RE: Capes: Origins
04-29-2019, 07:46 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-29-2019, 09:15 PM by Demonsul.)
Secret Identity: Lord Wazrak Cloudbreaker
Alias: He has not chosen a name to go by among the humans. They might deign to call him shorty, or some such.
Description: At 4'4, Wazrak is (he insists) average height. He has a black beard, which he wears in a single thick braid, contained by the jewelled ruby-inset silver clasp forged by his grandfather. Aside from his facial hair, his head is clean shaven. He has a ruddy complexion and a large nose. His stature is almost as wide as it is tall, and he is clearly bulky and muscled, if a little overweight in the gut. All in all, he looks like a dwarf walked straight out of a fantasy story.
Biography: Dwarves had always been a secretive and isolationist folk, and even before the clans of Anvilhorn emigrated from their home in the Scottish Highlands to the great peaks of the Rockies in the late 1700s to found a new hold and seek new riches, they maintained deliberate detachment from the affairs of men. When Wazrak was but a beardling a hundred years ago, his home, Anvilhorn Hold, sealed its entrances to resist a siege of magical night creatures. Even after the enemy moved on, the dwarves never reopened the main gates, and kept guarded the narrow and winding side-stairs. Aside from a few rangers needed to maintain a watch on the above-world and keep humans from approaching, the dwarven folk of Anvilhorn lived and delved beneath their mountain, forsaking surface and sun in exchange for safety and riches.
So they remained, hidden from the world, an isolated and self-sufficient dwarven society where Wazrak grew up. Isolated in their own world, the dwarves learned little of humanity and its crude machinations, focusing on maintaining their own superior craftsmanship and wide selection of drinks brewed from everything that grew in the river-caverns beneath the main hold. They mined gold and iron, forging dwarven steel tools and glittering jewellery beyond the craftsmanship of any human hand, accumulating great wealth to satiate their own avarice and industriousness. Wazrak was the son of a clan-head, his father Murrak, but that did not mean he did not craft or mine. He forged his own jewels, and even his own two-handed war pick - a long-handled steel weapon with a pick on one side of the head and a hammer-face on the other, beautifully engraved with gilded runes and studded with jasper and agate. Wazrak was expected to one day replace his father as clan-head, and learned how to arbitrate greivances and maintain the honour of the clan in the drinking halls. Sometimes. Other times, he skipped lessons on duty and custom to return to the forge, to carousing in the drinking halls, or to delve into the deep caverns with the monster hunters who kept the forgotten things from the darkness beneath the world from invading their mining pits and shafts. With war pick in hand and protected by steel plate, he learned to fight, and enjoyed it too.
Wazrak also studied, though not intensively. His curiosities were many - new forging techniques, manuals of battle, and even compiled lore and reports from the rangers as to the human civilization flourishing out in the sunlight. Wazrak found the idea of humans interesting - they had built strange and impressive machines, even with their crude and slipshod workmanship. His status granted Wazrak access to the deep library, which contained human books, and he learned enough of the English language to read them. And so his curiosity grew.
One day, drinking with some of his closest friends, Wazrak entered a contest to see who could best hold their liquor. The strongest ales and mushroom spirits were brought out, and Wazrak refused to back down, drinking against some of the toughest rangers and monster hunters of the fortress as his friends cheered him on. Possessed of some great need to prove himself, Wazrak drank more than he ever had before, drinking well past the point where even his durable dwarven constitution would have previously given up and fallen unconscious. He remembers climbing atop the table and making a charismatic speech, though he doesn't remember the words. He remembers leading his friends back to his clan-hall and then up to the throne room of the King of Anvilhorn. He remembers wearing his ancestors' ancient runic plate, and raising the Greataxe of Thorgak the First Cloudbreaker, and... well, at that point, it all gets too hazy to recall.
And then Wazrak woke up with the worst hangover he'd ever known, in the baking heat, with a blue sky above him, alone in a metal box full of trash, in the shadow of a great black glass pyramid. His war pick was close to hand, and he still wore his ancestors' armour, but his friends - and the legendary Greataxe of his progenitor - were nowhere to be seen. Little does he know, he swore an oath to the king that got him and six of his friends sent out into the surface world until he fulfils it. Now if only he could find out what that oath was, and how to get home...
