Five characters in search of a table

Just to have a new post, I'm going pin up some character sketches that I have written up (but ilustrated with found images) over the Covid days.

First was for a homebrew campaign that Cam ran - this actually predates Covid in the Dungeon Crawl Classic sessions that started us off, but then we switched to D&D5e and online gaming via Zoom when the end of days started. The mechanics changed but the character stayed essentially the same.

Just Joa

After Joa Brunhildson survived the Destruction of Wardwick, being present for the final demise of the demon that had scourged the town, he was alone. His family, his friends, even most of the customers of his butcher shop had perished in the terror that had gripped the small town. Despondent, and perhaps clinically depressed, he wandered out of town with his captured shield and booty armor wrapped in a sack hanging from the spear over his shoulder like a hobo’s bindle stick.

Joa wandered away from the only town he had every known, trudging eastward through Stanlow’s Grandwood, with no particular goal except to put his past life behind him. When friendly fellow travelers asked his name, he would reply “just Joa”, leaving even his family name and heritage behind in the blood and wreckage. Perhaps there really are three gods who control the fates of men, but in any case, fortune thrice smiled upon him.

First, he met a Sir Bancek, knight of the Black Swan, outside Northmill, while they both sought shelter in a small inn from a sudden rainstorm. The knight told Joa tales of fighting the good fight against demons and demi-humans, bringing peace to war-ravaged lands and protecting the good. Joa felt the first stirrings of purpose once again but holding the armor that he had seized from a demon, he knew that he would never be a knight like this man. Bancek, perhaps sensing Joa’s character even more than he himself could, or perhaps impressed by the provenance of the gear, offered to buy Joa’s arms to add to the order’s armory. Joa gladly took the bargain, and the knight’s hand in friendship. When Sir Bancek asked for his name, the reply this time was again “Just Joa”, but the intonation conveyed a whole new meaning.

Joa’s second good fortune came when, heading further eastward, he met Ove Luntag, certainly the most – or perhaps the only – honest merchant on the Stanlow-Vilaria border. Joa was able to use his new-found wealth to kit himself out in fine style – no more sleeping in ditches wrapped in a blanket, no more hardtack and jerky.  Fully equipped and armed, down to a secret money belt to contain the remainder of his treasure, and with rediscovered purpose and vigor, Just Joa strode toward his destiny – and the final favor of fate.

 A wrong turn on a foggy night led Joa to a pass that led not to Bamerton town but to secluded valley and the sanctuary of Tancer the Lame, a wizard in need of an apprentice. Upon encountering the wizard and hearing him speak of his own battle against the dark forces, Joa knew what he needed to do: not butcher’s blades nor cold steel would be sufficient to fight demons and monsters, not for him. He would fight magic with magic. Although Joa was an unlikely wizard – stronger in the back than mind – Tancer took him on. For a year Tancer taught him the arcane and dangerous ways of the magicker and how to draw power from earth, sea, and sky; Joa was never able to come close to his master’s understanding of arcane but was able to access the magic that flowed around and about and through him.

Deep in the small valley, Joa sweated and labored to master his craft, sometimes feeling he would never advance, sometimes feeling full of power. Always at his side was Tancer, patient, thoughtful, and supportive; without his guidance, Joa would have died a hundred times over from unplanned spell results. Joa could not manage to turn himself into a wizard, but he did become a sorcerer, good enough to earn a familiar.

One day Joa saw a bright light piercing the night sky and heard a formless voice speak to him, in a voice as clear as the night sky in Vilaria. What it said was “Just Joa, go home.” Training was over. His mission had begun.

Joa lasted the campaign, getting progressively more depressed and nihilistic, and finally ended things by tossing what was essentially a magical H-bomb through a dimensional portal into the headquarters of some ersatz Nazis. Made a big boom. Then he sacrificed himself in a final act of selflessness, trying to save someone from drowning in a pit of goo.

Really.

Anyway, we re-booted the campaign in the same world, just five or ten years later, dealing with the after effects of the prior adventure (it turned into an ongoing denazification effort). I tried out a bunch of characters before the party and the setting were ironed out.

