Not all (dramatic) changes to one’s lifestyle, calling, or ambitions are a result of social or financial decline. Some are simply decided upon.

Regardless of your motivation or incentive for change, you have accepted that a comfortable life of research, science and business is—at least for now—a part of your past.

As befits a native of Shining Bourgund, you are educated and ambitious. You spent your youth apprenticed among the cities’ more reputable greenhouses, laboratories, and perfumeries. There, you studied botany and chemistry and explored properties and interactions with fine crystal, rare metals, and magic.

You quickly mastered the skills required to identify and process rare and complex botanical and alchemical samples and the proper extractions and infusions of essential oils, pollens, and other fragrant chemical compounds—natural or otherwise.

With research, recipes, and references in hand, you returned to the crooked streets and lavish emporiums of the Bouquet District, this time not to observe and learn but to make your own way and fortune in the dynamic and sometimes dangerous heart of Bourgundian commerce: the perfume trade. But the steep parkways and spire-shadowed avenues of the Perfumed City are not as kind as they are alluring. Courses are changed, fates conspire, and destinies are altered.

Skill Proficiencies: Nature (botanical), Investigation

Tool Proficiencies: Herbalism kit, Alchemical Supplies/Equipment

Equipment: Herbalism kit, a leather satchel containing perfume recipes and research notes, chemical and botanical samples, etc.; 1d4 metal or crystal (shatter-proof) perfume bottles, a set of fine clothes, and a silk purse containing 10 gp.

Feature: Aromas and Odors and Airs Oh My

When given access to proper equipment and supplies (discuss with your GM), you may as a downtime activity choose to craft one of the following (per week) at 1/2 the normal cost in time and resources:

5 samples of fine perfume (value 10 gp ea.), 2 vials of acid (value 25 gp ea.), or 1 vial of parfum toxique (value 50 gp; treat as improvised, thrown weapon with a range of 25 ft. that, when exposed to air, fills a 15-ft.-x-15-ft. cube for 1d4 rounds with noxious and caustic fumes and vapors).

Any creature beginning or ending its turn in this “fumigated” area of effect is treated as blinded. Utilizing an action to make a successful DC 13 Constitution check will end the effect.

Suggested Characteristics

As with many Bourgundians, you are well spoken, stately of bearing, and possessed of a self-assuredness that is sometimes found imposing. You freely remind others that, not only did your people survive an arcane holocaust and the death of an Elder God, they immediately rose from the ashes and proceeded to learn, thrive, and succeed because of it. You are not easily impressed and rarely subscribe to notions like “insurmountable” or “unavoidable.”

d8 Personality Traits

1. I do not deal in absolutes. There is a solution to every problem, an answer for every riddle.
2. I am used to associating with educated and “elevated” society. I find rough living and rough manners, unpalatable.
3. Years spent witnessing the dealings, intrigues, and industrial espionage of the Bouquet Districts’ mercantile-elite have left me secretive and guarded.
4. I have a strong interest and sense for fashion and current trends.
5. I eagerly discuss the minutiae, subtleties, and nuances of my profession to any who will listen.
6. I am easily distracted by unusual or exceptional botanical specimens.
7. I can seem distant and introverted. I listen more than I speak.
8. I always strive to make allies, not enemies.

d6 Ideal

1. It is my duty to share my exceptional gifts and knowledge for the betterment of all. (Good)
2. Pragmatism. I never let passion, preference, or emotion influence my decision-making or clear headedness. (Lawful)
3. Rules, particularly those imposed by others, were meant to be broken. (Chaotic)
4. Deep science. I live a life based on facts, logic, probability, and common sense. (Lawful)
5. I will do whatever it takes to become the elite that I was witness to during my time among the boutiques, salons, and workshops of the Bouquet District. (Any)
6. I will utilize my talents to harvest, synthesize, concoct, and brew almost anything for almost anyone. As long as the profit margin is right. (Evil)

d6 Bond

1. I will return to Bourgund someday and have revenge upon the elitist perfume consortium and corrupt shipping magnates who drove my dreams to ruin.
2. I have been experimenting and searching my whole career for the ultimate aromatic aphrodisiac. The “alchemists’ stone” of perfumery.
3. Shining Bourgund is safely far behind me now. With it go the unfounded accusations, spiteful rumors, and perhaps some potential links to a string of corporate assassinations.
4. I am cataloging an encyclopedia of the flora of the Wasted West and their various chemical, magical, and alchemical properties and applications. It is my life’s work.
5. I am dedicated to my craft, always seeking to expand my knowledge and hone my skills in the science and business of aromatics.
6. I have a loved one who is threatened (held hostage?) by the Nancy Street Boys, an organized gang of vicious halfling thugs who control many of the “rackets” in the jeweler’s and glass blower’s quarter of Bourgund.

d6 Flaw

1. I am driven to reclaim the status and respect of the socially and scientifically elite and will sacrifice much to gain it.
2. I am highly competitive and not above plagiarizing or stealing the occasional recipe, idea, formula, or sample.
3. I am hard pressed to treat anyone who is not (by my standards) “well schooled” or “well heeled” as little more than lab assistants and house servants.
4. A pretty face has always been able to lead me astray.
5. I am secretly addicted to a special chemical composition (perfume) that only I can re-produce.
6. Bad idea on a windy night. Gathering midnight mushrooms in the shadow of that titanic, primordial corpse. The stench, the wind (a voice?), spores everywhere, bad idea. I hear his whispers more often now, ahhh, the spores, I must return to him soon…