Okay so i started writing a backstory for my half-orc oath of conquest paladin who was meant to be a joke in the sense of him being overly religious and essentially find everyone who followed a deity other than his heretics and would punch them for it. However during writing, the story happened to take a different turn. If you have the time (~30 min) and interest, all comments and ratings for the backstory would be appreciated. Please keep in mind that nothing in this story has any relation to anything in real life and should not be interpreted as such.
Emmond's mother Elaine was a human cleric and his father Urul an orc. His parents met by pure chance, which someone might have called fate.
The story of the fated meeting was told to Emmond by his mother as follows several times when he was growing up:
Elaine was part of an adventurer group that was on a quest to slay a silver dragon which had been tormenting nearby villages. After finally finding the dragon, the party was surprised to see a handful of orcs fighting against it. Judging from their fighting style, the adventurers could immediately tell the orcs were still a bit inexperienced in the art of battle and would have no chance against the dragon on their own. The adventurers rushed to aid the orcs, Elaine healed the now wounded orcs as had become customary for her in her role as the healer of the group. The dragon was way stronger than what the information they had received while accepting the quest had described, the battle raged on for quite a while before they were able to finally fell the dragon. Both the orcs and the adventurers were utterly exhausted after the hard feat they had just succeeded in. Seeing the adventurers had no place to safely spend the night in the dangerous wilderness, one of the orcs asked them if they wanted to spend the night in their tribes camp some way up north. What surprised the adventurers was that the orc spoke immaculate common tongue. After the trek the adventurers began to hear howling, soon after they could see crudely constructed wooden walls and watchtowers embedded in them in the horizon, the adventurers deduced this must be the orc tribes village. Having now arrived and seeing the village gates they now knew the source of the howling they had heard before to be dire wolves the orcs had tamed and raised presumably as mounts. There were sharp bloodstained wooden barricades beneath the village gates, they were seemingly and judging from the blood stains succesfully been built to hinder the progress of hostile cavalry. As the orcs that manned the watchtowers started shouting some guttural language the adventurers didn't understand, and after several brute looking orcs weapons raised on their dire wolf mounts started riding towards them from their flanks, eventually surrounding them from all sides, the adventurers grew anxious and terrified they were lured into a trap and were destined to soon lose their heads. The orc Elaine recognized to have been the one who was fluent in common tongue raised his weapon and shouted something to the orcs surrounding them, they lowered their weapons. One of the mounted orcs uttered a word, pounded his fist to his chest once and gave an air of respect to the adventurers and the returning orc warriors, the other orc riders surrounding them followed in the gesture. The adventurers later learned that the word the orc rider had uttered meant "dragon slayer". After a few hours of sleep, the break of dawn woke up Elaine, still sleepy and exhausted, Elaine decided to wander around the tribes village out of curiosity. She happened across the orc who had initially offered to take her group to the village sitting next to a newly lit campfire with some fish the orc must have caught while she was still asleep skewered through sticks and lightly seasoned with salt and natural herbs. She acknowledged her whole party would be dead either from the dragons breath, or getting beheaded by the orc tribesmen, if not for this orc standing up for them and his group helping with felling the dragon. She felt a word of thanks and introduction would be the least she had to do to show respect and gratitude for the orc. "Hi, my name is Elaine" she uttered. "My whole group would be dead if not for you and your tribesmen. For this i offer the deepest gratitude and thanks" she said while bowing deeply. "Urul" the orc muttered still eyes towards the fish skewers he was grilling. "What?" Elaine asked confusedly, taken of guard by the answer. "It's my name, Urul" the orc said this time looking straight to Elaines eyes. Uruls eyes were tinted a deep crimson and his build very broad and muscular under the leather armor he was wearing. "Oh, i thought it was orcish for something i didn't understand" she said ashamed of the misuderstanding and fearing she might be found a bit simple. To change the subject and recover from the previous blunder, she asked Urul "How come you are so proficient in common tongue? From what i understand, not many orcs are this fluent in common tongue in these parts of the land." "That is correct, i am somewhat of a oddball in that regard. I have been on journey to prove myself with my group you met yesterday while fighting the dragon" Urul answered after seemingly taking a moment to think of a suitable choice of words. "I came across a story book i took an interest in during my journey" he continued. "The storybook had a formidable looking male clad in armor and warhammer in his hand painted on the cover" he explained. "I couldn't however make a worgs ass out of what the book was about other than the cool cover, so i stole a dictionary on common tongue so that i could read it." Elaine chuckled at the amusing answer. "The books name was The great story of Emmond." Urul said "Turns out, the only thing great about the book was on the cover." Urul said while raising his elbows as emphasis ending the story. "Well, i could say we were lucky that the cover was interesting since you might have otherwise not learned common tongue" Elaine pointed out. "Me and my party would have most definitely perished if not for that". "To be fair, me and my tribesmen were saved by you as well yesterday" Urul acknowledged "If not for your healing magic and help from your friends, we too would have ended up in the dragons stomach or its lair to be fed to the hatchlings" he continued, "For this, i offer you my gratitude as well" he said while raising his fist to pound his chest twice. "Well, lets thank the book then" Elaine said jokingly "Thank the book." Urul said while nodding with a faint smile on his face. "I assume you haven't had the time for any breakfast yet?" Urul asked, pointing at the fish skewers by the campfire, "They are just about done." he continued. "No, i last ate yesterday" Elaine answered just now realising her hunger and that it might have something to do with the exhaustion she was feeling. "I would cladly have some if you are happy to spare some" Elaine continued eagerly. "The amount of fish here could propably feed a city of dwarves. How much do you think i can eat?" Urul asked jokingly. "I guess less than a city of dwarves" Elaine answered chuckling. They both laughed, ate and chatted a while before the rest of the tribe and quests awoke. When it became time for Elaine and her group to leave and continue their journeys, Urul asked if he could join the party. He saw that he might become stronger adventuring with Elaine and her party, and that the warriors in the group might have some techniques worth learning from them to use alongside the raw strength he had solely relied on before. Elaines party discussed a bit and unanimously decided that Urul was a welcome addition to the group. Uruls tribe wasn't as happy about the decision as they felt the unity of the tribe has to take priority above all else. Uruls mind was set on leaving the tribe however and was thus branded an outcast among the tribe after leaving. Elaine and Urul kept adventuring together for a few years, some of the party members changed along the journey, but they kept together all that time. During this time, they developed feelings for each other, things led to another and Elaine ended up with a child. They both felt life on the road fit for adventurers wasn't one for a child and they ended up settling in a farmstead next to a port town. Eventually the child was born and was named Emmond for the book that played a part in the series of coincidences that brought Urul and Elaine together.
About Emmond and his early childhood:
He inherited his mothers green eyes and was otherwise physically akin to his father. He grew up in a loving household, his mother ran a healing clinic attached to the farmstead and his father ran the farm, occasionally helping local adventurers in dealing with runaway monsters in the area if he had the time. The farmstead had a stall with a few horses alongside the farms other animals to help tend with the chores in plowing the land and transporting produce. Emmond grew extremely fond of the horses in particular while growing up. He grew especially fond of a horse named Valerion with white hair that would shimmer golden when struck by light. Emmond felt as if the horse was divine in some way, he befriended the horse and thought it was as important to him as a companion, as any human or other being could be. His parents were both experienced and respected adventurers in their past lives so Emmonds natural aptitude inherited through his blood from both his mothers and fathers side were recognised at an early age. His mother was of noble descent and had a lot of sorcerers, wizards, clerics and other academically, as well as magically inclined people in the extended family line. His mother realized the same aptitude for magic in Emmond as she felt in herself, along this she sensed something else too, but wasn't able to pinpoint what exact form of magic it was. His father noticed Emmonds developing physique to be similar to his and therefore fit to hone a formitable warrior out of. Both of the parents thought teaching Emmond in the ways they could, would become useful some day to help Emmond fend for himself and help others if they were in need. Late childhood and teenage: The orc blood in him caused Emmonds physique to develop very fast compared to a normal human. In late childhood he was already the size of a teenager and as a teenager, the size of an adult. Through the orc blood, also came a temper and desire to test the limits of his capabilities. He would sometimes have his own little adventures away from the family farmstead either wandering around aimlessly trying to find something interesting or hunting for small beasts and monsters he thought he could best. On one of those adventures, he went towards the port town and came across a blacksmith shop outside the town walls, something about the shop piqued his interest and he decided to go inside. The inside of the shop was noticeably hot. At the center there was a furnace, the walls were full of complete and incomplete weapons and armor, next to the furnace was a huge anvil and behind it a dwarf hammering a piece of iron against it. Although the dwarf was obviously sturdy and muscular from seemingly decades of hammering iron, the contrast of an huge anvil with a relatively small person behind it struck Emmond as amusing. A chuckle escaped from Emmonds lips. The dwarfs focus was broken, he stopped hammering and looked up to Emmond. "What the **** are ye laughing at!?" the dwarf shouted, obviously furious at Emmond for interrupting his work. "Sorry, i thought it was amusing how the anvil is almost your size." Emmond explained, "Why do you need such a big anvil?" he asked. Emmond heard some words in a language he didn't understand but could figure it had to be profanities or similar judging from the tone. "**** ye and the horse ye rode in on!" the dwarf shouted raising his hammer. "Ye ought not teach yer pappy how to ride yer mum, trust me, i know me way around an anvil!" the dwarf shouted once again. Emmond saw that the dwarf was about to throw the hammer at him as he ran through the front door. The hammer flew cleanly through the doorboards, an inch above his head, landing a few meters past him towards a tree, in which the hammer embedded itself in, its handle now broken. "Oy ye fast ****er, look what ye did to me door!?" he heard faintly as the dwarf shouted from inside the shop. "And me hammer ye ****!" he still heard just loud enough to make up the words. Emmond had just nearly escaped with his life. Even though the hammer could have easily killed him, he was impressed enough of the throw that he decided upon visiting the store again as soon as he could, he now owed the dwarf a new door and a hammer after all. That and the fact that he found the foul-tongued and temperamental dwarf to be an amusing individual. How could a being so much smaller than him throw a hammer with that much force? As he went back home that day, he told about the incident to his father who laughed about the story for a while. "So you met Hjalgir?" his father asked after he was done with his laughing fit. "You would better fix his door and get him a new hammer, the old bastard could propably topple our house over if he was pissed enough about it" his father said, now with a serious look on his face. "Judging by the damage he managed to cause by throwing a simple hammer, i can somehow believe that" Emmond