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Zia Underbow

Halfling · Artificer (Battle Smith) · Level 5 · Hermit

Zia Underbow

Zia is inventive, compassionate, and relentlessly curious.
AC18
HP23/23
Init
STR
DEX
CON
INT
WIS
CHA
ConditionsNone

Sheet

AC 18 · HP 23 · 25 ft.
AlignmentChaotic GoodGenderFemaleAge52 years old
STR
DEX
CON
INT
WIS
CHA

Saving throws

STRDEXCONINTWISCHA

Skills

  • AcrobaticsDEX
  • Animal HandlingWIS
  • ArcanaINT
  • AthleticsSTR
  • DeceptionCHA
  • HistoryINT
  • InsightWIS
  • IntimidationCHA
  • InvestigationINT
  • MedicineWIS
  • NatureINT
  • PerceptionWIS
  • PerformanceCHA
  • PersuasionCHA
  • ReligionWIS
  • Sleight of HandDEX
  • StealthDEX
  • SurvivalWIS

Armor

Light armor,
Medium armor,
Shields

Weapons

Simple weapons,
Martial weapons,
Light crossbows

Tools

Thieves' tools,
Tinker's tools,
Smith's tools,
Herbalism kit

Languages

Common,
Halfling,
Gnomish

Features

15 features

Always on

  • Artificer Spellcasting

    When When casting an artificer spell

    Zia uses her tools or an infused object as a spellcasting focus to produce practical magical effects.

  • Steel Defender Command

    When On her turn or when a nearby ally is attacked

    Zia directs her Steel Defender to move and take actions. The defender can use Force-Empowered Rend, Repair, and its protective reaction.

  • Extra AttackLevel 5

    When When taking the Attack action

    Zia makes two attacks whenever she takes the Attack action.

  • SpellcastingLevel 1

    You can use thieves' tools, tinker's tools, or another artisan's tool as a spellcasting focus for your artificer spells. You know two artificer cantrips and prepare a number of artificer spells equal to your Intelligence modifier plus half your artificer level, rounded down.

  • Infuse ItemLevel 2

    You learn how to invest mundane objects with limited magical properties. You know four infusions and can infuse two objects at once. Infused items function as magical items and retain their benefits until the infusion ends or you exceed your maximum number of infused items.

  • Magical TinkeringLevel 1

    You learn how to imbue tiny objects with magical properties, such as emitting light, playing a recorded message, or continuously displaying an odor or visual effect. You can maintain several such objects at once.

  • The Right Tool for the JobLevel 3

    You can use tinker's tools to construct a set of artisan's tools in an unoccupied space within 5 feet. This requires 1 hour of work and consumes 10 gp of raw materials.

  • Battle ReadyLevel 3

    You gain proficiency with martial weapons. You can use Intelligence instead of Strength or Dexterity for attack and damage rolls with a magic weapon.

  • Steel DefenderLevel 3

    You assemble a Steel Defender, a Small or Medium construct that obeys your commands. It acts on your initiative and can use its reaction to impose disadvantage on an attack against a creature within 5 feet of it. It is repaired by mending and can be rebuilt after being destroyed.

  • Ability Score ImprovementLevel 4

    You can increase one ability score by 2, or two ability scores by 1 each. This character increases Intelligence by 2, raising it to 17.

  • LuckyHalflingWhen you roll a 1 on the d20 for an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll.
  • BraveHalflingYou have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
  • Halfling NimblenessHalflingYou can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours.
  • Halfling ability score increaseHalflingYour Dexterity score increases by 2.
  • DiscoveryHermit

    Zia discovered a strange truth during her isolation. The insight has given her unusual knowledge and a compelling reason to seek out others who may understand its significance.

Spells

7 spells

Spellcasting. Zia Underbow casts with Intelligence (spell save DC 13, to hit with spell attacks).

Cantrips (at will): ,

1st level (4 slots): , , ,

2nd level (2 slots):

Gear

14 items

Weapons

  • Quarterstaff
    A simple melee weapon used as a backup weapon and walking staff.
  • Light crossbow
    A light crossbow suitable for ranged attacks.

