Background on my undead hunter [Archive] - Wizards Community

Background on my undead hunter [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
Cenyon
04-05-04, 09:06 PM What do you think of the background that I have written for my fighter1/cleric4/hunter of the dead10 character (starting at lvl 1, or possibly 2):

His name would be Arthon de'Arakhnar and before he became a fighter, he was working as the gravedigger for the local Pelor church. He lived in a tiny house with one room, since he had been relatively poor all his life.
He was a dedicated follower of Pelor and has a little altar besides his bed.
One night when he was out on the cemetery, shoveling earth into a new grave, he heard some strange sounds further out.
He wondered what it might be, and took his lamp and tried to locate the source of the sound. As he came closer he thought it sounded like something that was trying to dig or break up from the earth, and drew his belt knife, those grave-robbers would pay. But there weren't any grave-robbers. He directed the cone of light from his lamp at person in front of him and readied himself to attack.
The vision that met him made him stark with horror.
A little girl he had buried not three days ago was standing beside her broken-up grave and facing at him with a vicious stare. He also came aware of several other graves that had been pressed open from beneath, and other dead bodies prying open their coffins and pushing dirt aside to get up. His knees started to wobble and he almost fainted, but when he felt a cold hand gripping throat, the survival instinct drove fear away. He hacked at the white, rotten, dead, yet still alive, creatures with his knife, and desperately fought to keep them off. He managed to get back to the grave he had been digging, and picked up his shovel. He gave a short prayer to Pelor, that he must give him strength, before he charged at the zombies coming after him. During his desperate fight he managed to smash the undeads down, but almost died himself. That his sanity survived that night, he never understood later in his life.
Before the morning came, he managed to bury all of the mangled corpses in their original graves, as such evil and blasphemous things should never see the light of day, and much less should any other have to witness it.

After that happening, he decided he must keep the cemetery safe, and dug a secret room from under his house where he brought a longsword that had belonged to his father and his chain mail hauberk. He humbly asked the priests if they could not bless some flasks of water for him, and when they asked him what he would do with them, he lied, and simply told them he needed to cleans himself for a sin he had committed. He could not tell anyone about what he had discovered, not when he had a chance to destroy it before any others could know.
He started to make wooden stakes and gathered as much information he could find about dead rising from their graves. He continued to dig graves, though now only at night, and always wore armor and weapons. He wanted to dedicate his life to Pelor and so fight these abominations, and so started to train as a cleric for the church. After his training was finished, he told his brothers in the church of the cemetery, and they all gathered and treated every corpse with holy water and blessed them with holy spells so they would remain dead.

He knew that there was more evil to be found, and he would not rest before he had destroyed it all.

Cliché?
Norhg
04-06-04, 05:42 PM Cliché?

Maybe :D.
But you have a real hunter of the dead there, no one can differ on that.

Still, where does all the rest of his levels come from? That's the only thing I would ask you as a dm. I have heard worse stories and some better ones... Why wouldn't he tell anyone about undead? Of course someone else would be better suited than him when it came to killing them, preferably he would have got some help. And what kind of group would he fit in? He clearly doesn't want any help in what he is doing.
Henry Hankovich
04-12-04, 03:30 AM Instead of saying that he was unwilling to tell other people that there were undead in the graveyard--which is a bit of a stretch--you could instead say that no one took him seriously. He's some "boy," impoverished, and a lowly gravedigger--just say that people didn't want to believe him when he said bodies were coming out of their graves. Especially since they never saw any walking around. :) Who would want to stand around chewing the fat with the local gravedigger anyway, right?

To complement things, you could put his church/graveyard rather far out in the boonies. So the local peasants don't believe him, and there aren't any clerics or other clergymen of any real power around to help...so he does it all himself. Especially if you're playing the character from level 1, it works to have him start off as someone who -hasn't- had a lot of training or research background. He could just be some rustic who had gotten a much-needed pat on the back from Pelor. It would probably work better taking Cleric rather than Fighter as his first class (you can of course follow your planned progression after that), to reflect that "divine favor" in his background, and help support the idea that he was taking down undead by himself.

