 About Szacha the FiddlerSZACHA THE FIDDLER
DEFENSE
OFFENSE
SPELLCASTING
Spells Known (4+FC x lvl 0): Dancing Light, Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Read Magic, Spark (FC).
OTHER
EQUIPMENT Starting = 150 GP Spent 149.47 GP
Pouch, Belt (1 gp, 0.5 lb)
Backpack (2 gp, 2 lbs)
APPEARANCE
A red leather jerkin frames his broad shoulders, and long brown boots and brown trousers cover his long legs. He wears a light brown cravate around his neck to protect his voice from the cold wind, though he sometimes indulges in fine tobacco. His clear voice and fiddling carry through the streets of Trunau, and are known to all, especially militiamen, who smile and raise their head at the sound, their fingers itching for a spear and a fight. ASPIRATIONS and DESIRES
Underneath this is a slow burning desire for revenge, though he is clever enough to know that now is the time for survival, he secretly hopes that one day he will be a leader in the battle to push the Hold Line north of Trunau. Szacha often wonders about his family. He is not certain they all died, and doubt is ever with him when he looks at the Mindspin Mountains. He hopes they survived, but he feels guilty for it, for he can guess what kind of suffering surviving would bring. His violin is his only link with his family and the tragedy. He often wonders why his dad’s words meant. Finally, his encounter with a giant shook him profoundly, and focused his studies in that direction, collecting more tales of giants than other, especially about the giant Rezark. BACKGROUND
The road took them north, then east through the Mindspin Mountains, for Gabziella so wanted to see the fierce denizens of Trunau, and hoped to bring them joy, and perhaps hope, through the Gaczi’s performing arts. Szacha was twelve at the time, and he spent hours rapt in his mother’s stories of Trunau, the Hold of Belkzen, and in particular with the Hopeknife Festival and tradition. But the crossing of the Mindspin Pass proved disastrous. The weather and the orcs turned the Gaczi’s voyage into a nightmare. For weeks, family members fought a war of attrition. Family members were kidnapped or killed in night raids. Szacha heard the scream of his younger sister Karla, when the orcs took her one night. Then it was his older brother Falko, when he followed them in the night to rescue Karla… His mother was ill and his father was but a shred of a man. Yet, they were making progress, and the caravan, now down to three wagons, hoped to make it to Trunau. That’s when Szacha saw his first giant… The absolute might of it shook him as it scrambled down the rocks, impervious to the arrows and the stones of the survivors, roaring in cosmic defiance his war name: Rezark! Nothing could stop it. His father gave Szacha a horse and a canvas bag, saying: ”Run Szacha. Take this bag. It’s the sum of my sins, and the reason I brought death to our family. Run and don’t stop until Trunau!” Szacha remembers hearing mighty magic being unleashed behind him as he barrelled down the slope and into the plains of the Hold of Belkzen. For two days he rode, until he was picked up by a patrol and back to Trunau. In the bag was nothing but a violin… Szacha made a living first as a fiddler, his violin bringing tears of joy or sadness in the city’s gathering. As he grew older, he was presented with his own hopeknife, and asked to make the Standing Vow and join the militia, alongside Patrol Captains Kurst and Rodrik Grath, the same men whom saved his life ten years ago! A DISCUSSION WITH SZACHA ”Come and sit by the fire, stranger, and thanks for the drink. Trunau is my home, and the militia my family. Death and Despair are my father and mother. They brought me here through the Mindspin Pass, and took all my family with them.” offer Szacha as he extends his long legs on a stool and lights a pipe. His gaze trails up the mantle as memories wash over him. He turns to look at you, pain now replaced by fire: ”But Death and Despair have a name: Orcs! And Giants!” he says, the words spit with hatred, ”This is the Hold, and we are in ‘Manhome.’ We are not welcome. And we don’t give a damn! We will stay and stand. True to Trunau! Until the Line is pushed once more north.” He relaxes a bit and takes a sip of beer: ”Nice warm beer. Thanks stranger. Here is to your health! May the Horde never catch you alive! Now where was I? Yes, you might have heard my fiddle as you rode in. It drives the Orcs crazy! They often beat their drums in defiance, and I’m happy to turn the tune on them! I am from Varisia, and music flows in my vein. I lost my family when crossing the Pass, all 25 of them… I was but a kid at the time. Made me grow fast. Too fast…” His eyes stare through the window, at the cloudy peaks of Mindspin, black against the red sky of dusk. He breathes in from his pipe and turns back to you, summoning his ever-disarming smile: ”But skalds don’t tell their stories. They collect and tell the tales of strangers. So tell me, stranger, what brought you to the end of the world?” |
