Apparently if you delete the first post in a thread it deletes the thread (which is a posted warning I failed to read), so I'm going to repost the ideas from the old Character Ideas thread.
I'm posting this thread so that I can keep track of the good ideas that don't get accepted into games, or the ones that get into games that die early on. Hopefully I remember to add them as I come up with them in the future, so I don't lose the info when the game drops out of sight.
can I make a sibling rival character (probably joint app) for something? could make for interesting RP, or it could bore the rest of the party to death.
First concept: Lifetime rebel, drug addict (which will depend on what prime), ended up in rehab and learned meditation during her therapy. Enjoyed meditation a lot when she started having waking dreams, finding herself exploring strange and impossible places inhabited by strange creatures -- not limited by the bounds of the imagination.
During the next meditation session she found herself on a strange street with many kinds of people. Some were regular people, but others looked more like angels or demons, and the variations didn't end there. She was staring when one of the large demon-like creatures lashed out with its tail, slamming her into a nearby wall where she slumped to the ground, shocked at how much that hurt for a dream. "Put dem eyes on me agin, berk..." the demon threatened in a growl. Somehow she managed to look elsewhere, only to see other people staring back at her.
After the creature continued on its way, one of the normal passersby came over and offered her a hand up. He looked confused but curious. "You barmy, addle-cove? Parkin' yer ears by a greater demon and esspectin' he wouldn't see you?"
She could only stare at him, stare after the demon, stare at the ground (in case anyone else took offense), and stammer, "I'm dreaming. You shouldn't be seeing me at all."
Understanding took a moment, and then the man burst out laughing, to her irritation. "You sodding rube. Did ye stumble in from some portal nearby?"
"Portal?"
The man frowned at her, squinting as if trying to read her face better. When he spoke next, there was a definite care in choosing words, his accent nearly gone. "Where you from, clueless?" His expression seemed to be trying to figure her out.
"Uh..."
He shook his head with something akin to pity on his face. "You ghosted in, I think, sod. I wasn't far and I didn't see you until his tail hit you. If you got here by accident..." He shook his head again. "You may be stuck. Fer him to be able to hit you, I'd bet your cord snapped. Why yer flesh and blood, though..." This time the head shake wasn't a no, it seemed to be more that he didn't know what to make of this. (She couldn't blame him.) "Whatever you did, berk, without finding some graybeard spellslinger, you may be stuck here."
Last edited by Aethera; Dec 20th, 2020 at 06:27 PM.
As time permits, I'm going to start copying ancient character ideas into this thread. I came across some of my first apps on the site, and thought it was intriguing enough to catalogue them here.
I've got a post mentioning one Brenna Calvinsen and her raven familiar, Skye Razorbeak, but I can't actually access the sheet. Either an error of merging usernames or I decided she wasn't worth keeping and deleted it.
Kerelae Samelsson is a half-elven victim of small-town racists. I'm not sure if this is the best inferiority complex I could come up with, or if I just sucked at creating characters. There's no overt bigotry mentioned in the GM's post.
My time on the site didn't last that long, just a year Aug '06 - Aug '07. Then there's a gap before I return in a new iteration March '10, and kingmonkey waved me into his Vampire: the Masquerade game and thus was Yekaterina Pavlenco was born.
Name: Victoria "Tory" Agareva Gender: Female Age: 25 Class: Cavalier (Musketeer) / Monk (I combined the [class features] into one table.) Concept: athletic tomboy pilot, sniper, and martial artist
Appearance: average height brown-haired militant, silver dragon tattoo on her back and motif on her belongings
Tory likes her options open, and so all of her clothing whether tactical or not is mobile above all else. Her past-shoulder-length dark brown hair is nearly always braided tightly out of her way down her back or even tucked up in a bun; it's a rare occasion when even her family or squad gets to see her hair down. She favors tight tops with short sleeves, and out of habit she usually wears all black. Her many-pocketed pants are usually canvas of varying weights, also black, and tucked into a pair of boots that are most definitely not the rigid army issue, though calf-high and laced similarly. The most notable feature of Tory is the silver dragon tattoo on her back, darker gray-blue wings spread across her shoulderblades out to the points of her shoulders, the blue-tinted silver tail curling snakelike down her spine to curl back on itself just above her tailbone. The same symbol is stylized as her personal mark on weapons or other personal belongings that don't have room for a full name or ID.
