NPC Stable

Several of these characters created by Random Number Generators™ (that is to say, going to whothefuckismydndcharacter.com and grabbing twelve random characteristics).

Spaulder "Spud" von der Haus

Spud is a simple guy with simple desires and simple goals: he just wants to settle down and open a tavern where people can get rekt in peace. Oh! Man! That would be a great name for the bar. Build it right near a graveyard (rent's cheap there, too), and call it Rekt in Peace! Ah, man, I'm writing that down for later.

Anyway, Spud was born to the von der Hausen family, and grew up at their ancestral manor, the von der Hausen Haus. The Haus is perched at the top of a hill in the midst of the valleys called the Dank Hollows, overlooking many acres of olive groves; lines of orchards growing cherries, apricots, nectarines, peaches, plums, and pears; and of course the family's pride and joy, the vineyard. The vineyard stretches out from the rear of the Haus across the entire valley and up the hills on the other side. The grounds take up more space than the village itself, and that's before counting the olive groves and orchards.

The specialty of the von der Hausens, the wine they are known for, is Haus wine. It comes in three varieties: red, white, and green. The white is unremarkable, though popular. It's most often mixed with other fruits for a summer varietal, like a cherry folly or an apricot wine. The red is exceptional, and what the family's fortune is really based on. The wines that come from the Haus cellars are well known as a great wine for casual drinking from leagues out, and asking for 'the Haus red' has become shorthand for the standard wine at a given pub or inn. The green wine, Haus Vert, is an exceptional drink.

Haus Vert is a wine with a flavor that some have likened to licking the forest floor, and it's nearly 30% alcohol. The taste and texture are sub-par, at best, and there are better ways to get drunk, really. The secret to its popularity is the heady rush the wine delivers. The feeling after downing a small cup of Vert, a few ounces, is comparable to the high one might get from a potent smoked herb, or certain powders found in the casks of desert caravan traders.

In some years the Vert has even more exceptional effects, creating hallucinations, extraordinary giddiness, sometimes the feeling of a religious revelation, or even mild magical effects (such as levitation for a brief period, or short sporadic bursts of invisibility). These casks of Vert, once identified, are kept in the family cellars until the right buyers can be found.

Given the difficulty of making the Haus Vert (in addition to the grapes, it requires a mix of herbs and roots, some of which can only be found foraged in the woods), and given the limited market for it, the price, the time it takes to create, it's never been widely sold. The wine is a collector's drink. It's even strictly regulated by the local authorities. The duke and his masters of coin and trade only allow a dozen casks or so per year to be sold.

Spud grew up loving the business of making wine, and especially loving the Haus Vert. It's a tough thing to explain, but the Vert sometimes comes with visions of godliness that open the mind to higher powers. Spud had his revelations early, sneaking sips of a vintage of Vert that was reliable for creating that sensation. He communed with the gods, spoke with angels, and decided to dedicate his life to them.

He put in a few years in traditional schooling, and a few more in seminary, but elected not to take a position as a preacher or religious officiant. Instead he wanted the freedom to walk his family's lands and wander where he liked, and took a post as an itinerant priest for the Church. His travels take him wherever he feels he's needed.

Coincidentally, he felt he was needed back at home, where there was a warm bed and a steady supply of wine and fine foods. His parents, though, were only willing to put up with him for so long. The biting comments from his father and the disapproving looks from his mother took their toll, and Spud decided it was time to make something of himself. Nothing big, really, but something. Maybe… run a pub? For God?

His pub would be great! A little high-class wine shop where people could come and get drinks for an affordable price, but without all the fooling around that most of these city bars do now. He'd make something he'd enjoy and that his friends would enjoy, a really chill place. For folks who wanted to hear it he'd preach, but, like, not in an irritating way. Those who thought they'd benefit from it might get to try the specialty: the Haus Vert.

The problem is that even with modest sales the bar would sell more than a dozen casks of Haus Vert in a year. The duke wouldn't have it, not at all. When Spud approached the duke to ask for special dispensation to dispense at his dispensary he was told that he could fuck right off. After pressing the issue for a few months the duke told him that if he performed "a notable service" to the crown he'd get dispensation to sell as much of the Vert as he wanted, provided it was one drink at a time.

