Pixie Led | Application | Caduceus Clay

[steepwithdead]

🦋 OOC Information

Name: Akai
Contact: fontech on Plurk, "fontech" on Discord
Age: 39
Other Characters: n/a
Invitation: here
Permissions: here

🦋 IC Information

Character Name: Caduceus Clay
Age: over 100 years, looks to be in his 20s
Canon: Critical Role
Canon Point: Campaign 2, episode 131 (at the teleportation point)
Character History: character wikia
Canon Abilities:
Caduceus is a level 14 cleric of the Grave domain, subject to standard rules of Dungeons & Dragons 5e. His full list of spells are outlined on his Wikia. His summarized abilities are as follows-

As a firbolg:
-detect magic
-disguise himself temporarily
-briefly turn invisible
-can speak with plants and animals (one way, they understand him)

As a cleric:
-he can heal, revive the dead, commune with nature and his goddess (refer to limits below)
-can cause harm through elemental or radiant/necrotic magic
-can buff, support, or otherwise grant abilities to others around him
-has a unique cantrip Decompose which allows him to expedite decomposition of dead things to grow fungus/moss/flowers in a short span (sometimes vines on a large corpse- like a death/goth version of Druidcraft)

Specific limitations for game-breaking/ability trade purposes:
-he'll have his power through the Wildmother but direct verbal communication won't work (eg. Commune and Divination)
-spells like Command & Scrying would require out of character permission to work on other characters and/or NPCs, otherwise it's an auto-fail to try
-there's a list of spells below being traded for a court ability

Inventory:
-symbol of the Wildmother
-his mother's necklace (woven gold cord with a sculpted clay icon of the Wildmother's wreath)
-bracelet from his sister Calliope, woven burlap with glass beads
-Blightstaff
-Shield of Retribution
-Periapt of Wound Closure
-normal daily armor & battle outfit
-component bag for spells (I'm taking out a bunch of them to make him work for stuff though)

🦋 Personality

Option 1:

1. Has your character always believed in magic? Do they have something influencing their perspective on the supernatural/metaphysical/spiritual from their past? How do they feel about magic?

Caduceus has grown up around magic; it's woven into his species, for one (firbolgs are fey-giants, descendants of a magic source), but also his family has always carried a connection to the goddess Melora/the Wildmother, and are all either clerics or paladins in her service and have all the powers related to said class. Also, he learned as a child through his mother to draw life from death via the cantrip Decompose. He is deeply spiritual, respects the cycle of life and death, and has a healthy respect and gratefulness to the great things that can be accomplished through magical means. He's never hesitated to step up and use his powers for good, or at least to pursue the potential for doing good later.

His feelings on magic are definitely rooted in both his past and the supernatural/spiritual, as the majority of his power comes from the Wildmother and therefore is strengthened by his faith. His ancestors created his home, the Blooming Grove, as a gift from one god to another, and they have maintained it for centuries, passed from generation to generation. The corruption of the forest and the disappearance of his family are what coaxed him to at last leave home and join the Mighty Nein, and things have escalated since; he is quite literally on a god-given mission to stop a great evil from corrupting the rest of the world. He has used magic to strengthen himself and his friends, heal, and destroy whatever evil he comes across. His magic is a source of great warmth and comfort to him, due to loving and being loved by its source so deeply. (He is sort of the Wildmother's most specialist boy at this point.)


2. If your character could ask for one wish, and it's going to be magically granted without any consequence, what will it be and why?

Caduceus would wish for a swift end to the corruption threatening the world, both Lucien and the Cognouza ward, so not only the main danger to everything is dealt with but also so he can go home alive. Right before they departed Caduceus had several heart-to-hearts with his family and friends and made it clear that not only is he deeply afraid and wants it all to be over so he can go home where he belongs, but he is worried that he most likely won't survive. It is a fear caused both by the scale of the danger awaiting them and all the horrors he'd witnessed leading up to that final battle. He's reached out to the Wildmother multiple times for guidance, for courage, and even to verify if a dangerous nearby city, a cause of great corruption to his homeland, might hold weaponry or magical items to help them deal with the threat. He's also been honest in admitting he doesn't want to go, but has agreed to go because not only does someone have to, but also he'd rather it be him than one of his family, who would not be as prepared to deal with the danger (and, as he says, he will be less horrified by it because he's seen it already, and he is thus stepping up for the good of the world as well as their mental wellbeing. He doesn't want to traumatize them too). He was one of the only ones to vote that they try and team up with Trent Ikithon against Lucien, despite the fact that Ikithon is a horrible man who traumatized his friend, because he's a powerful wizard with strong allies who might tip the battle in their favour. If there was an easy way to stop all of this without consequence, he's demonstrated that he would take that chance.


3. If there's one person your character would follow to another realm, who would it be and why? If there's no one, state that and explain why.

