The Assessor

CHARACTER SHEET

The Assessor

Class: Merchant

Level: Business Owner

Alignment: Demonic

BIOGRAPHY

A helpful voice in uncertain times. The Assessor offers practical wisdom from behind their merchant’s counter. Career guidance, the tough love that others are too cowardly to deliver. They want to help you see reality. They want you to adapt, to thrive, to find your true value in a changing landscape.

Beneath it: something that was always there. A conviction of sorts.

Dressed in the language of career advice, If AI can do your job, you were never valuable.

Did the mask slip a little?

ATTRIBUTES

Stat	Score	Modifier
STR (Conviction)	16	+3
DEX (Nuance)	5	-3
CON (Consistency)	7	-2
INT (Technical Depth)	8	-1
WIS (Self-Awareness)	4	-3
CHA (Engagement Farming)	14	+2

ABILITIES

Retroactive Devaluation (Core)
The signature spell. If a tool can now do what you did, you were never valuable. The magic didn’t change anything—it revealed the truth that was always there. Your worth wasn’t destroyed. It was exposed as having never existed.

The Excuse Frame (Passive)
All prior conditions of labor—process, collaboration, learning curves, institutional knowledge, mentorship, the simple human pace of careful work—were “hiding places.” Excuses. Cover for the worthless. The worthy never needed such shelter.

Tough Love Armor (Reaction)
Cruelty becomes candor. The Assessor isn’t being harsh—they’re being helpful. They’re telling you what you need to hear. Would you rather be lied to?

The Helpful Pivot (Bonus Action)
“The question isn’t how to compete, it’s what AI can’t replace yet.”

WEAKNESSES

The “Yet” Confession
The Assessor slips. “What do I do that AI cannot replace yet?” The word admits temporality. You sense something is smiling.

Today’s irreplaceable is tomorrow’s commodity. But if replaceability retroactively erases value, then no one has ever been valuable.

What Business?
The merchant proudly labels themselves Business Owner but is somehow not at all interested in what kind of business. Businesses trade, they provide services. They add value.

This merchant doesn’t believe those things are worth linking their identify to. Rather, business ownership itself is their identity. Their sense of worth. They collect the spread between labor cost and labor value. And they always enjoyed lowering that labor cost more than increasing the value.

Loose Lips
This is not a position reasoned into recently. This is something the Assessor always believed and kept carefully concealed. Then, magic entered the world; including all the dark magics they’ve craved. Their glee has gotten them slightly drunk. Their underlying beliefs are slipping out.

EQUIPMENT

The Mask of the Merchant — Career advice. Helpful wisdom. The smile. Worn at all times in public.
The Tough Love Mantle — Cruelty as candor. “I’m just being honest.” Their favorite, well worn hat.

SPECIMEN BEHAVIOR

The Assessor posted career advice to their network. The core claims:

AI is killing excuses, not careers
People “hid behind” slow processes and inefficiency
If AI can do your job better, your value “was never defensible”
Effort is insufficient; only output matters
The real question is what AI cannot replace “yet”

ANALYSIS

The landscape is changing. Some roles will be disrupted. Adaptation is prudent. These grains of truth are sprinkled atop something else entirely.

What The Mask Conceals:
The tell is “never.”

Not “your value has shifted.” Not “the market is changing.” Not “new capabilities require new approaches.” The Assessor reaches immediately for retroactive negation: you were never valuable. The magic didn’t change your worth. It revealed that your worth was always an illusion.

This is the demon speaking from behind the mask.

No one reasons their way to this position in good faith. The Assessor had this belief all along. The pleasure in delivering this “hard truth” betrays them. This is something that was always there, finally allowed to speak.

What The Assessor Is Actually Saying:
Strip away the career advice framing. Listen to the demon directly:

Workers are cattle. They were always cattle. I always knew this. Now I can say it. If you can be replaced, you were never anything more than a cost center with a heartbeat. Your “value” was always a polite fiction maintained for social reasons. The magic has given me permission to stop pretending.

And I am so relieved.

The Liberation:
Many other archetypes in this bestiary are captured by the Third Law—confused, defensive, tribal, afraid.

The Assessor is different. The Assessor’s true nature is liberated.

The magic didn’t confuse them in so much as it got them a little drunk. It didn’t threaten them. It gave them permission to let the mask of human regard slip a bit. They are elated at a near future, accelerated, when they can slaughter the cattle. Finally, the demon will act unrestrained.

The merchant smiles warmly, providing the cattle advice. The demon grins ear to ear with bloodlust.

ENCOUNTER NOTES

Lessons: The Third Law doesn’t only produce fear of magic. It also produces joy in those who see the magic as finally permitting their beliefs and actions. They always held them close, always subtly acted upon them when they could. The Assessor isn’t confused by AI. They’re grateful for it. The mask was so heavy. The pretense of human dignity was so exhausting.

Now they can assess openly. Now they can say what the cattle are worth.

The demon was always there. The magic has encouraged it.