Her duty uniform consists primarily of a magically enhanced brown tunic belted over whatever she's wearing, with holsters at each hip clipped around her thighs to keep them from being in her way as she tumbles around as she is wont to do. (Weapons: pistols, plus sniper rifle on a cross-body strap.) Unlike her squad, however, she rarely wears armor, preferring mobility over expensive cloth, and takes magical protection instead. Her very mobility provides her with as much protection as light armor would.
Personality: sarcastic tomboy with straightforward attitude towards most things
The easiest word to describe Tory is "tomboy". Woe to you if you dare call her Vickie, you're likely to get a right hook before you know what hit you (bad pun, sorry). She barely tolerates her mother calling her Victoria, but her mother holds that she can use the given name of her only child, and Tory's smart enough not to argue the point with the only person more stubborn than she. Her mother might be slight, and definitely not up to Tory's physical strength, but Tory'd likely get an earful if she argued with her, just as she did as a child.
She wants to be physically fit, to the point of seeking out more complicated ways to batter her body, and it's not unknown for her to be wandering around with a bruise or three, especially on her arms from stick fighting, boxing, or other melee fight practice. Her vocabulary has grown from such practice, and she can swear as colorfully as any soldier. Her humor tends to be sarcastic and quick with a jest, but she's rather straightforward when dealing with most issues, and can argue as politely and calmly as most people discuss the weather (which usually means she can stick it out long enough to come to an agreement that favors her position), though she refers to it as "discussion", not "arguing".
Background: raised by single mom at Directorate base
Tory's mother Svetlana is a registered nurse on one of the Directorate bases nearest what was the Phernos Confederacy. The majority of the war had already been fought by the time Tory was born, moving into the "raiding" days of the struggle. 'Lana raised her daughter alone, first because Tory's father was away on "missions" (Tory never got a straight answer on what those missions were), and then because he was killed on one of those unspecified missions. About all she knows of her father is that he was killed by fiends (per her mother), and that her mother misses him at odd moments, even now.
Raised by her mother on a Directorate base, Tory was subjected to a fair amount of propaganda, even in how her mother described events. By the time she was thirteen she'd convinced her uncle (a weapons trainer on the same base) to start teaching her to protect herself. He taught her whatever weapon came to hand on a given day, and found a martial arts teacher for her when he saw her potential. Though the Directorate was disbanding Binder squads, Tory wanted to know how to fight the immortals that killed her father and caused her mother's depression. She was first in line the day the Directorate determined that a new squad needed forming.
Name: Elliena Miller (disowned) Basic Concept: repressed miller's daughter (who only hopes she's 100% human) gets accused of witchcraft in a society where "people came to fear and loathe magic, for it was magic that brought down the Empire" (per ad setting info)
~ Masha ~
This character was designed for a game in which modern day characters were transported into a very different past, a past with magic and gods, elves and dwarves. The party was brought in to combat a similar modern-day party who were building rudimentary firearms hundreds of years early.
Birth Name: Maria ("Masha") Zvereva Ethnicity: Romanian-American Female, age 26 Profession: Salem Witch Trials Paraphernalia, pagan owner of a pagan shop/library
(original app post)
The image to the right is something that reminds me of Masha, but turn the pentacle right side up, please and thank you. She also probably would've worn a shawl or button-front sweater with that top, it's not quite her style.
Masha tended to dress in a mixture of eras, leading tours in passable Puritan garments, working at her shop in things that tended towards a Victorian/Edwardian witch image that even she never really figured out why. But it seemed to suit her customers to see a pagan shop owner not wearing modern styles. Somehow, out of outdated fashions of medieval, Victorian, and Puritan times, she ended up with a bit of a style that was uniquely her own.
Name: Masha Race/Class: Elven Druid, age 130 (roughly equivalent) Party Role: ranged weapons, support spells, healing spells... and wolf-friend
Masha is really taking to the Early Middle Ages, perhaps in part because she had always studied earlier times, and was (after a fashion) connected to them. Her own beliefs about spirituality, nature, and life have more or less flowed conveniently straight from her modern day life in Salem, straight into the Neustria of the eighth century.
Her general appearance is very nature-loving. She wears greens and browns, often with the leaf armor atop them, which has a certain style of its own. She had preferred bare feet for most of their first days in the Frankish Empire, but quickly saw the merit of boots once their lessons included riding. She has mostly let nature take its course with her appearance, washing her hair as best she can with soap and water before untangling it with her fingers, but otherwise she puts no particular effort into how she dresses, quite happy to look the way nature intended her to look... besides, in a rather pleasant turn of events, being elven has given her more natural grace and beauty than she considered herself to have before.
