Berliner Passendale Fudstuv



NE 76 year old Male Zilargo-Changeling* Rogue 2 (Racial level from Races of Eberron)/Factotum 3 (Dungeonscape)/Chameleon 10 (Races of Destiny)/Warshaper 2 (Complete Warrior)

The sequestered inner halls of the AAA Upper Management offfices shimmered with magical auras of nondetection. With a flash of appropriately silver and virtuous-looking flame, the respected and wizened leader of the Silver Flame, Father Guineas, apparated into the corridor. His hands wreathed in celestial light, any onlooker would be certain that this was a grizzled veteran of the Holy Wars ready to rip the slightest deviation from his personal doctrine away from the fabric of existence. Clinging from the tendrils of bright celestial light that wreathed his hands was the bloody, unconcsious form of the insidious changeling demonspawn brought here to face judgment for their insidious crimes against the Flame.

In mere seconds, the figure of the Thranish evangelist dissolved into an appearance more in line with reality: a deceptively weak-looking changeling clothed in a leisure suit common to the Zilargo of any corner of Khorvaire. He was no longer Father Guineas, he was himself, Berliner Passendale Fudstuv. He shoved the unconscious changeling into one of the kennels arranged neatly across from his desk, underneath a shelf full of skulls to cast Speak with Dead on. Each such skull sat on top of a neat, leather-bound folio that contained why they were on that shelf, what information had been extracted from them, how their death was covered up or explained, and other information necessary to the management of Khorvaire.

"The world's unfair...doesn't matter how hard you train or if you've been sneakin' around Xendrik ruins and things that regular pawns never even conceive of. There always seems to be a one in twenty chance of any ignorant copper-scrouching magewright to pierce your mental defenses. What was she looking for in my head anyway?" He popped open his Aspect Mirror and called upon someone who might be able to help.

"What is your business, sir?" said the dark-haired Sharn socialite. "Just got back home and was thinking -" "You're in your office?" Exclaimed the woman, throwing away her human appearance and revealing her own changeling heritage.

In less than a minute, the woman had run across the corridors of the upper levels and into Berliner's office. "What're ya doing here? I thought you were in Thrane getting those Silver Flame sheep to prance merrily off to slaughter?"

"If you would have let me finish, I would have told you that I was minding my own business in the courtyard, when I notice some broad looking like she's about to drop dead. I figure it would be a good PR stunt - the great Crusader stoops to sagely help a lowly nobody - Thranes love seeing the right kind of people gettin' help. But then I notice she's gasping for air...and glaring at me...I don't know how she did it, but she read my thoughts. And I was in the middle of considering when to tell mom to show up at the drop-off point."

"Drop off point?"

"In the Northern Eldeen Reaches. I've convinced the Flame to send a bunch of paladins up to fight those demons that showed up about a month ago. That gave me the reason I needed to get these morons to run to their deaths - and the fact it's filled with Shifters only helped a little. Now these guys have an excuse to see what they've always wanted: bloody lycanthrope massacres. The sort that make the Reachers desperate. With a new Silver Crusade and the fight for freedom from Aundair, they'll be ready to trade ANYTHING for help to ANYONE. The fact mom'll be there to claim any souls that die is just an added bonus."

"Anyhow, I couldn't let this busybody walk away with that little gem in recent memory. But we were alone...and there's some opportunity. So I give this whole "The Flame sees all lies and deception!" spiel as I blast her with this Scorching Ray. I made it all silvery and virtuous-looking, thought it'd be a nice touch."

"I need some way to cover this up for that inevitable crowd, so I discretely pop open a bottle and whip out this captured demon I'd bound and beat to within an inch of being sent back home. I command the poor sap to take a few pot-shots at me, and to scare the urine out of the crowd. 'Round this time, I'm wringing her jugular and she's dropping unconcsious...apparantly, she's a changeling. After the crowd watches the elderly, stick-up-the-ass priest ram a flaming claw through the gut of a flesh-and-blood demon and I feed them some line about taking the devious doppelganger-spawn to meet her judgment by the Flame for falsely impersonating a true follower of the flame, for demon-summoning, and being tainted by her shapechanger blood. I ascend into the heavens, give 'em the standard flash of brilliant light as I teleport here and figured I'd find out what her angle was in the first place."

"And I finished that while you going on. She's from the Cabinet...she got an assignment to infiltrate the Church and track down everyone else who's infiltrated it. She's never heard of the AAA."

