Burden of Time. Beasts and Humanoids (except elves) have disadvantage on saving throws while within 10 feet of Corvaine.
Contract, Not Faith. Corvaine cannot be intimidated by threats against the coven, its members or its plans, and he cannot be bought with money, protection or passage. He withdraws when the Hag Eye is threatened, or when there is nothing left to feed on — not when he is wounded.
Fey Ancestry. Corvaine has advantage on saving throws against being charmed, and magic can’t put him to sleep.
Forsaken by the Raven Queen. Corvaine is an abomination to his goddess, and she has withdrawn her protection. He does not know. The first time in an encounter that Corvaine uses Forsaken Escape while a chosen of the Raven Queen who knows her verdict can see him, that chosen may speak against it as a reaction: the teleport simply fails, and black feathers come away from him that are not his. Forsaken Escape cannot be used again for the rest of that encounter. Any later attempt to deny him in the same encounter instead requires Corvaine to fail a Charisma saving throw (DC 8 + the chosen’s proficiency bonus + the chosen’s Charisma modifier).
The Grey. If no curse, frightened effect or psychic damage has taken hold within 120 feet of Corvaine since the end of his last turn, he has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks until one does. Starved of sensation, he slides back toward the numbness he has spent a century escaping.
The Hag Eye. Corvaine bears the coven’s Hag Eye. Any hag of the coven can see and hear through it at will, at any distance, and Granny Grimstitch always knows roughly where he is. Corvaine has disadvantage on Charisma (Deception) checks made against any member of the coven. Destroying the Hag Eye injures every hag of the coven and cuts off Corvaine’s supply; he acts to protect it before he acts to protect himself.
Parasite of Fates. When a curse, a frightened effect or psychic damage takes hold of a creature Corvaine can see within 120 feet, he regains 5 (1d10) hit points, and he has advantage on his next attack roll or ability check before the end of his next turn. He is feeding, and it shows in his face.
Wardwright. Corvaine knows the location, trigger and trigger word of every ward he has authored. As a bonus action, he can suppress or detonate one of his own wards within 120 feet that he can see, or whose location he has memorized.
Multiattack. Corvaine makes three Shadow Spear attacks. He can replace one attack with a use of Spellcasting.
Shadow Spear. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft. or range 30/120, one target. Hit: 7 (1d6 + 4) piercing damage plus 26 (4d12) necrotic damage. Hit or Miss: The spear magically returns to the shadar-kai’s hand immediately after a ranged attack.
Spellcasting. Corvaine casts one of the following spells, requiring no material components and using Charisma as the spellcasting ability (spell save DC 16):
At will: arcane eye, mage armor, minor illusion, prestidigitation, speak with dead
1/day each: alarm, arcane gate, bane, confusion, darkness, fear, glyph of warding, major image, true seeing
Forsaken Escape (Recharge 6). When Corvaine takes damage, he turns invisible and teleports, along with any equipment he is wearing or carrying, up to 60 feet to an unoccupied space he can see. He remains invisible until the start of his next turn, or until he attacks or casts a spell. This is the Raven Queen’s gift, and she has taken it back — see Forsaken by the Raven Queen.
Description
Corvaine Liadon was a wardwright of a Shadowfell house, and a careful one. Good work, slow work, decades of it. Then the fading took the part of him that cared whether any of it stood. He kept taking contracts because the work was the last thing that still registered, and then the work stopped registering too.
Granny Grimstitch told him she could give it back.
The Bargain
What the Elder Barrow Hag actually sold him was not restoration. It was a supply. Hags are curse-craft, and a curse most certainly makes a man feel something — so Corvaine learned to ride the delivery. To be inside a working when it lands. To take the terror and the grief and the rot secondhand, in colour, and call it research.
He does keep notes. They are meticulous, they are written from the inside, and they identify their subjects by description. They are the most upsetting object in the Undercroft.
He is not a mercenary in the way money means. He cannot be outbid, bribed, or offered safe passage, because none of those are currency to him. Granny controls the dose, and the coven’s Hag Eye set into his body is how she meters it. He knows exactly what that makes him. He re-decides that it is worth it every morning.
The Verdict
The Raven Queen does not punish the fading. The fading is hers, and enduring it is the shadar-kai condition. She punishes what Corvaine built to escape it.
He does not live and he does not end. He holds himself at a standstill by drinking the fates of the living, and every curse the coven pushes through his eye is a death that was never written. He has made a trough of other men’s ends, and he steps clear of his own crimes four times a day wrapped in her gift.
She has taken the gift back. He has not noticed.
The Commission
Her instruction to her chosen is that he is not to continue — and she does not say kill. She is precise when she wants to be, and this time she was not. Her second clause is broader and outlives him: the crones have learned what her people can be bought with, and they will buy more. Every shadar-kai they take is stolen out of the proper order. That trade is to be made impossible.
Running Corvaine
He never fights where he was found. He scries, he wards, he holds his counterspell for whoever matters, he feeds on whatever lands, and he leaves. He will not die for Granny Grimstitch, and he will not leave without the eye.
The lever a clever party can find: stop hurting each other and he gets worse. Nothing landing means The Grey, and The Grey means a wizard with disadvantage on everything. A party that throws fear and psychic damage around will heal him all night.
The lever a desperate party might reach for: he wants a better supply, and they are carrying five Sparks of Sunlight, a werewolf, a vampire, and the Raven Queen’s own hand. Offering him any of it is its own kind of damnation, and it should be tempting anyway.
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