agreed. "It might be best if i took Valerion and an open ended horse cart and went to the city to buy some boards and the hammer straight away tomorrow." Emmond proposed, his father nodding in agreement. The next day, immediately after breakfast, he saddled the horse, attached the cart to it and started riding towards the city, careful to not go too close past the blacksmiths shop, fearing he might have to dodge sharper objects this time. Emmond entered the city gates and first headed to the lumber mill to buy some boards. After he was done haggling the price and leaving the lumber yard with a good deal of some special batch of quality boards, he went on buy the dwarf a new hammer. He wasn't exactly an expert when it comes to smithing hammers, so he just bought one he saw might be sufficient. Now done with shopping, he rode on past the city gates and went on towards the blacksmith. After arriving at the blacksmith, he saw smoke rising from the chimney and figured the dwarf had already started with todays work. After tying Valerion to a tree next to the shop, he walked towards the door, knocked on it and peeked throught the broken boards. "Hjalgir, are you there?" he asked. "Oy ye wanker, i sure hope ye brought me the new hammer and a door!" the dwarf shouted, having recognised Emmond through the hole in the door. "How did ye know me name anyhows?" he continued asking. "Yes, i brought them." Emmond responded "My father mentioned your name yesterday" he continued. "Well, let's take a look at what ye brought" Hjalgir said. He went outside and saw Valerion. "Oh, ye must be Urul and Elaines boy" the dwarf said. "How did you know?" Emmond asked surprised the dwarf knew his parents. "Not many people have this nice of a steed in these parts" the dwarf explained. "That and the fact yer a half-orc, not many orcs here either" the dwarf continued. The dwarf started examining the goods Emmond had brought from the city. "The boards seem to be good enough but the hammer is shite" the dwarf said holding the new hammer. "Ye might as well be hitting a limp fish against the anvil than use this, the hammerhead is way too soft to forge anything other than kitchen utensils with" the dwarf explained. "Sorry, i didn't know" Emmond said. Ignoring Emmond, the dwarf went to the tree which he had hit the old hammer with yesterday. The hammer was still lodged into the tree, the dwarf ripped the hammer off the tree, removed the hammerhead from the broken handle and swapped the hammerheads with the new hammer. He threw the new hammerhead some way into the bushes, scaring away some critters that had been hiding in it as result. "Now this is something ye could work with!" the dwarf exclaimed, holding the hammer he had made in his hand. "At least the handle ye brought was good enough to be used with the old hammerhead." he continued, muttering something in dwarven. "What was it that you said just now" Emmond asked out of curiosity. "Nothing worth translating" the dwarf anwered. "Both of the languages use Dethek script in writing, do you understand written Daraktan then?" Emmond asked, using the name of his fathers language in orcish. "Ney, Daraktan seems like jumbled up nonsense to me." Hjalgir answered, "That being the best case, most of the time orcs are too busy waging war with their tribes to learn anything useful ey?" Hjalgir continued smiling at Emmond. "That might be true." Emmond aswered smiling back at Hjalgir. "I have taken some interest in dwarven language, i figured it might be easier to learn as well since i can write in Dethek script. Would you be able to teach me?" Emmond asked. After thinking for a while Hjalgir anwered "Ay, i think i could do that If ye could teach me Daraktan". "Then i would know who to aim me hammer at" Hjalgir continued . "Those poor orcs" Emmond said laughing in response to the dwarf's remark. After this, Emmond and Hjalgir carried the boards inside and Emmond started fixing the door according to Hjalgirs instructions. Emmond soon started getting to know Hjalgir better as he often went to the shop to teach Daraktan and learn dwarven language, he occasionally helped Hjalgir as a blacksmith's apprentice and would sometimes deliver orders to customers. Hjalgir became the first meaningful friend to Emmond albeit the unusual circumstances in which they originally met.
Late teenage and early adulthood:
Emmond became a well recognized sight at the town market having delivered orders to several townspeople under Hjalgir's tasks. He had also become quite proficient using a hammer during his blacksmith apprenticeship and had adopted a warhammer as his weapon of choice when it came to fighting as well. He came across some occasional robbers trying to get their hands on Hjalgir's produce when he was delivering them in the cart pulled by Valerion. The robbers were met with a humiliating ending however as Emmond stood up to defend the cargo and himself using his warhammer and surprising the robbers with occasional spellslinging. The robbers usually ended up tied to a tree or hauled back to the town dungeons by Emmond himself. After learning about Emmond's capabilities, fewer robbers dared to challenge the cart pulling half-orc as time went on. Emmond's homestead had developed quite a bit from what he remembered from early childhood. Especially his mothers healing clinic that had originally been a part of their house had now become a separate building. It had gotten hugely popular among beginner adventurers and poor people especially due to the reasonable price and Elaine being kind-hearted and understanding towards those less fortunate, often giving customers the option of paying in separate settlements or trading in for items. This had become well known in the town and nearby households, earning the respect of many but also the hate of some. Some of the pharmacies and healing clinics in town that were ran by rich nobles had become accustomed to outrageus prices when it came to their services and had noticed a great amount of customers flow towards Elaines clinic, the greedy pharmacies and clinics were outraged by this since they would need to lower their prices or they would have no choice but to lose their customers to a competitor. It was the day Emmond were to turn 18, he woke up to clanging coming from the kitchen. He rose from the bed and dressed. He went to the kitchen and were greeted by his parents. "Good morning son, happy birthday!" his mother exclaimed smiling and hugging Emmond. "You have grown up to be a strong and respectable individual, i am proud to have you as my son" his father said, rising up from the chair and bumping his fist against his chest twice. "Thank you. If not for having such great parents, i could have ended up otherwise" Emmond responded, stopped hugging his mother and bumped his fist against his chest twice in response to both his father and mother. "I took some time to prepare an extra special breakfast to celebrate your adulthood" his mother said. "Please help yourself to anything you would like" she continued, smiling at Emmond. "Thank you, i will" Emmond responded, sat at the chair at the end of the table and started filling his plate. After eating he remembered Hjalgir had asked to come visit him yesterday so he stood up from the chair, thanked his mother for the food and left towards the dwarfs shop by foot. "Remember to always keep your head held up high." his father said as Emmond was leaving. "Yes, i will" he responded. Emmond arrived at Hjalgirs workshop and knocked on the door. Hjalgir walked up to the door, opened it and saw Emmond. "I heard it is yer birthday? Happy birthday ye bastard!" Hjalgir exclaimed in Daraktan, shaking Emmonds hand to congratulate him. "Thank you." Emmond responded in dwarven. "Come inside, i got something to give ye" Hjalgir said. They both went inside and Hjalgir grapped a shiny hammer from the wall Emmond knew were for displaying more expensive items. "I forged this hammer for ye to thank ye for the help ye have given me and as a birthday present" Hjalgir said. "I modeled it as a warhammer and made it to be especially fit for yer size." he continued. "The handle and hammerhead are strong enough to handle years of blows and should be fit for smithing as well." Hjalgir said smiling and passed the hammer onto Emmond's hands. "Wow, thank you. I didn't expect to receive a gift from you, my friend" Emmond responded in dwarven and pounded his fist against his chest twice. "No need to thank me, ye have become a important friend for me as well" Hjalgir said in Daraktan and pounded his fist against his chest twice in response. "That must be one of the first times a dwarf has responded to an orc in Daraktan and used an orcish gesture while doing so" Emmond exclaimed laughing at Hjalgir. "Go shack a goat ey!?" the dwarf shouted jokingly in response at Emmonds remark. "I don't have any work for ye today, go home and enjoy yer birthday with yer parents" Hjalgir said. Emmond thanked Hjalgir and as he was about to leave, they heard a huge boom coming from the direction of Emmonds homestead. Emmond rushed out the door and started running towards home. As he arrived, he saw a cloud of dust and wood splinters of various sizes scattered in a huge radious around the farm from the result of what he now knew was an explosion. He saw a pair of chickens that had survived running around in panic and rushed to frantically search if his parents might have somehow survived. He heard a faint noice coming from under the houses wreckage. As he ran there and started clearing the pile of rubble, he saw his father and mother under it. "I am sorry Emmond, i couldn't save your mother" his father said barely audible, his eyes full of sorrow turning towards Elaine's corpse. "Don't speak, i will try to save you!" Emmond shouted and looked around helplessly. "It is time for me to join your mother and my ancestors, my injuries are beyond healing" Urul said. "Please don't go, i am not ready to lose you!" Emmond shouted in response, tears running down his cheeks. "You have to, you are strong and are the greatest gift me and your mother could have asked for" Urul responded with a faint smile on his face looking at Emmond. "Have a happy life without us and know that we will be watching over you from the heavens with pride. Goodbye Emmond.“ Urul continued with his last breath, his face falling against the ground in silence. Emmond was filled with grieve and sadness and broke down crying on his knees. Hjalgir had set off immediately after Emmond to see what had happened after hearing the boom as well. Due to his much shorter feet he just now arrived at the scene. "Good heavens, who could have done this?" he said after arriving beside Emmond. "Everything and everyone i had is dead and destroyed" Emmond said sobbing, ignoring Hjalgir's question. "I am truly sorry for yer loss. Yer parents were good people, may peace be with their souls in heaven" Hjalgir said, holding Emmond's shoulder. "I will make sure whoever is responsible is met with a fate much more cruel than this." Emmond said, now with rage filling his eyes. "I have nothing left, best i can do is hold a funeral by fire for my parents, burning all of the remains of our home while doing so as well" Emmond continued. "Ay, i can help ye gather up the rubble." Hjalgir responded. They started gathering all of the rubble and as Emmond happened across the horse stable, he saw the remains of Valerion as well. "Valerion, you too my friend. What had you ever done besides good as well?" Emmond asked, petting the horses hair. "I will bury you along with my parents." Emmond said and left to gather all of the other rubble to the bonfire. It was late at night when they were done gathering everything. Emmond carried his parents and Valerions remains on top of the bonfire, climbed down and lit the bonfire. As he was watching the fire, he went down on his knees in prayer. "Please god, give me strength to carry on, give me the strength for revenge, give me the strength to punish everything evil and to protect everything good from it." Emmond said. He suddenly felt something or someone entering his mind, his eyes started glowing with intense golden light and he saw flashes of images picturing warriors radiant with golden light and wings on their back, images of battles against demons and fiends, images of warriors with weapons emitting golden light on the battlefield with their ethereal looking mounts and magic he didn't recognize. "What in heavens name was that?" Hjalgir asked shaking Emmond by the shoulders. "I don't know for sure. I feel god might have just answered me" Emmond answered a bit confused having just now returned to reality. "I feel remnants of a form of magic i don't recognize inside of me." he continued. "I saw images of warriors radiant with golden light with wings on their back, weapons glowing with the same light, warriors with ethereal looking mounts and magic i don't know flashing through my eyes." Emmond finished explaining. "I have heard tales of such warriors before, they were called paladins and other times dark knights." Hjalgir said. "God might have just given ye a task to become his warrior and passed on the necessary skills to become one." Hjalgir continued. "I feel that might be true." Emmond responded. After a while of talking and saying their goodbyes for now, Emmond set off to find a church or similar which might have some answers to what he seeked.
