I play D&D now
I joined a Dungeons and Dragons group. My friend showed me how to build a character and I wrote a backstory for her.
Name: Shannon Silverkin
Age: 21
Race: Human
Class: Fighter
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Strength: 16
Dexterity: 14
Constitution: 15
Intelligence: 13
Wisdom: 14
Charm: 10
Weapon: Longsword
Attack bonus: 5
Skills: Climb, Craft weapons, Handle animal, Intimidate, Jump, Ride, Swim
Languages spoken: Common, Abyssal, Elven, Dwarven
Attacks: Weapon focus, Power attack - cleave
Backstory
I was a happy girl. My father was a swordsmith. He, my mother, my baby sister and I lived in a town outside of Concord, called Twisp. My father taught me his trade well. Mother wanted me to play house with the other girls, but I never showed interest in it. My father saw no difference whether son or daughter should take over the family trade and encouraged my interests. By fourteen, I could smith and I could fight. We were happy then, but it was all about to end.
One night as I slept, I felt a great cold overtake me. I awoke, but found no source and fell back asleep. I didn’t know it then, but a Guecubu had possessed me. I remember the start of the next day as any other, the rest I remember as if watching, trapped inside my own body but unable to control it. My father and I were working in the shop. I watched as my small hand grabbed a short sword, raised it over my head and slashed down with inhuman strength on my father’s back. I remember his cries as he fell, spine and sinew and so much blood falling from the gash. He pleaded with me from the ground. Paralyzed from the neck down and crying. It was the first time I’d seen my father cry. It was the last thing I’d ever see him do, for my hand raised and brought the sword down on his neck, separating head from body, not even to put him out of his misery, but to silence his cries lest he draw attention. The whole time a demonic voice in my head laughed with the abandon of a child playing a game. My mother came running and screamed at what she saw. When she knelt to attend to father, not I, but my own hands decapitated her. Her death was much more painless than my father’s.
I begged and pleaded with the demon inside my head as it climbed the stairs to my and my sister’s room. “Not my sister, please! She’s just a baby! Please!”
I don’t know if the dark soul heeded my cries or simply thought that Senna wasn’t worth the effort, but as it looked into her cradle, it decided to walk away. It walked out of the house and was greeted by upset villagers who had heard the noise of my family. When they saw me soaked in blood and holding a sword, they advanced on me wielding pitchforks, shovels, and axes. They thought, of course, that they could best a fourteen year old girl, but they were no match for the thing inside. My body left the village massacred behind it and walked the land for several days without rest, food, or water until it reached a hellhole on the coast and entered.
The deeper I walked into the cave, the hotter it grew until I was greeted by flames, magma, and many other demons. Finally the Guecubu released me. I screamed and tried to run, but I was surrounded. “Come and meet your new master,” they said. The Abyss was to be my home for many years after that.
I worked as slave and handmaiden to the demon lord of that realm. Ysmith was his name. Not well known in the Abyss or in the mortal plane, but he had high aspirations. I would listen to him complain about Demogorgon, Orcus, and Graz’zt. How they didn’t deserve their titles. How he was more worthy. It was nonsense. He’d never even waged his own war. Oh, but he was ruthless in his way. Every time he noticed overt signs of free will in me, I would be tortured. But with all the hard labor, I grew strong. With each hot poker that touched me I grew resistant, and the whole time, behind his back ingratiating myself to the lowest, most abused demons, to garner trust and gain information. I had long since lost track of time, but I must have been nineteen or twenty when I heard the information that would be my salvation.
Frenzik, a small but wily demon who had grown to like me and, if it was not my imagination, might even have been learning mercy from the care I showed him whenever he was punished, told me of a way to kill Ysmith. I must use a weapon forged of the metals of the Abyss and soaked in the blood of the one I loved most. Using time I was meant to be laboring, I collected metals from the mine and forged such a sword. So thankful was I that I had saved the clothes soaked in the blood of my father, for his sacrifice would free me. I leeched the blood into a tub of water that I used to cool the metal of the longsword once it was forged.
I came to Ysmith when he was vulnerable, when I was meant to be bathing him. I was reminded briefly of the death of my father as I brought the sword down hard on his back. His scream to anyone else would have been the most wretched sound but to me it was beautiful. I will always cherish it. It was the sound of freedom. His bath filled with blood and I ran. The escape is all a bit of a blur. Many demons tried to stop me, but I lay waste to whoever got in my way. When I finally escaped the Abyss, I was in The Red Wastes. I walked for so long, when I arrived finally at a town, caked in demon blood, they thought me a warrior. They gave me water, food, a bath, and lodging. When I said I had killed a demon lord they gave me clothes and armor. I decided then that I was a warrior and I would spend the rest of my days atoning for the death of my family and my village.
