Lissa Whitehorn, A Tinkerer's Treatise of Transmutation (TM)

[Xerah]

Name: Lissa Whitehorn

Race: Gnome (rock) Height: 2'10" Weight: 35lbs Age: 42 Eyes: Light Blue Hair: Red Deity: Nebelun (Gond)

Appearance:

The best way to describe Lissa would be by the idiom 'cute as a button'. Lissa is small for a rock gnome, standing at only 2'10" and weighing less than 40 lbs with a slight build. She has short brown hair held back with a well-used pair of goggles.

With a mix of red, blue, purple, and copper coloured clothing, she stands out more than the average gnome. Although her clothing is rather well made, it is often stained with grease, oil, and soot. At her side, she carries a small set of tinkerer's tools.

One of the oddest things about her (there are many) is the metallic contraption on her arm. It appears to be a mix of random bits of metal plated together but otherwise well-constructed. When in battle, she seems to channel a great deal of arcane energy into the device and produce a variety of arcane explosions.


Personality

Archetypes: Simple Soul; Wanderer
Traits: Kind; Loyal; Naïve; Peaceful

Lissa is very optimistic, almost to a fault. It is nearly impossible to put her in a bad mood and she always retains a cheerful outlook on life. She enjoys the simple things in life, from a good meal to a story of adventurers thwarting evil, to sharing company with family and friends. Quick to make a friend, she becomes incredibly loyal to them until they give her a strong reason not to be.


Background:

Lissa Whitehorn was born and spent her entire life in the Lantan. She was to parents who run one of the local Inns (and still do) known as The Golden Trickster. At a young age, she showed excellent aptitude in both math and science so her mother sent her to work and learn with a local inventor, Donothito.

Even in Lantan near a temple to Gond, "The Professor" (as she began to call him) was known as a rather eccentric individual in the village who was pressing almost four hundred years old. He owned a small workshop near the Forge where they had an agreement to share facilities. Over the next 15 years, she spent every day in the workshop assisting and learning all the while preparing for the Professor’s greatest achievement – a working ‘Gond-suit’, powered by a combination of gaseous water and the weave.

During her coming of age ceremony (three years ago), the Professor gave her one of his finest creations - a clockwork miniature dragon named G.E.A.R.S. roughly the size and look of a pseudodragon. The story goes that Gears used to be a living pseudodragon, but an explosion in the lab caused fatal damage to the creature. Not being able to bring it back to life in time, he extracted the soul and then built a clockwork version for the creature to continue living.

Shortly after turning forty, the first plans of the ‘Gond-suit’ were put together. The two of them put three years of work into the suit and it was finally ready for a field test. The last final piece needed to finish the suit was held by a gnome named Nadul DaRoni who had a workshop near High Horn. The two of them set out to Cormyr in a defended caravan with the suit.

Along the way, the caravan was attacked by bandits. Now both the professor and the 'Gond-suit' are missing with very few clues to go on. Lissa plans to set up a mini-workshop in one of the local Inns to both figure out what happened to the Professor and get him back by any means necessary.


Goals:

• To become a leading inventor in Faerun
• To discover what happened to The Professor

Possible Plot-Hook Ideas and Misc Facts:

• Lissa’s Professor, Professor Donothito, has been captured or killed by bandits. It is unclear what the motivation behind it was.
• The 'Gond-suit' they were planning on testing has been stolen
• The Professor was taken by a rival gnomish inventor (possibly Nadul DaRoni himself) and is planning to use The Professor help with his own inventions
• The bandits are using The Professor to give them various devices and augmentations which will eventually be found on dead bandits
• Anything to do with strange devices
• Combat training to get ready to use the ‘tech-suit’ and to help rescue The Professor (if needed)
• Building a new ‘Gond-suit’ (or upgrading the existing one if it is ever found)

[Xerah]

“Impossible ideas are only seen as foolish until they are not.” – Lissa Whitehorn

I have now, safely (N.B. I use that term loosely) arrived in the village of Greatgaunt. A most unfortunate tragedy befell the caravan on the way; it was attacked by bandits! We were resting away when out of nowhere an alarm rang and I poked my head out to see more than a dozen figures standing around us. A fellow brother of the forge (N.B. a cleric of Gond, whom we had picked up earlier in the day on his way to Suzail with unrelated business) told me to ready my hammer and rushed out into the darkness to assist the guards.

