Name: Cain Harper
Gender: Male
Age: 22
Role: Skill Monkey, Silver Tongue (Persuasion and Social)

Appearance

Meticulously groomed, with brown hair coming down to the nape of his neck with nary a hair out of place. Brown eyes gaze with an inner gleam. Cain is slight of build, with not an ounce of fat on him. The only blemish on his otherwise perfect features is a scar running just over and under his lips on the right hand side of his mouth. On his left shoulder, Cain has a striking tattoo of a celtic sun covered by a flaming orange and yellow sun

Personality

Quiet, softly spoken and mysterious, Cain is every inch the enigmatic high-flying, high-society millionaire's son thrust into an end of the world scenario that he can barely understand or come to terms with. Cain doesn't speak much, but then he doesn't have to. A look from his smouldering brown eyes can make most members of the fairer sex desire to give away their souls for him if he would so desire it -- and this is something that Cain uses to truly devastating effect.

Manipulative and devious, Cain puts himself first and foremost in all situations. He is spoiled, his parents having given him his every whim and desire. To a certain extent, Cain sees other people as puppets and playthings -- objects to be manipulated for his own amusement and entertainment. As long as he gets what he wants out of a situation then Cain is perfectly content.

On the surface that is.

There are those precious few who have taken the time to truly get to know Cain who can attest to the fact that hidden underneath, this strangely tormented individual is more complex than they could possibly even begin to imagine, and this is a trait that manifests itself in the strangest and most random of ways. An act of genuine kindness to a lost child, helping them to find their way home. The sparing of coin to a starving beggar to allow them to eat -- only Cain truly knows what drives Cain, and to most others he is a puzzle wrapped up in the finest cloth.

Motivations

Cain is an empty shell born into an empty, hollow world. He is trapped in the worst sort of cycle possible. Cain hopes to distance himself from his parents and forge his own identity, yet he does not have the faintest idea how to do so. His life is a pristine, manufactured thing - perfect in every way yet lacking warmth and love, just like himself as a person. Inside he is desperately cold and numb, so he seeks to make himself feel something through any exterior means possible. Cain is a hedonist and he does not know how to break it.

Yet his insatiable appetites do not give him what he so desperately needs. As a result of his continued perceived failures and his inability to feel genuine warmth and emotion, so his self-hatred and loathing grows. And as it does, he is spurred onto acts of greater debauchery, his lusts and passions never truly being fulfilled.

A cycle he does not know how to begin to break free from.

Backstory

Cain lifted a finger up to touch his lips as he turned his look to the woman asking him about his past. Fixing her dark eyes with his own, the corners of his mouth turned up in a slight, almost ghost-like smile. As precious seconds slipped like grains of sand in a hourglass in this dying world, the young man started to wonder if things would ever....go back to the way they used to be.

Finally, with a small sigh he bowed his head slightly, looking to the ground as he opened his lips, and the slightest of whispers broke the silence, "My, but aren't you the curious one. You know what they say? That curiosity killed the cat...."

His voice trailed off in a small chuckle as he continued, "I have always lived here in Seattle. I was born here into a life of riches and luxury." Looking around him, Cain gestures to his meagre surroundings. It hadn't always been like this, scraping around for survival with ambitions nothing more than to survive another day. "Ironically, I remember as a young boy thinking that there was more to this life than this.....incessant nothingness. Being a millionaire playboy isn't as easy as one might think. Each and every day being given everything that you ever wanted, never having to fight or earn anything. The strangest thing was....."

Standing, Cain walked over to the run-down shack that he was now forced to dwell within. Touching rotted wood, his eyes took on a faraway look. "......I remember from a early age I'd wished for something more. Adventure. Excitement. All things that I lacked aside from manipulating and turning the poor bastard sycophants who came seeking my favour against each other."

Sighing softly, Cain turned back to regard her, "Strange as it is to admit that, in some ways, as much as I wasn't ready.....I wanted this life we now lead. I grew up in my parents manor. I had the best teachings and tutors that money could buy. I learned how to twist and manipulate to get my hearts desire. There were few who could resist me." Laughing again softly, he continued, "There were many who wanted me to be their friend. There were many whom I took as lover. But even so, there were none who wanted to be with me for me. All they were interested in was the colour of my money. Strange to say, but even as much as I was never alone, I was at the same time the loneliest person in the world. Sad to admit isn't it?"

