Khazka
Orc Warrior-Priest, played by Jesse.
Backstory/Origin
Khazka StoneBlood, found by the Nigelites, enraged giant half-orc fighter/priest operating catapult on his own firing at Marckall’s tower. Corpses of his brethren are scattered about between him and the tower. He is shouting curses at Marckall Coplonra. And telling his god, Gruumsh to watch as he avenges his brothers at arms and mashes the puny human in red.
Khazka had his tribe and neighboring tribes all but exterminated by elves in the far distant Dark Hills to the North East. He has since been traveling with his small war party searching for a new home. They thought they had found one in these woods killing trolls and collecting money from the merchants in Sirenton for safe passage, until Marckall showed up and began trying to pry Khazka and his troupe into serving in tha mage’s army. Khazka didn’t give Marckall much thought as he built a tower in the …end of the forest until his minions began driving most of the wildlife from the forest and began clear-cutting the half-orcs new home. Khazka carries a two-handed “Soul-Stealer”+1.
After losing the trail of Marckall, he travelled north and did a stint as a bodyguard/mercenary for the Duke of Saint Germaine before joining the Infiltrators. Years later, he cross paths with Marckall again in the Ur campaign.
Recent Activity
Khazka has gone back to the lava fields of his youth to hunt down the giant red beast that terrorized his tribe when he was a youth. He figured if they could talk to and eventually kill the one guarding Bob's booty, that he may as well give it a shot. He was tired of dilly-dallying around Jack and Tracy's places. And was unable to talk either of them into going with him on his wild-dragon hunt. He left them both in good relations and said he would bring them each a tooth if it came down to that
Affiliations: Nigelites, Infiltrators
Khazka's Infiltrators Campaign Prelude
Having lost the trail of Markall, feeling downtrodden and dejected, you traveled back to the Dark Hills in the northeast to see your old abandoned homeland and seek a new purpose in life. No signs of your old community remain, though artifacts of their destruction are apparent. After a few weeks of morose reflection and soul-searching, you gathered your wits and decided to seek adventure and purpose in the north, in the kingdom of Drannor.
You were aware of the hazards of Gambler's Reach, the rocky stretch of coastline plagued by bandits and pirates, but you successfully fought your way north for several days sustaining minor injuries along the way. Of particular horror to you was a battle with a dozen full-blood orcs led by a giant – they'd refused to let you pass without giving up your sword, and so you were forced to slay nine of them before the rest fled at the giant's command. As they scrambled up into the rocks, a hard rain began to fall, and you sat down in the bloody mud among nine dismembered corpses that could have been distant relatives. Praying to Grumsh, you fell asleep filled with despair.
You awoke with a start, surrounded by a twenty mounted armored men. What followed is a blur even now, but you remember a seemingly endless battle, to which you finally succumbed. As you fell, you spied one man in the back wore a silver circlet with a large green stone that resembled the eye of Gruumsh.
Perhaps days later, you woke up in the back of a dark covered wagon, chained tightly, wounds festering, and then faded in and out of consciousness for several more days. After three more days in a dungeon, you were brought before a magistrate who, with a yawn, began to routinely read a list of charges involving piracy, murder, and caravan raiding. As he was about to announce your execution, a squire handed him a slip of parchment – you'd been pardoned by the Duke of Saint Germaine (a city you know to be along the southern coast of Drannor).
After a few days in the infirmary, you were summoned before the Duke, a portly middle-aged man who you eventually came to know as sane but a bit barbaric, diplomatic when necessary, coldly calculating, and in rather open collusion with the Thieves Guild to ensure that southern goods passing north were well 'taxed'.
The Duke had pardoned you because of the stories from Count Zilar (the gentleman with the circlet who accompanied the caravan protection force) about your valiant battle skills and imposing appearance, and he was interested in employing you for various 'strong arm' negotiations. While you recognized the missions as perhaps ignoble, the vision you had of the Eye of Gruumsh, and the fact that the Duke saved you from execution, has led you to believe this is your destiny, at least for now.
In the six months since all this transpired, most of your tasks have taken place inside the city, but you have also accompanied three caravans from St. Germaine as far as Argyle and back again. None was 100% successful, due to raids by bandits and pirates along Gambler's Reach. The material losses have been quite significant for the northern merchants, to say nothing of the loss of life among the mercenaries employed as caravan defense forces. (As such, you've learned that simply finding able-bodied men to help defend the caravans has become difficult, despite the fact that the pay is excellent. )
Intriguingly, now the Duke has requested that you ride to the north, to the Dukedom of St. Cuthbert, for a special assignment. The 500GP (half now, half upon completion) salary for this task is somewhat meaningless to you (having few material needs and nearly 5,000GP in the well-guarded Duke's bank), but your allegiance to the Duke imbues you with purpose and you ride north that very day, arriving in St Cuthbert 14 days later.
