Butcher by Trade's page

Butcher was a simple man, or at least longed to be. He was an outsider in his wife's village, and had to work hard at being accepted. He was not one of the native people here, but a foreigner and a stranger when he arrived. He opened a butcher shop and became known for his hard work, and honest dealings. Eventually he was accepted, and perhaps even respected for his work ethic, and trusted business practices.

All came to an end when fire giants attacked the village. Like all the other men, he rushed to help defend, though it was more a matter of distracting the creatures long enough that their wives and children might escape. In a desperate move, he grabbed a hold of the giant's sword in an effort to disarm him. The giant could not swing the sword with him holding on, so it flung him and the blade aside, the steel glowing hot, into a wooden shoppe. Flames sprung up around the butcher and he was lost in moments to his burns and the smoke that clouded his lungs. He expected to die, but for some reason he did not. He woke to find he had been tended to, but that the magic resources had been stretched so thin, that while they had stopped him from dying, none of his wounds had been healed. He was a mass of burned flesh from head to toe, with weeping wounds that required constant attention to stave off infection. His family, and most of the villagers in truth, were dead and the village burned to the ground. He found the sword to which he had clung, and claimed it; the only thing he had to connect him to the past, and to the beast that had taken his entire world. Now his world is one of confusion and pain; both the physical from his poorly healed burns, and emotional from his complete loss.

Not knowing what else to do, he has dedicated himself to making sure no one else needs to feel what he has felt, and to punish anyone who would inflict that pain on others. He has named the sword Grief, and he wields it well.

The Butcher had a troubled past. Born within a cult in Avistan, he was born, bred, and raised as a warrior. With other spawn of the world wound like himself he terrorized the countryside at the behest of his mothers. Their coven was one that followed a patron... something that dwelt within the worldwound. They did not entirely understand its desires or commands, but the power it gave them was undeniable. Periodically one of them would be called to travel out into the wastes alone. None ever spoke of who or what they encountered there, but when each returned, she was with child. The butcher was one such child.

Butcher was among the force sent to destroy one of the Wardstones in an action that led to the Fourth Mendevian Crusade. When the invasion of the Storm King was repulsed, those responsible were rounded up, and Butcher was among those captured, though he did not go peacefully, and the capture was not without the shedding of blood. After his capture, a startling revelation came to light, that the Witches of the Coven, his mothers, called so because he was never told which one had actually birthed him, were found to have been using compulsive magic to win many of their warriors over, some had been subjected to the magic for years. The Butcher ended up in a circumstance where he became honestly confused about whether he had been a willing participant in the attacks or not.

Given the doubt around their complicity, Butcher and other warriors, particularly the children and young ones, they were given over to the church to be assessed, observed, taught, and if necessary, contained. Many could not overcome their training and conditioning. These escaped, or attempted the same, and either fled into the Worldwound or found some place to carve out chaos and death. Death or imprisonment was the usual result. Guilt overwhelmed others, and they either languished in it, or joined forces with the defenders, effectively changing sides. Butcher found a mentor; a priest of Erastil who was able to give him a new perspective. While unaware of whether he had been in charge of his actions during the Crusade and before, what he had learned of the world, and the Worldwound convinced him that he did not want the Storm King to succeed. Confusion gave him the desire to get far away from Avistan and the Worldwound and create a new life.

He found a town and worked hard to be respected there, despite his demonic visage. He found he believed in the tenets of hard work and self reliance taught by Erastil, and that he wanted to contribute and make something. However, he found the only skill he had was with blood. He was not squeemish in the least, and knew well how to hew muscle and bone, and found he could adapt these skills to learning how to butcher animals. Now his name, given to him originally to inspire fear and loathing, was now a simple description of what he did. He met a woman, married and had children. Like any faithful of Erastil, he worked hard with skill and pride, and created a home.

Obviously, this character build is a Teifling, which being of a equal power level to Ifrit I am guessing should not be a problem. I always liked the idea of a part demon Paladin, and this character ends up being an amalgam of a few ideas I have wanted to try out.

Part of this build is the idea that he uses a giant sword; butcher wields it because it was the sword of the giant that killed his family, and will likely never use any other blade until he lays that giant down. He'll therefore be upgrading it as he goes during the game. While there are a few ways via RAW for a character to wield a giant weapon, the one I settled on was this.

Oversized Limbs: You have over-sized limbs, allowing you to use Large weapons without penalty.

It replaces his spell like ability. I envision Butcher as a giant, as far as Medium sized creatures are concerned, so having massive, beefy arms and ham sized fists fits well as well. This is usually an ability that has to be rolled, but it can be pitched to the GM as outlined here in the following section:

GMs may customize tiefling NPCs using the following charts, or allow players to do so by rolling a d%. Players with a particular character concept in mind may consult their GM if they want to select a specific variant ability or may take the Fiendish Heritage feat. The abilities and alternative physical features presented here replace the standard / default equivalent trait or feature. Any abilities that grant spells or spell-like abilities are treated as having a caster level equal to the tiefling’s character level.

If the character build and concept work out and meet with your approval, I'll pitch some ideas about how I think his addictions and pain should be played out, in game.