Spud's been trying to find something notable since then. If he could he'd probably just give up, but he's given up on so many projects over the years that the thought of letting one more go would just kill his poor mother, and he'd never hear the end of it from his father. All his siblings made something of themselves, they'd say. They all got married and had kids and started, like… plantations or something. Nah, Spud's got to do this.

Eager

Snobby

Respectful

Hates wearing their glasses

Needs to earn the trust of a hated duke

Believes in 'an eye for an eye'

Pretty tight-fisted with their gold

Lost their sense of smell in a bar fight

Suffers from a recurring nightmare

From the Dank Hollows

From a wealthy vineyard

Has always wanted to open their own tavern

Cnut Darkmagic

The character concept is a sorcerer that can only cast spells for which they've gathered runes. There is a silly amount of magical energy coursing through his body and mind, but he has no way to channel it. The more traditional gestural and vocal components of magic are just a bad match for the magical forces that move through him.

Cnut (cay-NOOT) was born just one of twenty-seven siblings to the Mist-King Erik Darkmagic, one of the eight Great Patriarchs of the Improbable Peaks. The Black Chateau Shunned by Villagers, the ancestral home of the Darkmagic clan, gently floated through the Peaks on a thick bed of cloud. The twenty-seven siblings were conditioned from childhood to compete with each other for the Mist-King's attention. Those who were cleverest or most skilled were given places of honor and promised great riches and power when the Mist-King eventually passed on to the Land of Shadows. Those kids who weren't as impressive (because they were younger, or slow, or soft) had harder lives. They shared bedrooms, and beds, and mealtimes, and etc.

Life in the Improbable Peaks was all that the Darkmagic clan knew for many years, until the Great Emportaling. Strange rifts in space split the skies between the Peaks. The ground shook, and small animals ran hither and thither. The Black Chateau Shunned by Villagers was clipped by one of these rifts and tumbled through it, falling to the ground on the other side. It was torn and grounded without its supportive fog bank.

In this new place, Mist-King Erik considered the family's options and decreed that the family's wealth, titles, and name could only pass to three. Were it one the kids would kill each other. Were it two they'd always have a tie in major decisions. Were it more than three there wouldn't be enough wealth to go around. So, of the twenty-seven siblings, only three could inherit, and the rest were written out of the family's will and charter.

The three that would be chosen would be those kids that proved themselves most worthy.

What makes a Darkmagic worthy? Wealth! Power! Respect, and reputation. How best does one acquire silly amounts of dosh, a street name, a body worth a modeling contract? By adventuring!

For those that seek the life of an adventurer, but have no experience with adventuring to start with, there are a number of adventuring academies. Cnut would accept nothing but the best: entry to the Tower of Bones. The entry fees and tuition were exorbitantly expensive, but by simply selling everything he owned he was able to make the money work out. Sure, it was a gamble, betting every copper coin he had on an unaccredited institution meant to teach you how to shank someone, but that was a gamble he was willing to take.

The Tower of Bones turned out to be something of a scam. Well, that's only partly true. Their College Arcane churns out very respectable wizards, and the School of Hard Fists produces a huge number of monks each season. However, Cnut came from a different place and a different time. For whatever reason the tremendous magical energies coursing through his body (courtesy of the Darkmagic bloodline) could not be properly harnessed with the usual finger-wiggling and mumble-mouthed incantations.

Cnut proceeded to fail the vast majority of his classes, excelling only in his minor of Interior Dungeon Design.

Knowing that he'd not have an advantage over the elder siblings, few of whom were embarrassing failures, Cnut sought a shortcut to power and raided the Black Chateau Shunned by Villagers' library for a tome of diabolism. He summoned up a clever but (relatively) fair fiend and traded his soul for magic. The fiend could collect his soul in three years, and in exchange would provide some way to let Cnut harness his magical powers. The fiend provided Cnut his first tattoo, a ring of runes arranged into a collar around his neck, spelling out the terms of his soul-binding bargain with a demonic counter counting down the days of his life on the back of his neck. On the demon's side, he needed something to keep as collateral or to help track the newly-minted mage with sympathetic magic, so he severed Cnut's shadow and keeps it in a mirror framed in black iron chain links.

