EDRIN
"I grew up in a mining town. I died there too."
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EDRIN

"I grew up in a mining town. I died there too."
Reborn Fighter · Echo Knight
Level 7. True Neutral
the bards haven't found them yet

The Character

Age 28
AC 18
HP 67
Speed 30 ft.
Echo AC 17
Prof +3
STR
0
+4
DEX
0
+2
CON
0
+3
INT
0
+0
WIS
0
+1
CHA
0
-1
Armor Class
18
Half plate 15 + DEX +2 + Cloak +1
Shield mode: 20 (stow greatsword, draw Sentinel Shield)
Primary Attack
+7 to hit, 5ft reach
2d6+4 slash + 2d6 fire
Flame Tongue Greatsword (ablaze). GWF: treat 1s/2s as 3 on slashing dice. Can attack from echo's position.

Attacks & Actions

Flame Tongue (Ablaze)
+7 to hit. 2d6+4 slashing + 2d6 fire. BA to ignite/extinguish. Sheds bright light 40 ft.
Greatsword (Cold)
+7 to hit. 2d6+4 slashing. Two-handed, heavy. GWF: treat 1s and 2s as 3.
Nova Round
Action Surge + Unleash Incarnation: 5 attacks in one turn. Extra Attack (2) + Unleash (1) + Surge Extra Attack (2). Avg ~90 damage ablaze. Can split between Edrin and echo positions.
Second Wind
BA. 3 uses/long rest, regain 1 per short rest. Regain 1d10+7 HP. Also enables Tactical Shift (half-speed move, no opportunity attacks).

Echo Knight

Manifest Echo
BA: summon translucent echo within 15 ft. AC 17, 1 HP, immune to conditions. Attacks and opportunity attacks can originate from echo. BA to swap positions (costs 15 ft movement). Destroyed if >30 ft at end of turn.
Unleash Incarnation
3/long rest (CON mod). When you Attack, make one additional melee attack from the echo's position.
Echo Avatar
Action: transfer consciousness to echo. See/hear through it. Echo can move up to 1,000 ft away. 10 min duration. You are blinded/deafened while active.

Features & Traits

Extra Attack
Two attacks per Attack action.
Action Surge
1/short rest. One additional action on your turn.
Tactical Mind
When you fail an ability check, expend a Second Wind use to add 1d10 to the roll. If it still fails, the use is not expended.
Tactical Shift
When you use Second Wind, move up to half your speed (15 ft) without provoking opportunity attacks.
Weapon Mastery (4)
Mastered 4 weapon types (L4+). Greatsword: Graze (deal STR mod damage on a miss). Can swap 1 mastery on long rest.
Great Weapon Fighting
Treat 1s and 2s as 3 on damage dice for two-handed melee weapons. Applies to slashing dice only, NOT Flame Tongue fire dice (conservative reading).
Deathless Nature
Advantage vs disease/poison saves. Resistance to poison. Advantage on death saves. No need for food, water, air, or sleep. Long rest in 4 hours (conscious). Can't be magically put to sleep.
Knowledge from a Past Life
On any skill check, add 1d6. 3/long rest (proficiency bonus uses). The echo remembers what he can't.

Magic Items 7/7

Flame Tongue Greatsword (Rare, 3pts)
Speak command word ("Wake up.") to ignite. +2d6 fire per hit while ablaze. Sheds bright light 40 ft, dim 40 ft beyond. The only warmth his body still responds to. Attunement.
Cloak of Protection (Uncommon, 2pts)
Half-cape that shifts between charcoal and smoke depending on the light. +1 AC, +1 all saving throws. Attunement.
Sentinel Shield (Uncommon, 2pts)
Round, unadorned steel with a single engraved eye. Advantage on initiative and Perception checks. PP 19 while held. Stowed on pack; drawn when survival trumps aggression.

Disadvantages

Mechanical

CHA 8
People are uneasy around him. He smells faintly of grave soil and speaks in flat affect. Conversations die in his presence. Terrible at persuasion, deception, performance.
Echo Fragility
Echo has 1 HP. Any damage destroys it. Must resummon as a bonus action, competing with Flame Tongue ignition and Second Wind. Action economy tax.
Greatsword/Shield Trade-off
Can't use Flame Tongue and Sentinel Shield simultaneously. Swapping costs an object interaction. Offensive mode (greatsword, AC 18, big damage) or defensive mode (shield + longsword or unarmed, AC 20, advantage on Perception/initiative). Never both.