Name: Shannon Silverkin
Age: 21
Race: Human
Class: Fighter
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Strength: 16
Dexterity: 14
Constitution: 15
Intelligence: 13
Wisdom: 14
Charm: 10
Weapon: Longsword
Attack bonus: 5
Skills: Climb, Craft weapons, Handle animal, Intimidate, Jump, Ride, Swim
Languages spoken: Common, Abyssal, Elven, Dwarven
Attacks: Weapon focus, Power attack - cleave
Backstory
I was a happy girl. My father was a swordsmith. He, my mother, my baby sister and I lived in a town outside of Concord, called Twisp. My father taught me his trade well. Mother wanted me to play house with the other girls, but I never showed interest in it. My father saw no difference whether son or daughter should take over the family trade and encouraged my interests. By fourteen, I could smith and I could fight. We were happy then, but it was all about to end.
One night as I slept, I felt a great cold overtake me. I awoke, but found no source and fell back asleep. I didn’t know it then, but a Guecubu had possessed me. I remember the start of the next day as any other, the rest I remember as if watching, trapped inside my own body but unable to control it. My father and I were working in the shop. I watched as my small hand grabbed a short sword, raised it over my head and slashed down with inhuman strength on my father’s back. I remember his cries as he fell, spine and sinew and so much blood falling from the gash. He pleaded with me from the ground. Paralyzed from the neck down and crying. It was the first time I’d seen my father cry. It was the last thing I’d ever see him do, for my hand raised and brought the sword down on his neck, separating head from body, not even to put him out of his misery, but to silence his cries lest he draw attention. The whole time a demonic voice in my head laughed with the abandon of a child playing a game. My mother came running and screamed at what she saw. When she knelt to attend to father, not I, but my own hands decapitated her. Her death was much more painless than my father’s.
I begged and pleaded with the demon inside my head as it climbed the stairs to my and my sister’s room. “Not my sister, please! She’s just a baby! Please!”
I don’t know if the dark soul heeded my cries or simply thought that Senna wasn’t worth the effort, but as it looked into her cradle, it decided to walk away. It walked out of the house and was greeted by upset villagers who had heard the noise of my family. When they saw me soaked in blood and holding a sword, they advanced on me wielding pitchforks, shovels, and axes. They thought, of course, that they could best a fourteen year old girl, but they were no match for the thing inside. My body left the village massacred behind it and walked the land for several days without rest, food, or water until it reached a hellhole on the coast and entered.
The deeper I walked into the cave, the hotter it grew until I was greeted by flames, magma, and many other demons. Finally the Guecubu released me. I screamed and tried to run, but I was surrounded. “Come and meet your new master,” they said. The Abyss was to be my home for many years after that.
I worked as slave and handmaiden to the demon lord of that realm. Ysmith was his name. Not well known in the Abyss or in the mortal plane, but he had high aspirations. I would listen to him complain about Demogorgon, Orcus, and Graz’zt. How they didn’t deserve their titles. How he was more worthy. It was nonsense. He’d never even waged his own war. Oh, but he was ruthless in his way. Every time he noticed overt signs of free will in me, I would be tortured. But with all the hard labor, I grew strong. With each hot poker that touched me I grew resistant, and the whole time, behind his back ingratiating myself to the lowest, most abused demons, to garner trust and gain information. I had long since lost track of time, but I must have been nineteen or twenty when I heard the information that would be my salvation.
Frenzik, a small but wily demon who had grown to like me and, if it was not my imagination, might even have been learning mercy from the care I showed him whenever he was punished, told me of a way to kill Ysmith. I must use a weapon forged of the metals of the Abyss and soaked in the blood of the one I loved most. Using time I was meant to be laboring, I collected metals from the mine and forged such a sword. So thankful was I that I had saved the clothes soaked in the blood of my father, for his sacrifice would free me. I leeched the blood into a tub of water that I used to cool the metal of the longsword once it was forged.
I came to Ysmith when he was vulnerable, when I was meant to be bathing him. I was reminded briefly of the death of my father as I brought the sword down hard on his back. His scream to anyone else would have been the most wretched sound but to me it was beautiful. I will always cherish it. It was the sound of freedom. His bath filled with blood and I ran. The escape is all a bit of a blur. Many demons tried to stop me, but I lay waste to whoever got in my way. When I finally escaped the Abyss, I was in The Red Wastes. I walked for so long, when I arrived finally at a town, caked in demon blood, they thought me a warrior. They gave me water, food, a bath, and lodging. When I said I had killed a demon lord they gave me clothes and armor. I decided then that I was a warrior and I would spend the rest of my days atoning for the death of my family and my village.