Anklebiter Bonk's page

SHEETGEAR

1. What is your character’s name?
Hoping to reuse an old alias, if the name is not too ridiculous, Anklebiter Bonk. I typically play goblins as not having a recognizably human sense of gender, so will use it and they pronouns. Bonk's gender is goblin.

2. How old is your character?
15, in the prime of a goblin's life (comparably 22-30 in human years)

3. What would somebody see at first glance (i.e. height, weight, skin color, eye color, hair color, physique, race, and visible equipment)?
They are typically an amorphous globule of grey/green/blue stuck to the wall, and when they are not, they're a small, grey green thing with huge ears (except when they're not that either). Ever since the accident, the goblin has taken to appearing however it wants with its shifting, fluidic body.

4. What additional attributes would be noticed upon meeting the character (i.e. Speech, mannerisms)?
Despite a heart of gold, the goblin is generally rather rude and petty in its communication; even when it lacks a mouth, it will rudely wobble and gesture at people behind their backs.

5. Where was your character born? Where were you raised? By who?
As an infant, Bonk was found by a convent of Sarenite nuns in Varisia, who raised the toothy thing with a fierce passion, but after a long five years, wanderlust took the goblin and it ran off to join a traveling circus.

6. Who are your parents? Are they alive? What do they do for a living?
A few years ago, the circus was captured by giants, where most still live, and while they are not technically imprisoned or enslaved, neither are they free to leave. Anklebiter and a select few of the sneakier jugglers, tumblers and clowns slunked away in shame, abandoning their fellows. The memory haunts the goblin, and it hopes to return one day and see justice done.

7. Do you have any other family or friends?
The renewed but smaller band continued to travel, resorting to thievery to make ends meet, and the circus performances became more of a distraction than anything else, loud noise for the clowns to slink around in and rob the patrons blind. Some came with Bonk up to the Worldwound, hoping genuinely to rally the morale of those bravely fighting. It would end tragically for most of them: as Abyssal flame set upon their camp, priests of Iomedae were only able to rescue the goblin and two others.

Anklebiter can be a hard sell on friendship, anxious, jittery, and rude, and the ones who have loved them most mourn for their wasted potential. Hopefully, the goblin will prove them all wrong.

A loyal and true companion to those that show them kindness and understanding.

8. What is your character’s marital status? Kids?
No one would agree to marry Bonk before the fire, and now that they're this?? The odds have lowered.

9. What is your character’s alignment?
TN. Though as a goblin they are bound by chaos, their religious background has instilled a healthy amount of rules-following in their nature. At heart they are a Good person, but they have had to set this aside to survive in the past several years. I would like their journey to end with them returning to NG.

10. What is your character’s moral code?
Their Sarenite upbringing strongly flavors the goblin's worldview, believing in hope, compassion, redemption, but having had to struggle and fight for survival they've been forced to make many concessions. There are many lines that they won't cross, but there are many lines they thought were set firmly that have already needed to wash away.

While they cling to Sarenrae's dogma, to protect allies, provide aid to the sick and wounded, seek and allow redemption, necessity has required them break all of these at least once, abandoning the circus to the giants, stealing from those in worse conditions than their own, avoiding their own path back to the light of the Dawnflower.

11. Does your character have goals?
Survive. Long term, find a way to undo this strange Abyssal curse that has been imposed upon it (or find acceptance within)

12. Is your character religious? what deity?
Sarenrae is its chief god, but there is casual worship directed towards many gods commonly worshiped in Varisia, including also Desna, Erastil, Shelyn, Gozreh, and least of all Abadar. Since coming to the Worldwound, Iomedae has received her share of its supplication also.

13. What are your character’s personal beliefs?
If something is funny, it is worth doing; if someone suffers for the joke, do it twice. Despite this, Bonk is neither a comedian nor very inventive, much of what they find funny falls flat on an audience.
While I initially wrote that Bonk prizes pranks and tricks, it really doesn't mesh with the character I had built, I thought of it on the spot as something easy to roleplay but it's just not the case. And it's sillier than I would like for them.

This is a time of intense change for the goblin. A period of reckoning. I think their near death experience has brought them face to face with how short life is, how especially short a goblin's is, and all of their core beliefs have shattered. They are left hollow, empty, a shell of what they once were. What remains are the beliefs instilled in them as a youth, the tenets and dogma of Sarenrae.

This return to basics comes at a critical juncture, with a decision point fast approaching. Do they stay true to the desperate thief circumstance forced them to become, or return to the path of righteousness, the light which raised them? They are, after all, a Sarenite at heart. All deserve a chance at redemption. Is this theirs ahead?

I think this would paint their two surviving friends as clear foils also, as the pair adjust to life after their own near death experience (and one they didn't get superpowers from).

