All stories, small or grand, have a beginning. This tale's true beginning was some years priveous, when the young Viscount of the city state Brixia took ill and died, not 3 years after his rule began. With no heirs of his own, the position was past to his younger brother. A vile and lazy man, the new Viscount allowed his greed to guide him. He increased taxes, made laws suggested by other nobles in his city to keep the rising elf and dwarf populations from achieving the same social standards as the clearly superior human nobility. With the proper pay offs, criminals operated mostly unmolested in Brixia.

Many hoped that once the Viscount died, the city would be able to return to the way it had been, but that hope was in vain.

During his reign, the Viscount sired a son, who grew to be more intelligent and devious than his father. Where the old man had made laws out of laziness and disinterest, his son, Jafallo Trastead saw opportunities to increase his wealth while cementing his power over the pitiful people his father ruled. When Jafallo came of age, his father also suddenly took ill like his brother had so long ago and died, though few believed this illness had been natural. Talking his place of power, Viscount Trastead began a iron handed rule of Brixia and surrounding lands. Segregation among the races became the norm. Crime increased further, which seemed to call foul things like goblins to the city, soon making a place for themselves in the criminal element.

Now, 10 years after Trastead began his rule, some people have had enough. Talks of rebellion are whispered behind closed doors, though knowing who to trust is hard. Old hatreds between races rekindle under the Viscount"s rule and he has spies everywhere. Who is there to trust? And who has the will to stand up to make a change?

 

Character Sheets:

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My characters

 

Character Sheets:

Name: Ander

Age: 20

Gender: Male

Race: half human, half dark elf

Appearance: Short by human standards. Athletic build. Dark grey skin and bright blue eyes. Messy white hair that sometimes gets in his eyes. Usually wears simple shirt and baggy pants in earth tones. Has a larger monk tunic he wears when he doesn't want to be harassed. Though he prefers to be bare foot, he keeps a pair of wood sandals around.

History: Left an orphan outside a monastery near Brixia, Ander was dealt two bad cards by life. First, he was a half breed of human and elf, meaning despised by both. Second, the elf who had been his parent had been a dark elf. Only the intervention of another half breed monk prevented Ander from a life of isolation or worse. Using Brixia as the grounds, Ander's teacher taught him all the survival techniques he had learned before becoming a monk from how to move through a city like a monkey in the trees to developing a thick skin to ignore what the small minded said about him. Ander was also taught how to the simple movement forms the monks used as a basis for fighting with no weapons. In recent years, his home has been hit by attacks from local bandits. Many monks, trying to talk it out, were killed. His master, one of the casualties, spoke his suspicion of Viscount Trastead's hand in the attack before he died. Armed with this, Ander feels the shift of winds as he leaves the monastery to assume a new place in Brixia.

Weapons: None.

 

Character Sheets:

Name: Dral Grindstone

Gender: Male

Race: Dwarf

Appearance: short and stocky. Most of his face is obscured behind a long, braided beard that is brown with veins of grey running through it. A crooked nose peaks put above the beard, as does one keen, dark brown eye. Where the other should be is covered by an eyepatch. Wears a mix of leather and chain mail common among dwarves along with an iron helm to cover his shaved bald head.

History: The co-owner of a jewelry store, Dral Grindstone is kept away from the customers as much as possible. It is well known that he hates all humans, hobbits and elves with a more powerful version given over to goblins. Those who know Dral don't pay this too much mind as he also seems to hate every dwarf he lays his eye on. Some say that before he became a jeweler, he had fought in several wars in his younger days, though any who ask are cussed out and told to mind their own bees wax. Now a days, with more problems coming from the Viscount, Dral has been becoming less vocal and more quite. Like the calm before the storm.

Weapons: crossbow and one handed ax.

"And she wasn't offended." Ander replied to Joker. "I like it when people just go with my paranoia."

After he finished his soup, the half elf waited until Joker and Sybille were done with their cleaning up before he did his own. He whistled a tune under his breath as he washed out the bowl and put it to dry. He kept humming as he returned to his spot and sat crosslegged there again. Once again comfortable, he smiled at Sybille.

"So, how do you like us so far?" He asked pleasantly.

 

Dral walked along the streets, considering what little he had learned from the goblins. He had been hoping for more information about the disappearance of a noble woman almost 20 years ago. If the goblins were to believed, the disappearance of Valeria Trastead might be more then a simple wrong place, wrong time.