Chris' Character Concepts

[Chris]

Here goes my first attempt at a character for Thardferr.   8)

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Dupre Wigglefoot, the Halfling Tinkerer


          If ever there were a person that would fail to stand out in a crowd on looks alone, it would be Dupre Wigglefoot.  He was almost exactly what one might expect to see when looking at a Halfling.  He appears about as average as any Halfling could appear.  At just over 3 feet tall, and around 80 pounds give or take the day’s meals, with short curly brown hair and brown eyes, Dupre could easily have sat for any artist’s drawings who wanted to depict the most typical Halfling of Thardferr.

          It may be because of his very average appearance that Dupre had taken up a very peculiar habit.  Halflings are well known to enjoy dressing up in their nicest clothing for social events, and Dupre seems to be one Halfling who so enjoys wearing his feather-plumed hat that after one gathering he simply never bothered to take it off again.  To be sure, Dupre doesn’t sleep with the thing on his head.  He is, after all, a Halfling and therefore fairly practical in nature.  But it is not often that he is seen not wearing his hat, and even when he is not it can always be found nearby, the feather sticking out like a proud trophy.

          Dupre is far from being a dandy, however, as he is a Halfling and thus fairly practical, if comfort-loving, by nature.   It is due to the nature of his work that Dupre can be seen sporting a leather jerkin much of the time as well.  Hailing from Evershire, a Halfling community not too far removed from Becksville in Alderd, Dupre has had a great deal of exposure to Gnomish ways.  During the course of his 40 years, Dupre found himself becoming an apprentice, somewhat of shire necessity, in the church of Telk.  The shire was always in need of a craftsman to do the job of fixing things that not everyone could fix, and Dupre was in the right place at the right time (if one were to look at it optimistically), to be picked out for training to fill that role for the shire’s future.

          Well, the future came a little more quickly than expected.  During the Third Mage War, the previous craftsman for the shire took up and left for some reason that nobody has been able to figure out.  There were rumors for a while, but none with any substance.  Though Dupre was still young at the time, only in his 20s, the shire pressed the church enough with their need for Dupre to take up his duty that a deal was struck which let Dupre spend half his month at the shire and the other half in Becksville training.  This was not a far stretch for Dupre’s skills, because it turned out that he was quite a good apprentice for a Halfling.  Dupre had a mind for tinkering, and it did not go unnoticed.

          With the passing years, Dupre was advanced to journeyman within the church, and at that point spent his training half of the month traveling, as journeymen ought to.  It was during his time as a journeyman that Dupre displayed both a gift for languages, and a gift for innovation.  And so it came to pass that one day, while making an Offering of Idea at the temple in Becksville, Dupre was infused with the divine power of Telk, and upon that day he was recognized by the church for what Telk had chosen him to be: A Tinkerer.  Commissioned to go forth into the world and seek inspiration and innovation.

          Were Dupre not so optimistic, one might think he saw his role as a specialty priest of Telk as being something of a misfortune.  He was, after all, a Halfling; and a part of him would have been quite content to remain in Evershire and the comforts of his own home.  But there was that little something deep down inside him, that discontent with the status quo, that itch to find new things to fiddle with….

[Chris]

Here's another of my character concepts.  This will probably be my first PC.

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Dupre Tallfellow, the Halfling Battlelord


In the realm of Alderd, among the rolling plains just south of the Trade Peaks, there sits the Halfling community of Evershire.  Like most Halfling communities, Evershire is dotted with the burrows that the little race favors for making good, comfortable, homes.  Farming and shepherding are the ways of life in Evershire, and nearly everyone in the shire does them at least a little.  And like most Halfling communities, the people of Evershire share with one another so that no one goes without.

At least, they try to.

Being near so many borders, at a veritable crossroads for armies and armed bands, Evershire has also seen more than its fair share of pillaging.  Having the crops and the animals stolen is such a common occurrence in Evershire that they’ve even developed an annual festival to celebrate it!  Although, one must admit that Halflings are likely to make an occasion of just about anything.

Yet, it would not do to completely underestimate the people of Evershire.  For one thing, they do take to watching the area when the crops are getting ripe and the sheep fattened and don’t hesitate to hide away enough to see through the winter months.  And while most of the shire is filled with farmers and shepherds, there are those few who have stepped up to learn blades and bows, axes and hammers, and do their best to at least protect the lives of the people and their burrow homes when the need arises.

