I just stumbled in here, and thought I'd introduce some of the more dangerous groups of NPC's I have running around in my campaign world. The game is currently situated in Calastia, so mercenary groups are the way to go if you want to hire some competent killers or make some money as a sell-sword. Statistics are not provided, but I hope that's not a problem. Personally I like to write up character histories and personalities first, and then do the statistics.
Andreas Greysword, Ftr 9, neutral evil.
Andreas grew up in the cold of Albadia, in the Northern parts of Ghelspad. Where snows seldom melt. He was always a good student of whatever tasks or dilemmas were placed in front of him. But his father was a hard man who needed his eldest son to till the hard land and work it until it ruined him. Only to create more offspring, who would repeat the cycle. Although Andreas was a good guy when he was young he became rebellious in his puberty, as most boys do. His father would have none of it and so Andreas found out about the mean streak in his father. He would beat the boy endlessly, even though he had done as ordered. The slightest subordination would be rewarded with another lashing. And so the year ended with unhappiness for the whole family. Times had always been hard, and they would remain so, was what his father said. This land didn’t give anything to the weak or the foolish. And so the young man should be beaten into a proper tool for his father’s use, just as the boy would one day do to his own children. This the old man promised with a solemn word. It would seem that Andreas was stuck in a world that neither cared nor understood his need to expand beyond the simple existence of a farmer. Years went on, and darkness settled upon him. To say that he took after his father would have been wrong. At first it seemed so, and his father was even slightly satisfied, seeing his teachings grow long awaited fruit. But what emerged was a cruel and sadistic man. He no longer cared about his people, the albadians, nor did his feel anything towards his family. The only person he felt anything towards was his father. And that was a burning hatred. A hatred stemmed from the belief that he had imprisoned him to this cold and desolate land that had nothing to offer him. So, on a summer’s eve, when the weather was at its best, Andreas took up his pack of belongings and walked out the life he had been living for 17 years. He joined a caravan travelling towards Darakeene, and took the place of a caravan guard. He had no weaponry to speak off, but was proficient with the short bow he had used to shoot rabbits since the years of his childhood. The other guards looked at him with derision or contempt and kept him apart. Andreas remembered those men, and kept their names in his mind. Over and over he repeated their foul names in his mind, until they became a litany upon which to spit whenever something went wrong. This being the Scarred Lands, and them travelling trough a titanspawn infested terrain there were plenty of things to go wrong, of course. But after weeks of travelling trough one of the harshest plains on this continent they arrived to the borders of Darakeene.
The first thing that Andreas did was to find a steady job in the city. He had seen enough of farmers, and would as soon spit on one than to speak to him in a civil manner. The good thing about Darakeene is that they don’t look all that askance upon outsiders or even other races. Rather they are a fairly open minded lot. When Andreas informed an innkeeper that he would like work for him the man looked at his scarred and muscular body, and took him at face value.
The young man could always be flogged and driven out of the city should he prove troublesome, thought the innkeeper. Andreas spent a full decade in Darakeene. At first he was surly company at best, but soon the open and matter-of-fact attitude of the Darakeene people touched him. The darkness that had been inside him receded a bit. He began to talk of his dreams and needs to the innkeeper, who in turn brought him to the masters of Darakeene’s military schools. He said his recommendations on the man’s work, sharp wit and thoughtful manners. They were pleased enough to put him into training. After 7 years he walked out of that place with enough training to become a mercenary. He hadn’t had the necessary discipline to become a proper legionnaire, but then again there were plenty of people looking to hire a man with a quick mind and even better abilities with a sword.
So his tutors placed his feet upon the road to becoming a mercenary. It wasn’t exactly all that Andreas had wanted, but then again…nothing in life this far had gone quite the way he had wanted. Might as well accept what life brought and live with it. That much he had taken from his homeland. Although he never speaks about where his from, he has absorbed perhaps the best parts of two kingdoms of. He is hard working with enough strictness to keep others in line, yet he doesn’t enjoy commanding enough to become a real mercenary captain. Only when it is necessary does he take up the mantle of leadership.
Andreas is a man of many talents. But for the most part he is a steadfast mercenary who will do as told, and think quickly on his feet. His humor is cutting and edgy, but not without point. He has darkness inside him that sometimes surfaces. Since quitting the academies of war in Darakeene he has traveled to the other side of this continent. Upon his way ran into 5 other mercenaries, all of them with their own reasons and histories, but he isn’t all that interested in that. He senses that these men, and that solitary woman who doesn’t seem to go away, are a good fighting unit. Even the cleric of Chardun has his uses. And Longstep keeps a good crew, right under his footJ.
Beagar Longstep, fighter 9, neutral evil.
Born to a noble house in Calastia. His childhood was one of long hours of study and hard hours of working in the practice yards with an Earl’s sword-master. The lands around were lush with wheat and cattle. Life was fairly simple and there were few needs that went unsatisfied as the boy grew into a young man. And that is when he was introduced into the Mirror court of Calastia. As a noble youth he was expected to put all those hard years of study to the good use of the state. Naturally he complied and became a fair student of politics and the intrigue which always follows such circles. But soon he also began to covet things that weren’t really his to ask for. Women, it seems, have been the down fall of many a man. And so it was that after a couple of years traversing the Mirror Courts of Calastia brought Beagar to the attention of several eligible daughters of rich merchants. As the youth was the son of a mere Earl it never became a question of marrying other nobles, but that is something that young Beagar coveted with all of his heart. He wanted more power! He wanted to be man of importance where his father had obviously failed and left the family in the possession of a simple earldom. He wanted more! And so he sought the hand of a suitable young maiden from a prominent House. Many were her suitors, but this one was all the more interesting for his brashness and sureness that came from his arrogance. Naturally the young noble woman was flattered and tempted, but his father intervened, as he must. It wasn’t proper for this man to be suitor to such a lady of high birth. And so it was that a silent war began between these two houses. A year later it would end in the decimation of the lesser house, and to the striking of the young man from the rolls of nobility.
Anger and injustice flamed inside Beagar! He left his fathers lands, an outsider who had never lived there and went to his enemy’s lands. There he was greeted by a company of the household guard and chased away with a scornful ease that flamed his young temper yet further. But what could he do? With no resources to speak of, with no allies to mention or anything else to call his own besides the clothes upon his back he was an outcast. There was really only one way to end this. He would attack the other household under darkness and kill that bastard of a man who had kept him from his future bride. Such was his fury and stupidity of youth that he actually went trough with his plan.
After making sure that there were no new guests or soldiers going into the estate he realized his plans. Upon a moonless night he went back and actually managed to enter the premises of the estate before being sighted by a household guard. The alarm war raised, but before that the young man had managed to down two guards and enter the household proper. There he was accosted by a group of bodyguards who had hold him down bodily before he was struck down with the blunt side of a sword. That was the end of a man whose name doesn’t exist in Calastia or any other land anymore.
That was the day when he became a slave for the Lord of this mighty house. After being detained for a week or so a slave caravan came by, and picked up the youth. After all, they very well couldn’t expect him to behave like a proper slave in the house of his most hated enemy. Instead they gave him to the slave caravan, and got good money for such a well-trained and obviously capable slave. Although the trader did make a bit of a fuss over having to teach his new property common manners, but all in all he has satisfied, and left the Lords lands feeling rather richer for the trade. The slave was treated fairly roughly, to teach him his place. And so Beagar endured for several years of travelling from one owner to another. But he also learned toughness and bettered his fighting skills whenever he could with dirty tricks and a hard skin. Then one night he strangled caravan’s guard in his sleep and ran to his freedom. Only to be caught some two days later near a small village. The caravan master had had the guard hanged and had sent rangers after his escaped property. That one was worth a great deal of gold, after all. But to the surprise of the rangers the only things they caught was their own death. The slave had learned well, and having being beaten with a wooden cane every day for a good long while those weapons the rangers employed were of little danger to him. So he slew the pair, and took everything worth carrying from them.