Animal Companion: male Siberian wolf Name: Ceryn ("gray"), occasionally Volchik ("little wolf") or endearments
Very far from home, Ceryn was drawn to the druid whose kin would later hunt with his kind. Perhaps in her time there might be a wolf or husky looking for her, but whether she knows the connection or not, she recognizes that he came a long way to find her.
Last edited by Aethera; Feb 13th, 2016 at 06:14 PM.
Name: Serena Maryl Rownwell Race/Class:Tiefling4 parts human, 3 parts tiefling, 1 part fiend = tiefling* Shadow Magus (see below)
Alignment: Neutral Good or Lawful Neutral? Religion: unsure (mom: Selune, dad: Sune/Tymora) Home Region: Diethelm (Kingmaker region, non-canon Faerun)
Involved in a few scenes: The Crossing of Paths (7 July 2013) Unexpected Company (27 April 2014, continuing)
Going to rejoin that game as a permanent member again, rather than just a random walk-on.
Last edited by Aethera; May 17th, 2014 at 03:16 PM.
The original concept for Jenaya's father had giant blood, a creature of my own homebrew design. She was half human, half giantblood, but I'm not sure how it will translate into this game. I think Half-orc mechanics or a straight up +2 CON should do it.
Alignment: Good or Neutral Only Religion: unsure (water, moon, secrets, knowledge) Home Region: originally from a major port city, but she is primary shareholder in a privateer ship she's spent some time on too
Last edited by Aethera; Apr 7th, 2014 at 06:03 PM.
Character ARCHIVED - I've recycled this character into a new Ravenloft game DMed by GrimDarkOtter and thence recycled again into ItsaVerb's game also. You can find the new character bio post here.
Appearance
Rozalina looks fairly regular by non-gypsy standards or when compared to the bright colors favored by most gypsies, perhaps even dull at that, choosing deep indigo, purple, and shades of grey instead of jewel tones. Yet even when compared to her kin, it's clear the traditions are the same in spite of her color choices (all her garments match the Vistani styles), and in spite of the fact that her wildly curly hair is a rich chestnut with lighter highlights, instead of the nearly-black brown that is almost universal among the gypsies. Her grey-blue eyes also stand out; Vistani are typically dark of hair, skin, and eye. It's possible her tanned skin tone is just that, a tan, but at a glance it's hard to tell if her natural skin tone is also unlike her kinsmen.
A finely crafted chain shirt over her grey blouse glints around the grey-embroidered-purple-edged neck and sleeves of an indigo tunic, only some plum-purple-on-indigo embroidery attempting anything like the allover patterns often seen on Vistani. A sash of grey-decorated plum purple is wrapped around her waist, a black belt atop that to carry her sword and dagger. A similar scarf oftentimes hides the jeweled headband on her head. A fringed gray scarf is wrapped lower around her hips, ivory beads swinging with every move yet making no noise to give her away. The ruffled skirt she wears is the ruddier plum purple she has decorated herself with, and the stacked ruffles at the hem might have been tantalizing where they reach a mid-thigh high point, except that Rozalina wears unremarkable (but likely more serviceable) grey leggings beneath, and dark grey boots lace up nearly to her knees. The same dark grey leather is used for her archer's arm-guards, and her quiver is dyed a similar color. She even fletches her arrows with grey, though not quite so perfectly monotone.
Personality
Rozalina has been on the sidelines of her mother's culture since she was born, though when she was eleven and started developing visions, she was quickly initiated into more. This has led to the rather biased belief that she has a few talents that make her worth being around. When she is working in her element, she is confident and even witty; on the reverse, she barely speaks if another has the experience (even if she only assumes as much). This has only been exacerbated by her ranging in the wilds, leaving her with two distinct personalities that rarely shift from one to the other. If she is consulted as a seer, she is every bit as imposing as any gypsy witch-woman; if hired as guide, she says the minimum to do her job well and enhance the status of herself and her people; otherwise she is a wallflower.
