Barnaby Pembroke

Barnaby Pembroke is a man of quiet, scholarly refinement, typically found clad in a high-collared charcoal greatcoat and a purple cravat. His fingers are permanently stained with a peculiar iridescent ink, and he carries a collection of hand-blown glass phials tucked into a velvet-lined bandolier under his jacket. To the casual observer in the ballrooms, he appears as an eccentric dandy. However, to the broken-hearted or the guilt-ridden, he is a surgeon of the mind. Barnaby deals in the shimmering, ethereal threads of human memories. He possesses an uncanny, almost ghoulish intuition for the scent of fresh bereavement. Whether it is a widow wailing in a candlelit wake-house or a disgraced officer clutching a pistol in a guttering tavern, Barnaby finds them. He offers a "mercy" that no apothecary can match: the total, surgical excision of the agony that prevents them from drawing a clean breath. To these broken souls, Barnaby is a saint of amnesia. He holds out his silver syphon like a priest offering a chalice, and for the low price of a signature in iridescent ink, he promises to take the burden away.

"My dear fellow, why walk through life dragging the heavy, rotting corpse of a Starsight you despise? Allow me to cut the rope. You shall find the subsequent silence quite refreshing." -- Barnaby to a disgraced gambler sitting on the street

The extraction itself is a haunting, intimate violation. As the silver nozzles press against the temple, the subject feels a sudden, icy clarity. The memory Barnaby seeks, the heat of the fire, the smell of the rot, the final, choked words of a loved one, is drawn out of the subconscious in a shimmering, violent plume of psychic smoke. For the citizen, it is an instant relief, as if a rusted nail has been pulled from their heart. But as the memory settles into Barnaby's crystal phial, pulsing with a sickly, bruised radiance, the cost becomes apparent. Barnaby prefers painful memories above all others because they are the most dense. In the alchemical economy of his dark trade, joy is thin and ethereal, but grief is heavy, potent, and rich with the raw energy of human experience. He harvests these shards of trauma to refine them.

Once the extraction is complete, the client is left in a state of a "pious void." They are peaceful, but it is the peace of a vacant room. They remember that they had a child, or that they were in a war, but the emotional tether is severed. They walk the streets of Alana with a terrifying, glassy-eyed serenity, unable to feel the very passions that once made them human. Barnaby, meanwhile, retreats to his cellar to decant their distilled agony, sipping from the phials to fuel his own longevity and his terrifying power to rewrite the history of the world. He does not just take their pain, he feasts upon the very essence of what made their lives meaningful.

"There is a particular, coppery tang to the grief of a betrayed patriot. It lingers on the palate long after the phial is emptied. It is a vintage I find myself returning to far too often." -- entry in Barnaby's diary

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Year of Birth

2812 PB 53 Years old

Birthplace

Queenshaven

Barnaby Pembroke's Youth

Elara Pembroke by Tillerz using MJ

Barnaby was born in 2812 PB to a family of declining gentry in Queenshaven's Low Tide district. His father was a cartographer, his mother had died during his birth. From a young age, Barnaby possessed an unnatural sensitivity to Aethyric Resonance, he did not just hear the spoken words of magic, he felt the weight of the intent behind them. While other children played at swords in the muddy lanes, Barnaby spent his hours in his father's study, watching the shimmering ink move on the maps.

The pivot in his destiny occurred in 2830 PB, during the Great Fever of the Rookeries. Barnaby's younger sister, Elara, contracted the shaking-rot. As she lay dying, her mind became a kaleidoscope of terror: vivid, screaming memories of the fever-dreams that haunted her final hours. Barnaby, then a student of Subtle Physick (where some of the students, including him, did dangerous experiments that were not part of any of their textbooks), could not bear to hear her cries. In a moment of frantic, inspired desperation, he utilised his father's modified surveying tools and a primitive vacuum-glass to pull the terror from her brow.

He succeeded. Elara died in a state of tranquil numbness, her face as smooth as marble. But Barnaby was left holding a phial of pulsing, obsidian-dark vapour - the distilled essence of her final agony. When he accidentally inhaled a stray wisp of the vapour, he did not just remember her pain: he became it. He saw the world through her dying eyes with a clarity that made reality seem dull by comparison. He realised then that extracted memories were a most potent human experience he could utilize.

