Sigil: City of Doors

Basic Information
Name: Mer`Zikain Deth`Noc`Tur
Aliases: Sometimes disguises himself but has not cultivated any aliases as of yet
Gender: Male
Race: Drow (Dark Elf)
Age: 147
Profession: Working on becoming an artificer
Languages: Elven (dark elven), Undercommon, Common, Draconic, Infernal, Celestial
Accent: Has spent time making his accent in other languages match the most common one for each

Physical Information
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 113lbs.
Body build: slight muscular build
Skin type: mostly smooth with no noticeable blemishes
Hair style: He does not spend a lot of time on his hair except to keep it trimmed and clean
Scars: many scars on his body but none on hands, neck, or face
Tattoos: none
Colouring:

[b]Hair:[/b] his hair is a remarkable flame color which is very uncommon to drow [b]Eyes:[/b] typical dark elven red [b]Skin:[/b] typical dark elven black [/li]

Mental Information
Alignment: lawful evil
Philosophy: "Only those with power deserve respect." and "It is better to be under estimated than over estimated."
Deity/Beliefs: he believes that power is the only absolute and that he is justified in doing whatever it takes to get what he wants
Personality:

Mer`Zikain is a sociopath that has studied the behaviors of a great many people from different races in order to mimic believable emotional responses to almost any given situation. He can come off as a little distracted or aloof at times but usually puts up a friendly and approachable front. [/li]

Additional Information
Gear: When he isn't in disguise he always wears robes, usually black with red and/or gold accents.
Jewelry: none
Habbits/hobbies: he collects "friends"
General Health: currently in good health
Favorite Drink: water. he does not drink alcohol except in social settings and only when offered in order to blend in. Even then he rarely ever finishes a single mug/cup/glass. If confronted about it, he professes a distaste for the beverage but did not want to be rude by refusing the offer.
Weaknesses: no significant weaknesses beyond a tempered lust for power

Other notes
As stated before, Mer`Zikain interacts with people through various lies and half truths. This does not mean he is a habitual/pathological liar. He is not compelled to behave this way, it is a conscious choice with a direct goal in mind. Everything he does is deliberate and every lie a manipulation. He learned a long time ago that the easiest way to get what he wants is to get others to believe he is their friend so they will either help or freely give him what he wants.

He has never tried to cultivate any true friendship and has killed many of his "friends" through misdirection, inaction, and in one case, direct murder.

He prefers the company of the selfless and honorable, finding them easier to manipulate. He has only been caught in a lie twice; once by interrogation with a mindflayer and once by magical lie detection. In the first case he was able to convince the mindflayer to keep his lie a secret in exchange for a cut of the spoils that would be gained from the charade. He was later able to manipulate events to make it look like the mindflayer was the culprit all along with overwhelming evidence. His mother, the mindflayer's employer, had the creature put to death quite horribly for the transgression and Mer`Zikain was able to keep all of his ill gotten gains.

In the other situation, it was only luck that saved him when the one using the spell neglected to make sure that Mer`Zikain was unarmed before attempting to get the truth. It was the first, and so far only, time he had to take a life himself. After disposing of the body and manipulating the evidence to point to a rival, he decided that if he could avoid a repeat of that situation he would as it wasted the better part of 3 days to conceal his role in the act.

Story thus far...
Mer`Zikain was born in the underdark to a lesser noble house in Menzoberranzan. He had a typical drow upbringing including training at Sorcere. Fifty years ago his house was attacked and destroyed. Luckily he was recruited by Bregan D'aerthe and survived the fall of his family. Along with him his brother Synthilian was also recruited. They quickly learned of his ability to manipulate and lie to get what he wanted and decided to utilize this to its fullest.

It was while on a diplomatic mission for the mercenary group that he was put in a desperate situation in which a catastrophic reaction between his spells and an opponent's caused a tear in the fabric of the planes and landed him in the Outlands near a portal to Sigil. The portal was open with a dying adventurer trying to crawl through it.

Mer`Zikain dragged the adventurer through the portal with him and once on the other side helped the woman get back to health. It was with her help that he learned about where he was and how things worked there. After a year working together, Mer`Zikain learned of an eccentric wizard who had recently gone missing. His investigation lead him to discover that the wizard had accidentally killed himself during a dangerous experiment in a pocket dimension of his own creation.

The information came from a summoned devil who would only agree to give it to him if he agreed to give the devil the life of his companion. It was an easy decision.

He was able to gather quite a few books and scrolls before the devil appeared and attacked his companion. He knew if he stayed to grab anything else he would not be immune to the devil's attacks so he abandoned the rest of the treasures and leaped through the portal, turning back in time to see the devil bite his companion's head off before the portal closed.

Since then he has traveled with a few adventurers and made a few new acquaintances.

