Bleaker
You are a member of the Bleak Cabal. Your central belief is that there is no greater meaning to anyone’s life, and that the only meaning we can derive from existence comes from what we can do for those around us now.
Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Medicine
Tool Proficiency: Herbalism Kit, Cook's Utensils
Equipment: Herbalism kit, Healer’s kit, manacles, a set of common clothes including a faction badge sewn into them, and a belt pouch containing 5 gp
Feature: Nameless
As a Bleaker, you’ve given up your last name, seeing family ties as meaningless. You are welcome to stay in the Mad Bleaker wing of the Gatehouse in the Hive Ward, and you are also welcome to work at a particular soup kitchen somewhere in the Hive or in one of the Gatehouse wings (though you aren’t paid for this). Additionally, you know of a portal, and the key for that portal, that leads to the town of The Madhouse in Pandemonium, where you are also welcome.
Inspiration: Reassurance in the Face of Oblivion
If you gain a point of Inspiration for adhering to your faction philosophy, you may use it to allow an ally (someone other than yourself) to automatically succeed on a save against any effect that requires a Wisdom saving throw.
Actions that may earn you Inspiration might include
- Requesting a practical, personal reward for fulfilling a mission, not accepting just a metaphysical or heroic reward.
- Voluntarily failing a save against some effect that induces madness or affects the mind.
- Giving of yourself to help the suffering and expecting no compensation or reward.
Suggested Characteristics
Bleakers can be dour and most are more than a little insane, but the best of them are charitable and generous, finding that aleviating the suffering is a lot more useful than looking for a point to it.
Attunement
| Renown | Rank | Title | Ability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | Nameless | While attuned, you are immune to magic that reads thoughts, determines if you are lying, discerns your alignment, or discovers your creature type. Creatures can telepathically communicate with you only if you allow it. |
| 5 | 2 | Factotum | While attuned, you have psychic resistance. |
| 10 | 3 | Factor | While attuned, once per day, you can remove the Charmed or Frightened condition from a target you touch. |
Bleaker Membership
Joining the Bleakers
Alignment
Most members of the Bleak Cabal are Chaotic in alignment — believing that the multiverse makes no sense makes it hard to maintain a Lawful ideal of an ordered multiverse. However, some are Neutral, and are more concerned with their personal struggle with meaninglessness than with the inherent order of the planes (or lack thereof). Good and Evil are largely irrelevant to the Cabal — whether you see the emptiness as an excuse to help the unfortunate, or as a reason to grab all you can, or neither, the fact of the emptiness remains unchanged. Overall, the organization trends on a Chaotic Neutral direction.
Race
Among the planewalking races, the Cabal accepts a large number of planetouched tieflings — the rejection of society often brings them to questioning the order that keeps them so downtrodden.
Class
The Bleak Cabal attracts classes that walk close to the edge. Barbarians who lose themselves to rage, warlocks who seek meaning in their worthless lives in service to entities that value them, wild sorcerers who revel in the inherent arbitrariness of reality, monks who inure themselves to the brutality of unvarnished reality…these are the creatures that find refuge in the Cabal. It is difficult for those who invest power in outside sources or understanding to be comfortable here: wizards find no pattern, paladins find no meaning, and druids find no life.
Goals and Advancement
The Bleak Cabal is not an organization with far-reaching complex plans — those don't have much of a point, really. The faction members who ascend through the ranks provide services and protection for members of the faction and for others suffering from the capricious cruelty of the multiverse. This can be difficult enough when your mind is your own worst enemy, let alone when you're facing threats to your organization from the kriegstanz. Quests that might reward a Bleaker with renown might include the following:
- Help the Poor: The Hive is a dangerous place for the unprepared, and it takes a heroic person to be willing to brave the thugs, the monsters, and the chaos to give succor to those who need it the most.
- Heal the Sick: The herbs and medicines required to assuage the madness and illness of fellow faction-members can be rare and hard to find. Those who seek them out at the faction's behest are amply rewarded.
- Confront the Madness: The struggle of a Bleaker with their own mind is one that few Cabalists emerge from intact. If a member of the faction could find a way to come to terms with it, conquer it, or overcome it, they would be vital to the rest of the organization.
Helpful NPC's
Factol Lhar
Chaotic Neutral Male Half-Orc Fighter (Level 8)
Lhar is a somber, determined man, resolute and unflinching in the face of overwhelming odds. He is quite compassionate behind his stern eyes, hoping to keep those who suffer the most in as much comfort in his care as possible. He leads the efforts of donation collection and the construction of soup-kitchens around the city.
Addle-Pated
Chaotic Good Male Tiefling Commoner
This tiefling runs The Cold Bowl, the soup-kitchen in the worst part of the Hive. He is manically cheerful, talking with the hungry who line up for food at a rapid pace, smiling all the while. He's highly respected by the homeless and hungry of the Hive, who see him as a ray of brilliant, warm sunshine into their dreary lives, though most of the other faction members consider him a simpleton. He returns to the Gatehouse once a week for sessions with those who care for the mad.
Ezra
Neutral Good Male Bariaur Commoner
Ezra is a scholar who runs the Almshouse, operating soup kitchens and homes for the homeless. His wing is cramped and small, without much room for those who seek the charity.
Tessali
Chaotic Good Male Gray Elf Fighter/Wizard/Thief (levels 1/3/2)
Tassali manages the Criminally and Irretrievably Insane wing of the Gatehouse, with some of the most dangerous of the insane counting among his charges.
Tyvold
Chaotic Good Male Gray Elf Fighter/Wizard/Thief (levels 1/3/2)
