Ez d'Avenir

ters with the Kargat-eventually led them to relocate to Port-a-Lucine in Dementlieu. A mystery involving a shape-shifting serial killer resulted in a fall from a roof that paralyzed Alanik's legs. Within the following month, the pair created a custom wheelchair for Alanik, and they married.

Today, Alanik Ray and Arthur Sedgwick investigate mysteries wherever need and novelty take them. Arthur lends his practicality and martial skill to Alanik's dazzling intellect during the pair's exploits. Sedgwick also chronicles their adventures and has published two volumes to date: The Life of Alanik Ray and The Casebook of Alanik Ray. ALA N I K RAY'S TRAITS

Ideal. "Logic is a guide but also an illusion. Order and reason don't supersede what is right." Bond. "I have the perspective to see depravities others can't. I use my insight to reveal wickedness and make the world a better place."

Flaw. "Most people are dangerous, manipulative liars and not to be trusted." A RT H U R S E D GWICK'S TRAITS

Ideal. " T h e sicknesses of t h e world a r e vast, but I can help others find the medicine they need."

Bond. "I can't withhold care, no matter how ill a soul might be." Flaw. "I focus so much on others that I often don't see what's afflicting me." ADVENTUR E S WITH ALA N I K A N D A RT H U R

Alanik Ray i s a n exceptional investigator with a n uncanny ability t o notice detail a n d make deductive leaps. Despite his experience with the paranormal, he relies on his husband Arthur to keep him out of true supernatural peril. Still, the detectives manage to find trouble wherever they go. Use the statistics of spies to approximate both Alanik Ray and Arthur Sedgwick. Consider the following plots when featuring the detectives in your adventures: Alanik is confounded by a murderer preying on a family. Arthur discovers that these murders repeat in a centuries-long cycle and seeks detectives with greater supernatural experience. Alanik exposes a community's constabulary, whose members accuse individuals of crimes before the offenses occur. He seeks help in disman• tling the dangerous system. A serial killer called the Midnight Slasher leaves behind gory messages such as, " I live in your city" and " I lurk in your nightmares." When the characters meet Alanik, he reveals that these messages appear at crime scenes in multiple communities, on the same nights. Folktales o f the Caller carry a cold, cruel authenticity, hinting of a vicious mythos too specific to be fiction. The Caller numbers among the most notorious supernatural figures in the Land of the Mists, and where it walks, doom inevitably follows. The Caller appears as a comely individual of any gender, which takes disarming forms to gain the trust of a specific individual. Whether as a friend, paramour, mentor, or rival, the Caller isolates its target, leading the victim to depend on it emotionally or materially. Over time, the Caller coerces or outright forces its victim to acts of deepening selfishness and immorality. Then when the target reaches a peak of depravity or despair, the Caller abandons its mark, leaving them to face the consequences. The suffering the Caller causes is never isolated, triggering a tragic chain of events that can throw a family, a community, or a whole domain into anguish. Those investigating the history of a calamity might discover generations-spanning cycles of the Caller's manipulations. These schemes shape a mysterious agenda-one gradually molding the Land of the Mists to a nefarious purpose. THE C ALLER'S TRAITS

T h e Caller's t r u e agendas a n d disposition are unknowable to mortals. As the ultimate mimic, it can change its personality to reflect whatever most appeals to its current victim. ADVEN T U R E S WITH THE CALLER

The Caller uses statistics similar t o a succubus/incubus, and no matter how many times it's defeated, it always returns. Use the Caller to create adventures involving secret histories, domain-spanning conspiracies, and truths hinting at the nature of the Dark Powers. Consider the following plots when featuring the Caller in an adventure: • One of the characters' allies requests they check in on the ally's brother. This pious or artistic soul has been convinced by a charming peer (the Caller in disguise) to attend a retreat that is secretly a • meeting of the priests of Osybus. An old friend reappears in a character's life. Likable and knowledgeable but shy, this friend assists the character without recompense. Eventually, the friend (actually the Caller) gets into trouble and needs the character to do them a number of • increasingly unscrupulous favors. A powerful individual such as Firan Zal'honan (see below), Isolde (see "The Carnival" earlier in this chapter), or a domain's Darklord summons the party and requests they hunt down the Caller. This figure provides their agents with a device that allows the bearers to travel to whatever domain the Caller is currently in.