Character 85 - Roo’k Treetickle

Illustration by Luis Perez

Sometimes when doing these random rolls there is very little to build on. For the orang-pendak society I had but a paragraph in the Bestiary 5 to work from. In preparation I wrote my own piece on the entire race, using elements of the random rolls to influence the write-up. Here we are with one of the blankest slates I could start with; and now to see what he has become.

Although the high strength and high con really geared the character toward being a straight up fighter of some kind, I have done at least three fighters in the past two months. The decent wisdom score meant I could go with a divine caster. In my write up for the orang-pendak I mentioned that mostly nature based casters as being part of their tradition and so I went with shaman. In particular I choose the shaman of lore because some of the abilities like brain drain and confusion meshed with the aspect of madness belonging to this character’s patron deity, The Lantern King.

Roo’k Treetickle

Life in the Bandu Hills for the Treeburr tribe was as peaceful as the orang-pendak could manage. The Treburrs were one of only a handful tribes to wander the hills. Like many tribes of the ape-men their numbers were small and each birth was considered a sign from the spirits. When Roo’k was born his parents thought him their own little miracle. When he died for those few moments, so soon after coming into the world, they were distraught. But death was apparently only temporary and the boy’s spirit found its way back into his body.

The eldest medicine woman who was on the tribal council took an early interest in Roo’k. She was convinced that his death had somehow allowed him to touch the spirit world on a level deeper than any living orang-pendak had. She felt that he was destined for something and took the boy under her wing when he was old enough to learn.

The medicine woman was proven correct. Roo’k took to her teachings faster than any had before. He was the first to find his spirit animal, a mischievous monkey with a wizened look in his eyes. He was the earliest ever to manifest a spell from the spirits. His connection to the spirits brought him knowledge beyond his years and a light behind his eyes.

As Roo’k connection to the spirits grew stronger he began to question everything. The orang-pendak had to test every boundary. If he saw something was wrong he felt compelled to teach the correct way. His lessons, though, were often misunderstood by others. Except for his teacher. She knew what he was becoming.  She realized that he didn’t just have a connection to the spirit world but to the trickster himself, the Wisp Lord.

Illustration by Luis Perez

The role of trickster is a sacred trust. They are supposed to teach lessons and not just cause mischief. But even if he is connected to the spirit of the Wisp Lord, a child is still a child. Roo’k took a dislike to one of the training storysingers. The two were rivals and he took any chance to teach the other boy a lesson. One such lesson brought into question the boy’s worthiness of being a storysinger, the thing he had worked his whole life for. Roo’k’s ‘trick’ showed the boy unworthy and he was sent back home to his parents.

As the young orang-pendak came of age he felt a pull. The Wisp Lord was calling him away from his people. Very few of the ape-men left the tribe to but Roo’k knew in his heart that he was meant to go. He traveled down from the Bandu Hills and into the Chelish held lands of Sargava. His travels led him to the colonial city of Kalabuto.

Roo’k spent months in hiding watching the people. There were the colonials who were so few but controlled so much. There was also Mwangi tribesmen who split between those who served the colonials and those who wished to overthrow the yoke of oppression. Lastly there were the strange creatures that moved through the ruins that both the Chelish and the Mwangi avoided.

Roo’k knew he couldn’t reveal his true nature, his people must remain protected. The people of the ruins gave him an idea, however. One day he step forth from the broken husk of a building and presented himself as one of the monkey men who were occasionally seen among the crumbling old city at night. He said his people wished to learn more about the ways of those who inhabited the city with them and he was to be an emissary. No one had interacted with any of these beings and none risked angering them, so Roo’k was accepted as one of the peoples of Kalabuto.

The trickster sees the people of Kalabuto as lost. He realizes that his path is to teach them how to find themselves, whether they want him too or not. Being an utter mystery to both the colonials and the tribesmen allows Roo’k to push the boundaries of their society easier than any of them could themselves. One way or another they will learn to see the world as he does.

With little to go on how did you create orang-pendak society? What class did the ape-man choose to become? Why did he die? What spellcaster did he humiliate? Who was the seer that influenced him?

Bringing these characters to life is a second full-time job. A pledge of as little as one dollar a month on my Patreon or a one-time donation to my paypal can help keep the lights on while I concentrate on producing new content for you.

The CRB has been growing as a community on social media; please join us on Facebook,  Google+, Tumblr, and Twitter. My inbox is open on all forums for questions, comments, and discussion. If you don’t want to miss a beat make sure you sign up to have the CRB pushed directly to your e-reading device with Kindle Subscriptions through Amazon.

The character illustration was created by the fine artist Luis Perez. You can find him on Twitter, Tumblr, and on Instagram at luisperezart. 