Fixing her with that irresistible gaze of his, Cain went silent, waiting in turn for her story....

Recent History

Cain sat on the wooden floor. He crossed his legs, leaning down and propping his head up in his hands. His eyes went misty, almost as if he was remembering a time far removed. "I'd actually only just came back home when the world went to hell....." His eyes glistened with moisture, held there for a second removed from eternity before he brought his hand up, wiping away the tears.

Colouring slightly, almost as if embarrassed by his moment of weakness, Cain continued his story. "I went to study abroad. Mother and father's money paid for my education and my trip. Aside from that though, I had something to prove to myself. I was me. Cain Harper. Not my mother, nor my father. I was not an extension of their being.....I was my own person and damned if I wouldn't learn to cope on my own, and not on their coattails."

Cain clenched his left hand into a fist, remembering the cruel taunts of his fathers friends as they mocked him for being "daddy's spoiled little boy". "I was......am......a hedonist. I learned to live life as fully as I could. The best clubs. The most exclusive parties. I would have a plastic faced dolly girl on each arm, baseless, without dignity. I had plastic, cardboard cutouts masquerading as people wanting to be my friend. They used me, even as I used them to feed my own desires, so that I would grasp, even if only for a second, the blessed illusion that I was alive, that I did breathe. That my heart did indeed beat beneath my chest and pumped blood through my veins. Even abroad, even in England money talked and my family name and reputation spread far, far beyond what I ever thought it would."

His voice was tinged with unexpected sadness and bitterness, and perhaps it was at that moment that the girl listening to him realised the truth about Cain. That yes, he was a manipulative, selfish man, and he was, as he had admitted, a hedonist. Living a life of debauchery, Cain was a prisoner to his own lifestyle and his family name. That as much as he lived life on the edge, it was, in the end, a hollow, empty thing. Cain wished to escape his own heritage, and in that regard he was a prisoner locked away in a cold, stone cell without the key to a door that would set him free.

Regardless, the usually softly spoken Cain was surprised in a lot of ways at his own verbosity. Perhaps this one, this strange girl had found a strange kinship with the isolated social creature manufactured by a fake society.

Noticing the girl staring at the scar on his lip, Cain brought his finger up, tracing an imaginary line across the pale mark that marred his otherwise perfect features. Another of those ghostlike smiles made it's way across his face as he looked down to the floor.

"This.....this scar? That, my dear, is a story for another day." Cain looked down to the floor for a second before continuing, "I returned home, and found my home......and the world, had gone to ****."

Greeting the Apocalypse

Cain lights up a cigarette. It was strange that in this messed up world that had deteriorated as much as this one that the smallest things that were once taken for granted became a blessed relief. As he took a puff, blowing a small ring of smoke into the air, only the slightest tremble in his arms betrayed the depths of Cain's horror as he was forced to relive that terrible day.

"I woke." There was a tremor in Cain's voice as he closed his eyes, taking another drag on the cigarette. "I woke to screams and blood."

Closing his eyes, Cain pictured the scene almost as if it were one unfolding in front of him right now. "I hadn't even been back any more than a couple of days before the world changed....." Standing, Cain walked over to the girl. He drew her in, holding her close, almost as if she was his only link.....his anchor to reality, to stop the horror of the world around them destroying him.

"The screams stopped. When I went out, I found them all......I've -- I've never seen anything like it. They were all.....twisted.....contorted." Holding onto her, he tightened his grasp around her, clenching the fabric of her jacket tightly in his fist. "There was blood everywhere. They.....they had been tearing at themselves......"

As the images flashed in front of his eyes, Cain's voice broke, and he could not bring himself to say what he had seen with his own eyes. They had torn great furrows into their own flesh......tore their own eyes out in unspeakable agony.....

