<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;"><strong>Darcoli</strong></span></span></span><br/><div class="floatright">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/6/64/DeadwoodCox.jpg)</div>Character Sheet (http://plothook.net/RPG/profiler/view.php?id=13649)<br/><hr/><br/><strong>Background:</strong><br/>Darcoli is a well-dressed, affable and spry halfling who will happily inform you that he is forty-seven years young. It is unclear how many years he has made this claim. He is tolerated if not well-liked throughout Neroda, as his off-color humor and lack of social propriety often mean that he is kept at arm's distance. Moreover, he is almost always drunk and is frequently covered from head to toe with soot and ash. Darcoli is a chimney sweep, and an accomplished one at that. He works without ropes or climbing gear, and prefers to scurry deep within the chimneys and clean them with small hand brushes rather than using the long poles preferred by human sweeps.<br/><br/>He works for a pittance, which often causes employers to overlook his drunkenness and general lack of propriety. More than one tavern in town has an arrangement with him whereby their chimneys are kept clean and their privies emptied in exchange for whatever wine was on the verge of being poured down the sewer anyway. One tavern owner has a long-running wager board giving good odds for predicting the day when Darcoli will inevitably stumble drunk off a rooftop and kill himself.<br/><br/>All of this, though, is more or less a cover. Well, except for the drunkenness -- that's real enough. Darcoli is in fact a fairly accomplished monk of the Order of Miska.  This little-known goddess of luck is all but forgotten in these lands, but she still looks after fools and drunkards. To followers of Miska the world is a dangerous and chaotic place, and they seek to hide within that maelstrom to tease out whatever bits of law and civilization they can. For Darcoli has a second role, one that he takes on at night. Cloaked in darkness, he patrols the same rooftops that he frequented during the day, looking for opportunities to apprehend lawbreakers of all sorts. In this role he has neither the sanction nor the gratitude of the city guard, who by and large wish that "The Black Toad", as he styles himself, would simply go away.<br/><br/>But Darcoli has a mission, self-chosen that it might be, and occasionally he even manages to do some good. If on occasion the situations he finds himself are a little too complex for his simple brain, well, a little more wine will fix that. And the next night will find him again leaping from the rooftops into even more situations that are, by and large, entirely over his head.<br/><br/><strong>Known Associates:</strong><br/>Darcoli has no living family -- he doesn't even have a last name. And his attempts to take on either apprentice chimney sweeps or apprentice crimefighters have inevitably ended in disaster. He's always willing to give it another go, however, as long as he can find someone half as foolish as he. Darcoli has some contacts among the local underworld through his day job, but is generally considered a mild curiosity or even annoyance rather than a threat to be taken seriously.<br/><br/><strong>Recent History:</strong><br/>It was only three nights ago that The Black Toad sprang into action against half a dozen second-story men engaged in a shameless act of breaking and entering. He managed to disable one of them before the fortunate appearance of the town guard scared off the others. Darcoli escaped across the rooftops, happy to have served the public once again. It seems, though, that those miscreants worked for someone very powerful indeed. Someone who is not at all happy at Darcoli's interference.<br/><br/><strong>Personality:</strong><br/>Even at his crime-fighting best, Darcoli is no dark knight. He enjoys his work, he enjoys his drink, and he's happy to just see where each night takes him. Miska will provide. Darcoli tends not to be a natural leader, to put things mildly, but he's willing to take orders and go along to get along. A fine example of Beta Halflinghood is good Darcoli. He has been known to burp, fart and vomit at inappropriate times, and he believes that a bath is a waste of good water that probably could be better used to make ale. His hair is straight but unkempt and showing some silver through the blond.<br/><br/><strong>Appearance:</strong><br/>Standing all of three feet tall and weighing in at 35 pounds, no one would call Darcoli imposing. His wiry, muscular build is concealed under formal clothes that are probably as old as he is, and further hidden under an ever-present layer of soot. There's a chance that he could clean up nicely, but the world may never know. Darcoli favors an old top hat that has been repaired dozens of times.<br/><br/><strong>Mechanics:</strong><br/>Darcoli is a 6th level halfling monk, using the Drunken Master and Underfoot Adept archetypes. Basically he becomes a better fighter when he's drinking, which is most of the time. His Handy Haversack is stuffed with clay pots of cheap wine which make handy missiles once they're emptied. As an Underfoot Adept he has traded away his ability to perform the dreaded Stunning Fist action in exchange for a better chance to Trip his enemies, even enemies much larger than himself. In combat he's a bouncing, irritating presence, tumbling through people's legs, sweeping ankles and occasionally even doing damage, always with a drink in his hand.<br/>