Gaspare Gnazzo the Painted Swindler of Death and Hangman's Bane, Emperor of Thera

Role

Chapter 5

Gaspare didn't think he would still be able to tap into his artistry. In
fact, he wasn't sure he would still be able to feel at all.

But after two visits from the ghastly spirit of his deceased fiancee, and a
discussion with Raltevio, a faint spark took hold and he composed his first
work in years: a piece of poetry about the experience.

Raltevio, who had encouraged Gaspare to take another stab at artistry, was
pleased with the poem and offered him a place among the Troupe, which Gaspare
accepted.

The ghost of Gaspare's fiancee had appeared to be searching for something.
Gaspare reasoned that it may be his soul (which is pledged to the Empire) or
her missing engagement ring: A simple and relatively inexpensive golden band
with a piece of blue-tinted glass imitating a sapphire.

The conflicts between the Empire and Raltevio's Troupe are not lost
on Gaspare. The Troupe shuns politics, ambition and bullying - qualities smiled
upon in the Empire.

In Gaspare's eyes, the Empire is a passionless job. The death of his fiancee
set him upon a path that he feels he cannot escape, so he merely trudges
ahead, zombie-like. He sold his soul for booze money, and now he merely does
what he is obligated to do. That's what he tells himself, at least.

But Raltevio and the Troupe have rekindled artistic side and that, now, is
his passion and his newfound balance.

In terms of personality, Gaspare is not a maniac or a sadist. He sees himself
as a good person in a bad place. He recognizes that the Empire is responsible
for atrocities, but reasons that civilization can foster art, so it isn't
necessarily all bad. He has no aspiration to become a leader.

However, it doesn't occur to him that just because he carries out terrible
acts without gusto doesn't absolve him from their awfulness. He essentially
blames the Empire for his actions, and somehow paints himself with the brush
of a victim.

Any remaining guilt is alleviated by drinking copious amounts of liquor and
reasoning that the world is a horrible place that doesn't appreciate the
truly virtuous, as evidenced by his fiancee's murder. We all deserve what we
get.

His art often reflects these ideas.

PK Gank-O-Meter

Immortal Comments

Immortal Comments

Immortal Comments

Role

Chapter 1

The sun had begun to rise over the vast plains, and Gaspare Gnazzo stooped
down to examine a red smear and fleshy bit in the dirt and dry grass. His
shoulders shook with sobs. He cried out, tears and drool trickling over his
grief-twisted face, over caked blood and stage makeup.


After a moment, he slowly reached down, picked up the piece of flesh and
organ, put it in his satchel, and resumed his grim staggering along a trail
of blood that seemed to stretch beyond the horizon.

* * *

She is so beautiful.


He can see her even now. Her hair, golden waves adorned with glimmering gems.
Her ruddy lips curling into a sly grin. Her eyes, playful and knowing. The
way the men stared at her during performances. He stared at her the same way.
And it was his ring she wore.


Gaspare and Melianna traveled together with an acting troupe and performed
for a pittance. He, a swarthy half-drow man born to a human Seantryn Modanian
prostitute who serviced sailors of all races from Hamsah Mu'tazz. She, a
rare, half-elven beauty from a town on the outskirts of Voralian City. They
saved their earnings on the road in hopes of settling down near her hometown
and raising children where the horses ran free.


Looking back, their show seemed so stupid.


He played a villainous aristocrat. Her role was that of a peasant belle who
was the object of his unwanted affection. Meanwhile, a dashing blacksmith who
seemed truly meant for her sought to rescue her from what would undoubtedly
be a miserable marriage. Of course, this simple plot became complicated by
misunderstandings, double entendres, and incest jokes.

Melianna was reduced to an object of affection in the eyes of the audience.
Perhaps that contributed to the cruel horrors that followed their last show
at the Inn of the Eternal Star.

The audience seemed particularly raucous that night. It was a big venue, and
perhaps they were just at the top of their game, Gaspare thought. After
taking their bows, he excitedly embraced Melianna and she passionately kissed
him.

Gaspare's drowish blood is no secret. It has strongly influenced his
appearance. Likewise, Melianna owes much of her otherworldly beauty to her
high-elven heritage. In a region so influenced by the Fortress, many would
take an affront to such a romance.

And that night, one group of men did.

