FWIW, his brother Verik Vancaskerkin appears in the first installment of the Crimson Throne AP, as a member of the Korvosan guard who turns out to be similarly luckless despite the best of intentions. Maybe Orik meets up with him and finds himself hooked into that little fiasco, too?
Orik and Verik's dad appears in Second Darkness. And HIS misfortune is directly related to Orik's little problems with a certain alchemist. ;)
I've seen several games decide to have Orik join the rangers at Fort Rannick. I think THAT would be the icing on the cake (in having him be a fourth survivor of the hillbilly ogrekin).
Orik and Verik's dad appears in Second Darkness. And HIS misfortune is directly related to Orik's little problems with a certain alchemist. ;)
I've seen several games decide to have Orik join the rangers at Fort Rannick. I think THAT would be the icing on the cake (in having him be a fourth survivor of the hillbilly ogrekin).
This is what I did. But they won't find Orik until they encounter Lucrecia. She's using him as a plaything, both sexually and just plain torture. I still haven't decided whether he's going to be totally brainwashed or not.
We should keep an eye out for further appearences by the Vancaskerkin family in future Paizo products ...
Poor bugger just got cut in twain by the Dwarf Barbarian's critical hit. Never even had a chance to get a word out. One moment, he was fine, little bit of damage, nothign serious, fight was just starting - then the next, 30-odd damage and splat.
Could have saved myself the bother of reading his background before the session, really, for all the good it did him...
Did not realize his family was in so many APs. He survived the first encounter with the party, and accompanied them to Fort Rannick. He died to the shocker lizards along with 1 PC, but they paid to raise dead him, so he's with the black arrows now.
It's pretty cool that his family keeps sowing up, my players will think it is funny, as we are running runelords now, and some of them also play in a crimson throne campaign.
If you like having Orik around, have him show up at the festival at the beginning of FotSG. He arrives in Sandpoint just in time to be kidnapped by stone giant raiders.
In the campaign I'm running, my PCs actually ended up taking the "backdoor" into the lower levels of Thistletop, bypassed entirely the first level and chased Lyrie (who was right at the bottom of the stairs) down into the second level. They never got to explore that level or meet Orik.
They ended up facing off against Nualia, Lyrie, Bruthazmus, and Tsuto (he escaped the Glassworks unharmed thanks to one of my players casting reduce person on Tsuto, making him nearly impossible to hit). Orik didn't hear the combat so he never joined in. After that battle and then running into the shadows in the crypt, they decided they would be better off returning to Sandpoint rather than risk any further danger, since they had all been STR drained down to near death by the shadows and were having a difficult enough time moving, let alone fighting. It was very nearly a TPK.
Anyway, back to Orik: since Nualia and Lyrie are dead, he has little reason left to stick around Thistletop. I think he's going to have to go off to Magnimar for the PCs to run into later, or perhaps become a member of the Black Arrows. I haven't yet decided if he's going to resent the party for sending him once again into unemployment.
IMC, the party let Orik go after relieving him of his weapons. He'd played the "just a mercenary and this gig has gone way past maximum weird" card. He spilled the beans on his employer and departed on pretty much neutral terms.
However the party had missed the harpy's dagger in the entrance hall so I figure Orik grabbed that on his way out by way of having something to defend himself AND some money to get by on.
He's headed to Sandpoint, since he kind of liked the place and his luck "in the big city" has been terrible. However, my plan is to have him periodically show up doing shady work for bad people (e.g. Jubrayl) because he's down on his luck. But he'll never really fight the party since they're the nearest thing he currently has to "friends".
Awesome to hear his family has showed up around the place. Sounds like there is enough evidence to support a kind of family curse :-)
Orik was captured in my game and went to trial in Magnimar. Before Jusice Ironbriar, of course. He was sentenced to life with the Black Arrows, and escorting him was my lead-in to book 3. Once there, he helped infiltrate the fort and stayed on, having a major change of heart/life altering moment when he sees what happens to Kaven Windstrike, a guy he easily could have wound up as. Now he's a proud member of the most recent generation of rangers as Fort Rannick.
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My party was able to convince Orik to turn over a new leaf, and he's currently the newest member of the Sandpoint Guard. Hemlock keeps a close eye on him, as the Sherriff doesn't completely trust him just yet.
I'm also currently running a trial scene for Lyrie, and one of the ways the PCs can get her convicted is to convince Orik to testify upon what he saw at Thistletop. This would have the side problem of bringing up Orik's past. If they want Orik to testify (and I've written things that they don't need to), they need to both convince him to talk and convince Justice Ironbriar to take pity upon him. If they do the first and not the second, then he gets sent back to Riddleport and dies a terrible death. If they do both, then he gets assigned to Fort Rannick, and his terrible luck continues.
