Character Exploration 74 - Kalissa

This week’s random rolls were tough. Although the class seemed pretty cut and dry, with her being the follower of a savage god and having a high strength and constitution, the low dexterity meant being someone who uses lighter armor would be a problem. Still barbarian was the glaringly obvious choice and I went with it.

Where I had my problem was canon lore to build from. So little is written about lizardfolk that it was hard to find a the hook I was looking for. I actually had to search into the adjacent region to The Shackles, a place called the Sodden Lands, to find what I needed. A little tidbit there sparked the idea and I just ran with it.

Kalissa

In the south part of The Sodden Lands the lizardfolk tribes make their home. For generations the tribes lived in harmony with each other; aiding one another in times of trouble. In recent years that harmony has been disrupted. Some of the lizardfolk tribes have fallen under the rule of powerful warlords who call themselves the “Terwa Lords.” Although each Terwa Lord is sovereign, they seek power at the expense of the weaker and more peaceful tribes.

Kalissa was one of the youngest of her family, or clutch, when the raiders game to her village. They killed her parents and her one older brother. Her brother’s death was an act of sacrifice so that her older sister could take the remaining children – all girls – away to safety. The Terwa Lords would destroy her home and force her people to become refugees.

The clutch of females made it across the southern border to the pirate kingdom of The Shackles. This was before the Terwa Lords riled up their people to begin raiding that far south, so the reptilians made their way in the city of Neruma. They were accepted, though as second class citizens, within the walls of the human enclave and Kalissa’s eldest sister managed to keep them out of the slave pits.

Living in the slums of Neruma was no easy life. The sisters scraped by working on jobs around the city. Living away from the coast made their life more difficult as their parents had been sailors and that was the only life the girls really knew. As Kalissa grew up she fell in with a number of street kids who all learned from criminal named Kerbus Trout.

Trout would teach Kalissa how to navigate the city, what areas to avoid to stay out of the slave pits, and how best to con some of the local vendors out of a loaf of bread or round of cheese. Although he himself was a well-known criminal – no small task in a land of criminals – he never asked any of the children to follow in his footsteps. He had a soft spot for kids, especially those who were growing up on the streets like he did.

When the raids started the lizardfolk who resided in Neruma were all looked upon with suspicion. The Terwa Lords had turned their eye from the traditional home in the southern Sodden Lands to the north of The Shackles. There were whispers among Kalissa’s people that this city was once a breeding ground for the ancient tribes and the Lords were seeking to reclaim it.

With the turn against the reptilian citizens some of the gangs of thugs would come to drag off the lizardfolk to the slave pits. It became common to see those who looked like the raiders to be cheated by merchants of all sorts. These actions bred fear and hatred among the lizardfolk, which in turn gave more excuses for the other citizens to treat them poorly. It was a vicious cycle.

Although the Terwa Lords were the driving force among the lizardfolk for domination of the region, other groups used their movement as a way to gain their own power. Among these were worshipers of the Daemon Harbinger Ealdeez. These degenerates used the aggressiveness of the Lords to promote reversion back to a more animalistic, or natural state.

Watching her people fall from their already low place in the city, Kalissa felt anger in her heart toward the people mistreating them. When a local leatherworker began abusing some of his help she lost it completely. She confronted him in front of his shop in full view of any bystanders and accused him of terrible things. The problem was that, because of the skills taught her by Kerbus, she knew these things to be true. Many of the people he traded with looked upon the leatherworker unkindly but Kalissa didn’t care.

Eventually the remaining lizardfolk that weren’t killed or enslaved were driven from the city. Kalissa was separated from her family and fell in with a group of raiders heading home to the Sodden Lands. It was here she first heard the teachings of Ealdeez. She learned to reach deep and use her hatred to release her inner beast. They taught her to fight with tooth and claw.

Kalissa’s rage was focused on one thing and one thing only, the people who had treated her and her people so badly. She would join the raiding parties and seek to punish the people of Neruma. One day she also hopes to find her sisters, if any remain. But for now the destruction of the warmbloods will fill that void.

Is this what you envisioned when you first laid eyes on the random rolls? What class did your lizardfolk choose? What happened to her parents? What disaster did she witness? Why did the end up in a human city? How did she come worship Ealdeez? 

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Character 55 - Broog Toothnasher

A goblin, much like the monkey goblin I did a few months ago, this is a good character from a race that is usually quite evil. We have to take a look to her past to explain why she would be different from ninety percent of her people. Quick, hardy, and intensely aware, but also lacking in physical strength and book smarts, class choices for this character were still pretty open. The harrow reading really helped string together the pieces of information from the random rolls to make a coherent character.

Harrow Interpretation

Signifier Card: This card represents the character itself. The Peacock usually shows a sudden shift in attitude or a societal change. Although with the original base rolls, I was going to go with a character born outside of a goblin tribe and their traditional evil. With this card, it seems more like he would have been part of something evil and changed his ways.