Role

Chapter 2

At first, the shoving and anti-drow slurs seemed like they would only amount
to a bar fight. But in a moment of horror, Gaspare realized the men weren't
trying to deliver a beating to him.

They were trying to subdue and capture him.

He heard the shrill screams of his love. He had heard her scream while
acting, but these cries shot through him like cold lightning. They were real,
desperate and awful. He wasn't able to catch a glimpse of her before the
blindfold slipped over his eyes. And he wasn't sure if he should be grateful
for that.

"To the Gallow Hill with this dark-elf trash," the ringleader said.

"What about his whore?" another asked. "We gonna hang her, too?"

"Let them die together?" the ringleader said. "No. She wants to rut with
beasts like this drow? Let's see if she can keep up with my horse."

Gaspare struggled and shouted curses but he was not strong and too many hands
were on him. He could only hear her sobs through what he imagined was a
wadded rag in her mouth.

After a while, they stopped. They walked him up to a hill and onto the creaky
wooden gallows. Someone picked him up and stood him on a bucket and he felt a
rope slip over his neck.

"Don't let him drop far," the ringleader said.

Someone tore off the blindfold and he saw her one last time, under the light
of the full moon, on the ground behind a horse. The ringleader grinned and
straddled the horse.

Melianna's eyes widened. The ringleader raised his arm and one of his lackies
kicked the bucket out from beneath Gaspare's feet. The drop was short and
shocking, but did no damage to Gaspare's neck or throat. They left him there
to slowly asphyxiate - and watch.

The ringleader and most of his lackies rode off, dragging Melianna behind
them. She bounced like a ragdoll over the plains, over its rocks and dried
creeks. As he struggled on the rope and tried to croak out screams, he saw
her disappear into the distance, leaving behind a black, smeared trail in the
moonlight.

The black trail seemed to widen, burning away everything else in his sight
before overtaking it completely. Likewise, the pain in his lungs burned away
most everything else in his consciousness. His feet grew heavy and he faintly
noted that they were no longer really moving.

Role

Chapter 3

Gaspare's eyes opened to see the night sky once more. A stout figure hunched
over him and roughly handled his face.

"Hey, come on, fella," the dwarf said. "Gotta get ye up before they wake."

Gaspare tried to talk but his throat was still sore and he just ended up
coughing. He looked around to find his two would-be executioners unconscious
with gashes on their heads.

"Saw them take ye out of the bar like that. Couldnae let it stand. Not after
such a good show."

It was a dwarven bouncer from the Inn.

"Couldnae help the lass," he said. "Best find somewhere to spend the night
and get far away. Can't provoke a lynch mob at the Inn."

Gaspare sat up and stared at the dwarf. He gave a little nod.

"Well, ye gonna get movin'? I ain't staying here waitin' for them to wake up
or come back."

Gaspare gave a dismissive wave and crawled toward the start of the black
trail through the plains.

"Don't follow that trail," the dwarf called out. "She's dead! Yer shittin'
all over me favor to ye! Ye owe me yer life, so go make somethin' of it!"

But Gaspare did not seem to hear these words. He grabbed a knapsack from one
of his unconscious captors and began shambling along to search for his love.

As if in a dream, he watched himself follow the black, bloody trail through
the night. He knew intellectually that each morbid trailmarker was part of
his love. That the woman he pledged his soul to no longer existed. That she
was now no more than a series of pieces and smears.

The trail went on for as long as he could see. There was no end in sight.

There still isn't.

Role

Chapter 4

Gaspare lovingly collected all of her remains.

Once he had them, he took them to a dark corner of a library and studied
them. He painstakingly learned the name and location of each part. He
stitched them together and created something resembling her corpse. He wanted
to bury her whole.

His efforts to preserve and reconstruct the corpse forced him to request a
book from the necromancer's guild. After he completed his task and made a
deal for embalming fluid ingredients, he found himself indebted to the
guildmaster. He ran some errands for the guildmaster and, soon, he began
picking up tricks of the trade.

Gaspare is not passionate about necromancy. In fact, he has found he lacks
any sort of passion at all. In his semi-fugue of depression, he recognized
that he has a knack for the dark arts.

He also began drinking heavily.

Soon, a near-penniless and unhappily sober Gaspare received an offer from an
Imperial priest that could earn him some gold. She offered Gaspare twenty
gold and some valuables in exchange for his heart, soul and life.