Now that Cnut had his path to magical power, it was time to leave the Tower of Bones. He creeped into the Mega-Dean's office in the depths of night to steal what he could and get out. He quietly carved his face into the Tower, in the Face-planting Ceremony. He grabbed a few knick-knacks from the Mega-Dean's office, quickly ditching the stuff that could clearly be tracked back to the Tower of Bones. He's been on the run since, looking to make a name for himself.

The Improbable Peaks A mountain range that is frankly unlikely. It appears wherever seems least convenient at the moment and sticks around a little too long to be comfortable, and then vanishes again.

The Tower of Bones Not literally a pile of bones. An adventuring academy carved of a bluish-gray rock, raised up in the middle of a marshy forest on the far borders of sane and occupied territory. The best known, and certainly most expensive academy of dungeon arts in the civilized lands. The university has perhaps a hundred undergrads at any given time attending their academies of arcane magic, theology, martial arts, and women's and gender studies. The Tower gained its name from its graduation ceremony: the Ceremony of Face-planting. A graduate carefully climbs the side of the tower and carves their face on the first open spot, chiseling it into the bluish-gray stone. The face then remains until that student dies, at which time it transforms into an image of their skull. The bottom few floors of the Tower are covered in skulls, with the top few floors dominated by living faces. The few faces that remain on the lowest levels, those warriors that have been alive the longest, are nothing but weathered masks, bare of features. One is surely the Mega-Dean, but the others are virtual unknowns, granted the blessing of privacy by their smoothed features.

The Treasure Map One of the finest finds in the Mega-Dean's office was a weathered and glimmering treasure map, but it became clear that the Tower of Bones was tracking the map after a jade owl showed up a few times in a row when he brought it out of the case. The thing couldn't be copied onto normal paper, and so Cnut had the treasure map tattooed onto himself. The upside is now he has the map, but the downside is that it seems like the academy is still able to track it - albeit not as easily.

Colorblindness Cnut is red-green colorblind. Makes things tough sometimes.

The Locket

The only other find from the Mega-Dean's office that Cnut was able to keep is a charmed locket that seems to defy divination magic. That makes it difficult to open, but also means that it's impossible to track. The thing is held shut by some terrible magic or mechanism, but Cnut has kept it in case it's lucky or worth something. Gotta start building a vast hoard from something, right?

From the Improbable Peaks

Sold everything he owned to attend an Adventuring Academy Called the Tower of Bones

Studied Interior Dungeon Design

Shouldn't have had the treasure map tattooed on himself

Was left out of the family will

No concept of personal space

Red-green colorblind

Charmed locket he can't open

Only has 3 years before a devil comes back to take his soul

Doesn't have a reflection

Has 27 siblings to provide for

Rules: Sorcerer class But replace the "bloodline" with some runic abilities

Normally 2 @ 1st level Then one at 6th, 14th, and 18th levels.

At level 1: Eyes of the Runekeeper: (as the Warlock Invocation of the same name). Ink-blood Health: When you take damage respond by rolling 2d4 and regaining that many hp as a reaction. This feature cannot be used again until after finishing a short or long rest.

At level 6: Runic Focus: Choose a single spell tattooed on your body. The first time you cast that spell and apply one or more metamagic effects to that spell you do not need to expend sorcery points. This ability can be used once, and recharges after finishing a short or long rest. Choose a second spell at level 14, and a third at level 18.

At level 14: Omens and Portents: When a target that you can see within 60 ft. makes an attack or ability check, you may use your reaction and expend a spell slot to modify it. When you expend a spell slot of first level or higher you may have your target roll a d4 and subtract or add the result to their attack or ability check roll. When you use a spell slot of second level or higher you increase the die by one step (to a d6 for expending a 2nd level spell slot, a d8 for a 3rd, a d10 for a 4th, a d12 for a 5th, and a d20 for a 6th level spell slot or higher).

