Player:Zakk

{Zakk}

Zakk is a dark blue kobold, blue dragon disciple witch knight, and a member of The Red Team.

## Story

### Back story

Zakk spent his early years underground in a kobold tribe. As most kobolds, Zakk was small, weak, and had an unhealthy reverence of dragons. This ultimately led to Zakk being disappointed in the limitations of his form, and in time, Zakk discovered what can be accomplished with alchemy and took to it like a dragon to a treasure hoard.

Zakk's tribe entertained his pursuits, as they seemed to be of general benefit the tribe as a whole. However, as time passed, Zakk was producing less and less yet demanding more rare, obscure, and dangerous ingredients for his research. Ultimately, the tribe had had enough and exiled him. Zakk was, needless to say, less than pleased with this development, but unlike most exiled kobolds he had an ace up his lack of a sleeve, his alchemical tinkering had lead to several mutations, though his second set of horns is his only visible mutation, Zakk had also managed to augment his strength to an unnatural degree for his kind, and managed to unlock the long lost magical draconic potential innate to his kind.

Now alone on the surface, Zakk would be woefully underprepared for his exile and would perish in short order, as is the nature of a kobold in exile. Had he not managed to overpower those who would see him as easy prey. Upon reaching civilisation, Zakk quickly received a reputation for being able to defeat foes several times his size and wasting a lot of money on alchemical supplies. But before long the prospects in Mythos had run dry, and Zakk kept hearing more and more about Nolyn...

### Story So Far (No big spoilers)

Zakk purchased passage on a ship headed for Redemption. On the trip, he met Halcer, Nytria, Ojuk, and Raveroth.

When the ship made a stop for resupply at Wildhaven, the small group of new acquaintances was asked to help Captain Crimson transport some cargo to a nearby goblinoid village. The village turned out to be plagued by an illness similar to rabies which affects only goblins, and the group set out to find a druid who could offer help. One group of cockatrices and an ankheg den later and the five returned victoriously, cure in hand.

One week later the Flaming Dragon was underway again. Zakk spent most of the time by himself, until an assassination attempt was made against Captain Crimson. The kobold accompanied Halcer and Nytria to investigate their current lead, the ship's cook.

A thorough search of the ship revealed a barghest on board. The creature had mind controlled the Flaming Dragon's chef and second in command, and was spreading rumors about the captain being a danger in order to feed on the chaos. A fight ensued where both Ojuk and the creature almost died before it teleported away. The group of friends gave chase, cornering the beast on the crew deck and killing it before it could cause more trouble.

Because of all the help they'd been, Captain Crimson gave the five friends a letter of introduction to the Godslayer's Guild. The leader of the Guild, Antonio, was impressed by their story and hired the group on the spot.

Despite the guild's relative excitement to acquire the Red Team's specific experience, the following week had no work coming in from the guild itself, so Zakk had to find his own business. To begin, Zakk had heard that Neo had arrived in Redemption ahead of him, despite their plans, and caught up with him. Then Zakk took local work in alchemy while pursuing his research.

Zakk's research had turned up word of someone an alarming parallel to his own journey, a ritual and dragon's blood, something that would be hard enough to acquire that he tabled the issue while his team looked elsewhere.

The Red Team decided to look into the disappearances of exiles, after finding a lead in the harbour, the team moved to investigate. The team's investigation led them to a salon with cultists operating in the basement. The Red Team dispatched them.

In the aftermath, Zakk and Nytria looted the cultists and found an odd pair of broken spectacles. Zakk attempted to identify the magical properties of the spectacles only to find that they were not of this world.

A few days later, Zakk accompanied the Nytria and Ojuk to Finnegan's residence, at Nytria's request, to chase down Raveroth that had wandered there on his own. The visit ultimately concluded when a manticore showed up. Once the beast was defeated, it left another item enchanted by otherworldly magic.

The Red Team then met with a Satyr, by the name of Feldwang, who knew about the nature of these items and was coincidentally the same person who had the dragon's blood Zakk needed. They determined that the objects were cypheriums connected to the abyss and Shadowfell respectively. The Red Team proposed a trade, a job and the first cypherium for the dragon's blood and to enchant an item.

The job was simple, kill a particular hill giant with a crystalline dagger and return the dagger. The Red Team then went out and dispatched the giant. The read team then returned to Redemption.

Upon returning to town and regrouping with Halcer, the Red Team handed Feldwang the dagger with the giant's soul. The team followed Felwang to where he stored various magical reagents and samples and handed Zakk a tank of blue dragon's blood.

Later, the Red Team persued Halcer's quest in the Verdant Perdition. After wandering the forest for ages, the team came to a clearing. Some of the team asked the tree for a gift, upon which it gave them some sort of berry. When Zakk broached the subject with the tree, it rained the berries down upon him.