".....Mother, Father.....Miranda. I was the only one alive." Choking back a sob, Cain continued, "I.....I ran. I didn't know what else to do. I ran from the house. And as the world died around me, I just kept running...... And I wondered.........why?"

Why had I survived when everyone else had died?

Strengths
1) Cain is a jack of all trades -- master of none. Perhaps the product of a misspent youth, however there are few situations that he does not have some passing knowledge of. Picking locks? Check. Hotwiring? Done it. He is a useful auxiliary person to have around, just dont ask him to fight.

2) Master of the silver tongue. Cain certainly knows how to use his charm to devastating effect. With that silver tongue of his, there are few situations that he cannot twist to his advantage or talk his way out of. It is what has kept him alive so far.

3) Deceptively tough. Despite being slight of frame, Cain is deceptively tough. He can, and has, taken a beating in his life both mentally and physically. For one such as him to survive in this tough world, he has to be. No matter how many times you keep beating him down, he comes back -- again and again and again. That mental fortitude is invaluable in the apocalyptic wasteland he lives in.

Weaknesses
1) Haunted. Cain is haunted by the ghost of someone he cares deeply for, in a spiritual and emotional sense. A girl, Katy, whom he loved very deeply. The circumstances of her death is something he will never speak of, yet it is something that haunts his every waking moment, and something that he blames himself for. Until he puts that particular ghost to rest, he will never be free of his demons.

2) Addictions. Cain suffers from withdrawals. Needing to take things to block out the horrible nightmarish visions of his parents and families death, and over time he became more and more dependent on them to get by.

3) Self-Loathing. Cain's self-loathing is complex, and it runs very, very deep inside of him. It was what caused him initially to descend into the life of debauchery and excess that he lived prior to the rise of the dead. Seeking an exit from the hopeless, cold world that he lived in, what he found was the reality of the situation he became trapped in was far, far worse than the one he left behind. Yet, he does not know how to escape from it.....

Powers and Abilities
1) Charm and Persuasion. Can can be *very* persuasive when he wants to be. It can be difficult to resist his charm, but those who can see past his facade see him for the manipulative liar that he really is.

2) Pick Locks. Cain can open locked doors using thin slivers of metal. Learning the ability during his disaffected use, it is something that can get himself and his companions out of tight spots.

3) Heightened Endurance. Cain is tough. Surprisingly tough. It takes a lot to beat him down, and even more to keep him down. He can keep going when most would give up.

Name: Arran Valornor
Age: 19
Occupation: Con Artist



Appearance

Fairly unremarkable in size and appearance, Arran tends to melt into the shadows, and that is just the way that he likes it. Standing at a shade over 5’8”, Arran is average in height and slim in frame, perhaps looking a tad malnourished.

Brown hair and brown eyes frame a face that wears an easy smile on it — all the better to lull his victims into a false sense of security.

His hair is parted at the center and goes down to the nape of his neck.

Indeed, Arran’s appearance is all part of the package and appearance that he wishes people to see. Everything has its place, and everything has its purpose, and for him, he would not have it any other way.

His dark eyes are full of light and promise. When one looks into them, they see the promise of adventure and a life they could not possibly imagine. They see a doorway leading into another world, a world that while, perhaps wild and dangerous, is one of excitement and infinite possibilities

Personality

Arran looks like he lives life on the edge, and his actions fully back that image. He is a wild thrillseeker who looks to live life to its fullest. In doing so, Arran doesn’t give a damn who he annoys. All those stuffy, fuddy-daddy boring muppets, they stand in his way.

Arran lives life solely for the moment. He tends to not get bogged down in inconsequential matters like possible long-term consequences of his actions. Life is for living and damned if he isn’t going to enjoy every goddam moment that he possibly can. And if he goes down, fine, but damned if he isn’t going to take everyone else down with him and still come out of the other side unscathed.

Arran is a person of many admirable traits, but he is also a person of many vices. An unfortunate gambling addiction being one of them. Carrying around a set of loaded dice with him, Arran simply cannot help but challenge any random passers-by to games of chance. Being a thrillseeker, Arran is not beyond letting the dice decide his next actions for him, introducing a level of randomness and chaos that is his calling card.

