Character 88 - Ungus Splitlick

Illustration by Luis Perez

As I mentioned in the rolls themselves, I love grippli. There is something about the frog-folk that I really enjoy and I actually cannot put a finger on it. This is the third grippli I’ve done in the nearing two years of the blog’s existence so I wanted to do something different than the first two, even though the stats for this frogman screamed monk.  So where to go this time around?

Looking at some of the background information he is a worshiper of the god of shepherds and herd animals, and he also made his first kill early on. The high wisdom and dexterity means that a wisdom-based caster was probably a good choice but the shepherding and early combat sent me in another direction. I settled on ranger, just a straight-up ranger with an archery focus and I think that would tie in well with a number of the other ideas I had.

Ungus Splitlick

There are many different tribes in the Mwangi expanse. Although the humans are the most populous they are not the only race that has taken up a home among the trees, waterways, and marshlands. There exists within the bounds of the Mwangi Jungle a few tribes of the frogmen known as grippli. They live as primitive herders, tending flocks of large sweetgrass slugs, water possums, and giant amphibians such as turtles and lizards.

Ungus Splitlick was born to one of these tribes. He was an only child to parents whose position in the tribe was to trade with those outside of the grippli communities. For him this meant learning how to travel through the jungle to the larger human villages to trade meat and animal products at a young age. This often meant moving unseen through territory that had other, more hostile, tribes in it.

Illustration by Luis Perez

As he grew he became more adepts at moving through his people’s home territory. There were quite a few other grippli tribes in the area, each a separate entity although led by the grand chief of one of the tribe. He loved exploring and meeting new people, even when his parents weren’t making their trips to the human cities.

On one of these walkabouts he came across a young grippli being menaced by a wild cat. Quick thinking and being more than adequate with his bow allowed him to dispatch the feline and save the young frog’s life. The grippli he saved was the son of the Great Chief and the two became friends.

When the chief died and the son rose to his position Ungus was made the Grand Shepherd. The grippli were herdsmen and each tribe had to protect their flock, but the Great Chief was the shepherd of all his people and the Grand Shepherd was duty bound to protect the herdsmen as his own flock. Given the crook of office the job suited Ungus well as he now had reason to travel from tribe to tribe.

Although his friendship with the Grand Chief was never in doubt, Ungus was plagued with a bit of jealousy. He occasionally felt that some of the others who served the chief were undermining his connection to him and on occasion he may have been a little untruthful so as to make the Grand Chief do things the way he thought was best for his people.

For now, though, with his crook of office -- which he cherishes as the greatest gift he’s ever received -- he patrols all the tribal lands. He protects his people from dangers within and without, following the teachings of the grippli’s patron spirit the great angel Rowdrosh.

What became of your disparate bits of information? What class suits the grippli? How did he get his first kill? Who is the liege to whom he serves? What is the object he is attached to? Tell us in the comments.

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