Houdini Lapin
STRENGTH 10 (+0), DEXTERITY 18 (+4), CONSTITUTION 14 (+2), INTELLIGENCE 10 (+0), WISDOM 8 (-1), CHARISMA 16 (+3)
Houdini Lapin
Houdini Lapin was an Escapologist Magician who was briefly imprisoned in the Jonas Fogg Medical College Hospital Arcanum before he, well, escaped.
He appeared in Connie Furr's Kindred Memory spell when she was investigating the Medical College in preperation for breaking out prisoner J19 as instructed by Whitecape's starmap.
Physical Description
Special abilities
Spells
0: Detect Magic, Lockslip, Mage Hand, Open/Close, Prestidigitation, Read Magic.1: Animate Rope, Expeditious Retreat, Feather Fall, Liberating Command, Locksight, Rune Trace.
2: Apport Object, Blessing of Liberty, Invisibility, Pilfering Hand.
3: Dispel Magic, Jester's Jaunt, See Beyond (because he is a Magician bard), See Invisibility.
Specialized Equipment
Arcane Bonded Item to Luminous Lockpicks that light up but only for him to see in the dark.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
Imprisonment
Houdini was captured while on his magical tour of the city, and traded to Jonas Fogg. Peeping through the bars he could see from the signage that he had been taken to the Hospital Arcanum wing of the Medical College. As a Magician, Houdini was knowledgeable in Spellcraft and he used his Rune Trace spell to analyse the glyphs on the floor of his cell. He discovered that the arcane rune that he had been branded with when he was imprisoned was keyed to the runes engraved on his cell floor such that leaving the cell would set off the central alarm system, at least if the orderleys were not escorting him. He did figure out, however, that it was possible to Dispel the rune, which is what he did. Every morning, Houdini habitually cast See Beyond on himself to help with his escapology acts. As a result, he was able to see both what was physically on the other side of the walls and also peer a little into the ethereal plane. What he saw was some smoky ethereal webbing attached to the door of his cell such that opening the door to his cell would snap the web tripwires and alert whatever was lurking at the centre of the web. Moreover, there were guards to avoid: a Dwarven orderly guard, and a little floating translucent eyeball. Houdini waited until the patrolling Dwarven orderly guard was on a different floor of the Arcanum and the eyeball (which could magically mimic the vision of a Drow) was looking the other way, and then he made his escape. Houdini used his Jester's Jaunt spell to bypass the webbing tripwires by blipping to the other side of the door without opening it. Leaving the cell, Houdini's See Beyond spell revealed a pair of ethereal figures in his cell, tethered in the ethereal webbing, but confined to the Ethereal Plane. They had been hiding behind Houdini in the cell so only came into view as Houdini made his escape. One moves to instinctively grab onto him, and the arm passed straight through because they were not on the same plane of existence. As he ran, he spotted another prisoner being wheeled out of a room on a gurney that had clearly been designed to allow the orderleys to move prisoners without setting off the alarm. With his Expeditious Retreat, Houdini was able to run to the window before anyone clocked him, and cast Jester's Jaunt again to fully escape. He Feather Fell safely to the ground and fled away.In the Dwarven Settlements
A little later on in his life after escaping, Houdini went to the visit the Dwarves in the Dwarven Settlements, just above the Bunbun Warren. He had recognised the Dwarven architecture of the prison and he wanted to know if anyone could tell him about the weird ethereal creatures that he had been in a cell with. The Dwarven stories told to him were of a Panoptican folklore creature that the Dwarven name translated literally is an Adherer, or "one who sticks in place". They are not part of standard Panoptican teachings, but appear as spooky playground folklore as almost ghost stories. According to the tales, after the rise of the newer gods, Panopticon's followers depleated in number, abandoning their original faith. With Its-and-Their reduced power and eminence, the became more difficult for Panopticon to get enough souls from dead worshippers to create enough Huntsmen to guard all the places that It-and-they needed guarding, when Panopticon was not paying direct attention It-and-Themselves. As a solution, less powerful and less dangerous prisoners were drafted from the Bridewell, wrapped in webs to keep them pinned down so they couldn’t run away and escape, and stuck in place in various places as auxiliary guards. The stories about Adherers don’t say they only exist on the Ethereal Plane. But the webs that the Eyes and Arms used to entangle and tether these prisoners, were created by natural born inhabitants of the Bridewell known as Phase Spiders, so-called because they can phase between ethereal and physical form. In theory, one of these could have taken Adherers to the Ethereal Plane with them and tethered them there with these webs.
Current Status
Deceased
Species
Professions
Life
1207
1295
88 years old
Family
Children
Gender
Male
Eyes
Brown