First level backstories

[alsih2o]

My wife has recently started to game and is loving it, but has had some trouble because she had t come up with 3 characters with backgrounds in her first 4 gaming sessions.

I figured we have had an "encounter for every monster" thread and several other 101 ideas threads, so how about sharing your background story or background story idea for first level characters.

Class, race and backstory required, all else is up to you.

Bring 'em on!

 

[diaglo]

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/archive.asp?x=dnd/wg_arch,3


some random generators for ya

 

[Rel]

Here's the background for the last character I played, Fim the Halfling Rogue (Chaotic Neutral). It's lengthy:

Fimbul Ferryford - Sociopath with a Heart of Gold

Fimbul Ferryford is the firstborn of Fenwark and Beki Ferryford and arrived into the world just over 20 years ago. In accordance with Halfling tradition, being the firstborn child, he was given an alliterative first name like his father. The Ferryfords went on to have two other children, a daughter (Amabelle) and a son (Cugan). The family was poor and lived in a one-room hovel in the slums. But Fenwark was a Halfling of some talent for fixing things and found work with a Gnomish tinker named Redef. There he was able to make enough money to support his family if only barely.

Beki was also hard working and would wash linens for the slightly more well-to-do folks in the merchant quarter. Every morning of Fimbul's youth was spent hauling packloads of clean laundry to the merchant quarter and then coming back with the dirty. In the afternoons, he would help watch his brother and sister while his mother scrubbed the enormous bedclothes of the humans. In the evenings he would sometimes help his father repair some item or other that he brought home from work to be repaired. Fenwark had a particular knack for fixing things with small moving parts such as hinges and locks. Redef began to give most such objects to his assistant to repair and this became a relatively profitable arrangement because such items were expensive and people would pay a good deal to have them repaired rather than purchase new ones.

Eventually Fenwark and Beki's work paid off and they found that they had saved enough money for Fenwark to open his own locksmith shop. Redef was somewhat angered at Fenwark for leaving as this took some of his most profitable business away. He offered Fenwark a larger cut of the fees for his work but the hard working Halfling would not be swayed. He opened the doors of his new shop and his business rapidly began to grow. It seems that locks are in demand in the less affluent parts of town where folks have little and wish to protect it well.

Fenwark's business attracted something besides customers however and it wasn't long before the thugs showed up. A human tough named Hacmed (or "Hack" as he was known in the slums) and his Half-Orc sidekick, Oth, showed up at the shop and hinted that prosperity such as Fenwark was experiencing tended to attract jealousy. They offered to keep him safe from "the undesirables" for a small fee. Not wishing to risk the safety of his family or his burgeoning business, Fenwark paid them their money and they went away. But not for good.

As time went on, Fenwark continued to do good business. He tried to pass on his skills to his children. He found that Fimbul was good at manipulating the lock mechanisms, but had little patience for the work of repairing them. Cugan showed more promise as he seemed willing to play with the locks for hours on end. Amabelle showed less interest and stuck close by her mother's side, learning the lessons of keeping up the small apartment above the shop. That was fine by Fenwark as it seemed that the income generated by his shop would mean that his children could enjoy a bit of leisure time for a change. They'd never be rich, but comfort was within grasp if things kept up the way they were going.

Such hopes came crashing down when the thugs came calling again. Just a few days after Fimbul's 18th birthday, he heard a commotion from down in the shop. He went downstairs to find his father lying unconscious on the floor and the till from the store missing. The door was swinging on its hinges and Fimbul caught a glimpse of two large forms retreating down the street, one of them unmistakably a Half-Orc. Fimbul's first impulse was to chase after them but he ignored it and went to the aid of his father. Fenwark had obviously been severely beaten but he still lived, for the moment. Fimbul carried him upstairs and the rest of the family helped get him into bed. Fimbul could tell that his father was barely clinging to life and he left the shop and raced to the nearest temple to try and bring aid.

