Ótryggr Grímsson's page

Rage StatsHuman Barbarian 6 | HP X/72 | AC 15 (Tch. 11, Ff. 16) | Fort +9, Ref +3, Will +4 | Init. +1, Perception + 8 | Rage Rounds: 10/16 | +3 to resist spells
Normal Stats Human Barbarian 6 | HP X/60 | AC 17 (Tch. 11, Ff. 16) | Fort +7, Ref +3, Will +2 | Init. +1, Perception + 8 | Rage Rounds: 8/16

Step 1: Write at least 5 concept elements that you feel are important to your image of the character.

a) Ótryggr Grímsson is a bear of a man, deep of chest and broad of shoulder, with forearms like logs and hands large enough to crush stone. His hair and beard are so dark as to have almost bluish tints, and his skin is weathered by a life spent on the unforgiving bluffs of his family farm.

b) There is something of the ocean to Ótryggr. For long days, even weeks, he can seem placid, deceptively mild. A faraway look in his eye and a polite mien as if his thoughts range beyond the horizon. But then something will trigger him, his brow will darken, his jaw tighten, and the ocean will erupt into ship-drowning storm.

c) He comes from a piss-poor farm, high up on the bluffs of Vastavikland. A shelf of turf on which his family keeps a herd of skinny goats, and a dozen strips of arable soil that wind like an insidious argument along the cliff faces. His life has always been one of brutal labor, fighting to stay just one step ahead of starvation.

d) As a youth he ran away from his farm to go viking. He was only eleven, but the ferocity in his heart made him spurn the land. On impulse he fled, and that night in the depths of a black balsam fir forest he was vouchsafed a vision. A bear arose before him, a spear plunged into its chest. It roared, opened its maw, and a bloody raven struggled out from between its jaws and flew free. The bear collapsed into the darkness, and when Ótryggr crept closer, he saw that it was months dead. He returned home and never told a soul.

e) Ótryggr believes himself a man with no future. He has never been able to envision a life beyond the age of twenty five summers. He once visited an oracle who claimed those years were dark. This terror fuels his fury, even as he knows that very fury could lead to his undoing.

Step 2: List at least 2 goals for the character. At least one of these goals should be one that the character has, while another should be one that you, as a player, want to see developed over the course of the game.

a) Ótryggr seeks to understand the vision he now believes was a warning to him. How he can release the raven of wisdom from his soul before his rage destroys him. To learn wisdom. Each time he feels close, his rage claims him, and he despairs.

b) Ótryggr will have to sink to the lowest depths before he can rebuild himself and find both faith and confidence in his own self worth.

Step 3: List at least 2 secrets about your character. One is a secret the character knows, one is a secret that involves him but that he is not actually aware of yet. This will help me in creating plots that center around your character. I will also be creating a third secret which you as a player will not be aware of, so expect some surprises!

a) At the age of fourteen he came upon an older boy attacking Skadi, the girl he loved. The older boy shoved Ótryggr away and laughed at him; Ótryggr flew into a rage and slew the boy with a branch, and when the girl sought to stop him from beating the corpse, he threw her off and she fell upon a rock and broke her head. Horrified, he dropped both bodies into a ravine. He almost killed himself thereafter by refusing to eat, until self-loathing drove him to abandon the farm to find death while raiding. It was then that he saw his vision.

b) Hagbarðrisn't aware that he was adopted by his family. He was found by his father in the woods - the same spot he had his vision - as a newborn, cradled in the arms of his dead mother. Her head was missing, and wolves circled her corpse but refused to come closer. His father, terrified, was about to run, when he saw two ravens descend and land on the branches above the corpse. Awed, he forced himself closer, and took the silent child home to raise as his own.

Step 4: Describe at least 3 people that are tied to the character. Two of them are friendly to the character, one is hostile.

a) His father, Grím Agnarrson. A wiry, lean, pensive man, Grím fears and loves his son in equal measure.

b) Arinbjörn, an old warrior who now resides in the largest town of Vastavikland. He recognized Ótryggr potential during a summer fair when Ótryggr was but sixteen, and offered to train him. Grim reluctantly agreed, and each summer Ótryggr would journey to the city and there serve Arinbjörn. It was this older warrior that eventually gifted him his greatax, connected Ótryggr with the Jarl of Halfstead, and arranged to send Ótryggr to help season the young warrior.

c) Hauk Arinbjornson, one of the Jarl's mercenaries. Upon Ótryggr's arrival, Hauk decided to pick on the warrior and was floored in the longhall before the other others. Hauk has nursed a violent grudge ever since.

Step 5: Describe at least 3 mannerisms, or quirks that your character has. They don't have to be elaborate, but they should provide some context and flavor.

a) Ótryggr is fond of singing an old dirge to himself, either around the campfire, or at dawn by the edge of the sea, or while wondering the forests at dusk. It's the same dirge, and speaks of the futility of striving.

b) After raging, Ótryggr spends an inordinate amount of time cleansing his weapons, and grows irate if he cannot do so.

c) When drunk, Ótryggr sinks into a contemplative melancholia from which little can rouse him.

Step 6: List one fear your character have and one fear that you have (if you are not comfortable with this, skip it).

a) Ótryggr fears himself. The beast that screams within his soul. The monster that led him to kill Skadi. He sees it as a fire that shall one day consume him and everything he loves.