Adulthood and joining the order of paladins:
It took Emmond quite some time to eventually find what he seeked. He came across a city in his travels in which he found a religious building with knights standing as guards in front of it. He saw there was resemblance between them and the visions he saw after the prayer. He walked to the guards and asked "Are you paladins?". "Who is asking?" one of the guards answered. "Emmond, son of Urul and Elaine." he aswered. "I need to find paladins who can teach me." he continued. "Yes, we are. This is a paladin training facility." the guard answered. "Not just anyone can become a paladin however so bugger off." the guard continued, waving his hand in order to shoo Emmond away. "I feel i was touched by god. I saw visions of warriors like you with wings on their back and my eyes glowed with golden light when i prayed." Emmond explained, recalling the incident to the guard. The guard turned towards the other guard and said something Emmond couldn't hear. "Wait here." the guard ordered as the other guard opened the gates of the building and went inside, the gates closing behind him. After a while the gates opened again with a warrior wearing fancy looking plate armor marching towards Emmond with the other guard behind him. "You said you were touched by god i hear?" the fancy armor wearing knight asked. "Yes." Emmond answered. "You don't seem to be lying but we will still have to see for a fact that you were indeed touched by god, follow me" the knight ordered and pointed towards the gates. Emmond followed the knight through the gates in silence for a while. Emmond saw several paladins training in the courtyard, some were casting spells and others sparring with several kinds of weapons. At the center of the courtyard was a path which led to stairs leading into a building Emmond figured must be a temple of some sort. As they had nearly arrived at the stairs the knight accompanying him said "We need to figure out the identity of the god to know who you would be offering your prayers to and what your oath in the order of paladins would be". "My name is Darius, I am in charge of training new recruits and work as an immediary for deities." the fairly tall human knight continued. "My name is Emmond." Emmond answered, "I don't know much about paladins, what exactly is an oath and are there many deities a paladin can serve under?" Emmond asked. "There are several gods, an oath is a dogma you swear to live by, it varies based on the oath in question." Darius answered. They had now arrived at the temple doors at the end of the stairs. "Step inside, it is time to find out who your god is." Darius commanded. Emmond stepped inside after Darius and saw several symbols decorating the walls, presumably each an emblem for their respective deities. There were three stone pillars on each side of the carpet-laid path they were walking on, the pillars had several candles mounted in rings arounds the pillars sides. At the end of the path, there was an altar. "Go towards the altar and kneel in front of it" the knight ordered. As Emmond did as he was told, Darius placed his had onto Emmonds forehead. "Recite the prayer after which you were contacted by your god in your mind." the knight ordered again. Emmond did as he was asked and started to pray in silence. "Hear me as your intermediary, show yourself and speak through your vassal which you have brought in front of me." Darius said, uttered words in a language Emmond didn't understand, took his hand from Emmond's forehead and waved it toward the symbols on the walls. A symbol depicting a black hand with a two-faced human encircled by a ring on the palm of the hand lit up on the wall. An ethereal silhouette of a jet black eyed human looking figure wearing a blue silken shirt with gold trim, fine leather vest and a pair of golden bracers wielding a massive broad sword and a guiver of javelins on his back emerged behind Emmond. Emmond's eyes turned jet black not unlike the ones the silhouette had and he started speaking in a deep echoing voice that didn't belong to him, "Hear me, i am Hoar, The doombringer, lord of vengeance and poetic justice." the voice said. "Have this vassal enter into your faction under the oath of vengeance and teach him how to harness his powers." the voice continued. "He shall become my messenger, an avenger who will uphold true and fitting justice and maintain the spirit of law in my name." the voice said, drifting away in the end along with the silhouette. Emmond's eyes returned to normal and the light emanating from the symbol on the wall faded away. "Okay... That felt weird" Emmond blurted out feeling utterly dumbstruck. "Yeah, you are not the first who has said that" Darius said, "Now we know your deity is Hoar." he continued. "What language was it you used as you waved your hand?" Emmond asked. "Celestial, it was a spell to detect good and evil." Darius answered. "You will be learning this language as well as a part of your training along with a language you can choose yourself." he continued. "I will guide you to the recruits charters, you can leave your belongings there." Darius said. "Just so you know, I have no intention of parting with my hammer" Emmond stated. "We won't be forcing you to, instead it is preferable if you have learned how to use a weapon before joining the order as it makes the weapons training faster." Darius explained. "But enough of that, let us start heading towards your quarters. We still need to hold an evaluation for you in the administrative quarters." Darius said, pointing at the door of the temple. They went on past the door, down the stairs and walked to the middle of the courtyard where the path forked to left and right side. Darius turned left and Emmond followed after him. They entered the building and walked up the spiral staircase leading into the recruit quarters Emmond would be staying in. They walked through the corridor at the top of the staircase, eventually stoppong behind one of the doors. "I hope you don't mind a roommate, we don't have any empty rooms at this moment." Darius said and knocked on the door. After a while the door opened and the doorway stood a dwarf. "Curse my luck, ending up as an orcs roommate." the dwarf muttered quietly in dwarven while rolling his eyes. "I'm sure we will get along just fine, unless you start throwing hammers at me that is." Emmond said to the dwarf in dwarven. The dwarfs eyes opened up so wide you could almost mistake them for a pair of small wisps. "Y-y-you can speak dwarven?" the dwarf asked flabbergasted. "Yes, nice to meet you. My name is Emmond." Emmond introduced himself holding a laugh while reaching his hand towards the dwarf's for a handshake. "Likewise, my name is Amron. Gotta say this is the first time i have ever met an orc who knew dwarven." The dwarf said and grapped Emmond's outreached hand. "It seems you will get along just fine." Darius said after letting out a small cough to catch their attention. "I'm sorry commander, i missed you entirely." Amron said and saluted Darius. "You are the commander? I didn't know, sorry if acted rude towards you." Emmond said and bumped his fist to his chest twice in a show of respect. "Don't worry, you acted more respectful than most. I didn't mention i am the commander anyways so you couldn't possibly have known." Darius said reassuringly. "Now then, please drop of your personal belongings in the chest in front of the vacant bed and let us head on towards the administrative building." Darius continued. "Yes sir." Emmond responded and did as he was told. After dropping of his belongings, they headed back to the courtyard now continuing straight past the fork in the path. "You are quite proficient with languages, where did you learn dwarven?" Darius asked as they were walking towards the administrative building's entrance. "I worked in a blackmith's forge as an apprentice, the forge was owned by a dwarf." Emmond answered, "I taught him orcish and he taught me dwarven in return." he continued. "You are unusually scholarly for an orc, by no offense of course." Darius said. "None taken, i am aware most orcs are drawn more into warfare than literature and languages." Emmond responded. They arrived at the entrance of the building and headed on through a well lit and decorated hallway, at the end there were double doors which Emmond figured must be where the evaluation would be held. Darius went through the doors and sat behind a desk. "Please sit at the chair in front of the desk, i would like to hear a summary of your story up until this point to know more of your capabilities and what to offer you in terms of training." Darius said. Emmond started telling the story from his childhood farmstead home, as he got to the part about the horses and Valerion in particular, Darius interrupted him. "You are experienced in riding a mount then?" Darius asked. "Yes, I often rode Valerion to go to the city and deliver orders from the forge i worked at" Emmond answered with sadness in his voice reminiscing Valerion. "There is a spell to summon a spirit from another realm, it takes a form that is familiar to you. A bond is formed between you and the spirit and you can use it as a mount in and out of combat." Darius said. "This might suite you well in terms of spells to teach you." Darius continued. "I guess that is true. No mount will amount to Valerion I'm afraid though." Emmond stated. "We will see when the time comes. You can continue with your story" Darius said. Emmond continued with his story, telling Darius of his parents and how they had taught him in ways they had learned as adventurers. He told Darius of the day when he lost them and everything else he cared for along with it. He told him about the prayer he had uttered while watching the remains of his parents, valerion and his home go up in flames and after which Hoar had contacted him. He told darius how he had travelled to find what the deity had shown him and how he ended up sitting in front of Darius at this moment. "Hearing your story and the prayer word by word, i can see why Hoar choose you. He is also known as Lord of the three thunders. It is said he may manifest in the form of three deep rolls of thunder when a quilty party falls prey to a suitable, often ironic fate. Hence the name Lord of the three thunders." Darius explained. "He is a deity for those who wish to repay eye for an eye and uphold the scales of balance in the world that way. Although an act of vengeace such as this might be against several oaths and dogma of several gods, a paladin serving Hoar under the oath of vengeance is considered righteus and fair." Darius continued. "Some may feel upholding Hoars version of justice to be evil and could potentially offer you strife in your path following this deity. Are you able to accept this and still follow under Hoars guidance?" Darius asked. "Yes, i swear to follow in his teachings, i can handle strife no matter the cause." Emmond responded. "Okay then, i suggest you drop by the library in this building to pick up a book regarding Hoar and his teachings to learn how to better follow his teachings and what he might expect of you." Darius suggested. "Now go to your quarters, your training will start tomorrow. Say Darius sent you when you arrive at the library." Darius concluded. "Yes sir!" Emmond anwered bumping his fist against his chest twice and left towards the library. He did as he was told and took a book of Hoar along with him to the recruits quarters.