Little did the priest know Gaspare had lost all of the above a year earlier
at Gallow Hill. As far as Gaspare was concerned, he got the better of the
deal.

In addition to being a gifted actor, orator and poet, Gaspare is now an
alcoholic nihilist with something of a gambling addiction and a deathwish.

His constructive side yearns to seek help from the new god Raltevio to
rekindle his artistic passions. His destructive side is enamored with the
idea of invoking the name of the Dragon God Drokalanatym.

Either way, he feels inspired to give Thera a performance it deserves.

PK Statistics

Role

Chapter 6

In the Fields of Balator, justice was done.

With the help of Raltevio's Troupe, Gaspare tracked the ringleader
of the men who killed Melianna to the farmlands there. Before long,
he lay dead at Gaspare's feet.

For years, Raltevio guided Gaspare's artistic journey, helping him
to explore his pain, make sense of his loss, and find a new reason
to live in art. The god of artistry bestowed upon Gaspare His mark
following a performance of a controversial piece of poetry at the
Inn of the Eternal Star.

But the help provided by the Virtuoso and his Fool's Troop went
beyond the abstract and artistic, leading him to the man who
ruined his life and killed his bride-to-be.

Gaspare embalmed his eye and took it as a trophy. Melannia appeared
and told him the ring could serve as a conduit between them, before
vanishing.

One of his lackeys was left to die in a bar after gulping down a mug
of poisoned brandy. Another, who had taken the ring, apparently died
under mysterious circumstances after pawning it in Udgaard. Jorgen
sold it to an anonymous mustachioed nobleman with an Eastern accent.

The Troupe again sprang into action and combed the lands for clues
as to the whereabouts of the ring, finding a seedy nobleman in
Hamsah Mu'tazz, who gave it to a prostitute on the docks. Gaspare
told her that the ring was cursed and causing her to age
prematurely, and convinced her to hand it over.

He left the ring with Raltevio for safekeeping, who kept it bound in
a magical container that would keep the hauntings at bay. The next
step is to seek out a true master of Necromancy and find out how to
use the conduit to set her spirit free - or, perhaps, bind it to
Gaspare.

Role

Chapter 7

Gaspare has been stunned at the deafening silence that followed. No
longer does he sense his Muse, hear her voice, or feel the cold
chill of her otherworldly love. As much as it troubled him before,
he now misses it and feels strangely uninspired.

He discussed the matter with Daphedee, who also has lost a loved
one. He came to the realization that just as everyone dies alone,
everyone loves alone. That is, Gaspare believes his love is his
alone to give and wholly independent of Melianna's love for him.

Gaspare abhors the path of the wight, which he sees as hideous and
lacking in capacity for artistry. The mummy's path is tempting, as
it would allow him to continue drinking and indulging in the
pleasures of the flesh.

But as things now stand, he has set his mind to keeping Melianna's
soul for himself, and Becoming a lich so that he may harness it and
tend to it well.

Role

Chapter 8

It was a still night. The moonlight choked on clouds and there was
no wind to clear them. Below, the dangling ropes and grass on Gallow
Hill seemed frozen in place. All that moved on the plains was the
Emperor Gaspare Gnazzo, on one of his many anxious midnight walks.

He always found something calming about this time of night, when dew
hangs lazily in the air and alights on his face as he paces.

A flash in the sky caught his eye. It was the tailed star.

Gaspare felt compelled to climb onto the gallows. He stuck his head
through the noose and stared at the place in the grass where he last
saw her.

He hadn't felt her presence in some time - not since Raltevio locked
her away. Now, the Galadon guildmaster was tinkering with her soul
and a precious sapphire he had found to create a phylactery. The
precise effect of this remained somewhat unclear to Gaspare, but he
reasoned it couldn't be any worse than the torment they both had
been experiencing.

From somewhere hopelessly dark, a chuckle crawled into his throat.

"Emperor of Thera. Would you believe that, Mel?"

Nothing stirred.

He knew she wasn't there and couldn't hear him. But he spoke to her
anyway.

"I always was typecast as the arrogant aristocrat. So I guess I've
been training my whole life for this. Of course, they were comedies,
back then."

