# Bren — The Madman

*"Saw it! We saw — can't say, his eyes, his burning eyes, watching! Watching from the shadows that aren't shadows, from the place that's here but isn't — shhh. Shhh. He says I can't. He says I mustn't. But you see it too, don't you? Don't you?"*

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## Stat Block (Abbreviated)

**Bren** — Medium humanoid (human), chaotic neutral
**AC** 10 | **HP** 18 (4d8) | **Speed** 30 ft.

| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|-----|
| 8 (-1) | 10 (+0) | 10 (+0) | 15 (+2) | 6 (-2) | 14 (+2) |

**Skills** Arcana +4 (remnant of former knowledge), Performance +4 (involuntary — Skein uses him)
**Condition:** Bren is permanently under the effects of a modified Dominate Person. His Wisdom has been reduced from 16 to 6 over years of possession. He cannot be freed by a single spell — see the Possession storyline.
**Senses** passive Perception 8 (but Skein's passive Perception through him is 16)
**Languages** Common, Elvish (his original languages); Bren occasionally speaks Abyssal words Skein forces through him

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## Appearance

A man in his thirties who looks fifty. Gaunt, hollow-eyed, with unkempt dark hair that might once have been carefully maintained. His clothes are layered rags — but beneath the grime, the cut of his original shirt suggests someone who once had means. His hands shake constantly. His eyes dart — not randomly, but in a pattern, tracking something beside him that no one else can see.

He sits on the floor in his corner, knees drawn up, rocking slightly. He mutters constantly. Sometimes it's conversation — animated, responsive, with pauses for a reply only he can hear. Sometimes it's fragments of coherent observation, spoken too fast and too quiet.

## Read-Aloud: First Impression

> *V rohu u baru, přímo na zemi, sedí muž. Kolena přitažená k bradě, ruce ovinuté kolem nohou, oči těkající po místnosti — ne, ne po místnosti. Po něčem vedle něj. Mluví potichu, rychle, s přestávkami, jako by naslouchal odpovědím, které slyší jen on. Občas se zachichotá. Občas zbledne. Před ním na zemi stojí dřevěná miska s pár měďáky.*
>
> *Když projdete kolem, zvedne na vás oči. Jen na okamžik. A v tom okamžiku — jen zlomek vteřiny — v nich není šílenství. Je v nich zoufalství. Pak se ta záblesk ztratí a on se vrátí ke svému neviditelnému společníkovi.*

## The Truth: Skein

**Skein** is a parasitic entity from the Ethereal Plane — not a fiend, not an undead, something else. It resembles a translucent spider made of knotted, twisting threads, roughly the size of a large dog. It sits beside Bren in the Ethereal Plane, with thread-like tendrils extending into his skull.

Skein feeds on Bren's mind — his memories, his personality, his will. Over the years, it has hollowed him out. What's left of Bren is genuine: the fear, the desperation, the fragments of the person he was. But Skein controls what he says and does, steering him like a puppet with most of its strings cut.

**Skein's stat block:** See [The Possession](../storylines/possession.md).

**Skein's goals:**
- Keep feeding. Bren is its host and it doesn't want to lose him.
- Stay hidden. If anyone discovers Skein, they might try to remove it.
- Prevent Bren from communicating useful information — but Skein's control isn't perfect. Under emotional stress or when caught off guard, Bren can force words out before Skein clamps down.

## Personality (What's Left of Bren)

Before possession, Bren was a scholar—Haddon's finest planar-theory student. He was curious, gentle, and too trusting. Haddon brought promising students to the Nether Inn's small collection of salvaged summoner books; Bren sat at the Order's table years before Dalla, Rennt, or Essek joined, corrected Haddon's calculations politely in the margins, and was one of the few people Mags allowed behind the bar to make tea.

Seven years ago Haddon sent him to observe the still-sealed tear in the Old Work beneath the Nether Inn. Officially it was routine fieldwork; in truth, Vyre wanted live data from this thin point. Skein attached itself to Bren there. The Order studied the possession instead of curing it, then classified the experiment as lost when Bren deteriorated and escaped. Haddon let it happen.

Bren wandered for years. A few months ago Orenn recognized him outside the tavern—not by his ruined face, but because he was muttering one of Haddon's old cataloguing sequences. Orenn brought him inside and began quietly investigating what the Order had done. Haddon has recognized Bren on every subsequent visit and pretended not to. During lucid moments Bren calls him **Professor**.

