Barney Amoran
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Barney Amoran is a young High Elf artificer played by Trey, who took the party’s fifth seat in session 20, his only session on screen. He arrived by retcon rather than in a scene: the party woke with two equally real sets of memories, one with Steven and one in which Barney had always travelled with them, and Steven was gone [1]. A self-professed sceptic of magic who fights with a self-built power suit and gadgets, he was soon made the party’s decision-maker and read the failing ley lines on his detector [3][7][27]. Trey left the campaign before session 23 (Chris, 2026-10-10) and the seat passed to Jon, playing Kole; no exit for Barney has been shown in the story, and nothing about his whereabouts is recorded here.
Appearance and personality
Barney Amoran is a young High Elf with shaggy black hair, round glasses, and a boyish face marked with grease. He keeps a welding mask pushed up above his forehead and wears a leather apron over dirty brown overalls tucked into heavy boots, with metal braces covering both forearms, the left a little larger than the right, and a screwdriver usually in hand [1]. He reads as an inventor first and an adventurer second: the party’s shared memory of him includes “watching him work on his armor” [1].
His defining paradox is that he does not believe in magic yet visibly produces it: asked to prove he could cast, he balked (“As someone who doesn’t believe in magic you’re kind of asking me to do a lot here”, [3]), yet he describes how he fights as “magic but it’s flavoured very mechanically”, things he makes “on the spot” rather than spells he casts [8]. He is earnest and easily wounded, and the party, who doubted him at first, soon took him for the level head they lacked [6][7].
Background
Barney is an artificer who left an apprenticeship unfinished; his full name is the one Caelumn gave when introducing the party to Laura Bennett [20]. He set out, he says, to investigate the failing ley lines around Aurelia, from a place “just outside of our campus” whose name is unclear [10][21]. It is probably Lyxenreach, the matching established place; Barney’s player has still to confirm it is the place he meant (the DM’s post-s21 clarifications, 2026-09-27). He believes “mechanical engineering and the arcane can coexist and bounce off one another” [11], and admits he rushed out before finishing his training, “trying to impress people in the eagerness to get to where I wanted to be” [12]. In the party’s memory he was “rescued from the wreckage” a couple of days before the swap [22], an unexplained wreck that echoes the shipwreck rescue that first brought Steven and Mike into the party in s17. The nature of that wreck, and of the memory swap that installed him, are both open questions (see Open Threads). Recapping session 20 at the start of session 21, the DM added one detail: “Barney doesn’t remember these two different timelines”, while the party, who remember both, still have no explanation for it [18].
Build
- Race: High Elf. Has darkvision [4] and needs only four hours to long rest, taking double watches, consistent with elf Trance, the most likely reading of his “I don’t need to rest” line [5][9].
- Class: Artificer, playing as the Armorer subclass on the evidence of his kit: a power suit he can use without the Strength requirement, Thunder Gauntlets, and replicated magic items [10][13][14]. The subclass is inferred from play rather than named in-fiction.
- Feat: Alert (he offered to swap initiative order, [23]).
- Combat style: gear over incantation, using adamantine plate chosen mid-fight, the suit’s Thunder Pulse, Sanctuary on Caelumn, and Ray of Frost cast through his screwdriver-wand [13][14][24][15].
Equipment
See Barney’s loadout for the full list.
- The power suit (Armorer artificer armour): stores and re-emits kinetic energy; the source of his Thunder Pulse gauntlet strike and the fight-ending decapitating punch [25][14][16].
- Adamantine plate: turns critical hits into ordinary hits; usable without the Strength requirement via the Armorer feature [13][26].
- A magical screwdriver: reconfigurable into different tools or a wand he casts through [15].
- A ley-line detector gizmo and a glowing left forearm bracer that dims as the ley lines fail; his most plot-relevant device [27][28].
- Welding mask, leather apron, overalls, heavy boots, and forearm braces with the left larger than the right [1].
Campaign role
Barney’s story on screen is one session long, and it left mostly questions.
Arrival by retcon. He entered the party not in a scene but in its memories, written into the place Steven had held since the shipwreck rescue of session 17. The party doubted him, then trusted him and made him their decision-maker, and he left Aurelian territory with them as a guard on Laura Bennett’s caravan.
The ley lines. His gadgets made him the party’s reader of the failing ley lines, which Caelumn tied to the dying world-dragon behind the Egg quest, and his detector was floated as a way to find dragons without waiting on Sevryn.
An open ending. His player was away for sessions 21 and 22 and left the campaign before session 23. The story has not shown what became of him (see Departure, below).
Session by session
Session 20: The Man Who Was Always Here
Main article: Session 20
Barney arrived by retcon: the party woke with two equally real sets of memories, one in which this High Elf artificer had always travelled with them in Steven’s place, while Barney himself remembered only one [1]. Pressed to prove he could cast, the magic sceptic balked, and when the people who had, in his memory, saved him from a wreck treated him as an imposter, he called it “heartbreaking”, won Caelumn’s apology and was made the party’s decision-maker [3][29][7]. On his watch he spotted an Aurelian binder patrol and roused Caelumn [30]. On the road to Umbrafall his gadget read the failing ley lines he had set out to investigate [27][10]. In the night ambush he blunted a ghoul’s critical hit with adamantine plate and ended the fight by punching a ghoul’s head off [13][16].