Truth be told, I had never really had to wield my hammer as a weapon before. I am more customed to handling my Arcane Combustion Ejector or Directed Electrical Energy Pulsar rather than anything as crude as a hammer. Despite my proficiency with those devices, however, I have never had to use them against anything other than a stationary, inanimate target. Sadly, those were in the other cart and out of reach.

With all of our three years of hard work (N.B. twelve years if you include the research) resting inside a crate in the next cart, I had no choice. I rushed behind the cleric ready to save the day. Sadly, my marital prowess was no match for the bandits and before I was even able to attack one, I had been subdued.

When I came too, I was alone (N.B. I mean, no one from the caravan nor the Professor were there) on the road. Now for the extra bad news. The Professor, along with Gond-suit is missing. I have made the following assumptions:

• The Professor did not use it as he likely could have prevented the attack;
• It was stolen (DeRoni did know we were coming after all, but he would never), as it would have appeared to be worth the most amount of coin; and
• The bandits have captured the Professor.

My luck is not all lost however as the bandits did not take everything. They left a few of my operational notes in various conditions (which include numerous figures that may be used to reconstruct the missing devices). G.E.A.R.S. is also not here, so I have to hope that it is still at the site of the attack – it will be far too difficult to rebuild now.

I have been able to reconstruct my A.C.E. (see Appendix A) and was able to show it off when I volunteered with the village (I might be here a while). If I can help them out, maybe I can get some help with the search for the Professor and the missing supplies as well.

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Appendix A:

[Raven]

Nov 12, 2022 15:35:25 GMT -5 Xerah said:

“Impossible ideas are only seen as foolish until they are not.” – Lissa Whitehorn

I have now, safely (N.B. I use that term loosely) arrived in the village of Greatgaunt. A most unfortunate tragedy befell the caravan on the way; it was attacked by bandits! We were resting away when out of nowhere an alarm rang and I poked my head out to see more than a dozen figures standing around us. A fellow brother of the forge (N.B. a cleric of Gond, whom we had picked up earlier in the day on his way to Suzail with unrelated business) told me to ready my hammer and rushed out into the darkness to assist the guards.

Truth be told, I had never really had to wield my hammer as a weapon before. I am more customed to handling my Arcane Combustion Ejector or Directed Electrical Energy Pulsar rather than anything as crude as a hammer. Despite my proficiency with those devices, however, I have never had to use them against anything other than a stationary, inanimate target. Sadly, those were in the other cart and out of reach.

With all of our three years of hard work (N.B. twelve years if you include the research) resting inside a crate in the next cart, I had no choice. I rushed behind the cleric ready to save the day. Sadly, my marital prowess was no match for the bandits and before I was even able to attack one, I had been subdued.

When I came too, I was alone (N.B. I mean, no one from the caravan nor the Professor were there) on the road. Now for the extra bad news. The Professor, along with Gond-suit is missing. I have made the following assumptions:

• The Professor did not use it as he likely could have prevented the attack;
• It was stolen (DeRoni did know we were coming after all, but he would never), as it would have appeared to be worth the most amount of coin; and
• The bandits have captured the Professor.

My luck is not all lost however as the bandits did not take everything. They left a few of my operational notes in various conditions (which include numerous figures that may be used to reconstruct the missing devices). G.E.A.R.S. is also not here, so I have to hope that it is still at the site of the attack – it will be far too difficult to rebuild now.

I have been able to reconstruct my A.C.E. (see Appendix A) and was able to show it off when I volunteered with the village (I might be here a while). If I can help them out, maybe I can get some help with the search for the Professor and the missing supplies as well.

---

Appendix A:

This is absolutely gnomish technology!

 2xFeS + 11xH20 = Fe2O3 + 2xH2SO4 .... +  9H2   (Yikes!)

FeS (pyrite) 
H20 (water)
Fe2O3 (iron oxide ie rust)
H2SO4 (sulfuric acid)
H2 (Hydrogen gas)

This is an exothermic reaction, which is a fancy way of saying heat producing. Finely powdered pyrite injected into a mist or warm water might even be quick. It does generate a strong acid and umm... hot hydrogen gas so in the true fashion of gnomic technology, explosive. Think Hindenburg disaster explosive lol.