In my game, the PCs are going to find him as one of four captives of the Graul Family. Yes, much as many others, I'm having him join the Black Arrows - though he did this of his own free will after the party let him flee Thistletop with his equipment. He'll probably have a level or two of Ranger, and was part of the ill-fated patrol. No doubt this will help throw a red herring into the mix (though it depends on perception checks of Kaven's tattoo) as Tongs at least is suspicious of Orik and wanted him dead (and his equipment distributed/sold).
I think you just made Orik epic. :)
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It is a rare pleasure as a GM when you can make an NPC so epic. I applaud you, sir (or madame, as the case may be).
In my campaign it was the little-known Mayor Shreed. I decided that as a cleric of Erastil, he would be willing to sacrifice himself to save the children and schoolteacher from the church flood. On seeing the tableau, my party's sorcerer just said, "Oh, hell no! He is NOT dying today!"
Leading to an epic confrontation with Black Magga where the sorcerer could not stop blowing through her SR with his fireballs, and (almost) single-handedly forced her to flee due to low HP. (Yeah, the Smiting Evil paladin filling her with arrows didn't help.) So every time they get to Sandpoint, they ask, "So can we replace Zantus with Shreed yet?"
I actually was thinking of having the party roll a perception check to notice Kibb is prowling around the barn, not the house. They already want to burn the house down. ;) The "finger food" really got to the normally-not-fire-happy cleric. ^^;; And the loot-happy Eldritch Knight is nearly at the "screw the loot, let's burn the place to the ground" mood as the player reviews movies (especially horror movies) and is genre-savvy. ;)
When you get down to it, Kibb should make a beeline for the barn. His sense of scent would let him realize his human is in the barn, not the house. Yet few GMs seem to think of this or at least describe it to their players.
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LOL. You made me go back and check my campaign journal. I made Kibb make a simple Perception check to find his master -- and he failed it three times in a row!
Hopeless cat!
The rogue in my part is currently on the run from a crime lord named Drago. I had him recognize Orik as someone who also worked for Drago at one point. Orik rolled a natural 20 to recognize the rogue, and called him by his actual name (not the moniker he introduced himself to the party by). The rogue then tried to kill him after he surrendered (failing miserably, and needing to get bailed out by the ranger). They ended up deciding that, since Orik was unconscious, they would tie him up with Bruthazmus and leave him while they dealt with Nualia.
They've kind of forgotten about him at present, with having to run back to Sandpoint to stop a second raid by the goblins, and chasing Nualia back into the Catacombs of Wrath.
I imagine, currently that he's going to wake up and kill Bruthazmus. After that, I think he'll head off towards Korvosa. I could easily have him picked up by the Graul family (further adding to the incredible bad luck of Mr. Vancaskerkin). Or I could have him make it to Korvosa and sell our not so lovable rogue out in order to get back into Drago's good graces. The rogue did try to kill him. Any thoughts?
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Send him to Magnimar. he'd be wasted in Korvosa if the PCs aren't going there any time soon. There's an open question of whether he's still working for Drago; given his luck, he might not be.
I actually had a player with a character with a background remarkably similar to Orik, bastard sword and board fighter on the run from something dumb he did in Riddleport. The group snuck up an Lyrie and the ninja knocked her out and tied her up, so they were able to negotiate with her to get information. When she mentioned Orik, I told the player he recognized the name as a merc he ran with in his younger days. At the confrontation, they made nice and Orik decided to meet up in Sandpoint. The ninja told him he'd want to stay at the Inn not owned by Ameiko, his childhood and current crush.
When they got back to town, Orik helped them on a few sidehooks that tied into personal stories. One game, the fighter couldn't make it, so Orik had left a note saying he had gotten Jax (the fighter) and himself a job escorting a Caravan. They actually robbed a caravan and he sold off all the goods and with his share, spent a week renting out the entire Pixie's Kitten.
He's going to end up in the Fighter's band of anti-Hellknight warriors.
Are you thinking of Davargo from Curse of the Crimson Throne or someone totally different named Drago?
It would be awesome to have different PC groups running in parallel (as mine are, as I kept a detailed timeline) and have Davargo mysteriously "vanish" in a sea of burning boats so the RotRL PC is free.
Seriously. If you've played CotCT, does anyone NOT burn Eel's End once they've explored it?
Drago was the name the person playing our rogue came up with. Neither of us has played Curse of the Crimson Throne, but now I will definitely have to research it.