Katoichi Sawa

Katoichi Sawa was born into a large Kobold tribe that roamed the badlands of northeastern Hotpot, raiding and being raided, skirmishing with goblins, avoiding orcs and Hobgoblins, just trying to get by. Kato had the misfortune of being born blind. He could make out light and dark and some shapes as a cub, but soon even that little ability disappeared. Part of the tribe suggested leaving him in the wilds to die, but the pack nature of Kobold society always kept the group from ever acting on that desire, despite the difficulty in dragging along a sightless youngster.

For his part, a grateful Katoichi tried his best to avoid being a burden, and learned to rely on his other senses more and more, eventually being able to fend for himself in familiar environments or close quarters with surprising ease and efficiency. But still his disability continued to prevent him from fully contributing to the well-being of the pack, and he struggled mightily with this guilt.

His chance for redemption came after a fracas with a group of Hobgoblins; Katoichi’s tribe was unable to provide the tribute the hobs demanded to suffer their intrusion into Hobgoblin territory, so Katoichi offered himself as a willing bondsman to the Hobgoblin group; a token gesture, to be sure, given his sightlessness, but one accepted grudgingly by the honor-bound Hobgoblins.

Not knowing what else to do with him, the Hobgoblins assigned Katoichi as caretaker of a neglected ruin, an ancient shrine to Maglubiyet, whose favor they did not want to lose, despite their worship having moved mostly to Nomog-Geaya. Katoichi took well to his new life high in the mountains; the sulfur smell of a not-so-distant volcano wafting on the breeze was as pleasant to him as the birdsong and the warmth of the desert sun. He tended what remained of the shrine and in its courtyard raised a vast herb garden, for medicinal and aromatic uses. An observer watching him moving happily amongst his cherished ruins would see him happy and would scarcely believe him blind.

The Kobold had few visitors in his tucked-away mountain hermitage, but one guest was regular: Bogon, an old, battle-scarred Hobgoblin sub-chief, who clung to the old god, came frequently. Each visit, his routine was the same: giving obeisance at that altar to the graven images, collecting some herbs for his aches and pains – and running Katoichi through a series of martial exercises. Bogon was astonished and amused by how the sightless herbalist could target his outstretched hand or a waving sword, and each visit worked with him on sword-fighting technique until the little caretaker was a more than adequate fighter. The archery lessons went not so well – Katoichi’s adaptation seemed sufficient for close quarters, but the world more than dozen strides away remained an opaque mystery.

Katoichi remained happy in his routine – altars, herbs, and swords – until about five years ago, when he began to notice more activity in the mountains: occasional strange noises from afar, Bogon’s mention of more travelers on the roads, and his whispered rumors of Valarians in the borderlands on the Hotpot side of their walls. Still, the Kobold stuck to his regimen, punctuated by Bogon’s visits, until that day when his whole world changed.

The light was so bright that Katoichi actually saw it: the flash before a huge shock wave hit, knocking him off his feet and into the air, flinging him into a pillar. Then came the heat, a searing blast that felt like it was flaying his very flesh, and the rumble of the earth as the remains of the shrine crumbled into dust and rubble, not one stone atop another.

Katoichi knew not how long he lay in the debris, sobbing, moaning, and eventually sleeping – had it been days? weeks? – before he felt a familiar hand on his shoulder and a canteen being lifted to his lips. His old friend – his only friend – Bogon had returned to check on him. The Hobgoblin stayed for several days, tending to Katoichi’s wounds like a mother with her cub and filling him in on the Great Blast. Rumors abounded as to the cause – wizardry, nature, or a visit from a god – but an unimaginable expanse of the mountain range had exploded, levelling a vast tract of land, a whole country’s worth it seemed, and rendering uninhabitable a good portion of the Hot Pot and of Valaria as well. Had the shrine been one pass closer to the volcano, there would have been nothing for Bogon to visit.