Fimbul quickly began to learn the hard life lessons that his parents had tried to shelter him from. The temples were only interested in helping if you had coin in hand or were someone of import. Fimbul's promises of payment seemed to fall on ears that were no doubt deafened by the dirty young Halfling bearing the message. Time and again he was turned away, sometimes not even allowed in to speak to a clergyman. He returned home a few hours later to hear the soft sound of his mother and siblings weeping upstairs. Fenwark was dead.

Fimbul's experience with the authorities was at least as frustrating and disappointing as that with the temples. They could scarcely be bothered to speak to him and certainly had no intentions of rooting through the slums to find the murderers of some Halfling commoner. One guardsman finally told him point blank, "As long as the murderous filth stays in the ghettos, they can kill whoever they want." With that callous statement, the last shred of Fimbul's innocence was torn away.

Had he acted quickly to sell the business and taken what money they'd saved to invest elsewhere, the Ferryfords might have been able to eke out a meager but sustainable existence. But Fimbul knew little of such things. He and his younger brother tried their level best to keep the business running in honor of their father. But Fimbul just didn't have the knack for the job and Cugan, scarcely more than a child, just didn't have enough training. Each week saw fewer customers and when it became obvious that the business had to be sold, there was little to sell. The Ferryfords closed the shop and moved back into a one-room hovel. Beki Ferryford went back to doing laundry but she was not as young as she once was. The walk to the merchant quarter took its toll on her and she began to rely more and more on her children.

Fimbul was a young man filled with a hot core of determination, cynicism and resolve. He silently vowed that his family would not live like this forever. If the mean streets of the slums felt like taking what his family had, well then he would just take it right back. Fimbul began to comprehend that, in a lawless world it was the strong who could take what they wanted and the strong who could keep what they took. But Fimbul was smart enough to know that he would never be strong the way that Hack and Oth were strong. He would have to find a way to be strong by being smart and quick.

Fimbul took to the streets and began to put his smarts and agility to use by begging, stealing and conning every copper he could find. He would nick an apple or two for his siblings to eat for breakfast. Before lunch he would beg a handful of coppers from the Merchant Quarter, often being paid off by the merchants themselves just to leave the customers alone. He worked the docks offering himself as a tour guide to foreign sailors, sometimes lightening their purses a bit when they got drunk. On his way home in the evenings, he might pick up a couple of silvers from a quayside dice game and buy some groceries for a couple of days.

One such dice game ended with an unexpected outcome. Fimbul wound up winning and being owed money by a dockhand named Woller. Woller came up short on his losings and Fimbul knew that it wasn't likely he could produce any more coin even if he tried to beat it out of the man (which it was unlikely he could do anyway - dockhands tend to be strong). Instead, Fimbul sensed an opportunity and let Woller owe him and, being as how he didn't have a copper to his name, he even bought the man a grog at one of the dockside bars. His generous treatment paid off and the following week Woller paid him the money and also cut him in on a minor heist. It turned out that Woller had a "lady friend" who tended bar near the docks. She had overheard a couple of men bragging about how they were drinking instead of keeping a close eye on some cargo the captain had left aboard the ship. A few hours later there were a score fewer bottles of Kingdom wine headed to Cualanto. Woller's gambling debt was paid for ten times over and Fimbul bought him another mug of grog.

One saving grace for the Ferryford family was that when their luck had truly ran out, Redef showed his true colors. He would drop by a loaf of bread or a basket of vegetables now and then and make sure that their clothes stayed mended. Fimbul tried to repay this kindness by occasionally doing odd-jobs around Redef's shop. Fimbul soon learned that, kind though he may be, Redef was not as law-abiding as he appeared. Shady figures frequently appeared in his shop looking to sell goods about which they preferred few questions be asked. Redef would buy such things at low rates and find buyers for them. If necessary, he would use his tinkering skills and the minor magics afforded to Gnomes to subtly alter the appearances of such goods so that their origins would remain secret.

