Ivo Arend

Ivo Arend
Type		Player Character
Player		Sirapyro
Character Information
Name		Ivo Arend
Aliases		Voi Aryn (birth name)
Race		Human
Class(es)		Storm Sorcerer, College of Lore Bard
Background		Outlander
Sex		Male
Age		31
Alignment		Neutral Good
Family		Luman (father) Jaz Aryn (mother) Tol Aryn (grandfather)
Affiliations		The Stampede (founder, current) Cigam Order (current) Third Hand (current)
Place(s)		Little Rock (hometown) Strassburg (birthplace) Ivory Crest (base)
Languages		Common, Mountaineer, Gnomish, Primordial
Status		Alive
Stats
Level		15 (12 Sorc, 3 Bard)
Hitpoints 126		Strength 18		Intelligence 10
AC 23		Dexterity 15		Wisdom 12
DC 19		Constitution 19		Charisma 20

Ivo Arend is an original member of the party known as "The Stampede", and serves as one of its predominant mages and its bard. A storm sorcerer of uniquely incredible power, Ivo has spent much of his life hiding his gift for magic for fear of reprisals by the Cigam. Since he, and the rest of The Stampede, have become memebers of the Cigam Order, though, he has practiced his magic more openly, though still hides it from the general public. His journey began as a means of discovering the truth about his past and his power, which has concluded in the realization that the stories told to him in his childhood were lies told to protect him and the incredible power he naturally possesses.

Character History

Backstory

Ivo Arend was born and spent his earliest years in a town on the edges of the Emorian Empire, alongside a river that served as an important trade route. When civil war broke out, the town's position made it an excellent strategic position to control the flow of resources going down the river, and so it became a hotspot for conflict. The towns Human citizens, not looking to fight or die, fled into the mountains where they were accepted by the Giants. The town was leveled soon after.

Ivo spent his childhood and formative years alongside his parents and fellow Human refugees with the Giants just south of a town known as "Big Rock". The Giants humorously referred to the Human settlement as "Little Rock", and the name stuck. Ivo's personality and skills were molded by the Giants but he was instilled with a drive for knowledge by his parents, who passed away in his early 20's due to natural causes. As he grew up and came to understand more of the world he discovered he possessed a natural mystical ability. If his parents knew anything about where this gift (or curse, as many would see it) came from, they took it to their graves. They only ever warned him of the risk he faced if anyone ever found out.

In his teenage years, Ivo befriended a Giant named Klever, a young hunter in Big Rock. As a hunter Klever was fairly knowledgeable about the local geography - he had to be to track better - and Ivo was able to learn by watching him. Klever taught him to appreciate his surroundings, to recognize them and recall them later so that he'd never get lost. Ivo never particularly took to hunting big game like Klever, but he was still able to learn crucial lessons in survivability. In turn, Ivo's curiosity and drive to study made it so he had more stories to tell than most people either of them knew, and as Ivo matured he took to playing the guitar, all of which Klever took great joy in hearing.

Ivo continued to study what he could while living with the Giants, but eventually, his drive for knowledge led him to set out on his own and return to the Emorian Empire, where he could find answers on who his family was before they fled, and why he has access to the magic that he does. Learning about other people and civilizations is just an added bonus on his quest.

Campaign

Ivo attended the Championship of Champions hoping that the winnings he might earn from it would aid in his quest to learn more about his history, but he didn't expect to perform as well as he did, gaining national notoriety in the process, or to find himself as a member of an adventuring party. He, along with the rest of what would colloquially become known as the "The Stampede", found themselves accepting a job to investigate a secret military base that had been attacked, leaving the entire staff dead or missing. In this base, they found a mysterious golden scepter-like artifact that they would later discover was proof of the existence of Gods.

Ivo quickly found camaraderie with the rest of his party members, so much so that he followed them into situations he normally wouldn't have. His new familial bonds with "The Stampede" even sidetracked him from his quest for personal knowledge, though it has never left the forefront of his mind. He has confided as much of his history as he can say without fear of arrest to his party members, and by doing so he has begun to learn that the stories he was told by his family may not have been entirely true. Commandant Evans and The Wolf, specifically, insisted that Ivo's search for his destroyed home town was a fool's errand and that it was likely destroyed due to religious worship in the area.

These warnings, and Ivo's growing fears, were confirmed when the party, along with Vylqwyn, interacted with the book recovered from Telam and it confirmed that not only was Ivo adopted by his supposed "parents", he was born in Strassburg and is very likely not even human. The information Ivo learned from the book did nothing to advance his quest for knowledge; In fact, it served more to prove that almost everything he thought he knew about himself was a lie and that he was further from discovering the truth than he had ever been. He went quiet after that, taking in that information, but the next morning he and the rest of the party were tasked with removing the threat of the Third Hand from Strassburg, and so Ivo distracted himself by partaking in the killing of their local leader after totally not accidentally instigating the fight with psychic messages.

While most of the rest of the party learned something about their personal goals that gave them a new clue to follow, Ivo was left with no leads and few ideas on where to go next. He determined to make his way back home, to the Giant kingdom, after dealing with a situation in the Kingdom of Gulac on behalf of Luman, which turned out to be a disaster. Gnomes and Humans had gone to war, and on their way to complete the quest given to them by Luman they were attacked by an enemy army and forced to retreat, but not before Evans and their new companion, Tafo Skavo, were captured. Ivo ultimately sacrificed one of his two Praetorian coins to free Evans, who then departed to continue Luman's quest while the rest of the party departed for Little Rock.