Backstory-Driven

The Echo's Autonomy
It's getting stronger. It mouths words before he says them. It turned its head when he didn't. Last week it spoke his name. He doesn't know if it's a ghost, a warning, or a replacement.
The Identity Crisis
Privately terrified that the echo is the real Edrin and he's the copy. He won't examine this closely. When the echo mouths his promises, the question gets louder.
Not Fully Alive
Cold blood. Slow heartbeat. Grave-soil smell. No need for food, water, or sleep. People sense something wrong before they know what it is. Social friction everywhere.
Maret's Promise
He promised his mother he'd come home. When he said the words, the echo mouthed them too. He doesn't know which of them made that promise.

Origin

Edrin clawing out of a grave in the Ashwood
Listen to narration by a local newsman

Edrin Voss grew up in Hollowreach, a tin-mining town pressed against the treeline of the Ashwood, a forest the locals knew to stay out of after dark. His mother, Maret Voss, ran the assay office. His best friend was Corin Dace, the mine foreman's son. They were inseparable: sparring with pickaxe handles behind the smelter, sneaking to the forest edge on dares, swearing they'd leave Hollowreach together and never look back.

When Corin discovered an unmarked silver vein running beneath the Ashwood's cursed soil, he needed someone to help him stake a private claim before the mining company found out. Edrin said no. Corin took him into the forest anyway and put a knife in his back at the mouth of the vein, burying him in the loose shale so no one would ask questions.

Edrin was dead for nine days.

On the tenth day, he pulled himself out of the ground, grey-skinned and dirt-caked, standing in a forest clearing with no memory of the blade but a perfect memory of Corin's face. Beside him stood something that looked exactly like him: translucent, hollow-eyed, still wearing the wound. His mother took him in without questions. The town healer, Silla Ren, confirmed what she could: his heart beat, but slowly. His blood ran, but cold. Whatever brought him back left the door open, and the echo walked through it.

Edrin left Hollowreach because the echo is growing and he's running out of time to understand what it wants, or what happens when it finishes becoming him. He doesn't care about Corin. He doesn't want revenge. He wants to know what he is now, and whether the thing standing next to him is a ghost, a warning, or a replacement.

Hidden Connections

The Thundertree Rift
The silver vein beneath the Ashwood is not ordinary ore. It conducts Shadowfell energy underground like a wire, fed by a rift torn open near Thundertree by a wild magic surge decades ago. Corin dug into it. The necrotic bleed cracked the barrier between life and death at that exact spot. Whatever brought Edrin back did not come from the Ashwood. It came through it, using the vein as a conduit. The echo walked through a door the rift left open.

Plot Threads

The Echo's Voice
It spoke his name one week before he left. It had never vocalized before. It's getting stronger: acting independently in combat, making different tactical choices, mouthing words to NPCs when Edrin isn't looking. Something on the other side is waking up.
Corin Dace
Still alive in Hollowreach. Believes Edrin is dead and buried. Secretly mining the cursed silver vein beneath the Ashwood. Doesn't know what walked out of those woods.
Maret Voss
His mother. Alive in Hollowreach, worried. She writes letters he can't always bring himself to open. She made him promise to come home. When he said the words, the echo mouthed them too.
Silla Ren
The Hollowreach healer who examined him for weeks. Her conclusion: "not dangerous yet." That word "yet" implies she knows more than she shared. She may have sent him away to protect Hollowreach, herself, or something the echo attracted.
The Ashwood & The Silver Vein
A cursed forest. An unmarked silver deposit beneath it. Whatever brought Edrin back may be connected to the ground itself. The vein may be ordinary silver, or it may be something else entirely.
The Open Wound
Edrin's stab wound is closed. The echo's is still open. If the echo is destroyed and re-summoned, the wound is always there. Something is bleeding on the other side.