The two kept company at the shrine site for a while, then Bogon told Katoichi he had to be returning to his band. The Hobgoblins wanted no truck with whatever forces were behind the Great Blast and were withdrawing westward, deeper into the Pot. He offered to take Katoichi with him, but the herbalist, remembering his days with the pack, demurred, not wanting to become a burden, once more to be taken care of. The Kobold decided instead to leave his hermitage and rejoin the world on his own, relying on the skills Bogon had taught him and the self-confidence that their friendship had kindled. For Katoichi, the Great Blast was not an end, but a beginning.

So, for five years, Katoichi has been roaming the continent, first making his way in odd jobs, or gathering and selling herbs, or serving as a stopgap spiritual advisor from time to time. A milestone came when he finally managed to convince a skeptical caravan captain to take him on as an assistant camel wrangler; luck gave him the chance to demonstrate how effective his martial skills were, when he helped fight off a midnight raid. With that referral, he has had steady work, whenever he wants it, as a guard or mercenary.

Katoichi wears modest clothes and carries a specially made sword that looks like a blind man’s staff as he walks the countryside. His keen sense of smell allows him to find herbs and other medicinal plants, which he gathers in a medicine kit and sells along with his services. He deals with the usual suspicion of Kobolds on the part of most Folk, but generally his equanimity and affable nature quickly win over most of those he encounters. He keeps a low profile most of the time, but occasionally has a little too much to drink, or goes on a gambling spree, and either winds up in jail, or in a fight, or both. For the most part, he tries to do good in the new country of Oasis that his home has become.

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Nokta Rampado

Kobold life is a harsh trial at best, and Nokta Rampado had no better lot than any other kobold. He was born into a large Kobold pack that roamed the badlands of northeastern Hotpot, raiding and being raided, skirmishing with goblins, avoiding orcs and Hobgoblins, and basically just trying to get by.

In order for a Kobold tribe to survive, it had to rely on two things. The first was the loyalty of the pack – every Kobold was intensely devoted to their family, their clan, and their tribe. It was only by sticking together that Kobolds could withstand – and even occasionally surmount – the vicissitudes of life in the badlands.

The other key element was knowledge. Any Kobold group had to have excellent intelligence on potential threats to their safety, whether natural, humanoid, or monstrous, in order to be ready for trouble – or able to avoid it. And that is where Nokta Rampado came in.

From very early on in cubhood, Nokta showed a predilection for sneakiness remarkable even in the naturally circumspect Kobold culture. His ability to move without being spotted, to eavesdrop, to spy on comings and goings was at first a nuisance to the tribal elders and then, as the decision was made to leverage these talents, a resource to be exploited. Nokta served his tribe well, first as a Picket and then Scout, always on the outskirts of pack territory, always on the lookout for threats and enemies. Later, as his skills developed, he became an Intelligencer, actually moving within the camps and headquarters of other groups, gathering information, stealing documents, and committing small acts of opportunistic sabotage.

Two circumstances made Nokta develop differently from the average Kobold. The first was his near-constant separation from the pack. While everything he did was for the benefit of his tribe and his kith and kin, he only rarely reaped the rewards of familiarity on togetherness that are earmarks of Kobold culture. He became a bit of a misfit within the overly gregarious Kobold society, a little awkward in the rituals and ceremonies of their communal life, a little uncertain and less comfortable with the shared meals and activities.

The second anomaly was fostered by the tribe’s shaman. When nearly discovered by some Hobgoblins whose camp he was surveilling, he spontaneously created the image of a scorpion in the sand, distracting his almost-discoverers and allowing him to escape. When he described this event to the elder, the shaman began to train him whenever he returned to the pack, and soon Nokta learned how to channel magical energies to help him sneak and evade.

Because of these differences, Nokta became something of an outsider within his own pack. There were other Pickets and Scouts and Intelligencers, but none spent as much time away from the pack as did Nokta. Although his loyalty to the tribe never wavered an inch, in his heart he sometimes felt that he was protecting them and not us.

It was perhaps this difference that led Nokta to a new destiny after The World Changed. With the fall of the Vilarian Kingdom, the rise of Oasis, the expansion of Bria, and the ascendancy of Stanwood, new opportunities arose for Kobold-folk. Prometa Gardito, Matriarch of the Seven Tribes, made an unprecedented appeal to the major powers for recognition of the Hotpot Kobolds as territory-less nation-state. With provisional acceptance of the request came and exchange of emissaries and, in a gesture of goodwill, the Kobolds sent a representative to serve on an international cooperative troubleshooting agency helping to keep the peace and advance civilization. Nokta was chosen to fill this role, since he was the Kobold with the most experience outside the pack and in other cultures.