14. Does your character have any personality quirks (i.e. anti-social, arrogant, optimistic, paranoid)?
The goblin is jittery and laughs easily. When it is an ooze, it wibbles and wobbles and jiggles and juggles near constantly, entertaining itself with the fluidic motion of its body. They are also extremely overconfident.

15. Why does your character adventure?
Having suffered in the Worldwound and been rescued by Iomedaeans, there is already a favor owed which in its mind needs to be paid back as swiftly as possible, but also, it feels it is its duty. So much of its life has been spent running away, gambling, cheating, stealing, and now it has the opportunity to seek redemption thru action here in Sarkoris.

16. How does your character view his/her role as an adventurer?
They wouldn't describe themselves as such. They're simply a nun and a circus acrobat who has abandoned both to do the right thing. Or to try to.

17. Does your character have any distinguishing marks (birth-marks, scars, deformities)?
Bonk was badly burnt by the Abyssal fires of the Worldwound, and left scarred all over. In time, whatever Abyssal curse that sat within the wounds, a curse Iomedaean healers were unable to identify or remove, transformed their body into what it is now, a formless shifting mass. Whenever they assume their former appearance, sometimes the burns will show, and other times they won't, simply growing or shrinking in the presence of fear or flame.

18. How does your character get along with others?
The goblin is rude, small and petty, an acquired taste that many don't see fit to put the time in learning to like, but Anklebiter is also a true friend and ally to those that love them, loyal to a fault towards those who have shown them any kindness.

19. Is there anything that your character hates?
Even growing up outside of goblin society, goblins and dogs are natural enemies, and horses are worse. It is intensely aware of how underfoot is is in the presence of horses, and dogs have all their teeth right at eye level, it is not a preferable situation.

20. Is there anything that your character fears?
Fire. Despite the natural goblin aptitude for this, and the Sarenite worship of the sun and the flame, its recent experiences and transformation because of the Abyssal fires of the Worldwound have permanently soured Anklebiter on the stuff.

21. Beyond just this, you need to make sure you explain why your character is in Kenabres (Mendev) on Armasse (on 16th Arodus, 4712)
After their troupe's accident and the goblin's strange recovery, Bonk was brought back to the city and held for observation. Iomedaean priests have determined that while their strange affliction was borne of the Worldwound, it is of no threat to the populace nor the goblin's soul, no demonic taint lingering. They were released a short few days ago, and are adjusting to life as it currently stands (or wobbles).

Someone left a little bundle at the steps of the abbey. A screaming, crying, toothy thing swaddled in rags. But the nuns of Sarenrae's temple take in all comers- anyone in need was welcome, and all that was asked was that you work to improve yourself.

The Sisters of the Sun's Reflection gladly took in the goblin infant, which they named Anklebiter for its full mouth of teeth, short stature, and willingness to bite onto who or whatever might be passing by its mouth, and Bonk as it would often slam its head into the person carrying it.

Mother Moxley, the kind and caring auburn-haired halfling leader of the abbey, took special interest in the child, raising it as if it were her own. She spent much of its early years going over the histories and myths of the Dawnflower, teaching the young goblin to respect life, protect those less fortunate, and be willing to forgive. But try as she might, she could not contain Bonk's wanderlust, and as a traveling circus passed thru their small Varisian outpost, the goblin had left her forever.

Anklebiter was only 5 years old at the time, but agile and bouncy, happy to climb in the cannon and be rocketed away, to climb the high wire and 'accidentally' fall to the floor with nary a scratch, and they were taught to tumble and juggle, to mime and climb, to sneak and thief. Quickly, it became a daring and nimble pickpocket, and the pockets of none who attended the circus would truly be safe.

They fell in love with their new home in a way they never had at the abbey, and though every pocket pinched brought them guilt and shame, it also put food on the table. It was hard to argue with a full stomach. But this guilt was simply practice.

The circus would take the goblin all over the Inner Sea, bringing it with them to the frigid north of Irrisen, the hot sands of Katapesh, the elf-forests of Kyonin.

Four years into its tenure with the circus, as the caravan traveled along a dark, deserted highway across the wastes of Numeria, they were set upon by a roving pack of giants, dreadfully pale and scarred things which ate two of their horses and demanded a performance. The circus, of course, complied, both out of fear and professional pride, and the ringmaster gave Bonk a special role that night. Make the delay worthwhile.

They slunk around, diving into pockets and purses large enough for a whole band of goblins to sleep in, and taking what these giants had deemed interesting or valuable enough to keep, absolutely fleecing the tent's new, nonpaying customers. The take was monumental, even with the loss of their horses Anklebiter had unearthed enough prizes to feed the crew for years, to buy whole stables of the best horses around. If only the goblin's greed hadn't been bigger than their head, the circus might have made it out that night.