It is little wonder then that the Tallfellow family has been ranked among the number of those who take up arms in Evershire for many generations.  The Tallfellows, you see, are so named because they do tend to grow on the rather larger side of things.  Not one Tallfellow has been born and survived to adulthood that didn’t reach 3 and ½ feet!  One wonders if there isn’t a bit of something in their blood from yonder years?  At any rate, the Tallfellows obviously have better uses for the shire than farming and shepherding.  They, along with the more stout from other families, patrol the area and keep away the more unsavory things as best they can.

Of course, there was that one Tallfellow child in this present generation who could be said to be a little bit odd from the rest.  Indeed, he was the tallest Halfling many had ever laid eyes upon.  A full 4 feet he was, and weighed as much as an Elf besides.  His parents named him Dupre, after a great grandfather or great uncle or some such I hear, which I think must mean “Great Oaf” in some foreign tongue.  He was as brown haired and brown eyed as the next son of the shire, but that boy was a handful if ever there was one.  You had to be pretty creative to get him to do what needed to be done.  Dupre was a far cry different than his older brother.  Now that was a son to make any father proud.  Practical, down to Kyranath, good-natured, and knew his duty.  Not Dupre though.  Oh, he’d do what needed to be done with a good bit of prodding, but otherwise you’d never know where he’d get off to.  Instead of patrolling, we’d find him talking to travelers about war stories, or often hunting somewhere, or even swimming in the shire’s pond of all things!  If that boy hadn’t been so big, he’d have had a rare raw hide from being bent over the knee so much.  But you go on and try to bend that ox over.  He’d fight you he would. He’d fight his own father.  Dupre always loved a good fight.  He’d even get melancholy after a raid on the shire was over; as if he wished it could have kept on forever.

I guess it really wasn’t too much of a surprise the day Dupre took off.  There was this group of Humans and Elves coming by way of Edilar.  They seemed nice enough folks, for those adventurous types.  They were on their way up north somewhere, and just stayed a night out on the shire greens.  Come morning they left, and Dupre up and left with them without a word about it.  Oh, I think his folks had an inclination that their boy was about something.  He spent the evening talking with those travelers around their fire, and there was this look in his eyes.  The kind of hunger you don’t often see in a Halfling, and that’s got nothing to do with food.

Well, that would be the end of my story about Dupre Tallfellow, were it not for a chance incident that happened some 15 years later.

I lived with those Halflings for a good part of my life.  I never could tell you why, except that when I first arrived there I so enjoyed their company that, well; I guess I just didn’t bother leaving for a while.  Those were good years, and they seemed to enjoy having a gnome in Evershire to pass the time with.  There did come a day, however, that I too up and left, if with more fanfare than Dupre.  But the years passed, until one day while I was in Hendville, north of Becksville and south of Coopersville Forge, I stumbled across Dupre Tallfellow again.

Let me tell you something, that boy had changed, and not necessarily for the better.  Still tall for a Halfling, he looked right strange in a city amidst the other races.   I mean, do you really expect to wander across a 4 foot Halfling?  And he had packed on a good amount of muscle in those between years.  I think he ate that Elf he was carrying around in his youth and now weighed as much as a small Human!

More than that, Dupre’s sword looked of better make than the old one he carried in the shire and he now moved about in a suit of leather armor.  And that boy had got religion after a sort.  Upon his armor, right over his heart, he wore the Hand & Axe.  That’s right, the boy had sold his soul to the church of Sembral.  He was a Warrior now.  When I talked with him, he said he’d been all over the place, even to Ruch and back.  I asked him why’d he gone and done all that.  I reminded him of Evershire, and their problems.  I told him if he’s really such a warrior, he should go protect his people.

And you know what the rascal did?  He smiled at me and patted me on the head!  Of all the spoiled rotten…

Well, you don’t want to hear about that.  But I will tell you this last bit, in case you ever run across him yourself.  Last thing he said to me before moving on was, “That battle’s coming too someday Flib,” he always used to shorten my name like that.  “That battle’s coming too.  And I’ll be its Lord when it comes.”  Just like that, with a capitol on the “Lord” plain as the nose on your face.