The Trade of Sorrows

Pembroke Estate by Tillerz using MJ

Barnaby spent the next two decades refining his craft, transitioning from a grieving brother to a cold, calculating Merchant of Mercy. By 2845 PB, he had established his practice in the fashionable district of North Hill, rebranding himself as a Consulting Mnemonist. He realised that the citizens of Farenia, battered by the brutality of wars and sickness and the stifling social pressures of the Farenian courts, were desperate to forget.

He marketed himself as the ultimate apothecary. Did your son fall at the Battle of Oaken Reach? Barnaby can take the image of the blood-stained letter. Did your lover betray you in the gardens of the Summer Palace? Barnaby can excise the scent of their perfume from your mind. He became the man who provides the clean slate, though he never mentions that the ink he uses to write his own power is brewed from the very tears he harvests.

"I watched him once, through a crack in the door. He was holding one of the phials to the light, whispering to the swirling smoke inside as if it were a lover. I am sure he is not just saving people from bad memories, he's keeping them for himself." -- Andrew Molar, former footman to the Pembroke estate

Barnaby Pembroke

Memory Collector (Scholar/Wizard Hybrid)

Status: Gold 1
WS:28 | BS:32 | S:31 | T:35 | I:55 | Ag:42 | Dex:58 | Int:62 | WP:54 | Fel:48

Traits: Weapon (Small Sword) +5, Spellcaster (Lore of Shadows/Light), Distracting (Ethereal Presence).
Memory Eater: Barnaby can consume a stored memory phial as a Free Action. For the next hour, he gains all Skills and Talents possessed by the original owner of that memory. However, he must pass a Challenging (+0) Willpower Test or suffer a point of Corruption as the conflicting personalities fight for control of his mind.
Skills: Art (Writing) 78, Research 82, Lore (History) 75, Intuition 65, Perception 70, Cool 64, Channelling 69.
Talents: Savvy, Read/Write, Second Sight, Aethyric Attunement, Memory Siphon (Custom: On a successful Channelling Test, Barnaby may remove a specific memory from a willing or helpless target; the target must pass a Hard (-20) Willpower Test or gain 1 Fatigued condition).
Trappings: Silver Memory Syphon, 12 Empty Glass Phials, Fine Greatcoat, Journal of Stolen Years.

Barnaby Pembroke

An Intuitive Adept who Collects Lost Moments.

Level: 5 (15)
Might: 10 | Speed: 12 | Intellect: 20
Armor: 1 (Reinforced Silk Waistcoat)
Effort: 3
Intellect Edge: 2
Skills: History and Lore (Specialised), Persuasion (Trained), Identifying Magical Phenomena (Specialised).
Abilities:

• Extract Essence (2 Intellect points): Barnaby uses his apparatus to pull a memory from a creature. If the target is unwilling, this is an Intellect attack. On a success, the target loses a specific memory and is dazed for one round.
  
• Memory Projection (3 Intellect points): Barnaby can shatter a stored memory phial to project a vivid, 3D illusion of that memory into the area, lasting for one minute per level.

The "History Weaver" Focus
Modify Reality (6 Intellect points): Barnaby shatters a high-level memory phial to alter the immediate perceptions of everyone within short range. He can effectively "delete" an object or person from their minds for one hour; they simply cannot see or interact with the subject, treating it as if it never existed.
Combat: Barnaby prefers not to fight, using a small silver cane (light weapon, 2 damage) only when cornered. He often uses 'Daze' or 'Erase Memories' to escape confrontation.

Quirks

• He possesses a disconcerting habit of inhaling deeply near a person's temple, as if sniffing out the vintage of their secret sorrows like a sommelier with a decanted claret.
• When deep in thought, he obsessively polishes an empty crystal phial with a silk handkerchief, his gaze fixed on imaginary light-spirals that no one else can perceive (and are not there).
• He frequently lapses into the first-person plural during conversation, his voice momentarily thickening with the accents of the dead as the myriad recollections in his bandolier call for attention.

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