Quick facts
Full name: Kiplivarian Milo Evari Jaspern Oakhart · Race/Class: Halfling cleric · Party: The FAM · Home: Green Hollow · Family: Broul Oakhart (father), Levan Oakhart (mother), Pipkin Oakhart (older brother), Elby Thistletop (uncle) · Status: Alive (as of C2 Session 83)
Kip is a halfling cleric from the turnip farms of Green Hollow and the first character Campaign 2 introduces. He is a founding member of The FAM, its main healer, a firm believer in rules and paperwork, and a merciless food critic.
Overview
Kip came to the Saline Coast to sell turnips and ended up a fugitive, a husband by fraud, a divorcé and a regular visitor to the edge of death. Much of his story is a tug-of-war between the rules he was raised on and what his heart tells him. A vision at a roadside shrine told him to follow compassion as his true guide, not “the flawed laws of men,” and later the goddess Cyrollellee asked him to stand between what is written and what is right. Turnips go wherever he goes. He hands them to beggars, trades them, and once used them in a ritual to read a dead friend’s soul.
History
Arrival at the Saline Coast (Sessions 1–13)
Kip arrived for the Saline Splendor Festival in a turnip wagon with his uncle, Elby Thistletop. Men posing as toll collectors demanded ten gold and half his load. Kip asked for a receipt for his accountant, and they laughed that they “are not ones for paperwork.” Wilbur helped him with the rest of his turnips and traded him some magical light pebbles for them. When three drugged wolves escaped the zoo, Kip grabbed one of Wilbur’s toy lightswords and, to everyone’s surprise, cut a wolf’s jugular with it. He then revived the fallen Ellery with a healing word.
At the Mercenary’s Rest he successfully ordered a special chocolate milk. When Ellery mentioned Kakarot, Kip took her to a nearby Cackler Barrel restaurant and pointed out a picture on the wall of a small figure with spiky black hair and a monkey tail, which tied Kakarot to The Cacklers (Session 5). At the morgue he found that the journalist Isabella Thorne had been stabbed, not killed by a sea creature, which exposed the cover-up. After being “stabbed a lot recently,” he haggled for mithral armor and a shield. It did not help much: he was knocked out by bandits, then by an exploding oven at the haunted bakery, and after three knockouts in a short span he told the group he was exhausted. He gave a beggar a turnip at Ellery’s prompting, offered Nelda a pamphlet on quitting smoking during the poker game with Eldon Reed, and coached Ellery to compliment Nelda’s hair.
In the Saline Coast prison, when the inmates pleaded their innocence, Kip took the keys and started unlocking cells, then handed the keys to a prisoner named Dave. The breakout put the party’s faces in the newspaper. During the guard search Kip hid under a bed, and to get out of the city Ellery posed as an old woman carrying Kip as a large, disfigured baby in a blanket.
The road and the Bloodhowler (Sessions 14–20)
On the road Kip stopped at a small shrine to pray and received a vision warning that “the stars aren’t right” and that he must follow his heart and compassion, not the flawed laws of men. He distrusted the goblin Squeebles from the start and found him annoying. Nelda made him smell like an onion with a spell, and he said he would rather eat his own shoe than Nappa’s sandworm steak. During the defense of the Warhorde Clan camp he turned undead against the Bloodhowler’s zombies, and afterward worried he had been bitten. He and Nelda talked about starting a band.
Alana and the In-Between (Sessions 27–32)
Before the closing ceremonies Wilbur gave Kip a hand-carved wooden ring with a turnip design. The “negative color” daytime fireworks unnerved him. At the festival he had a tense, emotional confrontation with his fiancée, Alana Elmheart, which seemed to end the relationship. The next day she handed him paperwork that would “release Elby Thistletop and his turnip wagon.” Kip signed it sight unseen and ran away screaming. Wilbur also had a tense talk with him about boundaries after the chaos of the festival.
After Wilbur’s murder, Kip used turnips in a ritual and learned that Wilbur was scared but willing to come back. In The In-Between Kip had three shadows that did not move in sync with him, and to win passage from the skeletal gambler he gave up his memories of his fiancée. Once Wilbur was back, Kip kept checking that he was still breathing.
At sea (Sessions 35–43)
On the ship the party took from Stormforge, Kip was surprised to hear that he was engaged to someone named Alana. He refused to learn how the ship had been acquired, saying he would be obligated to turn the others in if he knew. He openly insulted the cook’s stew, and when Rock served a dwarven feast he called it “disgusting” and suggested it had been teleported from the “plane of regret.” He bought a bag of endless confetti, drew on his past as a sheep herder to train Nelda’s snarl fin kitten, joined Nelda in stepping in over Escher’s suspicious firemoss meeting, and lifted the aboleth’s slime from Ellery with remove curse.
In Hamhock Harbor, when Escher went missing, Kip put on a Sherlock Holmes outfit and led the investigation (Wilbur did the fingerprint dusting). He also tended Arghen through his long sleep. When a Velvet Truffle Company official questioned him alone, Kip claimed to be an undercover agent trying to bring Wilbur down for murdering homeless people. In a game of two truths and a lie he shared that his mother loved rules. In Buttermere, trying to be helpful and truthful, he told the VTC that Escher was exceptionally good at disguises.
