Nidintu-Bel's page

Name: Nidintu-Bel
Ancestry: Elf
Heritage: Tiefling
Background: Local Brigand
Class: Fighter
Level: 3
Alignment: CG
Abilities:
Str: 18 (+4)
Dex: 14 (+2)
Con: 12 (+1)
Int: 14 (+2)
Wis: 10 (+0)
Cha: 10 (+0)
AC: 20
HP: 39
Perception – Expert (+7)
Feats:
Ancestry – Pitborn (Tiefling), Fiendish Resistance (Tiefling)
Class – Power Attack (Fighter), Shield Block (Fighter), Brutish Shove (Fighter), Alchemist Dedication (Alchemist)
Skill – Group Coercion (Intimidate), Titan Wrestler (Athletics), Alchemical Crafting (Crafting), Specialty Crafting (Crafting, Cooking), Prescient Planner (General)
Proficiencies:
Simple Weapons – Expert
Martial Weapons – Expert
Advanced Weapons – Trained
Unarmed Strikes – Expert
Light Armor – Trained
Medium Armor – Trained
Heavy Armor – Trained
Unarmored Defense – Trained
Saves:
Fortitude – Expert (+8)
Reflex – Expert (+9)
Will – Expert (+7)
Skills:
Acrobatics – Trained (+7)
Arcana – Untrained (+2)
Athletics – Trained (+9)
Crafting – Expert (+9)
Deception – Untrained (+0)
Diplomacy – Trained (+5)
Intimidation – Trained (+5)
Banditry Lore – Trained (+7)
Medicine – Untrained (+0)
Nature – Trained (+5)
Occultism – Trained (+7)
Performance – Untrained (+0)
Religion – Untrained (+0)
Society – Untrained (+2)
Stealth – Trained (+7)
Survival – Trained (+5)
Thievery – Untrained (+2)
Equipment: 8 SP, maul, breastplate, basic corrective lenses, mysterious compass w/ second needle, grappling hook, backpack, bedroll, 10 pieces of chalk, flint and steel, 50 feet of rope, 2 weeks' rations, soap, 5 torches, waterskin, alchemist's tools, basic crafter's book, Amiri's dagger +1, greataxe +1
Formula Book: Lesser Alchemist's Fire, Lesser Cheetah's Elixir, Minor Elixir of Life, Lesser War Blood Mutagen
Attacks: Greataxe +12 (Expert), 1d12+5 S, Sweep
Dagger +12 (Expert), 1d4+5 P or S
Additional Abilities: Attack of Opportunity, Darkvision, Low-Light Vision, Bravery

Nidintu is significantly above-average height at seven feet, with a wiry frame. His pointed ears mark him as an elf, but several prominent aspects of his appearance (gray skin, glowing yellow eyes, black horns, tail, sharp teeth, the like) suggest a fiendish ancestry. He seems to have a perpetual scowl on his face, but this is in fact habitual squinting due to his myopia, and this grimace is not evident when he wears the special goggles his brother made for him. At the start of the campaign, he is 173 years old, ancient by human standards but only on the older end of adulthood for an elf. He wears rough, simple clothes, and his armor is old but well-cared-for. His maul is old, but has faded Pitaxian markings partially visible under the layers of tarnish. Nidintu also carries an ornate compass with an inscription along the rim reading "Walk Any Road, Float Any River." Unlike most compasses, it has two needles, and while one always points north, the second seems to spin freely, only occasionally activating at unpredictable intervals to point him towards a random location.

Nidintu is fond of wordplay and has a strong streak of sarcasm. He takes a dim view of the endless squabbling and posturing of nobles and wealthy merchants and the like, preferring the staid pragmatism of the hill folk he grew up among. He has a degree of wanderlust, but he primarily views the open road as a place of dangers, both corporeal and metaphysical. He is dedicated to his god Erastil, but he is genuinely ignorant of the nature of his bargain with Ng – he belives his hooded benefactor to be an aspect of Erastil.

