I will be finishing Mummy's Mask in the next couple of months and as I am currently on my winter vacation I am using some of my time to "get ahead" by planning out my next character. I have started working on the build here and I thought it would be best to share the backstory below.
I am going to a LN Cleric with a small gambling addiction.
I would love to have your feedback. I am always looking for more NPCs and Locations I can name drop.
Born in a run down shack in Bridgefront to two human parents; Bernthal and Revah. Barnes Russo’s early years was a life of squalor. Despite doing the best they could eventually the financial burden on Bernthal and Revah became too great so in an act of kindness they gave their only son to the Church of Abadar so that he would stand a better chance of making something with his life.
An upbringing in the Church of Abadar is highly structured but under the guidance of [INSERT NAME] Barnes began to flourish. As an acolyte Barnes observed many of the roles the Church undertook within the city but it was within the Department of Commerce where Barnes was most comfortable.
Once he came of age Barnes was freed from the daily regiment of observing and given his own responsibility. He became the auditor of roads and the outer hamlets. A job reserved solely for the rookies, one of long days on foot checking that the many roads and villages that fed Korvosa were up to code.
It was during these long days on road that Barnes realized that Abadar worked through him, and he does as commanded, even though he does not yet know why he was chosen to serve but, he must trust that his deity will guide his actions; having faith that if he works hard, things will go well.
And it was during those night stays in local taverns in Janderhoff and Kaer Maga while away from home Barnes discovered his love of card games. The games fixed rules, fixed outcomes, so that even though there is chance in an individual throw, there is a long term law of averages called to him, as did the opportunity to on occasion win a little extra money.
Time went on and Barnes continued to walk the roads until one day word reached him that someone calling themselves his brother was trying to reach him. Barnes had heard nothing of his family in over a decade, was not aware of having any siblings, all that he has was a vague memory of his parents crying as they gave him to the Church.
When work finally allowed time to be in the city Barnes finally got to meet Hoyle, the individual claiming to be his brother. Hoyle about seventeen years old told his story and how their parents managed to pull themselves out a bit from dire poverty, and how their father had passed away a few years earlier from dysentery.
Over the next few weeks the two got to meeting up more frequently and bonded over their shared love of playing cards but, as abruptly as he came into his life Barnes received a message to stay away. Concerned for the only family he has ever known he went knocking around the port but rather than find his brother he met a man who he would later find out was Gaedren Lamb who gave a similar warning to ‘Stay away!’
Work pulled him away but vowed to continue looking upon his return from the road but was instead met with armed guards and arrested for murder. A local fisherman provided a statement saying he had seen Barnes commit the atrocity but with the fact that Barnes had supposedly been on the road at this time sentencing wasn’t immediate. While in prison and in a world of despair, Barnes felt nothing but a play thing of the gods, and began to resent their remoteness.
Eventually it came to light that the fisherman had been intimidated into providing false witness and forced into planting the murder weapon by the actual murderer. Local Thugs took him out before he could officially recant his statement and prove complete innocence in all of this. The removal of the key witness was enough though to warrant Barnes’ release but by that time the damage had already been done.
Barnes was removed from the church and forced to find work elsewhere to survive and to continue looking for his brother. He started to earn coin in the only other way he knew, by playing the cards.