The Ten-Minute Background of Our Lady Wynowill, Ghaele of Winter's Touch, Queen of Minas Mesidii
Step 1: "Have courage, my love. This illness will pass, and you will be stronger for it. No need to exert yourself now...just rest, and let me take care of everything. I have it all well in hand."
1) Our Lady Wynowill is the second wife of Landril Goldenbow, hero of the Hundred Years' Chaos and member of the West Star Companions. Landril is the son of Emperor Nyroni Goldenbow, and thus he is heir to what is left of the empire of Avaleron. He rules the city of Minas Mesidii, an important trading center situated near a reliable gate to The World.
2) Sadly, Lord Goldenbow has fallen gravely ill with The Madness, so the duty of actually ruling the land falls to Lady Wynowill, who has proven to be an effective and capable, if cold and demanding, ruler.
3) Not much of Our Lady's past is well known. She appeared in Minas Mesidii just before the plague that took Landril's first wife and much of the ruling nobility struck, and quickly made a name for herself in the court. She captured Landril's eye, and the two were swiftly married (perhaps too swiftly, some mutter--though never where any may hear). She helped him weather several personal tragedies, such as the death of his only daughter at the hands of a savage bear (the poor dear's body was never recovered) and the growing Madness which has now struck his mind.
4) Lady Wynowill commands a force of The Wild Hunt, the eladrin peacekeeping forces. Her command has ensured stability in the region, and the Wild Hunt forces grow daily to protect the people from terrorism from vicious gnomes and treacherous changelings. One wonders why she may need such a large force for simple peacekeeping duties, but their effectiveness is not questioned by the wise.
5) Do not believe the lies and slander provided by enemies of the Empire. Our Lady Wynowill protects the eladrin people from the terrorism and disorder that followed during the collapse of Avaleron. She keeps the peace and secures safety for all eladrin to prosper. Aren't a few personal freedoms worth the price of security? Don't the vicious gnomes and treacherous changelings deserve the hash sentences and summary execution they receive at the Wild hunt's hands? Don't the warforged soldiers who guard Minas Mesidii's borders deserve the power to detain anyone they chose, for any reason? Or do you not trust the wisdom of Our Lady Wynowill, who certainly would never abuse her authority to strike at personal rivals or quash dissenting voices.
Step 2: "Do not trouble yourself over that. Soon, all will be made clear to you and your men."
1) Our Lady Wynowill is, in reality, an ambitious, power hungry megalomaniac, who plans to seize control of the whole empire of Avaleron. She was once a minor noble in Minas Mesidii, but she made a pact with a powerful entity known as The Queen of Air and Darkness, and gained enough magical power to make her ambitions a reality. She created a magical plague that wiped out her rivals among Landril's court and also slew his wife, then seduced Landril. Once in his good graces, she had his child slain (or thought she did) and then worked on a different version of the magical plague to cripple Landril's mental facilities and now rules in his stead. This is just the beginning, however. She is working on raising an army to invade Coralton, and from there she plans on using the resources to usurp Emperor Nyroni himself and become absolute ruler of Avaleron.
2) She is also a Shard of Jillian, and has a piece of the dead goddess's soul within her. This is the reason the Queen of Air and Darkness empowered her in the first place. She is also the great-grandmother of several half-elves, who also have Shards of their own (the pact that she made had this as one of the conditions). She doesn't know or care about the whereabouts of her half-human progeny, something that may become an issue for her later.
3) She is not aware that Landril's daughter is actually still alive. Si'ari, the servant she sent to make sure the child was disposed of, could not bear to kill the child, and so she sent her off into the forest instead. The child was found by Lady Leanna, one of Wynowill's rivals who escaped the plague and founded a grove in the World. Leanna recognized the child, and kept her safe from discovery.
4) Our Lady Wynowill is behind a great many ills in Coralton. She is the one who has corrupted the White Fox Society,which works to weaken the government of Coralton and keep it ripe for conquest. She has commissioned the creation of warforged soldiers through Soveliss Greensteel, in order to create a force of disposable shock troops when the invasion comes. She has dispatched small bands of The Wild Hunt into the World in order to hunt down and eradicate the changelings who have escaped the Feywild. She is a proponent of the great Eladrin breeding project, which manipulates the population of Coralton to create half-eladrin breeding stock which are meant to weed out The Madness from future generations. Her influence can thus be felt in the lives of almost every person in Coralton today.