Background

Arran Valornor has lived most of his life on a spaceport. Born to a wealthy family on the melting pot of Eternity Station, his family was a well-known and wealthy one. "Was" being the operative word. The Valornor family, with the exception of Arran, is no more.

They had been marked by a dark and powerful family. One dark day, assassins struck, murdering all of the Valornor family with the exception of Arran who alone survived the attack.

Arran never knew who ordered the attack, he only knew that the assassins were not as thorough in their task as they believed. The last remaining scion of the Valornor family, Arran escaped, fleeing into the shadows that consumed his family beneath a tidal wave of destruction.

There, hiding in the depths of Eternity Station, with nary more than the clothes on his back, all he held within him was a desire for vengeance. Fortunately, he also possessed a tongue of pure silver, a tongue that single-handedly ensures his continued survival when he otherwise would have died. Arran used that tongue to good effect, begging enough to eke out a living in the bowels of a spaceport.

Arran met his current running partner in a bar fight, where the two of them used their own particular talents to avoid a beating at the hands of several angry patrons.

For a number of years, Arran and his partner worked together complementing each other quite well as a pair of con artists. Capable of deep and elaborate scams, they left behind many victims in their wake. The two of them were not only earning enough from their shady lifestyle, they were living comfortable lives, being able to afford good clothes and possessing enough money to rent a (fairly shabby) apartment.

As things are wont to do though — they would soon change.

Name: Tem Gloomarrow
Gender: Male
Race: Human
Age: 25



Appearance:

You would be forgiven for not noticing that Tem is present. He is just there, and that’s the way that he likes it. Standing at a not particularly imposing 5’8”, the enigmatic man goes out of his way to merely blend into the background and nothing more.

Often to be found wearing a dark hood, Tem will often have his hood drawn up to obscure as much of his features as possible. When his hood is pulled back though, it exposes his single most striking feature. His eyes are twin orbs of gleaming sapphire and they glimmer with an almost insatiable curiosity. A desire to learn more about the world even as the personality behind them seeks to seal himself away from it.

A paradox if you will, one of many when it comes to the softly spoken man.

Tam does not speak often, and when he does his words are carefully considered and softly spoken. He will often consider every angle before making any sort of judgement on anything.

The other distinctive feature of Tem Gloomarrow is that when he walks, it is with a pronounced limp in his right leg. An old injury that he has never tried to have fully treated, the pain often serves him as a profound sense of his own mortality and a constant reminder to always keep his guard up at all times.

Personality:

Tem Gloomarrow is a grave young man that carries the world on his shoulders. He rarely speaks, and when he does so, it is with the barest minimum words that he can use to convey his meaning. He is a thoughtful young man, who takes the time to think about every situation from every possible angle. He is very hesitant to take action, and will only do so when he has considered the action and its possible consequences as far as he can.

Tem has limited and uncontrolled ability of magic. It does not happen all the time, or indeed a lot of the time, but every so often, usually when he least expects it it manifests itself in a way that he cannot control.

He takes great pains to conceal from others this ability of magic. Painful experience has taught him that not only will people seek to use his abilities for their own end, but worse still, that discovery by the wrong party could lead him to his own death because of the ignorance of his own kin.

Tem is more than conscious of the fact that he is not just in danger himself but also potentially a danger to everyone else around him if his talent was to ever be discovered. There is nothing that Tem will not do to protect his secret, even potentially kill anyone who was to find out about it. Only a select few trusted souls know of his abilities.

Yet he does not see his talent as a blessing. He sees himself as cursed because of it. There is a deep-rooted bitterness inside of him in regards to his ability. There is no worse fate in all the world than to know that you are forever outcast from your own kind, and that you will never ever know of a place you could call home.

His abilities have cost him everything, and his experiences have shadowed his soul.

However, it is not all secrecy and gloom for Tem. He is very loyal to his friends, and although he can count the number of his true friends on the fingers of one hand and still have fingers left over those friends he does have he will die for. But because of his secret, he will not learn to trust easily, and will not trust anyone unless he has absolutely no reservations of their intentions and believes that they will not betray him.

