John Fian — The North Berwick Occult Scholar

John Fian can read a ward at a glance, disarm a curse and tell a forged magical signature from the hand that first drew it. That has made him indispensable to some Scottish households—and a convenient scapegoat for others.

The schoolmaster is a true practitioner of learned magic. His spells are not proof of the crimes blamed upon him. When cattle perish behind locked gates and three charms bearing his notation appear in a ruined stable, the local magistrate demands his arrest. Fian recognises the marks: they were copied from a primer he lent to a young clerk, and one has been reversed in a way that turns a protective ward into a snare.

He is frightened, proud and withholding a dangerous fact. He previously experimented with exactly that reversal and almost killed an apprentice. If the truth comes out, he risks punishment for his recklessness; if he keeps quiet, an innocent family may be taken in his place. He can be ally, defendant, researcher or formidable opponent depending on what the adventurers uncover.

At a Glance

• Name: John Fian, called Dr Fian or Cunningham in some records
• Species: Human
• Residence: Schoolmaster’s lodging in East Lothian, with contacts around North Berwick and Haddington
• Occupation: Schoolmaster, diviner, investigator of wards and occult researcher
• Alignment: Neutral (scholarly ambition sometimes overcomes good judgement)
• Campaign status: Alive, hunted, keeping evidence that could incriminate himself
• Role: Wizard and ritual specialist; not a Witch unless retrained under the Witch class
• Campaign use: Occult expert, accused magician, morally difficult ally or investigative antagonist

What Is John Fian Doing Right Now?

Six cattle have died in locked byres along the road from Haddington toward North Berwick. An iron horseshoe above each door carries the same blackened spiral, and the final line of the inscription bends the wrong way. The magistrate’s men claim Fian wrote it; two frightened householders have already signed statements identifying him.

Fian knows the error because he invented it as a demonstration for his pupils. The reversed sign was meant to show how a protective circle can become a trap. Years ago he used the design recklessly and injured an assistant. Someone has obtained a copy of the lesson and is now reproducing the dangerous version to make him appear responsible.

The schoolmaster is sheltering in an abandoned granary with the original primer and his own heavily annotated teaching copy. He wants to save the remaining cattle and the people who may be arrested in his place. He is equally desperate to keep his earlier experiment out of public view. A rider has been sent to demand he surrender his books by the next market bell. If the adventurers intervene, they can compare the inscriptions, locate the missing copy and expose the person selling corrupted wards as protection.

Meeting John Fian

A narrow man with ink on his cuffs opens the granary door with a quarterstaff in his hand and a spell of concealment half spoken. Sheets of copied symbols hang from the rafters. He keeps one lantern lit behind himself so that strangers must stand where he can see their hands.

Opening words: “You think the crooked line proves I made it. I am telling you that it proves someone read my lesson and failed to understand it.”

What he wants: His original lesson recovered, the harmful marks removed and his students kept out of the magistrate’s interrogation room. What he hides: He once tried the reversed ward himself and caused an accident. What persuades him: A practical offer to save an endangered household without first demanding a confession.

Encounters

The village accusation. Fian arrives in disguise while a local official demands the party arrest him. An anxious crowd is on the verge of treating testimony as a verdict. The adventurers can protect the accused, compare two marks or demand lawful custody of the evidence.

A lesson copied badly. A terrified pupil carries a page whose closing stroke differs from the marks on the dead animals. This is the first clue that the marks were imitated from a drawing rather than laid down by the original caster.

The dangerous byre. A still-active ward clings to the threshold. An animal is trapped inside and a stable hand wants to rush in. Fian knows how to suspend it but hesitates to reveal his prior experiment.

Before the hearing. Someone offers money for the original primer and promises to clear Fian’s name if he turns over the only uncontaminated copy. The offer cannot be trusted; the person who made it knows more about the forgery than an ordinary creditor should.

Appearance and Manner

Fian has a schoolmaster’s ink-black fingers, spare clothing and tired eyes. He wears a patched travelling cloak over a good but unfashionable doublet. His valuables are a lens, a bundle of chalk and a waterproof roll of lessons, not ceremonial regalia.

He dislikes raised voices and listens closely to the way people describe a symbol. When frightened he becomes more precise, not less. He can recite a lesson while his hands shake; when truly angry, he corrects a witness’s terminology even when silence would serve him better.

