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