Campaign #2: Player Characters

All levels indicated are those the characters ended the campaign at: those in brackets are the character's starting levels.

Aeren is a tall, gaunt individual who wears black plate mail with a white surcoat, painted with only a black circle - representing his goddess, the Hooded Mistress, Death herself. Aeren was partial to wielding a scythe in combat, although once Death presented him with a bastard sword designed for his personal use called Crusader, he was rarely parted from the blade.

Akasha was a very young elf with a slight mental handicap and unusual looks. Her hair and eyes were silvery and, unlike most adventurers, she tended to look bad in her armour. This is because she wore her studded leathers over her dress and carried her equipment in a basket rather than a backpack. She was followed everywhere by her pet cooshee, Lambeta.

The party never actually knew her real name as she told them her name was Arianne (5) - she was advised to do this by her friend Reed (who starred in our short-lived 'Evil' campaign, where we were the true Diet Coke ™ of evil, if there ever was one). Anyway, Akasha / Arianne had met Aeren on the road and followed him as far as Dervish Town, where they encountered the party. She never really understood what was going on around her as fully as the others, but she had a contribution to make. Sadly, she was killed by soldiers when the party were teleported across space to the Blasted Lands.

The first thing to say about Allundi is that he is a centaur. I suppose the second is that many people call him Marvin the Horse because they are, well, his friends. Physically, Allundi had a strong human upper body with silvery shoulder-length hair, while his horsey half was that of a strawberry roan. He had a certain simple charm to him, despite his natural light-fingered tendencies. One of his favourite pastimes was to play his lyre and tell stories to children while the others were in the pub. Being 9 feet tall, Allundi had problems with buildings.

Angor was usually called Super Dwarf because he was so damned hard! He had amazing stats and huge quantities of hit points - to the low-level adventurers he seemed unkillable. He wore splint mail armour that he never removed and he carried a nasty short sword and shield. He rode a dwarven war pony called Giffy who was much harder than most adventurers and indeed saved Angor's life once when he was assaulted by four bandits.

arkh-Shamier'yv was a very unusual character, both in race and attitude and with regard to the game mechanics. He was half Eleurian, half Ashaba - or half angel, half daemon - a race that he called Eleshai. He was a pretty messed up fellow, being torn between the two halves of his psyche. His mother was an Eleurian, raped by his daemonic father, and he was raised to war, but he grew to hate the violence and avoid it at all costs. He is immortal: unable to die from old age or disease, and was asleep for about 10,000 years, since the Great War.

In appearance, Archie (as most people found it easier to call him) is tall and with elf-like features, although he is broader and more muscular than the average elf. He has very intense dark eyes, which he keeps shadowed by his jaw-length hair. He wears a long grey trench-coat and appears to bear no weapons, although he is capable of pulling a shimmering claymore from thin air and, in fact, he can fly on a pair of ethereal wings that not everyone can see.

Barnabus and Izzabella are two people who inhabit the same body but have different appearances. Barnabus is 5'9" with short sandy brown hair and purple eyes with a blue-tint to the white part. He is a mage by profession and likes to wear either the clothes appropriate to that vocation, or normal clothing. Izzabella, on the other hand, is the same height but has long red-brown hair and very blue eyes. They both look in their early twenties, although there is an elven maturity about them, belying their apparent age.

Their existence is something of a mystery to scholars, but nothing of a mystery to them: they came into being when their pregnant mother, near to giving birth, was caught up in a surge of malignant wild magic that killed both the parents and produced a single child with the consciousness and bodies of two different people. They are brother and sister - one and yet two. Barnabus is a mage but Izzabella is a spellfirest - an antimage - one who is born with an innate resistance to magic and an ability to absorb and wield it.

They are different in personality: Barnabus is quiet and studious; intelligent but not vocal with it. Izzabella, however, is a bit of a wild child, loving attention and fun. One of the things they do have in common is their love for the same woman, an elf named Calithralia, whom they were forced to leave in their past when her family commitments overcame her. They hope one day to find her again, however, and have a daughter with her already.