Caduceus would most likely follow two people: Fjord, and his little sister Clarabelle. Fjord is his best friend and like a younger brother to him, and they've grown incredibly close during their journey together. He shared guidance, advice, friendship, and his faith with Fjord, over time helping him to reject the Warlock powers (and the price that came with said power) from the more evil being of Uk'otoa in favour of the Wildmother's much healthier embrace, and since then he's watched the other flourish, come into himself as a paladin, a leader, and a great friend. More recently Caduceus has tried to coax him into finding his own answers rather than leaning so heavily on Caduceus himself, although he will always be there for Fjord. He wants to see him grow in confidence, both as a person and a man of their shared faith. If Fjord needed him, Caduceus would follow.

Clarabelle, as his babiest sister, definitely gets the most of Cad's love and attention in their family. He and she were the last ones standing in the Blooming Grove when the rest disappeared over the years to try and find a source of the corruption, and when she vanished, she left her beetle hairpin for him. During his journey he thought of her a great deal. He named his moorbounder after her, he wove a straw had for her in his spare time, and when they're together he can't help doting on her. She's a tough and stubborn brat at times, but he loves her a lot, and after finding out what happened to her after she left, some part of him regrets not chasing after her and instead staying at the temple like he was told to. If he saw her running off, he's more likely to run to her the second time around.


4. What is your character's most outstanding personality trait, and why?

What stands out most for Caduceus is his unyielding kindness, above all. He has a huge amount of warmth and compassion for strangers and friends alike. He's the type to offer up a warm smile and even a hug to a total stranger if they should want (or even ask!) for it. He is a kind and open person, free with his thoughts and opinions on just about anything. He will share misgivings about acts or behaviours he witnesses, occasionally judgmental but nearly always expressed in a gentle enough manner that he gets away with it. Sometimes he can view people as a "project", but he is in nearly all cases acting in good faith, with a wholehearted belief that people deserve the opportunity to grow beyond who they are into who they can become. He spends a good deal of time and effort into cultivating growth in people with the same patient enthusiasm as he grows gardens; he is both gardener and caretaker of living souls around him, whatever form they take. When advising, he tends to not tell people what to do, but he asks both vague and specific questions that cause them to reflect upon themselves and their choices. He strongly believes that evil can be culled and cropped from people because they have the capacity for good. As he says, people are not good or evil, people are people. It's actions that are good and evil, and those can be changed.

He is the most selfless of the group, in Caleb's words; he frequently goes to great lengths to acquire or purchase items and then give them out to those who could use them most. A long-term goal of his throughout the journey was to remake the remnants of a great sword, carrying it across continents and for many months, and as soon as it was reforged he immediately gave it to Fjord who had great need of it at the time. He purchased a number of magic items and gave the bulk of them away to the rest of the party. He describes his family and religious following as gift givers, and he walks the walk with a kind and unselfish heart.


5. Your character gets to return home, but when they do they learn that they've been gone for hundreds of years. How do they react?

His reaction depends on one thing and one thing only: if, in his absence, the Cognouza ward reached the material plane, and Lucien won.

If the ward reached the material plane, it would likely be in shambles. He would return to a wretched hellscape of corruption, death, and millions of voices crying out their suffering. The ward itself is full of trapped, screaming souls, and that city sought to enter the material plane and consume all it came across, absorbing life and forcing it to become one with its own endless, decaying undeath. If his presence caused the Mighty Nein to fail, and no one stepped up to finish the job (unlikely, as they were on the brink when they reached Cognouza in the series itself) it would be the end of the world as he knew it. Nature itself would be in a wretched state of decay, and before he left he had a vision of his goddess decaying with nature if he failed, so he would fear the loss of the gods themselves, which would not only leave him powerless but also his entire family and anyone connected, plus who could possibly survive in such a world if even the divine could die? He would try to search for his family (since firbolgs could live that long) but ultimately be consumed himself, because he's somewhat fragile on his own. And the Cognouza ward would just… keep eating.

If the Mighty Nein succeeded without him, he'd be relieved to find the world still existing more or less as he left it, even with the time variance. He would grieve his friends, reach out to those who could still be alive, and gladly go home to his family and his temple. The good thing about being a grave cleric and a keeper of a cemetary is you're pretty good at handling grief and loss; he'd take it on the chin and find solace in his home and family, as well as his loving goddess.

🦋 Fae Court

• CHOICE 1 - Seelie - Autumn


• CHOICE 2 - Seelie - Summer


• CHOICE 3 - Seelie - Winter

Ability:
2) Yes, they have an ability of their own to trade for it. (I'm preemptively nerfing a bunch of spells, so: Plane Shift, Banishment, Planar Ally, Conjure Celestial, Divination, Word of Recall - this one he might try to buy back but it would require building a sanctuary for an entire year so… unlikely.)

🦋 RP Samples

TDM Toplevel