CaZ VonDokken
Rogue Warlock
Cazonik "Caz" VonDokken is a Shadar-kai orphan who was found and adopted into a small but proud Vistani clan that roamed the shadowy, mist-laden lands of Barovia. His people lived on the fringes of civilization, always moving, always dancing, their music defiant against the dread that crept through the darkened woods. From a young age, Caz was taught the ways of stealth and survival by his family—skills meant to protect their caravan from bandits, beasts, and worse.
But those skills failed him the night the dragon came.
It was a stormy evening, the skies above torn with thunder and rain. The attack was swift and brutal—a shadow as dark as night itself descended upon their camp. The dragon’s breath tore through their wagons, its claws ripped apart those who tried to defend their own. Caz’s last memory of his family was his mother’s scream, swallowed by the roar of fire and death.
He awoke days later, cold and broken, his body draped in ash and mud. Something—someone—had kept him alive. All that remained of his clan were fragments of memories, tangled in nightmare and shadow.
In the emptiness left by his loss, dreams began to haunt him. The Raven Queen’s voice slipped into his sleep like an obsidian dagger, sharp and cold. She whispered promises of revenge, of power, of truth. Yet her words were laced with something else—an expectation. A bargain.
Through those dreams, he found himself drawn to a forbidden ritual. He offered his pain and loss to the Raven Queen, pledging his skills and service. She granted him power in return—a pact forged from the anguish of his past and the hunger for answers. His rogue talents sharpened, augmented by dark gifts that allowed him to slip between shadows and twist the minds of others.
But the dreams continued. Visions of his family’s death played again and again, warped and distorted. The dragon’s shadow loomed larger each time. Yet the Raven Queen showed him other visions, too—glimpses of paths not yet traveled, and of a destiny unfulfilled.
The Raven Queen’s bargain was not without its price. Caz's powers are tied to the pain and loss of his past. When he calls upon his dark gifts, shadows coil around him, often taking the shape of the faces of his lost kin—flickering, wailing, and whispering his name. His abilities are amplified by his suffering, making him a conduit for the sorrow of the dead.
Caz wandered for years, following threads of fate pulled by the Raven Queen’s guidance. His search for the dragon that destroyed his clan led him far from Barovia, across the world of Faerun. As he traveled, he honed his skills, taking on work as a mercenary, thief, and sometimes a guide to those desperate enough to trust a Shadar-kai. His warlock powers continued to grow, their darkness becoming as much a part of him as the steel he wielded.
Caz’s arrival in Greenest was anything but accidental. The Raven Queen’s visions had shown him fire and blood, a town cloaked in shadow and ravaged by dragonkind. As he approached the outskirts of the town, the air grew cold, and shadows clung to him like a second skin.
Caz felt the Raven Queen’s presence more strongly than ever. She whispered of opportunity—of a chance to redeem his past failure by saving others from the horror he once endured.
Yet the whispers of the Raven Queen also warn him that his time in Greenest is but the beginning...