Brother Oils

Brother Oils is a player character in the Godscar (campaign 4): a travelling faith healer and bard (College of Drama) who is, by his own private admission, a charlatan running a rotating religious grift. "Brother Oils" is an honorific, not a birth name. He plays the Olivette, a thumb piano with an oil reservoir, and sells vials of blessed oil from a folding table under a sun-embroidered cloth.

Background

Oils learned the trade under Pastor Harken Grieve of the Congregation of the Yielding Light, a charismatic and faithless preacher; their split was ugly, and Oils does not know whether Grieve is dead, jailed or still working. Oils runs a circuit through the Creratis Imperium, keeping weeks of travel between stops so rumours don't connect: Shore Market (where he preached the Amber Queen until something spooked him), Fort Obsidian (small grifts only; too many real clerics) and The Pallid Spire (where he preached the Bound Martyr until a real cleric asked questions). His favourite god-faces are the Dawnbringer, the Bound Martyr, the Lotus Dreamer, the Transcendent Note and the Amber Queen (see The New Gods); privately he is drawn to the Feathered Deceiver (Quorlinn) and the Laughing Luck.

In Sandwater Slough he rents a room between the market district and the docks. His ministry went too well: a dockworker's wife he "healed" genuinely recovered, and a dozen believers now follow him, one calling him Father. He went to The Low Lantern Archive on 18 Suns Dusk 1047 PC to read up on local doctrine in case a real cleric came asking, and he used Taz'Or Ka as a courier and fixer. He believes in nothing but reaction: "Faith is a tool. Handle it carefully."

A changeling

Oils is a changeling, and since the Godscar began the party has come to know it. His default face is a warm-faced human man of about 34: dark brown hair swept back and always oiled, warm olive sun-weathered skin, and bright hazel eyes that hold your gaze a little too long. He keeps alternate faces for moving through town unrecognised. Before the vestments he was a young changeling "with no name worth keeping".

The Congregation and Pastor Grieve

He learned everything from Pastor Harken Grieve in The Congregation of the Yielding Light, a travelling fake church that worked the market squares and community halls of Creatis. Grieve believed none of it, but he believed in the work. He taught his apprentice how to read a room, time a miracle, match scripture to the local faith, and leave town before the questions got too pointed. The apprentice became too good and drew attention Grieve didn't want. One morning he woke to find the Congregation had moved on without him: no farewell sermon, no blessing for the road. He took what he could carry, picked a face and a name, and started walking. He tells people Grieve is "probably rotting in jail" and says "probably" because he is afraid to find out.

Since then he has worked the circuit through Creatis as Brother Oils: Shore Market, Fort Obsidian, The Pallid Spire, dragonborn communities, frontier settlements and trade hubs, wherever people are uncertain enough to want comfort and trusting enough to pay for it.

The vessel

His instrument is the Olivette, a tiny hand-held keyboard crowded with the symbols of countless faiths, which he has fitted with an oil reservoir. In public it is always "the vessel". The oil is always "blessed", though it is olive oil he also cooks with. He sells vials of it for five silver each and makes it glow with prestidigitation during sermons, and everything is always "the mission". He keeps holy symbols for five working gods: the Dawnbringer, the Bound Martyr, the Lotus Dreamer, the Transcendent Note and the Amber Queen (see The New Gods). He believes in none of them.

Allies

• Taz'Or Ka carries his deliveries: oil, trinkets and sealed letters. Reliable, never asks questions, always paid on time. Before the campaign Taz'Or Ka knew nothing of the grift or the changeling secret.
• Von Pesto-Gallon supplies better oil than the cheap stuff, through family connections to the trade. Strictly business: neither asks personal questions.

Character

A Chaotic Neutral charlatan with a ready false identity, complete with documents, acquaintances and disguises, who can forge papers and letters from an example. He lies about almost everything, even when there's no reason to, and values his independence above all. He can't resist swindling people more powerful than himself, or any risk with money in it. He owes everything to a horrible mentor.

In the Godscar

Oils joined the party after the Low Lantern flood, met while selling snake oil; only Uldrick believed the act. He traced pages of Uldrick's infernal book for the Baron to translate, and negotiated a 1,000 gp "donation" to the Star Dancer as part of the party's 2,000 gp undercity contract, a swindle in the goddess's name. A Night Visitor who asked about the party, later known to be Sister Sandra of the Star Dancer's temple, left him a fancy robe, which he has worn ever since, and he picked up a grifter apprentice whose name is unknown.

Fighting the vivisectors, Oils nearly died; Rainclaw and Slick saw his anointing oil genuinely heal him, which he did not notice. In the northern crypt (2026-07-22) he posed as a priest, holding the tablet upside down, and talked the last white dragonborn into killing himself. In the following fight with three dragons (Cometseed, Mireborne and The Rime Lord) he brought Rainclaw back twice and Uldrick once through the Star Dancer, and dropped the black dragon, Mireborne, "with a finger and a prayer".

In Hysteria the shopkeeper Askmedeous offered store credit for stealing a baby, and only Oils took the job: he tricked Ferryman Randol into rowing him to the Celestial Weaver's "baby island", fled with a baby under fire, nearly died, and handed it over. When Inspector Corin came to investigate, Oils tried and failed to blackmail him, then preached a sermon against baby theft.