Roan Reynders, Cursed Vizier

Past. The firstborn son of a princess-turned-duchess of a minor halfling kingdom that Lumont annexed over three hundred years ago, Roan Reynders soon climbed the ladders of politics and magic to become an imperial mage and haruspex in the court of His Imperial Majesty Aurele II Paraflamel, an ancient predecessor of Lumont's present-day emperor, Aurele IV.

Although ostensibly executed for embezzlement and fraud (two crimes he was also guilty of), Roan was primarily executed for his involvement in an aristocratic conspiracy aiming to place Aurele II's cousin on the throne instead. To ensure his punishment for treason against the Crown, Roan's spirit was bound to his bones for a millennium—a sentence that has now barely one-third passed.

When Eveline reanimated his bones to assist in guarding the catacombs during Cyril's ritual, Roan's spirit possessed the resulting undead, granting it arcane powers and intelligence far beyond the ordinary. While the enchantment bends him to Eveline's will and prevents him from leaving, Roan senses something he has not seen in centuries: an opportunity for freedom.

At the time the players arrive in the Tomb of Divine Rays, Roan, accompanied by two-fifths of Eveline's undead reserves, is pretending to monitor the seal in the Vault of Dawn while secretly studying the arcane runes on his skull binding him to Eveline's control.

Present. Roan is a well-spoken halfling skeleton with noble sensibilities, who (upon his reanimation) painstakingly pieced together an outfit of imperial mage's robes, gold spectacles, and a trio of jeweled rings that continually threaten to slide off his fingers. While he's lost none of his predilection for shady dealings and well-timed betrayals, his long imprisonment has taught him patience and instilled a sense of grinding desperation. Even so, the weight of ages has worn away at his sanity, letting his emotions flash from sorrow to joy to rage and back again in a heartbeat.

Future. Roan doesn't know what the descendants of his "foolish heirs" (the cousins of his mother's second husband) have done with his estate in his absence, but he's determined to get it back. He just needs two things first: his freedom, and a new body.