But now came the time when he really had to realize that there was no going back. He was marked property, only free because of his good training and skills developed during hard years of slavery. How could he become anything else? By hiding his past and creating something new with the resources he had. One of the two rangers had a good pouch of gold with him, and that was put to good use after Beagar reached a town with a proper smithy in it. He ordered masterwork weaponry, armor and took to wearing clothing that was little better than rags. These were the hallmarks of his craft as a mercenary. Soon he realized that he also needed others like him to become anything more than a caravan guard, and he had had enough of that work. So he gathered 5 others around him. Hard people all, but with enough wit and skill with them to survive on their own. And that was something that Beagar has always respected. He is a shrewd and hard leader, but also gives out good money and even better orders. He follows those teachings thought to him in his youth, and is ready to add any number of dirty tricks to his repertoire. All in all, a hard man, with a will to make his life more bearable again.
Erica Blackwind, Sorcerer 9, chaotic evil.
Erica was found to be a sorcerer around the age of 8. She was playing with a bunch of children, when all of a sudden one of the playing cubes they were using in a game started floating. To the amazement of all four children the cube tumbled trough air as though thrown upon ground. When it came to stand in the middle of the air there was a general scream of fear and the children scattered. Erica was the last to leave the area, and as she did so the cube fell down harmlessly. But there were older people, some of them with sharp eyes, who saw this and felt a true chill in their bellies. What the children had possibly thought as a quirk of their imagination they knew to be the twisted and evil forces of a titan. They quickly caught the girl and dragged her into the women’s circle of the small town. There they questioned her hard, and tested her with all manner of superstitious ways. Nothing would show them that this child was a sorcerer, a witch born to the power of the Titans. Still they had to know somehow. And since they were on an important trade rout along the way to Vesh’s capitol they chose to pass the girl on to more capable hands. Soon she was being carted through unknown lands to a place that looked both gloomy and weird to her. To a city called Lave. There she was placed under the strict surveillance of the priests of Madriel. First they began buy telling her the basic things about Madriel, and her goodness and pureness. Since the girl was so young it was still possible to bring her to a proper priesthood, which would then direct her to use her abilities for the good of all. Naturally this didn’t mean her sorcerer’s abilities were needed, those would (hopefully) disappear during the hard years of training ahead, and make a proper priestess out of her. And so the training began. Hard months of monotonous teaching, doing household and charity work. Caring for those in need and generally making sure that everyone was satisfied with their lot before taking care of herself. But this kind of life battled against her nature too much. There weren’t enough moments of peace, and the strictness of the priesthood was choking her. So it was that she began to device ways to make her tasks easier, more pleasant and quicker to finish. At first the priests simple thought that she had reached the conclusion that fighting their ways was futile, and went on teaching her even “greater” truths about the world as she seemed to progress in their eyes. What happened, in reality, is that Erica was secretly (even from herself) developing her sorcerer’s abilities. Those little smiles and words that made everyone smile. An enchantment. That way she made the best soup in the poor quarter. An illusion. And so forth. She was growing in power right under the watchful eyes of the priests. But this couldn’t go on much longer. Even as the priests and priestesses were starting to pay more attention to her doings another group found her. They were called the Scaled. A group of vagabonds and thieves came to her, and suggested that they had a much better use for her natural abilities. At first Erica was frightened. After all, years had passed since her forceful indoctrination to the ranks of Madriel’s priests at Lave. But they weren’t to be put off by such a simple matter as showing her what she was really doing. They explained to her that she had power and knowledge locked away in her, and all she had to do was experience the right kind of stimulation to release it. And what could that be? Well, helping them help others of course? Wasn’t it the same thing that had started this whole thing? Hadn’t her natural abilities started to grow as she helped those in need? The Scaled reasoned: by helping them help others she could become even more powerful and capable of helping yet more people.
At first Erica was very doubtful, but after a few weeks of doing a little chore. Little things that didn’t really even require her to use her “special abilities”, she was beginning to see the wisdom in the words of those men and women who had offered her a new home. And it was true that she wasn’t really devoted to Madriel. She said the words, and paid lip service, but that was most of it. For the most part the church in which she lived was starting to feel like a prison. A prison from which there was now an escape rout. And she meant to take it!
So she became one of the Scaled.
Running away from the church wasn’t all that hard. All she had to do was make some funny sounds appear at the end of one corridor and then sneak to the other end. After a few more minutes she did the same to the guards at the door. While they didn’t leave their posts they didn’t pay so much attention to their immediate surroundings, and didn’t notice the little girl slipping away.
Life with the Scaled began innocently enough. She did some silly tricks and they gave her shelter, new friends, food and thought her a great deal more about the city in which she had spent five years, without really seeing any of it. Then things started to turn for the worse. A band of evil men moved into the city, and made their presence known among the thieves, whores, swindlers and other side-streets inhabitants of the city. They came with clubs and short swords to all who refused to pay them a self-appointed amount of protection money. The Scaled refused and where hunted down almost to the last member. Erica was one of the survivors who escaped the city. They had lost their prestigious place in the city, and had been driven out. While a couple of them made for the city state of Hedrad most decided it time to change the scenery. They would be well known to many of their competitors, not to mention the long arm of the law. That’s why they left Hedrad in the first place. So they thought it over and decided to head south. To Calastia. There were ten of them in the group when they left. Along the way they were attacked several times by all sorts of horrors, and only 4 survived the trip down south. Erica was one of them, but there were great changes in her. No longer was she the blue-eyed farmer’s daughter. No longer did she think that the world’s people came before everything else. She had seen such horrors as few besides soldiers see in their lives. Even in the Scarred Lands. Also there had been a couple of times when only her growing powers had saved the day, and kept the rest alive. They in turn had given her things, and promises to pay for their lives. And now she saw that she really could grow more powerful. Even to the point of never having to follow anyone on a leash. The experiences at the monastery hadn’t really scarred her, but after leaving that sheltered life she saw how much she had lost by being locked up in that sheltering environment, and also by not being able to develop her abilities as a sorcerer. She was enraptured by the mystical energies she could unleash with a few motions of her hands and a word. There were a great many carcasses piled behind her path now, and she liked it!
She thought about where she would like to go once she reached the borders of New Venir or Lageni. Actually she had already passed those invisible borders, and was nearing the first purely human settlements in months. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was her will to become a warrior among a nation of warriors. She had tried being a priest. That had little appeal to her, as she really didn’t feel any great devotion towards any one particular god. Then there were the thieves, but they had become a group of sniveling pests as soon as someone with a little strength had showed up. So how about being a soldier. Now, the problem was that she had no training or interest in all that sword hacking or club swinging. Instead she could hurl lightning and burning darts of acid at her enemies. She could disappear from plain sight, and attack once more from another quarter. There were plenty of things nastier than her out there, but with a proper crew (she thought that was the proper word) she could make it. Becoming truly great, and maybe someday for a crew of her own, is a dream of hers. And should she have to destroy or kill some things or people along the way, well such is the way to greatness. But first she needs experience, and that’s why she looked up Beagar Longstep.
Ambition is the key to her nature, and she is also addicted to the power of a sorcerer. So much so that she will destroy anyone trying to stand in her way and even greater power.
Cadell Deadeye, Ranger 9, neutral evil.
