So, it has come to my attention that I may have inadvertently
confused a number of people regarding Dungeons and Dragons. This was not my intention. As a result, I have decided to release my character memos so that you can fully understand who I was when I was
and what you shouldn't do (namely, magic). It will come as some
surprise to some, though not to the actual rogues, that I never, ever
played a rogue, ever ─ not even close. As comical as that may sound to
those in the know, I understand that also may have deceived some people.
I will release my character backgrounds in order, from my first to my last character, and I will include a briefing on each one:
1) Ezra Gram
(A half-elf druid, a poet, a philosopher of sorts... also a technical pacifist who refuses to harm any creature, even a ferocious goblin, so long as he has it in his power to avoid doing so. Pound possessed great understanding about biology, nature, animals, and the life sciences, but he was by almost no means a threatening figure.)
Official Background (declassified):
A wanderer from the Isle of Arenway, Ezra Gram, at the youthful age of 50, ventured forth from his humble collective farm in the heart of the Verduran forest, in search of adventure. On his mother's side, Gram descends from a knowledgeable line of elven druids, and his family taught him to understand and commune with the natural world. Ezra's father, a human cleric of Pharasma, spent his youth working alongside his coveted wife in the druid's bountiful grove, always maintaining a steadfast commitment to defend Arenway and its druids against any unnatural incursion. From his father, Ezra Gram inherited a devotion to The Lady of Graves as well as an iron contempt for the forces of the unnatural.
Ezra Gram values the natural wonders of Golarian, far and wide, more than any fame or fortune, though he has never been known to pass up the allure of a coin when necessary or expedient. Nature has always been an ally to him in his travels. He values its neutrality, inherent beauty, and purity.
**************************************************************************
The summer before last, Gram overheard the crew of a pirate vessel in the port of Merab discussing plans to sell a captured baby gorilla to the owner of a local plantation. The druid, an empathic friend of all animals, surreptitiously entered the pirate ship that night and found a poorly nourished and miserable baby ape. Appalled by the enslavement and mistreatment of this intelligent creature, Gram stole the baby animal and fled town before the pirates could discover his deed. He named the ape Georgia and has raised her into a youthful and dexterous companion.
Pirates stole Georgia from the Mwangi expanse when she was a baby in order to sell her into a life of mistreatment and toil on a big plantation near the port of Merab. Fortunately, she was rescued from this fate by her companion, the druid of Pharasma Ezra Gram.
2) Ashteroth
(A vile demon-spawn, also awkward, cowardly in the extreme, and a lover of comfortable amenities, leisure, and convenience whenever possible. Though he had formidable talents, this beast mostly just wanted to hang out at the tavern and converse. If he ever became injured, he would be the first to volunteer you to save him, especially when facing a challenging opponent. After all, he's too important.)
Official Background (declassified):
Teetering on the axis between ultimate Truth and the vilest insanity, Ashteroth ventured forth from his dilapidated shanty in the ghetto of an unnamed large city, where his religious insistence on the superiority of Virtue made him quite the oddball in a community dominated by the persecuted, thieves, and scoundrels. Were he more intelligent or perhaps simply not cultivated by fellow tieflings, the divine path of the cleric might have appeared the obvious choice to such a devoted individual. Yet, fate insisted on a different discipline for this curious demon-spawn. The divine beings, with their close-minded bigotry and foundation in utter self-deception and proud narcissism, refused to accept such a queer being as a potential ally. Their intolerance provided Ashteroth with all the proof he needed to conclude true Virtue had nothing at all to do with the deceitful gods or their petty grievances with his mischievous or downright sadistic forebears.
As a young tiefling, Ashteroth consoled himself in the sweet melodies of beautiful music, imagining himself, the rejected creation, as a role model for all the downtrodden and misunderstood, midst a beautiful crescendo of elegant rhythm in his mind. The young demon spawn developed a love for tales of fate and adventure, of heroes and fame. His persecution only served to engender the Truth in his soul. Ashteroth's unique disposition finally impressed Pharasma, who pitied the demon spawn his unfortunate misunderstanding among the gods. The Lady of Graves herself interfered with the natural order to provide this tiefling with magic, imbued into the music he played and the stories he recounted.