1) Our Lady Wynowill commands a legion of The Wild Hunt, the military police force of Avaleron. Secretly, she also maintains contact with members of The White Fox Society, which act has her spies and saboteurs--or those members loyal to the Eladrin Courts, at any rate. The ones who have come to embody the stated ideals of the Society are creating a schism that could have epic repercussions.
2) Our Lady Wynowill employs Soveliss Greensteel as her court artificer. So far, she has managed to put up with his eccentricities while he fashions warforged soldiers for her.
3) Si'ari The Spring Cat is an elf who serves Lady Wynowill as the chief enforcer of her will. However, she has no love for Our Lady, and is beginning to strain at her leash. She could prove problematic if she were to turn against Our Lady, so Wynowill has had a magical scrying device implanted in her to ensure her compliance. Even this may not be enough in the end.
As I've mentioned before, I like to flesh out NPCs I've mentioned in passing. And I know I've mentioned Our Lady Wynowill quite a bit. Her story is long, and somewhat convoluted, and begins, like so many others, with a concept I wanted to try but never fully developed.
Our Lady Wynowill is unabashedly based of the Elfquest of the same name, down to the raven hair and cold, manpiulative and power-hungry demeanor. She began as a background element I devised for Lady Topaz's major secret, back when the first iteration of this campaign was getting off the ground.
The player of Lady Topaz had developed a character backstory that included a major hook: She didn't know who her real parents were, because she was found by Lady Leanna of "The Grove" when she was a child, and occasionally had nightmares about a figure named "Seary" who chased her. I decided to go the Snow White route. Si'ari was the huntsman who spared her life, while Wynowill was the wicked stepmother who wanted her dead. It made for a very interesting and memorable experience when Si'ari made her first appearance in game.
However, I had made a mistake. Our Lady Wynowill and her wicked plans were placed too far away from the local campaign area to really matter much in the grand scheme of things. So when I redesigned the campaign in preparation for 4th Edition, I decided to change that. Along the way, I made a few other decisions--This time around, Lady Wynowill was going to be one of the campaign's BBEGs.
This became easier to do by making Minas Mesidii closer geographically to St. Clarice, separated only by a thin planar barrier. Minas Mesidii was made into a major Eladrin enclave and a major point of contact between the Feywild and the World, so the danger she represents are more immediate and pressing.
She's also something of an experiment for me. Unlike Gerard LeVaine or Mai'ali Nightwound, Our Lady Wynowill is a more distant villain, working through more layers of minions. She gets to be the "Evil Overlord" type of villain, a bit like Gaston DuChamps but on a grander scale. Gerard is a villain who likes getting personally involved. He gets to be a known and immediate problem. Wynowill, in contrast, is a more traditional sort of evil overlord, who works her will in the campaign through her vast array of minions and agents. This allows me to have a lot of foreshadowing for her, and her actions affect more than one of the PCs.
And she's also an attempt at the sort of villain who has another villain pulling her strings--The Queen of Air and Darkness, who also should get a TMB at some point.
1. Eddie Farview is a human with tanned skin and hair made up of dozens of thin dreadlocks. He has a happy-go-lucky attitude and performs juggling tricks with small items when bored.
2. Eddie grew up amidst a traveling circus (Trumpet Circus), son of the lion tamer and a clown. He found acrobatics to his liking, and soon became skilled.
3. On a whim, Eddie taught himself a few lesser magic spells from the wizards' academy from a town the circus was visiting. He harnessed these to make the show more spectacular.
4. One day, Eddie noticed a rival circus (Manticore Circus) had came into town a few days after his circus had staked their tents. The rival circus quickly proved more popular and the Trumpet Circus was driven out of town.
5. This proved to be a pattern, and after several months of this, the Trumpet Circus disbanded and the players went their separate ways. Eddie wandered for several weeks, learning much from passers-by.