It was on one such occasion when Fimbul was cleaning up around Redef's shop that he had an experience that would sever any links to the innocent Halfling he once was. He heard a commotion from the front of the shop and came out to find none other than Oth the Half-Orc bullying Redef over what the Gnome was willing to pay for a silvered belt buckle with a few semi-precious stones. Fimbul crouched low near one of the many small workbenches, not wishing to become the next target of the hulking Half-Orc's wrath. As Oth became more belligerant with Redef, Fimbul reached out and silently grabbed a long poiniard that lay waiting a repair to one of its quillions. When Oth backhanded Redef in angry frustration, Fimbul took three quick steps toward his flank and planted the blade in his kidney. Oth screamed in pain and dropped to all fours and that was when Fimbul shoved the thin dagger into his armpit and left it there. Oth died within moments.

Fimbul quickly drew Redef close in a conspiritorial embrace and whispered that they must conceal Oth's body lest his partner Hack find out what had happened. Fimbul told Redef to clean up the mess and to keep Oth's corpse in the back room until later that night. The Halfling then departed taking with him a short, sharp knife, normally used for cutting leather. He pooled the dozen or so silver coins that he had saved away for an emergency. He spent half on a good (by slum standards) bottle of liquor and the other half on a prostitute. Acting in the guise of a messenger boy, he told the whore that he was sent by Oth and wanted her to take the bottle and spend the evening with Hack and to tell him that Oth, "got a good price for the buckle". She did as she was told.

For a woman who rents out the space between her legs, time is valuable. So it was no surprise to Fimbul when she left Hack's apartment a few hours earlier than the silvers should have bought him. Fimbul slipped inside nearly silently but had he made a lot of noise, it wouldn't have mattered in the least. Hack was sprawled across his cheap, rope-bed, completely oblivious thanks to the bottle Fimbul had bought him. He didn't even stir when Fim slit his throat. If Fimbul carried any regrets away from the warehouse, it was only that Hack had spent his last few living hours in relative pleasure. What he did carry away was a box of coins stashed under Hack's bed. It held enough gold to feed his family for weeks and to outfit himself with something better to defend himself with than a leatherworker's knife.

Oth's body found it's way into the harbor thanks to a few coins and a pair of thirsty dockhands with whom Fimbul was acquainted through Woller (who took his usual grog as a commission). Unsurprisingly Oth and Hack had few friends and more than a few enemies. None of the inhabitants of the slums cared that one was missing and one was dead. Nor were they particularly hopeful about the fact that they were gone. Port Mangsa had many problems but a lack of thugs to fill a void was not one of them.

Redef would later comment that Fimbul had "snapped" but, although he never denied it, it just wasn't true. Fimbul had been waiting for the day when he would be able to kill those responsible for his father's death and this was the perfect opportunity. He did not do so out of any particular sense of revenge or justice. The fact was that if he was going to gain an upper hand in his small community he needed an opening in the power structure and that meant shaking things up a little bit. The fact that he was able to kill Oth in Redef's shop and thereby make the Gnome an unwilling accomplice to his double murder meant that they were now "blood brothers" after a fashion. In Redef's mind, Fimbul had saved him from possibly being killed at the hands of Oth and the sort of gratitude that generated could not be bought with coin. While Redef lived, Fimbul's family would not go hungry and Fimbul would be able to get an excellent price on any questionable goods he brought to the Gnome to fence.

Having secured a better daily lot for his family, Fim began to distance himself from them, starting with using a shortened version of his name. He also began to immerse himself more fully in the politics of the poor parts of Port Mangsa. He learned everything he could learn from new trades to which guardsmen slept with which whores. He bought himself the best used equipment he could find and had Redef help him make sure it was in serviceable condition. Woller put him in touch with a few sailors who could teach him some more refined knife fighting techniques and he practiced throwing his daggers and darts in every spare minute.

Ultimately he began to see that his best option for a profitable future was not going to be in the copper and silver world of the slums and he started to gradually move his interests to the more upscale areas of the city. His two most recent ambitions are to try and make inroads into one of the various smuggling operations run out of the docks district (he's hoping that Woller has some information about this) and the formation of a network of informants who may hold real power: The Practitioners Guild. Having recently started working at a place called Ichabod's in the employ of a Mistress Silvanna Wainwright, Fim's prospects hold a great deal of potential.

