Erich Brauer

Titles: Councilor of the Shadow Dragons, Member of the Get of Oroboros, Proprietor of the Dragon's Den.

Player: Peter Gray

First Appearance: Middenheim Period (IC 2513) Just before Dwarf Wars.

Status: Active

Birthdate: 7/11/2478 IC (Age 40)

Marital Status: Married to Rahann "Mankiller" Gunderit (married on 2/12/2516 IC), who has borne him two children.

Has had numerous sexual relationships prior to his current one, though he has never been previously married. Only one of these prior relationships is known to have produced issue - his daughter Mirrim (see below).

Known Offspring:

1. Mirrim Brauer (illegitimate daughter, born on 9/24/2499 IC to [name] - Mirrim uses either her father's or mother's surname interchangeably depending upon circumstances.)
2. Artag Gunderit (adopted son, born on 7/14/2514 IC to Rahann Gunderit - the Chaos Warrior Vindar is presumably Artag's birth father.)
3. Octavius Brauer (born on 12/11/2516 IC to Rahann Gunderit)
4. [name] Brauer (born on 1/8/2518 IC to Rahann Gunderit)

More Pictures

 Erich is a tall, whipcord lean man with long red hair and a goatee that is starting to gray a bit. His angular, rawboned face is rakishly handsome, made all the more dangerous and roguish by the inlaid wooden and leather patch over his left eye. Three scars run from above his eyebrow down to his cheek, leaving no question as to how he lost the use of that eye. Erich’s remaining eye glitters greenly with cunning and wit. He is tanned and somewhat weathered from years on the road. An irreverent smirk frequently plays across his lips. It is important to remember, however, that Erich is a devious trickster and illusionist that can (and usually does) wear any face that he pleases.

He speaks clearly and distinctly, and has a great love for eloquent and often misleading or confusing turns of phrase. Even more skilled at mimicry and acting than he is at magic, Erich can affect any speech pattern or accent that he cares to adopt, though his native dialect is that of dour Middenheim.

As a chameleon, Erich is inclined to wear whatever is most appropriate for the task at hand. For obvious reasons, he prefers to be fairly inconspicuous but he also has a taste for a bit of dramatic flare that shines through at times. When operating openly as himself, he usually wears a black quilted silk jacket with an incongruous embroidered letter “D” on its left breast. A broad-brimmed gray hat, relatively plain grayish breeches and sturdy leather boots complete the look. In general, his wardrobe tends towards grays since he is a Master of that magical college. On one hip he wears an outlandish saber encrusted with elvish-looking runes and smooth-cut gemstones as well as a few short cables. When he activates this fearsome weapon, it takes on a menacing glow and can slice neatly through metal or virtually anything else. An assortment of daggers and similar concealable weapons are hidden about his person, and he sometimes carries a repeater crossbow as well.

History

Origin

Joining the Heroes

The Hammer Quest

Courtship

The Dragon's Den

Lustrian Separation

Into the Shadows

Tropes

See the tropes page for details on everybody else.

Antihero - He's pretty much amoral much of the time, though he does slide back and forth between type II and IV. He's arguably the most antiheroic character in the party overall.

Badass Longcoat - He wears one of these a lot of the time.

Beard of Antiheroism - The goatee variant. Also the awesome variant.

Chaotic Neutral - Erich rides the line between this and True Neutral much of the time, being primarily interested in his own freedom to operate as he sees fit and his own profit. He does place value on friendship and keeping society from falling apart completely, though.

The Con Man - Erich loves being one of these, and he enjoys the odd short con while he's at it. Fortunately for Erich, he's genre savvy enough that he didn't try playing games of this sort with his teammates at the beginning, and before long had legitimately become a loyal friend (even relative!) of theirs.

Cool Sword - He has a Howling Banshee Power Sword thanks to an odd turn of events. He has no idea that it's from another world - he just thinks that it's a rather unique and highly potent magical weapon of elven manufacture. He makes extensive use of its ability to make a clean cut.

Deadpan Snarker - He does a fair amount of sideboard commentary, especially when he's hanging out with Yorri and Gurni.

Eye Patch of Power - Erich's had one of these ever since he lost his eye defeating Tloxotz in spectacular fashion.

Give Me A Sword - On one occasion, Uhlrik and he were together in a garden. Uhlrik had his side sword with him and Erich was unarmed. Then Josef Kastermann appeared and summoned a bunch of Pink Horrors to keep them from interfering in his duel with Teclis. Uhlrik handed Erich the sword and trusted to his own fists. Back to Back Badasses ensued.

Guile Hero - Erich is a trickster, spymaster, manipulator and con-man mixed with a heady dose of magic. Yeah, he's one of these.