Paladin training and the unforeseeable future:
Emmond had been training for a few years now. After reading the book of Hoar, he learned that everyone following in Hoar's teachings was expected to carry a weapon of every damage type with them at all times so that if they are attacked, they can respond with a weapon of the same damage type in return. For this, he had picked a warpick, a battleaxe and hand crossbow as his weapons of choice along with his trusted warhammer. He figured it to be fitting to have these melee weapons as skills in one can be transfered to the others quite easily. As for the crossbow, he had some experience in hunting with his dad's crossbow back when he still lived in his childhood home, that and the fact he had learned that typical paladins have little means of ranged attacks. This way he could patch that flaw and be able to further follow in his deitys teachings of responding with ranged attacks if he were to be hit with one. He had also learned how to use shields in order to protect himself and others. He had befriended his dwarven roommate Amron and after talking with him, he had taken up Primordial language as his other mandatory language of choice upon Amron's suggestion. Primordial uses Dethek script so learning it seemed natural for Emmond and it would help if he ever had to deal with elementals during his journeys in the future. It was the day Emmond was to learn the summon steed spell. He hadn't slept much and woke up early in the morning. The night was restless as the summoning spell inevitably brought him to remember his diseased steed and friend Valerion, he was afraid the summoned steed would only make him think of Valerion and increase his suffering. He dressed and started walking towards the canteen located downstairs in the same building his room was in. There were only a few persons at the canteen, understandable as it was still quite early. He ate a light breakfast as he didn't have much appetite due to the stress, filled his waterskin with water and went to the courtyard to practice. He went to the shooting range and shot what must have been close to twenty crossbow bolts into the target about a hudred feet in front of him. He went to the target and saw most of the bolts gathered near the center, some of the bolts had been split in half and were in splinters on the ground in front of the target. He felt conflicted as he was proud he had managed to shoot so accurate he had managed to split the bolts but angry at the same time since this meant he had to go buy more bolts. He picked up the splinters on the ground and threw them as far as he could behind the target in frustration. After holstering his crossbow, he went to the wooden practice dummies at the other side to practice unarmed combat and to do some practice swings. He threw some punches at the dummy, after a while switching to kicks. He ended up kicking the dummy so hard the wooden pole holding the dummy upright snapped in half, he grunted to himself and decided to finish of the dummy by ripping the pole of the ground, throwing it as far he could, and hacking the rest of the dummy that laid in the ground into pieces with his axe. He felt he had managed to vent some of the frustration off but felt he had gone a little overboard. Emmond turned around to go into the temple to pray but found Darius standing behind him. "You must be eager for the days learnings, already at the courtyard and everything" Darius said. "Do we need to consider setting up a practice dummy made of steel for you just in case you want to abuse the other dummies as well? The poor dummy" Darius continued with a sly smile, looking past Emmond to the remains of the wooden dummy laying scattered on the ground. "Sorry sir, i didn't get much sleep last night. I went a bit overboard with the dummy while venting my frustration" Emmond responded ashamed of mistreating the obviously innocent dummy. "I trust you will find other ways to went in the future? We will actually have to go through with steel dummy idea otherwise, you obviously being the one to finance the acquisition of it" Darius asked. "Yes sir, it won't happen again" Emmond answered. "Okay, it's almost time for the other recruits to start gathering in the courtyard for the spell lessons. Let us wait for them to arrive" Darius said and pointed towards the point the recruits were to gather in. Emmond pounded his fist against his chest twice and went to stand on the place Darius had pointed at. After the rest of the recruits had arrived, Darius started instructing the basic principles of the summoning spell and went on with the other details regarding the spell. Soon it came time to put the lessons into practice, there were several recruits who had to try casting the spell before Emmond. He waited nervously, seeing most of the recruits succeeding but some failing as well. As Emmond's turn came, he channeled magic into his hands, said the words needed for summoning in Celestial and released the magic onto the ground in front of him. A ring of Celestial script glowing with a golden light appeared on the ground and a silhouette of a warhorse started to materialise in the center. As it had fully materialised, Emmond could see the familiar white hair of the horse shimmering in faint golden tint as the sun shone against it. "Valerion!?" Emmond exclaimed, his eyes opening so wide you could imagine them falling out their sockets. He heard the celestial horse neighing in response and a voice in his head saying "Yes, how have you been Emmond? You have grown so much". "By the heavens, Valerion!" Emmond shouted and ran towards Valerion, hugged him and petted his silken hair. "Valerion, i thought i wouldn't see you again until it came time to join you in death. I am sorry i let you down" Emmond said with teardrops running down his cheeks feeling quilty of letting Valerion meet such a cruel fate. "There is no need to apologise, you were a praiseworthingly caring master. There was nothing you could have done, it was meant to happen" the voice inside Emmond's head said. "I am so glad to have you alongside me again after all this time my friend. I never thought this to be possible." Emmond said, wiping the tears on his face, looking up to the sky and offering a silent prayer to Hoar in case it was him who had enabled this to happen. "Likewise my friend." the voice inside Emmond's mind responded, Valerion neighing in turn and rubbing its head against Emmond. "We rarely see a spirit summon and their master to have such a deep bond immediately after summoning. The spirit happening to be a resurrection of this sort is even rarer." Darius said after watching the exchange between Emmond and Valerion take place. "It feels like it was fated for this to happen. You must have been a good master for him to return to you in this manner" Darius continued smiling faintly at the pair seemingly happy for their reunion. "I too feel it must be fate, no other steed could have ever taken his place." Emmond said lightly petting Valerion with a feeling of happiness he hadn't felt since his parents, and Valerion's passing. "He seems like a reliable steed. I wish you fortune in your future together." Darius said, Valerion nodding his head and Emmond bumping his fist to his chest twice in response. "Got to say it feels weird to hear his voice in my mind though" Emmond noted, Valerion neighing and playfully hitting his head against Emmond's shoulder in response. "Well, you better get used to it." Darius responded laughing. After summoning Valerion, Emmond started learning mounted combat to a deeper degree he had already learned during his childhood. He learned how to use all of his weapons efficiently while riding and saw it fitting to pick up learning the use of lance especially for mounted combat. He had mastered all the spells he was able to at his level and was eventually promoted to a knight of the paladin order. Knight being the lowest rank after recruit, Emmond was still nowhere near the top when it comes to paladins though. Albeit respectable, he still had a lot to learn and achieve. Soon after his promotion, Emmond felt he might follow in his parents footsteps and start wandering the lands as an adventurer to further lmprove himself and exact his revenge against those responsible for his parents death. He left the paladin training center saying his goodbyes for now to Darius and Amron with the intent to return someday to pgress his paladin rank further and learn more in the ways of paladin.
And so ends the story of how and why Emmond is who he is, the rest is yet to be told.
Lost interest early on. If all of this is important to you, keep it all, but understand it's for your use and enjoyment. Please don't expect the GM or other players to be equally as interested in this as you. Understand that few GMs will ever commit this information to memory; few GMs are capable of doing so.
And try formatting it so that it's not such a huge wall of text. It's practically unreadable as-is. Needs to be broken up into significantly more, shorter paragraphs.
The thing to remember about your character is that unless the game is starting around 8th-10th level, they should be inexperienced and absolutely should not have a novel-sized backstory.
I made a character backstory like that. It’s not done yet, but it’s even bigger than that. Not gonna share it with my DM and other players, although I will share central idea and main details.
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My titles are the great Silver Dragon Lord of the Sky, Second in Command of the Dragon Cult, High Warlock of Cynophobia, High Cultist of Jeff, The Lightning Mage. I’m a ✨Chronically online teenage boy✨, and one of the most active posters on the forums (MORE THAN SALEM AND GONZALO). Always open to talk if you’d like to shoot me a PM! Please don’t hesitate to tell me I’m being a jerk or overbearing, I love helpful feedback! Love y’all!
I haven't read this, but I looked at it and some of its contents, and I have come up with some ideas. Maybe instead of writing dialogue between people in the backstory, shorten it to what is gained in the conversation. I would also suggest shortening it to what would be important to know for the GM. If there are significant characters in the story, mention them. find the most important events that establish who your character is in the present, and then cut down the rest, maybe keeping a tiny bit of flavor in it.
I would also suggest cutting out the descriptions of things. take the nouns in the story and reduce them to their simplest form. I also agree that the paragraphs need to be broken up.
I don't want you to think that what you have now is bad. you're just passionate about your character, which is never a bad thing, and if this helps you get into character, by all means, go ahead. If you want your GM to know your backstory, maybe just cut it down to the highlights.
It's also a very brave thing to put your writing out there. Writing is a thing that reflects you as a person in your most vulnerable form, and sharing that with the world is no small feat.