Ashteroth traveled from town to town, hearing gossip and spreading enchanted rumors. Everywhere he went and with every song he sang and every story he told, the place received the blessing of his Virtue and the favor of Pharasma, whose tears legitimized his vision. Unfortunately, the people never noticed. To them, as had always been, the tiefling was a curse, albeit one no one dared challenge, as his reputation among the ordinary folk benefitted from their growing attachment to his message, personality, and to the general improvement in conditions that his presence foretells. Ashteroth has always been a curious dichotomy in the public eye, an undeniable boon as well as the suspected material of all they had been conditioned by the gods to distaste. To the unaquainted, no matter how much they may come to love his reputation, his demon ancestry still bogs the bard's unadulterated gospel.
But what does he care? The psychic conflict he creates among the public only serves to fuel his fame, something that Ashteroth unquestionably loves. And given time, no opinion of him is outside of his reach to improve. So Ashteroth now seeks new adventures and new tales to fuel his magics and his literary legacy, hopefully for eons to come. His ancient Father would smile proudly on his scion's lust for fame. And Pharasma smiles, too, at the tiefling's vision and determination.
3) Elrond Hubbard
(My final character, a svelte forest gnome, Elrond had had his share of experiences by the time I wrote his bio. Tending drastically towards the likes of Pelor and Ilmater, this newly humbled creature was the last of my stabs at engaging directly with the fantasy genre. After Mr. Hubbard, shit simply became too real, and I was forced to resign him to the nearest monastery.)
Don't place faith in human beings; Human beings are unreliable things
Background:
The birds whispered Elrond's fate, before he ever left the womb. Buried deep in the burrows of his kin, Elrond was born into poverty. As a child, he became fixated with stories about the oath-sworn Paladins of humankind. His family could not discover how to communicate with him, to cause him to care about the things around him. Elrond only cared about the purity in his own mind. Eventually, the young gnome set off on his own path, one where no one could follow. He found an arch-illusionist's spellbook, and he cast a powerful spell of invisibility on himself. Afterwards, he left to explore the world in silence and reflection.
What he found confused him and displeased him. Whether he visited a human village, an orcish tribe, or an elfin city, everyone bickered among themselves. No one put the truth above their petty grievances. In such places, greed, pride, and even vile sorcery dominated the lands.
Finally, in the city of Luskan, a powerful mage discovered Elrond's presence. He expended many potent jewels to reveal this supposed master spy. And when he finally overcame the gnome's illusory cunning, what he discovered surprised him. The young monk was no spy at all, but only a wandering teacher with a dogmatic message.
Elrond had remained invisible for so long that he could not remember his surroundings to be more than dreams, and as dreams he treated them. He spoke of the great cities of men and elves as if they were nothing more than the stuff of tall tales, stories filled with intrigue, evil, deceit, and unending struggle. When the mage heard Elrond's tale, he laughed bitterly, for he learned the monk's dogmatic implication.
Elrond suggested that the mage cast a powerful spell, causing the whole world to be engulfed in a zone of truth. The mage responded that he found it ironic in all Elrond's travels he never dared to notice that the hearts of men were filled with evil, and that in the balance, such men describe the whole of mankind. The mage began casting a spell, and Elrond dashed away. He ran deep into the forest.
Meanwhile performing his first job for the Overland Merchant Guild, this newly christened monk's ship to Baldur's Gate crashed unexpectedly. Gathering himself and his freshly encountered elven friend Zalak, the two escaped its flotsam, narrowly averted swarming sharks, and made their way on a makeshift raft to a nearby island. Following the tracks of a recently deceased and chained lizardman, the pair scouted a tiefling chained by his neck.
Zalak and Elrond heroically defeated a monstrous bugbear who was holding the tiefling prisoner, the monk placing himself directly in the path of the ferocious beast. As the bugbear's blood flowed into the sand, the substance began to boil and hiss, whispering, "Today Elrond becomes the white monk." Elrond jumped back in fear as the sand consumed this blood, boiling it and vaporizing it, sending it far into the night sky. Elrond caught the last glimmer of its silvery ghost swimming as he gazed into the atmosphere. Everything looked so uncanny in the black and white of his dark vision. Elrond meditated that night. A mantra repeated itself in the background of his mind:
"Eagerly upon the 'morrow / Vainly I sought to borrow / From my book surcease from sorrow / Sorrow for the lost Lenore / Remembered here forevermore"
Trinket detail:
I picked up a tiny silver bell from the smoldering corpse of a decapitated vampire, and I put it in my pocket as a souvenir. It was the trademark token of a famous vampire slayer in Neverwinter.
**********************************************************
So, there you have it. I never played anything but a cleric of some kind, though definitely a foolish one, a cowardly story-teller, and a chastised and re-christened monk, obviously one who was as interested in meditative ascendance as he was in eternal mystery and also Ilmater. Since then, Elrond has learned much from his stay at the monastery, and he would like to determinedly and fervently warn you away from magic. There's nothing more precious than the truth. Farewell, and may Elrond's prayers remain with you.
