Tex Powderblack's page

Skill Proficiencies: Athletics, Insight
Languages: Two of your choice
Equipment: A uniform in the style of your unit and indicative of your rank, a horn with which to summon help, a set of manacles, and a pouch containing 10 gp
FEATURE: Got My Eye On You
Your experience in enforcing the law, and dealing with lawbreakers, gives you a feel for local laws and criminals. You can easily find the local outpost of the watch or a similar organization, and just as easily pick out the dens of criminal activity in a community, although you're more likely to be welcome in the former locations rather than the latter.

"Once a criminal, always a criminal. Reckon scum don't change much."

Of course, war breaks even the strongest of men, and though stout, Tex was still young. Given orders to burn a small village to slow an advancing force, Tex disobeyed orders, and instead rallied and fortified the tiny village. Though they successfully repelled the invasion, Tex soon found himself court-martialed. Rather than face the shame of being placed on trial in Neverwinter and besmirching his family's name, he deserted instead. Welcomed into the small village of Hog's Peak, he served and protected them faithfully as their sheriff for seven years. He attended church every seventh day, learning about the teachings of Pelor, St. Cuthbert and his personal favorite, Heironeous. Every seventh day, he placed offerings to Heironeous, and prayed that he would be strong enough to guard Hog's Peak. In that time, the little boomtown flourished, its population near doubled, and the fighting didn't come near them again.

As the years came and went, and fighting danced back and forth across the plains and canyons, it happened that Hog's Peak again became a place of strategic importance. Knowing that the Sheriff of the town would rally his people again, and unable to afford wasting time while the town was sieged, Hemet Whiteblood sent a few of his troops in plainclothes to cause a ruckus, steal some of the town's meager coffers of copper, silver and gold (though mostly copper) and lead Sheriff Powderblack on a goosechase. Seven years to the day past the first time Tex refused to burn down Hog's Peak, Hemet Whiteblood did it for him. He returned from the mountains, two outlaws in tow along with the town's coffers, only to find his little boomtown burning.

Striding into town, his Powderblack Co. revolver in his hand, Tex already knew what he'd find--the people scattered, dead where they hadn't run, and soldiers patroling around, making sure there weren't survivors lurking around the outskirts. Hearing screaming and voices inside his church, Tex dived in, through the smoke, and in the shadows saw a raised gun. His own in his hand, he fired blind, only to see his wounded minister limp out of the smoke just as another bullet caught him in the lung. He turned to see Hemet Whiteblood tip his hat to him and shut the seminary door, before Texarkana Lee Powderblack fell and breathed his last on the lightning bolt altar of Heironeous.

There but for the grace of the Gods went everyone in that sleepy village, save Tex.

He rose and shook off the ashes a day later, with only a foggy recollection of the hours since Hemet shot him in the back. His only memory of his time bleeding on the altar was a golden glow around his hands, a peal of lightning, and the voice, he was sure, of Heironeous himself, though it sounded like his own. "Not today," said the voice. "Not today, Texarkana Lee Powderblack. You have work to do. Kindle the Light. Shelter the Light. Preserve Your Own Light, so that one day, you can Be the Light." He repeated it to the altar. He and that lightning bolt were the only things still standing in all of Hog's Peak.

It was a long walk back to Neverwinter, where he would let his family know he still lived. On the way, he counted everyone in his little vilage. Two-hundred, two-score and six, by his reckoning, and one he'd done in his own damn self. If he was to Kindle the Light, he'd have to put that many bodies of evil into the ground. If he was to Shelter the Light, he'd have to protect that many people. To Preserve His Own Light, he'd have to live life hard enough for all two-hundred-forty-six of them. And to Be the Light... Well, he wasn't rightly sure yet, but never firing blind again would probably be a good start.