Barnabus joined the party in Vortis City, where they competed in the Trial of Champions and won, although it was some time before they found out about Izzabella's existence. The pair were instrumental in the death of Inisrya and her companions, and afterwards returned to Dervish Town to establish the Academy with Gomez, Tal and Zane.

Izzabella's Stats: STR 10, DEX 16, CON 15, INT 16, WIS 9, CHA 13, COM 14.

Barnabus' Stats: STR 11, DEX 16, CON 15, INT 16, WIS 9, CHA 13, COM 13.

Ethan was from Faerun - an Elven wild mage sorcerer of the Forgotten Realms whose experiments into teleportation caused an accidental rift in space and he was consequently forced to hop from planet to planet in a quest to return home. His portal opened in the Dervish town square while the party were conversing, and the unusualness of his arrival drew them straight to him. Before the pleasantries had been dispensed with, Ethan had already pledged himself to their cause.

He was a fiery sort, with passion in his veins and a need to help the unfortunate running through him. He joined the party in their quest to kill the red dragon, and hence got caught up with them when they were sent to the Blasted Lands and across space in a quest to return home. Sadly, he died on that journey. Once the party were captured by the Dark Eldar ™, Ethan saw it as his duty to kill as many as he could. When their arena appeared to have him beaten, Ethan absorbed as much magic as he could, detonating in a huge explosion that rocked the ship and enabled his friends to escape. His suicide saved everyone else.

 Stats: STR 10, DEX 16, CON 12, INT 17, WIS 8, CHA 13, COM 14.

Frayer was the only child of the Hal'Baird family - blacksmiths who lived in the town of Craje. Frayer had always wanted to be an adventurer, so she joined the party on their return from Chunn. She was a valuable member of the group, bringing both her sword skill and her ability to amaze and confound. Like once she decided to try wielding two longswords at the same time whilst on her horse... this resulted in a bit of ear-chopping for the poor horse and much amusement for the group. She also was a bit picky with her men, allowing them to be with her but only on her terms.

She liked to wear chainmail over black leather (in retrospect she resembled Xena quite accurately) and she had long black hair. She brought a certain hard justice and sanity with her to the group, and was very instrumental in the death of Cimosco, striking the killing blow, to be precise. Afterwards she returned to her home town of Craje, but even that was not peaceful. She and Kaer had a little... liaison, that resulted in a pregnancy, but Frayer also shacked up with a young lord by the name of Corman Melthiss, but his intentions were not exactly honourable. As a result of his visit to Craje, the town was attacked by an army, led by the daemon Inisrya. Frayer and her family escaped in time, but our heroine was determined to exact revenge for the havoc wreaked. She hooked up with Sarah, Sisski and Angor and they chased the army across the continent, picking up Morwen along the way, but ultimately Frayer became too heavily pregnant and was forced to return home to have her baby.

The child was a son, whom she named Marcus. Frayer's story continues in Campaign #3, about 18 years after her child is born.

Dark Jedi was once renowned for referring to Frayer as a 'psycho hose beast'. I believe he was not alone in this sentiment...

Stats: STR 15, DEX 14, CON 13, INT 11, WIS 11, CHA 13, COM 14.

If you asked Gomez about himself, he would have told you that Gomez is green. This is because he is. He stands just about 5' tall if he doesn't stoop, and dresses a little like a war correspondent, but without shoes. He loved the quarterstaff that belonged to his father, and when Corman took it out of his hands and Inisrya sent him hurtling across the world, a chain of events started that were like the irresistible force of myth.

Gomez's mother was human, and his real father was a tasloi. Not that Gomez knew that last part until he was nearly thirty, but there you have it. Many people mistook him for a half-goblin or similar, and such accusations would send him into fits of rage. He was a coward, but a coward with astonishing mental powers that gave him a certain survivability. People hated him and feared him - this prejudice was something he grew up with and found hard to deal with. He lived with his mother until she died, when he was 17, and then he left home, determined to take some revenge on the green-skins that had made his life hard. He had some cunning plans for exacting this revenge, and during one of his excursions he met our friends Corman and Inisrya.