Okay so i started writing a backstory for my half-orc oath of conquest paladin who was meant to be a joke in the sense of him being overly religious and essentially find everyone who followed a deity other than his heretics and would punch them for it. However during writing, the story happened to take a different turn. If you have the time (~30 min) and interest, all comments and ratings for the backstory would be appreciated. Please keep in mind that nothing in this story has any relation to anything in real life and should not be interpreted as such.
General details:
Name: Emmond
Starting level: 6
Race: Half-orc (Human-orc)
Age: 30
Class: Paladin
Oath: Oath of vengeance
Deity: Hoar
Languages: Orc, Common, Dwarf, Celestial, Primordial
Emmond's mother Elaine was a human cleric and his father Urul an orc. His parents met by pure chance, which someone might have called fate.
The story of the fated meeting was told to Emmond by his mother as follows several times when he was growing up:
Elaine was part of an adventurer group that was on a quest to slay a silver dragon which had been tormenting nearby villages. After finally finding the dragon, the party was surprised to see a handful of orcs fighting against it. Judging from their fighting style, the adventurers could immediately tell the orcs were still a bit inexperienced in the art of battle and would have no chance against the dragon on their own. The adventurers rushed to aid the orcs, Elaine healed the now wounded orcs as had become customary for her in her role as the healer of the group. The dragon was way stronger than what the information they had received while accepting the quest had described, the battle raged on for quite a while before they were able to finally fell the dragon. Both the orcs and the adventurers were utterly exhausted after the hard feat they had just succeeded in. Seeing the adventurers had no place to safely spend the night in the dangerous wilderness, one of the orcs asked them if they wanted to spend the night in their tribes camp some way up north. What surprised the adventurers was that the orc spoke immaculate common tongue. After the trek the adventurers began to hear howling, soon after they could see crudely constructed wooden walls and watchtowers embedded in them in the horizon, the adventurers deduced this must be the orc tribes village. Having now arrived and seeing the village gates they now knew the source of the howling they had heard before to be dire wolves the orcs had tamed and raised presumably as mounts. There were sharp bloodstained wooden barricades beneath the village gates, they were seemingly and judging from the blood stains succesfully been built to hinder the progress of hostile cavalry. As the orcs that manned the watchtowers started shouting some guttural language the adventurers didn't understand, and after several brute looking orcs weapons raised on their dire wolf mounts started riding towards them from their flanks, eventually surrounding them from all sides, the adventurers grew anxious and terrified they were lured into a trap and were destined to soon lose their heads. The orc Elaine recognized to have been the one who was fluent in common tongue raised his weapon and shouted something to the orcs surrounding them, they lowered their weapons. One of the mounted orcs uttered a word, pounded his fist to his chest once and gave an air of respect to the adventurers and the returning orc warriors, the other orc riders surrounding them followed in the gesture. The adventurers later learned that the word the orc rider had uttered meant "dragon slayer". After a few hours of sleep, the break of dawn woke up Elaine, still sleepy and exhausted, Elaine decided to wander around the tribes village out of curiosity. She happened across the orc who had initially offered to take her group to the village sitting next to a newly lit campfire with some fish the orc must have caught while she was still asleep skewered through sticks and lightly seasoned with salt and natural herbs. She acknowledged her whole party would be dead either from the dragons breath, or getting beheaded by the orc tribesmen, if not for this orc standing up for them and his group helping with felling the dragon. She felt a word of thanks and introduction would be the least she had to do to show respect and gratitude for the orc. "Hi, my name is Elaine" she uttered. "My whole group would be dead if not for you and your tribesmen. For this i offer the deepest gratitude and thanks" she said while bowing deeply. "Urul" the orc muttered still eyes towards the fish skewers he was grilling. "What?" Elaine asked confusedly, taken of guard by the answer. "It's my name, Urul" the orc said this time looking straight to Elaines eyes. Uruls eyes were tinted a deep crimson and his build very broad and muscular under the leather armor he was wearing. "Oh, i thought it was orcish for something i didn't understand" she said ashamed of the misuderstanding and fearing she might be found a bit simple. To change the subject and recover from the previous blunder, she asked Urul "How come you are so proficient in common tongue? From what i understand, not many orcs are this fluent in common tongue in these parts of the land." "That is correct, i am somewhat of a oddball in that regard. I have been on journey to prove myself with my group you met yesterday while fighting the dragon" Urul answered after seemingly taking a moment to think of a suitable choice of words. "I came across a story book i took an interest in during my journey" he continued. "The storybook had a formidable looking male clad in armor and warhammer in his hand painted on the cover" he explained. "I couldn't however make a worgs ass out of what the book was about other than the cool cover, so i stole a dictionary on common tongue so that i could read it." Elaine chuckled at the amusing answer. "The books name was The great story of Emmond." Urul said "Turns out, the only thing great about the book was on the cover." Urul said while raising his elbows as emphasis ending the story. "Well, i could say we were lucky that the cover was interesting since you might have otherwise not learned common tongue" Elaine pointed out. "Me and my party would have most definitely perished if not for that". "To be fair, me and my tribesmen were saved by you as well yesterday" Urul acknowledged "If not for your healing magic and help from your friends, we too would have ended up in the dragons stomach or its lair to be fed to the hatchlings" he continued, "For this, i offer you my gratitude as well" he said while raising his fist to pound his chest twice. "Well, lets thank the book then" Elaine said jokingly "Thank the book." Urul said while nodding with a faint smile on his face. "I assume you haven't had the time for any breakfast yet?" Urul asked, pointing at the fish skewers by the campfire, "They are just about done." he continued. "No, i last ate yesterday" Elaine answered just now realising her hunger and that it might have something to do with the exhaustion she was feeling. "I would cladly have some if you are happy to spare some" Elaine continued eagerly. "The amount of fish here could propably feed a city of dwarves. How much do you think i can eat?" Urul asked jokingly. "I guess less than a city of dwarves" Elaine answered chuckling. They both laughed, ate and chatted a while before the rest of the tribe and quests awoke. When it became time for Elaine and her group to leave and continue their journeys, Urul asked if he could join the party. He saw that he might become stronger adventuring with Elaine and her party, and that the warriors in the group might have some techniques worth learning from them to use alongside the raw strength he had solely relied on before. Elaines party discussed a bit and unanimously decided that Urul was a welcome addition to the group. Uruls tribe wasn't as happy about the decision as they felt the unity of the tribe has to take priority above all else. Uruls mind was set on leaving the tribe however and was thus branded an outcast among the tribe after leaving. Elaine and Urul kept adventuring together for a few years, some of the party members changed along the journey, but they kept together all that time. During this time, they developed feelings for each other, things led to another and Elaine ended up with a child. They both felt life on the road fit for adventurers wasn't one for a child and they ended up settling in a farmstead next to a port town. Eventually the child was born and was named Emmond for the book that played a part in the series of coincidences that brought Urul and Elaine together.
About Emmond and his early childhood:
He inherited his mothers green eyes and was otherwise physically akin to his father. He grew up in a loving household, his mother ran a healing clinic attached to the farmstead and his father ran the farm, occasionally helping local adventurers in dealing with runaway monsters in the area if he had the time. The farmstead had a stall with a few horses alongside the farms other animals to help tend with the chores in plowing the land and transporting produce. Emmond grew extremely fond of the horses in particular while growing up. He grew especially fond of a horse named Valerion with white hair that would shimmer golden when struck by light. Emmond felt as if the horse was divine in some way, he befriended the horse and thought it was as important to him as a companion, as any human or other being could be. His parents were both experienced and respected adventurers in their past lives so Emmonds natural aptitude inherited through his blood from both his mothers and fathers side were recognised at an early age. His mother was of noble descent and had a lot of sorcerers, wizards, clerics and other academically, as well as magically inclined people in the extended family line. His mother realized the same aptitude for magic in Emmond as she felt in herself, along this she sensed something else too, but wasn't able to pinpoint what exact form of magic it was. His father noticed Emmonds developing physique to be similar to his and therefore fit to hone a formitable warrior out of. Both of the parents thought teaching Emmond in the ways they could, would become useful some day to help Emmond fend for himself and help others if they were in need. Late childhood and teenage: The orc blood in him caused Emmonds physique to develop very fast compared to a normal human. In late childhood he was already the size of a teenager and as a teenager, the size of an adult. Through the orc blood, also came a temper and desire to test the limits of his capabilities. He would sometimes have his own little adventures away from the family farmstead either wandering around aimlessly trying to find something interesting or hunting for small beasts and monsters he thought he could best. On one of those adventures, he went towards the port town and came across a blacksmith shop outside the town walls, something about the shop piqued his interest and he decided to go inside. The inside of the shop was noticeably hot. At the center there was a furnace, the walls were full of complete and incomplete weapons and armor, next to the furnace was a huge anvil and behind it a dwarf hammering a piece of iron against it. Although the dwarf was obviously sturdy and muscular from seemingly decades of hammering iron, the contrast of an huge anvil with a relatively small person behind it struck Emmond as amusing. A chuckle escaped from Emmonds lips. The dwarfs focus was broken, he stopped hammering and looked up to Emmond. "What the **** are ye laughing at!?" the dwarf shouted, obviously furious at Emmond for interrupting his work. "Sorry, i thought it was amusing how the anvil is almost your size." Emmond explained, "Why do you need such a big anvil?" he asked. Emmond heard some words in a language he didn't understand but could figure it had to be profanities or similar judging from the tone. "**** ye and the horse ye rode in on!" the dwarf shouted raising his hammer. "Ye ought not teach yer pappy how to ride yer mum, trust me, i know me way around an anvil!" the dwarf shouted once again. Emmond saw that the dwarf was about to throw the hammer at him as he ran through the front door. The hammer flew cleanly through the doorboards, an inch above his head, landing a few meters past him towards a tree, in which the hammer embedded itself in, its handle now broken. "Oy ye fast ****er, look what ye did to me door!?" he heard faintly as the dwarf shouted from inside the shop. "And me hammer ye ****!" he still heard just loud enough to make up the words. Emmond had just nearly escaped with his life. Even though the hammer could have easily killed him, he was impressed enough of the throw that he decided upon visiting the store again as soon as he could, he now owed the dwarf a new door and a hammer after all. That and the fact that he found the foul-tongued and temperamental dwarf to be an amusing individual. How could a being so much smaller than him throw a hammer with that much force? As he went back home that day, he told about the incident to his father who laughed about the story for a while. "So you met Hjalgir?" his father asked after he was done with his laughing fit. "You would better fix his door and get him a new hammer, the old bastard could propably topple our house over if he was pissed enough about it" his father said, now with a serious look on his face. "Judging by the