Forseen Birth
Rozalina's birth was contrived by her mother, Aishe, after a vision. The sixteen-year-old Aishe had an elaborate vision that saw the end of a generation-long feud between a family of her tribe (a cousin) and the local district's richest family. By taking a friend's place serving at a local tavern on a key night, she was able to insinuate herself into the household of the family patriarch as a serving girl. With care she put herself into a position of being attacked by one of the sons, whereupon she returned to her vardo. When four months had passed and she was visibly pregnant, her father returned to the town, raging about the rape of his youngest daughter. Since it had been obvious what had happened to most of the house, the rich family had no choice but to agree to several valuable concessions to the Zarovan in reparation for the fierce breach in both cultures' customs. There was also a stipend paid to take care of the child and not come back.
Troubled Youth
As a half-blooded Vistani, or giomorgo, Rozalina lived on the fringes of her caravan, never included but not quite excluded either. Out of kindness, her uncle taught her how to use a bow, and she began hunting and fishing at his side. That all changed the day she got lost in the Mists. The Zarovan traveled through the Mists with ease, but were still cautious enough to keep children inside their vardo during the journey. So it is a poor explanation to say Rozalina "got lost". When the caravan entered the Mists, eleven-year-old Rozalina was asleep in her bed. When they left the Mists, she was no longer with them. While they didn't like to think of it, her family could come to no other explanation than that she had been taken from the vardo by some creature of the Mists. But surprisingly enough, she stumbled out of the Mists three days later, feverish and barely able to keep her feet. She was bruised and scraped as by animals, but she would say nothing about what happened. Rozalina spent a week in bed, and maintained her silence on the whole matter. Her family could only speculate.
It was after this event that she began talking about things others could not see, or predicting small events accurately enough to bring a good deal of attention her way. As her mother had some ability, she attempted to train her daughter as the diviners of the Zarovan were taught, but it seemed Rozalina's gifts came not from the forces of time like her Vistani kin, but from some other source. It was yet another stumbling block between the giomorgo and her full-blooded kin, and led to her spending more and more time away from the caravan, wandering in search of some missing part of herself, or perhaps for a person who could understand her in her entirety.
Rozalina still remembers her days as an outcast among her own kin, and fears the day she becomes superfluous. Having trained both as guide and seer, she works her hardest to ensure that her abilities are always at the peak of perfection, making sure she is invaluable to whomever she is traveling with, Vistani or giorgio. Failures are the path to living as an outcast forever, and that's not something she wants.
Though it's far from her conscious thoughts, buried under years of trying to ignore it, Rozalina was scarred by her childhood encounter with the creatures of the Mists. She doesn't revere the Mists as some tribes tend to, but she does believe that they are very much a part of her life, if not the true power behind her being. Her worst fear is that if she cannot keep herself at her best, one failure will lead to another and eventually she will end up so far outcast that the Mists might take her again.
Last edited by Aethera; Jul 2nd, 2016 at 04:06 PM.
Ebony (black mare)
HP 15/15 -- AC 11/11/9 -- Fort +6, Ref +5, Will +1
initiative +2 -- 2 hooves +3 (1d4+3)
Senses: low-light vision, scent
Feats: Endurance, Run
Skills: Perception +6
Item: The Wayward Hearth Slot: None (hands) or amulet Ancestral Arms: Kukri, hand axe, longbow Description: This simple sphere of fire opal is clasped in a worn gold setting which is shaped like a bear’s paw with long, sharp claws wrapped around the stone. The setting has an eyehole through which a leather cord is strung. Mechanics:
The opal glows with a flickering, orange light on command, about as bright as a torch if held aloft.
If worn as an amulet or held in hand, the Wayward Hearth provides its wearer a permanent Endure Elements effect and grants a +2 bonus to survival checks used for every purpose besides tracking (purposes such as predicting weather, finding food in the wilds, knowing north, etc).
The Wayward Hearth may be pressed into the soil in any outdoor space that is unobstructed in a 15 foot radius around the stone. If it is, the stone bursts into a flame which grows into a small campfire, providing heat and light but not risking ignition of any of the natural surroundings. Around this campfire, a large, brightly-colored tent springs up from nowhere, with a smoke-hole in the middle of its canopy. Those inside the tent are under the effects of an Endure Elements spell, and the area is warded with an alarm spell set to silently alert the Wayward Hearth’s owner of any intruders. After two minutes in place, the campsite fades into the background, under the effect of a Hide Campsite spell (CL 5, DC 16). All of these effects end in one round if the owner kneels by the fire and speaks the command word, at which point the Wayward Hearth returns to its normal form and may be picked up.
