Agrivus Pelathame's page

About Agrivus Pelathame

Sir Agrivus Pelathame is a finely tuned war machine. In battle, he is more of a shock-trooper than traditional knight, often forgoing defense and strategy in favor of running down the enemy and smashing them at their front door, he emphasizes; "With a solid offense, you don't need defense..." Standing at 6'2, weighing nearly 300 lbs., Agrivus is a solid mass of muscle and bone, covered in battle scars, with a jaw seemingly carved from stone. His appearance generates fear and uneasiness in those unfamiliar with him, due to his cold demeanor and scarring. Those who have served under his leadership, however, know that he is a man of his word, and takes no guff from anyone.

Agrivus began as a naive squire, training under an honorable knight during his teen years. Shortly before he was due to become a knight himself, his mentor fell in battle. At the same time, the monarchy he was sworn to was falling prey to attrition from an enemy nation. Agrivus's order had been infiltrated by corruption, and soon he found himself to be the last knight adhering to The Oath.

His fallen fellow knights had grown weary of his do-gooder ways, and had set up a trap for him. Agrivus was given direct orders to uncover an enemy training camp and slay all who resided, no questions asked, taking no prisoners. Agrivus traveled to the exact location he was given, and found only a hidden village of refugees; women, children, elderly and infirm. Seeing them as no threat, and finding no training camp anywhere in sight, he defied orders and refused to harm anyone in the camp. The other knights accompanying him had there own orders, and they were to slay Agrivus, should he not complete his mission. Agrivus was ambushed by his fellow knights and brutally attacked. The villagers joined in to Agrivus's aid, using stones and farming implements to fight off the corrupted knights.

The surviving knights rode back to the castle to deliver the news of Agrivus's act of treason. Agrivus, however, stayed in the village and had given up on knighthood. The villagers tended his wounds, and gave him a home since he helped to defend theirs.

Over the next several weeks, Agrivus would learn the ways of the villagers and occasionally train when their warriors would pass through. They taught him to release his anger and channel his spirit into a barbarian's rage, and helped him to break the restraints of strict discipline, and fight from the heart. With these people, Agrivus felt free for the first time. He felt a massive weight lifted from his shoulders. The village shaman had later taught him a ritual to impart some of his soul-energy into an object to give it power; Agrivus used this ritual to enhance his armor with his own essence(Legacy item; armor). With the gifts they taught him, Agrivus felt invincible, as though nothing could take the town as long as he stood. Agrivus's renewed sense of self-worth was good for his spirit, but it clouded his sight to the threats looming on the horizon...

One year from the time of his ambush at the hands of his fellow knights, those remaining knights came calling. This time, however, they were not alone. A small army, led by the now completely corrupted nation Agrivus had sworn fealty, had come to wipe out the refugee town, and punish Agrivus for his "crimes."

Agrivus fought with the courage of 20 men, but the battle itself took only one day. The village was not prepared for such an onslaught, and their defenses were quickly sundered. Agrivus had eventually succumb to exhaustion, and was taken prisoner to answer to the king himself.

Back in his home nation, he was brought before the king and brutally tortured. Everything he had worked for in the past years was destroyed, his renewed hopes were crushed. Survivors of the attack were executed in front of him to further drive the point home. The king had made a special example out of Agrivus to anyone else who dared defy the new kingdom. The king wanted to crush his will and use him was a soldier afterward. The king had big plans for Agrivus, once that pesky free-will was out of the way.

A year after his capture, Agrivus had finally broke. The daily beatings and mental torture had become too much for any mortal to bear. He had come to the realization that he would never lead a normal life, and war was all he was good at. He gave up on his humanity, and embraced an existence as an instrument of war; a machine. The rage and fire that once burned in his heart was focused into a cold stare, like a living statue that would crush everything in it's path. The only thing he could think about, was getting out of prison and killing the king who had done this to him. The man who stole his humanity, who stole his one chance at leading a normal life.

But, Agrivus's chance would never come. The king died of natural causes during his sentence, and the young prince had called a truce with all the enemies of the nation. Agrivus was set free, and given a full pardon by the new king. Agrivus would never get his revenge. Now that freedom was suddenly dropped in his lap, he had no idea what to do with it. After having his will broke in prison, he was now thrust into the very existence he had convinced himself he'd never see again. It was too much, he could not make the adjustment back to normal life; he was a killing machine, and it's all he could ever be.

Agrivus left his home nation, and went back to what he does best. He signed up for military work in 4 Winds.

***DESIGN NOTES***

I originally wrote Agrivus up as a classic "tank"; high AC, high HP, beefy meat-shield type. Typically, these types have so much invested in defense, that they completely lack any sort of offense. Even though he gets a Knight class feature that allows him to "force" an intelligent enemy to attack him, it felt clunky and unrealistic. Nothing terribly exciting about a character who's talent is to just stand there and get hit.

As I wrote his backstory, I felt like as he got older, and more and more BS was heaped on his shoulders, he just became this unfeeling, uncaring, death-machine. I figure, if he's going to be the "tank", he's going to give the enemy a damn good reason to focus on him. I shifted his focus from being purely defensive, to going out of his way to draw as much enemy attention as possible. He literally flings himself into battle, face-first, like a 300 lb gorilla on PCP. Instead of standing back and challenging an enemy to face him, he puts himself right in the enemy's face and forces them to take notice. He throws caution to the wind, with little regard for his own safety, because he has nothing left to lose. He will never feel love again, so he seeks to feel pain; not out of pleasure, but to remind him he's alive.

He's an archetypal "leader"; doesn't hit the hardest, doesn't move the fastest, doesn't use any fancy magic, but is solid all the way around. I wanted a tank that would charge into combat on the first round, hit like a semi-truck, and draw as much enemy agro as possible, with all the subtlety of a rhino.