Dupre Tallfellow.  The Halfling Battlelord.  Ha!  That’ll be the day.

[Chris]

Dupre was a fun first character idea to play, but there were some things about him that made it a little difficult to get into.  I kept falling into the trap of getting too silly with him, as though that's how I inwardly think of Halfling.  Dupre wasn't meant to have a silly personality though, even if the idea of a Halfling Battlelord was meant to be humorous.

So I've decided to push Dupre Tallfellow aside in favor of a new character.  I wasn't sure what direction I would take at first, and this wasn't an easy one to develop.  I had four goals in mind for this new character that I wanted to achieve:  (1) I wanted a priest-class PC that had access to Cure Light Wounds.  This was very important, because the group this character is going to be with is lacking in healing powers.  Thus the same reason my first PC was a cleric class.  (2) I wanted the priest to be effective in combat so that I could personally enjoy combat.  With Dupre, I was forced to be creative to be effectual; using spells like Darkness and Bless.  My few attempts to poke enemies with Dupre's shortsword generally had poor results.  This new character needed a better starting Thaco.  I had to be more careful when choosing this PC's attribute scores compared with how I want to run it in combat.  (3) I wanted to play a unique idea.  I wanted this priest to use a Longbow as a primary weapon.  Priest using a bow?!?  Well, it so happened that when I looked through the gods of Thardferr, there is one, and only one, whose priests have a chance to do this.  So voila, this character's path was set.  (4) Lastly, I wanted to stick with my plan, like Dupre, to play a race that, as far as I know, is under-represented among the present PC population.  That ruled out Human and Elf pretty quickly.  I don't want to play a Gnome right now, and I already tried a Halfling.  So, I chose an Orc.  I tried making an Orc as a cleric of Corathal first, then I spotted a flaw in my plan.  Clerics of Corathal don't have access to the Healing sphere.  Oops.  So much for that idea.  There was one option left.  The Specialty Priest.  I didn't want to do it at first because SP's feel so restrictive.  I was forced to make some compromises with character development.  But I did, it's happened, and I hope it works and is fun to play.  So here he is.  I hope you like him.

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Vogal Dahaut, the Orc Avenger


Fifteen years ago, a portion of the Smashed Skulls tribe in the far east of Ruch at the border of the Hordelands tried to break off and form a new tribe.  The rebellion was short lived; but during the few years that the Burning Skulls, as they called themselves, fought for the formation of their own tribe, an ugly runt of a son was born into them.  The child’s name, whatever his parents had chosen, was quickly lost.  Others saw the infant and nicknamed him Vogal Dahaut, which translates roughly into the Common tongue as: Little Shit.

The name stuck.

None of the Burning Skulls believed that Vogal Dahaut would survive to adulthood.  It was predicted that he would probably be killed during his childhood while fighting with the other young orcs to establish their strength within the tribe.  Vogal Dahaut was surprisingly agile, however, and though he suffered many wounds, he was able to scrap by and survive.  He was not, however, able to ingratiate himself into the welcome of his tribe and was always considered one of its weakest members.  Thus it came as no surprise to many when, while he was still a child, Vogal Dahaut’s own parents sold him to a slaver.

The goblin that purchased Vogal was a merchant, and had no intention of keeping the fledgling orc.  The goblin, Sojibo, had brokered a good deal for his newest meat, and he thought of it as an investment.  Vogal was a hideous little thing, true enough, but to Sojibo that just meant the young orc represented a chance for profit; with a little work.  The work, of course, would be all Vogal’s to suffer.  Sojibo was a slave supplier whose business contacts forced his travel route in an elliptical pattern through Ruch, Alderd, and Tuth.  His trade was easy enough in Ruch.  Ruch beckoned with the promise to fill much of his room for acquisitions during his yearly trek.  His wealth also afforded him a healthy group of bodyguards and slave-handlers to oversee the protection of his goods and himself.

Vogal was a hard sell for the slaver.  Prospective buyer after prospective buyer turned their eyes away in disgust at the boy all the way through Ruch and Alderd.  For half the travel season Sojibo was unable to unload the child.  During that time, however, Vogal had been put to work and his body began to shape into something more like what people expected an orc to look like.  At least, the boy did begin to fill out, even if his face didn’t grow any prettier.  Finally, as Sojibo made the northern circuit back towards Ruch during the latter half of the year, he was able to catch the interest of a buyer in the underground slave market of Coopersville Forge.  There, a human finally purchased Vogal, and at a markup price enough from the original investment plus expenses to please the goblin merchant.

