I've decided to appeal to the wisdom and creativity of the members of this messageboard for assistance in composing a background worthy of a memorable and extremely well role-played PC in my campaign. My brother is playing a Dwarven Ranger. Simple enough...except his favoured enemy is 'humans' and he occasionally behaves somewhat feral. We need a decent background for "Twigwhiskers". So far we've come up with this: A young dwarf, for reasons undecided, leaves Greysmere, becomes lost in the Mistmarsh, develops ranger like abilities while trying to survive the swamps, makes enemies with the human locals in and around the swamplands (if there are any...help from any Greyhawk players would be appreciated here), stumbles out of the swamps and eventually finds his way to Diamond Lake. Once there he meets another PC dwarf and is eventually convinced to join the party and meet in the abandoned house to head off to the Whispering Cairn.
We would greatly appreciate any assistance in fleshing out this background. I'd also love to hear other ideas as to how "Twigwhiskers" became a human-hating ranger. Thanks for any ideas/help...
There's an awful lot of bigots in Keoland.
Some towns there round up all spellcasters and try to pin
crimes on them.
Maybe his father was a cleric, was executed, then burned
under suspicion of undead infection.
One small event can sour you on all humans forever.
"Hi, I'm Goth Guru and I hate Living Greyhawk and Keoland."
(Shakes everyones hands.)
There's an awful lot of bigots in Keoland.
Some towns there round up all spellcasters and try to pin
crimes on them.
Maybe his father was a cleric, was executed, then burned
under suspicion of undead infection.
One small event can sour you on all humans forever.
"Hi, I'm Goth Guru and I hate Living Greyhawk and Keoland."
(Shakes everyones hands.)
Off the top of me very tired and flu-filled head, I came up with this pile of clichéd old pap. Feel free to use it, abuse it and disregard it completely! :)
Sorry in advance for not knowing much at all about Greyhawk. I'll try to make it as generic and easy to change as possible...
Twig Whiskers (he must have had a proper name before becoming ‘Twig Whiskers’, what is it?) was the only son of a brilliant dwarven miner called 'Sandrick' and once lived in an ill-fated dwarven community that was set up near Diamond Lake about thirty (or so) years ago.
(Remember dwarves have to be fifty years old to be adult so you will have to adjust the time line a little and maybe arrange things differently, unless you are playing him really young.)
Sandrick was a much respected architect and valuable member of the Brasshelm clan and had an important job making the support pillars/beams that held up the dwarven mines.
(Safety officer = true pillar of the community, lol-groan…)
The Dwarf community had come to the region in the hopes of building a nice new town and setting up a bright future for their children after a barbaric human tribe/warparty/evil cult/Ebon Triad sponsored baddies? Invaded/attacked their former home and killed almost everyone, including Twig Whiskers mother 'Keelga'
(DM should decide just why this event happened.)
Young Twig Whiskers already hated humans by this point, although his father was quick to point out that not all humans are so bad.
So after a hard days work down in the mines of their little new settlement the dwarves would stomp off to Diamond Lake and go drinking, finding out the local news, buying goods etc.
On many a night Twig Whiskers father would drink in the many alehouses/tavern of DL, since the death of his wife he had become depressed and used alcohol to fill the void he felt within him, (Geez, imagine just how much an alcoholic dwarf would have to drink!) soon the depressed dwarf came to the attention of a not-so-nice-guy.
One of the corrupt mine owners decided to use Twig Whisker's father as a tool against the dwarves and destroy their community as the stout folk were a threat to his power/biz/coffers!
Over the following months the corrupt mine owner 'spiked' Twig Whiskers fathers drink with Kalamanthis and other ‘harder’ drugs, eventually breaking down the poor dwarves already hurt soul (lost his wife) and turning Twig Whiskers father into a broken/junkie/dependant slave, the dwarf became a willing pawn for the promise of drugs etc. During this time the corrupt mine owner used his other ‘shadier contacts’ in Diamond Lake to chip away at the dwarves will with subtle magic’s and charms…
Then, when the time was right, the corrupt mine owner used some sort of magical power (maybe because the mine owner is also a cultist of the ET) to make Twig Whiskers father drop the roof of the dwarven mines on his very own kin!
The dwarven mine collapsed. Everyone in Twig Whisker's clan died, including his father and Twig Whiskers new it was those ‘stinkin-humans’ who caused it!
(He finds the drug on his dad’s corpse or something, then goes crazy but is trapped under piles of dirt!)