Personality and Behaviour

Fian is principled about evidence, contemptuous of superstition and capable of profound self-deception about the danger of his own investigations. He can explain how a spell works in exquisite detail and fail to notice that his pupil is afraid of him. His Neutral alignment reflects a scholar torn between a genuine desire to repair harm and fear of losing his reputation.

He does not delight in suffering and avoids lethal magic against frightened villagers. Faced with armed captors, he uses Mirror Image, illusions and Counterspell to buy time to escape. Once a guard threatens an innocent person, his restraint may fail. He refuses to lie about a false mark, but will omit his earlier accident unless confronted with proof.

Relationships and Political Pressure

Margaret Aitken: A true Witch whose accusations threaten Fian even as she recognises that his script has been copied. Her own investigations in Balwearie involve a similar corrupted ward; neither can safely reveal everything they know.

Matthew Hopkins: A fictional campaign investigator whose ruthless procedures place him at odds with Fian’s demand for evidence. Hopkins is not a contemporary of the historical man.

His pupils: They respect his knowledge but remember that his demonstrations sometimes exceed his judgement. One has kept a torn leaf showing the correct closing stroke; the full pupil’s copy was taken and the witness is frightened of being made to testify.

The local magistrate: Publicly eager to restore order; privately worried that any admission of forged evidence will damage confidence in the district’s courts.

Ward sellers and patrons: Wealthy householders pay for protective inscriptions, creating an opportunity for dishonest scribes to plant defects and then profit from the resulting panic.

Adventure Hooks

• The Copied Mark: Compare the original lesson with six damaged inscriptions. Their shared mistake reveals the source of the forgery.
• The Paid Confession: The magistrate offers the party a reward for Fian’s confession, not proof. The party must decide whether exposing a false charge is worth losing official favour.
• Aitken’s Finger: Margaret Aitken names Fian as part of an alleged network. Her genuine magical knowledge could help clear the ward, but her testimony is unreliable.
• The Real Curse: Clearing Fian’s name does not deactivate the byre ward. Animals and people remain in danger until it is dismantled.
• The Missing Primer: The full pupil’s copy has been taken, though a torn leaf remains. The party can intercept the stolen copy’s sale before the false wards are reproduced in another district.
• The First Experiment: Evidence of Fian’s earlier failed demonstration surfaces. He must make restitution even if he was framed for the present deaths.
• Protective Work: The party discovers the ward seller has been paid to frighten householders into purchasing more charms; proving the scheme requires financial records as well as magical analysis.

Equipment and Resources

• Quarterstaff, dagger, durable teaching cloak and well-used spellbook
• Chalk, string, wax tablets, lenses and notebooks of protective inscriptions
• A complete early primer that explains the safe closing stroke and a later annotated copy that does not
• A letter from a frightened pupil, deliberately unsigned
• A few small scrolls and inked seals; additional magical gear must be awarded separately by the Games Master

Running the Investigation

Objective: Prevent the next ward from killing an animal or trapping a person, find who copied the corrupted sign, and present enough evidence to stop the arrest. Deadline: The magistrate receives the writ at the next market bell, when Fian and two accused householders will be transported away. Failure to act changes the situation; it does not end the adventure.

The Dangerous Byre — Playable Ward

Visible clue. Scorched, reversed runes blacken the lintel; the grass immediately outside has withered in an unnatural semicircle.

Trigger. A creature crosses the marked threshold while the corrupted ward is active.

Detection. DC 14 Intelligence (Investigation) to spot the reversed stroke, or DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) to recognise the working ward. A player who compares the marks to the intact primer identifies the reversed stroke without rolling.

Effect. The entrant makes a DC 14 Constitution saving throw, taking 14 (4d6) Necrotic damage on failure or half on success. The ward affects only the first creature to cross each round and remains active for up to three triggers before its bound charge is spent.

Disarm. DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) to restore the missing closing stroke with fresh chalk and wax, or a successful Dispel Magic attempt against the ward treated as a 3rd-level spell. A failure by 5 or more activates one remaining charge against the disarmer.

