The Riven Lands

A pale Shadar-kai whose ink-stained hands bear ritual scars from performing soul-liberation ceremonies on cursed manuscripts. His scholar's robes are patched with fragments of destroyed books whose souls he's successfully freed, each piece serving as a memorial to liberated spirits. Wears multiple pairs of reading glasses enchanted with divination magic that allows him to see the spiritual bonds holding souls prisoner in written works. His dark eyes reflect the constant presence of grateful dead scholars who guide his liberation efforts.

Intellectually tormented by constant exposure to the suffering of bound souls, driven by genuine compassion for the dead scholars whose knowledge was stolen along with their eternal rest. His criminal activities serve a higher moral purpose that justifies any amount of theft and vandalism needed to free imprisoned spirits. Despite his noble goals, the constant psychic contact with tortured souls has left him increasingly unstable and prone to violent outbursts when he encounters academic institutions.

Former head librarian who discovered that the greatest archive in Sylvanspire was built on a foundation of murdered scholars whose souls were bound into the books to preserve their knowledge after death. When he tried to expose this necromantic horror, the institution's council attempted to bind his own soul into their collection, but the ritual failed, leaving him partially connected to the Shadowfell with the ability to hear the screams of every trapped soul in their library. Now he systematically steals and destroys the cursed texts, not for profit but to liberate the tortured spirits imprisoned within them, while selling mundane books to fund his campaign of supernatural emancipation.