Lionel Collins

Loud, enthusiastic, and ever-so-subtly criminal, Lionel Collins will mostly go along with anything if it means having a good time and making some friends. And hey, whilst every friend realistically will sell you out for a suitably high price, that doesn't actually make them any worse for it. Life is beautiful, people.

As of Dissonance: Well, what do you know - turns out Lionel can actually say that he's been to a parallel universe! Or, y'know, skirted around it whilst tethered to reality by labyrinthine ropes of damp spaghetti, but whatever.

Also, he has maybe inadvertently gained the moniker 'Lionel the Lascivious' in the wizard duel arena. Or, okay, yeah. Definitely. He definitely did that.

As of Beat The Champ: Lionel Collins? More like Lion of Acryn!

Or, okay, fine. Lascivious Lion of Acryn.

Famed for his love of the incomparable (and entirely fictitious) Anastasia Darrish, The Lion is known as the glue that keeps arena battle group The Chain Gang together - and even his much-touted rivalry with The Dancer won't eclipse his belief in the power of friendship! And teamwork! And narrative convenience!

(Otherwise known as That One Time Lionel Conned Emilio Redan and Amanda Birch Into Actually Having Fun.)

As of Life In a Box: Okay, so the uber-cool wizard might have been markedly lukewarm towards his request to become an apprentice in her awesome library-castle, but Lionel's success in a protracted game of ridiculous, pyrrhic competitive mutual pickpocketing more than makes up for the disappointment.

Also, he's decided he's going to seduce Ambrosia Terrec.

As of One Night in Liarus: … That, or become the mortal enemy of her Head of House. Either works! In any case, screw Liarus, and all horrible, wizard-hating Serradics; he's going to cool it on the diplomatic mission side of things for a while.

As of Boss Rush: Okay, yeah, technically he did get beaten unconscious and imprisoned in a virtual reality by evil mages intent on stealing his soul for further nefarious experimentation. But you've got to consider the amount of skill that went into producing that kind of thing!

As of The First Step: Amazingly, Lionel's hopeless pursuit of Ambrosia Terrec seems to have not been unsuccessful? Thanks to pickpocketing, and a mutual propensity for elaborately ironic letters, he now has a luncheon date.

He has also potentially found religion? Which is unfortunate, considering it's one of Acryn's banned gods. Still, he's never felt the need to give the law undue consideration in the past - so why start now?

As of Occurendo Mundi: … Welp. There is now a giant Symbol of Calamity ringed around Serradis - not that those mage-hating ingrates were grateful for the fact that it is as-of-yet incomplete. Lionel despairs.

As of See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil: Lionel has reunited with Ambrosia Terrec! Their courtship continues to be highly prolific on an epistolary front, in addition to being totally incomprehensible to the outside observer.

Also, she appears to be a werewolf. This has not curbed his affections one iota.

As of Sight Seeing: Once again, Lionel and Ambrosia have adventured together - with the latter encountering certain difficulties in handling her canine condition. Lionel, however, has sworn to be her knight: perhaps he may never be the hero he longs to be, but he shall not hesitate to defend her to the death.

This is complicated slightly by the fact that he has finally guessed at certain Traitorous affiliations she may possess. After a tense (and admittedly, somewhat thrilling) confrontation in which it became quite clear that Ambrosia only just decided against killing him for his presumption, he has finally declared both a) his knowledge of the fact, and b) his undying love.

As of Ad Astra Per Aspera: After a highly perilous jaunt through Carleon, Lionel has gained what he hopes will be lifelong friends in Hardy Quinn and Jeremy Fitzwilliam. The three, in addition to a pair of sentient swords and the charmingly megalomaniacal Grand Octopus, have taken on the responsibility for raising Lionel's new (and somewhat accidentally-acquired) son, Coll.

As of unnamed freeform at my house: … Fatherhood may be slightly less amicable than anticipated. Jeremy keeps making him do star-jumps. Also, Lionel is now the Grand Octopus' thrall.

As of Blood Memories:

As of Closed System:

Class: Mage

Primary Rite: Fracturing

Secondary Rite: Scribing

Additional Rite: Refinement

Background #1: Thief

Background #2: Organisational Ties: True Council

Background #3: Use Quarterstaff

XP: 41/41
9 + 2
Level 5 (bizarrely)