In the mean time, his mother no longer has to scrub and haul linens and Cugan has begun to apprentice under Redef as a tinker (with the understanding that Cugan is to know nothing about any illicit goods that Fim fences through Redef). Fim is hoping to possibly secure a position for Amabelle as a scribe at the Practitioners Guild for she shares the quick wits of her older brother. In a rare moment of optimism, Fim even dreams that she might become a Wizard someday.

 

[Rel]

Here's the backstory for the next character I'm playing in an Arcana Unearthed campaign, Xersan. He's a Verrik Mind Witch. For those unfamiliar with AU, the Verrik have the ability have the ability to turn off their senses voluntarily. It isn't quite as long, but still...

Xersan (zer-sahn)

I should arrive in Cre-Redova later today. I know not what this Arayllia will be like and whether her intentions are honorable or not. I feel it best to prepare myself for the unexpected. I have never been one to be caught unaware and I don’t intend to start now.

I find myself a small, quiet clearing in the forest, well away from the path I was following. I clear the leaves and sticks away from the mossy area where I will make my preparations and I take my seat. I gently lay my witchbag before me and look around to make sure that I am alone. I turn off my sight.

My preference is to also turn off my hearing because I can focus better without the distracting noises of nature. But one must make certain concessions in the name of safety when traveling alone and these lands are reputed to hold dangerous creatures. I will keep my ears open and do my best to flow with the wind and bird songs rather than let them distract me.

My hands go to my witchbag but do not seek to open it immediately. They feel the soft and well worn leather. I feel the places where the scales once attached to the giant-lizard hide. I feel the stiff, scorched area from where an ember popped out of the fire while I was sightlessly, soundlessly meditating and didn’t know a hot coal was sitting on the edge of my witchbag until my hand touched it. But today I have no fire and no such distractions.

My hand goes to the clasp fashioned of the lizard’s tooth. I deftly unfasten it as I have done hundreds of times before and I feel myself sink further into my routine and meditation. My hand feels the thick stack of polished bone plaques, bound up together in a strip of silk. I feel the ridges across the tops of them and select one of the most familiar of them to prepare my first spell.

I almost always prepare Mind Stab first. Perhaps it is because it was the first spell that I learned beyond those most basic to my people. Perhaps it is because I have such an easy affinity for it that it provides a solid start for the rest of my preparations. Perhaps it is to give me a weapon to use against any who might interrupt my meditation.

No matter the reason, my hands find the patterns of bumps on the bone plaque and trace their familiar patterns. I feel myself go through the motions of casting the spell: I gather my will. I reach my hand into the bag. It finds the thin, polished, shape of the Needle-Snail shell form the shores of the Gulf of Firesight. I press my thumb against the tip, feeling the prick of pain and I focus on this. And finally…I ease my grip on the shell and let it fall where it hangs from the string tied to the inside of the bag. If I should need to, I will complete the final step of the spell, lancing out with my will toward the mind of my target.

I lay aside that plaque and select another that is worn with use. I begin my preparations for the Canny Effort spell. I cast my memory back to the day I first learned the spell. My mother took me to a mesa in the Zalavat and bade me to climb it. Always a thin child with scant musculature, I knew she meant for me to use my inner power. I turned off my sight, my hearing, my taste, my smell. I left only my touch, feeling every rough pore of the stone before me. I focused my will upon these imperfections until each seemed as large and easily scaled as the steps leading up out of our house. I gripped the stone and began to climb and moments later I found myself at thrice my height up the wall.

Then I fell.

That was also the day that my mother taught me to focus my powers of observation on the flesh that I might discover the subtle ways it could be coaxed to mend itself. As my mother told me that day, “One always chooses the moment to climb. One rarely chooses the moment to fall.” I have carried bandages in my witchbag since that day and grown passably good at using them. As I complete the preparation of this spell, my hand releases the chunk of stone that I carried away from the mesa that day. I place it back in the bag where it waits ready to focus my efforts in areas where I do not naturally excel.

