Jana Rook
Lantern-Salt Arcanist · Human Common · Female
Appearance
Jana carries a brass lantern fitted with mirrored shutters. Packets of coarse white salt bulge from the pockets of her clothing.
Profile
A methodical arcanist with a shuttered brass lantern and salt packets offers anti-infiltration support.
GM background
Jana Rook carries a brass lantern with mirrored shutters and packets of coarse white salt tucked into every pocket. She studied just enough wizardry to be dangerous before her academy scholarship ended, then found work with tunnel guards who valued two things: seeing what should not be invisible and keeping enemies away from the lamp. Jana is methodical, skeptical of mystical theatrics, and compulsively measures distances with her eyes. Her spell repertoire is deliberately small—light, force, revealing effects, and one reliable blast—because she would rather know five spells under pressure than fifty in theory. She wants to design affordable anti-infiltration kits for militias that cannot hire full-time mages.
Concept: A narrow arcane combatant who uses reflective salt, lamps, and force magic to expose hidden threats and shape firing lanes.
Mechanical inspiration: narrow Wizard package; battlefield controller.
Quality breakdown
Statistics
Speed: Land 25 feet
Senses:
Attributes
Attacks
Damage 1d6+5 piercing
Abilities
Requirements You hold your lit lantern and it is charged. Project shimmering salt into a 5-foot burst within 30 feet. Until the start of your next turn, creatures in the burst shed dim light and cannot be concealed or hidden by invisibility or dim light. Other sources of concealment and cover still apply. The effect clings to creatures caught in the burst when you use this action, even if they leave it. This technique does not expend the lantern's charge.
Requirements You hold your lit lantern and it is charged. Expend its charge and make a ranged spell attack at +12 against a creature within 30 feet. On a success, deal 3d6 force damage and push it 5 feet directly away from you; on a critical success, double the damage and push it 5 feet. This attack contributes to and uses your multiple attack penalty. Hit or miss, the lantern is now dormant: you cannot use Scatter Lantern-Salt, Shuttered Force or Mirror Angle until you complete Reset Lantern. Existing salt effects last for their remaining duration. The lantern still sheds ordinary light, and your spellcasting is unaffected.
Trigger A creature you can see within 30 feet targets an ally within 30 feet with a Strike, before the attack roll. Requirements You hold your lit lantern and it is charged. Flash its mirrored shutter toward the attacker. Your ally gains a +1 circumstance bonus to AC against the Strike, or +2 if the attacker is affected by your Scatter Lantern-Salt. The attacker must be able to see the lantern. This technique does not expend the lantern's charge.
Requirements You hold your lit, dormant lantern. Realign its shutters and rebuild its magical charge. On completing this three-action activity, the lantern is charged again. These actions must be spent together; you cannot bank progress across turns. The lantern also begins charged after your daily preparations. Merely extinguishing, relighting, dropping or retrieving it does not recharge it.
Spellcasting
Arcane Prepared · Intelligence · DC 20 · attack +12 · highest rank 2
- detect magic — at will
- shield — at will
- ignition — at will
- electric arc — at will
- light — at will
- force barrage
- thunderstrike
- runic weapon
- dispel magic
- revealing light
Skills
| Skill | Modifier | Tier ? | Effective level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arcana | +13 | Extreme | 3 |
| formal academy training narrowed into practical battle magic | |||
| Crafting | +9 | Moderate | 3 |
| mirrors, shutters, lamp housings, and salt dispersal tools | |||
| Society | +9 | Moderate | 3 |
| working with city guards and procurement officers | |||
| Lore: Magical Security | +13 | Extreme | 3 |
| specialty in visibility, alarm layout, and anti-infiltration procedures | |||
Inventory
Weapons & Shields
-
Dagger worn
Armor
-
Explorer's Clothing worn
Equipment
-
Wand Implement worn
-
Lantern (Hooded) worn
Outlook & boundaries
Jana wants security ordinary watch members can understand. Honest testing matters more than impressive claims or academy prestige.
Edicts
- make security measures understandable to the people relying on them
- practice a spell until it works under pressure before adding another
Anathemas
- sell false magical protection
- hide a known flaw in a warding plan to protect professional pride
Recruitment facts
Browse individual details or try them in the player-safe preview. Share facts with players from a room.
Fighting style 1 detail
Jana works behind the front line, exposing threats and using force to keep them at a distance.
Abilities 3 details
Her lantern-salt can briefly expose creatures hidden by invisibility or dim light; other concealment can still matter.
Her lantern can blast a creature away, but that discharge leaves all of its special techniques dormant until she spends a full turn resetting it. Her ordinary spells still work.
A flash from her lit lantern can help protect an ally from a strike, especially against a salt-marked foe.
Skills 1 detail
She specializes in magical visibility and security layouts, and can work on lamps, mirrors and shutters.
Disposition 2 details
Jana invites companions to try sneaking past a security setup before she recommends it. She gets visibly pleased when someone finds a flaw she can fix, but annoyed when a spectator declares it perfect without trying.
She records failed tests and explains what her protection does not cover.
Personal 1 detail
A celebrated security design resembles work she submitted before losing her scholarship.
Payment
Usual rate 5.3 gp/day · Suggested minimum 4.7 gp/day
Employment terms
Unless stated otherwise, the employer provides ordinary travel food and shelter. The daily rate includes the stated role's ordinary risks; there is no automatic loot share. Agree exceptional expenses before accepting the job.
- Scope & risks
- Revealing and force support within the actual spell and ability limits.
- Loot & expenses
- No share; prototype lamps remain hers unless bought separately.
- Working conditions
- A debrief after field tests and permission to retain nonconfidential observations.
- Bargaining
- Useful test access or a militia pilot project can lower pay to the minimum; false endorsements cannot.
- Why this rate
- An early field rate supports a narrow, practiced security specialty.
Motivations
- Immediate
- Needs field data and money for prototype lamps.
- Long Term
- Sell inexpensive anti-infiltration kits to small militias and caravans.
- Reason For Mercenary Work
- Real monsters and thieves test her designs better than academy exercises.
- Loyalty Trigger
- Employers who debrief failures honestly.
- Leave Trigger
- Being ordered to advertise protection she knows is ineffective.
Relationships & hooks
- Contact
- An academy assistant kept the dated security diagrams Jana submitted as a student. They can arrange a supervised comparison with Professor Darel Senn's published ward, but will not accuse him of copying before seeing both designs together.
- Hook
- A militia wants Jana's lamps but also wants her to certify Senn's ward, which it already paid for. Jana has found a blind approach to the gate. The commander fears that admitting the gap will cost the watch its funding.
Development
- Opportunity
- Demonstrate the blind approach with the commander's permission, then teach the watch to use her lamps to cover it. Let ordinary guards repeat the test without her directing every move.
- Direction
- A kit the watch can maintain becomes the first order for her workshop. She must choose which features can be repaired cheaply by a lamplighter and which would leave customers dependent on hiring her again.