Gomez found working with the party hard, especially since they had a habit of leaving him to be a spokesperson and organiser for the group. His years as an outcast had left him mentally scarred - paranoid and with a tendency to voice his every thought in a constant muttering. Still, his determination to get his father's staff back (it actually belonged to his mother's husband) took him aboard the Ship that Sails on Land and Sea and across the world to the Halfling Dales. There he faced down fear, died at the hands of the daemon and was resurrected by the gods, before taking his laser gun to Quistin's chest, thus ending his former friend (Gomez and Quistin never got along anyway).

During the Trial of Champions, he met a gorgeous lady called Peace, to whose affections he abandoned his proverbial cherry. Upon returning from the final conflict, she revealed that she was pregnant, and the two of them moved to Dervish Town, where they were wed. At the close of Campaign #2 they were expecting the arrival of a baby boy - and praying to Mervis that it wasn't the Firstborn Son the Earth Elementals had demanded in payment for the Ship...

Stats: STR 9, DEX 16, CON 18, INT 12, WIS 18, CHA 11, COM 9.

Jason is a half-drow: the result of a drow raping his mother during a raid. Somehow she survived the attack - probably due to her mage skills and her Dwarven friends. Either way, when her baby was born, she named him after a family friend and tried to raise him as normally as possible, but he was always an outcast. His home was close to the mountains and so he made a great deal of friends among the Dwarves there, but although his mother taught him magic, he had light fingers and enjoyed stealing because he didn't have to meet people.

Physically, Jason is 5'7", with a slim build and good looks. His skin and hair are grey, but his eyes are bright green, with other colours and shades through them. He was captured by the Drow and enslaved in their mines, but when the raiding party to the crashed space ship were slain by the party, Jason was freed. He had a vein of goodness and loyalty running through him, although he enjoyed being sneaky and crafty. Certainly his enemies had a great deal to fear from the half-drow.

His journey with the party on the Ship was not without its events, as he was kidnapped by Austell, the High Priest of Lucifer and interrogated. Fortunately, Austell had not yet warmed fully to the torture when Jason escaped. Still, Jason had to be convinced not to kill the priest when they met him again at the entrance to the Seal.

After the final fight, Jason decided to settle down in Vortis City where there were rich pickings and a Thieves' guild that he could work away at. He was ambitious, and this was reflected in his choice of bride - none other than Mai Stoltz, daughter of Lord Heinrich Stoltz, most influential nobleman in Lanixa at the time. Jason had helped them, and had very radical ideas about women and equality in marriage. Mai accepted and her father allowed it (he does have about 11 daughters after all), and so as the campaign came to a close, the newly titled Marquis of Elstock was moving house to occupy his new lands to the south of the city. But he would be back...

Stats: STR 8, DEX 18, CON 9, INT 16, WIS 16, CHA 12, COM 15.

Jimmy was a not-altogether willing priest of Fate, who had once been a thief but when visions started catching up with him he found that someone had decided on a different career-path for him. Here is Judas' analysis of the character:

Kellar is a bulldog that the party rescued from some wolf-men near the edge of the Forest of Lanixa. What they didn't know was that he was the familiar of a dead Necromancer who needed to be near people in order to drain their health and thus stay alive. What they did know was that he had a magical collar that was protecting him somehow, making him invulnerable to non-magical attacks. He followed them around and was always helpful and friendly, never seeming to have a favourite person. He liked wizards because they reminded him of his master, and he liked Gomez because he had used his collar to link his life to the psionicist, which meant that if Kellar got hurt, Gomez would take half the damage, and Kellar the rest. Still, he liked the adventurers and tried not to drain their health at all, preferring to prey on those they attacked, or passers-by. Not that anyone knows this, of course. He was incredibly smart and understood what people said, although he never did talk to anyone. His motives were all wrong at the outset, but by the time he went to live with Gomez and Peace, he was their friend and no longer the predator he had been.

