Here is my concept and short story/bio on the Artificer known as Digger. When the game begins, his alignement would be True Neutral, but perhaps with the right companions, his outlook could change. Please let me know if the concept is too cliched', but it has been a long time since I wracked my brain to get the juices flowing again.
So, here it goes:
I do not belong in this world, yet I am here…
I am called Digger, a name I am sure I was given due to the fact that the first thing my hands ever held was the worn handle of a spade, than to any thoughts on would the name match my personality, or be a clue as to what the future may have in store for me.
We are called the warforged, creations built when soldiers were needed who could fight all day and night and never tire, and if we should perish, what was the loss? Were we not just simple constructs, a few steps away from the golems the mages create with the power of their spells? Who mourns when a sword breaks? Who cries for the loss of shield? No one, and in that regard none truly cared that my people died in a war that we could not understand, as all we knew was that we had been told to fight, and fight we must.
Just as I had been told to dig…
This hole will be different than the countless others that I have created in my life; this hole will be one that I chose to dig, not the other way around. I will bury my past in it, and if the silent gods truly do exist, then they will allow my past to stay here in this unmarked grave, buried and distant in my mind for all eternity.
I do not fault Bataner, the gnome I will bury here in this desolate plain of sorrow and waste, for his actions, as odd as that might seem. He was what he had always felt was the right thing for him to be. His actions were always that of a man convinced of his own righteousness, however dark and twisted those beliefs might be, and he truthfully believed that his actions would never have consequences. After all, who would stand up to someone of his abilities? I have heard him refer to himself with various titles many times, but I think one elvish prostitute, a more flattering term than the one Bataner used as watched her poison filled body spasm, still clutching the golden coins that were the source of her death, had dubbed him best.
He was a necromancer…
I do not know when I realized that I would have to kill Bataner, nor do I truly care. I simply know that now that the deed is done, I feel perhaps the faintest spark of something deep inside my hollow chest. It is a feeling that perhaps I can control my destiny, perhaps while there is no valid reason why I exist, I am here and unless I wish to be as dead as Bataner is, and was during his life, I have to leave this place behind.
Placing the gnome’s body in the ground carefully, as I truthfully bore Bataner no deep malice, I feel as though I should speak. However, while I have the ability to do so, I can not force the words out. In the end, I know that Bataner would not speak over me if I would have fallen, and as I begin to place the soil atop of him, my movements as precise as always, I can feel a hint of nervousness wash over me, and I wonder if perhaps I truly did the right thing.
My task complete, I look down at the grave I have made and place the shovel next to it. It has been a good tool, and has served me well all these years, but it too must stay behind so that I may move forward. It is the nature of things. Time moves on and if we do not move with it, we are left behind in its wake trapped forever to a fate of being nothing more than living ghosts.
Or ghosts in the shell…
Picking up the few things that I felt were safe to take from Bataner, I looked to the west and saw the sun setting in the distance over the mountains. I could reach the first of the villages which lined the base of the mountains within a day or two, as what is walking to something, or someone, that never truly grows tired or fatigued? Perhaps there, they will have need of someone with my skills, someone who learned the secrets of creation from a master who sought only destruction. If not there, then perhaps the next town, or the next, or perhaps it is simply my fate to be placed in a world in which I do not belong, constantly trying to stay one step ahead of time and constantly seeking something I was not ever meant to have.
Life.
