Deck of Many Things

Background

Anton D’rixe grew up in the Feywild city of Long Respite. His father was the great Paladin Martin D’rixe, and his mother was a Wizard named Faura Rast, who married Martin after adventuring together for many years.

Long Respite is a bustling city in the Feywild, filled with Eladrin going about their business. Anton had a great affinity for magic, so his mother enrolled him into the Arcanists’ College. Anton always struggled in the college’s studies. Even though he had an affinity for magic, he just couldn’t master the simplest of spells. He began to retreat into his books, delving into the histories of not only the Feywild, but of the prime material plane as well. It was in these books that he read about the great Artificer Reynaldo, who could cobble together the most obscure components into something useful.

It was around this time that Anton found himself becoming enamored with Reneka Silverwing. She was a wizard in his class, but unlike Anton, she never struggled. As a matter of fact, spellcasting seem to come as second nature to Reneka. She was soon at the top of the class, and one of the more popular girls in school. Anton struggled to find topics of conversation with her, but would always shy away at the last possible second. Reneka knew that Anton wanted to talk, but in an effort to remain “popular” she never helped him out.

Anton was threatening to fail out of the Arcanists’ College. His spellcasting was atrocious, and he was beginning to spend more and more of his time tinkering with the art of artificing, something he at least was good at. He read about one of Reynaldo’s first infusions, Thundering Armor. He learned that this was far easier for him to replicate than any of the spells the College had him working on. He realized that he could cause larger, and louder, explosions out of whatever clothing or armor he was wearing.

During mid-terms, Anton and the rest of the class watched as the other students cast their spells for grades. Anton was asked to perform a simple light spell, and he couldn’t even accomplish that. The class laughed as he retook his place, knowing that he had failed out of the Arcanists’ College, and had to tell his parents what had happened. When he was wracking his brain on what to tell them, he noticed that Reneka was having her turn, and she was casting a summoning spell. Very powerful, and it was obvious she was going for extra credit!

Then something went wrong. Anton heard it, as she stumbled on a syllable of the spell. Suddenly the creature she was materializing solidified and looked straight at her with a menacing grin. It reached out for her and grabbed her and started squeezing with all its might.

The instructors were hesitant to act, they didn’t want to harm Reneka, but they needed to do something quickly. Fortunately, Anton had no hesitation. He spoke the words of the infusion and Reneka’s robes BURST in a thunderous uproar. The creature that was holding her let go and reeled back. All clear of the students, the instructors quickly dispatched the summoned creature and came to Reneka’s aid.

Reneka was bad off, someone called for a Cleric or a potion, but none were readily available. Anton reached into his pocket and pulled out some of the infusion powders he had. He thought about healing Reneka’s wounds and blew the powder into the air. The powder danced and defied the winds, they found Reneka’s wounds and sealed them up. She coughed and asked what happened. Things were quickly explained to her, and after she had been seen to by a cleric that finally arrived, she sought out Anton, who was nowhere to be found.

She found him in his room, packing his things. He had failed out of the Arcanists’ College, it was true. She asked what she could do to repay him for saving her, and he just shrugged. She ended up taking the initiative and took him to the winter dance as her date. During the dance she told him that her family was thankful for what he had done, and they wanted to know if Anton wanted to learn more in the art of Artificing. Anton’s eyes lit up, and he said ‘yes’ which was one of the first words he ever spoke to Reneka.

Within the week Reneka showed up at Anton’s door. She told him they were leaving the Feywild and headed to the Prime Material. It was several days of journey, but they eventually made it to the dwarven stronghold of Irongate. Reneka seemed to know lots of the dwarves from the stronghold, and eventually she made their way to the forges. She found a tiny shop off on a side street where she took Anton inside. She introduced him to Reynaldo, dwarven artificer extraordinaire! She gave him the whole story, and Anton learned that Reynaldo was not an Eladrin as the stories said, but was a dwarf (thinking back, the stories made a lot more sense with Reynaldo as a dwarf!) Reynaldo knew Reneka’s family well, as well as Anton’s father (which he learned once formal introductions were finished). Reynaldo told Reneka that he would be happy to take Anton on as his apprentice.

After three years of work and study in the stronghold of Irongate, Anton was deemed an Artificer and given his Ritual Book by Reynaldo himself. He then set off to make a name for himself, taking with him the knowledge he had learned under Reynaldo’s tutelage.