Oberyn (Dropped)

With concentration, Oberyn can decipher a spell being cast piece by piece before it's actually completed. If this spell is similar enough to one he already knows (for example, a fireball compared to Fire's fire burst, but not a sustained wall of flames or heating effect), he can predict roughly what's going to happen when it's completed and react accordingly. If not otherwise distracted, he can also record details on that spell to study later; while these on their own aren't enough to replicate the effect, with sufficient training in the relevant tradition and school of magic he could potentially reverse engineer these spells.

While he greatly prefers to use his spellcasting abilities in a fight, Oberyn is able to use rods (and other light bludgeons), staves, and daggers (and similar short blades) reasonably effectively in close combat if the need arises. His technique is a bit sloppy, but it's enough to do the job as a last resort.

As a student of Mysidia's magic schools, Oberyn has achieved an intermediate level of skill casting Black Magic - a school of magic focusing on offense and neutralization. He has mastered Fire (bursts of fire), Blizzard (sprays of cold and ice), Thunder (lightning bolts), and Aero (gusts of biting wind). Further, he has learned Fira, Blizzara, and Thundara (more powerful versions of Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder), and Sleep (induces drowsiness or sleep), but cannot reliably cast them without support from the appropriate Grimoire.

As a student of Mysidia's magic schools, Oberyn has achieved an intermediate level of skill casting White Magic - a school of magic focusing on healing and protection. He has mastered Cure (soothes and heals minor injuries), Shell (buffers against magical harm), Protect (buffers against physical harm), and Float (target floats a few inches above ground.) He has also learned Cura (more powerful version of Cure), Blink (creates air distortions and illusory images to aid evasion), and Mini (shrinks target), but requires the support of the appropriate Grimoire to reliably use these.

Oberyn has difficulty learning and casting spells through rote memorization alone; instead, he needs to concentrate on performing each gesture, speaking each syllable, and visualizing each moment of the spell's flow flawlessly, or risk botching the cast. While he has managed to master the simplest and most commonly used parts of his repertoire, the more complex can be overwhelming without assistance. To compensate, he has devised his Grimoires - specialized spellbooks which detail the steps he will require to successfully cast each spell. Each corresponds to one of his known schools of magic - presently, one for Black Magic, and one for White Magic. While using one of these tomes, he can cast the magic outlined within more effectively and can access his more powerful spells, but risks stumbling over other schools, requiring he take more time and concentrate even harder to complete them successfully.

Driven by a thirst for knowledge, Oberyn keeps records of nearly everything he encounters. Flora and fauna, phenomena and ephemera, he's always taking notes on something. While not exhaustive, he keeps journals cataloguing his notes on plants, animals, dangers, and items of interest. Filling these journals tends to be a trial and error process, but once he's managed to avoid meeting a terrible fate somewhere, he can refer back to the journal for that area to survive for extended periods. However, these are bulky tomes, too unwieldy to carry casually; he will only have one on hand if he knows a few days in advance that he'll need it. Oberyn also always carries a dungeoneering field guide. The field guide catalogues Oberyn's observations on monsters (behaviors and known weaknesses, strategy notes) and dungeon features (traps, puzzles, and design tropes.) While referring to it can be a hazardous distraction in itself, the notes within are often invaluable.

One of Oberyn's favorite utility spells, Mini can be used to instantaneously alter a subject's size. If cast on a target whose size has been altered by magical means, it will restore them to normal. Otherwise, it attempts to reduce their size: For targets between four and ten feet tall/long, this means shrinking to half of their height/length. A target below four feet tall is unaffected. Targets larger than ten feet can experience a variety of effects, from "reduced by 10%" to "drop to five feet tall"; more likely, however, is that they will simply not be affected. Willing subjects will not resist the effect, and will see it last until the next time they sleep (or perform equivalent resting action.) Unwilling targets are able to resist and will typically see the effect wear off in a few minutes. These size alterations do not obey the square-cube law, simply making things stronger when they get big and weaker when they get small.

Having to micro-manage his spellcasting has made normal spellcasting troublesome for Oberyn, but it has also given him a rare opportunity to open up the inner workings of magic and tinker with what's inside. Through a lengthy process of trial and error, he has managed to develop a previously-unknown spell (Aero), learned to enchant his spellbooks with some convenient effects, and devised tricks to modify a few common cast-on-demand items to alter their effects (causing a fire rod to emit a steady stream of close-range flames rather than a single blast of targeted fire, and a thunder rod to discharge on impact with the ground or a target rather than immediately on use.) Other such effects are possible with time and a broader knowledge base, but at the moment he has reached his limits (though that won't stop him trying, with often-disastrous results.)

Oberyn is not the most socially graceful individual, preferring books over people. He tends to be withdrawn around people he doesn't know well, often doesn't realize when he says something that may offend someone, and sometimes forgets basic social niceties. While he doesn't mean to be a jerk, he can be a bit offputting, especially when it's most important that he makes a good impression.

As a mage who has trouble casting spells, Oberyn has always felt a need to prove his worth, to himself and others. This has evolved from merely wanting to be useful, to feeling like he needs to be utterly indispensible. He'll offer some obscure fact to seem like a limitless font of knowledge. He'll use needlessly complex plans and strategies to show off how clever he is. He'll sling powerful spells to show off what a mighty spellcaster he is. Even if - especially if! - the situation makes it a better choice for him to quietly support others, he is compelled to show off.

When Oberyn sets his mind to a task, be it solving a puzzle, taking notes, or finding his way through an unfamiliar town, he has an unfortunate habit of concentrating on that to the exclusion of everything else - even when he really should be paying more attention to the other things. When distracted in this manner, he can easily wander into a dangerous situation, miss vital details, or just plain forget why he was thinking about whatever he was thinking about.

Oberyn is easily tempted by the prospect of learning something new or interesting. Whether it's a sinister tome bound in flesh, eldritch runes from before the dawn of humanity, or a diary with three bloodstained locks, if reading it is a terrible idea he's going to want to take a peek. No knowledge is too dangerous or forbidden - the curiosity will eat him up inside and eventually he's going to have to take a peek.

With thick stacks of notes on the things he's seen in his travels, Oberyn can be considered a useful source of information about the places he's been. However, he has a habit of overestimating just how thorough his research has been and trusting assumptions made on incomplete data. When faced with things similar to something he's encountered before, he is prone to jumping to conclusions, leaving him perilously vulnerable to gimmicks, twists, and rare situations which past experience never hinted at.

The Mysidian school of magic holds spellcasting to be a relatively simple process: memorize the gestures and chant for a spell, repeat them, and if you have the knack, now you're a mage. Oberyn would beg to differ; for him, magic is an altogether more complicated beast. When Oberyn tries to cast a spell, he finds himself needing to consciously micromanage every step, or risk botching the spell - or worse, warping it into something unintended. To help maintain the necessary focus, he externalizes much of his process into custom-scribed spellbooks; relying on these books marks him as a clumsy novice in the eyes of Mysidia's mages, but it allows him exceptional insight into the composition of each spell.