Play Guide

Speech Patterns

Short sentences
Rarely more than one clause. Doesn't trail off. Just stops talking.
The echo-check
When nervous, quietly repeats the last few words someone else said. As if checking whether he heard it or the echo did. "We should go north." "...go north."
Volume
Never raises his voice. When he says something longer than a sentence, the party should notice. It means something is very wrong.
Flat affect
Not monotone. There's variation. But the emotional range is narrow. Think someone reporting facts about their own life from a clinical distance.
Dry humor
Infrequent and delivered without inflection. Occasionally funny. Never seems to know it.

Physical Mannerisms

The head-check
Before entering any room, turns his head slightly right. Not to look at the echo, but to sense where it is. If the echo is already inside, he pauses at the threshold for one full breath.
The dirt brush
Compulsively brushes the back of his neck and forearms. Getting grave soil off his skin. He does it without realizing. His skin is always clean. The gesture isn't.
The flat sit
Never leans back. Sits straight, hands on table, palms down. Left ring finger taps once every few seconds. That's his heartbeat. He's counting it.
The blade hand
When someone stands behind him, his sword hand opens and closes once. Involuntary. His body remembering the knife before his mind does.
The double-look
Mid-conversation, glances sharply to his left for a half-second, then returns. If asked: "Nothing." If pressed: "He was mouthing what you said."
Surviving danger:
"Still here. Annoying, isn't it."
Asked about his past:
"I grew up in a mining town. I died there too. The rest is just geography."
Party is arguing:
"Pick one. Pick wrong. Doesn't matter. We go now or we go never."

The Dead Man Under the Fighter

Does not fear death
He has already been there. Nine days in the ground. The fear is not dying again; it is not knowing what came back.
Counts his own heartbeat
Left ring finger taps the table. Slow, steady, checking. If it stops, he wants to know first.
Watches the echo more than the enemy
In combat, his attention splits. Half on the threat, half on the thing wearing his face. The echo knows something he does not, and that is the real danger.
Uncomfortable with mirrors
Avoids reflective surfaces. Not vanity. The echo already shows him what he looks like from the outside. He does not need a second opinion.
Quiet patience with the unknown
He does not panic about what he is. He catalogues it. Notes the changes, files them, moves forward. The mining town taught him that you work the vein in front of you.

Introductions

Standard
"Edrin. I'm from Hollowreach. I work with a sword and I come with... a complication." Gestures vaguely to the space beside him without looking.
If someone sees the echo
"That's me. Or I'm him. We haven't worked it out."
If asked what he is
"Alive. Mostly. Enough."

Situational Reactions

Someone is kind to him
He doesn't know what to do with kindness. Accepts it quietly. Then: "Thank you." It sounds like he's out of practice saying it. He is.
Someone threatens him
Doesn't posture. Doesn't warn. Looks at them with too-pale eyes, and the echo appears beside him. Two identical faces. One breathing. One not. Lets the silence work.
Someone asks about Corin
"He was my friend. Then he wasn't." Won't volunteer that Corin murdered him. If pressed, confirms it flatly and changes the subject. He doesn't find the betrayal interesting anymore.
Party member falls in combat
Swaps with the echo to close distance. Stands over the body. Holds the line. Says nothing heroic. Just there, blade out. He knows what it's like to die alone in the dirt.
Igniting the Flame Tongue
Speaks the command word without looking at the blade: "Wake up."
The echo does something unexpected
Freezes for exactly one second. Files it away. Says nothing. Watches the echo more carefully for the rest of the day.
At the edge of Hollowreach. Where the locals know to stay out after dark.
The Ashwood
Cursed forest · A silver vein beneath cursed soil, a grave in loose shale, and a door that was left open
"Annoying, isn't it."
Dead for nine days. Back for reasons no one can explain.
He carries a blade that burns and a shadow that bleeds.
When the echo speaks, he listens. He doesn't have a choice.
Edrin's gear: Flame Tongue, Cloak of Protection, Sentinel Shield

References

Explorer's Guide to Wildemount
p.183-186: Echo Knight subclass
Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft
p.20-21: Reborn lineage
Player's Handbook (2024)
p.80-87: Fighter class
Curse of Strahd
p.209: Haunted One background