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Hey all, here is the character soliloquy for one of my PC's, a tiefling bard/demonologist (possibly the most angsty, goth, "emo" character ever in our campaign... fun to ham it up, or to switch to heavy RP mode) Feedback is appreciated... (sorry about the long post.. I don't know how to put a spoiler button in...)


It was a miracle that I made it back from Thrane. Not surprising, given the theocrats’ convictions regarding the blessed nature of their land. I doubt they had this kind of miracle in mind, of course… but I should start at the beginning, instead of the middle (or the end, as it turned out).
     
My former life was as common a cliché as a man could conceive (a statement that is, itself, a cliché). Korth has more than its share of war orphans, and I am far from the only one who saw the Last War for what it was: a rich man’s war, but a poor man’s fight. I wasn’t about to go to the front to fight for the crown when my sister needed me at home. What “my sort” do is as important as any shining knight’s battlefield honors. The streets have hungers that cannot be satiated by propaganda posters. There will always be goods that need to be somewhere they aren’t allowed by the decrees of the rich and powerful. That is where men of my profession come into the picture. If we take our own –paltry!- share, who is to say we are any different than the wealthy relations of the noble houses, with their mercantile empires and fine mansions?  We all had a justification for walking the dodgy path, and that was mine.

I had all I knew to ask for; a way with words that got me past innumerable guards and borders, the respect of careful men, and the fear of violent ones. A smuggler’s fair winds and a thief’s cloudy skies were mine more often than not. To the street children and beggars of the poor quarters, I was the Lucky Devil of Korth… not too far from the truth, it turns out.

Lucky or not, it was only a matter of time before our beloved ruler’s dogs sniffed me out and grew tired of keeping me in prison until someone bailed me out. I was surprised at how generous their offer seemed to be. Work for the crown for a rate that was almost fair, and no more nights sleeping on prison cots? It seemed a godsend, and I have to admit I was taken with the romance of it all. No one is above the seductive lure of becoming a “hero,” especially if it lines your pockets with gold along the way!

Again, my luck fueled a string of successes that seemed never to end – guards slept whenever a creaky floor would have revealed my presence, Thrane clerics stumbled in their incantations searching for the goods I carried, and arrows that seemed to fly true fell short at the last moment. Eventually it caught up with me, and my handlers “requested” something more than casual smuggling. With the wealth they offered I  could have kept my sister in a lady’s fine home amongst the respectable merchants catering to Korth’s well-heeled nobility, perhaps even taken my place amongst the city’s dons. When they sweetened the deal – I could keep as much flametouched iron as was captured from the shipment – they had me.

Of course, things turned out very differently than planned. Little of the shipment survived, and I was in no position to carry any back with me. Two years in the clutches of the church inquisitors! Two years alone in the dark, a toy for the self-righteous fools to play out their fantasies of “saving” me… No feigned conversion of mine was sufficient to fool them, what I believed didn’t matter to them as much as what I was.

I prayed to Kol Korran to bring some mercantile, corrupt churchmen to me, someone who could be bought or bargained with! It wasn’t the Merchant’s Friend who answered me… The whispering in the darkness explained the heritage I bore, and the barriers I had erected within myself crumbled. The flamist inquisitors were in for a shock when they came to check on their plaything… The whisperer was as good as its word, even as Kol Korran failed me. The inquisitors fell by song and sword, and I suffocated each in the dark.

I wonder what Celia would think of her brother now? If I had escaped earlier, I might have known, and If the Thranes hadn’t vented their self-righteousness on the poor quarters of Korth, she would still be here.
   
All that remains is for the Lucky Devil to live up to his name, and one day I will.

Bored, Edy? Heheh...