After a stop in Kansley, where Illy stole a dagger from a museum, the party finall arrived in Little Rock, where Ivo came to discover that the story about his village being burned as a child was entirely a lie, and that his childhood home had been previously owned by Vylqwyn. This bombshell was quickly followed by a communication from Vylqwyn in magic ink that instructed him, and the rest of the party, to head for Durmstrong, where they would meet Cane, a powerful man who could give everyone more answers. It took the better part of two weeks and a fight with some giant wyrms, but Ivo and the party finally arived in Durmstrong and made contact with Cane, who ultimately determined that the party was comprised of extremely rare, magic-destroying "Slayers" - a fact they all needed to keep secret. Cane warned of a coming war, and if the party wanted to prepare then they needed to go to Cigam and complete their training.

And so the party set off to join Cigam, teleporting to Headquarters directly from Durmstrong, where they spent the next several months training and learning about magic, and even acquiring new skills. Ivo, for his part, picked up some skills of a Bard. Finally, after obtaining green robes, the party departed from Cigam and took a "vacation" in Emor, where they made acquaintance with almost every member of the Emperor's Praetorian guard... and even with the Emperor himself! Ivo, unfortunately, was forced to give up his last Praetorian coin in exchange for an Amulet of Naurel for Illy. Shortly after he finally reconnected with Vylqwyn, who set him on a new hunt for answers: the identity of his birth father.

After excursions on behalf of the Praetorian Furari Domin, preventing a coup in the Dwarven kingdom, and participating in their second Championship of Champions, Ivo and The Stampede took a week off to pursue their own personal goals. During this week Ivo managed to stumble upon someone elses research that seemed to imply the name "Arend" was a derivative of the imperial name "Aryn", implying that his mother may have been the deposed emperors daughter, and his father her commoner-turned-champion husband: Luman. These suspicions were later confirmed by Luman himself after The Stampede helped save him, Vylqwyn, and Telam from an assassination attempt. While the revelation largely answered the questions Ivo set out to answer at the start of his journey, it did not bring him the peace he thought it would.

Description

Physical Description

Ivo Arend is fairly moderate in stature: 5'9" and in healthy shape, though not particularly strong. He has cut his dark brown hair short while dealing in the Emorian Empire, and his beard only ever grows to a thin shadow. He has an "easy to look at" face, complimenting his generally charismatic personality. He is not "gorgeous" by the traditional sense, but many would consider him to be at least above average.

Personality

Ivo is, above all else, driven by two things: a pursuit for knowledge and self-improvement, and a devotion to his family, both blood and chosen. His main ideological goal is to learn about his past, and the pursuit of knowledge has always been both one of his best traits, as well as his worst. His fascination with knowledge, especially when it's relevant to his personal history, has been known to distract him from whatever else he might have been doing, sometimes to near-dangerous extents. He may even lose focus in the middle of combat under the right (or wrong) circumstances. This is a problem he has acknowledged about himself and has spent a lot of time trying to improve on it, but ultimately it is something that is always at the forefront of his mind and can be easily manipulated.

Ivo is a very cautious person, and will often hold back from dangerous situations if they do not immediately benefit his own personal quest. For example, he refused to lay a hand on "The Elephant", but he quickly joined in when the party recovered a book capable of telling him almost anything he wanted to know. Because of this, and in some cases despite it, Ivo tends to overthink problems, and he ultimately prefers more complicated solutions rather than simple ones.

Spells & Abilities

Spells

Abilities

For reasons unknown to him, and in addition to his spellcasting, Ivo has a number of unique abilities he can call upon in a number of different situations for little to no cost, depending on the ability.

Weapons & Armor

Weapons

As a (somewhat) secretive spellcaster, Ivo predominantly depends on his strange magical abilities when in combat, but has learned to carry around a set of weapons with him both to disguise his magic and to help deal with situations where his magic may not be sufficient.

Armor

While Ivo has no natural knowledge of how to use, or skill with the use of armors, either heavy or light, he is capable of using it through the magic of his Groth ring. Initially Groth had bestowed upon him a set of breastplate armor that Ivo wore for some time, but as Ivo realized the incredible power the ring possessed he desired an upgrade. Spending almost the entirety of his cash supply, Ivo purchased for himself an improved set of plate armor as well as an adamantine shield, making him an incredibly durable member of the party despite being a sorcerer.

Equipment

Ivo has acquired several items throughout his adventures, both standard and magical in nature. Most of them are just standard utilities, such as potions and a map, while others are items he has carried with him throughout his adventures, and have become invaluable tools combined with his particular set of skills.

Additional Skills & Languages

Skills

While he only recently became a Bard, Ivo is a skilled guitar player, as evidenced by his performance in the Championship of Champions. This is a skill he picked up as part of a broader habit of telling stories to entertain, and ultimately fit in, with his Giant peers.

Growing up in the mountains meant that learning how to climb them was a necessary skill, especially when the local architecture - designed for Giants - towered over him. As such, Ivo is a skilled mountain climber even without the use of his magic rope or immovable rod, each of which has elevated his ability to do so tremendously.

Though he is no master of survival, Ivo's lifelong friend Klever was a proficient Hunter, and so Ivo was able to learn many basic survival skills from him. Ivo can hunt, start fires, set up camps, lay traps, navigate through forests or hills, and generally find ways to survive in the wilderness.

Ivo spent his entire life hearing that he needed to keep his strange magical abilities a secret, that he - and everyone else he knew - could be killed just for his having them. Still, the abilities were much too useful to just ignore, and so growing up Ivo learned how to lie and hide his abilities the best he could. All of this deception has helped shape him into a particularly effective liar, which is only aided by his charismatic nature.

Languages