New Identity
Name: never given
Disguise: All black, slightly loose fitting clothing. Dark bandages are wrapped around his hands and up past his elbows. His sleeves hang down past his palms so that only his fingers show when his arms are down by his sides. Black gloves cover his hands and past his wrists.

A black shawl is draped around his neck and wraps over his hair, hiding both. A shirt is over this to create a layered protection from prying eyes.

More black bandages are wrapped around his waist and up to his chest. Again, these are under a black shirt. Over the shirt is a loose short robe (almost like a karate gi top but slightly longer and made of a lighter fabric).

Black loose fitting pants cover his legs with a belt and a sash over the belt. His feet are bandaged up to his knee under boots that come past his calves.

A thin shemagh covers his face and hair, over which he wears a non-descript mask with eye holes that have a thin black gauze inside. This allows him to see (being light sensitive helps in this case) but makes it much more difficult for others to see his eyes. Someone would have to bring a light source close to the mask and get their own face close enough to see through the gauze enough to be certain of what they see.

The mask is secured tightly with two straps around the back of his head and two going from the top of the mask and attaching to the first strap that goes around his head. The mask will not slip or fall off, and takes a considerable amount of work to take off. It is made of a thin, blackened metal with a matte finish so as not to reflect light.

Over this he wears a deep hood which hides his mask in darkness when pulled forward. He usually keeps the hood pulled back so that only three inches of the hood hangs over his face.

In addition to the mundane aspects of this disguise, he has cast various illusion cantrips to disguise his hair, skin, and eye color (black, tan, and brown respectively).

His features have been modified to make him look human. Three different human appearances are layered over each other in an attempt to misdirect persistent inspection. Under all of them is a simple illusion that makes him look like a sun elf whose features are similar to his natural features bot not identical.

An auditory illusion allows him to sound like a human with a rough gravelly voice.

He does not appear to be carrying anything with him, and in fact most of his equipment is stored back at his current safe house. The only exceptions are a little bit of gold tucked away inside his outer robe in an inside pocket that requires a keyword to open. The word changes each time it is used to a predefined word in a sequence he set up previously. A dagger is strapped to his left forearm with a sharpening stone.

Attitude: He mostly just watches people and does not interact unless he sees some reason to. If anyone takes too much interest in him he reacts based on the type of person. If he feels he can intimidate them into abandoning their curiosity he will "stare" at them until they leave or avert their attention. What this means is he pointedly faces his mask in their direction and does not move it. His attention, however, is not devoted entirely to the offender since it would be stupid of him to leave himself open like that.

He will sometimes say something in different languages, usually something dark and disturbing, in an attempt to elicit a response of some sort. Depending on the response he may continue or just log the reactions for later.

Purpose: This disguise is mostly for intelligence gathering.

Recent events:
Recently he has spent time in the Hive watching the residents there. He was successful in locating one that no one cares about with no friends to speak of but one who had a decent living space. After watching this person for a few weeks he found that the person had no landlord or anyone who was required to interact with him.

He waited along the route to the hiver's home and when no one was around and the man came within range, Mer leaped upon the man, stabbing him in the throat then dragged his body into the alley to watch him die. He put the man on a pile of garbage upside down so the remaining blood would drain from his body before wrapping him up and carefully making his way to the Slags unseen. Once there he placed the body in a narrow alley where he had seen some slag hounds frequenting and left it.

Now the new owner of a crappy hovel in the hive, he has a place to store things away from prying eyes. He has boarded up any windows and the door only opens to his touch. Anyone who knocks on the door is greeted by the savage barking of several dogs. It's an auditory illusion of course but it serves the purpose.

Inisde, under the floor boards in a corner under a cabinet, he has a perfect hiding place for anything he wants to keep out sight. The hole is three layers deep. The top layer is a 8 inch deep box with dirt inside to mimic a simple dirt hole. A bag of gold (roughly 30 pieces) and a few semi precious gems sit in this layer. Under that is a 2 foot deep hole with assorted magic potions with a bag of gold nuggets, some rings and necklaces, and a scroll. All of these items are under illusions. Each potion seems to be a potion of healing or enhancement of some sort but are actually deadly poisons. The gold nuggets are just rocks. The rings are mostly simple copper rings, the most fancy of the rings is a cursed ring that will paralyze the wearer. The necklaces are the same mostly junk as the rings with the most expensive looking being cursed to slowly choke the wearer to death.

The scroll is also cursed. It appears to be directions to another cache of treasure with an itemized list of what can be found there. In actuality it is a mind trap. The reader is compelled to leave the scroll and all of the treasure in the hole to follow the directions to this other, greater treasure cache. The directions actually lead to a one way portal to the abyss that is opened by a trigger word described in the scroll.

Beside the pile of trapped treasure is the illusion of the side of the hole. Instead there is another hole that contains any actual treasures Mer wants to keep hidden. What is there varies but currently it holds several legitimate scrolls, rings, and wands as well as some high grade crafting components.

Other than that there isn't much worthy of note in the hovel.