Breena Vardin (Celestial Toymaker)
Here's a new gnome NPC, just in time for your Christmas-themed Dungeons and Dragons adventures. She's a Celestial Toymaker living the tinker life in Bytopia. Enjoy! (As a side note, the drawing is inspired by the tinker outfit from Neverwinter Online. And for full disclosure, this is sort of my character in that game.)
"Here now. Why the long face? I have just the right thing to cheer you up."
Breena (NG) is a spritely, 240-year-old female rock gnome who manufactures unique and quirky magical toys for all ages. Her reputation is such that items bearing her maker’s mark are prized delights. She sells her fancier creations at various high-end markets throughout the land as specialty goods. Breena is also the current incarnation of The Tinker Cousin (see The Tinker Cousin below), a legendary gnomish figure known for delivering gifts from her flying broom to those deserving of or in need of a little joy. She keeps this aspect of her life a closely guarded secret. She lives in an enchanted workshop populated by ancient clockwork helpers (see The Workshop below) that have been its denizens since the first Tinker Cousin took up residence there.
Bond: Though I had no choice, I lament having to leave my homeland. I hope to see my family again.
Flaw: I often lose myself in the suffering of others; I must “fix” them.
Play Breena as a caring and generous but isolated inventor. You find purpose in and derive a great deal of satisfaction from using your crafting and sorcery to create objects that lift the spirits of others. You are expert at making a wide range of trinkets and baubles but you especially enjoy making autonomous, clockwork toys not only because of the challenge they present to your skill but because they never fail to please even the hardest of hearts. Whenever you encounter a wounded soul, you feel a compulsion to bring light into their darkness with a little gift or two. You easily become infatuated with these people, pouring all of your focus and emotion into “fixing” their melancholy. Successes leave you elated. When your efforts fail, however, you become despondent.
You excel at crafting wondrous items, but you also have a talent for jewelry and clothing. You never make real weapons or armor, only toy versions of these. You can easily create a wide variety of common magical items in a short period of time. These amusing trinkets you sell at cost or simply gift to people to lift their spirits. With a little more effort, you can create uncommon and rare items. The sales from these support you and your work. You will also take on commissions for very rare items, but only when you need the gold, find the request an interesting challenge, or are bored with your current situation.
As Breena, you’re just a “normal” tinker gnome who makes popular, high-quality items at collectors’ prices. You will gravitate toward any party members who are depressed or sorrowful. You’ll be more willing to soften your dislike for these suffering persons because “they can’t help it.” Likes indicate a willingness to get to know and befriend party members. You will never disclose your alter ego, no matter how many likes you might have. Dislikes indicate a desire to avoid party members, but again, your sympathies will play a role in your ultimate disposition toward a specific individual.
As The Tinker Cousin, you are a generous, mythical being who lives in an enchanted workshop surrounded by wondrous objects. You do your best not to let your personal feelings get in the way but you are, after all, only gnomish. Likes indicate you are more willing to give a gift to the party member; the value of the gift incrementally improves as the number of likes exponentially increases. Dislikes indicate you are less willing to give a gift but more likely to disapprove of or rebuke the party member for their bad behavior. Given enough dislikes, you’ll add a party member’s name to your Ledger of Louses and refuse to give them a gift until they improve their attitude.
Strongly Like: selflessness, helping others
Like: gift giving, kindness, “good” behavior, making things
Dislike: wanton destruction, meanness, arrogance, stealing
Strongly Dislike: selfishness, sabotaging the efforts of others
According to the diary, the first Tinker Cousin was a rock gnome named Greasefinger Luncallad. This adventurous gnome helped Nebelun, the god of invention and luck, pull off a prank against the kobold god Kurtulmak. As a reward (and to protect Greasefinger from Kurtulmak’s vengeful anger) Nebelun blessed Greasefinger with a divine spark of sorcery and invited her to the Golden Hills in Bytopia. There, Greasefinger created many amazing objects and expanded both her tinkering skills and her sorcery. That work elevated her to the status of Celestial Toymaker. Many of her inventions she left as anonymous gifts to friends and family whom she could no longer visit for fear of endangering their lives. Eventually, these lucky few began referring to their mysterious benefactor as The Tinker Cousin.
In her old age, Greasefinger felt a desperate need to pass her knowledge on to someone else before she died. She begged Nebelun to send her an apprentice whom she could teach. The god obliged, laying a divine blessing upon a promising young female tinker named Weaveforger Raerskor. After teaching Weaveforger all she knew, Greasefinger passed away. Weaveforger, however, carried on and expanded the tradition of gift giving.
