Bishop Batters-Westberry

Official image of Bishop, drawn by @grace.pptx on Instagram

Bishop Batters-Westberry is a Player Character from Arc 10 and played by Haley.

## Description

Bishop is a Shifter and an Assassin Rogue / Druid multiclass. He appears human, but has some animalistic features, including cat-like slitted pupils and fangs, that become even stronger when he shifts. He is 6'6" tall and used to be a cowboy, but his ex-wife, Marigold Westberry, took the ranch in the divorce. Now, he is a contract killer or bounty hunter. Usually, he wears practical leather clothes, but for the party, he wears something more nice. Still, he is covered in daggers.

In his longtooth form, his scruffs of body hair grow more into tuffs, he leans more forward on his toes and becomes bulkier. His hands grow larger and more pawlike, and he gets retractable claws, thicker hair, and more feline ears.

He has depressions, and is very anxious in any kind of social situations. He has never felt comfortable in a room, and does not pretend that he does.

Bishop is a follower of the deity Silvanus.

His magic items are the Earrings of Sending, with his client Arenothe Le'gauching having the second one, and the Bracers of Can You Not. Additionally, Arenothe gives him a pocket watch that is synced up with theirs, and information about the other party guests, which, however, turns out to be unreliable at best and straight up wrong at worst.

## Backstory

23 years before Arc 10, Bishop marries his highschool sweetheart Marigold Westberry. Together, they live on an owlbear ranch, where they have a few good years, until weird rifts of darkness start appearing. They swallow the land and town, and kill their owlbears. Bishop wants to leave, but Marigold refuses to, and ultimately, as he cannot take it anymore to see everything around him suffer and die, and still does not manage to convince her, Bishop just leaves.

After his divorce from Marigold about 8 years prior to Arc 10, Bishop drifts around Malum kind of lost. He does not see or talk to her in all of those years, neither does he cut his hair. He becomes a bounty hunter and assassin, trying to make enough money to leave the continent and build himself a new life somewhere his ex-wife, who he believes to be incredibly angry at him, never has to see him again. Despite all of it, he still loves her, and knows that the second he would see her or the ranch again, he would come back.

## Character Arc

### Arc 10

Before the party, Bishop has a last meeting with his client, during which Arenothe emphasises the importance of Bishop's timing again. He has to do his job at precisely 8:14 pm, so Arenothe gives him the magical pocket watch, in addition to the earring and some nice clothes. Still, Bishop is a bit nervous, because it is a weird job and the tower belongs to a powerful wizard. Despite this, and because of the good payment, he goes to the party with Arenothe's name as his disguise, which is easy since Arenothe is a Changeling.

At the party, however, it does not take long for Count Dion, who Arenothe warned him about, to realise that Bishop is not who he claims to be. However, Dion does not plan to tell Tiffany about this, he just wants to be entertained at this party. As Bishop sees his ex-wife Marigold across the room, he completely loses focus on what he is supposed to do, turns around, and leaves. Outside, he meets Theodrink, who also relatively easily finds out that Bishop is not Arenothe, and then goes back inside to tell on him to Tiffany, who, thankfully for Bishop, does not care that much. Dion, in the meantime, understands the dynamic between Bishop and Marigold and is delighted, promising Bishop support in whatever he is there to do if, in exchange, he will have an honest and heartfelt conversation with Marigold. Bishop agrees, and Dion turns him invisible.

Invisibly, he attends the show and tell, where he hopes to find Nea Veia, his target for the night, but she is nowhere to be seen. Arenothe tells him that they checked, and she is inside the house, but nobody has seen her anywhere at the party, so Bishop is unable to kill her, which upsets Arenothe. In the power outage following Tiffany seemingly stabbing himself, he first tries to just leave, and then finds Maximum, who is trying to investigate the nature of the ghost he always sees, unaware of the dangers in the mansion. He picks him up and reluctantly agrees to help him, mostly to keep him save as the mansion does not let them escape. They quickly bond as Maximum trusts Bishop, and Bishop introduces "detective levels" as a way to both restrict him from swearing and explain that the other people in the house are infinitely more powerful. At first, Maximum's father Theo is not a fan of Bishop parenting his child, but then quickly sees that he is doing a pretty good job, and ultimately accepts Bishop as a friend. Together, they try to figure out the puzzle in the basement to open the wall, but fail at first.

As the power goes back on, the party guests assemble back in the ballroom. Bishop reluctantly opens up about his true identity and job at the party, and most other people follow his example. As they cannot find an immediate suspect or other clues for what might have happened, he leaves to go to the library, together with Marigold. There, they have a heartfelt conversation, during which Bishop promises her that he will help her fix her farm, if she still believes in hope, and then vanish from her sight forever. She, however, never wanted him to leave, and presents him with her wedding ring on her necklace. Out of an old instinct, Bishop consoles her as she breaks into tears, and as she says that she won't hold him hostage, he tells her that if they are able to fix things, he would come back and not leave again. As they separate again to continue their research, he notices Luminessa watching the two of them, and confronts her quietly outside to not upset Marigold. Luminessa just tells him to talk to Dion, because they give good relationship advice.

After Theo and Maximum find the solution to the brick puzzle, Bishop joins the rest of the party to go downstairs and open the basement. In the room behind, there are dangerous protective glyphs. As Theo and Maximum are hit by the effect of one of them, they both go down, with Theo dying, and Bishop and Marigold immediately rush to heal Maximum and bring Theo back. Thorgash is unable to revivify Theo, as he has no diamond, but Sharon manages to do so in exchange for two favours. Bishop wants to give her both, but before he can do so, Marigold has already agreed to one from each of them. Afterwards, both Bishop and Marigold stay away from the glyphs as Dion and Lumi disable the traps, and only follow afterwards. In the room behind, they see the real and alive Tiffany concentrating on something while Nea Veia is caught in some sphere and asking for help. Before anyone else can act, Lumi turns Tiffany into a zombie, but they are unable to save Nea Veia's life.

As they finish their fight, the mansion opens its doors again, and they can leave. Unsure whether that has solved the issue already, or what else to do, Bishop and Marigold ask their new friends whether they would help them save their ranch. Additionally, as he survived the night, Bishop is officially a member of the necromancer's guild now, whether he likes it or not.

### Ranch Sweet Ranch

In the approximate week between Arc 10 and Ranch Sweet Ranch, Bishop becomes a Warlock to Shar.

At the ranch, Dion, Luminessa, and even Theo actively encourage Bishop and Marigold to try holding hands or kissing to close the rifts of darkness, which after the events at Tiffany's mansion have turned into less threatening portals instead of just pure void. As they try it, they realise that it actually works, at least sometimes. They don't even have to actually kiss for the land around them to heal, they just have to want to try. However, like their relationship needs time to heal, so does the farm and land as well, and they are not able to just easily close all of the portals like that.

There is also a different problem there: through one of the portals, a tree from the Feywild has landed right in the centre of the farmhouse, including a person living inside the tree. Draen'd, as they are called, is a bit rude at first, claiming that this is their house, but as they slowly manage to resolve the situation, Marigold and Bishop start to get used to the idea of having to build a new house, because Draen'd is unable to move the tree, and nobody else knows how to do that either. Since they wanted to start anew anyways, though, Bishop and Marigold can agree to building a new house and letting Draen'd live there, as long as they also help out on the ranch.

## Trivia

* Haley describes his pronouns as "He/Him, but in a wet-cat-born-in-a-cardboard-box way".
* On the ranch, Marigold was generally the one best with the animals, and he was best with the plants. He had a lot of fancy flowers there and kept the grounds.