Taliesin Caradoc

From Loranon

Player Character
Taliesin Caradoc

Player	Michael Good
Affiliations	PC Party
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Description

5ft, 6inches tall. About 140 lbs, not exactly skinny, but not fat either. He doesn’t have an ounce of muscle on him. He has black hair, greying at the temples. He doesn’t ever have much money, and as a result always wears the same brown striped trousers, cinched at the waist with a bit of rope, a white buttoned shirt that is generally half buttoned up, a wide brimmed brown hat, and a long brown coat. He hasn’t aged well, and probably looks about 30 years older than he actually is (elf years)

Background

The town stank of evil, wretched dark oppression wafting through alleyways and into the doorways of the dregs. The rain beat down as hard as it could, but it could do nothing to wash away the sin. The detective looked out through the tattered curtain that served as the front door to his “office” and watched the people hurry past eyes down, trying not to draw attention to themselves as they passed through the dregs.

Life wasn’t always like this, Taliesin could remember back before Pentulius took a heaping shit on the city -- people were decent back then, nearly a hundred years ago. Not necessarily good, but decent. Nowadays, you couldn’t walk through the dregs without getting at least roughed up on good days...and on bad days, well...bad days are when the apprentice wizards from the ruling party decide that they need moving targets to practice their spells on -- its not like the creatures living in the dregs are people to them anyway. No magic, no rights.

Before Pentulius, the Detective had been somebody. Not a great somebody, that wasn’t really the Detective’s nature -- but he knew people that knew people, which led folks that needed something to him. There was a steady stream of clients and women, food on the table, pipe-weed in the snuffbox, money to gamble with...

Back in those days, he had a real office, not just one that was only an office because none of the other squatters wanted to trifle with him. Well, they didn’t want to trifle with his dragon...too stupid to know an illusion. Their loss, his gain. Most of the city had forgotten about him, and he’d forgotten about most of them. The other squatters in the dregs referred to him as The Detective, not knowing his real name. Truth be told, there were some days where he almost forgot his real name too.

The Detective reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a single fat gold coin, and rolled in between his fingers. The moonlight splayed down through his window, and reflected off the coin. The room was lit only by a single half melted candle in a wooden holder on a desk in the middle of the room. A variety of ink bottles were in the upper right hand corner of the desk, some of them were even still upright, though a few of them had toppled, permanently staining that part of the desk. A thick leatherbound book sat in the middle of the desk on top of an open ledger. The ledger was a client list, noting successful investigations and open investigations, along with the amount paid by each client. They weren’t ranked in any discernible order. On a hook by the door, the Detective’s long brown coat was hanging, with his hat on top. It wasn’t secure, but the other people in the dregs respected him enough to leave his property alone.

Taliesin stood, and looked down at a pile of books on the floor -- old ledgers and case notes. He reached down to pick them up and move them, groaning as he leaned down. He, at first, tried to lift the whole stack and fails...he settles for grabbing them two at a time and moving them away from the window.

Once that task was done, he looked down at his journal. He opened up the book, leafed through it to a blank page, and then grabs a quill and began writing.

He wrote for about an hour, stopping and starting, occasionally getting up and looking out his front drape. About halfway through he lit a pipe, and puffed on it thoughtfully while he scratched out his thoughts. After an hour, a young human comes in, no more than 15, and says, “Detective Caradoc? Amelia had her baby. We’re all going to celebrate, we’d love it if you could join us!”

“Sure Manuel...I’ll be along in a moment,” the kids enthusiasm was annoying, but Amelia was a constant friend and was one of the few people in the dregs that Taliesin actually liked. He didn’t really know her full story, and was even less inclined to pry after that Annie girl was traced back to her, but good food, decent company, and free booze was as good a reason as any to head out for the evening.

The kid scampered out of his office, neglecting, as everyone did, to replace the drape. Taliesin sighed, stooped over slowly and picked up the tattered cloth, and rehung it across the doorway. The detective slipped into his coat, and placed his hat on his head, bending down again and knocked his pipe out against his boot. He stuck it in his pocket, and he reached behind him to flip the sign hanging by his doorway. It now read, “The Detective is Out”

Family, Friends, and Enemies

Taliesin’s parents are both still alive and part of the magocracy in Daromir. They were allied with the previous ruler, and lost a lot of status when Pentulius took over. They eagerly await the day that he is deposed, though they publicly support him. They haven’t spoken with Taliesin in at least 70 years. His refusal to embrace his magical talents was a source of constant frustration for them, and his obsession with being an investigator instead of a wizard is a mystery to them.

Taliesin has a complement of both friends and enemies as a result of his profession. He has no notable close friends, having a habit of finding humans more tolerable than elves, and having not ventured out very far lately -- all of his old friends have died off. The non-arcane magic users living in the dregs find Taliesin to be aloof, but friendly enough. Most of them wouldn’t take a magic missile for him, but they wouldn’t tell the guards where he was either.

The most notable enemy that Taliesin has is a former professor from the magical academy that Taliesin exposed for illegal magical experiments on citizens. Professor Jeremiah Moriartea was abducting the children of Darmomian citizens and trying to distill their magical ability from them. The distillation process was messy and fatal, and the children were never returned to their parents. Taliesin was hired to find a missing child, Josiah Fendrix, and tracked him to a Warehouse on the coast. When he got to the Warehouse, Taliesin tricked the guards into thinking there was a small army of townsfolk outside, and got them to bind themselves up in exchange for mercy. While he was unable to liberate the children (as they had been distilled), Taliesin was able to put an end to Moriartea’s schemes. Moriartea was dismissed from his position at the academy, but was not imprisoned due to lack of evidence (friendship with Pentulius).

Since then, Moriartea has constantly needled at Taliesin, sending hitmen and spreading rumors and lies about him.