The Red Team, cautious and satisfied, returned home. Ojuk, however, was curious and licked one of Zakk's horns and was promptly sucked into the Feywild, the rest of the team followed, with Ravoroth and Halcer preferring Ojuk's method of entry.

Thrust into a floating chunk of land in a mystical abyss, the Red Team found an elven warlock that had coerced a group of fey creatures into her service. As the self proclaimed ruler of this chunk of the Feywild and apparently insulted by Halcer's very existence, the woman conjured a duplicate of Halcer and the two sides entered battle.

Once the Red Team defeated her, they looted her of another Cypherium, and then they left the Feywild, exiting from a pond near the exit of the forest.

Soon after, the Red team was tasked by the guild to enter the Feywild (again) and recover a magical flying artifact (and possibly signs of the previous team sent through). Before leaving however, they made a stop to Feldwang to get the Cypherean identified and possibly use it to enchant some of their equipment or gain the belt of giant's strength that was made with the previously acquired soul.

The next day, the Red team set off to the Feywild and despite knowing where to go, immediately got lost. Heading the exact opposite direction, they found a mud pit with a half-submerged ogre's skeleton engraved with odd markings and with some stuff nearby. The markings were, unfortunately, wards (and crude insults) forcing a group of ogres beneath the mud. Deciding that discretion was the greater part of valor, Red team legged it back the way they came.

Heading south, the read team came across a ruined library, the inside of which was separated by a ravine of lava. There they encountered a senfeadhain, or rather, a green slaad wearing one's form. They did battle, coming out victorious. The red team then looted the library, finding a very obvious carpet, and some books and a potion.

Feeling victorious, albeit barely, the red team headed back home, only to be interrupted by a dryad who had taken an interest in Nytria. Feeling like they had little time for this, Zakk attempted to force an end to this conversation and absconded with Nytria. This ended badly when he was wounded by an animated tree and knocked unconscious. Once the encounter was finished, he was carried back to the material plane.

Back on the material plane, several Nytria and Zakk had their memory of the Feywild removed, but with the physical pain and insistence that they had in fact just lost their memory, they headed back to the guild. The Red Team handed over everything they had recovered, had them identified and were rewarded. They then went drinking to drown their suffering in alcohol.

Tired of the day and seeing Ravoroth and Halcer getting along nicely, Ojuk propositioned Zakk for their own fun. Zakk, misunderstanding the request, accepted. This didn't lead anywhere since Zakk has almost no sexual interest in anyone. Instead focussing on his research.

The party regrouped the following day and headed to Feldwang, who seemed to have lost his memory. Zakk schemed to get the belt of giants' strength from the befuddled enchanter, but it had been sold. The party agreed to help restore the goatman's memories, mostly in hopes that he would be in their debt.

The party decided to use Nytria's relationship with the Maelstrom pirates to gain passage down to Baile Noamh. But for the sheer amount of distance that would be, the pirates wanted a large boon. They wanted the Red Team to clear the Western Dragon's Pride Channel of its Yuan-Ti and Merrow problem.

The party sailed to the affected area, and after being attacked, they found a Yuan-Ti village that was being controlled by a Yuan-Ti queen. They freed the village and found that to destabilise the Queen's hold over the area, the Red Team would have to destroy the portal that allows the Merrow to cross over into the Material plane.

The Red Team entered the cave and Zakk methodically scouted the cave with his newly acquired cloak. They dispatched a large number of Yuan-Ti, looted some treasure collected from attacked ships, freed some prisoners and lept to interrupt a ritual. Zakk imprisoned some cultists in a sphere of force in an attempt to stop the ritual, but the ritual had sustained a portal to Niflheim long enough for a Merrow to pass through. The Red Team defeated the Yuan-Ti cult and rescued the enslaved Yuan-Ti purebloods and sent them home.

Zakk then identified the magical items they had recovered earlier. Later, after reconvening with the Maelstrom Pirates, the Red Team negotiated some form of cooperation between the freed Yuan-Ti and the pirates, and lent the pirates their newly acquired Instant Fortress so they could create a settlement while the rest of the pirates and the Red Team went back to Redemption.

The Red Team rested and then the next day went to Feldwang's shop to take the satyr's memory loss for massive bargains. Using the distraction that was the rest of the party, Zakk stole Feldwang's book on Cypheriums. The next day still, Zakk conjured a drake steed named Fluffy and learned how to enhance himself further, temporarily.

Later when bidden by Nytria's newly acquired familiar combined with Ravoroth's day out with it. The Red Team went after a cry for help that Nytria received from her forgotten dryad acquaintance. They encountered some sirens charming kobolds to drown themselves. The Red Team moved to dispatch the sirens and save the kobolds. After defeating some of the sirens, it appeared as though they were murdering sweet innocent kobolds because they had been banished from the Feywild and had been told by a cultist of Thanatos that he could get them back in.

