Aleister the Invoker is a name told across Astrodia as half folk tale and half warning: a man who summons beings from outside the world — things that cannot be explained and are found nowhere in nature. Most people who have heard of him assume he isn’t real.
The Fallen met him in a back alley of Pentamarone in Session 11, cornered by the adventuring party he had abandoned in a dungeon (named in Session 12 as The Sundered Watch).
Appearance (pooled from the party’s memories in Session 12): green hair, a white robe with red detailing, a monocle, a book, and glowing red symbols on his hands: a diamond with an eye inside it.
His reputation is genuinely split. Úlfr’s natural 20 History check returned both versions: some tell his story as a hero’s, some as a villain’s, and nobody the party could name agrees on which.
“His reputation precedes him. This is a well-known man. I’m not sure if he’s good or bad — I guess it depends on the circumstance.” — Úlfr
What He Can Do
Observed in one short fight:
- Summons beings from outside Astrodia. He called Cocytus — an elemental of ice and running water — out of a sigil in mid-air, onto a rooftop.
- Draws a staff out of his summons. Per the party’s Session 12 description, he pulled a staff that seemed to emerge from the summoned creature’s chest and then cast with it.
- He cannot fully control what he summons. By his own admission: “I’m still getting used to working with magic in this way. I can’t control everything that I summon.”
- Teleportation. He stepped straight out of Úlfr’s grapple onto a second-story roof.
- Flight. He left the fight by casting Fly on himself and going 120 feet up and away in two turns. Nobody could reach him.
He never once attacked the party. He summoned, watched, and left.
What the Adventurers Say He Did
The group cornering him — a captain with a pistol, a mage, a swashbuckler, and a druid — had hired him to help explore a set of ruins. Their account:
- At the end of the dungeon he took the loot they were after.
- They were ambushed by whatever haunted the temple. He summoned something to fight it off, and then left.
- The summon killed the haunts, then turned on them. It killed two of their friends and only lost interest before killing the rest.
His response was an apology, sincere and useless, followed by an attempt to walk away. The ruins have not been identified, and neither has the loot he took. (Revealed in Session 12: the loot was a sword, and he threw it away. See below.)
The Sundered Watch’s Full Account (Session 12)
After the fight, the adventurers introduced themselves as The Sundered Watch (name as heard — unconfirmed), resistance fighters against the Endymion Empire, and told the whole story:
- They met Aleister in a town far to the north. He offered to help them explore a set of ruins rumored to hold a magical artifact.
- Underground they were overrun by undead. Aleister summoned one of his creatures to fight them off.
- While the fighting went on, he walked straight to the artifact and took it. It was a sword. He decided it “wasn’t going to be able to help him,” tossed it aside, and fled.
- His summon killed the undead and then turned on them. Two of their friends died. They have been hunting him for weeks, and plan to get back on his trail.
A sword isn’t on the Sinful Spoils list (lance, book, chalice, gown). The party’s read: Aleister may be hunting the Spoils too, and rejected this sword because it wasn’t one of them.
He Knows What Howl Is
This is the part that matters.
Howl, Leif’s owl, sensed him from across the city, screamed, and flew to the alley on her own. Leif’s animal handling read her reaction not as fear but as rage — she is furious at this man.
Then Aleister looked at her properly, and Howl shrank: feathers hunched, eyes down, making herself as small as she could.
“Oh. I do know what this is, then.”
“What is it?”
”…What’s your name?”
He refused to answer. Told that Leif found her injured in the Purodetapo Forest, he said:
“How interesting. The Purodetapo Forest, you say. I’ll have to make a visit there.”
That is Leif’s home, and where his family lives. Leif tried to stop him with Eldritch Blast and discovered his arcane focus was in Madame Verre’s study. The fight that followed cost the party Drolta’s first death saves and killed nobody who mattered to Aleister, who escaped clean.
“I just seem to make a mess of everything I do. I guess I’m still not ready.”
Not ready for what is unstated.
Session 12 — He Has Fought Sorath (September 23, 2026)
Why he knew Howl. Howl called him a “Bad man” and told Leif the rest privately. What Leif shared with the party: Howl is a servant of Sorath, Leif’s patron, and Aleister has fought Sorath before. That is why she met him with rage and then submission, and why he recognized her at once. Sorath is probably living in the Purodetapo Forest, the same forest Leif told Aleister about. Leif: “I don’t know if he’s also my enemy, but now he’s really my enemy.”
Madame Verre had heard of him. When the party described him at the WitchCrafters guild hall, Madame Verre said she “didn’t think he was real” and was unimpressed at first (“a lot of wizards can fly”). With each detail (the hair, robe, monocle, book, the staff drawn from the summon, the sigil, the eye-in-diamond marks) she sat up a little straighter.
“Yes. I very much do need to check out this monster. Is it still there? You left the corpse untouched?”
Nobody had searched Cocytus’s body. She teleported away to examine it, reappearing only to toss Leif his staff.
Is he the Seeker? Back at the inn the party floated the theory that Aleister is The Seeker of the Sinful Spoils: he’s looking for a Spoil, he carries a book, the Seeker supposedly already holds one Spoil, and his hood resembles the wanted poster. Against it: the poster shows a woman in black and red, and Aleister has green hair. Unresolved.
Open Questions
- What is Howl? He recognized it instantly and would not say. Howl’s reaction to him — rage, then total submission — suggests recognition running both ways. (Partly answered in Session 12: she serves Sorath, whom he has fought.)
- Is he going to the Purodetapo Forest? He said so out loud, to the one person in the world who would object. As of Session 12, that is probably where Sorath lives.
- Where do the things he summons come from? Nothing in Astrodia explains Cocytus — which is the same problem The Fourth Magic poses, from a different direction. (Session 12 context: the fourth magic is now understood as otherworldly magic that leaked through the Great Cataclysm’s rift.)
- Whose side is he on? Both, per the stories.
- What is he looking for? He rejected a sword as unable “to help him.” Is he hunting the Sinful Spoils, and is he the Seeker?
- What did Verre find on Cocytus’s corpse, and why did the eye-in-diamond marks rouse her?
Related
- Cocytus — what he summoned in Pentamarone
- Howl — the owl he recognized · Leif Kalanchoe — her warlock
- Sorath (The Whispering One) — Leif’s patron, which has previously reached through Howl; Aleister has fought it
- The Sundered Watch — the resistance fighters hunting him
- Madame Verre — had heard of him; went to examine his summon
- The Seeker of the Sinful Spoils — the party’s theory about him
- Pentamarone — where the confrontation happened
- Astrodia · The Fourth Magic
First Appeared
Session 11 (September 9, 2026), in a back alley of Pentamarone, cornered by an adventuring party he had left for dead. Their account, his tie to Sorath, and Verre’s interest followed in Session 12 (September 23, 2026).