Nidintu's father Andus was once an astronomer and a priest of Desna in Kyonin, but while observing a sacred syzygy, he heard whispers from the dark spaces between the stars. These strange words led him to a hidden cult of Nyarlathotep, the Haunter in the Dark, where he quickly advanced to a favored servant of the cult's leader. His rise in Desna's hierarchy proved similarly swift, with his eerie astronomical knowledge cheerfully accepted as the result of hard work and diligence by the somewhat naive Desnans. When the cult was discovered, Andus fought alongside his fellow worshipers, but the majority of the cult's leadership was killed, and he escaped alone to the wilds outside of Hymbria. There he re-established the worship of the Haunter among the peasants of the area. During this time, the Haunter cult became affiliated with Kaiondieh, a mysterious but powerful (apparently) elven woman who Andus became enamored with. The two never formally wed, but they frequently enjoyed each other's company, and when Kaiondieh gave birth to twin sons, the cult leader took it as a blessing from his dark god. Kaiondieh, who left the cult shortly after the twins were born, was a distant mother to Nidintu and Vanrith, allowing their father to raise them in the ways of the cult. Andus, on the other hand, took a very active role in raising the two boys, but as he was a morally reprehensible cult leader, his parental methods left something to be desired. He forced them to witness the cult's regular bloody sacrifices, and he routinely starved them to get them to eat the humanoid flesh from said sacrifices (both Nidintu and Vanrith loathed their cannibalistic diet, and Vanrith has remained a vegetarian ever since being rescued). Neither boy's childhood was comfortable, however – Andus did not seek sons, but champions of his cult and avatars for Yog-Sothoth's will, so both were brutally beaten when they showed character traits against that, such as kindness or independent thought.

Nidintu and Vanrith were both born hundreds of years ago, many years before the death of Aroden and a time when both Lung Wa and Sarkoris were nations. As young boys, both began to be plagued by odd dreams – Nidintu had recurring nightmares of floating in an empty void while something dark probed his thoughts (nightmares which stopped shortly after he began worshiping Erastil in the hermitage), while Vanrith frequently spoke of hidden friends who told him everything – even things he had no way of knowing, such as personal secrets of the other cultists. Both boys were feared and despised by the rest of the cult, but their father had plans to forge them into champions of the Haunter's faith. These hopes were dashed, however, when an adventuring party guided by the elven guardsman Onvyr Valsalor arrived to investigate the disappearance of a human noblewoman in the area. Following a pre-emptive strike by the cultists, the heroes wiped out the cult, killing Nidintu's father – though neither he nor Vanrith bore any love for their demanding father. Upon discovering that the noblewoman had been sacrificed and parts of her flesh consumed by Nidintu and Vanrith, the other adventurers wanted to kill the two tieflings, but Onvyr placed them under his protection, taking them away from the dark cult hideout and leaving them with a priestly friend of his.

Shepherd Ardeth was a young man when he took in Nidintu and his brother, a priest with a deep love for books and learning of all kinds. He was once an Arodenite archivist in the city of Senara, but during a raid by an ambitious bandit warlord, the Library of Senara was destroyed and its keepers slain. Ardeth had seen the signs, and he fled the city with what books he could save in the days before the library's destruction. Taking up residence in a simple hermitage nestled in the Sellen Hills, he had a crisis of faith after the atrocities he saw during the sacking of the city, and he soon adopted the faith of Erastil.