Appearance: 28-yr-old slender hunter with a tendency towards chaotic appearance; pale skin with blue-black hair and green eyes in human form, even paler skin with red-gold hair and variable green eyes in fey form
Mina is on the slender and willowy side, though she's not so small as to be petite except in comparison to the well-muscled mercenaries she spends too much time with. I imagine she'd clean up well if there was a damn good reason (*cough* noble blood *cough*) but it doesn't happen much.
Height: 5'6" Weight: 130lbs Features: pale skin, black hair, green eyes with a tendency to flash almost yellow when she gets upset
Okay, I decided to humor the Celtic images that called to me, to make the difference between human Mina and her fey aspect a lot greater. I like the first image for the way her features are almost too big for her face, and she looks innocent. She'll have very sharp teeth, not quite a line of needles but more that than human. The coloring of the middle two is more like what I'm after. Her eyes are going to be different colors depending on her mood, but all shades of green. Clawlike fingers/fingernails, but I didn't include natural attack so mostly for show. The last one is more because I was trying to find a somewhat childlike for excessively innocent appearance.
Personality: Mina is far more at home out in the wild lands of The Inheritance, preferring to range for long periods of time with few if any stops for resupply. She often has that half-wild look that rangers often bear, making her look out of place in a city anywhere but the slums, and even there she draws attention. She rarely uses four words were one would suffice, though her hunting brothers have learned they can earn a flood of tongue-lashing if they make fools of themselves and cost her a bounty. Though she can make nice when she needs to, it seems like she's found ways to avoid that necessity a lot lately. At least her comrades mourn her father too, so it's more or less excused.
Background: monster hunter and trap maker, starts vigilante justice if she gets antsy or sees too much nastiness
Carramina is the daughter of a tinker and a dressmaker, though her mother left when she was seven. Her father held that his wife died, but Mina figured out from village rumors in later years that her mother had always had an odd attitude drawing her towards the wilderness, and they wouldn't be surprised if she had left to go back wherever she'd come from. Her father raised Mina when he could, his time coming in uneven snatches between tinkering with one new gizmo and the next. Until she was twelve she didn't really understand that her father's creations were actually weapons. It wasn't until the band of monster hunters showed up on their doorstep bloody and bedraggled from a nasty fight that it got pounded home. They wanted him to make a dozen of something they had just tested, which saved lives. At that point Mina had overcome her uncertainty about her father's dubious income and told him flatly that she was going to help or gods help her she'd wreck his lab.
Mina helped her father from that day on, and both got more and more involved with the hunters. Once Mina was sixteen, her father knew she could take care of herself and so they often hunted with the hunters, testing and fixing weapons in the field. Mina became the adopted daughter of most of the group, looked upon with confused amusement by newer members who got their arses handed them by the petite beauty with the raven hair. Perhaps not the most conventional of upbringings, but damn if she didn't learn a lot from the trade. When her father died in an ambush the group mourned him and refused to let Mina go off alone the way she'd wanted. Like her mother, she was always drawn to the wilds, and she knew there was a lot more to that than even her father had understood. That was not even six months past, and the loss still ached her heart when she found herself alone on night watches or off on some errand.
Once they stopped treating her like she'd break at the mention of her father, Mina began finding other ways to take out her anger. Monsters were her bread and butter, but any wrongdoers became her new targets. In cities there were always thieves and less than savory types who could use a good thrashing, and Mina was more than happy to give it to them. It actually made her seek out cities more, knowing that once her daylight errands had finished, she would have ample time to beat the world into submission. If her comrades noticed her new direction, none mentioned it.
NPCs of Note, past and present:
Gabriel Crowe: Mina's father. Recently killed in unexpected attack on Shadow Stealers' camp.
Elliendra Crowe: Mina's mother, from whom she inherited her feywild blood (and noble blood). Current whereabouts unknown.
Shadow Stealers: the band of mercenary monster hunters Mina belongs to, that moves around The Inheritance taking jobs where they can find them. Originally from west, have moved around a good deal in the last ten years. Though they don't have titles or particular ranks, she'd be somewhere above sergeant but not so high as a commissioned lieutenant, but regardless she's certainly a fixture in the group, having been with them for twelve years now and around on the sidelines before that. A few friends among the longer-term members call her "little black bird" as her father did, and they're something like strange adopted family. But monster hunters aren't known for particularly long lives, so the group changes over with some frequency.