6. Returning to a town familiar to him, he noticed that the Manticore Circus had eerie goings-on about it. Suspicious, he decided to investigate. After multiple failed attempts, he decided the only way to uncover the corruption under the circus was to join an adventuring party and gather clues.
Step 2: "The only trickery I'll allow around the circus is that of the magicians."
1. The last time he tried to sneak into the Manticore Circus, he was captured and had a mysterious symbol tattooed on his shoulder. He hides it by wearing sleeves, fearing it might symbolize loyalty with the hated circus.
2. The symbol is used to exert mind control over Eddie when the ringmaster of the Manticore Circus decides the time is right. Around a quarter of the Trumpet Circus performers already have them and the ringmaster is trying for all of them.
Step 4: "When you travel around like I do, the friends you do keep are the strong ones."
1. Pylah Preston is a halfling acrobat. Eddie had a short relationship with her while in the Trumpet Circus, and they still keep in touch, sharing stories. Pylah currently works as a serving girl in a famous harbor tavern.
2. Peter MacGuffin is the head of the wizards' academy where Eddie first learned cantrips. He enjoyed his antics during exhibitions and field tests and continues to correspond with Eddie by mail. MacGuffin is an avid collector of wondrous items, possessing several dozen Bags of Holding alone.
3. Grax is a bugbear guard at the Manticore Circus. His appearance belying his sharp intuition, Grax foiled almost every one of Eddie's plans for infiltration by being in the right place at the right time–On purpose. Grax is a mysterious figure, and rumors within the circus claim that he's under mind control by a powerful wizard, has a scrying tool, or is even three bugbears taking shifts.
The Ten-Minute Background of Jillian The Queen of Air and Darkness
Step 1: "I am the wind that carries the sweet nothings from the mouths of lovers to their mates. I am the chill in the evening, when you realize that you are far from dawn. I am the ache you feel when you long for everything you feel you deserve. Embrace me, and I will show you how to be all these things, as well."
1) In the dark days, when the Seven ruled the world, there was an Eldar princess by the name of Syriia Amyra, who was a patron of art and beauty. She was considered to be the loveliest of all the fey. So it came to pass that she was courted by suitors. One of those suitors was Verkinx Kazrael, the Lord of the Fey and God of Emotions, in disguise. He cruelly enchanted Amyra, causing her to fall desperately in love with him, and then toyed with her emotions before revealing his true form, raping her, and then leaving. Amyra's heart was broken, but he had left behind another legacy--a child, whom was named Jillian.
2) The rape of Amyra became a point of contention and anger among the Eldar, and eventually led to the split of the Eldar into the elves, eladrin, and drow. Jillian herself grew up during this tumultuous time. She was loved by her mother, but also held at a distance, because she had a strangeness about her. Touched by Kazrael's madness and holding his divine blood in her veins, she had a strange power over secrets and desires, power which only increased as she grew. She showed her mother one of the paths to divinity, helping her become one of the Nine Heroes, but she would not help Amyra fight her father. Instead, she chose to remain aloof from the March of the Nine, providing aid only in the form of cryptic riddles and prophecies.
3) When the Seven were defeated, Jillian went her own way. She wandered the Three Worlds, having adventures and giving strange secrets to mortals in exchange for worship. She remained aloof from most godly affairs. She created the race of gnomes from smoke and shadows, and she created the race of halflings from a curious cat who wanted to know what it was like to be human.
4) And then the sky turned dark, and the moon ran red with blood, and the Dark Reaper manifested in the Three Worlds at the top of the world's tallest mountain. And he began to destroy all that stood before him. The lands of Jillian's creations stood right in his path, so Jillian took up a weapon and went to face him. But the Dark Reaper was too powerful for her to hinder, and he tore her soul into pieces and scattered them across the world before continuing on. Some tales say the pieces numbered 13, and some say 9, but all agree that the pieces were many and scattered far and wide.
5) But Jillian was a goddess, and thus immortal, and so her soul did not perish. Instead, the pieces entered the blood of her descendants among the eladrin, members of bloodlines formed when she dallied with the fey and then lost interest. Every so often, perhaps once a generation, a number of eladrin children were born bearing her likeness, as well as a piece of her soul. Legend says that if all the shards are brought together and the soul shards distilled, the Goddess can be reborn.