Heroic Resolve - Erich has demonstrated this on several occasions. Perhaps the most notable was his desperate battle against Tloxotz, where he kept fighting despite the bat-slann raking its claw across one of his eyes and generally pummeling him into a paste (it incapacitated and deafened Rahann with its keening attack, and also took down both Kreeshana and Tenochklilan in the same fight, leaving Erich the only one standing). He finally harmed it enough that it retreated with the intent of playing hit and run with him, so he cast a flight spell on himself and pounded it to death with Force Fist at point blank rage. Another notable instance was earlier in his career and didn't end as well: He was playing a game of cat and mouse with Daffydd, who kept No Selling his spell attacks and managed to kidnap the Gunderit twins (over whom Erich had been keeping watch while their parents were out) to fuel Gaynor's Master Plan. Daffydd managed to grab the kids and escape outside, where he handed them off to Rusikis. Just as Rusikis made her escape, Erich charged the fully armored Chaos warrior armed only with a dagger, refusing to give up even though his magic was useless against the bastard. He didn't have a chance against Daffydd, who stabbed him through the gut and left him bleeding out his life on the ground. If Richelle hadn't been nearby enough to rush to his aid, Erich would definitely have died. He justified his suicidal determination, claiming that he was even more afraid of the kids' parents than he was of Daffydd.

I Fight For the Strongest Side - He got introduced to the party in a bit of a subversion of this trope: he surrendered (complete with a blubbering plea for mercy) to Cedric immediately rather than taking him on, because he knew ahead of time that if it came down to a fight, he had zero chance of winning.

Knowledge Broker - He makes a rather brisk trade in other people's business...

Master of Disguise - Erich is one of these the old fashioned way, but he cheats too: he's also an Illusionist who combines the disciplines. What a bastard.

Memetic Outfit - His black quilted jacket with the letter "D" monogrammed on it that he picked up in Castle Drachenfels. He doesn't actually wear it all that much, but it's become pretty much his default depiction.

Moment of Awesome - Probably the single most jaw-dropping moment in the campaign that was solely and specifically Erich's would be when he overcame grievous bodily injuries, including losing an eye, while fighting Tloxotz, as everybody else in his party (Tenochklilan, Kreeshana and even freaking Rahann!) went down around him, and he managed to fight off the bat-slann to the point that it decided to retreat and regroup for a renewed attack on him... but Erich was having none of that and cast Flight on himself, then proceeded to chase Tloxotz down and blast it to death at point blank with Force fist, his fairly recently custom-designed spell. Utterly awesome.

• Another that may or may not be even better would be the time when he ran a party of noob adventurers (with players and all) as a smokescreen for a couple of his own missions while posing as a kind and slightly batty elderly gentleman that was just another of their teammates. Lots of note-passing ensued. He even used a fake character sheet to hide the real one, and he even had his character deliberately fail actions where the dice rolls fell between his supposed stats and his real ones, unless it was really important and he was sure he could get away with it without the other players catching on. This last included using powers the other players had no idea that he had in order to backstab and kill one of them that was about to axe another PC over the head from behind for the purposes of taking their stuff - his fast-talking excuse mollified them enough that they didn't look into things any further, and they bought into his line about having a charge-based magical ring that had given him the momentary boost he'd needed to fly over and inflict a serious ganking. The noobs never found out and, in a meta example, neither did their players (even the one that he backstabbed!). While the other incident may have been Erich's crowning moment, this one was definitely his player's proudest moment of playing the guy.

 The Nondescript - Erich affects this look during most of his 'jobs.'

Nice Hat - Erich has a trademark broad-brimmed (but not pointed! see below) hat that he wears most everywhere.

Puss in Boots - He played this to a group of inexperienced adventurers one time, all while posing as a slightly addled elderly gentleman looking rather like Richard Attenborough.

Robe and Wizard Hat - Averted. Erich wouldn't advertise like that. He's a sneaky bastard first, master wizard second.

Signature Move - His favorite direct-attack spell is Force Fist, (basically an all-but-invisible telekinetic Hadoken) which he developed himself, and which he delivers to distant opponents via a punching motion.

The Spymaster - This is what Uhlrik has asked him to become. Erich agreed, though he was a bit reluctant since he rather enjoyed the more footloose and fancy free days of being a freelance spy and con man. Plus he'd rather be in the action himself. So they agreed to meet somewhere in the middle.

Turn Coat - He became one of these almost immediately during his introductory scene, selling out his former employers to Cedric in exchange for his own life.

Your Cheating Heart - Invoked but ultimately averted. After he and his wife were separated via extremely long-distance teleportation, Erich encountered and saved Kreeshana, then took her with him on his journey. Being a horny type and appreciative of his help, she tried very hard to get him in the sack and Erich was sorely tested but ultimately stayed faithful.