Saint Andares, the Locksmith

Origins. Rava has few saints, but arguably her most famous is St. Andares, the Locksmith. Andares was an elfmarked who grew up in an unassuming village in the Duchy of Dornig. He moved from Dornig when he was still a teenager and settled in a small house in the gear district of Zobeck just before it became a free city. While initially unknown within the city, Andares soon became famous for his elaborate clockwork pieces, particularly his locks, which could thwart just about any thief. After about a year of living in the city, Andares began donating large sums of coinage to Rava’s clergy. While not a cleric, the elfmarked was welcomed wholeheartedly within the church’s hierarchy, and he constructed many of the locks, wards, and traps used within Rava’s temples in Zobeck and elsewhere.

As his fame spread, the criminal factions of Zobeck took notice of Andares’s unique skills, culminating with a gang of thieves cornering him on the street. The thieves sought to torture him for information about the temple’s treasury and made their intentions very clear. As the thieves moved to capture him, Andares prayed to Rava for deliverance, and she answered his call by transforming him into a gigantic phase spider. In his new form, Andares escaped the shocked thieves and fled to Rava’s temple.

Andares retained his intelligence in spider form and settled within the temple. He continued as an inventor and used his new skills to create strange new locks and contraptions made entirely out of hardened spider silk. Andares stayed in the temple for two years, but as time wore on, he communicated less and less with Rava’s rank and file and one day simply vanished, leaving nothing behind but his designs. The ultimate cause of his disappearance is unknown, save to Rava herself, for he does not appear to have ascended into the ranks of her divine servants.

Followers. St. Andares is an important historical and religious figure in the church of Rava and more widely venerated than her other saints. Most of Andares’s followers also worship Rava or one of her masks, and there is little conflict between clerics and paladins who venerate Andares and those who don’t.

Inventors, weavers who use silk in their designs, and locksmiths are also known to venerate Andares, and some go so far as to keep a small shrine dedicated to the saint somewhere on their premises. Most of these shrines are kept hidden within the store or home and only opened when the craftsperson wants to pray for success in creating a particular object.

While not openly revered by criminals, Andares is invoked by many rogues or other individuals when they must open a complicated lock or bypass a trap.

Blessings and Miracles. Blessings associated with Andares are said to take the form of the sudden appearance of a tiny spider with a key-shaped marking on its abdomen during a critical juncture or as a bluish-white light suffusing a lock or the location of a trap. The only miracle directly attributed to Andares is his transformation into a phase spider, a fact not lost on those who oppose his sainthood.

Holy Relics

The relics of the saints are items of renown and power, vitally important to those of the same faith and zealously sought after and guarded.

SILVER KEY OF ANDARES

Wondrous item, legendary (requires attunement)

Silvery spider legs flare outward from the bow of this ornate silver key, and etched onto its shaft is the gear symbol of Rava. When used on a lock, the spider legs animate and wrap around the mechanism. The construction of these keys is a carefully guarded secret of Rava’s faith, and only three are known to exist, the most famous of which is owned by the dwarven cleric Perroneta Ruppen of Melana.

As an action, you can insert this key into a lock and turn it, causing the lock to phase out of existence. While the lock is phased out, you can open the portal or object the lock is attached to without needing to unlock it. This phasing also bypasses any trap or ward attached to the lock, including the arcane lock spell and traps like symbols or glyphs of warding. Even complex magical locks are no match for the key’s power. If an antimagic field protects the lock, the key does not function, but otherwise, only divine intervention can thwart the key’s power. Any lock phased out by the key returns to its original condition when you pull out the key.

Once per day, as an action, you can also use the key to duplicate the effects of the etherealness spell. While you are using the key in this way, you cannot use the key to phase out a lock.

The key has 3 charges, and each use of the key expends a single charge. The key regains all lost charges at dawn each day.