You're a spy. Secrets and misinformation are your stock in trade. You skulk in the shadows, infiltrate other houses, and steal the most precious secrets, whether they're written in locked journals or hidden away in someone's mind. Even you might not be aware of all the reasons behind the missions you carry out. Sometimes a mission's sole purpose is to conceal the motivation behind another strike performed in a different part of the city, or create an elaborate honor trap for a hiring house.
As part of your covert work for House Kurayami, you maintain a false identity as someone from a different background. You can choose your secondary identity. This secondary identity determines a portion of your starting equipment and is also where most of your contacts come from. You infiltrate your secondary house or organization to learn its secrets, keep tabs on its activities, or perhaps undermine it from within.
Skill Proficiencies: Deception, Stealth
Tool Proficiencies: Disguise kit
Language Proficiencies: One of your choice
Equipment: A House insignia, three small knives, a set of dark-colored common clothes, and the starting equipment of the second background
You have more than one identity. The one you wear most of the time makes you appear to be a member of a house or organization other than House Kurayami. You have documentation, established acquaintances, and disguises that allow you to assume that persona. Whenever you choose, you can drop this identity and blend into the masses of the city. Consider why you're embedded. Create a story with your DM, inspired by rolling on the following table or choosing a reason that suits you.
Prerequisite: Spellcasting or Pact Magic class feature
For you, the spells on the House Kurayami Spells table are added to the spell list of your spellcasting class (If you are a multiclass character with multiple spell lists, these spells are added to all of them.)
Your magic is meant to be subtle and undetectable, but it might pull shadows or clouds of mist around you as you cast your spells. Using the encode thoughts cantrip below, you can turn a creature's thoughts (including your own) into a thought strand that others can potentially read, share, or steal. These thought strands are treated as valuable currency in House Kurayami.
Skilled at infiltration, disguise, and deception, members of House Kurayami appear inscrutable. Your true personality and ideals might never manifest, or they might mark you as a quirky member of your secondary identity.
Impersonate an individual to gather information from that individual's contacts and associates.
Make sure that a particular person (not a main antagonist) at an adventure site doesn't survive the encounter with the characters.
Make sure that a particular person (not the main villain) survives the adventure.
Get information from the main villain by magically extracting the villain's dying thoughts.
Plant evidence to steer the other adventurers away from the true villain.
Get information to a Dimir agent who is embedded in the adventure location.
Cantrip - encode thoughts, mage hand
1st - disguise self, sleep
2nd - detect thoughts, pass without trace
3rd - gaseous form, meld into stone, nondetection
4th - arcane eye, freedom of movement
5th - modify memory
I'm good at hiding my true thoughts and feelings.
When I'm in doubt about revealing something, I assume it's a secret, and I don't share it.
I like to sound mysterious, because wisdom hidden grows deeper with time.
I have no patience with people who get in my way.
I love hearing about other people's nightmares.
Combat is meant to be quick, clean, and one-sided.
I like to stick to the shadows.
I never show my anger. I just plot my revenge.
House. My house is all that really matters. (Any)
Control. I like pulling the strings. (Lawful)
Secrets. I collect secrets and never reveal them. (Any)
Knowledge. I want to know as much as I can about this city and how it works. (Any)
Independence. I value the freedom to pursue my own goals without interference. (Chaotic)
Nihilism. I don't believe in anything, and anyone who does is a fool. (Neutral)
I discovered a secret I can't let anyone else uncover-including my house superiors.
I formed a close friendship or romance with someone in the organization I'm infiltrating.
The Kurayami agent who recruited me was unmasked and killed. My revenge on the killers will be thorough and painful.
I spend as much time as I can in the Great Library because I'm certain an information hub operates behind its facade. I want its secrets!
I'm utterly loyal to my superior in the house, more than to the house or its lord .
Someone has discovered my true identity.
I like secrets so much that I'm reluctant to share details of a plan even with those who need to know.
I would let my friends die rather than reveal my true identity.
I have trouble trusting anyone but myself.
I have a particular vice that puts all my secrets at risk if I'm not careful.
I'm pretty sure I've done something horrible that I can't remember because of the house's mind magic.
I put too much trust in the people who give me orders.