Khazka's Ur Campaign Prelude
Five years ago, after taking your leave from the Duke of Saint Germaine, you went dragon hunting in the Dark Hills. On only 3 occasions since have you spied the great red drake:
- Several winters ago, you found it sleeping in a cave. You approached, blade bared, eyeing the 100' long beast with trepidation but determination. When you were 20 yards away, its melon-sized eyes opened and glared at you, and your blood ran cold. It lunged at you with impossible speed, sending a hail of rocks scattering in all directions. You barely escaped being crushed and managed to hack wildly at the body of the beast as it made its escape, causing a chard of thick crimson scale to be broken free but doing no other apparent damage. (this is a 5”x24” chard that you could fashion into a single piece of arm or leg armor. It weighs 3lbs and provides DR 10 to front and side attacks on that limb)
- Last summer, it spied you while flying. Only the huge passing shadow alerted you to its presence, and you felt like a mouse running below an eagle, evading its attempts to pluck you from the earth for several hours until it chased you down into a lava tube. You ran like hell down the 8'-wide tube into the darkness and almost escaped the furnace-like blast of flame it belched down the tunnel after you. Your flammable items were destroyed and you were badly burned, awakening later the next day in pitch black, stinking of charred flesh. Only your magics saved you from a slow and painful death.
- This spring, you came upon the great beast as it drank from a stagnant pool. You ascended the nearby rocks and leaped down 30' to land upon its neck with a mighty blow of your sword. Immediately, a fountain of hot blood blinded you and the beast's roar deafened you. Then the dragon whipped its head to the side, hurling you 60' into a rock face. When you awoke hours later with a fractured skull and broken leg, the dragon was gone but the pool was tainted with gallons of spilled dragon blood.
Now it's almost fall, and you have only seen weeks-old dragon dung since.
On September 1st, while conducting your occasional auguries and ceremonial rituals to Grumsh, the wizard Marckall Coplonra appeared to you, standing atop his tower in Troll Wood with a twisted metal rod as a vortex of brown clouds swirled above him and lightning flashed, illuminating hundreds of hobgoblin-like minions standing in rings around the tower. Marckall seemed impervious to the driving rain and cackled triumphantly before your vision evaporated.
Reminded of your unrealized vengeance, you resolved to seek him out and slay him. You traveled south to Troll Wood, brooding, doing your best to avoid contact and conversation along the way through the civilized lands of Men.
Weeks later, coming upon the site of the wretched tower, you encountered instead a blackened spire in the center of a charred field of melted stone stone and dirt 300 yards across, the scorched but intact tower at its center, protected by Markall's enchantments. Scaring away a spotted fawn wandering among the charcoal and fragile skeletons of hundreds of hobgoblins, you found clear tracks leading south from the crater – that of a huge giant, and a man at his side. Markall and Krung somehow walked away from this devastation
You tracked them into the Fangs, occasionally losing and then regaining the trail, sometimes needing minor rituals to regain the scent. A week later, and with some spiritual discomfort, you descended into Silverdale, Elven Lands, a place with little tolerance for orc-blood.
Another week passed, and you wandered through idyllic primeval forest, deftly avoiding the occasional elven hunting or scouting parties you encountered, and carefully tracking the trail of the giant and the wizard.
One week ago, you were following the trail up a great tributary of the Shining River when the rains began. Two straight days of gentle rain intermingled with misty rainbows nudged the river beyond its banks, and you lost the trail completely.
You decided to follow the river to wherever it may lead, and arrived in the Elven city of Alatyth yesterday. You were greeted unceremoniously by a dozen elven archers, and after a tense standoff, agreed to lay down your sword, but retain your knives. The green-robed elven lord Camthalion, a representative of Queen Wendella, has provided you an audience, but seems aggravatingly aloof and claims to know nothing of any 4-armed giant or wizard anywhere in the vicinity. You believe he's lying, but have decided to stay and enjoy what meager hospitality the elves might provide to one of your kin while considering your options.
The next day, an intriguing group of men arrives in the city....