Our saturday game is escaping the serpent kingdoms, since Ken has decided that the demands of work and pregnant wife are too much to allocate an adequate amount of time to game preparation.
I was torn on the decision of what to do next, since I’m not particularly enthusiastic about Dave’s “Monster Manual as Adventure Module” style of gameplay, yet I would like to play a character now and then. So I kept my mouth shut and committed to the role I said I would play had I to choose to play a new character: A sorcerer.
I tried to add a little flavor into this character, as I try with many of my characters. Often my background story is ignored, but I imagine that one day I will be rewarded with a good story for it (not loking for game bonuses as much as hooks in form my character), and that will make all prior effort worthwhile.
The character I chose is also unusual in that it’s female. I’m not one of those guys that goes around only playing female characters all the time even though I’ve never spent any time near one. But I had an idea for this character, and it demanded femininity, so there you go.
This character’s name is Renae. She was taken at birth by slavers and raised by slaves to do labor for their masters. Creative slavers don’t let magically adept slaves use their powers for escape, so when she presented abilities at the early age of 4, she was immediately taken to the cabal hierarch for re-education. The beatings were worse, the tortures more severe, and yet her masters took care to minimize on scarring for use in future skin trade, should her magic training fail. The penalties for disobedience or the slightest imperfection in performance were slow and unforgettable. Eventually, she shut her mind to fear and pain through the help of self-evolved meditation. Months became years of time forgotten.
The only other student slave died during their planned flight from the cabal compound. His arrival had rekindled her will, and through a cooperative effort of magic and determination to be free they made their escape. When the arrow pierced their magical protections and his body fell lifeless behind her, she felt it, but didn’t look back. In the woods beyond the camp, she collapsed in exhaustion, but she didn’t shed a tear. That part of her was broken.
With the familiarity of the cabal behind her, no matter how horrid, scrounging alone in the woods for months left her wild. Mentally separated from humanity, she felt an instinct take over. In a language unknown to humans, she called Rasu, an ink-black bird, from the forest. In her addled state she was not surprised when it spoke to her, telling her that he would see her to the safety of the nearby town of men.
More to come…