damage he managed to cause by throwing a simple hammer, i can somehow believe that" Emmond agreed. "It might be best if i took Valerion and an open ended horse cart and went to the city to buy some boards and the hammer straight away tomorrow." Emmond proposed, his father nodding in agreement. The next day, immediately after breakfast, he saddled the horse, attached the cart to it and started riding towards the city, careful to not go too close past the blacksmiths shop, fearing he might have to dodge sharper objects this time. Emmond entered the city gates and first headed to the lumber mill to buy some boards. After he was done haggling the price and leaving the lumber yard with a good deal of some special batch of quality boards, he went on buy the dwarf a new hammer. He wasn't exactly an expert when it comes to smithing hammers, so he just bought one he saw might be sufficient. Now done with shopping, he rode on past the city gates and went on towards the blacksmith. After arriving at the blacksmith, he saw smoke rising from the chimney and figured the dwarf had already started with todays work. After tying Valerion to a tree next to the shop, he walked towards the door, knocked on it and peeked throught the broken boards. "Hjalgir, are you there?" he asked. "Oy ye wanker, i sure hope ye brought me the new hammer and a door!" the dwarf shouted, having recognised Emmond through the hole in the door. "How did ye know me name anyhows?" he continued asking. "Yes, i brought them." Emmond responded "My father mentioned your name yesterday" he continued. "Well, let's take a look at what ye brought" Hjalgir said. He went outside and saw Valerion. "Oh, ye must be Urul and Elaines boy" the dwarf said. "How did you know?" Emmond asked surprised the dwarf knew his parents. "Not many people have this nice of a steed in these parts" the dwarf explained. "That and the fact yer a half-orc, not many orcs here either" the dwarf continued. The dwarf started examining the goods Emmond had brought from the city. "The boards seem to be good enough but the hammer is shite" the dwarf said holding the new hammer. "Ye might as well be hitting a limp fish against the anvil than use this, the hammerhead is way too soft to forge anything other than kitchen utensils with" the dwarf explained. "Sorry, i didn't know" Emmond said. Ignoring Emmond, the dwarf went to the tree which he had hit the old hammer with yesterday. The hammer was still lodged into the tree, the dwarf ripped the hammer off the tree, removed the hammerhead from the broken handle and swapped the hammerheads with the new hammer. He threw the new hammerhead some way into the bushes, scaring away some critters that had been hiding in it as result. "Now this is something ye could work with!" the dwarf exclaimed, holding the hammer he had made in his hand. "At least the handle ye brought was good enough to be used with the old hammerhead." he continued, muttering something in dwarven. "What was it that you said just now" Emmond asked out of curiosity. "Nothing worth translating" the dwarf anwered. "Both of the languages use Dethek script in writing, do you understand written Daraktan then?" Emmond asked, using the name of his fathers language in orcish. "Ney, Daraktan seems like jumbled up nonsense to me." Hjalgir answered, "That being the best case, most of the time orcs are too busy waging war with their tribes to learn anything useful ey?" Hjalgir continued smiling at Emmond. "That might be true." Emmond aswered smiling back at Hjalgir. "I have taken some interest in dwarven language, i figured it might be easier to learn as well since i can write in Dethek script. Would you be able to teach me?" Emmond asked. After thinking for a while Hjalgir anwered "Ay, i think i could do that If ye could teach me Daraktan". "Then i would know who to aim me hammer at" Hjalgir continued . "Those poor orcs" Emmond said laughing in response to the dwarf's remark. After this, Emmond and Hjalgir carried the boards inside and Emmond started fixing the door according to Hjalgirs instructions. Emmond soon started getting to know Hjalgir better as he often went to the shop to teach Daraktan and learn dwarven language, he occasionally helped Hjalgir as a blacksmith's apprentice and would sometimes deliver orders to customers. Hjalgir became the first meaningful friend to Emmond albeit the unusual circumstances in which they originally met.
Late teenage and early adulthood:
Emmond became a well recognized sight at the town market having delivered orders to several townspeople under Hjalgir's tasks. He had also become quite proficient using a hammer during his blacksmith apprenticeship and had adopted a warhammer as his weapon of choice when it came to fighting as well. He came across some occasional robbers trying to get their hands on Hjalgir's produce when he was delivering them in the cart pulled by Valerion. The robbers were met with a humiliating ending however as Emmond stood up to defend the cargo and himself using his warhammer and surprising the robbers with occasional spellslinging. The robbers usually ended up tied to a tree or hauled back to the town dungeons by Emmond himself. After learning about Emmond's capabilities, fewer robbers dared to challenge the cart pulling half-orc as time went on. Emmond's homestead had developed quite a bit from what he remembered from early childhood. Especially his mothers healing clinic that had originally been a part of their house had now become a separate building. It had gotten hugely popular among beginner adventurers and poor people especially due to the reasonable price and Elaine being kind-hearted and understanding towards those less fortunate, often giving customers the option of paying in separate settlements or trading in for items. This had become well known in the town and nearby households, earning the respect of many but also the hate of some. Some of the pharmacies and healing clinics in town that were ran by rich nobles had become accustomed to outrageus prices when it came to their services and had noticed a great amount of customers flow towards Elaines clinic, the greedy pharmacies and clinics were outraged by this since they would need to lower their prices or they would have no choice but to lose their customers to a competitor. It was the day Emmond were to turn 18, he woke up to clanging coming from the kitchen. He rose from the bed and dressed. He went to the kitchen and were greeted by his parents. "Good morning son, happy birthday!" his mother exclaimed smiling and hugging Emmond. "You have grown up to be a strong and respectable individual, i am proud to have you as my son" his father said, rising up from the chair and bumping his fist against his chest twice. "Thank you. If not for having such great parents, i could have ended up otherwise" Emmond responded, stopped hugging his mother and bumped his fist against his chest twice in response to both his father and mother. "I took some time to prepare an extra special breakfast to celebrate your adulthood" his mother said. "Please help yourself to anything you would like" she continued, smiling at Emmond. "Thank you, i will" Emmond responded, sat at the chair at the end of the table and started filling his plate. After eating he remembered Hjalgir had asked to come visit him yesterday so he stood up from the chair, thanked his mother for the food and left towards the dwarfs shop by foot. "Remember to always keep your head held up high." his father said as Emmond was leaving. "Yes, i will" he responded. Emmond arrived at Hjalgirs workshop and knocked on the door. Hjalgir walked up to the door, opened it and saw Emmond. "I heard it is yer birthday? Happy birthday ye bastard!" Hjalgir exclaimed in Daraktan, shaking Emmonds hand to congratulate him. "Thank you." Emmond responded in dwarven. "Come inside, i got something to give ye" Hjalgir said. They both went inside and Hjalgir grapped a shiny hammer from the wall Emmond knew were for displaying more expensive items. "I forged this hammer for ye to thank ye for the help ye have given me and as a birthday present" Hjalgir said. "I modeled it as a warhammer and made it to be especially fit for yer size." he continued. "The handle and hammerhead are strong enough to handle years of blows and should be fit for smithing as well." Hjalgir said smiling and passed the hammer onto Emmond's hands. "Wow, thank you. I didn't expect to receive a gift from you, my friend" Emmond responded in dwarven and pounded his fist against his chest twice. "No need to thank me, ye have become a important friend for me as well" Hjalgir said in Daraktan and pounded his fist against his chest twice in response. "That must be one of the first times a dwarf has responded to an orc in Daraktan and used an orcish gesture while doing so" Emmond exclaimed laughing at Hjalgir. "Go shack a goat ey!?" the dwarf shouted jokingly in response at Emmonds remark. "I don't have any work for ye today, go home and enjoy yer birthday with yer parents" Hjalgir said. Emmond thanked Hjalgir and as he was about to leave, they heard a huge boom coming from the direction of Emmonds homestead. Emmond rushed out the door and started running towards home. As he arrived, he saw a cloud of dust and wood splinters of various sizes scattered in a huge radious around the farm from the result of what he now knew was an explosion. He saw a pair of chickens that had survived running around in panic and rushed to frantically search if his parents might have somehow survived. He heard a faint noice coming from under the houses wreckage. As he ran there and started clearing the pile of rubble, he saw his father and mother under it. "I am sorry Emmond, i couldn't save your mother" his father said barely audible, his eyes full of sorrow turning towards Elaine's corpse. "Don't speak, i will try to save you!" Emmond shouted and looked around helplessly. "It is time for me to join your mother and my ancestors, my injuries are beyond healing" Urul said. "Please don't go, i am not ready to lose you!" Emmond shouted in response, tears running down his cheeks. "You have to, you are strong and are the greatest gift me and your mother could have asked for" Urul responded with a faint smile on his face looking at Emmond. "Have a happy life without us and know that we will be watching over you from the heavens with pride. Goodbye Emmond.“ Urul continued with his last breath, his face falling against the ground in silence. Emmond was filled with grieve and sadness and broke down crying on his knees. Hjalgir had set off immediately after Emmond to see what had happened after hearing the boom as well. Due to his much shorter feet he just now arrived at the scene. "Good heavens, who could have done this?" he said after arriving beside Emmond. "Everything and everyone i had is dead and destroyed" Emmond said sobbing, ignoring Hjalgir's question. "I am truly sorry for yer loss. Yer parents were good people, may peace be with their souls in heaven" Hjalgir said, holding Emmond's shoulder. "I will make sure whoever is responsible is met with a fate much more cruel than this." Emmond said, now with rage filling his eyes. "I have nothing left, best i can do is hold a funeral by fire for my parents, burning all of the remains of our home while doing so as well" Emmond continued. "Ay, i can help ye gather up the rubble." Hjalgir responded. They started gathering all of the rubble and as Emmond happened across the horse stable, he saw the remains of Valerion as well. "Valerion, you too my friend. What had you ever done besides good as well?" Emmond asked, petting the horses hair. "I will bury you along with my parents." Emmond said and left to gather all of the other rubble to the bonfire. It was late at night when they were done gathering everything. Emmond carried his parents and Valerions remains on top of the bonfire, climbed down and lit the bonfire. As he was watching the fire, he went down on his knees in prayer. "Please god, give me strength to carry on, give me the strength for revenge, give me the strength to punish everything evil and to protect everything good from it." Emmond said. He suddenly felt something or someone entering his mind, his eyes started glowing with intense golden light and he saw flashes of images picturing warriors radiant with golden light and wings on their back, images of battles against demons and fiends, images of warriors with weapons emitting golden light on the battlefield with their ethereal looking mounts and magic he didn't recognize. "What in heavens name was that?" Hjalgir asked shaking Emmond by the shoulders. "I don't know for sure. I feel god might have just answered me" Emmond answered a bit confused having just now returned to reality. "I feel remnants of a form of magic i don't recognize inside of me." he continued. "I saw images of warriors radiant with golden light with wings on their back, weapons glowing with the same light, warriors with ethereal looking mounts and magic i don't know flashing through my eyes." Emmond finished explaining. "I have heard tales of such warriors before, they were called paladins and other times dark knights." Hjalgir said. "God might have just given ye a task to become his warrior and passed on the necessary skills to become one." Hjalgir continued. "I feel that might be true." Emmond responded. After a while of talking and saying their goodbyes for now, Emmond set off to find a church or similar which might have some answers to what he seeked.
