Sister Marrow

Level 1 Tiefling Warlock (Fiend (The Dark Covenant))

STR
14 (+2)
DEX
13 (+1)
CON
12 (+1)
INT
11
WIS
8 (-1)
CHA
17 (+3)

Defense

Armor Class 14 (Natural + Dex (Mage Armor if encountered, not assumed))
Hit Points 9 (d8 + 1 +1)
Speed 30 ft.

Proficiencies & Skills

Saving Throws charisma, wisdom
Skills Arcana +2, Stealth +3, Persuasion +5, Sleight of hand +3

Character Information

Sister Marrow is the city’s enigmatic caretaker of life and debt, a tiefling who wears mercy like a blade. Born in a charity house, she learned to navigate the cruel underbelly of survival early: the matron’s thirst for gold, the alchemists who prize unbroken spirits, and the hunger that gnawed at every child’s stomach. When the orphanage burned and the streets yawned with hunger, Marrow found a second wind by trading her own blood for coin, then turning that coin into more blood for others. A forbidden tome whispered a dangerous art: bind souls with alchemical reagents, use their essence as collateral, and barter with the living and the dead. Now known as Sister Marrow, she runs the city’s finest hospice, a place where patients sign contracts in their moments of weakness; upon death, their organs become products for alchemical traders, and restless spirits are bottled in crimson rubies for exchange with infernal clients. In her vault, a single unsigned contract waits for the pure hero whose vitality might complete her ascent. Her magic is drawn from a fiendish patron who promises power in exchange for control over death’s ledger, and her power is sharpened by a city that loves mercy and fears the cost of mercy’s price. She believes that life is a ledger: every breath and every scar balances a debt somewhere. Marrow’s moral compass is imperfect, but she is not blind to the ache she causes—she merely believes that the city’s vulnerable deserve a place where they are kept safe, even if that safety comes at a price. She guards secrets with the ferocity of a mother protecting her brood, and she will face any who threaten her patients, her vault, or her very ascension. Yet beneath the cold calculus lies a fear: that her own heart is becoming hollow, and that the contract she guards may one day sign her own fate away.

Character Background

Marrow’s childhood in a charity house was a crucible, remaking a frightened girl into the city’s most feared healer. The matron offered warmth in exchange for obedience, and the prospect of gold for the rarest acts of cruelty. As an urchin, she learned to blend into shadows, to barter in the markets, and to read people’s weaknesses as surely as a book’s pages. Her first real reckoning came when the matron sold blood from children to the city’s alchemists, a practice that earned the matron’s favor and fed the house. Marrow volunteered, grinning as needles sank, for the attention of someone who seemed to command fate itself. Years later she found herself starving on the streets when the orphanage burned and the city turned away, trading her own blood to survive—and then trading others’. A forbidden tome, stolen from a merchant’s cart and hidden in a cellar, revealed the possibility of binding souls with alchemical reagents; the power was alluring, and dangerous. She learned to wield the art with a careful hand, and in time she became Sister Marrow, guardian of a hospice that promises comfort while harvesting the costliest currency of all: life. Her vault holds not only bodies and organs but a carefully balanced scale of life and debt, a ledger of souls that could tip the entire city into a nightmare if the contract were ever signed by a true hero. Her personal quest is to steer her power toward protection and rehabilitation rather than exploitation, but the path is precarious. The city’s nobles, guilds, and shadowy alchemists all seek to bend her to their will, and she will need to decide where her loyalties truly lie: with those she serves, with the soul-bound spirits she commands, or with the ultimate power offered by the unsigned contract. It is a dangerous, seductive balance, and one that could shatter the life she built or remake the city in blood and ruby.

Unresolved Plots

  • The matron’s ledger claims a hidden vault beneath the orphanage where organ trades are logged.
  • The crimson rubies may unlock a gate to the city’s spirit plane; someone is trying to access it.

Secrets

  • Marrow’s own origin may involve a previous pact that granted her an unbound power to bend blood to will.
  • The unsigned contract’s terms bind a hero who will complete the ascension process in exchange for a debt.
  • Her patron is aware of the contract’s existence but pretends indifference, awaiting the moment the hero signs.

Fears

  • The city will see her for what she is and demand punishment.
  • Her guilt will drive away any remaining humanity.
  • Her source of power could be stripped in an instant by a rival or a patron.

Aspirations

  • To harmonize life and death for the city’s benefit.
  • To obtain redemption for the orphans who were harmed under her care.
  • To unlock the ascension without losing her humanity.

QUEST -- Unforgiven Debt

Create a pact to reclaim the lives of innocent orphans harmed by the former matron’s schemes, by confronting the deeper crime ring tied to the hospice and the alchemical trade. The quest would force Marrow to choose between exposing the truth and preserving the hospice’s fragile stability. Rewards would include a bound crimson ruby containing a fragment of a soul, granting temporary bonuses to charisma-based checks and the ability to bargain with spirits.

Current Stage

Stage 1: Discover the depth of the Matron’s atrocities within the charity house history and identify a hidden ledger.