This cycle of apprenticeship and gift giving has continued for generations. Breena is just the current incarnation of The Tinker Cousin. She has not yet taken an apprentice. As The Tinker Cousin, she operates a vast courier network comprised of individuals and organizations from all walks of life in both the Material Plane and Bytopia. She can tap into this network at any inn, tavern, warehouse, or courier’s office that sits on a trade route, main roadway, or city of medium size or larger. She also has several contacts on less well traveled routes.
The Workshop’s interior is a cluttered exemplar of herded chaos. It’s filled with works-in-progress, packaged inventory ready for delivery, daily necessities, and a hoard of other objects whose origin and purpose have long been forgotten. At its heart is a portal that opens into one of any of several locations scattered across the Material Plane. The Tinker Cousin need only indicate the desired destination using a selection dial located in the foyer and then exit through the front door. The doorway at the destination is disguised as some mundane object appropriate for the site, such as a sewer grate, tree, closet door, boulder, ruins, or (in a very few instances) a storefront.
The Workshop is populated by a wide variety of clockwork helpers (see Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes). They serve a variety of purposes, from performing simple manual labor to defense. As have countless Tinker Cousins before her, Breena relies on these constructs to maintain the workshop and even manufacture common parts for more complex inventions.
Breena Vardin
(Bree-nah VAR-din)"Here now. Why the long face? I have just the right thing to cheer you up."
Breena (NG) is a spritely, 240-year-old female rock gnome who manufactures unique and quirky magical toys for all ages. Her reputation is such that items bearing her maker’s mark are prized delights. She sells her fancier creations at various high-end markets throughout the land as specialty goods. Breena is also the current incarnation of The Tinker Cousin (see The Tinker Cousin below), a legendary gnomish figure known for delivering gifts from her flying broom to those deserving of or in need of a little joy. She keeps this aspect of her life a closely guarded secret. She lives in an enchanted workshop populated by ancient clockwork helpers (see The Workshop below) that have been its denizens since the first Tinker Cousin took up residence there.
Using Breena
Ideal: Joy is the greatest gift one can give .Bond: Though I had no choice, I lament having to leave my homeland. I hope to see my family again.
Flaw: I often lose myself in the suffering of others; I must “fix” them.
Play Breena as a caring and generous but isolated inventor. You find purpose in and derive a great deal of satisfaction from using your crafting and sorcery to create objects that lift the spirits of others. You are expert at making a wide range of trinkets and baubles but you especially enjoy making autonomous, clockwork toys not only because of the challenge they present to your skill but because they never fail to please even the hardest of hearts. Whenever you encounter a wounded soul, you feel a compulsion to bring light into their darkness with a little gift or two. You easily become infatuated with these people, pouring all of your focus and emotion into “fixing” their melancholy. Successes leave you elated. When your efforts fail, however, you become despondent.
You excel at crafting wondrous items, but you also have a talent for jewelry and clothing. You never make real weapons or armor, only toy versions of these. You can easily create a wide variety of common magical items in a short period of time. These amusing trinkets you sell at cost or simply gift to people to lift their spirits. With a little more effort, you can create uncommon and rare items. The sales from these support you and your work. You will also take on commissions for very rare items, but only when you need the gold, find the request an interesting challenge, or are bored with your current situation.
Recurring
The party can encounter you as either Breena or, in very rare situations, as The Tinker Cousin. You inhabit both of these personas equally well.As Breena, you’re just a “normal” tinker gnome who makes popular, high-quality items at collectors’ prices. You will gravitate toward any party members who are depressed or sorrowful. You’ll be more willing to soften your dislike for these suffering persons because “they can’t help it.” Likes indicate a willingness to get to know and befriend party members. You will never disclose your alter ego, no matter how many likes you might have. Dislikes indicate a desire to avoid party members, but again, your sympathies will play a role in your ultimate disposition toward a specific individual.
As The Tinker Cousin, you are a generous, mythical being who lives in an enchanted workshop surrounded by wondrous objects. You do your best not to let your personal feelings get in the way but you are, after all, only gnomish. Likes indicate you are more willing to give a gift to the party member; the value of the gift incrementally improves as the number of likes exponentially increases. Dislikes indicate you are less willing to give a gift but more likely to disapprove of or rebuke the party member for their bad behavior. Given enough dislikes, you’ll add a party member’s name to your Ledger of Louses and refuse to give them a gift until they improve their attitude.
