I don't think spending time with your kid counts as bad news.
Unless her mother's Rosemary.
You uh, do realize Rosemary wasn't the parent where the badness came from, right? :p
Search Posts
Good luck, everyone.
I would like to submit the idea of a human Magus who has come to Katapesh... to die. And to take as many Gnolls with him as he can before he goes. (Gnoll Killer campaign trait.) Silas Greystone was considered a wastrel most of his life. Certainly, he studied magic at one of the great colleges, but he never achieved anything worth mentioning with it. Yes, he spoke several languages, but he was no good as a diplomat. To his family, he was an embarrassment, an unambitious man with the potential for power, but none of the will and skill needed to put it to use. An armchair scholar, a dreamer... a nobody. When Silas voiced a modest desire to see the world, his family was happy to be rid of him and gave him a small sum of money so he could get as far away from them as possible. He knew it was so; he had suggested it to spare them the further embarrassment of his presence. During his first visit to Katapesh, Silas thought he might try and find some menial job where he couldn't cause too much trouble -- and then he met Valika in the market. The Varisian girl was also travelling, and to Silas' incredulous surprise, she actually seemed to like him for reasons he could not fathom. They decided to travel together and just see where the winds of fate would take them. Valika sealed the bargain with Silas' first real kiss from a woman, and he thought his feet would never touch the ground again. When the caravan they joined was attacked by Gnolls less than a day out of Katapesh, Silas' feet hit the ground hard. He tried to use his magic, tried to fight, but he was struck down. As he lay bleeding, he saw Valika leap to his defence with her dagger -- and he was witness to a Gnoll ripping out her throat and stuffing her corpse in a bag like a dead rabbit. The caravan guards managed to drive off the rest of the Gnoll pack and limp back to Katapesh, carrying the wounded Silas with them. He was shipped off back home, to his reluctant family -- who were astonished by the change in their 'lost' relation. As soon as his wounds were healed, Silas returned to his magical studies, but also started drilling himself in martial combat. Within a year, the soft-looking armchair scholar had become a hard-faced, dead-eyed man with a collection of battle spell and the callous of a swordsman on his hands. His family was just starting to think they could be proud of him when he announced that he was returning to Katapesh -- under his own power. Silas feels dead inside. The only love he ever knew was killed while defending him, and most likely stuffed into a Gnoll's cookpot. He could not save her. He has never been able to save anyone. His whole life feels like a bad joke to him, and he has returned to Katapesh not to redeem himself, but to end it. He disdains the idea of simply killing himself; at the very least, whoever or whatever ends his lifetime of regret will have to work for it. |