I will release my character backgrounds in order, from my first to my last character, and I will include a briefing on each one:
1) Ezra Gram
(A half-elf druid, a poet, a philosopher of sorts... also a technical pacifist who refuses to harm any creature, even a ferocious goblin, so long as he has it in his power to avoid doing so. Pound possessed great understanding about biology, nature, animals, and the life sciences, but he was by almost no means a threatening figure.)
Official Background (declassified):
A wanderer from the Isle of Arenway, Ezra Gram, at the youthful age of 50, ventured forth from his humble collective farm in the heart of the Verduran forest, in search of adventure. On his mother's side, Gram descends from a knowledgeable line of elven druids, and his family taught him to understand and commune with the natural world. Ezra's father, a human cleric of Pharasma, spent his youth working alongside his coveted wife in the druid's bountiful grove, always maintaining a steadfast commitment to defend Arenway and its druids against any unnatural incursion. From his father, Ezra Gram inherited a devotion to The Lady of Graves as well as an iron contempt for the forces of the unnatural.
Ezra Gram values the natural wonders of Golarian, far and wide, more than any fame or fortune, though he has never been known to pass up the allure of a coin when necessary or expedient. Nature has always been an ally to him in his travels. He values its neutrality, inherent beauty, and purity.
**************************************************************************
The summer before last, Gram overheard the crew of a pirate vessel in the port of Merab discussing plans to sell a captured baby gorilla to the owner of a local plantation. The druid, an empathic friend of all animals, surreptitiously entered the pirate ship that night and found a poorly nourished and miserable baby ape. Appalled by the enslavement and mistreatment of this intelligent creature, Gram stole the baby animal and fled town before the pirates could discover his deed. He named the ape Georgia and has raised her into a youthful and dexterous companion.
Pirates stole Georgia from the Mwangi expanse when she was a baby in order to sell her into a life of mistreatment and toil on a big plantation near the port of Merab. Fortunately, she was rescued from this fate by her companion, the druid of Pharasma Ezra Gram.
2) Ashteroth
(A vile demon-spawn, also awkward, cowardly in the extreme, and a lover of comfortable amenities, leisure, and convenience whenever possible. Though he had formidable talents, this beast mostly just wanted to hang out at the tavern and converse. If he ever became injured, he would be the first to volunteer you to save him, especially when facing a challenging opponent. After all, he's too important.)
Official Background (declassified):
Teetering on the axis between ultimate Truth and the vilest insanity, Ashteroth ventured forth from his dilapidated shanty in the ghetto of an unnamed large city, where his religious insistence on the superiority of Virtue made him quite the oddball in a community dominated by the persecuted, thieves, and scoundrels. Were he more intelligent or perhaps simply not cultivated by fellow tieflings, the divine path of the cleric might have appeared the obvious choice to such a devoted individual. Yet, fate insisted on a different discipline for this curious demon-spawn. The divine beings, with their close-minded bigotry and foundation in utter self-deception and proud narcissism, refused to accept such a queer being as a potential ally. Their intolerance provided Ashteroth with all the proof he needed to conclude true Virtue had nothing at all to do with the deceitful gods or their petty grievances with his mischievous or downright sadistic forebears.
As a young tiefling, Ashteroth consoled himself in the sweet melodies of beautiful music, imagining himself, the rejected creation, as a role model for all the downtrodden and misunderstood, midst a beautiful crescendo of elegant rhythm in his mind. The young demon spawn developed a love for tales of fate and adventure, of heroes and fame. His persecution only served to engender the Truth in his soul. Ashteroth's unique disposition finally impressed Pharasma, who pitied the demon spawn his unfortunate misunderstanding among the gods. The Lady of Graves herself interfered with the natural order to provide this tiefling with magic, imbued into the music he played and the stories he recounted.
Ashteroth traveled from town to town, hearing gossip and spreading enchanted rumors. Everywhere he went and with every song he sang and every story he told, the place received the blessing of his Virtue and the favor of Pharasma, whose tears legitimized his vision. Unfortunately, the people never noticed. To them, as had always been, the tiefling was a curse, albeit one no one dared challenge, as his reputation among the ordinary folk benefitted from their growing attachment to his message, personality, and to the general improvement in conditions that his presence foretells. Ashteroth has always been a curious dichotomy in the public eye, an undeniable boon as well as the suspected material of all they had been conditioned by the gods to distaste. To the unaquainted, no matter how much they may come to love his reputation, his demon ancestry still bogs the bard's unadulterated gospel.
