Post/Author/DateTime	Post
angelshelper81 05-29-05, 01:57 AM	Our group has been playing once a week for a couple of months, and all of a sudden the DM wants a full-page background for each character, by next session. Help! Not that I mind, but I haven't got that much backstory together for my character yet. Lessee, so far... Damia is a young adult Gnome. Her primary training was as a Wizard (that's what her first level was in) and her next two levels have been in Ranger, mostly because of the free ranged weaponry feats. I intend to take another level of Wizard next, and keep them balanced. Damia likes the excitement of adventuring, but not the danger. In a fight, she's always the one hanging back, even further out of harm's way than she needs to be. She will only move toward a threat if she has to, for example to get into range and cast a spell. She will go into danger for a friend, but only if it's really necessary. For example, last session her Paladin buddy, who is her best friend in the party, went into negative hit points while fighting a fire elemental, and she was willing to take a hit from the elemental to administer a potion to him. She didn't have to, as the elemental was killed before she was able to get that close, but she was willing. Damia's favorite weapon is her gnome calculus (it slings acid! and alchemist's fire! and thunderstones!). Out of battle, Damia tends to do her own thing. The rest of the party tends to squabble amongst themselves a lot, and while they're doing that she's quietly working on whatever puzzle they're supposed to be solving, or doing a quick search for treasure. She tends to use said treasure to buy useful things, like potions, and save them until they're needed. She's not overly selfish with them, but prefers to hold them herself, so that she can decide how to allocate them, which she does with an eye to who her personal allies are. As to the rest of the group (and there are like 10 of us), she doesn't really care one way or another about most of them, though the Paladin is in her good graces because he healed her familiar. She's been kissing up to the Artificer because he can give her cheap ammo for her calculus. And she's meddling with and keeping her eye on one of the Fighters, because the Paladin said he's bad news. (He's evil, but she was in another room when it was discovered, so she doesn't actually know that yet. The Pally hasn't killed him because the LN(?) Cleric threatened to kill him if he did so. At any rate, her rat is on standing orders to take any opportunity to steal random things from the guy, 'till she comes up with a better idea.) I kind of have the idea that her parents pushed her into being a wizard and she really wanted to do something a little less bookish, but I haven't gotten it fleshed out at all. Any suggestions?
Amalric 05-29-05, 01:01 PM	It sounds like maybe Damia has been dreaming of being a Noble Hero all her life, like in the storybooks. So one day, full of high hopes, she apprenticed herself to the village witch in hopes of one day becoming a Great Archmage. But she's a bit too flighty for pure wizardly studying; all too often she would play hookey to go exploring the woods with her familiar, swinging sticks in fanciful swordplay with imaginary bandits and na'er-do-wells. Eventually, the witch training Damia had enough of it, and kicked her out of the apprenticeship. Not one to let circumstances get her down, Damia declared that she was ready to travel the world as a battle-mage and Adventurer. But unfortunately, she soon learned that real bandits are a lot more dangerous than the imaginary kind. After a few injuries and more than a few close cuts, Damia decided that going it alone probably wasn't the approach most conducive to a long life. The answer was clear: minions! All mages need minions, right? She'd just find a group of like-minded adventurers to help her on her path to greatness. Surely any adventurer worth his salt would be smart enough to listen to the advice and orders of a sage magician such as herself! And so she encountered the party. But once again, expectations weren't quite met. These other adventurers, even the dumb meat-shields, seem to have ideas of their own, and nobody's willing to listen to a little gnome. Despite all the setbacks, Damia remains an optimist, though she's now a bit less naive. She still believes that one day they'll be telling HER story over campfires at night, and she thinks that right now she's on the path to that glory. If things are a bit more muddled and complicated than she expected - well, nobody said being an Adventurer was easy, did they?
angelshelper81 05-29-05, 01:47 PM	There's some good ideas in there, and I thank you for 'em, but there's a couple of problems. 1) She's from a city. I probably should've mentioned that in the first bit, but it was late and I wasn't thinking too well when I posted. The campaign is actually set in Eberron, and we started in the city of Sharn. I know almost nothing about Sharn - I don't have the book and the DM didn't describe it very well - but unless it's really unsuitable she's probably from there. 2) I don't want her to be that naive. I've been playing her as sticking around for the loot, excitement, and chance of learning new spells, in that order, and not really caring about the prestige that might come from adventuring. She actually likes the fact that the rest of the group ignores her, because it gives her more chance to do her own thing. She actually got mad at one of the fighters a few weeks ago because he followed her as she was trying to solve a puzzle and, by mimicing her, solved it before she did. Not because she wanted the prestige of having solved it, either, but because she was working on it, and didn't want to be disturbed. Hmm... reading that again, she sounds a touch cynical for her age. Perhaps I need to figure out why she's like that. I do like the kicked-out-of-mage-school idea, and I think I'll use it if I can.
angelshelper81 05-29-05, 05:23 PM	So here's what I have so far. It's a little more than half a page. ------- Damia is from Sharn. And not the good side of Sharn, either, but the seedier, nastier side. She is the third child of four: Daniel, Denni, and Dale are her siblings. Her mother Terika stayed at home, raising the children and doing other families’ laundry for extra coin. Her father Bilin was an Alchemist, and made his living producing alchemical items to be sold in his brother-in-law Elvin’s potion shop. There was always enough money for them to eat, but rarely enough for luxuries of any kind. They lived in a rough neighborhood, too, and Damia often had to worry about thieves and ruffians. She sometimes looked to her older brother Daniel for protection, but more often just took pains to stay out of harm’s way by being alert and avoiding possible trouble. When Damia was ready to learn a trade, her uncle Elvin suggested to her parents that she follow his footsteps and become a wizard. Truth be told, she wanted to do something a bit more adventurous, like being a scout for the city guard, or a thief, or something. But her parents insisted, and she became apprentice to Elvin’s old classmate, Landon the Tall. Landon was a fair master, though a bit too restraining for Damia’s tastes. Her innate intelligence allowed her to pick up wizardry easily, and once she had grasped whatever the lesson of the day was, she preferred to go explore the city rather than stay home and study. Landon disagreed with this, and tried to get her to apply herself more to her studies, but she would not, and eventually he got so fed up with it that he dropped her as an apprentice. Her parents were disappointed, but Elvin took her on as his assistant at the shop, understanding her desire to spend her free time as she chose. She took to the job well, spending some time each day helping Elvin with his potions, and the rest looking for adventure in the city. -------- This leads right up to her bumping into the rest of the party partway through their first adventure, but it still needs more length. Any suggestions?