Costume Description: Wazrak wears elaborate runic plate armour forged from polished steel, passed down and improved from ancestor to ancestor. It is etched with visible power runes and decorations, particularly on the torso, wrists and boots. He wears a dark blue cloak with his clan rune, a stylized lightning bolt splitting a diamond shape in half. Beneath his plate and mail he wears blue clothes of cave silk, and on the fingers of his gauntlet are set numerous jewelled gold rings (which are actually removable parts of the gauntlet and dont really fit on bare fingers). The helmet has gilded inset decorations and has eye-pieces and a noseguard, leaving his beard exposed, but dwarven beards are tougher than mere human hair and are also protected by the helmet's runes.
Character Abilities: Wazrak has inherent abilities, trained abilities and the benefits granted by his armour.
Dwarven Constitution: Wazrak is a dwarf; he is very strong, exceptionally tough and difficult to keep down, resistant to environmental effects, and very hard to incapacitate with alcohol - even when drunk (which takes a lot more than it takes to get a human drunk), he fights and functions just as well if not better compared to when he is sober, up until the point he gets so drunk he starts falling over. On the downside, he is not particularly agile, though it is very hard to exhaust him. He is also naturally resistant, though not immune, to magic.
Monster Hunter: Wazrak trained with the monster hunters of his hold, and fought monsters for fun, since dwarven steel plate made it a much less life-threatening experience than it otherwise would have been. He is a very skilled combatant, capable of moving in armour and striking fast and hard with devestating greatweapons. This experience has further toughened him up and improved his natural strength and endurance.
Craftsdwarfship: Wazrak chose to learn metalworking over the other traditional professions of mining, stoneworking or brewing. He is a skilled craftsdwarf, capable of making and repairing tools, weapons, armour and jewellery, given sufficiently high-quality tools and materials to work with and enough time to do the job right. He even knows how to imbue a few basic magical runes to enhance equipment, but he is no master runesmith.
Ancestral Armour of the Cloudbreaker Clan: This runic armour, passed down and improved from generation to generation, imbues the wearer with supernatural strength and resilience. Capable of crashing through walls at a full run, cutting through solid steel and shrugging off blows from powerful monsters and high-caliber bullets, this armour's wearer becomes a juggernaut of combat. It also extends protections to the wearer's weapons so the wear and tear doesn't destroy them and - most importantly - also protects the wearer's exposed beard from being damaged in combat. Finally, the armour has a number of comfort effects that make it wearable in extreme heat and cold, and additionally provide a gentle mending effect to repair itself and heal the wearer's wounds very slowly over time.
Home City: Anvilhorn Hold is a dwarf hold in the Rocky Mountains. The dwarves call the mountain it resides under Anvilhorn Peak, named after the king's clan. Wazrak doesn't know what the human name of the place would be, as he doesn't even know his way home.
City description: The dwarves of Anvilhorn are secretive and isolationist, having closed off their hold to outsiders long ago, and the humans have been kept from learning about their presence by the tireless work of the rangers. Within its subterranean halls, the city toils and thrives, doing traditional dwarfy things like mining, smelting, building, crafting, brewing, hoarding and feasting. Obviously, they have the full range of professions required to support their society, too, but most dwarves take up a traditional profession as a hobby in addition to one they need to support their clans and the hold as a whole. They built the hold on top of a gold mine, ensuring the humans never found it, and are such their vaults are full of unfathomable wealth. Of course, Wazrak has no way back there right now.
Friends, family and associates:
Murrak Cloudbreaker - Father, head of the Cloudbreaker clan, rightful owner of the two artifacts Wazrak ran off with, back at the hold.
Thorzid Steelwash - Other father (the dwarves don't really go for gender identity or sexual dimorphism), back at the hold.
Ezzok Cloudbreaker - Brother, back at the hold.
Madrak Hammerhelms - Drinking buddy, one of his six companions, location unknown. A ranger by trade, he probably knows the way back to Anvilhorn. A typical stoic armed with a dwarven blunderbuss.
Uksel Stonehefter - Drinking buddy, one of his six companions, location unknown. Young monster hunter who was very proud of the one time he killed a cave troll (with help). Easily excitable.
Thasrak Oathbarleys - Drinking buddy, one of his six companions, location unknown. He was a cook by trade, was prone to bouts of anger and surprisingly skilled with an axe.
Morgat Stormaxes - Drinking buddy, one of his six companions, location unknown. One of his father's sworn shields. Extremely friendly and gregarious, and a good friend in a fight.
Olgric Greenshield - Drinking buddy, one of his six companions, location unknown. Greenshield was that one guy who was always there joining the party but nobody really knew what he did for a day job.
Gendrak Cavereaches - Drinking buddy, one of his six companions, location unknown. Fellow lord of the Cavereaches clan, Gendrak wasn't set to inherit anything. Something of a glory hunter who always wanted to go out and prove he was capable of both leading and helping people.