In that way, he is perhaps overly cautious and maybe, just maybe, a tiny bit paranoid.

Bio:

There was a different time, a different life even, back in the early days of Tem’s life when he did not walk with the weight of the future hanging over him like a veiled shroud. There are times that he looks back on those early days and he wishes for a life that he can never have again. He reaches out with grasping fingernails, trying desperately to clutch through the ethereal mists of time for that life.

He fails every time.

Tem Gloomarrow was not always called so, his surname is an affectation of the piercing doom that his abilities often bring both him and others. He was born in a small mining town, and his early years were as normal and happy as anyone could hope for. Although his mother died in childbirth, his father looked after his only son to the best of his abilities. He worked in the mines and earned enough for them to live a comfortable life.

Yet, Tem’s fate was not his to control. Even here, even in those early days, a dark presence watched. Cruel eyes watched the youngster, and they marked him for a fate that would cruelly tear him from all that he ever knew. From an early age Tem was cursed, yet he did not know of this, nor did he know the reasons why he, above all others, was chosen.

Everything changed during his teenage years, which was the first time that both the latent magic inside of him manifested itself. It began with a nightmare that Tem had one night of his father dying from a rockfall inside the mines. Haunted by this strange dream, Tam went to the mines the next morning and pulled his father out of there. Seconds later the portion of the mine that his father had been working in collapsed, killing all those inside of it.

Tem’s father was a magic-fearing soul. He believed all magic to be the tools of evil. Far from being grateful of Tem’s intervention, he cast the young man out to fend for himself, believing that evil had taken root inside of him.

That was the start of the seed being planted inside of Tem for the bitter cynicism and paranoia that would come to define his adult life. He found himself alone and forced to fend for himself at a younger age than anyone should ever have to.

Travelling from place to place with no clear destination or sense of purpose, young Tem quickly found the world to be full of dangerous and nefarious individuals, all who would look to use and manipulate his abilities for their own selfish aims and desires. Worse still were those who would seek to hurt him out of a lack of understanding over who he was and the nature of his abilities.

Tem quickly learned to keep his abilities a secret for fear of reprisals. Fortunately for him, it was around this time that his sorcerous abilities also began to develop. Tem was able to use his magic to keep himself alive through these difficult times. Yet, inasmuch as he feared what discovery of his abilities would do, Tem was also lonely and he yearned the company of others.

Denying himself this, his bitterness deepened. After all, he had not asked for this "gift", and he had not asked to be cursed to this life and wandering and solitude.

Yet, this was his life, and this was the course that had been chosen for him, and so Tem lived the life of the wanderer, learning to survive off the land. The Tem of today is as directionless as he always has been, with no route out from the miasma that threatens to enshroud his heart and soul.

Strengths:

• Expert Hunter and Tracker
• Limited Magic Use
• Resourceful, despite the circumstances Tem has learned to survive in some pretty tough circumstances

Weaknesses:

• Cold and distant - having been turned out by his kin has changed Tem. He does not trust and he keeps himself distant from others.
• Paranoia - In that it’s not paranoid to think everyone is out to get you when, in fact, everyone is out to get you
• Out of his depth. Tem is, to be polite, out of his depth. Despite his outward demeanour suggesting otherwise, he is not ready for the world to be thrust upon him.

Other:
Did I ever say how much I like coffee and chocolates ;)?

---

---

It was the 25th Uktar.

For most of Faerun, autumn was giving way to the call of winter. For most of the Realms, they would soon be covered under a thick, impenetrable blanket of snow. Yet here, in the frozen reaches of the north, deep within the Spine of the World, things were different. Here, it was a neverending perpetual winter and the people who lived inside this region were trapped inside this harsh and unforgiving place. A deadly, impassable blizzard ravaged the perimeters of the Spine, and any who were reckless and foolish enough to attempt the passing died a cold and lonely death. This was the Everlasting Rime. The will of the Frostmaiden, who had locked the Spine and all those within it away from the rest of Toril within her own impenetrable globe.