At level 18: Master of Magic: Your knowledge of magic allows you to duplicate almost any spell. As a bonus action you can call to mind the ability to cast one spell of your choice from any class's spell list. The spell must be o f a level for which you have spell slots, you mustn't have it prepared, and you follow the normal rules for casting it (including expending a spell slot, of course). If the spell isn't a sorcerer spell it counts as a sorcerer spell when you cast it. The ability to cast the spell vanishes from your mind when you cast it or when the current turn ends. You can't use this feature again until you finish a long rest.

Alternatively, just run a wizard but use the tattoos as the spellbook? In which case use the Arcane Tradition: Lore Master from Unearthed Arcana (Unearthed Arcana - Warlock & Wizard). Or else a diviner.

Alternatively alternatively, what if I just used the Raven Queen patron Warlock from the same UA pdf, and instead of being all demonically inspired it was just an old Norse style thing.

Alternatively alternatively alternatively, the phoenix magic and sea magic sorcerous bloodlines are rad (from Unearthed Arcana - Sorcerers).

Jack Pyes

"Your patron is the Raven Queen, a mysterious being who rules the Shadowfell from a palace of ice deep within that dread realm. The Raven Queen watches over the world, anticipating each creature’s death and ensuring that it meets its end at the proscribed time and place. As the ruler of the Shadowfell, she dwells in a decayed, dark reflection of the world. Her ability to reach into the world is limited. Thus, she turns to mortal warlocks to serve her will. Warlocks sworn to the Raven Queen receive visions and whispers from her in their dreams, sending them on quests and warning them of impending dangers.

The Raven Queen’s followers are expected to serve her will in the world. She concerns herself with ensuring that those fated to die pass from the world as expected, and bids her agents to defeat those who seek to cheat death through undeath or other imitations of immortality. She hates intelligent undead and expects her followers to strike them down, whereas mindless undead such as skeletons and zombies are little more than stumbling automatons in her eyes."

Sometimes just a mortal gifted with the powers of a goddess isn't enough, and an actual agent needs to be sent. Yet, the Raven Queen fields no armies and empowers no angels. So she has to sometimes grab a spare bird and imbue them with magical powers.

Jack is such a one of these agents of the Raven Queen, once a corvid, now a mortal. He knows that he's gone out before on behalf of the Raven Queen, doing whatever work it was she needs done, but he doesn't think it's ever been to the Prime Material plane. It's hard to say, though, really. He spends a lot of his time being a bird, and those memories are fuzzy when he's a man, and vice versa. He knows, also, that his memories aren't all real. He has memories of the Raven Queen as a loving mother, but knows she's not. He remembers being a loyal soldier, but knows he's not. What is reality, if not memory? He supposes that all that's really real is what's happening right now.

A memory that keeps fading back into focus and then slipping back out is a memory from childhood, but the childhood of a human child. He recalls a voice, gruff and defensive, and a firm hand on his shoulder. Soon, though, that voice fades as a woman's claw-like hand comes into view to ruffle his hair, and then ruffle his feathers, and then carry him away on her shoulder.

Has a 'pied' pattern to his skin. Some parts are pale, some are dark, speckled in a way that's reminiscent of a magpie's markings. His nails are black and shiny, and his hair jet black and oily. He's impatient and brash, but a quick learner. He knows that he won't be long for this world - when his mission is done, or when she becomes impatient, the Raven Queen will call him back to Shadowfell - so he wants to experience all the humanity he can before then. Gambling, drinking, womanizing, laughing and crying, risking his life! All these things are things that birds don't really know. No matter how smart the crow, he'll never quite get what it's like to execute a daring raid on a church's reliquary storage. Jack will know! Jack is best bird.

Jack's life, recently, has been exciting! But also resulted in him being unable to return to some towns that he actually quite liked. Apparently when you gamble with money and you don't have that money then some people get very upset. The threaten to do things like burn down your house and pull out your tongue with hot pincers. While there are many things Jack wants to experience, that is not really one of them. He doesn't even have a house! So for the time being Jack is quietly keeping his distance from those kinds of people while he does his best to figure out what the Raven Queen needs from him. It's certainly something, but it's hard to say what while his memory is so jumbled. Something important. Something dead?

