Jon "Grishnak" Doe

Marching towards doom again, eating only hard tack and goblin?  Sure, why not?

Orcs have a pretty sad lot in life.  They're usually nasty, brutish creatures, pulled forth from the ether to act as cannon fodder for marauding bands of PCs looking for a quick gold fix.  Quick to anger, none too tough and just dangerous enough to be scary, Orcs get used a lot.  Most don't even get names, unless they are nasty bosses with names like Gutrender and Gorkus One-Eye.  Sure, they get detailed in some campaign settings and recent books (Eberron even tried some sort of peaceful nature-orcs), but one gets the feeling that for every fleshed-out orc with a back-story there is a ravening horde of green-skinned monsters, waiting to die for the chance at a lucky stab at a player character.  
     So here's the deal.  I have this orc here, and he needs a story:

Who am I again?

Where's he from?  Some cessspit under a gloomy mountain? The orcish zepplin fleet?  New York City?

What makes him tick?  Why does he get up in the morning?  Where'd he get that awesome belly band?

Write me a quick history of John Doe Orc here, and stick it in the comments.  I'll pick one and put him in my game and see if he gets killed.

Clockspittle Lock'Orange

     Last night my wife yelled something at me from another room which sounded like "Clockspittle Lock'Orange?"
     And I said "You mean the famous gnomish pirate?"
     She did not.  She meant something entirely ordinary like "Stop leaving the bathroom light on."  But then she wanted a bedtime story.   So here it is:

     Clockspittle Lock'Orange was born into a family of industrious gnomish tinkerers with blonde hair.  The Lock'Oranges had maintained the Grand Clock of Egorian for ten generations uninterrupted, and made their home in the clock itself. Clockspittle was a remarkable child, but only in the sense that he was neither  industrious nor blonde, the hallmarks of his family.  The Lock'Orange penchant for hard work was twisted in him into a sort of brilliant cunning, and Clockspittle has always valued cleverness over hard work.  At the age of ten he could be found running the streets of Egorian with local toughs, booby-trapping the city watchmen's barracks and removing parts from anything not chained down.  When his family asked him to leave the giant clock, he graciously complied, heading to sea on the next ship that left the docks.  It took him only a few months to fall in with a crew of pirates, and not much longer to ascend to captaincy.
     Captain Clockspittle Lock'Orange has become infamous for his unconventional tactics and unparalleled success.  Early successes landed Clockspittle a large pile of gold bullion, which he invested in refitting his ship and hiring a competent, loyal crew.  His ship, the Cotter Pin, is a marvel of modern technology --- among the first refits were an experimental steam turbine which runs twin paddle wheels on the side of the galleon, giving it extra speed and maneuverability.  Rigging and sails are controlled largely by clockwork servitors, freeing the crew for combat.  More recently, Clockspittle has had all the hatches and gun ports covered in oiled leather, and has installed an adjustable ballast system.  This allows the Cotter Pin to seal itself and sink beneath the waves, sitting just below the surface to ambush merchant ships.  The twin masts have been hollowed out like giant snorkels, and an elaborate mirrored periscope allows Captain Clockspittle to watch for prey from his underwater raider.  Many a ship has surrendered quickly after the Cotter Pin rose to the surface amidships, guns trained and ready.
     Clockspittle is a successful pirate, but also remarkably fair.  He accepts surrenders in exchange for three quarters of all coin and valuables on board a ship, and will often take hostage only the captain, treating him or her to lavish hospitality until a suitable port can be found as a drop-off point.  His men are all well armed with the most modern matchlock pistols and rifles, and can generally outgun merchantmen and escape fights they can't win.  Several nations of the Inner Sea have taken to hiring the Cotter Pin to harass the shipping of their enemies, either covertly or with privateer warrants.  Clockspittle has thus retained safe ports of call throughout the Inner Sea, though he is rumored to make berth on a secret island workshop near Mediogalti island.

The Cotter Pin explores a region of the Frozen Sea.