Yet even with that, there were worse things than the Everlasting Rime to deal with. Every single day, when the embattled peoples of the Spine were to turn their eyes towards the sky at the point in time where evening would normally fall, and darkness would begin to encroach across the arctic wasteland, they would see a terrifying slight. A large, winged creature flew across the sky, piercing the darkness with its majestic yet deadly grace. Behind it, the motes of glowing orbs of magic fell, drifting lazily to the snow-covered ground below. On the creatures back, the Frostmaiden herself weaved her magics, casting a web of eternal night on the world below her. In this place there would be no sunrise. There would be no morning, no afternoon. No sun, and no daylight. Here, there would be nothing save the frozen darkness of a land that was slowly dying. There would be nothing here save the endless blanket of eternal twilight and the chittering of the shadows as they reached up to slowly devour all those who lay within this shroud of never-ending black.

This was a desolate, frozen region that was home to two types of people. It was home to those brave, intrepid souls who saw the inhospitable climate as a challenge to be braved. The opportunity to forge their place in the world. The other type of person who made their home here were the lost ones. Those people whom the world had turned its back on. For these people, their need was simple. They had nowhere left to turn, and for those who had arrived before the Everlasting Rime there was but one singular, inexorable truth.

There was no way out.

Life had continued though, despite the brutal conditions. In the heart of Icewind Dale, the Ten-Towns yet maintained an air of civilisation and humanity, despite the adverse conditions that threatened to tear away at these foundations…..on the surface at least. The ceaseless winter and terrible darkness had taken its toll though, eating away at the fragile facade of civility that some still clung to. The largest towns routinely offered up living sacrifices to Auril in a vain attempt to appease her deific anger, offerings that were met with impassive silence. And the people within the towns themselves, they changed under cover of night. Humanity fell to its basest level, as individuals retreated within and lost themselves to oppressive isolation and paranoia. When there is nothing save the eternal darkness of the void, chaos bubbles up to the surface. Unchecked acts of crime and violence went unanswered as the faintest veneer of society began to crumble and decay.

Civilisation here in the Spine of the World teeters on the edge of oblivion, and the slightest touch will send it over into the abyss itself.

---

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Hello everyone, it has been a long while since I indulged myself in one of my greatest passions, so here I am. Although this game will be an adaptation of Rime of the Frostmaiden, don’t expect this to be a 1-2-1 retelling of that adventure. I will certainly be putting my own spin on proceedings going forwards.

Before we get to that though, I’d like to cast the net out first and see if there is indeed any interest in this game? I don’t need you to provide me with characters yet, I just want to know if I’m going to get the 4-6 players I need to run this. If so then please either post below or PM me.

When we do get to the point of creating characters I would like to see the below at the very least:

Name:
Race:
Class:
Personality Traits:
Bond:
Ideal:
Flaw:
Background:

Following this I’d like more detail on the following:

Appearance:
Personality:
Backstory:

Acceptable sources are as follows: PHB, Monsters of the Multiverse, Xanathar’s, Tasha’s, Explorers Guide to Wildemount, Van Richtens Guide to Ravenloft.

Character Creation details will be as follows:-

Starting Level: 1
Ability Scores: 27 Point Buy
Starting Money & Equipment: As per Class and Background

As stated above though, for now I just want to gauge interest in this before I continue.

Name: Kayla-Elle
Character Concept: Blind Oracle with the limited ability of foresight
Trouble: There are certain less savoury individuals hunting me. They would use my abilities for their own nefarious needs.

Name: Morgan
Profession: Pilot
Age: 22

Appearance:



Personality:

I cling on to the ghosts of the past. I wrap myself so deeply into the illusion I have weaved around myself that it has become who I really am. This is me....perhaps it has always been me.

Morgan is the quintessential joker and flirt. Brash and cocky, when he is not on duty he can be seen losing himself behind the latest cocktail or alcoholic drink. Either that or bedding someone else on the station or planet that he takes his leave on. Irreverent, arrogant and seemingly devoid of scruples and generally just not giving a damn, Morgan is the ultimate source of frustration to his superiors and his poor, long suffering partner. If he wasn’t so damn good at what he did, he would have been excised long ago from the space corps.

