Ayaga tor-Zhan Medium humanoid (orc), lawful good Armor Class 15 Hit Points 14 (1d12+2) Speed 30ft. STR 17(+3) DEX 13(+1) CON 14(+2) INT 10(+0) WIS 12(+1) CHA 10(+0) Saving Throws +5/+1/+4/+0/+1/+0 Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 13 Languages Common, Orc, Goblin
Aggressive. As a bonus action, you can move up to your speed toward an enemy of your choice that you can see or hear. You must end this move closer to the enemy than you started. Rage. Enter a rage as a bonus action. Gain advantage on Strength checks and Strength saving throws, +2 to melee damage rolls with attacks using Strength, Resistance to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage. Lasts 1 minute.
War Pick.Melee Weapon Attack. +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 1d8+3 piercing damage. Handaxe.Melee or Thrown Weapon Attack. +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., range 20/60 ft., one target. Hit: 1d6+3 slashing damage. Javelin.Thrown Weapon Attack. +5 to hit, range 30/120 ft., one target. Hit: 1d6+3 piercing damage.
Appearance: Ayaga is not a very unique or visually striking orc, all things considered. He possesses all the physical hallmarks of his species- greenish skin, pronounced lower canines like tusks, sloping brow, short nose, round facial features, and a generally thick build. His hair is straight, black, and shoulder-length. His body is covered in deep blue tattoos. Geometric patterns and totems or animal motifs predominate. His body is healthy and his face is somewhat youthful, but his pale grey eyes appear quite old, right down to the growing crow's feet. His voice sounds deeper than it actually is, because he often speaks with a slight croak or grunt, as if he never quite has the air to get his words out with.
Ayaga is also covered almost from head to toe in a vast array of bones. Most of them are quite tiny, such as finger or toe bones threaded together like beads in his hair and on his meager clothing, which consists of a hide vest and a waistcloth. Other mortal mementos include tusks hanging from a necklace, a girdle of ribs around his waist, a bracelet of hyoids, and skin piercings made of ear ossicles. They total well over a hundred bones, and each one is a memento from another dead orc. They are clean, dry, white, and treated with a resin against degradation. Ayaga handles them and any articles made from them with the utmost reverence.
Personality: Ayaga is gentle. Ayaga is quiet. Ayaga is tired- very, very tired. Back home, he was used to a fairly orderly lifestyle structured around animistic practice and communal cooperation under the guidance of family chiefs and shamans. Being bereaved of that has strained him and turned him inward somewhat. While he has reservoirs of anger, they are deeply suppressed and kept below the surface. He is more likely to try and stay peacefully unobtrusive in his dealings with the world and the people in it. At least part of this is defensive, for the bedrock of trust he once relied upon is gone, and he is left apprehensive around so many strange people in strange lands. It is as if he already considers himself a ghost prepared to move onward, tied down to earthly concerns only by the weight of death still resting upon his shoulders.
He believes with all his heart that the mementos he bears hold the souls of their owners. For centuries his people interred 'vessels' of their dead in hollows and shrines, but most of these were lost in the chaos of their exile, the souls of the dead scattered to the winds just as their living descendants are. Ayaga has informally taken on the role of shaman, though he entirely lacks any and all supernatural talent (so far). He cares for each memento like a pet, speaks to them, and even 'feeds' them a symbolically sacrificed portion of his every meal. His belief in this holdover from the old days has grown only more fervent the more the present has pressed him. The dead have to reside in these bones, he insists, or else the living have no hope for the future.
7 Step Background
Ayaga is from a mostly flat, grassy region further inland. His people simply referred to it as 'their land', but someone with a knowledge of maps might know it as the Strath of Yotanni. It is a wide, flat river valley characterized by plains broken up by river meanders and oxbow lakes.
His people, the Reta tor-Zhan ("Descendants of Zhan"), formed a more-or-less Copper Age society, herding animals and farming or fishing along the riverbanks. Ayaga was a hunter, as well as a bone-carver by hobby. He took his duty very seriously, and his hunts were characterized by extensive ritual with an eye for orthopraxy.