Wulgruf Banginhorst

A thick apron and stout gloves are
Wulgruf's best friends.  After the
Cockatrices, that is.

Wulgruf is a dwarf from the old and proud Banginhorst clan, hailing from the Five Kings Mountains.  A tall, stout dwarf with a luxurious beard and smile lines like deep canyons, Wulgruf lives in an isolated grove outside of the Isgeri capital of Elidir.  He makes his home in a giant petrified tree, long ago fallen and turned to stone in a titanic battle between the Cockatrice God and an elder druid.  An alchemist by trade, Wulgruf has filled his hollow log with shelves and benches covered in arcane ingredients and technologies used in the distillation of various potions and elixirs.  .  His life-long ambition is a realization of the Kimiya-yi sa'ādat or the Alchemy of Happiness.  Now semi-retired from adventuring, Wulgruf spends his time chronicling his travels and inventions in a collection of giant tomes of home-made parchment, brewing heirloom ales or tinkering with his antique velocipede or safety cycle.

     Wulgruf was raised by a diamond miner, though his father was tragically consumed by a bulette while he was still a youth.  Wulgruf travelled the Five Kings Mountains,  gathering obscure ice mushrooms and various kinds of magical moss.  He composed his magnum opus on the uses of cold weather plants in alchemical potions, and is now widely considered one of the world's foremost experts on the subject.  He soon left the dwarven capital of Highhelm to travel the world, documenting rare ingredients.  Wulgruf is most famous for his piece "The 7 Distillates of Cockatrice Blood and Their Uses" which required years of work with the dangerous and ill-tempered beasts that are its subject.  With several fingers partially petrified, Wulgruf is far from unscathed from his research, but he has developed quite a knack for cockatrice handling and now keeps several as pets.

This is one of Wulgruf's pets.  His name is Chuck.

     When not at home, Wulgruf spends his time expanding his library by combing through the back alley book shops of Elidir and Almas, before stopping in to the dark taverns and public houses to pick up new secrets of the trade and new methods of transmutation. He has sponsored several expeditions to Numeria to recover arcane technologies and ingredients, and will often purchase relics recovered from the wrecked magical vehicles of that land.  Wulgruf smokes an elaborate narcotic of his own concoction, blending the soporific leaves of Kyonin with the fluids that leak from Numerian ruins.  He is also a connoisseur of dwarven ale, and keeps a large number of kegs in his hollow tree, for what he calls his "thinking times."

He lives in a hollow log, but it is a BIG hollow log.

An antique velocipede, rescued from the Bin Men.
It is the only way to travel when pursuing protoscience

Mila Dragosani

This girl is prettier than I.  With fewer scars.

 Mila Dragosani's account of her life, given in a tavern in the city of Highhelm in Druma.:

    I was born somewhere in Isger, I think.  We traveled a lot then, and my mother was never quite sure.  Born in the back of a wagon to a family of Varisian wanderers, and raised the same.  Mom read fortunes and told stories for coin, and my father was a carpenter of no small skill, and put up half the barns in the River Kingdoms.  When I was old enough, I did simple chores and borrowed unattended objects to sell in the next town.  When I came of age, my mother took me out of camp and showed me the first of the secrets of Sivanah, who has been the secret mother of the Dragosanis for centuries. While my parents were wearing the roads of Avistan thin with their wagons, they were also gathering the mysteries of the 7th Veil, guarding our Goddess's secrets and spreading tales of illusion and wonder as gifts to our lady.    And now I was in the family business.

