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Dwimmer Deep
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<blockquote data-quote="Mistwell" data-source="post: 6304987" data-attributes="member: 2525"><p><span style="font-size: 18px">The Characters</span></p><p></p><p>I don't have the backstories for most of the characters. Some was done in emails prior to the game, some was done verbally. I do have at least a couple written out, which I will post below. I will see if I can gather more at another time and edit this entry then. I put in a short entry for most. There is also a bit in the first adventure entry, below this post.</p><p></p><p>Hollin: Human Fighter (Noah)</p><p>Milo Wigglesworth: Halfling Wizard (John)</p><p>Slink: Half-elf Thief (Matt A - Slink was originally an NPC buy Matt A took him over in session 2 I think)</p><p>Father Rivers: Human Cleric (Max - who joins a bit later taking over this character that was initially an NPC)</p><p>Bear: Bugbear Ranger (Jason)</p><p>Luther: Bugbear Fighter (Matt B - though he quits the game shortly thereafter due to life issues, and Luther becomes an NPC usually run by Jason)</p><p></p><p>DM Note: Bugbears are not normally a playable race, but the players really wanted this pair for the game. So I too the half-orc write-up, tweaked it with the Bugbear bestiary, and came up with a race that I think is pretty well on-par with the Half-orc.</p><p> </p><p>Meet Luthur. </p><p></p><p>Luthur was the juvenile orphan-survivor of some more-or-less random, unrecorded confrontation between bugbears (or the bugbears' masters?) and drow. He was initially given to the drow gladiatorial-industrial comlex as arena-fodder, but he survived several matches and eventually became a crowd favorite. So the drow started to actively train Luthur and put him in real, competitive contests. He continued to survive for several character levels.</p><p></p><p>But the thing that set Luthur apart was the fact that he was taken slave while he was still a "cub," meaning he was still in the developmental critical period when bugbears bond to their social groups through olfactory cues. Being thrown in with humanoid captives (humans, elves, dwarves, et al.), he bonded to them by scent, rather than to his "fellow" bugbears. Furthermore, one of the first humanoids to be kind and compassionate with Luthur was a captive cleric of one of the good gods (Pelor?).</p><p></p><p>As a result of these influences, Luthur became instinctively attached to "fellow" humanoid gladiator-slaves and fought fiercely on their behalfs in the arenas. This amused the drow arena-audience, who enjoyed watching him competently defend humanoids against aberrant, beastly, and other conspicuously non-humanoid arena-foes.</p><p></p><p>One day there was an epic confrontation between some high-level PCs and the drow of the particular Underdark region where Luthur was enslaved—and the drow lost. Arena-slaves were triaged as to whether they were friendly, slay-on-the-spot-worthy, or of uncertain moral character. Luthur was initially one of these "on the fence" prisoners, and was eventually identified as being positively disposed toward humanoid PCs in the service of Good. So Luthur was set "free"—in fact, he was put in touch with a network of good-affiliated PCs who could guide him (cuz let's face it, he takes orders well but he's pretty dumb) on a righteous path.</p><p></p><p>This is how I initially conceived Luthur finding his way into an adventuring party. My initial idea was to have Luthur travel with the divine party member wearing what appears to be divine shackles or restraints with a glowing glyph of the Good god's insignia emblazoned on the chestpiece. Thus, as he travels around with his "master," he plays along in pretending to be a shackled, divinely-mind-controlled servant of his divine-classed colleague. The idea was that this subterfuge would get the adventuring party smoothly through most soical encounters in which having a hulking member of a goblinoid sub-race present would otherwise cause panic or alarm.</p><p></p><p>DM Note: To tweak it to match this new campaign, I am open to suggestions but here are my initial thoughts. Since all the PCs are presumed to be pretty dirt poor and desperate enough to risk venturing into a nasty dungeon, that part matches well with this back story. As for existing higher level cleric that both Luther and Bear are "attached" to, guiding him on a better path, that I think could work as follows:</p><p></p><p>From the existing campaign back story: "...some professional adventurers headed out to explore [Dwimmer Deep], followed by some amateurs, and then some more amateurs. Some of the professionals came back alive, but most of the amateurs didn't. Those that returned told similar stories of wealth, and danger. Enterprising locals figured it was about time to get some organization going. They started an adventuring guild, and invited interested folks to apply..."