I turn the plaque over to its other side and begin to feel the bumps and grooves that remind me of the steps necessary to cast Minor Illusion. My other hand finds the small pocket where I keep a familiar, circular piece of mirror, about the size of a coin. I think back to the cool desert night in our home when my mother taught me this spell.

“Hold the mirror in your hand. Now tilt it such that you can see my face. Good. Now focus on my face. Remember all the details of it, the wrinkles around my eyes, the white of my eyebrows, the color of my skin. Now focus that image onto the mirror with your mind. Then slowly tilt the mirror away from me, but keep that image focused there…”

My hand lingers with the mirror in it and I almost decide to complete the spell and see my mother’s face. But that means turning my vision back on and interrupting my meditations and I am too disciplined for that. I see her in my mind’s eye and then let go of her image and the mirror. My hand finds another plaque and my mind readies itself for preparing my next spell: Veil of Darkness.

I take into my hand the strip of silk that binds together the plaques. I run my fingers over its smooth surface and think back to the day it was bound over my eyes. I recall arguing with the elders that it was unnecessary as I could simply turn off my vision. But they instructed me that it was more important to learn to use the imperfect sight limited by the thick cloth than the utter darkness cause by turning off my sight. They taught me well and I could soon reach out and grab the smooth stick they taunted me with thrice every four times.

Their teachings have served me well. On my travels north, I was performing my mediations one morning when a desert cat approached me, smelling the food I had cooked the night before. As the silken strip slid through my fingers, the Veil of Darkness slid outward from me, over the sands around me, and in the darkness my Mind Blade found the cat before its claws found me. I was gone before the creature awoke.

I have grown comfortable in the dark and was only too happy to part with some of the coin my father gave me when offered the chance to buy the magical cloak that I wear. Its shroud of darkness has allowed me to safely escape a band of highwaymen on the road north and when I grow weary of the questions of the provincial locals whose hamlets I must endure to restock my supplies of food, I find they have little to say when I become a shadow before their eyes.

Another plaque comes into my hand and I reluctantly begin to trace its message. With even greater hesitation, I reach deep into my witchbag and feel the claw. I draw it out of the bag and then leave it lying on the flap and rest my hands on my knees for several heartbeats. My next spell leaves the taste of ashes in my mouth. I turn off my sense of taste and concentrate, taking both plaque and claw in hand again.

I still dream of that afternoon in the desert. My mother knew that I would never gain mastery of the Distraction spell without a real target. We found the giant lizard laying in the shade and made our way closer, counting on the creature’s torpor and cover from a stone ledge to escape its notice. When we drew close, I crept atop the stone ledge and hid behind a boulder. There I waited while my mother moved to a nearby outcropping and conjured the image of a Runnerbird darting into view of the lizard.

The head of the large beast twitched and its body bunched to strike. As it leapt from the shade, I used my spell to Distract it. It stopped where it stood, biting at the non-existent adversary I had set upon it. But the spell held only for a moment and it saw the movement I made when I gestured toward it. It turned and leapt at me instead of the illusory Runnerbird.

I began to stumble backwards unaware that my mother had come up to protect me. I knocked her over and fell off the ledge of stone we had been hiding behind. Her Mindfire went astray and did not hit the lizard. It was on top of her before I could recover.

I recall striking it with a Mind Stab and then repeatedly slashing at its flanks with my Mind Blade. By the time it was unconscious, it was too late. My mother was dead and the lizard followed her soon after. His claw is my focus for Distraction, his hide is my witchbag, his tooth is the clasp, his ribs are my spell-plaques. That was the day that the lizard took the place of my mother as my teacher. He has taught me much.

I feel myself coming out of the distraction from my mediation, which is the way one prepares to use the Distraction spell. Distraction as a means of focus is an odd sensation.