Stats: STR 9, DEX 13, CON 12, INT 14, WIS 14, CHA 15, COM 13.

Silent Bob was so named because he didn't speak. He joined the party when Jason did, as a freed slave to the drow. He was a maedar whose medusa wife had been killed by the drow, and whose only reason for living was revenge. He was imposingly tall, being 6'7" and very broad, preferring to reveal the ornate tattoos on his chest by wearing nothing but a loincloth. He was completely clean-shaven (bald) and fought only with his fists. His silence was eventually broken when they entered the Drow caverns - his decision not to speak was never fully explained, but his sudden ability to talk frustrated the other characters somewhat. He remained behind, however, when they left, as the Shadow - a vampire drow-hunter - had offered him the immortality and invulnerability of his nature, and a prime tag-team partner for his planned assault on Menzobaranzan. He was probably the first vampire maedar.

Stats: STR 17, DEX 17, CON 16, INT 10, WIS 9, CHA 8, COM 14.

Sisski is an Elven cat who joined the party 'for the hell of it' when she encountered them in the forests. She is an enigmatic little creature, wise and knowledgeable beyond her years, and more powerful than you would expect. Unlike most of her race, her interests lie in helping the cause of good, and the cause of the humans if necessary. Although she only speaks Elven, she understands the common tongue and seems to instinctively know and understand other people - a talent the party often employed in order to identify the intentions of would-be attackers. Her declarations of 'bad person' have saved the party many a time. She doesn't really understand bipeds, but she tries hard, and she is very fond of the party - even Angor, in his incredibly smelly way.

Sisski was called 'Cat' by Angor (see how he tries her patience?) and 'Schitz' by Karl and occasional others, and in return she called Morwen Mo'wen. She didn't actually go to Cimosco's Island, but caught up with the party afterwards and returned to Amir'Shaan with Kaer. She came along with Frayer, Sarah and Angor when they went gallavanting across the world, although she suffered at the hands of Inisrya, who polymorphed her into an elf to spite her.

Sisski even went to StormTop with everyone, but was lost after they entered the Drow Caverns and encountered the Shadow, a vampire. The evil he radiated frightened her off and no one could find her afterwards (nor did they particularly want to search the Underdark for a cat) so they left her for dead, hoping she might be alive and might find her way out.

Stats: STR 5, DEX 19, CON 10, INT 7, WIS 12, CHA 16, COM 15.

Salam, as Viruthasalam was better known, was from the realms of Dragonlance. Sadly, this DM's memory fails as to how and why he left his home world, but it had something to do with the fact that he was a curious little kender, and a cartographer to boot. Perhaps when Flakes reads this, she'll want to elaborate on his history, because it was all very interesting, involved and potentially utilised an alternative timeline... but I digress.

Zane is a short young man from the north of Lanixa, and he joined in the port town of Deliam, where he was a young priest in residence at the Temple. The party had decided that they needed a healer in the group, and Zane volunteered when they asked for someone at the temple of Kalir. He was very young but enthusiastic and an amazing healer.

He is 5'6", with thick curly black hair (usually cut short) and stout build. He is noticeably rounder that the others because of his lack of exercise and love of food. In spite of his tendency to eat a great deal, Zane is a lovely person, whose first priority is to tend the sick and injured. He is a capable combatant when necessary, but prefers not to fight when given the choice - which is rare. He was good friends with Tal, Gomez and Jason, although he didn't go to the final conflict because his fear of heights and flying prevented him for boarding the flying carpet. He looked after Peace in Gomez's absence and moved to Dervish with the others, single-handed founding a Temple of Kalir in the town.

Stats: STR 13, DEX 10, CON 13, INT 12, WIS 18, CHA 12, COM 10.