Alias: He has not chosen a name to go by among the humans. They might deign to call him shorty, or some such.
Description: At 4'4, Wazrak is (he insists) average height. He has a black beard, which he wears in a single thick braid, contained by the jewelled ruby-inset silver clasp forged by his grandfather. Aside from his facial hair, his head is clean shaven. He has a ruddy complexion and a large nose. His stature is almost as wide as it is tall, and he is clearly bulky and muscled, if a little overweight in the gut. All in all, he looks like a dwarf walked straight out of a fantasy story.
Biography: Dwarves had always been a secretive and isolationist folk, and even before the clans of Anvilhorn emigrated from their home in the Scottish Highlands to the great peaks of the Rockies in the late 1700s to found a new hold and seek new riches, they maintained deliberate detachment from the affairs of men. When Wazrak was but a beardling a hundred years ago, his home, Anvilhorn Hold, sealed its entrances to resist a siege of magical night creatures. Even after the enemy moved on, the dwarves never reopened the main gates, and kept guarded the narrow and winding side-stairs. Aside from a few rangers needed to maintain a watch on the above-world and keep humans from approaching, the dwarven folk of Anvilhorn lived and delved beneath their mountain, forsaking surface and sun in exchange for safety and riches.
So they remained, hidden from the world, an isolated and self-sufficient dwarven society where Wazrak grew up. Isolated in their own world, the dwarves learned little of humanity and its crude machinations, focusing on maintaining their own superior craftsmanship and wide selection of drinks brewed from everything that grew in the river-caverns beneath the main hold. They mined gold and iron, forging dwarven steel tools and glittering jewellery beyond the craftsmanship of any human hand, accumulating great wealth to satiate their own avarice and industriousness. Wazrak was the son of a clan-head, his father Murrak, but that did not mean he did not craft or mine. He forged his own jewels, and even his own two-handed war pick - a long-handled steel weapon with a pick on one side of the head and a hammer-face on the other, beautifully engraved with gilded runes and studded with jasper and agate. Wazrak was expected to one day replace his father as clan-head, and learned how to arbitrate greivances and maintain the honour of the clan in the drinking halls. Sometimes. Other times, he skipped lessons on duty and custom to return to the forge, to carousing in the drinking halls, or to delve into the deep caverns with the monster hunters who kept the forgotten things from the darkness beneath the world from invading their mining pits and shafts. With war pick in hand and protected by steel plate, he learned to fight, and enjoyed it too.
Wazrak also studied, though not intensively. His curiosities were many - new forging techniques, manuals of battle, and even compiled lore and reports from the rangers as to the human civilization flourishing out in the sunlight. Wazrak found the idea of humans interesting - they had built strange and impressive machines, even with their crude and slipshod workmanship. His status granted Wazrak access to the deep library, which contained human books, and he learned enough of the English language to read them. And so his curiosity grew.
One day, drinking with some of his closest friends, Wazrak entered a contest to see who could best hold their liquor. The strongest ales and mushroom spirits were brought out, and Wazrak refused to back down, drinking against some of the toughest rangers and monster hunters of the fortress as his friends cheered him on. Possessed of some great need to prove himself, Wazrak drank more than he ever had before, drinking well past the point where even his durable dwarven constitution would have previously given up and fallen unconscious. He remembers climbing atop the table and making a charismatic speech, though he doesn't remember the words. He remembers leading his friends back to his clan-hall and then up to the throne room of the King of Anvilhorn. He remembers wearing his ancestors' ancient runic plate, and raising the Greataxe of Thorgak the First Cloudbreaker, and... well, at that point, it all gets too hazy to recall.
And then Wazrak woke up with the worst hangover he'd ever known, in the baking heat, with a blue sky above him, alone in a metal box full of trash, in the shadow of a great black glass pyramid. His war pick was close to hand, and he still wore his ancestors' armour, but his friends - and the legendary Greataxe of his progenitor - were nowhere to be seen. Little does he know, he swore an oath to the king that got him and six of his friends sent out into the surface world until he fulfils it. Now if only he could find out what that oath was, and how to get home...
Costume Description: Wazrak wears elaborate runic plate armour forged from polished steel, passed down and improved from ancestor to ancestor. It is etched with visible power runes and decorations, particularly on the torso, wrists and boots. He wears a dark blue cloak with his clan rune, a stylized lightning bolt splitting a diamond shape in half. Beneath his plate and mail he wears blue clothes of cave silk, and on the fingers of his gauntlet are set numerous jewelled gold rings (which are actually removable parts of the gauntlet and dont really fit on bare fingers). The helmet has gilded inset decorations and has eye-pieces and a noseguard, leaving his beard exposed, but dwarven beards are tougher than mere human hair and are also protected by the helmet's runes.
