the "jollystyle" paladin

jollyninja

First Post
now as a preperatory introduction let me say that i am horrible at playing paladins. my characters tend to have a bit of a darker edge to them, so paladins played by me have a tendency to multiclass quickly or lose their paladinhood within the first two sessions. this is the best paladin character i have ever played.

nathaniel birch grew up near a small villiage called dartmoor. his father was a retired bard who had travelled the world and performed for royalty. the father was not however a braggart so only his wife and child knew of his past and were entertained nightly with his seemingly infinite repitoire of stories and songs.

when nate was only 12 there was a terrible flood that killed both of his parents and nearly took him as well. he was found be a reclusive hermit washed up on the river's new bank. the hermit brought nate to the local temple and they nursed him back to health. the villiage council decided that raising nate would become the responsibility of everyone. they would all take month long turns providing food and shelter for the boy. nate was a hard worker so most folk didn't mind taking him in for a short time. over the years nate spent as much of his time as possible sitting, playing and doing whatever he could on his father's old land, which had been taken over by the local nobility due to lack of use but remained inactive due to the villiagers opinion that the land should be nate's. they subtly drove off all who came to work it. all nate had of his family were his father's hunting knife, a hat his mother made him and his memory of the stories. all his time in the wilderness and the training with weapons that the hermit gave him turned him into quite a woodsman.

when nate was 16, the villiage was visited by an ogre and a small force of orcs. nate had perched himself in a trees earlier in the day as he was currently staying with the local innkeeper who liked to give him 2 chore free days per week as there were few customers in the out of the way villiage. from his vantage point nate saw the ogre and his orcs enter the villiage and begin attacking the people. they killed 5 before the local conastable could arrive on the scene. he charged the small force but was easily dispatched by the ogre is single combat. the ogre demanded tribute and the local townspeople obeyed as few of them had any combat training. the ogre and the orcs waited beneath the very tree in which nate sat. after the tribute had been collected, the ogre demanded that the townsfolk give him three of their daughters as wives. nate lept from the tree and took a stab at the ogre's meaty back with his long hunting knife. as luck would have it the knife (a magical dagger) stabbed into the ogre's heart and the blood sprayed all over nate as the monster fell. nate began screaming as he had been completely surprised by the gusher of blood that covered his face and upper body.

the orcs were terrified by the blood covered, scrawny, screaming, wild haired youth (they thought it might be an elf) and they ran into the woods. and the local ledgend was born. two days later nathaniel was sworn in as the new constable of dartmoor and his training began at the local church to become a paladin.
 
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Charcter Cliche #24: Orphaned character :D

I'm just teasing, but it is something that is seen a lot. Heck, my character is an orphan too. So, does he have any perform ability from his father? And siblings or aunts/uncles that he knows of? Any chance of him meeting said royalty and dropping his father's name or having one of them recongize him though his father?

It takes a village to raise a child become literal with this guy. Did that allow him to be open to a wider amoung of skills? It seems like a pretty good background so far. Good Job.
 

i'm actually not done yet. the boards tend to cut me off if i try to post a long one all at once. i'll just throw his whole story thus far here and you'll see why he's my favorite paladin i've done.
cliched characters are often the best ones, all the good character concepts when broken down into a simplified form have been done.
 
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for a few years, little happened in dartmoor worth mentioning and nathaniel birch did a fine job as constable. he became the person people would take their disputes to if they didn't want to involve the official courts of the land. he was seen as an impartial judge by the townsfolk because they had all raised him and he served the god of justice. when nathaniel birch turned 20, he had become the spiritual leader of the town as well as it's main civilian law enforcer. he had no jurisdiction according to the law of the land but was given leway by the local lord's men due to his position of respect among the commoners. (ranger 2, paladin 3)

nate and whatever group of adventurers happened to be in the area at the time (we change characters alot mid-campaign) solved many a crime and fought both orcs (the primary monster force in the area) and bandits. nate grew quite lonely as the people of the town stopped seeing him as one of them and grew guarded in their conversations when near him. it was all buisiness when they spoke to him at all. all but the villiage halfwit and the hermit who had found him. he took every opportunity to spend time with these two individuals who also began to spend alot of time together. they would play darts in the local tavern virtually every night together.