A strange sickness fell upon the tribe one month, as well as their animals, and even the land around them. Nausea and headaches quickly gave way to bloody vomit, severe disorientation, hair loss, coma, and ultimately death. It devastated their numbers to the point of social collapse. When the human and halfling towns they had once been distantly cordial with also began to succumb to the same sickness, they blamed the orcs as its cause. By the time anyone knew about the toxic materials being secreted onto the land by feckless mages, it was too late.
The tribe utterly collapsed under disease and mounting pressures from their neighbors. The other orcs of the strath believed them cursed by the spirits for some transgression, and shunned them as untouchables. Ayaga and the others finally set to wandering, and dwindled until only he remained.
Now he walks through lands that are far more overtly hostile to orcs than he had ever know in his life. His life has been put at risk more than once in his flight. He carries skeletal mementos of his entire tribe with him, and seeks a spiritually pure place in which to bury them.
Ayaga wants to find a safe place where he can enshrine his deceased tribe in perpetuity, and that means carving out a home first.
I want Ayaga to have a moment where he is aided in battle against encroaching xenophobes or another major threat by a storm of ghostly friends and family.
Ayaga was convinced early on during the outbreak that the malady was being inflicted upon them by the spirits for breaking some unknown taboo. He fasted for days to help them attune. He also discouraged several of his kin from leaving home. Now, he blames himself personally for their deaths.
Ruuti-padi: A goblin shepherd recently relocated to the forests. Ayaga aided him in clearing out enough woodland pasture to graze his sheep, in return for temporary food and board. He also gave the goblin the goat he had brought with him from his homeland.
Tozora: A minotaur armorer in the employ of Yddraixl. Ayaga used his skill in bone-carving to decorate her horns with intricate patterns for good luck, and she furnished him with a basic weapon and shield when he entered the Viridescent One's service.
Luroucis Tilsamp: The pinkskin (actually more of a tannish beige, like most of the other humans from Ayaga's home region) merchant and sorcerer who abused the good standing between the tribe and the nearby human township to dump arcane waste from a wizard school in their water supply on the down-low for cheap.
Ayaga is not ambidextrous, but there is a vast and seemingly random assortment of tasks he has a different dominant hand for.
He enjoys the sound of a distant trip hammer spilling water and grinding food. The low thunks and the steady intervals helped him sleep as a child.
He talks to the bones on his person constantly, whether they respond to him or not. Given the varied 'personalities' of the mementos, this has caused some awkward and amusing situations for Ayaga.
Personality Trait: I watch over my friends as if they were a litter of newborn pups. Bond: I am the last of my tribe, and it is up to me to ensure their names enter legend. Ideal: Greater Good. It is each person's responsibility to make the most happiness for the whole tribe. (Good) Flaw: I am slow to trust members of other races, tribes, and societies.
Young people talking of war and vengeance against mankind makes him despair for the future. Conflict was the final nail in his people's "coffin", as the people who bury their dead in boxes like weirdos like to say.
He despises the smell of horseraddish and other pungent herbs. In the legends of his people, its sudden presence always heralded the coming of malicious spirits. Even though he now knows that truly evil spirits are invisible and odorless, he carries some baggage still.
He takes a bittersweet sort of delight in other people taking interest in his tribe's customs. His people may be dead, but not every part of them has to be.
Writing is a strange and fascinating concept to him, coming from a strictly aliterate culture. Words that stay give him hope, and give him something new to learn and distract himself with.
Pilcro: He is amused by the energy and excitement of the little thing he's seen running around the area of late, though he wonders at the trouble he could cause or fall into. Rat was a common food for lean times among his people, so he will have to be careful not to catch any that may 'belong' to the goblin.
Rhakkeg: The bigger of the two beaked people he's encountered as of late- though this one is definitely different, somehow. Ayaga tried to impress upon them the importance of his bone talismans once, but it didn't work.
Bront Wildboar: Ayaga has heard rumors of the would-be warlord and his belt of ample skulls. He empathizes with him deeply, but worries about the path this would lead him and any of his followers down.
Small: The nervous little thing reminds Ayaga of a meek child he knew back in his village. His fearful displays sadden the orc. Though to be fair to him, bravery didn't save anyone when the plague rolled through, either.
Woppa: He always thought that the tortoise was a slow-to-anger totem animal of peace and quiet deliberation. This one walking on two legs is downright fiery, however. Perhaps he has more the spirit of a snapping turtle...
