Patrick Frostoak

Patrick only ever goes by his last name of Frostoak so much so that few people even know what his first name is. He is a smith in Bluelog who provides weapon and armour repair for the Bluelog town guard but his true passion is for both forging and imbuing magical properties into his creations and often speaks of the "will of the metal" and its "desire to be used for different purposes". This philosophy guides his work in the forge but, unfortunately, does not lend itself well to commission work, as customers generally wish to receive the weapons or armour they requested, not Frostoak's interpretation of the metal's desire to be shaped and enchanted in certain ways. For this reason, the smith works his 'day job' repairing equipment for the guard and spends his free time following his passion for enchanting and crafting according to the item's will.

### Physical description

A short, bald man with a grey, curly beard, often covered in at least a fine layer of soot even after he has tried to clean himself up for something, he dresses very plain in simple leathers with the one exception being a pair or rosy copper colored gauntlets he uses when forging which by all accounts could be considered to be quite high end. The metal is so soft and malleable that he has virtually complete dexterity with them on or off, there are no joints or weld seems and look to have been molded out of a single pour into a cast, and on top of that they look to be well polished and kept in great condition despite nearly daily use.

### Relationships

Frostoak has an assistant, a young, tall, half-elf girl named Kay, dark-skinned and with well-defined muscles from years of hard work she wears her hair in tight braids tied in a bun at the back of her head. Kay is very quiet, hardly ever (or perhaps never) speaking, but is described by Frostoak as an amazing smith with an incredible, natural ability, nearly as skilled as he is already at. Kay has a thin coat of rosy, copper metal over her left palm from which she can harvest a strange metallic substance which she puts to good use in various projects.

Frostoak gets on well with the various members of the town guard especially those at The Eastern Fort.

### History

Frostoak started seeking out his own path as an adventurer, during which time he learned to make simple repairs to his weapons and armour as a way of cutting down on costs. He soon began making repairs to his companions' equipment as well, he also found that some of the items that were harvested from their kills could be crafted into powerful magic items, this drew him away from adventuring and more into smithing his adventuring party and friends kept bringing him items to try and forge something with. Eventually he gave up calling himself an adventurer and began working in Old Vashton for a general smith who allowed him to use the forge after hours to experiment with his forging style. While Frostoak practiced he discovered how the metal would speak to him; he develop a unique style of forging according to the metal's "will and desire". Though Frostoak had picked enough skill at blacksmithing while working on his adventurers gear to work in the forge some of his experiments required more skill and different techniques than he had.

Frostoak traveled to Tarchek to officially train at the Tower of Arbolight, to gain skills in magical item creation as well as practical forging he spent 5 years at the collage training by day and experimenting at night, he learned many useful and complicated spells and techniques. Frostoak wasn't training to become a true wizard, like most at the collage but was learning the arcane arts of enchanting and imbuing so that he could utilize the spells in his forging. Nevertheless, Frostoak does not usually speak kindly of his teacher or the atmosphere at the tower, describing them as very strict and rules-oriented, which clashed greatly with his preference of following the innate desire of the weapon when crafting and enchanting, versus the smith forcibly imposing the desired magical ability upon the item.

There were other benefits to training at the tower, beyond learning and honing his skills, Frostoak met a young lady from Bluelog, whom he married and followed back to her hometown to start their shared life together. Unfortunately, after Frostoak opened his own forge there the newlyweds suffered hard times financially, as Frostoak's difficulties with fulfilling commission work reduced the viability of his business. He soon decided to forego commission work altogether to focus on the, albeit, less lucrative practice of making whatever magical items he pleased and selling them afterwards for whatever he could get for them, which was often below their true worth since he is not much of a salesman. He was able to find a more permanent source of income by working with the town guard making simple repairs it afforded him enough for modest life and his extra curricular smithing allows him to live above that but most of his extra cash goes back into his forging.

### Party interaction

Abernathy has sought Frostoak out as a mentor to train him in the ways of smithing and forging.