6) An eladrin immortal calling herself the Queen of Air and Darkness has appeared in the Shadowfell, claiming to be the reincarnation of Jillian Amyra. She grants magical powers to those who help her further her ends, and frequents both the World and the Feywild. Her goals are inscrutable, but she is keenly interested in reuniting the rest of the Shards.
Step 2: "Gather. Gather the shards, my dear, that I may bring them together in a glorious rebirth. And do not think it that easy to escape me, for we are bound. Even if you live all your life awake, my beautiful madness will claim you--in the end."
As for what she will do when she actually becomes a goddess...she plans to break open the lock of the Shrieking Hell and let her "father", the Mad God Verkinx Kazrael, free, to rule the universe as father and daughter.
Step 3: "And what sly tales are these, being told to naught but the wind and the darkness? Remember that someone, somewhere, may hear a careless word, even if it is spoken only by the mind to the heart."
1) The Queen of Air and Darkness was once an eladrin who bore a Shard of Jillian, who fell prey to The Madness. The Feywild warped her into an immortal spirit, but she fled into the Region of Dreams before it could anchor her to a Fairy Demesne. Drawing on the power of dreams, she unlocked many secrets, and then fled to the Shadowfell in order to escape the wrath of the Dreameaters. She lives there now, drawing on Shadow powers and strange Dream magics lost to most eladrin. Now she seeks the other Shards of Jillian in order to reunite them and draw upon their power, propelling herself into true Godhood. She has already merged with several shards, a process that has deepened her madness.
2) To help her draw the shards together, The Queen has launched an epic gambit. Using her power to send visions across the planes, she has coaxed several eladrin nobles, including Our Lady Wynowill, into forming half-eladrin bloodlines in The World, including several bloodlines bound to Jillian. She figures that this will accomplish two things: because the Shards manifest only once a generation, the shorter generations of half-elves compared to normal eladrin will allow the Shards to manifest much faster. Secondly, instead of appearing all over the world, the Shards will manifest in a specific geographic region, making the job of finding them within that generation much easier.
3)
Step 4: "And who is this, that stands before me? Friend? Nemesis? Lover? All of these in one? Oh, what games we shall play, you and I. What pleasures I will share with thee...and what pains will I inflict, just for jolly. Wouldn't you, were you me?"
1) Our Lady Wynowill, the queen of Minas Mesidii, swore a pact with The Queen. She has proven to be a most effective pawn in the World, and the Queen of Air and Darkness is most pleased by her progress.
2) Mai'ali Nightwound is a half-elf who bears a Shard of Jillian and made a pact with The Queen for power. But Mai'ali is damaged goods, and her insanity is as much a liability as an asset. Still, she has discovered (and trapped) one of the other Shards already, and is well on the way to discovering more, so The Queen tolerates her for now.
3) The Queen's major rival is the young goddess known as "The Smiling One," a former exarch of Vecna, who also bears a Shard of Jillian. The Smiling One is a goddess of secrets and illusions, and doesn't consider herself part of Jillian's bloodline anymore. She opposes The Queen's mad obsession to reunite the Shards, mainly because she fears she might lose the power she has gained by joining the Nine Heroes.
4) Rali Chloe-Andreas is a member of one of the Jillian Bloodlines, but she does not possess a Shard herself. Still, her connection to the bloodline makes her valuable to the Queen, as does her connection to Verkinx Kazrael, the Queen's "father".
Here she is, one of the ultimate villains of my campaign world. Like the Dark Reaper, she is the mover and shaker behind a wide range of plots. Being almost a Goddess, this is to be expected.
The Queen came about as a villainess that appeared late into the previous iteration of this campaign. I wanted to introduce Jillian, but Jillian was dead. How to get around this? Well, I hadn't firmly decided on who all the Shards were, having only introduced a bare few. So I decided to make one of them a very powerful, and no longer fully elven, being that actively believed she was the real Jillian and was working to bring the other shards together. She appeared too late in the campaign to be a major force, but she was memorable.
She was also a little more unaligned. When I revamped the campaign, I wanted her to still appear be somewhat ambiguous, but less good-seeming. It makes her seem a lot more dangerous.