Armor

  • Scale mail
    A reinforced medium armor of interlocking metal plates, chosen from the artificer's starting equipment.
  • Shield
    A sturdy shield bearing etched geometric designs.

Tools

  • Thieves' tools
    Tools used for manipulating locks, traps, and delicate mechanisms.
  • Tinker's tools
    Tools used to build, repair, and modify small mechanical devices.
  • Smith's tools
    Tools for shaping and repairing metalwork. These serve as Zia's chosen artisan tools.
  • Herbalism kit
    A kit for gathering and preparing medicinal herbs.

Gear

  • 20×
    Crossbow bolt
    Ammunition for the light crossbow.
  • Dungeoneer's pack
    A pack containing essential adventuring gear, including a bedroll, mess kit, tinderbox, torches, rations, and waterskin.
  • Blanket
    A folded blanket for travel and sleeping outdoors.
  • Common clothes
    Simple travel clothing worn beneath her armor.
  • Steel Defender
    A Small construct shaped like a squat armored hound, assembled from salvaged metal and clockwork components. It follows Zia's commands and fights beside her.

Purse

  • 5×
    Gold pieces
    Money remaining from her hermit's starting equipment.

Appearance

Zia Underbow is a compact lightfoot halfling with warm brown skin, bright hazel eyes, and unruly auburn hair tied back with copper wire. She wears practical scale mail beneath a soot-stained leather apron, with a shield polished to a mirror finish and covered in tiny etched diagrams. Her fingers are permanently marked by ink, oil, and alchemical dyes, and a collection of miniature tools hangs from her belt.

Mannerisms

Zia talks to her tools as if they were coworkers, taps her thumb against her fingertips while thinking, and frequently pauses in conversation to listen for imagined mechanical ticking. When excited, she speaks faster and begins sketching diagrams on any available scrap of paper.

Personality

Zia is inventive, compassionate, and relentlessly curious. She treats every broken object as a puzzle and every frightened stranger as a problem worth solving. She dislikes grand speeches but loves practical demonstrations, and she has a habit of giving names to machines before she gives names to plans.

Ideals

Freedom. No institution, tradition, or authority should control knowledge that could save lives. Useful discoveries belong in the hands of everyone.

Bonds

The village that sheltered her during her childhood was destroyed because she refused to get involved soon enough. She will protect vulnerable communities from suffering the same fate.

Flaws

Zia is dangerously confident in her ability to repair anything, including people, relationships, and problems that require patience instead of tools. She also becomes evasive and defensive whenever anyone asks what truly happened during her years of isolation.

Quirks

Names every important tool and refuses to replace one without holding a farewell ceremony.
Keeps a jar of harmless glowing moss in her backpack and consults it when making difficult decisions.
Collects broken locks because she believes each one remembers who betrayed it.
Cannot resist tightening loose screws, buckles, hinges, or spectacles within reach.

Background

Zia Underbow spent nearly a decade alone in a converted watchtower deep in the Bramblewild, where she studied a humming fragment of unknown metal that had fallen from the sky. Her hermitage began as an attempt to escape the noise and obligations of village life, but solitude soon became a laboratory. She learned to repair broken tools, distill medicinal tinctures, construct tiny clockwork helpers, and coax sparks from devices that should have been inert. Her only regular visitor was an elderly gnome peddler who traded books and spare parts for herbs from Zia's garden. The fragment eventually revealed a pattern of moving lights beneath its surface, a map that changed whenever Zia performed acts of kindness nearby. She concluded that the device was responding to living minds, perhaps pointing toward a hidden network of ancient constructs or a coming danger. When raiders destroyed the nearby village, Zia abandoned her tower and built a steel defender from salvaged armor and the remains of her old laboratory. Now she travels to protect ordinary people, investigate the fragment's origins, and prove that invention is most valuable when placed in the hands of those who need it most.

“Her hermitage began as an attempt to escape the noise and obligations of village life, but solitude soon became a laboratory.”
From their backstory
Background
Hermit

Connections

Species

Halfling

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