Worries some of their memories have been tampered with. "Pretty chill" On the run after having an affair with a noble's daughter. Raised as a hostage by their father's enemies. Acts shallow but only to hide his insecurities. Has a bad gambling problem. Hates being made to wait. Is certain their days are numbered. From a haunted castle. Finds it impossible to speak to girls. No longer dreams. Owes money to the wrong people.

Warlock Patron: the Raven Queen

Expanded Spell List The Raven Queen lets you choose from an expanded list of spells when you learn a warlock spell. The following spells are added to the warlock spell list for you.

Raven Queen Expanded Spells Spell Level Spells 1st false life, sanctuary 2nd silence, spiritual weapon 3rd feign death, speak with dead 4th ice storm, locate creature 5th commune, cone of cold

Sentinel Raven Starting at 1st level, you gain the service of a spirit sent by the Raven Queen to watch over you. The spirit assumes the form and games statistics of a raven, and it always obeys your commands, which you can give telepathically while it is within 100 feet of you. While the raven is perched on your shoulder, you gain darkvision with a range of 30 feet and a bonus to your passive Wisdom (Perception) score and to Wisdom (Perception) checks. The bonus equals your Charisma modifier. While perched on your shoulder, the raven can’t be targeted by any attack or other harmful effect; only you can cast spells on it; it can’t take damage; and it is incapacitated. You can see through the raven’s eyes and hear what it hears while it is within 100 feet of you. In combat, you roll initiative for the raven and control how it acts. If it is slain by a creature, you gain advantage on all attack rolls against the killer for the next 24 hours. The raven doesn’t require sleep. While it is within 100 feet of you, it can awaken you from sleep as a bonus action. The raven vanishes when it dies, if you die, or if the two of you are separated by more than 5 miles. At the end of a short or long rest, you can call the raven back to you—no matter where it is or whether it died—and it reappears within 5 feet of you.

Soul of the Raven At 6th level, you gain the ability to merge with your raven spirit. As a bonus action when your raven is perched on your shoulder, your body merges with your raven’s form. While merged, you become Tiny, you replace your speed with the raven’s, and you can use your action only to Dash, Disengage, Dodge, Help, Hide, or Search. During this time, you gain the benefits of your raven being perched on your shoulder. As an action, you and the raven return to normal.

Raven’s Shield At 10th level, the Raven Queen grants you a protective blessing. You gain advantage on death saving throws, immunity to the frightened condition, and resistance to necrotic damage.

Queen’s Right Hand Starting at 14th level, you can channel the Raven Queen’s power to slay a creature. You can cast finger of death. After you cast the spell with this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a long rest.

Micco 'the Mad'

The guy was born to a bloodline that's been tainted, with throwbacks every few generations. His family got rid of him as soon as he started exhibiting signs of the "family curse." He came up for a while in a street gang, a group of kids with no talents and little luck. After a while he was picked up as an oddity by the traveling circus, Class Act. They put him to work as an animal handler and a freak.

While he was at the circus he fell in a with a crowd of bizarre folks and oddities, including a few thieves and shysters. One of them was a fortune-teller who told him that he was the reincarnation of Bloody BloodBlade Bloodson, a warrior of legend. This idea took root in Micco's mind as a way to prove his value, something that made him unique, not a freak or an unwanted child.

It had dangers, though. Under the impression that he was a skilled swordsman he would swagger from town to town, threatening people and pushing them around. He eventually got into a duel that should have ended with him skewered by the local noble's rapier. By sheer chance the noble missed an easy mark and was disarmed. Micco was backed into a corner and beaten, badly, until this sudden change. The duel went the other way and Micco survived - the noble did not.

In the rowdy celebration afterward the circus folk got a little out of hand. Micco got drunk and accidentally burned down a little shrine in the middle of town. While it didn't look important it was actually the oldest standing structure in town, dating from back before there was even a common house. The shrine was to the god of death, and since then the god of death has been out to get Micco, and make his life miserable. Yet, the god of death doesn't actually want him dead, just sad. In a dozen situations where Micco should have died, he's instead scraped by on luck and chance and a bloodyminded unwillingness to give up.

At this point Micco eats, sleeps, and bathes in armor. Always has his sword on hand. Doesn't have a lot of trust left to give to others, and doesn't expect much from them. Nevertheless, he believes it is his destiny to reassemble the legendary crew of heroes that traveled with Bloody BloodBlade Bloodson, and adventure across the land for glory and honor!