     All that came to an end one night in Isger.  We were camped out side of Elidir, in a little farming village, when the horde came.  They lurched out of the night, driven by their infernal masters, and fell on us like beasts. The bodies of dead farmers, dead milkmaids, and dead soldiers tore into us with cold claws and broken teeth.  They pulled my parents apart, as they killed the entire town in an evening.  The Isgeri necromancers walked behind them, animating the corpses of the slain to swell the ranks of their undead army.  I survived locked in a box of books, concealed in the wagon until the zombie mob moved on, watching though a chink in the chest.  When it was over, I killed the things that had become my parents, and swore my revenge.
     Yeah, I know --- poor little Varisian girl seeks vengeance.  It's the kind of story that ends with a body in a back alley, dying of blood loss and frustration.  But that's not me.  My parents taught me well --- how to blend in, disappear in plain sight.  How to wait.  Sivanah is not the Goddess of Direct Assault, after all.  I can bide my time, be patient, be thorough.  There are evils in the world to be put down, not just my personal evils.  I fight on my own terms.  But my enemies should make no mistake --- their doom will come to them.  It will come from the shadows, wrapped in fine paper, or as a silver bolt in the night.  But I will come for them.

My dad had a thing for mustaches, and awesome shoes. 

Y'cak Bloombright, Badger Handler

Y'cak Bloombright as a young girl.

 Y'cak Bloombright is a elven badger-handler who lives in the city of Absalom.  Y'cak was born in the Chelish colony of Sargava in 4602 AR.  Her parents were elven scholars and brightness-seekers who came to Sargava to work for the colonial government.  When the death of Aroden in 4606 shook Chelish power in Garund, Y'cak's parents sided with the natives in a failed revolt, and were killed by the devil dogs of Cheliax.  The infant Y'cak was smuggled to Absalom in a pickle barrel, where she was adopted by an aging human wizard with a fondness for pickles.  It is oft joked that her disposition was formed from her journey in the brine.

     Y'cak grew up in the market stalls of Absalom, selling her adopted father's mechanical birds, picking pockets and pretending to smoke pesh cigarettes.    She took a job waxing badger harnesses in order to woo a young man, and took to badger handling quickly.  Sadly, the young target of her affections was petrified after an unfortunate encounter with a cockatrice, but Y'cak stayed on at the badger handling shop, since she had been getting bored with him anyway.

Another satisfied customer
at the Fierce Stripe.

     Y'cak can generally be found in the yard of the Fierce Stripe, Absalom's premiere badger handling establishment.  There she trains badgers as guard animals and pets, and specializes in the crafting of fashionable badger saddle bags.  She is occasionally called on to remove a badger from a business or residence, since the harming of a badger is strictly against the law in Absalom.  She is a young elf with the grace of a well-strung puppet, with skin ruddy from the badger-yard.  Though tall boots and thick gloves work better for tricky badger extractions, Y'cak tends towards business attire, with a taste for scarves and shrugs from the markets of Katapesh and Jalmeray.  When she came of age, she got a magical animated tattoo of a badger, named Nina.  Usually on her shoulder, Nina sometimes wanders down her arms or on to her face.  She drinks fine Dwarven mead in small amounts, though after a bad day at the yard Y'cak has been known to over-indulge in Taldoran wines, which she thinks are fancy and has often found herself cleaning from her bed linens.  Though she has frequent suitors, she is holding out for a gnome, man or elven princeling who works outside of the animal handling and tack professions.    

Jesus, Galadriel, look at the size of that badger!  Run along and tell your mother to  call Y'cak!

Tokteh Icehammer

Friendship Stick.
We're friends, right?

Tokteh relates what he knows of his birth:

Like all of the Icehammers, my father Toktin was strong, but devoted more to crafts than hunting. He made good use of wood, stone, and hide, but was a master with bone. He made strong hammers, sharp harpoons, and beautiful ornaments.

It was one of the ornaments which caught the Walrus-god's eye. He had made a cloak-pin for a cousin which was especially fine work, four walruses in a circle with a miniature narwhal tusk for the pin. His cousin believed there was magic in the pin, but it was not enough from keeping him from being lost on one hunt.

Some time later, Toktin also got lost, stranded on an ice-floe when his canoe failed. On his third day, delirious and succumbing to the cold he was amazed to find a beautiful, dark-skinned, blue-haired gnome beside him, wearing a walrus-hide cloak fastened with his own pin. She told him she thought his bone-walruses were as beautiful as the creatures themselves, and she kept him warm for three days. She vanished just before my cousins found my father.