Character Abilities: Wazrak has inherent abilities, trained abilities and the benefits granted by his armour.
Dwarven Constitution: Wazrak is a dwarf; he is very strong, exceptionally tough and difficult to keep down, resistant to environmental effects, and very hard to incapacitate with alcohol - even when drunk (which takes a lot more than it takes to get a human drunk), he fights and functions just as well if not better compared to when he is sober, up until the point he gets so drunk he starts falling over. On the downside, he is not particularly agile, though it is very hard to exhaust him. He is also naturally resistant, though not immune, to magic.
Monster Hunter: Wazrak trained with the monster hunters of his hold, and fought monsters for fun, since dwarven steel plate made it a much less life-threatening experience than it otherwise would have been. He is a very skilled combatant, capable of moving in armour and striking fast and hard with devestating greatweapons. This experience has further toughened him up and improved his natural strength and endurance.
Craftsdwarfship: Wazrak chose to learn metalworking over the other traditional professions of mining, stoneworking or brewing. He is a skilled craftsdwarf, capable of making and repairing tools, weapons, armour and jewellery, given sufficiently high-quality tools and materials to work with and enough time to do the job right. He even knows how to imbue a few basic magical runes to enhance equipment, but he is no master runesmith.
Ancestral Armour of the Cloudbreaker Clan: This runic armour, passed down and improved from generation to generation, imbues the wearer with supernatural strength and resilience. Capable of crashing through walls at a full run, cutting through solid steel and shrugging off blows from powerful monsters and high-caliber bullets, this armour's wearer becomes a juggernaut of combat. It also extends protections to the wearer's weapons so the wear and tear doesn't destroy them and - most importantly - also protects the wearer's exposed beard from being damaged in combat. Finally, the armour has a number of comfort effects that make it wearable in extreme heat and cold, and additionally provide a gentle mending effect to repair itself and heal the wearer's wounds very slowly over time.
Home City: Anvilhorn Hold is a dwarf hold in the Rocky Mountains. The dwarves call the mountain it resides under Anvilhorn Peak, named after the king's clan. Wazrak doesn't know what the human name of the place would be, as he doesn't even know his way home.
City description: The dwarves of Anvilhorn are secretive and isolationist, having closed off their hold to outsiders long ago, and the humans have been kept from learning about their presence by the tireless work of the rangers. Within its subterranean halls, the city toils and thrives, doing traditional dwarfy things like mining, smelting, building, crafting, brewing, hoarding and feasting. Obviously, they have the full range of professions required to support their society, too, but most dwarves take up a traditional profession as a hobby in addition to one they need to support their clans and the hold as a whole. They built the hold on top of a gold mine, ensuring the humans never found it, and are such their vaults are full of unfathomable wealth. Of course, Wazrak has no way back there right now.
Friends, family and associates:
Murrak Cloudbreaker - Father, head of the Cloudbreaker clan, rightful owner of the two artifacts Wazrak ran off with, back at the hold.
Thorzid Steelwash - Other father (the dwarves don't really go for gender identity or sexual dimorphism), back at the hold.
Ezzok Cloudbreaker - Brother, back at the hold.
Madrak Hammerhelms - Drinking buddy, one of his six companions, location unknown. A ranger by trade, he probably knows the way back to Anvilhorn. A typical stoic armed with a dwarven blunderbuss.
Uksel Stonehefter - Drinking buddy, one of his six companions, location unknown. Young monster hunter who was very proud of the one time he killed a cave troll (with help). Easily excitable.
Thasrak Oathbarleys - Drinking buddy, one of his six companions, location unknown. He was a cook by trade, was prone to bouts of anger and surprisingly skilled with an axe.
Morgat Stormaxes - Drinking buddy, one of his six companions, location unknown. One of his father's sworn shields. Extremely friendly and gregarious, and a good friend in a fight.
Olgric Greenshield - Drinking buddy, one of his six companions, location unknown. Greenshield was that one guy who was always there joining the party but nobody really knew what he did for a day job.
Gendrak Cavereaches - Drinking buddy, one of his six companions, location unknown. Fellow lord of the Cavereaches clan, Gendrak wasn't set to inherit anything. Something of a glory hunter who always wanted to go out and prove he was capable of both leading and helping people.