</p><p></p><p>So since the dungeon, Dwimmer Deep, has already been initially explored by some professional adventurers, we'll call one of those adventurers The Cleric. I'd be fine saying that the higher-level Cleric is one of the higher-up leaders of the Adventurer's Guild (one of the enterprising locals, who was also a member of the initial professional adventuring party). </p><p></p><p>This would give the party a contact with the Guild, and also work with the backstory. </p><p></p><p>So, "High Level Cleric" (we will need a name for him) found Luther and Bear in a Drow city at some other location, brought them back out, travelled with them to East Gantrick town, dropped them off with the local temple in town temporarily while The Cleric adventured in Dwimmer Deep for a short while, and then The Cleric helped found the new Adventurer's Guild and brought Bear and Luther into the Guild as new members.</p><p></p><p>_____</p><p></p><p>Bear</p><p></p><p>The easiest way would be to turn all of the above references to "Luthur" into references to Luthur and Jason's tribe-mate, age-mate character. Perhaps the tribe-mates were separated upon capture, Jason's character having been given over to training as "hunting dogs" to some bad-ass clique of drow ranger-scouts. This would provide a plausible reason for Jason's charatcer to get ranger training rather than arena-fighter training (Needless to say, his Ranger's nature skill would be Dungeoneering rather than Nature).</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>Bear, a Marauder Ranger. Rolling Bear into Luther's backstory it would seem to work just fine, with perhaps a slight twist on the turning-point: say his hunting party was massacred by some gnarly Otherling on a rare outing to the surface; Bear played all-dead (easy, as he was mostly-dead) and was rescued on the brink of extinction by... that same captive cleric of Pelor, having escaped in the confusion of the raid, or perhaps by the same party that executed the raid on their way back to tavern.</p><p></p><p>If we can get these two to synergize in an effective way, I think this is a capital way to proceed.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>Slink</p><p></p><p>Slink is a bit mysterious. He was a thief by profession, but then something happened to him, which he does not talk about much. He became smarter, and more aware of the arcane world. He took up the profession of a sage, along with remaining a thief. As of this adventure he's remained a thief, but he often has a high degree of interest in all things arcane.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>Father Rivers</p><p></p><p>Fahter Rivers is an acolyte affiliated with the Cleric of Pelor mentioned in Luther's backstory. He was sent along on this adventure to watch after the party and make sure they come back alive.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>Milo Wigglesworth</p><p></p><p>This lightfoot halfling is quite a rascal, often getting the group into some trouble in his pursuit of arcane items of power and knowledge.</p><p></p><p>---</p><p></p><p>Hollin</p><p></p><p>Hollin really just wants to kill things and take their stuff, in the most legal form he can. He's not here to negotiate, he's not here to solve riddles, he's here to kick butt and grab a sack of gold. Why does he want the gold? He's not talking...yet.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Mistwell, post: 6304987, member: 2525"] [SIZE=5]The Characters[/SIZE] I don't have the backstories for most of the characters. Some was done in emails prior to the game, some was done verbally. I do have at least a couple written out, which I will post below. I will see if I can gather more at another time and edit this entry then. I put in a short entry for most. There is also a bit in the first adventure entry, below this post. Hollin: Human Fighter (Noah) Milo Wigglesworth: Halfling Wizard (John) Slink: Half-elf Thief (Matt A - Slink was originally an NPC buy Matt A took him over in session 2 I think) Father Rivers: Human Cleric (Max - who joins a bit later taking over this character that was initially an NPC) Bear: Bugbear Ranger (Jason) Luther: Bugbear Fighter (Matt B - though he quits the game shortly thereafter due to life issues, and Luther becomes an NPC usually run by Jason) DM Note: Bugbears are not normally a playable race, but the players really wanted this pair for the game. So I too the half-orc write-up, tweaked it with the Bugbear bestiary, and came up with a race that I think is pretty well on-par with the Half-orc. Meet Luthur. Luthur was the juvenile orphan-survivor of some more-or-less random, unrecorded confrontation between bugbears (or the bugbears' masters?) and drow. He was initially given to the drow gladiatorial-industrial comlex as arena-fodder, but he survived several matches and eventually became a crowd favorite. So the drow started to actively train Luthur and put him in real, competitive contests. He continued to survive for several character levels. But the thing that set Luthur apart was the fact that he was taken slave while he was still a "cub," meaning he was still in the developmental critical period when bugbears bond to their social groups through olfactory cues. Being thrown in with humanoid captives (humans, elves, dwarves, et al.), he bonded to them by scent, rather than to his "fellow" bugbears. Furthermore, one of the first humanoids to be kind and compassionate with Luthur was a captive cleric of one of the good gods (Pelor?). As a result of these influences, Luthur became instinctively attached to "fellow" humanoid gladiator-slaves and fought fiercely on their behalfs in the arenas. This amused the drow arena-audience, who enjoyed