McTaffery "Speck" Awfulspirits

Class: Handler
Alignment: True Neutral
Level: 4
Age: 21  Height: 4’1’’ Weight: 60
Hair: Light Brown Eyes: Green

APPEARANCE: Speck is a slender humanoid, with an oval face and small
pointed ears. The frail, childish figure has brown hair, tied in two
topknots, and the rest of the length of his hair dangles down to his knees
like double horse tails. His green eyes look at the world with an endless
curiosity, yet strangely for a kender, with scholarly concern, behind a
pair of small silver glasses. His wooden hoopak, a 5 feet long
staff-sling, is carved and designed by himself. Small steel spheres for
his hoopak are lined on his belt. He usually wears a long leather coat,
painted in dark blue, with uncountable pockets sewn on it. Many pouches
are attached inside the coat and Speck carries a few small bags, scroll
tubes and bookholders. He also carries a dagger under his coat.

WEAPONS: Hoopak and dagger

HISTORY: Speck has a high intelligence and slightly higher wisdom, with
the lack of the usual high dexterity. The Awfulspirits lineage in
Kendermore is one which included many clerics, and according to the family
legends, a few magicians, and even a knight too. Speck grew up among
books, and his wanderlust was propelled mostly by the lust to know more of
the lands and happenings and cities and races he had read and had listened
stories about. Before he left Kendermore when the wanderlust got him,
around the age of 16, Speck already held a collection of life histories of
veteran kender adventurers, and was speaking and writing in different
dialects of dwarven, elven and Solamnic.

Leaving Kendermore, Speck first visited his uncle's brother-in-law,
Barnaby Whistlingbreeze, the Royal Finder in Silvanesti, one of the most
famous kender of the time. His days in Silvanesti villages and big cities
were educative, if not always entertaining. He collected a lot of poetry
and prose during that time, and of course historical data, too, and had
even met one of the sons of the legendary bard, Quivalen Sath. Soon, the
elves escorted him kindly out of the elven kingdom, leaving him at the
northern border.

The lands of Timan Busuk were his next destination. Speck had learned
about the Knights of Takhisis for the first time in his visits to Sanction
and Neraka, and found out that there were people who had to be avoided,
and better, carefully watched. Disguised as a child, Speck soon collected
enough data to have a general idea about this new organization of the
Queen's forces. However, an unfortunate visit to a local temple of
Takhisis forced him to flee east, into Nordmaar, and he mostly traveled
with trade caravans along the shores of the Blood Sea for some months.

There was a Gray Wizard chasing him (probably because of the documents he
copied and of those magical bracers), so he didn't have the chance to
march west on foot, so he had to disguise again, and was enrolled as a
"squire" and sailed in a war galley under the evil knights' command. He
had to escape during a conflict with an armed merchant ship, boarding that
ship, and to his luck, the knights inspected the ship and left. He boarded
another merchant ship in the port of Kalaman, which was headed for
Palanthas.

His next one-and-a-half years were spent with wandering around the cities,
towns and villages of Solamnia, and rather than exciting adventures, the
kender's curiosity was in reading, speaking with old people, copying
documents and borrowing books. He was disappointed when he was not allowed
into Astinus' Library, but then he had access to the bibliotheque of the
Temple of Paladine in Palanthus, and the halls of High Clerist Tower was
full of forgotten tales and scriptures, too. Towards the end of his
travels in Solamnia, Speck met a group of gnomes, who turned out to be all
alchemists, in Caergoth. They were seeking employees for a "project", and
were offering good money, and the prospect of seeing Mount Nevermind
excited the kender. He, a young human girl, and three Aghar enrolled, and
they sailed to Sancrist Isle with a steamship.

The girl and Speck soon discovered that the gnomes were planning to try
their new mixtures on them, mixtures related with genetic manipulation.
After the Aghar died terrible deaths, the two friends escaped, and made
the abandoned halls of Mount Nevermind home for some weeks. One day, Speck
came upon a convention, where elder researchers from the Philosophers and
Historians Guilds were dicussing about grand theories concerning Krynn's
history and future. It was that day when he befriended an important
political figure of Mount Nevermind, supporting his ideas with the immense
knowledge of history he himself had gathered. Master Calt was fascinated
with the unusual kender, and took him as an apprentice philosopher.

Speck spent two years with the gnomes in Mount Nevermind, acquiring
philosophical and linguistic and oratorical skills with which he could
have a far better grasp of what he knew about politics, history and
culture. Still, he was a kender, and wanderlust struck again, calling him
to the roads. Thus began his and Master Calt's four-month journey from
Sancrist to Solace.

Talents: Speaks and reads elven, dwarven, Solamnic, and a little
Ergothian. Natural immunity to fear. He is great singer, and quite good at
acting and imitating voices. His "borrowings" occur less frequent than the
average kender, unless the items in question are related with history,
lore, art or music.

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