Born in Angel’s Gate, Durrover, this young man was nothing special in the first 15 years of his life. He excelled in mountain fighting, as did most of those boys he grew up with. A couple became smiths or sorcerers but that was about it. Cadell doesn’t really want to remember those days. They were filled with hard work, sleeping when one could – usually on hard rock with no fire – eating what little was in the mountains and fighting. Always fighting, against an enemy that seemed without numbers. There seemed no point to it. Durrover was a lost cause from the day he was born. No amount of men dying and the women singing their songs in the town halls made it any different. The people of Durrover were being ground to a fine dust, and then no-one would remember them anymore. This was obvious to the young man who finally decided to do something useful with his life. Having seen his loved one’s butchered, his comrades in arms fall and being forgotten by everyone the youth left to find a life. There really weren’t all that many directions to take. North promised a suicidal trip trough mountains and swamps swarming with enemies. To the south was nothing but barren land or Titan tainted forest. But to the west there were lush and plentiful lands as far as the eye could see, and that is where he would go. Travelling to lands that had a powerful master, who could certainly use a good ranger. And that is what he had become. A scout for those who would throw themselves at a clearly more powerful enemy and die with “honor”. He had seen such men more than he cared to remember in his first five years as a scout. But no more! And so Cadell took up his bow, quiver and sword and traveled to new lands.
There was really little to hinder his passage. Those guards posted by his people simply thought him on a mission. He had passed them by so many times that they thought nothing of it. And as for the Calastian border guards and scouts? Well, he really didn’t think they had much a chance against his skills. Such is the pride of youth. After travelling for several days he saw the forward scouts of Calastia. They actually looked little different from his countrymen, if somewhat darker of skin. The cold and harsh environment of his countrymen had kept their complexion more lighter, but other than that there was little difference. Closing in on their location was a fairly simple matter for the young ranger. He had them in his sight, and they were traversing a small goat trail that was known to Cadell from other scouts he had talked to in the previous weeks. They said the thing led along a fairly easily predicted rout to south. So he easily loped ahead of them, and thought to follow in their tracks as they descended the mountains to report back to their camp. Unaware that he had already been spotted he used all his tricks to hide himself along the rocky terrain of the mountains. Minutes went by, but the scouts didn’t appear. After some time the young ranger took a tentative step out of his hiding place and began to descend upon the goat trail. Maybe they had chosen another route after all, and he would have to track them down. Annoyed at this inconvenience Cadell started a easy jog towards the way the scouts should have come. But as soon as he set foot upon the goat trail a fowling blunt struck him square in the head, and he went down with a crash.
Awakening brought little comfort. He was in a room with a bunch of robed people. Actually it was a tent. Well, anyhow the air was very dry and hot. And there seemed to be a brazier to one side upon which wicked looking tools were heating up. A small group of apprentices were preparing Cadell for something. Incense was burned, unholy rites for Chardun were echoed from mouth to mouth and he felt something sticky and bloody smelling was been spattered upon his bare chest.
After some time the tent flaps were drawn apart and another man entered. He gazed upon the youth upon the rack, and formed the unholy symbol of Chardun in front of him. And by doing so he removed his own blood red robes, and revealed a terror beyond anything Cadell had ever seen before that moment. The man’s hands were bound in barbed wire, in a very painful looking fashion. The man also had the mouth of a nameless monster hanging from his chest set in brass, secured with chains across his torso. And upon his head there was a leafy coronet filled with thorns. Terror over took Cadell, and he screamed. At his the apprentices chuckled and smiled, until the horror of a man made a motion with his hand and they their appointed places behind various utensils and devices. Then it struck Cadell: he was about to be tortured for information, about his homeland. At first the strange man’s touch was almost delicate as he went trough Cadell’s body with rough feeling hands. The thorns upon his hands scratched, but not in a way that would make even a babe of Durrover yell out. Let alone a tough warrior of that harsh land. But then the master torturer began his craft, and Cadell was screaming his lungs out in no time. Then there was a brief moment of release, and once more his body was plunged into agony like nothing he had never felt.
It took them 4 hours to crack him. As the master left the tent and some of the apprentices opened their mouths for the first time in awhile he got the impression that this had been a short time for a warrior of Durrover. Still he had faced one of their torturers, and hadn’t told them much. Or was it so? His mind was so terribly clouded. He couldn’t seem to remember…
Then it hit him like a ton of molten iron. He had spilled every little bit he could think of about the defenses, troop deployments and plans of his countrymen. He had even told them everything about how he had abandoned them to their blight, and crossed the mountains to find a better place to live in. He wept for his stupidity in thinking himself beyond the skills of these Calastians. They, after all, were even now conquering his nation, and should be thought of as capable and deadly enemies. Not soft city people, who had had easy lives living upon flat, rich, lands. So this is what his ambitions had brought him to: an enemy camp, probably at the edge of Calastias borders, to a torturers tent, where he had spilled his guts after a few hours of pain. Honor fled him. Hope vanished in a rush of breath. He had failed utterly in what he had set out to do. Yet, he thought, there must be a way out of this place. But where could he go? Not home, he had betrayed them utterly, and his people would probably just kick him out again, if they didn’t just kill him. And he wanted to live! After a while he noticed that the apprentices were alone in this tent. These weren’t scouts or master torturers. They were young people like him with the thought that their prisoner was subdued and helpless. Well, not this one! He tried his restraints and found them still attached. Well, they probably took those off before they moved him. Unless they were just going to leave him here. The thought chilled Cadell, but he hoped this wasn’t going to be the case. And soon enough his hopes were answered as one of the apprentices began opening the chains that had been holding him down. In that instant of despair he struck the apprentice straight in the face and leaped up. His captors were surprised at this sudden motion and turned to see what was going on? In that instant Cadell ran for the tent flaps and exited the tent in a rush. Outside he found a dark night. The heat and well made, thick, tent had hidden the time of the day from him, but now he was free. Using his training he fled from the camp. Not easily, but the Calastians didn’t have so much guards on the western side. No alarm was raised, although the apprentices had certainly reached their master by the time Cadell reached the outskirts of the camp. Maybe the master torturer had simply emptied the young man of everything worth knowing, and didn’t care about him anymore. Or Such was Cadell’s hope as he sped across new terrain that was quickly smoothing out to a more level ground, to the foothill of the great Kelder Mountains.
After that frightening night Cadell has traveled across the width of Calastia. At first he didn’t have any idea as to how to make a living, and was reduced to stealing from farms. Luckily there were plenty of those, and his skills in stealth served him well once more. But after a while of moving from one locale to another he realized that he couldn’t continue like this, and expect to live long. So he talked himself into some caravan guard duty. This was the beginning of his mercenary life. Years later he is still a man who blames himself for his own stupidity, but his living a better life than he was before. His also met with some other mercenaries who were forming a “crew”. Led by a man called Beagar Longstep. Out of inspiration, and need for money, he joined them and has found a bunch of very hard and capable mercenaries. How long he will stay with these people is another question, but for a while more at least. He needs to build capital.
Orin Fell, Fighter 4 / Cleric 5, lawful evil.
Born soon after the ending of the Divine War, Orin experienced personally the hardness that Calastia chose to endure in order to build up its resources. Every conceivable trade item was sold, so that capital could be built fast. Only those foodstuffs and items necessary for survival were kept, and sometimes those as well were sacrificed for the greater good of the Nation. These were hard years, and many suffered. Orin was only growing to his youth at this time, but had already joined the priesthood of Chardun. They would collect was needed to defend the nation and see families fall into starvation. But this way their nation would be able to fight against all manner of problems that it would face in the coming years. So while others celebrated and filled their bellies with freedom, good food and wine the Calastians starved and suffered.