Charachter 71 - Ubjani Forstclaw Jornson

This week’s random rolls brought us a thoroughly evil Undine. He is a son of slaves, adopted by merchants. He becomes a mass murder and an arsonist only to survive a trial by water. With a high wisdom and constitution but a low charisma our class choices were tough.

To be honest I wanted to go rage prophet, it really fit the idea but there was no way to get the oracle class to use wisdom instead of charisma as their main stat. I also couldn’t find any archetypes that gave wisdom casting classes an oracle curse. I eventually settled on shaman for the base class, but the concept really needed him to have rage, so I did something I’ve never done before. Our Undine Shaman is also a variant multiclass barbarian and will receive rage at third level.

Ubjani Forstclaw Jornson

The Ulfen that live in the Broken Bay consider themselves the true inheritors of their people’s old ways. Although not openly condoned the Linnorm King ruler of the region, Ingimundr the Unruly allows his people to be the raiders he knows they can be. In their raids the take grain, livestock, metalwork, and sometimes people. It is among these captured slaves that the parents of Ubjani Frostclaw Jornson came to be together.

His mother was from the Mwangi Expanse, one of the Bekyar. Her people were themselves slavers as well as demon worshipers. The arrival of the Chelish colonists in Sargava meant that the Bekyar got a taste of their own medicine as many of them were enslaved. She was taken from Garund and brought to Cheliax itself. From there Ulfen raiders took her and she ended up in the capital city of Bildt in the Broken Bay.

Ubjani’s father, Jorn, was from one of the other settlements of in the Land of the Linnorm Kings. He was one of the berzerkers of his tribe but he fell in battle; fell but lived. In his disgrace he was taken as a slave and carted off to Bildt, which is where he met the woman who would become Ubjani’s mother.

Among many of the Ulfen clans the children of slaves are not themselves slaves. Ubjani was adopted by a merchant family who couldn’t conceive children of their own. After they were born his siblings were also adopted by various friends or family members of his parent’s master. Ubjani kept in touch with his parents but he barely saw his other siblings.

Among her people Sokhali was a spirit speaker, she channeled the will of the outer planes through their spiritual intermediaries. The being whose will she made clear to her tribe was a creature by the name of Aesdurath. This creature was not a demon, but a Daemon Harbinger (link Daemon Harbinger) of immortality, especially liches. Only those chosen would live forever and Sokhali would guide her son on the search to live forever by being the chosen of Aesdurath.

Ubjani’s life was hard; his adopted parents treated him like dirt. He knew that his parents would never be free. Although his mother continued to teach him, he just never had the connection to the spirit world that she did. His anger turned inward and ate away at him. His only friend was his adopted parent’s daughter, to whom he felt he could confide everything. She would listen to everything he had to say, even about her parents, the two were inseparable.

The owners of Ubjani’s parents found themselves in possession of a true fighter, an orcish slave. Because he was prized for his strength they let him take many liberties. One of those liberties was to force himself on Ubjani’s mother. When a half-orc child was born Ubjani’s rage grew even more.

One day the boy’s temper got the best of him and he rushed to the place where the mercantile owners of this parents worked. In his fit of anger he burned down the building they were in while they were in it, also destroying a number of other buildings and killing others in the process. His adopted parents were among those who also died and this turned his confidante and best friend against him.

Ubjani was caught and imprisoned. His eventual sentence was to be taken by the ocean. This trial by water touched something inside of him that forced out the connection to the spirit world given by his mother, and apparently a connection to the elemental plane of water itself from somewhere in his father’s line. Like going through puberty a second time, Ubjani manifest himself into one of the creatures known as the Undine and connected to the spirits of Aesdurath in the form of a fierce looking storm crow.

Ubjani made his escape and is now a wanted man in the Broken Bay. He travels, seeking to figure out his path as set before for him by his patron. He is hunted by his former confidante, who seeks to kill him for what he did to her family. One day he will learn to harness his rage and bring an immortal magical destruction to all those who have harmed him.

The creation of our undine shaman is complete, but mine is not the only interpretation out there. What class did your undine choose? How did he come to worship Aesdurath? Who did he kill and why? How did his parents meet and become slaves?

Bringing these characters to life is a second full-time job. A pledge of as little as one dollar a month on Patreon, or a one-time donation to my paypal can help keep the lights on while I concentrate on producing new content for you.

The CRB has been growing as a community on social media. Please join us on Facebook, Google+, Tumblr, and Twitter. My inbox is open on all forums for questions, comments, and discussion. If you don’t want to miss a beat make sure you sign up to have the CRB pushed directly to your e-reading device with Kindle Subscriptions through Amazon.