Tiefling, fighter From an impure bloodline Who has cheated death more times than they deserved From the 'Class Act' traveling circus Who never takes their armor off, just in case From a local street gang Who is convinced they're always being left out Unbalanced Who suffers from night terrors Who accidentally torched the local temple and is now cursed by its god Who insists that they are the reincarnation of a legendary warrior Who never returns anything they borrow Who won a duel they were supposed to lose out of sheer luck

Hrth

Hrth (pronounced hrəθ, with an H to the R to the schwa to the unvoiced dento-labial fricative like at the end of 'bath' or 'both').

Hrth was born to the Kel-ha clan of the Tess-kel tribe in the northern nations. Their youth was normal, but they exhibited a greater wisdom than the rest of the terrible youths of the family. While they were rushing through the woods doing their best to bring down a young buck they were quietly collecting honey and comb from a huge hive. While they engaged in tree-tossing competitions to see who was the strongest, they put their strength to use felling trees and dragging them back to the tribe.

Training as a shaman wasn't the road to a cushy life, though. The shaman of the tribe was expected to do anything the warriors or the nurturers would, and exhibit strong judgment besides. Beyond that, the shaman was their direct conduit to the past. Speaking to the animals of the forest or speaking to the ancestors was what set the shaman apart from the rest of the clan. When Hrth reached their bonding ceremony they chose the totem of the Bear.

Life moved along a steady clip there for a while. Children were born, old people died. Families came to join the tribe, and others left. There were good years and bad years. Hrth's connection to their totem got stronger, and their role in the tribe became clearer and clearer.

Disaster of two kinds struck, though. First, Hrth was supplanted by an interloper. A new clan was brought into the tribe. Their previous tribe had been decimated by first an illness, then by famine, then by an incursion of the goblins from the West. A dozen or so members joined the tribe, including an older shaman and his protégé. Lfh (ləfah), the shaman (lv. 5 druid, maybe) and his apprentice Tm- (təmə). Lfh moved quickly to cement his place in the tribe and the clan, slowly edging Hrth out.

When the time came that Hrth would have naturally assumed the role of shaman, allowing their master to begin stepping back and preparing to retire or travel or something, Lfh instead encouraged the Tess-kel tribe to send them away. Lfh put forth a compelling argument that Hrth's talents would be better used traveling and binding the tribes of the northern nation together. They could go from clan to clan, tribe to tribe, reinforcing belief in the old ways and ensuring that the tribes as a whole prospered. While Hrth fought, it was decided that this would be the best thing for the tribe.

One of the reasons the Kel-ha clan decided to keep Lfh around is that the clans were in trouble. They had a bad season, then another, and then a conflict with another tribe that forced them to stop trading through their lands and start moving farther away. Little known to the tribe is that Lfh was cursed. His apprentice, Tm-, is actually a demon that's following Lfh around as part of a dark curse. She keeps Lfh malleable and is slowly turning him to evil at the same time as she brings plague, strife, and conflict to the clans.

For some few years Hrth has traveled between the tribes attempting to bind them together. There are many threats to the northern nations, and even their way of life. The goblins to the West are encroaching on their land, and there seem to be more every single year. The kingdoms to the South make trade agreements for the lumber and ore and hunting grounds the northern nations live in and then break them again and again, or start building towns. The tribes from the (farther) north are attempting to drive their herds of mega-yaks south and bring with them their unfamiliar gods, the languages of the giants, and strange customs.

Hrth is coming to the conclusion that the only way to save the northern nations is to unite them. Separate tribes can't survive against the unified fronts facing them on all sides. But uniting these tribes will take something extraordinary, a unique person bearing incredible power.

Raised by shamans to be a shaman. Keeps the totem of Bear. Travels to help the tribe: healing, adjudicating, educating, providing moral guidance. Mainly, though, acts as a protector. Bear is all about health, wealth, and protection.

