Character background

[kavarro95]

Corzaphir Wyldmourne was the third born of 4 siblings, all 3 of which favoring their mother being half-elven, 1 of those also a brother. As the only one favoring their father, he always felt out of place. His parents a half-orc soldier and a half-elven cleric met under serendipitous circumstances ,on the battlefield ,as his mother had just saved his father's life by amputating his arm at the elbow and mending the wound which fate had provided in the poisoned blade of an orc warlord. They spent many a happy year together as they had planned to make a grand family, until the fateful day the now grown son of that particular warlord and his army re-entered their lives.

The entire village was razed. Those who were not killed were enslaved , including Corzaphir's entire family. His father was held for a long time and eventually killed due to injuries inflicted by his many torturers. His sisters and mother were held for more insidious purposes and after a while were murdered as they were no longer "usable". As for his brother and himself, they were forced into many years of hard labor, his younger brother was eventually moved to different region, so he relentlessly follows rumours of large orc slave camps all around the continent and is yet to find him.

A few more years went by, and one day while he was in the process of a cavern breach so the warlord could raid a dwarven city,they were ambushed by said dwarves. After years of waiting ,his chance of finally escaping presented itself. With a rage born of years of ritual scarification and torturing he exploded into action and grabbing the nearest orc slaver by the ankles began bashing every single orc face he saw into pulp and shards of bone. A dwarven sergeant came into the tunnel and as he saw what this slave had done to the innumerable orc bodies while only wielding a broken orc as a hammer of death, yelled in amazement "Urk grund!". He introduced the half-orc as such, which is where Corzaphir earned his nickname ,which translated means "orc hammer".

He spent the next few years wandering from region to region helping rebuild the settlements that were left in ruins by his captors and eventually found his calling from 2 gods, St. Cuthbert and Kord, and swore a paladin's oath of vengeance on all Gruumsh worshipping orcs.

Well opinions?

 

[Caliban]

A) Whitespace makes your post more readable. Hit enter a few times and break it up into paragraphs.

B) This may not be the best forum for a backstory critique. I could be wrong.

C) Reads like a pretty standard backstory "I'm a special snowflake. My family was all tragically killed, conveniently leaving me with no social ties that could be used against me by the DM, and giving me an easy RP hook that requires no thought beyond "kill all orcs". "

Seems good to go.

 

[BoldItalic]

So we have a psychopathic orc/elf mongrel whose parents were tortured and killed along with all their other spawn because they had been very, very naughty and incurred the wrath of the gods. This story is about the last of the unholy spawn to be liquidated. Which it will be.

No sane adventurer is going to associate with this character. The gods hate him, he's walking bad luck and it's only a matter of time before the roof falls on his head and the heads of anyone foolish enough to be nearby.

Try again.

 

[Morinth]

I think the brother should have survived, but he should be mentally broken and still with the other orcs. Part of your character's journey could be rescuing and deprogramming him, since he has "gone native" with the Gruumsh-woshipping family-killing meanies.

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

Would an Orc count as an improvised weapon?

 

[BoldItalic]

Would an Orc count as an improvised weapon?

I think so. Dead goblins are allowed, so why not dead orcs? Maybe 1d8 bludgeoning damage, like a greatclub? Of course, if you pull the arms off it's an unarmed strike and that only does 1 bludgeoning unless you haz featz. Or a monk.

Then it gets complicated. If you kill a Monk-5 Orc and pull its arms off and use it as an improvised weapon, do you get 1d6 bludgeoning because it was 5th level? Ask your DM.

 

[kavarro95]

I think the brother should have survived, but he should be mentally broken and still with the other orcs. Part of your character's journey could be rescuing and deprogramming him, since he has "gone native" with the Gruumsh-woshipping family-killing meanies.

I might alter it for character depth.

 

[kavarro95]

Im going maybe 2 levels in barbarian, then full pally. Holy wrath without the burden of armor. A "Barbadin" if you will.

 

[Ancalagon]

You *really* should break this up in a few paragraphs to improve readability. It will take you 30 seconds and you will double or triple the number of people who want to read it.

As far as a critique... It's rather melodramatic. You've also given next to no information about what happened in his few years of wandering. Did he keep contact with the dwarves? Has he made no friends? And if he is such a loner, why doesn't he just keep being a loner? Why would he associate with other PCs?

 

[Morinth]

Ancalagon makes good points. Your character needs a "buy-in" so that he will want to cooperate with other PCs. Otherwise, he's just not a team player and probably wouldn't ever be on a team. You want to make a character that you can justify having in a group. You don't want to make your GM do all the heavy lifting with regard to keeping your PC with the rest of the group. Try to think of reasons why your guy would want to be in the group, and see if you can give him some layers. Yes, he clearly has PTSD with regard to his tragic losses and his years of abuse, but he's been free of that for awhile now. How has he managed to make his way in the world? Who has helped him? How has he prevented himself from becoming the very thing that he despises?