One day Orin saw a priest approach from the west to the lands under his churches protection. Some priests were sent to greet the stranger, and some soldiers as well, since there no knowledge as to who approached. It was to be a black day for a whole lot of people. For no sooner did the strange priest, and that is what everyone thought he was from his regalia, see the flourishing fields of food around him than he began to intone a curse upon all he saw. In the name of Belsameth. Technically this wasn’t an assault upon the priests of Chardun, just targeted at the well fair of their god’s followers. While the fields withered and died many soldiers were dispatched to kill this monster. But one and all were slain by his mighty goddess, who answered one prayer after another to extinguish the lives of men. Whether peasants or soldiers. But as the priests finally took to the field, and looked upon the carnage and destruction they fell upon this priest of madness. They shared some of the characteristics of darkness with this priest, but they shared none of his inhuman passion for madness and death. And so he was slain with curses, blasts of unholy flame and warsceptres kept without blood for too many years.
When the carnage was over and the priests surveyed their surroundings they came to the conclusion that they needed an escape goat. Someone who could be sent away and blamed for the troubles visited upon this mad priest of Belsameth. Never mind that he had wrongly attacked those placed under their care. They certainly didn’t feel any remorse was killing the swine. Simply fear for having broken the Divine Truce. Well, to their minds they hadn’t, but others would argue that technically they had. And so it was decided that young Orin would be exiled and sent away to live another life somewhere else. This was, of course, carefully explained to him, so that he understood what was expected of him and how he could best serve his god. Since Chardun wasn’t angered by the priests actions none of them lost their divine abilities, and a couple of gifts were bestowed upon Orin for his sacrifice for the greater good. A longer life span than allotted to them common man and a sword of power.
Later, when he was already travelling to the borders of Calastia Chardun came to his dreams once more. Then he explained the full intent of his plans. It was necessary to go around the Divine Truce, but anyone doing so in the regalia of a priest would raise the ire of the other gods against this one who’s priest had broken the Truce. So it would be useful to have someone with the power of a priest, but also the ability of a swordsman. He would travel the lands of Calastia, and its neighbors as a mercenary. Gathering a group of able warriors around him would be useful as well. And when the time came to kill another priest Chardun would call him to do his duty to his god.
And so Orin changed his name to what it is now, and took up the life of a mercenary. The only possession that he kept was the silver unholy symbol of Chardun. This he would carry to his grave, and be rewarded well by the Great General.
In his travels he met up with Beagar Longstep and joined his crew. They have proved to be a good group, so these could very well be the one’s Chardun sent him out to find. Now he simply has to make them follow the will of his god. Shouldn’t be too hard if push comes to shove, though.
Kendry Lightfoot, Rogue 9, neutral evil.
Kendry began his modest career as a thief decade ago or so. He was a young man with the need to find riches where others feared to thread. As a young man he didn’t think there really could be something dangerous under the earth where he wanted to go, to places where others had once hoarded their treasures and kept their items of power. He was lured to many a ruin before he finally found a place worthy of his excellent skills. This young man had actually garnered a bit of experience on his travels, but nothing could really ready him for a truly ancient, underground, ruin. The place is now gone, since Kendry’s passage trough those tunnels also triggered a system which brought the roof down. But before that he actually did find quite a lot of interesting things. One of them was the Oathbreaker’s Bracelet. This simple looking silver bracelet helps Kendry in lying with a straight face and also protects him from all manner of mind influencing magic’s, which would allow others to force the truth out of him. As such it was a marvelous find. But that same bracelet had a very nasty side effect. It had a will of it’s own, and that was made clear the first time Kendry chanced to pass a cemetery. Without breaking a stride the bracelet took over Kendry’s mind and he walked to a near-by crypt. There he used his skills to open the sealed doors and proceeded to raid the place. There was a bit of trouble from the local cleric who was on duty that night, as well as a very irritating ghost, but Kendry survived and got away with some loot. This loot turned out to be jewels worth tens of thousands in gold. While Kendry was ecstatic with the next morning he also missed with left thumb and had several nasty cuts in his body, which would require a week or so of bed rest. So he settled in to rest, right after selling a couple of the less valuable jewels to a local fence he used.
After the said week he returned to his original work of stealing a particularly finely crafted pair of ear rings, and other associated jewelry, from the local Duke’s wife. As he was entering their residence he saw a small cemetery alongside the house. No sooner did his eyes catch sight of this place than the bracelet took over once more, and Kendry woke up the following morning at home. This time there was a small chest the by the side of his bed. Looking at it made Kendry’s fingers itch. It was covered with a dragon design that was clearly Calastian, and other markings that proclaimed it the property of the local duke. After a half hour of springing and bypassing traps he finally opened it. Inside there were a great many platinum coins. And something else: another ring that glowed with a slight light of it’s own. The ring on his hand was suddenly feeling rather hot. It felt like it was radiating something towards the other ring, and in a few moment the whole room was glowing. The ring upon Kendry’s hand became so hot that he had to take it off, and suddenly a strange feeling came over his mind. It felt like someone had removed a blanket and for the first time he could think without being suffocated. At the same time it was a liberating and frightening experience. For whatever reason that bracelet, which had given him plenty of head ache and worry over the past few days was now melting into a pool of silver. Stunned by such a turn of events Kendry ran from the inn he was using. It was obvious that he couldn’t very well do this all by himself. That innocent looking bracelet had nearly taken over his, as far as he knew. Although it had brought him riches it had also taken poor care of his body. Twice in a row, and although he hadn’t lost anything permanently the second time it seemed only a matter of time. So with death looming down that road Kendry chose another way. The Scaled would probably be interested in him, should he be willing to study so magic. But becoming a wizard wasn’t something he wanted to do. It just wasn’t in his nature. So that pretty much ruled out that band of thieves and cut throats. Anyway, Kendry had heard that they took totally unreasonable amounts from the top of every job a thief did in their service. And what did the thief get in turn: precious little from what he had heard! So that didn’t appeal to him either. So he needed to find a group that wasn’t too particular about looting, but was strict about sharing loot. Of course should someone forget to give over a trinket or too, well who would be the wiser? But where would he find such company?
Perplexed by this question Kendry went back into the inn, picked up his stuff, and left the molten puddle of silver and the ring next to it alone. Probably someone would come clean the room up sooner or later. Whether that someone would recognize the Duke’s daughters ring was another matter. And even if they did, would they return it? This being one of the less prosperous inn’s in town he doubted it very much. Most likely some poor girl would hide it in her pouch, and try scraping what was left of the bracelet into her own pocket as well. That was quite fine with Kendry, since this left no trail to implicate him in anything besides staying at the inn for a few days. And he had been sure to pick an inn that had more than a few visitors.
A year went by, and Kendry lived on the gold he had nicked from the Duke’s daughter. But just like every time before what gold he had stolen was fast disappearing. So he needed to get some “work” again. The trouble was that he still hadn’t quite figured out how to solve the problem he had run into with the bracelet and the ring. But then, one day, the answer came to him. Mercenaries. They weren’t all that particular with the spoils of war and they certainly had to have some discipline!
Armed with this sure knowledge and hope for employment Kendry joined a local (by this time he had switched towns more often than he could remember, so the town doesn’t really matter) mercenary group. They took him in after seeing what he was capable off. The trouble was that they really didn’t appreciate his skills enough, and were always giving way too much of the share to others. To those who really just stood around and looked impressive, or that’s what Kendry thought.
So one night, when they were all sleeping calmly, he slit their throats and went his own way, leaving the corpses and everything not worth carrying behind.
That’s when he happened to run into Beagar Longstep and his crew. They certainly looked a whole lot better than those last idiots. And by the looks of it they actually had a sorcerer with them. Someone who could warn Kendry of magical traps and such! The rest were as burly and muscular lot as he had seen in years, but that was okay too. Specialists need good fighters around them to improve “working” environments. And so Kendry showed them his stuff, and was the last to join Longstep’s crew. What the others think of him is a bit of a question mark, but then again…he can always slit their throats while they sleep. It wasn’t that hard the first time around, but before that his going to ride this bunch as far as they will take him. Hopefully to riches and a plethora of magical items, which will either prove useful or buy him better gear
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Andreas Greysword, Ftr 9, neutral evil.