But what does he care? The psychic conflict he creates among the public only serves to fuel his fame, something that Ashteroth unquestionably loves. And given time, no opinion of him is outside of his reach to improve. So Ashteroth now seeks new adventures and new tales to fuel his magics and his literary legacy, hopefully for eons to come. His ancient Father would smile proudly on his scion's lust for fame. And Pharasma smiles, too, at the tiefling's vision and determination.
3) Elrond Hubbard
(My final character, a svelte forest gnome, Elrond had had his share of experiences by the time I wrote his bio. Tending drastically towards the likes of Pelor and Ilmater, this newly humbled creature was the last of my stabs at engaging directly with the fantasy genre. After Mr. Hubbard, shit simply became too real, and I was forced to resign him to the nearest monastery.)
Don't place faith in human beings; Human beings are unreliable things
Background:
The birds whispered Elrond's fate, before he ever left the womb. Buried deep in the burrows of his kin, Elrond was born into poverty. As a child, he became fixated with stories about the oath-sworn Paladins of humankind. His family could not discover how to communicate with him, to cause him to care about the things around him. Elrond only cared about the purity in his own mind. Eventually, the young gnome set off on his own path, one where no one could follow. He found an arch-illusionist's spellbook, and he cast a powerful spell of invisibility on himself. Afterwards, he left to explore the world in silence and reflection.
What he found confused him and displeased him. Whether he visited a human village, an orcish tribe, or an elfin city, everyone bickered among themselves. No one put the truth above their petty grievances. In such places, greed, pride, and even vile sorcery dominated the lands.
Finally, in the city of Luskan, a powerful mage discovered Elrond's presence. He expended many potent jewels to reveal this supposed master spy. And when he finally overcame the gnome's illusory cunning, what he discovered surprised him. The young monk was no spy at all, but only a wandering teacher with a dogmatic message.
Elrond had remained invisible for so long that he could not remember his surroundings to be more than dreams, and as dreams he treated them. He spoke of the great cities of men and elves as if they were nothing more than the stuff of tall tales, stories filled with intrigue, evil, deceit, and unending struggle. When the mage heard Elrond's tale, he laughed bitterly, for he learned the monk's dogmatic implication.
Elrond suggested that the mage cast a powerful spell, causing the whole world to be engulfed in a zone of truth. The mage responded that he found it ironic in all Elrond's travels he never dared to notice that the hearts of men were filled with evil, and that in the balance, such men describe the whole of mankind. The mage began casting a spell, and Elrond dashed away. He ran deep into the forest.
Meanwhile performing his first job for the Overland Merchant Guild, this newly christened monk's ship to Baldur's Gate crashed unexpectedly. Gathering himself and his freshly encountered elven friend Zalak, the two escaped its flotsam, narrowly averted swarming sharks, and made their way on a makeshift raft to a nearby island. Following the tracks of a recently deceased and chained lizardman, the pair scouted a tiefling chained by his neck.
Zalak and Elrond heroically defeated a monstrous bugbear who was holding the tiefling prisoner, the monk placing himself directly in the path of the ferocious beast. As the bugbear's blood flowed into the sand, the substance began to boil and hiss, whispering, "Today Elrond becomes the white monk." Elrond jumped back in fear as the sand consumed this blood, boiling it and vaporizing it, sending it far into the night sky. Elrond caught the last glimmer of its silvery ghost swimming as he gazed into the atmosphere. Everything looked so uncanny in the black and white of his dark vision. Elrond meditated that night. A mantra repeated itself in the background of his mind:
"Eagerly upon the 'morrow / Vainly I sought to borrow / From my book surcease from sorrow / Sorrow for the lost Lenore / Remembered here forevermore"
Trinket detail:
I picked up a tiny silver bell from the smoldering corpse of a decapitated vampire, and I put it in my pocket as a souvenir. It was the trademark token of a famous vampire slayer in Neverwinter.
**********************************************************
So, there you have it. I never played anything but a cleric of some kind, though definitely a foolish one, a cowardly story-teller, and a chastised and re-christened monk, obviously one who was as interested in meditative ascendance as he was in eternal mystery and also Ilmater. Since then, Elrond has learned much from his stay at the monastery, and he would like to determinedly and fervently warn you away from magic. There's nothing more precious than the truth. Farewell, and may Elrond's prayers remain with you.
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