With my spell preparations complete, I replace the contents of my witchbag and refasten the clasp before I return my vision. As I take one last bite of my breakfast, I notice that I had turned off my sense of taste and that breakfast just isn’t the same without it. Deprivation of the senses is only useful when it allows one to focus on what is important, not when it removes valuable information, such as the taste of saltmeat biscuits with pepper jelly.

I look at the crock of pepper jelly and wonder if it will be available in Cre-Redova. If not then my view of my trip north is even more bleak than before. I have already left behind my mother and her death cost me my father.

He never truly recovered from her death. He couldn’t bring himself to blame me and therefore could not place his feet on the path of forgiving me. And each time he saw me use my witchery, he could only think of her. When he told me of the debt to the Witch of the North, I could see that he longed for the day of my departure. I think he gave me so much gold that I might depart all the sooner.

I do not believe he hates me. But my presence is too painful for him to bear. I pitied him the day that I departed. He struggled to find words of wisdom to make my parting seem less like he was rid of some burden and more like I was embarking on some grand adventure. He failed of course. Words of wisdom were the province of my mother. At last, he stepped back inside and brought me the crock of pepper jelly. “They may not have this up north.”

Those were his final words to me.

Best I stop gazing backwards now and head into town to meet Arayllia. If there are to be “grand adventures” in my future, she holds the key to them.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

I have never actually started off at First level I always come into campaigns late and end up starting around 4th).

Very briefly ...

Djeta - Bard 2 / Sorcerer 6 - half elf.

Djeta was the black sheep of her all human family. The only half elf in a family of humans. One of her brothers and her fathers wife consider her the reason their family fell apart, however her other siblings love her. But because her oldest brother makes her life a living hell, her father, a sort of antiquites dealer takes Djeta out on his missions and adventures where she learns that she has sorcerer abilities, and how to get by on her charm and talent.

Years later, at age 27 , Djeta is summoned by a contact to tell her about a particular artifact. There she meets up with the guys who later become her travel party.

Tilly - Sorcerer 5 - gnome (illusionist).

Tilly is an adorable, perky, and excitable childlike character. She is fascinated by everyone and everything. She is raised as basically a little princess in her highly protected village in the forest. Her great granpa founded the village and cast the spells to protect it. Tilly is very happy and learns how to cast illusion spells (she has no need for offensive or defensive ones, after all).
But one day, a party of adventurers comes to her village and helps her family. She asks her grandfather to let her go with them, and see the outside world. She says shes good with a bow and can handle whatever she comes up against. As she goes along, she realizes that she can cast helpful spells (how I explain the addition of new spells to her list), and use her illusions to get her by. (I love Tilly, she's probably my favorite)

Rhiann - Druid - elven

Rhiann has the most interesting background of them all. She has no background. She was found by druids wandering around when she was 7 or 8 years old. She had no idea who she was, or who her family was. (I gave the DM my full permission to make the background up as she goes along). As she gets older, she becomes a druid and is sent out on her own. She meets a mentor of sorts who puts her with the traveling party as a "moral compass". She is haunted by nightmares, and struggles with the balance of whether she really wants to know what happened to her and her family so long ago, or if she merely wants to erase it from her mind. She is worried SHE will change if she finds out, and become vengeful and obsessed. I just started playing her, but I can tell she's a fun character to play.

 

[mythago]

If you have a copy of Feng Shui, there's lots of good material in there for simple, iconic backstories, and they translate just fine to heroic fantasy.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Should I understand from the length of the prior contributions that iconic D&D class+backstory combinations like these are not desired?

Agrivar of the Greenwood (male human ranger 1): Grew up in the Greenwood with his loving (former adventurer) parents who were surprised mercilessly slain by orcs one day as he was out hunting. Taking his father's +5 vorpal longsword from its hiding place, he vowed vengeance on the orcs and has been hunting them ever since.

Morgan (Male human Clr 1): Abandoned as a child on the doorstep of the monastery of Pelor, Morgan was raised by monks. Occasionally he did something rebellious like sneaking out at night to go swimming in the pond or switch the salt and the sugar shakers at breakfast but generally he was studious and obedient. When he turned 18, the monastery sent him on his Sojourn--a five year time when he is obligated to leave the monastery, experience the world, and do good deeds before returning if he decides that the cloistered life is for him.