still not done
 
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on to the meat of the story. the hermit was killed and nate never found his killers for certian.

one day some odd characters came to town. a group of three men who had a way about them that led nate to believe they were part of a millitary force, and an old man they seemed to be following. after a few days the old man was arrested by the local lords men for thievery. he proclaimed his innocence demanding to see the local lord. the man was broken out of jail the following night amid rumors that he claimed to be the king. the old man had been spending time with the local halfwit so nate went to his friend for information. long story short, the old man was the king and he had been set up by unknown parties to be arrested and jailed. nate found this out and gathered proof enough to get the king pardoned.

nate was knighted and given a special task in the event of the kings death, to find a siutable groom for the kings daughter. basically my character had to find the new king if this one died before his daughter and only child was married.
 

while everyone is celebrating, a large force of orcs is found to be massing in the forrest east of dartmoor (a real place somewhere in brittian by the way) and before a force can be dispatched, they take over the town. with nate leading the peasants who were able to escape the town, and 50 cavalry, the army of orcs (led by an ogre magi with some regular ogres as heavy troops) was defeated with nate killing the enemy general.

through treachery though the king was killed by the local lord in a move that made no sense as it did not advance his station at all. nate and his current companions chased the lord to the keep where he surendered without a fight. he was to be escorted to the capital by the present knights and nathaniel birch was given interim power to run the country until such time as the heir could be found (gender equality is nonexistant in this country). long story short, the heir was actually a minor NPC in the campaign, he was a member of the royal family 2 generations past, his son (one of the pc's married the princess shortly after the corination). nate was named "high protector" of the nation for his deeds and willingness to give up power for the greater good.
 

side story:

the local noble who killed the king had in fact been controlled by a body jumping demon (like in fallen, the densel washington movie) it was discovered that the only way to kill such a creature was to trap it inside some sort of "storm guy" in a dream given to the party's other paladin.

the "storm guy" was in fact a highlander style immortal. we discovered that the only one we knew of was of course: Dartmoor's local halfwit and my character's only real friend. the feeling of isolation only grew as my character was given more power, conversations now died as he entered a room, nobility were afraid of him (the peasant with power) and the peasants looked at him like he was some kind of diety. the prospect of having to kill his only friend was alarming to say the least but his new station demanded that it be done. efforts were taken to trap the demon in the halfwit's body.

when we finally thought we had done it, nate moved in to decapitate the halfwit during the quickening. he failed to do so and lost all his paladinly powers. the demon was not in the halfwit and a simple detect evil would have revealed that so my character was stripped of his abilities. the other paladin however did the detect evil and we found out that we had failed.
 

and you are thinking so what, go on a quest, get the restoration spell and carry on with your life right? well, i didn't see it that way, nathaniel birch at this point became a reckless, some would say mad warrior against the forces of evil. time after time he would charge blindly into battle with little thought of strategy or tactics. the thing was that every single time, he defeated his foe. my character seemed charmed and his ledgend grew beyond what could reasonably be expected of a mortal man. he was only level 9 and he was widely considered the greatest warrior in the history of the kingdom.

from a player standpoint, i have never had such a freakish ammount of luck. this character criticaled every third swing and never rolled less then 15 on a save. i have not even come close to that level of luck before or since.

finally the character died charging the general of yet another orcish army. his luck truly left him, i critically missed,dropping my sword and falling off my horse (we do critical misses like critical hits, i rolled 3 consecutive 1's) the enemy general took three swings, my character was dead.
 

one of his companions got him raised but the magic was gone, as was the suicidal streak. he found a new god, one of protection, the one he believed he would have chosen, given the choice in the first place. he died again and got reincarnated as a bear, i took him out of the campaign. he got killed agian. his buddy the other paladin is currently trying to find a way to bring him back to face a great threat to the kingdom (dragon and it's armies) in his actual form, not as a bear.

that's it, the only paladin i have played who stayed a good guy right up to the end.
 


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