"Oh...well, the Cabinet will miss an agent. Better modify her memory to think she discovered something different...say...that the peacekeeping Thranish and the critics of Guineas are really servants of the Ashbound. Ooh! And throw in some stuff about the Ashbound also sending a few elites to actually SIDE with the militant Flamers as a scheme to trick them into bringing down all of civilization! That'll get the Cabinet to waste their energies on both Thrane AND the druids. The more enemies the druids make, the easier it will be to pry their secrets from them. I'm sure there's some Nature spell that's worth something on the market."

Berliner looked at the network of Aspect Mirrors that encircled his desk, covered with patterns of beacons and sigils that were the language of a series of Divination sensors that continually fed information about the markets of everything from immortal souls to devilweed to the latest magitech. He wasn't paying the closest attention. This was no time for long-term strategic planning...just checking to make sure nothing out of the ordinary was going on in the Multiplanar Economy.

"There, memory modified!" Banitsa exclaimed and looked at Berliner expectantly. He didn't respond. He was calmly mixing a drink from a private stock of dwarven ales and liquors, with a bit of prestidigitation for flavor. He had a non-stop migraine for the past week and didn't feel like dealing with much of anything right now.

"I guess I'll set this one lose!" His sister poutily responded. "Thanks...you're good...it's all good." Her brother melted into an intoxicated lump in his chair. The alcohol worked fast in his small body, especially since he had no intention of resisting it.

A mischieviously malicious grin sparked across his sister's face. "Well, I guess you can't be bothered with dragging an unconscious changeling outside and pretending to be the wizard who Teleported her to safety. You've got more important things to do!"

"...What's the new project?" Berliner miserably replied. "It's in this thought jar that you rigged up to the scrying sensor you implanted in Eurface before you turned him lose into the Demon Wastes." "He survived that?!?" "The Wastes? Yeah. Which means you lose the bet...which means I get first pick of resources for my assignment as liason to the world this army is coming from. Meanwhile, you get minimal support for your new job."

The Multiverse was conspiring against him...Berliner could feel it...these slowly building webs of intrigue had been fun, inspiring for a while...but he feared he would never be able to relax and just have a little bitch-rapin' time. He stuck the bottle to his head...sighed after months of sights and sounds poured into his brain...and set the jar back on his desk.

"So...Necrotite...Eurface is dead...I'll just say I'm an investi-" Banitsa had already left. She'd even helped herself to a few of his magic items while he had been abosrbing the contents of the jar.

Screw this, I'll use my real name...some half-assed excuse about looking for my brother...hell, this party seems relaxed enough that they wouldn't care. The only reason that goody-two shoes Eurface travelled with them is probably because he's too big a pussy NOT to. He's easily lead enough to sign up, but not easily lead enough to play by the rules. The kind of follower that's just dead weightf or the organization.

He smirked. That sister of mine's got one helluva stressful assignment. Bet she wishes she was goin' on a corporate retreat like me. Ya know, those are absolutely necessary to a well-functioning organization...and I WON'T be needing THIS!

He slammed his aspect mirror on the desk. The last thing he wanted was to be saddled with yet another assignment while he was trying to relax. As soon as he finished his drink, and the next drink, and the drink after that, he started his scrying to unite with the group...probably offer that lousy nogoodnik brother of his a job if he hadn't gotten himself killed already. -

Berliner joined the party hoping to both investigate the Necrotite and perhaps drop his cover while taking a vacation after having to put up so many different moral facades a week. He expected it to be relaxing to finally deal with a group that had no morals and almost no alleginaces to the rest of the world that he'd have to worry about toppling. He gave a cover story about wanting to investigate his half-brother's disappearance out of pure reflex, but that lie was mercifully slaughtered when he introduced his cohort.

Reasons for Adventuring
As one of the heads of the Association of the Absolute Archetype, Berliner views the world as a game where the goal is to simply accumulate as much power as possible. He is skilled at mimicing nearly any profession, even faking his way through resembling a shining example of paladinhood. He is one of an elite shadow group within the AAA who know that all of it's talk of ideals is just a front to bring naive shapechangers under their sway.

Having observed the group's mission to seal the Gates through a divination sensor secretly implanted in an unwitting Eurface, Berliner (along with his mother and sister) wants to close the gates, perceiving the invading army as a clumsy ogre's club, thoughtlessly knocking down many carefully crafted schemes of the AAA. He also has a keen interest in necrotite and wants to learn more about it's value, under the ruse of ending the abominable practices of these invaders, of course.