Andreas grew up in the cold of Albadia, in the Northern parts of Ghelspad. Where snows seldom melt. He was always a good student of whatever tasks or dilemmas were placed in front of him. But his father was a hard man who needed his eldest son to till the hard land and work it until it ruined him. Only to create more offspring, who would repeat the cycle. Although Andreas was a good guy when he was young he became rebellious in his puberty, as most boys do. His father would have none of it and so Andreas found out about the mean streak in his father. He would beat the boy endlessly, even though he had done as ordered. The slightest subordination would be rewarded with another lashing. And so the year ended with unhappiness for the whole family. Times had always been hard, and they would remain so, was what his father said. This land didn’t give anything to the weak or the foolish. And so the young man should be beaten into a proper tool for his father’s use, just as the boy would one day do to his own children. This the old man promised with a solemn word. It would seem that Andreas was stuck in a world that neither cared nor understood his need to expand beyond the simple existence of a farmer. Years went on, and darkness settled upon him. To say that he took after his father would have been wrong. At first it seemed so, and his father was even slightly satisfied, seeing his teachings grow long awaited fruit. But what emerged was a cruel and sadistic man. He no longer cared about his people, the albadians, nor did his feel anything towards his family. The only person he felt anything towards was his father. And that was a burning hatred. A hatred stemmed from the belief that he had imprisoned him to this cold and desolate land that had nothing to offer him. So, on a summer’s eve, when the weather was at its best, Andreas took up his pack of belongings and walked out the life he had been living for 17 years. He joined a caravan travelling towards Darakeene, and took the place of a caravan guard. He had no weaponry to speak off, but was proficient with the short bow he had used to shoot rabbits since the years of his childhood. The other guards looked at him with derision or contempt and kept him apart. Andreas remembered those men, and kept their names in his mind. Over and over he repeated their foul names in his mind, until they became a litany upon which to spit whenever something went wrong. This being the Scarred Lands, and them travelling trough a titanspawn infested terrain there were plenty of things to go wrong, of course. But after weeks of travelling trough one of the harshest plains on this continent they arrived to the borders of Darakeene.
The first thing that Andreas did was to find a steady job in the city. He had seen enough of farmers, and would as soon spit on one than to speak to him in a civil manner. The good thing about Darakeene is that they don’t look all that askance upon outsiders or even other races. Rather they are a fairly open minded lot. When Andreas informed an innkeeper that he would like work for him the man looked at his scarred and muscular body, and took him at face value.
The young man could always be flogged and driven out of the city should he prove troublesome, thought the innkeeper. Andreas spent a full decade in Darakeene. At first he was surly company at best, but soon the open and matter-of-fact attitude of the Darakeene people touched him. The darkness that had been inside him receded a bit. He began to talk of his dreams and needs to the innkeeper, who in turn brought him to the masters of Darakeene’s military schools. He said his recommendations on the man’s work, sharp wit and thoughtful manners. They were pleased enough to put him into training. After 7 years he walked out of that place with enough training to become a mercenary. He hadn’t had the necessary discipline to become a proper legionnaire, but then again there were plenty of people looking to hire a man with a quick mind and even better abilities with a sword.
So his tutors placed his feet upon the road to becoming a mercenary. It wasn’t exactly all that Andreas had wanted, but then again…nothing in life this far had gone quite the way he had wanted. Might as well accept what life brought and live with it. That much he had taken from his homeland. Although he never speaks about where his from, he has absorbed perhaps the best parts of two kingdoms of. He is hard working with enough strictness to keep others in line, yet he doesn’t enjoy commanding enough to become a real mercenary captain. Only when it is necessary does he take up the mantle of leadership.
Andreas is a man of many talents. But for the most part he is a steadfast mercenary who will do as told, and think quickly on his feet. His humor is cutting and edgy, but not without point. He has darkness inside him that sometimes surfaces. Since quitting the academies of war in Darakeene he has traveled to the other side of this continent. Upon his way ran into 5 other mercenaries, all of them with their own reasons and histories, but he isn’t all that interested in that. He senses that these men, and that solitary woman who doesn’t seem to go away, are a good fighting unit. Even the cleric of Chardun has his uses. And Longstep keeps a good crew, right under his footJ.
Beagar Longstep, fighter 9, neutral evil.
Born to a noble house in Calastia. His childhood was one of long hours of study and hard hours of working in the practice yards with an Earl’s sword-master. The lands around were lush with wheat and cattle. Life was fairly simple and there were few needs that went unsatisfied as the boy grew into a young man. And that is when he was introduced into the Mirror court of Calastia. As a noble youth he was expected to put all those hard years of study to the good use of the state. Naturally he complied and became a fair student of politics and the intrigue which always follows such circles. But soon he also began to covet things that weren’t really his to ask for. Women, it seems, have been the down fall of many a man. And so it was that after a couple of years traversing the Mirror Courts of Calastia brought Beagar to the attention of several eligible daughters of rich merchants. As the youth was the son of a mere Earl it never became a question of marrying other nobles, but that is something that young Beagar coveted with all of his heart. He wanted more power! He wanted to be man of importance where his father had obviously failed and left the family in the possession of a simple earldom. He wanted more! And so he sought the hand of a suitable young maiden from a prominent House. Many were her suitors, but this one was all the more interesting for his brashness and sureness that came from his arrogance. Naturally the young noble woman was flattered and tempted, but his father intervened, as he must. It wasn’t proper for this man to be suitor to such a lady of high birth. And so it was that a silent war began between these two houses. A year later it would end in the decimation of the lesser house, and to the striking of the young man from the rolls of nobility.
Anger and injustice flamed inside Beagar! He left his fathers lands, an outsider who had never lived there and went to his enemy’s lands. There he was greeted by a company of the household guard and chased away with a scornful ease that flamed his young temper yet further. But what could he do? With no resources to speak of, with no allies to mention or anything else to call his own besides the clothes upon his back he was an outcast. There was really only one way to end this. He would attack the other household under darkness and kill that bastard of a man who had kept him from his future bride. Such was his fury and stupidity of youth that he actually went trough with his plan.
After making sure that there were no new guests or soldiers going into the estate he realized his plans. Upon a moonless night he went back and actually managed to enter the premises of the estate before being sighted by a household guard. The alarm war raised, but before that the young man had managed to down two guards and enter the household proper. There he was accosted by a group of bodyguards who had hold him down bodily before he was struck down with the blunt side of a sword. That was the end of a man whose name doesn’t exist in Calastia or any other land anymore.
That was the day when he became a slave for the Lord of this mighty house. After being detained for a week or so a slave caravan came by, and picked up the youth. After all, they very well couldn’t expect him to behave like a proper slave in the house of his most hated enemy. Instead they gave him to the slave caravan, and got good money for such a well-trained and obviously capable slave. Although the trader did make a bit of a fuss over having to teach his new property common manners, but all in all he has satisfied, and left the Lords lands feeling rather richer for the trade. The slave was treated fairly roughly, to teach him his place. And so Beagar endured for several years of travelling from one owner to another. But he also learned toughness and bettered his fighting skills whenever he could with dirty tricks and a hard skin. Then one night he strangled caravan’s guard in his sleep and ran to his freedom. Only to be caught some two days later near a small village. The caravan master had had the guard hanged and had sent rangers after his escaped property. That one was worth a great deal of gold, after all. But to the surprise of the rangers the only things they caught was their own death. The slave had learned well, and having being beaten with a wooden cane every day for a good long while those weapons the rangers employed were of little danger to him. So he slew the pair, and took everything worth carrying from them.
