Falstad

Falstad is a human wizard in the campaign Raphael Efsanesi ("The Legend of Raphael"). He appears in a black robe of fine cloth, with a full round beard, and he can rise into the air and speak to stone in a harsh tongue no one around him understands.¹

The pocket realm

After Raphael had waited three hours, the octopus-shaped mark on his chest began to itch and a turning, transparent shape that only he could see appeared; when he touched it, it became a door onto a corridor. Beyond it a narrow lit passage, with a wall where the entrance had been, led to a stone room with a pit, where Falstad introduced himself and closed the pit with a word. He said he had made this pocket realm for Raphael alone and held it up by his own power.^{2 1 3}

To come back, Falstad gave Raphael a coin stamped with the figure of a headless man: it was to be squeezed with the eyes shut while saying "death is not the end". When Raphael left, Falstad burned him, and Raphael woke at once at a place called the Three Rocks; on a later visit he stabbed himself to leave and woke the same way. At the end of their work together Falstad told him the coin would not go with him.^{4 5 6}

The Collector's hoard

Falstad said he wanted to rescue a woman named Kalisa, Kala, from the Collector's hoard, a collection belonging to Kalel. He offered to translate for free the texts that would lead Raphael to the name he was seeking, and to pay to keep everything else they found there, adding that what he wanted above all was a book.^{3 7}

He asked for a strong body to bring along and refused to risk Karas, who was alive; no living person but Raphael, he said, could make the journey. Through a portal he led the way to a fortress-like hoard standing on an endless cracked plain under a black sky, its halls full of creatures kept in glass cases. At warded doors that began to turn Raphael to stone and then to burn him, Falstad stopped the protective spells. When the very old Collector appeared, he paralysed Falstad.^{8 9 10}

From boxes nested one inside another Falstad drew out a small book that grew as he held it: Falstad's dark book. He paid Raphael his reward and claimed that together they had changed the course of fate in a way that would be remembered a thousand years from now.^{11 12}

Spoiler: Falstad's plan and TafRevealSpoils: Raphael Efsanesi #4 · Say what you have read

Kala greeted Falstad as her brother when her chains came off. Falstad then revealed that she had let herself be captured on purpose so that, through their blood, he could follow her and open a door into the hoard he could not otherwise open.^{11 13}

To bring a body into the hoard, Falstad told Raphael that their hired guard, the half-orc Taf, would have to die. Raphael sent Taf through, found him dead without a wound, and heard Falstad say he had killed him painlessly; Falstad then raised the corpse to fight for them.^{8 9}

Hunted

When Falstad came back to Raphael, he looked worn. He said he was being hunted through time and space, could not sleep, and could not yet fully control the book. He saw the amulet that hid Raphael from Zolan and asked for it, warning that without help Raphael's own mind might be read and blame might fall on him too; in return, he said, Kala would later stay with Raphael and help him against the mind flayer.^{14 15 16}

Raphael came back to him beaten and without the amulet, claiming it had been taken by force. Falstad was disappointed but thanked him for trying. He then opened the book: a dark hollow opened and tentacles crept from his arm up to his neck in a ritual that also brought Raphael pain. Afterwards he and Kala meant to take refuge at a monastery of monks in a mountain pass to the north, near a place called Kurtin, where by custom anyone seeking shelter is protected.^{17 18 19}

Later Derek Sunshield asked Raphael about a wizard who had a very powerful book, while making clear that this was not the man they were really seeking. Raphael said that, as far as he knew, the wizard was travelling between dimensions.²⁰

Spoiler: Later eventsRevealSpoils: Raphael Efsanesi #8 · Say what you have read

After the emperor's murder, Kala brought Raphael word that her brother knew who was behind it and wished to meet at the East Gate by night. Raphael instead told Derek that the owner of the burning book was in the city, and about ten knights rode out. Whether they found Falstad is not known.^{21 22 23}