Tuesday 29 January 2019

Erif's Story - Part 0


This is is the backstory for my character for a Dungeons and Dragon (5th edition) campaign that I will be joining. I will also be adding to this story in the form of more posts after every session, which I plan to narrate in the first person, but for this one, I will be recounting it in the third.


The first thing I should do is explain who Erif is, statistics wise. He is a fire genasi dragon sorcerer (specifically, red dragon sorcerer). when I came up with this character, my only idea was that he was everything fire - his species was fire-themed, his class was fire themed, and his name was "fire" and "scorch" spelt backwards! Of course, any good character for dungeons and dragons needs to have some kind of backstory, so using the "everything is fire" as a starting point, I decided make him backstory to fit the setting the campaign was to be taking place in.

 

Erif Hcrocs had a surprisingly "normal" childhood. His family (which consisted of his mother, and 3 siblings) were simple farmers the most "special" thing about his life was that he lived on the island of splendour (at least that is what I think it is called) which increases all magical power used on it.
This very normal life (as normal as you can get in a fantasy world that consists of floating islands) continued all the way into Erif's teen years, when a very... explosive event occurred.


Nearby the small village where Erif lived, there was a wizard. the wizard mostly kept to themselves, although occasionally the villagers would wake in the middle of the night to the sounds of strange arcane experiments going on.

Then, one day, with no reason or explanation, the wizards tower exploded, sending chunks of tower and destructive arcane energy every where. Several buildings were wrecked, and people who injured from chunks of debris or blasts of engird. Luckily, there were no fatalities, except for presumably the wizard, for no body was found, and it was hard to believe that any one could have survived being that close to the blast. Despite this unexpected event, all of the villagers generally recovered, and carried on with their lives.

However from that day, Erif would never be the same.

Erif was fairly close to the blast and was struck with a large amount of arcane energy. while most people who were similarly struck either received a burn, or electrocution, Erif was completely changed. his skin was now coal black and his eyes glowed, and seemed to have flames flicker all around them. His hair was completely gone, and was replaced by "flames" that did not burn. When he was injured, his blood glowed bright red. Most notably was that he was now able to cast magical spells - though most of them were fire- related in origin.
Erif also changed in personality as well. before that explosion he was quiet, calm, liked to follow the rules, and never tried to be a bother. After the explosion he wash rash, impulsive, did not seem to care for the rules, and liked to make his opinions known rather loudly.
His family and friends urged him to be more calm, act "normal" and so on and so forth, and for a time, he did try, because at the time he still felt it was his purpose to be a simple peasant like everyone else.

Then he started having the dreams.

First only occasionally, bit then more and more until he eventually had them (and continues to have them) every night.
The dreams mostly consist of fire - lots and lots of fire. And he is in the fire, either trying to control it or attempting to unleash it, but he does not know which. He knows that whatever he is doing, he will be making an important decision, with potentially world - wide consequences, but he is never certain what this decision is.

Receiving these dreams led Eric to the conclusion that he has a great and important destiny, and living the life of a simple farmer would not be how he would achieve it. and with a semi-inspirational speech to his village, he set off to become an adventurer.

after going on a couple of adventures (which I will discuss in just a bit), Eric came upon the realization that until he discovers his destiny, it may be good to have some sort of driving force for himself, and more importantly, a way to make money. This is his reason for joining the freemen (an "adventuring guild" which all of the players will be joining at the start of the campaign), because it provides him with the ability to travel the world and see new sights, which will, in his mind give him more insight into his destiny...


Additional Adventures

Between when he left his village and him joining the freemen, Eric had two "adventures"

1. In one town, Erif agreed to help a knight by the name of sir Justin Goodpants bring a group of bandits to justice.



However. when the pair of the reached the bandits lair, it was clear that the two of them had very different ideas about what "bringing the bandits to justice" meant. For Erif, it meant setting them all on fire, while for Justin, it meant to convince the the error of their ways and have them turn themselves in to the proper authorities. This led to conflict between the two of them. They did not come to blows, but Justin did give Eric a very stern talking to about morality and unprecedented violence, even though both of them knew that Erif did not care at all. After this adventure, the two of them parted ways, the hostility remains to this day.

(important note: Erif constantly mocks Justin for his last name, while Justin insists that his name is a perfectly reasonable one, since his parents were tailors)

2. Erif's second "adventure" was less of an adventure and more of an event - in one town he stayed at at some point during his travels, he was accused of and briefly imprisoned for the theft of a very large amount of gold and jewels. eventually, it was discovered that is was a different fire genasi that stole the money, and he was released, but this event did little to improve Erif's opinion of the law.

The source of his power

I have decided why Erif is a sorcerer and is able to cast magic spells and is a fire genasi, but this information is not something that he or any of the other people within his backstory know about.

Erifs ancestors, on both his mothers and fathers side, are descended from powerful magical creatures. one side is descended from red dragons, while the other is descended from efreet (a type of fire elemental). However, that alone is not enough for him to become what he is now. instead, His latent power has to be jumpstarted through a completely unique set of events. This means that it a combination of his unique heritage, the magical explosion, and probably even the time of day that was able to unlock the dragon magic and fire elemental heritage within him. (I am trying to make this as unique as possible so it explains why it has no happened to any of his siblings or ancestors)

Unknown factors 

There are several facts about my Erif's past and future that I am leaving for my Game master to decide, or for me to decide to add when I have decided something, including:

1. Erif's father.
Several parts of Erif's backstory that I have added were actually rolled (this is the case for Erif's two "adventures") one of the things that was rolled was that Erif's father abandoned his family. I decided that he did so when Erif was very young, and that his mother did not ever talk about him that much, so Eric's father has been left as an unknown element in his backstory, either to possibly never show up again, or perhaps to reappear again as a plot-critical character. Either way, I (and Erif) don't care.

2. Erif's destiny.
As I have mentioned, Erif has been having some very strange dreams for quite some time, and has become convinced that he has some sort of important, world-altering destiny. Weather or not this is the case, and if this destiny is real, what form it will take will also be determined by the GM.

3. probably some other stuff  
I am certain that I probably forgot to include some parts of Erif's backstory in this post. If that is the case, I will probably just add it in as a note in a latter post, if it turns out to be an important enough part of his backstory.