But now came the time when he really had to realize that there was no going back. He was marked property, only free because of his good training and skills developed during hard years of slavery. How could he become anything else? By hiding his past and creating something new with the resources he had. One of the two rangers had a good pouch of gold with him, and that was put to good use after Beagar reached a town with a proper smithy in it. He ordered masterwork weaponry, armor and took to wearing clothing that was little better than rags. These were the hallmarks of his craft as a mercenary. Soon he realized that he also needed others like him to become anything more than a caravan guard, and he had had enough of that work. So he gathered 5 others around him. Hard people all, but with enough wit and skill with them to survive on their own. And that was something that Beagar has always respected. He is a shrewd and hard leader, but also gives out good money and even better orders. He follows those teachings thought to him in his youth, and is ready to add any number of dirty tricks to his repertoire. All in all, a hard man, with a will to make his life more bearable again.
Erica Blackwind, Sorcerer 9, chaotic evil.
Erica was found to be a sorcerer around the age of 8. She was playing with a bunch of children, when all of a sudden one of the playing cubes they were using in a game started floating. To the amazement of all four children the cube tumbled trough air as though thrown upon ground. When it came to stand in the middle of the air there was a general scream of fear and the children scattered. Erica was the last to leave the area, and as she did so the cube fell down harmlessly. But there were older people, some of them with sharp eyes, who saw this and felt a true chill in their bellies. What the children had possibly thought as a quirk of their imagination they knew to be the twisted and evil forces of a titan. They quickly caught the girl and dragged her into the women’s circle of the small town. There they questioned her hard, and tested her with all manner of superstitious ways. Nothing would show them that this child was a sorcerer, a witch born to the power of the Titans. Still they had to know somehow. And since they were on an important trade rout along the way to Vesh’s capitol they chose to pass the girl on to more capable hands. Soon she was being carted through unknown lands to a place that looked both gloomy and weird to her. To a city called Lave. There she was placed under the strict surveillance of the priests of Madriel. First they began buy telling her the basic things about Madriel, and her goodness and pureness. Since the girl was so young it was still possible to bring her to a proper priesthood, which would then direct her to use her abilities for the good of all. Naturally this didn’t mean her sorcerer’s abilities were needed, those would (hopefully) disappear during the hard years of training ahead, and make a proper priestess out of her. And so the training began. Hard months of monotonous teaching, doing household and charity work. Caring for those in need and generally making sure that everyone was satisfied with their lot before taking care of herself. But this kind of life battled against her nature too much. There weren’t enough moments of peace, and the strictness of the priesthood was choking her. So it was that she began to device ways to make her tasks easier, more pleasant and quicker to finish. At first the priests simple thought that she had reached the conclusion that fighting their ways was futile, and went on teaching her even “greater” truths about the world as she seemed to progress in their eyes. What happened, in reality, is that Erica was secretly (even from herself) developing her sorcerer’s abilities. Those little smiles and words that made everyone smile. An enchantment. That way she made the best soup in the poor quarter. An illusion. And so forth. She was growing in power right under the watchful eyes of the priests. But this couldn’t go on much longer. Even as the priests and priestesses were starting to pay more attention to her doings another group found her. They were called the Scaled. A group of vagabonds and thieves came to her, and suggested that they had a much better use for her natural abilities. At first Erica was frightened. After all, years had passed since her forceful indoctrination to the ranks of Madriel’s priests at Lave. But they weren’t to be put off by such a simple matter as showing her what she was really doing. They explained to her that she had power and knowledge locked away in her, and all she had to do was experience the right kind of stimulation to release it. And what could that be? Well, helping them help others of course? Wasn’t it the same thing that had started this whole thing? Hadn’t her natural abilities started to grow as she helped those in need? The Scaled reasoned: by helping them help others she could become even more powerful and capable of helping yet more people.
At first Erica was very doubtful, but after a few weeks of doing a little chore. Little things that didn’t really even require her to use her “special abilities”, she was beginning to see the wisdom in the words of those men and women who had offered her a new home. And it was true that she wasn’t really devoted to Madriel. She said the words, and paid lip service, but that was most of it. For the most part the church in which she lived was starting to feel like a prison. A prison from which there was now an escape rout. And she meant to take it!
So she became one of the Scaled.
Running away from the church wasn’t all that hard. All she had to do was make some funny sounds appear at the end of one corridor and then sneak to the other end. After a few more minutes she did the same to the guards at the door. While they didn’t leave their posts they didn’t pay so much attention to their immediate surroundings, and didn’t notice the little girl slipping away.
Life with the Scaled began innocently enough. She did some silly tricks and they gave her shelter, new friends, food and thought her a great deal more about the city in which she had spent five years, without really seeing any of it. Then things started to turn for the worse. A band of evil men moved into the city, and made their presence known among the thieves, whores, swindlers and other side-streets inhabitants of the city. They came with clubs and short swords to all who refused to pay them a self-appointed amount of protection money. The Scaled refused and where hunted down almost to the last member. Erica was one of the survivors who escaped the city. They had lost their prestigious place in the city, and had been driven out. While a couple of them made for the city state of Hedrad most decided it time to change the scenery. They would be well known to many of their competitors, not to mention the long arm of the law. That’s why they left Hedrad in the first place. So they thought it over and decided to head south. To Calastia. There were ten of them in the group when they left. Along the way they were attacked several times by all sorts of horrors, and only 4 survived the trip down south. Erica was one of them, but there were great changes in her. No longer was she the blue-eyed farmer’s daughter. No longer did she think that the world’s people came before everything else. She had seen such horrors as few besides soldiers see in their lives. Even in the Scarred Lands. Also there had been a couple of times when only her growing powers had saved the day, and kept the rest alive. They in turn had given her things, and promises to pay for their lives. And now she saw that she really could grow more powerful. Even to the point of never having to follow anyone on a leash. The experiences at the monastery hadn’t really scarred her, but after leaving that sheltered life she saw how much she had lost by being locked up in that sheltering environment, and also by not being able to develop her abilities as a sorcerer. She was enraptured by the mystical energies she could unleash with a few motions of her hands and a word. There were a great many carcasses piled behind her path now, and she liked it!
She thought about where she would like to go once she reached the borders of New Venir or Lageni. Actually she had already passed those invisible borders, and was nearing the first purely human settlements in months. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was her will to become a warrior among a nation of warriors. She had tried being a priest. That had little appeal to her, as she really didn’t feel any great devotion towards any one particular god. Then there were the thieves, but they had become a group of sniveling pests as soon as someone with a little strength had showed up. So how about being a soldier. Now, the problem was that she had no training or interest in all that sword hacking or club swinging. Instead she could hurl lightning and burning darts of acid at her enemies. She could disappear from plain sight, and attack once more from another quarter. There were plenty of things nastier than her out there, but with a proper crew (she thought that was the proper word) she could make it. Becoming truly great, and maybe someday for a crew of her own, is a dream of hers. And should she have to destroy or kill some things or people along the way, well such is the way to greatness. But first she needs experience, and that’s why she looked up Beagar Longstep.
Ambition is the key to her nature, and she is also addicted to the power of a sorcerer. So much so that she will destroy anyone trying to stand in her way and even greater power.
Cadell Deadeye, Ranger 9, neutral evil.