Status at the end of session 22
A member of the party, but off-screen since session 20: his player was away for sessions 21 and 22, and his in-fiction whereabouts in Greysmere and at the ridge temple are unstated; when the party met a locked door in the temple, the table noted only that “Barney isn’t here.” [31][32]. When last seen, at the end of session 20, he was alive, travelling with the party towards Umbrafall as a guard on Laura Bennett’s caravan, and newly installed as the party’s decision-maker [7]. His true nature, the wreck he was pulled from, and the memory swap that wrote him into the party all remain unexplained.
Departure (before session 23)
Barney’s player, Trey, left the campaign before session 23 (Chris, 2026-10-10), and a new player, Jon, took the fifth seat with a new character, Kole. Unlike Steven, whom the DM overwrote with a retcon, and unlike Vasquez and Althea, whose capture was narrated at the start of session 17, Barney has been given no exit in the story.
- What the record shows: his last on-screen appearance is session 20. He has no lines in sessions 21, 22 or 23, and in session 23 he is not mentioned at all.
- What it does not show: where he is, or what he is doing. No scene shows him leaving, staying behind or travelling on, and nothing is supplied here.
Status: departed (out of character). He is listed with the former party members on the Party Roster. What becomes of Barney in the fiction is a question for the DM; until it is answered, this page stands as the record of his one session, and the questions he arrived with, the wreck he was pulled from and the memory swap that installed him, stay open.
Player
Played by Trey (Discord handle; from Australia) in session 20. Barney is the replacement for Steven, whose player Ash left the table between sessions 19 and 20; the DM handled the change in-fiction with the dual-memory retcon rather than a fresh in-world introduction. Trey was away for sessions 21 and 22 and left the campaign before session 23 (Chris, 2026-10-10); Jon took the seat.
Notable quotes
“As someone who doesn’t believe in magic You’re kind of asking me to do a lot here” — Barney, [3]
“well it’s kind of it’s magic but it’s flavoured very mechanically so wherever I can it’s more of a more of a thing I make on the spot more than like casting anything” — Barney, [8]
“I’ve been here the whole time.” — Barney, [17]
See also
References
- ^ Session 20, line 94: The dual-memory cold open: a young High Elf at the coals (shaggy black hair, round glasses, grease-marked face, welding mask, leather apron, forearm braces with the left larger, a screwdriver); the party wakes with two memory sets and Steven is gone.
- ^ Session 20, line 101: The retcon rule: one memory-set has Steven in Barney's place, one has Barney in Steven's place.
- ^ Session 20, line 107: "As someone who doesn't believe in magic you're kind of asking me to do a lot here" (the magic-sceptic paradox).
- ^ Session 20, line 264: Barney has darkvision ("I also have dark vision").
- ^ Session 20, line 334: "I don't need to rest".
- ^ Session 20, line 346: Hurt at being doubted after his rescue from a wreckage: "It's heartbreaking".
- ^ Session 20, line 361: Elected the party's decision-maker: "We're giving you the stick, you're the leader now".
- ^ Session 20, line 527: How he fights: "it's magic but it's flavoured very mechanically so wherever I can it's more of a thing I make on the spot".
- ^ Session 20, line 790: Only four hours to long rest, so he pulls double watches (elf Trance).
- ^ Session 20, line 1184: Backstory: an artificer investigating the failing ley lines around Aurelia, out from "just outside of our campus".
- ^ Session 20, line 1190: "mechanical engineering and the arcane can coexist and bounce off one another".
- ^ Session 20, line 1197: Never finished his artificer apprenticeship: "I was in too much of a rush... trying to impress people".
- ^ Session 20, line 1347: Retroactively equips adamantine plate to downgrade a ghoul crit to a normal hit; the Armorer feature lets him use it without the Strength requirement.
- ^ Session 20, line 1485: Power-suit Thunder Pulse (Thunder Gauntlets), 1d8 thunder, imposing disadvantage on the target's other attacks.
- ^ Session 20, line 1620: Casts through his reconfigurable magical screwdriver-wand (Ray of Frost as "solid ice cubes").
- ^ Session 20, line 1666: Ends the ambush: energy builds from his suit into his glove and he punches a ghoul's head clean off ("the end of initiative").
- ^ Session 20, line 1777: Bookends the night: "I've been here the whole time".
- ^ Session 21, line 32: The DM's recap of s20 adds that "Barney doesn't remember these two different timelines".
- ^ Session 21, line 1521-1522: Absent in s21 (his player was away) and never on-screen; the table notes only that "Barney isn't here.".
- ^ Session 20, line 502: Inline citation.
- ^ Session 20, line 1186: Inline citation.
- ^ Session 20, line 178: Inline citation.
- ^ Session 20, line 1312: Inline citation.
- ^ Session 20, line 1497: Inline citation.
- ^ Session 20, line 1478: Inline citation.
- ^ Session 20, line 1359: Inline citation.
- ^ Session 20, line 1140: Inline citation.
- ^ Session 20, line 1251: Inline citation.
- ^ Session 20, line 346-347: Inline citation.
- ^ Session 20, line 218-219: Inline citation.
- ^ Session 21, line 1521: Inline citation.
- ^ Session 21, line 1522: Inline citation.