A year and a summer later, my father felt drawn to the shore. There was a walrus cow with two babies-one, my twin sister, a 100-pound walrus calf. She was jealous and wouldn't let me nurse. This isn't surprising since walrus twins are rare and there might not be enough milk for us both. I was a two-pound gnome, and my father found me wrapped warmly in a walrus cloak with the same pin. My mother kissed my father and me and then swam away with my sister, leaving me in his care.


From Timothy

Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wooooow.

Sunday Night Pathfinder

Maybe it'll be a little like this.  Plus, Norm will sell a lot of wheat.

     Now that we've managed to run five whole sessions, I am willing to say that my Sunday night gaming group has managed to start a Pathfinder campaign.  I am going to keep notes, stories and house rules here, as well as anything the players would like to write.  Bonus xp plus other goodies for character backgrounds, character journals, etc.  Updates entirely dependent on how badly I need to ignore my dissertation.


Dramatis Personae

Tokteh Icehammer is an ice gnome from the Land of the Linnorm Kings. From a tribe of feral gnome hunters who make a living on the freezing ice shelves of the Crown of the World, Tokteh traveled south to Absalom on a whaling ship to pursue his fortune.  He is rumored among his tribe to have been birthed by the Walrus God, and keeps to the ways of his tribe despite travels in the wider world.

Norm is a human gunslinger who learned his craft from a itinerant gunsmith from the Grand Duchy of Alkenstar.  He had a rough upbringing, and took to bounty hunting at an early age.  Now he travels the land with a small wagon and a bucket, looking for easy coin.  He has recently discovered a talent for candling eggs.

Hishomi is a halfing monk, a warrior of the Sheep to the Slaughter school who trained in the Monastery of the Seven Forms in Taldor.  Histomi took to the more physical aspects of his discipline, but can rarely calm his mind as well as his  instructors would like. He is deadly with his sling staff, and travels the world in search of a monster with jaws big enough to swallow him whole.

Vai grew up in the streets of Absalom, a elf from a distinguished family who fell in with the wrong crowd.  His boredom and money was enough to get him thoroughly addicted to pesh, which he smokes or chews daily.  Looking for something to break the monotony, Vai took work with  the Clockwork Syndicate as a low-level fence and operative, and has made quite a bit of coin as a rogue and tough in the city.

Trilliam Tal Nor is an itinerant elven wizard and arcane savant.  She studied the ways of the Red Evoker among elves in Kyonin and at the Arcanamirium in Absalom. Tired of life among scrolls and books, Trilliam took to the road with her trusted donkey to explore the Isle of Kortos.   Only a few days into her journey, she fell through a hole in a hillside, and into the company of a band of adventurers.  She has yet to look back.

Cecil the Sorcerer is a human blessed with th fire of the spheres.  Little is known of this mysterious traveler,  who can call the power of heaven to his blade.  He is often seen in the company of Valerious Half-Elven, a charming young woman of dubious repute.  The pair travel the world, searching for gold, good mead and a release from boredom.

Godric Gorm

Godric is a little Glum.

Despite my better judgement, I am running a Sunday night Pathfinder game.  I have naturally created a whole host of "supporting cast," including Mr. Gorm here.  I'm gonna post occasional characters, when I need a little fiction to break loose a dissertation jam.


Godric Gorm was born in the village of Grindletuk in the foothills of the Five Kings Mountains.  His father was a local hunter and bowyer, and Godric grew up in the wild.  His two older brothers migrated to the Dwarven holds in the mountains, but Godric took up his mother's faith in Gozreh, in his aspect as the Old Man of the Storm.  He made pilgrimages into the deep mountains and learned what he could from the Wild and local druids.  His brother Grandle, meanwhile, had joined the Pathfinder Society, where he became involved in the archiving of rare Dwarven maps.  When Grandle disappeared, Godric travelled to Absalom to discover what had become of his brother.

