Okay, dangit. Put my name in the hat please. This is absolutely the last game I'm signing up for though and I'll work hard to make sure nobody waits on me too long. With that out of the way, I present... JUSTICE.
[sblock=Rough draft to be fleshed out soon]Human male, Sailor background on a merchant ship "The Golden Promise". Cross-trained like everybody on a ship just in case of injuries and such, he's proficient in Medicine (he was the primary medic) and Navigator's Tools (he was the back-up Navigator). His ship gets attacked and he's knocked out by a fireball blast near him. When he wakes up, the battle is still going on and a body next to him is slipping over the edge of a hole in the deck towards the fire raging below. The man's hands and hair are on fire when he gets pulled up to safety. He returns the favor by punching the man who will be Justice in the face, branding his cheek with the image of the signet ring on his burning hand. This man is a Count (name not decided yet) in the nobility of (somewhere... Kingsport maybe?) His family supports the thieves guild and pirating but pays off the right people and stays just enough out of trouble that nothing can be proven. This Count gets his kicks by 'slumming' with the pirates occasionally on a ship called "The Bloody Wake". He stays masked so his identity isn't known, but the hat/mask was burning and had to be removed. So my character knows who he is.
But my character is the only medic left alive, so the Count forces him (at swordpoint or worse) to use his skills to heal the Count. The 'or worse' is because my characters family is on this voyage as well. His wife was partly responsible for setting up this aid delivery to someplace that needed it for some reason. She got various rich folk and nobility to donate to this cause and was traveling with it to make sure all was delivered right at the far end. When the (King? or whomever is the leader in Kingsport) decided to donate as well, he also assigned the delivery duty to this ship which worked for the crown often. It was during this one night event amongst the nobility that my character met the Count and therefore knows his identity.
The Count can't have this, so after getting tended to, he stabs my character and then orders someone to cut his cheek off so that the branding of his signet ring isn't left behind even on a corpse. The Bloody Wake then sinks the Golden Promise after plundering her. My character was unconscious after being stabbed and isn't sure if his wife, son, and daughter went down with the ship, or were taken by the Count. He wound up marooned on an island for some time. He found shelter in a small church of Tyr that was partly collapsed. One skeleton provided armor and weapons and a holy book of Tyr, the god of Justice. He healed, he hunted, he survived, and he read the book. When he was finally rescued some time later, he was strong again. He had left one name behind and would not use it again until he attained the Justice that his family and crewmembers deserved. He would quest against the evils of the world. But most of all against the evils of man. Corrupt nobility that was above the law, and thieves guilds that could hide in the shadows. Orcs and trolls were evil too of course, but they were born that way. Men made a choice. Until his vengeance was complete, he would only answer to the name of ... JUSTICE!
Going to be a Paladin with eventual Oath of Vengeance of course. He hopes to have his own ship someday (to hunt pirates), he wants revenge on the Count (duh), and he's a bit of a drunk per his flaw: Once he starts drinking, it's really hard to stop. Mixing up origins a bit from The Punisher and the Arrow TV show, I know. But an alcoholic-sailor-Paladin of Revenge is just too cool of a concept not to play with!
I've reached critical mass on his story in my head and it's expanding still. But this is the basics of it. I'll work on filling it out and prettying it up and putting together the actual stats ASAP. Probably using the Variant human as well, so I can start with the Athlete feat that will simulate his shipboard training and skills nicely.[/sblock]
I do appreciate your willingness to play a potentially weaker character for the advancement of the story. That being said, I'd like to see your character begin our story after having been at Blackthorn for some time. I can't imagine you'd have been allowed to go to classes with the other students, but you might have been granted patronage by some Blackthorn official who saw your potential, and been allowed to use the library at your leisure on the condition that you earn your keep by assisting the caretaker. The details are just my thoughts; work it out however you want, but I'd like to start the story with you already at Blackthorn, if it's all the same to you.
