Okay, I decided to post my new character. He's a stark contrast to Estin, and know that they share literally none of the same qualities. Anyway, I thought I'd start with a simple story about him, told through the eyes of Dulain the Warrior (true neutral).
Dulain sat crouched over his axe, slowly drawing his whetstone over the edge in an almost loving manner. The corpses of 11 goblins surrounded him and his party of 5, all dead from their surprise attack earlier that day. The sun slowly setting over the horizon, Dulain sighed a deep sigh of contentment. Loot, glory, fame... today was a day where all those goals seemed so close he could taste them. It was a beautiful feeling, and his entire party seemed to feel the same way.
Well, all except one. Dulain eyed the stranger with a neutral gaze, wondering why he alone sat apart from the group. He'd agreed to join the party last week, a latecomer, but seemed entirely disinterested in Dulain's dreams of victory over the beasts of the land. He had shown no wish to obtain gold, any spoils of war from their adventures so far. What kind of man does that, thought Dulain. Everyone likes gold.
Then again, he was hardly a man. He seemed 18 years old, at most, but his steely gaze held the darkness of a thousand years of experience, like he knew pain far beyond Dulain's imagination. He had barely responded to Dulain's usual teasing and ribbing, giving him glares which would petrify most ordinary men. Dulain had managed to shrug them off, but was wary of the stranger. He'd even refused to give his name. To top it all off, the man was a Cleric, yet he carried no holy symbols upon him. In fact, if he hadn't told Dulain the day they met, he never would have guessed it. The man had an air of a Rogue about him, if anything.
Distracted, Dulain's hand slipped upon the whetstone and he cut his palm in a wide gash. He winced and clutched in pain, dropping his axe upon the forest floor. Turning his head toward the unknown man, Dulain called out.
''Oi, Cleric! Give me a heal, would'ja''
The man gritted his teeth. ''I told you... I don't do healing. Don't ask me again.''
Dulain shrugged. ''A Cleric who can't heal? Then what good are you?''
In a flash, the man stood, anger rippling across his face. ''What good am I?'' He hissed. ''WHAT GOOD AM I?!?'' With a crackle of energy, black and purple lightning sprouted around his right gauntleted hand, and the man thrust it into a nearby tree. As if struck by a god's hand, the tree split into two and practically exploded into dust around him. Dulain sat, stunned.
The man snaked over and clenched his hand into a fist, shaking it in the unfortunate warrior's face. ''THAT'S what good I am. Don't you forget it.'' Then, satisfied, he returned to his spot around the campfire, and huddled there as if nothing had ever happened.Name: Felix Netsune
Although named after his grandfather, Felix cares not for his family history. He feels no desire to live up to his name, and sees it as no more than a label and a final connection to his childhood.
Race: Human
As a human, Felix is heavily influenced by their prejudices and faults. He was a wandering criminal before an adventurer, mostly traveling among human cities.
Appearance:
Felix is handsome, with a rather dark and windswept look about him. He has raven-black hair and pale skin, with reddish-brown eyes that either look warm and loving or devilish and filled with hate, depending on his mood. Usually the latter one, though. His Charisma, however, leaves much to be desired, as his personality does not match his appearance and he often forces people away from him with his twisted speech and lone-wolf attitude. He is relatively short, but not ridiculously so.
Class: Cleric
Felix is a Neutral Evil Cleric and does not worship a deity, although that deity would be True Neutral according to the rules of DnD. He thus channels negative energy for spontaneous casting. However, he has marked differences from an ordinary Cleric, and is blessed by the gods directly rather than learning to channel their power through the church, which his despises.
Alignment: Neutral Evil
He is Neutral Evil because he has no problem with hurting innocents, and is entirely focused on revenge. He does, however, exhibit a ''good'' streak towards any he perceives as wronged in the same way as him, but this is a selfish goodness and is only a way to comfort himself He is evil, but not shallowly so. He believes himself to be in the right, and would refer to himself as Neutral Good if any asked him what he thought his alignment was.
Cleric Domains: Destruction and Strength
As a Cleric, Felix gets to choose two different domains. These are Destruction and Strength, which allow him to be blessed with lots of powerful combat bonuses, turning him into a superhuman powerhouse of death-dealing pwnage for short periods of time.
Stats (from best to worst):
Intelligence
Dexterity
Wisdom
Strength
Constitution
Charisma
Backstory:
Felix was an only child to a small human family living in a kingdom. His childhood was blissful, and he was blessed with a love of life and an eager desire to discover it's secrets. However, this existence was soon shattered when his entire village contracted a deadly plague. The local Paladins, concerned that the plague (which was incredibly deadly and contagious) would spread, burned his village to the ground. Felix was the only survivor. He soon after recovered from his own illness and began a life on the streets. He was fueled by rage towards Paladins, who he sees as corrupt overlords who do great evil in the name of ''the greater good.'' After many years surviving on his own, becoming very street-smart and capable of combat and even murder, Felix discovered something strange at the age of 11.
