A good interrogation isn’t a shouting match. It’s a slow walk toward a cliff the subject doesn’t realize they’re approaching. Most people confess long before they speak the words — in pauses, in posture, in which detail they “accidentally” correct.

Edrin Vale built a career on that.

Character Overview

This post includes two playable versions of Edrin: one using 2014 rules and one using 2024 rules. Same character, two rulesets.

The Interrogator for Hire (Expanded Backstory)

Edrin wasn’t raised for heroism. He was raised for accuracy.

His mother kept ledgers for a magistrate’s court — the kind of work that teaches you quickly how “truth” is a commodity. The court didn’t always want justice. It wanted a verdict that kept the city quiet and the wealthy comfortable. As a child, Edrin learned to read the gap between what was said and what was meant.

When his talent for magic surfaced, it didn’t manifest as fire or lightning. It came as patterns.

A ripple in the air right before someone made a “random” choice. A dream that ended with a name he’d never heard… and then heard it the next day. The sense that a conversation had an invisible track it always returned to, no matter how people tried to steer away.

He studied wizardry the way some people study lockpicking: not to show off, but to get into places others can’t.

By his early twenties, Edrin was a specialist retained by courts, merchant houses, and temples when a case needed “clean hands” and a quiet resolution. Torture was crude. Political scandal was expensive. Edrin offered a third option: a room, a chair, and the kind of questions that make a lie feel heavy.

He never called it “mind reading.” That sounded like a parlor trick.

He called it assessment.

He used divinations like a lantern in a dark cellar: not to force truth out, but to reveal where the subject had stacked their boxes and boarded their doors. The magic didn’t do the work — it showed him where to apply pressure with simple things:

• silence
• patience
• a soft correction
• the pause before a name

He developed a reputation: calm, polite, and difficult to fool. People hired him because they believed he was impartial.

That was the first lie they told themselves.

The case that ended it

The job paid too much.

A noble family, old blood and older influence, wanted to root out an “internal leak.” They asked Edrin to identify who was betraying them and extract the full scope of the damage.

He succeeded.

But the leak wasn’t a person. It was the family itself — a web of bribed courts, purchased testimony, and quiet “accidents.” A dozen names erased from records. A string of disappearances disguised as debt, exile, or shame. Edrin’s divinations didn’t reveal a culprit; they revealed a machine.

He brought his findings to the client.

They thanked him, paid him, offered him wine, and spoke kindly about his future.

Then, without raising a voice, they ended his career.

No threats. No violence. Just consequences.

Within a month, contracts vanished. Courts “lost” his statements. Temples refused to vouch for him. Friends stopped answering letters. Even other wizards — the careful ones — avoided him, as if proximity alone might ruin them.

Edrin realized a hard truth: sometimes, the world doesn’t hate liars.

It hates the person who proves the lie is profitable.

Why the guild, why the road

So he adapted.

If cities didn’t want truth, he’d work where reputations mattered less than results. Trade roads. frontier towns. hamlets that paid in coin and gratitude. He took escort work because it let him travel. He took “missing person” contracts because they taught him patterns. He took jobs that seemed small until he noticed they connected to the same faces.

Eventually he joined an adventurers’ guild because it was the only structure left that made sense:

• mobility
• paperwork
• witnesses
• and the quiet protection of being “officially employed”

Edrin tells himself he’s just surviving.

But he still collects truths.

He’s just more careful now about who gets them.

Personality Notes (For Play)

• Calm voice, sharp eyes, never rushed
• Treats lies like puzzles, not insults
• Writes everything down (and wards the notebook)
• Doesn’t enjoy cruelty — just certainty
• In combat: he controls the room and makes enemies fail at the worst moments

“I’m not asking you to confess. I’m asking you to stop pretending you can carry the lie alone.”

Edrin Vale

Stat Block — Level 3 (2014 Rules)

This version leans into the classic Variant Human + Observant investigator wizard. It’s extremely strong in investigation/interrogation and still sturdy in combat via Mage Armor + Shield + control spells.

Build Summary (2014)

Ability Scores (Point Buy Example)

How this lands at INT 18: INT 15 (point buy) +1 (human) +1 (Observant).

Derived Stats (Typical)

Class Features (2014)

• Portent (2 dice): after a long rest, roll 2d20 and record; replace key rolls you can see.
• Arcane Recovery: get a little spell fuel back on short rest.

Cantrips (Pick 3)

• Mind Sliver (interrogation + combat debuff)
• Mage Hand (evidence handling, safe object interaction)
• Minor Illusion (bait, distractions, pressure tactics)

Spellbook (Recommended at Level 3)

Pick your starting 6 + gained spells (you’ll have more than you can prepare).

Prepared Spells (strong default loadout)

Defense / survival

• Mage Armor
• Shield
• Misty Step

Investigation / interrogation

• Detect Magic (ritual)
• Disguise Self
• Detect Thoughts

Control

• Web

If your table is heavy on “questioning captured foes,” swap in Hold Person when you expect humanoids. It pairs brutally with Portent.

Stat Block — Level 3 (2024 Rules)

This version assumes the 2024 baseline where you start with an Origin Feat via Background, and Observant is available as an Origin Feat option. The detective feel is even stronger because Observant can grant proficiency/expertise in an investigative skill and supports quick searching.

Build Summary (2024)

Ability Scores (Example)

Target: INT 18, DEX 14, CON 14.

Derived Stats (Typical)

Subclass Feature Timing (2024)

• At level 3 as a Diviner, you’re online with Portent (the engine of the build).

Prepared Spells (Suggested)

• Mage Armor
• Shield
• Detect Thoughts
• Disguise Self
• Web
• Misty Step

Level Progression (1–20) — 2014 Rules

This is written as a practical roadmap: “what to take and why,” not a giant spell list.

Level Progression (1–20) — 2024 Rules

Same spirit as 2014, but assumes 2024 character creation includes an Origin Feat and that the Wizard’s subclass arrives at level 3.

Quick Play: Interrogation Toolkit

A simple “Edrin script” you can run at the table without bogging things down.

1. Baseline: casual questions, watch reactions.
2. Narrow: ask for sequence (“What happened first?”).
3. Trap: ask for one detail they wouldn’t know unless involved.
4. Detect Thoughts: confirm the pressure point.
5. Portent: force the crucial failure (save/check) at the moment it matters.

Closing Thought

Edrin doesn’t chase justice.

He chases clarity.

And in a world where lies grease every hinge, clarity is a weapon people will gladly kill to keep out of your hands.