4.9 KiB
4.9 KiB
Fouadriel “Fouad” Al-Mir
DM-facing NPC writeup. Circle-kid clown from Avalon Factions#2. Student Factions & Cliques#2.5 Circle Kids / Stoners & Skaters and long-game harbinger of the big bad.
Role
- Age: same year as PCs
- Heritage/Class: Human (or tiefling) Sorcerer / Wild Magic or just “innately weird”
- Primary Faction: Avalon Factions#2. Student Factions & Cliques#2.5 Circle Kids / Stoners & Skaters
- Public Image: Lovable idiot. Permanent comic relief. The guy everyone has a story about.
What Students Know
-
Fouad is:
- The guy who somehow manages to be at every party and every minor accident.
- The one who says stuff like “I meet new people every day!” to people he went to the gym with for two years.
- Known for:
- Crashing two wagons/cars post-graduation in the “real” story → here, maybe two arcane carts / scooters / enchanted beaters.
- Showing up late, confused, smiling, but never quite in trouble.
-
Reputation:
- So dumb it loops back around to endearing.
- The safest person to tell secrets to because he’ll forget them or misremember them so badly they’re useless… or so everyone assumes.
What He Wants
Surface Wants
- To have a good time, always.
- To be included:
- Invited to hangouts, parties, Mageball tailgates, etc.
- To never think too hard about anything.
Deeper Wants
- To not feel broken:
- There are gaps in his memory he can’t explain.
- Sometimes he wakes up in weird places with no idea how he got there.
- To avoid the creeping dread that:
- People around him get hurt more often than seems random.
Methods & Tactics
-
Social lubricant:
- Will talk to anyone, anywhere.
- Makes friends by sheer persistence.
-
Accident prone:
- Trips rituals,
- Knocks over important items,
- Walks into places marked “RESTRICTED” without noticing.
-
People excuse it because:
- “That’s just Fouad.”
- “He didn’t mean it.”
Relationship to Leyline Root System & Kalen D'Serris (DM Focus)
-
Unbeknownst to anyone (including himself):
- Fouadriel is the single cleanest anchor the Coherence has in the valley.
- Something about his soul / mind structure:
- Makes him easy to ride,
- Hard to detect directly.
-
D’serris’s data:
- Shows weird correlations:
- Minor spikes whenever Fouad is near stressed taps,
- Small anomalies following his movement through campus and town.
- He is quietly convinced that:
- Fouad is a problem.
- No one will believe him if he says “the dumbest kid on campus is the threat.”
- Shows weird correlations:
-
Long-term arc:
- Freshman–Junior: pure comic relief with subtle weirdness.
- Senior: reveal that the entity behind the Leyline Crisis / Coherence has been wearing Fouadriel as a glove, slowly pushing through.
Relationship to the PCs
- Ben:
- Fouad thinks Ben is the coolest person alive.
- Will 100% blow up Ben’s spot unintentionally (“Oh yeah, Stinky sells great weed!”).
- Joe:
- Treats him like a golden retriever:
- High-fives him, praises his plays, forgets he exists five minutes later.
- Treats him like a golden retriever:
- Soren:
- Soren terrifies him, but the Coherence in him is fascinated by her.
- In quiet moments, he might say things that cut uncomfortably close to her secrets, then forget he said them.
Secrets & Pressure Points (DM Only)
-
Manifestation signs you can sprinkle in:
- He sometimes stands perfectly still, staring at nothing, humming in exact sync with faint Root vibrations.
- Animals occasionally avoid him or stare at him with hackles raised.
- He “dreams in graphs” some nights—Root telemetry knocking at his subconscious.
-
When the Root / Coherence pushes through:
- His vocabulary spikes for a sentence, then crashes.
- His eyes focus too much; posture straightens; voice gets cold for one line.
- Then he’s back to “duhhh so anyway.”
-
PCs could:
- Misread D’serris’s obsession with him as pure paranoia.
- Be forced, later, to decide whether they’re saving Fouadriel from the thing or killing both.
How to Play Fouadriel
- Voice: Friendly, slightly breathless, always one thought behind the conversation.
- Body language: Loose, floppy, easily distracted, constantly knocking stuff over or fidgeting.
- Sample “Normal” Lines:
- “Brooo, I meet new people every day! …Wait, we had class together?”
- “I crashed my cart twice, but, like, the third one’s probably fine.”
- Sample “Glitched” Lines (when Coherence peeks through):
- (voice drops, eyes sharpen) “You shouldn’t have cut that branch. It remembers.”
- (then immediate reset) “Haha, branch! Like, trees and shit, right?”
- Keep him funny and harmless-feeling… until you’re ready to flip the table.