Rodok the Body's page

Potion of Infernal Healing x4 (200 gp)
Dorje - Natural Healing x1 (750 gp)
Traveler's Any-Tool (250 gp)
Backpack/Bedroll/etc. (50 gp)
Cognizance Crystal, 1 pp (1000)
Aegis of Recovery (1500 gp) [neck slot]
Eyes of the Eagle (2500 gp) [eye slot]
Boots of Elvenkind (2500 gp) [feet slot]
Cloak of Resistance +1 (1000 gp) [shoulders slot]
Darklife Ring (1250 gp) [ring slot 1]

Gold on Hand:

Loads:
(never encumbered)
Current:
Light:
Medium:
Heavy:

Assuming healing isn't needed, Rodok will generally wade into melee and attack with Steal Health. For ranged options, he'll throw his blade. When healing is needed, he'll back off and manifest it through the collective, distributing it as needed.

Bred into captivity, the man called Rodok knew nothing but pain, hate, and hunger for many, many years. Among his first memories, Rodok recalls watching the other children in the camp outpacing his own growth. Then, at adulthood, they always disappeared. Asking where they went the first time earned him a kick in the face. The second he earned a week of no rations. He didn’t ask a third time.
Still, Rodok wasn’t foolish enough to think anything ‘good’ happened to them. Nothing ‘good’ ever happened to anyone. More than likely they deemed ‘big’ enough to be moved to a rougher part of the mine. Either that or they were sold. No one knew, or at least if they did, no one talked. And Rodok, helped by three successive generations of mostly human children, continued to spend his days breaking breaking rocks in the quarry of whoever it was the owned them.

He’d come to hate his heritage in only a few years, cursing his natural hardiness and his aging as soon as he understood. He watched human children come down with diseases, or succumb to hunger and the exhaustion, but his body never failed him. Or rather, it failed him every day when he awoke well enough to work. And while he worked, he cursed everyone around him, his captors for holding him and his fellow slaves for leaving him. Rodok was truly alone.
Eventually though, he grew old enough that his captors deemed him ready to move on. By the time Rodok ‘graduated’ to the deeper mine, he’d sunken deep into his own mind, and not spoken to another for years. Still, he listened, and he watched. Forty years in captivity, of hunger, and living on the edge of death’s door hadn’t taught Rodok much, but it did teach him how to recognize power. And in his own mind, Rodok found it -- power.

When he started manifesting his abilities, Rodok thought he maybe was finally going crazy. The first time, a stray bat had made its way into their sleeping area, and Rodok had reached out to try and catch it, desperate as always for more to eat. But weak from decades of malnutrition, Rodok missed. Cornering the animal in his cell, he managed to finally catch it, but not without securing a number of painful bites and scratches first. Angry yet proud, he stared at his injuries, and in awe, he watched them disappear. Rodok ate the bat, bones and all, and for the first time in almost four decades, he felt hope.

Rodok was not about to waste the only opportunity he’d ever had to be free. And so he was patient. He spent the next year diligently working during the day, as before, but also now spent his nights honing his abilities. He’d practice on small animals and things when he could, and often on his fellow captives. Sneaking around the camp at night, Rodok was careful to heal only from those already very ill or injured; few watched the sickest slaves, and he hoped they'd the be least likely to notice. In that year, he brought back dozens of his fellows unknowingly from the edge of death, all while perfecting his own physical specimen as best he could.

While he practiced, he planned his escape. He’d ‘accidently’ cut himself, and when the guard came to check if he was alive or dead, he’d attack from the man, steal his uniform, heal himself, and escape. There weren’t many dwarfs in the guard force but there were a few on rotation. If he timed it right then the dwarf guard would almost certainly be the one inspecting his cell.

Eventually, it was time. He’d been tracking the guard schedules meticulously for two weeks, and he’d been right every day of the last five. Rodok snuck a sharp piece of rock back to his cell that night, and waited for the time to be right. When it was, he steeled himself, slit his wrist, and tossed the rock away into the dark before loudly crashing to the ground, his bleeding arm falling out of the bars.
Floating in and out of consciousness, Rodak heard the guard coming, heard the door open, felt a hand grab his, and then he cringed. It felt human. With his plan almost certainly blown, Rodok was faced with two choices: bleed out, or try his plan anyway. For some reason he chose life. Perhaps he was simply too cowardly, or perhaps he’d grown too stubbornly attached to life. Either way, as the guard’s hand squeezed his, he squeezed back, pulled himself up to his feet, and clocked the unsuspecting man with a massive uppercut. The guard let out a surprised grunt, then collapsed. Rodok stood, and poured energy into his arm. The wound closed immediately, healed. As he opened the cell he pulled the man in, stealing his too-big clothes and cuffing the sleeves and legs as necessary.

Rodok stepped out of his cell, and headed back the way the guards always went. He’d have to figure out his way out quickly, before anyone realized the guard was missing. He never got the chance. Above him, he heard a loud cackle before being bathed in light. Surprisingly, he heard a woman’s voice next “Well well well… It seems we’ve got a special one. How interesting...”

In a twist of fate, ultimately Rodok got his wish. Within a week, he’d been sold to a more exotic collector. As the slave galley he’d been travelling on was boarded by Knights, he learned that the suspicious-looking ship had passed just a bit too close to the main land. Brought ashore, Rodok suddenly, surprisingly, found himself free. And cold. And homeless. And hungry. Back where he’d started, except for one thing-- now he had the means to rise up. He managed to find work as a healer for a few years, getting back on his feet while getting used to being a free man, and committing to further enhancing his psionic talents.

After he'd accustomed to life on the outside, wanderlust started to set in. Years spent tending the wounds of adventurers passing through had reinforced the fact that Rodok didn't know much of the world. And for some reason, he felt confident enough in himself to hold his own. He promised himself that he'd convince the next adventuring party passing through to take him along, wherever they were going, and he did.

That said, his relative lack of experience has left him curious, and his ability to heal from most wounds has left him confident in his abilities. He's not quite reckless, but he has a different view of consequences, particularly bodily harm, than do most people. In recent adventures, he's expanded his body-magic to include shapeshifting, which always leaves him with a sense of wonder.

Rodok gets uncomfortable when he's not in control of his own actions, or when his options are limited. He values his freedom above anything else.