still.
3	There is one case file I never closed, no matter what the official ledger says.
4	I owe my life to a partner, informant, or witness who trusted me at the wrong moment.
5	Someone powerful remembers what I found, and I know they would rather I disappeared.
6	I believe the Agency can still serve justice, even if it sometimes bends too near the coin that funds it.

d6	Flaw
1	I have trouble letting mysteries rest, even when doing so would be wiser.
2	I can become cold or clinical when others want compassion first.
3	I assume hidden motives too quickly in situations that may be simpler than I think.
4	I sometimes value the truth of a case more than the peace it would destroy.
5	I am too comfortable prying into the lives of others.
6	I know how useful blackmail can be, and that knowledge tempts me more than I like to admit.

Contacts

Your time in the Iron Gaze left you with a broad and useful network of professional contacts. These may include a field Investigator in a distant port, an Analyst in the Iron Hall who can compare evidence against old case files, a Shadow Division operative whose name you were never supposed to know, an Iron Keeper who handles dangerous extractions, a magistrate willing to outsource inconvenient justice, or a fixer in the Hallway of Worlds who feeds tips to the Agency for coin or protection. Such contacts can provide leads, safe meeting sites, coded communication, access to criminal dossiers, introductions to informants, or warnings when a case is already entangled with politics, noble contracts, or organized crime. They are not always trustworthy in the moral sense, but they are usually reliable in the professional one.