Augustus's family own a successful caravan operation that operates between the Sword Coast and Cormyr, but even though he is the oldest, he's never held any interest in taking it over. For years, this cause him to butt heads with his father, Julius. However, his talent at arcane magic allowed him to become an apprentice for Edweena Thwent, a gnome Diviner of great renown who has a tower in the City of Splendors. Julius agreed to pay for his son's education in exchange for lending his skills in the operation of the caravan business.
Augustus voraciously learned from Edweena and within six years he moved on as her apprentice. His desire for praise and acceptance motivated his success, but know matter how much he received it was never enough. Deep inside, he longed to be an adventurer and plunder dungeons, he face several obstacles: most people he interacted found him overconfident and obnoxious, he was squeamish, and he had a terrible case of asthma.
While he expected to hate working for his father, his divination gifts prevented their caravans from experiencing several prominent disasters that that competitors did not escape. He grew to enjoy the intricacies of detecting any obstacles and he and his father began to grow closer.
After several years, Augustus began researching the Cairn of Remin-Kar, a burial chamber reputed to hold a good deal of treasure but that was supposed to haunted by the Priest-King buried there. While Augustus had no interest in endangering himself, he began using his skills first to detect the Cairn and then to gain knowledge of it. After feeling confident that this was no more dangerous than a caravan route, he assemble a team of adventurers.
And his plans and warnings allowed them to easily to defeat the mummy and gain the treasure.
Soon, Augustus had another reputation, as a good lead to gain fame and riches plumbing dungeons, two of his first team, Egana Maramark and Stu Sugarhawk even took up membership in the elite Force Grey.
Today, Augustus is a very rich man and has little need for his role in the caravan business, which has infuriated his father and reignited old feauds between them. Generally, the adventurers who work with him don't last more than a few expeditions because of his personality, but his reputation assures those who work for him a very good chance at succes. Additionally, at this point he only charges 20% commission for his role. Thus far, only two expeditions have attempted to cut him out of their deal. In both instances he called in favors from previous adventurers to deal with them, splitting the cut 50/50 with them and leaving those who cheated very badly beaten and essentially blackballed from the Waterdeep adventuring scene.
Augustus is nervous, dresses extravagantly and has a large trophy room with items from each the expeditions he has sponsored. He is constantly explaining to people his mastery at divination and seems to delight at hinting about his awareness of things from their past that those who work for him don't want revealed. Due to asthma, he sneezes quite a bit.
Despite his talent and success he has an inferiority complex and will often create conflict when none is necessary and takes offense and innocent comments. This has led him to begin using a drug known as Shadow to calm himself, unfortunately, his supplier of Shadow is a member of the Xanthar's gang and he is actively ignoring the risks that brings to his life.
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