Bio

Although he is looked down upon by other members of the Coalition, (because of his age & inexperience) he is still willing to help them. Mr. Paradox excels at making potions, enchanting items, and building magical animated toys to battle for him. He is also very proficient at wielding a magical hat, which he uses as both a magic implement, and a buzz-saw boomerang.

Once upon a time there lived an old half-elf tinkerer.

His name was Geppetto, and he loved to fiddle with trinkets made of metal and wood, fine bits of Sayre glass, and the occasional gnomish gadget enchanted with magic. Geppetto knew how to make a great many things, and he was highly sought after for his craftsmanship. He lived a simple life in a small village flat, earning a modest living by plying his trade.

Geppetto was well-known and well-liked by the people in the village, for he could forge a horseshoe or fix a wagon wheel better and faster than any other smith or carpenter. He was always very prompt and on time – thanks to a strange timepiece he had fashioned for himself – and he was always very cordial to his customers. Occasionally, he would even do his work for free! Rumor had it that at least once every few months, a nobleman or adventurer would seek him out for a specially-commissioned work, which they always paid for handsomely.

There was always something to do, so he spent many hours each day hard at work in his workshop. Although he enjoyed his job, he often regretted not spending more time with others. After all, he had been a tinkerer for many years, and even his half-elven vigor was beginning to falter. Geppetto had only a few close friends, and he’d never fallen in love. Most of all he regretted not having a child to pass on his knowledge to.

In the twilight of a warm spring day, there came a sharp knock upon the tinkerer’s door. “Who is it?” the old man inquired, but he heard no reply. Wiping the grease from his hands, Geppetto made his way to the front door, only to discover a pale infant placed in a basket by his door, with a note pinned to it: “Dox.” Wordlessly, he lifted the child and examined it: a white-skinned newborn with shiny gray eyes. It began to stir at his touch, and before his eyes it changed itself with a tiny little laugh. Now the old man held a perfect half-elf child with eyes of blue.

It was the child of a changeling – Gepetto had only read about them in books. They could look like any race they chose to, but their true form gave them colorless skin and pupiless eyes. Most simple folk thought of them as troublemakers, for how could anyone trust someone who could change their own face? But despite these tales, the tinkerer’s heart softened while he held the child in his arms, and he knew he had finally found his heir.

Geppetto raised Dox in secret, converting part of his workshop into a nursery and playpen. When the child was old enough, he told Dox to disguise himself as a half-elf, and to start calling him “Uncle” whenever someone else was around. Geppetto told his friends that his nephew’s parents had little money, so they would often send Dox to spend time with him. And so the ruse continued to go unnoticed well into the boy’s childhood.

As soon as Dox could speak, he wanted to spend all his time by his foster father’s side in the workshop. Geppetto taught him to make simple toys that he could share with the other children, but Dox soon became too skilled with the workshop’s tools to be satisfied making toy swords and wooden horses. On Dox’s ninth birthday, he began to work with metal. On his tenth, he learned to cut gemstones. By age eleven, Gepetto finally began to teach the boy what he knew of magic. The child was a prodigy!

Geppetto took great care in teaching the boy his arcane knowledge. He kept all of his spells and rituals, passed down from his father’s fathers before him, in a great leather tome bound with locks both physical and magical. Only the tinkerer himself knew how to open the book, and he was very careful to teach its contents to Dox slowly, though the boy begged him to go faster, his young mind devouring every lesson.

At the age of twelve, Dox could bear it no longer. One night, he snuck into the workshop and began to use all the tricks of the trade his father taught him to defeat the locks on the tome. He worked quickly but quietly, prodding the book’s edges and crannies with a set of lock picks while softly repeating words of opening he’d learned. After much trial and error, the book finally fell open, but the locks crumbled into dust. Dox panicked, as he knew he wouldn’t be able to replace them, and so his father would instantly know he’d tampered with the book. Before he could worry too much, however, he heard a strange noise coming from his father’s bedroom. Deciding to admit to his mischief, he took the book and walked to Geppetto’s door.

In the dim candlelight, he saw a woman dressed in wine-red leathers, standing at his father’s bedside with a gloved hand around his throat. Dox cried out in alarm, hurling the book at the burglar. She nimbly dodged it, and though the maneuver forced her hand to release Geppetto, the tinkerer did not rouse.

“Who are you, and what have you done to my father?” the child cried.