**What remains:**
- Intelligence flickers through the madness — he uses words precisely even when they seem nonsensical
- A deep, desperate desire to communicate what he knows
- Genuine fear of Skein, expressed as submission and appeasement ("He says I can't, he says, sorry, sorry...")
- Empathy — he recognizes pain in others and reacts to it, sometimes more clearly than to his own situation
- Fragments of his old personality surface when Skein is distracted or when Bren is emotionally provoked

## Behavior Patterns

### Default State (Skein in control)
- Muttering, rocking, seemingly incoherent
- Tracks Skein's position with his eyes
- Occasionally laughs at nothing or flinches from nothing
- Speaks in fragments that sound like madness but contain kernels of truth

### Agitated State (Emotional trigger)
- Mood swings wildly — weeping to laughing to terrified in seconds
- Skein is fighting for control; Bren is fighting to speak
- Can force out partial truths before Skein silences him
- Physical symptoms: nosebleed, sudden headache, he grabs his head

### Lucid Moment (Skein distracted or weakened)
- Sudden stillness. Eyes clear. Voice changes — quieter, steadier, *educated*
- Can speak coherently for 1-3 sentences before Skein reasserts control
- These moments are rare and precious. They happen when:
  - Skein is distracted by something in the Ethereal Plane (Xarrul moving nearby)
  - Someone uses silvervein root near Bren (the ward-herb weakens Skein's grip for 1 round)
  - A player rolls a natural 20 on a Persuasion or Insight check while talking to Bren
  - Bren witnesses something that triggers a deep emotional response (kindness, danger to someone he cares about)

## What Bren Knows

He witnessed Orenn's murder from his corner. He saw something no one else could — a shape in the space beside the bar, reaching *through* the air and touching Orenn. He can describe it, but only in fragments.

### Sample Dialogue by State

**Default (useless but atmospheric):**
- "No no no, not the — he's clean, he keeps them clean, the glasses, always clean..."
- "Two sides of a coin that isn't a coin, it's a mouth, ha! A mouth with too many teeth..."
- "He's angry. He's always angry. Aren't you? Yes you are. Don't lie to me."

**Agitated (partial truths, when asked about the murder or fiends):**
- "Saw it! We saw it — a hand that wasn't a hand, reaching through the thin place, through the *between*, and it touched him and he — *he says I can't say this* — BURNED, burned from inside, from the place you can't see!"
- "Not them, not the knife-people, not the book-people, something ELSE, something that laughs at both, something that was *invited* and then *uninvited* and now it's just... here. Hungry."
- "Eyes! Burning eyes in the grey, in the space between spaces — it's been here for weeks, scratching, *scratching at the walls you can't see!*"
- [Suddenly grabs a player's hand] "The marks on the stones. Underground. It broke them. Night after night. *Tell her.* Tell the woman with the scar. The walls are DOWN."

**Lucid (rare, precious, 1-3 sentences):**
- [Still, clear voice] "My name is Bren Aldara. I was an arcanist. Something lives beside me and I cannot make it stop. Please — don't leave me like this."
- [After seeing evidence of the fiend] "It's a fiend. Old and cunning. It killed the barkeep from the other side — reached through the veil and branded him. I watched it happen. [winces, grabs head] I'm not — I can't —" [Skein reasserts control]
- [If shown genuine kindness] "I can feel it eating me. Every day there's less of me left. If you can... if there's a way... [long pause, tears] ...even if there isn't. Thank you for seeing me."

## How Players Can Help Bren

See [The Possession](../storylines/possession.md) for full details. Summary:

1. **Identify the problem:** DC 14 Arcana while examining Bren detects something attached to him on another plane.
2. **See Skein:** *See Invisibility* reveals it directly; Orenn's silver mirror provides the same sight within its reflection. In the Ethereal Plane, Skein is plainly visible — a knotted spider-thing with six tendrils in Bren's skull.
3. **Weaken Skein:** Silvervein root, Protection from Evil and Good, or damaging Skein on the Ethereal Plane.
4. **Remove Skein:** Requires direct action on the Ethereal Plane — either killing Skein or severing its tendrils from Bren. Killing Skein is permanent. Severing is temporary (it reattaches in 1d4 hours).
5. **After removal:** Bren is free but damaged. His Wisdom doesn't fully recover (it rises to 10, not 16). He's lucid but fragile, confused, and will need months of care. He remembers everything — seven years of captivity in his own mind. He's grateful but broken.

## Relationships

- **Orenn:** Fed him, kept him safe, never asked questions. Bren loved him in the quiet way a prisoner loves the guard who shows them kindness. Orenn's death devastates what's left of Bren.
- **Mags:** She brings him food. She's gruff about it. He can tell she cares. Skein doesn't like her — she's too perceptive.
- **Haddon:** Former teacher and the man who abandoned him. Fragments of Haddon's old lesson still surface through the damage: *"Anchor before aperture. Measure twice. The living weight comes first. Professor said—"* One clear **"Professor"** from Bren visibly cracks Haddon's composure.
- **Essek:** Has studied papers bearing Bren Aldara's name but does not initially recognize the man in the corner. Learning who Bren is shows Essek his own probable future and makes the players' treatment of Bren one of his strongest tests of character.
- **Skein:** Captor, torturer, constant companion. Bren hates and fears Skein but has developed a horrifying dependency — after seven years, Skein's voice is the most constant thing in his world.
- **Xarrul:** Bren (through Skein's senses) can feel Xarrul in the Ethereal Plane. Skein is terrified of the fiend — it's bigger, older, more powerful. This fear sometimes overrides Skein's control of Bren, creating lucid openings.
