Quick facts
Race/Class: Human illusionist wizard and arcane trickster rogue · Age: 17 · Party: The FAM · Family: Reverie Family of Beerlia; brother of Fable Reverie · Codename: “Smoke” (given by the Pale Fang) · Status: Alive; hunted by the Pale Fang and the Velvet Truffle Company (as of C2 Session 83)
Escher Reverie is a young human illusionist and thief from a big whiskey-country family in Beerlia. He joined The FAM at the Saline Coast and spent much of Campaign 2 quietly working as a paid assassin behind his friends’ backs, until the job came home to his own family.
Overview
Escher is tall and very pale, with long brown hair in a ponytail and electric blue eyes. He wears an open blue wizard’s cloak with gold trim over a matching brown outfit, carries a quarterstaff on his back, and always has a book with him. He is a prankster by nature, sarcastic under pressure and good at disguises, invisibility and getting into places he shouldn’t. His friends say he “always has that look in his eye.” He is also capable of cold violence, and his choices pushed the party into a long argument about how much killing they could live with.
Among the things he picked up in play were a cursed recipe book, The Sweet Curse: A Baker’s Delight, and books on forbidden magic, on animating objects (The Animator’s Gem) and on moon magic.
Background
Escher grew up on the Reverie family farm on Beerlia, which grows barley and collects spring water for the island’s whiskey makers. His father, Echo, is an ox of a man who works the fields from sunup to sundown, loves his family and expects hard work. His mother, Remy, is an evocation-trained wizard with a more patient nature who taught her children whatever school of magic they showed a talent for. Escher is one of eleven children. With his brothers Lyric and Fable he formed a trio of pranksters whose antics kept them a step ahead of their father. See Reverie Family for the full family.
When Escher was fifteen, a prank went too far. His little brother Wren is very attached to his blanket, so Escher made an illusion of it on top of the barley silo. Wren, a skilled climber, went up after it, and when he reached the top the blanket vanished and Wren fell. Only his sister Lyra’s feather fall saved his life. Escher had pulled this one without Lyric and Fable, who usually kept things under control. After weeks of hard looks, he announced at dinner that he was moving to Scotch on the Rocks to help sell the family’s alcohol. In truth he wanted his own life and to run from the problem. His father, still disgusted, told him to go make some nice contacts. His mother agreed he needed time away but asked him to come home often.
In Scotch on the Rocks he was supposed to live in his eldest brother Rhylan’s casino penthouse, but Rhylan’s girlfriend drove him onto the streets. There he beat a loud dealer’s shell game 27 times in a row. The next dealer to sit down, a young rogue named Thadeous, told him he knew a better use for that trick. Escher fell in with Thadeous’s crowd, which became the Tequila Gang, and moved into a shared flat with them. The gang ran card scams, street dice games and pickpocketing schemes. Then Thadeous decided they needed a famous blacksmith’s tool to start making weapons. The six of them broke into the shop, but the blacksmith caught them. Thadeous beat the old man senseless and set the shop on fire as they left. The next morning the papers quoted the blacksmith: “That Reverie boy that’s always tricking people on the street was one of them.” Unable to stay with the gang or face his family, Escher left a note for Lyric and took the first ship to anywhere else.
History
The Saline Coast (Sessions 1–32)
Escher wandered into the Saline Splendor Festival and used a minor illusion of a spider to make a stranger drop their drink. He admired the zookeeper Felix’s “cool” demeanor, tried to buy whiskey despite looking too young, and tracked the girl from Felix’s room to a meeting with Orin Coppercoin. She turned out to be Lyla Brightspark, which Escher worked out later. He overheard conspirators outside the Rusty Anchor planning to use the masquerade as cover. During the guard search he hid Nelda in a closet, and he disguised himself to get out of the city. On the road, he turned invisible and discovered that Eldon Reed was a huge half-orc hiding under a disguise.
Back in the city a telepathic voice began calling him “friend.” When Nelda’s cursed glaive turned her against the party, Escher tried to snatch it and was frozen by her hold person; afterward he admitted he was hearing a voice too, which turned out to be The Whisper. At the closing ceremonies he sliced off Ellery’s tail and ended her rampage as an Ozaroo. To rescue Wilbur from The In-Between, Escher gave up his memories of home. After Wilbur’s return, Escher visited Wilbur’s killer, Tobias Blackwood, in his cell. When Blackwood boasted of his connections and called him a coward, Escher calmly killed him with an inflict wounds spell, leaving a desiccated corpse.
Smoke (Sessions 35–43)
During the ship “heist,” Escher’s bluff as a town guard with a warrant failed. Disguised as Tobias Blackwood, he also charged poisons to the VTC’s tab at Violetta’s potion shop, which later got the shop seized. On the voyage he asked about a tattoo artist, sparred invisibly with Ellery, and arranged to use some firemoss with a crew member until Kip and Nelda intervened. An aboleth charmed him. During a visit to the Gilded Minnow a stranger slipped a note into his pocket.
The note was a contract. In Hamhock Harbor Escher killed a high-ranking Velvet Truffle Company man with a poison-tipped arrow and took his company seal ring and two documents. The victim was Kenton Rusk, husband of Seraphina Rusk. Escher told the party he believed the dragon worked for the VTC. When the others asked how he knew the man was a “bad guy” without speaking to him, Escher said the uniform was enough. A patron at the Split Sausage Pub overheard someone ask, “Escher, did you kill somebody?” and tipped off the company.