Overnight, he found words to an unknown language swirling around in his head. Surprised, he found that this language was spoken by the priests of his current city during their prayers. It was Celestial, language of divine outsiders. He could fluently speak Celestial and write it, but had no idea how he had learned the language. It just popped into his head out of nowhere. He sought kinship with the priests, thinking he was destined to join them, but was quickly repulsed by how they hoarded wealth away from the common man and did nothing but pray without ever doing anything in the real world. Realizing that this was not an organization he wanted to be involved with, Felix was filled with disgust at the church and left them alone.
Soon after, Felix discovered his second blessing: He could conjure negative energy through his hands to strike people, dealing considerable damage. From now on, he had the power to hurt any he pleased. This was his Inflict spell, and it took the form of black and purple lightning that coursed around his hands. It is very similar to the Chidori, if you know what that is.
http://youtu.be/AyQi0N3zuGU?t=22sAnyway, he came to the conclusion that he had been blessed with divine power. This made him a Cleric, but with marked differences. First, he has no association with the church. The church considers him to be a blasphemous wrongdoer who claims that he is holier than them, and that the gods truly favor him over the church. Felix despises the church for their methods, as he prefers a much more hands-on approach to creating change in the world. Second, he does not need a holy symbol to channel power through, only a free hand. Third, he has no proficiency with any kind of armor or shields, while ordinary Cleric's have proficiency with EVERY kind of armor. Fourth, he needs to sleep for 6 hours to recover spells instead of spending 1 hour in meditation. Fifth, he has a plethora of abilities that an ordinary Cleric does not have, which I will list later on.
After obtaining his newfound power, Felix realized that his dreams of revenge were within his grasp. He decided to eradicate every Paladin on the face of the earth, claiming the gods granted him this power so that he could accomplish this goal. It was his divine destiny. Fueled by a desire for revenge and absolute hatred, he joined a group of adventurers in order to gain more power so as to be able to challenge Paladins directly. He also reasoned that this would help keep him out of the public radar, and would offer him some amount of stealth to sabotage Paladin influence across the globe.
Morality: Felix has no problem with killing a shop keeper to take an expensive item, or murdering those he considers ''obstacles'' to get what he wants, but he would go back for a child left in a burning building because he considers it the exact same issue that a Paladin would ignore. It is his way of justifying his actions; he always looks for ways to prove himself morally superior to his enemies, and thinks that the previously mentioned shop keeper is on ''their side,'' and is therefore evil. He has twisted beliefs, but cares immensely about them.
Special skills/handicaps:
1-Doesn't need a holy/unholy symbol to channel power through.
2-Can activate a domain spell as a free action when using a domain power.
3-Has the option to ''sheathe'' an Inflict spell, taking it out of his hands and back into his spell list as whatever it was BEFORE he had converted it. This takes one standard action to accomplish.
4-At 6th level, Felix gains the ability to constantly charge both hands with inflict spells. As soon as he punches somebody with one of them, it is immediately renewed. Makes melee combat more about martial skill than charging in guns blazing, which is his usual style.
5-At 5th level, Felix can once per day ''fly'' through the air. While standing on the round, he launches himself vertically or horizontally (or diagonally) with great speed and then falls as if he had jumped really high, but the fall is unnaturally slow and never hurts himself in the landing. Think along these lines:
http://youtu.be/tuEHiIqMATk?t=22m3s6-At 2nd level, Felix can convert domain powers into blessings. To cast a blessing, he must place a bare hand upon the forehead of the person he wants to bless and waits 5 seconds while muttering some kind words (like ''may you have safe travels and be delivered from hard'' or something). Felix cannot cast this blessing upon himself. For the remainder of the day, the affected person will avoid minor misfortune and, in a more practical sense, is unable to roll natural 1s.
7-Must sleep for 6 hours instead of meditating for 1 hour to recharge spells.
8-Proficient with no armor or shields or any kind except for gauntlets.
9-Tends to get angry. When this happens, he receives a severe penalty to his Intelligence score (normally his greatest strength) and a small boost to his Charisma. The amount of Charisma boost and Intelligence boost are proportional to each other, and the amount that they change is at the Dungeon Master's discretion.
10-Starts with little to no equipment. He has a dagger, a flexible right-handed gauntlet (which is actually a religious artifact that he stole, but it functions as an ordinary gauntlet), and a set of traveler's clothes.
Style of Build:
So, how is Felix effective, you ask? Simple. He is all about exploding in power once per day. Thanks to his special abilities and domains, he can go ''all out'' on about a once per day basis. He activates his Destruction power, Smite, which makes one attack into a blinding lightning bolt of doom. Then, thanks to his free action spell, he whips out an Earthquake, which blows up the entire area. Then, activating his Strength power, he gains superhuman strength for about 5 seconds, and then as a free action he can activate Bull's Strength, increasing his even strength further. He then proceeds to draw out his strongest Inflict or Harm spell and rams it into his target's chest, discharging all that incredible power in a single blow. The results can be devastating. Once again, think of the Chidori. It can tear to shreds the strongest of foes in an epic explosion of death.
http://youtu.be/sgcbcdM7gu8?t=59sAnd that's Felix. He's a pretty deep character, and I plan to have him eventually have a morality crisis later on where he realizes what a terrible person he really is, changing his alignment to True Neutral, and then much later Neutral Good. It will take a while, but he has a lot of development to go through.