Vogal’s circumstances, however, had not improved.  The human who had purchased him, Leik Vangur, had a black market arena hidden in the vast city of Coopersville Forge, and Vogal was to be his newest entertainer.  At first, Vogal being still a child even by orc standards, Leik used him mainly to entertain the crowd in between the fights.  The spectacle of Vogal would involve such magnificent acts as trying to catch a rooster one-handed, and chasing a greased pig around a mud pit.

As time passed, however, and Vogal grew into full-blown adolescence, his natural orcish strength began to develop and, along with the coordination and speed already acquired, the young orc began to take shape as an arena fighter.  Initially, Leik placed Vogal into matches against whatever animals the arena master could scrounge.  Usually this meant paying some pennies out to vagabonds that brought him hungry strays caught on the Coopersville Forge backstreets.  As Vogal was thrown into these engagements of orc versus beast, or beast versus beast depending upon the audience’s viewpoint, Leik noticed that the crowd wanted Vogal to lose.  The crowd wanted to see Vogal die.  They hated the hideous looking orc.  It was that, more than anything else, which saved Vogal’s life.  Leik was a shrewd businessman and experienced at reading the crowd.  He knew that the worst thing for him was for the crowd to be bored.  But to really hate a fighter, to yell for blood, meant that the crowd was interested.

Vogal became a crowd favorite, at least to jeer at, for a fair amount of time.  His fights were split between animals on slow days and other poorly trained combatants like himself on better days.  For Vogal, fights were not about killing whatever pitiful enemy was placed opposite him, for he was just as pitiful as they were.  Vogal’s fighting was about survival.  He did what he had to do to live.  The time came, however, when the crowd began to show less interest in the orc.  Were it not for a stroke of luck, Leik would probably have put him against a better trained opponent and allowed Vogal to die.  But that was not to happen.  During one season, when the need for able-bodied men was high and the availability was low, Leik was approached by a self-interested armsman who would receive bonuses to his pay for increasing the garrison on the city walls.  Seeing the opportunity to work a mutually profitable deal, Leik sold Vogal and several other slaves to the armsman, and by association into militia service.

Vogal had been a slave for most of his memorable life at this point, so taking orders in the city’s militia became a step up for him.  He was cheated, there is no doubt of that.  His immediate superiors always took their own cut of the pay that Vogal was supposed to receive.  The rest of that pay, however, small though it was, was Vogal’s to keep.  He had pennies to his name and could use them as he wanted.  His options were still limited.  He had to remain in the small rooms they used as barracks or at his station.  He could not wander off and had no days to himself.  Sometimes, a detachment from his barracks, two or three people, would have to accompany a leader as enforcers as they investigated disturbances.  Walking to and from the sites was the closest thing to roaming that Vogal experienced.  Still, in manning a part of a wall he was forced to learn to use a ranged weapon.  They were issued crude longbows for practice and average quality bows while on duty.  Vogal liked shooting his bow.  He was pretty good at it, and it came more easily to him than the kind of fighting he had to do in the arena.

The days and nights passed slowly.  Vogal would talk to others in his barracks or on duty, learning to speak the common language better during these years.  He learned about the Third Mage War.  Nobody had ever talked about it around him in his own language, and it had occurred when he was very young and still lived with his tribe in Ruch.  The war had passed him by.  He also learned legendary stories, about the goblins burning the elves’ trees, about the war between the dwarves and the orcs, and about Ruch once being a fertile land before the goblins caused it to become the wasteland it is today.

Vogal had a habit of standing at his post atop a part of the northern wall in Coopersville Forge, staring out at the flat mostly treeless land surrounding the vast city.  He would wonder how the elves felt about their trees being burned.  He would imagine a green Ruch, as green as the central plains are now.  He would imagine that same green Ruch with acre upon acre of trees.  Vogal began to long for the wilds, the freedom, the raw beauty and challenges of nature.

