Ryder Wyatt d'Orien

House Guild Member & House Scion (AA pg. 112-113)

A daring dealer in dangerous deliveries.

## Appearance

Ryder is a tall, athletically slim human male with cool, steel-grey blue eyes. Despite appearing to be in his mid-to-late twenties, his hair is stark white. He wears the leather jacket of House Orien's Courier's Guild with pride, the unicorn crest emblazoned large on its back. On his hip is a sheathed rapier, with the basket hilt wrought in the form of a unicorn rampant.

## History

Ryder is an accomplished member of House Orien's Courier's Guild, and is frequently tapped to make Black Label deliveries - packages with nonstandard addresses.

Ryder is the son of a House Orien seneschal and a Knight Phantom of Aundair. He was trained by his father to blend spell and steel, but stayed in House Orien to work with his mother. His parents never married, so neither one had to sacrifice their positions or inheritance, but remained committed to each other nonetheless.

### The Last War

During the Last War, when he was old enough, he volunteered for the military branch of the Courier's Guild services, delivering orders and supplies to the front lines. He manifested the Mark of Passage while attempting to make a battlefield delivery to his father's unit, but didn't make it in time despite his newfound abilities. Since then, he has distanced himself from Aundair due to the grief of losing his father to their war, and he has a low opinion of Queen Aurala's warmongering.

### Invitation

Vikan Buristal, upon noticing Ryder's name repeatedly show up on the receipts of the Foundation's Black Label Delivery requests as the delivering courier, remarked to himself, "Why don't we just hire this guy full time?". Thus, Ryder received his invitation shortly after that.

### Experience

The Wayfinder Foundation has several times hired Ryder in the past to get a vital delivery or pickup to or from Wayfinder expeditions in the field. His last delivery to an expedition in the wilds of Xen'drik earned him an invitation to join the Foundation.

### Motivation

Because of his mental state (see secrets below) Ryder is keen to establish a life for himself outside House Orien. He also takes pride in his past adventures as an "elite courier" and desires to see bold new places and meet interesting new people.

### Enemies

When particularly nervous, Ryder can be seen fidgeting with a curious object, a small cylindrical trinket of burnished steel about the size of this thumb, passing it over his knuckles. This object is the only Black Label package he ever failed to deliver. Someone in House Cannith may be unhappy about that.

### Secrets

Ryder Wyatt d'Orien suffers from near-total amnesia, his earliest memory being roughly 4 years old. He awoke in Sharn, in a House Jorasco asylum for the mentally ill, and has pieced together the broad strokes of his history before then from House Orien records and inferences from others around him. He won't admit it to himself, but part of him wants to solve the mystery of his memory loss, though he is fearful that restoring his lost memories would "destroy" his current sense of self.

Ryder also has a surprisingly deep amount of knowledge of ancient Dhakaani goblin customs and language. Just like his Knights Phantom swordmage training, this appears to be a skill that he's retained despite his loss of memory. He is intensely curious to find out why he has such an apparent affinity with this culture, though his fumbling attempts to make inroads have made him wandshy to dive deeply into the mystery.

The small cylindrical trinket that Ryder carries appears to be some kind of super-charged Dragonshard Focus Item, capable of vastly increasing the power and potential of his Mark of Passage. It has twice allowed him to teleport vast distances, but each time it is used it seems to exact a steep price from the user. It is most likely the source of Ryder's amnesia, and his discolored eyes and hair. The trinket was originally the package he was supposed to deliver to House Cannith's main enclave in Eston on the Day of Mourning, suggesting it's dragonmark-enhancing properties are not exclusive to House Orien's Mark of Passage, and it might be a universal super-focus for all dragonmarks. Ryder believes that the super-focus is somehow to blame for the Day of Mourning, and believes he had something to do with triggering that catastrophe.

## Personality

**Personality Traits**

* I believe that anything worth doing is worth doing right. I can't help it, I'm a perfectionist.
* I'm still trying to figure out what to do with my skills.

**Ideals**

* I push myself to be the best there is at what I do.

**Bonds**

* Someone I loved died because of a mistake I made. That will never happen again.

**Flaws**

* I am jittery and easily lose my patience. I need to keep moving.

## Completed Missions

### Deep Roads

On the way to the Mror Holds, Ryder met Pierce d'Orien, a Blade of Orien, and helped him discover his mind had been tampered with by an unseemly element. They worked together to uncover the actions of a criminally minded passenger, Provost Schwartzvald and his duped research assistant.

After arriving in the Mror Holds, Ryder met up with his favorite cousin, Atalie d'Orien, who joined the expedition. Ryder, Atalie, their fellow Wayfinders, and their presumed charge descended into the ancient deep roads of the lost dwarven kingdom. There they encountered various threats and retained the aid and WarmTasty succor of a myconid colony. Eventually they discovered the last remaining pocket of the ancient dwarven society, under siege by a horrific entity known as Too-Close-I-Cannot-Breath, who has been turning the dwarves into petrified monstrosities. Trying to rescue the ancient dwarven clan from their assailant, Ryder and the Wayfinders were backed into a corner, and the Wayfinder's charge was revealed to be an impostor, actually Provost Schwartzvald. Schwartzvald was taken captive by the stone man and partially petrified.

When all hope seemed lost, the metal cylinder in Ryder's pocket called to him, and he activated it with Atalie d'Orien's help. The device allowed them to teleport the dwarven clan and their fellow Wayfinders, but not Schwartzvald, nearly 2,000 miles to Passage, Aundair, a feat that would normally be impossible for their relatively low-level dragonmarks. It did, however, seem to consume some of Atalie's memories, and exhausted Ryder to the point of collapse.

Ryder woke up days later, and found himself meeting his mother, Eleanor d'Orien, Viceroy of House Orien, for the first time since his loss of memory four years ago. He had only known her from House documents and public accounts, where she appeared to be an extremely shrewd and ruthless businesswoman, so the amnesiac Ryder feared she would excoriate him for whatever imagined reason he could come up with. Meeting her in person, however, Ryder discovered that Eleanor's public and business persona was entirely separate from her personal life, and she was actually a very understanding and caring person.

## Crunch

### Inventory

* Explorer's Pack
* Arcane focus wand in a thigh holster
* Rapier - Distinctively crafted so the basket hilt resembles a unicorn rampant
* Fine traveler's clothes - Leather trousers, lavender shirt
* Small featureless steel cylinder
* Courier's Satchel - double-locked leather satchel worn strapped over the shoulder, standard Courier's Guild issue
* Armored Courier's Guild jacket: A distinctive leather jacket emblazoned with the House Orien unicorn crest on back (the universally recognizable uniform of the Courier's Guild). It has been altered with an armored hem.
* *Boots of the Rider*

### Character Sheet

* https://drive.google.com/open?id=1YXfYvXaBdhHOiPm8BJhpExkHtz1jyS6o