Over the course of the long days under all the dirt, Twig Whiskers mind goes pop and he changes, he 'sees' his fathers ghost in mad delirious visions telling him he has to get out of the rubble and avenge his clan (or some other cliché like that :))
During this time Twig also developed a fear of 'closed in spaces', and of 'getting buried alive'. Anyway, after days of lying under all the rocks he hears muffled voices from above, it's a human voice(maybe not human, heh, heh, heh…) gloating and laughing about what happened and how they stand to make mountains of coin from these events, and better yet that there’s no survivors, so no-one will ever know who engineered all this! (Much campy evil laughter!)
Lying there, utterly defeated, raped of everything and now starving to death, Twig Whiskers prays to whatever gods are listening to help him escape...
Salvation comes with the light of dawn piercing the darkness like a laser beam (or it’s Greyhawk/fantasy equivalent!) and the sound of some animal snuffling around and scraping at the loose dirt above him! Some of the dirt shifts and a rock budges enough for our (anti) hero to finally move!
Twig Whiskers (at last!) manages to squeeze free and soon escapes thanks to the lucky intervention of a large badger! (insert any creature you want into this ‘rescue’ that way Twig Whiskers can have an affinity with this certain beast or get it as his companion later).
Good job old Twig doesn’t realize the animal only wanted to chow of some of the dead stunties lying buried around the joint! ;)
Now free, Twig Whiskers crawls into the wilderness, deciding to stay away from civilization (and the humans of Diamond Lake) until he figures out what to do.
Over time he becomes an almost feral hermit, living as an animal, fighting tooth and nail for territory and eventually living in a strange sort of harmony with the local wildlife.
He feared (rightfully so) that the back-stabbing humans might kill him if they found out he survived the mass mine murder, being the only person who knows the truth about the terrible fate of his clan, he stayed alone until he felt strong enough to someday return to Diamond Lake and set all his wrongs right!
Now he is ready to uncover the murdering-evil-drug-pushing-human that killed his father and destroyed his life.
For role-playing a personality, maybe use a Clint Eastwood (from the westerns) type of personality, rarely speak and try to emote things with dangerous glares. Maybe have Twigwhiskers be loosely affiliated with one of the elves from the Bronzewood lodge? Maybe he took the name Twigwhiskers after defeating his first human bandit or poacher that attempted to kill some of the animals in his territory? He puts a new twig into his beard for every black-hearted human he slays, perhaps even dipping the twig into a bit of their blood? He wont tell his real name to anyone, and he’s saving it for the guy who murdered his clan?!
(Now if I was DM'ing and a player handed this in as a back-story I'd make Dourstone be the guy who arranged all this, just to be irony-tastic-spectaculicous.)
Awesome work R-type! Thanks a lot. I'll get Twig's player take a look at it. Here's a challenge: Can anyone out there one-up R-type's entry for the background of the infamous Twigwhiskers? Thanks again R-type and thanks in advance for anyone who adds to it or takes it in a totally new direction! (Maybe I should ask for backgrounds for more characters on here...)
So... and I am sure this is not the idea you are shooting for, but as an alternate I submit the following.
And again I will make this as generic as possible since i don;t realy know the history.
As of 3.5 having Human as a favored enemey don't mean that twigwisker has to hate humans. It just means that he has a long history of battling them. They are on to their tricks. So how about this instead...
Have him be a former scout for a clan that answered the call of his clan against the incursion of humans in a teritory under dispute. In breaking old treaties, neither side wanted it to come to blood, but both was too stuborn. Twigbeard first saw action in some of the early skirmishes. He stayed in the ranks through the whole war, and by the end he was well known for his ability to anticipate the human tatics and fight them.
After the war, he returned to his clan, but was restless. He took to the road to sell his unquie skills. He ran out of cash in Diamond lake, and considers it a pit stop on his way to bigger oportunities. Obviously there is lots of space here to flesh out a personality and other background as you see fit.
Another Option:
Depends upon timeline for your campaign, but maybe his pappy was your typical dwarven master crafter. When Iuz made his gambit during the Greyhawk Wars, maybe pappy was at Law's forge, or better yet, Stoink or someplace else in the Bandit Lands (known for arms dealing).
Dad gets whacked, young Twiggy is stranded in the Bandit Lands or Shield Lands, chased by human bandits, either of Iuz or independent, maybe even Alhaster (good tie in for later in AoW's w/ Prince Zeesh). Has to learn to survive. He's not in the mines or the caves. He hunts/fights/lives then finally hops a Rhennee barge to anywhere you want (whole different kind of human, those Rhennee) and there you have it. He's "home" again, like Greysmere, but now he doesn't fit. Too wild, to non-dwarfy, time to go adventure.
Hope it helps.