Adventurers are definitely busy people, constantly getting in and out of trouble, and traveling frequently to exotic and interesting locations. Sadly, most of an adventurer's life is spent away from scented soap and warm water. And many a delver knows the shame of showing up to a date or dinner smelling like yesterday's dungeon.
Luckily, clever Boru alchemists have created the Bath-in-a-Bottle. To apply, simply pop the cork on the potion bottle, and pour the mixture on your head. The special frothy potion will scrub down your whole body, invisible hands cleaning both you and your clothing completely before vanishing in a cloud of pleasant smelling mist.
The process takes about 5 minutes, and is VERY thorough. While the potion doesn't actually hinder other activities, the full-body cleaning is vigorous and distracting, enough so to cause a mild penalty to any rolls made whilst under its effects.
The bottles are pretty fragile, and will break if thrown against an opponent in combat. This will activate the Bath-in-a-Bottle, and someone not familiar with the effects will be rather alarmed, taking significant penalties to all actions. Those opponents who've used the Bath-in-a-Bottle before will only take the normal mild penalties.
Drinking a Bath-in-a-Bottle like a normal potion is a reasonably bad idea. While it won't hurt anyone to have their digestive tract scrubbed and cleaned from top to, um, bottom, the scrubbing is horribly painful and unpleasant. During the 5 minutes of cleaning, the poor drinker will be completely debilitated, unable to perform any action until the potion is done.
There have been several variants of this potion already seen here and there, most commonly the Massage-in-a-Bottle, Shave-and-a-Haircut-in-a-Bottle and the Honeymoon-Night-in-a-Bottle. These cause the same penalties and debilitation for personal use, as a weapon in combat, and if accidentally drank. Be sure to specify the male or female version of Honeymoon-Night-in-a-Bottle when ordering.
Nestled in a quiet corner of a somewhat quiet town in Yem, Kelgon's Bar and Brewery has slowly grown into a tourist attraction for those looking for a drink with some flair. Built in a very standard Necromancer's-Castle style, Kelgon's is a bar that serves several homebrewed beers, and is completely staffed (save for the necromancer Kelgon himself) by undead.
Zombies slowly shuffle, leading parties to empty tables, skeletons nimbly carry trays of drinks and assorted fried foods, and ghosts and wraiths float above, dropping customer's bills on their table. Tourists come for the macabre atmosphere and the strong nod to Yemish culture, and locals come for the inexpensive, high quality drinks (Kelgon can keep costs down since his employees do not require a paycheck).
While publicly just a bar and brewery, Kelgon also runs a private distillery during the off-hours. He's quite obsessed with remaking a specific wine he tasted decades ago, back when he led a much different lifestyle.
Long before he was owner of his exotic little business, Kelgon was an adventurer. While skilled at necromancy himself, Kelgon found Yem to be an overall depressing and dour place to live. During his search for somewhere worthy to call home, he eventually fell in love with both a foreign land and one of its natives.
In Anandriel, Kelgon met a lovely elf maiden named Shaliel. The two took to courtship quickly, and Kelgon had felt he found a place to grow old and happy. Sadly, over the years, Shaliel found herself uncomfortable with Kelgon's habit of getting older, and decided to break things off. She served him a rare bottle of elvish wine – the last bottle in existence in fact, to make a point that all things good and beautiful must eventually come to an end. Kelgon begged her to change her mind; Shaliel stated that if they can share that same wine again, then she'll reconsider their relationship.
Kelgon knew Shaliel was basically saying "It's over", but instead of bitter defeat, Kelgon felt inspired and driven. He returned to his homeland, and took up a small patch of land left to him by his father. He built the bar and brewery in order to attract people from all over heaven's grave (specifically, to see if they have any interesting ingredients he can purchase from them). If a visitor to Kelgon's looks especially foreign, they'll get an invitation to a private room, to share fine wines and cigars, and to have an opportunity to sell Kelgon any foodstuffs, spices or other interesting edibles they may be carrying.
Kelgon spends the bar's open hours greeting guests, and overseeing the operations of the brewery. During his free time, he works hard in his distillery, working on replicating the wine for his beloved Shaliel. He's gotten pretty close, having access to many varied fruits and spices, using his tireless staff of undead servants, and utilizing several spells that rapidly accelerate natural aging. Kelgon is certain it will only be a few more years at most before he has his wine, and hopefully, Shaliel's companionship with it.
Uresia Character (Risus/Uresius, 10 Dice with +1 die for Tale)
Description: Marcus is a young apprentice to a local wizard, just shy of 17 years old. He's a bit tall for his age, and tries his best to look and act 'wizardly'. He dresses in a simple robe adorned with hand-stitched runes, and carries a handwritten book of spells, along with a hunter's bow for emergencies. He tends to be a bit cautious and even a bit introspective, but will happily jump into any conversation about magic.
Clichés:
Lucky Shots (6x): [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Tale: Ever since he was a young lad growing up in Shadow River, Marcus KNEW he was one day destined for greatness. Magic of all sorts fascinated him, and he vowed early on to become a great archmage, master of arcane arts, and wielder of powers incomprehensible! All the right elements were in place after all - he was born under potent signs and portents (never mind that signs and portents are everywhere in Temphis), he was raised in an orphanage and no one know anything about his parents (a common story to all orphanage-raised children), and he has nightly dreams of casting powerful magic and harnessing occult energies (which just might possibly be caused by his daily daydreams of casting powerful magic and harnessing occult energies).
As soon as he reached working age, he set out immediately to become an apprentice of a local wizard of reasonably high renown. Unfortunately for Marcus, it seemed that a mage's apprenticeship has less to do with 'Learning Magical Secrets' and more to do with 'Cooking the Wizard's Lunch' and 'Balancing the Wizard's Finances'. Marcus did a good enough job at both food preparation and number crunching to keep his job with the wizard, and for him, one of the greatest job benefits is access to the wizard's library of magical tomes.
The library has tomes and books of many different forms of magic across heaven's grave. This would be useful to one already talented in the art of magic, but to Marcus, this mish-mash of arcane knowledge has been a poor resource for teaching oneself. He has a very base knowledge of all forms of magic, but is simply terrible at casting magic himself. Despite this, he still insists on trying, and the few times he's managed to accidentally cast a minor spell has led him to believe he's on the right track. Marcus always addresses himself as an Archmage, and constantly tries to do things by magic, even when completely mundane means would suffice.
Marcus may very well be destined for greatness, but not with magic. Marcus is an excellent archer, combining an almost absurd natural talent with a large store of strong, pure luck. Marcus picked up archery during a camping trip when his master insisted on having a stew requiring meats not currently held in the larder. Even though he had to use an old, half-rotted bow the wizard had on hand, Marcus brought in quite a haul that day. To his constant annoyance, Marcus' close friends insist he give more effort into his archery career instead of his fruitless pursuit of magic. He has been persuaded to enter a few archery tournaments now and then, but he doesn't have any medals or trophies from them (he melts them down for gold to use in alchemical experiments).