Strongly Like: selflessness, helping others
Like: gift giving, kindness, “good” behavior, making things
Dislike: wanton destruction, meanness, arrogance, stealing
Strongly Dislike: selfishness, sabotaging the efforts of others
One Off
Breena hires the party: deliver a present to a dangerous entity as a peace offering, establish a new portal doorway in an unusual location, lend a hand during a deadly tinker competition, help to organize an infested hoard of spare parts and scrap materials crammed into a storage area in The Workshop.Story Arc
Breena hires the party to do one of the following: protect her home burrow from the goblin army that marches on it (while keeping her identity a secret), free a burrow from a curse that has plunged its entire population into melancholy, rescue a member of her delivery network from a kobold lair, help her find her way back to a portal so that she can return to The Workshop.Side Quest
Breena asks the party to carry out one of the following tasks during their travels: acquire rare parts for one of her inventions, spread joyful stories of The Tinker Cousin around one or more burrows, negotiate better terms at one or more shops where she sells her inventions, secretly observe and collect information about a potential apprentice.The Tinker Cousin
There are as many stories telling the origins of The Tinker Cousin as there are gnome burrows. Almost all of these tales, from whimsical verses to cautionary fables, have little truth in them beyond this legendary gnomish figure’s association with gift giving. None, however, tell the same story that is scribbled onto the tattered pages of a diary kept in a forgettable corner of The Tinker Cousin’s workshop. Only The Tinker Cousin and her apprentice can read this aged tome but even they can never be entirely sure whether its words are any more true than any other tale.According to the diary, the first Tinker Cousin was a rock gnome named Greasefinger Luncallad. This adventurous gnome helped Nebelun, the god of invention and luck, pull off a prank against the kobold god Kurtulmak. As a reward (and to protect Greasefinger from Kurtulmak’s vengeful anger) Nebelun blessed Greasefinger with a divine spark of sorcery and invited her to the Golden Hills in Bytopia. There, Greasefinger created many amazing objects and expanded both her tinkering skills and her sorcery. That work elevated her to the status of Celestial Toymaker. Many of her inventions she left as anonymous gifts to friends and family whom she could no longer visit for fear of endangering their lives. Eventually, these lucky few began referring to their mysterious benefactor as The Tinker Cousin.
In her old age, Greasefinger felt a desperate need to pass her knowledge on to someone else before she died. She begged Nebelun to send her an apprentice whom she could teach. The god obliged, laying a divine blessing upon a promising young female tinker named Weaveforger Raerskor. After teaching Weaveforger all she knew, Greasefinger passed away. Weaveforger, however, carried on and expanded the tradition of gift giving.
This cycle of apprenticeship and gift giving has continued for generations. Breena is just the current incarnation of The Tinker Cousin. She has not yet taken an apprentice. As The Tinker Cousin, she operates a vast courier network comprised of individuals and organizations from all walks of life in both the Material Plane and Bytopia. She can tap into this network at any inn, tavern, warehouse, or courier’s office that sits on a trade route, main roadway, or city of medium size or larger. She also has several contacts on less well traveled routes.
The Workshop
The Workshop is a teetering monstrosity of an enchanted house that defies both common sense and gravity. It’s built upon a ragtag assemblage of stout wheels that allow it to creep along nearly any terrain. It began as a simple, self-propelled, wagon that Weaveforger built to peddle her inventions across all of Bytopia. Subsequent Tinker Cousins built upon these humble origins either to expand the wagon’s capabilities or to gussy it up to their liking.The Workshop’s interior is a cluttered exemplar of herded chaos. It’s filled with works-in-progress, packaged inventory ready for delivery, daily necessities, and a hoard of other objects whose origin and purpose have long been forgotten. At its heart is a portal that opens into one of any of several locations scattered across the Material Plane. The Tinker Cousin need only indicate the desired destination using a selection dial located in the foyer and then exit through the front door. The doorway at the destination is disguised as some mundane object appropriate for the site, such as a sewer grate, tree, closet door, boulder, ruins, or (in a very few instances) a storefront.
The Workshop is populated by a wide variety of clockwork helpers (see Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes). They serve a variety of purposes, from performing simple manual labor to defense. As have countless Tinker Cousins before her, Breena relies on these constructs to maintain the workshop and even manufacture common parts for more complex inventions.
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