This is who he is.......perhaps.

The truth is something different. A man besieged with his own insecurities, believing himself to be nothing more than a failure, Morgan carries with him the ghosts of a past that he cannot truly rid himself off. He believes himself to be in over his head — and that it is nothing more than a matter of time before the truth is realised and he is exposed for the fraud that he truly is.

Morgan is haunted by the sight of a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes...looking up to him as her life slowly faded away from her. Holding her hand because for that moment, for that one moment in his life, he was powerless to do anything.....powerless to save the girl that he loved with all of his heart and soul.

It is something that is eating away at him slowly from the inside.

Morgan is afraid. Of friendship. Of companionship. Of commitment. He is frightened to love again, or to believe in anything, because if he does.....if he loses someone he cares for deeply again.....it will kill him.

It was.....is far easier to drink his troubles away. Carve another notch on that bedpost.

It allowed him to forget.

Background:

Her name was Vanna. She was the best of us, of all of us. She was better than I deserved. Now, and certainly then. Sometimes I still see her. In my sleep, in my dreams. It is the only way we can ever see each other again.

Born the son of a long line of pilots in the space corps, from an early age, it was believed that Morgan would follow in the footsteps of his parents, and indeed he did.

Just not in the way he believed that he would.

Morgan passed every single examination set in front of him by the space corps with ease. He was always the brightest and the best of his class. He was future commander material. When he met his beloved Vanna at the space corps facility and became engaged to her, it seemed his future was bright and there was no mountain that was too high for him to reach.

When it all came crashing down, it came crashing down hard. It happened the night before their wedding.

At one of the finest restaurants on the space station Eclipse, where they had met, and where they had due to be wed, Morgan stood. Taking his bride onto the dance floor, hand in hand, arm in arm, they began to dance to the sound of violins. When the loud bang came, they were all already too late. Vanna slumped forwards, into Morgan’s arms.

As he lay her down gently, cradling her, crying for help....as the blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, she looked up to him. She reached up with trembling hand, touched the side of his cheek......

”Carry on.....always....for me. I love you.”

They were the last words she ever spoke.

Vanna was given a funeral befitting her, as her coffin was sent out into space, as she would have wanted....

Two years on, Morgan honoured her final wish. Carrying on with his line of duty, he was nevertheless scarred by what had happened. A pale shadow of the man he used to be, where he acts on the surface like a cocky and arrogant braggadocio, the truth is simply that he is a person who is beset by his own insecurities and demons that he cannot truly excise.

He believes himself to be trapped in a situation that is slowly spiralling out of control....

Name: Garem Vursk



Appearance

With a smile and a wink, Garem is nothing if not ruggedly handsome, with a charming, charismatic aura that pervades the smoothness and charm that the man's aura pervades. From his wild, black hair, to his black goatee, Garem's appearance is one of wild charisma.

Indeed, Garem's appearance is all part of the package and appearance that he wishes people to see. Everything has its place, and everything has its purpose, and for him, he would not have it any other way.

His dark eyes are full of light and promise. When one looks into them, they see the promise of adventure and a life they could not possibly imagine. They see a doorway leading into another world, a world that while, perhaps wild and dangerous, is one of excitement and infinite possibilities. His smile steals both hearts and souls, and many a fawning lady would die just to see it for only a few seconds.

His leather jerkin and black tunic looks on the surface like it offers little protection from an incoming blade, yet it is possessed of some strange enchantment that renders it more effective than normal. This, combined with his breeches, simply emphasises the fact that here is a man that lives life on the edge..

Personality

Garem looks like he lives life on the edge, and his actions fully back that image. He is a wild thrillseeker who looks to live life to its fullest. In doing so, Garem doesn't give a damn who he annoys. All those stuffy, fuddy-daddy boring muppets stand in the way of him and his fun. Rafting down a waterfall on a boat split down the middle? Check. Playing chicken with a hill giant? Check. Jousting with dragons? He's got it covered.