Choice

Use the ledger to expose the matron publicly

The public revelation shatters the hospice's reputation and provokes a purge by city authorities, possibly reopening old wounds; you gain a powerful ally in a rival healer who despises cruelty.
Alternative

Harbor the matron’s secrets to protect the hospice

The matron remains in control; your reputation as an avenger is questioned, but you preserve the hospice structure for now.
Mechanical Rewards
  • 2 additional spell slots of Fiend patron at higher levels
  • blood-touched ruby relic granting advantage on Charisma checks in treat bugged areas
Narrative Rewards
  • Renowned as the city’s mystic caretaker who negotiates with spirits.
  • Gains access to restricted sections of the city’s archives.

QUEST -- Blood for Leverage

Marrow must decide whether to continue publicly feeding the hospice’s blood-based economy or to find a sanctioned, ethical alternative that still provides respite to the city’s desperate.

Current Stage

Trigger a scandal in which an acolyte questions the ethics of harvesting organs.

Choice

Defend the practice with divine justification

The city’s faith communities split, leading to a schism in the church and a temporary alliance with underground groups.
Alternative

Admit to malpractices and move to reform

The hospice receives reformers; you gain a new mentor who challenges your way of doing things.
Mechanical Rewards
  • Rite of Redemption granting healing aura to nearby allies once per long rest
Narrative Rewards
  • A city grant to improve the hospice’s wards, attracting loyal patients.

QUEST -- Unsigned Contract

Marrow guards a single unsigned contract in her vault, a potential ascension token. The hero who signs it could become a tool or an ally depending on how the hero answers the contract’s terms.

Current Stage

Stage 1: The contract must be read aloud; your patron’s influence grows stronger as it nears completion.

Choice

Seal the contract and wait for the hero

The hero is drawn to the contract by a sense of destiny, heightening tension around your ultimate power.
Alternative

Destroy the contract to keep the hero from being corrupted

A sacred vow is broken; you become more vulnerable to your patron’s countermeasures.
Mechanical Rewards
  • Ascension path gating spell unlocking at future levels
  • control over minor demon manager in liminal spaces
Narrative Rewards
  • A rival faction offers a treaty demanding your service in exchange for protection.

Major Decision

Context

1) The moral compass of Marrow is tested by the hospice’s blood trade's necessity vs. exploitation.

Choice Made

Choose to reform the hospice through ethical changes or preserve the current system to sustain lives immediately.

Impact

Reform grants access to magic of mercy but invites political scrutiny; preserving the system strengthens the hospice but strengthens your reputation as a feared broker of souls.

Major Decision

Context

2) The unsigned contract’s power: accept ascension or maintain mortal boundaries.

Choice Made

Seal the contract or destroy it.

Impact

Sealing boosts patron influence and unlocks new powers; destroying preserves your mortal agency but invites patron wrath.

Major Decision

Context

3) The path to power through the blood economy: align with a noble alchemist or stand against the trade’s core degradation.

Choice Made

Formal alliance with the alchemist's guild or rebellion against their influence.

Impact

Alliance grants resources and protection; rebellion increases danger but restores autonomy and reputation.

Transformative Moment

Trigger

Discovery of the true scope of the matron’s loans and the hidden ledger.

Transformation

Marrow embraces the role of a gatekeeper over life and death, gaining temperate control over spirits and a vow of mercy to redirect the city’s blood economy towards ethical use.

Mechanical Changes

Charisma

+1 to Charisma checks related to persuasion and leadership.

She learns to wield fear and comfort in equal measure.

Transformative Moment

Trigger

The first debtor’s contract turns into a warning beacon when the patient’s soul is bound by alchemy.

Transformation

She develops a ritual to temporarily seal spirits and recall them from the crimson rubies.

Mechanical Changes

Wisdom

+1 to Insight checks recognizing manipulation.

Gained patience and focus.

Transformative Moment

Trigger

An ally or rival signs away something precious in a bid for power, testing her loyalty.

Transformation

Marrow's loyalties become crucial to her power, making her a master of negotiation and a strategist in the city’s occult economy.

Mechanical Changes

Intelligence

+1 to Investigation and Arcana checks.

Her understanding of contracts deepens.

Ally:
Lyris of the Gilded Ward

Relationship Secret benefactor and rival healer
Influence 7/10
Loyalty 70/10

Shared History

Lyris, formerly a nun of mercy, encountered Marrow as a patient who escaped the matron’s clutches. Years later, when Marrow built the hospice’s wards, Lyris offered a discreet alliance: Lyris would provide sacred wards in exchange for access to Marrow’s unique blood-ward reagents. They share an oath to protect the vulnerable, but their methods diverge; Lyris longs for public accountability and ritual purity, while Marrow seeks to stabilize the city by any means necessary.

Potential Breaking Points

  • If the contract resurfaces, Lyris may claim a share of the initial financing, testing the extent of loyalty.

Enemy:
The Silverscale Alchemist

Threat Level 4/10
Conflict Type Rivalry over souls and reagents

Personal Stakes

The alchemist views Marrow’s work as a direct threat to their monopoly over the city’s blood-based alchemy and the soul-binder contracts.

Possible Resolutions

  • Outmaneuver or ally with an opposing faction; either path could unravel or deepen the conflict.

Faction: City Council of Necromantic Trade

Standing 4/10
Influence High

Obligations

  • Maintain control over organ trades
  • Ensure smooth operation of hospice to prevent public backlash

Benefits

  • Legal protection for the hospice’s operations
  • Access to city markets and information networks

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