Player Special Notes

frame:DnDBeyondAlfie

Alfred Duke III - Alfie - is rogue half-elf. The ultimate opportunist, the finest to ever finesse, a silver-tongue sly fox. He’ll buy you a drink and 20 minutes later have you signing the quill on a brand new timeshare on the opposite side of the land. Alfie’s young, but he’s been around the block enough to be considered street smart. He’s a little coy about where he’s from, but whispers around the taverns say he comes from a legendary family of Bluebloods, the Dukes.

But Alfie doesn’t have the same lust, for blood or flesh, as his family tree. Alfie is a grifter, shameless, persistent and disarmingly earnest. He will take his dollar and a dream as far as his unwitting marks will let him. Alfie talks a big game about his plans to get rich or die trying, but it doesn’t take a genius to tell that he’s not some cut-throat crime lord.

Instead, Alfie runs cons — little scams and schemes designed to extract money from those who can afford to lose it, to the benefit of himself and his friends. He’ll run goods from district to district, skimming some of the cut off the top for himself. Or he’ll find crooked traders and work the register, emptying the till and fleeing the second they turn their back. Or he’ll trawl the arena and arbitrage bets with different bookies until the administrators realise what he’s doing and kick him out.

Still, he has his moments. A few years ago, Alfie and his friends were around the Colour Court when — on a dare — Alfie successfully snuck inside the sacred walls undetected. He hung around for about an hour, overhearing some of the land’s most important people in discussion (he learnt nothing useful) before getting back without being detected. The experience gave him the rush of a lifetime and a taste for thrillseeking.

So far, it hasn’t led to much but enough money to cover his expenses and some wild stories to tell at the tavern. Alfie’s explicit short-term goal remains making as much money as possible, but he’s undeniably pulled towards more adventure. There’s a part of him that believes deep down he’s got all the wiles of the legendary Dukes, and one day he might be spoken about with the same reverence among the Bluebloods. But he mostly pushes that thought down: it’s fantastical and a little silly — Alfie is, after all, getting his ass kicked at the tavern most weeks.

Alfie was born a Blue and plans to die a Blue. But his line of work (crook) sends him all over the land, and he’s got a pretty good superficial sense of all terrain. Still, as a proud Blue, he’s careful to never stray from home too much.

When Alfie can be drawn to talking about his past, he speaks of being an outcast at the Royal Millford Adcademy — a training institution for the richest Blues. He says he barely lasted a semester before his reclusiveness and misbehaviour had him expelled. Alfie says from there his family cut him off, and he’s been on his own ever since — starting with petty crime like pickpocketing to cover food, before he started to become properly ingratiated in the world of thieves and bandits.

Alfie’s politics are simple: Bleed Blue. He’s patriotic not because he really understands the region’s politics, but it’s simple, easy and all he knows. His sports teams are all Blue, his wardrobe is all Blue, and when he travels far and wide he will trumpet Blue supremacy until someone at the tavern has put him to bed with a right-hand uppercut.

Alfie’s life as a thief has already given him an insight into the inequities of the world. The way big stores can write off his theft as a ‘tax expense’ while smaller, family-owned stores were just down on inventory. The way police would waggle their finger at the rich kids causing trouble in town, while his friends would be put behind bars.