Card One: The first card which shows where the character comes from further backs that up. The Paladin represents strength in the face of adversity. Never backing down, even if it means hardship. So the character comes from a place where he had to take a stand for what he thought was right and suffered for it.

Card Two: The card that tells of an important event in the character’s life is The Uprising, which can mean the overthrow of a leader. It also speaks of defeating something much more powerful than oneself. For this I’m going to mix the conflict and the circumstances of birth. His mother was taken by force, and in this case I’m going to go with the leader of the tribe as the perpetrator. The conflict is that he killed some non-humanoid creature, I’m going to make that creature somehow bound to the leader but not evil in its own right so the character can feel bad about killing it since it was being forced to serve the leader.

Card Three: The Avalanche shows us an ability the character might have. It’s a dexterity card, but it means unthinking, unreasoning disaster. This card really helped cement the class for this character. Unthinking, unreasoning really just screams barbarian rage, and with the unchained barbarian’s rage feature allowing for dex based barbarians this fits oh-so-well.

Card Four: Where the character is going is told by The Publican card. It shows fellowship and a place of refuge. With all of these things that have changed for this goblin to become good and outcast from his clan, it shows that he finds acceptance even outside of his clan.

Broog Toothnasher

Goblins aren’t known for long lasting relationships. For the most part goblin babies are born when two goblins just can’t keep their hands off each other. The fact that Broog’s conception came after the goblin chief forced himself on her mother, has always been a source of shame to the one parent Broog ever really knew.  But like most goblins, Broog was raised by the tribe in the most savage of ways, without knowing the truth of her parentage.

Like most of her race, after surviving the goblin-eat-goblin world of the brood-pens, she matured quickly. Frenetic rages were the evidence of her brutal upbringing, and she became a well-respected warrior in her small tribe on their tiny island in the steaming sea. Her people fought for their hardscrabble life, but it was theirs. They were rarely disturbed by other humanoids, seeing as their home served very little strategic value.

Broog learned of her mother’s shame when the chief once again tried to force himself on her. Although this time her mother escaped the ravaging, it left a mark on Broog. The chief was feared, especially since he somehow cowed a pseudodragon into being his protector. From the moment Broog knew the truth, however, her inner fire wouldn’t let her rest until she dealt which Chief Grymegoot.

In the dark of night Broog stole into the chief’s cave. The Pseudodragon never knew what hit it when she snuck in and snapped its serpentine neck. However, a small shriek in its death throes gave the chief all the warning he needed to prepare for the attack and he fended off Broog’s uncoordinated assault. The young goblin was beaten back and forced to flee, running right off a rocky cliff and into the misty morning tide.

Washed ashore on one of the other islands in the Ironbound Archipelago, Broog was without family, without a tribe, and for the first time felt something she’d never felt before, regret. The poor pseudodragon had done nothing to her and in her struggle with Chief Grymegoot she saw that he kept a small clutch of eggs near his bed. Like her mother this creature just sought to protect its young and she had murdered it.

Set adrift, not just physically but spiritually, Broog questioned everything about her existence. The small rocky outcropping that passed for an island left her alone with nothing but her thoughts. Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months as she managed a life on the island. Game was scarce but not impossible to find. But mostly she longed for something to feed not just her stomach, but the empty part in her heart.

One hunting expedition she came across a small black cat with gray stripes. It was the biggest thing she’d seen on the island in a long while and she hoped to have a big meal, but the cat was just too quick for her. She became frustrated and almost lost herself to the rage when the cat told her to just calm down if she wanted to keep playing. Broog fell and hit her head, her only thought that cats don’t talk.

The cat, whose name was Fitterns—although Broog took to calling him Mittens—was not really a cat but a small celestial envoy known as a silvanshee. With no one else to talk to, Broog took to communing with and eventually taking Mittens as a kind of mentor. Mittens on his part, a servitor of the Empyreal Lord Eritrice, attempted to teach the young goblin the finer points of debate. Broog, however, ended most debates frustrated and trying to club Mittens over the head with something.

After five years on the island Mittens told Broog it was time to move on. Broog was initially confused, but the silvanshee explained that there was much more to the world than just this island. And even though goblins were reviled in most places, Broog’s purpose was to go out and be a part of that world. Mittens counseled getting control of her rage and learning to use her words for she would be tested time and again when people refused to look past who she was.

The next day Mittens was gone, but a small fishing boat was grounded on the shore. A fisherman and his son were gravely injured, having lost control of their boat. When Broog approached, the man weakly tried to fend her off to protect his boy but fell over in the process. Broog took it in stride and pulled the boat ashore, she bandaged and tended to the wounds of both humans and for a fortnight nursed them back to health.

When the man was well enough to move he expressed his thanks, but also his confusion. He was even more so when Broog replied in Skald, his native tongue. The Ulfen fisherman was in her debt and he took her back with him to the small island his clan lived on. Again there was trepidation, but when he explained he and his son would never have survived without the goblin’s help, Broog was warily accepted into the village.