Born in Angel’s Gate, Durrover, this young man was nothing special in the first 15 years of his life. He excelled in mountain fighting, as did most of those boys he grew up with. A couple became smiths or sorcerers but that was about it. Cadell doesn’t really want to remember those days. They were filled with hard work, sleeping when one could – usually on hard rock with no fire – eating what little was in the mountains and fighting. Always fighting, against an enemy that seemed without numbers. There seemed no point to it. Durrover was a lost cause from the day he was born. No amount of men dying and the women singing their songs in the town halls made it any different. The people of Durrover were being ground to a fine dust, and then no-one would remember them anymore. This was obvious to the young man who finally decided to do something useful with his life. Having seen his loved one’s butchered, his comrades in arms fall and being forgotten by everyone the youth left to find a life. There really weren’t all that many directions to take. North promised a suicidal trip trough mountains and swamps swarming with enemies. To the south was nothing but barren land or Titan tainted forest. But to the west there were lush and plentiful lands as far as the eye could see, and that is where he would go. Travelling to lands that had a powerful master, who could certainly use a good ranger. And that is what he had become. A scout for those who would throw themselves at a clearly more powerful enemy and die with “honor”. He had seen such men more than he cared to remember in his first five years as a scout. But no more! And so Cadell took up his bow, quiver and sword and traveled to new lands.
There was really little to hinder his passage. Those guards posted by his people simply thought him on a mission. He had passed them by so many times that they thought nothing of it. And as for the Calastian border guards and scouts? Well, he really didn’t think they had much a chance against his skills. Such is the pride of youth. After travelling for several days he saw the forward scouts of Calastia. They actually looked little different from his countrymen, if somewhat darker of skin. The cold and harsh environment of his countrymen had kept their complexion more lighter, but other than that there was little difference. Closing in on their location was a fairly simple matter for the young ranger. He had them in his sight, and they were traversing a small goat trail that was known to Cadell from other scouts he had talked to in the previous weeks. They said the thing led along a fairly easily predicted rout to south. So he easily loped ahead of them, and thought to follow in their tracks as they descended the mountains to report back to their camp. Unaware that he had already been spotted he used all his tricks to hide himself along the rocky terrain of the mountains. Minutes went by, but the scouts didn’t appear. After some time the young ranger took a tentative step out of his hiding place and began to descend upon the goat trail. Maybe they had chosen another route after all, and he would have to track them down. Annoyed at this inconvenience Cadell started a easy jog towards the way the scouts should have come. But as soon as he set foot upon the goat trail a fowling blunt struck him square in the head, and he went down with a crash.
Awakening brought little comfort. He was in a room with a bunch of robed people. Actually it was a tent. Well, anyhow the air was very dry and hot. And there seemed to be a brazier to one side upon which wicked looking tools were heating up. A small group of apprentices were preparing Cadell for something. Incense was burned, unholy rites for Chardun were echoed from mouth to mouth and he felt something sticky and bloody smelling was been spattered upon his bare chest.
After some time the tent flaps were drawn apart and another man entered. He gazed upon the youth upon the rack, and formed the unholy symbol of Chardun in front of him. And by doing so he removed his own blood red robes, and revealed a terror beyond anything Cadell had ever seen before that moment. The man’s hands were bound in barbed wire, in a very painful looking fashion. The man also had the mouth of a nameless monster hanging from his chest set in brass, secured with chains across his torso. And upon his head there was a leafy coronet filled with thorns. Terror over took Cadell, and he screamed. At his the apprentices chuckled and smiled, until the horror of a man made a motion with his hand and they their appointed places behind various utensils and devices. Then it struck Cadell: he was about to be tortured for information, about his homeland. At first the strange man’s touch was almost delicate as he went trough Cadell’s body with rough feeling hands. The thorns upon his hands scratched, but not in a way that would make even a babe of Durrover yell out. Let alone a tough warrior of that harsh land. But then the master torturer began his craft, and Cadell was screaming his lungs out in no time. Then there was a brief moment of release, and once more his body was plunged into agony like nothing he had never felt.
It took them 4 hours to crack him. As the master left the tent and some of the apprentices opened their mouths for the first time in awhile he got the impression that this had been a short time for a warrior of Durrover. Still he had faced one of their torturers, and hadn’t told them much. Or was it so? His mind was so terribly clouded. He couldn’t seem to remember…
Then it hit him like a ton of molten iron. He had spilled every little bit he could think of about the defenses, troop deployments and plans of his countrymen. He had even told them everything about how he had abandoned them to their blight, and crossed the mountains to find a better place to live in. He wept for his stupidity in thinking himself beyond the skills of these Calastians. They, after all, were even now conquering his nation, and should be thought of as capable and deadly enemies. Not soft city people, who had had easy lives living upon flat, rich, lands. So this is what his ambitions had brought him to: an enemy camp, probably at the edge of Calastias borders, to a torturers tent, where he had spilled his guts after a few hours of pain. Honor fled him. Hope vanished in a rush of breath. He had failed utterly in what he had set out to do. Yet, he thought, there must be a way out of this place. But where could he go? Not home, he had betrayed them utterly, and his people would probably just kick him out again, if they didn’t just kill him. And he wanted to live! After a while he noticed that the apprentices were alone in this tent. These weren’t scouts or master torturers. They were young people like him with the thought that their prisoner was subdued and helpless. Well, not this one! He tried his restraints and found them still attached. Well, they probably took those off before they moved him. Unless they were just going to leave him here. The thought chilled Cadell, but he hoped this wasn’t going to be the case. And soon enough his hopes were answered as one of the apprentices began opening the chains that had been holding him down. In that instant of despair he struck the apprentice straight in the face and leaped up. His captors were surprised at this sudden motion and turned to see what was going on? In that instant Cadell ran for the tent flaps and exited the tent in a rush. Outside he found a dark night. The heat and well made, thick, tent had hidden the time of the day from him, but now he was free. Using his training he fled from the camp. Not easily, but the Calastians didn’t have so much guards on the western side. No alarm was raised, although the apprentices had certainly reached their master by the time Cadell reached the outskirts of the camp. Maybe the master torturer had simply emptied the young man of everything worth knowing, and didn’t care about him anymore. Or Such was Cadell’s hope as he sped across new terrain that was quickly smoothing out to a more level ground, to the foothill of the great Kelder Mountains.
After that frightening night Cadell has traveled across the width of Calastia. At first he didn’t have any idea as to how to make a living, and was reduced to stealing from farms. Luckily there were plenty of those, and his skills in stealth served him well once more. But after a while of moving from one locale to another he realized that he couldn’t continue like this, and expect to live long. So he talked himself into some caravan guard duty. This was the beginning of his mercenary life. Years later he is still a man who blames himself for his own stupidity, but his living a better life than he was before. His also met with some other mercenaries who were forming a “crew”. Led by a man called Beagar Longstep. Out of inspiration, and need for money, he joined them and has found a bunch of very hard and capable mercenaries. How long he will stay with these people is another question, but for a while more at least. He needs to build capital.
Orin Fell, Fighter 4 / Cleric 5, lawful evil.
Born soon after the ending of the Divine War, Orin experienced personally the hardness that Calastia chose to endure in order to build up its resources. Every conceivable trade item was sold, so that capital could be built fast. Only those foodstuffs and items necessary for survival were kept, and sometimes those as well were sacrificed for the greater good of the Nation. These were hard years, and many suffered. Orin was only growing to his youth at this time, but had already joined the priesthood of Chardun. They would collect was needed to defend the nation and see families fall into starvation. But this way their nation would be able to fight against all manner of problems that it would face in the coming years. So while others celebrated and filled their bellies with freedom, good food and wine the Calastians starved and suffered.
One day Orin saw a priest approach from the west to the lands under his churches protection. Some priests were sent to greet the stranger, and some soldiers as well, since there no knowledge as to who approached. It was to be a black day for a whole lot of people. For no sooner did the strange priest, and that is what everyone thought he was from his regalia, see the flourishing fields of food around him than he began to intone a curse upon all he saw. In the name of Belsameth. Technically this wasn’t an assault upon the priests of Chardun, just targeted at the well fair of their god’s followers. While the fields withered and died many soldiers were dispatched to kill this monster. But one and all were slain by his mighty goddess, who answered one prayer after another to extinguish the lives of men. Whether peasants or soldiers. But as the priests finally took to the field, and looked upon the carnage and destruction they fell upon this priest of madness. They shared some of the characteristics of darkness with this priest, but they shared none of his inhuman passion for madness and death. And so he was slain with curses, blasts of unholy flame and warsceptres kept without blood for too many years.
