Felix Vance

A tall well-dressed man with a lower-class accent that he puts on and
 takes off like a well-worn suit of clothes, Felix Vance appears
unexpectedly in a swirl of pipe smoke. There's something…off about the
black cat wrapped around his shoulders.

He wants to ask you some questions. Just confirming the facts—he
already knows that you're guilty. You cast a spell of escape, something
you'd prepared in case you had to run, and with a few swirls of his
fingers he unravels your spell from the inside.

That won't be necessary, he tells you. He's not here to arrest you.
He wants to know how you did it…and what you would charge to do it
again.

Ideal: The rich and powerful take whatever they want. Turnabout is fair play.

Bond: I had to fight for everything I have, against a world that turned it's back. The few who didn't turn their backs earned my loyalty.

Flaw: I think I'm the smartest person in the room, even when I'm not.

### Early Life

Felix was born to Verity Vance and Ailith Tharumbar, a passing elf, in the Steamholes, the slums of the great city Abaruthven. Ailith soon
lost interest in boring mortal life and departed for parts unknown.

Felix was a sickly child, and often bullied by other children. His
mother married Bartholomew Ramsey, a drunkard who made Felix's early teenage years hell.

At sixteen, Felix left home to seek his biological father. It wasn't difficult. Ailith hadn't actually gone very far—he'd been distracted by a
 particularly verdant glade in a small forest only a dozen miles from
the city, and spent fifteen years there toking up and feeling the vibes
with some other local elves. He was delighted to be reminded that he had
 a son. Felix was not delighted. From then on he referred to himself as
Vance, taking his mother's maiden name, and rejecting any connection to
either of his fathers.

He did, however, learn the rudiments of magic from one of Ailith's companions, Cerebrean the Learned. Cerebrean was a vast repository of
magical knowledge gained over a lifetime centuries long. He was also
mostly stoned out of his mind. Felix had little respect for his teacher,
 and considered the elf to be wasting his gifts—something he resolved
never to do. To this day, Felix resents his elvish heritage.

### Pearthcaule University

Returning to Abaruthven, Felix enrolled in Pearthcaule University,
the most distinguished institution of magical learning on the continent.
 He performed so well on the entrance exam that the faculty were forced
to allow him entrance, despite his low-born status and elvish blood. He
was immediately singled out by the student population. But he was no
longer the scrawny kid who couldn't win a fight—now he could fight back
by outdoing them all at every subject he turned his hand to.

While at good old P.U., Felix became friends with Felicia Felacio. They
gained access to a forbidden section of the University library, dealing
with devils and the contracts that can be made with them. Some trouble
with devils and cultists occurred. Felix made contact with a
less-evil-then-usual infernal creature, who became his familiar. He
named it Bartleby.

Despite facing prejudice on all sides, Felix graduated from Pearthcaule with top honors.

### Ordo Divinos

After graduation, Felix joined the Ordo Divinos, an order of magic
detectives tasked with protecting the realm from magical criminals. The
prestigious position made him very well-off, and allowed him to support
his mother. Felix, however, did not mesh well with the order's general
corruption, and he was repeatedly unable to bring magical criminals to
justice for political reasons.

One of these criminals was {Julian's Brother}. While investigating the case, Felix visited Rutherford Wizznipple Green II in prison. Realizing that the case against him was flawed, Felix got
him exonerated, but was unable to make his brother answer for it.

While working for the order, Felix's mother suddenly died. Felix
visited the Steamholes and discovered that his mother and stepfather had
 been living in squalor despite the money he sent them, as Bartholomew
had gambled and drunk it away. Felix confronted Bartholomew, suspecting
his stepfather had murdered his mother. Bartholomew, drunk as usual,
accused Felix of being responsible for his mothers death by neglecting
her to become a hoity-toity rich person, threatening to beat him as he
had when Felix was a child. Consumed by a cold rage, Felix assaulted his
 stepfather with a psychic attack and smashed into his mind, a serious
magical crime. Rooting through his memories, he discovered that his
mother had died from an ordinary illness, not fowl play. He left
Bartholomew unharmed, although the man carries a crippling fear of his
stepson to this day and has never yet revealed the incident.

A few months later, Felix caught the Earl of Burgunday using magic
coercion on local women. As usual, the Earl got away with it scot-free.
This time, Felix challenged him to a magical duel. He trounced the Earl
very publicly, earning him a lifelong enemy, but was drummed out of the
Order as a result.

### Criminal Activities

Following his discharge from the Order, Felix took up a private
practice. Unlike most private practitioners who exclusively served the
nobility, Felix offered services to merchants and businesses without
noble connections. Despite being considered beneath contempt by the
nobility, the mercantile class didn't actually lack in *money,* and Felix did very well for himself.

But the injustice he had observed still burned him, so he decided to
take matters into his own hands. If he couldn't bring the nobility to
justice, he could at least hurt them by taking away the things they
cared about the most—their stuff.

He made contact with Felicia, now a skilled burglar, and with
{Julian}, who was able to assemble him teams of expert criminals for
difficult jobs. With his knowledge of the Order's methodology and talent
 at dispelling and neutralizing magical effects, he's already managed
several high-profile heists. Some of his ex-colleagues at the Order
suspect him, but he's always left himself covered with perfect alibis.