Baruuk Talonface: His personality strikes him as almost as rough and ragged as the scars adorning his face- but they are very handsome scars, and they attest to his surviving much. Ayaga affords him the cautious respect of a warrior.
Gristle: There was a dog a little bit like this one in Ayaga's village, once. It managed to tree itself in a swamp somehow. The orc expects to shake his head and sigh often when this little one is around.
Vrazzk: Red dye was not known to his people, so seeing a garment in that color has always been a striking thing for Ayaga. The tattered, smiling goblin is a striking sight indeed. He wonders what spirits he speaks to when he sits cross-legged like that.
T.F.B.: Deep scars. Deeper than the flesh. Bone-deep, possibly deeper still. The anguish is not difficult to sense, or at least the orc seems to think so. He wonders what he's seen, done, and had done to him.
"Tigs": Perhaps all of the scaly ones have that same... mentally absent look about them by default? At least this one seems easier-going. The way it tilts its head all the time is off-putting, yet intriguing. Ayaga is curious.
Haskiter: Now this little lizard has one of those books he's heard so much about. Perhaps if he provided a suitable offering, it would teach him how to write his people down.
Dirti Snow: Albinos were considered touched by the spirits to Ayaga's people, sacred and separate to the point of being untouchables. He can't fathom how damaging this same treatment has been to the kobold's development.
Stink: Ayaga knows the stench of decay all too well. He also knows the unexpectedly pleasant, mellow, and sickeningly sweet notes of certain types of rot. He is mostly unphased by the goblin's unique 'flavor'. Her childlike fascination with snails is endearing to him.
Ayaga tor-Zhan: A vessel for the spirits. A walking husk.
G'toat Rush: So many of the scaled ones abound in this place! This one's eyes are very different from the others, however. They seem clever- too clever by half, in fact. Ayaga feels a vague sense of relief that he doesn't own anything of great material value when the Git' is around, though he still holds his bones close just in case.
Harp Strum: The smaller beaked one Ayaga has met in his time here. This one has not been any easier to get a read on than the last one, but for the opposite reason: instead of an impenetrable mask, she is everywhere and saying everything in every voice but her own. She is like keeping track of an entire group of people. Still, blue is an auspicious color. And that harp would be nice to harmonize with...
Kaira Irontusk: Strong arms and a withering gaze- she would have had many suitors back home where Ayaga comes from, even if she is of partial human blood. He has elected to keep a respectable distance.
Nicothoe: The frantic and flitting little silver one does not have a beak, which confused Ayaga at first. Now he just smiles and nods, and hopes she can find something to channel that idiosyncratic energy into.
"Dagg": Ayaga knows an illusion when he sees one. This fierce and ambitious woman is clearly ten feet tall or bigger, and only appears short as some new cunning ploy. He has elected to keep a safe distance.
An'mal: What a well-groomed and temperate bugbear. Ayaga has heard his drumming, and finds it agreeable. He would wish to accompany him with his bamboo bass flute someday.
Renyra SwiftThunder Some of the humans in the townships rode those giant mutant muscle-deer that they call "horses". Ayaga very easily mistakes centaurs for a rider and horse at first glance, and it still unnerves him. This one's annoyance isn't leveled at him, at least.
Daradukk: Quite the handsome orc. Ayaga has only ever seen the same energy and bearing in orc men aspiring to become chieftains, or leaders in some other sense. Their people need ambitions like that to survive, but he wonders what is guiding it right now.
Laban Maverick: Ayaga's people have no word or concept of a 'demon' in the traditional sense. The closest approximate is a fel spirit, made angry and manifest. This, he suspects the pale man with horns to be. He may smell pleasant, but all Ayaga thinks he can smell is the reek of horseraddish.
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I am The Furtive Goblin. I fill my blog with fantasy world-building ideas, and the occasional lo-fi anxiety attack. I also have a Ko-fi. Buy a cup, give me a writing prompt, receive a post or two!
Last edited by Grozug; Nov 30th, 2020 at 11:17 PM.
Reason: Added in a piece of art by a friend because apparently that's a thing now!
Nov 30th, 2020, 08:37 AM
