Leviticus Bombastus Smoothe, aka "The Professor"

The narratives contained herein are written by a man named Leviticus Bombastus Smoothe, the known Wandering Sage and Merchant. He has traveled extensively across the world. He considers himself expertly versed in every major settlement from Remia to the Far Eastern Lands. He speaks all known languages, including languages long lost to Time.

As a Senator, it is his voice that brings a great deal of deliberation to the ongoing discussions in the Senate.

He travels in the dress of a fanciful Bard, with red leather and a red cloak, and a red cap with a white feather in it, but his skill at disguise lets him take any manner of personas.

Smoothe presents himself as a dignified, yet slick, business professional. He has no qualms about who he deals with and how he deals with them. He loves connecting people for goods, information, you name it, it’s done. Smoothe is a perfectionist, never wasting a motion, never stumbling over words. Everything is coldly and calmly calculated, despite a constant smile on his face.

His true motivations are always well hidden, but it’s said that anyone who deals with him walks away better than before. In truth, Smoothe is as every bit the diabolical demon he names himself after. Simple, yet complex. Good, yet Self-Serving. A walking contradiction. A man with a heart of gold, who’s price is his weight in said gold.

It's hard exactly to say what exactly the Professor is. He calls himself a "Finder" - He's part skip tracer, part detective, part entrepreneur, part adventure broker, part information collector, part criminal, and all mysterious.

There's nothing he can't get. There's nothing he can't obtain. There's nothing he can't bring to you on a silver platter. But if there is something he can't get, he damn well knows someone who can.

LB's network of salesman and vendors and adventurers and mercenaries and everyone and anyone you can think of are instructed to supply him with any tidbits of 'interesting' information they might come across. They are rewarded if their information is confirmed by other sources or proof, so they all work hard at it.

If someone wants something, they must usually be prepared to trade something for it. An unnamed favor kept in reserve until Smoothe finds it most convenient to pick up on the favor.

Simply appearing in the City of Remia, no one is truly sure of his beginnings in the city. Simply starting with talking with people in the Forum, he quickly laid the foundation for what would be his vast information network and the longstanding relationship with the city-state of Remia.

It's known that Smoothe was once human, who wore an eyepatch and seemed a lot more sinister. These days, however, Smoothe sports the eyes and ears of a half-elf. How this happened is subject to much debate, as is how Smoothe manages to operate so many different businesses, teach classes at the Academy, socialize with so many people and still serve on the Remian Senate.

L. B. Smoothe has also been a professor at the Academy for several decades, and in the last decade become Headmaster of the great school. Each semester he teaches about four or five courses, mostly advanced history and archeology classes. His lectures are extremely popular, and the students almost seem to adore him. He brings in artifacts from home, and sometimes borrows some of the antiquities he's acquired for his magic shop to show off in class. Professor Smoothe's lectures are filled with exciting stories about his adventures in foreign lands seeking historical archaeological treasures.

He's so popular there's always a crowd in front of his offices, waiting to get in and talk about papers and projects of all kinds. If he's walking across the academy campus, he usually has at least one admirer with him scurrying along at his side, asking all sorts of questions about archeology and history and the expeditions he's conducted. And L. B.'s often having students over to his villa for dinner or evening study groups - his young lady admirers seem to most desperate for this, and somehow with his extraordinarily busy schedule, Smoothe manages to make time to spend with every single one of them.

LB's home is not far from the Academy's campus. It's a three-story villa crammed full with bits and pieces of the past he's collected from his expeditions. The entire house is packed with small antiquities and ancient trinkets - tiny pixie figurines, bits of ancient elven funerary statues, old dwarven coins, wolfen arrowheads, maps, globes, and pottery shards. Probably more tidbits of the past than in some museums. They're every place you look; all over the bookshelves, across the mantle, on his desk, even by some of the dirty dishes near the sink.

Unfortunately, Professor Smoothe has a problem that seems to follow him around. Most schools have a schedule of classes, with short breaks in the middle of the term and longer breaks in between semesters and during the summer. But for LB, the call from an achaeological dig can come up at any time. One never knows when he'll turn up a hot lead on an ancient treasure. And sometimes, if he waits, the treasure will be lost to looters or competitors.

So Smoothe often takes short, unannounced sabbaticals from his classes at Academy. One week he's chasing after some ancient artifacts, another week he's seeking out some forbidden cultist temple. Sometimes he convinces a colleague to teach his classes for him. Other times he just cancels classes altogether or assigns students "independent research" projects in the library. It just seems Smoothe spends more time in the field than in the classroom.

Smoothe's findings bring much-needed funding into the college.. So, even though many of Professor Smoothe's students and "admirers" may have to wait until the Apocalypse to see him in his office, his activities are tolerated.

LB has many admirers in the City, for he is a charismatic and popular professor and senator. Although the academy administration has been warning him about taking too many unannounced absences to pursue his fieldwork, his colleagues on the teaching staff think highly of his profession... for the most part.

LB's latest entrepreneurial undertakings have taken him further than the Sage might have thought possible with his work at the Academy. The Tradewinds Casino has brought undreamed-of revenue to his already immense fortune, and especially the Academy and himself, to which he has used the profits to fund the creation of his latest undertaking - a donation that he runs and operates out of his own pocket – including one of the great Wonders of the World.

Appearance: Smoothe is an overtly handsome half-elf man with slicked features. He is most often seen wearing an immaculate blue courtier’s outfit which is far more flexible than it appears. Every movement is not wasted, though hidden by a matching blue cloak. He typically wears a matching hat of disguise that can make this blue outfit red and give him a very "Red Mage" type of look.

Smoothe stands about 6’1”, and appears to be a young man of between 20 and 30 years of age. He's been molded and sculpted to perfection at the hands of an Elder Goddess, with long platinum blonde locks and glacier-blue eyes.