Pavid

The catman of the The Varian Trio — an ~8-foot-tall, jacked, near-naked lion-man (boy-shorts and nothing else, no weapons, no armour) with a mane and tattooed tiger-stripes (he believes he is a tiger; "I'm a tiger without stripes"). His role is tank: he soaks blows without seeming to register them — his deadpan speciality, as the spy Pimothy puts it, is "they hit me." He is gentle, simple and good-hearted, prone to carrying smaller allies on his shoulders. His intelligence is a record −6 ("a Jurassic-world creature" the GM rules survives a 0-or-lower stat), so signs in any language can't stop him ("I can't read, I could go in") and he forgets his own name — which is fine, because "Pavid" is only his fake spy codename ("Pavid").

(Named "Pavid"/"Pavid"; rendered Paved, Pave, Paver, Pavid, Pavan, Pavett across Session 41, and listed by Renforth (as "Paved") among the trio's off-by-one Varian names in Session 35. Lion or tiger, and his real name, are open.)

Session 41 (debut)

• Met the party at the cave with the rest of the trio; carried Thalia (and her anteater Tony) on his shoulders as a three-high "stack of goobers," and led the cautious sweep through the trap corridor (nearly walking the lethal centre line unbothered).
• Stabbed first. The skeleton businessmen opened the fight by knifing him in the belly and back; he kept a serene thumbs-up and "I think they're friendly," then critted one for 18 slashing — visibly heartbroken that Fenric had stolen his "tank cat" thunder.
• Smelled out by the Ghoul of Gythfield (the only party member the ghoul could scent), balmed himself in tiger-balm-like ointment, and spent the back half of the session contentedly lying shoulder-deep in the bath and playing with the elementals — "living his best life."

Session 42

• Front-line tank in the boss fight: soaked wight claws and bites "like water off a cat's back," taunted Halren onto himself, and used a cat-quick double-move to chase the blinking boss around the room. His −6 INT had him forgetting kills mid-fight ("how'd he get there?").
• Gathered the bodies afterward and guarded Patricia through her six-hour rite raising the slain wights into puppet-soldiers.

Session 43

• The three-foe tank. In the north fight he occupied the Wild Man and two bandits at once, dodging round after round to soak the camp's attention (AC 11, no armour — "he's not wearing any clothes!"), believing his sole job is "to absorb everything bad that's ever gonna happen to anybody."
• Downed and revived. The Wild Man eventually beat him unconscious; Lash poured a healing potion into his mane to bring him back up, and he kept tanking to the end — "he tanked a third of the fight for six rounds."

Session 44

• Recovering in town. Out of hit dice after the camp fight, he's brought back to the party's rented Ponterford house ("show Pavid where we live, he can go to school") — found asleep face-down in an empty plate at the dining table, with Thalia tucking a blanket over him. The Varian trio, it's clarified, never owned or rented a house here; they were only ever passing through.

Session 45

• Along for the march. Travels with Eldrich the Elder's caravan out of Ponterford, still injured ("he fell down the stairs this morning"); rides with the rear escort and is healed up over the trip.

Session 49

• Door-guard to the war room. Now stationed at Eldrich the Elder's hidden back room in the Tapped Clapper (Menagoles); answers Fenric's improvised "secret knock," staredowns him, and lets the party in — then shuts the door behind them.