Adulthood and joining the order of paladins:
It took Emmond quite some time to eventually find what he seeked. He came across a city in his travels in which he found a religious building with knights standing as guards in front of it. He saw there was resemblance between them and the visions he saw after the prayer. He walked to the guards and asked "Are you paladins?". "Who is asking?" one of the guards answered. "Emmond, son of Urul and Elaine." he aswered. "I need to find paladins who can teach me." he continued. "Yes, we are. This is a paladin training facility." the guard answered. "Not just anyone can become a paladin however so bugger off." the guard continued, waving his hand in order to shoo Emmond away. "I feel i was touched by god. I saw visions of warriors like you with wings on their back and my eyes glowed with golden light when i prayed." Emmond explained, recalling the incident to the guard. The guard turned towards the other guard and said something Emmond couldn't hear. "Wait here." the guard ordered as the other guard opened the gates of the building and went inside, the gates closing behind him. After a while the gates opened again with a warrior wearing fancy looking plate armor marching towards Emmond with the other guard behind him. "You said you were touched by god i hear?" the fancy armor wearing knight asked. "Yes." Emmond answered. "You don't seem to be lying but we will still have to see for a fact that you were indeed touched by god, follow me" the knight ordered and pointed towards the gates. Emmond followed the knight through the gates in silence for a while. Emmond saw several paladins training in the courtyard, some were casting spells and others sparring with several kinds of weapons. At the center of the courtyard was a path which led to stairs leading into a building Emmond figured must be a temple of some sort. As they had nearly arrived at the stairs the knight accompanying him said "We need to figure out the identity of the god to know who you would be offering your prayers to and what your oath in the order of paladins would be". "My name is Darius, I am in charge of training new recruits and work as an immediary for deities." the fairly tall human knight continued. "My name is Emmond." Emmond answered, "I don't know much about paladins, what exactly is an oath and are there many deities a paladin can serve under?" Emmond asked. "There are several gods, an oath is a dogma you swear to live by, it varies based on the oath in question." Darius answered. They had now arrived at the temple doors at the end of the stairs. "Step inside, it is time to find out who your god is." Darius commanded. Emmond stepped inside after Darius and saw several symbols decorating the walls, presumably each an emblem for their respective deities. There were three stone pillars on each side of the carpet-laid path they were walking on, the pillars had several candles mounted in rings arounds the pillars sides. At the end of the path, there was an altar. "Go towards the altar and kneel in front of it" the knight ordered. As Emmond did as he was told, Darius placed his had onto Emmonds forehead. "Recite the prayer after which you were contacted by your god in your mind." the knight ordered again. Emmond did as he was asked and started to pray in silence. "Hear me as your intermediary, show yourself and speak through your vassal which you have brought in front of me." Darius said, uttered words in a language Emmond didn't understand, took his hand from Emmond's forehead and waved it toward the symbols on the walls. A symbol depicting a black hand with a two-faced human encircled by a ring on the palm of the hand lit up on the wall. An ethereal silhouette of a jet black eyed human looking figure wearing a blue silken shirt with gold trim, fine leather vest and a pair of golden bracers wielding a massive broad sword and a guiver of javelins on his back emerged behind Emmond. Emmond's eyes turned jet black not unlike the ones the silhouette had and he started speaking in a deep echoing voice that didn't belong to him, "Hear me, i am Hoar, The doombringer, lord of vengeance and poetic justice." the voice said. "Have this vassal enter into your faction under the oath of vengeance and teach him how to harness his powers." the voice continued. "He shall become my messenger, an avenger who will uphold true and fitting justice and maintain the spirit of law in my name." the voice said, drifting away in the end along with the silhouette. Emmond's eyes returned to normal and the light emanating from the symbol on the wall faded away. "Okay... That felt weird" Emmond blurted out feeling utterly dumbstruck. "Yeah, you are not the first who has said that" Darius said, "Now we know your deity is Hoar." he continued. "What language was it you used as you waved your hand?" Emmond asked. "Celestial, it was a spell to detect good and evil." Darius answered. "You will be learning this language as well as a part of your training along with a language you can choose yourself." he continued. "I will guide you to the recruits charters, you can leave your belongings there." Darius said. "Just so you know, I have no intention of parting with my hammer" Emmond stated. "We won't be forcing you to, instead it is preferable if you have learned how to use a weapon before joining the order as it makes the weapons training faster." Darius explained. "But enough of that, let us start heading towards your quarters. We still need to hold an evaluation for you in the administrative quarters." Darius said, pointing at the door of the temple. They went on past the door, down the stairs and walked to the middle of the courtyard where the path forked to left and right side. Darius turned left and Emmond followed after him. They entered the building and walked up the spiral staircase leading into the recruit quarters Emmond would be staying in. They walked through the corridor at the top of the staircase, eventually stoppong behind one of the doors. "I hope you don't mind a roommate, we don't have any empty rooms at this moment." Darius said and knocked on the door. After a while the door opened and the doorway stood a dwarf. "Curse my luck, ending up as an orcs roommate." the dwarf muttered quietly in dwarven while rolling his eyes. "I'm sure we will get along just fine, unless you start throwing hammers at me that is." Emmond said to the dwarf in dwarven. The dwarfs eyes opened up so wide you could almost mistake them for a pair of small wisps. "Y-y-you can speak dwarven?" the dwarf asked flabbergasted. "Yes, nice to meet you. My name is Emmond." Emmond introduced himself holding a laugh while reaching his hand towards the dwarf's for a handshake. "Likewise, my name is Amron. Gotta say this is the first time i have ever met an orc who knew dwarven." The dwarf said and grapped Emmond's outreached hand. "It seems you will get along just fine." Darius said after letting out a small cough to catch their attention. "I'm sorry commander, i missed you entirely." Amron said and saluted Darius. "You are the commander? I didn't know, sorry if acted rude towards you." Emmond said and bumped his fist to his chest twice in a show of respect. "Don't worry, you acted more respectful than most. I didn't mention i am the commander anyways so you couldn't possibly have known." Darius said reassuringly. "Now then, please drop of your personal belongings in the chest in front of the vacant bed and let us head on towards the administrative building." Darius continued. "Yes sir." Emmond responded and did as he was told. After dropping of his belongings, they headed back to the courtyard now continuing straight past the fork in the path. "You are quite proficient with languages, where did you learn dwarven?" Darius asked as they were walking towards the administrative building's entrance. "I worked in a blackmith's forge as an apprentice, the forge was owned by a dwarf." Emmond answered, "I taught him orcish and he taught me dwarven in return." he continued. "You are unusually scholarly for an orc, by no offense of course." Darius said. "None taken, i am aware most orcs are drawn more into warfare than literature and languages." Emmond responded. They arrived at the entrance of the building and headed on through a well lit and decorated hallway, at the end there were double doors which Emmond figured must be where the evaluation would be held. Darius went through the doors and sat behind a desk. "Please sit at the chair in front of the desk, i would like to hear a summary of your story up until this point to know more of your capabilities and what to offer you in terms of training." Darius said. Emmond started telling the story from his childhood farmstead home, as he got to the part about the horses and Valerion in particular, Darius interrupted him. "You are experienced in riding a mount then?" Darius asked. "Yes, I often rode Valerion to go to the city and deliver orders from the forge i worked at" Emmond answered with sadness in his voice reminiscing Valerion. "There is a spell to summon a spirit from another realm, it takes a form that is familiar to you. A bond is formed between you and the spirit and you can use it as a mount in and out of combat." Darius said. "This might suite you well in terms of spells to teach you." Darius continued. "I guess that is true. No mount will amount to Valerion I'm afraid though." Emmond stated. "We will see when the time comes. You can continue with your story" Darius said. Emmond continued with his story, telling Darius of his parents and how they had taught him in ways they had learned as adventurers. He told Darius of the day when he lost them and everything else he cared for along with it. He told him about the prayer he had uttered while watching the remains of his parents, valerion and his home go up in flames and after which Hoar had contacted him. He told darius how he had travelled to find what the deity had shown him and how he ended up sitting in front of Darius at this moment. "Hearing your story and the prayer word by word, i can see why Hoar choose you. He is also known as Lord of the three thunders. It is said he may manifest in the form of three deep rolls of thunder when a quilty party falls prey to a suitable, often ironic fate. Hence the name Lord of the three thunders." Darius explained. "He is a deity for those who wish to repay eye for an eye and uphold the scales of balance in the world that way. Although an act of vengeace such as this might be against several oaths and dogma of several gods, a paladin serving Hoar under the oath of vengeance is considered righteus and fair." Darius continued. "Some may feel upholding Hoars version of justice to be evil and could potentially offer you strife in your path following this deity. Are you able to accept this and still follow under Hoars guidance?" Darius asked. "Yes, i swear to follow in his teachings, i can handle strife no matter the cause." Emmond responded. "Okay then, i suggest you drop by the library in this building to pick up a book regarding Hoar and his teachings to learn how to better follow his teachings and what he might expect of you." Darius suggested. "Now go to your quarters, your training will start tomorrow. Say Darius sent you when you arrive at the library." Darius concluded. "Yes sir!" Emmond anwered bumping his fist against his chest twice and left towards the library. He did as he was told and took a book of Hoar along with him to the recruits quarters.