Epic Trees

Arena Fighter

Divine Favour of the Heroic Path

Skills

• Use Quarterstaff
• Protomana Tolerance
• Protomana Tolerance 2
• Contacts: True Council (question)
• Larceny
• Mana Sense
• Minor Ritual Caster
• Use Implement
• Pickpocketing
• Weapon Talent 1 (1 STRIKEDOWN and 1 WEAKEN per adventure)
• Weapon Potency (DOUBLES)
• Flanking
• Ritual Caster
• Edificeer
• Arcane Learnings
• Loremaster
• Distill Mana
• Retrieve Implement
• It's Showtime! - gain a dodge in front of an audience
• Tough
• Mana Simulation
• Implement Experience
• Master Ritualist
• I'm Calling You Out! - gain an I'll Be Your Opponent
• Special Move - once p/e
• The Audience of Generations - once p/a gain It's Showtime, 3 uses of Special Move and Determination - anyone with skills from this tree also benefits
• Lost Lore
• Lost Spell: Light Before Shadows (10s, MASS BLIND 10, may call YOU DARE NOT STRIKE ME; take a REND if something is capable of resisting and striking you)
• Protomana Experience
• The Shortest Path: With five minutes meditation you may craft your own thoughts into an ideal plan, a perfect strategy, the most parsimonious way to solve a problem with the resources at hand. At the climax of the spell you receive a flash of impossible inspiration as every probability and variation falls seamlessly into place. To comprehend such perfection is literally mind-blowing and for the next encounter you will not have the strength of will to use magic in combat (though may do so out of combat if not distracted). To do this more than once an adventure will irrevocably destroy your mind. Mechanically you may state a single aim, which must be no longer than a sentence, to the GM. The response is always at GM discretion but should tell you the most direct way to achieve your objective with the resources at hand. E.g. A Mage could use this spell with the aim 'to win the battle of Bosworth field' they could then describe to a General the ideal strategy to use…though if victory is actually impossible this spell can't change that.
• Dragonsoul Implement:
  
• Minor: By casting Fault of Footing through your Dragon Soul implement you may modify the force to travel as a staff shape through the air, you may call ARC STRIKEDOWN (the motion for casting this is very similar to hitting two opponents in the neck with a horizontal staff).
• Major: Once per an adventure you may fracture your nature as a mage, wrap yourself in the story of a mysterious warrior, and perfect it. This process takes 10 seconds, during which time you are unable to move, fight, or defend yourself, at the end of these 10 seconds or if you are struck by an enemy then you must call DISAPPEARING. Visually, you explode in a flurry of paper. Your disappearance lasts long enough to grab a sword, shield, and piece of costume, you may then position yourself at the edge of combat and call APPEARING. A mysterious warrior has appeared ready to save the party. At the end of the encounter you once again disappear, reappearing as Lionel a short while later. While using this ability you cannot use any abilities which are primarily the domain of mages (spells, rituals, arcane knowledge, mana sense, implement abilities, etc). You gain 1 determination, take a HEAL FULL, gain heavy armour use and standard heavy armour, large shield use and a standard large shield, as well as a Rapier which allows you to call DOUBLE THROUGH, 3xDISARM, and 3xWEAKEN. You also gain a single dodge, which is converted to resists as per the heavy armour and large shield abilities. Any armour or shield skills you already have will be converted to heavy/large as appropriate.
• Tough

Spells

• Fault of Footing
• Faults Unveiled
• Fault of Memory
• Symbol of Creating
• Sapping Steel (pre-weakened weapon or shield)
• Fault of Earth (MASS STRIKEDOWN)
• Fault of Temperance (60 SECOND REND)
• Fault of Focus (0 mana - TRIPLE; 1 mana - QUAD and REND; 2 mana - QUAD and 2 REND; 3 mana - QUINT and 2 REND)
• Light Before Shadows

Miscellaneous

• Now has a son named Coll. Coll is a seemingly sentient stream of mana crystals attached to a fresh corpse, whose personality has elements of Lionel's own.
• May call I'LL BE YOUR OPPONENT twice more per adventure, thanks to the scribing tattoo from the Green Knight.
• Is now Jeremy's Thrall.
• The Grand Octopus may call DOMINATE on Lionel once per encounter.
• The brain surgery seems to have held, but feels different to how your brain should be functioning in a way that is hard to describe - normally you gain 1 RESIST to FEAR per encounter. You also have the option of embracing this and letting the feeling spread in a sensation that is hard to describe, by taking a REND you become IMMUNE to FEAR for the remainder of the encounter. However, by doing so for this duration you also become a lot more reckless as whilst you can still recognise that some things will be bad for you, it is difficult to resolve these against the fact that you have nothing to worry about from them.

Stuff

• 0 x mana crystal
• A soggy collection of virtually illegible notes - and a couple that are dry.
• And couple of origami creatures.
• Notebook and pencil. The pencil is of markedly higher quality than the notebook, for some reason.
• 0 x HEAL 4 potions
• 0 x DEATH CHARM potions
• 1 x spark of potential in a jar

Money: 9 Riel