Nokta, every dutiful, has fulfilled his role and even found comfort in it. His chance to be a regular pack member, secure in the company of his family and comrades, had evaporated long before, and he embraced his new role in the wide world outside the Hotpot. His duties took him across the continent, from the ruins of Wistport to forest of Yarrindale, finally bringing him to a base in Archton, we he became part of new team. His new pack.

Nokta is small, only about two and a half feet tall, with dark gray skin that he makes more bluish with body paint and facial decorations. He usually wears a long cloak with the hood pulled up, and if he tucks his tail in, he might be mistaken for a halfling or a gnome in dim light. Whenever he’s about in daytime, he wears goggles that protect his eyes from sunlight.

Because of his long experience as a solitary worker, Nokta can seem aloof and standoffish, but this is mostly awkwardness and even a bit of shyness on his part. He is often tinkering with alchemical items or practicing his magick but will tentatively join in communal activities if encouraged. He is usually even-tempered unless he succumbs to the temptation of too much drink (or other intoxicants).

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Sholto Dustwatcher

In the Kingdom of Vilaria, south of the Celadon Forest and just north of Lernton Village, lay the Svirfneblin community of Mantol-Deroth; or perhaps it would be better to say it lay under Vilaria, for the Deep Gnomes live not so much on the land as within its caves, caverns, and subterranean grottoes. There is a quite a rich community underground, with mycological agronomy, mining, and the manufacture of mechanical devices driving the economy of this semi-autonomous region.

Below the grasslands of Vilaria was a bustling commonwealth, with one large city, several small towns, and outlying districts where yeomen worked the earth and lived in small villages. Besides the threats from the creatures that lurk in the darkest reaches underground, Mantol-Deroth’s inhabitants were prey to the same weaknesses of all Folk: greed, fear, hatred, and lust, the base desires that drive individuals to crime. When one these passions led a deep gnome to theft, assault, or worse, that’s when Chief Deputy Inspector Sholto Dustwatcher of the Mantol-Deroth Peace Enforcement Bureau came in.

Sholto began his career as Patrol Constable with the watch, guarding the Schisttown marketplace, breaking up scuffles, throwing gnomes who’d had too much fungin into the drunk tank for the night. He was a good officer, and eventually was assigned a tour of duty in the OBC – the Overhead Border Corps, helping to control crossings and trade at the way-station that was Mantol-Deroth’s sole connection to the surface world. The Vilarians were fractious and disagreeable at best; only the weight of a generations-old pact and the challenge of mounting an assault on the underground commonwealth allowed the Svirneblin the relative freedom that the Svirfneblin enjoyed within the kingdom; Vilaria, of course, always managed to keep the economic upper hand no matter what.

But Sholto had a keen eye for detail and a dogged determination to undo a puzzle in order to set things right; his dedication and devotion soon caught the attention of the PEB commandant, and Sholto became an Inspector in Bedrock, the main city of Mantol-Deroth, where he applied his native intelligence, physical courage, and devotion to duty in the cause of detection of criminals and their arrest and punishment.

 Sholto had found his place in the world and thought he would have a long career protecting the good citizens of Bedrock; that is, until five years ago, when the earth moved, literally. It wasn’t until much later that the Svirfneblin learned of the Great Blast; at the time, it was just the worst earthquake the community had ever experienced, so severe as to destroy the Tradeclimb Road, the only route to the surface, as well doing significant damage throughout Mantol-Deroth. It took several months and a large fraction of the commonwealth’s resources to reestablish communication with surface; when contact was finally made, the Svirfneblin were surprised to find that Vilaria was no more, and that Mantol-Deroth now lay within the boundaries of the nation of Bria.Diplomatic relations were hurriedly established; because of his prior experience in the OBC, Sholto was assigned to the security detail accompany the envoy to the Brianese capital at Satinbury. Negotiations to rewrite the Svirfneblin autonomy treaty were long, but fruitful; the Brianese seemed more willing to recognize gnomish sovereignty than the Vilarians ever were but seemed to want to include every detail and potentiality in trade relations and parse every paragraph down to the last comma. The result was that Sholto spent a good deal of time on the surface and began to enjoy it. In fact, he enjoyed it so much, that he asked permission to remain on the surface, nominally assigned to the Svirfneblin Consulate, but in reality he was only in on-call status and was for all practical purposes a free agent unless and until he was needed by the Consul.