Garem lives life solely for the moment. He tends to not get bogged down in inconsequential matters like possible long-term consequences of his actions. Life is for living and damned if he is not going to enjoy every goddam moment that he possibly can. And if he goes down, fine, but damn if he isn't going to take everyone else down with him and still come out of the other side unscathed.

Garem is a man of many admirable traits, but he is also a man of many vices, an unfortunate gambling addiction being one of them. Carrying around a set of loaded dice with him, Garem simply cannot help but challenge any random passers-by to games of chance. Being a thrillseeker, Garem is not beyond letting the dice decide his next actions for him, introducing a level of randomness and chaos that is his calling card. In addition to this, Garem is fond of taverns, booze, and wenching, but not necessarily in that order.

He is a wild, primordial force of chaos, one that cannot be tamed.

Background

Garem was born with the luck of all the gods on his side. Garem was destined for so, so much from an early age. And the young Garem had a fierceness, strength of will and sheer stubbornness to cheat fate and make his life so much better than anything that they could imagine

Garem Vursk was the youngest of two brothers. In the city of Alhaster, his family was a well-known and wealthy one. "Was" being the operative word. The Vursk family, with the exception of Garem, is no more. They had been marked by a dark and powerful family. On one dark night, the Vursk manor ran red with blood and burned with flames brought forth from the power of darkness. Assassins targeted Garem's home, murdering his father and mother in cold blood.

Garem never knew who ordered the attack, he only knew that the assassins were not as thorough in their task as they believed. The last remaining scion of the Mortliasta family, Garem escaped the attack, fleeing into the shadows that consumed his home beneath a tidal wave of destruction.

He fled to Greyhawk, with nary more than the clothes on his back, and a desire for vengeance. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on which way you looked at it, Garem did not walk the streets of Greyhawk alone for long. He drew the attention of certain individuals in the city, in this case a shadowy guild known as "The Sewer Rats". Taken in by this collection of nefarious people, they fell under the watchful eye of the guildmaster, an enigmatic individual known only as the Red Hand. What he saw in the boy was never explained. It was enough that he was, and he spared no expense in training him in the ways of the shadow. He was to stalk the night like a ghostly wraith, targetting the rich and the well-to-do. From those people Garem would steal indiscriminately, relieving them of their riches and valuables. It was in the guild that Garem met his beloved, the beautiful and gracious thief Vanna, and the two fell in love, a whirlwind romance that would end in tragedy.

Perhaps that was what the mysterious Red Hand saw - an extremely talented individual who would serve his cause well. This continued for a number of years, Garem and Vanna working together, until perhaps inevitably, the duo stole off the wrong individual. In this case a man called Zelkyr, a necromancer of not inconsiderable might. As they tailed the man, Garem felt a strange sensation in the pit of his stomach. Fear. It was something he had not felt before. He should have noticed the colour of the robes that the man wore - black robes that, had Garem been paying more attention, would have identified the man..... Stopping his beloved in his tracks, Garem spoke to Vanna, imploring her to give this heist up and leave the prey alone. Vanna was stubborn and impetuous though, and refused to let any target go. Staying back as she walked the night, stalking silently up to her prey, Garem clenched his fist in fear. Vanna reached into Zelkyr's pocket and withdrew a large gem. A circular stone of darkest night. At that precise moment though, something happened. Something that would burn itself in Garem's memory indelibly for all eternity.

The necromancer stopped and turned to face Vanna, sensing her presence. He hissed, shaking a clenched fist.

"You have escaped! And you try to steal that which you have not earned little thief!"

Vanna turned to Garem, shouting at him, "Flee!"

Yet she was too late, a dark beam shooting out from the necromancer's outstretched hand, striking Vanna squarely in the back. Her eyes widened in pain as her mouth opened to scream. A scream that never came forth as she turned into a pile of dust, the gem falling and bouncing on the floor.

Garem escaped that night, but his soul was twisted and darkened by what he had witnessed and been through. He left Greyhawk, travelling to the port city of Sasserine, fearful of any repercussions from the necromancer, or the guild he had left without a word. And there he dwelt, nursing thoughts of vengeance. Vengeance against the ones who had destroyed his family, and vengeance in particular against the man who had struck down his beloved Vanna.