Carver

At a glance

Carver Silvervine is an intensely curious tabaxi artificer who answers the Mists with research, amber magic, unlikely experiments, and a spectral cannon named Chip.

Build overview

• Rules framework: 2024 revised rules
• Species: Tabaxi
• Class: Artificer — Artillerist; level 5 reached, advancement choices pending
• Background: Sage
• Starting ability scores: Strength 10, Dexterity 14, Constitution 14, Intelligence 17, Wisdom 12, Charisma 8
• Current permanent increase: Intelligence 18 after Fey Touched at level 4
• Languages: Common, Sylvan
• Origin feat: Magic Initiate (Wizard), granted by the Sage background
  • Spellcasting ability: Intelligence
  • Cantrips: mage hand, true strike
  • Level 1 spell: chromatic orb

Advancement

• Level 3 subclass: Artillerist
• Subclass expression: Carver summons Chip, a catlike Eldritch Cannon drawn from the Shroud and formed through a ritual involving gathered remains and the spirit of a lost friend.
• Level 4 feat: Fey Touched
  • Ability increase: +1 Intelligence, raising it from 17 to 18
  • Granted spells: misty step and hunter’s mark, using Intelligence
• Castle Avernus: Pledged himself to Irik Zal’honan’s path of discovery and truth.

Appearance and personality

• A tabaxi with markings resembling a Persian cat.
• Dresses in well-tailored clothes and wears goggles, a book satchel, and an artificer’s tool belt.
• Intensely curious about mechanisms, magic, living systems, and even the ordinary processes other people overlook.
• Approaches danger as a problem to understand, although his experiments sometimes create responsibilities of their own.

Portrait

• Primary reference: Carver Portrait
• Canonical status: Visual baseline for Carver’s face, fur, eyes, hat, goggles, and artificer’s silhouette. Chip’s presence reflects Carver’s appearance from Session 8 onward.

Signature abilities and equipment

• Channels artificer magic through tools, a magically augmented crossbow, elemental effects, and restorative magic.
• Summons Chip, whose feline form incorporates the spirit of a lost friend and remains one of Carver’s most personal unanswered experiments.
• Maintains two active infusions: Rage’s +1 greataxe and Ignatius’s +1 handwraps.
• Keeps the Grave-Elemental Crystal and accepted responsibility as Pearl’s keeper.
• Wears a Ring of Protection and carries the Veteran’s Cane given to him by Vidic.
• Serves as the company’s practical quartermaster, carrying the Bag of Holding, managing the scroll case, and working toward a healing wand. The complete inventory is maintained in The Company’s Reliquary.

Important bonds and loyalties

• Ignatius and Rage — fellow travelers whose weapons and defenses often bear Carver’s handiwork.
• Chip — spectral companion and the unresolved answer to a deeply personal creation ritual.
• Pearl — grave elemental placed in Carver’s keeping after Azalin’s experiment was completed.
• Captain Snowmane — captain of the River Dancer and Carver’s first instructor at its living helm.
• The Keepers of the Feather — the raven order Carver joined in Darkon and whose greeting he answered at the Blue Water Inn.
• Irik Zal’honan — the ideal of truth and discovery Carver chose to follow in Castle Avernus.

Defining moments

Roots in Darkon — Sessions 1–7

Carver’s investigation of Rivalis’s Crystal Gardens revealed an alien magical network, a gray-root corruption, and a heartlike remnant he still carries for the company. At Richten House, his reading of Van Richten’s work helped the party survive its dead and deepened his fascination with the ways memory, grief, and magic persist after death.

The Keepers and the falling Shroud — Sessions 8–13

Carver became an Artillerist by calling Chip from the Shroud, joined the Keepers of the Feather, and repeatedly used research and invention to keep the company alive. When the Shroud swallowed Rivalis, he preserved the party’s critical equipment and continued toward Castle Avernus rather than surrendering the search for answers.

Castle Avernus — Sessions 14–19

Within Azalin’s castle, Carver chose Irik’s path of truth, helped complete the five-plinth experiment, named the resulting grave elemental Pearl, and accepted the burden of its crystal. Chip later delivered the decisive fire against the bone golem, while Carver’s care for Pearl made another of the castle’s dangerous creations into a companion rather than a weapon left behind.

The River Dancer and Barovia — Sessions 20–27

Carver used a raise dead scroll to restore Fling, began learning the River Dancer’s helm from Snowmane, and overdrove its engine to escape the dead in the Mists. In Barovia he displayed the party’s Mist talisman to avoid bloodshed with wary hunters, then answered Urwin’s Keeper greeting and secured the company’s first trusted contact in Vallaki. At Lady Watcher’s House, he and Chip broke Fiona’s hold on Rage, uncovered secret rooms and infernal evidence, endured the fear surrounding Fiona’s preserved husband, and opened the assault on the hidden ritual with a Boom Stick.

Current status

Carver carries Klorr’s watch and the sending stone paired with Siv’s. After a night reading Rictavio’s journal without a significant discovery, his opening of the trapped carnival wagon left him badly burned and knocked prone by its armored occupant; no permanent injury was established. He retains Fiona’s writings for study and has selected the Arcane Study and Workshop at Richten House. See Session 30.

Goals and unresolved questions

• Understand the Crystal Gardens’ magical network, the alien heart, and what became of the Gardens when the Shroud consumed Rivalis.
• Discover what spirit answered the ritual that created Chip and why Carver felt something unfamiliar when it did.
• Learn how the Book of Names and Castle Avernus steal or preserve memory—and whether the company can ever return to Darkon safely.
• Complete the healing wand whose reagents he acquired in Martira Bay; its present construction status should be confirmed next session.

Selected scenes

• Darkon Party Portrait — Carver stands with Rage and Ignatius in the company’s original group portrait.

• Carver’s Last Radiant Bolt — Carver ends the Richten House cellar horror after both companions fall.

• Chip, It Answered — Chip takes form from the Shroud and the remnants gathered for Carver’s ritual.

• Hundreds of Talons — Carver swears the Keepers’ oath beside the spectral feline he created.

• The Shroud Takes Rivalis — Carver and Chip behold Rivalis being swallowed by the Shroud.

• Three Futures for Darkon — Carver chooses Irik’s path of truth within Castle Avernus.

• Birth of Pearl — Carver accepts the crystal created by Azalin’s five-plinth experiment.

• Chip Brings Down the Bone Golem — Carver and Chip deliver the decisive attack in the Bone Chambers.

• Carver Restores Fling — Carver reads the scroll that returns Fling to Lafing.

• Voss Remembers Mordenkainen — Carver witnesses Darkon’s stolen memories return on Barovia’s shore.

• Urwin Recognizes the Keepers — Carver answers the greeting that opens the company’s first safe door in Vallaki.

• Fire in the Belly of the House — After the house swallows Carver, Chip, and Pearl, the company attacks its interior. Chip’s flames set the building burning as the exit begins to give way.

Explore Carver’s complete visual chronicle →