watching him competently defend humanoids against aberrant, beastly, and other conspicuously non-humanoid arena-foes. One day there was an epic confrontation between some high-level PCs and the drow of the particular Underdark region where Luthur was enslaved—and the drow lost. Arena-slaves were triaged as to whether they were friendly, slay-on-the-spot-worthy, or of uncertain moral character. Luthur was initially one of these "on the fence" prisoners, and was eventually identified as being positively disposed toward humanoid PCs in the service of Good. So Luthur was set "free"—in fact, he was put in touch with a network of good-affiliated PCs who could guide him (cuz let's face it, he takes orders well but he's pretty dumb) on a righteous path. This is how I initially conceived Luthur finding his way into an adventuring party. My initial idea was to have Luthur travel with the divine party member wearing what appears to be divine shackles or restraints with a glowing glyph of the Good god's insignia emblazoned on the chestpiece. Thus, as he travels around with his "master," he plays along in pretending to be a shackled, divinely-mind-controlled servant of his divine-classed colleague. The idea was that this subterfuge would get the adventuring party smoothly through most soical encounters in which having a hulking member of a goblinoid sub-race present would otherwise cause panic or alarm. DM Note: To tweak it to match this new campaign, I am open to suggestions but here are my initial thoughts. Since all the PCs are presumed to be pretty dirt poor and desperate enough to risk venturing into a nasty dungeon, that part matches well with this back story. As for existing higher level cleric that both Luther and Bear are "attached" to, guiding him on a better path, that I think could work as follows: From the existing campaign back story: "...some professional adventurers headed out to explore [Dwimmer Deep], followed by some amateurs, and then some more amateurs. Some of the professionals came back alive, but most of the amateurs didn't. Those that returned told similar stories of wealth, and danger. Enterprising locals figured it was about time to get some organization going. They started an adventuring guild, and invited interested folks to apply..." So since the dungeon, Dwimmer Deep, has already been initially explored by some professional adventurers, we'll call one of those adventurers The Cleric. I'd be fine saying that the higher-level Cleric is one of the higher-up leaders of the Adventurer's Guild (one of the enterprising locals, who was also a member of the initial professional adventuring party). This would give the party a contact with the Guild, and also work with the backstory. So, "High Level Cleric" (we will need a name for him) found Luther and Bear in a Drow city at some other location, brought them back out, travelled with them to East Gantrick town, dropped them off with the local temple in town temporarily while The Cleric adventured in Dwimmer Deep for a short while, and then The Cleric helped found the new Adventurer's Guild and brought Bear and Luther into the Guild as new members. _____ Bear The easiest way would be to turn all of the above references to "Luthur" into references to Luthur and Jason's tribe-mate, age-mate character. Perhaps the tribe-mates were separated upon capture, Jason's character having been given over to training as "hunting dogs" to some bad-ass clique of drow ranger-scouts. This would provide a plausible reason for Jason's charatcer to get ranger training rather than arena-fighter training (Needless to say, his Ranger's nature skill would be Dungeoneering rather than Nature). --- Bear, a Marauder Ranger. Rolling Bear into Luther's backstory it would seem to work just fine, with perhaps a slight twist on the turning-point: say his hunting party was massacred by some gnarly Otherling on a rare outing to the surface; Bear played all-dead (easy, as he was mostly-dead) and was rescued on the brink of extinction by... that same captive cleric of Pelor, having escaped in the confusion of the raid, or perhaps by the same party that executed the raid on their way back to tavern. If we can get these two to synergize in an effective way, I think this is a capital way to proceed. --- Slink Slink is a bit mysterious. He was a thief by profession, but then something happened to him, which he does not talk about much. He became smarter, and more aware of the arcane world. He took up the profession of a sage, along with remaining a thief. As of this adventure he's remained a thief, but he often has a high degree of interest in all things arcane. --- Father Rivers Fahter Rivers is an acolyte affiliated with the Cleric of Pelor mentioned in Luther's backstory. He was sent along on this adventure to watch after the party and make sure they come back alive. --- Milo Wigglesworth This lightfoot halfling is quite a rascal, often getting the group into some trouble in his pursuit of arcane items of power and knowledge. --- Hollin Hollin really just wants to kill things and take their stuff, in the most legal form he can. He's not here to negotiate, he's not here to solve riddles, he's here to kick butt and grab a sack of gold. Why does he want the gold? He's not talking...yet. [/QUOTE]
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