Paladin training and the unforeseeable future:
Emmond had been training for a few years now. After reading the book of Hoar, he learned that everyone following in Hoar's teachings was expected to carry a weapon of every damage type with them at all times so that if they are attacked, they can respond with a weapon of the same damage type in return. For this, he had picked a warpick, a battleaxe and hand crossbow as his weapons of choice along with his trusted warhammer. He figured it to be fitting to have these melee weapons as skills in one can be transfered to the others quite easily. As for the crossbow, he had some experience in hunting with his dad's crossbow back when he still lived in his childhood home, that and the fact he had learned that typical paladins have little means of ranged attacks. This way he could patch that flaw and be able to further follow in his deitys teachings of responding with ranged attacks if he were to be hit with one. He had also learned how to use shields in order to protect himself and others. He had befriended his dwarven roommate Amron and after talking with him, he had taken up Primordial language as his other mandatory language of choice upon Amron's suggestion. Primordial uses Dethek script so learning it seemed natural for Emmond and it would help if he ever had to deal with elementals during his journeys in the future. It was the day Emmond was to learn the summon steed spell. He hadn't slept much and woke up early in the morning. The night was restless as the summoning spell inevitably brought him to remember his diseased steed and friend Valerion, he was afraid the summoned steed would only make him think of Valerion and increase his suffering. He dressed and started walking towards the canteen located downstairs in the same building his room was in. There were only a few persons at the canteen, understandable as it was still quite early. He ate a light breakfast as he didn't have much appetite due to the stress, filled his waterskin with water and went to the courtyard to practice. He went to the shooting range and shot what must have been close to twenty crossbow bolts into the target about a hudred feet in front of him. He went to the target and saw most of the bolts gathered near the center, some of the bolts had been split in half and were in splinters on the ground in front of the target. He felt conflicted as he was proud he had managed to shoot so accurate he had managed to split the bolts but angry at the same time since this meant he had to go buy more bolts. He picked up the splinters on the ground and threw them as far as he could behind the target in frustration. After holstering his crossbow, he went to the wooden practice dummies at the other side to practice unarmed combat and to do some practice swings. He threw some punches at the dummy, after a while switching to kicks. He ended up kicking the dummy so hard the wooden pole holding the dummy upright snapped in half, he grunted to himself and decided to finish of the dummy by ripping the pole of the ground, throwing it as far he could, and hacking the rest of the dummy that laid in the ground into pieces with his axe. He felt he had managed to vent some of the frustration off but felt he had gone a little overboard. Emmond turned around to go into the temple to pray but found Darius standing behind him. "You must be eager for the days learnings, already at the courtyard and everything" Darius said. "Do we need to consider setting up a practice dummy made of steel for you just in case you want to abuse the other dummies as well? The poor dummy" Darius continued with a sly smile, looking past Emmond to the remains of the wooden dummy laying scattered on the ground. "Sorry sir, i didn't get much sleep last night. I went a bit overboard with the dummy while venting my frustration" Emmond responded ashamed of mistreating the obviously innocent dummy. "I trust you will find other ways to went in the future? We will actually have to go through with steel dummy idea otherwise, you obviously being the one to finance the acquisition of it" Darius asked. "Yes sir, it won't happen again" Emmond answered. "Okay, it's almost time for the other recruits to start gathering in the courtyard for the spell lessons. Let us wait for them to arrive" Darius said and pointed towards the point the recruits were to gather in. Emmond pounded his fist against his chest twice and went to stand on the place Darius had pointed at. After the rest of the recruits had arrived, Darius started instructing the basic principles of the summoning spell and went on with the other details regarding the spell. Soon it came time to put the lessons into practice, there were several recruits who had to try casting the spell before Emmond. He waited nervously, seeing most of the recruits succeeding but some failing as well. As Emmond's turn came, he channeled magic into his hands, said the words needed for summoning in Celestial and released the magic onto the ground in front of him. A ring of Celestial script glowing with a golden light appeared on the ground and a silhouette of a warhorse started to materialise in the center. As it had fully materialised, Emmond could see the familiar white hair of the horse shimmering in faint golden tint as the sun shone against it. "Valerion!?" Emmond exclaimed, his eyes opening so wide you could imagine them falling out their sockets. He heard the celestial horse neighing in response and a voice in his head saying "Yes, how have you been Emmond? You have grown so much". "By the heavens, Valerion!" Emmond shouted and ran towards Valerion, hugged him and petted his silken hair. "Valerion, i thought i wouldn't see you again until it came time to join you in death. I am sorry i let you down" Emmond said with teardrops running down his cheeks feeling quilty of letting Valerion meet such a cruel fate. "There is no need to apologise, you were a praiseworthingly caring master. There was nothing you could have done, it was meant to happen" the voice inside Emmond's head said. "I am so glad to have you alongside me again after all this time my friend. I never thought this to be possible." Emmond said, wiping the tears on his face, looking up to the sky and offering a silent prayer to Hoar in case it was him who had enabled this to happen. "Likewise my friend." the voice inside Emmond's mind responded, Valerion neighing in turn and rubbing its head against Emmond. "We rarely see a spirit summon and their master to have such a deep bond immediately after summoning. The spirit happening to be a resurrection of this sort is even rarer." Darius said after watching the exchange between Emmond and Valerion take place. "It feels like it was fated for this to happen. You must have been a good master for him to return to you in this manner" Darius continued smiling faintly at the pair seemingly happy for their reunion. "I too feel it must be fate, no other steed could have ever taken his place." Emmond said lightly petting Valerion with a feeling of happiness he hadn't felt since his parents, and Valerion's passing. "He seems like a reliable steed. I wish you fortune in your future together." Darius said, Valerion nodding his head and Emmond bumping his fist to his chest twice in response. "Got to say it feels weird to hear his voice in my mind though" Emmond noted, Valerion neighing and playfully hitting his head against Emmond's shoulder in response. "Well, you better get used to it." Darius responded laughing. After summoning Valerion, Emmond started learning mounted combat to a deeper degree he had already learned during his childhood. He learned how to use all of his weapons efficiently while riding and saw it fitting to pick up learning the use of lance especially for mounted combat. He had mastered all the spells he was able to at his level and was eventually promoted to a knight of the paladin order. Knight being the lowest rank after recruit, Emmond was still nowhere near the top when it comes to paladins though. Albeit respectable, he still had a lot to learn and achieve. Soon after his promotion, Emmond felt he might follow in his parents footsteps and start wandering the lands as an adventurer to further lmprove himself and exact his revenge against those responsible for his parents death. He left the paladin training center saying his goodbyes for now to Darius and Amron with the intent to return someday to pgress his paladin rank further and learn more in the ways of paladin.
And so ends the story of how and why Emmond is who he is, the rest is yet to be told.
Mandatory potato for the long post:🥔
Lost interest early on. If all of this is important to you, keep it all, but understand it's for your use and enjoyment. Please don't expect the GM or other players to be equally as interested in this as you. Understand that few GMs will ever commit this information to memory; few GMs are capable of doing so.
And try formatting it so that it's not such a huge wall of text. It's practically unreadable as-is. Needs to be broken up into significantly more, shorter paragraphs.
The thing to remember about your character is that unless the game is starting around 8th-10th level, they should be inexperienced and absolutely should not have a novel-sized backstory.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
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I made a character backstory like that. It’s not done yet, but it’s even bigger than that. Not gonna share it with my DM and other players, although I will share central idea and main details.
My titles are the great Silver Dragon Lord of the Sky, Second in Command of the Dragon Cult, High Warlock of Cynophobia, High Cultist of Jeff, The Lightning Mage. I’m a ✨Chronically online teenage boy✨, and one of the most active posters on the forums (MORE THAN SALEM AND GONZALO). Always open to talk if you’d like to shoot me a PM! Please don’t hesitate to tell me I’m being a jerk or overbearing, I love helpful feedback! Love y’all!
Extended Signature!
I haven't read this, but I looked at it and some of its contents, and I have come up with some ideas. Maybe instead of writing dialogue between people in the backstory, shorten it to what is gained in the conversation. I would also suggest shortening it to what would be important to know for the GM. If there are significant characters in the story, mention them. find the most important events that establish who your character is in the present, and then cut down the rest, maybe keeping a tiny bit of flavor in it.
I would also suggest cutting out the descriptions of things. take the nouns in the story and reduce them to their simplest form. I also agree that the paragraphs need to be broken up.
I don't want you to think that what you have now is bad. you're just passionate about your character, which is never a bad thing, and if this helps you get into character, by all means, go ahead. If you want your GM to know your backstory, maybe just cut it down to the highlights.
It's also a very brave thing to put your writing out there. Writing is a thing that reflects you as a person in your most vulnerable form, and sharing that with the world is no small feat.
I hope some of this helped,
cheers.