Hungry Eyes

You learned the pleasures of watching long before you learned how useful watching could be. A lingering glance, a private exchange glimpsed across a crowded room, the subtle shift between two people who believe themselves unobserved — these moments fascinated you. You became skilled at remaining quiet, choosing the right vantage point and noticing the small details that reveal what people feel when they aren’t performing for an audience.

Work with your GM to determine how your fascination with witnessing shaped your life. Perhaps you worked in a pleasure house, theater, bathhouse or noble household where discretion was valued. You might have been a lookout, investigator, artist or devoted observer of public revelries and private encounters. Perhaps you simply discovered that people reveal remarkable things when they forget someone else is watching.

Skill Proficiencies: Insight, Perception

Tool Proficiencies: One gaming set of your choice

Languages: One of your choice

Equipment: A small hand mirror, a compact spyglass, a notebook containing sketches or observations, a keepsake from something memorable you once witnessed, a set of common clothes, and a pouch containing 10 gp

Feature: The Unnoticed Witness

You have learned how to observe without becoming the focus of attention. In taverns, salons, festivals, courts and other busy social settings, you can usually identify an unobtrusive place from which to watch a room without interfering with what is happening.

When given time to observe a social gathering, you can usually identify obvious patterns others overlook: who frequently watches whom, which people avoid one another, who appears uncomfortable, who seems unusually attentive and which entrances or exits people favor. This does not reveal hidden thoughts or intentions, but it can tell you where closer investigation may be worthwhile.