The marriage contract (Sessions 44–50)
Kip’s mother arrived at the Saline Coast with news that his father had died ten days earlier. She also revealed that the paper he had signed for Alana was a marriage contract. It gave Alana sole control over his “financial, domestic, magical, and romantic decisions” and cut his family out of their farm. At Ruckus Law, where he went by his legal married name, Mr. Elmheart, Rusty Dunlaw explained that the contract carried a divine witness and could only be overridden by strong proof of coercion. The party set out for Green Hollow to help his mother.
Green Hollow and the temple (Sessions 50–54)
Green Hollow was preparing for the Cornucopia festival. Kip met childhood friends and his older brother Pipkin, now a high priest, who blamed Kip for their father’s death, said the contract would be upheld, and offered only prayers. At the Farmer’s Hoe, Kip cast a Zone of Truth to prove publicly that he had been tricked and under duress, but Alana magically removed his mouth mid-speech. The party then worked out that his memories of Alana had been traded away in the In-Between. Shortly after, Kip collapsed with no pulse or breath, and healing magic did nothing. In the chaos of the fight with Sawyer Elmheart’s cultists he was taken, leaving behind a glove holding purple leaves.
Kip had been dosed with Ghostpetal Turnipbloom, which fakes death. While his friends fought through the Temple of Cyrollellee, he had a vision of the goddess Cyrollellee in a peaceful tilled field. She told him of a growing fracture and war among the heavens (The War in the Heavens), returned his memories of Alana, and urged him to be a follower who stands between what is written and what is right. The party found Kip and his father, Broul, alive in a hidden cell. Kip woke to find his staff permanently imbued with a new and mysterious power.
Divorce (Sessions 55–58)
Ellery gave Kip a handwritten guide on processing his experience with death. With Alana now on his side, Kip, Wilbur and Alana sought out the enchantress Veshka Knoteater in a coastal cave. Veshka refused an annulment: her enchantments could only be broken by a new, more restrictive agreement or by her death. She trapped them in a stinking cloud, Ellery arrived in time, and Kip struck the final blow with his staff. Veshka died and the marriage bond dissolved.
North City and Coghaven (Sessions 60–80)
In North City, Kip scried on Cabba using a tunic Ellery gave him and saw him unconscious in a blue-green stasis tank. When the VTC seized the Saline Coast and its reach spread toward Green Hollow, Kip used divine magic to contact his family and directed them to Nappa’s Saiyan compound in the desert. He vouched for Escher before The Cacklers.
At the toll-dragon’s waterfall in The Underdark, Wilbur put a hand on Kip’s chest, recited his full name, told him he believed in him, cast warding bond on him and ran away. Kip was reduced to tears and faced the dragon alone until Ellery finished it off. Near Coghaven he scried on Cabba again and found him weaker. He joked that he had made a necklace out of everyone’s discarded visitor bracelets. In the forge he swan-dived over the edge, was caught at the last moment, found the lever beside the lava and shut the forge down, then swan-dived again once the lava drained. Facing Dr. Wheelo’s assistant, Dr. Kochin, he turned the “dead man’s switch” into a snake he named Reginald (the switch turned out to be a bluff), restored Ellery after the mechanical Cabba nearly killed her, and rode a pneumatic tube up to Packaging, Shipping & Logistics, where he found the VTC shipping schedules. When Ellery kissed Cabba, Kip threw endless confetti.
Catman’s execution (Sessions 81–83)
At the gallows Kip turned the executioner’s lever into a snake. In the battle with Khalor and Daask Bruiser he bound himself, Wilbur, Nelda and Masha together with an emboldening bond, healed Nelda after Daask cut her down, and slipped on an invisibility orb. Afterward his greater restoration woke Nelda from Khalor’s magical sleep, and when he cast it on Wilbur too, Wilbur felt like he’d just had a good cup of coffee.
Personality
Kip is earnest, by-the-book and honest to a fault, which sometimes lands his friends in trouble. He avoids learning the details of their schemes so he won’t have to report them. He is also quick to compassion: the prison break began with Kip believing the prisoners. He is blunt about food, distrustful of goblins, and fiercely protective of Wilbur after Wilbur’s death.
Relationships
- Wilbur Crushmore: Kip’s first friend in the city. Wilbur carved him a turnip ring, and his farewell letter told Kip to bend the rules and recognize his own kindness.
- Ellery: Kip saved her in their first fight and gave her lessons in manners. She later wrote him a guide to coping with death, and he scried twice to find Cabba for her.
- Nelda Valedriss: Bandmate-to-be and fellow worrier over Escher; he trained her kitten for her.
- Escher Reverie: Kip keeps out of his schemes but vouched for him before the Cacklers.
- Alana Elmheart: His ex-fiancée and, for a while, his wife by contract. After her confession she helped him end the marriage.
- His family: His father Broul was thought dead and found alive; his brother Pipkin blamed him for that “death.” The family now shelters at the Saiyan Compound.
Notable quotes
- The toll collectors to Kip, when he asked for a receipt: they “are not ones for paperwork.”
- On Rock’s feast: “disgusting,” probably teleported from the “plane of regret.”
Appears in
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