In Buttermere Escher used the code phrase “I heard there’s a private tasting in the cellar tonight” to meet a woman of the Pale Fang. She called his methods artless, “theater rather than poetry,” docked his pay from 8,000 gold to 4,500, named him “Smoke” and warned him to be subtler or she’d know he was nothing more than a “sharp blade.” Back at the ship he posed as “Ernest,” a clueless teenage prankster, to fool the VTC agents, but they were not fooled. He then told the party about the blood money and his next kill assignment in Salt Lake City. On the cliffs he shot a VTC guard through the temple to stop him reporting.
The Judge (Sessions 44–58)
Escher found a VTC tracking device disguised as a bar of chocolate and planted it on another ship. In the crypt fight with the risen Tobias Blackwood he was knocked out twice, the second time by Nelda’s own thunderwave, and he pulled a key from a false tooth in Blackwood’s mouth. Chasing the necromancer, he tried to steal a homeless man’s eye patch with mage hand, and the man pricked his hand and paralyzed him. When found, he refused to let anyone look in his bag because he was “trying to take a dump.”
When a bullette dragged Nelda underground, Escher leapt into the hole and shoved a vial of Essence of Ether up its nostril, putting it to sleep. The Whisper had recommended Escher to the organization behind these jobs, and its next target was an old retired judge. In Wild Reach Village a contact gave him a dossier on Judge Marius Vellum and promised a shot at a “white whale” if he did it right. In the Temple of Cyrollellee he saw Brandoboris appear in a time blip and laugh at the failing cultists. His handler Lint explained the ghost petals. At a midnight drop, with Wilbur disguised as the cultist Pella, Escher seized the Judge’s throat with a magical hand and drove a poisoned dagger into his heart. They killed the real Pella and staged it as a fight over money. The Gnoloo then swooped down and flew off with the wagon of ghost petals.
During the mayoral race Escher disguised himself as Thalorian Valedriss and harassed the local merfolk to wreck his reputation. At the Pink Salt Pavilion, Silk paid him in platinum bars and the Silencer’s Verdict, and offered a “blackout job”: 250,000 gold to assassinate Bulma Briefs. Escher accepted and told no one. He then helped Nelda sneak into her father’s mansion the night Thalorian died.
North City (Sessions 59–71)
The Whisper tried and failed to dominate Escher’s mind in the fight with Vegeta, who nearly killed him. Then Escher slipped away and tried to steal from The Cacklers’ private collection. Terra beat him, strapped him to a chair and threatened him; under Ruby’s Zone of Truth he admitted he was working for a being from another planet who promised to leave Arlia if Escher got a “gleaming orb.” His friends vouched for him without knowing about the theft, and Bulma suggested he enroll at CAGS under Oolong’s supervision. Escher warned Wilbur that Bulma was involved with the VTC.
When an assassin called Scorch killed Will Jr. and attacked Bulma, the Cacklers noticed the resemblance to Escher. Belle Pepper cast remove curse on Escher, restoring the memories he had traded away, and he recognized the assassin as his younger brother, Fable. Escher jumped between Fable and the Cacklers and later arranged a probationary enrollment for him at the Academy. When the Pale Fang handler Scuzz tailed them, Escher told him their business was finished. Scuzz said “the circle” would decide their fate, warned they might simply not wake up one morning, threw blinding powder in Fable’s eyes and fled. Escher came clean to the FAM about everything. They refused his offer to leave and made his survival their top priority.
Escher then slipped invisibly into the private suite at the Cackler Barrel where Mia’s father met his VTC officials and heard their plans for the Asset Songbird tracker, the airship deal and the hunt for Escher himself. Caught brushing a guard on the way out, he drove his flame blade through the man, took a pistol round to the shoulder and escaped by misty step.
Coghaven and the gallows (Sessions 72–83)
In Coghaven Escher raided Chancellor Fenwick Ansible’s office, finding the hidden compartments “where they always are,” and took documents, 2,500 gold, a journal and the Chancellor’s seal. When a drone grabbed Ansible’s leg in a tug-of-war, Escher cut the leg off with his flame blade and pressed the Chancellor’s eye to the vault’s retinal scanner. He was knocked out for an hour in the forge. Masha recognized him as one of the Reverie siblings and told him his family was holding strong against the VTC. When she mentioned Kenton Rusk’s death, Escher admitted he had killed him, and that the Pale Fang had wanted Kenton specifically, along with his ring.
At the gallows, Escher bumped into a hooded prisoner, spotted a tabaxi tail and pulled off the hood to find the real Catman. He put an arrow through Daask Bruiser’s nostril and, later, one through the back of his throat, killing him.
Relationships
- Fable Reverie: His younger brother and fellow prankster turned assassin. Escher shields him and wants him in school.
- The Reverie Family: Loved but left behind; Lyric is his best friend.
- Wilbur Crushmore: Wilbur’s farewell letter urged Escher to use his talents for more than serving himself. They later carried out the Vellum job together.
- Ellery: Sparring partner. She told him he didn’t have to do everything alone.
- Nelda Valedriss: She confided in him about the cursed Squeebles doll, and he saved her from the bullette.
- Kip: Kip stays out of Escher’s business on principle.
Appears in
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