As one of the tumorous and guffawing wasteland dwellers reached into its pocket to scratch its thigh, it found Bonk inside. The giant stood, and roared aloud "Treachery!" The band quickly corralled the performers and weapons drawn, bid them return with them to their camp or die here. They would be spared their lives for the giant's entertainment.

Four and a half long years passed inside the giants' camp. The creatures were cruel and laughed easily, as entertained by Bonk or the gnomish ringmaster Davik sitting in giant sized furniture as they were stabbing each other in the neck or chest. Many members of the circus would fall victim to their captors' pranks and cruel jokes, crushed underfoot perhaps in a pantomime of a smallfolk slipping on a banana peel, or tossed in the air in an imitation of the jugglers, and though these jokes were not always fatal, they were always painful.

But for those who resisted, who threatened violence or escape, it was always fatal.

When she truly could wait no longer, Bonk's closest friend Stephanie, a human fire eater, announced her plan for the circus to leave in the middle of the night. They should simply run, flee one and all, and though the giants might chase, some would escape. To the goblin, this was unconscionable, they could not take action that would lead their fellows to harm, and especially not when this was their fault anyway! Davik, the ringmaster, agreed.

The sneakiest, he said, should flee under cover of darkness. Take the children, but leave the rest. It was worth knowing any had escaped, and this would keep them all alive. "Find help, and come back for us when you can."

That night, they ran. The eleven sneakiest acrobats, tumblers, clowns and jugglers snuck and slunk away with eight children in their arms. The sky was clear, the stars dazzling, the moon high and bright, and the nineteen of them escaped across the wastes, heading north to civilization, to Mendev.

The party's attempts to rally forces to seek vengeance and free their comrades fell on deaf ears. The only war that seemed to matter in Mendev was the war, everything else could wait. Some took the news better than others, continuing to seek justice, but for others it was too much. Their party of nineteen quickly dwindled down to twelve, three adults, each taking their children but none of the others, and with no other recourse, the twelve returned to performance, needing money to eat and live.

This, too, was not enough.

And so they became thieves, darting into people's homes and farms and taking what they could, sometimes even daring an expedition into the Wound, stealing supplies from dead or dying soldiers, critical food stocks meant to feed a whole platoon.

After a year of this the band had fractured again. With fewer adults to help, Bonk had insisted most of the children be taken in by the Temple of Sarenrae, and now they were five. Bonk itself, Stephanie, a dwarven clown named Pessial, a tiefling juggler named Saraiah and a young teenaged half-elf called Golden who knew only thieving. These were they that would suffer the worst.

On an ill-fated incursion to the lines of battle, as the party slunk over the shifting scarred land of the Worldwound, they came upon what they believed to be a stark defeat for the defenders of man and a grim victory for the cultists that wandered the plains of Sarkoris. As Pessial kept a watchful eye, the rest crept around, picking the bodies clean of any supply when the corpses jerked their arms forth and gripped the thieves tightly. Pessial fled but collapsed to the earth a short distance away, stopped by something.

Abyssal fires raged around them, licking their skin. The goblin swore it could hear voices chanting around it, but could not make it out for its own agonized screaming.

It awoke days later. Priests of Iomedae had managed to rescue it from the field, stopped the fire, but it was too late for most. Only two of its friends had survived, and it was not allowed to see them. Actually, it was not allowed to do anything. Truthfully, the Iomedaeans had almost executed the thing they had brought before them, the thing which they had rescued, brought into the hospital as a goblin yet which collapsed into ooze as its coma progressed, only stopping for one among their order who had advocated for the thing's continued survival.

This was neither demon nor devil, not fiend nor fey, this was something else entirely. It should be studied, understood. And it was also a being, worthy of respect and assistance. This priest, Bonk's savior, a kind man of Lastwall named Mora, took it upon himself to make contact with the former goblin, testing if it could recognize its surroundings, what, if any, sentience it retained, if it could communicate.

And Anklebiter could. It was, for all intents and purposes, still the same creature that had been caught by the blaze days prior, and although it had no mouth with which to express itself, it could form loose facsimiles of a hand or a face to pantomime its intentions. The first thought Mora successfully interpreted was a desire to see its friends.

Sadly, one was still in a coma, badly burnt and unrecognizable, but Stephanie had been spared the worst of it, and was brought in to reunite with her friend.

Seeing her face awoke something in the creature. Its form shimmered and shook, rising and climbing and returning to its former appearance. The goblin and the fire eater embraced, the woman squeezing her friend so tight he flattened against her, boneless and fluidic as he was.

After a few more months of observation and training by the priest Mora, the goblin was released from the hospital and given leave to continue its life in Mendev, given quarter in the city of Kenabres. As much as it struggled to adapt to its new form, it had been given a new lease on life. It would join the Crusade, repay the debts it had incurred, and it would end this curse upon the land, and upon itself.