Godric is short, even for a dwarf, with a bushy brown beard, large mustache and weathered, leathery cheeks.  He is quiet and thoughtful, but he embraces his anger when it does rise, and thinks of himself as a slow-building storm.  He travels in a green cloak and dull brown, weathered mail, with shield and shortbow strapped to his back.   His waraxe is unadorned but kept sharp at his side.

Since joining the Pathfinders, Godric has served as a wilderness guide and scout for short expeditions by various Venture Captains, while trying to track down his brother.

Age of Conan

This is a character background that I wrote during a short stint when I thought that I would play the Age of Conan MMO, as part of my Robert Howard investigation.  This was a great game for the first 20 levels, then fell apart.  I enjoyed the attempt to write in a fast-twitch mechanic (buttons for individual swings of your weapon had to be linked together into powerful combos, as opposed to the WoW action buttons that activate abilities), but the game ultimately failed in terms of content, twitchiness, and a little less gory graphical awesomeness than promised.  I named the character Iranon, with the idea that like Lovecraft's character, he spent his time wandering in a (digital) dream.  Ultimately, my chicken scratch was just an experiment in envisioning a character that I could tell stories about in my own head. Here it is:

Iranon’s father was Wulfhern, a warrior of Clan Grannish, and his mother was a Vanir woman taken as a child from a raided village.  His mother was gifted with the Sight, and traveled often in her dreams, awaking to tell strange tales of distant lands, or screaming with the emptiness of the outer dark.  His father loved her despite her strange gift, and defended her from those in the village that thought her cursed.  When Wulfhern was killed in the battle of Vanaheim, Iranon became the brunt of many jokes, his eccentric mother and red hair marking him as an outsider.  When at age 13 he killed one of his tormenters with an axe handle, the aggression stopped.  His mother was eventually driven to madness by her visions, and he booked passage to the south, hearing that the leechcraft of Aquilonia could heal the madness that afflicted her.  The master of the caravan was a Stygian spy, however, and sold his passengers into slavery.  Iranon was parted with his mother and sold to the south, forced to ply the oars of a stygian galley for two years.   At the age of 16, he dove overboard during a storm, and washed ashore on the southern coast.  Half-mad with hunger, wandered inland barefoot and in tattered rags.  He was ambushed by a Pictish hunting party, and killed several with his bare hands before taking up their copper axes against them.  This assault in the dappled light of the southern jungle drove his mind from him, and for weeks and then months he lived like a beast in the mud, slipping forth in darkness to slay beast and man alike.  He adorned himself in the likeness of a Pict, and slayed mercilessly, howling like a night gaunt.  He fed on roots and raw flesh, and humanity was lost to him.  

One day, with a pictish arrow through his thigh and a party of angry warriors behind him, Iranon came upon the stone walls of a trader’s city on the southern coast. The sight of men and women dressed in clean clothing, standing tall in the sunlight jogged his memory, and the madness left him.  He limped in to the city and lay in an alley, where he was found by an old Cimmerian man.  Iwah the Traveler treated his wounds and drew the fever forth from his veins, and his memory returned to him.  He worked on the docks, learning of the wide world from the talk of sailors and merchantmen. During this time, his hatred of Stygian slave-takers grew, and he vowed to avenge his mother and his countrymen. 

After earning silver enough to book passage to his homeland, Iranon arrived friendless and cold in Conarch village after years in the south.  At home once again in the mountains and taverns of his childhood, he recalled his love of the Cimmerian wilds.   Haunted by strange dreams, Iranon wandered into the wilderness, and learned to live among beasts as a man, hewing logs into a shelter and skinning his prey for their leather.  Though the madness of the southern jungles has left him, he dreams often of Picts sliding through the darkness, and keeps a wolf-skin pouch full of Pict teeth round his neck.  As the son of both a warrior and a mystic, he strives to walk a middle path.  He works now to understand his dreams, and has vowed to use the fighting-madness honed in the darkness of the south against the enemies of his homeland.