But this role was different, and he knew it. He was cast to play
this part accidentally, by a group of greedy and dangerous people
who wanted it for themselves. His heart sank when the role fell on
his shoulders. Too much pressure. Too much attention.

And worse, it happened at a time when the fate of Thera appears to
be at stake - the dawn of a New Age. For a terrible moment, Gaspare
thought himself a fraud, an impostor. But that terror soon gave
birth to a smile, having caught himself taking his office too
seriously.

This is the ultimate in performance art.

Art the world deserves.

He leaned into the noose for a moment, feeling the old, rough rope
cutting into his throat. He lifted his feet off of the planks so he
couldn't breathe.

The sharp pain in his throat and the burning in his lungs felt
appropriate for reasons he couldn't articulate. The moon emerged
from behind the clouds for a moment. It seemed startlingly bright.

Gaspare's feet slammed back down onto the plank and he pulled his
head out of the noose, coughing and hacking. He pulled a bottle of
absinthe out of his pack and took a few gulps. He exhaled sharply
and looked back at the spot where the love of his life's fate was
sealed.

"My Muse," he said. "Let us give this world what it deserves."

Role

Chapter 9

A blue sky above, rippling waves below. And Gaspare felt like he was
floating. Swaying.

He couldn't focus, but he felt uncharacteristically at peace. Time
to be both a rushing river and a frozen sea. He drifted for a while
before finding a clear memory to grasp hold of.

A skeletal figure handed him a vile potion and offered a toast.
Gullet? The word "gullet" stuck in his mind.

Bottoms up.

And then nothing.

Echoing in his mind, the lich-maker's voice echoed, "Did it tingle?"

No, Gaspare thought. It burned. And with that, all continuity
shattered.

Memories and places blurred in his thoughts.

The screams of giants and dwarves in a bloody massacre. His old
friends recoiling from the sight of him. Watching pieces of his
once-handsome face slough off in the reflection of a pond. A mind-
numbing blend of panic and curiosity.

The Becoming sickness.

And through it all, he could feel his love, Melianna, there with
him. A chilling presence closer now than ever before.

Slowly, Gaspare began to regain control of his senses. He noted a
blue sky above, rippling waves below. Not an ocean, but a vast sea
of grass.

The slow creak of ancient wood entered his consciousness. His boots
dangled below him. Above him, a rope and a wooden beam.

"This cursed place?" he muttered to himself.

In his madness, Gaspare had hanged himself at Gallow Hill. As sanity
crept back into his mind, he couldn't help but laugh.

Role

Chapter 10

The Becoming has changed Gaspare's personality in the following
ways:

- He has unpredictable moments of apparent insanity, which plays out
as disordered thinking, hallucinations, "blackouts," regression
(forgetting he's undead), and darkly nonsensical babbling. Thus far,
he hasn't completely lost himself - that is, he wouldn't become
mindlessly bloodthirsty or do other things that are completely out
of character.

- He is convinced that he remains able to feel emotions and tap into
them for artistry. However, they're different. Love's warm comfort
has grown unattainable to him. He can recall it from his past life,
but it now manifests instead as a cold obsession. He is able to feel
excitement, curiosity and fury. Many other emotions are now purely
intellectual in nature.

- He believes that it is part of his duty as an artist to document
and convey the experience of undeath.

- He has a fascination with life beyond that which he had as a man.
From his newfound distance from life, he now better sees the
miraculousness of it.

- On the other hand, he has no qualms murdering people and turning
them into his art materials, such as phylacteries and body parts.

- He still feels an attachment to Raltevio and Daphedee. Those two
are the last true connections he has with his mortal life. Losing
either or both of them would probably cause some major turmoil
and exacerbate symptoms of his Becoming sickness.

It is his plan to have a posthumous wedding with his beloved, who
had haunted him as a shade before his Becoming. The tentative plan
is to welcome her into his mind or body (without ceding any control).
in order to keep her with him forever. It's an incredibly selfish
plan that would probably cause her torment, but he either doesn't
see that or doesn't care.

Role

Chapter 11

"Gaspare," she always whispers. "I'm afraid."

Melianna is with Gaspare forevermore. But she is just a shadow of the fierce,
free-spirited actress with whom he had fallen in love.

Her shade hangs about him like a leaden robe of fear and need, and he has
begun to regret becoming married to her.