“The same thing I’ll do to you if you’re not quiet,” she hissed back. “I am called the Crimson Wasp. I’m here for your father’s book of secrets, but he wouldn’t tell me where it was. He was useless to me, so I’ve put him out of my way.” She seemed to smile, but her grin was hidden by a sash around her face. She held up her right hand, the glove covered in an unfamiliar white powder. “This is a contact poison… a very special one. It sends most victims into a fitful sleep filled with nightmares, but against someone so old and frail like your ‘father’… it might very easily kill him.”

“No!”

“But not to worry, little one – I have the cure right here.” With a flourish, she withdrew a small vial containing a few drops of a violet potion. “Tell me where the book is, and your father lives.”

Dox was loath to give away his father’s book, and his best shot at learning the last secrets of the artificer’s trade before the old man passed away. But even though he shared no bond of blood, Geppetto had loved Dox like his own kin, and he couldn’t bear to see his life ended in such pain. “It’s on the floor next to you,” he mumbled, after a long pause.

“How convenient,” she mused, picking up her prize. “That was a little too easy, but I suppose I’ll keep my end of the bargain anyway.” She opened the vial with her unsullied hand, emptying the few drops onto Geppetto’s tongue. Almost immediately, his pained expression began to abate. Wordlessly, she turned and slunk back to the window she’d obviously broken in from.

Dox fidgeted nervously. His father was safe now, but the book was about to leave in the hands of that awful assassin. He dared not try to fight her unarmed, though if he had some of his contraptions from the workshop, he might have been tempted to try. Could he stall her long enough to arm himself?

“Wait!” he blurted, quite suddenly. The Wasp eyed him suspiciously as he shifted from foot to foot, trying his best to play the part of an oblivious, naïve child. “Don’t you want the other book, too?”

“Other book?” she asked. A thin eyebrow arched under her red hood as she tried to determine what Dox was talking about. “Of course… your father would be far to clever to keep all his secrets in one place. You’ve done very well, little one. Now fetch this second tome for me, and remember: I can always poison this man again, but I only had one antidote.”

Dox quickly scurried back into the workshop, looking for something that he could use against his father’s would-be murderer. He had a few exotic weapons he’d been working on, his favorite being an funny old hat that he’d fitted with hidden blades. Still, carrying in anything obviously harmful or even suspiciously out-of-place would put his father at grave risk, so an open fight was out of the question. He found his answer in a big hollowed-out ledger that his father used for hiding spare silver pieces, and a rusty bear trap he’d made into a prototype construct. He’d named it Chomper.

Dox hurried back to the room, a determined look in his eye, but the woman held up her hand. “Don’t be stupid boy, you’re almost in the clear. Why don’t you just throw me the book from there, and I’ll disappear?”

“You asked for it,” Dox answered.

The ledger opened in mid-air as the red lady’s hand reached out for it. Before she could react, the bones in her forearm were shattered by the snapping of the bear trap. She screamed in fury, but she was now helpless, her poison-doused hand stuck deep inside the rusty jaws. With tears of agony streaming down her face, she threw Geppetto’s tome out the window, where it was caught by a shadowy figure on horseback, and borne away swiftly into the night.

The Crimson Wasp was placed into custody of proper authorities, who promised the woman would languish many years in an Overlook dungeon for her crimes. Geppetto made a full recovery, but could do little to further the boy’s studies without the help of his tome. As for Dox, he set out on his thirteenth birthday to find his father’s book, and bring the thieves to justice. This tale is over, but his journey is just beginning.

Joining the Coalition

Mr. Paradox first crossed paths with the soon to be members of the Platinum Shield Coalition during his quest to find his father’s book. he fallowed Jett, Erdanen & Bressal on to a Githyanki air ship disguise as a dwarf volunteering to be a crew member.

He recently completed his quest to find his step-father’s book, reclaiming it from Telicanthus (with help from Lucas and Keyleth Starfletcher). After exposing & defeating Telicanthus, he felt as if his work in the Platinum Shield Coalition was just begun. He wanted to continue, but he feared that his step-father (Geppetto) wouldn’t approve. Mr. Paradox thought for a moment and then politely asked Erdanen to come and visit his step-father.

“Your magical words helped form the Coalition, I am positively sure that your words can help me to get my father’s approval.” he said to Erdanen.

Erdanen smiled and accepted Dox’s offer.

Retuning Erdanen Favor

After hearing that his best frend Jett was fond in a domain of dread in the Shadowfell, Erdanen handing off his mayoral duties to Mr. Paradox (through magical words and a survive charge). Mr. Paradox did a acceptable job being “Mayor Erdanen” but there where some “compilations”.

Paradox’s Toys