Initially, the hermitage was crowded, and there was little to do save read the same books over and over again. However, Ardeth loathed being idle, and with his own hands he built on what he had hidden away – he bartered food for timber and stone from the rare traders passing through the area, and he built each of the brothers a simple hut large enough to comfortably house them. Though the vicinity of the hermitage was isolated and devoid of human life, it had not always been so – deep in the hills near Ardeth's home lay an old Taldane iron mine, abandoned decades ago. As children, Nidintu and Vanrith discovered this mine while out foraging for fangberries, and the two frequently snuck away from their chores to play in the mine, running along its dark halls and playing games of hide-and-seek in its twisting passageways. As they reached adolescence, they realized another, more practical use for the mine – with Ardeth's permission, they scavenged what metal they could from the mine itself and used it to work on projects of their own. Nidintu was always happy enough with a metal-working forge, toiling away in his workshop and producing all manner of mechanical devices. His dream was always to build a "mechanical person" – someone to talk to out in the wilderness – but though he produced many fascinating mechanical toys imitating nature (a bird that flew when wound up, etc) and successfully managed to create a working arm, the hermitage's corpus of biology literature was rather lacking, and he was unable to progress further. Vanrith, on the other hand, was more fascinated by the crystals that grew in the depths of the mine, designing and building a complex apparatus to study them. Eventually, he took two disk-like specimens and shaped them, polishing them into goggle lenses for his brother, allowing him to see clearly for the first time in his life. As such, Nidintu deeply treasures his corrective goggles even now, symbols of the friendship between himself and his brother. Ardeth's lifetime passed in the blink of an eye for the two elven children, but he instilled into the two boys a deep love of learning in the fifty years he spent with them, though they met few other living souls during their time in the hermitage. While Nidintu preferred books on history and practical mechanics, Vanrith frequently chose books of poetry and philosophy.

Near the end of his life, Ardeth lost his eyesight, and the two brothers would read his favorite books aloud to him. Nidintu experienced sorrow at his death, and he still misses the priest who raised him, but he is also happy for Ardeth to some degree – everyone has to die sometime, and Ardeth peacefully perished at a great age, surrounded by the books he loved so much and the two children he had taken care of. Ardeth's favorite book was called Dimitry of Berconta, an Iobarian tale of an elderly peasant who trades everything – his home, his possessions, and even his life – to the Serpent Lord of Karaphas for the chance to see his estranged daughter, a hero of moderate renown, one last time. Allegedly, the book is a true story – after being briefly reunited with her father, the adventurer found out about his bargain and what he had done to see her again, recording his dedication to her in a book. However, Nidintu always doubted this claim. Shepherd Ardeth always viewed it as an inspirational tale, a story of hope in a bleak land.

After Ardeth's death, the two brothers quarreled violently – Vanrith felt that it was his duty to spread knowledge of the rituals by which evil could be combated through his plays, while Nidintu felt that it was better to do good himself, rather than passing down fragmentary knowledge to the next generation. Vanrith left for Pitax, where he produced several very good plays on strange, occult topics, but the seemingly heretical nature of his plays caused him to be driven from town to town, stopping in Kyonin and most of the River Kingdoms before making his way to the ruins of Nishanbur.

Shortly after they left the hermitage, Nidintu and Vanrith met a knight of Iomedae, Lady Sabinus of Menador, who was traveling through the wilderness on her way north to Mendev to fight in the Second Crusade. The knight showed kindness to the twins, giving each tiefling a copy of "The Acts of Iomedae," which both cherished. Many years later, after the end of the Second Crusade, Nidintu met Lady Sabinus again – injured in the crusade, she had lost the use of her eyes to a demon's acid and walked only with difficulty. This time, it was the young tiefling who showed her kindness, helping guide her to Fort Serenko and aiding her in her journey home.

The young man jumped from job to job, trying careers as a farmer and a hunter, before becoming a smith and finding joy in his work. However, when his village was raided by a small band of bandits known as the Tanith Outriders, a group of brigands led by the exiled Kellid warrior Tanith Sixbears, Nidintu picked up a hammer from the forge and stepped out to meet the bandits in battle. After he killed three, the bandit lord offered him a position to join them. When the tiefling refused, the bandit lord easily bested him in combat before offering the same choice again, and this time, Nidintu accepted. Though the Sellen bandits routinely robbed merchants traveling through the area, they were seen as heroes by the hill folk, as they also maintained the roads and generally let local farmers through unimpeded. The group's leader maintained a strict code – leave the unarmed and the children alone, protect those who have no way to defend themselves (including if you have just robbed them and killed their guards). They always offered their foes a chance to surrender, but Nidintu still killed quite a few people during his time as a bandit – guards too stubborn to surrender, fanatic pilgrims, etc. With his long lifespan, he remained with the bandits for a decade or two shy of a century, and despite his wiry frame, he eventually became one of the band's champions due to his skill with any weapon he picked up, with special proficiency in the meteor hammer, though he took up the maul when his own weapon was destroyed by a gladiator from Tymon.