As he takes more levels in Cleric and Undead Hunter, that will reflect his growing knowledge of the undead, and his ability to fight them, over his career. There's no need to pad his level-one background with all kinds of research into the undead, etc.--that's going to be the sort of thing he picks up as he gets "trained" as a cleric/hunter. In other words, there's no need to have his back story justify a level 15 character when he's still at level 1. :)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Cenyon 04-05-04, 09:06 PM	What do you think of the background that I have written for my fighter1/cleric4/hunter of the dead10 character (starting at lvl 1, or possibly 2): His name would be Arthon de'Arakhnar and before he became a fighter, he was working as the gravedigger for the local Pelor church. He lived in a tiny house with one room, since he had been relatively poor all his life. He was a dedicated follower of Pelor and has a little altar besides his bed. One night when he was out on the cemetery, shoveling earth into a new grave, he heard some strange sounds further out. He wondered what it might be, and took his lamp and tried to locate the source of the sound. As he came closer he thought it sounded like something that was trying to dig or break up from the earth, and drew his belt knife, those grave-robbers would pay. But there weren't any grave-robbers. He directed the cone of light from his lamp at person in front of him and readied himself to attack. The vision that met him made him stark with horror. A little girl he had buried not three days ago was standing beside her broken-up grave and facing at him with a vicious stare. He also came aware of several other graves that had been pressed open from beneath, and other dead bodies prying open their coffins and pushing dirt aside to get up. His knees started to wobble and he almost fainted, but when he felt a cold hand gripping throat, the survival instinct drove fear away. He hacked at the white, rotten, dead, yet still alive, creatures with his knife, and desperately fought to keep them off. He managed to get back to the grave he had been digging, and picked up his shovel. He gave a short prayer to Pelor, that he must give him strength, before he charged at the zombies coming after him. During his desperate fight he managed to smash the undeads down, but almost died himself. That his sanity survived that night, he never understood later in his life. Before the morning came, he managed to bury all of the mangled corpses in their original graves, as such evil and blasphemous things should never see the light of day, and much less should any other have to witness it. After that happening, he decided he must keep the cemetery safe, and dug a secret room from under his house where he brought a longsword that had belonged to his father and his chain mail hauberk. He humbly asked the priests if they could not bless some flasks of water for him, and when they asked him what he would do with them, he lied, and simply told them he needed to cleans himself for a sin he had committed. He could not tell anyone about what he had discovered, not when he had a chance to destroy it before any others could know. He started to make wooden stakes and gathered as much information he could find about dead rising from their graves. He continued to dig graves, though now only at night, and always wore armor and weapons. He wanted to dedicate his life to Pelor and so fight these abominations, and so started to train as a cleric for the church. After his training was finished, he told his brothers in the church of the cemetery, and they all gathered and treated every corpse with holy water and blessed them with holy spells so they would remain dead. He knew that there was more evil to be found, and he would not rest before he had destroyed it all. Cliché?
Norhg 04-06-04, 05:42 PM	Cliché? Maybe :D. But you have a real hunter of the dead there, no one can differ on that. Still, where does all the rest of his levels come from? That's the only thing I would ask you as a dm. I have heard worse stories and some better ones... Why wouldn't he tell anyone about undead? Of course someone else would be better suited than him when it came to killing them, preferably he would have got some help. And what kind of group would he fit in? He clearly doesn't want any help in what he is doing.
Henry Hankovich 04-12-04, 03:30 AM	Instead of saying that he was unwilling to tell other people that there were undead in the graveyard--which is a bit of a stretch--you could instead say that no one took him seriously. He's some "boy," impoverished, and a lowly gravedigger--just say that people didn't want to believe him when he said bodies were coming out of their graves. Especially since they never saw any walking around. :) Who would want to stand around chewing the fat with the local gravedigger anyway, right? To complement things, you could put his church/graveyard rather far out in the boonies. So the local peasants don't believe him, and there aren't any clerics or other clergymen of any real power around to help...so he does it all himself. Especially if you're playing the character from level 1, it works to have him start off as someone who -hasn't- had a lot of training or research background. He could just be some rustic who had gotten a much-needed pat on the back from Pelor. It would probably work better taking Cleric rather than Fighter as his first class (you can of course follow your planned progression after that), to reflect that "divine favor" in his background, and help support the idea that he was taking down undead by himself. As he takes more levels in Cleric and Undead Hunter, that will reflect his growing knowledge of the undead, and his ability to fight them, over his career. There's no need to pad his level-one background with all kinds of research into the undead, etc.--that's going to be the sort of thing he picks up as he gets "trained" as a cleric/hunter. In other words, there's no need to have his back story justify a level 15 character when he's still at level 1. :)