Counterplay. Cover the threshold and use a different entrance, pull a trapped creature out without crossing the line, destroy the enchanted lintel from outside, or persuade Fian to explain the safe closing stroke. The ward is neither intelligent nor capable of pursuing a target away from the entrance.

The Three Clues

The pupil’s surviving leaf. DC 13 Wisdom (Insight) convinces the pupil the party will not surrender the notes to an accuser; alternatively provide safe escort. This surviving leaf shows the correct mark.

The original stable. DC 14 Intelligence (Investigation) reveals a narrow tool notch identical across separate byres. The same hand or template physically transferred the marks.

The payments. DC 15 Intelligence (Investigation) applied to a merchant’s accounts finds a repeated charge for replacement charms issued after each livestock death. This proves profiteering when combined with the matching tool notch, but does not alone identify which person activated the ward.

Edition Conversion

Pathfinder 1e: Perception DC 18 discovers the threshold script, Spellcraft DC 20 recognises its magical design, Disable Device DC 20 (requires Trapfinding or an equivalent ability to disable a magical trap) or Dispel Magic at CL 5 can neutralise it; Fortitude DC 16 halves 4d6 negative-energy damage. D&D 3.5e: Search DC 18 discovers the alteration, Spellcraft DC 20 recognises the working effect, Disable Device DC 20 bypasses the magical trigger for a character able to disable magical traps (such as one with Trapfinding), Fortitude DC 16 halves 4d6 negative-energy damage. In either edition treat it as a custom magical trap with 3rd-level equivalent power and a maximum of three activations.

Consequences

If the adventurers recover the evidence and disable the ward, the prisoners can be released and the magistrate compelled to investigate the protection racket. If the party clears Fian but leaves the byres dangerous, another victim is likely. If he confesses his earlier experiment, he may lose his teaching position but regain the pupils’ trust; if he conceals it and the evidence emerges later, his allies will have reason to question his honesty. A party that arrests him without investigating still has a genuine curse to solve.

Connected Places and People

• Scotland — the wider region of his studies and official persecution
• Margaret Aitken, the Great Witch of Balwearie — an accuser with her own knowledge of manipulated wards
• Matthew Hopkins — an influential and dangerous investigator
• British NPCs — the regional directory

Mythical and Historical Context

Campaign chronology: The John Fian who appears as a living spellcaster in the 1454 campaign is a deliberately fictional namesake inspired by a much later Scottish schoolmaster. His dangerous lessons, spells, students, corrupted wards and dealings with Margaret Aitken are game inventions, not descriptions of the historical man’s life.

The historical John Fian, also recorded as John Fean, Fian or Cunninghame, was a Scottish schoolmaster drawn into the North Berwick witch trials of 1590–1591. A contemporary pamphlet, Newes from Scotland, depicted him as a leading participant in supposedly supernatural gatherings. The surviving indictment and related records document a prosecution; they do not establish that magical acts actually occurred. Fian was tortured, his accounts were contested and he was executed in 1591.

The allegations and spectacle of the case became entangled with powerful political anxieties. Historians researching early modern Scottish witchcraft emphasise that torture could produce confessions and that legal accusation must not be treated as proof of supernatural guilt. The campaign’s genuine spells are a fantasy addition. Fian’s intelligence and capacity for dangerous experiments make him morally fallible without validating the historical allegations against him.

Historical sources: University of Edinburgh — Survey of Scottish Witchcraft: Case of John Fean; Survey methodology and illustrations from Newes from Scotland; Scottish Witchcraft Survey — torture and confessions; Witchcraft in Early Modern Scotland — surviving trial indictments.

Rules Notes, Sources and Licensing

John Fian’s game mechanics and 1454 campaign history are original adaptations. His four edition panels are not interchangeable: D&D 2024 uses its spell and action rules, 2014 uses the legacy versions, Pathfinder 1e uses the multiclass wizard/expert with prepared spells and unlimited cantrips, and D&D 3.5e uses its separate wizard casting and expendable cantrips. The original Frost Sigil attack and rune-analysis features are custom NPC abilities, not published spells.

Rules reference points: D&D System Reference Documents, Pathfinder 1e Archives of Nethys, and D&D 3.5e SRD. Use the licensing terms appropriate to each edition. Game content, literary descriptions and edition conversions should not be presented as evidence of historical supernatural practice.