Calbut the cutpurse: Calbut never knew his father and the men his mother shacked up with beat and abused him so he ran away from home at the young age of ten and eventually fell in with the theives' guild of Stonetower where he learned all sorts of roguish skills. As often happens to theives guilds, however, his guild was destroyed in a turf war with a rival guild and, as a member of the losing faction, he needed to get out of town quickly. Which is how he ended up in the tavern where he met the other adventurers and why he was quick to join them.

Rigby the Mighty (male human Wiz): Rigby's parents were very proud (or so they said) when the great archmage selected Rigby to be his apprentice at the tender age of eight. Rigby is certain that their decision to allow him to leave wasn't wholly motivated by the archmage's gold (if nothing else, the desire to spend their money on a weekend trips to Suzail rather than feeding him played into it). For years after that, Rigby worked hard on mastering the cantrips and spells taught him by his master (because he was beaten every time he failed and his master threatened to offer his soul as part of a planar binding deal if he failed too often). Eventually, he grew tired of the abuse, gathered his meager belongings, supplemented them with a few potions and a wand he stole from his master, carved a small--almost imperceptible--breach in his master's summoning circle, and fled the tower to find adventure on his own.

 

[Rel]

Should I understand from the length of the prior contributions that iconic D&D class+backstory combinations like these are not desired?

No, E-B, I think you should understand that I don't get to play (as opposed to GM) often enough and that, when I do, I tend to get very excited about my characters to the point of writing VERY long backstories. Djeta's are not much longer than most of yours.

 

[Quasqueton]

What does it say when the character has more words in his backstory than he has experience points on his stat sheet?

Quasqueton

 

[diaglo]

from the story hour in my sig: Half-Elven Barbarian Bartol Pinesheaf

Bartol Pinesheaf is the son of Karm Pinesheaf and Rowen Smythe, born and raised in a homestead off the Mistle Trail within the county of Mistledale near Elven Crossing, where Rowen's family maintains a weaponsmithy. Bartol's grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins run the smithy and surrounding farmlands, trading with travelers to and from Ashabenford. They do well enough. And lately business has been booming, as have the stories, rumors, and tales.

Karm, a full blooded wood elf, had saved young Rowen on one of the caravan trips to Elven Crossing from Ashabenford. They fell in love at once. And though Karm stayed many years with Rowen. He could not live the life of a settler nor could Rowen one of a nomad. So as time went on Karm returned home less and less with greater spans of time in between each visit. Rowen was content, though, for she had Bartol. Karm trained Bartol in the ways of surviving in the wilds. And his grandfather taught him the trade of a weaponsmith. Though, young Bartol, was never much good at following instruction. For this reason Rowen thought, she needed help. With Karm gone so often she took on the role of both kindly mother and strict watchmaster. She tried taking him to church often. The family reverred Torm. And it may have been foolish hope or desire, but Rowen believed her son destined to
become a noble paladin. Of course, this was not to be. Although,
Bartol ,too, worshipped Torm and had a goodly heart. He also cared little for the strict discipline. For Bartol had a temper. And when provoked it could be dangerous. Bartol feared its uncontrollable nature. So he became quiet and reserved, attempting to draw little attention to himself. Therefore his social skills suffered as well as his school lessons. Bartol secretly always thought his father was one of the Riders. And he hoped one day he too would be.

Like his uncles and cousins before him, he too, had to serve in the militia. Mostly because of his elven blood Bartol was always
physically behind in his development. So after avoiding service for
the last 5 years, Grandfather Smythe finally intervened. He handed Bartol Karm's bow and quiver, a greatsword in honor of Torm, 2 daggers, a suit of studded leather, and a backpack with supplies. He also gave Bartol a handful of coins and a big hug.

"Do us proud, Bartol, and return when you have completed your
service."

The next day, Bartol set off on foot for the big city.