Slylys

Tiefling Bard

Hasn't had a great life, and takes some of that out on others. Was abandoned by parents, raised by an abusive ass, ran away as a young, young adult to become a star. Has had to do a lot to survive: prostitution, trickery, straight-up burglary. Made enough off one score to settle for a bit and practice and get good enough to be a professional entertainer. Has been holed up at a half a dozen inns and taverns over the last year. Inevitably gets bored or greedy and resorts to burglary or a con and then has to skip town.

Loves to work with people, but expects to make them patsies or get used as one. Not a lot of honor among thieves, as they say.

Tig

Halfling Cleric

Priest of the Nameless Thirteenth, the Stranger, the god of thieves and liars. Thieves prosper; the rich remember. Spends their time going from town to town dressed as an itinerant priest of Pelor. Preaches to the downtrodden, the poor, the imprisoned. Always on the lookout for inequality and oppression so they can throw a wrench into it. Vicious haggler. Big family, half adopted.

Branch

Half-elven Druid

Came up apprenticed to a druid who kept the lands near a big city safe, and took over that job when he went off on his hermitage. Expected to do it for another twenty years, take an apprentice, then go off and hermit up, too.

The land was a twenty-five mile swath of woodlands and hills around a little trade and lumber city. Everywhere one day's walk and closer was the responsibility of the druids. Everywhere past that was to be kept wild, by ancient agreement.

The city was attacked and taken over by a neighboring state. The druids were sort of landed nobles, so they were pardoned on the condition that they continued keeping the wild at bay.

The new rulers violated the agreement and fucked with the deep woods and the fey, and so the druid revolted, messed some shit up, and split. Bounty on their head.

Chet

Half-elven Druid

Came up apprenticed to a druid who kept the lands near a big city safe, and took over that job when he went off on his hermitage. Expected to do it for another twenty years, take an apprentice, then go off and hermit up, too.

The land was a twenty-five mile swath of woodlands and hills around a little trade and lumber city. Everywhere one day's walk and closer was the responsibility of the druids. Everywhere past that was to be kept wild, by ancient agreement.

The city was attacked and taken over by a neighboring state. The druids were sort of landed nobles, so they were pardoned on the condition that they continued keeping the wild at bay.

The new rulers violated the agreement and fucked with the deep woods and the fey, and so the druid revolted, messed some shit up, and split. Bounty on their head.

Auriem Meliamne

Was born in the small town of Thorpville, a cluster of slender white alders wrapped around the borders of a deep black tarn, an oasis in the desert wastes. Auriem grew up in a world of black and white. The white sand reflecting sun so bright it left an afterimage as wide as the horizon. The seemingly infinite blackness stretching up from that horizon after the sun sets. The white of bony trees clustered in a circle, supporting white cloth and wood bungalows in their branches. The deep, mellow black of the tarn, night-dark even at noontime. Even the people there were black and white: pale high-elves that never saw the bright lights outside without the holy seven layers of white veils and wrappings.

But the tarn went sour. Some kind of red and rotten disease boiled up out of it. It could have been anything. A curse from an enemy. Punishment from the gods. A result of their hubris, relying too trustingly on the tarn or diving too deep. Whatever the cause was, the red algae made the water undrinkable. The people tried to avoid it. They saw each other getting sick, saw their families dying. Those who could bought water from traders, as much as they could. Others prepared to leave, collecting what water they could from the trees and barrels in stores. In the end, though, no preparations availed them of success. They died, alone or as families. It didn't matter what kind of distance they got. Some died in bed in days, some suffered for weeks only to think that they had recovered and die suddenly hundreds of miles away.

That was Auriem's family. They made it out with a caravan of halflings and humans traveling through the desert. The water-carts, as bright white as the sands, wound away on broad wheels. The tracks they left in the desert were swept away by the wind. Behind them they left a pile of rotting alders sagging into the blood-red tarn. The dozens of elves that joined the caravan died, one by one, except the children, Auriem and Esta. The precious children, the last generation of true elves from true elven lands, made it to mortal soil.

Auriem was old enough to remember elf-dom. He'd once, when he was a wee elfling, even seen the tall towers of L'chel Thelass when his family went to visit kin and make their pilgrimage. The shock of being thrust into the human world alone and unprepared was rough on him. Bad for his body and spirit. He didn't have time to recover, emotionally, or the skills to get by on his own. He fell in with a little gang that needed a lookout and a bowman, and made his skills as an archer his livelihood. What was average or expected back in Thorpville was unique and impressive to humans. It made sense, they hadn't had the luxury of spending twenty years with the bow when they were young.