Black Tom: (Tom Blackstone) leader of the Shadow Stealers. A friend of Mina's, but not so close as to be like family. They were too competitive for a long time for that, and he still resents her position in the group that she earned as one of the longest-term members. Some among them listen to her more readily than him, and it irks him. Those who dislike him mutter about how he only got the position because she didn't want it. Occasionally a tense friendship, but respect each other regardless, and in a true battle he delegates to her without hesitation.
Mina generally dislikes paladins, claiming they're her competition in monster hunting, but mostly because she's afraid they'll learn of her nonhuman heritage.
Last edited by Aethera; Dec 31st, 2016 at 05:41 AM.
Current Name: Zhanyae (now 16)
Birth Name: Sharma Gita
Kingdom: Godavari
Clan: Kotananduru
Father: Kotananduru Jawahar (now 59), the Advisor to Lord Kotananduru
Father's wife: Kalyani (now 27), originally of Clan Eluru
Mother: Sharma Aikio (now 41), Jawahar's mistress
Though her father was highly placed in the Kotananduru clan, when Zhanyae (then Gita) was born she was given the name Sharma instead, the surname of her mother. It wasn't until she was old enough to recognize the accepted family structures of the clan around her that she saw the difference. Most children had married parents with the same name, so she asked her mother about her own. The explanation was hard to follow for a child, but she learned that her father had a different wife. When she went to try and meet her father's wife, she was informed that the lady did not want to see her, ever. Gita only managed to sneak peeks of her father's wife at a distance, but even the eight year old could tell Lady Kalyani was more than twenty years younger than her father (in truth 31 years). Confused, this led to an interest in how the clan married, who saw whom (or refused to see, as the case may have been), and who was in charge of whom. Her father took keen notice of this when she asked him a perceptive question about his assistant. From then on he tried to explain as much as he could, and his visits to see her lasted longer.
At age nine, her mother took Gita to begin the learning required of geisha. Though the clan maintained its own geisha as a sign of status, the school for those apprenticing into the trade was outside the clan's compound, and this took Gita away from her father for longer and longer periods of time, making their time limited. (Zhanyae learned later that her mother had chosen for precisely this reason, as Gita was a sore point for her father's wife, and the amount of time her father spent with her doubly so. It had been in Gita's best interest to see her father less.) Instead of learning about the clan from the viewpoint of a trusted official, what Gita learned as an apprentice geisha was very different, leading her earlier curiosity to try and combine the two views. Every lesson about politics and climbing the complicated tree of status Gita lapped up, always looking for more. By the time she was accepted by one of the Kotananduru geisha as an apprentice at 14, Gita was already able to tell her father things he didn't know about the clan. He made full use of this, and they played a dance between avoiding one another for the sake of Lady Kalyani and having short conversations in varying locales about things Gita had learned while serving patrons all over the prefecture. His assistants were all told that his daughter was permitted to see him at any time if she insisted it was important, or would tell him immediately that she sought him, as was the case with most of his informants.
When she became a full geisha, trading the name Sharma Gita for Zhanyae, she would normally have sought a patron to provide for her, but she already had her father's secret patronage. Publicly she did search, both for clients and for a formal patron, but much of her living was underwritten by her father, within reason. She could not appear to be more than a brand-new geisha, and he could not see her more than a well-off father could visit his bastard offspring.
Last edited by Aethera; May 15th, 2015 at 05:03 PM.
Names: Nero Blackburn (until 8 years ago), Dhaval Leblanc (last 7 years), or for occasional sarcastic fun, Alias Masque Mechanics: late-20s male Tiefling Rogue, alignment will vary widely Core Concept: bounty hunter, thief, spy, and assassin for whomever holds his phylactery
The Black Mask, the Opener of the Way's bounty hunter +5 (Opener of the Way, 2 negative)
He spent almost two hundred years as the Opener of the Way's bounty hunter, killing and stealing with very few limits, the notable exception keeping him away from the Old Man of the Mountain (probably the only one that could tell him how to undo his magical prison). He still carries the tattoo of flames that was used as his choke collar when he tried to stray from the intent of his master's will, and that is the only link that might betray him to others as the fearsome Black Mask of legend, if there is anyone who could see it and believe that the original man still lives. This time inundated him with the arcane, giving him nearly as much knowledge of the workings of spell-craft as many casters.
