Brother Cobb has always been an forthright, honest, plain-spoken, practical, and above all trustworthy person. His temper runs a few degrees hotter than most, but the Church of Saint Cuthbert makes allowances for that.
Cobb joined the Church in a usual way; his parents, poor farmers and staunch Cuthbertines, had no money to raise their fourth son and so turned him over to be raised by the temple in Greyhawk. Cobb leaped at the chance; though he loved his family, he wanted more than their dour and humble lives, and hoped to leave a greater mark on the world. He grew up as servant to the clergy, and through his hard work, good judgement and winning personality, was invited to enter the seminary. He did well in his studies and was ordained in good time. Though he was courted to join both the Chapeaux and the Stars due his good sense and charm, he felt called to join the Billets and so serve as guide and caregiver to the faithful. His ambition was to raise a community of believers from humble beginnings to glory.
His first assignment outside the seminary should have been perfect for him. Brother Cobb was sent to Diamond Lake to minister to the needs of the growing community of Cuthbertines there. Unfortunately, the community was growing due to an influx of dwarves brought in as expert mining consultants. These dwarves came from a remote sect that steadfastly believed that Saint Cuthbert was a dwarf. Brother Cobb used the methods he had been taught for rooting out false doctrine to try to convince these dwarves that Saint Cuthbert had been a human when mortal. With great firmness and patience at first, and then with increasing vexation, Brother Joe argued with dwarves half his height and three times his age that their religious upbringing was completely mistaken in this one regard. The hard-working miners of Diamond Lake, faithful but not particularly fervrent, gradually lost their patience with this disrespectful human evangelist.
After a debate with a decidedly inebriated elder miner degenerated into an ill-advised shoving match, the local Cuthbertines sent an appeal to the Church to dispatch a minister more suited to the local community. Brother Cobb, fully expecting that the Church would instead send authorization to use the Cudgel of Loving Correction to Pound Smooth the Heads of the Errant, eagerly awaited the Church’s reply. To his disgust, the Church sent a namby-pamby theologian from the Chapeaux, one who preached that the divine spark of Cuthbert’s being is found in the hearts of humans and dwarves alike, and so the Saint could be said to be both human and dwarf. Brother Cobb had been replaced.
Brother Cobb now faces a disgraceful return to the seminary with the smell of failure about him. He expects to be put in a subordinate position in one of the big temples, a blow to his ambitions. He prays that Saint Cuthbert will send him a worthy task before then, a challenge that will give him a chance prove his mettle and erase the memories of his ministry at Diamond Lake.