Auriem hopped from outfit to outfit for a few years, doing low-level jobs and getting bored. A thing about elves, it seems: without other elves, it's impossible to get comfortable. You can't trance properly. Rest doesn't come. Elves are born knowing that they'll outlive anything else mortal. It's deep in their bones, and so they don't get attached. They can't get bored. Elves have been known to meditate for years on end, or spend a human's whole lifetime mastering something simple. Making the perfect bowl of rice. Understanding every move on a chess board. But outside of elven lands, on their own, they're edgy. Uncertain of their place, well aware that they don't have the luxury to take their time. Life goes by quickly, not just for the people around them but for the elves too, it sweeps them up. They can't focus, can't get their bearings. It makes them bitter, and sad. And bored. Some grow to love it. Most can't survive it.

Getting bored, proper bored, is hard though. Auriem's been on the lookout for a little bit now, burning through his savings, waiting to find whatever's going to keep his fire lit next. He's bored of the small-time petty crook B&E life, but can't stand soldiering. Tried it a year or two, gave it up quick. Tried honest life, couldn't stand it. That leaves adventuring, really. The small stuff, like caravan-guarding, that only plays well for so long. He needs something big, something that can absorb him, subsume his confusion and loss.

The only other things that he cares about, really, is the remainder of elf-dom. That little cluster of lives, the diaspora. For every thousand elves who once lived in the great Eastern empire, perhaps one survives. They're almost always alone. Being alone, sometimes, is better. When you have two around a fire you also invite Loneliness and Memory to sit with you. Auriem seeks to protect what remains of elf-dom by ensuring that the next generation is born. It may be a cold way to look at it, but it's also really the only way to look at it. Full-blooded elves are dead. There is no elven kingdom, there is no elven people. The only way the blood and the language and the stories will survive is with the half-elves. The remainder of elf-dom may yet leave behind a legacy of a dozen generations of half-elves to form a new nation, to carry on their own traditions and remember their ancestors' stories.

And, well, if you want half-elves, there's just the one way to make them… Auriem doesn't have sex with half-elves anymore because there's at least a few out there that are his kids - part of what came to gross him out about sleeping with Boon. Humans and elves only. He'd also take any risk to protect an elf, or a half-elf. There's nothing more valuable than the old blood and the old stories, passed down to a new generation. Collecting those stories and artefacts, passing them on, is perhaps the most important task an elf can undertake, now.

D'Larr

Dragonborn Monk:

Silver. Came from a big family where your half-sibling might be 300 years older than you. Whether they're kids or grandkids or great grandkids everyone calls him Pappy. Because of the age differences most kids are raised by siblings and aunts and uncles and etc.

Family basically owns the town and also most farms and whatever all set up in a series of trusts and all that. Basically an old money family but with one ancient patriarch that travels a lot and just wants to be everyone's friend.

Grew up in an environment with plenty of academic resources and a deep respect for law and religion and all that, but no desire to be a part of it. Started practicing a dozen different kinds of martial arts for fun and profit. Wealthy by birth, mostly wanders to see new things and meet new people, and to compete with family.

Family has an unspoken rule that you're not an adult until you can bring something back that impresses Pappy. Adults are encouraged to start a family, get an add-on to the house or a plot of land a mile or two out, and are invited to join the family business (of idle speculation and investing).

Desh

Elven Paladin

High in the branches of an elven city is a small home where members of a secret society gather to discuss politics and art and society. Mainly it's graybeards talking just to talk, and their children (inducted by their parents) full of fire but no purpose. Rarely does anyone actually do anything.

When they do act, it's by committee and consensus. A problem is identified, a solution proposed, and perhaps a year later put into action.

The paladin got bored, and tired of seeing people hurt again and again, so they took a few knick-knacks and pawned them, and set out to put the society's high-minded moral principles into real action. Now they batman around doing their best to confront tyranny, oppression, desperation, and hurt.