Well, I finally decided against using Lord Viktor Van Tepes because I couldn't think of a good background for him. The replacement I thought of (gnoll ruthless ruffian) seems flat, so he doesn't get a TMB. As soon as I get the time: The Empire of Kael Rantir.
Resident Murderous Psychopath
Our works are short-lived. All we have achieved will be gone in a few thousand years. Our towers will crumble, our homes will rot, and all we strive for will be worthless if none assign it value, while our deeds are forgotten. Nature is eternal. Even if all Earth's life is destroyed, the stones will endure, and they too are part of the wilds. Our works are futile, but nature has always been and will always be.
Note: MASSIVE SPOILERS!! ASCENDANCE PLAYERS KEEP OUT!! Also, all quotes translated from Goblin unless otherwise specified.
For Karn and Empire!Traditional Kael Rantiran warcry. History: Spoiler:Show
1. Barely two centuries ago, a hobgoblin empire based on the city it was named for, Kael Rantir (City of Marble), controlled half the continent of Caronia, with colonies on Azhidar. It had a standing army of one hundred thousand hobgoblins, ten thousand bugbear shock-troops/covert ops, and uncounted thousands of goblin slave-warriors, along with orcish mercenaries. 2. The size of the army was also its downfall. Scouts reported a force flying the colors of the only real rival to the power of Kael Rantir, the human empire of Addo'rah, gathering in a large box canyon on the hobgoblin borders. Half of the goblinkin army went to the canyon under the legendary Hakarn Maluk, while the other half went to sack as much of Addo'rah as possible. 3. The front line of the Addo'rahn force was made up, not of humans, but of dwarves of the Battlebeard and Broadanvil clans, along with their elite force known as the Platinum Guard. From the second line to the fifth of the wedge were halberd-wielding human soldiers, and in the back were elven archers from the Tribes of the Hunting Hawk and The Swift Panther and halfling slingers. Two thousand wolfriders were shot down in the first charge, countless goblinkin fell to the dwarven shieldwall and the halberds from the humans behind the dwarves, and Maluk himself was cut down by the dwarf paladin (now theocrat) Eberk Battlebeard. After their victory in the week-long Battle of Red Canyon, the human force razed Kael Rantir, Kael Naman, and other goblinkin cities while the other races returned to their own lands. The Addo'rahn government, during that time, had fallen under the strain of the assault of the other half of the hobgoblin military. Both powerful nations fell, due to the strategic mistakes of the hobgoblins. Specifically: leaving your cities undefended and allowing your forces to be funneled into particularly tough, well-armored soldiers with warhammers and a low center of gravity. 4. Now, the hobgoblin cities are rebuilt, and they have a new ruler. However, this Karn is wiser, stronger, and more benevolent than the Karni of prior dynasties. 5. The new empire was rededicated to Erathis, the Muse of Civilization, as well as Bane, the Iron Fist and patron of the hobgoblin race. 6. The economy is based on slave labor. At the age of fifteen, every hobgoblin citizen receives a goblin slave, and can gain other goblin, bugbear, or criminal slaves through purchase or service to the Empire.
Ah, Bandos. I was just about to send for you. I have a task for you... Important Residents: Spoiler:Show
1. Karn Nekal is the first Karn in two hundred years. The Karnhame, his elite bodyguard, is a group made up of the strongest, toughest, boldest, and most loyal hobgoblins he could find. He's a very good leader, but getting bored with statecraft and warfare. He's starting to think that the empire has grown large enough, and that peace and trade would be of greater benefit to his people. 2. Hakarn Bandos Arkhad: The commander of the newest branch of the military (see State Secrets). Stubborn, burly, short, and not that bright, some say he's part dwarf. 3. Hakarn Karuk Chainsmaster: Karuk is more warlike than his Karn, more bloodthirsty than most hobgoblins (except his Hakarnhame, who are selected for brutality), and the primary reason for the continued war with the human city-state known as the Barony of Daan.
Send an ambassador to the Silver Citadel to set up a peace treaty and a trade agreement. Also, I'd be much obliged if you'd send a skyrider to ask Karuk why he hasn't pulled back yet.