The White Mask, the Gypsy's spy and assassin +3 (Gypsy, 1 conflicted)
Now that his phylactery is in the hands of the Gypsy, he has had seven years of similar service, but she has spent much of it trying to pull his soul back from his blackhearted glee in killing. He has strict orders, but he can flout them if he finds a loophole, and the Gypsy won't use the tattoo to control him. So his methods have changed, and the things he learns are used for the good of many. Now his time is less focused, and he steals secrets of statecraft just as often as he uses his skills to remove threats to those the Gypsy protects. In his opinion, politics is boring, but he's learning it anyway.
Traits: Lest someone ask personal questions, Jormundr avoids talking much at all.
To bring honor to his clan, if someone is in trouble, this dwarf will help.
Ideal: "I trust in Moradin's wisdom. If I work hard and protect the good from the evil, I have no doubt I'll see home again some day."
Bond: "I swear by Moradin, Silverhall, and... well, never you mind about that. Kin and gods, that's the key. Kin and gods."
Flaw: "No good deed, ye ken? For saving lives, I'm here, and not home. Ye won't catch me acceptin' that kind of thanks again, no sir."
Trinket: A bag containing forty-seven humanoid teeth, one of which is rotten.
Why are you helping Imani with this quest?
After nearly a hundred years of adventuring, hoping to bring enough honor to his clan that Moradin might see fit to guide him home again, Jormundr is feeling like he needs to do something bigger, something to attract the god's attention, if not that of his family members. While he feels generally like he does good because he ought to and there is enough evil in the world to last forever twice over, this isn't entirely a charitable act.
Jormundr was born and raised in a dwarven settlement called "Silverhall", a silver mine that expanded into a full city focused on the mining and working of silver. As his father was of the prominent blacksmithing family and his mother's family made jewelry, Jormundr's early years were spent with tools in hand, learning both trades in hopes of being found suitable for one or the other. Those found unsuitable by the very high standards of Silverhall's community usually ended up doing hard labor in the mines, which, while useful to the town, had far less respect associated with it. Learning two trades kept him quite busy, and he had little time to associate with family members he didn't see daily. There was also the typical training learning to wield a hammer or axe with deadly precision, which Jormundr excelled at. It was this that drew the attention of the temple guard captain, and though his family would not let him abandon the trades entirely, Jormundr began training with the temple guard and after a couple years he would stand as honor guard between his smithing and his bed.
The project he designed to prove his worth to the masters of the smithing trade in Silverhall was a warhammer, engraved with the anvil of Moradin on each side where handle met head and silvered to perfection. Long hours were spent, but the end result was worth it. The local masters judged him worthy of joining the ranks of smiths if he decided to pursue smithing. Life looked good, with one career already available to him, and a silversmithing project to complete before he made hard choices. He took the warhammer to the temple to be blessed, and that's when things went ill.
The temple guard in Jormundr felt obligated to investigate when he approached the inner chambers of the temple and overheard a heated argument. Even without entering the room, he could hear one pleading voice and one angry, one threatening grave injury unless something did not happen, not that Jormundr understood the details of what that something ought to be. It was only when the pleading voice begged the other not to kill him that Jormundr started moving, crashing through the door into a scene of chaos. Two priests were in the center of the room, one clutching the other's still form, surrounded by runes that appeared to be painted in blood. It didn't matter what was going on, Jormundr charged at the robed dwarf with the angry voice and slew him.
It was only afterward that he found out what had been happening. Apparently the wizard, who was his first cousin, had returned to Silverhall for revenge, and was planning to bring the wrath of the dwarf god down on the settlement, or, if the priests refused to perform the ritual, he had planned to summon demons to kill every last dwarf. Jormundr didn't understand the more intricate details that were listed, too caught up in the fact that his own kin had tried to commit mass murder. He was proclaimed a hero and given a medal for saving the city, but he walked through the formalities in something of a fog.
He was just beginning to attempt to return to his normal routines when the sidelong looks began, and the whispers. Apparently while everyone was thankful to be alive, they still saw Jormundr as kinslayer, one of their most heinous crimes. His attempts to be cleansed by the priests of Moradin made no difference, and it was only a few months after he'd saved the city that he was leaving it, hints having been dropped by friend and stranger alike.
Apr 7th, 2014, 05:52 PM
If you want to read along Jormundr's progress, it starts 
