Professor Alistair Vance

Professor Alistair Vance was once a celebrated mathematician at Cambridge, until he inherited a crumbling estate containing the personal effects of Cornelius Blackwood, a nineteenth-century scholar who had descended into madness and murdered his own family before perishing in an asylum. Among Blackwood's belongings, Vance discovered a leather-bound journal filled with incomprehensible notations—mathematical symbols that seemed to writhe on the page itself, describing something he came to call "narrative numbers," fractal digits existing in the spaces between conventional integers where reality's underlying code supposedly lay exposed. Driven by obsession, Vance spent years deciphering Blackwood's work, and when he finally understood the fundamental equations, he gained the ability to manipulate the very fabric of existence itself, bending probability and even draining the essence from fictional beings as if they were batteries of compressed story. The power proved intoxicating, yet catastrophically corrosive; each calculation he performs causes dark, jagged fissures to spread across his skin like creeping frost, turning his flesh gangrenous as the narrative architecture he channels consumes him from without. Now neither fully alive nor entirely fictional himself, Vance continues his experiments in a secluded laboratory, watching his body deteriorate while his mind grows sharper, colder, and increasingly convinced that destroying the barrier between story and reality is worth the price of his own dissolution.

Strength

10, modifier +0

Dexterity

14, modifier +2

Constitution

18, modifier +4

Intelligence

20, modifier +5

Wisdom

16, modifier +3

Charisma

12, modifier +1

Narrative Disruption

Vance targets one creature within 60 ft. and forces it to make a DC 17 Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, it takes 4d10 psychic damage and is frightened until the end of its next turn.

Meta-Mathematical Equation

Vance can cast a spell as a bonus action, dealing 3d8 necrotic damage to one target within 30 ft. and regaining hit points equal to half the damage dealt.

Fractured Reality

As an action, Vance creates a 20 ft. radius sphere of distorted space. Creatures in the area must succeed on a DC 17 Dexterity saving throw or take 6d6 force damage and be pushed 10 ft. away.

Siphon Essence

Vance targets a fictional character or creature within 30 ft. and drains their narrative energy, dealing 2d12 necrotic damage and regaining hit points equal to half the damage dealt. This action can only be used once per long rest.

Reality Bender

Once per turn, Vance can manipulate reality, allowing him to reroll one failed attack or saving throw.

strength

+0

dexterity

+2

constitution

+4

intelligence

+9

wisdom

+6

charisma

+1

Psychic

Necrotic