There came a day when Vogal’s new dream of freedom would be realized.  On that day he was a part of a detachment sent as protection for some soldier who was investigating the burning of a worksite.  The worksite was the beginnings of a small cyclops-styled keep meant to increase security for some farmsteads in an area too far from the city to be swiftly safeguarded.  The workers on the building had been harried by a “wild man” who attacked them with javelins and set fire to the scaffolding.  While investigating the site, Vogal spotted a half-naked human whose skin was darkened from many days in the sun and whose muscles were taught with the springy strength of constant use.  The wild man was a curiosity, and instead of mentioning what he saw, Vogal told his fellows in the detachment that he was going to relieve himself and he went to meet the wild man.

That first meeting was tense to say the least.  Vogal is neither pleasant to view nor charming in manners, but thankfully for him neither was the wild man.  There was a sense of having something in common between them, and Vogal took the opportunity that presented itself to go with the wild man into freedom.  It was not hard to do.  Vogal had been owned by people for most of his life who had set an example of being opportunistic.

It turned out that the so-called wild man was actually a very wise man named Kehn, who was a cleric of the god Corathal.  Kehn identified with a group called the Priests of the Storm, who act to eradicate that which is an offense to nature so that an area can return to it.  For several years, Vogal traveled with and trained under the tutelage of the Corathalian priest.  Kehn kept them moving daily, wandering through the natural world and destroying whatever targets of opportunity that harmed nature’s progression that the duo happened upon.  Kehn taught Vogal the doctrine of Corathal, as well as his views on the doctrines and ways of the other gods and their followers.  He taught Vogal how to survive in all different types of climates and terrain.  He forced Vogal to feed himself by making the orc hunt for his own food.  Vogal had to learn to make his own bow and arrows and got better at their use when his stomach depended on his success.  Kehn also brought Vogal to shrines of Corathal that had been made in the wild, where Vogal was able to meet other priests of the god of vengeance and learn from them too.

After several years, the travel of the two, teacher and student, brought them to the outskirts of Ruch.  Exiting the tree line of the woods through which they had been traveling, Vogal stopped and stared out at the wasteland.  He stood for a long time, turning to look at the green of the forest through which they had just traveled, then returning his view to the wasteland that stood juxtaposed to it.  Instead of moving forward, Vogal’s body was glued to that spot.  He fell to his knees, and sat, just staring, for hours.  Kehn had walked over and sat next to his student, not speaking, not pressing.  They just sat, and stared.

As sunset arrived a drizzle of rain began to fall.  The teacher and the student ignored it.  As the sunlight faded, the drizzle turned into pouring rain. The teacher and the student ignored it.  As the sky turned black and clouds blocked out the light from stars and moons alike, thunder sounded and flickers of light flashed on the horizon.  The teacher ignored it.  As the rain pounded on man, orc, and ground alike, a booming heart-jarring crack ignited the air nearby in streaks of fierce lightning.  The echo of the lightning’s strike continued to ring in the teacher’s ears for a half a minute.  The echo continued for a full minute beyond that.  The echo grew louder, into a roar of unbridled angry passion that carried across the wastelands for all of eternity.  The teacher turned his head and saw… it wasn’t the lightning anymore.

Vogal was yelling.  His deep rich baritone voice mixed with the feral growl of a predatory beast had crescendoed into a raging howl of agonized mourning for the ancient destruction of his homeland.  His howl pierced through the storm and traveled across the scarred lands of Ruch, splitting and forking like the lightning that kindled his rage, traveling back across Thardferr to mourn for the central plains and to carry on to all lands whose destruction had come through betrayal.

When the morning arrived, the teacher awoke from his sleep to find Vogal Dahaut sitting in the same spot that he had been during the previous night’s storm.  Kehn pushed himself up and inquired of the orc, “You did not sleep?”

“Vengeance knows no rest,” the orc said flatly.

Kehn’s eyes moved over Vogal’s face.  Kehn nodded inwardly.  “You have not moved?” he asked.

“Vengeance comes in its own time,” the orc replied with a hint of amusement.

Kehn stood up, stretched out the few kinks that had formed during rest, and walked a few steps away, towards Ruch.  Then he stopped and asked over his shoulder, “You have not eaten?”

“Vengeance feeds upon the deserving,” the orc replied.

Kehn smiled to himself and began walking again.  “You know what to do?”

There was no reply.