As a bandit, Nidintu lapsed from the faith of Erastil, becoming a faithful Gorumite until his marriage. He views this as his progression of faith – he was raised in the faith of Yog-Sothoth, but was brought to Erastil's faith through the deeds of Shepherd Ardeth. Later, he became lapsed, but returned to Erastil's faith of his own volition. Nidintu compares this progression to that of a goat who is brought into the herd by a goatherd, who later loses his way but re-finds the herd on his own initiative.

Shortly after joining the bandit group (when he was a young man for an elf), Nidintu and his friends came across Atale Al-Kense and her sister Vaniya, Qadiran slaves who had escaped their homeland and fled north seeking a better life. Nidintu gave the two food and supplies, and when a slave-hunter from Qadira followed them into the Stolen Lands, Nidintu gave him his spear (for at that time he used a spear) point-first in the stomach. The two escaped slaves became skilled hunters and trappers, eking out a life for themselves in the harsh River Kingdoms, and Nidintu and Vaniya developed a romance, eventually marrying and having two daughters, who they named Aliya and Elarsa Al-Vaniya. While Vaniya was a cartographer by trade, she also had a fascination with song, and she wrote a book of the songs of the River Kingdoms that she had learned in her travels, though she never finished it before her death. The older daughter Aliya spent most of her life in the Stolen Lands alongside her father Nidintu, though she adopted the Sarenite faith like her mother, and she became a skilled historian, finding many relics of historical and magical significance among the rolling hills along the Sellen River. The younger Elarsa, on the other hand, frequently travelled with her mother, learning the languages of half a dozen lands. Eventually, Aliya decided to travel west to study in the universities of Ustalav, joining the world of academia with a rare book her father had purchased for her from a traveling wizard, while Elarsa left to fight in the Crusades in Mendev, becoming an Iomedaean paladin in Kenabres. Given the long lifespans of elves, Nidintu was distraught fifty years after his marriage when he had to bury his wife, who had grown old and died while he remained young.

During the years of the Third Crusade, Nidintu met another Iomedaean traveling north to fight in Mendev when the Tanith Outriders attempted to rob the pilgrim. Unlike Lady Sabinus, this one (Brother Marses) was cruel and rude, as befit his chosen role as an inquisitor, and he constantly insulted and belittled the other members of the merchant caravan he rode with, ranting about their "inferior courage" and dismissing them as "his lessers." When Nidintu and the other bandits robbed the merchant caravan, Brother Marses flew into a rage at the sight of the half-demonic Nidintu, frantically trying to kill the massive warrior, all the while howling about the "filthy pitborn" and how he would "cleanse his tainted blood from the world." Despite Nidintu's ordinary self-control when it comes to killing his enemies, he felt quite good when he decapitated Brother Marses.

The Sellen Hills bandits were eventually destroyed when a lightning strike ignited the mostly wooden buildings they used as a base. To this day, Nidintu is unsure if what happened next was a dream or reality, but the membership of the bandit camp found themselves in a trackless desert, facing a mysterious hooded figure who held a compass in his gloved hands. The figure spoke to the bandits, offering them a choice between life and freedom – they could either serve him, guarding the roads and waterways of the Stolen Lands from those who would despoil them, or they could die as free men.

As soon as Nidintu and the others made their decision, the bandits returned to their burning homes, seemingly unaffected by their brief but mysterious shared experience. Coincidentally or not, the only ones to escape the conflagration were those who had agreed to serve the hooded figure. The remaining bandits soon discovered that they all possessed a mysterious compass with a second needle that often pointed in seemingly random directions, featuring the inscription "Walk Any Road, Float Any River" along its rim. Honoring their promises to their unknown benefactor, the former bandits went their separate ways, seeking to protect the open roads of the River Kingdoms. During his time as a wanderer, he met a fellow worshiper of Erastil in the eclectic Roots-Sink-Deep, a newly-created leshy whose manic energy quickly tired the more sedate Nidintu. After two weeks' worth of trying to clean up after the energetic Roots and the quixotic trail of destruction he left in his wake, Nidintu went his own way, ending up in the vicinity of Restov when his story truly begins...