(Temporary ceasefire) Dwarves/Elves: Karn Nekal is looking to begin cordial relations with the dwarves' mountain holds and the nomadic elven tribes. The dwarves receive his emissaries well; the savage, xenophobic tribes of elves, on the other hand, have difficulty overcoming their racial hatred of the goblinkin. (Open war) Human City-States: Goblinkin are warlike creatures, so while the more moderate among the goblin races want peace, most are happy with the war.
If you tell anyone about what you are about to see, you, everyone you tell, everyone they tell, and so on will be painfully executed on the spot. Understood?
(Known) 1. The military under Karuk has been "recruiting" (read: enslaving) earth giants for use as living artillery, while Bandos's branch (the Kael Rantiran Skyriders) have been hiring the Grey Dragons native to the Badlands for use as mounts. (Known to limited number of the population.) 2. Nekal was told this by the Oracle of Erathis while he consolidated his power: "The Rift is growing; the power of the Stones wanes. Soon it will burst, and the world shall be awash in blood." (Unknown) 2. The cult of Grazz't has been manipulating Karuk to try and destroy Kael Rantir from within. The Six-Fingered Cult convinced him to continue the war of expansion, despite orders from Nekal to pull back.
In the first campaign I ran, the party was fighting an orc horde called "The Dark Gauntlet" . These orcs turned out to be a less organized prototype for the hobgoblins of Kael Rantir. The orc horde became a recurring theme of mine throughout 3.5. By January 2007, I realized that hobgoblins (which I'd previously had as Hextorite slavers) fit that niche (world threat) even better, with a few tweaks. The more morally ambiguous parts came because I wanted to give a reason for the other common races to ally with the hobgoblins and the fact that, well, they're humanoids too, so a THEY'RE ALL PURE EVIL standpoint didn't make sense, as they're all individuals. The slavery part just felt right.
Resident Murderous Psychopath
Our works are short-lived. All we have achieved will be gone in a few thousand years. Our towers will crumble, our homes will rot, and all we strive for will be worthless if none assign it value, while our deeds are forgotten. Nature is eternal. Even if all Earth's life is destroyed, the stones will endure, and they too are part of the wilds. Our works are futile, but nature has always been and will always be.
I've made a lot of characters. And over the years the backgrounds got shorter and more compact. So this 10minute background set-up works very well. It still lists some personal details to give some flavour to the character.
But now...I feel uninspired for 1 specific character. Thus I'm hoping someone here could help a little.
The campaign begins in the Nentir Vale with some adjustments for the Forgotten Realms. From there we'll go to Shadowkeep -> converted Sons of Gruumsh -> converted Red Hand of Doom. All with adjustments to make it flow from one into another like an ongoing thread.
The character in question is a Warforged Wizard. It is inclined toward the female body and thus has made adjustments to its body to resemble that. It has a smaller body compared to the battle build warforged and is embedded with arcane crystals here and there. "She" will be introduced as an "overseer" of the fighter in the group. He committed some foul murders and is currently in jail. She is there to keep an eye on him to make sure he wont do it again and help him get back on his feet before he loses himself totally to vengeful wrath which is building up inside him.
She is in service to the justice system in the Nentir Vale and a re-Representative of the local Lord. The group can get quests through that direct connection...which is basically 1 of the possible starts towards Winterhaven/Shadowfell. So I assume there is some interest towards order and justice as well as intrigue towards the humanoid behaviour in communities.
That is it, but can't think of anything for the warforged which isn't overly cliche. So was hoping some help with more background of the forged one.
Well, to start with, you are a warforged in the Forgotten Realms. Warforged are far from common there...in fact, there was a Dragon article not to long ago on this very topic. So you might want to put some consideration into how your character, a sentient magical construct, came into being in the Realms in the first place.
The TMB is meant to be as much a helpful brainstorming aid as a background list. Start with the aspect of your character that most appeals to you, and then build from there. And don't be afraid of stereotype...archetypes are iconic for a reason.
You don't hear much about Warforged wizards, so the reason that she came to that path is something you should explore.
Couldn't find that article. Or is it for DI's, because that I do not have.