For some time, Sholto has wandered the surface, taking in first-hand the changes that were wrought in the aftermath of the Great Blast, seeing for himself the places that were only words on paper during the long negotiations in Satinbury. He supports himself as guard, a finder, a thief-taker, an investigator, an enforcer – whatever job his skills can afford him, so long as it keeps him on the right side of the law.

None of those fellows seemed a right match for the party as it developed, so here's who showed up:

Mikkal Birrelas Veadnu Desammi

In the vast central plains of the continent, far from the verdant expanses of Celadon, Axewood, Adrii, and Bonewood, resting within the great geological bowl formed by the moutnain ranges, live the Ghostwise, the most reclusive of the halflings. They have a nomadic, clannish culture, raising livestock by transhumance across the interior of the continent as they move with the seasons, ignoring national boundaries as is their ancient right as indigenous people.

It was into this culture that Mikkal Birrelas Veadnu Desammi was born and in its traditions raised. Ghostwise culture privileges community and all social interactions and is managed through the clan structure: elders are charged with determining clan response to changing conditions, negotiating between families, settling disputes, and assigning duties. It was this system, and not any particular initiative of his own, that determined his destiny would take him to the UNAF.

Mikko is a good-natured sort, but what he lacks in ambition he makes up for in laziness. A firm believer that life’s primary purpose is the pursuit of pleasure, and that the greatest pleasure can be found in relaxed contemplation, Mikko was content to contribute his due to his clan, be satisfied with his lot, and enjoy as many sunny afternoons, grassy meadows, babbling brooks, and long naps that the world would give him. Unfortunately, the elders got in the way of that beautiful plan.

Mikko was discovered to have skill with the bow; his shooting rivalled or surpassed all others in his family, his tribe, and possibly in the entire clan. Once this was discovered, he was assigned first as a hunter, then as a scout, pulling long shifts moving ahead of herdsmen to reconnoiter and report and occasionally engage with hostiles. He did his job dutifully and well but missed many thoughtful afternoons. It was on one of these scouting missions that Mikko discovered his ability to magically enhance his arrows to wondrous effect. Some of the elders said it was the result of a touch of Elvish blood somewhere in his family tree; others said it was because his wanderings had taken him to places teeming with magical energy. The shaman wanted to train him, but Mikko was content to just experience the magic without trying to control or develop it.

When the Great Change happened, the ripples reached the Ghostwise community. The new nation of Neuland, an invigorated Bria, and a newly-opened Yarrindale all wanted to talk and gather and sign treaties and create a new order. The Ghostwise, for their part, just wanted to be left alone, but to do that, they knew they had to have at least nominal participation in these international affairs.

And much to his chagrin, was Mikko chosen as their emissary.

Mikko is tall for a halfling, like many Ghostwise, a shade over three feet. He wears studded leather armor adorned with tribal decorations and often has ritual paint on his face. He carries a longbow at all times and a light crossbow hangs from his pack. On his belt ride a dull gray scimitar and a curious device consisting of rope and three balls.

Personally, Mikko presents as affable but not as frivolous (or hungry) as most conventional halflings. He readily joins any group with which he finds himself and adjusts to their mores and customs, exerting as little effort as possible in the discharge of his duties, and spending as much time as possible in the sun.

Mikko also spent most of his time stoned, alternating between smoking weed and tobacco the entire campaign. The party knew things were getting dire if Mikko spit out whatever cigarette he happened to have going. But he survived the whole campaign!

What a crew. Always more characters than campaigns, it seems...and more to come.