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Longshadow

![[Longshadow.png]]

"A gentleman holds the door. A clever man steals the key."

Concept: The black sheep of House Drakaër — heir to an archmage's legacy he wants no part of — working as a gentleman-infiltrator and improvisational vigilante. An Assassin of the James Bond school: access, misdirection, and finesse over the cut throat.

Background

Where his relatives devote themselves to scholarship, military politics, and occult mastery, Longshadow slipped his tutors to study far more practical arts: roof-running, locks, knife-fighting, and the quiet removal of things that don't belong to him. He is expected to inherit the legacy of his grandfather — the legendary archmage who gave his life defending the city from catastrophe — and has little interest in magecraft or politics.

So he spends his nights robbing noble houses, sabotaging tyrants, and playing vigilante. He's at home in pleasure houses, gaming dens, and dockside taverns, preferring gamblers, entertainers, and laborers to the suffocating etiquette of noble balls. To most of House Drakaër he's an embarrassment squandering generations of arcane prestige. The exception is his uncle [[Jareth]], an elder statesman who runs a discreet empire of brothels, smuggling, and illicit ports — and who sees in Longshadow not a failed noble but a Drakaër who simply chose a different kind of power.

Drives

Wants: to do some good on his own terms, without becoming what his House wants him to be.
Bond: Uncle [[Jareth]] — the only family who gets him (a bad influence, or the only one who understands him, depending who you ask).
Flaw: the jobs end in more wreckage than he intends; privilege keeps catching him when it shouldn't.

Connections

  • Nogzop — "his" familiar. In truth Nog was his grandfather's familiar and is posing as Longshadow's. A delighted enabler of every bad idea.
  • Half Moon — minder, hired by Uncle [[Jareth]] to keep the lad from getting himself killed before he comes into his own (or at least produces an heir). The "good influence."
  • [[Julian]] — social foil: the nobles who'd never dare challenge Longshadow to a duel will gladly challenge the apparently-common Julian for the same offense. Longshadow finds this hilarious and unjust in equal measure.

Hooks

The grandfather's debt

The archmage who "died defending the city" was a Drakaër — which roots Longshadow directly in the fief's deepest canon (the Cynwäll alliance, Dyrsin's Tower, the catastrophes the Architects still fear). What exactly the old man died stopping — and whether it stayed stopped — is a thread that runs straight under the city. (see Drakaër, The Great Flood, Desire)

Jareth's "different kind of power"

Uncle Jareth's empire of brothels, smuggling, and illicit ports overlaps the turf of the Guild of Favorites, the Guild of Thieves, and the Guild of Ferrymen. The day Longshadow inherits — or refuses — that empire is a guild war waiting to happen.

Build notes (GM/player)

Erik confirms Assassin — the James Bond kind, not the cutthroat (his words): infiltration, gadgetry, and finesse over killing. Domains Blade · Midnight per the Void Assassin (playtest — verify against v1.5; see Daggerheart Content). Subclass left open — the playtest options are Executioners Guild / Poisoners Guild, neither yet chosen. Ancestry left blank: House Drakaër canonically carries Drakona blood (e.g. [[Eric Drakaër]]), so human or Drakona both fit — his call. community is the Drakaër fief; archetype not yet set.

See Also