Thus Broog made her first foray into the world outside her island. She lived and worked with the Ulfen. She used her inner rage to train with their berserkers, an odd sight to say the least. Broog knew her destiny was to go out and be more, but she was only a goblin and people hated goblins. Her self-doubt was almost crippling, she feared she would never be more than just a goblin. The son of the fisherman, however would forever see her as a hero and when he became one of the clan’s storytelling skalds, he would sings stories of her.

When the fisherman’s son came of age and it was time for him to make his own way in the world and explore, he convinced Broog to come with him. She would make her way into the larger world with the boy’s help and she might just have a chance of showing people that a goblin can be more than just a little machine of destruction.

And there we have goblin who is both less than and more than a goblin, the story of Broog. What class would you have chosen for this character? Why does this does this goblin choose to worship Eritrice? How did you interpret the harrow reading?

Like Broog your characters can be so much more than just a stereotype of their race. If these character help you think beyond the average please consider donating to my Patreon. Looking for more from the CRB? Come find me on Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, and Twitter. My inbox is open for questions and comments on all platforms.

Character Nine: Horguk the Sieger

Before we get into it here are the random rolls in case you forgot.

So at this point Unchained came out and I decided to go with the unchained Barbarian using the invulnerable rager archetype. The other thing is: looking over this background one of the first things that came to my head was which god he would follow. He receives the blessing of Varg the Orc, deity of Iron, siege engines, and war. Blessed at birth, destined to become the living siege engine.  That helped pick out some of the mechanical stuff.

Structural Knowledge Religion trait - You gain a +1 trait bonus on Knowledge (engineering) checks, and Knowledge (engineering) is a class skill for you.

Earthsense - As a swift action, you can gain tremorsense to a range of 60 feet until the beginning of your next turn. You can use this ability once per day at 1st level, plus one additional time per day at 5th level and every 5 levels thereafter, to a maximum of five times per day at 20th level.

Basically Varg gives knowledge of buildings so that you may better destroy them. And you cannot hide from me, I can sense your movement.

Starting Feat: Power Attack, and going to move into some fun with Improved Sunder, which is something I've never really used before.

And here you have it: Horguk the Sieger

In the Belzkan Hold either you are a warrior, or you serve. Although much of the labor is done by slaves of various races, the Orcs who cannot fight are treated barely above this chattel. Being born into a family of peasants is never pleasant, and unless you can prove your worth you will be left to rot under the thumb of true orc warriors. That is unless one of the orc gods specifically singles you out as one of his chosen. On the day of his birth Horguk the Sieger was so chosen, one of a set of twins he carried not one, but two recessive traits: Being born half-human while his twin was full orc like the rest of his siblings, and having the blood of stone flow through him. What may have been an inauspicious birth leading to a life of ridicule changed when, as the stony crystal and granite head of the Half-Orc child tore his mother open, a large rocky humanoid form appeared before the family and midwife proclaimed the child the chosen of the god Varg.

The Horguk was raised by his family until he was six and then he was turned over to The Ironbound, worshippers of Varg. The stone born half-breed was instructed in the ways of destruction, his body whipped when he failed. They built inside of him an insatiable rage and an urge to destroy, as well as hardened his already tough body. The Ironbound holy men thought that Horguk would craft their greatest siege engines. What they didn’t expect was that Horguk himself would be their greatest siege engine. His stone body would shrug off the pelting fire of a towns defenders while Horguk’s mighty swings would bring down doors and walls. But that was his destiny, not his present.

For a time before his coming of age, Horguk was also taught the art of destruction by the Shaitan bound to the service of Varg. These beings of rock bestowed upon their earthly kin a horn dedicated to The Iron Warrior. Before he could take down a wall by himself, Horguk learned the true destructive power of Varg as he would destroy solid stone outcroppings with just the sound of the horn. But destruction should be personal, it should be visceral and it means more when dealt by ones own hand. At his coming of age Varg again recalled his Shaitan servitors and the Horn was taken from Horguk and returned to its place in the hall of the orc god.

But for all his training and all his power, there is one thing even a God cannot get between and that is an Orc and his kin. Set to march on a human settlement the Orcs of Horguks tribe allied themselves with others tribes, orc and monsters alike, who sought to expand the borders of their peoples and wipe away the human trash. The stone born half-breed was sent with his twin to siege the town with a pride of Leonine warriors. During the siege Horguk’s brother fell, but the lionmen pressed forward. Horguk stopped to tend to his sibling but the other Orcs and Leonine in his unit attempted to force him to press the siege. In a fit of fury Horguk fought his way past his own troops carrying his brother, and in his betrayal the Leonine commander fell ending the alliance between the lionmen and the Orcs, causing the two tribes to fight each other instead of the human settlement.

Now Horguk, supposedly Chosen of one of his people’s own gods, was cast out for choosing his brother’s life over the battle. He now roams the Belzkan Hold. Clanless. Looking for answers to his own life. Waiting to hear the call of Varg again. Praying for a visit from the Iron Warrior’s Shaitan servants. Anything to make sense of what he has become.