When the carnage was over and the priests surveyed their surroundings they came to the conclusion that they needed an escape goat. Someone who could be sent away and blamed for the troubles visited upon this mad priest of Belsameth. Never mind that he had wrongly attacked those placed under their care. They certainly didn’t feel any remorse was killing the swine. Simply fear for having broken the Divine Truce. Well, to their minds they hadn’t, but others would argue that technically they had. And so it was decided that young Orin would be exiled and sent away to live another life somewhere else. This was, of course, carefully explained to him, so that he understood what was expected of him and how he could best serve his god. Since Chardun wasn’t angered by the priests actions none of them lost their divine abilities, and a couple of gifts were bestowed upon Orin for his sacrifice for the greater good. A longer life span than allotted to them common man and a sword of power.
Later, when he was already travelling to the borders of Calastia Chardun came to his dreams once more. Then he explained the full intent of his plans. It was necessary to go around the Divine Truce, but anyone doing so in the regalia of a priest would raise the ire of the other gods against this one who’s priest had broken the Truce. So it would be useful to have someone with the power of a priest, but also the ability of a swordsman. He would travel the lands of Calastia, and its neighbors as a mercenary. Gathering a group of able warriors around him would be useful as well. And when the time came to kill another priest Chardun would call him to do his duty to his god.
And so Orin changed his name to what it is now, and took up the life of a mercenary. The only possession that he kept was the silver unholy symbol of Chardun. This he would carry to his grave, and be rewarded well by the Great General.
In his travels he met up with Beagar Longstep and joined his crew. They have proved to be a good group, so these could very well be the one’s Chardun sent him out to find. Now he simply has to make them follow the will of his god. Shouldn’t be too hard if push comes to shove, though.
Kendry Lightfoot, Rogue 9, neutral evil.
Kendry began his modest career as a thief decade ago or so. He was a young man with the need to find riches where others feared to thread. As a young man he didn’t think there really could be something dangerous under the earth where he wanted to go, to places where others had once hoarded their treasures and kept their items of power. He was lured to many a ruin before he finally found a place worthy of his excellent skills. This young man had actually garnered a bit of experience on his travels, but nothing could really ready him for a truly ancient, underground, ruin. The place is now gone, since Kendry’s passage trough those tunnels also triggered a system which brought the roof down. But before that he actually did find quite a lot of interesting things. One of them was the Oathbreaker’s Bracelet. This simple looking silver bracelet helps Kendry in lying with a straight face and also protects him from all manner of mind influencing magic’s, which would allow others to force the truth out of him. As such it was a marvelous find. But that same bracelet had a very nasty side effect. It had a will of it’s own, and that was made clear the first time Kendry chanced to pass a cemetery. Without breaking a stride the bracelet took over Kendry’s mind and he walked to a near-by crypt. There he used his skills to open the sealed doors and proceeded to raid the place. There was a bit of trouble from the local cleric who was on duty that night, as well as a very irritating ghost, but Kendry survived and got away with some loot. This loot turned out to be jewels worth tens of thousands in gold. While Kendry was ecstatic with the next morning he also missed with left thumb and had several nasty cuts in his body, which would require a week or so of bed rest. So he settled in to rest, right after selling a couple of the less valuable jewels to a local fence he used.
After the said week he returned to his original work of stealing a particularly finely crafted pair of ear rings, and other associated jewelry, from the local Duke’s wife. As he was entering their residence he saw a small cemetery alongside the house. No sooner did his eyes catch sight of this place than the bracelet took over once more, and Kendry woke up the following morning at home. This time there was a small chest the by the side of his bed. Looking at it made Kendry’s fingers itch. It was covered with a dragon design that was clearly Calastian, and other markings that proclaimed it the property of the local duke. After a half hour of springing and bypassing traps he finally opened it. Inside there were a great many platinum coins. And something else: another ring that glowed with a slight light of it’s own. The ring on his hand was suddenly feeling rather hot. It felt like it was radiating something towards the other ring, and in a few moment the whole room was glowing. The ring upon Kendry’s hand became so hot that he had to take it off, and suddenly a strange feeling came over his mind. It felt like someone had removed a blanket and for the first time he could think without being suffocated. At the same time it was a liberating and frightening experience. For whatever reason that bracelet, which had given him plenty of head ache and worry over the past few days was now melting into a pool of silver. Stunned by such a turn of events Kendry ran from the inn he was using. It was obvious that he couldn’t very well do this all by himself. That innocent looking bracelet had nearly taken over his, as far as he knew. Although it had brought him riches it had also taken poor care of his body. Twice in a row, and although he hadn’t lost anything permanently the second time it seemed only a matter of time. So with death looming down that road Kendry chose another way. The Scaled would probably be interested in him, should he be willing to study so magic. But becoming a wizard wasn’t something he wanted to do. It just wasn’t in his nature. So that pretty much ruled out that band of thieves and cut throats. Anyway, Kendry had heard that they took totally unreasonable amounts from the top of every job a thief did in their service. And what did the thief get in turn: precious little from what he had heard! So that didn’t appeal to him either. So he needed to find a group that wasn’t too particular about looting, but was strict about sharing loot. Of course should someone forget to give over a trinket or too, well who would be the wiser? But where would he find such company?
Perplexed by this question Kendry went back into the inn, picked up his stuff, and left the molten puddle of silver and the ring next to it alone. Probably someone would come clean the room up sooner or later. Whether that someone would recognize the Duke’s daughters ring was another matter. And even if they did, would they return it? This being one of the less prosperous inn’s in town he doubted it very much. Most likely some poor girl would hide it in her pouch, and try scraping what was left of the bracelet into her own pocket as well. That was quite fine with Kendry, since this left no trail to implicate him in anything besides staying at the inn for a few days. And he had been sure to pick an inn that had more than a few visitors.
A year went by, and Kendry lived on the gold he had nicked from the Duke’s daughter. But just like every time before what gold he had stolen was fast disappearing. So he needed to get some “work” again. The trouble was that he still hadn’t quite figured out how to solve the problem he had run into with the bracelet and the ring. But then, one day, the answer came to him. Mercenaries. They weren’t all that particular with the spoils of war and they certainly had to have some discipline!
Armed with this sure knowledge and hope for employment Kendry joined a local (by this time he had switched towns more often than he could remember, so the town doesn’t really matter) mercenary group. They took him in after seeing what he was capable off. The trouble was that they really didn’t appreciate his skills enough, and were always giving way too much of the share to others. To those who really just stood around and looked impressive, or that’s what Kendry thought.
So one night, when they were all sleeping calmly, he slit their throats and went his own way, leaving the corpses and everything not worth carrying behind.
That’s when he happened to run into Beagar Longstep and his crew. They certainly looked a whole lot better than those last idiots. And by the looks of it they actually had a sorcerer with them. Someone who could warn Kendry of magical traps and such! The rest were as burly and muscular lot as he had seen in years, but that was okay too. Specialists need good fighters around them to improve “working” environments. And so Kendry showed them his stuff, and was the last to join Longstep’s crew. What the others think of him is a bit of a question mark, but then again…he can always slit their throats while they sleep. It wasn’t that hard the first time around, but before that his going to ride this bunch as far as they will take him. Hopefully to riches and a plethora of magical items, which will either prove useful or buy him better gear
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