I was so totally inspired by the character backgrounds that were created by the amazing artists of Dungeon magazine that I put quite a bit more effort into the character backgrounds for this adventure. I normally just give them a verbal background. But since this was going to be an epic, I wanted something a little more concrete that we would be able to reference periodically as well as give me the opportunity to pull a thread from it now and then. So I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed reading Tyrlandi, Aroval, Dram and the rest. If you have put your heart and soul into a character background, please post it so that we can continue to get ideas and continue to develop our vision of Diamond Lake. This represents the first of at least 4 characters.
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Gronk’s life began when his mother, Elana, was raped during an orc raid in an outlying town. She was 16 at the time. They busted into her parent’s home, threw her to the ground and quickly bound her arms and legs. Her last memory as an innocent child was being pressed to the ground with a knee crushing her head in such a configuration that it forced her to watch as her parents were butchered by the ravaging beasts. She was then presented as an offer of bounty to the great orc leader, Shendak Kou Aamon as a reward for their minor conquest. As Shendak unmounted her, he plunged an ornamental dagger deep into her chest and left her to die.
A traveling band of monks on their way to pay homage to a sister monastery heard word of the raid and made their way to the town only to find the place a blaze and in ruin. Everyone had been massacred… accept one. Elana was hanging on to life by a thread. The monks blessed her with their touch and then took her to the nearby town of Diamond Lake, where she was given refuge within the Twilight monastery. Eight months later her child was born. Unfortunately, the orcan code imbedded in the child’s DNA caused such a rapid growth that its size and birth weight caused a hemorrhaging rupture of Elana’s uterus of which her small body was unable to survive. Elana never had a chance to name her child and so the monks affectionately named him Gronk, which is roughly translated as ‘emissary’ from the orcan language.
Gronk has never been able to forget the fact that his birth resulted in the loss of his mother because during the emergency extraction from his mother’s womb, his leg was broken. This premature damage never fully healed and resulted in him developing with a noticeable limp.
Primarily due to the eternal war between the orcs and the humans, Gronk has been ostracized. Throughout his life, whenever Gronk ventured outside of the monastery, he was ridiculed and teased by people of all ages. So he ended up spending most of his time inside, assimilating the ways of the monk. One of the most powerful associations that Gronk felt towards the teachings was that he saw himself representing the ultimate testament on the balance between good and evil. Through the years, Gronk developed many father figures within the monastery but his closest advisory by far was Lucian. They spent a lot of time together discussing the future of monastery and Gronk’s place in it as well as the rest of the world. Over time, he soon became an honorary member.
In order to help support the monastery and give back in some way, he worked in the mines of Balabar Smenk and donated all of what he earned. The salary was but a pittance, which greatly disturbed Gronk since he wanted so much to provide a meaningful donation for all that the monastery had provided for him. The mines were the only place in Diamond Lake that would accept him, which was not uncommon for his kind. It was a place that could reap the fruits of his labor by throwing him to the depths of a cave and never having to look at his “sub-human” form. Everything has a purpose and he accepted his position graciously.
After years of monotony, Gronk stumbled upon a gang rape inside the cave. It appeared that the molestation was being lead by one of Balabar’s son and included 4 of his acquaintances. He ended up bringing down a flurry of blows on Balabar’s son and 3 of his comrades. Among the turmoil, both the rape victim and one of the accomplices that Gronk had spared fled the cave. The fleeing accomplice quickly returned with a band of guards to arrest him. Gronk willingly left with the guards, leaving behind a mass of twisted bodies.
Gronk was given double the maximum sentence allotted for 4 counts of aggravated assault (most likely due to the corruption of the legal system via bribery of some sort). Gronk accepted his sentence of 2 years incarceration for the brutal beatings without rebuttal. While in prison he himself was abused and beaten insatiately and luckily only ended up spending 3 months in jail. He was released only because the cells were filling up with much more dangerous criminals and they needed the room. Plus, his presence was causing too much of a disturbance in the warden’s eyes.
Upon his release, Gronk was not allowed to return to work at Balabar Smenk’s mine (or any others that were tied to him in any way), but due to his great strength and mining experience, he was quickly hired at a mine owned by one of Smenk’s competitors, Luzane Parrin.
Gronk was pleased with the change even though all the mines looked the same once you step into their bowels. The only difference was the people you ended up working with. Luckily for Gronk, he met a fellow miner by the name of Nadia. She was a beautiful maiden who was the first person outside of the monastery who treated him as an equal. They spent many weeks getting to know each other and discussing their past experiences while they slowly chipped away at the subterranean rock.
3 days ago, Nadia mentioned a grand adventure that would involve the plundering of a forgotten cairn, which could reward those involved with an endless bounty of treasure. She was gathering resources and felt that he would be of great aid. The thought of being able to present caravans of gold to the monastery brought him to the point of tears and he graciously accepted the challenge.
This morning, Nadia told Gronk that they would be meeting at the old abandoned mining office that is about an hours walk just northeast of town.
Nice :) I'll be posting 5 character backgrounds tomorrow. I'm planning on starting my first session saturday morning, so they'll have to be done by friday. Mine will be a little more brief because I'm writing them for my kids, and I don't think they have the patience to read more than a three quarters of a page or so. But hopefully I can include enough background to flesh out the characters interestingly, tie them to each other, tie some of them to a few npc's and the story arc in general, and tell them a little about Diamond Lake and the Cairn.