As a representative of the church, Friar Riso is a dangerous person for the Baron to have around, but Riso seems quite willing to ignore the Baron's religious foibles. Riso has rather a disreputable past, which he has mostly put behind him. Riso is customarily bedecked with a wide assortment of lucky charms, amulets and relics, which seem to have a quite beneficial effect on his luck. Riso seems to be highly favoured by the gods; besides the luck drawn from his collection of trinkets, Riso has access to quite powerful clerical magic, though he has never been seen to use it for anything but healing.

Friar Riso customarily wears hooded clerical robes, staying mostly covered. His body, when seen, is covered in old burn scars, especially his head. Riso has no hair, his ears are mostly missing, and where one of his eyes should be there is nothing but a mass of ugly scar tissue.

Riso is quite open about his slightly disreputable and rather unusual past. Riso was rescued from an inn fire that presumably killed his parents. When the hideously burned child was examined, little hope was held for his survival. Riso was taken in by a highly superstitious widow, who tended to him and instilled in him the importance of maintaining his luck. After all, surviving the fire must have used up nearly all of his inborn luck, so he would have to be very careful to avoid the almost inevitable balancing of the scales of luck.

And so, Riso grew up taking careful note of the number of crows on rooftops, never walking under ladders, collecting lucky trinkets, and generally paying attention to just about every superstition ever known to mankind. Being a fairly genial fellow, Riso made friends easily, and his friends soon found that when Riso was involved in an activity, it tended to go well. Long before he finished growing, Riso had become known as “Lucky Riso”.

Inevitably, Riso's luck brought him to the attention of the criminal underclass. Riso became a spotter for pickpockets, and slowly moved into more dangerous areas. Never particularly skilled in the arts of thieving and burglary, Riso was mostly just taken along to help carry loot and act as a lookout. Riso's luck often made the difference between a successful heist and a grisly end for his associates. As Riso's talents became known to more professional thieves, he found his conscience troubling him more and more. Riso was careering down a slippery slope to moral decay.

It all came to a head when Riso was asked to accompany a pair of thieves in a daring raid on a cathedral. Riso tried to refuse, but when threats were made against himself and his foster mother, he reluctantly agreed to accompany the crooks. The target was a minor bishop's quarters on an upper story adjoining a cathedral. There was a small window from which the cathedral interior could be viewed from the bishop's quarters, and Riso was stationed there to keep an eye on the proceedings to make sure they would be undisturbed.

With his mind not really on the job, Riso gazed down into the cathedral, where the bishop was performing a healing miracle. Suddenly, Riso could see the God's power flowing into the bishop, and from the bishop into the afflicted person. He could see the holy magic driving the evil influences from the person's aura. Riso had never seen anything so beautiful, and at once so awe-inspiring. He would never see the world the same way again.

Within a year, Riso had become an acolyte of the Brotherhood of Cunradus, where he underwent the normal Cunradan training before taking his orders. When it was discovered that he possessed the talent to channel the holy magic of the gods, Riso was given further individual training to call on Eir's power for healing. Since then, Riso has been wandering the countryside; healing, teaching and learning more about his vocation.

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