Marigold Skullcleaver
Marigold Skullcleaver
Sheet
AC 11 · HP 85 · 30 ft.Saving throws
Skills
- AcrobaticsDEX
- Animal HandlingWIS
- ArcanaINT
- AthleticsSTR
- DeceptionSTR
- HistoryINT
- InsightWIS
- IntimidationCHA
- InvestigationINT
- MedicineWIS
- NatureWIS
- PerceptionWIS
- PerformanceCHA
- PersuasionCHA
- ReligionINT
- Sleight of HandDEX
- StealthDEX
- SurvivalWIS
Weapons
Tools
Languages
Features
16 featuresAction
- Cantrip Casting
When On her turn
Marigold can cast a wizard cantrip as an action, using Intelligence for the spell attack or saving throw.
Always on
- Arcane RecoveryLevel 1
When After a short rest
Marigold can recover expended spell slots totaling up to 6 levels after a short rest, once per day.
- Grim HarvestLevel 2
When Once per turn when a qualifying spell kills a creature
When Marigold kills a non-undead, non-construct creature with a spell of 1st level or higher, she restores hit points based on the spell's level.
- SpellcastingLevel 1
Marigold is a 12th-level wizard. She uses Intelligence as her spellcasting ability, can cast wizard spells from her spellbook, and can use an arcane focus or material components as required. She can prepare a number of wizard spells equal to her Intelligence modifier plus her wizard level.
- Arcane Tradition, School of NecromancyLevel 2
Marigold specializes in the School of Necromancy. She gains the Grim Harvest, Undead Thralls, and Inured to Undeath features.
- Undead ThrallsLevel 6
Marigold adds animate dead to her spellbook if it is not already there. When she casts animate dead, she can target one additional corpse or pile of bones, and undead created by her have additional hit points equal to her wizard level and add her proficiency bonus to their weapon damage rolls.
- Inured to UndeathLevel 10
Marigold gains resistance to necrotic damage, and her hit point maximum cannot be reduced.
- Ability Score Improvement, Resilient ConstitutionLevel 4
Marigold chose the Resilient feat, increasing her Constitution by 1 and gaining proficiency in Constitution saving throws.
- Ability Score Improvement, AlertLevel 8
Marigold chose the Alert feat. She gains a +5 bonus to initiative, cannot be surprised while conscious, and creatures do not gain advantage on attack rolls against her merely because they are unseen by her.
- Ability Score Improvement, War CasterLevel 12
Marigold chose the War Caster feat. She has advantage on Constitution saving throws made to maintain concentration, can perform somatic components while holding weapons or a shield, and can cast a spell instead of making an opportunity attack when a hostile creature provokes one.
- TraitHalf-OrcDarkvision, 60 feet.
- TraitHalf-OrcMenacing, proficiency in the Intimidation skill.
- TraitHalf-OrcRelentless Endurance, when reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, drop to 1 hit point instead, once per long rest.
- TraitHalf-OrcSavage Attacks, when scoring a critical hit with a melee weapon attack, roll one additional weapon damage die.
- TraitHalf-OrcHalf-orc ability score increase, +2 Strength and +1 Constitution.
- ResearcherSage
When Marigold does not know a piece of information, she usually knows where and from whom that information can be obtained. She can identify libraries, academies, occult societies, sages, and other experts capable of providing obscure knowledge.
Spells
20 spellsSpellcasting. Marigold Skullcleaver casts with Intelligence (spell save DC 17, to hit with spell attacks).
Cantrips (at will): , , , ,
1st level (4 slots):
2nd level (3 slots): , ,
3rd level (3 slots): , , ,
4th level (3 slots): , ,
5th level (2 slots): ,
6th level (1 slot): ,
Gear
7 itemsWeapons
- QuarterstaffA blackened oak quarterstaff capped with a silver skull.
Gear
- SpellbookA dark leather-bound spellbook containing her known wizard spells and annotated necromantic theories.
- Component pouchA component pouch used for spellcasting.
- Scholar's packA scholar's pack containing a backpack, a book of lore, a bottle of ink, an ink pen, ten sheets of parchment, a little bag of sand, and a small knife.
- RobesA dark scholar's robe, reinforced at the shoulders and stitched with protective runes.
- Letter from a dead colleagueA set of notes from a deceased scholar, written in a cipher Marigold has only partially decoded.
Purse
- 10×Starting goldA small pouch containing ten gold pieces.
Appearance
Marigold is a tall, broad-shouldered half-orc woman with moss-green skin, a strong jaw, small lower tusks, and a long black braid threaded with brass charms. Her amber eyes glow faintly when she casts necromancy. She wears layered scholar's robes beneath a weathered gray traveling cloak, with bone-white runes stitched into the cuffs. Her spellbook is bound in dark leather and decorated with tiny silver vertebrae.
Mannerisms
Marigold speaks in precise, lecture-like sentences and pauses to classify unusual creatures before addressing them. She adjusts her spectacles even when they are not crooked, taps her spellbook three times before casting a difficult spell, and refers to dangerous situations as academic complications.
Personality
Marigold is intensely curious, patient with books, and only selectively patient with people. She is compassionate toward the dead and suspicious of anyone who claims that necromancy is inherently wicked. She prefers careful preparation to improvisation, but her fascination with forbidden knowledge can overcome even her caution.
Ideals
Knowledge should illuminate the darkness. Death is not evil, ignorance is, and even forbidden magic should be studied carefully before it is judged.
Bonds
She is determined to recover the missing final volume of her mentor's research, stolen by a necromancer who used it to animate an entire cemetery. She also protects her old mining settlement, whose people still send her letters asking for help.
Flaws
She treats every mystery as more important than immediate danger and will risk herself, and sometimes her companions, to obtain one more fact. She is also quietly arrogant about her scholarship and becomes cuttingly dismissive when someone repeats folklore as though it were evidence.
Quirks
Background
Marigold Skullcleaver was born in a remote mining settlement where her half-orc heritage made her a curiosity to some and a threat to others. Her unusual name came from her mother, a practical woman who believed a frightening name could keep cruel people at a distance. Marigold found her true refuge in the settlement's abandoned chapel, whose forgotten shelves contained fragments of old spellbooks and funerary tablets. She taught herself to read by matching repeated symbols, then discovered that the dead sometimes answered questions the living refused to consider. A traveling scholar eventually recognized Marigold's talent and brought her to a respected arcane college. There she became an obsessive researcher of necromancy, not because she worships death, but because she believes death is a boundary that should be understood rather than feared. Her studies have taken her into crypts, plague archives, battlefield ruins, and forbidden libraries. She now adventures to recover lost magical texts, investigate unnatural undead outbreaks, and learn whether the soul can be protected from those who would enslave it. Her greatest work remains unfinished, a theory that memories might be preserved without trapping the dead in undeath.
“Her unusual name came from her mother, a practical woman who believed a frightening name could keep cruel people at a distance.”
- Background
- Sage
Connections
Species
Half-Orc
Media
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