Kehn stopped walking and turned around.  “Vogal, I asked if you…”

There was no Vogal.



Physical Description

Vogal stands at a little over six feet tall when straightened. His lean, muscular body moves with the sinuous and vigilant precision of a natural predator that provides a sense of lightness for his physique. That sense is an illusion, however, screening the full weight of his two-hundred pounds. The muscles behind that weight are what one familiar with the orcs as a species might expect of a smaller orc of Vogal’s height, though he appears much more sure-footed than the commonplace of his kind. Even while standing relaxed, Vogal practically balances himself on the balls of his feet as though he is ready to spring into movement at any moment. Adding to all of this are those features common among orcs, his oversized canine teeth; short, traversable, lupine ears; and hard, sharp nails growing on every digit of his hands and feet.

Then there are the problems with Vogal’s appearance. At over six feet tall he can tower over the average person of most any other race, but he is short for orcish standards. Where his snout should be are instead flattened cave-like nostrils that look more fitting for the dead rather than a living being. Born without most of the cartilage that makes up the nose, Vogal has always suffered the indignation of his crushed skull-like facial appearance. If that were not enough, the green of his skin is a shade too light for orc viewing comfort, and his skin has a trick of light against it that makes it appear oily even when it is completely dry.

Over the years, Vogal has acquired many other features that add to the discomforting effect of his appearance. Scars line his back and the back of his thighs from the many whippings that he received during his years in slavery. These scars are clearly visible most of the time since Vogal is not in the habit of wearing much clothing. Also along his legs, matching like marks along his arms, and a few around his face, are scars formed from claws and bites gained while fighting animals as a slave in the pit of a black market arena. Evidence of other nicks and scraps can be seen on all parts of his body, caused by hardships of living for several years in the wild. The scars along with his natural calluses give his skin a hardened appearance. That, combined with the oily sheen of his green skin, nearly makes him look reptilian.

Also clearly visible on his body are numerous tattoos. The first he received was put upon him as a young child while still among the tribe of his birth in Ruch. This one, located on the outside of his upper left arm, depicts the Burning Skull, marking him as from the tribe of that name. The second tattoo he received was placed upon him as a brand of enslavement. This one, located on his upper back along the left side, has the name Sojibo written in gobbledygook, the goblin language. The name has an X branded across it, showing that Vogal was once a slave of Sojibo but had been sold. Directly beneath that tattoo is a second brand of enslavement. This one has the initials L.V. in the common language. The initials were placed there by the minor underworld boss, Leik Vangur, whose mark would have been recognized on the black market of Coopersville Forge at the time Vogal was his slave. That brand is marked through with a double XX, to show Vogal had been purchased and made, technically, free.

The third tattoo that Vogal received is on the outside of his upper right arm. This one depicts a stone wall in the background with the anvil from a forge in the foreground and crossed swords over the anvil. The heraldry proclaims Vogal as a guardsman for the city of Coopersville Forge. Vogal’s fourth tattoo is on his left calf muscle, depicting a crystal orb cracked by a lightning bolt. The tattoo marks Vogal as a follower of Corathal. His fifth, and most obvious, tattoo marks Vogal even more boldly in that regard. This tattoo depicts three lightning bolts striking an upward facing palm. That tattoo covers the rest of his back. The lightning from the tattoo has small tendrils that fork off from the main picture and extend to streak around his body, moving up the back of the neck onto his face, from the shoulders down the arms, across the torso, and along the hips and legs.

Finally, there are smaller non-descript tattoos ringing his torso just below the chest. These markings appear to be unfinished and there is no clear indication of what the final form will be. These markings indicate each measure of vengeance that Vogal has taken so far, and he has left plenty of room for more markings to add to complete the final picture.

In anti-climax to Vogal’s hideous appearance, a small wood-carved lightning bolt hangs from a leather strap worn around his neck. His black hair is held away from his face by three entwined leather bands; one dyed yellow, one red, and one green. The tattoos of his back and chest are partially obscured by his wearing of a leather quiver and its straps, filled with black locust wood shaft arrows with wild turkey feather fletching and iron tipped arrowheads. Sometimes strung across the opposite shoulder, sometimes gripped in his left hand, Vogal’s only other notable possession is a hickory-wood longbow, with sinew string, that looks meticulously crafted.