The Red Team accepted this explanation (Zakk only doing so reluctantly) and had the sirens lead them to the cultist. The cultist had apparently decided that a living kobold army was too much effort and had the sirens murder them so he could animate them from the dead. The cultist ran into his sanctuary where they did battle with the cultist and his undead kobold horde. The cultist then opened a portal into the Shadowfell and retreated into it. As the Red Team had defeated the cultist, he closed the portal, trapping them in the Shadowfell.

### Other Information

Zakk, despite often referring to himself as a researcher will spend, seemingly, very little time doing actual research, though when he does, he does so with extreme fervour. He like many of his kind likes gold and gems, he will proudly display any jewellery he has on his person. Zakk enjoys being absurdly strong for his size and can, in fact, carry fully grown humans quite easily as shown in the Feywild when he attempted to force Nytria to not interact with the dryad.

## Appearance, Equipment, and Abilities

### Appearance

Zakk is a kobold with dark greyish-blue scales. He is somewhat large for a kobold, both in height and build. Upon careful inspection, his two sets of horns appear mismatched, almost as if one of them may have come from another creature entirely. At present, he wears increasingly tattered clothes, a crown, and gold bracelet, and clearly bears a longsword and a shortbow, both of which he bears easily despite the clearly awkward size of these weapons relative to himself, furthermore, dangling somewhat precariously from his belt is a large tome, which contains both his spells and research.

### Gear

* Bag of Holding
* Ink and Quill
* Spellbook
* Common Clothes
* Longsword
* Shortbow
* Quiver of Arrows
* Sack of Black Powder
* Alchemist's Supplies
* Thieves' Tools
* Potion of Stone Giant's Strength
* Cloak of the Bat (Attuned)
* 100 GP Pearl (Identify)
* Bronze Crown
* Large Gold Bracelet
* Beads of Force x7
* Feldwang's Cypherium Catelog

### Skills

Racial Abilities:

* Darkvision - Zakk can see in absolute darkness up to 60 feet, as though it were dim light.
* Naturally Stealthy - Zakk can attempt to use medium or larger creatures to hide behind.
* Fury of the Small - Zakk can utilise his shorter stature to his advantage against larger opponents, dealing additional damage.
* Trapper's Lore - Zakk is considered an expert (double proficiency) in regards to finding, building, and dismantling traps.

Background Ability:

* Researcher - Due to his efforts to conduct his research since leaving his tribe, Zakk has found many dead ends, he did however learn of many places to find information not directly linked to his research.

Class Abilities:

* Spellcasting - In his efforts in improving himself to achieve his goal, Zakk picked up the study of magic, granting him knowledge of spells and rituals.
* Arcane Enhancement - Zakk's field of study has taught him how to imbue objects with magical power to enhance their properties.
	+ Arcane Weapon - Zakk can imbue his longsword, crossbow, and even his own claws to deal additional elemental damage. While he prefers to use lightning damage, he can also imbue his weapons with acid, air (thunder), fire, ice (cold), and poison.
	+ Diminishing Armor - Zakk can enhance his durability, reducing all incoming damage slightly.
	+ Arcane Trap - Zakk can create an arcane sigil that explodes violently.

* Spell Strike - Zakk can conduct spells through any weapon he wields, discharging the spell if the attack connects.
	+ The range of the spell is the range of his weapon
	+ If it's a melee attack, he can hold onto the spell
* Arcane Recovery - When Zakk rests, he gains some of his magic back, though not quite as much as a dedicated wizard could.
* Extra Attack - Zakk can make two attacks with the Attack Action and by extension 3 if he attacks with his claws and attacks with a Bonus Action.

Sub-Class Abilities:

* Draconic Enhancement - Zakk has modified his physiology enough to make his claws viable weapons, allowing him to swipe at enemies furiously.
* Draconic Scales - Zakk has also modified his scaly hide to be more durable, making him harder to hit.
* Draconic Ancestry - Zakk's modifications to himself are to make him closer to a blue dragon.
	+ Dragon's Breath - Zakk can exhale a line of electricity

* Mending
* Prestidigitation

**1st Level:**

* Bane
* Bladed Dash
* Compelled Duel
* Detect Magic
* Ice Knife
* Identify
* Magic Missile
* Mudball
* Pitfall
* Tasha's Hideous Laughter

**2nd Level:**

* d'Artagnan's Impromptu Propulsion
* Enlarge/Reduce
* Find Steed

## Miscellaneous

* Zakk's race, class, and the spells: bladed dash, impromptu propulsion, mudball and pitfall, are all homebrewed by his player.
	+ The Race can be found on his Patreon
	+ His class: the Witch Knight, as well as his custom spells, can be found, downloaded and used in your own game, for free, on the DM's Guild