Gaspare's art has suffered. His works and conquests have seemed less
satisfying by the day, and his desire to sit upon the throne has waned, for
it, too, is merely another burden. Another thing that needs.

He worries that the gulf between life and undeath is too wide for his Patron,
Raltevio, to cross. And, even more troubling, he has begun to believe that
Scarabaeus was correct. At a meeting before Gaspare's Becoming, the Father of
Devils told him that Love was illusory - just chemicals in the gut and the
brain that caused a misleading sensation. Troublingly, he has begun to see
this as the truth.

Gaspare has long struggled to maintain his humanity and the gifts and light
of life, but he now wonders whether he even remembers what that ever was. Or
if his greatest work of art, thus far, was the artifice of a (twisted)
conscience and of Love.

Scarabaeus' words years ago planted a seed that is beginning to sprout,
calling that all, now, into doubt.

The Father of Devils has suggested that Gaspare look for enlightenment and
inspiration from the devils in the Inferno, who have long known immortality.

Many of Gaspare's links to the mortal world are waning. His visits with
Daphedee have been ever more rare, and this has had a destabilizing effect
on him. He feels abandoned by many in the Troupe, as well. The Becoming sickness
is beginning to creep back into his mind, facilitated in part by the strain of
bearing the fears of his dead lover.

Role

Chapter 12

Gaspare has apparently retained the Throne, for now, after an attempted coup.
He pinpointed the fears of certain members of the Council and played two
adversarial sects against one another, using his own vote strategically to
cement his victory. And yet it isnt a relief or a thrill for him - just
another pointless obstacle placed in his path by the pettiness of men.

Since his departure from Raltevio, the closest thing to family that he had
left, Gaspare has become more aloof and short-tempered. His sanity is slowly
crumbling, along with his patience for most mortal affairs and sentiment. His
thoughts have turned to other planes, the Inferno and the Shadow Plane among
them, as well as the Negative Plane, where a significant portion of his soul
now resides. In these places, he is able to experience new sensations that
cut through the numbness that at times drives him mad.

His addiction, once to liquor, now lies in the intoxicating power of his
terrible sorcery. He yearns to plumb the depths of his victims souls and
toy with forbidden powers, for these experiences are the only ones that
stimulate him any longer.

He gets a strange sort of pleasure from tormenting his wife, perhaps with the
expectation that shell toughen up over time and become a more suitable
eternal travelling companion.

In terms of artistry, Gaspare has retained an aesthetic sense and poetic wit.
However, his tastes have changed.

Every artist wishes to reveal something to the world. The man Gaspare
believed that through his undeath, he would show the world the preciousness
and fragility of life. In a way, he did. The Lich Gaspare, however, is
beginning to see mortal life quite a bit differently. Its not half as
important as he had believed it was, and mortals of this world are mere
cattle for a higher order of beings - arch-devils, unfathomable creatures of
the Shadow - which Gaspare now studies in search of greater meaning.

Thus, artistry for the common man no longer appeals to him. His tastes grow
ever more niche and bizarre, and his future poems will reflect that. He has
begun searching for an entertaining mortal, or one who could meet his new
artistic standards, but has yet to find one.

To Gaspare, the conquest that many past emperors have spent their lives
struggling to achieve seems rather silly and mundane. His reign has been long
and faced no serious challenge. But it appears unlikely that it will last
much longer.

Role

Chapter 13

As the years wear on, Gaspare has begun to question the necessity
of his continual torment and the burden of the Imperial Throne.

He has begun seeking spiritual enlightenment at the feet of Scarabaeus
Sacer, and artistic direction from his new patron, the Prince of
Darkness, whose mark he bears.

Scarabaeus revealed the flaws in Gaspare's plans and thought patterns,
and his growing loathing of the living. His current existence, it
seems, was driving him insane. This has caused Gaspare to abandon his
Empire and consider adopting the philosophy of the Temple of the
Scarab, instead.

The Prince of Darkness, meanwhile, has commissioned work for Gaspare:
Betrayal. He has suggested that Gaspare should betray his former
patron, Raltevio, in his honor.

Skill List

Title History

Arena Statistics

PK Wins

Edges

Flaws

Racial Edges

Class Edges

Edges

Mob Deaths

Timeline

Leveling History

PK Deaths

PK Wins

PK Wins

PK Wins

PK Wins