Hmm...let's see. Well then a obvious start would be that the Warforged that were created were employed into armies. However some sentient WF's grew into a different kind of mindset and "rebelled" and broke free. Some made secluded monastaries or settlements. Forgotten over time and turned to legend...including that some WF's found an old Forge and made it their own. Producing off-spring of their own so the speak.
All the other WF's were either destroyed or used as mere tools to be used for menial tasks of their owners. On rare occasions bought as bodyguards of prominent figures. WF's dwindled even further in numbers except for the few "slaves" and the rumors about a WF community hidden in the far corners of the Forgotten Realms.
Some people went to investigate these rumors, but none managed to find the Forge since it had been moved over time. Except for an Artificer whome was not allowed to leave the Forge alive. The WF's worried about the location being spread and wrongdoers coming to enslave them. So the Artificers intrigued by these free WF's and his own no-moral etiquette started researching and learning all he could about WF's. As the decades passed by he was capable of making a proto-type Arcane WF.
The 7th "generation" is when that proto-type became a mature fully working WF. XKB007285 was produced, smaller looking due to less plating but embedded with arcane gems. He learned a lot from his sentient brethern and of course a thing or two from the Artificer. At least until the human died of old age. This made him curious about the concept of life and death and wanted to learn more and to explore the world he had heard much about.
The WF roamed more and more outside the Forge into the natural surroundings. Interested by every living and breathing thing he came across. Curious, but careful. (cliche) A human woman from a nearby settlement wandered in the area as well to collect herbs and the likes. The WF never approached until after a few days. They eventually got talking and she gave him his name Xarba as a sign of friendship and that it is easier to remember and pronounce. He asked her a lot of questions and they talked a lot about many things of life.
Eventually he convinces his sentient brothers that it is ok for him to leave and explore the world. That their fear of him blabbering away the location of the Forge is nothing to worry about. He gets a parting gift, a hooded robe, from the woman he has met and starts roaming the world for a decade or three. Meeting a lot of people, learning more and more.
Xarba grows a deep personality over time. Seeing the marvels of the world, but also the taint in the shadows. He comes to the conclusion that balance is what everyone should strive for instead of extremes. He is also intrigued by the diverse personalities and habits of the living things.
Eventually he comes to Nentir Vale and decides to settle down. Starts to work for the local Lord as a part of the justice system. Wanting to bring balance and order where possible and give "universal" justice. Xarba assists in rehabilitating criminals so they can get back into society, philosophize with passing clerics/priests/scholars, improve upon his arcane art and assisting in weeding out pests and other tasks the local authorities have for him.
5 things from its past -produced at a hidden forge where has lived a long time with others like him and a human artificer -learned the basic arcane skills from the artificer -enjoyed the peace and quiet from the local forest with its soothing sounds from animals and crackling water - -
Goals - -
Describe at least 3 people that are related to Xarba via blood, romance, rivalry -The local authorities of Nentir Vale have started to respect Xarba over time as one of them. A valuable member of society that possesses a lot of people knowledge. -A local scholar which has become a good friend. -Some guy within the ranks of the guards dislikes warforged strongly and tries to undermine Xarba at every possible turn.
Describe at least 2 secrets…1 the DM adds. 1. The location of the Forge must be kept a secret at all times 2.
Any feedback possible? Just poured this out of a sleeve so it probably needs a lot of work.
Seems good. For goals, bringing perfect balance and justice seems like a good fit, and so does (cliche alert) complete arcane mastery to help with said goal idea. On the topic of wizards, the latest Ampersand's Summoning wizard build preview gave me a concept to work on.
Resident Murderous Psychopath
Our works are short-lived. All we have achieved will be gone in a few thousand years. Our towers will crumble, our homes will rot, and all we strive for will be worthless if none assign it value, while our deeds are forgotten. Nature is eternal. Even if all Earth's life is destroyed, the stones will endure, and they too are part of the wilds. Our works are futile, but nature has always been and will always be.
. These orcs turned out to be a less organized prototype for the hobgoblins of Kael Rantir. The orc horde became a recurring theme of mine throughout 3.5. By January 2007, I realized that hobgoblins (which I'd previously had as Hextorite slavers) fit that niche (world threat) even better, with a few tweaks.
